Red Shadow (22 page)

What exactly would have happened if Pierre Clement, the seventeen year old son of the caretaking couple, had not been in the first flush of his first love affair, it is impossible to say. It was not an affair which had the approval of his parents, and he had therefore to resort to subterfuge in order to leave the Villa Jaureguy and put in an hour with his Solange. He had an appointment with her at six o'clock, an hour when his mother was particularly busy. He had, by an exercise of sleight of hand, possessed himself of the key of the gates, and at the moment in which Jim was engaged in bludgeoning his conscience he inserted the key in a well oiled lock, turned it, and swung the gate wide enough to allow him to pass through.

Jim had ears like a cat. He heard the key go into the lock, and at the first sound he was over the road. If anyone was coming out, he was going in. As Master Pierre slipped through the gap, a hand fell hard upon his shoulder. Conscience is fairly active at seventeen. Pierre conceived the hand to be his father's, dropped the key, and then stood shaking.

With the first quiver of the shoulder under his hand, Jim knew that his luck was in. It was a law-breaking shoulder, a guilty and terrified shoulder. He shook it sharply.

“What are you doing?”

Pierre still trembled, but since it was not his father who had caught him, he began to recover. After all, what he was chiefly afraid of was that he might be late for his tryst; and Solange wouldn't wait—not she, not a minute.

“Well? Who are you?” said the voice that belonged to the hand.

“Pierre, m'sieu.”

So it was a boy—a boy sneaking out on his own probably nefarious business. Luck was certainly in.

“Pierre, are you? Well, Pierre, have you any objection to a tip?”

“No, m'sieu. What does m'sieu want?”

“I want to go up to the house. I think I want that key, Pierre.”

“But, m'sieu——”

“Is there anyone in the lodge?”

“No, m'sieu. The gardener left last week.”

“All right then, just leave the gate open for a bit—say an hour. How's that?”

“But, m'sieu——”

“I'm not a burglar. I only want to speak to Madame.”

A glow of fellow-feeling warmed Pierre. He became talkative and full of helpful suggestions. Madame, it appeared, was alone. Monsieur had taken the auto an hour, two hours, ago, and it was not known when he would be back. Madame was in the little salon. If m'sieu would turn to the right when he came to the portico and keep right on round the house until he saw a light behind the curtains, that was the little salon. It opened into the orangery, and the door of the orangery was unlocked, because that was the way that Pierre had used himself. His parents, in fact, believed him to be chopping wood and stoking the furnace. In fact the orangery door was open, and——

“Oh, thank you, m'sieu!
Merci bien
, m'sieu!”

Jim walked up a straight, formal drive. He could distinguish none of the things upon which the late financier had squandered so much money. The gardens of the Villa Jaureguy might be an earthly paradise or a sandy desolation. For him they were filled with dense strange shadows of a hundred different shapes, some tall and spreading, others low and massed, but all submerged in a soft darkness that was like water because it moved continuously, and when it moved all the shadows moved too, like seaweed when the current is running strong. It was the wind which blew the shadows to and fro and gave this illusion of a vast flowing tide of darkness. And all the time the snow kept falling, very hard, and small, and stinging.

He almost ran into the portico; but when he had turned and come round the house he was out of the wind, and in a moment he could see the windows of the little salon marked out with lines of light where the drawn curtains left a crack and the rosy shine came through—rose-coloured curtains and a warm rosy light. He went past the windows and came on the orangery. There seemed to be masses and masses of it, all glass. It showed like a spectral tent faintly outlined by lines of frozen snow which melted on the glass but clung to the iron tracery.

The path led straight to a door, and the door opened easily to his hand.

CHAPTER XXVII

Jim stepped inside the orangery and closed the door behind him. That one step took him eight hundred miles or so south. He stood in a warm dense darkness heavy with the smell of wet earth and the scent of flowers. Hyacinth? Tuberose? Freesia? There was something very sudden about it. One moment there had been the wind—and even under the lee of the house it had an edge like a saw—the wind, and the pelting ice-pointed snow. And the next this heavily scented warmth. For the moment, of course, it had its points; but for any length of time he thought he would prefer the blizzard.

