The Affair in the Maze
Howard Torrance fidgeted a little and then turned to the girl beside
him.
“A bit feeble, just sitting about like this and doing nothing. Care to
go down to the tennis courts and play a single?”
Vera Forrest knew the symptoms well. A good many men would have been
glad enough of the chance to monopolise her and would have asked
nothing better than to sit there in the shade in her company. But
Howard had a surplus of physical energy which could be worked off only
by continual exercise. “What’ll we do next?” was a phrase which ran
through his talk like a reiterated battle-cry; and he seemed to have
exalted Sloth to the premier position in his private catalogue of the
mortal sins. She glanced at him mischievously and decided to tease him
a little before letting him have his way.
“No, thank you,” she said, sedately.
Howard had a second suggestion ready.
“Want to go over to the links and play a few holes?”
“No, thanks.”
“What about taking the car to Stanningleigh. I need some cigarettes
and I’ll stand you a box of chocolates.”
“No.”
Howard looked at her suspiciously.
“Is this a new game? ‘No, thank you. . . . No, thanks. . . . No.’
Trying to make it shorter each time, is that it? Well, you’ve got to
the bottom of the bag this shot. This is where the master-brain says
‘Checkmate!’ Ahem! Like to take a boat out on the river for a while?
You can’t say No in less than two letters.”
Vera made no audible response, but she shook her head in refusal. Her
companion admitted his defeat gracefully.
“Didn’t think you’d manage it. You win. Will you have a saucepan or a
cheap alarm clock? All the other prizes have been awarded already.”
Then, as though dismissing trifles and becoming serious:
“What’s to be done? We can’t sit around like this the whole day.
Time’s on the wing, and all that.”
Vera looked at the shadows on the grass.
“It’s getting on certainly. We really haven’t time to do much before
tea.”
“It couldn’t miss that, I suppose? It wants its tea?”
“It wants its tea,” Vera admitted, gravely.
Howard looked at his watch.
“Pity we wasted the best part of the afternoon just sitting round and
loafing,” he commented disconsolately.
For a few moments he remained silent, evidently turning various
projects over in his mind.
“Tell you what,” he suggested at last. “Ever been in the old Maze down
there by the boat-house? No? Neither have I. What about dashing over
and trying our luck with it? Part at the entrance; and the first that
gets to the centre wins the game. They say it’s a grand puzzler.”
“Well, if it will make you happy, I don’t mind. But wait a moment.
Hasn’t the Maze got two centres? Somebody told me that once.”
Howard brushed the objection aside.
“The first one to reach either centre scores a win. If you get there,
sing out. I’ll trust to your native honesty to keep you from
cheating.”
It was comfortable under the trees, and Vera attempted to put off the
evil moment of departure even by a few seconds.
“How many entrances has the Maze?”
“Oh, don’t know, exactly. Four or five, I think. Nothing in that. Take
the first one we come to, whichever it is. Then you go to the right
and I’ll go to the left, or t’other way about if you like; and the
best man wins. I’ll risk a box of chocolates or a tin of cocoa on it,
if you insist. Come along, don’t let’s decay here any longer; I see a
bit of moss has grown on my toe since we sat down—and no wonder.”
Vera gave in and rose from her seat with feigned reluctance.
“Bit stiff in the joints with sitting so long?” Howard inquired,
sympathetically. “It’ll wear off at once.”
As they sauntered across the stretches of turf which led down to the
Maze, Vera was struck by the quietness of the grounds.
“Whistlefield’s a lovely place, isn’t it, Howard?”
“Top-hole,” he agreed, cordially. “First-class tennis courts; good
golf-course only a quarter of an hour away; the river’s quite decent
for punting; plenty of room in the house to dance, and I believe they
run a pack of otter-hounds somewhere in the neighbourhood.”
“I didn’t know you were a house-agent.”
Howard saw the dig, but took no offence.
“Sounds a bit like their patter, doesn’t it? ‘Company’s water, gas,
and electric light. Telephone. Main drainage.’ Well, nothing to be
ashamed of, is it? Whistlefield’s all right.”
“Sylvia’s lucky to be here. By the way, where has she gone to this
afternoon, do you know? I haven’t seen her since lunch.”
