Footsteps in the Dark (16 page)

Margaret's first house of call was not the village store, but the Bell Inn. She inquired of the porter whether Mr. Strange was in, and while he went to find out, she sat down in the lounge, and watched two rather nondescript females collect their sketching paraphernalia preparatory to setting out. They eyed her with the usual faint air of hostility displayed to one another by most English people, and after ascertaining that they had not forgotten the sandwiches or the camp-stools, or the thermos, soon left her in sole possession of the lounge.

She had not long to wait before the door at one end of the lounge was opened, and Michael Strange came briskly into the room. He did not seem surprised to see her, but said without preamble: "I'm sorry to have been so long, Miss Fortescue: I was just finishing my breakfast. Won't you sit down?"

"I hope I didn't interrupt you," she said stiffly.

"Not at all. It's a disgraceful hour at which to be breakfasting in any case. But I had a very late night."

Margaret fairly gasped. Of all the cool, calm cheek! she thought. She remained standing, and looking him squarely in the face, said: "Mr. Strange, I think you must know why I've come to see you this morning."

The hint of a smile touched his mouth. "I can guess," he said. "I wish you hadn't seen me last night, but you did, and the mischief's done."

Her heart sank. "Then you are the Monk!" she cried sharply.

His brows seemed to snap together over the bridge of his nose. He looked quickly round, and said quietly: "Please don't raise your voice. You don't know who may be listening."

"I don't care," she said.

"But I do," he answered, and moved softly to the door and opened it.

She watched him look down the passage and go to the other door and open that too. "You probably have good reason to care," she shot at him.

"I have," he said imperturbably. He shut the door and came back into the room. "I wish youu would sit down," he said. "And just remember to keep your voice lowered." He pulled a chair forward, and reluctantly she did sit down. "Now then! I suppose if I say I am certainly not the Monk you won't believe me?"

"How can I?" she said. "I saw it last night, and it disappeared into the shadows on the same side of the avenue as you emerged from two minutes later."

He nodded. "It does look black, doesn't it? I don't think I'll waste time in trying to prove my innocence. What I do want to say is this: get out of the Priory, and get out quickly! Never mind why, but just go. I say this as one who - thinks a great deal of your safety. You saw something last night: if you stay you may see much more, and Marg - Miss Fortescue, believe me, I don't want you to run even the slightest chance of getting hurt or frightened."

He spoke with such evident sincerity that she found herself saying in a much friendlier tone: "Mr. Strange, can't you explain yourself? You must see that I can't possibly believe you when you won't - give me any reason for your conduct."

"I can't!" he said. His hand opened and shut. "You mustn't ask me, Miss Fortescue. I'd give anything to be able to take you into my confidence, but it's impossible. For one thing I - well, it's no good: I daren't tell you."

"Daren't?" she repeated. "You are afraid that I should give you away?"

He did not answer for a moment. Then he laid his hand on hers, and clasped it. "Look here, I've undertaken something, and come what may I must carry it through," he said. "When I took it on I didn't bargain for you, but I can't let you make any difference. Only I wish to God you'd clear out of the Priory!"

She withdrew her hand. "Then I am right in thinking that all along you've wanted to get us out of the house?"

"Yes, I have wanted to."

"Why?" she said directly.

"I've told you. It's not safe, and I can't be answerable for what may happen."

"It is not by any chance because our presence interferes with what you are doing?"

"It does interfere, but that is not why I'm so anxious you should go. Miss Fortescue, I don't think there's much I wouldn't do for you, but if you persist in remaining at the Priory I can't guarantee your safety. Do you understand? You'll be running a risk of — danger, and I can't stop it, and I might not be able to help you. And God knows if anything were to happen to you…' He broke off.

She found herself saying: "Well?"

He looked quickly towards her. "I think you must know what I - what I feel about you," he said.

Her eyes fell. "I only know that you don't trust me, though you expect me to trust you," she answered, almost inaudibly.

"It isn't that I don't trust you, but I can't tell you - Oh, damn it all, why did I ever take this on?" He got up abruptly, and began to pace up and down the room.

She watched him in silence for a moment. He was frowning, and when he frowned he did look rather sinister, she thought. "Have you considered that if - that if you think… Have you considered that you might give it up?" she said, stumbling badly.

"No!" he threw over his shoulder. "Not that it would be any good if I did."

There was another short silence. Margaret tried again. "Is what you're doing of such vital importance?" she asked.

"Yes, of vital importance." He came back to her side. "Margaret, if I were at liberty to take you into my confidence I would, but too much hangs on it. I can't do it. I know things look black: they are black, but will you believe that it's not what you think?"

"I don't know quite what to think," she said.

"You've seen me in some odd circumstances, you've seen me do things that look more than suspicious. I don't deny it, and I may have to do things that will seem far more suspicious. But I swear to you I've a good reason for all I do, even though I can't tell you what it is. Margaret, I've no right to ask you, as things are, but will you try and trust me a little longer? Will you trust me sufficiently to do as I beg of you, and leave the Priory till I've finished the job I've undertaken?"

She found it hard to meet his eyes, and felt a wave of colour rise in her cheeks. "Even though I - said yes, my brother and brother-in-law wouldn't go."

"If you can't persuade them they can take their chance," he said. "But will you go? You and your sister, and your aunt?"

She shook her head. "No, I can't do that. You couldn't expect me to go away and leave my brother in danger. And nothing would induce Celia to leave Charles."

He said impatiently: "Good God, haven't you had enough happen in that house to make you see the only thing to do is to clear out?"

At that she looked up. "What do you know about anything that has happened at the Priory?" she asked gravely.

He bit his lip. After a moment she said: "Were you responsible for - things that have happened?"

"I can't answer you, and I don't want to lie to you," he said curtly. "I can only tell you that from me you stand in no danger whatsoever. But I'm not the only one mixed up in this." He made a little gesture of despair. "It's no good going on like this. If you won't go, you won't. But I have warned you, and you can believe that I know what I'm talking about."

She began to twist the strap of her handbag round her finger. "I do believe that you - wouldn't hurt me, or any of us," she began.

He interrupted her. "Hurt you! My God, no! Can't you understand, Margaret? I - I love you!"

She bent her head still lower over the absorbing strap. "Please - you mustn't…!" she said inarticulately.

"I know I mustn't. But you don't know what it's like for me to see you here… I wish to God I'd met you under other circumstances!" He ran his fingers up through his crisp black hair. "And yet I don't know that I'd have had a better chance," he said despondently. "The whole thing seems hopeless, and it's no good for anyone in my - line of business - to think of a girl like you."

In a very muffled voice Margaret said: "If I - if I knew it was honest - I - I shouldn't care - what your line of business was." She tried to achieve a lighter note. "As long as it isn't keeping a butcher's shop, or - or anything like that," she added with a wavering smile.

He made a movement as though he would take her hand again, but checked it. "I've no right to speak at all till I can - clear up all this mess," he said. "But to know that you - well, one day I hope I shall be able to say all the things I want to say now. One thing I must ask you though: Will you trust me enough not to mention to anyone that you saw me in your grounds last night?"

All the reason she possessed told her to say "No," but something far stronger than reason made her say instead: "All right, I — I will."

"My God, you are a wonderful girl," he said unsteadily.

She got up. "I must go. But I'd like to warn you of something. I didn't tell my people that you were there last night. You guessed I hadn't, didn't you? But Peter and Charles have motored into Manfield to-day, to tell the County Police what has been happening at the Priory. And - I think they'll tell the inspector to keep an eye on you."

"Thank-you," he said. His smile flashed out. "Don't worry your head over me," he said. "The police aren't going to get me."

She held out her hand. "I should be - very sorry if they did," she said. "Good-bye."

He took her hand, looked at it for a moment as it lay in his, and then bent his head and kissed it.

Chapter Eleven

Hawing extricated the car from the ditch with the aid of a farm-horse, Charles and Peter drove it into Manfield, the market town that lay some six miles to the east of Framley. Here was the headquarters of the County Police, and in the red-brick police-station they found the District Inspector.

This individual was of a different type from Constable Flinders. He was a wiry man of medium height, with foxy hair and a moustache meticulously waxed at the ends. He had a cold blue eye and a brisk manner, and his air of business-like competence promised well.

He listened without comment to the story Charles unfolded, only occasionally interrupting to put a brief question. His face betrayed neither surprise nor interest, and not even the episode of the discovered skeleton caused him to do more than nod.

"One had the impression," Charles said afterwards, "that such occurrences were everyday matters in this part of the world."

