by Clara Benson
‘And I’m quite sure they are,’ said Freddy. ‘We’ve all got secrets—even you, I’ll wager.’
‘Oh, I have heaps!’ said Kitty charmingly. ‘But the question is, are they deadly enough secrets to commit murder for?’
‘I don’t know, are they?’ said Freddy.
She smiled into his eyes. She really was very pretty, and demure, too, in her chocolate-brown satin dress, set off with one simple amber necklace.
‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But I should be a fool to admit it if so.’
‘Then you’d better keep them to yourself,’ he said lightly.
Freddy was one of the last to turn in, for he was playing billiards with Goose and money had been staked upon the outcome. Eventually, however, he headed up to his room and fell into bed without ceremony. Under normal circumstances he would have slept like a top, but for some reason on this particular evening he took a while to drift off, and when he did he managed nothing more than a fitful doze. Some time later he awoke with a start, and wondered for a second where he was and what had woken him. Had he heard a noise outside the door? He switched on the lamp next to his bed and looked at his watch. It was after two. Someone was certainly outside in the passage, for he could hear what sounded like a man singing drunkenly, half under his breath. Freddy got up, threw on a dressing-gown and looked out. The landing was illuminated with dim lights on the walls, and he saw the retreating figure of his grandfather, tottering down the corridor some distance away. Nugs’s room was in the other wing, and he was heading in quite the wrong direction for bed.
‘What’s the old villain doing now?’ said Freddy to himself, and followed quietly, so as not to wake anybody. He soon caught up with Nugs, who had stopped singing and was now standing listening at a door, swaying slightly. From inside the room could be heard the sound of gentle snoring. Freddy thought he remembered that the room was Lavinia Philpott’s, and knowing Lavinia, he was certain that Nugs was not there by invitation.
‘What the devil d’you think you’re doing?’ he hissed.
Nugs jumped and whirled around.
‘Eh? What’s that?’ he cried. ‘Freddy, old chap! What are you doing up? I was just going back to bed.’
‘But this isn’t your room,’ Freddy pointed out.
‘What? Isn’t it?’ said Nugs, with a theatrical look of surprise which would not have fooled a child. ‘Am I lost again?’
‘You know jolly well you’re not, you disgraceful old goat,’ said Freddy. ‘Now, lower your voice and come away before she screams the house down. Do you want to embarrass Bea again?’
Nugs wavered a second.
‘Damn,’ he said grumpily at last. ‘You’re no fun.’ He turned away from the door with one last longing look, then brightened. ‘I say, come and have a drink.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘I’m bored. At my age I don’t sleep, and this party has been so utterly dreary so far—thanks to you—that I’ve had no excitement to tire me out enough to drop off. Go on, the night’s barely begun. And besides, if you don’t I shall merely go and cause a disturbance somewhere else,’ he added.
‘Oh, very well, then,’ said Freddy, who was now wide awake. ‘Just a quick one, to send me off to sleep properly.’
They went downstairs and into Cedric’s study. Nugs sat in the best chair while Freddy poked about in a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whisky and some glasses. He was just pouring the drinks when Goose put his head around the door.
‘I thought I heard someone up,’ he said. ‘Fill ’em up, then!’
Drinks were poured, and there was a respectful silence for some minutes as they worshipped at the altar of the Duke’s best single malt. From out in the hall came the chimes of an ancient and venerable grandfather clock as it struck the half hour.
‘What are you doing up, anyway?’ said Goose at last.
‘Preserving the virtue of Lavinia Philpott,’ replied Freddy idly. The whisky had given him a pleasant, drowsy feeling. He believed he should go to bed shortly.
‘Hmph,’ said Nugs.
‘It’s just that I saw the door to your room was open, and thought you might be—you know,’ said Goose.
‘What?’ said Freddy.
‘Well, Iris is here, isn’t she?’
‘What’s that to me?’ said Freddy. ‘Perish the thought, old boy—that ship has well and truly sailed.’
‘Pity, really,’ said Goose.
‘Not at all. She’s made her choice.’
