The Shivering Mountain

by Paul Somers

  I stared at her in astonishment. “Then why in heaven’s name did you come?”

  “I just thought I’d like to be around!” she said. She smiled again, sweetly. “Good night, Hugh!—sleep well!”

  Chapter Eleven

  I rang the office and was put straight through to Grant. He sounded most relieved to hear from me. I told him, without going into details on the phone, that the mission had been successfully completed, that there had been no direct contact with “our friends,” but that if they kept their renewed promises I ought to be meeting the man we wanted to interview in about twenty-four hours and that I was staying on for that purpose. He said, “Fine!—I’ll be looking forward to another call from you to-morrow night.” I asked him if he’d tell Barr that all was well, and he said he would, and after a final “Good luck!” he rang off.

  I slept like a log that night and woke in the morning feeling refreshed and ready for anything. It was just as well I did, because with Mollie and Clara both around and no other visible guests in the hotel I could see the atmosphere was going to be pretty strained. I’d hoped at least to get breakfast over on my own, but both girls came down before I’d finished. Clara joined me. Once again she hadn’t made up much, and her face showed the ravages of a restless night. Mollie ate alone at the other side of the dining-room. She couldn’t have been more distant and disapproving if she’d caught Clara and me on an illicit week-end. It baffled me why she was sticking around.

  Talking to Clara wasn’t at all easy. She was terribly on edge, and naturally she couldn’t think of anything except whether her father would turn up or not. I gave her all the encouragement I could, but my assurances sounded pretty empty, even to me. The night was going to bring tragedy or happiness for her but there was no means of knowing which and her guess was as good as mine. I asked her if she’d like me to drive her round the Derbyshire beauty spots to take her mind off things, but she said she wasn’t fit company—which was true enough—and that she’d sooner stay in and rest. For a while after breakfast she hung about listlessly. Then she said she was going back to her room. I said would it be all right with her if I went out for the day and she said of course it would and she’d see me in the evening.

  Mollie’s car was still in the drive but she was nowhere to be seen. It looked as though she’d gone to ground, too. I debated whether to go in search of her, and decided not to. As things were, we’d probably only have a row. I read through the papers, and then set off in the car to explore some of the Peak country. It was a fine spring day and very pleasant out—though judging by the way the barometer had plunged when I’d tapped it that morning, we were in for a change. I lunched at Matlock, and walked all afternoon through a beautiful dale called the Lathkill, and got back to Castleton about half-past five. Clara had just had tea and was sitting in the lounge. I asked her how she’d been getting on and she said it had been a fairly grim day but she’d been better on her own and had had a good rest. She’d lunched in her room, I gathered, and hadn’t seen anything of Mollie. She asked me if I’d had an enjoyable day, and I enthused for a while about the Lathkill.

  “I think perhaps I’d better go for a walk before dinner,” she said. “It’s that or the bar—and I wouldn’t want Father to find me quite tight when he arrives!” She got up. I saw that she’d already changed into walking shoes.

  “Would you like me to come with you?” I asked.

  “No, don’t bother—I’m sure you must have had all the walking you want for one day.… And I’d really sooner be alone.”

  I nodded. “Don’t get wet—I think it’s going to rain.”

  “I’ll watch it,” she said. She gave me a pallid smile, and went out. I walked over to the window. The sun was just dipping behind a nasty-looking cloudbank low on the horizon. I heard the front door bang, and watched Clara as she walked briskly down towards the road. A moment later I heard the door bang again. This time it was Mollie, in a smart raincoat. She had something tucked under her arm—it looked to me like a torch. She, too, walked briskly down the drive. She stopped at the gate, glanced cautiously up and down the road, and then set off in the same direction as Clara. For a moment, I hesitated. Then I picked up my coat and went after her. By the time I caught her up we were leaving the village. Clara had disappeared round a bend ahead.

  Mollie turned at the sound of my step. She looked surprised, but not particularly annoyed. “Now who’s following who?” she said.

