Dead or Alive (10 page)

Bill turned with an exasperated shrug of the shoulders and made his way back to the gloomy hall. There was no one in sight, and there seemed to be nothing to wait for.

He found his hat, let himself out, and proceeded once again to skirt the lake. Quite definitely a mist was now rising off the water. There was a smell of rotting leaves. He looked back at the house and thought of Meg going to stay there, and hoped with all his heart that she wouldn't go.

He walked on, and just where the drive rose he halted again for a last look at the island. He supposed that the Professor had gone back to it by now. Very bad for him shutting himself up like that. Meg ought to try and shake him out of it. The old woman who had built the house on the island and then walled it all round like a prison must have been as mad as a hatter. You could just see one window over the top of the wall, and no more. The house had a gable, and the window showed—a bare foot of it. He was just going to turn away, when this small square of glass broke suddenly. Something came through it with violence—something with an edge to it that showed for a moment and then was gone, with the effect of having been snatched away.

Bill stared, but could see no more than a dark star-shaped splintering of the glass behind which nothing moved. No sound came from it. Only a very loud sound would have carried that distance. There was no sound at all.

Bill walked on. Someone had broken a window. It was odd, but it wasn't his business.

XI

“I don't want you to go,” said Bill Coverdale.

“Beggars can't be choosers,” said Meg O'Hara.

They were in Meg's sitting-room. The time was about eleven o'clock in the morning, and Bill had been giving an account of his visit to Ledstow the day before. With a good deal of reluctance he passed on Henry Postlethwaite's invitation. Meg might have felt reluctant too if she had either seen Ledstow Place—or not been so hungry. Everything is comparative, and the comparison between dry bread and milkless tea for breakfast, lunch, and supper in London, with three if not four meals a day in even the dreariest of country places, is all in favour of the latter. Also, the tea was running out, and by the end of the week the money would have run out too and there wouldn't be any more bread. So Meg O'Hara said, “Beggars can't be choosers,” and managed a smile as she said it.

“Come out and lunch with me,” said Bill abruptly.

Meg brightened a little.

“It's too early for lunch,” she said.

Bill had another timely recollection.

“Come and have an elevens. We can have lunch afterwards.”

Meg hesitated for a moment. Was she going to tell him that there had been someone in the flat the night he had brought her home? She wasn't sure. If it wasn't Robin, she could tell him, but if it was—if it was—

“No good bottling things up.” Bill's voice was very quiet. “You'd better tell me what's been happening.”

It was no good—she must tell him. She couldn't bear it alone. If you hadn't anyone to talk to, you stopped seeing things as they really were. They got bigger and bigger until you felt as if something was going to burst.

She told Bill about the lights having gone wrong, and about waking up in the night and hearing someone in the sitting-room.

“Pity you didn't see who it was,” said Bill when she had finished.

A light shudder ran over Meg. Suppose she had had a match. Suppose she had struck it and seen Robin—looking at her. He had looked at her in so many ways—lightly, appraisingly, coldly, tauntingly, cruelly, and with what she had taken for love. That hurt most to remember now. The shudder threatened to become uncontrollable. Whoever had been in her sitting-room that night has passed her so near that they might with any unreckoned movement have touched. If he had touched her, she would have known whether it was Robin O'Hara.

Bill's voice broke in upon her thought.

“Why wouldn't the lights go on?”

This at least was easily answered.

“Because the bulbs had been taken out.”

“The hall light was all right when you went in.”

“Yes, I know, Bill—that was clever, because if the hall light hadn't gone on, you would have come in to see what was the matter. But I didn't find out there was anything wrong till you had gone, and of course I hadn't got a candle, so I just left the hall light on and my door open. Then, after I was asleep, my door was shut and the hall bulb taken away.” The shiver went over her again.

“Where were the bulbs?”

“One on the sitting-room mantelpiece—that was the one I found and put in—and the others on the kitchen table.”

“What was he looking for?” said Bill.

“Do you think he as looking for something?”

“Must have been, otherwise the whole show is pointless.”

Meg shook her head. She was very white. Her eyes avoided his.

“It might have been—to frighten me.”

“Why should anyone want to frighten you? Who would want to frighten you?”

Her silence said the name she would not speak. If she had had any other name in her mind she would have spoken it aloud.

“It's the most preposterous nonsense!” said Bill violently.

Meg nodded. She was thinking of other preposterous things which Robin O'Hara had done.

“My dear girl, be practical!” said Bill. “Nobody took all that trouble and risk for nothing. Oh yes, it was a risk all right—I might have come in with you and caught him on the premises.”

She shook her head.

“No—he wasn't here then.”

“How do you know?” His voice was quick and angry.

“I don't know how I know, but I do know. There wasn't anyone here when I came in.”

“You mean he came and took out the bulbs and went away again, and then came back when you were asleep?”

She nodded.

“Yes, that's how it was. I'm quite sure there wasn't anyone here when I came home.”

Bill was frowning heavily.

“Have you been through the drawer? Is anything missing?”

She made a little helpless gesture.

'“I don't know. You see, the things in that drawer weren't mine—at least most of them weren't. It was Robin's drawer, and I've never really been through it. I suppose I ought to have, but—” Her voice died away on the word.

“So you've no means of knowing whether anything was taken?”

She shook her head in a hesitating way. Then she said rather breathlessly,

“The card might have come from there.”

“What card?”

She got up, went over to the writing-table, and came back again. There was a small white card in her hand. She laid it on Bill's outstretched palm and went and sat down again. She was glad to sit down again, because her knees were shaking.

Bill looked at Robin O'Hara's card and said sharply,

“Where was this?”

Meg pointed at the little walnut table, now heaped with books and papers.

