Red Stefan

by Patricia Wentworth

  Stephen stood quite silent for a moment. Then he said in his most ordinary voice,

  “I’ll have to clear it away. I hope there isn’t a great deal of it. Do you mind holding the candle?”

  She took the candle, and was told not to worry.

  “I don’t suppose it’s very much.” He was taking off his coat and rolling up the sleeves of his blouse. “Here—you’d better have my coat to sit on. I tell you what I think has happened. I think some of the falling masonry from the house has come down on the roof of the passage and made it cave in. I always thought it might happen some day. Bits of the west wing keep on falling. Don’t bother—we’ll get through all right.”

  After a preliminary survey he went back to the cellar for tools. He suggested that Elizabeth should stay where she was, but when she refused, he agreed that she might make herself useful by carrying things.

  “When they passed through the secret door she had the feeling that they had turned their backs upon the frontier. What was the good of it being only half a mile away if the way was blocked by who knew how many tons of earth?

  Stephen collected a couple of iron bars, an old shovel, and some sacking. Then they returned to the passage and he fell to work. She had wondered about the sacking, but she soon discovered its use. The earth that was cleared had to be dragged away and spread out upon the floor of the passage. It was weary, heavy work. They strained and sweated, and at the end of three hours the way was still blocked. They knocked off then, ate a brief meal in the cellar, drank snow water, and returned to the passage to lie down and take a few hours of uneasy sleep.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  “How long will our food last?” asked Elizabeth.

  They had waked, toiled, eaten, rested, and toiled again. She had lost count of the time, but the day must be far spent. They were resting when she asked her question, sitting on the mud-heap on the floor of the passage.

  Elizabeth ached in every limb. Her hands were scraped and sore from the rough sacking and the rougher stone and earth. All day long she had been piling earth upon the sacking and dragging it away. They had come now to the point where they could not afford to raise the floor any farther. The earth had to be dragged into the branch passage and spread out there. She could not tell Stephen how much she minded having to go into that darkness. Every time she came there stumbling and panting with her heavy load, this horror of the darkness met her, and every time she had to go a little farther away from Stephen and the candle-light by which he worked.

  Now they were resting. A meagre portion of food had been served out. A can of snow water stood between them. Elizabeth asked her question:

  “How long will our food last?”

  “Oh, long enough,” said Stephen with cheerful vagueness.

  She did not press the point. What was the use? She didn’t really want to know just how desperate a case they were in, but that horror of the dark made her say quickly,

  “We shan’t run out of candles?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh no—they’re all right. I’ve got two whole ones left, and an end or two besides.”

  Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief. She pushed back her hair, lifted the can of snow water, and took a long drink. She had discarded her wig hours ago, and the sweat of her labours had removed the sticking-plaster, and most of the make-up with which Stephen had disguised her. The warts which had so outraged her feelings were gone. When she had drunk, she wetted a corner of the handkerchief which she had been wearing about her head and bathed her face with it.

  Stephen laughed at her a little.

  “You can’t pass for a gipsy now.”

  “I wasn’t a gipsy. You never meant me to be one. I was Nikolai’s sister Anna, and now—”

  “Well?” said Stephen. “What are you now?”

  “I don’t know. What am I?”

  His eyes dwelt on her for a moment. Then he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “You’re a very good caddy. I expect we ought to be going on again.”

  They went on. Elizabeth’s head swam and her hands shook. Every time she dragged her load of earth along the passage she said to herself, “Just this one, and then I’ll tell him I can’t go on.” But when she came back with the empty sacking the words repeated themselves, and her shaking hands began to gather the earth and pile it on the sack. She came to a dazed state in which she only knew that she mustn’t fail Stephen. She must pile the earth, and drag the sack, and spread the earth, and go back again for more—pile, drag, spread, and back again—pile, drag, spread—pile, drag, spread.

  Sharp through the daze in which she moved cut Stephen’s voice:

  “We’re through!”

  She must have been standing with the empty sack in her hands, because when he came climbing back across the rubble, the sack had just fallen in a heap at her feet. Her hands were still stretched out as if they held it, but her eyes were blank. She did not see him, because the passage was suddenly full of mist, but she felt his arms come round her and swing her off her feet.

  “Elizabeth—we’re through! It’s going to be all right. I say, you’re not going to faint—not now—not when it’s going to be all right? Elizabeth!”

  Elizabeth let her head fall on his shoulder. She was no longer faint. The mist had cleared. Her heart was beating wildly. If she said that she wasn’t going to faint, Stephen would put her down—or would he? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t want him to put her down. She drew a long sighing breath.

  “Elizabeth—”

  She turned her head a little. There was a torn and gritty blouse under her cheek. Stephen’s eyes looked into hers. They held a triumphant sparkle.

  “You’re not to faint—there’s no time. Are you better now?”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. Perhaps this was the only moment in the world when Stephen would hold her like this. If she said she was better, the moment would end. His arms were round her because she was faint, and not because he loved her. What was the good of it? He didn’t love her. What did it matter whether he held her or not? She opened her eyes and said,

  “I’m all right.”

