What that discovery meant took a year from my life: for it meant that before the darkness I was a broken reed, and when I looked to the head-lights to get my bearings afresh, their beam was gone.
10: I Am Hoist with My Own Petard
I shook the sweat from my eyes and tried to think what to do. And since my thoughts were frenzied and mostly poisoned by the knowledge of what I ought to have done, I will not recite them here, but will state what, upon reflection – if, indeed, you can give it that name – I set out to do.
I set out to find Percy Virgil.
The man would not look for his cousin. He would assume, with reason, that she was out of his range – for the moment, at any rate. But he knew that I was still there, because of the snap of the stick. And if he could find Richard Exon before Richard Exon found him, he might even yet save the game because he was armed. I did not have to be told that he was standing or moving, pistol in hand. And if he was moving…and if, as he moved, he discovered Elizabeth Virgil… He would not have to fire: he need only tighten the halter about her neck: and then pass on in silence in search of Richard Exon, who left his helpless darling to care for herself.
I stifled a groan and felt again for the corpse. Then I picked up the lines of the ridge-poles against the sky. And then I began to steal forward to where, I believed, was the car.
I wish that I could describe the blindness that ruled that court. God knows what disorder of nature provoked such gloom, but the place was steeped in a darkness which I had never conceived. I can well believe Palfrey was cursed, for I never yet heard of shadows to which the eye of man could not accustom itself. But here I could see no better than I had seen when I first drove into the court. And when I say I might have been blindfold, I say no more than the truth.
Now I had seen Elgar coming because he was silhouetted against the dusk which was keeping the world without. And since I had no wish to offer to Virgil the target which Elgar had offered to me, I dropped to the cobbles and once more began to crawl.
To say that I watched and prayed means nothing at all. 1 moved like any shadow and listened with all my might. Elizabeth’s life might depend on my hearing the enemy move, and I made the slowest progress because my own advance was bound to embarrass my ear. I tried to keep the direction I hoped was right by glancing up at the ridge-poles from time to time, but the court was so broad that they gave me but little help, and after a minute or two I could be sure of nothing except that I was not heading away from the house. This horrid uncertainty sent me half out of my mind. The thought that, for all I knew, I was actually creeping by inches away from the car pricked me into a frenzy which I could scarcely control, and more than once I almost made up my mind to get up and run to where I believed it to be.
And then I heard Virgil move.
The man was away to my right, and his foot had touched something that stirred – I think, perhaps, a flinder of broken slate.
I shall never forget that almost imperceptible sound that stood up out of the silence to make me a finger-post, for it was so slight, yet commanded the balance of life and death.
With a hammering heart, I turned at once to my right, no longer pausing to listen, but using the utmost care to deny to Virgil the cue he had given to me.
Before I had covered six feet, my outstretched hand met something that did not belong to the court. It might have been a silk tassel…
And then I knew I was touching Elizabeth’s hair.
I could have wept for relief…
Now had I not been sure that Virgil was near, I would have picked her up and run for the woods: but he must have heard me moving and almost at once have seen me against the dusk, and then we should have been at his mercy, because he was armed. And so I determined that we must both stay where we were, unless and until something happened to make it less dangerous to move.
To show her that it was I, I smoothed her hair and held her hands tight in mine. Then, very gently, I eased the knot from her throat and lifted the cord from her neck. That done, it seemed best to bestride her, as though I were a man in some battle bestriding his fallen chief, for so, if Virgil came up, I stood more chance of saving her precious life: and when I had strained my ears, but had heard no sound, I put down my hands and began to unfasten the cord which was binding her wrists…
Her blessed hands were free, and her fingers, as though to thank me, were fast upon mine, when something moved upon her, directly below my face. It was a sliding movement upon the breast of her frock, for I was standing across her, with my back to her feet. As it moved, I felt her stiffen; and so I knew it had nothing to do with her; and when I put down a hand, I found that it was the halter which had been about her neck.
As I touched it, it moved again – and told me the truth.
Percy Virgil was feeling the other end.
For once my brain worked quickly.
Virgil had found the cord and knew what it was. And now he was testing it – to see if both ends were free. If I gradually took the strain, he would believe it still fast to Elizabeth’s neck, and would lead himself up to his quarry, hand over hand. Up to his helpless quarry? Up to his doom.
I took the loop in my hand and set out to play my fish…
He came with a rush at the last, and, with both of his hands on the cord, he had no chance.
Before the man knew where he was, I had his wrists.
His hands were empty. No doubt, when he found the cord, he had put his pistol away. Be that as it may, he was finished. The snake was scotched.
Of course he fought like a madman. And I – I laughed in his face. It was he that had lent me a strength which was not of this world. I think, if I had pleased, I could have torn his arms from their sockets and tossed them across the court.
I let him fight in silence, and when he was spent, I spoke to Elizabeth, lying two paces away.
“Stay where you are, my lady, and take out your gag.”
