Death by the Mistletoe (23 page)

To begin with, he attempted to occupy his thoughts with the question of Mr. Anderson Ellis’s place in the scheme of things … Obviously both O’Hare and his companion looked upon him as their superior, for they had shown no resentment at his curt orders. And they had obeyed him implicitly. Was he one of the “well-meaning ones,” or was he the unknown intermediary — GII — mentioned by Merriman of the Secret Service, between the foreign Power and the cult? James inclined to think that he was a leader — if not actually the High Priest — of
Na
Daoine
Deadh
Ghinn
. His niece, he thought, must be a member of the cult, for her eyes were those of O’Hare and the white-robed man who had visited Dalbeg. And her power was as evil as hell. And if the niece was of the cult, was her uncle not likely to be also?

James marvelled further at the submissive bearing of O’Hare when in the presence of the laird of Lagnaha. On his first meeting with the giant on the quay at Campbeltown he had imagined him to be the kind of man who would acknowledge no master; and the power of his will, which had occasioned James an eerie experience, had strengthened him in this opinion. Apparently, however, Mr. Anderson Ellis was the superior personality. Even Miss Dwyer seemed to consider the two big men as on a lower footing than herself. Then James remembered what Professor Campbell had said concerning
Na
Luchd
Bais
, the hereditary executioners of the “well-meaning ones.” Could it be that men of this rank in the cult were despised, a race apart, like the executioners of the Middle Ages?

When they had tramped for a seemingly interminable period the two giants stopped at the entrance to a kind of narrow alleyway. It was a place not unlike the “lobby” through which James had carried the Professor, though much wider and roomier. James had an idea that they were not far from the surface of the ground at this point, for the air was sweet and fresh, and a distinct draught was coming from the roof. They must, he thought, be directly beneath one of the many narrow shafts connecting the cave with the upper ground.

He wondered, too, if they were much distant from the spot where the engine and the dynamo were placed, and where, apparently, those who resided in the cave had their living quarters. He made a small mental calculation. Lagnaha, by road, was five miles distant from Kiel; but it was clear that the cave followed underground the direction of the Blaan Valley. The numerous small rock crevices to be found by walkers along this route, which might easily proved on expert investigation to be air-shafts leading down to the cave, lent weight to the theory. The actual length of the cave, then, between Lagnaha and Kiel, would, going on this assumption, be something like six miles. Now, he and Major Dallas, when discussing the matter had been fairly certain that they had penetrated, from the Kiel entrance, some three miles underground. And on this occasion, according to James’s idea, they had tramped well over two miles from the Lagnaha entrance. He speculated, therefore, on the question of whether this alleyway was, in fact, the opposite end of the “lobby” which had been blocked against their raid, and of whether, if such were the case, the passage was an artificially wrought connection between what had originally been two caves, one having an entrance at Kiel and the other an entrance at Lagnaha. Had the living-caves and other necessary apartments been hollowed out in this warmer and drier section of the long tunnel? Later investigations proved the correctness of James’s theory.

The matter of the water-supply for the cave could have presented no difficulties to its occupants. There had been a stream of water crossing the floor some distance in from the Kiel end, and during the long tramp from Lagnaha, James and his guards had twice to step across chuckling rivulets, percolating through, perhaps, from the river Con, which ran along the Blaan Valley. Such was the only reasonable explanation of the plentiful supply which James could hit upon, when the unusual drought in the district was considered.

Only a few yards from the entrance to the alleyway, too, there was a yawning hole to the left, apparently a branch cave of some size. James wondered if this were the part of the cave leading on towards the exit on Bengullion.

Where his guards stopped, he noticed a line of metal rings cemented into the solid wall of the alleyway, and at once he understood what they purposed to do with him.

Using a length of rope carried by O’Hare’s companion, the two huge men tied his wrists securely to one of the rings.

“Good night, Mr. MacPherson!” said O’Hare. “Pleasant dreams!”

