Blindfold (30 page)

Upstairs
. Kay's heart leapt at the word. Upstairs spelt hope, and a chance of escape. Let her once get out of this cellar into a room, and there would surely be something she could do to help herself. She might be able to break a window and scream, or she might be able to give him the slip on the stairs—she was very quick on her feet.

One of these hopes died immediately, for Mr Harris took her by the arm, holding her with a grip in which she could not move, and so brought her up the cellar steps and one flight of stairs to the drawing-room floor. It was the drawing-room floor, but the room into which they came in no way resembled a drawing-room. It was like a shop, an office and a lumber-room all run together.

Kay's other hope died too as she looked about her, for the windows had old-fashioned shutters, all securely fastened. There was half an inch of wood between her and the glass she had dreamed of breaking. For the rest, there was a writing-table with a great many drawers. There were filing cabinets. There was a stack of old trunks and dispatch-cases, and a pile of quite new cardboard dress-boxes. The floor was dingy with a drab linoleum, and the walls with a very old stained paper whose satin stripes, once white, were now the colour of a London fog. Hanging straight and undrawn at the windows there were curtains of dark blue net, quite good and new. Kay stared at all these things and felt bewildered. The mixture was so odd.

Mr Harris had switched on a strong unshaded light in the ceiling. There was neglected dust everywhere, but the room wasn't cold. A good fire burned on the hearth, and a couple of comfortable shabby chairs were drawn up to. It was when Kay saw the fire that she realized how cold she was—how very cold.

She went to the hearth and knelt down, spreading out her hands to the blaze. She even stopped being afraid of Mr Harris as she felt the warmth come into her, round her, through her. Just for a moment nothing else mattered. Then she heard him laugh behind her in the room, and the fear came back. She got up from her knees and sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. She sat down because her legs were shaking so much that she was afraid she was going to fall.

Mr Harris sat on the arm of the other chair and laughed again.

“Quite a cosy family party—aren't we? Good thing Addie's gone to bed—isn't it? And now we can have a real good heart-to-heart talk and fix our wedding day.”

Kay heard herself say, “That's nonsense.” And then a darting stab of fear went through her, because what was she to do if she made him angry.

“Well, well—” said Mr Harris. He didn't seem at all angry. “Now what I want you to do is to listen to me. I told you there was a good time coming, and now I'm going to explain. But first of all I'm going to ask you a question or two. You needn't look scared—there's nothing you'll mind answering. First of all—did you like living with Rhoda Moore?”

Kay relaxed a little.

“No, I didn't,” she said truthfully.

“Do you like being in service—here to-day and gone to-morrow—Mrs Green as a companion—no home, no friends, no money?”

This was easy too. She relaxed a little more.

“I don't like it very much,” she said.

He was watching her. Those cold, pale eyes never left her face. But he was smiling quite pleasantly, and his voice was pleasant too.

“Of course you don't. No one with any intelligence would like it. You'd like a home—friends of your own—pretty clothes—dances—theatres—a car. Perhaps you'd like to travel. How does all that sound to you?”

Kay opened her lips to speak, and shut them again.

Mr Harris slapped his knee.

“You think there's a catch about it—eh? Well there is and there isn't.”

Kay thought to herself, “He's watching me. He's cold and—secret. He isn't really laughing. He's—cold—and cruel—” The last of this only just touched the edge of her mind and faded away. She didn't keep it, but it had been there, and it tinged her thought.

“Now, Kay,” said Mr Harris, leaning forward, “I'm going to tell you just how things are. I'm not going to keep anything back. You said Rhoda didn't tell you anything about yourself. Well, I'm going to tell you now. You're not Kay Moore, and you're not Rhoda's niece. Your name is Kay Macintyre, and if you can prove that, you'll come in for a fortune. But—and this is where the catch comes in—you can't prove it, and you never will be able to prove it, unless I help you. It may take time, and it's almost certain to cost a lot of money, and—well, I'm not a philanthropist, my dear, so I don't mind telling you plainly that I'm not prepared to take the matter up for somebody else's benefit. But if you were my wife, it would pay me—so there you are!”

