Within That Room!

by John Russell Fearn

  Vera snapped her fingers, her eyes bright.

  “Now, let’s see.” Dick narrowed his eyes in reflection. “Covering this corner when we looked into that cellar was a big old bookcase—obviously to cover the door. As for the kitchen regions, we didn’t even bother to look—”

  “I did, on my first night,” Vera interrupted, thinking. “But I thought the doors I saw led to pantries and similar places. I didn’t trouble to make sure. Those two could have been down there tonight and have come up that way.”

  “That’s just what they did do! I’m convinced of it!”

  “Then how was it that on the first night I arrived they used the normal stairway?”

  “Did you see them use it?” Dick questioned.

  “Well, no. They were down in the cellar when I found them, and I didn’t wait to see which way they came out. But the basement door was unlocked.”

  “Perhaps to tempt you down, and then they never heard you.”

  “Or else she forgot to lock it after our tour of inspection. I don’t know. Anyway, we’ve got this far. What happens next?”

  “We’ve got to scour that basement thoroughly—and the mystery basement as well—at the earliest moment, when things are propitious. Until then we—”

  Dick stopped talking, peering closely at the book, at the map of the district under the plan of the castle, a map designed in geological wavy lines.

  “Just look at the deposits in the district!” he cried. “Iron ore, salt, clay, rock sulphur. All volcanic stuff and Sunny Acres is over most of them.... That smell you noticed, was it like rotten eggs?”

  “Could have been, yes.”

  “Sulphur, sulphuretted hydrogen gas, anyway, smells very similar, and it’s a volcanic product.”

  “You don’t mean that sulphur gas produces that awful sensation—?”

  “No; that’s something quite different, and anyway sulphuretted hydrogen gas is too heavy to go up a flue. It floats along the ground. No, I’ve got another idea about the smell, and these deposits. Pretty amazing idea, too, but it might be right....” He snapped the book shut. “We have got to inspect that cellar! Now let’s get back before it’s too dark to see.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THIRD FINGER, LEFT HAND

  Mrs. Falworth was just lighting the oil lamps in the hall as they re-entered the house. She glanced in their direction as they came toward her.

  “You can lock up,” Vera instructed. “We shall not be going out again. We’ll have tea and biscuits and then retire.”

  “Very good, miss....” The housekeeper’s eyes traveled to the book Dick was carrying, then she crossed to the front door and began to push across the heavy bolts.

  “She saw it,” Dick murmured, as he and Vera moved into the oil-lighted drawing room. “She must have guessed by now that we’re hot-foot after her. Maybe it’ll force her into the open and save us the trouble of having to sort this business out to the last detail.”

  “Depends what coming into the open means,” Vera objected. “I don’t relish the thought of being killed in the middle of the night.”

  “Obvious murder is not Mrs. Falworth’s game. That would ruin everything for her. She prefers the gradual breaking down of a mind. That woman is a fiend at heart—as deadly as a viper—” He broke off, patted his pockets and said, “I wonder where my cigarettes are?”

  “You had them in here last, before we went up to see the ghost,” Vera reminded him, glancing round. “You should— There they are! Over on the table by the door.”

  He got up and crossed the room. It was as he picked the case up that he gave a start and looked fixedly across the hall. The drawing room door was slightly open and he could clearly see into the yellow glow that marked the kitchen. On the wall hung an oval mirror and in it was Mrs. Falworth’s reflection. Dick could faintly discern her bending over two cups upon a tray, shaking something into them. It wasn’t sugar, or anything of that nature. It was something in a white packet.

  He turned away abruptly, fearing his own reflection might be noticed.

  “Whatever you do,” he said, extending his cigarette case to Vera, “don’t drink your tea. Get rid of it somehow and pretend you have drunk it!”

  “But, Dick, why on earth—?”

  “Don’t drink that tea. I can’t explain now. Here she comes.”

  Mrs. Falworth entered a second or two later and set the try down quietly on a side table. She poured the tea into the cups and brought them across.

