I put some coals on the fire, changed into a tweed jacket, and lit a pipe. I fetched a dressing-gown from my bedroom and flung it on the sofa. ‘You’d better put that on,’ I said when he had finished.
He shook his head.
‘I would rather be unencumbered,’ he said. ‘But I should dearly love a cigarette… and a liqueur brandy, if you have such a thing. That Park of yours is infernally chilly.’
I supplied his needs, and he stretched himself in an armchair, with his stockinged feet to the fire.
‘You have been very good-humoured, Leithen,’ he said. ‘Váldez – that’s my aide-de-camp – will be here presently, and he will probably be preceded by other guests. But I think I have time for the short explanation which is your due. You believe what I told you?’
I nodded.
‘Good. Well, I came to London three weeks ago to raise a loan. That was a matter of life or death for my big stupid country. I have succeeded. This afternoon the agreement was signed. I think I mentioned the amount to you – five million sterling.’
He smiled happily and blew a smoke-ring into the air.
‘I must tell you that I have enemies. Among my happy people there are many rascals, and I had to deal harshly with them. “So foul a sky clears not without a storm” – that’s Shakespeare, isn’t it? I learned it at school. You see, I had Holy Church behind me, and therefore I had against me all the gentry who call themselves liberators. Red Masons, anarchists, communists, that sort of crew. A good many are now reposing beneath the sod, but some of the worst remain. In particular, six followed me to England with instructions that I must not return.
‘I don’t mind telling you, Leithen, that I have had a peculiarly rotten time the last three weeks. It was most important that nothing should happen to me till the loan was settled, so I had to lead the sheltered life. It went against the grain, I assure you, for I prefer the offensive to the defensive. The English police were very amiable, and I never stirred without a cordon, your people and my own. The Six wanted to kill me, and as it is pretty easy to kill anybody if you don’t mind being killed yourself, we had to take rather elaborate precautions. As it was, I was twice nearly done in. Once my carriage broke down mysteriously, and a crowd collected, and if I hadn’t had the luck to board a passing cab, I should have had a knife in my ribs. The second was at a public dinner – something not quite right about the cayenne pepper served with the oysters. One of my staff is still seriously ill.’
He stretched his arms.
‘Well, that first stage is over. They can’t wreck the loan, whatever happens to me. Now I am free to adopt different tactics and take the offensive. I have no fear of the Six in my own country. There I can take precautions, and they will find it difficult to cross the frontier or to live for six hours thereafter if they succeed. But here you are a free people, and protection is not so easy. I do not wish to leave England just yet – I have done my work and have earned a little play. I know your land and love it, and I look forward to seeing something of my friends. Also I want to attend the Grand National. Therefore, it is necessary that my enemies should be confined for a little, while I take my holiday. So for this evening I made a plan. I took the offensive. I deliberately put myself in their danger.’
He turned his dancing eyes towards me, and I have rarely had such an impression of wild and mirthful audacity.
‘We have an excellent intelligence system,’ he went on, ‘and the Six have been assiduously shadowed. But as I have told you, no precautions avail against the fanatic, and I do not wish to be killed on my little holiday. So I resolved to draw their fire – to expose myself as ground bait, so to speak, that I might have the chance of netting them. The Six usually hunt in couples, so it was necessary to have three separate acts in the play, if all were to be gathered in. The first—’
‘Was in Bryanston Square,’ I put in, ‘outside Lady Nantley’s house?’
‘True. How did you know?’
‘I have just been dining there, and heard that you were expected. I saw the crowd in the square as I came away.’
‘It seems to have gone off quite nicely. We took pains to let it be known where I was dining. The Six, who mistrust me, delegated only two of their number for the job. They never put all their eggs in one basket. The two gentlemen were induced to make a scene, and, since they proved to be heavily armed, were taken into custody and may get a six months’ sentence. Very prettily managed, but unfortunately it was the two that matter least – the ones we call Little Pedro and Alejandro the Scholar. Impatient, blundering children, both of them. That leaves four.’
