Read Online The Secret Vanguard by Michael Innes - Free Book Online

time – and a bit of effort. I want you to go to sleep. Good night.’
    ‘Good night.’ Sheila lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Instantly she was in a dreamless slumber.
    She awoke in what appeared a matter of minutes – and to cold terror. Her knees were like pools of water and she was unable to utter a sound. There was something in the room. And it had touched her hair.
    Flut. A small, heavy sound. Flut…flut…flut – it rounded the room and touched her hair again. A bat. Nothing but a bat. But her terror was undiminished; she lay helpless and waiting. Flut-flut-flut – the blundering little creature was going faster round the room. Not coming so near her now… Sheila lay still – terrified by the knowledge that she knew it was a bat and was terrified nevertheless. Flut – it had brushed her mouth; and suddenly her voice was restored to her. ‘Mr Evans!’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘There’s something in the room. And I’m–’
    ‘Sure. Is there a fireplace down there?’ Evans’ voice was exhausted but level.
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Then it’s a bat. And a bat down the chimney’s lucky.’ Sheila said nothing; she felt her voice leaving her again. ‘Sheila!’ He spoke peremptorily. ‘It’s a lucky bat – do you hear? Mother once had a bat down the chimney and was scared no end. But the next day Dad made the biggest deal of his career. Presently it will hang itself up by the toes and go to sleep. And you’d better do the same.’
    Sheila gave a sigh longer than she knew she could utter. ‘But I haven’t that sort of toes.’
    ‘There – you see? Good night.’
    When Sheila awoke again clear, cold light was streaming through an open door. And a naked young giant, somewhat in need of a shave, was watching her with friendly eyes from the foot of the bed.

 
     
8:   An American Citizen Intervenes
    The giant proved to be wearing ragged khaki shorts and an enormous pair of walking shoes. Sheila sat up and was the first to speak. ‘Your wrists!’ she exclaimed.
    Evans nodded. ‘They knew their job,’ he said dismissively. And added: ‘What shall we do now?’
    ‘Tell the police.’
    He smiled. ‘You all right? Then come outside.’
    They went through a second small low room and into the open air. It was raw and chill and caught the throat, so that Sheila gasped. But the gasp was partly for what lay about her. They were standing on high stony ground, ground seemingly as barren as if it had been utterly cast out from nature’s usefulness or care. And all around – here subtly shifting and here as still as a shroud – stretched a great system of mist and cloud: mist that hung like an uncertain curtain or that flowed glancingly before the few visible spurs and shoulders of earth; cloud in great flat stretches of stratus that roofed invisible valleys and joined invisible peak to peak. And across all this the sun was rising. Or all this was heaving itself upward and over into light: all this fluid world and – sharply distinct from it and far to what must be the west – a single dazzling pinnacle of snow.
    ‘Perhaps,’ said Evans, ‘the police don’t often come this way. It’s what you’d call a croft, I think, and lonesome and abandoned at that. But we’ll waste no time; I kind of feel our friends have a base of sorts not too far off. I wonder did they bring my rucksack, though? We could do with that.’ He spoke disjointedly, his eye upon the distant mountain top. ‘Wait.’ And he slipped back into the oddly prosaic little stone building which had recently been their prison.
    Cautiously Sheila explored her immediate surroundings. A barely discernible path ran from the door and into the mist – downhill, it might be said at a guess. And from it branched a second path to what appeared to be a rude outbuilding some twenty yards away. She had barely noted this when Evans was back again. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Over there and we’ll take stock.’
    Of the outbuilding little more was left