There May Be Danger (25 page)

Kate switched off her torch and signed to Ronnie to switch off his, and pushed again. Once again, the timber yielded. Kate holding it open, supported on her arm, listened intently. No sound. Absolute darkness.

“I'll go first, Ronnie,” she said in a low voice. “Then Sidney. Then you.”

Kate had the impression, as she slipped out under the lifted timber, that she was stepping into a large, high, indoor place. It was quite dark, and she hesitated to use her torch. There was smooth stone on the floor: she had touched its cold surface with her finger-tips as she had slipped the wall-plate.

She helped the boys out, and carefully let the timber drop back. It made only a soft thud as it fell into place.

“Where are we?” whispered Ronnie.

“I don't know,” said Kate irresolutely, fingering her torch, straining her eyes into the darkness, which was as quiet as if it were posted with waiting people. There was a smell of chrysanthemums in the air.

“Shall I put on my torch?” asked Ronnie, and before the irresolute Kate could answer, had clicked it on. Its beam fell startlingly and closely across the Jacobean pattern of a linen-covered settee. Kate switched on her torch too, for, if they were going to have a light, they had better have plenty. The smell of chrysanthemums came from a great bunch of them in a terra-cotta jar on an oak table. The lone hillside, the ancient ruins, the barns, faded and departed out of Kate's fancy. She turned sharply and looked at the broad dark-stained timbers and light-coloured plaster panels of the wall through which they had just come: the wide, open fireplace in which a few burnt-out embers lay: the wide stairs with the turned newel-post and twisted balusters. Then she relaxed and laughed softly, if a little wildly. She could almost have dropped on to the comfortable settee and had her laugh out, with hysterical relief. They were in the hall of the Veault.

“And Mr. Morrison said he was afraid there weren't any hidey-holes in his house!” she murmured. Ronnie looked at her with dazed, inquiring eyes. “It's all right, Ronnie. You can relax. Let Sidney lie down on that settee and forget his troubles. We're with friends.”

On the table, as well as a jar of chrysanthemums was a silver two-branched candlestick. Kate lit the candles, smiling to herself, feeling quite lightheaded with relief from the long strain. The bracket-clock on the high mantel marked twenty minutes past four.

“Where are we, Miss?” asked Ronnie at her elbow. He had helped Sidney to a seat on the settee, murmuring to him and patting him like a horse. Kate met the eager look of his clear grey eyes, and the thought of the dangers he had just been through in her company made her heart contract. She pushed the quiff of dark hair off his eyebrows.

“The Veault. People I know live here. They'll look after us,” she whispered. “They're nice. I'm going to wake somebody now. You stay with Sidney. We'll soon have him in bed.”'

When the relief of their escape from immediate danger had worn off, Kate would be able to reflect on the fact that she had actually succeeded, as she had believed she would succeed, and as very few others had believed she would succeed, in finding Sidney Brentwood.

In a relaxed and almost light-hearted mood she tapped on the door of the small bedroom over the porch in which, she remembered, Rosaleen had said she slept. When there was a responsive rustle and a sigh, she opened the door a little and whispered to the darkness:

“Rosaleen!”

Rosaleen woke with the wary, instant liveliness of an animal.

“Yes? Who is it?”

There was a creak of springs and an upheaval of white sheet in a darkness faintly modified by the square of the uncurtained window.

“Kate Mayhew. I say, Rosaleen—”

Black-out or none, Rosaleen lit a candle and looked round at Kate with great, dark, startled eyes.

“Say, what the—Is anything the matter?”

She looked alarmed, as well she might, and, without waiting for an answer, flinging the bedclothes back, she reached out for her dressing gown.

“I hope I haven't given you a shock, I tried not to,” prattled Kate in a whisper. “Only I had to wake somebody, and—”

“Yes? Yes?” interrupted Rosaleen, tying the sash of her dressing gown tightly round her waist.

Having made her concession to apology, Kate could not keep the lilt of triumph out of her voice:

“I've found Sidney Brentwood, Rosaleen! He's here!”

Rosaleen's little fingers froze on her sash.

