Buchan THE THREE HOSTAGES (Mystery & Adventure Classic) (Annotated)

Enriched Edition. An International Children's Kidnapping Racket With A Race against Time (Including Memoirs & Biography of the Author)
2. improved Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-80-268-5151-6
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 290 Seiten

This carefully crafted ebook: 'THE THREE HOSTAGES (Mystery & Adventure Classic)' is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. After the War, Major-General Sir Richard Hannay is married to Mary and living peacefully in the Cotswolds, when he receives a request to help solve the mysterious kidnapping of the children of three prominent people. Given nothing to go on but a few mysterious clues, Hannay, assisted by friends like Sandy Arbuthnot, must track down the dastardly villains behind the plot before it's too late... John Buchan (1875-1940) was a Scottish novelist and historian and also served as Canada's Governor General. His 100 works include nearly thirty novels, seven collections of short stories and biographies. But, the most famous of his books were the adventure and spy thrillers and it is for these that he is now best remembered. '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 Three Hostages)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Buchan, John

E-Artnow

Weitere Mitwirkende

Graybourne, Reid

Leseproben

II.
I HEAR OF THE THREE HOSTAGES

Table of Contents

There is an odour about a country-house which I love better than any scent in the world. Mary used to say it was a mixture of lamp and dog and wood-smoke, but at Fosse, where there was electric light and no dogs indoors; I fancy it was wood-smoke, tobacco, the old walls, and wafts of the country coming in at the windows. I liked it best in the morning, when there was a touch in it of breakfast cooking, and I used to stand at the top of the staircase and sniff it as I went to my bath. But on the morning I write of I could take no pleasure in it; indeed it seemed to tantalise me with a vision of country peace which had somehow got broken. I couldn’t get that confounded letter out of my head. When I read it I had torn it up in disgust, but I found myself going down in my dressing-gown, to the surprise of a housemaid, piecing together the fragments from the wastepaper basket, and reading it again. This time I flung the bits into the new-kindled fire.

I was perfectly resolved that I would have nothing to do with Bullivant or any of his designs, but all the same I could not recapture the serenity which yesterday had clothed me like a garment. I was down to breakfast before Mary, and had finished before she appeared. Then I lit my pipe and started on my usual tour of my domain, but nothing seemed quite the same. It was a soft fresh morning with no frost, and the scillas along the edge of the lake, were like bits of summer sky. The moor-hens were building, and the first daffodils were out in the round grass below the clump of Scots firs, and old George Whaddon was nailing up rabbit wire and whistling through his two remaining teeth, and generally the world was as clear and jolly as spring could make it. But I didn’t feel any more that it was really mine, only that I was looking on at a pretty picture. Something had happened to jar the harmony between it and my mind, and I cursed Bullivant and his intrusions.

I returned by the front of the house, and there at the door to my surprise stood a big touring Rolls-Royce. Paddock met me in the hall and handed me a card, on which I read the name of Mr Julius Victor.

I knew it, of course, for the name of one of the richest men in the world, the American banker who had done a lot of Britain’s financial business in the War, and was in Europe now at some international conference. I remembered that Blenkiron, who didn’t like his race, had once described him to me as ‘the whitest Jew since the Apostle Paul.’

In the library I found a tall man standing by the window looking out at our view. He turned as I entered, and I saw a thin face with a neatly trimmed grey beard, and the most worried eyes I have ever seen in a human countenance. Everything about him was spruce and dapper—his beautifully-cut grey suit, his black tie and pink pearl pin, his blue-and-white linen, his exquisitely polished shoes. But the eyes were so wild and anxious that he looked dishevelled.

‘General,’ he said, and took a step towards me.

We shook hands and I made him sit down.

‘I have dropped the “General”, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is, have you had breakfast?’

He shook his head. ‘I had a cup of coffee on the road. I do not eat in the morning.

‘Where have you come from, Sir?’ I asked.

‘From London.’

Well, London is seventy-six miles from us, so he must have started early. I looked curiously at him, and he got out of his chair and began to stride about.

‘Sir Richard,’ he said, in a low pleasant voice which I could imagine convincing any man he tried it on, ‘you are a soldier and a man of the world and will pardon my unconventionality. My business is too urgent to waste time on apologies. I have heard of you from common friends as a man of exceptional resource and courage. I have been told in confidence something of your record. I have come to implore your help in a desperate emergency.’

I passed him a box of cigars, and he took one and lit it carefully. I could see his long slim fingers trembling as he held the match.

