by Robin Paige
“Seventeen-forty,” Charles read, and whistled to himself, thinking back to a time, a century and a half before, when desperate, angry men had cut this passageway, foot by laborious foot, through the solid chalk. He shivered, feeling ancient eyes on him, and thought that the rumors of ghosts in the cellars of Rottingdean might not be just idle gossip. The air was damp and still and cold, like the air in an icehouse. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped, the sound magnified by the rock walls.
“There’s a section that crosses the drain along the High Street,” Patrick said, just above a whisper. Being shorter, he was walking more comfortably. “That’s where the water is running. But mostly it’s dry.”
“I must say,” Kipling whispered hoarsely, from the rear, “there’s not much in the way of elbow room. How do they move the goods in such a tight space?”
“In pushcarts and on sleds,” Patrick said. “They’ve built wood ones that just fit. You’ll see them in the big cellar.” They walked in silence for a moment, then he added, “There’s a sort of junction just ahead. We go to the left. It’s not far after that.”
Walking behind Patrick, Charles felt himself fascinated by the boy, who seemed to know everything and moved so effortlessly and without fear in this dark place. There was more to this bright, inquisitive lad than there was to the average village boy, that was certain. It was a damned shame that Patrick’s father was so far away and took so little interest in his son. The boy deserved better. What’s more, he was at a vulnerable age, in a vulnerable position. Without further formal schooling and under the influence of these enterprising village fellows with their get-rich schemes, it was likely that he would follow in their foot-steps. Better to get him out of the village, into something more settled and with greater promise. He would talk to Kipling. Perhaps, between them, they could come up with something suitable.
Patrick held up his hand, halting their forward progress. “Here’s the junction,” he said. “The big cellar is to the left. If we keep straight on, we will come to the beach.”
Charles peered ahead. The tunnel was wider and more obviously traveled, and there were deep scratches in the chalk walls and gouges in the floor, as if something heavy had been shoved along. He looked down at the crude map. “There seem to be several branches. Are they still open?”
“Only one,” Patrick said. “The branch that goes to the cellar of the White Horse. It’s used quite often, as it is the only entrance at that end, except for the opening onto the beach.”
Charles took the lantern from Kipling and held it up, looking to the right. That tunnel was narrower and much lower. He would have to bend double to enter it.
“Where does that lead?”
“To the cellar at the Black Horse,” Patrick said. “Mostly what goes that way are small wooden barrels of spirits. They rope them together and drag them.” He grinned knowingly. “Perry organizes that part. He owns the Black Horse.”
No doubt Perry organized that part very expeditiously, Charles thought—moving the liquor straight from the ship to the cellar of the alehouse, where it was let down. As he understood it, spirits were usually smuggled over-proof, and were diluted to bring them to a strength that was both drinkable and profitable. Perhaps some letting down had occurred in the cellar at Seabrooke House, and might account for the spilled brandy.
“And who organizes the rest of it?” Charles asked.
“Captain Smith always managed the ship—signaling, and all that.”
“Who oversees the transfer of the goods?”
The boy looked cornered. “Mr. Tudwell,” he muttered at last.
“And the distribution? That is, moving the goods to their final destination.”
The boy did not answer.
Charles nodded. “Well, then, shall we carry on?”
They turned to the left. Fifty paces later, the tunnel widened suddenly into a square, cavelike room, carved out of the chalk. The lantern flickered eerily against the white walls, casting grotesquely misshappen shadows, and the flint nodules winked like wise eyes. Boxes, crates, and small barrels were stacked against the walls, the lids stamped with their contents, although there were no attached bills of lading. Charles stooped to read. Tobacco, fabric, lace, tea—it was no wonder Kate had been able to purchase in Rottingdean the same goods she might have bought at an exclusive shop in London. All this merchandise, stored here against the day when it would be hauled out and distributed for sale. He glanced around. Still, though, it was a very large room, not even partially filled, and obviously constructed at great effort.
