That cold anger gripped him hard. It turned in on himself. He’d had warnings enough, and he had refused to take them. This wasn’t Leonard’s first shot at him, not by a long chalk. The accident that hadn’t been an accident in Carrington Square. The conveniently rotten bridge over the ravine. The wheel that had come off his car on the very hill that was over him now. Even that old business of ten years ago on Croyston rocks. He believed now that on each of these occasions Leonard had tried to do him in.
He made an abrupt movement that brought him half round towards the barred entrance to the cave. Leonard and the past were pushed violently out of his mind. He bent his head and listened intently. That sound of the sea, which had been faint when first he heard it, was faint no longer. He could hear it quite plainly. Water was lapping over the sill. He could hear the smooth, glassy sound of it. Then a pause and a silence. And after the pause and the silence again that flowing glassy sound. And after each silence the sound was more. He heard a wave break against rock and fall to an unseen pool. And then another, and another. And then a booming, gurgling sound, and the rush of the sea. With ton upon ton of weight behind it, the tide was coming in.
XXXVI
Jervis did not know how long he had been listening to the tide. He was still dizzy. The sound of the water seemed to be inside his head, and the darkness pressed upon him from every side. It was a giddiness, and it passed. He set himself to order his thoughts. There had been a moment of horrid panic when he knew that the tide was coming in. It had been high tide last night—Tuesday night—at nine o’clock. It would be high tide, and spring tide, at ten minutes past eight on Wednesday morning. That made low tide just after two. It must have been somewhere about three o’clock when he was knocked out. Say that was an hour ago.… It was very difficult to gauge time, and he had no watch. He regretted his watch, with its luminous dial, a good deal. Well, if it was four o’clock or thereabouts, the tide had turned two hours before, and had another three hours to go. The question was—how far up was it going to come? He was on the landward side of the portcullis in the inner cave. Well, where did Foxy store his kegs? He didn’t just leave them banging about in the tide-water, with the chance of being stove in and a total loss of his fine French brandy. Basher, talking a long way off:
“You couldn’t get through to the house from the sea even if you had the key of the gate.”
Rosamund, a long way off,
“Why couldn’t we?”
And then Basher again,
“The passage comes out fifteen feet above the cave.”
Jervis, sixteen years away:
“Then how did they get the kegs up?”
And Basher,
“Floated ’em up. Leary devil—wasn’t he? Floated ’em up on the tide and hauled ’em in like herring.”
Fifteen feet..… Floated ’em up..… Fifteen feet of water over where he was sitting..… Floated ’em up and pulled ’em in like herring..… Fifteen feet of solid green water.
He went giddy again.
When the giddiness had passed, he heard the sea nearer, and the sound of it more restless. He strained back across sixteen years to remember just what he had seen by the light of those pilfered candle-ends. They had reached the portcullis, and thrusting their improvised torches between the bars, had strained, as he was straining, to see what might be life or death to him now. A candle on a stick makes quite a good torch, but it doesn’t last very long. He could see the little wavering flames. He could see the wax melting and running down. What else could he see? Very little. Or was it that he couldn’t remember? There was an impression of a deep pool—a pool that looked like ink; and a wall—a black wall rising beyond it. The little flickering candle flames dazzled him. This rock on which he was sitting must have been there to be seen, but he couldn’t remember that he had seen it. He could only remember the pool and the wall—the black wall, and the black pool. He would have given half of all that he possessed for one of those guttering candle-ends.
No good thinking of what he would do with something which he couldn’t possibly come by. If his head were a bit clearer, he might be able to think of something. He turned over and, lying flat on his stomach, edged in the direction in which he thought the pool lay. Presently there was going to be too much water (presently would be too late). What he wanted, and wanted badly, was something to bathe his head with now. His hand found the edge and went over it. He crawled forward, lying flat and gripping a rocky projection with his left hand, whilst with his right he reached down towards the water. It was no good. There was rock, and slime, and dark empty air, but no water. If he leaned any further, he would be over. He drew back, had a giddy moment when he felt himself slipping, jerked sideways, and was flat on the rock again. After a moment he started to crawl in another direction. This time he came up against a big sprawling boulder. His third attempt brought him to a little pool a bare foot across; his hand went into it up to the wrist. He washed his face and head, and then went on exploring.
He was on a raised ledge about six feet by eight. On one side it was bounded by a slippery tilted boulder of unknown height, and on the other three sides by an equally unknown drop. He couldn’t climb the boulder; it was water-worn and as slippery as glass. Water-worn—and that damned tide was coming in. He could hear it moving stealthily. There were no more noisy rushes. The entrance had been long ago submerged. The pools in the outer cave had filled and overflowed. The water rose quietly. When it had reached its next level, it would flood the pools immediately below him. He remembered a rise like a step on the seaward side of the portcullis. The water was lapping it now, softly, pleasantly, with here and there a little eddying gurgle.
