The Mind-Twisters Affair (13 page)

"We're all right as long as they don't decide to look in the wrong tent," Napoleon replied. "Incidentally, which way is Midford from here?"

Illya shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention to direction, just distance. We'll have to look it up on a map, I suppose." He looked around as they reentered the milling crowd. "But there's no rush. Let's wait till Thrush has run itself out. As long as we're here, let's not pass up an opportunity to find out what a Muck Crop Festival is. It's part of our national heritage."

Napoleon declined to comment on a national heritage that would include something called a Muck Crop Festival. After a half hour, the only thing that had attracted his attention favorably was a grandstand full of girls in bathing suits. A leather-lunged announcer was shouting to all and sundry that the final judging for the Muck Queen was about to begin.

"If this weren't a wholesome Midwestern town, I'd be suspicious," Napoleon commented. "Just what is muck, anyway, that it gets to have a festival and a queen all to itself?"

"A kind of soil," Illya said. "Very rich, but highly unpleasant to work with. Like glue when it's wet, but it grows great crops. It's similar to having a Peat Bog Festival and electing a Miss Peat Bog, I suppose."

Napoleon still looked dubious. "Probably all part of a Thrush scheme," he remarked darkly. "Speaking of which, don't you think pursuit has passed us by? If it's going to, that is?"

"We should give them a little longer, but it won't hurt to check all the streets leading out of town while were waiting."

They spent an hour exploring the streets of Beaver Dam on foot before returning to their car, where Illya intently studied a local map for a minute. "They can't cover everything unless they have a larger force than we've seen so far," he decided. "Especially with two of their cars out of action. If we leave town on the side away from Midford and make a long detour, we may be safe enough."

Illya eased the car out of the tent and cruised quietly down the side street. They had gone only a few blocks when red lights began flashing at a railroad crossing ahead of them. Illya stopped next to an alley and they waited as a seemingly endless freight train rumbled by at a snail's pace. The train was still moving past when Napoleon nudged Illya and pointed across the street.

"A man walking along there saw us and ducked behind that tree. I suspect that pursuit may not have entirely passed us by after all."

Illya promptly swung the car into the alley. A shot sounded behind them but there was no other evidence of pursuit. He turned into the next street and drove rapidly. Several blocks down, a man carrying what could have been either a length of water pipe or a bazooka looked up intently. Illya took no chances and made a sharp U-turn. As he straightened out again, Napoleon pointed ahead.

"That's the number two car that was after us earlier," he announced.

Illya made another turn into an intersecting street and the car picked up speed. Behind them the sounds of the chase mounted. Ahead, moonlight glinted on water. "Always have an extra bolt hole," be said and drove straight ahead.

They came to the end of the street, bounced over a low curb, crashed through a wooden fence, crossed a small park and stretch of beach and plunged into the waters of Beaver Lake. As they hit the water, Illya dropped their twin propellers into place and the car chugged out into the water at a moderate speed. Behind them, there was first a stunned silence, then much shouting and the sound of squealing tires as the cars turned around. As a precaution, Napoleon raised the bullet proof shield to protect their rear from shorebound sharpshooters.

"If they don't have a navy," said Illya confidently, "we should be all right. The lake is rather narrow here, but it's a drive of several miles around by road. We can be well on our way before they get around."

The remainder of the drive was routine. Lem Thompson, however, did not consider anything that roused him from a sound sleep at midnight to be either routine or bearable. He looked grumpily at Illya but agreed to hide him out. Agreeing was easier than arguing at this time of night.

"One more thing," Napoleon added. "We have to get this sample to the Fort Wayne airport, and I'm sure they'll be watching for this car. Could you see that Illya gets there?"

"And what if Illya's watched, too? Gimme the samples, and I'll take 'em myself. Gonna rain tomorrow anyway, so I won't be able to get any real work done." Lem clumped off, muttering that in his day people did their own work without always having to be helped out.

