Mr. Standfast

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The Marjolana route had been chosen for a purpose. In one town
ivery met and talked to a civilian official, and more than once the
car slowed down and someone appeared from the wayside to speak
a word and vanish. She was assisting at the last gathering up of the
threads of a great plan, before the Wild Birds returned to their nest.
Mostly these conferences seemed to be in Italian, but once or twice
she gathered from the movement of the lips that German was
spoken and that this rough peasant or that black-hatted bourgeois
was not of Italian blood.

Early in the morning, soon after she awoke, Ivery had stopped
the car and offered her a well-provided luncheon basket. She could
eat nothing, and watched him breakfast off sandwiches beside the
driver. In the afternoon he asked her permission to sit with her.
The car drew up in a lonely place, and a tea-basket was produced
by the chauffeur. Ivery made tea, for she seemed too listless to
move, and she drank a cup with him. After that he remained beside her.

'In half an hour we shall be out of Italy,' he said. The car was
running up a long valley to the curious hollow between snowy
saddles which is the crest of the Marjolana. He showed her the
place on a road map. As the altitude increased and the air grew
colder he wrapped the rugs closer around her and apologized for
the absence of a foot-warmer. 'In a little,' he said, 'we shall be in
the land where your slightest wish will be law.'

She dozed again and so missed the frontier post. When she woke
the car was slipping down the long curves of the Weiss valley,
before it narrows to the gorge through which it debouches on
Grunewald.

'We are in Switzerland now,' she heard his voice say. It may have
been fancy, but it seemed to her that there was a new note in it. He
spoke to her with the assurance of possession. They were outside
the country of the Allies, and in a land where his web was thickly
spread.

'Where do we stop tonight?' she asked timidly.

'I fear we cannot stop. Tonight also you must put up with the
car. I have a little errand to do on the way, which will delay us a
few minutes, and then we press on. Tomorrow, my fairest one,
fatigue will be ended.'

There was no mistake now about the note of possession in his
voice. Mary's heart began to beat fast and wild. The trap had closed
down on her and she saw the folly of her courage. It had delivered
her bound and gagged into the hands of one whom she loathed
more deeply every moment, whose proximity was less welcome
than a snake's. She had to bite hard on her lip to keep from screaming.

The weather had changed and it was snowing hard, the same
storm that had greeted us on the Col of the Swallows. The pace
was slower now, and Ivery grew restless. He looked frequently at
his watch, and snatched the speaking-tube to talk to the driver.
Mary caught the word 'St Anton'.

'Do we go by St Anton?' she found voice to ask.
'Yes, he said shortly.

The word gave her the faintest glimmering of hope, for she
knew that Peter and I had lived at St Anton. She tried to look out
of the blurred window, but could see nothing except that the
twilight was falling. She begged for the road-map, and saw that so
far as she could make out they were still in the broad Grunewald
valley and that to reach St Anton they had to cross the low pass from
the Staubthal. The snow was still drifting thick and the car crawled.

Then she felt the rise as they mounted to the pass. Here the
going was bad, very different from the dry frost in which I had
covered the same road the night before. Moreover, there seemed to
be curious obstacles. Some careless wood-cart had dropped logs on
the highway, and more than once both Ivery and the chauffeur had
to get out to shift them. In one place there had been a small
landslide which left little room to pass, and Mary had to descend and
cross on foot while the driver took the car over alone. Ivery's temper
seemed to be souring. To the girl's relief he resumed the outside seat,
where he was engaged in constant argument with the chauffeur.

At the head of the pass stands an inn, the comfortable hostelry of
Herr Kronig, well known to all who clamber among the lesser
peaks of the Staubthal. There in the middle of the way stood a man
with a lantern.

'The road is blocked by a snowfall,' he cried. 'They are clearing
it now. It will be ready in half an hour's time.'

Ivery sprang from his seat and darted into the hotel. His business
was to speed up the clearing party, and Herr Kronig himself
accompanied him to the scene of the catastrophe. Mary sat still, for
she had suddenly become possessed of an idea. She drove it from
her as foolishness, but it kept returning. Why had those tree-trunks
been spilt on the road? Why had an easy pass after a moderate
snowfall been suddenly closed?

A man came out of the inn-yard and spoke to the chauffeur. It
seemed to be an offer of refreshment, for the latter left his seat and
disappeared inside. He was away for some time and returned shivering
and grumbling at the weather, with the collar of his greatcoat
turned up around his ears. A lantern had been hung in the porch
and as he passed Mary saw the man. She had been watching the
back of his head idly during the long drive, and had observed that
it was of the round bullet type, with no nape to the neck, which is
common in the Fatherland. Now she could not see his neck for the
coat collar, but she could have sworn that the head was a different
shape. The man seemed to suffer acutely from the cold, for he
buttoned the collar round his chin and pulled his cap far over his brows.

Ivery came back, followed by a dragging line of men with spades
and lanterns. He flung himself into the front seat and nodded to the
driver to start. The man had his engine going already so as to lose
no time. He bumped over the rough debris of the snowfall and
then fairly let the car hum. Ivery was anxious for speed, but he did
not want his neck broken and he yelled out to take care. The driver
nodded and slowed down, but presently he had got up speed again.

If Ivery was restless, Mary was worse. She seemed suddenly to
have come on the traces of her friends. In the St Anton valley the
snow had stopped and she let down the window for air, for she was
choking with suspense. The car rushed past the station, down the
hill by Peter's cottage, through the village, and along the lake shore
to the Pink Chalet.

Ivery halted it at the gate. 'See that you fill up with petrol,' he
told the man. 'Bid Gustav get the Daimler and be ready to follow
in half in hour.'

He spoke to Mary through the open window.

'I will keep you only a very little time. I think you had better
wait in the car, for it will be more comfortable than a dismantled house.
A servant will bring you food and more rugs for the night journey.'

Then he vanished up the dark avenue.

Mary's first thought was to slip out and get back to the village
and there to find someone who knew me or could take her where
Peter lived. But the driver would prevent her, for he had been left
behind on guard. She looked anxiously at his back, for he alone
stood between her and liberty.

That gentleman seemed to be intent on his own business. As
soon as Ivery's footsteps had grown faint, he had backed the car
into the entrance, and turned it so that it faced towards St Anton.
Then very slowly it began to move.

At the same moment a whistle was blown shrilly three times.
The door on the right had opened and someone who had been
waiting in the shadows climbed painfully in. Mary saw that it was a
little man and that he was a cripple. She reached a hand to help him,
and he fell on to the cushions beside her. The car was gathering speed.

Before she realized what was happening the new-comer had taken
her hand and was patting it.

About two minutes later I was entering the gate of the Pink Chalet.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Cage of the Wild Birds

'Why, Mr Ivery, come right in,' said the voice at the table.
There was a screen before me, stretching from the fireplace to
keep off the draught from the door by which I had entered. It
stood higher than my head but there were cracks in it through
which I could watch the room. I found a little table on which I
could lean my back, for I was dropping with fatigue.

Blenkiron sat at the writing-table and in front of him were little
rows of Patience cards. Wood ashes still smouldered in the stove,
and a lamp stood at his right elbow which lit up the two figures.
The bookshelves and the cabinets were in twilight.

'I've been hoping to see you for quite a time.' Blenkiron was
busy arranging the little heaps of cards, and his face was wreathed
in hospitable smiles. I remember wondering why he should play the
host to the true master of the house.

Ivery stood erect before him. He was rather a splendid figure now
that he had sloughed all disguises and was on the threshold of his
triumph. Even through the fog in which my brain worked it was
forced upon me that here was a man born to play a big part. He had a jowl
like a Roman king on a coin, and scornful eyes that were used to
mastery. He was younger than me, confound him, and now he looked it.

He kept his eyes on the speaker, while a smile played round his
mouth, a very ugly smile.

'So,' he said. 'We have caught the old crow too. I had scarcely
hoped for such good fortune, and, to speak the truth, I had not
concerned myself much about you. But now we shall add you to
the bag. And what a bag of vermin to lay out on the lawn!' He
flung back his head and laughed.

'Mr Ivery -' Blenkiron began, but was cut short.

'Drop that name. All that is past, thank God! I am the Graf von
Schwabing, an officer of the Imperial Guard. I am not the least of
the weapons that Germany has used to break her enemies.'

'You don't say,' drawled Blenkiron, still fiddling with his
Patience cards.

The man's moment had come, and he was minded not to miss a
jot of his triumph. His figure seemed to expand, his eye kindled, his
voice rang with pride. It was melodrama of the best kind and he
fairly rolled it round his tongue. I don't think I grudged it him, for
I was fingering something in my pocket. He had won all right, but
he wouldn't enjoy his victory long, for soon I would shoot him. I
had my eye on the very spot above his right ear where I meant to
put my bullet ... For I was very clear that to kill him was the only
way to protect Mary. I feared the whole seventy millions of Germany
less than this man. That was the single idea that remained
firm against the immense fatigue that pressed down on me.

'I have little time to waste on you,' said he who had been called
Ivery. 'But I will spare a 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 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 recognize. 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
recognize 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 for him. This man and his kind have sent millions of honest
folk to their graves. He has sat spinning his web like a great spider
and for every thread there has been an ocean of blood spilled.
It's his sort that made the war, not the brave, stupid, fighting
Boche. It's his sort that's responsible for all the clotted beastliness
... And he's never been in sight of a shell. I'm for putting him in
the front line. No, I don't mean any Uriah the Hittite business. I want
him to have a sporting chance, just what other men have. But,
by God, he's going to learn what is the upshot of the strings
he's been pulling so merrily ... He told me in two days' time
Germany would smash our armies to hell. He boasted that he would be
mostly responsible for it. Well, let him be there to see the smashing.'

'I reckon that's just,' said Blenkiron.

Ivery's eyes were on me now, fascinated and terrified like those
of a bird before a rattlesnake. I saw again the shapeless features of
the man in the Tube station, the residuum of shrinking mortality
behind his disguises. He seemed to be slipping something from his
pocket towards his mouth, but Geordie Hamilton caught his wrist.

'Wad ye offer?' said the scandalized voice of my servant. 'Sirr,
the prisoner would appear to be trying to puishon hisself. Wull I
search him?'

After that he stood with each arm in the grip of a warder.

'Mr Ivery,' I said, 'last night, when I was in your power, you
indulged your vanity by gloating over me. I expected it, for your
class does not breed gentlemen. We treat our prisoners differently,
but it is fair that you should know your fate. You are going into
France, and I will see that you are taken to the British front. There
with my old division you will learn something of the meaning of
war. Understand that by no conceivable chance can you escape.
Men will be detailed to watch you day and night and to see that
you undergo the full rigour of the battlefield. You will have the
same experience as other people, no more, no less. I believe in a
righteous God and I know that sooner or later you will find death
- death at the hands of your own people - an honourable death
which is far beyond your deserts. But before it comes you will have
understood the hell to which you have condemned honest men.'

In moments of great fatigue, as in moments of great crisis, the
mind takes charge and may run on a track independent of the will.
It was not myself that spoke, but an impersonal voice which I did
not know, a voice in whose tones rang a strange authority. Ivery
recognized the icy finality of it, and his body seemed to wilt, and
droop. Only the hold of the warders kept him from falling.

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