Dead or Alive (29 page)

She pitched forward into Bill Coverdale's arms.

XXXI

The arms closed round her, but she did not feel them. For a moment she felt nothing at all, and then waked with Bill's cheek against her own—the cheek she had touched in such an agony of terror just before she fell. She was wet, she was lost, she was being hunted to her death; the bog had her by the feet, and the darkness shut them in; but that waking moment was the happiest she had ever known. To pass from the extremity of dread to the extremity of joy, to fear the worst and to find the best, to wake from lonely grief in her lover's arms—what more poignant happiness could any woman know? The moment carried everything before it—shyness, hesitancy, doubt. She turned her lips to his and gave him kiss for kiss in an eager passion of joy.

The moment passed. She did not know how long it had lasted. It was outside time. It passed. She became aware of her body again, a drenched, trembling thing, and of Bill's lips, not on hers any longer, but at her ear with an almost soundless whisper.

“Meg—what's up?”

She had to whisper too. A word might ruin them, might ruin Bill. She said,

“They're trying to kill me.”

“Why?”

“The Cannock—she
isn't
—I think Uncle Henry's a prisoner—
Bill!
”

His arms tightened about her.

“You're all wet—
Meg!
”

“I had to swim.”

“It's all right—now. I've got my car. We've only got to get to the gate.”

“
Only!
” Meg felt a shaky laugh rise in her throat. The gate would be watched, the gate would be locked. It wasn't any good thinking about the gate. She began to say this with her face pressed against Bill's shoulder, but all at once he stopped her. There was a sound away on their right—a splash, and a rip of cloth. There were more blackberry bushes than one, and more bog-holes.

They began to move away from the sound without a word, pushing through the undergrowth and making for the gate—making, that is, for where they supposed it to be, or where Bill supposed it to be, for Meg had stopped having any ideas on the subject. The points of the compass, the direction of the village, the position of the gate, and her own whereabouts were all gone from her, dissolved in the confusion of this darkness which had drowned everything. She followed Bill because she would have followed him anywhere. Her bare feet and legs were terribly scratched. The way seemed endless.

And then quite suddenly they were out of the wood. The wall rose up before them, solid and black, and between it and the bushes from which they had emerged there was a path. Bill took her by the arm and ran her along it. It was much less dark than it had been in the wood. If you looked up you could see the top of the wall against the sky, and the black massing of the trees. When they came to it they would be able to see the lodge, and when they came to the lodge they would be within one short dash of the gates. But they couldn't get out. The gates were locked.

The lodge loomed up. Bill's hand checked her. She trembled under it and stopped. They both stopped, listening. There was no sound at all. They crept forward until they were level with the side of the lodge, the back door behind, the front door still ahead, the gate perhaps twenty yards away, when with a sudden flash the light of a powerful torch leapt towards them from the drive and was instantly followed by a shot. And no bad shot either. The bullet passed between them. Close as they were, an inch or two higher or an inch or two lower and it would have found no room. It whistled through the gap between head and shoulder—two heads, two shoulders, as close as might be, yet leaving just that gap—and it ripped the cloth of Bill's sleeve as it went, just where armhole and shoulder-seam join. A shout followed the shot.

Bill ducked, and jumped Meg sideways. The ray followed them, and another shot—wide this time. He ran her round the corner of the lodge and in at the back door, and there drove the bolts home.

But he had broken the kitchen window. It wasn't going to take the sportsman with the revolver more than about three split seconds to find that out. The place was a trap. Upstairs would give them the best chance. The stair was bound to be steep, and with any luck it might turn. He made for it, getting out his own torch as they went. And the luck was good. There wasn't any turn, but there was something a great deal better. The stair was one of those enclosed ones common enough in old cottages. It went up between two walls and ended in a yard-square landing with a door on either side. Anyone who wanted to play rough would have to stand in that narrow space and open one of those doors, when it would be the pleasantest and easiest thing in the world to slog him over the head with a chair.

