IT WAS JUST before half-past-seven when Mirrie slipped down the back stairs and let herself out by the side door. She was feeling clever and excited, and very, very pleased with herself and with Johnny. They were going to have their own darling flat, and she would be helping him to get it. And she had thought of everything. About not coming down the front stairs or through the hall in case of meeting anyone. She hadn’t lived all those years with Aunt Grace and Uncle Albert without knowing all about slipping out of the house without being seen or heard. She was wearing her pearl necklace and she had ten pounds in her pocket, and it was all most romantic and interesting. She went just outside the left-hand gate and stood there hugging herself in her warm tweed coat and waiting for Johnny to come. It was a dark evening without moon or stars, cloud overhead and a light wind blowing. It ruffled her curls and she put up a hand to them. She ought to have brought a scarf to tie over her head, but it was too late to go back for one now. The wind blew her hair about, and she hoped Johnny wouldn’t be long.
The car came up smooth and silent. It stopped beside her and the beam of a torch slid over her from her head to her feet. Then it went out with a click and the door swung open. She said, “Johnny!” and he said, “Quick!” Just the one word in a whisper and she was up on the running-board and an arm pulling her in and shutting the door. The engine hadn’t stopped. The car shot forward and they were away. The hand that had pulled her in came across her and shut the window. And in one horrid flash of time Mirrie knew that it wasn’t Johnny’s hand.
She didn’t say anything, because she couldn’t. She couldn’t make the smallest sound, but if she could have screamed it wouldn’t have made any difference. She leaned back in a dizzy silence and felt how fast the car was going. If she were to open the door and try to get out she might be killed, or she might be a cripple for life like Maggie Bell. She didn’t want to be killed, and she didn’t want to be a cripple. It was easier to sit quite still and wait for what was going to happen next. The car ran on for a time, then slackened speed and drew in to the side of the road and stopped. Sid Turner said,
“Did you bring the money?”
Of course she had known it would be Sid. If it wasn’t Johnny, there wasn’t anybody else it could possibly be. It was Sid who had told her to bring the ten pounds and the pearls. It wasn’t Johnny at all. If he had spoken louder, she would have known that it wasn’t Johnny, but he had just whispered, and you can’t tell who anyone is in a whisper. He had said he was Johnny, and it hadn’t come into her mind to think it might be anyone else. You don’t think about things like that —not until they have happened.
He took hold of her arm and shook her.
“You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you? Did you bring the money?”
Two big frightened tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“Hand it over!”
It was all in nice clean notes fresh from the bank. She took them out of her pocket and gave them to him.
“And the pearls!”
Frightened as she was, Mirrie was prepared to put up a fight for the pearls. Her breath caught on the words, but she got them out.
“I d-didn’t bring them.”
His voice went quiet and deadly.
“Do you think you can lie to me? I’ve known you too long for that, and you ought to know me!”
His hands came feeling about her neck. The pearls slid into one of them. The other came up and squeezed her throat. The pressure only lasted for a moment, but it put the fear of death into her.
“Try any games with me, and that’s what you’ll get—or worse! Remember me tickling you with my knife? You didn’t like it, did you? Now you and me have got to talk! If you do what you’re told you won’t come to any harm, but try just one trick and you’ll wish you’d never been born!”
He let go of her and she shrank there like a little wild creature that is caught and can’t get away. She didn’t dare to move, she hardly dared to breathe, obeying the age-old instinct that sends its message along the frightened nerves— “Keep still—make yourself small—melt into the earth—pretend that you are dead.”
Mirrie froze where she sat. Sid Turner was putting the pearls away in his wallet. When he had closed it he turned on her again.
“Where are we— I suppose you’ve been out driving with your fancy boy! What’s this place?”
She had to speak, because he would be angry if she didn’t. It didn’t do to make Sid angry. Her lips were stiff and her breath whispered as she said,
“It’s Hexley Common.”
“There was a track going off to the left—we just passed it. Where does it go?”
“Nowhere. There’s an old gravel pit.”
