“What did he say?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it. He coughed and cleared his throat, and poked the fire, and then he asked me whether we’d heard any rumours. What do you suppose he meant?”
“What did you say?”
“Well, I hadn’t heard anything really, so I said I never listened to gossip. And he said, ‘Quite right—quite right,’ and blew his nose and wouldn’t say anything more except vague things like not getting drawn into any scandal, and remembering that we were two women living alone. And of course, after saying that about not listening to gossip, I didn’t like to ask what he meant—he mightn’t have thought it quite nice of me. You know, he thinks women ought to be protected from contact with the sordid side of life. He said so at lunch. He said their place was the home, and that a really nice woman asked for no higher or wider sphere. He said—”
“Why?”
“That’s the sort of woman he admires.”
“I don’t mean that. Why did he say all that about a scandal?”
“I don’t know. It sounded—well, it sounded as if Jim—”
Caroline stamped her foot.
“Pansy Ann!”
“Well, it did sound like that—and of course when Mrs Smith was scrubbing out the kitchen yesterday she did say—you know her sister-in-law’s eldest girl is kitchen-maid at Packham Hall—she did tell me—”
“Well?” said Caroline.
“You know how she talks—I wouldn’t ask her anything, but you can’t help listening—well, she says there used to be a photograph of Jim in Mrs Van Berg’s sitting-room—a big one like yours—” She paused.
Caroline did not speak; she looked instead—proudly and a little contemptuously.
Pansy’s colour rose.
“It’s no use your looking at me like that! And you didn’t let me finish. Mrs Van Berg might have fifty photographs of Jim if she liked, and if her husband didn’t mind. Even Mrs Smith didn’t mind her having the photograph.”
“What did she mind?” said Caroline in a deep, angry voice.
“Well, it isn’t there now,” said Pansy.
“Why should it be?”
“It isn’t. But it was—it was there the very day Mr Van Berg was shot, and it’s never been there since—and, as Mrs Smith says, things like that are bound to make people talk.”
Caroline turned round and went up the stair. Her door shut sharply.
XIX
Try how she would, Caroline could see no way of getting to Hale Place before Pansy Ann and the village were in bed and asleep. People in villages have terribly sharp eyes and a superhuman faculty for putting two and two together even when they don’t really exist. As for Pansy Ann, she had got over being peeved and was affectionate, clinging and conversational to the last degree. She sat up till eleven o’clock talking about Robert. This was the main theme, but it proved to be prolific in side shoots, such as, would it be tactful to insist upon new curtains and chair-covers in the drawing-room—the existing ones having been installed by Robert’s mother at a period when maroon plush was considered the last word in elegance. The contemporary chair-covers had, fortunately, disintegrated, but Robert had replaced them by an indestructible olive-green tapestry.
“Of course,” said Pansy earnestly, “I couldn’t possibly say anything until he has really proposed. But what do you think about it? Could I say something afterwards? Something on the lines of one’s room being a form of self-expression.”
Caroline shook her head.
“I shouldn’t talk about self-expression to Robert. Be Victorian. Cling—whisper in his ear that it’s been the dream of your life to make a happy home for Someone, with rose-coloured curtains and a foxglove chintz.”
“I thought of blue,” said Pansy with a rapt expression—“powder-blue, and a delphinium cretonne, and pink and purple cushions. And would you have a plain blue carpet? They show every mark.”
“It’s a case of what Robert will have,” said Caroline.
They passed presently to the wedding. Pansy had set her heart on a veil and orange-blossoms, and a white velvet dress with a court train, and Caroline for a bridesmaid, also in white, carrying lilies.
Caroline had a feeling that Robert would be a little out of the picture. To be sure, he was a fine figure of a man, well featured and neither bald nor grey, but—as far as Caroline was concerned there would always be a but.
