Rolling Stone

by Patricia Wentworth

  Terry said, “She went out on to the terrace. I’ll fetch her.” She ran off.

  Emily shivered.

  “Oh dear, I thought there was a draught. How could she be so foolish? It is much too cold, and she hasn’t even got a wrap—and Terry hasn’t either.”

  Terry ran along the terrace in her pink frock. There was no moon yet, only a brightness where the moon would be. And, at the end of the terrace against the brightness, a dark unmoving shape.

  Terry came up to it, slackening her pace.

  “Norah—they want you to make up a four for bridge. Ouf! Aren’t you petrified out here?”

  Norah flung round. Her sequins clashed.

  “Why should I come in? What have any of them done for me that I should put myself out for them?” Her voice panted with anger.

  Terry was appalled. Everyone knew that Norah had a temper—but really! She said in rather a dry little voice,

  “Well, of course you can do just as you like. Uncle Basil hates cut-throat, so you’d be one up on him. The others won’t mind, except that darling Emily is quite sure you are catching your death of cold, and the benevolent uncle will think he has offended you.”

  Just for a moment Terry wondered if Miss Margesson was going to strike her. There was that sort of feeling in the air. Then she said,

  “Full of common sense—aren’t you, Terry? There’s no moon anyhow, so I might as well come in.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Peter Talbot drove his newly acquired Austin along a dark and apparently endless road. Not that he minded about its being endless, or dark either for the matter of that. It was a pleasant October night, and presently the moon would be up. He wondered whether the people whose instructions he was obeying had taken the moon into their reckoning. It would be bad enough to lurk burglariously about Heathacres in the dark, but a very bright full moon would impart an indecent air of melodrama to the proceedings. Country house set. Spotlight on hero who is about to break into tenor solo—high C, vibrato, and con amore. Lord, no, I’m the villain—a villain on the right side of thirty is a baritone, on the wrong side a bass. Afraid I can’t manage either.

  He began to compose a tenor solo to be sung at the window of the burglaree whilst waiting for an accomplice to hand over the loot. It came out rather well, and distracted his mind from the fact that he was beginning to get cold feet.

  All the instructions had been followed up to date. In the name of James Reilly he had taken out a subscription at Preedo’s Library and given his address as the Edenbridge Hotel, Minden Avenue. No more than a couple of hours later a messenger-boy had delivered a package addressed to Mr. James Reilly, which package contained the gratifying sum of 80 in one-pound Treasury notes.

  In pursuance of his instructions he had then visited Pratt’s garage, Lemming Street, inspected, haggled over, and finally purchased for 50 an elderly but organically sound Austin 14. He was not driving her without enthusiasm in the direction of Heathacres. He continued to divert himself with his tenor solo.

  He reached Firshot at a little after midnight. A large-scale map of Surrey had informed him that Heathacres lay half a mile beyond the village on the left-hand side of the road. There did not seem to be any other houses near it, and the right-hand side of the road was bordered by the heath mentioned in his instructions.

  He found the place easily enough, ran the car off the road behind a convenient clump of thorn and holly, and began to think what he would do next. The luminous dial of his wrist-watch told him that it was five-and-twenty to one. He was therefore nearly an hour and a half ahead of his instructions, which said, “Enter drive at two A.M.” There was something peremptory and precise about this which got his goat. He thought he would enter drive when he found it convenient, and he thought there was no time like the present, because for the moment the moon was behind the bank of cloud and he had no real wish to tread an illuminated stage.

  It was a longish drive, winding at first over the open heath and then taking to itself marching ranks of tall, dark cypresses. He hoped that he would not be obliged to make a hurried exit, since for quite a third of the way there would be no cover at all. The cypresses stopped. Other and lower shrubs took their place. They ceased too. He came out upon a gravel sweep, and saw the black bulk of the house between him and the sky.

