Run! (27 page)

Ambrose Sylvester's voice broke in. He said her name, “Sally!” and then again, “Sally!” in a hurt, pleading voice.

She understood that she was being accused, reproached. Ambrose had been enjoying his confession—wallowing in it. He had been bang in the middle of the stage with the limelight full upon him, and instead of taking her cue and playing out her appointed part she had imported a note of cruel satire and quite ruined his big scene. She understood all this very well, and in a remote corner of her mind something wept. She said quite briskly,

“Well, what about it?”

He looked at her with a tragic, wounded expression.

“You wouldn't marry Henri. I didn't want you to, but it would have been safer—for you.”

“You don't marry people just to be safe,” said Sally.

“Henri tried to save you, but you wouldn't be saved. You've made it very difficult for anyone to save you. Why couldn't you leave Rere Place alone? I could have saved you if you had kept quiet. But you didn't keep quiet. You came over here the day of the fog, and you brought James Elliot with you. It was a mad thing to do. It was just as if you were asking to be put out of the way, because you see, we were here, all three of us, up in Clementa's room looking for the book. We knew she'd hidden it somewhere, but we could never find it—we couldn't ever find it.” He was speaking in a low, excited voice, very fast indeed. “But this time Hildegarde had an idea. It didn't come to anything, but she thought it was going to.” He ran his hand through his hair. “There have been so many ideas, but they never come to anything. And then just as we were in the middle of it—all of us up there in Clementa's room, and Hildegarde talking, talking, talking about all the things in the book that would ruin us if they came out—just then—just then, Sally, there was a sound outside the door. A very little sound, but we all heard it—someone sneezed—”

“It was the dust,” said Sally in self-defence. “Everything's inches deep.”

“You were very lucky not to be caught. Henri got out his pistol and ran. We heard him shoot—twice. You are very lucky to be alive. He doesn't often miss.”

“I said it was Henri,” said Sally.

“But we didn't know it was you—not then, or you wouldn't be alive. We thought it was the man with the car, but we found out afterwards.”

“How?”

“Hildegarde guessed, and one of the housemaids said you had taken her bicycle. And that was the end. I couldn't save you after that.”

“You've got it all wrong,” said Sally. “I didn't bring James—we blinded into each other in the dark. And I don't know what you think we heard or saw, but first of all there wasn't anything, and after that if there had been anything to see, we shouldn't have been able to see it, and anyhow I don't know what you're talking about. You know, if Henri had hit somebody, you'd all have been in a bit of a mess—wouldn't you?”

He waved that away with a kind of gloomy scorn. The problem of the unwanted corpse did not concern him. Hildegarde would have seen to it.

“You know, Ambrose,” said Sally with sudden earnestness, “you really have made a most awful mess of things—haven't you? Why not stop all this rubbish and start fresh? We'll hold our tongues, and you can cut loose from the Niemeyers and begin again.”

Ambrose caught her hands in his hand held them hard—cruelly hard.

“Don't be a fool, Sally! How can I cut loose? They'd ruin me wherever I was. No, no, I've got to go on, but I want you to understand—”

“What have they done to James?” said Sally quickly.

He stared at her, offended. She ought to have said “Oh, but I
do
,” but that was Sally all over.

“Where's James? What have they done to him?”

“You keep on interrupting!” he said peevishly. “I told you there was going to be an accident. Hildegarde is quite right—it's the only way out. I wanted them to let you go, but they're perfectly right, it's too dangerous. But I won't have you hurt, Sally—I've made them promise me that.”

“How kind of you,” Sally murmured with stiff lips. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held them fast.

“Yes, I was firm with them. I wouldn't give way. I insisted. I said, ‘She mustn't be hurt, or I won't consent. She must have chloroform and not know anything about it. You can do what you like about the others, but I won't have Sally hurt.'”

Of course he was mad. Only a madman would talk like this. But it was horrible, and horrible to be touched by him, horrible to feel the hot clasp of his hands. She leaned back as far back as she could, and said in an exhausted voice,

“Please let me go. I want my handkerchief.”

Impossible to persist in a romantic pose in the face of so homely a necessity. He released her hands with a deepening of his air of offence.

She said rather faintly, “Will you get me—a little water?”

The question was, could she get through the two doors, the baize door and the oak door, and down the cellar steps? She thought she could—Ambrose had a terribly long reach—if he went to the sink he would have to turn his back—he would have to go to the sink to get the water she had asked for—he couldn't refuse. And all the time with a regular, persistent rhythm she could hear Jock kicking.

Ambrose went past her to the sink at the end of the room. The baize door was perhaps six feet from him, and at least eight from her. She would have to get out of her chair and turn the corner of the table before she dare make a rash for it, and until she got clear of the table he would be nearer the door than she. Like the nastiest sort of nightmare came the thought of being run down in that dark underground place which she had always feared.

And Ambrose was mad.

There was no time to think, or to plan, or to be afraid. The moment he was past her she got to her feet and moved behind him as he moved, only instead of going towards the sink she was skirting the table. She heard the tap turn and the water run. She was nearer the door than he was now, but at the next step, or the next after that, he must see her—he couldn't fail to see her. She took that step, and the next, and then ran for the door. She heard the glass smash against the sink, and then she heard nothing but the pounding of her own heart. The baize was rough under her hand as the door swung in to let her through—rough baize, hard oak, and the dark stone flight down which she half ran, half fell. She was on her hands and knees at the bottom, and then up again. A torch flashed after her, showing a confused litter of straw and paper rising almost roof high, the accumulation of years, and ahead of her the long, dark passage which led to Jocko. She could hear him much more plainly now—kick, kick, kick—kick, kick, kick.

She caught at her courage and ran towards the sound. From behind her came a shouting, and a scream, and the sound of a crash.

