It was not the first time Mr. Hannay had evaded the big issue. Always to-morrow something would be done. Pat sighed.
“I want a new cook to the situation,” she said. “That’s the third servant we’ve lost in a fortnight. After all, these people have seen things.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Hannay irritably. “It’s all imagination. Ghosts—bah! Death watches—rubbish!”
She held up her finger to enjoin silence. From somewhere near at hand the death watch was tapping rhythmically, noisily, ominously.
3
Mr. Herzoff—when he was called “Professor” he generally protested—was a man of middle height, spare of frame, delicately featured. His hair was grey; his long, rather sensitive face almost colourless. Behind his horn-rimmed glasses were a pair of dark eyes, and the stare of these could be very disconcerting.
It was generally believed at the Mansion Golf Club that he was wealthy. He used to speak disparagingly of his little house at Weisseldorf, but from what he said once they gathered that his little house was a respectable-sized castle.
His appearances at the club were of a fugitive character. He had been a member for many years, but when he made his last appearance the staff had almost entirely changed. He played a good game of golf, was quiet, unassuming, and an authority on almost every kind of subject from economics to wild-game hunting.
Mr. Hannay found him singularly sympathetic when, a little shamefacedly and with understandable hesitation, he broached this question of the supernatural.
The Professor must come over and see his house. Mr. Hannay was very proud of Chesterford, and never tired of exhibiting it. Most people who accepted his invitation had gone away unimpressed. Mr. Herzoff, on the other hand, stood before the house and pointed out certain admirable features of architecture which its designer had never noticed before. Mr. Hannay, with some pride, personally conducted his guest through the house. They came at last to a drawing room which owed much of its loveliness, if the truth be told, to the insistence of the builder upon certain characteristics, for which Mr. Hannay now took all the credit.
“If I may express the opinion, it’s a very beautiful home,” said Mr. Herzoff.
Hannay agreed.
“All that panelling came out of the Duke of—well, I forget his name, but anyway he was a duke; had a château in France. I’ve had big offers to let it, but no, sir! A man from London was up here a month ago, trying to get it. He told me to write my own cheque.”
“I can understand your reluctance,” said Herzoff politely, and waited for the story which had been promised him. “You say something happened here last night?”
Mr. Hannay took a deep breath.
“I am going to tell you,” he said. “There have been some queer things happening here. At least, these servants say so. I tell ’em that the death watch is all nonsense. It’s a little beetle that gets into the wood and starts knocking to attract the attention of the female beetle.”
Mr. Herzoff smiled. He knew the insect.
“That is what it has all grown out of,” said Hannay. “They think the tapping means somebody’s going to die. That is the superstition. You get one or two hysterical girls around the place and they’ll imagine anything.”
Mr. Herzoff appeared thoroughly interested.
“What have they heard or what have they seen?” he asked.
Mr. Hannay explained.
“I don’t believe in it—understand that. They must have left the wireless on one night. They heard voices talking—people quarrelling. Then the old cook saw a man walking on the lawn. Some down-and-out looking around for a place to sleep, I imagine. Last night the maid saw him again.”
Mr. Herzoff frowned. His dark eyes focused upon his host. Evidently he was impressed.
“They heard people quarrelling—a man and a woman? That’s queer,” he said. “That’s very queer!”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Hannay, alarmed.
The Professor did not attempt to explain what he meant. He asked one or two questions. What time was it at night when this quarrelling was heard? When he was told eleven, he started.
“Is there any significance in that?” asked Mr. Hannay anxiously.
“No,” said the other slowly. “Only I would rather like to be here at eleven o’clock one night.”
“Would you?” asked Hannay eagerly. “I was hoping you would offer to do that. I’ll have your things brought over from the hotel.”
Mr. Herzoff hesitated for the fraction of a second.
“You’d be doing me a favour,” Hannay went on. “I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Herzoff. All this talk about ghosts and voices is getting me—er—rather worried.”
Herzoff looked at him thoughtfully.
“I don’t want you to believe for one moment that I am an authority on the occult. I have dabbled in it just a little, as every scientist must. Generally speaking, all this ghost business has a very simple explanation. Either somebody is trying to fool you or somebody is lying to you. If you see it yourself, that is quite another matter, but it is not conclusive. If you think your daughter won’t object to my staying——”
“She’ll be delighted,” said Hannay, with great heartiness.
Pat had been into Marlow, shopping, and was approaching Quarry Hill when there shot out of the Henley Road a business-like little racing car. She swerved violently to the left and jammed on her brakes, hot with annoyance, not unconscious of the fact that she herself had been travelling at a very good speed.
Peter Dunn, who drove the offending car, stopped within a few inches of her running board and eyed her reproachfully.
“There is a notice telling you to go slow,” said Pat indignantly. “Can’t you read?”
Peter shook his head.
“No; I can do almost everything but read,” he said calmly.
She was breathless, still angry, yet mindful of the fact that here within a few feet of her sat the mysterious young man whose constant appearances near the house had excited her interest.
“You might have killed me,” she said.
“I might have killed myself, which is also important.”
His callousness and effrontery took her remaining breath away.
“Very charmingly put,” she said, maintaining her politeness with difficulty.
“I’m very sorry to have frightened you,” he said, and that was exasperating.
“I’m not frightened! Do you mind backing your car so that I can go on?”
He made no attempt to move.
“Can’t you go on unless I back my car?” he asked innocently.
“Can’t you see?”
She was furious with him.
He nodded.
“Well, do something, please!”
And then he asked a surprising question.
“Aren’t you Miss Patricia Hannay?”
“That is my name, yes,” she said coldly.
“Good Lord! What a bit of luck! You’re the one person in the world I want to meet. My name is——”
“I don’t want to know your name,” she said haughtily.
“The first name is Peter——” he began.
“I’m thrilled,” she said. “Will you please back your car?”
Peter’s gesture was one of despair.
“May I make a confession? This is a new car, and I don’t know how it works. I only know the self-starter and the brake.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“It doesn’t sound true, does it? Well, it isn’t. Before I back I want to ask you something, Miss Hannay; and, first, I want to apologize to you for giving you such a fright.”
“If you imagine I’m frightened by a——” She hesitated for a word.
“S
ay it,” he said gently. “Don’t spare my feelings. ‘Brute’ was the word you were thinking of——”
“I wasn’t,” she said tartly, and looked round.
A car was behind her, waiting to pass.
“We’re holding up the traffic.”
But he was indifferent.
“I’ll bet nothing frightens you—bad driving, collisions—ghosts——”
He paused inquiringly, and saw her start.
“What do you mean—ghosts?” she said, a little breathlessly. “What do you know?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders.
“I was in a boat the other night. One of your maids came flying down the hill, babbling of bogeys.”
She did not reply, but just stared at him. And then:
“Will you let me go?” she asked.
He put his car into reverse and drew clear, and her machine jerked forward and went flying up Quarry Hill. Peter followed at a more leisurely pace, but when he came to the open road at the top she was out of sight.
So that was the man?…She was not quite sure of him. Usually she could place men—especially young men—but for the moment he eluded classification. He was not unpleasant, but she resented his assurance, which made her feel something of a fool, certainly a little on the inferior side.
As she came up the drive to Chesterford she saw a stranger standing by her father’s side under the white portico, but she instantly recognized him by the description her father had given as the redoubtable Herzoff. Mr. Hannay introduced him.
“I’m afraid I’m taking advantage of your father’s hospitality, Miss Hannay—I am the unexpected guest.”
She smiled at this.
“Not altogether unexpected. We’re rather glad to have you. I hope you won’t die of indigestion, for the new cook will not be here for two or three days.”
Apparently he had been on the point of leaving when she arrived. He was driving over to his hotel to collect his baggage. She thought that, if she had not known who he was, she would have placed him as a scientist. He was what a scientist should look like, she thought.
“It will be charming to have him, but why is he coming to stay with us just now?” she asked. “By the way, does he play tennis?”
Mr. Hannay shook his head.
“I’m afraid he doesn’t. The fact is, he’s rather keen to go into this ghost business.”
She made a wry little face as she walked into the house.
“Does he know all about it, too?”
“Why ‘too’?” asked Mr. Hannay with a frown, and she told him of her adventure.
“I don’t know who this young man is, but apparently the fact that we are troubled with ghosts——”
“Don’t say ‘troubled with ghosts,’ ” said Mr. Hannay irritably. “It sounds as though we were troubled with cockroaches.”
“They’re worse than cockroaches,” said Pat. “Well, he’s heard about them…this young man.”
“Who is he?” asked Mr. Hannay.
Patricia, peeling her gloves, sighed impatiently.
“I don’t know, Daddy—he’s just a young man. And rather impertinent. No, I wouldn’t say that—not impertinent. But he’s a little unusual.”
“Does he live about here?”
She changed the subject.
“What did you tell Mr. Herzoff?”
Hannay was rather vague. He had told him about the voices and the people talking and the death watch….
“Did you tell him about the dog that was found dead on the lawn?” she asked quietly.
Mr. Hannay winced. That was the one subject that he did not discuss. He had bought a dog, a trained police dog, and it had died in most peculiar circumstances. Higgins, the new butler, had been the sole witness, and there was the dog, stiff on the lawn, to support the testimony.
Higgins came in at that moment, a melancholy-looking man, with a weakness for taking away drinks that had not been drunk and tidying things unnecessarily.
“You saw it, Higgins?”
“Yes, miss, I saw it. You were talking about the dog, sir? I don’t want to see anything like it again.”
