WEBVTT

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Dedication, preface, and Chapter one
of the Powerhouse. This is a LibriVox

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recording. All Librivot's recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or

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to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot
org. Recording by expatriate in Bangor,

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Maine. The Powerhouse by John Buchan, Dedication to Major General Sir Francis Lloyd

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K C B. My Dear General. A recent tale of mine has I

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am told, found favor in the
dugouts and billets of the British Front,

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as being sufficiently short and sufficiently exciting
for men who have little leisure to read.

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My friends in that uneasy region have
asked for more. So I have

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printed this story, written in the
smooth days before the war, in the

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hope that it may enable an honest
man here and there to forget for an

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hour the two urgent realities. I
have put your name on it because among

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the many tastes which we share,
one is a liking for precipitous yarns.

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J. B. Preface by the
editor. We were at glennaesal six of

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us for the duck shooting when Lythan
told us this story. Since five in

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the morning, we had been out
on the Skerries, and had been blown

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home by a wind which threatened to
root the house and its wind blown woods

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from their precarious lodgment on the hill. A vast nondescript meal, luncheon and

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dinner in one had occupied us till
the last daylight departed, and we settled

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ourselves in the smoking room for a
sleepy evening of talk and tobacco conversation.

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I remember turned on some of Jim's
trophies, which grinned at us from the

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fire lit walls, and we began
to spin hunting yarns. Then Hoppy Binge,

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who was killed next year on the
Brahmaputra, told us some queer things

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about his doings in New Guiar,
where he tried to climb Karstens and live

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for six months in mud. Jim
said he couldn't abide mud. Anything was

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better than a country where your boots
rotted. He was to get enough of

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it last winter in the Epre salient. You know how one tale begets another,

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and soon the whole place hummed with
odd recollections. For five of us

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had been a good deal about the
world, all except lythan the man who

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was afterwards Solicitor General and they say, will get to the woolsack in time.

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I don't suppose he had ever been
farther from home than Monte Carlo,

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but he liked hearing about the ends
of the earth. Jim had just finished

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a fairly steep yarn about his experiences
on a boundary commission near Lake Chad,

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and lythan got up to find a
drink. Lucky Devils, He said,

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you've had all the fun out of
life. I've had my nose to the

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grindstone ever since I left school.
I said something about his having all the

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honor and glory all the same.
He went on, I once played the

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chief part in a rather exciting business
without ever once budging from London. And

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the joke of it was that the
man who went out to look for adventure

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only saw a bit of the game, and I, who sat in my

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chambers, saw it all and pulled
the strings. They also serve who only

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stand and wait. You know.
Then he told us this story. The

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version I give is one he afterwards
wrote down when he had looked up his

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diary for some of the details.
Chapter one, beginning of the Wild Goose

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Chase. It all started one afternoon
early in May when I came out of

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the House of Commons with Tommy do
Lorraine. I had got in by an

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accident at a by election when I
was supposed to be fighting a forlorn hope,

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and as I was just beginning to
be busy at the bar, I

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found my hands pretty full. It
was before Tommy succeeded in the days when

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he sat for the family seat in
Yorkshire, and that after afternoon he was

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in a powerful bad temper. Out
of doors, it was jolly spring weather.

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There was greenery and Parliament Square in
bits of gay color, and a

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light wind was blowing up from the
river. Inside a dull debate was winding

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on, and an advertising member had
been trying to get up a row with

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the speaker. The contrast between the
frowsy place and the cheerful world outside would

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have impressed even the soul of a
government whip. Tommy sniffed the spring breeze

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like a supercilious stag. This about
finishes me, he groaned. What a

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juggins I am to be moldering here. Joggleberry is the celestial limit what they

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call in happier lands the pink penultimate
and the froust On those back benches was

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there ever such a mothy and old
museum. It is the mother of parliaments,

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I observed, damned monkey house,
said Tommy, I must get off

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for a bit or a bonnet joggleberry, or get up and propose a nat

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monument to guy fawked, or something
silly. I did not see him for

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a day or two, and then
one morning he rang me up and peremptorily

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summoned me to dine with him.
I went, knowing very well what I

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should find. Tommy was off next
day to shoot lions on the equator or

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something equally unconscientious. He was a
bad acquaintance for a placid, sedentary soul

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like me, for though he could
work like a trojan when the fit took

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him, he was never at the
same job very long. In the same

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week he would harass an under secretary
about horses for the army, write voluminously

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to the press about a gun he
had invented for potting aeroplanes, give a

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fancy dress ball which he forgot to
attend, and get into the semi final

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of the rackets Championship. I waited
daily to see him start a new religion.

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That night I recollect he had an
odd assortment of guests. A cabinet

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minister was there, a gentle being
for whom Tommy fast public scorn and private

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affection. A sailor, an Indian
cavalry fellow, Chapman, the labor member,

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whom Tommy called Chipmunk, myself an
old millson of the treasury. Our

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host was in tremendous form, chaffing
everybody and sending Chipmunk into great rolling gusts

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of merriment. The two lived adjacent
to Yorkshire, and on platforms abused each

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other like pickpockets. Tommy enlarged on
the misfits of civilized life. He maintained

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that none of us, except perhaps
the sailor and the cavalrymen, were at

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our proper job. He would have
had Wyntham, that was the minister,

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a cardinal of the Roman Church.
And he said that Milson should have been

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the warden of a college full of
port and prejudice. Me. He was

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kind enough to allocate to some reconstructed
imperial general staff, merely because I had

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a praise from military history. Tommy's
perception did not go very deep. He

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told Chapman he should have been a
lumberman in California, you'd have made an

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uncommon good logger, chipmunk, and
you know you're a dash bad politician.

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When questioned about himself, he became
reticent as a newspaper say, I doubt

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if I'm much good at any job, he confessed, accepting ginger up my

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friends anyhow, and getting out of
this hole, paired for the rest of

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the session with a chap who has
lockjaw. I'm off to stretch my legs

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and get back my sense of proportion. Someone asked him where he was going,

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and was told Venezuela to buy government
bonds and look for birds nests.

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Nobody took Tommy seriously, so his
guests did not trouble to bid him the

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kind of farewell a prolonged journey would
demand. But when the others had gone

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and we were sitting in the little
back smoking room on the first floor,

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he became solemn, portentously solemn,
for he wrinkled up his brows and dropped

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his jaw in the way he had
when he fancied he was in earnest.

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I've taken on a queer job life, and he said, and I want

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you to hear about it. None
of my family know, and I would

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like to leave someone behind me who
could get on to my tricks if things

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got troublesome. I braced myself for
some preposterous confidence, for I was experienced

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in Tommy's vagaries, but I owned
to being surprised when he asked me if

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I remembered pitt Heron. I remembered
pit Heron very well. He had been

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at Oxford with me, but he
was no great friend of mine, though

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for about two years Tommy and he
had been inseparable. He had had a

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prodigious reputation for cleverness with everybody but
the college authorities, and used to spend

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his vacations doing mad things in the
Alps and the Balkans, and writing about

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them in the halfpenny Press. He
was enormously rich cotton mills and Liverpool ground

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rents, and being without a father, did pretty much what his fantastic taste

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dictated. He was rather a hero
for a bit after he came down,

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for he had made some wild journey
in the neighborhood of Afghanistan and written an

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exciting book about it. Then he
married a pretty cousin of Tommy's, who

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happened to be the only person that
ever captured my stony heart and settled down

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in London. I did not go
to their house, and soon I found

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that very few of his friends saw
much of him either. His travels and

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magazine articles suddenly stopped, and I
put it down to the common course of

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successful domesticity. Apparently I was wrong. Charles pitt Heron said, Tommy is

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blowing up for a most thundering mess. I asked what kind of mess,

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and Tommy said he didn't know.
That's the mischief of it. You remember

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the wild beggar he used to be, always off on the spree to the

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mountains of the Moon or somewhere.
Well. He has been damping down his

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fires lately and trying to behave like
a respectable citizen. But God knows what

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he has been thinking. I go
a good deal to Portman Square, And

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all last year he has been getting
queerer questions as to the nature of the

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queerness. Only elicited the fact that
Heron had taken to science with some enthusiasm.

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He's got a laboratory at the back
of the house used to be the

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billiard room, where he works away
half the night. And Lord, the

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crew you meet there, every kind
of heathen Chinese and Turks, and long

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haired chaps from Russia and fat Germans. I've several times blundered into the push.

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They've all got an odd secretive air
about them, and Charlie is becoming

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like them. He won't answer a
plain question or look you straight in the

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face. Ethel sees it too,
and she has often talked to me about

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it. I said, I saw
no harm in such a hobby. I

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do, said Tommy grimly. Anyhow, the fellow has bolted. What on

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earth I began but was cut short, bolted without a word to a mortal

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soul. He told Ethel he would
be home for luncheon yesterday and never came.

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His man knew nothing about him,
hadn't packed for him or anything,

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but he found he had stuffed something
into a kit bag and gone out by

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the back through the mews. Ethel
was in terrible straits and sent for me,

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and I ranged all yesterday afternoon like
a wolf on the scent. I

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found he had drawn a biggish sum
in gold from the bank, but I

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couldn't find any trace of where he
had gone. I was just setting out

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for Scotland Yard this morning when Tomlin, the valet, rang me up and

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said he had found a card in
the waistcote of the dress clothes that Charles

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had worn the night before he left. It had a name on it,

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like Konilevsky, and it struck me
that they might know something about the business

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at the Russian embassy. Well,
I went round there, and the long

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and short of it was that I
found there was a fellow of that name

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among the clerks. I saw him, and he said he had gone to

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see mister Pitt Harron two days before
with a letter from some embassy chap Unfortunately,

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the man in question had gone off
to New York next day. But

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Konilevsky told me one thing which helped
to clear up matters. It seemed that

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the letter had in one of those
passports the embassies give to their friends,

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a higher powered sort than the ordinary
make, and Koonilevsky gathered from something he

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had heard that Charles was aiming for
Moscow. Tommy paused to let his news

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sink in. Oh, that was
good enough for me. I'm off tomorrow

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to run him to ground. But
why shouldn't a man go to Moscow if

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he wants, I said, feebly. You don't understand, said the sage

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Tommy. You don't know old Charles
as I know him. He's got into

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a queer set, and there's no
knowing what mischief he's up to. He's

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perfectly capable of starting a revolution in
Armenia or somewhere, merely to see how

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it feels like to be a revolutionary. That's the damn thing about the artistic

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temperament. Anyhow, he's got to
chuck it. I won't have Ethel scared

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to death by his whims. I'm
going to hail him back from Moscow,

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even if I have to pretend he's
an escaped lunatic. He's probably like enough

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one by this time, if he
has taken no clothes. I've forgotten what

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I said, but it was some
plea for caution. I could not see

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the reason for these heroics. Pitt
Heron did not interest me greatly, and

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the notion of Tommy as a defender
of the hearth amused me. I thought

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that he was working on very slight
evidence and would probably make a fool of

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himself. It's only another of the
men's fads. I said. He never

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could do things like an ordinary mortal, but possible trouble. Could there be

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money richest. Crisus, said Tommy, a woman blind as a bat to

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female beauty the wrong side of the
law. Don't think so he could settle

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any ordinary scrape with a check.
Then I give it up. Whatever it

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is, it looks as if pitt
Heron would have a companion in misfortune before

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you are done with the business.
I'm all for your taking a holiday,

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for at presence you're a nuisance to
your friends and a disgrace to your country's

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legislature. But for goodness sake,
curb your passion for romance. They don't

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like it in Russia. Next morning, Tommy turned up to see me Chambers.

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The prospect of travel always went to
his head like wine. He was

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in wild spirits and had forgotten his
anger at the defaulting pit Heron. In

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gratitude for his provision of an occupation, he talked of carrying him off to

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the Caucasus when he had found him
to investigate the habits of the Caucasian stag.

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I remember the scene as if it
were yesterday. It was a hot

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May morning, and the sun which
came through the dusty window in Fountain Court,

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lit up the dust and squalor of
my working chambers. I was pretty

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busy at the time, and my
table was well nourished with briefs. Tommy

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picked up one and began to read
it. It was about a new drainage

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scheme in west Ham. He tossed
it down and looked at me pityingly,

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poor old beggar, He said,
to spend your days on such work.

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When the world is chalk full of
amusing things, life goes roaring by,

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and you only hear the echo in
your stuffy rooms. You can hardly see

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the sun for the cobwebs on these
windows of yours. Charles is a fool,

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but I'm blessed if he isn't wiser
than you. Don't you wish you

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were coming with me? The queer
thing was that I did I remember the

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occasion, as I have said,
for it was one of the few on

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which I have had a pang of
dissatisfaction with a calling I had chosen.

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As Tommy's footsteps grew faint on the
stairs, I suddenly felt as if I

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were missing something, as if somehow
I were out of it. It is

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an unpleasant feeling, even when you
know that the thing you are out of

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is foolishness. Tommy went off at
eleven from Victoria, and my work was

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pretty well ruined for the day.
I felt oddly restless, and the cause

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was not merely Tommy's departure. My
thoughts kept turning to the pitt Heron's,

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chiefly to Ethel, that adorable child
unequally yoked to a perverse egoist, but

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a good deal to the egoist himself. I have never suffered much from whimsies,

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but I suddenly began to feel a
curious interest in the business, an

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unwilling interest, for I found it
in my heart to regret my robust skepticism

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of the night before. And it
was more than interest. I had a

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sort of presentiment that I was going
to be mixed up in the affair more

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than I wanted. I told myself
angrily that the life of an industrious common

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00:16:14.519 --> 00:16:18.480
law barrister could have little to do
with the wanderings of two maniacs in Muscovie.

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00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:22.399
But try as I might, I
could not get rid of the obsession.

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That night. It followed me into
my dreams, and I saw myself

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00:16:26.600 --> 00:16:32.799
with a canout coercing Tommy and pitt
Heron in a Russian fortress, which faded

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00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:37.559
away into the Carlton Hotel. Next
afternoon, I found my step to wending

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in the direction of Portman Square.
I lived at the time in down Street,

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00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:45.159
and I told myself I would be
none the worse of a walk in

220
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the park before dinner. I had
a fancy to see missus pitt heron,

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for though I had only met her
twice since her marriage, there had been

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a day when we were the closest
of friends. I found her alone,

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a perplexed and saddened lady with imploring
eyes. Those eyes questioned me as to

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how much I knew. I told
her presently that I had seen Tommy and

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was aware of his errand I was
moved to add that she might count on

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me if there were anything she wished
done on this side of the channel.

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She was very little changed. There
was still the old exquisite slimness, the

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old shy courtesy. But she told
me nothing. Charles was full of business

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and becoming very forgetful. She was
sure the Russian journey was all a stupid

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00:17:29.240 --> 00:17:33.799
mistake. He probably thought he had
told her of his departure he would write.

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She expected a letter by every post, but her haggard eyes belied her

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optimism. I could see that there
had been odd happenings of late in the

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00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:47.240
pit Heron household. She either knew
or feared something. The latter, I

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00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:52.319
thought, for her air was more
of apprehension than of painful enlightenment. I

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00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:56.160
did not stay long, and as
I walked home, I had an awkward

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feeling that I had intruded. Also, I was increasingly so that there was

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trouble brewing, and that Tommy had
more warrant for his journey than I had

238
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:10.000
given him credit for. I cast
my mind back to gather recollections of pitt

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00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.200
Heron, But all I could find
was an impression of a brilliant, uncomfortable

240
00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.799
being who had been too fond of
the by ways of life. From my

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00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:22.599
sober tastes, there was nothing crooked
in him in the wrong sense, but

242
00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:26.079
there might be a good deal that
was perverse. I remember consoling myself with

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00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:30.640
the thought that though he might shatter
his wife's nerves by his vagaries, he

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00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:36.240
would scarcely break her heart. To
be watchful, I decided, was my

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00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:40.240
business, and I could not get
rid of the feeling that I might soon

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have caused for all my vigilance.
End of chapter one recording by expatriate in

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00:18:48.119 --> 00:19:00.720
Bangor, Maine, Chapter two of
The Powerhouse by John Buchan. The Sleverrivok's

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recording is in the public domain.
Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine,

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Chapter two. I first hear of
mister Andrew Lumley a fortnight later to be

250
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.960
accurate. On the twenty first of
May. I did a thing I rarely

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00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:22.359
do and went down to South London
on a county court case. It was

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00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:27.759
an ordinary taxicab accident, and as
the solicitors for the company were good clients

253
00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:33.319
of mine and the regular county court
junior was ill in bed, I took

254
00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:37.119
the case to oblige them. There
was the usual dull conflict of evidence.

255
00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:42.400
An empty taxicab, proceeding slowly on
the right side of the road and hooting

256
00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:48.119
decorously at the corners, had been
run into by a private motor car which

257
00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:52.720
had darted down a side street.
The taxi had been swung round and its

258
00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:59.000
bonnet considerably damaged, while its driver
had suffered a dislocated shoulder. The bad

259
00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:02.680
feature in the case was that the
motor car had not halted to investigate the

260
00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:07.119
damage, but had proceeded unconscientiously on
its way, and the assistance of the

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00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:11.200
London Police had been called in to
trace it. It turned out to be

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the property of a mister Julius Pavia, a retired East India merchant who lived

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in a large villa in the neighborhood
of Blackheath, and at the time of

264
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the accident it had been occupied by
his butler. The company brought an action

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00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:30.279
for damages against its owner. The
butler, Tooke by name, was the

266
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only witness for the defense. He
was a tall man with a very long,

267
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.640
thin face and a jaw, the
two parts of which seemed scarcely to

268
00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:44.480
fit. He was profuse in his
apologies on behalf of his master, who

269
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was abroad. It seemed that on
the morning in question, it was the

270
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:52.160
eighth of May, he had received
instructions from mister Pavia to convey a message

271
00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:56.599
to a passenger by the Continental Express
from Victoria, and had been hot on

272
00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:00.519
this errand when he met the taxi
he was not aware that there had been

273
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:04.839
any damage, thought it only a
slight grazing of the two cars, and

274
00:21:04.920 --> 00:21:10.519
on his master's behalf consented to the
judgment of the court. It was a

275
00:21:10.599 --> 00:21:15.240
commonplace business but Tuke was by no
means a commonplace witness. He was very

276
00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:22.160
unlike the conventional butler, much like
one of those successful financiers whose portrait you

277
00:21:22.200 --> 00:21:26.920
see in the picture papers. His
little eyes were quick with intelligence, and

278
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:30.039
there were lines of ruthlessness around his
mouth, like those of a man often

279
00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:36.880
called to decisive action. His story
was simplicity itself, and he answered my

280
00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:41.480
questions with an air of serious candor. The train he had to meet was

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the eleven a m from Victoria,
the train by which Tommy had traveled.

282
00:21:45.480 --> 00:21:51.119
The passenger he had to see was
an American gentleman, mister Wright Davies.

283
00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:55.640
His master, mister Pavia, was
in Italy, but would shortly be home

284
00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:59.720
again. The case was over in
twenty minutes. But it was something you

285
00:21:59.799 --> 00:22:04.400
need in my professional experience, for
I took a most intense and unreasoning dislike

286
00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:10.839
to that bland butler. I cross
examined with some rudeness, was answered with

287
00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:15.599
steady courtesy, and hopelessly snubbed.
The upshot was that I lost my temper,

288
00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.839
to the surprise of the County Court
judge. All the way back,

289
00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:25.279
I was both angry and ashamed of
myself. Half way home, I realized

290
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:29.559
that the accident had happened on the
very day that Tommy left London. The

291
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:33.640
coincidence merely flickered across my mind,
for there could be no earthly connection between

292
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:38.839
the two events. That afternoon I
wasted some time in looking up Pavia in

293
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:44.440
the directory. He was there,
sure enough, as the occupier of a

294
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:48.119
suburban mansion called the White Lodge.
He had no city addressed, so it

295
00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:52.119
was clear that he was out of
business. My irritation with the man had

296
00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:56.400
made me inquisitive about the master.
It was a curious name he bore,

297
00:22:56.519 --> 00:23:02.240
possibly Italian, possibly go Anee.
I wondered how he got on with this

298
00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:07.279
highly competent butler. If Twuke had
been my servant, I would have wrung

299
00:23:07.319 --> 00:23:11.559
his neck or bolted before a week
was out. Do you ever notice that

300
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:15.240
when you hear a name that strikes
you, you seemed to be constantly hearing

301
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:18.400
it for a bit. Once I
had a case in which one of the

302
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:22.279
parties was called Jubber, a name
I had never met before, but I

303
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:26.240
ran across two other jobbers before the
case was over. Anyhow, the day

304
00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:32.359
after the Blackheath visit, I was
briefed in a big stock exchange case which

305
00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:37.319
turned on the true ownership of certain
bearer bonds. It was a complicated business

306
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:41.640
which I need not trouble you with, and it involved a number of consultations

307
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.599
with my lay clients, a famous
firm of brokers. They produced their books

308
00:23:45.599 --> 00:23:52.039
and my chambers were filled with glossy
gentlemen talking a strange jargon. I had

309
00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:56.799
to examine my clients closely on their
practice in treating a certain class of bearer

310
00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:00.440
security, and they were very frank
in expounding their business. I was not

311
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:04.279
surprised to hear that pitt Heron was
one of the most valued names on their

312
00:24:04.359 --> 00:24:07.680
lists. With his wealth, he
was bound to be a good deal in

313
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:12.119
the city. Now. I had
no desire to pry to pit Heron's private

314
00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:18.200
affairs, especially his financial arrangements,
but his name was in my thoughts at

315
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:22.000
the time, and I could not
help looking curiously at what was put before

316
00:24:22.039 --> 00:24:25.920
me. He seemed to have been
buying these bonds on a big scale.

317
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:30.039
I had the indiscretion to ask if
mister pitt Heron had long followed this course,

318
00:24:30.440 --> 00:24:33.799
and was told that he had begun
to purchase some six months before.

319
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:41.720
Mister pitt Herron volunteered. The stockbroker
is very closely connected in his financial operations

320
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:45.960
with another esteemed client of ours,
mister Julius Pavia. They are both attracted

321
00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:51.640
by this class of security. At
the moment I scarcely noted the name.

322
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.480
But after dinner that night I began
to speculate about the connection. I had

323
00:24:56.519 --> 00:25:00.160
found out the name of one of
Charles's mysterious new friends. It was not

324
00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:07.039
a very promising discovery. A retired
East India merchant did not suggest anything wildly

325
00:25:07.079 --> 00:25:11.720
speculative. But I began to wonder
if Charles's preoccupation to which Tommy had been

326
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:17.880
witness might not be connected with financial
worries. I could not believe that the

327
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.000
huge pit Heron fortune had been seriously
affected, or that his flight was that

328
00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:26.240
of a defaulter. But he might
have got entangled in some shady, steady

329
00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:32.559
business which preyed on his sensitive soul
somehow or other. I could not believe

330
00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:37.640
that mister Pavia was a holy,
innocent old gentleman. His butler looked too

331
00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:41.359
formidable. It was possible that he
was blackmailing pit Heron, and that the

332
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:45.839
latter had departed to get out of
his clutches, but on what ground.

333
00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:51.960
I had no notion as to the
black maleable thing that might lurk in Charles's

334
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.200
past, and the guesses which flitted
through my brain were too fantastic to consider

335
00:25:56.279 --> 00:26:03.079
seriously. After all, I had
only the flimsiest basis for conjecture. Pavia

336
00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:07.480
and pit Heron were friends. Tommy
had gone off in quest of pitt Heron.

337
00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.240
Pavia's butler had broken the law of
the land in order, for some

338
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:15.799
reason or other to see the departure
of the train by which Tommy had traveled.

339
00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:21.039
I remember laughing at myself for my
suspicions, and reflecting that if Tommy

340
00:26:21.079 --> 00:26:23.519
could see into my head, he
would turn a deaf ear in the future

341
00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:27.079
to my complaints of his lack of
balance. But the thing stuck in my

342
00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:32.519
mind, and I called again that
week on missus pitt Heron. She had

343
00:26:32.519 --> 00:26:36.880
had no word from her husband and
only a bare line from Tommy giving his

344
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:41.960
Moscow address. Poor child, it
was a wretched business for her. She

345
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:45.599
had to keep a smiling face to
the world, invent credible tales to account

346
00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:51.240
for her husband's absence, and all
the while anxiety and dread were gnawing at

347
00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:53.599
her heart. I asked her if
she had ever met a mister Pavia,

348
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:59.720
but the name was unknown to her. She knew nothing of Charles's business dealings,

349
00:27:00.039 --> 00:27:03.839
but at my request she interviewed his
bankers, and I heard from her

350
00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:07.680
next day that his affairs were in
perfect order. It was no financial crisis

351
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:14.319
which had precipitated him abroad. A
few days later I stumbled by the merest

352
00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:18.720
accident upon what sailors call a cross
bearing. At the time I used to

353
00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:23.279
devil a little for the Solicitor General
and note cases sent to him from the

354
00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:27.720
different government offices. It was thankless
work, but it was supposed to be

355
00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:33.880
good for an ambitious lawyer. By
this prosaic channel I received the first hint

356
00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:38.160
of another of Charles's friends. I
had sent to me one day the papers

357
00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:41.839
dealing with the arrest of a German
spy at Plymouth. For at the time

358
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:48.759
there was a sort of epidemic of
roving Teutons who got themselves into compromising situations

359
00:27:48.119 --> 00:27:52.960
and gravely troubled the souls of the
Admiralty and the War Office. This case

360
00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:57.920
was distinguished from the common rock by
the higher social standing of the accused.

361
00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:04.279
The spy as a photographer or bagman
who attempts to win the bibulous confidence of

362
00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:10.319
minor officials. But this specimen was
no less than a professor of a famous

363
00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:15.319
German university, a man of excellent
manners, wide culture, and attractive presence,

364
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:21.359
who had dined with port officers and
danced with admiral's daughters. I have

365
00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:26.279
forgotten the evidence or what was the
legal points submitted for the law officer's opinion.

366
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.319
In any case, it matters little, for he was acquitted. What

367
00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:34.240
interests me at the time was the
testimonials as to character which he carried with

368
00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:40.359
him. He had many letters of
introduction. One was from pitt Heron to

369
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:44.880
his wife's sailor uncle. And when
he was arrested, one Englishman went so

370
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:48.079
far as to wire that he took
upon himself the whole cost of the defense.

371
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:53.599
This gentleman was a mister Andrew Lumley
stated in the papers sent me to

372
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:59.000
be a rich bachelor, a member
of the Athenaeum in Carlton clubs, and

373
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:03.039
a dweller in the Albany. Remember
that till a few weeks before I had

374
00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:07.920
known nothing of pitt Heron's circle.
And here were three bits of information dropping

375
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:12.920
in on me unsolicited. Just when
my interests had been awakened, I began

376
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:17.000
to get really keen, for every
man, at the bottom of his heart

377
00:29:17.279 --> 00:29:21.680
believes that he is a born detective. I was on the lookout for Charles's

378
00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:26.000
infrequent friends, and I argued that
if he knew the spy and the spy

379
00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.720
knew mister Lumley, the odds were
that pitt Heron and Lumley were acquaintances.

380
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:34.279
I hunted up the ladder in the
Red Book. Sure enough, he lived

381
00:29:34.279 --> 00:29:38.319
in the Albany, belonged to half
a dozen clubs, and had a country

382
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:42.359
house in Hampshire. I tucked the
name away in a pigeon hole of my

383
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:47.599
memory, and for some days asked
every one I met if he knew the

384
00:29:47.640 --> 00:29:52.359
philanthropist of the Albany. I had
no luck till the Saturday, when lunching

385
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:56.920
at the club, I ran against
Jenkinson, the art critic. I forget

386
00:29:56.960 --> 00:29:59.640
if you know that I have always
been a bit of a connoisseur, and

387
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:03.640
of my I used to dabble in
prints and miniatures. But at that time

388
00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.079
my interests lay chiefly in old wedgewood, of which I had collected some good

389
00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:14.200
pieces. Old Wedgwood is a thing
which few people collect seriously, but the

390
00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:18.119
few who do are apt to be
monomaniacs. Whenever a big collection comes into

391
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.240
the market, it fetches high prices, but it generally finds its way into

392
00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:27.039
not more than half a dozen hens. Wedgewoodites all know each other, and

393
00:30:27.079 --> 00:30:32.920
they are less cutthroat in their methods
than most collectors of all I have ever

394
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:37.480
met. Jenkinson was the keenest,
and he would discourse for hours on the

395
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:41.599
feel of good jasper and the respective
merits of blue and sage green grounds.

396
00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:47.440
That day he was full of excitement. He babbled through luncheon about the Wentworth

397
00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:51.160
sale, which he had attended the
week before. There had been a pair

398
00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:56.480
of magnificent plaques with a unique Flaxman
design which had roused his enthusiasm. Urns

399
00:30:56.480 --> 00:31:02.319
and medallions and what not had gone
to this or that connoisseur, and Jenkinson

400
00:31:02.359 --> 00:31:07.000
could quote their prices, but the
plaques dominated his fancy, and he was

401
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:10.960
furious that the nation had not acquired
them. It seemed that he had been

402
00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:15.519
to South Kensington and the British Museum
in all sorts of dignitaries, and he

403
00:31:15.559 --> 00:31:19.039
thought that he might yet persuade the
authorities to offer for them if the purchaser

404
00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:23.720
would resell. They had been bought
by Lutran for a well known private collector

405
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:29.440
by the name Andrew Lumley. I
pricked up my ears and asked about mister

406
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:33.039
Lumley. Jenkinson said he was a
rich old buffer who locked up his things

407
00:31:33.039 --> 00:31:37.960
in cupboards and never let the public
get a look at them. He suspected

408
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:41.839
that a lot of the best things
at recent sales had found their way to

409
00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:45.279
him, and that meant that they
were put in cold storage for good.

410
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:48.039
I asked if he knew him.
No, he told me, but he

411
00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:52.079
had once or twice been allowed to
look at his things for books he had

412
00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:55.880
been writing. He had never seen
the man, for he always bought through

413
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:59.240
agents, but he had heard of
people who knew him. It is a

414
00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:04.160
silly old he said. He will
fill half a dozen houses with priceless treasures

415
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.960
and then die, and the whole
show will be sold at auction, and

416
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:12.240
the best things carried off to America. It's enough to make a Patriot swear

417
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:16.440
there was balm and gilead. However, mister Lumley apparently might be willing to

418
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:22.119
resell the Wedgewood plaques if he got
a fair offer. So Jenkinson had been

419
00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:25.079
informed by Lutran in that very afternoon
he was going to look at them.

420
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:29.039
He asked me to come with him, and, having nothing to do,

421
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:34.000
I accepted. Jenkinson's car was waiting
for us at the club door. It

422
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:37.559
was closed for the afternoon was wet. I did not hear his directions to

423
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:40.920
the chauffeur, and we had been
on the road ten minutes or so before

424
00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:45.680
I discovered that we had crossed the
river and were traversing south London. I

425
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:50.799
had expected to find the things in
Lutran's shop, but to my delight I

426
00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:54.079
was told that Lumley had taken delivery
of them at once. He keeps very

427
00:32:54.079 --> 00:32:58.160
few of his things in the Albany, except his books, I was told.

428
00:32:58.519 --> 00:33:01.160
But he has a house at black
which is stuffed from cellar to garrett.

429
00:33:01.799 --> 00:33:05.599
What is the name of it,
I asked, with a sudden suspicion.

430
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.079
The White Lodge, said Jenkinson.
But that belongs to a man called

431
00:33:09.160 --> 00:33:14.240
Pavia, I said, I can't
help that the things in it belonged to

432
00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:16.839
old Lumley. All right, I
know, for I've been three times there

433
00:33:16.839 --> 00:33:22.039
with his permission. Jenkinson got little
out of me for the rest of the

434
00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:27.119
ride. Here was excellent corroborative evidence
of what I had allowed myself to suspect.

