Footsteps in the Dark (2 page)

Charles emerged from his tankard. "Has my man Bowers been in here at all?" he demanded.

The landlord looked surprised; the small stranger, who had edged away a little when the newcomers first entered, shot a quick look at Charles.

"Yes, sir, several times," Wilkes answered.

"I thought so," said Charles. "And did you tell him that the ghost prowled round the passages, and pawed all the doors?"

Wilkes seemed to draw back. "Has he heard it again?" he asked.

"Heard my eye!" Charles retorted. "All he heard was what you told him, and his own imagination."

Joking apart, Wilkes, you don't really believe in the thing, do you?" Peter asked.

The small man, who had looked for a moment as though he were going to say something, moved unobtrusively away to a seat by one of the windows, and fishing a crumpled newspaper from his pocket began to read it.

For a moment Wilkes did not reply; then he said quite simply: "I've seen it, sir." Peter's brows lifted incredulously, and Wilkes added: "And what's more, I've seen as reasonable a man as what you are yourself pack up and leave that place with two years of his lease still to run. A little over five years it is since I took over this house, and when I first come here the Priory was standing as empty as when you first saw it. I suppose old Mrs. Matthews, that used to own it, had been dead a matter of a year or fifteen months. From all accounts she was a queer one. Well, there was the Priory, going to ruin, as you might say, and never a soul would go near the place after dark, not if they was paid to. Now, I daresay you'll agree I don't look one of the fanciful ones myself, sir, and nor I'm not, and the first thing I did when I heard what folk said of the place, was to make a joke of it, like what you're doing now. Then Ben Tillman, that keeps the mill up to Crawshays, he laid me I wouldn't go up to the old ruin after dark one night." He paused, and again wiped down the bar with that odd air of abstraction. He drew a long breath, as though some horror still lingered in his memory. "Well, I went, sir. Nor I wasn't afraid - not then. It was a moonlit night, and besides that I had my torch if I'd needed it. But I didn't. I sat down on one of those old tombs you'll find in the chapel, half covered by grass and weeds. I didn't think anything out of the ordinary for some while. If I remember rightly, I whistled a bit, by way of passing the time. I couldn't say how long it was before I noticed the change. I think it must have come gradual."

"What change?" asked Charles, unimpressed.

Again the landlord paused. "It's very hard to telll you, sir. It wasn't anything you could take hold of, as you might say. Things looked the same, and there wasn't more than a breath of wind, yet it got much colder all at once. And it was as fine a June night as you could hope for. I don't know how I can explain it so as you'd understand, but it was as though the cold was spreading right over in and into me. And instead of whistling tunes to mysell; and thinking how I'd have the laugh over Ben Tillman, I found I was sitting still - still as death. It had sort of crept on me without my noticing, that fear of moving. I couldn't have told you why then, but I knew I daren't stir a finger, nor make a sound. I can tell you, with that fear in my very bones I'd have given all I had to get up and run, and let Ben say what he would. But I couldn't. Something had got me. No, I don't know what it was, sir, and I can't explain it anyhow else, but it was no laughing matter. Do you know how it is when you've got the wind up, and you sit listening like as if your eardrums 'ud burst with the strain? Well, that's how I was, listening and watching. Whenever a leaf rustled I strained my eyes to see what was there. But there was nothing. Then it stole over me that there was something behind me." He stopped, and passed the back of his hand across his forehead. "Well, that's a feeling anyone can get if he's properly scared, but this was more than a feeling. I knew it. I'd still got some of my wits left and I knew there was only one thing to be done, and that was turn round, and look. Yes, it sounds easy, but I swear to you, sir, it took every ounce of courage in me. I did it. I fair wrenched myself round, with the blood hammering in my head. And I saw it, plain as I see you, standing right behind me, looking down at me."

"Saw what?" demanded Peter, quite worked up.

The landlord gave a shiver. "They call it the Monk round here," he answered. "I suppose it was that. But I only saw a tall black figure, and no face, but just two eyes looking out of blackness straight at me."

"Your pal Tillman dressed up to give you a fright," said Charles.

Wilkes looked at him. "Ben Tillman couldn't have vanished, sir. And that's what the Monk did. Just disappeared. You may say I imagined it, but all I know is I wouldn't do what I did that night again, not for a thousand pounds."