  No terrace this side. A canopied porch, pillars, steps going up. The terrace must be on the other side of the house. He got in amongst shrubs again, scratched a groping hand on a tall clipped holly, and smelt the smoky, resinous tang of arbor vitae. Then by good fortune he blundered on to a path and came out of the shrubs to an open space where his feet met grass. He could see the house again now, long and low, with the terrace running the whole length of it. His path had brought him out upon a lawn at the terrace foot. There were steps going up quite near to where he stood.

  His instructions said, “Proceed terrace and wait.” If that meant that he was to climb those steps and wait for the rising moon to emerge from its bank of cloud and floodlight him, well, he was off. There were some very nice convenient bushes to hand, and he intended to use them as cover. Anyhow there would still be well over an hour to wait.

  He got between a prickly bush, not holly, and a dark smothery one with a queer aromatic smell and waited. The moon came slowly up out of the cloud-bank. The dark sky brightened. His bushes stood out black against it. High over head the great dark boughs of a cedar stretched over the lawn. The front of the house began to shine. A white house, or cream-washed; creepers like a shadow pattern on the wall; every window that was shut beginning to glitter; every open window mysteriously empty—black, blank, and empty. It was rather like looking at a person who is asleep. There is only a shell—no life, no awareness; the sleeper does not know that you are there at all.

  The house stood in the moonlight, and did not know anything about Spike Reilly and his instructions.

  And then all at once the blank emptiness of one of those open windows was filled. Something moved in the dark room behind it. Peter saw the movement first—something light, something white. Then a girl came to the window in her nightgown and looked out. Her neck and arms were bare. Her hair looked dark and her eyes, but everything else was white. She stood there quite still for a while and looked up. Then she turned suddenly and was gone, and the window blank again.

  Peter stood and looked at it. It was the nearest of all the windows. If he had stepped out upon the lawn, she would have seen him. He could have struck a romantic attitude and got off with his tenor solo. What a wasted opportunity.

  He was still looking up, when away to the right something flashed. He looked down and along the terrace, and saw what it was. Someone had opened a long glass door. It led down to the terrace by a couple of steps. At the top of these steps a dark wrapped figure stood and held the door in a not very steady hand. The door opened outwards. There was a trembling reflection from the glass, the kind of shifting light which moves on moving water. The figure stood there hesitating, and then came out upon the steps and down them into the moonlight, pushing the door to behind her.

  It was a woman in a long black coat which covered her to her feet. She was bare-headed, her black hair ruffling in the breeze. She came quickly along the terrace, and he saw her face quite plainly—a handsome haggard face, eyes deeply shadowed, lips apart. At the top of the steps she stopped and looked back across her shoulder. She had both hands together at her breast, half clutching at her coat, half holding something. Before Peter had time to wonder what it was she had run down the steps and stood peering into the shadows.

  “Jimmy—are you there?” Her voice, a naturally vibrant one, was hushed to the very edge of audibility. She paused, drew a quick breath, and said the name again, a little louder, “Jimmy—”

  Peter stood uncertain between his bushes. Was it his cue, or wasn’t it? If it was, something had gone wrong with the timing, because it couldn’t be more than one o’clock, and he wasn’t supposed to be entering the drive until two. If it wasn�
��t his cue, then who was Jimmy—and was he butting in on an assignation? Well, to his mind this girl didn’t look as if she had come to meet a lover. She had the air of being in a kind of terrified hurry. She stood just beyond the bottom step and called again,

  “Jimmy—are you there?”

  Bearing in mind that he was Spike Reilly, and that Reilly’s baptismal name was James, Peter concluded that he had better be there. He said, “Yes,” and moved forward, but not so far forward as to risk identification.

  Just as he took that step, the glass door flashed again. A girl looked out. Peter saw that, and thought “Hullo!” He had no time to think anything else, because the first girl came running at him. She said, “Quick, quick—take them!” Then she half turned, looked back, and saw the swinging door and someone coming down the steps to the terrace, someone coming out of the door which she had left ajar behind her. With a terrified gasp she pushed what felt like a heavy string of beads into Peter’s hands and ran away past him and down the path which skirted the house.

  CHAPTER X

  Terry Clive woke up and found the moonlight in her room. She jumped out of bed and ran to the open window. She had no idea what had waked her, but she wanted to see those heather and bracken slopes under the moon. There had been a bank of cloud when she came up to bed. It was there still, but for the moment the moon rose clear. Nice to have a view like this hanging there in the window-frame day in day out, under the sun and the moon and the stars. She thought, “I hope it’s a comfort to Emily,” and thought, “It would be to me.” And then wondered whether anything would really comfort you if you had lost your baby and never had another, but only a husband who was rude to you in front of people.

  She leaned out of the window and saw how the moonlight bleached the bracken and the heather. But the pines were too dark for it. They stood up black and strange and dreamed their own dreams.

  She had been looking for only a minute or two, when she heard a sound, and the moment she heard it she knew she had heard it before, and that it had waked her. It was the sound of Emily Cresswell’s door closing just along the passage, and it was queer that it should have waked her, because it was such a soft brushing sound. There was a strip of plushy stuff on the bottom edge of the door to keep out draughts, and it made a soft shush-shush against the thick pile of Emily’s carpet whenever the door was opened.

  She wondered if Emily was ill. It must be quite late. They had come up at eleven. She thought it must be one o’clock or past by the moon. She opened her own door and looked out. Emily’s door was shut, and someone who wasn’t Emily was walking away down the passage. There was no light in the corridor itself, but a light burned all night long in the hall. Against the glow which came up from the well of the stairs Terry saw a tall shape move as, just a few hours ago, she had seen out on the terrace a dark shape stand against the brightening sky. She thought it was the same shape. She thought—no, she didn’t stop to think. She snatched a rough warm coat from the cupboard and padded barefoot after the person who had come out of Emily’s room. What business had anyone to be in Emily Cresswell’s room in the middle of the night, and to go sliding off along the passage and down the stairs like a black ghost? It was in Terry’s mind that she would find out.

  She came to the top of the stairs and looked over. There was a flight, and a landing, and another flight that turned. The bottom step was under Terry where she looked over—right under her. The light shone on it. She looked down, and saw Norah Margesson in a black satin coat that hid her to her feet. Her hair hung loose over the collar of the coat. Her face without make-up had a desperate pallor. Her hands were out before her, the right pressed down upon the left. But what she carried could not be hidden. Milk-white and lovely, Emily Cresswell’s pearls were heaped between her palms. Here and there they escaped, dripped down, and caught the light. The clasp with its brilliants dazzled. Before Terry had time to draw her breath in a gasp, Miss Margesson was gone out of sight, and Emily Cresswell’s necklace with her.

  Just for a moment Terry felt absolutely petrified. She couldn’t think, and she couldn’t move. She just felt cold to her bones and rather sick. That lasted for about half a minute. Then a hot, restorative anger surged over her. Her mind raced, and her feet. If Norah was walking in her sleep she must be brought back. If she was stealing Emily’s pearls she must be made to give them back. Terry didn’t believe she was sleep-walking. She believed she was stealing.

  She arrived at the bottom of the stairs and looked about her under the light. The drawing-room door stood open a hand’s breath. All the other doors were shut. She pushed the partly open door and found the drawing-room dark beyond it—all dark except for one tall bright panel where a green linen curtain had been pulled aside from the glass door which opened upon the terrace. The curtain had been drawn when they left the room two hours ago. A cold draught met her, and she saw that the door itself was ajar. She opened it wide and looked out.

  The moonlight was flooding the terrace, and there was no one there. But away to the right where the steps went down and the shadows began—tree shadows, making a black pattern on the grass and merging into the black formlessness of crowding shrubs—there something moved. Some thing or some one.

  She reached the terrace and ran along it to the steps. And down them without check or pause to what she had seen amongst the shadows.

  Peter stood his ground and watched her come. He felt some pardonable interest as to what this was all about. If he ran for it he would probably brain himself against a tree trunk or be tripped and flung sprawling. He didn’t fancy the prospect. He thought he would stay put and see what was to be seen. He didn’t think that the girl could see him. The other one hadn’t until he moved.

  He was full of a lively curiosity. This girl was barefoot. She had a rough coat hanging open over her nightgown. She ran straight down the steps and right up to him. She caught him by the arm and shook it. She said in a breathless tone of rage,

  “Give them back at once!”

  When she shook him his handful of beads rattled. She let go of his arm and took him by the wrist. Her hand was small, and strong, and icy cold. She said, still in that furious whisper,

  “Give them back at once!”

  Peter grinned, but of course she couldn’t see him. They were in the darkest of the shadows. She couldn’t see anything. But he had seen her, and she was the girl who had looked out the window—the one to whom he ought to have been singing his tenor solo. Well, he wouldn’t have minded. But instead here she was, trying to shake him. He gave her marks for courage, because if he had really been Spike Reilly, or the Jimmy whom the first girl was expecting, she was running a rather unpleasant risk. He said mildly,

  “Do you mind telling me what you want?”

  She stamped a bare foot.

  “Mrs. Cresswell’s pearls—you’ve got them in your hand! If you don’t give them back at once, I shall scream.”

  Peter certainly didn’t want her to scream. He rather fancied that this would have been the cue for Spike Reilly to take her by the throat. As he was not prepared to do this, he said with all the social charm he could muster,

  “Oh, I shouldn’t do that.”

  “Then give me the pearls—at once!”

  “Pearls, are they? Well, well!”

  “As if you didn’t know!” Her whisper was edged with contempt.

  “Actually, I didn’t. Believe it or not, that haggard female just ran down the steps and shoved them at me, after which she ran away. And if you know what it’s all about, I don’t.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “Oh, no—it’s a wicked, unbelieving world. Why, if anyone came along and found us here, do you suppose they would believe that you were doing a bit of private sleuthing? Oh, no, they would see you clasping me affectionately by the wrist, and like you they would immediately believe the worst.”

  Her cold, tight grip relaxed, and then tightened again resolutel
y.

  “What are you doing here if you didn’t come for the pearls?”

  “You’ve no delicacy,” said Peter. “But if you want to know, I had an assignation.”

  She gave a little angry laugh.

  “Oh, yes—with Norah—to take the pearls!”

  “Any good offering you my word of honour that I’ve never seen Norah before—didn’t know her name, and hadn’t any idea what it was she was pushing at me?”

  She stamped again, really hard. It must have hurt. She said in that edged voice,

  “Not the slightest. Give me the pearls!”

  “All right, all right, don’t get excited.” He moved forward a step or two, stretched his right hand, and set the pearls dangling in a patch of moonlight.

  Terry, discovering that she was holding the wrong wrist, let go of it and sprang back. They both looked at the pearls. She made a snatch and missed them, because a long arm shot up and held them, still dangling, out of reach.

  She was out of the shadow now, and he could see her face. She looked young and angry, and her eyes were very bright. Her hair curled all over her head like a child’s. She had a soft round face and a soft red mouth. Peter Talbot felt a dangerous desire to pick her up and kiss her. He wondered what she would do if he did.

  His hand came down and offered her the pearls politely on an open palm.

  “Here you are. I’m not really a thief, you know. And if I were, there’s something I’d rather have than pearls.”

  Terry had held his wrist, but she took care not to touch his hand. She picked up Emily Cresswell’s necklace, whisked round, and ran up the steps and into the house. Peter watched to see if she would shut the door, but she left it ajar.

  He went back to his place, and wondered what was going to happen next.