The Annam Jewel (26 page)

He opened the door and went out, leaving the lamp in the middle of the floor. After a moment he came back. He had in one hand an empty beer-bottle, and in the other about an inch of candle. He set the beer-bottle in the corner farthest from Peter, jammed the candle-end into the open neck, and set light to the wick.

“That's to let you down easy,” he said. “Well, so long, Waring.” He picked up the electric lamp and went out, locking the door behind him.

Peter listened to hear whether the key was withdrawn, but the only sound that came to him was the sound of Hendebakker's heavy step going away down the flagged passage. The sound grew fainter and fainter until his ear could no longer catch it. A dull silence settled.

CHAPTER XXXI

Mr. Hendebakker went upstairs, passed through the hall, and out at the front door. When he came to the taxi he stopped, swung his light up, and caught a glimpse of Sylvia's startled face.

“Come back into the house,” he said.

“I don't want to,” she breathed. “It's a dreadful house; it frightens me.”

Hendebakker put down his lamp, opened the taxi door, and held out his hand.

“Come along,” he said. And Sylvia came.

When they were in the hall again, and the door was shut, he said:

“You've done some good work tonight, and I'm pleased with you.”

“Then let me go home,” said Sylvia. “Oh, Mr. Hendebakker,
please
let me go home.”

“All in good time. You've got to talk to young Waring first.”

“I can't!” The words were a cry, spontaneous and terrified.

“Oh yes, you can. You've got to, anyway. He won't talk to me, but I rather guess he will to you.”

“What have you done to him?” said Sylvia.

“Nothing. Only tied him up so's he can't damage himself or anyone else. He's an obstinate devil, and he won't talk. I want to get his tongue going. Now, he's riled with you, and when a man's riled he's liable to talk pretty freely. What you've got to do is to get him talking. Maybe he'll let slip where the Jewel is. He hasn't got it on him; I'll take my oath to that; and I don't believe he's banked it. If you ask me why, I tell you I don't know; but no one who has the Jewel ever wants to put it away in a bank. They want to keep it where they can get at it and look at it. I thought Dale had banked it, but he hadn't. I don't know where it was, but he hadn't banked it; and I don't believe that Waring has either. He's only had it twenty-four hours for one thing. Now, you come along with me and do your best to make him talk. You can pile on the sob-stuff and register as much remorse as you think he'll swallow. But get him going.”

At the corner of the passage which led to the cellar Hendebakker stopped.

“I'll be right here, round this corner, where the light doesn't show,” he whispered. “I don't want him to suspect I'm around. You keep along by the wall till you come to the second door. The key is sticking in the lock.”

“I can't,” said Sylvia. “It's so dark.”

Hendebakker pulled out a pocket torch and put it into her hand.

“That make you feel any better?” He gave her a push in the direction of the cellar. “Get a move on.”

Sylvia came to the cellar door, and stood there with her hand upon the key. She was afraid to go on, and doubly afraid to go back. When she dared delay no longer, she turned the key with a wrench and pulled the door towards her. It creaked as it swung open. She stood on the threshold, and saw Peter propped in a sitting position against the opposite wall. The light from her torch cut through the faint candlelight and showed her his face, very white, smeared with blood and dust, and his eyes fixed on her with surprised contempt. She shuddered. Her hand dropped to her side. The torchlight made a little, shining ring upon the stone floor.

“What do you want?” said Peter.

“I—I came,” said Sylvia, speaking slowly and vaguely. She rested her free hand upon the jamb, as if she needed support. “I—came—to—oh, Peter, have they hurt you?”

“Not yet,” said Peter grimly.

Sylvia came slowly into the room. She closed the door, extinguished her torch, and slipped it into an inner pocket of the wrap she was wearing. She was bareheaded; her hair was bright in the candlelight. She came forward with an inarticulate murmur of distress.

“Why have you come?” said Peter.

“I had to,” said Sylvia in a choked voice. “Peter, what—what must you think of me?” There was a pause.

“I expect I'd better not say,” said Peter at last.

She cried out as if he had struck her, and dropped on her knees beside him.

“Peter, don't! I can't bear it. I know what you must be thinking. But he made me do it. I didn't want to, I had to. Oh, can't you understand a little bit? Haven't you ever been so afraid that you had to do what you hated doing? Haven't you ever been afraid like that?”

“No, I haven't,” said Peter.

Sylvia was crying. She kept her hands before her face because she could not bear to look at Peter. Something tugged at her heart. Pain, terror, remorse—she had no need to act these things; they possessed her. Behind her sheltering hands the tears ran down.

After a minute, Peter said:

“Good lord, Sylvia, why did you do it? I thought we were pals.”

Sylvia let her hands fall, and looked at him with lovely, tear-drenched eyes.

“You won't ever believe that I care,” she said. “You can't believe it, but it's true. I care more than you do.”

“Well, you've a pretty rotten way of showing it. Look here, Sylvia, what's the good of talking? The point is, what are you going to do now? You haven't got a knife about you, I suppose, or a pair of scissors? If I could get these ropes off, I'd make that swab Henders sit up. I suppose you couldn't have a go at the knots?”

“I can't,” said Sylvia, in a despairing voice.

“You mean you won't? Good lord, Sylvia, are you going to let the brutes murder me?”

Sylvia shrank back.

“Peter, give him the Jewel,” she said, very low.

Peter set his jaw.

“I'm hanged if I do.”

“But, Peter, what's the good of keeping it?” she said. “Even if you get away now, it would only be the same thing over again.”

“I'll take my oath it wouldn't.”

“It would, it would. You don't know Mr. Hendebakker. The Jewel's a sort of superstition with him. He'll never, never rest until he gets it.”

“Nonsense!” said Peter. “You've let the man come over you with his bullying ways. If you'll help me to get out of here, I'll jolly well show Henders that this sort of game can't be played twice. No, Sylvia, listen, and for the Lord's sake don't cry. You can't possibly give your mind to what I'm saying if you keep on crying. You're frightened of Henders, and you've just sopped up what he said about your getting into trouble if you don't do what he tells you. To start with, is it true that he's got a real hold over you? I suppose it must be, but I just want to make sure. He says you took some loose diamonds belonging to his wife, and that he can prove it by the man that you tried to sell them to. Now, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but
is
that true?”

Sylvia turned her head away. He saw the colour run up to the very roots of her hair. She said nothing.

“I'm sorry, Sylvia, but we've got to the place where nothing but plain speaking is much good. Is it true?”

She looked at him then, flushed and on the defensive.

“It was a trap, I'm sure it was a trap. She had a handful of the wretched things; she took them out of her jewel-case and threw them on the table. One rolled off on to the floor, and she never even bothered to pick it up. How was I to suppose she'd count the stones? I don't believe she did, either. It was a trap, I'm
sure
it was.”

“I dare say it was, but the fact remains that you did take them.”

“I was so dreadfully hard up,” said Sylvia, looking down. “I didn't think she'd miss them, I didn't really.”

Peter restrained himself. There was either nothing to say or too much. After a moment he said:

“Let's get back to the point. You propose to let Hendebakker murder me because he's got this hold over you and you're afraid of getting into trouble.”

“No, no!” said Sylvia. She put out her hands as if pushing something away from her.

Peter frowned.

“It's not ‘no', it's ‘yes',” he said. “But what I want you to understand is this—if you help me to get away, I'll see that you're safe as far as Henders is concerned. Don't you see that I shall have a far stronger hold over him than any that he has over you? Tying people up in cellars and threatening to starve them to death is not the sort of thing you can do in Wimbledon without getting into trouble. Don't you see, Sylvia? You must, surely. Get me out of this, and Henders won't dare look the same side of the street again. You'll be rid of him for good.”

“You don't know him,” said Sylvia. “I daren't, I simply daren't.”

Peter was silent for a moment.

“Look here, Sylvia,” he said at last. “I take it you don't absolutely want Henders to murder me. I mean you'd rather I got off as long as you're quite safe yourself. Well, if that's the case, I'll show you how it can be done. You go home, and when Henders is well out of the way, find my uncle, Miles Banham. He's at The Luxe, and you can get him on the telephone. You can ring up from a public call-office if you like, and you needn't give your name. You needn't appear in any way. You need only tell Miles to search the cellars of this house. Will you do it?”

Sylvia shrank back in real terror.

“Peter, I couldn't. Don't ask me. He'd know at once—I mean Mr. Hendebakker would know at once. Oh, Peter,
do
try and see my side of it. I don't believe you realize my position a bit. If you did, you'd see how impossible it is for me to go against him. I can't do it, I can't indeed.”

Peter looked at her without speaking. He could not trust himself to speak, but the look went home.

“Don't, Peter, don't!” said Sylvia, springing up. “It's cruel of you to look at me like that. I can't bear it. It's not my fault if your wretched, obstinate pride won't let you take Mr. Hendebakker's offer. Why, he told me he'd give ten thousand for the Jewel.”

“Fifteen,” said Peter.

“And you refused it? Fifteen thousand pounds! You can sit there and tell me you refused fifteen thousand pounds! Why, it's madness, it's just madness!”

Peter laughed.

“Peter,” said Sylvia, coming nearer, “let me go to him; let me tell him you'll come to terms. If you won't do it for your own sake, oh, won't you do it for mine? Why, I'm wretched, simply wretched. And if anything happened to you—if he really hurt you—I don't see how I could get over it. Peter, you were fond of me once—you were
very
fond of me; you said you would give me the Jewel—yes, you did; you know you did. And all I ask now is for you to tell me where it is. Peter,
please
, where is it?”

Peter laughed again, an angry, bitter laugh.

“Go on and guess,” he said. And quite suddenly Sylvia put both hands up to her head and drew a long, startled breath.

“You've sent it to her—to Rose Ellen. That's what you've done with it,” she said in an odd, whispering voice. Then, aloud and triumphantly: “Yes, of course you have. Why didn't I think of it before? I was to have it when you were in love with me; and now, of course, it's for her. You've forgotten all about offering it to me, and you've forgotten all about being in love with me. You're in love with Rose Ellen, and she's got the Jewel.” She spoke faster and faster, retreating across the cellar until she came to the door. As she pushed it open, Peter called out in a voice which she had never heard from him before:

“Sylvia! For God's sake, Sylvia!”

The candlelight was leaping and falling; the wick, with only half a round of wax adhering to it, was fallen sideways against the neck of the bottle. The shadows rushed up to the roof and dropped again. The light flickered once, and twice.

Sylvia stood on the threshold and laughed.

“It's true, it's true, it's true,” she said; and, as Peter called out again, she jumped back and slammed the door.

He heard the key turn. The light went out.

CHAPTER XXXII

Sylvia ran along the dark passage, and as she ran she heard Peter call again and yet again. Her one concern was to put the stairs and lighted spaces between her and this darkness, those cries. It was only when she reached the corner and found a pitch blackness everywhere that she realized that Hendebakker was gone. She had left him here with the electric lamp, and he was gone. In that frantic moment Hendebakker, who had been her terror, became her only help and safety—and he was gone. Her fright was so great that she completely forgot the little torch in her pocket. She was alone in this dreadful underground place where her footsteps rang hollow and Peter's voice still followed her.

She leaned, half fainting, against the wall, her sense of direction lost, her every faculty numb. Somewhere beyond her there was a scurry and a squeak, and as she started in the direction of the sound, two tiny, greenish points like pin-pricks of light showed for an instant and were gone. A sound between a gasp and a scream came from her dry throat. As if in answer to the sound, light shone suddenly, and Hendebakker came round the corner, walking briskly and holding his lamp shoulder-high.

He took Sylvia by the arm, and half pushed, half led her as far as the foot of the stairs, where he had perforce to shift his grip and give her more support. When they reached the kitchen level she turned on him, gasping and as white as a sheet.

“Oh, why did you go? You promised to stay,” she cried.