The Leithen Stories by John Buchan Page B

condition.
    In those days I wanted all the relief I could get, for it was a beastly time. I knew I was in grave danger, so I made my will and went through the other doleful performances consequent on the expectation of a speedy decease. You see I had nothing to grip on, no clear job to tackle, only to wait on the off-chance, with an atmosphere of suspicion thickening around me. The spying went on – there was no mistake about that – but I soon ceased to mind it, though I did my best to give my watchers little satisfaction. There was a hint of bullying about the spying. It is disconcerting at night to have a man bump against you and look you greedily in the face.
    I did not go again to Scotland Yard, but one night I ran across Macgillivray in the club.
    He had something of profound interest to tell me. I had asked about the phrase, the ‘Power-House’. Well, he had come across it, in the letter of a German friend, a private letter, in which the writer gave the results of his inquiries into a curious affair which a year before had excited Europe.
    I have forgotten the details, but it had something to do with the Slav States of Austria and an Italian Students’ Union, and it threatened at one time to be dangerous. Macgillivray’s correspondent said that in some documents which were seized he found constant allusion to a thing called the Krafthaus , evidently the headquarters staff of the plot. And this same word Krafthaus had appeared elsewhere in a sonnet of a poet-anarchist who shot himself in the slums of Antwerp, in the last ravings of more than one criminal, in the extraordinary testament of Professor M of Jena, who, at the age of thirty-seven, took his life after writing a strange mystical message to his fellow-citizens.
    Macgillivray’s correspondent concluded by saying that, in his opinion, if this Krafthaus could be found, the key would be discovered to the most dangerous secret organisation in the world. He added that he had some reason to believe that the motive power of the concern was English.
    â€˜Macgillivray,’ I said, ‘you have known me for some time, and I fancy you think me a sober and discreet person. Well, I believe I am on the edge of discovering the secret of your Krafthaus . I want you to promise me that if in the next week I send you an urgent message you will act on it, however fantastic it seems. I can’t tell you more. I ask you to take me on trust, and believe that for anything I do I have tremendous reasons.’
    He knit his shaggy grey eyebrows and looked curiously at me. ‘Yes, I’ll go bail for your sanity. It’s a good deal to promise, but if you make an appeal to me, I will see that it is met.’
    Next day I had news from Felix. Tuke and the man called Saronov had been identified. If you are making inquiries about anybody it is fairly easy to find those who are seeking for the same person, and the Russian police, in tracking Tommy and Pitt-Heron, had easily come on the two gentlemen who were following the same trail. The two had gone by Samarkand, evidently intending to strike into the hills by a shorter route than the main road from Bokhara. The frontierposts had been warned, and the stalkers had become the stalked.
    That was one solid achievement, at any rate. I had saved Pitt-Heron from the worst danger, for first I had sent him Tommy, and now I had put the police on guard against his enemies. I had not the slightest doubt that enemies they were. Charles knew too much, and Tuke was the man appointed to reason with him, to bring him back, if possible, or if not – as Chapman had said – the ex-union leader was not the man to stick at trifles.
    It was a broiling June, the London season was at its height, and I had never been so busy in the Courts before. But that crowded and garish world was little more than a dream to me. I went through my daily tasks, dined out, went to the play, had consultations, talked to my fellows, but