Mr. Standfast
your exploits. You are Conradi, who did so nobly in Italy?”
I bowed. “Yes, I am Conradi,” I said.
CHAPTER XVII
The Col of the Swallows
He pointed to the slip on the table.
“You have seen the orders?”
I nodded.
“The long day’s work is over. You must rejoice, for your part has been
the hardest, I think. Some day you will tell me about it?”
The man’s face was honest and kindly, rather like that of the engineer
Gaudian, whom two years before I had met in Germany. But his eyes
fascinated me, for they were the eyes of the dreamer and fanatic, who
would not desist from his quest while life lasted. I thought that Ivery
had chosen well in his colleague.
“My task is not done yet,” I said. “I came here to see Chelius.”
“He will be back tomorrow evening.”
“Too late. I must see him at once. He has gone to Italy, and I must
overtake him.”
“You know your duty best,” he said gravely.
“But you must help me. I must catch him at Santa Chiara, for it is a
business of life and death. Is there a car to be had?”
“There is mine. But there is no chauffeur. Chelius took him.”
“I can drive myself and I know the road. But I have no pass to cross
the frontier.”
“That is easily supplied,” he said, smiling.
In one bookcase there was a shelf of dummy books. He unlocked this and
revealed a small cupboard, whence he took a tin dispatch-box. From some
papers he selected one, which seemed to be already signed.
“Name?” he asked.
“Call me Hans Gruber of Brieg,” I said. “I travel to pick up my master,
who is in the timber trade.”
“And your return?”
“I will come back by my old road,” I said mysteriously; and if he knew
what I meant it was more than I did myself.
He completed the paper and handed it to me. “This will take you through
the frontier posts. And now for the car. The servants will be in bed,
for they have been preparing for a long journey, but I will myself show
it you. There is enough petrol on board to take you to Rome.”
He led me through the hall, unlocked the front door, and we crossed the
snowy lawn to the garage. The place was empty but for a great car,
which bore the marks of having come from the muddy lowlands. To my joy
I saw that it was a Daimler, a type with which I was familiar. I lit
the lamps, started the engine, and ran it out on to the road.
“You will want an overcoat,” he said.
“I never wear them.”
“Food?”
“I have some chocolate. I will breakfast at Santa Chiara.”
“Well, God go with you!”
A minute later I was tearing along the lake-side towards St Anton
village.
I stopped at the cottage on the hill. Peter was not yet in bed. I found
him sitting by the fire, trying to read, but I saw by his face that he
had been waiting anxiously on my coming.
“We’re in the soup, old man,” I said as I shut the door. In a dozen
sentences I told him of the night’s doings, of Ivery’s plan and my
desperate errand.
“You wanted a share,” I cried. “Well, everything depends on you now.
I’m off after Ivery, and God knows what will happen. Meantime, you have
got to get on to Blenkiron, and tell him what I’ve told you. He must
get the news through to G.H.Q. somehow. He must trap the Wild Birds
before they go. I don’t know how, but he must. Tell him it’s all up to
him and you, for I’m out of it. I must save Mary, and if God’s willing
I’ll settle with Ivery. But the big job is for Blenkiron—and you.
Somehow he has made a bad break, and the enemy has got ahead of him. He
must sweat blood to make up. My God, Peter, it’s the solemnest moment
of our lives. I don’t see any light, but we mustn’t miss any chances.
I’m leaving it all to you.”
I spoke like a man in a fever, for after what I had been through I
wasn’t quite sane. My coolness in the Pink Chalet had given place to a
crazy restlessness. I can see Peter yet, standing in the ring of
lamplight, supporting himself by a chair back, wrinkling his brows and,
as he always did in moments of excitement, scratching gently the tip of
his left ear. His face was happy.
“Never fear, Dick,” he said. “It will all come right. _Ons sal ’n plan
maak._”
And then, still possessed with a demon of disquiet, I was on the road
again, heading for the pass that led to Italy.
The mist had gone from the sky, and the stars were shining brightly.
The moon, now at the end of its first quarter, was setting in a gap of
the mountains, as I climbed the low col from the St Anton valley to the
greater Staubthal. There was frost and the hard snow crackled under my
wheels, but there was also that feel in the air which preludes storm. I
wondered if I should run into snow in the high hills. The whole land
was deep in peace. There was not a light in the hamlets I passed
through, not a soul on the highway.
In the Staubthal I joined the main road and swung to the left up the
narrowing bed of the valley. The road was in noble condition, and the
car was running finely, as I mounted through forests of snowy Pines to
a land where the mountains crept close together, and the highway coiled
round the angles of great crags or skirted perilously some profound
gorge, with only a line of wooden posts to defend it from the void. In
places the snow stood in walls on either side, where the road was kept
open by man’s labour. In other parts it lay thin, and in the dim light
one might have fancied that one was running through open meadowlands.
Slowly my head was getting clearer, and I was able to look round my
problem. I banished from my mind the situation I had left behind me.
Blenkiron must cope with that as best he could. It lay with him to deal
with the Wild Birds, my job was with Ivery alone. Sometime in the early
morning he would reach Santa Chiara, and there he would find Mary.
