Run! (2 page)

James sent the ray of his torch into the space and found it very large and dusty, with a stair going up at the far end. He was in some kind of lobby, but the inner door stood open to the hall and he could see through it to where the beam shifted and slid from floor to panelling, from panelling to the grey stone of a huge, empty fireplace. He came through the inner door and stopped. The travelling beam just grazed the back of a gaunt archaic chair. The place was not unfurnished. It was certainly very bare. His feet were on stone. The stair gloomed in the darkness.

He switched off the torch and waited to see if there was any glow of light from the upper floor. Everything immediately disappeared in a complete black-out. The place might not be there at all for all he could see of it. He thought it was very odd. He thought it was none of his business, and that he had better be getting back to the car. On the other hand, the bicycle obviously belonged to someone, and that someone had probably left the door open. He, James, had set out to discover where he was, and he had a constitutional objection to giving up half way. He thought it might be a good plan to go back to the front door and do something rousing with the knocker.

He turned on his torch again, and the beam fell on the stair. It made a bright ring in a dim, dusky circle. The edge of the circle touched something which had not been there before. The stair had been empty. It wasn't empty now. He swung the bright ring sideways, and saw it dazzle on a girl's white face—just a ghost of a face which seemed to float on the darkness, eyes wide in a stare of terror, mouth open as if to scream.

But she didn't scream. She came running. There wasn't any sound at all. Her face slipped out of the circle of light, and she came running like the wind. She really did run like the wind, because he lost sight of her and could hear nothing, and then she had him by the arm, and she said “Run!” in a breath which came warm against his cheek.

II

James stood his ground and said “why?” He said it in his normal voice. The torch made a spot of light on the floor at his feet. It was a very dusty floor. And then, before there was time for anything else, someone fired at them.

It was completely incredible, but it was true. The stair ran up to a gallery, and someone had taken a pot shot at them from this gallery. It wasn't such a bad shot either, for James felt the wind of the bullet as it went past, and heard the plop with which it buried itself in the panelling.

The girl dragged at his arm. He thought more favourably of her original suggestion. There seemed to be no point about being shot down by a homicidal maniac. They ran down the steps and into the fog, and a second shot followed them. James barked a shin on the bicycle. It clattered down upon stone, and above the noise of its fall he could hear the sound of running steps behind them. The girl pushed him hard to the left. The hand on his arm pinched fiercely. The voice that had said “Run!” said, “Idiot! This way—quick!” all on one soundless breath.

And then they were running again, flagstones under their feet, and the fog in eyes, and nose, and throat. He guessed that they were on a paved terrace which ran the length of the house. He couldn't see a yard. A yard? He couldn't see an inch. But the girl seemed to know where she was going. She turned left-handed again. Then she stopped running and went slow, and once they stood listening, and heard what might have been a step on the gravel a long way off. She pulled him on. He made as little noise with his feet as he could, but she made none that he could hear. She might have been bare-foot, or she might not have been touching the ground at all.

She stopped and felt in the dark with her free hand. She said “Steps” in his ear, and they went down six of them and through a gateway into another paved place. James knew that it was a gateway because he scraped his shoulder against the left-hand pillar. He stopped there, and said,

“What's all this about? I want to get back to my car.”

She leaned so close to answer him that her lips just touched his ear, a little fugitive touch that was instantly withdrawn. Her fingers nipped his arm—small fingers, extraordinarily hard and strong. The pinch hurt sharply. She said in a mere thread of a savage whisper,

“You can't! Do you want to be shot? I don't.”

James said, “Nor do I.” He whispered too, but even in a whisper he managed to make it quite plain that he didn't like being pinched. He considered it a liberty.

The nip was repeated, harder.

“You will be—we both shall! I suppose you can climb a ladder? There ought to be one just about here. No—about ten steps on and a yard or two to the left. Feel about for it.”

It was a little farther than she had said, but they found it. There was no more sound behind them. She let go of his arm and went away up into the dark. A faint rustling came to him from above. He climbed towards it and stepped off the ladder into a foot or so of hay. His arm was caught again. He was first pulled forward and then released. A shutter closed behind him. He heard a long breath taken, and a whispering laugh.

He said again, “What's all this?” And then, “What's this place?”

“Stable loft.” Her voice sounded a little farther off. “They won't find us here. Brr! Nice to be out of the fog! I do
hope
they won't pinch my bicycle.”

“Why should they?”

“They might.”

Well, they couldn't pinch the Rolls, because he had locked the doors and the switch key was in his pocket. All the same—

“You haven't told me what it's all about. And I'm not staying here—I'm going back to my car. And what we both ought to do is to find the nearest police-station and put them on to the lunatic who was shooting at us. Unless—” A sudden thought struck him. “I suppose he might have thought we were burglars, but it was a bit drastic shooting like that. He might have hit one of us quite easily.”

There was a faint laugh.

“He meant to. And you can't be a burglar in the afternoon. It has to be half-past eight or something like that. And anyhow it isn't their house.”

“Whose house?”

“Theirs.”

“Whose house is it?”

“How should I know?” enquired a very small, innocent voice.

James felt properly angry.

“What's the good of trying to put that sort of stuff across when you've just been leading me round blind? You've got to know a place like the back of your hand before you can do that!”

She laughed again, a little nearer.

“Perhaps it's the cradle of my infancy.”

“I'm going back to my car,” said James.

His wrist was caught.

“I should hate you to. If you got shot, they might think I'd done it. Let's stay here and tell each other the stories of our lives. I'll begin. I'm sure you'd love to hear the story of my life.”

“Not particularly. I want to make sure my car's all right.”

“Are you going to leave me here?” He wasn't sure if the voice was quite steady. There was very little of it. He said,

“I could drop you if you'll tell me where you want to go.”

She seemed to consider this.

“I shouldn't think we'd get farther than the nearest ditch—not in a fog like this. The lanes round here are exactly like corkscrews. And then there's my bicycle, and my shoes.”

“Your
what
?” said James in an exasperated voice.

“Shoes. Things you wear on your feet, you know. Rather a nice pair—crocodiles—quite new. I don't think I ought to abandon them.”

James became a good deal more exasperated. It wasn't the slightest use her doing that sort of mournful tone at him. If it had been light, she would probably have been flickering her eyelashes. He hadn't got a sister, but he had fourteen girl cousins, and he flattered himself he knew all their ways of trying it on. He couldn't imagine what sort of game this was, and that naturally put his back up, but he did know when a girl was trying it on. He said,

“What have you got on now?”

There was a little sigh in the darkness.

“A felt hat, a jumper suit, a tweed coat. They're all brown, if you want the colours.”

“I don't. I want to know what you've got on your feet.”

“Stockings,” said the voice very mournfully in the dark.

So that was why she had made no sound as she ran. If she thought he was going to say “Your feet must be soaked,” she was going to be disappointed.

He said, “Why?”

“Well, you see, those stairs make such a noise. There isn't any stair carpet, and the fourth one from the bottom creaks, so I took them off—the shoes, you know, my beautiful new crocodiles—and left them in the hall just round the corner from the bottom step, because I thought if I carried them I'd be almost sure to drop them at some frightfully critical moment.”

James frowned. Of all the silly idiotic things to do—

“You mean they're still in the hall?”

“Yes, kind Preserver.”

James considered the shoe question. If she had walked to the hayloft, she could walk to the car. He said so in a firm, dogmatic voice.

There was another of those mournful sighs.

“And leave my crocodiles—and my bicycle? I've got a much better plan than that.”

“Well?” He wasn't going to commit himself, but you don't commit yourself very far by saying “Well?”

She echoed the word brightly. Girls always thought themselves whales at making plans.

“Well, suppose you were in a house doing something that you oughtn't to be doing, and someone came along and found you doing it, and you shot at them, and they got away—how long do you think you would stay in the house?”

“I wouldn't,” said James.

“Nor should I.
Nor would they.
They'll hunt round for us, and then they'll go away. And then we'll rescue the crocodiles and my bicycle. And then
we'll
go away. It's a much better plan.”

It was. But that wasn't to say that it offered no grounds for criticism. James proceeded to criticize.

“Suppose they don't go away.”

“They will.”

“If the fellow who did the shooting is a lunatic—”

“He isn't.”

“Who is he?” said James in a rage.

He heard her sigh again.

“I don't know.”

He thought she did. He very nearly said so. He went on criticizing instead.

“If they've gone, they'll have shut the door. You don't imagine they'll leave it open, do you? And then how do we get in?”

“Kind sir, I've got a key.

James had a sense of being played with and laughed at. There is nothing more calculated to set a match to the temper, and his was alight already. Yet, strangely and unaccountably, instead of flaring now it sobered down. He said seriously and without heat,

“So you've got a key. Very well, we'll wait. I suppose you know what it's all about. I don't, and I don't want to. We'll give them half an hour.”

He shot his wrist-watch out of his cuff and took a look at the luminous dial. The hands stood at six o'clock. There was just a chance that the fog might clear as the temperature fell. These afternoon fogs did clear off sometimes after sunset. They either did that or they got worse. If it was going to get any worse, he was stuck anyhow.

The girl leaned over to see the time. He felt her quite near for a moment. Then the hay rustled as she settled herself again.

“Half an hour—that's a long time in the dark. Shall we say the multiplication table, or the Kings of England? You wouldn't have the story of my life. I did offer it to you. What about yours? Are you just ‘Hi, you there!' or have you got a name?”

“My name's Elliot—James Elliot.”

“How nice and ordinary. Mine is Aspidistra Aspinall.”

If she had been one of his cousins, James would have said “Liar!” He very nearly said it anyhow. She needn't suppose he had the slightest desire to know her name. He said nothing.

The hay rustled.

“It's not my fault, it's my misfortune.” The voice wobbled for a moment, and then went on in a bright, sweet monotone. “I was born an orphan, and my ruthless relations—”

“You can't be born an orphan!” said James.

“Oh, but I
was.
Truly. Absolutely. Because my father was killed in the war and my mother died when I was born. If that isn't being born an orphan, I don't know what is.” This with some earnestness. Then, resuming the monotone, “Ruthless relations brought me up. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children prosecuted the god-mother who had had me christened Aspidistra. But what was the good of sending her to penal servitude for seven years—I'd got the name for life. It isn't even as if you could shorten it. Assy! Dissy! I'd rather be a whole Aspidistra any day!”

James supposed it amused her to talk nonsense. It didn't amuse him. He listened because he thought she was talking nonsense to cover things up—things which might make sense if he were to get a chance of putting them together. He thought she didn't want to give him that chance, but he thought the more she talked the better, because it is very difficult to talk a lot without giving something away. If the person who had shot at them was neither an enraged householder nor a lunatic, he was a dangerous criminal and a matter of concern for the police. He added his annoyance at being shot at to his annoyance at having run away, and he set them both down to the account of this person or persons unknown. He said,

“How do you come to have a key of this house?”

There was a faint, light laugh.

“Oh, sir—this is so sudden! I haven't got nearly as far as that. Birth and Christening, that's where we were—Ruthless Relations and Unchristian Names. Upbringing comes next.” She seemed to hesitate, and then said quickly, “It's your turn really. I suppose there are about a million James Elliots—the Scotch are so economical about names. But were you at Wellington?”