The Avenger 29 - The Nightwitch Devil (12 page)

Mac and the professor, having left the three men tied and propped against a wall, were hurrying down the tunnel which should lead them to the harbor.

“I’m not even certain how long I’ve been down here,” said Ruyle. “At any rate, it will be splendid to be above the ground once again.”

MacMurdie, taking a sniff at the air, observed, “We’re coming near to the ocean.” He slowed his pace and brought the shotgun up into a more useful position.

“What do you intend to do when we’re clear of this place?”

“We’re nae clear yet,” reminded the Scot. “We may have a bit more fighting to do.”

“Seeing the way you handled those others, Mac, has made me an optimist.”

MacMurdie motioned him to silence. He crouched, listening.

They could hear the outside now, the rain hitting the ground, wind scurrying through scrub brush. When they’d climbed a hundred yards farther, there ceased to be overhead lights.

The two men continued on for another hundred yards, around a bend, and then found their way blocked by a wooden door.

Mac pressed his ear against the wood. After a full minute he turned the handle and pulled the door open.

Beyond the door lay another stretch of tunnel, short and dark. The sound of the night rain was louder here, but no exit showed immediately.

Then something rattled, and a figure stepped through the thick brush that masked the tunnel mouth. “What’s wrong, Hank?” The guard had a flashlight in his hand. He turned it on, was raising it to shine on Mac and his friend.

The Scot jumped.

“What—”

Mac delivered two jabs to the guard’s chin.

That caused him to drop the light. Three more jabs, and he himself fell.

“Now maybe we can take a look outside,” said MacMurdie.

Before he could reach the masking brash, a submachine gun began to chatter immediately outside.

A few minutes prior to midnight someone had knocked on the front door of Chief Storm’s white saltbox house. Roughly thirty seconds later, the phone down in the hall had commenced ringing.

“I knew it,” said the police chief, rolling away from his slumbering wife. “I had a feeling something was going to break loose tonight.”

With skating motions of his bare feet he located his slippers on the floor of the darkened bedroom. He snatched up his flannel bathrobe and seconds later was bounding down the stairway. “Hold on, everybody, hold on to your horses.”

He had to pass the phone to reach the front door, so he took care of that first. “Chief Storm speaking.”

“I’d like to talk to Agent Early.”

“Who?”

“Agent Early, please.”

“I . . . hold on a second.” Leaving the receiver dangling, the chief trotted to the door.

A clean-cut young man in a tan raincoat was standing there. He held out an official identification card. “I’m Don Early.”

“You got a telephone call.” The chief pointed, with a thumb, at the wall phone.

“I hadn’t expected it so soon.” He gave the police chief a boyish smile before stepping into the hall. Taking up the receiver, he said, “Early.”

“The tip was right. They landed, two men, approximately ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, good. Don’t close in on them. Wait till they lead us to their local contacts.”

“Uh . . .”

“What?”

“We lost them.”

Agent Early said, “You lost them?”

“Uh . . . they seemed to vanish.”

“In a puff of smoke?”

“No, just vanished. We’re going over the area, and I’ll contact you again, soon as we come up with something.”

“Do,” said the federal agent. “I’ll be down there myself soon.” He hung up.

“Something’s in the wind,” observed Storm, coming down the hall to lean against the newel post.

“Came here to ask your cooperation.”

“What’s up? Sounds like something pretty important.”

“Espionage,” Early told him. “Two enemy agents were landed from a U-boat in the harbor tonight.”

“Yep, that is pretty important.”

“Not the first time.”

The chief blinked. “I should of known about this.”

“So should we,” said the clean-cut agent. “If we hadn’t received a tip we wouldn’t have known about this landing tonight, either.”

“Who told you ’bout it?”

“Don’t know, yet.”

Rubbing his eyes, Chief Storm asked, “What can I do to help out, Mr. Early?”

“How many men do you have on your force?”

“Only me and an assistant,” answered Chief Storm. “Of course I could ring up the Civil Defense fellers, we got six air raid wardens.”

Early scratched at his rain-dampened crewcut. “Not yet,” he said. “Wanted you to know I was in the area, mainly.” He took a few steps toward the doorway. “You know the beach area fairly well?”

“Ought to, after living here nearly forty years.”

“The two spies who came ashore, my men lost track of them,” said Early. “Any idea where they might hide?”

For several seconds the chiefs face was blank, then he remembered something. “The pirate caves,” he said.

“Pirate caves?”

“Well, sir, now, they weren’t actual pirate caves, but I remember we called them that when I was a young feller playing down there,” explained Chief Storm. “They was the mouths of some kind of tunnels. We always meant to explore them all, through and through, but we never did. I think maybe we was a mite scared. Darn, I ain’t thought of those for years. Don’t think the young kids nowadays even know about the pirate caves, since nobody uses that stretch of beach for swimming no more.”

“Sounds like a good possibility,” said Agent Early. “Can you take me there, Chief, show me where the tunnels are?”

“Might take me a while, till the kid I was way back then helps me remember,” said Storm. “But, yep, I’m sure I can. You just wait till I pull on some clothes.” He started up the stairs, then stopped. “Say now . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“Thought just now struck me,” said the chief. “I wonder if these disappearance cases I been working on are tied in with your espionage thing.”

“Somebody’s disappeared?”

Chief Storm nodded glumly. “Three folks, so far,” he said. “And then there’s two dead men and the other four Mr. Benson turned over to me. Course he didn’t say nothing about them being spies. But still, now that my brain’s all woke up, it does seem—”

“Benson?” asked Early, a look of fretful anticipation touching his youthful face. “That wouldn’t be Richard Henry Benson?”

“Yep, that’s him, very soft-spoken feller,” replied the chief.

“Why is Benson in Nightwitch?”

“Something to with his friend Mr. MacMurdie vanishing and—”

“MacMurdie’s here, too?”

“Well, we ain’t sure. He was here, but then he wasn’t. Or so it seemed,” said Chief Storm. “Mr. Benson promised to give me all the details tomorrow.”

“Then he’s planning something tonight,” said Early. “Damn, how’d he get onto this ahead of us?”

“You think he’s after them saboteurs, too?”

“Why else would the Avenger be here?” said the federal agent.

“Perhaps it’s only this spooky atmosphere,” said Cole, “but I think I heard a girl scream.”

“So did I,” replied Nellie.

The pair had been traveling along dim passways of rock for several minutes now.

“Up ahead that way,” said Cole, “unless my old ears deceive me.”

“It could be the missing girl. Let’s go.” Nellie broke into a run.

Cole caught up with her after a moment of concerted sprinting. “We ought to enter you in a marathon, Nell.”

“I’d get bored with twenty-six miles of just running.”

The tunnel they came into now slanted sharply upward. It was empty, but the scream sounded again. They stopped for a moment.

“This,” said Cole in a low voice, “must be an egress that leads to the world outside.”

“Listen to that,” said the little blonde. “Someone shouting, others chanting.”

“I don’t think this is the weekly meeting of the Browning Society we find ourselves underneath, princess. It’s tonight’s Black Mass.” He broke into a jog again.

“We’ve got to stop that sacrifice,” said Nellie, catching up with him.

“Tread softly now,” he cautioned as they reached the dead end of the tunnel. “We don’t want to spoil Richard’s play. If all went well, he’s up there mingling with the Lucifer fans right now.”

“Weil, at least let’s get into a position to lend a hand, if need be.”

Cole was stretching up, exploring the ceiling with the flashlight. “Ah, here’s a trapdoor,” he announced.

The chanting above them grew louder, more frenzied.

“Must be a way into their meeting hall,” said Nellie.

“Climb upon my hand, pixie, and I’ll boost you up.”

“Let’s hope I don’t emerge smack dab in the middle of the sacrificial altar.” She placed a foot in Cole’s interlocked hands.

“Going up.”

“Ouch.” Nellie’s blond head had tapped into the wood boards of the trapdoor. “Okay, there’s a bolt to throw. There. Now, I’ll ease this darn thing open. Stand by to duck.”

She had raised the door a cautious inch when a single shot rang out in the barn above.

Then a voice commanded, “Kill him!”

Smitty, as the time since the Avenger’s departure lengthened, grew more and more impatient. Normally the giant could sit calmly for hours working on some mechanical problem in the lab. But when he sensed a brawl might be in the offing, he was restless until he was where it was going to be.

And it wasn’t going to be out here, he didn’t think. Not hunkered down here among the trees with the collar of his overcoat getting soggy and the rain spilling down off his hat brim.

Dick Benson had been gone over ten minutes. Smitty was getting that itchy feeling. Something was going to happen, and he wanted to be there.

He left the shelter of the woods and trotted in the direction the Avenger had gone. A few moments later, as lightning obligingly lit up the countryside, Smitty saw the old barn where the witches were meeting.

“Not so much as a dab of light showing,” he said to himself. “They must have their blackout curtains up good.”

He worked his way across the rain-washed field, stopping behind a collapsed cultivator rig which looked now like the huge skeleton of some long-extinct beast.

After watching the barn for a minute, the giant ran to it. He was crouched outside, his face near the wide door, when he heard a single shot from inside.

And a voice ordering, “Kill him!”

“You ought to wear a hat,” suggested Chief Storm as he and the federal agent slogged along the muddy midnight beach. He tapped the stiff oilskin hat on his own head. “That’s what causes colds and the grippe, not wearing hats.”

“Never liked hats.”

They’d already passed two of the men Early had watching the harbor. He’d signaled them to follow him, at a distance.

“All coming back to me,” said the chief. He gestured, pointing through the rain. “Ought to be right up here.”

“What would these tunnels have been built for in the first place?”

The chief shrugged, and rain spattered off his glazed headgear. “Most likely it was the smugglers who used this port back in the 1800s. See, the nineteenth century was a more leisurely time, and so folks had time to build all kinds of things.” He halted, frowning around. “This ain’t quite right.” After glancing back at the foamy sea, he began walking up the scrubby hillside. “Yep, this is the way. And that should be one of—”

“Down!” Early tripped the chief and threw himself to the ground beside him.

Machine-gun fire raked the place where they had been standing.

“Looks like we’re at the right place,” said the police chief, spitting out mud.

“I’m a federal agent,” called Early through cupped hands. “Put down that gun.”

The machine gun barked again, sending spurts of mud flying up in a line a few feet in front of them.

Early got his .38 revolver out of his shoulder holster. “I’m giving you one more chance,” he shouted.

The figure with the machine gun, who was crouching at the mouth of a tunnel, suddenly made a whooping sound. He stood up, looked as though he were attempting to fly up into the rainy night by flapping his arms. The submachine gun fell into a clump of bushes.