Dead or Alive (24 page)

“What a damned fool Milly is! You'd better keep an eye on her.”

And Miller spoke from somewhere startlingly near at hand.

“That's all right. And now what next? How long is that stuff good for?”

The stuff—that was the stuff they had put into her tea.… But she had only drunk half. They didn't know that. Or did they?

The woman was speaking again.

“Eight hours—ten—twelve—long enough anyhow. She had finished what was in the cup before she went off.”

There was a pause. Then Miller said violently,

“Why don't you get on and get it over? Put her in the water and have done with it!”

Meg did not move, but she felt a cold inward shudder. They had drugged her, and they were going to drown her. But if she wasn't drugged, there would still be a chance of escape. She could swim. There must be a chance.

The woman laughed. The chance didn't seem worth much when Meg heard that laugh. She said with a cool whipping scorn in her voice,

“Have you got nerves aboard—like Milly?”

“No, I haven't.”

“It sounds like it. Take a pull on yourself, my friend, and go on remembering that I'm running the show. I'm working to a time-table and I'm not taking any risks. She'll be out of the way by midnight, but not so very much before. The village can get to bed and go to sleep first. That boy from the inn takes his girl into the churchyard most evenings. There's no accounting for tastes—is there? Now suppose—just suppose it occurred to him to get over the wall. There's just one place where he could—I found it yesterday. There's a tombstone jammed up against the wall—well, you see? It's only a thousandth chance, but I'm not risking it.”

Miller said, “All right.” And then, grudgingly, “You've got a head!”

“Thank you, Bob!” The tone was a lightly mocking one.

“And then?” said Miller.

“Then Henderson runs me up to town, and we put her in the river just as we did with O'Hara. There'll be nothing to show that she was drowned before she got there.”

Miller spoke again with a kind of grumbling anger.

“You keep everything mum to the last minute! What's the idea? Are you and Henderson going to light out and leave Milly and me to answer the questions that are going to be asked? Because if that's your game—”

Her laughter cut him short.

“My dear Bob, it isn't. Don't be so crass! Having disposed of the—incriminating evidence, we come straight back. Mrs O'Hara is scheduled to leave Ledlington by the eleven-fifty tomorrow. Henderson will drive her to the train. We shall stop at the village post-office and Henderson Will go in and buy stamps. Everyone in the village will be prepared to swear to Mrs O'Hara having left Ledstow. They will see her luggage on the grid. They will see her hat and coat on me and she will have a cold and be blowing her nose when Henderson goes in to get the stamps. At Ledlington I shall buy a ticket for town and tip a porter to put the luggage in the van. The train is always packed on a matinée day, and no one will notice who gets out at the other end. Meanwhile I go into the ladies' room, remove her hat and coat, put on a good noticeable scarlet beret, and walk out of the station and back to the car. I keep out of sight on the floor with a rug over me coming through the village, and there we are.”

“Well, I won't say you're not clever,” said Mr Miller with that grudging note in his voice again.

Meg's blood ran colder and colder as she listened. Not to be able to move, not to be able to do anything, just to lie here and listen while they made a plan to drown you and throw you into the river, not here but somewhere far away so that
they
would be quite safe. And then to hear them plan just how they were going to pretend that you had gone up to town by train. It was like being made to look on at your own execution. She felt her courage failing, freezing—freezing to death. She wished that she had drunk that cup to the dregs, because then she would be as good as dead already, and she wouldn't know the horrible cold touch of the water, or the hands that would put her into it and hold her down until she was drowned. Her whole body stiffened in a spasm of recoil.

And then she heard Miller say, “Mr Postlethwaite—” and at the sound of Uncle Henry's name she relaxed and listened, and began to have a little hope again.

“They'll come down and want to ask him questions when she's missing, the police will and that Coverdale. I suppose you've thought of that?”

“Oh, my dear Bob!”

“That's all very well, but what about it?”

She laughed with real amusement.

“Mr Postlethwaite has an appointment with Professor Mühlendahl in Munich. They have been corresponding about it for the last fortnight. He leaves for the continent tomorrow afternoon.”