435
00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:30.359
Pavia was a friend of pit Heron. Lumley was a friend of pit

436
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:35.720
Heron. Lumley was obviously a friend
of Pavia, and he might be Pavia

437
00:33:35.880 --> 00:33:39.359
himself. For the retired East India
merchant, as I figured him, would

438
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:44.960
not be above an innocent impersonation.
Anyhow, if I could find one or

439
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:50.519
the other, I might learn something
about Charles's recent doings. I sincerely hoped

440
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:53.640
that the owner might be at home
that afternoon when we inspected his treasures.

441
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:59.000
For so far I had found no
one who could procure me an introduction to

442
00:33:59.079 --> 00:34:04.640
that mysterious old bachelor of artistic and
Philo Teutonic tastes. We reached the White

443
00:34:04.759 --> 00:34:08.159
Lodge about half past three. It
was one of those small, square Late

444
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:14.880
Georgian mansions which you see all around
London. Once a country house among fields,

445
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:19.000
now only a villa in a pretentious
garden. I looked to see my

446
00:34:19.119 --> 00:34:23.800
super butler took but the door was
opened by a female servant who inspected Jenkinson's

447
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:30.400
card of admission and somewhat unwillingly allowed
us to enter. My companion had not

448
00:34:30.519 --> 00:34:34.840
exaggerated when he described the place as
full of treasures. It was far more

449
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:38.079
like the shop of a bond street
art dealer than a civilized dwelling. The

450
00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:44.320
hall was crowded with Japanese armor and
lacquer cabinets. One room was lined from

451
00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:50.039
Florida's ceiling with good pictures, mostly
seventeenth century Dutch, and had enough Chippendale

452
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:54.559
chairs to accommodate a public meeting.
Jenkinson would fain have prowled around, but

453
00:34:54.679 --> 00:34:59.800
we were moved on by the inexorable
servant to the little back room where lay

454
00:34:59.840 --> 00:35:04.199
the the objects of our visit.
The plaques had been only half unpacked,

455
00:35:04.519 --> 00:35:08.239
and in a moment Jenkinson was busy
on them with a magnifying glass, purring

456
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:14.159
to himself like a contented cat.
The housekeeper stood on guard by the door.

457
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:17.719
Jenkinson was absorbed, and after the
first inspection of the treasures, I

458
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:22.119
had leisure to look about me.
It was an untidy little room, full

459
00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:28.519
of fine Chinese porcelain and dusty glass
cabinets, and in a corner stood piles

460
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:32.679
of old Persian rugs. Pavia.
I reflected, must be an easy going

461
00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:37.920
soul entirely oblivious of comfort if he
allowed his friend to turn his dwelling into

462
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:43.559
such a pantechnicon. Less and less
did I believe in the existence of the

463
00:35:43.599 --> 00:35:47.760
retired East Indian merchant. The house
was Lumley's, who chose to pass under

464
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:52.559
another name during his occasional visits.
His motive might be innocent enough, but

465
00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:58.440
somehow I did not think so.
His butler had looked too infernally intelligent.

466
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:01.719
With my foot I turned over the
lid of one of the packing cases that

467
00:36:01.840 --> 00:36:06.880
had held the wedgewoods. It was
covered with a litter of cotton, wool

468
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:10.320
and shavings, and below it lay
a crumpled piece of paper. I looked

469
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:15.320
again and saw that it was a
telegraph form. Clearly, somebody with a

470
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.320
telegram in his hand had opened the
cases and had left it on the top

471
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.440
of one, whence it had dropped
to the floor and been covered by the

472
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.800
lid when it was flung off.
I hope and believe that I am as

473
00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:29.880
scrupulous as other people. But then
and there came on me the conviction that

474
00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:34.639
I must read that telegram. I
felt the gimlet eye of the housekeeper on

475
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.920
me, so I had recourse to
craft. I took out my cigarette case

476
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:44.039
as if to smoke, and clumsily
upset its contents amongst the shavings. Then

477
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:46.280
on my knees, I began to
pick them up, turning over the litter

478
00:36:46.360 --> 00:36:51.519
till the telegram was exposed. It
was in French, and I read it

479
00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:54.159
quite clearly. It had been sent
from Vienna, but the address was on

480
00:36:54.280 --> 00:37:00.679
some code suive a bohare sorronoff those
were the words. I finished my collection

481
00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:05.719
of the cigarettes and turned the lid
over again on the telegram, so that

482
00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:08.400
its owner, if he chose to
look for it diligently, might find it.

483
00:37:09.239 --> 00:37:14.480
When we sat in the car going
home, Jenkinson absorbed in meditation on

484
00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:19.480
the plaques. I was coming to
something like a decision. A curious feeling

485
00:37:19.559 --> 00:37:24.360
of inevitability possessed me. I had
collected, by accident a few odd disjointed

486
00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:30.719
pieces of information, and here by
the most amazing accident of all was the

487
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:34.840
connecting link. I knew I had
no evidence to go upon which would have

488
00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:39.760
convinced the most credulous common jury.
Pavia knew pit Heron so probably did lumly.

489
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:45.719
Lumly new Pavia possibly was identical with
him. Somebody in Pavia's house got

490
00:37:45.719 --> 00:37:51.840
a telegram in which a trip to
Bokhara was indicated. It didn't sound much,

491
00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:55.360
yet I was absolutely convinced, with
the queer sub conscious certitude of the

492
00:37:55.440 --> 00:38:00.880
human brain, that pit Heron was
or was about to be in Bokhara,

493
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:05.719
and that Pavia Lumy knew of his
being there and was deeply concerned in his

494
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.800
journey. That night, after dinner, I rang up missus pit Heron.

495
00:38:09.400 --> 00:38:13.920
She had had a letter from Tommy, a very dispirited letter, for he

496
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:19.159
had had no luck. Nobody in
Moscow had seen or heard of any wandering

497
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:23.719
Englishman remotely like Charles, and Tommy, after playing the private detective for three

498
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:29.079
weeks, was nearly at the end
of his tether and spoke of returning home.

499
00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:31.639
I told her to send him the
following wire in her own name.

500
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:37.360
Go on to Bokhara, have information
you will meet him there. She promised

501
00:38:37.360 --> 00:38:42.559
to send the message next day and
ask no further questions. She was a

502
00:38:42.679 --> 00:38:50.039
pearl among women. End of chapter
two recording by Expatriate in Bangor Main.

503
00:38:55.400 --> 00:39:01.559
Chapter three of the Powerhouse by John
Buchan the sleebrivox recording is in the public

504
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:09.000
domain. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter three tells of a

505
00:39:09.079 --> 00:39:15.119
midsummer night. Hitherto I had been
the looker on. Now I was to

506
00:39:15.159 --> 00:39:20.880
become a person of the drama.
That telegram was the beginning of my active

507
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:24.599
part in this curious affair. They
say that everybody turns up in time at

508
00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:29.760
the corner of Piccadilly's circus if you
wait long enough. I was to find

509
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:32.800
myself like a citizen of Baghdad in
the days of the Great Khliph, and

510
00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:38.039
yet never stir from my routine of
flat chambers, club and flat I am

511
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:43.559
wrong. There was one episode out
of London, and that perhaps was the

512
00:39:43.559 --> 00:39:47.840
true beginning of my story. Whitsuntide
that year came very late, and I

513
00:39:47.920 --> 00:39:52.920
was glad of the fortnight's rest,
for Parliament and the law courts had given

514
00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:57.159
me a busy time. I had
recently acquired a car and a chauffeur called

515
00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:00.400
Stag, and I looked forward to
trying it in tour in the West Country.

516
00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:06.159
But before I left London, I
went again to Portman Square. I

517
00:40:06.239 --> 00:40:10.239
found ethel pit Heron in grave distress. You must remember that Tommy and I

518
00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:15.239
had always gone on the hypothesis that
Charles's departure had been in pursuance of some

519
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:20.639
mad scheme of his own which might
get him into trouble. We thought that

520
00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:24.719
he had become mixed up with highly
undesirable friends and was probably embarking in some

521
00:40:24.920 --> 00:40:30.320
venture which might not be criminal,
but was certain to be foolish. I

522
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:35.360
had long rejected the idea of blackmail, and convinced myself that Lumley and Pavia

523
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:38.639
were his colleagues. The same general
notion, I fancy had been in his

524
00:40:38.679 --> 00:40:44.519
wife's mind. But now she had
found something which altered the case. She

525
00:40:44.599 --> 00:40:47.559
had ransacked his papers in the hope
of finding a clue to the affair which

526
00:40:47.559 --> 00:40:52.480
had taken him abroad, but there
was nothing but business letters, notes of

527
00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:55.199
investments, and such like. He
seemed to have burned most of his papers

528
00:40:55.239 --> 00:41:00.320
in the queer laboratory at the back
of the house, but stuffed into the

529
00:41:00.320 --> 00:41:04.400
pocket of a blotter on a bureau
in the drawing room, where he scarcely

530
00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:07.920
ever wrote. She had found a
document. It seemed to be the rough

531
00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:10.320
draft of a letter, and it
was addressed to her. I give it

532
00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:15.440
as it was written. The blank
spaces were left blank in the manuscript.

533
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:19.760
You must have thought me mad or
worse to treat you as I have done.

534
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.440
But there was a terrible reason which
some day I hope to tell you

535
00:41:22.519 --> 00:41:25.440
all about. I want you,
as soon as you get this, to

536
00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:30.800
make ready to come out to me
at blank. You will travel by blank

537
00:41:30.920 --> 00:41:35.039
and arrive at blank. I enclose
a letter which I want you to hand

538
00:41:35.079 --> 00:41:38.880
in deepest confidence to Knowles, a
solicitor. He will make all arrangements about

539
00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:44.159
your journey and about sending me the
supplies of money I want. Darling,

540
00:41:44.280 --> 00:41:47.239
you must leave as secretly as I
did, and tell nobody anything, not

541
00:41:47.360 --> 00:41:52.199
even that I am alive. That
least of all, I would not frighten

542
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:54.480
you for worlds. But I am
on the edge of a horrible danger,

543
00:41:54.880 --> 00:42:00.519
which I hope, with God's help
and yours, to escape. All obviously

544
00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:05.079
the draft of a letter which he
intended to post to her from some foreign

545
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:09.719
place. But can you conceive a
missive more calculated to shatter a woman's nerves?

546
00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:14.320
It filled me, I am bound
to say, with heavy disquiet.

547
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:17.440
Pit Heron was no coward, and
he was not the man to make too

548
00:42:17.559 --> 00:42:22.000
much of a risk. Yet it
was clear that he had fled that day

549
00:42:22.119 --> 00:42:25.639
in May under the pressure of some
mortal fear. The affair, in my

550
00:42:25.719 --> 00:42:30.400
eyes, began to look very bad. Ethel wanted me to go to Scotland

551
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:35.000
Yard, but I dissuaded her.
I had the utmost esteem for Scotland Yard,

552
00:42:35.280 --> 00:42:38.280
but I shrank from publicity at this
stage. There might be something in

553
00:42:38.280 --> 00:42:43.000
the case too delicate for the police
to handle, and I thought it better

554
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:46.639
to wait. I reflected a great
deal about the pit heron business the first

555
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:51.599
day or two of my trip,
but the air and the swift motion helped

556
00:42:51.599 --> 00:42:55.119
me to forget it. We had
a fortnight of superb weather and sailed all

557
00:42:55.239 --> 00:43:00.480
day through a glistening green country under
the hazy blue head heavens of June.

558
00:43:00.719 --> 00:43:06.159
Soon I fell into the blissful state
of physical and mental ease which such a

559
00:43:06.199 --> 00:43:10.360
life induces. Hard toil, such
as deer stalking, keeps the nerves on

560
00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:15.800
the alert and the mind active,
but swimming all day in a smooth car

561
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:21.960
through a heavenly landscape mesmerizes brain and
body. We ran up the Thames Valley,

562
00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:25.599
explored the Cotswolds, and turned south
through Somerset till we reached the fringes

563
00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:30.559
of Exmoor. I stayed a day
or two at a little inn high up

564
00:43:30.599 --> 00:43:34.480
in the moor, and spent the
time tramping the endless ridges of hill,

565
00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:38.239
or scrambling in the arbutous thickets where
the moor falls and steeps to the sea.

566
00:43:39.239 --> 00:43:44.400
We returned by Dartmoor and the south
coast, meeting with our first Rain

567
00:43:44.480 --> 00:43:50.039
and Dorset, and sweeping into sunlight
again on Salisbury Plain. The time came

568
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:53.360
when only two days remained to me. The car had behaved beyond all my

569
00:43:53.519 --> 00:43:59.840
hopes, and stag a somber and
silent man, was lyrical in his praises.

570
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:04.800
I wanted to be in London by
the Monday afternoon, and to insure

571
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.719
this I made a long day of
it on the Sunday. It was the

572
00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:12.719
long day which brought our pride to
a foal. The car had run so

573
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:16.679
well that I resolved to push on
and sleep in a friend's house near Farnhum.

574
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:22.199
It was about half past eight and
we were traversing the somewhat confused and

575
00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:27.280
narrow roads in the neighborhood of Wolmer
Forest, when as we turned a sharp

576
00:44:27.320 --> 00:44:31.679
corner we ran full into the tail
of a heavy carrier's cart. Stagg clapped

577
00:44:31.719 --> 00:44:35.840
on the brakes, but the collision, though it did no harm to the

578
00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:39.079
cart, was sufficient to send the
butt end of something through our glass screen,

579
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:45.000
damage the tire of the near front
wheel, and derange the steering gear.

580
00:44:45.880 --> 00:44:49.480
Neither of us suffered much hurt,
but Stag got a long scratch on

581
00:44:49.559 --> 00:44:53.320
his cheek from broken glass, and
I had a bruised shoulder. The carrier

582
00:44:53.480 --> 00:44:58.239
was friendly but useless, and there
was nothing for it but to arrange for

583
00:44:58.360 --> 00:45:01.960
horses to take the car to Farnham. This meant a job of some hours,

584
00:45:02.320 --> 00:45:06.880
and I found, on inquiry at
a neighboring cottage that there was no

585
00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:12.039
inn where I could stay within eight
miles. Stag borrowed a bicycle somehow and

586
00:45:12.079 --> 00:45:15.920
went off to collect horses, while
I morosely reviewed the alternatives before me.

587
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:22.519
I did not like the prospect of
spending the June night beside my derelict car,

588
00:45:22.079 --> 00:45:27.480
and the thought of my friend's house
near Farnham beckoned me seductively. I

589
00:45:27.559 --> 00:45:30.559
might have walked there, but I
did not know the road, and I

590
00:45:30.599 --> 00:45:34.519
found that my shoulder was paining me, so I resolved to try to find

591
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:38.480
some gentlemen's house in the neighborhood where
I could borrow a conveyance. The south

592
00:45:38.519 --> 00:45:44.559
of England is now so densely peopled
by Londoners that even in a wild district

593
00:45:44.559 --> 00:45:47.639
where there are no inns and few
farms, there are certain to be several

594
00:45:47.719 --> 00:45:52.760
week end cottages. I walked along
the white ribbon of road in the scented

595
00:45:52.840 --> 00:45:58.719
June dusk. At first it was
bounded by high gorse, then came patches

596
00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:01.519
of open heath, and then woods. Beyond the woods, I found a

597
00:46:01.519 --> 00:46:06.880
park railing and presently an entrance gate
with a lodge. It seemed to be

598
00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:09.400
the place I was looking for,
and I woke the lodge keeper, who

599
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:14.360
thus early had retired to bed.
I asked the name of the owner,

600
00:46:14.440 --> 00:46:17.519
but was told the name of the
place instead. It was high ashes.

601
00:46:19.119 --> 00:46:22.000
I asked if the owner was at
home, and got a sleepy nod for

602
00:46:22.119 --> 00:46:25.320
answer. The house, as seen
in the half light, was a long,

603
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:30.639
whitewashed cottage, rising to two stories
in the center. It was plentifully

604
00:46:30.639 --> 00:46:36.079
covered with creepers and roses, and
the odor of flowers was mingled with the

605
00:46:36.079 --> 00:46:39.840
faintest savor of wood. Smoke pleasant
to a hungry traveler in the late hours.

606
00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:45.760
I pulled an old fashioned bell and
the door was opened by a stolid

607
00:46:45.800 --> 00:46:51.000
young parlor maid. I explained my
errand and offered my card. I was,

608
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:53.320
I said, a member of Parliament
and of the bar, who had

609
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:58.039
suffered a motor accident. Would it
be possible for the master of the house

610
00:46:58.079 --> 00:47:01.559
to assist me to get to my
destination near Farnham. I was bidden enter,

611
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:07.320
and wearily seated myself on a settle
in the hall. In a few

612
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:12.280
minutes an ancient housekeeper appeared, a
grim dame whom at other times I should

613
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:15.920
have shunned. She bore, however, a hospitable message. There was no

614
00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.519
conveyance in the place, as the
car had gone that day to London for

615
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:24.280
repairs. But if I cared to
avail myself of the accommodation of the house

616
00:47:24.320 --> 00:47:29.679
for the night, it was at
my service. Meantime my servant could be

617
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:32.239
looking after the car, and a
message would go to him to pick me

618
00:47:32.320 --> 00:47:37.320
up in the morning. I gratefully
accepted, for my shoulder was growing troublesome,

619
00:47:37.719 --> 00:47:43.079
and was conducted up a shallow oak
staircase to a very pleasant bedroom with

620
00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:46.719
a bathroom adjoining. I had a
bath, and afterwards found a variety of

621
00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:52.280
comforts put at my service, from
slippers to razors. There was also some

622
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:57.840
element from my wounded shoulder. Clean
and refreshed, I made my way downstairs

623
00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:00.440
and entered a room from which I
caught a glow of light. It was

624
00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:05.800
a library, the most attractive I
think I have ever seen. The room

625
00:48:05.960 --> 00:48:09.360
was long, as libraries should be, and entirely lined with books, save

626
00:48:09.480 --> 00:48:14.119
over the fireplace, where hung a
fine picture which I took to be a

627
00:48:14.199 --> 00:48:17.960
ray burn. The books were in
glass cases which showed the beautiful, shallow

628
00:48:19.039 --> 00:48:23.039
moldings of a more artistic age.
A table was laid for dinner in a

629
00:48:23.079 --> 00:48:28.000
corner. For the room was immense, and the shaded candlesticks on it,

630
00:48:28.119 --> 00:48:31.840
along with the late June dusk,
gave such light as there was. At

631
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:36.360
first I thought the place was empty, but as I crossed the floor,

632
00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:39.480
a figure rose from a deep chair
by the hearth. Good evening, mister

633
00:48:39.599 --> 00:48:45.000
lythan a voice said, it is
a kindly mischance which gives a lonely old

634
00:48:45.079 --> 00:48:49.880
man the pleasure of your company.
He switched on an electric lamp, and

635
00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:53.079
I saw before me what I had
not guessed from the voice an old man.

636
00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:58.440
I was thirty four at the time
and counted anything over fifty old,

637
00:48:58.920 --> 00:49:01.719
but I judged my host to be
well on in the sixties. He was

638
00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:06.440
about my own size, but a
good deal bent in the shoulders, as

639
00:49:06.519 --> 00:49:10.960
if from study. His face was
clean shaven and extraordinarily fine, with every

640
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:16.480
feature delicately chiseled. He had a
sort of habsburg mouth and chin very long

641
00:49:16.519 --> 00:49:21.639
and pointed, but mottled with a
grace which made the full lower lips seem

642
00:49:21.800 --> 00:49:25.559
entirely right. His hair was silver, brushed so low on the forehead as

643
00:49:25.559 --> 00:49:30.880
to give him a slightly foreign air, and he wore tinted glasses as if

644
00:49:30.920 --> 00:49:36.559
for reading. Altogether, it was
a very dignified and agreeable figure who greeted

645
00:49:36.559 --> 00:49:39.920
me in a voice so full and
soft that it belied his obvious age.

646
00:49:40.679 --> 00:49:45.559
Dinner was a light meal, but
perfect in its way. There were souls,

647
00:49:45.639 --> 00:49:50.000
I remember, an exceedingly well cooked
chicken, fresh strawberries, and a

648
00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:55.920
savory We drank a ninety five periegouet
and some excellent madera. The stolid parlor

649
00:49:55.960 --> 00:50:00.800
maid waited on us, and as
we talked of the weather and the Hampshire

650
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:05.119
roads. I kept trying to guess
my host's profession. He was not a

651
00:50:05.239 --> 00:50:08.440
lawyer, for he had not the
inevitable lines on the cheek. I thought

652
00:50:08.440 --> 00:50:13.199
that he might be a retired Oxford
Dunn, or one of the higher civil

653
00:50:13.280 --> 00:50:17.119
servants, or perhaps some official of
the British Museum. His library proclaimed him

654
00:50:17.119 --> 00:50:22.960
a scholar, and his voice a
gentleman. Afterwards, we settled ourselves in

655
00:50:22.119 --> 00:50:25.639
arm chairs, and he gave me
a good cigar. We talked about many

656
00:50:25.719 --> 00:50:30.960
things, books, the right furnishing
of a library, a little politics,

657
00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:36.039
and deference to my mp ship.
My host was apathetic about party questions,

658
00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:40.199
but curious about defense matters, and
in his way an amateur strategist. I

659
00:50:40.199 --> 00:50:45.559
could fancy him indicting letters to the
Times on national service. Then we wandered

660
00:50:45.559 --> 00:50:51.119
into foreign affairs, where I found
his interest acute and his knowledge immense.

661
00:50:51.920 --> 00:50:54.840
Indeed, he was so well informed
that I began to suspect that my guesses

662
00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:00.320
had been wrong, and that he
was a retired diplomat. At that time,

663
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:04.920
there was some difficulty between France and
Italy over customs duties, and he

664
00:51:05.039 --> 00:51:09.079
sketched for me with remarkable clearness the
weak points in the French tariff administration.

665
00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:15.360
I had been recently engaged in a
big South American railway case, and I

666
00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:19.159
asked him a question about the property
of my clients. He gave me a

667
00:51:19.239 --> 00:51:22.639
much better account than I had ever
got from the solicitors who briefed me.

668
00:51:22.599 --> 00:51:27.519
The fire had been lit before we
finished dinner, and presently it began to

669
00:51:27.519 --> 00:51:30.960
burn up and light the figure of
my host, who sat in a deep

670
00:51:30.039 --> 00:51:35.320
arm chair. He had taken off
his tinted glasses, and as I rose

671
00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:39.159
to get a match, I saw
his eyes looking abstractedly before him. Somehow

672
00:51:39.199 --> 00:51:44.840
they reminded me of pitt Heron.
Charles had always a sort of dancing light

673
00:51:44.920 --> 00:51:50.960
in his a restless intelligence which was
at once attractive and disquieting. My host

674
00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:53.639
had this and more. His eyes
were paler than I had ever seen in

675
00:51:53.639 --> 00:52:00.679
a human head, pale, bright
and curiously wild. But whereas pitt Herons

676
00:52:00.679 --> 00:52:05.000
had only given the impression of reckless
youth, this man spoke of wisdom and

677
00:52:05.119 --> 00:52:09.760
power, as well as of endless
vitality. All my theories vanished, for

678
00:52:09.840 --> 00:52:15.000
I could not believe that my host
had ever followed any profession. If he

679
00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:16.639
had, he would have been at
the head of it, and the world

680
00:52:16.639 --> 00:52:22.199
would have been familiar with his features. I began to wonder if my recollection

681
00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:25.039
was not playing me false, and
I was in the presence of some great

682
00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:30.719
man whom I ought to recognize.
As I dived into the recesses of my

683
00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:34.760
memory, I heard his voice asking
if I were not a lawyer. I

684
00:52:34.840 --> 00:52:38.320
told him, yes, a barrister
with a fair common law practice and some

685
00:52:38.480 --> 00:52:44.079
work in Privy Council appeals. He
asked me why I chose the profession.

686
00:52:44.719 --> 00:52:47.679
It came handiest, I said,
I am a dry creature who loves facts

687
00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:52.079
and logic. I am not a
flier. I have no new ideas.

688
00:52:52.480 --> 00:52:54.599
I don't want to lead men,
and I like work. I am the

689
00:52:54.719 --> 00:53:00.079
ordinary educated Englishman, and my sort
gravitates to the bar. We like feeling

690
00:53:00.119 --> 00:53:04.440
that if we are not the builders
at any rate, we are the cement

691
00:53:04.519 --> 00:53:09.079
of civilization. He repeated the words
cement of civilization in his soft voice,

692
00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:14.519
in a sense, you are right, but civilization needs more than the law

693
00:53:14.599 --> 00:53:19.159
to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to

694
00:53:19.280 --> 00:53:22.960
accept as divine justice what is called
human law. Of course, there are

695
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:28.480
further sanctions, I said, police
and armies and the good will of civilization.

696
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:32.440
He caught me up quickly. The
last is your true cement. Did

697
00:53:32.440 --> 00:53:37.400
you ever reflect, mister lythan how
precarious is the tenure of the civilization we

698
00:53:37.480 --> 00:53:42.960
boast about. I should have thought
it fairly substantial, I said, And

699
00:53:43.079 --> 00:53:46.639
the foundations grow daily? Firmer,
he laughed. That is the lawyer's view.

700
00:53:46.679 --> 00:53:50.760
But believe me, you are wrong. Reflect and you will find that

701
00:53:50.800 --> 00:53:53.920
the foundations are sand. You think
that a wall as solid as the earth

702
00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:00.480
separates civilization from barbarism. I tell
you the division is a thread sheet of

703
00:54:00.519 --> 00:54:04.360
glass. A touch here, a
push there, and you bring back the

704
00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:10.239
rain of Saturn. It was the
kind of paradoxical undergraduate speculation which grown men

705
00:54:10.400 --> 00:54:15.880
indulge in sometimes. After dinner.
I looked at my host to discover his

706
00:54:15.039 --> 00:54:20.199
mood, and at the moment a
log flared up again. His face was

707
00:54:20.280 --> 00:54:25.199
perfectly serious. His light wild eyes
were intently watching me. Take one little

708
00:54:25.239 --> 00:54:29.639
instance, he said. We are
a commercial world and have built up a

709
00:54:29.639 --> 00:54:34.800
great system of credit. Without our
checks and bills of exchange and currency,

710
00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:38.920
the whole of our life would stop. But credit only exists because behind it

711
00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:44.480
we have a standard of value.
My Bank of England notes our worthless paper

712
00:54:44.920 --> 00:54:50.000
unless I can get sovereigns for them
if I choose forgive this elementary disquisition.

713
00:54:50.119 --> 00:54:53.519
But the point is important. We
have fixed a gold standard because gold is

714
00:54:53.559 --> 00:55:00.000
sufficiently rare, and because it allows
itself to be coined into a portable form.

715
00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:02.400
I am aware that there are economists
who say that the world could be

716
00:55:02.519 --> 00:55:07.800
run on a pure credit basis,
with no metal currency at the back of

717
00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:12.320
it. But however sound their argument
may be, in the abstract, the

718
00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.719
thing is practically impossible. You would
have to convert the whole of the world's

719
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:22.840
stupidity to their economic faith before it
would work. Now, suppose something happened

720
00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:27.559
to make our standard of value useless. Suppose the dream of the alchemists came

721
00:55:27.679 --> 00:55:31.800
true and all metals were readily transmutable. We have got very near it in

722
00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:37.039
recent years, as you will know
if you interest yourself in chemical science.

723
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:42.920
Once gold and silver lost their intrinsic
value, the whole edifice of our commerce

724
00:55:42.920 --> 00:55:47.960
would collapse. Credit would become meaningless
because it would be untranslatable. We should

725
00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:52.079
be back at a bound in the
age of barter, for it is hard

726
00:55:52.079 --> 00:55:54.840
to see what other standard of value
could take the place of the precious metals.

727
00:55:55.559 --> 00:56:00.079
All our civilization, with its industries
and commerce, would come toppling down

728
00:56:00.880 --> 00:56:05.920
once more, Like primitive man.
I would plant cabbages for a living,

729
00:56:06.239 --> 00:56:09.920
and exchange them for services in kind
for the cobbler and the butcher. We

730
00:56:09.960 --> 00:56:15.679
should have the simple life with a
vengeance, not the self conscious simplicity of

731
00:56:15.679 --> 00:56:21.159
the civilized man, but the compulsory
simplicity of the savage. I was not

732
00:56:21.320 --> 00:56:24.719
greatly impressed by the illustration. Of
course, there are many key points in

733
00:56:24.760 --> 00:56:29.760
civilization, I said, and the
loss of them would bring ruin. But

734
00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:35.159
these keys are strongly held, not
so strongly as you think. Consider how

735
00:56:35.199 --> 00:56:39.559
delicate the machine is growing. As
life grows more complex, the machinery grows

736
00:56:39.559 --> 00:56:45.679
more intricate and therefore more vulnerable.
Your so called sanctions become so infinitely numerous

737
00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:51.079
that each in itself is frail.
In the dark ages, you had one

738
00:56:51.159 --> 00:56:54.599
great power, the terror of God
in his church. Now you have a

739
00:56:54.679 --> 00:57:00.360
multiplicity of small things, all delicate
and fragile, and strong only by our

740
00:57:00.440 --> 00:57:05.880
tacit agreement not to question them.
You forget one thing, I said,

741
00:57:06.239 --> 00:57:09.199
the fact that men really are agreed
to keep the machine going. That is

742
00:57:09.239 --> 00:57:14.480
what I call the good will of
civilization. He got up from his chair

743
00:57:14.519 --> 00:57:17.840
and walked up and down the floor, a curious dusky figure, lit by

744
00:57:17.840 --> 00:57:22.760
the rare spurts of flame from the
hearth. You have put your finger on

745
00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:28.920
the one thing that matters civilization is
a conspiracy. What value would your police

746
00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:32.920
be if every criminal could find a
sanctuary across the channel, or your law

747
00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:39.360
courts if no other tribunal recognized their
decisions. Modern life is the silent compact

748
00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:45.119
of comfortable folk to keep up pretenses, and it will succeed till the day

749
00:57:45.199 --> 00:57:49.960
comes when there is another compact to
strip them bare. I do not think

750
00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:53.039
that I have ever listened to a
stranger conversation. It was not so much

751
00:57:53.119 --> 00:57:57.559
what he said, you will hear
the same thing from any group of half

752
00:57:57.599 --> 00:58:00.800
baked young men as the air with
which he said it. The room was

753
00:58:00.840 --> 00:58:06.280
almost dark, but the man's personality
seemed to take shape and bulk in the

754
00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:09.239
gloom. Though I could scarcely see
him, I knew that those pale,

755
00:58:09.320 --> 00:58:14.519
strange eyes were looking at me.
I wanted more light, but did not

756
00:58:14.679 --> 00:58:17.760
know where to look for a switch. It was all so eerie and odd,

757
00:58:17.800 --> 00:58:21.639
that I began to wonder if my
host were not a little mad.

758
00:58:22.239 --> 00:58:25.719
In any case, I was tired
of his speculations. We won't dispute on

759
00:58:25.800 --> 00:58:29.920
the indisputable, I said, But
I should have thought that it was the

760
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:32.599
interest of all the best brains of
the world to keep up what you call

761
00:58:32.679 --> 00:58:37.400
the conspiracy. He dropped into his
chair again. I wonder, he said,

762
00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:40.920
slowly, do we really get the
best brains working on the side of

763
00:58:40.960 --> 00:58:45.039
the compact? Take the business of
government? When all is said, we

764
00:58:45.119 --> 00:58:50.400
are ruled by the amateurs in the
second rate. The methods of our departments

765
00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:54.679
would bring any private firm to bankruptcy. The methods of parliament, pardon me,

766
00:58:55.079 --> 00:59:00.320
would disgrace any board of directors.
Our rulers pretend to buy expert knowledge,

767
00:59:00.639 --> 00:59:04.679
but they never pay the price for
it that a business man would pay.

768
00:59:05.159 --> 00:59:07.679
And if they get it, they
have not the courage to use it.

