Number Nineteen Page 15

  He seized the handle violently, gave it a vicious twist, and shoved. It was wasted energy. The door swung inwards without any protest, and he entered the cellar in a swift slide along the cold floor.

  22

  Beyond the Cellar

  Ben’s entry into the cellar had been effected with such astonishing ease that for a moment all emotions saving that of surprise departed from him. He had sworn to achieve the impossible, and here he was actually doing it! But the miracle had to be credited to a kindly God rather than to Ben’s own ingenuity. Kindly? Well, that seemed less certain in the sequel; but here he was, inside the locked cellar, after having done no more than turn the handle and push!

  ‘’Ow did it ’appen?’ he wondered, as he slid across the floor till he came to a halt in the middle.

  The obvious answer came to him the moment his brain began to function again. It had happened because the door had not been locked, and when the door of a room is not locked all you have to do to enter is to give the handle a twist. But the answer to the first question merely raised others. Why had not the door been locked? How long had it been unlocked? And where now were those who were believed to have been in the cellar? These, in Ben’s conception, included Miss Bretherton, Mr Black, and the monnertrocity. Where had they gone?

  Come to that, his dizzy mind went on (for although it was now functioning once more, it was still dizzy), you might add a couple to the crowd and ask where the dead caretaker and the dead cat had gone? Their spirits had departed permanently, but their bodies must have remained behind somewhere.

  And now came an answer, which also appeared obvious, to that. Ben was still sitting on the ground at the spot where his momentum had been spent, and he was facing the opposite wall. It was the wall which contained the second, lower door in the cellar. Assumedly, the door of a cupboard. Assumedly, a very roomy cupboard. Assumedly, locked. Assumedly but not necessarily, after Ben’s experience with the door from the passage.

  Well, this second door had to be opened next, however terrifying what lay on the other side of it. And it had to be opened quickly, before the opportunity was taken from him. Vague sounds, coming from either the hall or the basement stairs, warned him that the opportunity would last for only a few more seconds, and leaping suddenly to his feet he ran back to the door to the passage. Was the key in the lock? Thank Gawd, it was! He turned it swiftly. This would give him a bit longer, for although he knew Smith had another key, he would have to work this key out of the lock before he could use his own.

  How in any case Ben was going to rescue Miss Bretherton if he found her in the cupboard, whether Smith and his companion got into the cellar or remained outside, was beyond his knowledge. He had gained a short breather, and sufficient for the moment was the infinitesimal good thereof.

  Momentarily secure from attack behind, he went to the cupboard. Pity it was so low. This meant that, when he had got the door open, he would have to duck to enter it, which would put him at a disadvantage with any foe. You can’t hit while you duck. The thing to do therefore would be to open the door and then step aside, wouldn’t it? And then if anythink came aht that you didn’t like—wang!

  There was a keyhole in the door. He put his ear to it. He heard nothing, but his ear was tickled by a cold draught. Next he tried his eye, with a similar result. He saw nothing, and his eye became instantly cold, as though a thin icy finger had been poked into it. All right. That was that—or them! Now for the acid test!

  Straightening himself, he took hold of the knob and gently turned it. Exercising more caution now, he did not this time subject the handle to any violence but softly and gingerly gave it a little pull. Crikey! This door wasn’t locked, either, and as it began to come towards him he quickly halted its movement. Then, after taking a deep breath, he pulled the door wide and sprang aside, his fists at the ready.

  Nothing came out at him. He waited till he heard footsteps coming along the basement passage, took another deep breath, and moved to the doorway.

  He peered into blackness. It was not the blackness of an ordinary cupboard; you can see hooks and shelves in that sort of blackness. It was the blackness of a tunnel, in which you can’t see anything. In fact, it was not a cupboard. It was a passage.

  Taking another deep breath, he entered the large black yawning mouth, and a moment after he had done so he became conscious of a queer change. Something seemed to have happened, but he had no idea what, and the first sign of the change was an abrupt blotting out of the sound of the footsteps outside the cellar. In spite of the urgency of his situation he jerked his head round, which brought him to the second sign; for gone, too, was the dim light of the cellar. Blackness now lay in his rear as well as ahead.

