The Dower House Mystery (26 page)

She put on the light when she came to the room, and, seeing Julian's electric torch lying on the small table by the bed, she took it up and, opening the cupboard door, flashed the light into its dark corners. The waterproof was there, and she unhung it. As she turned with it over her arm, something arrested her attention. It was a very little thing; but it stopped her, turned her back.

She lifted the torch and let the light shine full on the end hook in the corner. She had stopped because the edge of the beam had glinted on something there, and she turned to see, what it could be. The light shone full on the hook and showed, caught up on it, a tiny tangle of hair—a tiny tangle of red hair.

Amabel stood and looked at it. That the hair was Jenny's she made no doubt; but how it came to be caught up on the farthest hook in this old press was a thing that surprised her beyond measure. Surprise changed suddenly into angry comprehension. After all, it had been Jenny who had been playing tricks. Jenny must have hidden in this press at night, and stolen out in the dark to open the connecting door when it was left shut, or to shut it when it was left open. The anger died in a realization that, if this were so, Jenny must surely be, if not insane, at least on the borderline of insanity.

Amabel put up her hand and pulled at the little knot of hair. It was tangled tightly about the hook, and was strong and unyielding, as red hair is wont to be. She was hampered by the weight of the rain-coat over her arm; her hand slipped, and she caught at the hook to steady herself. As her weight came on it, it moved. The beam from the electric torch had slipped aside. She swung it back. The hook hung crooked, and a piece of the panelling seemed to have started; a crack showed—it ran downward from an inch or two to the left of the hook.

Amabel dropped her rain-coat in a heap, took hold of the hook, and pulled on it. It came round, a little stiffly, but it came. As it turned, the crack widened, and the panel pivoted on itself.

Amabel stood looking through a narrow, dark door into a black space beyond. She put out her hand and steadied herself against the wall of the press. The panel that had turned had its edge towards her. The door seemed to go right through the wall behind the press. Very, very dimly there came into her mind a faint impression of Miss Georgina saying something about a passage, an old passage—something about its not being safe, and bad old times. It was something to do with a time of religious persecution. She couldn't get any nearer to it than that. So faint was the memory that nothing less startling than what had just happened could have revived it even for an instant.

Very slowly, she moved forward until she was standing in the opening. There was a sort of tiny chamber hollowed out behind it. She let the light shine into it, and saw that there were steps going down. She came as far as the top of the steps, and looked down them. The steps went down very steeply; they were narrow stone steps, a good deal worn; they were about as steep as the stairs which would lead to an attic room.

Amabel was looking down at them, when all of a sudden she heard a sound below her in the darkness. On a quick impulse she turned the torch, pressing it against the fold of her skirt. The sound came a little nearer. Someone was at the bottom of the steps. Someone was coming up.

In that moment Amabel would have given almost everything she possessed to have been on the farther side of the press. If she had gone at once when she heard the sound, if she had only gone at once, she might have been safe in the sitting-room by now with the lights turned on and Jenny within call—no, it was Jenny coming up the stairs in the dark—or was it Jenny?—who was it?

Just for a moment a paralysed sense of not being able to move or even breathe took hold of Amabel. Then the mounting footsteps came nearer, and suddenly the instinct with which one wards a blow made her start back from the top of the stair, with both hands out as if she were pushing the unseen person away. Her right hand held the electric torch—she had forgotten it—, and as her hands went out in that involuntary gesture, the beam cut the darkness and showed her a face looking up as she herself was looking down—a white face framed in red hair—Jenny's face.

Afterwards Amabel did not know whether it was she who had cried out or the other. Someone cried out, and the next instant Amabel, her heart beating wildly, was back in the cupboard, pulling the panelled door to, and twisting the hook into its place again. She leaned there, listening, and heard no sound. As she stepped back, her foot caught in her forgotten rain-coat, and she nearly fell. She picked it up mechanically, and stepped out into the lighted bedroom. There panic came on her, and she ran blindly into the hall towards the stairs. She wanted to get as far as she could from the dark press and the passage behind it.

