Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley) Dark Journey

One of the most widely acclaimed psychological mystery novels of our time was before the fact (1932) by Francis Iles. Howard Haycraft called it the author’s masterpiece (although John Dickson Carr, no small expert himself preferred TRIAL AND ERROR, 1937, as by Anthony Berkeley) and described it as “an internally terrifying portrait of a murderer.” Alfred Hitchcock directed the now-famous movie version, titled “Suspense,” starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.

The Frances Iles story we now give you is also “an internally terrifying portrait of a murderer” — a superb psychological study of crime and punishment...

Cayley was going to commit murder.

He had worked it all out very carefully. For weeks now his plan had been maturing. He had pondered over it, examined it, tested it in the light of every possibility; and he was satisfied that it was impregnable. Now he was going to put it into practice.

Cayley did not really want to kill Rose Fenton.

Indeed, the idea made him shudder, even when he had been drinking. But what else could he do? He was desperate. Rose would not leave him alone. She thought, too, now that she had a claim on him; and she was plainly determined to exercise it. And Cayley very much did not want to marry Rose Fenton.

He never had thought of marrying her. A solicitor’s clerk, with a position to make in the world — a solicitor’s clerk with every chance of an ultimate partnership in his firm — cannot afford to marry a girl like Rose Fenton. Respectability is the bread of a solicitor’s life. Besides, now there was Miriam. Miriam Seale, the only daughter of old Seale himself, the senior partner in Cayley’s own firm...

Cayley knew now that he had been risking his whole future by taking up with Rose at all. It had not seemed like that at first. Other men have adventures, why not he? But adventures in any case are not safe for solicitors, and now Rose had decided not to be an adventure at all, but a job. As Cayley knew only too well, Rose was a determined girl. Rose knew nothing of Miriam.

It seemed curious to Cayley now to remember that once he had been quite fond of Rose. Now, of course, he detested her. He would sit for hours in his cottage over a bottle of whisky, thinking how much he hated Rose. Before Rose became impossible, Cayley had never drunk whisky alone. Now he was depending on it more and more, and one cannot go on like that. One must make an end somehow.

Rose had brought it on herself. She would not leave him alone. She would not see when an affair was — finished. Cayley did not at all want to kill Rose, but he gloated over the idea of Rose dead. And he would never be his own man again till Rose was dead. He knew that. No; Cayley did not at all want to kill Rose, but what else could he do?

And now he was waiting for Rose to come; waiting on the side of the road, in the dark, with his stomach full of whisky and a revolver in his pocket.

As he waited, Cayley felt as if he were made of lead. The night was warm, but he felt neither warm nor cold, afraid nor brave, despairing nor exultant. He felt nothing at all. Both body and mind seemed to have gone inert, so that he just waited and hardly noticed whether the time went fast or slowly.

The noise of the bus roused him from his torpor. He followed its progress along the main road: loud when the line between it and himself was clear, with curious mufflings and dim silences when hedges or a fold in the ground intervened. Rose was in the bus, but Cayley did not feel any excitement at the thought. Everything had become in some strange way inevitable.

Cayley was waiting a couple of hundred yards down a side turning. It was a convenient little lane which Cayley had marked weeks and weeks ago, when he first thought of killing Rose. He and Rose had picnicked there one Sunday, on Rose’s afternoon off. They had sat on the wide grassy margin which bordered one side, and Cayley had thought then how he would be able to wheel his motor-bicycle on to it and put out the lights while he waited for Rose. In such a deserted spot, in the dark, with his headlights out, it would be impossible that their meeting could be seen.

Rose had not been able to understand at first why Cayley should want to meet her in such an out-of-the-way place and so far from both the cottage and from Merchester; but Cayley had been able to make her see reason.

Both the plan in his heart and the plan on his lips depended on his meeting with Rose remaining secret, and that had been very convenient for the former. That explained why Rose was coming to meet him in the last bus from Stanford to Merchester and not in that from Merchester to Stanford, although it was in Merchester that Rose was in service and Cayley worked.

