In our pockets we each of us had a gag, a large handkerchief, a length of fine rope, and a villainous-looking weapon which Drummond alluded to as Mary. It was a short, heavily loaded stick, and as he calmly produced these nefarious objects from his suitcase, followed by five decent-sized bottles of chloroform, I couldn’t help roaring with laughter.
“Always travel hoping for the best,” he grinned. “Don’t forget, boys—no shooting. To put it mildly, it would be distinctly awkward if we killed a genuine tin merchant.”
It was ten o’clock when we reached a spot at which Drummond considered it sound to park the car. For the last two miles we had been travelling without lights, and with the aid of a torch we confirmed our position on the map.
“I make out that there is another ridge beyond the one in front of us before we get to Black Mine,” said Drummond. “If that’s so and they’ve got the place picketed, the sentry will be on the further one. Manhandle her in, boys: she’ll make a noise on reverse.”
We backed the car off the road into a small deserted quarry and then, with a final inspection to see that all our kit was complete, we started off. Toby and I came five yards behind Drummond, with the other two behind us again, and I soon began to realise that the yarns I had heard from time to time—told casually by his pals about our leader—were not exaggerated. I have mentioned before his marvellous gift of silent movement in the dark; and I had myself seen an exhibition of it in the house in Ashworth Gardens. But that was indoors: that night I was to see it in the open. You could hear nothing: you could see nothing, until suddenly he would loom up under your nose with whispered instructions.
Toby had had previous experience of him, but the first time it happened I very nearly made a fool of myself. It was so utterly unexpected that, never dreaming it was he, I lunged at him viciously with my loaded stick. The blow fell on empty air, and I heard him chuckle faintly.
“Steady, old man,” he whispered from somewhere behind me. “Don’t lay me out at this stage of the proceedings. We’re just short of the top of the first ridge: spread out sideways until we’re over. Then same formation. Pass it back.”
We waited till the other two bumped into us, I feeling the most infernal ass. And then, even as we were passing on the orders, there came a faint snarling noise away to our left. We stared in the direction it came from, but it was not repeated. All was silent save for the lazy beat of the breakers far below.
“By Gad! you fellows, we’ve bumped the first sentry.” Drummond materialised out of the night. “Fell right on top of him. Had to dot him one. What’s that?”
A stone moved a few yards away from us, and a low voice called out—“Martin! Martin—are you there? What was that noise? God! this gives me the jumps. Martin—where are you? Ah—”
The beginnings of a scream were stifled in the speaker’s throat, and we moved cautiously forward to find Drummond holding someone by the throat.
“Put him to sleep, Ted,” he whispered, and the sickly smell of chloroform tainted the air.
“Lash him up and gag him,” said Drummond, and then, with infinite precaution, he switched his torch for a second on to the man’s face. He was one of the two who had spoken to me that morning.
“Good,” said Drummond cheerfully. “We won’t bother about the other: he will sleep for several hours. And now, having mopped up the first ridge, let us proceed to do even likewise with the second. Hullo! what the devil is that light doing? Out to sea there.”
Three flashes and a long pause—then two flashes. That was all: after that, though we waited several times, we saw nothing more.
“Obviously a signal of some sort,” remarked Drummond. “And presumably it is to our friends in front. By Jove! you fellows, is it possible that we’ve run into a bunch of present-day smugglers? What a perfectly gorgeous thought. Let’s get on with it. There’s not likely to be anyone in the hollow in front, but go canny in case of accidents. Same formation as before, and spread out when we come to the next ridge.”
Once more we started off. Periodically I glanced out to sea, but there was no repetition of the signal. Whatever boat had made it was lying off there now without lights—waiting. And for what? Smugglers? Possible, of course. But what a coast to choose! And yet was it a bad one? Well out of the beaten track: full of caves: sparsely populated. One thing anyway seemed certain. If the signal had been intended for the present owners of Black Mine, it rather disposed of the genuineness of their claim. The connection between tin-mining secrets and mysterious signals out at sea seemed rather too obscure to be credible.
“Hit him, Stockton.”
Toby Sinclair’s urgent voice startled me out of my theorising just in time. I had literally walked on a man, and it was a question of the fraction of a second as to whether he got away and gave the alarm.
“Good biff,” came in Drummond’s whisper as the man crashed. “I’ve got the other beauty. We’re through the last line.”
The other two had joined us, and for a while we stood there listening. Ahead of us some three hundred yards away was the Black Mine: to the left, on the edge of the cliff, the wooden house stood outlined against the sky. And even as we stared at it a door opened for a second, letting out a shaft of light as someone came out.
“So our friends are not in bed,” said Drummond softly. “There is activity in the home circle. Let’s go and join the party. We’ll make for the
