by John Creasey
There had been two, remember.
Palfrey said: “I see. And Miss Davos saw some of these things?”
“Yes.”
“Did she see any burst?”
“One, at least – the one that fell on her lap, and I threw over.”
“Did she give you the impression of being under any kind of strain when she first arrived at the A.A. box?”
Woburn said: “No, not at first. She was certainly under a strain after what we saw down in the valley, though. At first I thought it was shock, but soon found out that it was more than that.” He was increasingly aware of a tension in the two men, and he made himself go on quite calmly, although they passed something of the tension on to him. “Then she told me that her sister had been in the village.”
Palfrey nodded, and asked: “Did you see anyone else near Red Deer Point, Mr. Woburn?”
“No.”
“Would you have seen them, if any had been near?”
“I think so. Not many people go over the cliffs to the loch. Parties of hikers do, sometimes, but mostly they go through the village. That’s my brother-in-law’s opinion, not just mine. Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters a great deal,” said Palfrey. “You know we’ve been at pains to prevent you from talking to the Press. We want to make quite sure that you don’t say a word to anyone. We want to make sure that Miss Davos doesn’t, either.”
“But why?” Woburn asked roughly. “What difference can it make?” He remembered the boulder and the two men who had tried to kill him in the lane; and that had been a different way of making sure that he didn’t talk. He jumped up, and smacked a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. “What’s it all about? Who are you? By what authority can you tell me I mustn’t speak about this?”
“We can show you our authority, a little later,” Palfrey said, “but we’d much rather avoid any form of compulsion.” He gave a little, placating smile; unexpectedly, it calmed Woburn. “Have you any theory about what happened, Mr. Woburn?”
The big Russian moved, for the first time.
Woburn picked up his glass and sipped. Then, he gulped. He didn’t quite know how to put what he had to say into words; in one way, the idea seemed fantastic. In another, it was feasible.
He said abruptly: “All I can think of is that millions of those crawling things were crushed at the same time. The water was like an explosion. If you’d seen the force of the water in that dog’s mouth – well, it must have broken its jaw. I’ve been thinking about it. Nearly driven me crazy. I know you’ll think I am crazy, but—”
“Not crazy at all,” Palfrey interrupted. “Very sane. That is exactly what did happen. Millions of the octi – the name given to them, it doesn’t mean anything particularly – were inside the cliff. They burst. The force of the water erupting from them undermined the cliff. You’ve seen the result.”
Palfrey was sitting down, and his voice was very quiet, almost gentle. He gave his words no emphasis, just let them carry their own. With every sentence, he brought an added sense of awe and horror.
“It isn’t the first time this has happened, Woburn.” By dropping the formal ‘Mister’ Palfrey seemed to be taking Woburn further into his confidence, to break down a barrier that had been created between them. “How long have you been in the country, do you say?” “Less than two weeks.”
“Then you wouldn’t have seen this one,” Palfrey said, and took an envelope out of his pocket. He handed it to Woburn, whose hands were unsteady as he opened it.
Inside, were newspaper cuttings, the top one from the Daily Clarion, there were a dozen of them, altogether. Woburn read:
ISLAND DISAPPEARS OVERNIGHT
He clamped his jaws together as he read on:
Inhabitants of the Western Isles, especially those on Mull, woke up to a shock yesterday morning. A small, uninhabited island five miles from the main island on the western side, had disappeared. About a quarter of a mile north to south and rather more east to west, the highest point in the island was over two hundred feet above sea level. Nothing was heard to explain the disappearance, and geologists suggest that there was a fault in the earth’s crust just beneath the island, which caved in. The shock was not severe enough to be felt on any of the seismographs, however.
The fact remains that where rocks rose and grass and wild flowers and a few trees grew two days ago, today there is only the sea.
Woburn finished reading.
Horror had touched him enough before; now it was much worse. He moved back to his chair, but didn’t sit down.
He said: “A few weeks ago, an island in the Adirondacks disappeared. You know – in the lake district of New England.” It hurt when he gulped. “I read about it. Twenty people were drowned. It was in the middle of one of the big lakes, and vanished overnight. No witnesses survived. Do you think—”
“We’ve had men investigating in that district for years,” Palfrey said. “No reports of octi being found there after the disaster, but we’ve had reports from other places.”
Woburn made himself ask: “Where?”
“In the South Pacific, a small group of islands north of the Samoa group vanished. That was the first we heard. There was one survivor, a trader whose ship was tied up to the jetty of the main island. He says he was invaded by the octi, and – he preserved one long enough for it to be examined.”
Palfrey stopped.
Woburn poured himself out another drink.
“A whole group of islands?”
“And five hundred people. All Polynesians, of course.”
“What the hell difference does that make?” Woburn asked roughly. “They’re people.”
Palfrey said: “That’s something we agree about.” He stood up, slowly. “Woburn, we don’t know a lot about this business yet. We have now four instances of places disappearing under a flood, with reason to suspect that the flood was caused by bursting octi. We don’t know how fast they breed, if ‘breed’ is the right word. They could be man-made. Anything we say about them is guesswork. But there are some common denominators. One is the water eruption followed by the flood. Two, the suddenness of the collapse of land. Three – a connection of some kind with Sir Gabriel Davos.”
He broke off.
Woburn felt the shock of the announcement, and sensed at the same time that both these men were watching him for the slightest indication that he had already known that.
7
Outside, darkness was falling; the room faced the south, and there was a pale light of the afterglow in one corner of the window. Crickets chirruped. Some birds were swooping on the insects which came out to welcome the night.
Woburn said slowly, almost painfully: “I— I simply don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Davos, his daughters Eve and Naomi – the elder by several years – and some friends went on a world cruise in their steam yacht, the Horizon, some years ago,” Palfrey said.
“Davos is extremely wealthy, and the yacht is ocean-going, with a full complement. He visited these Pacific islands. He also visited the New England states, was anchored off the coast of Maine for some weeks, and spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks. He also steamed through the Western Isles, last summer. And you know that he owns Ronoch Castle.”
Woburn was on the point of saying: “It must be coincidence.” He checked it.
Palfrey went on: “Davos is a research chemist. Among the research he’s renowned for is a study of sea life.”
Yes, it was coming back. Davos was almost another Piccard, had descended farther into the sea than any other man. He had written a book which might have had the success of a best seller, but for its academic style. Once Palfrey had prompted him, Woburn remembered all that.
Palfrey was still speaking: “He has studied the possibility of making food for human consumption out of plankton. He probably knows more than any other human being about submarine life, in arctic as well as tropical waters. Among the problems he’s studied is how to mak
e sea water fresh.”
Woburn said: “The things – the octi – contained fresh water. I know, I tested it when some spurted against my lips.”
“Yes,” agreed Palfrey, “and that suggests that they weren’t born out of the sea. We don’t know how they’re created, but—”
“Have you asked Davos about them?”
“He denies all knowledge.”
“What makes you think he’s a liar?”
“Woburn, take a good, hard look at the situation which could come about,” Palfrey said quietly. “If those creatures can drown a village, what’s to stop them from drowning a town? If they can destroy small islands, why not large islands? If they can invade a small schooner trading in the Pacific, what is to prevent them from invading big ships? Or – a nation?”
Woburn felt as if he were looking at the very face of horror.
“Sir Gabriel Davos is a possible common denominator,” Palfrey went on, “and since he refuses to admit that he knows anything about the octi, we have to find out whether he’s telling the truth. I had a man get a job with him, on his marine research. And I had another man join him, a man with a lot of experience with animals. He went as a veterinary surgeon at the zoo in Ronoch Castle.” There was a pause. Then: “ Both died.” Palfrey went on abruptly. “One was killed in a road accident. The other was scratched by a lemur, and died from acute blood poisoning. The evidence at the inquests was sifted as thoroughly as it could be. The verdicts were right, on the evidence. Accidental death, and death by misadventure. They were two good men, about your age, and they’d worked with me for years.”
