Ossian's Ride (11 page)

He gave in, as of course he had to, if he wanted to get any decent information. Once he had the information, it would be soon enough to send for Tiny.

I set to work neither too hastily nor too slowly. Breakfast was brought for Houseman and the canon.

“I’ll have mine too, Mrs. O’Reilly,” I said, without looking up. My breakfast was brought. By playing my one good card at least I had won the first round. But would I win any more than the first?

Someone brought in my rucksack. The canon went through the contents. He was interested in the books, which he examined rather closely. I have the habit of annotating my books with marginal comments.

When at length I had finished, I pushed the file across the table. “Well, there it is. I won’t guarantee that I’ve found all the mistakes, but you can see for yourself that the ones I have found show up the whole thing for a piece of complete nonsense.”

Instead of attempting to understand anything of what I had written, the canon simply compared my handwriting with the annotations. The two being the same, the evidence against Houseman’s document must now have looked very strong, particularly since spoof documents were presumably fairly common anyway.

Something else in the rucksack interested the canon: my only weapon—a packet of magnesium flash powder. He opened it up, lit a match and set the stuff off in one big puff.

“Very pretty indeed. By the use of some such material a person unknown (as the police say) made quite an ingenious escape from the Dublin guards a week or two ago. On the sixteenth of July, if I remember correctly. Where would you have been on that day, Mr. Sherwood?”

“In Dublin, as a matter of fact.”

“A strange coincidence, I must say! And now would you be so good as to tell me why you happen to be in Ireland at all.”

“Oh, there’s no mystery about that. Our people in London are very worried by the high percentage of dud stuff that’s been coming through. I was simply sent over to help separate the wheat from the tares.”

He was now very calm again, his voice purring like a huge cat. “Our meeting is indeed a fortunate one from your point of view, Mr. Sherwood, for I fear you would have found little employment for your talents if a kindly providence had not brought you to my door yesterday evening.”

“I was beginning to realize that, sir. I’d be glad to hear what terms you have to offer!”

He laughed in a melodious, insincere fashion. “My dear young fellow, need I remind you that a guard was killed during that little operation of yours last month? And you ask me for terms—terms!”

“I cannot imagine there was anything very unusual in that, nor can I imagine that the rest of your men are content to work for nothing.”

“What a very mercenary young man it is. Ah well, we shall see what we shall see. Quite a number of documents need to be looked over. When they are finished and I have studied your reports, then perhaps we can reopen this conversation.”

Houseman had said nothing throughout this interchange. From his sour expression I could see he had no liking for me as an ally. He started to protest, but the canon silenced him with a gesture.

Many features of the situation were far from being reassuring. But at least the scoundrels had some need of me. And I had a promising idea stirring in the back of my mind. Even so, I was not prepared for the cunning of the canon.

After breakfast they bundled me into a car, not a Chevrolet. Houseman drove, with the canon beside him. I sat in the back with Tiny. No attempt was made to conceal the route from me. Near Galbally we turned off on a mountain road, unpaved and of a width not much greater than the car itself. The road wound upward in an easterly direction, the higher slopes of Galtymore lying two miles or so to the south.

We had climbed perhaps a thousand feet by the time we reached our destination, which I had better describe in a little detail. There was a cluster of buildings, the main one a rough-hewn, single-story stone cottage, well built to resist the challenge of any storm. I soon discovered it to have three small, boxlike bedrooms, together with two rooms each about fifteen feet square. One served as a parlor, the other as a kitchen. The parlor faced to the north, away from the high mountain. One could look down a long stretch of bog toward the head streams of the river Aherlow. At the present season of the year this northern aspect was tolerable, but in winter it must have been an appallingly gloomy spot.

There were two main outbuildings, one a garage, the other a square concrete affair with a small high window—the only guess I could make as to its function was most unpleasant to say the least. It was a guess that subsequently turned out to be correct. The conveniences of the establishment were situated to one side of the garage, about thirty yards from the cottage.

The canon led the way into the cottage and to the sitting room. Houseman followed, carrying two large brief cases, which he proceeded to unpack. A very considerable pile of papers was disgorged. The canon indicated them with a gesture.

“This you will agree, Mr. Sherwood, is a place where you can have absolute quiet, where you will be free from all unpleasant disturbances. Tiny will see that everything is in order and will prepare your meals.”

“We still have not settled the terms of my employment, sir. This is an awful lot of work to undertake.”

“No doubt, Mr. Sherwood, no doubt. And yet I think you will readily undertake it, for you see I am accustomed to getting a little annoyed with clever young men. Tiny is quite extraordinary in his devotion to me, Mr. Sherwood. As you might guess, he simply detests people who give me cause for worry.”

“I think you are going the wrong way about it, sir. Good scientific and mathematical work cannot be done under duress.”

“An interesting proposition, but one that I have no doubt is quite false. I shall return here in about two weeks, at which time I shall expect to find that you have completed a set of coherent, accurate reports on the whole of this material.”

Not to be done out of the last word, I remarked that I would do the best I could, but that it was asking a great deal. Throughout this conversation Houseman had fidgeted about in an uncomfortable way. Quite evidently he was worried by the canon’s glib smoothness. Equally evident, if Houseman had cause to be worried I had a double cause for anxiety.

Indeed I was beginning to feel that Tiny was to be preferred to the canon, which was just as well, for shortly after midday Houseman and the canon drove away. I was now left in a remote desolate spot, a wilderness of bog to the west, north and east, a wilderness of rock and mountain to the south; alone with a monster strong enough to cripple me with the utmost ease should he feel so disposed.

The idea that had occurred to me back at the farmhouse was probably a good one: to play along with the canon and his band of zanies until they acquired confidence in me. Then it would be natural for them to send me into I.C.E. territory, for I could ostensibly be of far greater use to them there. In this way I would fall back on P.S.D. organization to get me exactly where I really wanted to be.

