CHAPTER XXXIII

Kay looked at the candle end, and then she looked at the cellar. She had better look at it whilst she could, for that candle end wasn’t going to last any time at all. If she had had some matches, she could have saved it to light for a minute or two at a time when the dark became unbearable. She could have made it last a long time like that, but it wasn’t any good thinking about it, because she hadn’t got any matches. She must learn every inch of the cellar and know just where everything was before the light went out. If she did that, it would give her something to think of. So many steps from the bed to the door. So many to the side wall. So many from the door to the party wall. The jug and basin here, the carafe and tumbler there. The packing-case with the tray on it in the right-hand corner farthest from the door.

The packing-case was empty. It was about three feet by two, but it was quite light because it was empty. She pulled it a little away from the wall, and found the floor in the corner very rough and broken.

The candle end was only a rim of wax with the wick beginning to fall sideways in the middle of it. The flame flickered in an upward draught and made a monstrous leaping thing of Kay’s own shadow. It was funny that there should be a draught in the corner. She remembered that there had been a draught in the first cellar. She knelt down in the space she had made between the packing-case and the wall and saw a rectangular hole in the bottom course of bricks. Right in the corner there was a whole brick missing. She put her hand into the hole and felt a wobbly grating there. That was why there was a draught. There was a ventilator in the corner between this cellar and the one at the end of the row. Perhaps there were ventilators between all the cellars. No, there didn’t seem to be one on the other side. Perhaps there was only one between every pair of cellars.

She had got as far as this, when the light flared and went out. The crowding shadows rushed together and made an impenetrable blackness. Then, just as Kay was going to get up from her knees, she heard a sound which set her heart knocking against her side. In the end cellar of all, on the other side of the wall against which she was leaning, someone moved—and muttered—and groaned.

Kay’s hand was on the wall. It seemed to shake and tremble. After a moment she knew that it was she who was shaking. The brick was cold against her palm. The brick didn’t move. It was her hand that was shaking. The groaning came again and the low muttering. She took her hand from the wall and bent down to the ventilator. The groaning was louder, and she could hear the sound of someone or something moving. It was a slow, dragging sound, and all at once she remembered how the kitten had come back to her out of the cellar with a smear of blood upon its fur.

She leaned against the packing-case with her heart beating wildly. She must stop it. She must be calm. She must try and think.… The kitten had gone through a hole in the wall between the two houses. It wasn’t a big hole. If the kitten had been any larger, it wouldn’t have got through. It was such a tiny little thing, all fur. There had been blood on the fur. It had gone into the end cellar at the back of the house and she had lost it there, and when she went to look with a candle, there was a hole in the party wall, and the kitten had come back through the hole with blood on its fur.

Everything began to straighten out in her mind. The kitten had gone into the end cellar at the back of the house at No. 16. 18 came next to 16, because the odd numbers were on the other side of the street. The groans came from the end cellar at the back of the house in No. 18. She herself was in the end cellar but one.

But who was it that was groaning on the other side of the wall? It was dreadful to crouch there in the dark and hear those groans. There must be someone there who was hurt. Just then Kay saw a picture in her own mind. It was a picture of what she had seen when she came through the wall on to the first-floor landing of No. 18. In this picture she saw the new stair carpet and its bright garish pattern, and she saw the odd marks where something had stained it—and it had been rubbed—and the stain hadn’t quite come out. She had been afraid of what might have stained it then, and she was more afraid now, because she knew that the stains had been blood, and blood never quite comes out.

The groaning had stopped. The wild knocking of Kay’s heart had stopped. In some curious way it gave her courage to know that there was someone in the next cellar. She stooped down again, put her lips against the hole, and said in a whisper,

“Who is there?”

There wasn’t any answer to that.

The sound of her own voice had frightened her again. Suppose Mr Harris hadn’t really gone away. Suppose he was listening. Suppose he suddenly opened the door and caught her kneeling here.… Well, suppose he did—

She said again, “Who is there?” and this time she said it a little louder.