  I fell in beside her. “You’re following Clara.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake? She’s only going for a walk before dinner.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I said, “I don’t get it at all. You’ve obviously got it in for her, but I don’t know why. She’s done nothing to you.”

  “I’ve got a hunch,” Mollie said.

  “What sort of hunch?”

  “I just don’t think Clara’s quite what she seems to be.… I never have thought so.” She quickened her step a little as we turned the corner. Clara was just disappearing out of sight again. Dusk was beginning to fall.

  I said, “I wish you’d tell me why. I’m not trying to pinch a story or anything—but you’ve been going on in such a strange way I really would like to get things straight.… What makes you so suspicious?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you.… Do you remember an incident after that first Press conference, when we were standing out in the street and Ronald Barr was kissing Clara good-bye?”

  “I remember. You looked as though you’d seen a ghost.”

  “I’d certainly seen something that wasn’t natural. Clara’s face was turned away from you, and towards me. When Barr bent to kiss her, she positively flinched. She had an expression of absolute revulsion!”

  It seemed scarcely possible. I said, “Are you sure you weren’t imagining things?”

  “I’m dead sure. Clara looked just as though she was being given the kiss of death.”

  “But, Mollie, she’s terribly fond of him. She was telling me about him on the way up. She said the nicest things about him.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s fond of him. It only means she wanted you to think so.”

  “Why should she? Supposing you’re right—what does it prove?”

  “I don’t know what it proves. All I know is that it’s interesting. There’s something phony going on, and I’d like to know what.”

  “And that’s why you came all the way up here?”

  “A hunch is a hunch!—and I had two days off. Judging by what’s happened, I think the trip’s been justified.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there’s been some odd behaviour.…”

  “By you, yes!”

  “Not just by me.… Why do you think the kidnappers are letting Landon come to Castleton?”

  I shrugged. “If they’ve been hiding him around here and they knew Clara was in the district it was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  “You mean they were being human and considerate?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Why should they bother? They certainly haven’t been very considerate up to now.… I’d have thought that once they’d got their money they’d have freed Landon and let him make his own way home—not worried about arranging for his reception.”

  I said, “It’s a point, of course.… Why do you think they made the arrangement, then?”

  “The only thing I can think of is that they might have wanted to give Clara an excuse for staying up here.”

  I was still baffled. “Why should she want to stay up here?”

  “I don’t know,” Mollie said. “That’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on her all day. That’s why I’m following her now!”

  It made no sense at all to me. If Clara was a phony, I couldn’t imagine what she was being a phony about, or why. All the same, her present behaviour was beginning to puzzle me. As we rounded yet another bend, I saw that she’d left the road and struck off up a track to
the left. It led, if my recollection of the inch-to-the-mile was right, to nowhere at all except wild and open moorland. An excellent place for a walk in daylight—but by now it was nearly dark.… In the end I stopped searching for explanations and concentrated on keeping her in sight without being seen.

  For a while it was simple. Though we were climbing slowly to a high plateau, the ground was undulating and gave us good cover. The dusk was in our favour. But then, as it deepened into darkness, we had to close in, moving cautiously and stopping frequently to locate by sound what we couldn’t see. For a time there were sounds—faint, but adequate. Clara was walking fast, and every few minutes we caught the click of a heel against stone. Then the surface of the ground grew softer, and the track seemed to divide, and while we were listening and debating which way to go we lost her. The last thing I heard was a faint sound over my right shoulder, as though she’d made a half-circle and turned for home. Then silence fell.

  “Well, that’s that,” I said. “She’s obviously going back to the hotel.… So much for hunches!”

  Mollie said, “Who’d walk up here for fun in the dark—alone?”

  “It needn’t have been for fun,” I said. “It could have been out of sheer fed-upness. When you’re desperately worried, this kind of place appeals. Suits the mood!”