“Off in the car to see some people and arrange for some tennis
to-morrow. I must say Sylvia looks after one well when one comes to
stay. Always on the go.”
“Where are the rest of the villagers?”
“One uncle’s off with Sylvia. The other two were in the study when I
saw them last. Stenness is somewhere around. I met young Arthur when
you sent me up to the house a few minutes ago. He was coming out of
the gun-room with a nasty look in his eye and an air-gun in his hand.
Gave him a cheery hail and got a grunt in reply. Seemed peevish about
something or other, quite fretful, even. Wished him Good Hunting and
asked him if he was going to shoot rabbits in the spinney. All I got
was a growl that he was going to shoot something sitting if he
couldn’t shoot it any other way. Seemed determined to work off bad
temper by slaughtering something, no matter what!”
Vera’s face betrayed sympathy.
“Poor Arthur! It’s hard lines on that boy, Howard. He’s been changed a
good deal by that beastly illness he had.”
Howard’s expression showed that he shared her feelings.
“Pity. Used to be a bright lad. All right, even yet; but not quite the
same, somehow. Moody at times; and apt to loaf about doing nothing for
half the day. No real go in him. A queer temper, too, some days. When
I met him just now, for instance, he looked ready to bite me in the
gizzard. Not at all the society man.”
Vera dismissed the subject, which threatened to throw a gloom over
them both. They liked Arthur Hawkhurst, in spite of the occasional
flashes of abnormality which he had shown since the attack of
encephalitis lethargica.
“You’re playing quite fair, aren’t you, Howard? You’ve never been
inside the Maze at all?”
“You don’t suppose I’d cheat for the sake of winning a tin of cocoa,
do you? It’s amazing what a low view of mankind some girls have.
Soured from the cradle, what? And born in suspicion, belike. Shake it
off, or it’ll grow on you, Vera. Go and dig in the garden when you
feel an attack coming on.”
“Oh, don’t rub it in! I know your motto well enough: ‘Perspiration is
better than cure,’ or something like that, isn’t it? I only asked out
of idle curiosity. No reflections on your honesty really intended.”
“Your apology of even date duly received and filed. Sounds like the
house-agent vein again, that, doesn’t it? Come on, I’ll race you this
last hundred yards and give you a start to that rhododendron. Half a
tin of cocoa on the event, since you’re so mercenary.”
Vera rejected his offer; and they walked over the last lawn to the
nearest entrance to the Maze.
The Maze at Whistlefield was a relic of earlier days when such things
were fashionable; but it had been kept in good repair, and Roger
Shandon’s gardeners spent a considerable amount of labour in clipping
its topiary hedges into the semblance of green walls. Somewhat
irregular in outline, it covered about half an acre of ground; but
into that limited space there was compressed more than half a mile of
pathways; and the shortest route to either of the centres was at least
two hundred and fifty yards in length. But few except experts could
have found their way to either Helen’s Bower or the Pool of Narcissus
by walking a mere two hundred and fifty yards. The Whistlefield Maze
was a labyrinth far exceeding in complexity its kindred at Hatfield
and Hampton Court. Its twelve-foot hedges were impenetrably thick; and
in its design it followed the “island-pattern” to such an extent that
incautious explorers might wander by the hour through its tiny
archipelago without gaining a foot towards the innermost recesses or
even realising that they were simply coasting round and round the
outline of some detached hedge.
So many people had got temporarily lost in the labyrinth and, being so
far away from the house, had been unable to get help even by shouting,
that at last precautions had been taken to avoid mishaps of the kind
in future.
As Vera and her companion reached the tall iron gate in the outer
hedge which marked one of the entrances, they found themselves
confronted with a small notice-board to which an old-fashioned horn
was suspended.
VISITORS ENTERING THE MAZE ARE ADVISED TO TAKE THIS HORN WITH THEM
SO THAT THEY CAN SUMMON ASSISTANCE IF NECESSARY. ON LEAVING THE
MAZE, KINDLY HANG THE HORN IN ITS PLACE AGAIN.
Howard went up to the board and read the notice with obvious contempt.
