The Dower House Mystery (10 page)

“Julian, you haven't bought him!”

“She looks the gift-dog in the mouth. As a matter of fact, he's on approval.” He touched the Airedale on the shoulder, and dropped the lead. “Go and speak to the lady.”

Fearless came forward, his peat-brown eyes fixed gravely on Amabel. She said “Well, Fearless?”—and he snuffed her outstretched hand, and then slid his head under it with a funny sort of jerk.

“You are approved. Is he?” said Julian, smiling.

Amabel looked at him, her hand on the dog's head, a little mist before her eyes.

“Oh, Julian, he's a beauty! But you shouldn't—you really shouldn't.”

Julian came forward.

“What does that mean? You wouldn't have me, so I was bound to find you a substitute.”

“It means ‘Thank you,'” said Amabel.

“I should keep him on the lead, you know—for the present, at any rate. And don't go a step without him. The Bronson girl says she's had him in her room, and he's no trouble—sleeps like a baby. Look here, what about your supper? Have you arranged with Jenny to bring it up, now Ellen's gone?”

“Oh, I'll get it myself. Jenny won't come up again once she's cleared the tea.”

“Let me talk to her,” said Julian grimly.

“No, don't. Please—I'd rather not. Besides she won't—she's frightened.”

“And you?” His tone was rough.

“Oh, I'm frightened too; but then, you see, it's my supper.”

It ended in their leaving Fearless shut into the sitting-room whilst they went down together into the kitchen, where they scrambled eggs, fried bacon, and made coffee. It was very pleasant and gay; and so was the informal meal upstairs which followed. Mrs. Grundy or no Mrs. Grundy, it is impossible to deny one's fellow-cook his supper. Fearless lay with his nose between his paws, and seemed to slumber; but the instant that Julian moved from his chair a brown eye opened and an ear twitched.

They carried down the tray, and Julian took his leave unwillingly.

“Keep Fearless with you, and call me up if you want me,” he said as they parted at the front door.

Amabel nodded. He saw her face change.

“What is it?” he asked quickly.

She tried to smile.

“I'm stupid. It was the thought of last night. We were standing just like this, Ellen and I, when the door blew back on us and the lights went out.”

“How do you mean the door blew back on you?”

“I'll show you.” She put one hand on the catch, the other on the handle, and opened the door a bare three inches. “I meant just to see if it was Marmaduke, but the door was pushed back—I don't know how to describe it—I couldn't hold it.”

“And the lights went out?”

“The lights went out.” She was leaning against the wall now, looking at him with a serious, troubled gaze.

“You said Ellen had had a fright before. What was it?”

Amabel grew a little paler.

“She said something followed her up the stairs,” she whispered, and then grew paler still. It came to her that she would have to lock the door on Julian and go up those stairs alone.

Julian's hand was on her arm.

“My dear girl, don't look like that. Go and get the dog. I'll wait here.”

The quickness with which he had read her thought startled her. It was as if one of those many veils which separate us from our fellows had been torn away. She felt his eyes on her face, and could not meet them; they saw too much. And, if she looked, it might happen that she, too, would see something that she was not ready to see. The colour rose to the roots of her hair, and without a word she turned and ran upstairs. When she came back with Fearless, the veil was between them again; the intimate moment had passed.

They shook hands and said good-night. Then Amabel locked and bolted the door, and went back to the sitting-room, Fearless walking beside her in the most sedate and comfortable fashion.

At ten she went down again to take him for a run. The hall had lost its terrors. It was raining a little, but not cold. As they came in, she saw Jenny at the far end of the passage leading to the kitchen, and called out a cheerful good-night. Then she and Fearless went up to bed. Before putting out her light she surveyed the room. The great, dark press that filled the whole wall opposite the door gave it a gloomy look. Amabel remembered paying a visit as a child and being put to sleep in a room with just such another cupboard in it; it had haunted her childish dreams for years. If this room were really hers, she thought she would have bright-coloured curtains, yellow or orange, and a warm brown carpet instead of the cold washed-out chintzes and grey Axminster of Miss Harriet's bequeathing. To spend money in imagination is one of the harmless dissipations of the poor, and one which had often given Amabel a good deal of pleasure.

