“That’s all I have to tell. Now you take up the story. I want to hear everything that happened since Wednesday night, when Mr Craw did not come home.”
The voice was peremptory, and Mr Barbon raised his distinguished eyebrows. Even in his perplexity he felt bound to resent this tone.
“I’m afraid… I… I don’t quite understand your position, Mr— ?”
“My name’s Crombie. I’m on one of the Craw papers. My interest in straightening things out is the same as yours. So let’s pool our knowledge and be quick about it. You began to get anxious about Mr Craw at half-past eight on Wednesday, and very anxious by ten. What did you do?”
“We communicated with Glasgow—with Mr Craw’s architect. He had accompanied him to the station and seen him leave by the six-five train. We communicated with Kirkmichael station, and learned that he had arrived there. Then I informed the police—very confidentially of course.”
“The journalists got wind of that. They were bound to, since they sit like jackdaws on the steps of the telegraph office. So much for Wednesday. What about yesterday?”
“I had a very anxious day,” said Mr Barbon, passing a weary hand over his forehead and stroking back his thick grizzled hair. “I hadn’t a notion what to think or do. Mr Craw, you must understand, intended to go abroad. He was to have left this morning, catching the London express at Gledmouth. Miss Cazenove and I were to have accompanied him, and all arrangements had been made. It seemed to me that he might have chosen to expedite his departure, though such a thing was very unlike his usual custom. So I got the London office to make inquiries, and ascertained that he had not travelled south. You are aware of Mr Craw’s dislike of publicity. I found myself in a very serious quandary. I had to find out what had become of him. Anything might have happened—an accident, an outrage. And I had to do this without giving any clue to those infernal reporters.”
“Practically impossible,” said Dougal. “No wonder you were in a bit of a stew. I suppose they were round the house like bees yesterday.”
“Like wasps,” said Mr Barbon tragically. “We kept them at arm’s length, but they have defeated us.” He produced from his pocket and unfolded a copy of a journal. “We have special arrangements at the Castle for an early delivery of newspapers, and this is to-day’s Live Wire. Observe the headings.”
“I know all about that,” said Dougal. “We ran across the Wire man—Tibbets they call him—and he was fair bursting with his news. But this will only make the Wire crowd look foolish if they can’t follow it up. That’s what we’ve got to prevent. I took the liberty this morning of speaking to Tavish in Glasgow on the telephone, and authorising him—I pretended I was speaking for Mr Craw—to announce that Mr Craw had left for the Continent. That will give us cover to work behind.”
“You might have spared yourself the trouble,” said Mr Barbon, unfolding another news-sheet. “This is to-day’s issue of the View. It contains that announcement. It was inserted by the London office. Now who authorised it?”
“I heard of that from Tavish. Could it have been Mr Craw?”
“It was not Mr Craw. That I can vouch for, unless he sent the authorisation after half-past seven on Wednesday evening, which on your story is impossible. It was sent by some person or persons who contrived to impress the London office with their authority, and who wished to have it believed that Mr Craw was out of the country. For their own purpose. Now, what purpose?”
“I think I can make a guess,” said Dougal eagerly.
“There is no need of guess-work. It is a matter of certain and damning knowledge. Mr Craw left for Glasgow on Wednesday before his mail arrived. In that mail there was a registered letter. It was marked ‘most confidential’ and elaborately sealed. I deal with Mr Craw’s correspondence, but letters marked in such a way I occasionally leave for him to open, so I did not touch that letter. Then, yesterday morning, at the height of my anxieties, I had a telephone message.”
Mr Barbon paused dramatically. “It was not from London. It was from Knockraw House, a place some five miles from here. I knew that Knockraw had been let for the late autumn, but I had not heard the name of the tenant. It is the best grouse-moor in the neighbourhood. The speaker referred to a confidential letter which he said Mr Craw had received on the previous day, and he added that he and his friends proposed to call upon Mr Craw that afternoon at three o’clock. I said that Mr Craw was not at home, but the speaker assured me that Mr Craw would be at home to him. I did not dare to say more, but I asked for the name. It was given me as Casimir—only the one word. Then I think the speaker rang off.”
“I considered it my duty,” Mr Barbon continued, “to open the confidential letter. When I had read it, I realised that instead of being in the frying pan we were in the middle of the fire. For that letter was written in the name of the inner circle of the—”
“Evallonian Republicans,” interjected Dougal, seeking a cheap triumph.
“It was not. It was the Evallonian Monarchists.”
“Good God!” Dougal was genuinely startled, for he saw suddenly a problem with the most dismal implications.
“They said that their plans were approaching maturity, and that they had come to consult with their chief well-wisher. There was an immense amount of high-flown compliment in it after the Evallonian fashion, but there was one thing clear. These people are in deadly earnest. They have taken Knockraw for the purpose, and they have had the assurance to announce to the world Mr Craw’s absence abroad so that they may have him to themselves without interruption. They must have had private information about his movements, and his intention of leaving Scotland. I don’t know much about Evallonian politics—they were a personal hobby of Mr Craw’s—but I know enough to realise that the party who wish to upset the republic are pretty desperate fellows. It was not only the certain notoriety of the thing which alarmed me, though that was bad enough. Imagine the play that our rivals would make with the story of Mr Craw plotting with foreign adventurers to upset a Government with which Britain is in friendly relations! It was the effect upon Mr Craw himself. He hates anything to do with the rough-and-tumble of political life. He is quite unfit to deal with such people. He is a thinker and an inspirer—a seer in a watch-tower, and such men lose their power if they go down into the arena.”
This was so manifestly an extract from the table-talk of Mr Craw that Dougal could not repress a grin.
“You laugh,” said Mr Barbon gloomily, “but there is nothing to laugh at. The fortunes of a great man and a great Press are at this moment on a razor-edge.”
“Jaikie,” said Dougal in a whisper, “Mr McCunn was a true prophet. He said we were maybe going to set up the Jacobite standard on Garroch side. There’s a risk of another kind of Jacobite standard being set up on Callowa side. It’s a colossal joke on the part of Providence.”
Mr Barbon continued his tale.
“I felt utterly helpless. I did not know where Mr Craw was. I had the threatening hordes of journalists to consider. I had those foreign desperadoes at the gates. They must not be allowed to approach Castle Gay. I had no fear that Casimir and his friends would take the journalists into their confidence, but I was terribly afraid that the journalists would get on to the trail of Casimir. An Eastern European house-party at Knockraw is a pretty obvious mark… I gave orders that no one was to be admitted at either lodge. I went further and had the gates barricaded, in case there was an attempt to force them.”
“You lost your head there,” said Dougal. “You were making the journalists a gift.”
“Perhaps I did. But when one thinks of Eastern Europe one thinks of violence. Look at this letter I received this morning. Note that it is addressed to me by my full name.”
The writer with