by John Buchan

The Man Who Died
I returned from the City about three o'clock on thatMay afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I hadbeen three months in the Old Country, and was fed upwith it. If any one had told me a year ago that I wouldhave been feeling like that I should have laughed athim; but there was the fact. The weather made meliverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made mesick, I couldn't get enough exercise, and theamusements of London seemed as flat as soda-waterthat has been standing in the sun. "Richard Hannay," Ikept telling myself, "you have got into the wrong ditch,my friend, and you had better climb out."
It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I hadbeen building up those last years in Bulawayo. I hadgot my pile--not one of the big ones, but good enoughfor me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways ofenjoying myself. My father had brought me out fromScotland at the age of six, and I had never been homesince; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me,and I counted on stopping there for the rest of mydays.
But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about aweek I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than amonth I had had enough of restaurants and theatresand race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with,which probably explains things. Plenty of peopleinvited me to their houses, but they didn't seem muchinterested in me. They would fling me a question ortwo about South Africa, and then get on to their ownaffairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea tomeet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editorsfrom Vancouver, and that was the dismallest businessof all. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in windand limb, with enough money to have a good time,yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled toclear out and get back to the veld, for I was the bestbored man in the United Kingdom.
That afternoon I had been worrying my brokers aboutinvestments to give my mind something to work on,and on my way home I turned into my club--rather apot-house, which took in Colonial members. I had along drink, and read the evening papers. They were fullof the row in the Near East, and there was an articleabout Karolides, the Greek Premier. I rather fancied thechap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man inthe show; and he played a straight game too, whichwas more than could be said for most of them. Igathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlinand Vienna, but that we were going to stick by him, andone paper said that he was the only barrier betweenEurope and Armageddon. I remember wondering if Icould get a job in those parts. It struck me that Albaniawas the sort of place that might keep a man fromyawning.
About six o'clock I went home, dressed, dined at theCafe' Royal, and turned into a music-hall. It was a sillyshow, all capering women and monkey-faced men, andI did not stay long. The night was fine and clear as Iwalked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place.The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busyand chattering, and I envied the people for havingsomething to do. These shop-girls and clerks anddandies and policemen had some interest in life thatkept them going. I gave half a crown to a beggarbecause I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. AtOxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and Imade a vow. I would give the Old Country another dayto fit me into something; if nothing happened, I wouldtake the next boat for the Cape.
My flat was the first floor in a new block behindLangham Place. There was a common staircase, with aporter and a lift man at the entrance, but there was norestaurant or anything of that sort, and each flat wasquite shut off from the others. I hate servants on thepremises, so I had a fellow to look after me who camein by the day. He arrived before eight o'clock everymorning and used to depart at seven, for I never dinedat home.
I was just fitting my key into the door when I noticed aman at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, andthe sudden appearance made me start. He was a slimman, with a short brown beard and small, gimlety blueeyes. I recognized him as the occupant of a flat on thetop floor, with whom I had passed the time of day onthe stairs.
"Can I speak to you?" he said. "May I come in for aminute?" He was steadying his voice with an effort, andhis hand was pawing my arm.
I got my door open and motioned him in. No soonerwas he over the threshold than he made a dash for myback room, where I used to smoke and write myletters. Then he bolted back.
"Is the door locked?" he asked feverishly, and hefastened the chain with his own hand.
"I am very sorry," he said humbly. "It's a mighty liberty,but you look the kind of man who would understand.I've had you in my mind all this week when things gottroublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?"
"I'll listen to you," I said. "That's all I'll promise." I wasgetting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.
There was a tray of drinks on the table beside him,from which he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. Hedrank it off in three gulps, and cracked the glass as heset it down.
"Pardon," he said, "I'm a bit rattled to-night. You see, Ihappen at this moment to be dead."
I sat down in an arm-chair and lit my pipe.
"What does it feel like?" I asked. I was pretty certainthat I had to deal with a madman.
A smile flickered over his drawn face. "I'm not mad--yet. Say, sir, I've been watching you, and I reckonyou're a cool customer. I reckon, too, you're an honestman, and not afraid of playing a bold hand. I'm goingto confide in you. I need help worse than any man everneeded it, and I want to know if I can count you in."
"Get on with your yam," I said, "and I'll tell you."
He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and thenstarted on the queerest rigmarole. I didn't get hold of itat first, and I had to stop and ask him questions. Buthere is the gist of it:--
He was an American, from Kentucky, and after college,being pretty well off, he had started out to see theworld. He wrote a bit, and acted as war correspondentfor a Chicago paper, and spent a year or two in South-Eastern Europe. I gathered that he was a fine linguist,and had got to know pretty well the society in thoseparts. He spoke familiarly of many names that Iremembered to have seen in the newspapers.
