Weekend with Death (29 page)

She thought, “They have put Sarah in the courtyard and shut her in to freeze and die.”

She held the brown suit and the fur coat over her left arm, and the candle in the other hand. The coat was heavy, but she hardly noticed the weight. Her mind was quite taken up with how to get into the courtyard and let Sarah out.

She came down the stair again and into the hall, but this time she turned to the left. She pushed her way through the baize door and left it to swing to behind her. She found herself at one end of a narrow flagged passage. In front of her on the left there was a stair that went up between walls. She could only see the bottom step, the rest was shadow. A little farther on on the right was the open kitchen door, and, facing her at the end of the passage, what she had counted on finding there—the door into the yard. She had not thought about it consciously, but she had been quite sure that it would be there. There always was a door leading into a yard from kitchen premises. In a small house you would have to go through the kitchen and scullery to get to it, but not in a house like this.

She went past the stair and past the kitchen door. The kitchen was dark and warm. There was a little glow from the sunk fire. When she came to the door into the yard she set her candle down on the floor and unlocked it. It was only locked, not bolted, and the key turned easily. When she had opened the door she picked up the candle again and stood on the threshold looking out.

Sarah did not know how long she had been in the yard. Just for a little while the hot tea had warmed her, and Mrs. Grimsby's kindness. Then the glow faded and an icy, bitter cold pressed in upon her. It was not just the cold of frost and wind. It was the cold of separation and betrayal. She seemed to have come to an end. Presently Mrs. Grimsby would come and draw back the bolts and let her out into a desolate wilderness. What was she going to do there? Walk until weakness betrayed her and she fell in the snow to freeze. That she could reach Hedgeley seven miles away did not seem possible. She could find in herself no strength, no determination of the will, no passionate desire to live. Any one of these things might have taken her there, but she had none of them. Her strength was sapped, her will quiescent, and her desire to live had drained away. She was very cold. The blanket kept slipping. If she hung it over her shoulders, the frost struck upwards from the ground and numbed her. If she folded it under her, the cold struck at her very heart. In the end she stood and clutched it round her. Every now and then she walked a little, moving along in the shelter of the wall with her feet on the snow.

She had been as far as the gate, and was coming back, when she saw Joanna's candle and stood to stare at it. Of all living things Joanna Cattermole was the last she could have looked to see, standing there in the open mouth of the passage with the candle in her hand. The flame of the candle moved in the wind. The wild, light halo of Joanna's hair moved like blown thistledown. Joanna's eyes peered vaguely into the snowy dusk.

All at once Sarah began to run. She stumbled on the blanket and caught it up. She came slipping and stumbling and running into the circle of candle-light and held by the jamb of the door to keep herself up.

Miss Cattermole let Sarah's clothes slip down upon the passage floor. She put a finger to her lips and said,

“Hush—hush—we mustn't make any noise. I've brought your clothes.” Then, with a sudden note of curiosity in her voice, “My dear, what have you got on?”

Sarah came past her and shut the door. It shut out some of the cold. She looked fearfully at the kitchen door and saw that it was open, and the room dark behind it.

Miss Cattermole held up the candle and looked at her with astonishment. She did not know quite what she had expected to see, but the sight of Mrs. Grimsby's second-best coat, black, voluminous, and almost trailing on the ground, surprised her very much. Above its ragged fur collar Sarah's face quite white, her little pill-box hat slipped into something more than the fashionable tilt, and the veil dragged down over a falling strand of hair.

Sarah let the blanket drop and began to unbutton the coat.

“I've brought your clothes.” Joanna spoke in a breathless whisper. “Oh, my dear, you must get away quickly. We ought never to have come here. I told you there was evil in this house. You must get away quickly. They are very wicked men.”

Sarah nodded. She let the coat fall on the top of the blanket and began to pull on her own skirt and jumper over Mrs. Grimsby's grey knickers and thick woollen vest. Then she picked up her coat and slipped into the soft, warm fur. A long shudder went over her. All this time she had not spoken, and still she did not speak.

Joanna Cattermole put up a thin, shaky hand and tried to straighten the little crooked hat.

“I don't know what to do,” she said in a whispering voice. “They were in Mr. Brown's room talking—downstairs, in his den—but he called him Paul—he did it twice. It seems strange when his name is Peter, but Wilson called him Paul. If we go through the hall, perhaps they will hear us. They were talking, you know, and they said you were in the yard. You know the door doesn't shut, and I listened, and they said you would freeze, and they said—oh, my dear, they said that Morgan was dead!”

Sarah spoke for the first time. She said,

“But he was here. I heard his voice this afternoon.”

Joanna fell back a step and shook her head.

“They said he had been dead for two years. It couldn't be true—could it? But they said it. They said Wilson had dressed up and pretended to be Morgan. It was for some bad purpose, my dear—to get some papers out of your room. He told me to say I had had a dream, and to keep you with me as long as I could, but I thought it was one of Morgan's practical jokes—he was always so fond of joking. I wouldn't have done it if I had thought there was any harm in it. I wouldn't have done it for Wilson—but I thought it was Morgan.”

Sarah said, “Stop!” She put a hand to her head, felt the loose strand of hair, and pinned it up. Then she said slowly,

“Mr. Cattermole spoke to me on the telephone whilst you were in the drawing-room with Mr. Morgan.”

Joanna shook her head.

“It was a gramophone record—they talked about it. They didn't know I was listening. They said Morgan was dead. Oh, what are we going to do?”

Sarah was being forced back to life and thought. Joanna's effort had spent itself. She stood confused and helpless with the tears running down her face. Sarah took her by the arm.

“Will you do just what I say? You will—won't you?”

Joanna nodded.

“I want you to go back to your room. You needn't go into the hall at all—this stair comes out in the passage. Take Mrs. Grimsby's coat and blanket with you. They'll kill her if they know she helped me. You must find a way of giving them back to her tomorrow, and tell her if there's anything I can ever do for her, I'll do it. Now go quickly! And thank you a million times!”

“What will you do?” said Joanna with a sob.

Sarah kissed her.

“Get out of the dining-room window,” she said.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Sarah dropped from the window ledge and, steadying herself, looked back. The dining-room was dark behind her. She had closed the door into the hall. She tried now to close the window, and succeeded in pulling it down to within an inch or two of the sill, but there it stuck and there she had to leave it. It did not matter—nobody was likely to come into the room until the morning. She wondered how far the night had worn. Then she turned resolutely and made her way towards the stable yard.

She came soon upon the track which they had trampled down when they came back from the car. She set her feet on it with relief. It was much easier to walk on than the untrampled snow. But there were seven miles of snow between her and Hedgeley.

She stopped thinking about Hedgeley. It did not matter. She thought about the car, and John Wickham lying there in the ditch. And with that she turned the corner of the haunted wing.

A yard away on the frozen track someone moved, tall and black against the white dimness of the snow. John Wickham stood above her and said her name, and when she put out her hands with a soft, desperate cry the hands which took them were living hands. They held her up with a hard, insistent clasp. His voice said,

“I was coming for you. Good girl! Now we've got to hurry.”

Between one breath and the next everything was changed. The effort of despair was gone. She felt a rushing joy, an invincible sense of life and hope. They went quickly and without words until they were clear of the stable buildings and well away on the cart track. He kept his arm through hers and held it close. Then he said,

“I had to get the car out of the ditch. It's been a job.”

Sarah said in a dreaming voice, “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I wanted them to think so. Anyhow there was no harm in trying it on. I wasn't quite sure whether they'd think I was trying to stop you going off with the car, or aiding and abetting, and if they thought that, it was all up with us both. So I thought I'd be a corpse. I really was a bit knocked out to start with, but fortunately I came round before they got a torch on to me, because I was able to do a very useful imitation of a broken neck. I reckoned they would want the smash to look as natural as possible, in which case they would do just what they did do and leave me be without touching me. I let them get well away and then started in getting the car off the bank. The front wheels were hitched up, and I was afraid they'd drop when I began to back her away, so I had to fill in the ditch with snow and ram it down to make a track. I couldn't go at it too hard—I was afraid of starting that damned scratch again.”

