“There, John. It’ll be all right. He’ll hear the owl. He’ll think it was a rabbit and an owl. That’s what he’ll think. It’s all right. Follow me—back to the cave.”
Her voice was happy and excited because she’d saved him. Emily was herself again. In his pleasure, even the ferocious kicking Angel in his arms seemed to lose some of her menace. Emily slipped away to the hemlocks. He followed. She disappeared through the hole and then her hand came out to him, illuminated by the faint candlelight behind, and he heard her whisper:
“Push her legs in. Keep your hand over her mouth. I’ll pull. Then when we get her in it’ll be all right.”
They got Angel into the cave. John wriggled in after her. He found Angel beating at Emily with her fists. He pulled her away and she swung around, starting to rain blows on him. Her face was red and distorted with fury.
“I heard”—the fists went on flailing ferociously—“I heard what you said. I’m a brat, you said. A spoiled, jealous, mean brat. That’s what you said. I heard. I heard. Louise heard. Everyone heard.”
Abruptly she spun away, dashed to her bed and dropped down on it, kicking her toes against the ground in a frenzy of rage.
“Tomorrow. I’ll tell tomorrow. You can’t stop me. No one can stop me. I’ve got to go back. If I don’t go back, Mother will know. I’ve got to go back and when I go back I’ll tell. I’ll tell them all. Emily’s hiding John Hamilton. Emily’s hiding John Hamilton in the cave.”
John looked down at her. his heart sinking. She meant it, of course. There was no doubting the bitter implacability of the little girl’s fury. It was more terrifying almost than Linda’s rages. He had antagonized Angel forever. And he couldn’t stop her telling. He knew as well as she did that he and Emily could not keep her here by force. Whatever story Emily might invent, Mrs. Jones wasn’t going to be talked into accepting the disappearance of a seven-year-old daughter. No, the children thing had been hopeless anyway. Tomorrow Angel, the rejected one, would go to the village—and that would be that.
“I’ll tell.” Angel’s screaming voice was still echoing around the cave. “I’ll tell.”
Emily had been standing quietly at his side. Suddenly she flashed him a glance and then, with a new, exaggerated swagger, strolled over to Angel and looked down at her.
“You won’t tell,” she said. “You think you’re smart, but you won’t tell.”
“I will. I will.” Angel turned up a face tear-stained and puffy with loathing. “You’ll go to prison. Both of you. They’ll put you in prison for years and years and years.”
“No, we won’t either. We won’t go to prison.”
Emily laughed and, whirling around, ran to the orange crate.
She swept up Louise and the mouse and the cow and, crossing to John, thrust them into his arms.
“Keep them. Don’t let her get them.”
“Louise!” Angel had sprung to her feet. Emily rushed at her and, grabbing an arm, twisted it behind her back.
“Tomorrow we’ll go home when it’s light, but you won’t tell because John will keep Louise and Mickey and Cow. And if you tell, if you ever breathe a word, he’ll kill them. He’ll tear them up; he’ll pull them apart; he’ll mash them; he’ll gouge out their eyes. He’ll kill them.”
“No!” As she struggled, Angel’s eyes were bulging with horror. “No, no. Give me Louise. Give me Louise.”
“He’ll kill them. That’s what he’ll do. So swear. Do it. Swear on Louise. Cross your heart and hope to die. Say it. Say it.”
Angel’s scream soared to a thin squeak. She gave one last desperate tug to release her arm and then collapsed into whimpering defeat.
“I’ll swear. I’ll swear on Louise.”
“Then swear.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die on Louise, I swear that—that I won’t tell.”
“Won’t ever tell.”
“Won’t ever tell. I swear.”
“And you’ll leave Louise and Cow and Mickey here with John. That way you’ll know. All the time you’ll know that if you break your oath he’ll kill them.”
“I’ll know. I’ll know.”
Angel was sobbing desperately. Emily released her arm.
Instantly the little girl dashed to her bed and flopped down on it.
