Mr Ivery Gets Away
Richard Hannay tracks a German spy down to a French château, but Hannay’s sense of fair play gives his enemy a chance.
1919
King George V 1910-1936
© Reivax670, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Château d’Havrincourt in the Pas-de-Calais region of France, looking cold and forbidding in the snow. In Buchan’s story, the action plays out at the fictional town of Eaucourt-St-Anne, where the château is being used by the Germans as a laboratory for manufacturing anthrax biological weapons.
Introduction
Richard Hannay and Mary Lamington are on the tail of a German spy, who has been posing as an English gentleman named Moxon Ivery during the Great War. The chase has led to a French château, where Mary has uncovered a cache of biological weapons, and now Hannay has surprised the man himself.
“HULLO, Mr Ivery,” I said. “This is an odd place to meet again!”
In his amazement he fell back a step, while his hungry eyes took in my face. There was no mistake about the recognition. I saw something I had seen once before in him, and that was fear. Out went the light and he sprang for the door.
I fired in the dark, but the shot must have been too high. In the same instant I heard him slip on the smooth parquet and the tinkle of glass as the broken window swung open. Hastily I reflected that his car must be at the moat end of the terrace, and that therefore to reach it he must pass outside this very room. Seizing the damaged escritoire, I used it as a ram, and charged the window nearest me. The panes and shutters went with a crash, for I had driven the thing out of its rotten frame.
