While the Light Lasts (3 page)

Once he heard the doctor's voice. But he couldn't stop climbing to listen. Besides the doctor would tell him to leave off looking for the House.
He
thought it was an ordinary house. He didn't know.

He remembered suddenly that he must be calm, very calm. You couldn't find the House unless you were very calm. It was no use looking for the House in a hurry, or being excited.

If he could only keep calm! But it was so hot! Hot? It was
cold
–yes, cold. These weren't cliffs, they were icebergs–jagged cold, icebergs.

He was so tired. He wouldn't go on looking–it was no good. Ah! here was a lane–that was better than icebergs, anyway. How pleasant and shady it was in the cool, green lane. And those trees–they were splendid! They were rather like–what? He couldn't remember, but it didn't matter.

Ah! here were flowers. All golden and blue! How lovely it all was–and how strangely familiar. Of course,
he had been here before. There, through the trees, was the gleam of the House, standing on the high ground. How beautiful it was. The green lane and the trees and the flowers were as nothing to the paramount, the all-satisfying, beauty of the House.

He hastened his steps. To think that he had never yet been inside! How unbelievably stupid of him–when he had the key in his pocket all the time!

And of course the beauty of the exterior was as nothing to the beauty that lay within–especially now that the owner had come back from abroad. He mounted the steps to the great door.

Cruel strong hands were dragging him back! They fought him, dragging him to and fro, backwards and forwards.

The doctor was shaking him, roaring in his ear. ‘Hold on, man, you can. Don't let go. Don't let go.' His eyes were alight with the fierceness of one who sees an enemy. Segrave wondered who the Enemy was. The black-robed nun was praying. That, too, was strange.

And all
he
wanted was to be left alone. To go back to the House. For every minute the House was growing fainter.

That, of course, was because the doctor was so strong. He wasn't strong enough to fight the doctor. If he only could.

But stop! There was another way–the way dreams
went in the moment of waking. No strength could stop
them
–they just flitted past. The doctor's hands wouldn't be able to hold him if he slipped–just slipped!

Yes, that was the way! The white walls were visible once more, the doctor's voice was fainter, his hands were barely felt. He knew now how dreams laugh when they give you the slip!

He was at the door of the House. The exquisite stillness was unbroken. He put the key in the lock and turned it.

Just a moment he waited, to realize to the full the perfect, the ineffable, the all-satisfying completeness of joy.

Then–he passed over the Threshold.

‘The House of Dreams' was first published in the
Sovereign Magazine
in January 1926. The story is a revised version of ‘The House of Beauty', which Christie wrote some time before the First World War and identified in her autobiography as being ‘the first thing I ever wrote that showed any sign of promise'. Whereas the original story was obscure and excessively morbid in tone, ‘The House of Dreams' comes close to the threatening ghost stories of the Edwardian age, and especially those of E. F. Benson. It is a great deal clearer and less introspective than the original which Christie heavily revised for publication: to develop the characters of the two women she toned down the otherworldliness of Allegra and built up Maisie's rôle. A similar theme is explored in ‘The Call of Wings', another early story, collected in
The Hound of Death
(1933).

In 1938, Christie reflected on ‘The House of Beauty', recalling that, while she had found ‘the imagining of it pleasant and the writing of it down extremely tedious', the seed had been sown–‘The pastime grew on me. When I had a blank day–nothing much to do–I would think out a story. They always had sad endings and sometimes very lofty moral sentiments.' An important spur in these early years was a neighbour on Dartmoor, Eden Phillpotts, a celebrated novelist and a close friend of the family, who advised Christie–Agatha Miller as she was then–on her stories and recommended writers whose style and vocabulary were to provide added inspiration. In later years, when her own fame had long since eclipsed his, Christie described how Phillpotts had provided the tact and sympathy so necessary to sustain the confidence of a young writer–‘I marvel at the understanding with which he doled out only encouragement and refrained from criticism.' On Phillpotts' death in 1960, she wrote, ‘For his kindness to me as a young girl just beginning to write, I can never be sufficiently grateful.'

