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!”

“Yes-I was a fool. Well, I stay here. Are you going to be long?”

“I don’t know,” said Gay in rather a small voice.

“You’d better have a torch.” He put it into her hand. “If I’m asleep when you get back, just wake me.” He shut the door between them.

Gay looked at it with a horrid sinking feeling, and then turned away.

They had stopped just short of the gates, and Algy had switched off the headlights. She put on her little torch, found her way between the gateposts, and then put it out again. She must do without it if she possibly could, because her plan depended wholly on being able to get to the yew walk without being seen.

It was terribly black in the drive. She stood still and shut her eyes whilst she counted a hundred. When she opened them again she could see the black tracery of the trees against the sky, and the sky wasn’t black-there was light coming through it, and she could see a star. She began to walk up the drive. Once or twice she blundered into a holly or a yew, but for the most part she was able to keep fairly straight, and as she went on her eyes began to see more and more. There was one blackness of a dense bush, and another of a tree. She kept a hand stretched out before her to save her face, but she didn’t use the torch again.

In the end she came out upon the broad sweep in front of the house and could see it plainly as a great mass rising up against the sky. There was no light anywhere. The front seemed windowless, without a gleam. She stood at the edge of the trees and tried to think which way she must go. She had to get round to the back of the house. And there was a path-she remembered that there was a path.

She began to skirt the gravel sweep, keeping to the left, and presently she found what she was looking for. The path ran between shrubs. She had to use her torch once where two old hollies leaned together overhead, and once she thought she heard a footstep-someone moving, but she couldn’t tell whether it was behind her or in front, or whether it was just the echo of her own footstep thrown back from the wall of the house. Her heart beat quick and frightened. She thought, “I don’t know why I came. I can’t stop Sylvia. I ought to have made her tell Francis. I can’t do any good this way. Oh, I do wish Algy was here.” But she went on, because even if a thing isn’t any good, once you’ve started it you’ve got to see it through or else despise yourself for a spineless rabbit for ever and ever.

XVII

Sylvia heard the last stroke of twelve die away. There was an old clock against the end wall of the corridor, a tall old clock which struck with such a ringing sound that she could sometimes hear it in her sleep. Even after the sound had died away the air still seemed to tingle. There was a tremor now, and she waited for it to pass, because it frightened her a little. Everything frightened her a little tonight.

When the air was still again she opened a big mahogany wardrobe and took out a black satin cloak. She was still wearing the crepe dress which she had worn for dinner. She didn’t very often wear black, but Francis liked it better than anything else, and she had wanted to please him. She had taken the papers out of his safe the night before. No one else could have done it. Francis never forgot his keys or left them about like other people did. But it had been quite easy for her to take them from under his pillow, and open the safe, and put them back again. She had found the papers at once, a bundle of letters marked Zero, so it was quite true what Mr. Zero had said about the letters belonging to him, and of course Francis oughtn’t to keep letters that belonged to someone else, but she did feel that perhaps she ought to be a little extra nice to him tonight. And the black dress would be quite good for meeting Mr. Zero in. It wouldn’t show any marks, and if she put on her cloak and pulled the hood up over her hair, no one could possibly see her as she crossed the lawn.

The letters were in her jewel-case. She lifted the lid. Francis had given her his mother’s diamonds, but she didn’t care for them very much. They really wanted setting again. He was obstinate about things like that. This room was frightful-all heavy Victorian mahogany, but she hadn’t managed to move him the least little bit about it. She could get new chintzes if she liked. He wasn’t going to have good old furniture turned out to make room for rubbish.

Under Lady Colesborough’s diamonds in the bottom compartment of the massive old-fashioned case which had been Lady Colesborough’s too the letters lay in a flat bundle. Sylvia had wrapped them in a silk handkerchief, an odd one of Marcia’s, dark brown and green. She thought it very ugly and would be quite pleased to be rid of it. She put the packet in the pocket of her cloak, opened her bedroom door, and stood there listening. The servants were all in bed long ago, and Francis was in his study. He would be there for more than an hour yet, so that there was nothing to be afraid of. She had only to walk along the corridor and down the big staircase into the hall. She wouldn’t even have to pass the study. It was quite easy. Yet she stood there for a long time hearing the faint, measured tick of the old clock. There was no other sound.

When she came to the stair head she listened again, but now she could not even hear the clock ticking. As she went downstairs, she thought of what she would say if Francis met her. He wouldn’t of course, but if he did, what should she say? Biscuits-yes, that would do-she was hungry and thought she would like a biscuit. She wondered if anyone ever really ate biscuits in the middle of the night-so dry and crumby. Perhaps it had better be orange juice, or a book-but she hardly ever did read anything, and if Francis didn’t believe her, it might be very frightening indeed. No, it had better be orange juice. Orange juice would be safe.

The hall was very large. The drawing-room lay on one side of it and the dining-room on the other, with the study behind the dining-room. There was no corresponding room on the other side, because the drawing-room took up the extra space, but there was a passage which ran past the drawing-room to a room that was called the Parlour. It was supposed to be Sylvia’s own sitting-room, but she did not care for it very much. She would have liked to have the old dark panelling painted white and throw away the faded Persian rugs, but Francis would not hear of it. He said his mother had done her best to spoil the room by having a French window put in, and he wasn’t going to let it go any farther.

It was the French window which was taking Sylvia to the Parlour. It opened so easily, and when it was open she would only have to cross the terrace and run down the steps to be straight in line for the yew walk. It was easy as easy, and if only Mr. Zero was punctual, she would be back in her room in less than ten minutes. And what a relief that would be.

Francis Colesborough pushed his chair a little farther back from the desk at which he had been writing. He had a letter in his hand, a letter which he had no more than begun to write. The last line was incomplete. He had the air of a man who has been disturbed, yet he himself could not have said what it was that had disturbed him. He stayed like that, listening, and heard a sound so faint that only a sense keyed to an unnatural tension would have caught it. It came to him as the sound of metal against metal, and immediately he remembered the window which had been unlatched two nights ago. He thought that someone had unlatched a window now. He threw the letter down upon the blotting-pad and went to the nearest window. With the curtains dropped behind him he looked out along the terrace and saw a bright rectangle aslant upon the flags. There was a light in the Parlour, and the curtains had been drawn back. The bright rectangle moved, the glass door swung. He had looked a half second too late to see who had opened it and come down the steps, but there was a shadow that slipped along the dark terrace and was gone. An open window two nights ago in town, and tonight an open door-and Sylvia slipping out-Sylvia-