In that moment of helpless silence we heard the approach of a car, heard the dogs barking again.
“There’s Justin now!” I cried and ran toward the north wing where I could find a window.
Nigel and Maggie came after me as I hurried through the door of Justin’s room and toward a side window, flinging the draperies apart to look out upon the garage area.
A car drove onto the concrete apron and switched off its headlights. The dogs stopped barking at a word from the driver, but this was Marc’s red Mercedes, and Marc was alone in the car. Maggie leaned on the windowsill beside me, with Nigel just behind us, and as we watched, Marc got out and spoke to the guard. The man came with him to the small garage, and opened it for him just as he had done for me. I told myself that all Marc wanted was to see that Justin’s car was safe, but I watched tensely and I heard Maggie’s quiet intake of breath as she saw what he was about.
Marc disappeared into the garage and the guard returned to his post. A moment later Justin’s gray car backed out upon the apron. There was no engine roar and its brakes did not squeal. Nevertheless, Marc was backing, stopping, turning at a furious rate. The guard swung about and shouted something at him, but Marc paid no attention. He pointed the car in the direction he wanted and picked up speed so swiftly that he was off along the test course before we knew what he was about.
Maggie spoke desperately in my ear. “That’s the direction of the quarry! I was right. He’s going to smash up Justin’s car.”
What anyone said after that, I don’t know. I simply started running. I tore down the stairs, holding onto the banister, taking several steps at a time. As I crossed the hall below, Deirdre bounded toward me, came with me as I went out the front door. Together we dashed for the embankment, and down it to the garage area. The startled guard said something to me, but I paid no attention. I climbed into Marc’s red car and Deirdre jumped in beside me in the front seat. For a moment I was afraid the unfamiliar dashboard would defeat me, but I had ridden in this car with Dacia and I managed to start the motor and switch on the headlights.
I did not attempt the turns Marc had made. Instead, I drove straight off across Athmore’s wide lawns, past the topiary garden, bumping over the turf, heading for the place on the test road where I knew I could cut Marc off. If anyone shouted behind me, I caught no more than a whisper on the wind that whipped my hair into a flowing mass behind my head. Deirdre had caught my urgency, and she sat beside me on the slippery seat, whimpering her excitement. I was glad of her company. I might need her now.
The test road cut suddenly across between me and the woods. I turned the wheel hard left and drove the car at a diagonal across the road, blocking the way. At some distance beyond, the dirt road to the quarry began, but in this narrow place, there was no way for Marc to get past. He could turn around and reach the quarry by a roundabout course, but by that time someone else would surely stop him.
Almost at once I saw the lights of his car coming around a curve, slashing yellow into the straightaway as he headed toward me. I opened the car door and pushed Deirdre out. She would be of no use to me against Marc, but she might be able to bring help.
“Go get Justin!” I ordered. She pricked up her ears and looked at me questioningly. “Go, Deirdre!” I shouted to her, and then paid her no more attention.
I did not think Marc would crash into the Mercedes which he prized so highly, but I did not want him to find me here alone. Trusting my own headlights to blind him, I let myself out on the side of the woods and pressed myself against the remnants of an old stone wall.
Marc came on in Justin’s car, his lights striking the Mercedes to a blaze of red. To my dismay, there seemed no break in the wall bordering the edge of the road, no way to let myself through to a safe hiding place in, the woods. I must cross the road somehow and run for the immediate grounds behind Athmore.
Justin’s gray car slammed to a stop as Marc put on the brakes. I crept behind the Mercedes and peered out behind its far side under cover of my own flaring headlights. I could hear Marc get out of the car though I could not see him, blinded by the duel of lights. I could hear him coming toward me through the brush at the side of the road, and I ran across an edging of lawn and flung myself into the shadow of a huge bush, fearfully conscious of my light-colored coat, and hampered by my long dress. From this new shelter I looked back at the two cars—the Mercedes placed at a diagonal, with Justin’s car only a foot or two from it, the headlight beams of the two crossing and entangled.
