Hendebakker burst out laughing.
“Would you like to keep him company?” he said; and then, “He ain’t a girl; a rat or two won’t hurt him. You’re too softhearted, but I reckon it’s a little late in the day for that. You just come along home.”
They went off separately: Sylvia in the taxi, with Robinson driving; Hendebakker in his own car with the other man.
Sylvia sat huddled in a corner, and cried most of the way home. Her own flat, lights, and some supper revived her, but later on in the darkness terror came upon her again. Peter was in the cellar with his hands tied. It would be horribly dark there, and horribly, horribly still—unless the rats came. She shuddered from head to foot and switched on a light with a rosy shade. Her pretty room sprang into view. An inlaid mirror caught the light and reflected it. All the hangings were mauve and blue, exquisite, delicate, spotless. Sylvia looked at them, and saw bare walls of whitewashed brick, stained with mould, and a rough door whose hinges were red with rust. Peter was in the dark. She shivered and pulled up her eiderdown. Peter couldn’t move or use his hands. The cords would be cutting into his wrists. There was a smear of blood upon his forehead.
Once she actually got out of bed and went to the telephone. If she dared ring Miles Banham up, if she only dared! She stood with her hand on the receiver for ten minutes, trembling and shivering. Then, like the thrust of a knife, came the remembrance that Hendebakker had heard Peter ask her to ring his uncle up. He’d know at once. It was impossible, it was quite impossible.
She went back to bed in helpless misery. Peter would never forgive her. She liked to be admired; she liked people to like her; and Peter would never admire or like her again. Her heart was broken with self-pity.
“Oh, what have I done that such dreadful things should happen to me?” she wailed.
The pleasant, rosy glow filled the room. Sylvia buried her face in her hands—and through the twilight which they made she saw the accusing stare of Peter’s eyes.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Peter heard Sylvia’s scream; he heard Hendebakker’s muffled tread. Both sounds died on the heavy air, and he heard no more. An access of uncontrollable rage made him struggle fiercely with his bonds, but this too soon passed, and he leaned against the wall with a bitter realization of impotence. The men who had tied him up knew their work. No strength or struggle of his would avail. He would only exhaust himself, fret his strength away, and struggle towards the nightmare of madness. His thoughts raged in a furious mutiny against his will.
Henders—if ever he got free! Peter saw red when he thought of Henders. And Sylvia—blackness and bitterness were in the sound of her name; her fluent lies; her tears; her appeals for his help. He felt, not anger, but a sick revulsion. People whom one knew, one’s pals, didn’t do things like that. But Sylvia had done them—and he had thought of marrying her! If it hadn’t been for Rose Ellen, he might have thought that he was in love with Sylvia; he might have asked her to marry him. It was just as if he had been walking along some pleasant, familiar path, and then suddenly there was no path—nothing but emptiness. Peter felt himself on the edge of that emptiness, looking over it into horrible blank space. If it hadn’t been for Rose Ellen—and with that a most dreadful fear rushed upon Peter and shook him. Rose Ellen—Sylvia had guessed what he had done with the Jewel; by some devilish intuition she had hit upon the truth; and she would tell Henders; she had gone from him hot-foot to tell Henders! He knew it. He was sure of it. The terror rose about him like swirling water. It took his breath and drowned his reason. He had sent the Jewel to Rose Ellen and had brought her into most dreadful danger. Henders would go down there, and—anything might happen.
Peter wrestled with this terror, and presently thoughts came to his aid. Henders would look for Rose Ellen at Merton Clevery, and she would not be there; she would have gone to Chark with the Gaisfords. This was the first thought. It came to him with all the force of a shock that it was today that the Gaisfords were going to Chark; it was only yesterday that he had stood in the beech-wood and seen Rose Ellen’s tears; it was only yesterday that he had gone to Sunnings. Why, the Jewel would not reach Rose Ellen until tomorrow; he had sent it off from Mrs. Merewether’s post office that morning, and it certainly would not reach Rose Ellen at Chark until tomorrow.
