This Rough Magic

by Mary Stewart

  ‘Wait.’ I dared a single brief flash of the torch, and breathed relief. We were in a deep recess or blocked tunnel, low-roofed, and filled with long-since-fallen debris, that burrowed its way back into the cliff above the water-level.

  I put the light out. Slowly, carefully, and almost without a sound, we slithered our way into cover, deep into a crevice under a wedged block of limestone, flattening ourselves back into it like starfish hiding from the pronged hooks of the bait-fishers.

  Not a moment too soon. Light spread, and warmed the cave. I was too deeply tucked back into the cleft to be able to see more than a curved section of the roof and far side of the main cave, but of course I could hear very clearly, as the cave and the water magnified every sound; the tread of boots on rock; the chink as the powerful torch was put down somewhere and the light steadied; the man’s breathing. Then the splash of something – whether his body or something else I couldn’t tell – was let down into the pool.

  A pause, while the water lapped and sucked, and the breathing sounded loud and urgent with some sort of effort. Then a different splashing noise, a sucking and slapping of water, as if something had been withdrawn from the pool. Another pause, filled now with the sounds of dripping, streaming water. Then at last the light moved, the slow footsteps retreated, and the sea-sounds of the disturbed pool, slowly diminishing, held the cave.

  I felt Miranda stir beside me.

  ‘He has taken the book. Could it not be Adoni, Miss Lucy? Perhaps he has come back to get the book for Sir Gale? Who else would know? Shall I go—?’

  ‘No!’ My whisper was as urgent as I could make it. ‘It’s not Adoni, I’m sure of that. This is something else, Miranda … I can’t tell you now, but trust me, please. Stay here. Don’t move. I’m going to take a look.’

  I slid out of the cleft and switched on the torch, but kept a hand over the glass, so that the light came in dimmed slits between my fingers. I caught the gleam of her eyes watching me, but she neither moved again nor spoke. I inched my cautious way forward to the main cave, to pause at the corner of the ledge, switch off the torch, and listen yet again. There was no sound but the steady drip of water, and the faint residual murmur from the pool.

  Flashing the light full on, I knelt at the edge, and looked down.

  As I expected, the pile of stones had been rudely disturbed, and, as far as I could judge, had dwindled in height. But there must have been more than one of the rectangular objects there, for I could see another corner jutting from the cobbles at a different angle from the one that had been visible before. And there on the ledge leaning against the wall as if waiting for him to come back, was an iron grapple, a long hooked shaft which dripped sluggishly on to the limestone.

  I stood up, thinking furiously. So much for that. Adoni had been right; here was the key we were wanting, the clue to Godfrey’s murderous business. And it was surely simple enough to see what I ought to do next. I had no means of telling what proportion of his cache Godfrey had taken, or if he would come back tonight for the rest; but in either case, nothing would be gained by taking the appalling risk of following him now. If he came back, we might meet in the passage. If he didn’t – well, the rest of the ‘proof’ would still be safely there for Max when he arrived at last.

  And so, let’s face it, would I …

  I was hardly back in my niche before we heard him coming back, the light growing and brightening before him up the limestone walls. The performance was repeated almost exactly; the plunge of the grapple, the grating haul through the pebbles, the withdrawal, the pause while the water drained … then once more the light retreated, and we were left in blackness, with the hollow sucking of the troubled pool.

  ‘Wait,’ I whispered again.

  As soon as I got to the main cave I saw that the grapple had gone. I crouched once more on the streaming rock and peered down. As I expected, the pile of pebbles had settled lower, spreading level as what it had hidden had been dragged away. The pool was empty of its treasure.

  No need, this time, to stop and think. The decision was, unhappily, as clear as before. I would have to follow him now. And I had better hurry.

  In a matter of seconds I was back beside Miranda. ‘You can come out now. Quick!’

  She materialised beside me. Her breathing was fast and shallow, and she was shivering. She was still taut and bright-eyed, but the quality of her excitement had changed. She looked scared.

  ‘What is it, Miss? What is it?’