Stanford and Merchester, both towns of some size, were eighteen miles apart, and while it was unlikely that Rose, not indigenous to the district, should be recognized leaving Merchester, it was almost impossible that she could be recognized leaving Stanford. Cayley had been taking no chances at all.

The bus had grumbled to a halt just beyond the turning and roared on again. Cayley heard footsteps coming towards him, scraping in the dark on the gritty surface of the lane. He waited where he stood until they were almost abreast of him, disregarding the calls of his name, rather louder than he liked, which Rose sent out before her in waves of sound through the still night like a swimmer urging the water in front of her.

“Rose,” he said quietly.

Rose uttered a little scream. “Coo! You didn’t half make me jump. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

“Have you put your trunk and things in the cloakroom?” It was essential to Cayley’s plan that Rose should have left her luggage that afternoon at Liverpool Street Station, in London.

“Course I have... Well,” added Rose archly, “aren’t you going to give us a kiss?”

“What else do you think I’ve been waiting for?” Cayley’s heart was beating a little faster as he kissed Rose for the last time. He thought of Judas. It made him feel uncomfortable, and he cut the kiss as short as he decently could.

Rose sniffed at him. “Been drinking, haven’t you?”

“Nothing, really,” Cayley returned easily, feeling for his bicycle in the darkness. “Just a drop.”

“It’s been too many drops with you lately, my lad. I’m going to put a stop to it. Not going to have a drunkard for a husband, I’m not.”

Cayley writhed. Rose’s voice was full of possession; full of complacent assurance that in future he would have no life but what she chose to allow him. Had any qualms remained in him, that tone of Rose’s would have dispelled them.

“Come on,” he said sharply. “Let’s get off.”

“All right, all right. In a great hurry, aren’t you? Where’s the bike? Coo, I never saw it. It’s that dark.”

Cayley had wheeled the bicycle into the lane and switched on the headlight. He helped Rose into the side-car, and jumped into his saddle.

“All serene. So off we go, on our honeymoon,” giggled Rose. “Fancy you and me on our honeymoon, Norm.”

“Yes,” said Cayley. It was odd that, though this was the last time they would ever be together, Rose’s hideous shortening of his Christian name grated on him as much as ever.

He drove slowly down the lane. “See anyone you know in Stanford?” he asked as casually as possible.

“So likely, isn’t it? A fat lot of people I know.”

“But did you?”

“No, Mr. Inquisitive, I did not. Any more questions?”

They turned into the main road, and Cayley increased his speed.

The whisky he had drunk did not affect his driving. His hands held the machine quite steady, though he was now pushing it along as fast as it would go, anxious to arrive and get the business finished. He did not glance at Rose in the side-car beside him. Although it was the last time that Rose would ever ride in that side-car alive, yet her presence exasperated him as much as ever, and the way she would cock her feet up under her so that her knees stuck up in the air. In a dim way Cayley recognized the fact, and was surprised by it. He had expected to feel tolerant now towards Rose’s irritating ways. It was a relief to find that, in fact, he had not softened.

Nor had his resolution weakened.

Now that it had come to the point, Cayley was quite calm.

He knew that, normally, he was not always calm, and he had feared lest he might lose his head and somehow bungle things: be queer in his manner, tremble, let Rose see that something dreadful was afoot. But there was no longer any danger of that. Rose could not guess what was going to happen to her; and as for Cayley himself, he felt almost indifferent, as if the matter had all been taken somehow out of his hands. The whole affair was pre-ordained; events were moving forward of their own volition; nothing that he, or Rose, or anyone else, might do now could alter them.

Cayley drove on in a fatalistic trance. He realized vaguely that Rose was protesting against the speed, but disregarded her. It was no use Rose protesting against anything now.

Cayley’s lonely little cottage was not on the main road. It, too, was down a side turning, and a good half-mile from the village. The village itself, with its couple of dozen cottages and two little shops, was tiny enough, but Cayley had always been glad that he was half a mile from it. He liked solitude. Since he had determined to kill Rose, he had realized how his liking for solitude had played into his hands. Even so small a thing as that was going to help to destroy Rose.

