But if by any chance she did remain there, Donna could get out unseen through the window in the back bedroom. At some stage of its history the cottage had been extended to join the kitchen to the old wash-house and make it one big room; the extension had a flat roof which was directly below the bedroom window, and there was a tough-looking drainpipe which she could climb down.
But it probably would not be necessary to do that and, in the event, it was not. Antonia ran out of the cottage, and Donna gave her a couple of minutes to get clear and than went down the stairs. Her heart pounding, she pulled the chair out again, and reached up to unfasten the knots. The rope slid down into her hands like an obedient snake, and she folded it under her jacket and went out through the garden door, locking it behind her.
Driving towards the motorway link road and the anonymous service station motel where she would spend the night, she was looking forward to the next move. She already knew which of Quire House’s occupants would be part of Antonia’s destruction.
After Antonia Weston left, Godfrey Toy had asked Greg Foster to look in the cellars for any more papers marked either ‘Forrester’ or ‘Latchkill’. No, it did not matter precisely what, just anything labelled with either of those names. He had not really expected Greg to find anything, and was delighted when he came shambling back an hour later with a bundle of what looked like letters and some kind of ancient account book. Godfrey tucked them tidily into a cardboard folder, and decided to walk across to the cottage tomorrow to give them to Miss Weston.
He was just about to lock up his office when Oliver arrived home a day earlier than expected. Godfrey was pleased because he never felt really comfortable alone in Quire. He was still prone to dreadful nightmares and could not drive past that terrible old mill without first talking himself into doing so.
He pottered up to Oliver’s rooms to be told how the buying trip to the ex-headmaster’s house had gone. It was disappointing to hear that the hoped for Bernard Shaw letters had not materialized, although Oliver had never expected much of that. A too enthusiastic nephew, he said in the disparaging way that had gradually become natural to him over the last five years, but that Godfrey always found upsetting. The letters had no more been written by Shaw than the morning’s note to the milkman, said Oliver, and the Marlowe folio had been a mid-Victorian reprint.
Godfrey had gone back to his own flat, feeling quite glum. He exchanged a word with Raffles who had wandered in, and started to put together his supper. The prospect of walking over to Charity Cottage tomorrow cheered him up, and while the potatoes were cooking he poured himself a glass of Madeira. He liked Madeira, and he sang the fruity old Flanders and Swann song to himself while he drank it–the one about, Have some Madeira, m’dear–and tried to imagine how it might feel to put on a mulberry velvet smoking-jacket and embark on a seduction, although actually he had no idea how you went about seducing someone and mulberry was not his colour anyway.
It was at this point that Oliver knocked on the door to tell him about the extremely peculiar events at Charity Cottage.
Godfrey was so upset to hear about Antonia’s distressing experience (she had already ceased to be Miss Weston in his thoughts), he abandoned the Madeira and potatoes in favour of a gin and tonic, and listened to the whole tale. At the end of it, he said he hoped Oliver had been sympathetic, and vanishing rope trick or not, oughtn’t they to invite Miss Weston to stay at Quire for tonight?
Oliver said he had been as sympathetic with Miss Weston as the situation had warranted, and that they could not be taking in flaky female holiday-makers who turned up out of the blue and had bizarre hallucinations all over the place. He also added that in future it would be better if Godfrey refrained from making absurdly trusting arrangements with unknown ladies to catalogue the contents of Quire’s cellars. Good God, this Antonia Weston might be anyone, said Oliver, and went up to his own flat and banged the door on the world, leaving Godfrey to a disconsolate and solitary supper, which he ended up sharing with Raffles.
He hoped he would not have nightmares when he went to bed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN