The dizziness passed, and she sat up again gingerly, to see her own face in the dressing-table mirror in front of her staring back— and the sight was enough to make her faint in good earnest. She was white— her hair, her eyebrows, her face, thickly covered with plaster dust, only pinkish gray runnels in her cheeks showing where tears had dripped in an effort to wash her eyes clear of the falling particles. Her eyes looked extraordinary— very green, but red rimmed and apparently lashless. But here a no time to do anything about that.
She buttoned her coat around her firmly and, after a moment’s thought abandoned her shoes, taking them from her pockets and leaving them beside the bed. They were delicate things, high-heeled and absurd, and worse than useless. She would have to manage in her stockinged feet.
She stared up at her escape hole in the ceiling and then around the room. There was just one chair that might help and, moving as quietly as she could, she brought it to the bed and lifted it on. She used the pillows and the remaining bed linen to shore up the legs as best she could, and then moving as slowly and delicately as she could, clambered on to it.
She chair rocked alarmingly, and she could only crouch, adapting her body to the movement, unable to reach the wall to balance herself. But it righted, itself and moving as carefully as any Olympic gymnast, she straightened till her shoulders touched he ceiling.
She dared not look up, afraid of losing her balance, and put up her hands to find the hole. After a moment’s agonizing blind fumbling, her fingers touched the rough edges, and she could put her arms through to fumble for the nearest joist.
She had chosen the post to make her hole rather well— and that was sheer luck, as well she knew, for she had been unable to see from the room below just where the joists ran. She had only the roughly mended patch and her memory to guide her. But she was in luck; only six inches beyond the edge of the hole she felt the comforting roughness of wood.
She had to close her eyes now, as she slowly straightened up till her head was inside the hole, and she had both hands firmly grasping the strong joist.
Now came the hardest part. She pulled on the joist, at the same time lifting her legs beneath her and leaning forward. The six inches or so of undamaged plaster between her body and the joist crumbling under her weight, throwing her forward to she she was swaying helplessly from her arms. But somehow she managed it, using long-forgotten trick had had learned in school gym classes, until— and she was never to be quite sure how she had managed it— she was up, inside the loft, lying straddled across the joist, her knees and ankles scratched and sore, her shoulders and arms shrieking under strain at her.
She looked down, to see below her the chair toppling slowly, like a shot from a film that has been slowed down. She watched in horror; if the chair should fall crashing off the bed, it would surely bring her captor upstairs at full tilt. It was a miracle the woman hadn’t already heard the sounds of falling plaster.
The chair fell sideways on the bed, to roll a little, perilously near the edge, threatening each moment to fall crashing to the floor. And then is stopped swaying and lay still on the edge of the bed, and no sound at all came from outside the room below her.
Her relief of was so intense, she nearly fell off her joist. But she regained her balance and began to move carefully, inching her way over the joist, so that her knees filled with splinters and cobwebs wound themselves horribly around her face.
Somewhere across this pitch-black loft was a trapdoor. And below that trapdoor was the upstairs hall and the stairs and the front door and freedom— all the time she moved, she thought of that front door waiting for her, visualizing it invitingly half open, imagined the blessed open air outside, the smell of the salt marshes, the open road beneath her feet—
It wasn’t as hard as she imagined. Once she had the measure of the joists, it was easy to move across them, though forgotten pieces of stored lumber got in the way, and there were creeping things about as well as cobwebs— once something ran across her groping hand with tiny skittering feet, and she bit her lip firmly and refused to think about that it might be.
And then she found it. A faint square outline of lighter blackness showed it to her, the trapdoor she was hunting. She knelt carefully beside it and pulled gently on it. For one sick moment she thought it was bolted from outside, but the it gave, creaking a little, and lifted upward and away from her, and she was peering though into the hallway beneath.
A little dust had fallen as the door opened, and she knelt there, frozen, in case she had been heard, straining her own ears in the thick silence.
