Dark Legion

by John Glasby

  ‘What was it?’ Amberley asked tightly. He had the odd feeling that he knew what Cowdrey was going to say.

  ‘Apparently she had been visiting a niece of hers in Tenterton and stayed a little longer than she had expected. Since it was a clear night with some moonlight and she knew she had to be back in time to open the post office early this morning, she decided to cycle back. I don’t suppose she would have done it normally. She’s as superstitious as most of the others and you won’t find any of these folk taking that road past Cranston’s Hill after dark, except maybe for a few poachers out after rabbits or pheasant.

  ‘Anyway, she had just ’cycled past the place and was maybe three-quarters of a mile from Tormount when she heard something in the fields to her left. She was in such a stew that she just put her head down and cycled as fast as she could.

  ‘It seems that was the worst thing she could have done. The chain came off her bicycle at the bend and she wobbled into the ditch. Had she simply left it there and walked the rest of the way she may have got off with only a few scratches and bruises, but instead she tried to right the machine and slip the chain back into place.’

  Terence could visualise the middle-aged woman struggling with her machine in the pale moonlight, out there in the wilds, with not a solitary soul around at that early hour of the morning.

  Cowdrey scuffed his toe in the red gravel. ‘What I’m going to tell you now doesn’t make sense and if it had been anyone but Miss Munderford, I would have said they had been drinking. But I’ve known her all my life and she’s a strict teetotaller. She claims that she had almost got the chain back on when she grew aware that there was someone coming down the road from the direction of the village. Naturally, her first thought was that here was someone who could give her some assistance and she got to her feet to move out into the middle of the road.

  ‘How badly that spill had affected her, I don’t know. But she claims that although she was certain it was a man in the road, there was something odd about the way in which he was moving that frightened her. He seemed to be gliding along rather than walking!’

  ‘Perhaps it was just the moonlight playing tricks with her eyesight,’ suggested Anne lightly. ‘After all, she is extremely short-sighted.’

  ‘No, she was adamant about what she saw. Then as the other came nearer to her, she saw who it was and she didn’t wait any longer, forgot all about her cycle, and ran to the village as fast as she could. She didn’t stop running until she reached home and locked herself in.’

  ‘But what could have —’ began Anne, surprised. Her father looked grimly at Amberley.

  ‘She swears that it was your brother, Terence. She says it was Malcolm — or rather his ghost — she met on the road last night!’

  There was silence for a moment, then Terence exploded: ‘But that’s impossible! Ridiculous. How could she have —’

  ‘Don’t ask me how it could have happened,’ said the other, his tone suddenly weary. ‘The only thing I am sure of is that it will be some time before she recovers from her experience. I gave her a sedative and she’s sleeping soundly at the moment.’ His eyes narrowed just a shade. ‘I have the feeling that you think this may have something to do with the odd manner in which Malcolm died and those strange things he was investigating. You may think you can learn something by questioning her. If so, I’d like to ask you not to do so for a little while. Any excitement or mention of this could have a most serious effect on her.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’ Terence gave a quick nod. ‘As a matter of fact, Anne and I were on our way to have a talk with Lady Parrish. I was hoping she could give me some information on the manor.’

  ‘She may.’ The other suppressed a frown. ‘You know, Terry, I can sympathise with you wanting to inquire further into your brother’s death. But whatever you do, take my advice and don’t go probing too deeply into these things. They are all best forgotten, I assure you.’

  ‘Do you believe that Malcolm committed suicide?’ Terence asked the other directly.

  ‘I have to say — yes. I examined the body at Harmon’s request and I do have some knowledge of his state of mind during those few weeks before it happened. He was in a highly nervous and excited state, and some of his actions were not those of a normal person. I’m sorry I have to say this, particularly at this moment, but —

  ‘I understand. Think nothing more of it,’ said Terence warmly. He waited until the other had disappeared inside the house, then fell into step beside the girl. They passed through the wicker gate, latching it behind them and struck along the narrow lane that led obliquely from the main road to where the high gables of Tormount Manor showed among the tall beeches.

