Dead or Alive (25 page)

She felt her way across the room to the window and pushed back the catch. The sash was most stubbornly heavy to raise, and it took all her strength to lift it a couple of feet. She was still panting when she heard a sound which came near to stopping her breath altogether. Someone was coming across the hall. Miller was coming across the hall. And he was coming here—now, at once.

If she hadn't opened the window, she would just have had time to get back on to the sofa, but the window would give her away. If she dropped over the sill and ran for it, how fast could she run, and how far? Not very far, not very fast. He would catch her before she was round the corner of the house. Her heart jumped, and her head swam. She saw these alternatives in a flash, like two pictures. They didn't take any time at all—she just saw them. And then, as the key turned in the lock, she acted purely on instinct and without thinking at all. She had opened the left-hand window, but she had not drawn the curtains back. She jerked one now with all her might, and ran behind the curtains which screened the other window.

The sound of the opening door was lost in the loud knocking of her heart, but she saw the light shine blue through the stuff she had chosen long ago—before she had married Robin. It wasn't the long ago of time, but the long ago of change. There was nothing left of the things that had made her life then except chairs, and tables, and these lengths of blue stuff which she had thought so pretty when she bought them. These thoughts were in the shadows of her mind like the pattern on a dark tapestry picked out by firelight, but against this background she was sharply aware of Miller's crossing the room. At the same moment he discovered the empty couch and the open window. The startled exclamation had hardly left his lips before he vaulted the sill and disappeared into the darkness.

What should she do now? He had left the door open. Would she have time to cross the hall and hide in one of the other rooms? Would they search the house? She didn't know the answer to any of these things. She only knew that the instinct which had brought her here held her pressed into the angle between wall and window unable to move and scarcely able to breathe. He would come back. He wouldn't try and look for her alone. He would be bound to come back. She thought this when she began to think again, and close on her thought there came the sound of running feet, and Miller was scrambling back into the room. The drop was greater on the outside. He made some noise. She could hear that he was out of breath. And then he ran across the room and out of the door, leaving the light on.

There was a horrible cold interval of waiting. He would have to go and tell Miss Cannock. No, she wasn't Miss Cannock, Miss Cannock was only a part which she had played, but there was no other name to call her by. Miller would have to tell her, and she would come. But would they search the room? Or would they take it for granted that she was gone through the open window?

Meg had just to wait, her head thrown back into the angle, pressed back as far as it would go and straining, her hands on either side of her, palm outwards, pressing back too, as if she would force the wall and make it hide her. The moment was stretched intolerably by her fear—the old fear of the creature who is trapped, and waits for the trapper.

And then they came, all three of them—Miller, Miss Cannock, Milly. They came running, with a confusion of words—questions, answers, denials, protests. And then, not a yard from Meg, Miss Cannock stopped, and when she spoke the other two fell silent.

“She can't have gone far if Milly had just been in. Now, Milly—you're sure she was there?”

“I take my dying oath.”

“Oh, we haven't come to that yet. Milly, if you cry, I'll slap you—I swear I will! Now, Bob, how far did you go?”

“Only to the corner of the house. It was no good going on alone, and I hadn't my torch. She might have been a yard away and I wouldn't have seen her.”

“No—that's right. Go down to the lodge and get Henderson and Johnny! It's all right, you know—she can't get away. She'll probably make for the gate or try and hide in the wood. There isn't any place where she can get over the wall. There's no need for anyone to get fussed. I'll just go round the outside of the house with my torch. Milly, you stay here in case she doubles back! Now, Bob, off with you!”

They were gone. Their footsteps had died away. If only Milly had gone too. But Milly was to stay, and in the time it would take to make a circuit of the house Miss Cannock would be back, and then perhaps it would occur to her to search the room.

It was now or never. The instinct which had forbidden her to move now most insistently bade her go. Milly or no Milly, she must get out of this. It wasn't a refuge any longer, it was a trap. All at once she could move again. She looked between the curtains and saw Milly crouching on the sofa with her arms thrown out across the padded end and her head down between them. She was choking with sobs. Her shoulders heaved with them. Her body writhed.