769
00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:10.719
Where is the inducement for a man
of genius to sell his brains to

770
00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:15.760
our insipid governors? And yet knowledge
is the only power now as ever,

771
00:59:16.480 --> 00:59:22.039
a little mechanical device will wreck your
navies, a new chemical combination will upset

772
00:59:22.079 --> 00:59:27.440
every rule of war. It is
the same with our commerce. One or

773
00:59:27.480 --> 00:59:31.360
two minute changes might sink Britain to
the level of Ecuador, or give China

774
00:59:31.400 --> 00:59:36.119
the key of the world's wealth.
And yet we never dream that these things

775
00:59:36.159 --> 00:59:39.719
are possible. We think our castles
of sand are the ramparts of the universe.

776
00:59:40.719 --> 00:59:44.559
I have never had the gift of
the gab, but I admire it

777
00:59:44.639 --> 00:59:47.679
in others. There is a morbid
charm in such talk, a kind of

778
00:59:47.760 --> 00:59:52.719
exhilaration of which one is half ashamed. I found myself interested in more than

779
00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:58.280
a little impressed. But surely,
I said. The first thing a discoverer

780
00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:01.639
does is to make his discovery public. He wants the honor and glory,

781
01:00:01.679 --> 01:00:06.280
and he wants money for it.
It becomes part of the world's knowledge,

782
01:00:06.280 --> 01:00:09.639
and everything is readjusted to meet it. That was what happened with electricity.

783
01:00:10.199 --> 01:00:15.039
You call our civilization a machine,
but it is something far more flexible.

784
01:00:15.519 --> 01:00:20.159
It has the power of adaptation of
a living organism. Well, that might

785
01:00:20.199 --> 01:00:22.760
be true if the new knowledge really
became the world's property. But does it.

786
01:00:23.119 --> 01:00:28.119
I read now and then in the
papers that some eminent scientists has made

787
01:00:28.159 --> 01:00:31.760
a great discovery. He reads a
paper before some academy of science, and

788
01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:37.679
there are leading articles on it in
his photograph adorns the magazines. That kind

789
01:00:37.719 --> 01:00:40.039
of man is not the danger.
He is a bit of the machine,

790
01:00:40.079 --> 01:00:45.199
a party to the compact. It
is the men who stand outside it that

791
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:49.280
are to be reckoned, with the
artists in discovery, who will never use

792
01:00:49.320 --> 01:00:52.400
their knowledge till they can use it
with full effect. Believe me, the

793
01:00:52.440 --> 01:00:59.360
biggest brains are without the ring which
we call civilization. Then his voice seemed

794
01:00:59.360 --> 01:01:02.440
to hesitate. You may hear people
say that submarines have done away with the

795
01:01:02.480 --> 01:01:07.119
battleship, and that air craft have
annulled the mastery of the sea. That

796
01:01:07.280 --> 01:01:12.599
is what our pessimists say. But
do you imagine that the clumsy submarine or

797
01:01:12.639 --> 01:01:16.440
the fragile aeroplane is really the last
word of science. No doubt they will

798
01:01:16.480 --> 01:01:21.039
develop, I said, But by
that time the power of the defense will

799
01:01:21.039 --> 01:01:23.639
have advanced. Also, he shook
his head. It is not so.

800
01:01:24.280 --> 01:01:30.280
Even now. The knowledge which makes
possible great engines of destruction is far beyond

801
01:01:30.280 --> 01:01:35.159
the capacity of any defense. You
see only the productions of second rate folk

802
01:01:35.480 --> 01:01:38.159
who are in a hurry to get
wealth and fame. The true knowledge,

803
01:01:38.199 --> 01:01:43.920
that deadly knowledge, is still kept
secret. But believe me, my friend,

804
01:01:44.039 --> 01:01:46.480
it is there. He paused for
a second, and I saw the

805
01:01:46.519 --> 01:01:51.719
faint outline of the smoke from his
cigar against the background of the dark.

806
01:01:52.199 --> 01:01:54.280
Then he quoted me one or two
cases, slowly, as if in some

807
01:01:54.559 --> 01:01:59.880
doubt about the wisdom of his words. It was these cases which star.

808
01:02:00.920 --> 01:02:04.960
They were of different kinds, a
great calamity, a sudden breach between two

809
01:02:05.119 --> 01:02:08.159
nations, a blight on a vital
crop, a war, a pestilence.

810
01:02:08.719 --> 01:02:13.280
I will not repeat them. I
do not think I believed in them then,

811
01:02:13.360 --> 01:02:16.800
and now I believe less. But
they were horribly impressive, as told

812
01:02:16.840 --> 01:02:22.719
in that quiet voice in that somber
room on that dark June night. If

813
01:02:22.719 --> 01:02:25.360
he was right, these things had
not been the work of nature or accident,

814
01:02:25.760 --> 01:02:30.679
but of a devilish art. The
nameless brains that he spoke of,

815
01:02:30.760 --> 01:02:36.639
working silently in the background now and
then showed their power by some cataclysmic revelation.

816
01:02:37.639 --> 01:02:40.559
I did not believe him. But
as he put the case, showing

817
01:02:40.639 --> 01:02:45.000
with strange clearness the steps in the
game, I had no words to protest.

818
01:02:45.800 --> 01:02:51.360
At last I found my voice what
you describe as super anarchy, And

819
01:02:51.480 --> 01:02:54.840
yet it makes no headway. What
is the motive of those diabolical brains,

820
01:02:55.599 --> 01:03:00.039
he laughed, How should I be
able to tell you? I am a

821
01:03:00.119 --> 01:03:04.599
humble inquirer, and in my research
as I come on curious bits of fact,

822
01:03:05.159 --> 01:03:07.960
but I cannot pry into motives.
I only know of the existence of

823
01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:15.079
great extra social intelligences. Let us
say that they distrust the machine. They

824
01:03:15.119 --> 01:03:19.519
may be idealists and desire to make
a new world, or they may simply

825
01:03:19.559 --> 01:03:22.679
be artists, loving for its own
sake the pursuit of truth. If I

826
01:03:22.719 --> 01:03:27.079
were to hazard a guess, I
should say that it took both types to

827
01:03:27.079 --> 01:03:30.039
bring about results, for the second
find the knowledge, and the first the

828
01:03:30.119 --> 01:03:35.800
will to use it. A recollection
came back to me. It was of

829
01:03:35.840 --> 01:03:39.760
a hot upland meadow in Tyrol,
where, among acres of flowers and beside

830
01:03:39.760 --> 01:03:45.280
a leaping stream, I was breakfasting
after a morning spent in climbing the white

831
01:03:45.400 --> 01:03:49.440
crags. I had picked up a
German on the way, a small man

832
01:03:49.480 --> 01:03:52.840
of the professor class, who did
me the honor to share my sandwiches.

833
01:03:52.599 --> 01:03:57.760
He conversed fluently but quaintly in English, and he was, I remember,

834
01:03:57.880 --> 01:04:01.519
a Nietzschean, and a hot rebel
against the established order. The pity,

835
01:04:01.599 --> 01:04:04.960
he cried, is that the reformers
do not know, and those who know

836
01:04:05.199 --> 01:04:10.639
are too idle to reform. Some
day there will come the marriage of knowledge

837
01:04:10.679 --> 01:04:15.239
and will, and then the world
will march. You draw an awful picture,

838
01:04:15.320 --> 01:04:18.519
I said, But if those extra
social brains are so potent, why,

839
01:04:18.559 --> 01:04:23.760
after all, do they effect so
little. A dull police officer with

840
01:04:23.840 --> 01:04:28.119
the machine behind him can afford to
laugh at most experiments. And anarchy,

841
01:04:28.760 --> 01:04:32.440
true, he said, And civilization
will win until its enemies learn from it

842
01:04:32.480 --> 01:04:38.480
the importance of the machine. The
compact must endure until there is a counter

843
01:04:38.599 --> 01:04:43.480
compact. Consider the ways of that
form of foolishness, which today we call

844
01:04:43.639 --> 01:04:48.480
naiolism or anarchy. A few illiterate
bandits in a Paris slum defy the world,

845
01:04:48.840 --> 01:04:53.840
and in a week they are in
jail. Half a dozen crazy Russian

846
01:04:53.880 --> 01:04:59.719
intellectuals in Geneva conspire to upset the
Romanovs and are hunted down by the police

847
01:04:59.719 --> 01:05:03.440
of youth Europe, all the governments, in their not very intelligent police forces,

848
01:05:03.559 --> 01:05:06.639
join hands, and hey, presto, there is an end of the

849
01:05:06.679 --> 01:05:13.320
conspirators. For civilization knows how to
use such powers as it has, While

850
01:05:13.320 --> 01:05:19.159
the immense potentiality of the unlicensed is
dissipated in vapor. Civilization wins because of

851
01:05:19.280 --> 01:05:25.639
the world wide league. Its enemies
fail because they are parochial. But supposing

852
01:05:26.519 --> 01:05:30.199
again, he stopped and rose from
his chair. He found a switch and

853
01:05:30.280 --> 01:05:33.119
flooded the room with light. I
glanced up, blinking to see my host

854
01:05:33.239 --> 01:05:39.199
smiling down on me, a most
benevolent and courteous old gentleman. He had

855
01:05:39.239 --> 01:05:43.320
resumed his tinted glasses. Forgive me, he said, for leaving you in

856
01:05:43.400 --> 01:05:47.440
darkness while I bored you with my
gloomy prognostications. A recluse is apt to

857
01:05:47.480 --> 01:05:51.679
forget what is due to a guest. He handed the cigar box to me

858
01:05:53.119 --> 01:05:56.800
and pointed to a table where whiskey
and mineral waters had been set out.

859
01:05:57.159 --> 01:06:00.679
I want to hear the end of
your prophecies, I said you were saying.

860
01:06:00.519 --> 01:06:06.360
I said, supposing anarchy learn from
civilization and became international. Oh.

861
01:06:06.480 --> 01:06:12.960
I don't mean the bands of advertising
donkeys who call themselves international unions of workers

862
01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:16.159
and such like rubbish. I mean
if the real brain stuff of the world

863
01:06:16.280 --> 01:06:23.559
were internationalized. Suppose that the links
in the cordon of civilization were neutralized by

864
01:06:23.599 --> 01:06:28.800
other links in a far more potent
chain. The earth is seething with incoherent

865
01:06:28.920 --> 01:06:33.440
power and unorganized intelligence. Have you
ever reflected on the case of China.

866
01:06:34.039 --> 01:06:39.760
There you have millions of quick brains
stifled in trumpery crafts. They have no

867
01:06:39.880 --> 01:06:43.960
direction, no driving power, so
the sum of their efforts is feudile.

868
01:06:44.039 --> 01:06:47.199
And the world laughs at China.
Europe throws her a million or two on

869
01:06:47.360 --> 01:06:53.199
loan now and then, and she
cynically responds by begging the prayers of Christendom.

870
01:06:53.719 --> 01:06:57.639
And yet I say, supposing it's
a horrible idea, I said,

871
01:06:57.679 --> 01:07:01.119
And thank God, I don't believe
it possible. Mere destruction is too barren

872
01:07:01.159 --> 01:07:05.079
a creed to inspire a new Napoleon. And you can do with nothing short

873
01:07:05.079 --> 01:07:11.159
of one. It would scarcely be
destruction, he replied gently. Let us

874
01:07:11.199 --> 01:07:15.440
call it iconoclasm, the swallowing of
formulas, which has always had its full

875
01:07:15.519 --> 01:07:19.960
retinue of idealists. And you do
not want a Napoleon. All that is

876
01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:24.960
needed is direction, which could be
given by men of far lower gifts than

877
01:07:24.960 --> 01:07:29.159
a Bonaparte. In a word,
you want a powerhouse, and then the

878
01:07:29.239 --> 01:07:33.239
age of miracles will begin. I
got up for the hour was late and

879
01:07:33.280 --> 01:07:38.079
I had had enough of this view. We talk. My host was smiling,

880
01:07:38.440 --> 01:07:41.760
and I think that smile was the
thing I really disliked about him.

881
01:07:42.280 --> 01:07:46.679
It was too what shall I say, superior and olympian. As he led

882
01:07:46.719 --> 01:07:50.920
me into the hole, he apologized
for indulging his whims. But you,

883
01:07:51.079 --> 01:07:55.639
as a lawyer, should welcome the
idea. If there is an atom of

884
01:07:55.719 --> 01:07:59.840
truth in my fancies, your task
is far bigger than you thought. You

885
01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:03.320
were not defending an easy case,
but fighting in a contest where the issues

886
01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:10.239
are still doubtful. That should encourage
your professional pride. By all the rules,

887
01:08:10.280 --> 01:08:13.760
I should have been sleepy, for
it was past midnight and I had

888
01:08:13.840 --> 01:08:17.359
had a long day in the open
air. But that wretched talk had unsettled

889
01:08:17.399 --> 01:08:21.279
me, and I could not get
my mind off it. I have reproduced,

890
01:08:21.359 --> 01:08:27.039
very crudely the substance of my host's
conversation, but no words of mine

891
01:08:27.039 --> 01:08:31.119
could do justice to his eerie persuasiveness. There was a kind of magnetism in

892
01:08:31.159 --> 01:08:35.640
the man, a sense of vast
powers and banked up fires, which would

893
01:08:35.640 --> 01:08:41.119
have given weight to the tritis platitudes. I had a horrible feeling that he

894
01:08:41.199 --> 01:08:45.439
was trying to convince me, to
fascinate me, to prepare the ground for

895
01:08:45.520 --> 01:08:48.840
some proposal. Again and again I
told myself it was crazy, nonsense,

896
01:08:49.239 --> 01:08:54.079
the heated dream of a visionary.
But again and again I came back to

897
01:08:54.119 --> 01:08:58.199
some details which had a horrid air
of reality. If the man was a

898
01:08:58.279 --> 01:09:02.279
romancer, he had an un common
gift of realism. I flung open my

899
01:09:02.319 --> 01:09:06.359
bedroom window and let in the soft
air of the June night, and the

900
01:09:06.439 --> 01:09:13.199
scents from leagues of clover and pines
and sweet grasses. It momentarily refreshed me,

901
01:09:13.640 --> 01:09:16.960
for I could not believe that this
homely and gracious world held such dire

902
01:09:17.079 --> 01:09:23.520
portents. But always that phrase of
his, the powerhouse, kept recurring.

903
01:09:24.279 --> 01:09:29.079
You know how twisted your thoughts get
during a wakeful night, And long before

904
01:09:29.079 --> 01:09:32.840
I fell asleep towards morning, I
had worked myself up into a very complete

905
01:09:32.960 --> 01:09:39.720
dislike of that bland and smiling gentleman
my host. Suddenly it occurred to me

906
01:09:39.760 --> 01:09:43.199
that I did not know his name, and that set me off on another

907
01:09:43.239 --> 01:09:46.279
train of reflection. I did not
wait to be cold, but rose about

908
01:09:46.319 --> 01:09:50.880
seven dressed and went downstairs. I
heard the sound of a car on the

909
01:09:50.880 --> 01:09:55.840
gravel of the drive, and to
my delight saw that Stagg had arrived.

910
01:09:56.479 --> 01:09:59.720
I wanted to get away from the
house as soon as possible, and I

911
01:09:59.800 --> 01:10:03.960
had no desire to meet its master
again in this world. The grim housekeeper

912
01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:10.640
who answered my summons, received my
explanation in silence. Breakfast would be ready

913
01:10:10.680 --> 01:10:15.479
in twenty minutes. Eight was mister
Lumley's hour for it, Mister Andrew Lumley,

914
01:10:15.640 --> 01:10:19.199
I asked, with a start,
mister Andrew Lumley. She said,

915
01:10:19.880 --> 01:10:24.600
so that was my host's name.
I sat down at a bureau in the

916
01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:29.199
hall and did a wildly foolish thing. I wrote a letter beginning dear mister

917
01:10:29.279 --> 01:10:33.079
Lumley, thanking him for his kindness
in explaining the reason of my early departure.

918
01:10:33.680 --> 01:10:36.640
It was imperative, I said that
I should be in London by mid

919
01:10:36.760 --> 01:10:41.600
day. Then I added, I
wish I had known who you were last

920
01:10:41.680 --> 01:10:45.000
night, for I think you know
an old friend of mine, Charles pitt

921
01:10:45.079 --> 01:10:49.560
Herron. Breakfastless, I joined Stag
in the car, and soon we were

922
01:10:49.600 --> 01:10:55.199
swinging down from the uplands to the
shallow vale of the way. My thoughts

923
01:10:55.239 --> 01:10:59.479
were very little on my new toy
or on the midsummer beauties of Surrey,

924
01:11:00.159 --> 01:11:02.800
the friend of pitt Heron, who
knew about his going to Bokhara, was

925
01:11:02.840 --> 01:11:08.479
the maniac who dreamed of the Powerhouse. There were going to be dark scenes

926
01:11:08.520 --> 01:11:15.119
in the drama before it was played
out. End of chapter three. Recording

927
01:11:15.199 --> 01:11:31.680
by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine.
Chapter four of The Powerhouse by John Buchan.

928
01:11:32.079 --> 01:11:38.600
This Librivok's recording is in the public
domain. Recording by Expatriot in Bangor,

929
01:11:38.720 --> 01:11:43.680
Maine, Chapter four. I followed
the trail of the super Butler.

930
01:11:45.960 --> 01:11:49.439
My first thought as I journeyed towards
London was that I was horribly alone in

931
01:11:49.479 --> 01:11:54.479
this business. Whatever was to be
done, I must do it myself.

932
01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:59.960
For the truth was I had no
evidence which any authority would recognize. Pitt

933
01:12:00.119 --> 01:12:04.199
Heron was the friend of a strange
being who collected objects of art, probably

934
01:12:04.279 --> 01:12:09.279
under an alias, in South London, and had absurd visions of the end

935
01:12:09.319 --> 01:12:14.159
of civilization. That, in cold, black and white was all my story

936
01:12:14.239 --> 01:12:16.399
came to. If I went to
the police, they would laugh at me,

937
01:12:16.439 --> 01:12:20.439
and they would be right. Now. I am a sober and practical

938
01:12:20.520 --> 01:12:25.640
person, but slender though my evidence
was, it brought to my mind the

939
01:12:25.680 --> 01:12:30.399
most absolute conviction I seemed to know
pitt Heron's story as if I had heard

940
01:12:30.399 --> 01:12:34.880
it from his own lips. His
first meeting with Lumley, in their growing

941
01:12:34.960 --> 01:12:41.800
friendship, his initiation into secret and
forbidden things, the revolt of the decent

942
01:12:41.920 --> 01:12:45.840
man, appolled that his freakishness had
led him so far, the realization that

943
01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:50.000
he could not break so easily with
his past, and that Lumly held him

944
01:12:50.039 --> 01:12:55.880
in his power. And last,
the mad flight under the pressure of overwhelming

945
01:12:56.039 --> 01:13:00.439
terror. I could read too the
purpose of that flight. He knew the

946
01:13:00.439 --> 01:13:03.520
Indian frontier as few men know it, and in the wild tangle of the

947
01:13:03.560 --> 01:13:10.000
pomiers he hoped to baffle his enemy. Then from some far refuge he would

948
01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:14.640
send for his wife and spend the
rest of his days in exile. It

949
01:13:14.760 --> 01:13:18.439
must have been an omnipotent terror to
drive such a man, young, brilliant,

950
01:13:18.600 --> 01:13:24.920
rich successful, to the fate of
an absconding felon. But Lumley was

951
01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:28.680
on his trail. So I read
the telegram I had picked up on the

952
01:13:28.680 --> 01:13:32.039
floor of the Blackheath House, and
my business was to frustrate the pursuit.

953
01:13:32.920 --> 01:13:38.279
Some one must have gone to Bohara, some creature of Lumley's, perhaps the

954
01:13:38.359 --> 01:13:42.920
super butler I had met in the
county court. The telegram for I had

955
01:13:42.960 --> 01:13:46.520
noted the date had been received on
the twenty seventh day of May. It

956
01:13:46.560 --> 01:13:51.079
was now the fifteenth of June.
So if someone had started immediately on its

957
01:13:51.159 --> 01:13:57.079
receipt, in all probability, he
would by now be in Bokhara. I

958
01:13:57.199 --> 01:14:00.840
must find out who had gone,
and endeavor to warn time. I calculated

959
01:14:00.880 --> 01:14:04.800
that it would have taken him seven
or eight days to get from Moscow by

960
01:14:04.800 --> 01:14:11.399
the trans Caspian. Probably he would
find pit Heron gone, but inquiries would

961
01:14:11.399 --> 01:14:14.840
set him on the track. I
might be able to get in touch with

962
01:14:14.920 --> 01:14:18.319
him through the Russian officials. In
any case, if Lumley were stalking pit

963
01:14:18.439 --> 01:14:25.279
Heron, I, unknown and unsuspected, would be stalking Lumley. And then

964
01:14:25.359 --> 01:14:29.720
in a flash I realized my folly. The wretched letter I had written that

965
01:14:29.920 --> 01:14:33.399
morning had given the whole show away. Lumley knew that I was a friend

966
01:14:33.439 --> 01:14:36.880
of pitt Heron, and that I
knew that he was a friend of pitt

967
01:14:36.920 --> 01:14:42.319
Heron. If my guess was right, friendship with Lumley was not a thing

968
01:14:42.439 --> 01:14:45.880
Charles was likely to confess to,
and he would argue that My knowledge of

969
01:14:45.920 --> 01:14:50.600
it meant that I was in Charles's
confidence. I would therefore know of his

970
01:14:50.720 --> 01:14:55.920
disappearance and its cause, and alone
in London, would connect it with the

971
01:14:55.960 --> 01:15:00.279
decorous bachelor of the Albany. My
letter was a warn to him that he

972
01:15:00.319 --> 01:15:04.680
could not play the game unobserved,
and I too would be suspect in his

973
01:15:04.840 --> 01:15:11.479
eyes. It was no good crying
over spilt milk in lumly suspicions must be

974
01:15:11.479 --> 01:15:15.439
accepted. But I confess the thought
gave me the shivers. The man had

975
01:15:15.479 --> 01:15:20.279
a curious terror for me, a
terror I cannot hope to analyze and reproduce

976
01:15:20.319 --> 01:15:26.119
for you. My bald words can
give no idea of the magnetic force of

977
01:15:26.119 --> 01:15:30.560
his talk, the sense of brooding
and unholy craft. I was proposing to

978
01:15:30.600 --> 01:15:34.960
match my wits against a master's one, too, who must have at his

979
01:15:35.079 --> 01:15:42.079
command an organization far beyond my puny
efforts. I have said that my first

980
01:15:42.079 --> 01:15:46.960
feeling was that of loneliness and isolation. My second was one of hopeless insignificance.

981
01:15:47.600 --> 01:15:53.479
It was a boy's mechanical toy arrayed
against a powerhouse, with its shining

982
01:15:53.520 --> 01:15:59.560
wheels in monstrous dynamos. My first
business was to get into touch with Tommy.

983
01:16:00.279 --> 01:16:03.439
At that time I had a friend
in one of the embassies whose acquaintance

984
01:16:03.479 --> 01:16:08.600
I had made on a dry fly
stream in Hampshire. I will not tell

985
01:16:08.640 --> 01:16:12.239
you his name, for he has
since become a great figure in the world's

986
01:16:12.279 --> 01:16:15.279
diplomacy, and I am by no
means certain that the part he played in

987
01:16:15.359 --> 01:16:20.640
this tale was strictly in accordance with
official etiquette. I had assisted him on

988
01:16:20.680 --> 01:16:27.079
the legal side in some of the
international worries that beset all embassies, and

989
01:16:27.159 --> 01:16:30.199
we had reached the point of intimacy, which is marked by the use of

990
01:16:30.279 --> 01:16:35.000
Christian names and by dining frequently together. Let us call him Monsieur Felix.

991
01:16:35.720 --> 01:16:41.359
He was a grave young man,
slightly my senior, learned, discreet and

992
01:16:41.479 --> 01:16:45.840
ambitious, but with an engaging boyishness
cropping up now and then under the official

993
01:16:45.920 --> 01:16:50.079
gold lace. It occurred to me
that in him I might find an ally.

994
01:16:51.079 --> 01:16:56.600
I reached London about eleven in the
morning and went straight to Belgrave Square.

995
01:16:57.279 --> 01:17:00.640
Felix I found in the little library
off the Big Secretary's room, a

996
01:17:00.760 --> 01:17:06.159
sun burnt sportsman, fresh from a
Norwegian salmon river. I asked him if

997
01:17:06.199 --> 01:17:10.399
he had half an hour to spare, and was told that the day was

998
01:17:10.399 --> 01:17:15.039
at my service. You know Tommy
Doulraine, I asked. He nodded,

999
01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:18.760
and Charles pitt Heron, I have
heard of him. Well, here is

1000
01:17:18.840 --> 01:17:23.840
my trouble. I have reason to
believe that Tommy has joined pit Heron in

1001
01:17:23.880 --> 01:17:28.560
Bokhara. If he has, my
mind will be greatly relieved. For though

1002
01:17:28.600 --> 01:17:31.119
I can't tell you the story,
I can tell you that pit Heron is

1003
01:17:31.159 --> 01:17:36.960
in very considerable danger. Can you
help me? Felix reflected That should be

1004
01:17:38.039 --> 01:17:43.039
simple enough. I can wire in
cipher to the military governor. The police

1005
01:17:43.079 --> 01:17:46.000
there are pretty efficient, as you
may imagine, and travelers don't come and

1006
01:17:46.079 --> 01:17:50.079
go without being remarked. I should
be able to give you an answer within

1007
01:17:50.159 --> 01:17:55.640
twenty four hours. But I must
describe Tommy. How does one do that

1008
01:17:55.720 --> 01:17:59.960
in telegraphees? I want you to
tell me another thing, I said.

1009
01:18:00.800 --> 01:18:05.800
You remember that pitt Heron has some
reputation as a Central Asian traveler. Tommy,

1010
01:18:05.920 --> 01:18:10.600
as you know, is as mad
as a hatter. Suppose these two

1011
01:18:10.640 --> 01:18:15.239
fellows at Bokhara wanting to make a
long trek into wild country? How would

1012
01:18:15.239 --> 01:18:18.720
they go? You've been there and
know the lie of the land. Felix

1013
01:18:18.760 --> 01:18:23.840
got down a big German atlas,
and for half an hour we poured over

1014
01:18:23.920 --> 01:18:27.880
it. From Bokhara, he said, the only routes for Madmen ran to

1015
01:18:27.960 --> 01:18:31.600
the south, east and north.
You got into Siberia, west lay the

1016
01:18:31.680 --> 01:18:38.439
trans Caspian Desert. But southward you
might go through the Hissar Range by Pomirsky

1017
01:18:38.520 --> 01:18:43.399
Post to Gilgit in Kashmere. Or
you might follow up the Oxus and enter

1018
01:18:43.439 --> 01:18:47.359
the north of Afghanistan. Or you
might go by merv into northeastern Persia.

1019
01:18:48.119 --> 01:18:53.159
The first, he thought the likeliest
route if a man wanted to travel fast.

1020
01:18:53.920 --> 01:18:57.520
I asked him to put in his
cable a suggestion about watching the Indian

1021
01:18:57.600 --> 01:19:01.199
roads, and left him with a
promise of earth enlightenment. Then I went

1022
01:19:01.279 --> 01:19:05.840
down to the temple, fixed some
consultations, and spent a quiet evening in

1023
01:19:05.920 --> 01:19:12.640
my rooms. I had a heavy
sense of impending disaster, not unnatural in

1024
01:19:12.680 --> 01:19:15.880
the circumstances. I really cannot think
what it was that held me to the

1025
01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:19.960
job, for I don't mind admitting
that I felt pretty queasy about it,

1026
01:19:20.640 --> 01:19:26.760
partly no doubt, liking for Tommy
and Ethel, partly regret for that unfortunate

1027
01:19:26.800 --> 01:19:31.159
fellow pitt Heron. Most of all, I think dislike of Lumly that Bland

1028
01:19:31.279 --> 01:19:38.960
Superman had fairly stirred my prosaic antipathies. That night, I went carefully over

1029
01:19:39.039 --> 01:19:43.399
every item in the evidence to try
and decide on my next step. I

1030
01:19:43.439 --> 01:19:46.800
had got to find out more about
my enemies. Lumly, I was pretty

1031
01:19:46.840 --> 01:19:50.239
certain would baffle me, but I
thought I might have a better chance with

1032
01:19:50.319 --> 01:19:55.600
the super Butler. As it turned
out, I hid his trail almost at

1033
01:19:55.600 --> 01:20:00.319
once. Next day I was in
a case at the Old Bailey. It

1034
01:20:00.399 --> 01:20:03.800
was an important prosecution for fraud,
and I appeared with two leaders for the

1035
01:20:03.880 --> 01:20:10.319
bank concerned. The amazing and almost
incredible thing about this story of mine is

1036
01:20:10.399 --> 01:20:15.199
the way clues kept rolling in unsolicited, and I was to get another from

1037
01:20:15.199 --> 01:20:19.760
this dull prosecution. I suppose that
the explanation is that the world is full

1038
01:20:19.800 --> 01:20:25.039
of clues to everything, and that
if a man's mind is sharp set on

1039
01:20:25.159 --> 01:20:29.760
any quest, he happens to notice
and take advantage of what otherwise he would

1040
01:20:29.800 --> 01:20:33.119
miss. My leaders were both absent
the first day, and I had to

1041
01:20:33.159 --> 01:20:38.319
examine our witnesses alone. Towards the
close of the afternoon, I put a

1042
01:20:38.359 --> 01:20:43.840
fellow in the box, an Oldish
drink sodden clerk from a Cannon Street bucket

1043
01:20:43.880 --> 01:20:47.640
shop. His evidence was valuable for
our case, but I was very doubtful

1044
01:20:47.720 --> 01:20:53.279
how he would stand across examination as
to credit. His name was Routh,

1045
01:20:53.720 --> 01:20:58.359
and he spoke with a strong North
Country accent. But what caught my attention

1046
01:20:58.600 --> 01:21:01.199
was his face. His jaw looked
as if it had been made in two

1047
01:21:01.239 --> 01:21:05.600
pieces which did not fit, and
he had little, bright, protuberant eyes.

1048
01:21:06.239 --> 01:21:11.479
At my first glance, I was
conscious of a recollection. He was

1049
01:21:11.520 --> 01:21:15.600
still in the box when the court
rose, and I informed the solicitors that

1050
01:21:15.640 --> 01:21:19.680
before going further, I wanted a
conference with a witness. I mentioned also

1051
01:21:19.760 --> 01:21:24.720
that I should like to see him
alone. A few minutes later he was

1052
01:21:24.720 --> 01:21:29.239
brought to my chambers and I put
one or two obvious questions on the case

1053
01:21:29.560 --> 01:21:32.960
till the managing clerk who accompanied him
announced, with many excuses, that he

1054
01:21:33.039 --> 01:21:38.600
must hurry away. Then I shut
the door, gave mister Routh a cigar,

1055
01:21:39.000 --> 01:21:43.640
and proceeded to conduct a private inquiry. He was a pathetic, being

1056
01:21:43.800 --> 01:21:48.319
only too ready to talk. I
learned the squalid details of his continuous misfortunes.

1057
01:21:48.840 --> 01:21:53.680
He had been the son of a
dissenting minister in Northumberland, and had

1058
01:21:53.760 --> 01:21:59.279
drifted through half a dozen occupations till
he found his present unsavory billet. Truth

1059
01:21:59.359 --> 01:22:01.800
was written low charge on his statement. He had nothing to conceal, for

1060
01:22:01.920 --> 01:22:05.600
his foible was folly, not crime, and he had not a rag of

1061
01:22:05.680 --> 01:22:10.960
pride to give him reticence. He
boasted that he was a gentleman and well

1062
01:22:11.119 --> 01:22:15.520
educated too, but he had never
had a chance. His brother had advised

1063
01:22:15.560 --> 01:22:19.399
him badly. His brother was too
clever for a prosaic world. Always through

1064
01:22:19.439 --> 01:22:26.199
his reminiscences came this echo of fraternal
admiration and complaint. It was about the

1065
01:22:26.239 --> 01:22:30.199
brother I wanted to know, and
mister Routh was very willing to speak.