With her foot on the top step, she paused.
Jenny was in the hall below
—Jenny with her back to her, lighting the oil lamp.

Amabel stood quite still. She watched Jenny replace the glass chimney and regulate the wick. She stood and waited because all the while Jenny had her back to her, and until she saw her face she could neither move nor turn. Jenny seemed to take a long time over the lamp. When she had at last finished, she took a duster out of the drawer and rubbed the front of the table with it.

Amabel felt that she could not bear the slow movements, the uncertainty, any longer. She called “Jenny!” in a sharp, dry tone; and Jenny turned with the duster in her hand. It
was
Jenny—it was certainly Jenny, and no one else. She stood looking up, and asked:

“Did you want anything, ma'am?”

Amabel said the first thing that came into her head:

“If anyone calls, I'll see them.” Then she went quickly into the sitting-room.

Still clasping the rain-coat and the torch, she stood for a full minute, her eyes fixed on the open door. When the minute had passed, she laid the torch carefully on a table, and went and shut the door.

It was some time before her fingers were steady enough to thread a needle and mend the jagged tear in her rain-coat. Her mind was troubled and confused, and as the confusion lessened, the trouble grew. She had seen Jenny coming up the secret stair behind the old press, and within the same minute she had seen Jenny in the hall below trimming the lamp. It wasn't possible—it really wasn't possible. The person in the hall
was
Jenny. Then who or what was the other? Her hands shook so much that she could hardly hold the needle or her work. Agatha's story came back into her mind. Agatha had seen Jenny stand in the doorway between the two rooms some time in the night. Agatha must have seen what she herself had just seen.
What
had they seen?

She thought of Julian with such a rush of longing that it frightened her. With years of self-control behind her, it was all that she could do not to leave the house now, this very minute, and await his return at the little station. It was only half-past three—three hours at the very least before he would be back. The thought of those three hours was a heavier burden than the thought of the six months had ever been before. Her heart cried out for Julian, and she could not still its fear.

The sound of a car driving up outside broke in on her thoughts. The front door bell rang, and she heard Jenny pass through the hall.

Julian wouldn't ring. And Julian wouldn't drive up—neither would Miss Miller. She listened, wondering who it might be, and feeling that she would be glad and thankful to see anyone, no matter who.

It was Mr. Bronson who came in a moment later, very smiling and genial.

“No, you mustn't order tea for me, for I can only stay a moment. No, really, Mrs. Grey, just a moment and that is all. It's a horrible afternoon, and your fire looks very cosy, very cosy indeed. I am much tempted to linger; but I have business to attend to at home, business that won't keep.” He spread out his hands to the fire, and went on, “I promised Angela I'd look in—you know we've got her back again.”

“Yes, I know. I saw her go past on her way from the station this morning. I expect you're glad to get her back.”

“Well, yes, we are, we are. I only hope she won't find it dull after the gay time she's been having with her cousins. That's the worst of this place as far as she's concerned; there really are no young people at all, and she's bound to find it dull. However, her idea is that we're all to turn young and play with her.” Mr. Bronson laughed heartily. “What do you think of that now, Mrs. Grey?”

“I think it's quite a good idea,” said Amabel, smiling.

“So do I, so do I. We let ourselves get old far too easily. And that brings me to my point. Angela's having a frivolous tea-party to-morrow at which we're all to go back into our teens and play ridiculous games. She's come back full of them, simply full of them. You'll come, won't you? And of course Miss Miller and Mr. Forsham—they are staying with you, are they not?”

“Thank you,” said Amabel with a little hesitation. “I'm not quite sure if I can come.”

Mr. Bronson shook his head.