Napoleon smiled at Illya. "You just have to know how to handle people," he said as he got back into the car and headed for Whateley's.

Ten minutes later, Napoleon swung the U.N.C.L.E. car into the Whateley driveway and parked at the side of the house. As he started around to the front, a bright, flickering light from one of the basement windows caught his eye. Thoughts of devil worship and eldritch rites briefly crossed his mind, but be quickly decided that the light was much too bright for that kind of thing. By the time he reached the front door, he realized it must be Flavia pursuing her hobby. His thoughts pleasantly balanced between idle conversation with a pretty girl and pumping a possible source of information, Napoleon entered the house and went down the stairs to Flavia's studio.

Attired in jeans, sweatshirt, a heavy canvas apron, and oversized goggles, she was using an acetylene torch to attach a gaudy red metal bird to an assembly already supporting a dozen identical creatures. When she had the bird firmly attached, she looked around and, seeing Napoleon, smiled and shut off the torch.

"Don't let me disturb you," he said.

"Oh, this is nothing important," she said. "Just an eyebrow raiser for a local art show." When Napoleon, looked puzzled, she went on. "Not the work itself, but the title. In a moment of weakness, I decided to call it Collage of Cardinals."

Napoleon grimaced dutifully. "If you enjoy raising eyebrows, there must be ways that are less work." He looked around the basement studio. "Just living in this house would be enough for most. All it needs are a few cobwebs at strategic locations to turn it into a horror movie set."

Flavia laughed. "It's already been a horror movie set, if you count amateur productions. The university drama club wrote and directed a movie last year and shot the scenes here; and believe me, it was a horror. This was right after Father put up the TV station and was trying to be a pillar of the community. I'm afraid he'd just not cut out for the part, though."

"You can take the boy out of demonology, but you can never take demonology out of the boy," Napoleon volunteered. "Is he really serious about all this devil worship and calling up old gods?"

She smiled faintly. "He's just joking, of course," she said, a trifle emphatically. "Although I admit his sense of humor is a little odd; sometimes his jokes even frighten me a little. Rita is the only one who really enjoys them; sometimes I think she wouldn't be frightened if he was serious. Of course, since the TV station, the rest of the town tries to be polite and not offend him."

"I don't blame them," Napoleon said. "If I really believed that one of my acquaintances could call up demons, I'd try not to offend him, either. That's about the same impression I got from the newspapers. Most of the articles lent themselves very well to reading between the lines." At her questioning look, he recounted his research into local history.

"I'd forgotten that book," Flavia said, "although Father has two or three copies in the library. He was quite proud of it."

"Did Jabez, Senior, really duplicate the New England mansion?" he asked. "Or is that just another wild story?"

"It's reasonably close, I understand," Flavia replied. "Secret passages and all. Of course, I never saw the original. The New England branch of our family has gone modern and the old house was sold years ago."

"Secret passages?" Napoleon said, pricking his ears.

"Oh yes, the place is honeycombed with them. Weren't they mentioned in that book you read? I'm sure they were in some book. They've never been terribly secret in the sense that nobody knows they exist; they're just hard to locate, even if you know about them. The traditional method of making passages really secret is to kill off all the workmen who install them, and Grandfather never did anything like that, despite what you may read. In fact, one of the family stories is that he included them because he liked to get away from Grandmother now and then. Here, I'll show you."

She walked around the workbench and the blacksmith's forge next to it. Going up to what looked like a solid wall, she began poking at various points. After a minute's experimentation, she stepped back and a three foot section of the wall swung out into the room.

"Amazing," Napoleon said as he peered into the blackened opening. Where does it go?"

Flavia chuckled. "Where doesn't it go? You can reach almost any room in the house through these. A few were lost when father installed central heating and used them for hot air ducts, but there are still entrances in most of the bedrooms, the living room, and the study."

"How about the kitchen?" Napoleon inquired.

"None there. Grandfather said he had a hard enough a time keeping cooks, without providing secret exits for them. But the rest of the house is pretty well covered."

She stepped back from the opening and it slid smoothly closed. As they returned to the center of the room, she asked, unexpectedly. "I don't suppose you have any photos of Illya? I really would like to get him into metal. And besides," she smiled, "I have a feeling it would be terribly commercial."

Napoleon shook his head. "I'm afraid secret agents don't carry photos of one another in their wallets; risky, you know. But I'm sure Illya would send you one if you really want it."

"He has a face that would sell," Flavia said. "I'm sure my agent could get a few hundred for it, at least."

"It's a good hobby that makes money," Napoleon observed. "I didn't realize there was that much of a market for metal sculpture."

"That's why I need an agent; he has contacts with art dealers all over the country. Actually, of course, I don't make a lot of money; there are shipping charges to pay, for one thing." She swung her arm around to encompass a half dozen projects, none of which could have weighed less than a hundred pounds and most of which weighed more. "If I could make a living at it, I'd be in New York. I'll make it, one of these days."

Napoleon stifled a yawn and looked at his watch. "You seem to have the true artistic temperament as regards night-time work," he observed. "I'm going to have a busy day tomorrow with Illya gone. I think I'll turn in."

Flavia nodded understandingly. "I think I'll get started on a bust of Illya from memory, just in case I don't get a photo." She paused thoughtfully. "In fact, it may be better this way. You know how reality never lives up to memories."

Napoleon looked somewhat blank, and departed. Back in his room, he began examining the walls, tilting pictures, and moving the furniture. It took him only a short time to discover that either the bed was more massive than it looked or it was fastened to the floor. After that, it took somewhat longer to locate the two patterns in the scrollwork of the bedpost that concealed tiny switches. A minute later he was standing in an opening that had appeared in one wall when both switches were pressed simultaneously.

The passage was relatively wide and evidently cleaned often enough to keep dust and cobwebs from piling up. It led to a stairway that descended all the way to the basement. At the ground floor level, a passageway similar to the one on the second floor opened off the stairway. There were two connecting passages at the basement level.

Napoleon laboriously followed each passage in turn. At the end of an hour he had discovered absolutely nothing except for some hot air ducts and several miles of electrical wiring and water pipes. Having secret passages running though most of the house, he decided, could be very useful in such everyday matters as electricity and plumbing. And that, apparently, was all this entire rabbit warren of passages was used for. It seemed unimaginative for someone of Whateley's inclinations.

Napoleon was standing quietly in one of the passages, trying to think of a positive course of action, when a sudden noise just behind him jarred him from his reverie. Automatically he turned his flashlight toward the sound and whipped out his U.N.C.L.E. Special pistol. Slightly chagrined to find himself facing a blank wall, he put away the pistol and listened more closely. Obviously, someone was in the room beyond.

Cautiously, Napoleon examined the wall in front of him. The passageways had been designed to allow observation of the rooms. With characteristic conservatism, Whateley had used the old peephole in the picture trick in most rooms - although, Napoleon had to admit, it might have not been such an old trick when the house was built. There were none into this room, however, though there was the usual hidden door.

For several minutes there were no further sounds from the other side of the wall, but Napoleon waited. The only logical room from which to omit peepholes would be the one used exclusively by the master of the house. Coupled with Napoleon's vague idea of his position in the house, this made it seem likely that he was standing just outside Jabez Whateley's study; which in turn meant that the individual who had made the noise a few minutes earlier was probably Jabez Whateley himself.

There was a squeaking noise, like that of an unoiled swivel chair, then silence again. Napoleon had almost decided to give up his vigil and get some sleep when there was a faint buzzing sound. It was a sound he had heard often enough before: the signal tone of a Thrush communicator.

Section IV: "Likewise, Give The Victor A Cheer"

Chapter 12

"I Don't Care If They Flapped Their Wings And Flew"

NAPOLEON PRESSED HIS EAR tightly against the concealed door and tried to breathe quietly.

"Whateley here," a voice from the other end of the wall said. "Report."