The Wheel Spins (22 page)

Miss Froy heard her. She held up her hand.

Although she was blinded by her bandage, she had recognised Iris’ voice among a murmur of other sounds. In a confused fashion she realised that people were talking; but their tones were blurred and broken, as though they were far away—giving the impression of an imperfect long-distance call.

She tried to speak to them, but could not because of her gag. Once before she had contrived to move it partially, with frenzied pressure—remembering the while how her father used to tease her about the power of her tongue. She put every ounce of strength into that cry for help, but it was an uncouth incoherent sound, like an animal in pain.

No one heard her—and her captors had wedged the gag tighter, increasing her discomfort. Her arms were bound to her body above the elbows, and her legs were tied together at the ankles by a surgical bandage. The doctor made no attempt to hide it when he exposed her shoes and stockings for identification. He knew that among such a profusion of strappings, one more or less would never be remarked.

However, her hands were free from the wrists, because the supply of bindings had given out, and—in any case—they were powerless to do more than wave feebly. Miss Froy’s heart fluttered with joy as she told herself that her clever girl knew that an instantaneous response to her appeal, however slight, would show that the patient recognised her name and was giving proof of identity.

So she spread out her fingers—fan-wise—and flapped them in the air in a pathetic S.O.S.

Then once again her mind, which she was unable to control, slid away. It was cobwebbed and smeared from drugs, but every now and again a corner would clear, like the transparent red stains of juice that veins the scum of boiling jam. In these lucid moments a whirl of memories returned, but in the end her mind always went back to that first moment of shock.

It was incredible—monstrous. She had been sitting in her compartment when the doctor had entered and asked if any one would help him raise his patient. He explained that the nurse had gone away for a few minutes and the poor creature in his charge had grown restless, as though she were uncomfortable.

It was second-nature to Miss Froy to respond. She was not only always ready to be of service, but she was also anxious to see the crash casualty at closed quarters, besides learning perhaps more about the accident. It would be something with which to thrill the family when she related her adventures on Friday night.

When they entered the patient’s compartment the doctor asked her to raise the head while he lifted the body. It was with specially deep sympathy that she bent over the prostrate form, because she was reminded of the contrast between them.

“She’s smashed,” she thought, “and I’m well and happy. I’m going home.”

Suddenly a long pair of white linen-clad arms shot out and clutched her throat.

The helpless patient was gripping her windpipe in a merciless grip. In that appalling moment she remembered a Grand Guignol horror, when an electrified corpse had strangled the man who had galvanised it to synthetic life. Then the pressure tightened, lights flashed under her eyelids, and she knew no more.

For some time the eclipse had been total. Then, gradually there were infinitesimal rifts in the darkness of her senses. She became conscious that she was trussed, gagged and blinded, while muffled voices discussed her fate.

It was not a cheerful prospect. Although she was ignorant of her crime, she had an inkling of her sentence. It was connected with an ambulance which would meet them at Trieste. But it would take her to no hospital.

Yet in spite of cramp and thirst, of bodily anguish and mental torment, she never gave up hope.

It was said in the family that she followed Aunt Jane. In her lifetime, this Victorian lady had wanted a talking-doll, a tricycle, an operatic career, a husband, a legacy. She got none of these things, but she never discarded a single wish, nor doubted that each would be granted—in the end.

When the end came, she was seventy-seven and a pensioner on family charity; yet she closed her eyes with as lively a faith in the talking-doll as in the legacy which would grant her a leisured life and a dignified death.

Aunt Jane helps to explain why Miss Froy remained tolerably calm in the face of each fresh disappointment. Mercifully, however, her clear moments were of brief duration. Most of the time she was in a drugged dream, when she was for ever trying to get home.

She always managed to reach the gate and saw the lighted garden path with its exaggerated hollows—when a displaced pebble revealed a pit. The turf borders and the pink and purple Chinese asters were unnaturally vivid in the lamplight, while the pungent scent of early chrysanthemums hung on the frosty air.

