Twenty fourth level pete.., p.13
Twenty-Fourth Level (Peter Craig Book 1), page 13
“If they are honourable,” said Craig.
“Of course they are. You must just do everything I say and—and tell me everything I want to know.”
“And what happens if I don’t agree?” asked Craig, moving towards the steps which led up to the verandah.
“Then I run back into my room and start ringing bells. Stop there,” she added, prepared to run. “Do you agree?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Yes, I do.”
“Then you may come up. But not here. Somebody might see.”
She met him at the top of the steps and led him along the dark verandah towards the main part of the house. At the end of a short passage there was a door, which she opened. The room inside was pitch dark. “Talk quietly, for Heaven’s sake,” she whispered, “and don’t put on the light. We can see enough to talk by in the next room. Here. Give me your hand!”
A small firm hand found his and pulled him forward and through the dark room.
“What is this place?” he whispered.
“The museum.”
“And where are we going?”
“The library. It’s lit by an outside lamp. If we put on any inside lights the guard will see. Although he’s probably asleep by now. He comes round every two hours, when he remembers.”
The library was large and pleasantly cool. The light from a lamp under the eaves outside shone on leather armchairs and on walls lined with bound volumes of old mine reports and technical books, and on a long table laid with reviews. Alcidia sat down and Craig pulled up another armchair and stretched out his legs with a sigh of contentment. She looked him over curiously.
“Your trousers are all plastered with mud. What are you doing here?”
“Investigating a case,” he told her.
“You mean—Graben?”
He noticed that she didn’t refer to him as Horst any more. “Yes,” he said, “and it’s a serious business, I’m afraid. And not just for me either. I know you don’t believe the story I told you about the—”
“About the attempt to—to kill you? But I do believe it. It was in the Estado this morning, with your name and everything. Didn’t you read it?”
“No, I got up too early.”
“Well,” she said, and looked away from him.
“Well what?”
She faced him. “I apologise for not believing you.”
“I don’t blame you. It must have sounded fantastic. Which it was. But that wasn’t what you were going to say. There is another reason, isn’t there, why you know now that what I told you was true, and it concerns Graben?”
“Yes. Although how you guessed I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, when I left you I was—very angry, as you know, because you seemed to think you could tell me any old story and I would believe it. So I thought I would tell Graben a little bit about what you had said to me and see if I could find out from him something which would prove that you were completely wrong. I mean about his shooting at you.”
“That’s torn it,” said Craig, “that and the newspapers. He’ll be on his guard now. I was hoping he would still be thinking I was dead.”
She shivered, and made a little gesture with her hand. “He didn’t arrive back until today, and when I met him this evening it was a bad moment anyway. He had just had a row with Papa about something that had happened at the mine. When I told him that I had met you again he went quite white, and then he lost his temper completely. He seized my arm and—” she stopped for a moment, outraged—“he shook me, and said the most awful things about you, and I was to tell him every single thing you had said, and what I had told you, and did you know he was here. And so on. He kept on repeating himself.”
“Alcidia,” said Craig urgently, but without raising his voice. “What did you tell him? Did you say anything about the diamonds? Please think carefully. It’s very important.”
“No, of course I didn’t. I told him nothing at all after that. I shook his hand off—which wasn’t easy, but I’m strong, you know—and anyway when I asked him about Ilse he sort of staggered and loosened his grip. Then I told him I never wanted to see him again.”
“What did he say?”
“He called me a—a name. I slapped his face.”
“Good girl. I shall be very careful never to call you a name.”
She half-smiled and looked at him. “No. I don’t think you would. But then you’re different. I don’t trust him now, or anything he says. You see, if it had been true what he said, that you were just a policeman who took bribes and you had framed him to save somebody else who had paid you—”
“Well?” said Craig, smiling.
“Well, if it had been true, what had he got to fear from you, and why was he so desperate to know what you had told me?”
“Yes,” said Craig, approvingly, “you saw through that one. And then?”
“When I slapped him?”
“Yes. What did he do?”
“He looked as if he was going to kill me for a moment. Then he sort of pulled himself together and apologised, and said it was all a mistake, and that he would explain it all to my father and tell him about you and that I had met him in Rio. And then he said that if I would forget the whole thing he would do the same, and not tell Papa.”
“What did you say to that?”
“Nothing. I just walked away. Rather fast,” she added, “because I was frightened.”
Craig leaned forward and took her hand in both of his. She was trembling. She didn’t try to pull her hand away. “You darling,” he said, “it must have been a horrible experience, but you’re very brave. He must know now that he can’t just bully you into silence. Have you told your father?”
“No, I haven’t. You see, soon after he talked to Graben, Papa left for the farm—we have a dairy farm about fifty kilometres away. He had to go there urgently and there was no time to tell him the whole story before he went. Besides—I was very confused about the whole thing and I wanted to think it over first. And he was so busy telling me about his row with Graben that I felt I couldn’t worry him with something else. And I can’t telephone him now, because the line is down again.”
