Nothing Venture (34 page)

As far as the lodge, she had the shelter of a high bank of evergreens. She could hear the wind overhead with a sound like the flight of great airplanes passing. The noise deafened her. When she had passed the lodge, the full force of the storm caught her. Rosamund was a strong woman, but she could not keep her feet. There was a quarter of a mile of exposed road between the lodge and Old Foxy Fixon's house, and for the most part of the way she was crawling on hands and knees.

It was four o'clock before she made the house, and all the breath was out of her. She stood in the porch, a bare, half hollowed arch, and beat upon the door. The wind flung her into the passage, and flung the door back against the wall as Robert Leonard lifted the latch. It took both of them to get the door to again. There was a light in the office, a paraffin lamp with a white china shade. The steady yellow glow gave a curious impression of stillness. There is no light so still as lamp-light. It seemed to Rosamund as if the room was holding its breath. She struggled for her own. She needed all her composure for this interview with Robert.

She stood just inside the door waiting. She had wondered whether he would be up, or whether her telephone call had roused him from sleep. She thought not; he was dressed in his usual rather loose tweeds. Her eyes went beyond him, and saw a suit-case, half packed, standing on a chair. Then she struck through the angry expostulation which had been flowing past her.

“Are you going away?”

“If I choose,” said Robert Leonard.

Rosamund straightened herself.

“Why?”

“That's my business.”

“Where's Jervis?”

Leonard went over to the suit-case and closed it.

“Not much of a night to travel.”

“Why are you going?”

“Best for you, and best for me. You'll finish us both if I stay. It's damnfool madness your coming here like this! The thing was as safe as houses if you'd kept out of it. As it is—” he shrugged his shoulders—“I'm off before you fit a rope round my neck.”

“I said, where's Jervis?” said Rosamund.

“Where should he be?”

“I'm going down to see.”

“No, you're not!”

She put out her hand.

“I want the key of the gate.”

Robert Leonard laughed.

“You're a day after the fair!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I fancy you'd have to dive to find the padlock.”

She stood quite still for a moment, and then turned to the door, but before she could reach it she was flung on one side.

“Robert! How dare you?”

Robert Leonard put his shoulders against the door and laughed.

“
Finito!
” he said.

“Robert!”

“My dear Rosamund, you're making a fool of yourself. The water's well up to the roof of the cave by now, and all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't get Jervis out of it.”

“I'm going down.”

“You're not!”

Rosamund walked to the telephone and took off the receiver.

“Give me Croyston police station.” Then she covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Am I going down?”

She looked into the mouth of Robert Leonard's automatic only half a yard away.

“Going to shoot me, Bob?” she said.

“Not unless I'm obliged to.”

Her eyes held his.

“I'm worth something alive. I wonder how long I'd have to live if I weren't.”

“Come off it!” said Robert Leonard. “And come off trying to bluff me! That was bluff just now—you don't get a Croyston operator as quick as all that in the middle of the night.”

A faint thrumming came from the instrument. It throbbed against the palm of her hand. She pressed the palm closer.

“Yes, that was bluff—but it won't be this time. Am I going down? The operator's there now all right, and he'll hear if there's any shooting.”

Robert Leonard flung his pistol down on the table.

“Hang up that damned receiver!” he said.

Rosamund hung it up.

“Now look here—I'll tell you the whole bed-rock truth. I never thought of the high tide any more than you did. I was out to scare him. I thought he was just about ready to come across, and we wanted the money—didn't we? Then you rang up and said your piece about the tide. Well, I wasn't to know you were liable to get a crazy tide when there was a storm—was I? I did my best. I went down into that damn passage and found the whole place under water. I tried to get to the gate and unlock it. If you don't believe me, go into the bedroom and look at the clothes I've just taken off—I've had to pitch them into the bath, or the water would be coming through the ceiling. I went in up to my neck—I couldn't do more than that. I suppose you didn't expect me to drown myself?”

“No,” said Rosamund—just the one word, hard and cold. Then she put out her hand. “Give the key—I'm going down.”

“I'm damned if you are!”

She walked to the door, and met his outstretched arm.

“Let me pass, Bob!”

“Not much!”

She struck him a stinging blow in the face, and at the same moment there came the sound of loud and heavy knocking upon the back door.

Robert Leonard's clenched fist was stayed in its descent.

Rosamund set the hand with which she had struck him against his breast, holding him off.

“Let me pass, or I'll scream!”

The knocking continued—hard, heavy knocking.

“Who is it?” said Rosamund suddenly. The fight had gone out of her. Instead of holding him off she pressed against him.

“I don't know. They mustn't see you.”

And with that the knocking ceased.

Leonard opened the door and stepped out into the passage; and as he did so, the wind blew in through the kitchen, and along with it came Bran, and separated from him by a short length of chain, Mr Ferdinand Fazackerley. They seemed to be in a hurry.

Robert Leonard shut the door sharply behind him. He thought regretfully of the automatic on the office table.

Bran pulled on his chain, growling, and Ferdinand said,

“I guess I've no time to apologize. Your folk aren't slick at answering doors, so we walked right in. We're calling for Mrs Weare.”

