Touch and Go

by Patricia Wentworth

  “You think he is Maurice Hildred?” said Sarah in a low horrified tone.

  “I do not know,” said Bertrand Darnac.

  Through the dusk Lucilla came flying back to them.

  “Come along, you two! We can’t begin without you.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  They went up the west drive all together and in through the side door. It was quite dark in the house. It was almost as dark as it had been on the night when Sarah blundered in upon the burglar. She hadn’t told anyone about that. She hadn’t told Ran what she and John Brown had talked about in the shrubbery of the Red House last night. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t wanted to. If she had told Ran that something came dashing against Lucilla’s window in the dark, he would have been quite certain that John Brown was mixed up with it.

  Sarah pulled herself up with a jerk. Where were her own suspicions? Had anything happened to allay them? Should they not have been quickened by what had happened this afternoon? Maurice Hildred.… It was absurd. Was it? Such things had happened.

  She shuddered violently as they crossed the hall. A hand was laid on her arm, and John Brown’s voice said,

  “Are you cold?”

  Sarah caught her breath.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  She heard him laugh, and he said quite low in her ear,

  “I told you I could see in the dark.”

  “Why should I be cold?”

  “I heard you shiver.”

  And with that the beam of a torch cut the dark. It was Mr. Brown’s torch. It cast a powerful ray which came to rest on the dining-room door.

  The dining-room was to be Home. Snagge kept an oil lamp there, so the torch was only a temporary expedient. They must have one lighted room, and the rest of the dark house to play Hide and Seek in.

  Lucilla’s head and arm came suddenly into the ray. She threw open the dining-room door and turned, laughing and blinking, with the light in her eyes.

  “Come along in. Who’s got the torch? The lamp ought to be on the sideboard.”

  Sarah was held back as the others trooped in.

  Bertrand whispered, “That Mr. Brown—it is he who has the torch. Dis donc, Sarah—how does he know so well which is the right door? Has he been here before?”

  Sarah pulled away from him. She was on the threshold, standing where she had stood on that other night when there had been a burglar in the room beyond. She had seen no more of him than the black outline of head, shoulder, and arm as he swung his torch. She stared now at what might have been the same picture. There was the dark room, there was the moving ray, there was the black outline of head, and arm, and hand. Just for a moment the two pictures were the same picture. It was as if something odd had happened to her sense of time, as if it had folded back upon itself, so that this moment was really that other moment ten days ago. She felt so giddy that she caught at the jamb for support.

  Then someone struck a match and lamplight filled the room.

  Sarah came forward to join the others. The giddiness had passed, but she had a strange shocked feeling. She hoped she didn’t look as queer as she felt. She was quite, quite sure that it was Mr. Brown whom she had seen the first time she came to Holme Fallow. There had been a burglary that night. She had seen the burglar. She had seen John Brown. She hadn’t seen anyone. She had seen the ray of a torch, and the black outline of a head, a shoulder, and an arm. She had seen what she had just seen again. She had seen a burglar.… Something in her said “No.” What had been taken? An old desk had been rummaged. The ray had rested upon the portrait of Lucilla’s grandmother.… What had she seen? Maurice Hildred looking at his mother’s picture? Maurice Hildred haunting his old home like a ghost? Or perhaps someone who would claim to be Maurice Hildred—someone getting up a case—rummaging in an old desk for papers, staring at the family portraits.…

  Ricky’s voice startled her out of these thoughts.

  “Sarah’s moonstruck. Someone pinch her. What’s the matter, Sarah? Have you seen a ghost?”

  John Brown was adjusting the lamp, an old-fashioned heavy table-lamp with a round china globe like a harvest moon. He looked over it, met Sarah’s eyes, and very slightly smiled.

  She said, “I think so.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Sarah darling, you didn’t!”

  Sarah laughed. What a fool to say that. It slipped out. “Oh, my poor Sarah, pull up your socks!” The laugh sounded quite all right. She said,

  “You all looked like ghosts.”