He advanced carefully, feeling his way. His outstretched hand touched a rough-leafed plant, and at once the faint smell of lemon was added to the blend. They had had lemon-scented verbena in the conservatory at home. He picked off a bit and stuck it in his button-hole. Old Stark used to be down on him like a knife if he pinched a bit. It was a good smell—a clean, decent sort of smell.

The place was dead dark, but away on the left there were lines of light like thin gold wire, and the oblong they framed was dusk not dark, and the dusk was shot with a pinkish glow. He made his way very cautiously to what was evidently a glass door leading to the little salon. He turned the handle, and the door opened towards him, leaving only a curtain between him and the room where Laura was.

He stood there, and could not make out what had happened to him. If he had been made of wood, he would have had as much feeling. The thought of meeting Laura had been a goad stabbing on a raw place, but now the place was numb. He had not known what he would do or what he would say when he and Laura met, whether he would rage or be dumb; but that he should feel nothing at all—this had never come into his thoughts.

The curtain was really two curtains. He put up a steady hand and parted them by the merest fraction, of an inch. Everything beyond swam in a pink glow. He could see the light, but not much else, because a yard from the door a brocaded screen blocked his view. He parted the curtains a little more and stepped into the room. The screen hid him completely. It stood on a pale flowered carpet. He took a step to the right and looked round it.

The little salon was furnished in an ornate style with a good deal of gilding. It was lit by wall brackets in the shape of pink shells supported by golden cupids. The curtains were of rose-coloured velvet. The chairs and the two couches were covered with a delicate pink and blue brocade.

Jim's eyes went to the nearest couch. It stood at an angle which gave him a view of one high end, some piled-up cushions, and the top of a woman's head. Her dark hair rested on a golden pouffe. He straightened himself to see more, and caught a glimpse of pale silken draperies. He still felt nothing at all. It was no longer in him to feel anything for Laura.

He walked from behind the screen and came out in front of the couch. The dark head lifted itself from the cushion; its owner gave a faint scream and sat up. She was a very handsome young woman with fine dark eyes and an elaborately artificial complexion. She was not Laura.

She looked at Jim, and Jim looked at her. This was why he had felt nothing. She wasn't Laura. Laura wasn't here. He had a most complete conviction that Laura wasn't here. He said quickly,

“I beg your pardon—I'm afraid I startled you. I wanted to see—Mrs Stevens.” And there he stopped at the impact of a most surprising idea.

The girl was staring at him with her eyes as round and dark as two dark pools. She had one hand against her lips with the knuckles pressing hard against the soft curves. There was fright in her eyes; but there was something else—something that it was quite impossible to mistake—recognition. Quite suddenly she threw out both hands in a wide graceful gesture and said in a laughing voice,

“Oh, you
did
frighten me!”

Her eyes sparkled at him. She showed some very pretty white teeth.

Cissie Stark! Was it possible? He thought so—but—Cissie Stark—
here
..…

She was dressed in a diaphanous négligé. It was composed of a great many yards of material and a quantity of expensive fur, and it hid very little of Cissie Stark. It
was
Cissie Stark.

Jim said his piece all over again.

“I'm so sorry I startled you. I wanted to see Mrs Stevens.”

There was still that recognition in her eyes.

“Well—who do you think I am?” she said, laughing.

She really had marvellous teeth.

“Cissie Stark?” said Jim.

A curious flashing look went over her face. It took the laughter with it. All at once she was as grave as a judge.

“How did you recognize me?” She paused, and added, “Mr Jim.”

“It was when you put your hand up to your mouth—you always did that when you were frightened. And besides, I saw that you recognized me—I don't know how.”

She made a slight impatient movement.

