that led around behind the house, where it disappeared momentarily, then came back in sight, going a bit faster now, and returned to the main drive and left the estate. We watched it till it disappeared, then turned our attention back to the mansion below. After twenty minutes I was getting bored, and said so.
'Yeah, but we've got to wait and watch. Pretty soon now something's gonna happen and-'
Schlick-schlick.
The sound startled us, coming from directly behind. And neither one of us liked the sound. Not a bit. We turned and found ourselves looking down the business end of a shotgun. The guy who was holding it was old Mr. Critchfield's assistant. How he got out of the house and up on the rock behind us I had no idea. Not at first, anyway. And now, twenty feet away from him instead of three hundred, I knew why he had looked so familiar even at a distance. I could now see the thick glasses. And he'd put on the trenchcoat, too.
It was my old friend from the mill who'd smacked Mary down. The guy who'd clobbered me up in Lowell. It was the guy with the heavily starched lapels.
'Move back… all the way back,' he said, jerking the muzzle at us. We did, until we were right at the cliffs edge and in full view of the house. Without lifting his eyes from us he waved his arm in a high, slow arc. I looked down and saw old Critchfield give a responsive wave, then bring something up to his face. He was watching through binoculars.
'Well Doctor, I didn't know you had a friend with you. All we could see was you from inside… and we were careful never to gaze up in your direction when you could see us. Who is he?'
I explained that Mr. Roantis was an old dentist friend of mine. Lapels gave him the once-over and decided he was harmless. Certainly, at five-eight and slightly gray and pudgy, Roantis didn't look like an expert in practically every exotic form of fighting and defense ever devised. That he could kill people with his earlobes usually went unnoticed.
'Please don't point the gun, sir,' said Roantis with a pant. 'I can't stand it. I'll faint and fall off… please!'
'Then don't move,' said Lapels, approaching me. He held the shotgun cradled in his right hand while he fished in the pocket of his trenchcoat. That coat was a regular bag of tricks. He took out a thin leather sap. It was a spring-loaded sapper with a leather-covered steel ball at either end. He waggled it in his left hand and it flicked back and forth fast on its springy steel shaft. It made a whirring, whistling sound like the wings of a mourning dove. I didn't like it.
'I owe you pain,' he whispered, and swung it.
There was a little high whistle and a stab of pain on the point of my elbow. It shot up my arm, up the side of my face to the top of my head. I heard the whistle again and felt the snapper strike my right collarbone. The pain was deep, and traveled through my bones to my chest, my right shoulder, and my lower jaw. The whistle again, and Lapels had reached low and struck my left knee. He hit it hard, and the left leg gave way in a wave of agony. It felt as though my bones were breaking. I sucked air through clenched teeth.
'Please don't! That's enough!' pleaded Roantis, a look of horror on his face.
'Quiet, short stuff, or you'll get it too.'
The little truncheon continued to whistle and snap at me like a trained serpent. And Lapels had studied his perverted craft. He knew exactly where to strike so the steel would hit bone and- nerve bundles and send the pain into the center of my neural pathways until I was aglow with hurt. He finally tapped me almost delicately on the tip of my jaw, and the world grew fuzzy. Noises were distant, and there was the sound of rolling surf in my poor hurt head.
'That should slow you down, Adams. If I had anything to say about it, I'd kill you here and now. Now let's go, both of you. Mr. Critchfield's waiting.'
Lapels walked behind us, the big smoothbore aimed at our kidneys. It would have made me nervous if I hadn't been so woozy already. The sap had taken the tar out of me all right. I could barely walk. Roantis, his pride no doubt injured at having been outfoxed by a common thug, stomped on ahead of me, his hands shoved deep into his Windbreaker's pockets, looking at the ground and saying nothing. We passed my parked Scout, then the jeep. It was obvious to me now how he'd gotten the drop on us. The chauffeur brought the jeep around behind the house, out of our line of sight. It had stopped there momentarily for the chauffeur to get out and Lapels, with his smoothbore, to climb in. He'd left the estate, doubled back up the dirt road, then crept up on us. One thing was becoming more and more apparent to me: Old Man Critchfield was smart and tough. And he had help that was utterly loyal and brutal.
After we passed the vehicles we walked down a steep and twisty path, and it was there that Roantis fell down. It happened so fast that I almost stumbled over him. He had tripped over a root and fallen flat on his face. He'd fallen hard because we were going downhill. I regained my balance and leaned over him. He didn't move. He had covered his head with his hands, and was moaning. I noticed one strange thing: his watchband had been turned inside out.
'Get away,' said Lapels. I stood ten feet away, swaying back and forth to keep upright. I wasn't faking. Lapels held the shot-gun at Roantis and kicked him in the legs. More whimpering from Roantis, whose hands went down under his face for a pillow.
'It's broken,' he wailed. 'I think I broke my ankle. Please don't kick…'
Lapels listened to his whining and whimpering with a disgusted look. Then Roantis tried to get up several times, but each time he fell back on his stomach.
'Want me to help?' I asked. Lapels told me to shut up and stay where I was. I watched him kick and prod Roantis, finally grow impatient, and reach down and grab the prone man by the back of his jacket collar and heave.'
Wrong move.
We walked single file through the gates of the Critchfield estate. Roantis was right behind me, and Lapels followed, holding the gun on both of us as before. The gatekeeper-gardener, a husky chap of Hispanic heritage, watched our little parade closely to make certain nothing was amiss. Lapels nodded at him and he closed and locked the gate behind us.
We were in there now, and couldn't get out. we climbed up the stone terrace steps to the huge oak door. The old black chauffeur opened it and let us in.
'Bring them in here, Lundt!' cried a shrill and imperious voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
'And so you see, Doctor Adams, when I took Lundt's advice on the hiring of DeLucca, I really had no idea of the kind of man he was. I needed someone sufficiently schooled in violence to make the point, you see… but I admit I got way more than I had bargained for. I assure you I have fully apprised Mr. Lundt of my displeasure at the choice.'
The old man glared across the wide room at his assistant, whose eyes lowered under the withering gaze. He still had the shotgun across his knees, but he seemed intimidated by the old codger nonetheless.
The room was huge, with an ornate plaster ceiling, leaded windows, oak wainscoting, and a gigantic Tabriz rug which extended the entire length of the room underneath the overstuffed furniture. We could have been in a castle in Scotland instead of a big house on the outskirts of a New England mill town.
I looked steadily at old Critchfield. He was dressed in a wool suit and vest. He looked the part. He was old, no doubt of it. The white hair was almost gone; the flesh had left the beaky face. A big blood vessel stood out like a piece of twine on his high, bony forehead. His chin and neck were bags of saggy wrinkles and liver-splotched skin. And yet there was the look of vitality, of tremendous strength and will in the face and eyes, which twinkled bright