The telephone bell rang, and he made a long arm for the receiver. The news he got seemed to be good, for he turned a smiling face to me.
‘I should have said two. My little enterprise in the Park has proved a brilliant success… But I must explain. I was to be the bait for my enemies, so I showed myself to the remaining four. That was really rather a clever piece of business. They lost me at the Marble Arch and they did not recognise me as the scarecrow sitting on the seat in the rain. But they knew I had gone to earth there, and they stuck to the scent like terriers. Presently they would have found me, and there would have been shooting. Some of my own people were in the shadow between the road and the railings.’
‘When I saw you, were your enemies near?’ I asked.
‘Two were on the opposite side of the road. One was standing under the lamp-post at the gate. I don’t know where the fourth was at that moment. But all had passed me more than once… By the way, you very nearly got yourself shot, you know. When you asked me if sixpence was any good to me… That happens to be their password. I take great credit to myself for seeing instantly that you were harmless.’
‘Why did you leave the Park if you had your trap so well laid?’ I asked.
‘Because it meant dealing with all four together at once, and I do them the honour of being rather nervous about them. They are very quick with their guns. I wanted a chance to break up the covey, and your arrival gave it me. When I went off two followed, as I thought they would. My car was in Park Lane, and gave me a lift; and one of them saw me in it. I puzzled them a little, but by now they must be certain. You see, my car has been waiting for some minutes outside this house.’
‘What about the other two?’ I asked.
‘Burton has just telephoned that they have been gathered in. Quite an exciting little scrap. To your police it must have seemed a bad case of highway robbery – two ruffianly looking fellows hold up a peaceful elderly gentleman returning from dinner. The odds were not quite like that, but the men I had on the job are old soldiers of the Indian wars and can move softly… I only wish I knew which two they have got. Burton was not sure. Alcaza is one, but I can’t be certain about the other. I hope it is not the Irishman.’
My bell rang very loud and steadily.
‘In a few seconds I shall have solved that problem,’ he said gaily. ‘I am afraid I must trouble you to open the door, Leithen.’
‘Is it your aide-de-camp?’
‘No. I instructed Váldez to knock. It is the residuum of the Six. Now listen to me, my friend. These two, whoever they are, have come here to kill me, and I don’t mean to be killed… My first plan was to have Váldez here – and others – so that my two enemies should walk into a trap. But I changed my mind before I telephoned. They are very clever men, and by this time they will be very wary. So I have thought of something else.’
The bell rang again, and a third time insistently.
‘Take these,’ and he held out a pair of cruel little bluish revolvers. ‘When you open the door, you will say that the President is at home and, in token of his confidence, offers them these. “Une espàce d’Irlandais, Messieurs. Vous commencez trop tard, et vous finissez trop tôt.” Then bring them here. Quick now. I hope Corbally is one of them.’
I did exactly as I was told. I cannot say that I had any liking for the task, but I was a good deal under the spell of that calm young man, an
d I was resigned to my flat being made a rendezvous for desperadoes. I had locked and chained and bolted the door, so it took me a few moments to open it.
I found myself looking at emptiness.
‘Who is it?’ I called. ‘Who rang?’
I was answered from behind me. It was the quickest thing I have ever seen, for they must have slipped through in the moment when my eyes were dazzled by the change from the dim light of the hall to the glare of the landing. That gave me some notion of the men we had to deal with.
‘Here,’ said the voice. I turned and saw two men in waterproofs and felt hats, who kept their hands in their pockets and had a fraction of an eye on the two pistols I swung by the muzzles.
‘M. le Président will be glad to see you, gentlemen,’ I said. I held out the revolvers, which they seemed to grasp and flick into their pockets with a single movement. Then I repeated slowly the piece of rudeness in French.
One of the men laughed. ‘Ramón does not forget,’ he said. He was a young man with sandy hair and hot blue eyes and an odd break in his long drooping nose. The other was a wiry little fellow, with a grizzled beard and what looked like a stiff leg.