“This is newly excavated?” he asked Patrick.
“Most of it. There was a smaller cellar here to start with, maybe twelve feet by twelve feet or so. The rest was dug last summer.”
“How many people were involved?” Kipling asked. “It looks like it would take an army to dig it out.”
“Most of the men in the village were in it one way or another, either digging or hauling the rock to the beach.”
“Last summer,” Charles said thoughtfully. “Is that when the smuggling began in earnest?”
The boy nodded. “Trunky Thomas did some before then, but he was the only one. His father was a smuggler before him, you see.”
Kipling was looking around. “What strikes me as strange,” he said in an amazed tone, “is the sheer size of this room. Imagine the rock that had to be moved. And think of the appalling work involved!”
“And yet,” Charles said, “it’s not much used.” He turned to Patrick. “Has it ever been filled to its capacity?”
The boy shook his head.
Charles spent the next few moments looking at the crates of stores and finding very little of real interest. At the back of the room, however, he came on something vastly more intriguing. A dozen empty crates were stacked precariously high, and behind them, there was a shadowy opening in the wall.
“Give a hand here, Kipling,” he said. “Let’s move these.”
A few moments later, they had uncovered a shallow alcove, empty except for three small wooden crates. They had been hidden, Charles thought. Why?
“I should like to pry these open.” He looked around. “I wonder whether...”
“I’ll get a crowbar,” Patrick offered quickly. “They keep one with the carts.” In a moment he was back, a short iron bar in his hand. Charles lifted the smallest box from the alcove, put it on the floor next to the lantern and looked at it. On the cover were printed several words in large black-letter type.
“What does that say?” Patrick asked.
“In German, it says Blasting Caps, Handle With Care, Do Not Drop,” Charles translated. German?
“Maybe we shouldn’t open it,” Kipling said nervously. “They might blow up in our faces.”
“Detonators can deteriorate with age,” Charles agreed, “and there’s no telling how old these are. We’ll leave them.”
“What are these people intending, do you think?” Kipling asked in a puzzled voice. “To undermine the entire South Downs?”
“I’d be surprised if they aim to do any blasting in the vicinity of the village,” Charles said. “It would certainly give away the game. And it might cause some structural damage up above. They’d hate to bring down their land-lord’s walls.” He looked at Patrick. “Do you recall any blasting?”
The boy shook his head. “It was all picks and shovels and men sweating and cursing.”
Kipling chuckled. “Well said, my boy. Sweating and cursing comes with picks and shovels as certainly as blood comes with bullets.”
“But I suppose,” Charles said reflectively, “that someone might have thought they would have need of blasting. Let’s see what else we have. Maybe it will resolve the mystery.”
But the second box, when opened, did nothing to enlighten them. Instead, it gave Charles something new to puzzle over. “Telegraph keys,” he muttered, feeling baffled. “Coil buzzers.”
“Like the telegraph key in the post office,” Patrick said. “For se
nding messages out of town.” Then he frowned. “But where, I wonder. If it’s just Brighton, Mr. Tudwell dispatches me, or one of the other boys.”
Charles wondered too. As he had understood the smuggling operation—at least, as he had thought he’d understood it—it was a small-scale, self-contained, local enterprise, relying on local people to unload the ship and distribute the merchandise. But these telegraph keys suggested something much larger, some sort of coordinated activity that required communications with distant points—and quick, clandestine communications, at that, achieved by climbing a pole and tapping a telegraph wire. Their investigations were beginning to assume a larger dimension. But what did it all mean?
“Well,” Kipling said cheerfully, “at least we know that in the event of a national emergency, Rottingdean will be able to communicate with the outside world.”
There was one last box left in the alcove, a stout wooden crate some two feet long with rope handles on each end and the designation “M/96—Ein Dutzend” stamped on the lid, and under that the word “Oberndorf.” Kipling bent over to pick up the crate.
“Beastly heavy for its size,” he grunted, and set it down on the floor beside the other boxes. He straightened. “I say, Sheridan. Can this box be what I think it is?”
“I believe so,” Charles said, and squatted, considering the box for a long moment. Yes, it almost certainly was. But why? The blasting caps, the telegraph keys, and now—He frowned. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together, but he did not like the look of it. He did not like it at all.
Patrick picked up the crowbar. “Well, if nobody else is going to open it—”
“Don’t be cheeky, my young sinner,” Kipling said, and took the crowbar. “I’ll do the honors.” He pried up the lid and laid it aside. A strong smell of metal lubricant arose from the box.
“Well, I’ll be blowed,” Kipling said, dropping the crowbar with a clang and staring. “It jolly well is.”
“Yes, indeed. It most certainly is.” Charles took a heavy oilpaper package from the crate, and began to unwrap it.
“I still don’t...” Patrick began perplexedly, and then, with great interest, “It’s a gun!”
“A dozen guns, actually.” Charles held the pistol up, admiring the ingenuity of its design. The long, slender barrel, coated with jelly, gleamed in the light of the lantern. The checkered wood grip fit the palm of his hand. He hefted it, considering. Just a shade under four pounds. Heavy, by some preferences, but considering its firepower—
“Well, well.” Kipling whistled between his teeth. “Nothing like my trusty old target pistol. Wicked-looking thing, I’d say.” He bent closer. “What the devil do you make of that rectangular body, Sheridan? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“That,” Charles said, “is the magazine where the ammunition is stored. It’s a self-loading pistol, Kipling.”
“A self-loading—” Another whistle.
Charles nodded. “According to the gun-shop owner I talked with, this gun can fire off the whole magazine as fast and as easily as you can pull the trigger. The recoil of the firing opens the breech and ejects the empty cartridge case as it loads a fresh cartridge.”
He looked down at the pistol with an odd mixture of admiration and sadness, realizing that its capacity for automatic reloading enormously amplified the handgun’s killing power and transformed it from a defensive to an offensive weapon. After this, close combat would never be the same.
“Very ingenious,” he said, half to himself. “And very, very deadly.”
“It ejects the cartridge?” Patrick looked at Charles, a frown between his eyes. “Then it is the same sort of gun that killed Captain Smith?”
“Indeed, Patrick,” Charles said. “Yes, it is almost certainly the same sort of gun.” He squinted at the pistol. “By Jove, this rear sight appears to be adjustable! Take a look at this, Kipling.”
Kipling studied the sight. “The graduations are marked off in hundreds,” he said, “up to seven hundred. Feet, d’you suppose? Yards?”
Charles took the gun back. “Sights on military weapons are marked in yards or meters,” he said, “but seven hundred? That’s a normal range for a rifle—almost unbelievable for a pistol. There’s some sort of chamber marking here. Let’s see if I can make it out.” He took out his magnifying lens and held the gun closer to the light to peer at it.
“What does it say?” Kipling asked. “Is it a British weapon? Or French?” He hunched his shoulders. “You don’t suppose these men are running guns and explosives to the Irish, do you? By damn, if they are—”
Charles looked up. “I don’t know about that, but this gun is neither British nor French.” The chamber was stamped SYSTEM MAUSER. “It’s German.”
But the box, which advertised itself as containing a dozen such guns contained only eleven. They did not require the assistance of the Great Detective, Charles thought, to conclude that the twelfth Mauser was the one that had killed Captain Smith.
26
TORWBARKER HOGGS LANE BRIGHTON RE QUERY THIRTY CALIBER JACKETED BULLET AND SHOULDERED RIMLESS CASING WITH FOUR ZERO THREE HEADSTAMP STOP SPECIMEN IS SEVEN POINT SIX THREE MILLIMETER MANUFACTURED BY DEUTSCHE WAFFEN UND MUNITIONSFABRIKEN USED IN NEW M96 SELFLOADING MAUSER PISTOL STOP HAVE EXCLUSIVE FRANCHISE UK STOP EXPECTING FIRST CONSIGNMENT SHORTLY STOP HAND BILL WITH PARTICULARS TO FOLLOW VIA POST STOP REGARDS WESTLEY RICHARDS NEW BOND STREET LONDON
Kipling put down his coffee cup and read the telegram that Charles handed him across the breakfast table.