I could see Marc now. He stood at the side of the road, looking about him. His right hand moved, and in the glare of light before he sprang aside into darkness, I saw the gleam of a gun barrel. Marc had a revolver in his hand. He was searching for me with a gun.
There was an open space across which I must run. I had no other choice. I bent low and dashed across the space. If he could not see me from where he stood, he must have heard me, for he shouted for me to stop. Again I crouched low and ran, grateful for clouds across the moon, and for the black shapes of the topiary garden rising between me and Athmore. In a moment I was in the garden, darting behind the black queen on the edge of the vast chessboard.
I could hear Marc running across the road, and then silence as turf hid the sound of his steps. Swiftly I darted behind another chessman, and then another, until I had run across the intervening space between the opposing lines and could crouch behind the figure of a knight on the far side of the board. Behind me the narrow, sloping lawn led upward to the house.
But now Marc too had reached the chessboard, and it was as if we were engaged in a dreadful game of our own. I could no longer be sure of anything. Each eerie figure of yew menaced me, and I no longer knew whether Marc was between me and the house—or from which side he threatened me. He had not shouted again. He moved silently now, stalking me, with his gun ready, and only an occasional rustle of sound to betray his presence.
Sudden movement near by startled me, and I almost gasped aloud in fright. A dark figure dived from behind a bishop and crouched beside me. Nigel’s voice said, “Get down! Get down!”
The sound of the shot from Marc’s gun was deafening. The bullet clipped the very nose of my sheltering knight, but his horse’s body hid us and Nigel and I huddled low behind the yew.
“Marc means to kill me!” I mouthed the words to Nigel.
“Keep down,” he whispered, “and I’ll get you out of this.”
I crouched on my hands and knees, noting with dread that the moon had begun to emerge from behind a cloud. I was reminded frighteningly of that night of moonlight and shadow on the roofs of Athmore. But this was far worse. Now I knew my enemy. Now I knew for certain who it was that stalked me.
Nigel pressed my arm to indicate that I was to stay where I was, and crept away, to rise in the shadow of a nearby rook. I dared not look for Marc, and I watched the dark shape that was Nigel instead. He had put on a dark-green jacket and a cap that blended into the darkness and made him far less a target than I in my lime-colored dress. The moon came slowly from behind a gilt-edged cloud, and the garden was eerily quiet. Where Marc was I did not know, but I sensed that Nigel had him in view between his own concealing yew branches. In the brightening moonlight only Nigel’s face and hands were visible to me.
“Come,” he whispered urgently. “Come here! Marc can see you there.”
I moved toward him keeping close to the earth, creeping into the shelter of the tall green rook. Marc did not fire again. Nigel reached out to pull me to the safety of black shadow and I crouched behind him, shielded by his body. When I looked up he smiled grimly and nodded to me.
“The rook has been useful again,” he whispered. “This is the very one that replaced the rook that was destroyed years ago.”
My mouth was dry, my hands clammy with fear. I could just make out the peak of his hunting cap as I stared up at him. The silhouette was frighteningly familiar. This was the outline that had begun to haunt my dreams. I had seen it in a snapshot
—a figure in hunting cap and jacket, who watched from a shelter of shrubbery—watched a man who stood beside a crumbling wall.
As I stared up at him in dawning horror, Nigel raised one hand and I saw that he too held a gun. He was taking careful aim. Somehow I found my voice.
“Marc!” I shouted. “Marc, take care!”
The second shot crashed across the garden and Marc cried out. I heard the thud of his fall. There were other sounds now—sounds from the house. But when I would have flung myself into the open to run toward Marc, Nigel caught me by the arm.
“That was very foolish of you,” he said softly. “Now you’ll have to come with me.”
I could feel the hard nose of the gun in my side, and Nigel’s fingers pressing cruelly into my arm. The face of the enemy had changed so swiftly that I could not right my thinking in this weird game, but I knew the rook was moving to checkmate.
