Walk with Care

by Patricia Wentworth

  She shivered again and drew another of those long sighing breaths. Then, as if at least one word had penetrated her dream, she said,

  “The paper—it’s not there.”

  “Where is it?” said Jeremy, and tried to keep his voice level.

  She turned ever so little towards him.

  “Put it back,” she said. “Put it back. It’s no use locking the door if it isn’t there. I can’t put it back. ‘Rachel, you must!’ But I can’t—I can’t really. Oh, you know I can’t. You know it’s in the drawer. He said it was in the drawer—in Jeremy’s drawer. They’ll find it there. He said so. Oh, wicked, wicked, wicked! Oh, please don’t let them find it!”

  In his drawer! Was it possible? Without taking in all the implications of that whispered speech Jeremy found enough to move him to action. If the missing letter was in any drawer of his, now was the time to find it and put it back in the safe. His writing-table was of the common type with drawers on either side and one in the middle over the knee-hole. Only the bottom drawer on the right was locked, and that by Mannister’s orders. Since Jeremy carried the key, the missing letter could hardly be there.

  He pulled out the other drawers one by one and, finding only their legitimate contents, felt relief and scepticism flow in upon his mood. Yet in the end he got out his key and opened the locked drawer. It held stamps, old house accounts, and a number of other things which no one except Mannister would have dreamed of locking up. It also held the letter.

  Jeremy very nearly missed it. At the bottom of the drawer was a ledger containing the items of Mannister’s household expenditure for 1928. Jeremy turned it over, and the corner of a blue envelope came poking out from between the leaves.

  He locked the drawer with a very sober face. Had Mannister gone mad? Or was his own brain playing tricks? Was it possible that he had put the letter there and forgotten it? A sturdy common sense asserted itself. It wasn’t possible. He was perfectly fit, he was perfectly balanced. The thing was a plant, and it was up to him to find out who was behind it. Mannister perhaps. … But there was a woman in it too. Rachel’s “she said” went through his mind like a flashing light.

  He turned from the table, to find Rachel so close to him that, in turning, his hand touched hers. It was the hand in which he held the letter. The paper rustled. He felt that her hand was cold. And then in a moment that cold hand had taken the letter out of his. She went straight to the safe with it, laid it down upon the top shelf, and closed the steel door. All the time the key was in her left hand, held out upon the open palm. She took it now, fitted it in the lock, and turned it. The lock clicked. She withdrew the key, pushed the book-lined shelves into place, and turned towards the door.

  This time Jeremy was going to see where she went. He would keep a yard or two behind her and see what happened when she reached the cellar. She came to the door, opened it without fumbling, and crossed the hall. Jeremy thanked his stars he wasn’t burgling this time; he could switch on as many lights as he pleased. Only were there any lights in the cellar? There were bound to be lights—simply bound to be.

  She went before him through the baize door. There was a switch just inside the door, and he pulled it down. She seemed to have no sense of light and dark. When an unshaded bulb glowed suddenly above her head, she took her next even step without a check, and so to the basement. She came to the door at the head of the cellar stair, opened it, and went down into the dark, walking by some light in her own mind.

  There was another switch here by the left hand jamb. A bulb glowed in the roof, and Jeremy went down after her. The stair turned. She passed under the old groining and on into the vaulted hall, and with the turn the light faded and failed him. There must be a second switch either here or above—most likely above—and like a fool he had missed it.

  He ran back, taking two steep steps at a time, and found a switch on the right of the door.

  When he came into the hall again, its fan-shaped arches were lighted by two drops, one at either end. The farther one lit the passage to the cellar where he had lost her before. She was out of sight now. He came into the passage, running, and found it empty. At the far end the cellar door was ajar. He flung it wide, and saw only darkness within.

  Rachel was gone, as if her dream, dissolving, had taken her with it.

