Touch and Go

by Patricia Wentworth

  Sarah stared through the wind-screen in a kind of sick horror. Was this the race which Lucilla had promised to forego, or was it something else? She was in bottom gear, going dead slow. If she got into top, she could drive the car down the hill—or she could declutch and coast. But was it any use? Could she reach Lucilla before she came to those horrible bends, or, reaching her, was there anything that she could do? Almost as the choice presented itself, she had declutched. If the pace got too hot, she could always brake and let the clutch in again, praying that The Bomb would not blow up. It probably wasn’t any use, but she couldn’t just crawl behind those flying figures.

  “What’s up?” said Ricky in a startled voice as they gathered speed.

  “Mon dieu! Didn’t you see them? What can have happened? It is out of control that bicycle!”

  “Lucilla’s?” said Ricky on a sharp startled note.

  “Oh, mon dieu—yes! Sarah, it is no good—you cannot catch them!”

  Sarah didn’t say anything. She felt the speed increase. She felt The Bomb buck and sway on the hill. She saw Lucilla’s bright hair. She saw her near the first bend at a frightful rate of speed. And the defending wall was no more than a couple of feet in height. If Lucilla struck it anywhere, she would be hurled clear to the drop beyond.

  John Brown came into her view. She had not seen him, because it seemed as if she could only see that bright pale hair. She saw John Brown because he passed Lucilla on the outside of the bend between her and the edge. Then she lost them both on the inner curve. And all the while she knew where she was driving. She saw her own road, and made the instinctive movements which a driver must make. She heard Ricky’s voice, and Ran’s voice, but what they said went past her. There was the road, and there was the straining attention with which she watched the second bend.

  Lucilla came into sight again. John Brown came into sight again. They swung the bend together and were gone. Something in Sarah relaxed a little. If they were round the bends, the worst was over—the slope eased and there were banks. She took the first bend with her hands steady on the wheel, and swung the inside curve to the second bend at what was probably the fastest speed ever achieved by The Bomb. They were round it and over the worst of the hill. A couple of hundred yards farther on there was an almost level stretch which led to a brief rise. At the crest of this rise two bicycles lay asprawl against the rough earthy bank on the left, and John Brown was picking Lucilla up.

  “Brake, Sarah, brake!” said Bertrand in her ear.

  Sarah nodded. Lucilla wasn’t killed, because she was standing. You don’t stand if you’re killed.

  They tore across the level, and as soon as the rise began she jammed on the brakes. The Bomb kicked violently. Ricky shot forward and hit her in the back, something smashed in the lunch-basket, and the speedometer needle swung back to forty—thirty—twenty—ten. Sarah spoke for the first time. She said, “Golly! What a joy ride!” and they came to a standstill a yard or two from the bicycles, and Lucilla and Mr. Brown.

  They got out of the car. Just for the moment Sarah felt that she had had enough of things that ran on wheels. Your own feet with leather soles on a firm gritty road were good enough. Bicycles and cars were devilish contraptions that ran away.

  John Brown had his arm about Lucilla. She was as white as milk, but her eyes shone. She began to shake with laughter as Sarah came up.

  “It was a race after all—I didn’t break my promise—the blighted thing ran away with me—the brakes are gone—I thought I was gone too—”

  “Cilla—are you hurt?” Ricky’s sulkiness was gone. He was as pale as Lucilla, and his voice shook.

  Lucilla let go of Mr. Brown, whom she had been clutching. She stretched herself cautiously and announced that her bones all seemed to be in the same places as usual.

  “You are not hurt at all?” This was Bertrand, very solicitous. “Mon dieu, Lucilla, when I saw you go past—”

  “Your heart was in your mouth? I know. Where do you suppose mine was?”

  John Brown patted her shoulder.

  “I’d like to congratulate you on your nerve and on your riding. I didn’t think it was possible to clear those bends without brakes.”

  Lucilla’s colour was coming back.

  “Oh, I know Burdon Hill like the back of my hand. It wasn’t anything really. And it was fun!”

  “What happened to your brakes?” said Bertrand Darnac.