I had no guess at my friend’s plan, and was concerned to do precisely as I was told. I opened the door of my sitting-room, and noticed that the President was stretched on my sofa facing the door. He was smoking and was still in his underclothes. When the two men behind me saw that he was patently unarmed they slipped into the room with a quick cat-like movement, and took their stand with their backs against the door.
‘Hullo, Corbally,’ said the President pleasantly. ‘And you, Manuel. You’re looking younger than when I saw you last. Have a cigarette?’ and he nodded towards my box on the table behind him. Both shook their heads.
‘I’m glad you have come. You have probably seen the news of the loan in the evening papers. That should give you a holiday, as it gives me one. No further need for the hectic oversight of each other, which is so wearing and takes up so much time.’
‘No,’ said the man called Manuel, and there was something very grim about his quiet tones. ‘We shall take steps to prevent any need for that in the future.’
‘Tut, tut – that is your old self, Manuel. You are too fond of melodrama to be an artist. You are a priest at heart.’
The man snarled. ‘There will be no priest at your deathbed.’ Then to his companion. ‘Let us get this farce over.’
The President paid not the slightest attention but looked steadily at the Irishman. ‘You used to be a sportsman, Mike. Have you come to share Manuel’s taste for potting the sitting rabbit?’
‘We are not sportsmen, we are executioners of justice,’ said Manuel.
The President laughed merrily. ‘Superb! The best Roman manner.’ He still kept his eyes on Corbally.
‘Damn you, what’s your game, Ramón?’ the Irishman asked. His freckled face had become very red.
‘Simply to propose a short armistice. I want a holiday. If you must know, I want to go to the National.’
‘So do I.’
‘Well, let’s call a truce. Say for two months or till I leave England – whichever period shall be the shorter. After that you can get busy again.’
The one he had named Manuel broke into a spluttering torrent of Spanish, and for a little they all talked that language. It sounded like a commination service on the President, to which he good-humouredly replied. I had never seen this class of ruffian before, to whom murder was as simple as shooting a partridge, and I noted curiously the lean hands, the restless wary eyes and the ugly lips of the type. So far as I could make out, the President seemed to be getting on well with the Irishman but to be having trouble with Manuel.
‘Have ye really and truly nothing on ye?’ Corbally asked.
The President stretched his arms and revealed his slim figure in its close-fitting pants and vest.
‘Nor him there?’ and he nodded towards me.
‘He is a lawyer; he doesn’t use guns.’
‘Then I’m damned if I touch ye. Two months it is. What’s your fancy for Liverpool?’
This was too much for Manuel. I saw in what seemed to be one movement his hand slip from his pocket, Corbally’s arm swing in a circle, and a plaster bust of Julius Caesar tumble off the top of my bookcase. Then I heard the report.
‘Ye nasty little man,’ said Gorbally, as he pressed him to his bosom in a bear’s hug.
‘You are a traitor,’ Manuel shouted. ‘How will we face the others? What will Alejandro say and Alcaza—’
‘I think I can explain,’ said the President pleasantly. ‘They won’t know for quite a time, and then only if you tell them. You two gentlemen are all that remain for the moment of your patriotic company. The other four have been the victims of the English police – two in Bryanston Square, and two in the Park close to the Marble Arch.’
‘Ye don’t say!’ said Corbally with admiration in his voice. ‘Faith, that’s smart work!’
‘They too will have a little holiday. A few months to meditate on politics, while you and I go to the Grand National.’
Suddenly there was a sharp rat-tat at my door. It was like the knocking in Macbeth for dramatic effect. Corbally had one pistol at my ear in an instant, while a second covered the President.
‘It’s all right,’ said the latter, never moving a muscle. ‘It’s General Váldez, whom I think you know. That was another argument which I was coming to if I hadn’t had the good fortune to appeal to Mr Corbally’s higher nature. I know you have sworn to kill me, but I take it that the killer wants to have a sporting chance of escape. Well, there wouldn’t have been the faintest shadow of a chance here. Váldez is at the door, and the English police are below. You are brave men, I know, but even brave men dislike the cold gallows.’
