Nurse Cherry reminded herself sharply that Iles’s absence was due to her own carelessness, while his wife was addicted to her glass.
Still, some unpleasant suggestion remained, like the sediment from a splash of muddy water. She found herself thinking with horror of some calamity befalling Nurse Silver. If she were left by herself she felt she would lose her senses with fright.
It was an unpleasant picture. The empty house—a dark shell for lurking shadows. No one on whom to depend. Her patient—a beloved burden and responsibility.
It was better not to think of that. But she kept on thinking. The outside darkness seemed to be pressing against the walls, bending them in. As her fears multiplied, the medical student changed from a human being with a distraught brain, to a Force, cunning and insatiable—a ravening blood-monster.
Nurse Silver’s words recurred to her.
“They always know.” Even so. Doors might be locked, but they would find a way inside.
Her nerves tingled at the sound of the telephone-bell, ringing far below in the hall.
She kept looking over her shoulder as she ran downstairs. She took off the receiver in positive panic, lest she should be greeted with a maniac scream of laughter.
It was a great relief to hear the homely Welsh accent of Dr. Jones.
He had serious news for her. As she listened, her heart began to thump violently.
“Thank you, doctor, for letting me know,” she said. “Please ring up directly you hear more.”
“Hear more of what?”
Nurse Cherry started at Nurse Silver’s harsh voice. She had come downstairs noiselessly in her soft nursing-slippers.
“It’s only the doctor,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “He’s thinking of changing the medicine.”
“Then why are you so white? You are shaking.”
Nurse Cherry decided that the truth would serve her best.
“To be honest,” she said, “I’ve just had bad news. Something ghastly. I didn’t want you to know, for there’s no sense in two of us being frightened. But now I come to think of it, you ought to feel reassured.”
She forced a smile.
“You said there’d have to be another murder soon. Well—there has been one.”
“Where? Who? Quick.”
Nurse Cherry understood what is meant by the infection of fear as Nurse Silver gripped her arm.
In spite of her effort at self-mastery, there was a quiver in her own voice.
“It’s a—a hospital nurse. Strangled. They’ve just found the body in a quarry and they sent for Dr. Jones to make the examination. The police are trying to establish her identity.”
Nurse Silver’s eyes were wide and staring.
“Another hospital nurse? That makes four.”
She turned on the younger woman in sudden suspicion.
“Why did he ring you up?”
Nurse Cherry did not want that question.
“To tell us to be specially on guard,” she replied.
“You mean—he’s near?”
“Of course not. The doctor said the woman had been dead three or four days. By now, he’ll be far away.”
“Or he may be even nearer than you think.”
Nurse Cherry glanced involuntarily at the barred front door. Her head felt as if it were bursting. It was impossible to think connectedly. But—somewhere—beating its wings like a caged bird, was the incessant reminder.
Something forgotten.
The sight of the elder woman’s twitching lips reminded her that she had to be calm for two.
“Go back to the patient,” she said, “while I get the supper. We’ll both feel better after something to eat.”
In spite of her new-born courage, it needed an effort of will to descend into the basement. So many doors, leading to scullery, larder and coal-cellar, all smelling of mice. So many hiding-places.
The kitchen proved a cheerful antidote to depression. The caked fire in the open range threw a red glow upon the Welsh dresser and the canisters labelled ‘Sugar’ and ‘Tea.’ A sandy cat slept upon the rag mat. Everything looked safe and homely.
Quickly collecting bread, cheese, a round of beef, a cold white shape, and stewed prunes, she piled them on a tray. She added stout for Nurse Silver and made cocoa for herself. As she watched the milk froth up through the dark mixture and inhaled the steaming odour, she felt that her fears were baseless and absurd.
She sang as she carried her tray upstairs. She was going to marry Glendower.
The nurses used the bedroom which connected with the sick chamber for their meals, in order to be near the patient. As the night-nurse entered, Nurse Cherry strained her ears for the sound of Glendower’s voice. She longed for one glimpse of him. Even a smile would help.
“How’s the patient?” she asked.
“All right.”
“Could I have a peep?”
“No. You’re off duty.”
As the women sat down, Nurse Cherry was amused to notice that Nurse Silver kicked off her tight shoes.
“You seem very interested in the patient, Nurse Cherry,” she remarked sourly.
“I have a right to feel rather interested.” Nurse Cherry smiled as she cut bread. “The doctor gives me the credit for his being alive.”
“Ah! But the doctor thinks the world of you.”
Nurse Cherry was not conceited, but she was human enough to know that she had made a conquest of the big Welshman.
The green glow of jealousy in Nurse Silver’s eyes made her reply guardedly.
“Dr. Jones is decent to every one.”
But she was of too friendly and impulsive a nature to keep her secret bottled up. She reminded herself that they were two women sharing an ordeal and she tried to establish some link of friendship.
“I feel you despise me,” she said. “You think me lacking in self-control. And you can’t forget that cylinder. But really, I’ve gone through such an awful strain. For four nights, I never took off my clothes.”
