John shivered. `I don't think I could have done it. I mean, stay on there for a moment longer than I positively had to. I wasn't frightened about going in at least no more than I would have been when breaking into any other place where I might have got a sock in the jaw but once inside I felt as if I was being watched by invisible eyes all the time. It was as though there was something indescribably evil lurking in the shadows behind me: something that had the power to rend and destroy, and that at any second might leap out on to the back of my neck. Then, just before you began to pray, I felt as if I was being suffocated; and I began to fear that I'd never get out at all.'
C. B. nodded. `I felt the same. The explanation is that the place has become the haunt of some very nasty elementals. As the Canon's familiars they would naturally try, in their blind, fumbling way, to prevent our escape. Perhaps if we had lingered they might have materialized. Anyhow, I had the feeling that they might, and I was scared stiff. My one thought was to get away while the going was good, and I wasn't capable of thinking of anything else till we were well down the road.'
Stubbing out his cigarette, John put his foot on the self starter. As it ceased to whirr and the engine began to fire, he said, `Since we've had the luck to get out all right, I'm glad we went in. It enabled you to find out a tremendous lot, and at least we know what we are up against now. I wish we could have made a job of it tonight, and called in the police to haul him off to jail; but since you've ruled that out, the sooner we can grab a hot toddy, get our wet things off, and hop into bed, the better.'
`Not so fast, laddie,' C. B. replied, as the car gathered speed. `I'll gladly dig the barman out to fix us hot toddies, whatever time we get back to Colchester, but I've no intention of returning yet. First, I mean to try to pick up a little evidence against his Satanic Reverence.'
Slowing down the car, John turned and stared at him. `You . . . you don't mean that you're going back into that hellish place?'
`No. I'm not poking my head into that hornets' nest again till the hornets have had a chance to settle down. But we are up to our necks in this thing now, and we've got no time to lose. I hate to think what my chief will have to say should matters go wrong, and you had better keep out of it; but I really do mean to risk finding myself in the dock this time. I intend to break, enter and, I hope, burgle private premises without the least excuse to justify my act if I am caught.'
17
The Mystery of The Grange
John let out a low whistle, then said, `It's not for me to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but d'you really think you ought to take such a risk, C. B.? I mean, of blotting your copy book so badly that even your Department will feel that it must wash its hands of you?'
`Yes. I think so in a case like this, for which no provision is made by our ordinary laws. I don't want to sound stuffy, but there are times when every man must be guided by his own conscience, and this is one of them. We have learnt to night that we are up against not just a dabbler in Black Magic who threatens the well being of one young woman, but a Satanist of the first order, who is striving to perfect and launch upon the world one of the worst horrors that even his master, the Devil, can have conceived. To stop that I am prepared to go to any lengths.'
`Since you put it that way, you are absolutely right; but where is this place you intend to break into?'
`I mean to pay a midnight visit to The Grange.' 'What good will that do us, as Beddows isn't there?' `Probably none. It's just a long shot; but there's a chance that we might find some useful pointers to Beddows' and his tie up with the canon.'
John spoke with a touch of deference. `I don't pretend to be psychic, but I didn't at all like the atmosphere of The Grange when we called there this evening. Perhaps that is because it is such a gloomy old place, but as these two beauties appear to be mixed up together I should think it is quite on the cards that The Grange, too, has got some pretty nasty spooks in it. Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing for one night?'
`To be honest, John, I have,' C. B. replied quietly. `But in the late war, whenever one of the R.A.F. boys was shot down, or made a crash landing, they used to send him up again just as soon as they could. It was an excellent principle. That's the way to keep one's nerve, and if it wasn't for the fact that the Canon and his pals must be on the qui vive I'd make myself go back into that crypt. As such a move would mean sticking my neck out a bit too far, I'm going into the moated Grange at midnight instead.'
`Well, you're the boss.' John tried to make his voice sound flippant. The few minutes he had spent in the crypt had been more than enough for him. He could only guess what C. B. must have been through while bound hand and foot there and expecting to be murdered within the hour; but he knew that to show admiration for the elder man would only embarrass them both, so without further remark he took the car round the village green and drove back the way they had come.
As they were passing the church, C. B. said, `All the same, John, you mustn't get the idea I'm about to risk running into something very nasty, or having to appear in the dock, for no better reason than to test my own nerve. I'm going into The Grange because this matter has become too urgent for me to neglect any chance of getting a new line on these people. We left France with the object of interviewing Beddows, because we felt confident that he would be able to tell us what lay behind Copely Syle's attempts to get hold of Christina. We have found that out from the Canon himself; but what we have learnt to night makes it more important than ever that we should get hold of Beddows with the least possible delay. At the moment we have only half the picture. He must be able to give us the other half. We've got to know why it was Christina that the Canon selected as his potential victim, and why her father left her marooned in the South of France. I have an idea that Copely Syle may be blackmailing him. If so, we'll get something on the enemy that way. If not, he may be able to provide us with some other line by which we can use the normal processes of the law to spike the Canon's guns. But we've got to trace him first, and it seems to me that our best chance of doing that is by raiding his house. With a little luck we may find some papers there which will give us a lead to where he has got to.'