1066
01:22:30.840 --> 01:22:34.800
Indeed, it was hard to disentangle
fact from his copious outpourings. The brother

1067
01:22:34.880 --> 01:22:40.720
had been an engineer, and a
highly successful one, had dallied with politics

1068
01:22:40.760 --> 01:22:44.640
too, and had been a great
inventor. He had put mister Routh on

1069
01:22:44.720 --> 01:22:47.479
to a South American speculation, where
he had made a little money, but

1070
01:22:47.560 --> 01:22:51.000
speedily lost it again. Oh,
he had been a good brother in his

1071
01:22:51.119 --> 01:22:55.079
way, and had often helped him. But he was a busy man,

1072
01:22:55.600 --> 01:22:59.560
and his help never went quite far
enough. Besides, he did not like

1073
01:22:59.600 --> 01:23:02.640
to apply to him too often.
I gathered that the brother was not a

1074
01:23:02.680 --> 01:23:06.560
person to take liberties with. I
asked him what he was doing now,

1075
01:23:08.239 --> 01:23:11.359
Ah, said mister Rouve. That
is what I wish I could tell you.

1076
01:23:11.960 --> 01:23:14.640
I will not conceal from you that
for the moment, I am in

1077
01:23:14.760 --> 01:23:18.439
considerable financial straits, and this case, though my hands are clean enough,

1078
01:23:18.479 --> 01:23:23.479
God knows, will not make life
easier for me. My brother is a

1079
01:23:23.520 --> 01:23:28.560
mysterious man whose business often takes him
abroad. I have never known even his

1080
01:23:28.640 --> 01:23:32.199
address, for I write always to
a London office from which my communications are

1081
01:23:32.279 --> 01:23:36.920
forwarded. I only know that he
is in some big electrical business, for

1082
01:23:38.039 --> 01:23:41.239
I remember that he once let drop
the remark that he was in charge of

1083
01:23:41.279 --> 01:23:45.479
some power station. No, I
do not think it is in London,

1084
01:23:45.560 --> 01:23:49.199
probably somewhere abroad. I heard from
him a fortnight ago, and he told

1085
01:23:49.279 --> 01:23:53.920
me he was just leaving England for
a couple of months. It is very

1086
01:23:53.920 --> 01:23:58.039
annoying for I want badly to get
into touch with him. Do you know,

1087
01:23:58.119 --> 01:24:00.079
mister Routh, I said, I
believe I have met your brother.

1088
01:24:00.560 --> 01:24:04.720
Is he like you? In any
way. We have a strong family resemblance,

1089
01:24:04.720 --> 01:24:09.479
but he is taller and slimmer.
He has been more prosperous and has

1090
01:24:09.479 --> 01:24:12.960
lived a healthier life. You see, do you happen to know? I

1091
01:24:13.039 --> 01:24:15.399
asked if he ever uses another name? I don't think that the man I

1092
01:24:15.479 --> 01:24:20.600
knew was called Routh. The clerk
flushed. I think it highly unlikely that

1093
01:24:20.680 --> 01:24:25.479
my brother would use an alias.
He has done nothing to disgrace a name

1094
01:24:25.520 --> 01:24:29.439
of which we are proud. I
told him that my memory had played me

1095
01:24:29.560 --> 01:24:33.000
false, and we parted on very
good terms. He was an innocent soul,

1096
01:24:33.119 --> 01:24:36.479
one of those people that clever rascals
get to do their dirty work for

1097
01:24:36.600 --> 01:24:42.640
them. But there was no mistaking
the resemblance. There without the brains and

1098
01:24:42.760 --> 01:24:47.000
force and virility went my super butler
of Blackheath, who passed under the name

1099
01:24:47.039 --> 01:24:51.000
of Tuke. The clerk had given
me the name of the office to whose

1100
01:24:51.000 --> 01:24:55.800
address he had written to his brother. I was not surprised to find that

1101
01:24:55.840 --> 01:24:59.720
it was that of the firm of
stockbrokers for whom I was still acting in

1102
01:24:59.760 --> 01:25:03.439
the Arabahd's case, where I had
heard Pavia's name. I rang up the

1103
01:25:03.479 --> 01:25:08.880
partner whom I knew and told him
a very plausible story of having a message

1104
01:25:08.880 --> 01:25:12.720
for one of mister Pavia's servants,
and asked him if he were in touch

1105
01:25:12.760 --> 01:25:15.760
with them and could forward letters.
He made me hold the line and then

1106
01:25:15.840 --> 01:25:19.720
came back and told me that he
had forwarded letters for Tuke, the butler,

1107
01:25:20.079 --> 01:25:24.840
and one Routh, who was a
groom or footman. Tuke had gone

1108
01:25:24.880 --> 01:25:28.279
abroad to join his master, and
he did not know his address, but

1109
01:25:28.359 --> 01:25:31.359
he advised me to write to the
White Lodge. I thanked him and rang

1110
01:25:31.479 --> 01:25:35.880
off. That was settled anyhow.
Tuke's real name was Routh, and it

1111
01:25:35.960 --> 01:25:40.880
was Tuke who had gone to Bokhara. My next step was to ring up

1112
01:25:40.960 --> 01:25:45.159
mc gillivray at Scotland Yard and get
an appointment. In half an hour's time.

1113
01:25:45.760 --> 01:25:48.359
McGillivray had been at the bar I
had read in his chambers, and

1114
01:25:48.520 --> 01:25:53.920
was now one of the heads of
the Criminal Investigation Department. I was about

1115
01:25:53.960 --> 01:25:57.279
to ask him for information which he
was in no way bound to give me,

1116
01:25:57.680 --> 01:26:00.840
but I presumed on our old acquaintance. I asked him first whether he

1117
01:26:00.920 --> 01:26:05.520
had ever heard of a secret organization
which went under the name of the Powerhouse.

1118
01:26:06.319 --> 01:26:10.600
He laughed, out loud at my
question. I should think we have

1119
01:26:10.680 --> 01:26:14.840
several hundreds of such pet names on
our records. He said, everything from

1120
01:26:14.880 --> 01:26:19.760
the Lodge of the bold Faced Ravens
to Solomon Seal number ten. Fancy nomenclature

1121
01:26:19.840 --> 01:26:26.159
is the relaxation of the tired anarchist. In matters very little. The dangerous

1122
01:26:26.199 --> 01:26:30.119
fellows have no names, no numbers
even which we can get hold of.

1123
01:26:30.720 --> 01:26:32.960
But I'll get a man to look
up our records. There may be something

1124
01:26:33.039 --> 01:26:40.560
filed about your powerhouse. My second
question, he answered differently, Routh Routh.

1125
01:26:41.000 --> 01:26:44.159
Why, yes, there was a
Routh we had dealings with a dozen

1126
01:26:44.239 --> 01:26:47.680
years ago when I used to go
the Northeastern circuit. He was a trade

1127
01:26:47.760 --> 01:26:53.000
union official who bagged the funds,
and they couldn't bring him to justice because

1128
01:26:53.000 --> 01:26:57.600
of the ridiculous extra legal status they
possessed. He knew it and played their

1129
01:26:57.600 --> 01:27:01.079
own privileges against them. Oh yes, he was a very complete rogue.

1130
01:27:01.520 --> 01:27:05.640
I once saw him at a meeting
in Sunderland, and I remember his face,

1131
01:27:06.119 --> 01:27:11.880
sneering eyes, diabolically clever mouth and
with it all as smug as a

1132
01:27:11.920 --> 01:27:15.359
family butler. He has disappeared from
England. At least we haven't heard of

1133
01:27:15.439 --> 01:27:19.920
him for some years, but I
can show you his photograph. Mc gillivray

1134
01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:25.319
brought from a lettered cabinet a bundle
of cards, selected one and tossed it

1135
01:27:25.359 --> 01:27:28.479
towards me. It was that of
a man of thirty or so, with

1136
01:27:28.600 --> 01:27:32.600
short side whiskers and a drooping mustache. The eyes, the ill fitting jaw,

1137
01:27:32.960 --> 01:27:38.039
and the brow were those of my
friend mister Tuke, brother and patron

1138
01:27:38.079 --> 01:27:42.640
of the sorrowful mister Routh, who
had already that afternoon occupied my attention.

1139
01:27:43.640 --> 01:27:46.960
Mc gillivray promised to make certain inquiries, and I walked home in a state

1140
01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:51.359
of elation. Now I knew for
certain who had gone to Bokhara, and

1141
01:27:51.439 --> 01:27:57.199
I knew something too, of the
traveler's past. A discredited genius was the

1142
01:27:57.359 --> 01:28:00.920
very man for Lumley's schemes, one
who asked for nothing better than to use

1143
01:28:00.960 --> 01:28:06.880
his brains outside the ring fence of
convention. Somewhere in the waste of Turkestan,

1144
01:28:08.279 --> 01:28:12.359
the ex trade union official was in
search of pit Heron. I did

1145
01:28:12.359 --> 01:28:16.000
not fancy that mister Tuke would be
very squeamish. I dined at the club

1146
01:28:16.119 --> 01:28:20.000
and left early, going home.
I had an impression that I was being

1147
01:28:20.079 --> 01:28:25.720
shadowed. You know, the feeling
that someone is watching you, a sort

1148
01:28:25.760 --> 01:28:30.479
of sensation which the mind receives without
actual evidence. If the watcher is behind

1149
01:28:30.520 --> 01:28:34.279
where you can't see him, you
have a cold feeling between your shoulders.

1150
01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:39.600
I dare say it is a legacy
from the days when the caveman had to

1151
01:28:39.600 --> 01:28:43.920
look pretty sharp to keep from getting
his enemy's knife between the ribs. It

1152
01:28:43.960 --> 01:28:47.199
was a bright summer evening, and
Piccadilly had its usual crowd of motor cars

1153
01:28:47.199 --> 01:28:53.800
and buses and foot passengers. I
halted twice, once in Saint James's Street

1154
01:28:53.920 --> 01:28:57.960
and once at the corner of Stratton
Street, and retraced my steps for a

1155
01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:00.880
bit, and each time I had
them pcression that someone a hundred yards or

1156
01:29:00.880 --> 01:29:05.680
so off had done the same.
My instinct was to turn round and face

1157
01:29:05.760 --> 01:29:11.399
him, whoever he was, but
I saw that that was foolishness. Obviously,

1158
01:29:11.439 --> 01:29:14.079
in such a crowd, I could
get no certainty in the matter,

1159
01:29:14.479 --> 01:29:17.000
so I put it out of my
mind. I spent the rest of the

1160
01:29:17.039 --> 01:29:21.520
evening in my rooms, reading cases
and trying to keep my thoughts off Central

1161
01:29:21.560 --> 01:29:27.520
Asia. About ten I was wrung
up on the telephone by Felix. He

1162
01:29:27.600 --> 01:29:31.199
had had his answer from Bokhara.
Pitt Heron had left with a small caravan

1163
01:29:31.279 --> 01:29:36.800
on June second by the main road
through the Hissar Range. Tommy had arrived

1164
01:29:36.800 --> 01:29:41.600
on June tenth, and on the
twelfth had set off with two servants on

1165
01:29:41.640 --> 01:29:45.279
the same trail, traveling the lighter
of the two. He should have overtaken

1166
01:29:45.319 --> 01:29:50.119
pitt Heron by the fifteenth at latest. That was yesterday, and my mind

1167
01:29:50.159 --> 01:29:55.880
was immensely relieved. Tommy in such
a situation was a tower of strength,

1168
01:29:56.399 --> 01:30:00.680
for whatever his failings in politics.
I knew no one and I would rather

1169
01:30:00.720 --> 01:30:04.239
have with me to go tiger shooting. Next day, the sense of espionage

1170
01:30:04.279 --> 01:30:09.039
increased. I was in the habit
of walking down to the Temple by way

1171
01:30:09.079 --> 01:30:13.199
of Pall Mall and the Embankment,
but as I did not happen to be

1172
01:30:13.239 --> 01:30:16.520
in court that morning, I resolved
to make a detour and test my suspicions.

1173
01:30:17.039 --> 01:30:20.640
There seemed to be nobody in down
street as I emerged from my flat,

1174
01:30:21.039 --> 01:30:25.760
but I had not walked five yards
before turning back. I saw a

1175
01:30:25.760 --> 01:30:30.720
man enter from the Piccadilly end,
while another moved across the Hertford Street opening.

1176
01:30:30.319 --> 01:30:34.000
It may have been only my imagination, but I was convinced that these

1177
01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:39.079
were my watchers. I walked up
Park Lane, for it seemed to me

1178
01:30:39.159 --> 01:30:43.520
that by taking the tube at the
Marble Arch station I could bring matters to

1179
01:30:43.600 --> 01:30:47.760
the proof. I have a knack
of observing small, irrelevant details, and

1180
01:30:47.840 --> 01:30:51.640
I happened to have noticed that a
certain carriage in the train which left Marble

1181
01:30:51.720 --> 01:30:57.960
Arch about nine thirty stopped exactly opposite
the exit at the Chancery Lane station,

1182
01:30:58.760 --> 01:31:01.600
and by hurrying up the passage,
one could just catch the lift, which

1183
01:31:01.640 --> 01:31:05.520
served an earlier train, and so
reached the street before any of the other

1184
01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:12.199
travelers. I performed this maneuver with
success, caught the early lift, reached

1185
01:31:12.239 --> 01:31:15.720
the street, and took cover behind
a pillar box, from which I could

1186
01:31:15.760 --> 01:31:19.159
watch the exit of passengers from the
stairs. I judged that my tracker,

1187
01:31:19.239 --> 01:31:23.920
if he missed me below, would
run up the stairs rather than wait for

1188
01:31:24.000 --> 01:31:28.920
the lift. Sure Enough, a
breathless gentleman appeared, who scanned the street

1189
01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:32.760
eagerly and then turned to the lift
to watch the emerging passengers. It was

1190
01:31:32.800 --> 01:31:39.000
clear that the espionage was no figment
of my brain. I walked slowly to

1191
01:31:39.079 --> 01:31:42.760
my chambers and got through the day's
work as best I could, for my

1192
01:31:42.880 --> 01:31:47.479
mind was preoccupied with the unpleasant business
in which I found myself entangled. I

1193
01:31:47.520 --> 01:31:51.239
would have given a year's income to
be honestly quit of it, but there

1194
01:31:51.239 --> 01:31:56.159
seemed to be no way of escape. The maddening thing was that I could

1195
01:31:56.159 --> 01:32:00.880
do so little. There was no
chance of forgetting anxiety in strenuous work.

1196
01:32:00.399 --> 01:32:04.039
I could only wait with the patience
at my command, and hope for the

1197
01:32:04.079 --> 01:32:09.640
one chance in a thousand which I
might seize. I felt miserably that it

1198
01:32:09.720 --> 01:32:13.720
was no gain for me. I
had never been brought up to harry wild

1199
01:32:13.800 --> 01:32:17.199
beasts and risked my neck twice a
day at polo. Like Tommy de Lorraine,

1200
01:32:17.680 --> 01:32:21.760
I was a peaceful, sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life,

1201
01:32:23.239 --> 01:32:27.840
with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realize

1202
01:32:27.840 --> 01:32:32.000
that I was very obstinate. At
four o'clock I left the temple and walked

1203
01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:36.239
to the embassy. I had resolved
to banish the espionage from my mind,

1204
01:32:36.439 --> 01:32:41.720
for that was the least of my
difficulties. Felix gave me an hour of

1205
01:32:41.760 --> 01:32:45.000
his valuable time. It was something
that Tommy had joined pitt Heron, but

1206
01:32:45.079 --> 01:32:49.199
there were other matters to be arranged
in that far country. The time had

1207
01:32:49.239 --> 01:32:53.760
come, in my opinion, to
tell him the whole story. The telling

1208
01:32:53.880 --> 01:32:57.159
was a huge relief to my mind. He did not laugh at me,

1209
01:32:57.199 --> 01:33:00.680
as I had half feared, but
took the whole thing as as gravely as

1210
01:33:00.720 --> 01:33:05.000
possible. In his profession. I
fancy he had found too many certainties behind

1211
01:33:05.039 --> 01:33:10.439
suspicions to treat anything as trivial.
The next step, he said, was

1212
01:33:10.479 --> 01:33:14.600
to warn the Russian police of the
presence of the man called Saranov and the

1213
01:33:14.640 --> 01:33:18.239
super butler. Happily we had materials
for the description of tuk or Routh,

1214
01:33:18.680 --> 01:33:21.680
and I could not believe that such
a figure would be hard to trace.

1215
01:33:23.359 --> 01:33:27.640
Felix cabled again in cipher, asking
that the two should be watched more,

1216
01:33:27.720 --> 01:33:31.439
especially if there was reason to believe
that they had followed Tommy's route. Once

1217
01:33:31.520 --> 01:33:35.560
more, we got out the big
map and discussed the possible ways. It

1218
01:33:35.640 --> 01:33:41.359
seemed to me a land created by
providence for surprises. For the roads followed

1219
01:33:41.359 --> 01:33:44.800
the valleys, and to the man
who traveled light, there must be many

1220
01:33:44.840 --> 01:33:48.680
short cuts through the hills. I
left the embassy before six o'clock, and,

1221
01:33:49.079 --> 01:33:54.479
crossing the square, engrossed with my
own thoughts, ran full into Lumley.

1222
01:33:55.680 --> 01:33:58.720
I hope I played my part well, though I could not repress a

1223
01:33:58.760 --> 01:34:02.359
start of surprise. He wore a
gray morning coat and a white top hat

1224
01:34:02.680 --> 01:34:09.279
and looked the image of benevolent respectability. Ah, mister Lyithn, he said,

1225
01:34:09.640 --> 01:34:14.560
we meet again. I murmured something
about my regrets at my early departure

1226
01:34:14.640 --> 01:34:17.600
three days ago, and added the
feeble joke that I wished he would hurry

1227
01:34:17.600 --> 01:34:23.039
on his twilight of civilization, for
the burden of it was becoming too much

1228
01:34:23.079 --> 01:34:26.600
for me. He looked me in
the eyes with all the friendliness in the

1229
01:34:26.640 --> 01:34:30.000
world. So you have not forgotten
our evening's talk. You owe me something,

1230
01:34:30.079 --> 01:34:34.039
my friend, for giving you a
new interest in your profession. I

1231
01:34:34.119 --> 01:34:38.720
owe you much, I said,
for your hospitality, your advice, and

1232
01:34:38.760 --> 01:34:44.239
your warnings. He was wearing his
tinted glasses and peered quizzically into my face.

1233
01:34:44.880 --> 01:34:46.399
I am going to make a call
in Grosvenor place, he said,

1234
01:34:46.760 --> 01:34:50.359
and shall beg in return the pleasure
of your company. So you know,

1235
01:34:50.479 --> 01:34:56.199
my young friend pitt heron with an
ingenuous countenance, I explained, that he

1236
01:34:56.199 --> 01:35:00.359
had been at Oxford with me,
and that we had common friends. A

1237
01:35:00.399 --> 01:35:04.239
brilliant young man said Lumly like you. He has occasionally cheered an old man's

1238
01:35:04.279 --> 01:35:09.479
solitude, and he has spoken of
me to you. Yes, I said,

1239
01:35:09.600 --> 01:35:14.359
lying stoutly. He used to tell
me about your collections. If Lumley

1240
01:35:14.399 --> 01:35:16.800
knew Charles Well, he would find
me out, for the latter would not

1241
01:35:16.840 --> 01:35:20.920
have crossed the road for all the
treasures of the louver. Ah. Yes,

1242
01:35:21.319 --> 01:35:25.359
I have picked up a few things, if ever you should care to

1243
01:35:25.399 --> 01:35:29.199
see them. I should be honored
you are a connoisseur of a sort.

1244
01:35:29.560 --> 01:35:32.199
You interest me, for I should
have thought your taste lay in other directions

1245
01:35:32.239 --> 01:35:36.680
than the dead things of art.
Pit Heron is no collector. He loves

1246
01:35:36.720 --> 01:35:41.560
life better than art, as a
young man should. A great traveler.

1247
01:35:41.600 --> 01:35:46.520
Our friend, the Lawrence Oliphant or
Richard Burton of our day, we stopped

1248
01:35:46.520 --> 01:35:50.760
at a house in Grosvenor Place,
and he relinquished my arm. Mister lythan

1249
01:35:50.840 --> 01:35:56.079
he said a word from one who
wishes you no ill. You are a

1250
01:35:56.119 --> 01:36:00.399
friend of pitt Heron, but where
he goes you cannot follow. Take my

1251
01:36:00.439 --> 01:36:03.159
advice and keep out of his affairs. You will do no good to him,

1252
01:36:03.439 --> 01:36:08.520
and you may bring yourself into serious
danger. You are a man of

1253
01:36:08.600 --> 01:36:12.960
sense, a practical man. So
I speak to you frankly, but remember

1254
01:36:13.319 --> 01:36:17.000
I do not warn. Twice he
took off his glasses, and his light

1255
01:36:17.239 --> 01:36:23.399
wild eyes looked me straight in the
face. All benevolence had gone, and

1256
01:36:23.520 --> 01:36:28.239
something implacable and deadly burned in them. Before I could say a word in

1257
01:36:28.319 --> 01:36:33.960
reply, he shuffled up the steps
of the house and was gone. End

1258
01:36:34.039 --> 01:36:46.079
of chapter four. Recording by expatriate
in Bangor, Maine. Chapter five of

1259
01:36:46.159 --> 01:36:51.199
The Powerhouse by John Buchan. The
Slebrivat's recording is in the public domain.

1260
01:36:51.880 --> 01:36:58.920
Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine, Chapter five. I take a partner

1261
01:37:00.319 --> 01:37:03.720
That meeting with Lumley scared me badly, but it also clinched my resolution.

1262
01:37:04.520 --> 01:37:10.680
The most pacific fellow on earth can
be gingered into pugnacity. I had now

1263
01:37:10.720 --> 01:37:14.600
more than my friendship for Tommy and
my sympathy with pet Heron to urge me

1264
01:37:14.720 --> 01:37:17.920
on. A man had tried to
bully me, and that roused all the

1265
01:37:17.960 --> 01:37:23.439
worst stubbornness of my soul. I
was determined to see the game through at

1266
01:37:23.439 --> 01:37:27.359
any cost. But I must have
an ally if my nerves were to hold

1267
01:37:27.399 --> 01:37:31.000
out. And my mind turned at
once to Tommy's friend Chapman, I thought

1268
01:37:31.000 --> 01:37:35.319
with comfort of the bluff independence of
the labor member. So that night at

1269
01:37:35.319 --> 01:37:40.279
the house I hunted him out in
the smoking room. He had been having

1270
01:37:40.279 --> 01:37:45.479
a row with the young bloods of
my party that afternoon and received me ungraciously.

1271
01:37:45.119 --> 01:37:48.279
I'm about sick of you, fellows, he growled. I shall not

1272
01:37:48.399 --> 01:37:53.800
attempt to reproduce Chapman's accent. He
spoke rich Yorkshire with a touch of the

1273
01:37:53.880 --> 01:37:58.279
droll of the western Dales. They
went and spoiled the best speech, though

1274
01:37:58.319 --> 01:38:00.479
I say it as shouldn't, which
this old place has heard for a twelve

1275
01:38:00.520 --> 01:38:04.279
month. I've been working for days
at it. In the library, I

1276
01:38:04.399 --> 01:38:10.079
was telling them how much more bread
cost under protection, and the jew Hilderstein

1277
01:38:10.199 --> 01:38:14.840
started a laugh because I said kilometers
for kilograms. It was just a slip

1278
01:38:14.840 --> 01:38:16.880
of the tongue, for I had
it write in my notes, And besides,

1279
01:38:16.920 --> 01:38:21.239
there foreign words don't matter a curse. Then that young lord assists for

1280
01:38:21.279 --> 01:38:26.439
East Claygate gets up and goes out
as I was getting into my puration,

1281
01:38:27.039 --> 01:38:30.479
and he drops his topper and knocks
off Old Higgins's spectacles, and all the

1282
01:38:30.520 --> 01:38:34.800
idiots laughed. After that, I
gave it them hot and strong and get

1283
01:38:34.840 --> 01:38:39.800
cold to order, and then waddles
him as used to be as good as

1284
01:38:39.840 --> 01:38:44.239
socialist as me replied for the government
and his blamed board, and said that

1285
01:38:44.319 --> 01:38:46.920
the board thought this, and the
board thought that, and was damned if

1286
01:38:46.960 --> 01:38:51.039
the board would stir its stumps.
Well, I mind the day when I

1287
01:38:51.159 --> 01:38:56.279
was hanging onto the board's coat tails
in Hyde Park to keep it from talking

1288
01:38:56.359 --> 01:39:00.920
treason. Took me a long time
to get Chapman settled down and anchored to

1289
01:39:00.960 --> 01:39:03.640
a drink. I want you,
I said, to tell me about Routh.

1290
01:39:03.920 --> 01:39:08.880
You know the fellow I mean,
the ex union leader. At that

1291
01:39:09.039 --> 01:39:12.840
he fairly blazed up. There you
are, you Tories, he shouted,

1292
01:39:13.199 --> 01:39:16.199
causing a pale Liberal member on the
next sofa to make a hurried exit.

1293
01:39:16.560 --> 01:39:20.159
You can't fight fair. You hate
the unions, and you rake up any

1294
01:39:20.239 --> 01:39:25.960
rotten old prejudice to discredit them.
You can find out about Roud for yourself,

1295
01:39:26.000 --> 01:39:29.680
for I'm damned if I help you. I saw I could do nothing

1296
01:39:29.720 --> 01:39:32.239
with Chapman unless I made a clean
breast of it. So for the second

1297
01:39:32.319 --> 01:39:36.479
time that day I told the whole
story. I couldn't have wished for a

1298
01:39:36.479 --> 01:39:41.640
better audience. He got wildly excited
before I was half through with it.

1299
01:39:42.199 --> 01:39:45.720
No doubt of the correctness of my
evidence ever entered his head. For like

1300
01:39:45.800 --> 01:39:50.800
most of his party, he hated
anarchism worse than capitalism, and the notion

1301
01:39:50.880 --> 01:39:59.039
of a highly capitalized, highly scientific, highly undemocratic anarchism fairly revolted his soul.

1302
01:40:00.039 --> 01:40:02.479
Nights. He adored Tommy de Lorraine
Round, he told me, had

1303
01:40:02.479 --> 01:40:06.199
been a young engineer of a superior
type, with a job in a big

1304
01:40:06.239 --> 01:40:12.920
shop at Sheffield's. He had professed
advanced political views, and although he had

1305
01:40:12.960 --> 01:40:16.239
strictly no business to be there,
had taken a large part in trade union

1306
01:40:16.319 --> 01:40:21.239
work, and was treasurer of one
big branch. Chapman had met him often

1307
01:40:21.279 --> 01:40:27.640
at conferences and on platforms, and
had been impressed by the fertility and ingenuity

1308
01:40:27.680 --> 01:40:31.159
of his mind and the boldness of
his purpose. He was the leader of

1309
01:40:31.199 --> 01:40:35.119
the left wing of the movement,
and had that gift of half scientific,

1310
01:40:35.439 --> 01:40:40.880
half philosophic jargon which is dear at
all times to the hearts of the half

1311
01:40:40.920 --> 01:40:45.560
baked. A seat in Parliament had
been repeatedly offered him, but he had

1312
01:40:45.600 --> 01:40:49.159
always declined. Wisely, Chapman thought, for he judged him the type which

1313
01:40:49.199 --> 01:40:54.279
is more effective behind the scenes.
But with all his ability, he had

1314
01:40:54.279 --> 01:40:59.079
not been popular. He was a
cold blooded, sneering devil. As Chapman

1315
01:40:59.119 --> 01:41:02.960
put it to Parnell. He tyrannized
over his followers, and he was the

1316
01:41:03.039 --> 01:41:09.800
rudest brute I ever met. Then
followed the catastrophe in which it became apparent

1317
01:41:09.840 --> 01:41:13.760
that he had speculated with the funds
of his union and had lost a large

1318
01:41:13.800 --> 01:41:17.880
sum. Chapman, however, was
suspicious of these losses, and was inclined

1319
01:41:17.920 --> 01:41:20.960
to suspect that he had the money
all the time in a safe place.

1320
01:41:21.840 --> 01:41:26.560
A year or two earlier, the
unions, greatly to the disgust of old

1321
01:41:26.600 --> 01:41:31.119
fashioned folk, had been given certain
extra legal privileges, and this man Routh

1322
01:41:31.520 --> 01:41:35.680
had been one of the chief advocates
of the union's claims. Now he had

1323
01:41:35.680 --> 01:41:41.600
the cool effrontry to turn the tables
on them and use those very privileges to

1324
01:41:41.840 --> 01:41:46.479
justify his action and escape prosecution.
There was nothing to be done. Some

1325
01:41:46.640 --> 01:41:50.079
of the fellows, said Chapman,
swore to wring his neck but he did

1326
01:41:50.079 --> 01:41:55.319
not give them the chance. He
had disappeared from England and was generally believed

1327
01:41:55.359 --> 01:41:59.279
to be living in some foreign capital. What I would give to be even

1328
01:41:59.359 --> 01:42:02.560
with the swine, cried my friend, clenching and unclenching his big fist.

1329
01:42:03.000 --> 01:42:08.079
But we're up against no small thing. In Josiah Routh, there isn't a

1330
01:42:08.079 --> 01:42:11.880
crime on earth he'd stick at,
and he's as clever as the old devil

1331
01:42:11.920 --> 01:42:15.520
his master. If that's how you
feel, I can trust you to back

1332
01:42:15.560 --> 01:42:17.439
me up, I said, And
the first thing I want you to do

1333
01:42:17.600 --> 01:42:21.600
is to come and stay at my
flat. God knows what may happen next.

1334
01:42:21.640 --> 01:42:25.920
And two men are better than one, I tell you frankly, I'm

1335
01:42:26.000 --> 01:42:30.439
nervous and I would like to have
you with me. Chapman had no objection.

1336
01:42:30.079 --> 01:42:33.800
I accompanied him to his Bloomsbury lodgings, where he packed a bag,

1337
01:42:34.159 --> 01:42:39.600
and we returned to the down street
flat. The sight of his burly figure

1338
01:42:39.640 --> 01:42:44.239
and sagacious face was a relief to
me in the mysterious darkness where I now

1339
01:42:44.359 --> 01:42:49.439
found myself walking. Thus began my
housekeeping with Chapman, one of the queerest

1340
01:42:49.439 --> 01:42:54.479
episodes in my life. He was
the best fellow in the world. But

1341
01:42:54.560 --> 01:42:58.640
I found that I had misjudged his
character. To see him in the house,

1342
01:42:58.640 --> 01:43:01.359
she would have thought him a piece
of ran it with his Yorkshire bluntness

1343
01:43:01.359 --> 01:43:06.319
and hard, downright North Country sense. He had all that somewhere inside him.