“He might have been poisoned,” growled Hannay.
Higgins shook his head sadly.
“Why, sir, who could have poisoned him? I was watching him. He walked out onto the lawn. I could see him plainly in the moonlight. And then I saw this woman in white come out of the trees, and she sort of lifted her hand. The old dog howled and just dropped.”
He took his handkerchief from his trousers pocket and dabbed his forehead with great precision.
“And the next minute, sir”—impressively—“I heard the death watch—right in my room where there isn’t any panelling.”
“Why didn’t I see it?” asked Hannay irritably, and Higgins looked pained.
“Because, sir, if I may respectfully suggest it, you were asleep, and therefore you wasn’t looking. And if you was asleep and wasn’t looking you couldn’t see anything. That’s been my experience, sir. It’s got me, sir.” He was very serious. “I’ve been with some of the best families in the country and I’ve never seen anything like this happen.”
He looked round over his shoulder as though he expected to find some supernatural eavesdropper.
“The house is haunted, sir,” he said in a lowered voice.
“Nothing of the sort,” snapped Hannay. “I will see just what is going to happen.”
Higgins sighed, gathered up the glasses onto a tray, and shook his head.
“You won’t see anything unless you keep awake, sir—that’s my experience,” he said.
“I’ll keep awake all right,” said Hannay grimly. “Have a bedroom got ready for Professor Herzoff. He’s coming to stay here to-night.”
When Higgins had gone:
“The death watch, my dear, as I have explained before——”
Pat groaned.
“Is a little beetle ringing up his girl friend—I know all about that. I learnt it at school,” she said.
She met the new gardener that afternoon. It was no unique experience to come across odd people working about the house whom she had never seen before. It was less of an experience to meet servants in the morning and find they had disappeared by the evening.
She came across a big man working with a hoe on the edge of the lawn. He grinned at her and nodded. He was not a pleasant sight. He had broad shoulders and a round, odd-looking head. His features were irregular; he had the biggest and ugliest mouth she had ever seen in a man.
“Are you the new gardener?” she asked.
He grinned again.
“Yes, miss, I am. Name of Standey. I’m a bit new to this place, so you’ll have to excuse me.”
She remembered then that there had been no flowers in the house for two or three days, and told him.
There was something about him she did not like. He was staring at her with frank admiration. There was in his attitude an insolence which she resented.
“I don’t see why they want flowers when you’re around, miss,” he said, with clumsy gallantry. “I don’t think I am likely to grow anything as pretty as you.”
She stared at him, open-eyed. This was a new experience for her, and not a particularly pleasant one.
“Go up to the house and see the maid,” she said coldly. “Ask her what flowers she wants.”
He did not stir: he stood, leaning on his hoe, his pale eyes devouring her.
“I’ll be going up to get my tea in a minute——” he began.
“Go up now,” she said, and he went reluctantly.
She told herself it was the sort of thing she must expect if they engaged incompetent servants. The man was probably a gardener’s labourer who had seized the opportunit
y of promoting himself to a position which he could not adequately fill.
From the lawn to the box hedge which surrounded the western confines of the property was only a few yards. She was unaware that she had attracted an audience, and not until she heard a soft laugh did she turn round quickly. It was the young man who called himself Peter.
“What a lad!” said Peter. “One of the old cave-man school.”
Recovering from her surprise, she looked at him coldly.
“He was very impertinent,” she said. “There seems to be an epidemic of that sort of thing.”
Peter grinned.
“And I am part of the disease?” he said. “Yet the last thing in the world I want to be is impertinent. What is his name?”
She was eyeing him steadily, and there was no encouragement in her glance.
“I didn’t ask him for his card,” she said, “and anyway, you can’t read,” she added maliciously.
Peter grinned again.
“That was a little joke. I should have explained it at the time. All my jokes require an explanatory footnote. As a matter of fact, I am a pretty good reader.”
She nodded.
“There is a board on the gate you came through,” she said significantly.
“I know,” said Peter. “It says ‘Private. Please keep out.’ I thought it was unnecessarily brusque, even rude.”
For some reason or other she was exasperated; unreasonably so she agreed to herself.
“You’re lucky not to have met the dog——” she began.
“He would have been lucky to have met me,” said Peter quietly. “I understand your dog died with dramatic suddenness after seeing a ghost.”
“Who told you that?” she gasped.
“Je sais tout—French. As a matter of fact, I’m terribly interested in your affairs, Miss Hannay. I know it’s abominable of me, but I can’t know too much about you, and if I could only have a talk with you for ten minutes——”
“The odd thing is that I don’t want to talk to you even for one minute.”
She saw him look past her and turned her head. Standey, the new gardener, was coming away from the house and walking towards her.
“That isn’t odd—it’s inhuman,” said Peter. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 169
