Miles Juniper looked up from the bench on which he was slumped and recognized his brother. ‘Look out!’ he cried. But it was too late. The stout door had slammed to and the bolts slid into place. The footsteps of Lord Ailsworth could be heard descending to ground level at leisure. He was resting on his labours for the time being.
Howard Juniper was not unduly alarmed. He ought not to have let this happen. Knowing and suspecting what he did, he ought decidedly to have been more on his guard. But he was clear that he wasn’t going to take Lord Ailsworth seriously. Miles, no doubt, had done so. And Lord Ailsworth, thus encouraged in melodrama, had kept the outrageous nonsense up for days.
Howard looked about him coolly. Having found Miles – a Miles whom a glance showed to be unhurt although sulky and frightened – his anxieties abruptly diminished. ‘Remote – isn’t it?’ he said almost casually. It was the manner he always found useful in coping with Miles.
‘Of course it’s remote.’ Miles sat up and stared at his brother – at once resentfully and with enormous relief. ‘Nobody’s allowed near this tower except the old imbecile himself. He has maps and things upstairs, which is his excuse for keeping it all locked up. There’s another and smaller tower for his assistants.’
‘So I gathered. Have you tried shouting?’
‘Of course I’ve tried shouting.’
But not very hard, Howard thought. Miles always has lacked pertinacity. Aloud, he said cheerfully: ‘Let’s shout together. That will be twice the racket.’
‘I don’t think we’d better. He might come back in a rage and blow our brains out.’
‘Rubbish, Miles. He’s an irresponsible old lunatic, clearly enough. But I see not the slightest reason to suppose him homicidal.’
‘Don’t you, indeed?’ Miles seemed to find this very funny. He laughed in a sharp hysterical way his brother didn’t care for. ‘Ailsworth’s ambition, if you want to know, is simply to be the champion homicide of all time. That’s what this is about.’
‘Well, well – think of that.’ Howard was determinedly amused. ‘I find that decidedly helpful. It introduces sense in the affair. A madman’s sense of course. But that’s better than none. As summer quarters, I find this quite snug. Rugs, I see. But doesn’t he provide his guest rooms with books?’
‘Funny, aren’t you?’
Howard couldn’t remember a time when Miles, in his feeble spells, hadn’t been in the habit of coming out with that bitter question. Of course Miles was by no means always feeble. It was just something that came on him. ‘And sanitation?’ he asked.
Miles pointed to a small trapdoor in the floor. ‘All mod cons,’ he said with a sudden grin. ‘And there’s another trapdoor up there.’ He pointed to the stout wooden ceiling. ‘That’s the map room. He lowers food down. Brings it in a basket, along with watercress for his favourite birds. And talks and talks – through that hole.’
‘Very odd, indeed.’ Howard sat down with an air of placid comfort on a bench. ‘I’m afraid, you know, that after this we’ll have to drop it.’
‘Drop it?’
‘Brothers through the Looking-Glass. It doesn’t square with my confounded job nowadays. Mind you, Miles, I like being Miles Juniper now and then. I like Splaine. I like the boys. But I don’t like’ – Howard’s voice stiffened – ‘the risk that you may be doing something injudicious. Why the dickens did you come down here?’
‘Well, I like that!’ Miles was furious. ‘I’ve gathered enough from that old fool to know that you came down here when you were pretending to be in Edinburgh. And birds, after all, have always been my thing. When Ailsworth rang me up at your lab – rang you up, as he thought – and asked me to run down for a day, I naturally came like a shot. How was I to know I was to be kidnapped and shut up like a blasted duck in a coop?’
‘All right. That’s fair enough. But didn’t you confess, when he locked you up like this, that you aren’t Howard Juniper?’
‘Of course I did. But he wouldn’t believe a word of it. The old imbecile has far too much self-conceit to be willing to admit that he’s snared the wrong bird. It was only when he gathered a good deal about us from some visitor–’
‘John Appleby.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Top man at Scotland Yard. But go on.’
‘It was only then that Ailsworth came, I suppose, to think there might be something in my story. What he did then, I don’t know.’
‘What he’d have done at once, of course, if he weren’t crazy. He rang up the labs and asked whether Professor Juniper was there. When he got an affirmative answer, he asked to be put through to me. He told me he was looking after you down here in circumstances of some embarrassment. I didn’t believe him.’
