The Angry Mountain

by Hammond Innes

  Some sixth sense told me I mustn’t become unconscious. I fought to get control of my reeling brain. Then I was lying on a bed in complete darkness. No breath of air stirred in the room. It was suffocatingly hot and I felt sick. I rolled out of bed and felt my way to the farther wall. I found the basin just in time. I broke into a cold sweat then, but I felt better and my head was clear. I cursed myself for a fool. To come out to a lonely villa with a girl like Zina and then get so drunk that I had to be put to bed!

  I stood there leaning on the basin and wiping the sweat from my forehead with a towel. The villa was very still. The gentle putter of the electric light plant had ceased and I could hear no sound of voices. I glanced at my watch. The luminous face of it shone bright in the utter darkness. It was just after one.

  I was feeling much better now. I rinsed out the basin and had a wash. As I dried my face I was wondering why Zina had given me so much wine to drink. Had she wanted to get me drunk? Was that the way she liked her men? Maybe she’d been in the room with me. Then I remembered the expression on Roberto’s face and her sudden blaze of anger. And I began to feel uneasy again.

  I put the towel down and turned to feel my way towards the door. Her room would be somewhere along the passage. I was feeling fine now. Half-way across the room I remembered there was a torch in my suitcase which was on the window seat. I found the case and was just slipping back the clasps when I noticed a vertical red line where the shutters were swung across the window. I lifted the securing bar and pulled the shutters back.

  I stood quite still then, staring in amazement at the sight that met my eyes. Framed in the window was the dark bulk of Vesuvius outlined against an incredible, lurid glow. On either side of the summit two great streaks of red snaked down towards the villa. They were like a finger and thumb of fire crooked to clutch at something on the slopes. The hand and shaft of the wrist were formed by a ruddy column that flamed from the crater, reflecting itself on great billowing masses of gas that rolled upwards, filling the sky and blocking out the stars.

  I turned slowly and faced the room. It was full of a demon red glare. I got my torch and moved towards the door. As I did so the head and shoulders of a man moved to meet me. It was my own shadow thrown on the further wall by that ghastly volcanic glare.

  I reached the door and turned the handle. But nothing happened. I turned the knob in the opposite direction, but the door would not budge. I was suddenly very wide awake. I jerked furiously at the door in the grip of a sudden panic fear of being trapped. With the horrid glare of the mountain behind me I became desperate to reach the safety of the passage outside. But I couldn’t shift it and at last I realised that I was locked in. For a moment I was terrified. The mountain was in eruption and I had been left here to die under the ash. I was on the point of shouting for help when some instinct kept my mouth shut. I turned quickly back to the window and stood gazing up at the flaming mass of the volcano.

  My heart was still pounding against my ribs, but my brain was clearer now. The mountain wasn’t in eruption—not yet. It was worse than it had been last night, but it wasn’t in eruption—not in the way it had been when Pompeii had been destroyed. A lot more gas was escaping, but the glow was mainly from the lava outflows. The villa wasn’t in any imminent danger. And if the villa wasn’t in danger then there was no call for me to panic because the door of my room had been locked. Perhaps it was just jammed.

  I went back and tried it again. But it was locked all right. And then I remembered the nightmare of that night in my room at the Excelsior in Milan. I felt the sweat breaking out on my forehead again. I told myself there couldn’t be any connection. But why had the door been locked? Why had Zina gone out of her way to fill me up with wine till I was so drunk I couldn’t stand? Whose villa was this?

  I remembered then what Maxwell had said—But somehow you’re a part of it whether you like it or not. And the man who called himself Shirer—Hilda had said he was in Naples. I flashed my torch round the room. The hard white beam of it seemed somehow solid and friendly. I lit a cigarette. My hand trembled as I held the match to it. But at least I was forewarned. I glanced up at Vesuvius. The whole night sky seemed on fire like a scene from Paradise Lost. The headlights of a car stabbed the lurid countryside on the road to Avin. It slowed and stopped. Then the headlights went out. A door closed in the stillness of the villa below me. Involuntarily my muscles tensed. I thought I heard the creak of a stair board, and suddenly I knew someone was coming up the stairs, coming to my room.