As he turned off the main road his love of solitude rose up in him in a passionate wave. Had Rose really imagined that he was going to let her into that little corner of the world that he had made for himself — Rose, with her inevitable vulgarity of speech and mind?

A tremor of hatred shook him as he saw her sturdy form trampling about the house which, a fire-blackened ruin when he bought it out of his small savings, he had rebuilt with his own hands; Rose, marching like a grenadier through the garden he had created; Rose, so assured in her ownership of it all that he would be made to feel an interloper in his own tiny domain. Miriam would never be like that. Besides, Miriam was...

Cayley thought fiercely how peaceful everything would be again once Rose was dead: how peaceful, and how hopeful.

A hundred yards away from the cottage he shut off his engine. Late though the time was, it was just possible that old Mrs. Wace, who “did” for him, might not yet have gone. She liked to potter and potter in the evenings, and Cayley had not been foolish as to try to hustle her off the premises early. And slightly deaf though she was, Cayley had already been careful to find out that she could hear his motor-cycle drive up to the little shed at the bottom of the garden where he kept it.

Rose, of course, expostulated when his engine stopped, but Cayley was ready for that.

“Run out of juice,” he explained glibly. “Lucky we got nearly home. Give me a hand to push her, Rose.”

“Well, that’s a nice thing to ask a girl, I must say,” objected Rose for form’s sake.

Between them they pushed the bicycle past the cottage.

Before they reached the shed, Rose evidently considered it due to herself to protest further.

“Here, this is a bit too much like hard work for me. You didn’t ought to ask me to do a thing like that, Norm, and that’s a fact.”

“All right,” Cayley said mildly. “I can manage alone now.” There were indeed only a few more yards to cover.

“Well, it’s your own fault, isn’t it?”

Cayley did not answer. The bicycle was heavy, and he needed all his breath. Rose walked behind him.

“Here, half a mo’. I’ll get my suit-case out before you put the bike away, if you don’t mind.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cayley threw back over his shoulder. “I’ll get it out in a minute.”

He brought the bicycle to a standstill outside the shed and opened the door.

Rose, a dim figure in the velvety August night, was peering up at the stars.

“Coo, it’s black enough for you tonight, I should think. Never known it so dark, I haven’t.”

“The moon doesn’t rise till after midnight,” Cayley answered absently, busy turning the bicycle round in the lane. It was better to turn it now, then it would be ready.

“Proper night to elope, and no mistake,” Rose’s voice came rallyingly. “Is that why you chose it, eh? Getting quite sloppy in your old age, Norm, aren’t you? Well, that’ll be a nice change, I must say.”

Cayley straightened up from the bicycle and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I just thought you’d been a bit standoffish lately.” There was a sentimental, almost a yearning note in Rose’s voice.

“Nonsense, darling. Of course I haven’t.”

“In fact, I don’t mind telling you, I thought at one time you didn’t mean to treat me right.”

“I’m going to treat you right, Rose,” said Cayley.

“Still love us, Norm?”

“Of course I do.”

“Where are you, then?”

Cayley’s fingers closed round the small revolver in his pocket. “Here.”

“Well, can’t you come a bit closer?” Rose giggled.

Cayley took her arm. “Come inside the shed for a minute, Rose.”

“What ever for?”

“I want you to.”

Rose giggled again. “Coo, Norm, you are a one, aren’t you?”

Cayley’s mouth and throat were dry as he drew Rose across the threshold and closed the door. But he was not really afraid. The dreamlike state was on him again. Things were not real. All this had happened somewhere before. Rose was dead already. The two of them were only enacting, like ghosts, a deed that had been performed ages and ages ago, in some other existence; every movement and word had been already laid down, and there could be neither deviation nor will to deviate.

Once more Rose uttered her silly, throaty giggle.

“What do you want to shut the door for? I should have thought it was dark enough already.”

Cayley had already proved, by repeated experiment, that with the door of the shed closed Mrs. Wace, even if she were in the cottage, could not hear a revolver-shot; but of course, he could not tell Rose that.

