Mr. Zero

XIV

They had made their way as part of a rhythmically moving crowd to the other side of the room, when Gay looked across the packed floor and said in a surprised voice,

“There’s Sylvia-and Francis.”

Algy looked with admiration at Sylvia in white, and with interest at the big fair man beside her.

“They’re a good-looking couple.”

“Yes. I only met him once-and at the wedding, you know. I was a bridesmaid. But you couldn’t miss him, could you?”

The Colesboroughs penetrated the dancing mass and were absorbed, but the two fair heads could be distinguished. Algy followed them with his eyes, then turned to Gay.

“My word, she’s lovely! What’s she really like, Gay?”

Gay lifted eyes with a sparkle in them.

“You’ve danced with her, darling.”

“You always call me darling when you’re annoyed. Does one know what a person is really like after dancing with her once?”

Gay said, “You very often think you do when it’s someone like Sylvia.”

He let that go, and said in a serious voice,

“I really want to know. Tell me what she’s like.”

Gay dropped her lashes. She said,

“I’ve known her all my life. I’ve never seen her lose her temper.”

“Yes?” said Algy in an encouraging tone. “She looks like that. What else?”

“She likes beautiful things.”

“That’s not a crime.”

The lashes went up again.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“Did you mean that she likes herself?”

Gay’s eyes sparkled suddenly.

“Darling, how prig! That’s not a crime either. I love myself very, very much, and so do you.”

“Yes-I think I do,” said Algy in an odd voice.

Gay’s cheeks burned.

“I love my self, and you love your self,” she said as quickly as her tongue would go.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Algy. “You know what I meant, but I oughtn’t to have said it, so I’m not going to say it again, but when this mess is cleared up-”

“We were talking about Sylvia,” said Gay in a hurry.

“Yes-go on telling me about her.”

“There isn’t anything more to tell.”

“You mean that?”

Gay said, “Yes.”

“Nothing behind all that except a sweet temper?”

“The house is practically unfurnished,” said Gay.

The music stopped. As they went towards their table, the Colesboroughs emerged from a group that was breaking up. The Westgates were in the centre of it with Sir James Harringay, the well-known K.C. Linda waved a hand. Giles nodded. Sir James looked, and looked away. It was not quite a cut, but it was as near as makes no difference. Gay saw what was impossible to miss-she saw Algy’s jaw stiffen. She rushed into a “How do you do?” to Francis Colesborough, and then tingled lest she should have done the wrong thing. But Francis made himself pleasant, asked why he hadn’t seen her since the wedding, said she must come down to Cole Lester, and was polite to Algy. Sylvia put her hand through Gay’s arm and pinched it-an old signal that meant “I want to speak to you.” They passed on.

When they were at their table, Algy said, “What about Colesborough? He’s not an uninhabited house, I take it.”

Gay said “No” in a doubtful voice. “I don’t know him-I think he’s good to Sylvia-I think she’s afraid of him-I don’t know him.”

They danced again. When the final chord blared out Sylvia came to them through the crowd. Algy could not help saying, “How beautifully she moves.” There was no hurry, no effort. The crowd did not seem to impede her. She took her own easy, floating way. But there was no ease in the look that met Gay’s and spoke an urgent message. It said, “I must see you,” but her words were commonplace enough.

“Darling, I’m coming to bits. Be an angel and pin me.”

She carried Gay off. In the cloakroom, at the farthest glass, she began in a rapid whisper.

“I simply had to see you. It’s too dreadful. I don’t know what to do.”

The cloakroom was empty except for a stolid sandy-haired attendant who seemed more than half asleep. Gay said in a exasperated undertone,

“What on earth has happened now?”

Sylvia clutched her.

“Nothing-not yet-but it will. I mean, he’ll make me do it-and I’m so frightened.”

“Sylly, we can’t stay here. If you want to say anything, say it.”

“I am,” said Sylvia with tears in her eyes. “You know when I rang you up last night, and I thought it was going to be all right because Francis was away so of course there wasn’t anything I could do about his keys, and I was quite happy, but then it came over me that that Zero man would be waiting on the doorstep, and I thought how odd it would look-if anyone saw him, you know-so I thought I’d just go down and tell him it wasn’t any good, and just as I was getting the window open-”

“Why the window?”

“The dining-room window,” said Sylvia, as if that explained everything. “I was behind the curtain, and, darling, I nearly died, because just as I was getting it to move I heard his latchkey, and there he was in the hall.”

“Who was?”

“Francis, darling-I told you I heard his latchkey. And of course he wanted to know what I was doing downstairs in my dressing-gown, and just as I got him soothed he saw the curtain move, and when he found I’d been opening the window he was quite dreadful-all suspicious, like a person in a play. As if I would!”