1344
01:43:06.359 --> 01:43:11.680
But he was also as romantic as
a boy. The new situation delighted

1345
01:43:11.760 --> 01:43:15.520
him. He was quite clear that
it was another case of the strife between

1346
01:43:15.680 --> 01:43:18.680
capital and labor, Tommy and I
standing for labor. Though he used to

1347
01:43:18.720 --> 01:43:24.560
refer to Tommy in public as a
gilded popinjay, and only a month before

1348
01:43:24.640 --> 01:43:29.720
had described me in the house as
a viprous lackey of capitalism. It was

1349
01:43:29.760 --> 01:43:32.279
the best kind of strife in which
you had not to meet your adversary with

1350
01:43:32.359 --> 01:43:36.319
long winded speeches, but might any
moment get a chance to pummel him with

1351
01:43:36.359 --> 01:43:42.239
your fists. He made me ache
with laughter. The spying business used to

1352
01:43:42.319 --> 01:43:45.720
rouse him to fury. I don't
think he was tracked as I was,

1353
01:43:45.039 --> 01:43:49.039
but he chose to fancy he was, and was guilty of assault and battery

1354
01:43:49.039 --> 01:43:54.159
on one butcher's boy, two cabbys, and a gentleman who turned out to

1355
01:43:54.159 --> 01:43:58.760
be a bookmaker's assistant. This side
of him got to be an infernal nuisance,

1356
01:43:59.119 --> 01:44:01.720
and I had many rose with him. Among other things, he chose

1357
01:44:01.760 --> 01:44:06.000
to suspect my man Waters of treachery, Waters, who was the son of

1358
01:44:06.000 --> 01:44:10.720
a gardener at home and hadn't wits
enough to put up an umbrella when it

1359
01:44:10.800 --> 01:44:14.600
rained, you're not taking this business
rightly. He maintained, one night,

1360
01:44:15.000 --> 01:44:17.520
what's the good of waiting for these
devils to down you. Let's go out

1361
01:44:17.520 --> 01:44:21.560
and down them. And he announced
his intention, from which no words of

1362
01:44:21.600 --> 01:44:27.439
mine could dissuade him of keeping watch
on mister Andrew Lumley at the Albany.

1363
01:44:28.520 --> 01:44:34.000
His resolution led to a complete disregard
of his parliamentary duties. Deputations of constituents

1364
01:44:34.039 --> 01:44:38.359
waited for him in vain. Of
course, he never got a sight of

1365
01:44:38.439 --> 01:44:42.720
Lumley. All that happened was that
he was very nearly given in charge more

1366
01:44:42.760 --> 01:44:47.439
than once for molesting peaceable citizens in
the neighborhood of Piccadilly and Regent Street.

1367
01:44:48.319 --> 01:44:51.600
One night, on my way home
from the Temple, I saw in the

1368
01:44:51.640 --> 01:44:56.760
bills of the evening papers the announcement
of the arrest of a labor member.

1369
01:44:57.319 --> 01:45:00.399
It was Chapman, sure enough,
at first feared that he had got himself

1370
01:45:00.399 --> 01:45:04.399
into serious trouble, and was much
relieved to find him in the flat in

1371
01:45:04.439 --> 01:45:09.479
a state of blazing anger. It
seemed that he had found somebody whom he

1372
01:45:09.520 --> 01:45:14.000
thought was lumly, for he only
knew him from my descriptions. The man

1373
01:45:14.079 --> 01:45:17.520
was in a shop in German Street
with a car waiting outside, and Chapman

1374
01:45:17.680 --> 01:45:21.920
had, politely, as he swore, asked the chauffeur his master's name.

1375
01:45:23.560 --> 01:45:28.600
The chauffeur had replied abusively, upon
which Chapman had hailed him from the driver's

1376
01:45:28.640 --> 01:45:32.359
seat and shaken him till his teeth
rattled. The owner came out and Chapman

1377
01:45:32.479 --> 01:45:36.880
was arrested and taken off to the
nearest police court. He had been compelled

1378
01:45:36.880 --> 01:45:42.760
to apologize and had been fined five
pounds in costs. By the mercy of

1379
01:45:42.840 --> 01:45:46.119
heaven. The chauffeur's master was a
money lender of evil repute, so the

1380
01:45:46.159 --> 01:45:50.439
affair did Chapman no harm, but
I was forced to talk to him seriously.

1381
01:45:51.159 --> 01:45:55.079
I knew it was no use explaining
that for him to spy on the

1382
01:45:55.159 --> 01:45:59.960
powerhouse was like an elephant stalking the
gazelle. The only way was to appeal

1383
01:46:00.079 --> 01:46:03.439
to his incurable romanticism, don't you
see? I told him that you are

1384
01:46:03.479 --> 01:46:09.399
playing Lumley's game. He will trap
you sooner or later into some escapade which

1385
01:46:09.439 --> 01:46:12.479
will lend you in jail. And
where will I be? Then? That

1386
01:46:12.640 --> 01:46:15.199
is what he and his friends are
out for. We've got to meet cunning

1387
01:46:15.239 --> 01:46:19.880
with cunning, and lie low till
we get our chance. He allowed himself

1388
01:46:19.880 --> 01:46:24.359
to be convinced and handed over to
me the pistol he had bought, which

1389
01:46:24.359 --> 01:46:27.159
had been the terror of my life. All right, he said, I'll

1390
01:46:27.199 --> 01:46:30.640
keep quiet, but you promised to
let me into the big scrap when it

1391
01:46:30.680 --> 01:46:35.199
comes off, I promised. Chapman's
notion of the Grand Finale was a Homeric

1392
01:46:35.279 --> 01:46:40.640
combat in which he would get his
fill of fisticuffs. He was in anxiety,

1393
01:46:40.720 --> 01:46:45.439
but all the same he was an
enormous comfort. His imperturbable cheerfulness and

1394
01:46:45.479 --> 01:46:49.079
his racy talk were the tonics I
wanted. He had plenty of wisdom too.

1395
01:46:49.640 --> 01:46:54.520
My nurves were getting bad those days, and whereas I had rarely touched

1396
01:46:54.560 --> 01:46:59.119
the things before, I now found
myself smoking cigarettes from morning till night.

1397
01:46:59.479 --> 01:47:02.520
I am pretty abstemious, as you
know, but I discovered to my horror

1398
01:47:02.520 --> 01:47:06.920
that I was drinking far too many
whiskys and sodas. Chapman knocked me off

1399
01:47:06.960 --> 01:47:11.760
all that and got me back to
a pipe in a modest nightcap. He

1400
01:47:11.840 --> 01:47:15.119
did more, for he undertook to
put me in training. His notion was

1401
01:47:15.119 --> 01:47:19.159
that we should win in the inn
by superior muscles. He was a square,

1402
01:47:19.239 --> 01:47:24.600
thick set fellow who had been a
good middleweight boxer. I could box

1403
01:47:24.640 --> 01:47:28.960
a bit myself, but I improved
mightily under his tuition. We got some

1404
01:47:29.119 --> 01:47:31.960
gloves and used to hammer each other
for half an hour every morning. Then

1405
01:47:32.079 --> 01:47:38.000
might have been seen the shameful spectacle
of a rising barrister with a swollen lip

1406
01:47:38.000 --> 01:47:42.239
and a black eye, arguing in
court, and proceeding of an evening to

1407
01:47:42.319 --> 01:47:46.359
his country's legislature, where he was
confronted from the opposite benches by the sight

1408
01:47:46.399 --> 01:47:50.960
of a leader of the people in
the same vulgar condition. In those days,

1409
01:47:51.000 --> 01:47:55.199
I wanted all the relief I could
get, for it was a beastly

1410
01:47:55.319 --> 01:47:59.359
time. I knew I was in
grave danger. So I made my will

1411
01:47:59.399 --> 01:48:03.960
and went through the other doleful performances
consequent on the expectation of a speedy decease.

1412
01:48:04.680 --> 01:48:09.520
You see I had nothing to grip
on, no clear job to tackle,

1413
01:48:09.920 --> 01:48:13.800
only to wait on the off chance. With an atmosphere of suspicion thickening

1414
01:48:13.840 --> 01:48:16.720
around me. The spying went on. There was no mistake about that,

1415
01:48:17.199 --> 01:48:20.399
but I soon ceased to mind it. Though I did my best to give

1416
01:48:20.439 --> 01:48:26.119
my watchers little satisfaction. There was
a hint of bullying about the spying.

1417
01:48:26.600 --> 01:48:30.600
It is disconcerting at night to have
a man bump against you and look you

1418
01:48:30.680 --> 01:48:34.479
greedily in the face. I did
not go again to Scotland Yard, but

1419
01:48:34.560 --> 01:48:40.520
one night I ran across McGillivray in
the club. He had something of profound

1420
01:48:40.560 --> 01:48:45.279
interest to tell me. I had
asked about the phrase the powerhouse. Well,

1421
01:48:45.399 --> 01:48:47.479
he had come across it in the
letter of a German friend, a

1422
01:48:47.520 --> 01:48:53.079
private letter in which the writer gave
the results of his inquiries into a curious

1423
01:48:53.119 --> 01:48:58.399
affair which a year before had excited
Europe. I had forgotten the details,

1424
01:48:58.439 --> 01:49:01.600
but it had something to do with
the slav States of Austria and an Italian

1425
01:49:01.680 --> 01:49:08.760
students' union, and it threatened at
one time to be dangerous. Mcgilivray's correspondent

1426
01:49:08.920 --> 01:49:13.840
said that in some documents which were
seized he found constant allusion to a thing

1427
01:49:13.920 --> 01:49:17.880
called the craft house, evidently the
headquarters staff of the plot, and the

1428
01:49:18.000 --> 01:49:24.760
same word craft house had appeared elsewhere
in a sonnet of a poet anarchist who

1429
01:49:24.800 --> 01:49:29.000
shot himselves in the slums of Antwerp, in the last ravings of more than

1430
01:49:29.039 --> 01:49:32.960
one criminal, in the extraordinary testament
of Professor M of Jena, who,

1431
01:49:33.039 --> 01:49:38.920
at the age of thirty seven took
his life after writing a strange mystical message

1432
01:49:38.920 --> 01:49:44.880
to his fellow citizens. McGillivray's correspondent
concluded by saying that, in his opinion,

1433
01:49:45.239 --> 01:49:47.680
if this craft house could be found, the key would be discovered to

1434
01:49:47.720 --> 01:49:53.560
the most dangerous secret organization in the
world. He added that he had some

1435
01:49:53.720 --> 01:49:58.920
reason to believe that the motive power
of the concern was English. McGillivray,

1436
01:49:58.960 --> 01:50:02.439
I said me for some time,
and I fancy you think me a sober

1437
01:50:02.479 --> 01:50:06.840
and discreet person. Well, I
believe I am on the edge of discovering

1438
01:50:06.880 --> 01:50:11.479
the secret of your craft house.
I want you to promise me that if

1439
01:50:11.560 --> 01:50:15.039
in the next week I send you
an urgent message, you will act on

1440
01:50:15.159 --> 01:50:18.760
it. However fantastic it seems,
I can't tell you more. I ask

1441
01:50:18.840 --> 01:50:23.079
you to take me on trust and
believe that for anything I do, I

1442
01:50:23.079 --> 01:50:28.720
have tremendous reasons. He knit his
shaggy gray eyebrows and looked curiously at me.

1443
01:50:29.399 --> 01:50:31.960
Yes, I'll go bail for your
sanity. It's a good deal to

1444
01:50:32.000 --> 01:50:34.399
promise. But if you make an
appeal to me, I will see that

1445
01:50:34.479 --> 01:50:40.000
it is met. Next day I
had news from Felix Tuke, and the

1446
01:50:40.000 --> 01:50:44.960
man called Sarronov had been identified.
If you are making inquiries about anybody,

1447
01:50:45.000 --> 01:50:47.279
it is fairly easy to find those
who are seeking for the same person.

1448
01:50:47.840 --> 01:50:53.319
And the Russian police in tracking Tommy
and pitt Heron had easily come on the

1449
01:50:53.319 --> 01:50:58.119
two gentlemen who were following the same
trial. The two had gone by Samarkand,

1450
01:50:58.600 --> 01:51:01.840
evidently intending to strike into the hills
by a shorter route than the main

1451
01:51:02.000 --> 01:51:08.199
road from Bokhara. The frontier posts
had been worn and the stalkers had become

1452
01:51:08.239 --> 01:51:12.680
the stalked. That was one solid
achievement. At any rate. I had

1453
01:51:12.720 --> 01:51:15.720
saved pitt Heron from the worst danger. For first I had sent him Tommy,

1454
01:51:16.119 --> 01:51:19.720
and now I had put the police
on guard against his enemies. I

1455
01:51:19.760 --> 01:51:25.520
had not the slightest doubt that enemies
they were Charles knew too much, and

1456
01:51:25.640 --> 01:51:29.359
Tuke was the man appointed to reason
with him, to bring him back if

1457
01:51:29.399 --> 01:51:33.600
possible, or if not. As
Chapman had said, the ex union leader

1458
01:51:33.680 --> 01:51:39.000
was not the man to stick at
trifles. It was a broiling June.

1459
01:51:39.079 --> 01:51:42.760
The London season was at its height, and I had never been so busy

1460
01:51:42.760 --> 01:51:46.159
in the courts before. But that
crowded and garish world was little more than

1461
01:51:46.199 --> 01:51:50.159
a dream to me. I went
through my daily tasks, dined out,

1462
01:51:50.479 --> 01:51:55.840
went to the play, had consultations, talked to my fellows, but all

1463
01:51:55.880 --> 01:51:59.560
the while I had the feeling that
I was watching somebody else perform the same

1464
01:51:59.600 --> 01:52:02.800
function. I believe I did my
work well, and I know I was

1465
01:52:02.840 --> 01:52:08.960
twice complimented by the Court of Appeal, but my real interests were far away.

1466
01:52:09.680 --> 01:52:13.600
Always I saw two men in the
hot glens of the Oxus, with

1467
01:52:13.680 --> 01:52:17.399
the fine dust of the loose rising
in yellow clouds behind them. One of

1468
01:52:17.439 --> 01:52:23.159
these men had a drawn and anxious
face, and both rode hard. They

1469
01:52:23.199 --> 01:52:28.600
passed by the closes of apricot and
cherry and the green watered gardens, and

1470
01:52:28.680 --> 01:52:32.439
soon the oxes ceased to flow wide
among rushes and water lilies and became a

1471
01:52:32.479 --> 01:52:38.319
turbid hill stream. By and by
the roadside changed, and the horses of

1472
01:52:38.359 --> 01:52:43.479
the travelers trod on mountain turf,
crushing the irises and marigolds. In time,

1473
01:52:44.319 --> 01:52:46.319
I could feel the free air blowing
from the roof of the world,

1474
01:52:46.800 --> 01:52:50.800
and see far ahead the snowy saddle
of the pass which led to India.

1475
01:52:51.840 --> 01:52:56.800
Far behind the riders, I saw
two others, and they chose a different

1476
01:52:56.840 --> 01:53:01.279
way, now over waterless plateau,
now in rugged nullahs. They rode the

1477
01:53:01.359 --> 01:53:05.359
faster, and their route was the
shorter. Sooner or later they must catch

1478
01:53:05.439 --> 01:53:10.279
up the first riders. And I
knew, though how I could not tell

1479
01:53:10.640 --> 01:53:15.520
that death would attend the meeting.
I and only I, sitting in London,

1480
01:53:15.880 --> 01:53:19.880
four thousand miles away, could prevent
disaster. The dream haunted me at

1481
01:53:20.000 --> 01:53:24.800
night, and often, walking in
the strand or sitting at a dinner table,

1482
01:53:25.159 --> 01:53:28.960
I have found my eyes fixed clearly
on the shining upland, with the

1483
01:53:29.039 --> 01:53:31.640
thin white mountains at the back of
it, and the four dots, which

1484
01:53:31.640 --> 01:53:38.239
were men hurrying fast on their business. One night I met Lumly. It

1485
01:53:38.319 --> 01:53:41.680
was at a big political dinner given
by the chief of my party in the

1486
01:53:41.720 --> 01:53:46.079
House of Lords, fifty or sixty
guests and a blaze of stars and decorations.

1487
01:53:46.640 --> 01:53:49.520
I sat near the bottom of the
table and he was near the top,

1488
01:53:49.920 --> 01:53:55.720
sitting between a famous general and an
ex viceroy of India. I asked

1489
01:53:55.720 --> 01:53:58.399
my right hand neighbor who he was, but he could not tell me.

1490
01:53:59.119 --> 01:54:02.039
The same question to my left hand
neighbor brought an answer. It is old

1491
01:54:02.159 --> 01:54:05.840
Lumly. If you never met him. He doesn't go out much, but

1492
01:54:05.920 --> 01:54:10.520
he gives a man's dinner now and
then, which are the best in London.

1493
01:54:11.159 --> 01:54:14.560
No, he's not a politician,
though he favors our side, and

1494
01:54:14.640 --> 01:54:17.279
I expect has given a lot to
our funds. I can't think why they

1495
01:54:17.279 --> 01:54:21.640
don't make him appear. He's enormously
rich, and very generous, and the

1496
01:54:21.640 --> 01:54:27.039
most learned old fellow in Britain.
My chief, my neighbor, was an

1497
01:54:27.159 --> 01:54:30.279
under secretary, knows him and told
me once that if he wanted any out

1498
01:54:30.279 --> 01:54:33.279
of the way bit of knowledge,
you could get it by asking Lumly.

1499
01:54:33.920 --> 01:54:39.239
I expect he pulls the strings more
than anybody living, but he scarcely ever

1500
01:54:39.319 --> 01:54:42.720
goes out. And it's a feather
in our host's cap to have got him

1501
01:54:42.720 --> 01:54:46.319
tonight. You never see his name
in the papers either. He probably pays

1502
01:54:46.359 --> 01:54:50.359
the press to keep him out,
like some of those millionaire fellows in America.

1503
01:54:51.319 --> 01:54:55.600
I watched him through dinner. He
was the center of the talk at

1504
01:54:55.600 --> 01:54:59.359
his end of the table. I
could see the blue ribbon bulging out on

1505
01:54:59.439 --> 01:55:03.399
Lord more Cam's breast as he leaned
forward to question him. He was wearing

1506
01:55:03.439 --> 01:55:08.119
some foreign orders, including the Legion
of Honor, and I could hear,

1507
01:55:08.159 --> 01:55:12.760
in the pause of conversation echoes of
his soft, rich voice. I could

1508
01:55:12.760 --> 01:55:15.279
see him beaming through his glasses on
his neighbors, and now and then he

1509
01:55:15.319 --> 01:55:19.600
would take them off and look mildly
at a speaker. I wondered why nobody

1510
01:55:19.680 --> 01:55:25.199
realized as I did, what was
in his light wild eyes. The dinner

1511
01:55:25.239 --> 01:55:28.920
I believed was excellent, and the
company was good, but down at my

1512
01:55:29.239 --> 01:55:31.079
end, I could eat little,
and I did not want to talk.

1513
01:55:31.640 --> 01:55:36.000
Here in this pleasant room, with
servants moving softly about, and a mellow

1514
01:55:36.079 --> 01:55:41.520
light on the silver from the shaded
candles, I felt the man was buttressed

1515
01:55:41.520 --> 01:55:45.359
and defended beyond my reach. A
kind of despairing hatred gripped me when I

1516
01:55:45.399 --> 01:55:49.960
looked his way, For I was
always conscious of that other picture the Asian

1517
01:55:50.079 --> 01:55:55.640
desert, pitt Heron's hunted face,
and the grim figure of tuk on his

1518
01:55:55.800 --> 01:56:00.239
trail. That and the great secret
wheels of what was too inhuman and to

1519
01:56:00.279 --> 01:56:04.199
be called crime, moving throughout the
globe under this man's hand. There was

1520
01:56:04.239 --> 01:56:10.039
a party afterwards, but I did
not stay no more did lumly, and

1521
01:56:10.159 --> 01:56:13.079
for a second I brushed against him
in the hall at the foot of the

1522
01:56:13.119 --> 01:56:17.359
big staircase. He smiled on me
affectionately. Have you been dining here?

1523
01:56:17.720 --> 01:56:21.359
I did not notice you. You
had better things to think of, I

1524
01:56:21.439 --> 01:56:25.600
said, By the way, you
gave me good advice some weeks ago.

1525
01:56:26.079 --> 01:56:29.399
It may interest you to hear that
I have taken it. I am so

1526
01:56:29.560 --> 01:56:33.079
glad, he said softly. You
are a very discreet young man. But

1527
01:56:33.199 --> 01:56:40.439
his eyes told me that he knew
I lied. End of chapter five.

1528
01:56:41.039 --> 01:56:53.199
Recording by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter six of the Powerhouse by John

1529
01:56:53.279 --> 01:56:59.000
Buchan. This LibriVox recording is in
the public domain. Recording by Expatriot in

1530
01:56:59.119 --> 01:57:05.319
Bangor, Maine, Chapter six,
The Restaurant in Antioch Street. I was

1531
01:57:05.359 --> 01:57:10.439
working late at the temple next day, and it was nearly seven before I

1532
01:57:10.479 --> 01:57:15.239
got up to go home. Mc
gillivray had telephoned me in the afternoon saying

1533
01:57:15.239 --> 01:57:17.880
he wanted to see me and suggesting
dinner at the club, and I had

1534
01:57:17.920 --> 01:57:23.239
told him I should come straight there
from my chambers, But just after six

1535
01:57:23.319 --> 01:57:27.399
he had rung me up again and
proposed another meeting place. I've got some

1536
01:57:27.600 --> 01:57:30.479
very important news for you and want
to be quiet. There's a little place

1537
01:57:30.560 --> 01:57:35.840
where I sometimes dine, Rappaccini's and
Antioch Street. I meet you there at

1538
01:57:35.840 --> 01:57:41.159
half past seven. I agreed,
and sent a message to Chapman at the

1539
01:57:41.199 --> 01:57:45.119
flat, telling him I would be
out to dinner. It was a Wednesday

1540
01:57:45.199 --> 01:57:47.680
night, so the house rose early. He asked me where I was dining,

1541
01:57:47.720 --> 01:57:51.239
and I told him, but I
did not mention with whom. His

1542
01:57:51.359 --> 01:57:56.880
voice sounded very cross, for he
hated a lonely meal. It was a

1543
01:57:56.960 --> 01:58:00.479
hot, still night, and I
had had a heavy day in so heavy

1544
01:58:00.479 --> 01:58:05.239
that my private anxieties had almost slipped
from my mind. I walked along the

1545
01:58:05.279 --> 01:58:11.479
embankment and up Regent Street towards Oxford's
Circus. Antioch Street, as I had

1546
01:58:11.520 --> 01:58:15.119
learned from the directory, was in
the area between Langham Place and Tottenham Court

1547
01:58:15.239 --> 01:58:19.960
Road. I wondered vaguely why McGillivray
should have chosen such an out of the

1548
01:58:19.960 --> 01:58:25.199
way spot, but I knew him
for a man of many whims. The

1549
01:58:25.239 --> 01:58:28.960
street, when I found it,
turned out to be a respectable little place,

1550
01:58:29.039 --> 01:58:33.000
boarding houses and architect's offices, with
a few antiquity shops and a picture

1551
01:58:33.039 --> 01:58:38.359
cleaners. The restaurant took some finding, for it was one of those discreet

1552
01:58:38.520 --> 01:58:44.199
establishments common enough in France, where
no edibles are displayed in the British fashion,

1553
01:58:44.760 --> 01:58:48.479
and muslin half curtains decked the windows. Only the door, mat lettered

1554
01:58:48.479 --> 01:58:54.279
with the proprietor's name, remained to
guide the hungry. I gave a waiter

1555
01:58:54.399 --> 01:58:58.680
my hat and stick, and was
ushered into a garish dining room apparently full

1556
01:58:58.680 --> 01:59:03.199
of people. A single violinist was
discoursing music from beside the grill. The

1557
01:59:03.279 --> 01:59:08.720
occupants were not quite the kind one
expects to find in an eating house in

1558
01:59:08.760 --> 01:59:13.239
a side street. The men were
all in evening dress with white waistcoats,

1559
01:59:13.640 --> 01:59:17.239
and the women looked either demi mondenz
or those who followed their taste in clothes.

1560
01:59:18.119 --> 01:59:23.079
Various eyes looked curiously at me as
I entered. I guessed that the

1561
01:59:23.159 --> 01:59:27.920
restaurant had by one of those odd
freaks of Londoners become for a moment the

1562
01:59:28.000 --> 01:59:31.720
fashion. The proprietor met me half
way up the room. He might call

1563
01:59:31.840 --> 01:59:38.800
himself Rappaccini, but he was obviously
a German. Mister Gilvray, He nodded,

1564
01:59:38.880 --> 01:59:42.960
he has engaged a private room.
Will you follow, sir? A

1565
01:59:43.079 --> 01:59:45.720
narrow stairway broke into the wall on
the left side of the dining room.

1566
01:59:46.359 --> 01:59:50.680
I followed the manager up it and
along as short corridor to a door which

1567
01:59:50.720 --> 01:59:55.840
filled its end. He ushered me
into a brightly lit little room, where

1568
01:59:55.840 --> 02:00:00.199
a table was laid for two.
Mister Gilvry, comes off in here,

1569
02:00:00.239 --> 02:00:03.359
said the manager. If you'll be
late, sometimes everything is ready, sir.

1570
02:00:03.479 --> 02:00:08.680
I hope you'll be pleased. It
looked inviting enough, but the air

1571
02:00:08.760 --> 02:00:12.960
smelt stuffy. Then I saw that, though the night was warm, the

1572
02:00:13.039 --> 02:00:16.520
window was shut and the curtains drawn. I pulled back the curtains, and

1573
02:00:16.600 --> 02:00:21.359
to my surprise saw that the shutters
were closed. You must open these,

1574
02:00:21.399 --> 02:00:27.199
I said, or will stifle The
manager glanced at the window. I'll send

1575
02:00:27.199 --> 02:00:30.800
a vator, he said, and
departed. The door seemed to shut with

1576
02:00:30.880 --> 02:00:34.039
an odd click. I flung myself
down in one of the arm chairs,

1577
02:00:34.119 --> 02:00:39.640
for I was feeling pretty tired.
The little table beckoned alluringly, for I

1578
02:00:39.720 --> 02:00:43.720
was also hungry. I remember there
was a mass of pink roses on it.

1579
02:00:44.239 --> 02:00:47.239
A bottle of champagne with a cork
loose stood in a wine cooler on

1580
02:00:47.279 --> 02:00:51.880
the sideboard, and there was an
unopened bottle beside it. It seemed to

1581
02:00:51.920 --> 02:00:57.640
me that Micgilivray, when he dined
here, did himself rather well. The

1582
02:00:57.680 --> 02:01:00.680
promised waiter did not arrive, and
the stuffyess was making me very thirsty.

1583
02:01:01.199 --> 02:01:04.880
I looked for a bell, but
could not see one. My watch told

1584
02:01:04.880 --> 02:01:08.720
me it was now a quarter to
eight, but there was no sign in

1585
02:01:08.800 --> 02:01:13.680
mc gillivray. I poured myself out
a glass of champagne from the open bottle

1586
02:01:14.039 --> 02:01:16.880
and was just about to drink it
when my eye caught something in a corner

1587
02:01:16.880 --> 02:01:21.840
of the room. It was one
of those little mid Victorian corner tables I

1588
02:01:21.880 --> 02:01:26.720
believe they call them what nots,
which you will find in any boarding house,

1589
02:01:27.119 --> 02:01:30.640
littered up with photographs and coral and
presents from Brighton. On this one

1590
02:01:30.680 --> 02:01:34.680
stood a photograph in a shabby frame, and I thought I recognized it.

1591
02:01:35.479 --> 02:01:40.000
I crossed the room and picked it
up. It showed a man of thirty

1592
02:01:40.119 --> 02:01:44.600
with short side whiskers, an ill
fitting jaw, and a drooping mustache.

1593
02:01:45.079 --> 02:01:48.960
The duplicate of it was in mcgilivrey's
cabinet. It was mister Routh, the

1594
02:01:49.039 --> 02:01:55.159
ex union leader. There was nothing
very remarkable about that, after all,

1595
02:01:55.439 --> 02:01:59.199
but it gave me a nasty shock. The room, now seen the Sinister

1596
02:01:59.319 --> 02:02:02.720
Place as well, is intolerably close. There was still no sign of the

1597
02:02:02.760 --> 02:02:08.039
waiter to open the window, so
I thought I would wait for mcguilivrey downstairs.

1598
02:02:08.680 --> 02:02:12.159
But the door would not open,
the handle would not turn. It

1599
02:02:12.199 --> 02:02:15.560
did not seem to be locked,
but rather to have shut with some kind

1600
02:02:15.560 --> 02:02:18.800
of patent spring. I noticed that
the whole thing was a powerful piece of

1601
02:02:18.840 --> 02:02:25.439
oak with a heavy framework, very
unlike the usual flimsy restaurant doors. My

1602
02:02:25.520 --> 02:02:29.479
first instinct was to make a deuce
of a row and attract the attention of

1603
02:02:29.520 --> 02:02:33.760
the diners below. I own I
was beginning to feel badly frightened. Clearly

1604
02:02:33.840 --> 02:02:39.000
I had gotten too some sort of
trap. Mcguilivray's invitation might have been a

1605
02:02:39.079 --> 02:02:43.880
hoax, for it is not difficult
to counterfeit a man's voice on the telephone.

1606
02:02:43.920 --> 02:02:47.079
With an effort, I forced myself
into calmness. It was preposterous to

1607
02:02:47.119 --> 02:02:51.359
think that anything could happen to me
in a room not thirty feet from where

1608
02:02:51.399 --> 02:02:57.039
a score or two of ordinary citizens
were dining. I had only to raise

1609
02:02:57.079 --> 02:03:00.600
my voice to bring inquirers. Yes, but above all things I did not

1610
02:03:00.760 --> 02:03:04.840
want to row. It would never
do for a rising lawyer and a member

1611
02:03:04.880 --> 02:03:10.680
of Parliament to be found shouting for
help in an upper chamber of a Bloomsbury

1612
02:03:10.760 --> 02:03:15.479
restaurant. The worst deduction would be
drawn from the open bottle of champagne.

1613
02:03:15.000 --> 02:03:17.960
Besides, it might be all right. After all, the door might have

1614
02:03:18.039 --> 02:03:23.039
got stuck. Mc Guilivray at that
very moment might be on his way up.

1615
02:03:23.680 --> 02:03:27.640
So I sat down and waited.
Then I remembered my thirst and stretched

1616
02:03:27.640 --> 02:03:30.840
out my hand to the glass of
champagne. But at that instant I looked

1617
02:03:30.840 --> 02:03:36.359
towards the window and set down the
wine untasted. It was a very odd

1618
02:03:36.399 --> 02:03:42.000
window. The lower end was about
flushed with the floor, and the hinges

1619
02:03:42.039 --> 02:03:45.880
of the shutters seemed to be only
on one side. As I stared,

1620
02:03:45.920 --> 02:03:49.600
I began to wonder whether it was
a window at all. Next moment my

1621
02:03:49.760 --> 02:03:55.000
doubts were sold. The window swung
open like a door, and in the

1622
02:03:55.119 --> 02:04:00.439
dark cavity stood a man. Strangely
enough, I knew him. The figure

1623
02:04:00.560 --> 02:04:03.680
was not one that is readily forgotten. Good evening, mister Docker, I

1624
02:04:03.760 --> 02:04:09.159
said, will you have a glass
of champagne. A year before, on

1625
02:04:09.239 --> 02:04:13.439
the Southeastern Circuit, I had appeared
for the defense in a burglary case.

1626
02:04:14.000 --> 02:04:16.399
Criminal law was not my province,
but now and then I took a case

1627
02:04:16.720 --> 02:04:20.359
to keep my hand in, for
it is the best training in the world

1628
02:04:20.399 --> 02:04:26.279
for the handling of witnesses. This
case had been peculiar. A certain Bill

1629
02:04:26.439 --> 02:04:30.840
Docker was the accused, a gentleman
who bore a bad reputation in the eyes

1630
02:04:30.880 --> 02:04:34.039
of the police. The evidence against
him was strong, but it was more

1631
02:04:34.119 --> 02:04:39.640
or less tainted, being chiefly that
of two former accomplices, a proof that

1632
02:04:39.680 --> 02:04:44.439
there is small truth in the proverbial
honor among thieves. It was an ugly

1633
02:04:44.520 --> 02:04:47.760
business, and my sympathies were with
the accused, for though he may very

1634
02:04:47.760 --> 02:04:51.279
well have been guilty, yet he
had been the victim of a shabby trick.

