“Who is this friend?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t know her. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks it was a likeness. Please, please tell me.”
“What does it matter to you now? On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter to me; so, as it happens, I don’t mind telling you. Esther is alive-or was three days ago when her last letter to me was posted.”
“Alive!” The word came with a rash.
“I’ve already told you that it makes no difference to you. It’s very irrational of you to feel any pleasure in a matter which won’t concern you in the least.”
Margaret said “Alive!” again. This time the word was only, a whisper.
Freddy Pelham began to walk up and down the room.
“Yes, she’s alive. If even the strongest of us hadn’t got his weakness, she wouldn’t be alive. She’s been my danger always-always.” He repeated the word with a certain fierce energy. “A man in my line of business should never allow himself a serious affair with a woman-it’s dangerous. You needn’t think of me as a fool who gave way to weakness. No, I always knew that she was my danger point, and I ran the risk deliberately, because she was the only woman I have ever met who was worth it, and because I felt myself strong enough to surmount the danger.”
Margaret’s eyes rested on him with a horrified surprise. Was this Freddy?
He went on talking all the time in a low, hard tone:
“I risked it, and I risked it successfully until six months ago. Then she discovered something. If she had been an ordinary woman, I could have put her off-you know how quick she is. Besides I was not altogether sorry. One gets a little tired of acting the poor fool whose only merit is his capacity for humble adoration. I welcomed the chance of showing myself to Esther as I really was.” He paused, stood in the middle of the room looking down at the pistol in his hand. “I ought to have ended it at once when I found how unreasonable she was. Instead, I went back to my acting-I played the penitent-and ye gods, how women do revel in forgiveness! She produced a plan she considered a stroke of genius-we would go abroad, making her health the excuse. I was to renounce my profession and any profits derived from it. A deliciously feminine piece of impracticability. Well, we went abroad. I allowed Esther to think that she was choosing our route. As a matter of fact, I had a plan of my own. I have for some years possessed a charming estate in eastern Europe. I took Esther there by car. She had no idea of where she was when we got there. Fortune played into my hands; she fell ill after a scene in which I explained my plan to her. Then, I must confess, I displayed weakness. I did not accept what chance offered me. I found myself unable to do so-I found that I could not contemplate life without her. It was a weakness. I temporised. I sent telegrams announcing her death. At one moment I hoped that she would die; at the next I drove three hundred miles to fetch a doctor. In the end she lived. I left her in trustworthy hands and came back. If I found that I could live without her, she could still be removed. If I was unable to conquer this foolish weakness of mine, she could remain in seclusion, and I could so arrange my affairs as to be able to go backwards and forwards. This morning”-He stopped, looked down at the pistol with a cold, furious stare, and then went on quickly: “This morning I heard from her- from Vienna. She had made her way there-how, I shall make it my business to find out. She could not have got away except by treachery-it was impossible. She writes that she is well-that there are things she does not understand- that she is waiting in Vienna for a personal explanation. I propose to give her one that will remove all further danger from my path.”
Margaret turned her eyes from his face. Another moment, and she would have screamed aloud. She caught at the arm of her chair and stood up. She was trembling very much. As Freddy came towards her, she went back step by step, her hands behind her, until she reached the window. She touched the edge of the blind.
Freddy levelled his pistol.
“If you lift that blind or call out, I’ll shoot.”
She shook her head, leaning there with half-closed eyes as if she were about to faint.
“Come away from that window at once! Do you hear! One”-he wheeled suddenly and aimed at Charles- “two-”
Margaret ran forward sobbing and catching her breath.
“No-no-no!”
He caught her roughly by the arm.
“We’ve had enough of this. Come along! Walk in front of me to the door and open it! Remember if you make one sound, it’ll be your last.”
He turned and took an electric torch from a shelf.
Charles saw the door opened. As Margaret passed through it, he thought, with a frightful stab of pain, that he had seen her face for the last time. She looked over her shoulder just before the door swung in and hid her from his sight. He strained with all his might against his bonds, only to realize that he was exhausting himself uselessly. He lay still, and suffered for Margaret. The sudden break in her self-control, the pitiful sobbing-if only she had not broken down-if only her fine pride had held to the last. Charles Moray remembered that he had wished to see it broken.
He remembered all the times she had looked pale, and he had been angry, and all the times she had been sad and he had been cruel. And he remembered that he might have comforted her, and he had not. And now it was too late. He could not tell her now that he had loved her all the time-he could never tell her now. He had meant to tell her. He had meant to kiss the sorrow from her eyes and the sadness from her lips. He had meant to hold her close and hear her say, “Forgive-forgive the years I stole.”…It was too late.
Half way down the stairs Margaret sank down. The hand on her shoulder closed in a bruising grip and jerked her to her feet. They passed out of the hall and through the door leading to the basement. Margaret’s steps faltered; she had to lean against the wall. The hand on her shoulder forced her on and down.
In the basement, the empty kitchen and other offices; and at the back, a small flight of steps that led to the cellars, three in number-one for coal, one full of packing-cases, and the third a locked wine-cellar.
Freddy Pelham unlocked the door. There was a good deal of wine in the bins, and at the far end, a cask or two and some more packing-cases. He shut and locked the door on the inside, and then proceeded to shift one of the casks and to move the packing-cases.
A low, stout wooden door barred with iron came into view behind them. It was barely three feet high, and was secured by three strong bolts.
Freddy shot them back.
“When I bought this house, all this was very cleverly hidden-match-boarding and whitewash-very clever indeed. Without the information which I had extracted from an otherwise extraordinarily dry book of memoirs I should never have found it, and you wouldn’t be here. Let us praise the pious memory of Sir Joseph Tunney.”
He pushed the door, which opened inwards. A horrible darkness showed beyond. He stood back with the mockery of a bow.
“It’s perfectly dry, and on the warm side. Your last hours should be quite comfortable.”
Margaret leaned against the packing-cases.
“And if I won’t?”
“I shoot you here and push you into that most convenient vault. In with you!”
“Freddy-” The word died on her lips. There was nothing to appeal to. There wasn’t any Freddy. There was only Grey Mask.
She had to bend almost double to pass that horrible low door. Freddy’s torch threw a dancing ray beyond her into the darkness. Her head swam as she watched it flicker. The rough floor seemed to tilt and tremble. Her foot slipped and she fell forward. Behind her the door slammed and she heard the bolts go home. The flickering ray was gone. It was dark.