The Complete Novels

by Don Wilcox

  CHAPTER XIX

  Ross took the candle and followed after Jimpson, who made rapid progress on his hands and twisted knees.

  “Low bridge,” said Jimpson.

  Ross bent low as they passed under massive timbers. This subterranean area was all new to him. He had once visited the castle’s basement, and glimpsed the miniature power station and the lead-in pipes that brought water power from the Flinfiord river. But this cavern was on a still lower level—a sub-basement hideaway among the stone columns that formed the castle’s foundation.

  “Wouldn’t it be easy for a man to get caught down here?” he asked.

  “Not so easy,” said Jimpson.

  “There’s lots of tricky passages. But a man did get caught here.”

  “When?”

  “This morning,” said Jimpson, turning to give Ross a cocksure nod. “I caught him myself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking abou—” Ross broke off with a gulp.

  Out of the cavernous shadows a man was approaching—a stocky, turtlelike figure. It was Hank Switcher.

  “Merry Christmas,” said Hank, grinning. “How’s the weather up on top?”

  “Well, blow me down!” Ross stopped in his tracks. “Am I seeing ghosts? I never believed in them before. This must be a dummy—”

  “Don’t start calling me names,” Hank snorted, grabbing Ross by both hands to prove that he was real.

  “I still think you’re a ghost,” Ross laughed. “I can’t figure it out unless Jimpson picked you out of the sea, piece by piece, and pasted you together—”

  “Not out of the sea, out of the air,” said Hank. “Jimpson’s keeping the honor of beating the death-trap all to himself.”

  “How’d you do it, Jimpson?” Ross asked. “You must have some other hobbies besides collecting statistics.”

  “This way, gents,” said the crippled man. “My newest secret invention.” The cavern opened over a wide sloping rock beneath the overhanging porch. Several upright timbers formed an arcade to support the overhead structure. Here the brisk sea breeze swept through and the dull roar of the waves echoed up from five hundred feet below.

  “I recognize that floor above us,” said Ross. “That’s where Hank and I walked the chalkline.”

  They moved out along the wide sloping rock to the limits of safety, and Ross pointed his flashlight up to the timbered surface that extended beyond.

  “Yes,” he said, “there’s the trapdoor. But it’s a full ten feet out of reach. How in the name of common sense—M-m-mm.”

  Ross became absorbed in the apparatus at his feet.

  “These beams swing out,” said Jimpson. “That’s my invention. See?”

  He gave the beams a push with his twisted legs. They swung slowly, with a low scraping sound.

  “You see, it’s like a big basketball net on two arms,” said Jimpson proudly. “Remember that time I had you return me some wire? You were on the roof and you sent me down some pocket tools, too. Tools and wire, that was all I needed. There were plenty of scrap timbers here under the castle.”

  Ross passed an appraising eye over the intricately spliced scraps of poles that formed the two beams. He noted the crude makeshift hinges, securely anchored to each side of a foundation pillar. He turned the flashlight on the outer ends of the beams to examine the loose network of wire.

  “A catch-basket,” he mused. “How’d you manage to build it out on those ends?”

  “Crawled out,” said Jimpson. “That wasn’t nothing. These legs of mine are skid-proof.”

  “So there’s the answer,” said Hank, hooking his thumbs in his armpits. “I fell through the floor, and pop, here I was, right in the net.”

  “You came up laughing, I suppose,” said Ross.

  “I fainted,” said Hank.

  “By the way,” Jimpson explained, “it’s a good thing you postponed your trip, Mr. Bradford. You see, I had to get this gent out before you dropped in. This is only a one-man catch basket.”

  “Then if I had dropped through, both of us would have gone down.”

  “Exactly,” said Jimpson. “Next, you remember, the trapdoor stuck while half open. Luckily I had succeeded in swinging the beams, together with Mr. Switcher, out of sight. Otherwise my game would have been discovered.”

  “If I ever give out any medals,” Ross smiled, “I’ll see that you get one, Jimpson.”

  The clatter of footsteps sounded ominously from the floor overhead.

  “That’s the maids,” Ross whispered. “They’re searching the castle for Vivian.”