1635
02:04:53.039 --> 02:04:56.199
Anyhow, I put my back into
the case, and after a hard

1636
02:04:56.239 --> 02:05:00.880
struggle got a verdict of not guilty. Mister Docker had been kind enough to

1637
02:05:00.880 --> 02:05:04.239
express his appreciation of my efforts,
and to ask in a hoarse whisper,

1638
02:05:04.560 --> 02:05:10.319
how I had squared the old bird, meaning the judge he did not understand

1639
02:05:10.319 --> 02:05:14.960
the subtleties of the English law of
evidence. He shambled into the room,

1640
02:05:15.079 --> 02:05:17.840
a huge, hulking figure of a
man, with a thickness of chest,

1641
02:05:17.920 --> 02:05:23.279
which, under happier circumstances might have
made him a terror in the prize ring.

1642
02:05:23.960 --> 02:05:28.680
His features wore a heavy scowl which
slowly cleared to a flicker of recognition.

1643
02:05:29.640 --> 02:05:32.439
By God, it's the lawyer chap, he muttered. I pointed to

1644
02:05:32.479 --> 02:05:35.800
the glass of Champagne. I don't
mind if I do. He said,

1645
02:05:36.119 --> 02:05:41.039
here's health. He swallowed the wine
at a gulp and wiped his mouth on

1646
02:05:41.119 --> 02:05:45.039
his sleeve. Have a drop yourself, governor, he added, a glass

1647
02:05:45.039 --> 02:05:47.640
of bubbly. Will cheer you up
well, mister Docker, I said,

1648
02:05:48.000 --> 02:05:53.159
I hope I see you fit.
I was getting wonderfully collected now that the

1649
02:05:53.199 --> 02:05:57.560
suspense was over. Pretty fair,
sir, pretty fair, able to do

1650
02:05:57.640 --> 02:06:00.840
my day's work like an honest man. And what brings you here? A

1651
02:06:00.880 --> 02:06:04.079
little job I'm on. Some friends
of mine wants you out of the road

1652
02:06:04.119 --> 02:06:08.159
for a bit, and they've sent
me to fetch you. It's a bit

1653
02:06:08.199 --> 02:06:12.079
of luck for you that you've struck
a pal. We needn't have no unpleasantness,

1654
02:06:12.119 --> 02:06:15.119
seeing we're both what you might call
men of the world. I appreciate

1655
02:06:15.159 --> 02:06:18.119
the compliment, I said, But
where do you propose to take me?

1656
02:06:18.880 --> 02:06:24.000
Dunno, it's some lay near the
docks. I've got a motor car waitin

1657
02:06:24.079 --> 02:06:28.600
at the back of the house.
But supposing I don't want to go my

1658
02:06:28.760 --> 02:06:32.000
orders admit no excuse, he said
solemnly. You're a sensible chap and can

1659
02:06:32.039 --> 02:06:35.960
see that in a scrap I could
down you easy, very likely, I

1660
02:06:36.079 --> 02:06:40.880
said, But man, you must
be mad to talk like that. Downstairs

1661
02:06:40.880 --> 02:06:44.239
there is a dining room full of
people. I have only to lift my

1662
02:06:44.319 --> 02:06:48.199
voice to bring the police. You're
a kid, he said scornfully. Them

1663
02:06:48.199 --> 02:06:53.439
geezers downstairs are all in the job. That was a flat catching rig to

1664
02:06:53.479 --> 02:06:56.680
get you up here, so as
you wouldn't suspect nothing. If you was

1665
02:06:56.720 --> 02:06:59.359
to go down now, which you
ain't going to be allowed to do,

1666
02:06:59.760 --> 02:07:02.319
you wouldn't find a blame soul in
the place. I must say, you're

1667
02:07:02.359 --> 02:07:05.399
a bit softer than I hoped,
after the handsome way you talked over the

1668
02:07:05.399 --> 02:07:11.479
old juggins with a wig at Maidstone, mister Docker took the bottle from the

1669
02:07:11.520 --> 02:07:16.119
wine cooler and filled himself another glass. It sounded horribly convincing. If I

1670
02:07:16.239 --> 02:07:20.880
was to be kidnapped and smuggled away, Lumley would have scored half a success,

1671
02:07:21.319 --> 02:07:26.039
not the whole. For as I
swiftly reflected, I had put Felix

1672
02:07:26.079 --> 02:07:29.840
on the track of tuc and there
was every chance that Tommy and pitt Heron

1673
02:07:29.920 --> 02:07:33.000
would be saved. But for myself
it looked pretty black. The more my

1674
02:07:33.119 --> 02:07:38.880
scheme succeeded, the more likely the
powerhouse would be to wreak its vengeance on

1675
02:07:39.000 --> 02:07:43.359
me. Once I was spirited from
the open air world into his dark labyrinths,

1676
02:07:43.840 --> 02:07:46.920
I made a great effort to keep
my voice even and calm. Mister

1677
02:07:47.039 --> 02:07:50.239
Docker, I said, I once
did you a good turn, but for

1678
02:07:50.359 --> 02:07:55.119
me, you might be doing time
now instead of drinking champagne like a gentleman.

1679
02:07:55.800 --> 02:07:58.520
Your pals played you a pretty low
trick, and that was why I

1680
02:07:58.600 --> 02:08:01.520
stuck out for you. I didn't
think you were the kind of man to

1681
02:08:01.560 --> 02:08:05.239
forget a friend. No more,
I am, said he. The man

1682
02:08:05.279 --> 02:08:09.239
who says Bill Docker would go back
on a pal is a liar. Well,

1683
02:08:09.279 --> 02:08:11.600
here's your chance to pay your debts. The men who employ you are

1684
02:08:11.600 --> 02:08:16.079
my deadly enemies and want to do
me in. I'm not a match for

1685
02:08:16.199 --> 02:08:18.680
you. You're a stronger fellow and
can drag me off and hand me over

1686
02:08:18.760 --> 02:08:22.800
to them. But if you do, I'm done with. Make no mistake

1687
02:08:22.840 --> 02:08:26.199
about that. I put it to
you as a decent fellow. Are you

1688
02:08:26.279 --> 02:08:28.720
going to go back on the man
who has been a good friend to you?

1689
02:08:28.840 --> 02:08:33.239
He shifted from one foot to another, with his eyes on the ceiling.

1690
02:08:33.720 --> 02:08:37.000
He was obviously in difficulties. Then
he tried another glass of Champagne.

1691
02:08:37.560 --> 02:08:41.239
I dursn't, Governor, I dursn't
let you go. Then I work for

1692
02:08:41.319 --> 02:08:45.680
would cut my throat as soon as
look at me. Besides, it ain't

1693
02:08:45.680 --> 02:08:48.800
no good if I was to go
off and leave you, There'd be plenty

1694
02:08:48.800 --> 02:08:50.840
more in this house as we'd do
the job. You're up against it,

1695
02:08:50.920 --> 02:08:54.960
Governor. But take a sensible view
and come with me. They don't mean

1696
02:08:56.000 --> 02:08:58.439
you no real harm. I'll take
my Bible oath on it, only to

1697
02:08:58.520 --> 02:09:01.359
keep you qu light for a bit, but you've run across one of their

1698
02:09:01.439 --> 02:09:05.439
games. They won't do, you
know her if you speak em fair,

1699
02:09:05.560 --> 02:09:09.119
be a sport and take it smiling
like you're afraid of them. I said,

1700
02:09:09.560 --> 02:09:13.159
yes, I'm afraid, black afraid. So would you be if you

1701
02:09:13.239 --> 02:09:16.840
knew the gents. I'd rather take
on the whole rat Lane crowd. You

1702
02:09:16.920 --> 02:09:20.359
know them as I mean, on
a Saturday night when they're out for business,

1703
02:09:20.680 --> 02:09:24.279
than go back to my gents and
say as how I had shirked the

1704
02:09:24.399 --> 02:09:28.720
job. He shivered. Good lord, they'd freeze the heart out of a

1705
02:09:28.760 --> 02:09:31.920
bull pup. You're afraid, I
said, slowly. So you're going to

1706
02:09:31.920 --> 02:09:35.880
give me up to the men you're
afraid of, to do as they like

1707
02:09:35.960 --> 02:09:39.439
with me. I never expected it
of you, Bill, I thought you

1708
02:09:39.479 --> 02:09:41.800
were the kind of lad who would
send any gang to the devil before you'd

1709
02:09:41.800 --> 02:09:46.680
go back on a pal. Don't
say that, he said, almost plaintively.

1710
02:09:46.319 --> 02:09:50.720
You don't half know the hole I'm
in. His eyes seemed to be

1711
02:09:50.840 --> 02:09:54.239
wandering, and he yawned deeply.
Just then a great noise began below.

1712
02:09:54.760 --> 02:09:58.680
I heard a voice speaking, a
loud peremptory voice. Then my name was

1713
02:09:58.720 --> 02:10:03.920
schey, life'n life'n are you there? There could be no mistaking that broad

1714
02:10:05.039 --> 02:10:09.840
Yorkshire tongue. By some miracle,
Chapman had followed me and was raising cane

1715
02:10:09.920 --> 02:10:15.079
downstairs. My heart leaped with a
sudden revelation. I'm here, I yelled

1716
02:10:15.159 --> 02:10:18.680
up stairs, Come up and let
me out. Then I turned with a

1717
02:10:18.720 --> 02:10:22.680
smile of triumph to Bill. My
friends have come. I said, you're

1718
02:10:22.720 --> 02:10:26.760
too late for the job. Get
back and tell your master's that. He

1719
02:10:26.880 --> 02:10:30.760
was swaying on his feet, and
he suddenly lurched towards me. You come

1720
02:10:30.800 --> 02:10:33.239
along, By god, you think
you've done me. I'll let you see.

1721
02:10:33.800 --> 02:10:37.279
His voice was growing thick, and
he stopped short. What the hell's

1722
02:10:37.279 --> 02:10:41.479
wrong with me, he gasped,
and going all queer. I he was

1723
02:10:41.560 --> 02:10:46.560
like a man far gone in liquor, But three glasses of champagne would never

1724
02:10:46.600 --> 02:10:48.840
have touched a head like Bill's.
I saw what was up with him.

1725
02:10:50.239 --> 02:10:54.159
He was not drunk, but drugged. They've doped the wine, I cried.

1726
02:10:54.520 --> 02:10:56.800
They put it there for me to
drink it and go to sleep.

1727
02:10:56.640 --> 02:11:01.520
There is always something which is the
last straw to any man. You may

1728
02:11:01.600 --> 02:11:05.520
insult and outrage him, and he
will bear it patiently, but touch the

1729
02:11:05.600 --> 02:11:09.880
quicken his temper and he will turn. Apparently, for Bill, drugging was

1730
02:11:09.920 --> 02:11:15.159
the unforgivable sin. His eye lost
for a moment its confusion. He squared

1731
02:11:15.199 --> 02:11:18.479
his shoulders and roared like a bull. Doped by God. He cried,

1732
02:11:18.520 --> 02:11:22.199
who done it? The men who
shut me in this room? Burst that

1733
02:11:22.319 --> 02:11:26.880
door, and you will find them. He turned a blazing face on the

1734
02:11:26.920 --> 02:11:31.439
locked door and hurled his huge weight
on it. It cracked and bent,

1735
02:11:31.800 --> 02:11:35.199
but the lock and hinges held.
I could see that sleep was overwhelming him,

1736
02:11:35.520 --> 02:11:39.800
and that his limbs were stiffening,
but his anger was still strong enough

1737
02:11:39.800 --> 02:11:45.600
for another effort. Again, he
drew himself together like a big cat and

1738
02:11:45.720 --> 02:11:50.119
flung himself on the woodwork. The
hinges tore from the jambs, and the

1739
02:11:50.159 --> 02:11:54.039
whole outfit fell forward into the passage
in a cloud of splinters and dust and

1740
02:11:54.079 --> 02:12:00.199
broken plaster. It was mister Docker's
final effort. He lay on the top

1741
02:12:00.279 --> 02:12:03.960
of the wreckage he had made,
like Sampson among the ruins of Gaza,

1742
02:12:03.399 --> 02:12:09.439
a senseless and slumbering hulk. I
picked up the unopened bottle of champagne.

1743
02:12:09.479 --> 02:12:13.720
It was the only weapon available,
and stepped over his body. I was

1744
02:12:13.760 --> 02:12:18.319
beginning to enjoy myself amazingly, as
I expected. There was a man in

1745
02:12:18.359 --> 02:12:22.479
the corridor, a little fellow in
waiters clothes with a twee jacket instead of

1746
02:12:22.479 --> 02:12:24.840
a dress coat. If he had
a pistol, I knew I was done,

1747
02:12:26.079 --> 02:12:30.119
But I gambled upon the disinclination of
the management for the sound of shooting.

1748
02:12:30.880 --> 02:12:33.319
He had a knife, but he
never had a chance to use it.

1749
02:12:33.800 --> 02:12:37.520
My champagne bottle descended on his head, and he dropped like a log.

1750
02:12:37.199 --> 02:12:41.840
There were men coming upstairs, not
Chapman, for I still heard his

1751
02:12:41.960 --> 02:12:45.439
horse shouts in the dining room.
If they once got up, they could

1752
02:12:45.439 --> 02:12:48.359
force me back through that hideous room
by the door through which Docer had come,

1753
02:12:48.640 --> 02:12:52.720
and in five minutes I should be
in their motor car. There was

1754
02:12:52.760 --> 02:12:56.560
only one thing to do. I
jumped from the stairhead right down among them.

1755
02:12:56.960 --> 02:13:00.319
I think there were three, and
my descent toppled them over. We

1756
02:13:00.479 --> 02:13:03.880
rolled in a wild, whirling mass
and cascaded into the dining room, where

1757
02:13:03.880 --> 02:13:09.479
my head bumped violently on the parquet. I expected a bit of a grapple,

1758
02:13:09.560 --> 02:13:13.279
but none came. My wits were
pretty wooly, but I managed to

1759
02:13:13.279 --> 02:13:16.840
scramble to my feet. The heels
of my enemies were disappearing up the staircase.

1760
02:13:18.439 --> 02:13:22.319
Chapman was pawing my ribs to discover
if there were any bones broken.

1761
02:13:22.840 --> 02:13:26.119
There was not another soul in the
room except two policemen who were pushing their

1762
02:13:26.199 --> 02:13:31.000
way in from the street. Chapman
was flushed and breathing heavily. His coat

1763
02:13:31.039 --> 02:13:35.359
had a big split down the seams
at the shoulder, but his face was

1764
02:13:35.439 --> 02:13:39.039
happy as a child's. I caught
his arm and spoke in his ear.

1765
02:13:39.439 --> 02:13:41.560
We've got to get out of this
at once. How can we square these

1766
02:13:41.600 --> 02:13:46.119
policemen? There must be no inquiry
and nothing in the papers. Do you

1767
02:13:46.199 --> 02:13:50.279
hear? It's all right? Said
Chapman. These bobbies are friends of mine,

1768
02:13:50.600 --> 02:13:54.640
two good lads from Wensleydale on my
road here. I told them to

1769
02:13:54.680 --> 02:13:56.800
give me a bit of law and
follow me, for I thought they might

1770
02:13:56.840 --> 02:14:01.880
be wanted. They didn't come too
soon to spoil sport, for I'd been

1771
02:14:01.920 --> 02:14:05.840
knocking ferners about for ten minutes.
You seem to have been putting up a

1772
02:14:05.840 --> 02:14:09.000
tidy scrap yourself. Let's get home
first, I said, for I was

1773
02:14:09.079 --> 02:14:13.239
beginning to think of the bigger thing. I wrote a chit for mc gillivray,

1774
02:14:13.520 --> 02:14:18.079
which I asked one of the constables
to take the Scotland yard. It

1775
02:14:18.159 --> 02:14:20.479
was to beg that nothing should be
done yet in the business of the restaurant,

1776
02:14:20.920 --> 02:14:24.239
and above all, that nothing should
get into the papers. Then I

1777
02:14:24.279 --> 02:14:28.039
asked the other to see us home. It was a queer request for two

1778
02:14:28.079 --> 02:14:33.279
able bodied men to make on a
summer evening in the busiest part of London.

1779
02:14:33.399 --> 02:14:37.680
But I was taking no chances.
The Powerhouse had declared war on me,

1780
02:14:37.119 --> 02:14:41.800
and I knew it would be war
without quarter. I was enough fever

1781
02:14:41.920 --> 02:14:46.239
to get out of that place.
My momentary lust of battle had gone,

1782
02:14:46.640 --> 02:14:50.800
and every stone of that building seemed
to me a threat. Chapman would have

1783
02:14:50.880 --> 02:14:54.760
liked to spend a happy hour rummaging
through the house, but the gravity of

1784
02:14:54.800 --> 02:14:58.239
my face persuaded him. The truth
is I was bewildered. I could not

1785
02:14:58.399 --> 02:15:03.680
understand the reason of this sudden attack. Lumley's spies must long ago have told

1786
02:15:03.760 --> 02:15:09.520
them enough to connect me with the
Bokhara business. My visits to the embassy

1787
02:15:09.560 --> 02:15:13.680
alone were sufficient proof. But now
he must have found out something new,

1788
02:15:13.199 --> 02:15:18.359
something which startled him, or else
there had been wild doings in Turkestan.

1789
02:15:18.119 --> 02:15:22.880
I won't forget that walk home in
a hurry. It was a fine July

1790
02:15:22.039 --> 02:15:26.680
twilight. The streets were full of
the usual crowd, shop girls in thin

1791
02:15:26.800 --> 02:15:31.479
frocks, promenading clerks, in all
the flotsam of a London summer. You

1792
02:15:31.520 --> 02:15:35.000
would have said it was the safest
place on earth. But I was glad

1793
02:15:35.039 --> 02:15:37.960
we had the policeman with us,
who, at the end of one beat,

1794
02:15:39.039 --> 02:15:41.159
passed us on to his colleague.
And I was glad of Chapman,

1795
02:15:41.640 --> 02:15:46.319
for I am morally certain I would
never have got home alone. The queer

1796
02:15:46.359 --> 02:15:50.920
thing is that there was no sign
of trouble till we got into Oxford Street.

1797
02:15:50.319 --> 02:15:54.520
Then I became aware that there were
people on those pavements who knew all

1798
02:15:54.560 --> 02:15:58.199
about me. I first observed it
at the mouth of one of those little

1799
02:15:58.279 --> 02:16:03.119
dark side alleys which up into mews
in small dingy courts. I found myself

1800
02:16:03.199 --> 02:16:07.600
being skillfully edged away from Chapman into
the shadow. But I noticed it in

1801
02:16:07.720 --> 02:16:11.399
time, and butted my way back
to the pavement. I couldn't make out

1802
02:16:11.399 --> 02:16:16.800
who the people were who hustled me. They seemed nondescripts of all sorts,

1803
02:16:16.119 --> 02:16:20.199
but I fancied there were women among
them. This happened twice and I got

1804
02:16:20.239 --> 02:16:24.920
wary, but I was nearly caught. Before we reached Oxford's Circus. There

1805
02:16:24.960 --> 02:16:30.199
was a front of a big shop
rebuilding and the usual wooden barricade with a

1806
02:16:30.279 --> 02:16:33.920
gate. Just as we passed it, there was a special throng on the

1807
02:16:33.959 --> 02:16:37.959
pavement, and I, being next
the wall, got pushed against the gate.

1808
02:16:37.719 --> 02:16:43.479
Suddenly it gave and I was pressed
inward. I was right inside before

1809
02:16:43.479 --> 02:16:46.680
I realized my danger, and the
gate was closing. There must have been

1810
02:16:46.719 --> 02:16:50.239
people there, but I could see
nothing in the gloom. It was no

1811
02:16:50.399 --> 02:16:54.000
time for false pride. I yelled
to Chapman, and the next second his

1812
02:16:54.120 --> 02:16:58.319
burly shoulder was in the gap.
The hustlers vanished, and I seemed to

1813
02:16:58.360 --> 02:17:03.120
hear a polite voice begging my pardon. After that, Chapman and I linked

1814
02:17:03.200 --> 02:17:07.159
arms and struck across Mayfair. But
I did not feel safe till I was

1815
02:17:07.200 --> 02:17:11.200
in the flat with the door bolted. We had a long drink and I

1816
02:17:11.239 --> 02:17:15.719
stretched myself in an arm chair,
for I was as tired as if I

1817
02:17:15.760 --> 02:17:18.399
had come out of a big game
of rugby footbowl. I owe you a

1818
02:17:18.440 --> 02:17:22.920
good deal old man, I said, I think I'll join the labor party.

1819
02:17:22.280 --> 02:17:26.600
You can tell your fellows to send
me their whips. What possessed you

1820
02:17:26.680 --> 02:17:30.760
to come to look for me?
The explanation was simple. I had mentioned

1821
02:17:30.799 --> 02:17:35.600
the restaurant in my telephone message and
the name had awakened a recollection in Chapman's

1822
02:17:35.639 --> 02:17:39.200
mind. He could not fix it
at first, but by and by he

1823
02:17:39.280 --> 02:17:43.360
remembered that the place had cropped up
in the rout case. Ralph's London headquarters

1824
02:17:43.360 --> 02:17:48.319
had been at the restaurant in Antioch
Street. As soon as he remembered this,

1825
02:17:48.479 --> 02:17:50.840
he got into a taxi and descended
at the corner of the street,

1826
02:17:52.120 --> 02:17:56.799
whereby sheer luck, he fell in
with his Wensleydale friends. He said he

1827
02:17:56.840 --> 02:18:01.719
had marched into the restaurant and found
it empty but for an ill favored manager

1828
02:18:01.760 --> 02:18:05.040
who denied all knowledge of me.
Then, fortunately he chose to make certain

1829
02:18:05.120 --> 02:18:09.799
by shouting my name and heard my
answer. After that he knocked the manager

1830
02:18:09.920 --> 02:18:15.920
down, and was presently assaulted by
several men whom he described as foreign muck.

1831
02:18:16.680 --> 02:18:18.559
They had knives of which he made
very little for. He seems to

1832
02:18:18.600 --> 02:18:22.799
have swung a table as a battering
ram and left sore limbs behind him.

1833
02:18:24.520 --> 02:18:28.399
He was on the top of his
form. I haven't enjoyed anything so much

1834
02:18:28.639 --> 02:18:31.920
since I was a lad at school, he informed me. I was beginning

1835
02:18:31.920 --> 02:18:35.479
to think your power house was a
wash out. But Lord has been busy

1836
02:18:35.559 --> 02:18:39.879
enough to night. This is what
I call life. My spirits could not

1837
02:18:39.000 --> 02:18:43.600
keep pace with his. The truth
is that I was miserably puzzled, not

1838
02:18:43.719 --> 02:18:48.319
afraid so much as mystified. I
couldn't make out this sudden dead set at

1839
02:18:48.360 --> 02:18:52.280
me. Either they knew more than
I bargained for, or I knew far

1840
02:18:52.319 --> 02:18:56.559
too little. It's all very well, I said, but I don't see

1841
02:18:56.559 --> 02:19:00.600
how this is going to end.
We can't keep up the pace long At

1842
02:19:00.600 --> 02:19:03.319
this rate. It will be only
a matter of hours till they get me.

1843
02:19:03.200 --> 02:19:07.879
We pretty well barricaded ourselves in the
flat, and at his earnest request,

1844
02:19:09.239 --> 02:19:11.959
I restored to Chapman his revolver.
Then I got the clue I had

1845
02:19:13.000 --> 02:19:16.879
been longing for. It was about
eleven o'clock while we were sitting smoking when

1846
02:19:16.920 --> 02:19:22.520
the telephone bell rang. It was
Felix who spoke, I have news for

1847
02:19:22.559 --> 02:19:24.440
you, he said. The hunters
had met the hunted, and one of

1848
02:19:24.440 --> 02:19:28.079
the hunters is dead. The other
is a prisoner in our hands. He

1849
02:19:28.120 --> 02:19:33.239
has confessed. It had been black
murder and intent. The Frontier police had

1850
02:19:33.280 --> 02:19:37.440
shadowed the two men into the cup
of a Glen, where they met Tommy

1851
02:19:37.479 --> 02:19:41.639
and pitt Heron. The four had
spoken together for a little and then two

1852
02:19:41.840 --> 02:19:46.280
had fired deliberately at Charles and had
grazed his ear, whereupon Tommy had charged

1853
02:19:46.360 --> 02:19:50.239
him and knocked the pistol from his
hand. The assailant had fled, but

1854
02:19:50.319 --> 02:19:56.360
a long shot from the police on
the hillside had toppled him over. Tommy

1855
02:19:56.399 --> 02:20:00.600
had felled Sarronov with his fists,
and the man had abjectly so surrendered.

1856
02:20:00.959 --> 02:20:03.840
He had confessed, Felix said,
But what the confession was he did not

1857
02:20:05.000 --> 02:20:11.280
know. End of chapter six.
Recording by Expatria in Bangor, Maine.

1858
02:20:18.920 --> 02:20:24.959
Chapter seven of The Powerhouse by John
Buchan. This Librivat's recording is in the

1859
02:20:24.000 --> 02:20:31.120
public domain. Recording by Expatria in
Bangor, Maine, Chapter seven. I

1860
02:20:31.239 --> 02:20:37.920
find sanctuary. My nervousness and indecision
dropped from me at the news I had

1861
02:20:37.959 --> 02:20:41.799
won the first round and I would
win the last. For a suddenly became

1862
02:20:41.920 --> 02:20:46.319
clear to me that I had now
evidence which would blast Lumly. I believed

1863
02:20:46.319 --> 02:20:50.280
that it would not be hard to
prove his identity with Pavia in his receipt

1864
02:20:50.360 --> 02:20:56.200
of the telegram from Saranov. Tuke
was his creature, and Tuke's murderous mission

1865
02:20:56.319 --> 02:21:00.319
was his doing. No doubt,
I knew little and could prove nothing about

1866
02:21:00.319 --> 02:21:03.719
the big thing, the powerhouse.
But conspiracy to murder is not the lightest

1867
02:21:03.760 --> 02:21:09.559
of criminal charges. I was beginning
to see my way to checkmating my friend,

1868
02:21:09.040 --> 02:21:13.079
at least so far as pitt Heron
was concerned. Provided and it was

1869
02:21:13.120 --> 02:21:18.200
a pretty big proviso that he gave
me the chance to use my knowledge that

1870
02:21:18.440 --> 02:21:22.840
I foresaw was going to be the
difficulty. What I knew now Lumley had

1871
02:21:22.879 --> 02:21:28.680
known hours before. The reason of
the affair at Antioch Street was now only

1872
02:21:28.760 --> 02:21:33.399
too clear. If he believed that
I had damning evidence against him, and

1873
02:21:33.440 --> 02:21:35.840
there was no doubt he suspected it, then he would do his best to

1874
02:21:35.840 --> 02:21:41.200
stop my mouth. I must get
my statement lodged in the proper quarter at

1875
02:21:41.239 --> 02:21:46.079
the earliest possible moment. The next
twenty four hours I feared were going to

1876
02:21:46.120 --> 02:21:50.559
be too sensational for comfort. And
yet I cannot say that I was afraid

1877
02:21:50.159 --> 02:21:54.440
I was too full of pride to
be in a funk. I had lost

1878
02:21:54.479 --> 02:21:58.000
my awe of Lumley through scoring a
point against him. Had I known more,

1879
02:21:58.000 --> 02:22:01.920
I should have been less at my
ease. It was this confidence which

1880
02:22:01.959 --> 02:22:07.680
prevented me doing the obvious safe thing, ringing up mc gillivray, telling him

1881
02:22:07.719 --> 02:22:11.760
the gist of my story, and
getting him to put me under police protection.

1882
02:22:11.600 --> 02:22:16.399
I thought I was clever enough to
see the thing through myself, and

1883
02:22:16.479 --> 02:22:20.520
it must have been the same over
confidence which prevented Lumely getting at me that

1884
02:22:20.719 --> 02:22:24.920
night. An organization like his could
easily have got into the flat and done

1885
02:22:24.959 --> 02:22:30.280
for us both. I suppose the
explanation is that he did not yet know

1886
02:22:30.399 --> 02:22:33.079
how much I knew, and was
not yet ready to take the last steps

1887
02:22:33.120 --> 02:22:39.520
in silencing me. I sat up
till the small hours, marshaling my evidence

1888
02:22:39.559 --> 02:22:43.639
in a formal statement and making two
copies of it. One was destined for

1889
02:22:43.760 --> 02:22:48.799
mc gillivray and the other for Felix, for I was taking no risks.

1890
02:22:48.319 --> 02:22:52.959
I went to bed and slept peacefully, and was awakened as usual by waters.

1891
02:22:54.639 --> 02:22:58.239
My man slept out and used to
turn up in the morning about seven

1892
02:22:58.879 --> 02:23:01.799
It was all so normal and homely
that I could have believed my adventures of

1893
02:23:01.840 --> 02:23:07.479
the night before a dream. In
the summer sunlight, the ways of darkness

1894
02:23:07.520 --> 02:23:11.159
seemed very distant. I dressed in
excellent spirits and made a hearty breakfast.

1895
02:23:11.680 --> 02:23:16.239
Then I gave the docile Chapman his
instructions. He must take the document to

1896
02:23:16.319 --> 02:23:20.399
Scotland Yard, asked to see mc
gillivray and put it into his hands.

1897
02:23:20.799 --> 02:23:24.000
Then he must ring me up at
once at down Street and tell me that

1898
02:23:24.079 --> 02:23:28.879
he had done this. I had
already telephoned to my clerk that I would

1899
02:23:28.920 --> 02:23:31.799
not be at the temple that day. It seems a simple thing to travel

1900
02:23:31.879 --> 02:23:37.280
less than a mile in the most
frequented part of London in broad daylight and

1901
02:23:37.399 --> 02:23:41.079
perform an easy act like carrying a
letter. But I knew that Lumley's spies

1902
02:23:41.079 --> 02:23:46.600
would be active and would connect Chapman
sufficiently with me to think him worth following.

1903
02:23:48.200 --> 02:23:50.840
In that case there might be an
attempt at violence. I thought it

1904
02:23:50.920 --> 02:23:54.280
my duty to tell him this,
but he laughed me to scorn. He

1905
02:23:54.360 --> 02:23:58.639
proposed to walk, and he begged
to be shown the man who would meddle

1906
02:23:58.680 --> 02:24:03.159
with him Upman. After last night
was prepared to take on all comers.

1907
02:24:03.760 --> 02:24:07.040
He put my letter to mc gillivray
in his inner pocket, buttoned his coat,

1908
02:24:07.440 --> 02:24:11.600
crushed down, his felt hat on
his head, and defiantly set forth.

1909
02:24:13.639 --> 02:24:16.840
I expected a message from him in
half an hour, for he was

1910
02:24:16.879 --> 02:24:20.000
a rapid walker. But the half
hour passed, then the three quarters,

1911
02:24:20.000 --> 02:24:24.280
and nothing happened. At eleven I
rang up Scotland Yard, but they had

1912
02:24:24.319 --> 02:24:30.159
no news of him. Then I
became miserably anxious, for it was clear

1913
02:24:30.200 --> 02:24:35.399
that some disaster had overtaken my messenger. My first impulse was to set out

1914
02:24:35.399 --> 02:24:39.079
myself to look for him, but
a moment's reflection convinced me that that would

1915
02:24:39.120 --> 02:24:43.879
be playing into the enemy's hands.
For an hour I wrestled with my impatience,

1916
02:24:45.319 --> 02:24:48.000
and then a few minutes after twelve
I was wrung up by Saint Thomas's

1917
02:24:48.040 --> 02:24:54.280
Hospital. A young doctor spoke and
said that mister Chapman had asked him to

1918
02:24:54.319 --> 02:24:56.879
tell me what had happened. He
had been run down by a motor car

1919
02:24:56.959 --> 02:25:01.959
at the corner of Whitehall. Nothing
serious, only a bad shake in some

1920
02:25:01.120 --> 02:25:05.600
scalp wounds. In a day or
so he would be able to leave.

1921
02:25:05.319 --> 02:25:09.600
Then he added, what drove the
blood from my heart. Mister Chapman personally

1922
02:25:09.600 --> 02:25:13.680
wished me to tell you. He
said that the letter has gone. I

1923
02:25:13.719 --> 02:25:18.879
stammered some reply, asking his meaning. He said, he thinks I was

1924
02:25:18.959 --> 02:25:22.200
told that while he was being assisted
to his feet, his pocket was picked

1925
02:25:22.200 --> 02:25:26.159
and a letter taken. He said, you would know what he meant.

