Роберт Артур - The Mystery of the Silver Spider

“Under my handkerchiefs. Someone hid it there. It wasn’t there this morning, I know.”

Jupe’s brow furrowed. He was thinking hard.

“Why would anyone hide the silver spider of Varania in our room?” he asked, mostly to himself. “It doesn’t make sense, unless someone planned to accuse us of stealing it. In that case — ”

“What shall we do, Jupe?” Pete asked anxiously. “Why, it’s the death penalty just to be caught with that spider!”

“I think — ” Jupe began. But they had no chance to find out what he thought. Down the hall outside their room came the tramp of heavy feet. There was a loud knock on the door, then someone tried the knob. An angry voice cried, “Open the door in the name of the Regent! Open for the law.”

After a startled second, Jupiter and Pete flung themselves at the door and slammed into place a big iron bolt.

Bob, too surprised to think clearly, just stood with the silver spider of Varania in his hand, wondering dizzily what to do with it.

KNUCKLES thundered commandingly on the door again.

“Open in the name of the Regent! Open for the law!” a voice shouted again.

Pete and Jupiter leaned against the door as if their weight would help keep the door shut. Bob stared at the beautifully enameled silver spider in his hand and his mind ran around in wild circles. He had to hide it. But where?

He ran around the room, looking frantically for a hiding place and seeing none. Under the carpet? No good! Under the mattress? No good either! Then where? Where would it go undiscovered?

Heavy blows thudded on the door. The guards were breaking it down. Then things became even more confusing. The curtains at the window were flung aside and a young man stepped through. Pete and Jupiter whirled to meet this new attack.

“It’s me, Rudy!” the newcomer whispered loudly. “And my sister Elena!”

Elena stepped out beside him, wearing a boy’s trousers and jacket.

“Come on!” she urged. “You have to flee. They’re going to arrest you for high crime against the state.”

The blows against the door thudded methodically. Someone was using an ax. But the door was oak, three inches thick, and it would hold for several minutes.

It was like a scene from a movie. Everything was happening too swiftly for any of the boys to react calmly. The one thing they knew was that they had to get out of there.

“Come on, Pete!” cried Jupiter. “Bob, bring the silver spider and let’s go!”

Bob hesitated for a long moment, then ran to join the group. Elena led the way out onto the balcony.

They crowded together in the cool darkness, the city lights gleaming below. “The ledge goes around the side of the building to the back,” said Elena. “It’s wide enough if you keep your nerve. I’ll lead.”

She climbed over the balustrade of the balcony onto a stone ledge. Jupiter hesitated.

“My camera!” he said. “I forgot it.”

“No time now!” Rudy said urgently. “The door will give us two minutes more, maybe three. We can’t waste a second.”

Reluctantly abandoning the camera-radio, Jupe followed Pete. Faces to the wall, they pressed themselves against the rough stone of the castle and moved after Elena, who was traveling as fast and surely as a cat.

There was no time to feel scared. Behind them they could still hear the crashing blows against the door to their room. They came to a corner. The night wind plucked at them and for a moment Bob swayed, losing his grip. Far below him ran the Denzo River, dark and swift in the night. Rudy’s hand, gripping his shoulder, steadied Bob. He regained his balance and followed the others.

“Faster!” Rudy breathed in his ear.

A pair of pigeons, disturbed from their roost on the ledge, flapped wildly around their heads. Bob resisted an impulse to duck, and followed the others over a balustrade onto another balcony. Here all five gathered for a moment.

“Now we have to climb!” Elena whispered fiercely. “I hope you’re good climbers because it’s the only way. Here’s the rope. It has knots in it. There’s another rope, hanging down to the balcony below, but that’s to fool them into thinking we went that way.”

A rope dangled down from above. She started up it. Pete followed easily, Jupiter, grunting and puffing, more slowly. Bob gave him a chance to get up several feet, then grasped the rough knots of the dangling rope and started after him.

Rudy had left them for a moment. Daringly he went back along the ledge to peer around the corner. He called softly, “They’re still getting through the door. But we’ve got to get out of sight.”

“What?” Bob paused to listen to Rudy. As he turned his head, his right hand slipped from the knot he was holding. The rope slipped through his fingers and he was falling backwards, down into the darkness.

He crashed against something that broke his fall — Rudy — and they both went tumbling to the balcony. Bob’s head hit against the stone, and waves of red and yellow light seemed to pass before his eyes.

“Bob!” Rudy bent over him. “Bob, can you hear me? Are you hurt?”

Bob opened his eyes and blinked. The waves of coloured lights flickered and went away. He could see Rudy’s face bending close to his. He was lying on stone, and his head hurt.

“Bob, are you all right?” Rudy asked urgently.

“My head hurts,” Bob said, “but I guess I’m all right.” He sat up slowly and looked around. He was on a balcony, that much he could tell. Beside him the dark bulk of the castle towered upward, below him was the river and the faraway lights of Denzo.

“What am I doing here?” he asked Rudy. “I saw you come in the window and yell to us to get out, and now I’m out on the balcony and I’ve got a lump on my head. What happened?”

“Prince Paul protect us!” Rudy groaned. “You fell and addled your brain. No time for talk. Can you climb? Here. This rope. Can you climb it?”

He put the rope in Bob’s hand. Bob felt it. As far as he knew he had never seen the rope before. He felt weak and wobbly. His head throbbed.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll try.”

“Not good enough.” Rudy made a quick estimate of his condition and came to a swift decision. “We’ll pull you up. Stand still. Let me loop this rope around your chest, under your shoulders.”

He tied the free end of the rope securely around Bob’s chest.

“There!” he said. “Now I’m going to climb up and then we’ll pull you. The wall is rough and has cracks. Maybe you can help. If not, just let yourself go limp. We won’t drop you.” To those above, he called: “I’m coming. Something’s happened.”

He swarmed up the rope into the darkness. Bob stood there fingering the lump on the back of his head and wondering how he had gotten where he was. He and the others must have followed Rudy, but he couldn’t remember doing it. The very last memory he had was of seeing Rudy at the window while those axes pounded on the door of his room.

Up above, Rudy clambered through a window where the others waited anxiously.

“Bob took a tumble,” he said. “He’s shaken up. We have to pull him. With all four of us, we can do it. Come on now, heave.”

They got what slack there was in the rope, and tensed themselves to pull. The knots in the rope proved a hindrance — each one had to be eased over the window sill. But Bob wasn’t heavy and presently his head and shoulders appeared outside the window. He grabbed for a handhold and pulled himself in, shaking off the rope.