Walk with Care (12 page)

“Well, as a matter of fact I hardly ever see him. He does all Mr Mannister's private business—travels about, and sees people for him—all that sort of thing. And just lately he's been away sick.”

“But you both live in the house, I suppose—or—er—do you not?” Mr Smith's voice dragged as if the subject wearied him. His whole manner declared him too courteous to remain silent, but quite at a loss for conversation suitable to a young man so much his junior.

“I don't,” said Jeremy. He added, “Thank goodness!” and restrained a grin, which might not appear respectful. “I've got a room in the mews just behind Marsh Street, which suits me much better.”

“And Mr—er—Keen—does he live out too?”

“Deane, sir. Well, he does and he doesn't.”

“That—er—sounds as if he had solved the problem of being in two places at once. I have often thought that it would be very stimulating. The difficulty would be—er—to synchronize one's experiences, or, failing synchronization, to—er—dovetail them in such a manner as to avoid on the one hand what might be described as—er—gaps, which would tend to produce giddiness, and on the other a—er—jamming of the joints, which would, I fear, have a cramping effect on further self-development along these lines.”

“Jenny Jemima Juniper Jane!” said Ananias in a voice of awe.

Jeremy allowed his grin to appear. Mr Smith's way of talking nonsense appealed to him. He said, laughing,

“I don't think poor old Deane gets many thrills out of life, sir. He has a room in the house because Mr Mannister likes him handy, but he keeps some kind of digs where he goes off when he isn't wanted. Mr Mannister's away a fair amount.”

“I—er—see.” Mr Smith had lost all interest in Geoffrey Deane.

Jeremy put down his cup and got up.

“Thanks awfully for letting me come, sir. I'll take great care of the book. May I say good-bye to Ananias?”

“He would appreciate it,” said Mr Smith.

Ananias was very affectionate. He bit Jeremy's finger softly and tried to climb on his hand. When Jeremy went away, he screamed with rage.

Mr Smith stood beside the perch and stroked him in an absent-minded manner.

“Well, well—” he said at last. “That's enough, Ananias. I know exactly what you feel, but at the moment I don't quite know what I can do about it.”

“Awk!” said Ananias passionately.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHEN JEREMY GOT BACK
to Nym's Row he found it peacefully empty. The Evans' window was dark, and so was that of the Walkers. A line of light about a drawn blind above the next garage suggested that Mr John Brown was still up.

Jeremy mounted to his room, put on the light, and sat down in the shabby arm-chair to read Mr Henry Isaacson. He found him as described by Mr Smith, a tedious and prolix writer. He was not surprised that so few copies of his book should have survived. In the end he wrested from an unconscionable mass of verbiage a few very interesting facts. Mr Isaacson had, it appeared, himself inhabited one of the Marsh Street houses, to wit No. 20. In his rambling manner, he continually returned to the neighbourhood, making here a statement, and there an allusion. It was beyond him to stick to any topic. He was a confirmed meanderer, but he always came back to Marsh Street.

It appeared that there really had been a marsh, and that the original Marsh Road was a causeway which skirted it. The inn had had a bad name for its last hundred years or so. One, Nicholas Marsden, implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, had had his lodging there. Later on there were tales of travellers who disappeared. Thieves, and worse, frequented its bar—“It is said the landlord had great store of good liquor, the cellars being very commodious.” To this passage Mr Isaacson had a foot-note in a teasingly minute print: “Mr L—, many years steward to Sir H—P—, informed me
circa
1810 that these cellars yet remain, running below Sir H—P—'s house and that occupied by the Reverend Doctor S—. They have, he told me, very fine vaulted roofs resembling those which may be seen in the crypts of some of our more ancient churches and cathedrals. I asked him if they ran continuous, and he replied no—that there were party-walls, and that Sir H—P—was used to jest upon this, saying he would as lief have them down, for what should a Divine need with so large a cellar.” From thence to an interminable and pointless anecdote about Sir H—P—.

Jeremy continued to read, but got no more information. At intervals he went to the window.

Mannister's bedroom looked to the front of the house, but his dressing-room window was in view. At a quarter to twelve the light went on. A faint glow showed through the blind and the drawn curtains. After ten minutes the blind went up and the window opened. Jeremy could see Mannister standing there with the curtains held aside, a black silhouette against the lighted room. He stood there for perhaps a minute, quite still. Then the curtains dropped and the light went out.

