The First Mystery Novel

by Howard Mason

  We fell on them behind, two to each man; it was quite easy, and it was all over in a moment. Hedge was knocked out, flat, but the other man struggled a bit. Nobby had his arm over the man’s mouth, so he didn’t make much sound, and after a moment Nobby had him out like a light, too.

  I sent Nobby to the truck, then, to look for rope. He found a coil of it, and Kurt helped him to tie the two men up, arms and legs; they did it neatly and quietly. I stood with Hans by the dangling rope-end. After a moment we heard something bumping down through the branches above us, on the cliff-face. It came nearer, lower; a big, clumsy object, like a man’s body, wrapped in some dark stuff. It was well roped, a loop at each end and another in the centre, to form a cradle. We reached up as it swayed and bumped gently down; then we had it in our arms, dead weight, like lead, and lowered it carefully to the ground.

  I got the ropes off it quickly, and gave a jerk on the lead-rope. The ropes disappeared rapidly up the cliff.

  We tore the dark cloth away then; it was quite loosely wrapped. It was a handsome figure; about five and a half feet tall, of dull, glowing gold, with a tarnished, jeweled crown on its head; a Queen of Chess.

  * * * *

  I gazed up the cliff, doing some fast thinking.

  There was no sign of the police yet. Somehow the men at the top of the Tower must be kept occupied, I decided, till our reinforcements arrived: otherwise they could escape down the unguarded side of the hill.

  I moved up to the dangling signal-rope.

  Had Hedge given two tugs, or three? I wasn’t sure; two, I thought, but I couldn’t swear to it. They probably had a system. A signal for safe receipt, a signal to begin the next transmission, a signal for danger. I seemed to have given the correct sign for safe receipt; the rope had vanished neatly up the cliff. I grasped the signal-rope, took a chance, and made it two jerks.

  Nothing happened for a moment. I had to give them time to get the next figure roped and over the cliff, I thought. Suddenly I realized I’d been too hasty with the signal; we ought to have carried the figure over to the truck and stowed it, first… That was what Hedge had done. I cursed my haste silently, and waited. I was still grasping the rope. It was a moment or two before I realized that it was no longer taut in my hand, but slack.

  I pulled at it, very gently. It gave easily to my hand; very easily. It was snaking down now, without any effort on my part; soon a whole coil of it lay at my feet. The men at the top had cast it loose.

  Clearly I had got my signals mixed. Two jerks were for danger.

  CHAPTER VII

  They’d be making for one of the paths; probably the steep one, as it was the quicker.

  For a moment I had thought that they might try to let themselves down the cliff-face, like the chessmen; but Hedge was supposed to have given the alarm from below, so they clearly couldn’t do that. Hedge, I supposed, would have orders to drive off with the oil-truck, if an alarm came, and then—pick the others up at the foot of the hill? or get well away from the place with the truck’s load? Maybe they had the Spanish car hidden at the foot of the zigzag. I couldn’t count on the steep path; we’d have to divide.

  I left Hans to guard the truck alone. I couldn’t spare more than one of us, and there was no danger; Hedge and his companion were still out cold, and well-trussed; and the police would be along soon, I hoped, if Sophia had succeeded with her summons.

  Nobby and Kurt and I ran for the Rolls then, making all the noise we cared to now. When we reached her and were heading once more east, I gave the others a briefing.

  Nobby was to take the zigzag; myself, the steep path. Kurt would take up a post somewhere between the two, near the road; he would wait there to instruct the police, if they came; but if there was any shooting, or if things seemed to be getting hot on the hillside, he was to use his discretion and close in between us. Once the men had heard or seen us, we were all to make as much racket as we could, letting off shots into the air, shouting, anything; my idea was to try and make us sound like ten men, instead of three, in an effort to persuade them that they were encircled, and must turn back up the hill. It was a slender hope, but with the whole hillside to cover once they’d left the path, the hope that the three of us could bar their way was even slenderer.

