The Plague of Silence Read online

  “I’ve told you already,” she said, and looked round at the door. “I can’t stand here any longer talking to you, sir, Mrs. Larsen will want to know if I’m trying to flirt with one of the guests. I wouldn’t be the first girl to be sent away with a flea in her ear, and I can’t say that I blame her.”

  Mrs. Larsen, Matt thought; not the manager himself.

  “Who else was sent away for that?”

  “I should know if anyone does, it was my own sister,” Kathleen said. “She came here from County Down to get the job, and pleased indeed she was with it. Do you know she was sending home to mother and father ten pounds a month, and said she was living easy even after that! And then she took up with a guest at the hotel, and didn’t hold the job much longer.”

  “Who was the guest?” Matt tried to sound only casually interested.

  “It’s very curious you are, and if it’s information you want why don’t you ask Mr. Larsen, unless you’re frightened of him.”

  “Who was the guest, Kathleen?” asked Matt, all pretence gone.

  He knew that, standing there against the window, he looked as attractive to a woman as he was ever likely to be; and he had no sense of false modesty. He was young and good-looking, and there was the glint in his eyes and the little smile at his lips, all calculated to set her heart a flutter, and if the way she looked at him was any guide, he was succeeding. Her honey-coloured eyes were beautiful with the glow of excitement, and she did not seem frightened of what was happening all around them.

  Matt thought: “My God, she’s really lovely.”

  She spoke swiftly.

  “It was an Australian, which is more than any American can say for himself! And what would I be doing divulging private information to a stranger?”

  “Was it Mr. Rondivallo?”

  The girl caught her breath.

  Matt could not be sure, but believed that Rondivallo meant much more to her than the name of the man who had disappeared with her sister. She was startled, almost shocked, by the fact that he knew who it was. Talk of the mosquitoes, of the paralysis, of the disaster, could not shock her, and that was easy to understand: for she had been immune and had not looked upon the victims. But the name of Rondivallo shook her badly.

  “I wasn’t here when it happened and I didn’t know his name,” she said hastily, and turned on her heel. “You’d best be drinking your tea while it’s hot.” Before he could stop her, she reached the door, and looked over her shoulder swiftly.

  Afraid?

  “Don’t go, Kathleen,” he said, and drawled her name and liked the sound of it and the look of her. “Come and see if this was the man.” He took the photographs out of his pocket.

  “How could I tell you if I’d never set eyes on him?” she demanded, and opened the door. But she didn’t go into the passage: she gasped and backed into the room again. Beyond her Matt saw the little chunky European, Sarak, who followed her in, closed the door behind her. For the first time, Matt looked hard into the European’s face. He saw the grimness in his expression and wondered what deep secrets lay behind his narrowed, pale grey eyes.

  “He says that we must make her tell us what does she know about Rondivallo,” Sarak said quietly, and “he” could only mean Palfrey. He stood looking up into the girl’s face, his own set and stern, and she stared in a kind of desperation at Matt.

  “Will you make him let me pass that door?” Anger merged with the alarm in her voice.

  “You can go just as soon as you’ve told us all you can about Rondivallo,” Matt said, “and all you can tell us about your sister, also. Did she know Rondivallo before she came here?”

  “She did not.”

  “Was she a servant here when he came?”

  “Yes, sure and she was.”

  “Did you know anything about the affair she was having with him when you were in Ireland?”

  “No, and there’s no call to keep asking the same question!”

  “Kathleen,” said Matt very quietly, “we’re here to try to find Rondivallo, because he might know the cause of the plague.” He waited just long enough to let that sink in, and it seemed to shock her more than anything else had done. He could actually see the blood draining out of her cheeks; her eyes seemed to burn bright because of it, and her lips were scarlet against her pallor. “We must find Rondivallo. He was here with your sister for some weeks, then both of them disappeared. Do you know where they went?”

  “No,” Kathleen said in a gasping voice. “As true as I’m standing here, I don’t know a thing about it. Is it true you think that Rondivallo might be able to stop—” she couldn’t finish.

