That night Sandy and I dined together. He had come back from Scotland in good spirits, for his father’s health was improving, and when Sandy was in good spirits it was like being on the Downs in a southwest wind. We had so much to tell each other that we let our food grow cold. He had to hear all about Mary and Peter John, and what I knew of Blenkiron and a dozen other old comrades, and I had to get a sketch—the merest sketch—of his doings since the Armistice in the East. Sandy for some reason was at the moment disinclined to speak of his past, but he was as ready as an undergraduate to talk of his future. He meant to stay at home now, for a long spell at any rate; and the question was how he should fill up his time. “Country life’s no good,” he said. “I must find a profession or I’ll get into trouble.”
I suggested politics, and he rather liked the notion.
“I might be bored in Parliament,” he reflected, “but I should love the rough-and-tumble of an election. I only once took part in one, and I discovered surprising gifts as a demagogue and made a speech in our little town which is still talked about. The chief row was about Irish Home Rule, and I thought I’d better have a whack at the Pope. Has it ever struck you, Dick, that ecclesiastical language has a most sinister sound? I knew some of the words, though not their meaning, but I knew that my audience would be just as ignorant. So I had a magnificent peroration. ‘Will you men of Kilclavers,’ I asked, ‘endure to see a chasuble set up in your marketplace? Will you have your daughters sold into simony? Will you have celibacy practised in the public streets?’ Gad, I had them all on their feet bellowing ‘Never!’ ”
He also rather fancied business. He had a notion of taking up civil aviation, and running a special service for transporting pilgrims from all over the Muslim world to Mecca. He reckoned the present average cost to the pilgrim at not less than £30, and believed that he could do it for an average of £15 and show a handsome profit. Blenkiron, he thought, might be interested in the scheme and put up some of the capital.
But later, in a corner of the upstairs smoking-room, Sandy was serious enough when I began to tell him the job I was on, for I didn’t need Macgillivray’s permission to make a confidant of him. He listened in silence while I gave him the main lines of the business that I had gathered from Macgillivray’s papers, and he made no comment when I came to the story of the three hostages. But, when I explained my disinclination to stir out of my country rut, he began to laugh.
“It’s a queer thing how people like us get a sudden passion for cosiness. I feel it myself coming over me. What stirred you up in the end? The little boy?”
Then very lamely and shyly I began on the rhymes and Greenslade’s memory. That interested him acutely. “Just the sort of sensible-nonsensical notion you’d have, Dick. Go on. I’m thrilled.”
But when I came to Medina he exclaimed sharply.
“You’ve met him?”
“Yesterday at luncheon.”
“You haven’t told him anything?”
“No. But I’m going to.”
Sandy had been deep in an armchair with his legs over the side, but now he got up and stood with his arms on the mantelpiece looking into the fire.
“I’m going to take him into my full confidence,” I said, “when I’ve spoken to Macgillivray.”
“Macgillivray will no doubt agree?”
“And you? Have you ever met him?”
“Never. But of course I’ve heard of him. Indeed I don’t mind telling you that one of my chief reasons for coming home was a wish to see Medina.”
“You’ll like him tremendously. I never met such a man.”
“So everyone says.” He turned his face and I could see that it had fallen into that portentous gravity which was one of Sandy’s moods, the complement to his ordinary insouciance. “When are you going to see him again?”
“I’m dining with him the day after tomorrow at a thing called the Thursday Club.”
“Oh, he belongs to that, does he? So do I. I think I’ll give myself the pleasure of dining also.”
I asked about the Club, and he told me that it had been started after the War by some of the people who had had queer jobs and wanted to keep together. It was very small, only twenty members. There were Collatt, one of the Q-boat V.C.’s, and Pugh of the Indian Secret Service, and the Duke of Burminster, and Sir Arthur Warcliff, and several soldiers all more or less well-known. “They elected me in 1919,” said Sandy, “but of course I’ve never been to a dinner. I say, Dick, Medina must have a pretty strong pull here to be a member of the Thursday. Though I says it as shouldn’t, it’s a show most people would give their right hand to be in.”
He sat down again and appeared to reflect, with his chin on his hand.
“You’re under the spell, I suppose,” he said.
“Utterly. I’ll tell you how he strikes me. Your ordinary very clever man is apt to be a bit bloodless and priggish, while your ordinary sportsman and good fellow is inclined to be a bit narrow. Medina seems to me to combine all the virtues and none of the faults of both kinds. Anybody can see he’s a sportsman, and you’ve only to ask the swells to discover how high they put his brains.”
“He sounds rather too good to be true.” I seemed to detect a touch of acidity in his voice. “Dick,” he said, looking very serious, “I want you to promise to go slow in this business—I mean about telling Medina.”
“Why?” I asked.
