Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER ONE

FEAR

WHEN the telephone bell rang, Allen sat hunched up in an easy chair, looking out of the window. His wife was entering the room, and saw him stiffen and glance round. She said: “I’ll go.” She caught a glimpse of the fear in her husband’s eyes before he turned away again and looked over the roof-tops and the chimneys. The telephone bell kept ringing.

“Well, go on, if you’re going,” Allen said gruffly.

His wife went into the tiny hall and took up the receiver but did not speak immediately, her heart was beating so fast. Fear was contagious, and Bob was so terribly afraid. At last she spoke in a low-pitched voice.

“Barbara Allen speaking.”

“Good-morning, Mrs. Allen,” a man said. “May I speak to your husband?”

“Yes. Just a moment.”

The voice was familiar. Mellow, pleasant, friendly, yet whenever Bob received a message from this man, whom she did not know, his fear reached a pitch which drove him almost to frenzy. But she wasn’t going to quarrel with Bob again, he wasn’t well—neither physically nor mentally well.

“It’s for you,” called Barbara.

He came into the hall, staring hard at her, and drew back, as if he were going to refuse to take the call. Then he moved forward, limping noticeably, and took the receiver from her.

“Allen speaking,” he said gruffly.

He stood still, looking blankly at a black-and-white drawing of a thatched cottage on the wall. Barbara saw the naked fear in his eyes—and noticed the little pulse beating in his neck.

“Yes,” he said; the word came out sharply.

A pause, and then: “But surely Saturday——”

He broke off. Barbara could just hear the other man’s voice coming from the receiver, but she could not distinguish the words. Bob’s left hand was clenching and unclenching. It seemed a long time before he replaced the receiver, after a reluctant: “All right.”