Red Shadow (31 page)

Laura looked up at him. She was perfectly white, but her eyes and her lips were steady.

“I can't do it,” she said.

“You did it before.”

“I ought to have let him die—he said so—I knew it really—but—you won't understand—I was expecting to be so happy—I couldn't do it.”

Alec Stevens stared at her curiously.

“And now?”

“That's all gone,” said Laura. “I don't know what good it will do you to kill him, but I can't give you the Sanquhar invention.”

He looked at her with some admiration. Her beauty and the simplicity of her manner affected him as music or a fine play might have done. They did not deflect his purpose in the least.

He came nearer.

“You talk like that because you are unhappy. You don't see any future. Now here are all my cards on the table. I can give you back everything that you have lost—I can give you back your future—I can turn you into Laura Cameron again—I can give you the proof that your marriage with Vassili was not legal. Now, Laura—
now.
”

Laura was on her feet, one hand on his wrist and one on the sleeve of his coat, her eyes dark fire, her cheeks aflame.

“Sasha!” she said. “
Sasha!
” and did not know that she used the name that Catherine used for him.

He nodded, smiling.

Catherine turned round and watched them, her lips close, her eyes wary.

“It's true, my dear,” he said. “But you'll never prove it without my help—and if you can't prove it, you can't marry Mackenzie.
Think
, Laura—you can marry him—you can be free, and you can marry him—you can have his life, and you can share it. What's the Sanquhar invention?”

Laura let go of him and went back a step, and then another, and after that another, until the wall brought her up short and she stood against it.

“I can't,” she said, and heard Alec Stevens laugh.

Immediately after that Catherine called out. A door had banged, and with no more time than it took to draw a breath Vassili was in the room, his face scowling and his hands clenched.

“Oh, you are here!” he said, and stopped a yard inside the door, lowering.

“My dear Vassili, how sudden!” said Alec Stevens.

With a kind of roar Vassili ran at him. Laura saw the other man step aside, and as the blundering rush carried Vassili on, she saw Alec's hand go to his hip. When Vassili turned he looked along the barrel of an automatic pistol. He stood where he was.

“Vassili, I am tired of you,” said Alec Stevens. “I would rather shoot you than not. Perhaps if you can get that into your head you will behave reasonably.”

Vassili stood, his shoulders forward, his hands hanging, a dangerous look of fury on his face.

Catherine put herself between the two men.

“Are you both mad? Sasha, give me that pistol! I am as good a shot as you, and I have some common sense. Vassili, behave yourself! If you attack Sasha, I shall break your ankle—and you will not find that at all amusing. Now, Sasha—the pistol!”

He let her take it. Perhaps he was afraid to take the chance of what might happen in a moment of rage.

Catherine went over to the door and stood beside it just clear of the jamb.

Alec Stevens fell back into his old place before the fire.

“If you are wise, you will get out of the country,” he said. He spoke in Russian, and in Russian Vassili answered him.

“Why do you say that?”

“I told you why last night.”

“And if I will not go?”

CHAPTER XXXVII

Jim Mackenzie threw up his arm and turned over. It was the most confoundedly lumpy bed, and he had lost his pillow. Between sleeping and waking, he rested his head on his arm, and became aware of cold daylight. He opened his eyes and blinked, and a handful of ice-cold water took him in the face. He gasped, rolled over again, and sat up.

It is safe to say that he was very much astonished at what he saw. He was sitting on a small triangular patch of shingle. On either side of him was an ugly, dirty, uneasy sea coming up in choppy waves with the wind behind it—a perfectly beastly wind that was drenching him with spray.

The rain had stopped.

It was the thought of the rain that jogged his memory. The last thing he remembered was the rain coming down and his windscreen streaming with it. But he had been driving the car, and how in the world had he got here? He put his hands to his head, and became aware of an out-size in bumps. He must have had a smash and gone over the cliff.

He got on to his feet rather stiffly, and was relieved to find himself sound. His hands were cut and he was soaked to the skin. Had he fallen into the sea and been washed up? It didn't seem likely—but then he couldn't think of any likely way of getting here. And then all of a sudden he remembered that he was going to Laura, and that he had got to beat Alec Stevens and get to her before he did. He turned his wrist quickly to see what time it was. The watch had stopped at a quarter past nine. Now had it stopped when he crashed, or had it run down? No—the water would have stopped it. But now that he was moving, he wasn't so sure about having been in the sea. His things were wet through, but not with the heavy, drenching wet of clothes which have been under water. Well, it didn't matter. All that mattered was to get out of this.

He turned and surveyed the cliff. A more unpromising sight could hardly have confronted him. The smooth slippery rock, undercut by the sea, offered no possible hold for foot or hand. He gave it but the one glance, and switched his thought back to that picture of pouring rain and a wet windscreen. What was the last thing that he could remember seeing through that windscreen? He could remember feeling dog tired..… He broke off, frowning. He didn't feel like that now. Did that mean he had been here for hours? Never mind—get back to what you remember. He remembered his hands feeling like lead on the wheel, and the streaming windscreen, and the sea—yes, the sea, below him on his left. That was it—the road ran along the cliff. Good Lord—he must have gone over! His frown deepened. Odd—because he remembered swinging away from the sea and running downhill to a ravine with a stone bridge across it. He remembered it distinctly. But he couldn't remember crossing the bridge. The last thing he could see was the bridge, and the way the trees grew round it, and the little scooped out bay that ran to meet it from the sea.

His face changed suddenly. He couldn't get up this beastly cliff, but he must be quite near that bay. All he had to do was to swim out far enough to get his bearings and make for the bay or any other likely landing-place. He was so strong a swimmer that, barring an exceptional current, the risk was negligible. He could hardly be colder or wetter than he was. The rain had to some extent stilled the sea. The waves were nothing out of the way now.

He took off his shoes and tied them round his neck, shed his jacket, and, wading into the water, struck out. Almost at once he saw the inlet, and made it easily. He was not to know till afterwards that if the tide had been past the turn, he would have been caught by the race. From the cliff above it shows like a pale green ribbon in the dull water and runs like a dozen millstreams. Had he lain between sleep and unconsciousness for another hour, he would never have seen Laura again.

He wrung the worst of the wet from his clothes, got into his soaked shoes, and climbed out of the combe.

As he came on to the road, he saw the car. So he had remembered right. It was the bridge that had smashed him, and he hadn't gone over the cliff. He wondered about that smash and put it away to be dealt with later. For the moment what he wanted was a coat to cover him. His overcoat was in the back of the car, and he was glad enough to get into it.

He wondered how far it was to the Hermitage.

It was not quite a mile. Just before the footpath turned off, a car ran past him and, wheeling, made off in the direction of the house, lurching and bumping with one wheel in the heather. It was not the only car that had taken that road. When Jim Mackenzie came in sight of the wicket gate above the steep steps, there was a car on either side. He began to wish that he had a weapon, but he wouldn't stop for that. There was a spanner in his overcoat pocket, and if the worst came to the worst, it might be handy.

He went down the steps and through the door into the square dark hall. And there he stopped, because he could hear the sound of voices. He stood still, and dripped upon the floor whilst he listened. There was a door on his right and a door on his left, and the stair going up from the middle of the hall. The voices came from the right. He went close to the door and listened again. He heard Vassili Stefanoff say, speaking Russian, “And if I will not go?”

So the second car was Vassili's. And it was Vassili who had passed him just now. He could not mistake the voice. It had the same accent of barely controlled fury which he had heard in the Villa Jaureguy, and again outside the locked door in The Walled House.

He stood where he was. He wanted to know what was happening before he broke in on them.

Alec Stevens was speaking, also in Russian.

“Oh, I think you will go.”

And then a woman's voice, startlingly close at hand.

“Vassili, if you will not control yourself, I shall shoot and break your leg. I mean it.”

