Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 109

Quest, notwithstanding the unusual nature of his surroundings, slept that night as only a tired and healthy man can. He was awakened the next morning by the quiet movements of a man-servant who had brought back his clothes carefully brushed and pressed. He sat up in bed and discovered a small china tea equipage by his side.

“What’s this?” he enquired.

“Your tea, sir.”

Quest drank half a cupful without protest.

“Your bath is ready at any time, sir.”

“I’m coming right along,” Quest replied, jumping out of bed.

The man held up a dressing-gown and escorted him to an unexpectedly modern bathroom at the end of the corridor. When Quest returned, his toilet articles were all laid out for him with prim precision; the window was wide open, the blinds drawn, and a soft breeze was stealing through into the room. Below him, the park, looking more beautiful than ever in the morning sunshine, stretched away to a vista of distant meadowlands and cornfields, with here and there a little farm-house and outbuildings, gathered snugly together. The servant, who had heard him leave the bathroom, reappeared.

“Is there anything further I can do for you, sir?” he enquired.

“Nothing at all, thanks,” Quest assured him. “What time’s breakfast?”

“Breakfast is served at nine o’clock, sir. It is now half-past eight.”

The man withdrew and Quest made a brisk toilet. The nameless fears of the previous night had altogether disappeared. To his saner morning imagination, the atmosphere seemed somehow to have become cleared of that cloud of mysterious depression. He was whistling to himself from sheer light-heartedness as he turned to leave the room. Then the shock came. At the last moment he stretched out his hand to take a handkerchief from his satchel. A sudden exclamation broke from his lips. He stood for a moment as though turned to stone. Before him, on the top of the little pile of white cambric, was a small black box! With a movement of the fingers which was almost mechanical, he removed the lid and drew out the customary little scrap of paper. He smoothed it out before him on the dressing-case and read the message:—

“You will fail here as you have failed before. Better go back. There is more danger for you in this country than you dream of.”

His teeth came fiercely together and his hands were clenched. His thoughts had gone like a flash to Lenora. Was it possible that harm was intended to her? He put the idea away from him almost as soon as conceived. The thing was unimaginable. Craig was here, must be here, in the close vicinity of the house. He could have had no time to communicate with confederates in London. Lenora, at any rate, was safe. Then he glanced around the room and thought for a moment of his own danger. In the dead of the night, as he had slept, mysterious feet had stolen across his room, mysterious hands had placed those few words of half mocking warning in that simple hiding-place! It would have been just as easy, he reflected with a grim little smile, for those hands to have stretched their death-dealing fingers over the bed where he had lain asleep. He looked once more out over the park. Somehow, its sunny peace seemed to have become disturbed. The strange sense of foreboding which he, in common with the others, had carried about with him last night, had returned.

The atmosphere of the pleasant breakfast-room to which in due course he descended, was cheerful enough. Lady Ashleigh had already taken her place at the head of the table before a glittering array of silver tea and coffee equipage. The Professor, with a plate in his hand, was making an approving survey of the contents of the dishes ranged upon the sideboard.

“An English breakfast, my dear Quest,” he remarked, after they had exchanged the usual greetings, “will, I am sure, appeal to you. I am not, I confess, given to the pleasures of the table, but if anything could move me to enthusiasm in dietary matters, the sight of your sideboard, my dear sister-in-law, would do so. I commend the bacon and eggs to you, Quest, or if you prefer sausages, those long, thin ones are home-made and delicious. Does Mrs. Bland still cure our hams, Julia?”

“Her daughter does,” Lady Ashleigh replied, smiling. “We are almost self-supporting here. All our daily produce, of course, comes from the home farm. Tea or coffee, Mr. Quest?”

“Coffee, if you please,” Quest decided, returning from his visit to the sideboard. “Is Lord Ashleigh a late riser?”

“Not by any means,” his wife declared. “He very often gets up and rides in the park before breakfast. I don’t know where he is this morning. He didn’t even come in to see me. I think we must send up.”

She touched an electric bell under her foot and a moment or two later the butler appeared.

“Go up and see how long your master will be,” Lady Ashleigh directed.

“Very good, your ladyship.”

The man was backing through the doorway in his usual dignified manner when he was suddenly pushed to one side. The valet who had waited upon Quest, and who was Lord Ashleigh’s own servant, rushed into the room. His face was white. He had forgotten all decorum. He almost shouted to Lady Ashleigh.

“Your ladyship—the master! Something has happened! He won’t move! He—he—”

They all rose to their feet. Quest groaned to himself. The black box!

“What do you mean?” Lady Ashleigh faltered. “What do you mean, Williams?”

The man shook his head. He seemed almost incapable of speech.

“Something has happened to the master!”

They all trooped out of the room and up the stairs, the Professor leading the way. They pushed open the door of Lord Ashleigh’s bedchamber. In the far corner of the large room was the four-poster, and underneath the clothes a silent figure. The Professor turned down the sheets. Then he held out his hand. His face, too, was blanched.

“Julia, don’t come,” he begged.

“I must know!” she almost shrieked. “I must know!”

“George is dead,” the Professor said slowly.

There was a moment’s awful silence, broken by a piercing scream from Lady Ashleigh. She sank down upon the sofa and the Professor leaned over her. Quest turned to the little group of frightened servants who were gathering round the doorway.