“Well!” he said, when he had finished. “What do you make of it, Sheridan?”
Kate took the telegram from the table and read it herself. From what Charles had told her on his return from the expedition through the tunnel, the gun was a critical key—not only to solving the murder of Captain Smith, but to unraveling the mystery of the smuggling. It was a revolutionary gun, he had said: a weapon that in fifty years would no doubt be in the possession of half the armies of the world, supplanting the revolver as a military side arm and enormously expanding the shooter’s individual firepower. But why was this gun—why was a whole box of these guns—hidden in a smugglers’ cache under the Sussex downs?
“The telegram tells us nothing that we had not already learned,” Charles said.
“But it does confirm that there are no other guns of this type in England,” Kate reminded him. She picked up a serving dish from the center of the table, thinking how pleasant it was to breakfast without a servant hovering nearby. “Would you like more of the broiled kidneys, Charles?”
“Yes, it does confirm that,” Charles said, taking the dish and spooning out the kidneys. “Kate, please give my compliments to Mrs. Portney on the breakfast. Kidneys, scrambled eggs, even poached apples with cinnamon and cream. I could have wished for nothing else.”
“It also confirms,” Kipling said in a harsh tone, “that the guns came from Germany. I tell you, Sheridan, our government had better have a close eye on those Germans. They’re up to no good over there. Commissioning warships, building munitions factories, designing guns—we’re in for trouble, mark my words.” He leaned forward, eyes gleaming, one thick forefinger jabbing the air. “They’re meddling in South Africa, where we’re heading for a big row. And if they take a hand in the Irish Question, or fall in with the anarchists, there’ll be hell to pay.” He shook his head darkly. “Still, though,” he muttered, reaching for the jam jar, “I wouldn’t half mind owning one of the guns in that box. Seven hundred yards? If they just weren’t German—”
“That does complicate the matter,” Charles remarked. “Their being German, I mean. It is all rather difficult to piece together.”
Kipling smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “Don’t you see it, Sheridan? These Rottingdeaners have gotten hooked into something bigger than they know. It’s all so beastly clever—and obvious too, now that we’ve found those Mauser pistols. They think they’re smuggling innocent goods, when in truth,
they’re running guns.”
“But wouldn’t they know what they’re smuggling?” Kate asked doubtfully. “After all, guns weigh a great deal more than tobacco or dress goods. And they are bringing in merchandise. Charles and I had some of the very best sherry yesterday at the White Horse.”
“Not necessarily,” Kipling said. “They could receive just enough goods to satisfy them, and the rest...” He shook his head, scowling. “I’ll lay you twenty quid that those guns are aimed at the Empire, one way or another.”
“Kipling’s right about the possibility of the villagers being deceived,” Charles said. “And it would account for some of the details that are puzzling me. The size of that newly enlarged cellar, for instance. And the fact that some of the goods they’re bringing in could be imported without duty.”
Kipling nodded wisely. “You’ll see,” he said. “Somebody’s pulled the wool over these Rottingdeaners’ eyes.”
“Perhaps I will know more after I’ve talked to Tudwell,” Charles said. “He’s on my list for this morning.” He looked at Kate. “Then I will speak to George Radford’s widow, and after that, Kipling and I will go on to Brighton. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“Anything I should want is probably here, at a discount,” Kate said, with a little laugh. “I wonder whether Mrs. Portney is making progress toward the truffles.”
Kipling looked puzzled. “Truffles?”
“A test of the local system of domestic supplies,” Kate replied.
Charles grinned. “Have you made arrangements for the boy?”