Female of the Species

by Sapper

  He could – just, and in an instant he had swung himself through the hole and disappeared from view.

  “Splendid.” His face reappeared through the hole. “Plenty of room for all three of us. Come along, Dixon – I’ll pull you up.”

  He got me by the wrists, and heaved me up beside him as easily as I would lift a child. And then Toby Sinclair followed.

  “Take away the chair and the table, Peter,” he said. “And for the love of Allah bring back a dozen with you in your pockets. My mouth is like an asbestos washer.”

  “We’ll come back, old boy, as soon as we possibly can,” said Darrell. “I’ll drive your car, and take Dixon’s bicycle. And we shall say that you have been suddenly summoned to London for failing to pay the poor girl her weekly postal order if any questions are asked.”

  “Say what you like,” said Drummond resignedly. “But bring me beer.”

  And so commenced a weary vigil. A passage, evidently communicating with the rest of the network, led out of our hiding-place, but there was no longer any incentive to explore. All we could do was to sit and wait until the others came back and told us the coast was clear. And that might not be for hours. In fact it seemed to me that anyway it would be unsafe to go before night, if we were to succeed in getting away unseen. Which left us with the joyful prospect of spending fourteen or fifteen hours in the most acute discomfort.

  Suddenly Drummond sat up and put a finger to his lips. I had heard nothing myself, but as I had already discovered all his senses seemed twice as keenly developed as my own. And after a while I too heard a creak on the stairs outside, and then another.

  “Not a sound,” he breathed. “But if they find us we’ve got to sock ’em. Keep back from the opening or they may see us.”

  We drew back so that we could only just see the doorway, and waited. There was someone coming along the passage now, and a moment or two later our friend of the damaged hand put his head cautiously round the corner. Then he spoke to someone behind him.

  “All right,” he called out. “Come on.”

  The woman joined him.

  “What’s the use?” she said peevishly. “You’re not going to find him here.”

  “Cut it out,” he snarled. “If Jim was in the passage when the door gave with the water he may have escaped up this end, and be waiting inside.”

  He tugged on the sixth ring, and the secret door swung open once more. Then he disappeared down the passage while the woman leaned against the wall.

  “Not a sign.” He came back into the room and closed the door. “But those three guys have bunged that madman’s body into the water.”

  He stood in the centre of the room gnawing his fingers.

  “I wonder how much they knew?” he muttered.

  “What does it matter what they knew,” said the woman. “Let’s get out of this – I’m fed up.”

  “You’ll get a clip under the jaw in a minute,” he remarked. “We’re getting a couple of hundred of the best for this job, and you ain’t likely ever to earn a couple of hundred pence with a face like yours.”

  “Well, what is it you want to know?” cried the woman irritably.

  “Whether those other three guys – the ones that came down to us – are really below there.”

  “Heaven save the man, where else can they be?” She stamped her foot. “You got ’em in the room, didn’t you? And you locked ’em in the room, didn’t you? And you turned on the gas, didn’t you? And they were still in the room twenty minutes after. Where else can they be now?”

  “I’d like to have seen ’em,” he muttered.

  “Well, since you ain’t a ruddy fish, you can’t,” she remarked. “I’m going. I want some sleep.”

  She paused in the doorway.

  “Come on, Bill,” she said in a milder voice. “It’s clear enough what happened. When Jim pulled the lever he didn’t get out quick enough. He got caught by the water, poor old stiff – and he’s down there himself now. And so are the other three.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he answered. “We’ll push off.”

  And then he glanced up towards the ceiling.

  “What about putting that stone back?”

  “Leave it,” said the woman. “If anyone gets into trouble it’s going to be those three who were fooling around outside. Nobody knows we’ve been here, and nobody ever will if you’ll only get a move on instead of standing there like a dummy. Besides, you ought to have that hand of yours looked at.”

  “Blast that big fellow,” said the man venomously. “I’d give something to have a once over with him.”

  The woman laughed shortly.