  “We’d better get back into the shadows,” said Jimpson. “If they should think of looking under the castle, you two gentlemen would be on the spot.”

  “Only Hank,” said Ross. “He’s still wanted for the murder of a sailor. But I’m no longer a fugitive.”

  “How’d you square yourself with Jag Rouse?” Hank asked.

  “I didn’t. He’s still on my trail. But I had the extreme pleasure of seeing him dismissed. Four of my guards conducted him halfway to the East Village, and Schubert, my confidante, shadowed him the rest of the way.”

  Hank was gasping. “Your guards! Your confidante!”

  Ross shrugged modestly. “You see I’ve been promoted. The big boss, Graygortch, fancied me as an A-one killer, so he’s made me chief of the guards, replacing Rouse.”

  “No! You don’t mean it!”

  “Not so loud, Hank,” Ross warned. “If they found me here with you I’d have to bring you back as a captive. And I might have to execute you.”

  “Verily ye little bullfrogs!” Hank panted. “I’d better tie something over my mouth so I won’t even whisper. Hey, wait a minute. You wouldn’t have any legal grounds to execute—”

  “This place is a law unto itself,” Ross whispered.

  “But I mean—look at this, Ross. I ought to be up for a reward instead of a trial.”

  Hank produced an old printed sheet of paper and held it in front of the flashlight. Ross recognized the picture as the sailor that Hank had shot and killed. The sailor was wanted for murder and embezzlement back in the United States. A liberal reward was offered.

  “That,” Hank whispered, “is what our friend Jimpson dug up for me.” Jimpson, leading the way through the under-castle maze turned and bowed a proud acknowledgment. “I’ve got dozens of them,” he said. “Collecting useless junk—that’s another of my hobbies. They throw stuff down a waste chute from the basement, and I paw through it just to pass the time. Most of these sailors are so proud of their crimes that they brought some credentials with them. I’ve got a regular library up here. I’ll show you.”

  “Is this where you live?” Ross asked. “This is only my penthouse,” said Simpson. “My regular home is a bit of cave down near the water.”

  Ross folded up the printed sheet and handed it back to Hank.

  “Keep it. If you ever get back to the States it might do you some good. But it doesn’t mean anything around here. This place thrives on criminals.” Hank stopped with a puzzled frown. “Of course you’ll change all that, now that you’re the chief.”

  “Not at all,” said Ross. “I’m the biggest criminal of the bunch. Just ask Schubert—or Graygortch himself. They’ve got my number.”

  “Have you been hit on the head since I saw you last?” Hank asked.

  “S-s-s-sh,” Jimpson warned, extinguishing his candle. “They’re searching the basement. They might look down the waste chute—”

  Ross snapped off his flashlight. He could hear the footsteps thudding leisurely along the basement floor. The waste chute, which he had barely glimpsed a moment previous, now gave down a thin shaft of light. Voices echoed down with a rain-barrel effect.

  “Dot’s der vaste chute,” Fantella’s tone was one of disgust. “It’s not likely she vould haf slid down to der dirt heap.”

  “But it is possible,” the low rumbling voice of Graygortch rejoined.

  “Bah! Dot’s silly. If she vent do
t vay, she could haf slid right on down der rocks, chust like der dirt, ker-splash in der ocean.”

  “If they don’t find her at one of the villages,” said Graygortch, “we must send a sailor down to look.”

  “Veil, maybe a sailor, but no maid. I tell you, no voman vould choose to go swimming in dat mess—”

  “Hello, up there,” Ross broke in. He moved toward the chute, turning his flashlight beam on it. “I’m down here looking for Vivian.”

  “Ach! It’s dot new chief, Bradford,” Fantella’s voice sounded clear through the opening.

  “Good,” said Graygortch in a satisfied tone. “I should have known that no hiding places would escape him.”

  “I haven’t found a trace,” Ross called up to them, shooting his flashlight around the premises. “A few more minutes and I’ll be through—”

  He swallowed his words. His flashlight stopped pointing straight at Vivian. If it had been a camera it would have caught a perfect picture of a frightened girl half-crouched at the further side of a heap of trash, clutching a small gray book against her breast. Her clothes were soiled, her face was streaked with dirt, her eyes were wild with the light of terror. She looked as if she were about to scream.

