The Judas Pair l-1

by Jonathan Gash

  I waited another thirty minutes. Let him think I was sound asleep. My one bonus was my conviction he was out there. He, on the contrary, knew I was in the cottage but he had no way of knowing I was certain he was sitting on the tree stump and waiting. Sweat broke over me like a wave. What the hell was he waiting for? What point was there in watching a silent cottage when I was supposed to have retired for the night? Nothing could possibly happen until dawn when I awoke—or could it? My increasing nervousness took hold. It was ridiculous to let it, but I could not withstand the rush of adrenaline.

  Shading the torch, I read the time on the wall clock. Ten minutes to twelve. A plan evolved in my mind. I would wait until dawn, when he was probably dozing, then rush outside, down the path to the lane, sprint across into my neighbor's drive, and hide deep in the laurel hedge. Of course I'd have a gun with me, maybe my Durs air weapon, which could shoot three, possibly four, spherical bullets without needing a further pumping up. With that relatively silent weapon I could prevent him leaving the copse from the far side. His bike would be useless.

  This cunning plan had an undoubted risk, but there were two advantages. One was that it postponed any action at all, true Lovejoy style, so I needn't do anything dangerous just yet and maybe by dawn he would be gone. The second advantage was that in rushing out I'd set off the police alarm. He'd be trapped. All I'd have to do would be to sit tight and threaten him with the air weapon. He'd recognize it, collector that he was, with its great bulbous copper ball dangling beneath the stock. No mistake about that. Unfortunately, though, he might guess I would try a morning sprint and simply move toward my path. I wouldn't care to meet him face to face with him sitting ready and me disarrayed and running.

  The front doorbell rang.

  I dropped the torch from cold shock. A strange echo emitted from the walls about me, taking some seconds to die away. Fumbling along the carpet, I found the torch again and dithered, really dithered. Holding it in fear now, I peered out of the dark living room toward the door. The moon was shading the front of the cottage. Anyone could be there. My heart seemed to boom at every beat. Why does sweat come when you are cold from terror? The shelling I'd endured years ago had been nothing to this. It was somehow worse because whoever waited now at my door was in a sense unknown.

  It could be Margaret. She might have sensed my fright and come to make sure I was all right. Why not telephone instead? Surely she'd do that, a far more sensible approach. Maybe she'd wanted to see for herself. I was on my way down the hall toward the door when the obvious flaw came to my mind—the cottage had been still as death. I'd been listening for the slightest sound for nearly an hour now and had not heard a thing. And the path outside was gravel. You could even hear a rabbit cross it. But not a clever, oh-so-clever, murderer. Nobody creeps up to a door, then rings the bell.

  Sweat trickled from my armpits. It dripped from my forehead and stung the corners of my eyes. Should I call out, asking who was there? Not if he had the Judas guns with him, which might be used to shoot me down as soon as he located me.

  I didn't dare creep closer to the door, in case he fired through. And if I crept back to the telephone for the police he'd hear the receiver go and me dialing. Would he honestly dare to break in? Panicking now, I slithered out of the hall and pulled the carpet back from over the priest hole. I needed no light to find the iron ring in its recess. Astride the flag, I hauled it upward and rested it against the armchair as I usually did. Cursing myself for a stupid unthinking fool, I clambered down the steps into the chamber. By feel alone I found the Mortimer case and extracted the duelers. The Durs air weapon might have been more useful, but I'd relied too much on having the upper hand. Positions were bitterly reversed now.

  The slab lowered in place, I covered it with the carpet. Where was he now? Would he still be there at the front door, or was that a mere bluff to draw attention while he crept around the side and gained entrance there? I stood, armed but irresolute, in the living room. Waves of malevolence washed through me—all from the external source he represented. He was there outside, watching and waiting. It was all part of his game. His hate emanated toward me through the walls. I could practically touch it, feel it as a live, squirming, tangible thing. The pathetic unpreparedness of my position was apparent to him as well as to me.

