Campion pulled himself up as the solid ground gave way at his very feet.
‘I can’t tell you,’ he said helplessly. ‘Don’t you understand ? I am simply unable to tell you.’
Hutch stiffened. He was like a soldier at attention.
‘Very good, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m in your hands. Carry on.’
Campion took the torch from him and advanced towards the table. It seemed the obvious thing to do. As he came up to it its enormous size became more apparent and panic seized him as he looked across that vast expanse of shining wood. It was so empty, so utterly uninformative.
He glanced towards the papers neatly arranged before the main chair and experienced his first ray of hope. They were not all the usual blanks. On the top of the pile was a fold of foolscap neatly headed ‘Agenda’. Anscombe had done his last duty for the Masters.
By the light of the torch he read the list of items down for discussion at the morrow’s meeting. It began archaically enough with ‘Prayers to Almighty God’ and went on to the orthodox ‘Senior Master’s Opening Remarks’, ‘Minutes of the Last Meeting’, and ‘Correspondence’. But the third entry was more unusual. ‘Ceremony of the Bale of Straw’, it stated simply, and continued, as though the one were the counterpart of the other, ‘Report on the New Sewage System for the Lower Town, temporarily suspended by War’. The ‘Institute Report’ followed and the fifth item recorded ‘Extraordinary Council: Resignation of John Robert Anscombe, Secretary’.
The sixth heading brought Campion up short, his brows rising as he read the round characterless copperplate.
‘Suggested Purchase from the Government of the French,’ it ran briefly. ‘Spice Island of Malaguama.950,000,000 francs.’
This somewhat staggering project brought him to the foot of the page and he turned it casually, unprepared for any further statement, but there, staring at him and in the same childish hand, was yet another consideration for the Masters of Bridge.
‘Main Business of the Evening,’ he read and saw underneath it, in a large carelessly drawn circle in red ink, the haunting figures 15.
Below were two further lines, clearly referring to some traditional closing ceremony: ‘(1) The Oath’ and ‘(2) The Toast Sec. 5. Perish All Those Who Doe Wrong Unto Us.’
He refolded the sheet, put it back into position, and stepped back. His knees were trembling. It was all here, he felt certain, all under his hand, and yet he could not recognize it. The other half of the talisman was lying just out of his reach in the monstrous darkness of his own brain.
Hutch remained stiffly at his side. Campion could feel that the man was uneasy, alarmed at the enormity of his own share in storming this sacred fastness.
Campion peered round him in the gloom.
‘There are other rooms, of course ?’
‘This is the only actual habitable room, sir. The others are only caverns. They go right on down to the Trough.’
‘The Trough?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s the local name of the big cave on the estuary bay. It runs a long way under the hill and the old river road leads past it. At one time it used to be a great place for picnics and so on, but the water comes right up to the entrance at high tide and there were so many cases of people getting caught down there that the Masters declared it shut and ran a railing across the entrance, which isn’t very wide. A place like that gets very dirty and untidy if you leave it open to the public.’
‘I suppose so. Can you get down to it from here?’
‘I don’t know, sir. No one’s allowed in here, you see. I don’t think you can. As far as I know you can get on to a sort of gallery which looks down into the Trough, but I don’t think there’s any way down from that. When I was a boy we used to dare each other to get up into the Masters’ store-rooms, but it was a terrific climb and you needed a rope. We never got very far.’
‘I see. I’d like to go on a bit, though. Is that possible?’
‘It’s possible, sir.’ Hutch did not add that it was also insane in his opinion, with the seconds racing by so dangerously.
A new doggedness had come over Campion and he hunched his shoulders.
‘We’ll have to risk it,’ he said.
Hutch was an experienced man and he worked quickly, but it was not an easy adventure since he was as ignorant of the geography of the place as was Campion, and their first need was to get out of the Council Chamber without stumbling inadvertently through any one of the Four Doors of Bridge.
They found the way by considering the formation of the cavern in which the chamber was set and came at first to an astonishingly efficient furnace-room with a chimney built up through a prehistoric airshaft in the hill. From there they passed on into a passage which had been roughly lined at some much earlier period, and thence an iron ladder took them down into the Masters’ store-rooms.
These long caverns were unexpectedly well ventilated and confirmed Campion’s suspicions that the whole Nag was nothing less than a fortress, probably dating back to Neolithic times.
A brief inspection disclosed that the main use to which the Masters put their space was the storage of wine. The first gallery contained rack after rack of dusty black bottles and a smile appeared on the Superintendent’s strained face as he looked at them.
‘They must have done themselves proud for generations,’ he said. ‘I bet there’s a fortune here. As a matter of fact they do own vineyards all over the world, I’ve heard.’
Campion did not comment.
At the end of the gallery the entrance to the next cavern was small and had been boarded up at some time. Hutch ran his torch beam over the edges of the torn wood lying in a neat pile on the uneven floor.
‘This hasn’t been down long,’ he remarked. ‘They’ve been making room for more liquor, I suppose.’