  He picked up the bicycle, and they gathered round.

  “The brake, it does not act—no, not at all—neither the front nor the back. They are—how you call it, wash-outs.”

  “They were all right going,” said Ricky in a bewildered voice. “They were, weren’t they, Cilla?”

  “There’s nothing to brake for going. It’s level or up hill all the way except for potty little things that don’t count.”

  “The bicycle, it is quite new,” said Bertrand.

  Mr. Brown had been examining the brake-rods. He spoke now. His voice was still quiet, but under the quietness it rang hard.

  “The screws have gone.”

  “The screws?” said Lucilla. She caught Sarah’s arm as she stood beside her.

  “The screws that adjust the length of the brake-rods.”

  “But this is a new bicycle,” said Bertrand Darnac in an incredulous voice.

  “Cilla, when did you brake last?” said Ricky.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t brake to-day—not at all. We walked up the hill, and anyhow I never brake when I’m getting off.”

  “But you must remember.”

  “Well, I don’t. I suppose it would have been the last time I went to Holme Fallow—that was with Sarah on Tuesday.”

  Ricky looked relieved.

  “They must have been working loose for some time, and this road finished them.”

  “Both screws—and so exactly at the one time?” Bertrand shrugged his shoulders. “No, no—that is a coincidence for the theatre. For the affairs of ordinary people I find it, as you say, too steep!”

  Lucilla flushed suddenly and brightly.

  “Well, anyhow the screws aren’t there. Nobody’s dead. And Aunt Marina will have fits if we’re not home for tea. I’ve never used a brake for the rest of the hill in my life, so suppose we get going again.”

  “I think we will walk down the rest of the hill,” said Mr. John Brown.

  CHAPTER XVI

  They were rather late for tea. By common consent, no one mentioned Lucilla’s brakes. Miss Marina wondered how they could possibly have sat out of doors for so long, and hoped, with a good deal of anxiety, that no one had taken cold.

  “Darling, it was boiling,” said Lucilla. “Even when we sat still we boiled—and we didn’t sit still, we ran about like hares.”

  “Stags,” said Ricky.

  “My dears—” Miss Marina pushed her pince-nez quite crooked and looked bewildered—“hares?—stags? Was it a game you were playing?”

  Everyone began to explain to her at once—everyone, that is, except John Brown, who sat rather silent. Miss Marina took a great interest in the explanations.

  “It sounds very like a game I used to play when I stayed with my cousins the Basildons. There were ten of them—in fact fifteen if you count the children of my Uncle Stephen Basildon’s second wife. Yes, fifteen, because he had seven children by his first wife, who was a Miss Gill of Bledstow, and three more by his second wife, who was a widow with five children when he married her. She was a Mrs. Haggard, and not at all handsome like his first, but a very jolly, good-natured, pleasant kind of woman to have in the house and never minded where we played our games or how much noise we made, always provided we didn’t get into mischief. We were all very fond of Aunt Maria.”

  “What games did you play?” said Sarah.

  “Well, my dear, there was the game you’ve been explaining—we used to play that in the garden. And in the house we played all sorts of card games, and round games, and parlour games like General Post, and Nuts and
May, and Musical Chairs. But the game we liked best of all was Devil-in-the-dark.”

  “I know,” said Lucilla—“you put out all the lights in a room, and you have a He, and the game is to get out of the room without being caught.”

  Miss Marina shook her head.

  “No, my dear, that’s not the way we played it. And we couldn’t play it very often, because even Aunt Maria drew the line at having all the lights in the house put out at once.”

  Lucilla’s eyes sparkled.

  “You played it all over the house? That would be something like!”

  “The dining-room was Home,” said Miss Marina in a pleased remembering voice. “There was a light in there, of course. Then half of us hid and the other half looked for them, and the game was to get home to the dining-room.”

  “But there is a game that we can play as soon as it is dark!” said Bertrand. “How soon will it be dark enough?”

  “Lovely!” said Lucilla. “I wish there were fifteen of us. Nobody has those nice large families now. I think I’ll be a pioneer and have ten children when I marry.”

