Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 67
Zelensky grinned to himself as he made this suggestion, and his grin widened when he heard the hoped-for answer. On the other side of the partition-wall Northfleet also smiled as he replied:
“Thanks for the hint. I’ll switch off.”
The dim radiance vanished as he spoke.
This was what Zelensky was hoping for. As the darkness fell he gathered himself together and sprang forward, pistol in hand. The trip-bar caught his ankle. He stumbled, slid on the grease of the booby-trap, and with a yell of amazement and dismay he shot over the edge into the pit. Northfleet heard the thud of his fall with grim satisfaction.
“Quite comfortable, Mr. Zelensky?” he asked ironically.
The mercenary gasped heavily.
“I zhink my back is broke,” he said painfully. “I cannnot mofe my legs at all.”
“Ah,” Northfleet answered pitilessly. “Like you, I’m a man of few words. I’m damned glad to hear it.”
Zelensky made no reply. Evidently he accepted his fate without complaint; and Northfleet might even have found some admiration for this stoicism had his grudge against the mercenary been a lesser one.
A light flashed on the wall in front of him, and he drew back into his corridor as someone turned the corner of the adjacent passage.
“Hello! Zelensky! Zelensky!”
It was Leo’s voice. Zelensky did not answer. Northfleet saw that chance had presented him with the very thing he wanted most: the opportunity to talk with the gunman without fear of treachery. Since the man had a flash-lamp there was no likelihood of his being caught in the booby-trap; so Northfleet opened with an apparently well-meant warning.
“Mind the booby-trap, Leo! Zelensky fell into it a minute ago and got his spine snapped. You can’t get at me, and I can’t get at you; BO we’d better have a little talk. I’m in the next corridor. Don’t trouble to look over the edge of the pit. I’ve greased the floor and you might fall in.”
He switched on his lamp so that the gunman could realise the state of affairs. Leo was evidently taken aback by Northfleet’s unantagonistic tone.
“Well, you seem a forgiving sort o’ pal,” he said, rather wonderingly. “Most people’d bear a grudge.”
“I have a use for you, that’s all,” Northfleet retorted frankly. “You’ve broken your bargain; but I’m still ready to deal with you on the same terms. That suit you?”
“Strewth! You mean it?” ejaculated the gunman. “Well, you are a rum ’un, after us double-crossin’ you.”
“I listened to your little chat upstairs,” Northfleet admitted. “You had the right end of the stick. It was Zelensky that queered the pitch.”
“Thasso,” Leo agreed, readily enough. “He’d fallen for one of the girls—the tall, willowy one. He’d been livin’ like a monk on this damned island o’ yours for months, an’ he let his feelin’s get outta hand when he saw a chance to get hold o’ her. Silly, lettin’ that sorta thing interfere with business. I never do, myself.”
“Sound fellow!” said Northfleet with well-assumed heartiness. “That’s the stuff to give us. Now here’s how the land lies. The gold’s ready. I’ll bring it across in an hour: a first instalment, anyhow. Only, this time there must be no monkey business, understand? No bringing the girls downstairs, or anything of that sort. If you don’t keep you word this time you’ll never see a trace of gold. I’m speaking as one business man to another,” he added flatteringly. “You’re not a fool like Zelensky.”
“You can kiss the Book on that,” the gunman assured him. “What’s a skirt, after all? Once we’re rich, we’ll buy ’em and give ’em away,” he boasted. Then with a note of suspicion: “No kid about all this?”
“If the lot of you will wait in the lounge upstairs, an hour from now you’ll get the first instalment without fail. I don’t propose to carry it all over at once; I’m a bit tired with all this exertion. But there’ll be enough to convince you that I mean business. If you’re all there when I come, you can share it amongst yourselves on the spot.”
“We can’t all be there,” objected the gunman. “One of us has gotta watch under the girls’ window——”
He broke off suddenly as though a deep suspicion had struck root in his mind.
“That ain’t your little game, is it, mister T To get us away from the window an’ chuck a rope up to these girls so’s they can scoot? Nothin’ doin’ in that line.”
“Keep your guard under the window,” said Northfleet, with an impatience which convinced the gunman. “What do I care?”
“Jus’ a business-like precaution,” Leo said, half-apologetically. “I see you’re straight, mister; but business is business.”
“Then that’s settled. No bringing the girls down or interfering with them in any way. First instalment of the gold to be delivered in an hour from now. No, say an hour and a half—I’ve got to get back to Heather Lodge. You’ll be in the lounge to receive the gold; I can’t go hunting all over the place for you.”
“Right, mister. We’ll be ready for you.”
“And now,” Northfleet went on in a different tone, “just a friendly warning, Leo. I shouldn’t push any further along these tunnels, if I were you. There are quite a lot of humorous little y-traps waiting for inquirers. Another thing. What about Zelensky? Are you going to pull him out of this hole?”
“Not me,” said Leo callously. “Let him lie. He’s not one o’ my lot.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE GOLDEN NEMESIS
COLIN spent the time of Northfleet’s absence in gloomy forebodings. He wandered restlessly hither and thither, unable to find anything useful to do and yet too highly-strung to bear inactivity. Once, entering the sitting-room, he found Leven and the detective in the midst of some talk, of which he caught only a snatch. They broke off when he showed himself. Whatever the topic, it was plainly one which gave Leven little pleasure. He looked as though he