The Professor laid a hand on his shoulder. The gardener took no heed of the touch, cursing as he tied up the broken stem. A sudden thought seized Schliemann, and he began to run towards the wall looking on the river.
The scene was vacant of life. Night hung over the park. The moon broke through the clouds, silvered the water and the grass for a minute before it was veiled again by the vapour. With shortened breath he clambered down, and alighting at the foot of the mound, gazed around for Moss. But he had disappeared, and so had the boat and the boatman.
Schliemann raged aloud. Such a chance, might it occur again? Yes, he presently argued, it would. Moss must communicate with him. The man, for some strong reason, had selected him as the instrument to recover the books, considering his co-operation of so much importance that he had the impudence to use a threat. Why was his aid essential? Then like a flash of light the question answered itself. ‘Let the devil take the impudent thief!’ he thought in a burst of triumph and indignation. ‘I shall outwit him, get and photograph the vellums, return them to my kind and chivalrous host, and thus carry out my own wish and that of my Government.’
He moved on, following the wall till he reached the archway. Across the lawn and terrace he could see the lights in the dining-room windows. It was near the dinner hour he knew.
‘Mac Buan,’ he said, as he passed into the ruin.
The cursing had ceased. The man’s figure rose up abruptly from the ground. ‘My heavy curse on the foot that did that,’ he said with vicious emphasis.
‘Then curse Moss who stole your master’s books, for it was his foot that stood there. I have something to say to you, Attacotti.’
‘Say on, noble one,’ was the surly answer.
‘It is a stiff climb up the broken steps of the keep, as I know,’ said Schliemann. ‘And in my opinion it was not for the view you made it. You perhaps knew Moss was coming and retreated into a suitable fortress, spy-hole and hiding-place. You saw me capture Moss. You heard me parley with him inside the keep.’
‘I saw no one and heard nothing,’ the man replied. ‘I was too high up to hear anything but your voices.’
‘Well, Moss was here and is gone. He came to meet you, I am inclined to think. Not long ago it chanced that you found a parcel on the terrace, in which were manuscripts of some age. And them you gave to Moss as the vellums he had stolen from the library, and which he bribed you to take charge of. Now, Mac Buan, where are the vellums?’
‘You would not ask me to put them into the hands of a German spy, noble one,’ said the man in a quiet and civil tone, and walked away.
The Professor hastened after him. ‘Listen, fellow! Whom do you call a spy?’ he said, sternly.
‘There’s many a man that’s one,’ the gardener replied. ‘But it is no business of mine to be reporting my neighbours, any more than it is for them to spread abroad that I have put Midir under the rose-tree. At what hour do you open the south entrance to the dungeon, noble one?’
‘At eleven,’ said Schliemann. ‘The fellow hints,’ he thought, ‘that he will not spread this damnable misconception of my person abroad if I do not make him give up the vellums. ‘MacBuan,’ he said, after a moment, aloud, ‘the books are, when found, to be returned to the Historian.’
‘That is right,’ answered the man, ‘for they are his, and if I find them, it is into his hand I’ll put them. Good night, noble one.’
He walked towards the archway and went out. The Professor soon followed. MacBuan had overheard his conversation with Moss, and believed he had him in his power. He knew where the books were hidden. But Schliemann saw that if he were to tell either the Tanist or MacSuibne his suspicion—nay, it was more than a suspicion, it was a certainty—the part the Ambassador had taken would be discovered. Patriotism tied his tongue. The gardener must be bribed again, and the German Government would have to give the money.
He found the Historian waiting for him before going to the dining room. There was a brighter look on his face than the Professor had seen for some days. He told him the Tanist had come. ‘We have important news, he added, ‘which I would tell you now, but Maelmuire has asked to be allowed to tell you himself.’
Schliemann hastened to his room and made a rapid toilet. What was the news, he wondered, and felt an uneasy interest in the question.
On entering the dining-room, he found the Tanist already there. He greeted the Professor with cordiality. Yet the latter thought his manner was not sincere. He had only known him as cold, reserved and courteous, and his vivacious and genial air appeared too evidently assumed .