He drew the revolver from his pocket. He was still quite calm.

Hot hands were clutching for him in the darkness and he held the revolver out of their reach.

“Honest, I’m ever so fond of you, Norm,” whispered Rose.

“So am I of you, Rose. Where are you?”

“Well, that’s a nice question. Where do you think I am? Can’t you feel me?”

“Yes.” Cayley found her shoulder and gripped it gently while he edged behind her. Methodically he felt for the back of her neck and placed the muzzle of the revolver against it.

“Here, mind my hat, if you please. Here... what’s the game, Norm?”

Cayley fired.

The shot sounded so deafeningly loud in the little shed that it seemed to Cayley as if anyone not only at the cottage but in the village, too, must have heard it. A spasm of terror shook him. How could anyone in the whole of England not have heard it? He stood rigid, listening for the alarm that must inevitably follow.

Everything was quiet.

Cayley pulled himself together. Of course, the shot had been no louder than his experiments in the daytime. There was no time now to give way to fantastic panic of that sort. He realized that he was still holding Rose’s body in his arms. He had been so close to her when he fired that she had slumped down against him, and he had caught her mechanically. He laid her now on the floor of the shed. Then he lighted a stub of candle which he had brought here days ago for just that purpose. There was no window in the shed, and the door was still closed.

Cayley could not believe that Rose was dead.

It had been too easy, too quick. She could not have died in that tiny instant. Not Rose. She was too vigorous, too vital, to have the life blown out of her like that in a tiny fraction of a second.

He looked at her lying there, in her best frock of saxe-blue silk, her black straw hat, brown shoes, and pink silk stockings. People bled, didn’t they, when they were shot? But there was no blood. Rose was not bleeding at all.

Cayley’s forehead broke out in a cold sweat. Rose was not really dead, after all! He had missed her, somehow, in the darkness. The gun had not been touching her head at all, it had been touching something else. Rose was only stunned. Perhaps not even stunned: just pretending to be stunned: shamming.

Cayley dropped on his knees beside her and felt frantically for her heart. He knew Rose was dead, but he could not believe it. Her heart gave no movement.

“Rose!” he said, in a shaky voice. “Rose — can’t you speak to me? Rose!” He could not believe Rose was dead.

Rose lay on her back staring up at the, roof of the little shed, her eyelids just drooping over her eyes. Cayley did not know why he had spoken to her aloud. Of course Rose could not answer. She was dead.

The tears came into Cayley’s own eyes. He understood now that it was too late, that there had never been any need to kill Rose at all. He could have managed everything by being firm. Just by being firm. Rose would have understood. Rose had always been sensible. And now, for the want of a little firmness, Rose was dead and he was a murderer.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, “I wish I hadn’t done it. Oh, God, I wish I hadn’t done it.”

But he had done it, and Rose was dead. Cayley got up slowly from his knees.

It was dreadful to see Rose lying there, with her head on the floor. There was an old pillion cushion on the shelf. Cayley took it down and put it under Rose’s head. Somehow that made her look better.

Besides — Rose might not be dead. If she came to it would be nicer for her to have a cushion under her head.

Cayley stiffened. Had that been a noise outside? He stood stock-still, hardly daring to breathe. Was someone prowling about? He listened desperately. It was not easy to listen very well, because the blood was pounding so in his ears. It made a kind of muffled drumming, like waves on a distant shingle beach. Beyond the drumming he could detect no sound.

Very slowly he lifted the latch of the door. It was stiff, and for all his caution rose with a final jerk. Cayley started violently. The latch had made only a tiny click, but in his ears it sounded like the crack of doom.

He edged the door open, got outside, and closed it behind him. Then he stood still, listening again. There was no sound. He began to walk softly towards the cottage, fifty yards away.

He walked more and more slowly. A horrible feeling had suddenly taken possession of him: that someone was following, just as softly, in his tracks. The back of his head tingled and pricked as the hair lifted itself on his scalp; for something was telling him that the door of the shed had opened and Rose had come noiselessly out. Now she was following him.

