by W E Johns
After thanking the man for what sounded like reliable information, Algy walked on up the hill, away from the stationary bus and the gesticulating crowd around it. Some of the women were furious, demanding bitterly to be told how they were to get their heavy baskets to Sospel. Some sat on their baskets, accepting the situation philosophically. A few had started walking.
It was now about five o’clock, as near as Algy could judge, and the sun was already sinking, far away to the left, towards the gaunt peaks of the maritime alps. Anxious to reach his objective before darkness fell he strode on, and soon outdistanced the other travellers – that is, all except one. Well ahead on the long dusty road he made out a man walking quickly, and recognized his churlish travelling companion. He was not sorry to see the back of him, and when, presently, the man disappeared from sight, he thought no more about him.
It was about three-quarters of an hour later, with dusk closing in, that he caught his first glimpse of what he knew must be his destination – a cluster of grey dwellings, with their feet, it seemed, welded into the rock on which they were built. But between him and the village lay a gorge, and a wilderness of jagged rock which, in the half light, he did not feel like crossing; and when soon afterwards, he came to a footpath branching off the road in the desired direction, he was glad he had not attempted it.
He now found himself in a world of grey rocks, so harsh, so desolate, that he found it hard to believe that he was only a few miles from a fashionable town, with all its modern conveniences. From a distance of perhaps two hundred yards he paused to survey a scene as dreary as nature could devise. On all sides stretched the rock, sometimes falling into chasms, and sometimes rising in gaunt peaks against the sky. Not a soul was in sight, not even near the village, which lay like a pile of grey ashes among limestone. Over everything hung an indefinable atmosphere of desolation and decay, of brooding melancholy, of things long dead.
Suddenly he saw a movement. A man, a man in black, carrying a heavy bag, was just entering the village. He saw him only for a moment, but before he disappeared among the houses he had recognized him. It was his bad-tempered travelling companion. He was, too, it seemed a liar, thought Algy, for the man had said that he had never heard of Castillon. Yet here he was, just going into the place. Wondering at this strange behaviour Algy walked on.
Keeping to the track he soon came to the first houses, and the village street; and for the first time he began to understand why his references to the place had met with such a strange reception. It was dead. Deserted. Many of the houses were in ruins. Others were crumbling. Doors stood open to the sunset. From one house a shutter hung pathetically on a single hinge. The village, a curious mixture of houses and stables, seemed to have been piled up rather than built. The houses conformed with no pattern. They were all sizes, heights, and widths. All were of the stone on which they were built. Mysterious turnings twisted between them. Sinister steps led down into mouldering vaults and cellars. One door had a slit for letters, as if awaiting the arrival of the postman. Over everything hung the silence of death.
Algy started as something moved near his left shoulder. But it was only a cat, a black, mangy creature, with baleful eyes that watched his every movement. Another cat walked slowly across the track in front of him; once it paused to regard him with a long, penetrating stare. Then it went on and disappeared into one of the cellars.
Algy walked forward a few paces. Everywhere he looked he saw cats, black cats, long, thin emaciated cats, with red-rimmed eyes. Most of them seemed to be afflicted with dreadful mange. He understood now what the boatman on the Quai de Plaisance meant about cats. He had never seen so many cats. Everywhere he looked, eyes were turned on him with such suspicion and hate that he felt an uncomfortable chill creep down his spine. Looking about him he walked on, determined to make the most of the few minutes of twilight that remained.
There should, he thought, be at least one occupied house, for to his certain knowledge a man had just arrived. Where had he gone? Why had he been so secretive, so furtive in his movements – or had he caught the habit from the cats? Even then the last thing in his mind was that he had incurred the man’s enmity.
He stopped to look into a house, moving a shutter in order to do so. Unexpectedly, the shutter came away in his hand, so that he stumbled, and this may have saved his life; for at that precise moment there was a vicious thud, and looking up to see what had caused it, he saw, still quivering in the window-sill, a knife. Whirling round to discover who had thrown it he was just in time to see the black-coated man disappearing into a narrow side turning.
