by Don Wilcox
Obviously the guard had preferred to dodge this man. The footsteps waned, the guard and Ross proceeded on their way.
“Graygortch?” Ross asked.
The guard laughed. “That was Rouse. He’s your natural enemy. He doesn’t know you’re here, and we won’t disturb him with the news just yet.”
“My natural enemy, huh?” Ross echoed. “I pick ’em big.”
His comment didn’t elicit any further explanation from the guard. The guard was busy whistling wisps of Schubert’s Serenade through his teeth. Momentarily Ross was distracted from the dizzying maze of the elegant corridors and spacious halls by his escort’s odd whistling mannerism.
“They call me Schubert,” the guard said with a hint of pride in his smile, and went on whistling.
It was noticeable that he whistled without any visible adjustment of his lips or jaws, for his upper teeth projected unduly and his mouth was constantly open. The motionless starting and stopping of tunes, together with the half-smile that hung at the corners of his lips, somehow helped to make him a curiosity not to be too quickly typed. There was at once a mysterious good humor, a friendliness, and a sly cunning about him.
He stopped whistling and spoke in a guarded tone. “You want to see Graygortch? There he is.”
“Where?”
They were crossing a circular hallway that reminded Ross of a state capitol rotunda.
Schubert pointed down a dim deadend passage. “That shadow,” he said. “That’s Graygortch.”
Ross saw the silhouetted profile of a face slanted into misproportions across the end wall of the passage. There was no discernable movement to the shadow. It could have been made by hanging a mask on a chair and setting a spotlight back of it.
“He’s in his study,” said Schubert. “Tread lightly.”
They moved on to another section of the castle, crossed through the dining room, paused at a kitchen where a vixen of a cook was screaming her hardboiled orders at a corps of maids. Schubert looked in.
“There’ll be an extra, beginning tonight, Fantella.”
“Vot’s dot?” the cook snorted, bristling for a fight. “Rouse didn’t order extra.”
“I’m ordering it, see,” said Schubert. “This is Graygortch’s own guest.”
“Yah?” Fantella sniffed. “Vot an important sailor you got ter be, Meester Schubert, makin’ guests for Meester Graygortch. Rouse vill dumbust you ofer der head some day.”
“Where’s Vivian, Fantella?”
The irate cook slapped a wooden spoon down on an iron table. “Don’t you go upsetting dot girl mit no more zurprise guests. I’ll dumbust you ofer der head myself.”
“Where is she? In her play room? Graygortch ordered me to—”
“Graygortch! Graygortch!” Her fat cheeks shuddered. “Vot is he coming to? For nine years I haf said he vos der same old Bill Graygortch as always, only for being a Ieetle seek. But dese last weeks, mine Gott! You know what I tink?”
“What do you think?”
“I tink he hears too much war. He reads too many speeches of der terrible Hitler. Listens to too much radio. It’s making him into a maniacter vot feeds on thunder and lightning. Mine Gott! Better he should have died!”
A teasing whistle escaped the guard’s teeth. “Mercy, what a temper, Fantella. What’s worse, Vivian is growing up to be just like you.”
“Fah! I don’t talk to fresh sailors like you!” The old lady whirled and stormed away.
By this time Ross had gathered that all guards were referred to as sailors because of their uniforms. The uniforms had doubtless been secured by some unethical means, for this private estate certainly had no connection with the British Navy. Rather it was a little secluded independent state—a law unto itself.
“Here we are at last,” said Schubert with an ingratiating gesture.
They stopped near an oddly shaped doorway. It was no more than three feet high, reminding Ross of something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Schubert explained in a low voice that this had been Vivian’s play room ever since she was a child.
“It’s still her play room,” he said.
“She’s not very sociable. She shrinks from people. This is her favorite retreat. Come on in and meet her.”
“No, thanks.”
“Huh?” Schubert blinked at Ross with a mysterious twinkle. “What’s the matter? Bashful?”
