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Authors: Alistair MacLean
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them until it is too late and the law is not an ass in this respect, itâs just because of inbuilt safeguards in every legal constitution designed to protect the rights of the individual that it is unable to cope in advance with those whose ultimate evil or murderous intent is beyond rational dispute but beyond legal proof. It was the old, old story of the greatest good of the greatest number and it was merely fortuitous, Bowman reflected wryly, that he happened to be one of the greatest number. If he had been scared he was no longer scared now, his mind was quite cold and detached. He had to get high. If he got to a certain height where they couldnât reach him it would be stalemate: if he went higher and they still tried to follow him the danger to the greatest good of the greatest number was going to be effectively reduced. He looked up at the towering shattered crags bathed in the white moonlight and started to climb.
Bowman had never had any pretensions towards being a climber but he climbed well that night. With the devil himself behind him he would normally have made good speed: with three of them he made excellent time. Looking back from time to time, he could see that he was steadily outdistancing them but not to the extent that they ever lost sight of him for more than a few seconds at a time. And now they were clearly recognizable for whom they were for now they had completely removed their home-made masks.
They had probably arrived, and rightly, at the safe conclusion that up in the wild desolation of those ruins in the middle of the night they no longer required them and even if they were seen on the way back it wouldnât matter, for the corpus delicti would have vanished for ever and no charge could be laid against them other than that of entering the fortress without paying the required admission fee of a franc per head, which they would probably have regarded as a reasonable exchange for a nightâs work well done.
Bowman stopped climbing. Through no fault of his own, because he was totally unfamiliar with the terrain, he had made a mistake. He had been aware that the walls of the narrow gully up which he was scrambling had been rapidly steepening on both sides, which hadnât worried him unduly because it had happened twice before, but now as he rounded a comer he found himself faced with a vertical wall of solid rock. It was a perfect cul-desac from which there was no escape except by climbing, and the vertical walls were wholly unclimbable. The blank wall facing Bowman was riddled by cracks and apertures but a quick glance at the only three or four that were accessible to him showed no moonlight at the far end, only uncompromising darkness.
He ran back to the comer, convinced he was wasting his time. He was. The three men had been in no doubt as to the direction in which he had disappeared. They were forty yards away, no more. They saw Bowman, stopped and came on again. But not so hurriedly now. The very fact that Bowman had turned back to check on their whereabouts would be indication enough that he was in serious trouble.
A man does not die before he has to. He ran back into the cul-de-sac and looked desperately at the apertures in the rock. Only two were large enough to allow a man to enter. If he could get inside one and turn around the darkness behind him would at least counter-balance the advantages of a man with a knife â and, of course, only one man could come at a time. For no reason at all he chose the right-hand aperture, scrambled up and wriggled inside.
The limestone tunnel started narrowing almost immediately. But he had to go on, he was not yet in total concealment. By the time he estimated that he was hidden the tunnel was no more than two feet wide and scarcely as high. It would be impossible for him to turn, all he could do was lie there and be hacked piecemeal at someoneâs leisure. And even that, he realized now, would not be necessary: all they would have
Bowman had never had any pretensions towards being a climber but he climbed well that night. With the devil himself behind him he would normally have made good speed: with three of them he made excellent time. Looking back from time to time, he could see that he was steadily outdistancing them but not to the extent that they ever lost sight of him for more than a few seconds at a time. And now they were clearly recognizable for whom they were for now they had completely removed their home-made masks.
They had probably arrived, and rightly, at the safe conclusion that up in the wild desolation of those ruins in the middle of the night they no longer required them and even if they were seen on the way back it wouldnât matter, for the corpus delicti would have vanished for ever and no charge could be laid against them other than that of entering the fortress without paying the required admission fee of a franc per head, which they would probably have regarded as a reasonable exchange for a nightâs work well done.
Bowman stopped climbing. Through no fault of his own, because he was totally unfamiliar with the terrain, he had made a mistake. He had been aware that the walls of the narrow gully up which he was scrambling had been rapidly steepening on both sides, which hadnât worried him unduly because it had happened twice before, but now as he rounded a comer he found himself faced with a vertical wall of solid rock. It was a perfect cul-desac from which there was no escape except by climbing, and the vertical walls were wholly unclimbable. The blank wall facing Bowman was riddled by cracks and apertures but a quick glance at the only three or four that were accessible to him showed no moonlight at the far end, only uncompromising darkness.
He ran back to the comer, convinced he was wasting his time. He was. The three men had been in no doubt as to the direction in which he had disappeared. They were forty yards away, no more. They saw Bowman, stopped and came on again. But not so hurriedly now. The very fact that Bowman had turned back to check on their whereabouts would be indication enough that he was in serious trouble.
A man does not die before he has to. He ran back into the cul-de-sac and looked desperately at the apertures in the rock. Only two were large enough to allow a man to enter. If he could get inside one and turn around the darkness behind him would at least counter-balance the advantages of a man with a knife â and, of course, only one man could come at a time. For no reason at all he chose the right-hand aperture, scrambled up and wriggled inside.
The limestone tunnel started narrowing almost immediately. But he had to go on, he was not yet in total concealment. By the time he estimated that he was hidden the tunnel was no more than two feet wide and scarcely as high. It would be impossible for him to turn, all he could do was lie there and be hacked piecemeal at someoneâs leisure. And even that, he realized now, would not be necessary: all they would have
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