It certainly looked like it. It seemed hardly credible, but the thin shafts from the Superintendent’s two torches disclosed pile upon pile of small packing cases, each sealed and labelled with a grower’s name and burnt with the same hieroglyphics. Most of it appeared to be hock and it was clear that the Masters had had the forethought to see that no European upheaval could interfere with their serious drinking.
Hutch gasped. ‘There’s a cargo of it,’ he said, sounding thoroughly shocked. ‘A perishing cargo. Hallo, sir, what’s the matter ?’
Campion had paused in the middle of a step. His body had become rigid and he stood immovable, his head raised.
‘Listen,’ he whispered.
Hutch became a rock. He had extinguished his torch and now both men waited in the suffocating darkness which filled the world about them like black wool.
‘What was it, sir?’ The Superintendent’s agonized demand was only just audible.
‘A petrol engine. Listen.’
Very faint, so muffled that it was more of a sensation than a sound, the throbbing reached them.
‘It’s beneath us,’ said Campion briefly. ‘Come on.’
‘Sir …’ Hutch was a good man and he knew his duty, but there is one State Department which does not recognize its servants if they make mistakes. He did not belong to it and thirty years’ blameless record was at stake.
‘Give me the torches. You stay where you are.’ It occurred to Campion briefly that it was odd that he should issue orders so naturally and should be so certain that they would be unquestioningly obeyed. He went on alone, moving like a wraith but very quickly, with a sure-footed stealth which betrayed long practice. He did not see the second iron ladder until he was almost upon it, and he paused with his heart in his mouth, peering down into the abyss.
The throbbing had ceased, but in the cold underground air there was a slight but umistakable breath of exhaust. He went down the ladder for what seemed a very long way and found himself in a passage no wider than his outstretched arms.
Here the taint was stronger and he moved very cautiously, keeping the pinpoint of light from the small torch on the ground at his feet. An abrupt right-angle turn brought
him up with a start. The fumes were much stronger now and, mingling with them, was the fresh sharp tang of the sea.
He pressed on and came out suddenly into what felt like a vast open space. The air smelt like a garage and his tiny ray of light suddenly lengthened as the path ended in a yawning hole before his feet. He paused, breathless, and switched off the light.
There was no sound, no sign of life, nothing except the strong reek of petrol. He hesitated. If the place was occupied his presence must already be discovered. He took the Superintendent’s larger torch in his left hand and, holding it at arm’s length so that the beam should arise a good three feet away from him on the wrong side, switched it on.
What he saw was so unexpected that he almost dropped the torch. He was on a narrow ledge, high up on the rock wall of a cave which could only be the Trough of the Superintendent’s description, for it stretched away to a narrow railed opening far away in the distance. This in itself was not altogether unexpected, but what was extraordinary was that directly below him, hidden from the entrance by a natural partition which jutted out into the main body of the cave, was a large pocket or alcove, snug and secret, which housed at the moment something under three hundred three-ton lorries of varying types and ages, but clearly in good running order and ready for the road.
Campion swung the torch over them and the finger of light rested on bonnets and cabs, on yawning bodies and solid wheels. The narrow shaft of light ran up one row and down the next, wavered dangerously, and swept on again.
Campion forced himself to finish his inspection, but that single glimpse at the end of the row had been enough. He had seen the face of a man, crouching back into the shelter of an overhanging cab. It had been a white face in the bright light and it had been familiar. It had flashed into his vision bringing a name with it; a name and a deep feeling of no enthusiasm, as someone once said so expressively.
‘Weaver Bea.’
As he repeated it under his breath it sounded absurd and unlikely and yet in all the turmoil in his mind it remained familiar and unpleasant.
It was at this point that the full realization of his own utter inefficiency came home to him. The curious singleness of purpose which had hitherto characterized his condition was wearing thin and he began to take a more normal view of the situation in which he found himself, inasmuch as he began to suspect himself at every step. He saw himself making mountains out of molehills, and, what was even worse, pitfalls into mere depressions. Moreover, the physical effect of the experience had begun to tell on him again. His head ached maddeningly and he was not too certain of his legs.
He crept back the way he had come but, although he paused to listen when he reached the right-angle bend, there was still no sound from the great hidden garage he had left.
As he felt his way up the narrow iron ladder he tried to assimilate what he had seen since entering the Nag. It was both tantalizing and alarming. He had the uncomfortable feeling that it might all be very ordinary if seen with the clear eyes of a normally informed person. Any municipal stronghold of great antiquity could probably appear fantastic to the completely ignorant. Yet, on the other hand, every half-observed aspect of the place might well possess some all-important significance which he ought to recognize at once. There was the number 15 on the agenda: that must be of interest. And the man he had just seen: if his presence was normal, why had he hidden ?
He struggled on and by the time he heard the Superintendent’s heavy breathing just ahead of him he had made up his mind. There was only one course open to him which was not criminally negligent. He must get into touch with Oates at once. He ought to have done that immediately on receipt of the letter, of course. He wondered why he had ignored this obvious solution and suddenly remembered Anscombe and his own invidious position in that matter, which had focused his entire attention on the personal aspect. Hutch had only just explained that, of course. Good God, he was mad! Here he was, stumbling about in the dark seeing monsters where there were bushes and innocent shadows where there might be death-traps, and all the time the precious hours were racing past. He was a lunatic, very possibly a dangerous lunatic. Mercifully he was gradually getting the intelligence to recognize the fact.
