The Stone-­Cold Dead in the Market Affair - Oram John. Страница 6

The indications were that Cwm Carrog should be inspected without delay. The wailing wonder intrigued him.

After an early lunch of Welsh lamb and all the trimmings Illya went up to his rooms and changed his suit for a black sweater, black windbreaker and dark gray flannel slacks. A flashlight and a pair of rubber-soled sneakers went into the knapsack he carried for form's sake.

He walked downstairs to the office and got general sailing directions from the landlord. He told him he was planning a long hike and would not be back until late next day.

The landlord made him pay for his room in advance.

Chapter Five

It was a five-mile hike to the foot of Berwyn. Illya had plenty of time, so he took it easy.

The road led through two neat little villages, all lime-wash and slate roofs, with shops and inns hardly distinguishable in size or appearance from the cottages. Between the hamlets he had the Dee on one side of him and woodland on the other. There was plenty to see, including a couple of patient herons on the river bank and an old forsaken church that might have been St. David's original curacy.

At last, on the farther outskirts of the second village, he found himself looking up at the great rounded mass of Berwyn. Its lower slopes were thick with pines. The upper reaches were all bracken and heather, with a curious ring of firs like a crown on top. He could see a white cottage or two but nothing that looked like a sizable farm.

He crossed an iron footbridge over a stream that might have been the Carrog and took a narrow lane which climbed up the hillside. It was bordered by high hazed hedges and crowding close were the pines, thousands of them. Once he had got started the only sound was the crunch of flints under his boots. He felt as if he were clattering along the aisle of a cathedral.

After he had been climbing for about thirty minutes he began to wonder whether there was anything in old man Davis' tales. The green stillness was uncanny. It was as if all those damned trees were watching him.... waiting for something....

He was glad when they thinned out and the hedges gave way to unmortared stone walls, letting in the wind and the sunlight. Behind the walls he could hear sheep crashing about in the miniature jungle of bracken fern. At least he hoped they were sheep. The way his nerves were, he would not have been surprised if a brace of pixies had sneaked up on him.

A few minutes more brought him to the end of the bracken belt and also to a gate in the wall. Tired of the flinty lane he pushed the gate open and trudged on among the heather, keeping the wall on his right-hand side. The going was more slippery but not so hard on his aching feet.

He was now nearing the skyline. Just in case of accidents he got closer to the wall and moved forward more cautiously.

It was as well that he did. Over the shoulder of the hill some hundreds of feet below, he saw what could only be Cwm Carrog. He dropped flat and studied the farm.

There was the usual assemblage of barns and pens, only larger than seemed usual in the neighborhood. The farmhouse itself was a square-built gray structure, almost hidden on three sides by ancient macrocarpas. In the westering sunlight it looked unbelievably sinister. There was no sign of life in the yard or around the buildings.

Illya crawled back to the safe side of the hill and thoughtfully chewed a blade of grass. This lone expedition was beginning to look less and less attractive.

Not that he was frightened, but he was slightly out of his depth. Most of his assignments had previously been in cities, with trucks and cars making a friendly murmuring background to his investigation. It's pretty hard to take ghosts seriously under such conditions. Cwm Carrog was something else again. At the very least, if his suspicions were confirmed, he stood a fair chance of getting his teeth kicked in by Mr. Price Hughes's proteges. At worst — well, sitting there on the bare hillside in territory where folks were still apt to put out bowls of bread and milk for night-prowling goblins, he was prepared to believe that anything could happen.

The sun called it a day and sank behind a convenient mountain. Out of the pines far below a silver mist came up like a sea. A chilly night breeze began to hunt for Illya's spine through windbreaker and sweater. Sheep bleated forlornly.

Illya crawled up to take another look at Cwm Carrog. It was already half submerged in the mist. He decided zero hour had come.

The journey down that hillside was to remain forever one of his major nightmares. By day it would have been easy enough but in the near-darkness he had plenty of troubles.

At first the wall was a guide but when the last of the light had faded it became a menace. Many of the top stones had fallen among the heather. Illya found them every time, and every time he took a dive. Seen on the movies it would have been a riot, but somehow he missed the comic angle. He dared not use his flashlight, and if he got too far from the wall he lost his bearings. And at any minute he expected to hear the whine of a bullet heading in his direction, especially when he got down among the bracken. No matter how cautiously he trod, the stuff crackled like a forest fire with every step. He could only hope that Mr. Hughes's sentries, if he had posted any, would blame the sheep.

When he was near enough to get the full bouquet of the Cwm Carrog cow pens he called a halt and sat down. He was almost through the bracken, which was now no more than knee-high. Before he started across the paddock he needed a rest.

A hint of moonrise in the east warned him that he would have to get going again. Already it was light enough for him to see ahead the outline of the farmyard wall, a shed or two, and the great macrocarpas looming black against the sky.

He slipped off his walking shoes and took the sneakers and flashlight out of his knapsack. He clipped the flashlight to his belt, packed the shoes in the knapsack, slung the bag over his shoulder again.

As he was lacing the sneakers he got his first jolt. It was a light — a cold greenish light about as big as a fair-sized grapefruit. And it was moving slowly along the base of the farmyard wall. Suddenly it stopped, wavered, changed direction and came uphill toward him. It moved with a queer jerky roll.

There was only one thing to do. Illya crossed his fingers, said stoutly, "Ghosts are only your father, like Santa Claus," and went to meet it.

It came on unsteadily, a wobbling disembodied eye, glowing weirdly.

When it got within reach Illya grabbed.

His hand blotted out the light. Closed on something hard and smooth. The thing stopped, went dead under his grasp.

Wriggling closer so that he got it under cover of his body, Illya fumbled with his free hand for the flashlight and pressed the button.

The beam stabbed briefly, flooding a small tortoise. Some humorist had thought up the idea of painting its shell with phosphorescent paint. Illya let it go and lay still. After a minute or so a puzzled crustacean wobbled off to spread panic and despondency elsewhere.

Illya pressed on, much heartened. The tete-a-tete had not only put paid to David Davis' fairy tales, it had also proved that whatever funny business was going on at Cwm Carrog, it had human brains behind it. In a way Illya was disappointed. If luminous tortoises were the best the Price Hughes faction could do they didn't come in the same class with some of the gangs he had bucked.

Between the edge of the bracken and the yard wall there was a short stretch of open turf. Illya covered it very slowly like Napoleon's army. On his belly.

Once safe in the shadow of the wall he straightened up and felt his way back to where it joined the lane wall. He tucked his knapsack away in the angle, where he could find it again. It was too awkward to lug around on his sleuthing. On the other hand he did not fancy the long hike back to Corwen in sneakers.