The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (acx book reading TXT) 📖

I was just curious... I wanted to see if it was still here--the cache--and if there were any relics..."

"I see," Bautiste Bonofile repeated. "There were several things here when I first found it--some old tools and some boxes that had rotted away to dust. I spent a considerable amount of time improving the place."

The flashlight flicked away from Janet's face and swung around to show a narrow, dark doorway in the opposite wall.

"A--a tunnel?" Janet asked.

"Yes."

The flashlight came back to her face, and the silence grew and lengthened interminably.

Janet swallowed. "What--what are you going to do?"

"With you?" Bautiste Bonofile inquired. "You've caused me quite a lot of trouble."

"I didn't mean--"

"No. Of course not." Bautiste Bonofile chuckled gently. "It's amusing to think that Perona's ancestor is furnishing me a hiding place, isn't it? I would have appreciated it even more all this time if I'd known that. I'm glad you told me. Now as for you. I wonder--"

"Are you going to--to shoot me?"

"That's what I'm wondering," said Bautiste Bonofile.

It was weird and unbelievable, and it was chillingly real. He didn't grit his teeth or snarl or run through any gamut of emotions, but Janet knew with a queer, cold clarity that if he decided it was a good idea to shoot her he would do it right here and now without any further fuss. She waited, holding her breath, and a pulse began to pound in her throat.

"I wonder," said Bautiste Bonofile again, "I think perhaps I could use you. Captain Perona seemed very interested indeed."

Janet tried to keep her voice from quavering. "You know he wouldn't let you go even if--even if--"

"Even if he knew I was holding you for a hostage?" Bautiste Bonofile finished. "I think it very likely that he might. He knows me, you see. He knows that whatever I promised to do to you, I'd do. And even if he didn't care for you much personally, you are a citizen of the United States, and that might mean diplomatic difficulties for him if you should die in some particularly unpleasant manner in public, as it were.... Go through that door there. Walk straight ahead."

The flashlight moved away and outlined the narrow doorway. Janet moved stiffly toward it, and the rough sides brushed her shoulders. Her body blocked all but stray flickers of the lights, and she groped uncertainly.

"Watch your head," Bautiste Bonofile warned. He made no noise behind her. "Keep going."

The tunnel went on endlessly, and the air grew dust-choked and stifling. Several times Janet bumped her head against projections of rock, and time and the tunnel stretched into nightmare proportions in her dazed mind.

"Slowly now," Bautiste Bonofile said.

And then suddenly there was a scratching, scraping sound right over her head. Janet stopped with a jerk. The barrel of the revolver made a round, dangerous period pressed against her back. Bautiste Bonofile's hand slid over her shoulder and touched her lips warningly.

"Quiet," he whispered.

The fast, irregular scraping stopped, and something snorted loudly. Then Doan's voice, sounding muffled but quite clear, said:

"Don't you think you're a bit too old and too big to dig for field mice?"

There was another snort and a mumbling growl. The scraping sound started again.

"Quit it, stupid," said Doan. "Get away from there and stop playing puppy."

Carstairs bayed angrily, and the sound of it was like a blow against Janet's eardrums.

"Well, what?" Doan demanded. "I don't see anything."

Carstairs bayed again, more loudly.

"Less noise, please," said Doan. "We're trespassers, you know. Do you want to get me an interview with some of Perona's soldiers?"

Bautiste Bonofile moved in the darkness and murmured in Janet's ear: "Reach up over your head. Push the rock."

The rock was counterweighted like the other, and it swung back and up in a solid square. Sunlight bit brilliantly into Janet's eyes.

She was staring up into Doan's surprised face. He made a quick, tentative motion with his right hand that stopped as soon as it started.

"That's right," said Bautiste Bonofile. "I will shoot her unless you do exactly as I say."

Doan smiled blandly. "Well, of course. I'm not hostile. I was just startled. You're Bautiste Bonofile, huh? I've been wanting to have a talk with you."

"Step down into the tunnel," said Bautiste Bonofile. His hand touched Janet's shoulder. "Back up."

She went back three shuffling steps. Doan swung agilely through the square opening and dropped into the tunnel. He kept his hands half raised.

Above them Carstairs barked angrily.

"Make him stop that noise!" Bautiste Bonofile ordered. "Make him come down here!"

Doan turned around and hauled himself half out of the opening. He grabbed Carstairs by the collar. He pulled. So did Carstairs--in the opposite direction.

"Get him in here quickly," Bautiste Bonofile said in a dangerous tone. "Don't play tricks."

"He's afraid of holes," Doan panted. "Come on, damn you! Get in here!"

Carstairs' claws skittered on the edge of the opening. Doan was hanging down from his collar, half suspended.

"He got stuck--in a culvert once," Doan gasped. "Scared--ever since. Come on, Carstairs. Hike!"

He let go and ducked. Carstairs sprang straight over his head with a raging snarl, fangs bared, eyes greenish and savage. His broad chest struck Janet with the weight of a pile driver and knocked her sideways and down, and as she fell she saw Doan spin around as lightly and gracefully as a dancer with the little .25 automatic in his hand. He shot and shot again instantly.

The powder flare burned Janet's face, and the echoing roar of the shots deafened her. The smoky tunnel tipped and swerved dizzily in front of her eyes."

Doan's hands were under her arms, lifting her. "Are you hurt?"

"N-no," Janet gasped. "I guess--"

Carstairs growled in the darkness.

"Let him alone," Doan said. "He's not going anywhere."

Janet swallowed hard, fighting against the numb sickness that was creeping over her. "Is he--hurt?"

"Not a bit," said Doan. "He's just dead. Here! Brace up!"

"I--I think--"

Doan scrambled out of the tunnel and leaned back through the opening. "Here! Grab my hands!"

Janet caught at them, and he swung her lightly upward into fresh, clean air and sunlight.

"Sit down. That's it."

Janet sat down and breathed deeply again and again.

"Feel better now?" Doan asked, watching her.

"Yes," said Janet firmly. "Did you really kill Bautiste Bonofile?"

Doan nodded. "I thought it was a good idea. He might have been carrying another rattlesnake in his pocket, and I'm allergic to them. Carstairs."

Carstairs put his head out of the square opening. Doan caught his collar and heaved. Carstairs grunted and scrambled and came up on to solid ground. He shook himself distastefully, looking at Doan.

"That was nice interference you ran for me," Doan told him. "I thank you very kindly."

Carstairs sat down and looked pleased with himself. He lolled out a tongue that had an ugly little smear of red on it and panted cheerfully at Janet. Doan walked over and kicked the tunnel entrance stone, and it swung on its pivot and thumped shut and became part of the smooth unbroken tile of the patio in which they were sitting.

"Neat," Doan commented.

Janet looked around. A high wall stretched on three sides of them, and the other side was taken up by the long sun veranda of a house. There were chrome easy chairs with gaily colored leather cushions on the veranda and a swing with a striped canopy and tables with glass tops.

"Quite a gaudy dive," said Doan. "The earthquake knocked a piece out of the wall over there." He pointed to a V-shaped notch with a pile of rubble lying below it. "Carstairs and I came in that way. I think that tunnel must have an air-hole or a ventilator in it. Carstairs trailed it clear across the patio. How did you get into it?"

"From the other end. I read about a cache that Lieutenant Perona had dug, and I was looking for it when--"

"That Perona," said Doan, "turned out to be quite a dangerous guy for you to know. And you'd better watch that descendant of his pretty closely, too."

"You lied to him," Janet accused, remembering.

"What about?" Doan asked.

"You're not married!. You don't have any wife and three small girls!"

Doan watched her. "How'd you find that out?"

"From the answer to your message"

"Answer?" said Doan. "Answer! Did that damned, dumb Truegold send me a straight answer through the military wireless setup?"

"Yes, he did."

"What did it say?"

"It said that he had informed the Van Osdel interests about Patricia's murder and that your agency had been hired to solve the mystery."

"All right," said Doan. "But that Truegold is too dumb even for the president of a detective agency. Wait until I see him again."

"That's not the point, Mr. Doan. You appealed to Captain Perona's pity by telling him about your children being quarantined with the measles, and you gave your word that you wouldn't send out information about Patricia Van Osdel."

"I told him I wouldn't tell my kids," Doan corrected. "But that's just a weasel. Yes, I lied to him."

"Well, aren't you ashamed? You involved me, too."

"You shouldn't have believed me," Doan said. "And neither should Perona have."

"Why not?" Janet demanded indignantly.

"Because I'm a detective," Doan said. "I told you something in the same line before. Detectives never tell the truth if they can help it. They lie all the time. It's just business."

"Not all detectives!"

Doan nodded, seriously now. "Yes. Every detective ever born, and every one who ever will be. Honest. Perona should have known that. He lies himself whenever he thinks it's a good idea. I'm sorry, though, if he got mad at you on my account."

"You had no right..." Janet paused. "Oh dear! You just saved my life, and now I'm talking to you this way.... I'm sorry, Mr. Doan!"

Doan chuckled. "Forget it. So many people are mad at me for so many different reasons that one more or less--"

Carstairs growled, and Doan whirled around tensely. "Aqui!" a voice shouted.

A soldier was peering at them through the niche in the wall. He climbed over and dropped into the patio. Another soldier and another and another scrambled over after him. They advanced in a raggedly spaced line. Their bayonets glittered, and their brown faces were grimly set.

"Something tells me," said Doan, "that I'm going to have a heart-to-heart chat with Captain Perona in the very near future."

Chapter 15

 

IT WAS THE SAME SMALL, SQUARE ROOM in which Doan had been incarcerated before, but now Captain Perona and Colonel Callao and Lieutenant Ortega sat in a solemn, official row behind a table in the center of the floor. None of them spoke when the soldiers ushered Doan and Janet into the room. Carstairs was between Doan and Janet, and he sat down and looked at the three officers for a moment and then yawned in a pointed way. Captain Perona nodded at the soldiers, and they went out and closed the door.

"Senorita Martin," said Captain Perona formally, "I regret to see you in your present company."

"Mr. Doan and Carstairs are my friends!" Janet told him.

"That shows loyalty but also a lamentable lack of brains," said Captain Perona. "Now kindly keep silent until you are addressed. Doan, this is a military court of inquiry. We would have met sooner to consider some of your actions if it had not been for the confusion resulting from the earthquake."

"No need to apologize," Doan said amiably.

Captain Perona's lips tightened. "That