The White Room

by L. P. Davies

  Greyness. Movement, shapes, voices. The old familiar dream. But this time with a difference, for one of the shadows loomed out of the mists, taking shape, a hand reaching out to grip his shoulder, shaking it….

  Axel opened his eyes.

  The bedroom was flooded with light. Carla, ice-cold as always, stood at the side of the bed, looking down at him, one hand loosening the throat clasps of her high-necked loose blue coat.

  Behind her, Gregson, coatless, hatless, stood with his back to the door, hands straight at his side, the perfect servant awaiting the next command. And on the other side of the bed, midway between it and the wall, Howard Nolan fumbled nervously with the buttons of his cheap blue suit.

  9

  Axel, not yet wholly awake, uncertain of his surroundings, seeing them for a moment as part of the dream, a new variation of it, pushed himself up against the pillows. His gaze, the sleep-blur clearing, moved from Carla—her coat open now, light blue over dark blue—to Gregson, the perfect servant, bowing slightly, eyes hooded, on to Nolan, somewhat pale of face and patently ill at case, and back to Carla again.

  “How did you get in?” he asked her.

  She made a small impatient gesture. “That is unimportant.” Drawing up a chair she sat down, crossing her legs with her usual slow, calculated grace. Jewels of some kind sparkled in the piled silky whiteness of her hair.

  How they had entered the house was unimportant; Axel knew that. He had only asked the question in order to allow himself a few extra moments for recovery, for the regaining of self-possession. Now his mind was clear, almost sharp. For some reason, perhaps Nolan’s very obvious discomfort, he felt himself to be almost in command of the situation. Nolan was clearly the weak one of the trio, the one most likely to give anything away. Axel looked at him in silence.

  Nolan shuffled his feet nervously.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said timidly. “I didn’t know what to do for the best. When you didn’t come to meet me I got worried. I drove back to Grenfelle, spoke to Gregson, and he said we ought to get in touch with Mrs. Ibbetson.”

  Axel turned back to his sister. “Louise?” he asked sharply.

  She frowned at the imperiousness of his tone. “We haven’t disturbed the girl. She’s still asleep.”

  To know that, they must have looked in her room. To make sure she continued sleeping they would have left someone there to watch. Which meant there was at least one more of them in the house.

  “We’ve been very worried about you,” Carla said reprovingly. “We had no idea at all where you were. For obvious reasons we couldn’t contact the police. It was a great relief when Mr. Nolan came to tell me he had found you. He also told me what you believed had happened, the reason why you left Barkley House. But you are wrong, Axel.”

  She leaned forward a little, speaking intensely, so earnestly that he could almost believe she was speaking the truth.

  “I didn’t do anything to you, Axel,” she told him. “You weren’t drugged as you believe.”

  Uncertainty was unsettling. “I was all right until I drank the whiskey,” he said.

  “The whiskey?” Her puzzlement and surprise were genuine: he was sure she wasn’t as good an actress as that. Her face cleared. “So that was why—” She broke off. “No, the whiskey wasn’t drugged, Axel. You must believe that.”

  He could almost believe her. But then he had always been ready to believe every tiling she told him—putty in her hands.

  “If I wasn’t drugged, what happened to me?”

  “You had a breakdown, Axel. Only a minor one. You had been working too hard for too long. I did warn you once. But you refused to slacken off. I blame myself for not having made you see a doctor. The news about Kendall was too much for your mind. You—” She turned to look at the man by the door.

  “You collapsed, sir,” Gregson said smoothly. “Mrs. Ibbetson called to me and I carried you to your bedroom. I tried to ring the doctor but the telephone was out of order. I sent the maid for him. You were still unconscious when he arrived. He didn’t wake you, saying that you’d had a shock, not a serious one, that you were sleeping normally and to let you remain like that until you woke in the usual way. He said he would look in later. Mrs. Ibbetson stayed with you for a while—’”

  “Until nine o’clock,” Clara inserted. “I had told Kendall I was going to have dinner with you and that I’d be back before half past nine. If I’d stayed away longer than that, he might have become suspicious. I couldn’t ring him to tell him what had happened, so I had no choice but to leave you.”

