From previous trips to The Eagle’s Nest, I realized that I was now at the back of the long hallway I had dashed partway down the other day, in my sprint to the john. At its other end was the main stairway to the living room below. The building was formed by attaching two massive, double-storey wings at an angle to the main body. The central rectangle of the main building was given over, on the ground floor, to the huge living room, a dining room directly behind it, and the office I had just come from. One of the wings, the left one, as you faced the house from the lake, held kitchens, pantries and storage rooms on the ground floor and about half a dozen guest rooms down either side of a long central corridor—the corridor along which I was now looking. The other wing had a billiard room and a games room on the ground floor, and staff quarters up above. There were lights on over there—I could see their reflections on the branches of the overarching trees—so, if Hanna happened to be up here, she was most likely in one of the guest rooms in this wing. Now all I had to do was get past this locked door and find her.
On TV, they get around locked doors by sticking a credit card into the space between the door and the jamb and, with a merry little flip, snapping back the lock. This works better if you happen to have a credit card—mine had all been cancelled months ago—and if you are dealing with a snappable lock, instead of an old-fashioned bolt. What do they use on bolts? A gold card? I was standing there trying to resolve this puzzle, dithering I guess you could call it, when suddenly I heard footsteps clumping along the hallway. Someone was coming my way.
I was onto the railing in a flash and, before I could think about it, had scrambled upwards over the lip of the peaked roof and was sliding feet-first down the far side, into space. Luckily my feet caught on the eavestrough, or what Amelia, being American and therefore ignorant, would no doubt call a gutter. It was a good gutter. It held. I guess the noise I made—I always seem to make noise—was covered by the burst of laughter that swelled up from the living room below. Conrad had obviously cracked a good one.
I was now lying on my back on the sloping roof. But, by scrinching my head around over the peak, I could see back onto the landing. The profile of a large man was visible against the reflected light. He looked like a guard; thus, clearly, Hanna was close at hand. That was the good news. The bad news was that this guard had come out, disregarding all the solid, thoroughly documented advice laid before the public by the Canadian Cancer Society, for a cigarette. Had the man no respect for his lungs? What about secondary smoke? Did he not give a thought to any strangers who might be clinging to roofs nearby and be forced to inhale his disgusting fumes?
He began to hum to himself. He appeared to have earphones in his ears; he was listening to the radio, or a tape, and humming along. If I survived—an increasingly dubious prospect—I would speak pretty sharply to Old Man Jowett about the laxness of his employees. At last, I saw the glowing butt of the guard’s cigarette go arching through the night to the ground below. And then, by golly, he stood there some more, drinking in the night and thinking deep thoughts. He wasn’t paid to think; why didn’t he get back on the job? My heels were beginning to ache where they caught the edge of the gutter, and I was getting a cramp in my right leg. My bladder was clamouring for attention, too. James Bond doesn’t have a bladder, I guess; you don’t catch him saying, in the middle of the cliff-clinging scene, “Just a second, chaps, those last four Martinis, shaken, not stirred, have gotten to me. Let’s take a break.”
By God, the guard was gone. I clambered up the roof until I was back directly over the platform and gave a kind of sideways, lurching jump and wound up clinging to the railing on the landing.
There was another burst of laughter from down below. Bless you, Conrad, may your jokes be fruitful and multiply. I pulled myself over the railing, and tried the door. Locked again. No, it wasn’t, by God. It was closed, but the lock hadn’t caught. Just like ninety-nine percent of all cottage doors. I ducked inside.
The light from downstairs gave some relief to the blackness here, but not much. I slipped off my shoes and started to work my way down the hall, with my back against the wall. There would be a room, with a guard outside. That would be where Hanna was being held. I would find it and then . . . What? I would think of something. Silently, stealthily, scarcely breathing, I worked my way down to the first guest-room door. I tried the knob. It was open. I ducked in. Nobody there. Sigh. Back out into the hall, silently, steathily feeling my way, and doing very well, too, until someone huge and very hairy folded me in a crushing embrace.
This was it. The end. As I struggled silently with the foul fiend, who smelled, for some reason, of mothballs, I couldn’t help wondering if they would run the obit I had filed on myself over at the Lancer as is, or would Tommy insist on screwing around with it? This was a very large foul fiend, and I didn’t stand a chance, I knew. Heck, I didn’t come up to more than about his tummy. But it was not an active foul fiend. In fact, now that I thought about it, it wasn’t doing a damn thing. I stopped struggling.
Ursus horribilis, or the grizzly bear, is not native to southern Ontario; never comes near the place. Why, then, anyone would stuff a specimen and stick it in the upstairs hallway at The Eagle’s Nest is beyond me. Probably it had gone moth-eaten while on duty downstairs and had been shipped up here. I had very nearly knocked it over, which would not have been a happy development. Why hadn’t the noise of our tussle brought the guard down on me? I heard the flush of the toilet down the hall. What did this guy do to earn his money?
As I crouched beside the bear, a beam of light crossed the hallway further down, and the guard came out of the bathroom and padded back the way he had come. Clearly, Conrad had issued orders to keep things quiet and dark upstairs, just in case any of his birthday guests came wandering along. However, the beam of light that struck the overhead beams through the bathroom door gave me my second brilliant idea.
Most of our dwellings at Bosky Dell are converted summer cottages—even lavish structures such as The Eagle’s Nest. The bedroom walls, in the first place, never went right up to the ceilings, which were always high and slanted. You built a wooden wall eight feet high, and then you stopped. When the conversions were done, and the buildings winterized, a ceiling was laid across the top of this network of walls, and insulated, but this was done only where necessary, and was skipped when the section of the cottage involved was not to be used in the winter. Sir John Flannery had not thought it necessary in the guest wing, and neither had Conrad Jowett. I slipped back to the bedroom last visited, climbed up on the bed, and hoisted myself onto the top of the wall. It was about eight inches wide—not a lot, but fortunately, although I am clumsy, I have pretty good balance. Ducking my head down against the sloped roof over my head, I could make my crouching way along this wall, thus avoiding encounters with any more stuffed grizzlies that happened to be around.
Hanna was in the fourth room along, on my side. I couldn’t see her, at first, but, in the reflected light from downstairs, I could make out the figure of the guard, now tilted back on a chair outside the door. He was nodding his head, in time, I presumed, to the tune on his radio. I padded down there, only knocking my head against overhead beams twice in the process, and looked into the enclosing bedroom. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but Hanna had to be there, right? I sat down on the top of the wall. Could I get down without arousing the guard? Not likely. What to do? In the movies, you chuck something, and the guard goes over to check on it. I put my hand in my trousers pocket and came up with a package of Chiclets. It would have to do.
I leaned back and threw it down the hallway as far as I could, into one of the bedrooms on the far side. It must have hit something on the way down, because a distinct crack assaulted the air. I could hear the guard’s chair smack to the floor, so I guess he had the radio on low. He got up and, very prudently when you come to think of it, turned on the light from a switch just across the hall from where he sat. The light bulb was further
away down the hallway, but it gave lots of illumination to where I sat atop the wall, no more than a few feet from his head, waiting to die.
Harrison Jowett, as I live and breathe. He had drawn sentry go, while Amelia was cavorting downstairs. And they say it’s a man’s world. He didn’t look up—people seldom do—but ambled along to check out the noise, and I looked down. Hanna was tied to a straight wooden chair beside the bed, in her jogging outfit, with her mouth taped shut, and wearing a blindfold.
Harrison by now had opened the door to the room where the Chiclets had fallen, so I quickly lowered myself onto the bed and landed beside Hanna.
She gave an involuntary start, so I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The marines have landed,” I said. I slipped off the blindfold, which was just one of those dumb things they give you on overseas flights, and found myself staring into those lustrous eyes, which spoke, as they say, volumes. The first, brief, volume read, “My hero!” The second, rather longer read, “And about bloody time, too.”
When I was leaving home for university, my father gave me three bits of advice. “Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Never try to draw to an inside straight. Always carry a Swiss Army knife.” I was at least able to follow the third, since he gave me the knife at the same time as the advice, and that is how I happened to have this useful object at the bottom of a capacious pocket in my pants.
I had her arms and legs free in about two shakes of a lamb’s tail, but I left the plaster over her mouth for her to deal with. She was just tugging on the edge of this, when the lights went out again. Harrison had investigated, and found nothing suspicious. Well, I dunno, he no doubt told himself, musta been a mouse. We heard him settle back into his chair, then the small thump of his chair knocking against the door as he leaned back, on duty again. Hanna stirred at my side, and handed me a piece of plaster. Terrific, a souvenir. Then she kissed me on the cheek—just a quick peck, but very nice. Then she tiptoed over to a small table at one side of the room and came back bearing something large and porcelain. A thundermug, I guessed; people use them nowadays for flowers. The association of ideas started my bladder protesting again. Was that what Hanna had in mind? Of course not. She wrapped the thundermug in a blanket, then slipped over to the door and, very gently, tried to tug it open.
Now I got it. She would let the door bang open and crack Harrison over the noggin as he tumbled into the room. Very resourceful. Naturally, however, the damn door wouldn’t open. Stuck at the top; swollen out of shape, no doubt, by the humidity. Hanna tugged gingerly at it a couple of times, without avail, then gave me a poke in the ribs and raised my arm to point upwards. Dear God, did I have to do everything? I got back up on the wall—or walkway, as I now preferred to think of it—and lay down full length along it, just above the door. I could sense the massive presence of Harrison Jowett below me, and his chair creaked as he nodded in time to whatever music was playing in his irresponsible ear. I reached down with my right hand, got the top corner of the door in my fingers, and gave a savage yank.
Very satisfactory. The door popped open, the chair slipped backwards, and Harrison had just begun to say “Whups!” when he got it on the occiput with a blanket-wrapped thundermug in the hands of an enraged Ukrainian.
Silence ensued.
I quickly lowered myself to the floor and found Hanna looming over the body, with the now broken, but still serviceable, blanket-wrapped weapon in her hand. She was breathing hard, and was swearing, in whispers, in Ukrainian.
