Lonesome Road

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Suppose she wouldn’t come. She was afraid of this place-she hated the well. Suppose he killed her first. Have you thought of that?”

  Miss Silver said, “Yes.” Then she added in her briskest voice, “It is useless to speculate. We will not anticipate evil. We need coolness and courage. And here is Mr. Brandon who has plenty of both.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  When Rachel looked back afterwards at the next half hour it seemed to her the longest she had ever known. She would have said the most dreadful too, if the culmination of that time of waiting had not been more dreadful still.

  At first she was too cold and numb to feel. Prim and efficient as a governess in her own schoolroom, Miss Silver took command. She talked apart with Gale. They admitted the chauffeur, Barlow, and talked with him. Finally they took up their positions. Barlow in the kitchen, with a candle well shaded and the window made light-proof by hanging a tablecloth over the drawn curtains. Rachel and Gale together where the back door opened and, opening, would hide them from view. Miss Silver on the other side of the door, half way between the well and the larder, with the larder door left open as a line of retreat. A log of wood on the floor beside her.

  Rachel’s glance had passed over the log without really seeing it in the candle-light, but as she stood in the dark and waited, a picture of it formed on the surface of her mind, as a broken reflection forms again on water that has grown still. An odd picture. Miss Silver and that log of wood. Miss Silver pushing the log until it lay right on the edge of the well. A heavy log. An odd picture. She thought about it with the kind of apathy which dwells on some trifle because the thing is there and it is too much trouble to stop thinking about it.

  The silence and the cold of the scullery settled about them. The darkness was unbroken-a darkness that could be felt. The damp of the well came up with a breath of decay. Rachel’s thought came slowly and most unwillingly back to the well. It was so very old. More than twice as old as the house which had been standing over it for three hundred and three score years. An old well. Very deep, very dangerous. Was this the first time that a man had made use of its secret danger? No wonder Caroline was afraid of it.

  The numbness of the apathy left her. Her heart turned over. Caroline… She shuddered from head to foot.

  Gale’s hands came down on her shoulders and turned her to him. He held her, and kissed her again and again. Agony and joy were together in her mind. She thought, “I can’t go on feeling like this-I shall die.” And then she thought, “This isn’t death, it’s life.” And then she stopped thinking at all, and time stopped too.

  It began again with the sound of the telephone bell. The bell rang in the living-room, and with both doors closed the sound had something ghostly about it, like a sound caught between sleep and waking.

  Miss Silver said at once, “You go, Miss Treherne-and pray do not forget the well.”

  Rachel wondered whether she would ever be able to forget the well. She left Gale’s arms-left warmth, protection, comfort-and skirting the right-hand wall, came past the table to the kitchen door, actually brushing the well cover as she passed. Her hip touched it, and her hand. The wood was soft and smooth, almost slimy. The feel of it set her shuddering again.

  Barlow was in the kitchen, sitting up stiff and straight on one of the kitchen chairs with his candle on the table beside him shaded by an elaborate contrivance of books and saucepan lids. She signed to him not to get up, and went through into the living-room, leaving the door ajar.

  The telephone was on the wall half way to the window. The bell was ringing again, and now it sounded horrifyingly loud. Her heart beat, and the hand that lifted the receiver shook, and then stiffened into rigidity, because it was Richard’s voice which struck insistently upon her ear: “Hullo-hullo-hullo! Who is there? Is there anyone there?”

  Richard-but Richard… What was the good of saying but? What was the good-

  She put her left hand up to her throat and managed his name.

  “Richard-”

  His voice leapt at her.

  “Who is that? Is that Rachel? Oh, for God’s sake!”

  Rachel Treherne took a hard pull at herself.

  “Yes, it’s Rachel.”

  “Where is Caroline?”

  “Richard-I-don’t-know-”

  “Where is she? She wasn’t at Cosmo’s flat. Her car wasn’t in the garage. I thought about the cottage, and started to come down, but this damned fog is so thick. I thought I’d ring up and tell her I was coming-if she was there.”

