Daredevil
diversion, she slipped from the bench and sidled unostentatiously to
the door.
The passage outside was in darkness, but in a moment a thin pencil of
light flicked out from her hand, roving across the walls. The man
who had admitted her had not entered the doss-room, so she gathered
that other rooms were similarly equipped. It would be necessary to
proceed warily. Directly across the corridor her torch revealed a
door like the one through which she had just passed, and, stealing
forward, she heard through it a subdued hum of talk. That, at least,
was a spot to avoid. Turning to her right, the beam showed that the
far end of the passage twisted abruptly to the left, and she crept
towards the bend, using the flashlight sparingly.
Round the corner the corridor widened out into a spacious hall. To
one side a flight of stone stairs ran upwards; opposite these,
another flight ran down into blackness. On each side were two doors,
and a fifth door faced her--an incongruously elegant portal of
polished oak adorned with grotesque carvings and half masked by rich
velvet hangings. The soles of her supple shoes made no more than a
soft slithering sound on the concrete floor as she moved forward. At
the end she paused undecidedly. That fifth door was intriguing;
intriguing also, after the janitor's vague references to a tunnel,
was the flight of stairs that disappeared in the direction of the
vaults. Susan solved the problem in a reckless way that would have
earned the admiration of Smiler: she took a coin from her pocket and
held it between her palms.
"Heads the stairs, tails the door," she murmured, and opened her
eyes....
Heads.
A whiff of dank, clammy air met her as she felt her way over the
first step. Luckily, the stairs were concrete, as was the upward
flight, and there was no danger of creaking boards or a rotten tread.
Her light showed her a small landing where the direction reversed.
She took the corner and continued downwards.
The cellars seemed to extend over the whole ground space of the
building, most of the weight of which appeared to be taken by a
number of massive pillars. She could only guess at the actual area,
for little but the ceiling was visible. Every available cubic inch
of space was filled from the floor with great mounds of earth,
tightly packed. There must have been tons of it, piled and
compressed into stacks. All the thoroughfare that remained was a
narrow lane which wound between the huge dumps, and these had been
buttressed up on either side of the path so that the last fraction of
volume might be utilised. Down this lane danger lay, for in that
insignificant width there was not much chance of avoiding anyone who
happened to be coming towards her. Moreover, the path was lighted at
intervals by electric bulbs fixed to the side boarding. Switching
off her torch, she transferred her automatic from her hip to her
jacket pocket, where it would be quicker to reach, and went on.
There was a silence in that weird cavern, which was accentuated
rather than relieved by the dull rumble of the plant overhead. That
the true purpose of this plant was to provide power she gathered from
the insulated cables which snaked along on each side.
Presently a yawning hole, fitfully lighted by bulbs suspended from
its earthen roof, confronted her. So this was the tunnel of which
the Keeper of the Door had spoken. She entered it resolutely. The
quality of the air had altered subtly: it had taken on a puzzling,
faint, acid tang, which she could not account for until she came to
the exit. She must have travelled three hundred yards before that,
and then she noticed that there was only darkness in front, and the
bulbs no longer hung from above. She switched on her flash again,
and a moment later she left the tunnel.
A blank, tile-faced wall was before her, and she looked from right to
left in surprise. She was in a second tunnel which ran almost at
right angles to the one she had left, and at distances lights hung on
the walls. She bent the rays of her torch downwards, and they were
reflected by three parallel ribbons of gleaming metal.
And then she understood. She was in the Tube!
CHAPTER XIII
INTEREST IN "H"
Making a closer examination with the aid of her flash, she realised
her good fortune, for a heavy circular door hung back against the
tiling of the tube tunnel. Swinging it cautiously, she found that
when closed it fitted snugly into the round gap where the
Sud-Scandinavia burrow debouched into the City and South London
Railway, so that without a minute study of the surface it was
impossible to know that a door existed at all. Remembering that
between the hours of two and five ack emma, when the Tube is closed,
there are repair gangs moving about its subterranean ways, she
realised the necessity for some such camouflage, and guessed that the
door had only been left open by an oversight. Scrutinising the
inside of it, she found that it was fitted with a strong iron bolt.
There was nothing to be gained by remaining, and she retraced her
steps with all speed. On the return journey she noticed that two
irregular ruts ran on either side of the earthen floor of the boarded
lane. Some heavy-wheeled vehicle had made that trip frequently, but
what it might be she had no notion.
As she went, her head was whirling like a ball-race. A clean-cut
tunnel down which ran power cables, which came to a dead end in the
Tube! The enigma was to her temporarily insoluble, and she had no
time to sit down and make a calm, collected study of the facts from
all their angles. All she knew was that she had stumbled on the
trail of something big, and the most imperative thing at that moment
was to get clear with her knowledge and pass it on to more brilliant
and capable heads. At least, she would have a short laugh over
Storm--he would have to admit that even in circumstances of the
magnitude of the Alpha Triangle she had her uses. But, after that
brief period of exasperation on the one side and self-congratulation
on the other, she had no doubt that Storm was the one man to deal
with the situation accurately and efficiently. The steel-keen
precision of his mind, no less than the steel-strong virility of his
physique, brooked no uneasiness on that score. If she got out, of
course, and when....