“Nice lot of incompetents they seem to have about the house!” he
commented in a scathing tone. “I wonder they don’t provide a
bath-chair and a man to push you to the centre, and be done with it.
As if any person of ordinary intelligence couldn’t find his way
through a thing about the size of a washing-green.”
“Ever been in a maze before?” Vera inquired.
“No, not that I can remember.”
“Ah, then kindly unhook the horn and give it to me. I’m not proud.”
Howard took the horn from its place and handed it over.
“What’s the good of one horn, since we’re not going in together?”
Vera looked him over coldly.
“When I get lost, I shall blow the horn and get someone to show me the
way out. When you get lost, you’ll be able to practise breathing
exercise in yelling for help. You see, you’ve got a much louder and
harsher voice than I have. You’ll be all right, I’m sure. But if you
think you can’t come up to the lung-power needed, you might go round
to the next entrance and see if there isn’t a horn there. I should
think there’s sure to be one at each entrance.”
Howard was put on his mettle.
“Oh, I shan’t get lost. Don’t fret too much about me. Now then, who’s
for the centre?”
“Come along, then. I’ll take the left-hand path here, and you can go
to the right. Whoever gets first to the centre can shout ‘I win!’ and
then start for the exit door. If it’s a tie at the centre, then the
first one out is the winner. Keep a tight hold on your honesty and
don’t shout unless you get to the centre! These are all the directions
necessary, I think. Now, go!”
Vera hurried along a straight corridor for some twenty yards and then
turned sharply to the right as the path altered its direction. On
again, until a promontory of hedge forced her to diverge into a recess
in the greenery, from which she emerged again into the main track.
Another corner to the right was turned and now she seemed to have come
into a cul-de-sac.
“Rather a sell if I’ve chosen a blind alley at the very start,” she
thought to herself. “Howard would jubilate over that when he found out
about it.”
However, on reaching the wall of hedge which seemed to bar her way,
she came upon a concealed turning to the right.
“After walking all that distance, I’m still on the very outer rim of
this Maze! However, this turn’s going to take me in towards the
centre.”
Up to that point her progress had been simplicity itself; but now
alternative paths began to open up every few yards. The tall hedges
cut off everything but the sky; and soon she found that she had
completely lost her bearings and was wandering at random. For a time
she hurried forward, choosing always those turnings which seemed
likely to bring her nearer to where she supposed the centre to lie;
but at last the continual windings confused her so much that she could
not even tell in which direction to walk in order to reach the inner
reaches of the labyrinth. Long zig-zag corridors ended, time after
time, in blank walls; and in traversing them forwards and back again
she grew more and more doubtful of her bearings. When she thought of
taking the sun as a reference-point, it was too late; for by that time
she had lost all notion of her whereabouts.
“I’m sure I’ve seen that patch of withered leaves in the hedge more
than once before,” she said to herself, halting to examine it more
carefully. “Yes, I’m certain I passed it a few minutes ago. I must be
coming back in my tracks and just going over the same ground again and
again.”
With the dying out of her own footfalls, the silence of the Maze
impressed itself on her; and she strained her ears to catch the sound
of Howard as he moved somewhere beyond these impenetrable green living
walls.
“If I really get stuck in here,” she reflected, “I can always blow the
horn and bring someone who knows the place to lead me out.”
She listened again, more intently. Then, suddenly there was no need to
strain her ears.
First came a dull thud, which unconsciously she recognised as
familiar, though she could not identify it at the moment. Then, almost
at the same instant, a man’s voice gave an inarticulate cry in which
surprise, pain, and anger seemed to be mingled. A moment of silence,
then a peculiar metallic grating reached her ears, followed by a
second thud and a fresh cry of pain. Again came the familiar metallic
rasping, yet another of these familiar dull concussions, and then,
lower this time, a last cry. Then there was silence once more.
Vera stood paralysed by what she had heard. In a flash of
enlightenment she guessed that behind these inexplicable events some
tragedy was in progress; something dreadful was happening quite close
at hand, though screened from her by the high green walls which shut
her in. She had never heard that note in a man’s voice before. Utterly
shocked by the unexpected revelation of violence, she stood for a
moment with her knees trembling under her, while her pulse beat in her
throat so heavily as to prevent her uttering a sound. Then, with an
effort, she found her voice.