The sound of their footsteps receded into the blackness. James was left alone in the clammy silence.

CHAPTER XIII

Of his confinement in the cave, James spent twenty-four hours alone. They were bitter hours, filled with mental and physical pain; but they caused him trifling inconvenience compared with the remainder of his imprisonment. For when Major Dallas and the others were tied up beside him he learned of Eileen’s capture, and he could have screamed in his agony.

Though he had little chance to know the time, he calculated that it must have been about five o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon when O’Hare and the other giant had left him trussed up, his bound wrists tied to the immovable metal ring behind him. But in the darkness, and by reason of the thoughts which continued to rush chaotically through his brain, he latterly lost all count of the hours.

He was secured in such a manner that any sudden movement on his part resulted in a painful twisting of his arms, and, as a consequence, he stood throughout his imprisonment practically motionless. He grew cold, and his muscles, especially those in his legs, became cramped and stiff. Once or twice a fiery pain darted along the small of his back, from the part of his side which had been kicked by O’Hare. The draught from the air-shaft, too, which existed close above him, played constantly about his hair, and, as a result, for a day or two following the final scene in the strange story of the “Mistletoe Murders,” he suffered from a severe cold in the head. But that cold, as it happened, was cured speedily and effectively by a certain delightful means.

There were no signs of life in the cave — as far as James could tell — for many hours after his captors left him. It must have been about one o’clock on the Wednesday morning, indeed, when the first bustle began, and he discovered the correctness of his theory regarding his position in the cave. Lights flickered on far down the alleyway to his right, and with a roar and a whine the engine and dynamo burst into life. They could not have been situated more than a hundred yards from where he stood. Above the noise he heard the clatter of men’s feet on cement. Voices growled, and there was once a sound of laughter. But no one came near him for a time.

The engine and dynamo continued to work for a period which might have been from one to two hours. Though the drone was loud in the alleyway, James had an idea that the machines were quite small. And, indeed, when the cave was thoroughly explored during the following week-end, it was discovered that the engine was a three-horse-power crude-oil model, the sound of whose running in the open air would not have been heard two hundred yards away. The dynamo, too, was of the size ordinarily used in country houses for the supply of electricity. But James knew well enough that even a small dynamo can generate sufficient power to destroy many persons.

He wondered vaguely how many men lived in the cave. It was obviously the headquarters, at the moment, of O’Hare and Muldoon, and of the man in the white robe who had visited Dalbeg. And from the sound of voices there must be many others living there, probably men of similar or somewhat inferior rank to the latter. James surmised that to
Na
Daoine Deadh
Ghinn
the cave stood in the same relationship as a seminary does to members of the Roman Catholic faith. It would house ministers of the cult — those who were expert in the lore of the ancient ritual and who interpreted it to the ordinary devotees. It would be those men who placed the mistletoe on the breasts of the victims and made the mystic signal to the executioners to unloose the shackled lightning by which the sacrifices were slain. It would be those men who taught the lost science of hypnotism to
Na
Luchd
Bais
, their servants.

Some weeks later James wrote a series of articles on his adventures for the enterprising editor of a Sunday paper in Glasgow, who was able to outbid his London competitors. In these vivid accounts, from which this rather more prosaic chronicle has been compiled, there is one passage giving fairly complete details concerning the number of men who must have lived in the cave and their manner of existence, during the eighteen months of its occupancy by the “well-meaning ones.”

*

Fifteen men all told
[James wrote]
had their residence in the Piper’s Cave in Blaan, under the direct control of the High Priest. The latter, of course, did not actually remain in the cave for more than a few hours daily; but his immediate lieutenant, an Englishman named Merson, who from his birth was dedicated to the cause of the cult, seldom quitted this subterranean fastness. On one notable occasion, previously recorded in this series, he did, however, make an expedition to Dalbeg to capture Professor Campbell, in company with two of
Na Luchd Bais
. Of these fifteen men, seven, including Merson, were priests or ministers, five were body-servants, while the remaining three were OʼHare, Muldoon and Barlow, three of the executioner class. During the day they usually slept, though sometimes, indeed, they emerged into the sunshine, to work as servants in Lagnaha House. In this manner, they kept fit and well, and since Mr. Anderson Ellisʼs staff was always changing, they aroused no suspicion in the minds of chance wayfarers in the grounds.

