“Bit of a swine, isn’t he?” said Leithen.
“Oh, no. He’s rather a good old bird himself. Don’t care so much for his family. Then there’s Glenraden t’other side of the Larrig”—he indicated a point on the map which Lamancha was studying—“with a real old Highland grandee living in it—Alastair Raden—commanded the Scots Guards, I believe, in the year One. Family as old as the Flood and very poor, but just manage to hang on. He’s the last Raden that will live there, but that doesn’t matter so much as he has no son—only a brace of daughters. Then, of course, there’s the show place, Strathlarrig—horrible great house as large as a factory, but wonderful fine salmon-fishin’. Some Americans have got it this year—Boston or Philadelphia, I don’t remember which—very rich and said to be rather high-brow. There’s a son, I believe.”
Lamancha closed the atlas.
“Do you know any of these people, Archie?” he asked.
“Only the Claybody’s—very slightly. I stayed with them in Suffolk for a covert shoot two years ago. The Radens have been to call on me, but I was out. The Bandicotts—that’s the Americans—are new this year.
“Is the sport good?”
“The very best. Haripol is about the steepest and most sportin’ forest in the Highlands, and Glenraden is nearly as good. There’s no forest at Strathlarrig, but, as I’ve told you, amazin’ good salmon fishin’. For a west coast river, I should put the Larrig only second to the Laxford.”
Lamancha consulted the atlas again and appeared to ponder. Then he lifted his head, and his long face, which had a certain heaviness and sullenness in repose, was now lit by a smile which made it handsomer and younger.
“Could you have me at Crask this autumn?” he asked. “My wife has to go to Aix for a cure and I have no plans after the House rises.”
“I should jolly well think so,” cried Archie. “There’s heaps of room in the old house, and I promise you I’ll make you comfortable. Look here, you fellows! Why shouldn’t all three of you come? I can get in a couple of extra maids from Inverlarrig.”
“Excellent idea,” said Lamancha. “But you mustn’t bother about the maids. I’ll bring my own man, and we’ll have a male establishment, except for Mrs. Lithgow…By the way, I suppose you can count on Mrs. Lithgow?”
“How do you mean, ‘count’?” asked Archie, rather puzzled. Then a difficulty struck him. “But wouldn’t you be bored? I can’t show you much in the way of sport, and you’re not naturalists like me. It’s a quiet life, you know.”
“I shouldn’t be bored,” said Lamancha, “I should take steps to prevent it.”
Leithen and Palliser-Yeates seemed to divine his intention, for they simultaneously exclaimed.—“It isn’t fair to excite Archie, Charles,” the latter said. “You know that you’ll never do it.”
“I intend to have a try. Hang it, John, it’s the specific we were talking about—devilish difficult, devilish unpleasant, and calculated to make a man long for a dull life. Of course you two fellows will join me.”
“What on earth are you talkin’ about?” said the mystified Archie. “Join what?”
“We’re proposing to quarter ourselves on you, my lad, and take a leaf out of Jim Tarras’s book.”
Sir Archie first stared, then he laughed nervously, then he called upon his gods, then he laughed freely and long. “Do you really mean it? What an almighty rag!…But hold on a moment. It will be rather awkward for me to take a hand. You see I’ve just been adopted as prospective candidate for that part of the country.”
“So much the better. If you’re found out—which you won’t be—you’ll get the poaching vote solid, and a good deal more. Most men at heart are poachers.”
Archie shook a doubting head. “I don’t know about that. They’re an awfully respectable lot up there, and all those dashed stalkers and keepers and gillies are a sort of trade-union. The scallywags are a hopeless minority. If I get sent to quod—”
“You won’t get sent to quod. At the worst it will be a fine, and you can pay that. What’s the extreme penalty for this kind of offence, Ned?”
“I don’t know,” Leithen answered. “I’m not an authority on Scots law. But Archie’s perfectly right. We can’t go making a public exhibition of ourselves like this. We’re too old to be listening to the chimes at midnight.”
“Now, look here.” Lamancha had shaken off his glumness and was as tense and eager as a schoolboy. “Didn’t your doctor advise you to steal a horse? Well, this is a long sight easier than horse-stealing. It’s admitted that we three want a tonic. On second thoughts Archie had better stand out—he hasn’t our ailment, and a healthy man doesn’t need medicine. But we three need it, and this idea is an inspiration. Of course we take risks, but they’re sound sporting risks. After all, I’ve a reputation of a kind, and I put as much into the pool as anyone.”
His hearers regarded him with stony faces, but this in no way checked his ardour.
“It’s a perfectly first-class chance. A lonely house where you can see visitors a mile off, and an unsociable dog like Archie for a host. We write the letters and receive the answers at a London address. We arrive at Crask by stealth, and stay there unbeknown to the country-side, for Archie can count on his people and my man in a sepulchre. Also we’ve got Lithgow, who played the same game with Jim Tarras. We have a job which will want every bit of our nerve and ingenuity with a reasonable spice of danger—for, of course, if we fail we should cut queer figures. The thing is simply ordained by Heaven for our benefit. Of course you’ll come.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Leithen.
“No more will I,” said Palliser-Yeates.
“Then I’ll go alone,” said Lamancha cheerfully. “I’m out for a cure, if you’re not. You’ve a month to make up your mind, and meanwhile a share in the syndicate remains open to you.”
Sir Archie looked as if he wished he had never mentioned the fatal name of Jim Tarras, “I say, you know, Charles,” he began hesitatingly, but was cut short.
“Are you going back on your invitation?” asked Lamancha sternly. “Very well, then, I’ve accepted it, and what’s more I’m going to draft a specimen letter that will go to your Highland grandee, and Claybody and the American.”
He rose with a bound and fetched a pencil and a sheet of notepaper from the nearest writing-table. “Here goes—”
“Sir, I have the honour to inform you that I propose to kill a stag—or a salmon as the case may be—on your ground between midnight on—and midnight—. We can leave the dates open for the present. The animal, of course, remains your property and will be duly delivered to you. It is a condition that it must be removed wholly outside your bounds. In the event of the undersigned failing to achieve his purpose he will pay as forfeit one hundred pounds, and if successful fifty pounds to any charity you may appoint.
“I have the honour to be, your obedient humble servant.”
“What do you say to that?” he asked. “Formal, a little official, but perfectly civil, and the writer proposes to pay his way like a gentleman. Bound to make a good impression.”
“You’ve forgotten the signature,” Leithen observed dryly.
“It must be signed with a nom de guerre.” He thought for a moment. “I’ve got it. At once business-like and mysterious.”
At the bottom of the draft he scrawled the name “John Macnab.”
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