She discussed the decorations of the church with a feeling that, to be really appropriate, they should be, not floral, but vegetable—piles of neatly scrubbed potatoes, festoons of Brussels sprouts, and good bold clumps of cabbages and marrows. There was so much solid worth about Robert; and of course solid worth was an excellent thing, and Pansy Ann would probably live happily ever after.
They passed to the trousseau and the burning question of whether it was worth while to put hand embroidery into things which might fade, if not in the first, at any rate in the third or fourth wash.
When they said good-night, Pansy became suddenly tearful.
“Perhaps I’ve just imagined the whole thing—perhaps he doesn’t care for me at all like that—perhaps it’s someone else altogether, and he was just trying to tell me about her. Why did you let me talk about my trousseau? I’m sure it’s horribly unlucky!”
Caroline felt unhappy. Pansy Ann did jump to conclusions. There was no saying—She cast about for something to say.
“If he really cares—”
“If!” said Pansy with a sob. Then, with pitiful humility, “Why should he?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Caroline kissed her. “Don’t let’s talk about it any more to-night. If he means anything he’ll write to you.”
“He said he’d write,” said Pansy, and went to bed comforted.
Before falling asleep she had decided on names for two children, a boy and a girl, to be called respectively Robert Lancelot and Pansy Elaine. In spite of the fact that she and Robert were dark, both these children were to have golden curls and eyes of forget-me-not blue. In her dreams they hovered, smiling.
Caroline passed through the village and up the drive to Hale Place in the pitch dark. There was no moon to-night; a thick haze covered the whole sky, and the air was heavy with damp. If she had not known every step of the way, she might have lost herself a dozen times. She came round the house and felt her way through the yard to the back door. She did not mind the dark loneliness of the drive, but as she came near the house, its silence and its emptiness came to meet her. She felt cold and rather frightened.
She turned the handle of the back door and pushed it open. The darkness of the passage lay before her like the darkness of a cave. She stood on the threshold and called into the darkness softly.
“Jim—”
There wasn’t any answer. What was she going to do if he didn’t answer? He might be somewhere deep in the old house—he might be asleep—he might have gone away..… No, he wouldn’t have gone away, because he had promised.
She called again, and heard the silence smother his name. The really dreadful thought that she might have to wander through the dark house looking for him turned her perfectly cold. There were cockroaches. There were probably mice. There might easily be spiders. It was a grim business. A furry thing might run across one’s foot. One might tread on something that squelched.
She called once more, and no one answered her. She was a most perfect fool not to have brought a torch. There was nothing for it but to go on.
She felt her way to the kitchen, set down the basket she was carrying, and went on until her outstretched hands touched the green baize door that shut off the servants’ wing. On the other side of it, she stood listening and searching the darkness. She was in the hall, with the staircase going up on her right, and beyond it a door leading into the drawing-room. On this side two doors, one into the dining-room and the other into the library. Both of these doors were locked on the outside. Between them the huge old-fashioned hearth with a chimney as large a
s a room.
She crossed the hall and tried the drawing-room door. That too was locked.
She had her foot on the bottom step of the stairs, when suddenly away above her in the darkness a door banged. There was the momentary flash of a torch, just a sharp stab of light, and then the sound of someone running.
Caroline shrank back against the newel. The distant door that had banged was wrenched open. Jim called out. The running feet came down the stair and passed her. There was a sound of panting breath. The torch stabbed again. She made out the black outline of a man’s head and arm, and a vague something that was head and shoulders. Then he was gone through the baize door, and with a rush of air and a swishing sound Jim had slid the banisters, jumped clear, and was after him. It all rather took her breath away. Spiders, cockroaches and mice she had been prepared for, but not a game of devil-in-the-dark.
She sat down on the stairs and waited for Jim to come back. She had to wait for what seemed like a long time. The silence settled round her. The darkness was like a thick impenetrable curtain. The air of the house was cold and dead. Caroline couldn’t make up her mind which would be worse, to hear some terrifying sound, or to go on hearing nothing. After a little she began to think she would rather hear something—anything. The silence seemed to be stopping her ears, and the black dark pressing against her eyeballs.