“Oh, that's easy! You haven't changed. Besides I saw you with Ernie the other day. I was coming to meet him, and I saw you talking. I thought it was you, and I got it out of him, though he wasn't particularly anxious for me to know. Poor old Ernie, he's funny like that.”

Stark
would
have a name like Ernie. And what a liar he was! But why should he have lied? Why should he have gone out of his way to pretend that he practically never saw Cissie? Was Cissie the girl who had told him that Basil and Alec Stevens were Russians and dangerous? And what was Cissie doing
here
? He asked her, quite directly.

“I was told that I should find Madame in this room.”

“Well—and so you did,” said Cissie Stark.

“You are Madame?”

“Well, for the present. My stage name is Cecile St Arc. Rather good—isn't it?”

“Very, I came to see Mrs Stevens. Are you Mrs Stevens?”

“What do you think?” said Miss Cecile St Arc.

She flung herself back into the sofa corner, rummaged under the cushions, and produced an ornate cigarette case. It was, or appeared to be, of gold with a large C in brilliants. Old Stark and the potting-shed were a long way off.

She offered the case to Jim and lit a cigarette herself.

Jim sat down at the other end of the couch.

“Well,” he said, “that is where you have me. I don't know what to think. I come here to see Mrs Stevens—I'm told she's in this room—I find you here—and—you ask me what I think. We're old friends. Can't you help me out a bit?”

She laughed.

“It's not against the law to call yourself anything you fancy.”

“And you fancy calling yourself Stevens—is that it?”

“Perhaps I do. It's not going to hurt anyone, is it?”

“I don't know.”

“What are you getting at? You can't kid me, so I shouldn't advise you to try. You didn't come here to see
me
—now did you?”

“I came to see—Mrs Stevens.”

“Miss Laura Cameron,”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He ought to have had an answer ready. He had none. He had come because he couldn't keep away, because Laura had cried out to him. He could not say these things to Cissie Stark, so he said nothing.

She was watching him through a light haze of smoke.

“Well, Mr Jim—what about it?”

She had turned the tables on him. He had asked her something and she had not answered, and before he knew where he was it was she who was asking the embarrassing questions. All right, let her ask—she wasn't going to get an answer from him that way.

He took a good look at her, and wondered what he was up against. An odd recollection of little Cissie Stark's prim starched pinafores mingled with his wonder. Cecile St Arc didn't look as if she had ever worn a pinafore in her life—a handsome, heady creature with a frank physical appeal. But there was something else too; and it was the something else that he wanted to be sure about. He thought of a soft cushion with a needle in it—you might miss it, or you might get stuck to the bone. He went on wondering.

“Miss Laura Cameron—that's who you came to see, didn't you?”

He said, “Yes. I want to see her. Is she here?”

“Here? What do you think?” She laughed and shook the ash from her cigarette.

“No, she's not here,” said Jim. He was quite sure about this. “But Mrs Stevens
is
here.”

Something just came and went at the back of the dark eyes. Impossible to say just what it was. She leaned a little farther into the cushions and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“Stevens does me as well as any other name when I'm on a holiday. I don't see that it's your business what I call myself—but there, I dare say you know best about that.” She paused, and added in a mocking voice, “
Mr Jim!
”

Jim felt the angry blood come to his face. He spoke more roughly than he had meant to.

“Are you here with Basil Stevens?”

“Why should I be?”

“Are you?”

“Why
shouldn't
I be?” She smiled warmly, teasingly, invitingly. But she was watching him. He had a sense of something alert and wary.

He got up.

“What you do isn't my affair,” he said.

“And what Miss Laura Cameron does?”

“Why do you call her that?”

She burst out laughing.

“To get a rise out of you, of course! I bet you don't think about her as Laura Stevens! Hit you pretty hard, didn't it, when she married Basil?”

She was trying to throw him off his balance. All right, let her try. The mere fact that she was trying steadied him. He stood looking down at her quite coolly.

“Will you tell me where she is?”

She shook her head.

“Not me! I don't go shoving myself into other people's affairs.”