She Painted her Face (19 page)

The man said nothing at all, but I could feel him trembling under my hand.

As I bent him over the depths, I knew he was bracing his knees against the parapet's wall, and God knows I did not blame him, for, as I leaned over above him, the awful breath of the water smote my face. It was chill, yet heavy and reeked of death and decay, and it offered so dreadful an earnest of what was to come that for one instant I flinched from thrusting a fellow creature to such a doom.

I suppose that he felt me falter, for he threw his weight on to his knees in one final, desperate effort to hold himself back.

This, to no avail. For the parapet crumbled before him, and we went down together into the well.

NOW FOR VIRGIL I cannot answer, but it is a remarkable fact that, though our descent to the water can hardly have taken more than one second of time, I was able to decide quite clearly, before we struck, that, while I must do what I could to save my life, before I did anything else I must put Virgil to death

In that period I also remembered that I had ordered Caroline out of the court, and that she would be out of earshot If I were to call. I was actually thinking this over and was weighing the pros and cons of calling at all— for If I called and she came, she might fall into the well— when at last we hit the water, and thoughts and resolutions were, so to speak, blown to bits.

This was natural enough, if for no other reason, because I had never expected the water to be so cold. God knows what springs they were that fed that terrible well, but they proved their own descent, for the lymph of the snows that sired them ran in their silver veins; and though once, for a wager at Oxford, I bathed when ice was about. I will swear that the pool I then entered was warmer than that which was lying in Palfrey's well.

I do not know how far I went down, but I know that my lungs were bursting before I came up, and the first thing I clearly remember was scrabbling upon a wall that was coated with slime and finding a crack too small to admit my finger- tips. Then I heard Virgil beside me— for, of course. I had let him go— and that restored in an instant the wits I had lost.

I missed his throat in the darkness, but found his wrist; but both of us knew that the odds were now more equal than they had been in the court. With a frightful laugh, he flung his arm round my neck, and I had just time to draw breath before that hellish water once more closed over our heads. I tore away my arm, but before I could seize his throat, his arm was back on my neck.

Again I cast it off and forced his wrists together into one hand; but, as we rose again, he locked his legs about mine and threw his weight down. And then I thought I was done, for though at last I had managed to seize his throat, I could not kick us up to the surface, nor spare a hand to deal with the grip of his legs.

Unless I could kill him quickly...

I put forth all my strength, and my fingers sank into his throat as though it were dough.

The blood was pounding in my temples and I felt that my senses were swaying for want of air, when all of a sudden his limbs and his body went slack, and I knew I was free. And then I went back on the surface and was blowing like any grampus and thanking God for the gift of that tainted air.

Now, whether in fact I killed Virgil or whether he drowned himself in an effort to end my life, I never shall know but I know that the man was dead or else had lost his senses, and so was presently drowned, for though he rose beside me, he never moved, and I think that after a little he sank for good

Though my case was not so bad, it was evil enough.

I was not wholly exhausted, but the struggle had sapped my strength, and I badly needed the respite I could not take. As was to be expected, the walls of the well were smooth, and though I proved them all round, dislodging slugs and slime and all manner of filth, I could find no sort of handhold to which I could cling. There were cracks in plenty between the blocks of stone of which the walls had been built, for either they had not been cemented or else the cement was gone; but they were too small for my fingers, and there was nothing else.

My strength was failing, for the deadly chill of the water was laying hold of my muscles and stealing into my blood; and, though I did what I could to hold it at bay, the realisation that I must very soon sink began, as an ill-mannered bully, to thrust aside my efforts to think what to do to be saved.

Indeed, I sometimes think that a wiser man than I would have faced the unpleasant fact that his hour was come and would so have allowed himself some peace at the last; but, perhaps because of Caroline waiting above, I would not read the writing upon the wall.

To show how desperate I was I wasted the last of my strength in a frantic effort to find Caroline's key— this, with the mad Idea of thrusting it into a crack and so creating a projection to which I could cling; and though, I suppose, a more utterly futile design was never conceived, as luck would have it, it actually saved my life.

To get a hand into my pocket was very hard, but the moment my fingers were in they closed upon something which I had not known all the time was there. And that was the humble tool which once already that night had saved two lives. It was the screw-driver, indeed.

I cannot explain its presence; but my habit has always been to some extent to care for my car myself, and when I am at work, unless they are unwieldy, I always pocket my tools. And so, I suppose, without thinking, I did as I always do. Be that as it may, in a twinkling I had the screw-driver out and had pressed its blade into a crack perhaps some eight or ten inches above my head.

Praying that the steel was honest, I gradually let the handle take some of my weight, and when I found that it would hold me I let it take more. But for the help of the water it must have bent or broken beneath my weight; but the two together bore me and gave me just that respite my weary muscles required. And, what was still more important, it gave me a definite hope that, though my plight was serious, I might in the end be saved.

And then I heard Caroline calling my name.

For a moment I thought very fast.

Then:

"Lie down!" I yelled. "Lie down and crawl slowly forward. I'm down in the well, but lie down! The parapet's gone!"

Perhaps two minutes went by, and then a fragment of mortar fell down by my side.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Stay still! you're right on the edge!"

Caroline answered at once:

"I'm quite all right, my darling. What shall I do?"

I wonder how many women, so placed, would so have comported themselves? No wailing, no useless inquiries, no bubbling statements of how she came to be there. Only the eager question:

"What shall I do?"

And I was ready enough. Whilst she was approaching, I had not been wasting my time.

"Find the car," I said. "When you've found her, switch on her lights, then back her slowly towards the mouth of the court. Her lights will show you the cord that I took from your neck. Take that and the pieces that bound your ankles and wrists, then back the car again till you see your dressing-case. Put that into the car, and then drive slowly forward until your lights are shining full on the well. When you've done that come back, and I'll tell you some more."

