The Dancing Druids

time, and then come straight down the servants’ staircase. Of course, we may run into one of the maids, but we must risk that. If we do meet one of them, I shall act as though I’m tight, and you’ll have to pretend to get me back into our part of the house. After which, we’ll try again, and hope for better luck.’

‘What about the fire-escape?’ asked O’Hara.

‘I had thought of that, but I think we’d be spotted rather easily. Once we’re out at the servants’ door, we’ve nothing to do but shin over the wall at that place where the trees hang over. They should give us plenty of cover, and I loosened a brick this evening.’

‘And once we get down to the shore?’

‘I don’t know. Mrs. Bradley herself didn’t know. It’s a hunch she’s got that they’re going to take action to- night before the police get on to them. We’re to watch and wait, and not to attack anybody or join in any fights unless it’s to save our own skins. That’s all she could say. Our main job is to keep an eye on that cave. That’s where the fun may begin. It’s their last base on land, and is used, she thinks, to smuggle something out of the country.’

‘Stolen goods or faked money, I suppose,’ said O’Hara. ‘Well, there’s nothing doing at present, so let’s get back and make ourselves obvious, shall we?’

‘Oh, I say, no! There’s no need to be conspicuous! And, talking of that, we still haven’t settled with Firman.’

‘Finding him is going to be the trouble. And don’t repeat his name. We don’t know who knows it round here. And, to change the subject completely, it’s your turn to stand me a drink.’

They went back to the hotel, passing, on their way, the shack and the pull-in, interesting now not only because they were built on the site of the cottage from which the man named Bulstrode had disappeared, but because they were certainly screens to the uppermost entrance to the cave.

The night was not yet so dark as to obscure all objects from view, and O’Hara, without realizing that he had done so, noticed that the pull-in was occupied by a large lorry. This was unusual. It had so far been empty at night. The hotel had its own lock-up garages for the convenience of its guests, and the lorries and motor coaches which used the pull-in during the day were almost always gone by six o’clock.

The two young men went inside the hotel and to the lounge. They remained there until eleven, spoke to several of the guests, and then went up towards their room. At the top of the first flight of stairs was a long corridor. They traversed it, and, opening a baize-covered door, found themselves on the servants’ staircase.

They were lucky. It was long after the time when maidservants were likely to be about. In fact, they could hear girls’ laughter and snatches of talk from the floor above. The young men descended to the back door, which was not yet bolted and locked, crept out, slipped noiselessly across the garden, and were soon up and over the wall.

There was an alley at the side of the hotel. They emerged from it into the only street of Slepe Rock, and, keeping in the shadow of the wall, they gained the beach, and, with the utmost carefulness, made for a group of rocks, high and dry beyond the tide-mark, from which they could watch the sea, and the headland into which the cave penetrated.

‘Now for dirty work at the crossroads,’ said O’Hara with quiet enjoyment. ‘Sister Ann, Sister Ann, oh, do you see anyone coming?’

‘Dry up, you ass! You’ll attract attention. We don’t want the local watch committee down on us or something,’ said his cousin, with crude common sense.

‘Shouldn’t think there’s even a village policeman,’ replied O’Hara. ‘Still, perhaps, if you say so. Wonder how the old lady and Laura are getting on?’

‘Dry up!’ said his cousin, who seemed nervous. The beach was entirely deserted, and the snarling of the sea sounded ominous and might blanket, he thought, the approach of undesirable persons. It had occurred to him more than once that O’Hara’s recognition of Cassius as the Con of the first adventure might have placed his cousin’s life in some danger. He had put this to Mrs. Bradley. Her serious acceptance of the theory had done nothing to modify his anxiety, but he agreed with the elderly lady that, as nothing would impress O’Hara less than the fact that he might be in danger, Gascoigne should continue to shoulder the responsibility of acting in partnership with him, and guard him as far as that was possible.

‘For we’ll never get him to give up the fun at this stage,’ he observed.

Chapter Nineteen

—«¦»—

‘Then the soldier went out and told the people to take up the square stone in the market-place and dig for water underneath.’

Ibid. (The Crows and the Soldier)

« ^ »

In spite of Gascoigne’s uneasiness on his cousin’s behalf, the long period of waiting made him drowsy, for it was well after midnight when the sound of boots on the shingle attracted O’Hara’s attention.

He touched his cousin, and Gascoigne, who had been more than half asleep, roused himself and they listened. The footsteps approached them and then stopped, and a torch began to flicker like a will o’ the wisp over the shingle.

Then round the point beyond the eastern end of the bay came the masthead light of a vessel. A lamp from the ship winked twice, went out, winked twice and again went out, this time for good, and the masthead light disappeared.

Gascoigne and O’Hara watched and still waited. The torch repeated what was undoubtedly a signal, and then was switched off. No word was spoken, the boots returned by the way they had come, and all was quiet again.

Nothing more happened for about three-quarters of an hour. Then there came the sound of voices muted by distance, and, shortly after that, the sound of oars. A boat was pulled up on to the shingle where the road came almost to the sea, and men began to tramp up the beach.

It was impossible to see them in the darkness. Apparently they knew their way well, for, black though the night was, none of them carried a torch.

The watchers—or, rather, the audience, for there was nothing to see—heard them leave the shingle and step up on to the road, and then there was nothing else to hear but the drag of the tide on the beach.

‘Wonder if anyone is left in charge of the boat?’ O’Hara muttered.

‘It wouldn’t be more than one man,’ replied his cousin, alive to the implications of this question.

‘Scrag him?’

‘I think so. No light indicates no good. And why that signalling?’

‘You’d think the coastguards would spot it.’

‘I should hardly think they would see. It was very discreet. We’d hardly have seen it ourselves if we hadn’t happened to be just where we are. Come on.’

‘He’ll hear us as soon as we move, but never mind.’

‘That’s if anyone’s there. There may not be. Keep by the cliff, and mind how you go. It’s a booby-trap walk in the dark.’

By keeping close to the cliff they found that the shingle was not quite so liable to slide away under their feet. They advanced by inches, testing each step before they took it. No sound came from the boat, and they began to think that it was indeed unoccupied; but as they drew nearer to where the cliff dropped to the road, a voice from the water said softly :

‘Thought you was never flippin’ well comin’. Get a move on! I can’t ruddy well stop here all night.’

‘Sh!’ said Gascoigne, with the loud hiss of a jet of escaping steam. He and O’Hara stepped on to the road and strode towards the edge of the water. ‘Where are you?’ O’Hara demanded, as the gunwale of the boat made a dark mass suddenly before him.

‘ ’Ere!’ said the man in the boat; but he was throttled into silence by O’Hara before he could say any more.

‘Quiet, you!’ murmured Gascoigne into his ear. He pricked the man’s chin with the point of his pocket-knife.