We went together, running behind the bushes, while I prayed for the moon to stay out, so they could see us from the house and come after us quickly. But this was a night of uncertainty, of rolling clouds and fitful moonlight. Even as we ran, darkness swept the garden again. Under its cover we crossed the open stretch of lawn, returned to the road. Once I stumbled and almost fell, but Nigel pulled me up and dragged me with him. He pushed me into the front seat of Marc’s open car, making it very clear that he would not hesitate to shoot if I tried to get away. Then he backed the Mercedes from the vicinity of Justin’s gray car, turned it around and set off along the road, driving quietly, without acceleration.
Behind us in the topiary garden I heard someone shout and knew that Marc had been found. But all that was receding into the background. Already house and garden seemed remote and far in the past. As he drove Nigel rested his automatic on the wheel and I knew he watched me sidelong, so that I dared not move.
I expected him to head for the highway in an effort to escape, but when we came to the bumpy, winding course that led to the quarry he turned the car onto it, driving easily and without haste. I did not like our taking this road. They would not reach us quickly now.
“This is a dead end,” I said. “The road doesn’t go anywhere.” He knew that well enough, but I had to learn what he meant to do.
“Yes, the road is exactly that,” he said dryly, “though I’m sure I meant no pun.”
I shivered at the ugly joke. “I can’t believe—” I began.
He stopped me with a sound of irritation. “Believe—believe! What could you expect when you told Maggie you knew who was in that picture, and then later told me the same thing? Didn’t you guess you were playing with fire to taunt me like that? You had to be stopped from further chatter. I managed to get the print out of your handbag when I heard that it existed, but I couldn’t find the negative. What did you do with it? I tore your room apart that second time, looking for it.”
“How could you, when you were on the far side of the roof—?” I broke off, knowing that it would have been simple enough for him to come down through his own tower and search my room while I was away from it. But why? Why?
“Dacia almost caught me,” he remembered grimly.
“So it wasn’t Marc who carried me to the parapet, after all?” I said. “You went up there again when you finished with my room.”
“Do you think I’d miss the opportunity you offered me?” He spoke carelessly, as though it no longer mattered what he said. “It was good luck for me when you tripped over a guy wire and knocked yourself out. Then Marc had to spoil it when he kept you from rolling off that ledge. When you woke up you were fighting Marc, though he’d saved your life. Which of course only meant I had to try again.”
Nothing, I realized, had occurred as quickly as Nigel had originally claimed.
His manner now was quiet, almost conversational, as if we discussed a trifling matter. He was giving me the true answers only because there was nowhere I could go with them.
“Marc believed it was you he was shooting at—not me,” I said. “But why has all this happened? You had everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
He laughed and the sound was chilling. “I’ll still gain what I want most. Of course it was Alicia who sent Marc after me tonight. Maggie often wears blinkers. She thought Marc meant to injure Justin. I knew better. I should have known from the first that Alicia would try something of the sort, once she was cornered.”
I shook my head, still bewildered, and he went on in that even, deadly tone.
“I was useful to Alicia after you went away, and Justin behaved so despondently that she thought she had lost him for good. She came out to the Bahamas, knowing very well how I had felt about her in the old days at Athmore. She thought she was too good for me then. This time I found her less untouchable. This time she was ready to bargain. I put the Club Casella in her hands—for goods delivered, as you might say. But I wanted to marry her, while Justin didn’t.”
His voice hardened and he breathed more heavily as he went on. “At the end of a year she returned to England, supposedly for a brief visit to look after her interests at the club. A visit which dragged on in time. I had Leo Casella working there, reporting to me. Leo used to be with me and he owes me a lot. So I knew what she was up to and that she was after Justin again. I suppose it frightened her badly when I returned knowing all about her plans with Justin.”
So it had been Alicia he had wanted. This was why he’d induced Maggie to send for me.
“What about Maggie?” I said. “How could you treat her so—”
He broke in sharply. “Maggie was trying to use me—you know that perfectly well. So I had no hesitation in using her to lull Alicia’s suspicions until I had her where I wanted her. Had them all, by that time!”