“Are you all right?” She turned to peer at him, seeing only height and blackness against the snow.

He laughed.

“Don't be a fool! You know, I'm tired of telling you that. I told you it was only a scratch.”

An almost unbearable happiness warmed her.

“I don't believe everything I'm told.”

And then they were coming out between the pillars on to the road and the car loomed up.

To remember in what desolation she had stood there no more than an hour ago was strange.… It must be less than an hour.… The earth had broken under her feet and the sky had fallen in. Now she was back in a safe world. It was the nightmare which had broken and let them through.

As the car moved and the hedges began to slide away on either side, she thought, “It's true—we're going to get away.” There was nothing to say about it. She leaned back and saw the beam of the hooded light make a shining path for them.

When they came out on the moor she drew a long sighing breath. Now they were safe. Now surely nobody could catch them. This time she spoke her thoughts.

“They can't catch us now.”

“I don't know about can't—they won't.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Hedgeley, I think. Look here, is there anything you can charge them with if we go to the police? I want them pulled in, and at once, but I don't want to play my stuff in a local police station. But if they used any force to you—”

Sarah looked straight in front of her.

“They took away my clothes and shut me out in the yard to freeze.”

His left hand came down hard upon her knee.

“
Sarah!”

“They reckoned I'd be unconscious by the morning. When I was almost dead they were going to put me to bed and send Grimsby for a doctor. They weren't sure how much I knew about those papers. And then of course there was Emily Case. I suppose one of them killed her.”

He nodded.

“Yes—Grimsby. Sarah, have you got those papers? They're awfully important.”

“Yes, I've got them. I threw a sham packet down the well when they were taking me back, and they think they know where they are, so they're not bothering. I tore some pages out of a book in your room and wrapped them up in the lining-paper out of a drawer and my neck-handkerchief. I threw them down the well, and Mr. Brown laughed and said it was a nice safe place. So then they didn't bother me any more—they just wanted to be rid of me, and to make sure I'd freeze in the yard.”

He said, “
Sarah!
” again, and then, “How did you get out?”

She told him.

“Mrs. Grimsby saved me really. You won't let her go to prison, will you? She thought they'd kill her, but she helped me all the same. John—what is it all about? What are those papers? They tried to kill you for them, and they did kill Emily Case, and they were going to kill me. What is it all about?”

There was a moment's silence. Then he said,

“Can't you guess?”

She said soberly, “I've been guessing ever since Emily put the packet into my bag. Now I want to know.”

“Did you look at the papers?”

“Of course I did—a lot of names and addresses all over the place, and a photograph of a bald man called Paul Black or Blechmann.”

“A photograph of the Reverend Peter Brown.”

Sarah cried out.

“Oh! Joanna said that Wilson called him Paul! But he isn't bald—he's simply smothered in hair.”

“You can get away with a hairy wig much better than one with a civilized hair-cut. Paul's as clever as they're made. Lots of hair, lots of beard, untidy clothes—beard, tobacco, folk-lore—don't you see how it all hangs together? Professors and parsons are his long suits. But didn't you notice that he hadn't any eyelashes? That's why he wears glasses. He doesn't need them, you know—his eyes are as good as mine.”

“Who is he?”

“Head of Hitler's Fifth Column over here. And the names and addresses are those of his agents—key men. I had a fake attack of influenza and went over to get them. Thanks to another man's extraordinarily clever work I succeeded. But I hadn't much start. I passed the packet to Emily Case after I was stabbed, because I wasn't sure of keeping my senses and I knew they'd be on the look-out for me in Paris. They'd have had me too if a friend of mine hadn't turned up in the nick of time. As it was, I couldn't get on until next day, and the first thing I saw when I landed was a headline about Emily Case.”