The Spiral Staircase (5 page)

She could see her quarry-a small and rather attractive rodent-frisking in the distance, with the assurance of an old resident..

“Where’s its hole?” she whispered.

“In that corner,” panted Mrs. Oates. “Oates did say as how he’d stop it up.”

Helen was driving the mouse homewards when she started at’ the sound of footsteps on the back-stairs.

“Who’s that?” she cried.

“Not him,” laughed Mrs. Oates. “When he comes you’ll not hear him on the way. He’ll creep. That sounds like Mr. Rice.”

As she spoke the door was pushed open, and Stephen Rice carrying a suitcase-entered the kitchen. He stared at the sight of the demure Miss Capel on her knees, with her hair falling in a mane across her eyes.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Red Indians, or a crawling party? Count me in.”

“I’m chasing a mouse,” explained Helen.

“Great sport. I’ll help.”

“No, I don’t want to catch it.” Helen rose and placed the bar on the table. “I think he’s gone now.”

Stephen sat down and looked around him.

“I always feel at home, here,” he said. “It’s the one room I like in this horrible house. Mrs. Oates and I hold our prayer-meetings here.”

“Where’s your dog?” asked Helen.

“In my room. Miss Warren did not come to tea, unfortunately. So the row’s postponed.” “Why d’you have one at all?” asked Helen. “You’re leaving tomorrow. I expect Miss Warren would prefer not to know.”

“No.” Stephen stuck out his prominent chin. “I’d rather come out in the open. Noble of me, when I know the heroic Newton will enlighten her darkness in any case.”

“He wouldn’t tell?” cried Helen incredulously.

“Wouldn’t he? To be frank, Otto was not a blazing success. The poor lad is not used to afternoon tea. Like his master, he’s happier in the kitchen.”

“But Mrs. Newton must have fallen for him,” insisted Helen, who argued along the familiar lines or “love me, love my dog.”.

“If she did, she controlled her passion.” Stephen opened his empty suitcase and turned to Mrs. Oates. “Where are the empties?” he asked. “I thought I’d lift them now, and lug them over to the Bull tonight, to save that poor delicate husband of yours.”

“And I suppose you want to say ‘Goodbye’ to your young lady there?” Mrs. Oates winked at Helen, who-enlightened by her previous gossip-understood the allusion to to daughter of the licensee of the Bull. Apparently, this young lady was not only the patron-saint of the bar, but the magnet that reassembled. the sparse male population of the district.

Mrs. Oates took advantage of her privileged position to ask another more personal question.

“And what will your other lady say, if you spend your last night away?”

“My other-what?” demanded Stephen.

“Mrs. Newton.”

“Mrs. Newton Warren is a respectable married lady. She will naturally pass the evening in the company of her lawful husband, working out mathematical problems… .

“Did you have a good tea?”

Helen did not hear the question, for she suddenly glimpsed an exciting possibility.

“Did Miss Warren have her tea up in the bedroom?” she asked.

“I suppose so,” replied Stephen. “Then she’s been up there for ages. I wonder if I might, offer to relieve her?”

“If you do,” advised Stephen, “see that she’s supplied with cushions. Unless, of course, you’re expert in dodging.”

“But does she always throw things at people?” asked Helen incredulously..

“It’s the only way she knows of expressing her temperament.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I think she sounds so alive for an old woman. I admire that.”,

“You’ll be disillusioned,” prophesied Stephen. “She’s a vile-tempered old cuss, with horrible manners. When I was presented to Her Majesty, she was eating an orange, and she spat out all the pips-to impress me.”

He broke off to laugh at a sudden recollection.

“All the same,” he said, “I’d love to have seen her chuck the basin at that pie-faced nurse.”

“But, surely, that was an accident. She couldn’t have known she was going to hit her.”

Mrs. Oates looked up, with streaming eyes, from her task of peeling onions.

“Oh, no, miss,” she said. “Lady Warren wouldn’t miss. When she was younger, she spent all her time tramping over the fields, shooting rabbits and birds. They said she went to bed with her gun.”

“Then she’s been here a long time?” asked Helen.

She believed that her curiosity was about to be given a real meal, for Mrs. Oates’ manner hinted at gossip.

