The Black Spiders Read online

  That was all; he saw no head, no hands, no—

  Then he saw long, fair hair, floating. It rose slowly to the surface and then stayed there, as if it were a figment of his imagination, or else another reflection of the light; but it wasn’t that, it was the hair of a woman.

  He saw her shoulders, too.

  They were bare, but that did not register clearly; only the fact that she was making no attempt to swim or to tread water. He could not see her face, but could imagine that her eyes were closed, that her mouth was slack and slightly open. He had seen death by drowning often enough to know.

  She was twenty feet below him.

  Above the well was the rope, coiled round the windlass, and on one side the big, wooden bucket. He shone the torch on to the rope, and it looked old and frayed in places, but very strong. He hoped to heaven it was as strong as it looked. He grabbed the hook which held the handle of the bucket; it was only a loop of strong wire. He wound the rope round his waist twice, then knotted it at the hook. Now it was tied tightly round him, and as he went down, it would unwind. He climbed up on to the wall, and lowered himself cautiously, feeling cracks in the brick wall, and holes where the plaster had eroded and fallen out. He felt loose bricks, too, and the iron rungs, built into the side of the well. If the victim had chanced upon them she might not have fallen. The light fell bright and clear, but he could see nothing, because of the way he was climbing.

  It was much colder.

  He pictured that floating hair and the bare shoulders.

  He went down, foot by foot, with the rope unwinding above him. One or two of the rungs felt loose, but each one held him. He did not even begin to think about getting back; the only thing that seemed to matter was pulling that girl out of the water.

  He went down steadily, and all the time it got colder. He began to shiver so violently that his teeth chattered. How far was he from the surface of the water? He tried to look down, and the light shimmered on the surface, which was very close now, but he did not see the girl.

  Was he too late?

  If he wasn’t careful, he would drown, too.

  He put his right foot down and touched the water; it was icy. He flinched and snatched his foot up. A fit of shivering nearly made him lose his grip. When he felt steadier, he plunged his leg boldly into the water, and after the first moment the cold eased.

  Now he put all his weight on to one of the rungs, and peered down again, with the torch in his left hand. The water looked inky black, but the surface was rippled, and he could hear it splashing against the side.

  There was no sign of the girl.

  If she had gone to the bottom there was no telling how long it would be before she came up. She—

  There she was!

  He saw her hair break the surface first, and then gradually rise until it floated, like some gilded water-lily; and her shoulder broke the surface, too, white as the flowers of a lily.

  He lodged the torch against a rung, pointed downwards, and lowered himself bodily. He felt something heavy brush against him. He trod water, then groped for the girl, and felt her slippery shoulders, then her waist. He put his arm round her, holding her close against him, and keeping her head clear of the water. Then he stretched his right arm up, towards the rung beneath the torch. He could see it clearly, but was at least a foot above his fingers, he was in so deep, and with the weight of the girl it was almost impossible to spring upwards.

  He had to.

  He groped with his foot and found a rung beneath the water, put his weight on it, and leapt up. He touched the slippery iron of a higher rung, then tried again, and clutched it. It held. The sudden weight on his shoulder was excruciating, but he didn’t let go, and gradually he tightened his hold. Now he took a chance because it gave him the only hope there was. He eased his grasp on the girl’s waist, so as to unhook the rope round his own. He pulled the rope taut, until it would not unwind any further, and then, taking what seemed an age, managed to draw it round them both. Now that the girl was roped to him he shifted her round until she was behind him, with her head just above his left shoulder. That gave him both hands free. He began to climb, a rung at a time, drawing the rope taut at each step. There was a lot of slack, but if he slipped, he would at least have some hope of getting out of the water.

  He could see nothing but the blackness above and below.

  Then, after what seemed an age of climbing, he could see the stars. So he was safe, but—was the girl alive?

  She seemed limp and lifeless when he hoisted her over the edge of the well, and put her down, it was like putting a corpse on the ground.

  He could just make out her shape against the ground, and realised that she had practically nothing on; her body was just a pale blur against the darkness.

  There was no sound, except that of his chattering teeth and his heavy breathing.

  The torch was still shining, and he took it out of the rung, then shone it on to the men. Even the live one had not moved.

  He bent down and lifted the girl again, and started to walk towards the cottage. He limped now. He had locked both the doors before going to bed, and couldn’t get in easily, but he could break a window—for he had to get inside, had to get warm, and had to start artificial respiration on the girl. Perhaps he had wasted too much time already. He found himself grinning wryly; ‘wasted’ was one word. He kept shivering, but movement helped to warm him. He reached the back porch, and could just make out the shape of the window next to it.

  He couldn’t smash this with his bare hands, and now he was almost frightened; everything seemed to take so long, and the girl was a dead weight. Dead? There was a foot-scraper by the porch and, holding the girl over his shoulder, he bent down and groped for this. He found it, and smashed it against the glass. Then he broke the slivers of glass which stuck out of the window-frame, and fiddled for the catch.

  It all took time.

  Unfastening the catch, pushing up the window, putting the girl inside the little front room, climbing in himself. Time. He groped for the light-switch, and light dazzled him as he turned towards the girl.

