Mr. Standfast

tages of

oms in Westminster, buying on the way a cap and waterproof to conceal my uniform should anyone be near my door on my arrival. Then I would ring up Blenki

special communications with the enemy, and so far as I could see I had left no clue behind me. Ivery and Gresson took me for a well-meaning nincompoop. It was true that I had aroused profound suspicion in the breasts of the Scottish police. But that mattered nothing, for Cornelius Brand, the suspect, would presently disappear, and there was nothing against that rising so

again. I had missed Messines and the first part of Third Ypres, but the battle was still going on, and I had yet a chance. I might get a division, for there had been talk of that before I left. I

heading straight for the devil I didn't know how it was going to stop very soon. I was determined to see Mary before I left, and I had a good excuse, fo

at something very

of me emptied its contents in a twinkling; a taxi pulled up with a jar and the driver and fare dived into a second-hand bookshop. It took me a moment or two to realize the meaning of it all, and I had scarcely done this when I got a very practica

once being in billets in a Flanders village where I had the Maire's house and sat in a room upholstered in cut velvet, with wax flowers on the mantelpiece and oil paintings of three generations on the walls. The Boche took it into his head to shell the place with a long-range naval gun, and I simply loathed it. It was horrible to have dust and

bomb fell to the right, and presently bits of our own shrapnel were clattering viciously around me. I thought it about time to take cover, and ran shamelessly for the be

wn the stairs to the complete security of underground; but preferred rather to collect where they could still get a glimpse of the upper world, as if they were torn between fear of their lives and interest in th

crowd brought his face into profile. Then I gas

in a blind funk. His features seemed to be dislimning before my eyes. He was growing sharper, finer, in a way younger, a man without grip on him

s that I knew the new

one of them two men were playing tennis, while I was crouching behind an adjacent bush. One of these was a plump young man who wore a coloured scarf round his waist and babbled of golf handicaps ... I saw him again in the villa dining-room, wearing a dinner-jacket, and lisping a little.... I sat opposite him at bridge, I beheld him collared by two of Macgi

any human actor, for he could take on a new personality and with it a new appearance, and live steadily in the character as if he had been born in it ... My mind was a blank, and I could only make blind gropings at conclusions ... How had he escaped the death of a spy and a murderer, f

ew that he knew that I had recognized him-not as Ivery, but as that other man. There c

l something doing if he believed that I was blind, but if he once thought t

that that was impossible. I was a private soldier in a borrowed uniform, and he could easily turn the story against me. I must u

crowd still hung together, and it took me a good fifteen minutes to edge my way to the open air. I found that the trouble was over, and the street had resumed its usual appe

and the crush in the Tube station had not improved my appearance. I explained that I was going back to France that evening, and he asked for my warrant. I fancy my preoccupation made me

did in his red tabs and probably bucked up at having just been u

got some fellow of that name on ou

ness, and I assure you I'm all right. If you don't believe me, I'll take a

o with it? You're an imposter. I can see it in your face. I'll have your depot rung up, and you'll be in jail in a c

owed the A.P.M. to his office on the first floor in a side street. The precious minutes were slipping past; Ivery, now thoroug

e rung up, and he bade Wilson remove me to what he called the guard-room.

to Mr Macgillivray at Scotland Yard. It's a matter of life and d

insolence and I'll have you put in irons. I'll attend to you so

fairly UP against it. Short of assault and battery on everybody I

ed on a stool by a telephone. I looked at my watch and observed that it was one o'clock. Soon the slamming of a door announced that the A.P.M. had gone t

I had been telling lies and cutting capers over half Britain, thinking I was playing a deep game, and I had only been behaving like a schoolboy. On such occasions a man is rarely just to himself, and the intensity of my self-ab

n. Now I saw it all. He had tried to drown me between Colonsay and Mull. It was Gresson who had set the police on me in Morvern. The bagman Linklater had been one of Gresson's creatures. The only meagre consolation was that

Black Stone he would go on in his old ways and play into Blenkiron's hands. Yes, but I had seen him in undress, so to speak, and he knew that I had so seen him. The only thing now was to collar him before he le

.'s office. The thought drove me frantic, and I got up and paced the floor. I saw the orderly with rat

a good turn? I know I'm for it all right, and I'll take my medic

s the answer. 'I'd get

mate, I leave you to do the talkin' if you'll only send my message.

man with a weak chin,

nt to talk t

no harm in that. Ye've only got to ring up Scotland Yard-I'll give you the number

old man 'e won't be back for 'alf an hour, nor t

s yours, mate, if you get through to Scotland Y

t. 'What d'you want to say to

laxton Street. Say he's got important news-say urgent and secret

ain't the na

r of a man borrowin' another name? Any

e, they'll know 'e's bin rung up, an

he screwed up courage and rang up the number. I listened with some nervousness whil

t want you to come round 'ere. 'E th

de and twitched th

iver me from the clutches of a tomfool A.P.M. I've got the most deadly news. There's not a second to waste. Fo

y. 'It's all right,' I said. 'I promise you that you won't g

pened and shut. The A.P.M.

ay's voice, and it was not pitched in dulcet tones. He had

I found a most rattled officer trying to save a few rags of his dignit

rt you to know that your folly may have made just the difference between you

word for the old fellow, whose red tab

anding and forget it. But I would suggest that civility is no

ll me it's a nightmare,' I cried. 'Tell me that the t

Heaven knows how he managed it, but h

e who lisped

livray

t this time. Have you

hands on him within an hour. We'

s a big handicap, for you'

n manage it. Where

'The day of disguises is past. In half an hour I'll be Richard Hannay. It

r Brand. I couldn't discourage our men, for I fancied it might have spoiled your game. I heard that last night they had

have various enthusi

ld have. But I hope presently to congrat

a pony you d

ofessional subject.

n't cease from troubling till they're stone-dead. And even then I'd want to see the body cremated and take the a