“Now, now, Mrs. Grey, I can't take a refusal, I really can't. We're relying specially on you because you've a daughter of your own, I hear. So you're probably up in some of the latest games that these young people play. Now, there's one very amusing one. Angela was trying to explain it to us after lunch, but I'm not quite sure that I've got the hang of it yet—perhaps you can help me—one of those writing games.” He went across to the little writing-table as he spoke. “May I take a sheet of paper and use this pen? Now, let me see if I can remember how it goes.”

He sat down, pulling his chair forward until it was close to Amabel, and balanced on his knee the large block on which she had been writing to Daphne.

“Now first I write a sentence; and then you write one.”

He turned round, dipped the pen, and wrote at the top of the paper, “I can't stand it any longer.” He showed her the sentence, laughing.

“That's what we said to Angela this afternoon. ‘My dear,' I said, ‘not another game unless you want me to run away before tomorrow.' Now,”—he turned the block, and handed it to Amabel—“now, Mrs. Grey, you write the same sentence at this end of the paper.”

He gave her the pen, and she wrote as he had written, “I can't stand it any longer.” Curious that he should have chosen just that sentence—it fitted so well into her thought. Her hand shook a little as she wrote it.

“And now?” she said, looking up.

“Well, that's where I was hoping you could help me,” said Mr. Bronson. “That's where I must confess to being just a little bit fogged. I know that I write something more, and then you write something more, and then we fold the paper up, but—no, it's vexing, I really can't remember how it goes. I'm afraid I've wasted your paper for nothing.”

“I can't help you,” said Amabel, as he took the block away from her and put it back on the writing-table.

“Well, well, Angela must explain it properly to us to-morrow.” He tore off the used sheet and went back to the fire. “You'll come then, Mrs. Grey?”

“If I can,” said Amabel. “But I'm not absolutely sure, because I may have to go up to town.”

Mr. Bronson creased the paper that he held, tore off a strip, and watched it burn—all, it seemed, a little absently. He appeared to be about to take his leave, and yet to be unwilling to go.

“Well, well,” he said at last, “I must be going, I really must be going. Would you mind my ringing the bell to let your maid know? I believe my man went round to the kitchen to ask for some water for the radiator; and he may be as reluctant to leave as I am.” He laughed as he spoke, and held out his hand.

Amabel took it, and found it rather cold to the touch. She bade him good-bye, and rang for Jenny.

Mr. Bronson's heavy tread sounded on the stairs and in the hall below. The front door opened and shut again. She heard the whirr and thrum of the departing car.

Amabel looked at her watch. It was a little after four o'clock. Two hours and a half before Julian would be here. The time stretched before her, interminably flat and lonely. Jenny would have cleared tea away by five, and there would still be an hour and a half to wait—an hour and a half during which the evening would be getting steadily darker and colder, the house more still, the thought of the dark press and of what lay behind it more insistent. She sat down close to the lamp, took a book, and tried very hard to read.

Chapter XXXIV

Amabel found it impossible to fix her attention upon the book which she had taken up. She saw black letters that formed words, and groups of words that formed sentences. They were words and sentences that had no meaning—so many words to a sentence, so many sentences to a paragraph, so many paragraphs to a page. None of it had any meaning at all. Yet she turned the page—and then another—and another.

Presently she looked at her watch again. It was five and twenty minutes past four. With a sigh of relief she threw down her book. Jenny was always very punctual; in five minutes she would be here with the tea. No need to force herself to go on reading just for five minutes.

When the tea came in, she wanted to speak to Jenny, but she could think of nothing to say. Her mind seemed dull to everything except the two vivid pictures which filled it: the face looking up at her out of the dark—the white face framed in red hair—Jenny's face; and Jenny in the hall trimming the lamp. She could think of nothing to say, either when Jenny brought the tea or when she cleared it away.

The door closed; the footsteps retreated. No one would come upstairs now until Julian came home. It was just five o'clock, pitch dark outside of course, and still raining. She went across to the window, drew back the curtain, and looked out. At first she could see nothing. She let the curtain fall behind her, and made out the black swaying of wet trees, the steady falling of the rain. Julian would come in very wet. She turned back and made up the fire.