SIR EDWARD LEITHEN'S MYSTERIES - Complete Series. Buchan John

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СКАЧАТЬ Bandicott, with the air of one addressing the Smithsonian Institution, signalled to his henchmen, who thereupon emptied the sacks on the lawn. A curious jumble of objects lay scattered under the evening sun—two massive torques, several bowls and flagons, spear-heads from which the hafts had long since rotted, a sword-blade, and a quantity of brooches, armlets, and rings. A dingy enough collection they made to the eyes of the onlookers as Mr Bandicott arranged them in two heaps.

      “These,” he said, pointing to the torques, armlets, and flagons, “are, so far as I can judge, of solid gold.”

      The Colonel called upon his Maker to sanctify his soul. “Gold! These are great things! They must be prodigiously valuable. Are they mine, or yours, or whose?”

      “I am not familiar with the law of Scotland on the matter of treasure trove, but I assume that the State can annex them, paying you a percentage of their value. For myself, I gladly waive all claims. I am a man of science, sir, not a treasure-hunter…But the merit of the discovery does not lie in those objects, which can be paralleled from many tombs in Scotland and Norway. No, sir, the tremendous, the epoch-making value is to be found in these.” And he indicated some bracelets and a necklace which looked as if they were made of queerly-marked and very dirty shells.

      Mr Bandicott lifted one and fingered it lovingly.

      “I have found such objects in graves as far apart as the coast of Labrador and the coast of Rhode Island, and as far inland as the Ohio basin. These shells were the common funerary adjunct of the primitive inhabitants of my country, and they are peculiar to the North American Continent. Do you see what follows, sir?”

      The Colonel did not, and Mr Bandicott, his voice thrilling with emotion, continued:

      “It follows that Harald Blacktooth obtained them from the only place he could obtain them, the other side of the Atlantic. There is historical warrant for believing that he voyaged to Greenland; and now we know that he landed upon the main North American Continent. The legends of Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky are verified by archaeology. In you, sir, I salute, most reverently salute, the representative of a family to whom belongs the credit hitherto given to Columbus.”

      Colonel Raden plucked feebly at his moustache, and Janet, I regret to say, laughed. But her untimely merriment was checked by Mr Bandicott, who was pronouncing a sort of benediction.

      “I rejoice that it has been given to me, an American, to solve this secular riddle. When I think that the dust which an hour ago I touched, and which has lain for centuries under that quiet mound, was once the man who, first of Europeans, trod our soil, my imagination staggers. Colonel Raden, I thank you for having given me the greatest moment of my not uneventful life.”

      He took off his hat, and the Colonel rather shame-facedly removed his. The two men stood looking solemnly at each other till practical considerations occurred to the descendant of the Viking.

      “What are you going to do with the loot?” he asked.

      “With your permission, I will take it to Strathlarrig, where I can examine and catalogue it at my leisure. I propose to announce the find at once to the world. To-morrow I will return with my men and remove the traces of our excavation.”

      Mr Bandicott departed in his car, sitting erect at the wheel in a strangely priest-like attitude, while the two men guarded the treasure behind. He had no eyes for the twilight landscape, or he would have seen in the canal-like stretch of the Larrig belonging to Crask, which lay below the rapids and was universally condemned as hopeless for fish, a solitary angler, who, as the car passed, made a most bungling amateurish cast, but who, when the coast was once more clear, flung a line of surprising delicacy. He could not see the curious way in which that angler placed his fly, laying it with a curl a yard above a moving fish, and then sinking it with a dexterous twist: nor did he see, a quarter of an hour later, the same angler land a fair salmon from water in which in the memory of man no salmon had ever been taken before.

      Colonel Raden and his daughters stood watching the departing archaeologist, and as his car vanished among the beeches Janet seized her sister and whirled her into a dance. “Such a day,” she cried, when the indignant Agatha had escaped and was patting her disordered hair. “Losses—one stag, which was better dead. Gains—defeat of John Macnab, fifty pounds sterling, a share of the unknown value in Harald Blacktooth’s treasure, and the annexation of America by the Raden family.”

      “You’d better say that America has annexed us,” said the still flustered Agatha. “They’ve dug up our barrow, and this afternoon Junius Bandicott asked me to marry him.”

      Janet stopped in her tracks. “What did you say?”

      “I said ‘No’ of course. I’ve only known him a week.” But her tone was such as to make her sister fear the worst.

      Mr Bandicott was an archaeologist, but he was also a business man, and he was disposed to use the whole apparatus of civilisation to announce his discovery to the world. With a good deal of trouble he got the two chief Scottish newspapers on the telephone, and dictated to them a summary of his story.

      He asked them to pass the matter on to the London press, and he gave them ample references to establish his good faith. Also he prepared a sheaf of telegrams and cables—to learned societies in Britain and America, to the great New York daily of which he was the principal owner, to the British Museum, to the Secretary for Scotland, and to friends in the same line of scholarship. Having left instructions that these messages should be despatched from Inverlarrig at dawn, he went to bed in a state of profound jubilation and utter fatigue.

      Next morning, while his father was absorbed in the remains of Harald Blacktooth, Junius summoned a council of war. To it there came Angus, the head-keeper, a morose old man near six-foot-four in height, clean-shaven, with eyebrows like a penthouse; Lennox, his second-in-command, whom Leithen had met on his reconnaissance; and two youthful watchers, late of Lovat’s Scouts, known as Jimsie and Davie. There were others about the place who could be mobilised if necessary, including the two chauffeurs, an under-footman and a valet; but, as Junius looked at this formidable quartet, and reflected on the narrow limits of the area of danger, he concluded that he had all the man-power he needed.

      “Now, listen to me, Angus,” he began. “This poacher Macnab proposes to start in to-morrow night at twelve o’clock, and according to his challenge he has forty-eight hours to get a fish in—up till midnight on the 3rd of September. I want your advice about the best way of checkmating him. You’ve attended to my orders, and let nobody near the river during the past week?”

      “Aye, sir, and there’s nobody socht to gang near it,” said Angus. “The country-side has been as quiet as a grave.”

      “Well, it won’t be after to-morrow night. You’ve probably heard that this Macnab killed a stag on Glenraden yesterday—killed it within half a mile of the house, and would have got away with it but for the younger Miss Raden.”

      They had heard of it, for the glen had talked of nothing else all night, but they thought it good manners to express amazement. “Heard ye ever the like?” said one. “Macnab maun be a fair deevil,” said another. “If I had just a grip of him,” sighed the blood-thirsty Angus.

      “It’s clear we’re up against something quite out of the common,” Junius went on, “and we daren’t give him the faintest outside chance. Now, let’s consider the river. You say you’ve seen nobody near it.”

      “There hasn’t been a line cast in the watter forbye your own, sir,” said Angus.

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