There was a slight pause. The man by the window got up and strolled out of the taproom. Peter set his tankard down. "Well, thanks very much," he said. "Cheery little story."

Charles had been watching the thin stranger. "Who's our departed friend?" he inquired.

"Commercial, Sir. He's working the places round here with some sort of a vacuum-cleaner, so I understand, and doing a bit of fishing in between-whiles."

"Seemed to be interested in ghosts," was all Charles said.

But when he and Peter had left the Bell Inn, Peter asked abruptly: "What did you mean by that, Chas? Did you think the fellow was listening to us?"

"Didn't you?" Charles said.

"Well, yes, but I don't know that that was altogether surprising."

"No. But he didn't seem to want us to notice his interest, did he? Where's this grocer we're looking for?"

At the grocer's, which turned out to be also the post office and linen-draper, after the manner of village shops, the two men were accosted by a gentleman in clerical attire, who was buying stamps. He introduced himself as the Vicar, and told them that he and his wife were only waiting until the newcomers had had time to settle into the Priory before they paid a call on them.

"One is glad to see the Priory occupied once more," he said. "Alas, too many of our old houses are spurned nowadays for lack of "modern conveniences."'

"We were rather under the impression, sir, that this particular house has been spurned on account of ghosts,"

Peter said.

The Vicar smiled. "Ah, I fear you must seek confirmation of that story from one more credulous than my poor self," he announced. "Such tales, I find, invariably spring up round deserted houses. I venture to prophesy that the Priory ghost proves itself to be nothing more harmful than a mouse, or perhaps a rat."

"Oh, so we think," Charles answered. "But it's really rather a nuisance, for my wife had banked on getting a local housemaid, and the best she can manage is a daily girl, who takes precious good care she's out of the place before sundown."

Mr. Pennythorne listened to this with an air of smiling tolerance. "Strange how tenacious these simple countryfolk are of superstitions," he said musingly. "But you are not without domestic help, one trusts?"

"No, no, we have our butler and his wife." Charles gathered up his change from the counter, and thrust an unwieldy package into Peter's hands. "Are you going our way, sir? Can we drop you anywhere?"

"No, I thank you. Is it your car that stands outside the Bell Inn? I will accompany you as far as that if I may."

They strolled out of the shop, and down the street. The Vicar pointed out various tumbledown old buildings of architectural interest, and promised to conduct them personally round the church some day. "It is not, I fear, of such antiquity as the ruins of your chapel," he sighed, "but we pride ourselves upon our east window. Within the last few years we have been fortunate enough to procure a sufficient sum of money to pay for the cleaning of it - no light expense, my dear Mr. Malcolm - but we were greatly indebted to Colonel Ackerley, who showed himself, as indeed he always does, most generous." This seemed to produce a train of thought. "No doubt you have already made his acquaintance? One of our churchwardens; and an estimable fellow - a pukka sahib, as he would himself say."

"Is he the man who lives in the white house beyond ours?" asked Peter. "No, we haven't met him yet, but I think I saw him at the Bell one evening. Cheery-looking man, going grey, with regular features, and a short moustache? Drives a Vauxhall tourer?"

The Vicar, while disclaiming any knowledge of cars, thought that this description fitted Colonel Ackerley. They had reached the Bell Inn by this time, and again refusing the offer of a lift the Vicar took his leave, and walked off briskly down the street.

When Charles and Peter reached the Priory it was nearly time for dinner,, and long shadows lay on the ground. They found the girls in the library with Mrs. Bosanquet, and were greeted by a cry of "Oh, here you are! We quite forgot to tell you to buy a couple of ordinary lamps to fix on to the wall."

"What, more lamps?" demanded Peter, who had a lively recollection of unpacking a positive crate of them. "Why on earth?"

"Well, we haven't got any for the landing upstairs," explained Celia, "and Bowers says he'd rather not go up without a light. Did you ever hear such rot? I told him to take a candle."

"To fell you the honest truth," confessed Margaret, "I don't awfully like going up in the dark myself:'

Charles cast up his eyes. "Already!" he said.

