My Brother Michael

by Mary Stewart

  It had gone. I had imagined it again. I stood with my hands tightly clasped together in front of me, and made myself wait without moving.

  Simon showed in the darkness of the cleft, like a beckoning ghost. I almost ran towards him into the cool darkness of the cave.

  After the glare of day the place was dead-dark. It was like running against a black velvet curtain. I stopped, blinded. I felt Simon’s arm come round me, guiding me in out of the light, then he switched on a torch. The light seemed feeble and probing after the blaze of day, but we could see.

  We were in a widish passage which sloped gently downwards for some five or six yards and then turned abruptly to the left. The original entrance must have been wide, but it had been blocked by successive falls of stone to leave only the narrow cleft through which we had come. The passage itself was clear enough, and smelt fresh and cool.

  Simon said: ‘The slope gets steeper. There’s another twist down to the right, and then the cave itself … Here. Quite a place, isn’t it?’

  It was indeed. The main cave was huge, a great natural cavern the size of a young cathedral, with a high curved ceiling that vanished into darkness, and clefts and recesses that swallowed the feebly-probing torchlight. Stalactites and stalagmites made strangely-shaped, enormous pillars. Fallen rock lay here as well. In some of the dimly-seen apses there were boulders and masses of rough stone showing, in the elusive light, like the massive tombs that lie between the columns of a cathedral. Somewhere I could hear the faint drip of water. The place was impressive, magnificent even, but it was a ruin. Dust and rubble lay everywhere, some of it recent-looking, some of it apparently undisturbed for centuries.

  The torchlight moved, swept, checked …

  Simon said: ‘There.’

  He said it softly, almost idly, but I knew him now. My heart gave that painful little jerk of excitement. The light was holding something in its dim circle, a circle which seemed to have brightened, sharpened, focused … There was a pile of rubble by a column to the left of the cavern-mouth. It looked at first like any of the other heaps of fallen debris, then I saw that among the shapes of the broken rock, more regular shapes showed … a cubed corner … the dusty outline of a box … And beside them in the rubble the dull gleam of metal: a crowbar and a shovel.

  The torchlight swept further. ‘See that? They’ve shifted some of it already. See where it’s been dragged through the dust?’ He sent the light skating quickly round the rest of the great cavern. Nothing. Another time I would have exclaimed over the ghostly icicles of rock, the arches, the chambered darknesses that the corners held, but now my whole interest, like the torchlight, was centred on that pile of rock-debris and what it contained.

  Simon paused for a moment, cocking his head. No sound except the drip of water somewhere, very faintly. He moved forward with me beside him, and bent over the exposed corner of the box.

  He didn’t disturb it. The torch worked for him. ‘There’s the Government stamp. This isn’t gold, Camilla. Its guns.’

  ‘Guns?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Small and useful sten guns.’ He straightened up and switched the light out for a moment. In the thick darkness his voice was soft and grim. ‘There’s an excellent market for this sort of thing at several points in the Med. just now. Well, well.’

  I said: ‘I don’t believe that Nigel would do that.’

  The torch flashed on again. ‘Come to think of it, neither do I. I wonder …’ He moved off round the pile, exploring deeper into the darkness behind the big stalagmite.

  ‘Simon,’ I said, ‘d’you mean these were flown in here during the war?’

  ‘Yes. I told you. Gold and arms galore.’

  ‘But that was 1942 wasn’t it? They wouldn’t keep, surely?’

  I heard him laugh. ‘You talk as if they were fish. Of course they’ll “keep”. They’re packed in grease. They’ll come out as good as new … Ah …’

  ‘What is it?’ In spite of myself my voice sharpened.

  ‘Ammo. Stacks of it. My God, this’d take a couple of days to shift, this stuff. No wonder …’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘Simon? What is it?’

  He said without a trace of inflection: ‘The gold.’

  I moved forward so fast that I tripped over a root of the stalagmite and almost fell. ‘Where?’

  ‘Steady there. So this is what treasure trove does to you? Here.’ The torchlight was steady on the pile of broken rock. Among the dust and splintered fragments the corners of two small boxes showed. They were of metal, but the corner of one had been smashed open, and under the dusty gaping metal was the living gleam of gold.

  Simon was saying: ‘That’s Michael’s little find, Camilla. That’s why Mick was murdered. But I still don’t quite see …’ He paused, and I saw his brows draw together, but after a while he went on in his even voice: ‘Well, we were right, as far as it went. Two boxes at least, and there may be more under the rubble.’

  ‘They’re very small, aren’t they?’

  ‘One of them would be one man’s work, all the same. Did you know that gold was almost twice as heavy as lead? They’ll have quite a job shifting what they’ve got here.’

  I said: ‘They?’

  He answered my look. ‘I’m afraid you were right about Nigel. I think he was on his way up here yesterday morning, and it’s Nigel who’s been working here while Dimitrios was in Delphi.’

  I said apprehensively: ‘But we still don’t know they’re working together. If Dimitrios came up last night, or early today, and found Nigel here, and set about him the way he did with you—’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Think it out. There must be two or them in it. Look at this stuff again; look how it’s buried. Angelos probably did throw a bit of rubble and small stones over it to hide it, but he never put this pile of rock over it. This has come down in an earth tremor – probably the one that shut the cave and broke the cliff above us. Shifting this kind of thing is sheer hard work, and Dimitrios just hasn’t had time to do everything alone.’

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘Work it out. There must be two men on the job, Camilla. If Nigel found the cave, it still hadn’t been opened up yesterday, enough to let those boxes be carried out. Whether Nigel showed it to Dimitrios, or whether Dimitrios found it himself as soon as we left the corrie yesterday, the man simply hasn’t had time single-handed to do all this. Remember he followed us almost straight down to Delphi; he wouldn’t have had time to get his tools from where they were hidden, and shift that slab. And even if he came back to do that later, he was down in Delphi again in the middle of the night.’

  ‘What about Danielle?’

  ‘She couldn’t have got up here and then back again between the time you saw her on the Shining Ones, and the time she went to bed last night. What’s more she couldn’t, physically, do this sort of job.’

  He paused for a moment, as if listening, and then went on: ‘And look at the situation just now. We know Danielle went north with the jeep. She won’t have had time to get up here from the Amphissa road. Dimitrios is waiting for someone, but it’s not Danielle. The mule’s been here, hasn’t it, and gone? At a guess, Dimitrios is waiting for whoever has taken the mule over, loaded, to meet the jeep. Nigel.’

  The torch flashed again, momentarily, over the gold. He said: ‘You remember Stephanos saying that the old track leads to a disused quarry near the Amphissa road? It sounds the sort of place where they might park the jeep out of sight while they ferry the stuff across the hill with the mule. They seem to have made a start on the guns. I imagine they’ll stack the loot somewhere down near the road, till they can get it all away together; and if they’ve any sense they’ll leave the gold safely here till the last minute … Did you hear anything?’

  We stood very still with the light out. ‘No,’ I said. Then, slowly: ‘You know, I – I don’t trust Dimitrios.’

  I heard the ghost of a laugh in the dark. ‘Today’s great thought, Camilla my darling? You surprise me.’<
br />
  He had surprised me, too, but I hoped my voice didn’t show it. I said: ‘I was thinking of Nigel. Even if they are working together now, it’s only because Nigel found the stuff first, and Dimitrios wants help to shift it. Once the work’s done—’ I stopped, and licked dry lips.

  ‘I know.’ No trace of amusement now. ‘Well, we’re here now, so that should be taken care of.’

  ‘Yes. But Simon—’ even to me the whisper sounded thin and miserably uncertain – ‘Simon, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Wait. What else can we do? We don’t know the score yet, but no doubt we soon will.’

  He switched on again, and the light flicked round the cavern. ‘There’s plenty of cover here, and we’ll hear them in good time – or at least you will. If Nigel comes up alone, all the better, but if it should be Dimitrios coming back …’

  He grinned down at me, but some quality in the grin brought the reverse of comfort. I said suddenly, accusingly: ‘You want him to come back.’

  ‘And if I do?’ The smile deepened at the expression on my face. ‘By God, Camilla, don’t you see? I pray he does come back. There’s your score to settle as well as mine, and now there’s that idiotic boy to straighten out … It would be better if Dimitrios came. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Oh yes, I see.’

  His hand came out, momentarily, to touch my cheek, a moth-light touch. ‘Don’t be scared, my dear. I’m not going to get myself killed and leave you alone with the wolves.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘I’ve not the slightest intention of fighting fair … and two can play at the game of attacking down a torch-beam.’

  I said, I hoped steadily: ‘He may be armed.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s not. There wasn’t room for a gun in those dungarees.’

  ‘He probably got himself another knife.’

  ‘Probably. And I’ve got his. Two can play at that game, too.’

  ‘Simon!’

  I heard him laugh again as he moved away. ‘Poor Camilla … Now, half a minute. Stay where you are. I’ll be back.’

  He slid, with wary flashes of the torch, out of the cave, and the small light dwindled and vanished into the curve of the passageway. He was gone perhaps two minutes. I stayed just where I was, with the gold at my feet, and one hand nervously fingering the bulk of the Greek’s torch in my pocket. Then the will-o’-the-wisp light danced back along the passage wall, and Simon was beside me.

  ‘Not a sign of either of them, so we’ll have a closer look at this stuff, I think.’

  ‘Do you want any help?’

  ‘No, thanks. Scout around and find a bolt-hole to make for when he comes.’ He was already busy, crouching beside the pile of rubble, his hands moving gently over the dusty surfaces.

  I left him to his task, his hands moving among the dust just as Michael’s hands must have moved fourteen years ago when he made the same discovery. I flashed my torch back momentarily as I moved away. It showed his crouching body, the quiet intent face, the hands … Michael Lester finding evidence of treachery to the Allies. For some reason I gave a little shiver. They said ghosts walked, didn’t they? And the ghost of Angelos, who smiled as he killed? ‘If ghosts are true,’ Niko had said, ‘then he still walks on Parnassus …’

  The cave was even bigger than I had thought. I passed between pillars of stalagmites as massive as Apollo’s columns at Delphi, and into an anteroom as deep as a private chapel. There was ample cover. Simon and I could lie hidden almost anywhere, when Dimitrios came …

  The light was uncertain in my hand. Its beam touched the walls, the fallen masses that blocked the antechamber, and diffused itself into nothingness among the dark recesses. But even as I turned back, the edge of the light shimmered momentarily with a sliding, liquid gleam. I paused. There was the drip of water again, more clearly now. I went forward, the torch exploring ahead of me. The floor lifted a little, and there was a streak of damp on it that caught the light. I could feel the freshness in the air, above the dead dust-smells of the cave, and there was the drip of water, closer now and clearer; there must be some spring in the cave – perhaps the same spring whose overflow fed the grass and flowers outside. I went forward quickly now, the light flicking over the rock in eager search. There was the now-familiar pile of broken rock against the rear wall of the cave; there was the wall itself, streaked with damp and seamed with black fissures; there a wrecked stalagmite leaning drunkenly against a slab that lay at an angle to the wall …

  There was something very familiar about the slab. It only took me a couple of seconds to realise why. It was the same shape, and leaned in the same way, as the slab that yesterday had barred the cave mouth, and today lay tumbled in the grass outside.

  I approached it slowly, knowing what I would find. As I paused beside it I could hear the drip of water plainly. Then I felt the skin prickle cold again along my arms and back.

  With the drip of water came another sound, a sound that I had heard already twice that day and disbelieved, as I disbelieved it now. The sound of a pipe. Pan’s pipe … It played a delicate little fall of notes; another; again. Silence, and the drip of water.

  And the sound had come from behind the leaning slab.

  With the hair lifting along my arms I bent to peer behind it. I was right. There was a gap, narrow, perhaps eight inches wide, but still a gap. And it didn’t, like the other cave mouth, give on to darkness. Beyond it, the darkness slackened.

  I think I had forgotten Dimitrios. I said softly, and even to me the echoes of my voice sounded queer: ‘There’s a way through here. I’m going to see.’

  I don’t know if Simon answered. I was squeezing through the narrow gap. The rock scraped me, caught at my clothes, then let me through. I was in a widish passage which led upwards in a gentle curve. The floor was smooth. Round me the darkness slackened further, and more clearly through the torchlight the walls of the gallery took shape. Ahead of me it curved more sharply to the right, and beyond the curve I could see that the light grew clearer. The drip of the water was clear and loud.

  Then it came again, the sound I had been listening for above the trickle of water; a little stave of music, hauntingly off-key …

  I rounded the corner. Ahead was the light, the arch of the gallery framing a blaze muted by moving green. I caught a glimpse of grass, and the hanging boughs of some slender tree dappling the sunlight at the mouth of the tunnel.

  I almost ran the rest of the way. I ducked under the arch and came suddenly, blindingly, into a little dell.

  It wasn’t a way out. It was a small enclosure, like a light-well. Centuries ago this had been a circular cave into which the gallery had run, but the roof had fallen in and let in the sun and the seeds of grass and wild vines, and the spring had fed them, so that now, in the heart of the mountain, was this little well of vivid light roofed with the moving green of some delicate tree.

  The music had stopped. The only sound was the drip of the spring and the rustle of leaves.

  But I had no thought to spare for Pan and his music. Apollo himself was here. He was standing not ten feet from me as I came out of the tunnel. He was naked, and in his hand was a bow. He stood looking over my head as he had stood for two thousand years.

  I heard Simon coming along the tunnel behind me. I moved aside. He came quickly out of the dark archway into the dappled light. He was saying: ‘Camilla, I—’ then he stopped as if he’d been struck in the throat. I heard him say: ‘Oh, God,’ under his breath. He stopped just behind me.

  Some draught moved the curtain of leaves. Light flickered and burned from the gold of the bow, and shifted along the bronze of the throat and face. A broken arrow of gold lay in the grass at the statue’s feet.

  After a lifetime or so I heard myself saying shakily: ‘This … this is what Nigel found. He was here. Look.’

  I stooped and picked up the little water-pot from where it lay in the damp moss at my feet.

  16

  Apollo shows himself not to everyone, but only to him who
is good. He who sees him is great; he who sees him is not a small man. We will see thee, O far-striker, and we will never become small!

  CALLIMACHUS: 2.9.

  ‘YES.’ Simon turned the pot over in his hand. ‘That’s Nigel’s. He may have heard the water when he was drawing the cyclamen outside, and that led him into the cave and then through here … to this.’ His eyes, like mine, were fixed on the statue. The face was godlike; remote, wise, serene, but young, and with a kind of eagerness behind the level brows.

  I said breathlessly: ‘It’s the face in the drawing, isn’t it? – the lovely drawing he tore up … I said it looked like a statue. D’you remember how he snatched it back from us?’

  Simon said slowly: ‘That was when Danielle was there. But before that – d’you remember my saying that he seemed to be on the verge of telling me something, and then when Danielle came in he stopped short and shut up?’

  ‘Of course. Then she can’t have recognised it, can she? He’d only found the cave that day, and it’s obvious he wasn’t going to tell her about it!’

  ‘And by God he was right,’ said Simon. ‘Guns and gold is one thing; in a way that kind of treasure trove is legitimate prey for greasy thugs like Dimitrios, and if the boy thought he could get something out of a spot of gun-running, well, that’s his affair. But this …’ he went down on one knee in the grass. Very gently he lifted the golden arrow. Where it had lain the whitened grass-roots showed a clear print. He put it down again. ‘As I thought. Nothing’s been touched. You can’t tell me friend Dimitrios could have kept his paws off a bit of loose gold.’ He got to his feet with a breath of relief. ‘No, the boy’s kept his mouth shut, and there’s quite enough in the outer cave to fix Dimitrios’ interest here. Thank God for the artist’s conscience. But I think the sooner I get hold of Nigel the better.’

  ‘You – you don’t think Dimitrios’ll come exploring, like I did, and find it?’

  He laughed under his breath. ‘I’d bet on it that he won’t. He’s far too busy for one thing, and for another, now that I come to think of it, even if he was dying of thirst he’d never squeeze through the gap.’