Margaret turned on him with a courage which stirred Charles Moray’s pride.
“Freddy, you’re not well. You-what are you saying? Freddy-think!”
Freddy Pelham let his amused gaze touch first one and then the other of them.
“My dear Margaret, it will save trouble if you will realize that you are not dealing with an amiable step-father who has suddenly gone mad, but with a man of intelligence who has built up a most successful business and is prepared to remove anyone who endangers it. Though I dislike you both acutely, I should never have lifted a finger against either of you if you had not foolishly threatened me with the police. I never mix business and pleasure. It will save time if you realize this. As an illustration, I may tell you that the cellar of which I spoke just now was the reason for my buying this house, and for my continuing to stay here all these years. It has often been-exceedingly useful. It was constructed by the eccentric Sir Joseph Tunney in 1795. I came across a reference in an old book of memoirs which caused me to buy this house when it came into the market. When I say that not even your mother has ever suspected the existence of this extra cellar, you will admit that Sir Joseph Tunney was a highly ingenious person. Why, Mark Dupre was there for a fortnight, with the police scouring the country for him, and not a soul ever suspected where he had been. He was wise enough to pay up, and when we had collected the money, he was found-as perhaps you remember-on the top of Hindhead in his pyjamas without the slightest idea of how he got there.”
Margaret had been falling slowly back step by step with her hands out before her as if to keep something away. As Freddy finished speaking, she sank down in the chair by the writing-table, flung her arms across the scattered papers, and bowed her head upon them.
“Well now, we’ll go down and look at the cellar-what?”
The reappearance of the old Freddy was the last touch of horror. Margaret cried out and lifted her head.
“Freddy-there’s one thing-Freddy-mother-will you tell me the truth? What happened? Is she-dead?”
He stiffened.
“That’s a very extraordinary thing to say. What makes you ask a thing like that?”
“An old friend-I met an old friend of hers. She said- she said-she’d seen her a fortnight ago in Vienna. I thought-” Her voice died as he looked at her.
“Who is this-friend?”
“I shant tell you. She only saw her for an instant. She didn’t speak to her. Freddy, tell me!” Her fingers clasped and unclasped themselves, tearing a piece of paper to shreds. “Freddy, tell me!”
“Who is this friend?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t know her. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks it was a likeness. Please, please tell me.”
“What does it matter to you now? On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter to me; so, as it happens, I don’t mind telling you. Esther is alive-or was three days ago when her last letter to me was posted.”
“Alive!” The word came with a rash.
“I’ve already told you that it makes no difference to you. It’s very irrational of you to feel any pleasure in a matter which won’t concern you in the least.”
Margaret said “Alive!” again. This time the word was only, a whisper.
Freddy Pelham began to walk up and down the room.
“Yes, she’s alive. If even the strongest of us hadn’t got his weakness, she wouldn’t be alive. She’s been my danger always-always.” He repeated the word with a certain fierce energy. “A man in my line of business should never allow himself a serious affair with a woman-it’s dangerous. You needn’t think of me as a fool who gave way to weakness. No, I always knew that she was my danger point, and I ran the risk deliberately, because she was the only woman I have ever met who was worth it, and because I felt myself strong enough to surmount the danger.”
Margaret’s eyes rested on him with a horrified surprise. Was this Freddy?
He went on talking all the time in a low, hard tone:
“I risked it, and I risked it successfully until six months ago. Then she discovered something. If she had been an ordinary woman, I could have put her off-you know how quick she is. Besides I was not altogether sorry. One gets a little tired of acting the poor fool whose only merit is his capacity for humble adoration. I welcomed the chance of showing myself to Esther as I really was.” He paused, stood in the middle of the room looking down at the pistol in his hand. “I ought to have ended it at once when I found how unreasonable she was. Instead, I went back to my acting-I played the penitent-and ye gods, how women do revel in forgiveness! She produced a plan she considered a stroke of genius-we would go abroad, making her health the excuse. I was to renounce my profession and any profits derived from it. A deliciously feminine piece of impracticability. Well, we went abroad. I allowed Esther to think that she was choosing our route. As a matter of fact, I had a plan of my own. I have for some years possessed a charming estate in eastern Europe. I took Esther there by car. She had no idea of where she was when we got there. Fortune played into my hands; she fell ill after a scene in which I explained my plan to her. Then, I must confess, I displayed weakness. I did not accept what chance offered me. I found myself unable to do so-I found that I could not contemplate life without her. It was a weakness. I temporised. I sent telegrams announcing her death. At one moment I hoped that she would die; at the next I drove three hundred miles to fetch a doctor. In the end she lived. I left her in trustworthy hands and came back. If I found that I could live without her, she could still be removed. If I was unable to conquer this foolish weakness of mine, she could remain in seclusion, and I could so arrange my affairs as to be able to go backwards and forwards. This morning”-He stopped, looked down at the pistol with a cold, furious stare, and then went on quickly: “This morning I heard from her- from Vienna. She had made her way there-how, I shall make it my business to find out. She could not have got away except by treachery-it was impossible. She writes that she is well-that there are things she does not understand- that she is waiting in Vienna for a personal explanation. I propose to give her one that will remove all further danger from my path.”
