Peter was writing for his own comfort, for fortitude was all that was left to him now. But his words came pretty straight to me, and I read them again and again, for I needed the lesson. Here was Ilosing heart just because I had failed in the first round and my pride had taken a knock. I felt honestly ashamed of myself, and that made me a far happier man. There could be no question of dropping the business, whatever its difficulties. I had a queer religious feeling that Ivery and I had our fortunes intertwined, and that no will of mine could keep us apart. I had faced him before the war and won;I had faced him again and lost; the third time or the twentieth time we would reach a final decision. The whole business had hitherto appeared to me a trifle unreal, at any rate my own connection with it. I had been docilely obeying orders, but my real self had been standing aside and watching my doings with a certain aloofness.
But that hour in the Tube station had brought me into the serum, and I saw the affair not as Bullivant's or even Blenkiron's, but as my own. Before I had been itching to get back to the Front; now Iwanted to get on to Ivery's trail, though it should take me through the nether pit. Peter was right; fortitude was the thing a man must possess if he would save his soul.
The hours passed, and, as I expected, there came no word from Macgillivray. I had some dinner sent up to me at seven o'clock, and about eight I was thinking of looking up Blenkiron. just then came a telephone call asking me to go round to Sir Walter Bullivant's house in Queen Anne's Gate.
Ten minutes later I was ringing the bell, and the door was opened to me by the same impassive butler who had admitted me on that famous night three years before. Nothing had changed in the pleasant green-panelled hall; the alcove was the same as when Ihad watched from it the departure of the man who now called himself Ivery; the telephone book lay in the very place from which I had snatched it in order to ring up the First Sea Lord. And in the back room, where that night five anxious officials had conferred, Ifound Sir Walter and Blenkiron.
Both looked worried, the American feverishly so. He walked up and down the hearthrug, sucking an unlit black cigar.
'Say, ****,' he said, this is a bad business. It wasn't no fault of yours. You did fine. It was us - me and Sir Walter and Mr Macgillivray that were the quitters.'
'Any news?' I asked.
'So far the cover's drawn blank,' Sir Walter replied. 'It was the devil's own work that our friend looked your way today. You're pretty certain he saw that you recognized him?'
'Absolutely. As sure as that he knew I recognized him in your hall three years ago when he was swaggering as Lord Alloa.'
'No,' said Blenkiron dolefully, that little flicker of recognition is just the one thing you can't be wrong about. Land alive! I wish Mr Macgillivray would come.'
The bell rang, and the door opened, but it was not Macgillivray.
It was a young girl in a white ball-gown, with a cluster of blue cornflowers at her breast. The sight of her fetched Sir Walter out of his chair so suddenly that he upset his coffee cup.
'Mary, my dear, how did you manage it? I didn't expect you till the late train.'
'I was in London, you see, and they telephoned on your telegram.
I'm staying with Aunt Doria, and I cut her theatre party. She thinks I'm at the Shandwick's dance, so I needn't go home till morning ...
Good evening, General Hannay. You got over the Hill Difficulty.'
'The next stage is the Valley of Humiliation,' I answered.
'So it would appear,' she said gravely, and sat very quietly on the edge of Sir Walter's chair with her small, cool hand upon his.
I had been picturing her in my recollection as very young and glimmering, a dancing, exquisite child. But now I revised that picture. The crystal freshness of morning was still there, but I saw how deep the waters were. It was the clean fineness and strength of her that entranced me. I didn't even think of her as pretty, any more than a man thinks of the good looks of the friend he worships.
We waited, hardly speaking a word, till Macgillivray came. The first sight of his face told his story.
'Gone?' asked Blenkiron sharply. The man's lethargic calm seemed to have wholly deserted him.
'Gone,' repeated the newcomer. 'We have just tracked him down. Oh, he managed it cleverly. Never a sign of disturbance in any of his lairs. His dinner ordered at Biggleswick and several people invited to stay with him for the weekend - one a member of the Government. Two meetings at which he was to speak arranged for next week. Early this afternoon he flew over to France as a passenger in one of the new planes. He had been mixed up with the Air Board people for months - of course as another man with another face. Miss Lamington discovered that just too late. The bus went out of its course and came down in Normandy. By this time our man's in Paris or beyond it.'
Sir Walter took off his big tortoiseshell spectacles and laid them carefully on the table.
'Roll up the map of Europe,' he said. 'This is our Austerlitz.
Mary, my dear, I am feeling very old.'
Macgillivray had the sharpened face of a bitterly disappointed man. Blenkiron had got very red, and I could see that he was blaspheming violently under his breath. Mary's eyes were quiet and solemn. She kept on patting Sir Walter's hand. The sense of some great impending disaster hung heavily on me, and to break the spell I asked for details.
'Tell me just the extent of the damage,' I asked. 'Our neat plan for deceiving the Boche has failed. That is bad. A dangerous spy has got beyond our power. That's worse. Tell me, is there still a worst? What's the limit of mischief he can do?'
Sir Walter had risen and joined Blenkiron on the hearthrug. His brows were furrowed and his mouth hard as if he were suffering Pain.
