Blindfold (25 page)

“Didn't you see her to say good-bye? Didn't she tell you why she was going?”

“Tell me?” said Mrs Green. “How could she tell me when I never seen 'er?”

“You didn't see her before she went?”

“Aren't I telling you I didn't?”

“And you didn't see her go?”

Mrs Green tossed her head.

“Oh, she went all right—you needn't fret about that! The man came and took 'er box, and I went out after 'im and she was just a-getting into the taxi.”

Miles turned round where he stood and looked up the area steps. If Kay had been coming down the steps of the house Mrs Green would have seen her all right, but if the driver had been going up with Kay's box Mrs Green couldn't have seen very much, and she couldn't possibly have seen her getting into the taxi, because the area wall came in the way.

“Look here,” he said, “I wonder if you'd mind coming here a minute and telling me just where she was when you saw her, and just how much of her you saw?”

Mrs Green came out to the doorway and looked up the steps.

“I don't know what you're getting at,” she said. “But I saw 'er go all right. Coming down the steps she was, and I'd have called out to 'er, only the man was between us with the box.”

“Did you see her face?”

Mrs Green stared at him.

“See 'er face? No, I didn't—and good reason too, for from what I could see she'd 'er angkercher up to it crying. And if you ask me, I should say there'd been a row upstairs and no mistake about it. I don't know what she said and I don't know what she done, but it's my belief they just sent for the taxi and bundled 'er out of the house, or why did Nurse come down for 'er coat and 'at 'stead of letting the girl come down 'erself—though that don't account for 'er box being packed ready. But there—girls is past me, and I've no patience with their goings on.”

Miles went back to his hotel profoundly disturbed and dissatisfied. Where had Kay gone, and where was she now? She had his address. She was bound to ring up. Perhaps there was a message waiting for him. Perhaps Kay herself would be waiting for him.…

There was no message, and there was no Kay. Hour followed hour, and still no message came.

CHAPTER XXXII

Kay began to come back to consciousness. She didn't come back all at once. It was like coming up out of a fog. She got a little above it, and then it closed down upon her again. Presently it didn't close down any more. She was awake, but she didn't know where she was or how she had got there. She opened her eyes upon thick, unbroken darkness. It is very difficult to keep your eyes open in the dark. She shut them again, and just as she shut them, she remembered. She had gone into Miss Rowland's room. Oh, why, why,
why
had she gone? And Nurse Long had held something over her face, and she had fallen down and down into this darkness. She had been free to go, and she hadn't gone. She could have put on her hat and coat and walked out of the house, and she hadn't. She had walked into Miss Rowland's room, and Miss Rowland had jumped out of bed in a pair of grey tweed trousers. Miss Rowland wasn't Miss Rowland at all.
She was Mr Harris
.

Kay took a long breath and opened her eyes again. The darkness was the unbroken darkness of a closed-in place. She was lying down in it. She moved, and felt the rustling of straw. She put out her hand, and it fell upon cold, damp brick. A most dreadful terror swept over her. Where was she? Where was this dark place that was damp and cold to the touch, and without the least faintest glimmer of light?

The wave of terror ebbed. She became aware of her body and of her own control of it again. She was lying on a pile of straw, but she could move, she could sit up. Could she? The terror came back in a drowning wave. Suppose she was in a place where she couldn't sit up. Suppose the cold, damp roof came so low down over her that she couldn't sit up. For a moment she saw the darkness starred with fiery sparks. The solid floor lifted and fell beneath her. Then, with a sort of desperate courage, she thrust upwards with her right hand and felt a most blessed relief. As far as she could reach there was a free space over her.

She lay still for a moment, panting a little, and then sat up. She felt giddy, but that passed. In a minute or two she was on her feet, and now when she stretched upwards she really could feel the roof with her hand. She began to move very cautiously along the wall.