It seemed simply ages since he had sat on the outskirts of the little wood and watched the sunrise dazzle on the Annam Jewel, simply ages since he had hidden the Jewel in a nest of moss and covered it with forget-me-nots. What was it the woman had called the pink ones? “Never”—no, that wasn’t right—“no-never”; it went in a sort of jingle:
Forget—me—not … no—never.
Forget—me—not … no—never.
Peter’s thoughts were slipping from him into a dreamy place beyond the cellar. They slipped a little farther, and suddenly he was walking with Rose Ellen between hedges of forget-me-nots that had grown thirty feet high and were arched overhead like church windows. The flowers hung down and brushed Rose Ellen’s hair. She picked a great handful, all bright-blue like the sky, and held them out to Peter, and said: “Forget me not. You won’t, will you, Peter de—ah?” She really said “Petah”, and he loved her very much for saying it like that.
In his dreams Peter wanted to find a bunch of the pink no-nevers, and to give them to Rose Ellen. In the odd way in which things go in dreams, he couldn’t say, “No, never,” unless he could find a bunch of the flowers, and he knew that, unless he could find them, Rose Ellen would begin to cry again, her heart would break, and she would go away, and Peter would never be able to find her any more. He looked everywhere for the little pink no-nevers, but wherever he looked there were only blue forget-me-nots, and he saw Rose Ellen’s face change and grow sad. He tried to call her, but he could not speak. Then suddenly there was a bunch of the pink forget-me-nots growing high up where he must climb the hedge to reach them, and the hedge had thorns in it like rose thorns, only longer and sharper. He climbed, and the thorns tore him. He grasped the flowers, and same down with a crash because the hedge wavered and fell in. Peter said, “No, never,” and tried to give the flowers to Rose Ellen, but she wouldn’t take them. She cried out, and Peter saw that what he held was the Annam Jewel. “No, no!” said Rose Ellen. “I hate it!” Peter woke up with a great start. The cords were cutting his wrists.
It took him a minute or two to clear his thoughts, but after that minute he set himself to think in real earnest. He had to get to Rose Ellen, and he had to get to her before Henders did. The terror had departed. He meant to get out of the cellar and to reach Rose Ellen. He had no idea how it was going to be done, but he meant to do it. Twelve years ago he had stood outside St. Gunburga’s and made up his mind to take Rose Ellen away and to find her a home. Peter at twenty-five was not very different from Peter at thirteen. The end still came before the beginning; he saw first what he meant to do, and wrestled afterwards with the ways and means of doing it.
He had to get out of the cellar. He had to get his arms and legs free. How? Peter had no idea. He frowned ferociously in the darkness, and set himself to visualize the cellar as he had seen it by the light of Henders’ electric lamp. Three walls of brick, barely covered with very ancient whitewash; high up in the left-hand wall the grating of a ventilator; opposite to him, the door with rusty lock and hinges. The door did not fit very well; it cleared the uneven stone of the floor by three-quarters of an inch or so, and there was a wide crack on the hinge side. Above the door, two feet of brick and another ventilator. On the right, in the corner, the beer-bottle which Henders had used as a candlestick. A flagged floor, very dusty. A few straws lying about. That was all, that was absolutely all. There was nothing else in the cellar of any sort or description except Peter himself, sitting propped against the wall which faced the door, his legs roped together and his hands secured behind his back.
It came to this, then, that the only movable things in the cellar—the only things that were not structurally part of it—were Peter,
the straws, and the beer-bottle. The beer-bottle—Peter’s mind became concentrated on the beer-bottle, and all at once an elusive memory slipped in amongst his thoughts and, as it were, played hide-and-seek with them. It was there, and gone; back again for an instant, and then once more just out of reach. It had something to do with St. Gunburga’s, with his getting Rose Ellen out of St. Gunburga’s; it had something to do with the wall. Peter made a sudden grab at the slippery memory and held it. There was broken glass on the top of the wall. He had put his coat on the glass. Why? To keep it from cutting his hands. To keep it from fraying the rope.
