Red Shadow (29 page)

She was finishing her last mouthful of bread and butter, when there came a knock on the front door. A mild surprise showed in her face, but she finished her mouthful very calmly and deliberately, and then rose and took her unhurried way into the parlour. The front door opened directly into this room from a little porch. There was a neat brown linoleum on the floor, and a black woolly mat in front of the large old fireplace. There was no fire on the hearth. Eliza would have considered it waste. She didn't sit in her parlour, she kept it for company. It boasted two easy chairs and a sofa covered with bright green plush. Each chair had an antimacassar over the back, and the sofa had two. Eliza had made them herself, and they were a faithful copy of those which had defended her grandmother's chairs from the well oiled heads of three generations. In the middle of the room stood a round table with a single twisted leg and a walnut top polished to a most extraordinary degree of brilliance. On this shining surface there reposed, each on its own woolly mat, a heavy Bible with gilt clasps, a photograph album with an embossed cover and gold edges, and one of the primmer ferns in a bright pink china pot. The walls were covered with an indigo paper very gloomily patterned in brown. Eliza considered it serviceable, and expected it to last her time.

She went to the door and opened it. The knocking had become very loud, but she did not hurry herself. She lifted the latch, opened the door about half way, and beheld a young man with brows drawn together in a frown above restless hazel eyes. There was something so bright and quick about his glance that she began to think about shutting the door in his face, but before she had got any further than that his hat was off and he was speaking very politely.

“Miss Huggins? Miss Eliza Huggins?”

Eliza gave the slow nod which brought her third chin into evidence. Her rather prominent dark eyes dwelt upon the young man with a ruminative expression. He thought she was exactly like a cow, and spoke with a touch of impatience.

“May I come in, Miss Huggins? I've come on a matter of business.”

Eliza Huggins pursed up her lips. She didn't like people who were in a hurry. Slow and sure was her motto, and if anyone tried to hustle her, she became a great deal slower. After a maddening pause, she said without moving her hand from the door,

“Mr Rimington does my business.”

“I've not come about your business, Miss Huggins, I've come about Mr Hallingdon's.”

Eliza's eyes dwelt upon him. Presently she said,

“Mr Hallingdon's business?”

“Mr Bertram Hallingdon's business. And if you'll forgive me, Miss Huggins, I would like to come in. It's not a matter I can discuss on the doorstep, so if you don't mind——”

After a moment she took her hand off the door and stepped back. Alec Stevens came in and shut it behind him.

Eliza Huggins resumed the conversation.

“What's your business?” She paused for a moment before she added “Sir.”

“A five-pound note,” said Alec Stevens.

There were Nottingham lace curtains at the parlour windows, very white, very stiff, very heavily starched. They were looped back with wide pink ribbon. Eliza walked to the window and pulled the curtains together until they overlapped by a couple of inches. Then she came slowly back to the table and stood there.

“What were you saying about a five-pound note?”

Alec Stevens smiled like a man who is pleased with himself. He had been driving most of the night. He was stiff, and sore, and cold, and hungry, and the Sanquhar invention was his for the asking. He might well be pleased.

Eliza repeated what she had already said.

“What were you saying about a five-pound note?”

“I was saying I'd got one. I want to show it to you.”

Eliza sat down on a hard chair.

“And what might your name be?” she asked.

“My name is Stevens.”

The third chin again came into evidence as she nodded. She said, “Mr Stevens.…” not addressing him, but just saying the name over to herself.

As she said it, he had his pocket-book out and, opening it, put down one by one three irregular fragments of thin white paper. He smoothed them out and set them in order; they lay on the polished table between Eliza and the pink flower-pot. They were not three pieces of paper any more, but a five-pound note.

“Now do you know what my business is?” he said.

Eliza looked at the five-pound note. She looked at it until Alec Stevens could hardly restrain himself from swearing at her. Then she got up and walked round the table and opened the Bible with the gilt clasps. She opened it in the middle, and the leaves parted over a faded sprig of lavender and a lock of straight black hair tied with what had once been a piece of bright blue ribbon. She turned two or three pages more, scanning each page deliberately, until she came on a half sheet of note-paper. She picked it up and came back with it in her hand. It took her about five minutes to compare what was written on the paper with the number of the five-pound note. Slow and sure was her motto, and if gentlemen liked to be impatient, it was no affair of hers.

