The Three Hostages

The Three Hostages

By John Buchan.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. The Three Hostages
   1. I: Doctor Greenslade Theorises
   2. II: I Hear of the Three Hostages
   3. III: Researches in the Subconscious
   4. IV: I Make the Acquaintance of a Popular Man
   5. V: The Thursday Club
   6. VI: The House in Gospel Oak
   7. VII: Some Experiences of a Disciple
   8. VIII: The Blind Spinner
   9. IX: I Am Introduced to Strong Magic
   10. X: Confidences at a Wayside Inn
   11. XI: How a German Engineer Found Strange Fishing
   12. XII: I Return to Servitude
   13. XIII: I Visit the Fields of Eden
   14. XIV: Sir Archibald Roylance Puts His Foot in It
   15. XV: How a French Nobleman Discovered Fear
   16. XVI: Our Time Is Narrowed
   17. XVII: The District-Visitor in Palmyra Square
   18. XVIII: The Night of the First of June
   19. XIX: The Night of the First of June—Later
   20. XX: Machray
   21. XXI: How I Stalked Wilder Game Than Deer
       1. I: 9 A.M. to 2:15 P.M.
       2. II: 2:15 P.M., to About 5 P.M.
       3. III: 5 P.M., to About 7:30 P.M.
       4. IV: 7:30 P.M. and Onwards
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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To
a Young Gentleman of
Eton College

Honoured Sir,

On your last birthday a well-meaning godfather presented you with a volume of mine, since you had been heard on occasion to express approval of my works. The book dealt with a somewhat arid branch of historical research, and it did not please you. You wrote to me, I remember, complaining that I had “let you down,” and summoning me, as I valued your respect, to “pull myself together.” In particular you demanded to hear more of the doings of Richard Hannay, a gentleman for whom you professed a liking. I, too, have a liking for Sir Richard, and when I met him the other day (he is now a country neighbour) I observed that his left hand had been considerably mauled, an injury which I knew had not been due to the War. He was so good as to tell me the tale of an unpleasant business in which he had recently been engaged, and to give me permission to retell it for your benefit. Sir Richard took a modest pride in the affair, because from first to last it had been a pure contest of wits, without recourse to those more obvious methods of strife with which he is familiar. So I herewith present it to you, in the hope that in the eyes of you and your friends it may atone for certain other writings of mine with which you have been afflicted by those in authority.

J. B.

June, 1924.

The Three Hostages

I

Doctor Greenslade Theorises

That evening, I remember, as I came up through the Mill Meadow, I was feeling peculiarly happy and contented. It was still mid-March, one of those spring days when noon is like May, and only the cold pearly haze at sunset warns a man that he is not done with winter. The season was absurdly early, for the blackthorn was in flower and the hedge roots were full of primroses. The partridges were paired, the rooks were well on with their nests, and the meadows were full of shimmering grey flocks of fieldfares on their way north. I put up half a dozen snipe on the boggy edge of the stream, and in the bracken in Sturn Wood I thought I saw a woodcock, and hoped that the birds might nest with us this year, as they used to do long ago. It was jolly to see the world coming to life again, and to remember that this patch of England was my own, and all these wild things, so to speak, members of my little household.

As I say, I was in a very contented mood, for I had found something I had longed for all my days. I had bought Fosse Manor just after the War as a wedding present for Mary, and for two and a half years we had been settled there. My son, Peter John, was rising fifteen months, a thoughtful infant, as healthy as a young colt and as comic as a terrier puppy. Even Mary’s anxious eye could scarcely detect in him any symptoms of decline. But the place wanted a lot of looking to, for it had run wild during the War, and the woods had to be thinned, gates and fences repaired, new drains laid, a ram put in to supplement the wells, a heap of thatching to be done, and the garden borders to be brought back to cultivation. I