"You say the picture fell," the inspector recapitulated. "You have a suspicion someone was responsible. Any grounds for that, sir?"

"None," said Charles.

"Except," Peter put in, "that we can neither of us see how the falling picture could have knocked the rosette in the panelling out of place."

The inspector made dots on his blotting-pad with the point of a pencil he held. "Very hard to say that it could not, sir, from all you tell me. You haven't tested it?"

"No," said Charles, "funnily enough we haven't. Though there are quite a lot of pictures in the house, and if we'd smashed one in the test we could always have tried another."

The first sign of emotion crept into the inspector's face. The cold blue eyes twinkled. "Very true, sir," he said gravely. "Now there is the entrance into the cellars. You say you heard this move on several occasions, and on the last you went down and saw someone make his escape that way. Did you recognise this person?"

"No," Charles said. "There was hardly time for that."

"Very good, sir. And since you have sealed up that entrance no further attempt has been made to break into the house?"

"On the contrary. My aunt encountered the Monk in the library."

The inspector made more dots. "The lady being, I take it, a reliable witness?"

"Most reliable. Moreover, up till then she had no belief in the story that the Priory is haunted."

"Quite so, sir. And on that occasion you discovered the window into the library to have been open?"

"Unbolted. It was shut, however."

"But I understand it could be opened from outside?"

"Yes, certainly it could."

"And this — Monk - would have had plenty of time to escape by that way, pausing to shut the window behind him, in between the time of the lady's falling into a faint, and your arrival on the scene?"

"Plenty of time. So much so that neither my brotherin-law nor I thought it would be of any use to search the grounds."

"I see, sir. And since that occasion no one has, to your knowledge, been in the house?"

"Not to my knowledge. But last night, as I told you, my sister-in-law distinctly saw the Monk in the grounds. A moment later Mr. Ernest Titmarsh ran up to her."

The inspector nodded. "If you don't mind, sir, we'll take the people who have acted suspiciously in your opinion, one by one. Ernest Titmarsh: that's the first?"

"No. The first was a fellow who's staying at the Bell Inn, in the village."

"Name, sir?"

"Strange, Michael Strange. He is the man whom we found wandering close to the house when we first heard the stone move. He's a man I'd like you to get on to."

"Inquiries will be made, sir."

"He is also the man whom we overheard talking in an exceedingly suspicious manner to James Fripp, traveller for Suck-All Cleaners. About whom I have received the following information." He took a letter from his pocketbook, and handed it to the inspector.

The inspector read the letter through. The inquiry agent had not been able to discover very much about ,James Fripp, for the firm for which he worked had engaged him only a month previously, and knew nothing about his former occupation. But the agent gave, for what it was worth, the information that before the war a man going under the name of Jimmy Fripp, and corresponding more or less with Charles' description of the commercial traveller, had been on two occasions imprisoned for burglary. His last incarceration took place in 1914; he had been released shortly after war broke out, and had joined the army. Since the end of the war he had been lost trace of, nor could the agent discover what type of work, honest or otherwise, he had been employed in. It seemed possible that the Fripp in question might be the same man, but no proof of this was forthcoming.

The inspector folded the letter, and gave it back to Charles. "Thank you, sir. You don't need to worry about him; we've got our eye on him all right."

"The man I'm really worrying about," Charles answered, "is Strange. We know he's in collusion with Fripp, and that being so there can be little doubt that Fripp is working under his orders."

The inspector nodded, but again repeated: "You don't need to worry. We'll look after Mr. Strange too."

Peter was not quite satisfied with this. "Yes, I know, but what do you propose to do? We're getting a little tired of this mystery, and we'd like a stop put to it."

"Well, sir, I'm sure I can understand that, and you may depend upon it we shall do our best. And if I might suggest something, I wouldn't advise either of you gentlemen to mention to anyone that you've been to see me about this. Whoever it is that has been annoying you, we don't want to put him on his guard, and once you tell one person a bit of news it has a way of spreading."

"Quite so," Peter said. "We have been rather careful all through not to talk of what has happened. But you still haven't told us what you mean to do. Are you going to but a man on to watch the Priory?"

"Yes," Charles said, flicking a speck of cigarette ash off his sleeve, "and if you do, need he smash the cucumber frames? It isn't that they contain any cucumbers, but…'

The inspector's lips twitched. "I quite understand, sir. But…'

"And he's not to frighten the housemaid," Charles continued. "Also, I may be unreasonable, but I have a constitutional dislike for being arrested in my own grounds. If I can't come and go unchallenged I shall become unnerved, and the consequences may be hideous."

