Crawford flung his arms around. “Oh, hell. This is too much. This is what I get for treating you civilly...”
Mr. Hunter unexpectedly took his side. “I do think it’s a bit drastic. Must be six or seven tons of coal here. Devilish job. And what — what if we find something?”
Isobel’s mouth tightened. “This is exactly what I expected from both of you. You are a pair of incompetent, ineffectual, muddling little sissies.”
“Oh, come, come,” said Mr. Hunter feebly.
“I should bat you around,” Crawford said, “but I’m too damn tired. Good night, all.”
He moved to the door.
“You mean to say,” Isobel spluttered, “you mean to say you’re actually going to bed? You’d leave me to shovel six or seven tons of coal, you cad?”
“Let them as wants to shovel, shovel,” Crawford said. “I’m C.I.O. and can’t work after midnight.”
“All right, I will!” Isobel shouted.
Crawford’s voice floated back from the other room. “Scab.”
They heard him go up the steps, whistling. Speechless with rage, Isobel swung around and faced Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter, recognizing the symptoms, started to back away from her with a sickly smile on his face.
“This,” Isobel said at last, using the illogical reasoning powers of her sex, “is all your fault.”
“Oh now, Come. I didn’t do a...”
“Hand me that shovel.”
“No, I couldn’t, really...”
“Hand me that shovel!”
Mr. Hunter wisely handed her the shovel and backed away again.
“And now, if you don’t mind,” Isobel said, “you may go upstairs. I have no intention of shoveling coal in front of a witness.”
“I couldn’t leave you here,” Mr. Hunter protested. “If there’s any kind of danger I’d like to share it with you. And I can shovel a bit, too, I suppose.”
It was not a tactful speech. Isobel shouted, “Go away!” and hurled herself at the coal pile.
Mr. Hunter went away and crept guiltily back upstairs.
Ten minutes later Isobel removed her coat and fifteen minutes after that she took off the jacket of her suit. Her nose and throat smarted from the coal dust, and when she put her hand up to wipe the sweat from her forehead it left two long black streaks. But she kept on shoveling, driven by her anger, and eventually she had the satisfaction of seeing that the small pile was growing even if the large pile didn’t appear to be decreasing.
She rested on the shovel a moment. When she straightened up pains shot through her back and her hands were starting to blister, and, what was worse, she was beginning to flag mentally. The whole thing was preposterous, even if two people had disappeared. There might be a secret door or something... something...
She straightened up once more. A little avalanche of coal slid from the big pile and touched her feet. When the cellar was quiet again a voice spoke directly behind her:
“How are you doing?”
She gasped and dropped the shovel and turned around to meet Crawford’s eyes.
“Tsk, tsk,” Crawford said. “Still mad.”
“Not mad,” Isobel said coldly. “Disgusted.”
“Here. Give me the shovel. You’ve had your workout.”
“No, thank you. I’ll do it myself. You’re far too delicate for this kind of work.”
“Don’t be proud,” Crawford said. “Your face is dirty.”
“Well, it’s good, honest dirt!” Isobel shouted.
“Dirt,” said Crawford, “is dirt,” and he gave her a handkerchief and took the shovel out of her hands.
He started shoveling very blithely. Isobel sat on the workbench and watched gloatingly for the first signs of tiredness.
Now and then she called out encouragement: “Oooh! That was a big one! My, aren’t you strong?”
After a time he stood up and said, “Isobel. You still think this is a good idea?”
“I do.”
“All right. I just wanted to know.”
Half an hour later he said, “Isobel, you’re a woman of iron determination. How about let’s compromise? We’ll go to bed now and finish up in the morning.”
“Put some coal on the fire while you’re at it,” Isobel said calmly. “It’s getting chilly in here. Or don’t you think so?”
Crawford, already down to his shirt, said no, he didn’t think so.
It was two o’clock when he laid down the shovel. The two piles were even now. The rest, Crawford said, could be prodded with a poker.
Sometime later they went upstairs together. Neither of them said anything. Isobel was pale and close to tears. Over Crawford’s one arm hung a coat of heavy tan wool with a strip of cloth sewn to the underside of the collar. On the cloth was printed in India ink: “Maurice Hearst. Chateau Neige, Quebec.”
There was no sign of Floraine.
7
They paused in front of the sitting-room door. Crawford kept brushing at the coat absently, and raising little clouds of dust.
“What are you going to do?” Isobel said.
“Wash.”
“About the coat.”
He looked across at her. “What can I do? Put it in a closet, I guess, and forget it.”
“You can’t forget it,” Isobel said hoarsely. “You’ve got some, responsibility.”
“Not a scrap. Me for me is my motto.”
“And you won’t take charge of anything?”
“There’s nothing to take charge of, so far.”
“Isn’t there?” Isobel said. “A bunch of strangers marooned in a house with a crazy woman and the nurse gone?”
“We’ll be out of here as soon as it’s light,” Crawford said.
“Leaving Miss Rudd alone?”
“What do you expect me to do, give her a piggy-back ride?”
“You know we can’t leave her alone here. It would be inhuman.”
“All right, so I’m inhuman — and tired — and dirty... Good night.”
He strode impatiently down the hall and opened the door of the closet where Mr. Hunter had found the snowshoes. He threw the coat inside and closed the door again and made for the stairs. When he was halfway to the top Isobel called softly, “Charles!”
He took two more steps and turned around, frowning.
Isobel said, “You’re not very used to your name. How long have you had it?”
“About twelve hours,” Crawford said easily.
“You look older than that,” Isobel said.
“I am, but don’t tell anybody. Good night.”
Isobel went slowly into the sitting room. Mr. Goodwin had gone to sleep again, so she sat in front of the fire and thought, there’s only one other place Floraine could be.
She could be in Miss Rudd’s room. Probably the rifle that she used is in there, too, since we didn’t find it.
Miss Rudd and a rifle and Floraine, dead or alive, behind one locked door...
But there had been no shot, only the one faint scream. Isobel thought of the balcony along the second floor and wondered if there could be some way of looking into Miss Rudd’s room without unlocking the door. But the balcony was probably unsafe, and she couldn’t go out anyway in this blizzard.
She frowned into the fire and thought, in spite of the cat and the chair flung at Crawford I’m not really afraid of Miss Rudd.
She examined this thought and promptly dismissed it as a lie. I’m afraid of her, she decided, but I can’t accept her actions as purely evil. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing. She can be managed, as Floraine managed her. If I could get sort of unemotionally tough...
She put more wood on the fire, poked it once or twice, and went to the door. When she passed Crawford’s door she heard him snoring already, sleeping the sleep of the just, the pure and the clear of conscience. Highly incensed, she passed on into her own room.