Mr. Zero Page 9

  Gay cast an anxious look at the attendant, but the sandy lashes lay on the pasty cheeks,, the hands were folded in an ample lap, and a sound which came very near to being a snore reassured her. She turned back to Sylvia.

  “Sylly, you can’t!” she said.

  “I must-he says so. If I don’t he’ll tell Francis, and I’d rather be dead. And we’re going down to Cole Lester tomorrow-because of the window being opened, you know. And I’m to take the letters down and give them to him-in the yew walk, like when I met him before.”

  “What time?” said Gay.

  Sylvia caught her breath. “He’s very frightening,” she said. “He knows everything. He knows when I go to bed, and he knows Francis sits up writing in his study till half past one. So that’s when I’m to take the papers. The servants will be in bed, and Francis will be in his study, and everyone will think I’m asleep. And I’m to go to the alley, and he’ll be outside to take them through the window in the hedge. And if Francis finds out, I think he’ll kill me.”

  Gay felt a sudden horror between them. She caught her breath and said quickly,

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Sylly!”

  “It isn’t nonsense,” said Sylvia Colesborough. Her eyes widened. A shiver went over her. The lovely natural tints faded from her face. She looked past Gay as if she saw something behind her in the empty room and said in a half whisper, “I’m frightened-I am frightened, Gay.”

  Gay said, “Tell Francis, you mustn’t do what this man wants you to. If you tell Francis you’ll be safe, because he won’t have a hold over you any more.”

  Sylvia choked down a sob.

  “I can’t-I can’t-you don’t understand-and you don’t know Francis-I can’t tell him.”

  Gay said, “Let me,” and saw Sylvia’s face go grey.

  She caught at Gay and stood there trying to speak. The words wouldn’t come, not till Gay got her into a chair and knelt beside her saying every soothing thing that she could think of. Then the words came with a flood of tears.

  “You mustn’t-you won’t-you can’t! Oh, Gay!”

  Gay was ready to promise her the moon. The attendant still snored, but she would be bound to wake if Sylvia went on crying like this. In any case what could she do except say, and swear, and mean it, that of course she wouldn’t dream of telling Francis what Sylvia had told her in confidence?

  This had the desired effect, and with no more than a tear or two entangled in those long lashes, Sylvia gazed at her reproachfully.

  “Darling, you did upset me. I’ve always told you things, and I never dreamed you would think of telling anyone, especially Francis.”

  Gay was relieved but provoked.

  “Well, I never meant to,” she said.

  Sylvia turned to the mirror.

  “You’ve made me look too frightful.” She produced cream and powder from a be-diamonded bag and began to repair the damage. “You know, Gay, you really ought to be careful not to upset people. I might have fainted, and then what would you have done?”

  Gay couldn’t help laughing.

  “Rubbish, Sylly-you’ve never fainted in your life!”

  Sylvia looked back over her shoulder quickly, as if there might be something behind her.

  “I thought-I was going to-I felt-” She shivered again, then went back to rubbing cream into her face. “I don’t generally put any colour on, but I think I’d better have a little-don’t you?”

  Gay said, “Yes, I think so.”

  “But I’m sure it will be all right really. I mean, if I do what this Zero man wants me to this time, he won’t ever ask me anything again-he’s absolutely promised that. You see, he says the letters are really his and Francis won’t let him have them. And of course, he says, he could go to law and get them that way, but it would cost such a lot that we might all be ruined, so it’s much better for me to do what he wants, and I’ve told him it’s no good his thinking I’ll do anything more, because I won’t. I really feel quite all right about it now.”

  She got up, smiled at her own reflection, slipped her arm into Gay’s and said,

  “I don’t know what made me feel like that. It was horrid-just as if something dreadful was going to happen.”