  The door had swung to behind him.

  ‘Gawd!’ he gasped. ‘’Oo done that?’

  He hoped the door itself had done it. Doors does close orl by theirselves sometimes, lummy, doesn’t they? But however this door had closed, whether by some peculiarity of its own or by less appealing human agency, it settled things. There was no more time for deep breaths.

  During the moments that followed Ben would have given a year of his life (if he had it to give, which seemed unlikely) for an electric torch. He had not even a match, and as he groped his way forward an old tune began to run round his mind. It ran round teasingly for several seconds before it dawned on him what the tune was. It was the tune of ‘“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly.’ This wasn’t the first time by a long chalk that Ben had been the fly, but he wished he could once be the spider, for a change!

  At first as he groped through the darkness his weaving hands met nothing but space, but soon his left hand contacted a wall, and the wall was so close that he abruptly veered off his course a little to the right. This brought his other hand against hard brick, and the sudden transition from width to narrowness gave him a suffocating feeling. The walls seemed to have advanced on him from either side with the intention of squeezing him flat. Happily they did not advance any farther, remaining separated by barely the width of his body, but the floor now began to give him concern, starting to slope away from beneath his feet, which he often put down without finding bottom. ‘Am I goin’ dahn ter ’Ell?’ he wondered. The next instant it seemed like it. The gradient increased abruptly, he tripped, and wherever he was going down to, he went down head first.

  The final stage of his journey was short but violently uncomfortable. He did not slide, he bumped, from which he gathered, while still in a condition to gather anything, that he was descending steps. Not soft, carpeted, cushiony steps, but hard unyielding steps, which hit him violently at every contact. He knew nothing of his arrival at the bottom. When consciousness returned he was lying face down on the ground, aching in every part of him, and with an odd disturbing sense of unnatural light somewhere round about.

  Why did the light seem unnatural? He had no idea. Nor had he any idea why, in spite of its unnaturalness, there was something familiar about it, bringing back a memory without the usual accompaniment of what the memory was of. Light. A light. He dwelt vacuously on the word. He knew that round the corner of his memory there was considerably more to dwell on, but all he was fit for just now was something simple, and what could be simpler than a monosyllable? So he went on dwelling on the word light; but soon he added the longer word, artificial. Well, of course it would be artificial light. It had to be, didn’t it, if he wasn’t out in the open? All right, then. He was lying on the floor, and the floor was artificially lit.

  Or—was it?

  Opening one eye a little wider, he squinted sideways into darkness. Where had the light gone? Had it ever been? ‘It wer’n’t no light,’ he decided. ‘It was jest stars. Yer gits ’em arter fallin’ dahn stairs, doncher?’ Falling down stairs. Yes, of course, he’d fallen down stairs, and the light he’d seen was jest the light yer sees arter the bump. That would explain why it had seemed both unnatural and familiar. Familiar because Ben had had countless bumps in his u
ncomfortable life, and unnatural because he had never really got used to them. So now the light was explained—he wouldn’t see that again—but not the stairs. Where had he fallen from?…

  Then he did see the light again. It was moving about him. And something—or somebody—was touching him. And now recollection came flooding back, developing that first unresolved memory on his return to consciousness. it was of the monnertrocity bending over the dead caretaker with an electric torch. And now was the monnertrocity bending over another caretaker with the torch? The other caretaker was Ben, though by a miracle not yet dead.

  A voice which now sounded above him, however, seemed uncertain on the point.

  ‘Is he finished?’ asked the voice.

  Ben recognised it. It was Smith’s.

  ‘Looks like it,’ came another. Would this be Smith’s companion? Whoever it was, Ben decided to go on looking like it. ‘A crash down these stairs ought to crack anybody’s skull!’

  ‘You’ve said it—though we’re talking about a thick one. He may be just unconscious.’