  “If anyone talks about ghosts, I won’t play,” said Lucilla.

  Bertrand linked his arm in hers.

  “Hand in hand we go. I am of a courage quite extraordinary.”

  “Who’s going to be He?” said Ricky.

  Lucilla giggled and began to count.

  “Eena, meena, mina, mo,

  Catch a nigger by the toe,

  If he hollers, let him go—

  Eena, meena, mina—mo.”

  She pointed at each word. The last “Mo” fell on Ricky.

  “All right—now we can start. I’ve mugged it all up from Aunt Marina. Ricky, you’ve got to count sixty, slowly, before you open the door, so as to give us time to get clear. The He can stay in the hall, or he can come and look for us. The game is to get back here without being caught. Oh, and I promised we’d stay in this part of the house—not go into the servants’ wing. Are you ready? All right—go!”

  She ran out of the room with Bertrand. Sarah followed. John Brown brought up the rear, and the door was shut.

  Sarah had made up her mind to cross the hall and hide behind the first door she came to. As she slipped in, leaving it ajar, she heard a whispering and a giggling from the stairs. Mr. Brown seemed to have melted into the darkness. She leaned against the wall of what she took to be the drawing-room and waited. She was glad to be alone. The sense of shock was wearing off, but she wasn’t quite ready to play. She kept thinking of those two moments which had merged into one moment. Why hadn’t she spoken of what she had seen to Lucilla or to Geoffrey Hildred? She ought to have spoken. She certainly couldn’t speak now. Couldn’t—or wouldn’t? She said, “Of course he’s not a burglar!” and was surprised at her own certainty. If she hadn’t seen a burglar, there wasn’t anything to tell. If she hadn’t seen a burglar, whom had she seen? Maurice Hildred, come back from the dead to find no place in his old home? It all went round in her head, and round again.

  A shout from the hall announced that Ricky had caught someone. She was a little surprised, on emerging, to discover that it was Mr. Brown. It had not occurred to her that he would be caught. She found herself wondering if he had wanted to be caught, if he had wanted to be left in the dining-room alone.

  They played another round. Mr. Brown was He. This time Sarah hid behind the door through which she had come into the hall on that other night. She thought how strange it would be if John Brown were to come across and open the door and put his hand on her in the dark. They had both come that way before. She went over the whole thing in her mind again. It was like some strange recurrent dream which she could not escape. It mesmerized her. And all the time her ears were strained for the sound of a footstep and a touch on the door.

  A scream, a scuffle, and a giggle in the hall. She looked through her chink and saw the dining-room door wide open, and John Brown holding Lucilla a yard or two away. Bertrand Darnac was in the lighted room, and even as Sarah looked, Ricky slipped past and joined them. Lucilla was protesting.

  “It wasn’t fair! I was nearly there! You saw me when Bertrand opened the door!”

  “Fair cop!” said Ricky.

  Sarah made a dash for it, and got in.

  They started out again, leaving Lucilla in the dining-room. This time Sarah made for the stairs. She had had enough of her own thoughts What was the good of them anyhow? She couldn’t do anything about it—it wasn’t her affair. Ran had been talking nonsense about the bicycle screws. Screws did com
e out of things. There hadn’t been an accident, and nobody was a penny the worse—

  She found herself at the top of the stairs in an inky blackness not knowing where to go. She felt her way for about a dozen paces and then stopped to listen. She could hear nothing at all until quite suddenly there was a hand under her elbow and a voice said in her ear, “This way.”

  It was Mr. Brown’s voice, and the extraordinary thing was that it gave her a sense of relief. She didn’t really like this groping round in the dark. It might have been different if she had known the house, but as it was, it was rather like the horrid sort of dream in which your sense of direction is gone and you don’t know where you are. The touch on her arm brought her back. The dream feeling vanished. It was just a dark house through which she was being guided—very efficiently guided. A door opened and shut again, all with the least possible sound. They stood still. There was a feeling of being in a small enclosed space.

  “Where are we?” said Sarah under her breath.

  “Where no one will find us unless we talk too loud.”

  “How do you know?

  “I’m very good at guessing.”

  He had let go of her arm, but he was so near she had the feeling that if she moved she would touch him. She didn’t like being very close to anyone, and she couldn’t bear being touched. She hadn’t minded John Brown’s hand upon her arm. All this was rather confusing. She leaned back against what felt like panelling and heard him say,

  “You got out of that very cleverly just now.”

  “Out of what?”

  He laughed quite softly.

  “Did you see a ghost?”

  Sarah’s heart beat hard. Absurd of it, but she couldn’t stop the thing. She said.

  “You ought to know.”

  “I?”

  “If you don’t, nobody does.”

  He laughed again.

  “Whose ghost do you think it was, Sarah?”

  Sarah felt something, she didn’t quite know what. It might have been anger, it might have been something else. It made her say,

  “Perhaps it was a burglar’s ghost.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said John Brown.

  “Sure?”

  “I’d like you to feel sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like it a good deal.”

  There was a silence—the sort that you want to break, and can’t. John Brown broke it, not with words, but with a sigh. And at once Sarah found that she could speak. She not only could, but had to. The words said themselves in a rush.

  “Whose ghost was it?”

  “Whose do you think?”

  “I—don’t—know.” Then, very quickly, “Who are you?”

  “A ghost.”

  “Please.”

  “If you ask a ghost its name, it’s bound to vanish. I’d rather not vanish just yet, you know. You do know that—don’t you?”

  Sarah’s face burned in the dark. She didn’t know what she knew, or what she didn’t know. She felt she had had all that she could stand. She half turned and groped for the door. The movement brought her against him. She had a feeling that the place was very small, a feeling of being shut in. If she had been ten years younger, she might have screamed. She had learned her self-control in a hard school. She said,

  “I want to get out. Where are we? Where’s the door?”

  “Just here.” His voice sounded a little amused, a little tender. “You’re not shut in.” Then, “This was a powdering-closet—that’s why it’s so small. Now how will you go? By the stairs?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I’ll just take you to the top. I think we won’t go down together.”

  She thought someone moved near them as they came to the top of the stairs. His hand dropped from her arm. She was left standing alone with a sense of empty space in front of her and below. She didn’t want to think any more. She wanted to get down the stairs and into the lighted dining-room without being caught. It would take her all her time, because Lucilla had the advantage of knowing the house.

  If she went down holding to the baluster rail, she was much less likely to pull it off than if she gave herself the width of the stair to dodge in. The bother was that she didn’t know on which side of the stair she was standing. It came up straight out of the hall and then divided to left and right. She thought they had gone up on the left-hand side, but whether John Brown had brought her back the same way she had no idea. If the baluster rail was on her right, he had. If it was on her left, he hadn’t. She groped, found the rail on her right, and began very slowly and cautiously to descend. Even at the risk of being caught, she really couldn’t let go of the rail until she was past the turn. She ought to have counted the steps as she went up them.

  The steps ceased. Her feet were on the flat, and her hand found a newel-post with a tall carved head. She remembered that there was a railed landing where the stair branched. She remembered that the posts were carved with pineapples. Her hand slid over the pattern, feeling it. Then she let go and went down step by step, keeping to the middle of the stair. At every step she listened, and twice she heard a movement. She could not have said who moved or where. Then she was in the hall, crossing it in the dark as she had crossed it the first time she came to Holme Fallow—only then the dining-room door had been open, and there had been the torchlight to guide her, while now everything was dark and the door was shut.

  She did not know how far she had gone, when something made her stop. She did not know why she stopped, but she thought afterwards that she must have heard something behind her and above, because as she stopped, she turned and looked up. And then, before she had time to think, two things happened, not absolutely together, but so near that she could never say which came first. Ricky Hildred cannoned into her, and away above them in the direction of the stairs Lucilla screamed.

  The scream might have come first. She didn’t know. It was still echoing through the emptiness when Ricky, clutching her, gasped, “What’s that?” He had her by the arm, and she was pushing him away, because there was a torch in her pocket and she wanted it badly enough. Had the scream stopped? She didn’t know. Her head rang with it. The torch was like a lump of ice and her fingers too cold to feel the switch, yet they must have found it, because suddenly there was light. The stair with its wide shallow steps, its heavy balustrade, and its carved newels, rushed out of the dark. One moment she did not know where she was and had only a sense of space and emptiness, and the next there was the stair quite near, like the overhang of a cliff. She was perhaps four yards from the last step, with the torch in her hand pointing upwards. There was some diffused light, but the ray struck full upon the pale gold of Lucilla’s hair. In an instant of confusion and horror she saw that the bright hair hung downwards. Lucilla hung downwards across the balustrade at its highest point where the stair passed out of sight on the right-hand side and where the drop was greatest to the hall below, and above her, leaning over with his hands on her, there was a man—there was John Brown. She hung downwards from the knees, and he leaned over straining with his hands at her waist. It was just for the one moment, but it was like a fixed picture in Sarah’s mind—a fixed and most horrible picture. Her eyes felt rigid in her head. The hand which held the torch was rigid on a rigid arm. Her breath seemed to have stopped. She heard Ricky make some horrified exclamation, and with that the picture broke. John Brown straightened himself, lifting Lucilla until he had the weight of her body upon the balustrade. It had all happened outside of any measurement of time. There was, in fact, the briefest possible space between Lucilla’s scream and the choking cry with which she sank down half crouching and half sitting on the stair.

  At that second sound Sarah came back to life and movement. She ran, and was aware of Ricky running beside her

  John Brown was stooping over Lucilla, with a hand on her shoulder. Sarah thrust the torch at him and sat down on the stair.

  “Lucilla—what happened? Are you hurt? Lucilla!”


  After that choking cry Lucilla was silent. The wavering light showed her ashy pale and staring. The hand which Sarah held was deathly cold.

  John Brown spoke over her head.

  “Ricky, is that you? Go down and open the dining-room door! Bring the lamp out into the hall! Where’s Darnac?”

  Bertrand was half way up the stairs. He came from the direction of the drawing room. He looked from one to the other and asked no questions. There was a long tense pause while they waited for the lamp.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The lamp suffused the hall with a warm golden light. In the flickering watery gleam of the torch everything had flickered, wavered, and seemed unreal—a dream resolved from the darkness and dissolving into it again. The lamplight restored an agreeable everyday solidity.

  Sarah pulled Lucilla to her feet. The sooner they got down to the ground-floor the better. But as they moved, Bertrand Darnac broke what was for him a most unnatural silence.

  “Lucilla—qu’as tu donc? What has happened? Are you hurt?”

  He darted to her, caught both her hands, and held them in a firm, warm clasp. And to him Lucilla spoke, breaking the silence which had closed her in after that last gasping cry. She looked up at him and said.

  “Ran—I fell.”

  “How did you fall, chérie?”

  They stood waiting for her answer, John Brown a step above, Sarah beside her, and Ricky halted by the newel-post. He had set the lamp on the hall table and run up the stairs again. He halted now, waiting for what Lucilla would say. They all looked at her, but she did not look at any of them. She looked at Bertrand Darnac, and she said,

  “I think—I tripped.”

  Bertrand held her hands. He said,

  “How?”

  Lucilla had a little colour. The ashy whiteness was just pallor now. A shadowy pink came and went upon it. She said in a stronger voice,

  “I was running. I slipped on the top step. I must have—overbalanced.”

  “I don’t see how you could.”

  Sarah didn’t see either. She turned round and looked with a frowning intensity. The stair came up straight from the hall and then divided, rising by some fifteen steps to meet a corridor on either side. Was it possible that a stumble on the top step could have thrown Lucilla across the stair and on to the balustrade? The stair was wide, the balustrade was low. If she had come running down the passage, bumped into the inside wall, and taken a stumbling fall, could it have happened? She looked, and thought it barely possible. She said suddenly and clearly,