“For Mrs Weare?” said Leonard.

“For Mrs Jervis Weare.”

“I don't understand. It's Mr Fazackerley, isn't it?”

“Where is she?” said Ferdinand sharply.

Robert Leonard made a gesture.

“I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

“You'd better have! I'm putting all my cards on the table. I got back from a wild goose chase an hour ago, and I found a note from Nan to say she was coming here to find Jervis. Well, I've come here to find both of 'em, and Bran's come along to help me—so you can get a move on—I'm liable to get tired holding him.”

“I really don't know what you're talking about, Mr Fazackerley.”

Ferdinand lengthened the chain, and as Leonard jumped back, the great door ran snuffing up the passage. He passed the door through which Leonard had come, and pushed whining against the one opposite. Nan had stood behind it listening, but the room was empty now. Ferdinand with a quick movement flung open the other door, and was taken completely aback. Rosamund Carew was leaning on the study table with her hands behind her, half sitting, half standing in an attitude of careless indifference. Ferdinand dropped Bran's chain in his surprise.

“Isn't this a very early visit?” said Rosamund. “Hullo, Bran!”

The dog wrinkled his brows, snuffed the air, and backed away from her outstretched hand.

“Where's Nan?” said Ferdinand.

“Well—not here.”

“She said she was coming here,” Ferdinand began; and then he saw Leonard's pistol lying where he had thrown it across the dingy blotting-paper. He walked past Rosamund and pocketed it, then turned to see Bran with his nose to the ground.

“Seek her, boy—seek her!” he said, and followed back to the kitchen, and across the kitchen to a door behind the dresser where Bran scratched and whined. All the light there was came from a guttering candle set down at random on one of the shelves.

As they went down the steps into the cellar, Robert Leonard let himself out of the front door, and was at once beaten to his knees by the wind. He had to crawl thirty yards to reach the shelter of the garage. His suitcase lay forgotten in the office.

Rosamund came down into the cellar with Fazackerley and Bran. If Jervis was dead, she had done with Robert—but he should have his chance to get clear.

The cellar was full of strange shadows; they rushed downwards when Fazackerley lifted the candle and looked about him. Bran was sniffing and scraping at the trap. Ferdinand Fazackerley set down the candle on an up-turned packing-case. He was soaked and grimy, his face white beneath its freckles, and his red hair wildly rumpled.

Suddenly Bran threw up his head and broke into a loud baying.

Rosamund had a moment of pure terror. As vividly as if it were happening now, she saw Basher lifting the trap, and her head and Jervis close together, craning over the dark hole. She dug her nails into the palm of her hand, and the picture was gone. The trap was closed. The barrel that masked it cast a shadow that ran up the wall and wavered there.

Ferdinand began to roll the barrel away, and as he did so, there came a knocking on the underside of the trap.

Rosamund stood where she was, and saw the barrel and the shadow of the barrel move together. She saw Ferdinand take hold of the iron ring that had been under the barrel and heave. She saw the trap rise, and Bran's great head thrust forward. He whined frantically. And then she saw Jervis coming up out of the trap, and her heart stood still and her bones turned to water. He came up out of the dark. The faint candle-light showed his drenched hair, and his ghastly pallor, and his eyes set and staring. A drowned man might look like that. Then he came up higher, and she saw Nan's face against his shoulder deathly white. Her eyes were closed, and her lips a little parted. She looked most piteously young.

Jervis took a step forward and then stopped, and there was a sudden dead silence.

Then, as Ferdinand Fazackerley reached for her wrist, Nan opened her eyes and looked all about her like a child waking in a strange place. Her gaze passed Rosamund and rested on Ferdinand.

“Did you—find us?”

“Bran found you.”

Jervis set her down, and she stood leaning against him with a hand on Bran's head. Rosamund might not have been there at all.

“Where's Leonard?” said Jervis harshly.

Ferdinand exclaimed and ran up the cellar stairs. The front door stood open, and the wind blew through the house. The light of a stormy dawn came with it. As he crossed the threshold, he saw Robert Leonard's car go labouring through the gate. And with that there fell a lull. He started to run after the car with a hand on the pistol in his pocket and Jervis coming up behind him. The car, still running heavily, began to take the steep descent.

Jervis was running with a long shaky stride and heaving panting breath. They came to the top of the hill, and saw the car below them gathering speed. The wind had shifted a point and blew past them down the hill. Jervis stopped, gasping for breath, and caught at Ferdinand's arm. They might as well have hoped to catch the wind as to catch the car with the gale behind it.

And then, in a moment, the thing happened. The car lurched, skidded, and swung across the road. It struck the low stone parapet and crashed through it. There was an instant when it hung there, black against the grey emptiness beyond. Then the last huge gust of the storm struck it full, and it dropped like a stone into the sea.

Jervis stood there swaying on his feet. The great gust failed and died. They stood looking at the gap in the wall and the wet, empty road. Suddenly Jervis flung round with an arm over Ferdinand's shoulder.

“Let's get back to Nan, F.F.” he said. “I want to take her home.”

About the Author

Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1932 by J.B. Lippincott Company

Cover design by Maurcio Díaz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3322-0

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10038

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