1926
02:25:26.079 --> 02:25:30.799
I knew only too well what he
meant. Lumly had got my statement and

1927
02:25:30.879 --> 02:25:35.399
realized precisely how much I knew and
what was the weight of evidence against him

1928
02:25:35.959 --> 02:25:39.879
before he had only suspected. Now
he knew. He must know too that

1929
02:25:39.920 --> 02:25:43.360
there would be a copy somewhere which
I would try to deliver. It was

1930
02:25:43.440 --> 02:25:46.799
going to be harder than I had
fancied to get my news to the proper

1931
02:25:46.840 --> 02:25:50.120
ears, and I had to anticipate
the extreme of violence on the part of

1932
02:25:50.159 --> 02:25:56.239
my opponents. The thought of the
peril restored my coolness. I had locked

1933
02:25:56.280 --> 02:26:00.360
the outer door of my flat and
telephoned to the garage where I I kept

1934
02:26:00.399 --> 02:26:05.079
my car, bidding Stag call for
me at two o'clock. Precisely then,

1935
02:26:05.120 --> 02:26:07.760
I lit a pipe and strove to
banish the whole business from my thoughts.

1936
02:26:09.159 --> 02:26:13.079
Per fussing would do me no good. Presently, it occurred to me to

1937
02:26:13.159 --> 02:26:16.120
ring up Felix and give him some
notion of the position. But I found

1938
02:26:16.159 --> 02:26:22.319
that my telephone was now broken and
connection was impossible. The spoken as well

1939
02:26:22.360 --> 02:26:26.200
as the written word, was to
be denied me. That had happened in

1940
02:26:26.200 --> 02:26:30.520
the last half hour, and I
didn't believe it was by accident. Also,

1941
02:26:30.680 --> 02:26:33.360
my man Waters, whom I had
sent out on an errand after breakfast,

1942
02:26:33.520 --> 02:26:37.600
had never returned. The state of
siege had begun. It was a

1943
02:26:37.639 --> 02:26:43.120
blazing hot midsummer day. The water
carts were sprinkling Piccadilly, and looking from

1944
02:26:43.120 --> 02:26:48.239
my window I could see leisurely and
elegant gentlemen taking their morning stroll. A

1945
02:26:48.280 --> 02:26:52.959
florists cart full of roses stood below
me in the street. The summer smell

1946
02:26:54.079 --> 02:26:58.200
of town, a mixture of tar
flowers, dust and pechuli, rose in

1947
02:26:58.280 --> 02:27:03.559
gusts through the air. It was
the homely London I knew so well,

1948
02:27:03.920 --> 02:27:07.200
and I was somehow in exile from
it. I was being shepherded into a

1949
02:27:07.239 --> 02:27:13.719
dismal isolation which, unless I won
help, might mean death. I was

1950
02:27:13.799 --> 02:27:16.639
cool enough now, but I will
not deny that I was miserably anxious.

1951
02:27:18.079 --> 02:27:22.399
I cursed my false confidence the night
before. By now I might have had

1952
02:27:22.479 --> 02:27:26.200
mc gillivray and his men by my
side. As it was, I wondered

1953
02:27:26.200 --> 02:27:30.760
if I should ever see them.
I changed into a flannel suit, lunched

1954
02:27:30.799 --> 02:27:35.120
off sandwiches in a whiskey and soda, and at two o'clock looked for Stag

1955
02:27:35.200 --> 02:27:37.920
in my car. He was five
minutes late, a thing which had never

1956
02:27:39.000 --> 02:27:43.479
happened before. But I never welcomed
anything so gladly as the sight of that

1957
02:27:43.600 --> 02:27:46.719
car. I had hardly dared to
hope that it would reach me. My

1958
02:27:46.799 --> 02:27:50.639
goal was the Embassy in Belgrave Square, but I was convinced that if I

1959
02:27:50.680 --> 02:27:56.479
approached it directly, I should share
the fate of Chapman. Worse for from

1960
02:27:56.520 --> 02:27:58.959
me, they would not merely snatch
the letter. What I had once read

1961
02:28:00.000 --> 02:28:03.639
written, I could write again,
And if they wished to ensure my silence,

1962
02:28:03.000 --> 02:28:07.840
it must be by more drastic methods. I proposed to baffle my pursuers

1963
02:28:09.120 --> 02:28:13.760
by taking a wide circuit round the
western suburbs of London, returning to the

1964
02:28:13.799 --> 02:28:18.040
Embassy. When I thought the coast
clear. It was a tremendous relief to

1965
02:28:18.079 --> 02:28:22.280
go down the stairs and emerge into
the hot daylight. I gave Stag his

1966
02:28:22.399 --> 02:28:26.159
instructions and lay back in the closed
car with a curious, fluttering sense of

1967
02:28:26.200 --> 02:28:31.239
anticipation. I had begun the last
round in the wild game. There was

1968
02:28:31.280 --> 02:28:35.799
a man at the corner of down
Street who seemed to peer curiously at the

1969
02:28:35.840 --> 02:28:39.520
car. He was doubtless one of
my watchers. We went up Park Lane

1970
02:28:39.520 --> 02:28:43.959
into the Edgeware Road, my instructions
to Stag being to make a circuit by

1971
02:28:45.040 --> 02:28:48.600
Harrow and Brentford. Now that I
was ensconced in my car, I felt

1972
02:28:48.639 --> 02:28:54.239
a trifle safer, and my tense
nerves relaxed. I grew drowsy and allowed

1973
02:28:54.280 --> 02:28:58.000
myself to sink into a half doze. The stolid back of Stag filled my

1974
02:28:58.120 --> 02:29:03.239
gaze as it had filled it a
fortnight ago on the Western Road, and

1975
02:29:03.319 --> 02:29:07.200
I admired lazily the brick red of
his neck. He had been in the

1976
02:29:07.280 --> 02:29:11.520
guards, and a bower bullet at
Modern River had left a long scar at

1977
02:29:11.520 --> 02:29:13.920
the nape of his neck, which
gave to his hair the appearance of being

1978
02:29:13.959 --> 02:29:20.200
badly cut. He had told me
the story on Xmore. Suddenly I rubbed

1979
02:29:20.200 --> 02:29:24.479
my eyes. There was no scar
there. The hair of the chauffeur grew

1980
02:29:24.559 --> 02:29:28.559
regularly down to his coat collar.
The resemblance had been perfect. The voice

1981
02:29:28.600 --> 02:29:33.520
was Stag's, but clearly it was
not Stagg who now drove my car.

1982
02:29:33.360 --> 02:29:37.000
I pulled the blind down over the
front window, as if to shelter myself

1983
02:29:37.040 --> 02:29:41.760
from the sun. Looking out,
I saw that we were some distance up

1984
02:29:41.799 --> 02:29:46.840
the Edgeware Road, nearing the point
where the Marlabon Road joins it. Now

1985
02:29:46.000 --> 02:29:50.719
or never was my chance, for
at the corner there is always a block

1986
02:29:50.760 --> 02:29:54.920
in the traffic. The car slowed
down in obedience to a policeman's uplifted hand,

1987
02:29:56.360 --> 02:30:00.120
and very gently I opened the door
on the left side. Since the

1988
02:30:00.159 --> 02:30:03.159
car was new, it opened softly, and in two seconds I had stepped

1989
02:30:03.200 --> 02:30:07.760
out, shut it again, and
made a dive between a butcher's cart and

1990
02:30:07.799 --> 02:30:11.799
a motor bus for the sidewalk.
I gave one glance back and saw the

1991
02:30:11.920 --> 02:30:18.079
unconscious chauffeur still rigid at the wheel. I dodged unobtrusively through the crowd on

1992
02:30:18.120 --> 02:30:20.719
the pavement with my hand on my
breast pocket, to see that my paper

1993
02:30:20.799 --> 02:30:24.600
was still there. There was a
little picture shop near by to which I

1994
02:30:24.680 --> 02:30:28.639
used to go occasionally, owned by
a man who was an adept at cleaning

1995
02:30:28.680 --> 02:30:33.559
and restoring. I had sent him
customers, and he was likely to prove

1996
02:30:33.600 --> 02:30:37.440
a friend. So I dived into
his doorway, which made a cool pit

1997
02:30:37.520 --> 02:30:41.920
of shade after the glaring street,
and found him spectacles on nose, busy

1998
02:30:41.959 --> 02:30:46.879
examining some dusty prints. He greeted
me cordially and followed me into the back

1999
02:30:46.959 --> 02:30:52.239
shop. Mister Levison, I said, have you a back door? He

2000
02:30:52.319 --> 02:30:56.040
looked at me in some surprise.
Why yes, there is the door into

2001
02:30:56.040 --> 02:31:00.639
the lane which runs from Edgeley Street
into Connaught Mews. Will you let me

2002
02:31:00.799 --> 02:31:03.479
use it? There is a friend
outside whom I wished to avoid. Such

2003
02:31:03.520 --> 02:31:09.159
things happen, you know, he
smiled comprehendingly. Certainly, sir, come

2004
02:31:09.200 --> 02:31:13.719
this way, and he led me
through a dark passage hung with dingy old

2005
02:31:13.799 --> 02:31:18.399
masters, to a little yard filled
with a debris of picture frames. There

2006
02:31:18.440 --> 02:31:20.639
he unlocked a door in the wall, and I found myself in a narrow

2007
02:31:20.719 --> 02:31:24.600
alley. As I emerged, I
heard the bell of the shop door ring.

2008
02:31:26.079 --> 02:31:28.959
If any one inquires, You have
not seen me here, remember,

2009
02:31:28.000 --> 02:31:33.399
I said, and mister Levison nodded. He was an artist in his small

2010
02:31:33.440 --> 02:31:37.280
way, and like the scent of
a mystery. I ran down the lane

2011
02:31:37.319 --> 02:31:41.879
and by various cross streets made my
way into Bayswater. I believed that I

2012
02:31:41.920 --> 02:31:45.239
had thrown my trackers for the moment
off the scent, but I had got

2013
02:31:45.239 --> 02:31:48.879
to get to the embassy, and
that neighborhood was sure to be closely watched.

2014
02:31:48.280 --> 02:31:52.760
I came out on the Bayswater Road
pretty far west and resolved to strike

2015
02:31:52.879 --> 02:31:58.879
southeast across the park. My reason
was that the neighborhood of Hyde Park Corner

2016
02:31:58.319 --> 02:32:03.000
was at that time of day certain
to be pretty well crowded, and I

2017
02:32:03.040 --> 02:32:07.840
felt more security in a throng than
in the empty streets of Kensington. Now

2018
02:32:07.840 --> 02:32:09.399
that I come to think of it, it was a rash thing to do,

2019
02:32:09.920 --> 02:32:13.799
for since Lumly knew the full extent
of my knowledge, he was likely

2020
02:32:13.840 --> 02:32:18.200
to deal more violently with me than
with Chapman, and the seclusion of the

2021
02:32:18.239 --> 02:32:22.600
park offered him too good a chance. I crossed the riding track and struck

2022
02:32:22.639 --> 02:32:28.799
over the open space where the Sunday
demonstrations are held. There was nothing there

2023
02:32:28.840 --> 02:32:33.959
but nurses and perambulators, children at
play and dogs being exercised. Presently,

2024
02:32:33.959 --> 02:32:39.159
I reached Grosvenor Gate, where on
the little green chairs. Well dressed people

2025
02:32:39.159 --> 02:32:43.879
were taking the air. I recognized
several acquaintances and stopped for a moment to

2026
02:32:43.920 --> 02:32:46.680
talk to one of them. Then
I emerged in Park Lane and walked down

2027
02:32:46.719 --> 02:32:50.680
it to Hamilton Place. So far
I thought I had not been followed,

2028
02:32:52.040 --> 02:32:56.879
but now once more I had the
indefinable but unerring sensation of being watched.

2029
02:32:56.520 --> 02:33:00.760
I caught a man looking eagerly at
me from the other side of the street,

2030
02:33:01.280 --> 02:33:03.879
and it seemed to me that he
made a sign to some one farther

2031
02:33:03.000 --> 02:33:07.639
off. It was now less than
a quarter of a mile between me and

2032
02:33:07.719 --> 02:33:11.440
Belgraft Square, but I saw that
it would be a hard course to cover.

2033
02:33:11.440 --> 02:33:16.479
Once in Piccadilly, there could be
no doubt about my watchers. Lumley

2034
02:33:16.600 --> 02:33:20.079
was doing the thing in style.
This time. Last night it had only

2035
02:33:20.120 --> 02:33:24.079
been a trial trip, but now
the whole energies of the powerhouse were on

2036
02:33:24.120 --> 02:33:28.879
the job. The place was filled
with the usual mid season crowd, and

2037
02:33:28.920 --> 02:33:33.040
I had to take off my hat
several times. Up in the bow window

2038
02:33:33.079 --> 02:33:37.159
of the Bachelor's Club, a young
friend of mine was writing a letter and

2039
02:33:37.239 --> 02:33:41.639
sipping a long drink with an air
of profound boredom. I would have given

2040
02:33:41.719 --> 02:33:46.479
much for his aunui for my life
at the moment was painfully exciting. I

2041
02:33:46.600 --> 02:33:50.799
was alone in that great crowd,
isolated and proscribed, and there was no

2042
02:33:50.959 --> 02:33:54.639
help save in my own wits.
If I spoke to a policeman, he

2043
02:33:54.680 --> 02:33:58.000
would think me drunk or mad.
And yet I was on the edge of

2044
02:33:58.040 --> 02:34:01.520
being made the victim of a far
subtler crime than fell within the purview of

2045
02:34:01.559 --> 02:34:07.000
the Metropolitan Force. Now I saw
how thin is the protection of civilization.

2046
02:34:07.719 --> 02:34:13.479
An accident and a bogus ambulance,
a false charge and a bogus arrest.

2047
02:34:13.040 --> 02:34:16.920
There were a dozen ways of spiriting
me out of this gay, bustling world.

2048
02:34:18.479 --> 02:34:20.840
I foresaw that if I delayed,
my nerve would break, so I

2049
02:34:20.920 --> 02:34:26.840
boldly set off across the road.
I jolly nearly shared the fate of Chapman.

2050
02:34:26.399 --> 02:34:31.159
A car which seemed about to draw
up at a club door, suddenly

2051
02:34:31.200 --> 02:34:35.280
swerved across the street, and I
had to dash to an island to escape

2052
02:34:35.319 --> 02:34:39.159
it. It was no occasion to
hesitate, so, dodging a bus and

2053
02:34:39.239 --> 02:34:43.079
missing a motor bicycle by a hair's
breath, I rushed across the remaining distance

2054
02:34:43.120 --> 02:34:48.120
and reached the railings of the green
Park. Here there were fewer people,

2055
02:34:48.559 --> 02:34:52.040
and several queer things began to happen. A little group of workmen with their

2056
02:34:52.079 --> 02:34:56.600
tools were standing by the curb,
and they suddenly moved towards me. A

2057
02:34:56.680 --> 02:35:01.920
pavement artist who looked like a cripple, scrambled to his feet and moved in

2058
02:35:01.959 --> 02:35:05.799
the same direction. There was a
policeman at the corner, and I saw

2059
02:35:05.840 --> 02:35:09.479
a well dressed man go up to
him, say something and nod in my

2060
02:35:09.600 --> 02:35:13.120
direction, and the policeman, too
began to move towards me. I did

2061
02:35:13.120 --> 02:35:16.879
not await them. I took to
my heels and ran for my life down

2062
02:35:16.920 --> 02:35:22.479
Grosvenor Place. Long ago, at
Eton I had won the school mile,

2063
02:35:22.920 --> 02:35:26.840
and at Oxford I was a second
string for the quarter. But never at

2064
02:35:26.879 --> 02:35:31.280
Eton or at Oxford did I run
as I ran then. It was blisteringly

2065
02:35:31.360 --> 02:35:33.639
hot, but I did not feel
it, for my hands were clammy and

2066
02:35:33.719 --> 02:35:37.760
my heart felt like a cold stone. I do not know how the pursuit

2067
02:35:37.840 --> 02:35:41.200
got on, for I did not
think about it. I did not reflect

2068
02:35:41.239 --> 02:35:46.799
what kind of spectacle I must afford
running like a thief in a London thoroughfare

2069
02:35:46.840 --> 02:35:50.520
on a June afternoon. I only
knew that my enemies were around and behind

2070
02:35:50.600 --> 02:35:54.360
me, and that in front,
a few hundred yards away lay safety.

2071
02:35:54.760 --> 02:35:58.239
But even as I ran, I
had the sense to think out my movements

2072
02:35:58.600 --> 02:36:03.399
and to I realized that the front
door of the Embassy was impossible. For

2073
02:36:03.520 --> 02:36:05.760
one thing, it would be watched, and for another, before the solemn

2074
02:36:05.760 --> 02:36:09.959
footman opened it, my pursuers would
be upon me. My only hope was

2075
02:36:11.000 --> 02:36:15.120
the back door. I twisted into
the mews behind the north side of the

2076
02:36:15.120 --> 02:36:18.639
square, and as I turned,
I saw two men run up from the

2077
02:36:18.639 --> 02:36:22.440
square as if to cut me off. A whistle was blown and more men

2078
02:36:22.479 --> 02:36:26.319
appeared, one entering from the far
end of the mews, one darting from

2079
02:36:26.319 --> 02:36:30.559
a public house door, and one
sliding down a ladder from a stable loft.

2080
02:36:31.120 --> 02:36:33.639
This last was nearest me and tried
to trip me, but I rejoiced

2081
02:36:33.680 --> 02:36:37.120
to say that a left hand or
on the chin sent him sprawling on the

2082
02:36:37.120 --> 02:36:41.280
cobbles. I remembered that the Embassy
was the fifth house from the end,

2083
02:36:41.719 --> 02:36:46.600
and feverishly I tried to count the
houses by their backs. It is not

2084
02:36:46.719 --> 02:36:52.360
so easy as it sounds. For
the modern London householder studs his back premises

2085
02:36:52.399 --> 02:36:56.959
with excrescences which seemed to melt into
his neighbors. In the end, I

2086
02:36:56.000 --> 02:36:58.319
had to make a guess at the
door, which, to my joy,

2087
02:36:58.440 --> 02:37:03.000
was unlocked. I rushed in and
banged it behind me. I found myself

2088
02:37:03.000 --> 02:37:07.440
in a stone passage with on one
side a door opening on a garage.

2089
02:37:07.879 --> 02:37:13.079
There was a wooden staircase leading to
an upper floor, and a glass door

2090
02:37:13.120 --> 02:37:16.799
in front, which opened into a
large, disused room full of boxes.

2091
02:37:16.479 --> 02:37:20.520
Beyond were two doors, one of
which was locked. The other abutted on

2092
02:37:20.600 --> 02:37:26.120
a steep iron stairway, which obviously
led to the lower regions of the house.

2093
02:37:26.840 --> 02:37:30.280
I ran down the stairs was no
more than a ladder, crossed a

2094
02:37:30.319 --> 02:37:33.719
small courtyard, traversed a passage,
and burst into the kitchen, where I

2095
02:37:33.799 --> 02:37:39.120
confronted an astonished, white capped chef
in the act of lifting a pot from

2096
02:37:39.120 --> 02:37:43.239
the fire. His face was red
and wrathful, and I thought that he

2097
02:37:43.360 --> 02:37:46.879
was going to fling the pot at
my head. I had disturbed him in

2098
02:37:46.959 --> 02:37:52.520
some delicate operation, and his artist's
pride was outraged. Monsieur, I stammered

2099
02:37:52.520 --> 02:37:56.079
in French, I seek your pardon
for my intrusion. There were circumstances which

2100
02:37:56.079 --> 02:38:01.040
compelled me to enter this house by
the back premises. I am an acquaintance

2101
02:38:01.079 --> 02:38:03.719
of his Excellency, your patron,
and an old friend of Monsieur Felix.

2102
02:38:05.239 --> 02:38:07.520
I beg you, of your kindness
to direct me to Monsieur Felix's room,

2103
02:38:07.959 --> 02:38:13.639
or to bid some one take me
there. My abject apologies mollified him.

2104
02:38:13.120 --> 02:38:16.879
It is a grave offense, Monsieur, he said, an unparalleled offense to

2105
02:38:18.000 --> 02:38:22.559
enter my kitchen at this hour.
I fear you have irremediably spoiled the new

2106
02:38:22.639 --> 02:38:26.319
castlele dish that I was endeavoring to
compose. I was ready to go on

2107
02:38:26.440 --> 02:38:31.120
my knees to the offended artist.
It grieved me, indeed to have interfered

2108
02:38:31.159 --> 02:38:35.399
with so rare an art which I
have often admired at his Excellency's table.

2109
02:38:35.879 --> 02:38:39.879
But there is danger behind me,
and an urgent mission in front. Monsieur

2110
02:38:39.879 --> 02:38:46.760
will forgive me. Necessity will sometimes
overrule the finest sensibility. He bowed to

2111
02:38:46.799 --> 02:38:50.200
me, and I bowed to him, and my pardon was assured. Suddenly

2112
02:38:50.239 --> 02:38:52.680
a door opened, another than that
by which I had entered, and a

2113
02:38:52.760 --> 02:38:56.680
man appeared, whom I took to
be a footman. He was struggling into

2114
02:38:56.719 --> 02:39:01.120
his livery coat, but at the
sight of me he dropped that. I

2115
02:39:01.159 --> 02:39:03.319
thought I recognized the face as that
of the man who had emerged from the

2116
02:39:03.360 --> 02:39:07.799
public house and tried to cut me
off. Here, mister Alphonse, he

2117
02:39:07.879 --> 02:39:11.319
cried, help me to collar this
man. The police are after him.

2118
02:39:13.000 --> 02:39:16.799
You forget my friend. I said
that an embassy is privileged ground which the

2119
02:39:16.840 --> 02:39:20.879
police can't enter. I desire to
be taken before his excellency. So that's

2120
02:39:20.920 --> 02:39:24.959
your game, he shouted. But
two can play at that. Here,

2121
02:39:24.040 --> 02:39:28.040
give me a hand, moussu and
we'll have him in the street in a

2122
02:39:28.120 --> 02:39:31.639
jiffy. There's two hundred of the
best in our pockets if we hands them

2123
02:39:31.680 --> 02:39:35.040
over to them as wants them.
The cook looked puzzled and a little frightened.

2124
02:39:35.440 --> 02:39:39.159
Will you will allow them to outrage
your kitchen? An embassy kitchen too

2125
02:39:39.520 --> 02:39:43.959
without your consent? What have you
done, he asked in French, Only

2126
02:39:45.000 --> 02:39:48.719
what your patron would approve. I
replied in the same tongue, The assassins

2127
02:39:48.799 --> 02:39:54.760
have a grudge against me. He
still hesitated while the young footman advanced on

2128
02:39:54.879 --> 02:39:58.959
me. He was fingering something in
his trousers pocket which I did not like.

2129
02:40:00.079 --> 02:40:03.159
Now was the time when, as
they say in America, I should

2130
02:40:03.159 --> 02:40:07.120
have got busy with my gun,
but alas I had no gun, I

2131
02:40:07.200 --> 02:40:09.600
feared supports for the enemy. For
the footman, at the first sight of

2132
02:40:09.639 --> 02:40:13.600
me, had run back the way
he had come, and I had heard

2133
02:40:13.639 --> 02:40:16.239
a low whistle. What might have
happened I do not know. Had not

2134
02:40:16.360 --> 02:40:20.000
the God appeared from the machine in
the person of Hewans, the butler.

2135
02:40:20.520 --> 02:40:24.360
Hewins, I said, you know
me, I have often dined here,

2136
02:40:24.360 --> 02:40:26.239
and you know that I am a
friend of Monsieur Felix. I am on

2137
02:40:26.319 --> 02:40:31.280
my way to see him on an
urgent matter, and for various reasons I

2138
02:40:31.319 --> 02:40:35.159
had to enter by Monsieur Alphonse's kitchen. Will you take me at once to

2139
02:40:35.200 --> 02:40:39.680
Monsieur Felix. Hewins bowed, and
on his imperturbable face there appeared no sign

2140
02:40:39.719 --> 02:40:43.799
of surprise. This way, sir, was all he said. As I

2141
02:40:43.879 --> 02:40:48.760
followed him, I saw the footman
plucking nervously at the something in his trousers

2142
02:40:48.799 --> 02:40:54.399
pocket. Lumley's agents apparently had not
always the courage to follow his instructions to

2143
02:40:54.479 --> 02:40:56.840
the letter, for I made no
doubt that the order had been to take

2144
02:40:56.920 --> 02:41:01.879
me alive or dead. Found Felix
alone and flung myself into an arm chair.

2145
02:41:03.479 --> 02:41:07.399
My dear Chap, I said,
take my advice and advise his excellency

2146
02:41:07.520 --> 02:41:11.040
to sack the red haired footman.
From that moment I date that sense of

2147
02:41:11.120 --> 02:41:16.239
mastery over a situation which drives out
fear. I had been living for weeks

2148
02:41:16.319 --> 02:41:20.799
under a dark pole, and suddenly
the skies had lightened. I had found

2149
02:41:20.840 --> 02:41:24.920
sanctuary. Whatever happened to me,
now, the worst was past, for

2150
02:41:26.000 --> 02:41:30.840
I had done my job. Felix
was looking at me curiously, for jaded,

2151
02:41:31.000 --> 02:41:35.000
scarlet, disheveled. I was an
odd figure for a London afternoon.

2152
02:41:35.719 --> 02:41:39.440
Things seem to have been marching fast
with you, he said, they have,

2153
02:41:39.879 --> 02:41:43.440
But I think the march is over. I want to ask several favors.

2154
02:41:43.520 --> 02:41:46.799
First, here is a document which
sets out certain facts. I shall

2155
02:41:46.840 --> 02:41:50.799
ring up mc gillivray at Scotland Yard
and ask him to come here at nine

2156
02:41:50.920 --> 02:41:54.280
thirty this evening. When he comes, I want you to give him this

2157
02:41:54.479 --> 02:41:58.799
and ask him to read it at
once. He will know how to act

2158
02:41:58.840 --> 02:42:03.680
on it. Felix nodded. And
the next give me a telegraph form.

2159
02:42:03.120 --> 02:42:07.280
I want a wire sent at once
by some one who can be trusted.

2160
02:42:07.079 --> 02:42:11.680
He handed me a form, and
I wrote out a telegram to Lumley at

2161
02:42:11.719 --> 02:42:16.319
the Albany, saying that I proposed
to call upon him that evening at h

2162
02:42:16.360 --> 02:42:20.200
sharp in asking him to receive me. Next, said Felix. Next and

2163
02:42:20.360 --> 02:42:24.040
last, I want a room with
a door which will lock, a hot

2164
02:42:24.120 --> 02:42:28.120
bath, and something to eat.
About seven, I might be permitted to

2165
02:42:28.159 --> 02:42:33.920
taste Monsieur Alphonse's new casserole dish.
I rang up mc gillivray, reminded him

2166
02:42:33.959 --> 02:42:39.200
of his promise, and told him
what awaited him at nine thirty. Then

2167
02:42:39.239 --> 02:42:41.840
I had a wash, and afterwards, at my leisure, gave Felix a

2168
02:42:41.879 --> 02:42:46.360
sketch of the day's doings. I
have never felt more completely at my ease.

2169
02:42:46.879 --> 02:42:50.319
For whatever happened. I was certain
that I had spoiled Lumley's game.

2170
02:42:52.079 --> 02:42:54.520
He would know by now that I
had reached the embassy, and that any

2171
02:42:54.559 --> 02:43:00.479
further attempts on my life and liberty
were futile. My telegram would show him

2172
02:43:00.479 --> 02:43:03.399
that I was prepared to offer terms, and I would certainly be permitted to

2173
02:43:03.440 --> 02:43:09.799
reach the Albany unmolested to the meeting
with my adversary. I looked forward without

2174
02:43:09.879 --> 02:43:13.680
qualms, but with the most lively
interest. I had my own theories about

2175
02:43:13.680 --> 02:43:18.120
that distinguished criminal, and I hoped
to bring them to the proof. Just

2176
02:43:18.159 --> 02:43:22.360
before seven I had a reply to
my wire. Mister Lumley said he would

2177
02:43:22.360 --> 02:43:26.600
be delighted to see me. The
telegram was directed to me at the embassy,

2178
02:43:26.840 --> 02:43:31.079
though I had put no address on
the one I sent. Lumley,

2179
02:43:31.120 --> 02:43:35.040
of course, knew all my movements. I could picture him sitting in his

2180
02:43:35.239 --> 02:43:39.000
chair like some chief of staff,
receiving every few minutes the reports of his

2181
02:43:39.120 --> 02:43:46.079
agents. All the same Napoleon had
fought his waterloo. End of chapter seven.

2182
02:43:46.520 --> 02:43:58.239
Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Chapter eight of The Powerhouse by

2183
02:43:58.360 --> 02:44:05.079
John Buckie. This Librivot's recording is
in the public domain. Recording by Expatriate

2184
02:44:05.159 --> 02:44:11.559
in Bangor, Maine, Chapter eight, The Powerhouse. I left Belgrave Square

2185
02:44:11.639 --> 02:44:16.840
about a quarter to eight and retraced
my steps along the route, which for

2186
02:44:16.959 --> 02:44:20.719
me that afternoon had been so full
of tremors. I was still being watched.

2187
02:44:20.719 --> 02:44:24.479
A little observation told me that but
I would not be interfered with,

2188
02:44:24.680 --> 02:44:31.079
provided my way lay in a certain
direction. So completely without nervousness was I

2189
02:44:31.520 --> 02:44:35.079
that at the top of Constitution Hill. I struck into the green park and

2190
02:44:35.200 --> 02:44:41.479
kept to the grass till I emerged
into Piccadilly, opposite Devonshire House. A

2191
02:44:41.559 --> 02:44:46.360
light wind had risen and the evening
had grown pleasantly cool. I met several

2192
02:44:46.399 --> 02:44:50.760
men I knew going out to dinner
on foot, and stopped to exchange greetings

2193
02:44:50.239 --> 02:44:54.120
from my clothes. They thought I
had just returned from a day in the

2194
02:44:54.200 --> 02:44:58.159
country. I had reached the Albany
as the clock was striking. Eight.

2195
02:44:58.719 --> 02:45:03.280
Lumley's rooms were on the first floor, and I was evidently expected for The

2196
02:45:03.319 --> 02:45:07.559
porter himself conducted me to them,
and waited by me till the door was

2197
02:45:07.600 --> 02:45:11.799
opened by a man servant. You
know those Rococo Late Georgian Albany rooms,

2198
02:45:13.239 --> 02:45:18.639
large square, clumsily corniced. Lumley's
was lined with books, which I saw

2199
02:45:18.719 --> 02:45:22.879
at a glance were of a different
type from those in his working library at

2200
02:45:22.879 --> 02:45:26.520
his country house. This was the
collection of a bibliophile, and in the

2201
02:45:26.639 --> 02:45:31.079
light of the summer evening, the
rows of tall volumes in vellum and Morocco

2202
02:45:31.719 --> 02:45:37.079
lined the walls like some rich tapestry. The valet retired and shut the door,

2203
02:45:37.479 --> 02:45:43.040
and presently from a little inner chamber
came his master. He was dressed

2204
02:45:43.079 --> 02:45:46.760
for dinner and wore more than ever
the air of the eminent diplomat. Again

2205
02:45:46.799 --> 02:45:52.239
I had the old feeling of incredulity. It was the lumly I had met

2206
02:45:52.239 --> 02:45:56.559
two nights before at dinner, the
friend of viceroys and cabinet ministers. It

2207
02:45:56.600 --> 02:46:01.719
was hard to connect him with Antioch
Street or the red haired footman with a

2208
02:46:01.760 --> 02:46:05.319
pistol, or with Tuke. Yes, I decided, Tuke fitted into the

2209
02:46:05.360 --> 02:46:11.000
frame. Both were brains cut loose
from the decencies that make life possible.

