Fear by Night (31 page)

And it was then that the light went out. The battery may have been injured by its fall, or the water may have reached it, but suddenly it failed and the dark came down on them.

It was as if they were buried alive. It was like the darkness of a place where no light has ever been or ever will be. And in the darkness, coming nearer, was that soft sucking sound against the rock.

For a dreadful minute it was the only sound. Breath had stopped. The thudding pulses of terror were frozen. And then Jimmy Halliday broke into a half choked mutter, his head bowed down upon Ann's shoulder and his tongue stumbling over words learned long ago at his mother's knee. It was a little boy's prayers gasped out in broken phrases by lips that had used none since. “Make me a good boy—forgive us our trespasses—bless Mother and Dad—f'r ever and ever amen.” Even at that moment it came to Ann how pitiful it was—the hot convulsed face against her shoulder; the strong clutching hands; and the words which a little boy had learned half a century ago. At least the sound of them drowned that other horrible sound.

She looked down and saw staring out of the dark two fixed, unwavering eyes. They were luminous, not with the jewel glint of a cat's eyes or a wolf's, but with a pale phosphorescent shining. She could see nothing but the eyes. And they were quite near—and they were coming nearer.

“Stop that noise, Halliday!” said Charles very low and stern, and at the sound of his voice Ann was able to move, to drag her eyes from those pale shining eyes and hide them against him. She pressed her face into the cloth of his coat and said his name over, and over, and over again:

“Charles—Charles—Charles!”

And another minute went by.

Charles held her and braced himself against the sheer cliff. How long would it last? Would Halliday pull them both over? Could the Thing reach them where they were? He had the faintest hope in the world that it could not, because if it could, why did it still delay? And the stare of the eyes was upwards. He had seen it strike three times. It had reared above the two men and dashed them from the ledge with a blow like that of a striking snake. It had hung poised over the lamp and then darted down on it. But now the eyes looked upwards.… They were very faintly green. They were pale and yet they dazzled him. He began to see a faint movement in their phosphorescence, as if its multitudinous atoms were in a state of flux, and all at once he felt the strangest prompting to loose his hold of Ann and lean forward—over the edge of the stone.

And Ann, with her face against his breast, said, “Charles—Charles—Charles!”

With a most violent effort Charles bent his head. It took every bit of his strength to do it. He could no longer see the eyes. He looked at the darkness which hid Ann's hair and set his lips against the hidden curls.

Jimmy Halliday still gasped and muttered his broken prayers.

CHAPTER XXXV

Time had stopped. And then, strangely and giddily, it began again.

“F'r ever and ever amen,” said Jimmy Halliday.

And Charles said, “Dry up, Halliday! I want to listen.”

They all listened then. Jimmy Halliday caught his breath with a gulp. He raised his working face from Ann's shoulder. They strained against the silence and listened.

There was no sound, and there was nothing to break the darkness. Silence and darkness filled the cave. The pale phosphorescent eyes which had watched them were gone. The soft sucking sound had ceased. All sounds had ceased. There was nothing but empty silence and the even featureless dark.

Charles said very quietly, “It's gone, darling.”

Jimmy let go his pent-up breath in a convulsive sob. Charles had lifted his head and was staring into the dark. Ann put up a hand and touched his cheek.

“
Really
?” she said in a small whispering voice.

“I think so. Lean back against the rock—I've got to get at my torch.”

Its thin ray went out into the dark. He turned it downwards, and it showed the boulders beneath them, and the black edge of the pool, and the hole into which the lamp had fallen. He sent it farther, and all that black water lay still as death.

He switched off the light.

“It's gone,” he said. “It was that damned light of Halliday's that attracted it. Now we've got to get away as quick as we can. I'm going back by the way we came—it's the nearest and we know it. I'm going down first—then you, Ann—Halliday last. I want you to hold the torch and light me. Halliday—have you got any string in those pockets of yours? You've got enough of them. Come along, man, pull yourself together! Have you got any string?… Oh, you have. Well then, get it ready, and as soon as I'm down, lower the torch to me and I'll light you both.”

