“Us?”

“I took the liberty of employing your chauffeur and car, Miss Treherne. A most reliable man and a very careful driver. He is putting the car in a place of security, and will then report here. We may be glad of him. In the meanwhile it is of the first importance that we should show no light, and that this door should be locked and the key replaced in the shed. If you will do that, Mr. Brandon, and then come to the front door, I will admit you.”

When he was gone Miss Silver skirted the well, picked up the candle and led the way through the kitchen to the living-room. The old beams hung low and made a trap for innumerable shadows. The front door opened directly upon the room, and a very steep, narrow stair ran up in the far corner. Here too the floor was of brick, with a rug or two to soften it. The cold of the fog and the November night was everywhere. The chill hearth was clean and bare. A draught came leaking down the stairs. A faint smell of tobacco hung stale upon the air. The three small windows, one on either side of the door and one in the left-hand wall, were curtained with a brightly patterned chintz. Behind the curtains wooden shutters fitted close and were secured by an old-fashioned iron bar.

Miss Silver applied herself to withdrawing the bolts of the door and unlocking it. This done, she turned to Rachel.

“Miss Treherne, we can only do our best. I think he will bring her here.”

Rachel said in a harsh voice that was strange to her, “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

Miss Silver looked at her steadily.

“What could I have said to them? I know, but I have no proof. You cannot accuse a man without proof. I was sure that he pushed you over the cliff last night. I was sure that he would try again in some other way. If I had come to you and accused him, would you have believed me? I think that you would not. Because I had no proof-no proof at all. It would have required more than a stranger’s word to break down the affectionate trust of years. I thought it best to remain silent, and to keep as close a watch upon you as possible. But until just before the lunch-bell rang today I did not know that Miss Caroline might be in danger too. I blame myself. I should have acted more quickly, but I was, I must confess, outwitted. He is very cunning, and he has a great deal at stake. He contrived to get her out of the house whilst we were at lunch-”

Rachel interrupted her.

“She has been gone for more than three hours. Miss Silver, where is she? It would have taken her no more than an hour and a half to get here-before the fog came down.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“She was certainly not to come straight here. Oh, no, that wouldn’t have suited his book at all. If she was to stumble into the well in the dark, then it must be dark before she got here. The torn-off piece of the letter would have told her where she was to wait for him, and when he thought it was safe he would pick her up and bring her here-in her own car if it was meant to look like suicide. Everyone in the house would have had to say how uncertain and depressed she had been. There would be no mark of violence, no sign that anyone had laid a hand upon her-no one would have laid a hand upon her. He would have had the whole night to make his way to some station from which he could take a train to town. Yes, I think that it was meant to look like suicide.”

The cold of the house must have got under Rachel’s skin. There was no warmth in her. The cold seeped into her bones and settled about her heart. And coldest of all-fear. She said in a dead voice, but quite calmly,

“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.