The Dancing Druids

Chapter Twenty

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‘Alas, dear sir… yonder lies the granite rock where all the costly diamonds grow.’

Ibid. (The Salad)

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The strange sounds heard by O’Hara were those of Denis and George descending into the cave. The jump into the inspection pit had been a strategic measure calculated to confuse the enemy, but it could not do more than throw him mentally off-balance for a moment or two.

This moment on which George had counted was lengthened by several seconds whilst the man fired six shots after them into the pit, but the opening into the cave was under the right-hand side of the hole and they had ducked in before the second shot was fired.

Regardless of what might be ahead of them, they switched on torches and were soon on a flight of stone steps which led down to a long ramp and ended in front of the packing-cases in the cave.

The Irishmen, from their hiding-place, were astounded to hear Denis’ voice, as he called back to George:

‘I can’t see a thing, and heaven knows what we do next. Hide somewhere, I suppose, and put up a fight if we’re followed. I’m not so sure I think much of our chances, you know.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said O’Hara, shining his torch. ‘Here are two good men to come to the aid of the party.’

There was mutual recognition and rejoicing, and adventurous accounts were exchanged among the three young men whilst the middle-aged one, working in silence, removed first the twine and then a board from the packing-case behind which he sheltered to find out what was inside.

‘Can’t think why nobody followed us down,’ said Denis.

‘If the chap fired six shots he’s had to reload, I expect, and that may have meant returning to the shack. If that’s where he went, I expect he’s taking counsel with the fellow whose boat we’ve borrowed, and whom you laid out,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I should think that bloke’s had a sticky evening, throttled by Mike, beaten up by his pals and then knocked out by you. By the way, what’s happened to George?’

‘Sir,’ said George, ‘I have succeeded in prising open one of these packing-cases with my file. I think that, whilst we are still undisturbed, we should look to see what is inside. I feel that madam would be interested.’

Before he had concluded these observations the young men were shining their torches into the packing-case.

‘Good Lord!’ said Denis. ‘The thing’s full of pictures, I think! Framed pictures, too, by the feel of them. Here, let’s have one out.’

‘Pictures?’ said O’Hara, doubtfully regarding the object drawn forth by Denis.

‘Yes, of course. Done up in sacking and packed between shavings. You can feel the edges of the frames. It must be pictures. No one would smuggle mirrors out of the country. Besides, this isn’t heavy enough for glass. They’re oils, I suppose. I wonder what’s the idea?’

Scarcely had he spoken when there was the sound of persons descending from the garage, and at the same time there were shouts (from the mouth of the cave) which came booming in the ears of the listeners.

The young men and George crouched low and prepared for battle. George had his file, a tasty weapon in skilled hands; O’Hara depended upon his fists; Gascoigne was limbering up, in a surreptitious way behind his packing-case, a limb of Attic shapeliness whose merit, as he saw it, was its ability to deliver, when called upon to do so, a French kick in the face ; the wiry Denis was still possessed of George’s spanner, and had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

There was a considerable amount of confusion at the mouth of the cave. The boat left by Gascoigne and O’Hara was in the way of the motor boat which was bringing the enemy in, and an argument was in progress which came, with sound and fury, but without recognizable words, hollowly to the young men and George.

Suddenly down the ramp at the landward end, from the garage, appeared two men, the second one carrying a lantern. O’Hara leapt out and smashed his fist into the first face. Denis went for the lantern and knocked it out of the second man’s hand by tapping him hard on the elbow with the spanner. George, with a neat flick, smacked his file across the side of the fellow’s neck, and then Denis pulled out a whistle and blew three police blasts on it.

The effect on the men at the mouth of the cave was instantaneous. There was a bellowing sound suggestive of panic-stricken orders. The next moment the engine of the motor boat was started up again and the enemy put back to sea.

‘You’ve spoilt the fight!’ grumbled Gascoigne, picking up the twine which had been tied round one of the packing-cases, and kneeling by the prisoners to secure them.

‘Can’t help that,’ said Denis, who was practical. ‘Our job is to get these packing-cases away before any more of those chaps turn up. The thing is, what to do with these two fellows.’

‘I’ve frisked them, sir,’ said George, who was helping Denis. ‘You’d better take their guns.’ He handed these over.

