Gauntlet of Fear Read online

  Giles paused and took another sip of his wine.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Don’t be impatient, Freddie. I’ll get there, in time. I just want to collect my thoughts. Now where was I?’

  ‘You were giving this lecture about how stage magicians could transform the circus.’

  ‘Yes! So I was! The circus ring is so different to the theatre stage. It is set in a large tent and is totally surrounded by the audience. There can be no trapdoors, nor are there any drapes to prevent those watching from seeing hidden wires or mechanical devices. It appears to be entirely open so any disappearance, in full view of the audience, could be devastating.’

  ‘No doubt about that, Giles. Bums on seats! That’s what it’s all about these days, especially when the circus is going through a lean period, what with the threat of animals being removed.’

  As the roast beef was being carved, Giles continued to put Freddie in the picture.

  ‘When the lecture was over, and questions answered, we were all offered a glass of Champagne. Several magicians approached, introduced themselves and agreed that the evening could be the answer to many of the problems of the Big Top, notwithstanding those of the stage magician who was also going through an uncertain time in entertainment.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re right, but I’m still waiting to hear about the Gauntlet of Fear bit!’

  I’m coming to that, but, before I do, let’s give this roast dinner the accolade it deserves.’

  They thanked the waiter, clinked wine glasses, and then set about enjoying the best roast beef available in this great city of London – beef that came from Scotland.

  As always, Freddie knew he might have to be patient, and wait, before Giles came to the crux of the matter. But the excellence of the meal made the wait exceedingly bearable.

  Giles wiped his mouth gently with his napkin as the wine-waiter poured the two men another glass of Bordeaux claret.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘You were enjoying a glass of Champagne…’

  ‘Was I? That’s right, so I was! My glass was all but knocked out of my hand. The culprit was tall, dark and would have been handsome…but I digress! He bumped into me with such force it could only have been deliberate. He had dark hair, well-brushed back, and a heavy moustache. His eyes were almost as dark as his hair but they were terrified beyond belief. He was trembling as he gripped my arms with vice-like strength, and he spoke English but with a Portuguese accent.’

  Freddie nodded as he ordered the sweet.

  ‘Did he give his name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Oh! He said his name was Ramon Mordomo.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘He said he desperately needed my help.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘He revealed he was the owner of a circus, and one that he was establishing in Britain, after starting in the United States. One that might revolutionize the circus world but was now experiencing accidents that he felt were being fiendishly created to try and make him give up ownership of the circus. He believed he was running a ‘Gauntlet of Fear’. Those were his chosen words. He could barely utter them so stricken, he was, with fright.’

  ‘So how did that make you feel?’

  ‘I wanted to help but didn’t know how I could.’

  ‘Did he say why he was contacting you?’

  ‘Yes. He said he’d read, in one of the Sunday papers, a piece about the Maskelyne Hall affair in Scotland, and he was impressed about my ability as a detective.’

  ‘That must’ve pleased you.’

  ‘Yes, it did.’

  ‘That’s all very well, Giles. But the family in Scotland were mostly known to you and those in this circus would be total strangers. Have you considered that?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘I’m going to give it a go.’

  Freddie looked distinctly perturbed and remained silent for several seconds.

  ‘What, exactly, does this Portuguese gentleman want from you?’

  ‘I understand he is actually Cuban, but of Haitian descent. He wants me to visit his circus and find out who the hell is trying to make him give it up.’

  ‘Aha! Haitian you say! Now that smacks of zombies and voodoo worship, and someone may have a grudge against him…and there may be more than one!’

  ‘Zombies and voodoo worship? You’re being very melodramatic, Freddie! Dare I ask if that has anything to do with the reservations you had?’

  ‘No, not really, but it does bring me to the point which certainly concerns me. It was something you mentioned when you were with me, and my family, over Christmas. Something I found strange in the extreme.’

  ‘What was that?’

  Freddie, with dessert spoon raised over his sweet, pondered for a moment, looked straight into the blue eyes of his friend, and uttered the words ‘RAF Winkleigh!’

  ‘Why should that have been strange in the extreme?’

  ‘Because,’ said Freddie, pointing his spoon directly at Giles. ‘It never existed!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The place you said where this circus was spending their winter quarters, RAF Winkleigh, in Devon. Well I looked up the three volumes of the RAF airbases during World War 2. I left you dozing by the fire one day and checked several sources and I found something strange about your RAF Winkleigh.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And it didn’t exist!’

  Giles turned his head and looked round at the other diners. He seemed unsure of what he’d just heard. He spooned several mouthfuls of dessert before he spoke.

  ‘But he gave me instructions on how to get there and a contact number to call.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You say it didn’t exist but I’m sure I’d heard that name before.’

  ‘Another one of your dreams, Giles?’

  ‘No! What he said rang a bell. Something that happened at RAF Padgate when I was called up.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Well, as recruits, when we were on parade, there were fighter pilots, in flying jackets, lounging on the grass, waiting for demobilisation as the war was over.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘Well I managed to get in conversation with some of them and what one guy said has remained with me to this day.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He said he’d survived several years flying Lysanders at a Devon airfield named RAF Winkleigh.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘Yes, I do say,’ Giles pushed his plate to one side, with a satisfied look on his face. ‘And it didn’t exist?’

  Back at the flat in South Kensington Giles suggested a nightcap before the eventful day was over.

  Freddie was due to spend the following day racing, before returning to his Cotswold home, and Giles had decided to spend the next few days relaxing, but the conversation at the evening meal had made such an impression that a change of plan was contemplated.

  A serious talk over a whisky and Crabbie’s Green Ginger resulted in a phone call to Evesham, to confirm Freddie’s return home for the New Year, and a phone call from Giles to a number in a Devon village, for God knows what.

  A visit to an airfield, which according to the RAF didn’t exist, was to be the target for tomorrow – the day after the strange incidents, involving Arkle and Katie Starters.

  A visit to the winter quarters of a circus, at a place which didn’t exist, was something anyone interested in magic and the paranormal, couldn’t resist. Giles was no exception. It just could be a place where someone had murder in mind!

  Chapter 2

  FUNAMBULISM, IMPALEMENT AND KHAN

  The journey, by rail, to North Devon, gave Giles a chance to catnap and concentrate his thoughts on what he was about to encounter.

  It was hard enough to realise that, in the space of less than eight weeks, he’d been asked to solve two different problems. One was the strange death in the locked room a
t Maskelyne Hall near Lockerbie. Now a circus was about to test his wits. One thing, for sure, he was determined to analyse all the facts, with meticulous care, and not jump to conclusions.

  His pal, Freddie, had expressed concern, but he was only a phone call away and would leap at the chance to help him if he hit the buffers.

  Giles was convinced that the stage magician could create a resurgence of interest in the travelling circus. But what he found, when he got to RAF Winkleigh, might change all that.

  The final part of the journey, from Exeter St. David, was a steady climb. Passing the freight yards of Exeter Riverside, the twenty-one mile journey to the station at Eggesford was enriched by the North Devon rolling countryside. Thatched roofs in some rural villages gave the area, noted for red sandstone, a peace that countered the disquiet Giles had about his impending task.

  It was almost dusk, when Giles got off the train at Eggesford, acutely aware that the station was lit by only an oil lamp. The solitary lamp, combined with the eerie silence, gave the place a creepy atmosphere that was heightened by the dark, unoccupied, Victorian buildings Giles could see on the other platform.

  There was no traffic noise nor street lights outside the station buildings. In fact there was no village or town outside the station. The station appeared to be at the back of beyond; a ghost station that sent a shiver through Giles’ body. Fortunately his apprehension was short-lived

  He was soon greeted by someone in his mid-to-late forties. The stranger, his face bursting into a huge grin, grabbed his hand and shook it, demonstrating upper body strength.

  ‘You must be Professor Dawson,’ the man said, with an American accent, as he lifted Giles’ bag. ‘If you follow me across to the other side we’ll get you to base in double quick time.’

  Giles followed the man out to the battered old Cadillac noticing the man leading the way had a slight, but unmistakeable, limp. He made a mental note of that in his cranial filing system, and was about to speak when the stranger said ‘You hop in while I put your bag in the trunk.’

  Giles moved to open the door when a voice warned him tactfully, ‘Not that side Professor, unless you want to do the driving!’

  Giles shook his head and, moving around the car, said apologetically, ‘Sorry, I was forgetting it was an American car. And you must be…American…hmm?’

  ‘Yes, I am! I’m all the way from the sunshine state of Florida. At your service! The name’s Hank, Hank Findley.’

  ‘Okay, Hank. Take me to your circus.’

  ‘Sure thing, Professor.’

  Over the railway at the level crossing, it wasn’t long before Giles became aware of the difficult driving conditions on the narrow tree-lined road which climbed for most of the four mile stretch towards their destination.

  ‘I’m not at all sure I’d take you up about driving around here on a journey to a place that doesn’t exist.’ exclaimed Giles, his tone expressing playful nervousness.

  ‘So you’ve heard the stories too. None of us are very pleased that Whitehall has denied the existence of RAF Winkleigh but I can assure you it did exist; I was there.’

  ‘You were stationed at the airbase?’

  ‘Yes! For longer than I sometimes care to admit. I was with the USAAF. We lived in Nissen huts that were hard to heat when fuel was difficult to get. Rest wasn’t easy.’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t. Can you say what you did?’

  Yes! I flew Dakotas by the seat of my pants. Oh, the place existed. It existed alright. It sure did and part of it still does, which is more than can be said about those guys from Britain, Poland, Canada and The States, who didn’t come back’

  ‘You lost a lot of friends?’

  ‘Yes I did. And, if the local rumours are true, you might meet some of them during your stay!’

  ‘You’re not suggesting…?’

  ‘I sure am buddy. Many of us think it’s the ghosts from the past that’s causing the accidents. I’ve had one myself.’

  ‘What…a ghost from the past?’

  ‘No siree…an accident.!’

  ‘Oh yes, I wondered about that.’

