Danger Point

Chapter 12

THERE were two telephone calls about an hour later. Rafe took the first. He was passing through the hall, when the telephone bell rang in the dining-room. He heard Alicia’s voice bleak with fury, and nodded a casual dismissal to the young footman who appeared at the service door. Then he said, “Hullo!”

“That you, Rafe? These devils haven’t got my car ready yet.”

“Darling, why not go and have a nice cup of tea? You sound like a menagerie of furies.”

“I feel like one, thank you!”

“And what is the unhappy Langham’s place like? A slaughter house?”

She gave an angry laugh.

“I don’t think they’ll do it again!”

“No survivors? By the way, Lisle had a smash on the way home.”

“What!”

“Her steering packed up on Crook Hill – on the crook. The car went to glory against Cooper’s barn.”

There was a dead silence, and then a sharp-drawn breath.

“Lisle?”

“Very nearly a no survivor, but not quite. She jumped lucky.”

“She isn’t hurt?”

“Not to notice. Small scratch on left cheek, slight wobble about the knees, otherwise intact. Dale won’t have to get a black tie this time.”

There was another of those sharply taken breaths. It may have represented a last attempt to curb a driven temper. If it was that, it failed. Alicia said with furious distinctness,

“She can’t make a job of anything, can she?”

The receiver was slammed down. Rafe Jerningham hung up at his end and walked out of the room.

It was Lisle who took the second call in her bedroom. She was changing for dinner, when the bell tinkled beside the bed. She stood in her peach-coloured slip and heard Dale’s voice from a long way off. She hadn’t thought of it being Dale. He hadn’t said anything about ringing her up, and she wasn’t ready to speak because he was bound to be angry about the car, and because she hadn’t done as he had told her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and said in a voice which hardly reached him,

“What is it, Dale?”

There was quite a long pause before his voice came in, suddenly loud.

“I can’t hear what you say. Who’s that speaking?”

“Lisle.”

“Who did you say? I can’t hear.”

A little while ago she would have laughed and said, laughing, “Silly! It’s me – Lisle,” but somehow the words wouldn’t come. Her throat was stiff, and her lips were stiff, though she didn’t know why.

She said, “Lisle – it’s Lisle,” but the voice didn’t sound like her own voice at all.

The receiver jarred at her ear.

“Who is it? What are you saying about Lisle?”

She repeated her own name.

“Lisle.”

Again that frantic jar of the wires.

“What about Lisle? For God’s sake – are you trying to tell me something – has anything happened?”

“The car smashed.”

“What?”

“The car.”

“What – about – Lisle?”

She found her voice.

“Dale, I can’t make you hear. It’s me – Lisle. I hope you won’t be angry about the car. It’s all smashed up.”

The loud, urgent voice dropped. He said without any expression,

“The car – you’re not hurt-”

“No – I jumped. I had a wonderful escape. I ought to have gone to Langham’s – but you won’t be angry, will you?”

There was a pause before he said,

“You’re not hurt at all?”

And at that Lisle began to tremble. How dreadful for Dale if, instead of her own voice saying she wasn’t hurt, this had been a stranger’s voice, or Rafe’s, telling him she was dead.

She said with a rush of warm emotion, “Oh, no, darling – not at all,” and heard Dale say her name with a strange break in it. It was as if he had not breath enough for even that one short word. And then the next moment he had too much. The ear-piece crackled with the violence of his anger.

“I told you to go to Langham’s! It was the last thing I said! Can’t you do anything you’re told?”

She was shaken, but she wouldn’t show it. It shook her terribly when Dale was angry, but she had begun to learn that she mustn’t let him see that she was shaken. She wouldn’t be able to live with Dale if he knew that he could shake her like that. The phrase came back to her and trailed away half finished. She wouldn’t be able to live with Dale-

His voice leapt at her again.

“Are you there? Why don’t you answer me?”

“Dale, you’re shouting.”

“What do you expect? You’ve nearly been killed, haven’t you? Do you expect me to be pleased? You disobeyed my orders and nearly killed yourself. What do you expect me to say?”

A shudder ran over her. She said, “I don’t know,” and pushed the receiver back upon its hook.

Sitting there on the edge of the bed, she put a hand down on either side of her and leaned upon the palms, steadying herself. It wasn’t Dale’s anger she was afraid of.

He had been angry before, and she had been afraid before, but not like this. Quite suddenly the fear had come, and she didn’t know why. It was natural that Dale should be angry. Any man would be angry if his wife had nearly been killed because she hadn’t done what he had told her to do. And Dale had told her to have the steering tested before she went home. She found herself clinging to that – “He did tell me – he did. I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Alicia.” There was a moment of relief and then the fear came closer. He had known Alicia all his life. He knew she meant to pick a quarrel if she could. He knew her car was at Langham’s. “Did he know I wouldn’t wait to be quarrelled with?”

The shudder came again. She cast back desperately to her first thought – “He told me to have the steering tested.”