At half-past twelve Jeremy took the electric torch he had bought that afternoon and got over the wall and in at the scullery window of No. 29. This time he went straight down into the cellar, switching on the lights and closing the passage door.

He went through the main hall and turned off down the passage leading to the cellar where Rachel had disappeared. This was where he needed the torch. He reckoned that this passage ran across under the back and side of the house. The cellar which Rachel had entered must be hard up against the first house in Tilt Street. He came into it, and examined the walls in the bright light of his torch. They were of stone blocks set as bricks are set, each block being about two foot by one. He reflected on the probable cost of building a cellar like that to-day. It looked good solid work, and poke and thump and rap as he would, he could find no hint of a secret door.

He turned away and came out of the cellar into the passage, shutting off his torch. There were three other doors opening upon the passage-way, one locked, and two opening on emptiness.

He came back up the stair and switched off the light before opening the door at the top. He stood in the black passage outside the kitchen and felt for the switch of his torch, and as he did so he heard a sound. Someone was coming down the stairs from the hall.

Jeremy had never moved so quickly in his life. He was inside the kitchen almost before the sound fell again. He stood there straining to see what would come by, and there came a little round dancing light no bigger than a shilling. That was all that he could see
» There was a black moving form, and a hand that carried the tiny torch, but he could not see any more than that. He could not really see the hand, but a torch does not hold itself.

The little round light played on the cellar door. The door opened. The light shone round and bright on the ceiling above the stair. A head in a black hood showed vaguely, blotting it out. Then the door closed, restoring an even darkness.

It wasn't Rachel.

Jeremy could not have said why he was sure of this. From the first sound he had known that it was not Rachel. There had been no time for thought. He had not needed to think. The whole thing was over before he could get his mind to work. He had no inclination to follow that tiny dancing light down into the cellars.

He had the very strongest possible inclination to put his torch in his pocket and go home.

He got out of the scullery window, and found the cold misty air very pleasant. There was no fog, but the air was
thick
and on the edge of rain. He was just going to climb the wall into the Walkers' yard, when he heard someone move close by. He stood still and listened. There was a wall between him and the sound, but it did not come from the Walkers' yard; it was more to the right and behind him. Next moment someone dropped from the wall which divided the strip of garden belonging to No. 29 from the Tilt Street houses and, running lightly, passed Jeremy and went up and over the wall which he himself had been about to climb; only whereas Jeremy was in the right-hand corner, the other man shinned up the left-hand angle and landed, not in the Walkers' yard, but in the one next door. He trod on something that cracked just short of the house. It sounded like a piece of broken glass or china. Jeremy thought he went in at the back door.

He waited a moment, and then climbed over and got back into his own room.

The next-door house was Mrs Beamish's, the stout widow of a highly respectable coachman. She had neither sons nor brothers. She let her front room to Mr John Brown. Of course, if Mr John Brown had a fancy for climbing walls by night, he could easily get out into the yard. He certainly would run no risk of waking Mrs Beamish, who was wont to complain that even the fiercest alarm clock failed to rouse her once she was off.

Jeremy looked out of his window upon a row of black and silent yards. It occurred to him that he was hardly in a position to reflect upon the nocturnal exercises of Mr John Brown. He had run a very serious risk to-night, and to very little purpose. He had discovered that Rachel was not the only person who came and went by the cellar way—but then he had guessed that already. Rachel would hardly have come wandering into Mannister's house at dead of night unless the way had somehow become impressed upon her mind. He thought she must have seen or followed someone when she was awake, and then walked the same path again in a dream.

Who was it he had seen to-night? The directory gave the occupant of No. 1 Tilt Street as Miss P. Dart. He couldn't make anything of that. Miss P. Dart sounded most respectably spinsterish. The outside of the house was like the outside of any other house in Tilt Street, except that the other houses had brass numbers, whereas the figure I stood out rather boldly in white metal. The curtains on the first floor were black; he had noticed that in passing. None of those things seemed to have anything to do with Rachel.

