Mr. Standfast

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I started to squeeze out of that push, for air raids now seemed far
too trivial to give a thought to. Moreover the guns had stopped,
but so sheeplike is human nature that the crowd still hung together,
and it took me a good fifteen minutes to edge my way to the open
air. I found that the trouble was over, and the street had resumed
its usual appearance. Buses and taxis were running, and voluble
knots of people were recounting their experiences. I started off for
Blenkiron's bookshop, as the nearest harbour of refuge.

But in Piccadilly Circus I was stopped by a military policeman.
He asked my name and battalion, and I gave him them, while his
suspicious eye ran over my figure. I had no pack or rifle, and the
crush in the Tube station had not improved my appearance. I
explained that I was going back to France that evening, and he
asked for my warrant. I fancy my preoccupation made me nervous
and I lied badly. I said I had left it with my kit in the house of my
married sister, but I fumbled in giving the address. I could see that
the fellow did not believe a word of it.

just then up came an A.P.M. He was a pompous dug-out, very
splendid in his red tabs and probably bucked up at having just been
under fire. Anyhow he was out to walk in the strict path of duty.

'Tomkins!' he said. 'Tomkins! We've got some fellow of that
name on our records. Bring him along, Wilson.'

'But, sir,' I said, 'I must - I simply must meet my friend. It's
urgent business, and I assure you I'm all right. If you don't believe
me, I'll take a taxi and we'll go down to Scotland Yard and I'll
stand by what they say.'

His brow grew dark with wrath. 'What infernal nonsense is this?
Scotland Yard! What the devil has Scotland Yard to do with it?
You're an imposter. I can see it in your face. I'll have your depot
rung up, and you'll be in jail in a couple of hours. I know a
deserter when I see him. Bring him along, Wilson. You know what
to do if he tries to bolt.'

I had a momentary thought of breaking away, but decided that
the odds were too much against me. Fuming with impatience, I
followed the A.P.M. to his office on the first floor in a side street.
The precious minutes were slipping past; Ivery, now thoroughly
warned, was making good his escape; and I, the sole repository of a
deadly secret, was tramping in this absurd procession.

The A.P.M. issued his orders. He gave instructions that my
depot should be rung up, and he bade Wilson remove me to what
he called the guard-room. He sat down at his desk, and busied
himself with a mass of buff dockets.

in desperation I renewed my appeal. 'I implore you to telephone
to Mr Macgillivray at Scotland Yard. It's a matter of life and death,
Sir. You're taking a very big responsibility if you don't.'

I had hopelessly offended his brittle dignity. 'Any more of your
insolence and I'll have you put in irons. I'll attend to you soon
enough for your comfort. Get out of this till I send for you.'

As I looked at his foolish, irritable face I realized that I was fairly
UP against it. Short of assault and battery on everybody I was
bound to submit. I saluted respectfully and was marched away.

The hours I spent in that bare anteroom are like a nightmare in
my recollection. A sergeant was busy at a desk with more buff
dockets and an orderly waited on a stool by a telephone. I looked at
my watch and observed that it was one o'clock. Soon the slamming
of a door announced that the A.P.M. had gone to lunch. I tried
conversation with the fat sergeant, but he very soon shut me up. So
I sat hunched up on the wooden form and chewed the cud of my vexation.

I thought with bitterness of the satisfaction which had filled me
in the morning. I had fancied myself the devil of a fine fellow, and
I had been no more than a mountebank. The adventures of the past
days seemed merely childish. I had been telling lies and cutting
capers over half Britain, thinking I was playing a deep game, and I
had only been behaving like a schoolboy. On such occasions a man
is rarely just to himself, and the intensity of my self-abasement
would have satisfied my worst enemy. It didn't console me that the
futility of it all was not my blame. I was looking for excuses. It was
the facts that cried out against me, and on the facts I had been an
idiotic failure.

For of course Ivery had played with me, played with me since
the first day at Biggleswick. He had applauded my speeches and
flattered me, and advised me to go to the Clyde, laughing at me all
the time. Gresson, too, had known. Now I saw it all. He had tried
to drown me between Colonsay and Mull. It was Gresson who had
set the police on me in Morvern. The bagman Linklater had been
one of Gresson's creatures. The only meagre consolation was that
the gang had thought me dangerous enough to attempt to murder
me, and that they knew nothing about my doings in Skye. Of that I
was positive. They had marked me down, but for several days I had
slipped clean out of their ken.

As I went over all the incidents, I asked if everything was yet
lost. I had failed to hoodwink Ivery, but I had found out his post
office, and if he only believed I hadn't recognized him for the
miscreant of the Black Stone he would go on in his old ways and
play into Blenkiron's hands. Yes, but I had seen him in undress, so
to speak, and he knew that I had so seen him. The only thing now
was to collar him before he left the country, for there was ample
evidence to hang him on. The law must stretch out its long arm
and collect him and Gresson and the Portuguese Jew, try them by
court martial, and put them decently underground.
But he had now had more than an hour's warning, and I was
entangled with red-tape in this damned A.P.M.'s office. The thought
drove me frantic, and I got up and paced the floor. I saw the
orderly with rather a scared face making ready to press the bell, and
I noticed that the fat sergeant had gone to lunch.

'Say, mate,' I said, 'don't you feel inclined to do a poor fellow a
good turn? I know I'm for it all right, and I'll take my medicine
like a lamb. But I want badly to put a telephone call through.'

'It ain't allowed,' was the answer. 'I'd get 'ell from the old man.'

'But he's gone out,' I urged. 'I don't want you to do anything
wrong, mate, I leave you to do the talkin' if you'll only send my
message. I'm flush of money, and I don't mind handin' you a quid
for the job.'

He was a pinched little man with a weak chin, and he
obviously wavered.

''Oo d'ye want to talk to?' he asked.

'Scotland Yard,' I said, 'the home of the police. Lord bless you,
there can't be no harm in that. Ye've only got to ring up Scotland
Yard - I'll give you the number - and give the message to Mr
Macgillivray. He's the head bummer of all the bobbies.'

'That sounds a bit of all right,' he said. 'The old man 'e won't be
back for 'alf an hour, nor the sergeant neither. Let's see your
quid though.'

I laid a pound note on the form beside me. 'It's yours, mate, if
you get through to Scotland Yard and speak the piece I'm goin' to
give you.'

He went over to the instrument. 'What d'you want to say to the
bloke with the long name?'
'Say that Richard Hannay is detained at the A.P.M.'s office in
Claxton Street. Say he's got important news - say urgent and secret
news - and ask Mr Macgillivray to do something about it at once.'
'But 'Annay ain't the name you gave.'

'Lord bless you, no. Did you never hear of a man borrowin'
another name? Anyhow that's the one I want you to give.'

'But if this Mac man comes round 'ere, they'll know 'e's bin rung
up, and I'll 'ave the old man down on me.'

It took ten minutes and a second pound note to get him past this
hurdle. By and by he screwed up courage and rang up the number.
I listened with some nervousness while he gave my message - he
had to repeat it twice - and waited eagerly on the next words.

'No, sir,' I heard him say, "e don't want you to come round 'ere.
E thinks as 'ow - I mean to say, 'e wants -'

I took a long stride and twitched the receiver from him.

'Macgillivray,' I said, 'is that you? Richard Hannay! For the love
of God come round here this instant and deliver me from the
clutches of a tomfool A.P.M. I've got the most deadly news.
There's not a second to waste. For God's sake come quick!' Then I
added: 'Just tell your fellows to gather Ivery in at once. You know his
lairs.'

I hung up the receiver and faced a pale and indignant orderly.
'It's all right,' I said. 'I promise you that you won't get into any
trouble on my account. And there's your two quid.'

The door in the next room opened and shut. The A.P.M. had
returned from lunch ...

Ten minutes later the door opened again. I heard Macgillivray's
voice, and it was not pitched in dulcet tones. He had run up against
minor officialdom and was making hay with it.

I was my own master once more, so I forsook the company of
the orderly. I found a most rattled officer trying to save a few rags
of his dignity and the formidable figure of Macgillivray instructing
him in manners.

'Glad to see you, Dick,' he said. 'This is General Hannay, sir. It
may comfort you to know that your folly may have made just the
difference between your country's victory and defeat. I shall have a
word to say to your superiors.'

It was hardly fair. I had to put in a word for the old fellow,
whose red tabs seemed suddenly to have grown dingy.

'It was my blame wearing this kit. We'll call it a misunderstanding
and forget it. But I would suggest that civility is not wasted even
on a poor devil of a defaulting private soldier.'

Once in Macgillivray's car, I poured out my tale. 'Tell me it's a
nightmare,' I cried. 'Tell me that the three men we collected on the
Ruff were shot long ago.'

'Two,' he replied, 'but one escaped. Heaven knows how he
managed it, but he disappeared clean out of the world.'

'The plump one who lisped in his speech?'

Macgillivray nodded.

'Well, we're in for it this time. Have you issued instructions?'

'Yes. With luck we shall have our hands on him within an hour.
We've our net round all his haunts.'

'But two hours' start! It's a big handicap, for you're dealing with
a genius.'

'Yet I think we can manage it. Where are you bound for?'

I told him my rooms in Westminster and then to my old flat in
Park Lane. 'The day of disguises is past. In half an hour I'll be
Richard Hannay. It'll be a comfort to get into uniform again. Then
I'll look up Blenkiron.'

He grinned. 'I gather you've had a riotous time. We've had a
good many anxious messages from the north about a certain Mr
Brand. I couldn't discourage our men, for I fancied it might have
spoiled your game. I heard that last night they had lost touch with
you in Bradfield, so I rather expected to see you here today. Efficient
body of men the Scottish police.'

'Especially when they have various enthusiastic amateur helpers.'

'So?' he said. 'Yes, of course. They would have. But I hope
presently to congratulate you on the success of your mission.'

'I'll bet you a pony you don't,' I said.

'I never bet on a professional subject. Why this pessimism?'

'Only that I know our gentleman better than you. I've been
twice up against him. He's the kind of wicked that don't cease from
troubling till they're stone-dead. And even then I'd want to see the
body cremated and take the ashes into mid-ocean and scatter them.
I've got a feeling that he's the biggest thing you or I will
ever tackle.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Valley of Humiliation

I collected some baggage and a pile of newly arrived letters from
my rooms in Westminster and took a taxi to my Park Lane flat.
Usually I had gone back to that old place with a great feeling of
comfort, like a boy from school who ranges about his room at
home and examines his treasures. I used to like to see my hunting
trophies on the wall and to sink into my own armchairs But now I
had no pleasure in the thing. I had a bath, and changed into
uniform, and that made me feel in better fighting trim. But I
suffered from a heavy conviction of abject failure, and had no share
in Macgillivray's optimism. The awe with which the Black Stone
gang had filled me three years before had revived a thousandfold.
Personal humiliation was the least part of my trouble. What worried
me was the sense of being up against something inhumanly formidable
and wise and strong. I believed I was willing to own defeat
and chuck up the game.

Among the unopened letters was one from Peter, a very bulky
one which I sat down to read at leisure. It was a curious epistle, far
the longest he had ever written me, and its size made me understand
his loneliness. He was still at his German prison-camp, but expecting
every day to go to Switzerland. He said he could get back to
England or South Africa, if he wanted, for they were clear that he
could never be a combatant again; but he thought he had better
stay in Switzerland, for he would be unhappy in England with all
his friends fighting. As usual he made no complaints, and seemed
to be very grateful for his small mercies. There was a doctor who
was kind to him, and some good fellows among the prisoners.

But Peter's letter was made up chiefly of reflection. He had
always been a bit of a philosopher, and now, in his isolation, he had
taken to thinkin hard, and poured out the results to me on pages
of thin paper in his clumsy handwriting. I could read between the
lines that he was having a stiff fight with himself. He was trying to
keep his courage going in face of the bitterest trial he could be
called on to face - a crippled old age. He had always known a good
deal about the Bible, and that and the_Pilgrim's _Progress were his
chief aids in reflection. Both he took quite literally, as if they were
newspaper reports of actual recent events.

He mentioned that after much consideration he had reached the
conclusion that the three greatest men he had ever heard of or met
were Mr Valiant-for-Truth, the Apostle Paul, and a certain Billy
Strang who had been with him in Mashonaland in '92. Billy I knew
all about; he had been Peter's hero and leader till a lion got him in
the Blaauwberg. Peter preferred Valiant-for-Truth to Mr Greatheart, I
think, because of his superior truculence, for, being very
gentle himself, he loved a bold speaker. After that he dropped into
a vein of self-examination. He regretted that he fell far short of any
of the three. He thought that he might with luck resemble Mr
Standfast, for like him he had not much trouble in keeping wakeful,
and was also as 'poor as a howler', and didn't care for women. He
only hoped that he could imitate him in making a good end.

Then followed some remarks of Peter's on courage, which came
to me in that London room as if spoken by his living voice. I have
never known anyone so brave, so brave by instinct, or anyone who
hated so much to be told so. It was almost the only thing that
could make him angry. All his life he had been facing death, and to
take risks seemed to him as natural as to get up in the morning and
eat his breakfast. But he had started out to consider the very thing
which before he had taken for granted, and here is an extract from
his conclusions. I paraphrase him, for he was not grammatical.

