Lonesome Road

Chapter Thirty-six

They stood there, very close but not touching one another. The candle behind them on the dresser threw their shadows forward across the well, and the uneven brick, and the damp stone of the doorstep beyond it. The two long shadows lay there and were still.

At last Gale said, “What’s in your mind? You’d better tell me.”

She turned towards him then and spoke in an odd clear voice,

“Someone wound the clock, and someone uncovered the well-” She turned a little more and pointed. “The clock says half past four. It gains five minutes a day. What is the right time?”

They looked together at the watch on his wrist. The hands stood at five-and-twenty past.

“Then it was wound yesterday,” he said.

Rachel said, “Yes.”

“And the person who wound it uncovered the well. Why?”

She had no answer to that.

“But the clock,” said Gale Brandon-“that’s what I can’t understand. If that cover was taken off the well for the only reason that I can think of, why in thunder should the person who did it wind the clock?”

Rachel was cold to her feet. There was just one person who could never keep his hands from a clock. If Cosmo had come here yesterday he could no more have helped picking up that clock and winding it than he could have helped breathing. Because the clock would have stopped- it would have been stopped for nearly six weeks. Cosmo could never pass a clock that had stopped without winding it. But Cosmo had not been here since the end of September. He had said so yesterday.

Someone had been here.

Someone had wound the clock.

The person who had wound the clock had uncovered the well.

They had digged a pit-

She turned slowly and looked at Gale. His eyes were horrified and stern. A most dreadful thought came to her. Her lips were suddenly dry as she said,

“Caroline!” She could not get past the name. Her eyes said the rest, and said it with anguish. “Did she come here before us? Are we too late?”

He said, “No-no-the door was locked. The key was in the shed.”

Rachel’s hand went to her throat,

“He could have put it there.”

“Who? My God, Rachel!”

She shook her head, tried to speak, spoke in a whisper.

“I-don’t-know. Someone-uncovered-the well. Someone-tried-to-kill me. Perhaps Caroline-knew- who it was-”

“Rachel, don’t look like that! She hasn’t been here-” He paused, and added, “yet.”

“How do you-know?”

“It’s easy. Look here-if this trap was set for Caroline and she had fallen into it, would the man who had set it lock up and go away and leave the well uncovered? You can see he wouldn’t. Why, the first thing he’d do would be to cover up the well.”

Rachel tried twice before she said, “Unless he meant it to look-as if-she had done it herself-”

Gale took her by the shoulders and shook her lightly.

“Wake up, honey-you’re dreaming. If anyone was planning to make this look like suicide, he’d have to leave the door open the way it is now, with the key sticking in it. Quit frightening yourself. Caroline isn’t here.”

“Then where is she?” said Rachel with trembling lips.

“Well, there are a few good places besides this, honey.”

She put a hand on his arm and stared at the well.

“That wasn’t done-for nothing. Someone was meant to come in like we did, and to fall-Oh, Gale!-as I should have fallen if I had taken just one more step!”

Her clasp tightened suddenly. He turned his head. They both held their breath.

“There’s someone coming now,” he said.

For a moment Rachel heard nothing. Then it seemed to her as if she heard too much. A vague sound without direction which might have been the sound of a car, but whether coming or going she could not tell. The drip of a fog from the eaves, from the holly hedge. The faint scuttering which some small creature would make if it were disturbed-mouse, or mole, or rabbit-any one of them might be abroad in the dark. And, first faintly and then clear and distinct, footsteps coming nearer.

She held on to Gale, and they watched the door.

It was Miss Maud Silver who came out of the fog and stood looking in on them from the worn step. She was dressed with her usual dowdy neatness-a three-quarter length jacket of black cloth with some rather worn brown fur at the neck and wrists, and a curious head-dress, half cap half toque, made of the same stuff as the coat and trimmed with what was quite obviously a piece of the fur which had been left over. A black handbag with a shiny clasp depended from her left wrist. She put a hand in a black kid glove on the jamb of the door and looked in upon the candle-lit room.

Two doors, one to the left by the sink, one to the right beyond the dresser. The open well, not flush with the rough brick floor but sunk. The cover that would bring it to the floor level leaning aginst that table on the right. But the well was open now, and the two people who stared at her across it might have been looking at a ghost instead of at Maud Silver.

Miss Silver could not remember when she had been frightened last, but she was frightened now. Under her breath she said “Oh dear!” She then called up her courage and addressed Gale.

