Down Under (24 page)

“It's ten miles from Hillick St Agnes to Oakham,” said Oliver.

Amos Rennard blew out his cheeks.

“Here—who's telling this—you or me? It may be ten miles by road and rail, but it's five the way the water runs.”

“Oh, there's water?”

“There wouldn't be caves if there wasn't. It's the water makes the caves. We've covered it in here, but it runs all along that wall. It took a lot of labour, but we paved it over. It made me feel giddy to see it running all the time, so I had it done.”

Water.… Oliver felt a secret excitement. Water gave you something to follow. Water generally meant a way out sooner or later—
not always
.…

“… so I thought he was a liar”—Oliver had missed something there—“and I told him so, and the more I told him the more he told me—how to work the stone and open the secret door, and the whole bag of tricks. He'd finished his flask and he was as drunk as a lord, and I couldn't get away from him, there was such a crowd, and there he stood telling me things I didn't want to hear and shoving his card into my hand. I put it in my pocket and forgot all about it except that I remembered his name, which was Henry Oakham. And there was another raid next day, and I saw in the paper he'd been killed, and then I'd got my hands too full to think of him again. But when I wanted to make sure of having a bolt-hole, something said ‘Henry Oakham,' and I thought I'd find out how much of a liar he'd been. Oakham Place was empty, and I got an order to view, and when I got there, every single word that Henry had said came back. I give you my word, Captain Loddon, I could feel him hanging on my coat, and I could smell the whisky, and what's more, I remembered how to open the door, and I opened it same as you must have done—Ernie swears you didn't slip in behind him and Fan.”

“No, I opened it.”

The Old Fox slapped his knee.

“So did I. And when I saw the steps and all I took off my hat to Henry Oakham and begged his pardon for having called him a liar for the best part of six years. ‘And here's my bolt-hole,' I said, and I went back home and bought Oakham Place and the Angel at Hillick St Agnes. Not in my own name of course—that would have been a mug's game. No, I was pretty clever over the deal and covered up my tracks middling well, and when it was all fixed I put my brother-in-law Matthew Garstnet into the Angel, and I told my brother Joseph's widow there was a housekeeper's job waiting for her up at Oakham Place any time she liked, only she'd have to take it under another name. And she said what did she want with housekeeper's jobs when she'd got Ernie to do for? But she took it fast enough, and glad to get it, when Ernie came down under. He's a good boy, Ernie.”

Cold through Oliver's mind went the thought, cold as the bleakest north-east wind, “He's giving the whole show away. Why?” And in the same breath the answer, “Dead men tell no tales. I'm as good as dead.”

The little piggy eyes looked sharply at him under the red thatch of Amos Rennard's brows.

“You're thinking I talk a lot. Well, young man, and why not? There's not so much else I can do nowadays—I'm too fat. And there's no need for secrets amongst us down under.” He planted a coarse hairy hand on either knee and wagged his beard. “Perhaps I like talking, and perhaps I talk too much, and perhaps I'd like you to get it into your head that you're here for keeps.
There isn't any way out
. Would I talk the way I've been talking if there was? You sit back and think that over. And mind you, there's nothing to be down-hearted about. Philip's got your girl—granted. But you're not the first, and you won't be the last by a long chalk that's had to look for another and been all the better off in the end. That French girl's no good to you, but there's Marie—she's a nice girl. And Fanny's got a sister—or if there's anyone you fancied, we'd see what could be done, I'm sure. Young men ought to be married—it steadies them down. I married young myself, and I'm pleased to see Philip setting his mind that way. Mark's married—he's been married for years—but he keeps her on a little place in Devonshire, and all she knows is he has to travel a lot. They've two children I've never seen. That's hard—isn't it? But it was all on account of the children I let Mark marry the way he did. The women down here don't have 'em—or didn't. Fan has brought it off all right. She's the first, and we'll hope she won't be the last. There'll be Mrs Philip now. I want to see Philip's children.”

