Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

'Holy Mary! What… what's that?' Sabine gasped, throwing a terrified glance over her shoulder.

'Only a fish,' Gregory replied calmly.

'It… it might be an octopus,' she quavered. 'They are said to live in subterranean caverns like this.'

'Nonsense,' he laughed. 'That's only in cheap fiction. The sort of caves octopi inhabit are always among rocks beneath the surface of the sea. They never came up rivers; it is unheard of to find them any distance from a coast. The sooner you get that idea right out of your head the better, as we've got to swim for it.'

'Swim for it?'

'Yes. There must be another side to this lake, and it can't be far off. In a minute I'm going to strip and swim over to find it. Then I'll come back for our clothes and things. I may have to do two or three trips to get them all over dry, a few at a time on my head. And on the last trip you'll come over with me.'

'No!' He could hear the shudder in her voice. 'No, darling; I couldn't do it. I'd die of fright. Even if that thing we heard isn't an octopus it may be a sort of shark or a stingray.'

'It is much more likely to have been a trout,' he protested and crossing the deep bit of lake is our only way of getting down to the river.'

'There's no guarantee that we'll find an exit from these caves when we get there. It's only your own pet theory.'

To that he had to agree, but he pointed out that to find an exit anywhere they must leave the island; so she would have to go into the water again anyway.

'Of course,' she replied promptly. 'But it's one thing to wade a few yards as we did before, and quite another to be attacked by some awful monster when out of your depth and naked. There's another thing. If we go back the way we came and all else fails, as a last resort we can climb up into the cellar of my palace tomorrow morning.'

Gregory knew that when people deliberately explored caves such as these they took with them balls of twine which they played out as they advanced; so that they could guide themselves back to their starting point. But the departure of Sabine and himself had been far too hurried for preparations of that kind. He had considerable doubts now if they would be able to find the steps that led up to the Tuzolto cellars; but he refrained from voicing them and, as there was really as much chance of their finding an outlet in one direction as another, he gave way to her pleading that they should try their luck up hill again.

Crossing the island they splashed back through the shallow water. This time Gregory held the bag high, and Sabine threw the skirts of her fur coat over the back of her head to keep them from getting wet. She was now nearly weeping with fright and clung heavily to his arm. Her fears were not lessened when, instead of arriving at the entrance to a cave, the torch, which had gradually been getting dimmer, showed ahead a solid wall of rock.

Turning to the right they ploughed their way through the knee-deep water for thirty or forty feet then, to their relief, they came upon a high arched tunnel. Whether it was one of the three by which they had come down to the lake they could not tell, but thankfully they stepped back on to dry ground.

After another swig of brandy each, to help to drive the cold from their lower limbs, they set off up the gentle slope; but there was nothing they could do about their squelching shoes, and Sabine's limp was now beginning to hamper her. A sudden twist in the tunnel told them that it was not one of those they had traversed before; and, after they had covered two hundred yards, the big torch became so dim as to be almost useless. Evidently it had been used for several hours by Mario before he had handed it over. As Gregory took the smaller torch and switched it on, he prayed fervently that it would last longer. The candles and matches were a sheet anchor, but no more. If one moved at anything exceeding funeral pace with a candle the draught would blow it out. And they might have to cover a lot of ground yet before they found a way of escape from this nightmare labyrinth.

On and on they trudged up the incline. Now and then they passed a flight of stone steps, either set into or hacked out of one of the side walls. Three times, in desperation, Gregory made Sabine sit down while he climbed the steps and, with all his might, strove to prize up heavy flags set in the cave's ceiling; but he might as well have been trying to lift a mountain.

The tunnel they were in now was much longer than the others and had a gradual curve to the right. At last they came to its end. It opened into another cavern, but smaller and lower ceilinged than either of those they had come upon earlier; and this had only two other tunnels leading from it.

'Take your choice!' Gregory offered with a lightness he was far from feeling. When they left the island he had decided that it was no longer any use for him to attempt to apply reasoning to the direction they took. It was now a case of the blind leading the blind. Their fate lay on the knees of the gods and either a Merciful Power would permit them to stumble on a way out or, after hours of agonized searching, sleep, more searching, hunger, more sleep, more searching, they would ultimately die of exhaustion.

'The right-hand one,' Sabine replied in a hoarse whisper.

With slow tired steps they went forward into it. The tunnel was not more than ten feet wide and eight feet high. After fifty yards it petered out in a dead end. Giving a shrug of resignation Gregory turned about. As he did so a beam of the torch swept in an arc across the floor of the cave. For a second it shone on a small white object. Swinging the beam idly back he lit up the white object again. Then he held it there. He could hardly believe his eyes. Sabine gave a sudden cry. She had seen it too. They were both staring down at a cigarette butt.

Gingerly he picked it up. It was a long butt. Whoever had smoked it had taken only a few puffs then thrown it away; and soon after it must have gone out. But it was fresh, that was the blessedly significant thing. If it had been lying on the ground there for more than a day or two it must have shown. signs of damp. It meant that quite recently someone had been standing there in the cave smoking and, if they had done that, it was as good as certain that the entrance by which they had come in and gone out must be near at hand.

Now, trembling with excitement, they began to search. There was no stairway on either side up to the low roof, and the beam of the torch, which easily reached it, showed the rugged rock ceiling to be unbroken. A moment later, as the beam swept the dead end of the cave, their hearts gave a bound. In one corner there was a small arched doorway so deeply recessed in the rock that they would never have noticed it had they not been looking for something of the kind. They ran towards it, seized its iron ring handle, turned it back and forth and pulled upon it. But the little door was of thick ancient oak, firmly set into its surround of rock, and locked.

Sabine began to hammer on it with her fists and to shout for help, but Gregory drew her back and tried to quiet her by saying, 'It's no good doing that. Even if people come down here through that door now and then, you can be certain there is no one the other side of it to hear you at this hour.'

But we must get through it! We must!' she cried hysterically. 'We might wander in these caves for days and never get so near escaping. If we don't get out this way we'll die here.'

Gregory knew that she might well prove right, and his own hopes of forcing the door were far from sanguine as he said, 'I'm going to try to blow the lock off. But for goodness sake don't count your chickens. A lock like this is a very different proposition to the flimsy sort of thing usual in modern flats, and I doubt if I'll be able to.'