Red Shadow (9 page)

The enclosure marked I will give you Z's identity. The enclosure marked II contains your third of the torn note. The enclosure marked III will give you the names of your co-trustees.

Memorize and instantly destroy enclosures I and III, but preserve enclosure II.

There was no signature.

Laura pushed the letter under the bed-clothes and picked up the first enclosure. It had the figure “I” on the outside and was fastened with a little dab of green wax. She opened it and read:

My housemaid, Eliza Huggins, has been with me for thirty years. She is a very sober, industrious, and honest person.

Laura stared at the words. She turned the paper, and saw the figure I on the back of it. “Enclosure I” was to give her the identity of Z. If words meant anything, Z was Eliza Huggins. Eliza Huggins knew where Bertram Hallingdon's secret safe was, and had the key of it.

Laura laid the paper down and took up the second enclosure. This was an envelope bearing the figure “II” and was sealed like the other. It contained an irregular fragment torn from the middle of a bank-note. She put it back into the envelope and took the enclosure which was to give her the names of her co-trustees.

As she broke the seal, such a tremor passed over her that the paper almost slipped from her hands. She straightened it out, and saw the names, very black on the blue-grey sheet:

James Moiran Mackenzie.

Basil Stevens.

CHAPTER XI

Laura did not faint. She looked at the two names in their unnatural conjunction, and saw them recede to an immense distance and then come rushing back.

James Moiran Mackenzie.

Basil Stevens.

She felt as she might have felt after a blinding lightning flash, or some immeasurable shock of thunder. Nothing in her mind functioned. The names were in front of her, and she was looking at them. Then, as she looked, she saw that there was some more writing—just a faint pencil scribble. She turned the paper towards the wintry afternoon light and read:

I need not introduce Mackenzie. I have a very high opinion of him. Stevens has been one of my private secretaries for the past three years.

Laura's mind became quite suddenly very clear. Basil Stevens had been one of Bertram Hallingdon's secretaries for three years. It was as Hallingdon's secretary that he had come to know that she was Hallingdon's heiress. Had he also somehow come to know that he, and she, and Jim were the three trustees to whom Bertram Hallingdon was committing the Sanquhar invention? In the clear, cold place where her thoughts moved, it seemed to Laura that he must have known—known, or guessed; it did not matter which. He had moved the levers that were to his hand, and disaster had rushed upon her like a flood, parting her from Jim. That was all past and gone and done with. She was Basil Stevens's wife. But she was also Bertram Hallingdon's trustee. Everything in her lifted to meet the trust.

The first thing that she had to do was to destroy Bertram Hallingdon's letters and two of the three enclosures. She looked about her. It wasn't going to be easy. If she burnt those papers, there would be questions to answer. And yet, what could she do except burn them? She pushed the envelope containing the torn bank-note under her pillow, gathered all the other sheets of paper together, and picked up the broken fragments of sealing-wax, putting them carefully into the manila envelope. Then she pushed back the bedclothes and sat for a moment on the edge of her bed. Her legs felt as if she had not used them for a long time. She steadied herself by the bed-post and stood up.

Catherine kept the matches on the chest of drawers with the spirit-lamp. From where she stood Laura could see the lamp, and her milk, and her Benger—but there weren't any matches. She turned to the wash-stand. There were no matches there either.

Holding on to the side of the bed, she reached its foot. From here she was able to look round the screen. She saw a part of the room that she had not seen before—the door, with an odd blue glass handle, and between the door and the corner of the room the fireplace, with a low chair standing beside it. Laura's first thought was, “How stupid! Of course I don't want matches—there's the fire.” But in the next moment she saw that the fire was dead. Catherine had made it up before she left the room, and the weight of the coal had smothered it. There were three black forbidding lumps of coal on a bed of grey ash. She gave it up. Her eyes searched the mantelpiece, but there were still no matches.

If there weren't any matches, she must manage without. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tore all the sheets of paper as small as possible. The manila envelope was very difficult to tear. There was a clean handkerchief under her pillows. She put all the bits of paper into the handkerchief and made an adventurous crossing from the foot of the bed to the wash-stand. She dipped the handkerchief full of torn-up paper into the water-jug and held it there.