  “Lucilla!” said Miss Marina in a horrified voice.

  “Darling, it would be rather fun. I’ll call the first girl Marina after you. I say—I know what we’ll do. We’ll go up to Holme Fallow and play Devil-in-the dark.”

  “Oh no, Lucilla! Oh no, my dear!”

  The door opened and Geoffrey Hildred came in.

  “Any tea left, Marina?” he said; and then, “Well, how did the picnic go?”

  “Lovely,” said Lucilla, and stopped at that.

  Miss Marina was fidgetting with the teapot.

  “Yes, lots of tea. But, Geoffrey, they want to go up to Holme Fallow and play Hide and Seek in the dark, and I don’t think—indeed I don’t—”

  “Now, Aunt Marina, don’t be a spoil-sport,” said Ricky. “We can—can’t we. Father?”

  “I don’t see any harm,” said Geoffrey Hildred benevolently. “Why, Marina, we’ve all played Hide and Seek in our time. I don’t suppose I’ll join you, but—”

  “Oh, Geoffrey—that great empty house—and no lights—and no one there!”

  Geoffrey Hildred laughed.

  “Why, they’ll all be there,” he said. “And for the Lord’s sake give me some tea, my dear, for I’ve been doing business with a most uncommonly obstinate, tiresome fellow, and it’s made me very thirsty.”

  Miss Marina sighed and pursed her lips, and sighed again and poured him out his tea. Dear Geoffrey was not nearly so loud in his voice as her father the admiral, but he had the same straight blue eyes. The admiral’s household had never found it possible to argue with him. His daughter had been brought up to do as she was bid. The habit persisted. Dear Geoffrey was always kind, but he sometimes reminded her of poor papa. She said earnestly to Sarah,

  “You will make them be careful, my dear, won’t you? The door to the cellars is locked, or I wouldn’t hear of it. But you won’t let them do anything foolish, now will you?”

  Sarah wondered how it was proposed that she should stop them. She turned to smile at Lucilla, and found her sitting silent and a little pale. She dropped her voice to the child’s ear.

  “Tired, Lucilla? Would you rather not go?” After all she had had a fright and a shaking.

  Her voice had not been low enough, for Ricky struck in.

  “She’s not tired—she’s got cold feet. Always does get cold feet in the dark—don’t you, Cilla?”

  She threw him a furious glance.

  “I don’t!”

  “Oh, don’t you? The trouble is, you’re not a stayer. You go off pop with your ‘Let’s all go and play Devil-in-the-dark at Holme Fallow,’ but when it comes to the point you funk.”

  “I don’t!”

  “There shall be no need,” said Bertrand. “What am I for if it is not to hold the hand? Ma foi—that is my métier! Sarah will tell you that I have for it a talent truly remarkable—what you say A.I., and beat the band.”

  “Sarah won’t say anything of the sort,” said Sarah.

  “Ma foi—I am sorry for you, Lucilla! If you had asked me, I would have warned you. She has a disposition very unamiable, this Sarah. Perhaps she is jealous!—it is not for me to say.” He rolled his eyes and made such a comical grimace that Miss Marina, who had been looking a little scandalised, found herself carried back to the days when sixteen boys and girls had played and chaffed one another under Aunt Maria Basildon’s indulgent eye. She glanced at Geoffrey Hildred, saw that he was smiling, and smiled herself.

  They walked up to Holme Fallow. There was a short cut across the fields, and it was a much shorter distance than Sarah could have believed possible. They started in a clear dusk, with trees standing up black against a greenish sky. It would be dark enough in the house when they got there. Sarah had put her torch in her pocket.

  She found herself walking on the dry field-path with Bertrand Darnac. He slipped a hand inside her arm and slowed the pace so that they fell behind the others. When they were some twenty yards behind, he said,

  “Sarah, listen to me. I am very uneasy.”

  She had fallen back with him, because his touch on her arm had been insistent. She said,

  “Why, Ran?”

  “You ask me why? You yourself—you are quite easy? Nothing troubles you?”

