“Who pushed her?”
He heard Margaret say that, and then silence fell-a long, cold silence. He did not see Freddy Pelham’s hand drop down upon his knee. He did not see the mockery that looked out of Freddy Pelham’s eyes.
Margaret saw these things. Only a yard away from her there sat someone whom she had never known, someone whose eyes gave her an unbelievable answer to the question she had asked. The silence went on. Margaret’s very heart was cold with it. She began slowly to believe that unbelievable answer; she began to believe the other things which the silence and those horrible eyes were telling her. She would have been very glad to faint, but her mind was clear and steady; it was her heart that was numb with pain.
After a very long time Charles heard her say “Oh!” The sound broke something, for immediately Freddy Pelham laughed.
“So you’ve answered your very naïve question for yourself. As your friend Archie would say, you’ve got it in one. I was aware that Miss Greta Wilson was Margot Standing. And when she so obligingly prattled at my dinner table about a certificate she found, I thought myself justified in taking a slight personal risk when an exceptionally favourable opportunity presented itself. I reached behind you and at the critical moment I pushed her. If you hadn’t interfered, she would have been very neatly disposed of.”
Margaret sprang to her feet.
“You’re mad! You don’t know what you’re saying!”
“People are always mad when they run counter to the established order. I’ve been very successfully mad for twenty years. I have had very few failures, and not one disaster. I am, in fact, a successful madman.” His tone was coldly amused.
“Who are you?” said Margaret. Even her voice shrank.
Charles could guess at the horror in her eyes. He could guess at Freddy’s smile.
“Don’t you know?”
“No.” It was just a breath.
Freddy Pelham put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small automatic pistol.
“I’m afraid you will have to pay the penalty for knowing that I am Grey Mask,” he said.
CHAPTER XLII
The room was silent. Charles could hear nothing, see nothing. He strained, and heard only the horrid beat of his own pulses.
Margaret’s hands had fallen on the back of the chair by which she stood. It was a heavy mahogany chair with an old-fashioned horse-hair seat. Her hands closed on the smooth mahogany in the hard grip that felt nothing. The pillars of her house had fallen. She stood in the disaster and held blindly to the nearest thing that offered support. The shock was too great for crying out; it struck her dumb. She saw the pistol and the cruelty in Freddy’s eyes. She hoped he would shoot quickly. It was too horrible. She hoped he would shoot quickly.
He did not shoot. He balanced the pistol in his hand and laughed.
“I’m glad you didn’t scream. Marvellous self-control! If you had screamed, I should have had to shoot you at once-and that would have been a pity. I should like”-his voice slipped back into the hesitating voice that she had always known-“I should really like now to have a little talk with you first, my dear-a comfortable talk-what?”
Margaret drew a long, deep, shuddering breath, and he laughed again.
“Not any louder than that please.” It was Grey Mask speaking. “I don’t want to have to put an end to our little party just as we’re all really beginning to enjoy ourselves- but I’m forgetting you’re not aware that it is a party. They say three isn’t company; but it does so depend on the three. Doesn’t it? Now you and I and Charles-”
Margaret said “Oh!” It was a quick involuntary cry.
Freddy Pelham took her by the shoulder. She had not known that there could be so much strength in his fingers.
“You haven’t said how d’you do to Charles,” he said. “Come along and have a look at him. He’s been having a most entertaining time, and so have I. It’s time you had a share in the fun. Let go of that chair!” This last was a sharp command with a sort of snarling fury behind it that was quite sudden and very daunting.
Then in an instant, as Margaret’s rigid fingers still held on to the mahogany rail, he struck her across the knuckles with the little pistol. The blow cut the skin.
Charles heard her gasp and catch her breath. The next moment the sofa was pulled aside. Freddy was grinning at him, and Margaret looking, looking with her bruised hands at her breast and sheer heartbreak in her eyes. She said “Charles” and again “Charles” very faintly; and then “Is he-” and long, long pause before her failing voice said, “dead?”
“Not yet,” said Freddy.
Margaret cried out and wrenched away from him.
“Steady now-steady! If you make a noise, I shall have to shoot him here-and now. You can look, but you mustn’t touch. He’s a lovely sight-isn’t he? You needn’t be alarmed by the blood on the side of his head-it’s a mere scratch and won’t interfere in the least with his enjoyment of the next few days. I’m not going to hurt either of you, you know, unless you positively oblige me to-I’m only going to leave you in a comfortable dry cellar where you may, or may not, be found when the ninety-nine year lease of this house has fallen in, in-let me see, it is seventy or seventy-one years’ time from now-I’m really not quite sure.”
Margaret turned on him with a courage which stirred Charles Moray’s pride.
“Freddy, you’re not well. You-what are you saying? Freddy-think!”
Freddy Pelham let his amused gaze touch first one and then the other of them.
“My dear Margaret, it will save trouble if you will realize that you are not dealing with an amiable step-father who has suddenly gone mad, but with a man of intelligence who has built up a most successful business and is prepared to remove anyone who endangers it. Though I dislike you both acutely, I should never have lifted a finger against either of you if you had not foolishly threatened me with the police. I never mix business and pleasure. It will save time if you realize this. As an illustration, I may tell you that the cellar of which I spoke just now was the reason for my buying this house, and for my continuing to stay here all these years. It has often been-exceedingly useful. It was constructed by the eccentric Sir Joseph Tunney in 1795. I came across a reference in an old book of memoirs which caused me to buy this house when it came into the market. When I say that not even your mother has ever suspected the existence of this extra cellar, you will admit that Sir Joseph Tunney was a highly ingenious person. Why, Mark Dupre was there for a fortnight, with the police scouring the country for him, and not a soul ever suspected where he had been. He was wise enough to pay up, and when we had collected the money, he was found-as perhaps you remember-on the top of Hindhead in his pyjamas without the slightest idea of how he got there.”
Margaret had been falling slowly back step by step with her hands out before her as if to keep something away. As Freddy finished speaking, she sank down in the chair by the writing-table, flung her arms across the scattered papers, and bowed her head upon them.
“Well now, we’ll go down and look at the cellar-what?”
The reappearance of the old Freddy was the last touch of horror. Margaret cried out and lifted her head.
“Freddy-there’s one thing-Freddy-mother-will you tell me the truth? What happened? Is she-dead?”
He stiffened.
“That’s a very extraordinary thing to say. What makes you ask a thing like that?”
“An old friend-I met an old friend of hers. She said- she said-she’d seen her a fortnight ago in Vienna. I thought-” Her voice died as he looked at her.
“Who is this-friend?”
“I shant tell you. She only saw her for an instant. She didn’t speak to her. Freddy, tell me!” Her fingers clasped and unclasped themselves, tearing a piece of paper to shreds. “Freddy, tell me!”