The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 16

Jim came down to Chantreys the following morning. He was received by Harriet with indifference, by Lilian with an intensification of her usual somewhat fluttered and inconsequent manner.

Left alone with Anne for a moment, he said in a low voice, ‘I want to talk to you. Get your hat on and come out.’

When Lilian reappeared he said, ‘We’re going out.’

Lilian said, ‘Oh?’ and then quickly, ‘Well, it’s not very convenient, not at all convenient, but if you want-only after lunch would be much better.’

‘I shan’t be here after lunch. I’ve just come down for an hour to see Anne. It is Anne and I who are going out.’

‘Oh?’ Lilian looked cross and offended. ‘Of course, if that is what you want you must do just as you like.’

He turned to Anne.

‘Put on your things and come along, will you?’

Lilian said in a quick waspish way, ‘You’re very sure of who you want, aren’t you? You’re very sure about everything.’

Anne hurried to be gone. She heard Jim’s voice behind her as she went, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She fetched a scarf and her coat, and came back to find Lilian writing and Jim looking out of the window. There was a heavy feeling in the air as if there had been a quarrel between them. At the sound of her light footstep he turned and went out with her, up through the garden and out through a low wicket gate upon the green empty slopes of the hill.

They had not spoken until they were clear of the garden. Then he turned to her and said, “This is a first-class place for confidences. Ideal. I don’t like doors and walls very much. And I don’t like bushes and trees where you can’t see-there may be nothing, or there may be anything. The best place for talking secrets is a mountain top with no trees, or a boat on the sea without anyone to overhear what you are saying. But this is good enough.’

If he had been a little uncertain about Anne, her presence was convincing. She had walked beside him in a silence which was without constraint. It was most like the silence of intimacy, the silence into which two old friends may fall when they walk together. There was a restful quiet about it. She did not answer him now, only waited, looking not at him, but at the slopes of bare green turning rusty, and at the trees which surrounded the house which they had left. He had not been able to make up his mind what to say to her, and then all at once his mind was made up, set, and fixed. What he knew she could know-it was as simple and as easy as that. He said, ‘I went to see Miss Silver yesterday.’

‘Yes?’

It was just one word, but he knew when he heard it that that was how it was to be between them.

‘We found the house-’

She said ‘Oh-’ It was more a breath than a word.

‘The floor of the cellar had been swept and washed, but in the corner there were some boards. They hadn’t been moved. I moved them. This was lying underneath them.’ He held out his palm with the bead upon it-a small blue bead-evidence of murder-

She met his eyes. Something seemed to pass between them. She said very low, ‘Her beads were like that.’

‘You saw them?’

‘Yes. They had been-round her neck. The string was broken-’ She was looking back into the dark cellar. The light came from the torch in her hand, the light dazzled on the beads. She said, ‘I saw them there in the cellar-I did see them-’

He spoke insistently.

‘You’re sure you saw them-the beads?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ A shudder shook her. “They were there- the beads-but the string was broken-’

He said, ‘We were there-Miss Silver and I. The house is to let furnished. The old lady it belonged to died. Which way did you go down to the cellar from the hall-right or left?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. And then it came to her. ‘I don’t know about going down-but coming up-the door was on my right. There was the flight of steps-and then the door- it was half open-but no light in the hall. There was a table between me and the outside door-I had to go round it-the door was a little open. I went out and shut the door behind me. It was a dark road, but there were a lot of lights at the far end of it. I went along to the lights. I got into the first bus that stopped.’

He was frowning intently.

‘You don’t remember going to the house-who let you in?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t remember anything like that-’ She paused. ‘If I had seen anyone-anyone at all-wouldn’t I remember them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think I should. I don’t think I saw anyone in that house. I think we were alone there-the dead girl and myself. I don’t think there was anyone else. If there was, why didn’t they come and kill me too? I think the house was empty.’

He thought so too, but he said nothing. It was a moment before he spoke.

‘How many steps were there from the ground floor of the cellar to the hall?’

All this time she had been looking at him. Now her expression altered. She shut her eyes, and her lips moved. It came to him that she was counting the steps. She was back in the cellar, sitting on the steps with the torch in her hand and the faintness passing away. Six steps down-and the floor-and the girl’s body-lying there-dead-six steps down. How many steps up from where she had been sitting, trying to control fear-the horror of being alone with the dead? There were more steps above her than below.

She opened her eyes, met his, and said, ‘It was six steps down from where I was-and six or seven steps up-I can’t tell exactly.’

He said, “That’s near enough.’

There was a long pause between them. She had the feeling of having given out all she had to give. It left her drained and weak. He said suddenly, ‘You’d never seen the girl before?’

‘No, never. At least I don’t think so-I don’t remember.’