  “That’ll be all, thanks,” Vera said. “I will ring when we have finished.”

  “Very good, miss.” Mrs. Falworth went out and closed the door. Dick sniffed at his tea sharply.

  “No smell,” he murmured under his breath, glancing at the door, “but I saw her put something in these cups. I don’t think she’d try to poison us. It’s more likely to be a sleeping draught to keep us nice and quiet during the night. We’ll pour the stuff in the fireplace. Give me your cup.”

  Vera handed it over and watched as Dick emptied both cups into the huge fireplace, raking a few remaining cinders over the wet patches in the grate. Then he went over to the teapot, rinsed the cups out thoroughly with some tea in each—which again he emptied into the fireplace; then he refilled them.

  “Okay now,” he said. “Enjoy it.”

  “Suppose she put some in the teapot as well?” Vera asked uneasily.

  “I hardly think she would, as well as in the cups. Too much of it could kill. I’m risking it, anyway.”

  So Vera risked is as well. Then they both sat quiet for ten minutes waiting for any unusual symptoms, but nothing happened.

  “We’re okay,” Dick decided, relieved—still keeping his voice low. “And incidentally, if she goes to the trouble of giving us a sleeping draught, there must be something pretty important planned for tonight. It may be the chance of a lifetime for us to see what really is going on, because they won’t be expecting anything from us.”

  “True,” Vera agreed.

  “And also a chance to prove another theory,” Dick added, pondering. “If we can be sure that they are busily engaged in the cellar we might nip back and take a look at the horror-room. If we experience no sensations of terror, that will prove conclusively that it is induced by them. And we’ll be well on the way towards getting to the root of this whole business. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Vera nodded, and they clinked empty cups to seal the bargain.

  After a brief interval they put the cups on the tray and Vera rang the bell. Then she and Dick left, were halfway up the staircase as they saw the inscrutable housekeeper crossing the hall to take the tray to the kitchen.

  “I’ll bet she grins over those cups,” Dick murmured. “Thinking we’re going to go to sleep.”

  They came to the top of the stairs in sepulchral gloom.

  “Don’t overdo it with light up here, do they?” Vera sighed.

  “Might reveal too much of their comings and goings. Anyway, we know where our bedrooms are....”

  They stopped outside the girl’s door.

  “What’s the program?” she murmured.

  “Well, the first essential is to stay awake; but the ideal method would be for you to sit up in my room with me; or for me to sit up in your room. Both of us just as we are, dressed and ready.”

  “All right,” Vera agreed. “Come on in.”

  She could almost feel Dick staring at her. His voice sounded out of the gloom in surprise. “I thought you’d start a lot of argument about conventions!”

  “Conventions be hanged,” she said. “I’m pretty sure by now that murder has been done and that we’re next in line for it; that rubs out a lot of conventions.”

  He followed her into the room, and she said: “By the way, next time you are near a jeweler’s you might get a ring and seal this business bargain of ours—”

  Suddenly, in the dim gloom, she felt his arms about her.

  “Vera, you’re not kidding? You mean it? We’ve really be
come engaged—?”

  “I just said so,” she insisted.

  Then she lit a lamp and drew the curtains.

  “Queer sort of a night to get engaged, I suppose,” she reflected.

  Dick said: “Since there may be a delay before I can get to a jeweler I think—Here! This’ll show willingness, anyway!”

  He drew the gold signet ring from his little finger, thrust it on the girl’s third finger, left hand.

  “Never did a chap meet a finer girl,” he whispered. “You’ve got a lot of courage, looks—”

  “And a haunted castle!” she reminded him.

  “It occurs to me,” he went on, “that I’d better hop along to my own room and lock the door from the outside in case the Falworths decide to take a peep in at me.”

  He went out silently and was back in a minute with the key in his hand. He slipped it in his pocket and then motioned to chairs.

  “Nothing to do now except wait for it!”

  They settled themselves in easy chairs and for a while talked of commonplaces. About 11:30 they heard the Falworths come to bed.