  *

  The long, gloomy hall of the manor seemed vaguely familiar to Terence as he walked along it, the suits of armour ranged along either side and the long portraits hanging on the walls, shrouded in dark grey or brown draperies. It was, he reflected, more than fifteen years since he had been inside the manor and then he had looked at it with the eyes of youth. Now, on this cold, bright morning, it struck him forcibly how dark the place was compared with the bright, healthy sunlight outside. It was impossible to tell how old the building was, except that it was certainly several centuries old, and there were perhaps only parts of it that dated back to the old times when the de Grinleys had first come to Tormount, before the evil terror of witchcraft had come like a dark plague.

  The butler knocked on one of the doors at the end of the hall, paused for a moment, then opened it and stood on one side as they entered. The door was closed quietly behind them. This was a room Terence had never been in before, a bright, spacious room, clearly designed for being lived in. Lady Parrish rose from her chair as they entered and extended her hand, giving Anne a smile of welcome.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Amberley,’ she said. Her handclasp was firm for a woman. ‘It must be a great many years since we last met.’

  ‘Indeed it is, Lady Parrish,’ Terence said, sitting down in the chair she indicated. ‘Fifteen years or more.’

  ‘But then it was under very different circumstances,’ she murmured softly, leaning back in her chair. ‘You’ll take coffee, of course.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Terence nodded as she reached for the bell pull. ‘I hope we are not intruding, but there are some things about my brother’s death which I don’t understand at the moment and I was hoping you might be able to help me.’

  ‘Naturally I’ll do everything I can, but I don’t see how —’

  ‘Lady Parrish,’ Terence began forcefully, ‘I don’t know whether you are aware of the fact, but apart from my brother, several people appear to have died in the village under mysterious circumstances, Malcolm’s death being only the last of many. I’ve read through the old records from the church which the vicar kindly lent me and I’m convinced that there is something terribly evil here, something horrible centered on Cranston’s Hill and also on the manor.’

  Lady Parrish smiled faintly. ‘I’m afraid you must be wrong about the manor, Mister Amberley. I’ve lived here for most of my life and surely if anyone should know if it were haunted, or anything like that, it would be me. But if you wish to look over the place, then you’re quite at liberty to do so. I would show you around myself, but unfortunately my leg doesn’t allow me to go scrambling around the cellars and the older wing as I used to.’

  ‘May I ask just how old the manor is?’

  ‘This wing dates back to the early part of the seventeenth century but there are some far older remains and I believe that the foundations go all the way back to the twelfth century. There was a lot of rebuilding during the latter part of the Middle Ages. You know, of course, that the manor originally belonged to the family of the de Grinleys. There are a lot of tombs in the vaults beneath the east wing but if you should think of exploring down there I would advise you to be extremely careful, That wing is now in ruins and unsafe in places.’

  ‘We’ll be very careful, Lady Parrish,’ sa
id Anne. She glanced at Terence. ‘I used to go there exploring when I was a little girl.’

  *

  The older part of the house was, Terence reflected, evidently of the kind to attract the curious. He and Anne had moved out into the garden for there was clearly no connecting link between the modern living quarters and the far more ancient structure, which was, as Lady Parrish had said, falling into ruin. Even in the wintry sunlight however, Terence experienced a faint chill as he paused at the tumbled masonry of the entrance. There was about the place an odd and indefinable atmosphere of menace that touched the hairs on the back of his neck.

  An air of tremendous antiquity lay over the shattered blocks of stone and the shadows held a midnight quality that intruded upon his mind as he paused and glanced about him.

  ‘It does look a little creepy, doesn’t it?’ Anne said. Her voice, although soft, seemed to carry for a long distance, echoes bouncing off the looming walls and along the narrow, low-roofed passages that stretched away in front of them, seeming to lead down into the bowels of the earth.

