“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 the 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.