But although she was so near that she could see the cracked red tile in the passage, she knew that something was wrong, and that she would never reach the door. It was when she was struggling out of one of these tantalising visions, that she heard Iris calling her name and telling her to hold up her hand.

Unfortunately she did not know that there was a bad block in her system of communication. None of the channels were clear, so that her brain did not register the message from her ears until after the doctor—in a state of indignant horror—had literally swept his visitors out into the corridor. Even after that, some time elapsed before her nerve-centres were linked up with the intelligence department, and by then it was too late.

The blinds had all been drawn down, so there was no one besides the nurse to witness the futile signal of her fluttering fingers.

Outside the door the doctor wiped his face in his agitation.

“That was a terrible thing to do,” he said, his voice vibrating with passion. “I was wrong to let you in at all. But I never dreamed you would be so imbecile as to try and injure my poor patient.”

As Iris shrank involuntarily before his rage, he appealed to the professor.

“You can understand, professor, that absolute quiet is essential for my patient. The grave injury to the head—”

“How can she get quiet on a railway journey?” broke in Iris, as the engine plunged into a tunnel with an ear-splitting yell.

“That is something quite different,” explained the doctor. “One can sleep through traffic. It is the slight unaccustomed sound which wakens one from sleep. If she had heard you she might have been called back, while I am doing my utmost—in mercy—to keep her unconscious.”

“I quite understand,” the professor assured him. “And I regret this has happened.” His voice was glacial as he spoke to Iris. “You had better get back to your carriage, Miss Carr.”

“Yes, come on,” urged Hare.

Iris felt that they were all against her. In sudden defiance she launched a lone offensive.

“Directly we reach Trieste I am going to the British Embassy,” she told them.

They were brave words, but her head was swimming and her knees shook so violently that she felt incapable of carrying out her threat. All the same, her intentions filled her with an illusion of power. Then Hare tackled her in his old international form and carried her along the corridors with the impetus of a tidal-bore, while the professor plodded in the rear.

“My only hope is we shall get some sort of a dinner,” was his parting remark to the doctor.

Iris was too bewildered by what had happened to resist Hare’s high-handed treatment. She could not understand why there had been no response to her cry. It shook her confidence and made her feel that her moral cowardice in failing to expose the mystery patient was justified.

Yet even if she were a genuine accident case, the danger which threatened Miss Froy was not dormant. When she was back in the coupé she presented Hare with an ultimatum.

“Are you with me or against me? Are you stopping at Trieste?”

“No,” replied Hare firmly. “Neither are you.”

“I see. Then you didn’t mean what you said about liking me—and all that.”

“I certainly meant—all that.”

“Well, if you don’t come with me to the Embassy, I’m through with you.”

Hare tugged at his collar miserably.

“Can’t you realise I’m your only friend?” he asked.

“If you were a friend you’d prove it.”

“Wish I could, only I haven’t the spunk. As your best friend, I ought to knock you out, so that you’d stay put for the next twenty-four hours, and rest your poor old head.”

“Oh, I hate you,” stormed Iris. “For heaven’s sake, go away.”

In the next compartment the Misses Flood-Porter overheard scraps of the dialogue.

“That girl certainly contrives to get some excitement out of a railway journey,” remarked the elder sister astringently.

While the young people were quarrelling about her, Miss Froy was lying rigid, with still hands. It had gradually dawned upon her that she had no audience, so her demonstration was wasted. However, she had one crumb of comfort when Iris mentioned appealing to the British Consul. She had heard that cry of defiance through the closed door.

Presently she realised that the hint had not been wasted. There was a low rumbling conference inside the carriage.

“Trieste,” remarked a masculine voice. It belonged to the doctor’s chauffeur, who was wearing the incongruous uniform of a nursing-sister. “What now?”

“We must waste no time at Trieste,” replied the doctor. “We shall have to drive all night, like hell, to get back to protection.”

“But—where will you dump the body now?”