‘Yes, but I mean to say, she’s obviously had some sort of temporary failure of the mental faculties if she’s agreed to marry that dreadful stiff.’
There was a grunt of agreement from Nugs, followed by another silence as they all sipped their whisky.
‘Let’s go and play a joke on Ralph,’ suggested Goose suddenly.
‘Splendid idea!’ said Nugs.
‘What, now? I was going to go to bed,’ said Freddy.
‘What sort of a coward are you?’ said Nugs. ‘We’ll go upstairs and put a pillow over his face.’
‘That is not a joke,’ said Freddy. ‘I know things were different when you were a mere stripling and Napoleon was trampling all over the flower-beds, but nowadays the police tend to call that sort of thing attempted murder.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Nugs. ‘We did it all the time in my day.’
‘No, but look,’ said Goose eagerly. ‘I’ve had the most marvellous idea. There’s a tailor’s dummy in Mother’s dressing-room. Mrs. Dragusha brought it. Let’s dress it up in some sheets and pretend it’s a ghost.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous—that won’t fool him for a second,’ said Freddy.
‘Yes it will,’ said Goose. ‘We’ll sneak the thing into his room then stand outside the door and make ghostly noises. You’ll see—he’ll be terrified. I expect he’ll scream like a girl.’
It was a very crude and childish idea, and so of course appealed strongly to Freddy.
‘Where did you say this dummy was?’ he said at last.
‘In Mother’s dressing-room,’ replied Goose.
So the plan was agreed. Freddy fetched the tailor’s dummy and brought it to his bedroom, and Goose went to rummage about in the linen cupboard.
‘Here,’ he said, returning with an armful of sheets. ‘This ought to do it. Where’s Nugs?’
Nugs was located outside Lavinia’s door again and escorted firmly away, while the gentle rumbling sounds that emanated from within indicated that she remained mercifully unaware of the repeated attempts upon her stronghold.
They draped the sheets over the dummy as artfully as they could, then stood back to regard their handiwork. In no sense did it look a convincing ghost.
‘Frightful, perhaps, but not exactly frightening,’ said Freddy at last.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Goose. ‘All it will do is puzzle him. What can we do to make it better?’
‘Tie a torch inside it?’ suggested Nugs.
‘It’ll blind him, and he won’t be able to see the ghost,’ said Freddy.
‘Not if we put more sheets on it to dim the beam,’ said Goose.
More sheets were brought and duly heaped over the dummy, then Goose ran down to the library, returned with the torch, and dived under the mountain of linen. There was a certain amount of panting and struggling as the sheets did their best to entwine themselves around his neck.
‘Ought to have done this first,’ came his voice from somewhere inside the creation. ‘There. Let’s see what it looks like. Turn the light off.’
They did so, and Goose, from under the sheets, switched on the torch. The tailor’s dummy glowed eerily in the darkness.
‘We’ll have to wrap the sheets more neatly, but it might just do the trick,’ said Freddy.
They spent some few minutes fastening the torch tightly to the
dummy and wrapping the sheets around it to fashion it into something more resembling human form, and then they were ready. Freddy picked up the ghost with some difficulty.
‘Better make sure the coast is clear,’ said Nugs, turning off the light again. He peered out. ‘All right,’ he whispered.
The odd party stepped out and headed across the passage with much suppressed laughter. Ralph’s room was opposite Freddy’s, and they stopped to listen at the door. There was no sound.
‘Better just one of us,’ whispered Goose. ‘That’ll be quieter. You do it, Freddy, then come back out and we’ll make spooky noises until he wakes up.’
‘Open the door, then,’ said Freddy.
