THE STYRIAN
Swandale cottage is very large, covering more than half of the island,
but mostly one-storeyed, the roofs being of thatch made heavy with
rocks, and the walls of marble kept snow-white by means of snakestone;
but not much of the walls is visible, for the eaves of the roof droop so
low that parts of them have had to be removed over the doors; and as
most of the timber about the cottage is huge, the twilight within broods
at noon. At the time of which I write candles burned in most of the
rooms throughout the day in an atmosphere smoky with incense; for all
within was a feeling of the ecclesiastical, everywhere the Church,
monasticism, the vestment, the ritual, the Middle Ages, the mood of the
altar.
I spent most of the day after my arrival--a Sunday--with Langler in his
study, which was in a corner of the cottage, and looked like a great
garret or barn with its black beams, its floor of black and red stone,
its arras and bookshelves; the ottoman, fixed into a nook under a Christ
in hone-stone, was covered with embroideries of the Armenian Church;
three diamond-paned windows looked out upon some flower-beds and lawn
and upon a slip of the lake seen through oak and poplar; on the desk
stood a pyx-and-cross, with two candelabra of plain old gold, whose six
candles more or less cancelled the gloom.
At breakfast I had asked him how the wren was faring, his answer had
been evasive, but in the study he referred himself to it, saying, "you
asked about the wren at breakfast, by which I understood you to ask
about the paper round its leg. Now, I have been examining this paper, it
bears some written words, and as they are unpleasant I didn't wish to
speak of it before Emily. However, I will show it now to you."
He opened the pyx, took out a little curl of paper, and spread it on the
desk. It was uneven at the edges, had been much begrimed, but with a
magnifying-glass I contrived to read these words in the tiniest writing:
"Ich, der Pater Max Dees, bin ein ... ner im Sc ... des Barons
Gregor ... _Um Gottes Willen_"; or: "I, Father Max Dees, am a ... 'ner'
in the 'Sc' ... of Baron Gregor.... _For God's sake._"
"Notice the material of writing," said Langler.
"Not red ink?"
"No, blood. And the instrument of writing----"
"Not a pen?"
"No, a pin, as you see from the downstrokes."
"But have you been able to fill in the blanks in the sentence?"
"In two at least of the three instances: for if a man writes with a pin
and with blood he is certainly somehow a prisoner, and that seems to
suggest the word ending in 'ner', namely, Gefangener. And, having that,
we know the word beginning with 'Sc': for he could hardly be a prisoner
in anything beginning with 'Sc' except a Schloss. So that we get that
Father Max Dees is a prisoner in the castle of Baron Gregor Something;
and he begs us _for God's sake_ to do something: very likely he was
interrupted in the act of writing it."
"But how on earth, I wonder, did he trap the wren in his prison?" I
said.
"People in such situations do become ingenious," Langler answered.
"But will you take any steps in the matter?"
"Well, I suppose one must, for mercy's sake," he answered: "but what
steps?"
"The first thing," I said, "is to locate our priest: that is, to find
out the full name of our Baron Gregor; but that is precisely what may be
difficult."
"No; I think not," he answered; "you haven't looked at the thread with
which the paper was tied round the wren's leg: just look now, though I
doubt if it will give you any information, but Emily or John would know
at once."
After examining the thread under the glass I said No.
"Well," he said, "over yonder among my flock are three goats,
half-domesticated Styrian hill-goats, whose greyish undergrowth of
mohair is woven undyed for underclothing in Upper Styrian villages, and,
in spite of its long exposure, I feel sure that the fibre you are
looking at is Styrian hill-goat wool, and a thread ravelled from some
garment or other woven in Styria."
"So that Father Max Dees probably is in some Styrian castle?"
"So it would seem, and we shall know which Styrian castle as soon as we
run our eyes down some list of Styrian barons--unless there are two or
more Gregors among them. At any rate, we shall have some information,
and can then take some step to rid our backs of the burden of the
matter. But where to find a list of Styrian barons?"
I answered that I didn't know, but that there would be no difficulty
about that. "But a Styrian wren!" I said. "How comes it in England in
August--or at any time?"
"We shall have to get Emily to coach you in some of the more glaring
facts of country-life," Langler said, with a nod. "Don't you know,
really, that many wrens are winter birds? And as to the migratory ones,
surely you know that hardly any kind of bird is reliable in its
migrations. I once knew a cuckoo--but I won't talk Greek to a Scythian.
They drift into strange tribes, you know, at the home-coming; they even
change their nationality for a summer or for a lifetime. That bit of
paper, remember, has been wafted at least twelve months on the wings of
the wind, and mauled in the forests of midmost old Lybia, so that our
prisoner may be already free--or dead. In any case, it seems an odd
little trait of chance that the thing should come here--to me."