  XV

  It was next day that it began to dawn upon Algy that Brewster was sorry for him. The remoteness of Carstairs continued. The atmosphere of the office was glacial in the extreme. Brewster, in the capacity of intermediary, wore a worried and deprecating air. Impossible as the day wore on to escape the conviction that Brewster was being kind. Algy, conscious of ingratitude, wished that Brewster wouldn’t. In the role of Samaritan he found him frankly intolerable. He preferred him as a human encyclopaedia. This being Saturday, there was, however, only half a day to be endured. There was hope that the kindness of Brewster might have expended itself before they met again on Monday morning. Possibly, though not probably, Carstairs might have thawed. Anyhow, whatever had happened or was going to happen, Algy intended to play golf. Too much office-too many stuffy rooms-too many feelings, thoughts, suspicions. He had a conviction that fresh air and exercise were most urgently required.

  The new Bentley had never run better. He returned to town a good deal soothed. He had played like an angel, done a 76 off the back tees, and taken half a sovereign off Smithers, who was as sick as mud.

  He came whistling up the stairs, and was arrested half way by Barker, who emerged soundlessly from the dining-room and informed him that a lady had been ringing him up-“No name, sir, and no message, except that she said she would be ringing again later.”

  Algy went on up to his room and proceeded to have a bath. The capacity to produce boiling hot water at any hour of the day or night was one of Mrs. Barker’s shining virtues. She had others. Her pastry was a dissolving dream, her pancakes melted in the mouth, and her soups were of an infinite variety. With these things she had doubtless ensnared the heart, head and stomach of Barker, who had rightly esteemed them above the attractions of face and figure. Vast and shapeless was Mrs. Barker, small of eye and scanty of hair, emerging only at the rarest intervals from the underground kitchen where she stoked fires and meditated rare sauces and omelettes.

  Algy wallowed in his bath and anticipated his dinner with pleasure. When the telephone bell rang he cursed it bitterly. Never is a hot bath so agreeable as when you have to leave it. Never is the voice of a friend less welcome than when you listen to it girt with a hastily snatched towel. Algy dripped, Algy cursed, Algy contorted his agreeable features into a scowl. He said “Who’s there?” in the voice that means “Why weren’t you drowned at birth?” and heard Gay Hardwicke say rather breathlessly,

  “Oh, Algy, is that you?”

  It was the sort of ridiculous thing that girls did say. Because if it was, why ask him, and if it wasn’t, why call him Algy? But the scowl subsided into a mere frown as he replied,

  “It’s me. I’m dripping all over the Barkers’ new carpet.”

  “Why?” said Gay in an interested voice.

  “Because I was in the middle of having a bath.”

  He distinctly heard her laugh. Then she said,

  “Darling, how grim! Go away and finish having it and then come back all clean and tidy and ring me up.”

  “Can’t you tell me what you want?”

  She laughed again, a little nervously he thought.

  “Not whilst you drip. I want you in your very best mood. You sounded perfectly ferocious when you asked who I was.” She hung up, and Algy went back to his bath.

  When he rang up ten minutes later she enquired anxiously after his temper.

  “I thought it sounded quite feverish just now.”

  “It’s in the pink,” said Algy.

  “Really? Because I want to ask you something, and I’d rather know beforehand if you’re likely to blow up.”

  Algy smiled at the pattern of humming-birds and roses on his sitting-room wall.

  “No explosives on the premises. You wrong me, my child. I am known as A
lgernon, the man who never lost his temper.”

  “How awful that sounds! Has anyone really ever called you Algernon?”

  “My grandmother did. I can just remember her saying, ‘Here are threepence, Algernon. Do not spend them all at once.’ ”

  “And did you?”

  “Of course. And then she died and left me a great deal more than threepence, bless her. Did I ring you up to talk about grandmothers? I mean, was that the original intention, or were you just asking after my temper?”

  Gay’s voice dropped. She said,

  “Well, I want to ask you something.”

  Algy took her up.

  “Last time you said that, I offered you half my kingdom, but you only wanted to talk about being blackmailed. What is it this time?”

  “Cars,” said Gay in a burst of confidence. “I mean your car. I mean-”

  “What do you mean? You’re not getting anywhere, you know.”

