Red Shadow (32 page)

He began to count immediately. When he reached eight, Alec Stevens snatched out the pocket-book and flung it on the floor.

Catherine turned round and warmed her hands at the fire.

“Laura—” said Jim. “Will you pick up that pocket-book and see if the five-pound note is there?”

For the first time Laura moved. She crossed the floor, picked up the case, and looked through it until she came on an envelope containing the torn pieces of the note.

“Now put it into my pocket. Yes, it's wet, but that can't be helped. And now you've got half a minute to get your hat and coat.”

Where was he going to take her, and how could she go with him? How could she stay here? Jim didn't look at her. She saw a grim and angry profile.

“Do as you're told and hurry!”

The words were fairly flung at her, and she went.

When she came back, Jim was saying,

“I'm taking your car, Stevens. You smashed mine, didn't you? I'll leave yours in a garage and let you know where it is, so you needn't bother the police. I expect we're two minds with a single thought where the police are concerned. Laura—the car is at the top of the steps. Go and get in!”

“Will you shoot me if I say good-bye to her?” said Catherine.

“From where you are, please.”

But Laura slipped behind him and put her arms round her.

“Catherine—
dear
!”

Catherine allowed herself to be kissed. Then she pushed Laura away.

“Oh, run along and be happy!” she said. “He'll probably beat you, but I suppose you won't mind that.”

“
Laura!
”

Laura went out of the room with a strange happiness at her heart. Nothing had changed, and yet she felt as if everything had changed. It was as if she had been in a nightmare and was beginning to wake up. It didn't feel real any more.

When she had reached the top of the steps, she saw Jim come out of the house. He kept his face towards it, and the pistol in his hand, and so came up the steps.

He said, “Get in,” when they came to the car, but when she had got in, he leaned heavily against the door.

“You'll have to drive. I'm all in.”

And when she had moved into the driver's seat he heaved himself in and slumped down in a heap, the pistol falling from his hand.

She started the car, and when they reached the road she said,

“Where?”

He roused himself to tell her, and did not speak again until they drew up at Eliza Huggins's door.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Eliza Huggins had not been too well pleased with her visitor. She thought about him a good deal as she peeled potatoes at her scullery sink. In the end she summed him up as ferrety-eyed. Her mental processes might be slow, but when she had once arrived at a conclusion nothing moved her from it, and having set Alec Stevens down as ferrety-eyed, ferrety-eyed he would remain as far as she was concerned. The term stood for complete untrustworthiness. A ferrety-eyed person was capable of anything from murder to what Eliza called pick-pocketing.

When the knocking came on her front door, she first turned her head and looked in that direction, and then said, “Drat!” When the knocking was repeated, she took her hands out of the cold water in which she was rinsing the potatoes, dried them slowly and methodically upon a roller towel, and went without haste to the door.

Two people stood on the doorstep, and after a moment's sheer surprise Eliza recognized them both. The lady was Miss Laura Cameron, and the gentleman whose arm she was holding was Mr Jim Mackenzie that she did ought to have married. “And oh, my gracious mercy me!” said Eliza to herself. “Whatever has lie been a-doing of?”

Jim Mackenzie leaned against the doorpost. In spite of the overcoat which he had put on it was apparent that his clothes were drenched. His shirt was open at the neck. His rough fair hair stood on end above a face grey-white with fatigue.

“Miss Eliza Huggins?” said Laura in a quick, anxious voice.

Eliza stood back from the door. Her manner conveyed a respectful welcome.

“Come in, Miss Laura,” she said.

Jim walked stiffly to a chair and sat down. He leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. He could hear Laura talking and Eliza talking. Their voices were a very long way off, and he himself was slipping quite slowly down a smooth inclined plane that went on and on and on for ever. He had no power to stop this sliding process. It took him farther and farther down into a white deadening mist.

“It's a good thing I'd got the kettle on the boil,” said Eliza. “A good cup of tea with an egg beat up in it and his bed—that's what he wants. Sopped to the skin, and goodness knows what else! Now, sir—you drink this up!”

Jim didn't want to drink anything. But Eliza was very firm with him. For all her bulk she was strong. When he had drunk the tea, she got him up the narrow stair and put him to bed, very much as if he had been ten years old.

“
Now
, Miss Laura—he's got my best night-gown on and sleeping beautiful, so don't you trouble.”

Laura took both Eliza's hands in hers.

“You're frightfully good to us,” she said. And then, “Suppose he comes after us.”

Eliza looked her straight in the face.

“Your husband, miss?”

The colour flew to Laura's cheeks.

“Oh no! Oh
no
!”

Eliza continued to look at her.

Laura dropped her hands.

“It's Mr Alec Stevens, his cousin—he came to see you this morning. He wanted me to come back with him and ask you to give him the key of Mr Hallingdon's safe.”

Eliza nodded.

“I wouldn't give it to no one without you was willing. Very particular, Mr Hallingdon was, and I gave him, my word.”

“Mr Stevens may come back,” said Laura.

“It wouldn't be any manner of use if he did.”

“The pieces of the note are in Mr Mackenzie's pocket.”

“It don't matter where they are now,” said Eliza with strong common sense. “There—Miss Laura, don't you trouble. If he comes back, he'll get no for an answer, same as he did before.”

“He might make trouble,” said Laura.

Eliza turned to the kitchen with her arms full of wet clothes.

“What? With the police just over the way?” she said with a fine scorn in her voice.

Jim Mackenzie wakened in the late afternoon. He did not wake because he wanted to, but because of an insistent something which called on him to wake. He opened his eyes and looked into darkness. He sat up, threw back the bed-clothes, and was aware of most unfamiliar entanglements. Where in the world had he got to, and what in the world had he got on? Some voluminous, flowing garment enveloped him. There were frills on it, round the neck, and down the front, and round the wrists, all edged with some beastly prickly kind of lace. He felt about him and discovered a table, and upon it candle and matches. The light showed him a room with a sloping roof, and himself attired in a long white night-gown.

Where was he? For a moment he had to think; and then, like the rolling up of a curtain, the fog was gone from his brain and he remembered. Everything came back with such a rush that it fairly swept him off his feet. He flung out his arms and could have shouted aloud. Laura was free! Laura wasn't married to Stevens after all! Laura was free, and he had got her away! Laura was his again!

But where was he?

He looked round the room. There was a Bible on the table. He opened it to look at the fly-leaf, and saw in a solemn, laboured writing, “Eliza Huggins, from her godmother, Hannah Huggins.” Well, he was in Eliza's house, and this dreadful female garment was Eliza's. Of his own clothes there was not a single vestige.

He opened the door and saw a tiny landing and a steep stair going down. From its foot came a glimmer of light and the sound of voices. Oh, hang it all, he couldn't go down and find Laura in this ghastly kit..…

He drew back into the room. Behind the door hung Eliza's dressing-gown, a huge red flannel shapelessness. He flung it on and pushed the white frills out of sight. Eliza's comb reduced his hair to something like order. He was tingling with excitement as he blew out the candle and, picking up his skirts, made his way warily down the dark stair.

In the parlour Eliza was holding forth on the proper way to wash woollens.

“Combinations or blankets, Miss Laura, it's all one. Wash them in suds and rinse them in suds, and you'll never have no bother with them at all. Mr Hallingdon never had a blanket go to a laundry, not the whole time I was with him, and they kep' as good as new—and let me fill your cup up, Miss Laura, for it don't keep hot long this weather.”

“It's lovely tea,” said Laura. And with that the inner door opened and there came in Jim Mackenzie in flowing red flannel with a half embarrassed grin on his face.

“Don't I get any tea?” he said.

Eliza heaved herself out of her chair.

“A fresh brew—and I hope you've slep'—and some bacon and eggs—and I've got your clothes a-drying in the kitchen, sir.”

“I've borrowed your dressing-gown, I'm afraid.”

“And welcome,” said Eliza.