I

The shabby man in the fourth row of the pit leant forward and stared incredulously at the stage. His shifty eyes narrowed furtively.

‘Nancy Taylor!' he muttered. ‘By the Lord, little Nancy Taylor!'

His glance dropped to the programme in his hand. One name was printed in slightly larger type than the rest.

‘Olga Stormer! So that's what she calls herself. Fancy yourself a star, don't you, my lady? And you must be making a pretty little pot of money, too. Quite forgotten your name was ever Nancy Taylor, I daresay. I wonder now–I wonder now what you'd say if Jake Levitt should remind you of the fact?'

The curtain fell on the close of the first act. Hearty applause filled the auditorium. Olga Stormer, the great emotional actress, whose name in a few short years had
become a household word, was adding yet another triumph to her list of successes as ‘Cora', in
The Avenging Angel
.

Jake Levitt did not join in the clapping, but a slow, appreciative grin gradually distended his mouth. God! What luck! Just when he was on his beam-ends, too. She'd try to bluff it out, he supposed, but she couldn't put it over on
him
. Properly worked, the thing was a gold-mine!

II

On the following morning the first workings of Jake Levitt's gold-mine became apparent. In her drawing-room, with its red lacquer and black hangings, Olga Stormer read and re-read a letter thoughtfully. Her pale face, with its exquisitely mobile features, was a little more set than usual, and every now and then the grey-green eyes under the level brows steadily envisaged the middle distance, as though she contemplated the threat behind rather than the actual words of the letter.

In that wonderful voice of hers which could throb with emotion or be as clear-cut as the click of a typewriter, Olga called: ‘Miss Jones!'

A neat young woman with spectacles, a shorthand
pad and a pencil clasped in her hand, hastened from an adjoining room.

‘Ring up Mr Danahan, please, and ask him to come round, immediately.'

Syd Danahan, Olga Stormer's manager, entered the room with the usual apprehension of the man whose life it is to deal with and overcome the vagaries of the artistic feminine. To coax, to soothe, to bully, one at a time or all together, such was his daily routine. To his relief, Olga appeared calm and composed, and merely flicked a note across the table to him.

‘Read that.'

The letter was scrawled in an illiterate hand, on cheap paper.

Danahan looked slightly bewildered.

‘I don't quite get it. Who is this Nancy Taylor?'

‘A girl who would be better dead, Danny.' There was
bitterness in her voice and a weariness that revealed her thirty-four years. ‘A girl who was dead until this carrion crow brought her to life again.'

‘Oh! Then…'

‘Me, Danny. Just me.'

‘This means blackmail, of course?'

She nodded. ‘Of course, and by a man who knows the art thoroughly.'

Danahan frowned, considering the matter. Olga, her cheek pillowed on a long, slender hand, watched him with unfathomable eyes.

‘What about bluff? Deny everything. He can't be sure that he hasn't been misled by a chance resemblance.'

Olga shook her head.

‘Levitt makes his living by blackmailing women. He's sure enough.'

‘The police?' hinted Danahan doubtfully.

Her faint, derisive smile was answer enough. Beneath her self-control, though he did not guess it, was the impatience of the keen brain watching a slower brain laboriously cover the ground it had already traversed in a flash.

‘You don't–er–think it might be wise for you to–er–say something yourself to Sir Richard? That would partly spike his guns.'

The actress's engagement to Sir Richard Everard, MP, had been announced a few weeks previously.

‘I told Richard everything when he asked me to marry him.'

‘My word, that was clever of you!' said Danahan admiringly.

Olga smiled a little.

‘It wasn't cleverness, Danny dear. You wouldn't understand. All the same, if this man Levitt does what he threatens, my number is up, and incidentally Richard's Parliamentary career goes smash, too. No, as far as I can see, there are only two things to do.'