He stared at the backs of the Tilt Street houses. There were three of them before you came to Nym's Row. Rachel was somewhere within a hundred yards of him, but it might just as well be a hundred miles. What was he going to do about the whole thing? If someone was trying to get him into trouble, he was a bit of a fool to give them another chance of pulling it off. On the other hand, he couldn't leave Mannister under a month's notice, and if someone was trying to get him into a mess, a month would give them all the time they wanted. Besides, where was he going to get another job? If he were to leave under a cloud and Mannister did not play up about a reference, the prospect of another job was horribly remote. And over and above everything else, he wanted to find out who was laying traps for him, and why. Who had used Mannister's key to unlock Mannister's safe when Mannister was at Bournemouth? Mannister had gone out of the house with the key on Saturday and come back into the house with the key on Monday. But on Saturday night the key was in Rachel's hand, and the safe had already been opened, because the letter in the blue envelope was no longer there but in Jeremy's own locked drawer. Now that might have been made to look very damning for Jeremy Ware. But why should anyone want to damn Jeremy Ware? You went round and round, and you didn't get anywhere.

Jeremy went on looking into the dark. His mind switched over to Mr Benbow Smith. It occurred to him to wish that he knew him better, because if he had known him better, he might have put this odd tangle before him and asked him what he made of it. Of course, in a way, it would be easier to put that sort of thing before a stranger, because to a stranger it would be just a problem uncomplicated by personal feelings of any kind. He had, curiously enough, a conviction that it would be perfectly safe to put himself in Mr Smith's hands. He began to wonder whether Mr Smith would think he was mad. Probably.

He turned away from the window and hummed to himself as he undressed:

“We've all been having our ups and downs. We've seen nothing but frowns. Fate's been selling us pups. But we're going to finish with ups and downs And start on the downs and ups.”

CHAPTER XIX

BETWEEN HALF-PAST TEN AND
eleven o'clock next morning the telephone bell rang in the drawing-room of Rosalind Denny's flat. The instrument was on the wall in the window embrasure, screened by the left-hand curtain. Rosalind held the heavy folds aside with one hand, while with the other she put the receiver to her ear.

“Yes?” she said—“yes?” And then, “You're very faint.”

The voice was not only faint, but blurred. It said, “I can hear you quite well. Is that Mrs Denny?” She could only just catch the words. She said, “Yes,” and the voice went on:

“Are you alone, Mrs Denny?”

Rosalind drew back a little from the glass mouthpiece. What a strange thing to say—and she did not know the voice.

She said, “Yes;” and then, “Who are you? Who is speaking?”

“It's a business matter. I believe Mr Gilbert Denny's estate is now settled—”

A slight puzzled frown appeared between Rosalind's eyes.

“Are you speaking from Mr Pargiter's office?” She had thought that all the business was finished. Mr Pargiter had written not more than ten days ago to say so. If it had not been for the Australian shares, everything would have been settled long ago.

“Oh no,” said the voice.

“Then I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“I will explain. You would have been approached before, but it was thought better to wait until the estate was settled.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a letter of Mr Gilbert Denny's which I think you would prefer to have in your own hands.”

“A letter?” said Rosalind; and then, “Will you please tell me your name?”

“It is Gilbert Denny's name that is in question, not mine.”

The colour came quickly to Rosalind's face. Her eyes stung and her cheeks burned as she said,

“Is this blackmail?”

“I think you might be sorry if you called it that.”

Rosalind said, “I see.”

She turned a little, letting the curtain fall behind her. As she stood now, she could see a little patch of sky, very blue and clear, but even as she looked, a cloud drove over it and the blue was gone. She faced the telephone again.

“As you rang me up, I suppose you have something to say. Will you say it?”

“Oh yes,” said the voice—“I'm going to. I have here a letter in which Gilbert Denny offers certain information. You may remember that there was an unfortunate leakage from his department at a critical moment in the autumn of 'twenty-nine. This letter explains how the leakage occurred.”

“That's not true,” said Rosalind. “There is no such letter.”

“That is a very natural feeling on your part. Yet I am sure you must have noticed that your husband had something on his mind. If you care to ask Colonel Garrett, he will tell you that a scandal could hardly have been avoided if Gilbert Denny had lived. I really think this letter would be safer in your hands. Its publication would be very damaging. Your own position would not be at all a pleasant one.”

“There is no such letter,” said Rosalind in a low, steady voice.

“You shall have a photograph,” said the voice. “I think you will find it convincing.” There was a little click and the line went dead.

Rosalind's heart beat hard against her side. For a moment she could hear and feel nothing else. Then the hard strokes lessened. She stood still and fought for self-control. Shock, anger, fear, wild protest, and again, stronger than everything else, an anger that sent the blood burning to her cheeks.

