The Annam Jewel (28 page)

With his right hand he picked up the bottle-neck and, using it as a handle, tried to bring the sharp edge of the shoulder to bear on a strand of rope about three inches above his left wrist. The position was a most dreadfully cramped one, and he soon became aware that his wrist was a good deal more vulnerable than the rope. The glass slipped continually, and he could get no real purchase—the edge scratched at the rope without fraying it, and whenever it slipped he cut himself. He let the bottle-neck slip from his numb fingers and began to think again. There was probably an easier way of doing it. If there wasn't, he must have another go. He hoped with some earnestness that a better plan would turn up.

After a bit he stood the end of the bottle up on its base, and tried to saw the rope by moving his wrists to and fro across the uneven edges; but the bottle slid and toppled. All the same, the idea was a good one. If only he could fix the bottle in some way so that it could not move! Peter shook his head impatiently. No use to consider impossibilities. He couldn't fix the bottle, because there was nothing to fix it with.

His mind came back to the big splinter of glass. If he could fix that somehow. Where? Between the flagstones? He leaned sideways and felt with blood-smeared fingers. No, the cracks were filled with cement. With the word crack, he thought suddenly of the door. There were cracks there and to spare—one on either side. Yes, something might be done with the door.

He picked up the splinter, and shuffled forward with it until he came to the jamb of the door. With his back towards it, he felt for the crack on the lock side, and tried the bit of glass in it—turning, shifting, pressing until it jammed and remained wedged. About two inches of glass now stuck out, with a curved, irregular edge. Getting as close to the door as he could, he set his roped wrist against this edge, and brought all the pressure he could to bear on it, so as to fix it still more firmly in position. Then he got to work. By hunching and dropping his shoulders he kept the rope grating against the jagged edge of the glass. In a less awkward position, and with the use of his eyes, the job would have been an easy one, but as it was—well, he set his teeth and was thankful that it was possible at all. The shrugging movement gave him so little play, and involved so much sustained effort, that there were moments when achievement seemed terribly remote. Yet slowly and surely the cord was fraying. Up, down—up, down—up, down—the monotony was suddenly broken by the piece of glass slipping. Do what he could, Peter could not wedge it firmly again. He had to shuffle over to the corner and break what remained of the bottle. It took him three journeys and a great deal of patient effort before he could fix another piece of glass at all firmly in the crack.

The edge of this second bit was not so conveniently curved. As the cord wore through, it became increasingly difficult not to cut himself. Up, down—up, down—up, down—it was frightfully hard work, and a thirst was upon him like all the thirsts in the world rolled into one. He would almost have given the Annam Jewel for a drink of water. The cellar was hot and airless. His mouth was full of dust.

He had been hunching and dropping his shoulders since the year one, and an interminable stretch of time lay before him in which he must continue that slow sawing of rope on glass. If only the glass would hold now! The second strand was through, and the third was well on its way—very difficult not to cut oneself. The first bit of glass was a much handier one—pity it hadn't stayed the course. Up, down—up, down—up, down. Oh, lord, how much more of it? The glass was slipping again; he felt it give, and had to work it back into place, using one of the un-frayed turns of the rope to push with. Then on again until suddenly the last strand gave, and the glass gashed his wrist. He could hardly believe it.

For a moment he leant back against the door. The cessation of effort was grateful beyond words. And then a dreadful thought brought him bolt upright. Suppose he had only cut the rope between two knots and should find himself in the same case as when he began. Not being one of those who allow themselves to be hypnotized by possibilities, he began at once, by jerking and wriggling his arms, to bring one of the cut rope-ends within reach of his groping fingers. Nothing moved. He got the cords against the raised edge of the door jamb and rubbed them on it. An end fell down, brushing his finger-tips. He strained his arms apart, and felt the lashings give a little. He could now work his arms one against the other. His hands were loose. The strain on his elbows slackened. The ropes fell to the floor. His arms were free. He drew in his breath and stretched.

The first stage had been accomplished. He had now to untie his legs. For the moment his hands and arms felt as if they did not belong to him. He went on stretching and moving them until he could feel for and loosen the knots about his knees. When his legs were free, and he could stand, he stamped about the cellar, and would have shouted as he stamped, had he been quite sure that Hendebakker had left no one on guard. Of course, it would save him trouble if somebody opened the door; but, on the other hand, he felt he would rather kick out the lock than risk a charge under the muzzle of an automatic pistol.

When his legs and arms were more or less his own again, he took his bearings carefully, and prepared to deal with the door. He longed for shooting-boots instead of Oxford shoes, but he hoped for luck and kicked out. His heel missed the lock, landing just above it. His shoes scraped on the edge of the iron casing. He lost his balance and sat down hard upon the stone floor. The second kick got home, but the lock held. The third kick smashed it, and the door swung out.

Peter came into the pitch blackness of the passage, and stood there, listening. The door swung back towards him, creaking. He caught it by the edge, and waited, his ears on the stretch. If there was anyone in the house, the odds were that he would have heard that last crash; and yet—Peter remembered that the kitchen floor lay between him and the living-rooms, and he doubted whether a man on the ground floor could have caught any sound from the cellars. Anyhow, no one was coming down. He waited another minute to make sure of this, and then, letting go of the door, he crossed the passage to the opposite wall and began to feel his way to the corner.

He remembered that there was a sort of square hall, and that the steps ran sharply upwards about a yard or two from the turn. He came round the corner, and went on groping forward until he hit his head. The stairs were nearer than he had thought.

He reached the kitchen floor, and had rather a hunt for the next flight; the darkness was confusing, and he could not remember his position. He was glad to come out into the upper hall and to find that the darkness here was less absolute. The fanlight over the front door showed grey.

Again he stood and listened. There was not the slightest sound in all the house; more than that, there was no feeling of human presence. After a moment Peter was so sure that he was quite alone that he walked boldly to the door of the room in which Hendebakker had trapped him, and flung it open. It was darker here than in the hall, but a faint line defined the shutters.

Peter had come to look for his opera hat. He remembered that it had dropped here, and he had hopes that it might be more or less undamaged. He found it collapsed, but not as opera hats are intended to collapse. It had been smashed in sideways, and as a hat it was no more. He left it lying there, and, making his way to the front door, he opened it and came out into the porch. It seemed like the best part of a year since he and Sylvia had stood there together.

Peter guessed that it was about three in the morning. After the dense gloom of the house it seemed quite light out here. He could see things: shapes of trees; a black belt of shrubbery; the line of the gravelled drive. He shut the front door behind him and took his way towards the road.

He would have to walk into Wimbledon, knock up a garage, get a drink—before anything a drink—and induce someone to drive him back to town. He hoped to get to his rooms before daybreak. It was, in fact, something after four and broad daylight when he tiptoed up the stairs. Peter felt that if Jones or Mrs. Jones were to emerge, his character would be irretrievably lost. He had never really discovered whether the Joneses slept in the basement or the attic. It was with feelings of relief that he reached his own room.

A look at himself in the glass increased this relief immensely. Never had he beheld anything so disreputable as his own appearance; his hair wildly uncontrolled and caked with dust; his face—which he had vainly tried to clean with a handkerchief—greyish and smeared with blood; his clothes beyond description. He shed them hastily, rolled them into a bundle, and consigned them to the depths of his clothes-basket.

His left wrist was a good deal cut and scratched, and his knuckles badly barked. None of the cuts was deep, but there was a general effect of gore and grime. He decided that he must have a bath if the roof fell in. Afterwards he would look up a train for Chark, and perhaps get a couple of hours' sleep. If he got a train about nine, that would do. Henders would be off on a false scent to Merton Clevery; a train about nine would get him to Chark by eleven. He must pin a paper on his door, asking Jones to call him at eight.

He had his bath; found that the eight forty-five reached Lenton, the station for Chark, at ten-thirty-seven; pinned up a paper asking to be waked
without fail
at seven-thirty; and in two minutes was deeply, dreamlessly asleep.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Rose Ellen received the Annam Jewel at breakfast. She sat facing a sunny window. The light fell in patches on the polished floor.

“Toppin' day,” said Major Gaisford for the tenth time. “What I say is, by all means go to the sea if you're goin' to have fine weather. If you're not goin' to have fine weather, stay at home.”

“But one can't always tell, dearest,” said Mrs. Gaisford.

“If you're not sure of fine weather, stay at home,” said Major Gaisford. “Rosie, the marmalade is with you. Pass it along, if you can spare it. I say, it
is
a toppin' day, what?”

Mrs. Gaisford said, “Yes, dearest, it is, isn't it?” And then, in an undertone to Rose Ellen, “Now, what do you think about Jimmy's tunics? That blue linen you got—if we use the width of the stuff, we could get out four instead of three. Now, don't you think we
could
use the width? Nurse says we can't; but you know how dreadfully obstinate she is about cutting things out. I
can't
see why we shouldn't use the width. Can you?”

It was at this moment that the door opened and Levitt came in with the post. Mrs. Gaisford had a letter; Major Gaisford had a bill; and Rose Ellen had the Annam Jewel.

“Susie says,” announced Mrs. Gaisford—“oh, dear, I do wish she'd write plainly—Susie says—James, you're not listening—Susie Lamont says that she can come to us from the twenty-ninth to the third—or is it can't? James, does she say that she
can
come or that she
can't
come? It might be either. I do think people should be made to cross their t's.”

Major Gaisford began to hum and haw over the letter. Rose Ellen was looking at what the post had brought her. It was a parcel—from Peter. She couldn't think why Peter should have sent her a parcel—registered too. It wasn't her birthday.

“I shall have to wire and ask her which she means,” said Mrs. Gaisford, resignedly. “Can—can't? No, it's no use, I shall
have
to wire. She'll be horribly cross, but it can't be helped.”

She turned her attention to Rose Ellen.

“Why, child, who's sent you a registered parcel? And why don't you open it?”

“I think it's only flowers,” said Rose Ellen. “It feels damp and smells mossy.”

Major Gaisford burst out laughing.

“Whoever heard of registerin' flowers?” he said. “Flowers? Rubbish! Open it, Rosie, and let's see these precious flowers of yours.”

“They're from Peter, aren't they?” said Mrs. Gaisford. “He writes such a good
plain
hand—I do wish everybody would. I shall
have
to send that wire, and Susie will be dreadfully annoyed.”

“Peter—ha, ha, from Peter, are they?” said Major Gaisford. “She's blushin', my dear, she's blushin'. They
are
from Peter. Rose by name and Rose by nature, what?”

“Now, James,” said Mrs. Gaisford. She shook her head at him, but he was spreading marmalade on buttered toast and chuckling to himself.

“Careful young man to register 'em, what? Open 'em, Rosie, and let's have a look. You have to be dooced careful with flowers, you know. Toppin' idea sendin' 'em to a girl and all that; but you have to be dooced careful.”

He passed his cup to his still frowning wife.

“More tea, my dear, and stronger, and less sugar—the figure, you know, the figure. Yes, dooced careful you have to be, Rosie. Why, I knew a girl—what was her name? Somethin' odd, Anstice—yes, that was it, Anstice Gale—and a feller I knew was gone on her—don't know why, I'm sure, but he was. Well, this girl was dooced keen on the language of flowers and all that—had a book about it; a meanin' for every flower—and this feller who was keen on her thought it 'ud be a toppin' idea to send her some flowers; so he went and did it, and the next thing he knew, she was engaged to another feller. You see, the poor feller had put his foot in it somethin' shockin'. I forget what he sent her—dahlias or peonies or somethin'—but of course the girl went and looked 'em up in her book; and what do you suppose they meant? The poor feller never knew until it was too late that the meanin' was, ‘I regard you with loathin'.' Pretty tall that, what? Shows how dooced careful you have to be, Rosie.” He laughed heartily. “You just open your box, and let's see what kind of a bloomer this young feller of yours has made.”

“They'll make such a mess here,” said Rose Ellen.