A of incredulity, a vast relief, and that sharp joy which comes of reaction chased each other across my mind. I had come suddenly out of very black waters into an unbelievable calm. I dropped into the nearest chair and tried to grapple with something far beyond words.
“Sandy,” I said, as soon as I got my breath, “you’re an devil. You’ve given Peter and me the fright of our lives.”
“It was the only way, Dick. If I hadn’t come mewing like a tom-cat at your heels yesterday, Rasta would have had you long before you got to your hotel. You two have given me a pretty anxious time, and it took some doing to get you safe here. However, that is all over now. Make yourselves at home, my children.”
“Over!” I cried incredulously, for my wits were still wool-gathering. “What place is this?”
“You may call it my home”—it was Blenkiron’s voice that . “We’ve been preparing for you, Major, but it was only yesterday I heard of your friend.”
I introduced Peter.
“Mr Pienaar,” said Blenkiron, “pleased to meet you. Well, as I was observing, you’re safe enough here, but you’ve cut it fine. Officially, a Dutchman called Brandt was to be arrested this afternoon and handed over to the German authorities. When Germany begins to trouble about that Dutchman she will find difficulty in getting the body; but such are the languid ways of an Oriental despotism. Meantime the Dutchman will be no more. He will have ceased upon the midnight without pain, as your poet sings.”
“But I don’t understand,” I . “Who arrested us?”
“My men,” said Sandy. “We have a bit of a here, and it wasn’t difficult to manage it. Old Moellendorff will be nosing after the business tomorrow, but he will find the mystery too deep for him. That is the advantage of a Government run by a pack of adventurers. But, by Jove, Dick, we hadn’t any time to spare. If Rasta had got you, or the Germans had had the job of lifting you, your goose would have been jolly well cooked. I had some unquiet hours this morning.”
The thing was too deep for me. I looked at Blenkiron, his Patience cards with his old sleepy smile, and Sandy, dressed like some bandit in , his lean face as brown as a nut, his bare arms all with rings, and the fox tight over brow and ears. It was still a nightmare world, but the dream was getting pleasanter. Peter said not a word, but I could see his eyes heavy with his own thoughts.
Blenkiron hove himself from the sofa and to a cupboard.
“You boys must be hungry,” he said. “My duo-denum has been giving me hell as usual, and I don’t eat no more than a squirrel. But I laid in some stores, for I guessed you would want to stoke up some after your travels.”
He brought out a couple of Strassburg pies, a cheese, a cold chicken, a loaf, and three bottles of .
“Fizz,” said Sandy rapturously. “And a dry Heidsieck too! We’re in luck, Dick, old man.”
I never ate a more welcome meal, for we had starved in that dirty hotel. But I had still the old feeling of the hunted, and before I began I asked about the door.
“That’s all right,” said Sandy. “My fellows are on the stair and at the gate. If the Metreb are in possession, you may bet that other people will keep off. Your past is out, clean vanished away, and you begin tomorrow morning with a new sheet. Blenkiron’s the man you’ve got to thank for that. He was pretty certain you’d get here, but he was also certain that you’d arrive in a hurry with a good many inquirers behind you. So he arranged that you should leak away and start fresh.”
“Your name is Richard Hanau,” Blenkiron said, “born in Cleveland, Ohio, of German parentage on both sides. One of our brightest mining-engineers, and the apple of Guggenheim’s eye. You arrived this afternoon from Constanza, and I met you at the packet. The clothes for the part are in your bedroom next door. But I guess all that can wait, for I’m anxious to get to business. We’re not here on a joy-ride, Major, so I reckon we’ll leave out the dime-novel adventures. I’m just dying to hear them, but they’ll keep. I want to know how our have .”
He gave Peter and me cigars, and we sat ourselves in armchairs in front of the blaze. Sandy cross-legged on the hearthrug and lit a old briar pipe, which he from some among his skins. And so began that conversation which had never been out of my thoughts for four weeks.
“If I presume to begin,” said Blenkiron, “it’s because I reckon my story is the shortest. I have to confess to you, gentlemen, that I have failed.”
He drew down the corners of his mouth till he looked a cross between a music-hall and a sick child.
“If you were looking for something in the root of the hedge, you wouldn’t want to the road in a high-speed . And still less would you want to get a bird’s-eye view in an aeroplane. That about fits my case. I have been in the clouds and I’ve been on the pikes, but what I was wanting was in the ditch all the time, and I naturally missed it ... I had the wrong , Major. I was too high up and refined. I’ve been processing through Europe like Barnum’s Circus, and living with generals and transparencies. Not that I haven’t picked up a lot of noos, and got some very interesting sidelights on high politics. But the thing I was after wasn’t to be found on my beat, for those that knew it weren’t going to tell. In that kind of society they don’t get drunk and blab after their tenth . So I guess I’ve no contribution to make to quieting Sir Walter Bullivant’s mind, except that he’s dead right. Yes, Sir, he has hit the spot and rung the bell. There is a mighty miracle-working proposition being floated in these parts, but the promoters are keeping it to themselves. They aren’t taking in more than they can help on the ground-floor.”
Blenkiron stopped to light a fresh cigar. He was leaner than when he left London and there were below his eyes. I fancy his journey had not been as fur-lined as he made out. “I’ve found out one thing, and that is, that the last dream Germany will part with is the control of the Near East. That is what your statesmen don’t figure enough on. She’ll give up Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine and Poland, but by God! she’ll never give up the road to Mesopotamia till you have her by the throat and make her drop it. Sir Walter is a pretty bright-eyed citizen, and he sees it right enough. If the worst happens, Kaiser will fling overboard a lot of ballast in Europe, and it will look like a big victory for the Allies, but he won’t be beaten if he has the road to the East safe. Germany’s like a : her sting’s in her tail, and that tail stretches way down into Asia.
“I got that clear, and I also made out that it wasn’t going to be dead easy for her to keep that tail healthy. Turkey’s a bit of an anxiety, as you’ll soon discover. But Germany thinks she can manage it, and I won’t say she can’t. It depends on the hand she holds, and she reckons it a good one. I tried to find out, b............