Algy was after him in a flash. He did not know who the man was, and he bore him no ill will, but he was not prepared to have knives thrown at him – at least, not without knowing what it was all about.
Had the man not stumbled and fallen among the loose rocks it is unlikely that he would have caught him. The fellow was up again in a moment, but the brief delay had been his undoing. Before he could get into his stride Algy was covering him with his automatic. Even so, he was prepared to be reasonable.
‘Not so fast, my friend,’ he said coldly, speaking in French. ‘Why did you throw a knife at me? What have I done to you?’
The man glared. ‘Spy!’ he fairly spat the word.
‘I am not spying on you, anyway,’ declared Algy.
‘You followed me here.’
‘I did not,’ denied Algy.
‘Then why do you come to Castillon?’
‘Why do you come here?’
‘I have business here.’
‘So have I.’ An idea suddenly struck Algy. ‘Our business may concern the same thing.’
‘Doubtless,’ was the curt reply.
‘Tell me why you came here,’ invited Algy.
‘I shall tell you nothing.’
Algy tried a shot in the dark. ‘Where is the person you came here to see?’
The man started. Then he smiled sardonically, and an instant later, Algy knew the reason. A voice behind him, a woman’s voice, spoke.
‘Don’t move, or I shall shoot you. Drop that pistol.’
As if to carry conviction something small and hard was pressed between Algy’s shoulders. He dropped his pistol. It fell with a harsh clatter on the stones. The man leapt forward and snatched it up.
Turning slowly Algy found himself staring at the girl he had last seen on the Quai de Plaisance – the girl in the blue shawl. But for the first time he could see her clearly. Her face, moulded on classic lines, and very beautiful, was pale. Her head was proudly poised, and dark flashing eyes met his own without a trace of nervousness. A faint smile played about the corners of perfectly formed lips. Her clothes were those of a girl of the country, but her general bearing, which they could not hide, was not. Algy did not know what to make of her.
‘Well—’ he began, and would have gone on, but she stopped him with a gesture.
‘Talking will lead to nothing,’ she said coldly.
The man suddenly broke in with a request that the prisoner be shot forthwith, but the girl in blue stopped him with a glance of her flashing eyes. It was obvious to Algy that the man was subordinate to the girl, in whatever business they were engaged.
‘He followed me all the way from Monaco,’ said the man.
Algy ignored him. To the girl he said, ‘I should like to talk to you, mademoiselle.’
‘It will do no good,’ she returned curtly. ‘We have been into all the arguments before. Now it is war.’ To the man she said, ‘Mario, put him in the cellar until it is decided what shall be done with him. You know the one I mean?’ And with that she turned on her heel and walked away.
Algy called after her. He wanted to know what she was doing on the Quai de Plaisance, but she walked on without looking back, and the man she called Mario told him to make less noise.
‘Walk,’ he ordered, ‘and do not talk.’
Algy shrugged his shoulders. For the moment, at any rate, there was no alternative than to obey. With
his own pistol uncomfortably close to his back he was marked to one of the several cellars, one that had a stout door. He was thrust inside. The door crashed shut behind him, and he was left in darkness.
CHAPTER 12
BERTIE PICKS A LEMON
BERTIE LEFT GINGER with the fixed plan of getting to Castillon as quickly as possible. He recalled, now, having heard of the place, although he had never had occasion to make a visit. In any case, he had always understood that the place was a ruin.
He felt that he ought to let François know where he was going, and with that object in view he proceeded first to the Condamine. François appeared with an alacrity that suggested he had been on the watch. They held a brief but enlightening conversation. Bertie told François that he was going to Castillon, and that the man who had asked about the place, on the quay, shortly after dawn, was a friend on the same errand as himself. He also told him about Ginger, and said that he proposed, if circumstances made it necessary, to use François’ house as a letter-box, an arrangement to which the boatman readily agreed.