There was a groan, but no other answer.

In a quick revulsion of feeling she scrambled up and pushed the packing-case back against the wall. One or two groans came to her faintly. Then they ceased and a dead weight of silence settled down.

Time goes very slowly in the dark. She felt rather sick and not at all hungry, so she did not touch the bread, but she found the carafe and drank a tumbler of water. Then she lay down on the mattress bed and tried to think that Miles would come and find her. Presently she slept.

Mr Harris went up through the house, unlatched the door of Miss Rowland’s wardrobe, and stepped out into the bedroom. The room was lighted, the curtains were drawn, and the fire burned brightly. Two chairs were pulled up to the hearth, and on the table between them stood a well filled tray. Nurse Long sat in the farther chair. She still wore Kay’s coat and skirt, but she had taken off the little grey hat and thrown it on the bed. She was pale and frowning as she looked up and said,

“I thought you were never coming. Everything’s getting cold.”

Mr Harris shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn’t ask you to wait for me,” he said, and helped himself to chicken stew. He was getting a little tired of chicken, but Miss Rowland’s character as an invalid had to be considered.

Nurse Long helped herself when he had done. She took a few hasty mouthfuls, eating as if she were famished, and then suddenly dropping her knife and fork, she demanded,

“What are you going to do?”

“Have my supper,” said Mr Harris equably.

“I must know what you’re going to do.” Her tone was sharp and exasperated.

Mr Harris raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, I’m going to marry her. I told you so.”

“And suppose she won’t?”

“This is very good stew. You might tell Mrs Green I enjoyed it.” said Mr Harris. “Well, I’d rather suppose she will.”

“Oh, chuck it!” said Addie Long. “What have you done to her? I’ve got to know!”

“I haven’t done anything—yet—except move her into more comfortable quarters.”

She looked startled.

“You’ve moved her? Where have you put her?”

“Next to the Yank.”

Addie Long put down her plate and jumped up.

“Damned fool! She’ll hear him! He makes the hell of a row.”

Mr Harris went on eating stew.

“My dear Addie, I do wish you’d believe that I know my own business. Kay’s probably listening to the Yank’s groans at this very minute. I hope she is. I except them to have a very persuading effect. You see, I want her to marry me of her own free will.”

Addie Long stood over the fire and kicked at it with her foot.

“What do you want to marry her for? I tell you it’s much too risky. You’ve got to prove that she’s Kay Macintyre—and when you’ve done that, what have you got? The off-chance that Boss Macintyre will leave her his wad. And what is he—sixty—sixty-five? He might hang on for another twenty years. It’s not worth it. And if he knew who she’d married, it wouldn’t take him long to make another will—would it?”

Mr Harris took another helping of stew.

“Come and sit down, can’t you, and eat your supper. Restless—that’s what you are—and a nagger. And if you know anything that feeds a man up worse than that, I don’t.”

Addie Long came back to her chair, and got an approving nod.

“That’s better. Now I don’t mind telling you something you don’t know—and something I didn’t know till the other day. Kay’s mother would have come in for all old Miss Harriet Basing’s money if she’d lived. She was the favourite niece, and Miss Basing left the whole wad to her and her children—tied it up tight on them. Miss Basing only died a few months ago, but she couldn’t alter her will after Mrs Macintyre died, because she was a certified lunatic. The will she made twenty-two years ago before she went off her head is good in law, and it means that Kay gets the Basing millions. That, my dear, is why I began to take an interest in her again. As you say, the off chance of her coming in for anything from Boss Macintyre wouldn’t be worth running any serious risk for. But the Basing millions are another story, and they’re hers—there’s nothing problematical about them.”

Her face sharpened. After a moment she looked away.

“You’ll have to prove who she is.”

“Rhoda’s letters will do that. They’re all together in that old desk of hers.”

“Where is it?”

He nodded towards the wardrobe.

“Next door. Well—now are you on?”

He watched the struggle in her averted face. After a minute she said sulkily,

“I suppose so.”