Crimson Snow

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Look after your brother, Mr. Charton,’ muttered Cromwell.

  Gerry nodded, and Ironsides and Johnny were right on the general’s heels when he entered the Death Room. There were one or two other men in the party, too. Johnny’s father was walking round the table, staring at the floor, searching all about. Cromwell helped matters by flashing on a powerful electric torch, and the white beam of light slashed the darkness like a miniature searchlight.

  ‘Nothing!’ said General Lister, more to himself than to the others. ‘Nothing at all. I knew it. There couldn’t be anything.’

  ‘I say, dad, you’re worrying me,’ protested Johnny, taking his father’s arm. ‘You’re looking nearly as bowled over as that young fellow in the hall. Why?’

  His father did not seem to hear. He was still looking at the floor, particularly where the moonlight streamed into the room. There was nothing but the parquet wood—no body—no pools of blood—nothing! The floor was bone dry and bare. Before Ronnie had commenced his vigil, the whole floor had been thoroughly swept, and the furniture dusted.

  ‘God help him!’ muttered the general.

  ‘But what on earth…’

  ‘Ronnie Charton saw an apparition in this room,’ said General Lister steadily. ‘Call it a ghost, if you like. I’ve never really believed in ghosts—until now.’

  ‘Here, steady, guv’nor! The poor chap simply worked himself into a state of terror, and saw things,’ objected Johnny. ‘The imagination can play frightfully queer tricks…’

  ‘Perhaps so—but it was not imagination in this case,’ interrupted his father. ‘Two hundred years ago Sir Travers Cloon, the then lord of the manor, was foully murdered in this very room. He was found lying on the floor in a great pool of blood, with a broken iron stake through his heart.’

  ‘Whew! That’s just what Ronnie said.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the general. ‘That’s just what Ronnie said.’

  There was a silence. All the men in that gloomy room looked at one another strangely. For a few moments the only sound was the whistling of the wind outside.

  ‘Very rum,’ said Ironsides softly. ‘Very rum, indeed!’

  ‘The boy knew nothing of this story,’ continued the general, his manner almost fierce. ‘Nobody in the house knew it—except me. When you asked me to tell you the story of the Death Room, I refused. Ronnie knew nothing at all, I tell you. What he saw was an apparition. He couldn’t have imagined something of which he had absolutely no knowledge.’

  He walked towards the door, and all the others, except Ironsides, promptly followed him. Even Johnny, whose nerves were composed of a mixture of catgut and tungsten, felt an inclination to be elsewhere. When they got back into the hall they found that Ronnie Charton was on his feet. As he saw them coming he took an impulsive step towards them.

  ‘Well?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘It’s all right, my boy,’ said General Lister kindly. ‘Your brother had better take you up to your room. You’ve had a very nasty dream…’

  ‘Dream!’ shouted Ronnie, in amazement. ‘What do you mean—dream? Why do you try to treat me like a child? You’ve seen the body, haven’t you?’

  ‘There is no body, Charton,’ said the general. ‘Nobody has been killed. There’s nothing in the Death Room…’

  ‘You’re mad!’ panted Ronnie hoarsely.

  He pushed past them, and ran unsteadily into the south corridor. When he dashed into the Death Room, he found Cromwell pottering about with his electric torch.

  ‘It was here—lying on the floor, right on this spot!’ said Ronnie, pointing. ‘Why are you trying to trick me?’ He spun round angrily on his host and his brother, who had followed him in. ‘You’ve taken the body away…’

  ‘Come, come, my boy,’ said General Lister quietly. ‘Nobody’s trying to trick you. Look for yourself. You say the body was here? But the floor is bone dry, and even if some ill-disposed practical joker played a cruel trick on you, it would have been quite impossible to remove the body and wipe up the blood in so short a space of time. Scarcely five minutes elapsed between your cries and our entry into this room. But the very idea of such a practical joke is too outrageous to be given a moment’s consideration.’

  Ronnie Charton had a relapse. All he could do as he stood looking at the dry floor was to babble incoherently. He was led away by his brother and another man, and as they took him upstairs he sobbed and shook. It was fortunate that Dr. Ware was a member of the house-party, and he promised General Lister that he would do everything possible.