“Howard! Are you there? What’s happened? Oh, what’s happened?”
“I’m here.”
She could not make out from which direction his shout came. The
towering hedges seemed to deflect sound so that it was impossible to
determine even approximately the position of a speaker.
“What were those cries, Howard? What’s happened?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Somebody hurt. But I can’t get to the
place. Stay where you are, Vera. I’ll see if I can find my way to
you.”
She listened intently in the silence that followed. Feet moved in the
Maze; evidently Howard was doing his best to make in her direction.
But beyond this she could detect no other noise, though she strained
her ears to the utmost. She had expected to hear groans from the
wounded man, but nothing broke the stillness until Howard called to
her again. His voice seemed farther off than before.
“Shout, will you, Vera? I’ve lost your direction.”
She called again; and he replied. But as she listened, his footsteps
seemed to recede and die away in the distance. Evidently he had found
that the direct path was blocked and had had to retreat up some alley
to try a fresh start.
Then, with surprise at her previous forgetfulness, she bethought
herself of the horn in her hand. That would bring assistance. She
ought to have remembered it before. The shock had put it out of her
mind. She was in the act of lifting it to her lips when again her
nerves were shaken by a new cry from the inner recesses of the Maze.
“Murder!”
She recognised Howard’s voice, tinged with horror. It was a
loud-voiced ejaculation rather than a cry for assistance, she felt
with relief. Howard hadn’t run into a trap. Before she could pull
herself together, he shouted again, this time with the full strength
of his lungs:
“Murder! See that no one gets away from the Maze!”
Vera’s nerves were almost attuned to the shock of the discovery. A
picture of some swift and terrible act of violence crossed her mind.
It must have been soon over, for she remembered that after the three
cries she had heard no sound of any sort. Not twenty yards from her,
it might be, a human being had been battered out of existence; and but
for these cries she would have known nothing whatever.
She raised her voice again.
“Howard! I’m frightened. What’s happened?”
“One of the Shandons has been killed. I blundered into the centre,
trying to get to you. There’s blood on his coat.”
He broke off for a moment, evidently gathering his breath, then again
he shouted:
“Murder! Help! Here in the Maze! Murder!”
Vera held her breath, listening eagerly for some answering cry from
the outer world which now seemed so peaceful and unattainable. Then in
the silence, she heard the sound of a man running hard in the alleys
of the Maze.
“Is that you, Howard?” she called. “I hear someone running not far
from where I am.”
No sooner had she spoken than the noise of running footfalls ceased
abruptly.
“Is that you, Howard?” she called again, nervously.
There came a sound of rustling and tearing, then Howard’s voice
sounded across the labyrinth.
“I’m here. I’m trying to get to you. I tried climbing the hedge, but
it’s no good. What did you say? I didn’t catch it.”
“There’s somebody moving about in the Maze, Howard. I heard his
footsteps.”
Howard Torrance’s voice replied with that baffling indeterminateness
in direction which the Maze seemed to impart.
“Can you hear me, Vera?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t utter another sound. Don’t use the horn. Keep absolutely
quiet and try to make your way out of the Maze. If anyone comes round
the corner, yell your head off; but unless you see something, keep
silent and step softly. There’s someone in the Maze, and I don’t want
him to know where you are.”
Vera leaned against the high hedge for a minute or two, trying to
overcome the panic into which Howard’s last words had plunged her. He
had been careful not to put the thing to her nakedly; but she saw what
lay behind his directions. The murderer was still in the Maze, and on
his way out he might come upon her. If he did, she would be too
dangerous a witness to leave alive. She need expect no mercy. And what
hope of escape would she have? There, shut in among these towering
walls, isolated from all help in the intricacies of the Maze, it would
be an easy business to silence her finally.
She listened intently once more; but no sound came to her ears. The
murderer seemed to have made his way into some remoter part of the
Maze. Suddenly a clatter at her feet startled her into an agony of
terror. It was the horn which she had allowed to slip from her hand in
the intensity of her concentration upon the sounds about her. She
stooped to pick it up again; then, thinking that it would merely
hamper her, she let it lie where it had fallen.