  CHAPTER XI

  JEREMY WENT BACK TO the library and finished Mannister’s speech. His brain felt particularly clear and active. He boiled the original glue down to a solid mass of fact and epigram which would take, in Mannister’s best manner, exactly ten minutes to deliver. He even rehearsed it. Two strides to the left and a hortatory hand upraised. Rolling periods. A step back. A frowning silence. Quotation number one. … And so through to the end. It took just ten minutes, and it would certainly add to Mannister’s reputation.

  He put the speech in a drawer, went over to the bookcase, and uncovered the safe. It was locked all right now. For a moment he had wondered whether there was something amiss with the lock—he might have found the door ajar and dreamt the rest. He frowned quickly. He might have dreamt the whole thing from start to finish—only he hadn’t. It wasn’t as easy as all that.

  Still frowning, he took out his handkerchief and wiped the safe door carefully. Metal holds fingerprints very clearly. There was no need for there to be any finger-prints. Probably no one would look for them, but if they did look, there was no need for there to be anything for them to find. He wiped the door carefully, and when he had closed the book-shelf over it, he wiped the shelf which Rachel had touched. After which he put out the lights in the library and the hall and let himself out of the house.

  He was glad to get back to his own room. He sat down on the edge of his bed and took off his shoes. From the narrow mantelpiece a fluffy baby owl modelled in blue-green clay watched him with its immense stare. Even after he had got into bed and put out the light he had the feeling of it staring in the dark. It seemed to be asking questions which no one could answer—all as solemn as a child’s game.

  Jeremy lay on his back with his hands behind his head and asked some questions of his own.

  Rachel. … Where did she come from, and who was she? Those cellars were a lot older than the house, and much bigger than that sized house had any right to. He suspected an older, larger house spreading round the corner. When it was pulled down, the cellars were left, two or more houses built over them, dividing walls built up. There must be a way through from the cellar where he had lost her to the cellar next door. He must find out about the history of the site, and he must find out who lived next door. Jardine might be able to help him about the site—he was the sort of bookwormish fellow who did know that sort of thing—and the directory would tell him who lived next door. Next door would be round the corner in Tilt Street—No. 1 Tilt Street. It would be quite easy to find out who lived there.

  She must have come into the cellar of Mannister’s house from the cellar of No. 1 Tilt Street. How she had come, he had not been able to discover. There must certainly be a door. When he had lost her the first time, he had had nothing but a small electric torch, and it isn’t easy to find a secret door when you can’t light up much more than an inch of wall at a time. To-night he had been even more at a disadvantage, since he had not even had a torch and the nearest light was too far away to do more than show him just how dark the cellar was. On Monday morning he would get a really good electric lamp, and on Monday night he might think about another spot of burglary.

  So much for how.

  Why had she come? How did she know his name? That she was walking in her sleep was certain. At what prompting had she risen from bed on a January night to come barefoot to Mannister’s library with the key of the safe in her hand? She was in a dream, but her dream took its form from facts that were stranger than any dream. It was like a mist that keeps the shape of the hill it veils. In her dream the safe was open and the letter whose importance Mannister had str
essed was gone. And in cold fact the safe was open and the letter missing. In her dream the letter was in Jeremy’s drawer. With his own hands Jeremy had taken it out of that drawer. In her dream she had the key of the safe. In sober truth Jeremy had seen her lock it, hold the key in her shut palm, and go as she had come. It was unbelievably strange.

  His mind fastened on a detail. He had found the missing letter in his own locked drawer. The key was on his ring, and it hadn’t been out of his pocket all day. … Why, what a fool he was to boggle over that! Wasn’t the table Mannister’s property, and couldn’t he have a dozen duplicate keys if he wanted them? But Mannister had left the house just after four. He had seen Mannister out of the house before he left himself. There had been no time to open a safe and a drawer. Then how? Good Lord—how?

  There was no answer to that.

  He fell asleep quite suddenly and slept till morning. Just before he woke he dreamed that he was walking down a long black tunnel which rang and reverberated with passing trains. It was rather horrible, because he could not see anything at all. He groped along by a damp wall and heard the trains go by—first the roar of their approach, then clang, clank, clang, and the hot wind of their passing, but never a light or the glow of a furnace, not even one single spark to break the darkness. Sometimes he was drenched in a cloud of scalding steam, sometimes the wind blew dry and hot and with such clapping gusts as to come near to wrenching him from his hold. There was a sort of ledge along the wall that he was gripping. If he let go, he would be sucked down in the wake of the trains and crushed miserably under the red-hot grinding wheels.

  All of a sudden there was a light; and first it was just a speck, and then it grew and whirled towards him, and he saw that it was a lighted window—one single lighted window in a black flying train, and just as it came level with him, time stopped. The train didn’t stop, but time stood still, so that without any conscious interruption in the roar and rush Jeremy was able to look into the lighted carriage. He saw Gilbert Denny walking towards him. He looked just as he used to look when he was pleased to see you. There was the whimsical cock of the eyebrows, the old half smile. He leaned on the window and touched Jeremy on the shoulder. “That’s not a very safe place, Jerry,” he said; and with that time went on again, and the train was gone. In his dream Jeremy tried to run after it, and the noise, and the heat, and the blackness were like nothing he had ever known before. He woke choking, with the bed-clothes over his head and his pulses thumping like mad.

  He had a cold bath and dressed. The dream receded into its own dark place. Mrs Walker brought him sausages and bacon.

  “Cooked to a turn, Master Jeremy, and the bacon sliced thin the way you like it, which I said to that there Podger at Podger’s Stores—‘Cut it thin,’ I says, ‘or I go elsewheres. Of course,’ I says, ‘if you ’aven’t got a steady ’and you ’aven’t, and there’s an end of it—and it isn’t always the drink, as I know from my sister Winnie’s ’usband that’s a life-long total abstainer and his ’and shakes something ’orrid and always did from a boy.’ And Podger he looks fit to bust ’imself, but he cuts it thin—and I hopes this horful row next door didn’t keep you awake, for I’m sure Walker and me never closed a h’eye.”

  “Was there a row?” said Jeremy. “The bacon’s top-hole.”

  Mrs Walker was stripping his bed and folding his pyjamas. She paused with the coat in her hand—a firmly built, not unhandsome woman in the early forties, with a surprisingly fresh colour for a Londoner and a lot of iron-grey hair which she wore in a neat bun.

  “Well, you always was a good sleeper, but I shouldn’t ha’ thought as anyone could ha’ slept through the row those Evanses made last night. Mr Brown, he says to Sam this morning, ‘How’s the corpses this morning?’ he says—and I’m sure by the sound of it there might ha’ been a dozen.”

  “Mr Mannister kept me late. I didn’t get in till half-past one. Everything was quiet enough by then. Who’s Brown?”

  Mrs Walker tucked in the under sheet and began to thump the pillows.

  “He’s got the next garridge this side. Mrs Beamish lodges ’im. ’Im and Sam got talking about Injia, and Sam says ’e never come across a chap ’e took to more—nice quiet fellow as gets on with his job and lets Sam talk. Scotch ’e is. And Sam comes ’ome and says, ‘Lizzie,’ he says, ‘women’s all very well,’ he says, ‘but when it comes to intelligent conversation give me a man.’” She twitched the blankets into place and tucked them in. All her movements were very quick and sure, “‘All right, Sam’ I says, ‘so long as intelligent conversation don’t mean more beer than you can carry, at the George, you’re welcome, and so far as I can see, Mr Brown’s a superior person and won’t do you no Aarm,’”—she accented the aitch strongly—“though as far as conversation goes, if he hever gets beyond a yes or a no, it’s not when I’m anywhere around—and couldn’t you do with another sausage, Master Jeremy? There’s one all ready sizzling in the pan.”

  “I’m going out to lunch,” said Jeremy.

  About half an hour later than this, Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith was having a telephone conversation with Colonel Garrett. Mr Smith was very urbane, and Colonel Garrett was very cross. He did not expect to be asked to talk shop before ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. He said so.

  Mr Smith’s parrot, Ananias, always deeply interested in the telephone, cocked an attentive ear and obliged with a response in Arabic.

