Down Under

by Patricia Wentworth

  There was no time to think. Fanny stepped over the edge of the hole and was gone, and the light with her. Ernie followed, his shadow thrown for a moment, monstrously distorted, upon the opposite wall. And then with a click there was darkness again, darkness complete and absolute.

  Oliver stood there and waited. They wouldn’t come back, but he must let them get well away. It was either that or follow them close and quick, and this he decided was too risky. They might hear him, or he might blunder into them. No, what he had to do was to find the spring or whatever it was that opened the door in the wall—find out what lay beyond it—find out whether Rose Anne was there. Rose Anne—he had hard work to stand there waiting when he thought about Rose Anne.

  He gave them five minutes, and never in all his life had five minutes seemed so long. The hands on the luminous dial of his wrist-watch seemed to have stopped, yet where they had pointed to five they now showed five minutes past.

  He got out his electric torch and switched it on. Then it came to him that there was nothing to mark the place where Ernie and Fanny had stood. Or was there? He tried to think, and got the picture of the two red heads leaning together and Fanny saying, “Do you think they’ll ever let us go—really?” Think—think—think.… Fanny’s hair—and the lamp dangling from Ernie’s big left hand and making a circle of light on the stone … light on the stone—big blocks like paving stones—old—worn—cracked—that was it—cracked. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, but he saw it quite distinctly in the picture now, a crack running across the circle of light—a very old crack, green with slime.

  He went forward, casting about with his torch, and found what he had seen in the picture, a flagstone split across the corner and the broken edges of the crack mildew green. Well, this was where they had stood, Ernie here and Fanny just beyond him. Ernie had pushed the wall.

  Oliver tried pushing it now. It was like pushing the side of a house. Nothing happened. It seemed quite incredible that this solid wall should have broken under his eye and let the Rennards through, but, incredible or not, he had seen it happen, and where they had gone he could follow.

  There was a spring to be found, and Ernie had found it by counting three up—two along—one down. Three up—well, presumably that meant three up from the floor. He harked back to the picture in his mind again. Fanny had the lamp now, and Ernie was counting with his left hand. That meant three up from the broken flagstone. This brought him to a point about six feet up the wall, which was built of big two-foot blocks. Two across—he shifted the torch and reached out with his right hand. One down, and he was pressing on a spot about four feet above floor level. But press as he would, nothing happened. His other hand—Ernie had taken two hands. But then Ernie had had someone to hold the light. Oliver had to put it down on the ground, where it wasn’t a great deal of use. He pressed with both hands now, keeping the right on the slab he had reached when he counted one down, and experimenting with the left. Ernie hadn’t stooped at all, he was sure of that, so the right place must be somewhere fairly high up.

  He thumped every inch of the wall within his reach, and found it solid as a hillside. An exasperating sense of helplessness came over him. He reached out sideways and slipped. His left foot went from under him, throwing him forward against the wall. His right foot scrabbled and stumbled on the slimy stone. Scrabbling and stumbling, it must have chanced upon the spring. The wall gave, went from him, swung in. There was empty space under the thrust of his hands. He pitched forward and fell sprawling across the threshold of the black hole.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Up again, he had a look at the thing. It certainly bore no resemblance to a door. It followed the irregular spacing of the stone flags. The mechanism which moved it was of the simplest, but it required a simultaneous pressure upon floor and wall, and he was lucky to have chanced upon the right combination. Under this pressure a section of the wall pivoted and swung in. He had it at right angles to him now, and his immediate concern was to find out whether he could open it from the inside. If he found Rose Anne, he would have to get her away, and the probabilities were that they would have to make a bolt for it.

  He pushed the slabs back into their place and investigated. Thank goodness the thing was quite easy from this side. No need to count stones and feel about for the right one, with a lever ready to one’s hand.

  He turned from the wall with relief, and found that he was standing above a flight of rough stone steps. They went down almost as steeply as a ladder, and he was glad to see that there was an iron handrail. He switched off his torch and went down backwards—cautiously. He had no intention of stepping off into space.

