There May Be Danger (29 page)

“Which—where? Oh, I see!”

She slipped the little catch over. In a moment they were standing on the scaffolding platform outside: none too soon, for already footsteps were on the attic stairs.

“Go up, not down.”

“Up! On the roof?”

Colin nodded.

It seemed to Kate that the friendly moon encouraged her as she hauled herself up on to the planks above. She was in the angle now between the chimney-stack and gable-end. The glazed ridge-tiles glistened, the big sparse leaves that still hung on the ash tree and fingered the roof looked inky black against the thinly-clouded sky. She got a knee in the lead gutter that lined the angle between the gables, and dragged herself up on to the roof. These stone tiles gave a good grip to stockinged feet.

But as she kicked off from the scaffolding, her foot touched something that rocked and fell. She had noticed on the platform a mortar-board left there by some careless workman; and as soon as her foot touched that shifting object, long, it seemed, before she heard the crash on the scullery roof below, she knew what she had done.

“Oh, Colin!”

Her sob of warning, and the crash of the mortar-board coincided. Colin, whom some sixth sense seemed to have warned, was up beside her in a flash, holding her hand tight as if to restrain further sound or movement. At the same moment the empty frame in the gable-end showed a shifty light. There were footsteps on boards, a silence and then a cry:

“My God! It's Doug!”

“Rosa, did you hear that noise?”

“
Doug!
”

“It was outside. Go and look out.”

“But
Doug!
Joe, that girl hadn't a gun! She can't have—”

“Well, she's got Doug's gun now!” said the man's voice grimly. “Do as I say, Rosa. Be careful, though. She's still about.”

Through the frame, the pale blur of Rosaleen's face showed, leaning cautiously out and scanning the cobbled yard below.

“I can't see anything!”

She withdrew.

“Where's Ellida? Has she got Ellida too” There was a sort of fascinated horror in Rosaleen's voice.

“Probably. Some kitten, Rosa, that of yours! She told me she was an actress, blast her! I wish I'd wrung her neck at the post last night. Still, the pleasure's before me.”

Rosaleen said in a voice that shook:

‘‘Hadn't we better get away, Joe? I—I don't like this.”

“I don't like it either. But if we lose our nerve, Rosa, we'll land in something we like less. We've got to get the girl and the kids before we make a bolt.”

“For the love of Mike, what's the use
now
?”

“A lot o' use. To stop them talking. See here, Rosa. If we make a bolt for it now, leaving them behind, we'll have all the cops in the country on our trail in less than half-an-hour. But if we settle the girl and the kids first, it may be half-a-day, with luck, before anyone smells out anything wrong here. Jefferson and Mary'll be coming up from the cottage about midday. They'll soon find the game's up, and tidy the place and scoot. We'll all have a fair start, that way. We'll make for the wilds. If we can hold out till the day after to-morrow, remember, and things go according to plan, there'll be plenty of muddles then for us to get lost in for a bit before we make contact with friends! The police'll be too busy to spare much time tracking us. It's our one chance, believe me. We must stop the girl and the kids.”

“But, Joe, it'll be daylight in less than an hour!”

“Now, Rosa, it isn't like you to go pappy. If you wanted safety, you ought to a stuck to knitting socks this war! I in going to get those papers Doug was taking care of, out of the case. You go out, take your torch, look for the girl. She's not far off. She must a made that noise we heard. And it'll be a headache to her to get those kids away, with one of them sick! Be thorough. There won't be anyone around here for hours yet, remember. I'll bring everything to the car. And then I'll help you. And, Rosa,” finished he grimly, “don't try to make a get-away without me. I've got the car-key.”

“Well you needn't a said
that
, Joe!”

“Thought perhaps you'd be bolting to throw yourself on Humphries's manly bosom.”

“Aw, don't be silly!”

Their footsteps descended the stairs. Kate and Colin were alone on the gable slant.

Colin said grimly:

“If the papers Doug was taking care of, were those he was carrying in his breast-pocket, our friend's going to be unlucky.

“Shall we go down?”

“No. Better stay here and keep watch for the moment.”

