Mr. Zero

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Yes-I was a fool. Well, I stay here. Are you going to be long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gay in rather a small voice.

  “You’d better have a torch.” He put it into her hand. “If I’m asleep when you get back, just wake me.” He shut the door between them.

  Gay looked at it with a horrid sinking feeling, and then turned away.

  They had stopped just short of the gates, and Algy had switched off the headlights. She put on her little torch, found her way between the gateposts, and then put it out again. She must do without it if she possibly could, because her plan depended wholly on being able to get to the yew walk without being seen.

  It was terribly black in the drive. She stood still and shut her eyes whilst she counted a hundred. When she opened them again she could see the black tracery of the trees against the sky, and the sky wasn’t black-there was light coming through it, and she could see a star. She began to walk up the drive. Once or twice she blundered into a holly or a yew, but for the most part she was able to keep fairly straight, and as she went on her eyes began to see more and more. There was one blackness of a dense bush, and another of a tree. She kept a hand stretched out before her to save her face, but she didn’t use the torch again.

  In the end she came out upon the broad sweep in front of the house and could see it plainly as a great mass rising up against the sky. There was no light anywhere. The front seemed windowless, without a gleam. She stood at the edge of the trees and tried to think which way she must go. She had to get round to the back of the house. And there was a path-she remembered that there was a path.

  She began to skirt the gravel sweep, keeping to the left, and presently she found what she was looking for. The path ran between shrubs. She had to use her torch once where two old hollies leaned together overhead, and once she thought she heard a footstep-someone moving, but she couldn’t tell whether it was behind her or in front, or whether it was just the echo of her own footstep thrown back from the wall of the house. Her heart beat quick and frightened. She thought, “I don’t know why I came. I can’t stop Sylvia. I ought to have made her tell Francis. I can’t do any good this way. Oh, I do wish Algy was here.” But she went on, because even if a thing isn’t any good, once you’ve started it you’ve got to see it through or else despise yourself for a spineless rabbit for ever and ever.

  XVII

  Sylvia heard the last stroke of twelve die away. There was an old clock against the end wall of the corridor, a tall old clock which struck with such a ringing sound that she could sometimes hear it in her sleep. Even after the sound had died away the air still seemed to tingle. There was a tremor now, and she waited for it to pass, because it frightened her a little. Everything frightened her a little tonight.

  When the air was still again she opened a big mahogany wardrobe and took out a black satin cloak. She was still wearing the crepe dress which she had worn for dinner. She didn’t very often wear black, but Francis liked it better than anything else, and she had wanted to please him. She had taken the papers out of his safe the night before. No one else could have done it. Francis never forgot his keys or left them about like other people did. But it had been quite easy for her to take them from under his pillow, and open the safe, and put them back again. She had found the papers at once, a bundle of letters marked Zero, so it was quite true what Mr. Zero had said about the letters belonging to him, and of course Francis oughtn’t to keep letters that belonged to someone else, but she did feel that perhaps she ought to be a little extra nice to him tonight. And the black dress would be quite good for meeting Mr. Zero in. It wouldn’t show any marks, and if she put on her cloak and pulled the hood up over her hair, no one could possibly see her as she crossed the lawn.

  The letters were in her jewel-case. She lifted the lid. Francis had given her his mother’s diamonds, but she didn’t care for them very much. They really wanted setting again. He was obstinate about things like that. This room was frightful-all heavy Victorian mahogany, but she hadn’t managed to move him the least little bit about it. She could get new chintzes if she liked. He wasn’t going to have good old furniture turned out to make room for rubbish.

  Under Lady Colesborough’s diamonds in the bottom compartment of the massive old-fashioned case which had been Lady Colesborough’s too the letters lay in a flat bundle. Sylvia had wrapped them in a silk handkerchief, an odd one of Marcia’s, dark brown and green. She thought it very ugly and would be quite pleased to be rid of it. She put the packet in the pocket of her cloak, opened her bedroom door, and stood there listening. The servants were all in bed long ago, and Francis was in his study. He would be there for more than an hour yet, so that there was nothing to be afraid of. She had only to walk along the corridor and down the big staircase into the hall. She wouldn’t even have to pass the study. It was quite easy. Yet she stood there for a long time hearing the faint, measured tick of the old clock. There was no other sound.

  When she came to the stair head she listened again, but now she could not even hear the clock ticking. As she went downstairs, she thought of what she would say if Francis met her. He wouldn’t of course, but if he did, what should she say? Biscuits-yes, that would do-she was hungry and thought she would like a biscuit. She wondered if anyone ever really ate biscuits in the middle of the night-so dry and crumby. Perhaps it had better be orange juice, or a book-but she hardly ever did read anything, and if Francis didn’t believe her, it might be very frightening indeed. No, it had better be orange juice. Orange juice would be safe.

  The hall was very large. The drawing-room lay on one side of it and the dining-room on the other, with the study behind the dining-room. There was no corresponding room on the other side, because the drawing-room took up the extra space, but there was a passage which ran past the drawing-room to a room that was called the Parlour. It was supposed to be Sylvia’s own sitting-room, but she did not care for it very much. She would have liked to have the old dark panelling painted white and throw away the faded Persian rugs, but Francis would not hear of it. He said his mother had done her best to spoil the room by having a French window put in, and he wasn’t going to let it go any farther.