  ‘Let’s turn him over.’

  ‘No, not yet. If he’s dead he’s dead, and if he isn’t we don’t want him butting in for a bit.’

  ‘Do I get that?’

  ‘What’s the precise position here, constable?’

  Constable? Was this a bobby!

  ‘Now then, now then, I had quite enough of that last night!’

  Of course! The bogus one! That proved the second speaker to be Smith’s pal. Ben recognised the voice now, though it lacked the slow heaviness it had assumed in the role of policeman.

  ‘I asked you what the position was, George?’ repeated Smith.

  Smith’s pal—bogus bobby—George. All one. We’re learnin’!

  ‘How do I know the position,’ George retorted.

  ‘Exactly! You don’t know it, and I don’t know it, and Monkey-face can’t tell it!’

  Monkey-face?

  ‘And so now perhaps you’ve got it?’

  ‘You mean,’ said George, ‘we’d like to know more before we see the Chief?’

  ‘That,’ replied Smith, ‘is what I mean. I want to know what happened here? Wavell was supposed to ring me up, but he didn’t. Why didn’t he? I tried the office, but he hadn’t got back.’

  ‘Quick work, if he had.’

  ‘Yes, I dare say, if there was any hitch, but he shouldn’t have been here more than five minutes, and anyhow he was supposed to phone me immediately he left, from the corner. And this fellow—how did he get in here. Was that your doing, Monkey-face?’

  An incoherent gurgle, like a dumb man trying to speak, sent Ben’s heart down into his boots. Was Monkey-face the monnertrocity?

  ‘I’ve an idea, George,’ Smith’s voice went on, ‘that if there’s been any trouble, Monkey-face here may have had more than a little to do with it. He’s been running around loose, you know. Is that the Chief’s idea, or his?’

  ‘I don’t mind telling you,’ replied George, ‘that Monkey-face gives me the creeps! I can never get used to the knowledge that he can’t hear what we’re saying—and couldn’t reply if he did!’

  ‘He was wandering around last night.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘And he killed a cat.’

  ‘What did he do that for?’

  ‘Yes, what did you do it for, sweetheart? Case of one murder leads to another? Where I differ from you, Monkey-face, is that after I’ve had a go I like a bit of a rest, but once you start you can’t stop! Was that cat the last thing you got rid of, or have you had some more fun this morning? If this chap on the floor you’re eyeing so juicily isn’t dead, you’ll probably be given him as a final titbit—’

  ‘Yes, and if he isn’t dead,’ interrupted George, nervily, ‘he may be hearing all we’re saying! Suppose he is?’

  Smith gave a short laugh.

  ‘Well, Georgie, suppose he is?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘I heard you. But go on with it. Suppose he is hearing all we say. Don’t you trust him?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I did the time I last left him … No, don’t go, Monkey-face. If the Chief doesn’t come along, we’ll all beard him in his den together … That’s right!… Where was I? I trusted him the time I last left him, but I want to know what happened when Wavell and Black called to confirm it, and if we find he isn’t straight—so to put it—well, how do you suppose he is going to get away from this tomb with any knowledge we don’t want broadcast, once he’s got down here? He knows a packet, anyway, and whether he’s for us or against us I don’t imagine that the Chief intends him to stay in the land of the living once the present business is over.’

  ‘What beats me,’ said George, ‘is why he was ever brought into it.’

  ‘And what beats me, Constable George,’ retorted Smith, ‘is how the Chief and I have ever kept you on the staff! It hasn’t been for your brain-power—I suppose it’s just because you’re strong and obedient and willing, and know which side your bread’s buttered! You wonder why our friend Jones was brought into it? He wasn’t brought into it—he was already in it, on that park seat! I wasn’t going to knife the two of them. Besides, George, unlike you and Monkey-face, and even the Chief, I’m an artist. You would be ready to paint the same picture over and over again if it brought you in enough dough. I like variety—new methods—new technique. I travel, like the White Knight, equipped for all emergencies, and I fit my method to the moment. You may not believe it, but I enjoy our friend Jones, I delight in every second with him, and I divined this would be so when I first clapped eyes on him. Risk? Certainly. All true artists take risks, and I took the risk of the photograph. After all,’ added Smith, with amused irony, ‘we did need a new caretaker. But don’t get any wrong ideas about me. I may shed a private tear when Jones is put away, if his tumble hasn’t put him away already, but I won’t interfere. Monkey-face shall have him.’

