Down Under

by Patricia Wentworth

  CHAPTER XXII

  Oliver woke with a feeling that a long time had passed. He had, in fact, slept for twelve hours almost without moving. Fanny stood by his bed hoping he felt better, and asking him whether he preferred kipper or eggs and bacon for his breakfast—“And it’s gone ten o’clock, Captain Loddon.” He might have been in his old room at the Angel. He chose eggs and bacon, and tea instead of coffee. His headache had gone, and he was hungry.

  The bacon was deliciously crisp, and there were fresh rolls. When he remarked on them, Fanny told him they were Philip’s fancy—“Austrian, the baker is—come over from Vienna before they tightened things up so that you couldn’t, and had a little shop in Soho, and Philip he took such a fancy to the bread he had him brought along.”

  “Look here, Fanny, don’t any of these people cut up rough?”

  She nodded.

  “Mostly—at first. They drug them for a bit, and then they settle down.”

  “Suppose they don’t?”

  Fanny looked scared.

  “If they’ve a grain of sense they do.”

  “And if they haven’t?”

  “They go on the scrap-heap,” said Fanny in a small, hard voice.

  “I seem to remember your uncle telling me that.”

  “Then you’d best take it to heart, Captain Loddon.”

  Oliver stopped half way through his first cup of tea.

  “And when do they begin to drug me? There isn’t anything in this, I suppose? Or is there?”

  Fanny’s colour flamed.

  “No, there isn’t! And I’ll thank you not to think things like that about me! I don’t drug people!”

  He begged her pardon, and she went away, he thought in a huff.

  Presently she came back with her baby in her arms. There was no doubt about his being a true Rennard. The little frowning face with the downy red eyebrows and the thatch of orange-coloured fluff bore a most comical resemblance to the old Red Fox.

  Fanny sat down with the baby in her lap and chattered away about him—his strength, his weight, his appetite, and his likeness to Ernie. All of which Oliver endured politely.

  “Only I don’t want him to grow up here. I can’t help thinking about that, you know. It don’t seem right to say that a child’s never to see the sun, and moon, and rain, and trees, and all the other things that we was brought up with.” She hugged the baby up under her chin and looked at Oliver over the top of his head. “What Ernie and me would like would be a little garridge. There’s one going that would do us a treat in Ledlington. Ernie did his training there, you know, in the Ledlington Motor Works, and he says it’d be a real nice place to live, and real nice people there, and you can get out into the country as easy as easy, and that’s what I’d like. I wasn’t brought up in a town, you know, and I like being near the shops and a cinema, but I don’t want to be where I can’t get the sight of a field if I want to. That’s what I hate about being down under—nothing but a lot of dark passages and electric lights. But I don’t expect they’ll ever let us go—I don’t expect they’ll ever let any of us go. Come to think of it, how can they? We all know too much. It’d be safer for us if we didn’t.” Her lips trembled. Then she jumped up. “Stupid—that’s what I am. There’s lots worse off than what we are. I don’t know what made me get talking like this to you.”

  “Fanny,” said Oliver, “how can I see Rose Anne?”

  She had been moving towards the door, but she turned now, startled, with the baby in her arms. She said, “You can’t,” and backed against the door and stood there as if she would bar the way.

  “Fanny, I’ve got to see her.”

  She threw up her head.

  “And I tell you you can’t, Captain Loddon.”

  “Fanny—”

  “What’s the use anyway?”

  “I’ve got to know—”

  She finished the sentence for him,

  “Whether she’s shamming or not? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? Now you just listen to me. Suppose you see her, and she’s like she was yesterday—that won’t do you any good, will it?”

  “But—”

  She interrupted vehemently.

  “But suppose she isn’t like that—suppose she’s her own true self. Suppose she’s been putting this on to keep Philip off, and you break her down—and I don’t see how she could help but break down if you were alone with her, and you begging and beseeching and being loving to her like you would be—well, what would happen? You’d be playing into Philip’s hands, neither more nor less. Do you think anything goes on here that he doesn’t know? Do you think you could see Miss Rose Anne without his knowing? Why, the whole place is wired, and fixed up with microphones so they can listen in anywhere, and you never know who’s hearing what you say. Why, I wouldn’t dare be talking to you like I am now if it weren’t that Ernie won’t stand it, and he’s told them so, and he knows enough to find out if there’s anything fixed, and to cut it out. Why, he told them straight, Ernie did, when he brought me here—he told them bang out if we couldn’t have a place where we could be private and say what we liked without every chance word being taken notice of and picked over—well, he said, ’Tisn’t worth it, and ’tisn’t what I call life anyway, so if that’s the way it’s going to be, you can put us away and have done with it, because we’d rather. Ernie’s right down easy-going, but rouse him and he don’t care what he says or who he says it to—and of course he knew well enough they couldn’t do without him. So after that they left our rooms alone, but he keeps a bright look, Ernie does, just in case.” Her colour flamed and her blue eyes shone.

  Oliver said, frowning,

  “You’re sure—about this listening in?”

  “Of course I’m sure. How do you suppose they could run this place if they didn’t know what was going on? I tell you a mouse can’t squeak down here without its getting to Uncle, and if it isn’t the kind of squeak he likes, well, it’s so much the worse for the mouse.”

  “Fanny—isn’t there any way I can see her? Fanny, I’ve got to see her.”

  “Oh, you’ll see her all right,” said Fanny. “There’s a do tonight in the big hall. Uncle’s sent word for you to go. Dinner first and a show afterwards. Everyone’s to be there, so you’ll see her then—and for mercy’s sake look out, because Philip’s going to watch like a cat at a mouse-hole. He isn’t one that misses much, Philip doesn’t.” She went out of the room on that, and left him with plenty to think about.

  He dressed, tried the door, and found that it opened on to the room with the green curtains. After some groping he discovered the door which led to the gallery. Ernie loomed up as he opened it, with a suit-case in his hand.

  “Feeling better this morning?”

  Oliver said, “Oh, yes—quite all right.” His eyes were on the suit-case. It was one he had left in the car, and that meant … He said bluntly, “That’s mine.”

  Ernie grinned, and then looked embarrassed.

  “I thought you’d be wanting your things. I brought them along for you. You’ll find everything all right.”

  Well, they were thorough. He gave them marks for that. Any hopes he had built on his car being traced to Oakham Place died a natural death. He said,

  “Very thoughtful. Did you bring the car along too?”

  Ernie grinned again, less sheepishly this time.

  “What do you think? She’s a nice little bus. I did the best part of a hundred miles in her last night.”

  Well, that was that. Oliver changed the subject.

  “Is there any objection to my going out?”

  “Well, you might lose yourself.”

  Oliver laughed.

  “Does that matter?”

  “You might starve.”

  “Are there a lot of passages?”

  “A good few. You’re all right if you don’t get away from the lights. There’s a lot of old mine-workings outside of what we’ve got wired, and if you got off into them you’d lose your way and be lucky if you e
ver found it again. If you’ll shut that door, I’ll give you a word of warning.”

  Oliver shut the door.

  “I’m sorry for you,” said Ernie with simple directness—“and so is Fanny. We’re both sorry for you, but there it stops. We can’t do a thing for you, and it’s best for you to know that and bear it in mind. That’s one thing I want to say, and here’s another. Don’t you go thinking you can get away out of here or get Miss Rose Anne away, because you can’t. There’s just the two ways out, one that Fanny’s told you about that comes out at the Angel—and she’d better have held her tongue—and the other you know already, because it’s the way you came in through Oakham Place, and there isn’t any man alive can get out either way except he’s got the word from Uncle.”

  Oliver repeated this, “The word?”

  Ernie nodded.

  “There’s a steel door that fills the passage either end, same like the door of a safe, made special to Uncle’s order by Grimshaws, the big safemakers. They shut with one of those letter locks—well, you can set it to letters or figures whichever you like. It’s a seven letter combination, so the chances against your hitting on the right word are a million to one or thereabouts. I used to have the word for the door to the Angel, but they’ve changed it since—after it came out I’d been courting Fanny—and now they don’t give me the word at all. It’s Mark or Philip that opens the door for me, and when I come back I have to ring through so that one of them can come along and let me in. I suppose you thought you’d got into this place when you followed Fanny and me through the hole in the wall, but if you’d gone a dozen steps farther you’d have found the steel door in front of you, and you couldn’t have got through that, not without half a ton of dynamite.”

