The Girl in the Cellar (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 32)

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘Yes?’

  It was just one word, but he knew when he heard it that that was how it was to be between them.

  ‘We found the house—’

  She said ‘Oh—’ It was more a breath than a word.

  ‘The floor of the cellar had been swept and washed, but in the corner there were some boards. They hadn’t been moved. I moved them. This was lying underneath them.’ He held out his palm with the bead upon it – a small blue bead – evidence of murder—

  She met his eyes. Something seemed to pass between them. She said very low, ‘Her beads were like that.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘Yes. They had been – round her neck. The string was broken—’ She was looking back into the dark cellar. The light came from the torch in her hand, the light dazzled on the beads. She said, ‘I saw them there in the cellar – I did see them—’

  He spoke insistently.

  ‘You’re sure you saw them – the beads?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ A shudder shook her. ‘They were there – the beads – but the string was broken—’

  He said, ‘We were there – Miss Silver and I. The house is to let furnished. The old lady it belonged to died. Which way did you go down to the cellar from the hall – right or left?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. And then it came to her. ‘I don’t know about going down – but coming up – the door was on my right. There was the flight of steps – and then the door – it was half open – but no light in the hall. There was a table between me and the outside door – I had to go round it – the door was a little open. I went out and shut the door behind me. It was a dark road, but there were a lot of lights at the far end of it. I went along to the lights. I got into the first bus that stopped.’

  He was frowning intently.

  ‘You don’t remember going to the house – who let you in?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t remember anything like that—’ She paused. ‘If I had seen anyone – anyone at all – wouldn’t I remember them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think I should. I don’t think I saw anyone in that house. I think we were alone there – the dead girl and myself. I don’t think there was anyone else. If there was, why didn’t they come and kill me too? I think the house was empty.’

  He thought so too, but he said nothing. It was a moment before he spoke.

  ‘How many steps were there from the ground floor of the cellar to the hall?’

  All this time she had been looking at him. Now her expression altered. She shut her eyes, and her lips moved. It came to him that she was counting the steps. She was back in the cellar, sitting on the steps with the torch in her hand and the faintness passing away. Six steps down – and the floor – and the girl’s body – lying there – dead – six steps down. How many steps up from where she had been sitting, trying to control fear – the horror of being alone with the dead? There were more steps above her than below.

  She opened her eyes, met his, and said, ‘It was six steps down from where I was – and six or seven steps up – I can’t tell exactly.’

  He said, That’s near enough.’

  There was a long pause between them. She had the feeling of having given out all she had to give. It left her drained and weak. He said suddenly, ‘You’d never seen the girl before?’

  ‘No, never. At least I don’t think so – I don’t remember.’

  He was frowning again.

  ‘How on earth did you get mixed up in it?’

  ‘I don’t know – I can’t remember.’ Then she made a small movement towards him. ‘Something happened yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a man – I was planting bulbs – I looked up, and he was where that gate opens on the border, leaning on it, smoking.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I thought – he had mistaken his way. He stood there – smiling. He lighted a cigarette. Then he said—’ It swept over her again, the dreadful feeling which she had had in that man’s presence. Everything darkened. She put out her hand and Jim took it. It was only then that she felt how icy cold she was – how cold. His hands were warm. Their warmth brought her consciousness back.

  He saw her turn fainting white. And then he saw the colour come again to her lips, to her cheek. He had a quite extraordinary sensation of having come home. He said, ‘Anne – Anne – you’re safe – you’re home. Don’t – Anne – darling!’

  For a moment she leaned against him. Then she said in a confused sort of way, ‘I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to. Oh, I’m stupid!’ Her eyes were full of tears. She groped in her pocket for her handkerchief and dried them, leaning against him. Then she said, ‘I don’t know what made me do that. He-he frightened me – I don’t know why.’

  ‘He frightened you? What did he say?’

  ‘He said we’d got to have a talk. He said I wouldn’t want to have it in public. I – I turned faint like I did just now – I don’t know why. It frightened me – he frightened me. I said I had never met him before, and he laughed. He – he stood there and smoked. He said I knew what he might say—’ Her voice went away to a whisper on the word. ‘But I didn’t – I didn’t – oh, I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. I think that’s what frightened me. If I could have remembered, no matter what it was, I wouldn’t have been so frightened. It’s not knowing – not being able to see. It’s like waking up in the night and not knowing where you are.’

  His arm was round her again. She leaned against him and trembled. He said, ‘Go on.’

  ‘There wasn’t much more. I said I didn’t know him – I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t want to. I said would he please go away. And he said—’ Her colour all went again and she gripped his arm, but her voice came steadily. ‘He said, “Well, I’ll go for now. Remember, we know where you are.” Then he said he’d got some orders for me. I wasn’t to tell anyone I’d seen him or what he had said, and when I got my orders I was to do just what I was told – at once. He said, “You’d better!” and he turned round and went away.’ She paused for a moment, and then she said, speaking very low and in a piteous hurried manner, ‘I don’t know what he meant, but it frightened me – dreadfully.’