Ann came down the boulder with the feeling that about a hundred years had passed since that frantic upward climb. Suppose the Thing came back—suppose it was only waiting for them to leave their place of safety.… She shut that resolutely away. She had got to do what Charles told her. She mustn't let herself think—or remember.

She reached the bottom and saw Jimmy come sliding down behind her. They had to skirt the pool before they could reach the ledge. Charles took her by the arm.

“Don't look, and don't think. We'll be out of this in a moment.… There—that's the worst part over.”

Their feet were on the ledge. Every step took them farther from the pool. Ann was lifted up to the mouth of the rift, and the two men scrambled after her, helping one another.

To come through into the other cave was like coming into another world—fresh air to breathe after that musky stench, and a plain track for their feet. Jimmy Halliday was recovering himself. He regretted the electric lamp, and dwelt brokenly upon its usefulness and its cost. Its loss seemed to affect him a good deal. He also deplored the fate of Hector, but had no tears for Gale Anderson, with regard to whom he was disposed to take a high moral tone. By the time they had reached the cellar he had begun to cock a wary eye in the direction of his own immediate future.

The barrel had been removed, and the flagstone stood open at the top of the cellar stair. They came through the wash-house into the kitchen and saw the daylight which they had never thought to see again. It was just the plain grey light of a cloudy day. It showed them to each other torn and dishevelled, streaked with dirt and slime, but it had an almost unbearable beauty. The common air, the common light, the common day were just for one enchanted moment something rare and strange. They were safety and release.

Mary stood in the middle of the kitchen and watched them come, her face grey and her eyes fixed. Then, before any of them could speak, she said in a strained whisper,

“Is he deid? Is Hector deid?”

It was Ann who answered her, clinging to Charles' arm. She said, “Oh, Mary!” but it was enough.

Mary lifted her head and said with dry lips,

“The Lord be thankit! He was an ill man.”

Ann ran to her, and suddenly she cast her apron over her head and broke into bitter weeping.

“Mary! Mary—dear! Don't cry! Don't cry like that!”

“And wha'll greet for him if I dinna?” The voice broke with sobs. “An ill man—and his mither's deid! Let me be, lassie, for there's naebody tae greet for him but me!”

Jimmy coughed in an embarrassed manner.

“I'd like a word with you, Mr. Anstruther,” he said.

Between the two doors, which led on the left to the parlour and on the right to the dining-room, he paused, scratched his head, and listened. The silence of a summer afternoon filled the house. Charles, listening too, thought of the silence of the cave. His mind shuddered away from the thought. This silence in the house was a comfortable, restful thing, not a dead weight to crush out courage and endurance.

Jimmy opened the parlour door a handsbreadth and looked in. Mrs. Halliday and Riddle slept each in a stiff armchair on either side of the hearth. The fire had been lighted after lunch. It had burned away to a bed of red ashes. The windows were tightly shut. The room was very stuffy. The old ladies looked very comfortable.

Jimmy shut the door without a sound and tiptoed over to the dining-room.

“This way, Mr. Anstruther, if you don't mind. I don't want to wake the old lady—and you'll be ready for a drink.”

His hand was quite steady as he produced a bottle and glasses. He drank off about half a tumbler of rum, after which he got out his handkerchief and gave his face what he called a bit of a polish up. Charles watched him with interest. As he had been invited to a conference, he thought he would wait for Jimmy to begin. He took down his own drink, refused the offer of another, and continued to wait.

Jimmy stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and began.

“Well, Mr. Anstruther, I thought we'd better have a bit of a talk—man to man, as you may say. But take a seat, won't you?”

Charles sat down on one of the neat Victorian chairs.

“Well?” he said briefly.

Jimmy scratched his head. His efforts with the handkerchief had not really improved his appearance. His pale freckled skin was horribly smeared, and his sandy hair was patched with greenish slime.

“Well,” he said—“well, as man to man, Mr. Anstruther—what about it?”

