Weekend with Death (13 page)

Her first thought was, “What is he doing here?” I Then she remembered Mr. Brown saying that he had given him a room at the end of the passage.

She crossed the landing, and saw him straighten up and make as though to turn away. She was in her travelling-suit, all dark, all brown, from her dark shining hair to her dark brown shoes. The blue scarf, a bright wispy thing interwoven with silver, struck an alien note. But Sarah was not thinking about colour-schemes. She was a persevering girl, and in Wickham she saw a solution of the great brick problem. She called softly but insistently, and when he turned she plunged directly into the business.

“Oh, Wickham—the beds are damp, and Miss Cattermole says she will get pneumonia. Do you think the man here—Grimsby, isn't that his name?—well, do you think he could produce some hot bricks—you know, baked in the oven—and then we can wrap them up and move them about until the bed is comparatively dry. It's the only thing I can think of. And do you think you can find Grimsby and get him going? I haven't set eyes on him myself, and I don't like to go into the kitchen.”

Wickham preserved an impassive front. His last view of Grimsby blind to the world did not encourage the supposition that he could be got going this side of tomorrow. What he said was,

“I'll see what I can do.”

After which he turned rather abruptly and walked away down the passage.

Sarah ran downstairs with the scarf in her hand. She ran because she really didn't want to go down at all, and the best way of doing what you don't want to do is to do it quickly. Cold as the hall was, she would rather have stayed even there than go back into Mr. Brown's den. She didn't know when she had taken such a dislike to a room.

The air was heavy and hot as she opened the door. The smell of the kerosene lamp and the smell of Mr. Brown's pipe lay upon it in layers. No one took any notice of her. She pushed the door to behind her. The hasp did not catch. She had to turn round and shake the handle before she could make it stay shut. Mr. Brown was saying,

“De-materialization is not the only way in which a person can disappear. I have known some other ways myself.” He laughed as he spoke.

The room was hot. Sarah came from the icy cold of the unwarmed house. And once again she felt a creeping shiver run down her spine.

CHAPTER XVI

When the evening was over and Sarah looked back upon it she wondered why she had minded it so much. There was nothing that she could take hold of. Mr. Brown was an interesting and assiduous host. Mrs. Grimsby's coffee had all the virtues which coffee should have but so very seldom achieves. Above all—and for this she really did feel grateful—no one suggested that they should repair to the haunted wing. Yet in spite of all this she had felt, and indeed was still feeling, most uncomfortably like a dog who is about to put his nose in the air and howl.

Mercifully, Joanna cut the evening short by at least an hour of its orthodox time. It was no more than half past nine when she shivered, yawned behind the hand which wore her mother's sapphire ring, and said that she thought she would like to go to bed.

Sarah accompanied her with enthusiasm, and Mr. Brown, in his character of attentive host, came up to make sure that they had all they required. He stood in the doorway of Miss Cattermole's room and frowned at the small, shrunk fire.

“But you have no coal! That's very remiss of Grimsby—very remiss indeed. But I believe the poor fellow is indisposed. Perhaps your man.… Oh, no, my dear Miss Cattermole, you must certainly keep a good fire. The weather is most inclement, and it is some time since this room was used. I will just take the scuttle and get your man—what is his name?—ah, yes, Wickham—to fill it and make up the fire for you. I really should not sleep if I thought that you might be cold.” He went off with the scuttle.

Sarah slipped her hand under the bedclothes and felt a delicious warmth. Wickham had managed to produce the hot bricks. There they were, four of them, wrapped in newspaper, with an old-fashioned copper warming-pan to keep them company.

Joanna gazed at them in an uninterested way.

“Yes—very nice,” she said. And then, in a voice that had gone away to a whisper, “Why did we come?”

“The bed can't possibly be damp now.”

Sarah's tone was cheerful, but her spirits sank. If Joanna was going to have an attack of gloom, it really would be the last straw. If it had not been for the cold, she would have begun getting Miss Cattermole out of her clothes and into a good warm bed, but with the probability of Wickham arriving at any moment there was nothing for it but to wait. She said,

“Do you know, I've never seen a warming-pan in a bed before—only hanging on walls.”

“Why did we come?” said Joanna again. Her eyes were fixed and staring. “You ought to have said no. He couldn't have made you come. This house is full of evil. Don't you feel it?”

“It's full of damp,” said Sarah in a practical voice. “And I should think there were cockroaches in the kitchen. I don't believe the house has had a good spring-cleaning for at least fifty years—that's the feeling it gives me.”

Joanna had been looking, not at Sarah, but at some point above and behind her. Now suddenly her stare shifted and broke. Tears rushed into her eyes. She put a groping hand on Sarah's arm.

“Don't talk like that! You—”

Feet crossing the landing, and a knock on the half-open door—

With relief Sarah drew away.

“Come in!” she said, and pulled the door wide to let in Wickham and the coals.

He made up the fire carefully and went out. She heard him go along to her room and come out again.

The break had changed Joanna's mood. She was restless, irritable, eager to be alone.

When Sarah left her and emerged upon the landing she saw to her surprise that Wickham was still there. She had heard him come out of her room, but he had done no more than that. A heavy baluster guarded the well of the stairs. Like them it was of oak and dark with age. Wickham was leaning against the corner post, bent forward with outstretched hands grasping the rail on either side. In the dim light the effect was startling in the extreme. It was the attitude of a man who has been flung by a wave upon some piece of wreckage to which he most desperately clings.

Sarah repressed an exclamation, shut Joanna's door behind her, and ran to him.

His head was bent. The hand she touched was clammy. Even in the half light she could see the sweat upon his face.

“What is it?” Her voice was low and insistent. The arm she held was rigid.

And all in that moment she heard a door open upon the hall below, letting out a rush of voices and the sound of feet. They rang on the cold air.… Footsteps now on the stone flags—and the voices nearer—

She said, “They're coming up,” and Wickham stirred, lifting his head and drawing a long breath that was just not a groan. Next moment as the voices rose towards them, plainly coming nearer, he straightened up and, whether by his own volition or hers, she did not really know, reeled back across the half dozen feet which separated them from her open door. It was certainly Sarah who pulled him in and shut the door upon them. Her heart thudded. She had the wildest sense of danger escaped.

When he had sunk down upon a sagging wide-lapped chair, she turned the key in the lock and ran to dip a towel in the ewer and come back with it cold and wet. He lay in a helpless sprawled attitude, shoulders slipping, one hand trailing on the floor. She thought he had fainted, but when the icy water touched his face he jerked away from it and opened his eyes.

Two candles burned on the dressing-table. He must have lighted them himself, for she had left the room in darkness. They made a soft yellow glow, very quiet and steady. By this light their eyes met. His were clouded. A veil had been dropped, and a veil withdrawn. The cold pride which had ruled there was hidden. Something anguished and helpless looked out.

It was only for a moment, and then the cloud was gone. A controlled alertness took its place. He said on what was only just a breath, “Water—” and when she brought it to him in a heavy old-fashioned tumbler he was ready to hold out a hand for it. When he had drunk, the faintness seemed to have passed. He drew himself up in the chair, looked about him, and said, still in that soundless voice,

“Why did you bring me here?”

She put the glass down and came back with a sparkle in her eyes.

“Did I bring you?”

“Well, I'm here. I don't remember very much about it, I'm afraid. I must apologize. I've been having influenza.”

Sarah frowned.

“You shouldn't have carried those coals. Where's Grimsby?” She spoke as he had done, with the least sound that would carry the words.

For the first time, she saw his face relax.

“Blind,” he said.

Her frown deepened.

“You shouldn't have done it. Are you all right again?”

He nodded.

“If you don't mind seeing that the coast is clear, I'll be off.”

“Are you sure you're all right?”

“Quite. Just look out and see if there's anyone about.”

As Sarah unlocked the door she wondered at the impulse which had made her lock it. The whole thing was quite beyond reason. She had found Wickham fainting, and instead of feeling relief at the approach of help she had experienced an irrational but quite overwhelming terror.

She looked out and found the landing bare. As she turned back towards the room, Wickham was beside her, one hand on the jamb as if he needed it to steady him. He was so close that she had to look up to see his face. It was still dreadfully pale. The corner of his lip lifted in a twitching smile.

“The stock compromising situation,” he murmured, and was gone.

She shut the door immediately. But she stayed there with her hand upon it. When a long minute had gone by she drew it open again and looked out—faint yellow light—an empty landing—the passage running away into the dark. From where she stood she could have seen almost to the end of it if there had been a light there, but there was no light. Only as she waited she heard the faint sound of a closing latch. With the sound a weight seemed to lift. She shut her own door locked it, and went over to the bed. Fatigue had come over her—a longing to lie down and sleep.

But when she turned the bedclothes back she felt all at once as if a finger had been laid upon some spring of tears and laughter. Joanna's bed had been pranked out with four hot bricks and a warming-pan. Since there was no warming-pan for Sarah, she had been given six bricks, all neatly wrapped in Mrs. Grimsby's clean kitchen paper. Newspapers were good enough for Miss Cattermole, but Sarah Marlowe's bricks went very fine in white. She could have cried, and she could have laughed.

And then she was angry, with a little quick anger which hurt. What business had he to give her more bricks than Joanna, and to wrap them in white paper? And what business had he to go toiling up and down the stairs with bricks and coals until he fainted? She hadn't asked him for bricks for herself anyhow. And why couldn't someone throw a bucket or two of cold water over that drunken beast Grimsby and make him do his own coal-carrying?

Her anger focussed itself upon Grimsby in a very satisfying manner. When a man has just fainted in your service, you cannot get any satisfaction out of being angry with him. Grimsby was the most convenient scapegoat.

As she undressed she began to think about Henry Templar. He would have got her letter by now—oh, yes without fail—and he would certainly come down with the least possible delay. If he could get leave off he might be down by the middle of the morning. He would get leave if he asked for it. But would he ask? Sometimes she thought he would, and sometimes she thought he wouldn't, because of course he would have to say why. Henry mightn't mind that—but then on the other hand he might. He would have to go to his chief and say, “Look here, I know the girl whom the police want to interview about the Case murder, and if you'll give me the day off, I think I can persuade her to come back and talk to them.” Well, would Henry say that, or wouldn't he? Because unless he did, he couldn't possibly get down here till pretty late in the evening.

She had reached the pyjama stage without being able to make up her mind what Henry was likely to do. She dropped her shoes by the dressing-table, peeled off her stockings, and went over towards the bed with the candle in her hand. As she passed the chair in which Wickham had sunk down, her naked foot touched something wet—a wet, cold spot on the carpet—a wet, sticky spot.

Instantly everything in her startled. She had dipped her towel in water. She told herself that it had dripped upon the floor. But she had stood on the other side of the chair and leaned to him from there. It couldn't possibly have dripped on this side.

She stayed where she was with the candle in her hand for about a minute, and then very slowly she drew back. The carpet was dark with age, the colours sunk and changed—blue gone away into grey, and crimson into rust. There was a small wet patch where Wickham's hand had hung trailing down. Her foot had touched this spot.

She held the candle steady and, stooping, touched the smeared patch with the tip of her finger.

The stain was blood.

CHAPTER XVII

Sarah lay in bed. She had put out the candle but the room was not dark. The fire which Wickham had made up was burning clear. She could see the shape of the chair in which he had leaned back fainting. She could not see the patch which his blood had made upon the carpet, but she knew that it was there. She had been shivering with cold when she got into bed, but she was warmer now. She kept the bricks close to her, and was glad of them.

What was she going to do?

She had at present no idea at all.

The obvious course she had not even debated. For some reason, or rather for no reason at all, she could neither go to Wilson Cattermole who was Wickham's employer, nor to Mr. Brown who was their host, and say, “Look here, this man is ill. He has some wound, some injury. He nearly fainted on my hands just now.” Every time she thought of doing this—and she had thought of doing it—a deep, irresistible reluctance blocked the way. It was beyond argument. It was bound up with the unexplained impulse which had made her lock the door upon Wickham and herself.