  “Yes, it is,” Matt said. “Why did you come here, Kathleen?”

  “Isn’t it obvious why I came?” Kathleen said huskily. “Maureen was missing, and we didn’t hear from her at all in three whole weeks, and all of us were worried to our graves. So I came to find out if I could help her. The solemn truth is that we thought she’d found herself in trouble, and if that was so we wanted to help her, we didn’t want her to be alone in England perhaps deserted by the man. Och, we may be Irish but we aren’t fools, and we had wondered how it was she was able to send home so much money each month. ‘Kathleen,’ my father told me, ‘there’s a man with her, be sure of that, it’s yourself who must go to England and find out all about it.’ So I came, and Mrs. Larsen gave me a position, and the wages are good. I can send home just as much as Maureen did, and there’s no man helping me.”

  There was a little colour back in her cheeks now, and towards the end of the story her voice had become stronger. She glanced at the door, as if hoping she would be able to leave, but she did not ask if she could go. She would be missed, of course, the kitchen staff would know where she had come, and anyone in charge would probably wonder why she had been so long.

  “All right, Kathleen,” Matt said, and smiled at her again. “Did you look for Maureen when you came here?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Did you try to find out where she’d gone, and where Rondivallo had gone?”

  “No!” she cried. “There isn’t a thing I can tell you about it.” She turned swiftly towards the door and pushed past Sarak and turned the handle; but the door was locked, although neither of them had seen the man lock it. He did not try to bring her back, but stood watching. She swung round with her back to the door and something near terror in her eyes. “It’s as true as I’m standing here, there’s nothing I know, nothing!”

  There was something she knew and was afraid to tell. That much seemed certain.

  How far should he try to drive her, now?

  At any other time he would have let her go and planned to talk to her again, but hours – even one hour – could be of vital importance, and whatever it was she knew might be as vital. He needed time, to try to lull her fears; but was there time?

  Then there came a sharp tap at the door. Matt was startled and Sarak looked round quickly, while Kathleen O’Shea cried:

  “Who’s there? Will you come and let me out?”

  There was a moment’s pause; in it, Sarak moved swiftly to one side, putting his right hand at his pocket, while the girl stood between Matt and the door. There was a sharp metallic sound, the handle turned and the door was thrust open.

  Matt saw Larsen for the second time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  LARSEN

  Larsen was strikingly handsome, and he came in with something of a swagger, and a glitter in his eyes. He had a horsewhip in his right hand, held straight down by the side of his leg, the lash curled round his fingers. He did not see the chunky Sarak as he closed the door, and let the end of the lash fall to the floor.

  “What you want is a horsewhipping,” he said. “That is what you are going to get. Move away, Kathleen.”

  “Mr. Larsen, please, he meant me no
harm! I swear it!”

  “Move aside,” Larsen said softly.

  Kathleen moved to one side, while Sarak stood absolutely still, as if he intended to leave this situation to Matt. Matt looked into Larsen’s handsome, coldly angry face, into eyes which were as pale a grey as Sarak’s, and expected the first blow to come swiftly. He didn’t move and didn’t speak.

  “Mr. Larsen, sir, I swear to you he meant me no harm! What’s a little kiss and a cuddle between a man and a maid? Don’t do anything you’ll regret, sir.” The brogue was much more noticeable now, and Kathleen stretched out her hands in appeal.

  Larsen behaved as if he hadn’t even heard her.

  “I’m going to teach you that American dollars don’t buy the chastity of my staff,” he said. “And I’m going to teach you that it doesn’t pay to lay your hands on me.”

  His right arm moved, the whip hissed upwards.

  “No!” gasped Kathleen.

  Matt was smiling as if he had nothing at all to fear.