  “Not a sign of her,” Ross repeated loudly, his voice suddenly taut. “I don’t think she’s here, but I’ll keep on looking.”

  “Dot’s right,” Fantella called back. “Keep on looking.”

  “And if there’s any news from the village, I’ll come up at once,” said Ross, moving back from the chute, “I think that’s where she’s gone.” He turned the flashlight on his own face and placed a finger across his lips as he talked—a signal of silence that Vivian couldn’t miss.

  There was a short stillness. Then the low rattle of Graygortch’s words could be heard.

  “All right . . . We’ll go back and wait.”

  As soon as the slowly retreating footsteps from overhead faded away, Ross turned the light back to Vivian.

  “Oh, Ross,” she gasped, “what a scare you gave me. If it had been anybody else but you—”

  “Don’t worry,” Ross whispered. “Fantella and I are working together now. She couldn’t have come any nearer confiding in me if she had drawn a picture.”

  “Fantella, bless her heart,” Vivian sighed. “I’d have been too scared to run away if she hadn’t helped me. And then I’d have had to marry you. Wouldn’t that have been awful?”

  “Not so awful,” Ross grinned.

  “But they won’t find me now, will they, Ross?”

  “Gosh, you are a bit scared, aren’t you?” He felt the trembling of her body as he took her arms gently in his hands. “Did my friends Jimpson and Hank know you were hiding down here?”

  He glanced back toward the two men. Jimpson was relighting his candle. From his agreeably surprised countenance and Hank’s puzzled blinking it was apparent that both men had been unaware of Vivian’s presence.

  “It’s been many years since I’ve talked with you. Miss Graygortch,” said Jimpson brightly, crawling on his hands and knees into her presence. “I don’t suppose you remember me.”

  “Of course I do,” said Vivian timidly. “I remember the day that you fell through. And the better days, too, that we used to have before all these troubles began.”

  “I’m surprised you remember,” said Jimpson. “But you were a bright little kid.”

  “And you were the best engineer that we ever had. Uncle Bill used to say so himself. And I wrote it down in this book.”

  She handed the little gray-backed volume to Ross, who thumbed through its ink-filled pages.

  “It’s a diary,” Ross mumbled. “Yours?”

  “Yes, one I’d forgotten all about,” said Vivian, passing the book on to Hank and Jimpson. “It got lost years ago. But I ran across it this afternoon in a pile of things over there by the waste chute.”

  “My library,” said Jimpson. “The best gems from many a year’s trash. Your diary’s my choice volume.”

  “You’ve read it?” Vivian raised her eyebrows in alarm.

  “Read it and memorized it, by George,” said Jimpson. “It’s all true, and darned curious, too; especially that part about the time your Uncle Bill was going to die and had his grave already dug—”

  Vivian nodded, and she seemed to grow pale. “I was re-reading all that this afternoon,” she said. “And since it got dark I’ve, been thinking it all over. It seems even stranger now than when I was a child.”

  Hank was scratching his head. “Did I hear you right? Did your uncle have his grave dug?”

  “Yes . . . Yes, you can still see it—what’s left of it—out in the yard. After nine years it’s nearly filled in.” Vivian’s eyes glowed with a mystical light. Only the candle was burning now, and the four of them were huddled around it. She sat near Ross and her half-shadowed face reminded him of some painting of a beautiful female specter lost in far-away fantasies.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” she went on. “I mean, how curious it was that Uncle Bill didn’t die—when he was so sure he was going to—and Dr. Zimmerman thought he was dying.”

  “And then your uncle rallied,” said Jimpson.

  “Yes . . . in the strangest manner,” said Vivian. “It was almost like a dead man coming back to life. But it was more than that. He rallied with a burst of bad temper, and began to glare at everyone with eyes that were somehow different. For a long time we couldn’t get used to him. There was such a hard, insane glitter about his staring eyes, and such a heavy bitterness in everything said.”