  I swung the shutters to and moved towards the door. The palms of my hands were sweating and the chromium of the torch I held felt slippery. But the weight of it was comforting. I stood with my head pressed close to the panelling of the door, listening. There was somebody outside now. I couldn’t hear him, but I sensed him there. Very quietly the key was turned in the lock. I stiffened and then stepped back, so that I should be behind the door when it opened.

  I couldn’t see it, but I felt the handle turning. Then my hand, which was touching the woodwork of the door, was pressed back as the door was opened. I grasped the heavy torch, raising it ready to strike out. But before I could hit him the man was past me and moving towards the bed. I slipped out into the passage then, the sound of my movement lost in the deep pile of the carpet. A faint red glow showed through an unshuttered window at the far end of the corridor. I reached the dark shaft of the stairs and hesitated. The villa was all silent, an alert stillness that seemed to be listening for the sound of my footfall.

  And as I stood there, hesitating, there was a sudden shout from my room. “Roberto! Agostino!”

  The lavatory was right opposite the head of the stairs. The door was ajar and I stepped back into the shadows as footsteps came running out of my room. A torch flashed in the corridor. “Roberto! Agostino!” Somebody went hurtling past and flung himself down the stairs. I had a brief glimpse of a short, angry figure. Then a door opened along the corridor, near the red glow of the window. I peered out and saw the silhouette of a man hurrying down the corridor towards me. As he passed me he switched on a torch and in the reflected light from the walls I saw it was Roberto. His black hair was tousled and his features coarse and puffed with sleep. He wore a singlet and was buttoning on his trousers. He left behind him a faint smell of sweat mingled with the scent of a perfume that I recognised as Zina’s.

  He went to the door of my room, peered inside and then came quickly back and ran down the stairs. I left the shelter of the lavatory then and went along the corridor. I think I knew in my heart who it was that had entered my room. But I had to know the truth. Zina had brought me here. She’d filled me up with liquor so that I couldn’t stand. I suddenly felt utterly callous and quite sure of myself. This was the end of it all, here in this villa. And if I had to throttle the little bitch, I’d get the truth out of her.

  I reached the door from which Roberto had emerged and I went in. The shutters were closed. It was quite dark and very hot and airless. My breath was coming in quick pants. But it was excitement, not fear. Below, the silence of the villa was torn by running feet. I closed the door of the room behind me, shutting out the sounds. There was a key in the lock and I turned it. A voice murmured sleepily,” Che è successo?” It was Zina all right. I switched on my torch and swung the beam to the big double bed.

  She sensed something was wrong, for she sat up, clutching the bedclothes to her in an effort to hide her nakedness. Her hair looked damp and straggly and her mouth was thicker, “Chi è?” she whispered.

  “Farrell,” I answered and wondered why I’d ever thought her attractive. “Get some clothes on. I want to talk to you.” My voice showed my disgust. “Make a noise and I’ll hit you. The door’s locked.”

  “What do you want?” She tried to give me an alluring smile, but her voice was hoarse with uneasiness and her smile was fixed and brassy like a prostitute’s.

  Her dressing-gown was lying in the middle of the floor. I picked it up. It smelt faintly of the perfume
I’d smelt on Roberto. “Put this round you,” I said and tossed it over to her.

  She flung it over her shoulders and pulled it round her under the bedclothes. I went over to her then and sat down on the bed. I kept the beam of the torch full on her. “Now then. Whose villa is this?”

  She didn’t answer, but lay back, shielding her eyes from the glare of the torch. I leaned forward and pulled her arm roughly away from her face. “Whose villa is it?” I repeated. She lay quite still, staring up at me. My disgust had turned to anger—anger at myself for being such a damned fool. I caught hold of her arm and twisted it. She gave a gasp of pain. Perhaps she sensed the violence of my anger for she said, “Please. You do not have to break my arm. It is the villa of someone you know. You meet him with me in Milano.”

  “Shirer?” I asked.

  “Sì, sì. Signor Shirer.”