‘You may have heard of me,’ he went on. ‘I am a very rich man, and my wealth has given me power, so that Governments honour me with their confidence. I am concerned in various important affairs, and it would be false modesty to deny that my word is weightier than that of many Prime Ministers. I am labouring, Sir Richard, to secure peace in the world, and consequently I have enemies, all those who would perpetuate anarchy and war. My life has been more than once attempted, but that is nothing. I am well guarded. I am not, I think, more of a coward than other men, and I am prepared to take my chance. But now I have been attacked by a subtler weapon, and I confess I have no defence. I had a son, who died ten years ago at college. My only other child is my daughter, Adela, a girl of nineteen. She came to Europe just before Christmas, for she was to be married in Paris in April. A fortnight ago she was hunting with friends in Northamptonshire—the place is called Rushford Court. On the morning of the 8th of March she went for a walk to Rushford village to send a telegram, and was last seen passing through the lodge gates at twenty minutes past eleven. She has not been seen since.

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, and rose from my chair. Mr Victor was looking out of the window, so I walked to the other end of the room and fiddled with the books on a shelf. There was silence for a second or two, till I broke it.

‘Do you suppose it is loss of memory?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It ‘is not loss of memory. I know—we have proof—that she has been kidnapped by those whom I call my enemies. She is being held as a hostage.’

‘You know she is alive?’

He nodded, for his voice was choking again. ‘There is evidence which points to a very deep and devilish plot. It may be revenge, but I think it more likely to be policy. Her captors hold her as security for their own fate.’

‘Has Scotland Yard done nothing?’

‘Everything that man could do, but the darkness only grows thicker.’

‘Surely it has not been in the papers. I don’t read them carefully but I could scarcely miss a thing like that.’

‘It has been kept out of the papers—for a reason which you will be told.’

‘Mr Victor,’ I said, ‘I’m most deeply sorry for you. Like you, I’ve just the one child, and if anything of that kind happened to him I should go mad. But I shouldn’t take’ too gloomy a view. Miss Adela will turn up all right, and none the worse, though you may have to pay through the nose for it. I expect it’s ordinary blackmail and ransom.

‘No,’ he said very quietly. ‘It is not blackmail, and if it were, I would not pay the ransom demanded. Believe me, Sir Richard, it is a very desperate affair. More, far more is involved than the fate of one young girl. I am not going to touch on that side, for the full story will be told you later by one better equipped to tell it. But the hostage is my daughter, my only child. I have come to beg your assistance in the search for her.’

‘But I’m no good at looking for things,’ I stammered. ‘I’m most awfully sorry for you, but I don’t see how I can help. If Scotland Yard is at a loss, it’s not likely that an utter novice-like me would succeed.’

‘But you have a different kind of imagination and a rarer kind of courage. I know what you have done before, Sir Richard. I tell you, you are my last hope.’

I sat down heavily and groaned. ‘I can’t begin to explain to you the bottomless futility of your idea. It is quite true that in the War I had some queer jobs and was lucky enough to bring some of them off. But, don’t you see, I was a soldier then, under orders, and it didn’t greatly signify whether I lost my life from a crump in the trenches or from a private bullet on the backstairs. I was in the mood for any risk, and my wits were strung up and unnaturally keen. But that’s all done with. I’m in a different mood now and my mind is weedy and grass-grown. I’ve settled so deep into the country that. I’m just an ordinary hayseed farmer. If I took a hand—which I certainly won’t—I’d only spoil the game.’

Mr Victor stood looking at me intently. I thought for a moment he was going to offer me money, and rather hoped he would, for that would have stiffened me like a ramrod, though it would have spoiled the good notion I had of him. The thought. may have crossed his mind, but he was clever enough to reject it.

‘I don’t agree with a word you say about yourself, and I’m accustomed to size up men. I appeal to. you as a Christian gentleman to help me to recover my child. I am not going to press that appeal, for I have already taken up enough of your time. My London address is on my card. Good-bye, Sir Richard, and believe me, I am very grateful to you for receiving me so kindly.’

In five minutes he and his Rolls-Royce had. gone, and I was left in a miserable mood of shame-faced exasperation. I realised how Mr Julius Victor had made his fame. He knew how to handle men, for if he had gone on pleading he would only have riled me, whereas he had somehow managed to leave it all to my honour, and thoroughly unsettled my mind.

I went for a short walk, cursing the world at large, sometimes feeling horribly sorry for that unfortunate father, sometimes getting angry because he had tried to mix me up in his affairs. Of course I would not touch the thing; I couldn’t; it was manifestly impossible; I had neither the capacity nor the...