He could feel her presence, just behind him. Cold beads chased each other down his back. He tried to turn his head to make sure that Rose was not really there, but could not. It was physically impossible for him to look back towards the door of the shed. All he could do was to stand still and listen, between the pounding of the waves in his ears. The flesh of his back quivered and crept. Every second he expected Rose to come up and touch him on it. He could almost feel her touch already. It was all he could do to stop himself from shrieking.

At last, with a little sob, he forced himself to turn round.

There was nothing but inky darkness behind him.

But somewhere in that inky darkness, between himself and the shed, Cayley could not get rid of the feeling that someone, or something, stood. He dragged the revolver out of his pocket again and levelled it at the shed. At any moment a shape might loom towards him out of the blackness, and he must be ready. He stood rigid, waiting, his tongue parched and his throat dry. Then, with a sudden effort, he walked rapidly back to the shed.

The door was still closed.

Cayley put the revolver back into his pocket and walked quickly over to the cottage.

Outside it he halted for a few moments, working his jaws to obtain some saliva in order to moisten his tongue and throat. The kitchen was at the back of the cottage. As he peered round the angle, Cayley could see the light streaming out of the window. Mrs. Wace had not gone.

Cayley’s knees shook together. Mrs. Wace had not gone, and she must have heard the shot. It was impossible that she could not have heard it, deaf as she was. He had miscalculated in his experiments. They had been made in the daytime, and sound travels further in the silence of the night. He had not allowed for that. Mrs. Wace had heard the shot, and now she was waiting to find out what it meant. Cayley stood for a minute in the grip of a panic so violent that his limbs shook and his teeth chattered, and he could not control them. It was all he could do at last to drag himself round the corner of the house and, unseen, stare through the uncurtained kitchen window.

Mrs. Wace was doing something by the larder door. She had her hat and coat on. Cayley watched her take up three onions, look at them, drop one into a string-bag and put the other two back into the larder. He searched her face. There seemed to be nothing on it but preoccupation with what she was doing. Was it possible that she had not heard the shot after all?

He walked quickly round to the front of the house and went into his living-room.

From a cupboard on the wall he took a whisky-bottle and a glass. Then, putting back the glass, he pulled the cork out of the bottle and put the mouth of it to his lips, gulping down the neat spirit in thirsty haste. Not until half its remaining contents had gone did he put the bottle back on the shelf.

Almost immediately the stuff did him good. He waited a moment while the heartening glow steadied his limbs. Then he walked firmly into the kitchen.

Mrs. Wace was just going out through the back door. She stopped when she saw him, and it seemed to Cayley that she looked at him queerly.

Cayley’s fingers tightened round the revolver in his pocket as he searched her face.

“Ah, back, are you?” said Mrs. Wace comfortably.

Cayley breathed with relief. His fingers relaxed on the revolver. The next instant they tightened again.

“Back? I haven’t been away. I’ve been sitting in the garden, smoking.”

“Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,” observed Mrs. Wace indifferently. “Good night, Mr. Cayley.”

“Good night, Mrs. Wace.”

Cayley went back to his living-room, his knees weak with relief. If Mrs. Wace had heard anything, or voiced any suspicion, he would have shot her dead. He knew he would. It would have been madness, but he would have done it. He took the whisky-bottle and tumbler from the shelf and poured himself out a stiff dose. He realized now that he was trembling.

Instantly the same feeling came to him as in the shed. Rose was not dead at all. She had only been stunned. She would come to if he gave her some whisky. He caught up the bottle and hurried with it down the garden through the dark.

Outside the door of the shed he stopped. He could not go in: he just could not go inside. Suppose after all that...

“Rose!” he called shakily. “Rose!”

It took a full minute, and another swig at the bottle, before he could get a grip on himself again.

Rose was lying just as he had left her. She was quite dead.

Cayley took another, smaller mouthful of whisky and set the bottle down on the shelf with a hand that no longer shook. What a fool he had been! Everything had gone splendidly. All he had to do now was to proceed with his plan.

It was a good plan.

To her mistress in Merchester and to her only living relative, an elderly aunt, living in Streatham, Rose had written, on Cayley’s instructions, that she was going out to Canada to be married. Canada somehow sounded more convincing than America. Rose really had believed that Cayley was going out to Canada, to open a branch there for his firm.

Over her luggage Cayley had been equally clever. Rose was to have left Merchester that afternoon for London, and deposited her trunk at Liverpool-street Station. In a busy place like Liverpool-street Rose would never be noticed or remembered. Equally unnoticed, Cayley would be able to claim the trunk later with her check that would be in Rose’s handbag, and dispose of it at his leisure. There would be nothing at all to connect him with Rose’s disappearance.

Rose had made objections, of course. When, in Merchester, she was only half-a-dozen miles from Cayley’s cottage, why travel all the way up to London and come back to Stanford? But Cayley had been able to convince her. He was not leaving for Canada till the next day.

It was essential that Rose should not be seen coming to the cottage. If she were, her good name would be lost, even though they were getting married in London the next morning before sailing. The argument had gone home, for Rose was always very careful about “what people would say.”

So though she had demurred at the expense, for she had a parsimonious mind, Rose had in the end consented. If she had not consented, Cayley would never have dared to kill her. Rose had agreed to her own death when she agreed to take her trunk up to Liverpool-street Station.

Cayley stood now, looking down at her.

He was no longer afraid of Rose’s dead body. The whisky he had drunk was making him sentimental. Two tears oozed out of his eyes and ran absurdly down his cheeks. Poor old Rose. She had not been such a bad sort, really. It was a shame that he had had to kill her. A rotten shame. Cayley wished very much that he had not had to kill Rose.

In a flash, sentiment fled before a sudden jab of terror.

Suppose Rose had not brought the check for the trunk with her after all! Suppose she had left it somewhere, or given it to someone else to claim for her! Cayley saw now that he had left this weak spot in the armour of his plan.

He had taken no steps to ensure that Rose should have the check with her: he had simply taken it for granted that she would. And if she had not, and he were unable to claim the trunk, everything would miscarry. In that case the trunk would sooner or later be opened, and then it would be known that Rose had disappeared, and then...

Cayley shivered with fear.

In vain he tried to point out to himself that even if it did become known that Rose had disappeared, there would still be nothing to connect her disappearance with himself. In Merchester he had always kept very quiet about his relations with Rose. But his mind, numb with panic, refused to accept the reasoning. Everything hung for him on the vital question: had Rose brought the check with her?

Rose’s handbag lay on the floor, half underneath her. Cayley pushed her body roughly aside to snatch it up. His fingers shook so much that he could hardly open it.

The next moment he uttered a sob of relief. The check was there. “One trunk...” The words danced before his eyes. He was safe.

He took another pull at the whisky-bottle.

He was safe: and now he must proceed, quite calmly, with the rest of his plan.

Cayley would never have believed that Rose was so heavy.

It had seemed simple, in advance, to put her into the side-car, prop her there to look natural, and drive with her to the disused quarry, where her grave was already prepared, and the spade waiting to fill it in. But now that it had come to the point, it was dreadful to have to pick her up and stagger with her through the darkness, like a sack of potatoes in his arms. Cayley was gasping for breath by the time he reached the side-car.

But the physical effort had helped him. He was no longer nervous. He was exultant. It takes courage and brains to commit a successful murder. Cayley, doubtful at times before, knew now that he had both. And there were people who thought him — Cayley knew they did! — a weakling, a little rat. Now he could smile at them. Rats can bite.

Before he set out for the quarry, Cayley went back to the shed. The candle had to be put out, and he wanted to have a good look round to make sure that no traces were left. The risk was infinitesimal, but Cayley was not taking even infinitesimal risks; and there are always tramps.

There were no traces. Only a few spots of blood on the leather of the cushion, which Cayley wiped off with a wisp of cotton-waste, burning the waste at once in the flame of the candle. No one could possibly tell that a newly-dead body had been lying in that shed.