  “The doctor returned at about half past nine, sir,” Gregson continued. “You were still sleeping. He checked your pulse and heart and said he would prescribe a sedative for you. I went with him to his surgery while he made it up. When I got back to the house again you had gone.”

  “I went to my study to write to Norville—” Axel looked at Carla.

  She nodded. “That was just before it happened. You had started writing when I came in. I told you it would be useless because Norville was probably part of Kendall’s scheme. On my way out I stopped in the doorway and turned to ask you something. You started to reply, then slumped in your seat.”

  He could remember that part of it, Carla turning to speak to him, the terrifying feeling of emptiness that had suddenly come sweeping through him. It could have been like that.

  “And the next time I regained consciousness I was in my bedroom, alone in the house.”

  Gregson was servile contriteness itself. “I’m very sorry, sir. I should never have left you alone.” He looked at Carla. “I’m truly sorry, madam.”

  Axel moistened his lips. Breakdown in the study, return to awareness hours later in the darkness of his bedroom. Then the escape. It could have been like that, but it wasn’t. They were lying.

  “And now you’ve come here to ask me to go back to Barkley House again,” he said steadily.

  “It’s the only place from which you can fight Kendall,”

  Carla said. “You know that more than anyone else. Out here, you’re helpless. You must go back to fight. You owe it not only to yourself but to thousands of others.”

  Axel glanced sideways at Nolan. “Including one of the directors of one of my subsidiaries, I suppose.”

  Nolan looked down at his feet. “I’m of no importance, sir,” he mumbled. “You mustn’t take me into account.”

  “You must come back, Axel,” Carla said. “If you’re at all concerned about the girl—Miss Salter—then we can take her with us. As you’ve probably already discovered, she shouldn’t be left alone. Taking her along will be the best thing for her.”

  “Not left alone?” Axel echoed harshly. “What do you mean?”

  Carla’s aquiline features registered dismay. “So you hadn’t realised … This may make things difficult…”

  Axel leaned forward. “Realised what?” he almost shouted.

  Gregson took it upon himself to explain.

  “I’m afraid, if you’ve come to know the young lady well, that this will be painful for you, sir. When Mr. Nolan informed us that you had a young lady with you, Mrs. Ibbetson thought it advisable to find out something about her, purely with the motive of ensuring that she was in no way connected with Mr. Ibbetson’s present activities.

  “Mrs. Ibbetson spoke with Miss Salter’s uncle, himself a doctor. It appears that he brought his niece to England for the express purpose of consulting a specialist. A psychiatric specialist, sir, named Julius Sibault. It seems that the young lady, although recovered physically from a protracted illness, has been left with certain of her mental faculties in a state of disruption. Amongst other things, her senses of time and location are erratic.”

  “She isn’t sure where she is,” Axel said slowly, “she isn’t sure of the time. Is that what you are saying?”

  Gregson coughed. “That is how we understand it, sir. Apart from that, she is normal enough, if a trifle overimaginative.”

  “I hadn’t noticed
anything unusual about her,” Axel said.

  Nolan’s face he couldn’t see clearly; the little man was still gazing down at the floor. But there was certainly a flicker of relief on Gregson’s face, more than a flicker on Carla’s.

  She came to her feet. ‘‘Then you’ll come back with us now, Axel?”

  “In the middle of the night?” His watch was on the bedside table. He leaned sideways to look at it. “Half past two in the morning. No, I think not, Carla. I’ll finish my night out here.” He leaned back against the pillows again. “Being out here in the wilds has made me lose track of the days.”

  “Sunday,” Nolan said, perhaps a little too hastily. He corrected himself. “Monday morning, that is.”

  Gregson offered the thing in its entirety. “Monday morning, sir; August eleventh, nineteen-sixty-nine.”