  So I’d been right and I had walked straight into the trap. I suddenly wanted to hit her. I got up quickly and went over to the window, flinging back the heavy shutters. I heard a gasp from the bed as the lurid glare of Vesuvius invaded the room. I stared out across the balcony to the flat land below that showed quite clear and saffron-tinted, part moonlight, part glare of the mountain. It was like the sunset glow on snow. I saw figures moving by the outhouses. They were searching for me down there. I turned back to the bed. I had control of myself now. “Did he ask you to bring me here?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was scarcely audible. Her eyes were very large as they stared up at me out of the pallor of her face.

  “And you were to get me drunk?”

  “Yes. Please, Dick. I couldn’t help—”

  “I thought you hated the man?”

  “I do. I do. But—”

  “Why did he want me here? Was he going to kill me? Was he afraid I knew—”

  “No, no. He was not going to hurt you. It was only that he wanted something.”

  “Wanted something?” I had caught hold of her arm again. “What did he want?”

  “I do not know.”

  I shook her angrily. “What did he want?”

  “I tell you, I do not know what he want.”

  I remembered something then—something that suddenly had significance. “When we went to Casamicciola that day— why were you so worried about my leg?” She didn’t answer and I repeated the question. “You wanted to get my leg away from me. Did he ask you to do that?”

  She nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Please. I do not know. He ask me to take it. That is all I know.”

  “He was there, at Casamicciola?”

  “Sì.”

  The thing took shape then. I remembered how my leg had stood propped beside me that night I’d lain drunk on my bed at the hotel in Pilsen. I heard myself laughing, laughing at myself. What a bloody fool!

  “Why do you laugh like that?” Her voice sounded scared.

  “Because now I know what it’s all about.” I stood looking down at her, wondering why she’d trapped me like this. “Are you in love with this man?” I asked her. It seemed to me the only possible reason.

  She sat up then, regardless of the way her dressing-gown gaped. “I tell you once before—I hate him. He is—he is a cretin.” She spat the words at me.

  “Then why do you do what he tells you?”

  “Because otherwise he will ruin me.” She lay back again, pulling the dressing-gown round her. “He knows things about me and he will tell my husband if I do not do what he ask.”

  “Because of Roberto?”

  “No. Not because of Roberto.” She dropped her eyes. “It is because—because he has something I need.” The sound of voices came through the open window. She listened for a moment. Then she said, “I think you should go now.”

  But I paid no attention. I was thinking of Walter Shirer. He’d been tough. But he wouldn’t have blackmailed a girl, whatever she was. And he wouldn’t have got involved in the Tuček business. Reason confirmed now what instinct had already told me. I knew beyond any doubt who it was searching for me in the grounds of the villa. “His name is Sansevino, isn’t it?”

  She stared at me. “Please. I do not understand.”

  “His real name,” I said impatiently. “It’s Sansevino, isn’t it?” But the name apparently meant nothing to her. “All right,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. But I’d keep clear of him in future. His name’s Doctor Sansevino, and he’s a murderer.”

  “Doctor Sansevino.” She frowned. “You say he is a doctor?” Then she nodded her head slowly. “Yes, I think perhaps he is a doctor.”

  Il dottore. My hands clenched. If I could only get hold of him! I thought of Hilda Tufcek then, frantic over the disappearance of her father. Had he killed him? Or was he just torturing the poor devil?” Where is Jan Tuček?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “I do not know where is Tuček. I never hear of this man Tuček.” She lay back on the pillows. “Go now, please. I think it is not safe for you to stay any longer.”

  I hesitated. But I couldn’t force her to talk, and it was quite possible she knew nothing about Tuček. Sansevino wouldn’t have told her more than he had to. I went over to the window. The world outside was very still in the red mantle of the volcano. Nothing stirred. The search must have moved to the back of the villa. If so, perhaps I could get out by the front. I went over to the door and quietly unlocked it. The walls of the corridor outside were faintly tinged with the red glow from the window and there were deep shadows. The house was very quiet.

  “Dick!”

  I swung round at the sound of movement by the bed. Zina was sitting up fumbling in her handbag. “Do not do anything foolish. I think this place is very dangerous for you now.”

