Flight of the Grey Goose

by Victor Canning

  ‘If I did, I wouldn’t tell you,’ said Smiler firmly.

  ‘Ah, beginning to get a bit saucy, are we? Very nice. Like to see a boy of spirit. Give me a lad with backbone any time.’ He reached out and patted Smiler’s shoulder, and then said suddenly, ‘You’ve seen the silver, ain’t you?’ When Smiler did not reply, he said affably, ‘Oh, yes, you ’ave. You was ’ ere for the Laird’s party. The ’ero of the hour with your salmon and all – that you won’t deny.’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything,’ said Smiler.

  Unruffled, Billy Morgan said, ‘Then let me tell you something. You’ve seen the silver ’cos you had the job of cleaning it. And the odds is that you know where the key is because the Laird, bless his tartan socks, is a nice old trusting cove when he likes someone. And like you he does is the way the chorus of the song goes around these parts. So to save yourself and us a lot of hubble-bubble why don’t you just tell us where it is?’

  Suddenly angry, Smiler shouted, ‘Why don’t you just push off?’

  To Smiler’s surprise the man beamed at him, and then said, ‘ Very interesting. Oh, very – for them, like me, what can read between the lines.’ He turned to the Chief Mate and said, ‘ Take a lesson, Chiefy, in how to be a success. In other words, you got to use your loaf if you wants to eat cake. Now, when I asks our friend ’ere to tell us where the key is – what does he say? He tells us to push off. Not, you will notice, that he don’t know where the key is, or that wild ’osses wouldn’t make him tell us anything. No, Chiefy, he just says to push off. A rudeness I overlooks because it tells me what I want to know. He knows where the key is. Don’t you, lad?’

  Smiler, lips pressed tight together, his face glowering with obstinacy, said nothing.

  ‘Very good,’ said Billy Morgan. ‘Oh, very good.’

  Suddenly he thrust out his right hand and pushed Smiler roughly backwards so that he collapsed into the winged arm-chair.

  ‘That,’ said the man, ‘is only a tiny taste to show you I can be rough and very ready if the circs demand it. But for now, just sit there and think things over, lad. I’m going to do the same with another beer. Stubborn I can see you are, and no fool, and it is ditto and doubled for your humble ’ere. Very well then, we’ll both do a little thinking. There’s always some way to loosen up a stiff tongue.’

  Billy Morgan went back to his chair and settled himself with another can of beer. The Chief Mate, following a nod from Billy Morgan, went and sat near the terrace doorway, a thin trickle of whistling coming from his pursed lips as he watched Smiler.

  Smiler sat in his chair and also did some thinking. In a curious way, he was not frightened now. He was, in fact, very angry with himself. Samuel M., he thought, you didn’t use your head. This Skipper man isn’t any fool. You should never have let go and told him to push off.

  He sat there, wondering and puzzling away at what he could do … or more importantly, what they would do. It was no good trying to make a dash to get down to the boat and row away. The Chief Mate’s eyes were always on him and so were the Skipper’s. The moment he made a move they would both be after him. Looking towards the terrace, too, he realized that he must have slept for a long time in his chair before the men had arrived. The sky was beginning to lighten very faintly with the coming of dawn. He screwed himself round in his chair and looked at the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs. Its hands showed half past four.

  Seeing his action, Billy Morgan smiled, nodded, and said, ‘Don’t worry about the old tempus, lad. We got all the bird-lime in the world to think up something really tongue-loosening for you. And if we don’t – well we can always beat the truth out of you. Not that I go for violence, mind you. Not that is, unless the circs don’t give me no option.’

  Smiler said, ‘You’re wasting your time. Even if you beat me I couldn’t tell you where the key is ’ cos I don’t know.’

  Billy Morgan shook his head. ‘Too late, me old cock sparrer. Oh, much too late to be anything like the genuine article.’

  Billy Morgan sat there, thinking, quite undisturbed by the thin whistling of the Chief Mate. Midas lay snoring at the fireside and Bacon was stretched out asleep under the table. Smiler huddled back in his chair, a dark scowl of thought and self-displeasure over his tanned and freckled face. Outside the sky grew paler and a brisk morning wind came sweeping down the loch from the east, raising a choppy ripple on the waters, and from the island shores the sandpipers and redshanks began to call. Distantly Smiler heard Mrs Brown give a low moo to greet the coming morning. Nearer, on the roofs above the terrace, came the cooing of the fantails and other pigeons. A few moments later one of the fantails came hovering low over the terrace and then sailed through the open doors and perched on the back of Smiler’s chair.

  Billy Morgan eyed the bird and said, ‘ The dove of peace, eh, matey? Or it could be, if you was to be sensible. A real little paradise is all this place. Bird and beast and man all trustin’ one another. Just like it should be. And real grateful, too, I am to that old bird because it gives me a notion for openin’ up that safe without trouble.’

  He stood up and approached Smiler.

  ‘Stand up, lad. Smartish now.’ His face creased with its cold smile, and the red tip of his tongue ran around the edges of his lips.

  Smiler stood up. Billy Morgan produced a long length of cord from his windbreaker pocket and said, ‘Turn round. Hands behind.’

  For a second or two Smiler contemplated making a dash for freedom but decided against it. He would get nowhere. He turned round and Billy Morgan lashed his hands firmly together, leaving a long length of cord trailing from them to act as a lead.

  Billy Morgan said, ‘ Right. Come along with me.’ He gave Smiler a push towards the terrace door and followed at his side, holding the length of cord. At the door he said to the Chief Mate, ‘ Get down to the boat and bring me the troubled-Harold.’

  Then, with a jerk on Smiler’s cord, he led the way along the terrace and down the steps at the far end to the garden and headed for the meadow and the water-fowl pens.

  The Chief Mate disappeared in the direction of the jetty.

  Smiler, puzzled now to know what the Skipper had in mind, and not having any idea what a troubled-Harold was, went obediently across the meadow to the wild-fowl pens and the strip of beach where he had landed his salmon. Twenty yards out Laggy and a motley collection of water fowl were swimming around feeding and making their morning toilet, flapping their wings and bobbing their heads and necks underwater. Far up the loch the faces of the hills were dark with shadows, but the sky above them was now a pale wash of faded colours as the dawn began to strengthen.

  They halted at the water’s edge. Billy Morgan stared around him, his eyes sweeping over the water-fowl pens and the ripple-streaked island bay.

  ‘Nice,’ he said to himself. ‘Oh, very nice. A great and good work the Laird is a-doin’. The Laird and you, lad, real angels of mercy to any bird or beast in trouble. Jam-tarts full of love for ’em. Wouldn’t ’arm a hair of a hide or a wing of a feather. Lovely to see. Highly recommendable. And you’re a clever man, too, Skipper. Real clever. There’s always a way if you use your loaf.’ He looked round to see the Chief Mate approaching. ‘Ah, here comes Chiefy with troubled-Harold.’

  Smiler turned and saw the Chief Mate coming along the beach. A cold shock of apprehension swept through him as the mystery of troubled-Harold was solved. The Chief Mate was carrying a double-barrelled shotgun.

  Smiler turned to Billy Morgan and said, ‘ What do you want that for? Look here –’

  ‘Easy lad,’ said Billy Morgan. ‘Easy. No need to loose your wool.’

  He took the gun from the Chief Mate and handed the lead rope to him to hold.

  Billy Morgan took a couple of cartridges from his pocket and loaded the gun. Then he cocked an eye at Smiler and said, ‘You gettin’ the idea, lad? No? Then I’ll tell you. You knows where the key is – but you won’t tell me. So, how do I find the right tongue-loosening
oil for a stubborn lad? Easy. Always a way to do a deal with the most awkward of customers – if you knows their soft spot. And your soft spot is animals. Take old Laggy out there. Everyone round ’ere knows about Laggy and what you and the Laird ’ave done for him. Take all the other animals – and take ’em I will, one by one with this –’ he smacked the stock of the shotgun smartly with the flat of his hand and went on, his voice cold and menacing ‘– unless you finds your tongue!’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare! You rotten devil, you wouldn’t dare!’ Smiler shouted.

  ‘Oh, yes, I would, lad,’ snarled Billy Morgan. ‘I’d take Laggy and Dobby and Midas and your precious Bacon … the whole boiling lot one by one unless you talks. You don’t believe me? Here, watch this for a beginning!’

  He swung round, raised the shotgun, and took aim at Laggy swimming a few yards away on the water. Seeing the movement, Smiler gave a wild cry and flung himself at the man, kicking out at him as he fired. But Smiler never reached the Skipper for the Chief Mate, with surprising strength for such a small man, held the cord firmly and jerked him to a halt so roughly that Smiler spun round and nearly fell over.

  The sound of the shot thundered in Smiler’s ears and he saw the spread pattern of the shotgun pellets raise a white trail of foam on the water. As he saw the spouting water, he realized that his shout and lunge forward had put the Skipper off his aim. The shot had fallen just short of Laggy and the ducks. Then he saw something else, something that, for a moment, made him forget the savageness of the Skipper. The ducks, mallards, pintails, pochards, and shovellers went up in an explosion of flight, all taking off in a flurry of wings and webbed feet beating at the water. But the thing that held Smiler transfixed was that as they went, Laggy went with them. The greylag was so shocked and frightened that he forgot his fear of his well-mended wing. With a loud gang-gang-gang of alarm his great wings opened and his big feet thudded on the water, thrusting him forward. Neck outstretched, wing tips hammering at the ripples, he went forward in wild alarm and in a few seconds was air-borne.

  Forgetting the two men, Smiler saw Laggy rise, swing up in a great curve, and then, high above the low-flying duck, turn and head westwards down the loch, wings beating strongly. Within a few moments the high-flying gander was hidden from sight by the tall towers of the castle.

  Although Smiler was shaking all over with shock, there was a small part of him that sang with gladness for the greylag. Laggy was up and away and free, really free to join his own kind.

  A hand fell on his shoulder and Billy Morgan spun him round. ‘Well, lad. That’s just a taste. If you hadn’t put me off, that there bird would ’ave been a goner. So what do you say?’

  Recovering now, his face a stony, stubborn mask, Smiler looked at the Skipper. He would have liked to kill him. He was a dirty, rotten so-and-so. Even now, he had to hold himself in to stop his impulse to jump forward and kick and pummel the brute. But, for all his anger and contempt for the man, an icy cold part of Smiler’s brain was sending clear and sensible signals. If he didn’t tell where the key was then this man would carry out his threat. If the Laird were in his place now, he knew exactly what the Laird would do. The Laird, as he did, loved all living things. If Laggy had been killed, then not all the silver and precious stones in the world could have brought him back. Or Dobby, Midas, Bacon and Mrs Brown and all the others.

  Smiler said, ‘I’ll get you the key.’

  ‘Aaaah!’ Billy Morgan sighed with pleasure. ‘Now that makes sense. Good sense.’ Turning to the Chief Mate he said, ‘ Untie him, Chiefy. He’s learnt his lesson. We’ll have no more hubble-bubble from ’im.’

  Smiler said nothing. He was beginning to understand the man’s way of speaking, and he was thinking to himself that from now on he was really going to use his loaf – and if he could cause trouble he would.

  As he turned away to walk back to the castle between the two men, the sun already lipped the high crests of the hills and he felt Bacon press his cold muzzle into his hand.

  9. The Distress Signal

  With the coming of the sun the weather changed. The wind which for weeks had been light and from the east swung a hundred and eighty degrees through the north to the west. Big thunder-heads of cloud began to pile up over the seaward end . of the loch. With its change the wind strengthened and the ripples on the water grew rapidly to long, deep wave troughs, scud and foam breaking from their crests. Within an hour the sun was hidden by a pall of dark grey clouds and fierce rain squalls raced up the loch from the west in hissing, grey veils.

  Sitting at the big table in the hall watching the two men, Smiler could hear the skirl of leaves eddying along the terrace and the constant sough and sigh of the wind through the pines at the back of the castle. The changed weather matched his mood, dark and gloomy. Although he couldn’t see what else he could have done, he kept blaming himself for what had happened. After all, he was in charge of the place and he had failed in his duties. If he had really used his wits he might have made the Skipper think that he had no idea where the key was. And now – he looked down the table. At the far end was the Laird’s silver and the collection of stained linen packets that held the Elphinstone jewels.

  When he had produced the key and the two men had emptied the safe they had soon found the jewels. Even the Chief Mate’s wrinkled face had lightened with joy at the sight and his whistling had grown louder. The Skipper had been so elated that a shade of warmth had come into his eyes. He had said, gloating over the jewellery, ‘Look at it, Chiefy. The biggest haul of tomfoolery you could wish for!’

  When he had asked Smiler where the jewels had come from, Smiler had really used his loaf. He had told the Skipper that the Laird, just before he had left for London, had found a secret cupboard in one of the tower rooms – for which he had been . searching for years – and the jewels had been there. Smiler had done this deliberately because he was already planning to cause trouble.

  The Chief Mate was now on guard at the terrace door, holding the shotgun. The Skipper was at the end of the table, methodically beginning to pack the silver and jewels into his big rucksack, making ready to leave. Coming back to the castle from the beach Smiler had seen down by the jetty the boat in which they had arrived. It was a sturdy craft with an outboard motor. Even with the bad weather which was now racing in from the sea, Smiler knew that they would have no trouble in getting away. He knew, too, that it would be hopeless to try and follow them in the Laird’s small rowing boat. It would be swamped the moment he got outside the bay.

  His mind teasing away at all sorts of schemes for outwitting the men, Smiler watched the Skipper packing the rucksack. Samuel M., he thought, you’ve got to find a way. There’s got to be a way. Just think.

  His freckled face was stubborn and set with thought. There just had to be a way. But how? Even if, when the rucksack was packed, say, he made a grab for it and ran … how could he ever get past the Chief Mate at the door? And if he could dodge the Chief Mate and make for their boat they would be peppering him with gunshot before he got it started. He needed time … time to get safely away. How on earth could he get safely past the Chief Mate? Come on, Samuel M., he scolded himself, think. There’s got to be some way. He looked at the Chief Mate. Small and ancient looking he might be but he could be a fast mover and thinker. He had shown that when he had jerked Smiler back fiercely to keep him off the Skipper. Smiler’s eyes moved away from him to look at the Skipper. As he did so, he saw the stairway post that had held the key and then …! It suddenly came to him! What a fool!

  Without any movement of expression to show his sudden excitement, he let his eyes travel tip the stairs. Well, of course, you fool, he told himself. If you can’t go out the front and you can’t risk the back way through the kitchen then you have to go some other way. These men might know a lot about the castle from, probably, Willy McAufee – but they couldn’t know everything. And he, Smiler, knew his way around the castle now as well as the Laird.

  Still keeping a stubbor
n, dejected look on his face, Smiler began to work it out. Once he had his hands on the rucksack, all he had to do was to sprint up the stairs and lose himself in the maze of corridors and tower steps. At the back of the castle there was one tower with a stairway which ran down to a little door that led out on to the battlement wall at the back. Because of the rising slope of the hill it was only a ten or twelve foot jump to the ground.

  Excitement began to bubble inside Smiler. That’s it, Samuel M. That’s it. Once free of the castle he knew exactly what to do …

  From the end of the table as he packed away the last of the Elphinstone treasure and silver, Billy Morgan squinted up at him and said, ‘Well, lad, that’s the lot. And as sweet and unexpected a tickle as a man could wish for. He looked out at the terrace and the distant view of the loch. ‘ Dirty weather blowin’ up. In another half-hour only a good boat could live out there. But for your own good, seein’ as you’ve been so helpful and I wish you no harm, we’ll take the oars from your boat so you can’t try anything stupid like followin’ us. Right then, let’s be goin’ with our load of honey.’

  He picked up the rucksack by its straps and walked up the room. Smiler sat where he was. Billy Morgan shook his head sadly. ‘You come with us as far as the jetty, lad. Not trusting you out of my sight till there’s water between us. On your plates of meat and move.’

  Smiler rose from his chair and went to the head of the table which was only a couple of yards from the great stairway. As the man came up to him he knew that this was the only moment he was going to have. Once outside he wouldn’t get two feet away without the gun peppering him around the legs.

  He took a deep breath and told himself, ‘This is the moment, Samuel M. Work fast and keep your head.’

  Swinging the rucksack in his hand, Billy Morgan came up the length of the table. Outside the wind whistled with a sudden squall and a quick splattering of rain swept across the terrace. Smiler turned, as though to walk ahead of the man, but he hardly had his back to him when he swung back swiftly and punched at Billy Morgan’s plump stomach with the full force of his right fist. The result was gratifying. Smiler’s muscles over the past months had grown hard and strong. The breath wheezed out of Billy Morgan and he doubled up, instinctively clutching at his injured midriff with both hands so that the rucksack fell to the polished boards.