RETURN OF THE WILD GEESE
I do not think I was surprised at the news I read in _The Times_ next
morning.
Mr. Andrew Lumley had died suddenly in the night of heart failure,
and the newspapers woke up to the fact that we had been entertaining
a great man unawares. There was an obituary in "leader" type of
nearly two columns. He had been older than I thought--close on
seventy--and _The Times_ spoke of him as a man who might have done
anything he pleased in public life, but had chosen to give to a small
coterie of friends what was due to the country. I read of his wit
and learning, his amazing connoisseurship, his social gifts, his
personal charm. According to the writer, he was the finest type of
cultivated amateur, a Beckford with more than a Beckford's wealth and
none of his folly. Large private charities were hinted at, and a
hope was expressed that some part at least of his collections might
come to the nation.
The halfpenny papers said the same thing in their own way. One
declared he reminded it of Atticus, another of Maecenas, another of
Lord Houghton. There must have been a great run on biographical
dictionaries in the various offices. Chapman's own particular rag
said that, although this kind of philanthropist was a dilettante and
a back-number, yet Mr. Lumley was a good specimen of the class and
had been a true friend to the poor. I thought Chapman would have a
fit when he read this. After that he took in the _Morning Post_.
It was no business of mine to explode the myth. Indeed I couldn't
even if I had wanted to, for no one would have believed me unless I
produced proofs, and these proofs were not to be made public.
Besides I had an honest compunction. He had had, as he expressed it,
a good run for his money, and I wanted the run to be properly rounded
off.
Three days later I went to the funeral. It was a wonderful occasion.
Two eminent statesmen were among the pallbearers, Royalty was
represented, and there were wreaths from learned societies and scores
of notable people. It was a queer business to listen to that stately
service which was never read over stranger dust. I was thinking all
the time of the vast subterranean machine which he had controlled,
and which now was so much old iron. I could dimly imagine what his
death meant to the hosts who had worked blindly at his direction. He
was a Napoleon who left no Marshals behind him. From the Power-House
came no wreaths or newspaper tributes, but I knew that it had lost
its power....
_De mortuis_, etc. My task was done, and it only remained to get
Pitt-Heron home.
Of the three people in London besides myself who knew the
story--Macgillivray, Chapman and Felix--the two last might be trusted
to be silent, and Scotland Yard is not in the habit of publishing its
information. Tommy, of course, must some time or other be told; it
was his right; but I knew that Tommy would never breathe a word of
it. I wanted Charles to believe that his secret died with Lumley,
for otherwise I don't think he would have ever come back to England.
The thing took some arranging, for we could not tell him directly
about Lumley's death without giving away the fact that we knew of the
connection between the two. We had to approach it by a roundabout
road. I got Felix to arrange to have the news telegraphed to and
inserted by special order in a Russian paper which Charles could not
avoid seeing.
The device was successful. Calling at Portman Square a few days
later I learned from Ethel Pitt-Heron's glowing face that her
troubles were over. That same evening a cable to me from Tommy
announced the return of the wanderers.
It was the year of the Chilian Arbitration, in which I held a junior
brief for the British Government, and that and the late sitting of
Parliament kept me in London after the end of the term. I had had a
bad reaction from the excitements of the summer, and in these days I
was feeling pretty well hipped and overdone. On a hot August
afternoon I met Tommy again.
The sun was shining through my Temple chambers, much as it had done
when he started. So far as I remember the West Ham brief which had
aroused his contempt was still adorning my table. I was very hot and
cross and fagged, for I had been engaged in the beastly job of
comparing half a dozen maps of a despicable little bit of South
American frontier.
Suddenly the door opened, and Tommy, lean and sunburnt, stalked in.
"Still at the old grind," he cried, after we had shaken hands.
"Fellows like you give me a notion of the meaning of Eternity."
"The same uneventful sedentary life," I replied. "Nothing happens
except that my scale of fees grows. I suppose nothing _will_ happen
till the conductor comes to take the tickets. I shall soon grow fat."
"I notice it already, my lad. You want a bit of waking up or you'll
get a liver. A little sensation would do you a lot of good."
"And you?" I asked. "I congratulate you on your success. I hear you
have retrieved Pitt-Heron for his mourning family."
Tommy's laughing eyes grew solemn.
"I have had the time of my life," he said. "It was like a chapter
out of the Arabian Nights with a dash of Fenimore Cooper. I feel as
if I had lived years since I left England in May. While you have
been sitting among your musty papers we have been riding like
moss-troopers and seeing men die. Come and dine to-night and hear
about our adventures. I can't tell you the full story, for I don't
know it, but there is enough to curl your hair."
Then I achieved my first and last score at the expense of Tommy
Deloraine.
"No," I said, "you will dine with me instead and _I_ will tell you
the full story. All the papers on the subject are over there in my
safe."
THE END
* * * * *
BOOKS BY JOHN BUCHAN
_Novels_
The House of the Four Winds
The Free Fishers
Greenmantle
Huntingtower
John Burnet of Barns
The Three Hostages
John Macnab
Midwinter
The Dancing Floor
Witch Wood
Mr. Standfast
The Thirty-Nine Steps
The Half-Hearted
The Runagates Club
The Courts of the Morning
Salute to Adventurers
Castle Gay
The Path of the King
The Blanket of the Dark
The Gap in the Curtain
A Prince of the Captivity
The Man From the Norlands
Adventures of Richard Hannay (Omnibus)
Mountain Meadow
The Power-House
_Biography, History, and Essays_
The People's King
A History of the Great War
A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys
The Last Secrets
History of the Royal Scots Fusiliers
Lord Minto
The Nations of Today (Editor)
Two Ordeals of Democracy
Homilies and Recreations
The Northern Muse (Editor)
Montrose
Oliver Cromwell
Augustus
Pilgrim's Way
_Books Especially for Young People_
Prester John
The Magic Walking Stick
Lake of Gold