  Rachel said steadily, “She isn’t here, Richard. Miss Silver thinks-she may be on her way.”

  There was a harsh anger in his voice as he said, “After four hours! It’s nearly four since she left Whincliff Edge!”

  “Miss Silver says-”

  He broke in more harshly still.

  “What are you doing at the cottage? And Miss Silver- what is she doing there?”

  Her control was slipping. Her voice flinched.

  “She came-to look-for Caroline. I came-with Gale. She isn’t here. Miss Silver thinks-We’re waiting to see if she’ll come.”

  There was a sound that might have been a laugh or a groan.

  “Then I might as well wait with you. I’ll push on.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Linford.”

  She heard the receiver jerk back and the line go dead.

  But she ought to have warned him not to drive up to the Corner. She ought to have thought of that. It was too late now.

  She hung up, went back across the kitchen, and opened the farther door. But as she opened it, there came to her ears the sound of the back door key grating in the cumbrous lock. Instantly she was alive. She felt a vital apprehension, a tingling excitement that was partly fear and partly an astounding relief, because now, at last, the waiting was over. She stood on the threshold with the door drawn to behind her-listening-intent.

  The lock went back, the back door handle turned, and the door swung in, covering Gale. Only now he was to move, come forward to the edge of the door, and be ready. She could see the doorway breaking the solid dark of the room, and something-someone-like a shadow standing there. The wet step caught a glimmer from the fog. The shadow stood there and did not move. Then from the fog a voice called cheerfully,

  “Get a light-there’s a good child. Right across to the dresser. There are matches there, and a candle.”

  The shadow on the threshold stirred. Caroline’s voice said faintly, “It’s so dark.” And at the sound of that faint voice three people in their hearts said, “Thank God!”

  The man’s voice came out of the fog again with a bantering sound.

  “Afraid of the dark? You poor tired child! Well, the best way is to make haste and light that candle. I’ve got my hands too full to do anything about it myself. Hurry up, child! Don’t you want a cup of tea? I do.”

  Caroline said, “Oh, yes!” She took a step forward. And then, as Gale’s arm came round her, she screamed, and Miss Maud Silver pushed the heavy log out over the edge of the well… It seemed a long time before the splash came.

  There was no second scream. Even if Gale Brandon’s hand had not closed down over her mouth, Caroline would not have screamed again. For twenty-four hours she had walked the edge of an abyss. Now she slipped over the edge. She let go. She went down.

  There is a point at which you no longer care. Caroline reached it and let go. She did not quite lose consciousness, but she no longer cared what happened.

  Miss Silver moved noiselessly back till she touched the jamb of the larder door. She stood there with the door in her hand, ready to move forward or back.

  Rachel did not move at all. She had no consciousness of her body. She was set there in judgment. She was a burning flame of justice.

  She waited, looking to the doorway. A second shadow had come up, and stood there as Caroline had stood a moment before. So little time had passed-so much had passed-

  Cosmo Frith stood between t
he fog and the well. He was breathing hard. He stared in upon the dark. The sound of a scream and the sound of a splash were still in his ears. The dark was before his eyes. But he was safe. He had only to skirt the well, light the candle which stood ready upon the dresser, replace the wooden cover, and be gone. There would be no one to say he had ever come. If the night had been clear, if there had been the remotest chance that the car-Caroline’s car-might have been seen and traced, he would have left the well as it was. And the door open and the car outside. But now he had a better plan than that. Cover the well and lock the door, and take the car as far from Pewitt’s Corner as it would go, and then set about an alibi. Town for him. Telephone calls to friends. Dinner and a theatre. Lights. Music. People…

  It came to him that he had only to walk into that life and be safe. Caroline had been the danger, and Caroline was gone-the little fool. He threw up his head and laughed. It had been so easy.