  “What should trouble me?” said Sarah, but the trouble was in her voice.

  “What should trouble you? If Lucilla had been killed this afternoon, you would have been troubled—hein?”

  “Don’t, Ran!”

  “I am still asking myself why she was not killed. It was a near thing—hein? With those screws gone, anyone would have said that she would kill herself on the hill, and I ask myself how it comes that there are two screws that are missing at the one time and from so new a bicycle. I ask myself whether I can believe that they have worked loose as Ricky says, and I find that it is impossible to believe. What do you say?”

  Sarah drew in her breath quickly.

  “Ran! That’s dreadful!”

  “Mon dieu—yes! I am serious, you understand. I am not playing a fool. I can play him, but I am not playing him now. I am saying someone took out those screws, and when I have said that, I am asking two questions. I ask, ‘Who took them out?’ I ask, ‘Who is Mr. John Brown?’”

  Sarah was silent. Her heart beat. A sharp pain went through her at the sound of John Brown’s name. After a moment she said coldly,

  “Why do you ask that?”

  Bertrand stood still, holding her by the arm.

  “You ask me why I tell you that someone took out the screws. Was it you—or I—or her cousin—or Lucilla herself? Bah! How can one believe it? There remains this Mr. Brown who comes here from nowhere at all, of whom we know only what he says himself. Why does he come here? Why does he live at the Cow and Bush? It is not an hotel-de-luxe, I can tell you that. Why does he get up in the night and go out? Now listen! Last night I followed him. Where did he go, I ask of you. Well, I can tell you that. He went into the gate of the Red House, and into what you call the shrubbery where the trees are thick, and there I lose him. I do not like to go too near. I wait some time. Then I think I will go nearer to the house, and all at once I hear voices. He is there, and he is talking to a woman.”

  “He was talking to me,” said Sarah.

  “To you?”

  “Yes, my child. And it wasn’t an assignation, and we weren’t planning a burglary.”

  “What were you doing—Sarah?”

  “Talking of this and that. Darling Ran, you have too much imagination. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk. And I suppose Mr. Brown couldn’t sleep either. I bumped into him in the dark. We talked for a few minutes, and then I went in again.”

  Bertrand took his hand away from her arm.

  “Sarah, have you become mad? You find this man walking in the night where he has no business, and you think it is nothing—and you go in and say nothing? What a folly! Do you not ask yourself what
this man wants, and who he is?”

  “Who do you think he is?” said Sarah in a different voice.

  “I have got my ideas,” said Bertrand Darnac.

  “Ran—what are they?”

  “Someone took out those screws. Someone wanted that Lucilla should ride a bicycle without brakes down a hill where it would be very easy for her to be killed. Someone wanted that, and I ask myself why.”

  “Ran!”

  “People do not do such things for nothing. Have you listened to the old lady’s histories of the family? She tells them every minute, and they are to make the head go round, but I have asked Lucilla about them, so I get them what you call sorted out. Lucilla’s father, he is killed in the war. He has an elder brother who is Henry, and a younger brother who is Maurice.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Maurice, he is missing in the war. They think he is alive for a long time—the old lady thinks so still. Henry, he dies a few months ago, and Lucilla is the heiress. She would be the heiress even if Maurice were alive. It is Lucilla who tells me that. But figure to yourself—if this Maurice were not dead—if he had lost his memory, perhaps for years, and then suddenly remembered. There have been such cases.”

  “Someone would recognize him.”

  “After how long? Seventeen—eighteen years. And he was a boy of perhaps nineteen.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is a very long time, Sarah. Then suppose he comes back. There is no place for him—Lucilla has everything. He has been shell-shocked—his brain it is perhaps not quite right. And so the screws come out of Lucilla’s bicycle.”

  “Oh no!” said Sarah. “Oh no, Ran!”

  “If Lucilla is dead, and Maurice is alive, then vois-tu, Sarah, there is a very good place for Maurice—there is Holme Fallow, and there is the London property from which the money comes, Lucilla tells me of it. When those screws are gone I look for a motive, and that is where I find one.”