Hot Spot by Charles Williams Page A

edge of the field and came up behind the house. The doors were torn off, and there wasn’t much in it, just dust and cobwebs and pieces of glass here and there from the broken windows. I walked on through to the front door and looked out. The road was in plain sight from here, the sand blazing white in the sun, but it was completely deserted and I couldn’t hear any sound of a car. The barn was off to the left of the house a short distance across the sand and dead weeds. I went over and looked in.
    It was shadowy and cool, with a faint odour of dusty hay and old manure. There was a loft overhead which appeared to be empty, and a walled-off corn crib in one corner, in front of the stalls and feed-boxes. I went over and looked into the crib, and found just what I was looking for. An old horse collar with the stuffing coming out of it was hanging from a harness peg on the wall, and dangling from the same peg was a piece of discarded rope ploughline possibly ten feet long. I took it in my hands and tested it. It was very old, but plenty strong enough for what I wanted.
    I was coiling it up when I stopped suddenly and listened. A car was approaching out there on the road. I could hear it plainly now, the motor lugging in the heavy sand. I shook off the sudden nervousness and swore under my breath. I was too jumpy. It was only Sutton, either going to town or just now coming home from Saturday night. But the car didn’t go on past. I heard it slowing down, and then it was turning in. It stopped in front of the house.
    I was sweating. It wasn’t that I was doing anything wrong, but just that I’d look suspicious and attract attention, the very thing I didn’t want, if somebody saw me prowling around out here. What explanation could I give for my being here in this old barn, with my car parked a half mile away in the timber? I whirled, looking for a way to get out or a place to hide. I couldn’t leave by the door. That was in plain sight of the house. But two planks had been torn off the rear wall, and I might be able to squeeze out there. I started to run back to it when I noticed a small hole in the wall next to the house. Maybe I could find out who it was and what he was up to. Whoever it was might leave in a minute, anyway, without coming near the barn. I could see the house and the car pulled up in front of it. And it wasn’t a man getting out of the car. It was Gloria Harper.
    It threw me for a minute. What would she be doing out here? And what the devil was she unloading out of the car and putting on the porch. It looked like a fruit jar and a china plate, as nearly as I could tell, and there was something else which resembled a bread board. Was she going to set up housekeeping in that broken-down shack?
    She had something in her hand now which looked like little sticks, and then I began to catch on. They were paint brushes. It was a water colour outfit she had, and the thing I’d thought was a bread board must be a block of paper. She had on a pair of brief white shorts and a striped T-shirt, and the long-legged, easy way she moved was enough to make you catch your breath.
    She got all of her equipment together and sat down in the shade on the edge of the porch with her feet on the steps and the block of paper on her legs, and began sketching the barn with long strokes of a pencil or charcoal stick. After she had it blocked in she started mixing paints in the white plate, dipping her brushes in the jar of water. She was completely absorbed in what she was doing and, alone like this and not knowing she was being watched, there was something almost radiant about her face, somehow sweet and infinitely appealing and still full of that quiet dignity she had. I wanted to go out there where she was.
    Was I blowing my top? I couldn’t go out there. How would I explain why I’d been hiding in the barn? But wait, I thought. She’d be here for a long time yet. I could sneak out the back of the barn and get into the timber