  Something drew me toward the kitchen window. Had he given up lurking by the front door and gone back to his place in the copse? I tried turning myself this way and that, stupidly hoping my mental receivers would act like a direction finder and tell me exactly where he was. Perhaps my fear was blunting the effect. If he was in the process of moving through the copse I might see his form. It seemed worth a try. If only it wasn't so utterly dark in the shadows from that treacherous moon.

  The difficulty was holding the torch and the Mortimers. I finally settled for gripping one dueler beneath my arm and holding the torch with my left hand. Leaning across the sink, I slowly pulled the curtain aside.

  For one instant I stood there, stunned by sudden activity. The glass exploded before my eyes. A horrendous crackling sound from glass splinters all about held me frozen. Behind me inside the living room a terrific thump sounded which made even the floor shudder. The curtain was snapped aside and upward, flicked as if it had been whipped by some huge force. I stared for quite three or four seconds, aghast at the immensity of this abrupt destruction, before my early training pulled me to the floor. There was blood on my face, warm and salty.

  Something dripped from my chin onto my hands as I crawled on all fours back to the living room. I had lost one of the Mortimers but still held the torch. Broken glass shredded my hands and knees as I moved, a small incidental compared to the noise I was making. I rolled onto the divan to get my breath and see how much damage I'd sustained.

  My face and hands were bleeding from cuts. They'd prove a handicap because they might dampen the black powder if I had to reload, but for the moment they were a detail. My handkerchief I tied around my left hand, which seemed in the gloom to look the darker of the two and was therefore probably bleeding more profusely. To my astonishment I was becoming calmer every second. The situation was not in hand but at least clearly defined. Even a dullard like me could tell black from white. The issue couldn't be clearer. He was outside shooting at me, and there was to be no quarter. Simple.

  I crawled messily toward the telephone. Even as I jerked the receiver into my bandaged hand I knew it would be dead. The sod had somehow cut the wire. O.K., I told myself glibly, I'd wait until morning when the post girl would happen by and bring help. She came every day—rain, snow, hail, or blow.

  Except Sunday, Lovejoy.

  And tomorrow was Sunday. And my neighbors opposite drove to Walton-on-Sea every Saturday for the weekend.

  Depressed by that, I set to working out the trajectory of his missile. Naturally, in my misconceived confidence I'd not drawn a plan showing the position of his stump relative to the window. That would have helped. Knowing it roughly, however, I peered through the gloom at the corner farthest from the kitchen alcove and finally found it sticking half buried in the wall. A bolt, from an arbalest.

  Bows and arrows are sophisticated engines, not the simple little toys we like to imagine. An arrow from a longbow can pierce armor at a short distance, and Lovejoy at any distance you care to mention. But for real unsophisticated piercing power at short range you want that horrid weapon called the arbalest, the crossbow. Often wood, they are as often made of stone, complete with trigger beneath the stock. Their only drawback was comparative slowness of reloading. By now though he'd have it ready for a second go.

  He was a bright lad. No flashes, no noise, no explosions, even if they'd been audible to any neighboring houses. And I was still no nearer guessing where he might be. My assets were that I was alive, was armed, and had enough food to last out the weekend and more. But I'd need to keep awake, whereas he could doze with impunity. I felt like shouting out that he could have the wretched turnkey.

  At tha
t moment I knew I was defeated. He had me trapped. And as far as I was concerned he could move about as he pleased, even go home for a bath, knowing I would be too scared to make a run for it in case he was still at his post. How the hell had I got into this mess? I questioned myself savagely.

  Half past twelve, maybe something like five hours till daylight. Then what? I still wouldn't be able to see into the copse. And I would be that much more at risk.

  I sat upright on the divan in the living room. The side window was paler than the rest, showing the moon was shining from that direction. I opened the hall door wide and, keeping my head down, pulled back the kitchen alcove's curtains as far as they would go. That way I'd be as central as I could possibly be, and he'd get the Mortimer first twitch if he tried to break in.

  My spirits were starting to rise when I heard a faint noise. It was practically constant, a shushing sound like a wind in trees, not sounding at all like someone moving across a gravel path or wading through tall grass. Maybe, I thought hopefully, a breeze was springing up. If it started to rain he might just go home and leave me alone.