He was frowning again.

‘How on earth did you get mixed up in it?’

‘I don’t know-I can’t remember.’ Then she made a small movement towards him. ‘Something happened yesterday.’

‘What?’

‘There was a man-I was planting bulbs;-I looked up, and he was where that gate opens on the border, leaning on it, smoking.’

‘Yes?’

‘I thought-he had mistaken his way. He stood there- smiling. He lighted a cigarette. Then he said-’ It swept over her again, the dreadful feeling which she had had in that man’s presence. Everything darkened. She put out her hand and Jim took it. It was only then that she felt how icy cold she was-how cold. His hands were warm. Their warmth brought her consciousness back.

He saw her turn fainting white. And then he saw the colour come again to her lips, to her cheek. He had a quite extraordinary sensation of having come home. He said, ‘Anne- Anne-you’re safe-you’re home. Don’t-Anne-darling!’

For a moment she leaned against him. Then she said in a confused sort of way, ‘I’m so sorry-I didn’t mean to. Oh, I’m stupid!’ Her eyes were full of tears. She groped in her pocket for her handkerchief and dried them, leaning against him. Then she said, ‘I don’t know what made me do that. He-he frightened me-I don’t know why’

‘He frightened you? What did he say?’

‘He said we’d got to have a talk. He said I wouldn’t want to have it in public. I-I turned faint like I did just now-I don’t know why. It frightened me-he frightened me. I said I had never met him before, and he laughed. He-he stood there and smoked. He said I knew what he might say-’ Her voice went away to a whisper on the word. ‘But I didn’t-I didn’t-oh, I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. I think that’s what frightened me. If I could have remembered, no matter what it was, I wouldn’t have been so frightened. It’s not knowing-not being able to see. It’s like waking up in the night and not knowing where you are.’

His arm was round her again. She leaned against him and trembled. He said, ‘Go on.’

‘There wasn’t much more. I said I didn’t know him-I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t want to. I said would he please go away. And he said-’ Her colour all went again and she gripped his arm, but her voice came steadily. ‘He said, “Well, I’ll go for now. Remember, we know where you are.” Then he said he’d got some orders for me. I wasn’t to tell anyone I’d seen him or what he had said, and when I got my orders I was to do just what I was told-at once. He said, “You’d better!” and he turned round and went away.’ She paused for a moment, and then she said, speaking very low and in a piteous hurried manner, ‘I don’t know what he meant, but it frightened me-dreadfully.’

He considered that, holding her hand in a strong tight clasp, only half aware of what he was doing or of the fact that what would have hurt her at a time of full security was in her present state something which she would not be without. In the end he spoke.

‘You don’t remember him?’

‘No-not at all. I don’t believe I had ever seen him before.’

‘Then why should he speak to you like that?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

He looked at her with the same frowning gaze. When she had seen it before it had set her wondering what she had said or done to anger him. Now in a strange sort of way she knew the frown for what it was, a deep concern for her, a deepening interest.

He said abruptly, ‘Listen to me! I don’t like leaving you here, but I don’t see any way out of it-not at present. All the same I don’t like it very much, but you should be all right if you do just what I say. Now listen! You’re not to go out of sight of another person-old Clarke in the garden-one of the people in the house. You’re not to go out by yourself-do you hear?’

‘Yes, I hear, but-’

‘There isn’t any but. You do what you’re told, and you’ll be safe!’ He repeated the word, ‘Safe. That’s what you want to be, isn’t it? And at present I can’t protect you, because I don’t know enough. I’ve got to find out who you are, how you come into this business, how to make you safe. And you’ve got to help. You can do that in two ways. You can do just what I say-never be out of sight of someone you can call to for help. And if you remember anything-anything at all-ring me up and tell me what it is. I think your memory will come back. Don’t strain, don’t try to remember. That’s not the way. But if you do remember anything, ring me up at once. Here’s an address that will find me within an hour or two.’ He let go of her hand and wrote on a leaf torn from a scrubby notebook. ‘These people will know where I am and what I am doing. You can speak freely to them.’

‘To anyone who answers the telephone?’

‘Yes. And there’ll be someone there always. It’s this end you’ll have to look out for. Don’t talk to anyone here. Lilian’s all right, but she’s a fool. And Harriet-oh, they’re all right, but they haven’t as much sense as you could put on a threepenny bit. So you won’t tell them anything-nothing at all! Is that understood?’

She said, ‘Yes.’ It was more than an agreement. It was a promise, and he took it as such.

He said, ‘All right. Then we’ll be getting back. I haven’t too much time.’

She didn’t say it aloud, but it came up in her with a kind of shaking strength.

‘Too much time-no, there isn’t too much time at all.’

Afterwards she was to wish that she had said it to him.