Benson walked to the stage and disappeared beyond Bony’s view. He remained there for at least a minute—it might have been two—when he reappeared and resumed his chair. Bony counted twenty before Benson’s neighbour, one of the women, rose and stepped up to the stage, so passing from Bony’s view. She was there as long as Benson, returning to her chair with the stiff action of a sleep-walker. When her neighbour, a man, went to the stage, Bony realised the opportunity of entering the building and concealing himself behind the draperies.
On reaching the door, he could see four chair backs at Benson’s end of the line. Those four chairs were occupied, and with great care he pushed the door farther inward until he could see the vacated chair and, between the chairs, the stage. There were no actors other than a man in evening-dress standing with his back to the “audience”.
Bony drew away. The man on the stage was turning round. He came down the steps, marched slowly to his chair, his face white, his eyes wide. A pause, and his neighbour rose and walked forward, and during that short walk Bony slipped in round the edge of the door and in behind the wall drapery, coming to rest with his back against the wall, where two sections of the drapery met and provided a fold.
He could part the draperies and look through, and now he had a clearer view of the stage and the chance to study it.
The back and sides were draped with cloth of gold. Dwarfing the man standing with bent head, and seemingly about to fly out from the back wall, was a huge, black, double-headed eagle. The man was standing on the edge of a marble dais, and upon the dais was set a block of stone as green as uranium and semi-translucent. Upon the green stone rested a black casket with raised lid.
Simpson was the last to make the pilgrimage, for that is what it appeared to be, and on his return he crossed to the organ and began to play a portion of Wagner’s tetralogy, the Ring of the Nibelung. Concluding, “Deutschland über Alles” was like a fluid of sound pouring about the company, now standing, as the curtains slowly moved to contact at centre.
When the last notes swooned into silence Benson raised one hand, and the reason for the signal Bony never knew, for in that instant there broke into the silence the shrill ringing of a bell placed somewhere above the door. Benson’s face registered leaping anger, Simpson spun round on his organ seat and joined the startled company. The bell continued ringing imperatively, not to be denied. Benson glared, took in the company as though counting heads and shouted:
“Where is Heinrich? Jim, find out what your people want.”
The bell stopped as Simpson strode to the door which Bony had been careful to leave ajar. He pulled back the door and Heinrich almost collided with him as he staggered in, gazing wildly about like a man both blind and drunk, and, on seeing Benson, tottered forward.
“What is the matter with you, Heinrich?” Benson demanded harshly, a seemingly unnecessary question, as Heinrich’s head appeared to have been mauled by a chaff-cutter. The man swayed drunkenly upon his feet, tried but failed to articulate, closed his eyes as though about to faint, and then, with all credit, exerted tremendous effort to remain upright. No one offered assistance. No one brought him a chair. Not one of those astounded by the appearance of the man was more astounded than Napoleon Bonaparte. The man who had given the toast spoke:
“With your permission, Carl, I will attend to Heinrich. Odgers! Assist Heinrich to the house.”
Benson said, as though the butler’s state was of minor importance: “Thank you, Dr. Harz. Jim, did I not say_____The telephone, quickly. Ladies and gentlemen, please return to the house. Conrad, be pleased to have your aeroplane in readiness for flight.”
The sound of the butler’s dragging feet on the gravel came in through the open doorway as the last of the company passed from Bony’s range of vision. He heard a woman say:
“Why was not Bertram with us this evening?”
“He complained of a sick headache, Cora,” replied her brother. “He said he would retire and take aspirin and join us when he felt better. His absence may now be significant. We must_____”
The voice faded, was cut off by a slight thud. Air pressure informed Bony that the door had closed.
He listened and could hear nothing. Without disturbing the draperies, he was unable to see the door or the organ beyond it. He was waiting tensely, holding his breath the better to hear, was concluding that he was entirely alone, when the lights went out. He relaxed, leaning back against the wall, his mind winnowing facts from impressions and classifying probabilities and possibilities.
Benson had ordered Simpson to find out what his people wanted, and it was certain that the order was connected with the ringing bell, although it had not sounded like a telephone bell. It meant that someone at the hotel was calling up the homestead and that the instrument in the house actuated the summoning bell in the observatory.
Who could be ringing from the hotel? Unless Mrs. Simpson and her daughter had returned, who else could be there? Only the old man, and he could not leave his bed. It would not be Mulligan, for even if Mulligan was thus early he would not make that mistake.
Glen Shannon! Improbable, because Shannon ought to have returned from Dunkeld, ought to have opened the double gates for Mulligan, ought to have reached the Baden Park boundary gate long before this. Perhaps the bell had not been a telephone summons, but an alarm set off by Shannon tampering with the boundary gate, trying to gain an entry in readiness for the arrival of the police cars.
Bertram! No, because Bertram was dead. Of that there was no doubt. He ought to have made equally sure that Heinrich was dead before leaving him at the back of the prison hut. He had then made a mistake which might be costly before the night was out, for doubtless they would get the butler to talk, or write if he could not speak, and tell what had befallen him.
Time! He wondered about the time, how close it was to daybreak. How long had he been here? It might be almost four o’clock, perhaps after four, and at any minute Mulligan would arrive to go through the place like a tornado and sweep everyone and everything into his net.
Before that happened Bony had yet more to do. He still had to uncover Benson’s secret and the motives for abduction and murder and the hospitality extended to these obviously German people. That upon the stage might inform him.
Within and without the observatory the silence was unbroken as he slid along the wall, parting the draperies with his hands so that they fell into place. Coming to the door, he felt for a handle or pull, found neither, discovered how closely the door fitted into the frame, decided that, like the gate, it was electrically controlled.
It was just too bad, for he would be a prisoner when Mulligan and his boys arrived. But—he was close to the hub of the mystery. An utterly fantastic idea had been simmering in his mind for an hour, but were it proved reality, for him fame would be undying.
He located the box of matches in one of his pockets, felt within the box, and found half a dozen matches and one fairly long cigarette end, of which he had no memory. He blamed himself for not having brought the butler’s flashlight, despite the fact that he could not have foreseen how the situation would develop.
Aided by the flame of a match, he crossed the auditorium and was near the stage curtain when the match expired. With his hands he found the curtain, the cool surface of satin caressing his fingers. He found the parting, then the steps with a foot, passed up the steps, and permitted the curtains to fall back into place. Another match he struck and held high when the tiny flame had taken steady hold upon the splinter of wood.
Somewhere an engine was pumping water. The sound was monotonous, and he wished it would stop. It did not permit him to hear with the keenness demanded by the situation, for he must know instantly if the door opened and anyone entered the building. When the noise of a motor-engine came to him he realised that the pumping was that of his heart.
Before him towered the giant two-headed eagle, and between it and himself was the casket set upon the block of green stone. The match went out as he
placed one naked foot upon the dais.
Striking another match, he turned to leave the stage, hesitated, and was for ever grateful that he did not make the second mistake in this one night. In the ensuing darkness he felt with a foot for the dais, stepped upon it, and slid forward, first one foot and then the other, until he encountered the uranium-green stone.
Owing to the power of the fantastic idea which had been with him for more than an hour, he mussed the striking of the next two matches and was left with only one.
Careful—careful, now. Hold the box and the match away from you, or the rain will put it out. Rain! It slid ticklingly down his face and gathered at the point of his chin, from which it dripped. Somewhere out in the warm and lovely night powerful aero engines puttered and hesitated, persisted and broke into rhythm.
He was successful with the match. Glass gleamed beneath the light in his shaking hand. He stooped over the casket, brought his eyes down to the glass, and the match down, too. Jewels winked with eyes of ice-blue and ruby-red. Beneath the glass was a man in uniform. The waxen face was heavy-featured, black-moustached. The vision faded, vanished.
