The Shadow in the North (25 page)

"As to that," said Mr. Windlesham earnestly, "I must plead guilty. I did it with repugnance, believe me, with

shame and regret, and ever since it happened I have been consumed with remorse and anxiety. I have never felt such rehef as when this morning I heard that you were alive. And as for Mrs. Budd—I have arranged for her hospital bills to be paid in full. A private matter, with my own money—naturally it is not something I could charge to the firm's account without giving rise to suspicion."

"Why attack her, anyway?" said Frederick.

"As a warning to Miss Lockhart," said Mr. Windle-sham simply. "Had we been more aware of Miss Lock-hart's qualities, we would have taken a different line. I argued against it from the start; violence of any sort is anathema to me. But Mr. Bellmann overruled me."

Frederick looked at Sally. Her face was expressionless.

"Well, this has been most interesting, Mr. Windle-sham," he said. "Thank you for coming. There's a cab rank at the end of the street."

"Er—my proposal? You understand, I took a risk in coming here. ..."

"Yes," said Sally. "I suppose you did. We shall have to think about it. Where can we reach you?"

He took a card from his waistcoat pocket.

"This is an office where I can be contacted. I'm not always there, but a letter to that address will reach me in twenty-four hours. . . . Miss Lockhart, Mr. Garland, may I press you for an indication? However slight? I am beginning, you see, to be afraid."

t.

His face was flushed, his spectacles gleaming.

Frederick said, "Quite so. Well, if it comes to action, you skip over this way and at least you wont have one of our bullets in you. In the meantime you'd better stay where you are, don't you think?"

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Garland. Thank you. Miss Lockhart. I have a positive terror of any kind of violence. Mr. Bellmann is an intemperate man—easily aroused—^violent passions ..."

"Quite. Here's your coat and hat," said Frederick, helping him through the darkened shop. "We'll write to you, I've no doubt. Good night. Good night!"

He locked the door and went back to the kitchen.

"What d'you make of that, then?" he said.

"I don't believe a word of it," she said.

"Good. Nor do I. Positive terror of violence? He's the coolest customer I ever saw. He'd arrange a murder with no more fiiss than ordering a fish dinner."

"That's right, Fred! I remember now—^when he called on me and Chaka growled at him, he didn't turn a hair. He's lying—he must be. What's he up to?"

"I don't know. Buying time? But it shows we're on the right track, doesn't it?"

He sat down opposite her and moved the lamp so he could see her. Her dark tyts looked at him gravely.

"Yes," she said. "Fred, when he came—"

"I was just going to tell you something. Something to the effect that whatever I said the other day about not liking you and about putting an end to what we do

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together—^whatever I said, it was moonshine. I couldn't give you up, Sally. We belong together, and we will till we die, and I wouldn't have you any other way."

Then she smiled—^such a clear, open, happy smile that he felt his heart leap.

"Sally," he began—but she stopped him.

"Don't say a word^ she said.

And she stood up, her eyes bright. She leaned down and blew out the lamp, and they stood for a moment in the dim glow from the fire. Then she made a little involuntary movement toward him, and within a second they were clinging tightly together, pressing their faces clumsily toward each other in the darkness.

"Sally—" he said.

"Shhh!" she whispered. "I don't want you to speak. I've got a reason."

So he kissed her instead, on the ^yts, the cheeks, the throat, the fierce mouth, and again he tried to speak. She clamped her hand over his lips.

"Don't speak!" she said warmly into his ear. "If you say another word I'll—I won't—oh, Fred, Fred ..."

She pulled at his hand, commanding, nervous, urgent. She opened the staircase door, and within a minute they were in her bedroom. The fire in there had burned low, but there was a glow still in the embers, and the room was warm. He nudged the door shut and kissed her again, and they clung like children, trembling, and pressed their mouths together as if they were drinking each other.

She stood back then and lit a candle. As the soft yellow light spread into the room, she pulled the pins ftom her hair so that it fell loose around her shoulders, and unfastened her dress and stepped out of it. There was a moment when he said, "Sally—'* but it was involuntary, like a gasp of shock at how lovely she was without clothes. And then they were both naked.

"Now," she said, "not a word, not a word ..."

She touched him slowly all over, and they lay down.

Mr. Windlesham didn't go to the cab rank at the end of the street. There was a carriage waiting for him around the corner, but when he got in, it didn t move off at once; the driver waited while Mr. Windlesham lit a lamp and wrote a page or two of notes in a little book. And even then they didn't move. After another minute or so, a man in workman's clothes came out of the alley behind Burton Street and tapped at the window. The horse, catching some odd scent from the man's clothes—paint? turpentine?—tossed its head in the shafts.

Mr. Windlesham lowered the window and looked out.

"All clear, guvnor," said the man quietly.

Mr. Windlesham fished in his pocket and handed him a sovereign.

"Good," he said. "Thank you very much. Good night to you."

The man touched his cap and made off. The driver

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released the brake and flicked his whip, and die carriage moved away toward the west.

A LITTLE LATER Frederick looked down at Sally. Her eyes were sleepy now, but very bright, and her mouth was soft.

"Sally,*' he said. "Will you marry me?**

"Of course," she said.

"Why wouldn't you let me speak?"

"In case you said that before we . . . before we did this, and you wouldn't have seen that I brought you up here because I wanted to, and not because we were going to get married. D'you see? I wanted to do it. I wanted us to be like this. Naked, together, like this. Oh, Fred, I do love you. It's taken so long. I'm so sorry about it. ... I thought I wouldn't be able to do my work if I was married. Or if I admitted I loved you. I know it's silly, now. But since last night, since Chaka was killed, I've seen that my work's part of me, I'm not part of it. And I've seen how much I need you. D'you know where I realized that? It was in the patent library . . ."

He laughed. She bit his nose.

"Don't laugh," she said. "It's true. There's no one like you, no one in the world. . . . Oh, I'm different now, Fred. I'm not good at thinking about things like this and getting them right, not yet. But I'll try. And I will be good at it, I promise."

The embers settled in the grate with an ashy whisper.

"Did I mention that I loved you?" he said. "I've loved you ever since you came along that horrible road on the Kent coast, with Mrs. Holland after you. Sally, my sweet. . . Did it hurt?"

"Only a bit. It s so strange, isn't it? But I wanted to so much. . . . Oh, Fred, it's been so long."

He kissed her again, gently this time, and pinched the candle out.

"We're lucky," he said. \

"We deserve it," she whispered, and lay close in his arms. j

Mr. Windlesham's carriage drew up at 47, Hyde Park Gate, let him out, then trundled around into the stable behind.

He gave his coat and hat to the footman, and a minute later he was shown into a large study.

"Well?" said Axel Bellmann from behind the desk. "He's there. There were some playing cards on the kitchen table. They might have been playing a game, of course, but they were laid out as if someone had been doing tricks with them. As soon as I came in she tidied them away. And when I brought up the subject of Scotland, the young man glanced involuntarily toward the stairs."

"And everything else is ready?" I

"Everything is prepared, Mr. Bellmann." The financier's heavy face moved slightly, and the likeness of a smile appeared.

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"Very good, Windlesham. Will you have a glass of brandy with me?"

"That is very kind of you, Mr. Bellmann."

It was poured and handed, and Mr. Windlesham sat down, arranging his coattails carefully.

"Were they taken in by your proposition?" said Bell-mann.

"Oh, no. Not for a moment. But it held their attention for the necessary time." He sipped his brandy. "You know, Mr. Bellmann," he went on, "I am really quite favorably impressed by those two. It's a great pity there's no prospect of making terms with them."

"Oh, it's too late for that, Windlesham," said Axel Bellmann, sitting again and smiling. "Far too late for that."

Gfleepl

essness

Jim couldn*t sleep.

Mackinnon, in the camp bed by the door, snored gently—an infuriating noise; Jim fek Hke throwing a boot at him. The complacency of the man! All right, he'd done his bit in the fight—but there was no need to snore about it. Jim lay awake and cursed.

It was partly, of course, Lady Mary. That kiss . . . And to know that a moment like that, so strange and out of time, would never come his way again. He was tormented with love for her. How could she have married . . . Oh, dont think of that; it was hopeless.

