Footsteps in the Dark

by Джорджетт Хейер

  "Really, Charles!" Mrs. Bosanquet expostulated. "It is true that I was about to make a reference to what happened last night, but I am sure I covered it up most naturally.,

  "Dear Aunt," said Charles frankly, "not one of you would have deceived an oyster."

  Peter came back into the room. "You seem to be getting very thick with Strange," he said to his sister. "Did you happen to find out what he is, or anything about him?"

  "He's a surveyor," said Charles, finishing what was left of his whisky and soda.

  "A surveyor?" echoed Margaret. "How do you know? Did he tell you so?"

  "To the deductive mind," said Charles airily, "his profession was obvious from his knowledge of the probable whereabouts of our cesspool."

  "Ass!" said Celia. "Come on up to bed. What does it matter what he is? He's nice, that's all I know."

  It was two hours later when Charles came downstairs again, and he had changed into a tweed suit, and was wearing rubber-soled shoes. Peter was already in the library, reading by the light of one lamp. He looked up as Charles came in. "Celia asleep?" he asked.

  "She was when I left her; but I've trod on nineteen creaking boards since then. Have you been round the house?"

  "I have, and I defy anyone to get in without us hearing."

  Charles went across to draw the heavy curtains still more closely together over the windows. "If Strange really means to try and get in to-night, he won't risk it for another hour or two," he prophesied. "Hanged if I can make that fellow out!"

  "From what I could gather," Peter said, "he did his best to pump Margaret. Seemed to want to find out how we were getting on here."

  Charles grunted, and drew a chair up to the desk and proceeded to study a brief which had been sent on from town that morning. Peter retired into his book again, and for a long while no sound broke the silence save the crackle of the papers under Charles' hand, and the measured tick of the old grandfather clock in the hall. At last Peter came to the end of his novel, and closed it. He yawned, and looked at his wrist-watch. "Good Lord! two o'clock already! Do we sit here till breakfast-time? I've an idea I shan't feel quite so fresh to-morrow night."

  Charles pushed his papers from him with a short sigh of exasperation. "I don't know why people go to law," he said gloomily. "More money than sense."

  "Got a difficult case?" inquired Peter.

  "I haven't got a case at all," was the withering retort. "And that's counsel's learned opinion. Would you like to go and fetch me something to eat from thee larder?"

  "No," said Peter, "since you put it like that, I shouldn't."

  "Then I shall have to go myself," said Charles, getting up. "There was a peculiarly succulent pie if I remember rightly."

  "Well, bring it in here, and I'll help you eat it," Peter offered. "And don't forget the bread!"

  Before Charles could open his mouth to deliver a suitable reply a sound broke the quiet of the house, and brought Peter to his feet in one startled bound. For the sound was that same eerie groan which they had heard before, and which seemed to rise shuddering from somewhere beneath their feet.

  Chapter Four

  The weird sound died, and again silence settled down on the house. Yet somehow the silence seemed now to be worse than that hair-raising groan. Something besides themselves was in the house.

  Peter passed his tongue between lips that had grown suddenly dry. He looked at Charles, standing motionless in the doorway. Charles was listening intently; he held up a warning finger.

  Softly Peter went across to his side. Charles said under his breath:

  "Wait. No use plunging round the house haphazard. Turn the lamp down."

  Peter went back, and in a moment only a glimmer of light illumined the room. He drew his torch out of his pocket and stood waiting by the table.

  It seemed to him that the minutes dragged past. Straining his ears he thought he could hear little sounds, tiny creaks of furniture, perhaps the scutter of a mouse somewhere in the wainscoting. The ticking of the clock seemed unusually loud, and when an owl hooted outside it made him jump.

  A stair creaked; Charles' torch flashed a white beam of light across the empty hall, and went out again. He slightly shook his head in answer to Peter's quick look of inquiry.

  Peter found himself glancing over his shoulder towards the window. He half thought that one of the curtains moved slightly, but when he moved cautiously forward to draw it back there was nothing there. He let it fall into position again, and stood still, wishing that something, anything, would happen to break this nerveracking silence.