“And Milly and me?
What about us
?”

“Well, you'll be perfectly safe here.”

“We're not going to
be
here,” said Miller hoarsely—“not for nothing nor nobody we're not! And when I say that I mean it. What—Milly and me stay here and be badgered, and cross-examined, and dragged into an inquest as like as not, and our pictures in the papers? No, thank you! And what's more, Milly's not fit for it—she'd lose her head as like as not and give the show away, if she's pushed too far.”

“Then you're all on holiday whilst Mr Postlethwaite's abroad, and the house is closed. It doesn't matter. There'll be no proof against anyone. Mr Postlethwaite will fail to keep his appointment in Munich. I owe the Paris police something, so I think he'll disappear in Paris. I'd like to score them off, and Mr Postlethwaite's disappearance will be quite a score. And now as I'm going to be up all night, I'm going to have some sleep. Lock this door on the outside and come and have a look at her every half hour. She hasn't moved at all, has she?”

Meg heard light feet crossing the room. Someone leaned over the sofa back and looked down on her. She ought to have kept her eyes quite shut and the lashes closed, but she couldn't do it. As she lay on her back, straight and flat, she had only to lift the lids the merest fraction to be able to look up through the veiling lashes at the face that was looking down. Her courage had come back, because she had Uncle Henry to fight for as well as herself. They were planning horrible things for him as well as for her. But they weren't dead yet. Oh no, they weren't dead yet. If her lids flickered, she would betray herself. Could she look, and hold them steady? She
must
.

Someone looked down at her and laughed, an oddly ringing laugh. Meg looked through her lashes and saw Miss Cannock's bright blue dress, Miss Cannock's floating scarf, Miss Cannock's fussy fringe, Miss Cannock's face.

XXV

Meg lay in the dark, and was thankful for it. They had put out the light, locked the door on her, and gone away. She was alone, and she could relax, move her stiff limbs, and sit up if she wanted to. She found that she didn't want to—yet. Her head swam and she felt giddy. But she mustn't give way to that. She propped herself against the end of the sofa and tried to think.

Uncle Henry was on the island, and she was here. She could get out of the window, and she could swim over to the island, but that wouldn't be any good, because she wouldn't be able to land when she got there. The wall encircled it, high, blank, and unclimbable. No, the only way to the island was by the covered bridge, and it was locked at both ends. It was locked, and Miss Cannock had the keys. Was Uncle Henry a prisoner on the island then? Yes, he was—he must be. Oh, he
was
. She ought to have suspected something when he didn't come out, and she never saw him.

Only two days ago she had been in Ledlington. She had actually rung Bill up. She had talked to him. If she had suspected something then, she could have said, “Oh, Bill, come down!” and he would have come. He
would
have come. She would have been safe. But she hadn't suspected anything, and now it was too late.

But how could she have suspected? It was so like Uncle Henry. Even at Way's End it had been the most awful business getting him to come to meals when he was working. If he had had a place like the island where he could get away from everyone and lock himself in, he might have behaved in just the way he was supposed to be behaving there.

He was a prisoner. But since when? He had met her on the evening she arrived, and she had walked up from the gates with him.

Had she?

Was it Uncle Henry who had met her?

She sat up trembling under the impact of this new idea, but with her head clear and her thoughts racing.

Was it Uncle Henry who had met her? It was dusk, but she had seen—
What
had she actually seen? An ulster, a hat, and a limp. That was what she had seen, and her mind had said
Uncle Henry
, and then, as far as the question of identity went, it had stopped functioning. Bill said the Professor had grown a beard, and she had just added the beard to her preconceived idea of Uncle Henry and taken him for granted. But she had spoken to him, and he had answered her. And anyone with the least gift for acting could mimic Henry Postlethwaite. His voice, soft and hesitating, the marked mannerisms of his speech, his way of withdrawing into an impenetrable silence, all made him the easiest man in the world to impersonate. He had hardly spoken at all on their walk to the house. She had been hurt about it at the time, but now she was sure that it was not Henry Postlethwaite who had walked beside her. She remembered how he had stalked past her into the house and vanished. And then—and then Miss Cannock had come—not at once—no, it was some time after. The woman who could play Miss Cannock so perfectly, so convincingly, without a single false note, was clever enough to play another part—any other part.