Kate had thought the night quiet, but now wished it quieter, so that she could the better listen. An owl hooted a long melancholy note from not far away. And there was already a sleepy jack-jacking from one of the buildings as though some daws there felt in their feathers the not-far-off coming of the morning. Rosaleen came around the house, walking lightly a cat. She stood a moment in the court and examined with torch every inch of it, up the path at the back of the stables, along under the scullery wall, and then, as if perhaps inspired by the soft hoot of the owl that came again just then, up the scaffolding. Kate flattened herself, holding Colin's hand, shrinking against the slope of the roof. It frightened her to see that light swinging from bough to bough of the ash tree so near at hand. She could hear Rosaleen's unsteady breathing, and the soft swish of her corduroy trouser-legs rubbing together, as she turned away and went quickly across the court into the farmyard and round by the stable out of sight. The bracken cart was safe for the moment, but for how long?

Rosaleen was searching the stable now. Kate could hear the stamping movement of the horse.

“Colin, why did I let the boys hide in that bracken cart?”

Her voice trembled with despair, and Colin's hand gripped hers tightly.

“Steady, Kate. It's not a bad hiding-place. At least, we've got it in view.”

“In view! What use'll that be, if she finds the boys?”

“She won't hurt them—at first. She'll try to make them say where you are.”

“And then?”

“Well, we're both armed, Kate. We'll have to do the best we can.”

“Oh, hadn't we better go down?”

Colin shook his head.

“We've got the advantage for the moment. We must keep it till we're forced to give it up.”

“But—” 

Kate had never before this night held in her hand a weapon loaded with anything more lethal than caps. Yet her hand instinctively tightened on Morrison's pistol, and she raised it to the ready. Somebody
was
coming across the farmyard, in the shadowless light of the high moon in the thinly clouded sky. Somebody was moving nearer and nearer to the bracken cart. It was not Rosaleen, for Rosaleen was searching the stable. It was somebody taller than Rosaleen, walking softly and silently in gum-boots. The figure passed the bracken cart, and the muscles of Kate's right hand relaxed a little. With the figure's approach came a soft clinking sound which even at this moment brought to the back door of Kate's mind mirage-like images of comfort, and the morning, and new-lit fires. Somebody crossed the cobbled court and put something softly down near the back door. Somebody fumbled in a pocket, and after what seemed an age to Kate as she peered down from the roof, lit a match. It was Aminta. Aminta, in her stained old milking-mackintosh, lighting a cigarette. Two tall cans stood on the flags by the back door.

“Aminta,” breathed Kate. “
Aminta.
”

Aminta looked sharply up. Her match went out.

“I'm Kate, Don't speak.”

“
What?
”

“No one must know I'm here.”

“Where are you?” breathed Aminta, her blurred face turned vaguely towards the upper windows.

“
Danger. 
Aminta! Do one thing to help. Drive the bracken cart away.”

“Horse isn't in!”

“Put it in! Drive to Llanhalo! Don't tell
anyone
why!”

“But—”

“Go on, you fool! Quick! Quick!”

Aminta's mind moved slowly, but since she blessedly lacked both curiosity and apprehensiveness, it moved surely, once in train. Kate sensed rather than saw the shrug with which her friend registered her willingness to humour, within reason, any that Kate might be afflicted with. She stumped softly away in her gum-boots, back to the courtyard gate, where she stopped and leisurely lit the oil-lantern she had brought with her, whistling.

“Good, Kate,” said Colin gently. “If it comes off, good. If it doesn't, well, we'll go down and fight it out.”

Kate, all her chest stiff with apprehension, saw Rosaleen appear quickly from the farmyard. At sight of Aminta she stopped as if shot. There was a moment's pause. Then she approached, and Kate heard her say with a cracked lightness:

“Aminta! Is it
that
late?”

“Late! I'm early this morning. We're threshing. Got a full day in front of us.”

Aminta spoke, thank Heaven, in her usual leisurely and cheerful fashion. Kate's ears could not detect the slightest note of constraint that might have put Rosaleen on her guard. Blessed, obtuse Aminta, incapable of curiosity, almost incapable of surprise! Swinging her lantern in the centre of its wide circle of light, she moved towards the stable.

