Cosmo Frith stood between the fog and the well. He was breathing hard. He stared in upon the dark. The sound of a scream and the sound of a splash were still in his ears. The dark was before his eyes. But he was safe. He had only to skirt the well, light the candle which stood ready upon the dresser, replace the wooden cover, and be gone. There would be no one to say he had ever come. If the night had been clear, if there had been the remotest chance that the car-Caroline’s car-might have been seen and traced, he would have left the well as it was. And the door open and the car outside. But now he had a better plan than that. Cover the well and lock the door, and take the car as far from Pewitt’s Corner as it would go, and then set about an alibi. Town for him. Telephone calls to friends. Dinner and a theatre. Lights. Music. People…
It came to him that he had only to walk into that life and be safe. Caroline had been the danger, and Caroline was gone-the little fool. He threw up his head and laughed. It had been so easy.
“You little fool!” he said aloud, and laughed again. “You damned little fool!”
The words went into the dark. The damp of the well came up against his face. Get on with it! Get on with the job and get away!
He stepped over the threshold, felt his way by the left-hand wall, and came to the dresser. The ticking of the clock struck on his ear and startled him. He must have wound it last night. What a damnable fool’s trick! What ailed him that he couldn’t keep his hands from a clock? He must stop that ticking before he left.
Candle and matches were to his hand. Miss Silver had seen to the replacing of them. He struck a match, bent over the candle, and watched it light. And looked up to see Rachel standing against the kitchen door. She was bareheaded. The dark coat which she wore hung open over a dark dress, and both were indistinguishable against the background of old time-blackened wood. Her hair showed faintly. Her face was white and wet. Her eyes took up the candle-light and turned it into flame. She said in a whispering voice,
“What have you done with Caroline?”
Cosmo looked back at her, the match with which he had lit the candle still in his hand. A little smoulder of fire crept up the wood and burned him. He dropped the match.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Caroline stirred in the dark shadow behind the door. Gale Brandon had set her down there, and she had fallen in a crouching heap and neither known nor cared what would happen next. But now she stirred, opened her eyes upon candle-light, and saw past Gale, who stood between her and the room, to Rachel whose voice had called her back.
If Rachel was here, she was safe. That was the first thought that came to her. An old association of safety with the familiar voice. Her eyelids began to droop, until a second and dreadful thought startled them wide again. If Rachel was here, nothing was safe any more. The man in front of her moved forward away from the door. Caroline got to her knees, and from her knees to her feet. She had run away from Rachel, and Rachel was here. She must run away again. If she stayed, they would make her speak. She mustn’t speak. All that was left alive in her said that- “You mustn’t speak.”
She led the edge of the door, slid round it, and reached the step. She had to go farther than that. She had somehow to reach the car and drive it away into the fog. Blind and beaten she must do it-for Richard-Richard. The name was like a stab, and the pain of it roused her. Behind her in the room she heard Rachel say in a strained, whispering voice.
“What have you done, Cosmo? You knew the well was open. You sent her in-Caroline. You heard her scream. You laughed-I heard you laugh.”
“Better for you if you hadn’t,” said Cosmo Frith.
Rachel said, “Better for both of us.” And with that Caroline turned and looked back into the room.
She saw then what she had not seen before-the open well. And beyond it Cosmo at the dresser, and Rachel leaning back against the kitchen door.
Gale Brandon stood where the well cover tilted against the table. He was watching Cosmo and Rachel, but she thought they did not see him. They only saw each other.
Caroline watched too. Rachel’s words said themselves over in her mind-“You knew the well was open. You sent her in. You heard her scream. You laughed.” She saw Cosmo as if she was seeing him for the first time. All the easy geniality was gone. There was about him something which even to her dim and exhausted sense spelled danger If a dog looked at you like that, you went warily. But for Cosmo to have that twisted look of hate for Rachel-for Rachel-
Caroline opened her lips to cry out, but no sound came. She was a yard from the step. She tried to move, but she had no power. They spoke in the room-Rachel-Cosmo. Rachel’s words went by her, but she thought she heard Cosmo say, “I’ve always hated you.”
Gale Brandon took a long stride forward. The thing had gone far enough-too far in his opinion. He stood between Rachel and Cosmo Frith and spoke his mind.
“That’s enough of that! You sent that girl to her death, and you’ll have to account for it!”
His voice rang loud where the other voices had been low. He had come out of nowhere with the extreme of suddenness.
Cosmo took the shock with a visible stiffening of every muscle. He straightened up, measured Gale with the eyes which had reminded Caroline of a dangerous dog, and stepped back. The odds were out of all reason, and he was not beyond reason yet. There was still the car. If he could get a start-get away-get over to France. After all, there was no proof-no possible proof. They could never prove that he had uncovered the well. Rachel would keep the police out of it if she could… No, they’d be bound to come in, with Caroline dead-with Caroline dead. But it would be an accident. No one could ever prove that it wasn’t an accident.
All this in the flash between danger and decision. He said aloud,
“I’ve nothing to say to you, and nothing to account for-to you. There’s been an accident, and there’s an end to it.”
With the last word he had turned his back and was skirting the well as he had skirted it before, going right-handed past the larder and the sink, with his head up and his shoulders squared. Miss Silver saw him go. And then he came to the open door and stood there face to face with Caroline. She was a yard away on the flagged path which led up to the step. A glimmer of candle-light showed him her face drowned in the fog. Her eyes were open and empty. They looked at him as drowned eyes look from a dead face. She stood quite still. Everything stood still for a heart-breaking second. It was when she put out her hand with a wavering motion that reason went out of Cosmo Frith. He broke suddenly, dreadfully, screamed some incoherence of horror, and went back from that weak, groping hand-and back-and back.
Gale Brandon tried to reach him, but was too late. It was no more than three steps from the doorway to the well-three steps taken at a rush. And then, hands clutching and balance gone, over the edge and down.
The verse which Rachel had not been able to finish finished itself:
“They have digged a pit and fallen into it themselves.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
The inquest was over, and a verdict returned of death by misadventure, with a recommendation by the jury that the well should be permanently boarded over or furnished with a parapet. There had been terrible moments of strain, but, with so much else that was over, they were over now.
“Will you describe what happened, Miss Treherne?”
The gray-haired coroner was â friend of nearly twenty years’ standing. Thank God for that.
Rachel could hear her own voice now.
“Mr. Brandon and I found the well uncovered. I very nearly fell into it. We warned Miss Silver. Mr. Brandon and Miss Silver stayed in the scullery. I went to answer the telephone. When I came back the door was opening. Miss Ponsonby came in, and Mr. Brandon pulled her out of the way of the well. Mr. Frith followed her. He came round the well and lit a candle.”