“Graben knew that,” said Craig, thoughtfully, “and he took the risk. But he knows that I’m alive, and he must guess that you told me he worked here. So he’ll expect me to turn up at some time. But not alone, I think. He would expect me to come as a witness for the police investigating Gomes” death, and he knows there’s no hard evidence against him. The only thing that would tell against him in the eyes of the Brazilian police is his criminal record in Bangasa, but he must know that it would take at least a week for the record to be transmitted to Rio, and for the Rio D.O.P.S. to inform the Minas Gerais D.O.P.S., and for somebody to start action here in Victorina. No. His immediate problem is you, and what you may tell your father. And since your father didn’t cancel his trip to the farm and summon him for an explanation, he knows that you haven’t told him. Yet. But he will expect you to do it when your father comes back. When is that?”
“Tuesday night.”
“Two days. I don’t want to alarm you, and I’m pretty sure nothing will happen, but I think you should stay here tomorrow—don’t even leave the house if possible, and don’t let Graben come and see you at any price. I don’t think he’ll dare to attack you, but he can’t be sure of what may happen when your father comes back, and if he could somehow keep you quiet he might try it.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” said Alcidia stoutly. She glanced at Craig. “Not now. But whey would he act like that? The worst that could happen to him is that he might be sacked. But it would be difficult for Papa to explain to the directors that he had dismissed Graben because he had called me names. And even so he could get another job quickly.”
“But he doesn’t want to leave the mine at any price. It’s all connected with something which is going on at the mine, and he’s mixed up in it to the hilt. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out. All I can be certain of is that he can’t afford to leave the mine—yet. And with both your father and the police suspicious of him he might be unable to carry out his plan.”
“But what plan? Is it something to do with the Bahians? They’re making more trouble than ever.”
“How?”
“That was what Papa and Graben were arguing about this evening. I told you that Graben brought in a group of Bahian miners and that they were always fighting with the locals. Well, one of them is a capoeirista—do you know what that is?”
“Not much,” said Craig. “Isn’t it a kind of fighting, which was developed by the slaves in the north-east? They hadn’t any weapons, of course, so they evolved something as deadly as karate, but using only their legs. Isn’t that it?”
“Yes,” said Alcidia. “I’ve only seen it as a dance, where the whole thing is done to the beat of a drum and they slide about on the ground, turning somersaults and cartwheels, and they always look as if they were about to kill each other, but never do. It’s quite incredible to watch how fast they move and how each slips out of the way of the other’s kick at the last moment.” She paused.
“Go on,” said Craig, interested.
“Well, today it wasn’t a dance. Far from it. The Bahian who is the capoeirista apparently picked a quarrel with a big boy from Victorina, who works with the Bahians on the lowest level of the mine, where it’s so dreadfully hot. The local boy was very strong and all the girls used to want to go out with him. But they had a fight and the capoeirista, who is only a little man, with a horrible face, just killed him with a kick under the heart. He kicked with his two feet together, as they do.”
“With his feet together?” asked Craig incredulously.
“Yes.”
“How very odd.”
“I don’t see why,” said Alcidia. “After all, horses do.”
“But my dear girl,” said Craig, “horses go on all fours.”
“So they do in the capoeira, said Alcidia triumphantly. “They fight with their hands on the ground, most of the time waving their legs about.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Craig, with mock earnestness. “Can’t you show me?”
She was out of her chair before she looked down at her nightdress, then at Craig, and sat down again. “No Mr Craig,” she said, pulling her dressing gown together, and they both laughed.
“What happened after the fight?” asked Craig.
“Father said the capoeirista—he’s called Jair— should be shut up and the police called in, but Graben said it was only an accident, because the other man must have had a weak heart, and insisted that if the police went down the mine it would upset everybody and—and the production would fall off even more.”
“But you can’t cover up a death like that,” said Craig.
“Of course not. Graben promised that he would make a full report to the police saying that it was a fight but that the death was an accident—and he would suggest that everything should be resolved at the inquest. He guaranteed that Jair would appear whenever the police wanted him and in the meantime he would keep him out of the mine and give him work at his own house. Graben is building a swimming pool—”
“I know,” said Craig, “and a very odd swimming pool it is.”
“How on earth do you know that?” asked Alcidia astonished. “Even I haven’t seen it. Graben said he wouldn’t invite anyone until it’s finished.”
“I’ll tell you in a minute, but first finish your story about the death in the mine. What did your father say to Graben?”
“He said he agreed in the end, but unwillingly, and he told him he would go down the mine himself on Tuesday and see how the rest of the Bahians were getting on with the locals. Graben apparently said quite sharply that It wasn’t necessary, but Papa insisted. Graben was furious, and went off saying he wasn’t trusted any more.”
“And about time,” observed Craig. “How does he get the labour and the stone for the pool? All for free?”
“Oh yes. It’s in the Company s interest to have a comfortable place for the assistant mine superintendent to live in near the mine. But Graben pays them overtime, I think, when he uses some of the Bahians on Sundays. And he’s allowed a few cars of lapa every week for the building. “
“How do you know all this, Alcidia?”