Jervis sat up and went over his pockets again. There might be a spilled match somewhere. If he could see—if he could get behind the curtain of this darkness for a minute—a half minute—a bare second..… There must be some ledge to which he could climb..… The thought of the passage came into his mind. It opened into the cave fifteen feet up. Leonard must have brought him here by the passage. Then there must be a way down into the cave—and not too hard a way, because Leonard couldn’t have carried him down anything of a climb. He wondered if there were steps cut in the wall. If there were, there must be something to hold to. Leonard couldn’t have got him down slippery steps without some pretty good hand-purchase.
He gave up his pockets as a bad job. He hadn’t really thought there would be a match. Well—what he had to do would have to be done in the dark. He must wait until there was enough water to float him, and then swim round the cave feeling for a foot-hold. His head was better now, but he felt terribly thirsty. The lapping of the water suggested a long cool drink. His thirst became intense. Thirst, and the lapping of the tide … Thirst—and darkness—and the tide coming in … The tide coming up in the dark … If he could see … “I should hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, and crept past.” Where did that come from? He didn’t know. He must have read it. And there was something farther on about the “black minute.” Black minute—black eternity—the lapping, rising water. If he could only see …
With the word in his mind, he saw.
A harsh dragging, grating sound made a confusion amongst the echoes of the cave, and, cutting through the black darkness and the confusion, came a white and brilliant shaft of light. Jervis looked up at it, tingling with a sense of shock. Light—a level ray of it overhead. It cut the darkness and made a shining circle on the wet black wall of the cave. Jervis saw the circle before he saw the beam. It sprang out of the darkness into which he was staring, and he saw black scarred rock all wet and shining, with fissures that ran moisture. Then he looked up and saw the beam, and turned himself about to follow it to its source.
It sprang from the wall above his head. Someone had come down the passage from Old Foxy’s house and was standing in the mouth of it with a powerful electric torch in his hand; but Jervis could see nothing but the brilliant star of light and the beam that sprang from it. Then suddenly the
beam swung down and hit him in the face. He threw up his arm involuntarily, as if to ward a blow; and from the black mouth of the passage Robert Leonard laughed.
“So you’ve come to, have you?”
“Take that damned light off me!” said Jervis furiously.
He felt it go, and then flick back and catch him blinking.
Robert Leonard laughed again.
“Not looking quite your best—are you? Like a wash and brush up? Oh, I see you’ve had the wash. What about a drink? You’ve got a bit of a head, haven’t you?” As he spoke, he swung the light to and fro.
Jervis steadied himself against the intermittent dazzle, and got what he could from it. Only a four-foot drop from where he was to pool level. There were two pools, one running right back to the wall of the cave, and another between him and the iron bars. The tide was right up to the bars now, and the step was hidden. The passage from Foxy’s house had been behind him. The beam cut down from it at an angle and swung to and fro. There must be a fairly foot-worthy path between the edge of the pool and the tilted boulder, because Leonard must have brought him that way. The cave was about twenty feet across, and his rock a little on one side of the middle—say eight feet from the wall where the passage came out.
The light swung in. He saw that there was just such a narrow path as he had guessed at. The ray poured down almost vertically for a moment, and then cut right across the cave and made a steady circle on the dropping wall. Jervis guessed that the torch had been set down.
“I’ve come to talk business,” said Robert Leonard.
Jervis spoke to him for the first time. He said,
“You damned swab!”
“And I don’t want any of your back-chat,” said Leonard. His voice was the voice of a man who stands in a lounging attitude with his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got you cold—and if you haven’t got enough sense to see it, and to keep a civil tongue in your head, you can stay here and drown—it would suit me better. D’you get that? I’d sooner you were drowned—dead men tell no tales, and all the rest of it. It would suit me a whole heap better to let you drown. You get that by heart and keep it in mind!”
Jervis could just see him now that the light was still. He had set it down, not at his feet, but on some sort of ledge on a level with his hand. His hands showed, and his face, and a light patch that was collar and shirt. They looked like pale funguses in the dark. The rest was shadow.
“Well?” said the easy voice. “Going to be sensible and talk? You’re up against it, you know.”
Jervis got up and stood against the tilted boulder. He set an elbow on it and leaned’ his head on his hand. Moving made him giddy for a moment. He said,
“What do you want?”
The thing seemed still so inconceivable. His thoughts felt stiff; he couldn’t really bend them to deal with it. There was a blind rage waiting to sweep him off his feet, but he’d got to keep that back. A blind rage—a blind tide—rising tide—spring tide—storm tide—waiting to carry him away, to sweep him against the rocks, to dash him senseless, to drown the cave—and him.
He leaned heavily upon his hand. He heard Leonard speaking, but the words went by him. It was like a wrong tuning on the wireless—a blare of sound without words or sense. Then, all at once, his name sharp and clear, and the confusion gone.
“Jervis!” and, “What about it?”
He looked up stupidly, blinking at the ray.
“I didn’t hear what you said.”
Robert Leonard swore with an obvious anger which Jervis found heartening. Come to think of it, it was annoying to breathe fire and slaughter, and find that the victim hadn’t been attending. Jervis laughed inwardly.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind saying it again,” he said politely.
Once more Robert Leonard swore. He had quite an extensive vocabulary and appeared to be in good form.