Oliver got to his feet.

“You can't expect me to listen to this!”

“Well, well,” said the Old Fox equably. “There's no need for you to listen to what you don't want to hear. There's just one thing I'd like you to bear in mind. You might get ideas in your head about having a smack at Philip and getting him out of the way. Well, he goes armed, Philip does, and pretty well able to look after himself, but—” here the Old Fox leaned forward, his gross weight upon his hands, his ruddy face contorted suddenly into a snarling mask—“if you were to touch him, if you were to lay a finger on him, I'd have you skinned alive, but not till you'd seen what I could do to that girl of yours—what I'd do to anyone who got in Philip's way!
There
—don't say I didn't warn you!” He sat back. His face relaxed. The thick lip came down and hid the ugly yellow teeth. He pulled at his beard and said affably, “Well, that's where we are. You run along and talk to the Doctor. He'll show you round. You shouldn't have made me lose my temper. I'm too fat, and it makes me sweat.”

CHAPTER XXVII

Oliver had no more chance of talking to Rose Anne. He was carefully shepherded, and so was she. He danced again with Fanny, and thought her nervous and unhappy.

“Whatever did you say to put Uncle out like that?”

“I don't think I said anything. He was warning me what I might expect if, as he put it, I had a smack at Philip.”

Fear looked at him out of Fanny's eyes.

“Oh, Captain Loddon, you
wouldn't!”

“I would if it was going to do any good.”

“You mustn't, you
mustn't!
You don't know what they'd do to you, or to Miss Rose Anne—you don't know—”

“Well, he was doing his best to tell me.”

Fanny shuddered.

“And it's true—they would. There've been people before—Ernie told me. Oh, you
won't!
If you don't care for yourself, you've got to think about her.”

What a nightmare—to dance, and talk of one's chances of escaping torture. He remembered Rose Anne saying, “We'll wake up soon,” and wondered whether they would ever wake again.…

Fanny was speaking.

“They've fetched your things away from our place. You're to be with the Doctor.” She leaned towards him and said quick and low, “Don't trust him—too much.”

He said, “Thank you, Fanny,” and felt a real regret. He liked her, and he liked Ernie. They were a break in the nightmare. If he ever got out … Amos Rennard's words echoed in his mind—“Do you think I'd talk like this if there was any way out?”

The interminable evening was over at last. Dr Spenlow took him across the hall, and he saw with a quickening of interest that they were heading for the arch to which Violette had pointed. She had gone that way with Philip, and there were three steps down—and a passage with lights, and then many steps—and after a little no more lights—but Philip had a torch.…

He tried to recall exactly what she had said. An exact recalling of the inexact—what use—what good?… Her babble came back—“We turned this way, that way—how do I know what way?” And then she had looked up and seen a star. He wondered whether she had not made the whole thing up. Not the arch and the three steps down at any rate. The arch was over them at this moment, and the steps were solid rock beneath his feet.

They passed along the “passage with lights,” and came to a cell-like chamber furnished chiefly with books. They covered the rock from the roof to the floor. This was apparently a study, from either side of which there opened a small sleeping-room about the size of a ship's cabin. These had no outlet upon the gallery, but were ventilated through square windows covered by a grating and placed high up in the wall just under the roof.

“I'll show you my laboratory tomorrow,” said Dr Spenlow. “There's something to live for! How's the head?”

“I had forgotten about it.”

“Have a drink. I can give you some whisky in spite of the old man's temperance talk—medical stores, you know. He expects all his prescriptions to be well laced.”

“Are you going to drug me?” said Oliver.

“Not at present—no orders. I do what I'm told, and you'd better too. It's no good trying to fight them, and it's no good trying to escape. Better for you to realise that right away. I know what I'm talking about, because of course I tried.”

A spark of interest pierced the heavy fatigue which was settling upon Oliver. He said,

“How?”

Dr Spenlow was pouring himself out a drink.

“Too old a story—too long. Perhaps another time.”