Before he blew out the candle Cayley pulled the precious check for the trunk out of his trouser-pocket, where he had stuffed it, in order to stow it away more carefully in his wallet. It was funny how he had nearly lost his head just now over a little thing like that. He glanced through it gloatingly before tucking it away. The wording, which before had shimmered in a blurred way before his panic-stricken eyes, was now soberly legible.

The next instant his heart seemed to stop beating. Then it began to race faster than the engine of his own motor-cycle. For the check was not on Liverpool-street at all: not even on Stanford. It was on the station quite close to Cayley’s cottage. Rose had not been up to London. She had kept the money Cayley had given her, and travelled only to the local station. Cayley had committed the fatal mistake of under rating Rose’s parsimony. And by her parsimony Rose had ensured that her last appearance alive should be inevitably connected with her lover.

With a sick horror Cayley sat down in the doorway of the shed and nursed his head in his hands. Then he moaned aloud. What was he to do now? What, in Heaven’s name, could he do now?

Cayley never knew how long he had sat like that, in a lethargy of self-pity and despair, nor how long it was before coherent thought returned to him. The first shock, which galvanized his mind into activity once more, was the realization that all this time Rose was waiting for him — waiting, in the side-car. Cayley choked down the hysterical laugh which leapt in his throat. Rose never had liked waiting.

He jumped up.

Instantly, as if it had only needed the reflex action of his muscles to stimulate his brain, he saw that the position was not, after all, so desperate. The trunk would remain in the cloakroom for days, perhaps for weeks, before anything was done about it. By that time Cayley could, if the worst came to the worst, be in South America.

But perhaps the best thing to do would be to claim it boldly, in a day or two’s time. It was quite unlikely that the porter-cum-clerk would remember who had left it. Rose was not known there. It was not as if suspicion would ever be roused. Suspicion is only roused when a person is reported missing. Rose never would be so reported. No, the position was not desperate at all. Cayley’s spirits began to rise. The position was not even bad. Except for a small adjustment or two, his plan still held perfectly good.

He began to whistle as he wrapped a rug carefully over Rose, and drove her off. It was only a couple of miles to the quarry. In a quarter of an hour the whole business would be done.

Yes, the boldest course usually paid. He would claim the trunk himself. And he could arrange some slight disguise, just in case of accidents. A disguise, yes. Why...

Cayley’s thoughts broke off with a jerk. He cursed. His engine had stopped.

He came to a standstill by the side of the road. The trouble was simple: he had run out of petrol. Cayley felt terribly frightened. He had filled the tank before first setting out to meet Rose; how could it have emptied so soon? It almost looked as though Providence...

It was not Providence, but a leaking feed-pipe. Feverishly Cayley screwed up the loose nut and delved into the side-car for the spare tin of petrol, pushing Rose to one side without a thought. He blessed his foresight in having put the tin there. Really, every possibility had been foreseen.

As he got back into the saddle once more, a sound struck his whole body into frozen immobility. Someone was approaching along the lonely country road. Someone with large, heavy feet. Someone who flashed a lamp. It was the millionth chance, and it had come off.

Cayley kicked in agony at his starter, but the carburetor had emptied. He kicked and kicked, but not even a splutter came from the engine. Then, as the footsteps drew abreast of him, he stopped kicking and waited, petrified.

“Hullo,” said the constable. “Breakdown?”

Cayley’s dry tongue rustled over his drier lips. “No,” he managed to mutter. “Just... just filling up... petrol.”

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Cayley. Ah! Fine night.”

“Yes. Well, I must be getting on.” Cayley prayed that his voice did not sound such a croak as he feared. The light of the constable’s lamp flickered over him, and he winced. Before he could stop himself, the words had jumped out. “Switch that light of yours off, man.”

“Sorry, Mr. Cayley, I’m sure.” The constable sounded hurt.

“It was blinding me,” Cayley muttered.

“Ah, new battery. Well, good night, Mr. Cayley. Nothing I can do?”

“Nothing, thanks.” Cayley kicked at his starter. Nothing happened.

