Red Shadow (24 page)

“
Ouvrez!
” And then again, “
Ouvrez! Ouvrez vite!
”

For a moment Jim Mackenzie stood rigid with surprise. Then he walked forward and faced the lady through the bars.

“How do you do, Miss Wimborough?” he said.

It must be conceded that Agatha Wimborough possessed a really remarkable degree of self-control. There was a scarcely noticeable pause before she said in an accusing voice,

“What are you doing here, Jim Mackenzie?”

“I might ask the same thing—in fact I will. What are you doing here, Miss Wimborough?”

Agatha Wimborough was under his guard in a flash.

“I have come to see Laura,” she said. “Have you?”

“She is not here,” said Jim Mackenzie.

“That I propose to ascertain for myself. Will you kindly open this gate!”

“I should be delighted—if I had the key.”

“Will you call the porter then!”

“There is no porter.”

“Rubbish!” said Agatha Wimborough. “There's the lodge staring me in the face.”

“The lodge is empty.”

“
Oh,
” said Agatha Wimborough. “I suppose you're sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Oh. Then will you go up to the house and tell them to send some one down with the key!”

“I'm afraid I can't do that.”

“And why not?”

“Well—officially, I'm not here.”

“You mean that this is a clandestine visit to Laura?”

“Laura is not here,” said Jim Mackenzie in a hard angry voice.

Agatha Wimborough took her hand off the gate and stepped back a pace.

“I know the man who had the letting of this house. He told me that he had let it to Mr Basil Stevens of London. He told me that Mr and Mrs Basil Stevens were arriving at the Villa yesterday. Are you telling me that they haven't arrived?”

“Oh no,” said Jim—“they've arrived all right.”

“And you say that Laura isn't here?”

“The woman who is here is not Laura.”

“
What!
” said Agatha Wimborough. “
Already?
” And then, in a voice of angry suspicion, “How do you
know?
”

“I've been up to the house, and I've seen the lady. She is not Laura.”

Agatha Wimborough threw up her head.

“Where is she? Where's Laura? She hasn't been married a month, and you tell me her husband is here with another woman!”

Jim said nothing. He found the scene intolerable and did not know of any way to end it.

Agatha Wimborough took hold of the gate and made a futile attempt to shake it.

“I've got to come in and see for myself!” she said.

Jim's temper broke.

“My dear Miss Wimborough, do you suppose I should stay here if I could get away? I can't, and you can't get in, till Pierre turns up with the key. If he chooses to stay out all night, you're better off than I am, because you can get away and I can't.”

She turned her back on him, went over to the car, and got in. He thought she was going to drive away, but instead she leaned back into the corner and stayed there motionless. Jim could not see her, but he felt her as an angry, resentful presence. Curiously enough, he had never come so near to liking her.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that he saw something move in the darkness behind the car. He could not see what it was, but he chanced it and called out, “Pierre!”

There was a moment of hesitation before the moving something disclosed itself as an obviously terrified boy. The way of transgressors was hard. Couldn't one slip out for a moment without finding a strange auto at the gate on one's return?

“Open this gate and look sharp!” said Jim.

Pierre fumbled with the key and nearly dropped it as the door of the car banged behind him—and there was not only the gentleman inside the gate, but a most angry and impatient lady on the same side as himself; and whilst the gentleman wanted to get out, the lady was in no end of a hurry to get in. Between the two of them Pierre was fairly flustered. He dropped the key, picked it up again, tried to put it into the lock upside down, and finally had it snatched from him by the seething Miss Wimborough. The gates flew back, and whilst Pierre was retrieving the key Agatha Wimborough had begun to walk up the drive.

She found Jim Mackenzie at her side.

“Miss Wimborough——”

“Are you coming too? I don't want you!”

“Miss Wimborough—”

“What is it?”

“Why are you going up to the house?”

“That's my business!”

“I'm not so sure that it is.”

“And what d'you mean by that, Jim Mackenzie?”

“I mean—” No, he couldn't tell her what he meant. She would go her own way whatever he said—and after all what was there to tell? “It doesn't matter,” he muttered.

“You meant something,” said Miss Wimborough sharply.

All right, he would warn her. He stood still between her and the house, on the black edge of the drive.

“Stevens isn't English,” he said. “His real name is Vassili Stefanoff. I think he's a dangerous man. I don't think you ought to see him alone.”

Miss Wimborough said, “
Laura,
” under her breath, quickly. Then, with a sudden violence, “Why did she do it?”

Neither of them had the answer to that.

She spoke again almost immediately in her usual loud, firm voice.

“I shall certainly see him. I shall go up to the house and I shall see for myself who is there. You say there is another woman there. Do you know who she is?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“Her stage name is Cecile St Arc.”

Miss Wimborough gave a sort of groan. Then she said,

“Laura can divorce him for this—that's one thing. She can have my evidence, but you must keep out of it. I shall go on up to the house, and you will go back to wherever you came from. Do you hear?”

“But—Miss Wimborough——”

“I'm not going to have any scandal on Laura's side!” said Agatha Wimborough sharply. “If this Stevens is here with another woman, she shall divorce him. But I should think even a man could see that
you
've got to keep out of the way. Go away and keep away, and go on keeping away! And please believe that I'm perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Good night!” She walked past him towards the house, stepping briskly.

Jim felt the blood rush into his head. What that woman wanted was the rough side of a man's tongue. Words banged and jostled one another in his mind—satisfying, meaty words that would have done Agatha Wimborough a power of good. Oh, damn being civilized! He flung about, passed Pierre without seeing him, and went striding through the gates and down the lane towards Sarrance.

