AFLOAT
That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time of year, Audrey
left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley. She had made a provisional
plan with Jane and Aguilar, and the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of
the simplest, necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by calling the
"parlourmaid," but who was more commonly known as the stewardess. This
young married creature had prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been
said. The understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that Mrs.
Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a word as to the arrival
of Jane Foley should escape either of them until the deed was accomplished.
It is true that Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the affair,
but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired, and from the moment
they had left Flank Hall together she had been wise enough not even to
mention Jane Foley to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been less guarded.
Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss the coming adventure with Audrey
in remote corners--a tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave
to both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators, Also
Audrey had had to dissuade him from accompanying her to the Hall. He had
rather conventional ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
abandoned them with difficulty even now.
As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the village of Moze,
Audrey had no fear of being recognised; moreover, recognition by her former
fellow-citizens could now have no sinister importance; she did not much
care who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were slightly
ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with a suddenly aroused
heart up the drive towards the front entrance of the house. In spite of
herself she could not get rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or
Inspector Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of the sky further
affected her nerves. There ought to have been a lamp in the front hall, but
no ray showed through the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She
rang the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar, according to
the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not open; nobody opened. She was
instantly sure that she knew what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to
Frinton and ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was an
invention, and had returned with a search warrant and some tools. But in
another ten seconds she was equally sure that nothing of the sort could
have happened, for it was an axiom with her that Aguilar's masterly lying,
based on masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr. Hurley of
the truth of the story about the tank-room.
Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep
obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary
to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had
actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way,
aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the
stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a
candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge
of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall
and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that
candlestick (with matches) being-always ready on that ledge in case of his
need. Ridiculous, of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there!
Times change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the matches
too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus revealed seemed strange enough
to her after the electricity of the Hôtel du Danube and of the yacht. It
made her want to cry....
She was one of those people who have room in their minds for all sorts of
things at once. And thus she could simultaneously be worried to an extreme
about Jane Foley, foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood,
and even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a very strong sense of
failure and disillusion. When she had first donned a widow's bonnet she had
meant to have wondrous adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after all? Nothing. She
could not but think that she ought to have kept it a little longer, on the
chance....
Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he considered that a
house could only be well guarded at night from the ground floor. There was
his bed, in the corner against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up.
Its creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been disturbed.
The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think what a strange existence was
the existence of Aguilar. ... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster,
she went upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.
"Jane! Jane, dear!" she called out, as she arrived at the second-storey
landing. The sound of her voice was uncanny in the haunted stillness. All
Audrey's infancy floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage to the door of the
tank-room.
"Jane, Jane!"
No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She put her ear against the
door in order to catch the faintest sound of life within. But she could
only hear the crude, sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane lying unconscious or
dead obsessed her. Then she thrust it away and laughed at it. Assuredly
Aguilar and Jane must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of the
police; they must have fled while there had yet been time. Where could they
have gone? Of course, through the garden and plantation and down to the
sea-wall, whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned back towards
the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness of the gloomy house, lit by
a single flickering candle, assaulted her. She had to fight it before she
could descend. The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the estuary was now damp
on her cheek with the presage of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were,
through the garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of the yacht,
gleaming from stem to stern with electricity, burst upon her; it shone like
something desired and unattainable. Carefully she issued from the grounds
by the little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke. A dark
figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently jumped.
"Is that you, madam?"
It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At once she felt
reassured.
"Where is Miss Foley?" she demanded in a whisper.
"I've got her down here, ma'am," said Aguilar. "I presume as you've been to
the house. We had to leave it."
"But the door of the tank-room was locked!"
"Yes, ma'am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought as it would keep the
police employed a bit when they come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to
tell Miss Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen Keeble. They
been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt's, and they found out about _that_. And now
the 'tec's back, or nearly. I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying
him. So I out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across to the
yacht from here. It wouldn't hardly be safe for her to walk round by the
dyke. Hurley may have several of his chaps about by this time."
"But there's not water enough, Aguilar."
"Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She don't draw three inches.
She's afloat now, and Miss Foley's in her. I was just a-going off. If you
don't mind wetting your feet----"
In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt. Jane Foley took her hand
in silence, and she heard Jane's low, happy laugh.
"Isn't it funny?" Jane whispered.
Audrey squeezed her hand.
Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to use the oar as a
punt-pole, so that no sound of their movement should reach the bank. Water
was pouring into the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
knew precisely what he was about and got her off again. They approached
the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability of Aguilar's character. A beam
from the portholes of the saloon caught Aguilar's erect figure. He sat
down, poling as well as he could from the new position. When they were a
little nearer he stopped dead, holding the punt firm by means of the pole
fixed in the mud.
"He's there afore us!" he murmured, pointing.
Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner end of the gangway
could clearly be seen the form of Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.