And there was now something to be heard. The faint distant buzz of voices — two voices, Harriet decided after a moment, One was undoubtedly the woman — Harriet could recognize the husky note. The other was a deep male voice, too deeply to be heard, being little more than a faint rumbling obbligato to the other voice which was doing most of the talking.
The other one had arrived, she thought, and felt sick with fear again. The other conspirator in this mad plot that is so incomprehensible, had arrived — for what? to kill her?
And then her ready giggle came to rescue her again. Conspirators, plots, digging holes in ceilings to escape— it was all straight out of a film, and any minute now they’d throw up the final titles, and women would reach for their shoes and men would wake up and yawn and say, “Not bad, dear, was it?” and they’d play the Queen and everyone would go out to the rainy streets and coffee bars and home—
I’m getting hysterical again, she told herself severely. Stop— your havering. Isn’t that what Andrew Peters would say? Did he guess it was me that phone before, and where I am? Did he? Will he come and look for me, or just go to bed like the civilized practical man he is?
I’ve got to get out of here before I fall out, she told herself, and began to move again, as no alteration could be heard in the sounds of conversation from below. Slowly, she sat on her joist and swung her legs over, noticing as she did that the state they were in— torn, cut and bleeding. Those stockings cost Marcus almost fifteen bob, she thought remorsefully. Dear, darling Marcus, where are you?
Getting out of the loft silently wasn’t all that difficult. She let herself down till she was hanging just by her hands from the edge of the trapdoor, moving her hands from the joist one at a time, when she had her balance, let go, bending at the knees as she landed, almost hearing the shrill voice and whistle of Miss English, the gym mistress she had had at school, crying, “One and two and gently does it, land like a snowflake, well done, Harriet dear, well done, one and two and gently does it—”
There was still the same buzz from below. No silence that showed the talkers had heard something odd and were listening. No movement from the drawing room. There below her at the foot of the stairs she could see it, the front door, latched, but not bolted. She could see even from here where she crouched at the top of the stairs the heavy bolts drawn back.
The stairs stretched away in front of her, wood gleaming with the polish of years, the dark shadows against the walls seeming to be full of threatening watching eyes.
We’ll creak, the stairs seemed to be whispering to her. You’ve always hated is here, at our house on the fen, haven’t you? Always hated every inch of the place, including us. So we’ll creak when you walk on us, creak and call the others. They don’t hate us or the house — as you do.
Stop it. She almost said it aloud. Stop it. You’re getting silly and hysterical again. Don’t ruin it now by silliness. Stairs can’t talk. Walk on the edges and they won’t creak so much
She began to inch her way downward, the front door her goal. She never took her eyes off it, and it came closer with each terrified step she took. She took each step one at a time, forcing herself to stop between each one, resisting the urge that rose in her to run for all she was worth helter-skelter down the stairs to the front door, to fumble with the old latch, to fall headlong out into the open air and safety and freedom—
Sh
e was four steps from the bottom, still hugging the wall, so that she walked on the very edge of each tread, when the sounds from the drawing room changed. There was a scraping of chairs, a movement, and then a harsh sound as someone threw a log on the fire, a spitting noise so that she could almost see the sparks flying from the damp wood as it settled into the glowing embers.
She closed her eyes in relief. She must have got up just to mend the fire. She isn’t coming out here— and then, the darkness being her closed lids changed, thinned out, became a bright yellow, flamelike, and she opened her eyes wide, rigid with fear.
And there, at the bottom of the stairs in the oblong of light that was the open drawing room door stood Marcus, the dear safe figure of Marcus, staring up at her where she stood huddled against the wall, her face streaked with plaster and dirt, her hands and legs bleeding, her new coat ripped and cobwebbed.
She stood staring at him for a long incredulous moment, and then with an upsurge of joyous relief hurled herself at him, crying and laughing and shouting his name over and over again, and threw her arms around his neck and clung to him as she had never clung in all her life.
After a moment, he raised his hands and pulled her wrists from his neck to hold her away from him and look searching at her in the light from the drawing room.
