Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

Cameron picked it up and held it in his hand for a moment, weighing it appraisingly.

“It’s funny as hell about you fellows,” he stated flatly, looking down at Madoc. “You figure everything out on earth except that two can play at a game. You and your gang of saboteurs have kidnaped a blind man who’ll never talk if you cut him to pieces. I’m interested to see if our side isn’t better than yours. I’m giving you a chance to tell me right now what they’ve done with Duncan Maclain.”

“I’ve never heard of him.” Madoc was drooling slightly on the mattress.

“Now that you’ve got that lie out of your system,” said Cameron, “I can get on with my work without having to start all over again.”

He lifted the suitcase suddenly and set it down on the bed close to Madoc’s ear.

“Listen.” The glint of merriment usually present had left his eyes, leaving them poisonously gray and clear. Leaning over, he rapped with his knuckles on the side of the suitcase, to be answered with scurrying and a tiny squeak sharp as the slice of a machete against the silence of the room.

Madoc’s lips worked convulsively and his beak-nosed face grew ugly with pallor.

“Those rats in there are hungry.” Cameron took the suitcase from the bed and put it on the floor. “The Sergeant kindly got them for me from the hospital laboratory where they’re used for experimental purposes.”

He turned toward King. “It’s a very pleasant custom, Sergeant, handed down from the last world war. I’ve heard that the Sikhs and Gurkas, who were noted for their fortitude, could stand as many as three, only to become raving maniacs at number four.”

He swung back unexpectedly on Madoc and said, “Weak men talk and so will you.”

Reaching down, he picked the trussed-up man from the bed as though he weighed nothing at all, strode across the room to the closet, opened the door, and dumped Madoc’s struggling form down on the floor.

“We’ll see how long you can stand it, Hawkface. One at a time I’m taking those rats from the suitcase and tossing them in there with you.”

He slammed the closet door. Sergeant King mopped his forehead and said, “Holy Saint Cecilia! If this is police work, I think I’ll go back to farming.”

“This isn’t police work,” Cameron told him. “It’s a bloody war.”

He unstrapped the lid of the suitcase, clicked the latch, and walked to the closet door; then came back and seated himself in the squeaky chair.

The Sergeant looked at his watch and said, “It’s quarter past seven on Christmas Eve.”

A sudden scream, prolonged and terrifying, started a tingling at the roots of the Sergeant’s hair. It rose again and died away.

“Hark!” said Cameron. “The herald angels sing.”

He got up and walked to the closet door. “Where is Duncan Maclain?”

“He’s in the basement of a deserted house on Sunset Hill in Glastonbury,” Madoc poured out sobbingly from behind the closet door.

“Who’s there with him?” asked Cameron.

“Four men. Oh God, they’ll murder me!”

The scream rose up again and died off lingeringly.

“Damn it all,” said Cameron. “He’s fainted.”

He opened the closet door, lifted Madoc’s unconscious body, and laid it on the bed with the head hung over the edge. He returned to the closet, groped around for a minute, and picked up the tiny furry animal from one corner. Holding it in his hand, he came back into the room and said: —

“If you’d had the time to get rats, he probably would have given us a certified list of every spy in the United States. It’s funny what a bit of talk, a lot of darkness, and a guinea pig can do.”

3

Heavy-footed men had been coming and going for a long time, moving crates out of the cellar. Duncan Maclain played a game by following their approaching footsteps and guessing which box they would take out next. The men worked silently, indicating the effort of their labors by occasional grunts and groans.

Lying in a corner on the damp floor, the Captain traced their burden-laden steps and reached the conclusion that the boxes were being taken outside through a cellar door. Big plans were apparently in the process of completion. Several times he heard the start of a powerful motor and the rumble of wheels as heavy trucks came to life and moved off. It was doubtful that such dangerous contraband would be assembled in a place of safety and summarily whisked away unless a culmination was near.

His hands had been loosened long enough for him to eat. Afterward the handcuffs were restored, but his lips were left untaped. He read that courtesy as a preliminary step to letting him talk with the girl.

He was not surprised when they brought her in and laid her down beside him after the last of the boxes was taken away.

Her whisper was tremulous and startlingly close to his ear when she asked, “Captain Maclain, can you hear?”

“Perfectly, Cheli,” he answered gently. “This unforgivable situation we’re in is entirely due to me.”

After he spoke she breathed erratically as though finding it difficult to know just what to say. At last she asked him, “Have you any idea where we are?”

“No,” said Maclain, “except that we’re in a house near the top of some small hill.”

“Hill?” she repeated leadenly. “They’ve kept me blindfolded. I haven’t been able to see.”

“Nor have I, Cheli, but I have heard trucks approaching in second gear, and the ease with which, once loaded, they roll away.”

Twice she began to speak and faltered. The Captain knew what was in her mind. It was better to refrain from prompting her, preferable to let her face the task alone, find the difficult words she must inevitably choose to tell him of cool-voiced threats made against her. He could only wait and listen when finally she sobbed out her story of carefully calculated torment and coercion. Cheli Scott had become part of their plans, and Duncan Maclain was powerless to do anything but remain inert