The Coldstone (11 page)

It was Anthony who had come back into the room and lighted the lamp. There was a little knot-hole on the right beyond where the panelling opened. It had glimmered like a keyhole when he lit the lamp, and when she put her eye close to it she could see him, with his hair standing on end and a puzzled, angry look on his face. She saw him go into the corner of the room, and she saw him come back with the handkerchief in his hand and stand there, turning it over and looking at it. When he put it down and went out of the room, she had her chance, but she had to be very quick. The panel had a catch. She had her hand on it, and the moment Anthony was out of sight, she slipped the catch, pulled the panel inwards, and stepped down into the room with her long full skirt gathered up in her left hand. She snatched the handkerchief, and was back again before she had time to take three breaths. Now she stood and looked through the knot-hole at Anthony.

He was puzzled, and he was angry. She thought he was very angry; and she thought being angry suited him, because his jaw stuck out and his eyes went dark. And then all at once he almost frightened her into crying out, for he picked up the lamp and marched straight up to the picture. She had a dreadful feeling of not being able to move. Her forehead was pressed against the rough inner side of the panelling, and she could neither close her eyes nor move away from the knot-hole. The light seemed to rush towards her, and she remembered having heard that fish will come to a diver's light far down in the dark sea and stay there goggling at it stupidly in a sort of helpless fascination. In her mind she saw herself with bulging eyes and a large open mouth. She said “Cod-fish!” which was about the most withering thing she could think of, and with a jerk—s he hoped it was a noiseless jerk—she threw back her head and shut her eyes.

She heard Anthony say “Damn!” on the other side of the portrait, and then after a moment—but it didn't seem like a moment; it seemed like a long time—she heard him set the lamp down, and she opened her eyes and looked through the hole again.

Anthony was standing on the other side of the room. He had put down the lamp, but as she looked, his hand went up and turned it out. The light jumped, and then all the shadows in the room rushed down and smothered it. Anthony went out and shut the door with a bang.

Susan relaxed. She did not know how stiffly she had been holding herself until the door banged like that. She let go, and all at once she wanted to sneeze, and she thought how dreadful it would have been if she had sneezed before. She moved back from the panelling and turned on the torch which she had stowed away in a conveniently large pocket. The light showed a narrow standing-place about three feet square, and beyond it steps going down into the darkness.

Susan moved towards the steps. She ought to go back and be thankful she was so well out of the adventure. It must be getting awfully late, and if Gran woke up.… She didn't want to go back in the least; she wanted to go through the panel and explore.

With her foot on the top step, she halted, whisked round, and switched off her light. The panel swung in, and she stepped down into the library for the third time that night, pulling the panel behind her so that it stayed open about half an inch. First of all she wanted to look at the portrait. That was what she had come here for, and she had only had a glimpse of it, because the minute her light went on, there had come that frightened cry. She turned the light on it now and bobbed a little curtsey to the lady who looked as if she was stepping down to meet her.

“I really am like her,” she said to herself—“awfully like.” Then she laughed, because she thought of Anthony with his rumpled hair and his blue and white pyjamas, and his puzzled, angry face. She realized suddenly that she was enjoying herself very much, and she hadn't the slightest intention of going back to bed. She switched off her light, went tiptoe to the door, opened it, and stopped to listen. There was something absolutely thrilling about being a ghost. She loved the soft swish of her blue petticoat and the soft feel of the flowered muslin gown.

The skirt swung as she stepped over the threshold and felt her way to the foot of the stairs with the torch in her left hand. She had just touched the newel, when the first sound reached her and stopped her dead. It was the smallest sound that could be heard at all, so little audible that she could not have said that she heard anything; yet all at once she couldn't move and everything in her listened. She listened, and couldn't hear anything at all. There wasn't anything to hear—there hadn't ever been anything. She would count twenty, and then she would go on again. She began slowly, one—two—three—four—five—and just as she said five, someone opened the drawing-room door on the other side of the hall. She heard the handle turn and the latch click faintly, and she heard someone move. She hoped that the someone didn't hear her.

The full skirt swung again as she turned and ran for the library door. Even as she got there, she thought that she would be trapped if they came this way, because she didn't dare show a light, and she couldn't make sure of reaching the panel in the dark. She had got no farther than just inside the door, when a spark of light came dancing past, and as she pressed against the wall, a soft sound followed it.

The light went past the door and down the passage. Susan stood just within the door, pressed close against the wall, and saw it go. Her heart thumped, stood still, and thumped again. The light came from a little lantern held high in a man's hand. There were two men, and they went straight past the open door and pushed the baize door at the end of the passage and went through it. She saw the spot of light move for a moment on the rough baize, making a little green island in a sea of blackness. Then the door swung, the men went through. The door swung back, and the light was gone.

Susan was astonished at her own anger. How dared they? She could feel her cheeks burning with pure rage. She wasn't frightened; she was angry—angry and excited, and quite determined to find out what was happening on the other side of the swing door. She picked up her petticoats and crept down the passage.

The door moved easily. She pushed it an inch or two at a time. Someone was whispering, moving, whispering again. The sound died. She pushed the door quite wide and passed through into the passage beyond. There was a light on ahead. It came through the half open door of a room on the right. Voices came from it too. She came as near as she dared, and stood listening.

There were two voices, both sunk to a whisper. The light was the dim glow from the dark lantern which she had seen in the man's hand. One of the voices said,

“He won't. Why should he?”

The other whisper came—lower, more muffled. She caught only one word, “risk,” and heard a smothered laugh.

“His—not ours. He'll get more than the torch this time.”

The other voice said, “Ssh!” and then “Well?”

There was a rustle of paper. Susan crouched down and looked round the edge of the door. She saw a room, very faintly lit. The lantern stood on a table, with the light spreading away from it into the right-hand corner of the room. There was a man with his back to her, and another man leaning forward across the table with a paper in his hand. He was holding the paper to the light. She could not see face or feature, just two black shapes without contour, like flat black shadows; only, when the paper came into the light, she could see the hand that held it—a long, slim hand.

“The second shield—”

She heard the words quite distinctly. The man who held the paper spoke then.

“Where is it?”

“The stone that Merlin blessed”'”

“Go on.”

“To keep in safety

The source of evil.”

He read, or seemed to read, from the paper in a soft toneless voice that just wasn't a whisper.

The man with his back to Susan broke in:

“You're translating?”

“Yes—it's Latin.”

“And it doesn't say where?”

The hand that held the paper sketched a light gesture; the paper rustled. Susan's heart stood still. Her fingers pressed against the jamb, contracted, tried to close, bruised themselves.

The paper rustled. The man who held it said, still in that muffled voice, but with just a hint of laughter in it,

“Under the second shield.”

It was as he finished saying it that Susan became aware of the strain on her hand. She had to make a conscious effort to relax. She missed the next words. She felt stiff, and cold, and numb, and she thought that if they came her way, they would find her kneeling here, because all power and will to move had gone out of her at that little familiar gesture. And then the man with his back to her moved. He put his hand on the lantern and began to slew it round; the light slipped in a vague smear over a space of dingy wall. It was coming nearer; in a moment it would strike on the doorpost and shine right into her wide, terrified eyes, and then she would scream—and then she didn't know what would happen. She could see it like a picture in her mind. It was just like being in two places at once; she was in the picture, and she was looking at it. The light was slipping round, and when it touched her she would scream.

Something quite different happened. The baize door behind her burst open and Anthony Colstone charged past her, barefoot in his pyjamas. He ran right into the room, shouting angrily, and the man who was facing the door picked up a chair and hurled it straight at his head. The man with his hand on the lantern dropped it and recoiled. The chair came hurtling across the table, and Anthony went down with a crash. His head struck the floor hard. It was all over in a minute. Susan didn't scream. She got up and stood in the doorway.

Anthony never moved. There was a whispering sound in the room, and the clank of fire-irons. The man who had thrown the chair was stooping by the fireplace. He got up and moved towards Anthony. The other man lifted the lantern. He said,

“What are you going to do?”

The light flickered on Anthony's bare feet. He had fallen sideways with one knee bent; Susan could see him sprawling all in a heap. The man who had held the paper came forward with the poker in his hand.

“I'm going to break his leg—it'll keep him quiet for a bit.”

Susan said “No!” in a high, queer voice that wasn't in the least like her own. Her hands came together in front of her. She stood quite still, because it had taken every bit of her strength to say that one word. The lantern swung round, and the light shone right in her face. She didn't move or blink; she stood quite still. She had no idea how pale she was. She gazed at the light with fixed eyes.

The two men stared at the doorway. It framed for them the portrait which not half an hour before they had seen hanging on the library wall. Patience Pleydell stared back at them.

Susan heard one of them cry out—she thought afterwards that it was the one with the lamp. The poker dropped with a crash, the light swung away from her, and both men ran stumbling and bumping into one another for the half open door on the far side of the room. The lantern went swinging through it, and the door banged.

Susan came suddenly alive and tingling. She knew exactly what she was going to do, and she did it with surprising quickness and strength. She took Anthony Colstone under the arms and dragged him through the door into the passage, and along the passage to the baize door. The floor was smooth with the passing of the feet of many generations. She dragged him to the door and through it, and she felt up and down the baize until she found a bolt and drove it home. Then she dragged Anthony into the library and locked the library door. And then she sat down and took his head on her lap and began to tremble very much. Her teeth chattered and she felt cold, and she wanted to cry. She wondered if he were very badly hurt, and she wondered what on earth she was going to do. She ought to call Lane, but somehow she couldn't. Just for a minute she must sit still in the dark and get hold of herself.

Anthony Colstone opened his eyes and wondered where he was. His pillow felt queer, and the bed was very hard. His hand was lying palm downwards on something rough. He moved it a little, and he felt the thick pile of a carpet. He was lying on the floor. But his head wasn't on the floor. It felt stiff. It was supported by something soft, something that moved and shook a little. Odd.… He moved his hand again. Yes—carpet.… Odd—distinctly odd. And then all at once he remembered charging down the passage. He remembered that; but he couldn't remember what happened next. He had gone upstairs and waited, because he wasn't sure that the blighter he had tackled in the library had really got clear away. He might have gone out of the front door and banged it; but then again, he mightn't—it would be quite a good trick to bang the door and hide inside the house. He thought he would lie low and see what happened. And then a light happened, and voices—two of the blighters whispering. And he had charged down the passage, and they had laid him out—Yes, by gum, they had. If his head hadn't been the hardest part of him.… He moved it gingerly, and quite close to him in the dark someone said “Oh!”

Anthony became aware that he was lying with his head in somebody's lap. His other hand touched a soft flowing skirt. Somebody touched his head. Somebody said “Oh!”

Anthony said “Hullo!” and sat up.

Somebody said “Oh!” again, and there was a soft rustle of stuff.

He put out his hand to feel for the flowing skirt, but it had gone.

He said, “I say—” and then, “Where are you?”

The answer came from a little way off:

“You mean ‘Where are
you?
'”

“That's what I said.”

“
You
are in the library.” This was a very faint whisper, and it was going away.

“The library? How did I get here?”

He scrambled up, and felt giddy for a moment. There was no answer.