THE WINDOW.
When Amaryllis awoke from a sleep in which the remains of the drug
Melchard had given her had happily combated the restlessness of fear,
she had no memory of how she came to the room in which she found
herself.
Under the shock of the strange surroundings she sprang from the bed, and
as her feet touched the floor, last night came back to her.
She tried the door--locked!
She went to the window, and had already raised the lower part until it
jammed, when there came running beneath an angry woman, threatening with
gesture and unintelligible words.
It was Fridji, who was once Sir Randal's parlour-maid, and last night
Melchard's companion in the car.
Amaryllis drew back and looked round the room for her gown--the green
silk she had worn at dinner last night. It had been taken from her body
before she was laid on the bed. The rest of her clothes she still wore,
even to the evening shoes which were hurting her feet. But the green
frock was gone--an added precaution, no doubt, against her escape.
Fear thrilled in her heart, and grew so terrible that, if the window had
given her any prospect but that foul yard and the dark pine trees behind
it, she would have broken its glass and screamed for help.
Almost in despair, she sat trembling on the bed, and thought of her
father and of the two Bellamys, and of what they would do, when they
caught them, to the men who had stolen Ambrotox and the woman they
loved.
All the three? Well, two at least. Yet somehow she felt that it would
not be surprising if the worst vengeance should be Limping Dick's.
And inside her she smiled, and the shaking of her body began to subside.
But before her courage was firm in the saddle there came footsteps in
the passage--a foot that she knew. The key grated, the door opened, and
Melchard entered the room, dressed in a soft, new-looking suit of
purplish grey; the jacket too long in the body and too close in the
waist, the wide, unstarched cuffs of the mauve shirt turned back--an
embryo fashion--over the coat-sleeves.
And with him came the miasma of that nauseating perfume.
The mercy of God sent her anger, and she forgot that she rose before
this intruder covered only in white princess petticoat, green silk
stockings and high-heeled bronze shoes.
The petticoat was cut low on neck and shoulders, and the white of the
lace shoulder-straps showed bluish between the warm cream-colour of neck
and of arms. The face, a moment before pale and worn almost to
haggardness, was now flushed with the indignation which gave point and
edge to the words which overwhelmed for a moment even the shameless and
commercialized criminal.
Of what he was, she knew little, but what she thought of him he could
not escape hearing.
Yet, when she paused in, rather than concluded her invective, he had
already recovered his effrontery.
"My dear Miss Caldegard," he said, "we were compelled last night, for
your own good, to exhibit a mild opiate. Your health required it. It has
impaired, I fear, your memory of the circumstances which have brought
you under my care. When you have had a few weeks in which to benefit by
the devoted care and scientific attention which we shall bring to bear
on your case, you will learn to look on me as what I am--your medical
attendant, and to forget--or--or----" and here he ogled her horribly
with his fine eyes--"or remember in a new fashion your old lover."
And with this disgusting phrase he came close up to her.
"Lover still," he said, "though discarded and trampled upon."
Amaryllis could not know that her very truculence was a fan to his
flame.
"Go out of my room," she cried, and struck him on his mouth and cheek.
The blow was delivered with the action of a slap, but the fingers were
clenched, and the arm was swung from the shoulder.
Melchard seized her by the elbows, cruelty and joy making in his
countenance a horrible mixture of emotion.
With his face close to hers, he said:
"Oh, yes, I'll go--soon! That tawny hair of yours, Amaryllis, is
splendidly voluptuous against your skin of live, creamy satin. I long to
run my fingers into its meshes."
And actually he would have touched it--her hair!--but for a voice which
spoke sharply through the partly-open door:
"You're wanted, Alban. Come!"
And Amaryllis, in spite of fear and disgust, almost laughed at the
disgust and fear in his face as he released her.
"My men downstairs," he said. "Soon--soon I shall see you again."
Then, at the door, he turned to add: "There are four of them, prompt,
even rash fellows--all armed but faithful and devoted to me. I beg you
to wait until your breakfast is sent up. Attempts to escape are
dangerous."