Goose did so, and Freddy crept in as silently as he could. He had to pick his way carefully, for Ralph’s room was small and filled with heavy furniture, against which it was easy to bump, while some of the sheets had not been tied tightly enough around the dummy, and were showing signs of wanting to unwrap themselves. He stopped and glanced around, wondering where to situate the ‘ghost’ for the greatest effectiveness, and decided the foot of the bed would be the best place. He was preparing to set it down carefully when Ralph gave a great snort and turned over in bed. Freddy froze. The sound of regular breathing resumed. Freddy counted to three, then put down the dummy and was about to flee when he realized that the torch had somehow slipped round and was now pointing in the wrong direction. Sighing inwardly, he ducked down and groped under the sheets to right it—then nearly jumped out of his skin as the quiet of the night was rent by a piercing scream. The noise came from somewhere nearby, and gave Freddy such a fright that he straightened up suddenly and got his head and arms tangled up in the sheets. He thrashed, but only succeeded in imprisoning himself further. He staggered, embraced the dummy, twirled around with it in a series of steps that would have impressed any professional dancer, and then he and it fell backwards and landed on the floor with a resounding crash.
‘What? What’s that?’ came Ralph’s voice. ‘Goose, is that you?’
A lamp was switched on, just as Freddy finally managed to extricate himself from his treacherous creation. He sat up to see Ralph half out of bed and eyeing him in wonder and suspicion.
‘Oh, it’s you. What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ said Ralph.
‘Who screamed?’ said Freddy.
‘What are you talking about? And why are you rolling around on the floor with a tailor’s dummy?’
Freddy ignored him and dashed out of the room, to find that Goose and Nugs had retreated farther down the passage in fright.
‘What was that noise?’ he said, just as Ro burst out of her bedroom, looking terrified. She saw Goose, Freddy and Nugs and let out a sharp breath of annoyance.
‘Was that you?’ she said. ‘You scared me half to death, you idiots.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Freddy. ‘Was that you screaming?’
‘Yes, and I don’t think it’s very funny, frightening a person like that.’
‘Frightening you?’ said Goose. ‘I should rather say it was the other way round. I almost died of shock when you screeched. What did you have to make a noise like that for?’
Ro stared.
‘Do you mean it wasn’t you?’ she said.
‘Wasn’t us what? We were out here playing a perfectly harmless joke on old Ralph and you ruined it.’
‘Oh, so that’s what you were doing,’ said Ralph, who had come out of his room.
A number of other people had also emerged, and were asking what was happening. Cedric was one of them.
‘What’s all this noise?’ he said.
‘There was a man in my room,’ said Ro. ‘He gave me the most awful shock. But it seems it was these three fatheads playing a joke.’
The Duke turned his gaze to Freddy, Goose, and Nugs, whose sheepish expressions at that moment did indeed appear to indicate their guilt.
‘Remind me how old you are,’ he said to Lord Lucian in a voice heavy with weariness.
‘It wasn’t—’ began Goose, but Cedric was not listening.
‘This is all very amusing, I’m sure,’ he said, ‘but if you must play silly jokes, I’d rather you did it without waking all our guests up.’
At that moment Freddy felt someone clutching his arm. It was Iris. He glanced at her in surprise and she let go quickly just as Daphne came out of her room and spotted them.
‘Am I wanted for anything?’ said Kitty Fitzsimmons languidly. ‘It’s frightfully chilly out here. If nobody’s bleeding to death then I’ll go back to bed, if you don’t mind.’
‘I, too, shall go to bed,’ announced Dr. Bachmann. Mr. Wray, wrapped up warmly in a woollen dressing-gown and looking as though he were not exactly sure where he was, gave a little murmur of agreement and faded away.
‘Yes, do,’ said Cedric. ‘Let’s just hope we can all get back to sleep again. Mrs. Philpott—Mrs. Dragusha—ladies, I’m dreadfully sorry about the racket, but there’s nothing doing here. Goodnight—goodnight.’
He was ushering everybody back into their rooms as he spoke. Once everybody had been chivvied away or gone of their own accord he glared round at the three conspirators and strode off back to his room in the East Wing. Nugs yawned and announced that he had had quite enough excitement and was now ready for his bed. Freddy and Goose stared at one another, then Goose said:
‘Well, I suppose there’s no use in standing around here all night. I believe I shall turn in.’
Freddy was about to reply when a door opened and Ro came out of her room again. She looked very cross.
‘What have you done with the pearls?’ she demanded.