  “You would,” she said. “From what I saw of him you’d give up every hope of ever being recognised again. He’d eat you – with one hand. Come on – or I’ll fall asleep where I stand. The telegraph-office won’t be open till nine, and there’s nothing to be done till then. You’ve got her address, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve got the usual one,” he answered, following her from the room.

  Their voices died away as they went along the passage, and I thought the unfortunate Drummond was going to have an apoplectic fit.

  “Just as we were getting something useful,” he groaned. “An address. The address.”

  “Probably only an accommodation one,” said Toby sleepily. “Wake me if I snore, chaps, but I must have a bit of shut eye.”

  And still sleep would not come to me. I got into every conceivable position I could think of – I counted innumerable sheep going through a gate: but at the end of an hour I was wider awake than ever. The other two were peacefully unconscious, and at last I gave up trying. It was as well, in any case, that one of us should remain on guard, and so I settled myself as comfortably as I could and waited for the time to pass. From below came the occasional crack of a board as the sun’s warmth began to penetrate into the house, but except for that no sound broke the silence. Seven o’clock came – eight: in my imagination I could smell the smell of hot coffee and bacon and eggs. I could see racks of toast and marmalade disappearing down the throats of the other three thugs at the Angler’s Rest. And I wondered why Heaven was treating me so. To the best of my belief I was no worse than other men. Within reasonable limits I had paid my just whack of Income Tax: I had, only recently, registered enjoyment over the acidulated beverage which my Aunt Jane fondly imagined to be port. And as a reward I found myself sitting in an attic, several inches of dust and a bad smell on a beautiful summer’s morning. Moreover when I gazed into the vista of the future all I could see was myself disguised as a German tourist, or the hind legs of a cow having fun and games in even more damnable spots than the one in which I was at present. Emphatically not what the doctor had ordered…

  I shifted my position so as to distribute the cramp more evenly throughout my anatomy, and in doing so I saw into the room below. Just the same except that the shadow thrown by the open door had moved as the sun got higher. A simple little problem in trigonometry, I reflected. If the door was eight feet high and the shadow was nine feet long what was the height of the sun above the horizon? Door over shadow was tangent of the angle. Or was it cosine? Anyway one would want a book of logarithms… One would want…

  My tongue grew suddenly dry. The height of the sun above the horizon had nothing to do with the sudden eddy of dust that swirled up in the passage outside. Nor had it anything to do with another shadow that had just appeared – the shadow of a human being. Someone was outside: someone whom I could not see – yet.

  I glanced round at the other two. They were six or seven feet away: to wake them up would cause noise. Moreover they were sleeping silently, so it was best to leave them as they were.

  Once more I turned back to the room: the shadow had materialised. Standing in the doorway was a woman – one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. I put her age at about thirty, though it may have been two or three years more. She was, as far as my masculine eye could judge, perfectly dressed �
� but it was her face, or rather her expression, that held me spellbound. There was contempt in it, and hatred – and yet, mingled with them, a sort of pity and regret. Once her eyes travelled to the bolts in the wall, and she smiled – a lazy, almost Oriental smile. And then she did an extraordinary thing. Still standing motionless she glanced upwards. Not at me, not at the hole in the ceiling, but as a woman looks up in prayer. The whole expression of her face had changed: there was in it now a wonderful triumph. Her eyes were half-closed: her whole body seemed to relax into utter surrender. And suddenly she spoke: “I would have kept him till last, my loved one – but it was not to be. But there are still the other three – and her. After I will come to you.”

  And then it seemed to me that she took in her arms a head I could not see – and kissed lips that to her were real. Lingeringly, passionately – as a woman kisses her lover. Gradually her arms fell to her side, and for a while she stood with her face transfigured and her eyes closed. Then she drew herself up: the vision had vanished. She gave one more glance round the room and was gone, leaving no trace of her visit save a faint, elusive scent. Jasmine – and yet not quite jasmine, something I had never smelt before – something I could never mistake in the future. Something unique, something in keeping with the woman herself. For she had seemed to me in that moment of self-revelation, when she spoke to the unseen, to be of the type for whom men will sacrifice their honour and even their lives.

