Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (the speed reading book .TXT) 📗

moment to tell you a few truths. Your childish game never had a chance. I played with you in England and I have played with you ever since. You have never made a move but I have quietly countered it. Why, man, you gave me your confidence. The American Mr Donne....”

“What about Clarence?” asked Blenkiron. His face seemed a study in pure bewilderment.

“I was that interesting journalist.”

“Now to think of that!” said Blenkiron in a sad, gentle voice. “I thought I was safe with Clarence. Why, he brought me a letter from old Joe Hooper and he knew all the boys down Emporia way.”

Ivery laughed. “You have never done me justice, I fear; but I think you will do it now. Your gang is helpless in my hands. General Hannay....” And I wish I could give you a notion of the scorn with which he pronounced the word “General”.

“Yes—Dick?” said Blenkiron intently.

“He has been my prisoner for twenty-four hours. And the pretty Miss Mary, too. You are all going with me in a little to my own country. You will not guess how. We call it the Underground Railway, and you will have the privilege of studying its working.... I had not troubled much about you, for I had no special dislike of you. You are only a blundering fool, what you call in your country easy fruit.”

“I thank you, Graf,” Blenkiron said solemnly.

“But since you are here you will join the others.... One last word. To beat inepts such as you is nothing. There is a far greater thing. My country has conquered. You and your friends will be dragged at the chariot wheels of a triumph such as Rome never saw. Does that penetrate your thick skull? Germany has won, and in two days the whole round earth will be stricken dumb by her greatness.”

As I watched Blenkiron a grey shadow of hopelessness seemed to settle on his face. His big body drooped in his chair, his eyes fell, and his left hand shuffled limply among his Patience cards. I could not get my mind to work, but I puzzled miserably over his amazing blunders. He had walked blindly into the pit his enemies had dug for him. Peter must have failed to get my message to him, and he knew nothing of last night’s work or my mad journey to Italy. We had all bungled, the whole wretched bunch of us, Peter and Blenkiron and myself.... I had a feeling at the back of my head that there was something in it all that I couldn’t understand, that the catastrophe could not be quite as simple as it seemed. But I had no power to think, with the insolent figure of Ivery dominating the room.... Thank God I had a bullet waiting for him. That was the one fixed point in the chaos of my mind. For the first time in my life I was resolute on killing one particular man, and the purpose gave me a horrid comfort.

Suddenly Ivery’s voice rang out sharp. “Take your hand out of your pocket. You fool, you are covered from three points in the walls. A movement and my men will make a sieve of you. Others before you have sat in that chair, and I am used to take precautions. Quick. Both hands on the table.”

There was no mistake about Blenkiron’s defeat. He was done and out, and I was left with the only card. He leaned wearily on his arms with the palms of his hands spread out.

“I reckon you’ve gotten a strong hand, Graf,” he said, and his voice was flat with despair.

“I hold a royal straight flush,” was the answer.

And then suddenly came a change. Blenkiron raised his head, and his sleepy, ruminating eyes looked straight at Ivery.

“I call you,” he said.

I didn’t believe my ears. Nor did Ivery.

“The hour for bluff is past,” he said.

“Nevertheless I call you.”

At that moment I felt someone squeeze through the door behind me and take his place at my side. The light was so dim that I saw only a short, square figure, but a familiar voice whispered in my ear. “It’s me—Andra Amos. Man, this is a great ploy. I’m here to see the end o’t.”

No prisoner waiting on the finding of the jury, no commander expecting news of a great battle, ever hung in more desperate suspense than I did during the next seconds. I had forgotten my fatigue; my back no longer needed support. I kept my eyes glued to the crack in the screen and my ears drank in greedily every syllable.

Blenkiron was now sitting bolt upright with his chin in his hands. There was no shadow of melancholy in his lean face.

“I say I call you, Herr Graf von Schwabing. I’m going to put you wise about some little things. You don’t carry arms, so I needn’t warn you against monkeying with a gun. You’re right in saying that there are three places in these walls from which you can shoot. Well, for your information I may tell you that there’s guns in all three, but they’re covering you at this moment. So you’d better be good.”

Ivery sprang to attention like a ramrod. “Karl,” he cried. “Gustav!”

As if by magic figures stood on either side of him, like warders by a criminal. They were not the sleek German footmen whom I had seen at the Chalet. One I did not recognise. The other was my servant, Geordie Hamilton.

He gave them one glance, looked round like a hunted animal, and then steadied himself. The man had his own kind of courage.

“I’ve gotten something to say to you,” Blenkiron drawled. “It’s been a tough fight, but I reckon the hot end of the poker is with you. I compliment you on Clarence Donne. You fooled me fine over that business, and it was only by the mercy of God you didn’t win out. You see, there was just the one of us who was liable to recognise you whatever way you twisted your face, and that was Dick Hannay. I give you good marks for Clarence.... For the rest, I had you beaten flat.”

He looked steadily at him. “You don’t believe it. Well, I’ll give you proof. I’ve been watching your Underground Railway for quite a time. I’ve had my men on the job, and I reckon most of the lines are now closed for repairs. All but the trunk line into France. That I’m keeping open, for soon there’s going to be some traffic on it.”