The constable lingered. “Quite a treat to see someone, on a lonely beat like this.”

“Yes, it must be.” Cayley was still kicking. He wanted to scream at the man to go. He would scream in a minute. No, he must not scream. He must hold the edges of his nerves together like flesh over a wound, to keep the panic within from welling out. “Good night,” he said clearly.

“Well, good night, Mr. Cayley. Got a load, I see?”

“Yes,” Cayley’s head was bent. He spoke through almost closed teeth. “Some potatoes I...”

“Potatoes?”

“Yes, a sack. Look here, man, I said switch that light out.”

“Now, now, Mr. Cayley, I don’t take orders from you. I know my duty, and it’s my belief—”

“Leave that rug alone!” screamed Cayley.

The constable paused, startled. Then he spoke weightily, the corner of the rug in his great hand.

“Mr. Cayley, I must ask you to show me what you’ve got in this here side-car. It don’t look like potatoes to me, and that’s a fact. Besides—”

“All right then, damn you!” Cayley’s voice was pitched hysterically. “All right!”

The sound of the shot mingled with the sudden roar of the engine. As he twisted to fire Cayley’s foot had trodden on the starter. This time it worked. The bicycle leapt forward.

Cayley drove on, as fast as his machine would carry him. His face was stiff with terror. He knew he had not killed the policeman, for he had seen him jump aside as the bicycle plunged forward.

What had possessed him to fire like that? And what, ten times more fatal, had possessed him to fire and not to kill? Now he was done for. Cayley knew that his only chance was to go back and find the policeman: to hunt him down and kill him where he stood. That was his only chance now — and he could not do it. No, he could not. Too late Cayley realized that he was not the man for murder.

What was he going to do?

Already the constable would be giving the alarm. Policemen everywhere would be on the look-out for him soon. He must not stop. His only hope was to get as far away as possible, in the quickest time.

He sped on madly, not knowing where he was going, turning now right, now left, as the road forked, intent only on putting as long and as confused a trail as possible between himself and the constable.

He drove till his eyes were almost blind and his arms were numb with pain, and Rose drove with him.

Rose!

He could not dispossess himself of her, he dared not leave her anywhere. He dared not even stop. If he stopped, they might pounce on him. And then they would find her. And if he did not stop — just stop to bury her somewhere — then they would find her just the same in the end. But he dared not stop. His one hope was to keep flying along. So long as he was moving he was safe.

He drove on: insanely, anywhere, everywhere, so long as he was still driving. His eyes never shifted from the road ahead of him; but after a time his lips began to move. He was talking to Rose, in the side-car.

“I got it for you, Rose. You would have it, instead of riding pillion. Well, now you’ve got it. This is our last drive together, Rose, so I hope you’re enjoying it.”

What was to happen when his petrol gave out he dared not think. He could not think. His brain was numb. All he knew was that he must keep on driving: away, away, from that policeman and the alarm he had given. Where he might be he had no idea or the names of the villages and little towns through which he tore.

It did not matter so long as he kept on. One word only fixed itself in his sliding mind: Scotland. For some reason he had the idea that if he could but reach Scotland he would have a chance.

At breakneck speed he thrust on, with Rose, to Scotland.

But Cayley was not to reach Scotland that night. Whether it is that, in panic, the human animal really does move in circles, whether it was that in his numbed brain there still glowed an unconscious spark of his great plan, the fact is left that, while Cayley still thought himself headed for Scotland, he instinctively took a rough track which presented itself on the right of the road when he came to it, and that track led to the top of the same quarry in which he had meant to bury Rose.

But Cayley never knew that, any more than he recognized the wooden rails bordering the edge when they seemed to leap towards him in the beam of his headlight. Then it was too late to recognize anything, in this world.

There were other things, too, which Cayley never knew. He never knew that the constable, a motorcyclist himself, had seen his inadvertent treading on the self-starter. He did not know that the constable, highly amused, had thought that Cayley’s motor-cycle had run away with him. Above all, he did not know that the constable never had the remotest idea that a shot was ever fired at him.