“Look here, I’ve come here to talk business, not to waste my time!”
“It’s valuable of course!” said Jervis.
Leonard’s voice took on a nasty rasp.
“Yours is, if mine isn’t. D’you like being here? You’re thirsty, aren’t you? You’ll be thirstier soon, unless you’re dead. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the tide’s coming in. Well, either we’re going to talk business, or I go away and leave you—and if you’ve any idea of getting out this way yourself, you can put it out of your head. In the first place, you can’t get up without a ladder, and in the next, there’s a pretty tough gate, and when I go away I lock it behind me. See?”
He snatched up the torch and turned its circle of light straight downwards. Then with a crook of the wrist he brought it slowly up the face of the wall.
Jervis had argued that there must be steps cut in the rock. There were no steps. The rocky face hung over a little. It was sheerly unclimbable. The light came up to the ledge where Leonard stood. It was a mere sill like a wide door-step, with the mouth of the passage rising in an irregular arch above it.
Leonard swung the light round past his shoulder and let the beam play on a half open iron gate, heavy, rusty, and strong. Closed, it would fill the arch. A new chain and padlock dangled at its edge; the light picked out the bright steel links. Then the torch was set down again.
“Got that?” said Leonard. “No getting up without a ladder. The ladder’s up here, and it’ll stay here until we come to terms. Now—what about business?”
“What do you want?” said Jervis.
“Now you’re talking! It’s not so much a question of what I want—because I’ve already told you that you’d suit me best dead—it’s a case of what sort of compromise I’m willing to make. You ought to be damned glad I’m willing to compromise at all.”
Jervis kept his mouth shut. If he could have laid his hand on a loose bit of rock, he would have chanced it and had a shot at the pale blur that was Leonard’s face. But there weren’t any loose bits of rock; the drag of the tide saw to that.
Leonard went on speaking.
“I prefer you dead—but you can buy yourself off if you like.”
“Look here, Leonard—”
“I don’t want you to,” said Robert Leonard. “I keep telling you so. I want you dead. You’d be a lot safer dead. You’d be a lot safer, and I’d be a lot richer. It’s money in my pocket if you like to be a damn fool and drown.”
There was a hard, bitter silence. Jervis held his tongue, and, like David, it was pain and grief to him. The things that he would have liked to say to Robert Leonard blared in him. His head felt red-hot. His hand gripped a rib of rock, and it was not until afterwards he knew that he had cut it deeply across the palm.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” Leonard’s voice was careless again. “No? Beast of a temper you’ve got—haven’t you? Nasty, sulky brute of a temper! It’ll get you into trouble if you don’t look out—bad trouble. Well, if you’re not going to ask me why it would be money in my pocket if you insist on drowning, I’ll tell you all the same, because I’d sooner have all the cards on the table. Mine are all aces, so I don’t mind showing them. If you’re dead, Rosamund gets King’s Weare and the cash—and what Rosamund gets I get. You see, she couldn’t marry you the other day, because she was married already. We’ve been married eleven years.”
“Is that true?” said Jervis sharply.
“You’ve got a nasty unbelieving nature as well as the devil of a temper! I don’t think you’ll be missed if the tide gets you. True? Of course it’s true! I married Rosamund the day she was twenty-one. So you see you’ve kept us out of King’s Weare a good long time. You know, I shouldn’t have been heart-broken if you’d been drowned when you came to grief on the rocks at Croyston ten years ago.”
“You were married to Rosamund then?”
“We’d been married a year. It would have been very convenient if you’d been drowned. I merely mention this to show you that I’ve waited quite long enough, and I’m getting a bit impatient.”
“What do you want?” said Jervis.
>
“Thirty thousand pounds,” said Robert Leonard.
“Talk sense!” said Jervis contemptuously. The sum staggered him.
“Sense?” said Leonard. “I’m giving you your life, aren’t I? If I lock that gate behind me and leave you here, I get King’s Weare and eighty thousand—don’t I? I’m asking you a bare third—I might take the whole. I’ve only got to leave you here.”
“Then why don’t you?” said Jervis.
He really wanted to know. If Leonard was married to Rosamund, it was quite obvious that Jervis Weare was worth a good deal more to him dead than alive. Leonard had put the matter in a nutshell. Only why didn’t he crack the cut—why any hesitation about leaving Jervis to drown? He felt quite unable to credit Leonard with a qualm of conscience.
He waited for an answer to his “Why don’t you?”
“Rosamund has an objection,” said Leonard regretfully.
Jervis threw up his head and laughed.
“Not really! May I ask why?”
“Sentiment,” said Leonard.
“Rosamund!”
“You wouldn’t suspect her of it. But that’s how it is with women—you never know where you are—and it’s lucky for you. If you ask me, I should say thirty thousand is letting you off dirt cheap. You’d better close before I raise it.”
There was a pause. Then Jervis laughed again.
“In case you’re forgetting it, this is the twentieth century. One doesn’t just disappear, and no notice taken.”
“Who’s going to disappear?” said Leonard. “You either pay up, and explain your absence any way you like, or else—”
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