THE SEARCHERS JOHN FOSTER BY JOHN FOSTER AUTHOR OF "THE BRIGHT EYES OF DANGER," ETC. NEW XSJT YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT. 1920. BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE SEARCHERS 2135469 THE SEARCHERS PROLOGUE MY friend Keene-Leslie has often urged me to tell the story of the strange experiences which befell us a few years ago. I would willingly have turned the task over to him, but he is a busy man in his peculiar calling, and I could not expect him to devote his hard- won snatches of leisure to the chronicling of his own or other folks' adventures. After procrastinating aa long as I decently could, at last I gave my partner in adventure a promise that I would tackle the story as soon as I could bring myself to remain long enough indoors. My bondage held compensations, for it was my good fortune to write this narrative in a well-be- loved corner of the earth, at a library window which frames a picture of an old, bird-haunted garden; in the middle distance the sun-shot links of a Highland river; and beyond, heaved against the clouds, the great shoulders of the mountain-wardens enclosing the hori- zon above the long Spey valley. On king's highway, lonely bridle-path and sheep- track, through silent forest, over hill and moor, I have wandered across old Scotland from the Braes of Glen- livet until the wind flung me a waft of seaweed from the Linnhe Loch. The enchanted road has led me through a hundred bonny glens, but of them all, Gleann Ciuin The Quiet Glen calls clearest to my heart, 7 8 THE SEARCHERS for, its charm and solitude apart, it is my "kenned" country, the land of my forebears, and its river and hill-burns still sing, as in my boyhood, of happiness and holidays and home. Ciuin is not its real name. You may search map and gazetteer in vain for it and other places in the tale. So you may the parish records for the names of the men whose fortunes are followed in it. There are a few people left who shun the limelight. Enough, therefore, to say that the Glen hides near where three noble Scots counties join hands; and, looking south- wards from its uplands, if the mists are not trailing, the eye, following the dark line of ancient woods, past vivid green patches of "brae-set" crofts, past the birch- clad foothills, mounts to the solitary places of the mountains, haunts of golden eagle and ptarmigan, where, summer and winter, the lonely corries that neighbour the high tops of the Cairngorms are slashed with virgin snow. In the Glen stands the country-house called, in the Gaelic, Tigh-na-Sith ; in the lowland Scots, the Bield. The word is a full one, conjuring up tranquil visions of a house of peace, shelter, content, voices of friends, the altar-fire of a hearth. Its name chimes with its setting, for the old house hides in a green fold off the beaten track, under the lee of the southern slope of a burly hill, screened by pine woods from the gale, so near the selvage of the moor that the heather creeps close to the gates and on still autumn mornings one may be wakened by the call of the grouse. "Into Glen Ciuin and out of the world," so runs the old-word in the North; and indeed, when the velvet dusk is clos- ing round The Bield and the warm-lit squares of its windows welcome me home, many a time I ponder the strange chain of events which brought the persons of its THE SEARCHERS 9 drama together on so sheltered and remote a stage. Doubtless, the place had its share of unrest in the wild old days beyond the Highland Line. A dark memory of the Wolf of Badenoch lingers in the rhyme known to a few of the curious in folklore: The Wolf he rides wi' four-score men, Black be his tryst and black his en' ; Red runs Spey and red's the sky In Ciuin, when the Wolf rides by. In later times the Glen saw its clansmen march away to join Montrose or Tearlach, many of them never to carry claymore home again, their beds in the heather wider than in castle or shieling. But these ancient strifes are dead, and to-day The Bield rests in its quiet eddy, hardly vexed by a ripple from the great current of the world. Yet, not so long ago, its tranquillity was suddenly broken, and there came, in consequence, some eventful enough weeks to my friend Anthony Keene- Leslie and myself. The old house is now mine. It contains some things of interest to the antiquary and the sportsman, but I give the place of honour to an old brass casket which rests under a glass case in my sanctum. The exquisite fifteenth-century craftsmanship on its border appeals to the expert in Dinanderie, but the ordinary man might not give the casket a second glance. Yet my eyes often turn towards it. Centuries have died since, jealously guarded, it set out under the benison of a great name, and I am now to tell its dark story, and of the share which Keene-Leslie and I not forgetting Dr. Hall took in strange affairs, meet- ings with crafty and violent men, stratagems and spoils. CHAPTER I To a romantic, the quest of hidden treasure