[The Girl From UNCLE 04] - The Cornish Pixie Affair - Leslie Peter (электронная книга .txt) 📗

With an exclamation of dismay, she crumpled the paper involuntarily into a ball and dropped it to the floor. Foolish, quixotic Mark! After all the trouble she had had in escaping from the THRUSH headquarters, he had himself learned the truth — and dashed in impulsively to rescue her... only far from being able to "make his excuses" and leave, he would find a much warmer welcome than he expected, for the inhabitants of the house up on the moors would know all about him and be only too glad to lay their hands on him.

And now, instead of coding a message reporting to Waverly in New York and awaiting instructions, she would have to dash out again, back into the lion's mouth (to keep the circus parlance) and do her best to rescue him!

There was just one small problem: how was she going to do it?

Mark had taken his car, she thought as she picked the locks of her anklet and bracelet and stripped them off. Even if she could hire or borrow another, it would take time — and time was precious. Whatever Wright's mission was, he had said it was due to end this evening. On the other hand, to struggle all the way up the cliff path again would take even longer — and to go to the house by the inland road, climbing the moors and skirting the DEWS station, was unthinkable on foot. Besides which, the landward side of the place was certain to be the one most closely guarded. If only she could think of some way to land herself on the inside of the defences, there might be a chance...

Staring blankly out of the window, her eyes fell on the figure of Ernie Bosustow, tramping past on his way from the trailer to the sideshows.

Perhaps that was the answer — he was only a boy, but he loathed Sir Gerald Wright, he knew the area, and he'd plenty of guts and defiance and determination himself... which were not bad qualities for a sidekick, in the circumstances!

And she had to have a sidekick: courageous and resourceful though she was, April felt the need for the moral support of a second person on this adventure, even if that person was going to be only a passenger. She strode to the door and flung it open. "Ernie!" she called. "Can you come here a minute?"

The boy strolled across. "Hallo, hallo," he said with an impish look up at her. "What happened to you? You look as though you'd been dragged through a hedge backwards!"

"That's just exactly what did happen to me," April said grimly. "I want to get my own back on the people responsible, and I wondered... Look. Can you come in for a moment?"

He nodded, ran across to the steps leading to the caravan door, and swung himself up. "What's on your mind, then?" he asked.

"Ernie, I need help. I can't go into details but... you were right about Sir Gerald Wright. Not only that: he appears to be tied in with the other thing, the secret thing we're investigating — which is probably why he killed your girlfriend... not because she was embarrassing him with his wife but because she knew too much of his affairs. The point is, Sir Gerald and his people have probably captured Mr. Slate. He went up there to the house, not knowing they realised who he was... and I have to get him out. Will you help me?"

"Right about Wright, eh? That's a bit of a right about turn for a lad as everybody suspects of murder, isn't it?" chuckled the youngest Bosustow.

"Oh, Ernie — don't hold the police attitude against Mr. Slate and me," she implored.

"Don't worry: I'll help you all right. If it's to avenge Sheila, like — and especially if it does that toffee-nosed bastard in the eye — I'm on! But what d'you want me to do?"

"If they have Mr. Slate... and I'm afraid they must have by now... then they're holding him in Wright's house, beyond the radar station up on the moor. My problem is to get inside the grounds without crossing the boundaries in any of the usual ways: they have electrified fences and men with guns and so on." The girl stared at the table for a moment, absently stooped down to pick up the crumpled note from Mark, and struck a match which she held to one corner of it. "You know this region well, don't you?" she asked.

Ernie grinned. "Bet your life. I was at school here — though the family originally comes from further north. But the old man's always said Porthallow was his real home: that's why he winters here every year."

"Well, can you think of any way we could get in there undetected?"

"Hire a helicopter from Goonhilly?"

"I could even arrange that, as it happens. But it'd take too long."

"Of course," the boy said slowly, "there's always the Keg-'ole."

"The what?"

"The Keg-Hole. Natural curiosity, they call it. It's kind of a cave where the sea runs into the cliffs below the old coastguard station — but inside the cave it suddenly opens out and there's the sky above you again. From the landward side, it's like a hole in the ground where you can see the sea at the bottom."

"Why is it called the Keg-Hole?"

"From the shape, first of all. And then again, smugglers used to run kegs of brandy ashore from the French boats there. You can tie up inside and heft the stuff up a path cut in the rock, and nobody sees you until you're up on the cliffs beyond. There's a regular rabbit-warren up there!"

"What — smuggling just by a coastguard station?"

"Ah, you got it the wrong way round — the coastguard station was built in that particular spot because it was used for smuggling! Once the preventive men had their look-out there, the smugglers had to find somewhere else."

"Did I understand you to say that you could take a boat in the cave?"

"Hell, yes — you could get a crabber in there on a calm day."

"What about a rough day — a day like today?"

"Too dicey — but you could run in a twelve- or fourteen-footer, easy. We often used to when we were kids."

"You could get one in now, in the dark?"

"Sure you could, if you knew the cliffs."

"Could you, though?" she persisted.

"Me? Well, that's a different matter!... Still an' all — I don't know. Why not, for goodness sake? I could try."

The piece of paper had burned steadily down until it reached the tiny triangle held up between April's finger and thumb. She pursed her lips and blew once sharply to extinguish the flame, then lowered the crisp ash and ground it to fragments in a saucer. "Could you, Ernie?" she said softly. "And would you... to help me?"

"Sure I would. Why not?"

"The weather's not too bad tonight, is it?"

"No, I guess not. Wind's dropped quite a bit, but there's a hell of a sea still running, of course. It won't be easy."

"Where did you say we came up? — if we took the path, I mean?"

"Just below the old coastguard station. You can't see it from the path, you think the cliff falls dead away — but in fact there's this dirty great shelf sticking out thirty or forty feet below, and the Hole's in that."

"But that… but that's... Ernie, that's no good! We want something that takes us into the Wright property! This way, we'd have all that trouble and still find ourselves outside the stile. We might as well walk up the path!"

"Ah — but I said the hole came out on the shelf. O didn't say we do."

"What do you mean?"

"Half way up the Keg, the stairway stops at a platform — and there's a passage from the platform cut into the rock."

"A tunnel! Where does it come out?"

"Practically where you want! There's dozens of branches — one of 'em goes right under the Tor and leads to an underground storeroom slap under the radar station! — we used to play in it when we was kids."