  He put her down at once, but kept a hand upon her shoulder.

  “You’re quite able to walk?”

  “Oh yes—it was nothing.”

  “Well, sit down for a minute—there on the sack. I think we can crawl through the hole I’ve made, and I think the passage is all right beyond. I’ll get you some water, and you can sit quiet whilst I just go up into the house for something.”

  Instead of sitting down she caught him by the sleeve.

  “Back to the house? Oh no!”

  “I shan’t be five minutes. You just sit down and rest till I come.”

  Elizabeth gripped him with both hands.

  “Why are you going back? Please, Please don’t!”

  “I shan’t be five minutes.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, it’s my mother’s pearls. I’ve just had an idea about them. It came to me like a flash whilst I was howking away at that beastly landslide. It won’t take me a moment just to go and see if I’m right.”

  “The pearls?” said Elizabeth in a tone of dismay.

  To go back, when the way to safety lay before them—to go back into that horrible house! The ruin and the desolation of it pressed in upon her.

  “Yes. It came to me all in a moment—why Paul sent me that message, and what he meant by it.”

  “The message?”

  “To say that the pearls were just where they’d always been. She always wore them, and I thought he meant that he’d buried them with her. Stupid of me, because if he had, why should he wait till everything was crashing to send me a message about it? No—I think I know what he did with them, and I was a mug not to think of it before. I think he hid them behind her portrait. I can’t go away without just having a look to see if they’re there.”

  Elizabeth still held him with both hands.

  “You think they’re behind t
he picture?”

  “I think they may be. Anyhow, I’m going to see.”

  “Then I’m coming too.”

  “You’d much better stay here. The passage isn’t really safe.”

  “I’d rather die than stay here by myself,” said Elizabeth.

  There was so much conviction in her voice that he laughed and patted her shoulder.

  “Then you’d better come. I always told you I wasn’t going to let you die.”

  When they turned off at the branch passage her spirits began to rise. It was, after all, impossible to go away without finding out about the pearls. And there was no risk. They would not have to come out into the open.

  “We won’t chance the way we came, just in case there’s anyone about,” Stephen said.

  No, there wasn’t any risk.…

  The passage ran up a slight incline for some way. Then there was a mouldering wooden stair. Stephen went first, testing each step and treading as near the edge as possible. He lifted her over a gap or two and came scrambling up behind her. The passage now became very low and narrow, with a stone wall on one side and wooden panelling on the other. Presently there were steps again, not quite so ruinous.

  Stephen held up the candle to show her a knob and bolt this time.

  “That door comes out on the big staircase just where it turns. It was convenient to have a lot of bolt-holes.”

  The passage bent sharply to the right, and a little farther on there were some more steps which went down. At the foot of these steps there was a curious circular turn, with the passage very narrow indeed.

  “We’re skirting the chimney,” said Stephen, and they came out into a small square chamber. There was barely standing room.

  Stephen put the candle into her hand and touched the wall which barred their way.

  “The back of the picture,” he said.

  Elizabeth held up the candle in her right hand. Her shoulder touched Stephen’s arm as they stood. It was a very narrow place, with an old, heavy smell of soot and rotting wood. They could just stand in it and stare at the back of Fay Darenska’s picture. On the other side of the panel she stood, perpetually smiling and young, in her rosy dress and her pearls. But on this side there was no youth and loveliness; there was only a dusty oblong of rough unpolished wood. Stephen looked at it for a moment. Then he tapped upon it. Elizabeth felt him start. The candle flickered.

  She said, “What is it?” and at once he caught her wrist and threw the light sideways on to the edge of the panel.

  “Look!”

  Elizabeth looked. The edge was raised about three quarters of an inch, throwing the panel into relief. He swept the light up, down, and across. Everywhere the panel which held the picture stood up from those on either side.

  Stephen let go her wrist, and tapped again.

  “It’s hollow,” he said. “I wish Paul had told me how to open it. I expect there’s a catch, if I can find it. Just give me that candle for a moment.”

  Half way down the left-hand edge there was a wooden knob, but when Elizabeth pointed to it he shook his head.

  “That only opens the panel. I want to get the back off it.”

  He moved the light to and fro, and presently came to a halt before a knot-hole in the wood.

  “It’s probably here,” he said, and gave her the candle again. “I think you’ll have to go into the passage whilst I see what I can do. If the back does come off, you might get hurt.”

  There was, in fact, no room for more than one person if either the panel or the back of the panel was to have space to swing into the tiny chamber.

  Elizabeth stood in the mouth of the passage with the candle in her hand. She saw Stephen crook his finger into the knot-hole and pull. Something creaked. He said in a quick whisper, “It moved,” and pulled again. And with that the back of the panel came out in a cloud of dust and sent Stephen stumbling up against the chimney wall. The noise in that narrow space was like the sudden noise of a train in a tunnel. Stephen’s exclamation and the splintering crash of the wooden back as it grounded upon the stone floor echoed and re-echoed with a most terrifying loudness.

