Death by the Mistletoe (22 page)

Miss Dwyer looked around the room in a frightened, furtive manner.

“I want to tell you certain things,” she whispered. “I want to help justice and the law. And yet I am afraid. If they find out I am telling you … ”

Her voice trailed off.

“Nobody will know,” said James. “Nobody will find out.”

“I can trust you? … I knew I could. Oh, I was afraid to tell any of the others. Even the police may be in league with these awful people in the cave. That white-robed man is still hammering at my brain, trying to blur again what I have learned. I have to struggle to keep a grip of myself … It’s ghastly!”

She covered her face with her hands.

‘‘I understand,” said James quietly. He was thinking about his own knowledge of the terrible hypnotic power of the “well-meaning ones.” “But don’t hesitate to tell me. You are safe. Your uncle, your servants and the police won’t allow anyone to hurt you.”

“I don’t know … Oh, I don’t know.” Miss Dwyer’s eyes were round and staring. “Come beside me, please. I have been terrified ever since my uncle sent for you. He has told me about the cult, and about your search for their secret shrine. Mr. MacLean and he were discussing it.”

She stretched out her hands. James was suddenly overwhelmed with pity for her plight. He thought he knew what mental agony she must be suffering, following the effects of the death-marked man’s evil influence. He felt he wanted to comfort her and reassure her. He rose, took her hands and sat down beside her on the divan. She leaned back, sighing.

“Hold my hands,” she said. “You are strong. You have courage … I feel better now.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Miss Dwyer hesitated for a moment. Then she spoke softly, carefully.

“I was left alone in the drawing-room at Dalbeg, when Eileen rushed out to discover the meaning of the shot. Suddenly the windows swung open, and … oh, a huge man, with a ghastly white face and staring eyes stood against the darkness. He beckoned to me, and I could but follow. We went in the car — your car, I believe, Mr. MacPherson — with Professor Campbell and — and the others. We tramped through the cave … What darkness and strange sounds! And then the white-robed man who had captured the Professor was left alone with us in the side-cave. He told us to forget — not to remember anything for a week. And — oh, I can’t explain it — I just forgot everything until this morning. I don’t know why I was able to wake up sooner than in a week. They may have underestimated my resistance. When you came to rescue us in the cave I had an idea in my head that you were my enemies. I could not think clearly. And so I screamed, terrified … What awful power have they? What is the meaning of it all? It is like a terrible dream.”

Her eyes were filled with fear, and her lips were trembling.

“There is something else I want to tell you too. Perhaps it may help your friends in their work. But first … have you discovered the secret shrine of the cult in Blaan?

She clasped James’s hands more closely. All about her was the essence of the sweet perfume, the faint traces of which he had first noticed in the room. In this new setting it did not seem cloying any longer. Instead, it sent the blood throbbing in his veins and stirred a new emotion in his heart. Her eyes met his, and the muscles stood out taut along his jaw. She was alluring … lovely … the embodiment of perfect womanhood. There was an invitation in her trembling mouth, and in the quick grasp of her hands. Against the billowing cushions she seemed small, desirable and … desiring. James struggled against the strange new tumult in his body. He was forgetting. He was forgetting the bleak house and the sunless room. He was forgetting the “well-meaning ones,” the police. He was forgetting Eileen. He strove to keep the memory of her sweetness and purity in his mind — the memory of her fresh beauty and the innocence of her eyes. He strove until the beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and he began to tremble. But Millicent Dwyer’s eyes held his; and they were compelling, longing, promising.

“We have not discovered the shrine,” he said, and his voice was low and strained. “What do you want to tell me?”

She did not answer at once, but leaned back lower amid the blue cushions.

“James,” she whispered at last, “I will tell you later. Just now I need comfort … I need your strength. I am weak and tired of trying to remember. And I am so afraid … Haven’t the police found out the shrines in other places? Please tell me! If I only knew that they had, I should be so much happier.”