Stephen rolled a cigarette—the cat purred on the rug the mouse washed his face, in the safety of his hole. Inside was firelight and tranquillity-outside, the rising storm.

A gust of wind smashed against the corner of the house, and spattered the unbarred shutter, before the passage window, with the remnants of its original fury. Slowly, as though pushed open by invisible fingers, the casement swung outwards over the garden. The house was open to the night.

It looked in, through the gap, and down the darkness of the passage. Its far end stretched away into shadows. Round the bend, was the warren of the offices-a honeycomb of cells, where a man could hide.

Inside the kitchen, Mrs. Oates electrified her audience.

“They do say,” she said dramatically, “as old Lady Warren shot her husband.”

“No,” gasped Stephen and Helen together.

“Yes,” declared Mrs. Oates. “It’s an old wives’ tale now, but my mother told me all about it. Old Sir Roger was just such a one as the Professor, quiet, and always shut up with his books. He made a lot of money with some invention.. He built the Summit, so as to have no neighbors. And Lady Warren couldn’t abide It. She was always jawing him about it, and they had one awful quarrel, in his study. She was overheard to threaten to shoot him for vermin. A few minutes later he was found shot dead, with her rookrifle.

“Looks pretty bad,” murmured Stephen.

“Yes, everyone thought she’d stand in the Dock,” agreed Mrs. Oates. “There was some nasty questions asked at the Inquest. She said as how it was an accident, and her clever lawyer got her off… . But there was so much feeling about it that she went abroad-though she’d have gone, anyhow, as she fair hated the house.”

“Was it shut up afterwards?” asked Helen.

“No, the Professor left Oxford, and came here, and he’s been just the same as his father before him—always staying in, and never going out. Old Lady Warren only came back when she said she was ill.”

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Helen.

Mrs. Oates pursed up her lips and shook her head.

“Temper,” she said firmly.

“Oh, but Mrs. Oates, she must be ill, to have a nurse, and for the doctor to keep her in bed.” “He reckons she’s less trouble there. And she reckons she can give more trouble there. It’s a fair game for her to drive the nurses away, so as to get fresh ones in to bully.”

“But Miss Warren told me that the Professor was anxious about her heart,” persisted Helen. “Ah, but a man don’t forget the mother, that bore him,” declared Mrs. Oates, lapsing into sentiment.

“But she’s only his step-mother,” objected Stephen. “She has no children. Still, she must be expected to croakbe cause the vultures are gathering. Simone told methatthe old girl has made a Will, leaving her money to charities. She has a nasty perverted taste, and, apparently, likes Newton. Anyway, she makes him an allowance, which will cease at her death. That’s why he’s down here.”

“His pa sent for him,” explained Mrs. Oates.

Helen thought of the Professor’s glacial eye and Miss Warren’s detached manner. It was impossible to believe that they were swayed by financial considerations.

“Hullo,” said Stephen suddenly, as he swung himself up on the table. “What’s this?”

He drew from under him a wooden bar, which Helen took from him, rather guiltily.

“Sorry,” she said. “It belongs to the shutter in the pas sage. I’m glad you reminded me of it. I’ll try and fix the window.”

After what she had heard, she felt eager to finish the job, and get upstairs, to the blue room, as quickly as possible. She made a makeshift fastening with some string and a peg, and then hurried back to the kitchen.

To her surprise, Stephen was peeling onions with Mrs. Oates.

“She always makes me work,” he complained. “It’s her way of explaining a man in the kitchen, when Oates comes home… . I say, isn’t he very late? I bet you a fiver he’s run off with the pretty new nurse.”

Mrs. Oates snorted.

“If she’s like the last, she’d have to hold his nose, to get him to kiss her… . Are you really going to sit with Lady Warren, miss?”

“I am going to ask if I may,” replied Helen.

“Then, take my warning, and be on the watch out against her. It’s my belief she’s not as helpless as they make out, by a long way. I’m sure she can walk, same as me. She’s got something up her sleeve. Besides, have you heard her voice, when she forgets?” Helen suddenly remembered the bass bellow from the sick room. Here was a situation choked with mystery and drama. In her eagerness to be in the thick of it she almost ran to the door.

“I’ve tied up the window,” she said. “Now, we’re safely locked up, for the night.”

