The Coldstone

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Why—did you—look at me like that?” he said.

  Susan dropped her eyes. She could not very well say “Because I’ve been stealing your—no, my book, and I was all worked up.” She said quickly,

  “I must fly. Have you looked up the trains?” Then, as he shook his head, “I can’t wait. I’ll chance the four-forty. Don’t come down. Bye-bye!”

  Garry went on looking at the place where she had been. He hardly saw her go. He heard the sound of her feet running down the stairs in the same sort of way that a man in a dream hears some sound from the waking world. It meant nothing to him; it was just a sound. Every conscious thought and feeling was given up to a cold, bitter anger which blotted out everything except itself.

  Susan ran down the stairs at a break-neck speed. When she was a little girl she used to dream that she was being chased by wolves. The terror of this dream came upon her now. The last dozen steps were just a scramble, and she burst out of the front door into the street with such extreme suddenness that she at once attracted Anthony’s attention, riveted though it was to the top window at which he had last seen her. He heard the bang of the door, saw Susan fly down the steps, and met her in the middle of the road, only to be gripped hold of and pinched very hard.

  “Run!” said Susan with all that remained of her voice.

  “Why?” said Anthony. “Here—steady on! What’s happened?”

  Susan had no more voice, so she didn’t answer in words; but she took his arm and pulled him towards the nearer pavement, and having got him there, she began to run. Anthony ran too.

  “What on earth’s the matter? Why are we running away?”

  Susan didn’t say anything. She pulled her hand out of his arm, snatched a parcel from under her coat, and holding it to her chest with both hands, she went on running as fast as she could. When they turned the corner, she stopped dead and clutched at him. She was panting as if they had run two miles instead of two hundred yards.

  “What on earth?”

  “Taxi!” said Susan. “Taxi!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  In the taxi Susan did not speak. She sat and held the brown paper parcel. Arrived at the garage where Anthony had left his car, she followed him into its dark recesses, still without speaking. Anthony, after asking her whether she was all right and getting a nod, had also relapsed into silence.

  The garage was very dark. It smelt strongly of petrol and iodoform. With one part of her mind Susan dealt with the problem of why a garage should smell of iodoform; the rest of her mind was quite full of a queer, thick terror which she did not attempt to explain at all. Presently she would be able to think, and then she would reason herself out of it; just now she could only feel. She felt as if she had had an electric shock, as if she had been in contact with something violent, and violently destructive. At the time she had been shocked into anger, but now everything in her shuddered. She kept seeing Garry’s face, very white, and his eyes. She kept seeing them.

  She put her parcel down on the folded hood of the car, rested her arms upon it, and bent her head upon them. The garage floor seemed to be tilting with her. She leaned against the car with her eyes shut, and saw showers of little sparks go up in the dark. Then Anthony’s arm round her shoulders.

  “Susan—what is it? Susan—”

  Susan lifted her head slowly. She said slowly and stiffly,

  “I’m all right.”

  “Look here, don’t you want some tea or something?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve had anything to eat.”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew you hadn’t!” There was triumph in his tone.

  Susan let go of the car and leaned against him.

  “I did—have something, so—you’re wrong.” Then speech came back with a rush. “Oh, do let’s get away! I’m perfectly all right, but I want to get away—I don’t want to stop in London another minute—I—I—” She began to laugh in a weak, unsteady sort of way. “Oh, I’ve stolen The Shepheard’s Kalendar. Do—do—do take me away before anyone comes!”

  “You’ve burgled the Museum?”

  She shook her head, still laughing.

  “No—no I Oh, do take me away!”

  Anthony’s hand came down hard upon her shoulder.

  “You’re not to go on like that! You’re to pull yourself together! If you have hysterics or do a faint, there’s only petrol to pour over you—so drop it! In you get!”

  Out in the open air and on the move, Susan really did pull herself together. The black cloud she had seen from the window still hung overhead. The air was heavy, and a little chill. As they began to move faster, she took a long breath and shivered.