“Oh, I work in the Company offices when one of the secretaries is away. I rather enjoy it, and it’s something to do. Anyway, I’ve always been interested in the running of, the mine. It’s about the only thing that is interesting around here. But Mr Craig—”
“Peter,” said Craig. “Don’t you like my name?”
“Peter? Yes, it’s a nice name. And now will you please tell me what you are doing here, where you are staying, and how you know about Graben’s house. And everything. Why did you really come here?”
“I would go a much longer way,” said Craig, “to see you.”
“But that wasn’t the real reason why you came here from Rio. Or was it?” said Alcidia. “A little, bit,” she added, glancing at him and looking away again.
“I came to your home, dear Alcidia, because I wanted to see you. And for no other reason. But I came to Victorina because I wanted to find out for myself what Graben was up to, and whether he was really the man with the bow who tried to kill me. And if so, why? You see, when you told me about his skill with a fishing bow it seemed to be the missing piece in the puzzle, but if it was he, what was the connection between the diamond story and the attempt to do me in. There was obviously something about the diamonds which had to be kept very secret indeed, and my past knowledge of him as diamond smuggler, and my ability to interfere, were evidently so important that he had to run the risk of putting me out of the way. For good. But I still don’t know why, although I know a lot more now than I did when I saw you last. At that pleasant dinner we had together,” he added maliciously.
She flushed and changed the subject hastily. “But where does our mine come into all this? It’s a gold mine, after all.”
“That’s another thing I don’t know, but I’m on the track now, I think. And you gave me the first clue.”
“I did?”
“Yes. When you said that Graben was so interested in the mine that he scarcely ever took holidays. Now I had been assuming that he led a sort of double life, spending all his leave and his spare time as an agent for a group of garimpeiros. Or that he was a garimpeiro himself when he could get away from the mine. But if so, surely he would have had to travel around a lot more. It would have been his chief interest, since there is no doubt—I don’t think I told you this—that he has been making a lot of money out of his diamonds, and he would have taken every opportunity of getting away from the mine. But from what you said that is precisely what he doesn’t do. You said he won’t take leave even when it’s due to him. Therefore, and this is the first big lead, the mine is somehow directly connected with the diamonds.”
“But you don’t find diamonds in mines, at least, not in Brazil. You find them on the surface, in streams. “
“Yes. Or in potholes in river beds or where rivers used to run. But never deep in the ground. What is more, when you do find them in mines—as in South Africa, for instance—the whole process of getting the stones. out of the rock or the conglomerate in which they are found is just about as laborious as getting gold out of your ore in Poço Novo. Most diamond miners in South Africa never even see a diamond—they’re extracted by a long process of crushing and washing, and it’s only the people who work in the final stages who actually see the stones. In fact,” he added thoughtfully “it’s just like the process at Poço Novo, but with completely different kinds of crushers and washing systems and no use of chemicals because diamonds have to be preserved in the exact state they’re in. So what on earth can be the connection between Graben’s diamonds and the goldmine? Has somebody cached a large store of raw diamonds, all similar to each other from a technical point of view—”
“How are they similar?”
“Perhaps I didn’t tell you. All the stones Graben was selling appear to have come originally from one ‘pipe’—that is, from the same volcanic tube in which they were all formed. They are all the same colour and they have the same kind of minute markings on the outside of the raw stones. But only a real expert could have spotted it, and obviously Graben didn’t. If he had, he’d have sold them to a dozen dealers instead of one.”
“And you think someone got all, these diamonds together and hid them?” said Alcidia, thoughtfully. “On the twenty-fourth level, I suppose.”
Craig stared at her. “Why the twenty-fourth?”
“It’s the lowest working level and so it’s the hottest, where the work is terribly hard. Nobody goes down there unless they have to, but there’s been a lot of work on that level during the past year, and Graben has supervised it all. A lot of new galleries were driven, and then shut off because they couldn’t find the ore, and that is where Graben’s Bahians work. They seem to stand the heat and withstand the dehydration better than our boys. If Graben wanted to hide something, that’s where he would do it. He’s entirely in charge there—I think the superintendent has been down there once or twice—and can, do what he likes without anybody asking questions. As long as he produces minero.”
“Bless you,” said Craig gratefully. “You’re helping me a lot. Although I don’t think it is anything as simple as a cache. The secret has something to do with the actual running of the mine.”
“What do you mean?” asked Alcidia, leaning forward with her eyes fixed on his face. “It’s all very exciting.”
“You remember you told me that the mine was doing badly and the stock was falling? And you said your father was getting worried?”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” said the girl, “but it’s quite true. It really is very bad.”
“Well,” said Craig slowly, “I got into Graben’s bungalow today when he was out.”
“You mean you burgled him?” cried Alcidia, frankly admiring.
“I did indeed,” said Craig thinking with satisfaction of his dinner. “And I found two letters. He had had to leave in a hurry. That was when he was called to the mine after the fight, I expect. In the middle of the rainstorm?”
