3

The tunnel was high enough to stand in. Packed earth made the floor and walls; timbers shored up the roof. When Rose shone the flashlight down its length, they could see it going deeper into the earth at a slight pitch, falling and falling. Where the light began to die - a long way off - it seemed to turn a corner.

'Well, you said you were going to take the low road,' Del said. 'This is really cool. Look how big it is! I thought we'd be crawling on our hands and knees.'

'Not a chance,' Rose said. 'Would I do that to you?' She gestured with the light as they walked along. The air changed, became colder and drier in the total blackness around the spreading beam.

At the juncture of the tunnel's three branches the flashlight picked out a little heap of things. The juncture was a circular cavern slightly taller than the tunnels themselves. The ceiling was rounded and intricately buttressed by a lattice of two-by-fours. 'Here's our bedroom,' Rose said. 'And blankets and food and stuff like that.' She knelt and lifted the blanket off the magician's wicker basket. 'I didn't think he'd miss this. Is anybody hungry?'

Tension had made the boys ravenous. Rose stood the flashlight on end in the center of the vaulted cavern and handed them ham sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Collins' ham; Collins' wax paper, too, probably. Each of them ate leaning against a different wall, so they were only half-visible to each other. Enough of the light filtered out and down to dimly touch their faces.

Del asked, 'Which one of these tunnels do we take, Rose?'

'The one next to Tom.' Tom leaned over and turned to peer down it. A wave of cold air washed toward him from out of impenetrable dark. 'One of these used to connect to another summerhouse.' From the cold darkness of the tunnel Tom heard:

chinga-chink-chink, chinga-chink-chink of the banjo

and an amateurish but sweet voice singing There's a moon a-bove Dum da dum-dum Sweet Sue, just you.

'I think we ought to try to go to sleep,' he said. 'Toss me one of those blankets, please, Rose.' Her face blazed into color as she bent forward, throwing a plaid blanket toward him. 'Good idea,' she said. For a time they arranged the blankets on the hard floor.

'I don't suppose the rest of you hear anything,' Tom said.

'Hear anything?': Del. 'Just my imagination.'

Rose came forward into the center, her head and trunk floating in the light like the top of the woman, sawed in half in the old trick. She gave him a liquid, molten message from her pale eyes - Forgive me? Then the beam of the flashlight dipped like a flare along the curving walls and momentarily dazzled Tom, shining directly into his eyes. His shadow spread gigantically up the wall behind him. The beam swung away, and he saw Rose's body outlined against it - a wraith from the twenties in her green dress, wandering down here on whatever errands brought the resort people below ground. Who was that lady I saw you with? Nicholas? Just a lady who can be in two places at once. Those captured voices.

The beam found Rose's blanket already spread. Her shoes dropped gently to the packed ground. 'Good night, my loves.'

'Good night,' they said.

The flashlight clicked off, and seamless black covered them.

'Like floating,' Del said. 'Like being blind.' 'Yes,' Rose breathed. Tom's heart went out to both of them.

He sprawled out on his blanket and covered himself against the chill. Like being blind. When he heard those captured voices drifting in the tunnels, he knew that nothing would be as easy as Del thought - that nothing had ever been that easy - and fear kept his eyes open, though he too was blind.

(splash of water: can- paddle lifted and dripping, the gleam catching your eye from clear across the lake)

Two places at once, very handy, Nick.

Summers are for dalliance, dear boy.

Wife sick again, is she?

Something in the water, she says. Foolishness. Something in the gin, more likely.

Or something in the air. Philly saw that owl again last night.

There is no owl, dear boy. Trust me.

Don't trust him, Tom said to himself; there is, there is an owl.

Philly's darling wife is the only reason we tolerate him, after all…

Then voices from later in the summer: he could hear the coming chill, the promise of dead leaves and gray freezing water.

Joan can't be moved. Can't figure it out - doctors can't either. Going crazy with this thing.

And I saw the owl over your cabin, Nick…

Can't get her out, can't stay …

And Philly's wife dead - something in the air or something in the water…

Heard they sold the whole place. The devil must have bought it.

Waft the gin this way, Nick. Keep having these terrible nightmares.

The other two slept in the perfect blackness. Tom lay rigid in his blanket, listening to their even breathing as the captured voices lilted from the tunnels, moving and changing until there was only one voice left.

Good-bye, all, good-bye… All alone. Just me, chicken inspector number 23. Better waft myself some more of this gin and keep the boogies away … all alone, all alone… with the moon a-bove, da da dum dum…

He knew that if he looked deeply enough into one or another of the tunnels, he'd find a skeleton. Twenties Nick, with a supply of prewar gin and something going with Philly's wife while his own wife sickened and died and while a plausible but sinister young expatriate bought up the resorts where he had come for a pleasant summer of gambling and lovemaking. Twenties Nick, who had stayed on until it was too late and now was never going to leave… Crooning 'Sweet Sue' in the tunnel that had allowed him and his mistress to be in two places at once.

Collins had killed them off, the ones that couldn't be scared away. Then he had taken the old resort and perfected himself, toying with Del Nightingale in the summers when he thought that Del might be his successor: later, just sharpening his skills, waiting for the successor to come, fending off anyone who tried to invite himself, knowing that in time the only person in the world who meant danger to him would appear.

And when his extorted money had run out, he had killed Del's parents. Brought their plane out of the air and claimed his share of the inheritance and bided his time, keeping his ears open - knowing that sooner or later he would hear about some young fellow who still didn't know what he was.

Waft myself some more of that good stuff, sport.

Plenty of wafting went on over the years. Here's to you, Nick.

And to you, Sweet Sue.

He heard it as though someone had spoken from the very mouth of the tunnel nearest him. Tom turned over inside his blanket - or was this too a dream? - and felt a chill breeze advancing toward him.

The devil, M., emerged wrapped in the breeze from the mouth of the tunnel. He shone palely, as if lit by moonlight. M. was no longer dressed in the uniform of a private-school teacher, but in a blazer and high stiff collar. Above the collar his face still radiated sympathy and intense but misdirected intelligence. He knelt down before Tom.

'So you took the low road after all, and here you are.'

'Leave me alone,' Tom said.

'Now, now. I'm offering you a second chance. You don't want to end up like our friend back there, do you? Salted away like a herring? That's not for you.'

'No,' Tom said. 'It's not.'

'But, dear child, can't you see that this is hopeless? I'm giving you your last chance. Stand up and get out. Leave them - they're of no use to you. Take my hand. I'll put you back in your room.' He held out his hand, which was black and smoking. 'Oh, there'll be a little pain. Nothing you won't get over. At least you'll save your life.'

Tom shuddered back from the awful hand.

'Reconsider. I promise you, that creature you think you've in love with is going to sell you out. Take my hand. I know it's not very pretty, but you have to take it.' White curls of smoke hovered over the extended hand. 'Mr. Collins has explained it all to you. She's not your way out, boy.'

Tom saw the inevitability of it: a final betrayal, like Rosa Forte's. 'Even so… 'he said.

M. retracted his hand, which was now pink and smooth. 'I wonder where you will end up. Down here? In the lake? Nailed to a tree to be eaten by birds? I'll come back and remind you that I tried to help.'

'Do that,' Tom said: I told you so must have been one of the devil's favorite sentences.

M. sneered and flickered away.

'Not like that,' Tom said to himself.