Murder Abroad (34 page)

“We must make sure,” Bobby repeated.

“It seems to me that most likely you are right and Monsieur Shields, he has been here before us,” Père Trouché said.

Without answering, Bobby began to dig. The task was neither long nor difficult, for when he had removed but a bare six inches of the loose earth, he found reason to lay aside the spade and to begin to use his hands. Père Trouché said:

“It is not surprising that when we entered here there was a smell of death in the air.” Then he said: “It is Monsieur Shields, is it not? They have buried him there where he had his diamonds buried. In effect then, he was here before us?”

“It is Shields all right,” answered Bobby, who by now had uncovered enough of the hastily-buried body to be sure of its identity.

He removed a little more of the earth and paused and then continued and then once more he paused and scrambled to his feet. Père Trouché said:

“What is it now? Why are you so disturbed?”

Bobby had straightened himself, moved away a few yards. He said below his breath, three times over:

“My God! My God! Oh, my God!”

“What is it? Tell me, then,” Père Trouché repeated, his voice high and shrill. “What is it that is so disturbing? Have you then never seen a dead man before?”

“Yes,” Bobby stammered, his voice not quite under his control, “but not like this. There's... there's...” His voice trailed away. Père Trouché said sharply: “Well. Well, what then?”

“There are burns on the face, on the arms, burns... the half-burnt candle was used for that. The hands— the finger-nails—”

“Ah, torture, they tortured him,” Père Trouché observed calmly. “It was to be expected. It was known he had the Polthwaite diamonds hidden. He was visited when he was alone in his house, he was taken unaware, he refused to tell, means were taken to make sure that he did tell, and since he was a strong man and an obstinate, doubtless he held out as long as was possible. But pain, when it is carefully and skilfully applied, will break down any man's resistance. Except indeed when there is a living faith, for that—that is stronger than all things, than death or than pain. But diamonds and a living faith, they are very different, and so Monsieur Shields he would not be able to hold out for long. Then they brought him here to make sure he spoke the truth and when they found he had done so, then they shot him—naturally. One would feel more sympathy for him had he not already killed an old and helpless woman who was his friend and trusted him. On the whole I do not greatly regret that he in his turn also suffered.”

“Yes, but you can't see him,” Bobby muttered. He moved a few yards farther back, nearer the entrance, avoiding instinctively that part of the cliff where the water dripped and made a small puddle on the ground. He wanted to lean against the rock, for he had an odd feeling that presently his legs might refuse any longer to support him. Where the cliff was drier he supported himself against it. Père Trouché followed, but groping with his stick kept more in the centre of the enclave and found himself caught in that tangle of loose stony and difficult ground that lay in front of the oak and between it and the entrance gap. He stood still and Bobby said again:

“You couldn't see him and I wish I hadn't.”

“There are times when it is better not to see,” agreed the old man. “But I also, I do not find it agreeable here. It resembles too closely to a tomb.”

“Look out, look out. Quick,” Bobby screamed. “Lie down.”

He had glanced towards the entrance gap. A low sound from that direction had caught his attention. There, poking round a corner of the rock, showed clearly the long muzzle of a pistol, a point forty-five automatic, probably. It was aimed straight at the old beggar. Bobby himself was out of the direct range. Père Trouché answered peevishly:

“Why should I lie down? When I cannot see, how can I look out as you call it?”

He was standing quite still, upright and motionless, directly before that dark menacing pistol muzzle that he could not see, that was aiming directly at his heart, that he made no effort to avoid, since of its presence and its threat he was equally unaware. Even as he spoke, before Bobby could shout again or move, the clamour of the discharged pistol filled the little enclave, thrown to and fro from its high, echoing walls. The old man sat down and began to cough.

“Well, now, what is all this?” he said bewilderedly.