`I hadn't thought of any of those things,' John admitted ruefully, and, angry with himself for having suggested going to bed while the night still held a chance to further elucidate the grim mystery which surrounded Christina, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator.
Two minutes later he drove the car a little way up a blind turning that he had noticed earlier, barely a hundred yards from the gates of The Grange, brought it to a standstill .and switched out its lights. C. B. produced a big torch from under the seat and went round to the boot. From it he got out several implements that are not usually found in a motor repair outfit, then they walked along the road to the entrance to the drive. As they reached it, C. B. said
`Now this time. ..'
`Sorry C. B.,' John interrupted him before he had a chance to get any further, `I'm much too cold and wet to hang about here. I'm coming in with you.'
`Then if we are caught we may both be jugged for housebreaking.'
`No. You know jolly well that doesn't follow. If we are surprised, the odds are that one of us will have time to get away. I couldn't go in with you before, because the Canon would have recognised me; but this is different. Honestly, we'll both be much safer if we stick together.'
`You won't, because you will be taking a quite unnecessary risk.' C. B. grinned at him in the darkness. `Still, since you insist, I won't deny that I'll be glad to have you with me. Come on, then.'
In single file they walked along the grass verge of the drive until they reached the sweep in front of the house; then C. B. led the way round to its back. The rain had eased a little and in one quarter of the dark heavens the moon was now trying to break through between banks of swiftly drifting cloud. The light it gave was just enough to outline dimly the irregularities of the building, parts of which were four hundred years old, and it glinted faintly on its wi
ndows. No light showed in any of them, neither was there now any sound of a wireless; but as it was still only a little after eleven o'clock C. B. feared that the Jutson couple might not yet have gone to sleep; so he continued to move with great caution.
As John peered up at the flat over the stables in which they lived, he whispered
`I wonder if they keep a watchdog.'
`If they do it would be a pretty definite indication that there is nothing worse here. Dogs will always run away rather than stay in a place where there are spooks.'
No growl or whine disturbed the stillness and, having been right round the house, they turned back. Drawing on a pair of rubber gloves, C. B. told John to put on his wash leather ones then he selected a small window in a semi circular two storied turret that jutted out from a main wall, and had evidently been built on at a much later date. Inserting a short jemmy opposite the catch, he pressed down on it: there was a sharp snap, and the window flew open.
Climbing inside he found, as he had expected, that the turret contained a black staircase, added no doubt when the original farm house had been enlarged and become the property of gentry. As he turned to help John in after him he whispered
`Never break in by a room, my lad, unless you know it to be the one room in the house you want to get into. Otherwise the odds are that you will find its door bolted and may have half an hour's hard work before you can get any further. On the other hand, if you come in by the hall or stairs the whole house is your oyster.'
He flashed his torch for a second. It disclosed a short passage ahead ,of them and a Maze door. Tip toeing forward, he reached the door and pushed it gently. Yielding to his touch, it swung silently open. They listened intently for a moment, but no sound came to them. C. B. shone his torch again and kept it on while he swept its beam slowly round, then up and down. The door gave on to the main hall of the house. It was large and lofty, with heavy oak beams. A broad staircase on one side of it led up to the landing of the first floor, and there was a small minstrels' gallery on the other. Opposite the intruders stood the front door, and to either side there were other doors, evidently giving on to the principal rooms of the house. The moving beam was suddenly brought to rest on a large oak chest under the stairs. On it stood a telephone.
Moving softly forward, C. B. shone the light down behind the chest till it showed a square, plastic box that was fixed to the skirting. Producing a pair of clippers from his pocket, he cut the main wire a little beyond the box. John, who had come up behind him, said in a low voice
`In for a penny, in for a pound, eh? We won't be able to laugh off the breaking and entering business now by spinning a yarn that we found a window open and just came in out of the rain.'
`Worth it,' replied C. B, tersely. `On a job like this, cutting the enemy's communications as a first move quadruples one's chance of getting away safely. If it becomes necessary to run for it they can't call out the police cars to scour the roads.
'It's a great comfort to be in the hands of a professional.' John's voice betrayed his amusement.
`That's quite enough from you, young feller. I have to know these things; but my own visits to strangers are nearly always by way of the front door, with a search warrant.'
`I suppose that's why you carry such things as jemmies, wire cutters and rubber gloves in your car kit, and always
John's banter was cut short by a faint noise that seemed to come from the top of the house. It sounded like the muffled clanking of some small pieces of metal. C.B.’s torch flicked out: they stood in silence for a minute; then John whispered a trifle hoarsely:
`What was that? It . . . ghosts don't really ever rattle their chains, do they?'
`Not as far as I know; but it certainly sounded like it,' C. B. whispered back. `Keep dead quiet now, so that next time we'll hear it clearly.'