But for a variety of reasons I now rejected this notion. It was partly Tiny, whom I detested, partly the desolate surroundings of the cottage and more particularly the canon himself. The word “evil” I have never used before, because I never knew its meaning until now. The canon was an evil man; no other word will describe him. Even Houseman, traitor and murderer as he undoubtedly was, seemed to feel a deep uneasiness in this sinister presence.

The monster had plainly been detailed to see that I applied myself assiduously to the task in hand. I saw that unless I took immediate steps he would have me at work from morning till night. Like a batsman facing a spin bowler I set about enlarging my territory. I divided the pile of papers into twelve separate groups, labeling’ them, “First Day,” “Second Day,” “Third Day,” etc., all for the gorilla’s benefit. When I had finished the work for the day I wrote a tolerable report and placed it on top of the appropriate heap. Then I resolutely refused to undertake any further work, preferring to spend the late afternoon and evening at my own books and reading the few magazines that had somehow found their way to the cottage.

Of course I could have written any sort of nonsense as far as the canon himself was concerned, but I had a shrewd suspicion that he already might have independent reports on some of the documents. In fact he was probably testing me out. It could well prove suicidal to make a bad assessment of the stuff.

My notion was to lull the gorilla into a false security. I spent the first four days at the cottage. Then on the fifth afternoon I put on my boots and wind jacket, openly declaring my intention of going off for a walk. I never expected that Tiny would allow this, and was amazed that he took no steps to stop me. Always with a cigarette hanging from his lips, he followed on behind.

I made no attempt to hurry, since it was all to my advantage to conceal my true pace. I move fairly quickly on a mountain, especially downhill. It seemed that a very simple plan would suffice to deal with the gorilla. All I had to do was to arrive at the summit of Galtymore, some fifty yards in the lead, and then to set off like the wind down the southern slopes of the mountain.

Things turned out even better than I had hoped for. I reached the top almost 250 yards ahead of the monster. But was the business quite as easy as it seemed? I could have believed that Tiny was simpleton enough to allow me to escape were it not that the canon plainly regarded him as a trustworthy jailer. And the canon knew I had outwitted the Dublin police; he knew of the encounter with Houseman. I decided there must surely be some catch somewhere. Manifestly, I would be well advised to proceed cautiously. The upshot was that I decided to return to the cottage, on the argument that if Tiny were really stupid enough to give me a genuine chance of escape, then he would certainly be stupid enough to give me a second chance.

This was probably the best decision I have ever taken in my life. On the descent back to the cottage I was leading the way by as much as a mile, when from far above there came a shout. Tiny had been unable to restrain himself any longer. He came down the steepest part of the slope at a pace that I would not have believed possible. Leaping, zigzagging and running, he was down on me in an incredibly short time. He stopped short and then slouched toward me lazily. He hit me a buffet rather than a blow, but it was enough to knock me down. With a stinging head I raged at him, but all he did was to laugh in his maniacal, unnatural fashion. No word was spoken, but I knew it was a bitter disappointment to him that I had not tried to escape.

From now on I strained every wit and nerve on the problem of getting away from Tiny and the cottage. I was hopelessly outclassed in strength and in speed. It was futile to seek a solution along those lines. Two things had to be done: a close scrutiny of the cottage and of the ground outside, and a psychological study of Tiny himself. It had to be a battle between brain and brawn, with the scales heavily weighted in favor of crude muscular power.

Gradually I came to realize that Tiny was possessed of a sly cunning, but of a cunning with definite limitations. There was a car in the garage, as I found in the course of my exploration (which I saw no point in attempting to hide, for the more complex my behavior the harder it would be to distinguish my plan once I had arrived at it). During the evening meal Tiny produced a bunch of keys and a distributor cap. He showed them to me again with his appalling laugh, and then returned them to an inner pocket. So he knew of my discovery of the car, but he could not conceive that I would have any use for it other than its normal function.

At first I thought that only two considerations had any meaning for him: to prevent my escape and to show off his gigantic strength. But there was a third and darker thread to the pattern. Just as I hated his unreasoning power, so he hated me for the things that I was and that he was not. He was hoping that I would try to escape, for then he would have the excuse to pound me to a jelly. He was mortally afraid of the canon, and so did not dare to assault me seriously without reason. Exactly like a cat with a mouse, he continued to give me an apparent chance of escape, just as he had done on the mountain. Like a cat he moved swiftly and astonishingly silently.

I wove my plan from a few gossamer-thin fragments: a length of rubber tubing, a pile of stones where a small object could be concealed, an uncurtained window of the parlor and a couple of empty whiskey bottles. I made my preparations without haste. Everything was ready by the evening of the tenth day, and it seemed that I had still plenty of time to settle my account with the gorilla before the canon should arrive.

But events were to fall out in a vastly more shocking way than anything I could possibly have guessed. By what seemed pernicious ill fortune the monster managed to avoid the small error that would have finally settled the whole business. Then in the late afternoon of the twelfth day I heard a car coming up the road from the valley. By an equal misfortune the canon was returning two days before time.

Both the monster and I turned out to await the car. This time it was indeed the Chevrolet, now with its original number plates back again. There were four occupants: the canon, Houseman, a man I had not seen before and—Cathleen. They dragged her from the car. As she passed me, on the way to the square concrete building, our eyes met. No word was needed to convey the imploring message of those eyes. This was the “trouble” that Cathleen had spoken of in the bus on the road to Athlone.

The canon was in a false good humor. He seated himself in the cottage parlor with a tumbler of whiskey and proceeded to examine his fingernails while he asked me a series of questions about his precious papers. Tiny lounged against the door. Houseman and the other fellow were preparing supper in the kitchen.