“
What?
”

“Yes, only he's awfully exhausted, poor kid! There's all sorts of things to tell you, Rosaleen! A secret passage—you know, I told you there was supposed to be one at Llanhalo!”

“Sure you did.”

“Could you possibly give Sidney a bed? He ought to have a doctor in the morning, too. He's down in the hall. I'll tell you all about it.”

Rosaleen slowly finished tying the sash of her dressing gown with mechanically-moving fingers.

“Sure, we'll give him a bed,” she said slowly. Her reactions to surprise were not, after all, as quick as her lively waking would lead one to expect. She seemed a little bemused, as though events were going too fast for her. “Sure we'll give him a bed,” she repeated. “Is there anyone else with you?”

“Only Ronnie, the kid from Llanhalo. But he's all right, bless him. It's only poor little Sidney that wants coddling.”

“And you say you found him in a secret passage! Well for land's sakes! You go on down, Kate, and see if the bellows'll get the fire up again! I'll just wake Auntie and be right down.”

She smiled, her voice rose, fresh and charming, she had become hospitality itself as she hurried Kate out of the room and lit a candle on the landing. Kate had been a little disappointed at Rosaleen's first reception of the great news. But she reflected as she turned to go downstairs that great news is difficult to assimilate when flung at one without warning as one wakes.

Kate was still carrying under one arm in a bundle the net that Sidney Brentwood had insisted on bringing with him. It was not properly tied, and had become unrolled and somewhat of an impediment during their attempts to find an exit from the hiding-place in the wall: and as she started down the stairs one end dropped loose, and she caught her heel in it. Putting her torch down on the stair, she paused to extricate herself and to roll the end of the net up again. Since it was Sidney's dearest treasure, she must be careful of it. Sidney, when he was restored once more to his happy and active life, should not ask in vain for his handiwork. Rolling the net up in the semi-darkness, seeing over the slant of the balustrade, the soft glow light of the candles she had lit, and hearing the chirpy and soft little voice of Ronnie encouraging Sidney on the settee, Kate smiled to herself. Half-an-hour ago nothing seemed to matter for herself and Sidney and Ronnie but to get to safety. But now she could afford to dwell again on little happinesses, and to think it important that a boy should not lose his little treasure of handiwork.

The smile was still on her lips when she heard a low voice in one of the rooms off the landing—and her mind had to register carefully the fact that it was Rosaleen's voice, for, although it was Rosaleen's voice, it was speaking quite out of Rosaleen's part in this drama. It said:

“That blasted kid's escaped!”

The smile became fixed on Kate's face. She could feel it, after a second tightening her facial muscles.
That blasted kid's escaped!
No stretch of license could read the feelings of a friend into that choice of words. But it was not so much the words, as the tone, bitter, angry and agitated, in which they were spoken, which paralysed Kate.

“It's that bloody girl,” went on the voice. “I knew there'd be trouble! We ought to have got rid of the damn kid as soon as she turned up. Now what? Now what?”

As if the overheard question, which was uttered in a voice of anguished fury, had been addressed to her, Kate came suddenly to herself; and without waiting even to call herself the fool she suddenly knew she was, she had seized off her shoes— for shoes were noisy on these wooden stairs and stone floors —and was down in the hall.

“Quick, Ronnie! We must go! Quick, quick!”

The child's look, startled, wide-eyed, dismayed, touched Kate's heart and irritated her both at once. He had been sitting, curled like a little dog, in the corner of the large settee, with Sidney leaning against him. She shook him impatiently.

“Quick! There's danger here! The back door! I'll show you!”

Sidney, thank Heaven, was docile, not obstinate, in his weakness, and only sighed when Kate roused him and walked him to the door. It was an old door, probably one of the original doors of the sixteenth century house, with a great old wooden bolt as well as a more modern chain and socket. Ronnie's small fingers could not manage the bolt, and he looked at Kate in anguish, and she quickly handed him the torch and tackled the door herself. All was still quiet in the hall. No one had come down yet. No doubt Rosaleen thought that Kate was innocently blowing up the embers and awaiting her hospitable hosts.

But as the bolt grated softly back, and the chain, flung dangling, struck against the door-frame, a voice behind Kate said softly:

“Why, Kate, where
are
you going?”

