The Coldstone by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

did; and she was frightened for herself, and for him, and for Anthony Colstone.
    â€œAll?” said Garry. His voice was quite soft. He began to pour out a medley of frightful words very slowly and deliberately. It wouldn’t have been nearly so frightening if he had shouted. He never shouted when he was angry; he said blood curdling things softly, slowly, deliberately, with pauses between the words as if he were dwelling on them.
    Just when Susan felt as if she were really going to scream, he stopped.
    â€œNo, it isn’t all,” he said in his usual voice—“not quite. Sir Jervis had a nurse when he was ill—and Sir Jervis talked.”
    Susan stood quite still. All this seemed very unbelievable. Thin sort of stuff to be keeping one out of one’s bed at midnight. She was so tired that she didn’t care how much treasure was buried in the Coldstone Ring, or anywhere else. Garry’s rages were very depleting. She wanted to get away and shut herself up in her safe dark room and go to sleep. She didn’t believe a single word about old Major O’Connell and the treasure. She wondered whether Garry really believed it either. It didn’t seem possible to believe a story like that.
    â€œI ran across the nurse in Wrane.” There was a note of triumph in Garry’s tone. “Sir Jervis talked—and she told me what he said.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œHe said, ‘It’s safe. No one will ever find it.’ He was talking in his sleep, you know, the night before he died. Then he woke with a start, and said ‘Did I say anything?’ And the nurse told him what he’d said, and he said, ‘So it is—quite safe. And nobody will find it, because nobody knows it’s there.’ And presently he went to sleep again, and when he was asleep he talked some more.”
    There was silence—warm, drowsy silence.
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œIt’s all I’m going to tell you,” said Garry.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    â€œAll right,” said Susan. Then she said, “Goodnight, Garry,” and ran past him down the hill.
    She heard him swear under his breath, and she heard him follow. She wondered if she could run faster than he could, and a little breath of excitement just touched her and went past. She took hold of herself and stood quite still, and he came up with a rush and caught her round the waist.
    â€œYou’re not going like that!”
    â€œI was.”
    â€œYou can’t now.” His arm tightened.
    â€œI shall have more luck than I deserve if I can get back without being seen. By the bye, where are you getting back to?”
    â€œWrane. I’ve got a motor bike. There’s no hurry. Kiss me, Susan.”
    Susan heaved a weary sigh.
    â€œMy good Garry, I don’t want to be made love to—I want to go to sleep.”
    Garry held her closer.
    â€œSusan!”
    â€œI’m dead sleepy.”
    â€œBored with me, I suppose.”
    â€œFrightfully bored with you.”
    â€œIf I thought you meant that—”
    â€œI do mean it.”
    â€œI’d—”
    â€œWell, my dear?”
    The movement with which he let go of her was so violent that she nearly lost her balance. She said,
    â€œReally, Garry!”
    â€œSometimes I think I could kill you,” said Garry.
    â€œThink again!” said Susan. Then she laughed. “You’re being most frightfully silly. Goodnight.”
    This time she did not make the mistake of running. She walked away briskly and lightly, and after a moment’s pause she heard him go running back up the hill. She came into the warm hush of the village street and looked up at the blank windows again. Not a glimmer, not a sound. Old houses, dreaming old, confused dreams of all the things that had ever happened in them. Old drowsy houses, slipping back into the past out of which they had come.
    She lifted the latch of the garden gate, skirted the