But at once came the realisation that the sound of its clash upon the
path must have betrayed her position, if the murderer were lurking at
hand. She tried to listen again; but her heart was hammering and the
pulsing of the blood in her ears drowned all external sounds. A lump
seemed to gather in her throat and she felt as though she would choke.
With a physical effort she fought down her difficulties.
“Hysteria!” she told herself. “If I give way to it, I’ll be putting
myself straight into the brute’s hands.”
At last the rustle in her ears subsided and she was able to listen
again. For a few instants she heard nothing. Then, quite close at
hand, a dry twig cracked as though someone had set his foot on it. The
murderer had not left the Maze.
She felt almost unable to stir; but at last she forced herself into
motion. Anything was better than staying in the place where the
assassin might have heard her drop the horn. Softly she stole down the
corridor. Once she had begun to move, all her impulse was to break
into a run; but she fought hard against it.
“If I begin to run, I’m done for,” she thought. “I’d go on running. I
wouldn’t be able to run to a corner; and it’s at the corners I must be
careful, or I may run full tilt into him.”
And then her mind, despite herself, conjured up vivid pictures of that
meeting. She could see a vague figure rising to block her passage.
With an almost physical shrinking she thought of it with a knife in
its hand, the blade dripping with the blood of the earlier victim. It
came over her how safe and peaceful the normal world was—and now, in
pursuit of an aimless piece of amusement, she had come into the
slaughterhouse. The Minotaur was afoot in the labyrinth.
At the end of the alley she forced herself to halt and peeped
cautiously round the corner. No one was in sight, so she ventured into
a fresh avenue. Then came a fork in the path, and she took the passage
which seemed to offer the longest clear view ahead. Then another
corner, and more precautions.
She was moving at random now, all her attention concentrated on
avoiding the unseen assassin. Once she heard steps, someone was
walking on the opposite side of the hedge against which she was
crouching. She held her breath, pictured that terrific figure which
she had conjured up. He was stepping lightly like herself; and she
almost feared that he would hear the beating of her heart, so near did
he come. Then, when she thought she could bear it no longer, the
footfalls receded softly into the distance.
“If that happens again, I’ll shriek,” she said to herself. “I simply
couldn’t go through it twice.”
Two more corners rounded in safety, then in a straight alley a
metallic object glittered at the foot of the hedge and with a sinking
heart she recognised it as the horn she had dropped.
“I’m back again at the same place. I’ll never get out of this trap!”
Again she started, stepping as softly as possible; but to her strained
ears the sound of her footsteps seemed to echo and re-echo along the
green-walled corridors.
“What a fool I am! I ought to have taken off my shoes long ago. Then I
could go as quick as I please, without making any noise.”
She slipped off her shoes, and some of her confidence came back when
she found how silently she could move.
“Now I must keep things in my head and get off the track I followed
last time.”
At one remembered turning, she took a fresh track and stole along it
with every precaution. Again she heard the sound of steps; but they
were farther off this time, and after halting for a few seconds she
felt safe to go on her way once more.
“If I don’t get out soon, I’ll faint.”
But she refused to give in. The thought of lying helpless in one of
these tenantless corridors at the mercy of the hidden murderer, kept
her on her feet.
“He’d think I was shamming, and he’d make sure of me.”
The thought of that fate was just sufficient to nerve her to a
desperate attempt to extricate herself from the labyrinth; but now her
self-control gave way. She began to hurry along the interminable
corridors, and before many seconds had passed she had broken into a
run. Soon she was flying headlong down the alleys, slipping as she
turned corners in full flight, dashing blindly into hedges which
blocked her path in culs-de-sac, and striving only to outstrip the
phantom murderer whom she felt at her heels. All thought of caution or
direction had gone to the winds as she fled at haphazard down the
tortuous paths.
Just as she felt that she could force herself no farther, a wider gap
than usual appeared in one of the green walls, and she flung herself
into it in the hope that it might be one of the exits. But instead of
the broad lawns of Whistlefield, she found before her a tiny open
space shut in on all sides by greenery.