Meg slipped off her shoes and took them in her left hand. She knew exactly what she was going to do, and she knew that she could do it. She knew it so surely that she wasn't afraid any more. She passed between the curtains and crossed the room in the most perfect silence, but even if she had tramped to the door in nail-shod boots, poor Milly's sobs would have prevented any other sound from reaching her. She cried because she would go to prison if she didn't do what she was told—and she would lose Bob—perhaps she had lost him already—and she didn't hold with murder—no, she didn't—and it was a crool shame. Whatever she did, it was going to be her fault, and as likely as not, she'd be hanged for it, when it wasn't none of her doing, and if it wasn't for Bob she'd have been picking pockets comfortable and not doing no harm to nobody. She choked and gulped, and got out a sooty handkerchief which left black smears across her face when she scrubbed her eyes with it.

Miss Cannock, swinging herself in over the window-sill with a noiseless agility which went very oddly indeed with the fussy fringe, the old-fashioned dress, the beaded shoes, switched off her torch and surveyed her with sarcasm. She had removed the tinted glasses, and her eyes behind the colourless lashes were bright, and pale, and cool. She turned without speaking, drew down the sash, and latched it. Then with a sudden decisive movement she went over to the other window and pulled the curtains back.

Meg's instinct had stood her in good stead.

XXVI

Meg was half way across the hall on her stocking feet. The thing that had told her to leave her hiding-place had brought her so far, but it didn't tell her what to do next. She went on to the foot of the stair by her own momentum, and there stayed, bewildered by the necessity for making a decision. She must hide—somewhere.… Where? … She didn't know.…

And then, sharp upon her hesitation, there came to her through the open door of the room from which she had fled the rattle and jangle of the curtain rings as Miss Cannock flung them back. She stopped thinking and ran up the stair as silently and swiftly as if she were moving in a dream, and then, out of sight of the hall by the door of her own room, she stopped, and thought began again.

Her own room was the first place that they would search if it came to searching the house. And the last place? Miss Cannock's room. What a perfectly
horrible
idea. She had a moment of sick physical recoil, and then, insistently, pressingly, the thought was driven home. It
was
the last place where they would look for her, the very last. And she might—yes, it was just possible she might have a chance of getting hold of the key to the bridge. It was worth any risk if there was even the slightest chance of that. But she wouldn't be taking risks—she would be avoiding them.

She passed her own door, keeping close against the wall, and so along the gallery to the other side of the hall. Miss Cannock's door faced hers, with the width of the hall between them. The door was ajar, the light burning, and the room just as it had been left when Miller came running up with the news that Meg was away.

Meg went in and looked for a hiding-place. The curtains were drawn, but she shuddered away from the thought of standing behind them with nothing but a length of chintz between her and Miss Cannock. Of all the topsy-turvy things that had happened this was the craziest, that her bones should be like water at the thought of the Cannock. It was as if a rabbit had suddenly become more sinister than a rattlesnake.

This passed in a flash. The curtains wouldn't do. There was the big old-fashioned wardrobe which had stood in the spare room at Way's End. She wouldn't dare to hide inside it, because if the Cannock was leaving here and going abroad, she would be turning out her clothes and packing them. No, she couldn't hide inside it, but if she could reach the top she could lie there very safely hidden and let the hunt go by, as she had heard it go a dozen times when they had played hide-and-seek at Way's End. There was a horned canopy, and the top was sunk a foot behind it. No one had ever thought of looking there, and she had kept it as her own special hiding-place. But she had to get up there. If she stood on the chest of drawers she could manage, but it was a tall chest, and she didn't dare move a chair to reach it. She had to use the old trick, but it brought her heart into her mouth.

You pulled out one of the drawers to make a step, and then from the top of the chest you leaned over and shut it again, and you had to be most awfully careful or the drawer squeaked. It was only the middle drawer that was any good as a step, and unless you coaxed it ever so carefully it made a noise like a skidding slate-pencil.

She got on to the chest of drawers and put her shoes out of sight on top of the wardrobe. Then she had to shut the drawer below her and keep her fingers steady against the impulse to jam it home anyhow and hide. And just as she knelt there with her hair falling forward over her face and the drawer going home by stiff, reluctant fractions of an inch, she heard the sound of voices coming nearer.

And she didn't know whether they were in the hall below, or on the stair, or in the gallery not more than a yard or two away. They came upon her ear with a terror which took away her power of judging distance. Her heart thudded, and her head swam, but her fingers went on pushing the drawer very carefully home. Then she stood up, got her knee on the lowest part of the canopy, and climbed over into the space behind it. She lay there, and heard the voices coming nearer.

Well, they could come now, because she had beaten them. The moment of sick terror was over, and she was safe. Yes, but she wanted something more than that. She wanted to be able to see. She must be able to watch the Cannock, and be ready to take a chance for the key of the bridge.

The canopy came up in the middle into two carved walnut horns and then fell away in an ornamental scrollwork. There was a very good look-out place between the horns, and another at each corner, where two smaller horns repeated the central pattern. She worked herself round until she could use either the middle peep-hole or the one on the right-hand corner without moving more than her head and neck. This would enable her to see practically everything in the room.

And the first thing she saw was Miss Cannock coming in at the door. Meg had never seen her before without her glasses, neither had she ever seen her out of the part which she had been playing. She looked now with a terrified interest, and what she saw was not Miss Cannock's dress and Miss Cannock's hair, but the pale, cold fire of anger in those unfamiliar eyes, and the air of arrogant, domineering power. She stood with her hand on the door, the light shining full in her face for a moment, and then spoke over her shoulder.

“You'll go on till you find her—you and Henderson, and Johnny! She can't get away. But I've got to have her here before midnight. I can't have my time-table upset. And warn Henderson that there's to be no rough handling! Bruises are just what every meddlesome police surgeon's on the look-out for. That's all—get on with it!”

She shut the door, walked across to the wardrobe, and flung it open. Standing there, she was out of Meg's sight, but the room was full of her. The moment before it had been any room. Now it was this woman's room—the stage on which she walked, the scene set for her to dominate, the place from which she would marshal her forces and control events. How had it been possible for her to mask this will, this power, this force, and play with effortless skill the part of an aimless, amiable nonentity? She stepped back from the wardrobe now and came into sight again, moving towards the dressing-table which was set between the windows. She had something in either hand, and as she came into the light above the looking-glass, Meg saw what it was—a wig—two wigs—a wig in either hand, held very carefully and then set down, the one on the right-hand side of the dressing-table and the other on the left.

Meg stared through the corner peep-hole, and knew that what she had guessed about Uncle Henry had been certainly true, because the right-hand wig with its tossed leonine mane of grey hair was Uncle Henry's hair and no one else's. It was that wig, and a beard, and this woman with an ulster, and a pretended limp, and perhaps special boots to give her another inch or two of height, who had met her in the dusk and walked beside her in abstracted silence to the house.

That sank in as she stared—right in, until she was so sure of it that it seemed part of her, and she looked back at the Meg who hadn't known or guessed or suspected anything, with a kind of distant wonder, as if she had been another person.

She looked at the other wigs, the one at the woman's left hand, and immediately her own scalp began to pringle, because she knew this hair too. Oh yes, surely she knew it. It was a woman's wig, and it wasn't just carelessly plopped down like the grey one, but perched on one of those little wooden stands which people give you at Christmas, and which you are supposed to use for your hats, only you generally don't. This one was enamelled pale blue and painted with blobs of green, and pink, and orange. The wig sat on the top of it with its neat formal waves and its rows of little curls at the back—waves and curls of pale platinum-coloured hair, very fine and soft, and beautifully kept. As surely as the grey wig was Uncle Henry's hair, so surely was this the hair of Miss Della Delorne.