  Stiffly, like a man waking from a dream, I moved over to Drummond and shook him by the shoulder.

  “What is it?” he said, instantly awake.

  “Your friend Irma has been here,” I answered quietly.

  “What!” he almost shouted. “Then why in hell…”

  He was standing up in his excitement, but with an effort he pulled himself together. “How do you know it was her? Tell me about it.”

  He listened in perfect silence whilst I told him what I had seen.

  “I couldn’t wake you without making a noise,” I said when I had finished. “And I don’t know,” I added candidly, “that I could have wakened you anyway. I watched that woman almost as if I had been in a trance. But one thing is certain – she thinks you are dead. Another thing is certain – she is going for the other three. And your wife. And then she will commit suicide.”

  “You think she’s mad,” said Drummond.

  “No, I don’t think that she’s mad. I think she’s more dangerous even than that. She’s a woman with an obsession – a mission in life. That man she spoke to was real to her – as real as you are to me. He is still her lover – though he is dead. And her mission is to revenge his death. She’s got foreign blood in her, and if I wanted any more proof then I have had already as to the seriousness of this show I’ve got it now. This is a vendetta – and only your deaths will finish it.”

  “Perhaps it’s as well he didn’t wake you up, Hugh,” said Toby thoughtfully. “You can bet she’s covered her traces pretty effectually, and what could you have done if you had caught her? It wouldn’t have helped you to find Phyllis. In addition you’d have given away the fact that you’re not dead.”

  “You may be right,” agreed Drummond at length. “But, by Jove! I’d like to have seen her. You’d recognise her again, Dixon?”

  “In a million,” I said. “And I’d recognise that scent.”

  “Which is less likely to change than her appearance,” he remarked shortly. And then he frowned suddenly. “You’re quite certain, aren’t you, that it was genuine – this performance of hers? I mean you don’t think that she knew we were here and did it to bluff us.”

  “If that show wasn’t genuine,” I said, “she is the most marvellous actress the world has ever seen. No: I’m certain it was pukka.”

  He grunted thoughtfully and sat down again.

  “Perhaps so,” he said after a while.

  “Besides,” I went on, “what could be her object in doing it if she knew we were here?”

  “When you know the lady as well as I do,” he answered, “you’ll realise that she doesn’t conform to ordinary rules.”

  He relapsed into silence, his chin sunk on his chest, and for the first time the full realisation of what we were engaged in came to me. Before, this woman had been a legendary figure: a writer of would-be flippant letters – a maker of skilfully devised death-traps. Dangerous certainly – more than dangerous – but with at any rate some idea of making a sporting game of it. I had believed that if we did pull through, if we did follow the clues successfully, she intended to play the game and restore Drummond’s wife to him. And I had believed that she proposed to give us a sporting chance of so doing. Now I believed it no longer.

  However much Drummond might doubt it I knew that what I had seen was genuine. The woman had ceased to be a legend and had become a reality – a reality ten times more dangerous than any legend. Gone was any hope of a sporting chance: she meant and always had meant to kill the lot of us. What strange jink in her brain had made her decide on this particular method of doing so was beside the point – probably the same jink that makes a cat play with a mouse before finishing it off. The cruelty that lies latent in the female. And she was gratifying that whilst pursuing her inexorable purpose. Letting us think we were playing a game, whilst all the time she had no intention of playing herself. Letting us think we had a chance of success, whilst all the time we had none.

  For what chance had we? True by the most marvellous fluke we had escaped the night before – but flukes cannot continue indefinitely. Sooner or later she would have us, as she had always meant to have us. And the cellar below showed exactly the amount of mercy we should receive.

  What chance had Drummond against such an antagonist? I glanced at him, sunk in thought, his great fists clenched by his side. Let him get his hands on anything on two legs – well and good. God help the thing! But this wasn’t a question of brute strength: this was a question of cunning and brain. This wasn’t man to man: this was a human being against mechanical traps. Strength was of no avail against poison gas and specially prepared devices.

