I pushed the door handle down to find it locked.
I took the Lee-Enfield off my shoulder, aimed it at the lock, and fired. In the cinema such a violent act would have sprung the door open with the facility of an exploding bomb, but my shot simply seemed to have jammed the door’s mechanism even more firmly. I kicked at the recalcitrant lock with my right heel, but only succeeded in shooting a pang of agony into my already pained foot, then fired a second shot into the tangle of splintered wood and bright bullet-gouged brass. The second bullet, like the first, mangled the mechanism most spectacularly, yet was no more efficient in opening the wretched door than the first shot.
It took me six bullets and a bruised shoulder to finally smash the door open, but, at last, on unoiled hinges, the mahogany swung back and I found myself in the rooms that were evidently reserved for the privileged crew members of Genesis.
It was like passing from a slum to a palace. Whatever lavish comforts and decencies might have mitigated the rigors of this awful place had been put into these rooms. In truth, anywhere other than in Patagonia, these luxuries would have looked tawdry, but here, on this barren, far island of the world’s most bitter shore, the furnishings of these last rooms suggested an air of the most voluptuous carnality, and it was no wonder that the fanatical Nicole had spurned such hedonism to house her crew in the more spartan buildings at the mine.
The floors in von Rellsteb’s rooms were covered with a profusion of faded oriental carpets that lent the rooms a feeling of instant opulence. The damp wallpaper was hidden by closely hung paintings and prints, most of which showed romantic German landscapes heavy with gloomy crags, turreted castles, and plunging waterfalls. I suspected that the paintings, like some of the oil lamps that stood on the unwaxed tables, must have been brought to the house by the first von Rellsteb to settle in Patagonia. Between the landscapes hung prints of German cathedrals and etchings of famous Germans; I recognized Blucher, Frederick the Great, Martin Luther, and Goethe, while a plaster bust of Beethoven frowned from the mirror-crowned mantelpiece. Fringed velvet tablecloths were draped over some of the pieces of furniture, while the ancient horse-hair armchairs and sofas were carefully protected by the remnants of lace antimacassars. The furniture had doubtless been intended to convey a sense of Germanic respectability, but now its very incongruity somehow made it seem salacious; a reminder that in frontier territories the first buildings to be lavishly furnished were almost always the brothels. After them came the lawyers’ offices, but it was always the whores who had the first carpets.
The two bathrooms that served these privileged rooms were decently equipped with claw-footed tubs and mahogany-seated commodes. The bedrooms were cozy, all with beds so stacked with mattresses that they looked as high as haystacks. One of the smaller rooms was the settlement’s radio room; von Rellsteb would never have allowed his farm workers near the transmitters and had taken care to install the equipment behind locked doors. Inside the radio room was a board hung with keys, one of which I supposed would unlock the stable where Molly Tetterman was still imprisoned.
Molly, I decided, would have to wait as I explored these unexpectedly luxurious quarters, of which the final room was by far the most lavish. It was a bedroom with windows facing east toward the sea and south toward the wild moors, and, from the luxury of its furnishings, I guessed that this was where von Rellsteb and Lisl stayed when they were in the settlement. The room was dominated by a vast, carved, wooden bed, on which a grubby white eiderdown floated like a cloud. A cavernous wardrobe stood next to a tile-surrounded fireplace that still held the warm remnants of a log fire. Beside the bed was an antique mahogany dressing table with a huge oval mirror. If it had not been for the rain that dripped from my soaking clothing onto the rugs, and for the two guns on my shoulder I might have thought myself in some Victorian mansion in respectable Frankfurt.
I put my candle into an elegant brass holder on a bedside table, then paused to listen. Jackie, clearly reveling in her sudden discovery of guns, ripped a whole clip of bullets into the air, but otherwise I heard nothing to alarm me. I knew that some of the Genesis refugees were armed, but I was trusting that they were now so cowed by the night’s disasters that they would not dare come back to the house. I also knew their supine inactivity would not last forever, and I therefore could not risk spending too long exploring the house. Yet the temptation to ransack von Rellsteb’s own quarters was too great and so I hung the M-16 from my shoulder, tossed the Lee-Enfield onto the bed where it was swallowed in the fluffy billows of the great eiderdown, and then began a feverish search of the big room. I found very little. One drawer of the dressing table had a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings, which told of Genesis’s triumphs over their polluting enemies, but the cuttings were few and the victories hardly worth remembering. There were oilskins in the wardrobe and a pile of sweaters in another cupboard, while a small bedside table held a tiny cache of coins and jewels which looked like some tawdry pirate’s hoard. It was all so pathetic.
Somewhere in the night a gun fired three deliberate shots. I could not tell whether it was Jackie or one of the Genesis people, so I edged to the eastern window, taking care not to silhouette myself, and stared into the darkness. At first I saw nothing, then, with a horrid shock, I saw a flicker of light out in the bay. My first thought was that the burning trawler had drifted off the rocks, then I realized this new light was too white to be the remnants of any fire. Then I wondered if Stormchild had returned to the bay and if I was seeing a glimmer of her cabin light, because the light was certainly made by a ship’s lantern of some kind, but then I forgot the strange light in the bay because something heavy thumped on the bedroom’s floor behind me.
I turned in panic to see a tin of baked beans rolling across the carpet toward me.
“Bang,” said Caspar von Rellsteb, and laughed.
He leaned in the doorway, dressed in wet oilskins, and with an amused expression on his thin face. He carried a rifle, as did Lisl, who stood beside him. She also carried my old fishing knapsack, which she scornfully dropped on the floor so that another of the baked bean tins rolled pathetically clear. Then, a smile on her face, she turned her gun’s muzzle toward me. “Put the gun down,” she ordered me, “but do it very slowly!”
I very slowly unslung the M-16 and placed it on the floor.
“Kick it toward me,” von Rellsteb said.
I kicked the assault rifle toward him. It skidded against a rug, then disappeared under the bed. The Lee-Enfield, on top of the bed, was concealed by the folds of the eiderdown, but I was too far from the bed for the hidden gun to be of any use to me. I had been trapped by my overconfidence.
Now von Rellsteb had the advantage and I did not see how he could lose it. “I should have killed you in Florida,” he said in an oddly friendly voice. “Your daughter was angry that I hadn’t. She wants to inherit your boatyard, you see. She still does, in fact, though I’ve told her that you’ve probably changed your will by now. Even so, she was right. I should have killed you.”
Was he trying to shock me by talking so casually of Nicole’s wish to kill me? I refused to rise to his bait, preferring to keep my voice very calm as though we merely talked about the weather. “Was that why you agreed to meet me there? Did you lose your nerve?”
He shook his head. “I met you out of mere curiosity, Mr. Blackburn. You said you had important news, remember, and I wanted to hear it. I was wasting my time, but it was still interesting, and your letter was very pathetic.”