I'm beginning to see your point, Mallory said thoughtfully. The dark sinewy leg wasn't even scratched. But why on earth
Simple. Four reasons at least. Junior here is a treacherous, slimy bastard no self -respectin' rattlesnake would come within a mile of him but he's a clever bastard. He faked his leg so he could stay in the cave in the Devil's Playground when the four of us went back to stop the Alpenkorps from comin' up the slope below the carob grove.
Why? Frightened he'd stop something?
Miller shook his head impatiently.
Junior here's scared o' nothin'. He stayed behind to write a note. Later on he used his leg to drop behind us some place, and leave the note where it could be seen. Early on, this must have been. Note probably said that we would come out at such and such a place, and would they kindly send a welcomin' committee to meet us there. They sent it, remember: it was their car we swiped to get to town. That was the first time I got real suspicious of the boy-friend: after he'd dropped behind he made up on us again real quick too damn' quick for a man with a game leg. But it wasn't till I opened the rucksack in the square this evenin' that I really knew.
You only mentioned two reasons, Mallory prompted.
Comin' to the others. Number three he could fall behind when the welcomin' committee opened up in front Iscariot here wasn't goin' to get himself knocked off before he collected his salary. And number four remember that real touchin' scene when he begged you to let him stay at the far end of the cave that led into the valley we came out? Goin' to do his Horatio-on-thebridge act?
Going to show them the right cave to pick, you mean.
Check. After that he was gettin' pretty desperate. I still wasn't sure, but I was awful suspicious, boss. Didn't know what he might try next. So I clouted him good and hard when that last patrol came up the valley.
I see, Mallory said quietly. I see indeed. He looked sharply at Miller. You should have told me. You had no right
I was goin' to, boss. But I hadn't a chance Junior here was around all the time. I was just startin' to tell you half an hour back, when the guns started up.
Mallory nodded in understanding. How did you happen on all this in the first place, Dusty?
Juniper, Miller said succinctly. Remember that's how Turzig said he came to find us? He smelt the juniper.
That's right. We were burning juniper.
Sure we were. But he said he smelt it on Kostos-- and the wind was blowin' off Kostos all day long.
My God! Mallory whispered. Of course, of course! And I missed it completely.
But Jerry knew we were there. How? Waal, he ain't got second sight no more than I have. So he was tipped off he was tipped off by the boy-friend here. Remember I said he'd talked to some of his pals in Margaritha when we went down there for the supplies? Miller spat in disgust. Fooled me all along the line. Pals? I didn't know how right I was. Sure they were his pals his German pals! And that food he said he got from the commandant's kitchen he got it from the kitchen all right. Almost certainly he goes in and asks for it and old Skoda hands him his own suitcase to stow it in.
But the German he killed on the way back to the village? Surely to God
Panayis killed him. There was a tired certainty in Miller's voice. What's another corpse to Sunshine here. Probably stumbled on the poor bastard in the dark and had to kill him. Local colour. Louki was there, remember, and he couldn't have Louki gettin' suspicious. He would have blamed it on Louki anyway. The guy ain't human . And remember when he was flung into Skoda's room in Margaritha along with Louki, blood pourin' from a wound in his head?
Mallory nodded.
High-grade ketchup. Probably also from the commandant's kitchen, Miller said bitterly. If Skoda had failed by every other means, there would still have been the boy-friend here as a stool-pigeon. Why he never asked Louki where the explosives were I don't know.
Obviously he didn't know Louki knew.
Mebbe. But one thing the bastard did know how to use a mirror. Musta heliographed the garrison from the carob grove and given our position. No other way, boss. Then sometime this morning he must have got hold of my rucksack, whipped out all the slow fuse and fixed the clock fuse and detonators. He should have had his hands blown off tamperin' with them fulminates. Lord only knows where he learnt to handle the damn' things.
Crete, Mallory said positively. The Germans would see to that. A spy who can't also double as a saboteur is no good to them.
And he was very good to them, Miller said softly. Very, very good. They're gonna miss their little pal. Iscariot here was a very smart baby indeed.
He was. Except to-night. He should have been smart enough to know that at least one of us would be suspicious
He probably was, Miller interrupted. But he was misinformed. I think Louki's unhurt. I think Junior here talked Louki into letting him stay in his place Louki was always a bit scared of him then he strolled across to his pals at the gate, told 'em to send a strong-arm squad out to Vygos to pick up the others, asked them to fire a few shots he was very strong on local colour, was our loyal little pal then strolls back across the square, hoists himself up on the roof and waits to tip off his pals as soon as we came in the back door. But Louki forgot to tell him just one thing that we were goin' to rendezvous on the roof of the house, not inside. So the boy-friend here lurks away for all he's worth up top, waiting to signal his Mends. Ten to one that he's got a torch in his pocket.
Mallory picked up Panayis's coat and examined it briefly. He has.
That's it, then. Miller lit another cigarette, watched the match burn down slowly to his fingers, then looked up at Panayis. How does it feel to know that you're goin' to die, Panayis, to feel like all them poor bastards who've felt just as you're feeling now, just before they died all the men in Crete, all the guys in the sea-borne and air landings on Navarone who died because they thought you were on their side? How does it feel, Panayis?
Panayis said nothing. His left hand clutching his torn right arm, trying to stem the blood, he stood there motionless, the dark, evil face masked in hate, the lips still drawn back in that less than human snarl. There was no fear in him, none at all, and Mallory tensed himself for the last, despairing attempt for life that Panayis must surely make, and then he had looked at Miller and knew there would be no attempt, because there was a strange sureness and inevitabifity about the American, an utter immobility of hand and eye that somehow precluded even the thought, far less the possibility of escape.
The prisoner has nothin' to say. Miller sounded very tired. I suppose I should say somethin'. I suppose I should give out with a long spiel about me bein' the judge, the jury and the executioner, but I don't think I'll bother myself. Dead men make poor witnesses . Mebbe it's not your fault, Panayis, mebbe there's an awful good reason why you came to be what you are. Gawd only knows. I don't, and I don't much care. There are too many dead men. I'm goin' to kill you, Panayis, and I'm goin' to kill you now. Miller dropped his cigarette, ground it into the floor of the hut. Nothin' at all to say?
And he had nothing at all to say, the hate, the malignity of the black eyes said it all for him and Miller nodded, just once, as if in secret understanding. Carefully, accurately, he shot Panayis through the heart, twice, blew out the candles, turned his back and was half-way towards the door before the man had crashed to the ground.
I am afraid I cannot do it, Andrea. Louki sat back wearily, shook his head in despair. I am very sorry, Andrea. The knots are too tight.