Weekend with Death (14 page)

And so what?

One of two things. She could do something, or she could just do nothing at all—turn over and go to sleep and leave to-morrow to take care of itself.

Put into words, the second possibility lost any appearance of being possible. It was not in Sarah to go peacefully to sleep when someone might, for all she knew, be bleeding to death just down the passage. She might argue the improbability of this terrifying suspicion as vehemently as she pleased, but there was only one way of disposing of it, and that was to go and see for herself. It was so simple that in ordinary circumstances there would have been no need to think about it twice. The trouble was that the circumstances were not ordinary. They loomed, they teemed with possibilities, they threatened and commanded. If she put a foot wrong, all this looming and teeming and threatening might close in upon her and precipitate disaster, and the fact that she had no idea what form this disaster might take only added to her misgiving.

Anyhow she could do nothing until the house was still. She had heard Wilson and Mr. Brown come up some twenty minutes ago, but it would not be safe to count on their remaining in the rooms they had entered. For all she knew, they might have planned a midnight excursion into the haunted wing. It was cold enough to put even the most determined ghost-hunter off, but—you never could tell.

She waited half an hour and lit the candle.

By this time she had her plan. First she would clean up the bloodstain on the floor and make sure there were no others, and then she would satisfy herself that that wretched young man was not bleeding to death.

Something like panic overtook her at the thought. He had been gone the best part of an hour, and a good deal of bleeding to death could be done in the time. She spoke sharply to herself on the subject of exaggerated phrases. “You say bleeding to death, but of course that's nonsense. What you mean is that he may have a cut that ought to be properly tied up.”

The towel she had wetted hung on the old-fashioned wooden horse. She used it to rub out the stain on the carpet. There was a smear on the arm of the chair, and a dark patch on the wood of the jamb where he had leaned when she opened the door. When she had got all the stains out she had the towel on her hands, and a nasty messy sight it was. It is quite astonishing how far a little blood will go.

She undid her door and looked out. The light still burned on the landing, but the lower hall was dark. The improvised bathroom was no more than a dozen feet away. She reached it in triumph and locked herself in. There was no fixed bath, but there was a hip-bath, a sink, and a cold-water tap. There was also a bar of yellow soap. Bloodstains are quite amenable when they are fresh, and cold water gets them out better than hot.

She made the return journey. Having hung the towel over the horse again, she considered the next stage of the adventure. The landing was a wide one some twenty feet across, with the well of the stairs coming up into it. She would have to skirt the well and pass the Reverend Peter's door to reach the passage. Once round the corner, she would be out of sight even if anyone did open a door and look out, the only room which commanded a view of the passage being her own. The trouble was that she dared not take a candle, and she did not really know which was Wickham's door. The passage was a long one. There were doors on either side. All she had to help her was the impression that Mr. Brown had indicated a room at the far end. He had apologized for putting Wickham on this floor at all. She thought his sense of decorum would have placed him at as great a distance from his employers as possible.

Well, it was no good thinking too much about it. She put on the blue dressing-gown over her pyjamas and reached the mouth of the passage without drawing a second breath. Once she was round the corner there was an illusory sense of safety. She was shut in between these long, straight walls, and with every step the half light from the landing grew fainter, and dusk shaded into darkness.

A dozen feet down the passage there was a door on the right. She opened it cautiously and felt a cold draught come up in her face. She could see nothing at all, but the place did not feel like a room. She guessed at a stair. There was a smell of damp, and soot, and food. She thought the stair must go down to the kitchen premises.

She drew back, shut the door again, and went on. There were three more doors. She slid her hand along the wall, feeling first on one side of the passage and then on the other. The last door was on the left. Her fingers touched the jamb. She thought she had come to the end of the passage, and feeling before her with both hands now, she came upon a wall that blocked her way. There was a locked door in it. This, then, was the way into the haunted wing. The door felt heavy and old, with a great bolt set in it beside the lock.

She drew back, and went to the door on the left. All these doors had smooth wooden handles. The knob was icy cold against her palm as she turned it softly and let the door swing in. She must have pushed it, for it slipped from her hand and went on moving until she could see the whole room.

She stood on the threshold and looked in. There was a clutter of furniture, all dark and dimly seen by the light of a half-burned candle. The candle was on a chair by the side of the bed. It stood so low that all the shadows were thrown upwards. The flame moved in the draught, and all the tall, dark shadows moved and wavered too.

Sarah came in and shut the door softly behind her. Wickham was lying across the bed. He was in shirt and breeches. There had been some attempt to drag the bedclothes across him, but they had fallen back and he was for the most part uncovered. But he was asleep. He lay on his back, his left hand at his breast, the other arm thrown wide.

Sarah stood there and wondered how old he was, and why he had robbed a bank, and how he had got his wound. For a wound there certainly was. The left side of his shirt was stained with blood beneath his hand, and under it she could see the shape of a bandage.

How silly of him not to undress properly and cover himself up. He must have been most desperately tired to fall asleep like this. A bitter air came in from behind the dark curtain which screened an open window. She thought it was just as well that she had come. He didn't seem to be bleeding now, so she need not wake him up, but she could at least cover him.

She bent over the bed, and saw her own shadow run up the wall to a fantastic height. It wasn't going to be so easy to cover him properly. His right foot had caught in the bedclothes and was holding them down. She had to free them gently an inch at a time, taking some of his weight with her other hand. Odd how heavy a man's foot could be. The words “a dead weight” passed through her mind and left a shudder behind them.

But he wasn't dead. He was only asleep—deeply, dreamlessly asleep.

She began to draw the bedclothes over him—the sheet, a heavy cotton twill; three blankets, very thin and yellow; and a wadded quilt covered with an old sprigged chintz. As she settled the quilt she heard his breathing change, and with no more warning than that a hand shot up and took her by the wrist. His eyes opened, looked into hers, and were at once sharply awake.

“What are you doing here?”

Sarah was feeling pleased with herself. Until you have been in an emergency you cannot possibly know how you will behave. She might have screamed, and she hadn't screamed—she hadn't even gasped. She said in a cool, soft voice,

“I was covering you up.”

“Why?”

“Because you were uncovered.”

She saw him frown, and zigzagging into her mind came the idea that he frowned because he might very easily have laughed. She said severely,

“You really shouldn't lie there under an open window with nothing over that wound.”

“Wound, Miss Marlowe?”

“Yes, wound. I'm not asking you where you got it or how you got it—I daresay it won't bear asking about. But if you come and bleed all over my carpet and then just fling yourself down and go to sleep in a bloodstained shirt—well, it isn't any good saying you haven't got a wound, is it?”

He pulled himself up against the head of the bed. He did not wince, because he did not allow himself to wince, but as far as deceiving Miss Sarah Marlowe went the effort was wasted.

“Look here,” she said, “I think you're being stupid. Is that thing properly bandaged?”

“It is.”

“Sure?”

“It has had the best surgical attention. I'm sorry I bled on the carpet. What have you done about it?”

“I washed it. It wouldn't have shown anyhow. You could have a murder on any of these carpets without its showing.”

“Perhaps that's why they're here.” The words were light, but the tone was not a light one. His eyes looked straight into hers, and another of those nasty shivers ran down her spine. He said, still in that menacing voice, “You had better get back. Let's hope no one sees you.”

Miss Marlowe's colour rose brightly.

“I came because for all I knew you might have been bleeding to death.”

“Thank you—it was most kind. But I don't bleed to death as easily as all that.”

“And I suppose you'd have liked it if I had gone to Mr. Brown or Mr. Cattermole?”

He smiled, and suddenly his face flashed into charm.

“I shouldn't have liked it at all.”

“Perhaps you would like me to go and tell them now?”

“I should dislike it damnably.”

“Then don't say that sort of thing to me again!”

She turned towards the door, and had taken a step or two, when she heard a faint shuffling sound. It was so faint that only the quickest of hearing would have caught it at all. It was the sound of someone coming down the passage in a loose pair of carpet slippers.

