I wanted the Knockraw people to have plenty of time to get clear.”
“For which purpose I am to be sacrificed?”
“Your interests and theirs are the same. You must see that. What they want is to find the Evallonian monarchists and Prince John and you yourself in some close relation, and to publish the fact to the world. That would give them a big advantage. It would kill your power to help Casimir, and it would put Britain definitely against him. Our people would never stand the notion that you and the Evallonians were conspiring on British soil, and the presence of Prince John would put the lid on it. You see that, don’t you?”
“I see that it was desirable to get rid of the Knockraw tenants… But I do not see why I should be exposed to a visit from those Republican miscreants.”
“It was the only way to make Casimir’s escape certain… What will happen, Mr Craw? The Republicans think that Casimir and the Prince are safe at Castle Gay. They won’t trouble very much about them till to-morrow night, when they are coming to see you, hoping to catch the lot of you in the very act of conspiracy. They chose Friday because it is the day of the poll, and the countryside will be in a stir, and they think that your outdoor and indoor servants will be mostly in Portaway. Well, all you’ve got to do is to be there to meet them, and tell them you never heard of any such nonsense, and send them all to blazes. Then it will be they who will look the fools, and you won’t be troubled any more from that quarter. We must settle this business once and for all, and give you some security for a quiet life.”
“It will be a very unpleasant experience for me,” said Mr Craw. But there was no panic in his voice, only irritation. The listeners received the impression that there would be a certain asperity in Mr Craw’s reception of the Evallonian delegates.
“Of course,” Jaikie added, “it will all have to be stage-managed a little. You can trust me for that.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Mrs Brisbane-Brown, “is why his Royal Highness did not accompany the Knockraw party… It sounds shockingly inhospitable, sir, and I need not tell you how deeply honoured I am to have you in my house. But I am thinking of your own interests. You are the most important personage in this business, and it is imperative to get you out of danger at once. Yet you are still here, in hiding, only five miles from your bitterest enemies.”
Jaikie looked a little embarrassed. “Perhaps I was wrong, but it seemed to me that the best chance of the Prince’s safety was to keep him apart from the others. You see, those people at Portaway are not to be trifled with. They have got lines down everywhere, and for all I know they may have discovered the flight of Casimir and his friends and followed them. But Casimir doesn’t greatly matter as long as the Prince is not with him. There’s nothing wrong in three Evallonian gentlemen visiting Scotland; the trouble begins when they get into Mr Craw’s neighbourhood, and when they have the Prince in their company. I thought it safer to break up the covey.”
“But how is the Prince to get away?”
“I have arranged all that. There’s a man, Maclellan, down at Rinks— he’s a friend of Mr McCunn. He has a boat, and he’ll put the Prince across to Markhaven and never breathe a word about it. My suggestion is that Mr McCunn and the Prince drive to Rinks to-morrow night, getting there about eleven. There’s a train leaves Markhaven at 8.15 next morning which gets to London at 4.30. Once in London he is for all practical purposes safe… The difficulty will lie in getting him away from here. There’s a man in Portaway will bring a car—a friend of mine; but I may as well tell you that every corner of this place will be pretty well watched. I told the Evallonians that the Prince was now at Castle Gay. We must do something to keep up that pretence.”
“To-morrow night is the Callowa Club Ball,” said Mrs Brisbane-Brown, but no one was listening.
“I think Mr Charvill should transfer himself to the Castle as soon as possible,” said Jaikie. “He’s about the Prince’s height.”
“I have three tickets for the Ball,” went on the hostess. “I usually take tickets, but I have not been for years. This year I proposed to take Alison and Robin.”
“Mr Charvill must wear the Prince’s white waterproof—whatever the weather—and show himself on the terrace. There will be people to see him, and it will divert attention from the Mains.”
Mrs Brisbane-Brown obtained an audience at last, for she raised her voice to a high pitch of authority.
“I have a plan,” she said. “His Royal Highness will come with me to the Ball. It is fancy dress, and he can go as Prince Charles Edward—I have the clothes, wig and all. They belonged to my husband, who was something of the Prince’s height and figure… There will be no need for special precautions. A car from Portaway will take my niece, my cousin, and myself to the Station Hotel. At a certain hour in the evening the Prince will leave us and motor to Rinks, where Mr McCunn will see him safely on board. It is all perfectly simple.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Jaikie fervently. He saw the one snag in his plan neatly removed. “I’ll arrange about the car. His Royal Highness must lie very close here till to-morrow evening. It might be a good thing if he went to bed. And Mr Charvill had better get to the Castle and inside that waterproof.”
Mr Craw made one last protest.
“You have cast me for a very unpleasant part.” He looked with disfavour at Jaikie, whom he had come to fear, and with an air of appeal at Dougal, whom he regarded more particularly as his henchman. It was the henchman who replied:
“You’ll have nothing to do, Mr Craw. Simply to sit in your own chair in your own library and watch those foreigners making idiots of themselves. Then you can say what is in your mind, and I hope the Almighty will put some winged words into your mouth.”
An hour later Jaikie stood with Dougal on the terrace of the Mains in the fast-gathering twilight. To them appeared Alison, bearing in her arms a reluctant Woolworth.
“Such a thing has never happened before,” she declared. “This evil dog of yours has seduced Tactful and Pensive into raiding the chicken run. They have killed three cockerels… Jaikie, you’ve introduced a touch of crime into this quiet countryside.”
“And that’s true, Miss Westwater,” said Dougal. “I don’t know if you realise it, but we’re up against something rather bigger than we pretended indoors.”
“I want Jaikie to tell me one thing,” said the girl. “Why didn’t he let Prince John go with the others? I wondered at the time. Oh, I know the reason he gave, but it wasn’t very convincing.”
Jaikie grinned. “Haven’t you guessed? I wanted to please Dickson McCunn. Dougal and I owe everything to him, and it’s not much we can do in return. He’s a great romantic character, and you can see how he’s taken up with Prince John. He was telling me that he has been looking up books at the Castle and finds that the Prince is partly descended from Elizabeth of Bohemia and from the Sobieskis. Prince Charlie’s mother was a Sobieski. It will be meat and drink to him to be helping the Prince to escape in the middle of the night in a boat on the Solway shore.”
The girl laughed softly. “There couldn’t be a better reason,” she said… “Then about tomorrow night? Why have you taken such pains to arrange a visit to Castle Gay—telling the enemy that everybody would be there— encouraging them, you might say?”
“It was the common-sense plan. I had other reasons, too, and I’ll tell you them. I want to see those blighters