  The steps seemed solid enough. There were a hundred of them. He had to put his torch on again at the bottom, and saw a long passage running away down hill on a fairly steep incline. As there was no choice of ways, he followed it. There was no mistaking where he was now. This was a gallery in a mine. The steps had been cut to connect the house with the gallery, when and by whom he had no knowledge. He had to keep the torch on for fear of blundering into a side passage and losing the way back. He had to chance the light being seen. He had, in fact, to take so many chances that on any reasonable forecast he was bound to come to grief. Only, as it happened, he was in no mood for reason. The long strain, the long agony of the days since Rose Anne’s disappearance, had brought him to a point where a sudden hope took him beyond the cool probabilities of the case. He could not think dispassionately of turning back and going to the police or letting Mr Smith know what had happened. He could only go forward. Nothing mattered if he could reach Rose Anne. To know that she was alive seemed enough. When he knew that—if he knew that—then it would be time to think and plan for her escape.

  They wouldn’t let her go easily.

  This was present in his mind, but he withdrew his thoughts from it. Find her—find her—find her—that was what mattered. Everything else could wait.

  Within the limits of this frame of mind he was alert and capable. After letting the torch illumine a stretch of passage he would switch it off and cover the distance in the dark. The slope went on and on, and down and down. A tingling impatience made his slow progress irksome. He would have liked to run, and it came to him to wonder whether caution was worth while where danger was at once inevitable and unescapable.

  His fingers pressed the switch for perhaps the twentieth time, and he saw the passage divide. Two black galleries fronted him, one inclining to the left and the other to the right, and now of course he had no clue as to which one the Rennards had taken. He turned right because, with nothing to choose between right and left, a right-handed man is slightly biased in that direction. After turning on his torch three times he came to more steps, and descended them as he had done the others, backwards and without a light. The air was clammy now and warm. His temples were damp and the palms of his hands. A kind of horror of the darkness came upon him about half way down. The place was heavy with silence and old gloom. It was difficult to believe that light had ever passed this way. A man might fall here, and die, and his bones whiten and never be found.

  He went on climbing down until the steps ended and his feet were upon the level stone. Now he would have to put the torch on again. Quick on that thought came another. Suppose the battery failed, suppose when he touched the switch there was no bright, leaping ray, suppose—He felt for the switch, found it with his thumb, and pushed.

  Whether he released his own weak beam, he never knew, for with the very movement light broke, intense and blinding. A great arc-light drenched him with its glare. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes, was aware of hurrying feet, and dropped his guard again. Someone struck him from behind, and he went down and lay like a log.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Hearing came back first. He heard Fanny say in a weeping voice, “I don’t care what you say.” The words floated round in his mind. They didn’t mean anything. They floated in his mind like coloured balloons. They didn’t mean anything at all. But he k
new that it was Fanny Garstnet who had set them floating there—Fanny Garstnet—Fanny Rennard—and she was crying—her voice sounded as if she was crying—Fanny Garstnet—

  And then someone said Rose Anne’s name—“Miss Rose Anne.” That was Fanny too—“Miss Rose Anne.” And then, “She’ll never look at you if you touch him, Philip, and that I tell you straight.”

  Oliver opened his eyes. The blinding light was gone. He was in a room—ordinary room—ordinary light—one of those dangly things with a shade on the end of it—nice soft light—not that hideous glare. He blinked at it and looked again. No, not ordinary room—odd room—green curtains—lots of green curtains—curtains all round—must be a lot of windows—Fanny—Fanny with her red hair flaming under the light—Fanny saying, “All right, Philip, you just try it and see.”

  Oliver woke up. What had gone before was like a dream—coming and going—all queer and muddled—but now he was awake. Someone had fetched him a crack on the head and laid him out, and here he was, on a very comfortable couch, looking through half closed lids at two people on the other side of the room. One of them was Fanny Garstnet who was certainly Fanny Rennard, and the other, the man she called Philip, must be Philip Rennard, the Old Fox’s son who was supposed to have been drowned. He was also beyond any shadow of doubt the man who had masqueraded as the Rosenkavalier.

