Margaret turned her eyes from his face. Another moment, and she would have screamed aloud. She caught at the arm of her chair and stood up. She was trembling very much. As Freddy came towards her, she went back step by step, her hands behind her, until she reached the window. She touched the edge of the blind.
Freddy levelled his pistol.
“If you lift that blind or call out, I’ll shoot.”
She shook her head, leaning there with half-closed eyes as if she were about to faint.
“Come away from that window at once! Do you hear! One”-he wheeled suddenly and aimed at Charles- “two-”
Margaret ran forward sobbing and catching her breath.
“No-no-no!”
He caught her roughly by the arm.
“We’ve had enough of this. Come along! Walk in front of me to the door and open it! Remember if you make one sound, it’ll be your last.”
He turned and took an electric torch from a shelf.
Charles saw the door opened. As Margaret passed through it, he thought, with a frightful stab of pain, that he had seen her face for the last time. She looked over her shoulder just before the door swung in and hid her from his sight. He strained with all his might against his bonds, only to realize that he was exhausting himself uselessly. He lay still, and suffered for Margaret. The sudden break in her self-control, the pitiful sobbing-if only she had not broken down-if only her fine pride had held to the last. Charles Moray remembered that he had wished to see it broken.
He remembered all the times she had looked pale, and he had been angry, and all the times she had been sad and he had been cruel. And he remembered that he might have comforted her, and he had not. And now it was too late. He could not tell her now that he had loved her all the time-he could never tell her now. He had meant to tell her. He had meant to kiss the sorrow from her eyes and the sadness from her lips. He had meant to hold her close and hear her say, “Forgive-forgive the years I stole.”…It was too late.
Half way down the stairs Margaret sank down. The hand on her shoulder closed in a bruising grip and jerked her to her feet. They passed out of the hall and through the door leading to the basement. Margaret’s steps faltered; she had to lean against the wall. The hand on her shoulder forced her on and down.
In the basement, the empty kitchen and other offices; and at the back, a small flight of steps that led to the cellars, three in number-one for coal, one full of packing-cases, and the third a locked wine-cellar.
Freddy Pelham unlocked the door. There was a good deal of wine in the bins, and at the far end, a cask or two and some more packing-cases. He shut and locked the door on the inside, and then proceeded to shift one of the casks and to move the packing-cases.
A low, stout wooden door barred with iron came into view behind them. It was barely three feet high, and was secured by three strong bolts.
Freddy shot them back.
“When I bought this house, all this was very cleverly hidden-match-boarding and whitewash-very clever indeed. Without the information which I had extracted from an otherwise extraordinarily dry book of memoirs I should never have found it, and you wouldn’t be here. Let us praise the pious memory of Sir Joseph Tunney.”
He pushed the door, which opened inwards. A horrible darkness showed beyond. He stood back with the mockery of a bow.
“It’s perfectly dry, and on the warm side. Your last hours should be quite comfortable.”
Margaret leaned against the packing-cases.
“And if I won’t?”
“I shoot you here and push you into that most convenient vault. In with you!”
“Freddy-” The word died on her lips. There was nothing to appeal to. There wasn’t any Freddy. There was only Grey Mask.
She had to bend almost double to pass that horrible low door. Freddy’s torch threw a dancing ray beyond her into the darkness. Her head swam as she watched it flicker. The rough floor seemed to tilt and tremble. Her foot slipped and she fell forward. Behind her the door slammed and she heard the bolts go home. The flickering ray was gone. It was dark.
CHAPTER XLIII
Margaret lay where she had fallen. The strength had gone out of her. She lay quite still and strained for any sound beyond the bolted door. There wasn’t any sound. She could not hear Freddy’s retreating footsteps or the opening and closing of the wine-cellar door. She could not hear anything at all. The place was soundless, lightless, utterly cut off. The warm, heavy air weighed on her with a deadening pressure. She kept her eyes shut so that she could not see how dark it was. Minutes passed.
It was a very little thing that roused her. Her left hand lay on a sharp point in the uneven floor, and a good part of her weight rested on this hand. The pressure became unbearable. She moved, shuddered, and sat up.
Instantly she wished that she had not moved, that she had let the sharp point prick her to the bone. The darkness of the place was dreadful. In every direction there was a gloom so dense that it seemed to forbid movement and breath as well as sight. Only thought remained. Charles-Was she to die alone in the dark? What had happened to Charles? Would she ever know? What was happening? The door and the darkness were between her and the answer to all the terrified throng of thoughts that clamoured to know.
She covered her face with her hands and bent her head upon her knees. She mustn’t let herself lose grip. Grey Mask couldn’t touch them really. Nothing could touch you as long as you held on-not darkness, nor silence, nor anything that anyone could do. She stopped minding the dark.
It seemed to be a very long time before a sound reached her. It came suddenly, harshly, as the bolts ran back and the door swung in.
She sat up, her heart beating violently, and saw the beam from Freddy’s torch cutting across the corner of the nearest packing-case. The wood was rough and splintered. The beam gave each splinter its own black shadow, then, shifting, touched Charles Moray’s foot. His ankles had been untied. He seemed to be leaning against the case. Behind him, Freddy spoke:
“Pride goes before a fall. Get down and get in! I haven’t any more time to spare for either of you. Get inside!”
Margaret was filled with a curious trembling joy. Charles was here. Whatever happened, they were going to be together. She drew back and saw him come through the low doorway bent double. Suddenly he pitched forward as Freddy thrust at him from behind.
Margaret gave a sharp cry of pain, and had the light flashed full upon her face.
“Well, well,” said Freddy Pelham, “you can now make the most of your time together. You can break your fingernails trying to undo my knots, and when you’ve got them undone, you’ll be just as far from getting out of this as you were before. It may save you a good deal of trouble if I tell you that this place is absolutely sound-proof. You won’t even hear me lock the wine-cellar door as I go out, and from the other side of that door I shouldn’t hear a sound if you were shouting through a megaphone. There are eight feet of earth between you and the garden, and six men couldn’t break down the door. I don’t know what old Joe Tunney used this cellar for; but I know what we’ve used it for, and it has stood the test every time. The ventilation is quite adequate and rather ingenious.”
He shifted the torch and allowed it to light up his wrist watch for an instant.
“I must be going. I have still a few things to do, and I have to be up early. Perhaps it may solace you tomorrow to think of my flying to Vienna. With any luck we shall get above the fog. You can think of me bathed in sunshine. There was an old-fashioned song which I remember an aunt of mine used to sing very charmingly;