He explained all this to Meg as soon as they had shut themselves into the left-hand room. It was a bedroom, very untidy and ill-kept. The torch showed a few inches of guttered candle in a tin candlestick on the narrow ledge above the fireplace. Bill lighted it. Since it was known that they were here, they might as well see what they were doing. The candle flame, very yellow after the blue white of the electric ray, showed a sloped ceiling, a muddle of bedclothes on a pallet bed, and a battered yellow chest of drawers standing under the window with a cracked mirror hanging half out of its frame.

The opposite wall was pierced by a second door. It stood ajar. Bill took the candle and looked in. Another bedroom, overlooking the front door—the old woman's room by token of a red flannel dressing-gown hanging from a peg. He found a second candle, lighted it from the one he was carrying, and left it on the rickety chest of drawers just inside the door. Then he came back with his long, quick stride to listen at the head of the stair. There was no sound from below, no sound at all anywhere. It might have been Robinson Crusoe's house on a desert island. He looked over his shoulder at Meg.

“Get along in there and find some dry clothes. You can't stay like that!”

Meg dripped on the dirty square of carpet. She had discarded her skirt before she jumped into the lake. Her pale silk knickers were horribly smothered with mud and a greenish slime, her bare legs were scratched and bleeding, her grey woollen jumper was a sodden sponge, but her eyes glinted obstinately at Bill.

“If you think I'm going to put on any of that horrible old woman's things—”

Bill scowled ferociously.

“Don't be an absolute damned fool! You can't stay like that! Get along in there and see what you can find! And step on it, because we're going to have visitors, and you'll be happier with some clothes on!”

She stamped a bare foot and said, “I won't!” and then suddenly ran from him into the other room and banged the door.

Her flesh crawled at the thought of Mrs Henderson's clothes. But yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—she had seen a string of washing hanging out behind the lodge, and if she could find something that had just been washed—

She pulled out the drawers and looked. In the top one there was a most extraordinary collection of things—several pairs of old evening shoes; a tattered plush tablecloth which had once been blue; five or six fans—lace, silk, satin, and even paper; at least a dozen handbags; and two fur tippets in a noisome state of decay.

Meg shut the drawer with a shudder, and tried the next one, with better luck. Here were some of the clothes she had seen on the line. A voluminous flannelette night-gown came first to her hand. It was of a horrid greyish colour, but it had certainly been washed and dried again. It was quite, quite dry. Bill was right, much as she hated to admit it. It was a mug's game to stay in these sopping clothes. She peeled them off, took the next garment to rub herself dry, and pulled the night-gown over her head. If felt warm to her chilled skin.

Well, that was that. What next?

She did not feel equal to Mrs Henderson's drawers, which were made of blue and white checked stuff with very long open legs. There was a pair of these, a roll of unmade calico, and some black woollen stockings. As these also seemed to have been newly washed, she put on a pair of them.

Then she pulled out the bottom drawer. It was filled with the same heterogeneous jumble of things as the first drawer she had opened. There were boots, and table-knives, a woollen scarf, yards of frowsty black lace, a packet of candles, some gingerbread nuts, and a horribly draggled red velvet dress. But right on top of all this muddle there was an unopened brown paper parcel with the name of a Ledlington draper on the outside. Mrs Henderson had been shopping, or her so had been shopping for her, and when Meg had torn open the parcel she felt that they had shopped to some purpose, for neatly folded inside the paper was a pair of strong black stockinette knickers and a thick navy cardigan. It took her about half a minute to step into the knickers, blessedly new and clean from the shop, and to tuck the night-gown inside them. She had to double it up from the hem and wrap it about twice round her, but that made it all the warmer, and when it was done and she had put on the blue cardigan and buttoned it up she felt grateful to Bill, and a good deal revived. She bulged—or rather Mrs Henry's night-gown bulged—but she was dry, and the feeling that she had forgotten what it was like to be warm and would probably never remember it again became less insistent.