  Twelve o’clock and one o’clock sounded from the grandfather clock below—and finally two. Vera was coiled up in her chair, her head pressed against the back and her eyes closed. Dick sprawled with legs outthrust and hands locked over his chest—then suddenly he drew his knees up sharply and sat listening. Reaching out he gave the girl a nudge.

  “Something moving,” he whispered.

  She fought the sleep out of her head and listened. To both she and Dick came the sound of feet moving softly along the corridor outside. As on that first night when Vera had listened alone, they faded presently into silence.

  “On the move, all right,” Vera agreed, standing up. “Let’s go.”

  Dick rose and felt in his coat pocket and brought a small flashlight into view.

  “I grabbed this when I went to lock my door: it may be useful. Ready?”

  Vera nodded, so he turned out the dim oil lamp and then opened the bedroom door. There was the customary vista of quiet, the moon shining through the stained-glass window. Making no sounds, they went downstairs and in a few minutes reached the doorway leading to the basement. It was locked.

  “Might have known it,” Dick growled. “Only one other way—take the back staircase from the kitchen. That leads right into the storage cellar and we may get a proper chance to see what they are up to. But not a sound, mind!”

  Cautiously, using his flash, he led the way into the kitchen regions. The beam settled on a table, a cupboard, a cook stove, and finally on the big door in the corner. It opened at Dick’s gentle touch and revealed narrow wooden stairs leading downward. A miasmic, unpleasant smell floated up to them.

  “Shoes off,” Dick whispered. “And mind the splinters.”

  Vera kicked hers off and Dick untied his laces swiftly. Soundlessly they began the descent and found it ended in another door. They stood listening intently. From behind it there came that mysterious swishing of water, and borne on the air was the horrible smell. Dick sniffed at it critically.

  “Very much like the residue of sulphuretted hydrogen gas,” he decided. “And since a small percentage in the air is fatal, we’d better watch our step.”

  Very gently he took hold of the doorknob and turned it. The door opened ever so slightly, perhaps a quarter of an inch. Dick could feel Vera trembling with excitement as she peered over his shoulder....

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PERCHED ON A FORTUNE

  A most extraordinary performance was going on beyond, and the drawback was that they dare not watch for more than a few seconds on account of the deadly odor drifting out to them.

  The lumber cellar was illumined by an oil lamp, and Mr. and Mrs. Falworth were both there. The stored articles seemed to have been moved to one side. A paving stone had been raised and into the square hole it had left depended a hose. It was connected to a small hand-driven pump, which old Falworth was moving up and down with surprising industry.

  Scattered about the floor in various directions were bowls, bottles, and glass containers of every size and shape, some filled with water apparently, and others empty. Whatever came though the hose was sluicing out of the pump nozzle and into a large vessel like an overgrown goldfish bowl. But, most surprising thing of all, the housekeeper and her husband were both wearing respirators, not the ordinary civilian gas mask variety but laboratory masks, used exclusively for poison gas research.

  “Shut—shut the door,” Vera choked, turning away. “I—I feel sick.... Come on!”

  They floundered up the wooden steps again and back into the kitchen. In silence they put their shoes on once more.

  “Well,” Vera murmured, “what do you make of that?”

  “Very interesting,” Dick’s voice showed he was preoccupied. “They’re extracting water or something like it, from below. The smell is definitely that of sulphuretted hydrogen, so it does not take a Sherlock to see that they’re extracting pure sulphur water.”

  “Of all the cracked ideas!” Vera declared blankly.

  “Cracked! Why, sweetheart, sulphur water in the pure state is one of the most valuable medicinal restoratives in existence. Ask any doctor. Take a trip to any place noted for its mineral springs and you’ll find people drinking sulphur water, and other waters rich in natural irons and other deposits. Vera, your castle is perched over a fortune!”