  She was on the floor; lifeless?

  He picked her up and staggered with her into the next room; that window wasn’t broken, and in there was a divan.

  He lifted her to this and put her face downwards, with her head turned towards one side, and then he went back to lock the door of the room with the broken window.

  For more men might come here.

  At last he was able to concentrate on the girl. She wore a brassiere and a pair of panties, both peach coloured, and so thin that it made little difference whether she wore them or not. He stood over her, bent down, and put his hands beneath her, against the flat of her stomach, and raised her up and down.

  He could see her profile and the way her mouth was open, looking odd where she lay against the divan. Water dribbled out. Her hair clung round her head now, very fair and bright. There was a small scar on the back of her neck, triangular in shape, and there was a mole, just behind her right ear.

  Now Murray began to apply artificial respiration, placing his hands on the girl, letting his weight fall on her, easing upwards, leaning again. But he felt hopeless, as if it was a waste of time, and had been from the start. She hadn’t had the strength to swim or try to save herself when she had dropped into the water; she might have been unconscious when she had actually fallen, perhaps that had made her lose her grip.

  He worked persistently, and the movement warmed him. Soon sweat dripped off his forehead and on to her back, like little raindrops. Her back was nearly dry now, but her mouth was still slack. He must have been working for nearly half an hour, and his back and shoulders ached, his legs were tired, and all the time there was fear, lest other men should come.

  He heard nothing outside. If there were anyone else to take over she might stand a chance, but there wasn’t, and he couldn’t go on much longer. He wasn’t used to it. The girl was as pale as death itself, anyhow, and he began to
realise that she was quite lovely.

  Beauty, dead?

  One thing was certain: if he stopped now she would have no chance at all, and he had to go on until all hope had gone. Kneeling in front of her, he could see only her tiny waist, her shapely legs, and shapely arms—

  He saw the bruises on them for the first time, as if someone had twisted the flesh round and round.

  ‘Devils,’ he muttered. ‘Swine.’

  Weight down.

  Up.

  Down.

  Up.

  He couldn’t keep going much longer. It had been a mistake to put her on the divan, on the floor he could have knelt down.

  Weight down.

  Up.

  He began a silly doggerel of a song, and then swung into the Song of the Volga Boatmen. Yo-o-heave-ho. Yo-o- heave-oh. Sometimes he grinned at himself and sometimes he sang solemnly in a muted voice, as if it were essential that he shouldn’t stop. The stimulus of the whisky had gone, he was too hot again, and sweat dripped.

  Yo-o-heave-ho. Yo-o-heave ho!

  Suddenly he thought that there was movement, a better colour, hope. He worked with greater eagerness, no longer singing, but tense and hopeful.

  The girl’s lips moved; the muscles of her mouth and of her neck moved too.

  She breathed.

  Murray sat in an armchair, smoking a cigarette, with coffee by his side, and the crumbs of a ham sandwich on a plate near it. He wore his topcoat over his shirt and trousers. Two small electric fires made the room very warm, but he welcomed that now.

  The girl lay on the divan beneath a heap of blankets which would have been comical in other circumstances. He had found two hot-water bottles and placed them against her body, and after she had come round sufficiently for him to believe she would be all right, he had dried her thoroughly and even tried to dry her hair. When she showed signs of coming out of the present sleep—which was as much coma as sleep—he would give her a little brandy and when she woke, some hot, sweet coffee.

  He wasn’t worried about her now. The blankets covered her chin, but her mouth was free, and he could see her cheeks, flushed with warmth.

  He felt a deep satisfaction at having saved her, and that had eased the mortification of what he had found outside. For he had gone to make sure all the windows and doors were shut and locked; they had been. He had not gone into the small room with the broken window, but had put a chair beneath the handle of the door, so no one could get in that way. Then he had ventured into the garden, and gone towards the corner where a man had fallen. The man had vanished; dead or alive, he hadn’t been there.

  Uneasily Murray had ventured to the well and seen the body of the man he had killed, but not the one whose hands he had tied.

  Murray had come back, locked the garden door, and then stayed with the girl, alert for any sound, anything to suggest that other men were coming.

  No one had come.

  It was nearly dawn. The birds were already awake and noisy. The stars were fading into the light of morning. He knew that it was nearly a quarter past six, and that the postman would be here by half-past seven, in his van; he would take a message to Cliff House, nearby, and telephone for the police. It would be a relief of sorts to share this with someone, but he would always have the satisfaction of knowing that he had seen it through himself.

  What would the police say about the dead man? His lips twisted wryly when he thought of that, but it didn’t worry him even mildly. Other things did. Who was the girl and where had she come from? Obviously she had run away from the men, who had chased and had tried to kill her, rather than allow her to escape alive.

  Had they?

  There was no proof; it was possible that they had gone to get the girl out of the well.

  What of the man by the corner?

  Murray had to admit that he didn’t know a thing—except that the two men had been ready to kill him.

  He found himself dozing, waking up, and dozing again. To keep awake somehow, he smoked cigarette after cigarette. At a quarter to seven he got up, made some more coffee and went back into the little lounge. The girl hadn’t stirred, but she looked more flushed, more pretty, and was sleeping more naturally. Her hair was almost dry, and fluffy close to the forehead and the temples. It made her look younger, and she had never seemed more than in the early twenties. Now it was possible to believe that she was still in her teens.

  Was she too hot?

  Murray decided that she wasn’t, and went back to his chair, stirring coffee that was nearly black, and hoping that the postman wouldn’t be late this morning. He had been staying here for three days, and the man had arrived just before half-past seven each day.

  ‘Not that ten minutes would make any difference, even if he is late,’ Murray said to himself, still stirring the coffee. ‘This will knock ‘em flat in the village.’

  He found himself smiling, grateful that the coming of dawn eased his tension and his fears.

  ‘If the Post-Dispatch hadn’t fired me, I’d probably have walked from here to Cliff House to give them the story,’ he mused aloud. ‘Life has no equal to a correspondent spurned!’ He laughed, and realised that he was not only overtired but suffering from reaction, which would stay until he’d had a few hours’ sleep. As soon as that postman had come—

  He stopped thinking about the postman, for the girl moved her head, then began to mutter.

  He got up and stepped towards her.

  3. Fear

  Murray reached her side.

  Her condition had changed, drastically. Her eyes were still closed, but there was no peacefulness in her expression; all signs of that had gone. She turned her head from side to side, as if trying to escape from some searching light, and the muttering became louder. It was just a babble of words, and at first he understood none of them, but suddenly a sentence was intelligible.

  ‘I do not know where he is; I do not know.’

  She turned her head again, as if trying desperately to avoid that light, or else the searching eyes of a man who was questioning her. She muttered again unintelligibly, and then shouted wildly:

  ‘I do not know where he is!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No!’

  That cry, louder than the rest, had a note of terror; of nightmare.

  ‘No, no, no!’ she screamed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Murray said, and he felt almost desperate himself, so anxious to calm her. He sat at the side of the bed. putting a hand to her head firmly. ‘It’s all right, there’s no need to worry, I’ll look after you.’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, and her body was aquiver. ‘No!’

  Then, her eyes opened.

  There was stark terror in them.

  She stared in Murray’s face, those eyes wide and rounded and an intense blue—the blue, just then, of a bright, metallic flame. She screamed again, not uttering any word, just screaming in her throat, as if she was trapped in hysteria and could not stop herself. As the screams came shrill and piercing, Murray hated the sound, but more than anything else he hated the terror which caused them.

  He put his hands on the side of her head and shook her, not hard but firmly, and said:

  ‘You’re safe. It’s all right. You’re safe.’

  She didn’t stop screaming at first, and he wondered desperately what would make her; then suddenly a scream was cut short. The ensuing silence was almost painful, too. Murray sat there, staring down at her, seeing the gradual change in the expression of her eyes, seeing the terror fade and bewilderment replace it.

  He took his hands away, and smiled, and said:

  ‘I drove them off and they haven’t come back. You haven’t anything more to worry about, so just relax.’

  She stared without speaking.

  ‘Just relax,’ Murray repeated, ‘and don’t worry about anything; you’re going to be all right.’

  He stood up, and moved back a little, limping because his right ankle was weak and painful; he needed a crepe bandage. He smiled
at her, hoping that it was reassuringly, and wondered what thoughts were going through her mind, and what she had meant and whom had she been talking about when she had said with such despair: ‘I don’t know where he is!’

  ‘You’re really all right,’ he assured her again. ‘It’s broad daylight now, and the postman will be here soon. He’ll take a message into the village for us. Don’t worry, just relax.’

  She gulped, and tried to speak, but her voice was hoarse and strained.

  ‘Who—who are you?’

  ‘I’m staying here for a week or two—the owner is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Where—where am I?’ She closed her eyes, and shuddered, and Murray hoped that she wasn’t going to submit again to that awful terror; but the screaming did not come, and she looked calmer when she opened her eyes and said: ‘I—I remember. This is the cottage. There was—the well.’

  ‘You fell in, and I pulled you out.’

  He would probably never dismiss anything more dispassionately than he did that. He had pulled her out; that was the simple truth, and all that mattered. She would never know what an ordeal it had been, and there was no reason why she should. He felt no great sense of urgency now, for he was sure that if the men had meant to attack again they would have come under cover of darkness. It would be another half-hour before the postman arrived, and he could take his time questioning the girl. She could probably do with that coffee now, but if he left her alone too soon, she might be scared again.

  ‘Thank—thank you,’ she said, quite out of the blue.

  That struck him as so funny that he chuckled.

  ‘Pleasure! And if you relax, in a few hours you’ll feel as good as ever.’ He deliberately delayed asking questions; the important thing was to lead her back to normal at her own pace, as there was plenty of time. ‘I’ll get you a cup of coffee in a minute.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she repeated as if it really didn’t matter.

  ‘Like a cigarette?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  She stared intently, as if trying to decide whether he was just what he claimed, whether there was really no need to fear. He sat back, drawing at the cigarette, reminding himself that there was no hurry, yet wishing that she would start to talk more freely. Perhaps if he left her alone it would help her, after all.