__It's easy enough to be brave if you're feeling well and have
food inside you. And it's not so difficult even if you're short of a meal
and seedy, for that makes you inclined to gamble. I mean by being brave
playing the game by the right rules without letting it worry you that you
may very likely get knocked on the head. It's the wisest way to save
your skin. It doesn't do to think about death if you're facing a charging
lion or trying to bluff a lot of savages. If you think about it you'll get
it; if you don't, the odds are you won't. That kind of courage is only
good nerves and experience ... Most courage is experience. Most people
are a little scared at new things ...

__You want a bigger heart to face danger which you go out to look
for, and which doesn't come to you in the ordinary way of business.
Still, that's Pretty much the same thing - good nerves and good health,
and a natural liking for rows. You see, Dick, in all that game there's a lot Of
fun. There's excitement and the fun of using your wits and skill, and you
know that the bad bits can't last long. When Arcoll sent me to Makapan's
kraal I didn't altogether fancy the job, but at the worst it was three parts
sport, and I got so excited that I never thought of the risk till it
was over ...

__But the big courage is the cold-blooded kind, the kind that never
lets go even when you're feeling empty inside, and your blood's thin, and
there's no kind of fun or profit to be had, and the trouble's not over in
an hour or two but lasts for months and years. One of the men here was
speaking about that kind, and he called it 'Fortitude'. I reckon fortitude's
the biggest thing a man can have - just to go on enduring when there's no
guts or heart left in you. Billy had it when he trekked solitary from
Garungoze to the Limpopo with fever and a broken arm just to show the
Portugooses that he wouldn't be downed by them. But the head man at the job
was the Apostle _Paul ...

Peter was writing for his own comfort, for fortitude was all that
was left to him now. But his words came pretty straight to me, and
I read them again and again, for I needed the lesson. Here was I
losing heart just because I had failed in the first round and my pride
had taken a knock. I felt honestly ashamed of myself, and that made
me a far happier man. There could be no question of dropping the
business, whatever its difficulties. I had a queer religious feeling
that Ivery and I had our fortunes intertwined, and that no will of
mine could keep us apart. I had faced him before the war and won;
I had faced him again and lost; the third time or the twentieth time
we would reach a final decision. The whole business had hitherto
appeared to me a trifle unreal, at any rate my own connection with
it. I had been docilely obeying orders, but my real self had been
standing aside and watching my doings with a certain aloofness.
But that hour in the Tube station had brought me into the serum,
and I saw the affair not as Bullivant's or even Blenkiron's, but as
my own. Before I had been itching to get back to the Front; now I
wanted to get on to Ivery's trail, though it should take me through
the nether pit. Peter was right; fortitude was the thing a man must
possess if he would save his soul.

The hours passed, and, as I expected, there came no word from
Macgillivray. I had some dinner sent up to me at seven o'clock, and
about eight I was thinking of looking up Blenkiron. just then came
a telephone call asking me to go round to Sir Walter Bullivant's
house in Queen Anne's Gate.

Ten minutes later I was ringing the bell, and the door was
opened to me by the same impassive butler who had admitted me
on that famous night three years before. Nothing had changed in
the pleasant green-panelled hall; the alcove was the same as when I
had watched from it the departure of the man who now called
himself Ivery; the telephone book lay in the very place from which
I had snatched it in order to ring up the First Sea Lord. And in the
back room, where that night five anxious officials had conferred, I
found Sir Walter and Blenkiron.

Both looked worried, the American feverishly so. He walked up
and down the hearthrug, sucking an unlit black cigar.

'Say, Dick,' he said, this is a bad business. It wasn't no fault of
yours. You did fine. It was us - me and Sir Walter and Mr
Macgillivray that were the quitters.'

'Any news?' I asked.

'So far the cover's drawn blank,' Sir Walter replied. 'It was the
devil's own work that our friend looked your way today. You're
pretty certain he saw that you recognized him?'

'Absolutely. As sure as that he knew I recognized him in your
hall three years ago when he was swaggering as Lord Alloa.'

'No,' said Blenkiron dolefully, that little flicker of recognition is
just the one thing you can't be wrong about. Land alive! I wish Mr
Macgillivray would come.'