The Superintendent was eager for news but even more eager to get out of his highly compromising position. He led the way back with alacrity and they passed across the Council Chamber like a couple of homing foxes.
‘Lorries?’ he said in astonishment when Campion had replied to his question. ‘How many?’
‘Several.’ Campion could not explain his own urge towards caution.
Hutch shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about them,’ he said. ‘It’s the Government work, I expect. They’re doing a lot of experiments with synthetic juice up at the Institute – at least that’s the gossip. The Masters own the Institute, and, come to think of it, the Trough wouldn’t be a bad place to hide a lorry or two. You’re suddenly in a great hurry, sir. You weren’t seen, were you?’
‘No,’ said Campion truthfully, ‘but I’ve got to get a move-on now.’
The Superintendent opened his mouth to make an enquiry but the experience of long service saved him the indiscretion. Moreover, they were approaching the store-room behind the shop again.
They got out without incident but Hutch was not pleased to find it almost dawn. Fortunately it was misty and the two men plunged into the chilling vapour as thankfully as if it had been a smoke-screen especially provided for their benefit.
As they passed down the broad highway of the Nag’s Pykle the squat houses blinked at them through the haze and the town of Bridge looked a little less like a fairy-tale than it had done by moonlight. It was old and very picturesque, but the unreality, the frankly fantastic atmosphere of the night before, had vanished with the moon.
Campion was relieved to see it and to credit his returning intelligence with the change. He felt definitely ill. His head was throbbing and his body ached. However, he knew what he had to do. Amanda was his card. Amanda must take him to Oates. It was odd that the very recollection of Amanda should wrap such comfort round him. He must get out of that, he supposed, if she had made up her mind, and yet … it was absurd. All that was ridiculous. Amanda was not only his: she was himself. Amanda … oh, he couldn’t be bothered to work it out. He must go to her … get to her … get … to … her.
Hutch caught him as he stumbled, and as they stood swaying together on the cobbles Campion was aware of some inner reserve of strength like a separate person within his body reaching down, down, and dragging his submerging faculties to the surface again. It was a staggering experience, like being rescued from drowning in a dream.
The Superintendent’s face, which had loomed very large, gradually resumed its normal proportions and his voice, which had receded to a distant hail, slipped back into tune.
‘You’ve overdone it, sir, that’s what you’ve done. We’re just by the station. You’ll have to sit down. You can’t go on for ever without sleeping or eating; no one can.’
The tone was plaintive and gently nagging.
‘You’ll go sick on your feet, and then where shall we be ?’
He was leading his charge all the time with the firm efficiency of long practice and they advanced upon the unexpectedly modern Police Station, set among the Tudor scenery, in spite of his companion’s incoherent protests.
A Police Sergeant met them on the doorstep and there was a muttered conference between him and his chief.
‘Is there?’ Hutch said at last. ‘I see. Yes. Yes, of course. Put it through at once. We’ll take it in the Charge Room.’ He turned to Campion anxiously. ‘There’s a personal call waiting for you, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s from Headquarters. Can you manage it? Are you all right?’
Campion had no clear impression of his passage through the station. He came back to himself as he sat staring into the black mouthpiece of the shabby telephone.
‘Yeo here, Mr Campion,’ said a voice in his ear. It was so small and quie
t that it might have been the whisper of conscience. ‘Yeo. Have you got the Chief with you?’
‘Oates?’ Campion’s own voice was strong and apprehensive. It seemed to him that he was shouting.
‘Yes, sir. He’s gone. We can’t find him. He left his room here in the small hours of yesterday morning and hasn’t been heard of since. Is he with you?’
‘No, he’s not here.’
There was a long pause. It seemed to stretch into centuries and shrink again into a minute’s space. He had time to become aware of the light streaming in through the tall windows and of the green distemper on the wall at the end of the room.
The faraway voice spoke again.
‘Then it’s you alone now, sir. You’re the only one now who can do anything. None of the rest of us here even know the full strength. I don’t know if you think that’s wise, sir. The Chief was in sole control of his agents.’
Campion could not reply and after a pause the little voice came again.
‘Any … luck, sir?’
Campion closed his eyes and opened them again as once more the secret reserve which lies in every human body was pumped up into his veins.
‘Not yet,’ he said distinctly, ‘but there’s still an hour or two.’
Then he slipped forward across the table, his head in his arms.
IX
HE WOKE HOLDING Amanda’s hand. He was so relieved to find it there, so comforted to see her, alive, friendly, and gloriously intelligent, that for a blessed moment he remained mindless and content. He lay looking at her with placid, stupid eyes.
‘You’re ill,’ she said, her clear, immature voice frankly anxious. ‘I’ve been trying to wake you for hours. What shall I do? Phone Oates?’
That did it. That brought him back to the situation with a rush. Everything he knew, everything he had discovered or experienced since he had awakened in the hospital bed, sped past his conscious mind like a film raced through a projector at treble speed. The effect was catastrophic. It took his breath away and left him sweating.
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