“Rachel.”
The opening door showed her to him not as a creature of ravaged emotions, but one whose breathing had become tranquil. Nor was it fate. He would have said that the essential and sweet sanity of her was beginning to emerge from the flood of those unhappy years.
“Has he gone, dear?”
“Yes.”
He felt that for the moment she did not wish to be touched, and that some sacramental mood held her a little apart from him.
“Have you told him what we mean to do?”
“I told him everything. There was no alternative. We are in his hands.”
She leaned against the door frame.
“I am not afraid of that old man, John. I offered to go and give myself up. You could have been safeguarded. But he would not let me do that. He said, ‘Wait till I have seen your lover.’ ”
“You feel you can trust him?”
“I do, completely. Life is being so strange to us, that his strangeness does not surprise me.”
She gave him her hands now.
“Poor John, you must have been so frightened.”
“I am afraid my first reaction was a little more savage. But that’s not the end of the story. He is coming with us in the caravan.”
“With us?”
“Yes, for the first stage or two. I can imagine nothing more helpful. Human camouflage. But now that we are out of the wood again, come down and see what sort of mess I have made of my shopping.”
She put her face up and kissed him.
“Why should you do all this for me?”
“Just because I like it.”
They went together down the stairs, and he lifted the suitcase on to a chair, and opening it, felt for the parcel that contained her shoes.
“Most important of all. Try them on.”
She unwrapped the parcel, and sitting down in a chair, slipped her feet into the shoes.
“All right?”
“Yes, John.”
She stood up and walked across the room.
“Just my size.”
Meanwhile, he could tell her that he had other and urgent things to do, and that he would leave her to try on the dress and stockings. Taking an old attaché case out into the vestibule, he closed the door, and after a minute’s rummaging found the driving licence tucked away with a collection of photos in a large envelope.
“I’ve found it. Say when you are ready to be inspected.”
“Ready, John.”
He went in and looked at her with the eyes of a lover.
“I think I can praise my own taste in frocks.”
She stood beside him with a hand resting on his shoulder. He had bought her so many things that it seemed graceless to comment on one serious omission. She had nothing to wear in wet weather.
“Outfit complete, for the time being?”
“Yes, John.”
“I think you had better keep all these feminine things locked up in that case.”
She nodded.
“O, by the way, I’m hiring a tent with the caravan. Old T. and I can manage in the tent. Or he can put up in a local pub or farmhouse. By Jove, though, I have forgotten one thing. What an idiot!”
“What have you forgotten, John?”
“To buy you anything to wear when it rains.”
2
Mr. Temperley had to confess to himself that not for many years had he enjoyed anything so much as this excursion into the land of make-believe. Here was an occasion when you could lie gracefully to your neighbours, boring people who had persisted in demanding from you the sesquipedalian truth. In a philosophic discussion he might have been compelled to allow that universal and artistic mendacity might wreck the social state, for, no community could be expected to survive in the atmosphere of a perpetual General Election. But Mr. Temperley’s lying was both compassionate and playful. Brandon called on him to be genial and conversational, and he was so, and to anyone who was likely to spread a rumour. Comment was of no consequence so far as his own reputation was concerned. Let the lads of the village mock at an old fool who was proposing to go caravaning.
Meeting Inspector Ford outside the Chequers, Mr. Temperley hailed him.
“Oh, Inspector, it is not of any consequence, but I shall be away for a week or ten days. I am going caravaning with Mr. Luce.”
The Inspector was thinking of other things or of nothing.
“Going away, sir.”
“Yes, I should like to have had that tragedy cleared up. One feels, in a way, responsible. No more news, I suppose?”
“No, sir. We are thinking of trying to get some bloodhounds.”
“It is a most extraordinary disappearance.”
“Most, sir, and yet not at all. I’m pretty sure she is lying out somewhere, dead, poor thing.”
“That’s my view, Inspector. So much wild country to search. I can remember a case when a body was found on Wickham Heath. The evidence proved that it must have been lying there for two years. A sad business. I am going caravaning with Mr. Luce.”
“Mr. Luce, sir?”
“The gentleman at the Signal Tower. We are both archæologists. Exploring Roman sites together.”
The officer’s very blue eyes were blandly bored.
“Roman sites, sir. Not much in my line. I hope you will have good weather.”
No doubt the official world assumed Mr. Temperley to be a genial old gentleman, who was growing slightly garrulous and senile, but when Luce, after attending to various matters in Brandon, appeared in Mr. Temperley’s garden, Mr. Temperley could smile at him shrewdly. “I have been creating an atmosphere, my dear Luce. And now for maps, and a cross-examination.” Mr. Temperley’s garden was a large one, and defended by a high, red brick wall. It was famous for its bowling green, which had been rolled and mown since Georgian days. A red brick garden house with a thatched roof, and belonging to the same period, stood on the edge of the bowling green. It contained nothing but a green table, a couple of deck chairs, and a croquet set which had not been used for years. Mr. Temperley left Luce in the garden house to watch the play of light and shadow on the lawn.
Mr. Temperley kept his maps in the upper, right-hand drawer of an oak bureau. He rang the library bell, and Martha found him spreading a map upon the table.
“I shall be in the garden, Martha, with Mr. Luce. I don’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I suppose you and Eliza can manage while I am away?”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir. And will you be taking your winter underclothing, and a hot bottle?”
“Why winter underclothing, Martha? I am not going to the North Pole.”
“I only wanted to know, sir.”
“Well, you can put in a bottle.”
Martha knew her Mr. Temperley, and made no more suggestions, though she would have liked to inform him that she and Eliza thought it ridiculous that an old gentleman of seventy-three should go on a camping tour. Very probably the result would be pneumonia or lumbago, but Mr. Temperley was a self-willed old creature who detested female fuss.
Mr. Temperley rejoined Luce in the garden-house, after assuring himself that his man was sticking a row of peas in the vegetable garden and safely out of earshot. Mr. Temperley spread a map on the green table and put on his reading glasses.
“Any idea as to the route, Luce?”
Luce had worked out an itinerary. He was proposing to make for Marlborough and the Wiltshire Downs, and to camp in one of the hill forts near Avebury. Wild and open country. And if Mr. Temperley preferred a normal bed, there was an excellent inn at Avebury. From Avebury they could travel on to Cirencester and visit Chedworth. Mr. Temperley had never seen the Roman site at Chedworth, and no doubt some farmhouse could provide him with a bed.
“Your insistence upon beds, Luce——”
“We don’t want you laid up, sir.”
“I agree. That might be an awkward complication. Well, and after Chedworth?”
�
�I want to keep to the by-roads as much as possible. A place like Ludlow, for instance, won’t be particularly welcoming to a caravan.”
“Have you ever handled one?”
“No, but I am going to get a few hours’ practice.”
Mr. Temperley scanned the map.
“You could drop me near Shrewsbury, Luce. I should be quite comfortable at The Raven, and after a few days potter home by train. The excuse would be easy. That Anno Domini has to be respected. Now then, for the cross-examination.”
“Go ahead, sir.”
Mr. Temperley left the garden-house for a moment to satisfy himself that no one was in earshot.
“Now, what’s the plan of campaign?”
“I’m putting the car and caravan in the Chequers’ yard for the night. I shall get the man who delivers it to give me a demonstration. Then, late in the afternoon I pick you up, and take the lower road to the east of the hill. I told you about the gravel pit. We can park there for the ostensible purpose of loading up stores.”
“And till dusk? Supposing some curious person?”
“I shall pretend that the engine is giving some trouble, and have the plugs out. They will stay out most of the time.”
“I see. While I sit on the running-board and provide sympathy. And then?”
“We are going to clean up the tower, and efface any possible clue. I don’t want her to leave till after dark. She will have to slip out alone, lock the door after her, and make her way down through the woods. It won’t be very difficult for her. The woods are fairly open there, no coppice.”
“And when she reaches the road?”
“She won’t venture into the road until I whistle ‘God Save the King.’ ”
Mr. Temperley sat down in one of the deck-chairs, took off his glasses and polished them.
“Yes, it sounds quite rational. There is just one person whom we shall have to remember, the woman Ballard.”
“Is it likely that she will be strolling around after dark? Why should she?”
“A vindictive woman can be incredibly suspicious. And there is one thing, Luce, I heard to-day.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“The police talk of using bloodhounds.”
Luce looked grim.
“But what about the scent, sir? Remember she was in the pond, that she came without shoes to the tower, and through drenching rain. Would that leave the dogs any scent?”
“I don’t know, Luce. I have had no experience.”
“Well, we must get her away before they use the dogs. Wait a bit. Couldn’t one try laying a false trail?”
“How?”
“What if I went out at night with something she had worn and played amateur dragman?”
“It’s an idea, Luce. But if you go hanging round Beech Farm——”
“At two in the morning?”
“I expect the place is watched. I think it is rather too hazardous. Leave well alone. We must take the risk and count on the dogs failing to pick up a scent.”
“But if they did, it would take them to the tower, and remember, perhaps down to the road and the gravel pit. I would rather like to try the alternative.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I know. But if I could get to the pond and I could go west, over the fields to the river. The scent could end there.”
“It could. But what about your tracks?”
“Footmarks?”
“Yes.”
“Scores of people have been leaving marks all over the place, and some of mine are there already.”
Mr. Temperley tapped his chin with his glasses.
“I don’t like the idea, but perhaps——.”
“Is it a case of taking the lesser risk in order to block the greater one?”
XIX
He had to tell Rachel why he needed that old black skirt of hers, and when she understood what was in his mind she was no more welcoming to the idea than Mr. Temperley had been. Its hazardous nature terrified her. What if someone who was watching the farm should surprise him and find him carrying that fatal skirt? She was not thinking of herself, but of her lover.
