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… It is over a fortnight now since I engaged to keep this journal. How can I describe my emotions during this time? “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly,” and (how true): “I ca
Alleyn thought: “If, after all, the diary gives no inkling, I shall think myself a toad for having read it.”
January 10th. Florence came to me to-day with a tale of espionage at which I am greatly disquieted, the more so that her suspicions are at war with her inclining. I ca
Alleyn read this passage through again. Markins, inside the press, gave a hollow little cough and shifted his position.
January 13th. I ca
Alleyn read on quickly, reaching the sentence he had lighted upon when he first opened the book. Behind the formal phrases he saw Arthur Rubrick, confused and desperately ill, moved and agitated by the discovery of Terence Ly
There were no other entries.
Alleyn closed the book, shifted his position a little and switched off his torch. Cautiously he adjusted the covering over his head to leave a peep-hole for his right eye and, like a trained actor, dismissed all senses but one from his mind. He listened. Markins, a few inches away, whispered: “Now then, sir.”
The person who moved across the frozen ground towards the wool-shed did so very slowly. Alleyn was aware not so much of footsteps as of interruptions in the silence, interruptions that might have been mistaken for some faint disturbance of his own ear-drums. They grew more definite and were presently accompanied by a crisp undertone when occasionally the advancing feet brushed against stivered grass. Alleyn directed his gaze through his peep-hole toward that part of the darkness where the sacking should be.
The steps halted and were followed, after a pause, by a brushing sound. A patch of luminous blue appeared and widened until a star burned in it. It opened still wider and there hung a patch of glittering night sky and the shape of a hill. Into this, sidelong, edged a human form, a dark silhouette that bent forward, seeming to listen. The visitor’s feet were still on the ground below, but, after perhaps a minute, the form rose quickly, mounting the high step, and showed complete for a moment before the sacking door fell back and blotted out the picture. Now there were three inhabitants of the wool-shed.
How still and how patient was this visitor to wait so long! No movement, no sound but quiet breathing. Alleyn became aware of muscles in his own body that asked for release, of a loose thread in the packing that crept down and tickled his ear.
At last a movement. Something had been laid down on the floor. Then two soft thuds. A disk of light appeared, travelled to and fro across the shearing board and halted. The reflection from its beam showed stockinged feet and the dim outline of a coat. The visitor squatted and the light fa
It was thoroughly done, backwards and forwards with occasional shifting of the torch, always in the direction of the press. There was a long pause. Torch-light found and played steadily upon the heap of packs where Fabian had rested. It moved on.
It found a single empty pack that Alleyn had dropped over the branding iron. This was pulled aside by a gloved hand, the iron was lifted and a cloth was rubbed vigorously over the head and shaft. It was replaced and its covering restored. For a blinding second the light shone full in Alleyn’s right eye. He wondered how quickly he could collect himself and dive. It moved on and the press hid it.
Holding his breath, Alleyn writhed forward an inch. He could make out the visitor’s shape, motionless in the shadow beyond the press. The light now shone on a tin candlestick nailed to a joist, high up on the wall.
Alleyn had many times used the method of reconstruction but this was the first time it had been staged for him by an actor who was unaware of an audience. The visitor reached up to the candle. The torch moved and for a brief space Alleyn saw a clear silhouette. Gloved fingers worked, a hand was drawn back. The figure moved over to the pens. Presently there was the sound of a sharp impact, a rattle and a soft plop. Then silence.
“This is going to be our cue,” thought Alleyn.
The visitor had returned to the shearing board. Suddenly and quite clearly a long thin object was revealed, lying near the doorway. It was taken up and Alleyn saw that it was a green branch. The visitor padded back to the sheep pens. The light jogged and wavered over the barrier and was finally directed inside. Alleyn began to slough his covering. Now he squatted on his heels with the press between himself and the light. Now he rose until he crouched behind it and could look with his left eye round the corner. The visitor fumbled and thumped softly. The light darted eccentrically about the walls and, for a brief flash, revealed its owner astride the barrier. A movement and the figure disappeared. Alleyn looked over the edge of the press into blackness. He could hear Markins breathing. He reached down and his fingers touched short coarse hair.