She took a step away from the window, and then a quick step back again. Her fingers moved at the dial. She lifted the receiver and listened.

A voice said, “Yes?”

Rosalind said, “Can I speak to Mr Ware?”

“Mr Ware is out,” said Bernard Mannister's voice. His tone indicated that he did not expect his secretary's women friends to ring him up at his, Mannister's, house during working hours.

Rosalind rang off, her colour still high and bright.

She sent Jeremy a telegram to Nym's Row: “I want to see you at once. I am waiting in. Rosalind Denny.”

Jeremy came at seven o'clock in the evening. He found a Rosalind Denny who was neither the polite stranger of Sunday's lunch party nor the old Rosalind whom he had known. She put out her hand to take his and drew it back again, then went to the hearth and stood there, tall and fair, in a long black dress that hid her arms and fell in heavy folds to her feet. Her neck was bare and white. She looked at Jeremy, a straight, hard look. Her face was very pale, and there were shadows under her eyes. She said in an accusing voice,

“Why have you been so long?”

A faint surprise changed Jeremy's expression.

“I didn't get your telegram until I got back to my rooms. I was in Marsh Street till nearly half-past six.”

“I rang up this morning, but you were out.”

“Yes—Mannister sent me out.”

“Mr Mannister sent you out? Where did he send you?”

Jeremy's surprise became tinged with annoyance. What did she mean by these questions and her tone. And then surprise and annoyance were both swallowed up in concern. Something strained and desperate communicated itself to him. He said quickly,

“What is it, Mrs Denny? What's happened?”

Rosalind stood there, her eyes hard on his.

“Where were you at half-past eleven this morning?”

He frowned a little.

“Well—let me see. I suppose I was walking from the Tube station to Marsh Street. I'd been seeing a newspaper man for Mannister. Deane generally does that sort of thing, but he hadn't turned up. He takes his job pretty easy, so—”

Rosalind interrupted him.

“Did you pass a call-box?”

Jeremy's brows drew together. What on earth was the matter? She looked as if she had a fever, with those over-bright eyes and dry lips. There was a vivid patch of colour on either cheek now. He said,

“I don't know. There'd be one at the station, of course.”

Rosalind came a step forward. She said,

“Did you ring me up?”

“No. What made you think I did?”

“Didn't you ring me up here, Jeremy?”

“I told you I didn't.”

She stood looking at him with those hard, bright eyes. Jeremy came nearer and took her gently by the arm.

“Mrs Denny, I don't think you're well. Won't you sit down and tell me what's the matter? What makes you think I rang you up?”

He felt her shudder. Then she moved away from him with a sort of resolute self-control.

“Very well, we will sit down.” She took the corner seat of the sofa. She had sat there to pour out coffee after lunch on Sunday. “I will sit here, and you can sit there.” She pointed to the opposite corner. “And now I am going to ask you again whether you rang me up this morning.”

Jeremy bent a look of frowning distress upon her.

“I have told you that I did not ring you up. You haven't told me what makes you think I did.”

“No, but I'm going to tell you,” said Rosalind. She sat up very straight and tall. “Please don't say anything till I've finished. Someone rang me up this morning. The line was very bad—I could hardly hear what they said. Perhaps it wasn't the line—perhaps they spoke like that on purpose. I don't know why I'm saying
they.
It was a man. I wasn't sure at first while the voice was so faint, but afterwards I was sure. He was careless once or twice, and he spoke louder.”

Jeremy leaned forward, one hand resting on the sofa.

“What is all this about?”

“Don't you know?”

He shook his head.

“Has someone been annoying you?” His voice changed. “What are you imagining? That I rang you up and said something that annoyed you?”

She made a movement. Her hands, which were clasped in her lap parted, went out towards Jeremy, and then drew back again. The bright spots of colour paled, and for a moment she closed her eyes. Her voice came low and uncertain.

“Wasn't it you?”

Jeremy was angry now.

“I don't know what you mean! I've told you half a dozen times that I didn't ring you up! I think you must tell me why you should have thought I did.”

Rosalind's eyes opened. The hard clarity was gone. They had a look of distress that went to his heart.

“You'd better tell me what he said.”

Rosalind clenched her hands.

“He said he had a letter of Gilbert's. He said if it was published—”

“Blackmail?” said Jeremy sharply.

Rosalind stared at him through a mist. Then the mist cleared.

