by Sapper
We made fast the rope, and then lay peering over the edge of the cliff as he went down hand over hand. For a moment the light gleamed out as he drew aside the screen, and then we heard his whispered “Come on.” One after another we followed him till all five of us were standing in the cave. Behind us a curtain of stout sacking, completely covering the entrance, was all that separated us from a hundred-feet fall into the Atlantic: in front – what lay in front? What lay round the corner ten yards away? Even now, though many months have elapsed since that terrible night, I can still feel the pricking at the back of my scalp during the few seconds we stood there waiting.
Suddenly Drummond stooped down and sniffed at something that lay on the floor. Then he beckoned significantly to me. It was the end of the tubing which we had seen the man paying out, and from it came the unmistakable scent of the poison. More confirmation of the presence of the gang: and another piece in this strange and inexplicable jig-saw.
I straightened up to see that Drummond had reached the corner and was peering cautiously round it. He was flattened against the rough wall, and his revolver was in his hand. Inch by inch he moved forward with Jerningham just behind him, and the rest of us following in single file.
The passage went on bending to the left and sloping downwards. The floor was smooth and made of cement, but the walls and roof were left in their natural condition just as they had been blasted out. It was not new except for the floor, and as we crept forward I wondered for what purpose, and by whom it had been originally made. The illumination came from somewhere in front, and it was obvious through the light getting brighter that that somewhere was very close.
Suddenly Drummond became motionless: just ahead of us a man had laughed.
“Damned if I see what there is to laugh at,” snarled a harsh voice. “I’m sick to death of this performance.”
“You won’t be when you get your share of the stuff,” came the answer.
“It’s an infernal risk, Dubosc.”
“You don’t handle an amount like that without running risks,” answered the other. “What’s come over you tonight? We’ve been here four months and now, when we’re clearing out, you’re as jumpy as a cat with kittens.”
“It’s this damned place, I suppose. No report in from the sentries? No one about?”
“Of course there’s no one about. Who would be about in this God-forsaken stretch of country if he hadn’t got to be?”
“There was that sketching fellow this morning. And Vernier swears that he was lying there on the hill examining the place for an hour through glasses.”
“What if he was? He couldn’t see anything.”
“I know that. But it means he suspected something.”
“It’s about time you took a tonic,” sneered the other. “We’ve gone through four months in this place without being discovered; and now, when we’ve got about four more hours to go at the most, you go and lose your nerve because some stray artist looks at the place through field-glasses. You make me tired. Devil take it, man, it’s a tin mine, with several perfectly genuine miners tinning in it.”
He laughed once again, and we heard the tinkle of a glass.
There was every excuse if you like for being windy when we were in London. And it served that cursed fool Turgovin right. What did we want anyway with that man – what was his name – Stockton, wasn’t it? What was the good of killing him, even if the fool had done it, and not got killed himself? I tell you that when I saw the Chief a week later, he was still apoplectic with rage. And if Turgovin hadn’t been dead, the Chief would have killed him, himself. We ought to have done what Helias said, and cleared out as soon as we got Gaunt.”
“What are we going to do with that madman when we go?”
“Kill him,” said the other callously. “If he hadn’t gone mad, and suffered from his present delusion, he’d have been killed weeks ago. Hullo, here he is. Why ain’t you tucked up in the sheets, looney?”
And then I heard old Robin’s voice.
“Surely it’s over by now, isn’t it?
“Surely what’s over? Oh! the war. No: that’s not over. The Welsh have gained a great victory over the English and driven ’em off the top of Snowdon. Your juice doesn’t seem to be functioning quite as well as it ought to.”
“It must succeed in time,” said Robin, and his voice was the vacant voice of madness. “How many have been killed by it?”
“A few hundred thousand,” answered the other. “But they’re devilish pugnacious fighters, these Englishmen. And the General won’t give up until he’s got that leg of Welsh mutton for his dinner. By the way, looney, you’ll be getting slogged in the neck and hurt if I hear you making that infernal noise again. Your face is bad enough without adding that filthy shindy to it.”
“That’s so,” came in a new deep voice. I saw Drummond’s hand clench and he glanced round at me. Doctor Helias had come on the scene. “If it occurs again, Gaunt, I shall hang you up head downwards as I did before.”
A little whimpering cry came from Robin, and suddenly the veins stood out on Drummond’s neck. For a moment I thought he was going to make a dash for them then and there, which would have been a pity. Sooner or later it would have to come: in the meantime, incomprehensible though much of it was, we wanted to hear everything we could.
“Get out, you fool,” snarled Helias.
There was the sound of a heavy blow, and a cry of pain from Robin.
“Let him be, Helias,” said one of the others. “He’s been useful.”
“His period of utility is now over,” answered Helias. “I’m sick of the sight of him.”
“But there isn’t enough,” wailed Gaunt. “Too much has gone into the sea, and it is the air that counts”
“It’s all right, looney; there’s plenty for tonight. Go and put your pretty suit on so as to be ready when he comes.”
A door closed and for a time there was silence save for the rustling of some papers. And then Helias spoke again.
“You’ve neither of you left anything about, have you?”