The word came into his mind and made itself at home there. Tangled up overgrown places those old pits—handy if there was anything you wanted to hide. His sullen resentment and anger against Mirrie Field had been piling up since yesterday. She had misled him about the will, she had tried to fob him off at the funeral, and she had given him away to the police. The darkness and the anger in him were piling up. If they were to break—if he were to let them break—well, there was the gravel pit as you might say to his hand. He said,
“That’ll do us fine. We’ll get off the road, then we’ll talk.”
He backed the car to where the track led off and for a little way along it. Careful, that was what he was. That was why nobody had ever tripped him yet. Nor they weren’t going to.
When he thought he had gone far enough he shut off the engine and the lights. Then he got out, came round to Mirrie’s side, and opened the door.
“You and me have got to talk. And just in case anyone comes along and gets nosy about the car, we’re going a bit farther from the road. How far did you say it was to that pit?”
She held back trembling.
“I—don’t know. Can’t we talk here?”
She didn’t want to go any nearer to the pit. Johnny had pointed it out in the wintry dusk, a dug-out place grown over with blackberry and gorse. She hadn’t liked it then—it terrified her now.
Sid Turner took her by the arm and yanked her out of the car. He set her down so hard that the jar of it ran right through her up to the top of her head. She didn’t dare cry out, but she stumbled as he pulled her along, and he swore and held her up. He had a torch in his pocket, but he didn’t put it on. He had good night sight and the sandy track showed up against the dark heather on either side. The sky is never without some light, and it is astonishing how much you can see once your eyes have adjusted themselves.
The track got rougher as they came near the pit. They were now about fifty yards from the car, and he judged it to be far enough from the road. He said, “This’ll do,” and stopped.
He kept his hand on her arm and pulled her round to face him.
“I asked you just now in the car whether you remembered me tickling you with my knife. D’you remember why I did it? It was to remind you what would happen if you ever thought of splitting on me, wasn’t it? Remember that? And on the top of it you go blabbing to the police about talking to me on the phone and what you said to me and what I said to you!”
“I didn’t, Sid, I didn’t. It was Maggie Bell. She listens in. She hasn’t got anything else to do and she listens in all the time. She had an accident and she can’t walk, and she just lies on her sofa and listens in.”
Fear pricked her, as Sid’s knife had pricked her. The words came tumbling out.
“You told the police about ringing me up and telling me how your uncle had made a new will and left you a lot of money!”
“Maggie told them. It wasn’t me—it was Maggie. They knew all about it.”
“And what they didn’t know you told them, just in case this Maggie had left anything out! You can lie all right when it suits you, but you tumbled over yourself to give the busies what they wanted! You could have said this Maggie Bell was making it up, couldn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t have been any good. Everyone knows she listens.”
He flung her away from him with an angry shove, then caught at her wrist.
“Everyone knows—and you go blabbing! Now listen, you little piece of dirt—anything you said to the police, you’ve got to take it back, that’s what! You can lie cleverly enough when you like—practised for years on Grace, didn’t you? Well, now you can turn it to some account! Whatever you told the police, you’ll go over it and mess it up! Whatever day you told them you rang me, you’ll get down to telling them you’re not sure what day it was! What you’ve got to get across is you never told me anything about the old man having signed his will! D’you hear—you never told me! That’s what you’ve got to stick to! And if this Maggie Bell says different, she’s the one that’s lying, and not you! You never rang me up on Tuesday night—it was next day, after he was dead, and you just told me that, and when the funeral was going to be! If Maggie says anything more she is making it up!”
As he heard his own words he knew that it wasn’t any good. He could scare her, and she would promise whatever he asked, but she wouldn’t stick to it. As soon as she got back it would all come tumbling out—how he’d frightened her, and what he’d told her to say. He would have to finish her off. There was no way out of it, and with the rage that was in him now he’d be glad to do it. He said in the soft dangerous voice which terrified her more than any loud one,
“No, it’s not any good—I couldn’t trust you.” His hand went into his pocket for the knife. “You little blabbing slut! Suppose I show you a cure for a leaky tongue—suppose I cut it out!”
She gave a faint high scream, twisted her wrist away from him, and ran wildly, blindly, desperately, without aim, without thought, without sense of direction.