  “Well, that’s just what I want to do. I want to get somewhere, and-I don’t see how I can without a car, and-I wondered-whether you’d lend me yours-”

  Algy stopped smiling. He stared at the nearest humming-bird and received the impression that it was rather a sinister fowl. He said quite slowly,

  “You want me to lend you my car. When?”

  “Tonight,” said Gay.

  “Can you drive? Have you got a licence?”

  “I’ve got a licence. I’ve had lessons.”

  Algy burst out laughing.

  “My child, if bent on suicide, why involve my Bentley?”

  A very small voice came back to him.

  “I don’t know. I thought perhaps-you would-”

  Algy was smitten. She sounded like a forlorn child. He said,

  “My dear, don’t be idiotic. If you want to go anywhere, I’ll drive you-you know that.”

  He could feel her hesitation. Odd to feel it like that along the wire. And then her voice:

  “I don’t-know. Algy, would you-would you really?”

  “Of course I would. I will.”

  He heard her catch her breath.

  “And not ask questions, or want to know where I’m going and what it’s all about?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to know where you’re going or I can’t get you there. Gay, what’s this all about? Can’t you tell me?”

  “No-no, I can’t-I’ll have to find some other way.”

  “What time do you want to be fetched?”

  “I think about ten. It’ll take about two hours. I want to be there by twelve.”

  An almost inaudible whistle escaped from Algy.

  “Is this an all-night show?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I think we ought to be back by three.”

  “Gay!”

  She found words suddenly.

  “Algy, I don’t know why you should. There isn’t any reason really. But I’ve got to, and it would make all the difference to know you were there-standing by. Only I can’t tell you anything, and if you’re going to ask questions-”

  “I won’t,” said Algy.

  “Because I could go alone.”

  “You’re not going alone. I’m calling for you at ten,” said Algy, and hung up.

  XVI

  The Bentley ran smoothly between dark hedgerows. London was a long way behind them. Everyone in the world was a long way off. They moved in their own light, a full, clear beam stretching out before them, stretching on. They had talked whilst the streets were about them, but now they were silent. The talk had moved lightly on the surface and never broken it.

  When Algy asked, “Where do you want to go?” Gay had a map to show him, ready folded.

  “The name of the place is Colebrook. It’s about thirty-five miles.”

  “Then it won’t take anything like two hours.”

  And then it was, “When did you learn to drive?”

  “Last summer when we were at Cromer, darling.”

  “And you passed your test?”

  “You’re very interested.”

  Algy said, “Yes. You haven’t told me if you passed. Did you?”

  There was pause. Then Gay said hotly,

  “He was a perfect beast! How was I to know that the thing was going to do a sort of wiggle and run into a pillar-box?”

  “My poor child! So he failed you? Most unfair. A low fellow.”

  “I was frightfully sick,” said Gay.

  Algy took a hand off the wheel to pat her shoulder.

  “Bear up-there’s always tomorrow. Avoid the scarlet pillar-box. But, my child, I seem to remember your saying you had a licence. How come?”

  “Oh, that was Mummy’s,” said Gay brightly. “She left it behind when she went to Madeira.”

  “And you were going to take my unfortunate Bentley out on a fraudulent licence and ram pumps and pillar-boxes all over the Home Counties?”

  “I mightn’t have,” said Gay.

  “Ye gods!” Algy groaned. “And you call yourself a law-abiding citizen!”

  “No, I don’t. I think laws are silly-at least a lot of them are. I mean, if I wanted to break one I would.”

  Algy laughed.

  “Come along then-what’s your fancy in the way of a crime? I’d like to know.”

  Gay shivered, and didn’t know why. Quite suddenly she felt like a lost dog and wanted to cry. It came over her that she might at this very moment have been trying to drive this large, strange car along a dark, strange road. She felt immeasurably grateful to Algy for having saved her from this. She said in a little melancholy voice,

  “I might have man-slaughtered someone. It was very nice of you to come, because I should hate to be a man-slaughterer, and be prosecuted, and go to prison. And the family would foam, because they’re all tangled up in a law-suit as it is, and it doesn’t look as if it was ever going to end.”