It was Rosaleen, who had approached down the back stairs and through the kitchen. She had put on slacks and a blouse. Perhaps it was the moccasins on her feet that had made her approach so silent. In the light of Ronnie's torch, without her make-up, she looked much older than by daylight, and at the same time even more fragile and appealing. The expression on her face was one of simple astonishment.

Kate was at a loss.

“Sidney wanted air,” she improvised. “He nearly fainted. I thought we'd go out for a bit.”

“Why, of course! But—without your shoes, Kate?”

“I've blistered my heel.”

“That's too bad! I must find you some slippers.”

The wide door swung open to Kate's hand on the latch.

“I'll take the kiddie out for you,” said Rosaleen. “You can't go out without your shoes.”

I think
I'd
better, he knows me,” said Kate hastily, retaining hold of Sidney's arm. Rosaleen had put her little hand on the boy's shoulder. Kate felt quite a horror of that little hand with its long painted fingernails: it lay there so lightly, yet looked as if at any moment it might sink, like a claw, in the boy's shoulder. Kate knew that Rosaleen had no intention of letting them go. Kate's only advantage was, that Rosaleen did not know that she knew this.

“Then we'll both go,” said Rosaleen with a little laugh. But it seemed to Kate that she was holding Sidney where he was, and that her laugh lifted her upper lip stiffly. While Kate was wondering what to do, a little tug came at her sleeve. It was Ronnie. His lips were pursed in a soundless whistling, and he was carelessly allowing his torch-light to play about here and there; but a flick of his eyelids and his torch together directed Kate's glance towards Rosaleen Morrison's other hand, her right one. And Kate saw that what she had taken to be a torch in that hand was not a torch at all, but a small pistol.

She looked up, and met the wary stiffness of Rosaleen's smile. And at the same moment she knew that she had a second advantage over Rosaleen, the most ancient, the most primitive, advantage of all. She dropped her hand from Sidney's arm as if she were relinquishing him to Rosaleen, and, stepping back a pace or two, clenched her right fist and with all her weight behind it drove on to Rosaleen's chin.

Pugilism had formed no part of Kate's stage-training, she knew nothing of the science but what she had seen in films, and the success of her blow positively took her own breath away. Rosaleen went over like a ninepin, leaving Kate open-mouthed with an odd reprehensible exhilaration, modified by the fear that she had cracked Rosaleen's skull for her. There had been a horrible thud as she went down, and she showed no lightning-like disposition to get up again.

Well, after all, Kate did not want her up again! Kate picked up Sidney and heaved him over her shoulder. He was lighter than she might have expected, but not so light as she had hoped, or else her strength was not quite what she thought. Saying to Ronnie:

“Put your torch out, and come on!” she staggered out into the courtyard. It was moonlight now, not bright, the stars were small and there were thin clouds about the sky. But the outlines of the barns and out-buildings, and the wall that ran around the courtyard, stood out so clearly that Kate could but pray that no one was looking from a window. Thank Heaven she had thought of taking off her shoes, cold and uneven as the cobbles were! Silence was the thing. Silence, so that no one knew where to follow, since they could not have speed.

Kate was prudent enough not to yield to the temptation to cut across the courtyard, but went round it, keeping in the shadow of the outbuildings. She was scarcely through the gate, however, when she heard angry voices in the house, and dots of swinging light from somebody's torch ran like will-o'-the-wisps about the barn walls. Rosaleen had been found, and pursuit was not far off.

If Kate had felt vaguely that there was danger in Llanhalo tunnel, she knew now quite definitely that there was danger, terrible danger, at the Veault. All the hazards of this night seemed to come to a climax here, as she stood panting, Sidney still in her arms, in the lee of the stables, out of sight of the back door, shadow over her, but moonlight all around, with Ronnie at her shoulder looking up at her with the wary and rather grim expression of a lieutenant who is beginning to believe that circumstances are after all going to be too much for his sanguine leader. His little chin quivered once. Oh God thought Kate, what now?

A sort of paralysis came upon her. If we go into the stables we'll be just caught in a trap. If we make a dash for it, we'll have the damned moonlight all over us. She balanced in a horrible, nerveless equilibrium.