  I wondered if he was even now thinking out some plan of campaign. To meet guile with guile was our only hope, and somehow he didn’t strike me as being the right man for that. Something to hit hard and often and he won in a canter: but first find the thing to hit.

  “Gosh! I hope they’ve brought the beer.”

  I sighed a little wearily: such was our leader’s mentality.

  “Doubtless they will when they come,” I assured him.

  “When they come!” he grunted. “You wouldn’t hear a howitzer going off in the next room, laddie. They have come. That flat-footed blighter Algy has fallen over his own feet twice already. Cultivate the old ears, Dixon: in the dark they’re worth more to you than your eyes.”

  “Damn the man,” I reflected, but a suitable reply eluded me. For I could hear absolutely nothing even then.

  “I wonder if they butted into little Pansy?”

  He got up and yawned prodigiously, and as he did so I heard cautious footsteps coming along the passage. The next moment Peter Darrell appeared in the door followed by the other two.

  “All right, Hugh?”

  “Thirsty, Peter – darned thirsty. Where’s the ale?”

  He lowered himself through the hole and dropped to the floor.

  “We’ve got a dozen, old boy. Is that enough?”

  “Do you drink beer, Dixon?” asked Drummond, looking up.

  “Not usually at this hour of the morning,” I answered.

  “Thank God for that,” he said in a relieved voice. “It’s a most deplorable habit, and I’m glad you don’t suffer from it. Incidentally, chaps, you haven’t run into Irma by any chance, have you?”

  “Well I’m damned!” Jerningham glanced at Darrell. “Why do you ask, Hugh?”

  “Because according to Dixon the poppet has been here, holding spiritual converse with our late lamented Carl. Of course he doesn’t know the darling by sight, and Toby and I
were both asleep. But from his account of the interview it must have been her.”

  He paused with his glass half-way to his mouth.

  “Have you seen her?”

  “As we were leaving the village, old boy,” said Jerningham, “a closed car, going fast, met us. And as we passed it a woman looked out of the window. Peter was driving, and Algy was in his usual condition of comatose imbecility, so it was only I who saw her. I just got a fleeting glimpse, but I thought it was Irma myself. I wasn’t sure: but from what you say it must have been. I tried to get the number of the car, but the road is dusty and I couldn’t see it. And then just as I was telling Peter, we went and punctured. Otherwise we could have followed. What did she come here for?”

  “To gloat over my corpse, Ted, and to assure Carl that you three weren’t forgotten,” said Drummond. “She’s out for the lot of us.”

  “Bless her little heart,” remarked Peter. “But she’ll have to be a bit more explicit as far as I’m concerned.”

  He produced a copy of The Times from his pocket.

  “Here’s the invitation to the party: but Allah alone knows what it means.”

  He pointed to two verses in the Personal Column. They were headed – “To dear Hugh.”

  “A lily with the plural put before

  A thing of beauty, but in this case, more

  Like the fair lady whom you met last night.

  When found, at any rate, you’ll start quite right.

  Dipped in the river Styx one part alone stayed dry.

  Leave out the next, but take the cry

  Of every schoolboy. That should give a man.

  And now, you poor fish, find it if you can.”

  “Does anyone know the story of the girl who went to a fancy dress ball dressed as a lily,” said Algy hopefully.

  “Sit on his head,” groaned Peter. “What the hell does it mean?”

  Chapter 10

  In which the third clue is solved

  I have said earlier that this is my first essay in writing, but I should imagine that one of the rules must be to refrain as far as possible from boring the misguided optimists who are endeavouring to wade through the completed effort. And, therefore, I will refrain from giving any description of the rest of that day. It had been unanimously decided that it would be unsafe for Drummond, Sinclair and me to leave before nightfall if we were to avoid any risk of being spotted. And so beyond mentioning that the beer expired shortly after midday, that Toby Sinclair revoked twice at bridge and was soundly beaten by Drummond for his pains, and that I got an acute attack of the hiccoughs due to ale on an empty stomach, I will draw a veil over our doings. Quiet reigned on the Western Front, broken only by the curses of the particular individual who was, at the moment, wrestling with the doggerel in The Times.