WEBVTT

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Dedication, preface and chapter one of
the Powerhouse. This is a librivos recording.

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All librivoks recordings are in the public
domain. For more information or to

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volunteer, please visit librivoks dot org. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

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

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

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

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

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

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story, written in the smooth days
before the war, in the hope that

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it may enable an honest man here
and there to forget for an hour the

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

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

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B. Preface by the editor.
We were at Glennaisal six of us for

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the duck shooting when Lython told us
this story. Since five in the morning,

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we had been out on the scerries, and had been blown home by

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a wind which threatened to root the
house and its wind blown woods from their

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

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

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

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

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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 about

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his doings in New Year, where
he tried to climb carstens and lived for

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

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

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last winter in the Epra a 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 lythen 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 and

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lythen got up to find a drink. Lucky Devils. He said, you've

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

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

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

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part in a rather exciting business without
everyone's budging from London. And the joke

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

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

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

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wait. You know. Then he
told us this story. The version I

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give is one he afterwards wrote down
when he had looked up his diary for

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some of the details. Chapter one, beginning of the Wild Goose Chase.

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It all started one afternoon early in
May when I came out of the House

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of Commons with Tommy do Lorraine.
I had got in by an accident at

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

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

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hands pretty full. It was before
Tommy succeeded in the days when he sat

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for the family seat in Yorkshire,
and that afternoon he was in a powerful

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bad temper. Out of doors,
it was jolly spring weather. There was

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

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blowing up from the river. Inside
a dull debate was winding on, and

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an advertising member had been trying to
get up a row with the speaker.

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The contrast between the frowsy place and
the cheerful world outside would have impressed even

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the soul of a government whip.
Tommy sniffed the spring breeze like a supercilious

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stag. This about finishes me,
he groaned, What a juggins I am

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to be moldering here. Joggleberry is
the celestial limit what they call in happier

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lands the pink penultimate. And the
froust on those back benches was there ever

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such a mothy and old museum.
It is the mother of parliaments. I

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

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bit or a bonnet joggleberry, or
get up and propose a naw monument to

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Guy Faux or something silly. I
did not see him for a day or

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two, and then one morning he
rang me up and peremptorily summoned me to

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dine with him. I went,
knowing very well what I should find.

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Tommy was off next day to shoot
lions on the equator or something equally unconscientious.

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He was a bad acquaintance for a
placid, sedentary soul like me,

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

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was never at the same job very
long. In the same week he would

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harass an under secretary about horses for
the army, right voluminously to the press

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about a gun he had invented for
potting aeroplanes, give a fancy dress ball

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which he forgot to attend, and
get into the semifinal of the rackets Championship.

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I waited daily to see him start
a new religion. That night I

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recollect he had an odd assortment of
guests. A cabinet minister was there,

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a gentle being for whom Tommy a
fast public scorn and private affection. A

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sailor, an Indian cavalry fellow,
Chapman, the labor member whom Tommy called

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Chipmunk, myself an old Nilsen of
the treasury. Our host was in tremendous

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form, chaffing everybody and sending Chipmunk
into great rolling gusts of merriment. The

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two lived adjacent to Yorkshire, and
on platforms abused each other like pickpockets.

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Tommy enlarged on the misfits of civilized
life. He maintained that none of us,

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except perhaps the sailor and the cavalrymen, were at our proper job.

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He would have had Wintham, that
was the minister, a cardinal of the

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

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college full of port and prejudice.
Me. He was kind enough to allocate

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to some reconstructed imperial general staff merely
because I had a craze from military history.

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Tommy's perception did not go very deep. He told Chapman he should have

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been a lumberman in California. You'd
have made an uncome and good logger,

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Chipmunk, and you know you're a
dashed, bad politician. When questioned about

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himself, he became reticent, as
the newspapers say. I doubt if I'm

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much good at any job, he
confessed, except to ginger up my friends

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

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session with a chap who has lock
jaw. 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 onto my tricks if things got

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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in the halfpenny press. He was
enormously rich cotton mills and Liverpool ground rents,

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

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

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

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book about it. Then he married
a pretty cousin of Tommy's who happened to

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be the only person that ever captured
my stony heart and settled down in London.

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I did not go to their house, and soon I found that very

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few of his friends saw much of
him either. His travels and magazine articles

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suddenly stopped, and I put it
down to the common course of successful domesticity.

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Apparently I was wrong. Charles pitt
Heron said, Tommy is blowing up

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for a most thundering mess. I
asked what kind of mess, and Tommy

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

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beggar he used to be, always
off on the spree to the mountains of

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the Moon or somewhere. Well,
he has been damping down his fires lately

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and trying to behave like a respectable
citizen. But God knows what he has

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been thinking. I go a good
deal to Portman Square, and all last

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year he has been getting queerer questions
as to the nature of the earness only

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elicited the fact that Heron had taken
to science with some enthusiasm. He's got

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a laboratory at the back of the
house used to be the billiard room,

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where he works away half the night. And Lord, the crew you meet

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there every kind of heathen Chinese and
Turks, and long haired chaps from Russia

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and fat Germans. I've several times
blundered into the push. They've all got

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an odd secretive air about them,
and Charlie is becoming like them. He

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won't answer a plain question or look
you straight in the face. Ethel sees

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it too, and she has often
talked to me about it. I said,

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I saw no harm in such a
hobby. I do, said Tommy

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grimly. Anyhow, the fellow has
bolted. What on earth I began but

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was cut short, bolted without a
word to a mortal soul. He told

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Ethel he would be home for luncheon
yesterday and never came. His man knew

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nothing about him, hadn't packed for
him or anything, but he found he

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had stuffed something into a kit bag
and gone out by the back through the

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mews. Ethel was in terrible straits
and sent for me, and I ranged

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all yesterday afternoon like a wolf.
On the scent. I found he had

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drawn a biggish sum in gold from
the bank, but I couldn't find any

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trace of where he had gone.
I was just setting out for Scotland Yard

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this morning when Tumland. The valet
rang me up and said he had found

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a card in the westcot of the
dress clothes that Charles had worn the night

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before he left. It had a
name on it like kona Levski, and

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it struck me that they might know
something about the business at the Russian embassy.

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Well, I went round there,
and the long and short of it

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was that I found there was a
fellow of that name among the clerks.

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I saw him, and he said
he had gone to see mister pitt Heern

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two days before with a letter from
some embassy chap. Unfortunately, the man

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in question had gone off to New
York next day. But kona Levski told

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me one thing which helped to clear
up matters. It seemed that the letter

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

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powered sort than the ordinary make,
and kona Levsky gathered from something he had

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

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in. Well, that was good
enough for me. I'm off tomorrow to

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

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wants? I said, feebly,
you don't understand, said the sage Tommy.

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

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

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

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feels like to be a revolutionary.
That's the damned thing about the artistic temperament.

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

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

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

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by this time, if he has
taken no clothes. I have 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. Pitte
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
man's fads, I said. He never

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

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rich as Creeses said Tommy, a
woman blind as a bat to female beauty

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the wrong side of the law.
Don't think so. He could settle any

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

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it looks as if pitte Heron would
have a companion in misfortune before you

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

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presents. You're a nuisance to your
friends and a disgrace to your country's legislature.

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

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

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

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spirits and had forgotten his anger at
the defaulting pitt Heron. In gratitude for

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his provision of an occupation, he
talked of carrying him off to the Caucasus

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

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remember the scene as if it were
yesterday. It was a hot May morning,

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

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

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the time, and my table was
well nourished with briefs. Tommy picked up

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one and began to read it.
It was about a new drainage scheme in

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west Ham. He tossed it down
and looked at me pityingly, poor old

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beggar, He said, to spend
your days on such work. When the

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world is chock full of amusing things, life goes roaring by, and you

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

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

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

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with me? The queer thing was
that I did I remember the occasion,

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

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have had a pang of dissatisfaction with
a calling I had chosen. As Tommy's

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footsteps grew faint on the stairs,
I suddenly felt as if I were missing

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

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feeling, even when you know that
the thing you are out of is foolishness.

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Tommy went off at eleven from Victoria, and my work was pretty well

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ruined. For the day. I
felt oddly restless, and the cause was

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not merely Tommy's departure. My thoughts
kept turning to the pit Heron's, chiefly

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

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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 unwilling

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

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

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

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

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barrister could have little to do with
the wanderings of two maniacs in Muscovie.

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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 with

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a canout coercing Tommy and pitt Heron
in a Russian Fortress, which faded away

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into the Carlton Hotel. Next afternoon, I found my stepped wending in the

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

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I told myself I would be none
the worse of a walk in the park

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before dinner. I had a fancy
to see missus pitt heron, for though

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I had only met her twice since
her marriage, there had been a day

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

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and saddened lady with imploring eye.
Those eyes questioned me as to how much

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I knew. I told her presently
that I had seen Tommy and was aware

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

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there were anything she wished done on
this side of the channel. She was

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

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courtesy. But she told me nothing. Charles was full of business in becoming

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

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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 optimism.

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

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Heron household. She either knew or
feared something. The latter, I thought,

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for her air was more of apprehension
than of painful enlightenment. I did

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not stay long, and as I
walked home, I had an awkward feeling

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that I had intruded. Also,
I was increasingly that there was trouble brewing,

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and that Tommy had more warrant for
his journey than I had given him

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credit for. I cast my mind
back to gather recollections of pitt Heron,

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but all I could find was an
impression of a brilliant, uncomfortable being who

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had been too fond of the by
ways of life. From my sober tastes,

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there was nothing crooked in him in
the wrong sense, but there might

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be a good deal that was perverse. I remember consoling myself with the thought

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that though he might shatter his wife's
nerves by his vagaries, he would scarcely

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break her heart. To be watchful, I decided, was my business,

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and I could not get rid of
the feeling that I might soon have caused

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for all my vigilance end of chapter
one. Recording by expatriate in Bangor,

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Maine. Chapter two of The Powerhouse
by John Buchan, Slavey Vox recording is

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in the public domain. Recording by
expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Chapter two.

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

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On the twenty first of May.
I did a thing I rarely do and

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went down to South London on a
county court case. It was an ordinary

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taxicab accident, and as the solicitors
for the company were good clients of mine

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and the regular county court junior was
ill in bed, I took the case

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00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:38.119
to oblige them. There was the
usual dull conflict of evidence. An empty

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taxicab, proceeding slowly on the right
side of the road and hooting decorously at

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the corners, had been run into
by a private motor car which had darted

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down a side street. The taxi
had been swung round and its bonnet considerably

258
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damaged, while its driver had suffered
a dislocated shoulder. The bad feature in

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the case was that the motor car
had not halted to investigate the damage,

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but had proceeded unconscientiously on its way, and the assistance of the London Police

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had been called in to trace it. It turned out to be the property

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

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

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it had been occupied by his butler. The company brought an action for damages

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against its owner. The butler,
Took by name, was the only witness

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00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:34.799
for the defense. He was a
tall man with a very long, thin

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face and a jaw, the two
parts of which seemed scarcely to fit.

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He was profuse in his apologies on
behalf of his master, who was abroad.

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It seemed that on the morning in
question, it was the eighth of

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May, he had received instructions from
mister Pavia to convey a message to a

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passenger by the Continental Express from Victoria, and had been hot on this errand

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when he met the taxi he was
not aware that there had been any damage,

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thought it only a slight grazing of
the two cars, and on his

274
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master's behalf consented to the judgment of
the court it was a commonplace business.

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But Duke was by no means a
commonplace witness. He was very unlike the

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conventional butler, much likeer, one
of those successful financiers whose portrait you see

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in the picture papers. His little
eyes were quick with intelligence, and there

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00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:30.359
were lines of ruthlessness around his mouth, like those of a man often called

279
00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:37.480
to decisive action. His story was
simplicity itself, and he answered my questions

280
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with an air of serious candor.
The train he had to meet was the

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

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passenger he had to see was an
American gentleman, mister Wright Davies. His

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master, Mister Pavia, was in
Italy, but would shortly be home again.

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The case was over in twenty minutes. But it was something union in

285
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:04.680
my professional experience, for I took
a most intense and unreasoning dislike to that

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00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:11.880
bland butler. I cross examined with
some rudeness, was answered with steady courtesy,

287
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:17.039
and hopelessly snubbed. The upshot was
that I lost my temper, to

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the surprise of the County Court judge. All the way back, I was

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00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:25.640
both angry and ashamed of myself.
Half way home, I realized that the

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accident had happened on the very day
that Tommy left London. The coincidence merely

291
00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:33.920
flickered across my mind, for there
could be no earthly connection between the two

292
00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:40.720
events. That afternoon I wasted some
time in looking up Pavia in the directory.

293
00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:45.400
He was there, sure enough,
as the occupier of a suburban mansion

294
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called the White Lodge. He had
no city addressed, so it was clear

295
00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:52.440
that he was out of business.
My irritation with the man had made me

296
00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:57.519
inquisitive about the master. It was
a curious name he bore, possibly Italian,

297
00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:03.240
possibly go Unease. I wondered how
he got on with this highly competent

298
00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:07.759
butler. If Tuke had been my
servant, I would have wrung his neck

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or bolted before a week was out. You ever notice that when you hear

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a name that strikes you, you
seem to be constantly hearing it for a

301
00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:18.240
bit. Once I had a case
in which one of the parties was called

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00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:22.240
Jubber, a name I had never
met before, but I ran across two

303
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:27.319
other Jubbers before the case was over. Anyhow, the day after the Blackheath

304
00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:32.960
visit, I was briefed in a
big stock exchange case which turned on the

305
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:37.880
true ownership of certain bearer bonds.
It was a complicated business which I need

306
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.279
not trouble you with, and it
involved a number of consultations with my lay

307
00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:45.839
clients, a famous firm of brokers. They produced their books, and my

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00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:52.680
chambers were filled with glossy gentlemen talking
a strange jargon. I had to examine

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00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:56.480
my clients closely on their practice in
treating a certain class of bearer security,

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and they were very frank in expounding
the business. I was not surprised to

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00:24:02.279 --> 00:24:04.720
hear that pitt Heron was one of
the most valued names on their lists.

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00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:08.160
With his wealth, he was bound
to be a good deal in the city.

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Now. I had no desire to
pry to pitt Heron's private affairs,

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especially his financial arrangements, but his
name was in my thoughts at the time,

315
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.119
and I could not help looking curiously
at what was put before me.

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00:24:22.599 --> 00:24:26.599
He seemed to have been buying these
bonds on a big scale. I had

317
00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:30.519
the indiscretion to ask if mister pitt
Herron had long followed this course, and

318
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:36.400
was told that he had begun to
purchase some six months before mister pitt Herron

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00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:42.079
volunteered. The stockbroker is very closely
connected in his financial operations with another esteemed

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00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:47.720
client of ours, mister Julius Pavia. They are both attracted by this class

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of security. At the moment I
scarcely noted the name, But after dinner

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that night I began to speculate about
the connection. I had found out the

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name of one of Charles's mysterious new
friends. It was not a very promising

324
00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:07.440
discovery. A retired East India merchant
did not suggest anything wildly speculative. But

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00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:12.720
I began to wonder if Charles's preoccupation
to which Tommy had been witnessed, might

326
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not be connected with financial worries.
I could not believe that the huge pitt

327
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:22.160
Heron fortune had been seriously affected,
or that his flight was that of a

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00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:27.279
defaulter. But he might have got
entangled in some shady, stidy business which

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00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:32.920
preyed on his sensitive soul somehow or
other. I could not believe that mister

330
00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:37.960
Pavia was a wholly innocent old gentleman. His butler looked too formidable. It

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00:25:38.039 --> 00:25:42.519
was possible that he was blackmailing pitt
Heron, and that the latter had departed

332
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:47.920
to get out of his clutches.
But on what ground. I had no

333
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:52.279
notion as to the black, mailable
thing that might lurk in Charles's past,

334
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:56.839
and the guesses which flitted through my
brain were too fantastic to consider seriously.

335
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:03.480
After all, I had only the
flimsiest basis for conjecture. Pavia and pitt

336
00:26:03.559 --> 00:26:07.359
Heron were friends. Tommy had gone
off in quest of pitt Heron. Pavia's

337
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.839
butler had broken the law of the
land in order, for some reason or

338
00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:15.400
other to see the departure of the
train by which Tommy had traveled. I

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00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:21.440
remember laughing at myself from my suspicions, and reflecting that if Tommy could see

340
00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:23.759
into my head, he would turn
a deaf ear in the future to my

341
00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:27.480
complaints of his lack of balance.
But the thing stuck in my mind,

342
00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:32.799
and I called again that week on
missus pitt Herron. She had had no

343
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.000
word from her husband and only a
bare line from Tommy giving his Moscow address.

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Poor child, it was a wretched
business for her. She had to

345
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:45.839
keep a smiling face to the world, invent credible tales to account for her

346
00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:51.640
husband's absence. In all the while
anxiety and dread were gnawing at her heart.

347
00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:55.559
I asked her if she had ever
met mister Pavia, but the name

348
00:26:55.599 --> 00:27:00.319
was unknown to her. She knew
nothing of Charles's business dealings, but at

349
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:03.559
my request she interviewed his bankers,
and I heard from her next day that

350
00:27:03.640 --> 00:27:08.839
his affairs were in perfect order.
It was no financial crisis which had precipitated

351
00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:15.720
him abroad. A few days later
I stumbled by the merest accident upon what

352
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:19.599
sailors call a cross bearing. At
the time I used to devil a little

353
00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:25.799
for the Solicitor General and note cases
sent to him from the different government offices.

354
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.240
It was thankless work, but it
was supposed to be good for an

355
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:33.880
ambitious lawyer. By this prosaic channel
I received the first hint of another of

356
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:38.720
Charles's friends. I had sent to
me one day the papers dealing with the

357
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:42.160
arrest of a German spy at Plymouth. For at the time there was a

358
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:49.359
sort of epidemic of roving twutons who
got themselves into compromising situations and gravely troubled

359
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:55.079
the souls of the Admiralty in the
War Office. This case was distinguished from

360
00:27:55.079 --> 00:28:00.640
the common rock by the higher social
standing of the accused. Generally the spy

361
00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:06.279
as a photographer or bagman who attempts
to win the bibulous confidence of minor officials.

362
00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:11.480
But this specimen was no less than
a professor of a famous German university,

363
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:15.839
a man of excellent manners, wide
culture, and attractive presence, who

364
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:22.039
had dined with port officers and danced
with admiral's daughters. I have forgotten the

365
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:26.960
evidence or what was the legal points
submitted for the law officer's opinion. In

366
00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:30.920
any case, it matters little,
for he was acquitted. What interests me

367
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:34.559
at the time was the testimonials as
to character which he carried with him.

368
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:41.119
He had many letters of introduction.
One was from pitt Heron to his wife's

369
00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:45.440
sailor uncle. And when he was
arrested, one Englishman went so far as

370
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:49.000
to wire that he took upon himself
the whole cost of the defense. This

371
00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:53.799
gentleman was a mister Andrew Lumley stated
in the papers sent me to be a

372
00:28:53.880 --> 00:28:59.519
rich bachelor, a member of the
Athenaeum in Carlton clubs, and a dweller

373
00:28:59.559 --> 00:29:03.599
in the Albany. Remember that till
a few weeks before I had known nothing

374
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:08.200
of pitt Heron's circle, and here
were three bits of information dropping in on

375
00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:14.240
me unsolicited. Just when my interests
had been awakened, I began to get

376
00:29:14.279 --> 00:29:17.720
really keen, for every man,
at the bottom of his heart believes that

377
00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:22.799
he is a born detective. I
was on the lookout for Charles's infrequent friends,

378
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:26.559
and I argued that if he knew
the spy and the spy knew mister

379
00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:30.960
Lumley, the odds were that pitt
Heron and Lumley were acquaintances. I hunted

380
00:29:32.039 --> 00:29:34.440
up the ladder in the Red Book. Sure enough, he lived in the

381
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:38.640
Albany, belonged to half a dozen
clubs, and had a country house in

382
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:42.839
Hampshire. I tucked the name away
in a pigeon hole of my memory,

383
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:48.720
and for some days asked everyone I
met if he knew the philanthropist of the

384
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:52.960
Albany. I had no luck till
the Saturday, when lunching at the club,

385
00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:56.359
I ran against Jenkinson, the art
critic. I forget if you know

386
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:00.200
that I have always been a bit
of a connoisseur and a old way I

387
00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:04.440
used to dabble in prints and miniatures, but at that time my interest lay

388
00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:10.440
chiefly in old Wedgewood, of which
I had collected some good pieces. Old

389
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:14.880
Wedgewood is a thing which few people
collect seriously, but the few who do

390
00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:18.599
are apt to be monomaniacs. Whenever
a big collection comes into the market,

391
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:22.759
it fetches high prices, but it
generally finds its way into not more than

392
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:27.640
half a dozen hands. Wedgewoodites all
know each other, and they are less

393
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:33.920
cutthroat in their methods than most collectors
of all I have ever met. Jenkinson

394
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:37.160
was the keenest, and he would
discourse for hours on the feel of good

395
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:42.599
jasper and the respective merits of blue
and sage green grounds. That day he

396
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:48.279
was full of excitement. He babbled
through luncheon about the Wentworth sale, which

397
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:52.599
he had attended the week before.
There had been a pair of magnificent plaques

398
00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:57.319
with a unique Flaxman design which had
roused his enthusiasm. Urns and medallions and

399
00:30:57.400 --> 00:31:03.559
whatnot had gone to this or that
connoisseur, and Jenkinson could quote their prices,

400
00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:07.039
but the plaques dominated his fancy,
and he was furious that the nation

401
00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:11.400
had not acquired them. It seemed
that he had been to South Kensington and

402
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:15.279
the British Museum in all sorts of
dignitaries, and he thought that he might

403
00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:21.640
yet persuade the authorities to offer for
them if the purchaser would resell. They

404
00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:26.079
had been bought by Lutran for a
well known private collector by the name Andrew

405
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:30.240
Lumley. I pricked up my ears
and asked about mister Lumley. Jenkinson said

406
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:33.920
he was a rich old buffer who
locked up his things in cupboards and never

407
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:37.519
let the public get a look at
them. He suspected that a lot of

408
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:41.799
the best things at recent sales had
found their way to him, and that

409
00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:45.680
meant that they were put in cold
storage for good. I asked if he

410
00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:48.880
knew him. No, he told
me, but he had once or twice

411
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.200
been allowed to look at his things
for books he had been writing. He

412
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.799
had never seen the man, for
he always bought through agents, but he

413
00:31:56.839 --> 00:32:00.680
had heard of people who knew him. It is a silly old he said.

414
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:05.240
He will fill half a dozen houses
with priceless treasures and then die,

415
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:08.000
and the whole show would be sold
at auction, and the best things carried

416
00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:13.920
off to America. It's enough to
make a Patriot swear there was balm in

417
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:19.000
Gilead. However, mister Lumley apparently
might be willing to resell the Wedgewood plaques

418
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:22.640
if he got a fair offer.
So Jenkinson had been informed by Lutran in

419
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:27.319
that very afternoon he was going to
look at them. He asked me to

420
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:30.279
come with him, and, having
nothing to do, I accepted. Jenkinson's

421
00:32:30.319 --> 00:32:35.240
car was waiting for us at the
club door. It was closed for the

422
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:38.559
afternoon was wet. I did not
hear his directions to the chauffeur, and

423
00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:42.759
we had been on the road ten
minutes or so before I discovered that we

424
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:46.799
had crossed the river and were traversing
south London. I had expected to find

425
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:51.720
the things in Lutran's shop, but
to my delight I was told that Lumley

426
00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:54.880
had taken delivery of them at once. He keeps very few of his things

427
00:32:54.880 --> 00:32:58.880
in the Albany, except his books, I was told. But he has

428
00:32:58.920 --> 00:33:02.160
a house at black which is stuffed
from cellar to garrett. What is the

429
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:07.119
name of it, I asked,
with a sudden suspicion. The White Lodge,

430
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:10.119
said Jenkinson. But that belongs to
a man called Pavia. I said,

431
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:15.039
I can't help that the things in
it belonged to old Lumley. All

432
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:17.680
right, I know, for I've
been three times there with his permission.

433
00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:22.200
Jenkinson got little out of me for
the rest of the ride. Here was

434
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:28.440
excellent corroborative evidence of what I had
allowed myself to suspect. Pavia was a

435
00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:31.640
friend of pitt Heron. Lumly was
a friend of pitt Heron. Lumley was

436
00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:37.079
obviously a friend of Pavia, and
he might be Pavia himself. For the

437
00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:40.079
retired East India merchant, as I
figured him, would not be above an

438
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:45.799
innocent impersonation. Anyhow, If I
could find one or the other, I

439
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:51.279
might learn something about Charles's recent doings. I sincerely hope that the owner might

440
00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:54.799
be at home that afternoon when we
inspected his treasures. For so far I

441
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:00.759
had found no one who could procure
me an introduction to that mysterious old bachelor

442
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:06.000
of artistic and Philo Teutonic tastes.
We reached the White Lodge about half past

443
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:09.920
three. It was one of those
small, square Late Georgian mansions which you

444
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:15.840
see all around London. Once a
country house among fields, now only a

445
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:20.679
villa in a pretentious garden. I
looked to see my super butler took but

446
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:25.159
the door was opened by a female
servant who inspected Jenkinson's card of admission and

447
00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:31.039
somewhat unwillingly allowed us to enter.
My companion had not exaggerated when he described

448
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:35.519
the place as full of treasures.
It was far more like the shop of

449
00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:39.280
a Bond Street art dealer than a
civilized dwelling. The hall was crowded with

450
00:34:39.400 --> 00:34:45.559
Japanese armor and lacquer cabinets. One
room was lined from Florida's ceiling with good

451
00:34:45.559 --> 00:34:51.320
pictures, mostly seventeenth century Dutch,
and had enough Chippendale chairs to accommodate a

452
00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:55.360
public meeting. Jenkinson would fain have
prowled around, but we were moved on

453
00:34:55.519 --> 00:35:00.960
by the inexorable servant to the little
back room where lay the objects of our

454
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:06.039
visit. The plaques had been only
half unpacked, and in a moment Jenkinson

455
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.840
was busy on them with a magnifying
glass, purring to himself like a contented

456
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:15.000
cat. The housekeeper stood on guard
by the door. Jenkinson was absorbed,

457
00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:20.000
and after the first inspection of the
treasures, I had leisure to look about

458
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:24.320
me. It was an untidy little
room full of fine Chinese porcelain and dusty

459
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:30.199
glass cabinets, and in a corner
stood piles of old Persian rugs. Pavia,

460
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:36.360
I reflected, must be an easy
going soul entirely oblivious of comfort if

461
00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:40.400
he allowed his friend to turn his
dwelling into such a pantechnicon. Less and

462
00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:45.880
less did I believe in the existence
of the retired East Indian merchant. The

463
00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:51.000
house was Lumley's, who chose to
pass under another name during his occasional visits.

464
00:35:51.559 --> 00:35:53.960
His motive might be innocent enough,
but somehow I did not think so.

465
00:35:54.639 --> 00:36:00.639
His butler had looked too infernally intelligent. With my foot turned over the

466
00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:04.920
lid of one of the packing cases
that had held the wedgewoods. It was

467
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:07.960
covered with a litter of cotton,
wool and shavings, and below it lay

468
00:36:07.960 --> 00:36:12.400
a crumpled piece of paper. I
looked again and saw that it was a

469
00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:16.519
telegraph form. Clearly, somebody with
a telegram in his hand had opened the

470
00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:20.920
cases and had left it on the
top of one, whence it had dropped

471
00:36:20.920 --> 00:36:22.800
to the floor and been covered by
the lid when it was flung off.

472
00:36:23.159 --> 00:36:28.000
I hope and believe that I am
as scrupulous as other people. But then

473
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:31.320
and there came on me the conviction
that I must read that telegram. I

474
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:36.360
felt the gimlet eye of the housekeeper
on me, so I had recourse to

475
00:36:36.440 --> 00:36:39.920
craft. I took out my cigarette
case as if to smoke, and clumsily

476
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:45.280
upset its contents amongst the shavings.
Then on my knees, I began to

477
00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:50.159
pick them up, turning over the
litter till the telegram was exposed. It

478
00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:52.480
was in French, and I read
it quite clearly. It had been sent

479
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:58.760
from Vienna, but the address was
on some code. Suivey abohare sorrownoff?

480
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:02.360
Those were the words. I finished
my collection of the cigarettes and turned the

481
00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:06.840
lid over again on the telegram,
so that its owner, if he chose

482
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:10.079
to look for it diligently, might
find it. When we sat in the

483
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:15.079
car going home, Jenkinson absorbed in
meditation on the plaques. I was coming

484
00:37:15.079 --> 00:37:22.159
to something like a decision. A
curious feeling of inevitability possessed me. I

485
00:37:22.199 --> 00:37:27.639
had collected, by accident a few
odd disjointed pieces of information, and here

486
00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:31.760
by the most amazing accident of all
was the connecting link. I knew I

487
00:37:31.800 --> 00:37:37.000
had no evidence to go upon which
would have convinced the most credulous common jury.

488
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:42.360
Pavia knew pitt Heron, so probably
did Lumly. Lumly knew Pavia,

489
00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:47.079
possibly was identical with him. Somebody
in Pavia's house got a telegram in which

490
00:37:47.079 --> 00:37:52.719
a trip to Bokhara was indicated.
It didn't sound much, yet I was

491
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:58.079
absolutely convinced, with a queer subconscious
certitude of the human brain, that pitt

492
00:37:58.119 --> 00:38:01.880
Heron was or was about to be
in Bochara, and that Pavia Lumley knew

493
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:07.199
of his being there and was deeply
concerned in his journey. That night,

494
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:10.199
after dinner, I rang up Missus
pitt Heern. She had had a letter

495
00:38:10.280 --> 00:38:14.960
from Tommy, a very dispirited letter, for he had had no luck.

496
00:38:15.599 --> 00:38:21.519
Nobody in Moscow had seen or heard
of any wandering Englishman remotely like Charles,

497
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:25.199
and Tommy, after playing the private
detective for three weeks, was nearly at

498
00:38:25.239 --> 00:38:30.159
the end of his tether and spoke
of returning home. I told her to

499
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.639
send him the following wire in her
own name. Go on to Bochara,

500
00:38:34.760 --> 00:38:38.519
have information you will meet him there. She promised to send the message next

501
00:38:38.599 --> 00:38:45.719
day and ask no further questions.
She was a pearl among women. End

502
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:57.440
of chapter two. Recording by expatriate
in Bangor, Maine, Chapter three of

503
00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:02.000
The Powerhouse by John Buchan. The
Slabry Box recording is in the public domain.

504
00:39:02.840 --> 00:39:09.599
Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter three tells of a midsummer

505
00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:15.400
night. Hitherto I had been the
looker on. Now I was to become

506
00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:21.199
a person of the drama. That
telegram was the beginning of my active part

507
00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:24.639
in this curious affair. They say
that everybody turns up in time at the

508
00:39:24.679 --> 00:39:30.119
corner of Piccadilly Circus if you wait
long enough. I was to find myself

509
00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:34.039
like a citizen of Baghdad in the
days of the Great Caliph, and yet

510
00:39:34.079 --> 00:39:38.280
never stir from my routine of flat
chambers, club and flat I am wrong.