  “You little fool!” he said aloud, and laughed again. “You damned little fool!”

  The words went into the dark. The damp of the well came up against his face. Get on with it! Get on with the job and get away!

  He stepped over the threshold, felt his way by the left-hand wall, and came to the dresser. The ticking of the clock struck on his ear and startled him. He must have wound it last night. What a damnable fool’s trick! What ailed him that he couldn’t keep his hands from a clock? He must stop that ticking before he left.

  Candle and matches were to his hand. Miss Silver had seen to the replacing of them. He struck a match, bent over the candle, and watched it light. And looked up to see Rachel standing against the kitchen door. She was bareheaded. The dark coat which she wore hung open over a dark dress, and both were indistinguishable against the background of old time-blackened wood. Her hair showed faintly. Her face was white and wet. Her eyes took up the candle-light and turned it into flame. She said in a whispering voice,

  “What have you done with Caroline?”

  Cosmo looked back at her, the match with which he had lit the candle still in his hand. A little smoulder of fire crept up the wood and burned him. He dropped the match.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Caroline stirred in the dark shadow behind the door. Gale Brandon had set her down there, and she had fallen in a crouching heap and neither known nor cared what would happen next. But now she stirred, opened her eyes upon candle-light, and saw past Gale, who stood between her and the room, to Rachel whose voice had called her back.

  If Rachel was here, she was safe. That was the first thought that came to her. An old association of safety with the familiar voice. Her eyelids began to droop, until a second and dreadful thought startled them wide again. If Rachel was here, nothing was safe any more. The man in front of her moved forward away from the door. Caroline got to her knees, and from her knees to her feet. She had run away from Rachel, and Rachel was here. She must run away again. If she stayed, they would make her speak. She mustn’t speak. All that was left alive in her said that- “You mustn’t speak.”

  She led the edge of the door, slid round it, and reached the step. She had to go farther than that. She had somehow to reach the car and drive it away into the fog. Blind and beaten she must do it-for Richard-Richard. The name was like a stab, and the pain of it roused her. Behind her in the room she heard Rachel say in a strained, whispering voice.

  “What have you done, Cosmo? You knew the well was open. You sent her in-Caroline. You heard her scream. You laughed-I heard you laugh.”

  “Better for you if you hadn’t,” said Cosmo Frith.

  Rachel said, “Better for both of us.” And with that Caroline turned and looked back into the room.

  She saw then what she had not seen before-the open well. And beyond it Cosmo at the dresser, and Rachel leaning back against the kitchen door.

  Gale Brandon stood where the well cover tilted against the table. He was watching Cosmo and Rachel, but she thought they did not see him. They only saw each other.

  Caroline watched too. Rachel’s words said themselves over in her mind-“You knew the well was open. You sent her in. You heard her scream. You laughed.” She saw Cosmo as if she was seeing him for the first time. All the easy geniality was gone. There was about him something which even to her dim and exhausted sense spelled danger If a dog looked at you like that, you went warily. But for Cosmo to have that twisted look of hate for Rachel-for Rachel-

  Caroline opened her lips to cry out, but no sound came. She was a yard from the step. She tried to move, but she had no power. They spoke in the room-Rachel-Cosmo. Rachel’s words went by her, but she thought she heard Cosmo say, “I’ve always hated you.”

  Gale Brandon took a long stride forward. The thing had gone far enough-too far in his opinion. He stood between Rachel and Cosmo Frith and spoke his mind.

  “That’s enough of that! You sent that girl to her death, and you’ll have to account for it!”

  His voice rang loud where the other voices had been low. He had come out of nowhere with the extreme of suddenness.

  Cosmo took the shock with a visible stiffening of every muscle. He straightened up, measured Gale with the eyes which had reminded Caroline of a dangerous dog, and stepped back. The odds were out of all reason, and he was not beyond reason yet. There was still the car. If he could get a start-get away-get over to France. After all, there was no proof-no possible proof. They could never prove that he had uncovered the well. Rachel would keep the police out of it if she could… No, they’d be bound to come in, with Caroline dead-with Caroline dead. But it would be an accident. No one could ever prove that it wasn’t an accident.