“There.” Emily turned to John, her face seraphic with the delights of revenge. “That’s fixed her. Now let’s go to bed. You’d better sleep by the hole—right across the hole. That way she can’t get out.”
John’s feeling of relief had been delayed. It was only then, as he looked at Emily, that he felt it flooding through him. She’d done it. Wonderful Emily, she’d done it. There was a respite. The recorder could be fixed and he would think of something. If, perhaps, he could work out a trap …
“Is that all right? To go to sleep now?”
“Sure, Emily.”
“You can have a half of Angel’s bed. We’ll pull out the pine needles.”
“No,” said John. “I’m okay.”
“You can have it.” Emily turned back to Angel and said in the clipped voice of authority, “Take out half your needles; bring them here to make John’s bed.”
Meekly, her nose snuffling, Angel got up and started to pull back her blanket. Let it happen, thought John. Let Emily have her victory; let Angel learn something about defeat.
But Emily had run to Angel. “No, I didn’t mean it. No. Keep your bed. John can have mine and you and I can sleep together.”
“But, Emily …”
Angel looked up at her sister, her eyes swollen with tears; then, suddenly, she threw her arms around her and buried her face against her.
“Emily, Emily, he won’t hurt Louise, will he?”
“Of course he won’t, baby, because you’re not going to tell.”
“No, I won’t tell. I won’t tell. Oh, I hate being bad and wicked. I hate it.”
“It’s okay, Angel. You go lie down. I’ll fix John’s bed and then I’ll come to yours.”
Angel dropped down on her bed. Emily went to the other bed, pulled back the blanket and rearranged the pine needles by the mouth of the cave.
She said to John, “You’d better keep Louise and Mickey and Cow. She’s meaning to be good now, but you can’t ever tell with her.”
She moved away from the finished bed and picked up the candle.
“Okay, John? Shall I blow it out?”
“Okay.”
As darkness descended, John lay down on the pine needles, the dolls tucked between him and the wall. It would be all right. Somehow he could work things out. A trap. That was it. He would think out a trap. He was aware that Emily was still standing by him. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her presence close to him.
“John.” Her voice came in a whisper.
“Yes, Emily.”
She dropped down by him. He could feel her hand groping out for his.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to act that way—like a kid. But I couldn’t help it. I felt so terrible.”
He squeezed her hand. “You’re my girl.”
“John.”
“Yes, Emily.”
“I love you.”
21
EMILY’s hand on his shoulder awakened him.
“It’s daylight. Let us out, John, and pick up the dolls. Don’t let her get them. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
For a long time after the girls had slipped away he lay there with the dolls in his arms, thinking and getting nowhere. Eventually he dropped the dolls and squeezed out of the cave. The light in the woods was still cold and grey but there was a hint of sunlight-to-come and the air was wonderfully invigorating. He pushed through the hemlocks and then, gaining courage, moved on to the creek. He knelt down beside it and scooped water up over his face.
Suddenly it came to him. A trap needed a bait and he had the bait. Gordon Moreland just might have thought he’d destroyed the tape with the others in the living-room, but it was much more likely that he knew it s
till existed somewhere. If he was given the least hint of its whereabouts he would be desperately eager to get at it. Let him know, then, that the tape existed. Somehow … How?
His reflection glimmered back at him from the sliding water. It looked gaunt and unfamiliar with a day’s growth of beard. He should have had Buck bring his razor from the house.
Buck—the children. Of course. Let Gordon know through the children. Have Timmie babble out some story about the children finding a box with jewels in it and something else like a typewriter ribbon? Timmie? Father and son again. Did that matter? Yes, but. . .
Beyond the creek he saw something white moving through the pine trees. He dropped down on to his face among the ferns. Peering through the fronds, he saw Buck in blue jeans and a T-shirt running to the creek bank, his arms piled with packages. He stood up and called softly: “Buck.”
The boy saw him and came panting up.
“Hi, John. I brought our breakfast.”
“Any news?”