‘Well?'

‘To pay–and that of course is endless! Or to disappear, start again.'

The weariness was again very apparent in her voice.

‘It isn't even as though I'd done anything I regretted. I was a half-starved little gutter waif, Danny, striving to keep straight. I shot a man, a beast of a man who deserved to be shot. The circumstances under which I killed him were such that no jury on earth would have convicted me. I know that now, but at the time I was only a frightened kid–and–I ran.'

Danahan nodded.

‘I suppose,' he said doubtfully, ‘there's nothing against this man Levitt we could get hold of?'

Olga shook her head.

‘Very unlikely. He's too much of a coward to go in for evil-doing.' The sound of her own words seemed
to strike her. ‘A coward! I wonder if we couldn't work on that in some way.'

‘If Sir Richard were to see him and frighten him,' suggested Danahan.

‘Richard is too fine an instrument. You can't handle that sort of man with gloves on.'

‘Well, let me see him.'

‘Forgive me, Danny, but I don't think you're subtle enough. Something between gloves and bare fists is needed. Let us say mittens! That means a woman! Yes, I rather fancy a woman might do the trick. A woman with a certain amount of
finesse
, but who knows the baser side of life from bitter experience. Olga Stormer, for instance! Don't talk to me, I've got a plan coming.'

She leant forward, burying her face in her hands. She lifted it suddenly.

‘What's the name of that girl who wants to understudy me? Margaret Ryan, isn't it? The girl with the hair like mine?'

‘Her hair's all right,' admitted Danahan grudgingly, his eyes resting on the bronze-gold coil surrounding Olga's head. ‘It's just like yours, as you say. But she's no good any other way. I was going to sack her next week.'

‘If all goes well, you'll probably have to let her understudy “Cora”.' She smothered his protests with
a wave of her hand. ‘Danny, answer me one question honestly. Do you think I can act? Really
act
, I mean. Or am I just an attractive woman who trails round in pretty dresses?'

‘Act? My God! Olga, there's been nobody like you since Duse!'

‘Then if Levitt is really a coward, as I suspect, the thing will come off. No, I'm not going to tell you about it. I want you to get hold of the Ryan girl. Tell her I'm interested in her and want her to dine here tomorrow night. She'll come fast enough.'

‘I should say she would!'

‘The other thing I want is some good strong knock-out drops, something that will put anyone out of action for an hour or two, but leave them none the worse the next day.'

Danahan grinned.

‘I can't guarantee our friend won't have a headache, but there will be no permanent damage done.'

‘Good! Run away now, Danny, and leave the rest to me.' She raised her voice: ‘Miss Jones!'

The spectacled young woman appeared with her usual alacrity.

‘Take down this, please.'

Walking slowly up and down, Olga dictated the day's correspondence. But one answer she wrote with her own hand.

Jake Levitt, in his dingy room, grinned as he tore open the expected envelope.

Levitt nodded appreciatively. Clever note! She admitted nothing. Nevertheless she was willing to treat. The gold-mine was developing.

III

At nine o'clock precisely Levitt stood outside the door of the actress's flat and pressed the bell. No one answered the summons, and he was about to press it again when he realized that the door was not latched. He pushed the door open and entered the hall. To his right was an open door leading into a brilliantly lighted room, a room decorated in scarlet and black. Levitt walked in. On the table under the lamp lay a sheet of paper on which were written the words:

Levitt sat down and waited. In spite of himself a feeling of uneasiness was stealing over him. The flat was so very quiet. There was something eerie about the silence.

Nothing wrong, of course, how could there be? But the room was so deadly quiet; and yet, quiet as it was, he had the preposterous, uncomfortable notion that he wasn't alone in it. Absurd! He wiped the perspiration from his brow. And still the impression grew stronger. He wasn't alone! With a muttered oath he sprang up and began to pace up and down. In a minute the woman would return and then–

He stopped dead with a muffled cry. From beneath the black velvet hangings that draped the window a hand protruded! He stooped and touched it. Cold–horribly cold–a dead hand.

With a cry he flung back the curtains. A woman was lying there, one arm flung wide, the other doubled under her as she lay face downwards, her golden-bronze hair lying in dishevelled masses on her neck.

Olga Stormer! Tremblingly his fingers sought the icy coldness of that wrist and felt for the pulse. As he thought, there was none. She was dead. She had escaped him, then, by taking the simplest way out.

Suddenly his eyes were arrested by two ends of red
cord finishing in fantastic tassels, and half hidden by the masses of her hair. He touched them gingerly; the head sagged as he did so, and he caught a glimpse of a horrible purple face. He sprang back with a cry, his head whirling. There was something here he did not understand. His brief glimpse of the face, disfigured as it was, had shown him one thing. This was murder, not suicide. The woman had been strangled and–she was not Olga Stormer!

Ah! What was that? A sound behind him. He wheeled round and looked straight into the terrified eyes of a maid-servant crouching against the wall. Her face was as white as the cap and apron she wore, but he did not understand the fascinated horror in her eyes until her half-breathed words enlightened him to the peril in which he stood.

‘Oh, my Gord! You've killed 'er!'

Even then he did not quite realize. He replied:

‘No, no, she was dead when I found her.'

‘I saw yer do it! You pulled the cord and strangled her. I 'eard the gurgling cry she give.'

The sweat broke out upon his brow in earnest. His mind went rapidly over his actions of the previous few minutes. She must have come in just as he had the two ends of cord in his hands; she had seen the sagging head and had taken his own cry as coming from the victim. He stared at her helplessly. There
was no doubting what he saw in her face–terror and stupidity. She would tell the police she had seen the crime committed, and no cross-examination would shake her, he was sure of that. She would swear away his life with the unshakable conviction that she was speaking the truth.

What a horrible, unforeseen chain of circumstances! Stop, was it unforeseen? Was there some devilry here? On an impulse he said, eyeing her narrowly:

‘That's not your mistress, you know.'

Her answer, given mechanically, threw a light upon the situation.

‘No, it's 'er actress friend–if you can call 'em friends, seeing that they fought like cat and dog. They were at it tonight, 'ammer and tongs.'

A trap! He saw it now.

‘Where's your mistress?'

‘Went out ten minutes ago.'

A trap! And he had walked into it like a lamb. A clever devil, this Olga Stormer; she had rid herself of a rival, and he was to suffer for the deed. Murder! My God, they hanged a man for murder! And he was innocent–innocent!

A stealthy rustle recalled him. The little maid was sidling towards the door. Her wits were beginning to work again. Her eyes wavered to the telephone, then back to the door. At all costs he must silence her. It
was the only way. As well hang for a real crime as a fictitious one. She had no weapon, neither had he. But he had his hands! Then his heart gave a leap. On the table beside her, almost under her hand, lay a small, jewelled revolver. If he could reach it first–

Instinct or his eyes warned her. She caught it up as he sprang and held it pointed at his breast. Awkwardly as she held it, her finger was on the trigger, and she could hardly miss him at that distance. He stopped dead. A revolver belonging to a woman like Olga Stormer would be pretty sure to be loaded.

But there was one thing, she was no longer directly between him and the door. So long as he did not attack her, she might not have the nerve to shoot. Anyway, he must risk it. Zig-zagging, he ran for the door, through the hall and out through the outer door, banging it behind him. He heard her voice, faint and shaky, calling, ‘Police, Murder!' She'd have to call louder than that before anyone was likely to hear her. He'd got a start, anyway. Down the stairs he went, running down the open street, then slacking to a walk as a stray pedestrian turned the corner. He had his plan cut and dried. To Gravesend as quickly as possible. A boat was sailing from there that night for the remoter parts of the world. He knew the captain, a man who, for a consideration, would ask no question. Once on board and out to sea he would be safe.