Rachel looked at him rather helplessly. The impulse which had made her say “Stop!” had spent itself. She felt lost and rudderless. She said uncertainly,
“I don’t know. I felt we were going the wrong way. I can’t explain it, but you know-when you wake up in the dark and you don’t know where you are, and you move, and run into something, and it comes over you that you’re all wrong-well, that’s the nearest I can get to it.”
“We haven’t run into anything yet,” said Gale, with a laugh in his voice.
“It was a very strong feeling,” said Rachel.
“Haven’t you got it still?”
Her voice sounded forlorn as she said, “I haven’t got anything-I’m all lost.”
He put a consoling arm about her.
“What do you want to do about it, honey?”
Through the lost feeling something pricked.
“I think I want to go back.”
“To Whincliff Edge?”
“No-no, I don’t think so.”
When he had turned the car he said, “All right, where do we go?”
“Back past the turning for Slepham Halt, and then take the left-hand fork instead of the one that goes to Ledlington.”
“And where does that take us to?”
“It takes us to Pewitt’s Corner,” said Rachel.
Chapter Thirty-three
When Miss Silver had gone out of the room and shut the door Caroline Ponsonby sank back upon the pillow and hid her face. She could shut out the light and her own power to see, but she could not shut out Miss Silver’s words. She kept on hearing them just as if they were being actually spoken: “What is it that you know? It would be better for everyone if you would say… It will be better for everyone if you will make up your mind as quickly as possible.” The same words over and over, and over and over again. And the door shutting softly. Her mind was tormented, and through the torment the senseless repetition went on, and on, and on.
When the door was opened again she pressed her face deeper into the pillow and brought her hands up over her ears so that she might not hear. She was past coherent thought and at the mercy of the oldest instinct in the world. Hide your eyes, and stop your ears-make yourself very small and very still, and perhaps they will think you are dead, perhaps the hunt will go by. Every muscle tensed as she pressed herself down against the bed, eyes darkened and ears hearing only the beat of her own blood. She held her breath and waited. No voice came through the silence. No one touched her.
With an infinite strained caution she slackened the pressure upon her ears and listened. There was no sound of breathing but her own. She waited a long time, or what seemed to her a long time, before she lifted her head and looked about her. There was no one there. She was alone in the room and the door was shut, but on the table beside her head there was a folded note with her name typed across it-just Caroline. She stared at it, and then sat up and pushed back her hair. Everything in the room stood out very hard, and sharp, and clear. Her name on the note was black and distinct.
She took up the paper and opened it. There were some lines of typing but no beginning. She read:
Better get away at once whilst they are all at lunch. You’ll get a good start. That woman is a detective.
A shaft of terror pierced her to the very quick. The hard, clear outlines were blurred. The typed lines wavered in a mist. She said, “I won’t faint-I won’t-I won’t!” She fought the mist until it went away and left the paper clear again. She forced her eyes to the sheet and read:
That woman is a detective. If you don’t get away, she’ll make you speak. Take your car to Slepham Old House. I’ll make an excuse and meet you there. We can talk things over and decide what had better be done. You’ll have some time to wait, but you must get out of this or they’ll make you talk. Drive right into the stable yard and wait.
There was a line or two more which terrified her. She sat staring at these lines and at Richard’s name. Richard- Richard-Richard-No, she mustn’t think about Richard, she must only think about getting away.
She ran to the door and locked it, and as she stood there with her hand on the key she heard the lunch bell ring. Suppose someone came to ask her how she was. Suppose it was Rachel. It would surely be Rachel. And at the thought Caroline’s heart stood still. This was misery-to feel an anguish of dread at the thought that it might be Rachel who would come. “But I’ve locked the door. Nobody can come if I’ve locked the door.” She leaned her forehead against it and closed her lids over eyes which were hot and dry. They burned behind the lids. She heard Ernest’s voice, and Mabel’s, and Miss Silver’s. She heard Rachel’s step, she heard it pause. Then the footsteps went past and the voices died away.
She unlocked the door and went back to the bed. Ivy would come up with a tray, and she mustn’t find her up.
She began to tear up the typewritten note, but her hands were shaking so much that she bungled it, and before she had finished Ivy came.
As soon as the girl was gone she jumped up. The torn pieces of the letter spilled. She found some of them and crammed them into her pocket.
A coat-something to cover her head-that old brown hat-some things in a bag-brush-comb… No, what did it matter? Her hands shook too much. Just her handbag then. Money-it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except to get away. A scarf? Yes. Only hurry, hurry, hurry!. Then along to the end of the house, past Richard’s rooms, and down the stair that gave on the garage door. No one there. Rachel’s car-Cosmo’s-Richard’s-her own little Austin. And the tank was full.
She got in, and found her hands were steady on the wheel. The garage slipped away. The drive slipped away. The empty Ledlington road began to slip away. The worst of the terror that had been gripping her relaxed. She was no longer trapped there in that room for anyone to find, to question, to torture. She was out of the trap and away. If she was to be hunted she had a good start, and no one would look for her at Slepham. That was clever. They would make sure that she had gone to London. She had talked of going there-was it yesterday or the day before? She couldn’t remember. Everything was such a long way off… She stopped thinking and watched the road.
It was just after half past two when she turned into the lane with its bordering elm trees which led to Slepham Halt and the Old House. There is a deserted lodge on the right-hand side about half way between the line and the London road. Caroline drove in through moss-grown pillars and along a moss-grown drive to the stable yard.
Slepham Old House had stood empty for twenty years. It was a big ramshackle place of no particular period, and entirely lacking in modern conveniences. Since there is nowadays no market for an ugly house which has thirty bedrooms, one bathroom, no electric light, and a range which takes a ton of coal at a gulp and asks for more, it was likely that it would continue to stand empty until it fell down.
The stable yard was much enclosed. It had that peculiarly chill, deserted feeling which settles about places which have been used by men and left for a long time derelict. There was nothing to bring anyone there, and so from year’s end to year’s end no one came. The house was stripped, the out-houses empty and locked, the stables falling down.
Caroline leaned back in the car and closed her eyes. It was very cold, and it was dreadfully still. She had wanted to be alone, and now she had her wish. The loneliness of the place began to rise about her like a tide.
Chapter Thirty-four
It’s pretty thick ahead,” said Gale Brandon. “How much farther is it?”
“I think that last village was Milstread. We ought to have asked. Everything looks different in a fog,” said Rachel doubtfully.