The conversation ran on various subjects—the Professor’s visit to Tara, the latest political news, the rumoured engagement of the Righ-damna—till the meal was nearly over, and Cormac was the only servant that remained in the room. Then, taking advantage of a pause, the Tanist delivered his news.
‘Moss has been arrested,’ he said, quite calmly. His pale eyes as he told this sensational tidings had a certain hard attention in them as he looked at the Professor, which confirmed Schliemann in his opinion that the Tanist had him under the closest observation. Yet in spite of this belief, he was unable to prevent a start.
‘He was arrested to-night,’ the Tanist continued. ‘By the river, at a spot near the castle.’
The consequences of the arrest took shape at once in the Professor’s imagination. Moss would try to discredit him as a witness, and tell the police that he was a secret service agent. The Ambassador, as the Secretary had frankly confessed, would disown him. He would be sent to jail, and heaven knew when he might be liberated, if indeed he were ever liberated, or ever again saw his home, his sister, his friends, Berlin, his country. In the fury of the thought he took a bold course.
‘I saw him,’ he said with heat. ‘I did not mention this, as I believed he had escaped.’ And leaning both hands heavily on the table, he told how Moss had come upon him suddenly; of his endeavour to seize him; of the threat (its nature he did not explain, briefly saying that Moss said he would injure him) of the second theft of the first manuscripts, and of Moss’s abrupt departure at a summons from his boatman.
‘It was then the police captured him, just as he was about to get into the boat,’ said the Tanist. ‘He has not mentioned his interview with you. You thought it useless to follow him, I suppose?’
‘Not at all,’ exclaimed Schliemann. ‘I would have followed the scoundrel readily. But I fell again suddenly without a warning symptom into that curious catalepsy that I had experienced in the library on the day of the theft. For a time I was powerless to follow him.’
The Historian expressed concern; a look flashed across the Tanist’s face which the Professor interpreted as complete incredulity. It came and was gone in an instant, but Schliemann had caught it.
‘Moss,’ said the Tanist, in his calm, balanced tone, ‘does not, of course, attempt to deny that he met me in this house. But he declares his object was not to steal, but to get a view of the Historian’s library, which he had heard was famous, and to which he was refused access, as he had offended the Historian by his offer to buy the two manuscripts. He denies having taken them from the library. MacSuibne thinks he has really lost them, and that he has been cheated by one of the art thieves who is holding on to the books in order to get a higher price.’
‘Where is Moss?’ asked the Professor.
‘On his way, I believe, to Baile-Átha-Cliath.’
‘MacSuibne must have got fresh information after I left you last night,’ said the Professor.
‘Evidently,’ replied the Tanist, ‘as he was able to track Moss here. Your information that the man came to threaten you—I suppose for not getting the books through—explains why he returned to the neighbourhood of Tír-da-glas. MacSuibne has not yet left for Baile-Átha-Cliath. Historian, may I send for him? Cormac, tell MacSuibne that the Historian wishes to see him.’
In a short time the detective appeared. He came alone, and the Professor wondered if he still entertained a doubt of Cormac. Then it flashed upon him that suspicion strongly pointed to himself; not in the Historian’s eyes, for he knew, MacFirbis had the fullest faith in his honour; but it was only too likely that MacSuibne might think he was the thief who had cheated Moss. Evidence pointed that way; the second manuscripts had been in his room, had disappeared, and when found again were found in his possession.
The Tanist related briefly what the Professor had told, speaking directly to MacSuibne, who listened with his usual pensive, almost inattentive, air. He remained silent for a moment, then asked Schliemann if he would repeat exactly what Moss had said.
This, of course, the Professor could not do. He would have had no hesitation in telling MacSuibne the absurd mistake that had been made about his own identity if by doing so he did not betray the diplomacy of the Embassy. To dissimulate was, also, abhorrent to him—he, a man who had always spoken the truth, and was proud of his straightforward character.
As he paused, the Historian expressed regret that Moss should have dared to seek the Professor. ‘The man’s impudence and audacity in attempting first to employ you as his agent, and then to follow you here and utter threats of violence,’ he said, ‘makes me think he must be a madman, and I shall not be surprised if he is proved to be one. It is possible that he has destroyed the vellums.’