  I tried to sound calm and sure. ‘The “books” have gone, and it was Mr Manning who took them, I’m sure it was. I have to see where he puts them, but he mustn’t see us. D’you understand, he mustn’t see us … I’ll explain it all later, but we’ll have to hurry now. Come on.’

  We heaved ourselves up the last of the Giants’ Staircase, and crept from angle to angle of the passage, lighting the way warily, and stopping at each corner to listen ahead. But nothing disturbed us, and soon we were at the mouth of the cleft, cautiously parting the junipers. The air smelt warm and sweet after the cave, full of flower-scents and the tang of bruised herbs; and a breeze had got up and was moving the bushes, ready to mask what sounds we made.

  We edged down, feeling our way, through the tangle of bushes and young trees. Although no moon was visible, the sky was alight with stars, and we went quickly enough. I dared not make for the path, but pushed a cautious way, bent double, above one arm of the zigzag from which I thought we should be able to see the boat-house, and at length we came to the end of the ridge where honeysuckle and (less happily) brambles made thick cover between the young limes.

  We were just above the boat-house. Its roof was silhouetted like a black wedge against the paler sea beyond. I thought, but could not quite make out, that the landward door stood open.

  Next moment it shut, softly, but with the definite chunk of a spring-locking door. A shadow moved along the boat-house wall, and then he came quietly up the path. We lay mouse-still, hardly breathing. He rounded the corner below us, and came on up, with a quick, stealthy stride whose grace I recognised, and next moment, as he passed within feet of us, I saw him clearly. He had changed from the light clothes of the afternoon, and now wore dark trousers, and a heavy dark jersey. He carried nothing in his hands. He went straight on past us, and his light tread was lost in the movements of the breeze.

  In the heavy shadow where we lay I couldn’t see Miranda, but I felt her turn to look at me, and presently she put out a hand and touched my arm. The hand was trembling.

  ‘Miss – Miss, what is it?’

  I put a hand over hers, and held it. ‘You’re quite right, it’s not just a case of being caught trespassing, it’s something much more serious, and it might be dangerous. I’m sorry you’re in it, too, but I want your help.’

  She said nothing. I took a breath, and tightened my hand over hers.

  ‘Listen. I can’t tell you it all now, but there have been … things have been happening, and we think … Mr Max and I … that they have something to do with your brother’s accident. Adoni thinks so, too. We want to find out. Will you just trust me and do as I say?’

  There was a pause. Still she didn’t speak, but this time the air between us was so charged that I felt it vibrate like a bow-string after the shaft has gone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You saw who it was?’

  ‘Of course. It was Mr Manning.’

  ‘Good. You may be asked … what is it?’

  ‘Look there.’ She had moved sharply, pointing past me up the cliff to where, above the black trees, a light had just flashed on. The Villa Rotha.

  I felt my breath go out. ‘Then he’s safe there for a bit, thank God. I wish I knew the time.’

  ‘We dare not shine the torch?’

  ‘No. I should have looked before. Never mind. It looks as if he’s put those things in the boat-house; I wish to heaven I dared go down and take a look at them … he did say he was going out tonight, and not with the boat, but he might only ha
ve been putting me off so that he’d be able to go to the cave. He may hang around here all night … or he may have been lying, and he’ll come down again and take the boat, and that will be that.’ I stirred restlessly, watching that steady square of light with hatred. ‘In any case, the damned thing’s locked. Even if …’

  ‘I know where the key is.’

  I jerked round to peer at her. ‘You do?’

  ‘Spiro told me. There was an extra key which was kept underneath the floor, where the house reaches the water. I know the place; he showed me.’

  I swallowed. ‘It’s probably not there now, and in any case …’

  I stopped abruptly. The light had gone out.

  Minutes later, we heard the car. That it was Godfrey’s car there could be no manner of doubt; he switched on her lights, and they swept round in a wide curve, lancing through the trees and out into space, to move on and vanish in the blackness over the headland as the engine’s note receded through the woods. There was a brief, distant thrumming as he accelerated, then the sound died, and there was darkness.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Miranda, unnecessarily.