  “Thank you, Gregson. And which would you say was the quickest way of getting from here to Barkley House?”

  “It’s quite straightforward, sir. Along the lane outside, turn left at the junction, carry on through Littledene and turn left again when you come to the main road. Grenfelle is about five miles further on.”

  “A stone’s throw,” Axel said.

  Carla looked down at him. “I think one of us had better stay with you,” she suggested.

  “I think not,” he replied firmly. The crucial moment, this. He was prepared for argument, even force. Instead, he was surprised at an easy victory.

  “Just as you say,” his sister said unemotionally. “We will expect to see you later at Barkley House.”

  He probed. “And if I change my mind and don’t come?”

  “I sincerely trust you will come, Axel.” Head of the family, Big Sister speaking. He knew that tone. “I don’t have to remind you of your responsibilities.”

  And that was it. Not even a hint of pressure. She moved towards the door, collecting the unhappy Nolan in her train on the way. Gregson, perfect in function, bowed them through, bowed again in the direction of the bed, his hand on the light switch.

  “May I say how delighted I am personally, sir, to know you are both safe and well.”

  The light went out. The door whispered shut. Axel waited a few moments before sliding out of bed to pad across the dark room to open it again. They had moved quickly; there was no sign of them. Listening, he heard the sound of the front door being closed. Turning, he hurried across to the window. A moonless night out there. A night of dark shapes. Four shadows moved quickly down the drive. Carla he could identify by her distinctive walk; Nolan by his size. Whoever the fourth member of the party was, he was of the same height and build as Gregson. They turned into the lane. A car purred. The sound faded, leaving the night still and silent again.

  Across the opposite fields, in the gap between three trees and a single one, a small spark of light flared momentarily. More than a match, not enough for a torch, perhaps a lighter being applied to a cigarette. Or perhaps a signal.

  Axel went into the passage and along it to the girl’s room. He opened the door quietly. He could see the dim shape of the bed, the mound of bedclothes, hear her steady breathing. There was a smell … He sniffed. A vaguely familiar smell. Antiseptic, perhaps. The anaesthetic-reminiscent smell that is part of a doctor’s surgery, that clings to a doctor’s clothing.

  He went back along the passage. There was enough light for him to see his way down the stairs, to enable him to shoot the front door bolt again without making any noise. Lie went into the room with the french window. The chair was still in place, its back jammed under the handle of the window. Without touching it, he turned the handle and pulled. The window opened, the tilted legs of the chair skating effortlessly over the silky smoothness of the carpet. So much for his barricade. At least he knew how they had entered the house. Replacing the chair afterwards was just the sort of thing they would do.

  About to close the window again, his ears caught a whisper of sound. He paused, listening. There was no breeze, no movement of the cool night air, but somewhere in the garden, not very far away, branches had rustled. Wearing nothing but the dark-blue silk pyjamas Louise had bought for him yesterday, Axel stepped out onto a flagged terrace. The rustling seemed to have come from the massed bushes on the right. He moved in that direction, keeping his back to the wall of the house.

  A twig snapped, the brittle snapping sound loud in the stillness. He changed direction, making towards it, leaving the terrace, stepping first on grass, then on the gravel of a path. Branches rustled again, this time from somewhere behind. He swung sharply round. A shadow moved, took shape. A man, by its bulk, but with no pale oval of a face, so going in the opposite direction, making towards the drive, perhaps from an enclosed garden, to which the drive was the only way out.

  Axel leaped forward, flinging himself at the figure, grabbing at thickly coated shoulders. An elbow jabbed painfully into his stomach. His grip loosened. He struck out at where the back of a neck should be. The man whirled, one arm flailing, catching Axel across the face, sending him staggering backwards.

  By the time he had recovered the man had gone, swallowed by the night, his flying footsteps receding. It had been a duplicate of that other time, the same senseless interchange of blows. Blows without dignity. Axel’s stomach ached and his nose smarted painfully. He had to wipe tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjamas. And having cleared his vision, saw something round and dark lying on the path. He picked it up—a soft black hat—and carried it with him back into the house, tucking it under his arm while he rearranged his use-

  less window barricade. He hung it on the hallstand before going back upstairs to bed.