‘What do you mean?’ said Freddy.
‘Ha ha,’ said Ro. ‘You can stop pretending now. It isn’t funny.’
Freddy and Goose looked at one another.
‘We haven’t got them, old girl,’ said Goose. ‘I told you, we didn’t come into your room. We were playing a trick on Ralph.’
She stared.
‘Then who was it I saw?’ she said.
‘I’ve no idea. Are you sure you didn’t dream it?’
‘Of course not! There was someone there, I’m certain of it. And now the pearls are gone. They were on my dressing-table and now they’re not. Come and see.’
They followed her into her room. The dressing-table was scattered with odds and ends, but there were no pearls.
‘They were just here,’ said Ro. ‘I know they were. I took them off before I went to bed.’
‘Have they fallen on the floor?’ said Freddy, peering underneath the table. ‘No, nothing there.’
They hunted about for a few minutes, but there was no sign of the pearls.
‘You’re not teasing me, are you?’ said Ro. ‘I mean, you would tell me if you had them, wouldn’t you? This isn’t funny any more.’
‘I swear we don’t have them,’ said Goose, and Freddy nodded in agreement.
‘Then they’ve gone!’ said Ro. She gasped and sat down suddenly, white-faced, as the enormity of the situation hit her at last. ‘What am I to do?’
‘Oh, Ro, why didn’t you lock them away as you were supposed to?’ said Goose reproachfully.
‘I forgot,’ she said, stricken. ‘I meant to do it, truly I did, but it was late and I didn’t remember until I was just drifting off to sleep, and I thought it wouldn’t matter if it waited until morning. Then I woke up just now and saw someone creeping around my room. I screamed and he ran off, and I came out into the corridor and found you there, so I assumed it was you being an ass, as usual.’
‘It wasn’t,’ said Goose. ‘But then who was it in your room?’
‘I don’t know, it was too dark. Didn’t you see him when he came out?’
‘Nobody came out,’ said Goose. ‘Nugs and I were in the corridor the whole time. There was nobody else.’
‘Then how did he get out of here?’ said Ro.
‘Through the secret passage, presumably,’ said Freddy.
‘What? In the dark, at this time of night?’ said Goose. ‘Why on earth should anybody do that?’
‘How much are those pearls worth?’ said Freddy.
‘Hmm, I see your point,’ conceded Goose.
‘But this is simply awful!’ cried Ro. ‘What am I to do?’
She burst into tears.
‘We shall just have to catch him, that’s all,’ said Freddy. There was a pause as he stared hard at Goose, who looked as though he did not relish creeping through a cold, dark passage in the middle of the night.
‘Er—yes, of course,’ said Goose. ‘We’ll find him, Ro. I’ll go and fetch the torch.’
‘Oh, please find him, and quickly!’ said Ro. ‘I’m going to be in the most awful trouble if you don’t.’
The torch was retrieved from Ralph’s room (much to his annoyance, for he had been on the point of drifting off to sleep again when Goose barged in), then Ro pushed open the secret door behind the tapestry to reveal the dark entrance to the passage.
‘Here goes,’ said Goose in some trepidation, and he and Freddy stepped inside. It took a minute or two to get used to the dim torchlight, but eventually their steps became firmer and they headed forward and then turned left. The way seemed longer than it had that afternoon, and the air colder.
‘Damn you, Freddy,’ puffed Goose, as they went along. ‘Why did you have to tell her we’d do this? She’s probably left the pearls in the lav. or something, and we’ll find them still there safe and sound tomorrow morning.’
‘I only hope you’re right,’ said Freddy.
‘I mean to say, even if there was a burglar, he’ll be long gone. He’s hardly likely to hang around here, is he? Why, I expect he’s miles away by now.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ said Freddy.
‘What do you mean?’
‘How did the burglar know about the pearls? And more importantly, how did he know about the secret passage?’
‘Why, the story of the pearls has been in all the papers. And I should think half the county knows about the secret passage. It’s not really secret, you know. As a matter of fact, it’s quite famous.’
