‘Where are you’ boss?‘ asked the voice.
‘Here!’ said Denis, flinging himself suddenly sideways, and not too soon, for a draught past his ear was followed by a tinkle of metal falling on to the stones.
‘You rat!’ he said, leaping forward. The man was taken unawares. Denis was fairly light, but was young and tough. The impact with the shingle as he went to ground with his man sent pins and needles up his arm, but he had made his kill. He got up and the man stayed down.
‘You beauty!’ said Denis. He picked the man’s head up and bounced it on the shingle for luck, and then stared out to sea to where a ship was making signals of distress.
‘Hullo,’ he thought, ‘someone in trouble. I suppose the coastguards will spot the flares, but just in case they don’t…’
He turned, wading over the shingle. It would be necessary to contact George, but the first consideration must be to give the alarm. He raced along the road to the hotel. There was no night-porter, but one of the servants, in his dressing-gown, answered the bell.
Denis cut short his announcement that it was too late to take in travellers, and informed him of the wreck. The man left him standing at the door, and hurried back into the house to arouse the landlord. He was obviously more excited than upset.
It seemed to Denis that he had done what he could for the ship, and that his duty was now to George and the car, and to Mrs. Bradley’s errand. It occurred to him, too, that, if he were quick enough, he might be in time to prevent George from disabling the engine, for it would be easy enough to arouse the whole village, the men at the pull-in included, with the news of a wreck in the bay. From Denis reading he had deduced that such tidings brought every soul in the village on to the beach, if only to salvage the cargo. He was anxious to avoid putting the car out of action unnecessarily, for it was not good tactics, he felt, for George and himself to handicap their chances of escape by nobbling their own transport. He was light on his feet and in good shape. He ran up the road at twelve miles an hour, and caught George before the latter had reached the car.
He gave him the news. George, glad enough to leave the car intact, for she was his pride and joy, returned with him to the pull-in. There was no doubt of the excitement in the small village at the news of the wreck, but when Denis hammered at the door of the shack a light went on, and a fully-dressed man with a smear of white across the sleeve of his dark blue suit, opened up with an oath, and demanded to know what in hell had gone wrong now. Denis was greatly disappointed to find the place still occupied, but he spoke up cheerfully.
‘All right! All right! There’s a ship on the rocks in the bay. Can you go and help?—or tell me whom to send?’
‘Get out, you—!’ said the man, as he slammed the door.
George pulled at Denis’ arm.
‘Come on, sir,’ he said. ‘That fellow has come from the cave. Did you spot the limestone on his sleeve? They’re running the stuff to-night, whatever it is. I should think we could leave ’em to the coastguards. They’ll never get by if boats are all going off to a ship in distress. They’re absolutely sure to be spotted, and smuggling was one thing that madam suspected from here.’
‘I do want to see that inspection-pit in the garage of the pull-in,’ said Denis, with deceptive mildness. ‘Come on, George. Let’s go. Even the wreck may be a put-up job. I wouldn’t put much past the brains of men that my aunt thinks it’s worth while to try and outwit, don’t you know,’
Shaking his head in a middle-aged manner which indicated that he thought the plan ill-advised, George followed him across the yard to where stood the double doors of the garage belonging to the pull-in.
‘Now,’ said Denis, producing a small electric torch, ‘I wonder how much one can see?’ He shone the torch into the crack between the double doors, and tried to squint through the opening.
‘Dash!’ he began; but he stopped at the sound of a whistle.
‘Look out, sir!’ said George. Both shot away from the doors and took cover at the side of the garage. At the same instant a broad shaft of light came across the yard from the shack. A man stood silhouetted against the light as the door was flung open, and the whistle apparently was still at his lips, for he blew it before the man who had opened to Denis’ knock reached out and pulled him inside again. The door of the shack slammed shut, and the yard was in darkness once more.
‘Now’s our chance, sir, I think!’ muttered George. ‘They’ll be out here again in a minute.’ He drew a large file from his pocket, inserted one end between the doors of the garage and gave a sinewy jerk. The doors came open towards him. He and Denis went in, and Denis pulled the doors to.
‘Odd they weren’t padlocked,’ he said.
‘Lends colour to what we think, sir,’ George responded. ‘They get to the cave this way, and back to the shack. The mistress imagined—here’s the inspection pit, you see, sir—that the little cottage which stood here used to have a cellar, and that the cellar was connected with the cave.’
‘Then the cottage itself originally formed part of an inn, I daresay,’ said Denis. ‘A cottage would hardly have a cellar. It’s not as though it’s built on a hill. Come on, George, let’s go down.’ He looked into the empty pit. ‘It’s obvious it’s still a cellar. Look, you can see the steps.’
‘I would suggest, sir,’ said George, ‘that you don’t venture into that rat-trap minus the means of self-defence. Here, sir, catch hold of this spanner. I’ve got my big file for myself. I think… ’
‘Hands up!’ said a voice from the doorway.
‘Jump, sir!’ said George, suiting his own actions to this advice, and disappearing with some suddenness from view.
Chapter Twenty
—«♦»—
‘Alas, dear sir… yonder lies the granite rock where all the costly diamonds grow.’
Ibid. (The Salad)
« ^ »
The strange sounds heard by O’Hara were those of Denis and George descending into the cave. The jump into the inspection pit had been a strategic measure calculated to confuse the enemy, but it could not do more than throw him mentally off-balance for a moment or two.
This moment on which George had counted was lengthened by several seconds whilst the man fired six shots after them into the pit, but the opening into the cave was under the right-hand side of the hole and they had ducked in before the second shot was fired.
Regardless of what might be ahead of them, they switched on torches and were soon on a flight of stone steps which led down to a long ramp and ended in front of the packing-cases in the cave.
The Irishmen, from their hiding-place, were astounded to hear Denis’ voice, as he called back to George:
‘I can’t see a thing, and heaven knows what we do next. Hide somewhere, I suppose, and put up a fight if we’re followed. I’m not so sure I think much of our chances, you know.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said O’Hara, shining his torch. ‘Here are two good men to come to the aid of the party.’
There was mutual recognition and rejoicing, and adventurous accounts were exchanged among the three young men whilst the middle-aged one, working in silence, removed first the twine and then a board from the packing-case behind which he sheltered to find out what was inside.
‘Can’t think why nobody followed us down,’ said Denis.
‘If the chap fired six shots he’s had to reload, I expect, and that may have meant returning to the shack. If that’s where he went, I expect he’s taking counsel with the fellow whose boat we’ve borrowed, and whom you laid out,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I should think that bloke’s had a sticky evening, throttled by Mike, beaten up by his pals and then knocked out by you. By the way, what’s happened to George?’