may- conjure up palms and the tropic moon mirrored in a still lagoon, the "peacock seas of the buccaneer" and the boom of far Southern surf, with a schooner in the offing, like enough ; and if your romantic be of the true never-grow-old breed, he shall hear the sharpening of cutlasses, strange oaths, and one of the crew singing "Ho! for the Spanish Main" out on the dizzy yard- arm as the schooner heels to the Trades. But the winds of chance have set the course of this tale else- where. Let our romantic put the tiller of his fancy about and make his first port of call in one of the windy streets climbing the steep slope of the "New Town" of Edinburgh, where the eye, looking down the hill from the city's heart, finds a lifting sense of distance and escape from the pavement in the picture of the blue floor of the Firth, the Fife hills, and the sails of ships seeking harbour or heading for open sea. The ranks of a heterogeneous regiment of shops, from print-sellers to public-houses, straggle and thin out after passing the cool green of Queen Street Gar- dens, before handing the street over to lawyers' grimy- windowed offices and rows of tall dwelling-houses with flights of steps from their door, bridging railed sunken basements. Some of the doors display little brass plates which announce with economy of language that there reside within members of the Scottish Bar. Mine bore the inscription, "Mr. Neil Forbes, Advocate." It now ii I2 THE SEARCHERS hides a tarnished face in the dusty exile of some lum- ber-room ; but once, in the heyday of its youth, it was the newest and brightest in all that hopeful street. The familiar plate on many too many doors in Edinburgh conveys little or nothing to the layman of the status of its owner; but from the street itself and the number of "stairs up" the height of the rookery where the legal bird nests any lawyer's clerk can clas- sify the owners of the brass plates with deadly swift- ness and accuracy. So it is written that Jura Street is dedicated, not exactly to the juniors, but a large sub- division thereof the young and struggling, the young and lazy, the young and unlucky, all those who are described in the polite euphemism as "not in full prac- tice." Behold me on a raw February evening alone in my bachelor quarters, three stairs up, in No. 19 of the street. I should love to present a picture of myself immersed in study, my table snowed under by docu- ments, corrugations on my young brow through over- work, a pile of "papers" awaiting my sagacious at- tack. Sed major veritas. These things were absent, except the corrugations, which were certainly not born of having too much to do. In truth, I was sitting by a sulky fire, a prey to gloomy thoughts, doing nothing more profitable than burning tobacco. Briefs I had none. Until lately, some house property I owned had brought me close on a couple of hundred a year enough to live on. But there came an evil day when I rose to the Devil's best-dressed fly, the notion of making money without sweating for it. The details of how this came about are now of little concern. The central fact is that I borrowed as much as I could on my property and put the proceeds into an adventure, felicitously christened "The Running Target Mine." THE SEARCHERS 13 If any of the shareholders of the ingenious contrap- tion happens to read this, I tender him fraternal sym- pathy. My outlook was as chilly as the February night, for I had just interviewed the family lawyer. He is self-made, hails from the practical North-East, and his countenance as hard as his head has never been able to conceal his inability to fathom the strange people who cannot take care of the bawbees. We discussed ways and means until it was appal- lingly clear that I should be forced to sell my little patrimony, and now the result of my "deal" was pain- fully easy to grasp. My bank-book informed me that I possessed forty-seven pounds, eleven shillings and fourpence. The rest of my capital had vanished in less than a couple of months into the pockets of the riff-raff of the Stock Exchange. Here ended the first lesson. The knowledge that I was alone to blame for being on a lee shore may have been a powerful illuminant in a revaluation of myself, but it was as a farthing dip in the process of getting rid of my troubles. The more I pondered a way out, the darker it grew. I got a few guineas for law reporting and occasional articles for the newspapers and magazines, but I never had made more than a pittance at the bar, and though I was sanguine enough, a merciless clairvoyance told me that I never would. I was near the end of my tether. The thought (I suppose) ought to have left me cold, but I was not so dashed as the state of my affairs may suggest. Thank Heaven, resilient youth sees visions of blue sky and open water through the roughest weather. If empty pockets were hateful, they were by no means the blackest things in a world of com- pensations. I thankfully reflected t^at I had been spared