  After a moment’s silence, George exclaimed, sarcastically, ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve finished?’

  ‘I believe I have,’ answered Smith, ‘although I could go on talking about Jones for ever. Come along. I hope we find the Chief in a good mood. I suppose one of us ought to stay behind with Jones, in case he comes to. Is Monkey-face to be trusted? In his present somewhat homicidal humour … Hallo! What was that?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘I thought I did—and so did Monkey-face, by his succulent expression. It sounded like a woman’s cry.’

  23

  Who’s the Lady?

  The three men standing above Ben nearly got the shock of their lives, for on hearing Smith’s last words the alleged corpse only saved itself from leaping into the air by a superhuman effort. If Smith’s ears had not deceived him and if he had truly heard a woman’s cry, there could be no doubt in Ben’s mind who the woman was.

  Fortunately the superhuman effort was successful, and Ben’s flattened form maintained its semblance of decease. He hoped that a little later he would deliver a surprise that would be a knock-out for the enemy, but if he delivered it now, the knock-out would be for himself and there would be no hope at all of saving Miss Bretherton. Therefore the surprise had to be postponed.

  After a short pause, the interrupted conversation was resumed.

  ‘It couldn’t have been,’ came George’s voice.

  ‘Why not?’ replied Smith.

  ‘What woman would it be? If Black’s got a wife, he’d hardly have brought her with him!’

  ‘He has got a wife, but she’s on the other side of the Iron Curtain.’

  ‘Oh! Is she?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘How can I know what I’m not told?’ retorted George, a note of sudden complaint in his tone.

  ‘True,’ admitted Smith sneeringly. ‘And of course you could never guess!’

  ‘Look here, I’ve had enough of your sarcasm! Give me any more and you’ll learn something you never guessed! Suppose,
for a change—what’s the matter!’

  ‘Monkey-face! Hold him!’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Blast! He’s gone!’

  Following the sound of a momentary scuffle, Ben heard once more the unpleasant spongy footsteps of the monnertrocity. As they faded away Smith swore, but his companion clearly had a different view of the departure.

  ‘Good riddance!’ said George. ‘Let him go! Maybe the Chief can use him, and anyhow we don’t want him here! We’re talking a bit freely, and have you ever thought the fellow may be shamming?’

  ‘I never waste time,’ returned Smith, ‘by thinking of impossible things.’

  ‘Bah! Nothing’s impossible down this hole! It’s not even impossible that the Chief doesn’t trust you and me, and that he uses Monkey-face as a private informer as well as a private executioner! Where the devil is he, and what’s he up to at this moment?’

  ‘He doesn’t usually come out to meet us.’

  ‘I know that. We have to go to him. And one time we may go to him and never come back—I’ve seen Monkey-face looking at me sometimes as if he was just waiting for the word go!’

  ‘George.’

  ‘Yeah? What are you smiling at? If you’ve got anything to say, shoot!’

  ‘I love you when you get all American. It sort of makes you feel tougher than you are, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, shut up—!’

  ‘Do you earn good money?’

  ‘So do you.’

  ‘Weren’t you rather worse than penniless when I introduced you here, and incidentally weren’t you also due for another little term of board and lodging at the Country’s expense? You can’t have your cake and eat it, George—and you can’t earn good money in our profession without risk. That’s why the money’s good.’

  George growled.

  ‘All right! Leave that, and let’s get back. There’s no harm in minimising the risk, is there? What’s this about the Iron Curtain? And Black’s wife?’