“How could you—when Justin and Marc and Maggie were good to you when you were young! Giving you a home, making you welcome! When Justin—”
He would not let me continue. “Never mind all that. You don’t know what it was like. Being a zero—a nothing. Being patronized and lifted up from what they regarded as dirt. When all along I knew I was superior in brains to any of them! But I’d have let them alone if it hadn’t been for Alicia and her cunning little tricks. Now they’ve all ranged themselves into one target so I can bring the lot of them down with one blow!” He turned his head to look at me. “Once I hoped to show up Justin through my hold over Alicia, but now I’ve found it was only you he cares about. So you go with me, Eve.”
I sat silent as we continued to follow the bumpy road without urgency on Nigel’s part. This in itself was frightening. I knew now that he would never let me go. I was the weapon he held over them all—especially over Justin, whom he hated.
About us the night seemed filled with blowing winds and intermittent moonlight, and the scent of blossoms was sweet on the air. Unbearably sweet, since I might never smell that scent again. Our headlights cut the dark road as it curved into a steeper grade, dipping toward the quarry.
“It’s a pity, in a way,” he said conversational again and as reasonable as ever. “You know, Eve, I rather liked you. You weren’t one of them. You were a nobody—like me. I had hoped we were two of a kind. But you began to make me too much trouble. I’d have succeeded in bringing them all down and getting Athmore for myself—if it hadn’t been for you.”
“And Old” Daniel?” I said bitterly. “What happened to him was your doing too?”
He slowed the car still more, the better to talk. “It’s more accurate to say it was Alicia’s doing. She set the old man to spy on me. She suspected I was behind the tricks that were being played to delay Justin’s work. Naturally I didn’t want these efforts of Justin’s to pay off before I had him where I wanted him. Leo served me well enough, until he got a bit careless.”
“Why didn’t Alicia go to Justin with what she suspected?” I cried.
“And have him find out about her little idyl with me in the islands? Find out how she came by the Club Casella? Oh no—that wasn’t likely. So she set Old Daniel watching me a
nd reporting to her. I didn’t intend what happened. The old fool was onto the glass-smashing Leo did in Justin’s workshop, and he met me out there in the ruins for a talk to pin everything down. But he found out soon enough that he was trapped and that I didn’t mean to let him go. When you walked onstage he tried to give you a signal—about the rook’s play. Only you didn’t catch on, did you? I had to take care of him—shut him up for good. Then you came up with that beastly picture and threw the odds against me. If Alicia recognized me in that snapshot, she’d have proof that I’d fixed the old man and she could have turned matters her way by threatening to expose me.”
“You’ll never have Athmore now,” I said, snatching at any straw, “but you still have your life.”
He flashed me a look of triumph. “I’ll have something even better—the winning shot. There’s one big mistake I’ve made in all this. I never truly believed that Justin could prefer you to Alicia. I thought you might come back and fight the divorce, prove yourself one more thorn in his side. That was my mistake; to believe that what he felt for you was an infatuation which had died out long ago. In a way you’ve been the worst nuisance of all. Even to tricking me that day when you let poor little Dacia take your coat. You don’t think I meant to harm her, do you? It was your silly American chatter that had to be stopped. Now the whole thing will come out—everything. And I don’t mean to be around for it. Tonight Maggie gave me the answer and put the best weapon of all in my hands—you! I know now that the best way to destroy Justin is through you. Don’t worry—our trip will be over soon.”
Terror is a strange thing. Once it is yours there is a point above which it can rise no higher. The mind flings about wildly, seeking an escape, while the deadly goal draws steadily closer. The heart pounds, the eyes stare, and breathing turns labored. Yet if there is time, a plateau is reached where terror can rise no higher. I suppose that is what was happening to me as I faced the fact of my ultimate end. Having faced it, nothing else remained, so that a deathly calm descended upon me. The calm of the hopeless.
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