“No. All cleared up.”
“We clear the instant the job is finished. Dubose – you’re detailed to fill the tank with water as soon as it’s empty. I’ll deal with the madman.”
“Throw him over the cliff, I suppose.”
“Yes; it’s easiest. You might search his room, Gratton: I want no traces left. Look at the fool there peering at his gauge to see if there’s enough to stop the war.”
“By Jove! this is going to be a big job, Helias.”
“A big job with a big result. The Chief is absolutely confident. Lester and Degrange are in charge of the group on board the Megalithic, and Lester can be trusted not to bungle.”
“Boss! Boss! Vernier is lying bound and gagged on the hill outside there.”
Someone new had come dashing in and Drummond gave us a quick look of warning. Discovery now was imminent.
“What’s that?” We heard a chair fall over as Helias got up. “Vernier gagged. Where are the others?”
“Don’t know, boss. Couldn’t see them. But I was going out to relieve Vernier, and I stumbled right on him. He’s unconscious. So I rushed back to give the warning.”
“Rouse everyone,” said Helias curtly. “Post the danger signal in the roof. And if you see any stranger, get him dead or alive.”
“Terse and to the point,” remarked Drummond. “Just for the moment, however, stand perfectly still where you are.”
He had stepped forward into the room, and the rest of us ranged up alongside him.
“Well, gorse bush – we meet again. I see you’ve removed your face fungus. Very wise: the police were so anxious to find you.”
“By God! it’s the Australian,” muttered Helias. He was standing by the table in the centre of the room, and his eyes were fixed on Drummond.
“Have it that way if you like,” answered Drummond. “The point is immaterial. What my friends and I are principally interested in is you
, Doctor Helias. And when we’re all quite comfortable we propose to ask you a few questions. First of all, you three go and stand against that wall, keeping your hands above your heads.”
Dazedly they did as they were told: our sudden appearance seemed to have cowed them completely.
“Feel like sitting down, do you, Doctor? All right. Only put both your hands on the table.”
He pulled up a chair and sat down facing Helias.
“Now then: to begin at the end. Saves time, doesn’t it? What exactly is the game? What are you doing here?”
“I refuse to say,” answered the other.
“That’s a pity,” said Drummond. “It would have saved so much breath. Let’s try another. Why have you got Gaunt here, and why has he gone mad?”
“Ask him yourself.”
“Look here,” said Drummond quietly, “let us be perfectly clear on one point, Doctor Helias. I know you, if not for a cold-blooded murderer yourself, at any rate for a man who is closely connected with several of the worst. I’ve got you and you’re going to the police. What chance you will have then you know best. But if you get my goat you may never get as far as the police. For only a keen sense of public duty restrains me from plugging you where you sit, you ineffable swine.”
“In which case you would undoubtedly hang for it,” snarled the other. His great hairy hands kept clenching and unclenching on the table: his eyes, venomous with hatred, never left Drummond’s face.
“I think not,” said Drummond. “However, at present the point does not arise. Now another question, Helias. Who was the woman who impersonated the wretched Miss Simpson the first time?”
“I refuse to say.”
“She knew me, didn’t she? I see you start. You forget that Stockton was not unconscious like the rest of us. Helias – do you know a man called Carl Peterson?”
He fired the question out suddenly, and this time there was no mistaking the other’s agitation.
“So,” said Drummond quietly. “You do. Where is he, Helias? Is he at the bottom of all this? Though it’s hardly necessary to ask that. Where is he?”
“You seem to know a lot,” said Helias slowly.
“I want to know just that one thing more,” answered Drummond. “Everything else can wait. Where is Carl Peterson?”
“Supposing I told you, would you let me go free?” Drummond stared at him thoughtfully. “If I had proof positive – and I would not accept your word only – as to where Peterson is, I might consider the matter.”
“I will give you proof positive. To do so, however, I must go to that cupboard.”
“You may go,” said Drummond. “But I shall keep you covered, and shoot without warning on the slightest suspicion of trickery.”
“I am not a fool,” answered the other curtly. “I know when I’m cornered.”
He rose and walked to the cupboard, and I noticed he was wearing a pair of high white rubber boots.
“Been paddling in your filthy poison, I suppose,” said Drummond. “You deserve to be drowned in a bath of it.”
The other took no notice. He was sorting out some papers, and apparently oblivious of Drummond’s revolver pointing unwaveringly at the base of his skull.
“Strange how one never can find a thing when one wants to,” he remarked conversationally. “Ah! I think this is it.”
He came back to the table, with two or three documents in his hand.
“I have your word,” he said, “that if I give you proof positive you will let me go.”
“You have my word that I will at any rate think about it,” answered Drummond. “Much depends on the nature of the proof.”
Helias had reseated himself at the table opposite Drummond, who was looking at the papers that had been handed to him.
“But this has got nothing to do with it,” cried Drummond after a while. “Are you trying some fool trick, Helias?”
“Is it likely?” said the other. “Read on.”
“Keep him covered, Ted.”
And then suddenly Drummond sniffed the air.
“There’s a strong smell of that poison of yours, Helias.”