  Mollie said nothing. Instead, she switched her torch on and continued slowly along the track. It was partly made up, as though it had been used for carts at some time. Other tracks ran off in all directions. Mollie chose one of them at random. I said, “At this rate we’ll probably lose ourselves as well as Clara!” I made a mental note that the sunset glow had been on our right coming up and that the sky in the west was still a little lighter than the rest. I held my watch in the torch beam. “It’s a quarter past seven. Why don’t we go back and have a drink before dinner?”

  Mollie stopped. “I suppose that is the only thing to do,” she said. But she sounded reluctant to leave the place. She swivelled the torch around—and suddenly, with an exclamation, she bent-down. There was a footmark in the black, peaty soil of the track, with a very clear, heavily-ribbed pattern. It was a large print—certainly not Clara’s. A man’s. There were more of them, pointing ahead of us.

  I said, “Probably just a shepherd.” I was beginning to feel I could use that drink.

  “I don’t believe shepherds wear shoes like that,” Mollie said.

  “A walker, then. These moors are a hiker’s paradise.”

  “There wouldn’t be many people around on a weekday in March,” Mollie said.

  “They may be old prints.”

  “They look pretty fresh to me.… Let’s see where they lead.”

  She moved on. For a few yards we followed the tracks easily. Then they disappeared as the path became stony. We were going gently downhill now. I had the impression we were entering a shallow valley with higher ground all round. I was about to say that now we’d lost the tracks we might just as well turn back when Mollie, who was leading with the torch, stopped abruptly. “Look!” she said, shining the light straight down.

  I looked. I thought from her tone she’d found something exciting, but I was disappointed. It was only a hole in the ground, and not a big one. The opening was scarcely more than two feet across. It lay just off the path. I dropped a stone down and it reached the bottom almost at once. The hole was only about six feet deep. “It’s a tiny pothole,” I said. “What they call a swallow. This is limestone country—they’re all over the place.”

  Mollie had bent down and was shining the torch right into the hole. She held the light there so long that I grew impatient. “What on earth can you see?” I asked.

  She got up slowly and gave me the torch. “Well,” she said, in a voice that suddenly seemed not quite under control, “we may have lost Clara but we’ve found something else. Take a look!”

  I knelt down and thrust the torch at arm’s length into the hole. It was a little out of plumb, but I could see the bottom well enough. There was a muddy floor, churned up by feet and showing many marks. Some of the marks were of heavily ribbed shoes. But that wasn’t all. A little to the left, on a ledge of earth, there were four shallow, triangular indentations, the corners of a rectangle about two feet long and nine inches wide. I didn’t need telling what they were. Someone had rested a heavy suitcase there!

  Chapter Twelve

  There was no question of piecing things together at that stage. I was so astounded by our discovery that I found it difficult to think at all. I couldn’t believe it was entirely by chance that we’d come upon the pothole after following Clara, and to that extent I accepted Mollie’s hunch about her—but I was still nowhere near guessing what she’d been up to. As far as the hole itself was concerned I thought merely that it had been used by the kidnappers as a temporary hiding place for the money. Even so, it seemed worth while to go down and take a closer look. I got Mollie to hold the torch and lowered myself carefully into the swallow. It was a fairly tight squeeze getting through, but the jagged, yellowish-white sides had plenty of handy projections and in no time at all I was standing beside the suitcase marks. Mollie passed the torch down to me and I flashed it around. At once, the picture changed dramatically. The sides of the hole widened out like a flask at the bottom, and I saw with a thrill of excitement that on one side a low passage led out of it. I called up to Mollie, “There’s more in this place than meets the eye—you’d better come down!” She was in the hole almost before I’d got the words out. I took her weight, and helped her down, and in a moment she was standing beside me, gazing with awed enthusiasm at the low passage.

  I crouched down and shone the torch into it. It was only about three feet high at the entrance but it opened out almost at once into what appeared to be a small cave. On the floor of the cave, to the right, there was something that looked like the end of a pick handle. There must be a recess there, that I couldn’t see into. I crawled through, with Mollie at my heels. The torch beam lit up a row of sleeping bats hanging from the roof. Big cave spiders darted away from the glare. The cave was about ten feet in diameter. I flashed the torch into the recess. The wooden handle I’d seen was part of a small sledgehammer. There was a lot of other equipment there—a stack of iron pistons with rings at the top; a box of tinned food; a box of magnesium flares; a steel helmet, rather like a coal-miner’s, with a lamp in the front; a boiler-suit of thick grey canvas; a leather belt with a flat electric lamp attached to it; and a lot of spare batteries. The cave was obviously a store. More than that, though—a staging post. At the far side the passage continued, but higher and wider, sloping down between rough walls of mountain limestone into the unknown depths.

  I looked at Mollie. Her eyes were shining, and it wasn’t just the reflection of the light. I said, “Well, we seem to be on to something big. The question is, what do we do?”

  “Keep going,” Mollie said. “Landon could be here. It would be a wonderful place to hide anybody.”

  “He could be,” I agreed. “So could the kidnappers!”

  “I shouldn’t think they are, now. The money’s gone, so they’ve probably gone too.”

  “If Landon’s here, they may come back.… I think we ought to tell the police.”

  “Then everyone else will get the story. Let’s go on a bit first.”

  “We could easily run into trouble.”

  “Not if we’re careful.”

  I gave a wry smile. Twice, in the past, I’d made a resolution never to let Mollie lead me into this sort of situation again—yet having got so far it was difficult to turn back. I felt certain she wouldn’t turn back. It had been her hunch, and she was going to see it through. I said, “Well, we’ll go a little way.” It sounded pretty weak, but what could I do? At least, I thought, we’d have plenty of light now. I tried on the potholer’s helmet, but it had been made for a different-sized head and wasn’t comfortable on me. The leather belt with the lamp seemed a better bet. I debated whether to bother with the boiler-suit, and decided not
to. I stuck my raincoat in a niche in the rock and fastened the belt round my waist. The light from the lamp was brilliant. I gave Mollie the torch, and stuffed a couple of magnesium flares in my pocket, and we started off along the passage. We had to walk crouched for a few yards, and then the ceiling rose and the passage widened and we were able to move forward side by side in comfort. The floor was dry and the air, though cool, wasn’t unpleasantly cold.

  We kept going for about fifty yards in a straight line and then stopped to listen. The silence seemed absolute. We went on again, cautiously, and presently we reached a right-angled bend and turned. At once I became aware of a faint sound ahead. At first I couldn’t identify it—it was a sort of hoarse murmur, a vibration rather than a sound. Then, as we drew closer, I realised it was water. The murmur increased to a roar. Suddenly we emerged into another chamber. The air was full of a fine mist that soaked our faces. From a rift in the rock high up on our left, a stream of water was pouring in a great cascade and breaking in spray on the floor of the cave. There it formed a stream that flowed away down a steep incline, the left prong of a fork. There was negotiable rock beside the stream, but the way looked very wet. The right prong was higher and drier and looked so much more inviting that we took it automatically. It had a lot of turnings, usually at right-angles, but it didn’t divide again and there were no real difficulties. If this was potholing, it was potholing in comfort.

  We continued down an easy slope for perhaps ten minutes. We could no longer hear the water. Complete silence had fallen again. I began to wonder where we were going to finish up. Some of these passages, I’d read, ran for miles.… Then, abruptly, the sides of the tunnel widened out and the ground fell away in front of us and we jerked to a stop on the edge of darkness. I got down on my knees and groped ahead, and there was nothing but empty space. The powerful beams of my lamp showed nothing at all. I found a fragment of rock and hurled it straight out into the emptiness and when it finally landed the sound was so far away it was barely audible. I picked up another fragment and dropped it over the edge. There was a brief moment of silence and then it hit the bottom. The precipice, if it was that, didn’t seem to be a very deep one. I borrowed Mollie’s torch and shone it down. The rock edge was almost sheer, but not quite. I could probably have climbed down if there’d been any point. As it was, it seemed better to go back and try the other passage.