Blindfold

by Patricia Wentworth

  Kay jumped up, pulled the packing-case away from the wall, and crouched down by the ventilator with her head almost at floor level. She put her lips to the hole and called, “Kitty—Kitty—Kitty—” Then she remembered that the kitten couldn’t come to her because the hole didn’t go all the way through. She had felt the grating which blocked it. It was a very wobbly grating. It had wobbled when she touched it. If she could get it out of the way, the kitten would be able to come to her. It would be very, very comforting to have the kitten for company.

  She put her hand into the hole, which was just the size of a single brick, and pulled sharply at the grating. It was quite loose, and the brick to which it was fastened had crumbled away on the right-hand side. She kept on pulling and working it to and fro until the crumbly brick broke away and left one end free. Then she found that the whole grating was loose in her hand and could be bent back like an opening door. She called “Kitty—Kitty—Kitty—” again, but the answer she got was a groan that frightened her. It must have frightened the kitten too, for it shot through the hole she had made and came clawing and scrambling to her shoulder, where it mewed, and purred, and nuzzled against her cheek as if it was as glad of company as she was.

  The kitten did make all the difference. Kay blocked the hole so that it couldn’t get out, because it soon got tired of being on her shoulder and went prancing off into the darkness. They played at hide-and-seek together, and sometimes Kay caught the kitten, and sometimes the kitten pounced with a growl upon the handkerchief which she trailed across the floor as a bait. Once it was so fierce that the handkerchief was torn and Kay’s hand scratched.

  It was when she was sucking the blood from the scratch that Kay thought of the plan—or rather it seemed to think of itself. The kitten, and her scratched hand, and her torn handkerchief all rushed together in her mind, and the plan was there. If she tore a strip from the handkerchief, and wrote on it with her blood, and tied it round the kitten’s neck, someone might see it and come and help her. Someone … Mr Harris or Nurse Long? “No, no—please don’t let it be them—please!”… Mrs Green? It was more likely to be Mrs Green than anyone. But if Mrs Green found it, what would she do? Kay didn’t know. She didn’t know whether to say “Please don’t let Mrs Green find it!” or not. She didn’t know about Mrs Green.… Miles? “Oh, please, please, please let Miles find it!” He might. He would come and look for her. “Oh, Miles, you will—won’t you? Oh, Miles, please come quickly!” And if he came to look for her, he might see the kitten. He might. There wasn’t anything impossible about that. And if he saw the kitten, he would remember that she was fond of it. And if he saw a bit of her handkerchief tied round its neck …If, if, if, if, if—she saw those ifs like five barred gates all standing up shut and locked between her and Miles. The tears came hot and stinging to her eyes and ran down over her cheeks, and as they ran, that groaning came again.

  Ten minutes later she had cried some of the hopelessness away. Anyhow if you didn’t try, you deserved to go down. Only cowards didn’t try. Kay was afraid of cellars, and darkness, and Mr Harris, but she was still more afraid of being a coward. If you could keep your courage you could get through anything—only sometimes it was so difficult.

  Well, she could do what she had planned. She was going to do it now. She wasn’t going to cry any more. She tore a narrow strip from her handkerchief. That was the first thing, and that was easy enough. But how was she going to write in the dark? There was no name on the handkerchief. She could have written in the dark with a pencil upon paper, but to write with a pin dipped in blood upon cambric was something altogether different. The pin was too thin. It wouldn’t do. She had thought of a pin because she had one in the band of her apron. She had kept on her apron to take the tray upstairs. The head of the pin would be thicker than the point. She couldn’t think of anything else. Her hand was still bleeding. The kitten had scratched deep. She could feel the blood trickling down.

  She found the pin, and holding it by the point, she did her best to scrawl a capital K on the strip she had torn from her handkerchief. She couldn’t do any more than that—it was no use trying without a light—but if Miles saw that K scrawled in blood, he would know that something had happened to her in this house. “Oh, please, please, please let him find it!”