Charles leaned an elbow on the table and smiled a little.

“What about what?”

“Oh, come, Mr. Anstruther!” Jimmy's tone was reproachful.

Charles continued to smile.

“Oh,
come
, Mr. Anstruther!”

“Very well,” said Charles, “what shall we take first—your attempt to murder me, or your attempt to murder Miss Vernon?”

Jimmy Halliday looked genuinely pained.

“If I hadn't thought you were a gentleman, Mr. Anstruther, I wouldn't have wanted to talk to you. Murder Miss Vernon? Now why should I want to murder her—a young lady that I admire and respect? Why, I wanted to marry her—you heard me ask her yourself.”

“Well, do you know, Halliday, I think on the whole she'd rather have been murdered.”

Jimmy decided to treat that as a pleasantry.

“Ah!” he said. “You're a young gentleman that will have your joke. But to talk of me hurting Miss Vernon—why, I saved her life only yesterday! I suppose she hasn't had time to tell you about that.”

“Yes,” said Charles, “she told me. And I don't mind saying that it's precious lucky for you. I notice you don't say anything about trying to murder me.”

Jimmy was all outraged innocence.

“Me, Mr. Anstruther? Now you know that's carrying a joke too far!”

“Halliday,” said Charles, “when we were in that damned cave, you were kind enough to tell me that I wasn't such a fool as I looked, or words to that effect. Now, as man to man—I think that's how you put it just now—what's the good of talking like that?”

“Mr. Anstruther—”

“Look here, Halliday—I went over that cliff because someone had banked up the bend with rocks, but I'm going to let that go. You did save Miss Vernon's life, so I'm prepared to call quits. Then there's the matter of your having tried to force Miss Vernon into marrying you so that you might have the handling of Mr. Paulett's money. Well, we are prepared to let that go too. A prosecution would be unpleasant for Miss Vernon.”

Jimmy poured himself out some more rum.

“Now, Mr. Anstruther—
now
! You can't prosecute a man for asking a young lady to marry him!”

“Then there's the dope-running,” said Charles. “I give you fair warning that I shall report that to the Procurator Fiscal—isn't that what they call him in these parts? And they don't have coroners in Scotland, do they? I shall have to see someone like that about the deaths of those two men.”

Jimmy leaned forward with his glass in his hand.

“Now that's what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said earnestly. “If you go into a police-station, or an office, or a court, and say you saw two men killed by a sea-serpent, what's going to happen? Why, you'll be laughed at, Mr. Anstruther. There'll be policemen trying to keep their faces straight, and clerks”—he pronounced it
clurks
—“sniggering behind their hands, and maybe before you know where you are a couple of loony-doctors trying to get you put away. No, no, you take my advice—those two chaps were drowned along of their boat getting upset when they were out fishing. If all three of us say that and stick to it, who's going to say anything different?”

Charles stood up.

“Save your breath, Halliday,” he said. “I'm not telling any lies—they've a particularly nasty way of coming home to roost. Besides, did you ever hear of three people keeping a secret? You wouldn't like to be hanged for someone you didn't really murder—would you? That would be rotten luck. Now look here—I'm leaving with Miss Vernon as soon as she has changed and had something to eat and drink. We're going in your car—the one you keep locked up in the ruin over there. I'll leave the car in Glasgow at any garage you like to name—I expect you've got a friend who can fetch it away. I suppose you'll do a bunk on the motor-bike. I don't want to ask any questions about that, but if there's anything we can do about getting your mother away from here, we shall be quite willing to do it.”

Jimmy got up rather dejectedly.

“Well,” he said, “I won't trouble you. I've a cousin that I can get word to about the old lady. He's in the family hotel business, and he won't like it right in the season and all, but he'll just have to come along and fetch her away. He owes me a good turn, for I set him going. And Mary'll be wanting to go back to her own people, I expect. He'll have to see about that for her.” He had the serious air of a family man considering the welfare of those for whom he was responsible, and it was all quite genuine. Charles simply couldn't see him in the dock. A respectable man—a very respectable man.