“Curtis,” said a taunting voice from the other end of the cave.
He knelt there, totally still, for a second. Then he folded the pocketknife, put it down by the stalagmite and stood to face Holt.
Chapter Ten
Holt was hanging his lantern on a jutting bit of rock. The light of three lamps made the white gallery disturbingly bright. Curtis glanced down at Daniel, still pinioned, his eyes black pits in his drawn, fearful face, and looked up at the man who had done this to him.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he said.
Holt gave him an incredulous look. “At least I’m not a bloody queer.”
“You’re a blackmailer. A torturer.”
“Murderer,” Daniel rasped.
“Who did you murder?” Curtis rolled his shoulders, making sure his Norfolk jacket was loose enough, and took a sideways step. Holt registered the movement and something leapt in his face. Eagerness, Curtis thought. He wanted a fight.
He’d get one.
Holt shed his overcoat, eyes on Curtis. “A couple of traitors. You should be happy about that, actually.”
“Lafayette’s men.” Curtis began a circling motion, saw Holt mimic him, watched his gait. “The men who tampered with the guns that went to Jacobsdal. You blackmailed them to do it, did you?”
“No!” Holt sounded outraged by the accusation. “That was Armstrong. Nothing to do with me. A disgraceful business.”
“But you murdered the men who did it? Why?”
“They were traitors.” Holt sounded as though he was appealing for understanding. “And depraved with it. Filthy beasts. They liked girls, young ones. Disgusting. They deserved to die.”
“There we agree. What did you do with them?” Curtis asked, as if he cared. “The sinkhole?”
“Down to the bowels of the earth. Makes it a useful place for disposal. Nobody’s ever found the bottom, did I say?” Holt’s eyes glittered in the lamplight and the reflections of white stone. “I thought I’d throw the Jew down alive tonight. He screams like a girl. I want to see how long I can hear him falling.”
Daniel made an animal noise of sheer terror. Curtis rocked on the balls of his feet, flexing his fingers. Holt shook his head. “Are you really planning to fight over him? Good God. I would never have thought it of you, Curtis. A soldier, a man of breeding, a Blue, up to those filthy tricks. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
Curtis managed, “No.” He took a couple of steps closer to Holt, who raised his fists, then gave a little laugh.
“It’s a shame. I’d have liked to spar properly with you. I don’t suppose it counts, thrashing a cripple.”
“Don’t worry about me.” That was what Curtis meant to say, anyway, but his mouth wasn’t quite working now, and the words came out oddly. He looked at his hands in the lamplight and saw that they were shaking.
Holt’s smile vanished. “I hope you’re not yellow.” He sounded aggrieved. “You’re not afraid of a scrap, are you? Lost your nerve in the war? Damn it, I’ve been looking forward to a real turn-up with you, and you’re just another cowardly bugger. Where’s the challenge in that? At least one can take some pleasure in kicking a Jew.”
That was when Curtis went for him.
His uncle’s writer friend, Quatermain, had made a great fuss about Sir Henry Curtis’s Viking blood, and the Berserker spirit that came upon him in battle. Curtis felt that to be a ridiculous and romantic way of looking at matters. If he had been asked to describe his battle rage, he would not have called it “Berserker spirit”. The phrase, he felt, was “homicidal mania”.
There was no red mist, there was no period where he didn’t know what he was doing, there was not even anger as he knew it normally. Instead, there was a strange detachment and an exquisite, savage pleasure in violence. He strode forward, seeing Holt’s fists go up in approved style, as if he thought they were going to fight like gentlemen, and landed a low punch that just failed to connect with the man’s balls, thanks to an impressively fast reaction from Holt. He leapt back, opened his mouth, and saw something in Curtis’s face that warned him to waste no more breath on speech.
Then they were fighting in earnest, a savage, scrambling match, no Queensberry rules here, both slipping on the smooth wet rock underfoot, both knowing that a fall could mean defeat. They were evenly matched in size and weight, and Holt had earned his boxing blue, and kept in shape. He had the huge advantage of two full hands and used it well, with relentless attacks on Curtis’s right side, forcing him to use the mutilated, less powerful fist that jarred painfully with each blow.