‘Can you see any other possibility?’
‘What do they want with us?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’ I was sure, but this was one thing I couldn’t tell her.
‘But – but why all the fake build-up? Why couldn’t Fleck have sailed right in and handed us over to the professor?’
‘There’s an answer to that, too. Whoever is behind this is a very smart boy indeed. There’s a reason for everything he does.’
‘You – do you think the professor – is he the man behind? –’
‘I don’t know what he is. Don’t forget the barbed wire. The Navy is there. They may have come to play skittles, but I don’t think so. There’s something big, very big, and something very secret going on on the other side of the island. Whoever is in charge there will be taking no chances. They know Witherspoon is there, and that fence doesn’t mean a thing, that’s just to discourage wandering employees, they’ll have investigated him down to the last nail in his shoes. The Services have some very clever investigators indeed and if they’re content to have him there that means he’s got a clean bill of health. And he knows the Navy is there. Fleck and the professor in cahoots. The professor and the Navy in cahoots. What kind of sense do you make of it?’
‘You trust the professor, then? You’re saying, in effect, that he is on the level?’
I’m not saying anything. I’m just thinking out loud.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she insisted. ‘If he’s accepted by the Navy, he must be on the level. That’s what you say. If he is, then why the Chinese crouching in the darkness down by the fence, why the man-killing dog, why the trip-wire?’
‘I’m just guessing. He may have warned his employees to keep clear of that place and they know of the dog and the wire. I’m not saying those were his Chinese employees I saw, I only assumed it. If there’s something big and secret happening on the other side of the island, don’t forget that secrets can be lost by people breaking out as well as by people breaking in. The Navy may well have some top men on this side, to see that no one breaks out. Maybe the professor knows all about it – I think he does. We’ve lost too many secrets to the communist world during the past decade through sheer bad security. The Government may have learned its lesson.’
‘But where do we come in?’ she said helplessly. It’s so – so terribly complicated. And how can you explain away the attempt to cripple you?’
‘I can’t. But the more I think of it the more convinced I am that I’m only a tiny pawn in this and that nearly always tiny pawns have to be sacrificed to win the chess game.’
‘But why?’ she insisted. ‘Why? And what reason can a harmless old duffer like Professor Witherspoon have for – ?’
‘If that harmless old duffer is Professor Witherspoon,’ I interrupted heavily, ‘then I’m the Queen of the May.’
For almost a minute there was only the far-off murmur of the surf, the whisper of the night wind in the trees.
‘I can’t stand much more of this’ she said at last, wearily. ‘You said yourself you’ve seen him on television and –’
‘And very reasonable facsimile he is, too,’ I agreed. ‘His name may even be Witherspoon but he’s certainly no professor of archaeology. He’s the only person I ever met who knows less about archaeology than I do. Believe me, that’s a feat.’
‘But he knows so much about it –’
‘He knows nothing about it. He’s boned up on a couple of books on archaeology and Polynesia and never got quarter of the way through either. He didn’t get far enough to find out that there are neither vipers nor malaria in these parts, both of which he claims to exist. That’s why he objected to your having his books. You might find out more than he does. It wouldn’t take long. He talks about recovering pottery and wooden implements from basalt – the lava would have crushed the one and incinerated the other. He talks about dating wooden relics by experience and knowledge and any schoolboy in physics will tell you that it can be done with a high degree of accuracy by measuring the extent of decay of radio-active carbon in those relics. He gave me to understand that those relics were the deepest ever found, at a hundred and twenty feet, and I don’t suppose there are more than ten million people who know that a ten-million-year-old skeleton was dug out from the Tuscany hills about three years ago at a depth of 600 feet – in a coal mine. As for the idea of using high explosive in archaeology instead of prying away gently with pick and shovel – well, don’t mention it around the British Museum. You’ll have the old boys keeling over like ninepins.’
‘But – but all those relics and curios they have around –’
‘They may be genuine. Professor Witherspoon may have made a genuine strike, then the idea occurred to the Navy that here would be the perfect set-up for secrecy. They could have all access to the island forbidden for perfectly legitimate reasons and that would give them the ideal cover-up, nothing to excite the suspicions of the countries who would be very excited indeed if they knew what the Navy was doing. Whatever that is. The strike may be finished long ago and Witherspoon kept under wraps with someone very like him to put up a front for accidental visitors. Or those relics may be fakes. Maybe there never was an archaeological find here. Maybe it’s a brilliant idea dreamed up by the Navy. Again they would require Witherspoon’s co-operation, but not necessarily himself, which accounts for the bogus prof. Maybe the story was fed to the newspapers and magazines. Maybe some newspaper and magazine proprietors were approached by the Government and persuaded to help out in the fraud. It’s been done before.’
‘But there were also American papers, American magazines.’
‘Maybe it’s an Anglo-American project.’
‘I still don’t understand why they should try to cripple you,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But maybe one or either of your suggestions goes some way towards an answer.’
‘Maybe. I really don’t know. But I’ll have the answer tonight. I’ll find it inside that mine.’
‘Are you – are you really crazy?’ she said quietly. ‘You’re not fit to go anywhere.’