Again the key was turned, and Amaryllis flung herself on the bed,
shaking with rage and horror.
But her attention was distracted from herself by the absence of
departing footsteps.
The man must be still at the door--listening, spying through some
crevice, perhaps.
No--he was talking--listening--replying, in a voice too low for the
words to reach her.
And then an answering voice, which rose by swift crescendo, until it
drove the man with hasty steps down the passage, followed by a screaming
final curse.
Fridji the parlour-maid was jealous, was angry, and was making her
Melchard a scene! Oh, but how funny things would be if they weren't so
beastly!
But Dutch Fridji, having no humour, entered the room in the worst temper
of a depraved woman.
"You want breakfast?" she said, locking the door and taking out the key.
Amaryllis looked up with disdainful laziness.
"Of course," she said, "please be quick."
"If you cannot wait," replied Fridji, "you must go without."
"You must not speak to me like that. You know very well that
parlour-maids say 'ma'am' and are expected to be respectful."
"Parlour-maids! I am no parlour-maid."
"Indeed?" said Amaryllis.
"Here--I am mistress!"
"Oh!" said Amaryllis.
"And you are prisoner--I tell you."
"Yes?" said Amaryllis. "I'm afraid you've let yourself be dragged into a
very wicked crime for which you will be severely punished."
"Punish! To punish _me_! Drag in! But me? Me? Me? I am not dragged. I
lead."
"Really?" said Amaryllis.
"The head is mine. I plan. And, because you will never leave this place
I do not mind to tell you that it is I have done it. All this. We have
the New Drug. I hold the man that shall make it and sell it. I am the
leader. I get the key. I catch you by the throat, there in The Manor
House, my pretty, red-haired mistress! I catch you while my Melchard,
who is clever, prick your arm with the needle. I--I--I!"
"Oh, yes," said Amaryllis. "But I do not think you are wise to tell all
this to me."
"Because you tell again? Oh, no, ma'am! I squeeze harder next time--and
there are other things. This is good old establish firm, no risk taken."
And Dutch Fridji came slowly towards Amaryllis.
"You make love with my Alban," she said, "an' I stop it." Lifting her
skirt, she fetched from a sheath in her stocking a sharp-pointed knife.
"I have enough of you. Two months I must say 'ma'am'! And now, it is
Alban!"
"You mean to kill me?" asked Amaryllis.
Dutch Fridji was like the nightmare vision of a Fury.
For a moment Amaryllis was paralyzed. But Fridji liked the clatter of
her own tongue.
"It is that I mean," she said. "To kill you very slow. Your beautiful
frock, it burn now. Soon your shoes, your stockings, your long
petticoat, the corset shall burn, till there shall not be a shred they
can say was yours. And then the body shall be burned--but first carve
and chopped like meat at table."
Amaryllis gasped and shuddered, giving fuel to the blaze, so that it
crackled once more into fierce indiscretion.
"I tell you things. Oh, yes, I tell. For the last one that died--it was
a pity. He did not know before--knew not ever what was coming to him and
to each part of him. That spoil the flavour of my dish, do you see?"
A flourish of the knife put expressive finish to the words.
Amaryllis backed into the corner between bed and door, speaking any word
that came. On equal terms she would have fought for life like a cat, but
the knife----
"Mr. Melchard doesn't want me to be killed," she said.
For a moment Fridji's rage choked her.
"I'll scream, and he'll come with his men."
"With this I have sent him running from your door," cried Fridji. "It is
locked this side, and you will bleed to die before they break it."
Not rushing, but creeping, Dutch Fridji approached.
Amaryllis raised her eyes towards the window and the strip of sky it
framed, in silent supplication. And already, half through the window,
she saw her answer.
And Fridji saw her victim's face flush with hope, and turned to see its
cause.
Through the opening which Amaryllis had left between sill and sash, his
hands on the floor, his chin almost touching it, while his legs from
knee to feet were still outside the window, she saw Dick Bellamy.
Fridji, with blood in her mind, knife in her hand, and the proof of
Amaryllis' face that this was an enemy, sprang to deal with the
defenceless intruder.
