Lorens obeyed without question. He might have been a boy often again when Klaas controlled most of his life. As he settled himself on the wet planking, the old man tossed a filthy blanket, made of pieces of dirty sacking patched together, over him. Then Klaas took his place in the boat and cast off.
“But why did you — ”
“Lose my wits, Mijnheer? Who watches a fool or checks the life of a brain-sick man? Oh, my part of ‘Old One’ is well set now. I have played it for more than a year. Never did I think when young that I would be a W-Golek when I reached an elder’s years.”
“W-Goleks are puppets,” commented Lorens dryly; the thought of his sympathy and concern in the shed pricked him now. “I can guess that no one pulls your strings.”
Klaas laughed, well pleased and complacent. “That they do not! And you, Mijnheer, are the first to see below the mask.”
“Kaatje — ?”
“The little one?” Was it only his listener’s imagination or was there an odd softening in Klaas’ voice now. “No, she does not know. Her life is hard, I will add no knowledge to it which might bring danger any closer to her. If I am caught, though that is not probable, since these Sons of Satan have minds that follow certain roads only and below these roads one can travel safely. I will drag none down with me, least of all the little one.”
“What of the Mevrouw?”
Klaas spat into the water. “A fool who thinks only of her own wisdom. In time she will trip herself up because she will not see any trap which may lie at her feet When that time comes, I shall try to set the little one free. She has the spirit of a warrior queen. But let us now plan for you, Mijnheer Lorens.”
“I’ve come for the Flowers.”
“What else? But there are others nosing around. They know nothing, but they suspect much. And they have been waiting for you to return — into their net.”
“I have to wait until the fifteenth. I must have a hiding place — ”
“You can do what you have come to do and be away before morning!”
“What do you mean?”
“I was with the Tuan when he bought the safe. He was told that not always did they work perfectly as to the time lock. After you left Holland, I went to that safe-maker and talked with his head locksmith. This safe was of a new type which later proved defective. It could have been opened any time within the past six months — it will be opened tonight. We shall idle along here, with me playing the fisherman, until it is dusk. They do not watch this part of the canal very well. Then we’ll go through the grounds to the ruins — ”
It went as easily as Klaas had so simply planned. Deepening twilight found the boat below the once proud water gardens of Norreys. Lorens watched the shore line from under the sacking while Klaas, as the idiot old one, mumbled and nodded in a trembling palsy over a string he trailed through the water.
“The outer cellar door in the courtyard has been cleared. We can enter there.”
Lorens tried not to think that this blackened shell, where already green vines and tangled grass had made successful assault, was Norreys. That it was also the grave of three men he would not think at all.
They slunk around to the courtyard. The door of the cellars was charred away, and they had no difficulty edging down the worn steps within. Klaas had produced a small torch, of a size to be easily palmed, and from its blunt nose came a thread of light which allowed them to avoid the obvious pitfalls.
Every detail of the day he had last visited this place was so clearly painted in his mind that Lorens would have sworn that he could have moved unhesitatingly straight to the safe. But confronted by the mass of wreckage fallen from the upper floors, he discovered that he had not the slightest idea which way to turn until Klaas pointed it out to him.
They had to do some digging, shoving away bits of charred wood, ashes, and nameless fused masses with their hands. And twice a half-eaten beam must be levered out. Then they reached the part of the cellars which had not lain under the house but had extended under the garden, and here their way was comparatively clear.
Then came the moment when Lorens crouched before the safe, wiped his fingers carefully, and turned the dial to those six letters. What if the locksmith had been wrong? What if it would not open until the fifteenth? Or perhaps the intricate lock had been jammed — never to open again.
He rubbed his ear almost into the steel jacket trying to hear the tumblers falling home. But the sound of the canal beyond the wall was stronger.
“L-O-R-E-N-S.” Lorens in Dutch, Lawrence in English, the name he shared with his friend overseas. It was done. Would the door open? He pulled sharply at the stubborn metal which gave not an inch.
“Your locksmith — ” he began hotly.
“Turn once to the right,” ordered Klaas, “and then lift up as you pull.”
Lorens obeyed, and this time it did come, grudgingly, with a protesting shriek of hinges which sounded as a thunderclap in their over-sensitive ears.
He did not need the torch to find the plush case on the inner shelf. But when he raised its lid, Klaas turned down the light to pick out every sparkling facet of the ugly gem. It was there and unharmed.
“Very pretty, Mijnheer!”
As one man Lorens and Klaas swung around — to face disaster. Hendrik stood there smiling in the light of a powerful lamp, almost as if his hand was extended in greeting instead of holding a gun trained upon them. And with him were others — men who wore black coats, coats which seemed to have a faint sheen as if they were fashioned of black beetles’ casing.
16
COUSIN HENDRIK
“Did I not say, Kapitan, that the fox would lead us straight to it?”
“You have said a lot of things with that ever-wagging tongue. But this time it seems that you are right. So we meet again, Mijnheer, not perhaps under the same roof, but at least on the same ground.”