  He saw Charles stiffen suddenly, and incline his head as though to hear more distinctly. He stole to his side. "What?" he whispered.

  "Listen!"

  Again the silence fell. Peter broke it. "What did you hear?"

  "A thud. There it is again!"

  A muffled knock reached Peter's ears. It seemed to come from underneath. In a moment it was repeated, a dull thud, drawing nearer, as though something was striking against a stone wall.

  "The cellars!" Peter hissed. "There must be a way in that we haven't found!"

  Again the knocking, deadened by the solid floor, was repeated. It was moving nearer still, and seemed now to sound directly beneath their feet.

  "Come on!" Charles said, and slipped the torch into his left hand. He picked up the stout ash-plant which he had placed ready for use, and stole out, and across the hall to the door that shut off the servants' wing from the rest of the house.

  The stairs leading down to the cellars were reached at the end of the passage. They were stone, and the two men crept down them without a sound to betray their presence. At the foot Charles said in Peter's ear: "Know your way about?"

  "No," Peter whispered. "We don't use the cellars."

  "Damn!" Charles switched on his torch again.

  The place felt dank and very cold. Grey walls of stone flanked the passage; the roof was of stone also, and vaulted. Charles moved forward, down the arched corridor, in the direction of the library. Various cellars led out of the main passage; in the first was a great mound of coal, but the rest were empty.

  The passage seemed to run down one side of the building, but the vaults that gave on to it led each one into another, so that the place was something of a labyrinth. The knocking sounded distinctly now, echoing through the empty cellars. Charles held his torch lowered, so that the circle of light was thrown barely a yard in front of him.

  Suddenly the knocking ceased, and at once both men stood still, waiting for some sound to guide them.

  Ahead of them, where the passage ended, something moved. Charles flashed his torch upwards, and for a brief instant he and Peter caught a glimpse of a vague figure. Then, as though it had melted into the wall, it was gone, and a wail as of a soul in torment seemed to fill the entire place.

  The sweat broke out on both men's foreheads, and for a second neither could move for sheer horror. Then Charles pulled himself together and dashed forward, shouting to Peter to follow.

  "My God, what was it?" Peter gasped.

  "The groan we've all heard, of course. Damn it, he can't have got away!"

  But the place where the figure had stood was quite empty. An embrasure in the wall seemed to mark the spot where they had seen it, yet if the apparent melting into the wall had been no more than a drawing back into this niche that could not solve the complete disappearance of the figure.

  The two men stared at one another. Charles passed the back of his hand across his forehead. "But - but I saw it!" he stammered.

  "So did I," Peter said roughly. "Good God, it can't be… This is getting a bit too weird to be pleasant. Look here… Damn it, that was no ghost. There must be a secret way through the wall." His torch played over the wall. It was built of great stone slabs each about four foot square. He began to feel them in turn. "We must be under the terrace," he said. "Gosh, don't you see? We're standing on the level of the ground here!" One of the blocks gave slightly under the thrust of his hand. "
Got it!" he panted, and set his shoulder to it. It swung slowly outward, turning on some hidden pivot, and as it moved that hideous wail once more rent the stillness.

  "So that's it, is it?" Charles said grimly. "Well, I don't mind telling you that I'm damned glad we've solved the origin of that ghastly noise." He squeezed through the opening in Peter's wake, and found himself, as Peter had prophesied, in the garden directly beneath the terrace. There was no sign of anyone amongst the shrubs near at hand, and it was obviously useless to search the grounds. After a moment both men slipped back into the cellar, and pushed the stone into place again.

  "Might as well have a look round to see what that chap was after," Peter said. "Why the banging? Is he looking for a hollow wall, do you suppose? Dash it, I rejected hidden treasure as altogether too far-fetched, but it begins to look remarkably like it!"

  "Personally I don't think we shall find anything," Charles answered. "Still, we can try. What a maze the place is!"

  Together they explored all the cellars, but Charles was right, and there was nothing to be seen. Deciding that their nocturnal visitor would hardly attempt another entrance now that his way of ingress had been discovered, they made their way up the stairs again.