She answered at once.
“It’s out, and my feet are free. You haven’t forgotten Elgar?”
“I’ve dealt with Elgar,” I said. “Can you make out the mouth of the court?”
“I think so. It’s lighter there.”
“That’s right. Can you manage to walk? Or are your ankles too stiff?”
“I’m quite all right,” she answered. “I’m standing now.”
“Then listen,” said I. “I want you to leave the court. When you’re clear of it, wait for me. I may be a little while, because of this cursed dark: but—”
“Let me stay here, I beg you.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I can’t have you on in this scene.”
“Richard, I’m frightened. Supposing—”
“Only one thing can help him now. And that is your disobedience to what I say.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Then —
“Very well,” said Elizabeth, shakily.
“Let me hear you move,” said I.
I heard her turn and start moving towards the mouth of the court.
“Come,” said I to Virgil. “Let’s look for the sepulchre.”
With that, I turned him about; without loosing his wrists. While I think that he tried to prevent me, I cannot be sure, for his efforts counted with me no more than the play of a child: but in any event, once turned, he could struggle no more, for, now that his arms were twisted, the slightest attempt to resist me entailed unbearable pain. Then I urged him before me towards where I thought was the well.
Now I meant to find that well, if it took me an hour and a half: and so, as is often the way, I found it almost at once. At least, I found the car, which was near enough – or, rather, my prisoner found it, by fouling one of its wings. Slowly I steered him round it… And so, a few moments later – we stood by the side of the well.
To be sure, I circled this, brushing the parapet’s side and counting the three stone statues of men-at-arms – with Virgil always moving before me, because I had hold of his wrists. And then I
turned him round and bent him over its edge…
“I’m going to kill you,” I said, “because I know it’s not safe to let you live. If it was safe, I’d thrash you within an inch of your life, and then call in the police and give them the inch that was left. But you have taught me tonight that, while you are still in being, your cousin will always go in danger of death. And so, for once in a way, I’ll take a leaf out of your book, and go all lengths.”
The man said nothing at all, but I could feel him trembling under my hand.
As I bent him over the depths, I knew he was bracing his knees against the parapet’s wall, and God knows I did not blame him, for as I leaned over above him, the awful breath of the water smote my face. It was chill, yet heavy, and reeked of death and decay, and it offered so dreadful an earnest of what was to come that for one instant I flinched from thrusting a fellow creature to such a doom.
I suppose that he felt me falter, for he threw his weight on to his knees in one final, desperate effort to hold himself back.
This, to no avail. For the parapet crumbled before him, and we went down together into the well.
Now for Virgil I cannot answer, but it is a remarkable fact that, though our descent to the water can hardly have taken more than one second of time, I was able to decide quite clearly, before we struck, that, while I must do what I could to save my life, before I did anything else I must put Virgil to death. In that period I also remembered that I had ordered Elizabeth out of the court and that so she would be out of earshot if I were to call. I was actually thinking this over and was weighing the pros and cons of calling at all – for if I called and she came, she might fall into the well – when at last we hit the water, and thoughts and resolutions were, so to speak, blown to bits.
This was natural enough, if for no other reason, because I had never expected the water to be so cold. God knows what springs they were that fed that terrible well, but they proved their own descent, for the lymph of the snows that sired them ran in their silver veins: and though once, for a wager at Oxford, I bathed when ice was about, I will swear that the pool I then entered was warmer than that which was lying in Palfrey’s well.
I do not know how far I went down, but I know that my lungs were bursting before I came up, and the first thing I clearly remember was scrabbling upon a wall that was coated with slime and finding a crack too small to admit my finger-tips. Then I heard Virgil rise beside me – for, of course, I had let him go – and that restored in an instant the wits I had lost.
I missed his throat in the darkness, but found his wrist: but both of us knew that the odds were now more equal than they had been in the court. With a frightful laugh, he flung an arm round my neck, and I had just time to draw breath before that hellish water once more closed over our heads. I tore away his arm, but before I could seize his throat, his arm was back on my neck. Again I cast it off and forced his wrists together into one hand; but, as we rose again, he locked his legs about mine and threw his weight down. And then I thought I was done, for though at last I had managed to seize his throat, I could not kick us up to the surface, nor spare a hand to deal with the grip of his legs. Unless I could kill him quickly… I put forth all my strength, and my fingers sank into his throat as though it were dough.
The blood was pounding in my temples and I felt that my senses were swaying for want of air, when all of a sudden his limbs and his body went slack and I knew I was free… And then I was back on the surface and was blowing like any grampus and thanking God for the gift of that tainted air.
Now whether in fact I killed Virgil or whether he drowned himself in an effort to end my life, I never shall know: but I know that the man was dead or else had lost his senses and so was presently drowned, for though he rose beside me, he never moved and I think that after a little he sank for good.
Though my case was not so bad, it was evil enough.