"All right."

How long she was gone I cannot pretend to say, but she must have been very quick, for, though the time passed slowly, at the moment at which I pictured her finding the case, the rim of the well above me grew suddenly bright. Then she must have "dipped" the lamps, for the light came down-to reveal a ladder of dogs driven into the wall of the well.

Some wells have ladders, like that, to the water's edge, and at once I left my hand-hold and, swimming beneath the ladder, stretched up my hand. But the dogs did not come so low. For all that, I was sure that they could not be far away, because a ladder is useless unless it runs some way down.

As I returned to my screwdriver:

"Yes, Richard?" said Caroline quietly.

"Tie all the cord together and add the strap. Then open the tool-box and take the tool-kit out. If there are tyre-levers there, I want them most. If not, the nearest things to them— tools that will bear my weight And a hammer, too. Put them into one of your stockings and let them down. We've got to make thirty eight feet If you don't think it's long enough, you must add what stockings you have."

It cost me a lot not to add "be as quick as you can," for my faithful friend was tiring— bending beneath the strain: but such a charge would only have made her frantic, when all the time she was being as quick as she could.

I must confess that this time she took longer than I had hoped; but I am afraid that she suffered far more than I, for the tool-box proved to be hidden, and she was beside herself before at last she found it beneath the floor

The delay was serious, for every moment now I was growing more cold. My teeth were beginning to chatter; my fingers were growing numb: and, though I did what I could by wriggling my body and limbs to encourage my blood to run, I knew that my circulation was steadily slowing down

I thrust the reflection aside and glanced again at the glow which was lighting the ladder above.

At last a shadow appeared.

"I'm ready, my darling. Which side shall I let it down?"

"D-d-you see the l-ladder?"

I stammered in spite of myself.

"Yes."

"L-let it down Just clear of the ladder. Which side you like. Don't lean on the parapet, whatever you do."

"All right. I won't."

"I'm not quite ready. I'll tell you when to begin."

With that I pulled the screwdriver out of the crack in the wall and splashed my way to beneath the ladder of dogs. And there, with a frightful effort, I scratched away the filthy jacket of slime, in search of another interstice between the stones. I had not the strength to reach as high as I wished, and for two or three desperate moments I could not discover a joint; but at last my trembling fingers encountered the ghost of a crack and I managed to put up the blade and to push it a little way in.

I hardly hoped that it would hold me, but I could do no more; and, as I sank down and let the steel take my weight, I perceived that the circle was vicious-the circle in which I moved. My state of exhaustion demanded a handhold at once; to create such a handhold exhausted me unto death.

Then I knew that the blade was holding, and when I had rested a moment I was able to push it farther into the crack.

"Are you ready, my darling?"

"Yes. I'm ready," I said, and hoped for the best.

As will have been guessed, my primitive plan was this— to drive the tyre levers between the stones of the well and so climb up by them to the foot of the ladder above. The objections to this were so obvious that I will not set them out: but the one which ruled the rest was my lack of strength to do more than hold myself up. Yet, something had to be done, for the Icy water was gradually having its way.

I watched my lady's stocking pass out of the light of the lamps, with the levers jingling within it to tell me how far they had come, and three or four seconds later I guided them into the pocket adorning the breast of my coat. As I felt for the head of the stocking, to cast it loose, I found that it had been tied to a piece of flexible wire.

At once I lifted my voice.

"That's enough. How much cord have you left?"

"About eight feet, my darling."

"What is it made of, Caroline?"

"Two pieces of cord, the strap and some flexible wire. The last was in the tool-box, on an inspection-lamp."

I could have cried out for joy. Flexible wire will bear a considerable weight.

Again I addressed my lady.

"I want you to move the car, so that one of its wheels is directly in line with the ladder— say, five feet away from the well. Before you do this, hitch the cord round a statue so that it doesn't fall."

"Very well."

Whilst she was doing my bidding, I unfastened the end of the flex. Then with a shaking hand I got it about my body under my arms. As I made it fast I heard Caroline's voice.

"Yes, Richard? The car is there."

"Take your end of the cord and thread it between the spokes and so round the tyre. Then, very slowly, draw it as tight as you can. When you hear me shout, make it fast by taking two or three turns."

"Very well."

A moment later the flex began to move.

I dared not ask too much of so frail a rope, and directly it took the strain I called to my lady to stop; but though it could not have borne me. it held me up and. what was a thousand times better, it freed my hands. Before she was back at the head of that cursed well I had hammered one of the levers into the wall

Now I was not out of the wood by a very long way, but I knew that the lever would bear the whole of my weight; and this meant that, if I could manage to plant my other levers as rungs, I could emerge from the water which threatened to take my life.

After working the matter out, I called upon my lady to loosen the cord.

Somehow I planted a lever beneath the waterline.

Since I had but three, this seemed a terrible waste, but I simply had not the strength to drag myself clear of the water without some support below. And when the business was done and the slack of the cord taken up, it was all I could do to reach the first lever I drove. And there I hung, like a man cast up on some shore, who knows what still lies before him if he is to save his life, and doubts that he has the strength to get to his feet and stagger landward out of the reach of the waves. For I had to set one of my feet on the lever below and. when it was there, I had to haul myself up— a terribly difficult movement at any time.

Stand at the loot of a ladder of seven rungs— of which all are missing, except the second and fourth. Then take hold of the second and mount the fourth; and I was not standing, and I was very tired.

Of course, the trouble was this that my levers were much too close And yet I could not plant them farther apart, for without some foothold I could not work higher up, and in my exhausted condition I could not work lower down