That flattish face beneath the peak of the army cap, that mouth — he had seen them before. But not in a black uniform. What was that about meeting on the same ground — ? Only two Nazis had he met here, and they were dead. Or —
“Group Leader Schweid! But I thought — ”
“Kapitan Schweid! But I must congratulate you on an excellent memory. You were about to say, I think, that you thought me dead. For a long time I had the same melancholy belief concerning you. And, believe me, Mijnheer, I was truly sorry. You see, we had learned that only you held the secret of the hiding place of that.” With his swagger cane he pointed to the Flowers of Orange.
“We knew that sooner or later you would be back for it, as you are. And luckily we had van Oster on the scent, for we might have just missed you tonight — just! If he had not seen you today — ”
“Van Oster?” Lorens asked. Time might not help them, but if he could keep Schweid talking, maybe some chance might come to them after all.
“Pardon,” Schweid clicked his heels in a stiff but ceremonious bow. In the two years past he had assumed some of the junker lacquer. Perhaps he was one of the Party men who had aristocratic ambitions. “It is time that kinsmen met. Mijnheer Lorens van Norreys, may I present Hendrik van Oster. He is a second cousin of yours.”
A tag end of conversation struck through from Lorens’ memory to his utter surprise he found himself repeating it aloud.
“We do not know them!”
Schweid laughed with honest enjoyment which increased when he turned his head and saw the mottled patches of angry color in van Oster’s plump cheeks.
“The retort perfect, Mijnheer. But now I am afraid that the boot will be on the other foot, and the van Osters will not know you. A traitor to the Reich is not a good kinsman for a loyal servant of the Fuehrer to own.”
“Not that I am a traitor,” Lorens was secretly amazed at his ability to keep this light conversational ball rolling. In the past two minutes Klaas had inched back into the outer fringes of the light. Were they too bemused to notice that?
“I think you will find that you are. Anyo
ne who is not in sympathy with the present government is considered so. We have discovered that that simplifies matters extremely. And now, Mijnheer, I am going to ask you and your friend — whom I wish to congratulate on one of the most excellent pieces of character-acting it has ever been my pleasure to witness — to step aside from that safe. It is just possible that where we have found one treasure, we may find two — ”
Before he had finished, Klaas was obeying with an alacrity which Lorens guessed was important. So, without argument, he followed the old man across to the opposite side of the chamber.
“I was right!” Schweid swooped upon the gaping safe and brought out the wrapped picture roll. He pulled off with feverish haste the napkins Lorens had tied about it and unrolled the portrait of the first Lorens van Norreys.
“Am I right in believing this of value?” he demanded of Lorens with calm effrontery.
“To me. He was an ancestor of mine — ”
“Down, Tuan, against the wall!”
The words were Malay, the voice was Klaas’. And his flailing arm struck a blow across Lorens’ chest flinging him back against the stone. Someone, perhaps van Oster, swung high the lamp just in time for them all to see clearly that Klaas held a dark object cupped in his hand. For a moment which was lifted out of time he held it so, and then, almost lazily, he tossed it straight at Schweid’s widespread boots.
Quickly he flung himself down, dropping upon Lorens so that they lay folded together. There was a single blast of fear, the sound of feet shuffling which was swallowed up in a glare and flash, the deafening sound of explosion. Something gave besides the flesh and blood it had been aimed at. There was a gurgle and a rushing in the earth itself.
Lorens struck out blindly, pushing aside the limp body which fettered his. All he knew was that he was not yet dead, and that he must get out of this blackness. In pure panic he stumbled forward — only to be met by water. It was rising steadily, shooting into the blasted steel of the cellar as if the chamber was a bottle held under a pump spout.
It was that which brought him to his senses, sent him groping for Klaas. If the canal wall of the cellar was gone, blown open by the blast, there was little hope for them. His fingers found the floating silk of hair, and gripping a fistful of it he heaved, resting the inert head against his thigh above water until he could get a safer hold. Hands under the armpits, so — now up against his own body. The water was waist-high and climbing. Its movement filled the night with sound. But there was nothing else to be heard. If any of Schweid’s crew had survived that blast, they had not bested the flood.
“Klaas! Klaas!” He shook the body he supported. If Klaas could not manage to help, they were lost. He knew that he could not fight the flood and support Klaas’ weight at the same time.
But there was a twitching in that length of flesh pressed against him. Then Klaas moved one of his arms.
“Klaas!” he cried again. “The canal wall is broken, and the water rising. We must get out!”
Now the water soaked through his shirt, cold against his breast. Up and up it would crawl until perhaps all that was left of the old cellars would be filled. He could smell its particularly weedy, fishy flavor.
Klaas moved in his arms, made some unintelligible speech. Then his flaccid body suddenly stiffened as if his wits had entirely returned.
“Water — ?” It was a question.
“The canal!” repeated Lorens. “The wall is gone!”
“Then we should go to — ”
Lorens might almost have laughed, there was something like a laugh choking in his throat. But it was also close to a scream, and he locked his lips against it.
“Which way?” he gulped.
“Through the water out to the canal.” Klaas seemed to have recovered. “You haven’t forgotten how to swim?”
The water was close to the hollows of Lorens’ collar bones now. Swim through it, under it, daring collision with what was left of the stone walls? A madman’s proposal. And yet, what other chance had either of them?
