He turned back into the room, pulled open a drawer, took out a small Browning pistol, and was back at the window, opening it before a tenth of a minute had gone by. He ran down the terrace steps and out on to the lawn. He was quicker than Sylvia and as silent. She did not know that he was no more than a dozen yards behind her as she groped her way into the black mouth of the yew alley. He halted there, and heard her going away from him between the over-arching yews. A twig broke now and then. He heard her catch her breath. The sounds receded.
He swung about and ran along the path which lay between the rose garden and the lawn. The path went straight to the end of the lawn, turned, and went straight again to skirt the yew hedge on the farther side and come out upon a stretch of level sward. Francis Colesborough came running by this way. He had no light, and needed none. These were paths he had trodden for nearly forty years. He had played at hide-and-seek about the old yew walk when he was a child of five. His foot knew every step and had no need for the guiding eye. He checked at the edge of the sward and moved out upon its soft-foot and intent.
XVIII
Gay came suddenly to the bushes’ end and felt her feet on grass. The path had brought her out upon the wide lawn at the back of the house. She remembered it quite well. Francis had taken them out through a glass door, and first there had been a wide terrace, and then steps which led down to the lawn, and at the far end of the lawn a rose garden with the yew walk cutting it in two and spreading out like the top of the letter T to shut the roses in. So she had only to find the middle of the lawn and then keep straight on with her back to the house until she came to the open end of the yew walk.
She moved clear of the bushes and looked towards the house. She could see it very big, and blurred, and black, with the gloom of trees on either side of it melting away into the outer darkness. A little to one side a bright rectangle broke the shadowy mass. There was a door there, a door with glass in it right down to the ground, and there was a light in the room behind it. She thought that the door was open, and thought how exactly like Sylvia to come out at night on a quite dreadfully secret errand and leave an open door and a lighted room behind her.
She found her way across the lawn and came to the end of the grass. There was a path-she remembered that there was a path which bordered the rose garden, and Francis had told them how his father had made it when he cut down that part of the old yew hedge. “He had it cut because he wanted to see the roses from the house. Rather an old vandal.” That was what Francis had said. And the cutting down had left the yew walk exactly like the letter T, with its long stem facing her now and the cross-piece running away to right and left on the far side of the rose garden.
Three steps took her over the path and into the black mouth of the walk. It was really a tunnel, for the yews met overhead, and had met and grown together and made an arching roof for hundreds and hundreds of years. It was quite pitch dark in the walk, quite, quite pitch dark, and dry under foot, with little brittle twigs and a queer cold smell. The walk was fifty yards long-Francis had told them so. She had to grope for fifty yards in the black tunnel where she couldn’t see anything at all. But she ought to be able to make out the window at the far end. Because there was a window there, a wide rectangle cut in the hedge, and a seat where you could rest on a hot sunny day and look down a winding glade to the river and its meadowland.
She strained her eyes to find the window, and suddenly it sprang into view. A bright light flashed and was gone-flashed from the other side of the hedge and was gone. She saw nothing but the light-the sharp rectangle of the window and the light which made it visible. She heard a confusion of sound which she could not disentangle. She heard the sound of a shot, and she heard Sylvia scream. She began to run, with her heart pounding and her breath failing her. The picture of the lighted window floated upon the darkness. She ran towards it, and ran into the seat, bringing herself up with a bruising jerk.
The seat had a high oak back. She clung to it, steadying herself, and found the switch of her torch and turned it on. The beam shot straight ahead and showed her a bare arm, and a hand, and a pistol-a little black pistol-Sylvia’s arm, Sylvia’s hand.
Gay’s wrist moved, and the beam went sliding up over Sylvia’s shoulder to Sylvia’s face. There was a black cloak over the shoulder. It had fallen away to leave the arm white and bare. She wished there had been something to cover Sylvia’s face. It was quite white, quite terrified. It had a drowned look.
Gay said, “What is it?” but the words didn’t make any sound. It was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to her, because she had said the words, and she said them again, and she tried to say “Oh, Sylvia!” but there wasn’t any sound at all. There hadn’t been any sound since the shot and Sylvia’s scream and her own heart beating hard.
Her hand wavered, and the beam came slanting down. She saw Sylvia open her hand and let the pistol fall. She heard it fall, and she heard the sound of someone running, and she heard Sylvia take a long, deep, sobbing breath.
She ran round the seat and leaned out through the window with her torch. There was a stretch of turf outside-a stretch of turf, and a man lying there with one arm over his breast and the other flung out wide upon the grass. The beam showed her Francis Colesborough’s face, and she thought that he was dead. She felt cold, and stiff, and a little sick. She remembered the pistol that had been in Sylvia’s hand.
She turned round and laid the torch on the arm of the seat. The pistol-she must find the pistol. Someone was coming-there had been a pistol in Sylvia’s hand-she must find it-someone was calling her-someone was coming-
She held on to the seat because her knees were shaking, and stooped down to grope in the dry twigs and withered leaves. Her hand touched the pistol and found it, still warm from Sylvia’s hand. This endless, dragged-out time had been only a moment, then. She stood up with the pistol in her hand and began to wipe it with the hem of her dress.
XIX
Algy had never had the slightest intention of allowing Gay to go blinding off alone into dark, unknown grounds with the fairly obvious intention of meeting an anonymous blackmailer. She had, naturally, not announced this as her reason for coming down here in the middle of the night, but it seemed perfectly clear to him that it was what she meant to do, and the minute she mentioned Colebrook, and he guessed that their destination was Cole Lester, he guessed too that it was probably Sylvia Colesborough who was being blackmailed and not Gay Hardwicke. He felt a queer rage against Gay for getting herself mixed up with what was probably a pieee of crass folly and no business of hers.
As he followed Gay at a safe distance up the drive, his rage turned back upon himself, because of all things in the world he could least afford to mix himself up with any new scandal. He was a fool to have come, and a complete fool to have pledged himself not to ask any questions. He ought to have insisted on asking them. He ought at the very start to have said “Nothing doing” and hung up his receiver. He ought… In his heart of hearts he knew perfectly well that he would have taken Gay to Timbuctoo rather than let her run stupid risks without him.
He came to the end of the drive, and realized that he had lost her. What had he to do now? Follow the plan he had made and hope for the best. He wished her away-anywhere but here-in London -out of this business. It weighed darkly on his mind, darkly on them both. He went on…