He had played about with politics, he told me, at firstfor the interest of them, and then because he couldn'thelp himself. I read him as a sharp, restless fellow, whoalways wanted to get down to the roots of things. Hegot a little further down than he wanted.
I am giving you what he told me as well as I couldmake it out. Away behind all the Governments and thearmies there was a big subterranean movement goingon, engineered by very dangerous people. He hadcome on it by accident; it fascinated him; he wentfurther, and then he got caught. I gathered that most ofthe people in it were the sort of educated anarchiststhat make revolutions, but that beside them there werefinanciers who were playing for money. A clever mancan make big profits on a falling market, and it suitedthe book of both classes to set Europe by the ears.
He told me some queer things that explained a lot thathad puzzled me--things that happened in the BalkanWar, how one state suddenly came out on top, whyalliances were made and broken, why certain mendisappeared, and where the sinews of war came from.The aim of the whole conspiracy was to get Russia andGermany at loggerheads.
When I asked Why, he said that the anarchist lotthought it would give them their chance. Everythingwould be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see anew world emerge. The capitalists would rake in theshekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage.Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland.Besides, the Jew was behind it, and the Jew hatedRussia worse than hell.
"Do you wonder?" he cried. "For three hundred yearsthey have been persecuted, and this is the returnmatch for the pogroms. The Jew is everywhere, butyou have to go far down the backstairs to find him.Take any big Teutonic business concern. If you havedealings with it the first man you meet is Prince vonund zu Something, an elegant young man who talksEton-and-Harrow English. But he cuts no ice. If yourbusiness is big, you get behind him and find aprognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow andthe manners of a hog. He is the German business manthat gives your English papers the shakes. But if you'reon the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to thereal boss, ten to one you are brought up against a littlewhite-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like arattlesnake. Yes, sir, he is the man who is ruling theworld just now, and he has his knife in the Empire ofthe Tsar, because his aunt was outraged and his fatherflogged in some one-horse location on the Volga."
I could not help saying that his Jew-anarchists seemedto have got left behind a little.
"Yes and no," he said. "They won up to a point, but theystruck a bigger thing than money, a thing that couldn'tbe bought, the old elemental fighting instincts of man.If you're going to he killed you invent some kind of flagand country to fight for, and if you survive you get tolove the thing. Those foolish devils of soldiers havefound something they care for, and that has upset thepretty plan laid in Berlin and Vienna. But my friendshaven't played their last card by a long sight. They'vegotten the ace up their sleeves, and unless I can keepalive for a month they are going to play it and win."
"But I thought you were dead," I put in.
"_i_ Mors janua vitae _i_" he smiled. (I recognized thequotation: it was about all the Latin I knew.) "I'mcoming to that, but I've got to put you wise about a lotof things first. If you read your newspaper, I guess youknow the name of Constantine Karolides?"
I sat up at that, for I had been reading about him thatvery afternoon.
"He is the man that has wrecked all their games. He isthe one big brain in the whole show, and he happensalso to be an honest man. Therefore he has beenmarked down these twelve months past. I found thatout--not that it was difficult, for any fool could guess asmuch. But I found out the way they were going to gethim, and that knowledge was deadly. That's why I havehad to decease."
He had another drink, and I mixed it for him myself, forI was getting interested in the beggar.
"They can't get him in his own land, for he has abodyguard of Epirotes that would skin theirgrandmothers. But on the 15th day of June he iscoming to this city. The British Foreign Office has takento having international tea-parties, and the biggest ofthem is due on that date. Now Karolides is reckonedthe principal guest, and if my friends have their way hewill never return to his admiring countrymen."
"That's simple enough, anyhow," I said. "You can warnhim and keep him at home."
"And play their game?" he asked sharply. "If he doesnot come they win, for he's the only man that canstraighten out the tangle. And if his Government arewarned he won't come, for he does not know how bigthe stakes will be on June the 15th."
"What about the British Government?" I said. "They'renot going to let their guests be murdered. Tip them thewink, and they'll take extra precautions."
"No good. They might stuff this city with plain-clothesdetectives and double the police and Constantinewould still he a doomed man. My friends are notplaying this game for candy. They want a big occasionfor the taking off, with the eyes of all Europe on it. He'llbe murdered by an Austrian, and there'll be plenty ofevidence to show the connivance of the big folk inVienna and Berlin. It will all be an infernal lie, of course,but the case will look black enough to the world. I'mnot talking hot air, my friend. I happen to know everydetail of the hellish contrivance, and I can tell you it willbe the most finished piece of blackguardism since theBorgias. But it's not going to come off if there's acertain man who knows the wheels of the businessalive right here in London on the 15th day of June. Andthat man is going to be your servant, Franklin P.Scudder."