  Oliver kept his lids down and took stock of him. He saw an amazingly handsome young man attired in light flannel trousers and a silk shirt open at the neck. Dark red hair, rather like mahogany, worn much too long with a most offensive wave in it. It might be natural, it probably was natural, but civilised man doesn’t go about with a wave in his hair just because nature has put one there.

  “The fellow looks like a film star.” This was Oliver’s first impression. And then something happened to change it. Philip Rennard, who had been staring moodily at his own feet, lifted his head with a jerk and looked full at Oliver. He had the dark eyes which sometimes go with red hair—eyes the colour of deep peaty water. Just now they were bright with a dancing spark of hatred, and behind the hatred there was something else—conscious power. The image of the film star registering this and that emotion for effect was wiped out. Here was a very dangerous enemy, who hated him, who had the power to give effect to his hatred.

  The look stayed upon him for an intolerable dragging minute and then was turned away. Without another word Philip Rennard lifted one of the green curtains, opened the door behind it, and went out. The door fell to, but Oliver saw Fanny run to it to make sure that it was latched. Then she came over to him and slipped her fingers under his wrist. He felt them tremble a little. He thought she had been crying. He opened his eyes and said,

  “All right, Fanny. What happens next?”

  Fanny dropped his wrist and backed away. She opened her mouth and clapped a hand upon it. A frightened gasp came through the muffling fingers. And then she said,

  “Oh, Captain Loddon! Why ever did you come?”

  Oliver sat up.

  “To find Rose Anne. Fanny—she’s here? Fanny—tell me!”

  Fanny’s eyes were brimming over.

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes, she’s here, poor lamb.”

  He caught her by the wrist.

  “Fanny—for God’s sake—is she—safe?”

  The tears were running down her face.

  “Oh, yes, Captain Loddon—the way you mean—she’s safe—poor lamb.”

  A weight like the weight of the world was lifted from Oliver. He crushed Fanny’s wrist so hard that she cried out.

  “Why do you say poor lamb—if she’s safe? Fanny—Fanny, tell me! I’ve been nearly mad!”

  She caught her breath.

  “I’ll tell you. Oh, it doesn’t matter what I tell you now.”

  He was too intent at the moment to take the meaning of that “now,” but it came back to him afterwards—ominously. She pulled away from him, ran to the door through which Philip Rennard had gone out, and opened it, holding the curtain away with an unsteady hand. When she had shut that door he thought she looked less frightened, but a second curtain was pulled aside and another door disclosed. He could not see where it led to, but he heard her say with relief, “It’s all right, Ernie—I just wanted to see if you were alone.” Then she shut that door too and came back to him, drawing a stool to the side of the couch and leaning so close that her words needed only the merest breath to be audible. She began by repeating her first question in a tone of distress.

  “Oh, Captain Loddon! Why did you come?”

  And Oliver said, “I came to find Rose Anne. Don’t waste time, Fanny—tell me.”

  “I don’t know how you found out she was here.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Tell me about her.”

  She looked up at him and then away.

  “You know Philip took her?”

  Oliver said, “Yes.”

  She swallowed a sob.

  “I don’t know how you found out. I don’t know how you came here, but it’s no good. No one gets away from here—no one’s ever got away. It’s been no good since the very first time Philip saw her photograph, and that’s what makes me feel so bad, because he wouldn’t never have seen it if it hadn’t been for me marrying Ernie and coming down under. And Miss Rose Anne gave me the photo herself, and wrote on it too. We’re the same age, you know, and we always played together, and I’m sure there isn’t anyone in the world who’s fonder of her than I am.”

  He had to restrain his impatience. If he didn’t let her run on he wouldn’t get what he wanted.