Bobby sprang forward instinctively. That brought him into the line of fire. A bullet whizzed past so near that he heard its shrill snarl as it went by. Instinctively again he sprang back and more quickly still. Another shot was fired, this time again at Père Trouché. He sank slowly from his sitting to a recumbent position, turned a little to one side and lay quietly, like a man asleep. With quick decision Bobby saw where lay his only chance of safety. If he stood where he was, if he tried to seek shelter where shelter there was none, his fate would be certain. He could hope for nothing but to be shot down at the convenience of their unknown assailant. He was still holding the spade with which he had begun to dig and that he had laid hold of for support in the first moment of the shock of his discovery of Shields's mutilated body. Brandishing it as though it were sword or battle-axe he ran at his utmost speed straight for the opening where the assassin hid, no sign of him visible save only that continually threatening pistol muzzle, the faint thread of smoke ascending in the air, the clamour of the echoing shots still being tossed to and fro from one cliff to another.

The hope in Bobby's mind, the forlorn desperate hope, was that the unseen murderer, seeing him charging thus, would hold his fire for the moment, meaning to make sure when he was nearer and could be shot down at ease. Moreover a man running at full speed, especially when running forward, is not so easy a target as one who is standing perfectly still. One shot indeed was fired, but hit not Bobby but the whirling spade he brandished and so was deflected to splash harmlessly against the rock, and Bobby hoped desperately that further shots would be withheld in expectation and anticipation of the ease with which any one could be shot down from one side or the other as they blundered through the narrow entrance gap out into the open.

But that formed no part of the intention behind Bobby's swift and desperate rush. One of the two rocks, that on the west or right hand from within, jutted forward in such a way as to provide behind it a sort of niche or shelter, so that any one standing there, as it were behind a door, was covered and would indeed have good opportunity to strike first at any attempting to pass. It was this kind of niche or crack in the rock that Bobby was aiming for, and when he reached it, he stood still, spade lifted, ready to strike, fairly safe so long as he stood just where he was and yet knowing that to move even an inch would be to expose himself as an easy target to the assassin, waiting unseen indeed but so near.

Indeed of that he soon had proof, for when presently he moved, though only very slightly, there was instant reaction in the shape of another shot, and a bullet that struck splinters from the rock not more than an inch or two away. Presently, too, the pistol muzzle appeared, groping and pointing in an effort to twist round far enough to bring him within its orbit. This Bobby had expected, and indeed had hoped, might happen, for he thought that so might be given him his best chance of escape. But he blundered, perhaps because his nerves were not so completely under control as he believed. At any rate when he struck out with his spade, he struck too soon, even though he had waited as long as he dared. Anyhow his blow miscarried, the pistol was snatched away, his hope of knocking it out of the other's hand and so getting on equal terms had failed. Nor was it, he supposed grimly, very likely that such an opportunity would be offered him again.

“Who is it?” he shouted once, but got no response.

In his mind, as he stood there flattened in his protective niche, knowing that any movement to relieve his cramped muscles would almost certainly bring him within range of the assassin's pistol, he went over the list of those who might be waiting there, recent murderers of the unhappy Shields who had paid so terribly for his crime, and now determined that those who had discovered so much must not be allowed to continue to live.

He supposed that the murderer or murderers of Shields, lingering near—Bobby wondered why and wondered also whether the answer to that question he would ever know—had seen his approach and Père Trouché's across the bare, and, at this part, nearly level expanse of the Massif, had marked their entry into the enclave, had realized what they must find there, had followed them in the resolve to make the secret safe by two more assassinations.

One they had already successfully accomplished and Bobby was inclined to think that the second would not be very long delayed, for he did not feel that he could sustain his present cramped position very much longer. His enemy had only to wait till hunger, thirst, exhaustion, compelled him to make some movement that would bring him within range of the questing pistol muzzle that more than once he saw again come pushing and seeking round the edge of the rock sheltering him, though never far enough or near enough to give him another chance of striking at it.

