Читать книгу Run! - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 4

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James stood his ground and said “why?” He said it in his normal voice. The torch made a spot of light on the floor at his feet. It was a very dusty floor. And then, before there was time for anything else, someone fired at them.

It was completely incredible, but it was true. The stair ran up to a gallery, and someone had taken a pot shot at them from this gallery. It wasn’t such a bad shot either, for James felt the wind of the bullet as it went past, and heard the plop with which it buried itself in the panelling.

The girl dragged at his arm. He thought more favourably of her original suggestion. There seemed to be no point about being shot down by a homicidal maniac. They ran down the steps and into the fog, and a second shot followed them. James barked a shin on the bicycle. It clattered down upon stone, and above the noise of its fall he could hear the sound of running steps behind them. The girl pushed him hard to the left. The hand on his arm pinched fiercely. The voice that had said “Run!” said, “Idiot! This way—quick!” all on one soundless breath.

And then they were running again, flagstones under their feet, and the fog in eyes, and nose, and throat. He guessed that they were on a paved terrace which ran the length of the house. He couldn’t see a yard. A yard? He couldn’t see an inch. But the girl seemed to know where she was going. She turned left-handed again. Then she stopped running and went slow, and once they stood listening, and heard what might have been a step on the gravel a long way off. She pulled him on. He made as little noise with his feet as he could, but she made none that he could hear. She might have been bare-foot, or she might not have been touching the ground at all.

She stopped and felt in the dark with her free hand. She said “Steps” in his ear, and they went down six of them and through a gateway into another paved place. James knew that it was a gateway because he scraped his shoulder against the left-hand pillar. He stopped there, and said,

“What’s all this about? I want to get back to my car.”

She leaned so close to answer him that her lips just touched his ear, a little fugitive touch that was instantly withdrawn. Her fingers nipped his arm—small fingers, extraordinarily hard and strong. The pinch hurt sharply. She said in a mere thread of a savage whisper,

“You can’t! Do you want to be shot? I don’t.”

James said, “Nor do I.” He whispered too, but even in a whisper he managed to make it quite plain that he didn’t like being pinched. He considered it a liberty.

The nip was repeated, harder.

“You will be—we both shall! I suppose you can climb a ladder? There ought to be one just about here. No—about ten steps on and a yard or two to the left. Feel about for it.”

It was a little farther than she had said, but they found it. There was no more sound behind them. She let go of his arm and went away up into the dark. A faint rustling came to him from above. He climbed towards it and stepped off the ladder into a foot or so of hay. His arm was caught again. He was first pulled forward and then released. A shutter closed behind him. He heard a long breath taken, and a whispering laugh.

He said again, “What’s all this?” And then, “What’s this place?”

“Stable loft.” Her voice sounded a little farther off. “They won’t find us here. Brr! Nice to be out of the fog! I do hope they won’t pinch my bicycle.”

“Why should they?”

“They might.”

Well, they couldn’t pinch the Rolls, because he had locked the doors and the switch key was in his pocket. All the same—

“You haven’t told me what it’s all about. And I’m not staying here—I’m going back to my car. And what we both ought to do is to find the nearest police-station and put them on to the lunatic who was shooting at us. Unless—” A sudden thought struck him. “I suppose he might have thought we were burglars, but it was a bit drastic shooting like that. He might have hit one of us quite easily.”

There was a faint laugh.

“He meant to. And you can’t be a burglar in the afternoon. It has to be half-past eight or something like that. And anyhow it isn’t their house.”

“Whose house?”

“Theirs.”

“Whose house is it?”

“How should I know?” enquired a very small, innocent voice.

James felt properly angry.

“What’s the good of trying to put that sort of stuff across when you’ve just been leading me round blind? You’ve got to know a place like the back of your hand before you can do that!”

She laughed again, a little nearer.

“Perhaps it’s the cradle of my infancy.”

“I’m going back to my car,” said James.

His wrist was caught.

“I should hate you to. If you got shot, they might think I’d done it. Let’s stay here and tell each other the stories of our lives. I’ll begin. I’m sure you’d love to hear the story of my life.”

“Not particularly. I want to make sure my car’s all right.”

