[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
well-born and all the rest of it--she had a
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20Brunner%20-%20Huntingtower.tx
t (47 of 87) [10/18/2004 5:04:23 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20Brunner%20-%20Huntingtower.tx
t desperate time. I gather he was pretty high in favour with the old Court.
Then when the Bolsheviks started he went over to them, like plenty of other
grandees, and now he's one of their chief brains--none of your callow
revolutionaries, but a man of the world, a kind of genius, she says, who can
hold his own anywhere. She believes him to be in this country, and only
waiting the right moment to turn up. Oh, it sounds ridiculous, I know, in
Britain in the twentieth century, but I
learned in the war that civilization anywhere is a very thin crust. There are
a hundred ways by which that kind of fellow could bamboozle all our law and
police and spirit her away. That's the kind of crowd we have to face."
"Did she say what he was like in appearance?"
"A face like an angel--a lost angel, she says."
Dickson suddenly had an inspiration.
"D'you mind the man you said was an Australian--at Kirkmichael? I thought
Page 65
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
myself he was a foreigner. Well, he was asking for a place he called
Darkwater, and there's no sich place in the countryside. I believe he meant
Dalquharter. I believe he's the man she's feared of."
A gasped "By Jove!" came from the darkness. "Dogson, you've hit it. That was
five days ago, and he must have got on the right trail by this time. He'll be
here to-night. That's why the three have been lying so quiet to-day. Well,
we'll go through with it, even if we haven't a dog's chance! Only I'm sorry
that you should be mixed up in such a hopeless business."
"Why me more than you?"
"Because it's all pure pride and joy for me to be here. Good God, I wouldn't
be elsewhere for worlds. It's the great hour of my life. I would gladly die
for her."
"Tuts, that's no' the way to talk, man. Time enough to speak about dying when
there's no other way out. I'm looking at this thing in a business way. We'd
better be seeing the ladies."
They groped into the pitchy hall, somewhere in which a Die-Hard was on picket,
and down the passage to the smoking-room. Dickson blinked in the light of a
very feeble lamp and Heritage saw that his hands were cumbered with packages.
He deposited them on a sofa and made a ducking bow.
"I've come back, Mem, and glad to be back. Your jools are in safe keeping, and
not all the blagyirds in creation could get at them. I've come to tell you to
cheer up--a stout heart to a stey brae, as the old folk say. I'm handling this
affair as a business proposition, so don't be feared, Mem. If there are
enemies seeking you, there's friends on the road too....Now, you'll have had
your dinner, but you'd maybe like a little dessert."
He spread before them a huge box of chocolates, the best that Mearns Street
could produce, a box of candied fruits, and another of salted almonds. Then
from his hideously overcrowded pockets he took another box, which he offered
rather shyly. "That's some powder for your complexion. They tell me that
ladies find it useful whiles."
The girl's strained face watched him at first in mystification, and then broke
slowly into a smile. Youth came back into it, the smile changed to a laugh, a
low rippling laugh like far-away bells. She took both his hands.
"You are kind,' she said, "you are kind and brave. You are a de-ar."
And then she kissed him.
Now, as far as Dickson could remember, no one had ever kissed him except his
wife. The light touch of her lips on his forehead was like the pressing of an
electric button which explodes some powerful charge and alters the face of a
countryside. He blushed scarlet; then he wanted to cry;
then he wanted to sing. An immense exhilaration seized him, and I am certain
that if at that moment the serried ranks of Bolshevy had appeared in the
doorway, Dickson would have hurled himself upon them with a joyful shout.
Cousin Eugenie was earnestly eating chocolates, but Saskia had other business.
"You will hold the house?" she asked.
"Please God, yes," said Heritage. "I look at it this way. The time is very
near when your three gaolers expect the others, their masters. They have not
troubled you in the past two days as they threatened, because it was not worth
while. But they won't want to let you out of their sight in the final hours,
so they will almost certainly come here to be on the spot. Our object is to
keep them out and confuse their plans. Somewhere in this neighbourhood,
probably very near, is the man you fear most. If we nonplus the three
watchers, they'll have to revise their policy, and that means a delay, and
every hour's delay is a gain. Mr. McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon
is in the plot, and he has purchase enough, it seems, to blanket for a time
any appeal to the law.
But Mr. McCunn has taken steps to circumvent him, and in twenty-four hours we
should have help here."
"I do not want the help of your law," the girl interrupted. "It will entangle
me.'
"Not a bit of it," said Dickson cheerfully. "You see, Mem, they've clean lost
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
track of the jools, and nobody knows where they are but me. I'm a truthful
man, but I'll lie like a packman if
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20Brunner%20-%20Huntingtower.tx
t (48 of 87) [10/18/2004 5:04:23 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20Brunner%20-%20Huntingtower.tx
t
I'm asked questions. For the rest, it's a question of kidnapping, I
understand, and that's a thing that's not to be allowed. My advice is to go to
our beds and get a little sleep while there's a chance of it. The Gorbals
Die-Hards are grand watch-dogs."
This view sounded so reasonable that it was at once acted upon. The ladies'
chamber was next door to the smoking-room--what had been the old schoolroom.
Heritage arranged with Saskia that the lamp was to be kept burning low, and
that on no account were they to move unless summoned by him.
Then he and Dickson made their way to the hall, where there was a faint
glimmer from the moon in the upper unshuttered windows--enough to reveal the
figure of Wee Jaikie on duty at the foot of the staircase. They ascended to
the second floor, where, in a large room above the hall, Heritage had bestowed
his pack. He had managed to open a fold of the shutters, and there was
sufficient light to see two big mahogany bedsteads without mattresses or
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]