Then after a long time she heard Jim coming back—footsteps in the passage and the swing of the baize door. Then he was crossing the hall, walking quickly and firmly like a man who knows his way. He was actually passing her before she stood up and said,
“Jim—”
His startled “Caroline!” came from less than a yard away. Then his hand touched her face, and she gave an odd little cry. It was just like a game of devil-in-the-dark.
“Caroline! Where did you spring from?”
She caught him by the arm, holding him tight.
“Why didn’t you wait for me? It’s the horridest thing I’ve ever done in my life, coming into an empty, pitchy house like this.”
“It wasn’t empty,” said Jim a little grimly.
“That made it worse.” Her voice reached tragic depths. “I sort of strung myself up to bear spiders and cockroaches and things, but I didn’t bargain for people plunging down the stairs at me in the dark.”
“Were you there?”
“I was here—and he nearly knocked me down,” declared Caroline quite untruthfully.
Jim spoke quickly.
“You didn’t see him when he put the torch on?”
“Only his hand. Jim—who was it?”
“I wish I knew. Look here, come upstairs—we needn’t talk in the dark—I’ve found some candles.”
“I’ve brought you some—and things to eat. The basket’s in the kitchen.”
They fetched it, and came back through the hall and up the stairs. Jim put his arm round her at the top and guided her along the right-hand corridor; then to the left, two steps down, a little way along, and three steps up. A door stood open.
Jim let go of Caroline, struck a match, and lighted a candle in a tall white candlestick. The light fell yellow and soft upon a queer room panelled with oak. It had five tall, narrow windows and a deep alcove which contained an old four-post bed with a heavy valance of blue damask. The windows were shuttered and had curtains of the same damask as the bed-hangings. The fireplace was on the right of the door. It had a deep brick hearth. On the shelf above it stood the candle.
Jim shut the door.
“Come and sit down. I’ve locked the back door, so we shan’t have any more visitors.”
There were no chairs in the room. They sat side by side on the bed and looked at one another.
Moonlight can only show a ghostly image. It is like memory; it sets one aching for reality. In the candle light Caroline looked warm, and soft, and young. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks like damask roses. Jim could have kissed her for being so sweetly alive. She began to speak with a rush of words.
“Who was he? Why did he come? Tell me all about it.”
“He came in through the back door. I’d left it open for you, and I’d gone down to the kitchen to wait for you. Well, I heard the door, and of course I thought it was you, but before I had time to call out he switched on his torch and the light just caught his hand. I got back behind the kitchen door in a hurry, and he went on down the passage and into the hall. He obviously hadn’t seen me. Well, then I thought I’d find out what he was up to, so I went after him—and the light was half way up the stairs. I let him get to the top and go off to the right, and then I followed him. He turned off again and came down here. When I got to the door, he was shining his torch all round the room. I thought I’d rather like to know what he was after. I—it was rather odd—I felt as if I did know. He put down the torch, pulled out a box of matches, and struck a match. He was just going to light the candle on the mantelpiece, when I walked into the room. I ought to have waited, but the heavy householder got the better of me—there was something so damned riling about the way he struck that match!” He gave a short laugh. “I said, ‘What the something are you doing here?’ and he dropped the match, grabbed his torch, charged right into the middle of me, and banged the door in my face before I got my breath back. It makes me sound like a stiff, but he was most uncommon nippy. It was like trying to get hold of a cat. I wish I’d seen his face.”
“You didn’t—when he struck the match?”
“No. He had his back to me. The whole thing didn’t take half a minute. As I stepped into the room, he dropped the match and butted me. I hoped you’d seen him.”
“What did he want?” said Caroline.
Jim looked past her with a strained expression in his eyes.
“I—I don’t know—” There was a pause. He made a movement as if shaking something off. “He may have been a burglar—or just a common or garden tramp.”
“Yes,” said Caroline. Why did he look like that? She came a little nearer. “Jim—what’s the matter?”