Oliver picked up his own drink. The air was hot and heavy down here. He had a parching thirst. He drank, and said urgently,

“Tell me-I'd like to hear.”

Dr Spenlow quoted a nursery rhyme:

“Pease pudding hot,

Pease pudding cold,

Pease pudding in the pot,

Nine days old.”

“My pease pudding is nine years old, and if that doesn't tell you anything else, it should tell you that there's nothing doing in the escape line.”

“You mean you've never tried since?”

“I've never tried since. It's a life sentence, Loddon.”

Oliver's face showed nothing. It was tired and expressionless. His mind felt a sharp horror of protest. He said,

“Well, you were going to tell me about it, weren't you?”

Dr Spenlow laughed.

“Was I? I will if you like.” He finished his drink and set the glass down among the papers on his writing-table. “Well, it's a moral lesson, only the moral's a topsy-turvy one. ‘Stay where you're put. Do what you're bid. If you're in a hole, lie down in it.'”

“Not much of a creed.”

“A poor thing but my own. And it had better be yours. Well, nine years ago—” there was a momentary twitch of the muscles round his mouth—“getting on for nine years ago I still had visions of climbing to the top of my own particular tree—by that sin fell the angels and all the rest of it. My head was bloody but unbowed, and I was quite sure I was going to escape. Well, I had a shot at it. I waited a year. I listened to the Old Fox by the hour. I led him on, and picked up a bit here and a bit there—he liked to boast about his mines and his caves, you know—and I used to get up in the night and explore. We weren't all civilised and electric-lighted then like we are today. The lights run all the way to the Angel now, but in those days we went round with torches and hoped they wouldn't let us down. When I thought I'd got the hang of the place, I put a torch and a couple of refills in my pocket and set out to escape. I won't tell you which way I went, because if you're really set on suicide you'll find one way is as good as another.”

Horror took Oliver again like cramp. Would this man be here after nine years if there were any way out? He said,

“What happened?”

Dr Spenlow was pouring himself out another drink.

“I was away a week,” he said. “I don't know how much imagination you've got.”

Oliver said, “Some.” He could have wished he had less.

“Because,” said Dr Spenlow, “if you've got any at all, you'll guess what that week was like, and if you haven't, it's no use my describing it. My idea was to follow the water. I expect you've thought of that too—everyone does.”

“Everyone?”

“Two out of every three of the men have a shot at getting away at first. The women funk the dark. Women are much more afraid of being alone than men are. But two out of every three of the men have a shot at it. They don't get very far mostly. We pick them up and bring them in—scared to death. And they don't try it on again. We know where to look for them now, but if they get past—well, I won't tell you what—we write them off as a total loss. In my own case I—well, I got past, and they got me back, but, as I think I told you, that was only because the Old Fox had an idea that he'd die if I wasn't handy to dose him.”

“Past what?” said Oliver.

“Oh, I'm not telling. If you're looking at the colour of my drink and building on its loosening my tongue, I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed. It takes a great deal to make me drunk, and when I'm drunk, I don't talk, I go to sleep. And I'm not giving anything away.”

“All right. Go on.”

Dr Spenlow laughed.

“Not enough imagination to fill the week in for yourself? All right, I'll give it something to work on.… After twelve hours I knew I was lost. I said, ‘If I can't go back, I've got to go on.' I used to wonder for a year or two whether I would have gone on if I had known how to get back. I've doubted it more and more. I had two refills for my torch, and when I was down to one, I didn't dare burn it all the time. The darkness was solid—like rock. It was like being buried alive—in rock. And I lost my sense of direction. I expect you've waked up in the night and not known where you were—where the window was, or the door. It's a bad feeling. I had it all the time. I went on because there was nothing else to do. Sometimes I had to crawl … and I was afraid of going mad … my last refill pegged out … nothing but the dark.…”

His voice had dropped very low. He was looking down at his own hand and the glass which held the whisky. The hand was quite steady. He went on speaking.