The Shadow In The House

by Maxwell March

  They both rose as Mrs de Liane appeared, and for a moment there was complete silence as the two women faced one another, Mrs de Liane calm, dominant and smiling, and Louise fierce and vigorous with a new determination which the other had not seen in her before.

  “Well?” It was the old woman who spoke, her voice soft and gentle, her lips smiling. “So you’ve found my little surprise, Louise?”

  The Frenchwoman did not answer, and just for a moment Eva de Liane was nonplussed. She had expected an outburst, but not this silent, stolid waiting. She turned her attention to Walker.

  “I don’t mind you taking the car on occasions,” she said, “but you really must ask my permission first or it’s stealing, you know, and with your record——”

  “That’ll do from you.” The man spoke quietly and without excitement, a quality which lent his words a strange authority.

  Ted de Liane backed instinctively towards the door, but the old woman stood her ground.

  “I think it’s time we understood one another,” she said. “Louise, wrap that child in a blanket and take him down to the car. Walker will drive you back to Heronhoe.”

  “No.” The Frenchwoman stepped forward, placing her body between Mrs de Liane and the child, who had wakened and was beginning to whimper. “Go away. Oh, you need not be afraid of me. I shall not hurt you,” she added as the old woman retreated a pace or two. “The police will do that.”

  “Really? You’ve communicated with the police? That was very foolhardy of you, Louise.” Mrs de Liane’s ivory skin had taken on a deeper pallor, but otherwise she showed no sign of discomfort. “Don’t be ridiculous, my dear child. After all, we’ve understood each other very well these last five years. Surely we can come to some arrangement?”

  The rage which had been smouldering in the black eyes suddenly boiled over.

  “Arrangement!” she said. “How dare you speak to me of arrangement? Will arrangement give Jean back his health? Will arrangement compensate him for his years of misery? Will arrangement makeup to me the hours of fear that I have spent? You are unspeakable! I tell you, madame, I know you for what you are, and I will see to it that the world knows it. There is no pity, there is no kindness left in my soul. I will make you suffer as I have suffered. The police shall know everything.”

  The intensity of her attack was enhanced by the unnatural quietness which had preceded it, and involuntarily the old woman stepped back before that blazing fury. She was not beaten, however.

  “You’re a fool, Louise,” she said, her voice rising out of control. “A fool! Where are you going to get help if not from me? If you think these people are going to assist you you’re wrong. They’ll do anything for money. They’re only interested in money. They’re not going to do anything to help a miserable little waif, the child of a convict. How are you going to pay them for it? Come with me. You’re wasting your time here.”

  “That’s where you make your big mistake.”

  The speaker emerged from the doorway which led into the only other room on the ground floor. Dick Whybrow was not a pleasing person to look at in the ordinary way, but he made a very different picture now from the whining brute who stopped the car when Mary had journeyed back to Heronhoe from London. There was a spark of decency left in him, and it had come out.

  His wife stood behind him in the doorway, moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Eva de Liane could see her sharp eyes fixed upon the Frenchwoman.

  “You get out of here. We’ve been talking, and I think we all understand one another. We know what we’ve got to do and don’t you be afraid, we’re going to do it.”

  Whybrow’s slow voice was menacing.

  “We didn’t know what we were up to when we took the child in. We believed your story, Mother and me, and it seemed a fair way of earning a shilling or two. But we didn’t dream that you were turning us into criminals. We didn’t dream that you were making us kidnappers.”

  Mrs de Liane was beaten, but she would not admit the fact. She came forward, her silk shawl glistening against the drabness of the room.

  “Let us all be sensible,” she said. “I take it you’re all interested in money. You used to be, Mr Whybrow. Now if you’re wise you will stick to those who can help you. What can you get out of these people—a penniless lady’s maid and a chauffeur with a prison record? Be sensible.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and, thinking she had won her point and that the man was wavering, she let her smile broaden.

  “We are all people of the world, aren’t we?” she said.

  “Some of us are human,” said the man in the doorway, “and some of us are not. That’s the great difference, lady. All of us, all of us in this room, except perhaps the kid, have done one or two things that they wouldn’t like talked about, but we’re not all monsters. Some of us have got a bit of good stuff left. Some of us don’t want to steal from children, and there’s two here that want justice. There’s two here that want to see you in a prison overall, my lady, and one of ’em’s me and one of ’em’s that woman over there with the child.”

  The effect of this outburst was electrifying. Mrs de Liane swung round, and the man’s rough laugh followed her.

  “Oh, you needn’t be afraid. We’re not going to arrest you ourselves. We’re only going to give information. The police’ll get you—don’t worry! This is a tight little island, and it’s not so simple to hide in it. And now get out of my house.”

  Mrs de Liane stiffened. Her face was waxen and her lips livid. She turned to Walker.

  “You can drive me back to Heronhoe,” she said.

  Walker shook his head. “Not me. I’m not going to hitch my painter to a sinking ship. Tell the police what you like about me: they won’t believe you as long as I’m not with you. The car’s outside. There it is and there it’s staying, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Louise—” Mrs de Liane held out her hand to the woman—“Louise, I’ve been kind to you …”

  The narrow black eyes grew blank as the Frenchwoman looked at her former mistress.

  “Go,” she said huskily. “Go before I drive my nails into your face.”

  From the doorway behind her Whybrow issued a shrill peal of laughter. Mrs Whybrow was amused. The derisive sound, horrible in its cruelty, echoed down the garden path as Mrs de Liane, followed by Ted, sped out to the waiting cars.

  Beron was in the road when they appeared, and he came hurrying up.

  “What’s happened?” he demanded. “Where are they?”

  Mrs de Liane threw off his supporting hand.

  “Imbeciles!” she said. “There’s no time to manage them. They’re mad. They’re not open to reason. We shall have to make for the coast as you said.”

  Her hand was already on the door of the car when he came up with her. The bones in her face were standing out, and her little mouth widened into a ragged wound.

  It was the first time he had ever seen her without her mask of charm, and he drew back from her. She was very terrible.

  “Drive!” she commanded. “Drive! Don’t stand there like a fool. Edmund, what’s the matter with you? Get in—hurry!”

  “Wait. …” Beron seized her shoulder. There was a strange expression on his face. His blustering excitement had given way to something much more alarming. There was a new slyness about him, a shamefaced sneakishness. “I remembered that there was a phone booth in the village down the road here, and while you were in the cottage I rang up Jane. The girl did not die. Richard saved her. They’ve both been arrested.”

  “You’re lying!” The words were uttered in a scream. All pretensions of grace and dignity had fallen from the woman. She looked like some little maniac crone. “You’re lying, Edmund! You’re lying!”

  “I’m not—it’s true. Jane was at her wits’ end. I didn’t tell her where I was.”

  “Richard saved the girl! … What a fool, what a fool I was to leave him! Oh, why couldn’t they have died? Why couldn’t they both have been bu
rned until they were unrecognizable? It’s not true, I tell you! It’s not true!”

  The man pushed her away from him.

  “You’ve gone to pieces,” he said contemptuously. “You’re a fool. You won’t face the truth. You’ve got us into this mess and you can’t get us out of it, and so you’re screaming. Look here, I’ve been thinking. The police will be after us. They’ll have sent the call out to the ports by this time, and it’s not going to be so easy to get away. There’s only one thing to do.”

  He hesitated, and she saw what was coming.

  “You’re not going to leave me?” She was hysterical. “You’re not going to leave me, Edmund?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well, you got us into this, didn’t you? It’d be safer if we split up. They’ll be looking for two men and an old woman. Two men might get by. We’ve got a little money; you haven’t any. I’ll give you a fiver—it’s all I’ve got to spare. You take your car, and Ted and I will take mine.”

  The woman had begun to sob, great tearless gulps that were horrible to hear.

  “You’re cruel,” she said. “You’re only thinking of yourself. Ted, make him see reason! Make him think of me!”

  The old man shook his head. “The time’s come, Eva,” he said quietly. “You’ve had it coming to you for a long time now, a very long time. You can’t get away from it. We’ve got to think of ourselves. You’ve never thought of anyone else in your life. Now no one dare think of you.”

  He got into Edmund’s car. Beron took five pound notes from his wallet and put them into the old woman’s hand.

  “They’ll let you down lightly,” he said brutally, “because you’re old and because you’re a woman. It would go more hardly with us.”

  She put out her hand, but he was in the car before she could seize him. The engine started with a flurry, and with a crash of gears the car swerved round the Daimler and off down the muddy road.

  The old woman screamed after them:

  “Edmund! Ted! Edmund!”

  But the vehicle did not slow down. Rather it gathered pace. In a moment it had reached the end of the lane and had swung out of sight round the corner.

  Eva de Liane looked at the money and suddenly laughed.

  “Five pounds!” she said. “Five! I was after a million. …”

  She threw the money from her, letting it fall in the mud at the side of the road. Then, picking her way with a return of her old grace, she went down to the great black car and climbed in.

  The engine started at a touch, and the car glided off down the road at a sedate and dignified pace.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  The End of the Day

  “I REALLY THINK it’s in my client’s interest that I should accompany you, Inspector, don’t you?”

  Little Mr Latcher, pacing up and down in the deserted commercial room of the Blue Boar at Evewick, spoke anxiously, and the inspector, who was dozing in a chair before the fire, awoke with a start.

  He nodded drowsily at his companion and would have passed into slumber again, for his day had been a heavy one, had not the little solicitor persisted in questioning him.

  “I am most anxious for an arrest. I don’t want them to get away. It’s a disgraceful swindle, you see. It isn’t often a firm of our standing is imposed upon in this way. And the other young lady, Miss Coleridge, seems to have been treated in a most extraordinary manner. I think that rapscallion husband of hers should come in for a lot of trouble, but my client doesn’t want to prosecute there, nor does the young wife, so I suppose he’ll get off scot free.”

  He paused and coughed.

  “Not very satisfactory. … Still, we must get the others. We really must get the others, Inspector.”

  The policeman yawned. “We’ll get them, sir. Don’t worry. We’ve thrown out a net that would catch a sardine. They’ll stick together, I think. I can’t understand why they haven’t been brought in now.”

