‘Don’t gloat,’ I muttered. ‘I can bear anything if you don’t gloat.’
‘Shut up,’ snapped Flarge.
I flopped down into my old seat, gaze flickering towards the door. Could I overcome him and get back to the cottage? ‘Neat trick, that,’ I murmured with faux nonchalance. ‘Substituting yourself for the pilot. How did you cotton on to us?’
Flarge seemed anxious, his usual smug smile replaced by a sort of blankness. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ he scoffed. ‘The Metropolitan Museum is wide open. We know about almost everything they do. Standing joke at the RA.’
I refrained from mentioning that I didn’t even know of the Metropolitan Museum’s espionage credentials. Dear me, I was getting too old for this lark.
Flarge waved the gun about. ‘What we’ve certainly known for a long time is that chap Reiss-Mueller’s as leaky as a sieve. Whatever discretion he once possessed has flown out of the window. He asks questions a bit too loudly these days and people listen. Didn’t take too much to penetrate his plans. I reckon the Met want the Jerusalem Prayer for themselves.’
Something about Flarge’s tone disquieted me and thoughts of immediate flight subsided. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there, Percy?’
Flarge scowled. ‘Yes, there’s something wrong! There’s something bloody wrong! You smash my face in, escape capture, escape again, kill my Domestic and then slice his blasted hand off!’
I shook my head. ‘No. Something else. By now you should be thumping me and swearing seven kinds of vengeance for all I’ve put you through.’
‘I should!’ he rasped. ‘I know I want to. Ever since I joined the RA I’ve had your ruddy name and reputation rubbed in my face. I thought I’d never get one up on you. But then I saw a little chink. Just whispers from on high. Scribbled notes from no one in particular telling me to shadow you because you weren’t up to it any more.’
I would normally have bristled at this but bristling didn’t seem called for. Something interesting was up. Instead I shrugged. ‘You saved my life back in that church tower. I’m very grateful. But why the hell are you persecuting me? Because I found that blasted silk rag and you didn’t?’
‘I knew it was there!’ protested Flarge. ‘I saw it. But my orders…my orders didn’t mention it. I was to keep an eye on you and on no account let you get hurt.’
‘What?’
Flarge put his foot up on the chair in front and chewed his lip. ‘Look here, Box. I was thrilled when I got the tip-off to come to that flea-bitten hotel and I found you in bed with the corpse. I was even more thrilled when the Academy told me that normal rules didn’t apply. That the Domestics would not be called, and that you would have to face the full rigour of the law. It was perfect. Lucifer Box reduced to this! Caught with his trousers down in a sodomitic bloodbath. In America! As I say, perfect.’ He heaved a sigh and let the barrel of the pistol droop slightly. ‘Too perfect.’
Flarge cleared his throat and stared into space. ‘I know what you think of me and I dare say you’re right. I’ve admired you, resented you, wanted to see you utterly smashed so that I might advance but one thing I’ll never do. I’ll never see you go down for something you didn’t do. I may be a swine but I’m not a traitor.’
With which remarkable statement, he took out a small and ancient-looking book and tipped out a folded piece of foolscap that lay within.
I read it over and then read it again. My skin grew clammy and I felt sick to my stomach. ‘Where did you get this?’ I managed at last, my voice reduced to a croaking whisper.
‘It was inside Daley’s coat,’ said Flarge. ‘Inside this book. I found it when you escaped from the train. Looks like the draft of a cryptogram. Makes things pretty clear, what?’
That it did. The thing, scrawled in Daley’s untidy hand and annotated with various jottings showing where words would be substituted in a cryptogram, ran this way:
‘Planted the rag, as requested. Box took the bait. Took him down in the drugstore and interrogated Volatile re: Lamb. Subject died during process. What should I do?’
I looked up. ‘Daley set up that little charade in the hotel so that I’d carry the can?’
Flarge nodded. ‘There’s more. A reply.’
He tossed over an actual cryptogram on thin yellow paper with Daley’s patient decoding in pencil beneath.
‘Box will find the Lamb for us. He’s still the best we have. He must have the Prayer. And Banebdjed shall rise!…’
Clearly, then, ‘Twice’ Daley and not Flarge was in league with Mons–but who else had betrayed us and fallen in with the fascist’s diabolical schemes?
One thing I still failed to understand. The cryptogram reply had said ‘Box must have the Prayer’. But didn’t they already know that, having given Daley orders to plant it on Hubbard’s body?
‘And all this time I thought it was you,’ I muttered.
‘What?’
‘This will sound crazy—’ I began carefully, but Flarge held up his hand and contemplated his pistol.
‘I know,’ he said flatly.
‘Hmm?’
Flarge scratched at his flaxen hair. ‘All the Satanism stuff. Efforts were made to initiate me. All dark rooms and hooded robes. Never found out who was at the root of it. They were very subtle at first. Told me there were ways a chap like me might gain advancement, not just in the Royal Academy but in life. There’s a route to true power, they said. Power over the wills of others.’
‘What did you have to do?’
‘The whole caboodle. Bell, book and candle. I mean, at first I took it for first-class tosh, but…whatever it might take to get on, you know? Then it got more serious and I…I saw things. Terrible things. And I wanted out. They seemed disappointed but agreed. I’d thought I was clear of the wretched business. Now I know I’ve been their damned pawn all this time! The question is, now we’re on the same team, what’re we going to do?’
I nodded towards his gun. ‘We are on the same team, then?’ I said.
Flarge stood up and his face was grim from beneath his sticking plaster. ‘We might never be best pals, Box, but we can rub along for as long as it takes to sort out this mess, can’t we?’
I looked the fella over. I’d loathed his very guts for so long it was going to take an effort of will not to knock him down where he stood. At last I got to my feet, put out my hand and Percy Flarge gripped it, firm and almost painfully.
‘Chums?’
‘All right, old boy,’ I said. ‘Chums. Now let’s get the hell back to the cottage.’
As we opened the plane door, it was clear the weather was worsening. The day had faded in a riot of crimson and purple but there were huge, fat storm clouds lowering on the horizon. Snow was already falling thickly. We raced from the airstrip and onto the practically deserted streets of Lit-de-Diable as though afraid of the creeping dark.
The wind was roaring down the narrow streets and I’d stopped to catch my breath by a charmingly tumbledown inn when the brick just by my face shattered into fragments. Whirling round, I’d hardly managed to register the shot when another rang out, slicing into the ground at my feet and sending up a great plume of snow.
Flarge–slightly ahead of me–span on his heel and replied in kind over my shoulder. I had a brief flash of receding pork-pie hat in the fading light. Snow was pelting down in a great rushing fall.
‘It’s Reiss-Mueller’s men!’ I hissed.
One of the beggars was right behind me, concealed behind a pale yellow cottage. The location of the other was confirmed at once as his pistol rang out, shattering the window of the inn. Weaponless, I was helpless to respond, but my new ally Flarge was on blistering form, sending round after round our enemies’ way.
We took immediate shelter behind the old market cross but we were hopelessly pinned down. The snow screamed in our faces.
‘What the hell are they playing at?’ snapped Flarge.
‘Damned if I know,’ I shouted. ‘But the world’s gone so
corkscrew I half expect to be double-crossed every minute of the day!’
Flarge fired off three shots in rapid succession and was answered by two single bullets from opposite directions. ‘Why would the Met want you dead?’
My mind raced. ‘They could’ve killed me any time. Instead they brought me all the way over here. Why?’
Flarge pulled the trigger again but nothing happened. He slammed the weapon against his palm.
‘Damn it all! Jammed!’ He shot me a defeated look.
‘All out for a duck, old boy?’ I cried.
A bullet whined past, a great splinter of stone erupted from the market cross and the fragments caught me in the eyes. I threw myself to the ground, getting a mouthful of snow and lay there, utterly helpless. Then I lifted my head, eyes stinging and quite unable to get my bearings.
‘Look out!’ cried Flarge.
I tried to clear the snow from my eyes but was only blurrily aware of a figure stepping into my line of sight, the yellow flash of his revolver and a deafening percussion. This was it.
