“Good morning, Mr. Mason. I find my larder is getting like Mother Hubbard’s.”
Mr. Mason, in his white apron, was prepared to fill the void. Bacon, yes, and did Luce like it fat or streaky? A Dutch cheese, no—half a cheese. Sardines. And what about a couple of pounds of sausages? One or two other people came into the shop, but Luce did not hear Beech Farm mentioned. He went on to the baker’s. Would his haversack accommodate a couple of loaves of bread? It would not. He found that one of the loaves would have to be housed in a paper bag. Below the Chequers Inn a local newsagent sold tobacco, sweets, stationery, and toilet accessories. Luce went in and bought a Daily Telegraph. By the way, did they sell toothbrushes? They did. He purchased a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and a comb, and stowed them away in his pockets. Such trivial merchandise could hardly rouse suspicion.
Then, in the village street he met Mr. Temperley, and Mr. Temperley’s was the face of a man who knew, and it occurred to Luce that Mr. Temperley’s face was a universal, and that he would have to accustom himself to confronting the world’s countenance.
“You look quite—domestic, Luce. The daily bread?”
Luce smiled at him. Mr. Temperley had shot an arrow very close to the mark?
“Stores getting a little low, sir. It reminds me of drawing rations. Rather a splendid storm last night.”
“All round you, I imagine.”
“As a matter of fact I was up on the top of the tower. A magnificent grandstand. But when the rain came——”
Mr. Temperley was looking a little depressed.
“Just the night for a tragedy. Have you heard about Beech Farm?”
“No, sir. Not struck by lightning?”
“Better if it had been in some ways. That fellow Ballard was shot.”
“Shot!”
“Yes, in his own house. And his wife has disappeared.”
“His wife? I think you told me——”
“Yes, poor woman. The only decent thing a man like Ballard could have done would have been to shoot himself.”
“But—someone else?”
“Yes. I’m dreadfully afraid, Luce, the poor wife did it.”
“Good God, sir!”
“If so,—O—well—she’s probably dead too. They’ll find her in some pool or the river. A bad business, a very bad business.”
3
Luce escaped politely from Mr. Temperley. He had been very much afraid that Mr. Temperley would invite him in to sherry and biscuits, and over yonder Luce had left a hostage to Fate. What might a woman not do after such a night, and so emotional a morning? Old Temperley’s words had troubled him. “They’ll find her in some pool or the river.” For, death is not difficult to those who are in pain, and bitter waters may seem sweet.
He had passed through the Brandon woods and reached the more open ground beyond when he was startled by a voice calling. “Mrs. Ballard, Mrs. Ballard.” For the moment he could see no one, and then between the scattered trees, Scotch firs, thorns and birches, he saw a line of figures strung out and wandering through the heather and young fern. So, they were beating the woods for Rachel Ballard. Luce stood still, watching the approaching men. Now and again one of them would diverge to peer under the spreading branches of a thorn. “Mrs. Ballard.” The voice was countered by another voice speaking with authority. “Better keep quiet over there.” The approach of these searchers had for Luce something of the inevitableness of a heath fire advancing inexorably with the wind.
He waited. There seemed to be wisdom in waiting, for they were working in the direction of the tower. And then he realized that the particular figure which was nearest to him was that of the inspector in charge. Here was his chance to create an impression of impartial interest and of innocence. He strolled forward to meet the man in blue.
“Someone lost, Inspector?”
Luce was not told to mind his own business. He had a pleasant voice, and Inspector Ford had been bred in the country where a gentleman’s voice still may carry. He looked at Luce and his haversack and his paper bag. Only a gentleman could wear clothes like that.
“Yes, sir. Rather a bad business down there. We are looking for a woman.”
Luce faced about and put himself in line with the man in blue. The gently perspiring face of Ford had a serious intent kindness. There was nothing of the bloodhound about him. He was more suggestive of a large and fatherly person looking for a lost child.
“I’m a stranger here,” said Luce. “Up at the old Signal Tower. Probably you don’t know it.”
“No, sir.”
“Can I help?”
The inspector paused to examine a mass of last year’s fern that had piled itself almost like a small tent round the trunk of a fir.
“If you care to, sir.”
“Have you any idea?”
“None at all. I’m having the pond dragged down there. It’s a murder case.”
“Murder! Then—the——?”
The big man looked at him gravely.
“Yes, sir, one of those cases—where, from all I hear, one’s going to be sorry for the woman I think—— Still, that’s not my business—Mr.——”
“Luce. Look here, Inspector. I’ll go and get rid of this stuff, and come back and join you. By the way, what’s the woman like?”
“A little, dark person, sir.”
Luce swung on ahead, and walking hard, he was soon out of sight of the line of men. His impulse was to run, but he suppressed such emotional haste, for there was no immediate danger in this beating of the heaths and woods. She was much more likely to be in danger from some sudden emotional impulse that might persuade her to self-surrender.