I caught one glimpse on Helias’ face of unholy triumph, and the next moment I saw it.
“Lift your legs, Drummond,” I yelled. “Lift them off the floor.”
The advancing wave had actually reached his chair; another second would have been too late. I have said that the passage sloped down abruptly from the opening in the cliff to the room, and pouring down it was a stream of the liquid. It came surging over the smooth floor and in an instant there ensued a scene of wild confusion. Drummond had got on the table: Toby Sinclair and I scrambled on to chairs, and Jerningham and Darrell just managed to reach a wooden bench.
“You devil,” shouted the man Dubosc, “turn off the stopcock. We’re cut off.”
Helias laughed gratingly from the passage into which he had escaped in the general scramble. And then for the first time we noticed the three other members of the gang. They were standing against the wall – completely cut off, as they said. Owing to some irregularity in the floor they were surrounded by the liquid, which still came surging into the room.
And then there occurred the most dreadful scene I have ever witnessed. They screamed and fought like wild beasts for the central position – the place which the poison would reach last. It was three inches deep now under our chairs, and it was within a yard of the place where the three men struggled.
Suddenly the first of them went. He slipped and fell right into the foul stuff, and as he fell he died. Without heeding him the other two fought on. What good they could do by it was beside the point: the frenzied instinct of self-preservation killed all reason. And forgetful of our own danger we watched them, fascinated.
It was Dubosc who managed to wrap his legs round the other’s waist, at the same time clutching him round the neck with his arms.
“Carry me to the cupboard, you fool,” he screamed. “It’s the only chance.”
But the other man had completely lost his head. In a last frenzied attempt to get rid of his burden he stumbled and fell. And with an ominous splash they both landed in the oncoming liquid. It was over; and we stared at the three motionless bodies in stupefied silence.
“I don’t like people who interfere with my plans,” came the voice of Helias from the passage. “Unfortunately I shan’t have the pleasure of seeing you die because the thought of your revolver impels me to keep out of sight. But I will just explain the situation. In the cupboard is a stopcock. In the building beyond you is a very large tank containing some tons of this poison. We use the stopcock to allow the liquid to pass through the pipe down to the sea – on occasions. Now, however, the end of the pipe is in the passage, which, as you doubtless observed, slopes downwards into the room where you are. And so the liquid is running back into the room, and will continue to do so until the stopcock is turned off or the tank is empty. It ought to rise several feet, I should think. I trust I make myself clear.”
We looked round desperately: we were caught like rats in a trap. Already the liquid was so deep that the three dead men were drifting about in it sluggishly, and the smell of it was almost overpowering.
“There’s only one thing for it,” said Drummond at length. His voice was quite steady, and he was tucking his trousers into his socks as he spoke.
“You’re not going to do it, Hugh,” shouted Jerningham. “We’ll toss.”
“No, we won’t, old lad. I’m nearest.”
He stood up and measured the distance to the cupboard with his eye.
“Cheer oh! old lads – and all that sort of rot,” he remarked. “Usual messages, don’t you know. It’s my blithering fault for having brought you here.”
And Peter Darrell was crying like a child.
“Don’t!” we shouted. “For God’s sake, man – there’s another way. There must be.”
And our shout was drowned by the crack of a revolver. It was Drummond who had fired, and the shot was
followed by the sound of a fall.
I thought he might get curious,” he said grimly. “He did. Poked his foul face round the corner.”
“Is he dead?” cried Ted.
“Very,” said Drummond. “I plugged him through the brain.”
“Good Lord! old man,” said Peter shakily. “I thought you meant that other stuff.”
“Dear old Peter,” Drummond smiled: “I did. And I do. But I’m glad to have paid the debt first. You might – er – just tell – er – you know, Phyllis and all that.”
For a moment his voice faltered: then with that wonderful cheery grin of his he turned to face certain death. And it wasn’t only Peter who was sobbing under his breath.
His knees were bent: he was actually crouching for the jump when the apparition appeared in the door.
“Hugh,” shouted Ted. “Wait.”
It was the figure of a man clothed from head to foot in a rubber garment. His legs were encased in what looked like high fishing waders: his body and hands were completely covered with the same material. But it was his head that added the finishing touch. He wore a thing that resembled a diver’s helmet, save that it was much less heavy and clumsy. Two pieces of glass were fitted for his eyes, and just underneath there was a device to allow him to breathe.
He stood there for a moment with the liquid swirling round his legs, and then he gave a shout of rage.
“The traitor: the traitor. There will not be enough for the air.”
It was Robin Gaunt, and with sudden wild hope we watched him stride to the cupboard. Of us he took no notice: he did not even pause when one of the bodies bumped against him. He just turned off the stopcock, and then stood there muttering angrily whilst we wiped the sweat from our foreheads and breathed again. At any rate for the moment we were reprieved.
“The traitor. But I’ll do him yet. I’ll cheat him.”
He burst into a shout of mad laughter.
“I’ll do him. There shall be enough.”
Still taking no notice of us, he waded back to the door and disappeared up the passage. What wild delusion was in the poor chap’s brain we knew not: sufficient for us at the moment that the liquid had ceased to rise.