A few garden chairs were scattered about it, under the shade of the
hedges. One of them had been overturned, and beside it lay, face
upwards, the body of a man in grey flannel clothes. Vera had never
seen a dead man before; but it needed no second glance to tell her
that she had stumbled upon the victim of the tragedy.
“It’s Roger Shandon!”
Almost subconsciously she noted that the body showed no visible signs
of violence. Roger seemed to have collapsed as he rose from his chair.
She could see no pool of blood which might have pointed to the manner
of his death.
Vera’s nerves could withstand the strain no longer. The glimpse of the
body proved to be the final touch which was more than she could bear.
Almost incuriously she noticed the blue sky darken, turn violet, and
then go black. She retreated a couple of paces, only to go down in a
faint.
When she came to her senses again, it was to hear the sound of her own
name in her ears; but when she looked round she could see no one
standing beside her.
“Vera! Are you there? Why don’t you answer?”
Slowly she came back to normal consciousness and the realisation that
it was Howard Torrance’s voice continually calling.
“Vera! Answer if you can. What made you shriek like that?”
So she must have uttered some involuntary cry before she fainted. She
turned this over in her mind mechanically, hardly yet knowing where
she was. Then all at once things came back to her and she rose to her
knees. Roger Shandon’s body was close to her, and she turned away her
head so as not to see the dead man.
“Vera!”
She pulled herself together and answered with a faint call.
“Thank God you’re all right,” she heard Howard answer.
“Where are you?”
“I’ve come to the centre where the body is. Oh, Howard, what am I to
do?”
“The murderer’s gone, I think,” came the reply. “Can you walk at all?
Get away from that place at once. No wonder you shrieked when you came
upon it. If you’ll call as often as you can manage it, I’ll try to
find my way to you.”
With an effort she forced herself to her feet once more. Her strength
seemed to be almost gone; but by sheer will-power she succeeded in
making her way out of the tiny enclosure into the green corridor.
Anything to get away from the sight of the body! It was too grim a
reminder of the perils of the Maze.
For a time she leaned against the hedge just outside the centre,
trying to gather up enough energy to launch once more into the
labyrinth. One horror had at least been banished. Howard said the
murderer had escaped from the Maze; she need have no fear of meeting
that demon in her wanderings. It seemed hours since she and Howard had
come so light-heartedly into that daedalian web. She had no idea how
long she had been unconscious; and when she looked back, she seemed to
have spent an eternity in the paths of the Maze before she had
blundered into the centre.
At last she pulled herself together and called again to Howard.
“Howard! I’m going to try for the way out now.”
“All right! Give me a call occasionally, so that I’ll know you’re all
right. By the way, why don’t you blow the horn?”
“I’ve lost it. I dropped it when I thought the murderer was chasing
me.”
“I wondered why you didn’t use it, after I’d told you he’d cleared
out. Shouting’s no good. I’ve been yelling at the pitch of my voice
for long enough, but there’s no one within earshot, evidently.”
Vera set off again. The rest had done her good. Now that the immediate
terror of the murderer in the Maze was removed, she felt a different
person. The horror through which she had passed began somehow to take
on a tinge of unreality. Had she actually seen Roger Shandon’s body
lying on the grass, or had it been a mere hallucination sweeping over
her when she was on the verge of fainting? She had the feeling that
the whole thing might be some walking nightmare which had passed.
And now, by that curious hazard which sometimes happens in mazes, she
hit upon the shortest route to the exit. When she was least expecting
it, a sudden turn in the corridor revealed one of the iron gates in
the outermost hedge.
“Howard! I’ve come to the gate. What a relief!”
“Wait before you go,” Howard’s voice came to her over the intervening
partitions. “Listen to me. Once you get outside, run to the house. If
you meet anyone on the way, send him down to get me out of this
tangle; I seem to have no luck. When you get to the house, find
Stenness or one of the other men. Send the lot, if they’re there. Tell
them about the murder and tell them to get the police on the ’phone at
once. And get yourself some brandy or something. You’ll need it, poor
thing!”
Vera made a careful note of his orders.
“I’ll see to that. I’m going now, Howard. Good-bye.”
She ran out of the iron gate and saw with immense relief the broad
prospect of the lawns before her. Out at last! Then she hurried off in
the direction of the house.