“Are you going to leave me here?” He wasn’t sure if the voice was quite steady. There was very little of it. He said,

“I could drop you if you’ll tell me where you want to go.”

She seemed to consider this.

“I shouldn’t think we’d get farther than the nearest ditch—not in a fog like this. The lanes round here are exactly like corkscrews. And then there’s my bicycle, and my shoes.”

“Your what?” said James in an exasperated voice.

“Shoes. Things you wear on your feet, you know. Rather a nice pair crocodiles—quite new. I don’t think I ought to abandon them.”

James became a good deal more exasperated. It wasn’t the slightest use her doing that sort of mournful tone at him. If it had been light, she would probably have been flickering her eyelashes. He hadn’t got a sister, but he had fourteen girl cousins, and he flattered himself he knew all their ways of trying it on. He couldn’t imagine what sort of game this was, and that naturally put his back up, but he did know when a girl was trying it on. He said,

“What have you got on now?”

There was a little sigh in the darkness.

“A felt hat, a jumper suit, a tweed coat. They’re all brown, if you want the colours.”

“I don’t. I want to know what you’ve got on your feet.”

“Stockings,” said the voice very mournfully in the dark.

So that was why she had made no sound as she ran. If she thought he was going to say “Your feet must be soaked,” she was going to be disappointed.

He said, “Why?”

“Well, you see, those stairs make such a noise. There isn’t any stair carpet, and the fourth one from the bottom creaks, so I took them off—the shoes, you know, my beautiful new crocodiles—and left them in the hall just round the corner from the bottom step, because I thought if I carried them I’d be almost sure to drop them at some frightfully critical moment.”

James frowned. Of all the silly idiotic things to do—

“You mean they’re still in the hall?”

“Yes, kind Preserver.”

James considered the shoe question. If she had walked to the hayloft, she could walk to the car. He said so in a firm, dogmatic voice.

There was another of those mournful sighs.

“And leave my crocodiles—and my bicycle? I’ve got a much better plan than that.”

“Well?” He wasn’t going to commit himself, but you don’t commit yourself very far by saying “Well?”

She echoed the word brightly. Girls always thought themselves whales at making plans.

“Well, suppose you were in a house doing something that you oughtn’t to be doing, and someone came along and found you doing it, and you shot at them, and they got away—how long do you think you would stay in the house?”

“I wouldn’t,” said James.

“Nor should I. Nor would they. They’ll hunt round for us, and then they’ll go away. And then we’ll rescue the crocodiles and my bicycle. And then we’ll go away. It’s a much better plan.”

It was. But that wasn’t to say that it offered no grounds for criticism. James proceeded to criticize.

“Suppose they don’t go away.”

“They will.”

“If the fellow who did the shooting is a lunatic—”

“He isn’t.”

“Who is he?” said James in a rage.

He heard her sigh again.

“I don’t know.”

He thought she did. He very nearly said so. He went on criticizing instead.

“If they’ve gone, they’ll have shut the door. You don’t imagine they’ll leave it open, do you? And then how do we get in?”

“Kind sir, I’ve got a key.”

James had a sense of being played with and laughed at. There is nothing more calculated to set a match to the temper, and his was alight already. Yet, strangely and unaccountably, instead of flaring now it sobered down. He said seriously and without heat,

“So you’ve got a key. Very well, we’ll wait. I suppose you know what it’s all about. I don’t, and I don’t want to. We’ll give them half an hour.”

He shot his wrist-watch out of his cuff and took a look at the luminous dial. The hands stood at six o’clock. There was just a chance that the fog might clear as the temperature fell. These afternoon fogs did clear off sometimes after sunset. They either did that or they got worse. If it was going to get any worse, he was stuck anyhow.

The girl leaned over to see the time. He felt her quite near for a moment. Then the hay rustled as she settled herself again.

“Half an hour—that’s a long time in the dark. Shall we say the multiplication table, or the Kings of England? You wouldn’t have the story of my life. I did offer it to you. What about yours? Are you just ‘Hi, you there!’ or have you got a name?”

“My name’s Elliot—James Elliot.”

“How nice and ordinary. Mine is Aspidistra Aspinall.”

If she had been one of his cousins, James would have said “Liar!” He very nearly said it anyhow. She needn’t suppose he had the slightest desire to know her name. He said nothing.

The hay rustled.

“It’s not my fault, it’s my misfortune.” The voice wobbled for a moment, and then went on in a bright, sweet monotone. “I was born an orphan, and my ruthless relations—”

“You can’t be born an orphan!” said James.

“Oh, but I was. Truly. Absolutely. Because my father was killed in the war and my mother died when I was born. If that isn’t being born an orphan, I don’t know what is.” This with some earnestness. Then, resuming the monotone, “Ruthless relations brought me up. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children prosecuted the godmother who had had me christened Aspidistra. But what was the good of sending her to penal servitude for seven years—I’d got the name for life. It isn’t even as if you could shorten it. Assy! Dissy! I’d rather be a whole Aspidistra any day!”

James supposed it amused her to talk nonsense. It didn’t amuse him. He listened because he thought she was talking nonsense to cover things up—things which might make sense if he were to get a chance of putting them together. He thought she didn’t want to give him that chance, but he thought the more she talked the better, because it is very difficult to talk a lot without giving something away. If the person who had shot at them was neither an enraged householder nor a lunatic, he was a dangerous criminal and a matter of concern for the police. He added his annoyance at being shot at to his annoyance at having run away, and he set them both down to the account of this person or persons unknown. He said,

“How do you come to have a key of this house?”

There was a faint, light laugh.

“Oh, sir—this is so sudden! I haven’t got nearly as far as that. Birth and Christening, that’s where we were—Ruthless Relations and Unchristian Names. Upbringing comes next.” She seemed to hesitate, and then said quickly, “It’s your turn really. I suppose there are about a million James Elliots—the Scotch are so economical about names. But were you at Wellington?”

“I was. Why?”

“Oh, because—” said Aspidistra Aspinall. “I just wondered. Quite a lot of people do go to school there. I didn’t of course. I think Co-education might be rather fun—don’t you? I had governesses, and after they buried the third they sent me to a fierce games-playing school where they broke my spirit with lacrosse and net-ball.”

“I want to know why you’ve got a key to this house,” said James.

She said, “Oh, Mr. Elliot!” in a shocked voice. And then, “All my relations would think it most improper for me to tell a total stranger a thing like that—in the pitch dark too!”

“I think I’ll be getting back to my car,” said James.

“You can’t. You agreed to give it half an hour—you know you did. Scotchmen always keep their words—at least high-minded Scotchmen. Your voice sounds devastatingly high-minded.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t talk such frightful nonsense!” said James, but he stayed where he was.

He heard a funny little sigh with a catch in it.

“Would you rather I burst into tears? On your shoulder? I can quite easily—if you want me to. If I stop talking nonsense for more than half a second, I probably shall whether you want me to or not.”

“I certainly don’t want you to.”

“Well, there you are. You have been warned. I’d better go on. Before my Aunt Clementa died she said I was to have her diamond necklace. She kept on saying so, and every time the nurse went out of the room she clutched my wrist and said—”

“Who clutched your wrist?”

“You’re not listening. My Aunt Clementa did.”

“It might have been the nurse.”

“Well, it wasn’t—it was my Aunt Clementa.”

“Why?”

“There isn’t any why about it. She just clutched me, and she said, ‘It’s worth a lot of money. You’ll find it when I’m gone. It’s somewhere in this room. Don’t let them get their hands on it.’ ”

“Who is them?”

The hay rustled vaguely.

“Oh, just Ruthless Relations—the assorted kind. So when I got the chance I thought I’d come along and do a little quiet treasure-hunting. There isn’t an awful lot you can do in a fog like this, so I put on my crocodiles to give me courage, and I pinched somebody’s torch and the housemaid’s bicycle and happened along.”

“Yes?” said James in a nasty unbelieving tone of voice.

“Well, it didn’t come off. Things don’t. You plan them beautifully, and they walk out on you in the middle of the plan. There was someone else with a torch there first, all very hush-hush, so I ran away, and then the shooting began. And I’ve simply got to go back, because the person the torch belongs to will have my blood if I’ve lost it, and it may be anywhere by now, but I dropped it about a yard from the door of Aunt Clementa’s room, and I’m simply bound to collect it if it’s still there. And I cannot desert my crocodiles.”