She locked the door which led through into Miss Georgina's room, and got into bed. The telephone and Fearless were really more satisfying companions than poor, gloomy Ellen.

Fearless had curled himself into a ball in front of the bureau, and was already asleep. Amabel's heart warmed to him. She put out the light, and fell asleep with grateful thoughts of Julian.

It was about two hours later that something woke her. Her eyes opened on the darkness, and, for a confused moment, though she was aware of sound—sound that had awakened her and still continued—, she did not know what sort of sound it was. Then it came to her that Fearless was growling, with a little whimper thrown in now and again. She heard the pad of his feet as he moved in the room, and she put out her hand and switched on the light. He just turned his head, and she saw his eyes, big and anxious. Then he was at the door, head cocked on one side, nose to the crack, snuffling and whining. Amabel sat up and spoke his name:

“Fearless, good boy, lie down.”

Again that quick, anxious glance at her.

“Lie down, Fearless!”

But the whimpering increased, and he began to scratch at the door. Amabel got out of bed, flung her dressing-gown about her, came to the door, and stood there listening. At first she could hear nothing. The dog's excitement grew. She tried to hush him, and caught—or thought she caught—a distant sound impossible to define. It was not the thudding which had brought her downstairs before, but something else.

She put her hand on the Airedale's head, and strained to hear. It came again, like something moving, like something being dragged, something heavy—the whole sound so blurred that she could hardly catch it. But Fearless was becoming frantic and beyond her power to control; he was on his hind legs now, tearing at the door and uttering sharp yelps; every now and then he turned, licked Amabel's hand, caught at her dress, her wrist. She picked up the end of the lead, gave it a double turn round her hand, unlocked the door, opened it, and reached for the switch that controlled the passage lights. The dog's upward bound and furious rush forward brought her to her knees before she could touch it.

The high, strained wail of a cat rose up from the black hall. The lead was wrenched from her hand. She lost her balance completely and fell. Fearless was gone. She heard him go clattering down the stairs, and as she stumbled up and got the light turned on, the crying of the cat came again.

Amabel had a moment of indecision. She could go back into her room and lock herself in, or she could go forward to the stair-head and turn on the light in the hall. The moment lasted only long enough to draw a quick breath. “It must be a real cat—it must. And of course Fearless is crazy. I must get him back.” She ran to the head of the stairs, and as she pressed the switch and saw the hall leap into light, there came to her ears the sudden, violent crash of breaking glass. She stood, her hand on the wall, and stared down.

The drawing-room door just opposite the foot of the stairs was wide open; the room showed dark beyond; and from that darkness there came the tinkling sound of falling glass. It ceased. No other sound came.

Amabel stood there without moving, her eyes on the open door. A very deep silence settled on the house. She tried to speak, to break it, to call to Fearless; but no sound would come; the stillness was unbroken; it was very cold, it was very, very cold. With one of the greatest efforts she had ever made in her life she withdrew her hand from the wall. She did not know how to turn and get back to her room, but she knew that she must turn and get back. If something were to come up the stairs behind her! The momentary panic passed into numbness; she could not turn, she could not move. She stood there for a long time, and there was never another sound at all. At last she drew a long breath, and went slowly, stiffly, back to her room. She left the lights burning, and locked her door, then turned, and stood wide-eyed and rigid.

There was the window on her right; the bureau pulled out a little with the telephone behind it; the dark press opposite. To the left, the table with the lamp upon it; the big, old-fashioned bed; and, beyond the bed-foot, the door into Miss Georgina's room.

And the door into Miss Georgina's room was open.

Chapter XI

Jenny brought up a cup of tea in the morning, opened the curtains, set hot water. Amabel looked at her keenly.

“Did you hear anything last night, Jenny?” she asked.

