Arthur Upfield - The Mountains have a Secret

Owing to the power of the fantastic idea which had been with him for more than an hour, he mussed the striking of the next two matches and was left with only one.

Careful-careful, now. Hold the box and the match away from you, or the rain will put it out. Rain! It slidticklingly down his face and gathered at the point of his chin, from which it dripped. Somewhere out in the warm and lovely night powerful aero engines puttered and hesitated, persisted and broke into rhythm.

He was successful with the match. Glass gleamed beneath the light in his shaking hand. He stooped over the casket, brought his eyes down to the glass, and the match down, too. Jewels winked with eyes of ice-blue and ruby-red. Beneath the glass was a man in uniform. The waxen face was heavy-featured, black-moustached. The vision faded, vanished.

The darkness was impenetrable, and yet the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte was illumined with other visions. He gazed upon newspapers in every corner of the world and saw his name. He stood or sat with people before radios all over the world and with them heard his name. All the world knew of him, the man who solved the world’s greatest mystery.

Even in that moment the training of the half-aborigine did not falter. The spent match, like the others, and the now empty box were put safely into a pocket, and like aC?sar setting forth on his triumph, he stepped from the stage and walked, without colliding with a chair, to the door.

He must show Mulligan, and not Mulligan alone, but Mulligan in company with witnesses, what he had discovered, why the two girls had been abducted and enslaved, why Edward O’Brien had been murdered and his body incinerated, why that fence had been built and to guard what.

But the door was shut and he was unable to open it. He must get out. This very instant. He must contact Mulligan before anything could happen to cheat him of eternal fame.

As he stood at the door, clawing at it to get it open, the lights flashed on.

The Glory Fades

TRAMPING men approached the door. The door opened and Bony took cover behind the wall drapery. Benson entered, followed by six men, stalwart and formal in evening clothes. Individually, none would have gained special notice among a gathering of business executives, but collectively they were distinguished by racial characteristics and bearing.

“To you, gentlemen, is the honour,” Benson told them. “To you I am to transfer the Trust which has been mine for a year, and you are to conduct the Trust from me to those appointed to receive it.

“Captain Conrad will land the plane on a property I own near Portland. There a van will be placed at your service, and the van will transport the Trust and yourselves to a wharf at which members of my launch crew will be waiting. When the Trust and yourselves, with my launch crew, are transferred to the submarine, the launch will be sunk without trace.

“I beg of you, in your report to the commander of the submarine, to convey my regret that I failed to take every precaution to prevent any set of circumstances interfering with The Plan set for this twenty-eighth day of March, and, in consequence, being compelled to expose the Trust to unnecessary risks. As you know, The Plan included transport to Portland by road, as being the safest, and the enforced alteration to air transport will forward the time of boarding the launch by three hours, and the launch will be three hours early at the rendezvous with the submarine.

“Mrs. Tegen is to go with you. Ernst, who is to drive the van, and Wilhelm and Mrs. Tegen are now with the plane. Miss Benson will remain with me. So, too, will Heinrich and Simpson. We shall not live to be arrested. That is all.”

Benson strode to the organ and pressed a button, which set in motion the mechanism controlling the stage curtain. Bony watched them mount to the stage, where Benson gently closed the lid of the casket. The six men took up the casket and bore it from the building, Benson leaving after them. Their feet scuffled on the gravel without, became as the feet of one man marching, marching…

It could not be permitted. At all costs to himself it must not be permitted. Bony tore himself free from the wall draperies and dashed to the door, no longer taking count of the interior lighting revealing him to anyone without.

The aeroplane engines were throbbing with smooth power. A car was approaching at terrific speed. The porch light was on. The house roof was etched against the sky, now paling with the advancing dawn. To the right, Benson’s flashlight revealed the way to the bunched men carrying the casket.

The noise of the car engine drowned out the sound of the aeroplane as it entered the space before the house, skidded with locked wheels, rocked, and almost turned over. From it appeared Simpson, who rushed to the observatory door, looked in, turned, and ran for the house porch, on which stood Cora Benson.

“The gate was forced, Cora!” he shouted. “It was open. We got out and examined it. Someone jammed stones under it to keep it open. We were looking round when Heinrich fell. I heard the bullet slap him. They’re using silencers. They shot at me too. It couldn’t have been the same people who broke into the hotel and set off the alarm. Aren’t you going? Come on-we mustn’t miss the plane.”

“I am not going,” the woman said slowly, adding: “Neither are you.”

“But I must go. I can’t stay here. I can’t-”

Leaving the porch, he ran along the house front to take the path after Benson and the bearers. His dress-coat was split up the back, and one shoulder of it hung down and flapped as he ran.

Bony followed. He could have winged Simpson and arrested him for the murder of Edward O’Brien, but who and what was Simpson now compared with the contents of that casket being borne along the garden paths to the waiting aeroplane? Simpson was shouting to Benson, and Bony could hear his voice, panting, imploring, fearful.

“You must let me go too, Carl. There was someone there at the gate. Heinrich got it. They’re using silencers. They’ve propped the gate open with stones ready for the police cars. I can’t remain here, not now, Carl. I can’t go back to the hotel.”

“No, Jim, you can’t go back to the hotel,” Benson said coldly. “And you cannot go in the plane.”

“But I must, Carl. The police will know everything. They’ll know about those girls who’ve escaped, know how you and Cora forced them to work. They’ll get to know about Ted O’Brien. I didn’t tell you, but I thought I saw that someone had been in the place where I buried him. I tell you they’ll get to know everything, even about Price and how he was shot at your orders.”

The small procession halted at the garden gate whilst Benson opened it. Beyond it the new daylight was drowning the night on the floor of the valley. Bony stopped, waited for the bearers to get clear of the gate that he might detour round them to reach the plane and disable it with bullets fired into the revolving propellers. The procession passed through the gateway and Simpson resumed his frantic pleading.

“Let me go, Carl! Let me go, please, please. I’ve given everything to the Trust, done everything. We must all go, you and Cora and I. The police-”

“You cannot go, Jim. The plane will be fully loaded, and the Trust is not going to be endangered with overloading. You are the weak link in this organisation, which otherwise would have been perfect. We’ve both made mistakes. We both have to pay the price, I within a few minutes, you now. Was Heinrich shot dead?”

“Yes. I’m certain of that. Cora-”

“Cora will never fail. Nor will I. You would, and so-”

There was a spurt of flame and a sharp report. Simpson stumbled, lurched forward, tried to keep up, fell. Benson stooped over him and fired again with the weapon pressed against his friend’s head. The bearers did not falter. They went on to the aeroplane standing about a hundred yards distant from the gateway.