At the top of the stairs she paused, but it was only a momentary
hesitation.
There remained still that intriguing door, and, anyway, she was
fairly and squarely in the swim by now. "When you're in the soup,
get all the nourishment out of it you can," was another of Smiler's
adages, and on it she acted. Having commenced the reconnaissance in
such style, one might as well conclude it thoroughly.
The door opened so lightly to her touch that for a second she was
suspicious. An instant later she was reproving herself in no
uncertain terms for this tentative sign of waning determination, and,
taking a grip on the butt of her little automatic, she pushed the
door wide and entered. And then she had her work cut out to suppress
an exclamation.
The room in which she stood was spacious and roughly square. The
walls were hung from ceiling to floor with luxurious curtains of
royal purple velvet embroidered with golden arabesques. The orange
carpet underfoot had a wealth of soft pile that was indescribably
pleasant to tread upon. A double rank of cushioned chairs ran the
length of the room, and a broad gangway paved with costly furs led
between them towards the far end. The restful half-light which
showed her all these things was supplied by three magnificent
chandeliers ranged overhead. It was a room like nothing she had ever
seen or even imagined, something that in its splendour suggested a
mingling of the essentials of a temple and of an Oriental palace. It
was an outrage at the same time--an outrage against all preconceived
standards, against all logic and all norms. It was a concrete
paradox that mocked comprehension and yet was fascinating by sheer
daring originality. Its gorgeous simplicity--its ascetic
voluptuousness--its Philistine reverence--these were contradictions
which numbed understanding and defied criticism.
Dumb with wonder, she simply stared. Her awed gaze travelled again
and again over every detail, and then she looked at the opposite
wall--the one facing the door--towards which she had not yet looked.
And there she saw something which harmonised so perfectly with the
atmosphere that it was evident that the room had been designed and
decorated to house it, and which at the same time explained the
perplexing counter-impressions.
At that end of the room, facing the banks of seats, was a daïs hung
with black, and in the centre of it stood a huge gilded throne. And
to the right of this throne was the keystone which held the whole
architectural monstrosity together and gave its reason and its
justification.
It was a gigantic equilateral triangle of silver which seemed to be
suspended in vacancy without material support, being probably braced
by brackets concealed behind the hangings. It must have been fully
five feet of base, and in the centre of it was a Greek _alpha_,
similarly made of silver.
She was in the council chamber of the Triangle--that exotic room
which nothing but the brain of a madman could have visualised and
brought to substance--the cathedral of a megalomaniac....
And then she saw something else, which up to then had not caught her
eye, for the shadows at that end of the room were deeper and the
interior of the throne itself was shrouded in gloom. But he moved,
and she saw him--the man who lounged on the throne--and then he spoke.
"Hullo, Susan--what do you want?"
Her eyes dilated, for although the figure and face of the man were
the figure and face of the tousled scoundrel who had invited her to
play _chemin-de-fer_, the voice was the voice of Joe Blaythwayt.
"Uncle--Joe?" she breathed.
He lumbered ponderously off the daïs and came towards her.
"I recognised you in that other room," he said, "and I've been
looking for you. What on earth did you want to come here for?"
"What did you want to come for?" she parried.
He waved a hand.
"Men are Different," he said grandly. "How did you get in? Oh, I
suppose you were the little devil who pinched my badge?" He wagged a
fat forefinger at her. "Naughty! I had no end of a job getting in
without it."
"Have you seen the tunnel?" she asked.
"Only a bit of it. I was exploring down there when I heard someone
padding towards me, and beat it back. It must have been you.
Tunnel? That's interesting. Where does it go to?"
"I haven't the foggiest." Her amazement abated, she took command of
the situation automatically. "What we've got to do is to get out of
here quick, and talk afterwards. Rustle! Storm's got to hear of
this at once."
"And Teal," put in Blaythwayt loyally.
"And Teal, if you like. Come along--behind me," she directed
impatiently, and the docile Joe followed her.
They were nearing the door when there came heavy footsteps behind
them, and the light of a hand lamp swept the corridor just behind
them. There were men talking, also, in a language she did not
understand. Blaythwayt stopped in his tracks, apparently frozen with
terror, and she gripped his arm.
"Into that room!" she whispered. "They know us there."
She was opening the door when the approaching rays veered upwards and
fell full on herself and the trembling Joe. A hoarse challenge
echoed down the passage. Unconcernedly the girl took her yellow
packet of gaspers from her pocket and began to light one as she
waited for the men to come up with them. And then, as they arrived
and grouped themselves about the door, she returned the box of