Woburn brushed his hand across his damp forehead.
“Who are you? Intelligence?”
“That’ll serve for now,” Palfrey said, and went on almost abruptly: “May we have some light?”
“Some— oh, yes. Yes, sorry.” Woburn jumped up and hurried across the room. He switched on the light, from a battery plant outside in the stables. The dull thud of a machine sounded as if a long way off. The night outside was thrown into utter darkness, except where the lights of cars and of a man’s cigarette showed clearly.
The features of the Englishman and the Russian were shown up sharply.
“Another drink?” Woburn asked.
“Yes, please,” said Palfrey promptly, but the Russian said: “No, thank you,” in his precise way. Woburn poured out, and asked abruptly:
“Are you implying that Davos killed these men?”
“I’m implying that they were killed while trying to find out what was happening at the Castle,” Palfrey said. “So far, it hasn’t been possible to take any direct action. The death of his daughter Naomi would certainly make his complicity look even more unlikely. Short of positive evidence that he’s involved, we can’t do a thing. The evidence we have is that he knows when a man is sent to pry at the Castle. We’ve one more there, one who has been there for some time, but—” Palfrey spread his hands. “He hasn’t yet sent us any information, and we haven’t heard from him for a week. We don’t know that he’s still there and alive.”
Woburn said roughly: “It can’t be as bad as that.”
“I assure you, it is just as bad as that,” said Andromovitch quietly.
Somehow, that seemed to put the whole thing beyond question; to turn the horror into a kind of reality which made it more horrible still.
“There’s another pointer,” Palfrey went on, and this time he sounded almost diffident. He coiled a few strands of the silky hair about his forefinger, and pulled at it. “This attack on you. Miss Davos went back to the Castle and, of course, told them what you’d done – told them that you’d seen the octi. Within a few hours, you were attacked. I think it possible that someone was desperately anxious that you should not describe the octi to anyone in authority.”
Woburn didn’t speak.
“It wouldn’t be difficult for them to find out that you’d been kept away from the Press,” continued Palfrey. “The whole of the area was cordoned off. Davos, or whoever is working on the octi, certainly knows that I’m investigating them. He might reasonably assume that I’d come up here to see you. The attack was first made to look like an accident, but when that failed, the men risked shooting you, they were so anxious to kill. See it this way, Woburn. To prevent our meeting, they made an attack which had the merit of crude simplicity. A false invitation in Davos’s name, and a boulder in a deadly spot. It should have succeeded, and the men had cudgels to finish you off. Had it come off, there would have been another ‘accidental’ death, for the boulder could have been pushed off the road.”
Woburn burst out: “I don’t understand why you do nothing! Surely you could hold Davos on suspicion, you could find some way of making him talk.”
“We could, but we daren’t. We know he has agents – groups of people, scientists particularly, in many parts of the world. We believe he has some very great force at his disposal. If we act precipitately, he might use it; or his agents might. We need to find out just what his secret weapon is.” Palfrey released the strands of hair, and patted them sharply back on to his forehead in a little kiss curl. Childish. “You see? The octi may be all or part of this secret. Before we risk an open clash with Davos, we need to be sure. At least, we have to try to be sure. The disasters have been on a limited scale, as far as we know. So we have a little time left.” He paused, just for effect, sipped his drink, and went on: “Remember the East Coast floods, a few years ago? Remember Lynmouth? Remember the North Sea floods in Holland? Remember the floods in Italy and those in India, which drowned twenty thousand people?” He sipped his drink again, while Woburn just stared, hands clenched, teeth gritting. “We’ve been given certain natural explanations of all these disasters,” Palfrey went on. “Tidal waves, excessive rains, rivers overflowing, melting snows – but in every case the magnitude of the flooding puzzled experts. There was a much smaller incident round the coast of Devon, a few months ago, when a tidal wave, so called, swamped thousands of holiday-makers. There was no known explanation. But – add all these up, Woburn. Put the story into the hands of a good newspaperman, who’ll write it up for sensation. What do you think the people living near the coast would feel like? What would you feel like?”