  When Johnny went back into the Death Room, he found Cromwell still prowling about. Cromwell, for some reason, was taking a keen interest in the apartment.

  ‘There’s something funny about this affair, my Johnny,’ said Ironsides confidentially. ‘I’ve read stories about haunted rooms. If young Charton had been found stiff and cold, the whole thing would have been just the same as the situation in nine ghost stories out of ten.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Johnny. ‘This damned business is all wrong. Not according to Hoyle at all. It’s the bloke who spends the night in the haunted chamber who always cops it in the neck. Ronnie copped it to a certain extent, but he’s still in the land of the living. What’s the answer, Old Iron? Who was the bloke on the floor?’

  Ironsides did not appear to be listening. He was continuing his perambulations round the room, and Johnny went on talking. He had an idea that he was talking to himself, but it amused him.

  ‘Personally, I don’t believe there was any bloke on the floor,’ he said. ‘How could there have been? Ronnie locked himself in this room, sat in front of the fire, and proceeded to get a large attack of the heebie-jeebies. Being an absolute chump, he wouldn’t admit that the room was getting him down, and in the end he saw things… How do we know that Ronnie had never heard the story of the Death Room? The old man didn’t trot it out in the library, but Ronnie might have heard it years ago. You know what I mean, a sort of subconscious knowledge. Then his imagination starts working overtime…’

  ‘What the hell are you drivelling about?’ asked Cromwell tartly. ‘I was the first to get to the young blighter, wasn’t I? He didn’t see any spooks. He was scared in quite a different way.’

  Johnny walked across. Ironsides was on his hands and knees, and his electric torch was lying on the floor, sending its shaft of light across the parquet. And with the point of a pencil, Ironsides was gently turning over some tiny scraps of something.

  ‘What have you got there?’ asked Johnny curiously.

  ‘Can’t you see? Earth, my good Johnny—little particles of damp earth!’

  And Bill Cromwell’s manner caused Johnny Lister to look at him in wonder; for Cromwell had suddenly become very happy—a sure sign that he was exceedingly puzzled.

  IV. The Crypt

  Christmas Day found the Cloon Castle house-party gay and happy. The blizzard of the night was over, the sun was shining, and there was snow everywhere. It was the kind of Christmas Day one sometimes reads about in old-time novels, but rarely experiences.

  With the bright winter’s sunshine streaming through the windows, Ronnie Charton’s adventure of the night seemed perfectly ridiculous. Most members of the house-party—and the servants, too—had been reassured when it had been established that there was no gruesome body lying in the Death Room, as Ronnie had stated. There was not even the slightest evidence of a ghost.

  ‘Nerves—that’s all it was, just nerves,’ was the general verdict. ‘The young ass shut himself up in that gloomy old room and his imagination did the rest. Serves him right!’

  Which was all the sympathy Ronnie Charton got. His fellow guests were laughing at his misfortune. Ronnie himself kept to his room this morning, and it was felt by one and all that this was the best place for him. The party was a great deal more pleasant without him.

  Nearly all the talk at the bre
akfast table was concerned with the prospects of tobogganing, winter sports generally, and the great blizzard of the night. General Lister’s prophecy proved correct. Cloon Castle was completely snowed up. Every available manservant had been working for hours to cut a way through a ten-foot drift in one of the rear courtyards, for it appeared that three unfortunate grooms were marooned in an out-building. The difficulties of this task indicated how thoroughly the castle was shut off from the outside world. For the drifts in the drive, and elsewhere, were even deeper. Some enthusiasts conceived the idea of climbing to the castle’s highest turret, and taking a look at the countryside through binoculars. So, directly after breakfast, a crowd of laughing young men and girls went off on this quest, and Johnny was roped in as head man.

  After a dizzy climb up endless circular steps, the turret of the highest tower was reached—and then it was seen that the house-party was cut off from the world in very truth. The air was as clear as crystal, and one could see for miles in every direction. The Half Mile Lane, which was the only connecting link with the main road, had completely disappeared; even the tops of the hedges had vanished. The main road itself could not be identified. In every direction snow, and nothing but snow.

