The Blind Side

Chapter X

The relief didn’t last. It ought to have lasted, but it didn’t. She was here in Peter’s arms. She was safe. And everything was quite all right. But a cold, deadly fear was seeping back into her mind. She drew away, and Peter came down to earth.

“Look here, we’d better get rid of those footprints before anyone comes.”

The fear was in Lee’s eyes as she looked at him.

“I did it-I washed everything-at once.”

“Practical child! Sure you made a good job of it?”

She was seeing the landing in a horrid sharp picture, with herself on her knees and the wet swab in her hand. But there had only been footprints, nothing but her own footprints. There hadn’t been any pool she could have stepped in-not out there, not on the landing. She began to shake again.

“What is it?” said Peter quickly.

“There wasn’t any pool, Peter-there wasn’t. I washed the landing. There was only the mark of my foot. The first one was close to the door. Don’t you see what that means? I must have been inside the flat-and something’s happened there-something-‘’

Peter spoke sharply.

“Stop it! Pull yourself together! Think-was the door open-Ross’s door?”

“No, it was shut.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure-quite, quite sure.”

“Then how could you have got in? Be reasonable.”

She looked at him in a distressed way.

“I don’t know. You said Ross was stoshed. Perhaps he didn’t shut the door when he went in-if he was drunk. Did you mean that he was drunk?”

“Oh, he’d certainly been drinking, but I don’t suppose he was drunk. It takes a lot to make Ross drunk. No, he was just stoshed-silly-didn’t know what he was doing. Mavis had knocked him out. A decanter full of whiskey is quite a hearty weapon. Yes, I suppose he might have left the door open, but there’s nothing in that to worry you-No, but-by gum, there is! Because if you were inside the flat, those pretty little footprints of yours will be damn well all over the place.” He laughed. “It’s no odds, because he’ll only think it was Mavis, and he’ll want to hush the whole thing up. And his man won’t know who was there-only that there was a rough house and a lot of mess to clear up. And I don’t suppose it’s the first time by a long chalk. I expect he’s paid to hold his tongue. Now look here, what about this girl Mavis? The best thing we can do now is to cart her across to Lucy’s flat, and officially she spent the night there. In fact, you chaperon each other. By the way, I don’t know what she was up to, but she went out again after I took her in. She had the bedroom, and I was in here, and I heard the front door. Something had just waked me, and there she was, sneaking in with a little silver bag in her hand.”

“What?”

Peter nodded.

“It was hers all right-matched her dress-made of the same stuff. She had it with her at the Ducks and Drakes-”

“You were at the Ducks and Drakes-last night?”

Peter grinned.

“I was, my child, but not with her. She was with our dear cousin Ross. She had the little silver bag. And I was with the Nelsons and a party.” He groaned. “All enthusiastic, up from the country, and the temperature rising ninety! There is no call for jealousy. But to return to Mavis. She said she’d dropped her bag on the landing after the fracas, but I’m prepared to swear she hadn’t got it when she came tottering out of Ross’s flat, so it looks to me as if she had gone back for it.”

“Would she, if he had frightened her as much as that?”

“That depends on what was in the bag, and how badly she wanted it. She might have reckoned on his being asleep.”

“But she couldn’t have reckoned on finding the door open.”

“She might have gone out on the landing to see if she had dropped it there, and then found that the door wasn’t shut.”

There was a pause. Lee said in a careful voice,

“It couldn’t have been shut. If it had been shut, I couldn’t have got in. But if I was walking in my sleep-” She broke off. “I wonder which of us shut the door, because it was shut this morning, and one of us must have shut it-either Mavis or I.”

Without waiting for him to speak she turned away. “We’d better see how she’s getting on,” she said, and went quickly to the communicating door. But no sooner was it open than she turned a frightened face on him.

“Peter-she’s gone!”

Peter said, “Nonsense!” and, when they had looked in the bathroom and kitchen, “Good riddance.” But he was left with a feeling of profound discomfort. Mavis had fainted when she saw Lee, and it was a real honest-to-goodness faint and no sham. And now she had run away without a word to either of them, and though it was a good riddance, it was also a disquieting circumstance.

He went out on the landing and listened. Rush was down in the hall. He could hear him stumping about, swishing with a broom. He had probably seen Mavis, but it couldn’t be helped. He returned to his own hall.

“I must go back,” said Lee, “before anyone comes. They’ll all be coming up and down now-Rush, and Mrs. Green-no, I don’t suppose she will, because she had one of her turns yesterday-but there’ll be Ross’s man-”

He felt her stiffen against his arm.

“He comes about seven,” he said.

“Yes,” said Lee in a whisper.