Her arms, soft and warm, encircled his neck. He bent forward, and the subtle fragrance of the perfume seemed to grow stronger, as if it emanated from her breast. He put out his hand and touched her hair. He saw the loose sleeve of her frock fall back, revealing the white roundness of her arm, as she slowly pulled him closer to her. Outside the bees were still humming.

“Tell me,” she whispered softly, insistently. “Then we can … forget.”

He was still trying weakly to resist. He bent lower, about to speak. Those eyes … those eyes. They were so lovely … so lovely!

God!

But they were lovely no longer. They were green eyes. This was not love and desire which was sapping his strength. This was not love. They were green eyes. Millicent Dwyer’s eyes were the eyes of O’Hare — the eyes of Balor.

And as he realised that they were incredibly evil he grew cold and stiff, and in a quick rush the foreboding that had troubled him not half an hour before possessed his mind in its full vigour. They were trying to get at him again. They were trying to learn the secrets of the police. This woman had been fooling him. She had been acting, acting, acting! What a fool he had been! What fools the police had been! But, thank God, he had seen the evil in Millicent Dwyer’s eyes in time!

“No,” he lied, speaking distinctly. “No other shrines have been discovered.”

There was a sudden sharp
click
behind him. Tearing the clinging arms from around him, he leapt to his feet. Miss Dwyer chuckled; and had she been a man James would have cursed her.

When he turned he jumped back like a cat. Where the small bookcase had been a black hole now gaped in the wall. He could see steps leading down from the entrance, down into the very bowels of the earth. In front of the yawning cavern stood O’Hare and the giant whose knife had wounded James in the cave. Their dark faces leered malignantly. Mr. Anderson Ellis, stood, stiff as a ramrod, by the door. He was dressed in a dark suit, and his emaciated face glowed with some fanatic purpose.

“Be off with him!” he snapped.

*

In a few seconds before he acted a confused mass of thoughts whirled through James’s brain. He was caught like a rat in a trap: that was clear. There was no chance of escape from the room save by the guarded entrances. But … but he would show them a thing or two when it came to fighting!

The meaning of the black hole in front of him and of the dummy bookcase was now as clear as daylight. How blind and easily gulled both the police and he had been! It had never occurred to them to suspect Lagnaha House as being the proof of Major Dallas’s theory of the secret entrance to the Piper’s Cave. And yet, when he came to think of it, the place ought from the first to have been an object of some suspicion at least. The Rev. Archibald Allan’s body had been found on the main road, close to the Lagnaha Avenue. Mr. Anderson Ellis had done his best to suggest the “death by lightning” idea, during the first police investigations, and had scoffed at the theory of murder. Then there was Miss Dwyer’s scream when Detective-Inspector McKay and he had leaped into the side-cave.

Obviously she had accompanied the “well-meaning ones” to the Piper’s Cave as a blind and to divert suspicion from Lagnaha House.

His stolen car, too, had been found in a side road not half a mile from Lagnaha House. And James remembered the handkerchief with the laundry-mark, E19. Who could tell but that Mr. Anderson Ellis himself had come to fetch his niece from the Dalbeg drawing-room and had dropped it as they fled across the garden together? Her apparent loss of memory, too, had been a mere subterfuge to allow her freedom from police questioning, and had also effectively served the purpose of preventing the suspicions of the authorities from falling upon her uncle and herself. She would have made a magnificent actress … Further, there was a large staff of menservants in Lagnaha House, the personnel of which was always changing. Might not these people, as a matter of fact, be the cave-dwellers, taking their fresh air and exercise in relays? Might their numbers not include messengers from other branches of the cult throughout the kingdom?

Everything had to be considered from a new aspect now that the scales had been forcibly tom from his eyes. If only he had discovered Mr. Anderson Ellis’s secret in other circumstances! If only he could get back to tell the police! But … it was too late.