With her first efforts at walking a wave of heat had flowed over her. Her shawl had fallen from her shoulders and lay across the bed. Now as she stood in her thin night-gown dabbling her fingers in icy water, the cold of the fireless room closed about her and she began to shiver. She needed both her hands to squeeze and soften the paper. It seemed to take a long time, for when she opened the handkerchief a little, words were still legible upon the torn fragments. Finally she spread the handkerchief upon the wash-stand and shredded and tore them until they were mere pulp. She had still to get rid of them.

Her feet were like ice now and she was trembling with the cold. She scraped all the paper off the handkerchief and kneaded it into a ball. Then, with the ball in her hand, she made her way to the window. A sash window she could not have opened; but this was a casement, and the latch moved easily at her touch. There came in a stinging breeze and the smell of frost. She looked down, into a garden with a neglected lawn, and beyond the lawn a tangle of evergreens and the tall masts of leafless trees. A heavy cloudy sky hung low, and the dusk was falling. There was no other house in sight.

Laura leaned out as far as she could and threw the paper ball with all her might. It fell amongst the bushes on her left. She drew back panting and shut the window. She was tingling in every limb. Her first feeling of weakness and giddiness was gone. She walked back to the wash-stand, secured the wet handkerchief, and sat down once more on the edge of the bed. This time she pulled her shawl round her.

She had got rid of Bertram Hallingdon's letters. But what in the world was she to do with the envelope containing her third of the torn five-pound note? Basil Stevens had one piece already. She was Basil Stevens's wife. She was in his house, surrounded by his people. She knew now what he had married her for—not for Bertram Hallingdon's money, though he would use it; and not for a seat on the directorate of Bertram Hallingdon's companies, though he would use that; but for the torn scrap of paper which would help to give him access to the Sanquhar invention. If he could get her piece, he would have two thirds of the note. A terrible light broke upon her. He must never gain possession of her third, for if he did, only Jim Mackenzie and his third would stand between Basil Stevens and the invention.

Her heart beat quickly as she looked towards the head of the bed. There, under the tumbled pillows, was the envelope containing her third—her trust. It must be hidden, and securely hidden, before anyone in this house guessed that it had reached her.

And where was she to hide it? The question asked itself despairingly, and she had no answer. An invalid has no rights and no privacy. She could lock neither her door nor her box—the latter, indeed, had been removed. Her very toilet was assisted by Catherine, to whom each drawer, each shelf, in chest of drawers or wardrobe, was open.

She bent down and felt the under side of the bed, but her fingers touched a mesh of woven wire. She might push the envelope between the wire mesh and the mattress, but she had a settled conviction that if she did so, Catherine would decree that it was high time the mattress was turned and shaken.

She thought of the top of the wardrobe; but she had seen the girl who did the room routing at it with a mop. If she had drawing pins, she might fasten the envelope underneath the chest of drawers; but she had no drawing-pins. She might just as well say, “If I had wings, I would fly.”

It came to her then that she must hide the envelope in another room. If suspicion were aroused, it would be this room upon which it would focus. If he thought that she had received the envelope, Basil Stevens would make a very thorough job of searching the room in which it had been delivered to her; but neither he nor anyone else would dream that she had been able unassisted to reach another room and conceal it there. Yesterday she had not been able to raise herself in bed. Even to-day, even a couple of hours ago, she had clung to Catherine's arm whilst she was being propped up.

As she remembered her weakness, Laura trembled. Could she reach another room, find a hiding-place, and retrace her steps? If she fainted or fell, if she failed either to hide the envelope or to get back to her room without being seen, there would be an end of everything. She was surprised at the warm courage with which she knew that she would neither faint nor fail. She took the envelope from under the pillow, caught the long embroidered shawl about her, and opened the door. The amber fringes brushed her cold bare heels.