At that I saw Ivery’s eyelids quiver. For all his self-command he was breaking.

“I admit we cut it mighty fine, along of your fooling me about Clarence. But you struck a bad snag in General Hannay, Graf. Your heart-to-heart talk with him was poor business. You reckoned you had him safe, but that was too big a risk to take with a man like Dick, unless you saw him cold before you left him.... He got away from this place, and early this morning I knew all he knew. After that it was easy. I got the telegram you had sent this morning in the name of Clarence Donne and it made me laugh. Before midday I had this whole outfit under my hand. Your servants have gone by the Underground Railway—to France. Ehrlich—well, I’m sorry about Ehrlich.”

I knew now the name of the Portuguese Jew.

“He wasn’t a bad sort of man,” Blenkiron said regretfully, “and he was plumb honest. I couldn’t get him to listen to reason, and he would play with firearms. So I had to shoot.”

“Dead?” asked Ivery sharply.

“Ye-es. I don’t miss, and it was him or me. He’s under the ice now—where you wanted to send Dick Hannay. He wasn’t your kind, Graf, and I guess he has some chance of getting into Heaven. If I weren’t a hard-shell Presbyterian I’d say a prayer for his soul.”

I looked only at Ivery. His face had gone very pale, and his eyes were wandering. I am certain his brain was working at lightning speed, but he was a rat in a steel trap and the springs held him. If ever I saw a man going through hell it was now. His pasteboard castle had crumbled about his ears and he was giddy with the fall of it. The man was made of pride, and every proud nerve of him was caught on the raw.

“So much for ordinary business,” said Blenkiron. “There’s the matter of a certain lady. You haven’t behaved over-nice about her, Graf, but I’m not going to blame you. You maybe heard a whistle blow when you were coming in here? No! Why, it sounded like Gabriel’s trump. Peter must have put some lung power into it. Well, that was the signal that Miss Mary was safe in your car ... but in our charge. D’you comprehend?”

He did. The ghost of a flush appeared in his cheeks.

“You ask about General Hannay? I’m not just exactly sure where Dick is at the moment, but I opine he’s in Italy.”

I kicked aside the screen, thereby causing Amos almost to fall on his face.

“I’m back,” I said, and pulled up an arm-chair, and dropped into it.

I think the sight of me was the last straw for Ivery. I was a wild enough figure, grey with weariness, soaked, dirty, with the clothes of the porter Joseph Zimmer in rags from the sharp rocks of the Schwarzsteinthor. As his eyes caught mine they wavered, and I saw terror in them. He knew he was in the presence of a mortal enemy.

“Why, Dick,” said Blenkiron with a beaming face, “this is mighty opportune. How in creation did you get here?”

“I walked,” I said. I did not want to have to speak, for I was too tired. I wanted to watch Ivery’s face.

Blenkiron gathered up his Patience cards, slipped them into a little leather case and put it in his pocket.

“I’ve one thing more to tell you. The Wild Birds have been summoned home, but they won’t ever make it. We’ve gathered them in—Pavia, and Hofgaard, and Conradi. Ehrlich is dead. And you are going to join the rest in our cage.”

As I looked at my friend, his figure seemed to gain in presence. He sat square in his chair with a face like a hanging judge, and his eyes, sleepy no more, held Ivery as in a vice. He had dropped, too, his drawl and the idioms of his ordinary speech, and his voice came out hard and massive like the clash of granite blocks.

“You’re at the bar now, Graf von Schwabing. For years you’ve done your best against the decencies of life. You have deserved well of your country, I don’t doubt it. But what has your country deserved of the world? One day soon Germany has to do some heavy paying, and you are the first instalment.”

“I appeal to the Swiss law. I stand on Swiss soil, and I demand that I be surrendered to the Swiss authorities.” Ivery spoke with dry lips and the sweat was on his brow.

“Oh, no, no,” said Blenkiron soothingly. “The Swiss are a nice people, and I would hate to add to the worries of a poor little neutral state.... All along both sides have been outside the law in this game, and that’s going to continue. We’ve abode by the rules and so must you.... For years you’ve murdered and kidnapped and seduced the weak and ignorant, but we’re not going to judge your morals. We leave that to the Almighty when you get across Jordan. We’re going to wash our hands of you as soon as we can. You’ll travel to France by the Underground Railway and there be handed over to the French Government. From what I know they’ve enough against you to shoot you every hour of the day for a twelvemonth.”

I think he had expected to be condemned by us there and then and sent to join Ehrlich beneath the ice. Anyhow, there came a flicker of hope into his eyes. I daresay he saw some way to dodge the French authorities if he once got a chance to use his miraculous wits. Anyhow, he bowed with something very like self-possession, and asked permission to smoke. As I have said, the man had his own courage.

“Blenkiron,” I cried, “we’re going to do nothing of the kind.”

He inclined his head gravely towards me. “What’s your notion, Dick?”

“We’ve got to make the punishment fit the crime,” I said. I was so tired that I had to form my sentences laboriously, as if I were speaking a half-understood foreign tongue.

“Meaning?”

“I mean that if you hand him over to the French he’ll either twist out of their hands somehow or get decently shot, which is far too good