Jupe leaned back in his chair and listened. He heard smashing and thumping from the basement of the big house. Ferrante had come with three other men, in addition to Bones and the guard in the drive, and Jupe knew that the four of them were now hauling crates across the cellar floor and manhandling trunks out of the way. Jupe put up his hand to cover a smile. It would take them a long while to complete their treasure hunt. They would eventually move the woodpile, and in time they would even shovel out the contents of the coal bin and dig up the floor there.
The thumping, scraping sounds ceased, and there was a crashing which Jupe assumed was the cement of the floor being broken with a sledgehammer. It went on relentlessly for five minutes, then for ten. At last it stopped and the staff heard shovels turning the earth.
It was almost an hour since the cliffs had burned.
The man with the rifle shifted in his chair and looked up at the kitchen clock.
The men in the cellar stopped digging in the ground and began to move the woodpile. Logs hit the remains of the concrete floor and bounced away. Again there came the sound of concrete being broken, and again the scrape of shovels in the earth.
It was an hour and a half since the cliffs had burned.
The men in the cellar attacked the pile of coal. They shovelled and then smashed more concrete and shovelled again.
And it was almost two hours since the cliffs had burned.
Lieutenant Ferrante climbed out of the cellar. His shirt was sweat-stained and dirty and split across the shoulders, and his hair hung down over his eyes. One gloved hand rested on the gun at his belt. He came up the ranch-house steps in a dash.
“They tricked us,” he said to Bones. “It isn’t there. It never was there. I’m going up to that meadow and old man Barron will talk to me–and talk straight.”
“You never take off those gloves, do you, Lieutenant?” said Jupiter. He spoke quietly, but there was a mocking certainty in his voice that made Ferrante look towards him almost in fear.
“It must be rather uncomfortable to wear gloves in this weather,” said Jupe, “but it’s very important, isn’t it?”
Ferrante made a move as if he would leave, but Jupe went on and Ferrante did not leave. He listened.
“Yours is really a most artistic crime,” said Jupe. “It required a great deal of imagination. Of course, the raw materials for the plot were already here. You had a woman who believed in friendly space voyagers, and so you constructed a spaceship. You had a man who was preparing for a disaster that would destroy our civilization, and so you fabricated a disaster. You jammed the radios. I imagine you used CB transmitters in the hills around this ranch and you broadcast noise to block the signals from the commercial stations that are usually heard in this area.
“After you jammed the radios, you cut the television cables and telephone wires and power lines. The ranch was then isolated, and the stage was set for the appearance of a company of soldiers.”
The man with the rifle stirred nervously. “Hey!” he said. “Time’s awasting!”
Ferrante made a move as if to go to the door.
“Are you going to take off your gloves, Lieutenant?” said Jupe.
Ferrante stopped. His eyes went to Jupe’s face, searching, calculating.
“You’ve given a terrific performance,” said Jupe. “You were a man frightened almost out of his wits by strange events. You pretended to be a stutterer, terrified of Charles Barron, but bravely resolved to follow orders and not to let anyone off the ranch and out on to the road.
“And wasn’t Mr Barron obliging? He posted sentries along his fence. He warned his employees about going off the ranch. He helped create the climate of fear.
“Then the spaceship took off from the meadow after the cliffs burned, and Simon de Luca, the herder, was found unconscious with his hair singed. The spaceship must have been carefully planned and constructed. A helium-filled balloon stretched over a framework, I imagine. De Luca’s appearance on the meadow surprised your men at first, but they decided to take advantage of it. They knocked de Luca out, singed his hair with a cigarette or a match, and left him to be found, supposedly the accidental victim of rocket fire. The illusion was to be completed by the appearance on the meadow of a person in a spacesuit–the one who kept me and my friends from leaving this morning.
“You hoped that Mr Barron would be convinced that rescuers were coming to take him away, and eventually he was. You hoped that he would try to take his gold with him, and he did not. How disappointing for you!”
The lieutenant was like a statue, a deadly cold statue. His lips were a thin line and his eyes were hard. “Gold?” he said. “What do you know about gold?”
“About as much as you do,” said Jupe. “Barron distrusts banks and the government, so he has to trust in gold, and he has to keep his gold here on the ranch. This is his fortress. Anyone could deduce that much. But to know all of the other things about the Barrons–those things that you have found so useful in preparing your drama–you needed a spy. You needed someone on the inside who could study the Barrons and report to you–let you know what was going on. It was someone very close to you, wasn’t it, Lieutenant? It was someone who used the same homey expression you used–a rattlesnake in a rainstorm. Someone who has a deformity on her hand, very much like the one you have on yours–except you hide yours by wearing gloves. It was your sister Elsie.”
There was a surging, electric quality to the silence in the kitchen. Elsie Spratt leaned forward and glared at Jupe. “I’m going to sue you!” she said.
“No, you won’t,” said Jupe. “You won’t sue anybody. You’re going to be too busy trying to defend yourself. Of course, you won’t be alone. The lieutenant is so well informed because there’s a field telephone on this ranch. It must be very well hidden. Could it be in the stall of that stallion who is so dangerous that only Mary Sedlack can go near him?”
Jupe smiled at Mary. “In time we’ll probably find that it was you who suggested to Barron that the radio be monitored,” he said, “and not Barron who asked you to listen. It was your radio, wasn’t it? And there was a tape recorder hidden in it. The message from the spaceship was on tape, just like the President’s message.”
Mary’s air of competence had deserted her. She seemed almost in tears. “I don’t know anything about it,” she insisted.
“Yes, you do, Mary,” said Jupe. “You and the lieutenant are friends–good friends. Elsie has a picture in her room. It’s a picture taken at a New Year’s Eve party. There is a dancing couple in the background–a young woman with long, fair hair is dancing with a bearded young man. You cut your hair before you came here, Mary, or I’d have recognized you instantly. And Lieutenant Ferrante, alias Spratt, shaved off his beard.”
“You want me to shoot this kid?” asked Bones.
“You shoot Jupe and you’ve got to shoot everybody in this room,” said Hank Detweiler grimly. “If you want to be tried for a mass murder, well . . .” He made a gesture as if to say that he did not greatly care.
Then he turned to look at Elsie. “You really are a find,” he said. “I should have had my head examined, getting you the job here.”
“What did you expect?” she cried. “Am I supposed to be grateful for a chance to cook and scrub and worry about leftovers for the rest of my life? And watch Jack grow old in that rotten little shop, making a nickel here and a dime there? We were meant for better things!”
“Like what?” roared Detweiler. “The women’s prison at Frontera?”
“Don’t say that!” wailed Elsie. She stood up, her face frantic. “We’ve got to go, Jack,” she said to the lieutenant. “Get out of here. It’s late and . . . and we’ve got to . . .”
She stopped. There was a distant sound of cars on the drive.
“Someone’s coming!” said Bones.
Jupe looked past Bones and through the side window. He saw a lithe, muscular shape dash from behind a clump of bushes to the big house, grab the cellar door, and slam it shut over the stairwell. The person then sat down on the door and watched as Charles Barron marched from behind a corner of the big house. Barron faced the guard who had been left in the drive.
“Don’t try any violence,” Barron warned. “My wife will be here at any moment with the police.”