Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (mystery books to read .TXT) 📕

With difficulty I kept down that tide of fury. I had my duty to do, and to keep on terms with this man was part of it. I had to convince him that I was an accomplice, and that might not be easy. I leaned over the edge, and, as he got to his feet on the ledge above the boiler-plates, I whistled so that he turned his face to me.

“Hullo, Wake,” I said.

He started, stared for a second, and recognized me. He did not seem over-pleased to see me.

“Brand!” he cried. “How did you get here?”

He swung himself up beside me, straightened his back and unbuckled his knapsack. “I thought this was my own private sanctuary, and that nobody knew it but me. Have you spotted the cave? It’s the best bedroom in Skye.” His tone was, as usual, rather acid.

That little hammer was beating in my head. I longed to get my hands on his throat and choke the smug treason in him. But I kept my mind fixed on one purpose⁠—to persuade him that I shared his secret and was on his side. His offhand self-possession seemed only the clever screen of the surprised conspirator who was hunting for a plan.

We entered the cave, and he flung his pack into a corner. “Last time I was here,” he said, “I covered the floor with heather. We must get some more if we would sleep soft.” In the twilight he was a dim figure, but he seemed a new man from the one I had last seen in the Moot Hall at Biggleswick. There was a wiry vigour in his body and a purpose in his face. What a fool I had been to set him down as no more than a conceited flaneur!

He went out to the shelf again and sniffed the fresh evening. There was a wonderful red sky in the west, but in the crevice the shades had fallen, and only the bright patches at either end told of the sunset.

“Wake,” I said, “you and I have to understand each other. I’m a friend of Ivery and I know the meaning of this place. I discovered it by accident, but I want you to know that I’m heart and soul with you. You may trust me in tonight’s job as if I were Ivery himself.”

He swung round and looked at me sharply. His eyes were hot again, as I remembered them at our first meeting.

“What do you mean? How much do you know?”

The hammer was going hard in my forehead, and I had to pull myself together to answer.

“I know that at the end of this crack a message was left last night, and that someone came out of the sea and picked it up. That someone is coming again when darkness falls, and there will be another message.”

He had turned his head away. “You are talking nonsense. No submarine could land on this coast.”

I could see that he was trying me.

“This morning,” I said, “I swam in the deep-water inlet below us. It is the most perfect submarine shelter in Britain.”

He still kept his face from me, looking the way he had come. For a moment he was silent, and then he spoke in the bitter, drawling voice which had annoyed me at Fosse Manor.

“How do you reconcile this business with your principles, Mr. Brand? You were always a patriot, I remember, though you didn’t see eye to eye with the Government.”

It was not quite what I expected and I was unready. I stammered in my reply. “It’s because I am a patriot that I want peace. I think that⁠ ⁠… I mean⁠ ⁠…”

“Therefore you are willing to help the enemy to win?”

“They have already won. I want that recognized and the end hurried on.” I was getting my mind clearer and continued fluently.

“The longer the war lasts, the worse this country is ruined. We must make the people realize the truth, and⁠—”

But he swung round suddenly, his eyes blazing.

“You blackguard!” he cried, “you damnable blackguard!” And he flung himself on me like a wildcat.

I had got my answer. He did not believe me, he knew me for a spy, and he was determined to do me in. We were beyond finesse now, and back at the old barbaric game. It was his life or mine. The hammer beat furiously in my head as we closed, and a fierce satisfaction rose in my heart.

He never had a chance, for though he was in good trim and had the light, wiry figure of the mountaineer, he hadn’t a quarter of my muscular strength. Besides, he was wrongly placed, for he had the outside station. Had he been on the inside he might have toppled me over the edge by his sudden assault. As it was, I grappled him and forced him to the ground, squeezing the breath out of his body in the process. I must have hurt him considerably, but he never gave a cry. With a good deal of trouble I lashed his hands behind his back with the belt of my waterproof, carried him inside the cave and laid him in the dark end of it. Then I tied his feet with the strap of his own knapsack. I would have to gag him, but that could wait.

I had still to contrive a plan of action for the night, for I did not know what part he had been meant to play in it. He might be the messenger instead of the Portuguese Jew, in which case he would have papers about his person. If he knew of the cave, others might have the same knowledge, and I had better shift him before they came. I looked at my wristwatch, and the luminous dial showed that the hour was half past nine.

Then I noticed that the bundle in the corner was sobbing. It was a horrid sound and it worried me. I had a little pocket electric torch and I flashed it on Wake’s face.