  As they crossed the hall towards the library door a glimmer of light shone on the landing above, and Margaret's voice called softly: "Peter."

  "Hullo!" Peter responded.

  "Thank goodness!" breathed his sister, and came cautiously down to join him. In the lamplight her face looked rather pale, and her eyes very big and scared. "That awful groan woke me," she said. "I heard it twice, and called to you, Peter. Then when you didn't answer I went into your room and saw the bed hadn't been slept in. I got the most horrible fright."

  "Don't make a row. Come into the library," Peter commanded. "You didn't wake Celia, did you?"

  "No, I guessed you and Charles had staged something. Did you hear the groan? What have you been doing?"

  "We not only heard it, but on two occasions we caused it," Peter said, and proceeded to tell her briefly all that had happened.

  She listened in wondering silence, but when he spoke of the part he believed Strange to be playing, she broke in with an emphatic and somewhat indignant headshake. "I'm sure he isn't a crook! And I'm perfectly certain he'd never make awful noises to frighten us, or put skeletons where we should find them. Besides, why should he?"

  "I'm not prepared to answer that question without due warning," Charles said cautiously. "All I know about him at present is that he's a rather mysterious fellow who holds distinctly fishy conversations with a palpable old lag, and who - apparently - knows how to get round persons of your sex."

  "That's all rot," Margaret said without hesitation. "There's nothing in the least mysterious about him, and I expect if you'd heard more of it you'd have found that the fishy conversation was quite innocent really. You know how you can say things that sound odd in themselves, and yet don't mean anything."

  "I hotly resent this reflection upon my conversation," Charles said.

  "You've got to remember too, Peg, that when we heard that groan before, we found Strange close up to the house, and on the same side as the secret entrance," Peter interposed. "I don't say that that proves anything, but it ought to be borne in mind. I certainly think that Mr. Michael Strange's proceedings want explaining."

  "I think it's utterly absurd!" Margaret said. "Why, you might as well suspect Mr. Titmarsh!" Having delivered herself of which scornful utterance, she rose, and announced her intention of going back to bed.

  To be on the safe side, Charles and Peter spent the following morning in sealing up the hidden entrance. An account of the night's happenings did much to reconcile Celia to her enforced stay at the Priory. Human beings, she said, she wasn't in the least afraid of.

  "I only hope," said Mrs. Bosanquet pessimistically, "that we are not all murdered in our beds."

  Both she and Celia were agreed that the latest development made the calling in of police aid imperative. The men were still loth to do this, but they had to admit that Celia had reason on her side.

  "There's no longer any question of being laughed at," she argued. "Someone broke into this house last night, and it's for the police to take the matter in hand. It's all very well for you two to fancy yourselves in the role of amateur detectives, but I should feel a lot easier in my mind if some real detectives got going."

  "How can you?" said Charles unctuously. "When you lost your diamond brooch, who found it?"

  "I did," Celia replied. "Wedged between the bristles of my hair-brush. That was after you'd had the waste up in the bath, and two of the floor-boards in our room."

  "That wasn't the time I meant," said Charles hastily.

  Celia wrinkled her brow. "The only other time I lost it was at that hotel in Edinburgh, and then you stepped on it getting out of bed. If that's what you mean…'

  "Well, wasn't that finding it?" demanded Charles. "Guided by a rare intuition, I rose from my couch, and straightway put my - er - foot on the thing."

  "You did. But that wasn't quite how you phrased it at the time," said Celia. "If I remember rightly…'

  "You needn't go on," Charles told her. "When it comes to recounting incidents in which I played a prominent part you never do remember rightly. To put it bluntly, for gross misrepresentation of fact you're hard to beat."

  "Time!" called Peter. "Let's put it to the vote. Who is for calling in the police, or who is not? Margaret, you've got the casting vote. What do you say?"

  She hesitated. "I think I rather agree with Celia. You both suspect Mr. Strange. Well, I'm sure you're wrong. Let the police take over before you go and make fools of yourselves." She added apologetically: "I don't mean to be rude about it, but…'

  "I'm glad to know that," said Charles. "I mean, we might easily have misunderstood you. But what a field of conjecture this opens out! I shall always wonder what you'd have said if you had meant to be rude."