“Mr. Brandon, where is Miss Caroline?”

Gale Brandon said, “Not here.”

Miss Silver came across the threshold and closed the door behind her.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite,” said Gale coolly.

“Why?”

He told her, using the same arguments with which he had comforted Rachel.

“We found the door locked, and the key on its nail in the shed. This damnable thing as you see it. Rachel nearly walked into it. Someone was meant to walk into it.”

“Miss Caroline,” said Maud Silver.

“Well then, we got here first. If it had been meant to look like suicide and the trap had been sprung, the door wouldn’t have been locked or the key in the shed. If it was murder and meant to be hushed up, the coyer would have been put back.”

“But she may come at any time,” said Miss Silver- “unless the plan has gone wrong. Plans do go wrong, you know. It is not in mortals to command success.”

All this time Rachel had neither spoken nor moved, but now her hand dropped from Gale’s arm and she gave Miss Silver back her own question. Her voice was agonized.

“Where is Caroline?”

Miss Silver said, “I don’t know. I think she will either come here or be brought here-I feel sure of it. I have been in great anxiety lest I should get here too late, but the fog delayed us.”

“Us?”

“I took the liberty of employing your chauffeur and car, Miss Treherne. A most reliable man and a very careful driver. He is putting the car in a place of security, and will then report here. We may be glad of him. In the meanwhile it is of the first importance that we should show no light, and that this door should be locked and the key replaced in the shed. If you will do that, Mr. Brandon, and then come to the front door, I will admit you.”

When he was gone Miss Silver skirted the well, picked up the candle and led the way through the kitchen to the living-room. The old beams hung low and made a trap for innumerable shadows. The front door opened directly upon the room, and a very steep, narrow stair ran up in the far corner. Here too the floor was of brick, with a rug or two to soften it. The cold of the fog and the November night was everywhere. The chill hearth was clean and bare. A draught came leaking down the stairs. A faint smell of tobacco hung stale upon the air. The three small windows, one on either side of the door and one in the left-hand wall, were curtained with a brightly patterned chintz. Behind the curtains wooden shutters fitted close and were secured by an old-fashioned iron bar.

Miss Silver applied herself to withdrawing the bolts of the door and unlocking it. This done, she turned to Rachel.

“Miss Treherne, we can only do our best. I think he will bring her here.”

Rachel said in a harsh voice that was strange to her, “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

Miss Silver looked at her steadily.

“What could I have said to them? I know, but I have no proof. You cannot accuse a man without proof. I was sure that he pushed you over the cliff last night. I was sure that he would try again in some other way. If I had come to you and accused him, would you have believed me? I think that you would not. Because I had no proof-no proof at all. It would have required more than a stranger’s word to break down the affectionate trust of years. I thought it best to remain silent, and to keep as close a watch upon you as possible. But until just before the lunch-bell rang today I did not know that Miss Caroline might be in danger too. I blame myself. I should have acted more quickly, but I was, I must confess, outwitted. He is very cunning, and he has a great deal at stake. He contrived to get her out of the house whilst we were at lunch-”

Rachel interrupted her.

“She has been gone for more than three hours. Miss Silver, where is she? It would have taken her no more than an hour and a half to get here-before the fog came down.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“She was certainly not to come straight here. Oh, no, that wouldn’t have suited his book at all. If she was to stumble into the well in the dark, then it must be dark before she got here. The torn-off piece of the letter would have told her where she was to wait for him, and when he thought it was safe he would pick her up and bring her here-in her own car if it was meant to look like suicide. Everyone in the house would have had to say how uncertain and depressed she had been. There would be no mark of violence, no sign that anyone had laid a hand upon her-no one would have laid a hand upon her. He would have had the whole night to make his way to some station from which he could take a train to town. Yes, I think that it was meant to look like suicide.”

The cold of the house must have got under Rachel’s skin. There was no warmth in her. The cold seeped into her bones and settled about her heart. And coldest of all-fear. She said in a dead voice, but quite calmly,

“Suppose she wouldn’t come. She was afraid of this place-she hated the well. Suppose he killed her first. Have you thought of that?”

Miss Silver said, “Yes.” Then she added in her briskest voice, “It is useless to speculate. We will not anticipate evil. We need coolness and courage. And here is Mr. Brandon who has plenty of both.”