Arthur Upfield - Man of Two Tribes

“It don’t matter how small it is, Inspector. If that dog got out, we can. Anyway, she got out, that’s for sure.”

“You still say you couldn’t have missed an outlet?”

“Can’t see how we could,” asserted Jenks. “We’ve put in hours an’ days crawling around on hands and knees, and poking our noses into bits of holes and cracks and what nots. Me or Mark have jockeyed on Joe’s shouldersso’s we could poke about the walls high as possible. Those bastards who put us down heremusta made sure there’s no getting out once you’re in.”

“There’s the blow-hole, Jenks. If you are agreeable we’ll look at that now.”

“Suits me. Had enough sleep, anyhow.”

Jenks led with the lamp, and when they entered the main passage a new day was indicated by the light in the distant hall. The passage off the main one twisted tortuously, was very narrow, and at some places barely high enough to give them movement. Then it widened and became higher, and the noise of the blow-hole ahead was loud and persistent.

“Sounds sort of different this morning,” the sailor said, forging ahead. “She’s always whined like a pup. Now she’smoanin ’ like wind in theriggin ’. Jeez! I’d give me soul to be at sea instead of down here in thisstinkin ’ rat-hole.”

The passage became small and they were forced to crawl, as though in a drain. Here the draught was distinctly strong, and thenoise beyond a low and continuous roar. Ten or eleven feet of crawling brought them into a small chamber filled with pandemonium and wind, which caused the light to falter. At the far side of the chamber was an alcove without floor or ceiling. From below came the air spout, so powerful that it continued upward through the main roof. The air-flow within the alcove was like a metal bar against Bony’s hand slowly thrust forward to meet it, and he could now understand how the girl’s scarf had been drawn into the air spout and poised above the ground. There was certainly no exit here for Lucy.

He crawled back to the passage, tested the draught entering the hole, and decided that the girl need not have been near the air spout when the scarf was whisked away. Here it was possible to talk, and Brennan had said that he and the girl had come to talk.

“Old Doc Havant says the air pressure is caused by water banking up somewhere below. That right?” Jenks asked.

“Yes. Has it stopped since you have been here?”

“No. Sound alters a bit now and then. Knew an engineer one time. Clever bloke. If he was here and had the doings he’d make that spout work a generator to give us electric light. Say, wasn’t that dog with us a minute ago?”

“Gone calling on the cook, perhaps.”

“We’ll be in on that, Inspector. I can smell coffee.”

They found Riddell standing at the entrance to the kitchen and talking to Myra Thomas. He was unshaven and wore only trousers, his beefy torso clothed with hair. He drew aside when he saw them, and the girl who did not see them said:

“But, Joe, you know perfectly well that a woman needs a friend in a place like this.”

“We got early visitors,” Riddell said loudly. “Where you two been?”

“Workin’, of course,” snarled Jenks.“The dog here?”

“Yair, round about. Why?” demanded Riddell.

“Good morning, Myra.” Bony greeted her as he entered the annexe which seemed to be filled with the stove and the girl standing beside it. “That coffee smells better than good.”

“Been brewing for hours,” she told him, filling two pannikins. “I couldn’t sleep for that beastly row going on. You did, I suppose. You’d always do the right thing at the right time, Inspector.”

Her black hair was combed to reveal her ears, and in this light her eyes appeared to be indigo blue. It was a pity, but undoubtedly necessary, that the male clothes she wore were ill-fitting, andneuterised her body.

“It’s mere caution to look for the step before you raise your foot,” he said without smiling.“My thanks for the coffee.”

He withdrew to the hall, where he sat on his pack-saddle chair and appreciatively sipped the steaming coffee. Dr. Havant appeared, and after him came Maddoch, then Brennan who smiled at Bony and complimented him on following his nose.

“The first coffee and the first cigarette!” sighed Havant, who was exactly as he had been before going to bed. “What a night! That ghastly noise is beginning again.”

“It frays my nerves,” complained Maddoch, and Riddell sneeringly jibed:

“Why shouldn’t it? Chucking Mitski down there sort of blocked the drain. Now the poor devil is hollering for help. He’sfeelin ’ cold and all washed over, like. You’d be, too, you bloody fox, if someone bashed you with a rock and chucked you down the crack.”

“That will be all from you, Joe,” commanded Dr. Havant.

“Well, he did…”

“Control yourself, Joe. It’s too early in the day to surrender to nervous reaction. We havework to do.”

“Work! What’s that?” sneered Riddell.

“Continuous use of the muscles which none of us have employed for a very long time, save Inspector Bonaparte. The dog! Has she been seen this morning?”

“She’s here with me,” called the girl from the kitchen. “We females have to guard each other. The breakfast menu is porridge and the usual tinned muck that our country also expects England to eat. It’s all yours when you’re ready.”

There was a general exodus, and Bony followed with towel and soap, and the thought that he must soon shave or he’d be an ape, like Riddell.

Down in the Jeweller’s Shop, its gems scintillating in the light of two lamps, the noise of Ganba was decidedly raucous, coming as it did along the passage from Fiddler’s Leap. Before washing, Bony determined to prospect and, taking one of the lamps, he proceeded to negotiate what was little better than a rabbit’s warren.

On stepping from the passage to the ledge at the great crevice, Bony sensed a change. The light percolating to the far ledge was as he had last seen it, but the distant rush of water had ceased. The level of the water was within a foot of the ledge, when it had been so far down that to drop a stone meant counting seven before hearing the impact.

The light fell upon the surface, to which now and then rose a large bubble of air, filled with sound not unlike that produced by an under-water swimmer. The released sound, exploding into the narrow confines of this rock chamber, blasted the ears with sledge-hammer rhythm.

Horror born of the theory evolved by the man whose body had been thrown into this noisome cavity subdued one part of Bony’s being, and threatened the other. One part of his mind saw Ganba lurking in that wide ribbon of black water, and felt Ganba’s breathing against his scalp. The other part of his mind registered the fact that within hours the water had risen almost to the ledge, and that, should it continue to rise, it would inevitably flood all these caverns and passages. And appalled by the threat of such catastrophe, he was driven back to the Jeweller’s Shop by the pursuing voice of Ganba.

He remained at the stream only long enough to wash and comb his hair, and on again entering the hall, where he found the others at breakfast, he was master of himself, fury at an inherited phobia keeping him silent.

Dr. Havant enquired if the dog had followed him.

“She disappeared again, Inspector. We had forgotten to watch her. You are sure she did not go with you to Fiddler’s Leap?”

“Quite, Doctor. Had she followed me, she would have gone no farther in face of the noise coming up from the crevice! We must work seriously to locate her outlet to the top. By restricting the area, we can narrow our search. Brennan and I will block with rubble the passage from the Jeweller’s Shop to the crevice, and you others can block the passage to the blow-hole. If the way out is beyond one of those two barriers, Lucy will soon let us know when she’s blocked. Myra can stay here and watch for her return.”