The colour that had been in her cheeks went out of them as quickly and suddenly as a blown-out flame. She stood staring at the door, and felt the cold that was in the room close in against her heart. Wickham's voice came from behind her in the most peremptory whisper she had ever heard in her life.

“Cupboard door there on your left! Get in!”

She had not noticed it before, but she saw it now—a narrow strip of a door papered over, with a handle of yellow glass. The paper was cracked all down the line of the hinges and marked with deep brown stains where the rust had struck through and spread.

The shuffling sound was in the passage outside. As Sarah turned the yellow glass handle it ceased. She stepped over a wooden sill into a dark, stuffy place and shut herself in. At the last moment, when she could still see a crack of light along the edge of the jamb, she heard the shuffling sound again, only this time it was nearer. It was so much nearer that it was in the room which she had barely left. She pulled on the knob she was holding till the bright crack was gone. Through the panel of the cupboard door she heard the Reverend Peter Brown say,

“I just thought I'd have a word with you. He's stuck to me like a leech all the evening.”

CHAPTER XVIII

Sarah let go of the knob and stepped back. She heard Wickham say something, but she could not catch the words. It went through her mind to wonder whether this was because he did not want her to hear what he had to say to the Reverend Peter Brown. She could hear no more now than the sound of the two voices, like a duet in grand opera between the baritone and the bass. The only difference was that in opera it really did not matter whether you heard the words or not, because they did not seem to mean very much anyway, but here it might make all the difference between safety and danger.

She wondered how long Mr. Brown would stay, and whether he had seen the bloodstains on Wickham's shirt. He needn't have if Wickham had been clever and had remembered to keep the sheet well up on that side.

As she stood, she could feel a heavy coat hanging against her on the left. She thought it was Wickham's greatcoat. There were other clothes in the narrow space. They were hanging from wooden pegs fastened into the back of the cupboard, which was so shallow that there was only just room for her to stand between the pegs and the door. On the other hand, shallow as it was, it seemed to stretch away on either side of her. She began to move to her right. She could think of no reason why Mr. Brown should open the door, but if he did, she would be right there behind it, waiting to be seen. She thought she would feel a great deal safer if she could get away from it.

When she had gone a yard she stopped and turned round to face the pegs. They were full of women's clothes, very long and bulky, with billowing skirts. There was a silk—she had to take great care not to set it rustling. There were lines of velvet ribbon on it for a trimming. Sarah wondered what colour it might be. Tinkler knew someone who could tell colours in the dark. She thought this would be black, or a deep old-fashioned violet. There was a sort of pelisse affair on the next peg. It smelled of old fur, old camphor, old peppermint. It was dusty and rough to the touch—

All at once she felt crowded in. There was not enough room for her and for these old belongings of people who were dead and gone. The garments that had clothed them were dead too, and should have had decent burial instead of hanging here in a Bluebeard's cupboard smelling of moth and decay. Perhaps it was this smell, perhaps there really was not enough air—Sarah did not know—but a most dreadful conviction came over her that she was going to faint. There was a numbness in her head and limbs, and a shower of bright sparks before her eyes. With a horrified perception that to faint here would be the ultimate disaster, she caught with both hands at two of the wooden pegs. Whatever happened, she mustn't make a noise, she mustn't fall. The sparks went up in a dizzy rush. Her knees buckled under her, bringing her weight upon the pegs. She had a giddy sense of slipping forward. And then all at once there was cold air blowing in her face—ice-cold air, keen with frost.

It blew the sparks away. Her knees stiffened and her head cleared. She was still holding the pegs, but they were not straight in front of her any longer. They were tilting away from her at a sharp angle, so that her right hand was out at the full stretch of that arm. She took an involuntary step forward with her right foot and drew in another long breath of the cold air. The last of the giddiness left her, and she realized that she had opened a door in the back of the cupboard. Her weight coming on the pegs must have released the catch. She held them still, the wind blew in her face, the door was ajar. The sleeve of one of the dead garments hanging on it moved in the draught and brushed her cheek. With a shudder she let go of the pegs, pushed the door wide, and stepped over the threshold on to a boarded floor.