  We dropped Nobby first, by the zigzag.

  There was still no sign of the police when Kurt got out on the south road. I left him, and drove on till I found the mouth of the rocky path that led down by a stream.

  In the silence when the car engine died, I listened carefully. I couldn’t hear anyone moving up on the wooded hillside, but the trees would muffle much of the sound, and besides, the hill was high.

  I moved into the path and began to climb.

  It wasn’t a path at all, really; that was too good a name for it. You just climbed the boulders that jutted out of the little mountain stream, like stepping-stones, here and there getting a foothold on the bank for a few yards, then slipping back into the shallow water and the rocks. I hadn’t got the torch, so it was hard going, and hideously steep. I’d had a hard night, one way and another, and my legs were ready to hand in their notice. I didn’t try to get very far up. As far as I was concerned, Mott could come down to me. I paused again, listening.

  I heard them finally; some way above, on the rocky descent. I could hear the faint clatter of the pebbles as they made their way down, the splash of water and the crackling of twigs and branches. They weren’t talking, but I could hear an occasional soft exclamation or a grunt.

  I gave it about half a minute; till I judged they were two or three hundred yards above, then I started shooting.

  I sent a couple of shots up the stream, for a start. When the sound died away, the movement above had stopped, too; but only for a few seconds. They began to move again, crashing through undergrowth heavily; now they were veering away from the path, to my left. As I’d hoped, they were cutting round the hill towards the zigzag.

  I moved up the path, shouting this time, and making a clatter on the stones. I raised my voice and answered my own shouts, in rough German. One way and another, I was making quite a din, and I let off another shot, for good measure. The men above were making slow progress, as far as I could judge; it must have been heavy going, once they were off the path and into the shrub of the woods. After a moment, I heard another shot, coming from my left; Kurt was moving up from below.

  I shouted to him, leaving the path myself now, moving up diagonally through steep slopes covered with shrub and bramble. The men above were veering again now; the sounds came more distantly, further to the left and higher. I climbed on, shouting imaginary orders; Kurt let off another shot and shouted back. Then, more distantly, well round on the southern slope, there was fresh shooting; Nobby had started up, from his position on the zigzag.

  His shouts came faintly across the hillside. I had lost the sounds of the men above. Suddenly, some shots rang out high up to the left; Agag had started to crack back. He must be losing his nerve, I thought; for he couldn’t see any target. The three of us, widely spaced, were moving slowly upward, making a hell of a din. I began to be afraid they’d start down, and slip through us; they’d a wide expanse of hill to choose from, if they only knew. But the going was pretty stiff, and at least they couldn’t move fast. There was another shot from above; nearer to me, this time; they were veering back on their tracks. I branched out to the right a bit, starting to shout again, hoarsely. Then, suddenly, from below at the foot of the hill, I heard the loud, squalling horn of a German police-car.

  There were several of them; three at least, I thought. Way below, faintly, car doors slammed; I heard another horn in the distance, round to the north-east. There were sharp, short orders in German, and sounds of many feet breaking up into the woods. Soon the whole hillside seemed alive with sound; then the sounds settled into a steady crackling and rustling, as the police moved up showing lights. Nobby and Kurt had stop
ped shooting now; on the middle slopes, I moved round the edge of the clearing, under the trees, till I found a path, leading up. I heard something behind me, and, turning, saw Kurt, entering the clearing. Seeing me, he lowered his gun. He was breathless, and his clothes were torn. I nodded up towards the Tower; he joined me at the foot of the path.

  We’d gone a good way up when we heard Nobby behind us, some way back; I waited for him to come abreast of us.

  He joined me, panting. “There’s police on the zigzag. They’re moving round in a squeeze.”

  I listened for a moment; by the sound of it, the police were still a long way below, and they seemed to be mostly further round on the south slope. I started to move up again, the others following. Nobby said softly: “What happens now?”