The knocker fell again. ‘Let him in, Leithen,’ I was told, ‘or he will be damaging your valuable door. He has not the northern phlegm of you and me and Mr Corbally’
A tall man in an ulster, which looked as if it covered a uniform, stood on the threshold. Someone had obscured the lights on the landing so that the staircase was dark, but I could see in the gloom other figures. ‘President Pelem …’ he began.
‘The President is here,’ I said. ‘Quite well and in great form. He is entertaining two other guests.’
The General marched to my sitting-room. I was behind him and did not see his face, but I can believe that it showed surprise when he recognised the guests. Manuel stood sulkily defiant, his hands in his waterproof pockets, but Corbally’s light eyes were laughing.
‘I think you know each other,’ said the President graciously.
‘My God!’ Váldez seemed to choke at the sight. ‘These swine!… Excellency, I have …’
‘You have nothing of the kind. These are friends of mine for the next two months, and Mr Corbally and I are going to the Grand National together. Will you have the goodness to conduct them downstairs and explain to the inspector of police below that all has gone well and that I am perfectly satisfied, and that he will hear from me in the morning?… One moment. What about a stirrup-cup? Leithen, does your establishment run to a whisky and soda all round?’
It did. We all had a drink, and I believe I clinked glasses with Manuel.
I looked in at Lady Samplar’s dance as I had meant to. Presently I saw a resplendent figure arrive – the President, with the ribbon of the Gold Star of Bolfvar across his chest. He was no more the larky undergraduate, but the responsible statesman, the father of his country. There was a considerable crowd in his vicinity when I got near him, and he was making his apologies to Mollie Nantley. She saw me and insisted on introducing me. ‘I so much wanted you two to meet. I had hoped it would be at my dinner – but anyhow I have managed it.’ I think she was a little surprised when the President took my hand in both of his. ‘I saw Mr Leithen play at Lord’s in ‘97,’ he said. ‘I was twelfth man for Harrow that year. It is delightful to make his acquaintance; I shall never forget this meeting.
’
‘How English he is!’ Mollie whispered to me as we made our way out of the crowd.
They got him next year. They were bound to, for in that kind of business you can have no real protection. But he managed to set his country on its feet before he went down… No, it was neither Manuel nor Corbally. I think it was Alejandro the Scholar.
The Wind in the Portico
A dry wind of the high places… not to fan nor to cleanse, even a full wind from those places shall come unto me.
Jeremiah IV. xi–xii
Nightingale was a hard man to draw. His doings with the Bedawin had become a legend, but he would as soon have talked about them as claimed to have won the war. He was a slim dark fellow about thirty-five years of age, very shortsighted, and wearing such high-powered double glasses that it was impossible to tell the colour of his eyes. This weakness made him stoop a little and peer, so that he was the strangest figure to picture in a burnous leading an army of desert tribesmen. I fancy his power came partly from his oddness, for his followers thought that the hand of Allah had been laid on him, and partly from his quick imagination and his flawless courage. After the war he had gone back to his Cambridge fellowship, declaring that, thank God, that chapter in his life was over.
As I say, he never mentioned the deeds which had made him famous. He knew his own business, and probably realised that to keep his mental balance he had to drop the curtain on what must have been the most nerve-racking four years ever spent by man. We respected his decision and kept off Arabia. It was a remark of Hannay’s that drew from him the following story. Hannay was talking about his Cotswold house, which was on the Fosse Way, and saying that it always puzzled him how so elaborate a civilization as Roman Britain could have been destroyed utterly and left no mark on the national history beyond a few roads and ruins and place-names. Peckwether, the historian, demurred, and had a good deal to say about how much the Roman tradition was woven into the Saxon culture. ‘Rome only sleeps,’ he said; ‘she never dies.’