“Boy, is it a nuthouse? Pop, he’s fit to be tied. And Mr. Moreland! He was calling up all last night. Any news? Why aren’t you getting anywheres? They’re all of ’em fit to be tied. If they knew! Man, if they knew…!”
John found he was ravenously hungry and grabbed at random from the packages.
Timmie telling his story that the children had found a box? Where? At the Fishers’ house maybe? Somewhere in the garage or under the porch steps? Gordon and Linda had used the Fisher house; Gordon should believe it was consistent with Linda’s character to have kept her cache not at her own house but at the Fishers’… Yes, if Timmie said they’d found the box and realized the jewels were valuable and hadn’t dared to take it, that would send Gordon dashing straight to the Fisher house, and if John was there, not alone, but with a witness, the trap could be set. Vickie could be the witness. Why not? She had avowed herself his champion. He could send one of the kids to her with a message. The box of course would be hidden in a prearranged place as a bait. Not with the tape actually in it, but …
He turned to Buck. “You know that tape in the box— the thing you thought was a typewriter ribbon. I’ve got a lot of junk stacked up against the wall of the studio, broken records, bits of canvases. There are six or seven of those tapes mixed in with the other stuff. Could you run up and get one without being seen?
“Gee! Boy! Now?”
“Yes.”
Grinning, Buck jumped up and leaped away across the stepping-stones toward the pines.
It would all have to be carefully timed. Since he would have to go himself to the Fisher house, wouldn’t it be safer to leave it until nightfall or at least until evening? Yes, the recorder would be fixed by then, too. He could play the tape first with Vickie at the Fishers’, then they would know, and later, when Gordon came for the box it would be doubly damning. He’d have to coach Timmie and sometime that evening, as late as possible, Timmie could tell the story to Gordon. But could Timmie be trusted? He felt a diminution of confidence. Timmie with his nerves! Timmie who had blurted out his “secret” to Angel! Everything would depend upon Timmie and …
He heard the sharp crack of a twig beyond the pines. Buck wouldn’t be back already. He threw himself down again among the ferns and, watching through them, saw Leroy with a package in his hand hurrying toward the creek. He sat up again and Leroy, seeing him, broke into a dazzling smile and came springing over the stepping-stones.
“I’m here,” he announced.
“Hi, Leroy.”
“And I’m late and I know it’s bad to be late but I went to get Timmie. I went first to Timmie’s house to have us come together and he can’t come. His mother says so. She talked to me. She said he was in because he had a fever because he got over-excited yesterday. So he’s in bed.” He lowered long lashes and then raised them again. “So he can’t come and she says I’m to go to see him at tea-time, at five o’clock, because he’ll be better then and I’ll cheer him up, she says.” He held out the package. “And I’ve brought this for you. It’s a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly and cottage cheese and … I made it. I brought it for you.”
For a moment John’s heart sank, but only for a moment. It was better this way, of course it was. The unstable Timmie and all the ethical problems surrounding him could now be shelved. Leroy could do it when he went to visit Timmie at five. He could tell the tale of the box with the jewels and the typewriter ribbon to Timmie in front of Gordon. Or, better still… The excitement was back. The little plaques on the bracelet! The story could be that the children hadn’t taken the jewels, but they’d broken the bracelet by mistake and each had kept a plaque to play with. Leroy could be taking Timmie his plaque. If Gordon Moreland saw Leroy handling one of the little plaques with its tell-tale L or N or D, he would instantly demand to know where Leroy had found it. The story could be told without Timmie having to be present at all.
That was it. The box with the substitute tape, Leroy as the carrier of the bait, and Vickie …
“Leroy, you didn’t see Mrs. Carey this morning, did you?”
“Yes, she was up. She came in the kitchen. She saw me making the sandwich.”
“Did she say if she was going out today?”
“She said what was I doing and I said I was going out in the woods and she said, What energy, Leroy. I’m not going to move a muscle. I’m going to sit and read all day. That’s what she said. That …”
There it was then. Vickie as the witness.
