The Flood by John Creasey Page A

furniture was all oak, old and nearly black. It struck cold after the warmth of the morning.
    Behind Woburn was the arched door; in front of him, the fireplace; ahead of him on either side, a door. Apart from the tall, narrow windows, there was no other way in or out. The staircase must be on the other side of the fireplace.
    “If you will be good enough to wait here, sir,” the man had said, and turned.
    He hadn’t asked for Woburn’s name.
    Woburn found himself with a cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t light it. A minute passed; two, three. It began to seem like an age. The silence was profound; nothing at all disturbed it. There was just the brightness of the sun shining through two of the windows.
    Five minutes.
    Woburn began to move about. The cigarette was damp and mangled, he wished he hadn’t lit it. He didn’t see an ash-tray. He could throw it into the fireplace, but there seemed hardly a speck of dust there, it would be a kind of desecration. Yet he tossed it in, to one side. Now, he gritted his teeth. From being chill, the hall seemed really cold. He wanted to turn and leave the hall. It scared him. He could argue with himself from now until Doomsday, but this scared him. He went towards a window, on the right of the front door, and looked into the flower-filled garden and the green lawns – and he saw that a portcullis was down.
    He stared at the massive criss-cross of iron, which imprisoned him and anyone else here as securely as any prisoner had been held in the Bloody Tower. This side of the portcullis were the massive doors themselves, which could be closed to make an impassable barrier. Then Woburn heard a slight sound behind him.
    He spun round.
    “Good morning, Mr. Woburn,” Eve Davos said.
    If she noticed his shocked look, she didn’t show it. She smiled, gravely; he thought then that he would always associate her with gravity. Her eyes were greeny-grey, bright and crystal clear. She wore a sheath-like dress of a subdued purple colour, and he was vividly reminded of her long, slender legs, and her height.
    “Good morning,” he said.
    “I’m very glad you called,” Eve declared, “I wanted to come and see you, but it wasn’t possible.”
    “I wanted to make sure that you were all right,” Woburn said. “Half the telephones seem to be out of order.”
    “Yes, I know,” said Eve. For a moment she stood in front of him, as if uncertain what to say next. Then: “Won’t you come and have some coffee?”
    It was as casual as that.
    “Thank you.”
    “This way,” she said, and led the way through the door which the manservant had used. Beyond was a circular hall and a huge staircase, much wider at the foot than at the top. Massive and imposing, it led up to a kind of landing with a carved wooden gallery; and beyond it, an archway without doors. On either side of the foot of the staircase were smaller doors. Woburn told himself that it would take an age to get to know the place, and he simply followed the girl.
    Eve opened the door of one of the rooms. It was pleasant, and sunlit. The furniture here was modern, even the fireplace. The room struck warmer than the hall. The walls had been covered, either with a fibre board or plaster, and papered in the modern style, with one deep red wall, one cream, one pink.
    She crossed to the fireplace and pressed a bell.
    Woburn thought: “What the devil can I do here?” The whole situation was melodramatic and artificial. He hadn’t a chance of finding anything out. What was he to say? “Can you please tell me whether your father is responsible for the octi?” There was no sense in any of it.
    But the portcullis was down.
    A middle-aged maid came in; that was quite normal, too; there was no more panic or sign of alarm here than there had been in Scourie. Just the quiet formality, and too great a calm.
    “Bring some coffee, Maggie.”
    “Yes, Miss Eve.”
    The maid went out, and the door closed quietly. Woburn felt as if he really had no