Part 18 (1/2)
”Where does this place lead?”
”There are many shallow steps, then a long slope and, after that, you have to bend your head and scramble out through a hole. You are then on a plateau halfway up the cliff. It is a broad ledge and from it one only track, rough and steep, rises up zigzag, like our hairpin roads in Italy, till you reach the summit of the cliff. But it is rough and broken--impossible by night.”
”We must go that way all the same and make it possible. Is the boat fast?”
”If you will help me, we will pull her up into the cave. Then we can hunt and she will not take harm.”
Lamenting the loss of time, Mark lent a hand and the launch was soon above high-water mark. Then, with Brendon in front and the light from his torch upon the steps, they began their ascent. Save for a drop of blood here and there, the stone stairway gave no clue; but when they had reached its summit and the subterranean path turned to the left, still in a tunnel of the solid rock, they marked on the ascending slope, slippery with percolations from the roof, a straight smear dragged over the muddy surface. Pursued for fifty yards the tunnel began to narrow and the roof descend, but still the smooth track of a heavy object being dragged upward was evident.
Save for an occasional word the men proceeded in silence, but Brendon sometimes heard the Italian speaking to himself. ”Padron mio, padron mio--death!” he repeated.
For the last ten yards of the tunnel Mark had to go on his knees and crawl. Then he emerged and found himself in the open air on a shelf hung high between the earth and the sea. All was dark and very silent. He held up his hand to Doria and the two listened intently for some minutes, but only the subdued murmur of the water far beneath reached their ears. No sound broke the stillness round about. Under their feet stretched a ledge of fine turf, browned by winter and covered with the evidence of sea birds. Giuseppe picked up a few grey feathers as the electric torch swept the surface of the plateau.
”For the master's pipe,” he explained. ”He uses feathers to cleanse it.”
Overhead the cliff line stretched black as ink against the sky, making the midnight clouds above it light by contrast. Here Brendon saw evidences that the dead weight dragged from beneath had remained still a while, and he observed an impress near it on the herbage, where doubtless a living man had rested after his exertions. There were clots of blood on the gra.s.s near this spot, but no other sign visible in the present condition of darkness. Remembering the death of Michael Pendean, Brendon was already reconstructing, in theory, the events immediately under his notice. That Bendigo Redmayne's brother had slain the elder now appeared too probable; and he had apparently proceeded as before and removed his victim--in a sack--for the line on the cave floor below and along the path which Mark had just traversed indicated some heavy, rounded object that did not change its shape as it was dragged along.
For two minutes he stood, then spoke.
”Where is the path from here?” he asked, and Doria, proceeding cautiously to the east of the plateau, presently indicated a rocky footpath that ascended from it. The track was rough and evidently seldom used, for brambles and dead vegetation lay across it. They proceeded by this way and Brendon directed the other to disturb nothing, so that careful examination might, if necessary, be made when daylight returned. The path elbowed to right and left sharply, ever ascending, and it was not too steep to prevent steady progress.
It ended at last on the summit of the cliffs, where, after a barren s.p.a.ce of fifty yards, a low wall ran separating ploughed lands from the precipices. But no sight of any human being awaited them and, on the close sward of the summit, footsteps would have left no record.
”What d'you make of it?” asked Doria. ”Your mind is swift and skilled in these deviltries. Is it true that my master and my friend is a dead man--the old sea wolf dead?”
”Yes,” said Brendon drearily. ”In my mind there is no doubt of it.
It is also true that a thing has happened which I should have prevented and a life been lost which might have been saved. From the first I have taken too much on trust in this matter and believed all that I was told too readily.”
”That is no blame to you,” answered the other. ”Why should you have doubted what you heard?”
”Because it was my business to credit nothing and trust n.o.body. I am not blaming anybody, or suggesting any attempts to deceive me; but I have accepted what sounded obvious and rational, as we all did, instead of examining things for myself. You may not understand this, Doria; but other people will be only too quick to do so.”
”You did the best you could; so did everybody. Who was to know that he came here to kill his brother?”
”A madman may do anything. My fault has been to a.s.sume his return to sanity.”
”What more natural? How could you a.s.sume otherwise? Only an insane man would have killed Madonna's husband, and only a very sane one would have escaped the sleuths afterward. So you argued that he was mad and then sane again; yet now he has gone mad once more.”
Brendon desired to be at Dartmouth as swiftly as possible, so that a search might be inst.i.tuted at dawn. Doria considered whether he might make best speed by road or water, and decided that he could bring Mark more quickly to the seaport in the launch than along the highway.
”We must, however, return by the tunnel,” he said, ”for there is no other route by which we can get back to the boat.”
Brendon agreed and they descended the zigzag path and then, from the plateau, reentered the tunnel and presently reached the steps again and the cavern beneath. Extinguis.h.i.+ng the lamp, which still burned steadily, they were soon afloat, and under a tremor of dawn the little vessel cut her way at her best speed, flinging a sheaf of foam from her bows and leaving a white wake on the still and leaden-coloured sea.
They saw a figure beneath the flagstaff at ”Crow's Nest” and both recognized Jenny Pendean. She made no signal, but the sight of her evidently disturbed Giuseppe's mind. He stopped the boat and appealed to Brendon.
”My heart is in my mouth,” he said. ”A sudden fear has overtaken me.
This madman--it may be that he has turned against his own and those who are his best friends. There is a thing lunatics will do. It follows--while we are away--do you not see? There are only two women at 'Crow's Nest' now, and he might come and make a clean sweep--is it not so?”
”You think that?”
”With G.o.d and the devil all things are possible,” answered the other, his eyes lifted to the house on the cliffs.
”You're right. Run in. There may be a danger for her.”