The bell rang, and the door opened, but it was not Macgillivray.
It was a young girl in a white ball-gown, with a cluster of blue
cornflowers at her breast. The sight of her fetched Sir Walter out of
his chair so suddenly that he upset his coffee cup.
'Mary, my dear, how did you manage it? I didn't expect you till
the late train.'
'I was in London, you see, and they telephoned on your telegram.
I'm staying with Aunt Doria, and I cut her theatre party. She thinks
I'm at the Shandwick's dance, so I needn't go home till morning ...
Good evening, General Hannay. You got over the Hill Difficulty.'

'The next stage is the Valley of Humiliation,' I answered.

'So it would appear,' she said gravely, and sat very quietly on the
edge of Sir Walter's chair with her small, cool hand upon his.

I had been picturing her in my recollection as very young and
glimmering, a dancing, exquisite child. But now I revised that
picture. The crystal freshness of morning was still there, but I saw
how deep the waters were. It was the clean fineness and strength
of her that entranced me. I didn't even think of her as pretty,
any more than a man thinks of the good looks of the friend he worships.

We waited, hardly speaking a word, till Macgillivray came. The
first sight of his face told his story.

'Gone?' asked Blenkiron sharply. The man's lethargic calm
seemed to have wholly deserted him.

'Gone,' repeated the newcomer. 'We have just tracked him
down. Oh, he managed it cleverly. Never a sign of disturbance in
any of his lairs. His dinner ordered at Biggleswick and several
people invited to stay with him for the weekend - one a member of
the Government. Two meetings at which he was to speak arranged
for next week. Early this afternoon he flew over to France as a
passenger in one of the new planes. He had been mixed up with the
Air Board people for months - of course as another man with
another face. Miss Lamington discovered that just too late. The bus
went out of its course and came down in Normandy. By this time
our man's in Paris or beyond it.'

Sir Walter took off his big tortoiseshell spectacles and laid them
carefully on the table.

'Roll up the map of Europe,' he said. 'This is our Austerlitz.
Mary, my dear, I am feeling very old.'

Macgillivray had the sharpened face of a bitterly disappointed
man. Blenkiron had got very red, and I could see that he was
blaspheming violently under his breath. Mary's eyes were quiet and
solemn. She kept on patting Sir Walter's hand. The sense of some
great impending disaster hung heavily on me, and to break the spell
I asked for details.

'Tell me just the extent of the damage,' I asked. 'Our neat plan
for deceiving the Boche has failed. That is bad. A dangerous spy
has got beyond our power. That's worse. Tell me, is there still a
worst? What's the limit of mischief he can do?'
Sir Walter had risen and joined Blenkiron on the hearthrug. His
brows were furrowed and his mouth hard as if he were suffering Pain.

'There is no limit,' he said. 'None that I can see, except the long-
suffering of God. You know the man as Ivery, and you knew him
as that other whom you believed to have been shot one summer
morning and decently buried. You feared the second - at least if
you didn't, I did - most mortally. You realized that we feared
Ivery, and you knew enough about him to see his fiendish cleverness.
Well, you have the two men combined in one man. Ivery
was the best brain Macgillivray and I ever encountered, the most
cunning and patient and long-sighted. Combine him with the other,
the chameleon who can blend himself with his environment, and
has as many personalities as there are types and traits on the earth.
What kind of enemy is that to have to fight?'

'I admit it's a steep proposition. But after all how much ill can he
do? There are pretty strict limits to the activity of even the
cleverest spy.'

'I agree. But this man is not a spy who buys a few wretched
subordinates and steals a dozen private letters. He's a genius who
has been living as part of our English life. There's nothing he
hasn't seen. He's been on terms of intimacy with all kinds of
politicians. We know that. He did it as Ivery. They rather liked
him, for he was clever and flattered them, and they told him things.
But God knows what he saw and heard in his other personalities.
For all I know he may have breakfasted at Downing Street with
letters of introduction from President Wilson, or visited the Grand
Fleet as a distinguished neutral. Then think of the women; how
they talk. We're the leakiest society on earth, and we safeguard
ourselves by keeping dangerous people out of it. We trust to our
outer barrage. But anyone who has really slipped inside has a
million chances. And this, remember, is one man in ten millions, a
man whose brain never sleeps for a moment, who is quick to seize
the slightest hint, who can piece a plan together out of a dozen bits
of gossip. It's like - it's as if the Chief of the Intelligence
Department were suddenly to desert to the enemy ... The ordinary spy
knows only bits of unconnected facts. This man knows our life and
our way of thinking and everything about us.'

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