“Why didn’t you have a second nurse?”
“There was the expense. The Professor gives his whole life to enrich the nation and he’s poor. Then, later, I felt I must do everything for him myself. I didn’t want you, only Dr. Jones said I was heading for a break-down.”
She looked at her left hand, seeing there the shadowy outline of a wedding-ring.
“Don’t think me sloppy, but I must tell some one. The Professor and I are going to get married.”
“If he lives.”
“But he’s turned the corner now.”
“Don’t count your chickens.”
Nurse Cherry felt a stab of fear.
“Are you hiding something from me? Is he—worse?”
“No. He’s the same. I was thinking that Dr. Jones might interfere. You’ve led him on, haven’t you? I’ve seen you smile at him. It’s light women like you that make the trouble in the world.”
Nurse Cherry was staggered by the injustice of the attack. But as she looked at the elder woman’s working face, she saw that she was consumed by jealousy. One life lay in the shadow, the other in the sun. The contrast was too sharp.
“We won’t quarrel to-night,” she said gently. “We’re going through rather a bad time together and we have only each other to depend on. I’m just clinging to you. If anything were to happen to you, like Mrs. Iles, I should jump out of my skin with fright.”
Nurse Silver was silent for a minute.
“I never thought of that,” she said presently. “Only us two. And all these empty rooms, above and below. What’s that?”
From the hall, came the sound of muffled knocking.
Nurse Cherry sprang to her feet.
“Some one’s at the front door.”
Nurse Silver’s fingers closed round her arm
, like iron hoops.
“Sit down. It’s him.”
The two women stared at each other as the knocking continued. It was loud and insistent. To Nurse Cherry’s ears, it carried a message of urgency.
“I’m going down,” she said. “It may be Dr. Jones.”
“How could you tell?”
“By his voice.”
“You fool. Any one could imitate his accent.”
Nurse Cherry saw the beads break out round Nurse Silver’s mouth. Her fear had the effect of steadying her own nerves.
“I’m going down, to find out who it is,” she said. “It may be important news about the murder.”
Nurse Silver dragged her away from the door.
“What did I say? You are the danger. You’ve forgotten already.”
“Forgotten—what?”
“Didn’t Iles tell you to open to no one? No one?”
Nurse Cherry hung her head. She sat down in shamed silence.
The knocking ceased. Presently they heard it again at the back door.
Nurse Silver wiped her face.
“He means to get in.” She laid her hand on Nurse Cherry’s arm. “You’re not even trembling. Are you never afraid?”
“Only of ghosts.”
In spite of her brave front, Nurse Cherry was inwardly quaking at her own desperate resolution. Nurse Silver had justly accused her of endangering the household. Therefore it was her plain duty to make once more the round of the house, either to see what she had forgotten, or to lay the doubt.
“I’m going upstairs,” she said. “I want to look out.”
“Unbar a window?” Nurse Silver’s agitation rose in a gale. “You shall not. It’s murdering folly. Think! That last nurse was found dead inside her bedroom.”
“All right. I won’t.”
“You’d best be careful. You’ve been trying to spare me, but perhaps I’ve been trying to spare you. I’ll only say this. There is something strange happening in this house.”
Nurse Cherry felt a chill at her heart. Only, since she was a nurse, she knew that it was really the pit of her stomach. Something wrong? If through her wretched memory, she again were the culprit, she must expiate her crime by shielding the others, at any risk to herself.
She had to force herself to mount the stairs. Her candle, flickering in the draught, peopled the walls with distorted shapes. When she reached the top landing, without stopping to think, she walked resolutely into the laboratory and the adjoining room.
Both were securely barred and empty. Gaining courage, she entered the attic. Under its window was a precipitous slope of roof without gutter or water-pipe, to give finger-hold. Knowing that it would be impossible for any one to gain an entry, she opened the shutter and unfastened the window.
The cold air on her face refreshed her and restored her to calm. She realized that she had been suffering to a certain extent from claustrophobia.
The rain had ceased and a wind arisen. She could see a young harried moon flying through the clouds. The dark humps of the hills were visible against the darkness, but nothing more.
She remained at the window for some time, thinking of Glendower. It was a solace to remember the happiness which awaited her once this night of terror was over.
Presently the urge to see him grew too strong to be resisted. Nurse Silver’s words had made her uneasy on his behalf. Even though she offended the laws of professional etiquette, she determined to see for herself that all was well.
Leaving the window open so that some air might percolate into the house, she slipped stealthily downstairs. She stopped on the second floor to visit her own room and that of Nurse Silver. All was quiet and secure. In her own quarters, Mrs. Iles still snored in the sleep of the unjust.
There were two doors to the patient’s room. The one led to the nurses’ room where Nurse Silver was still at her meal. The other led to the landing.
Directly Nurse Cherry entered, she knew that her fear had been the premonition of love. Something was seriously amiss. Glendower’s head tossed uneasily on the pillow. His face was deeply flushed. When she called him by name, he stared at her, his luminous grey eyes ablaze.