  I sat up. I was furious to find that my teeth were chattering, and clenched them hard, pushing a hand down into the pocket where Leo’s gun hung heavy and awkward against my thigh. Two things were quite certain; I did not want to go anywhere near Godfrey Manning’s boat-house; and if I didn’t, I should despise myself for a coward as long as I lived. I had a gun. There was probably a key. I had at least to try it.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said, and pushed my way out of cover and dropped to the path, Miranda behind me. As we ran downhill I gasped out instructions. ‘You must get straight back to the house. Can you get into the Castello?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then go there. That way, you’ll see them as soon as they get home. But try to telephone Adoni first … Do you know where he might be?’

  ‘Sometimes he eats at Chrisomalis’, or the Corfu Bar.’

  ‘Then try them. If he’s not there, some of his friends may know where he’ll be. He may have gone down to the harbour to wait, or even to the police … Try, anyway.’

  We had reached the boat-house. I stopped at the door, trying it … futilely, of course: it was fast locked. Miranda thrust past me, and I heard her fumbling in the shadows round the side of the building, then she was beside me, pushing the cold shape of a Yale key into my hand.

  ‘Here. What shall I tell Adoni?’

  ‘Don’t tell him what’s happened. Mr Manning may get back to the house, and pick the phone up, you never know. Just say he must come straight back here, it’s urgent, Miss Lucy says so … He’ll understand. If he doesn’t, tell him anything you like – tell him I’m ill, and you have to have help – anything to get him back here. He’s not to tell Sir Julian. Then you wait for him … Don’t leave the Castello, and don’t open the door to anyone else except Max or the police … or me. If I’m not back by the time he comes, tell him everything that’s happened, and that I’m down here. Okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was an ally in a million. Confused and frightened though she must have been, she obeyed as unquestioningly as before. I heard her say, ‘The Saint be with you, Miss,’ and then she was gone, running at a fair speed along the shore path to the Castello’s bay.

  With one more glance up at the lightless headland, and a prayer on my own account, I prodded around the lock with a shamefully shaky key, until at last I got it home.

  The catch gave, stiffly, and I slipped inside.

  17

  No tongue: all eyes: be silent.

  IV. 1.

  The boat-house was a vast structure with a high roof lost in shadows, where the sea-sounds echoed hollowly, as in a cave. Running round the three walls was a narrow platform of planks set above the water, and along the near side of this lay the sloop. The rapidly dimming light of my torch showed me the lovely, powerful lines, and the name painted along the bows: Aleister. It also showed me, propped against the wall by the door, the grapple from the cave.

  There was no hiding-place in the boat-house other than the boat itself. I clicked the lock shut behind me, then stepped in over the cockpit coaming, to try the cabin door.

  It was unlocked, but I didn’t go straight in. There was a window in the back of the boat-house, facing the cliff, which showed a section of the path, then the black looming mass of cliff and tree, and – at the top – a paler section of sky where stars burned. With eyes now adjusted to the darkness, I could just make out the sharp angle of some part of the Villa Rotha’s roof. So far, excellent. If Godfrey did come back too soon, I should have the warning of the car or house lights.

  Inside the cabin, I let the torchlight move round once, twice …

  The layout was much as I remembered in Leo’s boat. Big, curtained windows to either side, under which were settee berths with cushions in bright chintz; between these a fixed drop-leaf table above which swung a lamp. A curtain was drawn over the doorway in the forward bulkhead, but no doubt beyond it I would find another berth, the W. C., and the usual sail bags, ropes, and spare anchor stowed in the bows. Immediately to my right, just inside the door, was the galley, and opposite this the quarter berth – a space-saving berth with half its length in the cabin, and the other half burrowing, as it were, into the space beyond the after bulkhead, under the port cockpit seat. The quarter berth was heaped with blankets, and was separated from the settee berth by a small table with a cupboard underneath.

  And everywhere, lockers and cupboards …

  I started, methodically, along the starboard side.