The trap.
Soon Buck was back with the tape, reporting that the new trooper on duty at the house hadn’t seen him. They went to the cave and in a few minutes Emily and Angel returned, each of them carrying a brown paper sack of provisions. Angel, subdued and silent, went straight to the dolls and, disapprovingly dusting them off and arranging Louise’s skirt, replaced them on the orange crate and sat down beside them.
Now that John knew exactly what had to be done, it was easy to organize the children. He checked the numbers of the tubes he needed, wrote them on a slip of paper, gave Buck the money and sent him off with Leroy to thumb a ride into Pittsfield.
“Just hand in the paper and say your father sent you, Buck.”
After the boys had gone, he took the tape out of the red leather box, with Emily eagerly watching him, and put it in his pocket. He rewound, as effectively as he could, the tangled tape Buck had brought, substituted it in the box for the Mendelssohn, and then, twisting the five little plaques from the bracelet, slipped them into his pocket too. While he was working, he decided that it would be more convincing for Linda’s fake cache to be somewhere outside the Fisher house. Behind the wooden steps at the back which led to the screen porch. That would do.
He had chosen Emily to set the trap and explained exactly what she had to do—to hide the box behind the Fishers’ porch steps, then to find some way into the house itself and to check that the electric light had not been turned off.
Having solemnly repeated his instructions, she took the box and slipped away out of the cave.
While the other children were there Angel had paid him no attention, but the moment they were alone she left the dolls and came tentatively over to him.
“You’re not mad with me, are you?”
“No, Angel. I’m not mad.”
“I’m not really the head of the game, am I? It’s Emily, isn’t it?”
“You can be the head too if you want to be.”
“Can I? Can I?” Her face broke into a broad smile.
“Can I do something then? Like the others? All the others are doing something.”
“You can keep me company. You can come out and sit by the creek and wait for the others to come back.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”
They went out together and sat on a rock by the creek. The sun was slanting down through the trees now in wide yellow shafts. Angel nuzzled up to him.
“I do love you. I do.”
“I’m glad.”
“And I di
dn’t tell and I don’t really mind about you throwing Louise and Mickey and Cow in the dirt.”
“I’m sorry, Angel.”
With his new sense of achievement he could feel affection even for Angel. He smiled down at the small cozening face which even now at its sunniest still managed to look affected.
“John, dear.”
“Yes, Angel.”
“Could I bring Louise and Mickey and Cow out? Could they sit in the sunshine too?”
“Why, sure.”
She scrambled up and ran away toward the cave. The boys should be back by noon, he thought. He would coach Leroy and then—when? At four—he’d send Emily with a message to Vickie asking her to meet him at the Fishers’. He’d slip up there through the woods with the recorder and wait for her. Then Leroy could go off to the Morelands’ to spring the trap. It would still be light, of course, but, working through the children, it would be impossible to make it any later. It didn’t really matter. No one was likely to see him stealing through the woods.
His thoughts were snapped by the realization that Angel hadn’t returned. He jumped up and ran back to the cave.
He wriggled inside. Angel wasn’t there; neither were the dolls.
Anxiety tilting over into panic, he squeezed out of the cave again and, brushing through the hemlocks, started to run back to the creek. As he ran he caught a glimpse of Angel, clutching the dolls, disappearing into the pine trees beyond the creek.
His heart pounding, he dashed across the brook after her. Beyond the pines there was only the overgrown slope between him and the trooper at the house. But that couldn’t matter. He ran to the pines and through them without any attempt to conceal himself. Angel was only a few yards ahead of him, running stumpily up the slope toward the house.
In a couple of seconds he caught up with her, but, before he could grab her, she let out a piercing scream. He swept her up off the ground, slipping his hand over her mouth. The dolls fell, scattering over the weeds. With her struggling in his arm, he ran back through the pines and over the brook and soon, panting and sweating, he had her back in the cave again.
The Man in the Net Page 18
