Red Shadow (17 page)

Laura's lips were stiff. She tried to speak, and failed.

Catherine patted her on the shoulder.

“My dear, do not be so much of a fool. There is no poison in your milk—I would be very glad to drink it myself and lie down and sleep. That is all that will happen to you, you silly Laura—you will sleep, and you will wake up—somewhere else.”

“
Where?
” said Laura in a dry whisper.

Catherine laughed lightly.

“Did not Vassili tell you that he was taking you abroad?”

Laura put the glass to her lips and then set it down again.

“Catherine——”

“What is it?”

“Catherine—you won't leave me?”

“No, I won't leave you.”

“You—promise?”

“Would you trust my promise?”

Laura nodded.

“I can't think why,” said Catherine. “But as it happens you can. Drink up that milk and go to sleep, and I promise you that you will wake again and wake safely, and that I shall be there.”

Laura drank the hot curious-tasting milk. When she gave back the tumbler her heart was beating a little faster. She held Catherine's wrist for a moment.

“You've promised—you won't leave me?”

Catherine looked down at her with the faintest of mocking smiles.

“How fond of me you are! Yes, I have promised. Lie down and go to sleep. You are really very lucky. If I could go to sleep and miss a Channel crossing, I would do it—every time, as Sasha says.”

Laura lay down on her side with her hand under her cheek. She watched Catherine turn out the light and go through the connecting door into her own room. The door remained a little open. When Laura's lids rose, she could see a broad ribbon of light. It reminded her of a ribbon because it seemed to move with a shimmering motion like a ribbon stirred by a breeze. When her lids fell, she could see it still. It was not golden any more, but red. Imperceptibly a black curtain came down and blotted out both the red ribbon and the gold.

CHAPTER XXI

Jim Mackenzie let himself into his flat and shut the door. When he had hung up his hat and coat, he went into the sitting-room and set the attaché case he was carrying on the table. When he had poured himself out a drink, he opened the case and took out the typescript of the talk which he had just been broadcasting.

“Twenty Years of Invention”..… A good title and a good subject—and a rotten hash he had made of it. He began to turn the leaves, frowning. Everyone had seemed quite pleased. Being polite probably. But something had been said about another talk next month, so perhaps it hadn't been so bad. He might have made more of the Lumsden colour-process. But of course it wasn't possible to get twenty years of invention into a twenty minutes' talk—a minute a year. It was ludicrous.

He flicked over another page and frowned at a heavily blacked-out paragraph. Odd things happened. One of the oddest that had happened to him was getting old Bertram Hallingdon's letter just as he had finished typing that paragraph about the Sanquhar invention. Of course the paragraph had had to come out.

He threw down the typescript and finished his drink.

On his way back from Savoy Hill he had met Kennedy Jackson, just back from a year on the Zambesi. A hearty man Jackson, and as obtuse as a hippopotamus. He had slapped Jim on the back and congratulated him on his marriage, and it had taken about ten minutes to get it into his head that he was neither married nor going to be married.

He turned to fill up his glass. Whilst his hand was still on the siphon the bell rang. He went to the door and flung it open. If Jackson had followed him home, he thought he should probably heave him down the well of the lift. Other peoples' bones might break, but he was convinced that Jackson would bounce. It was doubtful whether he would be even conscious of having been rebuffed.

He opened the door, and Miss Agatha Wimborough stepped into the hall. Jim would have preferred Jackson.

She said, “How do you do, I want to speak to you,” all in one breath, and walked straight into the sitting-room.

He followed her, and when she reached the table she turned, cast a look at his empty glass, and then directed the same glance at him. It was a challenging, accusatory glance, delivered by a pair of very handsome eyes dark grey in colour and admirably furnished with black eyelashes. Miss Wimborough most undoubtedly had what is termed a presence. She combined to a quite extraordinary degree a distinguished appearance and an air of authority. She wore a dark fur coat over a wine-coloured dress. Her burnished silver hair was uncovered.

Jim Mackenzie met her level gaze as he came in, and experienced a sensation of shock. He was himself in no pleasant mood. Of all things on this earth he least wished to meet Laura's aunt. He could not imagine any reason why she should wish to meet him. He came in with a hard grip on himself and met those cold handsome eyes fixed in an accusing stare. He shut the door behind him and, without preliminaries, received the first shot of the engagement.

“Where's Laura?”

Standing just inside the door, he took a half step back against it. What a nightmare! Was it possible that she didn't know what had happened? And had he—
he
—got to tell her? He said with a jerk,

“Don't you know?”

“If I knew, I should hardly be asking you.”

The nightmare deepened. He stuck to his own line.

“Why do you ask—me?”

“Because I want to know.”

“You know she's—married?”

Miss Wimborough turned an icy look upon him.

“Certainly.”

“Then why do you ask me where she is?”

“Because I thought you might know. Do you?”

“No.”

She made an impatient movement.

“Who is this man Stevens?”

“I believe he was Mr Hallingdon's secretary.”

“Do you know him?”

“I've met him.”

“Why did she do it?”

“I don't know.”

“What's the good of telling me lies?” said Agatha Wimborough. “Laura does a thing like that—
Laura
—and you tell me you don't know why?”

“I tell you I don't know why,” said Jim in a hard, restrained voice.

Miss Wimborough flared into passionate anger. Anxiety, suspense, and love for Laura combined to carry her beyond her own control.

“What devilry had you been up to? She found you out, I suppose. You're all alike, and I should be glad,
glad
, to think she had found you out. If she had stopped at breaking off with
you
!” She struck the edge of the table with her hand. “But why she should imagine that this Stevens is any better than the rest of you, is what I can't understand!”

“There was nothing to find out,” said Jim.

Miss Wimborough laughed.

