Only one misgiving remained to trouble it. He felt he wanted to confide in Curtis, tell him something of what had happened during the day; and this he could not do without being disloyal to his host. Try as he would to make light of Munt’s behaviour about his collection, it was clear he wouldn’t have given away the secret if it had not been surprised out of him. And Hugh would find his friend’s bald statement of the facts difficult to swallow.
But what was he up to, letting his thoughts run on like this? He must hide, and quickly too. His acquaintance with the lie of the house, the fruits of two visits, was scanty, and the darkness did not help him. The house was long and symmetrical; its principal bedrooms lay on the first floor. Above were servants’ rooms, attics, boxrooms, probably—plenty of natural hiding-places. The second storey was the obvious refuge.
He had been there only once, with Munt that afternoon, and he did not specially want to revisit it; but he must enter into the spirit of the game. He found the staircase and went up, then paused: there was really no light at all.
‘This is absurd,’ thought Valentine. ‘I must cheat.’ He entered the first room to the left, and turned down the switch. Nothing happened: the current had been cut off at the main. But by the light of a match he made out that he was in a combined bed-and-bathroom. In one corner was a bed, and in the other a large rectangular object with a lid over it, obviously a bath. The bath was close to the door.
As he stood debating he heard footsteps coming along the corridor. It would never do to be caught like this, without a run for his money. Quick as thought he raised the lid of the bath, which was not heavy, and slipped inside, cautiously lowering the lid.
It was narrower than the outside suggested, and it did not feel like a bath, but Valentine’s inquiries into the nature of his hiding-place were suddenly cut short. He heard voices in the room, so muffled that he did not at first know whose they were. But they were evidently in disagreement.
Valentine lifted the lid. There was no light, so he lifted it farther. Now he could hear clearly enough.
‘But I don’t know what you really want, Dick,’ Bettisher was saying. ‘With the safety-catch it would be pointless, and without it would be damned dangerous. Why not wait a bit?’
‘I shall never have a better opportunity than this,’ said Munt, but in a voice so unfamiliar that Valentine scarcely recognized it.
‘Opportunity for what?’ said Bettisher.
‘To prove whether the Travelling Grave can do what Madrali claimed for it.’
‘You mean whether it can disappear? We know it can.’
‘I mean whether it can effect somebody else’s disappearance.’
There was a pause. Then Bettisher said: ‘Give it up. That’s my advice.’
‘But he wouldn’t leave a trace,’ said Munt, half petulant, half pleading, like a thwarted child. ‘He has no relations. Nobody knows he’s here. Perhaps he isn’t here. We can tell Valentine he never turned up.’
‘We discussed all that,’ said Bettisher decisively, ‘and it won’t wash.’
There was another silence, disturbed by the distant hum of a motorcar.
‘We must go,’ said Bettisher.
But Munt appeared to detain him. Half imploring, half whining, he said:
‘Anyhow, you don’t mind me having put it there with the safety-catch down.’
‘Where?’
‘By the china-cabinet. He’s certain to run into it.’
Bettisher’s voice sounded impatiently from the passage:
‘Well, if it pleases you. But it’s quite pointless.’
Munt lingered a moment, chanting to himself in a high voice, greedy with anticipation: ‘I wonder which is up and which is down.’
When he had repeated this three times he scampered away, calling out peevishly: ‘You might have helped me, Tony. It’s so heavy for me to manage.’
It was heavy indeed. Valentine, when he had fought down the hysteria that came upon him, had only one thought: to take the deadly object and put it somewhere out of Hugh Curtis’s way. If he could drop it from a window, so much the better. In the darkness the vague outline of its bulk, placed just where one had to turn to avoid the china-cabinet, was dreadfully familiar. He tried to recollect the way it worked. Only one thing stuck in his mind. ‘The ends are dangerous, the sides are safe.’ Or should it be, ‘The sides are dangerous, the ends are safe?’ While the two sentences were getting mixed up in his mind he heard the sound of ‘coo-ee,’ coming first from one part of the house, then from another. He could also hear footsteps in the hall below him.
Then he made up his mind, and with a confidence that surprised him put his arms round the wooden cube and lifted it into the air. He hardly noticed its weight as he ran with it down the corridor. Suddenly he realized that he must have passed through an open door. A ray of moonlight showed him that he was in a bedroom, standing directly in front of an old-fashioned wardrobe, a towering, majestic piece of furniture with three doors, the middle one holding a mirror. Dimly he saw himself reflected there, his burden in his arms. He deposited it on the parquet without making a sound; but on the way out he tripped over a footstool and nearly fell. He was relieved at making so much clatter, and the grating of the key, as he turned it in the lock, was music to his ears.
Automatically he put it in his pocket. But he paid the penalty for his clumsiness. He had not gone a step when a hand caught him by the elbow.
‘Why, it’s Valentine!’ Hugh Curtis cried. ‘Now come quietly, and take me to my host. I must have a drink.’
‘I should like one, too,’ said Valentine, who was trembling all over. ‘Why can’t we have some light?’
‘Turn it on, idiot,’ commanded his friend.
‘I can’t—it’s cut off at the main. We must wait till Richard gives the word.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I expect he’s tucked away somewhere. Richard!’ Valentine called out, ‘Dick!’ He was too self-conscious to be able to give a good shout. ‘Bettisher! I’m caught! The game’s over!’
There was silence a moment, then steps could be heard descending the stairs.
‘Is that you, Dick?’ asked Valentine of the darkness.
‘No, Bettisher.’ The gaiety of the voice did not ring quite true.
‘I’ve been caught,’ said Valentine again, almost as Atalanta might have done, and as though it was a wonderful achievement reflecting great credit upon everybody. ‘Allow me to present you to my captor. No, this is me. We’ve been introduced already.’
It was a moment or two before the mistake was corrected, the two hands groping vainly for each other in the darkness.
‘I expect it will be a disappointment when you see me,’ said Hugh Curtis in the pleasant voice that made many people like him.
‘I want to see you,’ declared Bettisher. ‘I will, too. Let’s have some light.’
‘I suppose it’s no good asking you if you’ve seen Dick?’ inquired Valentine facetiously. ‘He said we weren’t to have any light till the game was finished. He’s so strict with his servants; they have to obey him to the letter. I daren’t even ask for a candle. But you know the faithful Franklin well enough.’
‘Dick will be here in a moment surely,’ Bettisher said, for the first time that day appearing undecided.
They all stood listening.
‘Perhaps he’s gone to dress,’ Curtis suggested. ‘It’s past eight o’clock.’
‘How can he dress in the dark?’ asked Bettisher.
Another pause.
‘Oh, I’m tired of this,’ said Bettisher. ‘Franklin! Franklin!’ His voice boomed through the house and a reply came almost at once from the hall, directly below them. “We think Mr. Munt must have gone to dress,’ said Bettisher. “Will you please turn on the light?’