Free (1941) Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham

to
a place where there was a bit of flat ground by the side of the road and here
Rowley made up his mind to turn.
    `Christ!' he cried, as he was about to do so. `The revolver.’
    `What? It's in my room.’
    `I forgot all about it till now. If the man's found and
they don't find the gun he killed himself with, it'll start them guessing. We
ought to have left it by his side.’
    `What's to be done?’
    `Nothing. Trust to luck. It's
been with us so far. If the body's found and no gun,
the police will probably think that some boy had come upon the body by chance,
sneaked the revolver and said nothing to anybody.’
    They drove back as quickly as they had come. Now and then
Rowley gave an anxious glance at the sky. It was night still. but the darkness had no longer quite the intensity it had
had when they set out. It was not yet day, but you had a sensation that day was
at hand. The Italian peasant goes to work early and Rowley wanted to get Mary
back to the villa before anyone was stirring. At length they reached the bottom
of the hill on which the villa stood and he stopped. Dawn was about to break.
    `You'd better drive up by yourself. This is where I left
my bike.’
    He could just see the wan smile she gave him. He saw that
she tried to speak. He patted her shoulder.
    `That's all right. Don't bother. And look here, take a
couple of sleeping tablets; it's no good lying awake and grousing. You'll feel
better after a good sleep.’
    `I feel as if I'd never sleep again.’
    `I know. That's why I say take something to make sure you
do. I'll come round sometime tomorrow.’
    `I shall be in all day.’
    `I thought you were lunching with the Atkinsons. I was
asked to meet you.’
    `I shall call up and say I'm not well enough.’
    `No. You mustn't do that. You must go, and you must act
as though you hadn't a care in the world. That's only common prudence.
Supposing by a remote chance suspicion fell on you, there must have been
nothing in your behaviour to indicate a guilty conscience. See?’
    `Yes.’
    Mary got into the driver's seat and waited a moment to
see Rowley get his bicycle from where he had hidden it and ride away. Then she
made her way up the hill. She left the car in the garage, which was just within
the gates, and then walked along the drive. She crept noiselessly into the
house. She went up to her room and at the door hesitated. She hated to go in
and for a moment was seized with a superstitious fear that when she opened the
door she would see Karl in his shabby black coat standing there before her. She
was distraught with woe, but she couldn't give way to it; she pulled herself
together, but it was with a trembling hand that she turned the handle. She
switched on the light quickly and gave a gasp of relief when she saw the room
was empty. It looked exactly as it always did. She glanced at her bedside
clock. It was not five. What fearful things had happened in so short a while!
She would have given everything she had in the world to put time back and be
once more the carefree woman she had been so few hours ago. Tears began to
trickle down her face. She was terrify tired, her head was throbbing and
confusedly she recollected, in one rush of memory as it were, everything
happening simultaneously, all the incidents of that unhappy night. She
undressed slowly. She didn't want to get into that bed again and yet there was
no help for it. She would have to stay in the villa at least a few days more;
Rowley would tell her when it would be safe to go: if she announced her
engagement to Edgar it would seem very reasonable that she should leave
Florence a few weeks sooner than she had planned. She forgot if he had said
when he would have to sail for India. It must be quickly. Once there she would
be safe; once there she could forget. But as she was getting into bed she
remembered the supper things that Rowley had taken into the kitchen.
Notwithstanding what he had said she was uneasy