Read Online The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kenneth Robeson
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flashlight came on a few yards ahead of him. He was still down on the floor of the warehouse. Now he jumped up on the wooden plank platform.
Bulcão smiled to himself, then leaped over several planks.
Mac made a grab for him. His left hand got hold of the sleeve of the running man’s fatigue suit. But the planks Bulcão had avoided were rotten. MacMurdie fell through them.
Bulcão was outside. He ran, straining, up and away from the place. And he got away from them. It had been surprisingly easy.
CHAPTER XVII
Cole Pays a Call
Thunder rumbled through the forest. Rain, in fat, heavy drops, began pouring down out of the night sky.
“Very appropriate weather for a visit to a haunted castle,” observed Cole as he turned up his collar and ran across the courtyard to the front stairs of the Pedra Negra castle.
Safe from the rain, on the sheltered doorstep, he lifted the heavy brass knocker and announced his arrival with several loud thumps. “At least the knocker isn’t in the shape of a bat.”
A minute went by, more thunder boomed, rain splashed on the flagstones.
Then the door was opened by plump, gray-haired Mrs. Andrade. “What do you wish, senhor?”
“My name is Cole Wilson. I’m a friend of Richard Benson’s, and I’d like to see Miss Bentin,” he explained. “Your phone is apparently out of order, or I’d have—”
“He is all right,” said the fat woman to someone down in the courtyard.
Cole turned and saw an American agent, right hand inside his slicker, watching them. The man eyed Cole, then turned and vanished in the heavy-falling rain.
“My open, honest face has won you over, I see,” he said to Mrs. Andrade.
She smiled, stepping back. “I have heard of you, senhor Wilson, and I saw your photograph once in a magazine.”
When he crossed into the vaulted hallway, Cole was met by the tall blond Erika Mowler. “Would you be Miss Mowler, the Florence Nightingale of Panazuela?”
Erika acknowledged the identification with a slight bow. “Elizabeth is resting, which she often does after dinner,” she said. “If you’d care to wait, I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you.”
“Waiting here will be more enjoyable than heading back to Mostarda in that downpour.”
With a nod at the housekeeper Erika said, “I’ll look after Mr. Wilson, Amelia.”
“Then I’ll wish you good-night, boa noite.”
Erika brushed at her blond hair with her fingertips. “I wonder if I might impose on you . . . ?”
“It’s part of the well-known code of the Wilsons to do a good deed every day, Miss Mowler.”
“I’ve a couple of cartons of books stored down in the cellars, in what used to be the wine room,” the blond girl said. “It turns out the place leaks, and I really would like to move them.”
“You’ll find I’m nearly as good as Wonderman when it comes to heavy lifting.”
“As who?”
“Merely a chap I met on a case once,” said Cole. “Lead on.”
Brushing by him, Erika got a large flashlight from a hall closet. “There’s no electric lighting down there.”
“I’m used to roughing it.”
She took his arm and guided him along the hall to its very end. Opening a heavy wooden door, she said, “I’ll go first. You’ve got to be a little careful on the first two flights of stairs, since there’s no guardrail and a considerable drop down to a very hard stone floor.”
A smell of damp earth and ancient stones came drifting up out of the chill darkness. “Ah, that scent reminds me of my Aunt Cornelia’s root cellar.”
Erika clicked on the flash and sent the beam into the dark below. “We have to go single file.”
There was a winding stone stairway going down into the blackness. As the blond girl had said, there was nothing to keep you from falling what looked to be about two hundred feet onto a flagstone floor that was strewn with rusted farm implements.
“Has a real dungeon-like flavor.”
“I believe there were dungeons down here once, many years ago.”
Bulcão smiled to himself, then leaped over several planks.
Mac made a grab for him. His left hand got hold of the sleeve of the running man’s fatigue suit. But the planks Bulcão had avoided were rotten. MacMurdie fell through them.
Bulcão was outside. He ran, straining, up and away from the place. And he got away from them. It had been surprisingly easy.
CHAPTER XVII
Cole Pays a Call
Thunder rumbled through the forest. Rain, in fat, heavy drops, began pouring down out of the night sky.
“Very appropriate weather for a visit to a haunted castle,” observed Cole as he turned up his collar and ran across the courtyard to the front stairs of the Pedra Negra castle.
Safe from the rain, on the sheltered doorstep, he lifted the heavy brass knocker and announced his arrival with several loud thumps. “At least the knocker isn’t in the shape of a bat.”
A minute went by, more thunder boomed, rain splashed on the flagstones.
Then the door was opened by plump, gray-haired Mrs. Andrade. “What do you wish, senhor?”
“My name is Cole Wilson. I’m a friend of Richard Benson’s, and I’d like to see Miss Bentin,” he explained. “Your phone is apparently out of order, or I’d have—”
“He is all right,” said the fat woman to someone down in the courtyard.
Cole turned and saw an American agent, right hand inside his slicker, watching them. The man eyed Cole, then turned and vanished in the heavy-falling rain.
“My open, honest face has won you over, I see,” he said to Mrs. Andrade.
She smiled, stepping back. “I have heard of you, senhor Wilson, and I saw your photograph once in a magazine.”
When he crossed into the vaulted hallway, Cole was met by the tall blond Erika Mowler. “Would you be Miss Mowler, the Florence Nightingale of Panazuela?”
Erika acknowledged the identification with a slight bow. “Elizabeth is resting, which she often does after dinner,” she said. “If you’d care to wait, I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you.”
“Waiting here will be more enjoyable than heading back to Mostarda in that downpour.”
With a nod at the housekeeper Erika said, “I’ll look after Mr. Wilson, Amelia.”
“Then I’ll wish you good-night, boa noite.”
Erika brushed at her blond hair with her fingertips. “I wonder if I might impose on you . . . ?”
“It’s part of the well-known code of the Wilsons to do a good deed every day, Miss Mowler.”
“I’ve a couple of cartons of books stored down in the cellars, in what used to be the wine room,” the blond girl said. “It turns out the place leaks, and I really would like to move them.”
“You’ll find I’m nearly as good as Wonderman when it comes to heavy lifting.”
“As who?”
“Merely a chap I met on a case once,” said Cole. “Lead on.”
Brushing by him, Erika got a large flashlight from a hall closet. “There’s no electric lighting down there.”
“I’m used to roughing it.”
She took his arm and guided him along the hall to its very end. Opening a heavy wooden door, she said, “I’ll go first. You’ve got to be a little careful on the first two flights of stairs, since there’s no guardrail and a considerable drop down to a very hard stone floor.”
A smell of damp earth and ancient stones came drifting up out of the chill darkness. “Ah, that scent reminds me of my Aunt Cornelia’s root cellar.”
Erika clicked on the flash and sent the beam into the dark below. “We have to go single file.”
There was a winding stone stairway going down into the blackness. As the blond girl had said, there was nothing to keep you from falling what looked to be about two hundred feet onto a flagstone floor that was strewn with rusted farm implements.
“Has a real dungeon-like flavor.”
“I believe there were dungeons down here once, many years ago.”
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