‘It’s only a short walk. I’ll manage. There’s nothing wrong with my legs.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’
‘Please, Johnny.’
‘No.’
She spread out her wings. ‘I’m no use to you at all?’
‘Don’t be silly. We’ve got to have someone to hold the fort, to see that no one comes snooping into our house to find two dummies. So long as they can hear even one person breathing and see another form beside him they’ll be happy. I’m going back for a couple of hours’ sleep. Why don’t you go and whoop it up with the old professor? He can’t keep his eyes off you and you may find out a great deal more in that way than I will in mine.’
‘I’m not quite sure that I understand what you mean.’
The old Mata-Hari act,’ I said impatiently. ‘Whisper sweet nothings in his silver beard. You’ll have him ga-ga in no time. Who knows what tender secrets he might not whisper in return?’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure, why not? He’s at the dangerous stage as far as women are concerned. Somewhere between eighteen and eighty.’
‘He might start getting ideas.’
‘Well, let him. What does it matter? Just so long as you get some information out of him. Duty before pleasure, you know.’
‘I see,’ she said softly. She rose to her feet and stretched out her hand. ‘Come on. Up.’
I got to my feet. A couple of seconds later I was sitting on the sand again. It hadn’t been so much the unexpectedness of the open-handed blow across the face as the sheer weight of it. I was still sitting there, feeling for the dislocation and marvelling at the weird antics of the female members of the race, when she scrambled over the high bank at the top of the beach and disappeared.
My jaw seemed all right. It hurt, but it was still a jaw. I got to my feet, swung the crutches under my arms and started
for the head of the beach. It was pretty dark now and I could have made it three times as fast without the crutches but I wouldn’t have put it past the old boy to have night-glasses on me.
The bank at the top was only three feet high, but it was still too high for me. I finally solved it by sitting on the edge and pushing myself up with my crutches, but when I got to my feet, swung round and made to take off, the crutches broke through the soft soil and I fell backwards over on to the sand.
It knocked the breath out of me but it wasn’t much of a fall as falls go, not enough to make me swear out loud, just enough to make me swear softly. I was trying to get enough breath back to swear some more when I heard the quick light sound of approaching feet and someone slid over the edge of the bank. A glimpse of white, a whiff of ‘Night of Mystery’, she’d come back to finish me off. I braced my jaw again, then unbraced it. She was bent low down, peering at me, in no position at all to haul off at me again.
‘I – I saw you fall.’ Her voice was husky. ‘Are you badly hurt?’
I’m in agony. Hey, careful of my sore arm.’
But she wasn’t being careful. She was kissing me. She gave her kisses like she gave her slaps, without any holding back that I could notice. She wasn’t crying, but her cheek was wet with tears. After a minute, maybe two, she murmured: ‘I’m so ashamed. I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I,’ I said. I’m sorry, too.’ I’d no idea what either of us was talking about, but it didn’t seem to matter very much at the moment. By and by she rose and helped me over the edge of the bank and I tip-tapped my way back to the house, her arm in mine. We passed by the professor’s bungalow on the way, but I didn’t make any further suggestions about her going in to see him.
It was just after ten o’clock when I slid out under a raised corner of the seaward-facing side-screen. I could still feel her kisses, but I could also still feel my sore jaw, so I left in a pretty neutral frame of mind. As far as she was concerned, that is. As far as the others were concerned – the others being the professor and his men, I wasn’t feeling neutral at all. I carried the torch in one hand and the knife in the other, and this time I didn’t have any cloth wrapped round the knife. If there weren’t more lethal things than dogs on the island of Vardu, I sadly missed my bet.
The moon was lost behind heavy cloud, but I took no chances. It was almost a quarter of a mile to where the mine shaft was sunk into the side of the mountain but I covered nearly all of it on hands and knees and it didn’t do my sore arm any great deal of good. On the other hand, I got there safely.
I didn’t know if the professor would have any good reason to have a guard at the entrance to the mine or not. Again it seemed like a good idea to err on the side of caution, so when I stood up slowly and stiffly in the black shadow of a rock where the moon wouldn’t get me when and if it broke through, I just stayed there. I stood there for fifteen minutes and all I could hear was the far-off murmur of the Pacific on the distant reef and the slow thudding of my own heart. Any unsuspecting guard who could keep as still as that for fifteen minutes was asleep. I wasn’t scared of men who were asleep. I went into the mine.
My rubber-soled sandals heel-and-toed it along the limestone rock without the slightest whisper of sound. No one could have heard me coming and, after I was clear of the faint luminescence of the cave-mouth, no one could have seen me coming. My torch was off. If there was anyone inside that mine I’d meet them soon enough without letting them know I was on the way. In the dark all men are equal. With that knife in my hand, I was slightly more than equal.
There was plenty of room between the wall and the railway track in the middle to make it unnecessary for me to walk on the sleepers. I couldn’t risk a sudden variation of length between a couple of ties. It was simple enough to guide myself by brushing the back of the fingers of my right hand against the tunnel wall from time to time. I took care that the shaft of the knife did not strike solid rock.
Inside a minute, the tunnel wall fell away sharply to the right. I had reached the first hollowed-out cavern. I went straight across it to the tunnel opening directly opposite, guiding myself by touching the side of my left foot against the sleepers. It took me five minutes to cross the seventy-yard width of that cave. Nobody called out, nobody switched on a light, nobody jumped me. I was all alone. Or I was being left alone, which wasn’t the same thing at all.
Thirty seconds after leaving the first cavern I’d reached the next one. This was the one where the professor had said the first archaeological discoveries had been made, the cavern with the two shored-up entrances to the left, the railway going straight ahead and, to the right, the tunnel where we’d found Hewell and his crew working. I’d no interest in the tunnel where we’d found Hewell working. The professor had given me to understand that that was the source of the explosions that had wakened me the previous afternoon, but all the amount of loose rock I’d seen lying there could have been brought down by a couple of good-sized firecrackers. I followed the railway across the chamber straight into the opposite tunnel.
This led to a third chamber, and then a fourth. Neither of those had any exits to the north, into the side of the mountains, as I found by walking round a complete semicircle to my right before regaining the railway track again: I completed the circle in both chambers and found two openings to the south in each. But I went straight on. After that there were no more caverns, just the tunnel that went on and on.
And on. I thought I would never come to the end of it. There had been no archaeological excavations made here, it was just a plain and straightforward tunnel quite unconcerned with what lay on either side of it. It was a tunnel that was going someplace. I was having to walk on the ties now, the diameter had narrowed to half of what it had been at first, and I noticed that the gradient was slightly upward all the time. I noticed, too, that the air in the tunnel, and this at least a mile and a half after I’d left the mine entrance was still fresh, and I guessed that that explained the upward slant of the tunnel – it was being kept deliberately near the rising slope of the mountainside to facilitate the driving of vertical ventilation shafts. I must have been at least halfway across to the western side of the island by then and it wasn’t very hard to guess that it wouldn’t be long before the tunnel floor levelled out and started to descend.
It wasn’t. The stretch of level floor, when I came to it, didn’t extend more than a hundred yards, and then it began to dip. Just as the descent began my right hand failed to find the tunnel wall. I risked a quick snap of the torch and saw a thirty-foot deep cavern to my right, half full of rock and debris. For one moment I thought this must be the scene of yesterday’s blasting, but a second look put that thought out of my mind. There were a couple of hundred tons of loose rock lying there, far too much for one day’s work, and, besides, there was no advantage in driving suddenly north, into the heart of the mountain. This was just a storage dump, one probably excavated some time ago to provide a convenient deposit for the rock blasted from the tunnel proper, when the need arose to do that quickly.
Less than three hundred yards farther on I found the end of the tunnel. I rubbed my forehead, which had been the part of me that had done the finding, then switched on the tiny pencil-beam of light. There were two small boxes lying on the floor, both nearly empty, but still holding a few charges of blasting powders, detonators and fuses: this, beyond doubt, was the scene of yesterday’s blasting. I played the torch beam over the end of the tunnel and that was all it was, just the end of a tunnel, a seven foot high by four foot wide solid face of rock. And then I saw that it wasn’t all solid, not quite. Just below eye-level a roughly circular rock about a foot in diameter appeared to have been jammed into a hole in the wall. I eased out this lump of limestone and peered into the hole behind. It was maybe four feet long, tapering inwards to perhaps two inches and at the far end I could see something faintly twinkling, red and green and white. A star. I put the rock back in position and left.
It took me half an hour to get ba
ck to the first of the four caverns. I investigated the two openings leading off to the south, but they led only to two further caverns, neither of them with exits. I headed back along the railway till I came to the third of the caverns from the entrance, examined the two openings in this one and achieved nothing apart from getting myself lost in a maze for almost half an hour. And then I came to the second cavern.
Of the two tunnels leading off to the north, I passed up the one where Hewell had been working. I’d find nothing there. I found nothing in the neighbouring one either. And, of course, there would be nothing behind the timber baulks holding up the entrances to the two collapsed tunnels to the south. I made for the exit leading to the outer cavern when the thought occurred to me that the only reason I had for believing that those baulks of timber supported the entrances to a couple of caved-in tunnels was that Professor Witherspoon himself had told me they did and, apart from the fact that he knew nothing about archaeology, the only certain fact that I had so far established about the professor was that he was a fluent liar.
But he hadn’t been lying about the first of these two tunnels. The heavy vertical three by six timbers that blocked the entrance were jammed immovably in place and when I pressed my torch against a half-inch gap between two of the timbers and switched it on I could clearly see the solid mass of stone and rubble that completely blocked the passage behind, all the way from the floor to the collapsed roof. Maybe I’d been doing the professor an injustice.
And then again maybe I hadn’t. Two of the timber baulks guarding the entrance to the second barricade tunnel were loose.
No pickpocket ever lifted a wallet with half the delicate care and soundless stealth that I used to lift one of these baulks out of position and lean it against its neighbour. A brief pressure on the torch button showed no signs of a roof collapse anywhere, just a dingy grey smooth-floored tunnel stretching and dwindling away into the darkness. I lifted a second batten out of place and squeezed through the gap into the tunnel beyond.