Beyond that my imagination could forecast nothing. She would be alone—I
could trust his cleverness for that; he would try to force her to come
with him, or he might persuade her with some lying story. Well, please
God, I should come in for the tail end of the interview, and at the
thought I cursed the steep gradients I was climbing, and longed for
some magic to lift the Daimler beyond the summit and set it racing down
the slope towards Italy.
I think it was about half-past three when I saw the lights of the
frontier post. The air seemed milder than in the valleys, and there was
a soft scurry of snow on my right cheek. A couple of sleepy Swiss
sentries with their rifles in their hands stumbled out as I drew up.
They took my pass into the hut and gave me an anxious quarter of an
hour while they examined it. The performance was repeated fifty yards
on at the Italian post, where to my alarm the sentries were inclined to
conversation. I played the part of the sulky servant, answering in
monosyllables and pretending to immense stupidity.
“You are only just in time, friend,” said one in German. “The weather
grows bad and soon the pass will close. Ugh, it is as cold as last
winter on the Tonale. You remember, Giuseppe?”
But in the end they let me move on. For a little I felt my way
gingerly, for on the summit the road had many twists and the snow was
confusing to the eyes. Presently came a sharp drop and I let the
Daimler go. It grew colder, and I shivered a little; the snow became a
wet white fog around the glowing arc of the headlights; and always the
road fell, now in long curves, now in steep short dips, till I was
aware of a glen opening towards the south. From long living in the
wilds I have a kind of sense for landscape without the testimony of the
eyes, and I knew where the ravine narrowed or widened though it was
black darkness.
In spite of my restlessness I had to go slowly, for after the first
rush downhill I realised that, unless I was careful, I might wreck the
car and spoil everything. The surface of the road on the southern slope
of the mountains was a thousand per cent worse than that on the other.
I skidded and side-slipped, and once grazed the edge of the gorge. It
was far more maddening than the climb up, for then it had been a
straight-forward grind with the Daimler doing its utmost, whereas now I
had to hold her back because of my own lack of skill. I reckon that
time crawling down from the summit of the Staub as some of the weariest
hours I ever spent.
Quite suddenly I ran out of the ill weather into a different climate.
The sky was clear above me, and I saw that dawn was very near. The
first pinewoods were beginning, and at last came a straight slope where
I could let the car out. I began to recover my spirits, which had been
very dashed, and to reckon the distance I had still to travel.... And
then, without warning, a new world sprang up around me. Out of the blue
dusk white shapes rose like ghosts, peaks and needles and domes of ice,
their bases fading mistily into shadow, but the tops kindling till they
glowed like jewels. I had never seen such a sight, and the wonder of it
for a moment drove anxiety from my heart. More, it gave me an earnest
of victory. I was in clear air once more, and surely in this diamond
ether the foul things which loved the dark must be worsted....
And then I saw, a mile ahead, the little square red-roofed building
which I knew to be the inn of Santa Chiara.
It was here that misfortune met me. I had grown careless now, and
looked rather at the house than the road. At one point the hillside had
slipped down—it must have been recent, for the road was well kept—and I
did not notice the landslide till I was on it. I slewed to the right,
took too wide a curve, and before I knew the car was over the far edge.
I slapped on the brakes, but to avoid turning turtle I had to leave the
road altogether. I slithered down a steep bank into a meadow, where for
my sins I ran into a fallen tree trunk with a jar that shook me out of
my seat and nearly broke my arm. Before I examined the car I knew what
had happened. The front axle was bent, and the off front wheel badly
buckled.
I had not time to curse my stupidity. I clambered back to the road and
set off running down it at my best speed. I was mortally stiff, for
Ivery’s rack was not good for the joints, but I realised it only as a
drag on my pace, not as an affliction in itself. My whole mind was set
on the house before me and what might be happening there.
There was a man at the door of the inn, who, when he caught sight of my
figure, began to move to meet me. I saw that it was Launcelot Wake, and
the sight gave me hope.
But his face frightened me. It was drawn and haggard like one who never
sleeps, and his eyes were hot coals.
“Hannay,” he cried, “for God’s sake what does it mean?”
“Where is Mary?” I gasped, and I remember I clutched at a lapel of his
coat.
He pulled me to the low stone wall by the roadside.
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “We got your orders to come here this
morning. We were at Chiavagno, where Blenkiron told us to wait. But
last night Mary disappeared.... I found she had hired a carriage and
come on ahead. I followed at once, and reached here an hour ago to find
her gone.... The woman who keeps the place is away and there are only
two old servants left. They tell me that Mary came here late, and that
very early in the morning a closed car came over the Staub with a man
in it. They say he asked to see the young lady, and that they talked
together for some time, and that then she went off with him in the car
down the valley.... I must have passed it on my way up.... There’s been
some black devilment that I can’t follow. Who was the man? Who was the
man?”
He looked as if he wanted to throttle me.
“I can tell you that,” I said. “It was Ivery.”
He stared for a second as if he didn’t understand. Then he leaped to
his feet and cursed like a trooper. “You’ve botched it, as I knew you