Kay shook her head. She really couldn't speak. How could she be Kay Macintyre? Miles had found the real Miss Macintyre—he had told her so. She was a girl called Flossie Palmer.

She found her voice, or some of it, and said with breathless urgency,

“I can't be—I can't!”

“Well, you are,” said Mr Harris. “And the sooner you get that into your head, the sooner we shall get on.”

He got up and strolled across to the stack of old boxes piled in the corner of the room. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked one of the trunks, and came back with a shabby old-fashioned desk in his hands. Kay knew it at once, and barely restrained herself from crying out. Aunt Rhoda's desk! Then it was Mr Harris who had had it stolen—Aunt Rhoda's old shabby desk. She had a quick picture of Rhoda Moore propped up in bed, writing, writing, writing, and putting away what she had written in the secret drawer. She wondered if it was still there.

Mr Harris came and sat down opposite her with the desk across his knees and opened it.

“Rhoda's desk,” he said. “I see you recognize it. I had it fetched away after she died, because I thought she might have been fool enough to keep letters which she had been told to destroy.” He gave a strange cold laugh. “She had, too—and I don't mind telling you it was luck for her that she'd gone where I couldn't get at her. That's another thing I'd like you to get on to—when I give orders it's better to obey them—much better.”

Just for a moment Kay met his eyes. There was something in them which she didn't know—power—cruel power. This thought faded too, but it left her shaken.

He had taken a packet of letters from the desk.

“These aren't my letters. I burnt mine. These are Rhoda's to me. Her whole
dossier
is in this desk. Now here's one I should like you to read.”

He leaned across, and she took the letter from his hand. It gave her the strangest feeling to touch it and to see Rhoda Moore's writing again. What he had given her must be the second sheet of a letter. It began right at the top of the page without heading or address. She read:

“I have called her Kay. I have no other children with me now. I don't know why you expected me to keep her all these years without being paid. If I hadn't been fond of her, I wouldn't have done it. If there's a chance of getting this money for her, I shall expect my share, but you can't do anything until she's of age. Send me something on account. You know I've had nothing all along except for the first month—and that time Knox Macintyre was ill and you thought there was a chance he hadn't made a will.”

“Here's another,” said Mr Harris. “The last few sentences—you needn't bother about the rest.”

Kay read where his finger pointed:

“What are you worrying about? The Macintyre child is perfectly strong and healthy. She passes as my niece, Kay Moore.”

“That convince you?” said Mr Harris. “Ah, I thought it would. But you see, you can't prove you're Kay Macintyre without those letters and the others I have here. They would be available for any claim my wife might make—naturally. Thanks, I'll have those two sheets back again.”

He put them away in the packet, stood the desk in the seat of the chair, and got up.

“You can have a pretty good time with that money, my dear,” he said. “You've never had one yet, but you might, you know. You're a pretty girl, and you ought to have pretty clothes. What do you think of these?” He went over to the pile of dress-boxes and began to open them. “What do you think of my taste? It's a pity you can't have a regular wedding-dress, but we don't want to make a splash. That will come later.”

He rummaged among rustling paper and produced soft folds of Angora and a billowing mass of fur.

“What do you say to brown and beige, and a fur coat? You'd look nice in fur. I don't suppose you've ever had a proper evening dress in your life—have you? Well, what do you think of this?” He held up a glittering garment in which Key felt she would look exactly like a mermaid.

She shook her head, and quite suddenly, right in the middle of everything being so dreadful, she wanted to laugh. And then, cold as ice, came the sense of utter danger. If she laughed, if she made him angry, something dreadful would happen. But she was going to laugh—she couldn't stop herself. There was only one thing she could fall back upon—the age-old device which covers laughter with tears. Without any conscious thought she bent over the arm of her chair, covering her face with her hands and shaking with sobs. The curious thing was that after the first moment she didn't have to pretend. Real tears came pouring down her cheeks and real sobs nearly choked her.

And then all of a sudden everything stopped—the tears, the sobs, the desire to laugh. There was a moment which was like the moment immediately after some deafening noise. There seemed to be a sort of terrified hush. In that hush she lifted her head and saw Mr Harris coming towards her. He was still holding the fur coat, but Kay didn't see it. She met his eyes, and they froze her with terror. They were cold, and cruel, and pleased. But that wasn't all. The coldness and the cruel pleasure seemed, as it were, out of balance. There was something that Kay had no name for, except that it was danger—imminent, deadly danger. The fur coat dropped to the floor and lay there unregarded. Kay's lips parted to scream. But no one—no one would hear if she screamed.

Mr Harris stood over her and laughed. He spoke her thought—her own despairing thought.

“No good screaming, because there's no one to hear you.”

And just as he said “no one” and bent nearer, Kay saw over his shoulder the door handle turn and the door swing slowly in.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Miles left the house in Merriton Street without any clear idea of what he was going to do. He was going back to Varley Street, because he was now quite sure that Kay was in Varley Street, but what he was going to do when he got there he had no idea. Useless to ring the bell again and question Mrs Green. He wondered what would happen if he were to pound on the front door till Nurse Long came down and then force his way in to look for Kay. He would probably get himself arrested, and then there would be no one to look for Kay. The phrase kept coming back—he'd got to look for Kay until he found her. But it was no use looking for her in No. 16. If he were to go there with a search warrant and a dozen police, it wouldn't be any good, because Kay wouldn't be there. They would have taken her through the hole in the wall into No. 18, and that was where he must look for her. At once. Before anything happened.… Nothing was going to happen except that he was going to find Kay.

It was when he was actually walking up Varley Street that he remembered Barnabas Row. Barnabas Row ran parallel with Varley Street. It was the lane that ran at the bottom of the Varley Street back-yards. The garage was there. He had been round to it with the police, and as he thought about the garage and about Barnabas Row, a picture began to form in his mind of a narrow, ill lighted lane, a place from which it might be possible to approach the back of those Varley Street houses. As soon as he had realized this picture he knew exactly what he was going to do. The phrase “breaking and entering” described it very appropriately. He was certainly going to enter, and if he couldn't enter without breaking, he was going to break. It was extraordinary how the weight which had been upon him lifted as he turned out of the Square into Barnabas Row.

The picture in his mind had been surprisingly accurate. If there was a darker and more deserted-looking lane anywhere in London, he had yet to come across it. Not a light showed in any one of the ill-assorted jumble of buildings between which it ran, and the distant glimmer of the street-lamp at the corner soon ceased in any way to mitigate the gloom.

He knew that the garage was at the back of No. 18. Like everything else in the Row it was now dark and silent. Feeling along the wall, he found a narrow cut or passage which seemed to follow the side of the garage. It was very narrow indeed, and it ended in another wall. No, it didn't end; it turned at right angles and went on behind the garage. After a few steps it opened out. He had to pick his way over odd bricks, tin cans, rubble heaps, and broken bottles. Then, right across his path, a railing. As far as he could make out, the garage must run back into at least part of what had been the yard or garden of 18 Varley Street. A railing had been run across the lot—and a nasty brute of a railing it was going to be to climb. There was barbed wire on it and a
chevaux-de-frise
of iron spikes, but in the end he got over it by dint of making a pad of his overcoat, which suffered a good deal in the process. He had still to get into the house, but any house can be burgled by a desperate young man who has ceased to care whether he lands himself in prison or not.

He was presently inside a stuffy, pitch-dark room on the basement floor. He took it to be the scullery or kitchen. Yes, the scullery, for it had the feel of a small, enclosed place. It was icy cold. The stuffy smell was not the smell of food. It was the smell of a damp unused place which had forgotten the kindly heat of a fire.

He went forward, groping for a way into the house. Bumping against a door-post, he came to the empty and deserted kitchen. The whole house had that same deserted feeling. It was curious that Miles' reaction should have been, “Kay in this horrible place!” and not, “Then Kay isn't here.”