When she had quite satisfied herself, she walked ponderously round the table again, put the half sheet of note-paper back in its place, and closed the book upon it. Then she sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

Alec Stevens controlled himself as well as he could.

“Well?” he said.

“That's the note,” said Eliza Huggins.

“Very well. Then will you kindly give me the key of the safe.”

Eliza nodded slowly. Her hands lay in her lap.

“The key of the safe—” she said.

“And tell me where it is, and in what name.” He let himself go for a moment. “I'm in a hurry.”

“Hurry brought the mare down,” said Eliza.

“I understand that Mr Hallingdon left you the key——”

Eliza nodded again.

“And instructions to hand it over to the person who brought you this five-pound note——”

Eliza leaned back in her chair, she looked straight into his impatient face and said,

“The note's all right.”

“Then will you give me the key.”

“The note's all right,” said Eliza in her slow, heavy voice.

“Of course it's all right! Will you give me the key.”

“Not without Miss Laura Cameron.”

Alec Stevens had the horrid sensation of having missed a step in the dark.

“
Miss Cameron?
”

“Miss Laura Cameron.”

“What do you mean? Miss Cameron's piece of the note is here.” He tapped it with an angry finger. “The key was to be given to the person who brought you this note.”

“Not without Miss Laura Cameron, it wasn't,” said Eliza.

At the moment when Eliza Huggins was opening the heavy Bible with the gilt clasps a car passed the door and drew up a little way beyond it. Jim Mackenzie got out of the car and walked back along the row of cottages until he came to No. 3.

Alec Stevens's car was on the other side of the road, but he did not glance at it. He walked stiffly, and his eyes had a hard, fixed look. He was almost at the end of his tether, but he meant to see Eliza Huggins. He held on to that—he had got to see Eliza Huggins and stop her handing over the Sanquhar invention.

He stood in the little porch and heard voices within. With his hand on the latch, he hesitated for a moment, then lifted it and pushed the door ajar. He heard Alec Stevens speaking in a controlled, reasonable voice:

“But, my dear Miss Huggins, Miss Cameron has been ill. And, by the way, she is not Miss Cameron any more; she is married. You know that?”

Jim stood where he was. He could not see Eliza's nod, but he heard her say,

“Mr Rimington told me as much.”

“Then he told you that she was Mrs Stevens.”

He was going to play the part of Laura's husband, was he? The damned impudent swab! Jim leaned on the doorpost and waited. Give the fellow rope and he'd trip himself up.

“That makes no difference,” said Eliza Huggins.

“What doesn't?” Alec Stevens's tone sharpened.

“Not who she's married—whether it's you, or whoever it is, it don't make any difference. I've got to see her, and she's got to say she's willing. Mr Hallingdon was very particular about it.”

“Have you ever seen her?” said Alec Stevens. “Do you know her?”

“I've seen her,” said Eliza. “Mr Hallingdon, he sent me where I could see her, and when I come back he arst me would I know her again, and I told him I would for certain. ‘She's not one that's easy forgot,' I told him.”

The words did something to Jim Mackenzie. He was near the edge of sleep, hearing what passed as if through layers of cotton wool. And then Eliza Huggins said, “She's not one that's easy forgot,” and he came awake with a jerk. Laura—she was speaking about Laura, It wasn't easy to forget Laura—he hadn't tried—it wouldn't be any use trying. For a moment she was there, vivid and tender as a dream, invading his every sense with sweetness and pain. He straightened himself up. If he leaned against anything, he would go to sleep.

Alec Stevens was talking about Laura being ill—about Laura not being able to come—about how urgently necessary it was that Eliza should give him the key of the safe. He had a pressing manner and a persuasive tongue. If Eliza moved to get the key, Jim would push open the door and go in. But he mustn't go to sleep—it was all up if he went to sleep.

The persuasive voice ceased on a most persuasive note. Eliza Huggins was speaking again.

Jim kept his hand on the door.

“Well, sir——”

What was she going to say? His hand closed. The deliberate voice went on.