Four steps brought her to a corner, and six more to another one. There was a door in this wall. It wasn't until she felt the door under her hand that she knew how much afraid she had been. The shadowy corners of her mind had been full of terrifying whispers, echoes from stories about people who had been buried alive, walled up in a living tomb. That was what the stories always called it—a living tomb. But as soon as she felt the door under her hand the whispers stopped. She
wasn't
walled in or buried alive. There was a door, and doors can be opened. The walls were of brick—she could feel the joins—but the door was of wood, with a heavy iron lock. There was no key in the key-hole, and there was no handle, but a little way above the lock there was a latch. She lifted it and pulled, but the door wouldn't move. It must be locked upon the outside.

She came to the third corner, and felt her way back to the heap of straw and sat down upon it. The place must be a cellar—a small cellar about eight feet by six. The door was locked. There wasn't any window. The air was heavy and damp, but not very cold. She thought she must be in one of the cellars of the house next door—only it wasn't next door any longer, because she was in it. Yes, that was it, she was in one of the cellars of No. 18, and no one—no one would know where she was or be able to find her.

She thought of Miles not being able to find her. It was a very desolating thought. He was coming at half past two to fetch her away, and he wouldn't be able to find her. But it must be much, much more than half past two, and Miles must have come and gone again, perhaps hours ago. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious, or how long it had taken her to come round. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had lain there for a long time, rousing a little and then slipping back again into something that wasn't quite sleep.

The comforting thought came to her that Miles would come back, and just as she thought of that, she heard a sound from the other side of the door—footsteps, and then the turn of the key in the lock. The door moved on grating hinges. A streak of light broke the darkness, and there came in Mr Harris with a bedroom candle in his hand. He still wore the grey tweed trousers and the blue striped shirt, but he had put on a collar and tie, and the coat which belonged to the trousers. He left the door wide open, turned back for a moment, and then came in again with a small wooden case which he set down by the pile of straw. He put the candle on the floor, shut the door without locking it, and came and sat down on the wooden box, all very composedly and as if there were nothing in the least unusual in the situation.

Kay remained sitting on her pile of straw, because it was no use getting up or trying to run away. There was nowhere to run to. She must just sit still and hold on desperately to her courage.

“Well?” said Mr Harris. “Feeling better? I'm sorry we had to put you out, but you really didn't give us any choice. How are you feeling? Head a bit muzzy?”

Kay shook it very slightly. Mr Harris laughed a little.

“Well, well, well, well! You asked for it—didn't you, my dear? Ever read about Bluebeard when you were a kid—or didn't it run to fairy stories with Rhoda? Bit grim, wasn't she? I'll give you a better time than that. Oh, come along—don't look as if you thought I was going to knife you! I'm not, I can assure you.” He put out a hand and patted her on the shoulder.

“Cheer up, my dear—there's a good time coming.”

Kay felt cold—very, very cold. She said,

“Where's Nurse Long?”

“Where she won't interfere with us,” said Mr Harris succinctly. “Now don't you get all worked up—I'm not going to hurt you.” He laughed again. “My intentions are strictly honourable, and all I want at the moment is a little talk, but if your head's too muzzy, you've only to say so and I'll go away—but if I do, you'll only be worrying yourself and thinking I'm all the villains you've ever heard about rolled into one, so I think you'd better listen to what I've got to say.”

Kay looked away from him. The cellar was quite empty except for the box he had brought in and the pile of straw on which she was sitting. The walls were of whitewashed brick, and the floor was of stone. There must be a draught coming in from somewhere, because the candle flickered. She turned her eyes suddenly on Mr Harris and said,

“What do you want?”

“That's what I propose to tell you,” he said. “And if you're sensible, it won't take us long to fix things up. I'm really sorry you had a fright, but you shouldn't have gone prying into things you weren't meant to see. And by the way, how did you get through the wall?”

It didn't matter whether he knew now. She said,

“The glass door wasn't quite shut, and when I pulled it, it slid back.”