Margaret turned her eyes from his face. Another moment, and she would have screamed aloud. She caught at the arm of her chair and stood up. She was trembling very much. As Freddy came towards her, she went back step by step, her hands behind her, until she reached the window. She touched the edge of the blind.
Freddy levelled his pistol.
“If you lift that blind or call out, I’ll shoot.”
She shook her head, leaning there with half-closed eyes as if she were about to faint.
“Come away from that window at once! Do you hear! One”-he wheeled suddenly and aimed at Charles- “two-”
Margaret ran forward sobbing and catching her breath.
“No-no-no!”
He caught her roughly by the arm.
“We’ve had enough of this. Come along! Walk in front of me to the door and open it! Remember if you make one sound, it’ll be your last.”
He turned and took an electric torch from a shelf.
Charles saw the door opened. As Margaret passed through it, he thought, with a frightful stab of pain, that he had seen her face for the last time. She looked over her shoulder just before the door swung in and hid her from his sight. He strained with all his might against his bonds, only to realize that he was exhausting himself uselessly. He lay still, and suffered for Margaret. The sudden break in her self-control, the pitiful sobbing-if only she had not broken down-if only her fine pride had held to the last. Charles Moray remembered that he had wished to see it broken.
He remembered all the times she had looked pale, and he had been angry, and all the times she had been sad and he had been cruel. And he remembered that he might have comforted her, and he had not. And now it was too late. He could not tell her now that he had loved her all the time-he could never tell her now. He had meant to tell her. He had meant to kiss the sorrow from her eyes a
nd the sadness from her lips. He had meant to hold her close and hear her say, “Forgive-forgive the years I stole.”…It was too late.
Half way down the stairs Margaret sank down. The hand on her shoulder closed in a bruising grip and jerked her to her feet. They passed out of the hall and through the door leading to the basement. Margaret’s steps faltered; she had to lean against the wall. The hand on her shoulder forced her on and down.
In the basement, the empty kitchen and other offices; and at the back, a small flight of steps that led to the cellars, three in number-one for coal, one full of packing-cases, and the third a locked wine-cellar.
Freddy Pelham unlocked the door. There was a good deal of wine in the bins, and at the far end, a cask or two and some more packing-cases. He shut and locked the door on the inside, and then proceeded to shift one of the casks and to move the packing-cases.
A low, stout wooden door barred with iron came into view behind them. It was barely three feet high, and was secured by three strong bolts.
Freddy shot them back.
“When I bought this house, all this was very cleverly hidden-match-boarding and whitewash-very clever indeed. Without the information which I had extracted from an otherwise extraordinarily dry book of memoirs I should never have found it, and you wouldn’t be here. Let us praise the pious memory of Sir Joseph Tunney.”
He pushed the door, which opened inwards. A horrible darkness showed beyond. He stood back with the mockery of a bow.
“It’s perfectly dry, and on the warm side. Your last hours should be quite comfortable.”
Margaret leaned against the packing-cases.
“And if I won’t?”
“I shoot you here and push you into that most convenient vault. In with you!”
“Freddy-” The word died on her lips. There was nothing to appeal to. There wasn’t any Freddy. There was only Grey Mask.
She had to bend almost double to pass that horrible low door. Freddy’s torch threw a dancing ray beyond her into the darkness. Her head swam as she watched it flicker. The rough floor seemed to tilt and tremble. Her foot slipped and she fell forward. Behind her the door slammed and she heard the bolts go home. The flickering ray was gone. It was dark.
CHAPTER XLIII
Margaret lay where she had fallen. The strength had gone out of her. She lay quite still and strained for any sound beyond the bolted door. There wasn’t any sound. She could not hear Freddy’s retreating footsteps or the opening and closing of the wine-cellar door. She could not hear anything at all. The place was soundless, lightless, utterly cut off. The warm, heavy air weighed on her with a deadening pressure. She kept her eyes shut so that she could not see how dark it was. Minutes passed.
It was a very little thing that roused her. Her left hand lay on a sharp point in the uneven floor, and a good part of her weight rested on this hand. The pressure became unbearable. She moved, shuddered, and sat up.
Instantly she wished that she had not moved, that she had let the sharp point prick her to the bone. The darkness of the place was dreadful. In every direction there was a gloom so dense that it seemed to forbid movement and breath as well as sight. Only thought remained. Charles-Was she to die alone in the dark? What had happened to Charles? Would she ever know? What was happening? The door and the darkness were between her and the answer to all the terrified throng of thoughts that clamoured to know.
She covered her face with her hands and bent her head upon her knees. She mustn’t let herself lose grip. Grey Mask couldn’t touch them really. Nothing could touch you as long as you held on-not darkness, nor silence, nor anything that anyone could do. She stopped minding the dark.
It seemed to be a very long time before a sound reached her. It came suddenly, harshly, as the bolts ran back and the door swung in.
She sat up, her heart beating violently, and saw the beam from Freddy’s torch cutting across the corner of the nearest packing-case. The wood was rough and splintered. The beam gave each splinter its own black shadow, then, shifting, touched Charles Moray’s foot. His ankles had been untied. He seemed to be leaning against the case. Behind him, Freddy spoke:
“Pride goes before a fall. Get down and get in! I haven’t any more time to spare for either of you. Get inside!”
Margaret was filled with a curious trembling joy. Charles was here. Whatever happened, they were going to be together. She drew back and saw him come through the low doorway bent double. Suddenly he pitched forward as Freddy thrust at him from behind.
Margaret gave a sharp cry of pain, and had the light flashed full upon her face.
“Well, well,” said Freddy Pelham, “you can now make the most of your time together. You can break your fingernails trying to undo my knots, and when you’ve got them undone, you’ll be just as far from getting out of this as you were before. It may save you a good deal of trouble if I tell you that this place is absolutely sound-proof. You won’t even hear me lock the wine-cellar door as I go out, and from the other side of that door I shouldn’t hear a sound if you were shouting through a megaphone. There are eight feet of earth between you and the garden, and six men couldn’t break down the door. I don’t know what old Joe Tunney used this cellar for; but I know what we’ve used it for, and it has stood the test every time. The ventilation is quite adequate and rather ingenious.”
He shifted the torch and allowed it to light up his wrist watch for an instant.
“I must be going. I have still a few things to do, and I have to be up early. Perhaps it may solace you tomorrow to think of my flying to Vienna. With any luck we shall get above the fog. You can think of me bathed in sunshine. There was an old-fashioned song which I remember an aunt of mine used to sing very charmingly;
“For I am content to abide in the shadow
So long as the sunshine falls brightly on thee.”
In Vienna -I have an account to square.” His voice had changed; the words came slowly; there were strange undertones of reluctance, effort, fear. Grey Mask’s one weakness was a weakness still. It was not the least of Esther Brandon’s many triumphs.
With a quick jerk Freddy Pelham slammed the door on them. The bolts were shot with violence.
Margaret listened as she had done before, and heard no further sound. She put out her hand and groped for Charles. And then a dreadful thought struck her rigid. Suppose Freddy hadn’t really gone? Suppose he were just waiting there on the other side of the door to see what they would do-listening, waiting, ready to break in on them and snatch away their little lingering hope.
She crept to the door, laid her ear against the crack, and listened with such intensity that it seemed to her as if she must hear every sound in the world.
She could hear nothing.
Then in the dark beside her Charles Moray moved, struggling into a sitting position. Instantly she forgot Freddy. Still on her knees, she turned; her arm flung out, struck against his shoulder and came about him in a movement astonishingly full of protecting strength. She began to whisper to him:
“Charles-are you all right? I’ll get this dreadful thing out of your mouth-if I were only sure he’d gone-do you think it’s safe? Wait-wait-just a minute-whilst I listen again. Are you all right? Move your head if you are.”
She felt it move, and turned back to the door. Not a sound-not one smallest sound. After all, why should he wait? He wouldn’t wait-he would want to get away.
She turned round again.
“I think it’s all right. He’d want to get away. I want you to lean against me-yes, like that-so that I can feel just where you are. I came straight from the shop, so I’ve got my scissors. I’ve been thinking of them all the time. I can cut that horrible bandage, only you must keep awfully still.”
The fingers of her right hand went to her coat, unbuttoning it. The scissors hung at her side, a good strong pair, really made for use. She cut through the ribbon that held them, and then, shielding the point with a very careful finger, guided them to where the bandage crossed his left ear
. The gag had been tied on with a silk handkerchief. Once the point was under the tight fold, it was easily cut.
Charles had never experienced a more blessed relief. He coughed, spluttered, and spat out the gag-another handkerchief by the feel of it. Margaret was fingering the rope at his wrists. This was silk too-one of those heavy cords that are used to loop back the old-fashioned type of curtain. The knots might have defied her, but the strands were soon cut through.
“That’s great!”
He stretched his arms, then felt his head gingerly.
“Are you all right? Charles-”
“Right as rain.”
“Ssh! Perhaps he’s still there. He mustn’t hear you speak. Do you think he’s gone?”
“My dear, what does it matter?”
“He-why did you say that?”
Charles put his arm round her.
“We’d better face it, old girl. We’re through. If he came back and shot us, it would be quicker.”
She did not speak for a minute. She did not speak, because for a long minute she was too happy to speak. She leaned against Charles in the darkness and felt his arm about her, very strong, very steady. Nothing seemed to matter.
The arm about her tightened.
“Margaret!”
She turned her face to him.
“Margaret-we’re together!”
“Yes-” The word was a sighing breath.
“I’ve been an utter beast to you. I-I loved you all the time.”
He felt her draw away.
“I thought-you loved Greta.”
“Good Lord! I’m not a nursemaid! The creature’s about five years old! You didn’t really think so?”
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