  The dream didn’t come again. It was daylight next time he woke. He could hear Louise busy in the kitchen. On his way there he collected the hat.

  “A trophy.” He put it on the table. “Good morning, Louise.”

  She had changed the red jersey for a high-necked white silk blouse. She still wore the black slacks. Her figure was admirably suited to both.

  “Good morning, Axel.” She used the bacon knife to point to the hat. “And where did that come from?”

  “We had visitors last night. Or rather I did.”

  “Visitors?” She laid the knife down. “I think you’d better tell me.”

  He told her.

  “Your sister, Mr. Nolan and your servant … And I slept through it all?” Her tone said such a thing was impossible.

  “I looked in at you between episodes. You were sleeping like a babe.”

  “Up there—in your bedroom?” She still couldn’t believe it. Axel smiled drily. “Before you start talking about overworked imaginations, did you happen to notice a smell in your bedroom when you woke up?” -

  “Not that I know of. Should I?”

  “I did, last night.”

  She left the kitchen. Axel picked up the hat and examined the inside. There was a tab on the greasy headband. “Liar-court. Gent’s Outfitter. Birmingham 6.”

  Louise came back again.

  “Not my room,” she said. “Yours. Perfume.”

  “Chanel Number Five.” He put the hat on a chair. “Carla always uses it. Which is probably why I didn’t notice it.”

  “I’m glad she does. Otherwise—” Louise broke off. “It was a bit too much to swallow without proof. And they just asked you to go back—that was all?”

  “A sister-brother chat. Just like old times. My duty to go back and try to sort Kendall out.”

  “And she had the nerve to say that I was daffy?” She started to laugh. She stopped. “No, it’s not funny. You didn’t believe her, Axel?”

  “No,” he replied simply.

  “I’d like to be certain of that.”

  “I—” He met her direct gaze. She was very serious, very earnest. “I was about to say I’ve come to know you too well. You want something more concrete. All right. They told me one lie. So in my book the whole thing was a mess of lies.”

  “What lie did they tell you?”

  “They
said I collapsed in the study and didn’t come round again until hours later, in my bedroom. All right, so I could have dreamed everything that happened in between. But I didn’t. I went round the house ear-marking things I would need when the time came for me to escape. Then I went to bed. And when I woke up, I was able to lay my hands on everything, dark though it was.”

  “Familiar things,” the girl said doubtfully, “in familiar places.”

  “Not everything. The fireplace, a massive stone affair, is cluttered with all sorts of things—metal ornaments and the like. Including a poker shaped like a sword. The sort of thing one looks at without seeing. Certainly I’d never noticed it before, but it was strong and thin and just what I needed for forcing the door. I made a note of it the first time round. And later, I was able to pick it up by touch alone. Apart from anything else, that alone is enough to tell me that my first tour of the house was real, not a dream.”

  “I see.” Louise turned back to the stove.

  “There was just one thing that wasn’t a lie,” Axel said slowly. “I know Carla’s face as well as I know my own. Hers is a face that rarely gives anything away. But there have been those times when something unexpected has startled her into betraying her feelings. And she was startled when I said the whiskey had been drugged. I’m positive that she didn’t know anything about it. If it had been tampered with, then it was without her knowledge.”

  “If it had been tampered with,” Louise said, overstressing the first word.

  “I’m beginning to think it wasn’t.”

  “Which doesn’t help all that much.” She eyed the hat. “And so, having got rid of one batch of midnight visitors, you go on a midnight stroll in the hope of finding more.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t acquit myself any better than the other time,” Axel admitted ruefully. “Like I said then, that sort of thing obviously isn’t my forte. All I got for my trouble was a whack in the tummy and a belt across the nose. I didn’t even get a look at him. All I know is that he’s big, and that he wears a thick black overcoat.”