“Rose!” he called shakily. “Rose!”
It took a full minute, and another swig at the bottle, before he could get a grip on himself again.
Rose was lying just as he had left her. She was quite dead.
Cayley took another, smaller mouthful of whisky and set the bottle down on the shelf with a hand that no longer shook. What a fool he had been! Everything had gone splendidly. All he had to do now was to proceed with his plan.
It was a good plan.
To her mistress in Merchester and to her only living relative, an elderly aunt, living in Streatham, Rose had written, on Cayley’s instructions, that she was going out to Canada to be married. Canada somehow sounded more convincing than America. Rose really had believed that Cayley was going out to Canada, to open a branch there for his firm.
Over her luggage Cayley had been equally clever. Rose was to have left Merchester that afternoon for London, and deposited her trunk at Liverpool-street Station. In a busy place like Liverpool-street Rose would never be noticed or remembered. Equally unnoticed, Cayley would be able to claim the trunk later with her check that would be in Rose’s handbag, and dispose of it at his leisure. There would be nothing at all to connect him with Rose’s disappearance.
Rose had made objections, of course. When, in Merchester, she was only half-a-dozen miles from Cayley’s cottage, why travel all the way up to London and come back to Stanford? But Cayley had been able to convince her. He was not leaving for Canada till the next day.
It was essential that Rose should not be seen coming to the cottage. If she were, her good name would be lost, even though they were getting married in London the next morning before sailing. The argument had gone home, for Rose was always very careful about “what people would say.”
So though she had demurred at the expense, for she had a parsimonious mind, Rose had in the end consented. If she had not consented, Cayley would never have dared to kill her. Rose had agreed to her own death when she agreed to take her trunk up to Liverpool-street Station.
Cayley stood now, looking down at her.
He was no longer afraid of Rose’s dead body. The whisky he had drunk was making him sentimental. Two tears oozed out of his eyes and ran absurdly down his cheeks. Poor old Rose. She had not been such a bad sort, really. It was a shame that he had had to kill her. A rotten shame. Cayley wished very much that he had not had to kill Rose.
In a flash, sentiment fled before a sudden jab of terror.
Suppose Rose had not brought the check for the trunk with her after all! Suppose she had left it somewhere, or given it to someone else to claim for her! Cayley saw now that he had left this weak spot in the armour of his plan.
He had taken no steps to ensure that Rose should have the check with her: he had simply taken it for granted that she would. And if she had not, and he were unable to claim the trunk, everything would miscarry. In that case the trunk would sooner or later be opened, and then it would be known that Rose had disappeared, and then...
Cayley shivered with fear.
In vain he tried to point out to himself that even if it did become known that Rose had disappeared, there would still be nothing to connect her disappearance with himself. In Merchester he had always kept very quiet about his relations with Rose. But his mind, numb with panic, refused to accept the reasoning. Everything hung for him on the vital question: had Rose brought the check with her?
Rose’s handbag lay on the floor, half underneath her. Cayley pushed her body roughly aside to snatch it up. His fingers shook so much that he could hardly open it.
The next moment he uttered a sob of relief. The check was there. “One trunk...” The words danced before his eyes. He was safe.
He took another pull at the whisky-bottle.
He was safe: and now he must proceed, quite calmly, with the rest of his plan.
Cayley would never have believed that Rose was so heavy.
It had seemed simple, in advance, to put her into the side-car, prop her there to look natural, and drive with her to the disused quarry, where her grave was already prepared, and the spade waiting to fill it in. But now that it had come to the point, it was dreadful to have to pick her up and stagger with her through the darkness, like a sack of potatoes in his arms. Cayley was gasping for breath by the time he reached the side-car.
But the physical effort had helped him. He was no longer nervous. He was exultant. It takes courage and brains to commit a successful murder. Cayley, doubtful at times before, knew now that he had both. And there were people who thought him — Cayley knew they did! — a weakling, a little rat. Now he could smile at them. Rats can bite.
Before he set out for the quarry, Cayley went back to the shed. The candle had to be put out, and he wanted to have a good look round to make sure that no traces were left. The risk was infinitesimal, but Cayley was not taking even infinitesimal risks; and there are always tramps.
There were no traces. Only a few spots of blood on the leather of the cushion, which Cayley wiped off with a wisp of cotton-waste, burning the waste at once in the flame of the candle. No one could possibly tell that a newly-dead body had been lying in that shed.
Before he blew out the candle Cayley pulled the precious check for the trunk out of his trouser-pocket, where he had stuffed it, in order to stow it away more carefully in his wallet. It was funny how he had nearly lost his head just now over a little thing like that. He glanced through it gloatingly before tucking it away. The wording, which before had shimmered in a blurred way before his panic-stricken eyes, was now soberly legible.
The next instant his heart seemed to stop beating. Then it began to race faster than the engine of his own motor-cycle. For the check was not on Liverpool-street at alclass="underline" not even on Stanford. It was on the station quite close to Cayley’s cottage. Rose had not been up to London. She had kept the money Cayley had given her, and travelled only to the local station. Cayley had committed the fatal mistake of under rating Rose’s parsimony. And by her parsimony Rose had ensured that her last appearance alive should be inevitably connected with her lover.
With a sick horror Cayley sat down in the doorway of the shed and nursed his head in his hands. Then he moaned aloud. What was he to do now? What, in Heaven’s name, could he do now?
Cayley never knew how long he had sat like that, in a lethargy of self-pity and despair, nor how long it was before coherent thought returned to him. The first shock, which galvanized his mind into activity once more, was the realization that all this time Rose was waiting for him — waiting, in the side-car. Cayley choked down the hysterical laugh which leapt in his throat. Rose never had liked waiting.
He jumped up.
Instantly, as if it had only needed the reflex action of his muscles to stimulate his brain, he saw that the position was not, after all, so desperate. The trunk would remain in the cloakroom for days, perhaps for weeks, before anything was done about it. By that time Cayley could, if the worst came to the worst, be in South America.
But perhaps the best thing to do would be to claim it boldly, in a day or two’s time. It was quite unlikely that the porter-cum-clerk would remember who had left it. Rose was not known there. It was not as if suspicion would ever be roused. Suspicion is only roused when a person is reported missing. Rose never would be so reported. No, the position was not desperate at all. Cayley’s spirits began to rise. The position was not even bad. Except for a small adjustment or two, his plan still held perfectly good.
He began to whistle as he wrapped a rug carefully over Rose, and drove her off. It was only a couple of miles to the quarry. In a quarter of an hour the whole business would be done.