"Yes, sir."
"Mind the pillboxes. If they come in here. Watch. You know, they may decide to give it up and remove that dangerous piU and unmurder him, after all."
"I know. Sure."
"Keep an eye on Alice, always. Stay in here until Mr Whitlock's normal bedtime."
"Yes, sir."
''Then dim these lights."
"What about me?" said Innes. "What about me? How can I get. . .?"
"Oh, we'll carry you, sir. It'll be easy."
"Where will you be, Mr. Duff?" asked Innes. "Don'
leave us. I... I'm very nervous."
"I shall be lying in ambush," said Duff, ''with an eye on the noble red man. Of course, you realize that nothiiig at all may happen." Their faces looked grave and a Utde disappointed. "But if it does," he said, "it'll be something you don't expect, so expect that."
He put his hand on Fred's shoulder for a minute, smiled at Alice, and went away, taking Killeen with him.
After that, for an hour, Innes took out his nervousness in half-whispered chatter, while Alice said "yes," "no," and "of course not."
Nobody came to bid him good night.
The house was quiet. In time it became evident that the Whidock girls had gone to bed.
Fred dimmed the light at eleven o'clock.
Nobody, so far, had bothered to unmurder Innes.
24
Alice was sitting on a pillow on the floor. She had to keep her shoulders parallel to the wall and her legs stretched pretty tight, that it would be more than the work of a moment to get out of there. In fact, she was a prisoner. She thought: I might better be in a straight jacket. But she was hidden. That was her advantage. That and Fred.
After Killeen had come silently up a ladder, after Innes had been borne stealthily through the hall while Alice kept guard at the top of the stairs, Fred had herded her into this big silent room with its elephantine furniture and its ridiculous dignity. "Well, let me get into my nightcap," he'd said, and peeled off his coat and shirt and put on the top of Innes's pajamas. Alice helpfully stuffed his own things behind a cushion.
"Get your slender frame in there," he'd commanded, "and let me see how it works."
Obediently, she had tucked herself between the bed and the wall, under the giant curve of the towering headboard.
"Do I show?"
"Nope," he said. "I didn't think you would. Well . . ." he sounded a little contrite.
"Oh, get in," said Alice, wildly exhilarated. She'd
wanted to scream with laughter. The bed springs creaked. "Stick your hand around here." He'd fastened on her wrist. "I hope you get a stiff neck."
"Don't worry. I will," she'd said without rancor. "Better not talk."
He hadn't talked, after that.
She tried to relax and make herself better able to bear the awkward position in which she would have to remain for no one knew how long. She was able to draw her legs up a little, bending them slightly at the knee. Her wrist was going to ache from stretching around the comer of the headboard. But she wouldn't withdraw it. Not yet
She could see along the wall, not much, not a very large portion of the room. One window. Not the door. There was the night light burning on the table at the other side of the bed, so it wasn't dark. Dust rose in her nostrils. Don't sneeze, she thought. What if a mouse ... Well, I must be brave, that's all. .
Fred was lying very quietly. Alice thought: Fm safe, and if Fm safe he's safe. I wonder how Innes is bearing up? Art Killeen had given her a queer, intense look before he'd closed the lumber-room door. "If you call, 111 come running," he'd said. Jealousy, thought AJice, is a very human failing. She began to feel a litde drowsy. Her right arm was getting numb.
The light went out.
Fred exdaimed under his breath and let go her wrist She heard him click the switch and lean over the other side of the bed to examine the cord and the plug that went into the baseboard.
''What the hell?" she heard him whisper.
Their hands groped for each other. She could sec nothing at all, now. The darkness was like a wall in front of her nose. The country darkness. No street light, no electric signs outside, to send a glow or to outline the window frames. It was pitch dark. The darkness was so thick it seemed to have body and press down.
Alice felt her ears growing in the dark. They seemed to strain to stand out from her head. Her hand, in Fred's hand, was getting a little slippery, a httle clammy, when they heard a distant whisper and creak of feet On the stairs?
The door next, she thought. It's going to happen. But the door wasn't next.
Instead, there was a stealthy scraping, a bump or two. Someone was moving something, just outside, in the haU. A metallic sound. Then a hollow thump, like a soft tap on a muffled drum. Was the metallic sound a key turning? Were they locked in? Alice's fingers twitched and grabbed. And Fred's responded.
Soft whisper of feet on the carpet outside. But going away! Gone!
Fred moved with infinite care. His breath was in her face, as he leaned around the headboard. "Gone," he whispered. The word was so slight a sound that it was like telepathy.
"Are . . . we ... locked . . . m?" She breathed the question back.
He didn't know. The darkness and the silence answered her question as if he had shrugged his shoulders and she had felt the air disturbed and read the meaning. -"Shall ... I... go .. . see?"
Her hand clutched at his, saying, don't go. "Wait." Lonesome, far away, for all it was her own breath, the word raised tiny echoes in the dust. His hand said he would stay.
They waited. Alice thought, were they going to set the house on fire? Or would it be coal gas again? Innes couldn't smell. Couldn't smell smoke? She wondered. Her own nose felt keen and sharp as if her breath drew in and examined every least odor and searched the very air for danger. She thought: But Mr. IXiff knows who it is. How does he know? How can he know? She, herself, couldn't separate them any more. The menace was 'they." AH three. Half-crazy, she thought, warped and out of the world and fuU of evil. Prowling the house, for all she knew. Gertrude walking in the dark. Maud's reckless grin. Isabel, nerve driven, creeping in the dark.
When at last they heard the footsteps coming, it was a rehef. But not for long.
Now, the door was next. It wasn't locked at aU. It was being gently opened. Fred, who could have seen the door, had there been Ught, could see nothing. It didn't even make a patch in the darkness. But a faint movement of air
came through. It was open, and there was somebody there.
Somebody whispered, "Imies?"
There is no voice in a whisper. All whispers are gray in the dark, like cats, thought Alice.
Fred was directing his own breathing, making it slow as if he slept. Alice tried not to breathe at all. She found it easy. There seemed to be no breathable air, anyhow. How could they watch the pillboxes in the dark? she thought in dismay.
The steps crossed toward the bed. Alice felt Fred's fingers loosen. He would be bracing himself. The difference between Fred, awake and strong, and the man this silent creature thought was there, asleep and weak with broken bones bound up and drugs in his brain—that was the difference that would save them. If she ... If she ..,
What?
Fred felt a hand groping over his covered body. It found his arm and m,oved gentiy down to his wrist Cold fingers pressed there. He couldn't control his heartbeats. But they were less fast than strong. He devoted himself to slow breathing. Maybe that would make the heart behave.
The fingers let him go. Air swirled in the wake of the figure as it moved away. Was this aU? Was this aU?
They heard a breath sharply drawn.
Then the silence exploded into a thousand pieces. She called out. Lifted up her voice and called into the dark and waiting house. Called, and shivers crawled on the skin at the alarm in it. The warning, the terror of the cry.
"Alice," she called. "Alice." And again . . . "Alice.'
Fred's fingernails dug into the flesh of Alice's hand, and the pain was good. She kept quiet