And it was partly the pain of the cut on his cheek. What the doctor had done to it he couldn't imagine, but it blazed and throbbed and ached till he felt like crying out. The only thing that relieved that was the thought of the blow that had felled Harris.

And it was partly something else. Something was wrong. After fretting about it all evening, he'd finally worked out where this uneasiness came from. It was the painters. It wasn't just that he didn't know them—it was that they didn't seem like painters somehow. They had

the right gear and the right clothes, but all they seemed to be doing was shifting things about and waiting for him to leave.

Things weren't right.

Damn silly case this had been all around. Who was going to pay them? Who was going to thank them for clearing it all up? Was a grateftil government going to come forward and press expenses on them? Rot and blast and shrivel Bellmann, Wytham, Mackinnon, the whole bloody lot of them.

He was wider awake than ever—and on edge with nerves, as if he'd learned that there was a bomb in the room with a ftise burning low, and he couldn't find it. All his senses were preternaturally sharp: Mackinnons breathing rasped at his nerves, the bedclothes were too hot, the pillow too hard for his cheek. ... It was no good. He'd never sleep now.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and felt for his slippers. He'd go downstairs, sit in the kitchen, do a bit of writing, have a cup of tea. Mackinnon stirred on his camp bed as Jim stepped over him, so Jim told him sotto voce what he thought of him, and magicians, and Scotchmen in general. He unhooked his dressing gown from the door and went out onto the landing.

He closed the door quietly behind him—and sniffed.

There was something wrong. He ran to the landing window overlooking the yard and pulled back the curtain.

The yard was ablaze.

Unbelieving, he stood still and rubbed his eyes. The new studio wasn't there anymore; instead a wall of flame billowed upward, roaring softly. And the lumber in the yard—the planks, the barrows, the ladders—they were on fire too. As he peered down, horrified, he saw the back door fall open, and flames gush out from inside the building.. . .

Three steps took him to Fredericks door. He flung it open, yelling, "Fire! Fire!"

The room was empty. He called up the narrow stairs to the top floor: "Fire! Wake up! Fire!"

Then he ran down to Webster and Sally on the first floor.

Frederick heard his first shout and sat up at once. Sally, beside him in the narrow bed, woke with a start.

"What is it?" she said.

"Jim—" he said, and pulled on his shirt and trousers. "Sounds like a fire. Get up, love—quick."

He opened the door as Jim came hurtling down the stairs. Jim blinked with surprise to see him coming out of Sallys room, but didn't pause.

"It's bad," he said, hammering on Webster's door. "Fire, Mr. Webster! Get up—now!" he shouted into the room. "The new building's ablaze, and I think the kitchen is too!"

"Right," said Frederick. "Run up to the top and make sure EUie and the cook get down as quick as they

can—oh, and Miss Meredith, too. Is Mackinnon awake? Bring 'em down here to the landing."

There was only the one staircase, which led through a door at the bottom into the kitchen. Frederick looked down and then turned back to Sally. She was at her door now, tousled, sleepy, beautiful. . . . He seized her in the doorway and crushed her to him, and she came without hesitation, and they kissed more passionately now than they'd done earlier; but it coujid only last a second or two.

"Bring your sheets into the other room," he said. "I'll run down and see if we can get out through the shop."

But as he reached the bottom of the stairs and felt in the darkness for the door, he knew it would be impossible. There was a fierce roaring from the kitchen, and the heat, even through the door, was appalling. He opened it, just to be sure—and knew at once that he shouldn't have done so, for the flames leaped at him like a tiger, knocking him backward and seizing his whole body. He slipped and fell, rolling blindly through the open door, and felt as he crashed to the floor something fall heavily across his neck and shatter. He groped for the door, pulled himself up, and stumbled back through before slamming it shut. He was ablaze. He beat at himself— his shirt was gone, his hair was crackling—he tore off the burning sleeves and hit at his head to extinguish the flaring hair before stumbling back to the landing.

"Fred! You all right?"

It was Jim, with EUie the maid and Mrs. Griffiths the old cook, both of them wide-eyed and trembling. Frederick didn't know if he was all right. He tried to speak, but there was something wrong, as if he'd swallowed some smoke. Sally came out of Webster's room and ran to him with a cry of fear. He held her gently away and mimed the tying of sheets together.