Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

“Couldn’t rightly say. Till morning, anyhow.”

“Then you might let us have our things out of the car,” said Malcolm.

Larrigan nodded. “Let you have some of ’em, mebbe. No orders sayin’ I shouldn’t.” He locked them in, and departed.

They examined the shack thoroughly. There was a small window, and it would not be difficult to smash the thin wooden strips that held the panes, clear all the glass away, then climb out.

“No use to-night, though,” said Hooker. “We couldn’t do anything if we got out.”

“Well, I wondered once or twice what we were going to do to-night,” replied Malcolm, pretending to be more cheerful than he felt, “and now it’s been neatly settled for us.”

When Larrigan returned, with his wife behind him, he dumped into the shack the two rugs, some of their things, and the provisions that Hooker had bought in Barstow. If he had overheard their remarks, he could not have spoken more exactly to the point. “You might get out by smashing that window,” he observed calmly, “but I’ve a dog out here, an’ he’ll bark, an’ me an’ Maw happens to be light sleepers. Then when I put you back in here, it won’t have a window, that’s all, an’ it’s cold up here nights. So I shouldn’t try it, boys, jest for your own good. Light your stove if you feel like it, but don’t call for no more wood because you won’t git none-we’re short o’ wood in these parts. Let her run natural, boys, that’s my advice,” he concluded, with a slightly sardonic emphasis.

“You go to hell,” said Hooker irritably.

Pa Larrigan only chuckled as he slammed and locked the door on them.

“Now do you believe that chap Edlin was only a crazy drunk?” asked Malcolm, as they sat on the edge of their bunks.

“No. And I wish he was here with us.” Hooker stared at the little tin stove. “You see what happened. They just kidded us along, of course.”

“I know that part all right,” said Malcolm bitterly. “I thought that name business a bit queer at the time.”

“While the artful old devil had us up on the hillside, well away from the house, his wife was telephoning to Lost Lake to say that that couple of saps, Mr. Darbyshire the architect from London, and Dr. Sap-brained Hooker of the Weinberger Institute of Technology, had come prying round. Old Larrigan knew, of course, from the word ‘go’ we hadn’t simply got lost but were up to something. That’s what he’s here for-the nice simple old-timer.”

“Yes, I can see all that. But why did they tell them to keep us here?”

“Search me! If they’d told us to get out and mind our own business, I could understand it.”

Malcolm thought for a moment. “If Andrea’s there-well, she knows my name, of course. But either she’d ask them to tell me to go away or she’d come out here herself. What I can’t see her doing is telling them to take out their guns and have me locked up for the night. And the others-her father-and her uncles, if they are her uncles-I’m still confused about all that-don’t know anything about me. So I can’t make it out.”

“I don’t want to be egoistical, Darbyshire,” said Hooker dryly, “but I must tell you that I think it’s me-and not you-they’re interested in. Both Paul and Henry MacMichael know my name all right, and they know very well I wouldn’t be poking round up here if I wasn’t on to them again. They tried to frame me over there in England, and now they’re having me locked in for the night here. And my guess is this. Paul MacMichael is on the other side of that wire fence, and he’s working at something very big. And either he’s going to tell me himself to keep away and stay away or-and this is just possible-and-gosh!-it’s an exciting notion-he’s in some sort of jam with his experiment and wants me to take a look at it. I know that isn’t likely-he’s not the kind who wants to let you in on anything-but it’s just possible. Gee!-that would be a break. I’d forgive ’em everything for that.”

Afterwards, when it had been dark some time and they had the stove going and had made the shack as snug as possible, Malcolm broke a long silence by saying, “I’ve been thinking. We might as well try to work this whole thing out. I feel we’ve been dodging it rather.”

“Dodging what?”

“Dodging the issue, I suppose. We’re not really pooling our evidence, to begin with. We ought to put everything we know together, then try to deduce something from it.”

“But-no, go on.”

Malcolm waited, however, until Hooker, who appeared to think he was in for a long session, made himself comfortable by removing his collar and tie and shoes and then stretching out his long legs on the bunk. They both began smoking again. Fortunately, they had brought along plenty of cigarettes.

“Now then,” said Malcolm, “I’ll begin with my little bit. I know it’s the least important, from this point of view, though I think it’s more important than you imagine.”

“The trouble is, there’s a girl in it, as I told you before.”

“Yes, I’ve heard all that,” replied Malcolm, with some impatience. “But just listen. I meet this Andrea MacMichael and I feel there’s something wrong with her. Obviously she isn’t ill or anything. We know it’s nothing to do with money. What is it?”

“Some love affair,” the other gloomily suggested.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t that. You can tell. She wasn’t-how shall I put it?-her real self, the sort of girl she ought to have been, and really was inside. She was repressed and unhappy, and she told me nothing was any use-which is dam’ silly-and really meant it.” He reflected a moment. “It was as if she’d been brought up to believe nothing was any use, that life was hardly worth living, and had come to believe it-in a dreary sort of way.”

“She sounds a dreary girl to me.”

“No-that’s the point-she isn’t, really. Underneath that cold covering, as if she’d been packed in ice, there was somewhere a grand girl-that’s what I felt all the time. Now she’s Henry MacMichael’s daughter, we know. She never talked about him. She never talked about her life here at all. Why?”

“It’s unusual, certainly,” said Hooker. “The girls I used to know would go gassing on for hours about their families and homes. I thought all women did.”

“Well, she didn’t. You’d think a girl who was living in a fantastic sort of modern castle among these mountains, miles from anywhere, would have plenty to say about it-but she didn’t. She was very secretive. Why?”

“If you’re asking me, you needn’t. I give it up.”

“I’m asking myself, I suppose, seeing you’re so useless. But, take it from me, there’s a mystery there. Mystery Number One, which brings me here-like the chump I am. Now how does that connect with Mystery Number Two-yours?”

“I’ve told you what I think. Paul MacMichael, the late Professor Engelfield, cleared out, disappeared, changed his name back again, because he’s on to something new in his-and my-field of work, atomic structure. He’s money of his own, and now he has his brother Henry to back him up. Ten to one he has his lab. in this Lost Lake place. And whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t want me or anybody else to butt in. At least, he didn’t. He may have other ideas now he’s made me stay here until wanted. That’s all I can tell you, Darbyshire. It may possibly be something that Henry MacMichael thinks he can exploit commercially-which may explain the secrecy-but knowing Paul and the sort of work he does, I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Mystery Number Two, then,” cried Malcolm, now warming up. “The first is-why is Andrea MacMichael so secretive and unhappy? The second is-what are Paul MacMichael and his brother up to here? And now we come to our friend Edlin. Let’s assume he meant everything he said. I’ve been going over all he told us last night. Now he didn’t know anything about my approach to this business, had never heard of Andrea-”