“Telephone for a doctor,” he ordered, “also to the local police-station.”

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, COME! MY MASTER HAS BEEN STRANGLED TO DEATH.”

“LADY ASHLEIGH, I WILL FIND AND BRING TO JUSTICE, THE CRIMINAL.”

He, too, approached the bed and reverently lifted the covering. Lord Ashleigh was lying there, his body a little doubled up, his arms wide outstretched. On his throat were two black marks.

“Where is the valet—Williams?” Quest asked, as he turned away.

The man came forward.

“Tell us at once what you know?” Quest demanded.

“I came in, as usual, to call his lordship before I called you,” the man replied. “He did not answer, but I thought, perhaps, that he was sleepy. I filled his bath, which, as you see, opens out of the room, and then came to attend on you. When you went down to breakfast, I returned to his lordship’s room expecting to find him dressed. Instead of that the room was silent, the bath still unused. I spoke to him—there was no answer. Then I lifted the sheet!”

They had led Lady Ashleigh from the room. The Professor and Quest stood face to face. The former’s expression, however, had lost all his amiable serenity. His face was white and pinched. He looked shrivelled up. It was as though some physical stroke had fallen upon him.

“Quest! Quest!” he almost sobbed. “My brother!—George, whom I loved like nobody else on earth! Is he really dead?”

“Absolutely!”

The Professor gripped the oak pillar of the bedstead. He seemed on the point of collapse.

“The mark of the Hands is upon his throat,” Quest pointed out.

“The Hands! Oh, my God!” the Professor groaned.

“We must not eat or drink or sleep,” Quest declared fiercely, “until we have brought this matter to an end. Craig must be found. This is the supreme horror of all. Pull yourself together, Mr. Ashleigh. We shall need every particle of intelligence we possess. I begin to think that we are fighting against something superhuman.”

The butler made an apologetic appearance. He spoke in a hushed whisper.

“You are wanted downstairs, gentlemen. Middleton, the head-keeper, is there.”

As though inspired with a common idea, both Quest and the Professor hurried out of the room and down the broad stairs. Their inspiration was a true one. The gamekeeper welcomed them with a smile of triumph. By his side, the picture of abject misery, his clothes torn and muddy, was Craig!

“I’ve managed this little job, sir,” Middleton announced, with a smile of slow triumph.

“How did you get him?” Quest demanded.

“Little idea of my own,” the gamekeeper continued. “I guessed pretty well what he’d be up to. He’d tumbled to it that the usual way off the moor was pretty well guarded, and he’d doubled back through the thin line of woods close to the house. I dug one of my poachers’ pits, sir, and covered it over with a lot of loose stuff. That got him all right. When I went to look this morning I saw where he’d fallen through, and there he was, walking round and round at the bottom like a caged animal. Your servants have telephoned for the police, Mr. Ashleigh,” he went on, turning to the Professor, “but I’d like you just to point out to the Scotland Yard gentleman—called us yokels, he did, when he first came down—that we’ve a few ideas of our own down here.”

Quest suddenly whispered to the Professor. Then he turned to the keeper.

“Bring him upstairs, Middleton, for a moment,” he directed. “Follow us, please.”

The Professor gripped Quest’s arm as they ascended the stairs.

“What is this?” he asked hoarsely. “What is it you wish to do?”

“It’s just an idea of my own,” Quest replied. “I rather believe in that sort of thing. I want to confront him with the result of his crime.”

The Professor stopped short. His eyes were half-closed.

“It is too horrible!” he muttered.

“Nothing could be too horrible for an inhuman being like this,” Quest answered tersely. “I want to see whether he’ll commit himself.”

They passed into the bedchamber. Quest signed to the keeper to bring Craig to the side of the four-poster. Then he drew down the sheet.

“Is that your work?” he asked sternly.

Craig, up till then, had spoken no word. He had shambled to the bedside, a broken, yet in a sense, a stolid figure. The sight of the dead man, however, seemed to galvanise him into sudden and awful vitality. He threw up his arms. His eyes were horrible as they glared at those small black marks. His lips moved, helplessly at first. Then at last he spoke.

“Strangled!” he cried. “One more!”

“That is your work,” the criminologist said firmly.

Craig collapsed. He would have fallen bodily to the ground if Middleton’s grip had not kept him up. Quest bent over him. It was clear that he had fainted. They led him from the room.

“We’d better lock him up until the police arrive,” Quest suggested. “I suppose there is a safe place somewhere?”

The Professor awoke from his stupor.

“Let me show you,” he begged. “I know the way. We’ve a subterranean hiding-place which no criminal on this earth could escape from.”

They led him down to the back part of the house, a miserable, dejected procession. Holding candles over their heads, they descended two sets of winding stone steps, passed along a gloomy corridor till they came to a heavy oak door, which Moreton, the butler, who carried the keys, opened with some difficulty. It led into a dry cellar which had the appearance of a prison cell. There was a single bench set against the wall. Quest looked around quickly.

“This place has been used before now, in the old days, for malefactors,” the Professor remarked. “He’ll be safe there. Craig,” he added, his voice trembling, “Craig—I—I can’t speak to you. How could you!”

There was no answer. Craig’s face was buried in his hands. They left him there and turned the key.