The Pit Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📕

She was beginning to reply when she stopped suddenly and stood listening.

“The lorry!” she cried. “Go! Go!” Then pointing wildly in the direction of the road, she turned and fled rapidly back towards the clearing.

Merriman gazed after her until she passed round a corner of the lane and was lost to sight among the trees. Then, with a weight of hopeless despair on his heart, he began to walk towards the road. The lorry, driven by Henri, passed him at the next bend, and Henri, though he saluted with a show of respect, smiled sardonically as he noted the other's woebegone appearance.

But Merriman neither knew nor cared what the driver thought. Almost physically sick with misery and disappointment, he regained his taxi and was driven back to Bordeaux.

The next few days seemed to him like a nightmare of hideous reality and permanence. He moved as a man in a dream, living under a shadow of almost tangible weight, as a criminal must do who has been sentenced to early execution. The longing to see Madeleine again, to hear the sound of her voice, to feel her presence, was so intense as to be almost unendurable. Again and again he said to himself that had she cared for another, had she even told him that she could not care for him, he would have taken his dismissal as irrevocable and gone to try and drag out the remainder of his life elsewhere as best he could. But he was maddened to think that the major difficulty—the overwhelming, insuperable difficulty—of his suit had been overcome. She loved him! Miraculous and incredible though it might seem—though it was—it was the amazing truth. And that being so, it was beyond bearing that a mere truckling to convention should be allowed to step in and snatch away the ecstasy of happiness that was within his grasp. And worse still, this truckling to convention was to save him! What, he asked himself, did it matter about him? Even if the worst happened and she suffered shame through her father, wasn't all he wanted to be allowed to share it with her? And if narrow, stupid fools did talk, what matter? They could do without their companionship.

Fits of wild rage alternated with periods of cold and numbing despair, but as day succeeded day the desire to be near her grew until it could no longer be denied. He dared not again attempt to force himself into her presence, lest she should be angry and shatter irrevocably the hope to which he still clung with desperation. But he might without fear of disaster be nearer to her for a time. He hired a bicycle, and after dark had fallen that evening he rode out to the lane, and leaving his machine on the road, walked to the edge of the clearing. It was a perfect night, calm and silent, though with a slight touch of chill in the air. A crescent moon shone soft and silvery, lighting up pallidly the open space, gleaming on the white wood of the freshly cut stumps, and throwing black shadows from the ghostly looking buildings. It was close on midnight, and Merriman looked eagerly across the clearing to the manager's house. He was not disappointed. There, in the window that he knew belonged to her room, shone a light.

He slowly approached, keeping on the fringe of the clearing and beneath the shadow of the trees. Some shrubs had taken root on the open ground, and behind a clump of these, not far from the door, he lay down, filled his pipe, and gave himself up to his dreams. The light still showed in the window, but even as he looked it went out, leaving the front of the house dark and, as it seemed to him, unfriendly and forbidding. “Perhaps she'll look out before going to bed,” he thought, as he gazed disconsolately at the blank, unsympathetic opening. But he could see no movement therein.

He lost count of time as he lay dreaming of the girl whose existence had become more to him than his very life, and it was not until he suddenly realized that he had become stiff and cramped from the cold that he looked at his watch. Nearly two! Once more he glanced sorrowfully at the window, realizing that no comfort was to be obtained therefrom, and decided he might as well make his way back, for all the ease of mind he was getting.

He turned slowly to get up, but just as he did so he noticed a slight movement at the side of the house before him, and he remained motionless, gazing intently forward. Then, spellbound, he watched Mr. Coburn leave by the side door, walk quickly to the shed, unlock a door, and disappear within.

There was something so secretive in the way the manager looked around before venturing into the open, and so stealthy about his whole walk and bearing, that Merriman's heart beat more quickly as he wondered if he was now on the threshold of some revelation of the mystery of that outwardly innocent place. Obeying a sudden instinct, he rose from his hiding-place in the bushes and crept silently across the sward to the door by which the other had entered.

It was locked, and the whole place was dark and silent. Were it not for what he had just seen, Merriman would have believed it deserted. But it was evident that some secret and perhaps sinister activity was in progress within, and for the moment he forgot even Madeleine in his anxiety to learn its nature.

He crept silently round the shed, trying each door and peering into each window, but without result. All remained fast and in darkness, and though he listened with the utmost intentness of which he was capable, he could not catch any sound.

His round of the building completed, he paused in doubt. Should he retire while there was time, and watch for Mr. Coburn's reappearance with perhaps some of his accomplices, or should he wait at the door and tackle him on the matter when he came out? His first preference was for the latter course, but as he thought it over he felt it would be better to reserve his knowledge, and he turned to make for cover.

But even as he did so he heard the manager say in low harsh tones: “Hands up now, or I fire!” and swinging round, he found himself gazing into the bore of a small deadly-looking repeating pistol.

Automatically he raised his arms, and for a few moments both men stood motionless, staring perplexedly at one another. Then Mr. Coburn lowered the pistol and attempted a laugh, a laugh nervous, shaky, and without merriment. His lips smiled, but his eyes remained cold and venomous.

“Good heavens, Merriman, but you did give me a start,” he cried, making an evident effort to be jocular. “What in all the world are you doing here at this hour? Sorry for my greeting, but one has to be careful here. You know the district is notorious for brigands.”

Merriman was not usually very prompt to meet emergencies. He generally realized when it was too late what he ought to have said or done in any given circumstances. But on this occasion a flash of veritable inspiration revealed a way by which he might at one and the same time account for his presence, disarm the manager's suspicions, and perhaps even gain his point with regard to Madeleine. He smiled back at the other.

“Sorry for startling you. Mr. Coburn. I have been looking for you for some days to discuss a very delicate matter, and I came out late this evening in the hope of attracting your attention after Miss Coburn had retired, so that our chat could be quite confidential. But in the darkness I fell and hurt my knee, and I spent so much time in waiting for it to get better that I was ashamed to go to the house. Imagine my delight when, just as I was turning to leave, I saw you coming down to the shed, and I followed with the object of trying to attract your attention.”

He hardly expected that Mr. Coburn would have accepted his statement, but whatever the manager believed privately, he gave no sign of suspicion.

“I'm glad your journey was not fruitless,” he answered courteously. “As a matter of fact, my neuralgia kept me from sleeping, and I found I had forgotten my bottle of aspirin down here, where I had brought it for the same purpose this morning. It seemed worth the trouble of coming for it, and I came.”

As he spoke Mr. Coburn took from his pocket and held up for Merriman's inspection a tiny phial half full of white tablets.

It was now Merriman's turn to be sceptical, but he murmured polite regrets in as convincing a way as he was able. “Let us go back into my office,” the manager continued. “If you want a private chat you can have it there.”

He unlocked the door, and passing in first, lit a reading lamp on his desk. Then relocking the door behind his visitor and unostentatiously slipping the key into his pocket, he sat down at the desk, waved Merriman to a chair, and producing a box of cigars, passed it across.

The windows, Merriman noticed, were covered by heavy blinds, and it was evident that no one could see into the room, nor could the light be observed from without. The door behind him was locked, and in Mr. Coburn's pocket was the key as well as a revolver, while Merriman was unarmed. Moreover, Mr. Coburn was the larger and heavier, if not the stronger man of the two. It was true his words and manner were those of a friend, but the cold hatred in his eyes revealed his purpose. Merriman instantly realized he was in very real personal danger, and it was borne in on him that if he was to get out of that room alive, it was to his own wits he must trust.

But he was no coward, and he did not forget to limp as he crossed the room, nor did his hand shake as he stretched it out to take a cigar. When he came within the radius of the lamp he noticed with satisfaction that his coat was covered with fragments of moss and leaves, and he rather ostentatiously brushed these away, partly to prove to the other his calmness, and partly to draw attention to them in the hope that they would be accepted as evidence of his fall.

Fearing lest if they began a desultory conversation he might be tricked by his astute opponent into giving himself away, he left the latter no opportunity to make a remark, but plunged at once into his subject.

“I feel myself, Mr. Coburn,” he began, “not a little in your debt for granting me this interview. But the matter on which I wish to speak to you is so delicate and confidential, that I think you will agree that any precautions against eavesdroppers are justifiable.”

He spoke at first somewhat formally, but as interest in his subject quickened, he gradually became more conversational.

“The first thing I have to tell you,” he went on, “may not be very pleasant hearing to you, but it is a matter of almost life and death importance to me. I have come, Mr. Coburn, very deeply and sincerely to love your daughter.”

Mr. Coburn frowned slightly, but he did not seem surprised, nor did he reply except by a slight bow. Merriman continued:

“That in itself need not necessarily be of interest to you, but there is more to tell, and it is in this second point that the real importance of my statement lies, and on it hinges everything that I have to say to you. Madeleine, sir, has given me a definite assurance that my love for her is returned.”

Still Mr. Coburn made no answer,