LITMIR.BIZ

      XV.

       HARIPOL—THE ARMISTICE

       Table of Contents

      The great drawing-room had lost all its garishness with the approach of evening. Facing eastward, it looked out on lawns now dreaming in a green dusk, though beyond them the setting sun, over-topping the house, washed the woods and hills with gold and purple. Lady Claybody sat on a brocaded couch with something of the dignity of the late Queen Victoria, mystified, perturbed, awaiting the explanation which was her due. Her husband stood before her, a man with such an air of being ready for any emergency that even his kilt looked workmanlike. The embarrassed party from Crask clustered in the background; the shameful figures of Lamancha and Johnson stood in front of the window, thereby deepening the shadow. So electric was the occasion that Lady Claybody, finically proud of her house, did not notice that these two were oozing water over the polished parquet and devastating more than one expensive rug.

      Lamancha, now that the worst had happened, was resigned and almost cheerful. Since the Claybodys had bagged Leithen and Palliser-Yeates and detected the complicity of Sir Archie, there was no reason why he should be left out. He hoped, rather vaguely, that his captors might not be inclined to make the thing public in view of certain episodes, but he had got to the pitch of caring very little. John Macnab was dead, and only awaited sepulture and oblivion. He looked towards Johnson, expecting him to take up the tale.

      But Johnson had no desire to speak. He had been very much shaken and scared by the Bluidy Mackenzie and had not yet recovered his breath. Also a name spoken by his father, as they entered the room, had temporarily unsettled his wits. It was Lord Claybody who broke the uncomfortable silence.

      “Who owns that dog?” he asked, looking, not at Lamancha, but at his son.

      “The brute’s mine,” said Archie penitently. “He followed the car, and I left him tied up. Can’t think how he got loose and started this racket.”

      The master of the house turned to Lamancha. “How did you come here, my lord? You look as if you had been having a rough journey.”

      Lamancha laughed. Happily the waning light did not reveal the full extent of his dirt and raggedness. “I have,” he said, “I’m your son’s prisoner. Fairly caught out. I daresay you think me an idiot, unless Leithen or Palliser-Yeates has explained.”

      Lord Claybody looked more mystified than ever.

      “I don’t understand. A prisoner?”

      “He’s John Macnab,” put in Johnson, whose breath was returning, and with it sulkiness. He was beginning to see that there was to be no triumph in this business, and a good deal of unpleasant explanation.

      “Well, a third of him,” said Lamancha. “And as you’ve already annexed the other two-thirds you have the whole of the fellow under your roof.”

      Lord Claybody’s gasp suddenly revealed to Lamancha that he had been premature in his confession. How his two friends had got into the Haripol drawing-room he did not know, but apparently it was not as prisoners. The mischief was done, however, and there was no going back.

      “You mean to say that you three gentlemen are John Macnab? You have been poaching at Glenraden and Strathlarrig? Does Colonel Raden—does Mr Bandicott know who you are?”

      Lamancha nodded. “They found out after we had had our shot at their preserves. They didn’t mind—took it very well indeed. We hope you’re going to follow suit?”

      “But I am amazed. You had only to send me a note and my forest was at your disposal for as long as you wished. Why—why this—this incivility?”

      “I assure you, on my honour, that the last thing we dreamed of was incivility…Look here, Lord Claybody, I wonder if I can explain. We three—Leithen, Palliser-Yeates, and myself—found ourselves two months ago fairly fed up with life. We weren’t sick, and we weren’t tired—only bored. By accident we discovered each other’s complaint, and we decided to have a try at curing ourselves by attempting something very difficult and rather dangerous. There was a fellow called Tarras used to play this game—he was before your time—and we resolved to take a leaf out of his book. So we quartered ourselves on Archie—he’s not to blame, remember, for he’s been protesting bitterly all along—and we sent out our challenge. Glenraden and Strathlarrig accepted it, so that was all right; you didn’t in so many words, but you accepted it by your action, for you took elaborate precautions to safeguard your ground…Well, that’s all. Palliser-Yeates lost at Glenraden owing to Miss Janet. Leithen won at Strathlarrig, and now I’ve made a regular hat of things at Haripol. But we’re cured, all of us. We’re simply longing to get back to the life which in July we thought humbug.”

      Lord Claybody sat down in a chair and brooded.

      “I still don’t follow,” he said. “You are people who matter a great deal to the world, and there’s not a man in this country who wouldn’t have been proud to give you the chance of the kind of holiday you needed. You’re one of the leaders of my party. Personally, I have always considered you the best of them. I’m looking to Sir Edward Leithen to win a big case for me this autumn. Mr Palliser-Yeates has done a lot of business with my firm, and after the talk I’ve had with him this afternoon I look to doing a good deal more with him in the future. You had only to give me a hint of what you wished and I would have jumped at the chance of obliging you. You wanted the thrill of feeling like poachers. Well, I would have seen that you got it. I would have turned on every man in the place and used all my wits to make your escapade difficult. Wouldn’t that have contented you?”

      “No, no,” Lamancha cried. “You are missing he point. Don’t you see that your way would have taken all the gloss off the adventure and made it a game? We had to feel that we were taking real risks—that, being what we were, we should look utter fools if we were caught and exposed.”

      “Pardon me, but it is you who are missing the point.” Lord Claybody was smiling. “You could never have been exposed—except perhaps by those confounded journalists,” he added as he caught sight of Crossby.

      “We had the best of them on our side,” Lamancha put in. “Mr Crossby has backed us up nobly.”

      “Well, that only made your position more secure. Colonel Raden and Mr Bandicott accepted your challenge, and in any case they were sportsmen, and you knew it. If they had caught one or the other of you they would never have betrayed you. You must see that. And here at Haripol you were on the safest ground of all. I’m not what they call a sportsman—not yet—but I couldn’t give you away. Do you think it conceivable that I would do anything to weaken the public prestige of a statesman I believe in, a great lawyer I brief, and a great banker whose assistance is of the utmost value to me. I’m a man who has made

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