  All this was behind them now. The darkness shut them in. Black, half-seen things slipped by-a big soft blur that was a house, and the long smudge that was a line of trees; water glinting for a moment and dissolving back into the gloom again. There is always a strangeness about driving at night. To have so small a visible space in which to move and yet to move so fast, to rush upon the dark and see it slide away, receding endlessly upon itself, induces an inertia of the faculties. Thought is in suspense, ready to move again when the spell is broken.

  Gay had been in turmoil. She had been afraid, bold, eager, and afraid again. She had nerved herself to go down to Cole Lester. She would have nerved herself to the point of driving a strange Bentley along strange dark lanes. She would presently nerve herself to grope in a dark garden for Sylvia’s blackmailer. Because Sylvia simply mustn’t be allowed to hand over her husband’s papers to Mr. Zero, and the only way of stopping her that Gay could think of was to butt in at the critical moment and scare Mr. Zero off the map. He was bound to be scared if he thought there was a witness to his blackmailing, and it ought to keep him quiet and prevent him from worrying Sylvia again. Gay had thought it a very good plan in London. Presently at Cole Lester she would probably not feel so sure about it. At the moment it was just a plan suspended between the time in which it had been conceived and the time at which it must be brought into action.

  They came in Colebrook and stopped. One of the little bright yellow signs put up by the A.A. informed them that they had arrived. At a quarter before midnight there would certainly have been no one abroad to settle the question. The village was fast and dreamlessly asleep about its green, its pond, and its overgrown churchyard.

  Algy said, “Well?” and waited. When there was no answer, he said, “What next?”

  “I’m trying to think,” said Gay.

  She had been to Cole Lester once when Sylvia was engaged, but it was more than a year ago, and it had been daylight. She had to shut her eyes and call the daylight picture back. Mrs. Thrale, and Marcia, and Sylvia and herself in the car which Francis had sent for them. Mrs. Thrale twittering all the way. And they had gone on past the church and al
ong a lane, and then there were big gates, big wrought-iron gates, and a stone pillar on either side with a thing like a pineapple on top. Mrs. Thrale had given a sort of little gasp, and Marcia had chattered about what a lovely place it was, but Sylvia had just sat there and smiled without a word to say. Then Francis had met them and taken them all over the house, and the garden, and the grounds-

  Gay opened her eyes and said,

  “We turn up by the church-we’ve got to find the church.”

  “Church all present and correct,” said Algy-“on the left.”

  “Then we turn up by it, and there’s a lane, and you come to some big gates.”

  And suppose they were shut.

  This thought, which might have occurred to Gay in town, bobbed up with horrid suddenness now. You simply can’t take a blackmailer by surprise if you have to knock up a lodge and get yourself admitted in a flourish of trumpets.

  The gates were open. Gay seemed to remember that the drive was a very long one. She wondered whether she dared let Algy drive her in. It would be nice to feel that he was somewhere near, and it would be very nice not to have to walk up that dark drive all by herself. But could she risk it? She didn’t think she could, and when Algy said, “Do we drive in?” she made her voice as firm as possible and said, “No.”

  “What happens?”

  “You stay here-I go in.”

  “Gay-”

  “You said you wouldn’t ask any questions.”

  “I’m not asking questions. But I don’t like it. Why not tell me what it’s all about?”

  He heard an odd little laugh.

  “Isn’t that a question?”

  “I suppose it is in a way, but not the way you meant. Look here, my dear, I’m not an absolute fool, and I can’t very well drive you to Cole Lester without guessing-”

  “You’re not to guess. And I never said a word about Cole Lester, and-Algy, you promised.”

  “All right-my head’s in a bag. I’ve never heard of Cole Lester-it’s rather famous, you know-I don’t know that it belongs to Francis Colesborough, and I shouldn’t dream of guessing.”

  “You’re not to, you’re not to! Oh, Algy, you did promise!”