  “Then who knocked me out?” said Oliver.

  Ernie got red about the ears.

  “Well, as a matter of fact it was me.”

  Oliver laughed.

  “And who turned on the light?”

  “Well, that was Fanny. You see, when you want to get in you’ve got to ring through. They don’t open the door till they know who’s there, so anyone that’s all right has got to switch the light on and stand right under it. There’s a spy-hole in the door, and when they’re quite sure who it is they open, and not before. So when Fanny put on the light and I saw you standing there, well, I just naturally knocked you down—and I’m sure I hope you’re none the worse for it. You see, it gave me a bit of a start to think we’d been followed.”

  “Yes, it would. Well, thanks very much. You say it’s all right for me to wander about?”

  Ernie looked doubtful.

  “Well, nothing’s been said, but if you’ll take my advice you’ll go careful, and you won’t do anything like trying to see Miss Rose Anne, which is bound to lead to trouble.” He paused, and added, “For her sake as well as for you.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Amos Rennard’s feast was set. Except for the great cavern arching over head and stretching away in all directions the scene might have been a City banquet of the nineties, for the long table was covered with the finest of linen damask and ornamented by massive plate, gold or silver-gilt. Places were laid for twenty, and the service was of silver. “Nasty scratchy stuff,” as Dr Spenlow remarked at Oliver’s ear.

  “Well, it can’t get broken,” said Oliver, “and I suppose that’s a consideration down here.” He had had a hearty reception from Amos Rennard, who had exchanged his flannel trousers for black ones, and his patterned dressing-gown for a garment rather like a Lord Mayor’s robe carried out in crimson velvet and dark fur. Some dozen people who had already collected were standing about silently at a discreet distance from the dictator’s chair. Three of them were women. All had a dull and listless look. The men wore dinner jackets, and the women that kind of evening dress which is to be seen in hotels of the family type. One of the men wore a clerical collar and dark vest.

  “Poor old Luke!” said Dr Spenlow. “Luke Simpson, you know. He’s the only one who’s been here longer than I have—beat me by a month, poor devil.”

  Oliver looked at the Reverend Luke Simpson and wondered what had happened to the keen, eloquent young man described to him by Mr Benbow Smith. Had he died suddenly, or fallen to a gradual decay? This was a fat man with a pale, hairless face and dull, unhappy eyes. Oliver felt sorry for him. He lifted his eyebrows and allowed his lips to form the word “drugged.”

  Dr Spenlow appeared to be amused.

  “How angry he’d be. He has a very fierce sermon about drugging in general and the use of tobacco in particular, with excursions into the evil of strong drink. He preaches it at me once in three months or so. We attend his ministrations by order, you know, so he gets a good run for his money.”

  “What about the others? They all look drugged to me,” said Oliver bluntly.

  Dr Spenlow surveyed him reprovingly.

  “A little bit free with the tongue, aren’t you? Your affair of course, but in your place I should be careful—yes, very decidedly I—should—be—careful.” He strung the words out, laying a strong emphasis upon them. Then, with a sudden change of manner, “What’s the odds? Why not be indiscreet? Dulce est dissipere in loco, and so forth and so on. We drug everyone here—a little. You’ll be for it yourself. I don’t know why you’ve been let off up till now. No, that’s not true—I do know, and I expect you do too. You’re Philip’s bait. He’s using you to fish with, or he’s going to use you. Queer chap, Philip—and deep—and dangerous—and quite, quite, quite determined to cut you out with Miss Carew. But to get the full flavour out of the situation neither you nor she must be drugged. Philip’s got to think well of Philip whatever happens. Anyone can take a drugged girl by force. That’s not good enough. Anyone could disgust a girl with a drugged rival. That’s not good enough either. He wants to be able to say ‘She chose me.’ That puts Philip at the top of the tree. And at present he’s not sure whether she’s drugged or not. I believe he suspects me.” He laughed. “I’ve a conscience like the driven snow—I told him so just now. So there you are. Watch out—he’ll be up to something pretty soon. Like to know who all these people are? You’d better—and we’ve talked long enough about Philip.”

  Oliver said, “Yes, tell me.”

