Free Fear by Night by Patricia Wentworth Page A

perhaps the island fell sheer away to the bottom of the loch. She was afraid to move, but she had to move, and presently she turned round and found a foothold and climbed back into the shallow water. Her clothes hung about her heavy and cold, and she found that she was trembling a little. But all the same, now that she was wet, she meant to find out more about that sudden drop.
    What she needed was a pole or a stick. She broke a long thin branch from one of the birches above the landing-place and measured it in yards, counting a yard from her outstretched finger-tips to her mouth, as all women do. It was not quite nine feet. She held it thin end up and went back into the water, feeling in front of her with the butt end of the branch. Everywhere at a distance of between three and four yards from the beach there was that sudden deep step down, and in some places the drop was more than three feet. Four feet—five—six—and once she could not touch bottom at all with her nine-foot bough. What would have happened to her if she had waded out in one of those deeper places? It was an easily answered question. Her own words came back and mocked her: “ I shall take care not to be drowned .”
    When she had taken off her wet things she carried them down into the kitchen for Mary to dry. It was the middle of the afternoon and the house was dead quiet. Mrs. Halliday was having her nap, and Jimmy Halliday was out with the boat. When Mrs. Halliday slumbered, Riddle slumbered too. Ann thought it would be nice if no one but Mary knew that she had fallen into the loch. She came in with her dripping bundle, shut the door behind her, and put her finger to her lips.
    Mary raised herself slowly in her chair. She had been sitting, as she always sat when she was alone, with her elbows on her knees, her chin in her cupped hands, and a drift of wispy hair across her eyes. Her blank look gave way to a startled one.
    â€œI fell in and got soaked,” said Ann. Her eyes laughed, and the air of an adventure hung about her. “Can you dry my clothes? I don’t want everyone to know I was so stupid.”
    Mary put up a hand and brushed the wisps of hair aside. The hand shook. She got up out of her chair, came a step nearer, and said in a toneless, whispering voice,
    â€œDid ye see it?”
    They were the first words that Ann had heard her speak. She had thought her dumb, and now she wondered if the poor thing’s wits were astray. She said very kindly,
    â€œI just fell in. You will dry them—won’t you?”
    Mary came nearer and put out her hands until they rested on Ann’s shoulders. They felt cold and heavy there. Mary didn’t look at her. She stood with bent I head, looking down.
    â€œDid ye see it?” she said again. The words were distinct, but separated from one another as if by the effort it cost her to speak them. It wasn’t quite like a human person speaking. In the back of Ann’s thought it reminded her of a gramophone record running down.
    â€œI didn’t see anything.” She lifted the wet clothes between them. “Look—they’re soaking. Will you help me wring them in the yard?”
    There was just a moment’s pause, and then the clothes were taken out of her hands.
    Whilst they were wringing them out and hanging them before the fire, Mary was her vacant everyday self. Her strong hands moved efficiently and her blank gaze went past Ann as if she wasn’t there. Only just at the end, when Ann put a hand on her arm and thanked her, she opened her lips as if she were going to speak.
    â€œWhat is it?” said Ann.
    The lips closed again. Ann had the feeling that they had spoken, and that what they had said was there between them in the room. It was rather a horrid feeling. She said with a quiver in her voice,
    â€œWhat is it? Has something frightened you?”
    The lips opened again, made an assenting sound, and shut in a grey, hopeless