He came back to his flat in the dusk of the following day—a very cold and discouraging home-coming. The place had a deserted smell about it, a kind of chilly fog. He threw up his sitting-room window, put a match to the gas fire, and turning, saw the sheet of paper. It lay on the empty table, a sheet of hard blue paper, boldly written on. He went over to it, picked it up, and read:

“The right address is, Hermitage, Lynn Cliff, Devon.”

He stood staring at it.

The writing was quite strange.

He went on staring.

CHAPTER XXX

Laura opened her eyes upon a strange room. A puzzled frown came and went. She shut her eyes again. She was lying in bed, but she felt as if some one were rocking her. She had been dreaming that she was in a train—or was it a boat? She couldn't remember. The dream was gone. Only this curious rocking feeling persisted. She wondered what time it was, and opened her eyes again.

This was not the room in which she had gone to sleep. It had a low ceiling with a large rough beam running right across it, and the walls were white and ran into strange shapes, with a bulge here and a curious angle there. She raised herself on her elbow and her head swam.

When the giddiness passed, she sat up. This was certainly not any room in the house where she had gone to sleep. This was an old room, in an old house. The polished floor was bare, and dark and uneven with age. The windows were deeply embrasured. There were two windows, both facing her, and they framed a curious heaving greyness.

Laura sat bolt upright and looked with all her eyes. Then she got out of bed and crossed the floor on her bare feet. The walls of the room were so thick that it was almost like leaning into a tunnel to reach the window. It was a casement set with little panes of uneven glass. She pulled down the latch and opened it.

At once the wind came clapping into the room, blowing her hair, filling her lungs, bringing a salt taste to her lips—a cold wind; a strong wind; a salt wind. It blew away the last of her doziness, and though it was so cold, it did not chill her. She looked through her blowing hair and saw grey water and a grey lowering sky. For a moment she saw nothing else. The clouds moved in the wind, and the water moved with a curious restless motion of its own.

She shook back her hair and leaned out as far as she could. The wall of the house went down to a wall of grey rock, and the wall of grey rock went down to the grey lapping water. When she looked to the left, she could just see the line of rock curving back as if it had been built like that to guard the house, and, a little way off, a rough cliff that began with rock and sloped away into brown grass. When she looked to the right, there was another cliff, much nearer, so near in fact that she had to crane her neck to see the top of it. It seemed to lean right over the house.

She drew back from the window and began to shiver. Where was Catherine? Catherine had promised that she would not leave her. Where was she?

She went over to the door, and as she touched the handle, she felt a scream rise in her throat. If the door was locked, she would not be able to hold back the scream. Her hand closed and turned. The door moved inwards, and the relief was so great that a warm weakness came over her and she stood there, not pulling at the handle, for very nearly a whole minute. Then at the sound of a step in the passage she stood back, bringing the door with her, and in a moment there was Catherine with a tray.

“Well?” she said. “You have slept. You should be hungry. You were still asleep half an hour ago, but I thought you had had enough of it, so I was bringing you some coffee. Are you hungry?”

“I don't know,” said Laura.

“Get back into bed before you freeze. There—drink your coffee, and then you may tell me whether you like being in France.”

“Is this—France?” said Laura.

The coffee was very hot and very good. English people couldn't make coffee. She took another sip and looked up, to see Catherine regarding her curiously.

“Where are we?” said Laura. “I want to know.”

“Did not Vassili tell you?”

“No.”

“Officially,” said Catherine, “you are in France.” She laughed a little. “I also.”

“And
really?
”

“Laura, you shock me! Is it possible that you do not believe everything you are told?”

Laura laughed.

“It is very disillusioning for me,” said Catherine. “You are the sweet, pure heroine, and it is your rôle to have no brains at all and to believe everything that is said. As a consolation you are permitted to be beautiful, and in the end you will live happy ever after.”

The colour came into Laura's face. Catherine put out a hand and steadied the trembling cup.

“Laura, you are a fool!” she said. “You are like this cup—you are fine china, and you have gone into the stream with the iron pots. Did you think that it would be possible that you should not get broken?”

Laura had nothing to say. Her hand was steady again. She lifted the cup and drank from it. Its fineness gave her pleasure. It had a worn gilt edge, and it was flowered lightly with little bunches of cottage blooms.

Presently Catherine went out of the room and down the stairs. In the room that was under Laura's she found Alec Stevens.

“Well?” he said, and stopped in his pacing to and fro.

“Oh, she's awake.”

He nodded.

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“What did I tell you? You are never happy unless you are fussing over something.”

“All the same she slept too long.”

“Nonsense! Were we to risk her waking on the way?”

“Why should it have mattered?”

He laughed suddenly.

“Ask Vassili! It was not I who drugged her. Now that she is awake again, I don't mind telling you that I should not have given her so much. But since she is all right, why are you making a fuss? Now I want to talk business with you. Last night you were too tired, and this morning too fussed up. Perhaps now I can have your attention.”

Catherine set down Laura's empty cup.

“What is it?” she said.

“You can really attend?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, look here——”

He took a letter case from an inner pocket, opened it, and took out a couple of envelopes. From each envelope he extracted a torn piece of paper, which he laid on the old polished table, leaving a space between them. The paper was white, with black letters and flourishes upon it. On the left-hand piece was a medallion which displayed Britannia with a trident.

“Well,” said Alec Stevens—“you see what this is.”

“The five-pound note—you have two pieces of it. How did you get them?”

There was elation in his laugh.

“This—” he touched the right-hand piece—“this was our dear Vassili's fragment. And this—” he flicked the other lightly—“this was Mackenzie's. As you see, the whereabouts of the middle piece is now most vitally important.”

Catherine shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, I have not got it,” she said.

“I didn't suppose that you had.”