the worst of all punishments, the spectacle of i 4 THE SEARCHERS others suffering through my want of sense. Notwith- standing my bad miss at the Running Target, I had a vague belief in myself, in the mysterious something which people, especially when they are alluding to their neighbours' success, are accustomed to call "luck." The wolf was not actually snuffing at the door and as I had no notion of meeting trouble half- way, I tackled a Report with what concentration I could. I was in the middle of it when a knock sounded on my door. In many ingenious narratives where the young and briefless one is sitting alone and a knock is heard, Des- tiny (ignoring professional etiquette) conveniently ap- pears in the guise of a mysterious, frequently a beau- tiful client, and hey presto! from that moment fame and fortune are his. But the knock heralded nothing more dramatic than my landlady's diminutive "slavey," who brought me a couple of missives. One was a bill, which I put beside its depressing brethren in their lair behind the clock on the chimneypiece. There was not much room for it. To my delight, the other was a note from Keene-Leslie asking me to dine with him at the club that evening. He had just arrived from London and had sent the note by a messenger on the off-chance of my being at home and disengaged. I scribbled a line accepting my old school-fellow's invita- tion. I had not seen or heard of him for a long time, but I never put his name on the lengthening mental register of the men who have dropped out, for An- thony Keene-Leslie, busy idler, traveller, sportsman, dreamer, man of action, had a way of turning up un- expectedly, debonair, cheerful, bright-eyed and re- sourceful as in our days at school. Long-legged, lean, muscular, with a steady brown eye sometimes disconcertingly wide open he always THE SEARCHERS 15 reminded me of a good-tempered looking deerhound. Always well turned out and always fit, he enjoyed life mightily. He had the digestion of an ostrich and could smoke the blackest of Burmah cheroots before breakfast ! Brains were his in plenty. Had he willed, I believe "Tony" would have made a fine special correspondent, but he preferred the life of a free-lance, and for a time I used to see his name under magazine articles on sport and travel in remote parts of the earth. He had more than a competence jute and ground rents and could well afford to gratify an incurable restlessness of mind and body. Danger drew him like a magnet. He had been mountaineer, pearl-fisher, Arctic explorer, big-game hunter in all sorts of savage places, and had done excellent work for a great newspaper in the Russo-Japanese War. After that he had loafed about London, so he told me, doing nothing, and trying to do it well, and the last I had heard of him was from a man who had met him strolling on the Ostergade in Copenhagen, well set up and immaculate as of yore, looking as if he had never roughed it for a day in his life. Yet, with all his restlessness, there was nothing febrile in his blood. My old friend was a cool-headed, warm-hearted and courageous gentleman. As I had been dining too much of late in the poor company of my own thoughts, I welcomed whole- heartedly the chance of turning my back on myself and my affairs in Tony's society. Consideration of the Re- port was promptly adjourned. In half-an-hour I was on my way to the club. I have good reason to remember the weather on that February evening. It was cold and misty; a raw haar was stealing up from the Firth of Forth; the street lamps looked as if they had been wrapped in 1 6 THE SEARCHERS dirty cotton-wool. Edinburgh is blest by comparison with London or Glasgow in its freedom from fog, but there is an undeniable thoroughness in some of its haars. After the comfortable warmth of my rooms, the clammy air made me shudder, and I was not sorry to reach the shelter of the club and to find the wan- derer stretching his long legs by the hall fire. There were a good many men dining, but we got a table to ourselves, and fell a-talking of old times and old friends with great zest. The dinner was good (trust Tony for that!) whitebait, a Madras curry, and a saddle of mutton and the wine was a Clicquot of a classic year. By the time we had settled in arm- chairs with our cigars and Keene-Leslie had begun to discourse of his wanderings, I had almost forgotten that there were such things in the world as bad weather and the Running Target Mine. My host was a deft raconteur. His yarns led me far afield Newfoundland and days after caribou; evenings by lonely lakes; camp-fires in spruce woods; big game in Rhodesia; whales in the Arctic; woodcock in Albania. "I heard of you being in Copenhagen the other day," I said. "Yes, I was there. I have an interest in a lease of some quarries in a couple of islets in the Gulf of Both- nia. Fancy bringing granite to Aberdeen! But we do it, and it pays, Neil. Well, I was at Copenhagen after my first and only visit to those God-forsaken rocks, and