Red Shadow (27 page)

When he came to the corner, he had to feel for the tradesmen's entrance which had served him before. He passed through it, dived into the evergreens on the right, and made contact with the wall once more. It wasn't so easy to get over the wall in the dark. In the daylight he had only had to pick his tree and the rest was simple enough; now he had to feel for a limb that would bear his weight, and with fantastic perversity the shrubbery teemed with thin saplings and bristling mounds of holly. In the end he found a rough-barked, tree, and could only guess at the condition in which it would leave his clothes.

Once on the other side, he had to risk a cast of his torch. The faint questing beam struck the fog and showed him nothing else. He switched it off and began to grope his way towards where he thought the house must be. After a while his foot struck brick. He stopped to think, and remembered some sort of paved yard at the back of the house.

Another dozen yards ran him up against a window ledge. Well, what he had got to find was the scullery window. But this wasn't it; the latch felt too strong. What he wanted was a latch in the last stages of decline.

He found the scullery window after five minutes careful groping, and once found it was soon opened. He climbed over the sink, objurgating all females who leave refuse to rot, and emerged cautiously through the kitchen upon the passage which led into the hall. At the baize door he stopped, then pushed it gently for a couple of inches and stopped again. The passage and the kitchen and the scullery were all black—no light, no gleam, no anything; just a dead, even blackness. But the hall on the other side of the green baize door was not quite black; it wore its dark with a difference; it had shadows, and an uneven ebb and flow of gloom.

Jim opened the door a little wider, took a step forward, and there halted. Somewhere on the upper landing there was a light. He couldn't see it, of course, but the fact that he could see at all told him that it was there. What he actually saw was the faint, very faint, outline of the rail that guarded the landing. Some one was in one of the rooms with a light. And all at once there rushed into his mind the sound and the shape of a black car passing him at getting on for seventy miles an hour. It came to him with bleak certainty that some one had heard what Laura had said to him, and he thought that whoever it was had been in a hurry to get here first.

After a moment of indecision he moved forward again. There would be plenty of time to retreat if the light approached the stair. It was in his mind to see who carried it. Whoever it was, he was in one of those two front rooms, and Laura's third of the five-pound note was pinned to the under-side of the mattress in the left-hand room. He wondered if it was still there, or whether the gentleman with the candle was putting it away in a pocket-book with the piece he had pinched from the flat and the piece he had pinched from Vassili. The business fairly reeked to him of Alec Stevens.

His thoughts had reached this point, and his left hand, groping, had just touched the study door, which gave a little as he pressed it, when something happened. There was the faint unmistakable click of a latch-key, and immediately upon that the sound of the front door swinging in. A complete rigidity halted Jim with a step half taken. The study door slid away from his fingers, leaving him with the strangest sensation of giddiness. It was as if the house had tilted. In the second that followed he heard the front door close. Now, if the light came on, he was caught.

But no light came. Instead, his straining ears picked up the only just audible movements of some one crossing the hall. At the foot of the stair the sound stopped. Jim could distinguish a dark something which remained immobile for the space of perhaps a minute and a half. It had the appearance of a black shadow. There was still that faint greyness from above, but not a sound, not a single sound of any sort.

Very slowly Jim let his left hand fall to his side. As if it had been a signal, there broke upon the stillness a noise of footsteps overhead, and the stair-rail on the landing sprang sharply into view against a background of candle-light. Some one with a candle had come out of the left-hand bedroom and was making for the head of the stair. The shadow that stood at the foot at once receded. The light advanced, and on an impulse Jim stepped sideways into the study and closed the door within half an inch of the jamb. He might have retreated by way of the baize door and the scullery window. But he had no intention of retreating. He wanted to have a look at the man who was coming down the stair, and he wanted to have a look at his pocket-book. He wanted to know who had just entered the house, and he wasn't going away until he did know.

