Читать книгу The Terror - Edgar Wallace, Martin Edwards - Страница 14

MRS ELVERY described herself as an observant woman. Less charitable people complained bitterly of her spying. Cotton disliked her most intensely for that reason, and had a special grievance by reason of the fact that she had surprised him that afternoon when he was deeply engaged in conversation with a certain tinker who had called that morning, and who now held him fascinated by stories of immense wealth that might be stored within the cellars and vaults of Monkshall.

She came with her news to Colonel Redmayne, and found that gentleman a little dazed and certainly apathetic. He had got into the habit of retiring to his small study and locking the door. There was a cupboard there, just big enough for a bottle and two glasses, handy enough to hide them away when somebody knocked.

He was not favourably disposed towards Mrs Elvery, and this may have been the reason why he gave such scant attention to her story.

‘He’s like a bear, my dear,’ said that good lady to her daughter.

She pulled aside the blind nervously and peered out into the dark grounds.

‘I am sure we’re going to have a visitation tonight,’ she said. ‘I told Mr Goodman so. He said “Stuff and nonsense!”’

‘I wish to heaven you wouldn’t do that, mother,’ snapped the girl. ‘You give me the jumps.’

Mrs Elvery looked in the glass and patted her hair.

‘I’ve seen it twice,’ she said, with a certain uneasy complacency.

Veronica shivered.

For a little while Mrs Elvery said nothing, then, turning dramatically, she lifted her fat forefinger.

‘Cotton!’ she said mysteriously. ‘If that butler’s a butler, I’ve never seen a butler.’

Veronica stared at her aghast.

‘Good lord, Ma, what do you mean?’

‘He’s been snooping around all day. I caught him coming up those stairs from the cellars, and when he saw me he was so taken aback he didn’t know whether he was on his head or his heels.’

‘How do you know he didn’t know?’ asked the practical Veronica, and Mrs Elvery’s testy reply was perhaps justifiable.

Veronica looked at her mother thoughtfully.

‘What did you see, mother—when you squealed the other night?’

‘I wish to goodness you wouldn’t say “squeal”,’ snapped Mrs Elvery. ‘It’s not a word you should use to your mother. I screamed—so would you have. There it was, running about the lawn, waving its hands—ugh!’

‘What was it?’ asked Veronica faintly.

Mrs Elvery turned round in her chair.

‘A monk,’ she said; ‘all black; his face hidden behind a cowl or something. Hark at that!’

It was a night of wind and rain, and the rattle of the lattice had made Mrs Elvery jump.

‘Let’s go downstairs for heaven’s sake,’ she said.

The cheerful Mr Goodman was alone when they reached the lounge, and he gave a little groan at the sight of her and hoped that she had not heard him.

‘Mr Goodman’—he was not prepared for Veronica’s attack—‘did mother tell you what she saw?’

Goodman looked over his glasses with a pained expression.

‘If you’re going to talk about ghosts—’

‘Monks!’ said Veronica, in a hollow voice.

‘One monk,’ corrected Mrs Elvery. ‘I never said I saw more than one.’

Goodman’s eyebrows rose.

‘A monk?’ He began to laugh softly, and, rising from the settee which formed his invariable resting place, he walked across the room and tapped at the panelled wall. ‘If it was a monk, this is the way he should come.’

Mrs Elvery stared at him open-mouthed.

‘Which way?’ she asked.

‘This is the monk’s door,’ explained Mr Goodman with some relish. ‘It is part of the original panelling.’

Mrs Elvery fixed her glasses and looked. She saw now that what she had thought was part of the panelling was indeed a door. The oak was warped and in places worm-eaten.

‘This is the way the old monks came in,’ said Mr Goodman. ‘The legend is that it communicated with an underground chapel which was used in the days of the Reformation. This lounge was the lobby that opened on to the refectory. Of course, it’s all been altered—probably the old passage to the monks’ chapel has been bricked up. The monks used to pass through that chapel every day, two by two—part of their ritual, I suppose, to remind them that life was a very short business.’

Veronica drew a deep breath.

‘On the whole I prefer to talk about mother’s murders,’ she said.

‘A chapel,’ repeated Mrs Elvery intensely. ‘That would explain the organ, wouldn’t it?’

Goodman shook his head.

‘Nothing explains the organ,’ he said. ‘Rich foods, poor digestion.’

And then, to change the subject:

‘You told me that that young man, Fane, was coming here.’

‘He isn’t,’ said Mrs Elvery emphatically. ‘He’s too interesting. They don’t want anybody here but old fogies,’ and, as he smiled, she added hastily: ‘I don’t mean you, Mr Goodman.’

She heard the door open and looked round. It was Mary Redmayne.

‘We were talking about Mr Fane,’ she said.