‘But, milord,’ said he, ‘you will find it difficult now to get to Castillon.’
‘Why?’ asked Bertie. ‘Speaking from memory, the village lies near the Sospel road.’
To this François assented.
‘Does not the autobus still run to Sospel?’ inquired Bertie.
‘That I do not know,’ confessed François, ‘but I should doubt it. I comprehend, milord, that you have not heard the news?’
‘What news?’
‘All the roads near the frontier are to be closed – if they are not already closed.’
‘In Heaven’s name, why?’
‘During the night the British and the Americans landed in Morocco and Algeria. Now Hitler and Mussolini occupy between them all France. Regardez!’ François pointed to the main road down which military traffic was streaming.
Bertie was dumfounded. This development came to him as a complete surprise – as it did to most people.
‘This is not going to make things easier, mon vieux,’ he observed. ‘Is the road to Mentone closed?’
‘So it is said. And if that road is now closed, surely, too, will be the road to Sospel, which skirts the frontier. They say the roads may be opened later.’ François spat, thoughtfully. ‘I should say, milord, that for you, this morning, the Sospel road is a thing to avoid.’
‘But I must get to Castillon,’ declared Bertie. ‘How else can I get there? There is no other road.’
‘There is no other road, but there are the chemins muletiers.’
‘Ah! The mule tracks that were used in the old days, before the roads.’
‘Oui.’ François snapped his fingers. ‘Bon-ca!’ he ejaculated. ‘I have an inspiration. I know a man who every day brings vegetables down from his terraces behind St. Agnes. He takes the back way. Since he deals in food he has been allowed petrol for his camionette.1 St. Agnes is more than halfway to Castillon. There is no road between the two, but there is an old mule path, as there is between all the villages. If my friend will take you in his camionette to St. Agnes, by marching quickly you would be in Castillon by the setting of the sun.’
‘How far is it from St. Agnes to Castillon?’
François shrugged. ‘Four hours, perhaps,’ he replied, resorting to the usual way of counting distances in mountain country by time, and not miles.
‘Good,’ declared Bertie. ‘Where is this friend of yours?’
‘He should be at the market, in Monte Carlo, if he has not already left for home. Let us go and find out.’
It took them some time to get to the market on account of the traffic, and the crowds that thronged the pavements to watch. And having reached the market they found everything in a state of chaos, customers and stall-holders alike having gone to the steps of the church to watch the procession passing by. People who wanted to leave had also been held up by the invasion of the Italian troops. François found his friend’s camionette – a battered light lorry, filthy and dilapidated beyond description – but it was twelve o’clock before the man himself appeared.
He greeted François warmly and slapped him on the back. ‘By God! These are times,’ he cried.
François broached his subject, but did not mention Castillon. He merely said that this friend was anxious to get to St. Agnes.
‘I shall be lucky to get there myself,’ declared the vendor of vegetables. ‘The roads are full of these Italians. Doubtless we shall get to St. Agnes sooner or later, and if your friend cares to come with me he will be welcome, but it would be better, I think, to wait until the road is clearer.’
With this the others were bound to agree, so they adjourned to the café for lunch.
It was two o’clock before the camioneur2 suddenly declared his intention of going home, which suited Bertie, who was finding the delay irritating. He said goodbye to François and promised to look him up when he returned.
The first part of the journey was slow, for there was still a lot of traffic about, but once off the main road the driver whirled his vehicle up the formidable corniche road that led to St. Agnes with a confidence born of familiarity. Accustomed though he was to the mountain roads, Bertie covered his face at many of the hairpin bends where the road hangs like a ledge over a drop of a thousand feet or more; and he was weak at the knees when the vehicle finally skidded to a standstill in the village, which is not really a village so much as a cluster of old houses clinging precariously to a spire of rock, as bare as a boulder, over two thousand feet high. Why anyone should choose to live in such a place is one of the great mysteries that have never been solved, unless it is to sit in wonder at the marvellous panorama of sea and coast spread out below.