Again and again he found himself trying to think who it could be who thus was waiting to kill. He wished somehow very much that he knew. He had the idea that knowledge would make endurance easier, as the anonymity of the peril made it worse, and he found himself envying old Père Trouché who lay there so peacefully on his side, like one quietly sleeping. Once or twice he shouted out threats or questions or taunts, but got no reply. But a movement he made drew swift response in the shape of a bullet that actually tore the cloth of his coat sleeve, though without inflicting any wound.

What it was that presently and quite suddenly impressed upon his mind a conviction that the danger had passed and that now no one was waiting there, that he was no longer under watch and menace, he never understood. Perhaps his sense of hearing, keyed to a pitch of intensity inconceivable at other times, wrought indeed to some such keenness beyond ordinary human capacity as Père Trouché seemed somehow to have reached, had warned him sub-consciously of tiny sounds of departure; perhaps that extremity of peril in which he had been placed had opened in him other avenues of knowledge, of which, at ordinary moments, the ordinary man is unaware, something of the nature of that strange power by which it is said primitive people have almost instantaneous knowledge of far-off happenings.

In any case, whatever the explanation, and he himself had none to offer, abruptly he knew—knew beyond doubt or question—that now he could come out from his shelter with perfect safety.

He flung down the spade he had been holding and ran forward into that open where a little before to show him-self would have meant instant death. On his left was the tall, isolated sugar-loaf rock; on his right the grove of tangled close-growing trees and bushes, wind-swept and dwarfed; between them, but nearer to him, a figure was running. It shouted something and then dived in between the trees. Bobby's sight of it had been too brief for him to be able to say who it was. He stood still, hesitating. From the midst of the trees, muffled by their close growth, came the fresh report of a pistol shot. Instinctively Bobby dropped to the ground. He had no love for the role of target and he thought the shot had been aimed at him. He heard fresh shouting and, raising his head and looking cautiously, he saw several of Clauzel's men running quickly towards him. Evidently the recent shooting had been heard—indeed the reports would have carried far over that wide and empty space, caught up and echoed as they would be by the adjacent rocks—and rescue and help were coming. Bobby decided to stay where he was till that help was nearer. He had no wish to tackle, alone and unarmed, a desperate murderer who had already given such dread proof of readiness to kill. When the gendarmes arrived, it would not be difficult so to surround the trees as to make escape impossible and then to take such steps as might be necessary to force the fugitive into the open.

The gendarmes were quite close now. Bobby recognized Clauzel as the foremost among them. He shouted a warning. It was heard but not heeded. Clauzel shouted back something Bobby did not quite catch to the general effect that there had been quite enough of this sort of thing and he wasn't going to waste any more time—automatics or no automatics.

Bobby would have liked to reply that that was all very well, and no one was more tired of it than he was, but automatics remained automatics, and why run unnecessary risks? Clauzel, however, evidently had no intention of delaying and was running straight towards the trees when from the midst of them appeared a man, holding a long-barrelled point forty-five automatic in one hand. The commissaire, who himself held an automatic, though one of smaller calibre, promptly fired, though more in warning than with deliberate aim. The other ran forward, waving his own pistol in the air but not firing. Clauzel shouted to him to surrender. At the same moment as Clauzel called to him, the newcomer caught his foot in the rough ground, pitched forward violently, striking his head against a stone. The pistol jerked from his hand. He lay sprawling and quite still.

When Bobby came up he found Clauzel and two of the gendarmes standing round the still unconscious man.

Bobby recognized the young Camion.

Clauzel said to him:

“Eh, well, Monsieur Owen, who would have expected him?”

It was some minutes before Camion recovered consciousness, for his fall had been heavy. There joined Glauzel and Bobby a middle-aged civilian whom Clauzel addressed as Dr. Mendel. Bobby, understanding that the new-comer was a medical man, explained hurriedly that Père Trouché had been shot, was lying at a little distance, and ought to receive attention at once.

“Though I'm afraid it's too late to help him,” he added. “I think he was hit twice. I think he was killed on the spot.”