I waited for the bullet to hit me but something very queer happened. I was vaguely aware that the freezing night air had turned yet colder but the wind dropped suddenly and then that awful low depression gripped my guts like a cramp. There was a strange choking gasp from Flarge kneeling at my side.
‘My God, Box,’ he cried. ‘Look!’
Great dusty tears were welling in my eyes, and as I rubbed desperately at them I saw the bullet hovering in the air right by my face.
As I watched incredulously, the damned thing simply faded away. Blinking stupidly, I looked up to see Reiss Mueller’s men gazing down on us in unfeigned shock. Then, as if on cue, Flarge’s pistol made a little clicking sound. He looked at it, raised it and, in one swift movement, put two bullets into our enemies’ regulation suits.
The Men from the Met crumpled into the snow, wearing looks of complete bewilderment in addition to the new blood-blossom buttonholes in their lapels.
The wind suddenly rose up again like an unstoppered genie.
‘What the deuce happened there?’ squeaked Flarge above the din.
I shook my head. Once again, it seemed some supernatural power had come to my aid. And I didn’t want to dwell on it. ‘Don’t ask,’ I yelled, ‘let’s go!’
We were back at the cottage in minutes but, as soon as I saw the half-open door, I knew something was horribly amiss. Keeping close to the wall, Flarge moved to the worn step and kicked the door fully open. There was no one inside.
Flarge and I exchanged glances and I crossed swiftly to the back door. There was no sign of Delilah.
With a horribly heavy heart, I began to mount the stairs, Flarge following closely behind, revolver cocked. I moved swiftly across the landing and threw open the door to Aggie’s room. Expecting to find her dead, it came as something of a relief to find the bed merely empty, the blanket I’d so carefully pulled over her gently sleeping body wrenched back like the snarling lip of Olympus Mons himself.
Sinking down on the bedspread, the full horror of the situation dawned on me. And I’d promised to keep her safe.
‘What now?’ said Flarge glumly.
‘They’ve got Agnes and they’ve got the Prayer,’ I sighed. ‘What else can we do? We’ve got to get into that castle.’
Outside, the weather had closed in, transforming the night into a howling maelstrom. The sleet-choked wind shrieked through the bare trees and I clutched my leather coat about me as we set off towards the mountain. The cold was simply appalling, snow lashing at our exposed faces like a shower of needles.
Keeping to the Swiss side of the border, we soon cleared the tiny airstrip and found ourselves enveloped by dense forest, trees looming up like soldiers in our flickering flashlight beams. It was fearfully hard going, the drifts underfoot had refrozen and were treacherous, the snow that fell thickly onto our shoulders only added to the slog.
Pretty soon I was spent. Merely keeping from falling on my arse was hard enough, but the trudge upwards soon began to tell on my protesting leg muscles. Neck and face swamped by the upturned sheepskin of the flying-coat’s collar, I strained to see the mountain through the black curtain of the forest. For a very long time, though, there was only the dreary regularity of the snow and the trees.
Then, all at once, a small, rectangular building seemed to spring up out of nowhere and we emerged into a clearing to find ourselves facing the departure point of the cable-car. Flarge and I exchanged glances and then trudged swiftly and noiselessly towards it.
Closer to, I could see that the terminus was divided into two so that, as one carriage arrived another set off upwards in the opposite direction. To my delight, I saw that a car was rapidly approaching.
Crouching in the snow just outside of the pool of electric light thrown from the station, Flarge and I watched as the vehicle clunked downwards. A shadow flickered in the window and I breathed a sigh of relief. The car sliding down the wire towards us was empty and there seemed only to be a single fellah on guard in the station itself. Flarge and I hastily devised a plan and then waited for the cable-car to come to a halt.
I signalled to my new ally, who nodded and covered me with his pistol as I crept forward, boots crumping through the impacted snow. Marching boldly to the steamed-up glass door of the terminus, I knocked and plastered a pleasant smile onto my face. Through the fog of condensation, I watched the guard frown, unshoulder his Tommy gun and slide back the door.
‘Pardon,’ I cried. ‘Je suis un peu perdu.’
Like a flash, Flarge leapt from his hiding place, reared up and plunged a knife into the guard’s sternum. The unfortunate chap slid noiselessly to the floor.
Flarge dashed inside, studied the controls for a moment and then set the opposite lift moving. Without hesitation, the pair of us ran across and piled inside.
The car rocked and then began to lurch upwards and I let my gaze drink in the huge spotlit carpet of snow that illumined both the mountainside and castle with a bone-white glow.
Within the car, the atmosphere was pretty stifling: melted snow puddling on the wooden floor and rising off our clothes in great steaming clouds. Flarge was watchful as a hawk, gazing down at the glittering landscape below as we shuddered heavenwards on the narrow steel cable.
I was silent and anxious. The situation could hardly be more grim. Mons had both his Perfect Victim and the completed Jerusalem Prayer. My only hope lay in his not knowing the exact location of the ‘Tomb’–the place where Aggie’s sacrifice was destined to occur. That at least might buy us some time. I caught sight of myself in the glass, reflection distorted and ghastly-looking, my face clammy and beaded with sweat that stood out on my forehead like diamonds on cloth.
Still the lift clanked onwards, a persistent squeal coming from the steel wheels as they trundled over the cable. I watched as the ground disappeared into the inky darkness below and the jagged, snow-streaked rocks of the mountain reared up before us.
‘All right,’ said Flarge at last. ‘Any bright ideas? We’ll be arriving at Mons’s castle in a few minutes and there may well be a welcoming committee—’
‘Look!’ I cried suddenly. ‘There! Down there. Do you see them?’
‘What?’
I dashed across the cabin and hauled open the sliding door. A wild and chilling wind immediately whipped at our hair and clothes. ‘Come on!’ I called.
‘Don’t play games, Box!’ cried Flarge. ‘What did you see?’
I glanced outside and saw that the trajectory of the cable had brought us within six feet or so of the mountain’s jagged surface. Clambering over the lip of the car, I swung like an ape, jumped into space and landed softly in the snow. I beckoned urgently to Flarge, who calmly dropped onto his rear, pushed himself off and fell into the powdery drift.
The now-empty cable-car continued at once on its upward ascent, but I was already striding forward towards the two shapes I’d espied from the cabin, screwing up my eyes against the snow that la
shed at my face. From the deeply drifted ravine on which we’d landed, I led the way towards a track that wound around the mountain.
And suddenly, there they were. Two huddled human shapes, snow already piling over their prone forms.
‘Who is it?’ cried Flarge, racing to my side.
I turned over the first: a massive, familiar bulk, still breathing–thank the Lord Harry. Delilah!
‘Out cold,’ I muttered, examining her pallid features. Reaching inside my coat, I pulled out a hip flask and managed to get some whisky past my old friend’s frozen lips.
Flarge had bent to uncover the second body but suddenly cried out, stumbled onto his rear and, with a guttural retch, vomited copiously into the drift.
I trudged towards him and knelt before the second body, knowing from its size and clothing that it was Professor Reiss-Mueller. In all honesty, I was grateful for these clues, as what lay before me was scarcely recognizable as human.
Reiss-Mueller’s skin was shiny and black as rotten fruit, his eyes–fixed in an expression of absolute terror–rolled up horribly into the very limits of their sockets. His nose and mouth, merely flayed holes now, ran with a dreadful green pus that steamed in the frozen air.
And, tucked neatly into his breast pocket, was the silken fragment of the Jerusalem Prayer.
22
The Tomb Of Satan
I whipped the relic from the corpse and plunged it into my coat pocket. The unfortunate Reiss-Mueller must have swiped the wretched thing back in the cottage when he’d ‘stumbled’ against me. Well, much good had it done him.
Flarge staggered to his feet, wiping the bile from his chin and studiously avoiding the dreadful sight before us. ‘What the deuce happened to him?’ he croaked.
There was a low groan from Delilah’s prone form and I hastened to her side. Despite the thudding snowfall, I could see from the tracks that surrounded her that she and Reiss-Mueller hadn’t been alone. There’d been a third party–Aggie, of course–but from the agitated state of the snow, clearly others had arrived.