Sally ran on.

XXXVI

The night air had an edge on it like ice. James was gratefully aware of this as he ran. He came to the corner of the house and round it, and there checked. His head was clear again. It behooved him to go warily. He must get into the house, but he must get in unheard. No going up to the front door and ringing the bell.

He went back to the wing which faced the stables, and there broke a window with his elbow and got in. He did not know what part of the house he had come to, but it must at any rate be some way from the hall. It was the hall that he had to make for. He wished ardently for a torch, but it was no good wishing. He must just go slowly and take care not to stumble over anything or make any noise.

The place he had entered was quite small. He found the door, and came into a narrow passage. It began by going towards the front of the house, but soon turned and took him in the direction he desired. He felt his way along it, going softly. He kept thinking, “Sally's all right. Why shouldn't Sally be all right? Why should anyone want to hurt her?” It did not occur to him till afterwards that he had quite forgotten about the Rolls.

He began to think that it was time he got somewhere, and for a moment he had the horrid nightmare feeling that he might be going round and round in a maze of passages, returning upon his own tracks, and never getting any nearer to Sally.

His groping fingers reached and touched a door. The nightmare went, and he came thankfully into what felt like a large room—large and very cold, with a most horrible unlived-in smell. He wondered when the windows had been opened last, and whether the smell was plain frowst, or frowst-cum-damp, or frowst-cum-damp-cum mice—, or, appropriately, bats.

His hand touched the edge of a table, and after following the said edge for about fifteen feet he concluded that it was the edge of the dining-table, and that he was therefore in the dining-room of Rere Place—or perhaps they called it a banquetting-hall; it was large enough. Anyhow it probably opened into the real hall, and once there, he thought he could find his way back to where he had left Sally and Jocko.

It took him a little time to find the door. He kept bumping into large, solemn chairs set back against the wall. But presently there was a door, and he came through into what he believed to be the hall from the sense of open space above him and the strong downward draught.

He was lucky here, because he walked straight into the right-hand newel-post of the stair. With his hand on the balustrade he went up, and when he came to the place where the stair divided he took the left-hand turn. As he remembered it, Lady Clementa's room was no distance from the stair head.

With a hand on the panelling which the hands of many generations had polished and worn smooth, he moved forward, and before he had taken a dozen steps the sound of voices broke the strained silence in which he was listening for some sound or sign of Sally.

But this wasn't Sally's voice or Jocko's. It was a voice which he had heard only once before, but he recognized it with perfect certainty as Hildegarde Sylvester's—a voice with a convention of sweetness, a convention of breeding and culture. Through the half open door of Lady Clementa's room he heard her say,

“They must all be dead before midnight.”

It was a startling thing to hear, and James was certainly startled. He also found himself getting bitingly, coldly angry. He continued a slow, careful progress, and heard Hildegarde speak again.

“Hold the torch up—I can't see like that! We've got to be quick! Now where's that paper?”

James reached the doorway and looked cautiously round the jamb. There were two people at the far end of the room, Hildegarde Sylvester and Henri Niemeyer. An electric lamp stood on the heavy mahogany chest of drawers a couple of yards away, and its light was directed upon them and upon the single panel between the windows. In the hand of Henri Niemeyer was a pocket torch whose powerful beam picked out the carved device of the bat upon the panel.

Undoubtedly something very odd was happening. James wondered what the paper might be, and decided to stay where he was and observe the course of events.

“Read it out!” said Hildegarde Sylvester impatiently, and Henri read aloud:

“It is hidden in my room behind the

panel with one of our bats on it.

The spring is

It opens quite easily, so do not try

to force it. The middle board

between the windows moves when the

spring is pushed down, and the panel

will then open. The book is there,

with our family secret. We have

always kept it secret for the

sake of the name—”

He broke off and said smoothly,

“It is a pity that you had to forget the one piece that mattered.”

Hildegarde swung round upon him blazing.

“How many times am I to tell you that I did
not
forget? What I have heard, that I remember! It is infallible with me! I have told you so a thousand times! But I cannot remember what I do not hear, and I tell you when that stupid Jocko was talking all his secrets in his dream I heard everything he said except just this one bit. He spoke quite clearly, as if he was reading the old woman's letter out to me, but when he came to ‘The spring is—' he stopped and said it again, ‘The spring is—' just like that. And he moved his head as if he was going to wake and muttered something to himself, and then went on about the panel opening quite easily.”

“Oh, well, we can always force it,” said Henri.

James had drawn back when Hildegarde turned. He could hear, but he could no longer see the windows. If they forced the panel and found whatever it was they were looking for, he thought he would have a try at getting it away from them. He would have to make a plan, and a good one. They were two to one. Henri at least would be armed, and James was prepared to bet on Hildegarde being able to give a good account of herself in a scrap. She might, he thought, favour a knife. On the other hand, he would have the advantage of a surprise. He thought he would let them open the panel, and launch his attack when they were getting away with the swag. He rather fancied the idea of a charge from behind. He thought he would probably run a very good chance with a surprise rush on the stair.

He stood on one leg at a time and took off his shoes. On the feet they would merely give his movements away, but in the hand they would prove quite useful missiles. He heard Henri say with half a laugh, “I borrowed this. It ought to do the trick. Stand back and take the torch.” And then he heard the sound of wood splintering. “This” was probably a jemmy, and the panel was being forced. They would both be looking that way and have no eyes for anything else.

He took a step or two on his stocking feet and looked into the room. Henri had both hands on the panel, wrenching at it, whilst Hildegarde held the torch with a steady hand. The wood cracked and gave. A gap appeared all down one side of it. The gap widened, showing a black space beyond. Henri let go and stood back panting and rubbing his hands, but Hildegarde Sylvester ran forward and thrust in the torch.