The Tunnel Page 13

  Then the next thought struck her.

  There were spies in the house. Trev at work could keep track of her at home.

  She thought, wearily, that now she would have to combat everybody. Maybe, before it was ended, she would have to kill them all.

  Chapter 22

  The difficulty was that there were so many people she had to watch, so many plots to foil, so many nets to weave. Somewhere there must be a thread of connection, but so far, Natalie had not found it.

  This morning she thought of her problems as separate potatoes spilled from a sack, rolling every which way. She would pick up one potato and put it back in the sack. When she reached for the next, the first would be gone, hiding out of reach again. If she could only find some way to scoop them all together, dump them in neatly and pull tight the drawstring, she would be triumphantly in charge of things again. She could sling the sack over her shoulder, and if she liked, throw it into the furnace.

  But first she must understand.

  It was a queer, gray day of rolling mists, rain-sprinkled air, and unexplainable sounds: thumps and bumps from the field to her right, obscured by a shoulder in the road; hums and buzzings from the sky, almost like motor sputterings—and there were certainly no airplanes abroad in the heavy clouds above—and half-heard voices calling.

  What might have been a farmer’s wife summoning her chickens became, to Natalie’s ears, a mournful, sexless cry: “Pavane, pavane, pavane.”

  Pavane, she knew, was a stately, ceremonial dance, linked in Natalie’s mind with funerals; there was a lot of music written involving pavane.

  She was not curious about the noises, rather accepted them as the natural state of things today. There were days like that, when you had better take things as they came and not ask any questions.

  She walked on, properly on the left side of the road, her sturdy brogues striking rhythmically on the uneven surface of the macadam. The houses were closer together now. She was at the outskirts of Kenwood. Her list of errands was securely in the pocket of her black over-the-shoulder bag, her expensive tweed coat set her apart as the casual mistress of a large house in the country, ready to be politely amused at the antics of the village natives.

  The only thing wrong was the potatoes. They were spilling about her, slipping and sliding under her feet, invisible, however, to the naked eye. She would guard her secret well. She didn’t want anybody else picking up those potatoes for her.

  “I really ought to take this walk every day,” she mused as she strolled along, “every day in the year. I must have a dog who will walk with me. An Irish setter, thin, hungry, and rangy.”

  Trev would buy her a dog if she asked him. But no, a dog might smell out her secret. Dogs were too bright, too much like humans; they barked to the skies when they found something. The mute secrecy of Rags, the cat, suited her better. She began to sing a patch of a song she must have learned years ago, in the dawn of time when she first found out what words were:

  “I’ve got a secret, oh, what a secret, yes indeed I do! Hans and Franz and Peterkin too!”

  Exhilarated and still humming to herself, she swung into High Street, cut through the damp park which was the pride of Kenwood, and came out where the town’s one traffic light marked the beginning of the shopping district. A little boy in earmuffs turned to watch her. She met his grin with an exuberant smile. It was odd, she thought, how when you were happy the world smiled with you, and when you were sad, everyone scowled. Trite but true. The little boy with the earmuffs and the thick padded jacket was charming. It would be fun to link arms with him and tramp gaily through High Street together, singing in unison:

  “I’ve got a secret, oh, what a secret, yes indeed I do!

  Hans and Franz and Peterkin tool”

  It was then that she remembered herself and frowned. It would never do to call attention to herself. She mustn’t let them know she was gadding about, humming idiotically, filled and overflowing with pleasure, her heart lighter than it had been in months. She must attend strictly to business. She must be grim with shopkeepers, picky about her purchases, and hard to please. She must not throw her money around recklessly but must stick firmly to her list. That was the only way she could put them off the scent.

  After all, Bob Helms was the only one she could not fool. If, that is, her premise was right and he had done what he said he was going to do. There was a good chance she’d been wrong, however.

  Trevil might have planted the shoulder patch to confuse her. He might even have staged the whole accident at the tunnel. She wouldn’t put it past him. The scope of his undertaking was positively demoniac. She knew he would not hesitate to sacrifice a life to attain his ends. He had been an officer during the war and understood expendability thoroughly, simply weighing gains against losses, shutting his mind to the cost.

  There was also a good chance, she realized belatedly, that the ear-muffed youngster was on Trevil’s payroll. Her hand on the door of the hardware store, she turned to scowl after him, but he had disappeared around the comer. He was probably waiting for her in the park. She would deal with him there. Unquestionably, now that she thought of it, he had been following her. His grin had been nasty, his little eyes very much aware. Children were the best tools in the world. They fooled you with their flowerlike innocence, masked their dark deeds under rosy complexions and candid airs. Natalie shuddered. Little monsters! She’d as soon have one in the house as a—as a crab.

  The hardware store offered the comparatively safe refuge of adult contacts. Natalie made for the department at the back, where they kept most of the things the fanners bought for activities like milking and reaping. Reaping. She’d reap a harvest! Mow it down and bind it together and thresh it and gather it up and lay it out in piles and pitchfork it and put it in the haymow and throw it down to the cows! But the cows might not eat it; they might not like it, they might know there was poison in it. Were cows knowing about that, like cats? And would they tell?

  As she passed the cashier she caught the man’s eye. He smiled at her and she flung words over her shoulder: “Busy today, aren’t you?” He wore a black alpaca jacket with elastics on the sleeves.

  “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Sherrett,” he answered. “We’ll have someone to wait on you in just a jiffy.”

  Natalie laughed brightly, caught herself too late and then, to make up for her lapse, allowed herself a few cunning glances at the faces around her. Nobody she knew, but still waters run deep. Over there, on the shelf above the milk pans, was what she wanted. She would get a small one because she didn’t need much light, just the merest gleam to show her way.

  “I’ll have that lantern, please,” she said to the clerk. She had decided that he was all right because he looked clever. Trev’s helpers would give the appearance of stupidity; loose-hanging lips, vacant eyes, and shuffling walks.

  “The storm lantern, Mrs. Sherrett?” His eyebrows were curious. He was thinking, she knew, that the Sherrett house was on the main electric line, that it was unlikely the power would go out, and that there was not a barn on the premises. Natalie sighed. She would have to give him some explanation to keep him quiet. She couldn’t afford to have him running around saying, “Now why do you suppose she needed a storm lantern?” His questions might reach the wrong ears. She’d be more careful with her next purchase.

  “Yes,” said Natalie sharply. “The little red one; I think a house in the country ought to have lanterns, in case of emergency. I’m going to hang this one on the back door. It’s the only sensible thing to do.”

  As he took it down, Natalie’s fingers itched to touch it, but she controlled herself. She would examine it closely when she got it home. She’d take it apart and make sure there was nothing explosive inside it. It would be just like Trev to plant something in there so that when she switched it on a fuse would be lighted. He knew the sort of things she liked and he’d be sure she would pick the little red one. She dare not light it until it was checked.

  Unexpectedly,
the clerk pressed the switch. Her hand in its brown pigskin glove shot out in warning.

  “My God!” she thought, “he’ll blow us sky high!”

  She stood frozen for an instant, staring at the yellow beam that shone from the face of the little red lamp. Slowly she counted to herself, one, two, three. At the count of three she relaxed again. The lamp was all right. She wouldn’t have to test it now; it was ready for action.

  The clerk hadn’t noticed a thing. She noticed with relief that he’d been chatting those three long seconds which might have been his last on earth, chatting and blowing the lamp clean of the dust of the corrugated paper in which it had been packed. She felt the strength flowing back into her legs as he talked.

  “Know just what you mean,” he said. No doubt he was picturing himself a cracker-barrel philosopher. “Folks get too civilized, they can’t make out when the lights fail. Simple little thing like a light, a person gets used to wires and bulbs and thinks nature invented ’em. Don’t realize that what man makes, man breaks.” He shook his head, considering. “Now what else was it, Mrs. Sherrett? I see you’ve got quite a list there.”

  Natalie’s eyes caught and held on the second item. The clerk was much too curious. But then, he hadn’t suspected the lamp. Surely she could trust somebody. He was only overexerting himself to be a proper salesman. Nevertheless, she would have to hold the list so he couldn’t see it, even though it was in code. She chuckled inwardly. For “butter,” read “storm lamp.” For “eggs,” “fifteen feet of clothes-line.” And so on.

  Fifty pounds of lime, a small milk can with strainer, a funnel, a medium wrench, an angled pipe-fitting that she simply could not resist. She had a lovely time picking them all out and clucking at prices; she registered astonishment at the high cost of brass curtain rings and was told that brass was scarce. After the milk can, the clerk had gotten over any surprise he might have felt and had gone ahead methodically, apparently accepting the fact that the Sherretts were going in for actual farming or something akin to it. He would never guess, she thought gleefully, what she was going to do with all these things, and she was behaving so nonchalantly that he couldn’t possibly imagine her desperate need for them.

  “That’s all,” she said finally. “Will you send them out right away, please, on your next delivery? Oh—and I’ll just take the lamp with me.” She had to have the lamp, to see her way home. She was going to tell him not to wrap it, but changed her mind. Once she was out of sight, she’d take the wrapping off. Meantime, she had business in the park with a certain snide little fellow in earmuffs. She had to be quick or she wouldn’t catch him.

  Calling good-bye to the cashier, she hurried out.

  Curls of mist crawled in the boughs of the dripping pine trees that shielded the park from careless eyes. He would be over by the duck pond; that was out of her way, but it didn’t matter. Children were such good actors that he would probably even be tossing bits of stale bread at the snapping yellow bills, bread with which he had come amply provided against the long wait. Natalie walked down the long, curved pebble path and wondered why they had lined it so neatly with croquet wickets. If you had to make a sudden mad dash into the shrubberies, a dash for your life, you might easily catch a foot in one of those wickets and then the pursuer would catch up with you. Perhaps that was the reason they were there.

  It was dark and dismal in the park; bits of unnatural green showed through in patches where the snow had melted and swaying branches occasionally sent small showers of water over her shoulders, some of which got down her neck. She shuddered, remembering what awaited her at the pond. What was it? She seemed to be propelled by a force not quite human, the same force which had made her seek and find the shoulder patch at the side of the road near the end of the tunnel.

  She had had a good time, buying all those things in the hardware store. She had always wanted to buy milk pails and sturdy enamel cans and rubber hose and other things pictured faithfully in the farm catalogues, but up to now she had had no occasion to do so; her shopping had always been restrained to strictly city items. She supposed that country people would give their eyeteeth to get into Garfinkel’s, among the silks and satins; but as for her, Garfinkel’s was a thing of the past; give her a hardware store any time, with honest, workable items for sale.

  She reached the pond and found it was a pond no longer but a mass of slushy, breaking ice. There were no ducks anywhere in sight; how could a duck live, after all, without water? Never mind, the ducks would be back in the spring; they would fly back from the south in V formation, when they felt the right time had come.

  Natalie stood alone, flushed from walking, and waited. Any minute now, she would know her fate. The proof was in the pudding, not the eating, and the pudding would soon be brought in, steaming, to the table. She clutched the little lamp to her breast, the neat paper wrapper crackling. And then she heard the footsteps.

  It would not be polite to stare, so after the first glance, she held her eyes on a large piece of ice which was half in and half out of the pond, just to her right. Her heart was beating very quickly, because the glance had told her who was approaching her so swiftly, and she put out a hand on a park bench to steady herself. There was a possibility, one chance in a hundred, that she was wrong; and if that were so, she didn’t want the man to think she was ogling a stranger. She would wait to look up again until he stopped at her side. However, it was undoubtedly Bob. She knew his walk, she knew the way he held his head, slightly forward, as though he found walking boring and wanted only to reach his objective. The steps came closer. She waited with bowed head for his voice.