There was only one patch of brightness in the dark. The Fiscal, with a lack of caution for which he could not in the circumstances be wholly blamed, had told Mr. Anderson Ellis something at least of the authorities’ knowledge of the cult. But it was clear from the questions which had been put to him by Miss Dwyer that the “well-meaning ones” were still unaware that every secret shrine in the country, save the one in Blaan, had been located, and that vast police preparations, based upon these discoveries, were being made for Wednesday night. And James, by good luck, had been able to keep such facts hidden, and even to strengthen an erroneous belief in the minds of the cult.
Na
Daoine
Deadh Ghinn
, therefore, would, he thought, proceed with their plans to carry out the lesser Festival at the accustomed time and places. But he grew hot as he realised how close a woman had brought him to giving away the vital secret.

Then another thought struck him. Was he himself to be a victim, a sacrifice at the Festival in Blaan on the following night? The sudden dreadful suspicion sent the blood throbbing in his temples, and he went berserk, like a cornered stag. While the fleeting thoughts were streaming through his mind he had been standing motionless on the hearthrug, his sloping shoulders hunched, waiting for the attack of O’Hare and his companion. But now, as his breathing became laboured and a red light danced before his eyes, he took the initiative.

His face was white as death, and the red weal of the knife-wound stood out plainly on his left cheek. His hair was like a cloud of flame above his high forehead. He leapt at O’Hare.

Miss Dwyer screamed shrilly. She had chuckled at James’s surprise at the appearance of the men in the room, imagining that he would submit without a struggle; but now she was terrified at the desperate purpose in his eyes.

But James’s last fight with O’Hare was not yet to be. Numbers were against him. He closed with the big man, and let loose a tearing left swing. The blow struck O’Hare on the side of the jaw and he staggered back, cursing. His companion caught James round the waist in a bear-grip, endeavouring to throw him. They swayed, stamping on the soft pile of the grey carpet. But James caught his opponent’s chin and forced his head back and back, until the bear-grip loosened.

“Damn it!” exclaimed Mr. Anderson Ellis, standing watchful by the door. “Can neither of you great oafs subdue him?”

But now O’Hare had recovered from the shock of James’s first assault, and had circled behind him. His great hands closed about the throat of his victim, and he placed his knee cruelly in the small of his back. He pulled, and his arms were as strong as steel springs. James reeled headlong to the floor. O’Hare kicked him in the side as he lay, winded.

“Tie him up!” Mr. Anderson Ellis’s voice was like a whip-lash. “Don’t stand there gloating!”

O’Hare had the necessary cord in his pocket. James’s wrists were lashed behind him. They raised him to his feet, and prepared to lead him through the entrance to the cave. He was trembling and had some difficulty in breathing. A great centre of pain throbbed in his side where O’Hare’s shoe had struck.

Miss Dwyer rose sinuously from the divan. She stood, hands on hips, in front of him.

“Shall I come and visit you in the night?” she mocked, smiling.

“You’re not a woman,” said James quietly.

She slapped him stingingly on the wounded cheek; but he did not heed the pain. He had already plumbed the lowest depths of humiliation. Would he ever see Eileen again to ask her forgiveness for his weakness?

*

The flight of steps leading down into the darkness was a little damp and the air was musty. James was guided by O’Hare and the other giant, both of whom gripped an arm tightly. O’Hare had a torch which lit the way before them. The bookcase door had clicked shut soon after they had begun to descend the steps, and for some time James heard the fading murmur of talk between Miss Dwyer and her uncle, who had remained behind in the perfumed room.

After a while, when they had reached the foot of the steps, he saw that the masonry of the walls had given place to solid rock. The cave resembled exactly its Kiel entrance, except for the fact that the floor here was formed of cement. Soon, however, the cement, too, was replaced by the usual loose gravel. On and on they marched, until James’s feet and legs ached, and his spirit was almost broken. Once or twice he faltered in his stride, and his captors, who seemed accustomed to walking on the shelving surface, shook him roughly, growling curses and threats.

James realised that he must make an effort to keep his mind off his dreadful position or else go mad. He struggled to view affairs and events calmly and dispassionately, and at last achieved a more reasonable outlook. But time and again, like a nagging toothache, the knowledge of his hopeless plight would return to him with relentless clarity.