When she opened the door Bill was still at the other one, listening. The minute she moved he spoke.

“Put out your candle and look out of the front window. No one's come into the house.”

Meg looked out, waited a while, and came back.

“There's someone there—by the gate. I think it's Henderson. I think it was Henderson who fired at us.”

There was a momentary pause. Then Bill said,

“How many of them are there? Do you know?”

“There are the Hendersons—the old woman, and Johnny—he's her grandson—and Henderson—he's supposed to be the chauffeur. I think they're all in it together. I don't think it's the first job they've done together. I think they're all—criminals.”

“I expect they are,” said Bill grimly.

Meg came across the room.

“Then inside the house there are the Millers. She used to be a pick-pocket, but she cried about their drowning me. He's—” She paused and added in a horrified whisper, “very dangerous.”

“Is that all?”

“I've seen another man. I don't think I was meant to see him. I don't know his name. And then—” She broke off. “Bill—you don't know—I'm frightened. Henderson knows we're here. If he doesn't come after us it's because he's waiting for
her
. Someone's gone to fetch her—I'm sure of it—Johnny, or the old woman.
She's
running the show. They won't do anything without her.”

Bill said, “Who?”

As he spoke, he put his arm round her and pulled her up to him. The movement had the same roughness which his voice had had when he told her to go and change. It was the first time Bill had ever been rough to her in his life, and all at once Meg knew why he was rough to her now. They were in a tight place, they were in a horribly tight place, and he was scared for her.

He said “
Who?
” again, and she said, pressing up to him.

“The Cannock—only she isn't really—she was just playing at being the Cannock. She can be anyone she likes. She's been Uncle Henry, and Della Delorne—”

“
What?
” And then, “Tell me—tell me quickly!”

She told him, speaking in a soft breathless whisper with his arm round her, and all the while he leaned against the door, listening to her and waiting for the first sound of a step on the closed-in stair. She left the telling about Robin O'Hara to the last. She said,

“They killed Robin—he's dead. They killed him here. They put him in the water. They were going to kill me the same way. She was going to wear my clothes, and pretend to get into a train at Ledlington so that everyone would think I had gone away, and when I was drowned they were going to drive up to town and put me in the river to make it look as if I'd killed myself.” A shudder went over her. It was unbelievable and horrible, but it had very nearly happened. And what was going to happen now?

“Look here,” said Bill, “we've got to try and get away before anyone else turns up. No, don't shiver and shake like that. Listen! Are you listening?”

Meg nodded against his shoulder.

“If it's only Henderson there, it'll be quite easy. The gate isn't locked—I found the key and opened it. But Henderson thinks it's locked—at least I hope he does—so I propose to make a diversion and see if I can't get him to follow me. I'll draw him away from the gate, and you must slip out, get into the car—it's about twenty yards down the road—and start the engine. Then I'll make a dash for it, and with any luck we'll get clear. If I don't come, drive into the village and raise Cain.”

As he said these last words, there came a gentle knocking on the front door.

XXXII

They looked at each other in the yellow candlelight, drawing a little apart. Meg's hair was ruffled wildly all over her head. There was blood on her cheek, and a long green smear. Her eyes looked darkly bright. She said quickly,

“Bill, shall I go and see who it is? I can look out of the window.”

“No, you stay here—I'll go. But listen, Meg—keep on listening. If there's a sound on the stair, call me.”

He went through to the front room, opened the casement window gingerly, and looked out. The light of a stable-lantern set down upon the doorstep illumined the form of Henry Postlethwaite. The white hair and beard caught the light. He stood wrapped in the folds of his ulster, the broad wide-awake hat tilted off his face, gazing mildly up at the front of the house. As Bill stared at him in amazement, he leaned forward and knocked again upon the door. Then, stepping back, he looked upwards and caught sight of the open casement.