“Certainly not.”
“I don’t know how far you’ve come from,” Schubert said, still studying Ross curiously, “but I know why you’ve come. You’re one of Graygortch’s candidates. You must be a little bit curious to see the girl you hope to marry—or aren’t you?”
“Marry?” Ross echoed the word without meaning to. “Yes—er—of course. That is—”
“You don’t have to keep it secret from me,” said Schubert. “It’s Rouse you’ve got to watch. He doesn’t know. That’s why I’ll have to keep you hid, along with the other candidates. But time’s growing short. The old man’s getting too feeble to last much longer.” Ross took a deep breath and pressed his fingers against the wooden wall behind him just for the satisfaction of clinging to something solid. Only a few minutes earlier, when he had crashed the castle gate, he had wished for a weapon. Now what he needed was pills to counteract dizziness.
“This way,” said Schubert, pointing to the playroom door.
“No, thanks,” said Ross. “If that room is her private retreat, I wouldn’t think of intruding.”
“Oh. Formalities, eh?” Schubert spoke with a note of taunt. “I’ll bring her out.”
The guard knelt down, opened the door, and went in. Ross waited in the corridor.
“Get out! Get out!” a girlish voice cried. Schubert’s voice mocked her outburst, and there followed an explosive battle of epithets and taunts. The quarrel came closer to the little door.
Ross backed away, for toy dishes and pans and wooden dolls were flying out of the playroom. Then Schubert appeared, crawling out backward on his knees, protecting his face with one hand, dragging the girl out with the other.
“You’ve got company, I tell you,” he cackled between blows of a toy rolling pin that she swung at his head. “Allow me to introduce—”
By this time the girl was out under the light of the corridor, still sitting on her knees but no longer swinging weapons, for a sideward glance had told her a stranger was present. She continued to look daggers at Schubert, and her snappy black eyes, Ross noted, possessed a high dagger-looking potential. With a haughty twist she shook her red jacket closer around her shoulders.
“For the last time, Schubert,” she snapped heatedly, “if you ever come into this room again there’s going to be trouble. I’m warning you—”
“But Vivian—Miss Graygortch, I’ve brought you—”
“You can telephone me if you want me. Just remember that.”
“Not about this. Your Uncle Graygortch wants it kept quiet. He said bring the candidates straight to you, then hide them—”
“You and your candidates!” The girl bit her words angrily. “You’re nothing but thieves and cutthroats. All of you!” She turned on Ross and faced him squarely for the first time. “That goes for you too.”
The daggers of her eyes held on Ross’ weather-beaten face. Her saucy lips twitched slightly as she glanced at his wind-ruffled hair, the straight lines of his eyebrows, thin lips and jaw. Automatically her hand rose to brush back her own uncombed hair that had fallen over her shoulder in disarray.
“Consider the introduction complete,” Schubert cracked, “but you might tell us your name, fellow.”
“Ross Bradford.” He continued to look at the girl steadily. For all her ire, she was young and pretty. Her eyes were large, her lips almost childlike.
Though her spitfire anger had suddenly subsided in spite of herself, she managed a cynical tone of voice.
“You’re one of these proud Americans, aren’t you? You’re going to tell me you’ve come all the way across the ocean to marry
me. You’re going to tell me what a great fellow you are. I know. You can just skip that line. All I want to know is what kind of criminal are you, really?”
“We’d better get this straight,” said Ross coldly. “I didn’t come here to marry you. What’s more, if I had, I’d change my mind. That’s all. I’m sorry we bothered you.”
Ross struck off down the hall, leaving Schubert and the girl to gape after him. “Schubert,” the girl whispered breathlessly.
“What is it?”
“Bring him back to me after supper. I want to talk with him.”
CHAPTER V
Another Storm
Ross Bradford had walked off abruptly on purpose. It had seemed a good idea at the time. He couldn’t have stayed without tangling himself up in a quarrel, and he was uncertain how far a tangle could go around here without someone’s getting hanged. Or bounced off an overhanging porch.
But as he walked away, followed by the ever alert Schubert, he was mentally kicking himself. For once he wished he’d been born clever instead of honest.
As far as that young female spitfire was concerned, it was best that he should say exactly what he did say. If there was a marriage in the offing and she was sorting over the prizes, he wasn’t in the running. Nothing could be farther from his business.
However, if he had been unscrupulous enough to pounce on his advantages, he should have said, “Lady, I’m your man.” Then after a few smiles and a false kiss or two in the moonlight he could begin to quiz her about things that mattered: What was the meaning of these storms? What were the secrets of this stupendous power that leaped out over the ocean? What was her uncle’s game—and what was her share in it?
These were Ross Bradford’s unanswerables. As soon as Schubert led him to a room and went whistling away, the bewildered pilot dropped down on a cot and tried to recount his experiences In a few minutes he was asleep.
Fantella knocked at his door and came in with a tray of food. He looked up drowsily and told her to put it down. He would eat later.
“I got a message vor you, Meester Bradford. Dot sailor Schubert said to tell you der conference mit der girl iss postponed. You gotta stay right here till der suspicions blow ofer. Meester Rouse smells a rotten turnip.”
“Thanks, Fantella. I’ll stay.”
After that Ross was left to himself for the night.
Toward morning he awakened out of a dream of electric storms and death-dives.
At first he couldn’t remember where he was. A faint gray of approaching dawn tinged the rough window encasements. A fresh breeze was sailing in from the west. His thoughts cleared. All the mysteries of his recent hours loomed up like ghosts. He wished Hank Switcher were here. He needed someone to talk with. But Hank was probably steaming back for the States.
Ross drank in the breeze at the west window. There was something eerie about looking out upon the rambling walls of the castle, black against the starlit blue. Everything was so silent and mysterious. The only sounds were the low ceaseless sloshings of restless waves five hundred feet below.
“They’ve put me off in a corner by myself.” Ross muttered, crossing to a south window. “I’ll never learn anything as long as I stay here.”
But Ross Bradford stayed all of that day like a model prisoner. By nightfall he was not an iota ahead of the day’s starting point. He had seen no one except the cook. She had refused to stop and talk.
It was early the next morning that he looked down out of his south window to discover the weird figure of a man fighting his way upward along the nearly perpendicular wall. Under the shroud of early morning twilight the man’s features were indistinguishable. But Ross Bradford knew the man was Jimpson, the crippled beggar.
He ascended by a zig-zag trail, and his swift sure motions proved that he knew every inch of his way. Ross guessed that he had built the trail himself. It was replete with concealed ledges, carved hand holds, and stretches of rope anchored so tightly along the wall that they could rarely be seen.
Jimpson came on, plying his way with powerful bare arms, giving an extra shove here and there with his twisted legs. Somehow it did Ross Bradford good to see the unfortunate fellow put up such a valiant scrap. Whatever his game, the Fates hadn’t downed him.
At last he was up to the lower level of the castle itself, directly beneath Bradford’s window.
He climbed upon the small porch noiselessly, yet not in the manner of a sneak. He clung close to the rail. He picked up something and began to eat.
Ross Bradford smiled to himself. This was the porch from which Fantella’s maids dumped the kitchen garbage. But Jimpson, as Ross rightly guessed, was not eating unclean food. Someone in the kitchen force had conspired to leave a package of edibles for him.
Another day passed. With the night’s darkness and the new dawn Ross Bradford was able to verify his guess. Fantella herself was the other party to this little intrigue. Late at night she would plant the package of food near the porch railing. By early dawn Jimpson would ascend, eat his fill, tie a package of food to his belt, and make his way back down the wall.
Bradford chuckled at his discovery. It wasn’t much, compared to the vast mysteries that loomed over the Graygortch castle, but it was something.