THE BLUE ROOM

As Helen mounted the stairs to the blue room, she felt an odd stir of expectancy. It took her back to childish days, when she neglected her toys in favor of an invisible companion—Mr. Poke.

Although she played by herself for hours, in a corner of the communal sitting room, it was plain to her parents, that she was not indulging in a solitary game. She did everything with a partner.

And at twilight, when the firelight sent tall shadows flickering on the walls, she carried on an interminable conversation with her hero.

At first, her mother disliked the uncanny element in the society affected by her small daughter; but when she realized that Helen had discovered the best and cheapest of playfellows—imagination—she accepted the wonderful Mr. Poke and used to ask questions about his prowess, to which there was no limit.

The staircase was lit by a pendant globe, which swung from a beam which spanned the central well. The first floor was between this light and the illumination from the hall, so that the landing was rather dark. Facing the fligh of stairs, was an enormous ten-foot mirror, framed in tarnished gilt carving, and supported by a marble console table.

As Helen approached it, her reflection came to meet her, so that a small white face rose up from the dim depths of the glass, like a corpse emerging from deep lake-water, on the seventh day.

The thrill which ran through her veins, in response, seemed to her, an omen. Miss Warren came to the door, in answer to her knock. Her pale face looked dragged and devitalized after hours of imprisonment with her step-mother.

“Has the new nurse come?” she asked.

“No.” Helen was aggressively cheerful. “And we don’t expect her for hours and hours. Mrs. Oates says the rain has made the hills difficult for the car.”

“Quite,” agreed Miss Warren wearily. “Please let me know directly she arrives. She must relieve me as soon as she has had something to eat.”

It was Helen’s chance-and she took it.

“Might I sit with Lady Warren?” she asked.

Miss Warren hesitated before her reply. She knew that it would be against her brother’s wish to entrust Lady Warren to an untrained stranger; but the girl seemed reliant and conscientious.

“Thank you, Miss Capel,” she replied. “It would be kind. Lady Warren is asleep, so you will only have to sit very still, and watch her.”

She crossed the landing to her own room, and then turned to give further advice.

“If she wakes and wants something you can’t find—or if you are in any difficulty, come, at once, to me.”

Helen promised, even while she was conscious that she would appeal to Miss Warren only as a last resource. She meant to cope with any situation on her own initiative, and she hoped that the need would arise.

The tide of her curiosity was running strongly when, at long last, she entered the blue room. It was a huge, handsome apartment, furnished with a massive mahogany suite, made sombre by reason of the prevailing dark blue color of the walls, carpet and curtains. A dull red fire glowed in the steel grate. Although its closeness was mitigated with lavender-water, the atmosphere smelt faintly of rotten apples.. Lady Warren lay in the big bed. She wore a dark-purple silk quilted dressing-jacket, and her head was propped high with pillows. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing heavily. The first glance told Helen that Stephen was right in his description. There was no sign of grand character in this bedridden old woman. The lines which scored her face, like an ancient map, were all plainly traced by bad temper and egotism. Her grey hair was cut short in a thick untidy shock and her nose was suspiciously red.

Stealing across the floor, Helen sat down in the low chair by the fire. She noticed that each. coal was wrapped in white tissue paper, so that the scuttle appeared to be filled with snowballs. As she knew this transformation was a means to ensure quiet, she took the hint, and remained motionless, as though she were furniture.

Lady Warren’s breathing continued with the volume and regularity of a steam-engine. Presently Helen began to suspect that it was a special performance for her benefit.’

“She’s not really asleep,” she thought. “She’s foxing.”

The breathing went on-but nothing happened. Yet Helen was aware of the quiver of her pulse which always heralded Mr. Poke’s approach.’

Someone was watching her.

She had to turn her head round, in order to look at the bed. When she did so, Lady Warren’s lids were tightly closed. With a joyous sense of playing a new game, Helen waited for a chance to catch her unawares.

Presently, after many feints and failures, she proved too quick for Lady Warren. Looking up unexpectedly, she caught her in the act of spying. Her lids were slit across by twin black crescents of extraordinary brightness, which peered out at her.

They shut immediately, only to open again, as the in valid realized that further subterfuge was vain.

“Come here,” she said, in a faint fluttering voice.