Amaryllis had seen the lank black hair, no longer sleek, and had
received one gleam from the uplifted blue eyes; and now knew terror such
as she had not felt even for herself.
Nothing, it seemed, could come between the knife and Dick Bellamy--Dick
who had come to her. And then she saw his left arm dart forward--an arm
that seemed, on the floor, to shoot out to twice its natural length--and
its fingers gripped Fridji's left ankle, jerking it towards him.
The woman fell backwards, and Amaryllis caught her from behind.
"Stop her mouth," said Dick from the floor.
And the girl, her long hands almost meeting round Fridji's slender neck,
squeezed with all her strength, forcing the head and shoulders to the
ground.
Fridji gaped for breath.
"Stuff her mouth--blanket," said Dick, with his feet almost clear of the
window-sill, yet keeping his hold on the ankle.
Amaryllis forced the corner of the coverlet between Fridji's teeth and
held it there, keeping up the pressure of the other hand on the throat.
"That's what they did to me," she thought.
Dick stood beside her.
"Change with me," he whispered, and slid his left hand round the front
of Dutch Fridji's neck. Amaryllis stood up.
By the hold of his left, Dick raised the woman almost to her feet and,
measuring his distance, struck her with his right fist on the left side
of the neck directly below the ear--a short, sharp blow, the sound of
which affected the watching girl with a pang of physical sickness.
It might have been the noise made by a butcher flinging a slab of raw
steak upon his block.
Dick let the woman's body gently back to the floor, and Amaryllis saw
that she was unconscious as a corpse.
"Is she dead?" she said softly.
"For five minutes--p'r'aps ten," he answered. "Where's the key?"
Amaryllis picked it up from the floor.
"Melchard said he'd got four men downstairs--armed," she whispered.
"Heard him--but it's the only way--they've fixed that window. Just
scraped in head first and we can't get out like that. Come on," said
Dick, and put the key in the lock.
"I've--I haven't got--haven't got any clothes." And there was no other
expression of shame in her face than the two large tears that gathered
slowly in her eyes.
But Dick Bellamy ignored them, looking her up and down like a man
considering the harness needed for a horse.
"Take off her skirt," he said; then added: "Shoes might do." And with
his back turned to the girl, he knelt and quickly unshod Dutch Fridji
while Amaryllis unfastened the waistband of the skirt.
"Yours wouldn't last a mile," said Dick, going to the window and looking
out. "Put 'em on quick--say when."
In a time wonderfully short, he thought, for a girl, she spoke.
"I'm ready," said the small voice; and he turned to face a quaint figure
in a skirt too short, and too wide on the hips. The brogue shoes would
have looked better if the stockings had been of anything but green silk.
But the pathos of sentiment and custom was in the bare arms and the two
hands crossed on the chest and throat, with fingers spread in vain
attempt to cover the whole; and in the plaintive simplicity of the voice
which said:
"But, oh, my neck! I can't possibly get into her blouse, and a blanket's
too conspicuous."
Dick stripped off his Norfolk jacket, holding it for her arms. As she
hesitated, glancing at him, he frowned.
"Please obey orders," he said, and she meekly slipped on the loose coat.
He took from its pocket a folded white handkerchief, and tied it round
her neck by two adjacent corners, so that it hung like a child's bib.
Amaryllis pulled the collar up over the knot at the back, and began to
button the coat over the linen.
"Don't button it," he said, pulling off his necktie. "Cross the edges.
Lift your arms."
And he tied the dark green strip round her waist, knotting it in front.
"Come on," he said; and, stooping, picked up Fridji's knife. "Where's
the sheath?"
"In her stocking," said Amaryllis.
"Get it," said Dick, and unlocked the door.
Amaryllis behind him whispered: "She moved a little," and brought him
the leather sheath.
They stepped silently into the passage. Dick locked the door and
pocketed the key.
"Quietly," he said, and as they crept towards the stairhead, he slid the
sheathed knife into the pocket of the tweed jacket.