Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

of the toilet. At the first sign of movement Jaspar had been instructed to unlock the bedroom door. Presently came a modest tap, and Casimir appeared, with ungrammatical hopes that his guest had slept well. Tibbets was conducted downstairs, where he ate an excellent luncheon, while Casimir entertained him with accounts of the Knockraw sport and questions revealing an abysmal ignorance of British politics. “My car is waiting for you,” he said; “to take you wherever you wish to go. But I should be glad if you would permit it to take you first to Castle Gay. I have not been able to express to you our full contrition, but I have asked my friend Mr Barbon, through whose kind offices I took this place, to speak for me and say how little I desire to wound the heart of so eminent an Englishman. I and my friends are, so to say, guests in your country, and we would die sooner than be guilty of a breach of hospitality.”

      “That’s all right, Count,” said Tibbets. (His host had introduced himself as Count Anton Muratsky and had hinted at a Styrian domicile.) “We’ll say no more about last night. I can see that it was a servant’s blunder, and, anyway, I had no business to be wandering about so late close to your house. I lost my road trying to take a short cut. I’ll be very glad to look in at Castle Gay. I don’t know Mr Barbon, but I’d be pleased to meet him.”

      Privately, he exulted. The Fates had done well by him, and had opened the gates of the Dark Tower. He would not be worth much if he couldn’t get a good story out of Barbon, whom he had seen from afar and written down as a nincompoop.

      He reached Castle Gay in the Knockraw car just about five o’clock. He was obviously expected, for Bannister greeted him with a smiling face— “From Knockraw, sir?”—and led him upstairs and along a corridor to the library where the day before the Evallonian delegates had been received in conference. Mr Tibbets stared with interest at the vast apartment, with the latticed book-laden shelves lining three walls, the classic sculptures, and the great Flemish tapestry. The room was already dusky with twilight, but there were lights before the main fireplace, and a small table set out for tea. There sat a short elderly gentleman in brown tweeds, who rose at his approach and held out a welcoming hand.

      “Come away, Mr Tibbets,” he said, “and have your tea. I’m fair famished for mine.”

      The journalist had the surprise of a not uneventful life. He had entered the palace for an appointment with a major-domo and instead had been ushered into the Presence. He had never seen Mr Craw in the flesh, but his features were well known to the world, since weekly his portrait surmounted his articles. Before him beyond doubt was the face that had launched a thousand ships of journalism—the round baldish head, the bland benevolent chin, the high cheek-bones, the shrewdly pursed lips. The familiar horn spectacles were wanting, but they lay beside him on the floor, marking a place in a book. Now that he had Mr Craw not a yard away from him, he began hurriedly to revise certain opinions he had entertained about that gentleman. This man was not any kind of fool. The blue eyes which met his were very wide awake, and there was decision and humour in every line of that Pickwickian countenance.

      His breath stopped short at the thought of his good fortune. To be sure the Craw mystery had proved to be nonsense, and he had been barking loudly up the wrong tree. But that stunt could easily be dropped. What mattered was that he was interviewing Craw—the first man in the history of journalism who had ever done it. He would refuse to be bound over to silence. He had got his chance, and nothing could prevent him taking it… But he must walk very warily.

      Dickson McCunn had been to church in the morning, and on returning had found Dougal’s letter awaiting him, brought by a Castle Gay car. He decided at once to accept the call. The salmon fishing in his own stream was nearly over, the weather was fine, and he felt stirring in him a desire for movement, for enterprise, for new sights and new faces. This longing always attacked him in the spring, but it usually came also in the autumn, just before he snuggled down into the warm domesticity of winter. So he had packed a bag, and had been landed at Castle Gay a little after four o’clock, when Barbon had concluded his telephone conversation with Knockraw.

      At once a task had been set him. Dougal declared that he was the man to pacify Tibbets. “I don’t want to appear in the thing, nor Barbon either, for the chap is an enemy. He won’t make anything of you—just that you’re a friend of the family—and you can pitch him a yarn about the innocent foreigners at Knockraw and how they haven’t enough English to explain their penitence. If he asks you about yourself you can say you have just arrived on a visit, and if he starts on Craw you can say you know nothing about him—that he’s away on holiday, and that you’re a friend of Barbon’s—your niece married his cousin—any lie you like. You’ve got just the kind of manner to soothe Tibbets, and make him laugh at his troubles and feel rather ashamed of having made so much fuss.”

      Dickson lost no time in fulfilling his mission.

      “Those poor folk at Knockraw,” he said. “They’ve made an awful mess of it, but a man like you can see for yourself that they meant no harm. The Count’s a friend of Mr Barbon’s and a great sportsman, and it seems they haven’t any grouse in their own country—I’m not just sure what it is, but it’s somewhere near Austria—so they were determined to take a Scotch moor. The mistake was in bringing a lot of wild heathen servants, when they could have got plenty of decent folk here to do their business. The Count was lamenting on the telephone, thinking you’d set the police and the Procurator-fiscal on him or make a rumpus in the newspapers. But I knew you were not that kind of man, and I told him so.” Dickson beamed pleasantly on his companion.

      But Tibbets scarcely appeared to be listening. “Oh, that business!” he said. “Of course, it was all a mistake, and I’ll never say another word about it.”

      “That’s fine!” said Dickson heartily. “I knew you would take it like a sensible fellow. I needn’t tell you I’ve a great admiration for you journalists, and I daresay I often read you in the papers!”

      “You read the Wire?” asked the startled Tibbets. Mr Craw was generally supposed to look at no papers but his own.

      “Not regularly. But I often pick it up. I like a turn at the Wire. You’ve grand pictures, and a brisk way of putting things. I always say there’s not a livelier paper in this land than the Wire. It keeps a body from languor.”

      A small note-book and a pencil had emerged from Tibbets’s pocket. Dickson observed them unperturbed. The man was a journalist and must be always taking notes.

      “Your praise of the Wire will give enormous satisfaction,” said Tibbets, and there was almost a quaver in his voice. He neglected the cup of tea which had been poured out for him, and sat gazing at his companion as a hopeful legatee might gaze at a lawyer engaged in reading a will.

      “You only arrived to-day, sir?” he asked.

      “Just an hour ago. I’ve been in Carrick. A fine country, Carrick, none better, but the fishing in my water there is just about over. The Callowa here goes on for another fortnight. You’re not an angler, Mr Tibbets? A pity that, for I might have got Mr Barbon to arrange a day on the Callowa for you.”

      Tibbets wrote. Mr Craw as a fisherman was a new conception, for he was commonly believed to be apathetic about field sports.

      “Would you care to say anything about the Canonry election, sir?” he asked deferentially.

      Dickson laughed and poured himself out a third cup of tea. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I know nothing about it. I’m a poor hand at politics. I suppose I’m what you call a Tory, but I often get very thrawn with the Tories. I don’t trust the Socialists, but whiles I think they’ve a good deal to say for themselves. The fact is, I’m just a plain Scotsman and a plain business man. I’m terrible fond of my native country, but in these days it’s no much a man like me can do for her. I’m as one born out of due season, Mr Tibbets. I would have been more use when the job was to hunt the English back over the Cheviots or fight the French. I like straight issues.”

      “You believe in a business Government, sir?” Tibbets asked, for this was the Wire‘s special slogan.

      “I believe in the business spirit—giving