The darkness was impenetrable, and yet the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte was illumined with other visions. He gazed upon newspapers in every corner of the world and saw his name. He stood or sat with people before radios all over the world and with them heard his name. All the world knew of him, the man who solved the world’s greatest mystery.
Even in that moment the training of the half-aborigine did not falter. The spent match, like the others, and the now empty box were put safely into a pocket, and like a Cæsar setting forth on his triumph, he stepped from the stage and walked, without colliding with a chair, to the door.
He must show Mulligan, and not Mulligan alone, but Mulligan in company with witnesses, what he had discovered, why the two girls had been abducted and enslaved, why Edward O’Brien had been murdered and his body incinerated, why that fence had been built and to guard what.
But the door was shut and he was unable to open it. He must get out. This very instant. He must contact Mulligan before anything could happen to cheat him of eternal fame.
As he stood at the door, clawing at it to get it open, the lights flashed on.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The Glory Fades
TRAMPING men approached the door. The door opened and Bony took cover behind the wall drapery. Benson entered, followed by six men, stalwart and formal in evening clothes. Individually, none would have gained special notice among a gathering of business executives, but collectively they were distinguished by racial characteristics and bearing.
“To you, gentlemen, is the honour,” Benson told them. “To you I am to transfer the Trust which has been mine for a year, and you are to conduct the Trust from me to those appointed to receive it.
“Captain Conrad will land the plane on a property I own near Portland. There a van will be placed at your service, and the van will transport the Trust and yourselves to a wharf at which members of my launch crew will be waiting. When the Trust and yourselves, with my launch crew, are transferred to the submarine, the launch will be sunk without trace.
“I beg of you, in your report to the commander of the submarine, to convey my regret that I failed to take every precaution to prevent any set of circumstances interfering with The Plan set for this twenty-eighth day of March, and, in consequence, being compelled to expose the Trust to unnecessary risks. As you know, The Plan included transport to Portland by road, as being the safest, and the enforced alteration to air transport will forward the time of boarding the launch by three hours, and the launch will be three hours early at the rendezvous with the submarine.
“Mrs. Tegen is to go with you. Ernst, who is to drive the van, and Wilhelm and Mrs. Tegen are now with the plane. Miss Benson will remain with me. So, too, will Heinrich and Simpson. We shall not live to be arrested. That is all.”
Benson strode to the organ and pressed a button, which set in motion the mechanism controlling the stage curtain. Bony watched them mount to the stage, where Benson gently closed the lid of the casket. The six men took up the casket and bore it from the building, Benson leaving after them. Their feet scuffled on the gravel without, became as the feet of one man marching, marching...
It could not be permitted. At all costs to himself it must not be permitted. Bony tore himself free from the wall draperies and dashed to the door, no longer taking count of the interior lighting revealing him to anyone without.
The aeroplane engines were throbbing with smooth power. A car was approaching at terrific speed. The porch light was on. The house roof was etched against the sky, now paling with the advancing dawn. To the right, Benson’s flashlight revealed the way to the bunched men carrying the casket.
The noise of the car engine drowned out the sound of the aeroplane as it entered the space before the house, skidded with locked wheels, rocked, and almost turned over. From it appeared Simpson, who rushed to the observatory door, looked in, turned, and ran for the house porch, on which stood Cora Benson.
“The gate was forced, Cora!” he shouted. “It was open. We got out and examined it. Someone jammed stones under it to keep it open. We were looking round when Heinrich fell. I heard the bullet slap him. They’re using silencers. They shot at me too. It couldn’t have been the same people who broke into the hotel and set off the alarm. Aren’t you going? Come on—we mustn’t miss the plane.”
“I am not going,” the woman said slowly, adding: “Neither are you.”
“But I must go. I can’t stay here. I can’t_____”
Leaving the porch, he ran along the house front to take the path after Benson and the bearers. His dress-coat was split up the back, and one shoulder of it hung down and flapped as he ran.
Bony followed. He could have winged Simpson and arrested him for the murder of Edward O’Brien, but who and what was Simpson now compared with the contents of that casket being borne along the garden paths to the waiting aeroplane? Simpson was shouting to Benson, and Bony could hear his voice, panting, imploring, fearful.
“You must let me go too, Carl. There was someone there at the gate. Heinrich got it. They’re using silencers. They’ve propped the gate open with stones ready for the police cars. I can’t remain here, not now, Carl. I can’t go back to the hotel.”
“No, Jim, you can’t go back to the hotel,” Benson said coldly. “And you cannot go in the plane.”
“But I must, Carl. The police will know everything. They’ll know about those girls who’ve escaped, know how you and Cora forced them to work. They’ll get to know about Ted O’Brien. I didn’t tell you, but I thought I saw that someone had been in the place where I buried him. I tell you they’ll get to know everything, even about Price and how he was shot at your orders.”
The small procession halted at the garden gate whilst Benson opened it. Beyond it the new daylight was drowning the night on the floor of the valley. Bony stopped, waited for the bearers to get clear of the gate that he might detour round them to reach the plane and disable it with bullets fired into the revolving propellers. The procession passed through the gateway and Simpson resumed his frantic pleading.
“Let me go, Carl! Let me go, please, please. I’ve given everything to the Trust, done everything. We must all go, you and Cora and I. The police_____”
“You cannot go, Jim. The plane will be fully loaded, and the Trust is not going to be endangered with overloading. You are the weak link in this organisation, which otherwise would have been perfect. We’ve both made mistakes. We both have to pay the price, I within a few minutes, you now. Was Heinrich shot dead?”
“Yes. I’m certain of that. Cora_____”
“Cora will never fail. Nor will I. You would, and so_____”
There was a spurt of flame and a sharp report. Simpson stumbled, lurched forward, tried to keep up, fell. Benson stooped over him and fired again with the weapon pressed against his friend’s head. The bearers did not falter. They we
nt on to the aeroplane standing about a hundred yards distant from the gateway.
The light was strong enough to observe a running man, strong enough for Benson to dispense with his torch. Out here beyond the garden were no trees to retain the darkness, and Bony had to pass the bearers to get at the plane. The range beyond the valley curled its crests to greet the dawning, but the beauty of it was not registered on the mind of a man seeking for cover in which he could pass the bearers. There was no cover other than the white-painted post-and-rail fence erected to keep stock back from the swirling creek.
Without sound Bony raced to the fence, intending to run along its far side to the machine waiting quite close to it. The fence appeared strong. Lady Luck struck cruelly. The rail gave beneath his weight as he vaulted it, splintering with noise.
“Go on,” shouted Benson. “Wait for nothing. I’ll keep this fellow pinned.”
Bony had heard the snap of the bone in his left arm, but he felt no pain as he rolled over upon his chest to see Benson emerge at the rear of the bearers and begin to run towards him. Benson dropped, sprawled forward, opened fire, sent a bullet into the post behind which Bony had instinctively taken cover.
Again Benson fired and again the bullet thudded into the fence post, and the post was only five inches in diameter. Bony tried to shrink his body, and he wanted to yell when a giant’s stick lashed his side. The pain passed and his body felt numb. Another pain tore upward the length of his broken arm, and with all his will power he thrust aside that pain to concentrate on aiming at Benson.
Benson was inching towards him. Beyond Benson a great area of tenuous mist about the electrically-controlled gate was flooded with the lights of Mulligan’s cars. Benson fired again, and Bony heard the sound of the pistol and felt the wind made by the bullet as it passed through the inch-wide corridor between his face and the post.
The plane’s engines burst into louder song, but he dared not look at it. Benson was less than forty feet away, calm, cold, fearless, aiming with dreadful precision, and Bony had to roll himself away from the post to rest on the good right arm that he might aim at Benson.
The Mountains Have a Secret Page 20