"My brother-in-law," said Peter, thinking it time to intervene, "is referring to the well-meaning efforts of Constable Flinders."

"Yes, sir. Very annoying, I'm sure. But you won't be worried in that way again. If you will leave the matter in our hands, I think I can promise we shall be able to clear it all up in a very short while."

"Well, I must say I hope so," Peter remarked, gathering up his hat and stick. "We came down to Framley for a quiet holiday, and so far we've had no peace at all."

Just a moment," Charles said. "What about Duval?"

The inspector fingered the tips of his moustache. "I've made a note of all you told me about him, sir."

"Yes, I know: I saw you. But doesn't it strike you that he might, if interrogated skilfully, throw a good deal more light on the matter?"

"He might, sir, and of course we shall have to consider that. But on the other hand you never know with these dope-maniacs. Still, I shall go into it. You can safely leave it to me."

Peter looked at Charles. "I think that's all, isn't it? There's nothing else we wanted to ask the inspector?"

Charles' expression of rather sleepy boredom had been growing steadily more marked. "I can't remember anything else," he replied. "Unless you think we might invite him to come and take part in our seance to-night? Or do you think the presence of a stranger might make the Monk shy?"

"Yes, I do," said Peter hastily, and edged him towards the door.

The inspector held it open for them, and they went through into the charge room. A man in a felt hat and a light raincoat was standing by the counter that ran across the end of the room, and as the door opened he glanced over his shoulder. For a fleeting instant his eyes encountered Charles', then he turned his back again, and bent over some form he appeared to be filling in. But quickly though he moved Charles had had time to recognise him. It was Michael Strange.

"Oh, half a minute!" Charles said. "I think I've left my gloves on your table, inspector."

"Gloves? You didn't have any, did you?" Peter asked.

"Yes, I did," Charles said, and went past him, back into the room. He motioned to the inspector to close the door, and as soon as this had been done, he said softly: "No gloves at all, but I've just seen the very man we've been discussing. Strange."

"Have you, sir? Here?" the inspector asked.

"Outside, filling up some form. He didn't want me to recognise him, for he turned his back at once. I should like very much to know what he's doing. It looks to me as though he followed us here, to find out what we were up to.

The inspector nodded. "Good job you saw him, sir. Now you go out, will you, quite naturally, and I'll have a word with this Mr. Strange, just casually, you understand. I shall soon find out what he came for." He pulled the door open again. "That's right, sir. And you'd be surprised the number of pairs of gentlemen's gloves that get lost. Not but what you could hardly leave them in a better place than the station-house, could you? Good morning to you, sir."

Outside Charles looked round for Strange's car, but it was not visible. Since it seemed improbable that he had walked to Manfield it was clear that he had parked it somewhere where it would not be seen. Charles got into his own car, and waited for Peter to take his place beside him. As he let in the clutch Peter said: "Well, where are the gloves?"

"In the top right-hand drawer of my dressing-table so far as I know," Charles answered. "That, my boy, was a blind."

"Was it indeed? Why?"

"Did you see that fellow who was waiting in the charge room?"

"No - that is, yes, I believe I did notice someone, now you come to mention it. I can't say I paid much attention to him, though. What about him?"

"Michael Strange."

"No!" Peter said. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. He turned his head as I came out of the inspector's room. That inspector-fellow is going to ask what his business is. With all due deference to Inspector Tomlinson I could have told him the answer. He'll dish up some cock-and-bull story of having lost something, but if he didn't follow us to try and find out just what we were going to tell the police, I'm a Dutchman." He hooted violently at an Austin Seven which was wavering undecidedly in the middle of the road. "And I wouldn't mind betting that he overheard every word we said in that room."

"It does look like it, but wasn't there a bobby in the charge room?"

"There was when we came out, but do you suppose a clever fellow couldn't have got rid of him for quite as long as he wanted?"

"Might, of course. But how the devil did Strange know we were coming here to-day?"

"Well, we've talked about it pretty freely, haven't we?"

"In our own house, Chas!"

"Also while we were getting the car out of the ditch. You said: "If they don't buck up with that horse we shan't have time to get to Manfield and back before lunch."'