  “They’re up there, by the Tower. They must be going to try to get down the cliff-face.”

  “Can they do it? What about Hans?”

  I’d thought of that, too; but I hoped that by now some of the police would have joined Hans round at the foot of the cliff. If they’d found their way there.

  We were in trees again now, and the Tower was out of sight for a while. Then we reached higher ground and saw it emerge once more above us. This time, I noticed the curious shapes that jutted above its battlemented roof; like human forms, some standing, some lying, all shrouded and dark. The last of the chessmen, waiting their long descent down the cliff.

  Suddenly, one of them moved; it wasn’t a chessman, it was alive.

  Two more figures joined it on the roof; they were all there, as high as they could get now. They were bending, working at something; the ropes, I supposed, the cat’s-cradle for the descent. I could have picked them out on that roof like dummy targets, but I had to hold my fire; anyone hit by a bullet on the edge of the roof would be as good as dead meat; he’d be over the side, and it was a long, long drop.

  The police were showing lights below us now; they were moving round the spur. We climbed on towards the Tower, watching the men on the roof. One of them had spotted us now; I thought, from his bulk, it was Rivera. Three shots came in rapid succession; Nobby was hit. He got it in the shoulder, but he didn’t drop; he went on, holding his arm. I was ready to shoot now; we were less than fifty yards from the Tower, and now I could see a great, gaping hole at the base of its near wall; where they had broken through to the inner wall and the corridor. The Tower won’t stand it, I thought suddenly. I could have sworn I saw it move.

  It was moving.

  It was very slow at first, a strange, sliding shift, as though the stones were melting at its base; you could hear masonry falling, inside the Tower. The figures on the roof were moving, running; there were only two now, and one of them was hanging over the side, as though he would jump. The gap at the base widened, like a great mouth opening; then the mouth closed, abruptly, and the building seemed to sink down on to its haunches, subsiding, crumbling; its centre began to fold, the upper reach tilting crazily outward. A dangling figure swung out from the leaning roof, at the end of a rope; I saw its arms move, wildly. Then, amid a great cloud of grey dust, the upper part of the Tower shuddered in a final spasm, and, with a steady rumbling of falling masonry, slid gently away over the cliff, carrying the burden of the roof with it into space.

  When the dust had died down, we could see the jagged base, like a broken tooth, squatting dejectedly on the edge of the spur at an angle of forty-five degrees.

  We reached it a few moments later, and found Rivera’s body, crushed beneath stone. The other was dead, too; a German, by the look of him, a workman. It was Mott who had gone over the top with the rest of the chessmen.

  I moved to the edge of the spur. The moon was shining brightly now, and its cool light flooded the valley far below, and the hanging woods that seemed suspended like a hammock of green. A long way down, glinting in the moonlight, a gold chessman lay caught among boughs, its shroud fallen away; pale gold and shining, it looked very small down there, and very strange.

  We found one that hadn’t fallen; a pawn, it protruded over the edge of the cliff, balancing there, with a chunk of masonry on its head. It had been split open, and a handful of whitish dust spilled out of its base, to mingle with the dust of the stones.

  The first of the policemen were reaching the top of the hill. I took Kurt’s torch and began to examine Nobby’s shoulder.

  * * * *

  The sky was lightening in the east when we started the journey down. It seemed as though the whole village had turned out: first the police, some on foot, others riding horses and donkeys; these had come up by the zigzag. Then, behind them, there came a long straggle of villagers, roused from their beds by the shooting in the hills and the rumours that the Tower had fallen. They came up, oddly dressed in coats and dressing-gowns over their night clothes, wide-eyed and curious. There was a woman crying; she was the wife of the labourer who had died, a mason from Cochem. We got Nobby on to a donkey; I was given one, too. Behind us the dead men rode, strapped across the horses’ saddles, led by policemen, with the woman walking beside. Then came more police, and the villagers, chattering now in high voices, turning to stare up at the top of the hill. Some ran on ahead of us; they’d heard of the chessmen, and the finds to be made at the foot of the cliff. The commandant of police had ridden ahead to arrange for guards for the oil-truck; some of his men were there already. We ambled slowly down the zigzag path, crossing and recrossing the hillside; at the foot, grazing near the road, a few startled cows looked up as the strange procession passed. Across the river, on the opposite hill, the castle windows were alight, giving Burg Endert a queerly transparent look in the early light. I rode on towards it, seeing only, after a while, the donkey’s head in front of me, swaying from side to side in a gentle, slow rhythm, till I fell asleep as I rode.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Lord Stonybridge died the next day; he had never recovered consciousness.

  We buried him in the castle cemetery, along with Sarah and Joseph’s ancestors; he had the place that belonged to Joseph, who lay in a pauper’s grave in England.

  As for Mott and Rivera, they were buried in the village, along with the unfortunate mason who had died. There was an inquest, of course; it was conducted in German, and was hopelessly confused; I don’t believe the jury ever got the whole story clear. The verdict was accidental death, with a rider by the jury to the effect that the local monuments and ruins should all be vetted for safety as soon as possible.

  Hedge and the other mason were jailed, pending a charge; Hedge was to be extradited to Britain, and would serve his sentence there. Constantine was arrested on a charge of attempting to steal four sets of antique chessmen, the property of Herr von Arnhem of Burg Endert. I got a full account of the whole business out of Hedge, but there wasn’t much that I didn’t know already; they’d hired the two Germans in Cochem, and the oil-truck had been obtained in Trier. Mott had hired a transport aircraft from a shady private service operating near Cologne, and had intended to head for South America; the chessmen were to be transported intact, eventually to be melted down.

  There were, it was found, already eight of the gold figures in the oil-truck; eight more were found in the woods below the Tower, after an intensive large-scale search by mounted police, with reinforcements from Coblenz. The entire countryside was out in the woods for days afterwards, looking for chips of gold or jewels fallen from the interior of the figures. Most of the chessmen, when they were recovered, were found to contain nothing but the whitish bone-dust which I had seen on the hill. But the two rooks contained jewels, some precious, some semi-precious, the total worth a fairly startling sum; which was nothing compared to the total value of the sixteen gold figures.

  Curtius’ goldsmith had made a good job of the chessmen. They were in a classical Central European style, so the experts said, with portrait heads, and varied in height from five to six feet, according to the piece represented. They belonged, strictl
y speaking, to Sophia, who was now the owner of Burg Endert and its land. I rather fancied the idea of her keeping them at the castle; it would, I thought, be a satisfactory feeling to have all that gold right beside you, and to know that if ever you ran short of cash you’d only to melt down a pawn or two, or perhaps, if you were feeling really extravagant, a bishop. But Sophia didn’t fancy the things, and I can’t say I altogether blamed her. They were nasty, lethal gadgets, when you came to think of it; and after all, what’s a ton of gold when you’ve already got three-quarters of a million in the bank? She presented them to the museum at Coblenz, on condition that they were to remain there on show, and were not to be sold to some American millionaire for decorating the swimming-pool at his country cottage. She kept the jewellery, though, and she gave me a couple of nice diamonds, unset, that looked as though they might fetch a nice price at Hatton Garden; Nobby got a bunch of rubies, to match his hair.

  Nobby’s shoulder took quite a time to mend, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t in any hurry to leave Cochem; I began to understand Stony’s desire to go back there, because Burg Endert grew on you.

  We stayed about a month, and the flat-racing season was well advanced when we finally started for home. I hadn’t known quite what to do about Sophia. I felt responsible for her, now that I was, so to speak, her only living relative; and it didn’t seem fair to jump in and marry the girl straight away, when she’d just lost her father and come into a ton of gold. In the end I sent her off to Paris, to stay with some French friends of mine for a while; they were delighted at the prospect of teaching her how to spend her money, and she seemed to like the idea, too.