looked up 'Fatty' Willis. You remember him at Cambridge? He was in the Foreign Office, before he succeeded to the family place and took to rock-gardening and. prize pigs." "I remember him. He pulled 'Four' in my year.". "The same. I helped him a bit in a little affair. THE SEARCHERS 17 The details don't matter, but I got a letter of thanks from his Chief, and an invitation to go and see him. I did, and the upshot is that I am "now a tracker." "A whatter?" "You'll never guess !" He bent forward and whis- pered in mock heroics, "I am one of the cogs of the great machine of Empire, gentlemen, on which er on which er finish the cliche, Neil." I fell into his humour. "On which the sun never sets; of whose destinies you, gentlemen, the free-born electors of of Glauryhole, are the custodians you, whom I am proud to desire to represent in the Pal- ladium of British liberty." "Loud applause! You may be in the Palladium yet, if it doesn't improve." "Be serious for a moment, Tony! What do you mean?" "I am one of the members of His Britannic Majes- ty's Secret Service ; but, I pray you, do not form a hasty impression of these gentlemen from the shilling thril- lers. I do not pay calls upon ambassadors at 3 A.M., modestly but triumphantly bearing lost papers of State. No Ruritanian princess has insisted on bestowing her lily-white hand on me. I have had no picture-house escapades. No! Mine are minor operations out of the limelight, chiefly concerned with finding out what the fellows on the same job, employed by other Pow- ers, are up to. Hunting the hunters, y'know. Keep- ing notes of a few suspected people, and all that sort of thing." I had an idea that Tony's airy "and all that sort of thing" meant a good deal. "Been in any 'scraps'?" "One or two, but all in the day's work;" and he told me of the disappearance and the recovery of one of 1 8 THE SEARCHERS our attaches in a European capital; of illustrious "crooks;" of strange moves on the chessboard of for- eign politics; the thin, inflammable curtain between the nations and the furnace of war. They were matters which are not seen in the newspapers, and they made me stare. "I like the job. It suits me. I'm a mixture of im- patience and perseverance. Something new to rub one's wits on turns up every now and then." He puffed meditatively at his cigar for a minute. "You remem- ber the accomplished Mr. John Vandeleur's verdict in the New Arabian Nights," he went on. "Let me re- call it. 'I have hunted most things,' quoth that re- doubtable rascal, 'from men and women down to mos- quitoes; I have dived for coral; I have followed both whales and tigers; and a diamond is the tallest quarry of the lot.' Well, my friend, I have the temerity to differ from him. I have found man-hunts more inter- esting than the trail of beasts or jewels, and I have chased all three." "The life agrees with you, Tony! You look un- commonly fit." "To be frank, old man, I can't say that you look quite 'in the pink.' P'raps you need a holiday. Seems to me you're a bit pulled down. Anything the matter?" "Oh, I'm fit enough, I think," I replied. "Um-m! Your statement lacks conviction. Over- work?" I smiled. " Tina, VenusT " "Nothing so interesting," I confessed. "What is it? Do let me have it, my son." "It's a purely personal affair and of no interest " " No interest! You know me better than that Let me have it, Neil." THE SEARCHERS 19 I hesitated for a moment, but Tony's brown eye never left mine, and I blurted out, "I've been chasing wild-geese on the Stock Exchange. Write me down an ass! That's all!" Then I gave him the bones of The Running Target story. The recital was disagree- able but it had the merit of being short. When I finished, "I'm sorry, Neil," said he. "The old definition that 'a mine is a hole in the ground, fre- quently owned by a liar,' is true. May I help you? You can count on me." He said many kind things which may be guessed. "No, my friend. I'm going to stick it out, and mean- while put up with the bed I've unmade." "Like the lower deck, 'Grouse and carry on.' Well, 'Wull to Cupar, maun to Cupar'; but if ever you're down to hard-pan, or anywhere near it, let me know, even if I'm at the ends of the earth. Promise me." He meant what he said and I promised, little thinking that Fate the dealer was already busy with the cards. It was midnight when I gave Tony "Good-night," after promising to lunch next day with him at the Caledonian. An unwelcome surprise awaited me when the hall- porter opened the door. The haar which had been creeping up from the Firth in the earlier hours had grown into a North Sea fog so dense that the line of the street and even the pavement at my feet were hidden, and my hand, held at arm's length, was scarcely visible. CHAPTER II FEELING strangely alone in the stillness, I began to grope my way homeward slowly on foot. The fog filled the streets from roofs to pavement with a blind- ing vapour. I had slipped an electric-torch into my pocket before starting for the