Miles flushed. ‘Didn’t you? I’d have thought you would. You’re always having absurd anxieties about me, aren’t you?’
Howard made no direct reply to this. ‘I didn’t believe him because I happened to know he is given to some very queer romancing. When I ran into him down here myself we had a little conversation in the local pub. Quite a lot of conversation, as a matter of fact, and I told him a certain amount about my own job. But I certainly didn’t tell him some crazy stuff about planning an expedition to – or rather a raid on – the island of Ardray that he afterwards attributed to me. So I knew Lord Ailsworth wasn’t exactly reliable. Still, I realized I must come down and see what he was talking about. I’d have been more cautious, no doubt, and not landed myself in this ridiculous situation with you’ – and Howard nodded contemptuously towards the bolted door of the tower – ‘if I hadn’t been a bit distracted by something else.’
‘Something else? What was that?’
Again Howard Juniper made no reply. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you have more to tell me than I have to tell you. Just what is in this old person’s mind?’
Miles shrugged his shoulders, ‘It varies from visit to visit. I can’t understand how such a crazy dotard hasn’t been locked up.’
With his constant impulse to bolster Miles’ morale, Howard laughed easily. ‘So far, he appears rather to be by way of doing the locking up himself. But what are his various modest proposals?’
‘Sometimes it’s the Chinese. Sometimes it’s the Russians. And sometimes it’s the whole lot. A world empty of people – thanks to your bugs and his birds. An expert knowledge of migration as a key to quick results.’
‘A world empty of people?’ Howard Juniper frowned. ‘It reminds me of something. Of a queer sort of prologue to this insanity.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, it was only some conversation in a railway compartment.’ Howard was silent for a moment. ‘It’s impressive,’ he said.
Miles got up from his bench and prowled about their little prison. ‘What do you mean – impressive?’ he demanded.
‘That a madman and his fantasies should be so perfectly symbolical of the whole drive of civilization today.’
Miles Juniper nodded. ‘Yes, yes – I see that.’ He felt in a pocket and fished out a packet of cigarettes. ‘The old idiot chucks down a regular supply of these. Have one?’
‘Not at the moment, thanks. We’d better address ourselves to packing up and leaving. And without scandal, my dear chap. That’s been the snag all along. From the moment this policeman Appleby presented himself at Splaine Croft – in circumstances of absurd theatricality, incidentally – and solemnly announced to me that Howard Juniper had disappeared, what I’ve done has been governed by the necessity of avoiding any public exposure of this queer habit of ours. No doubt we’ve contrived to see Brothers through the Looking-Glass as just fun. But the world would see it as a craziness quite comparable with that of our present host. It would finish me as a worker in a responsible research position. It would finish your school. My consciousness of all that, along with my real fears about what might actually have happened to you, my dear chap, have made this rather a trying week. Not, of course’ – Howard added hastily – ‘as trying as your experience in this tower.’
‘I’m all for packing up and leaving. In fact’ – Miles spoke with a sarcasm that was affectionate rather than hostile – ‘it’s a matter to which I’ve been giving some thought. Only the precise means of walking out eludes me.’
‘It’s no good simply telling this old man to stop being silly?’
‘That was my own first line.’ Miles was now perfectly reasonable. ‘I supposed the thing to be a passing vagary of Ailsworth’s, and that firmness and good humour would ensure that it blew over fairly quickly. But it isn’t so. The old boy has this idée fixe, and a great deal of pertinacity.’
‘I see. But there must be a number of people working for him on his nature reserve – to say nothing of some sort of household up at Ailsworth Court. Even if nobody comes at all near this tower, it ought to be possible to attract attention.’
‘Look about you,’ Miles said rather grimly. ‘And tell me just how it’s to be done.’
‘Very well.’ Howard explored the confined space methodically. ‘It’s certainly not going to be easy,’ he said. ‘Nothing approximating to a window – only these narrow apertures head high. And the whole structure seems uncommonly robust. Do you know just what’s above and below us?’
‘What’s below is a sort of storeroom. What’s immediately above is just like this: blank wall covered with maps. And up above that again is the actual observation chamber, or whatever it’s called.’
