Blenkiron gathered up his Patience cards, slipped them into a little leather case and put it in his pocket.
“I’ve one thing more to tell you. The Wild Birds have been summoned home, but they won’t ever make it. We’ve gathered them in—Pavia, and Hofgaard, and Conradi. Ehrlich is dead. And you are going to join the rest in our cage.”
As I looked at my friend, his figure seemed to gain in presence. He sat square in his chair with a face like a hanging judge, and his eyes, sleepy no more, held Ivery as in a vice. He had dropped, too, his drawl and the idioms of his ordinary speech, and his voice came out hard and massive like the clash of granite blocks.
“You’re at the bar now, Graf von Schwabing. For years you’ve done your best against the decencies of life. You have deserved well of your country, I don’t doubt it. But what has your country deserved of the world? One day soon Germany has to do some heavy paying, and you are the first instalment.”
“I appeal to the Swiss law. I stand on Swiss soil, and I demand that I be surrendered to the Swiss authorities.” Ivery spoke with dry lips and the sweat was on his brow.
“Oh, no, no,” said Blenkiron soothingly. “The Swiss are a nice people, and I would hate to add to the worries of a poor little neutral state.... All along both sides have been outside the law in this game, and that’s going to continue. We’ve abode by the rules and so must you.... For years you’ve murdered and kidnapped and seduced the weak and ignorant, but we’re not going to judge your morals. We leave that to the Almighty when you get across Jordan. We’re going to wash our hands of you as soon as we can. You’ll travel to France by the Underground Railway and there be handed over to the French Government. From what I know they’ve enough against you to shoot you every hour of the day for a twelvemonth.”
I think he had expected to be condemned by us there and then and sent to join Ehrlich beneath the ice. Anyhow, there came a flicker of hope into his eyes. I daresay he saw some way to dodge the French authorities if he once got a chance to use his miraculous wits. Anyhow, he bowed with something very like self-possession, and asked permission to smoke. As I have said, the man had his own courage.
“Blenkiron,” I cried, “we’re going to do nothing of the kind.”
He inclined his head gravely towards me. “What’s your notion, Dick?”
“We’ve got to make the punishment fit the crime,” I said. I was so tired that I had to form my sentences laboriously, as if I were speaking a half-understood foreign tongue.