He looked at her, and all at once she knew why Miss Rowland's eyes had seemed familiar. Miss Rowland's eyes—Mr Harris' eyes—were the eyes which had frightened her when she was a child. It was Mr Harris who had stood and looked out on her when she had played in the garden years ago. And it was Mr Harris who had looked in on her when she was supposed to be asleep and Aunt Rhoda had said, “What a suspicious mind you've got!” They were pale eyes—pale, cruel eyes. The lids drooped across them a little. There was something frightening about those drooping lids. If they were to lift suddenly and show the whole staring eyeball, it would be too horrible to bear.

They did not lift. His lips smiled pleasantly, and he said,

“But I found it shut.”

“Yes—I shut it. I heard Nurse Long calling me.” It didn't matter what she said now—it didn't matter at all.

“And what did you do then?”

“I went upstairs.”

His lids drooped a little more.

“You went straight upstairs?”

Kay said, “Yes.”

He went on looking at her. It came to her that he wasn't sure whether she had gone straight upstairs, and that he wanted to know. Perhaps he thought she had been in some of the rooms. Perhaps he was afraid she had.
Why?

It was a little time before he spoke again. Then he said,

“You went upstairs. And what happened then?”

“I heard someone coming and I went into the cupboard, and then I found that it opened into Miss Rowland's room, and I thought perhaps I could get away.”

He laughed.

“That was very silly of you. You never had the slightest chance of getting away. You found the bedroom door locked and you left it open. Did you think we shouldn't notice a thing like that? Now, my dear, this is where we come down to brass tacks. You've been stupid, and you've got yourself into a mess, but I don't want to be hard on you, and I'm going to see what can be done about helping you out. Now, just to clear the ground, I want to know what Rhoda told you about yourself?”

Kay thought for a minute. Why did he want to know that?… She said at last,

“She didn't tell me very much.”

“Well, what did she tell you?”

“I don't know that she ever told me anything.”

“Did she tell you she was your aunt?”

“I don't think she told me she was. I called her Aunt Rhoda.”

“She didn't tell you anything about your father and mother?”

Kay said, “No.”

His voice sharpened suddenly.

“Why didn't you ask?”

“I did—once.”

“And she didn't tell you?”

“No.”

She couldn't tell him what she had told Miles, but Rhoda Moore's passionate “Am I not enough for you?” rang in her ears.

His manner changed abruptly.

“Well, we won't bother about that—it doesn't matter. What matters is how we are going to get you out of this mess. You know, I haven't got a room full of murdered wives like Bluebeard, but you've butted in on some business secrets which it wouldn't suit me at all to have talked about. Now—what are we going to do about it?”

A wild hope sent the colour flaming into Kay's cheeks. If she promised not to speak—if she promised faithfully—would he let her go? She looked at him with eager, brightening eyes.

“If I promise—”

The lids lifted to show a mocking gleam. Then he said quite pleasantly,

“Nothing doing. No, there are two ways out, and you can choose whichever you please. You see, I can't just take your word that you won't talk. I've got to have a guarantee. You might promise, and then one day you might find yourself in the witnessbox, and then you'd have to speak. Unless—” He paused for quite a long time.

“Unless what?” said Kay. And then she was sorry she had asked, because she felt quite sure that he had meant her to ask. It was too late now. She couldn't take her question back.

He answered her in his pleasant reasonable way.

“Unless you were my wife. You couldn't be made to give evidence against me if you were my wife. English law has a profound respect for family ties, you see, so if you were my wife, I might let you make a promise which you wouldn't be very seriously tempted to break. You wouldn't want to put your husband in prison, I'm sure. A prisoner's wife is in a most unpleasant position—you can realize that.”

Kay listened with deepening horror. He couldn't really mean what he was saying. He was just trying to frighten her. Of course he didn't know that she was engaged to Miles, but even if she wasn't, the idea of marrying someone who lived in two houses at once, and who spent half his time in pretending to be an old lady, made her feel quite cold and sick. Of course he couldn't really want to marry her. And then suddenly she could hear Rhoda Moore speaking as she had heard her during those last few days when she rambled on not always knowing what she said. Some of the rapid muttered sentences came back to Kay now, “They may try and get hold of you … he'll do anything for money … but I've written it all down … don't lose it … be careful and don't lose it.…”