The Secret Vanguard (21 page)

‘Interesting.’ Appleby was letting the boat go all out. ‘But you don’t call it an adequate account of yourself since you left Miss Grant?’

‘I’ll come to that directly.’ Dick looked down the loch. ‘And that’s Essex for later on. The point is they’ve got Orchard in this castle, and the castle itself is in a pretty lonely spot. What’s your plan? And where are the rest of you?’

Mackintosh glanced up from reloading his revolver. ‘The rest of us in the immediate neighbourhood means a sergeant of police and two men at Troy village. That’s about two miles south of the castle. They have a motorcar and a telephone.’

‘Or,’ said Appleby, ‘they had those things last night. Now one doesn’t know. We came quickly and left our communications pretty tenuous. And now that time is all-important we may have to take it that we are up against the castle just on our own.’ He cut off the engine. ‘Here’s the little bay, the first place from which to reconnoitre. Mackintosh, the glasses. And stand up and see what you can see.’

Mackintosh was already on his feet; now he produced a pair of binoculars and directed them down the loch. ‘We haven’t raised it yet,’ he said. ‘The promontory’s in the way. Get farther out. Can’t be helped if they spot us. If we want surprise we must land and walk; if we want speed we must announce ourselves with this infernal row. And I’m for speed.’ He balanced himself with difficulty as the boat once more leapt forward. Suddenly Sheila saw his mouth twitch. ‘Mr Evans, did you say lonely? Your impression’s out of date. Troy’s dead ahead. And so, as far as I can see, is half the population of Scotland. Appleby, straight on. Five more won’t make any odds.’

The boat was tearing past that tongue of land the centre of which Sheila had distinguished the evening before as the heart of the bay. Then it swung round and entered the southern stretch of the loch. They all leant forward and stared over the leaping prow. Castle Troy was before them: the bulk of it grey and massive and old, a modern wing clearly distinguishable, and before the whole the incongruous line of a balustraded terrace. Sheila leant farther forward. That was where she had made that last desperate bolt. Belamy Mannering and the false Alaster – they were there, behind those walls on which the sun so genially played, beneath that weathercock whose gilding flashed as she looked, that clock the face of which she would be able in half a minute to read. But why had Mackintosh said – She gave an exclamation of surprise. For to the left of the castle and outside its walls was a great flower garden – or what she had taken to be that. But her sense of perspective had been out. What she had absurdly taken for nodding blooms were human figures. Masses of people in summer dresses scattered about a park… She looked to the right. A great blob of white, brightly slashed with red. The marquee. She looked at the final stretch of the loch. Where the evening before there had been nothing but grey and lapping water there was now – magically – a little fleet of pleasure craft: rowing boats and miniature yachts.

She heard Mackintosh’s abrupt laugh behind her. ‘Didn’t I say it was just right for a Sunday-school picnic? And that looks more or less like what it is. But we may bet it’s some devil’s trick or other as well. Question is: just what?’

The boat was still leaping towards the strange spectacle ahead. ‘Sunday school?’ said Appleby. ‘I think not. Perhaps a mother’s meeting. That’s it: old wives. More old wives – scores of them.’

‘Do you mean,’ asked Dick incredulously, ‘scores more snipers?’

‘Not exactly that. Put it like this. The place is usually lonely. If we found it lonely with just a lurking fellow here and there we should know where we were: the odds would be that every figure was an enemy. But now we have the castle surrounded by clouds of innocent persons – only every twentieth person perhaps not so innocent. If we had a dozen men with us at this moment our job wouldn’t be too easy. As it is – well, it’s another clever bit of delaying action.’

‘Whatever’ – Sheila checked an inflection of desperation in her voice – ‘whatever can we do?’

‘What
must
we do? Presume that they haven’t yet beaten it with Orchard and bottle up egress from the castle. Then summon help.’

‘I doubt if we can bottle up egress, as you call it, for long.’ Mackintosh was systematically surveying the whole extent of the gala scene before them.

‘In that case’ – Dick Evans spoke decidedly – ‘we must substitute for the idea of egress the idea of
ingress
. In other words – attack.’

Appleby had once more shut off the engine: the last word rang out in silence. Then Hetherton spoke. ‘Troy,’ he said. ‘The walls of Troy: there they are – and horribly impregnable they seem.’ He looked at Sheila, smiled, and broke into Greek. He paused. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘what we want is a horse. A Trojan Horse.’