Peter gave a shout that echoed through the cellar. Broken glass and a rope. A rope might be frayed by broken glass! Oh, blessed beer-bottle! Oh, blessed, blessed beer-bottle! Peter dismissed dreams and memories, and settled down to a practical consideration of the problem before him. He sketched an ordered programme.
(1) The beer-bottle must be broken.
(2) He must use the broken glass to cut through the cord that bound his hands.
(3) Having freed his hands, he could easily get the rope off his legs.
(4) He must kick out the lock of the cellar door.
He reckoned that the first half of the programme would certainly take time, and that it must be well past midnight.
Before doing anything at all he had to get across the cellar. It was really quite easy to roll across a flagged floor with your arms roped behind you and your legs tied—easy, but horribly unpleasant. Peter got a straw down his neck, and a great deal of dust up his nose; he also took some skin off his hands. He arrived at the door, and lay in a most uncomfortable position, flat on his back, with the greater part of his weight on his hands. It was not so easy to get into a sitting position; his elbows being tied together, he could not use them to raise himself. The obvious alternative was to lever himself up by swinging his legs from the hips. This brought him up with his left shoulder against the jamb of the door. It also took all the skin off his knuckles, which had necessarily played the part of a fulcrum. As his feet came down they knocked the bottle over. It fell and rolled just out of reach. He shuffled forward inch by inch until his feet touched it. It was lying between him and the wall in very much the position he desired. He pushed it until it was right in the corner, with its base flat against the left-hand wall.
He sat still and considered the important question of where to break it. A kick with his heel on the shoulder, he thought; that would probably bring the neck away whole and provide some good jags of glass. A second kick would break the body of the bottle if he should find it necessary to have splinters or fragments to work with. Better break too little than too much to start with.
He made sure that the bottle was in the right position, leaned his shoulder against the wall, and kicked out cautiously. The bottle neck slid from under his left heel, and the bottle pivoted and rolled away from the wall intact. He pushed it back, measured his distance as well as he could, and let drive again. This time his heel struck the shoulder and smashed it. The bottle was broken, and he had now to turn himself round and shuffle backwards along the wall until he could feel for the glass with his hands.
The bottle had broken, as he had hoped, without splintering much. Feeling gingerly behind him with his bound hands, he found that about two-thirds of the shoulder had come away in one piece with the neck; the remaining third lay by itself, a sharp, irregular fragment; the base of the bottle was unbroken.
With his right hand he picked up the bottle-neck and, using it as a handle, tried to bring the sharp edge of the shoulder to bear on a strand of rope about three inches above his left wrist. The position was a most dreadfully cramped one, and he soon became aware that his wrist was a good deal more vulnerable than the rope. The glass slipped continually, and he could get no real purchase—the edge scratched at the rope without fraying it, and whenever it slipped he cut himself. He let the bottle-neck slip from his numb fingers and began to think again. There was probably an easier way of doing it. If there wasn’t, he must have another go. He hoped with some earnestness that a better plan would turn up.
After a bit he stood the end of the bottle up on its base, and tried to saw the rope by moving his wrists to and fro across the uneven edges; but the bottle slid and toppled. All the same, the idea was a good one. If only he could fix the bottle in some way so that it could not move! Peter shook his head impatiently. No use to consider impossibilities. He couldn’t fix the bottle, because there was nothing to fix it with.
His mind came back to the big splinter of glass. If he could fix that somehow. Where? Between the flagstones? He leaned sideways and felt with blood-smeared fingers. No, the cracks were filled with cement. With the word crack, he thought suddenly of the door. There were cracks there and to spare—one on either side. Yes, something might be done with the door.