JOHNNY FABIAN stood with the open door behind him and looked across the hall. He saw Anthony and Georgina. And Miss Silver, who had just asked him where Mirrie was. That meant Mirrie wasn’t here, but he had to hear it said.
“Isn’t she here?” The words sounded stupid and empty, because he knew already that something had happened to her.
Miss Silver came towards him.
“Mr. Fabian, you are supposed to have rung her up.”
“No.”
“Someone rang up who gave your name. The line is said to have been very bad. Maggie Bell was listening in. I got on to her as soon as Mirrie was missed. She says Mirrie began by asking you what about the garage. Was it what you wanted? Was there really a flat over it, and would you be able to buy it? The man on the line said, ‘Now listen—’ And then he went on to say that there would not be any flat or any garage unless a deposit was paid tonight, because there was someone else after it, and Mirrie was to slip out of the house with all the money she had and her pearls, and she was not to say a word to anyone.”
Johnny said short and hard,
“When?”
“Just before half-past-seven.”
He looked at his wrist-watch.
“Twenty minutes’ start.”
He turned and went out as he had come in, with Anthony Hallam after him. They exchanged a word or two in the dark. Anthony said,
“Three ways they could have gone—to Lenton, or by this road, up or down. We had better separate.”
Johnny said,
“All right, you take the Lenton road. It’s Sid Turner. He saw me across the street at Pigeon Hill—knew I wasn’t here —tried it on. If he’s on the run he’ll be heading away from town. If he’s got a car it’ll be stolen, and he’d steal a fast one.”
He went round the car to get in, and as he did so Miss Silver slipped into the passenger’s seat. She had picked up the first muffler that came to hand in the cloakroom off the lobby, and a coat used by Mrs. Fabian for walking in the garden or stepping across the road to post a letter. The fact that she had come out without a hat and in her evening slippers with their beaded toes bore witness to the urgency of the occasion. She could have guessed Johnny Fabian’s expression from the tone in which he said, “I must ask you to get out. I can’t possibly take you.”
She replied in words which he had been about to use himself.
“There is no time to be lost. I may be of some assistance. I have excellent sight, and I am provided with an electric torch.”
Johnny ceased to regard her presence. The words filled his mind—“No time to be lost.” But the time might already be lost. Mirrie might be lost. He set his mind away from that. He set it to drive the car, to get the last ounce out of her. They shot past the straggle of houses at Field End and ran on towards Hexley Common.
From the first moment it was the Common that had been in his mind. He didn’t know why. He ought to be able to think, to find a reason, but he couldn’t. He could feel. Or he could shut off the feeling and just drive the car. But he couldn’t think. From the darkness beside him Miss Silver said, “I have reason to believe that there is a warrant out for Sid Turner’s arrest. Inspector Abbott and Inspector Blake were going down to Pigeon Hill this afternoon. It looks as if he had received some warning and had got away. As I heard you say to Captain Hallam, he has probably stolen a car. I cannot see that he has anything to gain by harming Mirrie, but he will not risk driving through a town with her in case she should attract attention. Having taken the money and her pearls, the most obvious thing for him to do would be to put her down in an unfrequented place from which it would take her some time to find her way home. He would naturally wish to secure as long a start as possible.”
Her words and the quiet, composed tone which had carried them passed over the hard surface of Johnny’s mind and found no entrance. He heard what she said, but implicit between them was the dark thing which she did not say. There was one means of securing that Mirrie Field would not return to Field End with any tale for the police. There was the dreadful means of murder—as old as Cain, running like a scarlet thread through all the history of every nation upon earth—the one final answer to every murderer’s need. Johnny shut his mind against it.
They ran up the long slope to Hexley Common. It lay dark under the sky. A chill breeze passed over it. Miss Silver was aware of it as she leaned from the open window to scan the side of the road. She saw the track going off to the left.
“Mr. Fabian, there is a path—”
But he was already slowing down. He got out, and she followed him. She said,
“Where does it go?” And he, “There’s a gravel pit.”
And with that, faint and high, there came the sound of Mirrie’s scream.