“Don’t hurt the kids. What harm can they do you?”
The man’s grin tightened. His nostrils went white as if he were angry.
“Think again, girl! They got tongues, haven’t they? What would you do, if I let you go?”
What was the good of trying to placate this devil?
“Go to the police.”
“Or the Home Guard, eh? Wouldn’t our friend Humphries just sparkle in the part of the man who puts his country before his love. Well, I’m not going to let you go, sweetheart! So what?”
“I might try to de-materialise.” Why reply at all to words which were only taunts? Well, because time, such little poor trickle of time as there was, was on Kate’s side, not Morrison’s.
“You might, indeed, but it would be a long study, and I ain’t going to allow time for it,” said Morrison. “Good-bye, Donna Quixote de la Mancha! You haven’t made such a great success of your own plans. But you’ve sure thrown the whole tool-box into the works of mine, so let that be your comfort—”
Kate tried not to shut her eyes. But the explosion banged them shut. Had he missed? Surely one does not hear and have time to speculate about, the explosion from the pistol which is aimed at one’s own heart? Thought flies quickly, but not so quickly as this. There was a small crash on the floor.
Morrison’s pistol was on the floor. Morrison’s torch was on the floor, directing a bright beam at the toe of his brown canvas shoe, which was twisting slowly round, as though for some reason he had risen on his toes and were performing a right-about turn on them. Morrison himself, with an expression of strange, remote and glassy surprise upon his face, his hands clutched at his chest, was falling forwards, was on the floor. The posts and tie-beams, in the light of Kate’s limply-swinging torch, seemed to sway and dip crazily, then, as her fingers tightened, righted themselves. A little darker piece of darkness detached itself from the rafters and went looping and swooping over the floor, appearing and disappearing. Dust rose slowly around the figure of Morrison extended quite still upon the dusty boards.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A smell like fireworks was in Kate’s nose and throat. Colin, behind her at the open frame, said close to her ear:
“That was a near thing!”
At his voice, breathless and shaken, but so fresh and light in quality after the grating nasal tones of the man Morrison, the scene lost its nightmare quality for Kate. That was only a frightened bat, poor creature, not a swooping emanation of evil and the darkness. The queen-posts stood as rigid and upright as they had stood for centuries. She gave a little relieving sob.
“Poor Kate, I oughtn’t to have left you alone, said Colin, climbing in. “It was all for nothing, too. The car’s gone.”
“Oh Colin, the doors were all locked! And I left the pistol behind!”
“Take this one,” said Colin, nodding towards the weapon that lay on the floor out of reach of Morrison’s outstretched, unmoving hand. Kate picked it up.
“Colin, he’s not dead?”
“Indeed, he is,” said Colin gravely. “And we won’t waste tears on him.”
“It seems so sudden and so ordinary. He was there, he was terrifying and now—”
“People of Baum’s kind don’t often die to slow music in their beds, I fancy.”
“Baum?”
“That was the name he went by in Rio. And it was his real name, I believe. He was a dealer in works of art, then, or posing as one. His real activities were those of a Nazi agent.”
“A German?”
“Yes, mostly. American-born.”
“Did you know him, Colin?”
“No, but I saw him several times in Rio, when I was there eighteen months ago.”
Colin, to Kate’s impatience, went on his knees beside the dead man and started turning out his pockets.
“Oh, must you do that now, Colin?”
“Yes, I must. It’s what I’m here for, apart from looking after you... In Rio, I thought spies and all that sort of thing were a great joke. But when I came across this chap in London almost as soon as I got home, calling himself Morrison and playing the philanthropist, he didn’t seem a joke at all. I was almost sure it was Baum, but I wasn’t quite sure until I tracked him up here and saw his wife. If I’d been sure, I’d’ve put the police on his track, of course. But he’d worked up a good disguise as the humorous American family-man, and I couldn’t be sure enough.”
Colin examined the contents of an envelope he had taken from the dead man’s pocket, and slipped it into his own.
“I’ve got something here he didn’t intend to part with... I’m sorry if I’ve seemed a bit secretive, Kate. But I’d only just arrived here when you came on the scene, and I didn’t want to drag you into danger, if there was going to be any. I didn’t know you were going to dive straight in on your own account.”
“I didn’t dive in, I crawled. Looking for Sidney. And what’s going on here I still don’t know, and don’t care much. All I care about is getting those two kids safely out of this... Oh, listen, Colin! Isn’t that a car?”
She looked out. The dimmed-down headlights of a motor car, like luminous antennae, were feeling their way down over the field.
‘Oh Colin! And those children! We’re too late!”
‘We’ll stay here for the moment,” said Colin softly, putting out the light. “Leave the first move to them. We’ve got them covered.”
Kate gripped Morrison’s pistol, getting used to the cold, lifeless feeling of the thing in her hand. The car drew up outside the courtyard gate, not three yards from the bracken cart. The door slammed, and Rosaleen, an overcoat slung over her shoulders, got out and came into the cobbled court. A man of medium height followed her, a man in light trousers and dark jacket, wearing a dark felt hat at a rakish angle.
“I suppose that’s the man I saw at Hymn’s Bank,” breathed Kate.
The two stood a moment at the gate, then quietly crossed the yard.
“No light in the house,” said the man softly at the back door. “Can’t see a crack of it. We’d better go carefully, Rosa, till we’re sure things are O.K. There may be a frame-up.”
“Frame-up!” said Rosaleen scornfully. “The girl hadn’t a gun, and she was alone! She came prancing in like a kitten asking for milk! If Doug and Ellida haven’t managed to settle her, well—”
“All the same, go easy, Rosa. Subdue that temperament of yours. Let’s go in quiet, and see what’s going on.”
His voice died away as the two came into the house.
“Yes, that’s the voice I heard at Hymns Bank,” whispered Kate. “Only—why do I think it sounds like a woman’s voice, now? At Hymns Bank, I didn’t think that. Oh! Colin! Is that—is he—?”
“The children’s nurse,” murmured Colin. “She was a tall, deep-voiced sort of girl, wasn’t she? Not a difficult make-up for a man, with that stiff collar and white muslin thing to hide his neck and ears.”
“A more difficult part to play than Major Humphries,” murmured Kate.
“Major Humphries? What’s he got to do with it?”
“Nothing at all. I miscast this man, that’s all,” whispered Kate, talking for the comfort it gave her, a little feverishly, and shivering, feeling both hot and cold with apprehension.
“Be ready,” whispered Colin. “I think they’re coming upstairs.”
“Who the hades locked all these doors?” they heard Rosaleen’s muffled voice cry excitably below. “Joe!”
A door was violently opened, and the voices rang clearer and hollow up the stairs.
“Shut up, Rosa,” said the man calmly. “We’re searching the house, not playing question-and-answer. Up the next flight. Keep with me. There’s something wrong here.”
Footsteps echoed woodenly in the unfurnished rooms below. “Come,” whispered Colin, his knee upon the frame of the open panel. “Follow me. Put the safety catch on your pistol.”
Kate’s hands trembled.
“Which—where? Oh, I see!”
She slipped the little catch over. In a moment they were standing on the scaffolding platform outside: none too soon, for already footsteps were on the attic stairs.
“Go up, not down.”
“Up! On the roof?”
Colin nodded.
It seemed to Kate that the friendly moon encouraged her as she hauled herself up on to the planks above. She was in the angle now between the chimney-stack and gable-end. The glazed ridge-tiles glistened, the big sparse leaves that still hung on the ash tree and fingered the roof looked inky black against the thinly-clouded sky. She got a knee in the lead gutter that lined the angle between the gables, and dragged herself up on to the roof. These stone tiles gave a good grip to stockinged feet.
But as she kicked off from the scaffolding, her foot touched something that rocked and fell. She had noticed on the platform a mortar-board left there by some careless workman; and as soon as her foot touched that shifting object, long, it seemed, before she heard the crash on the scullery roof below, she knew what she had done.