  “Cold?” said Anthony.

  “No. Anthony—”

  “We’ll talk presently. Let’s get out of the traffic first.”

  When they were on a straight road bordered by cabbage fields he stopped the car.

  “Now. What’s all this about? What have you been doing?” His tone was grim.

  Half an hour ago Susan might have been meek; she might even have cried and told him things which she didn’t really mean to tell him. Now, comfortably conscious of having left Garry miles away and with his mind firmly directed towards the train service, she was in no mood for meekness.

  “Anthony—I’ve got The Shepheard’s Kalendar—at least I’m sure—oh, I must look! There—it is! Look! I knew it was! Now say I’m clever!” The book, in its needlework cover, lay half on her lap and half on the seat between them. She faced him, glowing with excitement. “Look at it! You’re not looking.”

  Anthony was looking at her very directly.

  “How did you get it? You haven’t told me that yet.”

  “I’ve got it—that’s all that matters.”

  “No, it isn’t.” His voice was quite level, but it held an obstinate note. “I want to know how you got it.”

  “I can’t tell you. It doesn’t matter a bit.”

  He took the book in his hand without looking at it. He did not look at Susan either.

  “I came up to town to look for you. I went to the British Museum, because you told Gran you were going up about The Shepheard’s Kalendar. When I got there, I saw—” He paused, and then said, without emphasis, “him.”

  Susan said, “Oh!”

  Anthony balanced the book on his hand.

  “It would really be a great deal more convenient if I had a name to call him by.” He paused again. “He keeps cropping up so.”

  Susan said nothing at all. She looked at the faded initials on the needlework cover.

  “Would you like to tell me his name?”

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t—I told you I couldn’t.” She was aware of Anthony frowning.

  “He had a parcel under his arm. I suppose it was this.” Then, irrelevantly, “I saw you up at the top window, and I very nearly bashed in the front door.”

  Susan lifted sparkling eyes.

  “That would have been helpful!” She caught him by the arm and shook it. “Anthony, don’t let’s waste time. We can quarrel any day, but to-day there are much more exciting things to do. Do stop glowering and poking out your chin, and listen! I believe there’s some sort of cipher here.” She laid her hand over his on the cover of the book. “I’m sure Philip Colstone sent a message to his son. And we can’t look for it in an open cabbage field, and I want some tea most frightfully, so what we’ve got to do is to stop at the first tea place that isn’t crowded and see whether I’m right.”

  The writing-room of the George and Crown certainly fulfilled the condition of not being crowded: it would, in fact, have been difficult to find any place better adapted for their purpose. The inn itself dated back to a period before a George had ever worn the English crown, but the writing-room was most strictly and definitely mid-Victorian. It had a large spotted mirror over the mantelpiece, blue plush curtains tied up with sashes, massive dingy furniture, and a floor space o
verrun with tables of all sizes and shapes, from the solid rosewood centrepiece down to a three-legged atrocity that had once been enamelled pale blue and now displayed a wreath of grimy roses on a dark grey ground.

  Susan laid The Shepheard’s Kalendar on a walnut table with an oval top beautifully inlaid in coloured woods. She opened the book and turned the pages with fingers that shook a little from excitement, until she had found the Seventh Eclogue with its heading, “IULY.”

  “Look!” she said. “I believe it’s here. I shall scream with rage if it isn’t. You know, when I saw it in the Museum I was only thinking about the ‘stone that Merlin blessed,’ and all that. And I thought the page was badly spotted—but I never thought about the cipher—not till afterwards—and afterwards I kept seeing the page—and when I thought about the spots there was something odd about them—and there is. Look!” The words came tumbling over each other.

  When Susan said “Look!” she pinched him very hard and gave an excited little laugh.

  “Look! Look! Look!”

  Anthony looked, and saw a page badly speckled with damp. There were large brown stains and little round spots here, there, and everywhere. He didn’t think much of Susan’s discovery.

