Red Shadow (15 page)

When Catherine came back into the room she found silence and darkness there. The firelight made a little glow on the hearth. The bed was a grey blur. She stood hesitating, and then put up her hand to the switch, and at once Laura spoke in a kind of breathless whisper.

“Don't put on the light.”

Catherine hesitated.

“I'd have been up before, but Vassili telephoned.”

A pause. Then Laura said,

“Vassili telephoned?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't know he was out,” said Laura, still in that breathless dry whisper.

Catherine laughed.

“We talk of him so much—don't we? After he saw you he had the sudden idea that he would go to town. Or perhaps it was not sudden, perhaps he had already thought of it when he sent me to fill up—I do not know.”

Laura thought, “He has taken my letter to town. It's gone—I can't call it back. I've been a coward.” She said aloud,

“Why did he telephone?”

“To say he would be late—perhaps he would not be back to-night. He need not have troubled. I do not expect him until he arrives, ever. And you—I do not think it would have given you a bad night—eh, my dear? Well, we are two alone women—or three, if you can count that lump of a girl upstairs, who would go on sleeping if we all had the bright thought of murdering one another and did it very loud with revolver-shots and screams. I do not think that any of us would scream loud enough to wake her.”

Laura picked one word out of this and repeated it.

“
All?
” she said.

Catherine laughed. Her laugh was so much deeper than her ordinary voice that it was always a surprise.

“You are trying to catch me because I said we should be just two alone. But Vassili might come back, and it is certainly he who would begin to shoot, and I who would scream. I have a very fine scream.”

“And I?” said Laura.

“I do not know. Perhaps you would faint—perhaps you would throw yourself in front of me and take the shot that Vassili would mean for me. Yes, I think that is your rôle. You have that kind of complex—you are deficient in
ego
. It is a pity, you know.”

Laura laughed faintly, and was at once sorry that she had done so, because the laugh had a catch in it. She said quickly,

“And Dr Alec—what is he to do?”

“Sasha?” said Catherine. Her voice changed, darkened. “Sasha will be left to pick up the bits—he is good at that.” She yawned elaborately. “It is time you were asleep.”

“Yes.”

“Have you everything you want?”

“Yes.”

Catherine had taken a step back, when she heard her name spoken only just above Laura's breath.

“Catherine——”

“What is it?”

“Will you—will you shut the door to-night?”

Catherine stared in the direction of the bed. She could see Laura lying on her right side, with her hair black against the pillow, and the edge of the bed and the curve of her shoulder dark against the glow of the sunk fire.

“Very well.”

She went out on to the landing. A moment later Laura saw the light come on in the next room; the open doorway became a shining oblong panel. She put her hand across her eyes, but just before she did so she saw Catherine in the middle of the panel looking in. She wore a bright green dress, and the light beat on it.

Laura shut her eyes and sheltered them with her hand. In a moment Catherine had crossed the floor and was standing over her. A cool hand touched hers and then withdrew.

“I am to shut the door?”

“Please, Catherine.”

“So that you may weep and make yourself ill?”

Laura said, “No;” but her voice broke.

“No? I think it is yes. What has happened? Why have you been weeping? Did you think I should not know? I leave you all right; and I come back, and you are in the dark, and I must shut the door so that you may weep yourself into a fever again. What has happened? Is it Vassili?”

Laura spoke in a muffled voice.

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“Nothing.”

Catherine moved back a step.

“You will not tell me. Very well, my dear, weep if you will—it is easier than when one has to laugh. But if you are ill to-morrow, I will go away and leave you to Vassili—so be careful and do not weep too much. Good night, my dear.”

She went into her room and shut the door.

CHAPTER XIX

Laura took her hand away from her eyes and turned a little. The soft fire-shot dusk was comforting. She had wept, and she did not want to weep any more. She only wanted to be alone. The feeling that she and Catherine were alone in the house except for the tow-headed maid gave her a feeling of security. She could be alone without being afraid.

She lay quite still and let herself think about Jim. She had cried all her tears away. She thought of him as if they were parted by death, and as if it was she who had died, not Jim. In some strange way this comforted her. He was safe, and he was alive. All that mattered was that he should be kept safe. But to be kept safe he ought to be warned that Vassili was trying to get hold of the Sanquhar invention. If Vassili knew or guessed that Laura had been left one of those bits of a five-pound note which was the key to the invention, he probably knew or guessed that Jim had the third of the torn pieces. He had not been Bertram Hallingdon's private secretary for nothing. If he could get the three pieces of the torn five-pound note, it would give him the Sanquhar invention, and Bertram Hallingdon's trust would be broken.

She thought of the old man who had trusted her. And she thought of Jim, who didn't know that he had something a good deal more dangerous than dynamite in his possession. She wondered how much he did know. There had been a moment in his talk to-night when she had waited for the words, “The Sanquhar invention.” Of course they had not come, but for an electric instant she had waited for them. How much did he know? He couldn't know about Vassili, and unless he was warned he must be in danger all the time. He must be warned. And how was she to warn him? Vassili had talked about supervising her business affairs. She was very, very sure that he would make it his particular business to supervise her correspondence. She must warn Jim. She couldn't write to him. She had to warn him. How?

Catherine's words slipped into her mind like an answer: “Vassili telephoned.” Until Catherine said that, she had not known that there was a telephone in the house. But—Vassili had telephoned—and Vassili would not be back until late—perhaps he would not be back at all to-night.

Lying there in the dusk, Laura felt strength and determination flowing in upon her. She had asked Catherine to shut the connecting door because she wanted to be alone, to feel herself shut in with Jim. She had had no other thought. But that closed door was going to make it possible for her to find her way downstairs and telephone her warning. Not yet—not just yet. She must wait until Catherine was asleep.