“That sort of thing is quite wasted on me. I have my opinions, and I can assure you that you will not alter them. However, it doesn't really matter what Laura found out. What does matter is that she should have taken this suicidal step and then have disappeared. The man is, of course, an adventurer. If he was Hallingdon's secretary, he knew that she was Hallingdon's heiress. I landed four days ago, and after verifying the marriage I went to the bank. Laura had left no other address, and when I asked where she was they refused to give me any information. I then went to the lawyer. He wouldn't tell me anything either. He did say he'd seen her, and that she had been ill. Well, I wrote a letter in his office. He forwarded it. And to-day I get this!” She opened her bag, took out an envelope, and thrust it at him.

He had not meant to take it, but he found it in his hand. He had not meant to open it, but he found himself reading the half sheet of paper that it contained. There were only a few lines upon it, and they were written in pencil:

Dearest,

You mustn't trouble about me—I'm all right. I've been ill, but I'm better now. We'll meet later—I'd rather not just now.
Please understand
.

L
AURA
.

The paper swam before his eyes. There wasn't any Laura—there never had been any Laura. But the Laura who had never been had written the words that swam and dazzled before his eyes. They were not written to him; but they might have been. “
Please understand.
” The dream Laura—the Laura who wasn't true—might have written that to him. She had thrown him over callously on the eve of their wedding. She had married Stevens. “
Please understand.
” There simply wasn't anything to understand.

He lifted a haggard face and gave the letter back. There wasn't anything to say. He said nothing.

“Did you quarrel?” said Miss Agatha with sudden sharpness.

“No.”

She put the letter back in her bag and snapped it to.

“Well, whatever it was, you brought it on yourself. Unfortunately, Laura has punished herself as well as you. I've stuck up for women all my life, but they're fools. If they weren't damned fools, the men could just go to the devil their own way, like the Gadarene swine that they are. But the women are such fools that they don't let them go alone. There's no man who's so much of a beast that some woman won't throw herself under his feet and ask nothing better than to be trampled on. But that Laura should fling herself away!” A hard sob caught her voice and broke it. “Do you really not know where she is?” she said.

He shook his head. She was cutting him on the raw with every word.

“No idea?”

“None.”

“Then it's no good my staying.”

“No,” said Jim. He stood away from the door and opened it.

Miss Wimborough walked out of the flat with her head in the air and tears stinging her eyelids. She turned for a moment before the outer door was shut.

“If you hear from her——”

“
I?
” said Jim Mackenzie. He laughed.

“More unlikely things have happened,” said Miss Wimborough.

“I shall not hear,” said Jim.

He shut the door and went back into the sitting-room. It had a cold emptiness beyond all enduring. Agatha Wimborough's anger and contempt had swept through it like a fire and left it blank. He felt as if he had come to a dead end. There confronted him a nothingness more dreadful than pain.

He stood for a moment and looked about him. In the book-case, a gap where Laura's books had been—the row of little red Kiplings which they had given to each other—packed away because he couldn't bear to see them. The empty place on the mantelpiece where Laura's photograph had stood. The whole dreadful emptiness of his heart with Laura torn from it. He dropped into the nearest chair, flung out his arms across the table, and let his head fall forward on them.

He went down into a cold hell where there was no Laura, and never had been.

After a long time he heard the church clock over the way strike out eleven heavy strokes with a little catch like a hiccup before each. He looked mechanically at his own watch and found it five minutes ahead. That meant that he was right, because the church clock was always slow. He got up, fished a key out of his trouser pocket, and unlocked the leather-covered dispatch-case which stood in the corner behind the sofa. He had cashed a cheque after lunch, and had been carrying rather more money than he liked all day.

He put the notes away under the tray and stayed looking down at an envelope which lay beside them. It had his name on it and nothing else. After a moment he picked it up, lifted the flap, and took out a piece of thin white paper heavily marked with black—the torn left-hand corner of a bank-note. When he had looked at it, he put it back. He could not really have explained why he had looked at it at all, but he had had an impulse to see that it was safe.

The envelope was still in his hand, when from behind him in the corner by the book-case the telephone bell rang. He dropped the envelope into the box, went over to the wall, and took down the receiver.

“Yes?” he said.

Nothing came along the line except that faint pulsing flow of the current.

He said, “Yes?” again.

And then Laura spoke his name.

The shock was very nearly as great as if she had been dead and he had heard her speak. It was her own voice—a very warm, soft voice. He hadn't any words to answer that voice; it spoke across too wide a gulf. And as he stood there dumb, it spoke again with insistence.

“Jim—
Jim
——”

“What is it?” said Jim Mackenzie. His lips said this mechanically—one has the habit of answering when one is spoken to. He said, “What is it?” and then suddenly spoke her name, “
Laura,
” and, having spoken it once, repeated it. He added, “Why have you rung me up?”

“To tell you, Jim—to tell you——”

All the warm softness had gone out of her voice; it wavered and sank as if from lack of breath.

“What is there for you to tell me?” he said.
Nothing
—having told him that she had married Stevens. Why in God's name had she rung him up? She had said everything that there was to say. And now in a trembling voice she said,

“You're in danger.”

“Am I? Why?” And if he were, would it matter to her?

“The paper—the torn piece of paper from Mr Hallingdon—don't keep it—put it somewhere safe—it's dangerous——”

And how did she know about Hallingdon's torn bit of paper? Hallingdon's torn bank-note and the Sanquhar invention—had she by any chance another piece of it?

He said, “I don't think I know what you're talking about.”

Her voice again, full of dismay:

“The torn piece——”

“I can't discuss this sort of thing on the telephone,” he said emphatically.

“Another three minutes?”

It was her call. He waited for her to speak. She said nothing. A frightful panic that with just a faint cold click she would be shut away brought hurrying words to his lips: