on.’
Getting Blankenhagen out wasn’t easy. Only fortitude and hope had kept him conscious; he was a dead weight, and even with Tony pushing from below and me pulling from above we had a hard time. When we finally extracted him, he collapsed at full length on the floor and lay there without moving.
Tony followed, breathing hard and looking as if he was going to be sick. We were both flat on the floor, just breathing, when the beautiful silver moonlight was blotted out by a shape in the doorway.
The figure crossed the room without a glance at the shadows where we were sprawled, and disappeared.
I applied grubby knuckles to my eyes. I knew the stairs leading up to the next floor had provided the means of exit for that incredible apparition, but I couldn’t believe I had really seen it – a tall figure, cloaked and hooded, wearing boots that rang metallically on the stone floor – and carrying in its arms the white-robed figure of a woman.
Tony stared speechlessly. Blankenhagen sat up. He had no voice left; but the air came out of his lungs in an explosive whisper that broke my paralysis like a dash of cold water.
‘Irma!’
I HAD NOT RECOGNIZED Irma. I wouldn’t have known my own mother under those confusing conditions (especially my mother, under those conditions). But I was willing to take Blankenhagen’s word for it. I couldn’t figure out what Irma was doing there, but I decided maybe I had better go up and find out.
Tony beat me to the stairs. Blankenhagen was behind me, but not for long; I heard him stumble and fall after a few steps.
We kept going up – all the way up. I don’t know what I expected to find up there. I wasn’t thinking coherently. But I felt a mild shock when I came out of the opening onto the roofless top storey, and saw what was happening.
The character in the cloak stood at the edge of the platform, with not even a ridge of stone between him and the ground some sixty feet below. Irma lay at his feet. She was drugged or unconscious – probably the former, because her face was quite peaceful and she was breathing heavily through her nose. If the poignancy of the moment had not raised my mind above ordinary cattiness, I would have said she was snoring.
The man who had brought her there was wearing riding breeches and boots. The hood of his dark-grey loden cloak was thrown back, so that his fiery head gleamed in the moonlight. His gun gleamed too. It was big and shiny and it was pointed straight at Tony’s stomach.
‘So it was you,’ I said unoriginally.
‘In part. No, Tony, don’t try anything. A bullet hole in you wouldn’t spoil my plans at all. As soon as I’m finished here, you two go back where you came from. Where’s Blankenhagen?’
Tony sat down, yawning. I couldn’t help admiring his nonchalance. He didn’t even look surprised . . .
‘You knew,’ I said to him. ‘You knew it was George.’
‘I knew George was one of the villains. Unfortunately, he isn’t the only one.’ Tony looked at the villain. ‘Blankenhagen? He’s down there someplace. Broke his arm when the staircase gave way.’
‘I admire your tenacity,’ George said, baring his teeth in one of those toothpaste-ad grins. ‘I didn’t think you could get out.’
‘I’m a little tired,’ Tony admitted. He yawned again. ‘Can I sit over there, against the parapet, without your shooting me?’
‘Just don’t stand up.’
Tony obeyed literally; and George raised his eyebrows politely at me. I shook my head. I didn’t want to sit down. I had a feeling I would be lying down only too soon, and permanently.
‘Found the shrine yet?’ Tony asked.
‘Oh, yes. I followed you last night and overheard Vicky telling Konstanze’s life story. It wasn’t hard to figure out what it meant, so far as the hiding place of the shrine was concerned. I had prepared the tunnel with no specific plan in mind – an emergency reserve, you might say – but I had to get you down there right away, before you could use your information. I had plenty of time after that to search.’
‘I hope you haven’t told anyone else where it is,’ Tony said.
I wished George would stop grinning. He looked like an Aztec death mask – the kind that is half teeth.
‘I’m not such a fool as that.’
Tony wasn’t as calm as he seemed. I could see the tension of bunched-up muscles in his legs and shoulders. I kept very still and watched him. He was leading up to something and I wanted to be ready to back him up, whatever he did.
‘I don’t know, Nolan,’ he said. ‘I find your position somewhat shaky. What are you going to do with Irma?’
‘Somnambulists are accident-prone, old son. They even have fatal accidents.’
‘And you can always go down after you throw her off and make sure.’
‘What’s one more?’ said George.
It took me a couple of seconds to understand what he meant.
‘Now, wait,’ I said energetically. ‘Let’s not be hasty. You haven’t killed anybody yet. We can’t even accuse you of attempted murder; shutting us up in that hole was just a boyish prank, right? Why kill anybody? Just take the shrine and split. We haven’t any proof.’
‘Wouldn’t work,’ said George promptly. He waved the gun at Tony, who tried not to cringe. ‘He’s been too nosy. Sending cables all over the place.’
‘You’ve been reading my mail!’ Tony said angrily.
‘Only the cables that arrived today. You know too much about the state of my finances, brother. And you were too inquisitive about Herr Schmidt.’
‘You crook,’ I said to Tony. ‘Were those the cables you sent that day it rained? How did you know where to inquire about Schmidt? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You have a lot of nerve talking about cheating,’ Tony shouted. ‘Squatting like a setting hen on all those little tidbits you dug up – ’
‘Sssh!’ George danced irritably up and down. ‘Somebody will hear you!’
I expected Tony to jump him then; I braced myself, ready to move. There was a nasty cold lump at the pit of my stomach. I had never seen a gun from quite that angle. It is a disconcerting sight, and I had no desire to see it any closer. But we had to do something; I didn’t intend to let myself be herded back into that hellish tunnel without putting up a fight. We would be in a better position to attack if we waited till George had us on the stairs. But we couldn’t wait. He was going to kill Irma first.
Tony settled back.
‘Does Schmidt really have a degree from Leipzig?’ he inquired conversationally. ‘I haven’t had a chance to read my mail, you know.’
George laughed.
‘I think you’ll be surprised when you find out who Schmidt is. He was using his own name. Not his fault if it’s a common name.’
‘One thing I already know,’ said Tony. ‘He was the one who engineered the armour and the seance. What is he, an amateur hypnotist, or just a common garden-variety fortune teller?’
‘Both. He hypnotized Irma with some crazy idea that she might have ancestral memories he could tap. Until the great seance he didn’t realize that what he was doing could hurt the wench.’
The gun barrel dropped, casually, to indicate the girl’s motionless form, and my heart skipped a beat.
‘Why don’t you shoot her, if that’s what you’re going to do?’ Tony said, between his teeth. ‘Get it over with.’
‘No bullet holes in Irma. That would spoil the illusion.’
Tony was rapidly losing his calm. He glanced at me. Then, following his eyes, I finally realized what he was