  "Well, you'll know in a minute," retorted Margaret. "And it's no good blinking facts: once you and Peter get an idea into your heads, nothing on God's earth will get it out again. You will make fools of yourselves if you go sleuthing after the unfortunate Mr. Strange. If he is at the root of it the police'll find him out, and if he isn't they'll find that out weeks before you would."

  After that, as Peter said, there was nothing to be done but to go and interview the village constable at once. Accordingly he and Charles set out for Framley after lunch, and found the constable, a bucolic person of the name of Flinders, digging his garden.

  He received them hopefully, but no sooner had they explained their errand than his face fell somewhat, and he scratched his chin with a puzzled air.

  "You'd better come inside, sir," he said, after profound thought. He led them up the narrow path to his front door, and ushered them into the living-room of his cottage. He asked them to sit down and to excuse him for a moment, and vanished into the kitchen at the back of the cottage. Sounds of splashing followed, and in a few moments Constable Flinders reappeared, having washed his earth-caked hands, and put on his uniform coat. With this he had assumed an imposing air of officialdom, and he held in his hand the usual grimy little notebook. "Now, sir!" he said importantly, and took a chair at the table opposite his visitors. He licked the stub of a pencil. "You say you found some person or persons breaking into your house with intent to commit a robbery?"

  "I don't think I said that at all," Charles replied. "I found the person in my cellars. What he came for I've no idea."

  "Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "That's very different, that is." He licked the pencil again, reflectively. "Did you reckernise this person?"

  Charles hesitated. "No," he answered at last. "There wasn't time. He escaped by this secret way I told you about."

  "Escaped by secret way," repeated Mr. Flinders, laboriously writing it down. "I shall have to see that, sir."

  "I can show you the spot, but I'm afraid we've already cemented it up."

  Mr
. Flinders shook his head reproachfully. "You shouldn't have done that," he pronounced. "That'll make it difficult for me to act, that will."

  "Why?" asked Peter.

  Mr. Flinders looked coldly at him. "I ought to have been called in before any evidence of the crime had been disturbed," he said.

  "There wasn't a crime," Peter pointed out.

  This threw the constable momentarily out of his stride. He thought again for some time, and presently asked:

  "And you don't suspect no one in particular?"

  Peter glanced at Charles, who said: "Rather difficult to say. I haven't any good reason to suspect anyone, but various people have been seen hanging about the Priory at different times."

  "Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "Now we are getting at something, sir. I thought we should. You'll have to tell me who you've seen hanging round, and then I shall know where I am."

  "Well," said Charles. "There's Mr. Titmarsh to start with."

  The constable's official cloak slipped from his shoulders. "Lor', sir, he wouldn't hurt a fly!" he said.

  "I don't know what he does to flies," retorted Charles, "but he's death on moths."

  Mr. Flinders shook his head. "Of course I shall have to follow it up," he said darkly. "That's what my duty is, but Mr. Titmarsh don't mean no harm. He was catching moths, that's what he was doing."

  "So he told us, and for all I know it may be perfectly true. But I feel I should like to know something about the eccentric gentleman. You say he's above suspicion…'

  He was stopped by a large hand raised warningly. "No, sir, that I never said, nor wouldn't. It'll have to be sifted. That's what I said."

  "… and," continued Charles, disregarding the interruption, "I can't say that I myself think he's likely to be the guilty party. How long has he lived here?"

  Mr. Flinders thought for a moment. "Matter of three years," he answered.

  "Anything known about him?"

  "There isn't nothing known against him, sir," said the constable. "Barring his habits, which is queer to some folk's way of thinking, but which others who has such hobbies can understand, he's what I'd call a very ordinary gentleman. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying is. He's not married, but Mrs. Fellowes from High Barn, who is his housekeeper, hasn't never spoken a word against him, and she's a very respectable woman that wouldn't stop a day in a place where there was any goings-on that oughtn't to be."