  ‘Well, if this isn’t ye olde Christmasse weather,’ remarked Johnny, ‘go find me some. I’m told that the telephone is as dead as mutton, so the wires must have been blown down during the night. How do you like being marooned, Phyllis, my child?’

  Phyllis, the girl who had attached herself to Johnny this morning, laughed happily.

  ‘As long as there’s enough grub in the place to carry us over the vacation, who cares?’ she replied, with practical common sense. ‘That was one of the first questions I asked when I came down this morning, and they tell me that the castle is so stacked with fodder we can have double rations at every meal for a month, and the pile wouldn’t look any smaller.’

  ‘We should worry about snow, then,’ said Johnny, grinning.

  The Christmas spirit so possessed him that he joyously agreed to join a party of daring young people who were planning to go out and make a toboggan run. But when he went up to his room, to obtain a woollen scarf and heavy gloves, he encountered Ironsides in the wide corridor; and Ironsides was looking so serenely and disgustingly happy that Johnny stopped dead.

  ‘Dammit, Old Iron, you don’t mean to say that you’re still thinking about that blighting business of Ronnie Charton and the Death Room?’ asked Johnny. ‘A whole gang of us is going out into the cold, cold snow. Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘What do you take me for—a lunatic?’ retorted Cromwell, with a snort. ‘I can see all the snow I want from the windows—and a hell of a sight more than I want! But go ahead with your childish pleasures, if you want to. You’re on vacation, so I can’t expect you to work.’

  ‘Work!’ ejaculated Johnny, staring.

  ‘You disappoint me, Johnny,’ said Ironsides, with regret. ‘It’s a relief to know that most of the featherbrains in this house believe that young Charton was merely the victim of his own jitters. But you’re different—or you ought to be. There’s a grim mystery waiting to be solved in the Death Room, but don’t let that interfere with your pleasures.’

  And Bill Cromwell brushed past, and walked into Ronnie Charton’s bedroom. Johnny followed, his interest in the proposed outdoor jaunt practically dead.

  Ronnie looked practically dead, too. He was lying in bed as still as a corpse, his face pallid and drawn, even in sleep. General Lister and Gerry Charton and Dr. Spencer Ware were in the room, too, standing by the bed and looking down at its motionless occupant.

  ‘Am I intruding?’ asked Ironsides mildly. ‘I was going to ask Ronnie a few questions about last night.’

  The general shook his head.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to question him for some days, Mr. Cromwell,’ he replied. ‘His nerves are in such a dreadful state that Dr. Ware was obliged to give him a sleeping draught.’

  Gerry, who was looking haggard, suddenly cursed.

  ‘If we hadn’t been sozzled last night, we wouldn’t have allowed the young idiot to do such a crazy thing,’ he said fiercely. ‘I haven’t had a wink of sleep since—it happened. I was with Ronnie until six o’clock, and he was so wild and violent that I was jolly glad when Dr. Ware came in. Damn all haunted castles and haunted rooms!’

  General Lister, who was a kindly man, made allowances for Gerry’s overwrought condition, and he was not even offended.

  ‘The present trouble, I’m afraid, is going to be the least of our worries,’ said the brain specialist, his manner very grave. ‘I’ve had a great deal of experience of nervous disorders, gentlemen, and this unfortunate young man will need very careful treatment and nursing if he is to be restored to perfect health.’

  The general and Ironsides looked at him hard, and Dr. Ware, who was standing in such a position that Gerry could not see him, tapped his head significantly.

  ‘A great deal depends upon Ronnie himself,’ continued the doctor. ‘I’m afraid he’s not the strong man he pretends to be. You must forgive me for being frank, Gerry.’

  ‘You’re not telling me anything, Dr. Ware,’ growled Gerry Charton. ‘I’ve always known that Ronnie was nothing but a windbag and a braggart. It was his poses that always made me see red.’