And then he laughed softly.
“Well, well. Not such a little fool after all. How did you manage to get out? An whatever happened to all that pink icing?”
Chapter Twelve
She sat huddled in the armchair, staring across the room at him, filled with a bleak dull anger that hurt physically, making her ribs ache and her head throb sickeningly.
“I suppose it’s my own fault,” she said heavily. “Only a crazy woman would believe a man could fall in love with her just like that, really believe it—”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said easily, grinning at her with the same crinkling eyes that had once made her heart lift so absurdly, still could in an odd way. “You aren’t quite the mouse you think you are— you’ve got your points. Or you would have if you knew how to use them—”
“Mark, you talk too bloody much,” the woman said harshly from her place by the window.
He laughed then, and made a moue at her, mocking a kiss. “Jealous, my love? you needn’t be, sweetheart. You’d have cause to be worried if I didn’t find her a bit interesting— she’s a copy of you, after all— watercolor copy, but a copy all the same.”
“Why?” Harriet burst out to stare at the woman. “Why all this? Who are you? What’s been going on? All these murders— who killed Jeffrey? Why? And Mrs. Joel—”
“You talk to bloody much, too,” the woman said shortly. “It’s bad enough that we’ll have to keep you with us until its time, without putting up with your stupid noise. Shut up.”
“Time for what?” Harriet almost whispered it, filled with a sudden foreboding. “Time for what?”
“You’ll see, my love, you’ll see.” Marcus stood up and yawned and stretched, and then went padding over to the drinks table in the corner. “Whiskey, Harriet?”
“Don’t give her anything,” the woman at the window said, and she looked at her watch, consideringly, in away that made Harriet shiver and think, until it’s time for— what?
“Why not?” Marcus said easily. “It’s hers, after all— it’s all hers—” He laughed then loudly, with huge amusement as though someone had made the most exquisite of jokes. “It’s all hers—”
The woman said nothing, staring at Marcus with an odd look on her face that puzzled Harriet, diverting her momentarily from her own plight. The way she looked at him was— murderous? No, not quite. But very unpleasant.
“Anyway, it might be a very good thing. She’s no drinker,” Marcus was saying.
The woman shrugged, and Marcus poured a generous tot of whiskey into a glass, topped it with a very small splash of soda and brought it to Harriet. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it.
Marcus seemed high, somehow, full of himself. If she was to find out anything at all, it would be from Marcus; so it would be as well not to take any risk of alienating him. Certainly there was no likelihood of finding out very much from the woman by the window who stood glowering a little and leaning against the wall.
She was indeed a copy of Harriet, a more heavily drawn one. Her face was older, the flesh making the bones of the face a little blurred, but the eyes were the same, narrow and green, and the black hair was the same, even dressed in the same style in which Harriet now wore hers.
“You had your hair cut at Harrod’s too—” Harriet said, suddenly, surprised at the discovery.
“Oh, come, love,” Marcus said in a mock chiding note. “Do you think we’re completely stupid? Of course we didn’t go to Harrod’s. But we made sure to get it cut by someone else as like yours as possible. It’s not a bad likeness, eh?”
He looked admiringly at the woman by the window, and began to sing softly, "She could very well pass for forty-five in the dark with the light behind her—”
“Shut up!” The woman spoke in a very soft voice, but there was so much malevolence in it that even Marcus looked taken aback for a moment.
“Sorry, sweetie,” he said placatingly. “I was teasing— What’s the time?”
“Half-past twelve,” the woman said shortly. “Two hours to go. Just keep yourself sober and we’ll be all right. Go easy on the whiskey, you hear me?”
He raised both hands. “I promise—”
Harriet could stand it no longer and sat up straighter, putting her glass down on the floor beside her.
“Two hours till what?” she cried. “For God’s sake, tell me what’s going on. Who are you? What do you want with me?”