  ‘I don’t blame her ladyship for staying away from the place,’ he muttered. He moved deeper into the ruins with the girl following close behind. The stones underfoot were slippery with a sickly greenish mould and here and there, oddly shaped growths thrust themselves from the walls where the water trickled down the rough stone in tiny, glistening streams. All around them there was the stench of rottenness and decay, noxious odours rising from unguessable depths and long ages of time.

  The sense of utter malignancy in that still, unmoving air was almost more than he could bear. The girl too was affected in the same manner, yet she managed to give him a tight little smile as they moved on. The enshrouding passage continued for perhaps fifty feet and then opened out into a wider chamber, pillared by tall stone columns. There were tiny slits in the stone that let in a little of the outside light but for the most part, the entire chamber lay in deep shadow. A faint scurrying in one corner caused him to jerk his head round sharply. There was a fragmentary glimpse of glaring red eyes and then a dark shape that skittered across the mouldy stone floor and vanished into another corner.

  ‘Only a rat,’ he said harshly as the girl started. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘I’m not really scared,’ she said, ‘just startled. I’d forgotten about them. This place must be full of rats.’

  Terence advanced into the middle of the large chamber, dug into his pocket and brought out his lighter. He flicked it, held it over his head. The faint yellow glow did little to pierce the enveloping gloom. The distant corners remained as black as ever and as he stood there, he had the uncanny feeling that there were other things hidden there besides the mice and rats. God, what a place!

  Cautiously, he edged his way forward an inch at a time, moving more by sense of touch than sight, with the girl holding on to his sleeve as though afraid to release her hold.

  Here, even more than around the entrance, the long cracks in the solid stone were filled by whitish, fungoid growths, sickly and pale, which had never seen the light of day and as his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom he noticed that ranged around the walls were long, wooden boxes whose contents he did not dare to imagine. Was this the original manor, built long before the modern building?

  What he saw there forced him to the inevitable conclusion that it was, that this was part of the family vault of the terrible de Grinley line.

  ‘There’s a door of some kind over there,’ Anne murmured. She pointed a trembling finger. ‘I seem to recall that it leads down further into the foundations.’

  ‘Are you game to go on?’

  ‘If you are.’

  The door, at the far side of the chamber was of stout wood, crossed by bands of iron, most of them rusted away, the wood splintered here and there, and warped by long ages of dampness. Through the cracks in the wood, a rush of foetid air flickered the flame of the lighter as he held it close, hinting at something more beyond.

  Handing the lighter to the girl, he set his fingers around the edge and pulled with all of his strength. The door gave abruptly with a leaden, swinging motion. The blast of air brought a rush of nausea to his stomach and the light threatened to go out as the girl stepped instinctively to one side. Ahead of them, there was only a deep, almost material blackness.

  With an effort, Terence forced himself to relax. What was there to be afraid of in this place? A few rats and the bones of the long-dead de Grinleys in those coffins along the walls behind him. Yet he still hesitated to go forward. The light from his pocket lighter only just illuminated the gleaming stone steps at his feet, steps that led still deeper into the ground, descending to unknown regions far below them.

  Hesitantly, he stepped forward, feeling with his feet for the narrow steps carved from the solid stone. Anne clung tightly to his arm as they descended into the abysmal darkness. The pale, flickering glow of the lighter revealed the carvings on the walls of the narrow passage and halfway down, he paused, thrusting the lighter against the dripping wall to examine them more closely.

  Anne shuddered. ‘Who on earth could have carved such monstrosities?’

  Time had effaced the images to a large extent, but there was still enough of them to be discernable. Utterly diabolical, they stood out in relief; nightmare demons from some hell known only to the artist and yet there was a curious familiarity about them that tugged at some hidden memory in Terence’s mind.

  Slowly, they descended further into the black chasm, down a haunted tunnel that rang with the muffled echoes of their footsteps. Once, as they neared the bottom, he thought he heard a faint sound from somewhere below them, a dull slithering which sent a spasm of sudden terror through him as he stopped, motioning the girl to remain silent. But there was nothing to be heard but the harsh sound of their own breathing.

