The old man returned to his window. ‘Boy, I wouldn’t miss this for a fortune,’ he said. ‘It’s an education.’
‘Going down,’ sang Mr Campion, and disappeared.
He dropped into the very centre of the char-a-banc, which was at the moment an oasis amid the tumult, and groped about him for a weapon. He kicked against something hard on the floor of the vehicle, and putting his hand down came across a bottle. He bound his handkerchief round his hand and seized the glass club by the neck. Then, still keeping low, he dropped gently out of the car and slipped back the bolt of the stairway to the lofts.
‘All clear, Professor,’ he called softly up into the darkness. Then, stepping out gingerly once more, he was just about to work his way round to the house when he caught sight of a figure bearing down upon him, hand upraised. Campion put out his arm to ward off the blow and spoke instinctively.
‘Jacob?’ he said sharply.
The arm dropped to the man’s side. ‘Orlando?’
‘Himself,’ said Mr Campion, and added, drawing the Gypsy into the protecting shadow of the box: ‘Where’s the donah?’
‘Scarpered,’ said the Gypsy promptly. ‘Went off in a little red motor. The finger with the gun was going with her, but we got him.’
‘Scarpered?’ said Mr Campion. ‘Alone?’
The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I think not; she went in a red motor that was standing by the side door when we came in. Been gone ten minutes. Took a coil of rope with her. Some of the boys started after her, I think, but she’s away.’
Mr Campion’s scalp tingled. Mrs Dick had nerves of iron. She had nothing to lose, and once the genuine Chalice was in her possession she was safe. Moreover, the calmness with which she had attempted to dispose of him dispelled any doubts of personal squeamishness on her part. There was nothing she might not do.
He returned to the Gypsy. ‘I’m going after them,’ he said, ‘though Heaven knows how. I say, Jacob, there’s an old finger upstairs, a great friend of Orlando’s. See he gets out. Give Mrs Sarah my love. I’ll see you all at Hull Fair, if not before. Round up this lot now and scarpa yourselves.’
The Gypsy nodded and disappeared silently up the stairs to carry out his instructions as far as the Professor was concerned.
Most of the fighting had by this time spread into the house whither the majority of the gang had retreated.
Mr Campion sped across the yard, which was now a mass of broken bottles, blood, and odd portions of garments, and made for the heath. It was still far from dark outside the walls. The wind was rushing great wisps of cloud across the pale sky and the stars seemed very near.
As he passed the groom’s cottage a dark figure detached itself from the shadows and leapt at him. He swung his weapon which he still held and brought it down on something hard. His assailant went down. He was vaguely aware of the ‘Major’s’ red face gaping at him from the ground, but he hurried on, one thought only clear in his mind: Mrs Dick and a coil of rope.
He stepped hopefully into the garage and looked about. To his dismay it was empty, save for the recumbent and unconscious figure of Matt Sanderson. The Delage, now completely beyond repair, and the red Fraser Nash, in which Mrs Dick was speeding towards the Tower he had no doubt, were the only vehicles it had contained. His own car, besides being some distance off across the heath, was, according to the Professor, completely out of action, and the char-a-banc in which the Gypsies had arrived would take the concerted efforts of at least a dozen men to get out of the yard. There remained the Professor’s bicycle, which was hardly fast enough even could it have been found.
The problem of transport seemed insoluble, and speed mattered more than anything in the world. Even telephoning was out of the question, as he knew from experience that to cut the wires was the first care of raiding Gypsy parties. It dawned upon him that the only chance he had was to make for the camp and borrow a horse from Mrs Sarah.
He set off across the heath towards the camp at a good steady pace, taking a diagonal course towards the north-east. Almost immediately he was conscious of footsteps behind him. He stopped and turned.
A man leading a horse was coming swiftly up. Mr Campion’s lank form and spectacled face were recognizable in the faint light. ‘Orlando!’ the man called softly.
‘Who’s that? Joey?’ Campion recognized the voice as that belonging to Mrs Sarah’s son Joey, the horse expert of the Benwell tribe. He came up.
‘Jacob sent me after you. The old finger with him said you wanted to get off. I’ll lend you this.’ The Gypsy indicated the horse with a jerk of his head. ‘Careful with her. She’s all right for half an hour. She may be a bit wild after that. Lovely bit, though, ain’t she?’
Mr Campion understood the insinuation perfectly. Joey, who had ever more an eye for business than for warfare, had taken the opportunity to raid Mrs Dick’s stables, an act in which he had been detected by his kinsman, and straight away dispatched to Campion’s assistance.
As he turned gratefully to take the bridle, forgetting for the moment the impoverished state of the lady’s stables, a white stocking caught his eye. Instinctively he started back.
‘Good Lord, you’ve got a nerve,’ he said. ‘This is Bitter Aloes. They keep her as a sort of executioner,’ he added grimly.
‘She’s all right,’ Joey insisted. ‘Run like a lamb for half an hour. You can trust me. I’ve fixed her with something.’
Mr Campion glanced at the proud silky head with the ears now pricked forward, and the wild eyes comparatively mild. The mare was saddleless. It seemed madness to attempt such a ride.
The Gypsy handed him a broom-switch.
‘Hurry,’ he whispered. ‘Turn her loose when you’ve done with her. I’ll come after her with something in me hand that she’ll follow for miles. To Sanctuary you’re goin’, ain’t you?’
Mr Campion looked over the heath. Sanctuary was five miles as the crow flew. Even now Mrs Dick might have reached her goal. He returned to the Gypsy.
‘Thank you, Joey,’ he said quietly. ‘Sanctuary it is,’ and he vaulted lightly on to the gleaming back of Bitter Aloes.
CHAPTER 25
The Window
—
IT WAS a light summer’s night with a strong wind blowing. Strips of indigo cloud scored the pale star-strewn sky, and the air was cool after the intense heat of the day.
The heath ticked and crackled in the darkness, and the broom bushes rustled together like the swish of many skirts.
It was not a night for staying indoors: everything seemed to be abroad and the wind carried sounds for great distances, far-off sheep cries, voices, and the barking of dogs.
Most of these things were lost upon Mr Campion as he thundered across the countryside. Whatever horsewitchery Joey had practised upon Bitter Aloes, her temper had certainly subsided, but she was still very nervy and inclined to be erratic, although for the moment her innate savagery was subdued. Campion, his long thin legs wrapped round her sleek sides, trusted devoutly that for the promised half-hour, at any rate, it would remain so.
After the first breath-taking dash across the heath he forgot her vagaries and concentrated upon his goal. As he reached the road, a church clock from Heronhoe village struck eleven, and he abandoned his original intention of sticking to the road. Time was too precious. He turned the mare at the hedge which bordered one of the wide stretches of pasture-land which lay between him and the Tower. Bitter Aloes took the jump like a cat. As she rose beneath him the notion flashed into Campion’s mind that she probably enjoyed the hazardous journey. Her curious twisted temperament was best pleased by danger.
He had no illusions about what he was doing. To ride a Gypsy-doctored horse over a tract of unfamiliar land in the half-darkness was more than ordinarily foolhardy. Trusting devoutly that they would not come up against any insurmountable object, and praying against wire – the recollection that this was a hunting district relieved him considerably on that score – he kept the mare�
�s head in the direction of Sanctuary and urged her on to further efforts.
She had her moments of difficulty. A nesting partridge disturbed under her feet sent her rearing dangerously, and once when a sheep lumbered out of their path she plunged continuously for some seconds and all but unseated him.
Luck and his unerring sense of direction brought them safely over the meadows to the brow of Saddlehill, and as they galloped up the steep grassland Campion suddenly saw the end of his quest, the gaunt east wing of the Tower at Sanctuary standing up against the sky on the other side of the valley.
In the Tower, high in the topmost storey, was a lighted window. It stood out quite clearly, a little circular spot of red light in the blackness.
Although he had expected it, it startled him. It was higher than he had supposed the windows would come, and he identified it suddenly in his mind with the curious circular decoration over the centre window of the wing, an orifice which had looked like a plaque of deeply indented stone work from the ground.
As he stared at the Tower, something in the grounds attracted his attention, and he looked down to see a car’s headlights turn in to the trees at the far end of the drive. Even as he looked they vanished. A panic seized him. He drove his heels gently into the mare’s sides and she leapt forward quivering.
For a moment he thought he had lost control, but she quietened as the long gallop down the slope exerted her. He took her over a ditch into the lane at the foot of the hill, and they continued down the narrow road, her hoofs striking sparks from the ragged flints. The little white gate at the end of the home meadow she took almost in her stride and the steep incline hardly affected her pace: the effect of Joey’s treatment was wearing off and she jerked her head angrily from time to time as though she were irritated by the reins.
Campion barely noticed her changing mood. He flung himself off her back at the end of the flower garden, and she kicked out at him as he disappeared through the gate and ran up the grass path towards the house.
There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and the expression on his pale face was no longer inane. A car had turned into the drive and had instantly switched off its lights; that was fifteen minutes ago at least, he reckoned. Even allowing for reckless driving, Mrs Dick could hardly have traversed the twelve miles of winding lane in less time than that would account for.
Therefore she was in the grounds now. He was prepared for anything. Mrs Dick’s possibilities were numberless.
He glanced up at the Tower across the wide lawn. The single red eye, a significant and silent witness to the thousand rumours concerning the Gyrths’ secret, glared down upon him. Behind that eye lay the Chalice, protected by something unknown, the intangible and perhaps terrible guardian upon which probably only three men living had ever looked. He had heard dozens of ‘genuine explanations’; men referred to it guardedly in famous clubs, well-known books of reminiscence hinted darkly at unprintable horrors. Val himself had seemed a little afraid to consider what it might be.
He wondered how many anxious eyes were fixed on the Tower that evening. Mrs Dick’s band of experts had been put out of action, certainly. But there would surely be others waiting to bear the treasure to safety. The lady herself, he fancied, would keep out of it for fear of being recognized, but would general the attack from somewhere outside.