  A police constable put his head round the door and murmured the magic word “telephone.”

  Instantly all trace of slumber left the inspector, and he was out of the room in a moment. Mr Latcher waited impatiently, nobly resisting the temptation to go out into the hall and listen.

  He was rewarded by the police officer’s return. Inspector Evers was excited.

  “We’ve got the two men,” he said. “Picked up trying to get a passage on a sailing boat at Yarmouth.”

  “Splendid. But what about the woman? She’s the ringleader.”

  “No sign of her yet. But don’t worry. We’ll get her.” The inspector was confident. “These two had the Buick, so she must be in the Daimler. We know from that report from Deadman’s End that she was in that part of the country this morning. That was a damnable business, that child abduction. She deserves all that’s coming to her for that alone. We’ll get her, sir. Don’t worry.”

  The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the door again opened and a police scout hurried into the room.

  “There wasn’t a phone in the village, sir, so I thought it was quicker to come here. We’ve got word of the wanted car. A black Daimler bearing the advertised number was seen by an A. A. scout on the main road outside Fairleigh five miles away—less than twenty minutes ago. The scout in the village here hasn’t seen it. So that means it’s probably on the main road. It was going very slowly, the first scout reported, a woman driving.”

  “Got her!” The inspector was jubilant. “Come, Mr Latcher. If you want to be in at the—er—death now’s your opportunity. My car’s outside. We’ll go down ourselves.”

  Five minutes later Mr Latcher was enjoying the unusual and exciting experience of taking part in a police hunt. He sat beside the inspector at the back of a car which was driven by a uniformed member of the Mobile Police, with a plain-clothes officer at his side. Two scouts on motorcycles served as outriders.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon and nearly dark, and the headlights streamed out like searchlights over the dark countryside.

  They stopped just outside the village to receive news from an A. A. man that the wanted car had been seen less than two miles away. It was gathering speed, the report said. The driver seemed to be aware that she was observed.

  “Fine.” The inspector leant back as the car shot on. “I don’t think there’s a single turn between here and Black-bridge. She’ll run right into us.”

  The car sped on through the dusk, and Mr Latcher caught his breath. In his mind’s eye he could see the old woman whom he had known for so many years sitting at the wheel of her great car. It seemed incredible that she should have done the things of which he now knew her to be guilty.

  He was still lost in his thoughts when an exclamation from the man at his side brought him back to the present with a jerk.

  “There! There she is. Must be half a mile away. We’ll pull up across the bridge, Jenkinson. Keep right across it and stop any car that comes.”

  The man at the wheel saluted, and a few minutes later the heavy police car was drawn up across the top of a little humpbacked bridge which gave the village half a mile farther on its name. It was a high bridge over a swiftly moving stream, and Mr Latcher shivered as he caught a glimpse of the oily water which looked so cold and dark in the glare of the headlights.

  Now the beam of the other headlights, which had been just a glow in the sky, took shape, and he saw the Daimler winding through the trees towards them.

  The police car was a blaze of light: no one could miss such a barrier. Mr Latcher was conscious that he and the police must be vivid and recognizable to that other driver.

  On came the Daimler, keeping a straight course, gathering speed all the time.

  The police driver sounded his horn, and the tremendous racket seemed to wake the whole countryside to life.

  The other car came nearer and nearer. Now it was almost upon them. Latcher caught a glimpse of a little white figure behind the steering wheel.

  “My God, she’s going to ram us! J
ump, sir! Jump!”

  Mr Latcher heard the startled words but was too fascinated to move, and it was only the inspector’s grip on his arm which galvanized him to action.

  “Stop! Stop! For God’s sake stop!” he heard his own voice screaming in the darkness.

  The car was upon them, at the very foot of the bridge. The screech of brakes did not come. Instead there was a breathless, sickening moment, an instant, paralyzingly clear, in which the whole world seemed to have gone into slow motion.

  Then there was a crash and an explosion. The lights on the police car went out, and a piece of flying wing swept off the little solicitor’s hat and sent him staggering back into the inspector’s arms.

  He saw the great nose of the Daimler silhouetted against the sky as the enormous car surmounted the parapet. For a moment it seemed to hang there and then, with a roar, toppled over into the oily waters of the river.

  There was a scream. Mr Latcher did not realize that the sound had come from his own throat. A little later he was standing by the inspector, peering over the bridge, while a swarm of men with torches bore down upon the horrible, twisted thing in the fast-moving stream.

  The inspector pulled out his own torch, and its thin beam pierced down through the wreckage to something white which lay back across the cushions of the mangled car. Mr Latcher caught sight of a face. The eyes were closed, the lips drawn down. Then the darkness covered it.

  The inspector whistled under his breath.

  “My God, what a woman!” he said in a shaken voice. “She meant to kill us all—every man jack of us!”

  Mr Latcher, deeply moved, did not reply.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Together

  “IF I’M A HIT—and I expect I shall be, because with all Elmer’s money and my talent I ought to be a riot—you’ll both have to come over and see me act.”

  Marie-Elizabeth stood on the quay at Folkestone and took Mary’s hands in her own.