“No, ma'am,” said Jenny. “Did it blow, ma'am? Mother and me are heavy sleepers.”

“I think,” said Amabel, still looking at her, “I think there's a window broken somewhere. Have you been into the drawing-room yet?”

“No, ma'am,” said Jenny. Then, by the door, she turned and said in her usual gentle, depressed manner, “Did you know as all the lights was on, up and down? They must have been on all night.”

“Yes,” said Amabel, “I'm afraid they were.” Just as Jenny was disappearing she called her back. “Was the drawing-room door open as you came upstairs?”

Jenny stood on the threshold and drooped.

“Not that I took notice of,” she said.

Amabel dressed, and came downstairs. The drawing-room door was shut. She opened it, and came into the half light of a curtained room. There was a mouldy smell, and something else—a fresh draught blowing; it stirred the heaviness which it could not lift.

Amabel crossed the floor and pulled back the heavy, brocaded curtains which had, perhaps, been new when Julian's mother was a bride. As she stepped forward to pull them, she trod on a piece of glass and felt it break. The light showed a gaping hole in the window about four feet from the floor, the whole pane splintered, the edges jagged and irregular; outside on the moss-grown gravel a litter of shivered fragments. She stood and looked for a moment, and then turned back into the room. There was another window at the far end. She drew this curtain also, then went to the door and shut it.

Ten minutes later she heard the sound of footsteps, saw Julian coming across the gravel, and heard him check and exclaim. She came up to the broken window, and they looked at one another across the debris.

Julian gave a long whistle.

“Hullo! What's this?” he said.

She told him dryly and briefly.

“Why didn't you ring up?”

“Nothing more happened.”

He stirred the fragments of glass with his foot.

“I hope he hasn't cut himself to bits. He probably went straight home. I think I'll just go and find out.” With no more than this he turned away.

Amabel felt a little depressed. She went slowly upstairs and had her breakfast. She was dusting the room when Julian returned, and he asked impatiently,

“Doesn't Jenny do that?” His tone astonished her a little.

“I've told Jenny that I'll do these two rooms if she'll do the cooking,” she said. “I like house-work, you know. But—have you found Fearless?”

“Yes. He's all right—not a scratch. He must have gone straight home. Mademoiselle Lemoine heard him at the door, and let him in.”

“Not a scratch!” said Amabel.

Julian stood over the fire.

“That's nothing. If he went for it bald-headed, he probably wouldn't be cut. I've seen a man push his fist through a pane of glass and never break the skin.” He frowned as he spoke.

Amabel had scarcely to look at him to know that he was in a black bad temper. She looked, all the same, half indulgently. The boy of twenty years ago had frowned just like that when anger took him—mouth all on one straight line, and brows drawn hard together over eyes that seemed almost black.

He kicked a half-burned log, and said,

“If you ask my opinion, the whole thing is a lot of ado about nothing. What does it come to, when all's said and done?”

Amabel set down a china figure, and took up another. She suppressed a little desire to smile. Why on earth should Julian be angry like this? What babies men were!

“I don't know,” she said sweetly. “Suppose you tell me—then we shall know just where we are.”

He threw her a suspicious glance. Something in it set a spark to her temper too.

“In my opinion, it all comes to precious little. A stray cat gets in, or doesn't get in; but you hear it. Fearless hears it too, and naturally goes off his head with excitement.”

“The drawing-room door was shut when I came upstairs,” said Amabel.

“Then he pushed it open. He must have heard the cat outside and gone bang through the glass to get at it.”

Amabel pressed her lips together. The little kindled spark danced in her eyes.

“When I came back to my room,” she said slowly, “the door into the other room—your Aunt Georgina's room—was open. Do you suppose the cat opened it?”

“You probably left it open.”

“I shut it; and I locked it before I went to bed. I can swear to that.”

“Then the lock's defective. Will you let me have a look at it?”

“Certainly.”

Odd how the antagonism seemed to be growing between them. It was as sudden a thing as last night's sympathy. Neither thought of calling it reaction.