“Oh, Colin!”
Her sob of warning, and the crash of the mortar-board coincided. Colin, whom some sixth sense seemed to have warned, was up beside her in a flash, holding her hand tight as if to restrain further sound or movement. At the same moment the empty frame in the gable-end showed a shifty light. There were footsteps on boards, a silence and then a cry:
“My God! It’s Doug!”
“Rosa, did you hear that noise?”
“Doug!”
“It was outside. Go and look out.”
“But Doug! Joe, that girl hadn’t a gun! She can’t have—”
“Well, she’s got Doug’s gun now!” said the man’s voice grimly. “Do as I say, Rosa. Be careful, though. She’s still about.”
Through the frame, the pale blur of Rosaleen’s face showed, leaning cautiously out and scanning the cobbled yard below.
“I can’t see anything!”
She withdrew.
“Where’s Ellida? Has she got Ellida too” There was a sort of fascinated horror in Rosaleen’s voice.
“Probably. Some kitten, Rosa, that of yours! She told me she was an actress, blast her! I wish I’d wrung her neck at the post last night. Still, the pleasure’s before me.”
Rosaleen said in a voice that shook:
‘‘Hadn’t we better get away, Joe? I—I don’t like this.”
“I don’t like it either. But if we lose our nerve, Rosa, we’ll land in something we like less. We’ve got to get the girl and the kids before we make a bolt.”
“For the love of Mike, what’s the use now?”
“A lot o’ use. To stop them talking. See here, Rosa. If we make a bolt for it now, leaving them behind, we’ll have all the cops in the country on our trail in less than half-an-hour. But if we settle the girl and the kids first, it may be half-a-day, with luck, before anyone smells out anything wrong here. Jefferson and Mary’ll be coming up from the cottage about midday. They’ll soon find the game’s up, and tidy the place and scoot. We’ll all have a fair start, that way. We’ll make for the wilds. If we can hold out till the day after to-morrow, remember, and things go according to plan, there’ll be plenty of muddles then for us to get lost in for a bit before we make contact with friends! The police’ll be too busy to spare much time tracking us. It’s our one chance, believe me. We must stop the girl and the kids.”
“But, Joe, it’ll be daylight in less than an hour!”
“Now, Rosa, it isn’t like you to go pappy. If you wanted safety, you ought to a stuck to knitting socks this war! I in going to get those papers Doug was taking care of, out of the case. You go out, take your torch, look for the girl. She’s not far off. She must a made that noise we heard. And it’ll be a headache to her to get those kids away, with one of them sick! Be thorough. There won’t be anyone around here for hours yet, remember. I’ll bring everything to the car. And then I’ll help you. And, Rosa,” finished he grimly, “don’t try to make a get-away without me. I’ve got the car-key.”
“Well you needn’t a said that, Joe!”
“Thought perhaps you’d be bolting to throw yourself on Humphries’s manly bosom.”
“Aw, don’t be silly!”
Their footsteps descended the stairs. Kate and Colin were alone on the gable slant.
Colin said grimly:
“If the papers Doug was taking care of, were those he was carrying in his breast-pocket, our friend’s going to be unlucky.
“Shall we go down?”
“No. Better stay here and keep watch for the moment.”
Kate had thought the night quiet, but now wished it quieter, so that she could the better listen. An owl hooted a long melancholy note from not far away. And there was already a sleepy jack-jacking from one of the buildings as though some daws there felt in their feathers the not-far-off coming of the morning. Rosaleen came around the house, walking lightly a cat. She stood a moment in the court and examined with torch every inch of it, up the path at the back of the stables, along under the scullery wall, and then, as if perhaps inspired by the soft hoot of the owl that came again just then, up the scaffolding. Kate flattened herself, holding Colin’s hand, shrinking against the slope of the roof. It frightened her to see that light swinging from bough to bough of the ash tree so near at hand. She could hear Rosaleen’s unsteady breathing, and the soft swish of her corduroy trouser-legs rubbing together, as she turned away and went quickly across the court into the farmyard and round by the stable out of sight. The bracken cart was safe for the moment, but for how long?
Rosaleen was searching the stable now. Kate could hear the stamping movement of the horse.
“Colin, why did I let the boys hide in that bracken cart?”
Her voice trembled with despair, and Colin’s hand gripped hers tightly.
“Steady, Kate. It’s not a bad hiding-place. At least, we’ve got it in view.”
“In view! What use’ll that be, if she finds the boys?”
“She won’t hurt them—at first. She’ll try to make them say where you are.”
“And then?”
“Well, we’re both armed, Kate. We’ll have to do the best we can.”
“Oh, hadn’t we better go down?”
Colin shook his head.
“We’ve got the advantage for the moment. We must keep it till we’re forced to give it up.”
“But—”
Kate had never before this night held in her hand a weapon loaded with anything more lethal than caps. Yet her hand instinctively tightened on Morrison’s pistol, and she raised it to the ready. Somebody was coming across the farmyard, in the shadowless light of the high moon in the thinly clouded sky. Somebody was moving nearer and nearer to the bracken cart. It was not Rosaleen, for Rosaleen was searching the stable. It was somebody taller than Rosaleen, walking softly and silently in gum-boots. The figure passed the bracken cart, and the muscles of Kate’s right hand relaxed a little. With the figure’s approach came a soft clinking sound which even at this moment brought to the back door of Kate’s mind mirage-like images of comfort, and the morning, and new-lit fires. Somebody crossed the cobbled court and put something softly down near the back door. Somebody fumbled in a pocket, and after what seemed an age to Kate as she peered down from the roof, lit a match. It was Aminta. Aminta, in her stained old milking-mackintosh, lighting a cigarette. Two tall cans stood on the flags by the back door.
“Aminta,” breathed Kate. “Aminta.”
Aminta looked sharply up. Her match went out.
“I’m Kate, Don’t speak.”
“What?”
“No one must know I’m here.”
“Where are you?” breathed Aminta, her blurred face turned vaguely towards the upper windows.
“Danger. Aminta! Do one thing to help. Drive the bracken cart away.”
“Horse isn’t in!”
“Put it in! Drive to Llanhalo! Don’t tell anyone why!”
“But—”
> “Go on, you fool! Quick! Quick!”
Aminta’s mind moved slowly, but since she blessedly lacked both curiosity and apprehensiveness, it moved surely, once in train. Kate sensed rather than saw the shrug with which her friend registered her willingness to humour, within reason, any that Kate might be afflicted with. She stumped softly away in her gum-boots, back to the courtyard gate, where she stopped and leisurely lit the oil-lantern she had brought with her, whistling.
“Good, Kate,” said Colin gently. “If it comes off, good. If it doesn’t, well, we’ll go down and fight it out.”
Kate, all her chest stiff with apprehension, saw Rosaleen appear quickly from the farmyard. At sight of Aminta she stopped as if shot. There was a moment’s pause. Then she approached, and Kate heard her say with a cracked lightness:
“Aminta! Is it that late?”
“Late! I’m early this morning. We’re threshing. Got a full day in front of us.”
Aminta spoke, thank Heaven, in her usual leisurely and cheerful fashion. Kate’s ears could not detect the slightest note of constraint that might have put Rosaleen on her guard. Blessed, obtuse Aminta, incapable of curiosity, almost incapable of surprise! Swinging her lantern in the centre of its wide circle of light, she moved towards the stable.
“One of the cows is sick,” Kate heard her inventing in her loud, cheerful voice, “and we’ve got to have some fresh litter up, so I might as well take this last load. I’ve finished cutting, anyway.”
The lantern light disappeared with the two girls. After a moment with a jingling of harness and a plodding of hoofs, they reappeared.
“Can I help you put the gee in?” said Rosaleen, still with that brittle, cracked imitation of liveliness in her voice.
“You can hold the lantern while I do up the buckles.”
There May Be Danger Page 22