The Mind-­Twisters Affair - Stratton Thomas - Страница 24

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."