'Probably baboons,' I asserted. 'Gardner had the same problem in '36. They're very inquisitive creatures and The Hill swarms with them. They've got a big colony up near the spring on the summit. They won't meddle with pegs if you paint 'em with pitch, however. The heat keeps it sticky and oats their paws, which they hate. I put a drum of it among the stores for that very purpose.'
'We did exactly that,' Nadine answered steadily. 'Next day the same thing happened. Everything was higgledy-piggledy, an awful mess. It took us half a day simply to re-mark the digging sites. Then the following day: repeat performance.'
'If The Hill's taboo is no more sinister than a baboon's curiosity, you've nothing to fear.'
The convincing way you say that indicates how deeply you believe it, Guy. I think I share your views.'
The ensuing pause in our conversation was full of undercurrents.
'Well,' I ventured a little uncertainly under her steady gaze,
'You tell me, then. You made the big discovery. Maybe there's even another gold hoard there.'
She shook her head and the thick hair fell halfway across her cheek. I resented the hairdresser's gloss that had replaced the dust at The Hill. It affected me as a further sense of sellout. 'I'm not a treasure-seeker. Guy, can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? The Hill. .'
I was too unhappy about the expedition's ending, perhaps still too ill to appreciate that her emotions were ahead of her words.
Again she gave me a long considering look. Then she resumed matter-of-factly. 'The first night after you'd gone the two remaining Land-Rovers were parked against the cliff face between the two main digging sites. We'd put them there during the day for the sake of the shade. About midnight we were all awakened by a tremendous crash. A huge boulder had fallen off The Hill on top of them.'
'It happens all the time,' I replied a little impatiently. 'Sandstone decays in the summer and in winter when it cools chunks crumble and fall off. That's what happened in a big way when the secret stairway was formed long ago.'
'I know, I know! Every one of the strange happenings I'm about to tell you about has a double interpretation. First, then, the jeeps were a write-off. Dr Drummond was furious-and disturbed too. Next morning he and Jock Stewart decided to climb to the summit via the secret "stairway" to see if they could spot what had caused the boulder to break away. It would have been crazy to have attempted to climb in the dark immediately after the incident. Since the two vehicles were paid for by public subscription there had to be some sort of acceptable explanation of how all that money came to be lost. Dr Drummond was also concerned about something else on the table top. . he hinted at a possible new site but gave no details.
'Jock told us afterwards that about two-thirds of the way up the "stairway" the professor had been leading. He was perhaps 150 feet from the bottom. You haven't been up yet, have you Guy? Let me explain: the passageway narrows and there's a nasty corner you have to squeeze round. The person below loses sight of anyone ahead. The Prof was negotiating this tricky section and was out of Jock's view. Suddenly Jock heard a choking sound. He went up as fast as he could and found Dr Drummond hanging from a wire noose round his neck. Luckily he'd thrown up his arm as he fell. That saved him and stopped the slipknot from strangling him. The wire was six feet long — the same as a gallows drop — and it was brand-new.
'Now Jock knows all about emergency drill; he's done plenty of rock work. That's why Dr Drummond chose him in the first place to go along. He found that the loop had cut into the Prof's neck and had dislocated his right shoulder.'
'Why should a poacher lay a snare there?' I interrupted. 'The climb's far too difficult for any but the smallest game to venture up it to the spring.'
Nadine went on quietly without replying directly to my question. 'Listen. Jock had almost freed Dr Drummond when he himself slipped. He dropped until his right leg broke his fall by lodging across the bad narrow section. You could say he was lucky, in a way. If he hadn't stuck there would have been nothing to prevent him falling to the bottom. He'd have been killed, for sure. As it was, his leg was smashed in two places and there's a lot of damage to the knee. He'll never climb again. He's in the next ward here in the hospital.'
'It could happen to anyone,' I rejoined, trying to dispel the sinister undertone in what she was saying. lock probably became careless in his hurry to help the Prof.'
She thrust her tongue against her front teeth so that it forced open her lips slightly.
'Jock said he didn't slip. He was pushed!
'Never! There's not a soul there! The Hill's been deserted from the time the last scientific expedition left just before war broke out. Our party's the first since: you know that as well as I do.'
'Yes, Guy, I know it only too well. It gives force to what I'm saving. All excavations came to a complete stop then, of course. We natched up their injuries and waited for your jeep to return. That same night Bob and Dave decided to move the spare petrol away from the cliff area in case of another rockfall. They made a dump about half a mile away from the camp out in the open and heaped sand over — the jerricans so that there would be no danger of sparks from the camp fires. It's fantastic, I know, but the dump blew up like an outsize Guy Fawkes display.'
I sat incredulous.
'Yes,' she repeated. 'Somehow or other sealed and buried jerricans managed to ignite. Like the rockfall business, it also took place in the middle of the night. The explosions were like bombs. The cans leapt high into the air trailing flames — one after another they went up. It was really pretty spectacular, if we hadn't all been so scared.'
'What,' I asked grimly, 'was given as the cause of that?'
'The heat. Spontaneous combustion. Sympathetic explosions.'
'Rubbish! Petrol in sealed cans doesn't catch fire by spontaneous combustion! Anyway, it's cooler at night than during the day if you care to put that explanation to the test.'
'We were looking round for some sort of rational answer and it was good enough at the time for a crowd of really frightened people. The spirit had been completely knocked out of the venture by then and Dr Drummond had to take an on-the-spot decision on his own responsibility about what to do because there was no way of getting in touch with the authorities — you know yourself the nearest phone is sixty miles away. He couldn't afford either to take any risks in that heat with Jock's injury. He followed the only course he could and called off the expedition. We were all only too relieved about it and glad to leave. When your jeep returned we managed to find enough fuel in the tanks of the wrecked ones for it and made our way here to Messina. It was appallingly overcrowded and Jock suffered hell with his leg over the rough sections. Dr Drummond has already left to go back home and report.'
The end of the expedition was the beginning of our love; The Hill with its associations could not have been other than part of it. This was strengthened by Nadine's wish to have her engagement ring copied from the queen's taken from the royal grave on the tabletop. I obtained official permission for this with considerable difficulty. In spite of her father's opposition, we intended to marry.
Then, the day in Cohen's store when I handed over Rankin's diamonds and faced a police revolver, our world collapsed.
How I would put the pieces together again I planned a thousand times during my remaining year in prison after Charlie Furstenberg had divulged that Rankin was at The Hill. My pent-up feelings took the form of frustrated energy which I channelled into reconstructing the jail library in its entirety. Shortly after our conversation Charlie was moved to a 'privileged' section of the prison and later put to work in the jail hospital. There was no reason why the little Jew should have been given such special consideration. I saw him only once or twice more in the distance during my imprisonment. We never had the chance to talk again. Oddly enough, it was my library work which supplied the solution to the problem of concealing from Nadine my mission to find Rankin. About a month before I was due out the Superintendent informed me that I had been given a remission of a week off my sentence in recognition of it. Nadine came as usual on the last visitors' day, unaware of my remission. She was radiant, full of plans for our future. 'Only a week and I shall come and fetch you home,' were her parting words.