Howard nodded. ‘Nothing to begin battering the place down with – is there? Those two benches are much too flimsy.’ He paused in thought. ‘But at least they’d burn. And we have a penknife to make shavings. And matches. I suppose that’s the line to take. A fire.’ He looked seriously at his brother. ‘Call it a controlled fire.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘You lead, I follow,’ Miles said. And added: ‘What about having your own first pow-pow with Ailsworth before trying quite so desperate a remedy? He’ll be back in no time. With a nice packed lunch.’
‘From what you tell me about him, it would be a waste of time. And time is something we just can’t waste. The situation in the outer world, remember, is that we’ve both disappeared. And I don’t see that anybody is particularly likely to find us. We’ve got to get away under our own steam, Miles, as quickly as we can. And see what can be done with the police and Clandon and anybody else in the know about hushing the damned thing up.’
‘Very well. But just what sort of fire are you envisaging?’
‘Not – at least in the first instance – one that would actually burn a way out for us.’ Howard had produced his penknife and begun to strip shavings from the bench on which he was sitting. ‘My idea is somehow to contrive a good trail of smoke through one of those apertures. If we can manage that, it’s bound to attract notice quite soon. And Ailsworth can’t reasonably keep people away from his precious tower once it’s seen to be on fire. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’ Miles produced a penknife of his own. ‘By the way, what was that you said about being distracted by something, just before coming down here?’
Howard Juniper frowned, as if at a recollection he found disturbing. ‘Do you remember Karl Grindrod?’ he asked.
‘Grindrod?’ Miles was startled. ‘Of course I do. A nasty piece of work.’
‘Quite so. Well, he turned up at Oxford. Bad luck – wouldn’t you say? Still, I was asking for it.’
Miles made an impatient gesture. ‘I don’t follow. Explain yourself.’
‘It’s a pity that all the fun in Through the Looking-Glass comes from taking just one more risk. I enjoyed being a prep-school master at a conference of prep-school masters. But it was while I was being just that, and going around with a large label in my buttonhole saying “Miles Juniper, Splaine Croft”, that I ran slap into Grindrod. What he was doing in Oxford, I don’t know.’
‘And he recognized you?’
‘Just at the time, I wasn’t quite sure. He said nothing committal himself. But, in fact, he did recognize me – as subsequent events proved. He was one of the few chaps, remember, who could identify us one from the other at sight. And he’d never tell how he managed it.’
Miles nodded. ‘A sinister bastard, I always thought. And I haven’t the slightest doubt he indulged the notion that being able to bring off that little bit of detection might some day be turned to his advantage.’
‘You were quite right, my boy. He turned up at the lab yesterday and managed to be shown in on me.’
‘The devil he did!’ Miles looked thoroughly alarmed. ‘I can imagine that you found it distracting, all right. What did he say?’
‘Very little. I think he found it disappointing that – so to speak – I wasn’t you.’ Howard laughed softly. ‘He couldn’t have tumbled to the fact that I was me pretending to be you pretending to be me. At least I suppose not.’
‘What excuse did he give for his visit? We’ve neither of us ever kept up with him. I’d a notion he’d turned a thoroughly bad hat, who was obliged to live abroad.’
‘Yes, I think I had some such idea myself. He simply said that he’d run into you in Oxford, and that this had put it into his head to look me up too. For the sake, he said, of old times. But he said it with as sinister a grin as he could contrive. I’m quite sure he envisaged our meeting as a preliminary stage in an attempt at blackmail.’
Miles Juniper flushed darkly. ‘The filthy swine!’
‘He’d know very well, you see, that our old tricks are something that our present reputations can’t afford. Particularly mine, Miles, if I may say so. In middle age, any disclosure of the sort would brand us, not as harmless practical jokers, but as irresponsible neurotics. Grindrod had a reasonable expectation of having stumbled on a good thing.’
‘But he didn’t ask for money there and then?’
Howard shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘He didn’t. I was left with a notion that it wasn’t – well, that it wasn’t our own modest bank balances that he had an eye on.’
‘You’re quite right.’
There was a split second’s silence – and then both Howard and Miles Juniper sprang to their feet and stared upwards. In the ceiling above their heads the small trapdoor had opened, and a face was peering down at them.
‘You’re quite right,’ Karl Grindrod repeated. ‘Your money’s no use to me. I don’t go after chicken feed. You’re going to do me prouder than that, friends. Nasty views you have of me, haven’t you? Before we’ve finished with each other you’ll know you’re quite right there too.’