She looked out upon the unfamiliar landing. She had a vague recollection of having been lifted and carried, but she had not consciously seen any part of the house except the room in which she had been ill. The landing was empty. In the far corner a stair descended from an upper floor, and a yard to her left continued its descent to the hall below. There was a door opposite her own, and two in the right-hand wall. The opposite door was open, disclosing a dim interior. She discerned piled-up boxes, the foot-rail of a bed, and a row of men's boots.

Laura decided that she would not hide the envelope in what was obviously Alec Stevens's room. She turned her attention to the doors on the right. They were both shut. That Catherine's room was next door to hers, Laura knew; and it came to her now that the other room was empty, because Catherine had said, “When you get better, I can move you into the room on the other side of mine—it gets more sun.” Catherine wouldn't have said that if the room hadn't been available.

Laura had at first opened a mere crack of the door, but now she widened the opening and stood on the threshold, holding to the jamb and listening. There was not any sound in the house; it was heavily, unnaturally still. It might have stood empty for years. The stillness had a paralysing effect upon Laura. It seemed impossible to break it by moving from the shelter of the doorway. And then she knew that this was the beginning of faintness. With a desperate effort she took her hand from the jamb and made a wavering step forward. The linoleum which covered the landing was cold to her bare feet. She held her shawl together across her breast with the hand that grasped the envelope. One of its sharp corners ran into her. She found a red mark afterwards, but at the time she did not notice it.

She came across the landing to the door beyond Catherine's and opened it. The first thing that she saw was the uncurtained window staring at her. It was nearly dark on this side of the house, but the window was not so dark as the room. It hung on the dusk like the picture of a fog. Laura could see nothing beyond, neither house nor tree, only this pale picture of fog hanging there in the dark. There was something frightening about it.

A little of the light from the landing followed her into the room. It wasn't really so dark when she was well inside. There was a second window, but the blind was down, a dark blind that let nothing past. Laura could make out the shape of the bed on the left of the door, and between the windows the dressing-table, with a faintly glimmering glass. The room felt unused, the air stuffy and cold. She went to the bed and felt beneath it as she had done in her own room. This time she touched canvas, and her heart jumped. The bed had a box-spring mattress, and the under side of it would make the best hiding place she could think of. Nobody turns a box-spring mattress. She could pin the envelope to the under side, and no one would ever think of looking for it there. Only she must have pins. She wanted four pins so as to be able to pin it out quite flat.

She got up and looked about her. The room seemed quite light now that she was more accustomed to it. On the dressing-table, in front of the glimmering mirror, stood a pale, prim pin-cushion. Laura's heart beat as she passed her hand over it. There were three pins and a needle. She pricked her finger on the needle, and was much too thankful to care. Next moment she was kneeling by the bed pinning the envelope to the under side of the box-spring mattress as near the middle of the bed as she could reach. She had pulled herself up to her feet and had almost reached the threshold, when a heavy door banged violently downstairs.

Laura took another step and stopped, shocked with an utter inability to move or think. From the hall below came the sound of Basil Stevens's voice.

She stood, and felt rushing waves of terror break upon her. She could only stand quite rigid and let them break. A thick darkness seemed to have fallen upon the landing, so that she could not see, and she could hear nothing except the drumming of her own pulses.

She did not know how long this lasted, but all at once sight and hearing returned. A light which seemed blindingly bright showed her the landing and the descending stair. Some one had switched on the light outside her room. She could hear voices in the hall—Catherine's voice, Alec's voice. And then Basil Stevens's voice, angry and excited. She found herself running across the landing under that blazing light, and into the safe darkness of her own room.

And then, as she pulled up trembling and panting, she looked back and she saw that she had left the other door open. She couldn't go back and shut it. She must go back and shut it. What you must do you can do. She went back slowly, shut the door, and then came slowly back again. The most terrible moment was when three steps more would take her into safety. If whilst she was taking those three steps, anyone were to begin to come upstairs, she would be seen. She took the three steps, came stumbling into the dark room, and, closing the door, leaned there shaking from head to foot. The closed door shut her off from light and sound again.