Dead or Alive

by Patricia Wentworth

  She came to the steps going down to the island level, and found the door at the foot, and found it fast. Well, she had expected that, and she had the key. She felt for the lock and pushed it in. That was when the first cold misgiving touched her. The key didn’t slide in. She had to push it, she had to push it hard. And when she had got it in, it stuck and wouldn’t move. It would turn neither to the right nor to the left, and when she tried to pull it out of the lock it jammed. With despairing violence she shook the handle and banged upon the panels. But the only answer came from behind her. They were battering at the door through which she had come, and all at once it came to her that the bolts were poor comfort, because any door is only as strong as its hinges.

  She made one last effort to withdraw the key and failed. There must be a different key to this door, though there was only one on the chain she had taken from the Cannock’s table. Perhaps they kept the other key in the passage. It might be hanging on a nail, or hidden somewhere. But even if she found it she couldn’t use it now. The door behind her might give way at any moment. They were using something heavy as a ram. That meant Henderson and Miller. And the woman must be there, because they wouldn’t break down the door without her orders.

  Meg’s plan came to her in the flash which showed her the three of them behind the breaking door. She ran back up the steps and, taking off her right-hand shoe, waited for the next assault upon the door, and then broke one of the large glass panes in the side of the bridge. Then she got out of her tweed skirt and, wrapping it thickly round her hand and arm, she pushed the splinters outwards. She heard them fall into the lake. They were gone, and she must go their way if she didn’t want to be trapped, because there wasn’t any other way for her to take. Another blow and the door would be down.

  With the noise of a rending crash in her ears she climbed through the broken window and let herself drop into the lake.

  XXVIII

  It was just short of nine o’clock when Bill Coverdale stopped his car at the gates of Ledstow Place. He had driven furiously, he had made record time, he had been a prey to the most horrible fears and imaginings, and now a cold reaction came upon him and he wondered what he was going to say and how he was going to explain his sudden arrival—on the top too of Meg’s telegram telling him not to come, telling him she wanted to be left alone. He began to feel that he was making a most obvious and complete fool of himself. And then something in him stiffened up, because if it came to even one chance in a thousand, he was prepared to make a fool of himself and take the consequences rather than let Meg run the risk of that one chance.

  He sounded his horn and waited for someone to come, but no one came. He got out of the car and tried the gates, but they were most securely locked. The lodge was just a black blur, formless and lightless. He stood there listening, and felt an oppressive silence gather about him like a fog. The horrible thought came to him that the place was empty—lights out, fires dead, and all human life withdrawn, leaving lodge and house, park and lake, to the dead stillness which seemed to brood there.

  He shook himself angrily and went back to the car for a torch. He had got to get somewhere where he could see the house and dispose of the suggestion that it was deserted, and if he couldn’t get in by the gates he was going to get in some other way. That locked gate had made him angry when he came down before, and it made him angrier now. Ridiculous medieval tomfoolery, and the sooner someone told the Professor so the better! If the old man wasn’t balmy already, he soon would be, living like this.

  He left the car where it was and prospected. The lane came to an end at the gates. There was a ditch on each side of it with, on the left, a great scrambly hedge enclosing a wood, and on the right, the churchyard wall about five feet high. The wood was no good, obviously. There was no view to be got from it, for he remembered that it continued on the other side of the wall right up to the edge of the lake, so that it would be impossible to see the house. No, he would have to get into the churchyard and see what he could see from there.

  He went first to the car, chose a heavy spanner from among the tools, and put it in his pocket. He could not have explained why he did this, but it gave him the feeling of having done the right thing. Then he crossed the ditch and got over the wall. It was built very roughly of local stone, so that it was easy enough to climb, but no sooner had he followed it to the point where it became the boundary wall of Ledstow Place than it took on an extra three feet in height and became a newish brick wall, very well built and quite unclimbable. If he had hopes of the angle where it turned towards the gate and the extra height began, they were immediately dashed, because this was defended by a chevauxde-frise of the most villainous double-bladed spikes. There was nothing for it but to go on following the wall and hope for a bit of luck.

  It was about twenty yards farther on that he nearly trod on William and William’s girl who, oblivious of cold, damp, and Mr Coverdale’s torch, sat spell-bound side by side on a low table tomb with their heads on one another’s shoulders and their arms doubly entertwined. They had not spoken a single word for three quarters of an hour, and they did not speak now. The light of Bill’s torch flickered over them, Bill’s knee took William in the small of the back, and Bill’s voice said, “I beg your pardon.”

  There was one of those pauses. Then Miss Ellen Cade, who had been nicely brought up by the aunt who kept the post-office and village shop, lifted her head about an inch from William’s shoulder and said, “Granted.”

  It was at this point that William began to feel annoyed. After all, it was he who had been barged into, not Ellen, and it wasn’t her place to go saying “Granted” like that. He disentangled himself, got to his feet, and demanded in irritated accents, “What are you getting at?” The light of the torch shone on his very young face, his freckles, and the upstanding that of red hair.