  ‘How much further does this tunnel go?’

  Anne’s voice reached him from the gloom. ‘Not much further. We seem to have gone deeper than I remember it.’

  Less than five seconds later, without any warning, the yellow glow vanished abruptly.

  They had entered a wide vault far below the ground and there seemed to be a faint mist rising all about them, oozing out of the ground underfoot, glimmering a little around the tiny flame. Taking a couple of faltering steps forward, he realised that the floor of the vault was now level but the utter blackness remained impenetrable.

  Then, something did become visible, looming out of the darkness to one side. He heard the girl’s sharp intake of breath as she caught a glimpse of it and the clutch of her fingers on his arm tightened perceptibly.

  Edging forward, holding the lighter out at arm’s length, he strained his vision in a desperate attempt to make out what it was. Not until they had approached it to within a couple of feet was it recognizable. Oblong, perhaps twelve feet in length and half as much broad. It had been hewn out of a single block of stone with indications of the same horrific carvings around the base. There were vague inscriptions too and Terence bent forward in an attempt to decipher them, but the writing was in no language he knew. He straightened up abruptly, the lighter almost falling from his shaking fingers.

  ‘I think I know what this is,’ he whispered. ‘It’s that altar which used to stand on top of Cranston’s Hill, among the Standing Stones. It must have been removed and brought down here centuries ago.’

  A niggling feeling at the back of his mind struggled to assert itself. Long centuries must have elapsed since this great stone altar of Belial had been brought down into these stygian depths and the hands which had performed that stupendous task had been dead for hundreds of years, could no longer harm them. Yet why had it been removed from its original position among the Standing Stones? Why had anyone gone to such trouble to move it? The bulk and weight of the thing must have made it an almost impossible task. God alone knew how they had succeeded in shifting it.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I think we’ve found what we came for.�
�

  Together, they felt their way back to the slippery flight of steps. A feeling of something evil seeped around them, oozing from the walls and the floor. Not until they were out in the open, among the weeds that grew huge and thickly around the tumbled ruins, was he able to calm himself down sufficiently to reason things out logically.

  ‘I never want to go down there again,’ Anne said, white-faced. ‘All those coffins along the walls. Were they —’

  ‘The entire line of the de Grinleys,’ he nodded. ‘Except of course, Richard de Grinley, the last of the line.’

  ‘You think there could be any truth in that old tale? That he never did die?’

  ‘I’ve been through the records carefully and there’s no mention of his death anywhere, but that doesn’t really prove anything. And apart from opening those coffins and —’

  ‘Don’t, Terry,’ said the other sharply. She placed her hand on his arm. ‘Let’s go back to Lady Parrish, but let’s not tell her anything of what we discovered down there. It would only upset her and she’s an old woman now.’

  *

  That evening, as Terence sat at a late meal, the ringing of the doorbell interrupted him. He rose sharply, walked swiftly along the hall and opened the door. Treherne stood there with Doctor Harmon close behind him.

  ‘Mind if we come in and have a little talk with you, Terry?’ said Treherne. ‘It could be a matter of life and death.’

  Terence led the way to his study. Inwardly, he felt oddly disturbed by this visit. Both men looked extremely grim.

  Harmon seated himself in the chair by the fire, stretching his hands out to the blaze. ‘I want you to stop these wild investigations of yours,’ he said bluntly. ‘I understand from several of the villagers that you’ve been wandering around in the ruins of the old manor.’

  Terence felt a quick stab of anger pass through him. ‘I presume you have some reason for saying this, Doctor?’

  The other nodded his head curtly. ‘This is exactly how your brother acted during the months before he died. There was naturally a lot of antagonism against him on the part of the villagers. Since his death, they began to feel that all of this was over and forgotten. Now you’ve started raking it all up again they don’t like it.’