‘A Trojan horse?’ said Dick Evans. ‘A poet’s notion again. And I can think of yet another. Pegasus. Which means horse plus wings. If we could get up in the air and see what’s happening in that great courtyard we’d know better where we are. They may have bolted already – in which case you must just contact your organization and search as you can. Or they may be preparing now – in which case, as you say, the thing is to bottle them up… How do you think all these folk got here?’

The boat was now riding in a little cove from which a corner of the straggling party in the castle grounds could still be seen. ‘Chara-banc,’ said Appleby. ‘But anything of the sort has probably been sent away till evening. Nothing for the enemy – meaning us – to commandeer. And that means that if they are planning to bolt now the necessary transport will be in the courtyard or offices. Pegasus would be quite the thing.’

‘I don’t see him.’ Mackintosh was scanning the shore. ‘But on the hill there to the right that group of Norwegian pines might do just as well. I suppose we were spotted coming down the loch, but I doubt if we shall be attacked unless we try to pierce this smart screen of mothers’-meeting stuff. With luck I can work round to the pines – and with a bit more climb one. Lurk here. Goodbye.’

The boat rocked as he leapt ashore and was gone. Appleby looked at his watch, and the action seemed to usher in a period of waiting. All that was visible was oddly peaceful and innocent. Of Castle Troy a single battlemented tower rose into view; a corner of the balustraded terrace ran down to a small park in which a score or so of women strolled and gossiped with the measured animation of elderly merrymakers; on the water in the foreground bobbed the little fleet of small craft – intended, it would seem, for some later part of the entertainment, for all were deserted now. From where she sat Sheila could read the names: a tub of a rowing boat was called the
Annie
Laurie
; there was a little yacht which had been named the
Pax
… And it was all, Sheila told herself again, disconcertingly peaceful; a laird in a big way was entertaining the grateful womenfolk of some neighbouring market town; a Union Jack and a Scottish Standard fluttered from the roof of a marquee; if she had to lurk here long she might almost find herself persuaded that this whole adventure was the creation of her own brain. But it was true. It was true, for instance, that Alaster Mackintosh had gone off to climb an uncommonly unclimbable tree… She remembered how, on the moor beneath the little croft, Dick had gone off. And she turned to him now. ‘Dick, what happened? And how did you get to where we found you?’

His eyes were on the tips of the pine trees which Mackintosh ought now to have reached. ‘I suppose he’s right,’ he said. ‘The hill itself almost breasts the castle; if he makes the tree tops he’ll have a bird’s-eye view.’ He turned to her. ‘What happened? Not nearly so much as I intended to happen. Do you know I left you with the most extravagant ideas? And the first was to get captured again; to wait till you were safely out of the way and get myself smartly recaptured. For when I thought of it there seemed to be something odd in my being alive at all. Perhaps they thought of me – and had thought of you – as a useful prisoner; and perhaps if I returned to that role and was smart enough I might have my chance later on. But it all came to nothing, anyway. For I was captured – or kind of captured – long before I meant to be… Where do you think all the little boats came from? Would it be that big boathouse down the loch?’

Sheila followed his glance. Just in sight, and on the other side of the water, was the deserted-seeming boathouse she had noticed on her dash from Castle Troy. It was certainly big enough to harbour a score of small craft. But she was eager for Dick’s story. ‘Kind of captured?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘One of those fellows must have slipped out of the house and up to the croft without my seeing him. When I did see him he was coming back – and in a great hurry – not so long after you were due to quit. I saw him, and in the same moment he saw me.’

Appleby, his eye fixed on the pines, made an automatically disapproving noise.

‘Sure, it wasn’t too smart. I was exploring the outbuildings and he took me quite by surprise. He shouted at me. And I was just fishing out the sling-shot when I heard what he was shouting. It was in English. He was telling me to get out the car.’

‘Really,’ said Hetherton, ‘it sounds quite like fiction. If I–’ Appleby interrupted. ‘There’s Mackintosh: he’s made the lower branches of the farthest tree. He’s hoping he’ll be able to peer through the others while they screen him from the castle. Go on.’

‘It wasn’t so very surprising: any one man might make the mistake of thinking me legitimately in the picture. The odd thing was that they
all
did. The organization broke down just through being too big. I had enjoyed a stand-up fight with four or five of them the night before: nevertheless, there was nobody on the premises who knew me from Adam. And the initial mistake made, I had quite a long spin – a spin after Sheila here in a big car, a spin to Castle Troy, a spin to Fortmoil and round to the folk tailing Orchard. It was exciting, I must say; it kept on from minute to minute seeming stark incredible that they should keep on taking me for granted. But they did and I even got assigned to the tailing. That enabled me to slip in to Orchard in the night and put him wise. I did the drawings and then at dawn we made a break for it. They got him–’

‘Steady.’ Appleby, his hand in his pocket, had turned round and faced the shore. From behind a screen of low shrubs voices had become audible. The sound drew nearer: women’s voices, chattering hard. And then four women – four female figures – came into view, walking directly towards that point on the shore from which the boat lay a few feet out.

‘Miss Grant,’ Appleby said, ‘–what do you think? Is it the authentic Scottish provincial taste in hats and bonnets – or do you smell a rat?’ He laughed softly even as they could see his hand tightening on his revolver. ‘Clever. And wherever we went the same doubts would confront us.’ He paused. The women were within a dozen yards. ‘Good morning,’ he said politely.

They paused, seemingly faintly puzzled. One, rather more magnificently dressed than the rest, bowed; a second called a cheerful ‘Good morning’ back; a third waved; the fourth vaguely stared, as if still absorbed only in the gossip going forward. And then they moved on. The voice of the woman who had bowed floated back. ‘Tourists, Mrs McKay; nothing but English tourists.’

‘In my case,’ said Hetherton, smiling at his companions, ‘the averment is not unjust. Incidentally, I think we may say in the common phrase that the lady is the
real
McKay. There was no deception.’

Appleby nodded, his eye thoughtfully on the retreating women. Then he turned round. ‘Here’s Mackintosh.’

‘Three cars.’ Mackintosh had dropped lightly into the boat. ‘Three big cars in the courtyard all being loaded up now. Not a moment to lose. Shoelaces, please – including the spare pair from the sling-shot.’

‘Whatever for?’ asked Appleby, and stooped to his shoes as he spoke.

Mackintosh had stripped off his jacket and turned it inside out; now he was briskly doing the same with his trousers. ‘For the Trojan Horse, my dear man.’ He produced a pocket knife and fell to slashing the clothes. ‘Am I hidden from view? Well, in I get – and trust to look like another of Mr Evans’ vagrants. A Trojan Horse, of course, ought to be something the Trojans are eager for. “Then Priamus impatient of delay enforced a wide breach in that rampiered wall.” But I must aim at something they may just tolerate: an old man proposing to peddle shoelaces to the servants’ hall… And now listen.’

They had all handed him their shoelaces, and although the resulting stock-in-trade was scanty he appeared satisfied. He leapt to land again, trailed a hand in dust, and rubbed his face.

‘Listen.’ He was half turned to go. ‘There seem two ways in. One is a little postern now open in the doors beyond the drawbridge: I’m going that way. The other is a gate into that small walled garden there. You see? Get in there and before you is a line of French windows. But there’s a man on guard.’ He paused and once more surveyed the whole territory: Sheila saw that Appleby conceded all topographical matters to his command. ‘What about coming with me through this shrubbery and along the line of that little spinney? You’ll command the drawbridge and the road better from there if it all comes on you.’ He grinned, curiously happy. ‘As ten to one it will.’

It took them five minutes. Sheila calculated, to reach their new position: the tail of a spinney not frequented by the picnic party from which they could look directly across the drawbridge to the main gateway of the castle. And here Mackintosh left them – to appear presently some distance behind them on the dusty ribbon of road which ran towards the castle. He was walking with a convincing tramp’s slouch; the shoelaces dangled in a little bunch over his arm. He was gone…and suddenly Sheila felt something turn cold inside her. ‘Mr Appleby,’ she whispered, ‘what is he going to do?’

‘See if he can get through that little postern in the big closed door beyond the moat. And if he can he’ll then shamble as near their cars as he can. And as soon as he’s challenged for more than a harmless pedlar he’ll go for the tyres with his gun. That’s the plan. Or – with luck – part of the plan.’