Woburn answered, heavily: “All right, you can’t risk letting the news out, but – what are you going to do?”
“We’ve several things in hand,” Palfrey said, almost as if he was talking about some unexciting business project. “And we’re being forced to take chances we wouldn’t, in the normal course of events. For instance, in using men we know little about. Such as you.” Palfrey turned to glance at Andromovitch, and the Russian got up. Until that moment, Woburn had forgotten how enormous he was.
“For some time now I have a special job, Woburn,” the giant said. “I investigate the past of – shall we say agents, Sap?” Woburn didn’t know what ‘Sap’ implied. “The modern word is screen, isn’t it? This afternoon I was given a rush job. I had to screen you. Tell me how far I am wrong.” He didn’t smile, but his expression was placid, his eyes had a serene look. “Born, 1921, of an English mother and a Scottish doctor. Educated at Shrewsbury School. War service, varied – Fleet Air Arm, transferred to the Airborne Division. Service in Burma and in Malaya. You put your engineering knowledge to good use and received the George Medal for dismantling a two-thousand-pound bomb which fell but did not explode in a London suburb where you were staying, just before the end of the war. For some years after the war you worked in the Birmingham factory of Mordant’s Limited, refrigeration engineering specialists, and for some five years you have been the Chicago representative of the company. You are” – Andromovitch used the pause almost as effectively as Palfrey – “unmarried. Your parents are both dead. You have no close relation, and you are not engaged to be married.” There was another pause, then: “Is that about right, Woburn?”
“How the devil did you get all that in the time?”
The giant shrugged. “Telephone calls, my friend
. To Chicago, Birmingham, the War Office, the Admiralty. You would, I think, be given a clean bill for any usual purpose. And as Sap says, we cannot afford the time to take the best security measures.”
Woburn said gruffly: “Oh, can’t you?”
“Do not take umbrage,” said the giant, placidly. “In times past, we have always believed in screening our men for two years before asking them to join us. Now – you understand that you are in a very special position.”
Woburn brushed his hand across his damp forehead, but didn’t speak.
Palfrey said: “We think that you might be able to get away with a lot of things our agents couldn’t. You know Eve Davos, and she would have good reason to be grateful to you. You could take advantage of that to go to the Castle. We would brief you, of course, and your main job would be to find out anything you can about the octi or about any secret work that Davos is carrying on. You might find nothing, and you might find a great deal. You might even,” went on Palfrey almost casually, “get out alive.”
Woburn looked from one man to another, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether they were serious. In fact, Palfrey had summed it up concisely, even brutally. If he did what they asked, he ‘might’ get out alive.
It would mean using Eve as the excuse for spying on her father.
Woburn actually thought of that, without voicing the thought. He saw a mental picture of the girl – and of Jenny, and of all the village. He had known Eve Davos for little more than an hour. He owed her nothing. He owed his sister vengeance for a dead son. He had only to convince himself that he might be able to help, and he would do what these men asked.
Who were they?
Palfrey was playing with his hair again.
“During the war,” he said unexpectedly, “the Allies formed an Allied Intelligence. They gave me the job of co-ordinating it. Since the war, the balance of power has shifted. Small states, some groups of individuals, even single persons working with loyal staff, could threaten the peace. We know all about the international cold war, we don’t know about the other cold war – not against groups of nations, but against individuals. There was one man who found a gas that could kill off the world in a few hours. Another – but I needn’t go on. Individuals and syndicates with power lust or with a megalomaniac sense of personal greatness menace us all. Here at home, in the United States, in Russia, in the Far East. So, the Allied Intelligence was extended. We call it by a nonsense key word – Z.5. My job is to co-ordinate. All nations are represented, and all pay into a common pool. The constant need is to seek out and to stop the syndicates and the individuals who have too great a power.