club, but its light was a mere pin-point against the impenetrable grey wall. Foot by foot, blindly, but without a blind man's assur- ance, I crept along until I came to the corner of the street which led northward to my quarters. It must have been close on half-an-hour before I got my bear- ings, but I managed to reach the railings of Queen Street Gardens, and there, within a few minutes' walk of home and with a hand on the railing, I made quicker progress. I had not met a soul since I' left Tony, nor had I heard a sound except the melancholy voices of the sirens from the blind ships in the fog-wrapped Firth. Suddenly my fingers touched something alive, and my wrist was gripped by a strong hand. I am not a weakling. With a wrench I freed myself, and flashed the electric-torch on the man, my mind made up for a struggle. It was long odds on his being a thief who welcomed the fog as an ally, but to my "What the devil do you mean!" there came a stammered, "Par- don, signore!" The torch showed me a tall, shaven, dark-eyed man. He repeated his "Pardon, signore!" and added, "A vile night, and you made me 'fraid." He probably spoke the truth, for my silent approach in my rubber overshoes may have startled him. His 20 THE SEARCHERS 21 face was very pale, and I remember the light from the torch glinting on a pair of brass rings in his ears. From these and his clothes I put him down to be a sailor and his use of the word "signore" told me his race. "No harm done," I said curtly, as I moved on, keeping my ears open in case he might follow me, but I heard nothing. In another minute I arrived at No. 19. I had just opened the outside door, when I was brought to a standstill by the sudden beat of swiftly running feet. I listened. Some rowdy undergradu- ates' escapade, was my first thought, but I instantly dismissed it, for the man who sprinted at such a rate in a blinding fog most assuredly had something to run from. On the spur of the moment I left the key in the latch and went down to the foot of the steps. The fleeing man was in the middle of the street, coming up the slope towards me. He must either have been running for some time or he was woefully out of train- ing. He was gasping, and when he drew near me he slowed down and came to a standstill, trying to control his breath and, I thought, listening intently. Presently he moved off again, walking quickly and softly, and so far as I could judge, still in the middle of the street. When the pad of his footsteps died down I turned to go into the house, and at that instant came a low whistle and once more the sound of flying fleet. This time they came from the opposite direction, as if the runner had turned and was now doubling on his tracks. In a few seconds he came full pelt almost past me, swerved, fell heavily, and lay very still. I hastened to the roadway, and a flash of my elec- tric-torch made it plain that the man was hurt. I put my arms under his shoulders and had no difficulty in picking up and carrying his light weight. The key was still in the latch and in a trice I had opened the 22 THE SEARCHERS door and lifted my limp burden inside, where I laid him down gently on the stair. The gas-jet was burn- ing and by its dim light I made out a pale face and some straggling wisps of sandy hair. To reassure him, I put a hand on his shoulder. It was wet, and the torch showed me that his sleeve was blood-stained. When I bent over him he opened his eyes and I caught in a hoarse whisper the words "Have they got it?" The question was hardly out of his mouth when he swooned again. Just then I felt a slight current of cold air, and glanced at the door. It was being very cau- tiously opened, inch by inch. Still bending over the man, I kept a wary eye on the door. The profile of a man's face appeared and a dark eye peered stealthily through the opening about a couple of feet from the floor. I sprang erect. Instantly the face vanished, but I had caught sight of a brass ear-ring, and I knew that the watcher was the man whom I had stumbled against at the railings a few minutes before. Jumping to the door, I threw it wide open. The fog filled the door- way, and realising that the prowler might be near me, intent on some devil's work, I drew back swiftly and slammed the door. Its clang may have stirred the clouded wits of the man on the stair, for when I reached him his eyes were open and his hands raised in a feeble attempt to ward off something. "Come with me. You are safe," I said, as I took his arm and helped him to his feet. He was trembling, as much, I believe, from sheer terror as from bodily weakness. He stared at me so long that I thought he had only half recovered his wits. "Is is there any one wi' ye?'" he at last asked. "Not a soul." CHAPTER III THE wounded man drew a deep breath, and, my arm in his, we mounted the stairs to my quarters. Having bolted the door, I put my queer guest into one of the arm-chairs in front of the fire. Then I turned up the light. I confess to having felt an