At present all was peaceful. There were only two other lights in the whole building, both in the west wing, in the drawing-room and in the library. The servants’ quarters were dark; the staff had been sent to bed early, no doubt. Campion imagined Penny alone in the drawing-room, and Val seated with his father and the old Rector in the study. And somewhere in the darkness a group of watchers, utterly without fear or scruple, eyeing, even as he, the single glaring window in the Tower.
He advanced across the lawn, keeping carefully to the deep shadow.
The uncanny silence of the garden around him filled him with apprehension. He could have sworn that there was no one moving amid the belts of trees and shrubs which surrounded the lawn. Once again he paused and stood rigid. Somewhere there had been a movement. Instinctively he glanced up. The old house stood out black against the night sky. His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the circular window. Then he started. Just above it, standing out clearly over the battlements of the east wing, there was a figure.
He waited, silent, hoping against hope that it was Val or his father, but, even as he watched, something slender, snake-like, slid down across the circle of crimson light. As he strained his eyes to make it out, the truth came slowly home to him. It was a fine flexible rope, knotted at intervals.
Instantly the question which had been rankling at the back of his mind was made blindingly clear to him. The raiders were going to make sure of the exact whereabouts of their prize before they risked an open attack. The half-caste cat burglar’s part in Sanderson’s scheme became obvious. He was to have been the spy, possibly even their thief, if the window were negotiable. The simplicity of it appalled him. It would be so easy. Although the Tower was about a hundred and twenty feet high, a man with nerve could make a descent to the window once its whereabouts was made clear to him. It would be dangerous, but by no means impossible, to a man of Moggie’s experience.
Then he remembered that Moggie was lying in the garage with Sanderson on Heronhoe Heath. Who, then, was the climber who was about to take his place? There was an answer to this question, but his mind shrank from considering it.
He raced for the house. His first impulse was to alarm the Colonel, but as he reached the base of the east wing the intruder’s means of entry was instantly apparent. One of the narrow latticed windows stood open. He climbed through it without hesitation and crept across the flagged state dining-room within to the centre hall, where a huge wooden spiral staircase, one of the show-pieces of the county, reared its way up into the darkness.
He crept up the steps, the wood creaking terrifyingly beneath his weight. It was a long climb in the darkness. The stairs wound up the whole height of the Tower. At last they began to narrow and presently he felt the cool night air upon his face.
Suddenly the faint light from the open doorway above his head warned him that he was reaching the roof. He paused to listen. There was no sound in the house. All was quiet and ghostly in the gloom. He moved silently up the last half-dozen stairs, and emerged at last from the little central turret on the flat stone roof of the Tower.
For a moment he looked about him, prepared for instant attack. As far as he could see the place was deserted. Keeping his back to the wall he worked his way round the turret. Then a chill feeling of horror crept over him. He was quite alone.
A movement almost like the passing of a shadow just in front of him made him start forward, and in doing so his thigh brushed against something stretched tightly from the central flagstaff and disappearing over the edge of the battlements. He touched it with his hand. It was a rope with knots in it. In that moment he realized that the one eventuality which he had never foreseen had taken place. Whoever was undertaking the theft of the Chalice was doing it alone.
Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. There was only one person living who would have the nerve to make such an attempt, only one person who would consider the prize worth the risk. He moved to the edge of the Tower and drew out his torch, which he had been careful not to use until now.
‘Hold on,’ he said firmly, ‘you’d better come back.’
His voice sounded strained and theatrical to him after the silence, the words inadequate and ridiculous. He listened intently, but the reply was loud, almost as if the speaker had been standing beside him.
‘I’ll see you in hell first,’ said Mrs Dick.
Following the rope, he bent over the parapet and switched his torch downwards. Although he had expected it, the sight sickened him. She lay against the side of the Tower like a fly on a wall, her steel hands gripping the rope which supported her as she picked her way down with easy precision. Not more than two feet below her the ro
und window gleamed dully on to the cord as it squirmed and flopped against the stone work. In the day-time the height was sickening; at night it was impossible to see the ground, and Campion was glad of it.
He leant on the parapet looking down at her. He could see her distinctly, still in the riding costume in which she had interviewed him only that afternoon. As he stared, a thought forced itself into his mind. Mrs Dick was the employee of the society; the responsibility lay upon her shoulders alone. Should she meet with her death the danger to the Chalice would end automatically.
The rope, which alone supported her from a hundred foot drop on to the flags beneath, lay under his hand. If the cord should slip its mooring round the flagstaff …
He leant on the parapet and kept his eyes fixed upon her. He could find plenty of moral justification in his own mind for this execution, and he did not flinch from the fact that it would be an execution. There were passages in Mrs Dick’s past that no English jury would have excused in spite of their notorious leniency towards women. He gripped the stones, his knuckles showing white in the faint light.
‘Come back,’ he said distinctly, turning the light full on her bent head. ‘Come back before you look in that room, or I swear I’ll cut this rope.’
As soon as he had spoken the meaning of his own words startled him. Once Mrs Dick, the agent for the most influential syndicate in the world, saw the prize she sought, no power on earth could save it from her. She must be prevented from reaching the window.
Look to the Lady Page 22