  “The thin, dark woman in black is Mrs Simpson.”

  “But he wasn’t married.”

  He got a keen look.

  “Who told you that? Well, he wasn’t, but he is. She was a girl he’d had a fancy for, and the Old Fox had her fetched down under to pacify him. Poor old Luke, she nags his head off.”

  “What on earth does he want a parson for? He’s not religious surely?”

  He got Dr Harold Spenlow’s reproving look again.

  “I wouldn’t let him hear that if I were you. He fairly oozes religion. You know—the sort which makes him feel quite sure that whatever he does is right. He can’t be happy a minute unless he does feel sure, so that’s what poor old Luke’s here for, to bolster him up—make him feel good, and pious, and respectable. It’s some job!” He laughed sardonically. “I’d rather have my own—and I’m not in love with that.”

  “Who are the others?” said Oliver.

  “The fat woman with the grey hair is my assistant’s wife. He’s the little man with the bald head. He does the routine work of the laboratory. They were supposed to have been killed in an aeroplane smash. They brought her along instead of scrapping her, because she once took a science degree. If they knew how completely useless she was they’d scrap her now, but I’m a humane man, so I hold my tongue—as a rule. The thin, melancholy man is a fiddler, and the one behind him with two chins and a lot of hair is a crooner, and the one beyond him is a jazz pianist—Philip’s taste. And there’s Fanny—you know her—and the earnest, valuable Ernie. And that’s Mark just coming across the hall.”

  Mark Rennard was taller than his brother Philip, and broader. In middle life he would almost certainly resemble his father. He had the ginger hair, the sandy lashes, and the
heavy build, but he was pale where the Old Fox was florid. He wore a frowning look, and passed through the group on the dais without a word or a glance for anyone till he came to his father’s chair and stood there bent down and talking low. Dr Spenlow gave his faint sarcastic laugh.

  “A serious soul, Mark. He runs the commissariat, and it weighs on him like lead. A serious, efficient soul. That’s why his father prefers Philip. Well, are you wise to our politics now?”

  Oliver gave him a very direct look.

  “I don’t know where you stand.”

  The dark face twitched with something which might have been amusement.

  “And you’d like to?”

  “Very much.”

  “You won’t miss anything for want of asking—will you?”

  “I hope not.”

  “And free with the tongue, as I said before. How do you know you can trust me?”

  “I don’t.”

  Dr Spenlow laughed.

  “Well, there’s your answer in a nutshell—they’re all in the same boat with you. They don’t know if they can trust me, but they’ve got to, and sometimes it keeps them awake at night. You see, they can’t do without me. The old man is as strong as a horse, but he thinks he’s going to die if he gets a finger-ache, and he’s quite sure he’d die if I wasn’t there to keep the finger-aches away. Poor old Luke Simpson is his fire insurance, and I’m his life insurance, but he isn’t sure he can trust me, and he daren’t drug me, because nobody wants to be attended by a drugged doctor. Besides, the stuff is my own secret, and he needs me to keep the others quiet. Pretty, isn’t it? Why, the only reason I’m here at all is because I treated him for an attack of gout just before the crash, and he’s been obstinately convinced ever since that I saved his life.”

  Oliver dropped his voice and said,

  “It’s damnable. Why don’t you dope the lot of them and get away?”

  Dr Spenlow smiled with a bitter twist of the mouth.

  “My dear Loddon, if you are out for information, here’s something you’d better get by heart—no one has ever got away from here, and no one ever will. If anything happened to the Rennards, the rest of us would be left to starve quietly to death behind steel doors which only they know how to open. I really prefer my present existence to death from starvation. There are compensations, you know. I have an excellent laboratory, and some day, perhaps, my notes may reach the world.” His eye kindled for a moment. Then he said in a different voice, “You probably won’t want my advice, but here it is. Trying to get away is suicide. Trying to get Miss Carew away is suicide cum murder. If you’ve no objection to this, go ahead by all means, but you can take it from me that it’s certain death. There’s no way out. Do you suppose plenty of people haven’t had a shot at it in the last ten years? Do you suppose I didn’t have a shot at it myself? Some poor devils try the old mine-workings, and they starve or go mad. There’s no way out there. No, all you can do is to make the best of it, and—there’s always the drug.”