  As the whip rose he moved forward with a speed that took Larsen completely by surprise. He thrust his left arm upwards and caught the stocky part of the whip between the V of his thumb and forefinger, then gripped and twisted; and the whip seemed to tear out of Larsen’s hand. It fell into Matt’s, and he cracked it in bewildering succession, each time so close to Larsen’s head that had he moved the manager would have been hit. But he stood absolutely still, ashen-faced.

  Matt tossed the whip on to the bed, and the thin end of the lash trailed on the floor.

  “There was one thing you didn’t know,” he said. “I was born in Arizona cattle country.” His smile had never been broader, nor his voice quieter. “In my country we prefer to be friendly, Larsen, and if a man likes a girl, he says so. I like Kathleen, and I’m going to keep on telling her so. I don’t know that I like you though. I haven’t decided whether you’re a big-head or a latter-day King Arthur. Did you use a pass-key to get in here?”

  Larsen said thinly: “Yes.”

  “Next time you want to use it, give your guest time to open the door after your knock,” said Matt. “If you don’t, and it happens to be me, you’ll get badly hurt.”

  “It won’t be you,” Larsen said, and his fury almost choked him. “You’ll be out of this hotel in the next half hour, or I’ll have you thrown out. Leave this room, Kathleen, and don’t come back here. Don’t speak to this man again while you are on my staff. If you do, you will be instantly dismissed. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir, indeed I do,” Kathleen said humbly. She was already at the door, and opened it and hurried out, a frightened beauty.

  “You heard me,” Larsen said. “Pack your clothes and get out.”

  Again the door opened, very quietly. Matt saw it opening, but Larsen could not, for his back was towards it. Palfrey stepped in. He was smiling faintly, his slight stoop made him look shorter than he was, and inches shorter than Larsen. The immediate contrast was startling, although each man was fair. Larsen was so big and broad and massive, and by comparison Palfrey looked puny.

  “Hallo, everyone,” he said mildly, and Larsen spun round. “Ah, Mr. Larsen. I’m sorry, but Mr. Stone won’t be able to leave yet. There’s a state of emergency in this district, and you’re under a kind of martial law. You won’t notice it, except that you’ll have to put up with some people you don’t like.”

  “If I had my way, I’d send the lot of you packing!”

  “Oh, no doubt,” said Palfrey, in his mild, apparently ineffectual way, “but on this you can’t have your own way, no matter how much right you have on your side. However, I will give an undertaking that none of my men shall worry your regular guests or the staff.”

  “If this swine worries Kathleen again, I’ll break his neck,”

  Larsen rasped. He turned, pushed past Palfrey, and stalked out.

  As the door closed, Matt said: “Sap, I’m sorry. I handled that real badly.”

  “Could be,” agreed Palfrey; “but, on the other hand, it could have been brilliant by mistake. No need to worry, anyhow.” He was oddly impersonal. “Sarak, will you make sure that Larsen is watched, and tell Elise to keep a special eye on Kathleen O’Shea?” He waited until the knuckly European had gone out, then took out a packet of cigarettes and shook some out, and offered them to Matt. “The obvious thing first: is Larsen so interested in Kathleen because she’s on his staff, because she’s Kathleen O’Shea or because he hates your guts? We’ve had a man here for some time; one of the gardeners. He saw Larsen ride out after the girl this afternoon—he went on horseback and kept on the bridle paths, but he must have gone in the same direction as she did, or he wouldn’t have been so near when you met her. Also, he rode through the forest where a dozen people were struck down by the plague, and wasn’t affected. Incidentally, no animals are affected, only humans. Peculiar. Then he made it his job to find out where she was when she’d got back, and came to defend her honour.” Palfrey drew deeply at a cigarette and smiled faintly. “Nice act. Did you learn anything from her?”

  “Nothing really fresh,” Matt said. He explained briefly, and went on: “If I learned anything, it’s that she was too frightened to talk about Rondivallo.”

  “Yes,” Palfrey said. “Matt, you seemed to have a way with Kathleen. Right?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’m going to try to arrange for you to spend some time with her soon,” said Palfrey in that mild voice. “Before that, how do you see things now?”

  “Do you mean, see things here at the hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like you, I simply guess,” said Matt, and moved across to a large armchair and sat on the arm; he did not once look out of the window, although he was very close to it. “Kathleen’s scared of Larsen, and Larsen wants to make sure that she doesn’t tell me anything—presumably about Rondivallo.” He didn’t get up, but there was a new, urgent note in his voice: “Sap, don’t take chances with that girl.”

  “I won’t take unnecessary chances at all,” Palfrey assured him. “Since we moved in, just before you arrived, we’ve stationed agents everywhere, including two in the kitchen and one on each of the bedroom floors. You’re right, though, we have to make sure, so we have to take some kind of chance.”

  Matt said abruptly: “What kind?”

  “We have to give Larsen time to try to get Kathleen away from here.”

  “You mean, give him time to try to kill her.”

  “He won’t have a chance, she’ll be too closely watched.”

  “I think he might take a chance,” insisted Matt. “If he is working with Rondivallo on this hell’s business, killing one girl more or less won’t make the slightest difference to him. Why take the chance?”

  “Because at the moment we’re only guessing at Larsen’s motives, and if it’s possible we want to be sure,” Palfrey said. “We want to break him down, and he’s more likely to break if we can face him with evidence to prove that we know he’s involved.” He paused, while Matt knew that his own face was set and unrelenting, almost hostile because Palfrey was prepared to take this risk with the girl. And Palfrey’s voice grew quieter. “If we had more time, I’d let you talk to Kathleen first and if that failed, try it my way. But we haven’t enough time. Do you know what’s happening in the world at this moment?”

  Was that just a rhetorical question?

  It seemed to burn into Matt’s mind; like Palfrey’s eyes, which seemed to change in front of him, and like Palfrey’s expression, which showed a different man, a man of great strength and determination, and yet one possessed of a great fear.

  Matt made himself ask: “Well, what is happening?”

  Palfrey said: “There will be another news bulletin in five minutes, they are being broadcast hourly.” He turned towards the window and looked out, while Matt
said roughly:

  “Do I have to wait for that?”

  “I think so,” Palfrey said, and didn’t look round. “Let me tell you a little more. We don’t know anything at all except that Rondivallo has disappeared, and that all of the outbreaks of this plague have taken place in disticts which he has visited. You know what I told you before: now we know beyond all reasonable doubt that in Rondivallo’s wake there is spreading horror and stricken multitudes. The village was only the beginning.”

  Matt said chokily: “But—but why?” He had a strange feeling that Palfrey was looking at him in a different way, was colder, was almost hostile.

  “All we know is that the plague is following the trail of Rondivallo, and that this was the last place in which Rondivallo was seen,” Palfrey said thinly. “We’re waiting just long enough to try to get Larsen to make a false move. If he hasn’t done that within the next hour, we’ll start questioning every man and woman on the staff, every conceivable suspect. We’ve got to make them talk. Understand? Whatever methods we use, whatever pain we have to cause, we have to make them talk.”

  He moved to the radio set built into the wall and switched on; immediately a woman’s voice sounded, with a background of swing music. Then a man’s voice came, the familiar tone of a BBC announcer, touched perhaps with greater solemnity than usual.

  “… emergency news bulletin which should be re-broadcast throughout Europe, Asia, and any other parts of the world where no similar announcement is being made. The Government regrets to have to announce that a plague of insects, some not unlike mosquitoes to look at but accompanied by a swarm of tiny satellites, something like a small cloud of dust, has descended upon certain parts of Great Britain, France, Hungary, Argentina, the U.S.A., Aden and Egypt. The infection carried by these swarms causes almost immediate signs of paralysis, particularly of the throat and larynx, which also show some of the signs of oedema of the glottis. Medical practitioners are advised that more detailed instructions for treatment will be given at the end of this bulletin. Meanwhile, for emergency use, household insecticides appear to have temporary stunning effect on the insects, which recover after a short while.