“Can you manage?” he demanded.
Klaas actually chuckled. “I was weaned on salt water, Tuan, have you forgotten that? Shall we go?”
He slid out of Lorens’ grasp, and the boy could hear the splashing of his progress through the flood. There was nothing to do but follow, with the water a knifeline against his throat. He must duck under the surface of that flood and trust to luck to find a way out of what was now an execution chamber. Even as he flexed his body to take that step, he snapped erect again. His hands were empty — where was the necklace? He had not come halfway around the world to lose it now.
He had the case in his hands when Schweid ordered him away from the safe. It and its contents must still remain by the other wall where Klaas had pushed him down. Step by step he retraced his path his hands outstretched at shoulder height before him.
As they slapped hard against the brick, water lapped his chin. Here was the wall, he must go under the flood surface to hunt. A deep breath, then under, his nails scraping the rough brick he followed as a guide. Each piece of rubble he touched made his heart lurch, but it was only stone and bits of brick that he found.
With bursting lungs he straightened. Under once again, he must find it this time, he must! Soon he would not be able to get the air he had to have. Desparingly he swept the floor, fighting down panic.
In the last second, as his ears began to fill with a wild roaring, he touched velvet, already slimy with water. It almost slipped from his fingers as he managed to pop open the catch and pull out the sharp-edged wreath of flowers. With the water tickling his lips now, he stretched on tiptoe long enough to toss the necklace over his head and fill his lungs again.
Back now, and hurry, hurry! There was no sound of Klaas’ making to guide him, he had to rely on chance to get him out. He thrust forward until he could feel the pressure of the inflowing current.
Klaas was right, most of the wall must have gone, and with it the thickness of earth which was the natural canal bank. Lorens swam on without encountering an obstacle. Surely he must be out into the open now. He shot up and broke surface where a moon was just beginning to silver the water.
“Come ashore, dunderhead!”
The hissed order was followed by a vigorous waving of a branch overhanging the water’s edge on the Norreys bank. Lorens swam toward the signal, reaching it in a few strokes. Then, wet as a water rat, he lay panting in the mud beside Klaas, who sat crosslegged, in the meditative pose of a Buddha, watching the flow of the main current intently.
“We’d better be moving on,” the younger man suggested tentatively a few moments later. “Though I don’t believe we’ll have to fear discovery — ”
“Do not be so sure of that!”
“Why not? Schweid is certainly dead, and so are the rest — ”
“Not all. Someone came ashore here before us. Look, there is a branch of willow stripped of leaves where he pulled himself up. And beyond are fresh bootmarks leading up toward the house.”
“Schweid? But he couldn’t have lived, not after being in the direct line with that grenade. In fact, I don’t see how we escaped. I thought those things were more powerful”
“The ordinary ones are. This was of special manufacture, to be used by the underground. No, I do not think that the Kapitan lived — though he may yet be a witness against us — ”
Lorens glanced at the now placid waters of the canal with a shiver. He understood what Klaas had meant by that somewhat ambiguous statement.
“But the others were farther away; one of them must have kept his wits and won through before the water trapped him. He may come back with reinforcements, or he may consider us dead and be quiet — ”
“Why?”
“Because of that.” Klaas reached out a rough brown hand and touched the necklace which lay across Lorens’ breast. “Treasuretrove, safely locked where only he knows now; that is what he may be thinking. And if he does, he will not be quick to mention it in any re
port he may make. Instead he will plan to recover it himself when this night’s work is no longer so fresh in his comrades’ minds.”
“I only hope it wasn’t van Oster — ”
“You knew him before?”
“Yes. He is posing as one of the underground.” Swiftly Lorens recounted the interview with Mevrouw Staats.
Klaas’ tongue met his front teeth with that particular click with which he signified annoyance. “We must make sure. The little one is not to be drawn into danger through such offal. Make that safe” — he flicked the necklace — “and let us go.”
They used every bit of cover the garden afforded and started in pursuit of the unknown, which ended abruptly when the prints they followed came to car tracks gouged deep in the neglected gravel of the old drive.
“We must go back by river,” Lorens panted. “And we don’t have to be afraid of running into the Nazis at the house; most of them, if not all, were here.”
“We shall not be able to use the river entrance. That I can do only when the little one expects me, and she will not for a second time tonight.”
“Well, we’ll have to take our chance with the gate guard, then — only let’s go!” There was something feverish in Lorens’ desire for speed.
Once before he had felt that same drive within an aching head — when he had taken the road to Tjima. He had accomplished what he had come for, but he was not going away without making sure that Kaatje was not entangled in some web of van Oster’s weaving. If there was time, he would make her go back to England with him.
There was no longer need to hide under the sacking in the boat. Instead, he almost wrested the oars out of Klaas’ hands — the old Eurasian might present an iron front to the world, but his grip was less certain, his step less firm, than they had been two years before — and sent the waterlogged craft downstream at the best pace he could maintain.
“We will pick up Kaatje and the Mevrouw and take them on — ” He planned aloud.
“Where?” There was just a hint of indulgence in Klaas’ question.