He was frowning in a puzzled way.
“I dreamt about this room—it’s just come back to me.”
“There isn’t anything odd about that. Why shouldn’t you dream about it? I often dream about places I know.”
“There was something odd about it. A round room, with five windows like slits—that’s the way I dreamt about it. Why? We’ve always called it the Blue Room. Why didn’t I dream of it like that? I mean”—his frown deepened—“why should I make up a perfectly new description of it and dream of that?”
“I don’t know,” said Caroline. “You can do anything in a dream—they’re quite mad.” She slipped her hand through his arm. “Jim, I’ve got simply heaps to tell you.”
Her eyes were as eager as a child’s. The things that she wanted to tell Jim crowded together in her mind, jostling and pushing one another for first place. The last comer had it.
“Jim, I’ve been to London,” she said, and pinched his arm quite hard.
“What for?”
“To see whether it was you who signed mat old register. I thought if I went and looked we should know.”
He had a moment of sickening suspense. He said, “Well?” quietly enough.
“I know it wasn’t you—but—”
“But what?” There was the giddy feeling of being uncertain where the next step was to take him.
“It wasn’t a proper signature—just a sort of higgledy-piggledy printing. And the clerk remembered that it was because Jim Riddell had his right arm in a sling.”
The feeling of giddiness increased.
“But you haven’t had anything wrong with your arm, Jim. You haven’t—have you? And that proves that it wasn’t you.”
He was looking across at the shuttered window opposite—the narrow window with the blue curtains, the window that was like a slit. He was silent. She was getting frightened, when he said,
“I’m afraid that doesn’t prove anything. A crook might have very good reasons for not g
iving away a specimen of his handwriting. You didn’t get hold of anyone who could describe him?”
“I tried,” said Caroline. “I did try, Jim. But the woman at the address he gave said she never took men lodgers, so he must have given a false address. Then I tried Nesta Williams’ place. Her landlady was terribly chatty and all that, but as she never set eyes on Nesta’s young man, it wasn’t much good.”
Jim sat leaning forward on the bed, his elbows on his knees and rather a blank look on his face. It was as if he had put up his shutters and behind them were setting out Caroline’s puzzle pieces. They fitted into the bits that Nesta had given him and the bits which he himself had been able to produce. Up to the time of his landing his memory was perfectly clear. There was a six weeks’ gap. The pieces fitted into the gap. He had landed on the first of July. He might have married Nesta Williams on the twenty-fifth. If between the first and the twenty-fifth he had run off the rails and conceived the crazy idea of robbing Elmer Van Berg, he would probably have taken steps to cover his tracks. Why, even if crazy, he should have married Nesta Williams was beyond him. He reckoned it as a form of suicidal mania and left it at that.
XX
“I’ve got heaps more to tell you, Jim,” said Caroline. She began to pour out the story of her interview with Mrs Rodgers. “I didn’t know that I was going to follow her, but when she got out of the train, something just yanked me out of my seat and pushed me on to the platform, and the next thing I knew, we were climbing Meade Hill practically hand in hand, and I was imploring her to tell me all.”
“What did she tell you?”
“I don’t believe she’d have told me anything if she hadn’t turned out to be Nanna’s sister. I didn’t recognize her, because she used to be thin like Nanna, and now she’s exactly like a feather-bed. But she knew me at once—she said I hadn’t changed a bit.”
“No—you haven’t,” said Jim.
And that was the last moment that he could have said it, because, in the very middle of saying it, Caroline stopped being the dearly familiar child, half playmate and half sister, whom he had teased, petted and adored from the time she had first clutched at his hair with her baby fingers. Something happened, and she was a new Caroline—a Caroline whom he knew, and did not know, whose hand on his arm sent a tremor all over him. It was horribly disconcerting and embarrassing. He lost the thread of what she was saying, because there was a pounding noise in his ears. And then, there was Caroline sitting well away from him on the extreme corner of the bed and saying, in that odd deep voice of hers,
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