  It was the French window which was taking Sylvia to the Parlour. It opened so easily, and when it was open she would only have to cross the terrace and run down the steps to be straight in line for the yew walk. It was easy as easy, and if only Mr. Zero was punctual, she would be back in her room in less than ten minutes. And what a relief that would be.

  Francis Colesborough pushed his chair a little farther back from the desk at which he had been writing. He had a letter in his hand, a letter which he had no more than begun to write. The last line was incomplete. He had the air of a man who has been disturbed, yet he himself could not have said what it was that had disturbed him. He stayed like that, listening, and heard a sound so faint that only a sense keyed to an unnatural tension would have caught it. It came to him as the sound of metal against metal, and immediately he remembered the window which had been unlatched two nights ago. He thought that someone had unlatched a window now. He threw the letter down upon the blotting-pad and went to the nearest window. With the curtains dropped behind him he looked out along the terrace and saw a bright rectangle aslant upon the flags. There was a light in the Parlour, and the curtains had been drawn back. The bright rectangle moved, the glass door swung. He had looked a half second too late to see who had opened it and come down the steps, but there was a shadow that slipped along the dark terrace and was gone. An open window two nights ago in town, and tonight an open door-and Sylvia slipping out-Sylvia-

  He turned back into the room, pulled open a drawer, took out a small Browning pistol, and was back at the window, opening it before a tenth of a minute had gone by. He ran down the terrace steps and out on to the lawn. He was quicker than Sylvia and as silent. She did not know that he was no more than a dozen yards behind her as she groped her way into the black mouth of the yew alley. He halted there, and h
eard her going away from him between the over-arching yews. A twig broke now and then. He heard her catch her breath. The sounds receded.

  He swung about and ran along the path which lay between the rose garden and the lawn. The path went straight to the end of the lawn, turned, and went straight again to skirt the yew hedge on the farther side and come out upon a stretch of level sward. Francis Colesborough came running by this way. He had no light, and needed none. These were paths he had trodden for nearly forty years. He had played at hide-and-seek about the old yew walk when he was a child of five. His foot knew every step and had no need for the guiding eye. He checked at the edge of the sward and moved out upon its soft-foot and intent.

  XVIII

  Gay came suddenly to the bushes’ end and felt her feet on grass. The path had brought her out upon the wide lawn at the back of the house. She remembered it quite well. Francis had taken them out through a glass door, and first there had been a wide terrace, and then steps which led down to the lawn, and at the far end of the lawn a rose garden with the yew walk cutting it in two and spreading out like the top of the letter T to shut the roses in. So she had only to find the middle of the lawn and then keep straight on with her back to the house until she came to the open end of the yew walk.

  She moved clear of the bushes and looked towards the house. She could see it very big, and blurred, and black, with the gloom of trees on either side of it melting away into the outer darkness. A little to one side a bright rectangle broke the shadowy mass. There was a door there, a door with glass in it right down to the ground, and there was a light in the room behind it. She thought that the door was open, and thought how exactly like Sylvia to come out at night on a quite dreadfully secret errand and leave an open door and a lighted room behind her.

  She found her way across the lawn and came to the end of the grass. There was a path-she remembered that there was a path which bordered the rose garden, and Francis had told them how his father had made it when he cut down that part of the old yew hedge. “He had it cut because he wanted to see the roses from the house. Rather an old vandal.” That was what Francis had said. And the cutting down had left the yew walk exactly like the letter T, with its long stem facing her now and the cross-piece running away to right and left on the far side of the rose garden.

  Three steps took her over the path and into the black mouth of the walk. It was really a tunnel, for the yews met overhead, and had met and grown together and made an arching roof for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was quite pitch dark in the walk, quite, quite pitch dark, and dry under foot, with little brittle twigs and a queer cold smell. The walk was fifty yards long-Francis had told them so. She had to grope for fifty yards in the black tunnel where she couldn’t see anything at all. But she ought to be able to make out the window at the far end. Because there was a window there, a wide rectangle cut in the hedge, and a seat where you could rest on a hot sunny day and look down a winding glade to the river and its meadowland.

  She strained her eyes to find the window, and suddenly it sprang into view. A bright light flashed and was gone-flashed from the other side of the hedge and was gone. She saw nothing but the light-the sharp rectangle of the window and the light which made it visible. She heard a confusion of sound which she could not disentangle. She heard the sound of a shot, and she heard Sylvia scream. She began to run, with her heart pounding and her breath failing her. The picture of the lighted window floated upon the darkness. She ran towards it, and ran into the seat, bringing herself up with a bruising jerk.

  The seat had a high oak back. She clung to it, steadying herself, and found the switch of her torch and turned it on. The beam shot straight ahead and showed her a bare arm, and a hand, and a pistol-a little black pistol-Sylvia’s arm, Sylvia’s hand.