  ‘Don’t be surprised if you hear aero engines at night or the sound of men scrambling to get airborne. You might even smell oil burning or get a whiff of kerosene. It could frighten the hell out of you if you can’t keep your imagination under control.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

  ‘The boss doesn’t go along with that theory. He believes someone is hell bent on relieving him of his circus. He feels he’s running the gauntlet. A gauntlet of fear, he says to everyone. If that’s the case, the accidents could get worse. Senhor Ramon will fill you in when you get there. He speaks very good English, by the way.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  For the next few minutes Giles sat back and admired the way his American driver handled the car; his thoughts went back to those heady wartime days as he visualised a younger Hank Findley at the controls of a Dakota.

  Giles broke the silence as Hank negotiated a sharp bend.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you how you had the accident?’

  ‘Not at all. Ask away.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Hmm…I’m afraid I didn’t feel too clever when it happened. I’m a funambulist, you see!’

  ‘A what?’

  The American stopped the car but left the engine idling

  ‘I’m a wire walker!’ Hank smiled as he turned to face Giles. ‘I’ve been a wire walker since I joined the circus but while practising, a few weeks ago, the wire suddenly started to vibrate. It was so violent that I had no chance of correcting the sideways motion.’

  ‘Did you fall?’

  ‘Yes! I slipped, tried to grasp the wire as I fell, but only managed to break the fall before hitting the ground. Luckily I only twisted an ankle and bruised a foot, whereas I might have broken a leg, or worse, and that could have kept me out of action for the rest of the season.’

  ‘Don’t you normally use a net?’

  ‘Yes, but my circus act will be without a net so, periodically, I practise without one.’

  ‘And that was one of those occasions?’

  ‘Unfortunately, it was. And that’s what makes the wire vibration so suspicious.’

  Giles closed his eyes as he puzzled over the statement of his American friend. The horrendous possibility of a vibrating wire occurring, during a performance, involving a wire walker, possibly carrying someone on his shoulders, fifteen feet or more above the ground, without a safety net, was something too devastating to even think about. And yet Giles was all too aware that many of those in a circus audience went there in the expectation that danger was a constant possibility in every act.

  ‘I know what you’re probably thinking,’ the American broke the silence as Giles Dawson looked across at him. ‘Most people expect circus performers to take risks every time they go into a cage with wild animals, or fly in a trapeze act or walk a high wire. It’s that dicing with death that makes the circus the greatest show on earth. I accept that, but I’m sure you’ll agree that each performance is hard enough without added complications being brought into the equation.’

  ‘Of course you’re right there. I was trying to visualise what kind of person would put his, or her, circus colleagues at risk in order to gain control of an organisation that might just have lost one or more of it’s top stars.’

  ‘Well it has to be someone with the capability to run an outfit as large as this. But Senhor Ramon will, no doubt, point you in the right direction. And you’ll meet him again very soon cause we’re almost there.’

  The American paused, reached over and grabbed Giles by the shoulder.

  ‘Before I take you the rest of the way, Professor Dawson, let me explain why I stopped the car,’ he tightened his grip and looked at Giles, his eyes piercing his passenger.

  ‘The first was to let you know about funambulism; the art of wire walking! The second…’ there was a brief hesitation before he continued. ‘I though
t I’d let you know that, if you’d taken a taxi from the station at Eggesford, some cab drivers would’ve stopped here and made you walk the rest of the way. It is only a few hundred yards but some of them believe this place is haunted!’ Hank released his grip.

  ‘That is interesting. My pal Freddie would enjoy a visit.’

  The smile on the face of Giles said everything as Hank released the handbrake and set the Cadillac on the last part of the journey, to a place the RAF had said didn’t exist.

  The area they approached was a grassy plateau high up on the moor. Wagons and trailers filled a large part of the grassland; many of them emblazoned with the colourful lettering – Circus Tropicana.

  As they got nearer Giles could make out what must have been the airfield control tower and two large hangers.

  The remains of the tarmac landing strip became obvious as they entered and Giles was left in no doubt that RAF Winkleigh had, in fact, existed.

  The noise of men going about their business filled the air but it was another noise that stunned Giles as he got out of the stationary car. It was a noise that reminded him of the fictional hound of Conan Doyle’s tale of the Baskervilles on nearby Dartmoor – a throaty blood-curdling roar that threatened an unimaginable death of being torn apart by the claws of an animal with great strength.

  The American retrieved Giles’ bag and looked across at the professor whose face showed anxiety.

  ‘Don’t worry, Professor! That’ll just be Khan. He’s probably still hungry and is asking for an evening meal.’

  ‘Khan…?’

  ‘He’s our Royal Bengal Tiger. We still manage to use the big cat despite animal rights protests. And he’s big, believe me.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for that.’

  ‘The boss will introduce you and you’ll see for yourself. One thing you can be sure of – you can stroke him off your list of suspects right away. And you can remove me too – we’re both gentle pussycats!’

  A movement of the head and a chuckle signalled Professor Giles Dawson to follow the American tightrope walker in the direction of a large trailer where he knocked on the door and entered.