Part 35 (2/2)
Between the two locked in the pantry not a word had pa.s.sed. Stormont still peered out between the iron bars, striving to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Eve crouched at the pantry doors, her face in her hands, listening.
Suddenly she heard Quintana's step in the kitchen. Cautiously she turned the pantry key from inside.
Stormont heard her, and instantly came to her. At the same moment Quintana unbolted the door from the outside and tried to open it.
”Come out,” he said coldly, ”or it will not go well with you when my men return.”
”You've got what you say is your property,” replied. Stormont. ”What do you want now?”
”I tell you what I want ver' d.a.m.n quick. Who was he, thees man who rides with my property on your horse away? Eh? Because it was not Nick Salzar!
No! Salzar can not ride thees way. No! Alors?”
”I can't tell you who he was,” replied Stormont. ”That's your affair, not ours.”
”No? Ah! Ver' well, then. I shall tell you, Senor Flic! He was one of _yours_. I understan'. It is a trap, a cheat--what you call a _plant_!
Thees man who rode your horse he is disguise! Yes! He also is a gendarme! Yes! You think I let a gendarme rob me? I got you where I want you now. You shall write your gendarme frien' that he return to me my property, _one day's time_, or I send him by parcel post two nice, fresh-out right-hands--your sweetheart's and your own!”
Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:
”This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take a chance at him before the others come back.”
But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drew him toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied his hootch when the Dump was raided.
But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floor was removable.
In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was trying to do, helped her.
Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.
”You open thees door!” shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. ”I give you one minute! Then, by G.o.d, I kill you both!”
Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile had been set. Under it a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueduct tiles; and it led straight into Star Pond, two hundred feet away.
Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heard the trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.
”Does that drain lead into the lake?” whispered Stormont.
She nodded.
”Will you follow me, Eve?”
She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.
As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept her face. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile and slipped out of sight.
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