Elliot leaned against the footrail of the bed with his hands in his pockets and said with a spice of malice,
“Well, you had a minute or two to confess in before I came along-didn’t you?”
Albert shook his head.
“No, I didn’t. Lane was in the study when I got there, putting out a tray of drinks-he can speak to that. And I wasn’t there half a minute behind him. I suppose nobody imagines I had time to confess to whatever it is in about thirty seconds.”
“It would be quick work.”
“Very well. Then if I stay here till after twelve, they can’t put it on me.”
Elliot raised his eyebrows. The hands on the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to a quarter past ten. He had never cottoned to Albert, he was not cottoning to him now. Nearly two hours of Albert neat was a stupefying prospect. Of all things in the world, he desired to be alone. He said in the driest tone at his command,
“I should cut it out and go to bed.”
Albert looked obstinate. All the Paradines could be obstinate, but it was his mother, born Millicent Paradine, who had been nicknamed Milly the Mule.
“I have my character to consider.”
Elliot produced an agreeable smile.
“I could always lock you in and take away the key.”
Albert’s resemblance to the late Mrs. Pearson was intensified. He walked over to the easy chair and sat down.
“I might have another key. I’m not taking any risks. Besides, have you thought about your own position? Cousin Grace doesn’t exactly love you, you know, and what goes for me goes for you. If we sit here together, she can’t put anything on either of us. See? I can say you weren’t in long enough with him to do any confessing. So it will be all O.K. for both of us.”
The situation could hardly have been more tersely summed up. The facts were as stated. That there was a certain humour attaching to them was obvious to Elliot. He resigned himself to the inevitable.
Albert having annexed the only armchair, he seated himself upon the bed and prepared to endure. He would at least not be called upon for very much in the way of conversation. No one in England could better sustain a monologue than Albert. A competent analysis of Japanese foreign policy for the last twenty years led on by a natural transition to a résumé of the personal history and career of Marshal Chiang Kai-Shek. The words flowed over Elliot without really impinging upon his mind or impeding the processes of his thought. They were even vaguely soothing. Albert’s voice rose and fell. There was not the slightest need to listen to what he was saying. Elliot did not listen.
He came to the surface at intervals and was aware of Albert discoursing on Communism, on Proportional Representation, on the life history of the eel, but for the most part he remained submerged beneath the flow of his own thoughts and of Albert’s persistent monologue.
Chapter 9
As soon as Phyllida had closed the drawing-room door behind her she picked up her long white skirt and ran like the wind, up the stair, along the passage and into her room which was at the end of it. Before she so much as switched on the light she was turning the key in the lock. Nobody was going to come and talk to her tonight, not for anything in the world. The door was locked, and locked it would remain.
She put on the light and looked about her with relief. After the crimson and mahogany of the rest of the house the room was charming-cream walls, and pale blue curtains with a delicate pattern of shells; quite modern furniture, silver-grey and polished only by hand; a silver bed with pale blue sheets and pillows and a blue and silver eiderdown; a grey unpatterned carpet. Everything in it was fresh and simple. Everything in it had been chosen by Grace Paradine.
Phyllida stood in the middle of the room hesitating. She was waiting for what she knew would come-the tap on the door, the voice speaking her name.
“Phyl-darling-won’t you let me in?”
She could see the handle turn and turn back again. She said quickly,
“Oh, is that you, Aunt Grace? I’m just rushing into bed-”
“I only wanted to say goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Aunt Grace.”
There was a pause before the footsteps withdrew. Phyllida took a long breath. Now she was really alone. The first thing she did was to switch on all the lights, one over the dressing-table, another lighting the long wall mirror. The room glowed-cream and silver and forget-me-not blue, and Phyllida in her white dress.
She stood looking into the glass and saw the room and herself as if she were looking through a narrow panel with a silver frame at another girl in another room. So much light and brilliance, so much colour and bloom. This wasn’t the girl she had seen in the glass every day for a year. Nineteen forty-two was going out, taking that girl with it. Phyllida never wanted to see her again. This was someone else. She looked and looked, and came up close to see into that other Phyllida’s eyes. And then all at once she turned away, went slowly over to the door, and put out all the lights except the shaded one beside the bed. Still slowly, she came over to the fire and sat down beside it on a small low chair. A quarter of an hour went by.
At last she got up, crossed over to the door, and opened it. The passage stretched before her, dark and empty, the bright overhead light switched off and just a twilight glow coming up from the well of the stairs. Everything was quiet. She stood listening, and could hear no sound at all.
When a full minute had gone by she came out of the room and, shutting the door noiselessly behind her, began to walk along the corridor. Two doors on this side, a bathroom and Grace Paradine’s bedroom and sitting-room on the other. Then a short flight to the central landing and wide steps going down into the hall.
On the bottom step she stood again and listened. One light burned in the hall all night. It showed the dining-room and drawing-room doors on her left, the library door and the baize door leading to what was called the west wing on the right. This west wing contained the set of rooms which James Paradine had arranged for his wife when she became an invalid-bedroom, sitting-room, bathroom, and dressing-room. They looked upon the terrace and the river, and were entered from a passage which lay between them and the library and billiard-room. At the far end a staircase led to the bedroom floor above. The room which had been Mrs. Paradine’s bedroom had never been occupied since her death, but James Paradine used the bathroom, slept in the dressing-room, and had turned the sitting-room into a study.
In this study he sat and waited, his eyes on the door, his ears alert to catch the slightest sound. On the writing-table in front of him an orderly arrangement of blotting-pad, pen-tray, writing-block, and the handsome silver inkstand presented to him by his employees on the occasion of his marriage. Across the corner of the table on his left the Times.
He had been sitting like this for some time almost without moving, when the faintest of faint taps sounded upon the door. It was so small a sound that it might easily have passed unnoticed. As if he had been waiting for it, James Paradine said,
“Come in!”
Impossible to say whether the appearance of Phyllida was a surprise to him or not. She came in almost with a rush, and then, as if the impetus had spent itself, stood leaning against the door, still holding to the handle.
“Can I speak to you, Uncle James?”
He was looking at her with that keen, bright look of his which had frightened her when she was a little girl. It came very near to frightening her now. Her breath quickened and her eyes had a startled look. James Paradine said,