  Elizabeth put a hand to the wall of the passage to steady herself. She heard the echoes die away behind her, and she heard Stephen say,

  “Sorry—my foot slipped.” And then, half laughing, half dismayed, “If there’s anyone on the other side, they’ll probably think it’s the devil coming down the chimney.”

  They stood listening, but no sound came from beyond the panel. Stephen propped the great piece of wood against the chimney wall and beckoned to Elizabeth. If there had been little room before, there was still less now.

  The back of the picture leaned behind them like a shutter. Its removal had left a shallow cavity extending to within a couple of inches of the edge of the panel. About five feet from the floor two little hooks had been screwed into the thick wood, and from them there hung, milk white amid the dust, the three gleaming rows of Fay Darenska’s pearls.

  Elizabeth caught her breath. So that was what Paul Darensky had meant. The pearls were where they had always been. On the front of the panel the painted pearls lay softly on Fay’s soft neck—fell to her breast—dripped to her knee. And here on the reverse side, in dust and darkness, the real pearls hung, pearl for pearl, in the same position. There was a touch of madness in Paul Darensky’s thought—a touch of morbid romance—a great heart-break.

  The candle shivered in her hand. The light flickered on the pearls. Stephen leaned forward, lifted them, and held them up.

  “Do you like them?” he said.

  “They’re beautiful.”

  He said, “Yes,” and before she knew what he was going to do he had slipped them over her head. Something burned the back of her neck—a cold burn, not a hot one—ice burns. That would be the diamond clasp. Pearls were warm. Their milky smoothness touched her throat and slid down it to her breast. The long row swung a little and then came to rest against the coarse stuff of her skirt. What a change after Fay’s rosy satin!”

  With all these thoughts in her mind she leaned against the wall and opened tragic eyes upon Stephen. He looked back at her. She might have read the worship in his eyes, but that wide gaze of hers was on the past—on the dead woman who had worn the pearls—on her dead lover’s heart-break.

  He took her left hand and laid it against his cheek for a moment. Then he turned back to the panel.

  “We mustn’t stop. I’ll just see if there’s anything else.”

  He took the candle from her and once more passed it up, down, and across. From the right-hand hook a string hung taut. When he pulled, it came up with a little bag of dusty muslin at the end of it. He gave her back the candle, cut the string, and untied the knot which closed the bag. For a moment he looked frowningly at his own hand and what it held. Then he shook the bag out over his palm.

  Four rings lay there under the candle-light. They rolled a little, and he cupped his left hand to hold them—a square-cut emerald, a diamond solitaire, a great pearl set in diamonds like the moon in a circle of stars, and—a wedding ring.

  “Her rings,” said Stephen. And then, “Poor old Paul … Well, we’ll have to be going.”

  “What time is it?” said Elizabeth.

  In all this strangeness she had taken no count of time. There had been no day to reckon by, only this flickering candle-light by which they had worked until they could work no longer and then lain down and slept.

  Stephen turned his wrist.

  “I don’t know. I took my watch off whilst I was working. It’s down there.”

  “Is it night or day?”

  “Day, I think—afternoon—but I can easily tell.”

  He took hold of the knob on the left-hand edge of the panel.

  “Stephen—what are you going to do?”

  It was part of the strangeness that all their talk was in whispers—words more breathed than broken. It was almost as if they were hearing one another’s thoughts. That was how people spoke in a
dream—soundlessly, intimately. Oh, how after being so near, could they let one another go?

  He had answered her question by twisting the knob. The panel moved outwards a bare half inch. Then he drew it back again.

  “Put out the candle,” he whispered. “If there’s any daylight, it will show where the shutter’s broken.”

  Elizabeth blew out the flame. The curled wick made a little glowing question-mark on the darkness. Then it faded and everything was black. She heard him move, and all at once there was a grey streak at the edge of the panel. It seemed no wider than a thread. The movement ceased. Then Stephen said, “It’s all right,” and the panel swung out, leaving a grey oblong between it and the wall.

  The room beyond was in dusk. The splintered shutters let a little cold daylight through. She saw his head and shoulders black against it. And then all at once she heard him exclaim. It was the merest muffled ghost of an exclamation, instantly checked.

  She said, “What is it?” and saw him turn with a quick shrugging movement.

  “I’ve dropped my mother’s wedding ring. It’s so small, it slipped between the others. Will you take them? I’d like to find it if I can. I won’t be a moment.”

  Their hands touched. She took the rings.

  “Where did it fall?”

  “Down into the room. I’m afraid it may have rolled.” And with that he was through the half open panel and out on the mantelshelf beyond.

  When Prince Boris had planned this secret door he had not neglected to provide an easy descent from it. On either side of the hearth the panelling was recessed to form a small niche or alcove at a height midway between the floor and the mantelshelf. In Fay Darenska’s day the niches had held a pair of Dresden figures—on the right a Flora in a pink flower-bespangled dress, rose-crowned and holding a garland; and on the left Pomona robed in green, with vine-leaves in her hair, an apple in her outstretched hand, and her lap piled high with grapes, peaches, and apricots. Perhaps the figures had been there in Boris’ time. They were fine dust now, blowing with the other dust through the ruined house. The niches remained.