  Then Bill Coverdale said with half a laugh, “What I want to do is to get over the wall. I’ve got to get up to the house, and I can’t make anyone hear at the lodge. I expect you know this place like the back of your hand. Is there anywhere I can get over? And I’m most awfully sorry I tumbled over you like that, so if five bob—”

  Five bob changed hands. A faint sheepish grin appeared on William’s face. Ellen giggled. Bill lowered the torch and came briskly to business.

  “Well, what about it? How do I get over this wall?”

  William, fingering two half-crowns in his trouser pocket, found words.

  “How’m I to know you ain’t up to something?”

  Ellen giggled again.

  “I am up to something,” said Bill. “I want to get over the wall. I keep telling you so.”

  William uttered again, conscious of Ellen, conscious that here might be the chance of a lifetime to foil a criminal and get his name into the papers.

  “How do I know you’re not a burglar?”

  “You don’t,” said Bill. “But I’m not. Let’s get on with this wall business—I’m in a hurry. What about the stone you were sitting on? Is that any good for a leg up?”

  “There’s a better one farther along, sir.” Ellen Cade had been out of the conversation long enough. She didn’t care about being out of things. She hoped that the torch would be turned upon her, because she’d done her hair a new way, and Aunt could say what she liked, it suited her. She slipped her hand inside William’s arm and pinched it. “Come on, William, do! Right up by Mary and Jane Posset—that’s the place.”

  They walked along by the wall, the three of them, on an edge of rough grass broken here and there by a green mound or a grey tilted stone, until Ellen said brightly,

  “Here we are! Aunt’s great-great-great aunts, Mary and Jane they were, and we’ve always said, William and me, it’d be as easy as easy to get over the wall from them.”

  Bill brought his torch to bear upon a headstone set no more than a foot away from the new red brick. It was about three feet high, and if you stood on it, the top of the wall would be well within reach. William, warming to the
adventure, lent a steadying shoulder, and without more ado Bill got to the top of the wall and dropped from it into the grounds of Ledstow Place. A last faint giggle from Ellen followed him.

  He had the torch in his pocket, but he didn’t want to put it on. He had no wish to encounter the shambling Johnny, or a gardener—there must be a gardener. They would not be likely to be about at this hour, but it was never safe to count on people being where they were likely to be, because just when it was most inconvenient they were sure to be somewhere else.

  He stood still to take stock of his surroundings. The footsteps of William and Ellen retreated. They were returning to their meditations among the tombs. It was very dark. A clump of trees and bushes screened the place where he had come over the wall, though none of them approached it to within a dozen feet. He skirted the clump, and came out upon a dim open stretch of grass, rough under foot and sloping gradually upwards. Bill followed the rise, because what he had to do was to find a point from which he could see the house. If there were lights in it, all was well—he just went boldly up to the front door, saw the Professor, saw Meg, pitched some kind of tale, and took Meg away with him. He hadn’t really begun to bother about what he was going to say. He rather thought of dragging Garratt into it. Yes, that would do—Garratt, and a solicitor, and some frightfully urgent legal business which made it absolutely necessary that Meg should be on the spot bright and early in the morning. How bright and early were solicitors? He grinned a sardonic grin. It didn’t matter—it would do for a tale. On the other hand, if the house was dark—His heart contracted, because that would mean—what would it mean? Something too bad to think about. And he would have landed himself behind an eight-foot wall with no friendly tomb-stone on this side of it.

  He passed another clump of trees, and drew a long breath of relief. The house had come into view, a solid black cube against the soft smudged darkness of the park and the glimmer of the lake, with the fanlight over the hall door shining as yellow as a harvest moon. His forehead was suddenly wet. He got out his handkerchief and wiped it. He hadn’t known how horribly afraid he was until he saw the light.

  He had reached the top of the slope. He walked down it now at a good brisk pace, not caring any longer whether he was seen or heard. As he walked, he made careful plans. He would drive Meg back to town. There wouldn’t be any need to hurry. And then tomorrow he would take her to see the flat. They would stand together at the window from which you could see the river. He didn’t map it out any farther than that, but he felt very hopeful.

  He stepped briskly off the grass on to the gravel in front of the house, and someone came running down the front steps and met him half way across the sweep. The front door stood open. He thought it was the man-servant who was running to meet him, flurried and out of breath. He stood still and let the man come to him, because an instant warning bell had started ringing in his mind.

  Mr Miller came up in a fine taking. He spluttered out the name of Henderson, which was quite unknown to Bill.

  “Where’ve you been, you lazy skulking dog? She’s got away, blast her! And you’re to go down to the gate and wait in the bushes in case she comes that way—and get a move on, or the boss’ll want to know the reason why!” He turned to run back, not into the house this time, but round the corner. His feet left the gravel and were heard no more.

  The front door stood open. The fanlight shone golden against the blackness of the house—the fanlight, and the sharp rectangle between the door-posts. Not a window on this side was lighted.

  He heard someone shout in the distance.

  He began to run down the drive towards the gate.