  The noise increased, hooshing like a distant crowd. Perhaps the villagers had somehow become alarmed and were coming in a group to investigate. Even as the idea came I rejected it. People were not that concerned. Worried, I forgot caution and crept toward each of the windows to listen. The sound was as loud at each. I even risked approaching the front door, then the side door, but learned nothing except that the noise was ever so slightly intensifying as moments passed.

  It was several puzzling minutes before I noticed the odd appearance of the side window. Shadows from it seemed to move in an odd way I hadn't seen before. The other window, illuminated blandly by moonlight diffusing through the curtains, cast stationary shadows within the room. My sense of unknowing returned again to frighten me. I couldn't even risk trying to glance out with that arbalest outside waiting to send another bolt trying for my brain.

  Then I smelled smoke.

  The shushing sound was the pooled noise of a million crackles. My thatched roof had been fired, probably by means of a lighted arrow. A kid could have done it. A hundred ways to have prevented all this rose to mind, all of them now useless. I was stuck in the cottage, which was burning. Thatch and wattle-and-daub.

  Madness came over me for a second. I actually ran about yelling and dashed to the kitchen window. Recklessly I pulled the curtain aside and fired into the darkness through the broken pane. I shouted derision and abuse. The copse, vaguely lit by a strangely erratic rose-colored glow, remained silent. I heard the slap of the lead ball on its way among the leaves. Maddened, I tried filling a pan with water and throwing it upward. It left a patch on the ceiling. Hopeless.

  I had to think. Smoke was beginning to drift in ominous columns vertically downward. Reflected firelight from each window showed me more of the living room than I'd seen for some time. I was going to choke to death before the flames finally got me. The beams would set alight, the walls would catch fire, and the fire would extend downward until the entire cottage was ablaze. I'd heard that glass exploded in fires. There would be a cascade of glass fragments from every possible direction ricocheting about the place. Those, and the flames, but first the asphyxiating smoke would do for me.

  It would have to be the door. I'd make a dash for it. He'd be there, knowing my plight. He'd let me have it as soon as I opened the door to step outside. And it would have to be the front. Going out of the side door, I'd just have farther to run to get out of my blind garden. Unless I ran toward the copse. But once in there, assuming I reached it, what then? He knew it intimately. Maybe he would even stay there, confident of his marksmanship and having me silhouetted against the fire. You couldn't ask for an easier target.

  The smoke intensified. I started to cough. The walls began creaking as if anticipating their engulfment. Above, a beam crackled unpleasantly and a few flakes of ash began to drift downward. So far I couldn't see the flames, but their din was beginning to shake the cottage. Faint tremors ran through the solid paving beneath my feet. You die from asphyxiation in a fire, I'd heard somewhere, probably in pub talk. Then, dead and at the mercy of the encroaching fire, your body becomes charred and immutably fixed in the terrible "boxer's stance" of the cindered corpse. I'd seen enough of the sickening war pictures to know. Tears were in my eyes from the smoke.

  "You bastard," I howled at the side door. "Murderer!"

  If I was to dash toward possible safety with all guns blazing I would need guns to blaze. Spluttering and now hardly able to see as the cottage began to fill with curling belches of smoke, I dragged the carpet aside and lifted the flagstone of the priest hole. As I did the idea hit me.

  For certain I was practically as good as dead. No matter which way I jumped he'd kill me. I had enough proof of his intentions to know he was going to leave me dead. There was no escape. So what if I hid in the priest hole?

  I dashed back for my torch, finding it easily in the flickering window glow. The shaded light showed the cavity at which I looked anew. Could fire ever penetrate paving stones? Maybe heat could. On the other hand, how long would a cottage like mine burn? And how long would the heat take to cook me alive in there?

  The sink. I raced back, filled two pans full of water at the tap, and hurried back. The smoke was making it practically impossible to see. I was coughing constantly. The carpet had to be soaked to keep the flags as cool as possible. If they were damp, though they might eventually burn, they would perhaps act as a heat barrier for a while. I poured the water over the carpet and dashed into the kitchen alcove again.

