With a click a three by four foot section of wall rolled silently
aside. Tremaine saw greased metal slides and, beyond, steps leading
down.
"They are on the porch now, James," said Miss Carroll.
"The light!" Tremaine reached for it, threw a leg over the sill. He
reached back, pulled the suitcase after him. "Tell them I kidnapped
you, Miss Carroll. And thanks."
Miss Carroll held out her hand. "Help me, James. I hung back once
before. I'll not repeat my folly."
Tremaine hesitated for an instant, then reached out, handed Miss
Carroll in. Footsteps sounded in the hall. The flashlight showed
Tremaine a black pushbutton bolted to a two by four stud. He pressed
it. The panel slid back in place.
Tremaine flashed the light on the stairs.
"Okay, Miss Carroll," he said softly. "Let's go down."
* * * * *
There were fifteen steps, and at the bottom, a corridor, with curved
walls of black glass, and a floor of rough boards. It went straight
for twenty feet and ended at an old-fashioned five-panel wooden door.
Tremaine tried the brass knob. The door opened on a room shaped from
a natural cave, with waterworn walls of yellow stone, a low uneven
ceiling, and a packed-earth floor. On a squat tripod in the center
of the chamber rested an apparatus of black metal and glass, vaguely
gunlike, aimed at the blank wall. Beside it, in an ancient wooden
rocker, a man lay slumped, his shirt blood-caked, a black puddle on the
floor beneath him.
"Bram!" Miss Carroll gasped. She went to him, took his hand, staring
into his face.
"Is he dead?" Tremaine said tightly.
"His hands are cold ... but there is a pulse."
A kerosene lantern stood by the door. Tremaine lit it, brought it to
the chair. He took out a pocket knife, cut the coat and shirt back from
Bram's wound. A shotgun blast had struck him in the side; there was a
lacerated area as big as Tremaine's hand.
"It's stopped bleeding," he said. "It was just a graze at close range,
I'd say." He explored further. "It got his arm too, but not as deep.
And I think there are a couple of ribs broken. If he hasn't lost too
much blood...." Tremaine pulled off his coat, spread it on the floor.
"Let's lay him out here and try to bring him around."
Lying on his back on the floor, Bram looked bigger than his
six-foot-four, younger than his near-century, Tremaine thought. Miss
Carroll knelt at the old man's side, chafing his hands, murmuring to
him.
Abruptly a thin cry cut the air.
Tremaine whirled, startled. Miss Carroll stared, eyes wide. A low
rumble sounded, swelled louder, broke into a screech, cut off.
"Those are the sounds I heard that night," Miss Carroll breathed. "I
thought afterwards I had imagined them, but I remember.... James, what
does it mean?"
"Maybe it means Bram wasn't as crazy as you thought," Tremaine said.