  XXIX

  Very odd doings. Bill had submitted to being Henderson and a dirty skulking dog who was at the orders of some unknown boss because when the man said “She’s got away,” he knew with a certainty as complete as it was irrational that this she was Meg. It might have been a dog, a cat, or a parrot, but he was quite sure it wasn’t. He was quite sure it was Meg, in which case he was Henderson till further orders. He wondered whether he ought to have laid the other fellow out. It was a bit close to the house, and after all he didn’t know anything. A bit awkward if he had brained the Professor’s butler and then found that there was some mistake.

  He stopped running at the turn before the lodge, and went softly until he came to the gates, where he left the drive and discovered, as Meg had done, that there was a path between the shrubbery and the wall. He turned off to the left and stood there a couple of yards in, waiting, and straining eyes and ears against the silent darkness. He could see nothing except the black mass of the shrubbery on his right, the black height of the wall on his left, and the skyless dark between them, and part of the drive, much darker than the sky, but nothing like so black as the bushes and the wall. He could not distinguish the lodge, though it should have been within his view. It was there though he couldn’t see it. A hundred other things might be there which he could not see.

  He couldn’t hear anything either, except all those natural sounds of the night which at first seem veiled in silence, but gradually emerge from it until there is no silence left. A branch creaked in a stirring of the air which did not reach him. Something very small moved a dry leaf quite close to his foot. An acorn fell, striking him on the head and pattering down like a solitary hailstone.

  How long was he going to wait, and what was he waiting for? Meg.

  But where was she? He might wait here whilst she was in some desperate strait, but if he went looking for her in this wide, dark place, how easy to miss her, how impossible to do anything else, since she would be doing all she knew not to be found. But if she had been found already—found and taken back to the house—would they come and tell Henderson, whoever Henderson might be? It seemed reasonable to suppose that they would, unless the real Henderson had happened along—which was of course quite on the cards.…

  Well, there was nothing for it but to wait. He remembered the wood on the other side of the drive back of the lodge. If Meg was hiding, that would be the place to make for. He wondered if he dared prospect a little, because of course she might come down to the gates in the hope of finding them open or of being able to get the key from the lodge.… Now that was a very bright idea. It was the world to a halfpenny that the key was hanging somewhere in that damned invisible lodge.

  He crossed the drive, felt his way round to the back door, and knocked upon it. There was no answering sound from within.

  Bill began to feel a most intense dislike for this place. It ought to have had a light, and smoke coming out of the chimney, and someone hopping out briskly to open those infernal gates. Hang it all, that was what a lodge was for, a kind of concrete brick and mortar welcome, but all you could get out of this one was a dark, deserted feel like a devastated area plus an amazingly powerful smell of cabbage-stalks.

  He knocked again. Nobody came.

  He found a window, broke it with as little noise as possible, and climbed in across an unsavoury sink. It reeked of things that a decent sink doesn’t reek of. He felt his way to an open door, and thence into the very narrow passage. When he had located the back door, he decided that he must risk using his torch for a moment. The key which opened the gate would in all probability be hanging from a nail in this passage—at least in any ordinary lodge it would. Reflecting gloomily that this was about as far from being an ordinary lodge as you could get, he took out the torch, switched it on, and sent the beam travelling over the dirty walls. No sign of a nail, no sign of a key. Paper yellow with damp and curded with dirt hung loose from the decaying plaster beneath. Here and there it had peeled, and hung in tatters. He reflected that a nail would have nothing to take hold of, and that he would have to look elsewhere for the key. The kitchen was the next most likely place, and he would just have to risk someone’s catching the glint of his light at the window through which he had climbed.

  The room seemed to be kitchen and scullery in one. The torch showed it larger than he had suppo
sed, with the sink up under the window and the range against the outer wall—a stupid waste of chimney heat. He turned the torch here and there, screening it behind his coat. The fires was out, or very low. The floor was greasy, and black with trampled coal. He got as far from the sink as possible, and found the opposite side of the room entirely taken up by a large kitchen dresser on which in indescribable confusion were piled dirty plates, and plates which he supposed the old woman considered clean, a much hacked leg of mutton, three cooked onions and a cold potato in a cracked vegetable dish, a jug half full of beer, part of a rabbit pie gone very high indeed, the heel of a loaf, and a pair of clod-hopping boots, presumably Johnny’s. What a place! And where in all this welter was the key he was looking for? If it wasn’t in the passage, it ought to be hanging from a hook on the dresser, but it wasn’t. Bill had got past expecting anything in this house to be in its proper place.

  He sent the beam across the chimney breast. People kept things on the ledge above the range. There was a box of matches there, and about half an inch of sooty dust. Where in the name of common sense did the disgusting old woman keep that key? It must be somewhere, unless she’d got it on her. And with that it came to him for the first time to wonder where she was.

  It didn’t take him more than a split second to get the answer. She was out looking for Meg. She, and Johnny, and the fellow who had run out of the house at him, and every other man jack about this infernal place—they were all out hunting for Meg. And he, as Henderson, was supposed to be on guard at the gate. That meant that they would beat the grounds and try and drive her this way. There was a lot of cover in the wood, but one or two people going through it with torches might hope to scare an already frightened girl and get her on the run. He felt a furious impatience to be there, and to know what was happening—to find Meg. But the key—if it was to be found, he must find it. Find the key, find Meg, and he had only to walk out of the gates with her and start the car.