“One of the cows is sick,” Kate heard her inventing in her loud, cheerful voice, “and we've got to have some fresh litter up, so I might as well take this last load. I've finished cutting, anyway.”

The lantern light disappeared with the two girls. After a moment with a jingling of harness and a plodding of hoofs, they reappeared.

“Can I help you put the gee in?” said Rosaleen, still with that brittle, cracked imitation of liveliness in her voice.

“You can hold the lantern while I do up the buckles.”

The two girls' figures converged upon the shaft, as though the precise doing-up of a harness buckle were the chief, the only care in both their minds. Aminta stood easily on her planted feet. But Rosaleen's little tense figure was all curved with impatience, from her feet to her stooped, stiffly-held head.

“Old Gid's in a foul temper this morning,” said Aminta cheerfully, taking the reins and swinging herself up on to the cart. “That young man who's drawing the ruins and seems to be a friend of Kate's, broke into the cellar in the night looking for an underground passage, the silly ass, and broke the lock of the cellar door, and took a grating out of the cellar-wall, and heaven knows what and all. Gid is just gibbering with wrath, and Sister Maisie and I tremble and bolt when we hear him coming.”

“What?” said Rosaleen in a cracked, hard voice. “Who? Colin Kemp? How do you know?”

“Well, because all the doors were open, for one thing. You know, Rosa, there's some silly legend about the entrance to a secret passage at Llanhalo, just rot, of course, and old Gid won't hear of it and I don't blame him, but these archaeologists will believe anything it seems to me, with apologies to your learned uncle—”

“But how do you know it was Colin Kemp broke in?” asked Rosaleen, in a voice that shook with harsh impatience.

“He left his gloves behind in the dairy. The cat's got in and licked the butter and drank the cream. Archaeology's all very well, but—”

The rest of Aminta's discourse was drowned in the creaking of wheels and axles as she turned her horse. Then:

“Good-bye, Rosa!” she called.

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” cried Rosaleen at the courtyard gate, in a strange, loud, empty tone. The cart disappeared behind the stable buildings. As soon as it had gone, Rosaleen jumped into activity and hurried towards the house. Before she could enter the door, however, the man Joe stopped her, coming hurriedly out.

“Rosa,” he said, in a curt, stiff-lipped tone. “The papers are gone. That damned girl's got them. She must have taken them off Doug. Now, we
must
find her!”

It isn't the girl! Listen, Joe!” said Rosaleen, clutching the man's arm and speaking very quickly. “It isn't the girl! It's that blasted Kemp! He's been here!”

“What? How do—”

“Never mind how I know! I do! He's been here, and he knows everything, and
he's
got the papers, if anyone has! He's working for the Government, I believe, and the girl's working in with him. We ought to've jumped to it from the first. We've been had for suckers, all of us! Kemp's a dick, and he's been here all along, as well as the girl! The whole thing's a plant, if you ask me! We can't tackle him as well as the girl and the kids, even if he's still here! We must get out of this, quick!”

There was a short pause. Then the man said abruptly: “You're right, Rosa. We'd better bolt. I'll change the number plate. You get her started up.”

“We'll make for the wilds, like you said. There's a chance, after all!”

“That's more like you, Rosa! Never say die!”

“I guess we can die without saying it, if we have to,” said Rosaleen harshly.

The car lights went on. The soft throbbing of the engine drowned any further exchange of words. The door slammed. The car backed and turned, sending probing beams of light now here, now there, about the abandoned Veault, then with a long whining purr made its way up the field track towards the road. Kate held her breath and listened. But after the sound of the car had died away, she could still hear the distant, homely rumble of Aminta's wheels carrying the children back to safety.

She drew a long breath. She felt, listening to the receding rumble of those wheels, as she had felt sometimes at the end of a performance which had not been long enough in rehearsal, for which the stage was too large, in which she had had to act a leading part as well as make the most of the props and stage-manage the show, and which had yet, more by luck than management, arrived at a triumphant curtain-fall. Over the woods to the east a thin greenish light was stealing up into the sky. Kate's long, long breath without warning shook itself into three short ones, and to her surprise tears poured down her face.