  She ran on tearfully—“Ernie and me got married just above a year ago. He used to come to the Angel to get the stuff away. There’s a lot of food and stuff that has to be got down under, and—that’s Uncle’s cleverness—he gets it sent where it won’t make talk. There’s hotels all up and down the country where he has stuff delivered for him in different names. They don’t know a thing except that it’ll be fetched. Well, Ernie does the fetching with a lorry, and the stuff comes down here by one of the back ways.”

  Florrie’s black holes! He said quickly,

  “There’s a back way in through the Angel, isn’t there?”

  Fanny nodded.

  “And that’s what I found out,” she said. “Ernie didn’t show it to me—I came on it same as poor little Florrie did and got a fright that nearly killed her, and lucky for me it was Ernie I ran into, or I wouldn’t be here now. Well, after that we used to meet there. And then it was found out. Oh, Captain Loddon, it was awful, because I thought they was going to do me in—and they would have too if it hadn’t been for Ernie being a Rennard and no end useful, and me being Uncle’s niece. So they let us get married instead, but I had to come down under, and they never let me out, not a step, not till my baby was born. And they won’t let me take him, not when I go up with Ernie—no, they keep him here to make sure I’ll come back and not talk. That’s more of Uncle’s cleverness. They don’t call him the Old Fox for nothing, and Philip takes after him.”

  “Rose Anne—” said Oliver. “Fanny—Fanny—tell me about Rose Anne!”

  The tears ran down over Fanny’s face.

  “I wish I hadn’t got to,” she said in a weeping voice.

  “Fanny!”

  “It was the photograph she gave me. Philip saw it, and he never said a word, just stood looking at it for ever so long. But afterwards he asked about her—who she was, and where she lived, and all. That was somewhere about last May, and then it seems he got Mother to manage so that he could see her. Poor Mother—you mustn’t think too hard about her, Captain Loddon. She’s been fair broken-hearted over this, but they work on her about Florrie—say they’ll take her away and put her somewhere where she’ll never see her again—all that kind of thing. And she can’t bear it, Mother can’t, so she give in. She sent for Miss Rose Anne to see Florrie, and she let Philip stand in one of the rooms where he could see her go by, and from that minute he laid his plans to get her. He found out there was a dance she
was going to with Miss Elfreda—somewhere down in the Isle of Wight it was. It was a fancy dress affair, and he found out what she was going to wear and got his own dress made to match, and he went there and danced with her and come away with his heart that set on her that nothing wouldn’t move him. He was bound to have her, and the way he planned it was the way that would make the biggest stir. Philip’s like that, you know—he’d rather do a thing dangerous than do it safe. It was just what he wanted, to snatch her away the very day before her wedding and leave everyone talking. And the way he planned it you’d be bound to think she’d run off with someone else.”

  The agony of that touched Oliver again. He said,

  “Fanny—where is she?” And even as the words passed his lips he heard a hand move on the door behind the green hangings.

  Like a flash Fanny was on her feet, the stool picked up and swung out of reach, Fanny herself away on the farther side of the room. All this while the door was opening.

  It was Philip Rennard who held the curtain back, but it was Rose Anne Carew who came first into the room, and the sight of her brought Oliver to his feet. His head was dizzy and his heart knocked at his side. The room swam before his eyes. Rose Anne’s face came and went.

  And then his sight cleared. They were facing one another in the little room. Philip Rennard had come in and shut the door behind him. He was aware of this, and of Fanny breathless in the background, but his eyes were for Rose Anne.

  She had come a little inside the door and stopped there. She had on a white dress which he had never seen before. It hung heavy and straight to her feet, and it made him think of a shroud, because she might have looked like this if she had risen up from a grave. Her hair hung loose. There was no colour in her face, no colour at all. Her eyes were fixed, not on him nor on anyone in that room, but on some distance of her own imagining. He did not think she saw him, or any of them. She stood there quite still, her lips set in the faint smile of sleep or death. Through the dreadful intensity of his own watching gaze he was aware that Philip Rennard watched her too—watched with a like intensity, a like passion. And Rose Anne between them, walking and breathing, but as unaware, as withdrawn, as the lovely marble figure from a tomb.