511
00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:43.760
There was one episode out of London, and that perhaps was the true

512
00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:47.960
beginning of my story. Whitsuntide that
year came very late, and I was

513
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:52.960
glad of the fortnight's rest, for
Parliament and the law courts had given me

514
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:57.679
a busy time. I had recently
acquired a car and a chauffeur called Stag,

515
00:39:58.199 --> 00:40:00.320
and I looked forward to trying it
in tour in the West Country.

516
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:06.480
But before I left London, I
went again to Portman Square, I found

517
00:40:06.480 --> 00:40:10.400
ethel Pitte Heron in grave distress.
You must remember that Tommy and I had

518
00:40:10.440 --> 00:40:15.599
always gone on the hypothesis that Charles's
departure had been in pursuance of some mad

519
00:40:15.719 --> 00:40:20.719
scheme of his own which might get
him into trouble. We thought that he

520
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:25.239
had become mixed up with highly undesirable
friends and was probably embarking in some venture

521
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:30.480
which might not be criminal, but
was certain to be foolish. I had

522
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:35.559
long rejected the idea of blackmail,
and convinced myself that Lumley and Pavia were

523
00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:39.039
his colleagues. The same general notion, I fancy had been in his wife's

524
00:40:39.079 --> 00:40:44.679
mind. But now she had found
something which altered the case. She had

525
00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:47.679
ransacked his papers in the hope of
finding a clue to the affair which had

526
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:52.159
taken him abroad, but there was
nothing but business letters, notes of investments

527
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:55.320
and such like. He seemed to
have burned most of his papers in the

528
00:40:55.400 --> 00:41:00.760
queer laboratory at the back of the
house, but stuffed to the pocket of

529
00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:04.960
a blotter on a bureau in the
drawing room, where he scarcely ever wrote.

530
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:07.480
She had found a document It seemed
to be the rough draft of a

531
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:10.840
letter, and it was addressed to
her. I give it as it was

532
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:15.760
written. The blank spaces were left
blank in the manuscript. You must have

533
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:20.639
thought me mad or worse to treat
you as I have done. But there

534
00:41:20.679 --> 00:41:23.039
was a terrible reason which some day
I hope to tell you all about.

535
00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:27.039
I want you, as soon as
you get this, to make ready to

536
00:41:27.079 --> 00:41:30.719
come out to me at blank.
You will travel by blank and arrive at

537
00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:36.239
blank. I enclose a letter which
I want you to hand in deepest confidence

538
00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:39.559
to Knoles, a solicitor. He
will make all arrangements about your journey and

539
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:44.840
about sending me the supplies of money
I want. Darling, you must leave

540
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:47.840
as secretly as I did, and
tell nobody anything, not even that I

541
00:41:47.880 --> 00:41:52.000
am alive. That least of all, I would not frighten you for worlds.

542
00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:55.480
But I am on the edge of
a horrible danger, which I hope,

543
00:41:55.480 --> 00:42:01.079
with God's help and yours, to
escape. All obviously the draft of

544
00:42:01.079 --> 00:42:06.119
a letter which he intended to post
to her from some foreign place. But

545
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:10.719
can you conceive a missive more calculated
to shatter a woman's nerves? It filled

546
00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:15.679
me, I am bound to say, with heavy disquiet, pitt Heron was

547
00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:17.920
no coward, and he was not
the man to make too much of a

548
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:22.960
risk. Yet it was clear that
he had fled that day in May under

549
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:27.280
the pressure of some mortal fear.
The affair, in my eyes, began

550
00:42:27.320 --> 00:42:30.800
to look very bad. Ethel wanted
me to go to Scotland Yard, but

551
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:35.519
I dissuaded her. I had the
utmost esteem for Scotland Yard, but I

552
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:38.840
shrank from publicity at this stage.
There might be something in the case too

553
00:42:38.920 --> 00:42:43.440
delicate for the police to handle,
and I thought it better to wait.

554
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:47.199
I reflected a great deal about the
pitt Heron business the first day or two

555
00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:52.119
of my trip, but the air
and the swift motion helped me to forget

556
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:55.760
it. We had a fortnight of
superb weather and sailed all day through a

557
00:42:55.800 --> 00:43:01.639
glistening green country under the hazy blue
ovens of June. Soon I fell into

558
00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:07.039
the blissful state of physical and mental
ease which such a life induces. Hard

559
00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:12.119
toil, such as deer stalking,
keeps the nerves on the alert and the

560
00:43:12.199 --> 00:43:16.280
mind active, but swimming all day
in a smooth car through a heavenly landscape

561
00:43:16.599 --> 00:43:22.679
mesmerizes brain and body. We ran
up the Thames Valley, explored the Cotswolds,

562
00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:28.039
and turned south through Somerset till we
reached the fringes of Exmore. I

563
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:30.000
stayed a day or two at a
little inn high up in the moor,

564
00:43:30.519 --> 00:43:36.559
and spent the time tramping the endless
ridges of hill or scrambling in the arbutus

565
00:43:36.599 --> 00:43:40.559
thickets where the More falls and steeps
to the sea. We returned by Dartmoor

566
00:43:40.679 --> 00:43:45.400
and the South coast, meeting with
our first rain in Dorset and sweeping into

567
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:51.559
sunlight again on Salisbury Plain. The
time came when only two days remained to

568
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:55.679
me. The car had behaved beyond
all my hopes, and stag a somber

569
00:43:55.760 --> 00:44:00.519
in silent Man, was lyrical in
his praises. I wanted to be in

570
00:44:00.639 --> 00:44:06.320
London by the Monday afternoon, and
to insure this I made a long day

571
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:09.360
of it on the Sunday. It
was the long day which brought our pride

572
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:14.400
to a foal. The car had
run so well that I resolved to push

573
00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:19.159
on and sleep in a friend's house
near Farnum. It was about half past

574
00:44:19.239 --> 00:44:23.239
eight and we were traversing the somewhat
confused and narrow roads in the neighborhood of

575
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:29.119
warmer forest. When as we turned
a sharp corner, we ran full into

576
00:44:29.119 --> 00:44:32.719
the tail of a heavy carrier's cart. Stagg clapped on the brakes, but

577
00:44:32.800 --> 00:44:37.360
the collision, though it did no
harm to the cart, was sufficient to

578
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.760
send the butt end of something through
our glass screen, damaged the tire of

579
00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:45.840
the near front wheel, and deranged
the steering gear. Neither of us suffered

580
00:44:45.920 --> 00:44:50.960
much hurt, but Stagg got a
long scratch on his cheek from broken glass,

581
00:44:51.280 --> 00:44:54.800
and I had a bruised shoulder.
The carrier was friendly but useless,

582
00:44:55.119 --> 00:44:59.719
and there was nothing for it but
to arrange for horses to take the car

583
00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:02.920
to Farnum. This meant a job
of some hours, and I found,

584
00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:07.039
on inquiry at a neighboring cottage that
there was no inn where I could stay

585
00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:13.440
within eight miles. Stag borrowed a
bicycle somehow and went off to collect horses

586
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:19.199
while I morosely reviewed the alternatives before
me. I did not like the prospect

587
00:45:19.199 --> 00:45:22.760
of spending the June night beside my
derelict car, and the thought of my

588
00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:28.519
friend's house near Farnum beckoned me seductively. I might have walked there, but

589
00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:31.280
I did not know the road,
and I found that my shoulder was painting

590
00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:36.400
me. So I resolved to try
to find some gentleman's house in the neighborhood

591
00:45:36.599 --> 00:45:40.159
where I could borrow a conveyance.
The south of England is now so densely

592
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:45.800
peopled by Londoners that even in a
wild district where there are no inns in

593
00:45:45.960 --> 00:45:51.320
few farms, there are certain to
be several week end cottages. I walked

594
00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:54.679
along the white ribbon of road in
the scented June dusk. At first it

595
00:45:54.760 --> 00:45:59.840
was bounded by high gorse, then
came patches of open heath, and then

596
00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:04.559
woods. Beyond the woods, I
found a park railing and presently an entrance

597
00:46:04.599 --> 00:46:07.280
gate with a lodge. It seemed
to be the place I was looking for,

598
00:46:07.639 --> 00:46:12.119
and I woke the lodge keeper,
who thus early had retired to bed.

599
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:15.400
I asked the name of the owner, but was told the name of

600
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:20.239
the place instead. It was high
ashes. I asked if the owner was

601
00:46:20.280 --> 00:46:23.199
at home, and got a sleepy
nod for answer. The house, as

602
00:46:23.199 --> 00:46:28.719
seen in the half light, was
a long, whitewashed cottage rising to two

603
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:32.800
stories in the center. It was
plentifully covered with creepers and roses, and

604
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.719
the odor of flowers, was mingled
with the faintest savor of wood smoke,

605
00:46:37.239 --> 00:46:42.960
pleasant to a hungry traveler in the
late hours. I pulled an old fashioned

606
00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:47.280
bell and the door was opened by
a stolid young parlor maid. I explained

607
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:52.119
my errand and offered my card.
I was, I said, a member

608
00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:55.159
of Parliament and of the bar,
who had suffered a motor accident. Would

609
00:46:55.159 --> 00:46:59.159
it be possible for the master of
the house to assist me to get to

610
00:46:59.199 --> 00:47:04.760
my destination near Farnum. I was
bidden enter, and wearily seated myself on

611
00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.400
a settle in the hall. In
a few minutes, an ancient housekeeper appeared,

612
00:47:08.760 --> 00:47:14.000
a grim dame whom at other times
I should have shunned. She bore,

613
00:47:14.079 --> 00:47:17.159
however, a hospitable message. There
was no conveyance in the place,

614
00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:22.280
as the car had gone that day
to London for repairs. But if I

615
00:47:22.360 --> 00:47:25.400
cared to avail myself of the accommodation
of the house for the night, it

616
00:47:25.480 --> 00:47:30.719
was at my service. Meantime,
my servant could be looking after the car,

617
00:47:30.039 --> 00:47:34.000
and a message would go to him
to pick me up in the morning.

618
00:47:34.719 --> 00:47:38.679
I gratefully accepted, for my shoulder
was growing troublesome and was conducted up

619
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:45.039
a shallow oak staircase to a very
pleasant bedroom with a bathroom adjoining. I

620
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:49.159
had a bath, and afterwards found
a variety of comforts put at my service,

621
00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:53.079
from slippers to razors. There was
also some element from my wounded shoulder.

622
00:47:53.760 --> 00:47:58.880
Clean and refreshed, I made my
way downstairs and entered a room from

623
00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:01.920
which I caught a glow of light. It was a library, the most

624
00:48:01.960 --> 00:48:07.280
attractive I think I have ever seen. The room was long, as libraries

625
00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:10.960
should be, and entirely lined with
books, save over the fireplace, where

626
00:48:12.039 --> 00:48:15.840
hung a fine picture which I took
to be a ray burn. The books

627
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:20.559
were in glass cases which showed the
beautiful, shallow moldings of a more artistic

628
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:24.000
age. The table was laid for
dinner in a corner. For the room

629
00:48:24.039 --> 00:48:29.320
was immense, and the shaded candlesticks
on it, along with the late June

630
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:32.880
dusk, gave such light as there
was. At first I thought the place

631
00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:37.639
was empty, but as I crossed
the floor, a figure rose from a

632
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:40.800
deep chair by the hearth. Good
evening, mister Lython. A voice said,

633
00:48:42.280 --> 00:48:45.960
it is a kindly mischance which gives
a lonely old man the pleasure of

634
00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:50.920
your company. He switched on an
electric lamp, and I saw before me

635
00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:54.000
what I had not guessed from the
voice, an old man. I was

636
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:59.519
thirty four at the time and counted
anything over fifty old, but I judged

637
00:48:59.559 --> 00:49:02.440
my host to be well on in
the sixties. He was about my own

638
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:07.360
size, but a good deal bent
in the shoulders, as if from study.

639
00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:13.559
His face was clean shaven and extraordinarily
fine, with every feature delicately chiseled.

640
00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:17.159
He had a sort of Hapsburg mouth, and chin very long and pointed,

641
00:49:17.480 --> 00:49:22.440
but modeled with a grace which made
the full lower lips seem entirely right.

642
00:49:22.280 --> 00:49:25.760
His hair was silver, brushed so
low on the forehead as to give

643
00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:30.440
him a slightly foreign air, and
he wore tinted glasses as if for reading.

644
00:49:31.280 --> 00:49:36.760
Altogether, it was a very dignified
and agreeable figure who greeted me in

645
00:49:36.760 --> 00:49:42.079
a voice so full and soft that
it belied his obvious age. Dinner was

646
00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:45.679
a light meal, but perfect in
its way. There were souls, I

647
00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:51.239
remember, an exceedingly well cooked chicken, fresh strawberries, and a savory We

648
00:49:51.360 --> 00:49:57.119
drank a ninety five perier souet and
some excellent madera. The stolid parlor maid

649
00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:00.199
waited on us, and as we
talked of the weather in the Hampshire roads,

650
00:50:00.440 --> 00:50:05.639
I kept trying to guess my host's
profession. He was not a lawyer,

651
00:50:05.679 --> 00:50:08.480
for he had not the inevitable lines
on the cheek. I thought that

652
00:50:08.519 --> 00:50:13.679
he might be a retired Oxford Dunn, or one of the higher civil servants,

653
00:50:13.760 --> 00:50:17.199
or perhaps some official of the British
Museum. His library proclaimed him a

654
00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:22.599
scholar, and his voice a gentleman. Afterwards we settled ourselves in arm chairs,

655
00:50:22.599 --> 00:50:27.159
and he gave me a good cigar. We talked about many things,

656
00:50:27.199 --> 00:50:30.519
books, the right furnishing of a
library, a little politics, and deference

657
00:50:30.559 --> 00:50:37.000
to my mp ship. My host
was apathetic about party questions, but curious

658
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:40.840
about defense matters, and in his
way an amateur strategist. I could fancy

659
00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:46.199
him indicting letters to the Times on
national service. Then we wandered into foreign

660
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:52.239
affairs, where I found his interest
acute and his knowledge immense. Indeed,

661
00:50:52.239 --> 00:50:55.159
he was so well informed that I
began to suspect that my guesses had been

662
00:50:55.199 --> 00:51:00.519
wrong, and that he was a
retired diplomat. At that time, there

663
00:51:00.559 --> 00:51:05.519
was some difficulty between France and Italy
over customs duties, and he sketched for

664
00:51:05.639 --> 00:51:10.239
me with remarkable clearness the weak points
in the French tariff administration. I had

665
00:51:10.239 --> 00:51:15.840
been recently engaged in a big South
American railway case, and I asked him

666
00:51:15.840 --> 00:51:19.639
a question about the property of my
clients. He gave me a much better

667
00:51:19.679 --> 00:51:23.000
account than I had ever got from
the solicitors who briefed me. The fire

668
00:51:23.079 --> 00:51:27.960
had been lit before we finished dinner, and presently it began to burn up

669
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:30.559
and light the figure of my host, who sat in a deep armchair.

670
00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:35.679
He had taken off his tinted glasses, and as I rose to get a

671
00:51:35.760 --> 00:51:39.920
match, I saw his eyes looking
abstractedly before him. Somehow they reminded me

672
00:51:39.960 --> 00:51:45.960
of pitt Herron. Charles had always
a sort of dancing light in his a

673
00:51:45.079 --> 00:51:51.519
restless intelligence which was at once attractive
and disquieting. My host had this and

674
00:51:51.639 --> 00:51:54.440
more. His eyes were paler than
I had ever seen in a human head,

675
00:51:54.880 --> 00:52:00.280
pale, bright and curiously wild.
But whereas pitt Herons had only given

676
00:52:00.320 --> 00:52:06.079
the impression of reckless youth, this
man spoke of wisdom and power, as

677
00:52:06.119 --> 00:52:10.199
well as of endless vitality. All
my theories vanished, for I could not

678
00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:15.480
believe that my host had ever followed
any profession. If he had, he

679
00:52:15.480 --> 00:52:17.079
would have been at the head of
it, and the world would have been

680
00:52:17.119 --> 00:52:22.039
familiar with his features. I began
to wonder if my recollection was not playing

681
00:52:22.039 --> 00:52:25.679
me false, and I was in
the presence of some great man whom I

682
00:52:25.679 --> 00:52:30.639
ought to recognize. As I dived
into the recesses of my memory, I

683
00:52:30.760 --> 00:52:35.239
heard his voice asking if I were
not a lawyer. I told him,

684
00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:39.159
yes, a barrister with a fair
common law practice and some work in Privy

685
00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:45.639
Council appeals. He asked me why
I chose the profession. It came handiest,

686
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:49.199
I said, I am a dry
creature who loves facts and logic.

687
00:52:49.599 --> 00:52:52.039
I am not a flier. I
have no new ideas. I don't want

688
00:52:52.079 --> 00:52:57.480
to lead men, and I like
work. I am the ordinary educated Englishman,

689
00:52:57.519 --> 00:53:00.480
and my sort gravitates to the bar. We like feeling that if we

690
00:53:00.519 --> 00:53:05.400
are not the builders at any rate, we are the cement of civilization.

691
00:53:06.400 --> 00:53:10.239
He repeated the words cement of civilization
in his soft voice. In a sense,

692
00:53:10.280 --> 00:53:15.039
you are right. The civilization needs
more than the law to hold it

693
00:53:15.079 --> 00:53:20.239
together. You see, all mankind
are not equally willing to accept as divine

694
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:23.880
justice, what is called human law. Of course, there are further sanctions,

695
00:53:23.920 --> 00:53:28.519
I said, police and armies,
and the good will of civilization.

696
00:53:29.519 --> 00:53:32.480
He caught me up quickly. The
last is your true cement. Did you

697
00:53:32.519 --> 00:53:37.360
ever reflect, mister lythen? How
precarious is the tenure of the civilization we

698
00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:42.920
boast about? I should have thought
it fairly substantial? I said, And

699
00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:46.599
the foundations grow daily? Firmer,
he laughed. That is the lawyer's view.

700
00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:50.719
But believe me, you are wrong. Reflect and you will find that

701
00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:53.880
the foundations are sand. You think
that a wall as solid as the earth

702
00:53:53.920 --> 00:54:00.440
separates civilization from barbarism. I tell
you the division is a thread sheet of

703
00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:04.320
glass. A touch here, a
push there, and you bring back the

704
00:54:04.440 --> 00:54:10.159
rain of Saturn. It was the
kind of paradoxical undergraduate speculation which grown men

705
00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:15.679
indulgence. Sometimes. After dinner,
I had looked at my host to discover

706
00:54:15.800 --> 00:54:20.039
his mood, and at the moment
a log flared up again. His face

707
00:54:20.119 --> 00:54:24.840
was perfectly serious. His light wild
eyes were intently watching me. Take one

708
00:54:24.880 --> 00:54:29.480
little instance, he said, We
are a commercial world and have built up

709
00:54:29.519 --> 00:54:34.760
a great system of credit. Without
our checks and bills of exchange and currency.

710
00:54:35.320 --> 00:54:38.760
The whole of our life would stop. But credit only exists because behind

711
00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:44.079
it we have a standard of value. My Bank of England notes are worthless

712
00:54:44.119 --> 00:54:50.000
paper unless I can get sovereigns for
them if I choose forgive this elementary disquisition.

713
00:54:50.079 --> 00:54:53.400
But the point is important. We
have fixed a gold standard because gold

714
00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:59.039
is sufficiently rare, and because it
allows itself to be coined into a portable

715
00:54:59.119 --> 00:55:02.239
form. I am aware that there
are economists who say that the world could

716
00:55:02.280 --> 00:55:07.639
be run on a pure credit basis, with no metal currency at the back

717
00:55:07.679 --> 00:55:10.840
of it. But however sound their
argument may be, in the abstract,

718
00:55:12.159 --> 00:55:15.280
the thing is practically impossible. You
would have to convert the whole of the

719
00:55:15.320 --> 00:55:22.360
world's stupidity to their economic faith before
it would work. Now, suppose something

720
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:27.320
happened to make our standard of value
useless. Suppose the dream of the Alchymists

721
00:55:27.320 --> 00:55:31.639
came true and all metals were readily
transmutable. We have got very near it

722
00:55:31.679 --> 00:55:36.960
in recent years, as you will
know if you interest yourself in chemical science.

723
00:55:37.719 --> 00:55:42.360
Once gold and silver lost their intrinsic
value, the whole edifice of our

724
00:55:42.400 --> 00:55:47.599
commerce would collapse. Credit would become
meaningless because it would be untranslatable. We

725
00:55:47.639 --> 00:55:51.800
should be back at a bound in
the age of barter. For it is

726
00:55:51.840 --> 00:55:54.320
hard to see what other standard of
value could take the place of the precious

727
00:55:54.360 --> 00:56:00.719
metals. All our civilization, with
its industries and commerce, would come toppling

728
00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:05.880
down once more, like primitive man. I would plant cabbages for a living,

729
00:56:06.159 --> 00:56:09.159
and exchange them for services in kind
for the cobbler and the butcher.

730
00:56:09.800 --> 00:56:15.519
We should have the simple life with
a vengeance, not the self conscious simplicity

731
00:56:15.519 --> 00:56:20.960
of the civilized man, but the
compulsory simplicity of the savage. I was

732
00:56:21.039 --> 00:56:24.599
not greatly impressed by the illustration.
Of course, there are many key points

733
00:56:24.599 --> 00:56:29.119
in civilization, I said, and
the loss of them would bring ruin.

734
00:56:29.639 --> 00:56:34.920
But these keys are strongly held,
not so strongly as you think. Consider

735
00:56:34.960 --> 00:56:39.119
how delicate the machine is growing.
As life grows more complex, the machinery

736
00:56:39.199 --> 00:56:45.000
grows more intricate and therefore more vulnerable. Your so called sanctions become so infinitely

737
00:56:45.079 --> 00:56:50.760
numerous that each in itself is frail. In the dark ages, you had

738
00:56:50.840 --> 00:56:54.400
one great power, the terror of
God in his church. Now you have

739
00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:00.159
a multiplicity of small things, all
delicate and fragile, and strong only by

740
00:57:00.199 --> 00:57:05.800
our tacit agreement not to question them. You forget one thing, I said,

741
00:57:06.159 --> 00:57:09.000
the fact that men really are agreed
to keep the machine going. That

742
00:57:09.119 --> 00:57:14.440
is what I call the goodwill of
civilization. He got up from his chair

743
00:57:14.440 --> 00:57:17.760
and walked up and down the floor, a curious dusky figure, lit by

744
00:57:17.800 --> 00:57:22.719
the rare spurts of flame from the
hearth. You have put your finger on

745
00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:28.880
the one thing that matters civilization is
a conspiracy. What value would your police

746
00:57:28.920 --> 00:57:32.880
be if every criminal could find a
sanctuary across the channel, or your law

747
00:57:32.920 --> 00:57:39.320
courts if no other tribunal recognize their
decisions. Modern life is the silent compact

748
00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:45.079
of comfortable folk to keep up pretenses, and it will succeed till the day

749
00:57:45.119 --> 00:57:49.920
comes when there is another compact to
strip them bare. I do not think

750
00:57:49.960 --> 00:57:53.000
that I have ever listened to a
stranger conversation. It was not so much

751
00:57:53.079 --> 00:57:57.480
what he said, You will hear
the same thing from any group of half

752
00:57:57.519 --> 00:58:00.599
baked young men, as the air
with which he said it. The room

753
00:58:00.679 --> 00:58:06.119
was almost dark, but the man's
personality seemed to take shape and bulk in

754
00:58:06.159 --> 00:58:09.199
the gloom. Though I could scarcely
see him, I knew that those pale,

755
00:58:09.280 --> 00:58:14.400
strange eyes were looking at me.
I wanted more light, but did

756
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:17.000
not know where to look for a
switch. It was all so eerie and

757
00:58:17.159 --> 00:58:21.599
odd that I began to wonder if
my host were not a little mad.

758
00:58:22.159 --> 00:58:25.639
In any case, I was tired
of his speculations. We won't dispute on

759
00:58:25.760 --> 00:58:29.880
the indisputable, I said, But
I should have thought that it was the

760
00:58:29.960 --> 00:58:32.559
interest of all the best brains of
the world to keep up what you call

761
00:58:32.599 --> 00:58:37.360
the conspiracy. He dropped into his
chair again. I wonder, he said,

762
00:58:37.400 --> 00:58:40.880
slowly, do we really get the
best brains working on the side of

763
00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:45.000
the compact? Take the business of
government? When all is said, we

764
00:58:45.039 --> 00:58:50.400
are ruled by the amateurs in the
second rate. The methods of our departments

765
00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:54.719
would bring any private firm to bankruptcy. The methods of parliament, pardon me,

766
00:58:55.039 --> 00:59:00.320
would disgrace any board of directors.
Our rulers pretend by expert knowledge,

767
00:59:00.559 --> 00:59:04.639
but they never pay the price for
it that a business man would pay.

768
00:59:05.119 --> 00:59:07.679
And if they get it, they
have not the courage to use it.

769
00:59:07.199 --> 00:59:10.880
Where is the inducement for a man
of genius to sell his brains to our

770
00:59:10.920 --> 00:59:16.480
insipid governors? And yet knowledge is
the only power now as ever, a

771
00:59:16.559 --> 00:59:22.280
little mechanical device will wreck your navies. A new chemical combination will upset every

772
00:59:22.360 --> 00:59:27.679
rule of war. It is the
same with our commerce. One or two

773
00:59:27.760 --> 00:59:31.440
minute changes might sink Britain to the
level of Ecuador, or give China the

774
00:59:31.519 --> 00:59:36.280
key of the world's wealth. And
yet we never dream that these things are

775
00:59:36.320 --> 00:59:39.719
possible. We think our castles of
sand are the ramparts of the universe.

776
00:59:40.679 --> 00:59:44.679
I have never had the gift of
the gab, but I admire it in

777
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:49.440
others. There is a morbid charm
in such talk, a kind of exhilaration

778
00:59:49.480 --> 00:59:52.800
of which one is half ashamed.
I found myself interested and more than a

779
00:59:52.800 --> 00:59:58.599
little impressed. But surely, I
said, the first thing a discoverer does

780
00:59:58.719 --> 01:00:01.679
is to make his discovery public.
He wants the honor and glory, and

781
01:00:01.800 --> 01:00:06.280
he wants money for it. It
becomes part of the world's knowledge, and

782
01:00:06.360 --> 01:00:10.199
everything is readjusted to meet it.
That was what happened with electricity. You

783
01:00:10.280 --> 01:00:15.599
call our civilization a machine, but
it is something far more flexible. It

784
01:00:15.639 --> 01:00:20.280
has the power of adaptation of a
living organism. Well, that might be

785
01:00:20.320 --> 01:00:23.119
true if the new knowledge really became
the world's property. But does it I

786
01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:28.480
read now and then in the papers
that some eminent scientist has made a great

787
01:00:28.519 --> 01:00:32.039
discovery. He reads a paper before
some academy of science, and there are

788
01:00:32.159 --> 01:00:37.719
leading articles on it, and his
photograph adorns the magazines. That kind of

789
01:00:37.760 --> 01:00:40.159
man is not the danger. He
is a bit of the machine, a

790
01:00:40.199 --> 01:00:45.400
party to the compact. It is
the men who stand outside it that are

791
01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:49.440
to be reckoned, with the artists
in discovery, who will never use their

792
01:00:49.519 --> 01:00:52.840
knowledge till they can use it with
full effect. Believe me, the biggest

793
01:00:52.880 --> 01:00:59.400
brains are without the ring which we
call civilization. Then his voice seemed to

794
01:00:59.440 --> 01:01:04.079
hesitate. You may hear people say
that submarines have done away with the battleship,

795
01:01:04.480 --> 01:01:07.440
and that aircraft have annulled the mastery
of the sea. That is what

796
01:01:07.480 --> 01:01:13.199
our pessimists say. But do you
imagine that the clumsy submarine or the fragile

797
01:01:13.239 --> 01:01:16.840
aeroplane is really the last word of
science. No doubt they will develop,

798
01:01:16.960 --> 01:01:21.599
I said, But by that time
the power of the defense will have advanced.

799
01:01:21.639 --> 01:01:24.800
Also, he shook his head.
It is not so even now.

800
01:01:24.800 --> 01:01:30.039
The knowledge which makes possible great engines
of destruction is far beyond the capacity of

801
01:01:30.039 --> 01:01:35.840
any defense. You see only the
productions of second rate folk who are in

802
01:01:35.880 --> 01:01:39.320
a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, that deadly knowledge

803
01:01:39.679 --> 01:01:44.639
is still kept secret. But believe
me, my friend, it is there.

804
01:01:45.519 --> 01:01:47.440
He paused for a second, and
I saw the faint outline of the

805
01:01:47.480 --> 01:01:52.960
smoke from his cigar against the background
of the dark. Then he quoted me

806
01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:55.639
one or two cases, slowly,
as if in some doubt about the wisdom

807
01:01:55.679 --> 01:02:00.199
of his words. It was these
cases which star to me. They were

808
01:02:00.239 --> 01:02:05.599
of different kinds, a great calamity, a sudden breach between two nations,

809
01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:09.000
a blight on a vital crop,
a war, a pestilence. I will

810
01:02:09.039 --> 01:02:13.400
not repeat them. I do not
think I believed in them then, and

811
01:02:13.519 --> 01:02:17.039
now I believe less. But they
were horribly impressive, as told in that

812
01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:22.960
quiet voice in that somber room on
that dark June night. If he was

813
01:02:22.079 --> 01:02:25.800
right, these things had not been
the work of nature or accident, but

814
01:02:25.880 --> 01:02:30.760
of a devilish art. The nameless
brains that he spoke of, working silently

815
01:02:30.760 --> 01:02:37.719
in the background now and then showed
their power by some cataclysmic revelation. I

816
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:42.199
did not believe him, But as
he put the case, showing with strange

817
01:02:42.239 --> 01:02:45.880
clearness the steps in the game,
I had no words to protest. At

818
01:02:45.920 --> 01:02:51.599
last, I found my voice.
What you describe is superanarchy, and yet

819
01:02:51.639 --> 01:02:55.599
it makes no headway. What is
the motive of those diabolical brains? He

820
01:02:55.760 --> 01:03:00.400
laughed? How should I be able
to tell you? I am a humble

821
01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:04.599
inquirer, and in my research as
I come on curious bits of fact.

822
01:03:05.079 --> 01:03:08.239
But I cannot pry into motives.
I only know of the existence of great

823
01:03:08.320 --> 01:03:15.239
extra social intelligences. Let us say
that they distrust the machine. They may

824
01:03:15.280 --> 01:03:19.599
be idealists and desire to make a
new world, or they may simply be

825
01:03:19.800 --> 01:03:22.840
artists, loving for its own sake
the pursuit of truth. If I were

826
01:03:22.880 --> 01:03:27.239
to hazard a guess, I should
say that it took both types to bring

827
01:03:27.280 --> 01:03:30.320
about results, for the second find
the knowledge, and the first the will

828
01:03:30.360 --> 01:03:35.880
to use it. A recollection came
back to me. It was of a

829
01:03:35.960 --> 01:03:39.760
hot upland meadow in Tyrol, where, among acres of flowers and beside a

830
01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:45.840
leaping stream, I was breakfasting after
a morning spent in climbing the white crags.