  All this in the flash between danger and decision. He said aloud,

  “I’ve nothing to say to you, and nothing to account for-to you. There’s been an accident, and there’s an end to it.”

  With the last word he had turned his back and was skirting the well as he had skirted it before, going right-handed past the larder and the sink, with his head up and his shoulders squared. Miss Silver saw him go. And then he came to the open door and stood there face to face with Caroline. She was a yard away on the flagged path which led up to the step. A glimmer of candle-light showed him her face drowned in the fog. Her eyes were open and empty. They looked at him as drowned eyes look from a dead face. She stood quite still. Everything stood still for a heart-breaking second. It was when she put out her hand with a wavering motion that reason went out of Cosmo Frith. He broke suddenly, dreadfully, screamed some incoherence of horror, and went back from that weak, groping hand-and back-and back.

  Gale Brandon tried to reach him, but was too late. It was no more than three steps from the doorway to the well-three steps taken at a rush. And then, hands clutching and balance gone, over the edge and down.

  The verse which Rachel had not been able to finish finished itself:

  “They have digged a pit and fallen into it themselves.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The inquest was over, and a verdict returned of death by misadventure, with a recommendation by the jury that the well should be permanently boarded over or furnished with a parapet. There had been terrible moments of strain, but, with so much else that was over, they were over now.

  “Will you describe what happened, Miss Treherne?”

  The gray-haired coroner was â friend of nearly twenty years’ standing. Thank God for that.

  Rachel could hear her own voice now.

  “Mr. Brandon and I found the well uncovered. I very nearly fell into it. We warned Miss Silver. Mr. Brandon and Miss Silver stayed in the scullery. I went to answer the telephone. When I came back the door was opening. Miss Ponsonby came in, and Mr. Brandon pulled her out of the way of the well. Mr. Frith followed her. He came round the well and lit a candle.”

  “The room was in darkness?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “There was a candle in the kitchen. I spoke to Mr. Frith about the danger of leaving the well un
covered.”

  “Was there a quarrel?”

  “No-I should not have called it a quarrel. I had had a terrible fright.”

  “Was there any quarrel with Mr. Brandon?”

  “No. Mr. Brandon told Mr. Frith he was accountable for leaving the well uncovered. Mr. Frith turned away and went round the well to the door. Miss Ponsonby was just outside. I think he did not expect to see her there. He was startled, and he must have forgotten about the well. He stepped back, and before Mr. Brandon could reach him he overbalanced and fell.”

  “Mr. Brandon did not touch him?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Did anyone touch him?”

  “No.”

  Gale Brandon’s evidence, on the same lines. Then:

  “What did you do after Mr. Frith fell?”

  “Miss Silver rang up the police. The chauffeur and I went to try and get a rope. He must have sunk at once. We did what we could.”

  “I am sure of it, Mr. Brandon. Oh, there is one thing-can you account for the log of wood which was found floating in the well?”

  “I think I can. It was lying near the edge of the well. It got pushed over.”

  “You noticed it?”

  “Yes, I noticed it.”

  Miss Silver’s evidence, very precise and composed:

  “Where were you when Mr. Frith fell?”

  “I was just inside the larder, sir.”

  “And why were you in the larder?”

  “I stepped back just inside the door when Mr. Frith came in. I wished to leave him room to pass safely round the well.”

  “And from first to last no one touched Mr. Frith?”

  “No, sir-no one touched him.”

  “He was startled at seeing Miss Ponsonby and stepped back?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They had all given their evidence, and it had all been true, only no one had spoken the key-word which would have resolved death by misadventure into something darker and more dreadful. If the coroner had his thoughts, he did not speak them-at least not in that place or at that time. The jury returned their verdict and dispersed.