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

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      “No apology is needed. It wasn’t in the least the gillies’ blame. I wanted some exercise, and I had my fun with them. One of the young ones has a very pretty turn of speed. But I oughtn’t to have done it—I quite see that—with everybody here on edge about this John Macnab. Have I your permission to go?”

      “Indeed you have. Mr Bandicott asked me to apologise most humbly. You’re quite free unless—unless you’d like to have supper before you go.”

      Mr Crossby excused himself, and did not stay upon the order of his going. He knew nothing of the fate of his colleague, and hoped that he might pick up news from Benjie in the neighbourhood of the Wood of Larrigmore.

      The other garage stood retired in the lee of a clump of pines—a rude, old-fashioned place, which generally housed the station lorry. Agatha, rather than face the disappointed Angus, decided to complete the task of jail-delivery herself. She had trouble with the lock, and when the door opened she looked into a pit of darkness scarcely lightened by the outer glow of moonshine. She flashed the torch into the interior and saw, seated on a stack of petrol tins, the figure of the tramp.

      Leithen, who had been wondering how he was to find a bed in that stony place, beheld the apparition with amazement. He guessed that it was one of the Miss Radens, for he knew that they were dining at Strathlarrig. As he stood sheepishly before her his wits suffered a dislocation which drove out of his head the remembrance of the part he had assumed.

      “Mr Bandicott sent me to tell you that you can go away,” the girl said.

      “Thank you very much,” said Leithen in his ordinary voice.

      Now in the scramble up the river bank and in the rough handling of Angus his garments had become disarranged, and his watch had swung out of his pocket. In adjusting it in the garage he had put it back in its normal place, so that the chain showed on Sime’s ancient waistcoat. From it depended one of those squat little gold shields which are the badge of athletic prowess at a famous school. As he stood in the light of her torch Agatha noted this shield, and knew what it signified. Also his tone when he spoke had startled her.

      “Oh,” she cried, “you were at Eton?”

      Leithen was for a moment nonplussed. He thought of a dozen lies, and then decided on qualified truth.

      “Yes,” he murmured shamefacedly. “Long ago I was at Eton.”

      The girl flushed with embarrassed sympathy.

      “What—what brought you to this?” she murmured.

      “Folly,” said Leithen, recovering himself. “Drink and suchlike. I have had a lot of bad luck but I’ve mostly myself to blame.”

      “You’re only a tramp now?” Angels might have envied the melting sadness of her voice.

      “At present. Sometimes I get a job, but I can’t hold it down.” Leithen was warming to his work, and his tones were a subtle study in dilapidated gentility.

      “Can’t anything be done?” Agatha asked, twining her pretty hands.

      “Nothing,” was the dismal answer. “I’m past helping. Let me go, please, and forget you ever saw me.”

      “But can’t papa…won’t you tell me your name or where we can find you?”

      “My present name is not my own. Forget about me, my dear young lady. The life isn’t so bad…I’m as happy as I deserve to be. I want to be off, for I don’t like to stumble upon gentlefolks.”

      She stood aside to let him pass, noting the ruin of his clothes, his dirty unshaven face, the shameless old hat that he raised to her. Then, melancholy and reflective, she returned to Junius. She could not give away one of her own class, so, when Junius asked her about the tramp, she only shrugged her white shoulders. “A miserable creature. I hope Angus wasn’t too rough with him. He looked as if a puff of wind would blow him to pieces.”

      Ten minutes later Leithen, having unobtrusively climbed the park wall and so escaped the attention of Mactavish at the lodge, was trotting at a remarkable pace for a tramp down the road to the Larrig Bridge. Once on the Crask side, he stopped to reconnoitre. Crossby called softly to him from the covert, and with Crossby was Benjie.

      “I’ve gotten the saumon,” said the latter, “and your rod and gaff too. Hae ye the bit you howkit out o’ the fush?”

      Leithen produced his bloody handkerchief.

      “Now for supper, Benjie, my lad,” he cried. “Come along Crossby, and we’ll drink the health of John Macnab.”

      The journalist shook his head. “I’m off to finish my story. The triumphant return of Harald Blacktooth is going to convulse these islands to-morrow.”

      VIII.

       SIR ARCHIE IS INSTRUCTED

       IN THE CONDUCT OF LIFE

       Table of Contents

      Early next morning, when the great door of Strathlarrig House was opened, and the maids had begun their work, Oliphant, the butler—a stately man who had been trained in a ducal family—crossed the hall to reconnoitre the outer world. There he found an under-housemaid nursing a strange package which she averred she had found on the doorstep. It was some two feet long, swathed in brown paper, and attached to its string was a letter inscribed to Mr Junius Bandicott.

      The parcel was clammy and Oliphant handled it gingerly. He cut the cord, disentangled the letter, and revealed an oblong of green rushes bound with string. The wrapping must have been insecure, for something forthwith slipped from the rushes and flopped on the marble floor, revealing to Oliphant’s disgusted eyes a small salmon, blue and stiff in death.

      At that moment Junius, always an early bird, came whistling downstairs. So completely was he convinced of the inviolability of the Strathlarrig waters that the spectacle caused him no foreboding.

      “What are you flinging fish about for, Oliphant?” he asked cheerfully.

      The butler presented him with the envelope. He opened it and extracted a dirty half sheet of notepaper, on which was printed in capitals:

      <ö class=“letter”>“WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF JOHN MACNAB”

      Amazement, chagrin, amusement followed each other on Junius’s open countenance. Then he picked up the fish and marched out-of-doors shouting “Angus” at the top of a notably powerful voice. The sound brought the scared face of Professor Babwater to his bedroom window.

      Angus, who had been up since four, appeared from Lady Maisie’s Pool, where he had been contemplating the waters. His vigil had not improved his appearance or his temper, for his eye was red and choleric and his beard was wild as a mountain goat’s. He cast one look at the salmon, surmised the truth, and held up imploring hands to Heaven.

      “John Macnab!” said Junius sternly. “What have you got to say to that.”

      Angus had nothing audible to say. He was handling the fish with feverish hands СКАЧАТЬ