  “That’s the way I remember it,” said Jimpson. “That’s when Dr. Zimmerman and all his other friends deserted him.”

  “They had to,” said Vivian. “He insulted them so terribly. He was as hateful as Satan.”

  “As hateful as Satan,” Ross echoed under his breath. “What a comparison.”

  “But gradually we got used to him, and he began to distribute his mad spells at various intervals,” said Vivian.

  “A typical trait of many insane people,” said Hank wisely. “The doctors would have a name for it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Ross, gazing into the darkness.

  “Anyway,” Vivian went on with her nightmarish reminiscences, “Uncle Bill wasn’t himself at all. At times he appeared to have forgotten things he had always known—”

  “An amnesia victim with paranoic complications,” Hank interpolated.

  “He even seemed surprised, one time, to learn that you, Jimpson, had set up the power plant. And when you reminded him that you had patented several inventions, he gave you a lot of new work to do.”

  Jimpson nodded. “That’s when I installed all the bells and gongs that turn the castle into a jangle whenever folks cross the halls.”

  “And then he put you to work on the big machine up in the top of the tower,” said Vivian.

  Ross caught his breath. “Am I to understand, Jimpson, that you are the inventor of that—”

  “Not so fast, Mr. Bradford,” Jimpson lifted a restraining hand. “I’ve been hurled over the cliff once for that job. I don’t want to get in any more trouble over it.”

  “But you did invent it?”

  “I did not,” said Jimpson. “As God is my witness, I do not know what, under high heaven, could make that tower machine do the things it does. When I was putting the parts together I followed one detailed specification after another. Every instruction came directly from Old Bill Graygortch’s lips. Nothing was ever blueprinted.”

  “Then you just followed his orders?” Vivian asked, for on this obscure episode she was as curious as Ross and Hank.

  “I followed them to humor your uncle. I was sure he was crazy. After all the bells and gongs I had set up, I supposed that big tower wheel of thirteen gun-like tubes was going to be some sort of electric whistle. It wasn’t. It was a cataclysmic death spray. If you want to know how—or why—don’t ask me. I only made the thing. I sure-as-hell didn’t invent it.”

/>   Ross studied the twisted, warped, weather-beaten man with a respect that was almost reverence. The fellow was telling the truth, there was no doubt about that. In his brain and hands were a skill that any engineer might envy. In his heart was a heavy stone of resentment because that skill had been misused by a weird genius of death. The wonder was, thought Ross, that the fellow, staying on through the years to see what destruction his handiwork, through an ironic fate, brought about, had buried his inward bitterness in an outward sense of humor: his statistics, his mud-chain legs, his library of gems from the trash pile.

  “But my Uncle Bill,” said Vivian, still lost in her unhappy reverie, “was afraid that someone might understand the invention.”

  “Yes,” said Jimpson “He suspected me before we got the thing finished. As soon as he sent out the first big storm he knew that I was on fire to analyze the thing to the last volt. So that was when he had Captain Rouse find me guilty—and you know the rest.”

  Hank, supporting his head in his hands, came to life with a jerk “I don’t get it,” he said. “Was Graygortch an engineer before he went batty?”

  “No,” said Jimpson. “He couldn’t even thread a pipe.”

  “Did he study up on engineering after he went batty?”

  “No.”

  “Then how in the name of Edison and Einstein could he give you instructions that would turn into that nifty little earthquake gadget?”

  Jimpson spread his fingers in a gesture of helplessness. Ross muttered sarcastically. “Accident.”

  “About as likely,” said Hank, “as going into a print shop, dumping a dozen cases of type into a press and seeing it print off a Shakespearean play.”

  “Some day Graygortch will die,” said Jimpson, “and then I’m going to climb to the top of the tower and see what makes that machine tick.”

  For a few minutes no one spoke. The mention of Graygortch’s anticipated death, Ross noticed, caused not the slightest change in Vivian’s intent face. But the thought had stuck in her mind.

  “I wonder,” she said wistfully, “what will happen when he does die.”

  Ross rose, planted his hands on his hips, looked from one to another of his three listeners.