The doctor mentioned a place.

“It is on our road,” he explained. “The wharf is deserted—and the eels swarm.”

“Good. They will be hungry. Very soon there will be no face to tell tales, if it should be found later. Will you dump the clothes and baggage there too?”

“Fool. They would be a certain mark of identification there. No, we take them with us in the car. You will incinerate them without delay directly we get back.”

Although her brain was so misty, some vibration of her senses made Miss Froy aware that they were talking about her. She shuddered instinctively at the thought of black stagnant water, thick with mud and scummed with refuse. She had such a violent dislike to corruption.

But she missed the real implication.

The chauffeur went on to anticipate difficulties.

“What if any one makes inquiries at the Trieste hospitals?”

“We shall explain that the patient died in transit.”

“But if they demand to see the corpse?”

“They will see it. There will be no difficulty about that, once we are back. The mortuary will provide me with a female corpse which I will mutilate.”

“Hum. I wish I was safely at home. There is still that girl.”

“Yes,” remarked the doctor, “it is extraordinary how the English will regard themselves as the policemen of the world. Even a girl has the habit. But it is a mistake to think them a stupid nation. That professor has a good brain, and he is no fool. But luckily, he is honourable, and believes that all the world must be honourable, too. He will support all I say.”

“Still, I wish I was back,” harped the chauffeur.

“The risk is great,” his employer reminded him. “So, also, is the reward.”

The drone of masculine voices which drummed against Miss Froy’s semi-sealed ears—like the hum of a spinning wheel—ceased. The chauffeur thought of the garage he would buy, while the doctor planned to retire from practice.

He did not relish his present commission, but the ruling family claimed his loyalty and self-interest forbade disobedience. Directly the baroness had sent for him, privately, by night, he had evolved the best scheme he could devise on the spur of the moment, to clear an obstacle in the illustrious pathway.

He knew why he had been chosen, for he, himself, would not use a delicate surgical instrument to cut a tarry string. His reputation was smutted because of recent mishaps at the local hospital. His scientific curiosity was keener than his wish to exterminate disease, and he was under suspicion of having prolonged operations unduly, and at the expense of life.

From the beginning the venture had been unlucky, because of the interference of the English girl. But for her, the little plan would have worked perfectly, by reason of its simplicity, and the small number of confederates. He knew that he and his chauffeur would take their lives in their hands when they scorched homewards through dangerous passes, rounding dizzy precipices on one wheel, in their effort to race the express back to their native territory.

But once they were back, every emergency would be forestalled. An adequate explanation would be forthcoming to any inquiry. No one would have any awkward knowledge to disclose and every wire that connected the dead patient with Miss Froy would be cut.

“Will you dump the English girl in the sewer, too?” asked the chauffeur suddenly.

“No,” replied the doctor. “Further complication would be dangerous. But when we reach Trieste she will not be in a position to make further trouble for us.”

Miss Froy heard his words and, for the first time, her optimism failed her. With a wave of agonised longing she thought of the family at home, for she had sent them her timetable, and she guessed they would be tracing it on the map.

True to her forecast, at that moment they were thinking of her. They had done their best to fight their unusual depression, for they had lighted a fire—composed principally of fir-cones—and had been guilty of an extravagant supper—scrambled eggs.

Sock lay on the rug watching the flames. In spite of the welcome warmth, he was still subdued after his disappointment, for he had rushed off against orders to meet the train, with a hope new-born.

Mr. Froy looked at his wife and noticed that the underlip of her small firm mouth was pendulous and that she sagged in her chair. For the first time he realised that she was his senior, and that he, too, had grown old.

Then he glanced at the clock.

“Winsome’s nearly come to the end of her first stage homewards,” he told his wife. “She’ll soon reach Trieste.”

Mrs. Froy passed the information on to the dog.

“Sock, the little mistress is really on her way home now. Every minute she is coming nearer—nearer—nearer. In another half-hour she’ll be at Trieste.”