The light had almost reached the foot of the stair. He took a look, and saw a man with a candle in one hand and a pocket-book in the other. The man's back was towards him. He appeared to be of medium height. He wore a light tweed cap and a heavy leather coat. All his movements were brisk, and it came home to Jim that his next movement would take him round the corner of the stair in the direction of the study. He stood away from the door and, turning, made the quickest going he could for the shelter of the drawn curtains. He remembered from his first visit heavy stuff curtains of an ugly shade of green drawn close before the window. He had drawn them back to get the light and closed them again before he left.

He skirted the table, grazed a chair, and plunged into safety just about ten seconds before the door was pushed open and there came in a youngish man with lively hazel eyes, a small brown moustache, and an alert and confident expression. The first thing he did was to switch on the light in the ceiling and blow out the candle. Then he shut the door, set the candlestick down on a chair, and came over to the writing-table. As he came, he threw up the pocket-book and caught it again. Then with a sound that resembled a suppressed laugh he opened the case, laying it flat on the blotting-pad.

Jim watched him with a curious misgiving. It was almost too easy. Alec Stevens would take out the piece of the five-pound note and look at it, and he, Jim, would take it from him. It was as easy as falling downstairs.
It was a great deal too easy
.

Alec Stevens spread out the pocket-book and took from it three pieces of thin white paper printed with black. He pushed the blotting-pad on one side and arranged the three pieces in order—the right-hand piece, which had been Vassili's; the left-hand piece, which had been Jim's; and the middle piece, which had been Laura's. Each piece stood for an adventure achieved, and the whole stood for the Sanquhar invention. Alec Stevens had the right to feel pleased with himself. At that moment he saw visions and dreamed dreams. For the Sanquhar invention he could ask what he liked. If he wanted money, he could have money; if he wanted power, he could have power. Meanwhile Mackenzie would be here at any moment. His hand rested on his hip pocket and then came down to the table level again. He had better put the note away before the poor fool came blundering in.

Behind the curtains, Jim noted the movement and guessed its significance. He carried a gun, did he? Well, he wasn't going to get a chance to use it. He measured his distance, gathered himself together for the rush that would take the fellow off his balance—and stopped short.

The door was opening.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Jim Mackenzie had the opportunity of admiring a lightning draw. He had a passing wonder as to where Alec Stevens had acquired this accomplishment. One moment his hand was on the table lightly taking his forward stoop as he bent above the spread out note, and the next, almost without visible movement, it had sprung to his hip and back again with a lift. It happened whilst the door swung in. Vassili Stefanoff, halting on the threshold, looked straight into the muzzle of an automatic. The next instant Alec Stevens fell back into the writing-chair laughing.

“My dear Vassili—how melodramatic!”

Vassili did not laugh. His face was set in a heavy, sullen frown. He came in and pushed the door to roughly with his foot.

“Is it I who am melodramatic, or you? What are you doing with that gun? What are you doing here at all?”

Jim looked through the chink in the curtain. Alec Stevens was an adversary to be respected. Quick as lightning, that's what he was. Even as he laughed and threw himself back, he had pulled the open pocket-book across the five-pound note. It was very neatly done; no more than a corner stuck out, and that on the side away from Vassili. The hand that held the automatic lay along the arm of the chair. There might be shooting yet, for all that careless laughter.

Vassili came to the edge of the table and stood there lowering, and under his eyes Alec Stevens leaned forward, opened the middle drawer, and with his left hand very coolly slid the pocket-book and what it covered into it. He shut the drawer and leaned back as Vassili spoke.

“I asked you what that gun was for, and what you were doing here?”

Alec Stevens laughed again.

“I came back for something I had left behind.”

“And the gun?”

“Don't be alarmed—it wasn't for you.”

“Then why don't you put it away?”

Alec Stevens allowed a smiling glance to rest for a moment upon the automatic.

“I wonder!” he said, and under the edged mockery of his voice Vassili broke bounds. He brought both fists down with a ringing blow upon the table. The heavy mask was gone; a face of primitive fury was there instead.