The more Bradford pondered it, the more meanings he derived. He was convinced, now, that Jimpson had once been a member of this household. Yes, Jimpson had been literally kicked out—for what reason? Well, maybe it didn’t take much reason to get kicked out of this place. At any rate Fantella did not hold any grudges against the fellow. And she was an old-timer here, still bearing the torch for old Bill Graygortch’s honor and respectability.
Fantella, certainly, was on the right side of the ledger. For all her hard-boiled vixenish manners and her funny German accent, she was solid and good-hearted and honest.
“But where does that get me?” Ross Bradford asked himself, pacing the floor restlessly. “If I don’t get out of here I’m nothing but a turkey waiting for Thanksgiving.”
A strain of Schubert’s Serenade came down the hallway, and the smiling toothy guard breezed in. “How’s it going, pal? Had any visitors?”
“Not even a mouse.”
“You ought to carry a deck of cards.” Schubert looked sharply at Ross’ pockets. “You travel light, don’t you?”
“I ought to have a portable radio,” said Ross. “Are there any broadcasting stations around here?”
“Hell, if you want music,” said Schubert, “I can play you any tune you can name. Just give me a fiddle—”
“I wasn’t thinking of music,” said Ross. “I like to listen in on these ham stations. Do you know of any such—”
“That’s outa my line,” said Schubert. “The hams are probably all shut down for the war. Well, pal, tonight you get to step out.”
Ross nodded absently. He was still thinking of the radio. Was it possible that Schubert and other occupants of this castle didn’t know that a ham station was operated from this point?
“Cheer up, pal. This is the start of your social season. Rouse’ll be busy looking after the old man tonight, so it’s your chance to promenade. She said she’d drop around for you after supper.”
“Vivian?”
“Who’d you think—Fantella? Or one of the maids?”
“If it’s all the same,” said Ross, “I’d like a conference with Graygortch.”
“That’ll come later,” said Schubert. “And speak that name with reverence, my friend.” He whistled off down the corridors . . .
That evening, before Fantella had come to take Ross’ supper dishes away, he looked up to see Vivian standing in the doorway.
“Come in,” he said, switching his eyes back to his food to keep from noticing how devilishly beautiful she was.
She sauntered across the room, scanning the walls and floors.
“Cobwebs,” she said. “What a frightful room Schubert gave you.
“On the contrary,” said Ross, “it’s very pleasant. I have two oceans
, one on the south, one on the west.”
“But you must have found these walls very depressing. You’ve been here three days.” She paused at a window. The breeze fluttered across her silk blouse. “You weren’t tempted to jump out?”
Ross laughed. “I was waiting for a higher tide. By the way, your musical guard said a promenade might be in order.”
He went over to her and offered his arm in the attitude of a prisoner fulfilling an obligation. The girl ignored the arm, countering with a slightly puzzled smile. She led the way down a series of corridors to an open porch. She was scarcely the sophisticated type, thought Ross. Nor was there much of the spitfire about her at the moment, though he hadn’t forgotten that she could hurl toy crockery if the occasion demanded. “You like living here?” he asked. Her eyelids flicked upward. “Why did you ask that?”
“I didn’t suppose I was breaking in on any secret, just asking you how you liked—”
“I’ve lived here all my life,” she said Ross shook his head. “That’s a technical error. Most of your life is yet to be lived.”
“You like to argue, don’t you?”
“On the contrary, I—”
Ross saw that she was laughing at him. She was simply a little girl.
“Every time I say something,” she teased, “you say ‘On the contrary.’ That proves you like to argue.”
“All right, I’ll swear off arguing,” Ross smiled, “and we’ll carry on a peaceful, harmless little conversation. What shall we talk about?”
“What do people usually talk about, back in America?”
“The weather’s always a good topic,” said Ross. “When do you think we’ll have another storm?”
The girl tossed her head saucily, and her eyes flicked toward the tallest tower that reared above the castle roofs. “I don’t like to talk about storms.”