If there was a reply, the bells drowned it; and he knocked again. When to the third knocking there was still no answer, he gently opened the door. He really had to know whether all would, or could, be well if Phrynne, and doubtless he also, were at all costs to remain in their room until it was dawn. He looked in the room and caught his breath.
There was no artificial light, but the curtains, if there were any, had been drawn back from the single window, and the bottom sash forced up as far as it would go. On the floor by the dusky void, a maelstrom of sound, knelt the Commandant, his cropped white hair faintly catching the moonless glimmer, as his head lay on the sill, like that of a man about to be guillotined. His face was in his hands, but slightly sideways, so that Gerald received a shadowy distorted idea of his expression. Some might have called it ecstatic, but Gerald found it agonized. It frightened him more than anything which had yet happened. Inside the room the bells were like plunging roaring lions.
He stood for some considerable time quite unable to move. He could not determine whether or not the Commandant knew he was there. The Commandant gave no direct sign of it, but more than once he writhed and shuddered in Gerald’s direction, like an unquiet sleeper made more unquiet by an interloper. It was a matter of doubt whether Gerald should leave the book; and he decided to do so mainly because the thought of further contact with it displeased him. He crept into the room and softly laid it on a hardly visible wooden trunk at the foot of the plain metal bedstead. There seemed no other furniture in the room. Outside the door, the hanging mailed fingers of the Japanese figure touched his wrist.
He had not been away from the Lounge for long, but it was long enough for Mrs Pascoe to have begun again to drink. She had left the tidying up half-completed, or rather the room half-disarranged; and was leaning against the overmantel, drawing heavily on a dark tumbler of whisky. Phrynne had not yet finished her Ovaltine.
‘How long before the bells stop?’ asked Gerald as soon as he opened the Lounge door. Now he was resolved that, come what might, they must go. The impossibility of sleep should serve as excuse.
‘I don’t expect Mrs Pascoe can know any more than we can,’ said Phrynne.
‘You should have told us about this – this annual event – before accepting our booking.’
Mrs Pascoe drank some more whisky. Gerald suspected that it was neat. ‘It’s not always the same night,’ she said throatily, looking at the floor.
‘We’re not staying,’ said Gerald wildly.
‘Darling!’ Phrynne caught him by the arm.
‘Leave this to me, Phrynne.’ He addressed Mrs Pascoe. ‘We’ll pay for the room, of course. Please order me a car.’
Mrs Pascoe was now regarding him stonily. When he asked for a car, she gave a very short laugh. Then her face changed. She made an effort, and she said, ‘You mustn’t take the Commandant so seriously, you know.’
Phrynne glanced quickly at her husband.
The whisky was finished. Mrs Pascoe placed the empty glass on the plastic overmantel with too much of a thud. ‘No one takes Commandant Shotcroft seriously,’ she said. ‘Not even his nearest and dearest.’
‘Has he any?’ asked Phrynne. ‘He seemed so lonely and pathetic.’
‘He’s Don and I’s mascot,’ she said, the drink interfering with her grammar. But not even the drink could leave any doubt about her rancour.
‘I thought he had personality,’ said Phrynne.
‘That and a lot more no doubt,’ said Mrs Pascoe. ‘But they pushed him out, all the same.’
‘Out of what?’
‘Cashiered, court-martialled, badges of rank stripped off, sword broken in half, muffled drums, the works.’
‘Poor old man. I’m sure it was a miscarriage of justice.’
‘That’s because you don’t know him.’
Mrs Pascoe looked as if she were waiting for Gerald to offer her another whisky.
‘It’s a thing he could never live down,’ said Phrynne, brooding to herself, and tucking her legs beneath her. ‘No wonder he’s so queer if all the time it was a mistake.’
‘I just told you it was not a mistake,’ said Mrs Pascoe insolently.
‘How can we possibly know?’
‘You can’t. I can. No one better.’ She was at once aggressive and tearful.
‘If you want to be paid,’ cried Gerald, forcing himself in, ‘make out your bill. Phrynne, come upstairs and pack.’ If only he hadn’t made her unpack between their walk and dinner.
Slowly Phrynne uncoiled and rose to her feet. She had no intention of either packing or departing, nor was she going to argue. ‘I shall need your help,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to pack.’
In Mrs Pascoe there was another change. Now she looked terrified. ‘Don’t go. Please don’t go. Not now. It’s too late.’
Gerald confronted her. ‘Too late for what?’ he asked harshly.
Mrs Pascoe looked paler than ever. ‘You said you wanted a car,’ she faltered. ‘You’re too late.’ Her voice trailed away.
Gerald took Phrynne by the arm. ‘Come on up.’
Before they reached the door, Mrs Pascoe made a further attempt. ‘You’ll be all right if you stay. Really you will.’ Her voice, normally somewhat strident, was so feeble that the bells obliterated it. Gerald observed that from somewhere she had produced the whisky bottle and was refilling her tumbler.
With Phrynne on his arm he went first to the stout front door. To his surprise it was neither locked nor bolted, but opened at a half-turn of the handle. Outside the building the whole sky was full of bells, the air an inferno of ringing.
He thought that for the first time Phrynne’s face also