That must be Catherine.

Jim had drawn back involuntarily as she spoke. Was she standing against the door? No, the voice was a little more to the left. She might be standing against the jamb. And she was armed. If he could get her weapon..… The thought rose in his mind even as Vassili said hoarsely,

“Why should I go?”

“You might make yourself useful in America and retrieve your position. In another continent I should have no grudge against you.”

“I will not go!”

Alec Stevens answered him coolly.

“Then you have a choice between Moscow and Dartmoor. I believe long term prisoners go to Dartmoor. If you choose Moscow—but no, really, Vassili—I have quite a family affection for you, and I do not recommend Moscow—they are not merciful to failures. No, no—you've made a mess of things, and if you won't take my advice and go to America, you will have to make the best of a sentence for bigamy. I believe that English prisons are not too bad.”

There was a silence—a strangled sound—another silence.

Catherine said, “Take care!”

After a moment Vassili muttered, “What do you mean?”

Jim Mackenzie's heart was beating thickly.
Bigamy
..… Was it possible?
Laura free!
He strained his ears, and heard Alec Stevens say with perfect distinctness,

“You surely haven't forgotten that you married Cissie Stark on the sixth of July last in front of the registrar of the Solihull division of Birmingham?”

This time there was no sound at all, not for a long time. But behind the silence there were forces that strained, one against the other. At the last of it Alec Stevens laughed. He spoke, and this time spoke in English.

“Don't be more of a fool than you can help, Vassili! Go whilst the going's good, and keep out of the way until things have blown over.”

Jim stepped quickly back from the door. He had no more than time to get into the angle of the staircase before Vassili came violently out of the room and banged the door behind him. He neither paused nor looked about him, but went out of the front door, banging that too.

Well, that made the odds more even.

As soon as the sound had died away, Jim went straight to the sitting-room door and opened it. What he was afraid of was that Catherine might have moved away from the door. In another moment she would have done so; but she would not move for Vassili, and she had stayed where she was to listen for the sound of his going.

She had opened her lips to speak and straightened herself to take the first step towards Sasha, when the door opened and a wet, strong hand twisted the pistol from her grasp. Jim Mackenzie's left hand took her by the shoulder and held her out of the way. With his right he covered Alec Stevens lounging by the fire. At Laura, who filled his consciousness, he did not look at all. All through the scene that had just taken place she had not moved. She stood against the panelling, her eyes dark and wide, her lips a little parted, her face dreadfully white. She had not understood a single word of what had passed, but the angry voices, the half choked pauses, and the pistol in Catherine's hand had spoken a language which chilled the blood at her heart. And then all at once the door was open, and Jim on the threshold, and the pistol in his hand.

He said, “Hands up!” to Sasha and held Catherine away, and the water ran down out of his clothes and made a dark wet patch upon the floor, and he was as pale as a drowned man.

“Keep them up!” said Jim sharply. “Miss Catherine, I'm dreadfully sorry, but I must ask you to go and stand over there beside him.”

Catherine looked at him coolly. His grip on her shoulder was amazingly strong.

“And if I don't?” she said.

Jim continued to look at Alec Stevens.

“Oh, I hope you will—because if you don't——”

“Well, Mr Jim Mackenzie—if I don't?”

Rather a grim smile showed for a moment about his mouth.

“I heard you tell Vassili what you would be obliged to do if he played the fool.”

He felt her twist, and his grip tightened.

“You'll break my leg? You've very nearly broken my shoulder!”

“Not
your
leg,” said Jim—“his. I'd much rather not, so if you'll just go over there——”

Catherine went over to the hearth and dropped down on the fender-stool.

“
Now
, Stevens,” said Jim—“I want that five-pound note.”

“Do you really? Then come and take it!”

“Don't be a fool, Stevens! You can put your left hand down. Now take out your pocket-book and throw it on the floor between us! I'll give you whilst I count ten, and if you haven't done it by then, I shall smash your right hand.”