Red Shadow (12 page)

“Those are two different things. To be quite frank, women don't interest me as friends, and Laura doesn't interest me as a woman.”

Catherine's hand tightened on his arm. It tightened until its pressure was painful.

“She doesn't interest—
you.
”

“What do you mean? Look out—you're hurting me!”

She released him with a jerk.

“My dear, you're not the only man in the house.”

“
Sasha?
” he said with a staring look of surprise.

Catherine stamped her foot.

“Do you want Sasha to step into your shoes? Anyone would say that you did. He wants very little encouragement—I can tell you that. Do you really not care? No—it is only your wife, and that does not matter. If it were your precious piece of paper, that would be another affair—wouldn't it?” She laughed and walked to the door, but before she reached it she looked over her shoulder with a smile for his angry face. “All this time you have not told me what that paper is. Perhaps, like you, I have been guessing.”

With a couple of strides Vassili was beside her. Her hand was already on the door when he caught her by the shoulders and pulled her round.

“And what have you guessed?” he said quite low.

Catherine looked into his dangerous eyes and said lightly between smiling lips,

“The Sanquhar invention.”

The door opened and Alec Stevens came into the room. There was a moment of breathless silence. Then Alec Stevens said,

“Are you—rehearsing? Is this a scene from a play?”

Vassili pushed Catherine away. The movement was rough and uncultured in the last degree; his voice and look were those of a peasant as he said,

“I wasn't making love to her!”

Catherine's plucked eyebrows rose in a fantastic arch. She put two fingers to her orange-tinted lips and blew him a kiss.

“Thank you for the compliment, my dear.”

Vassili turned upon his cousin.

“I thought you had gone to town.”

“I missed the train,” said Alec Stevens. “And as I had half an hour to wait, I came back for my stick, which I had forgotten.”

“And that is why you came in here?”

Alec nodded.

“I left it over there in the corner.”

He crossed the room, took up a stick with a heavy knob which was leaning against the book-case, and came back swinging it.

“When are you coming back?” said Catherine.

“I've no idea. Come and kiss me good-bye at the door.”

He slipped an arm about her, walked her into the passage, where he bent to kiss her, called a pleasant good-bye to Vassili, and was gone with a resounding bang of the front door.

Catherine strolled towards the stairs, but before she could reach them Vassili caught her by the arm and pulled her back into the study. He shut the door and put his back against it. Then,

“Where did you hear that?” he said.

“
I?
What have I heard?” said Catherine, laughing a little. She went back as far as the desk and leaned upon it with her two hands. She pointed her foot in its shabby satin slipper and swayed a little with a faint rocking motion.

“Do not pretend to misunderstand me! Where did you hear what you said?”

“But what did I say?”

He lifted his arm in a threatening gesture.

“You said, ‘The Sanquhar invention.' Where did you hear that?”

“Oh—the Sanquhar invention?” said Catherine. “Where did I hear it?”

His arm fell again. A dull colour rushed into his face.

“Where did you hear it?”

Catherine burst out laughing.

“Why, I heard it from you.”

“You heard it from me?”

She blew him another kiss.

“My dear Vassili—your face! Yes, I heard you say it.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

He shouted, “That is a lie!” and she took her hands off the table and dropped him the funny broken curtsey which Germans call a
knix
.

“
Danke schön!
” she said and laughed.

“If you say you heard me speak of the Sanquhar invention last night, I tell you you lie!”

“Don't be rude, my dear! Do you always know what you are saying when you are asleep?”

He stared at her, his flush fading.

“When I am asleep? I spoke of it in my sleep?”

She nodded, watching him.

“And how did you hear what I said? Where were you?”

“I was coming back from my bath. I woke up and I thought I would have a bath—there is always plenty of hot water. That is one thing about this house, there is always hot water.”

He struck one hand on the other.

“Can't you keep to the point? You were coming back from your bath?”

“I was coming back from my bath, and when I came by your door it was a little open and I heard you call out.”

“Go on—go on!”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“How impatient you are! I pushed open the door, because I thought perhaps you wanted something, and you said quite loud, ‘The Sanquhar invention'.”

“I said that? You swear it?”

“My dear Vassili, how else should I have heard it? Be rational!”

“What else did I say?”

“Nothing else.”

“You are sure?”

“Of course I am sure. You said, ‘The Sanquhar invention.' And when I knew you were talking in your sleep I shut the door and came away.”

“Did you know what it meant? Had you heard of it before? Had anyone said those words to you before I said them?”

She said, “No,” quite seriously.

“Did you think to yourself what it might mean?”

She answered him without any hesitation.

“But of course! I thought—well, I thought that the Sanquhar invention must be on your mind for you to talk about it in your sleep. And I thought perhaps this lost paper that you are looking for everywhere had something to do with it. Has it?”

He came across the room and stood frowning down upon her.

“You must not speak of it! Do you understand?”

“No. Why should I understand, when you have told me nothing?”

“I am not going to tell you anything. Do you understand that you are not to speak of the Sanquhar invention? Do you hear? It is not to be spoken of—not to me—not to Sasha—not to anyone.”

“And why?”

He made a contemptuous gesture.

“Women always ask why! In this case I can give you a very good reason. If you speak of it, you will probably not live to speak of it again. That is why—Catherine Alexandrovna.”

At this form of address, which so deliberately reminded her of her Russian nationality, Catherine turned pale under the greenish powder which covered her skin. She took a step away from him and put her hand to her head.

“The penalty would be death,” he said.

CHAPTER XV

Catherine sat in the dark and waited. She had heard the big clock in the hall strike twelve, and one; she was waiting to hear it strike two. She had undressed, but she wore a wadded dressing-gown over her pyjamas, and her feet were warm in slippers lined with fleece. She sat by the window with an eider-down tucked round her. In spite of her warm clothing she shivered, and her hands were like ice.

She looked out of the window and could see nothing except the gradations of the dark. The sky was not visible as sky, but it was not so black as the formless blackness of the trees. Catherine knew these for a towering mass of evergreens. They had now the very blackness of night itself. She knew where the wall was, but she could not see it, or trace the stone pillars which supported the heavy door. Behind her, her room had the soft even darkness of an enclosed place.

When she heard the clock downstairs strike two, she rose to her feet, let the eider-down fall upon the floor, and with her hands stretched out before her felt her way to the door which stood open between her room and the one where Laura lay asleep. She stood for a moment on the threshold. The room slept—Laura slept. The air was peaceful, warm, untroubled. She wondered if it was Laura's dream that breathed this calm, untroubled air. She stood on the threshold of the dream, and felt it barred against her.

She closed Laura's door very softly and went out through the door that gave upon the landing. Absolute darkness here—but no dreams.

Catherine walked with light certainty to the head of the stairs and began to descend them. She could hear the clock ticking in the hall. It had a deep, slow, heavy tick that halted a little. The ticking grew louder and louder until she reached the hall.

She was not a yard from the front door, when it opened. She saw the darkness move, a whole black wedge of it. The faintest footfall sounded, and the black wedge moved again. The door shut as soundlessly as it had opened. A little bright pencil of light jabbed at Catherine and went out.

Alec Stevens put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her towards the study; but instead of entering it they went past it and through the baize door. Here he switched on his torch, and they came along a short passage to the kitchen and put on the light.

Catherine sprang into sight—a bizarre, attractive figure in orange pyjamas and a heavy wadded coat of wine-coloured silk belted with green. The slippers which warmed her feet were of scarlet leather worked in gold. She had washed the make-up from her face, and without it her skin had the tones of Chinese ivory. Not a hair of her sleek black head was out of place. She looked like something out of the Arabian Nights, and spoke like any woman whose man has come home late.

“Do you want anything to eat?”

He nodded.

“Presently. We'll talk first.”

“Tea or coffee?” said Catherine, putting out cups.

“Oh, tea—and make it strong, I don't really want anything to eat. Brr! It's cold! You know, I wondered when I was half-way here what I was going to do if you hadn't tumbled to my assignation.”

“It's not the first time,” said Catherine composedly.

“I only had that moment when I kissed you—he was watching us through the door, you know. However, thank heaven you understood what I wanted. I had to see you—and I had to see you without his knowing that I'd seen you.”

Catherine put a kettle on the oil stove.

“It won't take long,” she said.

“Never mind that! Come here!”

He was sitting on the kitchen table, one leg swinging. When she came to him he locked his hands about her shoulders.

“Now,
liebchen!
What about it?”

She leaned back as far as she could.

“About what, Sasha?”

“About the Sanquhar invention?”

“What do you know about it?” said Catherine.

“I heard you say it, just like that, ‘The Sanquhar invention', exactly half a minute before I opened the door. It didn't take me half a minute to decide upon this little rendezvous.”

“Why?”

“Because, my love, the Sanquhar invention is a pretty big proposition, and I'd like to know what you know about it, and what Vassili knows about it.”

Catherine lifted her eyes and looked him straight in the face.

“Vassili says it is death to know about it,” she said in a low, steady voice.

“Oh—Vassili says that. But he is alive, and you are alive—and I am very much alive.”

Catherine leaned forward.

“What do you know? Tell me.”

“Ladies first,” said Alec Stevens. “How do you come to know that there is, or was, such a thing as the Sanquhar invention?”

She leaned against him and spoke in a rapid undertone.

“I'll tell you. Last night, in the middle of the night, I felt that if I did not have a hot bath, I should die—
you
know. And when I was coming back, there was Vassili's door a little open, and I heard him call out, so I went to see if anything was the matter, and he was talking in his sleep. And that is what he said—‘The Sanquhar invention'.”

“In his
sleep?
” said Alec Stevens.

Catherine nodded.

His arms dropped. He had been holding her lightly; now he set his hands on the table and leaned back so as to get the light upon her face.

“He said it in his sleep? In his sleep? Did he say anything else?”

“
He
asked me that,” said Catherine composedly.

“And what did you say?”

“I said no—to him.”

“And to me?”

“Yes—yes—
yes!
” The words came with a sudden eagerness.

Alec Stevens sat up.

“What did he say? Take your time and be accurate.”

She nodded.

“He said first, ‘The Sanquhar invention'—like that. Then, whilst I waited to see if he would say any more, he began to speak very quickly, the words all tumbling over themselves, and he said, ‘It must be somewhere. Look, look, look, look, look! Go on looking! We must find it. If she has it, we must find it—if she has it.' Then he stopped for a moment. And then he said, not so quickly, ‘I have told you—a square envelope, and it is inside—Hallingdon put it there. A square envelope—the torn note—Laura—Hallingdon.' And then he began to mutter. I was just going, when he said very loud, ‘Two pieces—three—four—how do I know?' That was all.”

He made her say it over again, and she never varied a word. He wrote down the words as she said them. Afterwards he looked at them, frowning.

“Two pieces—three—four—what does he mean by that?”

Catherine spoke quickly.

“He has one piece himself in a square envelope—he showed it to me. What he is looking for is another piece to fit on to it. I think—I think he does not know how many pieces there are.”

“He showed it to you? What is it like? Describe it.”

Catherine held up her hands and indicated a size.

“Like this. It is a piece of a five-pound note, and there is one side torn, like when you tear something into bits.”