  Susan went on talking:

  “Take a pencil and paper and write down the letters as I read them. Are you ready? T—O—M—Y—S—O—N—” She pinched him so that he cried out. “It is—it is! It really is! Oh, I knew it was! Don’t you see? Read it out! Read the letters together!”

  Anthony read slowly: “To—my—son—” Then he looked from his paper to the book and protested, “That’s what I’ve written down, but I’m hanged if I know how you get it. This says:

  ‘THOM. Is not thilke same a gotehearde prowde,

  That sittes on yonder bancke,

  Whose straying heard them selfe doth shrowde

  Emong the bushes rancke?’”

  Susan snatched away his pencil and pointed.

  “The ‘t’ in ‘gotehearde’ has got one of those little dark brown specks right on top of it, and so has the ‘o’ in ‘prowde’”—the pencil moved to the third line—” and the ‘m’ in ‘them’—and the ‘y’ in ‘iolly.’ That’s how it’s done!”

  “Of course you can make any words you like out of anything if you can just pick and choose what letters you want as you go along.”

  “How unbelieving you are! That’s just what Philip Colstone did—he took what letters he wanted, and he made up a message to his son. And oh, do go on quickly and write it down!”

  She pushed the pencil into his hand again.

  “You must play fair and give me the spotted letters just as they come.”

  “Of course I’ll play fair. Oh, do let’s go on! The next letter’s an N—and then E—T—H—O—”

  “That doesn’t make sense. What’s ‘Netho’? You’re off on a wild goose chase.”

  Susan looked over him.

  “It’s not’ Netho.’ Look! The ‘ne’ belongs to ‘sonne.’ You’ve got to allow for the old spelling. It’s ‘To my sonne.’ ‘Tho’ belongs to the next word. Now we’ve got to find out what it is.” She went on reading out letters, whilst he wrote them down. “Don’t let’s put the letters into words till the very end. Just write them down and make your mind a blank. I don’t think I can bear to find out a secret one letter at a time. Oh, Anthony, do be quick!” Her voice thrilled and trembled with excitement, and the dull room was full of the scarlet and emerald and blue of high adventure.

  A fat red-haired girl brought in tea on a black japanned tray in the middle of the eclogue. She seemed to expect them to move The Shepheard’s Kaletidar to make room for it.

  “E—” said Susan in palpitating tones.

  The red-haired girl flounced. Her lips shaped the word “balmy.” She set down the tray with a clatter on a funereal side table of very highly polished ebony, demanded three shillings, and withdrew. The tray with its load of cold buttered toast and thick bread and scrape ceased to exist as far as Susan and Anthony were concerned.

  At last Susan heaved a sigh.

  “Oh, I think that’s all, but I’m not sure—only we must read it now—we really must. I can’t bear the suspense any longer.”

  She put her arm through his and leaned upon his shoulder, and Anthony read, in a tone of protesting incredulity:

  “To my sonne those matters broughte by me from the indies i thoughte to hide beneath the coldstone since all men feare to touch it but where i digged came up a blast that catched on fyre from my lanthorn I hardly escaping this beware after i layde them in the place will knoweth none else goe soe low as thou canst there is a stone that turneth harde by the wall presse where is the shield and with thy foote presse harde upon the second shield these two shields i cut for alle men feare merlyn’s sign.”

  “Some of it doesn’t make sense,” said Anthony. But his face had flushed.

  Susan tore the paper from him.

  “It does. You must put in the proper stops. It’s frightfully exciting. Listen!” She read aloud in her turn. Her voice trembled with excitement. “It goes like this, don’t you see—‘To my sonne. Those matters broughte by me from the Indies I thoughte to hide beneath the Coldstone, since all men feare to touch it. But where I digged, came up a blast that catched on fyre from my lanthorn, I hardly escaping. This beware. After, I layde them in the place Will knoweth, none else. Goe soe low as thou canst. There is a stone that tumeth harde by the wall. Presse where is the shield, and with thy foote presse harde upon the second shield. These two shields I cut, for alle men feare Merlyn’s sign—’ There!” She paused, panting a little. “And the shield is the mark on the Coldstone—two interlaced triangles. They called it the Shield of David, and it was used as a charm. I found a cutting from a newspaper all about it—frightfully learned—I’ll show you—”

  Anthony flung his arm round her.

