The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (detective books to read TXT) 📕

more so. There was brush, and there was rock, and that was all.

Janet kicked at the brush, and a scorpion scuttled away from her feet. Janet stood still, staring after it, afraid to move. It was an ugly little horror with shiny, jittering legs that clawed at the rock surface and a sting that arched up over its back. Janet swallowed hard and looked longingly down toward the cool shelter of Los Altos.

A voice came hollow and soft from just behind her: “Yes. This is the place.”

Janet whirled around. A stunted bush that was like any other bush and the rock under it that was like any other rock had turned out to be something entirely different. The rock had tilted back and up on a pivot, and the shadowed, thin face and liquidly dark eyes of the man who was sometimes Tio Riquez and other times Bautiste Bonofile looked out of the black, square hole underneath it.

“Come here,” he said softly.

Janet stood braced and rigid, and she moved one foot back a little.

The long, silvered barrel of Bautiste Bonofile’s revolver glinted in the sun. “I won’t hesitate to kill you. I have no prejudice against killing women. I’ve killed a good many at one time and another. Come here.”

Janet took a step and then another. Her shoe sole scraped on rock, reluctantly. She drew a deep breath.

“Don’t do that,” said Bautiste Bonofile. “Don’t scream. I’ll shoot.”

“You—you don’t dare—”

“The noise?” said Bautiste Bonofile. “Is that what you’re thinking of? That won’t stop me. You couldn’t find this place, even when you knew where it was and what to look for. No one who didn’t know it was here would even suspect such an improbable thing. It would be thought that someone shot you and ran off. Come here.”

Janet’s feet moved her unwillingly to the black hole, and Bautiste Bonofile drew back and out of sight.

“I can see you,” he said. “Very plainly. Come inside. There are steps.”

Janet groped down with one foot and found a square, small step cut in the rock. She went down, found another and another. The air felt cool and damp and thick against her face, and she shivered.

There was a little grating noise and a solid thump as the rock door swung shut over her, and the blackness was like a thick cloth over her eyes. She made a little gasping sound.

There was a click, and the bright, round beam of a flashlight moved up and steadied on her face. The dazzling white circle was her whole world, and she could see nothing else and hear nothing until Bautiste Bonofile said in his soft, thoughtful voice:

“How did you know this place was here?”

“I—read about it.”

Fingers moved out of the darkness and touched her throat silkily. “Don’t lie, please.”

Janet pressed her shoulders back hard against cool stone. “I’m not! I did read it—in that same old diary that described the cellar under the church. I remembered it after I noticed the stone face from the roof of the hotel this morning. The diary told how Lieutenant Perona—not the Perona in Los Altos now, but his ancestor—had built another, auxiliary cache above the church. It was a smaller one—for emergencies. It told how to locate it by lining up the rock face with the three pillars.”

“I see,” said Bautiste Bonofile. “I didn’t know all that. I stumbled on the place quite by accident, and I saw that it had possibilities. I didn’t know it had a history. Your research must be very interesting, but twice now it has proven to be dangerous for you. Why did you come here?”

“Why, I was just curious… I wanted to see if it was still here—the cache—and if there were any relics…”

“I see,” Bautiste Bonofile repeated. “There were several things here when I first found it—some old tools and some boxes that had rotted away to dust. I spent a considerable amount of time improving the place.”

The flashlight flicked away from Janet’s face and swung around to show a narrow, dark doorway in the opposite wall.

“A—a tunnel?” Janet asked.

“Yes.”

The flashlight came back to her face, and the silence grew and lengthened interminably.

Janet swallowed. “What—what are you going to do?”

“With you?” Bautiste Bonofile inquired. “You’ve caused me quite a lot of trouble.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No. Of course not.” Bautiste Bonofile chuckled gently. “It’s amusing to think that Perona’s ancestor is furnishing me a hiding place, isn’t it? I would have appreciated it even more all this time if I’d known that. I’m glad you told me. Now as for you. I wonder—”

“Are you going to—to shoot me?”

“That’s what I’m wondering,” said Bautiste Bonofile.

It was weird and unbelievable, and it was chillingly real. He didn’t grit his teeth or snarl or run through any gamut of emotions, but Janet knew with a queer, cold clarity that if he decided it was a good idea to shoot her he would do it right here and now without any further fuss. She waited, holding her breath, and a pulse began to pound in her throat.

“I wonder,” said Bautiste Bonofile again, “I think perhaps I could use you. Captain Perona seemed very interested indeed.”

Janet tried to keep her voice from quavering. “You know he wouldn’t let you go even if—even if—”

“Even if he knew I was holding you for a hostage?” Bautiste Bonofile finished. “I think it very likely that he might. He knows me, you see. He knows that whatever I promised to do to you, I’d do. And even if he didn’t care for you much personally, you are a citizen of the United States, and that might mean diplomatic difficulties for him if you should die in some particularly unpleasant manner in public, as it were…. Go through that door there. Walk straight ahead.”

The flashlight moved away and outlined the narrow doorway. Janet moved stiffly toward it, and the rough sides brushed her shoulders. Her body blocked all but stray flickers of the lights, and she groped uncertainly.

“Watch your head,” Bautiste Bonofile warned. He made no noise behind her. “Keep going.”

The tunnel went on endlessly, and the air grew dust-choked and stifling. Several times Janet bumped her head against projections of rock, and time and the tunnel stretched into nightmare proportions in her dazed mind.

“Slowly now,” Bautiste Bonofile said.

And then suddenly there was a scratching, scraping sound right over her head. Janet stopped with a jerk. The barrel of the revolver made a round, dangerous period pressed against her back. Bautiste Bonofile’s hand slid over her shoulder and touched her lips warningly.

“Quiet,” he whispered.

The fast, irregular scraping stopped, and something snorted loudly. Then Doan’s voice, sounding muffled but quite clear, said:

“Don’t you think you’re a bit too old and too big to dig for field mice?”

There was another snort and a mumbling growl. The scraping sound started again.

“Quit it, stupid,” said Doan. “Get away from there and stop playing puppy.”

Carstairs bayed angrily, and the sound of it was like a blow against Janet’s eardrums.

“Well, what?” Doan demanded. “I don’t see anything.”

Carstairs bayed again, more loudly.

“Less noise, please,” said Doan. “We’re trespassers, you know. Do you want to get me an interview with some of Perona’s soldiers?”

Bautiste Bonofile moved in the darkness and murmured in Janet’s ear: “Reach up over your head. Push the rock.”

The rock was counterweighted like the other, and it swung back and up in a solid square. Sunlight bit brilliantly into Janet’s eyes.

She was staring up into Doan’s surprised face. He made a quick, tentative motion with his right hand that stopped as soon as it started.

“That’s right,” said Bautiste Bonofile. “I will shoot her unless you do exactly as I say.”

Doan smiled blandly. “Well, of course. I’m not hostile. I was just startled. You’re Bautiste Bonofile, huh? I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you.”

“Step down into the tunnel,” said Bautiste Bonofile. His hand touched Janet’s shoulder. “Back up.”

She went back three shuffling steps. Doan swung agilely through the square opening and dropped into the tunnel. He kept his hands half raised.

Above them Carstairs barked angrily.

“Make him stop that noise!” Bautiste Bonofile ordered. “Make him come down here!”

Doan turned around and hauled himself half out of the opening. He grabbed Carstairs by the collar. He pulled. So did Carstairs—in the opposite direction.

“Get him in here quickly,” Bautiste Bonofile said in a dangerous tone. “Don’t play tricks.”

“He’s afraid of holes,” Doan panted. “Come on, damn you! Get in here!”

Carstairs’ claws skittered on the edge of the opening. Doan was hanging down from his collar, half suspended.

“He got stuck—in a culvert once,” Doan gasped. “Scared—ever since. Come on, Carstairs. Hike!”

He let go and ducked. Carstairs sprang straight over his head with a raging snarl, fangs bared, eyes greenish and savage. His broad chest struck Janet with the weight of a pile driver and knocked her sideways and down, and as she fell she saw Doan spin around as lightly and gracefully as a dancer with the little .25 automatic in his hand. He shot and shot again instantly.

The powder flare burned Janet’s face, and the echoing roar of the shots deafened her. The smoky tunnel tipped and swerved dizzily in front of her eyes.”

Doan’s hands were under her arms, lifting her. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no,” Janet gasped. “I guess—”

Carstairs growled in the darkness.

“Let him alone,” Doan said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Janet swallowed hard, fighting against the numb sickness that was creeping over her. “Is he—hurt?”

“Not a bit,” said Doan. “He’s just dead. Here! Brace up!”

“I—I think—”

Doan scrambled out of the tunnel and leaned back through the opening. “Here! Grab my hands!”

Janet caught at them, and he swung her lightly upward into fresh, clean air and sunlight.

“Sit down. That’s it.”

Janet sat down and breathed deeply again and again.

“Feel better now?” Doan asked, watching her.

“Yes,” said Janet firmly. “Did you really kill Bautiste Bonofile?”

Doan nodded. “I thought it was a good idea. He might have been carrying another rattlesnake in his pocket, and I’m allergic to them. Carstairs.”

Carstairs put his head out of the square opening. Doan caught his collar and heaved. Carstairs grunted and scrambled and came up on to solid ground. He shook himself distastefully, looking at Doan.

“That was nice interference you ran for me,” Doan told him. “I thank you very kindly.”

Carstairs sat down and looked pleased with himself. He lolled out a tongue that had an ugly little smear of red on it and panted cheerfully at Janet. Doan walked over and kicked the tunnel entrance stone, and it swung on its pivot and thumped shut and became part of the smooth unbroken tile of the patio in which they were sitting.

“Neat,” Doan commented.

Janet looked around. A high wall stretched on three sides of them, and the other side was taken up by the long sun veranda of a house. There were chrome easy chairs with gaily colored leather cushions on the veranda and a swing with a striped canopy and tables with glass tops.

“Quite a gaudy dive,” said Doan. “The earthquake knocked a piece out of the wall over there.” He pointed to a V-shaped notch with a pile of rubble lying below it. “Carstairs and I came in that way. I think that tunnel must have an air-hole or a ventilator in it. Carstairs trailed it clear across the patio. How did you get into it?”

“From the other end. I read about a cache that Lieutenant Perona had dug, and I was looking for it when—”

“That Perona,” said Doan, “turned out to be quite a dangerous guy for you to