He picked up the splinter, and shuffled forward with it until he came to the jamb of the door. With his back towards it, he felt for the crack on the lock side, and tried the bit of glass in it—turning, shifting, pressing until it jammed and remained wedged. About two inches of glass now stuck out, with a curved, irregular edge. Getting as close to the door as he could, he set his roped wrist against this edge, and brought all the pressure he could to bear on it, so as to fix it still more firmly in position. Then he got to work. By hunching and dropping his shoulders he kept the rope grating against the jagged edge of the glass. In a less awkward position, and with the use of his eyes, the job would have been an easy one, but as it was—well, he set his teeth and was thankful that it was possible at all. The shrugging movement gave him so little play, and involved so much sustained effort, that there were moments when achievement seemed terribly remote. Yet slowly and surely the cord was fraying. Up, down—up, down—up, down—the monotony was suddenly broken by the piece of glass slipping. Do what he could, Peter could not wedge it firmly again. He had to shuffle over to the corner and break what remained of the bottle. It took him three journeys and a great deal of patient effort before he could fix another piece of glass at all firmly in the crack.
The edge of this second bit was not so conveniently curved. As the cord wore through, it became increasingly difficult not to cut himself. Up, down—up, down—up, down—it was frightfully hard work, and a thirst was upon him like all the thirsts in the world rolled into one. He would almost have given the Annam Jewel for a drink of water. The cellar was hot and airless. His mouth was full of dust.
He had been hunching and dropping his shoulders since the year one, and an interminable stretch of time lay before him in which he must continue that slow sawing of rope on glass. If only the glass would hold now! The second strand was through, and the third was well on its way—very difficult not to cut oneself. The first bit of glass was a much handier one—pity it hadn’t stayed the course. Up, down—up, down—up, down. Oh, lord, how much more of it? The glass was slipping again; he felt it give, and had to work it back into place, using one of the un-frayed turns of the rope to push with. Then on again until suddenly the last strand gave, and the glass gashed his wrist. He could hardly believe it.
For a moment he leant back against the door. The cessation of effort was grateful beyond words. And then a dreadful thought brought him bolt upright. Suppose he had only cut the rope between two knots and should find himself in the same case as when he began. Not being one of those who allow themselves to be hypnotized by possibilities, he began at once, by jerking and wriggling his arms, to bring one of the cut rope-ends within reach of his groping fingers. Nothing moved. He got the cords against the raised edge of the door jamb and rubbed them on it. An end fell down, brushing his finger-tips. He strained his arms apart, and felt the lashings give a little. He could now work his arms one against the other. His hands were loose. The strain on his elbows slackened. The ropes fell to the floor. His arms were free. He drew in his breath and stretched.
The first stage had been accomplished. He had now to untie his legs. For the moment his hands and arms felt as i
f they did not belong to him. He went on stretching and moving them until he could feel for and loosen the knots about his knees. When his legs were free, and he could stand, he stamped about the cellar, and would have shouted as he stamped, had he been quite sure that Hendebakker had left no one on guard. Of course, it would save him trouble if somebody opened the door; but, on the other hand, he felt he would rather kick out the lock than risk a charge under the muzzle of an automatic pistol.
When his legs and arms were more or less his own again, he took his bearings carefully, and prepared to deal with the door. He longed for shooting-boots instead of Oxford shoes, but he hoped for luck and kicked out. His heel missed the lock, landing just above it. His shoes scraped on the edge of the iron casing. He lost his balance and sat down hard upon the stone floor. The second kick got home, but the lock held. The third kick smashed it, and the door swung out.
Peter came into the pitch blackness of the passage, and stood there, listening. The door swung back towards him, creaking. He caught it by the edge, and waited, his ears on the stretch. If there was anyone in the house, the odds were that he would have heard that last crash; and yet—Peter remembered that the kitchen floor lay between him and the living-rooms, and he doubted whether a man on the ground floor could have caught any sound from the cellars. Anyhow, no one was coming down. He waited another minute to make sure of this, and then, letting go of the door, he crossed the passage to the opposite wall and began to feel his way to the corner.
He remembered that there was a sort of square hall, and that the steps ran sharply upwards about a yard or two from the turn. He came round the corner, and went on groping forward until he hit his head. The stairs were nearer than he had thought.
He reached the kitchen floor, and had rather a hunt for the next flight; the darkness was confusing, and he could not remember his position. He was glad to come out into the upper hall and to find that the darkness here was less absolute. The fanlight over the front door showed grey.
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