irra- tional sense of disappointment, for the man revealed was commonplace, with nothing to suggest midnight adventure : a man of medium height, slight in build, his sandy hair and thick, untidy, reddish stubble framing very ordinary features. He looked a city-bred type; dozens of his kind could be met in a quarter of an hour's walk. His clothes were of the variety known to the economical and the impecunious as "reach-me- downs," clean enough, but on the border-line of shab- biness. He was sober, but a little dazed-looking. Clasping and unclasping his hands, he drew another long breath as he looked round the room. I noticed that his hands were delicate and well shaped, though his nails were grimy. He was still looking white about the gills, so I mixed him a strong whisky-and-soda, which he swallowed in a couple of gulps. Then he sat back in his chair, a patch of colour stealing into his pale cheeks. He touched his shoulder gingerly, and on my suggestion pulled off his jacket. He had been stabbed in the shoulder, but although he was still bleed- ing a little, the wound was only a surface one. Sponge and water showed me that it was not serious. To give him a little time to collect his wits and get his bearings, 23 24 THE SEARCHERS I filled and lit my pipe leisurely. Then I asked him, "Well, what is it all about, my friend?" "I I don't know, sir at least, in a way of speakin', I do " "Up to the point where I picked you up and car- ried you off the street." "Aye ! I'm a bit dizzy yet wi' the knock I got, but I'll begin to pick up the ends o' the business in a minute or two, I think." "Begin at the beginning," I said. "I call myself a lawyer. Short of law-breaking, I shall treat what you say as between ourselves, and possibly I may be of use to you." "Well, sir, you've dune me a kindness, but there's no very much to tell, and what there is, is no exac'ly to my credit; but ye can judge for yoursel'." He was a shipping-clerk employed by Neilsons of Leith, he began, in a high-pitched common voice. His name was James M'Nair and he lived in bachelor lodg- ings near one of the Bridges, in a street the name of which I forget. He had been working late in the office in Leith, till about nine o'clock, in connection with the unloading of a steamer called the Prospero. Afterwards he had gone to a picture-house, where he met the second mate of a Baltic tramp. The two "for- gathered" and he took the mate to the Prospero, where the steward regaled them with Danish corn-brandy and cigars. When he left the ship the time was after eleven, and the last car had gone, but he took the opportunity of hiring a four-wheeler which had arrived with one of the Prospero' s engineers from Edinburgh. The fog thickened, and after half-an-hour's crawl the cabman refused to go farther. M'Nair decided to make for home on foot. He had groped his way up Leith Walk until, he thought, he must have been close THE SEARCHERS 25; to the junction at Picardy Place. There he almost ran into a man, who passed some remark about the fog and asked him for a light. M'Nair took out his match- box, struck a light, and in its momentary glare saw the faces of two men. He didn't like their looks. "Thought they were Dagoes. At any rate, they didna look like Breetishers," he said. But he showed no signs of alarm, and, with a remark about the fog, went on, quickening his pace, for he could not shake off an uneasy feeling that he was being followed. Once he stopped dead to listen, and thought that he heard footsteps come to a sudden halt. "I started off again," he continued, "but my nerves broke, an' I began to trot then fairly ran for't until I was clean dune." "When you slowed down near here." "Aye 1 Then I heard a whustle, an' a man like as no, yin o' the men I met, but I dinna ken closed wi' me. I jumped back, but he was quicker'n me, an' afore ye could wink he had knifed me." He fingered his shoulder again. "My Goad! I was lucky, eh? I was mortal feared, but the sting o't roused me, an' I let drive wi' my foot. He tripped and fell, an' off I went again at random until I dropped." "Then I cut in." "Aye; an' here I am, sir, thanks to you." "Why didn't you shout for the police?" "At first, when I started to run, there was naethin' to tell the polis. I was ashamed o' my fears, an' I just ran and ran. This last business o' the knife was so sudden that it knocked me silly-like. What beats me is to put a name to the business! If they were thieves, they maun have been gey hard up, for I'm no exac'ly like a Carnegie. . . . But did ye did ye see anybody?" 