“Shall I tell her, Liz? Shall I?” Marcus was sitting again now, one leg thrown lazily over the arm of his chair, the hand with the half-empty glass hanging over the other. He grinned at Harriet and said again, “Shall I tell the mouse, Liz? Put her out of her misery? After all, she was clever enough to get out of her little cage all by herself.”
“Tell her how clever you are, I suppose,” the woman said shortly. “And don’t call me Liz.”
“I beg your pardon, Elizabeth, companion of my bosom and joy of my private hours.” Marcus sketched a bow at her, and winked at Harriet. His high good humor seemed to infect the woman called Elizabeth, and she managed a faint smile.
“Oh, stop chattering, Mark,” she said, but her voice was softer now. “This business is bad enough without all this chatter—”
“Nervous?” he said, and his voice was silky.
“Of course I am, you fool. You would be too if—”
“If I had actually committed two murders —” he said and laughed again, and the sound of his laugh made Harriet shiver.
“Will you be quiet!” the woman cried violently, and moved forward toward Marcus threateningly. But he showed no anxiety at all, raising a hand in a pretense of surrender.
“Not to worry, sweetheart. I’m not denying I’m an accessory before, during and after a couple of inescapable and somewhat ugly facts. But fret you not, fret you not. No one will have the least idea you or I had anything to do with it, will they, Harriet, eh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Harriet cried, almost despairing. “I don’t understand— I’m frightened— I just don’t understand—”
“Are you going to cry?” Marcus sounded interested.
“No!” Harriet almost shouted it. “No—” And she didn’t, somehow.
“Mark— leave her alone. I don’t want her— excited,” the woman said sharply.
“Then let me tell her all about it, hmm? It’ll keep her enthralled for a long time— long enough, probably—”
The woman looked at him consideringly and then shrugged and turned away morosely to pour a drink for herself. And Marcus held out his glass to her, a scowl gathering on his face when she seemed unwilling to take it. But after a moment she did, an
d poured a generous drink for him.
“Last one,” she muttered, but he ignored that.
“Well, now, Harriet Darnell, let me begin at the beginning.” Marcus said pontifically and then laughed again, the easy deep laugh that had once seemed to be so exciting, but now Harriet’s frightened ears had overtones of paranoia.
“I sound like a detective hero in a B film, don’t I? ‘Collect all the suspects in the library, Stupid Sidekick, and I, the incomparable I, will reveal All, and unmask the culprit,’ ‘Yus, sir’ says Stupid Sidekick and hastes to obey. No, my film isn’t a bit like that. This time there’s no fancy detective, only me and Elizabeth. And no one will ever reveal All about us, will they, Elizabeth? Not even you, Harriet Darnell. Now, where was I —?”
It’s funny, she thought, almost dreamily. He’s got this film thing too—
“The beginning— yes,” Marcus was saying. “Well, it’s a long time ago. Nearly twenty-five years ago, to be precise. A young man left his fraternal home in Northern Ontario— which is in Canada, Harriet Darnell, in case you didn’t know— to spend some time in dear old England working in Canada House. He was left out of the army on health grounds, poor weak chap.”
Canada, thought Harriet, and the sound of the woman’s voice speaking on the telephone came back to her. Of course, that was the accent. Canadian. Not American, but softer— Canadian.
“And while he was disporting himself amid the thatched cottages and the beefeaters and the blitz and the fire-watchers and the rest of the tourist attractions, he met up with a girl, an army nurse. A charmer, no doubt. And fell in love. Isn’t that sweet and touching? But he wasn’t much of a chap, our young friend. When his charmer told him there was to be a tangible proof of his affection for her— namely, a real live and very obvious baby— he took fright and headed hotfoot back to the safety to be found in the wilds of Northern Ontario, leaving charmer and incipient baby all alone, and a promising diplomatic career in shards about his feet.”
Harriet was sitting very straight now, staring at him, only the sound of his voice breaking the silence of the room. When he paused, and the logs on the fire settled with a sharp crack, she didn’t notice even that, so fixed was her attention.
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