“Well, sir, seeing Miss Laura Cameron has been ill and can't be expected to take a journey, and seeing you've got the five-pound note and you want me to give you the key and let you know where the safe is and what name it's under——”

“Yes?” said Alec Stevens.

Eliza paused weightily.

“Seeing as such is the case,” she said very deliberately—“to my mind there's nothing to be done until Miss Laura's got her health again.”

Jim let go of the door and stepped back. The immovability of Eliza came home to him. Even with his head packed with cotton wool he understood that if Alec Stevens were to talk all day, Eliza would not budge. Bertram Hallingdon had picked well.

He turned and walked through the little gate and along the grass-bordered path to where he had left his car. A new idea possessed him to the exclusion of everything else. He must get to Laura before Alec Stevens did. She'd got to be warned. She'd got to be told about Eliza and warned.

He started the car and began to drive in an automatic manner, his thoughts set firmly on reaching Lynn Cliff.

CHAPTER XXXV

Jim drove on. He had about twenty miles to go. The thought of them was like a rushing noise in his head. He would have given everything in the world except Laura to let go of the wheel, slump down where he was, and sleep; but because of Laura he had got to go on.

When he had been driving for half an hour, a car passed him, going very fast. The noise that it made increased the noise in his head to an almost unbearable degree. The man in the car, who was Alec Stevens, turned round and looked back, but Jim did not see him. His field of consciousness had narrowed to the road and the things which he had to do to keep on the road and to reach Laura. He went on doing these things with the mechanical efficiency of a robot.

Alec Stevens pressed his foot on the accelerator and went away. The needle of his speedometer slipped over to sixty and stayed there. The speed exhilarated him and stimulated thought. He was not conscious of undue fatigue. To drive up to town the night before and down again in the small hours of the morning was nothing very much out of the way. He had not, like Jim Mackenzie, had the down run twice, nor had he come on the road within a few hours of a hurried journey over to France and back.

He kept at sixty, and thought of what he was going to do. He wasn't going to be beaten on the post by Jim Mackenzie; that might be taken as a stone-cold certainty. He was going to have the Sanquhar invention, and if Laura's consent was necessary, he was going to have Laura's consent. Laura's consent..… What would force that out of her? There was no time to persuade, to bring pressure to bear; consent must be wrenched from her now, within the limits of this day, before Vassili could butt in. Laura's consent..… What lever to use? What lever had Vassili used to force her into marriage? Jim Mackenzie's safety—Jim Mackenzie's life—the only lever that would have moved her then, and the only lever that would move her now. Jim Mackenzie's life, and—perhaps—her freedom. Good levers—powerful levers.

His mind began to work upon a plan. It might come off, or it might not. When he stopped taking risks he would be dead. It was in his temperament to be stirred by danger. All the same he would take his risks cautiously and plan every possible detail. The small combe would be the place. He had the rope, and the chance of any other traffic on the road was remote. Even in summer it was a lonely place, and at this hour of a January morning..… Added to everything else, it was beginning to rain heavily, and by the look of the sky there was worse to come.

As he came over the last ridge, the road ran close above the grey and stormy sea and the rain fell in sheets. The combe lay below him, with the road dipping to cross it within a stone's throw of high water mark. It was a short, steep ravine going down to a little inlet not large enough to be called a bay. Where the road crossed it by an old stone bridge the sides were thickly wooded, but immediately below the bridge the trees stopped. The sea was in sight and the tide coming up.

Alec Stevens crossed the bridge, left his car by the side of the road, and ran back. In his left hand he swung a heavy coil of rope. Here, just short of the bridge, was the place for his turn. The trees were oaks, stunted with the buffeting of the sea winds. He made fast his rope to one that grew below the bridge, and then carried the other end across the road. Here he had to climb, the ground falling away so sharply that he must hitch the rope about the trunk some ten or twelve feet up. He tied his knots skilfully, leaving the rope taut some two and a half feet above the road. Without any appearance of haste, he had been very quick, but even so, he had no more than reached the ground before he heard the first sound of the following car, and for a moment through all his violent stubborn purpose there pricked the thought, “Suppose it's some one else.”