26 THE SEARCHERS "The face of a man watching us. He looked round the street door after I carried you into the passage, and vanished when I went to the door." Some colour had been coming into his face, but at my words a slow pallor crept over it. The man's nerves were in rags. "Ye'll no turn me oot, sir?" he said, almost abjectly. I would not have turned a dog out in that night, let alone a terrified weakling, and I was curious to hear more of his story, for I had a suspicion that he was keeping something back from me. "You are safe enough if you can make shift here un- til daylight." At my words a vast relief showed in his face. "It's kindly o' ye, sir, to a stranger. I'll be no trouble to ye." "But, first of all, I want to know what you meant by saying, when you were coming out of your swoon, 'Have they got it?' Who are -they' and what is 'it'?" He stared at me for a little, plainly puzzled. "Did I?" said he. Then his face cleared. "I must ha' been thinkin' that a' the siller I had in the worT was in my pocket. That must ha' been what I was at. I can think o' naethin' else. Ye maybe never kenned what it is to have only a poun' or twa' atween you and 'the beach.' " Little he knew ! He plunged a hand into his inside pocket and with a gulp of manifest relief drew out a shabby purse, which he opened. "All safe," he said, fingering some one-pound notes. "No that there are mony o' them. I was mair ta'en up wi' thinkin' o' the danger o' my life than my siller. I never was in sic' a deil's busi- ness before." I was watching him closely. He caught my eye, suddenly rose to his feet, and a new ring came THE SEARCHERS 27 into his voice. "Good Lord, sir! Ye surely ye dinna think that I have been in ony mischief or that that I have onything that that doesna belong to me." "I have not said so," I replied, not unkindly, for he was obviously put out at the thought of being sus- pected, and his next words did him, I thought, some credit. "No, but Well, it's fair and due to you to put myself right. I'll tell ye what I'll do. I'll leave everything in my possession wi' ye, in case o' ony trouble afterwards. But I've nothing o' value except twa'ree poun' notes. Ye can hold them all until ye're satisfied that I'm an honest man." "I express no opinion. But your offer is fair. Sup- pose you turn out your pockets." "That I will," he said without a moment's hesita- tion and produced the purse. It contained four one- pound notes and two florins. Next came an evening paper, a small ready-reckoner, a cheap gun-metal watch, a pocket-book, a pipe, a tobacco-pouch and a match-box. These made up the sum of his possessions. He smiled whimsically as he laid them on my table. "That's the lot, except the claes I stand in," quoth he. "There's just one thing I'm concerned wi', an' that is no to lose my job," he continued earnestly; "an* I tell ye, sir, I honestly think, somehow 'rither, that thae gentry mistook me for somebody else. I'm no worth knifin'. But if ye send my things to the polis, they'll come speirin' aboot the office, an' I'll be ill put to it wi' the guv'nors. It'll no be very pleasant." Sympathy with the under dog compelled me to ex- plain that, while keeping a judicial mind on the whole business, I did not intend to consult the police, but that, as he suggested, I would retain his belongings for a 28 THE SEARCHERS day or two in case of developments. The fact is that I was now rather bored with the whole affair, and had come to the conclusion that the man was a harmless nonentity, out too late, who had been tackled by some night-hawks not above such mice. After thanking me most cordially, M'Nair confided that he had a friend in "the polis" whom he proposed to consult regarding the assault, and who might help him without unnecessary publicity. But he had little hopes of the ruffians being traced. It was now after one o'clock and without more ado I placed the articles belonging to my scared-looking guest in a small portable cabinet, locked it, and took it into my bedroom. I put some coals on the fire and gave the man a couple of rugs. Then I told him to make himself as comfortable as he could on the sofa until morning, and lay down in my own room half- dressed, to turn and toss until half-past five, when I gave up hope of sleep and rose. When I opened my bedroom door, M'Nair was sit- ting in the arm-chair. I turned up the light and was struck by the man's white and drawn face. Plainly, the poor devil had not closed an eye. "You look done up," I said. "Lie down for an hour or two. There's no great hurry." But he had to get home before he went to his work, he protested. He would get a "brush up" and some breakfast at his lodgings. I had been very good to him, he said. Did I think there might be any danger from "yon fellies" in the street? "Most improbable that the blackguards would be fools enough to prowl round here and risk being caught, but I'll let you out by a back entrance to an- other street and I'll go part of the way with you. Your stuff is locked up in the cabinet in my bedroom and THE SEARCHERS 29 if you drop me a post-card to this address" I gave him my card "I'll be here to hand them over. I shall be interested to see you again, and to hear if you have anything to report." He wrote his own address in a slovenly hand on a slip of paper, which he laid on the chimneypiece. CHAPTER IV ALL was quiet when we descended the stairs and slipped out by the back door. It