Coming in sight of the tower he remembered that he had left the key with her. Rather too sensitive a gesture, that! It would mean that he might be kept waiting for a moment on his own doorstep, and if any Peeping Tom was around it might strike him as curious that a man living alone should have to loiter there. More and more was Luce appreciating how supremely important it was that every detail in the picture should be correct and convincing. In so poignant a piece of living literature anachronisms could not be left to the proof-reader. It was necessary that she should know of his return, and be ready to turn the key for him.
When he reached the smother of old laurels near the garden fence, he began to whistle a tune. Yes, he would promise to whistle some particular tune when he had to leave her. It would serve as a password, and the tune he chose at the moment was Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz.
As he climbed the steps he was afraid that she might open the door—out of time, for, even though no one might be watching he was becoming a ruthless stage-manager. Was it not notorious that some trivial omission had betrayed many a most careful criminal? His eyes were fixed upon the green door. He was willing it to remain shut until he reached it. He kept up his whistling. He had reached the doorstep itself when he heard the key turning in the lock.
He turned to look at the little world behind him, and then allowed himself three whispered words.
“Don’t show yourself.”
He opened it, entered, and found her concealed behind the door. He smiled, nodded at her, and closed the door.
“Thank God, my dear, you haven’t had an attack of conscience.”
She understood him.
“I did, John.”
He stood looking down at her.
“I—wondered. That’s my particular phantom, Rachel. Supposing we lay that ghost. I have just been talking to the police inspector, and if he were to suspect that I knew. . . .”
He unslung his haversack.
“Take this, dear. And keep away from the windows. I have to go out again.”
“Again?”
“Yes, they are beating the woods. They are working up this way. I am going out as a volunteer—to join in the search for you.”
XII
She found herself looking at his books.
She had unpacked his haversack, and put his purchases away in the cupboard
as though she had become responsible as a woman for such things. The cupboard was on the safe side of his string, and so was his bookcase, and the books intrigued her.
Would she not find the man in his books? Did she need to find anything more than the live book which they were sharing told her? She was becoming as passionately involved in the romance as he was. But was passion the word? No, its inadequacy was self-evident. She was kneeling by the bookcase, holding one of his books in her hands, and when she opened it and read, she was aware of feeling like a child looking into a mirror that gave her broken reflections. She did not understand that solemn stuff, metaphysics and imaginative mathematics. And did she understand him? She was very sure somehow that she did, because she loved him and would love him with a sensitive and wise devotion that would grow deeper hour by hour. She had had her attack of conscience. It had carried her as far as the green door, and almost it had thrust her out to surrender herself with the idea of saving him from further madness. And then, she had realized that he was asking to be mad, and that the love between them transcended reason.
She was kneeling on the floor with the book open in her lap when she heard those voices in the woods. Was she afraid? No, not for herself now, but for him. She put the book back, rose from her knees, and going out into the vestibule she climbed the stairs to the room from whose window she had confronted the morning. How long ago that seemed! He had warned her against going to the window, and she stood against the wall opposite it, and saw as in a picture a part of the weedy garden, the rotting fence, and the ground beyond it with its scattered trees. Two figures were approaching the fence; one of them was Luce’s, the other a figure in dark blue.
They paused beyond the fence, and Luce appeared to be speaking to the other man.
“Queer old place, that of mine.”
For, in joining the line of beaters he had found himself next to the police constable whom he had met at the farm gate, though a space of some thirty yards had separated them. And Luce had accepted the coincidence. The fellow with the goat’s eyes might be regarded as the arbiter of things sinister, an enemy to be watched, and as they had approached the tower Luce had so shaped his course that he had been brought nearer to P.C. Pook. It had seemed to him that the fellow was unpleasantly interested in the building. Had he spotted anything suspicious?
With nothing but some heather and a few pines between them and the garden fence Luce had crossed over and joined the man as though the openness of the ground made any immediate attention to the business in hand superfluous. He had made that rather obvious remark.
“Queer old place, that of mine.”
A moment later it had occurred to him that the other man’s attention was so concentrated upon the tower that Luce’s words had not penetrated. The constable’s thin lips were pressed together. Faint wrinkles showed about his eyes. He was absorbed in staring, set like a dog who has sighted something to be chased. Damn the fellow! Luce felt fierce.
“You seem interested, officer.”
The man turned his head sharply.
“My business, sir.”
“I was just saying—that it’s a funny old place. It puzzled me completely when I first saw it. I couldn’t explain it.”
The man’s eyes were turned again upon the tower. What the devil was he staring at? Had he discovered anything significant? Luce’s eyes scanned the place from base to parapet, pausing at each window, but he could see nothing that could arouse suspicion.
“You can see the Chilterns from the top of the tower.”
He received a laconic “So I’ve been told.”