  He considered that, holding her hand in a strong tight clasp, only half aware of what he was doing or of the fact that what would have hurt her at a time of full security was in her present state something which she would not be without. In the end he spoke.

  ‘You don’t remember him?’

  ‘No – not at all. I don’t believe I had ever seen him before.’

  ‘Then why should he speak to you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

  He looked at her with the same frowning gaze. When she had seen it before it had set her wondering what she had said or done to anger him. Now in a strange sort of way she knew the frown for what it was, a deep concern for her, a deepening interest.

  He said abruptly, ‘Listen to me! I don’t like leaving you here, but I don’t see any way out of it – not at present. All the same I don’t like it very much, but you should be all right if you do just what I say. Now listen! You’re not to go out of sight of another person – old Clarke in the garden – one of the people in the house. You’re not to go out by yourself – do you hear?’

  ‘Yes, I hear, but—’

  ‘There isn’t any but. You do what you’re told, and you’ll be safe!’ He repeated the word, ‘Safe. That’s what you want to be, isn’t it? And at present I can’t protect you because I don’t know enough. I’ve got to find out who you are, how you come into this business, how to make you safe. And you’ve got to help. You can do that in two ways. You can do just what I say – never be out of sight of someone you can call to for help. And if you remember anything – anything at all – ring me up and tell me what it is. I think your memory will come back. Don’t strain, don’t try to remember. That’s not the way. But if you do remember anythi
ng, ring me up at once. Here’s an address that will find me within an hour or two.’ He let go of her hand and wrote on a leaf torn from a scrubby notebook. ‘These people will know where I am and what I am doing. You can speak freely to them.’

  ‘To anyone who answers the telephone?’

  ‘Yes. And there’ll be someone there always. It’s this end you’ll have to look out for. Don’t talk to anyone here. Lilian’s all right, but she’s a fool. And Harriet – oh, they’re all right, but they haven’t as much sense as you could put on a three-penny bit. So you won’t tell them anything – nothing at all! Is that understood?’

  She said, ‘Yes.’ It was more than an agreement. It was a promise, and he took it as such.

  He said, ‘All right. Then we’ll be getting back. I haven’t too much time.’

  She didn’t say it aloud, but it came up in her with a kind of shaking strength.

  ‘Too much time – no, there isn’t too much time at all.’

  Afterwards she was to wish that she had said it to him.

  SEVENTEEN

  IT SEEMED NO time at all until he was gone. The day went by and the night came. She went up to bed early. There was a kind of hush upon her spirits. Looking back on it afterwards, it seemed strange to her. It was as if everything waited, she didn’t know for what. She only knew that there was nothing she could do about it – nothing except wait. Deep in her mind the question asked itself, ‘What am I waiting for?’ and every time that happened something moved quickly in those under places and shut it away.

  By the time that coffee had been drunk and the tray removed she was so tired that sleeping and waking seemed to be part of a pattern in which she moved uncertainly, with now one side of her awake and on the point of knowing what there was to be known about herself, about the dead girl, about the man who had threatened her; and now another side, not seen but dimly felt, pressing in, just not realized, but certain, sure, and inevitable. Except momentarily, there was no fear. She was able to talk.

  There was a long period during which Lilian talked interminably about Christmas cards – how they must be certain to go over the list thoroughly and cut them down as much as possible.

  ‘Because really they are at least three times as expensive as they used to be, and though I don’t grudge anything to anyone, I must say it does seem a waste, because anything that is worthwhile spending on at all is such a price that I’m sure I don’t know where people get the money from.’

  Harriet looked up and said, ‘If nobody sent any cards, we shouldn’t have them for the hospital. It’s dreadful to think of people throwing them away, when you think what has been spent on them.’

  Lilian gave a sharp little glance at Anne.

  ‘I suppose you won’t have any cards to send,’ she said.

  Anne wondered what she was to say to that. Then she found herself saying, ‘No.’

  ‘It gets worse and worse,’ said Lilian. ‘Every year.’

  Harriet put down her coffee-cup.

  ‘Well, we needn’t think about it yet,’ she said.

  For some reason the phrase went in and out of Anne’s shifting thought. No need to think or plan for Christmas or any other future day. Take things as they come. Take things as they are. What does it matter? There’s one end to everything.

  Then suddenly she was broad awake. The soothing, loving tides, the half-consciousness, slid away and she was broad awake – broad awake and just about to see what it all meant. It was something she didn’t want to see. It was something horrible and frightening. And then suddenly, just as she was going to see what it was, it was gone again and the mists closed down. Her mind was full of mist. The room seemed to swirl. She didn’t know where she was for a moment. She didn’t know that all the colour had left her face, and that she was staring blankly. And then after a moment the room cleared again. She saw the heavy old-fashioned curtains drawn across the windows, the clutter of furniture, the brass tray with the coffee-cups which someone had brought from India fifty or sixty years ago, the tall cupboards full of china, the sofa and the chairs, the carpet with its wreaths of flowers all gone away to a dull drab, and Lilian, sitting there looking at her.

  Harriet was reading a heavy book. She wasn’t watching them. But Lilian, Lilian was looking at her with the strangest expression. A little picture came up in Anne’s mind – the picture of a cat waiting by a mouse-hole. Lilian was looking at her like that. She made a very great effort and pushed the picture away. Her thoughts cleared.

  Lilian said, ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘Yes, I’m tired – I don’t know why.’

  ‘You had better go off to bed early. Harriet often goes early. I sit up to all hours, so don’t wait for me.’

  She waited till Thomasina came for the tray, and then said good-night and went upstairs to bed.

  Sleep came down on her like a rushing black cloud. Afterwards, when she thought about it, she was to wonder about that sleep. Was it just that she was tired, that she had been under a strain? Or was there another reason for that rushing down of the curtain of darkness? She was never to be quite sure, but her movements grew slower and slower, and the last thing she remembered was blowing out the candle by her bed. Nothing after that at all – nothing but the direct and distinct sensation of seeing the candle-flame very large and bright, a large bright flame to be blown at. She could remember blowing at it, and then darkness succeeded light and she couldn’t remember anything more at all, only a black unconsciousness that pressed in upon her and contained no living thought. It wasn’t like sleep. Sleep was natural and refreshing. This unconsciousness was like being drowned fathoms deep. When you were asleep you rested. Now she didn’t rest at all. There was a struggle going on. She struggled to come back out of the darkness, out of the horrible pit, and she couldn’t – she couldn’t. The darkness came in waves; it rose against her and flowed in. Then she would struggle against the blackness, against suffocation, against the imminent deadly knowledge which lay behind the blackness. Every time she got to that, to the fact that there was some knowledge which eluded her, she went down again into the blackness and the confusion.

  And then suddenly the dream broke and she was free. She lay on her back with her arms stretched out, and she was panting and sobbing, ‘No – no– no—!’ And all the time the blessed waking world came in on her thought and became the real.

  She sat up in bed panting. She had had a horrible dream. She didn’t know what it was, but it had been there and it was gone again. Thank God it was gone. She got out of bed. No watch or clock in the room, and she had no idea of the time. She went to the window and opened it. She never slept with her window shut. That was it of course. She hadn’t opened the window. She had been too sleepy to open it. She had had a horrible nightmare. She leaned right out and let the cool air flow over her. Her throat was dry and her head felt hot. It was a still, calm night. She thought of water, running and bubbling and very, very cold, and from there her thoughts turned to a long cool drink.

  She drew back from the window, and the room felt very dark. Outside the night was clear. You could see the curve of the drive, the trees, the black tracery, and the clear depths of the sky. To turn from them was like turning from sight to blindness. Fear touched her again, a light shiver went over her. And then she was wide awake, tingling with a sudden imminent thought. If it was so late, if so much time had gone by, why was there light on the other side of her door? She didn’t knew why the question frightened her so much. She only knew that it did frighten her. And then quite suddenly as she looked at it the streak of light under her door disappeared. It went out and left her looking at darkness.

  After a little the faint, pale outdoor shine was free again. She remained standing quite still for some minutes. Then she began to count steadily and monotonously. When she had got up to five hundred she stopped and listened again. There was no sound. There was no sound at all. She drew a long breath. Two voices warred in her. One of them said, ‘What nonsense! You wake up and there�
��s a light in the passage – what about it? You don’t even know what time it is.’ The other voice said, ‘I could find out.’ Then the first voice again, ‘You daren’t. You daren’t put on a light to look. Suppose there’s someone waiting in the dark just to see if you do anything at all.’

  A deep sharp pang of terror went through her. It was true what the voice said – she didn’t dare. And she knew with a dreadful passionate certainty that what she did now in the next few minutes would have power over her for the rest of her life. She thought of Jim. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her. He didn’t believe that there was anything to hurt her here, or he wouldn’t have gone away and left her to it. And then she knew that it was no use thinking of Jim, because he wasn’t here. She had to depend on herself. She went to the door and opened it.

  The darkness outside was absolute. She stood there listening. There was no sound. Her room opened upon a cross passage. At the end of the passage there was a landing, and the stair going down. She went barefoot along the passage to the landing and leaned over the rail that ran along it.

  A small light burned in the hall below. She tried to think whether it burned there all night. Perhaps it did. Perhaps she had imagined the light she had seen under the door in her room. Perhaps she had dreamed about it. Perhaps she was dreaming now. She shuddered violently and turned back.

  It was quite dark in the passage. She felt her way along it to the open door of her room. Her coat – she must put on her coat. She went to the wardrobe and opened it. It felt like a black cavern, and it was empty except for her coat, and her shirt and skirt. At that moment, curiously and blindingly, she remembered that she had a red dress – dark red. It was her best dress. She wondered where it was now. She wondered if she would ever see it again. And then her groping hands were on the collar of a coat and she unhooked it and slipped it on.