was nearly six o'clock and a very dark, cheerless morning, but the fog had lifted, and the lamps picked out the lines of the streets. I piloted my guest along a narrow Mews Lane (which I had often used as a short-cut eastward) to its junc- tion with a thoroughfare parallel to Jura Street. We saw nobody, and, except for the rumble of a city dust- cart going its round in the distance, not a sound was to be heard. "I ken where I am now," said the adventure-ridden clerk, "an' I'll make for hame. I can tell ye I'll steer clear o' foggy nights an' late hours after this. Just keep my bits o' things as long as ye like, sir; but I'll no forget your kindness, an' I'll come back wi' any news I may have." He reiterated his thanks, shook hands with a re- spectful heartiness, and, after giving a look up and down the street, set off at a smart pace. In a moment or two he had disappeared in the half-light. I walked quickly back to my rooms, yawning my head off, went to bed and slept for a couple of hours. With my after-breakfast pipe came clarifying re- flections. Had I helped a deserving fellow-creature or a rascal? His story was coherent and given without either glibness or hesitation. His "douce" Lowland accent, his clothes, his little servile mannerisms seemed to me to label him a harmless counting-house subor- dinate who had probably been tracked by some of the 30 THE SEARCHERS 31 scum of the port for the sake of his few shillings. Yet I remembered his eager, whispered question, "Have they got it?" and the manifest anxiety in his eyes when he asked it. More than once I found my- self, like Paul Demetrius in The Red Lamp, murmur- ing "I wonder!" I had given only a cursory look at the man's belong- ings, but now I unlocked my cabinet, took out the odds and ends which he had left with me and made a thorough examination of them. With the exception of the purse and its contents, they were worthless trifles. The paper was an Evening Dispatch of the previous day, unmarked in any way. I looked in the well-thumbed ready-reckoner for its owner's name but there was no writing of any kind on it except a few pencilled jottings of figures on the title-page, faint and nearly illegible. There remained the pocket-book. It was a cheap article, well worn, with a limp elastic band round it. It had a couple of pockets and a postage-stamp case. In the pockets I found two cigarettes; in the stamp case there was nothing. I was turning the cigarettes round idly to find out the brand, when it struck me that one of them was un- usually well packed and heavier than the other. On examining the ends I found the outer casing was about the thickness of a paper mouthpiece such as one sees attached to some kinds of Russian cigarettes. Having stuck a pin into the tobacco at one end, \ felt its point touch something hard. The same thing happened when I tried the other end. To pick out the layers of tobacco was an easy matter and when I pushed a pen- holder gently through the casing, a little brown cylin- der slipped out into my hand. The shadow of a doubt 32 THE SEARCHERS arose regarding the ingenuousness of my new acquaint- ance. The cylinder was a neat little roll, not much thicker than a good-sized quill. It was tightly packed and when unrolled proved to be in two parts one an outer covering of rice-paper, the other a little roll of torn, stained paper, the right-hand margin and the foot of it straight, the left side zigzag. It was covered with writing, so small that I had to use a magnifying-glass to read it. Although the writing was cramped, it had been set down with scrupulous care and neatness. But it was unintelligible. There were about a dozen lines of writing. The letters were strung together without being divided into words and there was no sign of punctuation. I was able to pick out some letters which appeared to form English words, but most of the writing was a meaning- less jumble. However, I traced, among others, the words "drove," "belief," and "track"; and the last line interested me, for it ran thus: "ossahumiliata f." Plainly this was meant for two words, "ossa humili- ata." The use of Latin and the little Roman cross struck me as curious. "Ossa humiliata" were words which I had read or heard somewhere, I was sure, but I could not remember the source. It was now about half-past ten, later than my usual hour for putting in an appearance at the Parliament House. I postponed a further examination of the paper, and replaced it in its hiding-place in the bogus cigarette, which I carefully refilled with the tobacco and put back in the pocket- book. The companion cigarette was a real one, con- taining nothing but cheap tobacco. This I put beside its sharn brother, and having locked the cabinet, went out to find that the fog had left behind it a chill drizzle of rain. THE SEARCHERS 33 The Parliament House that morning was as dull and depressing as the sky outside. The big fire-places in the hall, for a wonder, claimed nobody except two prize bores, and