‘By the way,’ said Bertie to his driver as they dismounted, ‘where is Castillon?’
‘Voila!’ answered the man, pointing. ‘There it is.’
Following the direction with his eyes Bertie saw a village similar to the one in which he was standing about three miles distant. It looked so near that it seemed incredible that it would take four hours to cover the space between them – until he looked at the chaos of ridges and ravines that intervened. He saw that he would be lucky to reach his objective before nightfall.
He pointed to a track which dived down the mountain on the landward side. ‘That, I suppose, is the track to Castillon?’ he observed.
‘It is,’ answered the driver. ‘Only no one uses it.’
Bertie thanked him for the lift, waited for him to go, and then, glancing round to make sure that he was unobserved, set off on his long hike. An hour later, from the crest of a ridge, Castillon looked just as far away, so he increased his pace. All around the country lay silent and deserted, which was not to be wondered at, for except for a few artificial terraces to which clung olives and sad-looking cypress trees, there was nothing but grey, sun-bleached limestone.
The sun was fast dropping into the mountains when he came within striking distance of his objective. He sat down to rest for a few minutes. Fit as he was, the muscles of his calves ached unmercifully, as is usually the case when a man accustomed to walking on pavements finds himself in mountain country. He lit one of the few cigarettes that remained in his case; and as he smoked he looked at the sad grey ruins before him, slightly below, and perhaps two hundred and fifty yards away.
Suddenly he stiffened. Jeanette had distinctly said that the village was abandoned, yet he was sure that he had seen somebody move, somebody in blue. He continued to watch. The speck of blue appeared again from behind some houses, and he saw it was a girl, with a blue shawl draped round her shoulders. She halted by a rock, as if waiting. It looked as if Jeanette had been right about a girl in blue writing on the wall. A girl in blue had written the word Castillon on the wall of the Quai de Plaisance, and now, here was a girl, thus dressed, in the village. That could hardly be coincidence, thought Bertie. His weariness forgotten, he was about to hurry forward when he saw another movement. This time it was a man in black. He
was walking quickly towards the spot where the girl was waiting, as if keeping an appointment.
Bertie continued to watch. Could it be possible, he wondered, that in some way these people, these strange events, were associated with Biggles? It seemed impossible, and yet . . . there was the blue writing on the wall. Surely there must be some connection?
The man reached the point where the girl was standing. They met. For a moment they stood together as if talking; then they disappeared into a narrow lane, behind houses which hid them from view. Hardly had they disappeared when, to Bertie’s astonishment, a third figure appeared. He recognized Algy. He was approaching the village from the opposite direction, having arrived, it seemed, from the Sospel road. He was walking in the tracks of the man in black.
In his excitement Bertie nearly shouted a greeting, but remembering that there were other people about, he thought better of it. Instead, he hurried forwards.
Halfway to the village there was a dip in the ground that hid it from view, and when he reached the far side Algy was nowhere in sight. He watched for a minute or two, hoping to see him among the houses, but when he did not appear he continued on his way. Once he thought he heard voices, raised as if in anger, but he was not sure. He went nearer, and at last, having reached the outskirts, he paused to survey it from the cover of a gnarled lemon tree, on which hung some half-ripe fruit. Nothing happened. Thinking it might assuage his thirst, he casually picked a lemon and went on.
Turning a corner, he came suddenly face to face with the black-coated man. It was not the actual meeting, nor was it the black coat that brought an exclamation of incredulity to his lips. It was the face of the man who wore it. For he was the very last person he expected to see there. It was Mario, the waiter of the Chez Rossi, the man who, the previous night, had struck him on the head and then thrown him down the Escalier Ste. Dévote.
Fortunately for Bertie the waiter appeared to be equally astonished, with the result that for five breathless seconds they simply stood and stared at each other. Bertie spoke first.