Sylvia’s moral indignation was most edifyingly genuine. She would steal-and call it something else-but to her last breath she would remain an honest woman.

Gay released herself. She wanted to be firm and impressive, and it is difficult to impress when you are being clutched. She said,

“Sylvia, if you don’t tell Francis, something dreadful will happen.”

Sylvia opened lovely startled eyes.

“There couldn’t be anything worse. You don’t know him. And you’re not letting me tell you what happened. We had a dreadful night, and in the morning, just as I dropped off to sleep, that horrible Zero man rang up again.”

“Where was Francis?”

“Having his bath. He always gets up most frightfully early, and I thought I was going to get a little sleep.”

Gay was definitely unsympathetic.

“That doesn’t matter. What did the creature want?”

“Those papers,” said Sylvia in a frightened whisper-“a packet of letters tied up with a rubber band. He says they’re in Francis’ safe and he’s simply got to have them. He says they belong to him. He says I’ll know which they are because they’ve got Zero on them. He says it’s too late to get the keys for him now-he says I must get the papers myself.”

Gay cast an anxious look at the attendant, but the sandy lashes lay on the pasty cheeks,, the hands were folded in an ample lap, and a sound which came very near to being a snore reassured her. She turned back to Sylvia.

“Sylly, you can’t!” she said.

“I must-he says so. If I don’t he’ll tell Francis, and I’d rather be dead. And we’re going down to Cole Lester tomorrow-because of the window being opened, you know. And I’m to take the letters down and give them to him-in the yew walk, like when I met him before.”

“What time?” said Gay.

Sylvia caught her breath. “He’s very frightening,” she said. “He knows everything. He knows when I go to bed, and he knows Francis sits up writing in his study till half past one. So that’s when I’m to take the papers. The servants will be in bed, and Francis will be in his study, and everyone will think I’m asleep. And I’m to go to the alley, and he’ll be outside to take them through the window in the hedge. And if Francis finds out, I think he’ll kill me.”

Gay felt a sudden horror between them. She caught her breath and said quickly,

“Don’t talk nonsense, Sylly!”

“It isn’t nonsense,” said Sylvia Colesborough. Her eyes widened. A shiver went over her. The lovely natural tints faded from her face. She looked past Gay as if she saw something behind her in the empty room and said in a half whisper, “I’m frightened-I am frightened, Gay.”

Gay said, “Tell Francis, you mustn’t do what this man wants you to. If you tell Francis you’ll be safe, because he won’t have a hold over you any more.”

Sylvia choked down a sob.

“I can’t-I can’t-you don’t understand-and you don’t know Francis-I can’t tell him.”

Gay said, “Let me,” and saw Sylvia’s face go grey.

She caught at Gay and stood there trying to speak. The words wouldn’t come, not till Gay got her into a chair and knelt beside her saying every soothing thing that she could think of. Then the words came with a flood of tears.

“You mustn’t-you won’t-you can’t! Oh, Gay!”

Gay was ready to promise her the moon. The attendant still snored, but she would be bound to wake if Sylvia went on crying like this. In any case what could she do except say, and swear, and mean it, that of course she wouldn’t dream of telling Francis what Sylvia had told her in confidence?

This had the desired effect, and with no more than a tear or two entangled in those long lashes, Sylvia gazed at her reproachfully.

“Darling, you did upset me. I’ve always told you things, and I never dreamed you would think of telling anyone, especially Francis.”

Gay was relieved but provoked.

“Well, I never meant to,” she said.

Sylvia turned to the mirror.

“You’ve made me look too frightful.” She produced cream and powder from a be-diamonded bag and began to repair the damage. “You know, Gay, you really ought to be careful not to upset people. I might have fainted, and then what would you have done?”

Gay couldn’t help laughing.

“Rubbish, Sylly-you’ve never fainted in your life!”

Sylvia looked back over her shoulder quickly, as if there might be something behind her.

“I thought-I was going to-I felt-” She shivered again, then went back to rubbing cream into her face. “I don’t generally put any colour on, but I think I’d better have a little-don’t you?”

Gay said, “Yes, I think so.”

“But I’m sure it will be all right really. I mean, if I do what this Zero man wants me to this time, he won’t ever ask me anything again-he’s absolutely promised that. You see, he says the letters are really his and Francis won’t let him have them. And of course, he says, he could go to law and get them that way, but it would cost such a lot that we might all be ruined, so it’s much better for me to do what he wants, and I’ve told him it’s no good his thinking I’ll do anything more, because I won’t. I really feel quite all right about it now.”

She got up, smiled at her own reflection, slipped her arm into Gay’s and said,

“I don’t know what made me feel like that. It was horrid-just as if something dreadful was going to happen.”