“What did you come here for? You won't tell me? You think you can make a jest of me? Do you think you can double-cross me and get away with it? I will tell you what you came here for! I will tell you—” He broke off and, leaning on the table, stretched across it, shaking with rage. “What did you push into that drawer just now? Tell me that!”

Alec Stevens tapped on the arm of the chair with his pistol.

“If you touch that drawer, I shall break your wrist!” he said. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”

There was a moment when nothing happened. Then Vassili lifted himself slowly, his hands splayed out upon the table. His body drew back. He straightened himself. Last of all he took his hands from the table and thrust them deep into his trouser pockets. With each movement a violent control imposed itself upon him. It was rather horrible to watch, but Alec Stevens appeared pleasantly unmoved.

Vassili spoke at last in a perfectly calm voice.

“You took my piece of the five-pound note.”

“I did.”

“How did you know anything about it?”

Alec Stevens smiled.

Vassili spoke again.

“I suppose Catherine told you. There are too many women mixed up in this affair—it is always a mistake.”

“That, my dear Vassili, depends on the point of view.”

The mask had closed down over Vassili's features; they betrayed nothing. He went on asking his questions in a cold, formal voice.

“How many pieces have you got?”

Alec smiled again.

“You know, Vassili, you weren't the right man for this job—one of their mistakes. Now I'm proposing—out of family feeling, shall we say—to relieve you of the consequences of failure.”

The mask quivered.

“Be careful, Sasha!”

“I'm being very careful, I am a careful person—I don't leave anything to chance. And when I say I'm taking this job over from you, I mean what I say. Do you get that?”

“How many pieces have you?”

“I've got a full hand—and I don't mind telling you that I mean to play it for every cent it's worth.”

From where Jim stood he could see the half of the writing-table, and Alec Stevens thrown back in his chair, alert and wary beneath a manner of careless ease. Vassili did not come into his field of vision. He had seen him only when that furious forward thrust had brought his head and shoulders into view. It was difficult to connect the controlled formality of his voice now with the spectacle of animal rage which he had then afforded.

He said, “
You
mean to play it?”

“Oh certainly. You had your chance and you simply chucked it away. I may have been lucky—but after all one makes one's luck. Anyhow I have succeeded where you failed—and I don't suppose it's necessary for me to point out that failures are not exactly regarded with enthusiasm in Moscow.”

“You have the impudence——”

“Oh, any amount of it. Look here, Vassili, the game's up. Throw in your hand, and I'll do my best for you. Give trouble, and I'll smash you. I can.”

The controlled, formal voice said,

“You are talking like a fool.”

Alec Stevens laughed lightly.

“Am I? I don't think so. I think the shoe's on the other foot. I think you're in a pretty tight place, and I think you know it. I think you've been fool enough to imagine you can play a double game with Moscow.”

A horrible raucous voice shouted furiously,

“That is a lie—a lie—a lie—
a lie
!”

The hand that held the automatic lifted a little. There was a pause. Then Vassili said, quite low and tonelessly,

“It is a lie—but what did you mean?”

Jim saw Alec Stevens straighten himself in his chair.

“What were you doing in Birmingham last July?” he said.

Instantly there was dead silence—no answer, no sound of any kind—dead, frozen silence. Jim could see Alec Stevens leaning a little forward now and smiling that faint amused smile of his, but he could not see Vassili. He could not hear him either. But though he could neither hear him nor see him, he was nevertheless intensely conscious of him. In some horrible way Vassili filled the room—Vassili, with brute rage, beating against brute fear behind a dead sound-proof silence.

Jim clenched his hands and tried to think of what he was going to do. He ought to be thinking, he ought to be making a plan, and for the life of him he couldn't get his thoughts off Vassili. Then quite suddenly the strain gave; Vassili more or less ceased to exist. At a sound—no, a something that couldn't really be called a sound—Jim's head turned and he saw pressed up against the glass within an inch of his shoulder a face and part of a hand.