2210
02:46:11.760 --> 02:46:15.399
Good evening, mister lythen, he
said, pleasantly, as you have fixed

2211
02:46:15.440 --> 02:46:18.840
the hour of eight, may I
offer you dinner? Thank you, I

2212
02:46:18.959 --> 02:46:22.120
replied, but I have already dined. I have chosen an awkward time,

2213
02:46:22.200 --> 02:46:26.600
but my business need not take long, So he said, I am always

2214
02:46:26.600 --> 02:46:31.559
glad to see you at any hour, and I prefer to see the Master

2215
02:46:31.760 --> 02:46:35.000
rather than the subordinates who have been
infesting my life during the past week.

2216
02:46:35.760 --> 02:46:39.639
We both laughed. I am afraid
you have had some annoyance, mister Lython,

2217
02:46:39.719 --> 02:46:45.040
he said, but remember I gave
you fair warning, true, and

2218
02:46:45.120 --> 02:46:48.600
I have come to do the same
kindness to you. That part of the

2219
02:46:48.639 --> 02:46:54.280
game, at any rate is over
over, he queried, raising his eyebrows.

2220
02:46:54.600 --> 02:46:56.879
Yes, over, I said,
and took out my watch. Let

2221
02:46:56.959 --> 02:47:01.399
us be quite frank with each other, mister lump. There is really very

2222
02:47:01.440 --> 02:47:05.360
little time to waste. As you
have doubtless read the paper which you stole

2223
02:47:05.399 --> 02:47:07.799
from my friend this morning, you
know more or less the extent of my

2224
02:47:07.879 --> 02:47:13.840
information. Let us have frankness by
all means. Yes, I have read

2225
02:47:13.840 --> 02:47:16.440
your paper, A very creditable piece
of work. If I may say so,

2226
02:47:18.000 --> 02:47:20.719
you will rise in your profession,
mister lythan. But surely you must

2227
02:47:20.760 --> 02:47:24.840
realize that it carries you a very
little way in a sense. You are

2228
02:47:24.959 --> 02:47:28.600
right. I am not in a
position to reveal the full extent of your

2229
02:47:28.639 --> 02:47:33.639
misdeeds, of the powerhouse and its
doings. I can only guess. But

2230
02:47:33.760 --> 02:47:37.719
pitt Heron is on his way home, and he will be carefully safe guarded

2231
02:47:37.760 --> 02:47:43.120
on that journey. Your creature Sorroenov
has confessed. We shall know more very

2232
02:47:43.200 --> 02:47:48.799
soon. In meantime, I have
clear evidence which implicates you in a conspiracy

2233
02:47:48.840 --> 02:47:52.879
to murder. He did not answer, but I wished I could see behind

2234
02:47:52.920 --> 02:47:56.120
his tinted spectacles to the look in
his eyes. I think he had not

2235
02:47:56.200 --> 02:48:01.000
been quite prepared for the line I
took. I need not tell you,

2236
02:48:01.079 --> 02:48:03.760
as a lawyer, mister lythan he
said at last, that what seems good

2237
02:48:03.879 --> 02:48:09.040
evidence on paper is often feeble enough
in court. You cannot suppose that I

2238
02:48:09.040 --> 02:48:13.840
will tamely plead guilty to your charges. On the contrary, I will fight

2239
02:48:13.920 --> 02:48:18.040
them with all the force that brains
and money can give. You are an

2240
02:48:18.200 --> 02:48:22.239
ingenious young man, but you are
not the brightest jewel of the English bar.

2241
02:48:24.040 --> 02:48:26.559
That also is true. I do
not deny that some of my evidence

2242
02:48:26.600 --> 02:48:31.440
may be weakened at the trial.
It is even conceivable that you may be

2243
02:48:31.440 --> 02:48:35.120
acquitted on some technical doubt. But
you have forgotten one thing. From the

2244
02:48:35.159 --> 02:48:39.680
day you leave the court, you
will be a suspected man. The police

2245
02:48:39.680 --> 02:48:43.479
of all Europe will be on your
trail. You have been highly successful in

2246
02:48:43.520 --> 02:48:48.200
the past, and why because you
have been above suspicion, an honorable and

2247
02:48:48.280 --> 02:48:54.079
distinguished gentleman, belonging to the best
clubs, counting as your acquaintances the flower

2248
02:48:54.159 --> 02:48:58.079
of our society. Now you will
be a suspect, a man with a

2249
02:48:58.159 --> 02:49:01.159
past, a center of strange story. I put it to you, how

2250
02:49:01.200 --> 02:49:07.280
far are you likely to succeed under
these conditions, he laughed. You have

2251
02:49:07.360 --> 02:49:09.920
a talent for character drawing, my
friend, What makes you think that I

2252
02:49:09.920 --> 02:49:15.479
can work only if I live in
the limelight of popularity. The talent you

2253
02:49:15.600 --> 02:49:18.840
mentioned, I said, as I
read your character, and I think I

2254
02:49:18.879 --> 02:49:22.799
am right. You are an artist
in crime. You are not the common

2255
02:49:22.879 --> 02:49:26.479
cutthroat who acts out of passion or
greed. Now I think you are something

2256
02:49:26.559 --> 02:49:31.559
subtler than that. You love power, hidden power. You flatter your vanity

2257
02:49:31.639 --> 02:49:37.879
by despising mankind and making them your
tools. You scorn the smattering of inaccuracies

2258
02:49:37.920 --> 02:49:41.799
which passes for human knowledge, and
I will not venture to say you are

2259
02:49:41.840 --> 02:49:46.879
wrong. Therefore you use your brains
to frustrate it. Unhappily, the life

2260
02:49:46.879 --> 02:49:52.280
of millions is built on that smattering. So you are a foe to society.

2261
02:49:52.639 --> 02:49:56.440
But there would be no flavor in
controlling subterranean things if you were yourself

2262
02:49:56.440 --> 02:50:01.719
a mole working in the dark.
To get a full flavor the irony of

2263
02:50:01.760 --> 02:50:05.639
it all, you must live in
the light. I can imagine you laughing

2264
02:50:05.680 --> 02:50:09.479
in your soul as you move about
our world, praising it with your lips,

2265
02:50:09.559 --> 02:50:13.280
patting it with your hands, and
kicking its props away with your feet.

2266
02:50:13.799 --> 02:50:16.200
I can see the charm of it, but it is over. Now

2267
02:50:16.920 --> 02:50:20.520
over, he asked over, I
repeated. The end has come, the

2268
02:50:20.639 --> 02:50:26.520
utter, final and absolute end.
He made a sudden, odd, nervous

2269
02:50:26.559 --> 02:50:31.559
movement, pushing his glasses close back
upon his eyes. What about yourself,

2270
02:50:31.559 --> 02:50:35.319
he said, hoarsely. Do you
think you can play against me without suffering

2271
02:50:35.360 --> 02:50:39.799
desperate penalties? He was holding a
cord in his hand with a knob on

2272
02:50:39.840 --> 02:50:41.840
the end of it. He now
touched a button in the knob, and

2273
02:50:41.879 --> 02:50:46.000
there came the faint sound of a
bell. The door was behind me,

2274
02:50:46.079 --> 02:50:50.200
and he was looking beyond me towards
it. I was entirely at his mercy,

2275
02:50:50.239 --> 02:50:54.040
but I never budged an inch.
I do not know how I managed

2276
02:50:54.079 --> 02:50:58.639
to keep calm, but I did
it, and without much effort. I

2277
02:50:58.680 --> 02:51:01.840
went on speaking, conscious that the
door had opened and that some one was

2278
02:51:01.879 --> 02:51:07.479
at my back. It is really
quite useless trying to frighten me. I

2279
02:51:07.520 --> 02:51:11.079
am safe because I am dealing with
an intelligent man and not with the ordinary

2280
02:51:11.159 --> 02:51:16.840
half witted criminal. You do not
want my life in silly revenge. If

2281
02:51:16.840 --> 02:51:20.719
you call in your men and strangle
me between you what earthly good would it

2282
02:51:20.760 --> 02:51:24.120
do you? He was looking beyond
me, and the passion, a sudden,

2283
02:51:24.159 --> 02:51:28.280
white hot passion, like an epilepsy, was dying out of his face.

2284
02:51:30.000 --> 02:51:33.200
A mistake, James, he said, you can go the door closed

2285
02:51:33.239 --> 02:51:39.520
softly at my back. Yes,
a mistake. I have a considerable admiration

2286
02:51:39.680 --> 02:51:43.959
for you, mister Lumley, and
should be sorry to be disappointed. He

2287
02:51:43.079 --> 02:51:46.920
laughed, quite like an ordinary mortal. I am glad this affair is to

2288
02:51:46.959 --> 02:51:52.600
be conducted on a basis of mutual
respect. Now that the melodramatic overture is

2289
02:51:52.639 --> 02:51:56.479
finished, let us get to the
business by all means, I said,

2290
02:51:56.840 --> 02:52:01.680
I promised to deal with you frankly. Will let me put my last cards

2291
02:52:01.680 --> 02:52:05.479
on the table at half past nine? Precisely the duplicate of that statement of

2292
02:52:05.520 --> 02:52:11.200
mind which you annexed this morning will
be hinded to Scotland yard. I may

2293
02:52:11.280 --> 02:52:15.719
add that the authorities there know me
and are proceeding under my advice. When

2294
02:52:15.760 --> 02:52:18.479
they read that statement, they will
act on it. You have therefore about

2295
02:52:18.479 --> 02:52:22.879
one and a half or say one
in three quarter hours to make up your

2296
02:52:22.920 --> 02:52:26.959
mind. You can still secure your
freedom, but it must be elsewhere than

2297
02:52:26.000 --> 02:52:31.120
in England. He had risen to
his feet and was pacing up and down

2298
02:52:31.120 --> 02:52:33.600
the room. Will you oblige me
by telling me one thing? He said.

2299
02:52:33.920 --> 02:52:37.280
If you believe me to be,
as you say, a dangerous criminal,

2300
02:52:37.680 --> 02:52:41.680
how do you reconcile it with your
conscience to give me a chance of

2301
02:52:41.799 --> 02:52:46.159
escape? It is your duty to
bring me to justice. I will tell

2302
02:52:46.200 --> 02:52:48.799
you why I said, I too
have a weak joint in my armor.

2303
02:52:50.360 --> 02:52:54.959
Yours is that you only succeed under
the disguise of high respectability. That disguise,

2304
02:52:56.040 --> 02:52:58.840
in any case, will be stripped
from you. Mine is pit Heron.

2305
02:53:00.399 --> 02:53:03.959
I do not know how far he
has entangled himself with you, but

2306
02:53:03.040 --> 02:53:07.040
I know something of his weakness,
and I don't want his career ruined and

2307
02:53:07.120 --> 02:53:11.399
his wife's heart broken. He has
learned his lesson and will never mention you

2308
02:53:11.479 --> 02:53:16.079
and your schemes to a mortal soul. Indeed, if I can help it,

2309
02:53:16.159 --> 02:53:18.559
he will never know that any one
shares his secret. The price of

2310
02:53:18.600 --> 02:53:24.280
the chance of escape I offer you
is that pitt Heron's past be buried forever.

2311
02:53:24.360 --> 02:53:28.799
He did not answer. He had
his arms folded, walking up and

2312
02:53:28.840 --> 02:53:33.159
down the room, and suddenly seemed
to have aged enormously I had the impression

2313
02:53:33.200 --> 02:53:37.639
that I was dealing with a very
old man, mister lythan he said at

2314
02:53:37.719 --> 02:53:43.120
last. You are bold, You
have a frankness which almost amounts to genius.

2315
02:53:43.719 --> 02:53:48.040
You are wasted in your stupid profession, but your speculative powers are not

2316
02:53:48.159 --> 02:53:52.840
equal to your other endowments, so
you will probably remain in it, deterred

2317
02:53:52.879 --> 02:53:58.079
by an illogical scruple from following your
true bent, your true metier, believe

2318
02:53:58.159 --> 02:54:01.559
me, is what shallow people call
crime. Speaking without prejudice, as the

2319
02:54:01.600 --> 02:54:07.000
idiot's solicitors say, it would appear
that we have both weak spots in our

2320
02:54:07.079 --> 02:54:09.559
cases. Mine, you say is
that I can only work by using the

2321
02:54:09.600 --> 02:54:15.159
conventions of what we agreed to call
the machine. There may be truth in

2322
02:54:15.239 --> 02:54:18.559
that. Yours is that you have
a friend who lacks your ironclad discretion.

2323
02:54:20.440 --> 02:54:24.399
You offer a plan which saves both
our weaknesses. By the way, what

2324
02:54:24.600 --> 02:54:28.799
is it, I looked at my
watch again. You have ample time to

2325
02:54:28.879 --> 02:54:33.120
catch the night Express to Paris,
and if not, then I am afraid

2326
02:54:33.159 --> 02:54:37.239
there may be trouble with the police
between ten and eleven o'clock, which,

2327
02:54:37.280 --> 02:54:41.079
for all our sakes would be a
pity. Do you know you interest me

2328
02:54:41.239 --> 02:54:46.399
uncommonly, For you confirm the accuracy
of my judgment. I have always had

2329
02:54:46.399 --> 02:54:50.319
a notion that some day I should
run across to my sorrow. Just such

2330
02:54:50.360 --> 02:54:54.280
a man as you, a man
of very great intellectual power, I can

2331
02:54:54.319 --> 02:54:58.120
deal with. For that kind of
brain is usually combined with a sort of

2332
02:54:58.159 --> 02:55:03.639
high strung imagination on which I can
work the same with your over imaginative men.

2333
02:55:03.239 --> 02:55:07.440
Yes, pitt Heron was of that
type. Ordinary brains do not trouble

2334
02:55:07.520 --> 02:55:11.639
me, for I puzzle them.
Now, you are a man of good

2335
02:55:11.719 --> 02:55:16.639
average intelligence. Pray forgive the lukewarmness
of the phrase. It is really a

2336
02:55:16.719 --> 02:55:20.360
high compliment, for I am an
austere critic. If you were that and

2337
02:55:20.440 --> 02:55:24.760
no more, you would not have
succeeded. But you possess also a quite

2338
02:55:24.840 --> 02:55:28.959
irrelevant gift of imagination, not enough
to upset your balance, but enough to

2339
02:55:30.000 --> 02:55:33.319
do what your mere lawyer's talent could
never have done. You have achieved a

2340
02:55:33.360 --> 02:55:39.000
feat which is given to few.
You have partially understood me. Believe me,

2341
02:55:39.040 --> 02:55:43.239
I rate you high. You are
the kind of four square being bedded

2342
02:55:43.280 --> 02:55:46.520
in the concrete of our civilization on
whom I have always felt I might some

2343
02:55:46.760 --> 02:55:50.319
day come to grief. No,
no, I am not trying to wheedle

2344
02:55:50.360 --> 02:55:54.280
you. If I thought I could
do that, I should be sorry,

2345
02:55:54.559 --> 02:55:58.280
for my desernment would have been at
fault. I warn you. I said

2346
02:55:58.520 --> 02:56:03.200
that you are wasting precious time.
He laughed, quite cheerfully. I believe

2347
02:56:03.239 --> 02:56:07.079
you are really anxious about my interests, he said. That is a triumph.

2348
02:56:07.159 --> 02:56:09.520
Indeed, do you know, mister
lythen it is a mere whimsy of

2349
02:56:09.600 --> 02:56:13.360
faith that you are not my disciple. If we had met earlier, and

2350
02:56:13.520 --> 02:56:18.879
under other circumstances, I should have
captured you. It is because you have

2351
02:56:18.079 --> 02:56:24.719
in you a capacity for discipleship that
you have succeeded in your opposition. I

2352
02:56:24.799 --> 02:56:28.879
abominate you in all your works,
I said, But I admire your courage.

2353
02:56:28.639 --> 02:56:33.239
He shook his head gently. It
is the wrong word. I am

2354
02:56:33.239 --> 02:56:37.600
not courageous. To be brave means
that you have conquered fear. But I

2355
02:56:37.600 --> 02:56:41.639
have never had any fear to conquer. Believe me, mister lythan I am

2356
02:56:41.719 --> 02:56:46.079
quite impervious to threats. You come
to me to night and hold a pistol

2357
02:56:46.120 --> 02:56:50.440
to my head. You offer me
two alternatives, both of which mean failure.

2358
02:56:50.000 --> 02:56:54.159
But how do you know that I
regard them as failure. I have

2359
02:56:54.239 --> 02:56:58.440
had what they call a good run
for my money. No man since Napoleon

2360
02:56:58.520 --> 02:57:03.200
has tasted such power. I may
be willing to end it. Age creeps

2361
02:57:03.200 --> 02:57:07.120
on, and power may grow burdensome. I have always sat loose from common

2362
02:57:07.200 --> 02:57:11.559
ambitions and common affections. For all
you know, I may regard you as

2363
02:57:11.559 --> 02:57:16.280
a benefactor. All this talk looks
futile when it is written down, But

2364
02:57:16.360 --> 02:57:20.479
it was skillful enough, for it
was taking every atom of exhilaration out of

2365
02:57:20.559 --> 02:57:26.399
my victory. It was not idle
brag. Every syllable rang true, as

2366
02:57:26.399 --> 02:57:31.040
I knew in my bones. I
felt myself in the presence of something enormously

2367
02:57:31.120 --> 02:57:35.600
big, as if a small barbarian
was desecrating the colossal zeus of Phidius with

2368
02:57:35.680 --> 02:57:41.040
a coal hammer. But I also
felt it inhuman, and I hated it,

2369
02:57:41.079 --> 02:57:43.879
and I clung to that hatred.
You fear nothing, and you believe

2370
02:57:43.959 --> 02:57:48.239
nothing, I said, Man,
you should never have been allowed to live.

2371
02:57:48.280 --> 02:57:52.399
He raised a deprecating hand. I
am a skeptic about most things,

2372
02:57:52.440 --> 02:57:56.680
he said, But believe me.
I have my own worship. I venerate

2373
02:57:56.760 --> 02:58:03.200
the intellect of men. I believe
even its undreamed of possibilities when it grows

2374
02:58:03.239 --> 02:58:05.879
free like an oak in the forest, it is not dwarfed in a flower

2375
02:58:05.959 --> 02:58:11.159
pot. From that allegiance, I
have never wavered. That is the god

2376
02:58:11.239 --> 02:58:16.120
I have never forsworn. I took
out my watch. Permit me again to

2377
02:58:16.200 --> 02:58:20.479
remind you that time presses true,
he said, smiling. The Continental Express

2378
02:58:20.520 --> 02:58:26.520
will not wait upon my confession.
Your plan is certainly conceivable. There may

2379
02:58:26.559 --> 02:58:31.000
be other and easier ways. I
am not certain. I must think perhaps

2380
02:58:31.040 --> 02:58:33.639
it would be wiser if you left
me now, mister lythan if I take

2381
02:58:33.680 --> 02:58:37.200
your advice. There will be various
things to do. In any case,

2382
02:58:37.239 --> 02:58:41.079
there will be much to do.
He led me to the door, as

2383
02:58:41.079 --> 02:58:46.559
if he were an ordinary host,
speeding an ordinary guest. I remember that

2384
02:58:46.639 --> 02:58:50.879
on my way he pointed out a
set of aldines and called my attention to

2385
02:58:50.920 --> 02:58:54.120
their beauty. He shook hands quite
cordially, and remarked on the fineness of

2386
02:58:54.159 --> 02:59:00.399
the weather. That was the last
I saw of this amazing man. It

2387
02:59:00.479 --> 02:59:05.280
was with profound relief that I found
myself in Piccadilly, in the wholesome company

2388
02:59:05.280 --> 02:59:09.760
of my kind. I had carried
myself boldly enough in the last hour,

2389
02:59:09.159 --> 02:59:13.840
but I would not have gone through
it again for a king's ransom. Do

2390
02:59:13.879 --> 02:59:18.120
you know what it is to deal
with a pure intelligence, a brain stripped

2391
02:59:18.159 --> 02:59:20.799
of every shred of humanity. It
is like being in the company of a

2392
02:59:20.879 --> 02:59:26.760
snake. I drove to the club
and telephoned to mc gillivray, asking him

2393
02:59:26.760 --> 02:59:28.920
to take no notice of my statement
till he heard from me in the morning.

2394
02:59:30.399 --> 02:59:33.159
Then I went to the hospital to
see Chapman. That leader of the

2395
02:59:33.200 --> 02:59:37.159
people was in a furious temper,
and he was scarcely to be appeased by

2396
02:59:37.200 --> 02:59:41.559
my narrative of the day's doings.
Your labor member is the greatest of old

2397
02:59:41.600 --> 02:59:48.239
sticklers for legality. In the outrage
he had suffered that morning had grievously weakened

2398
02:59:48.280 --> 02:59:52.360
his trust in public security. The
Antioch Street business had seemed to him eminently

2399
02:59:52.479 --> 02:59:56.280
right. If you once got mixed
up in melodrama, you had to expect

2400
02:59:56.360 --> 03:00:01.559
such things. But for a member
of Parliament to be robbed in broad daylight

2401
03:00:01.959 --> 03:00:05.920
next door to the House of Commons
upset the foundations of his faith. There

2402
03:00:07.040 --> 03:00:09.239
was little the matter with his body, and the doctor promised that he would

2403
03:00:09.239 --> 03:00:13.200
be allowed up next day, but
his soul was a mass of bruises.

2404
03:00:15.000 --> 03:00:18.319
It took me a lot of persuasion
to get him to keep quiet. He

2405
03:00:18.399 --> 03:00:22.000
wanted a public exposure of Lumley,
a big trial, a general ferreting out

2406
03:00:22.000 --> 03:00:26.520
of secret agents, the whole winding
up with a speech in Parliament by himself

2407
03:00:26.799 --> 03:00:31.879
on this last outrage of capitalism.
Gloomily, he listened to my injunctions to

2408
03:00:33.000 --> 03:00:37.520
silence, but he saw the reason
of it and promised to hold his tongue

2409
03:00:37.520 --> 03:00:41.680
out of loyalty to Tommy. I
knew that pitt Heron's secret was safe with

2410
03:00:41.760 --> 03:00:46.879
him. As I crossed Westminster Bridge
on my way home. The night expressed

2411
03:00:46.879 --> 03:00:50.360
to the Continent rumbled over the river. I wondered if Lumley was on board,

2412
03:00:50.719 --> 03:00:54.280
or if he had taken one of
the other ways of which he had

2413
03:00:54.280 --> 03:01:01.840
spoken. End of Chapter eight.
Recording by a patriot in Bangor, Maine.

2414
03:01:07.479 --> 03:01:13.360
Chapter nine of The Powerhouse by John
Buchan. This LibriVox recording is in

2415
03:01:13.440 --> 03:01:20.479
the public domain. Recording by expatriot
in Bangor, Maine, Chapter nine,

2416
03:01:20.840 --> 03:01:26.319
Return of the Wild Geese. I
do not think I was surprised at the

2417
03:01:26.360 --> 03:01:31.440
news I read in the Times next
morning. Mister Andrew Lumley had died suddenly

2418
03:01:31.479 --> 03:01:35.079
in the night of heart failure,
and the newspapers woke up to the fact

2419
03:01:35.120 --> 03:01:39.159
that we had been entertaining a great
man unawares. There was an obituary in

2420
03:01:39.280 --> 03:01:43.120
Leader type of nearly two columns.
He had been older than I thought,

2421
03:01:43.200 --> 03:01:46.920
close on seventy, and the time
spoke of him as a man who might

2422
03:01:46.920 --> 03:01:52.040
have done anything he pleased in public
life, but had chosen to give to

2423
03:01:52.079 --> 03:01:56.639
a small coterie of friends what was
due to the country. I read of

2424
03:01:56.680 --> 03:02:01.360
his wit and learning, his amazing
connoisseurship, his gifts, his personal charm.

2425
03:02:01.760 --> 03:02:05.520
According to the writer, he was
the finest type of cultivated amateur,

2426
03:02:05.920 --> 03:02:09.399
a Beckford with more than a Beckford's
wealth, and none of his folly.

2427
03:02:11.399 --> 03:02:15.959
Large private charities were hinted at,
and a hope was expressed that some part,

2428
03:02:16.040 --> 03:02:20.040
at least of his collections might come
to the nation. The halfpenny papers

2429
03:02:20.040 --> 03:02:24.840
said the same thing in their own
way. One declared he reminded it of

2430
03:02:24.920 --> 03:02:30.000
Atticus, another of Mycenus, another
of Lord Houghton. There must have been

2431
03:02:30.040 --> 03:02:35.440
a great run on biographical dictionaries in
the various offices. Chapman's own particular.

2432
03:02:35.520 --> 03:02:39.479
Rags said that although this kind of
philanthropist was a dilettante in a back number.

2433
03:02:39.840 --> 03:02:43.520
Yet mister Lumley was a good specimen
of the class and had been a

2434
03:02:43.559 --> 03:02:48.360
true friend to the poor. I
thought Chapman would have a fit when he

2435
03:02:48.440 --> 03:02:52.719
read this. After that he took
in the morning post. It was no

2436
03:02:52.840 --> 03:02:56.719
business of mine to explode the myth. Indeed, I couldn't even if I

2437
03:02:56.760 --> 03:03:00.719
had wanted to, for no one
would have believed me unless I perduce proofs,

2438
03:03:01.079 --> 03:03:03.680
and these proofs were not to be
made public. Besides, I had

2439
03:03:03.680 --> 03:03:07.399
an honest compunction he had had,
as he expressed, it, a good

2440
03:03:07.520 --> 03:03:11.600
run for his money, and I
wanted the run to be properly rounded off.

2441
03:03:13.440 --> 03:03:16.239
Three days later I went to the
funeral. It was a wonderful occasion.

2442
03:03:16.680 --> 03:03:22.799
Two eminent statesmen were among the pole
bearers, Royalty was represented, and

2443
03:03:22.840 --> 03:03:26.600
there were wreaths from learned societies and
scores of notable people. It was a

2444
03:03:26.680 --> 03:03:31.559
queer business to listen to that stately
service, which was never read over stranger

2445
03:03:31.680 --> 03:03:37.280
dust. I was thinking all the
time of the vast subterranean machine which he

2446
03:03:37.319 --> 03:03:41.200
had controlled, and which now was
so much old iron. I could dimly

2447
03:03:41.239 --> 03:03:46.159
imagine what his death meant to the
hosts who had worked blindly at his direction.

2448
03:03:46.000 --> 03:03:50.520
He was a Napoleon who left no
marshals behind him. From the powerhouse

2449
03:03:50.600 --> 03:03:56.000
came no wreaths or newspaper tributes.
But I knew that I had lost its

2450
03:03:56.040 --> 03:04:01.840
power de mortuis et cetera. My
task was done, and it only remained

2451
03:04:01.840 --> 03:04:05.680
to get pitt Heron home. Of
the three people in London besides myself who

2452
03:04:05.760 --> 03:04:11.360
knew the story, Mcguilivray, Chapman
and Felix, the two last might be

2453
03:04:11.399 --> 03:04:15.639
trusted to be silent, and Scotland
Yard is not in the habit of publishing

2454
03:04:15.680 --> 03:04:18.840
its information. Tommy, of course, must some time or other be told.

2455
03:04:20.680 --> 03:04:22.399
It was his right, but I
knew that Tommy would never breathe a

2456
03:04:22.399 --> 03:04:26.520
word of it. I wanted Charles
to believe that his secret died with Lumley,

2457
03:04:26.959 --> 03:04:30.959
for otherwise I don't think he would
have ever come back to England.

2458
03:04:31.680 --> 03:04:35.959
The thing took some arranging, for
we could not tell him directly about Lumley's

2459
03:04:35.000 --> 03:04:39.120
death without giving away the fact that
we knew of the connection between the two.

2460
03:04:39.840 --> 03:04:43.799
We had to approach it by a
roundabout road. I got Felix to

2461
03:04:43.879 --> 03:04:48.520
arrange to have the news telegraphed to
and inserted by special order in a Russian

2462
03:04:48.600 --> 03:04:54.520
paper which Charles could not avoid seeing. The device was successful. Calling at

2463
03:04:54.520 --> 03:04:58.959
Portman Square a few days later,
I learned from Ethel pitt Heron's glowing thing

2464
03:05:00.559 --> 03:05:03.440
that her troubles were over. That
same evening, a cable to me from

2465
03:05:03.520 --> 03:05:09.600
Tommy announced the return of the Wanderers. It was the year of the Chilean

2466
03:05:09.719 --> 03:05:13.319
Arbitration, in which I held a
junior brief for the British government, and

2467
03:05:13.399 --> 03:05:18.360
that in the late sitting of Parliament
kept me in London after the end of

2468
03:05:18.399 --> 03:05:22.479
the term. I had had a
bad reaction from the excitements of the summer,

2469
03:05:22.959 --> 03:05:26.159
and in these days I was feeling
pretty well hipped and overdone. On

2470
03:05:26.239 --> 03:05:31.959
a hot August afternoon, I met
Tommy again. The sun was shining through

2471
03:05:31.959 --> 03:05:35.120
my temple chambers, much as I
had done when he started. So far

2472
03:05:35.120 --> 03:05:39.840
as I remember, the west Ham
Brief, which had aroused his contempt,

2473
03:05:39.879 --> 03:05:43.319
was still adorning my table. I
was very hot and cross and fagged,

2474
03:05:43.719 --> 03:05:48.600
for I had been engaged in the
beastly job of comparing half a dozen maps

2475
03:05:48.799 --> 03:05:54.280
of a despicable little bit of South
American frontier. Suddenly the door opened and

2476
03:05:54.360 --> 03:05:58.840
Tommy lean and sunburnt, walked in
still at the old grind. He cried,

2477
03:05:58.159 --> 03:06:01.440
after we had shaken hands. Fellows
like you, give me a notion

2478
03:06:01.479 --> 03:06:07.600
of the meaning of eternity, the
same uneventful sedentary life, I replied.

2479
03:06:07.040 --> 03:06:13.479
Nothing happens except that my scale of
fees grows. I suppose nothing will happen

2480
03:06:13.559 --> 03:06:16.200
till the conductor comes to take the
tickets. I shall soon grow fat.

2481
03:06:18.040 --> 03:06:20.120
I notice it already, my lad. You want a bit of waking up,

2482
03:06:20.239 --> 03:06:24.479
or you'll get a liver. A
little sensation would do you a lot

2483
03:06:24.479 --> 03:06:28.000
of good. And you, I
asked, I congratulate you on your success.

2484
03:06:28.399 --> 03:06:33.280
I hear you have retrieved pitt Heron
for his morning family. Tommy's laughing

2485
03:06:33.319 --> 03:06:37.920
eyes grew solemn. I have had
the time of my life, he said.

2486
03:06:37.319 --> 03:06:41.280
It was like a chapter out of
the Arabian Nights with a dash of

2487
03:06:41.319 --> 03:06:45.440
Fenimore Cooper. I feel as if
I had lived years since I left England

2488
03:06:45.440 --> 03:06:48.399
in May. While you have been
sitting among your musty papers, we have

2489
03:06:48.479 --> 03:06:54.079
been riding like moss troopers and seeing
men die, come and dine to night

2490
03:06:54.120 --> 03:06:56.680
and hear about our adventures. I
can't tell you the full story, for

2491
03:06:56.799 --> 03:07:01.000
I don't know it, but there
is enough to curl your hair. Then

2492
03:07:01.040 --> 03:07:05.600
I achieved my first and last score
at the expense of Tommy de Lorraine.

2493
03:07:05.120 --> 03:07:09.840
No, I said, you will
dine with me instead, and I will

2494
03:07:09.840 --> 03:07:13.840
tell you the full story. All
the papers on the subject are over there

2495
03:07:13.879 --> 03:07:20.520
in my safe End of Chapter nine
recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

2496
03:07:22.479 --> 03:07:24.079
End of the Powerhouse by John Buchan,