“I’m here. I’m trying to get to you. I tried climbing the hedge, but it’s no good. What did you say? I didn’t catch it.”
“There’s somebody moving about in the Maze, Howard. I heard his footsteps.”
Howard Torrance’s voice replied with that baffling indeterminateness in direction which the Maze seemed to impart.
“Can you hear me, Vera?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t utter another sound. Don’t use the horn. Keep absolutely quiet and try to make your way out of the Maze. If anyone comes round the corner, yell your head off; but unless you see something, keep silent and step softly. There’s someone in the Maze, and I don’t want him to know where you are.”
Vera leaned against the high hedge for a minute or two, trying to overcome the panic into which Howard’s last words had plunged her. He had been careful not to put the thing to her nakedly; but she saw what lay behind his directions. The murderer was still in the Maze, and on his way out he might come upon her. If he did, she would be too dangerous a witness to leave alive. She need expect no mercy. And what hope of escape would she have? There, shut in among these towering walls, isolated from all help in the intricacies of the Maze, it would be an easy business to silence her finally.
She listened intently once more; but no sound came to her ears. The murderer seemed to have made his way into some remoter part of the Maze. Suddenly a clatter at her feet startled her into an agony of terror. It was the horn which she had allowed to slip from her hand in the intensity of her concentration upon the sounds about her. She stooped to pick it up again; then, thinking that it would merely hamper her, she let it lie where it had fallen.
But at once came the realisation that the sound of its clash upon the path must have betrayed her position, if the murderer were lurking at hand. She tried to listen again; but her heart was hammering and the pulsing of the blood in her ears drowned all external sounds. A lump seemed to gather in her throat and she felt as though she would choke. With a physical effort she fought down her difficulties.
“Hysteria!” she told herself. “If I give way to it, I’ll be putting myself straight into the brute’s hands.”
At last the rustle in her ears subsided and she was able to listen again. For a few instants she heard nothing. Then, quite close at hand, a dry twig cracked as though someone had set his foot on it. The murderer had not left the Maze.
She felt almost unable to stir; but at last she forced herself into motion. Anything was better than staying in the place where the assassin might have heard her drop the horn. Softly she stole down the corridor. Once she had begun to move, all her impulse was to break into a run; but she fought hard against it.
“If I begin to run, I’m done for,” she thought. “I’d go on running. I wouldn’t be able to run to a corner; and it’s at the corners I must be careful, or I may run full tilt into him.”
And then her mind, despite herself, conjured up vivid pictures of that meeting. She could see a vague figure rising to block her passage. With an almost physical shrinking she thought of it with a knife in its hand, the blade dripping with the blood of the earlier victim. It came over her how safe and peaceful the normal world was—and now, in pursuit of an aimless piece of amusement, she had come into the slaughterhouse. The Minotaur was afoot in the labyrinth.
At the end of the alley she forced herself to halt and peeped cautiously round the corner. No one was in sight, so she ventured into a fresh avenue. Then came a fork in the path, and she took the passage which seemed to offer the longest clear view ahead. Then another corner, and more precautions.
She was moving at random now, all her attention concentrated on avoiding the unseen assassin. Once she heard steps, someone was walking on the opposite side of the hedge against which she was crouching. She held her breath, pictured that terrific figure which she had conjured up. He was stepping lightly like herself; and she almost feared that he would hear the beating of her heart, so near did he come. Then, when she thought she could bear it no longer, the footfalls receded softly into the distance.
“If that happens again, I’ll shriek,” she said to herself. “I simply couldn’t go through it twice.”
Two more corners rounded in safety, then in a straight alley a metallic object glittered at the foot of the hedge and with a sinking heart she recognised it as the horn she had dropped.
“I’m back again at the same place. I’ll never get out of this trap!”
Again she started, stepping as softly as possible; but to her strained ears the sound of her footsteps seemed to echo and reecho along the green-walled corridors.
“What a fool I am! I ought to have taken off my shoes long ago. Then I could go as quick as I please, without making any noise.”
She slipped off her shoes, and some of her confidence came back when she found how silently she could move.
“Now I must keep things in my head and get off the track I followed last time.”
At one remembered turning, she took a fresh track and stole along it with every precaution. Again she heard the sound of steps; but they were farther off this time, and after halting for a few seconds she felt safe to go on her way once more.
“If I don’t get out soon, I’ll faint.”
But she refused to give in. The thought of lying helpless in one of these tenantless corridors at the mercy of the hidden murderer, kept her on her
