Mr. Zero

XVII

Sylvia heard the last stroke of twelve die away. There was an old clock against the end wall of the corridor, a tall old clock which struck with such a ringing sound that she could sometimes hear it in her sleep. Even after the sound had died away the air still seemed to tingle. There was a tremor now, and she waited for it to pass, because it frightened her a little. Everything frightened her a little tonight.

When the air was still again she opened a big mahogany wardrobe and took out a black satin cloak. She was still wearing the crepe dress which she had worn for dinner. She didn’t very often wear black, but Francis liked it better than anything else, and she had wanted to please him. She had taken the papers out of his safe the night before. No one else could have done it. Francis never forgot his keys or left them about like other people did. But it had been quite easy for her to take them from under his pillow, and open the safe, and put them back again. She had found the papers at once, a bundle of letters marked Zero, so it was quite true what Mr. Zero had said about the letters belonging to him, and of course Francis oughtn’t to keep letters that belonged to someone else, but she did feel that perhaps she ought to be a little extra nice to him tonight. And the black dress would be quite good for meeting Mr. Zero in. It wouldn’t show any marks, and if she put on her cloak and pulled the hood up over her hair, no one could possibly see her as she crossed the lawn.

The letters were in her jewel-case. She lifted the lid. Francis had given her his mother’s diamonds, but she didn’t care for them very much. They really wanted setting again. He was obstinate about things like that. This room was frightful-all heavy Victorian mahogany, but she hadn’t managed to move him the least little bit about it. She could get new chintzes if she liked. He wasn’t going to have good old furniture turned out to make room for rubbish.

Under Lady Colesborough’s diamonds in the bottom compartment of the massive old-fashioned case which had been Lady Colesborough’s too the letters lay in a flat bundle. Sylvia had wrapped them in a silk handkerchief, an odd one of Marcia’s, dark brown and green. She thought it very ugly and would be quite pleased to be rid of it. She put the packet in the pocket of her cloak, opened her bedroom door, and stood there listening. The servants were all in bed long ago, and Francis was in his study. He would be there for more than an hour yet, so that there was nothing to be afraid of. She had only to walk along the corridor and down the big staircase into the hall. She wouldn’t even have to pass the study. It was quite easy. Yet she stood there for a long time hearing the faint, measured tick of the old clock. There was no other sound.

When she came to the stair head she listened again, but now she could not even hear the clock ticking. As she went downstairs, she thought of what she would say if Francis met her. He wouldn’t of course, but if he did, what should she say? Biscuits-yes, that would do-she was hungry and thought she would like a biscuit. She wondered if anyone ever really ate biscuits in the middle of the night-so dry and crumby. Perhaps it had better be orange juice, or a book-but she hardly ever did read anything, and if Francis didn’t believe her, it might be very frightening indeed. No, it had better be orange juice. Orange juice would be safe.

The hall was very large. The drawing-room lay on one side of it and the dining-room on the other, with the study behind the dining-room. There was no corresponding room on the other side, because the drawing-room took up the extra space, but there was a passage which ran past the drawing-room to a room that was called the Parlour. It was supposed to be Sylvia’s own sitting-room, but she did not care for it very much. She would have liked to have the old dark panelling painted white and throw away the faded Persian rugs, but Francis would not hear of it. He said his mother had done her best to spoil the room by having a French window put in, and he wasn’t going to let it go any farther.

It was the French window which was taking Sylvia to the Parlour. It opened so easily, and when it was open she would only have to cross the terrace and run down the steps to be straight in line for the yew walk. It was easy as easy, and if only Mr. Zero was punctual, she would be back in her room in less than ten minutes. And what a relief that would be.

Francis Colesborough pushed his chair a little farther back from the desk at which he had been writing. He had a letter in his hand, a letter which he had no more than begun to write. The last line was incomplete. He had the air of a man who has been disturbed, yet he himself could not have said what it was that had disturbed him. He stayed like that, listening, and heard a sound so faint that only a sense keyed to an unnatural tension would have caught it. It came to him as the sound of metal against metal, and immediately he remembered the window which had been unlatched two nights ago. He thought that someone had unlatched a window now. He threw the letter down upon the blotting-pad and went to the nearest window. With the curtains dropped behind him he looked out along the terrace and saw a bright rectangle aslant upon the flags. There was a light in the Parlour, and the curtains had been drawn back. The bright rectangle moved, the glass door swung. He had looked a half second too late to see who had opened it and come down the steps, but there was a shadow that slipped along the dark terrace and was gone. An open window two nights ago in town, and tonight an open door-and Sylvia slipping out-Sylvia-

He turned back into the room, pulled open a drawer, took out a small Browning pistol, and was back at the window, opening it before a tenth of a minute had gone by. He ran down the terrace steps and out on to the lawn. He was quicker than Sylvia and as silent. She did not know that he was no more than a dozen yards behind her as she groped her way into the black mouth of the yew alley. He halted there, and heard her going away from him between the over-arching yews. A twig broke now and then. He heard her catch her breath. The sounds receded.

He swung about and ran along the path which lay between the rose garden and the lawn. The path went straight to the end of the lawn, turned, and went straight again to skirt the yew hedge on the farther side and come out upon a stretch of level sward. Francis Colesborough came running by this way. He had no light, and needed none. These were paths he had trodden for nearly forty years. He had played at hide-and-seek about the old yew walk when he was a child of five. His foot knew every step and had no need for the guiding eye. He checked at the edge of the sward and moved out upon its soft-foot and intent.