The Stone-­Cold Dead in the Market Affair - Oram John. Страница 7

Getting a toehold among the rough stones, he pulled himself up and with a hand cupped over the lens of the flashlight examined the top of the yard wall for possible alarm wires. There was none. A second later he was in the yard.

By this time the moon was well up. He thanked his stars that the sky was cloudy. A clear night would have been fatal. He hugged the wall for a space, getting his bearings. Fifty feet away was a Dutch barn, half full of hay. If he could make that safely it was an easy step, all in shadow, to the shelter of the macrocarpas around the house. Offering up a prayer against shepherd dogs and watchmen, as soon as the moon passed behind a cloud drift he sprinted.

It was then that he got his second taste of the amenities of Cwm Carrog. And this time it shook him.

He had just made it to the barn and was cuddling the hay when it came — a ghastly sound that began with a low sobbing wail and rose to a long-drawn-out hysterical scream with insane laughter in it. It sounded as if a dozen cougars had sat down suddenly on the same number of electric stoves. Illya could feel every one of the hairs on his scalp rising individually and icy fingers played along his backbone.

The cry died away into broken moaning. Illya strained his ears but nobody in the house seemed to be paying any attention. Not a light went on. The only sound now was the whisper of the wind through the barn. He got a grip on himself and went on, picking his steps carefully. He did not want to tangle with trip wires or spring guns, and Mr. Price Hughes was evidently a considerable joker.

At last he was on the father side of the trees, looking up at the house. He could see six windows, three up and three down, all shuttered tightly.

He scouted along to the left and found himself at the back of the premises. Here, too, the windows were close-shuttered. The blackness was relieved only by one of the fiery tortoises, which was pottering about moodily. Illya tried the solid-looking door. It had no latch or handle. Nothing but some kind of patent lock that fit flush. He ran his hand over the surface of the door. It was cold metal.

Suddenly the howling started again, this time apparently right overhead. Illya looked up. There was nothing to see but the dark oblongs of the windows, like sightless eyes, and the denser shadow of the overhanging eaves.

The noise went through the same routine, a crescendo shriek dying away into sobbing. When it stopped there was no sound but the wind in the trees.

Illya grinned. He had the answer to Winnie the Wailer though he couldn't quite place her hideout. That could come later.

He was working around the end of the third wall to the front of the house when he heard a car approaching. Across a widish gravel drive, facing the main entrance, there was a clump of laurels. He nipped among them quickly.

The purr of the engine got louder. Headlights swept the drive. The car, a big sedan, stopped. A man got out, held the rear door wide. After an interval two more men appeared.

The door of the house opened. Light streamed out brightly, enabling Illya to get a look at the new arrivals.

The man who had got out of the driver's seat was a stocky, broad-shouldered character, clean-shaven, with horn-rimmed spectacles and a mean expression. The second had a skinny frame, nutcracker nose and chin, and a high-domed skull with just a fringe of white hair above the ears. The third man was Huge ap Morgan.

Illya took a sub-miniature camera from the inside pocket of his windbreaker. It had a special lens and was loaded with supersensitive sixteen mm. film capable of getting pictures in almost total darkness. Illya checked with his fingertips on the Braille-type indicator that the focus was set at twelve feet. Then he photographed the group and then each man in turn.

Morgan went around to the back of the car, unlocked the trunk and dragged out two heavy suitcases. He took one in each hand and lugged them with some difficulty into the hall. The other two men hurried after him and the door swung shut.

It opened again a minute later. The stocky man reappeared, got into the car and drove it around the yard.

Illya decided to call it a night. He had plenty to think about and there was no use straining the luck.

Getting out of Cwm Carrog was no trick. He went out the front way — along the edge of the drive to the lane — then walked uphill to the place where he had left the knapsack. He picked up the sack but left his sneakers on. When he had walked about half a mile he changed them for his shoes, climbed over the lone wall and nested down among the bracken for the remainder of the night.

At first light he worked his cramped muscles into a state approaching normal, climbed the hill to the ring of pines and hiked down into Corwen from the other side.

Illya timed his arrival at the hotel for a late breakfast. Since he had to pay for it he thought he might as well eat it. Afterward he had a hot bath and changed into more civilized clothes. Then he hung a sign outside his bedroom door: Do not disturb, and went to work on the film.

At noon he left the hotel and hunted out David Davis. He found the old man sitting hopefully on a bench outside a small beerhouse. He took him inside, propped him against the bar with a pint in front of him, and produced one of the prints he had made that morning. It showed the thin man with the nutcracker features.

Illya said, "Do you know this man?"

Mr. Davis cackled. "Der! There's a joker you are. Making me tell you all about him — and all the time you do know him well enough to carry his picture. Yes, indeed. Mr. Price Hughes himself. A speaking likeness."

Illya put a pound note in his willing palm. He said, without optimism, "Forget I ever mentioned him."

Down at the post office he met an official obviously fitted for bigger things. Without asking too many questions he got an ex-directory number in Newport and handed Illya the receiver.

Blodwen's voice said, "How're they coming, my Russian cousin?"

"Like gold," he said happily. "Has Solo arrived?"

"He's here now — punishing my Scotch. Want to talk to him?"

"Not right now. Tell him I'm sending some pictures by special delivery. I want them checked."

"The hunch came off?"

"And how! I've found a bunch of weirdies living the simple life behind bullet-proof doors — with aeolian harps and livestock in gorgeous Technicolor to keep the locals at bay."

She said, "And what the hell is a you-know-what harp?"

"Oh, that! It's a quaint gadget of piano wires or guitar strings. You fix it some place where the wind can blow through it and it sounds like slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Just the thing for the baby's nursery."

There was a pause. Then Solo's voice came over the wire. He said, "Nice work, Illya. But play it cool."

Illya grinned into a fly-specked mirror tilted above the switchboard. "I won't life a finger till the gang arrives. Just a unit in one great army, that's me."

He put a bunch of prints into a distinctively colored envelope, gave the postal official some instructions, and walked out into the sunshine.

Chapter Six

Illya pottered around the town for the rest of the day, looking in at the cattle market, buying picture postcards, sharing the joys and sorrows of the granddads on the bowling green. He let it be generally understood that he was a footloose Canadian with no more on his mind than a few days' relaxation. David Davis might have his own ideas, but as long as the free beer held out, Illya didn't think he would talk.

Around dusk he went back to the hotel. The landlord said there had been no messages for him. He ate a leisurely dinner and spent the rest of the evening in the bar. Neither David Davis nor Hugh ap Morgan showed up. At ten o'clock he shut himself in the telephone box in the lobby and dialed Blodwen's number.