The Hill of the Red Fox (18 page)

At eleven o’clock there was still no sign of Slater, but I had a sudden foreboding that he must be on his way up to the room. I waited until half past eleven, when the room was in almost complete darkness, before I tiptoed to the door.

I inserted my wire rod into the keyhole and started to work the key out of the lock. Then I had a sudden inspiration and I blundered across to the table and felt for a book. In my haste I upset the pile of books which Slater had balanced on the edge of the table to make way for the tray, and two heavy volumes crashed to the floor before I could catch them. The noise was such that I thought everyone in
the house must hear it.

I stood stock-still, in an agony of apprehension, but nothing
happened
. Surely if there had been a guard in the passage he would have looked in to see the cause of the noise. I listened intently, but there was only the howling of the wind and the incessant drumming of the rain to be heard. Slowly my confidence returned, and I realized that the noise of the storm must have covered the crash of the falling books, which had probably been magnified by my over-sensitive ears. My groping hands closed around a book and I opened it and ripped out a page.

I slipped the paper under the door directly beneath the keyhole and took hold of the snare again. I inserted the wire into the keyhole and pushed the key out of the lock and it fell to the floor with a dull tinkle. In a frenzy of excitement, I dropped to my knees and took hold of the corners of the paper. I eased the paper gently towards me, then felt around the bottom of the door for the key. One end of the key was protruding slightly under the door and I pulled sharply at the paper. It came away into the room, leaving the key wedged under the door.

I tried to force my fingers under the door, in an attempt to scrape the key into the room, and I broke a nail in my frantic scrabbling before I had the sense to return to the snare. I bent the wire into an arc and pushed it under the door and hooked the key into the room. I seized it with trembling hands and for a moment I wondered if I had bent it, for I could not get it to go into the keyhole. At the third attempt, however, it went in and I unlocked the door.

Now that the time had come, I felt strangely reluctant to leave the room. All sorts of fears and doubts assailed me. What if a guard lurked in the darkness of the passage after all, and was waiting for me to run into his arms? How could I hope to steal out of the house without being seen? Would they shoot me down in cold blood if they saw me trying to escape? I gritted my teeth. If Duncan Mòr were in my shoes he would have been at the head of the stairs by now.

Hardly daring to breathe, I grasped the handle and opened the door.

No sound or movement came from the darkness of the passage, so I took to my heels and ran. I might well have bolted straight into the arms of a waiting guard, and I was half-way down the passage before I realized how foolish I had been. I stopped short, listening anxiously. The only sound came from my own rapidly beating heart. I moved on again, this time stepping cautiously on tiptoe.

When I reached the head of the stairs I remembered that I had left the door open, but I was afraid to turn back. It was as much as I could do to move forward. The stairs were thickly carpeted and I would be unable to hear anyone mounting them until they were almost face to face with me. I could imagine Slater, at this very moment, silently crossing the hall and slowly ascending the stairs. My legs started to tremble, and I shut the picture from my mind. Summoning all my resolution, I moved swiftly down the stairs.

I did not encounter anyone. The hall lay straight ahead, dimly illuminated by the light of a hanging lantern, and I was about to race across it when I saw a passage branching off to the right. A chink of light showed under a door half-way down the passage. I hesitated for a moment, torn between the desire to make good my escape and an urge to find out as much as possible before leaving the Lodge. All my instincts urged me to carry on out of the house, but some
stubborn
streak of foolhardy courage, that I did not know I possessed, prompted me to tiptoe down the passage. I stood outside the door ready to flee at the first sound of movement from inside the room.

I could hear Major Cassell’s voice and I bent down and peered through the keyhole. The Major’s desk was directly opposite the door, and Dr Reuter was sitting in a swivel chair behind the desk. Major Cassell was bending over him, his face close to the scientist’s. Dr Reuter was deathly white and he shifted uneasily in the chair. He
looked badly frightened. When I saw Major Cassell’s face I knew the reason why.

The Major was dressed in the same loose-fitting tweed suit he had worn that morning and his face was as pink and shining as ever. But it was not the same face. The easy smile had left his lips and his mouth was set in a thin, hard line. There was nothing jolly or hearty about him, and when he spoke his voice rasped with anger.

“Whether you like it or not, Reuter,” he said coldly, “you leave Skye tomorrow at midnight.”

Dr Reuter leaned forward and his flabby hands gripped the carved wooden arms of the chair.

“I don’t like it, Cassell,” he said nervously. “Broadcast
announcements
every two hours on the radio. Every busybody in the country on the alert. A nation-wide hunt. How long do you think it will be before they trace me to Skye?”

He spoke in short, jerky sentences, and puffed continually at a cigarette.

“In the unlikely event of them tracing you, it will be too late,” said the Major smoothly. “You will have vanished. They are still
searching
for Hunt, and you know where he is now.”

“I don’t like it,” repeated Dr Reuter. “Ransome got away with no trouble, but Hunt was nearly tracked down. What about the man who was on his heels?”

“Dead men tell no tales,” smiled the Major, and then, in a harsher tone, “I have taken steps to ensure that nothing will interfere with your escape. You were to have left at midnight on Saturday, but I have radioed Commander Gregoriev bringing forward the date twenty-four hours. The submarine will surface in the Sound at midnight tomorrow.”

“I still don’t like it,” said the scientist stubbornly. “It is not too late to change our plans. If I were to turn up in Portree tomorrow my absence could be explained away as a misunderstanding. I could tell them I had decided to take a brief holiday in Skye. Say I was feeling the strain of overwork. A nervous breakdown, if you like. I had left Marwell hurriedly without leaving word. Nothing could
be proved. Can’t you see how it would look? All this hue and cry, and for what? A mare’s nest. The authorities would look ridiculous. Later on, when things had quietened down, it would be easier for you to arrange for me to join Ransome and Hunt.”

Major Cassell listened to him in silence, studying his neatly groomed nails, a half-amused smile on his lips.

When the scientist had finished he said softly, “My dear Ernst, I really must remind you of the penalty for high treason.” He sighed, but the mocking smile remained on his lips. “The penalty, my friend, is death.”

He turned round and for one panic-stricken moment I thought he was about to walk to the door, but he crossed the room, passing out of my narrow circle of vision.

I heard him say, “I’m very fond of this painting, Ernst. Duntulm Castle, the home of the MacDonalds of the Isles. The dungeons of the castle were never empty, I’m told. Many a dark secret would be revealed if those walls could speak, and it amuses me, Ernst, to think that this painting hides a secret. See how easily it swings back.”

Dr Reuter laughed nervously. “But of course,” he said, “I might have known. There is a wall safe behind it.”

“Exactly,” said Major Cassell. “And in the safe is — this.”

He came back into my line of vision and I saw him put down a small metal deed box on the desk. He tapped it with his forefinger.

“There is enough evidence in this little box to hang you,” he went on in the same menacing tone. “It is all here.” Again his forefinger tapped the lid of the deed box. “All the secrets of our organization. How you persuaded Ransome and Hunt to join us. And are you forgetting your wife? We found her in one of Hitler’s concentration camps when you thought she was dead. We have looked after her well for you all these years. But she is in Moscow, remember, and it might be unpleasant for her if you were foolish enough not to join her there.” He pushed the box aside. “No, no, my friend, you had better think again.”

Dr Reuter shifted uneasily and the chair creaked.

“But what about the boy?” he demanded. “He has got to be … to
be …”

Major Cassell laughed. It was a laugh that made my flesh creep.

“Don’t be squeamish, Reuter,” he said lightly. “We all know that the boy has got to be silenced.”

He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Taking a long,
pleasurable
pull, he removed the cigarette from his mouth and rolled it slowly between his thumb and forefinger.

“By the time I have finished this cigarette,” he went on, “Master Alasdair Cameron will have ceased to bother anyone.”

I did not stop to hear any more. I crept away from the door and fled across the hall. When I reached the outer door, I flung it open and ran out into the darkness of the night.

The wind buffeted me as I stumbled down the steps to the drive and the rain lashed my face, but I was barely conscious of the fury of the storm. The Major’s words were still ringing in my ears as I raced down the drive to the iron gates of the Lodge.

I wasted a full minute struggling to open the gates before I
realized
that they were locked. As I started to climb them the headlights of a car flashed on, cutting through the darkness and bathing every leaf and flower of the ornamental iron-work in brilliant light. I had one foot on top of the gates, and I glanced back as I drew the other foot up. The light dazzled me and in reaching forward to balance myself, I slipped and crashed down heavily on the road.

It was the fall that saved me. Even as I fell I heard the whine of a bullet passing over my head and the loud report of a rifle. I had torn the skin from my hands on the loose gravel of the road, but I hardly felt the pain. Crouching low, I dashed across the road out of the beam of the headlights and into the enveloping blackness of the night.

I glanced over my shoulder at the lighted windows of the Lodge, to get my bearings, and made off in a wide sweep in the direction of the main road. I intended to get well away from the Lodge before cutting back across the moor towards Achmore. I heard a man’s voice shouting orders, and caught the words, “To the back …” and then his voice was lost in the rising scream of the gale.

The wind was at my back and I ran like one possessed, stumbling over the uneven ground, falling and picking myself up again almost in the one movement. At any moment I expected to hear my
pursuers
pounding along behind me and the thought gave me wings. I splashed through pools and across old peat cuttings, and once I blundered into a peat stack; but I carried on doggedly. I had left my raincoat in the Lodge and I was soaked to the skin by the driving rain, but I was thankful that the wind was behind me.

When I was well away from the Lodge, I turned in the direction of Achmore. Once I had crossed the burn and the dyke at the foot of the crofts, I would make for Hector MacLeod’s house. Not even Major Cassell and his gang could overcome the men of Achmore.

I was running with my head down, trying to escape the worst of the driving wind and rain, and I must have gone twenty or thirty yards before I saw the lights. They were facing me across the moor, evenly spaced, in a wide arc. I stopped short, thinking with a chill of horror of all the stories I had heard of ghostly lights on the moor at night; of men who had disappeared without trace, and cattle that had vanished overnight.

The lights were moving towards me, flashing on and off. Slowly it dawned on me that what I was seeing was no ghostly vision, but the beams from five torches. So that was why I had not been followed! The Major’s men must have left the Lodge by the door behind the garage and formed a cordon to prevent me breaking through to Achmore. Now they were slowly combing the moor for me, and I would be forced back against the cliffs from which there was no escape.

I watched the flashing torches coming closer and heard the shouts of the men calling to one another and I turned on my heel and ran blindly across the moor. I stumbled and almost fell in the drain by the side of the main road, then I was across the road and running madly on. In a little while I would reach the cliffs and I could retreat no farther. Partly from exhaustion, and partly from a feeling of utter hopelessness I stopped running and dropped into the wet heather. I lay on my stomach, chilled and shivering,
watching
the line of torches advancing slowly.

Every so often the line would halt and turn back to beat the ground more thoroughly. Once I heard the man in the centre of the line call out excitedly, and the two men on either side of him raced across to join him. I could see the light from their torches jogging up and down as they stumbled over the rough ground, little
knowing
that it was a false alarm and I was lying in the heather watching them. After a while, the lights thinned out again and the line moved forward once more.

It was only a matter of time before I was caught. There was no hope of hiding in the heather; they were beating the ground too thoroughly for that. Once they spotted me I was doomed. They would close in on me in an instant, and when I was captured there could be no hope of escaping a second time. Major Cassell’s words were still fresh in my mind, and I knew I could expect no mercy.

The two men at either end of the arc were almost level with me. If I attempted to run to the north or south they could cut me off easily. I saw the bright beam of the torch at the southern end of the line sweep across the road. The man there must have taken up a position above the gorge. Whichever way I turned I was trapped. All I could do to delay the end was to retreat to the cliffs.

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled away from the advancing lights, my sodden trousers chafing my legs as I ran. I never saw the cart in the darkness and I blundered into it, barking my shin badly. I groped my way round the huge wooden wheel, and came up against the shadowy outline of a tinker’s tent. I stood still, swaying on my feet, not knowing which way to turn. Somebody came up silently behind me and gripped my arm. I was too tired to struggle and I let him push me round the side of the tent.

My captor bent down and drew the tent flap aside, but his grip on my arm never relaxed. There was a lantern inside the tent, and in the dim light shining out of the open flap I could see that I was held by an old tinker. He was dressed in rags and his face was like an old brown nut. He called softly in Gaelic and a young man came out of the tent.

My wits started to function again, and I gasped, “You’ve got to help me. They’ll kill me if they catch me.”

The old man said, “We want no trouble, boy. There is trouble enough for the likes of us without interfering with folk from the Lodge.”

So they had heard the shot, and doubtless seen the lights of the searchers on the Moor. My hopes sank.

“You had best be off,” said the young man. “We want no part in this.”

I glanced around desperately and saw the ring of lights drawing steadily nearer. They must have reached the main road and in a few minutes they would be on me.

“But you’ve got to help me,” I cried.

A gust of wind shook the tent and the rain hammered incessantly on the taut canvas.

“Be off with you,” growled the young man.

The lights had crossed the main road and were coming
relentlessly
towards us. Perhaps it was the wave of fear that gripped me, prompting some hidden corner of my memory into action, or it may have been the freshly caught salmon I saw, half hidden under a sack inside the tent, that reminded me of the fat man who had once been a poacher and was a friend of the tinkers.

Whatever it was, I know I gasped, “Jamie Finlayson sent me.”

Nobody spoke. Then a hand pushed me into the tent and I fell sprawling across a heap of blankets. The young man crossed swiftly to the lantern and blew it out, and I heard the wet canvas of the flap slap back into place as he left the tent.