He did not recognize her, for instead of “Stella,” he called her “Nurse.”
“Nurse, Nurse.” He mumbled something that sounded like “man” and then slipped back in her arms, unconscious.
Nurse Silver entered the room at her cry. As she felt his pulse, she spoke with dry significance.
“We could do with oxygen now.”
Nurse Cherry could only look at her with piteous eyes.
“Shall I telephone for Dr. Jones?” she asked humbly.
“Yes.”
It seemed like the continuation of an evil dream when she could get no answer to her ring. Again and again she tried desperately to galvanize the dead instrument.
Presently Nurse Silver appeared on the landing.
“Is the doctor coming?”
“I—I can’t get any answer.” Nurse Cherry forced back her tears. “Oh, whatever can be wrong?”
“Probably a wet creeper twisted round the wire. But it doesn’t matter now. The patient is sleeping.”
Nurse Cherry’s face registered no comfort. As though the shocks of the last few minutes had set in motion the arrested machinery of her brain, she remembered suddenly what she had forgotten.
The larder window.
She recollected now what had happened. When she entered the larder on her round of locking up, a mouse had run over her feet. She ran to fetch the cat which chased it into a hole in the kitchen. In the excitement of the incident, she had forgotten to return to close the window.
Her heart leapt violently at the realization that, all these hours, the house had been open to any marauder. Even while she and Nurse Silver had listened, shivering, to the knocking at the door, she had already betrayed the fortress.
“What’s the matter?” asked Nurse Silver.
“Nothing. Nothing.”
She dared not tell the older woman. Even now it was not too late to remedy her omission.
In her haste she no longer feared the descent into the basement. She could hardly get down the stairs with sufficient speed. As she entered the larder the wire-covered window flapped in the breeze. She secured it and was just entering the kitchen, when her eye fell on a dark patch on the passage.
It was the footprint of a man.
Nurse Cherry remembered that Iles had been in the act of getting fresh coal into the cellar when he had been called away to make his journey. He had no time to clean up and the floor was still sooty with rain-soaked dust.
As she raised her candle, the footprint gleamed faintly. Stooping hastily, she touched it.
It was still damp.
At first she stood as if petrified, staring at it stupidly. Then as she realized that in front of her lay a freshly-made imprint, her nerve snapped completely. With a scream, she dropped her candle and tore up the stairs, calling on Nurse Silver.
She was answered by a strange voice. It was thick, heavy, indistinct. A voice she had never heard before.
Knowing not what awaited her on the other side of the door, yet driven on by the courage of ultimate fear, she rushed into the nurses’ sitting-room.
No one was there save Nurse Silver. She sagged back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, her mouth open.
From her lips issued a second uncouth cry.
Nurse Cherry put her arm around her.
“What is it? Try to tell me.”
It was plain that Nurse Silver was trying to warn her of some peril. She pointed to her glass and fought for articulation.
“Drugs. Listen. When you lock out, you lock in.” Even as she spoke her eyes turned up horribly, exposing the balls in a blind white stare.
Almost mad with terror, Nurse Ch
erry tried to revive her. Mysteriously, through some unknown agency, what she had dreaded had come to pass.
She was alone.
And somewhere—within the walls of the house—lurked a being, cruel and cunning, who—one after another—had removed each obstacle between himself and his objective.
He had marked down his victim. Herself.
In that moment she went clean over the edge of fear. She felt that it was not herself—Stella Cherry—but a stranger in the blue print uniform of a hospital nurse, who calmly speculated on her course of action.
It was impossible to lock herself in the patient’s room, for the key was stiff from disuse. And she had not the strength to move furniture which was sufficiently heavy to barricade the door.
The idea of flight was immediately dismissed. In order to get help, she would have to run miles. She could not leave Glendower and two helpless women at the mercy of the baffled maniac.
There was nothing to be done. Her place was by Glendower. She sat down by his bed and took his hand in hers.
The time seemed endless. Her watch seemed sometimes to leap whole hours and then to crawl, as she waited—listening to the myriad sounds in a house at nightfall. There were faint rustlings, the cracking of wood-work, the scamper of mice.
And a hundred times, some one seemed to steal up the stairs and linger just outside her door.
It was nearly three o’clock when suddenly a gong began to beat inside her temples. In the adjoining room was the unmistakable tramp of a man’s footsteps.
It was no imagination on her part. They circled the room and then advanced deliberately towards the connecting door.
She saw the handle begin to turn slowly.
In one bound, she reached the door and rushed on to the landing and up the stairs. For a second, she paused before her own room. But its windows were barred and its door had no key. She could not be done to death there in the dark.
As she paused, she heard the footsteps on the stairs. They advanced slowly, driving her on before them. Demented with terror, she fled up to the top storey, instinctively seeking the open window.
She could go no higher. At the attic door, she waited.
Something black appeared on the staircase wall. It was the shadow of her pursuer—a grotesque and distorted herald of crime.
Murder at the Manor Page 32