  “Is that that damned bird of yours?” said Garrett fiercely down the wire.

  “It was Ananias. Imitation is—er—the sincerest form of flattery. He undoubtedly imagined you to be cursing me. He was, I am afraid, asserting your descent from a line of jackals.”

  “Did you ring me up in order to talk about Ananias?”

  “Well—er—no—though there are less interesting subjects. Hush, Ananias—that’s enough! As a matter of fact, I rang you up to say that I should like to make the acquaintance of Mr Jeremy Ware.”

  “Why?” Garrett sounded very cross.

  “I feel an—er—urge. In my experience it is unwise to neglect a prompting of this—er—nature.”

  “I entirely disapprove!”

  “Quite so,” said Mr Smith. “Can you furnish me with his address?”

  “Number Three Nym’s Row. Mews back of Marsh Street. He’s lodging with a taxi-driver who married an old family servant. Respectable people called Walker.”

  “You know everything,” said Mr Smith gratefully. “You cannot, I suppose, inform me what are the young man’s plans for to-day?”

  Garrett snapped out an exclamation which Ananias received respectfully. He appeared to be trying it over sotto voce.

  “I think you had better be careful,” said Mr Smith. “You are exciting Ananias, and I cannot be responsible for his language when he is excited. I should be sorry to add to your already ample vocabulary. You haven’t—er—answered my question. Do you—er—know Mr Ware’s plans for to-day?”

  “He’s lunching with Rosalind Denny,” snapped Garrett. “I know because she told me. Is that all—because I want to shave.”

  “Would you kindly give me her address?”

  “Pretty, pretty Polly!” said Ananias in a fervour of self-admiration. “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Polly!”

  Mr Smith, having taken down Rosalind Denny’s address, hung up the receiver.

  “Hush, Ananias!” he said, and went over and scratched him behind the ear.

  CHAPTER XII

  JEREMY, HAVING FINISHED HIS breakfast and torn himself from Lizzie Walker’s conversation, came out on to the cobbled space which ran between the houses of Nym’s Row.

  Mr Evans, who according to Lizzie should by rights have been occupying, if not a bier, at the very least a bed in the nearest hospital, was leaning against the back of his taxi and smoking a cigarette with an air of being at peace with all the world. He was a little dark man with eyes like
boot-buttons and a deep bass voice. His wife was also small and thin. Nym’s Row was divided into those who believed that Mr Evans took a stick to Mrs Evans, and those who held that Mrs Evans “put it across him proper.” As they both screamed at the tops of their voices when a quarrel was in progress and neither of them showed any visible scar afterwards, the point had never been decided.

  On the other side, Mr Brown was cleaning his car. He wore a pair of old blue overalls and had his back to Jeremy. He was a new-comer to the Row and had no more than a grunt for anyone—a gruff, untidy person with longish black hair, beard and moustache, and such bushy eyebrows as almost to hide his eyes. He kept his car smarter than he kept himself, and according to Lizzie Walker was a “scholar,” Mrs Beamish, who lodged him, reported that his room was fair stuffed up with books.

  It was one of those foggy mornings which either deepen into gloom of the most depressing kind or else as if by magic change before your eyes into pure beauty.

  Jeremy went out to Chiswick to see Jardine, only to find that he was away. He was looking forward to lunching with Rosalind Denny. He wasn’t sure how much he would tell her, but if he once began to talk, it would probably end in his telling her everything. He wanted to talk, and he didn’t. There was nothing like talking a thing out for clearing one’s own thought. What he wouldn’t be able to put into words, even to Rosalind Denny, was the part about Rachel. He didn’t feel as if he could tell anyone about Rachel. She was like something in a dream—the snatch of music which you hear just before you wake, the words which have touched some deep, sensitive nerve. They are still echoing when you open your eyes. You are still moved, enriched, enchanted, but you cannot recall them. Rachel was like that. “I saw a girl who was walking in her sleep.” Gould anything be duller and more flatly accurate? But she had moved the secret springs of his heart with her grieving voice and her eyes that looked past him into a dream.