for half an hour they sat before it talking of the old days in New Zealand.
“I am quite determined,” Henry said, “that after this is all over I shall get a job. Yes, I know I’ve talked about it for six years.”
“And now,” said Robin tartly, “when, for the first time, it isn’t a crying necessity—”
“I make up my mind to do it. Yes. I shall continue in the territorials in my humble but exacting capacity. I shall sit for strange examinations and thus prepare myself for the obscure and unattractive performance known as ‘doing one’s bit.’ And when war comes,” said Henry in a melancholy manner, “Henry Lamprey, Earl of Rune, will take his place among the flower of England’s manhood guarding an entrance to some vulnerable public convenience.”
Roberta knew that Henry was trying to brighten this ominous night and although his jokes were not quite up to Lamprey standard she contrived to laugh at them. The clock struck eleven. They couldn’t stay all night by the library fire. Sometime those stairs must be climbed, those passages traversed. In an exhausted, uncertain fashion Roberta longed for her bed. She ached for sleep yet was not sleepy. Her throat and mouth kept forming half yawns and her head throbbed.
“How about it, Robin?” asked Henry presently. “Bed?”
“I think so.”
Past the stuffed bear with his open mouth and extended paws…Past the cold marble persons at the foot of the stairs…Past the second landing where Aunt V. and her nurses and perhaps Tinkerton slept or watched behind closed doors…Then the long passage, lit now by electric lights —
“I asked them to put a fire in your room, Robin.” Heavenly of Henry to think of that…Better by far to undress by this cheerful fire…And when she crept out in her dressing-gown, there was Henry in his dressing-gown, and they went into the bathroom together and Henry sat on the edge of the tub in a friendly manner while Roberta brushed her teeth. They returned together to their bedroom doors.
“Good night, Robin darling. Sleep well.”
“Good night.”
The Kentish slow train was late. The police car had punctured a tyre half a mile from Deepacres Halt and they had missed their connection with the express. At every station the slow train halted, breathing long steamy sighs which were echoed by Alleyn.
“What’s biting you, Inspector?” asked Nigel cheerfully.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve never seen you so jumpy.”
“That fellow Campbell was told to keep his wits about him, Fox?”
“Yes, Mr. Alleyn.”
“Good God, we’re stopping again!”
Roberta’s heart beat so thickly that she wondered if it alone had awakened her. She lay with her eyes opened upon blackness. She could not see so much as the form of the curtains that hung beside her head or the shape of her hand held close to her eyes. For a moment she was confused. The memory of this room was gone from her. She had no sense of her position or of her invisible surroundings but felt as though she had opened her eyes on nothingness. She dared not put out her hand lest the wall should not be there. Now she was wide awake. She remembered her room and knew that round the curtains on her left side she should be able to see the fire. She touched the curtain, so close yet invisible, and it moved. Somewhere beyond her bed glowed a point of redness. The fire was almost dead; she had slept a long time. Outside it was still raining and the wind still moaned in the chimney but neither the wind nor the rain had awakened Roberta. She knew that some one had walked past her door. She began to reason with herself, telling her thumping heart that there was no cause for fear. Perhaps it was the man on guard in the house, making some cold round of inspection. Yet even while she sought in panic for comfort she knew, so densely woven are the strands of thought, that the footstep in the passage was the secondary cause of her alarm and that it was another sound that had horrified her dreams and rushed her upwards into wakefulness. She lay still and waited, tingling, for full realization. Presently it came. Beneath her, beyond the mattress of her bed, the carpet on the floor, the floor itself, the ceiling below the floor — beyond all these, there was a sound that fretted the outer borders of her hearing. It had a kind of rhythm. It suggested some sort of harsh movement with which Roberta was familiar. At the moment when she recognized it, it ceased, and she was left with a picture of a hand and a saw. Then she remembered that underneath her bedroom was the green drawing- room.
Perhaps if the sound had not begun again Roberta would have lain still in her bed. But there are degrees of terror and with the stealthy resumption of the sound she knew that she could not endure it alone. She snapped down the switch by her door but no light came and she supposed that it had been turned off at the main. She groped on her bedside table, found a box of matches and lit her candle. Now her room was there with her clothes lying across a chair. Her shadow reared up the wall and stretched halfway across the ceiling. She put on her dressing-gown and, taking her candle, went to her door and opened it. As she did this the sound stopped again.
Henry’s door was wide open. Roberta crossed the passage and went into his room but before she looked at the bed she knew he would not be there. The clothes were turned back and there was no candle on his table. She found some comfort in being in Henry’s room. It smelt faintly of the stuff he put on his hair. Roberta wrapped his eiderdown quilt round herself and sat on the bed. Henry had heard the noise and had gone to see about it. But at once she grew afraid for Henry and as the seconds went by this fear increased until it became intolerable. She went to the door and listened. The sound had stopped for some minutes and she heard only the rain, muffled here where there were no windows. She faced the passage and perceived a thinning of darkness at the far end, where the landing was and where the well of the house gaped up to the roof. As she peered down the passage this dimness changed stealthily to a faint shadow, moving slow. It must be Henry returning with his candle. Now she could see the landing with its gallery rail and stairhead. She caught a glint of light on a far wall and remembered that a looking-glass hung there. A glowing circle appeared on the landing floor. It widened and grew more clearly defined. Henry was coming upstairs. In a moment she would see him.
Framed by the black walls of the passage, a figure carrying a lighted candle moved from the stairs across the landing. It paused, and slowly turned. The light from the candle shone upwards into its face. It was Lady Wutherwood. Her head was slanted as if she listened intently; her eyes were turned upwards towards the next landing. She moved away, became a receding shape rimmed by a golden nimbus, and disappeared.
Roberta, in the dark passage, stood still. Henry’s door, caught in a draught from his open window, banged shut, and her whole body leapt to the sound and was still again. At last the landing began to grow light once more. The manner of its lighting was so exactly as it had been before that her nerves expected Lady Wutherwood to come upstairs again like a ghost that punctually repeated its gestures. But of course it was Henry. He shielded his candle with his hand and seemed to look directly into Roberta’s eyes. Forgetting she was invisible she wondered at his look, which held nothing of the comfort she had expected. Then, realizing that he had not seen her, she went down the passage to meet him.
“Robin! Why have you come out! Go back.” He scarcely breathed the words.
“I can’t. What’s happening?”
“What have you seen?”
“I saw her. I think she went up to the next landing.”
“Go back to your room,” Henry said.
“Let me stay. Give me something to do.”
He seemed to hesitate. She touched his arm. “Please Henry.”
“What wakened you?”
“A noise in that room. Like sawing. Have you been there?”
Again Henry hesitated. “It’s locked,” he said.
“Where’s the detective? Shouldn’t you find him?”
“Come with me.”
So he was going to let her stay with him. She followed him across the landing. He paused at a door, bent down to listen. Then, very gingerly, he turned the handle and with his head motioned Roberta to come closer. She obeyed. Through the crack of the door came the sound of snoring, very deep and stertorous.