“
That
was out in the middle of the room. All the books and papers had been cleared off it. They were on the sofa. There wasn't anything on the table except that card.”

Bill stared at the printed name—
Mr Robin O'Hara
. Then he turned the card over and sat up straight.

“Why do you think this card came out of the drawer?”

“Because there's about half a packet of Robin's cards there.”

“Get them, will you? I'd like to have a look a them.”

She brought him the narrow yellow box, still loosely folded in its white wrapping-paper. The lid came off and the cards ran out upon the wide arm of the chair. A single glance was enough. He said sharply,

“I thought not. That card never came out of this box—at least not this year, Meg.”

“What do you mean?”

He held up the card which she had given him.

“Look! This isn't a new card out of a box—it's a card that's been knocking about in somebody's wallet. Look at the colour beside one of these. And look at the corners—worn—you see?”

Meg saw. It was impossible to help seeing what was so evident once it had been pointed out. But it didn't seem to her to make any difference, except that this worn card was more of a witness to Robin's presence than a brand new one would have been. It had been with him through these months of absence. He had touched it and handled it. She knew just where it had lain in his wallet. And with that she had a sudden stab of terror, because Robin's wallet had come empty out of the river a year ago.

The telephone bell rang, and went on ringing. Even after she had put the receiver to her ear, it went on upon a ghostly thrumming note. She shook the instrument and said, “Hullo!” She shook it, and the note went on buzzing in her ear. Then all of a sudden it stopped, and a man was speaking.

“Is that Mrs O'Hara?”

Bill heard her say “Yes,” and then “Oh yes, I am.” And after that, “What is it? … Oh yes, I could.… Yes, I think I'd rather.… Yes, twelve o'clock would be all right for me.” She rang off and turned round to Bill.

“That was the bank manager—Robin's bank. He wants to see me. He won't say why.” She spoke in a slow, troubled voice.

Bill laughed a little.

“I should say at a guess you're overdrawn.”

She shook her head.

“I haven't got anything to overdraw. It's not my bank—it's Robin's. I've never had an account there.”

“Then it can't be anything to bother you.”

She said, “I don't know,” letting the words fall slowly. And then, “Will you come with me, Bill? I don't want to go alone. You see, the only think I can think of—the only reason he might want to see me—is something to do with that packet I told you about. I was to open it in the manager's presence if Robin was dead. It might be something to do with that, and it if is, I would like you to be there.”

Bill shook his head.

“It won't be that, Meg—he'd want legal proof before he'd let you open it. But of course I'll come.”

He made her have a cup of coffee and something to eat on the way. His relief at seeing how much better she looked after the food and the hot drink was off-set by exasperation and distress. If she wasn't starving herself, a cup of coffee and a bun wouldn't bring her colour back like that. He cursed the conventions with all his heart. They permitted him to take Meg out and feed her, but forbade him to finance her so that she could feed herself at home. At least that seemed to be Meg's point of view.

They were shown into the manager's private room. He rose to greet them, shook hands, and asked them to be seated, with an air of brisk efficiency. Meg's introduction of Bill as an old friend who was helping her with her business affairs was received with a hard look which only just fell short of being a stare. Not, Bill thought, a genial person, in fact a good deal the reverse, but efficient, undoubtedly efficient. A little man with black hair and a cocksure carriage of the head. He leaned forward in his chair, facing them across the table, and rapped upon his blotting-pad with the fingers of his left hand. It was rather as if they were a class and he was calling it to order. He said,

“I have asked you to come here, Mrs O'Hara, because I was anxious to know whether you can give me any information with regard to your husband.” His eyes were sharp on Meg's face. They saw her wince.

She said, “But, Mr Lane—” and then stopped. Her eyes went to Bill.

Bill leaned forward.

“Mrs O'Hara, on the advice of her friends, is about to ask leave to presume her husband's death. We believe that it will be granted. There is—evidence which has lately become available.”

Mr Lane transferred that very direct gaze of his to Bill.

“Evidence of Mr O'Hara's death?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“I'm not at liberty to say, but the application will undoubtedly succeed.”

Mr Lane looked down at his blotting-pad. There was for a moment a certain effect of rigidity. It seemed to Bill as if he had just heard something which surprised him very much, and that he did not wish to show that he had been surprised.

The effect passed. He looked up again at Meg and asked quickly,

“Then you have not seen your husband lately?”

It was Bill who said, “Of course she hasn't!” And after than Meg answered in a wavering voice,

“Oh no!”

“Or heard from him?” said Mr Lane quite unabashed.

“Mr Lane,” said Bill, “Robin O'Hara disappeared over a year ago. Evidence is now available to show that he met with his death by misadventure at the time of that disappearance or a little later. Now may I ask what you are driving at?”

Mr Lane said, “Certainly.” He leaned back in his chair and addressed them both. “A week before he disappeared Mr O'Hara deposited a packet with us for safe custody. He told me that it contained papers of considerable importance, and that he wished to safeguard them by imposing some very stringent and unusual conditions. He wrote those conditions down and insisted that we should both sign them. The conditions were as follows. During his lifetime the packet was only to be surrendered to him in person, he himself signing for it in my presence. In the event of his death, it was to be surrendered to his wife, who was similarly to sign for it in my presence. The packet was then to be opened, and she was to consult with me as to the disposal of the contents. I have no idea what the packet contains, except that Mr O'Hara once informed me that he was doing government work of a confidential nature, and I concluded that the papers about which he was taking such precautions had some connection with this work. When Mrs O'Hara informed me that her husband was missing, and that it was feared he was dead, I told her what I am now repeating. I added that I considered myself bound by the conditions under which I had accepted the packet, and that it would therefore be necessary for the death to be proved legally before I could consider that the second of the contingencies provided for had arisen.” He spoke with an air of being pleased with his own lucidity.