“Why take this terrible risk, John? There is only one more day.”
“It might happen to-morrow.”
“Then let me come with you. I know all the ways, and how one can reach the pond without going near the house.”
“And what about the marks of your shoes, my dear, and the trail you might leave? You are going to stay inside this tower until the very last moment.”
He was determined to attempt this somewhat fantastic adventure, though he could say with Mr. Temperley that his education had not included the habits and capacities of the bloodhound breed. But if dogs were able to pick up and follow a scent that was days old the result might be disastrous. He was determined to try and mislead them. So, neither he nor Rachel went to bed, for she was too strung up and anxious to think of sleeping, and at one o’clock in the morning Luce let himself out of the tower with her rolled-up skirt fastened like a sash under his coat.
“I should be back in an hour or so, dear. I wish you would go to bed.”
“John, how can I?”
She sat in the darkness listening to the loud ticking of the American clock. There was a light and fitful wind blowing, and she could hear it in the trees, and now and again it made the window rattle. These sounds seemed to add to her inward agitation. Days of strain and of suspense had made this last ordeal seem almost unbearable. Also, the room felt cold. She sat and shivered. It was too dark for her to see the hands of the clock, and she did not dare to strike a match.
Surely, more than an hour had passed? Had someone surprised him trailing that skirt of hers across the field? And then, following a gust of wind she heard in the subsequent stillness a little metallic sound, the slipping of a key into a lock. She sat holding her breath. The outer door opened and closed. Again the key was turned.
“Is it you, John?”
“Who else, dear?”
She ran out into the vestibule and clung to him.
“O, my dear, I have been so frightened.”
He held her.
“We are afraid of so many things that never happen. It was quite absurdly easy. I had no trouble at all, save in finding one of the field gates and a thin place in the last hedge.”
“John, you are all wet!”
“My nether garments are. I waded well and truly into the river and along it for twenty yards.”
“O, my dear!”
“The things will be dry in the morning, and if not we can do something about it. Here’s your skirt. Now, off to bed.”
But she was in no mood to be left alone in the darkness. The relief seemed too sudden after that hour of panic. She began to weep a little.
“O, why did I ever drag you into this? Something will surely happen in the end.”
For the moment he forgot those wet garments, and sitting down on the stairs he took her on his knees.
“There, my darling, there won’t be much more of this. One more day, and then sunlight and open country.”
She lay with her head against his shoulder.
“I shall never forgive myself. I ought to have given myself up. If anything happens to you——.”
“Dear one, you have had too much to bear. Just leave things to me. Good Lord, I had forgotten! I’m like wet blotting-paper. And your new skirt. Bed for you, bed for both of us.”
He rose and carried her up the stairs.
“We are getting quite clever, my dear, at doing things in the dark. But to-morrow, or the day after, there will be more light.”
2
Next morning Luce studied his map, and while scanning it he was constrained to remember that he had never driven a car with a caravan attached to it, and that discretion suggested that to begin with he should keep to a main road with which he was somewhat familiar. He decided to follow the Basingstoke, Andover, Amesbury road, for, so far as he could remember, it was without sudden twis
ts and snags, save at Whitchurch, where he fancied there was a sharpish corner. At Amesbury he would turn north for Marlborough, and from Marlborough make for Avebury along the Bath road. The chalk country was wild and open, and a legitimate camping ground for a gentleman who could assume some interest in the stone circle and earthwork culture. Some friendly farmer might give him permission to camp in one of the old hill forts.
His driving licence arrived on the very morning he expected the car and caravan at Brandon.
Together they discussed every detail of the plan. There was a spare key to the tower door, and Luce would lock the door, and carrying his last piece of baggage, walk down through the woods to the disused gravel pit. When darkness had fallen, she would make her escape and come down to join him, relocking the door after her. She was not to break cover at once, but to remain hidden in the undergrowth until she heard him whistling “God Save the King.” The signal would warn her that—so far as he could tell—the road was clear. She would get instantly into the caravan, lie down in one of the bunks and cover herself up. They would dare breaking the law with regard to caravans, that no passenger was allowed to occupy the van when it was being trailed.
“If we are stopped by any chance, lie still and leave things to me.”
They decided not to take too much in the way of stores, and to leave the tower looking with every appearance of being ready for reoccupation. Also, it was of supreme importance that no possible feminine clue should remain to catch the eye of interested intruders. It was not very likely that Authority would sneak in and look for finger-prints, and Rachel’s shingled head did not shed hairpins, but one black hair on a cushion or pillow might provoke questions. Luce knew only too well how often some seemingly trivial detail had betrayed a fugitive. He suggested that they should wash the floors, and the stairs before leaving.
Then, there was the question of her flight from the tower, and the marks her shoes might make. Could she cover the first hundred yards in her stockings? Once in the woods she could resume her shoes.
The Woman at The Door Page 19