Ellery, buried in the depths of a big chair, sighed noiselessly. He felt horribly depressed. This slow, slow waiting... And yet his brain would not give him rest. There was a problem to be solved. The persistent wraith was annoying him again. There was something...
“It’s very bad, isn’t it, Inspector?” said Mrs. Carreau softly. Her eyes strayed to the twins sitting quietly opposite her, and the queerest pain came into them.
The Inspector made a helpless little gesture. “Yes, it’s — Well, it’s bad enough.”
Ann Forrest’s face was as white as her sports dress. She stared at him and then looked down and clasped her hands to conceal their trembling.
“Damn!” exploded Mark Xavier, springing from his chair. “I’m not going to sit here and be smoked out like a rat in a hole! Let’s do something!”
“Take it easy, Xavier,” said the old gentleman mildly. “Don’t let it get you. I was just going to suggest that — action. Now that we all know where we stand there’s no sense dawdling around, as you say, and doing nothing. We’ve not really looked, you know.”
“Looked?” Mrs. Xavier was startled.
“I mean we haven’t even gone over the ground. How about that cliff at the back of the house — is there any way down, even a dangerous way? Just,” he added hurriedly, “in case it comes to that. I always like to have an emergency exit. Ha-ha!”
No one responded to his feeble laugh. Mark Xavier said grimly: “A mountain goat couldn’t get down that declivity. Get that out of your head, Inspector.”
“Hmm. It was just a thought,” said the old gentleman weakly. “Well, then!” He rubbed his hands with a false briskness. “There’s only one thing to be done. After we’ve had a sandwich, we’re going on a little tour of exploration.”
They watched him with a rising of hopes, and Ellery in his chair felt a sick helplessness in the pit of his stomach. Ann Forrest’s eyes began to sparkle.
“You mean — go into the woods, Inspector?” she asked eagerly.
“There’s a smart young woman! That’s exactly what I do mean, Miss Forrest. The ladies, too. Everybody get into the roughest clothes you have — knickers, if you’ve got ’em, or a riding habit — and we’ll split up and search these woods from rim to rim.”
“That’ll be jolly!” cried Francis. “Come on, Jule!”
“No, no, Francis,” said Mrs. Carreau. “You... you mustn’t, you two—”
“And why not, Mrs. Carreau?” said the Inspector heartily. “There isn’t a particle of danger and it will be fun for the lads. Fun for all of us! Get some of this gloom out of our bones... Ah, Mrs. Wheary, that’s fine! Dig in, everybody! Sooner we get started, the better. Sandwich, El?”
“I suppose so,” said Ellery.
The Inspector stared at him, then shrugged and bustled about chattering like an old monkey. In a few moments they were all smiling and chatting amiably, even gaily, with one another. They ate very fastidiously and carefully, savoring each mouthful of the butterless fish sandwiches. Ellery, watching them, felt the sickness in his stomach increase. Everybody seemed to have forgotten the crisp, cold corpse of Dr. Xavier.
The Inspector marshaled his forces like a latter-day Napoleon, making a game of their proposed explorations and at the same time shrewdly planning their movements so that not a yard of the silent smoky woods below them would go unsurveyed. Even Mrs. Wheary was impressed into the ranks, and the saturnine Bones. He placed himself on the extreme west of the semicircle of forest, Ellery on the extreme east, and the others at spaced intervals between them. Mark Xavier took the halfway position; between him and the Inspector were Miss Forrest, Dr. Holmes, Mrs. Xavier, and the twins; between Xavier and Ellery were Mrs. Carreau, Bones, Smith, and Mrs. Wheary.
“Now remember,” shouted the Inspector when they were all in their places except himself and Ellery. “Keep going straight down, straight as you can. Naturally you’ll keep getting farther and farther away from one another as you go down — mountain widens the farther you go from the top. But keep your eyes open. When you get close to the fire — don’t go too close — peel a sharp eye for a way through. If you find anything that even looks promising, yodel and we’ll all come running. All set?”
“All set!” yelled Miss Forrest, very handsome in a pair of knickerbockers which she had borrowed from Dr. Holmes. Her cheeks were glowing and she was more naturally effervescent than the Queens had ever seen her.
“Then go!” And sotto voce the Inspector added: “And may God help the lots of you.”
They plunged into the woods. The Queens heard the Carreau boys whooping like young Indians as they crashed through the underbrush and vanished.
For a moment father and son measured each other in silence.
“How now, old Roman?” murmured Ellery. “Satisfied?”
“Well, I had to do something, didn’t I? And,” the Inspector added defensively, “how do you know we won’t find a way down? It’s not unlikely!”
“It’s most unlikely.”
“Let’s not argue about it,” snapped the old gentleman. “Reason I placed you at the east and myself opposite is that those are the two likeliest places, no matter what you say. Keep as close to the edge of the cliff as you can. That’s where the trees grow thinnest, probably, and that’s where there’ll be a way out, if any.” He fell silent for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Well, get going. Good luck.”
“Good luck,” said Ellery soberly, and turned and made for the rear of the garage. He looked back before he rounded the house and saw his father clumping dejectedly along toward the west.
Ellery loosened his necktie, wiped his streaming forehead with a damp handkerchief, and went on.
He started at the lip of the precipice to the side of the house, behind the garage, and made his way into the woods as closely to the edge of the cut as he could. The hot foliage closed over his head and instantly he felt new beads of perspiration spring out of his pores all over his body. The air was stifling, unbreathable. It was filled with an impalpable smoke, invisible but choking. His eyes soon began to stream. He lowered his head and plunged on doggedly.
It was hardy going. Although he had dressed himself in jodhpurs and soft riding boots, the underbrush was so thick and treacherous underfoot that the leather was soon scratched in hundreds of places and tiny tears appeared in the tough material above his knees. The dry brush cut like knives. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the sharp assaults on his thighs. He began to cough.
It seemed to him that he slipped and slid and scratched his hands and face and stepped into mold-filled pits for a century. Each sliding step downward brought him into thicker, fouler atmosphere. He kept repeating to himself that he must be very careful, for there was no telling what vagary of the jagged side of the cliff which he was skirting under the trees might shear the cliff off beneath his feet and topple him into the abyss below. Once he stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath. Through a rift in the leaves he could see over the next valley — remote and tantalizing as a dream. Only occasionally could he descry details; the smoke was dirty wool in the valley now, or at least between the valley and his vantage point; and even the strong hot winds which swirled about the mountain could not dissipate its stubborn layers.
He became conscious all at once of a dull, earth-shaking boom.