  ‘I have too often found that such mentalities are the quickest to crumble under the influence of a great shock,’ said Dr. Ware. ‘Men like Ronnie go through life fooling themselves constantly. They think they are very fine fellows; they express contempt for almost every known convention. It is only when they experience a sudden shock that their innate weakness is exposed. To use a colloquialism, they just can’t take it.’

  Cromwell and Johnny left the bedroom a moment or two before their host. Johnny was looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Does the old boy mean that Ronnie will eventually be shoved into the loony bin?’ he murmured.

  ‘It seems to be the general idea,’ replied Ironsides. ‘And why not? He wouldn’t be the first young fool to go crazy after spending a night in a haunted room.’

  ‘But I thought you said…’

  ‘That the room was not really haunted?’ supplied Cromwell. ‘What difference does it make? Ronnie thought it was haunted, and he saw a dreadful apparition—and it comes to exactly the same thing.’

  They were joined by Johnny’s father.

  ‘This is a damnable business, my boy,’ said the general worriedly. ‘Thank God we’ve got a doctor on the premises. Snowed up as we are, and quite unable to obtain medical aid from outside, we should have been in a fine pickle with Ronnie… By the way, Johnny,’ he added suddenly. ‘You, too, Mr. Cromwell. I hope to God you won’t discuss the boy’s condition with any of my other guests. It would be grievous to spoil their enjoyment of Christmas Day. Far better to let them believe that Ronnie is peacefully sleeping.’

  ‘Can I have the key of the Death Room?’ asked Ironsides, in his abrupt way.

  ‘Do you really think we should go in there again?’ said the general, frowning.

  ‘Come with me, sir, and I’ll show you whether we should go in again!’ retorted Cromwell calmly. ‘I tried to get into the room before breakfast, but I found that you had locked it after I left the apartment during the night.’

  Johnny’s father was not enthusiastic, but there was something very compelling in Cromwell’s manner. They succeeded in reaching the Death Room without attracting the attention of anybody else—for, by this time, the outdoor party had made a noisy exit, and could be heard yelling and laughing in the snow outside.

  ‘The reason I asked you to come, sir, is this,’ said Ironsides, getting straight to the point. ‘Where does this lead to?’

  Having closed the door, he had taken long, loose strides across the room to a narrow stone arch in a corner of the Death Room. Almost hidden in the shadows at the back of this arch wa
s an enormously strong door. It was made of solid age-old oak, and heavily studded with metal. There was a keyhole of great size, but no key.

  ‘Why do you want to know what lies beyond this door, Mr. Cromwell?’ asked General Lister, in a strange voice. ‘The door has not been unlocked. I keep the key in my safe—and the key, incidentally, weighs about half a hundredweight.’

  ‘All the same, sir, I’d like to know what’s on the other side,’ insisted Ironsides gently.

  ‘There are some stone steps leading downwards, a comparatively short arched tunnel, and then—the family crypt of the Cloons,’ said the general quietly. ‘If you are going to suggest that I should open the door, Mr. Cromwell, I must emphatically refuse.’

  Johnny started.

  ‘I say! This is hot,’ he exclaimed, in a shocked voice. ‘The family crypt, what? So the spectre of old Sir Travers doesn’t have to make much of a journey when he gives his midnight performance?’

  ‘You talk like a child, Johnny,’ said his father, annoyed. ‘How the authorities at Scotland Yard can employ you as a detective constantly baffles me. It is a scathing indictment of the slipshod methods of the police authorities.’

  ‘Anybody might think you were Ironsides, dad,’ protested Johnny. ‘He’s always saying things like that about me. I don’t see where I went off the rails. The ghost did appear in this room, and if it’s only a few steps from here to the crypt, where the bones of Sir Travers Cloon are resting…’

  ‘There is no need, Johnny, to make it worse,’ snapped his father. ‘This facetiousness is most distasteful. You know perfectly well that Ronnie Charton saw no ghost.’

  Ironsides had been waiting patiently for the argument to finish.

  ‘I want,’ he said, ‘the key of this door.’

  ‘Really, Mr. Cromwell, I’ve already told you…’

  ‘Breaking the door down,’ mused Cromwell, ‘would make a considerable amount of noise, and probably attract attention.’