  She tied the strip round the kitten’s neck. It had to be seen, but it mustn’t look like a message. At least it must look like a message to Miles, but not to Mr Harris or Nurse Long. She tied the ends in a little bow—you often saw a kitten with a bow round its neck—and then she pulled the packing-case away again and kissed the kitten, and told it to be careful, and put it through the hole, shutting the ventilator after it and pushing the packing-case back against the wall.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  At about half past seven Miles managed to get on to Ian Gilmore. Ian, as usual, was dining out. He listened to what Miles had to say, and was extremely discouraging.

  “My dear man, if you go to the police, they’ll think you’re batty. You’ll probably hear from her in the morning. You say yourself that you’ve been urging her to leave. Now she’s done it, and you’ve got the wind up. It sounds a bit unreasonable to me.”

  It sounded unreasonable to Miles himself, but that didn’t make any difference. The hot, stuffy telephone-box in the hotel was full of his unreasoning, unreasonable fear. He said in a hard, strained voice,

  “She knew I was coming to fetch her away.”

  Ian at the other end of the line sounded rather impatient. “You’ve just told me you went at half past two, and you were sent away because she was with the old lady. Well, after that she wouldn’t know whether you were coming back or not. She probably flared up, had words with them, and walked out of the house.”

  This, of course, was a perfectly reasonable explanation; Miles’ brain told him so. But it wasn’t his brain which was in charge just now. He was afraid for Kay, and fear had nothing in common with reason.

  “Sleep on it,” said Ian Gilmore and rang off.

  Miles came out of the telephone-box. He would wait a little longer, and then he would go round to Varley Street again. He might be able to find out where the taxi had come from. Mrs Green would probably know. He was a fool not to have asked her. The prospect of having something to do made him feel better. Waiting for news is of all things in the world the most damnable. Well, he would wait till half past eight, but not a minute longer. Meanwhile he was probably all the sorts of fool that Ian Gilmore was thinking him.

  Flossie Palmer slipped out to the post that evening about nine o’clock. It was Gladys’ afternoon and evening out, but you could always go round to the post. Ernie might be hanging around on the chance of her slipping out. It wasn’t very likely because of the row they’d had, but if they hadn’t had a row, he’d have been there sure enough, walking up and down and waiting for her to slip out for half an hour. Flossie hoped passionately that he was going to be there, because now that it was all over and she wasn’t an heiress, she was going to enjoy herself letting Ernie Bowden know exactly what she thought about him and his trampling ways. She’d got it all mapped out. First she was going to tell him that she wasn’t Miss Macintyre, and then when he tried to make it up with her, she’d just show him. Ernie Bowden was going to learn a thing or two about the way a young lady that was a young lady expected him to treat her. She looked forward to this a good deal. And then, when Ernie was properly humble and crushed, perhaps she’d think about making it up with him.

  She got down to the pillar-box and walked past it round the corner. When she had gone a little way, she heard a footstep following her. Her heart beat a little faster, but she wasn’t going to look round. Ernie needn’t think she was looking out for him. Oh no—she was going to be ever so surprised when he came up with her.

  The footstep came nearer. Insensibly her pace slackened a little. And then, in the darkest place between the lamp at the corner and the lamp at Western Terrace, the step came up beside her and a perfectly strange man’s
voice spoke her name.

  “Miss Palmer—”

  Flossie was so startled that she hadn’t anything to say. She had made sure that it was Ernie who was following her. She could have cried with disappointment. And then all of a sudden she was afraid. There wasn’t a soul about, and it was very dark. She turned round to go back to the corner, and a hand took her by the arm.

  Flossie caught her breath.

  “Look here, let go, or I shall scream!” And as she said it, she wondered whether anyone would hear her because there were two empty houses just here and then the long blank side of the corner house.

  The man said, “I shouldn’t do that. I only want a word with you.”

  He stopped, and she had to stop too. She couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t see anything except a dark figure. She thought he had a muffler about his neck, and a hat with a turned-down brim. His voice had no ring in it. It was just a whisper.

  She said, “What do you want?” and had so little breath to say it with that she felt quite sure she could never scream loud enough for anyone to hear.

  “Listen to me,” said the whispering voice. “You’ve just missed getting into serious trouble.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you—Miss Flossie Palmer Ivy Hodge?”

  Flossie felt a stab of terror.

  “Ooh! It’s Them!”

  She must have made some uncontrollable movement, because he laughed a little. There is something horrid about a whispering laugh.

  “So now you know what we’re talking about,” said the man. “And what I want to know is, why did you do it?”

  Flossie was frightened, but she had her wits about her. She thought there was no harm in pretending to be even more frightened than she was.

  “Ooh! What do you mean?”

  “Why did you call yourself Ivy Hodge?”

  “To oblige Ivy.”

  “But why did you run away?”

  “Oh, I dunno—I come over queer. Must have been a bad dream or something. P’raps it was a ghost.”

  Her arm was shaken a little.

  “A bad dream, was it? And how many people have you told this dream to?”

  Flossie burst into tears.

  “Ooh—I never! Do you think I want people to think I’m batty. Why, if I was to say I see someone staring at me out of a looking-glass, they’d be bound to think I was batty—wouldn’t they?”

  “I should think so,” said the man. “Was that what you thought you saw?”

  “I come over queer,” said Flossie. “I’m not batty—honest I’m not. I come over queer and I run away.”

  There was a pause. Was he going to believe her or wasn’t he? And if he didn’t believe her, what was going to happen next? A cold shudder ran all over Flossie from her head to her feet. Then the hand on her arm relaxed its grasp. It didn’t let go altogether, but it held her less tightly. The man said,

  “I certainly shouldn’t talk about it if I were you. You wouldn’t like to be put away in a lunatic asylum, would you? It might happen if you talked—or you might find yourself in the river or under a car some dark night. No, you’d better not talk.”

  “Ooh—I won’t!” said Flossie with heartfelt terror. And with that a car turned out of Western Terrace and she pulled her arm away and ran for it into the light of the corner lamp, and round the corner and up Merriton Street to No. 12.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  Mrs Green was in a very bad temper. She was an easy-going woman as a rule, but she didn’t like to be put about. She considered that she had been put about something cruel. The lunch things to wash and the tea tray to get ready, and then the tea things to wash up, and then the supper tray and the supper things—all of which was the girl’s work and not to be expected of a cook that was a cook. Then that there kitten of Kay’s must needs get under her feet, the dratted little beast, so that it was going on for a miracle she hadn’t come down smack and as like as not broken something. Well, she’d shut it up safe enough now, and without giving it its supper either, and perhaps now she could have her own supper in peace—a plate of the stew, very good and tasty it was, and surprising how much Miss Rowland and Nurse had put away between them, but still there was plenty left.

  Mrs Green had a sound, solid appetite. She sat down to a good plateful of stew with a hunk of bread, a slab of yellow cheese, and a bottle of beer. If she’d got to do all the work, she’d got to keep her strength up. She began to eat, slowly and with relish, but instead of feeling soothed her anger kept on mounting in a steady, sluggish tide. She would have the trays to see to and all the washing up on her hands—and Kay off gallivanting with that young man no doubt. Supper things to wash, breakfast things to wash, and that there dratted kitten to clean up after and to feed—and getting in anyone’s way just to spite them, the dratted little toad.

  Mrs Green stopped munching and called herself a regular right down fool. What did she want to go putting the kitten in the cellar for? What she did ought to have done was to throw it out neck and crop into the street, where it belonged. So she would too, just as soon as ever she’d finished her supper. A sight too easy-going she’d been, letting Kay bring it in, and she wasn’t going to keep it, not another day she wasn’t. Out it would go, and lucky if it didn’t get its neck twisted. All her anger against Kay became directed towards Kay’s kitten. She would finish her supper, and then out it would go. She cut a thick slice of cheese and ate it with enjoyment.

  Downstairs in the cellar Kay was tying the strip of her handkerchief round the kitten’s neck.

  Mrs Green’s supper was a protracted affair. Washing up or no washing up, she wasn’t going to be hurried over her food. She finished the stew, and then she finished the cheese, and then she finished the beer. And then she got heavily to her feet and went into the scullery, where she opened the cellar door and called down the steps to the kitten. She didn’t put on the scullery light, because she didn’t need it. After five years in the house she didn’t need a light to find her way across her own scullery. She just opened the low door and called down into the darkness.

  “Here, you dratted little nuisance—come along with you! Puss—puss—puss—”

  The kitten had returned through the hole in the party wall between the houses. Curiosity, and a faint smell of food, had taken it into the cellar next to Kay’s. There was a hole that it could just squeeze through, and it was hungry, having had nothing to eat since breakfast time. The cellar had been disappointing. There was no food. There was a faint mousy smell, but there were no mice. There was a large, alarming, groaning creature lying on a bed in one corner. It wasn’t at all a nice bed. The kitten had wailed its disapproval. And then, miraculously, there had come Kay’s voice, calling it. But Kay had been disappointing too. The kitten associated her with milk, but there wasn’t any milk. Highly disgruntled, it found itself back in the cellar with the groaning creature. There was something round its neck, something that tickled, something that wouldn’t come off in the maddest scampering rush.

  With a little growl of rage, the kitten squeezed through the hole by which it had come and emerged into the large cellar under the kitchen of No. 16. The thing round its neck wouldn’t come off. Neither scratching, rolling, twisting, nor flying round in circles would get rid of it. The only thing that happened was that the bow which had stuck up at the back of its neck slipped round under its chin, where it tickled worse than ever.

  And then the door at the top of the cellar steps opened noisily. A delicious smell of stew came rushing down, and Mrs Green’s voice called, “Puss—puss—puss!” With a loud ecstatic mew the kitten ran, tail erect, towards that lovely satisfying smell. Mewing, purring, and trembling with ecstasy, it reached the top step, to be instantly snatched up and carried at arm’s length across the kitchen, along the passage, and out of the door into the area. Mrs Green’s hands were large and nubbly. The one that, held the kitten left its head and tail visible, but not much else. If Kay’s cambric bow had still been st
icking up on end, it is just possible that Mrs Green might have noticed it as she passed through the lighted kitchen—possible, but not probable, because her mind was of the sort which admits but one idea at a time, and that one slowly. At the moment what she wanted to do was to get rid of that dratted girl’s dratted kitten, and the sooner the better. She acually mounted the area steps, and, flinging the kitten across the pavement into the gutter, she slammed, first the area gate, and then, breathing heavily but triumphantly, the area door—“And if the next girl tries bringing livestock in on me, I’ll soon let ’er know as this is a kitchen and not a menagerie!” With this to support her Mrs Green addressed herself to the washing up.

  It was not an auspicious moment for Miles Clayton to put in an appearance. Mrs Green came to the door with “Drat!” written all over her, and when she saw who it was that had knocked, she would have banged the door on him if he hadn’t been too quick for her and got his foot across the sill again.

  “Mrs Green, I won’t keep you a minute.”

  Mrs Green stepped back heavily in order to glare at him the better.

  “Here, young man, I’ve had about enough of this! You take your foot out of there, or I’ll send for the police!”

  “Miss Rowland would like that—wouldn’t she?” said Miles. “No, look here, Mrs Green, I really won’t keep you. And I know you’ve got extra to do and all that, but if you would just tell me where that taxi came from—the one Kay went off in—I’d be most awfully obliged to you—I really would.” He put out his hand as he spoke, and Mrs Green saw a Treasury note in it.