831
01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:49.519
I had picked up a German on
the way, a small man of

832
01:03:49.519 --> 01:03:52.599
the professor class, who did me
the honor to share my sandwiches. He

833
01:03:52.719 --> 01:03:58.480
conversed fluently but quaintly, in English, and he was I remember a Nietzschean

834
01:03:59.000 --> 01:04:02.000
in a hot rebel against the established
order. The pity, he cried,

835
01:04:02.119 --> 01:04:05.920
is that the reformers do not know, and those who know are too idle

836
01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:11.039
to reform. Some day there will
come the marriage of knowledge and will,

837
01:04:11.440 --> 01:04:15.679
and then the world will march.
You draw an awful picture, I said,

838
01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:19.039
But if those extrasocial brains are so
potent, why, after all,

839
01:04:19.119 --> 01:04:25.000
do they effect so little. A
dull police officer with the machine behind him,

840
01:04:25.280 --> 01:04:29.159
can afford to laugh at most experiments. And anarchy, true, he

841
01:04:29.199 --> 01:04:33.199
said, And civilization will win until
its enemies learn from it the importance of

842
01:04:33.239 --> 01:04:40.199
the machine. The compact must endure
until there is a counter compact. Consider

843
01:04:40.239 --> 01:04:45.000
the ways of that form of foolishness, which today we call neilism or anarchy.

844
01:04:45.679 --> 01:04:49.000
A few illiterate bandits in a Paris
slum defy the world, and in

845
01:04:49.039 --> 01:04:55.400
a week they are in jail.
Half a dozen crazy Russian intellectuals in Geneva

846
01:04:55.840 --> 01:05:00.320
conspire to upset the Romanovs and are
hunted down by the police of Europe.

847
01:05:00.960 --> 01:05:04.239
All the governments, in their not
very intelligent police forces, join hands,

848
01:05:04.599 --> 01:05:10.039
and hey, presto, there is
an end of the conspirators, for civilization

849
01:05:10.159 --> 01:05:15.000
knows how to use such powers as
it has, while the immense potentiality of

850
01:05:15.039 --> 01:05:20.119
the unlicensed is dissipated in vapor.
Civilization wins because it is the world widely.

851
01:05:20.760 --> 01:05:27.480
Its enemies fail because they are parochial. But supposing again, he stopped

852
01:05:27.480 --> 01:05:30.159
and rose from his chair. He
found a switch and flooded the room with

853
01:05:30.280 --> 01:05:34.320
light. I glanced up, blinking
to see my host smiling down on me,

854
01:05:34.800 --> 01:05:41.039
a most benevolent and courteous old gentleman. He had resumed his tinted glasses.

855
01:05:41.480 --> 01:05:44.559
Forgive me, he said, for
leaving you in darkness while I bored

856
01:05:44.599 --> 01:05:48.320
you with my gloomy prognostications. A
recluse is apt to forget what is due

857
01:05:48.360 --> 01:05:53.840
to a guest. He handed the
cigar box to me and pointed to a

858
01:05:53.880 --> 01:05:57.880
table where whiskey and mineral waters had
been set out. I want to hear

859
01:05:57.920 --> 01:06:01.000
the end of your prophecies, I
said you were saying. I said,

860
01:06:01.360 --> 01:06:08.039
supposing anarchy learned from civilization and became
international. Oh, I don't mean the

861
01:06:08.119 --> 01:06:14.559
bands of advertising donkeys who call themselves
international unions of workers and such like rubbish.

862
01:06:14.599 --> 01:06:18.599
I mean if the real brain stuff
of the world were internationalized. Suppose

863
01:06:18.679 --> 01:06:24.440
that the links in the coordin of
civilization were neutralized by other links in a

864
01:06:24.440 --> 01:06:30.400
far more potent chain. The earth
is seething with incoherent power and unorganized intelligence.

865
01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:35.119
Have you ever reflected on the case
of China. There you have millions

866
01:06:35.119 --> 01:06:41.079
of quick brains stifled in trumpery crafts. They have no direction, no driving

867
01:06:41.159 --> 01:06:44.920
power, so the sum of their
efforts is feudal. And the world laughs

868
01:06:44.920 --> 01:06:48.239
at China. Europe throws her a
million or two on loan now and then,

869
01:06:48.679 --> 01:06:54.159
and she cynically responds by begging the
prayers of Christendom. And yet I

870
01:06:54.239 --> 01:06:58.360
say, supposing it's a horrible idea, I said, And thank God,

871
01:06:58.599 --> 01:07:02.159
I don't believe it possible. Mere
destruction is too barren a creed to inspire

872
01:07:02.159 --> 01:07:06.480
a new Napoleon. And you can
do with nothing short of one. It

873
01:07:06.519 --> 01:07:12.559
would scarcely be destruction, he replied
gently. Let us call it iconoclasm,

874
01:07:12.920 --> 01:07:16.800
the swallowing of formulas, which has
always had its full retinue of idealists.

875
01:07:17.239 --> 01:07:21.039
And you do not want a Napoleon. All that is needed is direction,

876
01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:26.320
which could be given by men of
far lower gifts than a Bonaparte. In

877
01:07:26.360 --> 01:07:30.480
a word. You want a powerhouse, and then the age of miracles will

878
01:07:30.519 --> 01:07:33.679
begin. I got up, for
the hour was late and I had had

879
01:07:33.800 --> 01:07:38.639
enough of this view. We talk. My host was smiling, and I

880
01:07:38.679 --> 01:07:42.840
think that smile was the thing I
really disliked about him. It was too

881
01:07:43.199 --> 01:07:47.079
what shall I say, superior and
olympian. As he led me into the

882
01:07:47.159 --> 01:07:51.760
hole, he apologized for indulging his
whims. But you, as a lawyer,

883
01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:56.239
should welcome the idea. If there
is an atom of truth in my

884
01:07:56.360 --> 01:08:00.840
fancies, your task is far bigger
than you thought. You were not defending

885
01:08:00.880 --> 01:08:04.320
an easy case, but fighting in
a contest where the issues are still doubtful.

886
01:08:04.880 --> 01:08:10.559
That should encourage your professional pride.
By all the rules, I should

887
01:08:10.599 --> 01:08:14.400
have been sleepy, for it was
past midnight and I had had a long

888
01:08:14.519 --> 01:08:17.920
day in the open air. But
that wretched talk had unsettled me, and

889
01:08:18.039 --> 01:08:23.000
I could not get my mind off
it. I have reproduced, very crudely

890
01:08:23.039 --> 01:08:27.920
the substance of my host's conversation,
but no words of mine could do justice

891
01:08:27.960 --> 01:08:31.560
to his eerie persuasiveness. There was
a kind of magnetism in the man,

892
01:08:31.920 --> 01:08:36.359
a sense of vast powers and banked
up fires, which would have given weight

893
01:08:36.399 --> 01:08:41.680
to the tritus platitudes. I had
a horrible feeling that he was trying to

894
01:08:41.720 --> 01:08:45.279
convince me, to fascinate me,
to prepare the ground for some proposal.

895
01:08:45.920 --> 01:08:50.039
Again and again I told myself it
was crazy, nonsense, the heated dream

896
01:08:50.039 --> 01:08:55.079
of a visionary. But again and
again I came back to some details which

897
01:08:55.079 --> 01:08:59.199
had a horrid air of reality.
If the man was a romancer, he

898
01:08:59.319 --> 01:09:03.840
had a common gift of realism.
I flung open my bedroom window and let

899
01:09:03.920 --> 01:09:08.479
in the soft air of the June
night, and the scents from leagues of

900
01:09:08.520 --> 01:09:14.119
clover and pines and sweet grasses.
It momentarily refreshed me, for I could

901
01:09:14.159 --> 01:09:19.039
not believe that this homely and gracious
world held such dire portents. But always

902
01:09:19.079 --> 01:09:25.279
that phrase of his, the powerhouse, kept recurring. You know how twisted

903
01:09:25.319 --> 01:09:30.279
your thoughts get during a wakeful night, And long before I fell asleep towards

904
01:09:30.359 --> 01:09:34.680
morning, I had worked myself up
into a very complete dislike of that bland

905
01:09:34.720 --> 01:09:40.239
and smiling gentleman my host. Suddenly
it occurred to me that I did not

906
01:09:40.399 --> 01:09:44.199
know his name, and that set
me off on another train of reflection.

907
01:09:45.039 --> 01:09:47.560
I did not wait to be called, but rose about seven, dressed and

908
01:09:47.560 --> 01:09:51.479
went downstairs. I heard the sound
of a car on the gravel of the

909
01:09:51.560 --> 01:09:56.840
drive, and to my delight,
saw that Stag had arrived. I wanted

910
01:09:56.880 --> 01:10:00.199
to get away from the house as
soon as possible, and I had no

911
01:10:00.279 --> 01:10:04.079
desire to meet its master again in
this world. The grim housekeeper, who

912
01:10:04.159 --> 01:10:10.680
answered my summons, received my explanation
in silence. Breakfast would be ready in

913
01:10:10.760 --> 01:10:15.439
twenty minutes. Eight was mister Lumley's
hour for it, mister Andrew Lumly,

914
01:10:15.560 --> 01:10:20.000
I asked, with a start,
mister Andrew Lumly. She said, so

915
01:10:20.079 --> 01:10:24.840
that was my host's name. I
sat down at a bureau in the hall

916
01:10:24.880 --> 01:10:29.680
and did a wildly foolish thing.
I wrote a letter beginning dear mister Lumley,

917
01:10:30.039 --> 01:10:33.039
thanking him for his kindness in explaining
the reason of my early departure.

918
01:10:33.600 --> 01:10:36.920
It was imperative. I said that
I should be in London by mid day.

919
01:10:38.439 --> 01:10:41.840
Then I added, I wish I
had known who you were last night,

920
01:10:42.199 --> 01:10:45.399
for I think you know an old
friend of mine, Charles pitt Herron.

921
01:10:45.399 --> 01:10:50.000
Breakfastless, I joined Stag in the
car, and soon we were swinging

922
01:10:50.039 --> 01:10:55.359
down from the uplands to the shallow
veil of the way. My thoughts were

923
01:10:55.439 --> 01:11:00.199
very little on my new toy or
on the Midsummer beauties of Surrey. The

924
01:11:00.279 --> 01:11:02.880
friend of pitt Heron, who knew
about his going to Bocara, was the

925
01:11:02.960 --> 01:11:08.399
maniac who dreamed of the power House. There were going to be dark scenes

926
01:11:08.439 --> 01:11:15.119
in the drama before it was played
out. End of chapter three. Recording

927
01:11:15.119 --> 01:11:31.640
by expatriate in Bangor, Maine.
Chapter four of The Powerhouse by John Buchan.

928
01:11:32.000 --> 01:11:36.960
This Liabri Box recording is in the
public domain. Recording by expatriate in

929
01:11:38.079 --> 01:11:43.640
Bangor, Maine, Chapter four.
I followed the trail of the super Butler.

930
01:11:45.880 --> 01:11:49.279
My first thought as I journeyed towards
London was that I was horribly alone

931
01:11:49.319 --> 01:11:54.319
in this business. Whatever was to
be done, I must do it myself.

932
01:11:54.840 --> 01:11:59.199
For the truth was I had no
evidence which any authority would recognize.

933
01:11:59.640 --> 01:12:03.640
Pitt Heron was the friend of a
strange being who collected objects of art,

934
01:12:03.680 --> 01:12:09.039
probably under an alias, in South
London, and had absurd visions of the

935
01:12:09.119 --> 01:12:14.119
end of civilization. That in cold, black and white was all my story

936
01:12:14.159 --> 01:12:16.359
came to. If I went to
the police, they would laugh at me,

937
01:12:16.399 --> 01:12:20.880
and they would be right now.
I am a sober and practical person.

938
01:12:21.359 --> 01:12:25.920
But slender though my evidence was,
it brought to my mind the most

939
01:12:25.960 --> 01:12:30.359
absolute conviction. I seemed to know
pitt Heron's story as if I had heard

940
01:12:30.359 --> 01:12:35.439
it from his own lips. His
first meeting with Lumly in their growing friendship,

941
01:12:35.920 --> 01:12:42.159
his initiation into secret and forbidden things, the revolt of the decent man,

942
01:12:42.560 --> 01:12:45.880
uphold that his freakishness had led him
so far, the realization that he

943
01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:50.039
could not break so easily with his
past, and that Lumly held him in

944
01:12:50.159 --> 01:12:56.319
his power. And last, the
mad flight under the pressure of overwhelming terror.

945
01:12:57.079 --> 01:13:00.760
I could read too the purpose of
that flight. He knew the Indian

946
01:13:00.840 --> 01:13:04.359
frontier as few men know it,
and in the wild tangle of the Pomers

947
01:13:04.399 --> 01:13:10.199
he hoped to baffle his enemy.
Then from some far refuge he would send

948
01:13:10.239 --> 01:13:14.920
for his wife and spend the rest
of his days in exile. It must

949
01:13:14.920 --> 01:13:18.399
have been an omnipotent terror to drive
such a man, young, brilliant,

950
01:13:18.560 --> 01:13:25.079
rich successful, to the fate of
an absconding felon. But Lumley was on

951
01:13:25.159 --> 01:13:28.920
his trail. So I read the
telegram I had picked up on the floor

952
01:13:28.960 --> 01:13:33.279
of the Blackheath House, and my
business was to frustrate the pursuit. Someone

953
01:13:33.359 --> 01:13:39.199
must have gone to Bokhara, some
creature of Lumley's, perhaps the superbotler I

954
01:13:39.239 --> 01:13:43.640
had met in the county court.
The telegram for I had noted the date

955
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:46.960
had been received on the twenty seventh
day of May. It was now the

956
01:13:47.039 --> 01:13:53.119
fifteenth of June. So if someone
had started immediately on its receipt, in

957
01:13:53.199 --> 01:13:58.039
all probability he would by now be
in Bokhara. I must find out who

958
01:13:58.039 --> 01:14:01.279
had gone, and endeavor to warn
time me. I calculated that it would

959
01:14:01.279 --> 01:14:05.880
have taken him seven or eight days
to get from Moscow by the trans Caspian.

960
01:14:06.600 --> 01:14:11.880
Probably he would find pitt Heron gone, but inquiries would set him on

961
01:14:11.880 --> 01:14:15.279
the track. I might be able
to get in touch with him through the

962
01:14:15.359 --> 01:14:19.279
Russian officials. In any case,
if Lumley were stalking pitt Herron, I,

963
01:14:19.760 --> 01:14:25.960
unknown and unsuspected, would be stalking
Lumly. And then in a flash

964
01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:30.760
I realized my folly. The wretched
letter I had written that morning had given

965
01:14:30.840 --> 01:14:34.199
the whole show away. Lumly knew
that I was a friend of pitt Herron,

966
01:14:34.600 --> 01:14:38.960
and that I knew that he was
a friend of pitt Herron. If

967
01:14:38.960 --> 01:14:43.319
my guess was right, friendship with
Lumley was not a thing Charles was likely

968
01:14:43.359 --> 01:14:46.600
to confess to, and he would
argue that my knowledge of it meant that

969
01:14:46.680 --> 01:14:51.800
I was in Charles's confidence. I
would therefore know of his disappearance and its

970
01:14:51.840 --> 01:14:57.199
cause, and alone in London,
would connect it with the decorous bachelor of

971
01:14:57.239 --> 01:15:01.000
the Albany. My letter was a
war to him that he could not play

972
01:15:01.039 --> 01:15:06.239
the game unobserved, and I too
would be suspect in his eyes. It

973
01:15:06.399 --> 01:15:12.079
was no good crying over spilt milk. In Lumly suspicions must be accepted.

974
01:15:12.600 --> 01:15:16.079
But I confess the thought gave me
the shivers. The man had a curious

975
01:15:16.239 --> 01:15:20.520
terror for me, a terror I
cannot hope to analyze and reproduce for you.

976
01:15:21.399 --> 01:15:26.640
My bold words can give no idea
of the magnetic force of his talk,

977
01:15:27.119 --> 01:15:31.000
the sense of brooding and unholy craft. I was proposing to match my

978
01:15:31.159 --> 01:15:36.840
wits against a master's one too,
who must have at his command an organization

979
01:15:38.000 --> 01:15:42.760
far beyond my puny efforts. I
have said that my first feeling was that

980
01:15:42.880 --> 01:15:47.760
of loneliness and isolation. My second
was one of hopeless insignificance. It was

981
01:15:47.800 --> 01:15:54.760
a boy's mechanical toy. Arrayed against
a powerhouse with its shining wheels and monstrous

982
01:15:54.840 --> 01:16:00.479
dynamos. My first business was to
get into touch with Tommy. At that

983
01:16:00.680 --> 01:16:03.960
time I had a friend in one
of the embassies whose acquaintance I had made

984
01:16:04.039 --> 01:16:09.319
on a dry fly stream in Hampshire. I will not tell you his name,

985
01:16:09.640 --> 01:16:13.640
for he has since become a great
figure in the world's diplomacy, and

986
01:16:13.720 --> 01:16:16.359
I am by no means certain that
the part he played in this tale was

987
01:16:16.439 --> 01:16:21.640
strictly in accordance with official etiquette.
I had assisted him on the legal side

988
01:16:21.960 --> 01:16:27.720
in some of the international worries that
beset all embassies, and we had reached

989
01:16:27.720 --> 01:16:30.560
the point of intimacy, which is
marked by the use of Christian names and

990
01:16:30.720 --> 01:16:36.159
by dining frequently together. Let us
call him Monsieur Felix. He was a

991
01:16:36.159 --> 01:16:42.560
grave young man, slightly my senior, learned, discreet and ambitious, but

992
01:16:42.680 --> 01:16:46.600
with an engaging boyishness cropping up now
and then under the official gold lace.

993
01:16:47.199 --> 01:16:51.520
It occurred to me that in him
I might find an ally. I reached

994
01:16:51.600 --> 01:16:57.840
London about eleven in the morning and
went straight to Belgrave Square. Felix I

995
01:16:57.880 --> 01:17:02.039
found, in the little library off
the big Secretary's room, a sunburnt sportsman

996
01:17:02.399 --> 01:17:06.960
fresh from an Norwegian salmon river.
I asked him if he had half an

997
01:17:06.960 --> 01:17:11.239
hour to spare, and was told
that the day was at my service.

998
01:17:12.199 --> 01:17:15.439
You know Tommy de Lorraine, I
asked. He nodded, and Charles pitt

999
01:17:15.520 --> 01:17:19.359
Heron, I have heard of him. Well, here is my trouble.

1000
01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:25.279
I have reason to believe that Tommy
has joined pitt Heron in Bokhara. If

1001
01:17:25.319 --> 01:17:29.199
he has, my mind will be
greatly relieved. For though I can't tell

1002
01:17:29.199 --> 01:17:32.279
you the story, I can tell
you that pitt Heron is in very considerable

1003
01:17:32.399 --> 01:17:38.680
danger. Can you help me?
Felix reflected That should be simple enough.

1004
01:17:39.000 --> 01:17:43.680
I can wire in cipher to the
military, governor the police there are pretty

1005
01:17:43.680 --> 01:17:46.880
efficient, as you may imagine,
and travelers don't come and go without being

1006
01:17:46.920 --> 01:17:51.239
remarked. I should be able to
give you an answer within twenty four hours.

1007
01:17:51.760 --> 01:17:56.800
But I must describe Tommy. How
does one do that in telegraphees?

1008
01:17:58.079 --> 01:18:00.439
I want you to tell me another
thing, I said. You remember that

1009
01:18:00.520 --> 01:18:06.159
pitt Heron has some reputation as a
Central Asian traveler. Tommy, as you

1010
01:18:06.239 --> 01:18:11.800
know, is as mad as a
hatter. Suppose these two fellows at Bokhara,

1011
01:18:12.239 --> 01:18:15.560
wanting to make a long trunk into
wild country. How would they go?

1012
01:18:15.159 --> 01:18:19.159
You've been there and know the lie
of the land. Felix got down

1013
01:18:19.199 --> 01:18:24.039
a big German atlas, and for
half an hour we poured over it.

1014
01:18:24.640 --> 01:18:28.439
From Bokhara, he said, the
only roots for Madmen ran to the south,

1015
01:18:29.199 --> 01:18:32.560
east and north. You got into
Siberia, west lay the trans Caspian

1016
01:18:32.640 --> 01:18:38.920
Desert, but southward you might go
through the Hyssar Range by Pamirsky Post to

1017
01:18:39.039 --> 01:18:43.760
Gilgit in Kashmir. Or you might
follow up the Oxus and enter the north

1018
01:18:43.800 --> 01:18:48.560
of Afghanistan. Or you might go
by merv into northeastern Persia. The first,

1019
01:18:48.560 --> 01:18:53.920
he thought the likeliest route if a
man wanted to travel fast. I

1020
01:18:54.000 --> 01:18:57.960
asked him to put in his cable
a suggestion about watching the Indian roads,

1021
01:18:58.319 --> 01:19:01.720
and left him with a promise of
enlightenment. Then I went down to the

1022
01:19:01.760 --> 01:19:06.479
temple, fixed some consultations, and
spent a quiet evening in my rooms.

1023
01:19:08.239 --> 01:19:13.680
I had a heavy sense of impending
disaster, not unnatural in the circumstances.

1024
01:19:14.199 --> 01:19:16.760
I really cannot think what it was
that held me to the job, for

1025
01:19:16.840 --> 01:19:21.640
I don't mind admitting that I felt
pretty queasy about it, partly no doubt

1026
01:19:21.680 --> 01:19:27.800
liking for Tommy and Ethel, partly
regret for that unfortunate fellow pitt Heron.

1027
01:19:28.239 --> 01:19:33.479
Most of all I think dislike of
Lumly that Bland superman had fairly stirred my

1028
01:19:33.560 --> 01:19:40.479
prosaic antipathies. That night, I
went carefully over every item in the evidence

1029
01:19:40.479 --> 01:19:44.560
to try and decide on my next
step. I had got to find out

1030
01:19:44.600 --> 01:19:47.920
more about my enemies. Lumly,
I was pretty certain would baffle me,

1031
01:19:48.319 --> 01:19:51.880
but I thought I might have a
better chance with a super butler. As

1032
01:19:51.920 --> 01:19:58.039
it turned out, I hid his
trail almost at once. Next day I

1033
01:19:58.079 --> 01:20:00.960
was in a case at the Old
Bailey. It was an important prosecution for

1034
01:20:01.079 --> 01:20:06.000
fraud, and I appeared with two
leaders for the bank concerned. The amazing

1035
01:20:06.039 --> 01:20:11.960
and almost incredible thing about this story
of mine is the way clues kept rolling

1036
01:20:12.000 --> 01:20:16.399
in unsolicited, and I was to
get another from this dull prosecution. I

1037
01:20:16.439 --> 01:20:21.000
suppose that the explanation is that the
world is full of clues to everything,

1038
01:20:21.439 --> 01:20:26.800
and that if a man's mind is
sharp set on any quest, he happens

1039
01:20:26.800 --> 01:20:30.479
to notice and take advantage of what
otherwise he would miss. My leaders were

1040
01:20:30.479 --> 01:20:34.760
both absent the first day, and
I had to examine our witnesses alone.

1041
01:20:35.199 --> 01:20:39.319
Towards the close of the afternoon,
I put a fellow in the box,

1042
01:20:39.760 --> 01:20:45.520
an Oldish drink sodden clerk from a
Cannon Street bucket shop. His evidence was

1043
01:20:45.640 --> 01:20:48.880
valuable for our case, but I
was very doubtful how he would stand across

1044
01:20:48.960 --> 01:20:54.479
examination as to credit. His name
was Routh, and he spoke with a

1045
01:20:54.560 --> 01:21:00.359
strong North Country accent. But what
caught my attention was his face. Jaw

1046
01:21:00.439 --> 01:21:02.680
looked as if it had been made
in two pieces which did not fit,

1047
01:21:03.119 --> 01:21:08.279
and he had little, bright,
protuberant eyes. At my first glance,

1048
01:21:08.319 --> 01:21:12.640
I was conscious of a recollection.
He was still in the box when the

1049
01:21:12.680 --> 01:21:16.640
court rose, and I informed the
solicitors that before going further, I wanted

1050
01:21:16.640 --> 01:21:20.720
a conference with a witness. I
mentioned also that I should like to see

1051
01:21:20.800 --> 01:21:26.520
him alone. A few minutes later
he was brought to my chambers and I

1052
01:21:26.600 --> 01:21:30.600
put one or two obvious questions on
the case till the managing clerk who accompanied

1053
01:21:30.680 --> 01:21:35.279
him announced, with many excuses that
he must hurry away. Then I shut

1054
01:21:35.319 --> 01:21:40.840
the door, gave mister Routh a
cigar, and proceeded to conduct a private

1055
01:21:40.880 --> 01:21:45.800
inquiry. He was a pathetic.
Being only too ready to talk, I

1056
01:21:45.960 --> 01:21:49.720
learned the squalid details of his continuous
misfortunes. He had been the son of

1057
01:21:49.760 --> 01:21:56.399
a dissenting minister in Northumberland, and
had drifted through half a dozen occupations till

1058
01:21:56.439 --> 01:22:00.079
he found his present unsavory billet.
Truth was written charge on his statement.

1059
01:22:00.279 --> 01:22:03.920
He had nothing to conceal, for
his foible was folly, not crime,

1060
01:22:04.319 --> 01:22:09.399
and he had not a rag of
pride to give him reticence. He boasted

1061
01:22:09.439 --> 01:22:13.119
that he was a gentleman and well
educated too, but he had never had

1062
01:22:13.119 --> 01:22:16.880
a chance. His brother had advised
him badly. His brother was too clever

1063
01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:23.840
for a prosaic world. Always through
his reminiscences came this echo of fraternal admiration

1064
01:22:23.960 --> 01:22:28.279
and complaint. It was about the
brother I wanted to know, and mister

1065
01:22:28.399 --> 01:22:31.960
Routh was very willing to speak.
Indeed, it was hard to disentangle fact

1066
01:22:32.039 --> 01:22:36.720
from his copious outpourings. The brother
had been an engineer, and a highly

1067
01:22:36.760 --> 01:22:42.800
successful one, had dallied with politics
too, and had been a great inventor.

1068
01:22:43.279 --> 01:22:46.319
He had put mister Routh on to
a South American speculation where he had

1069
01:22:46.359 --> 01:22:49.920
made a little money, but speedily
lost it again. Oh, he had

1070
01:22:49.960 --> 01:22:54.000
been a good brother in his way, and had often helped him. But

1071
01:22:54.039 --> 01:22:58.840
he was a busy man and his
help never went quite far enough. Besides,

1072
01:22:58.880 --> 01:23:01.640
he did not like to apply to
him too often. I gathered that

1073
01:23:01.680 --> 01:23:05.600
the brother was not a person to
take liberties with. I asked him what

1074
01:23:05.640 --> 01:23:10.319
he was doing now, Ah,
said mister raud. That is what I

1075
01:23:10.319 --> 01:23:13.720
wish I could tell you. I
will not conceal from you that for the

1076
01:23:13.800 --> 01:23:17.560
moment I am in considerable financial straits, and this case, though my hands

1077
01:23:17.560 --> 01:23:21.039
are clean enough, God knows,
will not make life easier for me.

1078
01:23:21.600 --> 01:23:27.479
My brother is a mysterious man whose
business often takes him abroad. I have

1079
01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:30.840
never known even his address, for
I write always to a London office from

1080
01:23:30.840 --> 01:23:35.159
which my communications are forwarded. I
only know that he is in some big

1081
01:23:35.279 --> 01:23:40.479
electrical business, for I remember that
he once let drop the remark that he

1082
01:23:40.520 --> 01:23:44.720
was in charge of some power station. No, I do not think it

1083
01:23:44.760 --> 01:23:48.039
is in London, probably somewhere abroad. I heard from him a fortnight ago,

1084
01:23:48.520 --> 01:23:51.800
and he told me he was just
leaving England for a couple of months.

1085
01:23:53.279 --> 01:23:56.720
It is very annoying for I want
badly to get into touch with him.

1086
01:23:57.600 --> 01:24:00.319
Do you know mister Roud, I
said, I believe if I have

1087
01:24:00.399 --> 01:24:03.159
met your brother, is he like
you in any way? We have a

1088
01:24:03.199 --> 01:24:08.399
strong family resemblance, but he is
taller and slimmer. He has been more

1089
01:24:08.479 --> 01:24:12.560
prosperous and has lived a healthier life. You see, do you happen to

1090
01:24:12.600 --> 01:24:15.800
know, I asked, if he
ever uses another name? I don't think

1091
01:24:15.800 --> 01:24:19.279
that the man I knew was called
Routh. The clerk flushed. I think

1092
01:24:19.319 --> 01:24:24.520
it highly unlikely that my brother would
use an alias. Is done nothing to

1093
01:24:24.560 --> 01:24:28.840
disgrace a name of which we are
proud. I told him that my memory

1094
01:24:28.840 --> 01:24:31.920
had played me false, and we
parted on very good terms. He was

1095
01:24:31.960 --> 01:24:35.680
an innocent soul, one of those
people that clever rascals get to do their

1096
01:24:35.720 --> 01:24:41.439
dirty work for them. But there
was no mistaking the resemblance. There,

1097
01:24:41.520 --> 01:24:45.920
without the brains and force and virility
went my super butler of Blackheath, who

1098
01:24:45.960 --> 01:24:50.039
passed under the name of Tuke.
The clerk had given me the name of

1099
01:24:50.039 --> 01:24:54.600
the office to whose address he had
written to his brother. I was not

1100
01:24:54.720 --> 01:24:58.680
surprised to find that it was that
of the firm of stockbrokers for whom I

1101
01:24:58.760 --> 01:25:01.760
was still acting in the Auerbahn's case, where I had heard Pavia's name.

1102
01:25:02.680 --> 01:25:06.359
I rang up the partner whom I
knew, and told him a very plausible

1103
01:25:06.439 --> 01:25:11.800
story of having a message for one
of mister Pavia's servants, and asked him

1104
01:25:11.800 --> 01:25:15.520
if he were in touch with them
and could forward letters. He made me

1105
01:25:15.640 --> 01:25:18.560
hold the line and then came back
and told me that he had forwarded letters

1106
01:25:18.560 --> 01:25:21.920
for Tuke, the butler, and
one Rouf, who was a groom or

1107
01:25:21.960 --> 01:25:26.760
footman. Tuke had gone abroad to
join his master, and he did not

1108
01:25:26.880 --> 01:25:30.479
know his address, but he advised
me to write to the White Lodge.

