Red Shadow (30 page)

There was no time to do more than jerk an impatient shoulder. The car slowed on the slope, shining grey in the rain—and Jim Mackenzie's car it was, rushing down to the combe, and the bridge, and the rope. Alec Stevens had seen Jim Mackenzie's face when he passed him. His second look had confirmed what the first had told him, that here was a man drunk with fatigue. Too drunk to see a rope across his path? That was part of the gamble. But, with a streaming windscreen, who was going to see a rope until it was too late?

He stood under the bridge and heard the car come on. The arch echoed. And then with a sickening crash the thing had happened.

Alec Stevens scrambled up the bank, avoided some broken glass, and surveyed the wreckage. The rope had broken, but it had served its turn. The car had smashed into the end of the parapet and lay on its side with the windscreen shattered and the bonnet crumpled. He threw just the one glance at the mess, and then proceeded very coolly to unfasten and roll up the two straggling ends of rope. He walked to his car and put them away under the seat, and then came back to look for Jim Mackenzie.

He was frowning as he came. The smash was worse than he had intended. He didn't want Jim Mackenzie dead; he wanted him as a hostage, as a means of bringing pressure to bear on Laura.

The car lay on its left side. He looked through the smashed window by the driver's seat and saw Jim Mackenzie lying in a heap where he had fallen, clear of the wheel, fortunately the door had not jammed. He got it open, took Jim under the armpits, and after something of a struggle pulled him out and let him down on the wet road. He was bleeding from two or three cuts on the hands, but his face was not touched.

Alec slipped a hand under his coat, and felt a steady heart. A wave of relief flowed over him. If there were no bones broken, his luck was in. He made a rapid and not unskilful examination, and laughed out loud. He had taken his risk, and fortune had favoured him. The man had no more than a bang on the head, and a thick enough head to survive a dozen worse knocks. His luck was in all right. But the next step—the next was the very devil; for if he couldn't get Jim Mackenzie down to the cave, his whole plan went for nothing. He hadn't really reckoned on his being knocked out like this. A badly shaken man who could be made to walk down the path with a pistol held to his head was what he had been counting on. Well, he'd got to have a shot at it, and at once; for if another car came along, he would be done.

He propped Jim Mackenzie into a sitting position and, kneeling, got him by the arms and pulled the weight on to his back. Then he had to get up; and it wasn't very easily done, for Jim Mackenzie was strongly built and a dead weight. Once up, he made use of the parapet of the bridge to take some of the weight until he got it balanced. He had not far to go. The path ran down from the far side of the bridge to the rocks and shingle of the inlet. For the first yard or two the slope was an easy one, then it sharpened, and fell by half a dozen steps to a level stretch. The first two steps were the worst, for after that there was hand-hold. He came past the level to more steps, very shallow and running wet with the rain. When he set foot on the shingle below he was as hot as he had ever been in his life. Well, he had done it, and if he had been asked in cold blood to say whether he could do it, he would certainly have said no.

He went grinding across the shingle, bowed forward by the weight on his back, and before he expected it the water was over his shoes. He had not thought that the sea would be so far in, with another two hours to high tide. He had it in his mind to reach the cave, but from where he stood he could see that he wasn't going to be able to do it. What then? Cart this heavy carcass up that damned slippery path again and be caught by a passing car? Not much! Well, he'd got to do something, and he'd got to do it quickly..… If he could get round the next point, there might or might not be a place where he could dump Jim Mac kenzie..… He went forward, feeling his foothold.

The point was only a few yards away, but the water deepened alarmingly, and a fair sized wave nearly knocked him off his feet before he reached it. Another ten minutes, and he might have got by himself, but he couldn't have carried Jim Mackenzie.

When he was round the point, another and a heavier wave took him in the small of the back. Under its impact he broke into a staggering run and fell sprawling on the dark slimy mass of seaweed left by the last tide. He was up again in a moment, and dragging Jim Mackenzie past the weed up on to the small triangle of dry shingle above high water mark.