All the inmates had their special tasks allotted to them. The priests, dressed continually in long, white robes, toiled at their ancient books, and prepared rituals to suit the changing conditions of the world, copying extracts for distribution to other less important centres of the cult. One hour after midnight was spent each morning by the priests in a kind of religious service, one part of which, I have ascertained, consisted of a long invocation to the god of the lightning. The bodily comforts of these men were attended to by servants The latter cooked the food, which came to them each morning from Lagnaha, on small electric fires; washed and made certain clothes, and ensured the cleanliness of the seven cave apartments in which the community slept and worked-Two of these men had been electrical engineers by trade, and their special routine was to keep the underground plant in first-class condition. It was under their supervision that the installation had been originally carried out. They had also devised the scheme whereby an attack on the cave from the Kiel end could be frustrated by a dynamite blast, which, bringing down earth and stones from above, on the touch of an electric button, would completely block the entrance to the “lobby”. Its effectiveness I have described elsewhere.

The three executioners, besides their more obvious employment, acted as messengers to other branches of the cult throughout the kingdom. Theirs was a dangerous and difficult existence; but it was often rendered easy enough by their remarkable hypnotic power, gained by repeated lessons from the priests. It has been learned, indeed, that this hypnotic power was possessed by all those who worked in the inner circle of the cult, save the body-servants; but those who possessed it to the greatest degree, with the exception of the High Priest and his lieutenant, Merson, were
Na Luchd Bais
. The rank and file of the priests, though they knew the secret, had few chances to practise on unwilling victims; but the executioners were able to do so on many occasions. And practice made perfect. Ordinary members of the cult had not, as a rule, this evil power.

Later in the article James put forward a certain viewpoint.

Had it not been that
Na Daoine Deadh Ghinn
, persuaded by the foreign envoy, overstepped the mark to a considerable degree on the evening of June 23rd, these men might have lived in the cave for many years without being discovered. They had blocked up the Mull and Bengullion entrances with huge stones, and the Kiel entrance was used only on very rare occasions — probably at night, when there was no chance of spies being near at hand. They had a plentiful supply of water seeping through from the bed of the Con, and air-shafts from the rocky Blaan Valley were numerous. Sewage problems were solved by the rivulets which flowed across the floor of the cave. Neither the sound of movements nor the roar of the engine could, it was found by experiment, be heard above ground, and the chance of a stray explorer reaching their inner fastness was extremely remote on account of the weird legend connected with the cave. The “well-meaning ones”, however, were well protected against such an emergency, a guard always being posted some distance down towards the Kiel entrance, and, as I have indicated, a “booby-trap” being constantly in readiness at the extremity of the “lobby” to deal with a wholesale invasion.

*

At this stage the editor of the
Gazette
had caused a plan of the cave to be inserted in the text. The drawing showed clearly the entrances at Lagnaha, Kiel, Bengullion and the Mull. It showed how the four separate branches converged almost at one point, the Lagnaha and Bengullion tunnels meeting at one end of the “lobby” and the Mull tunnel joining the alleyway practically opposite the side-cave in which the raiders had found Professor Campbell and Miss Dwyer. With a red line James indicated how, by a fault in the ground-rock, the Campbeltown sewer-system was connected with the Bengullion branch at a point some three miles distant from its junction with the main cave. The length of the central “lobby,” according to the plan, was four hundred yards, and its width varied from four feet at the Kiel end to eight feet at the opposite entrance.