1109
01:25:30.199 --> 01:25:35.000
I thanked him and rang off.
That was settled anyhow. Tuke's real name

1110
01:25:35.079 --> 01:25:39.920
was Rouf, and it was Tuke
who had gone to Boccara. My next

1111
01:25:39.920 --> 01:25:43.960
step was to ring up mc gillivray
at Scotland Yard and get an appointment.

1112
01:25:43.960 --> 01:25:46.680
In half an hour's time. Mc
gillivray had been at the bar I had

1113
01:25:46.680 --> 01:25:50.279
read in his chambers, and was
now one of the heads of the Criminal

1114
01:25:50.319 --> 01:25:55.920
Investigation Department. I was about to
ask him for information which he was in

1115
01:25:55.960 --> 01:25:59.800
no way bound to give me,
but I presumed on our old acquaintance.

1116
01:26:00.520 --> 01:26:03.760
I asked him first whether he had
ever heard of a secret organization which went

1117
01:26:03.840 --> 01:26:09.159
under the name of the Powerhouse.
He laughed out loud at my question.

1118
01:26:09.760 --> 01:26:13.279
I should think we have several hundreds
of such pet names on our records,

1119
01:26:13.279 --> 01:26:16.920
he said, everything from the Lodge
of the bold Faced Ravens to Solomon's Seal

1120
01:26:17.039 --> 01:26:24.159
number ten. Fancy nomenclature is the
relaxation of the tired anarchist. In matters

1121
01:26:24.279 --> 01:26:29.199
very little. The dangerous fellows have
no names, no numbers even which we

1122
01:26:29.239 --> 01:26:31.680
can get hold of. But I'll
get a man to look up our records.

1123
01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:36.720
There may be something filed about your
powerhouse. My second question, he

1124
01:26:36.800 --> 01:26:42.840
answered differently. Routh Routh. Why, yes, there was a Routh we

1125
01:26:42.920 --> 01:26:46.199
had dealings with a dozen years ago
when I used to go the Northeastern circuit.

1126
01:26:46.800 --> 01:26:50.680
He was a trade union official who
bagged the funds, and they couldn't

1127
01:26:50.720 --> 01:26:56.479
bring him to justice because of the
ridiculous extra legal status they possessed. He

1128
01:26:56.640 --> 01:27:00.479
knew it and played their own privileges
against them. Oh, yes, he

1129
01:27:00.640 --> 01:27:03.960
was a very complete rogue. I
once saw him at a meeting in Sunderland,

1130
01:27:04.159 --> 01:27:10.560
and I remember his face, sneering
eyes, diabolically clever mouth and with

1131
01:27:10.600 --> 01:27:15.359
it all as smug as a family
butler. He has disappeared from England at

1132
01:27:15.399 --> 01:27:17.359
least, we haven't heard of him
for some years. But I can show

1133
01:27:17.439 --> 01:27:23.720
you his photograph. McGillivray brought from
a lettered cabinet a bundle of cards,

1134
01:27:23.760 --> 01:27:27.520
selected one and tossed it towards me. It was that of a man of

1135
01:27:27.560 --> 01:27:31.239
thirty or so, with short side
whiskers and a drooping mustache. The eyes,

1136
01:27:31.399 --> 01:27:35.079
the ill fitting jaw, and the
brow were those of my friend mister

1137
01:27:35.199 --> 01:27:40.640
Tuke, brother and patron of the
sorrowful mister Rouve, who had already that

1138
01:27:40.760 --> 01:27:46.119
afternoon occupied my attention. McGillivray promised
to make certain inquiries, and I walked

1139
01:27:46.159 --> 01:27:50.159
home in a state of elation.
Now I knew for certain who had gone

1140
01:27:50.159 --> 01:27:55.479
to Bocara, and I knew something
too, of the traveler's past. A

1141
01:27:55.600 --> 01:28:00.920
discredited genius was the very man for
Lumley's schemes, one who asked for nothing

1142
01:28:00.960 --> 01:28:05.479
better than to use his brains outside
the ring fence of convention. Somewhere in

1143
01:28:05.520 --> 01:28:10.840
the waste of Turkestan, the ex
trade union official was in search of pitt

1144
01:28:10.960 --> 01:28:15.399
Heron. I did not fancy that
mister Tooke would be very squeamish I dined

1145
01:28:15.399 --> 01:28:19.359
at the club and left early.
Going home, I had an impression that

1146
01:28:19.439 --> 01:28:24.680
I was being shadowed. You know, the feeling that someone is watching you,

1147
01:28:25.279 --> 01:28:30.359
a sort of sensation which the mind
receives without actual evidence. If the

1148
01:28:30.399 --> 01:28:33.520
watcher is behind where you can't see
him, you have a cold feeling between

1149
01:28:33.520 --> 01:28:38.760
your shoulders. I dare say it
is a legacy from the days when the

1150
01:28:38.800 --> 01:28:42.520
caveman had to look pretty sharp to
keep from getting his enemy's knife between the

1151
01:28:42.600 --> 01:28:46.359
ribs. It was a bright summer
evening in Piccadilly had its usual crowd of

1152
01:28:46.399 --> 01:28:51.920
motor cars and buses and foot passengers. I halted twice, once in Saint

1153
01:28:53.000 --> 01:28:57.680
James's Street and once at the corner
of Stratton Street, and retraced my steps

1154
01:28:57.720 --> 01:29:00.800
for a bit, and each time
I had the fresh and that some one

1155
01:29:00.800 --> 01:29:04.479
a hundred yards or so off had
done the same. My instinct was to

1156
01:29:04.520 --> 01:29:09.119
turn round and face him, whoever
he was, But I saw that that

1157
01:29:09.239 --> 01:29:13.600
was foolishness. Obviously in such a
crowd, I could get no certainty in

1158
01:29:13.600 --> 01:29:16.479
the matter, so I put it
out of my mind. I spent the

1159
01:29:16.520 --> 01:29:20.359
rest of the evening in my rooms, reading cases and trying to keep my

1160
01:29:20.439 --> 01:29:26.199
thoughts off Central Asia. About ten, I was rung up on the telephone

1161
01:29:26.239 --> 01:29:30.039
by Felix. He had had his
answer from Bokhara. Pitt Heron had left

1162
01:29:30.039 --> 01:29:34.880
with a small caravan on June second
by the main road through the Hissar Range.

1163
01:29:35.800 --> 01:29:40.560
Tommy had arrived on June tenth,
and on the twelfth had set off

1164
01:29:40.600 --> 01:29:44.720
with two servants on the same trail, traveling the lighter of the two.

1165
01:29:45.079 --> 01:29:48.960
He should have overtaken pitt Heron by
the fifteenth at latest. That was yesterday,

1166
01:29:49.319 --> 01:29:54.760
and my mind was immensely relieved.
Tommy in such a situation was a

1167
01:29:54.840 --> 01:29:59.960
tower of strength, for whatever his
failings in politics. I knew no one

1168
01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:02.800
and I would rather have with me
to go tiger shooting. Next day,

1169
01:30:02.840 --> 01:30:08.039
the sense of espionage increased. I
was in the habit of walking down to

1170
01:30:08.079 --> 01:30:12.479
the Temple by way of Pall Mall
and the Embankment, but as I did

1171
01:30:12.479 --> 01:30:15.039
not happen to be in court that
morning, I resolved to make a detour

1172
01:30:15.119 --> 01:30:19.279
and test my suspicions. There seemed
to be nobody in down street as I

1173
01:30:19.319 --> 01:30:24.920
emerged from my flat, but I
had not walked five yards before turning back,

1174
01:30:25.199 --> 01:30:29.199
I saw a man enter from the
Piccadilly end, while another moved across

1175
01:30:29.199 --> 01:30:32.920
the Hertford Street opening. It may
have been only my imagination, but I

1176
01:30:33.000 --> 01:30:38.319
was convinced that these were my watchers. I walked up Park Lane, for

1177
01:30:38.399 --> 01:30:42.399
it seemed to me that by taking
the tube at the Marble Arch station I

1178
01:30:42.439 --> 01:30:45.680
could bring matters to the proof.
I have a knack of observing small,

1179
01:30:45.800 --> 01:30:50.319
irrelevant details, and I happened to
have noticed that a certain carriage in the

1180
01:30:50.359 --> 01:30:56.600
train which left Marble Arch about nine
to thirty stopped exactly opposite the exit at

1181
01:30:56.600 --> 01:31:00.800
the Chancery Lane station, and by
hurrying up the passage one could just catch

1182
01:31:00.840 --> 01:31:04.840
the lift, which served an earlier
train, and so reached the street before

1183
01:31:04.840 --> 01:31:10.760
any of the other travelers. I
performed this maneuver with success, caught the

1184
01:31:10.840 --> 01:31:14.720
early lift, reached the street,
and took cover behind a pillar box,

1185
01:31:15.000 --> 01:31:18.239
from which I could watch the exit
of passengers from the stairs. I judged

1186
01:31:18.279 --> 01:31:23.000
that my tracker, if he missed
me below, would run up the stairs

1187
01:31:23.079 --> 01:31:27.600
rather than wait for the lift.
Sure enough, a breathless gentleman appeared,

1188
01:31:27.800 --> 01:31:31.159
who scanned the street eagerly and then
turned to the lift to watch the emerging

1189
01:31:31.199 --> 01:31:35.680
passengers. It was clear that the
espionage was no figment of my brain.

1190
01:31:36.800 --> 01:31:41.680
I walked slowly to my chambers and
got through the day's work as best I

1191
01:31:41.760 --> 01:31:45.159
could, for my mind was preoccupied
with the unpleasant business in which I found

1192
01:31:45.159 --> 01:31:50.319
myself entangled. I would have given
a year's income to be honestly quit of

1193
01:31:50.359 --> 01:31:55.439
it, but there seemed to be
no way of escape. The maddening thing

1194
01:31:55.560 --> 01:31:59.600
was that I could do so little. There was no chance of forgetting anxiety

1195
01:32:00.000 --> 01:32:03.359
prenuous work. I could only wait
with the patience at my command, and

1196
01:32:03.479 --> 01:32:08.720
hope for the one chance in a
thousand which I might seize. I felt

1197
01:32:08.760 --> 01:32:12.720
miserably that it was no game for
me. I had never been brought up

1198
01:32:12.720 --> 01:32:15.880
to harry wild beasts and risked my
neck twice a day at polo. Like

1199
01:32:15.960 --> 01:32:20.800
Tommy de Lorraine, I was a
peaceful, sedentary man, a lover of

1200
01:32:20.840 --> 01:32:26.720
a quiet life, with no appetite
for perils and commotions. But I was

1201
01:32:26.840 --> 01:32:31.079
beginning to realize that I was very
obstinate. At four o'clock I left the

1202
01:32:31.119 --> 01:32:35.600
temple and walked to the embassy.
I had resolved to banish the espionage from

1203
01:32:35.640 --> 01:32:41.079
my mind, for that was the
least of my difficulties. Felix gave me

1204
01:32:41.119 --> 01:32:45.199
an hour of his valuable time.
It was something that Tommy had joined pitt

1205
01:32:45.239 --> 01:32:48.079
Heron, but there were other matters
to be arranged in that far country.

1206
01:32:48.479 --> 01:32:51.720
The time had come, in my
opinion, to tell him the whole story.

1207
01:32:53.159 --> 01:32:56.800
The telling was a huge relief to
my mind. He did not laugh

1208
01:32:56.840 --> 01:32:59.840
at me, as I had half
feared, but took the whole thing as

1209
01:33:00.079 --> 01:33:03.880
gravely as possible. In his profession. I fancy he had found too many

1210
01:33:03.920 --> 01:33:10.199
certainties behind suspicions to treat anything as
trivial. The next step, he said,

1211
01:33:10.319 --> 01:33:13.960
was to warn the Russian police of
the presence of the man called Saranov

1212
01:33:14.239 --> 01:33:17.800
and the super butler. Happily we
had materials for the description of Tuke or

1213
01:33:17.920 --> 01:33:21.239
Routh, and I could not believe
that such a figure would be hard to

1214
01:33:21.279 --> 01:33:27.359
trace. Felix cabled again in Cipher, asking that the two should be watched

1215
01:33:27.399 --> 01:33:30.479
more, especially if there was reason
to believe that they had followed Tommy's route.

1216
01:33:31.119 --> 01:33:34.720
Once more, we got out the
big map and discussed the possible ways.

1217
01:33:35.399 --> 01:33:40.479
It seemed to me a land created
by providence for surprises, for the

1218
01:33:40.560 --> 01:33:44.359
roads followed the valleys, and to
the man who traveled light. There must

1219
01:33:44.359 --> 01:33:48.199
be many shortcuts through the hills.
I left the embassy before six o'clock,

1220
01:33:48.520 --> 01:33:54.000
and, crossing the square, engrossed
with my own thoughts, ran full into

1221
01:33:54.079 --> 01:33:58.600
Lumley. I hope I played my
part well, though I could not repress

1222
01:33:58.600 --> 01:34:02.000
a start of surprise. He wore
a gray morning coat and a white top

1223
01:34:02.000 --> 01:34:08.800
hat and looked the image of benevolent
respectability. Ah, mister Lithon, he

1224
01:34:08.920 --> 01:34:13.880
said, we meet again. I
murmured something about my regrets at my early

1225
01:34:13.960 --> 01:34:17.199
departure three days ago, and added
the feeble joke that I wished he would

1226
01:34:17.279 --> 01:34:21.680
hurry on his twilight of civilization,
for the burden of it was becoming too

1227
01:34:21.760 --> 01:34:26.439
much for me. He looked me
in the eyes with all the friendliness in

1228
01:34:26.479 --> 01:34:30.520
the world. So you have not
forgotten our evening's talk. You owe me

1229
01:34:30.600 --> 01:34:33.079
something, my friend, for giving
you a new interest in your profession.

1230
01:34:33.880 --> 01:34:38.520
I owe you much, I said, for your hospitality, your advice,

1231
01:34:38.600 --> 01:34:43.800
and your warnings. He was wearing
his tinted glasses and peered quizzically into my

1232
01:34:43.880 --> 01:34:46.399
face. I am going to make
a call in Grosvenor place, he said,

1233
01:34:46.680 --> 01:34:50.359
and shall beg in return the pleasure
of your company. So you know

1234
01:34:50.479 --> 01:34:56.159
my young friend pitt Heron, with
an ingenuous countenance. I explained that he

1235
01:34:56.199 --> 01:35:00.279
had been at Oxford with me,
and that we had common friends. A

1236
01:35:00.359 --> 01:35:04.159
brilliant young man said Lumly like you. He has occasionally cheered an old man's

1237
01:35:04.199 --> 01:35:09.399
solitude, and he has spoken of
me to you. Yes, I said,

1238
01:35:09.560 --> 01:35:14.279
lying stoutly. He used to tell
me about your collections. If Lumly

1239
01:35:14.359 --> 01:35:16.720
knew Charles Well, he would find
me out, for the latter would not

1240
01:35:16.800 --> 01:35:20.880
have crossed the road for all the
treasures of the louver. Ah. Yes,

1241
01:35:21.239 --> 01:35:25.319
I have picked up a few things, if ever you should care to

1242
01:35:25.359 --> 01:35:29.159
see them. I should be honored. You are a connoisseur of a sort.

1243
01:35:29.520 --> 01:35:31.439
You interest me, for I should
have thought your taste lay in other

1244
01:35:31.520 --> 01:35:36.159
directions than the dead things of art. Pitt Heron is no collector. He

1245
01:35:36.319 --> 01:35:41.520
loves life better than art, as
a young man should a great traveler.

1246
01:35:41.560 --> 01:35:46.479
Our friend, the Lawrence Oliphant or
Richard Burton of our day, we stopped

1247
01:35:46.479 --> 01:35:50.720
at a house in Grosvenor Place,
and he relinquished my arm. Mister Lithon,

1248
01:35:50.800 --> 01:35:55.720
he said, a word from one
who wishes you no ill. You

1249
01:35:55.760 --> 01:35:59.560
are a friend of pitt Heron.
But where he goes, you cannot follow

1250
01:36:00.079 --> 01:36:02.680
take my advice and keep out of
his affairs. You will do no good

1251
01:36:02.720 --> 01:36:08.119
to him, and you may bring
yourself into serious danger. You are a

1252
01:36:08.119 --> 01:36:11.800
man of sense, a practical man. So I speak to you frankly,

1253
01:36:12.159 --> 01:36:16.319
but remember I do not warn.
Twice he took off his glasses, and

1254
01:36:16.479 --> 01:36:21.880
his light wild eyes looked me straight
in the face. All benevolence had gone,

1255
01:36:23.239 --> 01:36:27.760
and something implacable and deadly burned in
them. Before I could say a

1256
01:36:27.800 --> 01:36:31.439
word in reply, he shuffled up
the steps of the house and was gone.

1257
01:36:33.720 --> 01:36:45.319
End of chapter four. Recording by
expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter

1258
01:36:45.399 --> 01:36:50.640
five of The Powerhouse by John Buchan. The Slavrivots recording is in the public

1259
01:36:50.720 --> 01:36:58.239
domain. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Chapter five. I take

1260
01:36:58.279 --> 01:37:02.960
a partner. That meeting with Lunely
scared me badly, but it also clinched

1261
01:37:02.960 --> 01:37:09.359
my resolution. The most pacific fellow
on earth can be gingered into pugnacity.

1262
01:37:10.000 --> 01:37:13.960
I had now more than my friendship
for Tommy and my sympathy with Pete Heron

1263
01:37:14.000 --> 01:37:16.880
to urge me on. A man
had tried to bully me, and that

1264
01:37:17.159 --> 01:37:21.600
roused all the worse stubbornness of my
soul. I was determined to see the

1265
01:37:21.680 --> 01:37:26.680
game through at any cost. But
I must have an ally if my nerves

1266
01:37:26.720 --> 01:37:30.800
were to hold out. And my
mind turned at once to Tommy's friend Chapman,

1267
01:37:30.520 --> 01:37:34.439
I thought with comfort of the bluff
independence of the labor member. So

1268
01:37:34.560 --> 01:37:39.600
that night at the house I hunted
him out in the smoking room. He

1269
01:37:39.640 --> 01:37:43.800
had been having a row with the
young bloods of my party that afternoon and

1270
01:37:43.960 --> 01:37:47.319
received me ungraciously. I'm about sick
of you, fellows, he growled.

1271
01:37:47.720 --> 01:37:53.239
I shall not attempt to reproduce Chapman's
accent. He spoke rich Yorkshire with a

1272
01:37:53.319 --> 01:37:57.560
touch of the droll of the western
Dales. They went and spoiled the best

1273
01:37:57.560 --> 01:38:00.800
speech, though I say it as
shouldn't, which this old place has heard

1274
01:38:00.840 --> 01:38:03.640
for a twelvemonth. I've been working
for days at it. In the library,

1275
01:38:04.119 --> 01:38:08.840
I was telling them how much more
bread cost under protection, and the

1276
01:38:08.960 --> 01:38:14.159
Jew Hilderstein, started a laugh because
I said kilometers for kilograms. It was

1277
01:38:14.199 --> 01:38:15.840
just a slip of the tongue,
for I had it right in my notes.

1278
01:38:16.079 --> 01:38:20.199
And besides, there foreign words don't
matter a curse. Then that young

1279
01:38:20.319 --> 01:38:25.560
lord assist for East Claygate gets up
and goes out as I was getting into

1280
01:38:25.600 --> 01:38:30.600
my pureration, and he drops his
topper and knocks off Old Higgins's spectacles,

1281
01:38:30.000 --> 01:38:34.319
and all the idiots laughed after that. I gave it them hot and strong

1282
01:38:34.399 --> 01:38:39.439
and get cold to order, and
then waddles him as used to be as

1283
01:38:39.439 --> 01:38:43.600
good a socialist as me, replied
for the government in his blamed board,

1284
01:38:43.680 --> 01:38:46.039
and said that the board thought this, and the board thought that, and

1285
01:38:46.239 --> 01:38:50.479
was damned if the board would stir
it stumps. Well, I mind the

1286
01:38:50.560 --> 01:38:55.680
day when I was hanging onto the
board's coattails in Hyde Park to keep it

1287
01:38:55.680 --> 01:39:00.239
from talking treason. It took me
a long time to get Chapmans settled down

1288
01:39:00.279 --> 01:39:02.760
and anchored to a drink. I
want you, I said, to tell

1289
01:39:02.760 --> 01:39:06.279
me about Rooth. You know,
the fellow I mean, the ex union

1290
01:39:06.399 --> 01:39:12.079
leader. At that he fairly blazed
up. There you are, you Tories,

1291
01:39:12.159 --> 01:39:15.159
he shouted, causing a pale Liberal
member on the next sofa to make

1292
01:39:15.199 --> 01:39:19.279
a hurried exit. You can't fight
fair. You hate the unions, and

1293
01:39:19.359 --> 01:39:24.600
you rake up any rotten old prejudice
to discredit them. You can find out

1294
01:39:24.600 --> 01:39:28.840
about Routh for yourself, for I'm
damned if I help you. I saw

1295
01:39:28.840 --> 01:39:31.000
I could do nothing with Chapman unless
I made a clean breast of it.

1296
01:39:31.359 --> 01:39:35.439
So for the second time that day, I told the whole story. I

1297
01:39:35.439 --> 01:39:40.680
couldn't have withed for a better audience. He got wildly excited before I was

1298
01:39:40.760 --> 01:39:45.119
half through with it. No doubt
of the correctness of my evidence ever entered

1299
01:39:45.159 --> 01:39:48.800
his head. For like most of
his party, he hated anarchism worse than

1300
01:39:48.880 --> 01:39:56.119
capitalism, and the notion of a
highly capitalized, highly scientific, highly undemocratic

1301
01:39:56.199 --> 01:40:01.680
anarchism fairly revolted his soul. Beside, he adored Tommy de Lorraine Routh,

1302
01:40:01.760 --> 01:40:05.039
he told me, had been a
young engineer of a superior type, with

1303
01:40:05.159 --> 01:40:11.239
a job in a big shop at
sheffields He had professed advanced political views,

1304
01:40:11.760 --> 01:40:15.960
and although he had strictly no business
to be there, had taken a large

1305
01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:20.239
part in trade union work, and
was treasurer of one big branch. Chapman

1306
01:40:20.319 --> 01:40:25.840
had met him often at conferences and
on platforms, and had been impressed by

1307
01:40:25.840 --> 01:40:30.359
the fertility and ingenuity of his mind
and the boldness of his purpose. He

1308
01:40:30.479 --> 01:40:33.800
was the leader of the left wing
of the movement, and had that gift

1309
01:40:33.840 --> 01:40:39.800
of half scientific, half philosophic jargon, which is dear at all times to

1310
01:40:39.840 --> 01:40:44.640
the hearts of the half baked.
A seat in Parliament had been repeatedly offered

1311
01:40:44.680 --> 01:40:48.359
him, but he had always declined
wisely, Chapman thought, for he judged

1312
01:40:48.439 --> 01:40:53.319
him the type which is more effective
behind the scenes. But with all his

1313
01:40:53.399 --> 01:40:57.640
ability, he had not been popular. He was a cold blooded, sneering

1314
01:40:57.720 --> 01:41:02.079
devil. As Chapman put it to
Parnell, He tyrannized over his followers,

1315
01:41:02.319 --> 01:41:08.640
and he was the rudest brute I
ever met. Then followed the catastrophe in

1316
01:41:08.680 --> 01:41:12.560
which it became apparent that he had
speculated with the funds of his union and

1317
01:41:12.680 --> 01:41:16.520
had lost a large sum. Chapman, however, was suspicious of these losses,

1318
01:41:16.920 --> 01:41:20.039
and was inclined to suspect that he
had the money all the time in

1319
01:41:20.079 --> 01:41:25.520
a safe place. A year or
two earlier, the unions, greatly to

1320
01:41:25.560 --> 01:41:30.479
the disgust of old fashioned folk,
had been given certain extra legal privileges,

1321
01:41:30.960 --> 01:41:34.479
and this man Routh had been one
of the chief advocates of the union's claims.

1322
01:41:35.079 --> 01:41:40.039
Now he had the cool effrontery to
turn the tables on them and use

1323
01:41:40.119 --> 01:41:45.319
those very privileges to justify his action, and escape prosecution. There was nothing

1324
01:41:45.359 --> 01:41:48.640
to be done. Some of the
fellows, said Chapman, swore to wring

1325
01:41:48.800 --> 01:41:53.520
his neck, but he did not
give them the chance. He had disappeared

1326
01:41:53.560 --> 01:41:57.920
from England and was generally believed to
be living in some foreign capital. What

1327
01:41:58.079 --> 01:42:00.800
I would give to be even with
the swine, cried my friend, clenching

1328
01:42:00.800 --> 01:42:04.960
and unclenching his big fist. But
we're up against no small thing. In

1329
01:42:05.079 --> 01:42:10.279
Josiah Routh, there wasn't a crime
on earth he'd stick at. And he's

1330
01:42:10.319 --> 01:42:14.279
as clever as the old devil his
master. If that's how you feel,

1331
01:42:14.319 --> 01:42:16.399
I can trust you to back me
up, I said, And the first

1332
01:42:16.399 --> 01:42:19.159
thing I want you to do is
to come and stay at my flat.

1333
01:42:19.760 --> 01:42:24.039
God knows what may happen next.
And two men are better than one,

1334
01:42:24.640 --> 01:42:27.600
I tell you, frankly, I'm
nervous, and I would like to have

1335
01:42:27.720 --> 01:42:31.920
you with me. Chapman had no
objection. I accompanied him to his Bloomsberry

1336
01:42:32.000 --> 01:42:35.880
lodgings, where he packed a bag, and we returned to the down Street

1337
01:42:35.920 --> 01:42:41.560
flat. The sight of his burly
figure and sagacious face was a relief to

1338
01:42:41.640 --> 01:42:46.479
me in the mysterious darkness where I
now found myself walking. Thus began my

1339
01:42:46.640 --> 01:42:51.600
housekeeping with Chapman, one of the
queerest episodes in my life. He was

1340
01:42:51.640 --> 01:42:56.119
the best fellow in the world.
But I found that I had misjudged his

1341
01:42:56.239 --> 01:42:59.479
character. To see him in the
house, he would have thought him a

1342
01:42:59.479 --> 01:43:03.640
piece of ran it with his Yorkshire
bluntness and hard downright North country, since

1343
01:43:04.319 --> 01:43:08.960
he had all that somewhere inside him. But he was also as romantic as

1344
01:43:09.000 --> 01:43:13.720
a boy. The new situation delighted
him. He was quite clear that it

1345
01:43:13.760 --> 01:43:17.359
was another case of the strife between
capital and labor, Tommy and I standing

1346
01:43:17.399 --> 01:43:21.159
for labor. Though he used to
refer to Tommy in public as a gilded

1347
01:43:21.199 --> 01:43:26.600
popinjay, and only a month before
had described me in the house as a

1348
01:43:26.720 --> 01:43:30.640
viprous lackey of capitalism. It was
the best kind of strife in which you

1349
01:43:30.640 --> 01:43:34.840
had not to meet your adversary with
long winded speeches, but might any moment

1350
01:43:34.880 --> 01:43:39.800
get a chance to pummel him with
your fists. He made me ache with

1351
01:43:39.920 --> 01:43:44.359
laughter. The spying business used to
rouse him to fury. I don't think

1352
01:43:44.399 --> 01:43:46.680
he was tracked as I was,
but he chose to fancy he was,

1353
01:43:47.079 --> 01:43:51.359
and was guilty of assault and battery
on one butcher's boy, two cabbies,

1354
01:43:51.359 --> 01:43:56.800
and a gentleman who turned out to
be a bookmaker's assistant. This side of

1355
01:43:56.880 --> 01:44:00.159
him got to be an infernal nuisance, and I had many roused with him.

1356
01:44:00.199 --> 01:44:03.880
Among other things, he chose to
suspect my man Waters of treachery,

1357
01:44:04.399 --> 01:44:09.119
Waters, who was the son of
a gardener at home, and hadn't wits

1358
01:44:09.199 --> 01:44:13.039
enough to put up an umbrella when
it rained, you're not taking this business

1359
01:44:13.119 --> 01:44:15.760
rightly. He maintained one night,
what's the good of waiting for these devils

1360
01:44:15.800 --> 01:44:19.720
to down you. Let's go out
and down them. And he announced his

1361
01:44:19.800 --> 01:44:25.279
intention, from which no words of
mine could dissuade him of keeping watch on

1362
01:44:25.399 --> 01:44:30.119
mister Andrew Lumley at the Albany.
His resolution led to a complete disregard of

1363
01:44:30.159 --> 01:44:36.319
his parliamentary duties. Deputations of constituents
waited for him in vain. Of course,

1364
01:44:36.319 --> 01:44:40.720
he never got a sight of Lumley. All that happened was that he

1365
01:44:40.760 --> 01:44:45.079
was very nearly given in charge more
than once for molesting peaceable citizens in the

1366
01:44:45.079 --> 01:44:49.840
neighborhood of Piccadilly and Regent Street.
One night, on my way home from

1367
01:44:49.840 --> 01:44:55.159
the temple, I saw in the
bills of the evening papers the announcement of

1368
01:44:55.199 --> 01:44:59.479
the arrest of a labor member.
It was Chapman, sure enough. At

1369
01:44:59.520 --> 01:45:02.640
first I feared that he had got
himself into serious trouble, and was much

1370
01:45:02.680 --> 01:45:06.600
relieved to find him in the flat
in a state of blazing anger. It

1371
01:45:06.680 --> 01:45:11.359
seemed that he had found somebody whom
he thought was lumly, for he only

1372
01:45:11.439 --> 01:45:15.760
knew him from my descriptions. The
man was in a shop in Germyn Street

1373
01:45:15.079 --> 01:45:19.319
with a car waiting outside, and
Chapman had, politely, as he swore,

1374
01:45:19.800 --> 01:45:26.279
asked the chauffeur his master's name.
The chauffeur had replied abusively, upon

1375
01:45:26.359 --> 01:45:30.560
which Chapman had hailed him from the
driver's seat and shaken him till his teeth

1376
01:45:30.640 --> 01:45:34.159
rattled. The owner came out,
and Chapman was arrested and taken off to

1377
01:45:34.199 --> 01:45:39.560
the nearest police court. He had
been compelled to apologize and had been fined

1378
01:45:39.680 --> 01:45:44.439
five pounds in costs. By the
mercy of Heaven. The chauffeur's master was

1379
01:45:44.479 --> 01:45:47.760
a money lender of evil repute,
so the affair did Chapman no harm,

1380
01:45:48.239 --> 01:45:51.960
but I was forced to talk to
him seriously. I knew it was no

1381
01:45:53.079 --> 01:45:57.640
use explaining that for him to spy
on the powerhouse was like an elephant stalking

1382
01:45:57.680 --> 01:46:01.800
a gazelle. The only way was
to appeal to his incurable romanticism. Don't

1383
01:46:01.800 --> 01:46:05.439
you see? I told him that
you are playing Lumley's game. He will

1384
01:46:05.479 --> 01:46:10.520
trap you sooner or later into some
escapade which will land you in jail.