A glance told him that the place would do. The cliff hung over, its face fretted away to form a beach no more than a couple of yards wide and three in length. His hostage should be safe enough here until the tide went down. That gave him four hours. If he couldn't talk Laura round in four hours, he couldn't talk her round at all. Meanwhile, if he didn't hurry, he'd be here for four hours himself.

He watched the next wave break—cold grey water, laced with foam. Then as it receded with the sound of shingle dragging over rock, he ran for it, slipping and stumbling in the backwash, and as he ran, he saw another wave come pounding on with the wind behind it and a heavy spray flying. If it caught him at the point, he wouldn't have a chance. He had a moment of cold fear, and then he was round the point. He came panting up the beach and flung himself down on the dry shingle. It had been touch and go, but he had pulled it off.

When he had got his breath back, he climbed out of the combe. He had almost reached the road, when something caught at his nerve and shook it.

Suppose his luck had failed him at the eleventh hour. Suppose some one had come on the wreckage whilst he had been away. A tramp, a cyclist, another car, and he would be in it up to his neck. He took the last rise with the coldest feet in the world.

The road was empty. The wreckage lay untouched. The rain poured down on it out of an even leaden sky. His own car stood not fifty yards away. In five minutes he could reach the Hermitage.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The Hermitage had two sitting-rooms, and both of them faced the sea. In the room on the right of the hall Laura was sewing. Every now and then her needle stopped moving and she looked out of the window. It was like looking out of one of the windows of the ark when the flood was out. The window was a square bay. She sat on a wide seat that filled it, and she looked straight out at the grey water, and the grey sky, and the grey curtain of the rain. The water heaved and fell with a curious giddy rhythm, and the sky looked as if it was falling too, so heavy was the rain.

Laura's ears were so full of the sound of water that she did not hear the door open. Catherine came into the room in a bright green dress.

She said, “Sasha wants to speak to you,” and then turned her shoulder to the room.

Laura laid her sewing in her lap, and saw Alec Stevens. He had changed into dry clothes, but he looked blue with the cold. He held a steaming glass of hot whisky and water, and when he had gone over to the fire he began to sip from it, warming his hands on the glass.

“You must have got very wet,” said Laura rather timidly.

What did Sasha want to say to her? And why was Catherine staring out of the window? A little tremor of apprehension troubled her, and she spoke because it was easier to speak than to be silent.

Alec Stevens smiled.

“I got very wet,” he said, and sipped from his steaming glass.

There was a momentary pause. Then he sat down on the fender-stool with his back to the fire and leaned forward, tumbler in hand.

“I'm going to ask you a rude question. I'm going to ask you whether you think of yourself as intelligent.”

Laura smiled her charming smile.

“Moderately,” she said.

“Because I want to drive a bargain with you, and a little intelligence would be helpful.”

“What sort of bargain?” said Laura in a grave voice. The word troubled her.

“A perfectly simple one. You will benefit—I shall benefit—Catherine will benefit—Mackenzie will benefit.”

Laura's hand moved quickly. The needle in her fine white work pricked her and a bright spot of blood spread on the cambric. She tossed the work aside and put her finger to her lips.

“Vassili, I am afraid, will not benefit,” said Alec Stevens—“but I have an idea that you will be able to bear that.”

Laura drew herself up a little.

“I think you had better say what you mean.”

“I'm going to,” said Alec Stevens, and took a good long drink. “I'm just getting up my courage, you see.” And then, “One can't do oneself justice when one is so damnably cold. As soon as I am thawed I'll explain myself.”

Catherine looked over her shoulder.

“You'd much better go and have a hot bath.”

“I can't spare the time. Besides, I'm really quite hot now—my back is singeing pleasantly. Well, let's get down to brass tacks. I want the Sanquhar invention, and I'm prepared to do a deal with you.”

Laura's eyebrows went up. Her lips relaxed into a smile.

“I'm afraid there's nothing doing.” Then, with a shade more gravity, “Is it really worth talking about?”

He raised his glass and set it down.

“Oh,
quite
. Now I'll give you a piece of good advice. Never turn an offer down until you've heard what it is. We've all got our price, you know.”

Catherine looked round again.

“You are being stupid, Sasha.”

“Never mind,
liebchen
—I shall improve as I go on.
Now
, Laura—just listen to me. I have the five-pound note, and I have the address of Miss Eliza Huggins—no, don't turn pale—I have not got the Sanquhar invention—
not yet
. I'm going to be perfectly frank with you—all the cards on the table and no aces up my sleeve. Eliza is a most formidably virtuous and trustworthy female. Mr Hallingdon told her that she was only to hand over the key of the safe in your presence. No—you didn't know that, and nor did I. When I came along with my five-pound note, thinking I'd got the ace of trumps, she produced the joker and swiped the trick. You've got to be there, or Eliza doesn't part. And if it was only the key, I'd have had a shot at tying her up and looking for it, but as she's the only person who knows where the safe is and in what name, I had to think of something else. I thought of you.”

“Then I think Catherine is right and you are very stupid.”

He said, “No,” with a smiling face.

“You do not really think that I will give you the Sanquhar invention?”

He nodded.

“Yes, I think so—in exchange for Mackenzie's life.”

Since she had tossed her work away Laura's hands had rested idly on the edge of the window-sill. She leaned on them now as if she were about to rise, whilst the colour rushed into her face. But the impulse failed. The colour ebbed.

She said, “What do you mean?” and all at once she felt giddy, as if time had turned upon itself and taken her back to the moment when Vassili had offered her Jim's life at a price.

She steadied herself with an effort. That dreadful moment was gone, and no one could make her live it again. Jim was not in Russia now, and this was not Vassili, but Alec.

He was speaking.

“I'll tell you what I mean. I'm not asking you to do anything in the dark. Mackenzie has had an accident. No, he's not hurt. He was driving too fast, and he ran off the road and smashed up his car. I give you my word that he's not hurt in the least. If you will go with me to see Eliza Huggins, I can undertake to hand him over to you in perfectly good repair.”

“Where is he?” said Laura in a low, steady voice.

“He was foolish enough to get cut off by the tide. But as soon as we have done our business with Eliza we can see about releasing him. Perhaps a rope let down over the cliff would be the best way—unless we just wait till the tide goes down.”

Laura sat quite still for a moment. Then she said,

“I don't believe you.”

“My dear Laura”—he shrugged his shoulders—“what can I do to convince you?”

Catherine looked over her shoulder again.

“It is true, Laura,” she said.

Laura felt as if the ground had been shaken under her. Her own words came back upon her with no substance in them. She had said, “I don't believe you.” But it wasn't true. She believed everything, and she was helpless.

“Look here,” said Alec Stevens, “I'm trying to do you a good turn. Mackenzie's all right, and as far as I'm concerned you can have him back safe and sound. But I've got to have the Sanquhar invention—just make up your mind to that. I've got to have it, and I'll stick at nothing to get it. If you're obstinate, I'm afraid Mackenzie's accident will turn out to have been a fatal one. Do you see?”

Laura turned desperately to Catherine. But Catherine was watching the grey lift and fall of the stormy water, her door so plainly shut and barred that Laura's hope died.

“Come, Laura!” said Alec Stevens.

Laura threw up her head.

“You are trying to frighten me. But this isn't Russia. If you touched Jim, I should go straight to the police.”

“Would you? Trina, do you hear that—she would go straight to the police. One of us would drive her to the nearest police-station, and then she would tell them that I had murdered Mackenzie, and when they asked her for a spot of proof, she would say, ‘He
told
me he was going to murder him.' No—I'm afraid they would think you were crazy. At the inquest it would come out that Mackenzie had been on the road for the best part of twenty-four hours. It would be quite obvious that he had had a smash, and that afterwards he had fallen over the cliff in a dazed condition. I should deny what you say, and Catherine would deny what you say. Catherine will wear her nurse's uniform and explain that you have had a nervous breakdown.” He rose from the fender-stool and stood with his back to the fire. “Come, Laura—be sensible. What is the Sanquhar invention to you? You bought his life from Vassili, and paid dearer for it than that. What are you boggling at?”