For three minutes, that seemed like thirty to John, they stood absolutely still in the darkness; but the only sound they could catch was that of one another's breathing. At last, switching on his torch again, C. B. shone it aloft and round about. There was no sign of movement up on the landing or in the minstrels' gallery, and nothing to be seen other than the black oak beams outlined against the white walls and ceiling. Lowering the light, he said
`False alarm, I think. Just one of those noises there is no accounting for that one often hears in old houses at night. Come on! Let's explore.'
Crossing the hall, he opened the door on the right of the entrance. It gave on to a long low ceilinged drawing room. The place had a slightly musty smell, as though it had been shut up and no fire lit in it for a considerable time. The furniture in it was very ordinary: some of it had faded chintz covers; the rest was black, spindly legged stuff. On the walls there were some quite awful pictures, of the `Monarch of the Glen' and `Souls Awakening' type, in gilt frames.
As they advanced into it John caught sight of a photograph of Christina on an occasional table, which must have been taken when she was about seventeen. Picking it up, he stared at it and said
`How fantastic that anything so sweet should be even remotely connected with such ugly surroundings as these.'
C. B, had always preferred small, fair, vivacious women, so he saw nothing particularly attractive in Christina; and, being a realist, it was on the tip of his tongue to reply, `I've known better lookers who were reared in the slums of Paris and Vienna', but it occurred to him that that might be unkind; so he forbore to comment and continued to flash his torch this way and that, until he had decided that the room contained nothing worth closer examination at all events for the time being.
Leaving the drawing room, they crossed the hall to the room opposite. It proved to be the dining room. It also had an air of long disuse and chill dampness owing to lack of regular heating. John followed C. B. in and walked straight over to the bulky Victorian sideboard. At one end of it stood a tarnished silver Tantalus containing the usual three square cut glass decanters. Taking the stopper from one, he smelt it and said
`Good this is brandy. Shine your torch here a moment, C. B., and we'll have a quick one.'
`I see you are becoming quite a professional yourself.' C. B. smiled as he focused the beam.
John found some glasses in one of the sideboard cupboards, poured two stiff tots, then turned and grinned back. `Oh no; I'm only carrying out my role of Christina's fiancé. If I were really Mr. Beddows' prospective son in law, I'm sure he would expect me to play host to you in his absence.'
`You've certainly taken to the role like a duck to water,' C. B. twitted him. `I believe you have become jolly keen on that girl, although you haven't yet known her a week.'
`We've seen a great deal of each other in a short time, and in quite exceptional circumstances,' John replied in a non committal voice. `That makes a big difference; so naturally I've a very personal interest in helping to protect her.'
`Here's to our success in that, then.'
They clinked glasses and drank. The brandy was not of very good quality, but it was nonetheless welcome at the moment. John's shoes were soaked right through from standing about in the mud and wet, while C. B. had had to leave his hat and coat in the Canon's house; so he had since had a steady wetting from the drizzling rain. Both were feeling the chill of the raw night; and, although their behaviour was now light hearted, beneath the surface the nerves of neither of them had yet fully recovered from the shaking they had had in the crypt.
Warmed in body and fortified in mind by the fiery spirit, they put the glasses back and resumed their reconnaissance. While they were drinking, C. B. had already surveyed the dining room, and it contained no piece of furniture in which it seemed likely that papers would be kept; so they went out into the hall and tried a door under the stairs. It led only to a stone flagged passage, which was obviously the way to the kitchen quarters. Closing it quietly, C. B. shot its bolt, so that should Jutson be roused and, entering the house by a back door, seek to come through it, he would find his way blocked. They then tip toed across to th
e door opposite and, opening it, found themselves in a study, three walls of which were lined shoulder high with books.
'Ah, this looks more promising,' C. B. murmured, as the torch lit up a big roll top desk. `You stay by the door, John, and keep your ears open, just in case the Jutsons are not asleep yet and we have disturbed them. If you hear anyone trying that door across the hall that leads to the kitchen quarters, slip in and warn me. We'll have time then to get back into the drawing room and out of the front windows.'
While he was speaking he walked to the study window and drew its curtains as a precaution against the Jutsons seeing a light in the room, for it looked out on to the backyard. Then, producing a bunch of queer looking keys from his pocket, he set to work on the desk. In less than a minute he had its roll top open.
With swift, practised fingers he went systematically through one pigeon hole after another. When he had done, the owner of the desk would never have guessed that the papers it contained had been examined; but the search had revealed nothing of interest. The pigeon holes and shallow drawers held only Henry Beddows' household accounts, note paper, cheque books, pencils, rubbers and so on. None of the bills or receipts suggested any activity which could be considered unorthodox.
C. B. was just about to reclose the desk top when John stepped back through the door and swiftly swung it nearly shut.
`What is it?' C. B. asked below his breath.
`The clanking of that chain again,' John whispered. He was still holding the door a few inches open. C. B. stepped up to him and, their heads cocked slightly sideways, they listened with straining ears for some moments.
As no further sound reached them, John mumbled rather shamefacedly
`Sorry. I could have sworn I heard a chain being dragged across the floor somewhere at the top of the house; but I must have been mistaken. Nerves, I suppose.'
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