Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

As he heard this, Jimmy, not usually aware of such things but somehow feeling more sensitive than usual this afternoon, had a strange premonition, as if there came suddenly from the blue a whisper of sudden disaster, sudden glory; and he looked earnestly at Charlie almost as if to discover some confirmation of this written on him, there in the sunlight. And for long afterwards he was to describe this moment of queer revelation, which came as if a trumpet had suddenly sounded through the quiet little valley.

“What’s the matter?” asked Charlie. “Am I talking too much? Are you wondering whether I always talk too much? You needn’t. I can keep my mouth shut, I’ve had to sometimes. Rosalie said you’d something to tell me. I’d like to hear it, Jimmy.”

Jimmy was in no mood now to hide anything from his companion, and once again, as they walked slowly back to the ranch-house, he told the story of his adventures with the Brotherhood and revealed the maze of vague speculations in which he was now wandering. What were they after, what were they up to?

Charlie didn’t know, of course; indeed, he had never heard of the Brotherhood. He had heard of the MacMichael family. And there was something he definitely knew, and was jubilant about it.

“Yes, Jimmy, you’re talking to the right man. I’ve seen that place of the MacMichaels.”

Jimmy stared. “ You have?”

“I have. It’s-wait a minute-” then he pointed a towards the north-east-“over there, perhaps sixty, eighty, might even be a hundred miles, in more or less a straight line. I don’t know how far by road, because I didn’t go by road. You see I flew over it, one time. Yes, that’s how I came to see it. I was cruising over it, and came right down to have a good look, took Bendy-that’s my old plane there, Bendy-as far down as I dare go to have a look.”

“Where is it?”

“I’ll show you on the map. Lost Lake, of course, but then you said that. But I’m not kidding you, Jimmy. I saw it all right. Quite a place, I’ll tell you, all set out towards the top of a little canyon. Trees and some small houses, then a big house-Spanish style, it seemed from the air-and then a tower, a white tower. It’s the queerest set-up to be in a place like that, farther away from anywhere than even this is. They must have spent a fortune on it. I wondered what the idea was, at the time. Here, Jimmy, listen-” and he stopped, and halted the other promptly by seizing him by the arm-“now listen, we’ll go and have a look at it together. I’ll fly you over. My tank’s nothing like empty, and Rosalie’s got plenty of gas she can spare. Take you any time you like.”

This was tempting. “Is this plane of yours-what do you call it?-Bendy?-all right?”

“All right? Of course she isn’t all right. She’s all wrong. There isn’t a disease that planes suffer from that Bendy hasn’t had for years-she’s a worse crock than I am-she’s thousands of years old-she’s shaking herself to bits, and one of these days the whole damned engine’ll drop out of her, unless the wings go first-but she can fly-I’d take her anywhere, and take anybody in her. Hell!-let’s go.”

But Jimmy had no intention of going there and then, and even Charlie admitted that the middle of the afternoon-or even late in the afternoon, for they could hardly set out that very moment-was not the best time to start a journey over the mountains. However, Jimmy half-promised to make the trip the next day, if conditions were favourable; and this delighted Charlie, who said he was longing for something to do. On their way back to the ranch-house Charlie decided that the MacMichaels had built their tower over a huge secret gold-mine, which the brethren of the Judgment for some reason he did not trouble to specify were busily and grimly engaged in protecting against discovery. He had not yet seen the strange piece of apparatus, and now Jimmy showed it to him. Charlie spent a long time examining it from every possible angle, and finally declared that it must be some kind of instrument used in testing the gold they were bringing up, which he obviously imagined to be in the form of great shining nuggets. In short, Charlie knew nothing whatever about the large glass tube, and under a severe double cross-examination from both Jimmy and his sister-in-law had in the end to admit as much. But he stuck to his secret gold-mine theory, and half-succeeded in convincing Rosalie, who was more than ready to welcome any glittering marvels of this kind.

It was when, after much talk, they had settled down to play rummy, between supper and bedtime, that Charlie again mentioned the idea of flying Jimmy over Lost Lake. Rosalie was at once alarmed.

“Don’t go, Jimmy,” she cried. “I told you what that awful old plane of his is like. It’s terrible, all falling to bits. Don’t go.”

“Poor old Bendy’s all right.”

“Poor old Bendy!” cried Mrs. Atwood scornfully.

“Well, she brings me here quite safely, doesn’t she, and takes me back again? And that’s a whole lot farther than just flipping over to Lost Lake. Don’t take any notice of her, Jimmy. This is your great chance to have a peep at ’em. Don’t miss it.”

Jimmy looked apologetically across at his hostess. “I think I ought to take the chance, y’know, Rosalie. It might give me some idea of what they’re up to there, and we agreed we ought to know.”

“I knew you’d say that,” she told him, without a smile; then to Charlie: “Oh!-you are annoying, Charlie. Sometimes I could-I could slap you-yes, slap you hard, you and your ridiculous Bendy!” She left the table, throwing her cards down, marched away, then turned accusingly on both of them: “I suppose it doesn’t matter you both going away and leaving me here alone, does it? What am I going to do if those awful men come? You’ve never thought about that, have you?”

“They won’t come here,” said Charlie, dismissing them airily. “Why should they?”

“They might. And Jimmy knows they might.”

Jimmy was silent. She had a nice little temper of her own too, this nice little woman, but then, why shouldn’t she have? Also, he couldn’t help feeling flattered by her concern. He didn’t believe she really minded being left there alone. She was only trying to make them put off the trip.

“If they find out that thing’s here and that Jimmy’s here,” she continued, reversing their reasons in her haste and annoyance, “they’d be up here in no time. And then what am I to do?”

“The fact is,” said Charlie, with some penetration but a complete want of tact, “you’re only finding excuses, so we won’t go. And not to prevent me going either, because I’ve been coming and going in poor old Bendy for years and you haven’t objected. Jimmy, she thinks I’m going to smash you up among those mountains, and she’s all against it.”

“Anybody would be against it,” she retorted, very pink now, “and I’ve never said anything about you flying because you’re used to it and you’re crazy anyhow-and if you’re going on making idiotic remarks-I’m going to bed.”

“It’s far too early,” said Charlie.

“Not after the way you upset me last night-”

“Why, you said this morning, when I begged pardon-”

“It doesn’t matter what I said this morning,” the unscrupulous female retorted sharply, and then, suddenly catching Jimmy’s eye, she had to laugh. “But I’m cross with you both,” she announced, as she sat down again.

And somehow the life had gone out of the game. Jimmy caught himself several times wishing Charlie were not there, and once or twice he fancied that Mrs. Atwood, who was now very severe upon Charlie if he tried to evade the more stringent rules of the game, felt the same thing too. They went to bed early.