She walked down the dark and silent street and made no plan. If there was something for her to do, when the time came she would know what it was. The entrance to the Dower House was not more than a few yards away when she heard a step behind her. There was no moon, but the night was clear. Someone large loomed up. The height and breadth induced her to take a chance with his name.
“Mr. Lester-”
Even in his astonishment he could not mistake her voice.
“Miss Silver! What are you doing here?”
She said composedly…
“I might ask you that, might I not?”
He laughed.
“I didn’t feel like sleeping. I thought I would come out and walk.”
He wondered if she would guess him fool enough to go up to Crewe House and gaze at the dark square of Rosamond’s window, appropriately barred since Miss Crewe would not have considered it safe to sleep on the ground-floor without taking every precaution. He did not really mind whether Miss Silver thought him a fool or not. A bridegroom is entitled to wear motley if he will. He was in the mood to shout Rosamond’s name abroad, or to carve it on the trees. This was his hour- and hers. He heard Miss Silver say,
“I have been feeling extremely uneasy about Miss Cunningham.”
He was taken completely by surprise. Rosamond and himself-Jenny and Miss Crewe-to any of these his response would have been instant. But Lucy Cunningham-He stared through the dark and said,
“Why?”
“I believe that an attempt was made on her life last night. I did not feel that I could sleep without coming as far as the house.”
He said bluntly, “What can you do?”
“I do not know. I shall at least feel that I have done what I can.”
They were standing still in the shadow at the side of the road, their voices muted, the last cottage behind them and all the village asleep. He said quickly,
“What do you mean? There’s been an attempt on her life!”
She told him plainly and precisely.
“But that would be someone in the house.”
“Yes, Mr. Lester.”
He gave a faint half laugh.
“That damp dreep Henry! I can imagine his being crooked. He’s the sort to slide down the drain, but I shouldn’t have thought he would hurt a fly. That leaves Nicholas. She brought him up. It’s not pretty.”
“Crime very seldom is, Mr. Lester.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Miss Cunningham was kind enough to take me over the house this afternoon. Her room is at the back. There are two windows. She informed me that she always slept with them open. If her light is out and they are open now it will be some indication that things are normal. In the ordinary way I should not anticipate that a second attempt would be made so soon, but there might be some special reason for silencing her without delay, and I could not disregard my own uneasiness.”
Some of it seemed to have communicated itself to Craig. He had found himself startled, sceptical, and now a good deal disturbed. He said,
“I’ll come with you if I may.”
There was a slight but significant pause. He was being weighed. A laugh just touched his voice as he said,
“I shan’t make any noise. I can walk like a cat if I want to.”
“Then I shall be very glad of your company.” The Dower House had no drive leading up to it. It stood fronting onto the road with a stone wall screening it and the Victorian edition of a glazed passage covering the bare dozen feet from the gate to the front door. As Craig lifted the latch and stood aside for Miss Silver to pass, the church clock struck the quarter after midnight.
CHAPTER 35
The house appeared to be in complete darkness. On either side of the passage running up to the front door the windows on both floors showed nothing. A narrow glass door on the left led from the passage into the garden. It was locked on the inside. Miss Silver producing a very serviceable torch from her coat pocket, the key was located and turned. Feeling a good deal like a burglar, Craig preceded her, and found himself on a gravel path between two banks of shrubs. Closing the door behind her, Miss Silver followed him. She extinguished the torch, put it back in her pocket, and began to walk along the path with as much composure as if she had been an invited guest.
At the corner of the house the path turned, the shrubbery widened out. A blackness of trees appeared behind it. There was still no light anywhere. The mass of the house towered over them like a cliff. Craig bent to say, “Do we go all the way round?” and could discern that she inclined her head.
It was at this moment that they heard the sound. It came from in front of them and to the left-the small crisp sound of a snapping twig. He felt Miss Silver’s hand on his arm, drawing him away from the path and towards the house. A couple of steps, and they stood amongst bushes, listening. Someone was coming through the shrubbery on the other side of the path. If it had not been for the snapped twig, they would all have come together a little farther on. Miss Silver stood motionless remembering the lie of the land. This wall of the house did not run straight back from front to rear. It broke, to form a small paved courtyard, rather damp and gloomy at this time of the year, and with what she considered an excessive number of creepers. She remembered an old magnolia, a good deal of Virginia creeper, and one or two dark cypresses growing far too close to the house.
Someone came out of the shrubbery on the left and entered the courtyard. Miss Silver’s hand came down with a warning pressure upon Craig’s wrist. Then, quite soundlessly, she was gone. He could be in no doubt but that he had been told to remain where he was-the clumsy man whose big feet would naturally betray him if he moved. Since he had served as a paratrooper and time and again risked more than his own life upon his silence, he could afford a private grin over that. Nevertheless he stood where he was, since it wasn’t his show, and in any event two people made more noise than one.
Time goes slowly in the dark. It goes slowly anywhere when you wait and wonder what is going on. When something stirred in the gloom ahead of him he stepped to meet it. Miss Silver’s hand came out and touched him. As he bent to her, she said in an almost soundless voice,
“Someone has just come from Crewe House and entered the Dower House by a concealed door. I believe that we should follow.”
“How do we get in?”
If it was breaking and entering, he was definitely prepared to put the male foot down and keep it there. In a good cause any woman would break any law with an unruffled conscience, but he was not prepared to celebrate his wedding by being arrested.
Miss Silver’s reply was lucid and succinct,
“She unlocked the door, but I did not hear her lock it again.”
He found a Gilbertian echo in his mind-“Who the deuce may she be?”
Lucy Cunningham? But why the melodramatic secret door?
Jenny? He wouldn’t put it past her. But how would she come by an illicit key?
It wouldn’t be either of these-oh, no. It would be Lydia Crewe. And that set such a danger signal ringing that he hadn’t a word to say.
Miss Silver kept her hand on his arm. The stones of the courtyard were damp and soft with moss. Where the added blackness of a tall cypress pressed against the dark wall of the house she stepped before him. Her hand groped, found what it felt for, and reaching back, invited him to follow. There was no more than room to pass. He scraped the wall and was buffeted by twigs and branches. There was a cold aromatic smell. And then they were in a narrow, a very narrow passage. He was to learn afterwards that it ran between two of the rooms. His shoulders touched it on either side. He wondered how many cobwebs he would collect before they were through. The place reeked of dust.
Ahead of them there was a line of light. It cut the darkness like an incandescent wire-as narrow and sharp as that. As they came up to it, he saw that there was a door-no, not a door, a sliding panel. Someone had gone through that way and pushed it to carelessly, leaving the shining crack. Where light can pass sound passes. Lydia Crewe’s deep, harsh voice spoke from beyond the panel.