‘He is no doubt mad,’ said MacSuibne, ‘but his madness lies in one direction, an abnormal acquisitiveness. As an ordinary business man he is absolutely sane, and his billions have made him a power in Europe. You tried to detain him, Sai Schliemann?’
The question the Professor understood as a request for his story. He repeated what he had said to the Tanist, standing the fire of the two men’s eyes. ‘As Moss went,’ he concluded, ‘I was seized by a catalepsy which held me powerless for a time in the keep.’
‘You have been subject to these distressing attacks all your life, I suppose?’ said the Tanist.
‘Not at all,’ was the emphatic reply. ‘I never had one till I came into this kingdom.’
The Historian looked at the Professor with a kindly and anxious face. ‘Your strenuous work has injured your health, I fear,’ he said; ‘and I feel concerned that you should have fallen a victim to these trances in this kingdom. You must defer your excavations at the castle till your health is improved.’
No one spoke for a moment. The Professor’s thoughts were on his notebook and the vellums. Then MacSuibne’s voice broke the silence.
‘This threat?’, he said. ‘Was it a definite one or merely the vague fulminations of an angry man?’
‘It was direct.’ In an instant the Professor knew the reply was a lie. He felt the blood mount to his face, and knew that guilt was stamped on his features. He must explain and stand clear with his conscience. After all, there was some truth in the saying of his great countryman that for a man to have principles was like carrying a ladder through a wood. It was a relief to find that MacSuibne was looking at his watch.
‘It was direct, in a measure,’ he blundered. ‘But as his threat was aimed at some of my friends as well as myself, I do not feel that I can say more on the subject.’
‘You can help us very materially,’ said MacSuibne, ‘if you will return to-night to Baile-Átha-Cliath with me and get into communication with Moss. You will be allowed to visit him in jail of course. He will think the threat he holds over you and your friends in Berlin has brought you to his aid, and he will give you all the information he possesses.’
The Professor sat squarely in his chair. Then he leant back and folded his arms, while his lips met in that narrow line familiar to those who knew him when he meant to offer a dogged resistance to some proposal.
‘You ask me,’ he said, unclasping, as it were, his lips, ‘to be a spy. I decline the position.’
The Historian’s eyes showed the keenest approval. Straightening himself, he turned a look of reproof on MacSuibne, and bade him remember he was addressing a gentleman, a man of honour and of European fame, and that it only remained for the detective to apologise and depart. MacSuibne rose, bowed, and moved towards the door. There he paused as he held the handle.
‘I apologise, Historian, first to you,’ he said, ‘that I should have offended your high instinct of honour. Alas, my profession tends to blunt the finer expressions of a man’s chivalry and honour. I apologise to you, Sai Schliemann, who, yourself, had shown a moment before the very highest point of honour in concealing the names of your friends in Berlin.’
The Professor took the words like a stroke of a rapier on his face. He sat very still for a moment; and again he saw that life-long incarceration, that loss of identity, his total disappearance from the world he had known. Presently he pushed back his chair, and rose to his feet. He looked from the Historian to the Tanist, and from the latter to MacSuibne.
‘I will give,’ he said slowly, ‘every help that I can give with honour in this business. I will see Moss, but, as one who is indifferent to his threats, I shall deal openly with the man. But I am not a young and energetic detective. I was out of my bed all last night. I had a journey to-day, and should prefer to spend this night in bed. To-morrow I will go back to Baile-Átha-Cliath.’
MacSuibne thanked him. ‘To-morrow will do, noble one,’ he said; and bowing, he went out of the room.
The Historian objected to the journey. He reminded the Professor of his health, and begged him to remain at Tír-da-glas. The Tanist remarked that there was no urgent need to leave that night; Moss was secured, and so, he hoped, would be the vellums. ‘To-morrow we can travel together to Baile-Átha-Cliath,’ he concluded. ‘MacSuibne will go back by the night mail.’
The Professor heard him with suppressed wrath. ‘Confound this cold-blooded young man,’ he thought. ‘Am I to be under his surveillance?’