She went out and shut the door.

Laura looked into the fire. Why had Eliza gone away and left them? It was too hard, too bitterly hard, to remember that Vassili and her pledged word still stood between them. Her body was free, but her conscience and her will were bound—unless..… Was it possible that Alec Stevens had been speaking the truth when he said that she was not bound after all? The room seemed full of Jim, and she could not look at him, because if she looked, she might not be able to keep herself from running to him. She had such a longing to feel his arms round her again—such a terrible longing.

Jim came across the floor with a couple of strides and caught her up.

“
Laura! My Laura!
”

She could not help it; she clung to him.

“
Laura
—you do love me still—you
do!
”

She began to weep bitterly, helplessly.

“I can't bear it, Jin—I can't bear it!”

He was tilting up her wet face and kissing her.

“You haven't got to bear anything. Laura—
darling
—it's all right—you're not married to him—you never were—the swine! Alec let it out when they were talking Russian together before I came into the room. He was threatening him with it. That's what made Vassili go off like he did. You know he was in France with a girl. Well, she was his
wife
. He married her in Birmingham last July.”

Laura looked up at him wildly.

“He said—Sasha said—I wasn't married to Vassili—but he said I couldn't prove it—he said he'd help me to prove it if I gave him the Sanquhar invention—and I couldn't——”

“We shall be able to prove it all right if Alec was speaking the truth—and he must have been, or Vassili wouldn't have thrown up the sponge like that. Laura—kiss me! You haven't kissed me properly yet.”

Laura kissed him properly.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Alec Stevens might have been dead, for all the signs of life he gave. They ran his car into an Exeter garage and sent a telegram announcing its whereabouts. Then Jim's own car had to be arranged for. He telephoned instructions to a different garage. Then sleep—hours of dead, blank sleep from which he awoke a new man.

They took a morning train to London, and found Miss Wimborough at the flat. When she had heard what they had to say she flung up her hands.

“Are you mad?” she said to Laura. “Or do you expect a succession of miracles? Providence has no sooner delivered you from one man than you propose to deliver yourself over, bound hand and foot, to another! If you won't help yourself, how do you expect heaven to help you?”

Jim had the audacity to laugh.

“She shall come to you the very first time I beat her,” he said.

They interviewed Mr Rimington, who was duly shocked. Yes, he would have the Birmingham marriage verified immediately, and if the facts were as stated, the steps necessary to establish Miss Cameron's freedom could be taken without delay.

As they went out, Jim caught sight of Stark, assiduous over a typewriter. He wondered how much Stark knew. And then they were in a taxi on their way to transfer the papers relating to the Sanquhar invention from the safe rented by Bertram Hallingdon under the name of Bernard Jaffray to the vaults of the Bank of England. Eliza had produced from the middle of her Bible a letter introducing Miss Cameron, and, from the bottom of a flower-pot in which a fine geranium was wintering, the key of the safe.

They met with no difficulties of any kind. The letter and the key were an Open Sesame, but when the key had turned in the lock and the steel door swung open, a shiver passed over Laura. From the moment they had entered the offices of the company they had not been alone. But they were to all intents and purposes alone now. The official who accompanied them had remained by the door.

Laura put her hand on Jim's arm and said in a low voice,

“Jim——”

“What is it?”

“When we got out of the taxi, I thought I saw Sasha.”

“You thought you saw Alec Stevens?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“There was another car behind ours.”

“You're sure you saw him?”

“No, I'm not sure—but I'm afraid.”

Jim caught her hand.

“You needn't be afraid. I can get a police escort if necessary. Let's get on with it.”

He thrust the key into the lock and turned it.

Laura drew back a little. The place was brightly lighted and rather hot, but she shivered. She had suffered so much because of the Sanquhar invention. And yet her suffering and her agony of loss were as an infinitesimal point to the agony and suffering that would be loosed if the Sanquhar invention were given to the world. It was as if they were opening the cage of some terrible wild beast. The beast might be chained, but who could say how long the chain would hold?