Meg let her feet down on to the floor and stood up. It was no use trying to get away yet, but the effect of the drug was wearing off. She would wait until Miller had been to have a look at her, and then as soon as he had gone again she would try and get away. She had no plan. The woman who had played Miss Cannock had her plan all cut and dried and her dreadful time-table set, but Meg hadn't any plan.

Suddenly, irrelevantly, it came to her that Miss Cannock had tried to kill her two days ago in Ledlington. She had tried to push her under the tram. Meg hadn't any doubt at all that she had tried to kill her, and she hadn't brought it off. And if she hadn't brought it off then, why should she bring it off now? This was a very heartening thought, and she made the most of it.

She moved about the room a little to get the stiffness out of her limbs, and then lay down on the couch again to wait until Miller came. Presently the clock in the hall struck eight. She hadn't known it was as late as that, and she counted the stroked with surprise. She must have been unconscious for much longer than she had thought, and that meant less time to escape, less time before that horrible time-table came into operation. She thought it must be more than half an hour since they had gone away and left her. Miller was to come back in half an hour. If only Miller would come and go away again. She began to feel the strain of waiting for him to come. Suppose he didn't come at the half hour. Suppose he didn't come at all until he came with Miss Cannock to “put her in the water.” Was she to go on waiting for that? But if she didn't wait, if she got up and went to the window, then that would be the time when he would be sure to come. She would be half way across the room in the dark, or pushing back the stiff old-fashioned catch, or trying to lift the heavy sash, and the door would open and the light come on, and she would be caught. Her courage failed at the thought of it. No—whatever happened, she must stay here and wait until Miller came.

The clock had struck the quarter before she heard footsteps in the hall, but they were not slow or heavy enough to be Miller's footsteps. They came hurrying to the door and stayed there whilst a hand fumbled at the key and at the door fcneb. Even after the door was open there was a dragging pause before the light went on. Meg heard a woman catch her breath, and realized with relief that it was Milly who had been sent to look at her, and that she wasn't liking the job. She came slowly and reluctantly up to the sofa and peered down at Meg. Then she went back to the door and shut it.

Meg kept her lids down and waited for what would happen next. The door had shut, but the light was on. Had Milly forgotten it, or was she still in the room? There was that catching breath again, and then Milly had crossed the room with a run and was bending down over the sofa.

“Are you awake?” she said in a shaken voice not much above a whisper. And then her hand came down on Meg's shoulder and shook it. “You'd better be. Do you hear? Come along—wake up if you're ever going to.”

Meg had a moment of horrible indecision. Could she trust Milly? It might be a trap—it was her life and Uncle Henry's in the balance.… No, she couldn't. She made an indistinguishable groaning sound and let herself go limp.

“If you won't, you won't,” said Milly. She let go of Meg, and made that odd choking sound again, and ran out of the room, snapping out the light as she went. Then Meg heard the key turn and the footsteps go away, running, as if Milly was in haste to be gone from something which frightened her.

Well, Milly was gone, and now a horrid doubt sprang up in Meg's mind. Had Milly come because she had been sent, or had she come on her own? Had she come instead of Miller, or was Miller still impending? She thought she would just have to take it that he had sent Milly instead of coming himself. She wondered if Milly was his wife. She was a frightfully bad cook, but she seemed to have some human feelings. Meg felt a little sorry for her—poor Crooked Sue.

She made up her mind that she would county sixty and then open the window. What she was going to do when she had it open, she did not know. They would look for her. If she couldn't find the place where she could climb the wall—and what chance would there be in the dark?—she would have to try and hide from them till daylight came, and with it the slender, solitary hope of a passing car or of someone from the village. It wasn't really a hope at all. The house was at a dead end and no cars passed it, and no one from the village would have any possible errand that would bring them within hailing distance at that hour in the morning. Well, it was no good thinking ahead. It was better to get out of the room than to wait in it until they came to truss her up and drown her. Anything would be better than that.