  By plugging the sink and turning both taps on at full blast I might eventually manage to flood the cottage floor. I'd actually done it once by accident. I wedged a dishcloth into the overflow at the back of the sink, which was the best I could do. It broke my heart to leave the Mortimers, but since he knew I'd fired at him they were going to be evidence of my doom. Quickly filling two milk bottles with water, I grabbed a loaf and a big piece of cheese which would have to last me. I remembered the torch at the last minute.

  The idea was to have the flag in place covering the priest hole with me in it and the wet carpet covering that neatly. Under a mound of ash and fallen debris there'd be little sense in searching the ground unless they knew of my priest hole, and nobody else did. But how to do it? I stood on the steps with my shoulders bracing back the flag while my fingers inched the carpet forward until it touched the floor. Then I lowered the flag by edging my way down step by step. The last step was done with the heavy paving stone actually supported by my head. Twice I had to repeat the maneuver because the carpet somehow folded inside and wedged the stone open a fraction. I couldn't risk that. I stepped down inch by inch. The stone finally clicked into place without a hitch. Now it was covered by the carpet, and above me the cottage was roaring like a furnace.

  I was entombed. Ovened.

  The vents showed a hazy glimpse of orange redness to either side. Fine, but there was smoke starting to drift in from the direction of the back garden. My water and food I placed for safety on the lowest shelf, where I couldn't possibly knock them over. I swiftly took stock of what I had to fight with. First, his ignorance of my priest hole. Second, the weapons I had available.

  There were the powder guns, but black powder is notoriously unstable. Even the modern version such as I had got from Dick Barton could not be completely free from capricious behavior. Weapons already loaded could easily explode in heat. I'd heard of it happening. Still, if I loaded a couple of pistols and left them cased and carefully pointing along one of the vents, there might not be too much risk, and they'd be cooler. I stuffed my shirt into a vent and shielded the other with my body. I switched on the torch.

  I decided on the Barratt pair although they were percussion. The sight of my bloodstained hands frightened me almost to death. I was glad I hadn't got a mirror, because my face was probably in a worse state still. Shakily, taking twice as long as usual, I loaded the pair of tw
in barrels and slipped valuable original Eley percussion caps over the four nipples. Half-cock. .Then I loaded the Samuel Nock pair. They were more of a danger in this growing heat, being flintlock, as the powder in the flashpan was external to the breech and so more easily ignited. For what it was worth I laid them flashpan downward in one of the vents.

  The heat was greater now. Smoke was still drifting from one vent. I must find some means of creating an increased draft from one vent to the other, perhaps bringing in cooler fresh air from outside to dilute this hot dry air inside the priest hole.

  Barrels. Barrels are tubes. The longest barrels I had were on the Brown Bess and the Arab jezails. Perhaps, I reasoned, if I drew in a deep breath facing one vent and blew it out down a barrel lying along the other vent I would be all right with the faint draft it was bound to create. But I'd need to take the breech plugs out. The tools were handy, which was one blessing.

  As I worked I stripped naked. The heat was almost intolerable now. I used up a whole bottle of water wetting my shirt and using it to cover my head. The barrels together would reach about half way down one vent, so they'd have to be bound in sequence. I did this with an old duster soaked in my urine, binding the rag around the junction of the two barrels to make it as air tight as possible. Because the priest hole was so narrow I had to complete the job standing on the steps with one barrel already poked inside the vent's shaft and the other sticking out past my face. By the time it was done I was quivering from exhaustion.

  I tried my idea of blowing but the heat was beginning to defeat me. The air entering my lungs was already searingly hot. From above, my head came frantic gushing sounds, creakings, and occasional ponderous crashes, which terrified me more than anything. The walls would be burning now, and the beams would be tumbling through the living-room ceiling. Twice I heard loud reports as the glass windows went. It must be an inferno. I was worn out and dying from heat. Too clever by far, I'd got myself into the reverse of the usual position. I was safe from smoke and being cooked in an oven. If only I could bring air in.