James, continuing with his article, quoted several well-known Scottish geologists, who, for once, were agreed in stating that this alleyway had been dug out in forgotten centuries by human agency to connect up the four different natural tunnels. Professor Campbell was of the same opinion, and it was his theory that the cave had been used thousands of years ago by
Na
Daoine
Deadh
Ghinn
, and that the cult, on receiving an added power in the last eighteen months, had naturally replaced its leaders in their traditional headquarters. The Professor, however, did not even hint at the possibility of the Piper of Blaan having stumbled into the midst of the “well-meaning ones.”

The concluding article in the series described vividly James’s own experience in the labyrinth.

*

While the throb of the dynamo continued, two men carrying blazing torches passed James, coming from the Lagnaha direction, and apparently proceeding towards the centre of activity in the inner caves. The glare of the lights prevented him from recognising them, and they took not the slightest notice of him as they strode on. Their arrival coincided with the stoppage of the engine.

James, cramped, cold and utterly miserable, listened intently for distinguishable sounds, but though he heard constantly low murmurs of speech, he could make out none of the individual words. Presently, however, he was made painfully aware of his hunger by the strong aroma of cooking which began to emanate from the alleyway. The appetising smell of frying bacon added greatly to his discomfort, and he began to have a new idea of the meaning of torture.

During his imprisonment he allowed his mind to dwell only on very rare occasions on the possible outcome of the revitalising of
Na
Daoine
Deadh
Ghinn
. He hoped he was right in thinking that in other parishes where the cult had its branches the final unmasking of the members was assured. But here in Blaan, where the “well-meaning ones” had their principal stronghold, things at the moment looked utterly hopeless. There seemed nothing to prevent the leaders from holding their lesser Festival in the early hours of the following morning, according to plan, and then departing secretly from the parish, to renew their evil activities in some other part of the country, hidden again from the eyes of the authorities. And James was well enough aware that did the sacrificial purpose of the cult succeed on the morrow — even though in Blaan alone — it would add tenfold to the already alarming tension in Britain, and create the exact atmosphere desired by the foreign spies.

He knew, too, that at one o’clock on the previous day — immediately before his visit to Lagnaha — no hint of the whereabouts of “The Glen of Adoration” had been discovered, the Professor had still been unwell, and the policemen had made little progress with the ordinary work of the murder mystery. Could any further discoveries be made before that night? It seemed impossible. But there was Merriman, who was working by himself, unknown to the “well-meaning ones” and their backers … Might he not possibly discover Mr. Anderson Ellis’s secret in time?

He wondered further what they intended to do with himself; and every time the question occurred to him he thought of Eileen. And because he was young, because he loved her and because he was not cut out perfectly to be a hero, a lump would come into his throat on these occasions, and he would curse silently at his weakness. He strove desperately to find some ray of hope which might help to ease his personal plight. But he could think of only one … The police were bound to learn of his disappearance, and they would probably guess rightly that he had been taken to the cave; but they could do nothing to help him unless they became aware of the entrance at Lagnaha.

And that possibility was an unlikely one. Even though his friends learned that he had visited Lagnaha, Mr. Anderson Ellis would have some plausible story to tell them, and they would not have the slightest grounds for suspecting him. But then there was the prophecy … It was a frail enough hope, indeed, and one on which he felt he had small reason to lean; but it was a straw at least for a drowning man. The Professor had believed in it implicitly. The Rev. Duncan Nicholson had believed in it. And throughout the week the strange refrain had constantly been running in James’s own mind: “
A
wanderer
with
a
head
of
flame
shall
smile
the
evil
prophets
,
and
a
fair
,
sleek
-
headed
churchman
shall
raze
their
idols
to
the
ground
.” And it suddenly struck James forcibly — it had not occurred to him in this light before — that
Na
Daoine
Deadh
Ghinn
themselves must also be aware of the prophecy, and were consequently a little afraid. Had not the white-robed man at Dalbeg cursed him, calling him “wanderer of the flaming head”?