Jeremy got to his feet and stood there. His face frightened her. He said,

“And you thought it was me. Thank you, Mrs Denny!”

“Jeremy!”
said Rosalind.

Jeremy controlled himself. Behind his furious anger he had a sense that their relationship was being violently wrenched. It had been a very pleasant relationship, of the kind which it is difficult to define and which has all the more charm for being indefinable. He had had romantic feelings about her without ever fancying himself in love. She had treated him almost as a younger brother. But when a man and woman are not really brother and sister there is always just a hint of uncertainty, a chance of latent romance. Now the whole thing was twisted. Blackmail. … The blood sang in his ears. And she could look at him piteously and say “Jeremy!” in a voice that reproached him. If he had set her on a pedestal, she had certainly stepped off it now.

Rosalind did not get up. She put out her hand a little way and said,

“Jeremy, I'm frightened.”

Jeremy stood looking down on her, his brows in a straight black line, his whole face heavy with anger. He said,

“What made you think it was me?”

“It was your voice.”

“How do you mean it was my voice?”

“I don't know. At first I could hardly hear what he said. Then he spoke louder. It was like your voice. Then at the end it wasn't
like
any more—it
was
your voice.”

“I see—” said Jeremy. “And what did I say?”

She winced at his tone.

“He said he had a letter—he said he would send a photograph.”

“And it was my voice?”

“Yes, it
was”

Jeremy walked away across the room. The hot anger went out of him. His mind felt cold and clear. He walked to the end of the room and back. There was in his mind the sharp-cut picture of an irregular scrap of paper with his signature, or bits of his signature, scrawled across it—bits of his signature in his own writing—bits of his signature that he hadn't written. If someone had practised forging his signature, why shouldn't someone practise forging his voice?

He came towards Rosalind. He saw how ravaged she looked. The marks under her eyes were like bruises, and even her lips were pale. He came to a standstill about a yard away. He wasn't angry with her any more. He was most awfully sorry for her.

“How much do you believe that it was me?”

She said in a low, exhausted voice,

“I don't really—I didn't really—even at first. It was—a shock. I didn't believe, but I had to ask you—I had to see you. If I'd believed it was you, I wouldn't have sent for you—would I, Jeremy?”

“I don't know—you might.”

She shook her head.

“I wouldn't. I only wanted you to say—it wasn't you. And you didn't come. It's been so—many—hours——” Her voice trailed away. She leaned back against the cushion behind her. Through her closed lashes one tear after another began to run down her face.

Jeremy sat down beside her and took her hand. It shocked him to feel how cold it was. He held it in a warm, firm clasp.

“Mrs Denny, don't cry. You make me feel such a brute. I didn't mean to go off the deep end like that. Look here, won't you pull yourself together? This is a plant, and I want to talk to you about it, but I can't if you're going to faint or anything like that.”

“I won't faint,” said Rosalind. The tears ran faster. “Oh, Jeremy, you're kind!”

Jeremy produced a clean handkerchief.

“You mustn't cry either,” he said firmly. “Do you mind using my handkerchief? I don't suppose you've got one—or if you have, you won't be able to find it. You never can, can you? Now look here—we're going to get to the bottom of this.”

Rosalind dried her eyes and sat up.

“Can we?”

“We're going to have a jolly good try.”

She looked down at the crumpled handkerchief in her lap and said in an almost inaudible voice,

“I'm—afraid.”

He had a flash of insight.

“Of what you may find at the bottom?”

She bent her head without speaking.

Jeremy had another flash. The telephone call had been between eleven and twelve. It was seven o'clock when he reached the flat. A letter posted in London by twelve would have had plenty of time to arrive.

He asked sharply, “Did you get that photograph?” and at her startled look he held out his hand. “Will you show it to me?”

There was just a moment's hesitation before she put her hand behind the cushion and brought out an envelope. Jeremy took it and turned it over. He looked at the postmark … 12.30. And the district. … Whoever had made the call and posted the letter had known his movements very accurately. He had been within a couple of hundred yards of this post-office round about twelve o'clock.

He took out the contents of the envelope. There were three slips. They were photographs of three sides of a letter, natural size. They were folded across the middle as you fold a letter. He was opening them, when Rosalind caught his hand.

“Jeremy—don't!”

He looked up, to see a sick terror in her eyes. He felt at once much older than she. He said in a tone of authority,