She listened to Catherine's movements in the next room. The party wall was thin, and she could hear footsteps, a splashing of water, and presently the creak of the bed and the sharp click which meant that the light had been turned out.

It never took Catherine long to go to sleep. Laura made up her mind to wait until the clock in the hall below struck eleven. She waited, planning what she would say. She must be very quick—she must be ready with just the right words. And she must ask Jim to tell Mr Rimington to come and see her at once, before she could be taken abroad; then she could give him her piece of the five-pound note, and he would put it in a safe place. There must be a place where it would be safe. Mr Rimington would know what ought to be done.

When the clock began to strike, she got softly out of bed, wrapped her shawl about her, and opened the door that led to the landing. The cold of the unwarmed house met her. She steadied herself against the doorpost and looked out. The landing was quite dark, but towards the well of the stairs this darkness thinned away to dusk, so that she could see the stair rails like a row of black strokes from a copy-book. She stepped out of her room, and it was like stepping on to very smooth ice. The landing had no carpet, and the polished linoleum was the coldest thing that she had ever felt. She did not dare risk putting on slippers—a leather sole can never quite be trusted, and heelless slippers have a dreadful way of flapping on a stair.

Laura went barefoot to the stair head and looked down the well. There was a very faint glimmer in the hall. She left the linoleum for the thin scratchy stair-carpet and came to the half landing. She could see where the glimmer came from now. The hall was lighted by a gas pendant, and the gas had been turned down to a mere point which made nothing visible except its own pendant and the surrounding gloom.

She began to descend again. It was like going down into ice-cold water. All this part of the house was colder than she could have believed possible. A thin, edgy draught blew in from under the front door. For a moment, with her foot on the last step, it came to Laura that she could open the door and walk out of the house. There are waking moments when nothing seems more impossible than it does in dreams. For one of these moments Laura saw herself slipping back the bolt with velvet softness and turning the key, as every key should turn but never does. She saw the door, open; and the gate beyond it, open to the black and empty road; and herself, going barefoot down the road and away.

Before she could so much as get this picture into focus it was gone. She could not really walk down the road in her night-gown and without a penny. It came to her just like that, with the queerest shock of realization, that she was three parts a millionaire, and that she had not a single penny in her possession. Only that morning she had turned out her purse and found it empty.

She stepped off the bottom stair on to linoleum that was even colder and smoother than that on the landing above. And then it came to her that she had not the slightest idea where to look for the telephone. It might be in the hall, or the dining-room, or the study if there was one. Yes, Catherine had mentioned a study. It wouldn't be in the drawing-room—but then she didn't know which of the two front rooms
was
the drawing-room. The idea that the telephone might be in the hall was simply paralysing. But no, it couldn't be, or she would have heard the bell, and Vassili's voice when he telephoned.

She crossed the hall, opened the right-hand door, and felt for the switch. Thank goodness it was only the hall that was lighted by gas. Instantly the darkness was gone and she was bathed in a pinkish light. It came from a double pendant whose drops were heavily shaded by rose-coloured silk. Two pale chintz armchairs and a shiny chintz sofa stood about the hearth like icebergs. The grate contained nothing warmer than gilt shavings. Above it a mirror reflected the icebergs, and the walls were hung with reproductions of lightly clothed young women dawdling negligently upon marble terraces. The room was evidently the drawing-room, and there was no telephone.

Laura put out the light, shut the door upon the pseudo-Greek young women, and crossed the hall.

She found a dining-room with a mahogany suite and a good deal of bright brown lincrusta on the walls. There was a tantalus and a siphon of soda-water on the table. There was a black marble clock on the mantelpiece with its hands immovably fixed at a quarter to five. There were bright peacock blue tiles on the hearth. But there was no telephone.

Laura wondered where the study was. Her feet were so cold now that she could not feel them. Her fingers slid over the shiny wallpaper as she felt her way along the side of the hall. Presently they touched the jamb of another door. She opened it, switched on the light, and saw the study in a green glow. The light came from a rigid reading-lamp with a bright green porcelain shade such as one sees in banks and offices. It made the lower half of the room look golden, and all the upper air green and fluid like water. Laura shut the door behind her, and saw the telephone standing on the opposite side of the table from the lamp.

After all, it had been easy. She had come out of that horrible icy hall into this room which was quite warm and friendly, with the telephone ready to her hand.

She went round the table, sat down, and drew the instrument towards her. When she had given Jim Mackenzie's number she sat leaning forward with the light slanting across the empty table and touching the amber embroideries of her shawl. Vassili Stefanoff did not leave his papers about. There was a blotting-pad with leather corners; there was a calendar, a pen-tray, and an ink-pot; but not so much as an inch of paper was visible. Laura thought of this afterwards; at the time her whole consciousness was listening for Jim's voice. It was curious that it should never have occurred to her that he might be out. She was quite sure that now—
now
, at any moment—she would hear him speak. A little click, an instant's pause, and then she would hear his voice. She had ceased to be aware that her bare feet were frozen and her whole body stiff with cold; she was aware only of something that was like the most terrible hunger. It was as if she had been starved for a very long time and then had come suddenly within sight of food.

A tremor ran over her from head to foot as there came along the line what she had been waiting for—a change of sound in the running current, and the little far-away click of the lifted receiver. And then Jim's voice.

He said “Yes?” and with the one word everything that Laura had planned to say was swept from her mind by a glowing rush of joy. She had been dead, and she was alive again. The past weeks had been blotted out. An electric current, a little wire, and a man's voice saying “Yes?” Odd stuff to make a miracle out of. Laura felt the golden joy flow through her and round her. It warmed and fed her. It filled her heart, and it filled the room.

“Yes?” said Jim Mackenzie in a tired, hard tone.

Laura spoke then.