Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular HappeningsMacaulay, Rose
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Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings
Macaulay, Rose
Detective and mystery stories; Geneva (Switzerland) -- Fiction
"I don't know. I've lost them. I didn't follow at once, you see; I
waited, thinking they would come out presently. When they didn't, I
came down too. But by that time they'd got a long start. And, as there
are other exits, they may have got out anywhere."
"Well, let's come along and look. We'll each take a different passage;
we'll explore every avenue, like Cabinet Ministers. I'll go straight
ahead; one of you two take that right-hand road, and the other the
next turning, whenever it comes. We'll each get out where and how we
can. Come on."
Garth turned up to the right. Henry went on with Macdermott for some
way, till another turning branched off, running left.
"Ah, there's yours," said the Ulster delegate. "I shall keep straight
on, whatever alluring avenues open on either side to tempt me.
To-morrow (if we get out of this) we'll bring a gang of police down
and do the thing thoroughly. Good luck, Beechtree. Don't scrag honest
civil servants or good clergymen on sight. And don't let old Kratzky
scrag you. Politically he's on the right side (that's why he'd want to
scrag you, and quite right, too), but personally he's what you might
call a trifle unprincipled, and that's why he'd do it as soon as look
at you."
38
Henry walked alone again. The passage oozed water. The silence was
chilly and deep. Against it and far above it, occasional sounds beat,
as the world's sounds beat downwards into graves.
Geneva was amazing. How many people knew that it was under-run by this
so intricate tunnel system? Did the town authorities know? Surely yes.
And, knowing, had they not thought, when the recent troubles began, to
explore these avenues? (How that horrid phrase always stuck in one's
mind; one could not get away from it, as many a statesman, many an
orator daily proved.) But possibly they had explored them with no
result. Possibly Sub-section 4 (Organisation of Search) of Committee 9
knew all about them. What that sub-section did not yet know was that
Charles Wilbraham, hand in glove with autocrat Russia, armament kings,
and the Calvinist church, lurked and plotted in the avenues by night,
like the spider in her web waiting for flies.
There were turnings here and there, to one side or the other, but
Henry kept a straight course.
At last he was brought up sharp, nearly running his face into a rough
clay wall, and above him he saw a trap-door. Here, then, was his exit.
The door was only just above his head; he pushed at it with his hands;
it gave not at all.
After all, one would expect a trap-door to be bolted. He wondered if
it would be of any use to knock. Did it give on to a street, a
courtyard, or a house?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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