  “Don’t be uppish!”

  “I’m not uppish—I’m just very clever. I’m Sherlock, and you’re Watson!”

  “I’m not!”

  “You are! I shall buy a violin and learn to smoke a pipe, and tell people everything they’ve ever said and done just by looking at their cigarette ash or the dust out of a pencil-sharpener. And you shall be Watson and knock villains down for me whenever I want them knocked.”

  There was an interlude.

  When it was over, they drank the stewed tea and ate some of the less arid portions of the so-called buttered toast.

  “When you get a dry bit, you wish they hadn’t skimped the butter so, but when you do get a buttery bit you’re not so sure,” said Susan.

  “It’s pretty foul,” said Anthony cheerfully.

  It was after tea that things began to go wrong. The Daimler wouldn’t start. Anthony cranked until he streamed, but after one cough she gave no further sign of life.

  Passers by began to offer helpful advice. The boots of the hotel had a brother who worked for a gentleman who had a car that stopped dead “just like that car of yours, sir—and would you believe it, when they come to take ’er to bits, the ’ole of the engine was that wore out it fair come to bits in their ’ands. A very rich genelman ’e was, but ’e ’ated new things like poison. ‘Old things is best,’ ’e says, ’and old cars is best. Give me a good old friend,’ ’e says. And that’s ’ow ’e was served.”

  Anthony looked at him ungratefully.

  A fat man leaning on a bicycle proffered the suggestion that he might have run out of petrol. He had an uncle in a good way of business who was towed ten miles and “never found out till he got to the garridge that he’d run her bone dry, and if the mechanics didn’t half have the laugh on him.”

  An elderly female with a shopping basket and a nondescript dog on a string hoped that no one was hurt—“Shocking things these accidents—and I’m sure I do hope and trust—”

  Anthony pushed back his hair and straightened his back for a moment.

  “It’s not an accident,” he said in tones of polite fury.r />
  Susan giggled.

  In the end the car had to be man-handled to the nearest garage, where the expert opinion was not very encouraging.

  “Isn’t hardly safe to go on the roads with a car like this—not what I should call safe. She’s been a good car, of course, but in a manner of speaking that’s the trouble, sir. Anna Domminy—that’s about the size of it—she’s been a car too long. But I dare say we can patch her up for you to get home in—but I wouldn’t like to say how long it’ll take.”

  It took three hours.

  They dined at the hotel, watched with interest by the red-headed girl, who held firmly to the opinion that they were both “batty”; whereas the boots diagnosed them as “’oneymooners.”

  It was dark when they drove away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  They drove through the dark. The clouds were lower than they had been. The night was black, and still, and very warm. Rain might fall before morning. The old car ran well enough.

  They talked all the time, saying the same things over and over, as people do when their minds are so full of something that they cannot leave it alone.

  “He must have meant the cellar when he said, ‘Go soe low as thou canst.’” That was Susan, as excited as if it were the first time she had said it.

  “Yes, he must have.” Anthony had stopped being incredulous. He couldn’t say when he had stopped, but all of a sudden the adventure had him. He said, “Yes, he must have meant the cellar,” and added, “And that’s what those fellows were after—though how in the world they knew—”

  Susan’s heart gave a little jump. How much had Garry known, and how did he know it? And had he strung together all those blotted letters in the July eclogue and read Philip Colstone’s message? No, he couldn’t have done that. She murmured,

  “Anyhow we’ve stolen a march on them.”

  “Yes.”

  Her shoulder touched his in the dark. A little shiver ran over her. Suppose Garry were to steal a march on them. Suppose he were there before them. Suppose they were to find the adventure rifled. Suppose … She spoke quickly: