The fuse had gone, she argued. No doubt the lights were out in the corridor too. That was why the darkness was so complete. But she didn’t believe a word of her argument. She stretched her arm upwards to the bracket. She touched the coloured glass shade which screened the lamp. She fumbled with it. The globe had been removed.
They had been outreached, she and Oliver. She must keep her head — if she could. In that order the two thoughts flashed into her mind. The door was now just behind her — if she could find it. She had reached up to the bracket with her right hand. So the door must be behind her and a little to her left. She turned in a flurry of terror, and at once something happened which drove the last possible doubt from her mind, and herself out of her wits. For as she groped for the door, the fingers of a hand tentatively and ever so lightly touched her face. The touch was so light that it might have been the wings of a butterfly grazing her cheek. But it frightened Lydia like the clap of doom. She gasped, and then for a second she stood unable to move, unable to utter even a whisper, her heart choking her.
But that second was enough. The fingers felt for and found her mouth and clamped themselves tightly over her lips. She was dragged back, and there were other hands at work now, holding her in a clasp of iron. They were women who were holding her, but one had the strength of a man, the one who was in front of her and who held her close with her arms pinioned to her sides. Lydia struggled in a frenzy, she twisted her head to right and to left in an effort to free her mouth. But she couldn’t; and then, so swiftly and suddenly that she had not the time to gather breath for a cry, a thick bandage took the place of the hand, and was knotted roughly and securely behind her head. A moment later, her arms were drawn back and the ruffles of her sleeves were pushed up. She felt a band, like a silk scarf, being fitted about her wrists. She could not prevent or resist it. The gag stifled her, the arms about her body crushed the breath out of her, she was as helpless as a doll. Her hands were bound fast behind her back, and when that was done a cloth of some coarse strong fabric was knotted over her face. It was done in the dark, but methodically, and with the certainty that comes from practice and rehearsal.
Lydia Flight writhed in disgust and a vain revolt under the touch of those sedulous and nimble fingers. She herself didn’t matter; what she felt, her terror, her abasement at her captivity, the bitterness of failure, they meant less than nothing to the two women who had surprised her. They had their job to do, and not an excess of time in which to do it. The cloth was tucked tightly back under her chin to her neck and drawn up over her face and forehead and the top of her hair, and then tied in a tight knot behind her head. The hands travelled over her muffled face to make sure that it was covered; and there was one appalling moment for Lydia, when the tips of the fingers stopped at her eyes, and tapped very gently upon the eyeballs, and it seemed to her, longingly.
Lydia shivered, and held though she was, sagged and felt sick almost to the point of swooning.
“I’d sooner die,” she thought. But it was a prayer that she should, rather than a thought.
Just outside the door Oliver was waiting for her — a couple of yards away. She could not call out to him, she could not open the door and go to him, she was a prisoner in the darkness here, and of the women who held her prisoner, one yearned to inflict upon her the very abomination of cruelty. The fingers slipped away along the sides of her face, and as Lydia drew a breath, returned swiftly. They were not to be baulked.
Lydia heard a little giggle, and it seemed to her that she had never heard a sound so horrible. A quiet little giggle in the darkness, as if someone had waked up and remembered an amusing quip, or suddenly thought of some small, harmless and diverting joke to be played upon a friend in the morning. “What fun!” From the sound of the giggle, it seemed to mean no more than that. “What fun! I must! I must!”
But all the while the tips of the fingers were feeling delicately, delicately, with little probing touches, round the sockets of Lydia’s eyes.
“It’s going to happen.”
Lydia was sure of it. She wrenched at her wrists, and the wrists remained tied. She screamed, and the scream was never uttered, though her throat ached with the strain of it. The ghastly abominable thing was going to happen, would assuredly have happened, but for a gentle monitory rapping on the corridor door. There were three or four raps, that was all, none of them loud, and the hands fell away sharply from Lydia’s face. For a moment Lydia’s heart leaped in hope. It was Oliver on guard, bidding her hurry. But the rapping was not repeated, and her heart fluttered down again and fainted within her breast. If it had been Oliver, Oliver thinking that she was changing her dress too slowly, or Oliver dreading a mischance, in either case Oliver would have turned the handle of the door and broken in upon her. No, it was a signal to the two women that what was to be done outside the door had been done.
Lydia heard a long sigh of disappointment behind her. A door was opened, again behind her, on her right, the door of the bathroom. A few moments afterwards there was a rattle of glass upon her left. The globe was being fitted once more into the socket of the bracket lamp. The switch was still pulled down, and the little passage was immediately lit up. Lydia could see that it was lit but she could see no more. The cloth over her face was too thick, too securely tied for her to distinguish more than the bare fact that where there had been darkness, there was now light.
The woman who had hold of her let her go and pushed her sharply along the passage to her bedroom. Lydia ran with a faltering step. She had to run, or she would have fallen. But she would have run could she have walked, so completely the horror and dread of the woman behind her had mastered her. She was as obedient as a child. Any ignominy, any defeat, so long as she was spared the agony of having her eyes thumbed out of their sockets.
“I was a coward. I would have gone on my knees to be spared,” she said contritely to Hanaud and Mr. Ricardo as she told them her story. Hanaud smiled at her.
“Mademoiselle, I did not see you at that moment, but I did see you yesterday. I remember you quoted a motto from that old Church: ‘Je m’y oblige.’ I shall not forget the look of fear in your eyes when you quoted it, or the determination in your voice which contradicted the fear. And I tell you frankly that had I been in the passage and in your predicament, I should have been already on the marrow, whilst you were thinking of it.”
A wan little smile parted Lydia’s lips for a second.
“You are very kind, monsieur.”
“Bones,” said Mr. Ricardo. “Marrow-bones, in the future, if you must use these antiquated vulgarities.”
“Mademoiselle,” Hanaud observed, “I beg you to pay no heed to the chatter-back of my friend. He has the dictionary complex, and the doctors believe it to be incurable. I am on my knees — see how I humour him — you are ready to go on yours. I pray you to proceed.”
The two women forced Lydia into her bedroom at the end of the passage. Whilst one of them closed the door and switched on the light, the other flung her roughly into a deep arm-chair on the far side of the room. The windows were high above the terrace, but they stood open and the violins and the horns of the orchestra in the garden, the music of a waltz of Old Vienna blending gaiety with a passionate languor, rose through the summer night and floated into this place of silence and terror. The strong arms from behind the chair took Lydia by the shoulders and held her straight. The deft and nimble fingers in front detached the coils of the rope of pearls from the folds of her cravat, drew up the rest of the rope from within her shirt, and lifted it all over her head very carefully, so that the cloth should not be disarranged.
For a moment or two afterwards no one moved. Lydia had a picture before her darkened eyes of a woman handling with tenderness and gazing with envy and desire at that miracle of loveliness — the pearls of Chitipur. Then she heard a little rattle, and the snap of a bag. The rope had been hidden away. She felt the fingers again at her neck, rearranging her cravat. She dared not move, she pressed her knees an
d her ankles together with a force which bruised them, lest a sudden temptation should master this enemy who held her at her mercy and the batiste neckcloth become a bowstring. And the enemy was now fastidious as a lady’s maid. The folds of the cravat must sit as though it had just been for the first time wound about her throat, the bow under her chin extend its white and delicate wings in the dandy’s fashion of the period. She heard the giggle again; this time close to her face, as the fingers gave a final pat, and her blood ran cold. But her enemy drew away.
She was lifted again on to her feet and led forward. A door was opened. She was pushed through the doorway. She knew it, for one of her shoulders knocked against the jamb. She was now in the dressing-room. They turned her to the left, forced her on a step or two, and stopped her. She was now by the side of the table with the mirror on the wall above it, and the big powder bowl upon it. She was held in that position. Something was being done in front of her. She could see nothing, but she could tell by the sound. A dress was rustling, feet moved, across the room a thing of glass fell and splintered, nearer to her another thing, round and heavier, rolled and settled with a dull whirr. Then she was again marched forward, and again stopped. Just in front of her the sash of a window squeaked and she felt the night air cool through the wrap over her face. Someone stopped beside her, and taking her ankles, pressed her feet down upon the floor. She was kept in that position. Lydia made no effort to resist. All the spirit was out of her, all the power of thought. She had been broken by terror and her will was numbed. She registered in her memory, unconscious of any intention to do so, her various movements and halts, but the only clear notion in her mind was an odd fancy which repeated itself and repeated itself.
“People on their way to the gallows, go meekly, as I am going. There must be nothing alive of them but the power to move.”
She was turned about from the window and made to march, and at each step, her foot was pressed down so that the sole of her shoe was set firmly and heavily upon the carpet. A door was opened in front of her, and closed again behind her. She was once more, then, in the passage. The light was still on.
Then, to her amazement, the band about her wrists was slackened. The light was turned off, and once more she was in darkness. She was not held any more. It seemed to her that a glimmer of light showed, but so small a glimmer and for so short a fraction of time that she could not be sure. She stood, not daring to move, not thinking of moving, waiting for the next thrust to guide her. There was no speculation in her mind as to what was to be done to her. She stood stock still and waited. Gradually there came into her mind the faintest of hopes that she was actually alone, that the glimmer of light had been due to the door into the corridor opening just enough to let her captors through and closing again after they had gone. She didn’t dare to encourage the hope. Some cruel trick was to be played upon her, if she moved. But in spite of her refusal to accept it, the hope grew stronger. No one held her any longer. No hands came touching her face, feeling for her eyes. No sound reached her ears. And the door had closed behind her, she remembered, when she had first entered from the corridor, without the least jar, the faintest whine of a hinge, the tiniest click of a latch. She was alone. Now she was sure of it!
In a frenzied revulsion she worked her hands behind her back, and the band about her wrists gave. Her hands were free. She rubbed and pressed her wrists until the blood ran free again in her veins and the numbness passed from her fingers. She tore at the knots in the cloth which covered her face. But they were behind her head and had sunk into the curls of her hair. She must control her impatience and pick at the ends. She plucked it off at the last, and thrust it into the deep side pocket of her coat, thinking only of one thing: to get the suffocating gag off her mouth. She pressed it down until the bandage hung loose about her neck. She untied it and let it drop beside the scarf. Then she felt for the door and opened it.
The corridor was lit and empty. She called out:
“Oliver! Oliver!”
And no answer was returned to her. She ran out into the corridor. She opened the door of Oliver’s room. That too was empty — he had been surprised as she had been — she had not a doubt of it. That he could have been a party to this theft, this violence, was unthinkable. She ran down the stairs, and at the foot of them in the lounge, she had stumbled upon Ricardo. He was the one man in that house of whom she could be sure. Lucrece Bouchette had joined them. She had leaned over the couch and touched Lydia Flight. It was a stupid thing to do. For in that caressing touch, Lydia recognised the touch of the fingers which had lingered about her eyes and arranged the cravat about her throat. She could not explain why she was certain of it, but she was certain; and Mr. Ricardo saw her face flush and grow white and her body flinch as though she had been struck. Guy Stallard had offered to help her in her search for Oliver. She had no faith in Guy Stallard. She remembered too vividly Oliver Ransom at the window of the corridor. But if she concealed her distrust, she might pick up some word from him which would help her to a conjecture, at all events, of what had happened to her lover. Even with the horrible experience of the last half-hour still fresh and raw in her memory, she had had the courage to walk forth with Guy Stallard at her side into the darkness of the garden.
This is the story which Lydia Flight told in Mr. Ricardo’s sitting-room.
“And the cloth tied over your face, mademoiselle,” said Hanaud, “was the handkerchief of crimson and yellow which I found in the pocket of your coat?”
“It must have been. I never looked at it again. I forgot it.”
A smile crept over Hanaud’s face.
“They all forgot it. You were sure, mademoiselle, that it was Lucrece Bouchette who covered your eyes and arranged your cravat?”
“I am very sure,” Lydia replied. “But of course, I can’t prove it. I saw nothing.”
“And you heard no voices which you could identify?”
“Monsieur, from the first moment to the last when I was left alone, not one word was spoken.”
Hanaud nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders, and was extremely discontented.
“I have to think of a jury. We may know, but can we prove? Luckily they forgot the handkerchief. That is one great chance.” He rang the bell. “Mademoiselle, you shall drink a brandy and soda — I beg you not to contradict me — I am very unpleasant when I am contradicted — you shall smoke a cigarette — these are orders — and you shall tell us then the little which remains for you to tell.”
He mixed the brandy and soda himself and she uttered a cry and her eyes watered, and she screwed her face into the nearest approach to ugliness she could manage as she took a drink of it. But Hanaud stood over her and was furious with her for putting on namby-pamby airs, and knew extremely well that all prima donnas drank vast quantities of porter in their dressing-rooms, and that she must do what she was told by Principal Inspectors.
Lydia Flight drank it protestingly to the bottom of the tumbler, and lit one of Mr. Ricardo’s Balkan cigarettes.
“Whilst you smoke, mademoiselle, I send a message,” said Hanaud. He scribbled on a sheet of Mr. Ricardo’s note-paper and shut it up in one of Mr. Ricardo’s envelopes. He went out on to the balcony and leaned over and beckoned. Someone came running up the stairs — Perrichet.
“It must go at once!” And Perrichet clattered down again. Hanaud moved back to his old chair.
“Now, mademoiselle!”
CHAPTER XXVI
HANAUD — COWARD
LYDIA’S ACCOUNT OF the rest of that night tallied with the story which Guy Stallard had told to Hanaud. She added, however, that when, with a great deal of misgiving and still more chiding of herself for cowardice, she went to her room to change for her journey, she found two scarves of her own upon the floor of the passage, one still knotted in the loop which had bound her wrists, the other with the red paint of her lips still clearly marked upon it. She had thrown the two scarves into her suit-case — and at this point Hanaud winked prodigiously
at Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Ricardo blushed to the roots of his hair — and for all she knew there they were still. She could not understand how she had managed to fall asleep in the lounge and sleep on until seven o’clock in the morning. For she was in a fever to get out of that house, tell her story to Scott Carruthers and enlist his help in her search for Oliver. If she had been drugged, it was extraordinary that she should wake up as she did without an ache of the head or any heaviness.
“Allonal,” said Hanaud.
At Trouville she had suffered the bitterest disappointment. Scott Carruthers had heard her out with a reserve so stiff that it was clear that he did not believe a word of what she was saying. And when she asked for his help in instituting a search for Oliver, he burst out into contemptuous laughter, suggesting as plainly as possible that she and Oliver had put their heads together to rob the Prince. Scott Carruthers was looking very ill and labouring under some terrible shock. There was a staring terror in his eyes which the loss of the rope of pearls and his failure as Nahendra Nao’s guardian could not account for. In spite of his disbelief in her, it was she who had to draft the telegram to Goodwood and send it off. Scott Carruthers was quite sunk in despondency.
When the answer came in the afternoon, bidding them wait at Trouville, Scott Carruthers would not let her stay in his hotel. She must find another. He didn’t want to see her until Nahendra Nao arrived.
Hanaud laughed grimly and interposed:
“He didn’t want you to see him. He couldn’t trust himself, that fine Major.”
Lydia found a small hotel and garaged the purple car and spent a dreadful night of waiting. There was nothing she could do but wait, feeding herself with hopes in which she had no faith, that at any moment Oliver might appear, that he would have some marvellous, convincing reason to give her for his disappearance, that he had recovered the stolen jewel and gone into hiding until he could restore it to its owner — there was no excuse at which in her distraction she did not grasp.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 144