“Hi, Carlton,” she whispered, as I landed lightly—well, fairly lightly—by her side. “What the hell took you so long?”
I grabbed her by the hand, drew her out into the hallway, and pointed along it towards freedom, via the back stairs. She squeezed my hand, and we flitted down the hall. I took special care to avoid that damn stuffed bear completely.
Not the cat, though. I stepped right on the cat in my stocking feet. A black cat, not that it matters, with white markings. A Siamese would have served the same purpose. What the hell it was doing there, when it should have been out catching mice or attending to other catly business, I have no idea. It let out a god-awful squawk—and who could blame it?—and Hanna and I legged it down the hall to the end, where I flung open the door. We tumbled down the back stairs and arrived at the bottom just in time to join a little party, headed by Conrad Jowett with a revolver and made up of about half a dozen of his helpers. I guess we’d made more noise, all in all, than I had thought.
He didn’t waste any suavity on us this time.
“Frisk them,” he told someone. “You will no doubt find a knife.” I got a good going over, and a thuggee walked off with the Swiss Army knife, which Conrad accepted with a grunt. “Thought so,” he said, and pocketed it.
“Put them down in the boathouse,” he added. “I’ll get rid of my guests, and we’ll deal with them later.”
Chapter 31
He let me go to the john first though, which was something, although one of his thuggees went in with me and stood there, watching. Very embarrassing. This required a trip back down the darkened hallway, with the thuggee, who was almost as large as Harrison, clinging to my arm and muttering threats all the way.
When we came back down the stairs, I could see that Hanna had been tied up again; I was given the same treatment—arms yanked backwards until I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets and lashed together at the elbow and wrist behind my back. Our feet were lashed at the ankles, but not tightly, so we could take tiny, mincing steps. We were then frog-marched down the lawn, right past the windows of the living room, where the heedless hordes were still gobbling cake and sluicing it down with cognac. Anyone who happened to catch a glimpse of us would have seen what looked like a rugby scrum moving lakewards, perhaps for a joint spit into the water.
“In here.” Conrad Jowett was at the head of the line, with a flashlight. He gestured with this, and we were led, not into the main body of the boathouse, but into a small, dank, storage room to one side. Actually, it had once been a biffy, or, rather, two biffies, since it was unthinkable that males and females would use the same arrangements, and it now served mainly to store gasoline for the various boats. Most of the old boathouses had had these one-holers, although I can’t imagine that anyone ever used them. I mean, there was, after all, the lake. This one was larger than most, as with everything about The Eagle’s Nest. The walls between His and Hers had been taken out, and the planks-with-holes had been replaced by ordinary planks. The result was a room, perhaps ten feet long by six-wide, with one wide shelf about eighteen inches up from the floor along one of the long sides. There was a tiny window in each end, and no lighting anywhere. Hanna was pushed inside first, but not long before they slapped another strip of tape across her mouth, cutting off a steady, furious flow of muttered Ukrainian. I got the same treatment, and then was shoved in behind her, where I fell on the floor. I conked my head against a five-gallon can of gas as I went down, but I managed to get myself righted, and found that I was squeezed between Hanna and the gas can. Just as the door was closed and locked behind us, we heard the sound of running feet, and someone said, “He was inside the room, out cold.”
They had found Harrison.
“How is he,” Conrad growled.
“Still alive,” said the voice.
“Too bad. Let’s go. Murphy, you stay here.”
Our former escort moved off, and Hanna and I sat there, side by side on the floor, thinking dark thoughts. I sent a silent word to the mosquitoes to make the most of Murphy out there and, sure enough, not long after, you could hear him flapping and cussing.
The tape across my mouth bothered me even more than the ropes on my arms. I was sure I was going to suffocate, and kept trying to push it out of my mouth with my tongue. Fat chance. Hanna was wriggling around now, trying to get her fingers onto the knots on my wrists, but her fingers weren’t strong enough to pull the strands apa
rt. She stopped after a couple of minutes and waggled her arms at me, so I scrunched around and tried the same thing on her knots, with the same result.
Suddenly, the door banged open again, and Conrad reappeared, this time with Robinson, who was looking, in the same flashlight, whiter than ever.
Robinson looked down at us, shook his head, and said, “Regrettable necessity my dear boy.”
Then he moved to one side, and two men came in, carrying Joe Herkimer, who was unconscious and groaning softly to himself. His right foot was contained in a large, makeshift bandage, and his arms were tied behind him, just like ours, although there was clearly no need to tie his feet.
“You hear of people shooting themselves in the foot,” said Robinson with a small smile, “but seldom see it.”
He gestured, and the two men deposited Joe on the shelf along the wall. Then they left, and Robinson stood there for a minute, blinking against the glare from Conrad’s flashlight.
“Poor chap fainted,” Robinson explained. “When I came to, he was slumped over on the chair. I managed to stop the bleeding, and put on a bandage. The bullet had gone right through the fleshy part of his foot. There was a lot of blood, and no doubt a bone or two is broken, but I’m sure it will heal in time.”
He paused, thoughtfully, and then added, “If there is any time.”
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