  “Natalie.” And then what? What could he possibly say next? He hadn’t said anything, yet, of course; it was all in her mind, she knew so exactly how the word “Natalie” sounded from his lips, that it hung in the air, needing only the cartoonist’s balloon to capture and imprison it.

  When it was time, when he was practically upon her and must now speak, she turned. He was in civilian clothes, a jaunty pepper-and-salt overcoat over a gray suit, with brown shoes and a gray hat. For a split second she got his three-quarter face; another step gave her his profile. There was a half-smile on his lips, but he was not looking at her; he seemed not to know she was there.

  Oh, she knew that face. She had waked to find that face on the pillow beside her; tanned and lean, that face had floated beside her in automobiles, at the beach, in night clubs, over the small tables of restaurants. She knew the position of the lips, curved in the half-smile. She knew the nose, with its suggestion of an uptilt, and she knew the rakish eyebrow.

  She knew the terrible determination which had brought him back.

  She stretched out a hand, though he was already past her. She took a slow, quite graceful step forward and curved her gloved hand and turned it so that the palm was up and so that she was begging.

  “Bob,” she said. And louder, “Bob.”

  But there was no sign that he had heard or even that he knew she was there. No movement of the head, no involuntary twitch of the shoulders, nothing to show. He wasn’t ready to speak to her yet. He only wanted to let her know he was near-by now. Later, he’d do whatever it was that he had to do.

  She found herself running blindly in the opposite direction, somehow headed for the station, where the ranks of taxicabs waited for passengers. She knew only that she had to keep to the path, else the croquet wickets would be her downfall. She burst through the line of pines, managed, somehow, to compose herself so that the driver would not think her distraught or even mad.

  She did not know why she had been in such a panic. She had nothing to fear. It had not been Bob at all. She had imagined it; there had been nothing, nobody at the duck pond but herself, or if there had been a man, then he was just an ordinary man, going about his own business.

  She had to get home, to her desk and to the pile of manuscript which now totaled over a hundred pages; she was an author, led astray by imagination and dreams, and like all authors, when she
was in the middle of a work, she had difficulty in separating the dream from the reality. When the work was finished, she would know.

  “Go out the south road,” she said calmly to the driver. “It’s the Sherrett house. Do you know it?”

  The cloth cap before her nodded shortly, she heard the sound of foot on starter, the clash of gears, the movement of wheels.

  From then on, she remembered nothing of the drive home except that on her lap, against the expensive tweed of her coat, she was loosely and hopelessly holding in her two hands a small brown parcel, which surely covered something metallic.

  Chapter 23

  She was in bed again, wearing her new jacket of quilted peach-colored silk. She had chosen it because of the delectable little silken bow that tied starchily under her chin. Lying there, with her book open but unread, she listened to the sounds in her room—the hiss of the wood fire in the grate, the dainty humming of the electric clock on the night table. Natalie decided she felt like a kitten, clean and pretty and warm. It was only seven o’clock, a remarkably early hour for bed; she had excused herself on the grounds of a headache. Trev had kissed her good night absently and gone off to work in his study.

  She heard the murmur of voices downstairs and thought she could distinguish Trevil’s low tones, the answering rumble of Dr. Cameron Olessa. Had he come for more chess? Really, the two of them were getting to be fiends. Cam ought to let Trev work in peace when he wanted to.

  But someone was approaching her door. She called a passive “Come in” when the unfamiliar knock sounded, and was not at all surprised to find that her visitor was Dr. Olessa, wearing a professional look.

  “Hello.” He spread his hands wide and sat down at the foot of her bed, supporting his back against the tall mahogany poster. “I’m paying you a social visit, Nat. I want to talk to you.”