  “It is? But what good can it do—“

  “Listen, what these two scoundrels are doing with the sulphur water isn’t quite clear—but apparently they are bottling it. Some of those glass vessels down there are the product of a chemical factory. If they send that stuff to a professional chemist he may add something else and sell it, quite legally, as sulphur water; or he may even extract the pure sulphur and vaporize the water, thereby leaving sulphur tablets. There are endless varieties. It means, to the Falworths and the chemist, a good income—but it does not mean the fortune that could be made if this place were turned over exclusively as a place where people came to ‘take the waters’. You once said casually that this place would make a good institution. That perhaps is the very answer—a sanatorium. It would make a perfect one, with people in need of restorative coming here and taking the natural waters—waters and chemicals mixed by the activities of a long dead volcano.”

  “Whew!” Vera breathed, as the possibilities dawned on her. “Now I understand! This could become a second Harrogate, or something—”

  “Surely; and that is what the Falworths and chemist Henry Carstairs would do if only they could buy. Naturally, he is the chemist who does the receiving. The tie-up is obvious. Now we begin to see why you have got to be made to give up ownership.”

  “Do you think Carstairs knows the real circumstances?”

  “I can’t say. Perhaps he does not know what is really going on, though he must know the value of the stuff being sent to him. That is probably why he has offered £15,000 for this place, knowing he can make it many times over once he takes possession.”

  Vera set her jaw. “This settles it, Dick! I’m going to have the police in on this and get the Falworths thrown out! They’ve no right to do such things on my property—”

  “True, but neither would you have the right either without official permission from the health ministry. I don’t doubt that you would get it, but don’t start a lot of things you can’t finish. We have a ghost and an evil presence to solve yet, and no sanatorium can ever come into being until they are eliminated. Let’s keep on plodding towards a solution first....”

  Silently they drifted out into the hall, then Vera paused.

  “Why do they wear gas masks?” she asked. “Because of the sulphuretted hydrogen gas?”

  “Certainly—and it’s pretty obvious that Carstairs has supplied them, since they are laboratory masks. Sulphuretted hydrogen is deadly poison. There may be other gases, too. The Falworths are taking no chances.”

  “It didn’t affect us much though, did it
?”

  “It couldn’t, Dick said. “As I mentioned before, sulphuretted hydrogen is a heavy gas. It stays close to the floor. We were probably up to our knees in it, enough of it to kill us, but all we got was a slight, evil-smelling residue. Incidentally, there is a spot in America—Dead man’s Gulch, I think they call it—which is part of a volcanic valley. A man can cross it, but no dog or small animal can without dying. The answer is because the gas is over the dog or small animal, but only up to a man’s knees. Get the idea?”

  “What beats me is how people can drink the awful stuff!”

  “It undergoes certain refinements, of course, but that’s a job for a professional chemist. Anyway, having solved what those two are doing, our next job is to eliminate our major troubles—ghost and evil aura. Let’s go up and see how things are in the ghost room....”

  Keeping close together, they went soundlessly up the stairs and along the upper corridor, pausing finally outside the door of the horror room. Vera held the torch while Dick operated the screwdriver.

  “This,” he murmured, “is definitely the acid test! Get ready to back out quickly.”

  He eased the door inward with a gentle squeak and at last he had it wide. They gazed into the dust that seemed to always cast a perpetual haze over the place. It was gloomy, illuminated—apart from the flashlight—by the moonlight. Of the demoniac phantom there was no sign.

  Minutes passed, and there was not the remotest suggestion of that brain-numbing horror creeping upon them. The air smelt dusty and oppressive, nothing more.

  At last Vera relaxed, her face grimly set in the torchlight.

  “It begins to look as though you were right, Dick,” she murmured. “The Falworths don’t know we are in here and because of that nothing happens! That isn’t just coincidence!”

  They began to move into the room slowly, step by step, as though treading on quicksand; but even when they had reached the center of the chamber there was no trace of anything unusual. Finally Dick turned the flashlight toward the fireplace. Lying flat in the dust he directed the beam inside the broken back and then up the flue. Turning over, he flashed it down it. When he withdrew he was dirty but grinning in triumph.