  I didn’t answer, but as I turned to leave the room, she hissed, “Un momento. Wait.”

  She slipped out of bed and came towards me in her bare feet. She held something in her hand. “Take this,” she whispered. I felt the cold touch of metal against my hand and my fingers closed over the butt of a small automatic. Her hand touched my arm. It was almost a caress. “You think me very bad, yes? But remember, please, we come from two different worlds. Leave the villa now and do not come back. Get a plane very quick and go back to England where life is so easy and so secure.” Her fingers squeezed my arm. Then she turned and went back to bed.

  I went out into the corridor and closed the door behind me. The villa was deathly quiet. It was so quiet that it seemed to be full of sound. And then I realised that the sound was the sound of gases escaping from the crater vent high up on the summit of Vesuvius. It was a steady hissing sound that seemed to invade the place like an air-lock in the water system.

  I went to the head of the stairs and started down. The stairs were of bare tile and it was difficult for me to manœuvre my leg so that it made no sound. Below, it was pitch-black, for the shutters were still drawn over the windows. I didn’t dare use my torch in case they had come in from their search of the grounds, but the weight of it in my hand was comforting and I kept a tight hold of the little automatic Zina had given me.

  There were two courses open to me—either to wait for Sansevino or to try and escape. Leave the villa now and do not come back. That was what Zina had said and I knew that it was the sensible thing to do. My courage was ebbing away in the dark stillness. Once I had got away I could contact Maxwell and tell him the whole thing. The proof was on me, strapped to my body in the shaft of my artificial limb. I was certain of that.

  I felt my way to the front door. It was locked, and the key was not in the lock. The darkness all round me seemed suddenly alive. I had to get out. I couldn’t fight him alone here in the darkness. If he got hold of me.… I shuddered at the thought of the touch of his hands on my body. I turned in a panic and groped my way to the hall window. It was shuttered and the iron bar that secured the shutters was padlocked. I tried the dining-room. There, too, the shutters were padlocked. Again I had that feeling of being trapped, a nightmare sense of claustrophobia. I went bac
k into the hall and there I hesitated. I was considering trying to get out through the servants’ quarters when I noticed a slight glow from the half-open door of the room where Zina had played to me earlier that evening. I crossed the hall and pushed open the door. Then I breathed a sigh of relief. A rectangle of red light showed opposite the door. The room was full of shadows. But I didn’t mind. All that mattered was that there were no shutters across the window. I went straight over to it and slipped the catch.

  And then something about the stillness of the room made me turn. Was it my imagination or was there a figure seated at the piano? I stood there for a moment, quite still and rigid, the blood pumping against my eardrums. Nothing stirred. The room glowed faintly. I reached again for the window and pushed it open. The night air was cool on my face. The vineyards below the terrace were bathed in a macabre light. “You finding it hot to-night, Farrell?”

  I swung round, my heart thudding. The voice had come from behind me, from the direction of the piano.

  “I couldn’t sleep either.” The voice was almost American, but in the darkness I detected an unpleasant sibilance. The piano came to life, whispering the old Yankee tune Marching through Georgia. Shirer had whistled that tune, whistled it endlessly through his teeth to keep himself from crying out at the pain of his gas blisters. I switched on my torch. The beam cut across the glossy surface of the baby grand to the face above the keyboard—Shirer’s face; only not quite Shirer’s.

  The man’s name was on the tip of my tongue—his real name. But I stopped myself in time. Maybe I could bluff it out. If I could make him think …” God! You scared me,” I said quickly. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Milan.”

  “I live here. Do you mind switching that torch off. It’s a bit dazzling.”

  For an instant I hesitated. If I kept the beam on his face maybe I could get Zina’s automatic out of my pocket without him seeing. But I might miss and then— The trouble was I couldn’t see his hands. But he wouldn’t have sat there waiting for me to be attracted to the open windows without having a gun. Somehow I had got to convince him that I’d no idea anything out of the ordinary had happened. I switched the torch off. The sudden darkness made me wish I’d chanced a shot.