  Gay’s wrist moved, and the beam went sliding up over Sylvia’s shoulder to Sylvia’s face. There was a black cloak over the shoulder. It had fallen away to leave the arm white and bare. She wished there had been something to cover Sylvia’s face. It was quite white, quite terrified. It had a drowned look.

  Gay said, “What is it?” but the words didn’t make any sound. It was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to her, because she had said the words, and she said them again, and she tried to say “Oh, Sylvia!” but there wasn’t any sound at all. There hadn’t been any sound since the shot and Sylvia’s scream and her own heart beating hard.

  Her hand wavered, and the beam came slanting down. She saw Sylvia open her hand and let the pistol fall. She heard it fall, and she heard the sound of someone running, and she heard Sylvia take a long, deep, sobbing breath.

  She ran round the seat and leaned out through the window with her torch. There was a stretch of turf outside-a stretch of turf, and a man lying there with one arm over his breast and the other flung out wide upon the grass. The beam showed her Francis Colesborough’s face, and she thought that he was dead. She felt cold, and stiff, and a little sick. She remembered the pistol that had been in Sylvia’s hand.

  She turned round and laid the torch on the arm of the seat. The pistol-she must find the pistol. Someone was coming-there had been a pistol in Sylvia’s hand-she must find it-someone was calling her-someone was coming-

  She held on to the seat because her knees were shaking, and stooped down to grope in the dry twigs and withered leaves. Her hand touched the pistol and found it, still warm from Sylvia’s hand. This endless, dragged-out time had been only a moment, then. She stood up with the pistol in her hand and began to wipe it with the hem of her dress.

  XIX

  Algy had never had the slightest intention of allowing Gay to go blinding off alone into dark, unknown grounds with the fairly obvious intention of meeting an anonymous blackmailer. She had, naturally, not announced this as her reason for coming down here in the middle of the night, but it seemed perfectly clear to him that it was what she meant to do, and the minute she mentioned Colebrook, and he guessed that their destination was Cole Lester, he guessed too that it was probably Sylvia Colesborough who was being blackmailed and not Gay Hardwicke. He felt a queer rage against Gay for getting herself mixed up with what was probably a pieee of crass folly and no business of hers.

  As he followed Gay at a safe distance up the drive, his rage turned back upon himself, because of all things in the world he could least afford to mix himself up with any new scandal. He was a fool to have come, and a complete fool to have pledged himself not to ask any questions. He ought to have insisted on asking them. He ought at the very start to have said “Nothing doing” and hung up his receiver. He ought… In his heart of hearts he knew perfectly well that he would have taken Gay to Timbuctoo rather than let her run stupid risks without him.

  He came to the end of the drive, and realized that he had lost her. What had he to do now? Follow the plan he had made and hope for the best. He wished her away-anywhere but here-in London -out of this business. It weighed darkly on his mind, darkly on them both. He went on…

  As the sound of the shot rang out and died away, he began to run. A bird went up, startled, with a rush of wings. His torch was in his hand. When he came to the yew walk he switched it on and saw the dark mouth gaping. And then from the far end he caught the flash of another torch. He plunged into the tunnel and ran along it. He was more afraid than he had ever been in his life before. There was a nightmare sense of weight upon his feet and upon his heart.

  He came to the seat, and the full beam of his torch shone across it and showed him Gay standing there with a pistol in one hand and a fold of her skirt in the other.

  What he felt was not to be put into words-a blinding anger, a cold fear. What was she doing with the pistol-Gay-what had she done? He said her name, and she threw the pistol on the seat and came running to him helter-skelter like a child. She was in his arms and he was holding her before there was time for either of them to think or draw breath. He felt her strain against him, shuddering. All that had resisted her broke in him and dissolved. He said quick and low
,

  “What is it? Gay-darling-what is it?”

  And Gay said, “He’s dead! Oh, I think he’s dead!”

  “Who?”

  “Francis.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside-on the grass.”

  His arms tightened about her.

  “Did you come to meet him? Was he blackmailing you?”

  She put her hand against his chest and pushed him away.

  “I can’t breathe. Oh, no-it couldn’t have been Francis-it couldn’t!”

  “Then why did you shoot him?”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t! Oh, Algy, I didn’t!”

  He released her.

  “Where is he? Show me!”

  They leaned together against the hedge and over the green sill of the window that was cut in it. In the light of Algy’s torch Francis Colesborough lay dreadfully still.

  “How does one get out there?” Algy’s tone was almost matter-of-fact.

  Gay looked away. Francis was dead. She was quite sure that Francis was dead. She pointed to the left and said in a small, faint voice,

  “There’s a way out along there.”

  There was, in fact, a way out at either end of the cross-piece. She didn’t know why she had pointed to the left, but when he had run that way she thought perhaps it was because Sylvia had been standing on the right. He hadn’t seen Sylvia-yet.

  She picked up her own torch from the arm of the seat and flashed it round. Sylvia had been standing just there on the right of the window, but she wasn’t there now. There wasn’t anyone there.

  Algy’s voice called to her through the window, “Gay-come here,” and when she came he leaned in across the sill and said,

  “He’s dead. Who shot him?”

  She said nothing. Her mind was full of the dreadful picture of Sylvia with the pistol in her hand.