I was not wholly exhausted, but the struggle had sapped my strength, and I badly needed the respite I could not take. As was to be expected, the walls of the well were smooth, and though I proved them all round, dislodging slugs and slime and all manner of filth, I could find no sort of handhold to which I could cling. There were cracks in plenty between the blocks of stone of which the walls had been built, for either they had not been cemented, or else the cement was gone: but they were too small for my fingers, and there was nothing else.
All the time my strength was failing, for the deadly chill of the water was laying hold of my muscles and stealing into my blood, and though I did what I could to hold it at bay, the realization that I must very soon sink began, as an ill-mannered bully, to thrust aside my efforts to think what to do to be saved. Indeed, I sometimes think that a wiser man than I would have faced the unpleasant fact that his hour was come and would so have allowed himself some peace at the last, but, perhaps because of Elizabeth waiting above, I would not read the writing upon the wall.
To show how desperate I was, I wasted the last of my strength in a frantic effort to find Elizabeth’s key – this, with the mad idea of thrusting it into a crack and so creating a projection to which I could cling, and though, I suppose, a more utterly futile design was never conceived, as luck would have it, it actually saved my life.
To get a hand into my pocket was very hard, but the moment my fingers were in, they closed upon something which I had not known was there. And that was the humble tool which once already that night had saved two lives. It was the screwdriver, indeed.
I cannot explain its presence: but my habit has always been to some extent to care for my car myself, and, when I am at work, unless they are unwieldy, I always pocket my tools. And so, I suppose, without thinking, I did as I always do. Be that as it may, in a twinkling I had the screwdriver out and had pressed its blade into a crack perhaps some eight to ten inches above my head.
Praying that the steel was honest, I gradually let the handle take some of my weight, and when I found that it would hold me, I let it take more. But for the help of the water, it must have bent or broken beneath my weight; but the two together bore me and gave me just that respite my weary muscles required. And, what was still more important, it gave me a definite hope that, though my plight was serious, I might in the end be saved.
And then I heard Elizabeth calling my name…
For a moment I thought very fast. Then —
“Lie down,” I yelled. “Lie down and crawl slowly forward. I’m down in the well, but lie down. The parapet’s gone.”
Perhaps two minutes went by: and then a fragment of mortar fell down by my side.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Stay still. You’re right on the edge.”
Elizabeth answered at once.
“I quite all right, my darling. What shall I do?”
I wonder how many women, so placed, would so have comported themselves. No wailing, no useless inquiries, no bubbling statements of how she came to be there… Only the eager question – ‘What shall I do?’
And I was ready enough. Whilst she was approaching, I had not been wasting my time.
“Find the car,” I said. “When you’ve found her, switch on her lights. Then back her slowly towards the mouth of the court. Her lights will show you the cord that I took from your neck. Take that and the pieces that bound your ankles and, wrists. Then back the car again till you see your dressing-case. Put that into the car, and then drive slowly forward until your lights are shining full on the well. When you’ve done that, come back and I’ll tell you some more.”
“All right.”
How long she was gone, I cannot pretend to say, but she must have been very quick, for though the time passed slowly, at the moment at which I pictured her finding the case, the rim of the well above me grew suddenly bright. Then she must have ‘dipped’ the lamps, for the light came down – to reveal a ladder of dogs driven into the wall of the well.
Some wells have ladders like that, to the water’s edge, and at once I left my hand-hold and, swimming beneath the ladder, stretche
d up my hand. But the dogs did not come so low… For all that, I was sure that they could not be far away, because a ladder is useless, unless it runs some way down.
As I returned to my screwdriver —
“Yes, Richard?” said Elizabeth, quietly.
“Tie all the cord together and add the strap. Then open the tool-box and take the tool-kit out. If there are tyre-levers there, I want them most. If not, the nearest thing to them – tools that will bear my weight. And a hammer, too. Put them into one of your stockings and let them down. We’ve got to make thirty-eight feet. If you don’t think it’s long enough, you must add what stockings you have.”
It cost me a lot not to add Be as quick as you can, for my faithful friend was tiring – bending beneath the strain; but such a charge would only have made her frantic, when all the time she was being as quick as she could.
I must confess that this time she took longer than I had hoped; but I am afraid that she suffered far more than I, for the tool-box proved to be hidden and she was beside herself before at last she found it beneath the floor.
The delay was serious, for every moment now I was growing more cold. My teeth were beginning to chatter: my fingers were growing numb: and though I did what I could by wriggling my body and limbs to encourage my blood to run, I knew that my circulation was steadily slowing down.
I thrust the reflection aside and glanced again at the glow which was lighting the ladder above…
At last a shadow appeared.
“I’m ready, my darling. Which side shall I let it down?”
“D-D’you see the ladder?”
I stammered in spite of myself.
“Yes.”
“L-Let it down just clear of the ladder. Which side you l-like. Don’t lean on the parapet, whatever you do.”
She Painted Her Face Page 20