Behind an ubiquitous hedge Laura and Mrs. Bradley were deciding which of them should go to the police and which should remain to watch the cartshed.

Morning was broadening before they came to any conclusion, but Laura had her own way, in the end, and remained in hiding whilst her employer walked back towards the stones on her way to the village of Upper Deepening from which the buses went to Cuchester and to Welsea Beaches.

Mrs. Bradley took the Welsea bus with the intention of contacting the nearest police station. Laura, left alone, prowled restlessly up and down the hedge, keeping low so as not to be seen above it, and prayed that adventure might follow.

It did, in dramatic fashion, for at just after eight o’clock by Laura’s wristwatch a small lorry drove into the farmyard from out of the wood and pulled up opposite the cartshed.

‘They’re going to remove the evidence,’ thought Laura. ‘Mrs. Croc. knew it, and that’s why she wanted to stay. Now what should I do for the best?’

With Laura, deeds came an easy first and planning a fairish second. Almost before the question had presented itself, she was crawling towards the gap in the hedge where the gate was, and then, rising to her feet, switch in hand, was strolling carelessly down the hill towards the farm.

It was soon certain that her presence had been perceived, for, at the bottom of the hill, where the ploughland gave way to the farmyard, stood a nonchalant man with a piece of grass in his mouth who stepped out in front of her and said :

‘No way through here, miss. Back the way you come, if you don’t mind.’

‘Oh, rot!’ said Laura boldly. ‘I’ve been this way dozens of times.’ Without further argument she walked on. The man jumped ahead of her.

‘I said you can’t come this way!’ he said, speaking sharply.

‘But why not?’ asked Laura, stopping. ‘Has the farm changed hands or something? Nobody stopped me before.’

‘Well, I’m stopping you now,’ said the man. Laura shrugged and turned away. Mrs. Bradley, she sadly decided, would have thought of a dozen ways of dealing successfully with this sort of thing. She herself could think of nothing except the possibility of turning round suddenly and poking the man in the eye with the switch she had cut from the hedge. But that, although desirable from one point of view (for she disliked the man very much, and resented his victory over her), would scarcely, in the long run, have helped her very much, and this she realized.

She thought fast when once she had turned about, and then, as though she were hurrying from sheer bad temper, she tore up the hill at top speed. When she reached the boundaries of her hedge she still stalked on. When she knew that the man could no longer see her, she swung off in a slant and followed the line of the hedge to where the pasture ended and the dark woods met the arable land beyond. There she slid into cover like an wolf, and paused to survey the landscape.

She was on the edge of the circular wood beyond the farmyard, and had soon descended past the disused Army hut and into the winding lane. She turned towards the farm-buildings, but was in time to retreat into the wood and see the small lorry drive away. It had to pass her, and, as it slowed at the bend (for the lane was extremely narrow), she was able to ascertain, from her position among the thick trees, that only one man was in it. Automatically she registered the number on the back, and then she came into the road and began to run.

What her intention was she scarcely knew. Instinctively she felt that she had to find out whither the lorry was bound, and whether the head and hands had been put aboard it.

By the time she had rounded the bend the lorry had gone. She toiled on until she came to the house with the four dead trees. The telegraph wires to the house gave her inspiration.

She went in at the first entrance she came to, and knocked on the door. The teak-countenanced Sorensen opened it. He scowled when he saw her, and said very briefly:

‘No admittance!’

‘I know! I know!’ said Laura hurriedly. ‘But I’ve got to use your telephone. May I come in? Where is it?’

To her surprise, the man made way for her at once, and then, overtaking her, guided her along the passage and opened the door of the office. Laura went in, found the room empty, seized the telephone, called up the police in Cuchester and gave the number of the lorry. The sound of the key being turned in the lock of the door did not perturb her.

‘To do any real good, they ought to have cut the telephone wires,’ she thought. ‘Anyway, I’m on the ground floor.’

She rang up the police again, and informed them that she was a prisoner at Cottam’s. Then she hung up, and walked across to the window. Outside was young Sisyphus Cassius with a short, thick, ugly cosh in his hand. He swung it and grinned nastily at her. He had not, it was clear, forgotten the morning on the beach, in spite of his attempt to redeem himself. Laura opened the window.

‘I wouldn’t risk it,’ said Ivor. ‘The film people are all on location. Had early breakfast and went off by lorry and in cars, all the whole boiling of them. There’s nobody here but you and me and the fellow who let you in, and he won’t interfere. My dad has him where he wants him.’

‘You wretched little thug!’ said Laura. She would have said more, but at that moment the door opened and Sorensen put in his head.

‘I wouldn’t give him much chance to use the cosh,’ he said, almost kindly. ‘The police might as well find you all in one piece, don’t you think?’

‘Agreed,’ said Laura. She sauntered away from the window. Sorensen shut the door in her face and locked it from the outside, and she heard him walk away. Laura looked round the room for a weapon, and suddenly found herself face to face with her own portrait, which was hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. She studied it with great interest, for she realized, almost immediately, that this was not the portrait for which she had sat, but a very inferior copy.

Laura, although headstrong and rash, was highly intelligent. She could put two and two together as fast and as accurately as most people, and she put two and two together now. That David Battle was in some way associated with the men who had a morbid interest in the Nine Stones had been a tenable theory for some time past. That there was some connection between these men and the house with the four dead trees was an equally acceptable hypothesis. That the art of painting was inextricably bound up with the mysterious disappearances of three men could be argued with some success. That the man who had ordered the pulling out of the leaning stone was capable, if not of murder, at least of deeds in cold blood which Laura still shuddered to remember, had been proved by his strange and horrible removal of the head and hands of the man whom the vengeful stone had fallen upon and killed.

‘Ergo,’ said Laura, ‘there’s something dashed funny about the business of copying my portrait—apart, of course, from the fact that the subject-matter is quite funny, I suppose, in itself. Now how do those frames Mrs. Bradley spotted at David Battle’s fit in?’

She swung round at the sound of the door being opened again. This time, to her great surprise, Sorensen said (and still in his former friendly tones) :

‘You’d better run along now; we’re done with you for a bit.’

‘Thank you,’ Laura replied. She followed him out of the room, and was meditating whether it would be possible (and, if possible, whether it would also be useful) to leap on his neck from the back as they walked in Indian file down the passage, when he forestalled any experiments on her part by swinging round on her and blocking up the passage with his heavy frame, as he said:

‘Now then, no nonsense!’ To Laura, conversant as she was with Mrs. Bradley’s theories of unrehearsed behaviour, this remark was a sign of fear. She looked the man in the eye.

‘Now then, no hysterics,’ she said. ‘I’m going quietly, aren’t I?’ Sorensen did not reply. He merely turned quickly and led the way towards the side door.

‘Get out!’ he said. ‘And as quick as ever you can.’

‘Why?’ enquired Laura. ‘Surely you’re not afraid of the police?’

‘Get out!’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘We did not ask you to come.’ Laura did not wait to be told a third time, but, as the front door opened, she saw a shadow move upon the wall. Sorensen laughed as he slammed the door. Laura swung herself aside, and, as the cosh ascended, ready to be brought down across her skull, she turned and caught young Cassius a full-arm back-hander across the nose and mouth, and then flung herself upon him. There was the dull impact of body upon body, and the advantage lay with Laura.

She was heavier than her adversary and had the whip hand of the situation, which she had diagnosed with savage swiftness. Sisyphus went down, with her on top. Dazed and bruised, nevertheless she recovered first, and, picking up the cosh which he had dropped, she hurled it over the tops of the nearest trees.

‘Now, you little beast, I’m going to scrag you properly, once and for all,’ she said. She forgot Sorensen, still in the house. Her blood was up. She fell upon the hapless Sisyphus, punched him hard in the wind, and, as he sagged, she smacked her hand hard across his eyes. A boxing brother had taught her, and a natural gift for in-fighting helped out the teaching. It was not a pretty spectacle which she left blubbering on the unweeded gravel path.

‘You filthy little beast!’ she said.

As she sped through the gate she heard a curdled, ancient laughter, and realized that the old man with the barrow (in which he was now taking his ease) had been a delighted spectator of Ivor Cassius’ (or Concaverty’s) downfall.

‘So what?’ thought Laura, trotting happily back along the road. ‘Whose side are you on, Gunga Din?’