The constable moved on, following the fence and the banks of rhododendrons and of laurel, and Luce kept at his heels, his eyes fixed on the nape of the man’s lean and leathery neck. A most unpleasant fellow this! He would not enter into conversation; he kept you guessing; he was not a man, but a petty official. And then the constable paused abruptly and bent down as though to examine the path.
Luce drew level with him. What had authority discovered? Not a footmark that might betray the fact that someone without shoes had come this way? Luce was conscious of a moment’s acute suspense.
“Anything interesting?”
The constable transferred his attention to Luce’s feet.
“One of yours, sir, by the size.”
And Luce laughed.
“In the comic press, officer, the joke is generally made against your force.”
P.C. Pook took him literally.
“So I’ve been told.”
Proceeding, they skirted a bank of old laurels and came to the garden gate, and again the constable paused. He turned back to peer into the laurels, and then he was moved to open the gate, and examine the shrubs from the garden side. There was one very ancient shed on the ground in which previous tenants had stored tools and vegetables, but its roof leaked, and Luce had put it to no use. P.C. Pook walked over to the shed, opened the door and looked in.
“You don’t keep a dog, sir?”
“No,” said Luce, rather regretting that there was no fierce Alsatian about the place.
The constable rejoined him, and stood looking at the green door.
“Do you keep that locked?”
“As a matter of fact—I do.”
P.C. Pook gave him a supercilious stare. So, this gentlemanly idiot had some sense.
“Just as well. Tramps.”
“Do you get many tramps round here, officer?”
“Plenty. And chaps who’d like to kid you that they’re on the road, looking for work.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. By the way, isn’t it possible that some strolling rough might not have done this thing?”
The constable turned sharply towards the gate.
“Not likely. You take it from me, the woman fired that gun.”
Meanwhile the search had spread into the woods beyond the tower, and when Luce and the constable rejoined it, the line of beaters was half-way down the hill. Masses of rhododendron covered the slope, brilliant with flower, and above the tops of the tall trees, firs, larches, and beeches formed a canopy. Difficult ground this, and the search went slowly. Evergreen foliage was pushed aside, and heads and shoulders thrust into the green mounds. P.C. Pook was becoming sarcastic.
“Messing about—wasting time and trouble.”
“Where do you think she will be found, officer?”
“In the water, if you ask me.”
The search dribbled down through a plantation of young larches to the by-road skirting the hill, and here it bunched together round the inspector, who was hot and an invitation to the flies. His decision was that they should swing to the left across Brandon Heath and work back towards the farm, and Luce went with them, walking between the inspector and a farm hand. He was beginning to feel reassured about the business. This world was sufficiently wild and secret to keep these searchers walking for a week.
2
A bicycle leaning against the fence! A moment later he had appreciated the fact that the machine was red, and that it belonged to the G.P.O. How very difficult it was to exclude the social services from a world in which organized interference was becoming normal. A boy in uniform was standing outside the green door, and Luce saw his hand go out to the brass knocker.
He hailed the lad.
“No one in. Telegram?”
They met at the gate.
“Mr. Luce?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been knocking for five minutes.”
“Splendid” said Luce, “nothing like persistence. You see, I live alone.”
The lad passed the yellow envelope to him, and Luce opened it, drew out the telegram and read. Another wire from that pestilent fellow Lowndes! As a superman in the hierarchy of the Fusspots Lowndes was supreme. Was Luce satisfied that as trustees they had safeguarded the interests of a hypothetical next generation? Luce looked at the lad, who was staring interestedly at the tower.
“Have you a form?”
A pouch was opened and a form handed to him.
“And a pencil?”
“Yes, sir.”
Luce went to the tower steps, and using one of the stone surfaces as a table, wrote his reply to Lowndes.
“Perfectly satisfied. Need we worry about A.D. 2000.”
He would like to have said many contemptuous things to Lowndes, but the reflection that it would be wise for him to resign his trusteeship assuaged him. He returned to the gate, handed the form to the lad for him to read and check.
“One and twopence, sir.”
“You can read it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Luce produced a two-shilling piece.
“Keep the change.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He waited at the gate until the lad had mounted and pedalled off down the path, and then, with a feeling of relief, he went to unlock the green door. Had the knocking alarmed her? He realized how very necessary it was to keep the door locked. That lad might have opened it, and made an attempt to call someone to whom he could deliver his telegram.
As Luce stood in the little vestibule at the bottom of the stairs he was aware of the tower’s silence, the almost stagnant silence of a building that has long been empty. Surely, she had not been overwhelmed by another attack of conscience? The sitting-room door hung ajar. He swung it back and entered, and saw that she had laid the table for lunch, white cloth, glasses, plates, cutlery and silver. And she had laid it for two! Supposing, in his enthusiasm for fooling the world with friendly candour he had introduced some other man into the tower, the inspector for instance, with the suggestion of a drink, and his casual guest had cast eyes upon that table? But where was she? He climbed the stairs, whistling the tune of the morning, but not till he reached the top story was there any response.
The Woman at The Door Page 12