‘Were you?’ said Mary, a little coldly. ‘It must have been a very dismal conversation.’

All kind of conversation languished after that. The evening seemed an interminable time before the three guests of the house said good-night and went to bed. Her father had not put in an appearance all the evening. He had been sitting behind the locked door of his study. She waited till the last guest had gone and then went and knocked at the door. She heard the cupboard close before the door unlocked.

‘Good-night, my dear,’ he said thickly.

‘I want to talk to you, father.’

He threw out his arms with a weary gesture.

‘I wish you wouldn’t, I’m all nerves tonight.’

She closed the door behind her and came to where he was sitting, resting her hand upon his shoulder.

‘Daddy, can’t we get away from this place? Can’t you sell it?’

He did not look up, but mumbled something about it being dull for her.

‘It isn’t more dull than it was at School,’ she said; ‘but’—she shivered—‘it’s awful! There’s something vile about this place.’

He did not meet her eyes.

‘I don’t understand—’

‘Father, you know that there’s something horrible. No, no, it isn’t my nerves. I heard it last night—first the organ and then that scream!’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘I can’t bear it! I saw him running across the lawn—a terrifying thing in black. Mrs Elvery heard it too—what’s that?’

He saw her start and her face go white. She was listening.

‘Can you hear?’ she whispered.

‘It’s the wind,’ he said hoarsely; ‘nothing but the wind.’

‘Listen!’

Even he must have heard the faint, low tones of an organ as they rose and fell.

‘Can your hear?’

‘I hear nothing,’ he said stolidly.

She bent towards the floor and listened.

‘Do you hear?’ she asked again.

‘The sound of feet shuffling on stones, and—my God, what’s that?’

It was the sound of knocking, heavy and persistent.

‘Somebody is at the door,’ she whispered, white to the lips.

Redmayne opened a drawer and took out something which he slipped into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

‘Go up to your room,’ he said.

He passed through the darkened lounge, stopped to switch on a light, and, as he did so, Cotton appeared from the servants’ quarters. He was fully dressed.

‘What is that?’ asked Redmayne.

‘Someone at the door, I think. Shall I open it?’

For a second the colonel hesitated.

‘Yes,’ he said at last.

Cotton took off the chain, and, turning the key, jerked the door open. A lank figure stood on the doorstep; a figure that swayed uneasily.

‘Sorry to disturb you.’ Ferdie Fane, his coat drenched and soaking, lurched into the room. He stared from one to the other. ‘I’m the second visitor you’ve had tonight.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Redmayne.

In a queer, indefinable way the sight of this contemptible man gave him a certain amount of relief.

‘They’ve turned me out of the Red Lion.’ Ferdie’s glassy eyes were fixed on him. ‘I want to stay here.’

‘Let him stay, Daddy.’

Redmayne turned; it was the girl.

‘Please let him stay. He can sleep in number seven.’

A slow smile dawned on Mr Fane’s good-looking face.

‘Thanks for invitation,’ he said, ‘which is accepted.’

She looked at him in wonder. The rain had soaked his coat, and, as he stood, the drops were dripping from it, forming pools on the floor. He must have been out in the storm for hours—where had he been? And he was strangely untalkative; allowed himself to be led away by Cotton to room No. 7, which was in the farther wing. Mary’s own pretty little bedroom was above the lounge. After taking leave of her father, she locked and bolted the door of her room, slowly undressed and went to bed. Her mind was too much alive to make sleep possible, and she turned from side to side restlessly.

She was dozing off when she heard a sound and sat up in bed. The wind was shrieking round the corners of the house, the patter of the rain came fitfully against her window, but that had not wakened her up. It was the sound of low voices in the room below. She thought she heard Cotton—or was it her father? They both had the same deep tone.

Then she heard a sound which made her blood freeze—a maniacal burst of laughter from the room below. For a second she sat paralysed, and then, springing out of bed, she seized her dressing-gown and went pattering down the stairs, and she saw over the banisters a figure moving in the hall below.

‘Who is that?’

‘It’s all right, my dear.’

It was her father. His room adjoined his study on the ground floor.

‘Did you hear anything, Daddy?’

‘Nothing—nothing,’ he said harshly, ‘Go to bed.’

But Mary Redmayne was not deficient in courage.

‘I will not go to bed,’ she said, and came down the stairs. ‘There was somebody in the lounge—I heard them,’ Her hand was on the lounge door when he gripped her arm.

‘For God’s sake, Mary, don’t go in!’ She shook him off impatiently, and threw open the door.

No light burned; she reached out for the switch and turned it. For a second she saw nothing, and then—

Sprawling in the middle of the room lay the body of a man, a terrifying grin on his dead face.

It was the tinker, the man who had quarrelled with Ferdie Fane that morning—the man whom Fane had threatened!