1385
01:46:10.600 --> 01:46:13.720
And where will I be? Then? That is what he and his friends

1386
01:46:13.720 --> 01:46:16.680
are out for. We have got
to meet cunning with cunning, and lie

1387
01:46:16.760 --> 01:46:21.560
low till we get our chance.
He allowed himself to be convinced and handed

1388
01:46:21.560 --> 01:46:25.279
over to me the pistol he had
bought, which had been the terror of

1389
01:46:25.319 --> 01:46:28.359
my life. All right, he
said, I'll keep quiet, but you

1390
01:46:28.439 --> 01:46:31.600
promised to let me into the big
scrap when it comes off. I promised.

1391
01:46:32.000 --> 01:46:36.359
Chapman's notion of the Grand Finale was
a Homerit combat in which he would

1392
01:46:36.359 --> 01:46:41.399
get his fill of fisticuffs. He
was in anxiety, but all the same

1393
01:46:41.439 --> 01:46:46.000
he was an enormous comfort. His
imperturbable cheerfulness and his racy talk were the

1394
01:46:46.000 --> 01:46:50.560
tonics I wanted. He had plenty
of wisdom too. My nerves were getting

1395
01:46:50.560 --> 01:46:55.880
bad those days, and whereas I
had rarely touched the things before, I

1396
01:46:55.960 --> 01:47:00.840
now found myself smoking cigarettes from morning
till night. I am pretty abstemious,

1397
01:47:00.880 --> 01:47:03.479
as you know, but I discovered
to my horror that I was drinking far

1398
01:47:03.520 --> 01:47:08.760
too many whiskies and sodas. Chapman
knocked me off all that and got me

1399
01:47:08.800 --> 01:47:13.039
back to a pipe in a modest
nightcap. He did more, for he

1400
01:47:13.159 --> 01:47:15.880
undertook to put me in training.
His notion was that we should win in

1401
01:47:15.920 --> 01:47:20.760
the end by superior muscles. He
was a square, thickset fellow who had

1402
01:47:20.800 --> 01:47:25.960
been a good middleweight boxer. I
could box a bit myself, but I

1403
01:47:25.960 --> 01:47:30.560
improved mightily under his tuition. We
got some gloves and used to hammer each

1404
01:47:30.600 --> 01:47:33.399
other for half an hour every morning. Then might have been seen the shameful

1405
01:47:33.439 --> 01:47:39.800
spectacle of a rising barrister with a
swollen lip and a black eye, arguing

1406
01:47:39.840 --> 01:47:44.520
in court and proceeding of an evening
to his country's legislature, where he was

1407
01:47:44.560 --> 01:47:47.680
confronted from the opposite benches by the
sight of a leader of the people in

1408
01:47:47.720 --> 01:47:53.279
the same vulgar condition. In those
days, I wanted all the relief I

1409
01:47:53.319 --> 01:47:56.960
could get, for it was a
beastly time. I knew I was in

1410
01:47:57.039 --> 01:48:01.000
grave danger. So I made my
will and went through the other doleful performances

1411
01:48:01.039 --> 01:48:05.720
consequent on the expectation of a speedy
decease. You see, I had nothing

1412
01:48:05.760 --> 01:48:10.880
to grip on, no clear job
to tackle, only to wait on the

1413
01:48:11.000 --> 01:48:15.840
off chance. With an atmosphere of
suspicion thickening around me. The spying went

1414
01:48:15.920 --> 01:48:18.600
on. There was no mistake about
that, but I soon ceased to mind

1415
01:48:18.640 --> 01:48:23.960
it. Though I did my best
to give my watchers little satisfaction. There

1416
01:48:24.039 --> 01:48:28.479
was a hint of bullying about the
spying. It is disconcerting at night to

1417
01:48:28.600 --> 01:48:31.880
have a man bump against you and
look you greedily in the face. I

1418
01:48:31.920 --> 01:48:35.880
did not go again to Scotland Yard, but one night I ran across mc

1419
01:48:35.920 --> 01:48:41.479
gillivray in the club. He had
something of profound interest to tell me.

1420
01:48:42.119 --> 01:48:45.239
I had asked about the phrase the
powerhouse. Well, he had come across

1421
01:48:45.279 --> 01:48:49.039
it in the letter of a German
friend, a private letter in which the

1422
01:48:49.079 --> 01:48:54.800
writer gave the results of his inquiries
into a curious affair which a year before

1423
01:48:54.880 --> 01:48:59.279
had excited Europe. I had forgotten
the details, but it had something to

1424
01:48:59.319 --> 01:49:03.800
do with a states of Austria and
an Italian students' union, and it threatened

1425
01:49:03.840 --> 01:49:10.720
at one time to be dangerous.
McGillivray's correspondent said that in some documents which

1426
01:49:10.720 --> 01:49:15.039
were seized he found constant allusion to
a thing called the kroft House, evidently

1427
01:49:15.079 --> 01:49:20.199
the headquarters staff of the plot,
and the same word croft house had appeared

1428
01:49:20.239 --> 01:49:26.359
elsewhere in a sonnet of a poet
anarchist who shot himselves in the slums of

1429
01:49:26.359 --> 01:49:30.159
Antwerp, in the last ravings of
more than one criminal, in the extraordinary

1430
01:49:30.199 --> 01:49:34.399
testament of Professor M of Jena,
who, at the age of thirty seven,

1431
01:49:34.479 --> 01:49:40.159
took his life after writing a strange
mystical message to his fellow citizens.

1432
01:49:40.720 --> 01:49:45.279
McGillivray's correspondent concluded by saying that,
in his opinion, if this croft house

1433
01:49:45.279 --> 01:49:49.720
could be found, the key would
be discovered to the most dangerous secret organization

1434
01:49:49.840 --> 01:49:55.079
in the world. He added that
he had some reason to believe that the

1435
01:49:55.159 --> 01:50:00.199
motive power of the concern was English. McGillivray, I said, you've own

1436
01:50:00.239 --> 01:50:03.079
me for some time, and I
fancy you think me a sober and discreet

1437
01:50:03.159 --> 01:50:08.399
person. Well, I believe I
am on the edge of discovering the secret

1438
01:50:08.399 --> 01:50:11.680
of your craft house. I want
you to promise me that if in the

1439
01:50:11.800 --> 01:50:15.239
next week I send you an urgent
message, you will act on it.

1440
01:50:15.520 --> 01:50:19.039
However fantastic it seems. I can't
tell you more. I ask you to

1441
01:50:19.039 --> 01:50:23.880
take me on trust and believe that
for anything I do, I have tremendous

1442
01:50:23.920 --> 01:50:29.600
reasons. He knit his shaggy gray
eyebrows and look curiously at me. Yes,

1443
01:50:30.000 --> 01:50:32.359
I'll go bail for your sanity.
It's a good deal to promise.

1444
01:50:32.399 --> 01:50:34.720
But if you make an appeal to
me, I will see that it is

1445
01:50:34.760 --> 01:50:41.079
met. Next day I had news
from Felix Tuken. The man called Saranov

1446
01:50:41.159 --> 01:50:45.600
had been identified. If you are
making inquiries about anybody, it is fairly

1447
01:50:45.640 --> 01:50:48.520
easy to find those who are seeking
for the same person, and the Russian

1448
01:50:48.560 --> 01:50:54.119
police in tracking Tommy and pitt Herron
had easily come on the two gentlemen who

1449
01:50:54.119 --> 01:50:59.600
were following the same trial. The
two had gone by samarcand, evidently intending

1450
01:50:59.640 --> 01:51:02.960
to rike into the hills by a
shorter route than the main road from Bokhara.

1451
01:51:03.680 --> 01:51:08.840
The frontier posts had been worn and
the stalkers had become the stalked.

1452
01:51:09.560 --> 01:51:13.840
That was one solid achievement at any
rate. I had saved pitt Heron from

1453
01:51:13.840 --> 01:51:16.359
the worst danger. For first,
I had sent him Tommy, and now

1454
01:51:16.399 --> 01:51:20.199
I had put the police on guard
against his enemies. I had not the

1455
01:51:20.279 --> 01:51:26.039
slightest doubt that enemies they were.
Charles knew too much, and Tuke was

1456
01:51:26.079 --> 01:51:29.880
the man appointed to reason with him, to bring him back if possible,

1457
01:51:30.279 --> 01:51:33.840
or if not. As Chapman had
said, the ex union leader was not

1458
01:51:33.920 --> 01:51:39.560
the man to stick at trifles.
It was a broiling June. The London

1459
01:51:39.640 --> 01:51:42.920
season was at its height, and
I had never been so busy in the

1460
01:51:42.960 --> 01:51:46.560
courts before. But that crowded and
garish world was little more than a dream

1461
01:51:46.640 --> 01:51:50.800
to me. I went through my
daily tasks, dined out, went to

1462
01:51:50.840 --> 01:51:56.279
the play, had consultations, talked
to my fellows, but all the while

1463
01:51:56.359 --> 01:51:59.960
I had the feeling that I was
watching somebody else perform the same function.

1464
01:52:00.800 --> 01:52:03.880
I believe I did my work well, and I know I was twice complimented

1465
01:52:03.920 --> 01:52:10.199
by the Court of Appeal, but
my real interests were far away. Always

1466
01:52:10.239 --> 01:52:14.079
I saw two men in the hot
glens of the Oxus, with the fine

1467
01:52:14.199 --> 01:52:17.800
dust of the loose rising in yellow
clouds behind them. One of these men

1468
01:52:17.880 --> 01:52:23.640
had a drawn in anxious face,
and both rode hard. They passed by

1469
01:52:23.640 --> 01:52:28.960
the closes of Apricot and cherry and
the green watered gardens, and soon the

1470
01:52:29.039 --> 01:52:32.840
oxus ceased to flow wide among rushes
and water lilies, and became a turbid

1471
01:52:32.920 --> 01:52:38.279
hill stream. By and by,
the roadside changed, and the horses of

1472
01:52:38.319 --> 01:52:43.439
the travelers trod on mountain turf,
crushing the irises and marigolds. In time,

1473
01:52:44.239 --> 01:52:46.239
I could feel the free air blowing
from the roof of the world,

1474
01:52:46.720 --> 01:52:51.279
and see far ahead the snowy saddle
of the pass which led to India.

1475
01:52:51.760 --> 01:52:56.800
Far behind the riders, I saw
two others, and they chose a different

1476
01:52:56.800 --> 01:53:01.239
way, now over waterless plateau,
now in rugged nullahs. They rode the

1477
01:53:01.319 --> 01:53:05.279
faster, and their route was the
shorter. Sooner or later they must catch

1478
01:53:05.359 --> 01:53:10.239
up the first riders, And I
knew, though how I could not tell,

1479
01:53:10.560 --> 01:53:15.000
that death would attend the meeting.
I and only I, sitting in

1480
01:53:15.079 --> 01:53:19.680
London, four thousand miles away,
could prevent disaster. The dream haunted me

1481
01:53:19.720 --> 01:53:24.359
at night, and often, walking
in the strand or sitting at a dinner

1482
01:53:24.399 --> 01:53:28.720
table, I have found my eyes
fixed clearly on the shining upland, with

1483
01:53:28.840 --> 01:53:31.600
the thin white mountains at the back
of it, and the four dots which

1484
01:53:31.600 --> 01:53:38.239
were men hurrying fast on their business. One night I met Lumly. It

1485
01:53:38.279 --> 01:53:41.640
was at a big political dinner given
by the chief of my party in the

1486
01:53:41.680 --> 01:53:46.039
House of Lords, fifty or sixty
guests and a blaze of stars and decorations.

1487
01:53:46.520 --> 01:53:49.520
I sat near the bottom of the
table and he was near the top,

1488
01:53:49.880 --> 01:53:55.680
sitting between a famous general and an
ex Viceroy of India. I asked

1489
01:53:55.680 --> 01:53:58.399
my right hand neighbor who he was, but he could not tell me.

1490
01:53:59.039 --> 01:54:02.039
The same question to my left hand
neighbor brought an answer. It is old

1491
01:54:02.119 --> 01:54:05.800
Lumly. If you never met him. He doesn't go out much, but

1492
01:54:05.880 --> 01:54:10.439
he gives a man's dinner now and
then, which are the best in London.

1493
01:54:11.079 --> 01:54:14.479
No, he's not a politician,
though he favors our side, and

1494
01:54:14.600 --> 01:54:17.239
I expect has given a lot to
our funds. I can't think why they

1495
01:54:17.279 --> 01:54:21.800
don't make him appear. He's enormously
rich and very generous, and the most

1496
01:54:21.920 --> 01:54:28.039
learned old fellow in Britain. My
chief, my neighbor was an under secretary,

1497
01:54:28.439 --> 01:54:30.399
knows him and told me once that
if he wanted any out of the

1498
01:54:30.439 --> 01:54:34.439
way bit of knowledge, you could
get it by asking Lumly. I expect

1499
01:54:34.439 --> 01:54:39.800
he pulls the strings more than anybody
living but he scarcely ever goes out,

1500
01:54:40.159 --> 01:54:43.800
and it's a feather in our host's
cap to have got him tonight. You

1501
01:54:43.880 --> 01:54:46.880
never see his name in the papers
either. He probably pays the press to

1502
01:54:46.960 --> 01:54:51.720
keep him out, like some of
those billionaire fellows in America. I watched

1503
01:54:51.800 --> 01:54:56.039
him through dinner. He was the
center of the talk at his end of

1504
01:54:56.039 --> 01:55:00.439
the table. I could see the
blue ribbon bulging out on Lord moore Cam's

1505
01:55:00.439 --> 01:55:04.479
breast as he leaned forward to question
him. He was wearing some foreign orders,

1506
01:55:04.479 --> 01:55:08.640
including the Legion of Honor, and
I could hear, in the pause

1507
01:55:08.680 --> 01:55:13.520
of conversation echoes of his soft,
rich voice. I could see him beaming

1508
01:55:13.560 --> 01:55:15.920
through his glasses on his neighbors,
and now and then he would take them

1509
01:55:15.960 --> 01:55:20.439
off and look mildly at a speaker. I wondered why nobody realized as I

1510
01:55:20.520 --> 01:55:25.640
did, what was in his light
wild eyes. The dinner, I believe,

1511
01:55:25.800 --> 01:55:29.359
was excellent, and the company was
good, but down at my end,

1512
01:55:29.399 --> 01:55:31.840
I could eat little, and I
did not want to talk. Here

1513
01:55:31.840 --> 01:55:36.399
in this pleasant room, with servants
moving softly about and a mellow light on

1514
01:55:36.479 --> 01:55:42.279
the silver from the shaded candles,
I felt the man was buttressed and defended

1515
01:55:42.319 --> 01:55:45.800
beyond my reach. A kind of
despairing hatred gripped me when I looked his

1516
01:55:45.840 --> 01:55:50.680
way, For I was always conscious
of that other picture, the Asian desert,

1517
01:55:50.800 --> 01:55:56.079
pitt Heron's hunted face, and the
grim figure of Twok on his trail.

1518
01:55:56.840 --> 01:56:00.319
That and the great secret wheels of
what was too inhuman and to be

1519
01:56:00.359 --> 01:56:04.279
called crime, moving throughout the globe
under this man's hand. There was a

1520
01:56:04.359 --> 01:56:10.359
party afterwards, but I did not
stay no more did lumbly and for a

1521
01:56:10.439 --> 01:56:14.000
second I brushed against him in the
hall at the foot of the big staircase.

1522
01:56:14.640 --> 01:56:18.000
He smiled on me affectionately. Have
you been dining here? I did

1523
01:56:18.039 --> 01:56:21.680
not notice you. You had better
things to think of, I said,

1524
01:56:23.079 --> 01:56:26.359
by the way, you gave me
good advice some weeks ago. It may

1525
01:56:26.439 --> 01:56:29.840
interest you to hear that I have
taken it. I am so glad,

1526
01:56:29.880 --> 01:56:33.640
he said softly. You are a
very discreet young man. But his eyes

1527
01:56:33.720 --> 01:56:41.720
told me that he knew I lied. End of chapter five. Recording by

1528
01:56:41.800 --> 01:56:53.640
Expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter
six of the Powerhouse by John Buchan.

1529
01:56:54.119 --> 01:56:59.520
The slab revox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor,

1530
01:56:59.640 --> 01:57:05.680
Maine, Chapter six, the restaurant
in Antioch Street. I was working

1531
01:57:05.760 --> 01:57:10.640
late at the Temple next day,
and it was nearly seven before I got

1532
01:57:10.680 --> 01:57:15.640
up to go home. McGillivray had
telephoned me in the afternoon saying he wanted

1533
01:57:15.680 --> 01:57:18.279
to see me and suggesting dinner at
the club, and I had told him

1534
01:57:18.279 --> 01:57:23.479
I should come straight there from my
chambers. But just after six he had

1535
01:57:23.560 --> 01:57:28.239
rung me up again and proposed another
meeting place. I've got some very important

1536
01:57:28.239 --> 01:57:30.840
news for you and want to be
quiet. There's a little place where I

1537
01:57:30.920 --> 01:57:36.319
sometimes dine, Rappacchini's in Antioch Street. I meet you there at half past

1538
01:57:36.439 --> 01:57:42.239
seven. I agreed, and sent
a message to Chapman at the flat telling

1539
01:57:42.319 --> 01:57:45.479
him I would be out to dinner. It was a Wednesday night, so

1540
01:57:45.600 --> 01:57:47.920
the house rose early. He asked
me where I was dining, and I

1541
01:57:48.000 --> 01:57:53.239
told him, but I did not
mention with whom. His voice sounded very

1542
01:57:53.279 --> 01:57:57.680
cross, for he hated a lonely
meal. It was a hot, still

1543
01:57:57.800 --> 01:58:00.560
night, and I had had a
heavy day in court, so heavy that

1544
01:58:00.600 --> 01:58:05.840
my private anxieties had almost slipped from
my mind. I walked along the embankment

1545
01:58:05.880 --> 01:58:11.439
and up Regent Street, towards Oxford
Circus. Antioch Street, as I had

1546
01:58:11.520 --> 01:58:15.039
learned from the directory, was in
the area between Langham Place and Tottenham Court

1547
01:58:15.199 --> 01:58:19.840
Road. I wondered vaguely why mc
gillivray should have chosen such an out of

1548
01:58:19.840 --> 01:58:24.319
the way spot, but I knew
him for a man of many whims.

1549
01:58:25.000 --> 01:58:28.600
The street, when I found it, turned out to be a respectable little

1550
01:58:28.600 --> 01:58:32.560
place, boarding houses and architects offices, with a few antiquity shops and a

1551
01:58:32.600 --> 01:58:36.840
picture cleaners. The restaurant took some
finding, for it was one of those

1552
01:58:36.880 --> 01:58:43.720
discreet establishments common enough in France,
where no edibles are displayed in the British

1553
01:58:43.720 --> 01:58:48.439
fashion, and muslin half curtains decked
the windows. Only the doormat, lettered

1554
01:58:48.439 --> 01:58:54.239
with the proprietor's name, remained to
guide the hungry. I gave a waiter

1555
01:58:54.359 --> 01:58:58.640
my hat and stick, and was
ushered into a garish dining room apparently full

1556
01:58:58.640 --> 01:59:03.800
of people. Ingle Violinis was discoursing
music from beside the grille. The occupants

1557
01:59:03.800 --> 01:59:08.760
were not quite the kind one expects
to find in an eating house in a

1558
01:59:08.840 --> 01:59:13.640
side street. The men were all
in evening dress with white waistcoats, and

1559
01:59:13.720 --> 01:59:17.079
the women looked either demi mondins,
or those who followed their taste in clothes.

1560
01:59:18.119 --> 01:59:23.039
Various eyes looked curiously at me as
I entered. I guessed that the

1561
01:59:23.119 --> 01:59:27.840
restaurant had by one of those odd
freaks of Londoners become for a moment the

1562
01:59:27.960 --> 01:59:31.680
fashion. The proprietor met me half
way up the room. He might call

1563
01:59:31.800 --> 01:59:38.720
himself Rappaccini, but he was obviously
a German. Mister Gilvrai. He nodded,

1564
01:59:38.840 --> 01:59:42.880
he has engaged a private room.
Will you follow, sir. A

1565
01:59:43.000 --> 01:59:45.720
narrow stairway broke into the wall on
the left side of the dining room.

1566
01:59:46.239 --> 01:59:50.640
I followed the manager up it and
along a short corridor to a door which

1567
01:59:50.680 --> 01:59:55.800
filled its end. He ushered me
into a brightly lit little room, where

1568
01:59:55.840 --> 02:00:00.479
a table was laid for two.
Mister Gilvrai comes often here, said the

1569
02:00:00.520 --> 02:00:03.520
manager. If you'll be late,
sometimes everything is ready, Sir, I

1570
02:00:03.560 --> 02:00:09.600
hope you'll be pleased. It looked
inviting enough, but the air smelt stuffy.

1571
02:00:10.159 --> 02:00:13.520
Then I saw that, though the
night was warm, the window was

1572
02:00:13.600 --> 02:00:16.840
shut and the curtains drawn. I
pulled back the curtains, and to my

1573
02:00:16.960 --> 02:00:21.760
surprise saw that the shutters were closed. You must open these, I said,

1574
02:00:21.880 --> 02:00:27.199
or we'll stifle. The manager glanced
at the window. I'll send a

1575
02:00:27.279 --> 02:00:30.000
vader, he said, and departed. The door seemed to shut with an

1576
02:00:30.000 --> 02:00:34.119
odd click. I flung myself down
in one of the arm chairs, for

1577
02:00:34.239 --> 02:00:39.760
I was feeling pretty tired. The
little table beckoned alluringly, for I was

1578
02:00:39.840 --> 02:00:43.760
also hungry. I remember there was
a mass of pink roses on it.

1579
02:00:44.159 --> 02:00:48.000
A bottle of champagne with a corkloose
stood in a wine cooler on the sideboard,

1580
02:00:48.439 --> 02:00:53.119
and there was an unopened bottle beside
it. It seemed to me that

1581
02:00:53.199 --> 02:00:58.119
mc gillivray, when he dined here, did himself rather well. The promised

1582
02:00:58.119 --> 02:01:00.640
waiter did not arrive, and the
stuffy this was making me very thirsty.

1583
02:01:01.119 --> 02:01:04.840
I looked for a bell, but
could not see one. My watch told

1584
02:01:04.840 --> 02:01:08.680
me it was now a quarter to
eight, but there was no sign of

1585
02:01:08.760 --> 02:01:14.079
mcgillivraye. I poured myself out a
glass of champagne from the open bottle and

1586
02:01:14.239 --> 02:01:16.920
was just about to drink it when
my eye caught something in a corner of

1587
02:01:16.920 --> 02:01:21.800
the room. It was one of
those little mid Victorian corner tables. I

1588
02:01:21.840 --> 02:01:26.640
believe they call them what knots,
which you will find in any boarding house

1589
02:01:27.039 --> 02:01:30.920
littered up with photographs in coral and
presents from Brighton. On this one stood

1590
02:01:30.920 --> 02:01:35.479
a photograph in a shabby frame,
and I thought I recognized it. I

1591
02:01:35.560 --> 02:01:40.119
crossed the room and picked it up. It showed a man of thirty with

1592
02:01:40.279 --> 02:01:45.079
short side whiskers, an ill fitting
jaw, and a drooping mustache. The

1593
02:01:45.239 --> 02:01:49.239
duplicate of it was in McGillivray's cabinet. It was mister Routh, the ex

1594
02:01:49.359 --> 02:01:55.479
Union leader. There was nothing very
remarkable about that, after all, but

1595
02:01:55.560 --> 02:01:59.600
it gave me a nasty shock.
The room, now seen the Sinister Place

1596
02:01:59.640 --> 02:02:03.520
as is intolerably close. There was
still no sign of the waiter to open

1597
02:02:03.520 --> 02:02:08.880
the window, so I thought I
would wait for McGillivray downstairs. But the

1598
02:02:08.920 --> 02:02:12.800
door would not open. The handle
would not turn. It did not seem

1599
02:02:12.800 --> 02:02:15.560
to be locked, but rather to
have shut with some kind of patent spring.

1600
02:02:16.279 --> 02:02:19.640
I noticed that the whole thing was
a powerful piece of oak with a

1601
02:02:19.720 --> 02:02:26.479
heavy framework, very unlike the usual
flimsy restaurant doors. My first instinct was

1602
02:02:26.520 --> 02:02:30.439
to make a deuce of a row
and attract the attention of the diners below.

1603
02:02:30.199 --> 02:02:34.159
I own I was beginning to feel
badly frightened. Clearly I had got

1604
02:02:34.199 --> 02:02:39.800
into some sort of trap. McGillivray's
invitation might have been a hoax, for

1605
02:02:39.880 --> 02:02:44.199
it is not difficult to counterfeit a
man's voice on the telephone. With an

1606
02:02:44.239 --> 02:02:48.239
effort, I forced myself into calmness. It was preposterous to think that anything

1607
02:02:48.279 --> 02:02:51.920
could happen to me in a room
not thirty feet from where a score of

1608
02:02:51.960 --> 02:02:57.720
two of ordinary citizens were dining.
I had only to raise my voice to

1609
02:02:57.760 --> 02:03:01.439
bring inquirers. Yes, But above
all things I did not want a row.

1610
02:03:02.000 --> 02:03:05.880
It would never do for a rising
lawyer and a member of Parliament to

1611
02:03:05.920 --> 02:03:11.840
be found shouting for help in an
upper chamber of a Bloomsbury restaurant. The

1612
02:03:11.960 --> 02:03:15.479
worst deduction would be drawn from the
open bottle of champagne. Besides, it

1613
02:03:15.560 --> 02:03:18.720
might be all right. After all, the door might have got stuck.

1614
02:03:19.039 --> 02:03:23.760
Mc gilivray at that very moment,
might be on his way up. So

1615
02:03:23.800 --> 02:03:27.880
I sat down and waited. Then
I remembered my thirst and stretched out my

1616
02:03:27.920 --> 02:03:31.239
hand to the glass of champagne.
But at that instant I looked towards the

1617
02:03:31.279 --> 02:03:36.800
window and set down the wine untasted. It was a very odd window.

1618
02:03:38.279 --> 02:03:42.159
The lower end was about flushed with
the floor, and the hinges of the

1619
02:03:42.199 --> 02:03:45.319
shutters seemed to be only on one
side. As I stared, I began

1620
02:03:45.399 --> 02:03:50.239
to wonder whether it was a window
at all. Next moment my doubts were

1621
02:03:50.279 --> 02:03:55.880
sold. The window swung open like
a door, and in the dark cavity

1622
02:03:55.960 --> 02:04:00.159
stood a man. Strangely enough I
knew him. Figure was not one that

1623
02:04:00.319 --> 02:04:04.680
is readily forgotten. Good evening,
mister Docker, I said, will you

1624
02:04:04.760 --> 02:04:10.600
have a glass of champagne? A
year before, on the Southeastern Circuit,

1625
02:04:10.920 --> 02:04:15.000
I had appeared for the defense in
a burglary case. Criminal law was not

1626
02:04:15.079 --> 02:04:17.560
my province, but now and then
I took a case to keep my hand

1627
02:04:17.680 --> 02:04:21.159
in, for it is the best
training in the world for the handling of

1628
02:04:21.159 --> 02:04:27.800
witnesses. This case had been peculiar. A certain Bill Docker was the accused,

1629
02:04:28.159 --> 02:04:30.520
a gentleman who bore a bad reputation
in the eyes of the police.

1630
02:04:31.199 --> 02:04:34.880
The evidence against him was strong,
but it was more or less tainted,

1631
02:04:35.000 --> 02:04:40.720
being chiefly that of two former accomplices, a proof that there is small truth

1632
02:04:40.760 --> 02:04:45.640
in the proverbial honor among thieves.
It was an ugly business, and my

1633
02:04:45.760 --> 02:04:48.760
sympathies were with the accused, for
though he may very well have been guilty,

1634
02:04:49.119 --> 02:04:53.520
yet he had been the victim of
a shabby trick. Anyhow, I

1635
02:04:53.560 --> 02:04:56.920
put my back into the case,
and after a hard struggle, got a

1636
02:04:57.039 --> 02:05:01.079
verdict of not guilty. Mister Docker
had been kind enough to express his appreciation

1637
02:05:01.119 --> 02:05:04.800
of my efforts, and to ask, in a hoarse whisper, how I

1638
02:05:04.880 --> 02:05:11.039
had squared the old bird, meaning
the judge he did not understand the subtleties

1639
02:05:11.039 --> 02:05:15.520
of the English law of evidence.
He shambled into the room, a huge,

1640
02:05:15.640 --> 02:05:18.439
hulking figure of a man, with
a thickness of chest, which under

1641
02:05:18.479 --> 02:05:24.600
happier circumstances might have made him a
terror in the prize ring. His features

1642
02:05:24.600 --> 02:05:30.119
wore a heavy scowl which slowly cleared
to a flicker of recognition. By God,

1643
02:05:30.439 --> 02:05:32.960
it's the lawyer chap, he muttered. I pointed to the glass of

1644
02:05:33.039 --> 02:05:36.760
Champagne. I don't mind if I
do, he said, here's health.

1645
02:05:38.279 --> 02:05:41.600
He swallowed the wine at a gulp
and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

1646
02:05:42.239 --> 02:05:45.640
Have a drop yourself, governor,
he added, A glass of bubbly will

1647
02:05:45.720 --> 02:05:48.680
cheer you up well, mister Docker, I said, I hope I see

1648
02:05:48.680 --> 02:05:54.119
you fit. I was getting wonderfully
collected now that the suspense was over.

1649
02:05:55.119 --> 02:05:58.399
Pretty fair, sir, pretty fair, able to do my day's work like

1650
02:05:58.479 --> 02:06:01.680
an honest man. And what brings
you here? A little job? I'm

1651
02:06:01.720 --> 02:06:04.520
on. Some friends of mine wants
you out of the road for a bit,

1652
02:06:04.800 --> 02:06:08.600
and they've sent me to fetch you. It's a bit of luck for

1653
02:06:08.640 --> 02:06:12.680
you that you've struck a pal.
We needn't have no unpleasantness, seeing we're

1654
02:06:12.720 --> 02:06:15.760
both what you might call men of
the world. I appreciate the compliment,

1655
02:06:15.840 --> 02:06:19.199
I said, But where do you
propose to take me? Don't oh,

1656
02:06:19.680 --> 02:06:24.479
if some lay near the docks.
I've got a motorcar waiting at the back

1657
02:06:24.520 --> 02:06:29.359
of the house. But supposing I
don't want to go, my orders admit

1658
02:06:29.479 --> 02:06:32.319
no excuse, he said solemnly.
You're a sensible chap and can see that

1659
02:06:32.399 --> 02:06:36.279
in a scrap I could down you
easy, Very likely, I said,

1660
02:06:36.560 --> 02:06:41.000
But man, you must be mad
to talk like that. Downstairs, there

1661
02:06:41.079 --> 02:06:44.600
is a dining room full of people. I have only to lift my voice

1662
02:06:44.640 --> 02:06:48.680
to bring the police. You're a
kid, he said scornfully. Them geezers

1663
02:06:48.720 --> 02:06:53.600
downstairs are all in the job.
That was a flat catching rig to get

1664
02:06:53.640 --> 02:06:56.760
you up here, so as you
wouldn't suspect nothing. If you was to

1665
02:06:56.800 --> 02:07:00.359
go down now, which you ain't
going to be allowed to do, wouldn't

1666
02:07:00.359 --> 02:07:02.560
find a blamed soul in the place. I must say, you're a bit

1667
02:07:02.600 --> 02:07:06.520
softer than I hoped, after the
handsome way you talked over the old juggins

1668
02:07:06.560 --> 02:07:12.199
with a wig at Maidstone. Mister
Docker took the bottle from the wine cooler

1669
02:07:12.199 --> 02:07:16.359
and filled himself another glass. It
sounded horribly convincing. If I was to

1670
02:07:16.399 --> 02:07:21.319
be kidnapped and smuggled away, Lumley
would have scored half a success, not

1671
02:07:21.439 --> 02:07:26.239
the whole. For as I swiftly
reflected, I had put Felix on the

1672
02:07:26.239 --> 02:07:30.119
track of Tuk, and there was
every chance that Tommy and pitt Heron would

1673
02:07:30.119 --> 02:07:33.399
be saved. But for myself it
looked pretty black. The more my scheme

1674
02:07:33.479 --> 02:07:39.039
succeeded, the more likely the Powerhouse
would be to wreak its vengeance on me.

1675
02:07:39.119 --> 02:07:43.000
Once I was spirited from the open
air world into his dark labyrinths,

1676
02:07:43.760 --> 02:07:47.359
I made a great effort to keep
my voice even and calm. Mister Docker,

1677
02:07:47.399 --> 02:07:50.399
I said, I once did you
a good turn, But for me,

1678
02:07:50.560 --> 02:07:55.119
you might be doing time now instead
of drinking champagne like a gentleman,

1679
02:07:55.760 --> 02:07:58.880
your pals played you a pretty low
trick, and that was why I stuck

1680
02:07:58.880 --> 02:08:01.840
out for you. I didn't think
you were the kind of man to forget

1681
02:08:01.840 --> 02:08:05.680
a friend. No more I am, said he. The man who says

1682
02:08:05.720 --> 02:08:09.479
Bill Docker would go back on a
pal is a liar. Well, here's

1683
02:08:09.520 --> 02:08:13.079
your chance to pay your debts.
The men who employ you are my deadly

1684
02:08:13.199 --> 02:08:16.319
enemies and want to do me in. I'm not a match for you.

1685
02:08:16.800 --> 02:08:20.119
You're a stronger fellow and can drag
me off and hand me over to them.

1686
02:08:20.439 --> 02:08:22.239
But if you do, I'm done
with. Make no mistake about that.

1687
02:08:22.720 --> 02:08:26.560
I put it to you as a
decent fellow. Are you going to

1688
02:08:26.560 --> 02:08:28.800
go back on the man who has
been a good friend to you? He

1689
02:08:28.920 --> 02:08:33.760
shifted from one foot to another,
with his eyes on the ceiling. He

1690
02:08:33.880 --> 02:08:39.199
was obviously in difficulties. Then he
tried another glass of champagne. I dursont,

1691
02:08:39.199 --> 02:08:41.720
Governor, I dursont let you go. Then my work for would cut

1692
02:08:41.760 --> 02:08:46.159
my throat as soon as look at
me. Besides, it ain't no good

1693
02:08:46.640 --> 02:08:48.000
if I was to go off and
leave you. There'd be plenty more in

1694
02:08:48.039 --> 02:08:52.880
this house as we'd do the job. You're up against it governor. But

1695
02:08:52.000 --> 02:08:56.560
take a sensible view and come with
me. They don't mean you no real

1696
02:08:56.600 --> 02:09:00.439
harm. I'll take my bible oath
on it only to keep you for a

1697
02:09:00.439 --> 02:09:03.800
bit, for you've run across one
of their games. They won't do,

1698
02:09:03.880 --> 02:09:05.560
you, know her, if you
speak em fair, be a sport and

1699
02:09:05.680 --> 02:09:11.239
take it smiling like you're afraid of
them. I said, yes, I'm

1700
02:09:11.279 --> 02:09:13.880
afraid, black afraid. So would
you be if you knew the gents.

1701
02:09:15.279 --> 02:09:18.479
I'd rather take on the whole rat
Lane crowd. You know them as I

1702
02:09:18.520 --> 02:09:22.239
mean, on a Saturday night when
they're out for business, then go back

1703
02:09:22.239 --> 02:09:26.159
to my gents and say as how
I had shirked the job. He shivered.

1704
02:09:26.439 --> 02:09:30.880
Good lord, they'd freeze the heart
out of a bullpup. You're afraid,

1705
02:09:30.960 --> 02:09:33.600
I said, slowly. So you're
going to give me up to the

1706
02:09:33.640 --> 02:09:37.159
men you're afraid of, to do
as they like with me. I never

1707
02:09:37.199 --> 02:09:39.479
expected of you, Bill, I
thought you were the kind of lad who

1708
02:09:39.520 --> 02:09:43.640
would send any gang to the devil
before you'd go back on a pal.

1709
02:09:43.560 --> 02:09:48.239
Don't say that, he said,
almost plaintively. You don't half know the

1710
02:09:48.239 --> 02:09:52.439
hole I'm in. His eyes seemed
to be wandering, and he yawned deeply.

1711
02:09:52.119 --> 02:09:56.920
Just then a great noise began below. I heard a voice speaking,

1712
02:09:56.960 --> 02:10:01.680
a loud peremptory voice. Then my
name was sho did lyfen Lifen? Are

1713
02:10:01.680 --> 02:10:05.760
you there? There could be no
mistaking that broad Yorkshire tongue. By some

1714
02:10:05.880 --> 02:10:11.000
miracle, Chapman had followed me and
was raising Caine downstairs. My heart leaped

1715
02:10:11.000 --> 02:10:16.439
with a sudden revelation. I'm here, I yelled upstairs, Come up and

1716
02:10:16.560 --> 02:10:20.039
let me out. Then I turned, with a smile of triumph to Bill.

1717
02:10:20.680 --> 02:10:22.760
My friends have come. I said, you're too late for the job.

1718
02:10:24.119 --> 02:10:28.079
Get back and tell your masters that. He was swaying on his feet,

1719
02:10:28.319 --> 02:10:31.880
and he suddenly lurched towards me.
You come along, By god,

1720
02:10:31.960 --> 02:10:35.760
you think you've done me. I'll
let you see. His voice was growing

1721
02:10:35.840 --> 02:10:39.000
thick, and he stopped short.
What the hell's wrong with me, he

1722
02:10:39.079 --> 02:10:43.600
gasped, and going all queer.
I he was like a man far gone

1723
02:10:43.640 --> 02:10:46.399
in liquor. But three glasses of
champagne would never have touched a head like

1724
02:10:46.560 --> 02:10:50.119
Bills. I saw what was up
with him. He was not drunk,

1725
02:10:50.159 --> 02:10:54.159
but drugged. They've doped the wine, I cried. They put it there

1726
02:10:54.159 --> 02:10:58.680
for me to drink. It and
go to sleep. There is always something

1727
02:10:58.720 --> 02:11:03.039
which is the last straw to any
men. You may insult and outrage him,

1728
02:11:03.039 --> 02:11:05.560
and he will bear it patiently.
But touch the quick in his temper

1729
02:11:05.560 --> 02:11:11.119
and he will turn. Apparently,
for Bill, drugging was the unforgivable sin.

1730
02:11:11.800 --> 02:11:15.960
His eye lost for a moment its
confusion. He squared his shoulders and

1731
02:11:16.079 --> 02:11:20.039
roared like a bull. Doped by
God. He cried, who done it?

1732
02:11:20.720 --> 02:11:22.640
The men who shut me in this
room? Burst that door, and

1733
02:11:22.680 --> 02:11:26.640
you will find them. He turned
a blazing face on the locked door and

1734
02:11:28.039 --> 02:11:31.359
hurled his huge weight on it.
It cracked and bent, but the lock

1735
02:11:31.439 --> 02:11:35.680
and hinges held. I could see
that sleep was overwhelming him, and that

1736
02:11:35.840 --> 02:11:41.720
his limbs were stiffening, but his
anger was still strong enough for another effort.

1737
02:11:41.319 --> 02:11:46.600
Again, he drew himself together like
a big cat and flung himself on

1738
02:11:46.640 --> 02:11:50.279
the woodwork. The hinges tore from
the jams, and the whole outfit fell

1739
02:11:50.359 --> 02:11:54.920
forward into the passage in a cloud
of splinters and dust and broken plaster.

1740
02:11:56.760 --> 02:12:00.800
It was mister Docker's final effort.
He lay on the top of the wreckage

1741
02:12:00.800 --> 02:12:05.199
he had made, like Sampson among
the ruins of Gaza, a senseless and

1742
02:12:05.319 --> 02:12:09.800
slumbering hulk. I picked up the
unopened bottle of champagne, it was the

1743
02:12:09.840 --> 02:12:13.680
only weapon available, and stepped over
his body. I was beginning to enjoy

1744
02:12:13.760 --> 02:12:18.960
myself amazingly, as I expected.
There was a man in the corridor,

1745
02:12:18.279 --> 02:12:22.880
a little fellow in waiter's clothes,
with a twee jacket instead of a dress

1746
02:12:22.880 --> 02:12:26.119
coat. If he had a pistol, I knew I was done, But

1747
02:12:26.199 --> 02:12:30.880
I gambled upon the disinclination of the
management for the sound of shooting. He

1748
02:12:30.960 --> 02:12:33.800
had a knife, but he never
had a chance to use it. My

1749
02:12:33.920 --> 02:12:37.319
champagne bottle descended on his head,
and he dropped like a log. There

1750
02:12:37.319 --> 02:12:41.600
were men coming upstairs, not Chapman, for I still heard his horse shouts

1751
02:12:41.600 --> 02:12:45.800
in the dining room. If they
once got up, they could force me

1752
02:12:45.840 --> 02:12:48.680
back through that hideous room by the
door through which Docer had come, and

1753
02:12:48.760 --> 02:12:52.159
in five minutes I should be in
their motor car. There was only one

1754
02:12:52.199 --> 02:12:56.000
thing to do. I jumped from
the stairhead right down among them. I

1755
02:12:56.039 --> 02:13:00.840
think there were three. In my
descent toppled them over. We rolled in

1756
02:13:00.920 --> 02:13:05.279
a wild, whirling mass and cascaded
into the dining room, where my head

1757
02:13:05.359 --> 02:13:09.600
bumped violently on the parquet. I
expected a bit of a grapple, but

1758
02:13:09.720 --> 02:13:13.840
none came. My wits were pretty
wooly, but I managed to scramble to

1759
02:13:13.920 --> 02:13:18.840
my feet. The heels of my
enemies were disappearing up the staircase. Chapman

1760
02:13:18.920 --> 02:13:22.079
was pawing my ribs to discover if
there were any bones broken. There was

1761
02:13:22.119 --> 02:13:26.680
not another soul in the room except
two policemen who were pushing their way in

1762
02:13:26.800 --> 02:13:31.239
from the street. Chapman was flushed
and breathing heavily. His coat had a

1763
02:13:31.239 --> 02:13:35.880
big split down the seams at the
shoulder, but his face was happy as

1764
02:13:35.880 --> 02:13:39.800
a child's. I caught his arm
and spoke in his ear. We've got

1765
02:13:39.840 --> 02:13:43.159
to get out of this at once. How can we square these policemen?

1766
02:13:43.479 --> 02:13:46.399
There must be no inquiry in nothing
in the papers. Do you hear?

1767
02:13:46.079 --> 02:13:50.760
It's all right? Said Chapman.
These bobbies are friends of mine, two

1768
02:13:50.800 --> 02:13:54.960
good lads from Wensleydale on my road
here. I told them to give me

1769
02:13:54.039 --> 02:13:58.399
a bit of law and follow me, for I thought they might be wanted.

1770
02:13:58.840 --> 02:14:01.840
They didn't come too soon to spoil
sport, for I been knockin' ferners

1771
02:14:01.840 --> 02:14:05.479
about for ten minutes. You seem
to have been puttin up a tidy scrap

1772
02:14:05.560 --> 02:14:09.520
yourself. Let's get home first,
I said, for I was beginning to

1773
02:14:09.560 --> 02:14:13.800
think of the bigger thing. I
wrote a chit for mc Gilovray which I

1774
02:14:13.840 --> 02:14:18.560
asked one of the constables to take
the Scotland Yard. It was to beg

1775
02:14:18.640 --> 02:14:22.359
that nothing should be done yet in
the business of the restaurant, and above

1776
02:14:22.399 --> 02:14:24.880
all, that nothing should get into
the papers. Then I asked the other

1777
02:14:24.960 --> 02:14:28.960
to see us home. It was
a queer request for two able bodied men

1778
02:14:30.079 --> 02:14:33.640
to make on a summer evening in
the busiest part of London. But I

1779
02:14:33.720 --> 02:14:37.119
was taking no chances. The power
House had declared war on me, and

1780
02:14:37.279 --> 02:14:41.960
I knew it would be war without
quarter. I was in a fever to

1781
02:14:41.000 --> 02:14:46.640
get out of that place. My
momentary lust of battle had gone, and

1782
02:14:46.760 --> 02:14:50.960
every stone of that building seemed to
me a threat. Chapman would have liked

1783
02:14:50.000 --> 02:14:54.840
to spend a happy hour rummaging through
the house, but the gravity of my

1784
02:14:54.920 --> 02:14:58.800
face persuaded him. The truth is
I was bewildered. I could not understand

1785
02:14:58.800 --> 02:15:03.840
the reason of this sudden attack.
Lumley's spies must long ago have told him

1786
02:15:03.960 --> 02:15:09.840
enough to connect me with the Boccara
business. My visits to the embassy alone

1787
02:15:09.880 --> 02:15:13.520
were sufficient proof. But now he
must have found out something new, something

1788
02:15:13.520 --> 02:15:18.159
which startled him, or else there
had been wild doings in Turkestan. I

1789
02:15:18.199 --> 02:15:22.479
won't forget that walk home in a
hurry. It was a fine July twilight.

1790
02:15:22.920 --> 02:15:28.159
The streets were full of the usual
crowd shop girls in thin frocks,

1791
02:15:28.279 --> 02:15:31.800
promenading clerks, in all the flotsam
of a London summer. You would have

1792
02:15:31.800 --> 02:15:35.279
said it was the safest place on
earth. But I was glad we had

1793
02:15:35.279 --> 02:15:39.279
the policeman with us, who,
at the end of one beat, passed

1794
02:15:39.319 --> 02:15:41.880
us on to his colleague. And
I was glad of Chapman, for I

1795
02:15:41.920 --> 02:15:46.640
am morally certain I would never have
got home alone. The queer thing is

1796
02:15:46.640 --> 02:15:50.399
that there was no sign of trouble
till we got into Oxford Street. Then

1797
02:15:50.439 --> 02:15:54.039
I became aware that there were people
on those pavements who knew all about me.

1798
02:15:54.560 --> 02:15:58.880
I first observed it at the mouth
of one of those little dark side

1799
02:15:58.880 --> 02:16:03.399
alleys which one up into mews in
small dingy courts. I found myself being

1800
02:16:03.560 --> 02:16:07.920
skillfully edged away from Chapman into the
shadow. But I noticed it in time,

1801
02:16:07.960 --> 02:16:11.560
and butted my way back to the
pavement. I couldn't make out who

1802
02:16:11.600 --> 02:16:16.119
the people were who hustled me.
They seemed nondescripts of all sorts, but

1803
02:16:16.239 --> 02:16:20.560
I fancied there were women among them. This happened twice and I got wary,

1804
02:16:20.880 --> 02:16:26.000
but I was nearly caught. Before
we reached Oxford's Circus. There was

1805
02:16:26.039 --> 02:16:30.520
a front of a big shop rebuilding
and the usual wooden barricade with a gate.

1806
02:16:31.159 --> 02:16:33.360
Just as we passed it, there
was a special throng on the pavement,

1807
02:16:33.840 --> 02:16:37.959
and I, being next the wall, got pushed against the gate.

1808
02:16:37.639 --> 02:16:43.520
Suddenly it gave and I was pressed
inward. I was right inside before I

1809
02:16:43.600 --> 02:16:48.000
realized my danger, and the gate
was closing. There must have been people

1810
02:16:48.040 --> 02:16:50.600
there, but I could see nothing
in the gloom. It was no time

1811
02:16:50.639 --> 02:16:54.399
for false pride. I yelled to
Chapman, and the next second his burly

1812
02:16:54.479 --> 02:16:58.479
shoulder was in the gap. The
hustlers vanished, and I seemed to hear

1813
02:16:58.520 --> 02:17:03.399
a polite voice begging my pardon.
After that, Chapman and I linked arms

1814
02:17:03.399 --> 02:17:07.239
and struck across Mayfair. But I
did not feel safe till I was in

1815
02:17:07.280 --> 02:17:11.600
the flat when the door bolted.
We had a long drink and I stretched

1816
02:17:11.639 --> 02:17:15.840
myself in an arm chair, for
I was as tired as if I had

1817
02:17:15.840 --> 02:17:18.360
come out of a big game of
rugby foot bowl. I owe you a

1818
02:17:18.399 --> 02:17:22.479
good deal, old man, I
said, I think I'll join the labor

1819
02:17:22.520 --> 02:17:26.479
party. You can tell your fellows
to send me their whips. What possessed

1820
02:17:26.479 --> 02:17:30.399
you to come to look for me? The explanation was simple. I had

1821
02:17:30.399 --> 02:17:33.879
mentioned the restaurant in my telephone message
and the name had awakened a recollection in

1822
02:17:33.959 --> 02:17:39.000
Chapman's mind. He could not fix
it at first, but by and by

1823
02:17:39.079 --> 02:17:43.600
he remembered that the place had cropped
up in the route case. Ralu's London

1824
02:17:43.639 --> 02:17:48.239
headquarters had been at the restaurant in
Antioch Street. As soon as he remembered

1825
02:17:48.239 --> 02:17:50.840
this, he got into a taxi
and descended at the corner of the street,

1826
02:17:52.079 --> 02:17:54.639
where, by sheer luck, he
fell in with his Wensleydale friends.

1827
02:17:56.280 --> 02:18:00.520
He said he had marched into the
restaurant and found it empty but for an

1828
02:18:00.559 --> 02:18:03.959
ill favored manager who denied all knowledge
of me. Then, fortunately, he

1829
02:18:05.079 --> 02:18:09.600
chose to make certain by shouting my
name and heard my answer. After that

1830
02:18:09.719 --> 02:18:13.920
he knocked the manager down and was
presently assaulted by several men whom he described

1831
02:18:13.959 --> 02:18:18.920
as foreign muck. They had knives, of which he made very little for

1832
02:18:18.040 --> 02:18:22.040
He seems to have swung a table
as a battering ram and left sore limbs

1833
02:18:22.079 --> 02:18:26.280
behind him. He was on the
top of his form. I haven't enjoyed

1834
02:18:26.319 --> 02:18:30.719
anything so much since I was a
lad at school, he informed me.

1835
02:18:31.159 --> 02:18:33.760
I was beginning to think your power
house was a wash out. But Lord

1836
02:18:33.799 --> 02:18:39.000
has been busy enough to night.
This is what I call life. My

1837
02:18:39.120 --> 02:18:43.360
spirits could not keep pace with his. The truth is that I was miserably

1838
02:18:43.399 --> 02:18:48.319
puzzled, not afraid so much as
mystified. I couldn't make out this sudden

1839
02:18:48.399 --> 02:18:52.520
dead set at me. Either they
knew more than I bargained for, or

1840
02:18:52.600 --> 02:18:54.959
I knew far too little. It's
all very well, I said, but

1841
02:18:56.000 --> 02:18:58.200
I don't see how this is going
to end. We can't keep up the

1842
02:18:58.280 --> 02:19:01.760
pace long at this rate. It
will be only a matter of hours till

1843
02:19:01.760 --> 02:19:07.760
they get me. We pretty well
barricaded ourselves in the flat, and at

1844
02:19:07.760 --> 02:19:11.360
his earnest request, I restored to
Chapman his revolver. Then I got the

1845
02:19:11.440 --> 02:19:16.399
clue I had been longing for.
It was about eleven o'clock while we were

1846
02:19:16.440 --> 02:19:22.000
sitting smoking when the telephone bell rang
It was Felix who spoke. I have

1847
02:19:22.120 --> 02:19:24.079
news for you, he said.
The hunters had met the hunted, and

1848
02:19:24.159 --> 02:19:28.959
one of the hunters is dead.
The other is a prisoner in our hands.

1849
02:19:28.000 --> 02:19:33.600
He has confessed. It had been
black murder in intent. The Frontier

1850
02:19:33.639 --> 02:19:35.760
police had shadowed the two men into
the cup of a glen, where they

1851
02:19:35.799 --> 02:19:41.120
met Tommy and pitt Heron. The
four had spoken together for a little and

1852
02:19:41.200 --> 02:19:46.639
then two had fired deliberately at Charles
and had grazed his ear, whereupon Tommy

1853
02:19:46.680 --> 02:19:50.879
had charged him and knocked the pistol
from his hand. The assailant had fled,

1854
02:19:50.079 --> 02:19:54.840
but a long shot from the police
on the hillside had toppled him over.

1855
02:19:54.959 --> 02:20:00.559
Tommy had felled Saranov with his fists, and the man had abjectly surrendered.

1856
02:20:00.879 --> 02:20:03.680
He had confessed, Felix said,
But what the confession was he did

1857
02:20:03.719 --> 02:20:11.200
not know. End of chapter six. Recording by expatria in Bangor, Maine.

1858
02:20:18.840 --> 02:20:24.799
Chapter seven of The Powerhouse by John
Buchan. This librivat's recording is in

1859
02:20:24.840 --> 02:20:31.360
the public domain. Recording by Expatriate
in Bangor, Maine, Chapter seven,

1860
02:20:31.920 --> 02:20:37.680
I find sanctuary. My nervousness and
indecision dropped from me at the news I

1861
02:20:37.719 --> 02:20:41.799
had won the first round and I
would win the last. For suddenly became

1862
02:20:41.879 --> 02:20:46.360
clear to me that I had now
evidence which would Blastlumly. I believed that

1863
02:20:46.399 --> 02:20:50.399
it would not be hard to prove
his identity with Pavia and his receipt of

1864
02:20:50.399 --> 02:20:56.360
the telegram from Saranov. Tuk was
his creature, and Tuke's murderous mission was

1865
02:20:56.399 --> 02:21:00.399
his doing. No doubt. I
knew little and could prove nothing about the

1866
02:21:00.440 --> 02:21:03.799
big thing, the powerhouse, But
conspiracy to murder is not the lightest of

1867
02:21:03.840 --> 02:21:09.520
criminal charges. I was beginning to
see my way to checkmating my friend,

1868
02:21:09.959 --> 02:21:13.239
at least so far as pitt Heron
was concerned. Provided and it was a

1869
02:21:13.239 --> 02:21:18.520
pretty big proviso that he gave me
the chance to use my knowledge that I

1870
02:21:18.559 --> 02:21:24.040
foresaw was going to be the difficulty. What I knew now Lumly had known

1871
02:21:24.120 --> 02:21:28.319
hours before the reason of the affair
at Antioch Street was now only too clear.

1872
02:21:28.920 --> 02:21:33.680
If he believed that I had damning
evidence against him, and there was

1873
02:21:33.719 --> 02:21:37.280
no doubt he suspected it, then
he would do his best to stop my

1874
02:21:37.399 --> 02:21:41.799
mouth. I must get my statement
lodged in the proper quarter at the earliest

1875
02:21:41.799 --> 02:21:46.440
possible moment. The next twenty four
hours I feared were going to be too

1876
02:21:46.479 --> 02:21:50.159
sensational for comfort. And yet I
cannot say that I was afraid. I

1877
02:21:50.280 --> 02:21:54.520
was too full of pride to be
in a funk. I had lost my

1878
02:21:54.639 --> 02:21:58.920
awe of Lumly through scoring a point
against him. Had I known more,

1879
02:21:58.959 --> 02:22:03.440
I should have been less at my
ease. It was this confidence which prevented

1880
02:22:03.440 --> 02:22:07.719
me doing the obvious safe thing,
ringing up mc gillivray, telling him the

1881
02:22:07.799 --> 02:22:11.799
gist of my story, and getting
him to put me under police protection.

1882
02:22:11.520 --> 02:22:16.479
I thought I was clever enough to
see the thing through myself, and it

1883
02:22:16.559 --> 02:22:20.920
must have been the same overconfidence which
prevented Lonely getting at me that night.

1884
02:22:20.600 --> 02:22:26.280
An organization like his could easily have
got into the flat and done for us

1885
02:22:26.360 --> 02:22:30.799
both. I suppose the explanation is
that he did not yet know how much

1886
02:22:30.840 --> 02:22:33.120
I knew, and it was not
yet ready to take the last steps in

1887
02:22:33.280 --> 02:22:39.559
silencing me. I sat up till
the small hours, marshaling my evidence in

1888
02:22:39.600 --> 02:22:43.760
a formal statement and making two copies
of it. One was destined for mc

1889
02:22:43.840 --> 02:22:48.319
gillivray and the other for Felix.
For I was taking no risks. I

1890
02:22:48.399 --> 02:22:52.920
went to bed and slept peacefully,
and was awakened as usual by waters.

1891
02:22:54.600 --> 02:22:58.200
My man slept out and used to
turn up in the morning about seven.

1892
02:22:58.760 --> 02:23:01.760
It was all so normal and homely
that I could have believed my adventures of

1893
02:23:01.799 --> 02:23:07.479
the night before a dream. In
the summer sunlight, the ways of darkness

1894
02:23:07.479 --> 02:23:11.079
seemed very distant. I dressed in
excellent spirits and made a hearty breakfast.

1895
02:23:11.600 --> 02:23:16.239
Then I gave the docile Chapman his
instructions. He must take the document to

1896
02:23:16.280 --> 02:23:20.319
Scotland Yard, asked to see mc
gillivray and put it into his hands.

1897
02:23:20.760 --> 02:23:24.959
Then he must ring me up at
once at down Street and tell me that

1898
02:23:24.040 --> 02:23:28.840
he had done this. I had
already telephoned to my clerk that I would

1899
02:23:28.879 --> 02:23:31.719
not be at the temple that day. It seems a simple thing to travel

1900
02:23:31.840 --> 02:23:37.200
less than a mile in the most
frequented part of London in broad daylight and

1901
02:23:37.319 --> 02:23:41.040
perform an easy act like carrying a
letter. But I knew that Lumley's spies

1902
02:23:41.040 --> 02:23:46.559
would be active and would connect Chapman
sufficiently with me to think him worth following.

1903
02:23:48.120 --> 02:23:50.799
In that case there might be an
attempt at violence. I thought it

1904
02:23:50.920 --> 02:23:54.200
my duty to tell him this,
but he laughed me to scorn. He

1905
02:23:54.319 --> 02:23:58.600
proposed to walk, and he begged
to be shown the man who would meddle

1906
02:23:58.639 --> 02:24:03.079
with him after last night was prepared
to take on all comers. He put

1907
02:24:03.120 --> 02:24:07.799
my letter to mc gillivray in his
inner pocket, buttoned his coat, crushed

1908
02:24:07.799 --> 02:24:13.239
down his felt hat on his head, and defiantly set forth. I expected

1909
02:24:13.280 --> 02:24:16.879
a message from him in half an
hour, for he was a rapid walker.

1910
02:24:18.360 --> 02:24:22.000
But the half hour passed, then
the three quarters, and nothing happened.

1911
02:24:22.559 --> 02:24:24.879
At eleven I rang up Scotland Yard, but they had no news of

1912
02:24:26.000 --> 02:24:31.120
him. Then I became miserably anxious, for it was clear that some disaster

1913
02:24:31.239 --> 02:24:35.200
had overtaken my messenger. My first
impulse was to set out myself to look

1914
02:24:35.239 --> 02:24:39.799
for him, but a moment's reflection
convinced me that that would be playing into

1915
02:24:39.840 --> 02:24:45.559
the enemy's hands. For an hour
I wrestled with my impatience, and then

1916
02:24:45.600 --> 02:24:50.600
a few minutes after twelve I was
rung up by Saint Thomas's Hospital. A

1917
02:24:50.600 --> 02:24:54.760
young doctor spoke and said that mister
Chapman had asked him to tell me what

1918
02:24:54.840 --> 02:24:58.479
had happened. He had been run
down by a motor car at the corner

1919
02:24:58.479 --> 02:25:03.520
of Whitehall. Nothing seriou only a
bad shake and some scalp wounds. In

1920
02:25:03.559 --> 02:25:05.959
a day or so he would be
able to leave. Then he added,

1921
02:25:05.959 --> 02:25:11.319
what drove the blood from my heart. Mister Chapman personally wished me to tell

1922
02:25:11.360 --> 02:25:15.799
you. He said that the letter
has gone. I stammered some reply,

1923
02:25:15.920 --> 02:25:20.079
asking his meaning. He said,
he thinks I was told that while he

1924
02:25:20.159 --> 02:25:24.079
was being assisted to his feet,
his pocket was picked and a letter taken.

1925
02:25:24.520 --> 02:25:28.000
He said, you would know what
he meant. I knew only too

1926
02:25:28.040 --> 02:25:31.760
well what he meant. Lumly had
got my statement and realized precisely how much

1927
02:25:31.760 --> 02:25:35.639
I knew and what was the weight
of evidence against him. Before he had

1928
02:25:35.639 --> 02:25:39.280
only suspected. Now he knew.
He must know too that there would be

1929
02:25:39.319 --> 02:25:43.840
a copy somewhere which I would try
to deliver. It was going to be

1930
02:25:43.920 --> 02:25:46.719
harder than I had fancied to get
my news to the proper ears, and

1931
02:25:46.840 --> 02:25:50.840
I had to anticipate the extreme of
violence on the part of my opponents.

1932
02:25:52.520 --> 02:25:56.920
The thought of the peril restored my
coolness. I had locked the outer door

1933
02:25:56.000 --> 02:26:01.600
of my flat and telephoned to the
garage where I kept my car, bidding

1934
02:26:01.680 --> 02:26:05.000
Stag call for me at two o'clock
precisely. Then I lit a pipe and

1935
02:26:05.079 --> 02:26:09.200
strove to banish the whole business from
my thoughts, for fussing would do me

1936
02:26:09.280 --> 02:26:13.399
no good. Presently it occurred to
me to ring up Felix and give him

1937
02:26:13.479 --> 02:26:18.840
some notion of the position. But
I found that my telephone was now broken

1938
02:26:18.879 --> 02:26:22.440
and connection was impossible. The spoken
as well as the written word, was

1939
02:26:22.479 --> 02:26:26.520
to be denied me. That had
happened in the last half hour, and

1940
02:26:26.639 --> 02:26:31.040
I didn't believe it was by accident. Also, my man Waters, whom

1941
02:26:31.040 --> 02:26:35.159
I had sent out on an errand
after breakfast, had never returned. The

1942
02:26:35.239 --> 02:26:39.879
state of siege had begun. It
was a blazing hot midsummer day. The

1943
02:26:39.959 --> 02:26:45.760
water carts were sprinkling Piccadilly, and
looking from my window I could see leisurely

1944
02:26:45.920 --> 02:26:50.239
an elegant gentleman taking their morning stroll. A florist cart full of roses stood

1945
02:26:50.280 --> 02:26:54.719
below me in the street. The
summer smell of town, a mixture of

1946
02:26:54.840 --> 02:27:00.479
tar flowers, dust and patuli,
rose in gusts through the hot air.

1947
02:27:01.200 --> 02:27:05.000
It was the homely London I knew
so well, and I was somehow in

1948
02:27:05.120 --> 02:27:09.879
exile from it. I was being
shepherded into a dismal isolation which unless I

1949
02:27:09.959 --> 02:27:13.959
one help, might mean death.
I was cool enough now, but I

1950
02:27:13.959 --> 02:27:18.799
will not deny that I was miserably
anxious. I cursed my false confidence the

1951
02:27:18.920 --> 02:27:22.840
night before. By now I might
have had mc gillivray and his men by

1952
02:27:22.879 --> 02:27:26.399
my side. As it was,
I wondered if I should ever see them.

1953
02:27:28.159 --> 02:27:31.319
I changed into a flannel suit,
lunched off sandwiches and a whiskey and

1954
02:27:31.399 --> 02:27:35.920
soda, and at two o'clock looked
for Stag in my car. He was

1955
02:27:35.959 --> 02:27:39.760
five minutes late, a thing which
had never happened before. But I never

1956
02:27:39.840 --> 02:27:45.479
welcomed anything so gladly as the sight
of that car. I had hardly dared

1957
02:27:45.520 --> 02:27:48.520
to hope that it would reach me. My goal was the Embassy in Belgrave's

1958
02:27:48.520 --> 02:27:52.559
Square, but I was convinced that
if I approached it directly, I should

1959
02:27:52.559 --> 02:27:56.559
share the fate of Chapman. Worse
for from me, they would not merely

1960
02:27:56.600 --> 02:28:01.159
snatch the letter. What I had
once written, I could write again,

1961
02:28:01.520 --> 02:28:05.479
and if they wished to ensure my
silence, it must be by more drastic

1962
02:28:05.559 --> 02:28:11.000
methods. I proposed to baffle my
pursuers by taking a wide circuit round the

1963
02:28:11.040 --> 02:28:15.239
western suburbs of London, returning to
the embassy. When I thought the coast

1964
02:28:15.360 --> 02:28:18.719
clear, it was a tremendous relief
to go down the stairs and emerge into

1965
02:28:18.760 --> 02:28:24.920
the hot daylight. I gave Stag
his instructions and lay back in the closed

1966
02:28:24.959 --> 02:28:28.920
car with a curious, fluttering sense
of anticipation. I had begun the last

1967
02:28:30.040 --> 02:28:33.639
round in the wild game. There
was a man at the corner of Down

1968
02:28:33.719 --> 02:28:37.799
Street who seemed to peer curiously at
the car. He was doubtless one of

1969
02:28:37.799 --> 02:28:43.000
my watchers. We went up Park
Lane into the Edgeware Road, my instructions

1970
02:28:43.000 --> 02:28:46.319
to Stag being to make a circuit
by Harrow and Brentford. Now that I

1971
02:28:46.360 --> 02:28:50.200
was ensconced in my car, I
felt a trifle safer, and my tense

1972
02:28:50.280 --> 02:28:56.559
nerves relaxed. I grew drowsy and
allowed myself to sink into a half doze.

1973
02:28:56.879 --> 02:29:00.879
The stolid back of Stag filled my
gaze as it had filled it a

1974
02:29:00.920 --> 02:29:05.440
fortnight ago on the Western Road,
and I admired lazily the brick red of

1975
02:29:05.479 --> 02:29:07.680
his neck. He had been in
the guards, and a bow or bullet

1976
02:29:07.719 --> 02:29:11.399
at Mata River had left a long
scar at the nape of his neck,

1977
02:29:11.760 --> 02:29:16.799
which gave to his hair the appearance
of being badly cut. He had told

1978
02:29:16.799 --> 02:29:20.760
me the story on Xmore. Suddenly
I rubbed my eyes. There was no

1979
02:29:20.840 --> 02:29:26.399
scar there. The hair of the
chauffeur grew regularly down to his coat collar.

1980
02:29:26.959 --> 02:29:31.319
The resemblance had been perfect. The
voice was Staggs, but clearly it

1981
02:29:31.399 --> 02:29:35.799
was not stagg who now drove my
car. I pulled the blind down over

1982
02:29:35.840 --> 02:29:39.920
the front window, as if to
shelter myself from the sun. Looking out,

1983
02:29:39.959 --> 02:29:43.559
I saw that we were some distance
up the Edgeware Road, nearing the

1984
02:29:43.639 --> 02:29:48.200
point where the Marlabon Road joins it. Now or never was my chance,

1985
02:29:48.639 --> 02:29:52.559
for at the corner there is always
a block in the traffic. The car

1986
02:29:52.639 --> 02:29:56.719
slowed down in obedience to a policeman's
uplifted hand, and very gently I opened

1987
02:29:56.719 --> 02:30:01.440
the door on the left side.
Since the car was new, it opened

1988
02:30:01.479 --> 02:30:05.559
softly, and in two seconds I
had stepped out, shuttered again, and

1989
02:30:05.680 --> 02:30:09.360
made a dive between a butcher's car
and a motor bus for the sidewalk.

1990
02:30:09.840 --> 02:30:13.879
I gave one glance back and saw
the unconscious chauffeur still rigid at the wheel.

1991
02:30:15.639 --> 02:30:18.920
I dodged unobtrusively through the crowd on
the pavement with my hand on my

1992
02:30:20.000 --> 02:30:22.840
breast pocket to see that my paper
was still there. There was a little

1993
02:30:22.879 --> 02:30:28.079
picture shop nearby to which I used
to go occasionally, owned by a man

1994
02:30:28.159 --> 02:30:31.319
who was an adept at cleaning and
restoring. I had sent him customers,

1995
02:30:31.319 --> 02:30:35.360
and he was likely to prove a
friend. So I dived into his doorway,

1996
02:30:35.399 --> 02:30:39.079
which made a cool pit of shade
after the glaring street, and found

1997
02:30:39.159 --> 02:30:46.600
him spectacles on nose, busy examining
some dusty prints. He greeted me cordially

1998
02:30:46.639 --> 02:30:50.159
and followed me into the back shop. Mister Levison, I said, have

1999
02:30:50.239 --> 02:30:54.159
you a back door? He looked
at me in some surprise. Why,

2000
02:30:54.239 --> 02:30:58.159
yes, there is the door into
the lane which runs from Edgeley Street into

2001
02:30:58.239 --> 02:31:01.680
Connaught Mews. Will you let me
use it? There is a friend outside

2002
02:31:01.719 --> 02:31:05.879
whom I wished to avoid. Such
things happen, you know, he smiled

2003
02:31:05.920 --> 02:31:11.040
comprehendingly. Certainly, sir, come
this way, and he led me through

2004
02:31:11.040 --> 02:31:16.159
a dark passage hung with dingy old
masters to a little yard filled with a

2005
02:31:16.200 --> 02:31:20.079
debris of picture frames. There he
unlocked a door in the wall, and

2006
02:31:20.159 --> 02:31:24.079
I found myself in a narrow alley. As I emerged, I heard the

2007
02:31:24.120 --> 02:31:28.079
bell of the shop door ring.
If any one inquires you have not seen

2008
02:31:28.120 --> 02:31:31.120
me here, remember, I said, and mister Levison nodded. He was

2009
02:31:31.159 --> 02:31:35.319
an artist in his small way,
and like the scent of a mystery,

2010
02:31:35.040 --> 02:31:39.440
I ran down the lane and by
various cross streets made my way into Bayswater.

2011
02:31:41.079 --> 02:31:43.280
I believed that I had thrown my
trackers for the moment off the scent,

2012
02:31:43.479 --> 02:31:46.319
but I had got to get to
the embassy, and that neighborhood was

2013
02:31:46.360 --> 02:31:50.719
sure to be closely watched. I
came out on the Bayswater Road pretty far

2014
02:31:50.840 --> 02:31:56.079
west and resolved to strike southeast across
the park. My reason was that the

2015
02:31:56.120 --> 02:32:01.000
neighborhood of Hyde Park Corner was at
that time him of day, certain to

2016
02:32:01.000 --> 02:32:05.159
be pretty well crowded, and I
felt more security in a throng than in

2017
02:32:05.200 --> 02:32:09.000
the empty streets of Kensington. Now
that I come to think of it,

2018
02:32:09.000 --> 02:32:11.799
it was a rash thing to do, for since Lumly knew the full extent

2019
02:32:11.840 --> 02:32:16.840
of my knowledge, he was likely
to deal more violently with me than with

2020
02:32:16.000 --> 02:32:20.959
Chapman, and the seclusion of the
park offered him too good a chance.

2021
02:32:20.600 --> 02:32:26.680
I crossed the riding track and struck
over the open space where the Sunday demonstrations

2022
02:32:26.680 --> 02:32:31.920
are held. There was nothing there
but nurses and perambulators, children at play

2023
02:32:31.000 --> 02:32:35.600
and dogs being exercised. Presently,
I reached Grosvenor Gate, where on the

2024
02:32:35.680 --> 02:32:41.680
little green chairs well dressed people were
taking the air. I recognized several acquaintances

2025
02:32:41.680 --> 02:32:46.040
and stopped for a moment to talk
to one of them. Then I emerged

2026
02:32:46.079 --> 02:32:50.399
in Park Lane and walked down at
to Hamilton Place. So far I thought

2027
02:32:50.399 --> 02:32:54.479
I had not been followed, but
now once more I had the indefinable but

2028
02:32:54.639 --> 02:32:58.520
unerring sensation of being watched. I
caught a man looking eagerly at me from

2029
02:32:58.520 --> 02:33:01.520
the other out of the street,
and it seemed to me that he made

2030
02:33:01.559 --> 02:33:05.360
a sign to someone farther off.
It was now less than a quarter of

2031
02:33:05.360 --> 02:33:09.120
a mile between me and Belgrave Square, but I saw that it would be

2032
02:33:09.159 --> 02:33:13.399
a hard course to cover. Once
in Piccadilly, there could be no doubt

2033
02:33:13.440 --> 02:33:18.520
about my watchers. Lumley was doing
the thing in style. This time.

2034
02:33:18.040 --> 02:33:22.840
Last night it had only been a
trial trip, but now the whole energies

2035
02:33:22.879 --> 02:33:26.120
of the powerhouse were on the job. The place was filled with the usual

2036
02:33:26.200 --> 02:33:31.159
mid season crowd, and I had
to take off my hat several times.

2037
02:33:31.840 --> 02:33:35.680
Up in the bow window of the
Bachelor's club, A young friend of mine

2038
02:33:35.760 --> 02:33:39.200
was writing a letter and sipping a
long drink with an air of profound boredom.

2039
02:33:39.840 --> 02:33:43.000
I would have given much for his
en wei from My life at the

2040
02:33:43.079 --> 02:33:48.000
moment was painfully exciting. I was
alone in that great crowd, isolated and

2041
02:33:48.040 --> 02:33:52.360
proscribed, and there was no help
save in my own wits. If I

2042
02:33:52.399 --> 02:33:56.000
spoke to a policeman, he would
think me drunk or mad. And yet

2043
02:33:56.040 --> 02:34:00.520
I was on the edge of being
made the victim of a far subtler crime

2044
02:34:00.840 --> 02:34:05.159
than fell within the purview of the
Metropolitan Force. Now I saw how thin

2045
02:34:05.319 --> 02:34:11.799
is the protection of civilization. An
accident and a bogus ambulance, a false

2046
02:34:11.920 --> 02:34:16.360
charge and a bogus arrest. There
were a dozen ways of spiriting me out

2047
02:34:16.360 --> 02:34:20.280
of this gay, bustling world.
I foresaw that if I delayed, my

2048
02:34:20.360 --> 02:34:24.159
nerve would break. So I boldly
set off across the road. I jolly

2049
02:34:24.200 --> 02:34:28.319
nearly shared the fate of Chapman.
A car which seemed about to draw up

2050
02:34:28.360 --> 02:34:33.479
at a club door, suddenly swerved
across the street, and I had to

2051
02:34:33.559 --> 02:34:37.680
dash to an island to escape it. It was no occasion to hesitate,

2052
02:34:37.760 --> 02:34:41.680
so dodging a bus and missing a
motor bicycle. By a hare's breath,

2053
02:34:41.000 --> 02:34:46.000
I rushed across the remaining distance and
reached the railings of the green Park.

2054
02:34:46.760 --> 02:34:50.360
Here there were fewer people, and
several queer things began to happen. A

2055
02:34:50.440 --> 02:34:54.399
little group of workmen with their tools
were standing by the curb, and they

2056
02:34:54.479 --> 02:35:00.680
suddenly moved towards me. A pavement
artist who looked like a cripple, scrambled

2057
02:35:00.719 --> 02:35:03.719
to his feet and moved in the
same direction. There was a policeman at

2058
02:35:03.719 --> 02:35:07.680
the corner, and I saw a
well dressed man go up to him,

2059
02:35:07.040 --> 02:35:11.239
say something and nod in my direction, and the policeman, too began to

2060
02:35:11.280 --> 02:35:16.520
move towards me. I did not
await them. I took to my heels

2061
02:35:16.520 --> 02:35:20.120
and ran from my life down Grosvenor
Place. Long ago, at Eton I

2062
02:35:20.200 --> 02:35:24.000
had won the school mile, and
at Oxford I was a second string for

2063
02:35:24.040 --> 02:35:28.840
the quarter. But never at Eton
or at Oxford did I run As I

2064
02:35:28.920 --> 02:35:33.200
ran then it was blisteringly hot,
but I did not feel it, for

2065
02:35:33.319 --> 02:35:37.399
my hands were clammy and my heart
felt like a cold stone. I do

2066
02:35:37.520 --> 02:35:39.680
not know how the pursuit got on, for I did not think about it.

2067
02:35:41.079 --> 02:35:45.040
I did not reflect what kind of
spectacle I must afford running like a

2068
02:35:45.120 --> 02:35:48.559
thief in a London thoroughfare on a
June afternoon. I only knew that my

2069
02:35:48.719 --> 02:35:52.680
enemies were around and behind me,
and that in front, a few hundred

2070
02:35:52.760 --> 02:35:56.760
yards away lay safety. But even
as I ran, I had the sense

2071
02:35:56.799 --> 02:36:01.799
to think out my movements and to
realized that the front door of the Embassy

2072
02:36:01.879 --> 02:36:05.479
was impossible. For one thing,
it would be watched, and for another,

2073
02:36:05.799 --> 02:36:09.399
before the solemn footman opened it,
my pursuers would be upon me.

2074
02:36:09.959 --> 02:36:13.280
My only hope was the back door. I twisted into the mews behind the

2075
02:36:13.319 --> 02:36:16.799
north side of the square, and
as I turned, I saw two men

2076
02:36:16.959 --> 02:36:20.360
run up from the square as if
to cut me off. A whistle was

2077
02:36:20.399 --> 02:36:24.280
blown and more men appeared, one
entering from the far end of the mews,

2078
02:36:24.440 --> 02:36:28.440
one darting from a public house door, and one sliding down a ladder

2079
02:36:28.479 --> 02:36:33.479
from a stable loft. This last
was nearest me and tried to trip me,

2080
02:36:33.840 --> 02:36:37.000
but I rejoiced to say that a
left hand or on the chin sent

2081
02:36:37.079 --> 02:36:41.600
him sprawling on the cobbles. I
remembered that the Embassy was the fifth house

2082
02:36:41.680 --> 02:36:45.600
from the end, and feverishly I
tried to count the houses by their backs.

2083
02:36:46.159 --> 02:36:50.440
It is not so easy as it
sounds. For the modern London householder

2084
02:36:50.760 --> 02:36:56.360
studs his back premises with excrescences which
seemed to melt into his neighbors. In

2085
02:36:56.440 --> 02:36:58.680
the end, I had to make
a guess at the door, which,

2086
02:36:58.680 --> 02:37:01.440
to my joy, was unlocked.
I rushed in and banged it behind me.

2087
02:37:03.000 --> 02:37:07.479
I found myself in a stone passage
with on one side a door opening

2088
02:37:07.479 --> 02:37:11.680
on a garage. There was a
wooden staircase leading to an upper floor,

2089
02:37:11.040 --> 02:37:15.680
and a glass door in front,
which opened into a large, disused room

2090
02:37:15.799 --> 02:37:20.000
full of boxes. Beyond were two
doors, one of which was locked.

2091
02:37:20.360 --> 02:37:24.000
The other abutted on a steep iron
stairway, which obviously led to the lower

2092
02:37:24.000 --> 02:37:28.840
regions of the house. I ran
down the stair it was no more than

2093
02:37:28.879 --> 02:37:33.440
a ladder, crossed a small courtyard, traversed a passage, and burst into

2094
02:37:33.440 --> 02:37:37.959
the kitchen, where I confronted an
astonished, white capped chef in the act

2095
02:37:37.000 --> 02:37:41.040
of lifting a pot from the fire. His face was red and wrathful,

2096
02:37:41.360 --> 02:37:45.079
and I thought that he was going
to fling the pot at my head.

2097
02:37:45.760 --> 02:37:50.799
I had disturbed him in some delicate
operation, and his artist's pride was outraged.

2098
02:37:50.399 --> 02:37:54.159
Monsieur I stammered in French. I
seek your pardon for my intrusion.

2099
02:37:54.600 --> 02:37:58.600
There were circumstances which compelled me to
enter this house by the back premises.

2100
02:38:00.079 --> 02:38:03.799
I am an acquaintance of his Excellency, your patron in an old friend of

2101
02:38:03.840 --> 02:38:07.639
Monsieur Felix. I beg you,
of your kindness to direct me to Monsieur

2102
02:38:07.639 --> 02:38:11.719
Felix's room, or to bid some
one take me there. My abject apologies

2103
02:38:11.719 --> 02:38:16.360
mollified him. It is a grave
offense, Monsieur, he said, in

2104
02:38:16.520 --> 02:38:20.600
unparalleled offense, to enter my kitchen
at this hour. I fear you have

2105
02:38:20.719 --> 02:38:26.559
irremediably spoiled the new casserole dish that
I was endeavoring to compose. I was

2106
02:38:26.600 --> 02:38:30.799
ready to go on my knees to
the offended artist. It grieves me,

2107
02:38:30.840 --> 02:38:33.920
indeed, to have interfered with so
rare an art which I have often admired

2108
02:38:33.920 --> 02:38:39.559
at his Excellency's table. That there
is danger behind me in an urgent mission

2109
02:38:39.600 --> 02:38:45.479
in front, Monsieur will forgive me. Necessity will sometimes overrule the finest sensibility.

2110
02:38:46.079 --> 02:38:48.520
He bowed to me, and I
bowed to him, and my pardon

2111
02:38:48.600 --> 02:38:52.959
was assured. Suddenly a door opened, another than that by which I had

2112
02:38:52.159 --> 02:38:56.040
entered, and a man appeared,
whom I took to be a footman.

2113
02:38:56.520 --> 02:38:58.520
He was struggling into his livery coat, but at the sight of me he

2114
02:38:58.600 --> 02:39:03.680
dropped. I thought I recognized the
face as that of the man who had

2115
02:39:03.680 --> 02:39:07.079
emerged from the public house and tried
to cut me off. Here, mister

2116
02:39:07.159 --> 02:39:11.719
Alphonse, he cried, help me
to collar this man. The police are

2117
02:39:11.760 --> 02:39:16.120
after him. You forget my friend. I said that an embassy is privileged

2118
02:39:16.159 --> 02:39:20.760
ground which the police can't enter.
I desire to be taken before his excellency.

2119
02:39:20.440 --> 02:39:24.360
So that's your game, he shouted. But two can play at that.

2120
02:39:24.719 --> 02:39:26.399
Here, give me a hand,
Mussou, and we'll have him in

2121
02:39:26.440 --> 02:39:30.920
the street in a jiffy. There's
two hundred of the best in our pockets

2122
02:39:30.920 --> 02:39:35.000
if we hands them over to them
as wants them. The cook looked puzzled

2123
02:39:35.000 --> 02:39:37.680
and a little frightened. Will you
will allow them to outrage your kitchen?

2124
02:39:37.760 --> 02:39:43.479
An embassy kitchen too without your consent? What have you done, he asked

2125
02:39:43.520 --> 02:39:46.959
in French, Only what your patron
would approve. I replied in the same

2126
02:39:48.000 --> 02:39:52.280
tongue. The assassins have a grudge
against me. He still hesitated, while

2127
02:39:52.280 --> 02:39:56.959
the young footman advanced on me.
He was fingering something in his trousers pocket,

2128
02:39:56.959 --> 02:40:01.600
which I did not like. Now
was the time when, as they

2129
02:40:01.600 --> 02:40:05.600
say in America, I should have
got busy with my gun, but alas

2130
02:40:05.639 --> 02:40:09.680
I had no gun, I feared
supports for the enemy. For the footman

2131
02:40:09.719 --> 02:40:11.479
at the first sight of me,
had run back the way he had come,

2132
02:40:11.920 --> 02:40:15.920
and I had heard a low whistle. What might have happened I do

2133
02:40:16.040 --> 02:40:18.799
not know. Had not the God
appeared from the machine in the person of

2134
02:40:18.879 --> 02:40:22.200
Hwans, the butler. Hwans,
I said, you know me, I

2135
02:40:22.239 --> 02:40:24.920
have often dined here, and you
know that I am a friend of Monsieur

2136
02:40:24.959 --> 02:40:28.360
Felix. I am on my way
to see him on an urgent matter,

2137
02:40:28.760 --> 02:40:33.159
and for various reasons, I had
to enter by Monsieur Alfonse's kitchen. Will

2138
02:40:33.239 --> 02:40:37.280
you take me at once to Monsieur
Felix. Hwans bowed, and on his

2139
02:40:37.360 --> 02:40:41.879
imperturbable face there appeared no sign of
surprise. This way, sir, was

2140
02:40:41.959 --> 02:40:46.239
all he said. As I followed
him, I saw the footman plucking nervously

2141
02:40:46.280 --> 02:40:52.120
at the something in his trousers pocket. Lumley's agents apparently had not always the

2142
02:40:52.159 --> 02:40:56.440
courage to follow his instructions to the
letter, for I made no doubt that

2143
02:40:56.520 --> 02:41:01.120
the order had been to take me
alive or dead. Don Felix alone and

2144
02:41:01.159 --> 02:41:05.399
flung myself into an armchair. My
dear Chap, I said, take my

2145
02:41:05.479 --> 02:41:09.799
advice and advise his excellency to sack
the red haired footman. From that moment

2146
02:41:09.840 --> 02:41:16.000
I date that sense of mastery over
a situation which drives out fear. I

2147
02:41:16.040 --> 02:41:20.239
had been living for weeks under a
dark pole, and suddenly the skies had

2148
02:41:20.319 --> 02:41:24.079
lightened. I had found sanctuary.
Whatever happened to me now, the worst

2149
02:41:24.200 --> 02:41:28.959
was passed, for I had done
my job. Felix was looking at me

2150
02:41:28.079 --> 02:41:33.799
curiously, for jaded, scarlet,
disheveled. I was an odd figure for

2151
02:41:33.840 --> 02:41:37.879
a London afternoon. Things seem to
have been marching fast with you, he

2152
02:41:37.959 --> 02:41:41.079
said, they have, But I
think the march is over. I want

2153
02:41:41.120 --> 02:41:46.440
to ask several favors. First,
here is a document which sets out certain

2154
02:41:46.520 --> 02:41:50.040
facts. I shall ring up mc
gillivray at Scotland Yard and ask him to

2155
02:41:50.040 --> 02:41:54.600
come here at nine thirty this evening. When he comes, I want you

2156
02:41:54.639 --> 02:41:56.840
to give him this and ask him
to read it at once. He will

2157
02:41:56.879 --> 02:42:01.520
know how to act on it.
Elix nodded, and the next give me

2158
02:42:01.559 --> 02:42:05.559
a telegraph form. I want a
wire sent at once by someone who can

2159
02:42:05.600 --> 02:42:09.920
be trusted. He handed me a
form, and I wrote out a telegram

2160
02:42:09.959 --> 02:42:13.840
to Lumley at the Albany, saying
that I proposed to call upon him that

2161
02:42:15.000 --> 02:42:20.280
evening at eight sharp in asking him
to receive me. Next said Felix.

2162
02:42:20.719 --> 02:42:24.120
Next and last, I want a
room with a door which will lock,

2163
02:42:24.520 --> 02:42:28.440
a hot bath, and something to
eat. About seven, I might be

2164
02:42:28.520 --> 02:42:33.079
permitted to taste Monsieur Alphonse's new casserole
dish. I rang up mc gillivray,

2165
02:42:33.239 --> 02:42:37.000
reminded him of his promise, and
told him what awaited him at nine to

2166
02:42:37.120 --> 02:42:41.680
thirty. Then I had a wash, and afterwards that my leisure gave Felix

2167
02:42:41.719 --> 02:42:46.920
a sketch of the day's doings.
I have never felt more completely at my

2168
02:42:46.040 --> 02:42:50.280
ease. For whatever happened. I
was certain that I had spoiled Glumly's game.

2169
02:42:52.000 --> 02:42:54.120
He would know by now that I
had reached the embassy, and that

2170
02:42:54.200 --> 02:43:00.239
any further attempts on my life and
liberty were feudile. My telegram would show

2171
02:43:00.280 --> 02:43:03.239
him that I was prepared to offer
terms, and I would certainly be permitted

2172
02:43:03.280 --> 02:43:09.399
to reach the Albany unmolested to the
meeting with my adversary. I looked forward

2173
02:43:09.440 --> 02:43:13.319
without qualms, but with the most
lively interest. I had my own theories

2174
02:43:13.319 --> 02:43:18.120
about that distinguished criminal, and I
hoped to bring them to the proof.

2175
02:43:18.879 --> 02:43:22.079
Just before seven I had a reply
to my wire. Mister Lumley said he

2176
02:43:22.079 --> 02:43:26.959
would be delighted to see me.
The telegram was directed to me at the

2177
02:43:26.000 --> 02:43:31.000
embassy, though I had put no
address on the one I sent. Lumly,

2178
02:43:31.079 --> 02:43:33.840
of course, knew all my movements. I could picture him sitting in

2179
02:43:33.959 --> 02:43:39.840
his chair like some chief of staff, receiving every few minutes the reports of

2180
02:43:39.879 --> 02:43:46.600
his agents. All the same Napoleon
had fought his waterloo. End of chapter

2181
02:43:46.680 --> 02:43:58.879
seven. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter eight of The Powerhouse

2182
02:43:58.040 --> 02:44:03.159
by John Buck. This Librivot's recording
is in the public domain. Recording by

2183
02:44:03.239 --> 02:44:11.399
Expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Chapter
eight, The power House. I left

2184
02:44:11.479 --> 02:44:16.159
Belgrave Square about a quarter to eight
and retraced my steps along the route,

2185
02:44:16.440 --> 02:44:20.879
which for me that afternoon had been
so full of tremors. I was still

2186
02:44:20.920 --> 02:44:24.360
being watched a little observation told me
that, but I would not be interfered

2187
02:44:24.360 --> 02:44:30.840
with provided my way lay in a
certain direction. So completely without nervousness was

2188
02:44:30.920 --> 02:44:35.000
I that at the top of Constitution
Hill I struck into the green park and

2189
02:44:35.120 --> 02:44:41.399
kept to the grass till I emerged
into Piccadilly, opposite Devonshire House. A

2190
02:44:41.520 --> 02:44:46.319
light wind had risen and the evening
had grown pleasantly cool. I met several

2191
02:44:46.319 --> 02:44:50.680
men I knew going out to dinner
on foot, and stopped to exchange greetings

2192
02:44:50.200 --> 02:44:54.079
from my clothes. They thought I
had just returned from a day in the

2193
02:44:54.159 --> 02:44:58.200
country. I had reached the Albany
as the clock was striking eight. Lumley's

2194
02:44:58.280 --> 02:45:03.600
rooms were on the first floor,
and I was evidently expected for The porter

2195
02:45:03.719 --> 02:45:07.040
himself conducted me to them and waited
by me till the door was opened by

2196
02:45:07.040 --> 02:45:13.559
a manservant. You know those Rococo, Late George and Albany rooms, large

2197
02:45:13.600 --> 02:45:18.840
square, clumsily corniced. Lumley's was
lined with books, which I saw at

2198
02:45:18.840 --> 02:45:22.920
a glance were of a different type
from those in his working library at his

2199
02:45:22.000 --> 02:45:26.799
country house. This was the collection
of a bibliophile, and in the light

2200
02:45:26.840 --> 02:45:31.959
of the summer evening, the rows
of tall volumes in vellum and Morocco lined

2201
02:45:33.000 --> 02:45:37.000
the walls like some rich tapestry.
The valet retired and shut the door,

2202
02:45:37.399 --> 02:45:43.000
and presently, from a little inner
chamber came his master. He was dressed

2203
02:45:43.040 --> 02:45:46.719
for dinner and wore more than ever
the air of the eminent diplomat. Again

2204
02:45:46.760 --> 02:45:52.159
I had the old feeling of incredulity. It was the lumly I had met

2205
02:45:52.200 --> 02:45:56.520
two nights before at dinner, the
friend of viceroys and cabinet ministers. It

2206
02:45:56.559 --> 02:46:01.680
was hard to connect him with Antioch
Street or the red haired footman with a

2207
02:46:01.719 --> 02:46:05.280
pistol, or with Tuke. Yes, I decided, Tuke fitted into the

2208
02:46:05.319 --> 02:46:09.959
frame. Both were brains cut loose
from the decencies that make life possible.

2209
02:46:11.680 --> 02:46:15.399
Good evening, mister Lython, he
said, pleasantly, as you have fixed

2210
02:46:15.399 --> 02:46:18.840
the hour of eight, may I
offer you dinner? Thank you, I

2211
02:46:18.879 --> 02:46:22.079
replied, but I have already dined. I have chosen an awkward time,

2212
02:46:22.120 --> 02:46:26.559
but my business need not take long, So he said, I am always

2213
02:46:26.559 --> 02:46:31.520
glad to see you at any hour, and I prefer to see the Master

2214
02:46:31.719 --> 02:46:35.000
rather than the subordinates who have been
infesting my life during the past week.

2215
02:46:35.680 --> 02:46:39.600
We both laughed. I am afraid
you have had some annoyance, mister lythan,

2216
02:46:39.680 --> 02:46:45.000
he said. But remember I gave
you fair warning, true, and

2217
02:46:45.079 --> 02:46:48.559
I have come to do the same
kindness to you. That part of the

2218
02:46:48.639 --> 02:46:52.360
game, at any rate is over. Over, he queried, raising his

2219
02:46:52.440 --> 02:46:56.200
eyebrows. Yes, over, I
said, and took out my watch.

2220
02:46:56.719 --> 02:47:01.079
Let us be quite frank with each
other, mister lum. There is really

2221
02:47:01.159 --> 02:47:05.000
very little time to waste. As
you have doubtless read the paper which you

2222
02:47:05.040 --> 02:47:07.680
stole from my friend this morning.
You know more or less the extent of

2223
02:47:07.680 --> 02:47:13.440
my information. Let us have frankness
by all means. Yes, I have

2224
02:47:13.559 --> 02:47:16.120
read your paper, A very creditable
piece of work. If I may say

2225
02:47:16.159 --> 02:47:20.360
so, you will rise in your
profession, mister Lython. But surely you

2226
02:47:20.440 --> 02:47:24.639
must realize that it carries you a
very little way in a sense. You

2227
02:47:24.639 --> 02:47:28.399
are right. I am not in
a position to reveal the full extent of

2228
02:47:28.399 --> 02:47:33.959
your misdeeds, of the power house
and its doings. I can only guess.

2229
02:47:33.479 --> 02:47:37.879
But pitt Heron is on his way
home, and he will be carefully

2230
02:47:37.959 --> 02:47:43.639
safeguarded on that journey. Your creature
Saranov has confessed. We shall know more

2231
02:47:43.840 --> 02:47:48.000
very soon. In meantime, I
have clear evidence which implicates you in a

2232
02:47:48.040 --> 02:47:52.479
conspiracy to murder. He did not
answer, but I wished I could see

2233
02:47:52.520 --> 02:47:56.959
behind his tinted spectacles to the look
in his eyes. I think he had

2234
02:47:56.000 --> 02:48:01.000
not been quite prepared for the line
I took. I need not tell you

2235
02:48:01.040 --> 02:48:03.559
as a lawyer, mister Lython,
He said at last, that what seems

2236
02:48:03.559 --> 02:48:09.840
good evidence on paper is often feeble
enough in court. You cannot suppose that

2237
02:48:09.920 --> 02:48:13.520
I will tamely plead guilty to your
charges. On the contrary, I will

2238
02:48:13.600 --> 02:48:18.799
fight them with all the force that
brains and money can give. You are

2239
02:48:18.840 --> 02:48:22.920
an ingenious young man, but you
are not the brightest jewel of the English

2240
02:48:22.000 --> 02:48:26.959
bar. That also is true.
I do not deny that some of my

2241
02:48:26.079 --> 02:48:31.280
evidence may be weakened at the trial. It is even conceivable that you may

2242
02:48:31.319 --> 02:48:35.000
be acquitted on some technical doubt.
But you have forgotten one thing. From

2243
02:48:35.000 --> 02:48:39.239
the day you leave the court,
you will be a suspected man. The

2244
02:48:39.280 --> 02:48:43.319
police of all Europe will be on
your trail. You have been highly successful

2245
02:48:43.360 --> 02:48:48.000
in the past, and why because
you have been above suspicion, an honorable

2246
02:48:48.079 --> 02:48:52.600
and distinguished gentleman, belonging to the
best clubs, counting as your acquaintances the

2247
02:48:52.639 --> 02:48:56.879
flower of our society. Now you
will be a suspect, a man with

2248
02:48:56.959 --> 02:49:01.479
a past, a center of strange
story. I put it to you,

2249
02:49:01.920 --> 02:49:07.079
how far are you likely to succeed
under these conditions? He laughed. You

2250
02:49:07.159 --> 02:49:09.760
have a talent for character drawing,
my friend. What makes you think that

2251
02:49:09.799 --> 02:49:15.280
I can work only if I live
in the limelight of popularity? The talent

2252
02:49:15.360 --> 02:49:18.639
you mentioned, I said, as
I read your character, and I think

2253
02:49:18.719 --> 02:49:22.319
I am right. You are an
artist in crime. You are not the

2254
02:49:22.360 --> 02:49:26.920
common cutthroat who acts out of passion
or greed. No, I think you

2255
02:49:26.959 --> 02:49:31.799
are something subtler than that. You
love power, hidden power. You flatter

2256
02:49:31.879 --> 02:49:37.840
your vanity by despising mankind and making
them your tools. You scorn the smattering

2257
02:49:37.879 --> 02:49:41.440
of inaccuracies which passes for human knowledge, and I will not venture to say

2258
02:49:41.479 --> 02:49:46.319
you are wrong. Therefore you use
your brains to frustrate it. Unhappily,

2259
02:49:46.360 --> 02:49:50.399
the life of millions is built on
that smattering. So you are a foe

2260
02:49:50.440 --> 02:49:56.639
to society. But there would be
no flavor in controlling subterranean things if you

2261
02:49:56.719 --> 02:50:01.040
were yourself a mole working in the
dark. To get a full flavor the

2262
02:50:01.120 --> 02:50:05.000
irony of it all, you must
live in the light. I can imagine

2263
02:50:05.000 --> 02:50:07.799
you laughing in your soul as you
move about our world, praising it with

2264
02:50:07.879 --> 02:50:11.680
your lips, patting it with your
hands, and kicking its props away with

2265
02:50:11.760 --> 02:50:15.840
your feet. I can see the
charm of it. But it is over.

2266
02:50:15.920 --> 02:50:20.959
Now over, he asked over.
I repeated. The end has come,

2267
02:50:20.399 --> 02:50:24.920
the utter, final and absolute end. He made a sudden, odd,

2268
02:50:26.040 --> 02:50:30.959
nervous movement, pushing his glasses close
back upon his eyes. What about

2269
02:50:31.000 --> 02:50:33.360
yourself, he said, hoarsely.
Do you think you can play against me

2270
02:50:33.479 --> 02:50:39.239
without suffering desperate penalties? He was
holding a cord in his hand with a

2271
02:50:39.319 --> 02:50:41.680
knob on the end of it.
He now touched a button in the knob,

2272
02:50:41.719 --> 02:50:46.799
and there came the faint sound of
a bell. The door was behind

2273
02:50:46.879 --> 02:50:50.600
me, and he was looking beyond
me towards it. I was entirely at

2274
02:50:50.639 --> 02:50:54.440
his mercy, but I never budged
an inch. I do not know how

2275
02:50:54.440 --> 02:50:58.040
I managed to keep calm, but
I did it, and without much effort.

2276
02:50:58.440 --> 02:51:01.639
I went on speaking, conscious that
the door had opened and that someone

2277
02:51:01.719 --> 02:51:05.799
was at my back. It is
really quite useless trying to frighten me.

2278
02:51:07.319 --> 02:51:11.360
I am safe because I am dealing
with an intelligent man and not with the

2279
02:51:11.600 --> 02:51:16.159
ordinary, half witted criminal. You
do not want my life in silly revenge.

2280
02:51:16.559 --> 02:51:20.120
If you call in your men and
strangle me between you, what earthly

2281
02:51:20.159 --> 02:51:24.159
good would it do you? He
was looking beyond me, and the passion,

2282
02:51:24.520 --> 02:51:28.479
a sudden, white hot passion,
like an epilepsy, was dying out

2283
02:51:28.520 --> 02:51:31.200
of his face. A mistake,
James, he said, you can go.

2284
02:51:33.280 --> 02:51:37.799
The door closed softly at my back. Yes, a mistake. I

2285
02:51:37.920 --> 02:51:41.159
have a considerable admiration for you,
mister Lumley, and should be sorry to

2286
02:51:41.200 --> 02:51:46.040
be disappointed, he laughed, quite
like an ordinary mortal. I am glad

2287
02:51:46.079 --> 02:51:50.680
this affair is to be conducted on
a basis of mutual respect. Now that

2288
02:51:50.719 --> 02:51:56.959
the melodramatic overture is finished, let
us get to the business by all means,

2289
02:51:56.959 --> 02:52:00.479
I said, I promised to deal
with you frankly. Will let me

2290
02:52:00.559 --> 02:52:05.559
put my last cards on the table
at half past nine? Precisely the duplicate

2291
02:52:05.559 --> 02:52:09.840
of that statement of mine which you
annex this morning will be hinded to Scotland

2292
02:52:09.920 --> 02:52:13.360
yard. I may add that the
authorities there know me and are proceeding under

2293
02:52:13.399 --> 02:52:16.959
my advice. When they read that
statement, they will act on it.

2294
02:52:18.280 --> 02:52:20.680
You have therefore about one and a
half, or say one in three quarter

2295
02:52:20.760 --> 02:52:24.680
hours to make up your mind.
You can still secure your freedom, but

2296
02:52:24.719 --> 02:52:28.879
it must be elsewhere than in England. He had risen to his feet and

2297
02:52:28.959 --> 02:52:33.399
was pacing up and down the room. Will you oblige me by telling me

2298
02:52:33.479 --> 02:52:35.639
one thing? He said. If
you believe me to be, as you

2299
02:52:35.719 --> 02:52:39.799
say, a dangerous criminal, how
do you reconcile it with your conscience to

2300
02:52:39.799 --> 02:52:43.079
give me a chance of escape?
It is your duty to bring me to

2301
02:52:43.200 --> 02:52:48.559
justice. I will tell you why
I said, I too have a weak

2302
02:52:48.680 --> 02:52:52.479
joint in my armor yours is that
you only succeed under the disguise of high

2303
02:52:52.479 --> 02:52:56.840
respectability. That disguise, in any
case, will be strict from you.

2304
02:52:58.600 --> 02:53:01.920
Mine is pitte Herren. I do
not know how far he has entangled himself

2305
02:53:01.959 --> 02:53:05.799
with you, but I know something
of his weakness, and I don't want

2306
02:53:05.840 --> 02:53:11.280
his career ruined and his wife's heart
broken. He has learned his lesson and

2307
02:53:11.319 --> 02:53:15.360
will never mention you in your schemes
to a mortal soul. Indeed, if

2308
02:53:15.399 --> 02:53:18.440
I can help it, he will
never know that any one shares his secret.

2309
02:53:18.920 --> 02:53:22.920
The price of the chance of escape
I offer you is that pitte Heron's

2310
02:53:22.920 --> 02:53:28.040
past be buried forever. He did
not answer. He had his arms folded,

2311
02:53:28.079 --> 02:53:31.239
walking up and down the room,
and suddenly seemed to have aged enormously.

2312
02:53:31.959 --> 02:53:35.159
I had the impression that I was
dealing with a very old man,

2313
02:53:37.200 --> 02:53:39.559
Mister Lython, He said, at
last, you are bold. You have

2314
02:53:39.639 --> 02:53:45.760
a frankness which almost amounts to genius. You are wasted in your stupid profession,

2315
02:53:46.159 --> 02:53:50.399
but your speculative powers are not equal
to your other endowments, so you

2316
02:53:50.440 --> 02:53:54.520
will probably remain in it, deterred
by an illogical scruple from following your true

2317
02:53:54.559 --> 02:54:00.239
bent, your true mitier, believe
me as what shallow people call crime,

2318
02:54:00.799 --> 02:54:05.239
speaking without prejudice. As the idiot
solicitors say, it would appear that we

2319
02:54:05.319 --> 02:54:09.040
have both weak spots in our cases. Mine, you say, is that

2320
02:54:09.120 --> 02:54:11.959
I can only work by using the
conventions of what we agreed to call the

2321
02:54:13.079 --> 02:54:16.200
machine. There may be truth in
that. Yours is that you have a

2322
02:54:16.200 --> 02:54:22.159
friend who lacks your iron clad discretion. You offer a plan which says both

2323
02:54:22.159 --> 02:54:26.399
our weaknesses. By the way,
what is it? I looked at my

2324
02:54:26.440 --> 02:54:30.559
watch again. You have ample time
to catch the night express to Paris,

2325
02:54:31.120 --> 02:54:33.600
and if not, then I am
afraid there may be trouble with the police.

2326
02:54:33.639 --> 02:54:37.440
Between ten and eleven o'clock, which, for all our sakes would be

2327
02:54:37.479 --> 02:54:43.280
a pity. Do you know you
interest me uncommonly? For you confirm the

2328
02:54:43.360 --> 02:54:48.040
accuracy of my judgment. I have
always had a notion that some day I

2329
02:54:48.079 --> 02:54:50.719
should run across to my sorrow.
Just such a man as you, a

2330
02:54:50.799 --> 02:54:54.840
man of very great intellectual power,
I can deal with. For that kind

2331
02:54:54.879 --> 02:55:00.479
of brain is usually combined with a
sort of high strung imagination on which I

2332
02:55:00.520 --> 02:55:05.639
can work the same with your overimaginative
men. Yes, pitt Heron was of

2333
02:55:05.680 --> 02:55:09.920
that type. Ordinary brains do not
trouble me, for I puzzle them.

2334
02:55:09.319 --> 02:55:15.000
Now you are a man of good
average intelligence. Pray forgive the lukewarmness of

2335
02:55:15.040 --> 02:55:18.639
the phrase. It is really a
high compliment, for I am an austere

2336
02:55:18.680 --> 02:55:22.319
critic. If you were that and
no more, you would not have succeeded.

2337
02:55:22.799 --> 02:55:28.159
But you possess also a quite irrelevant
gift of imagination, not enough to

2338
02:55:28.280 --> 02:55:31.159
upset your balance, but enough to
do what your mere lawyer's talent could never

2339
02:55:31.239 --> 02:55:35.360
have done. You have achieved a
feat which is given to few. You

2340
02:55:35.440 --> 02:55:39.680
have partially understood me. Believe me, I rate you high. You are

2341
02:55:39.719 --> 02:55:45.719
the kind of four square being betted
in the concrete of our civilization, on

2342
02:55:45.840 --> 02:55:48.360
whom I have always felt I might
some day come to grief. No,

2343
02:55:48.360 --> 02:55:52.879
no, I am not trying to
wheedle you. If I thought I could

2344
02:55:52.920 --> 02:55:56.440
do that, I should be sorry
for my desernment would have been at fault.

2345
02:55:56.120 --> 02:56:00.959
I warned you. I said that
you are wasting precious time. He

2346
02:56:01.040 --> 02:56:05.319
laughed, quite cheerfully. I believe
you are really anxious about my interests,

2347
02:56:05.319 --> 02:56:07.760
he said. That is a triumph. Indeed, do you know, mister

2348
02:56:07.879 --> 02:56:11.280
Lython, it is a mere whimsie
of faith that you are not my disciple.

2349
02:56:11.840 --> 02:56:16.680
If we had met earlier, in
under other circumstances, I should have

2350
02:56:16.760 --> 02:56:20.520
captured you. It is because you
have in you a capacity for discipleship that

2351
02:56:20.639 --> 02:56:26.559
you have succeeded in your opposition.
I abominate you in all your works,

2352
02:56:26.600 --> 02:56:30.799
I said, But I admire your
courage. He shook his head gently.

2353
02:56:31.200 --> 02:56:35.600
It is the wrong word. I
am not courageous. To be brave means

2354
02:56:35.600 --> 02:56:39.399
that you have conquered fear. But
I have never had any fear to conquer.

2355
02:56:39.000 --> 02:56:43.000
Believe me, mister Lython, I
am quite impervious to threats. You

2356
02:56:43.079 --> 02:56:46.879
come to me tonight and hold a
pistol to my head. You offer me

2357
02:56:46.959 --> 02:56:52.000
two alternatives, both of which mean
failure. But how do you know that

2358
02:56:52.040 --> 02:56:54.639
I regard them as failure. I
have had what they call a good run

2359
02:56:54.799 --> 02:57:00.879
for my money. No man since
Napoleon has tasted such power I may be

2360
02:57:01.000 --> 02:57:05.680
willing to end it. Age creeps
on, and power may grow burdensome.

2361
02:57:05.200 --> 02:57:11.159
I have always sat loose from common
ambitions and common affections. For all you

2362
02:57:11.239 --> 02:57:15.680
know, I made regard you as
a benefactor. All this talk looks futile

2363
02:57:15.719 --> 02:57:18.159
when it is written down, but
it was skillful enough, for it was

2364
02:57:18.200 --> 02:57:24.159
taking every atom of exhilaration out of
my victory. It was not idle bragg

2365
02:57:24.559 --> 02:57:28.000
Every syllable rang true, as I
knew in my bones. I felt myself

2366
02:57:28.040 --> 02:57:33.440
in the presence of something enormously big, as if a small barbarian was desecrating

2367
02:57:33.440 --> 02:57:39.120
the colossal Zeus of Phidias with a
coal hammer. But I also felt it

2368
02:57:39.200 --> 02:57:43.360
inhuman, and I hated it,
and I clung to that hatred. You

2369
02:57:43.479 --> 02:57:46.000
fear nothing and you believe nothing,
I said, man, you should never

2370
02:57:46.120 --> 02:57:50.760
have been allowed to live. He
raised a deprecating hand. I am a

2371
02:57:50.799 --> 02:57:54.559
skeptic about most things, he said, But believe me. I have my

2372
02:57:54.639 --> 02:58:01.000
own worship. I venerate the intellect
of men. I believe even it's undreamed

2373
02:58:01.040 --> 02:58:05.360
of possibilities, when it grows free
like an oak in the forest, it

2374
02:58:05.440 --> 02:58:09.319
is not dwarfed in a flower pot. From that allegiance, I have never

2375
02:58:09.399 --> 02:58:13.040
wavered. That is the God I
have never forsworn. I took out my

2376
02:58:13.120 --> 02:58:18.200
watch. Permit me again to remind
you that time presses true, he said,

2377
02:58:18.239 --> 02:58:24.280
smiling. The Continental Express will not
wait upon my confession. Your plan

2378
02:58:24.440 --> 02:58:28.000
is certainly conceivable. There may be
other and easier ways. I am not

2379
02:58:28.159 --> 02:58:31.719
certain. I must think perhaps it
would be wiser if you left me now,

2380
02:58:31.760 --> 02:58:35.479
mister Lython. If I take your
advice, there will be various things

2381
02:58:35.520 --> 02:58:39.399
to do. In any case,
there will be much to do. He

2382
02:58:39.479 --> 02:58:43.200
led me to the door as if
he were an ordinary host, speeding an

2383
02:58:43.319 --> 02:58:48.600
ordinary guest. I remember that on
my way he pointed out a set up

2384
02:58:48.600 --> 02:58:52.040
all deans, and called my attention
to their beauty. He shook hands quite

2385
02:58:52.079 --> 02:58:56.239
cordially and remarked on the fineness of
the weather. That was the last I

2386
02:58:56.319 --> 02:59:01.799
saw of this amazing man. It
was with profound relief that I found myself

2387
02:59:01.840 --> 02:59:07.360
in Piccadilly in the wholesome company of
my kind. I had carried myself boldly

2388
02:59:07.520 --> 02:59:11.760
enough in the last hour, but
I would not have gone through it again

2389
02:59:11.840 --> 02:59:15.239
for a king's ransom. Do you
know what it is to deal with a

2390
02:59:15.360 --> 02:59:20.479
pure intelligence, a brain stripped of
every shred of humanity. It is like

2391
02:59:20.600 --> 02:59:24.840
being in the company of a snake. I drove to the club and telephoned

2392
02:59:24.840 --> 02:59:28.799
to mc gillivray, asking him to
take no notice of my statement till he

2393
02:59:28.799 --> 02:59:31.040
heard from me in the morning.
Then I went to the hospital to see

2394
02:59:31.120 --> 02:59:35.479
Chapman. That leader of the people
was in a furious temper, and he

2395
02:59:35.559 --> 02:59:41.120
was scarcely to be appeased by my
narrative of the day's doings. Your labor

2396
02:59:41.200 --> 02:59:45.520
member is the greatest of all sticklers
for legality. In the outrage he had

2397
02:59:45.520 --> 02:59:50.639
suffered that morning had grievously weakened his
trust in public security. The Antioch Street

2398
02:59:50.639 --> 02:59:54.399
business had seemed to him eminently right. If you once got mixed up in

2399
02:59:54.479 --> 02:59:58.879
melodrama, you had to expect such
things. But for a member of Parliament

2400
03:00:00.000 --> 03:00:03.680
to be robbed in broad daylight next
door to the House of Commons upset the

2401
03:00:03.719 --> 03:00:07.879
foundations of his faith There was little
the matter with his body, and the

2402
03:00:07.959 --> 03:00:13.000
doctor promised that he would be allowed
up next day, but his soul was

2403
03:00:13.040 --> 03:00:16.920
a mass of bruises. It took
me a lot of persuasion to get him

2404
03:00:16.959 --> 03:00:20.239
to keep quiet. He wanted a
public exposure of Lumley, a big trial,

2405
03:00:20.639 --> 03:00:24.600
a general ferreting out of secret agents, the whole winding up with a

2406
03:00:24.639 --> 03:00:31.360
speech in Parliament by himself on this
last outrage of capitalism. Gloomily, he

2407
03:00:31.399 --> 03:00:35.440
listened to my injunctions to silence,
but he saw the reason of it,

2408
03:00:35.840 --> 03:00:39.799
and promised to hold his tongue out
of loyalty to Tommy. I knew that

2409
03:00:39.879 --> 03:00:43.840
pitt Herren's secret was safe with him. As I crossed Westminster Bridge on my

2410
03:00:43.920 --> 03:00:48.520
way home, the night expressed to
the Continent rumbled over the river. I

2411
03:00:48.559 --> 03:00:52.840
wondered if Lumley was on board,
or if he had taken one of the

2412
03:00:52.879 --> 03:00:58.719
other ways of which he had spoken. End of Chapter eight. Recording by

2413
03:01:00.000 --> 03:01:11.360
expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter
nine of The Powerhouse by John Buchan.

2414
03:01:11.799 --> 03:01:16.360
This librevox recording is in the public
domain. Recording by expatriate in Bangor,

2415
03:01:16.479 --> 03:01:24.120
Maine, Chapter nine, Return of
the Wild Geese I do not think I

2416
03:01:24.200 --> 03:01:28.760
was surprised at the news I read
in the Times next morning. Mister Andrew

2417
03:01:28.840 --> 03:01:33.319
Lumley had died suddenly in the night
of heart failure, and the newspapers woke

2418
03:01:33.399 --> 03:01:37.920
up to the fact that we had
been entertaining a great man unawares. There

2419
03:01:37.959 --> 03:01:43.479
was an obituary in Leader type of
nearly two columns. He had been older

2420
03:01:43.479 --> 03:01:46.159
than I thought, close on seventy, and the Time spoke of him as

2421
03:01:46.200 --> 03:01:50.040
a man who might have done anything
he pleased in public life, but had

2422
03:01:50.120 --> 03:01:56.000
chosen to give to a small coterie
of friends what was due to the country.

2423
03:01:56.040 --> 03:02:00.200
I read of his wit and learning, his amazing connoisseurship, his social

2424
03:02:00.239 --> 03:02:03.799
gifts, his personal charm. According
to the writer, he was the finest

2425
03:02:03.840 --> 03:02:09.639
type of cultivated amateur, a Beckford
with more than a Beckford's wealth and none

2426
03:02:09.639 --> 03:02:13.600
of his folly. Large private charities
were hinted at, and a hope was

2427
03:02:13.680 --> 03:02:18.000
expressed as some part at least of
his collections might come to the nation.

2428
03:02:18.879 --> 03:02:22.920
The halfpenny papers said the same thing
in their own way. One declared,

2429
03:02:22.959 --> 03:02:28.399
he reminded it of Atticus, another
of mycenas another of Lord Houghton. There

2430
03:02:28.479 --> 03:02:33.600
must have been a great run on
biographical dictionaries in the various offices. Chapman's

2431
03:02:33.600 --> 03:02:39.639
own particular rags said that although this
kind of philanthropist was a dilettante in a

2432
03:02:39.680 --> 03:02:43.200
back number, yet mister Lumley was
a good specimen of the class and had

2433
03:02:43.239 --> 03:02:48.040
been a true friend to the poor. I thought Chapman would have a fit

2434
03:02:48.079 --> 03:02:52.319
when he read this. After that
he took in the morning Post. It

2435
03:02:52.479 --> 03:02:56.440
was no business of mine to explode
the myth. Indeed, I couldn't even

2436
03:02:56.479 --> 03:02:58.639
if I had wanted to, for
no one would have believed me unless I

2437
03:02:58.680 --> 03:03:03.280
produce as proofs, and these proofs
were not to be made public. Besides,

2438
03:03:03.319 --> 03:03:07.920
I had an honest compunction. He
had had, as he expressed,

2439
03:03:07.959 --> 03:03:11.079
it, a good run for his
money, and I wanted the run to

2440
03:03:11.120 --> 03:03:15.920
be properly rounded off. Three days
later I went to the funeral. It

2441
03:03:15.959 --> 03:03:20.639
was a wonderful occasion. Two eminent
statesmen were among the pollbearers, Royalty was

2442
03:03:20.680 --> 03:03:26.479
represented, and there were wreaths from
learned societies and scores of notable people.

2443
03:03:26.159 --> 03:03:31.280
It was a queer business to listen
to that stately service, which was never

2444
03:03:31.319 --> 03:03:35.520
read over stranger Dust. I was
thinking all the time of the vast subterranean

2445
03:03:35.600 --> 03:03:41.479
machine which he had controlled, and
which now was so much old iron I

2446
03:03:41.520 --> 03:03:45.520
could dimly imagine what his death meant
to the hosts who had worked blindly at

2447
03:03:45.520 --> 03:03:50.600
his direction. He was a Napoleon
who left no marshals behind him. From

2448
03:03:50.600 --> 03:03:54.159
the powerhouse came no wreaths or or
newspaper tributes, but I knew that it

2449
03:03:54.239 --> 03:04:00.760
had lost its power. De mortuis
et c My task was done, and

2450
03:04:00.840 --> 03:04:05.479
it only remained to get pitt Heron
home. Of the three people in London

2451
03:04:05.559 --> 03:04:09.520
besides myself who knew the story,
McGillivray, Chapman and Felix, the two

2452
03:04:09.639 --> 03:04:13.639
last might be trusted to be silent, and Scotland Yard is not in the

2453
03:04:13.680 --> 03:04:18.159
habit of publishing its information. Tommy, of course, must sometime or other

2454
03:04:18.239 --> 03:04:22.959
be told. It was his right, but I knew that Tommy would never

2455
03:04:22.000 --> 03:04:26.840
breathe a word of it. I
wanted Charles to believe that his secret died

2456
03:04:26.840 --> 03:04:30.360
with Lumley, for otherwise I don't
think he would have ever come back to

2457
03:04:30.479 --> 03:04:35.000
England. The thing took some arranging, for we could not tell him directly

2458
03:04:35.040 --> 03:04:39.680
about Lumley's death without giving away the
fact that we knew of the connection between

2459
03:04:39.680 --> 03:04:43.239
the two. We had to approach
it by a roundabout road. I got

2460
03:04:43.239 --> 03:04:48.959
Felix to arrange to have the news
telegraphed to and inserted by special order in

2461
03:04:48.000 --> 03:04:54.479
a Russian paper, which Charles could
not avoid seeing. The device was successful.

2462
03:04:54.959 --> 03:04:58.879
Calling at Portman Square a few days
later, I learned from Ethel pitt

2463
03:04:58.920 --> 03:05:03.040
Heron's glowing that her troubles were over. That same evening, a cable to

2464
03:05:03.040 --> 03:05:07.920
me from Tommy announced the return of
the Wanderers. It was the year of

2465
03:05:07.959 --> 03:05:13.639
the Chilean Arbitration, in which I
held a junior brief for the British government,

2466
03:05:13.040 --> 03:05:18.000
and that in the late sitting of
Parliament kept me in London after the

2467
03:05:18.120 --> 03:05:20.920
end of the term. I had
had a bad reaction from the excitements of

2468
03:05:20.959 --> 03:05:26.440
the summer, and in these days
I was feeling pretty well hipped and overdone.

2469
03:05:26.000 --> 03:05:31.200
On a hot August afternoon, I
met Tommy again. The sun was

2470
03:05:31.239 --> 03:05:35.159
shining through my temple chambers, much
as I had done when he started.

2471
03:05:35.680 --> 03:05:39.200
So far as I remember, the
west Ham Brief, which had aroused his

2472
03:05:39.280 --> 03:05:43.639
contempt, was still adorning my table. I was very hot and cross and

2473
03:05:43.760 --> 03:05:46.719
fagged, for I had been engaged
in the beastly job of comparing half a

2474
03:05:46.760 --> 03:05:52.559
dozen maps of a despicable little bit
of South American frontier. Suddenly the door

2475
03:05:52.639 --> 03:05:56.920
opened and Tommy, lean and sunburnt, walked in. Still at the old

2476
03:05:56.959 --> 03:06:01.639
grind, he cried. After we
had shaken hands, fellows like you,

2477
03:06:01.680 --> 03:06:05.879
give me a notion of the meaning
of eternity, the same uneventful sedentary life.

2478
03:06:05.879 --> 03:06:11.920
I replied, Nothing happens except that
my scale of fees grows. I

2479
03:06:11.040 --> 03:06:16.200
suppose nothing will happen till the conductor
comes to take the tickets. I shall

2480
03:06:16.239 --> 03:06:20.239
soon grow fat. I notice it
already, my lad. You want a

2481
03:06:20.280 --> 03:06:22.840
bit of waking up, or you'll
get a liver. A little sensation would

2482
03:06:22.840 --> 03:06:26.760
do you a lot of good.
And you, I asked, I congratulate

2483
03:06:26.799 --> 03:06:31.959
you on your success. I hear
you have retrieved pitt Heron for his morning

2484
03:06:31.000 --> 03:06:37.000
family. Tommy's laughing eyes grew solemn. I have had the time of my

2485
03:06:37.120 --> 03:06:39.559
life, he said. It was
like a chapter out of the Arabian Nights

2486
03:06:39.559 --> 03:06:43.319
with a dash of Phenimore Cooper.
I feel as if I had lived years

2487
03:06:43.319 --> 03:06:48.280
since I left England in May.
While you have been sitting among your musty

2488
03:06:48.360 --> 03:06:52.159
papers, we have been riding like
moss troopers and seeing men die. Come

2489
03:06:52.200 --> 03:06:56.920
and dine tonight and hear about our
adventures. I can't tell you the full

2490
03:06:56.959 --> 03:06:58.760
story, for I don't know it, but there is enough to curl your

2491
03:06:58.760 --> 03:07:03.680
hair. Then I achieved my first
and last score at the expense of Tommy

2492
03:07:03.760 --> 03:07:07.760
de Lorraine. No, I said, you will dine with me instead,

2493
03:07:09.159 --> 03:07:13.040
and I will tell you the full
story. All the papers on the subject

2494
03:07:13.079 --> 03:07:20.079
are over there in my safe End
of chapter nine recording by expatriate in Bangor,

2495
03:07:20.200 --> 03:07:24.040
Maine. End of the Powerhouse by
John Buchan