The chase continued, both walking. When Bulnes's greater length of leg brought him closer to the thief, the latter broke into a limping run and widened the distance again. Thus they hobbled, jogged, and panted toward Athens. Little by little, despite the other man's sprints, Bulnes pulled up on him. The fellow's ankle must be half killing him, Bulnes gloated.
The stars came out, and jackals yapped across the Attic plain, and still the chase continued.
The thief reached the Peiraic Gate of Athens about fifty meters ahead of Bulnes, whose hope that the guards would stop the man were again disappointed.
But they did stop Bulnes. "What you doing?" said a couple in pidgin Greek. "Gate closed for night."
"I am chasing that thief! Come along with me!"
"No thief. Who you? Maybe you thief, huh?"
Either they were determined to be stupid, or were in league with the thief. Bulnes noted that one of them had left his unstrung bow leaning against the wall.
Bulnes snatched up the bowstave. Whonk! Whonk! went the wood against the pointed Scythian caps. One archer sat down, the other fell forward to hands and knees.
Bulnes raced out the other end of the enclosure, his tired feet speeded by the uproar behind him. Soon Scythian boots sounded on the dirt.
As he did not think he could outrun the entire Athenian police force, Bulnes slipped around the first corner, threw away the bowstave, rearranged his himation, and started back the way he had come, toward the Peiraic Gate, like any other stroller out for a turn in the evening. A group of Scythians went past, asking each other loudly which way the scoundrel had gone. Bulnes let them bump him up against the side of the house, made a vague gesture in response to their questions, and watched them scatter around corners and disappear.
Meantime he had lost track of his quarry. Small though the town might be, it was quite big enough to hide one man in its crooked stinking alleys beyond the possibility of digging him out — especially at night.
Bulnes wrote off the manuscript as lost and set out wearily for the Agora. He would have to get another meal for Flin before turning in for the night.
He had gone but a few blocks when he spied a man sitting by the side of the street in the dirt, ahead of him, with his back against the stucco house wall and exhaustion writ in every line of his posture. As Bulnes came in sight, however, the man heaved himself to his feet, pushed the hair out of his eyes, and started walking ahead of Bulnes, also toward the Agora. He limped and carried a roll of papyrus.
Although it was now too dark to recognize faces at that distance, Bulnes felt sure this was his thief. This time, however, instead of rushing upon the man, he thought it wiser to tail him. There must be some peculiar reason for the man's snatching the roll; it was not the booty the average thief would go for.
The man continued steadily southeast, skirting the Agora, where the wicker kiosks had all been folded up for the night. As the man reached the south end of the Agora he bore left, toward the east end of the Akropolis, which towered against the stars in front of Bulnes.
Presently the man came to a small enclosure, a kind of one-block park. Bulnes remembered the day Flin had dragged him all over the Akropolis. The little teacher had pointed out this enclosure as the Theseion, or shrine of Theseus, the leading legendary hero of the city of Athens. He would have dragged Bulnes through it, too, if the latter had not pleaded weariness.
The Theseion had a thick hedge around it. The thief hobbled along this for a way, then ducked through a hole in the shrubbery. Bulnes followed in time to see him disappearing into a small building among the trees and statues. This edifice was the shrine of Theseus: a squarish structure open at one side, a row of columns across the entrance. Bulnes ran on tiptoe to the entrance and peered around the building wall into the interior.
Inside he could dimly make out murals on the walls, an altar, and a primitive-looking cult statue on a pedestal. The thief was standing with his back to him, watching the ground behind the altar.
With a whirr of machinery the altar began to tilt forward. A line of light appeared along its base. The altar seemed to be fastened to the top of a trap door that was now opening. It nodded forward until it almost touched the ground, and the trap door was vertical.
The thief stepped into the opening and started down a flight of steps. One — two — three — only his upper half was in sight; then only his head; then nothing. The altar began to rise toward its former vertical position.
Bulnes rushed over to the trap door. He caught a glimpse of movement and a snatch of speech. He was sure the place below was electrically lighted, but by lamps so shaded that he could see but little. The altar rose, the lighted area contracting to a wedge.
Bulnes thought desperately of sticking his foot in the trap door; but if the door were power-operated, the result might be hard on the foot. Then, just before the light disappeared, he snatched out his sheath knife and thrust the hilt between the closing trap door and its frame. The movement stopped with a jar, leaving the altar of Theseus leaning at a slight angle.
Bulnes reflected that there was probably some code of raps or words by which the thief — a pretty well-connected sort of thief, too — announced his presence.
He put his ear to the crack. Voices still came from below. He thought the language was English spoken in a variety of accents.
Bulnes put his shoulder against the altar and pushed. To his surprise it gave. Not readily, but a centimeter at a time. Meanwhile small mechanical sounds came from beneath his feet and the machinery was forced to run in reverse. But the minute he let go, the altar started to tip back upright again.
He put his full strength into it. Down went the altar, slowly, with a creak and a whirr. Up from the depths came the voices of two men: "... 'ow the bloody 'ell was I to know?"
"Can you not the instructions remember?"
"They didn't cover this case."
"The sector super vill hell raise."
"But 'e was the blighter bo told me to get that bleeding manuscript at all costs. It seems they want to compare ..."
Bulnes took a quick look. One of the men was standing at the base of the steps with his back to Bulnes. The gods were really too kind this time; the shouting of the disputants had drowned out the sound of the opening of the trap door.
In a swift movement Bulnes threw off his himation, picked up his knife from the ground beside the hatch frame, and leaped for the back of the nearer man.
Chapter Thirteen
As his feet struck the man's back, Knut Bulnes brought his right fist down on the fellow's head in a hammer blow. The bulge at the base of the hilt of his knife hit the man's close-cut hair, and the man collapsed.
Bulnes sprang away as the body fell forward and rolled on its side. He lit lightly on the concrete floor, having just time to observe that, whereas the small thief was dressed in an Ionic chiton (essentially a big flour-sack with holes for arms and head), the man he had just felled wore a blue-denim shirt to which was pinned a large identification badge with photograph, and a pair of work pants held up by a belt with loops through which were thrust screw drivers and similar tools.
The other man, however, more urgently claimed his attention, for he dropped a similar badge, which he had been in the act of pinning to his garment, and pulled out a knife that had been strapped to his thigh under the skirt of his chiton.
Bulnes's instincts warned him not to admit that he was anything other than one more pseudo-Periklean Hellene intent upon getting his stolen property back. Accordingly he said, in Classical Greek, "Give me that, you thief!"