  Nothing in the galley; the oven empty, the cupboards stocked with cooking equipment so compact as to leave no hiding-place. In the lockers, crockery, photographic stuff, tins of food, cardboard boxes full of an innocent miscellany of gear. In the wardrobe cupboards, coats, oilskins, sweaters and a shelf holding seaboots, and shoes neatly racked, all as well polished and slick as Godfrey himself …

  It was the same everywhere; everything was open to the searcher, all the contents normal and innocent – clothing, spare blankets, photographic equipment, tools. The only place not open to the prying eye was the cupboard at the end of the quarter berth, which was locked. But – from its shallow shape, and my memory of Leo’s boat – I imagined that this was only because it held the liquor; there was none elsewhere, and it was hardly big enough to store the packages I was looking for. I left it, and went on, even prodding the mattresses and feeling under the piled blankets, but all that came to light was a paper-backed copy of Tropic of Cancer, which I pushed back, rearranging the blankets as they had been before. Then I started on the floor.

  Here there would be, I knew, a couple of ‘traps’, or sections of the flooring which were made to lift out and give access to the bilges. Sure enough, under the table, and set in the boards, my eye caught the gleam of a sunken ring which, when pulled, lifted an eighteen-inch square of the planking, like a small trapdoor. But there was no treasure cave below, only the gleam of bilge-water shifting between the frames with the boat’s motion, and a faint smell of gas. And the same with the trap in the fo’c’sle.

  The engine hatchway under the cabin steps was hardly a likely place for a cache; all the same, I looked there, and even lifted the inspection cover off the freshwater tank, to see nothing but the ghostly reflection of the torchlight and my own shadow shivering on the surface of the full forty-gallon complement of water. Not here …

  I screwed the cover down with hands that sweated now, and shook, then I put the torch out and fled up the steps and on to the deck.

  The window first … No lights showed outside, but I had to make sure. I ran aft, ducked under the boom, and climbed on the stern seat to peer anxiously out.

  All was dark and still. I could – I must – allow myself a little longer.

  I started over the cockpit, using the torch again, but keeping a wary eye on the boat-house window. Here, too, all seemed innocent. Under the starboard seat was the space occ
upied by the Calor gas cylinders, and nothing else. Under the stern seat was nothing but folded tarpaulins and skin-diving equipment. The port seat merely hid the end of the quarter berth. Nothing. Nor were there any strange objects fastened overside, or trailing under the Aleister in the sea; that bright idea was disposed of in a very few seconds. I straightened up finally from my inspection, and stood there, hovering, miserably undecided, and trying hard to think through the tension that gripped me.

  He must have brought the packages here. He had not had time to take them up to his house, and he would hardly have cached them somewhere outside when he had the Aleister handy, and, moreover, no idea that he was even suspected. He might, of course, have handed them to some accomplice there and then, and merely have been returning the grapple to the boat-house, but the accomplice would have had to have some means of transport, which meant either a donkey or a boat; if a donkey, Miranda and I must surely have heard it; we might not have heard a rowing-boat, but why should Godfrey use one, when the Aleister and her dinghy lay ready to his own hand? No, it was obvious that there could be no innocent explanation of his use of the hidden cave.

  But I had looked everywhere. They were not in the boat, or tied under the boat; they were not on the platform, or on the single shelf above it. Where in the world could he, in this scoured-out space, have hidden those bulky and dripping objects so quickly and effectively?

  An answer came then – so obvious as to be insulting. In the water. He had moved them merely from the bottom of the cave to the bottom of the bay. They must be under the Aleister, right under, and if I could only see them, there was the grapple ready to hand, with the water still dripping off it to make a pool on the boards.

  I was actually up on the cockpit coaming, making for the grapple, when I saw the real answer, the obvious, easy answer which I should have seen straight away; which would have saved me all those precious minutes, and how much more besides; the trail of drops leading in through the boat-house door and along the platform; the trail left by the dripping packages, as obvious to the intelligent eye as footprints in fresh snow. I had no excuse, except fear and haste, and (I thought bitterly) Nemesis armed with a nice, heavy gun had no business to be afraid at all.