"It isn't that at all," Margaret said defiantly. "I mean, I'm not imagining ghosts or anything so idiotic, but it is a rambling place, and of course one does hear odd sorts of noises - yes, I know it's only rats, but at night one gets stupid, and fanciful, and anyway, there is a sort of feeling that - that one's being watched. I've had it before, in old houses."

"Have you really felt it here?" asked Celia, wide-eyed.

"Oh, it's nothing, Celia, but you know how it is when you go to Holyrood, or Hampton Court, or somewhere. There's a sort of atmosphere. I can't explain, but you know."

"Damp?" suggested Peter helpfully.

His sisters looked their scorn. "No, silly," said Margaret. "As though the spirits of all those dead and gone people were looking at one from the walls. That's a bit what I feel here."

Mrs. Bosanquet put down her needlework and said mildly: "You feel someone in the wall, my dear? I do hope to goodness there isn't a skeleton anywhere. I never could bear the thought of them, for they seem to me most unnatural."

"Aunt!" shrieked Celia. "A skeleton in the wall? Don't be so awful! Why should there be?"

"I daresay there's no such thing, my dear, but I always remember reading a most unpleasant story about someone who was walled up in a monastery, or a convent - I forget which, but it was something to do with monks, I know."

"Oh Aunt Lilian, Aunt Lilian!" groaned Charles. "Et tu, Brute!"

"If I thought for one moment," said Celia emphatically, "that anyone had been walled up inside this house, I'd walk out here and now."

"Quite right, my dear," agreed Mrs. Bosanquet. "One can't be too careful. I always remember how there was an outbreak of the plague when they disturbed the old burial place somewhere in London."

"On which cheerful thought," said Charles, as a gong sounded in the hall, "we go in to dinner. Anyone any appetite?"

In spite of Mrs. Bosanquet's gloomy recollections it seemed that no one's appetite had failed. Dinner was served in the square dining-room at the side of the house, and though the undrawn curtains let in the soft evening light, Cclia had placed shaded candles on the table, so that the room had a warm, inviting appearance. By common consent there was no more talk of ghosts or skeletons. They went back to the library after dinner, and while Mrs. Bosanquet proceeded to lay out a complicated Naticaue, the others sat down to the Bridge-table. Even when a stutter somewhere in the wainscoting startled them all it did not need the men's assurances to convince the girls that the place was rat-ridden.

"I know," said Celia, gathering up her cards. "Mrs. Bowers is going to set a trap."

"I am not fond of rats," remarked her aunt. "Mice I don't mind at all. Poor little things. Ah, if that had been a red queen I might have brought it out. I once stayed in a farmhouse where they used to run about in the lofts over our heads like a pack of terriers."

Margaret, who was Dummy, got up from the table and went over to the window. The moon had risen, and now bathed the whole garden in silver light. She gave an exclamation: "Oh, look how beautiful! I wish we could see the chapel from here." She stepped out on to the terrace, and stood leaning her hands on the low parapet. The night was very still and cloudless, and the trees threw shadows like pools of darkness. The shrubbery hid the ruins of the chapel from sight.

"You can see it from your bedroom, I should think," called Peter. "Come on in: we're two down, all due to your reckless bidding."

She came in reluctantly and took her place at the table. "It seems a pity to be playing bridge on a night like this. Does anyone feel inclined to wander up to the chapel with me?"

"Don't all speak at once," Charles advised them unnecessarily.

"Personally," said Celia, "I'm going to bed after this rubber. We'll all go some other night."

Half an hour later only the two men remained downstairs. Charles went over to the windows,. and shut and bolted them. "Think it's necessary to make a tour of the back premises?" he asked, yawning.

"Lord, no! Bowers'll have taken precious good care to see that it's all locked up. I'll go and put the chain on the front door." Peter went out, and Charles bolted the last window, and turned to put out the big oil-lamp that hung on chains from the ceiling. The moonlight shone in at the uncurtained window, and as Charles turned towards the door he heard what sounded like the rustling of a skirt against the wall behind him. He looked quickly over his shoulder. There was no one but himself in the room, but he could have sworn that he heard faint footsteps.

Peter's voice called from the hall. "Coming, Chas?"

"Just a moment." Charles felt in his pocket for matches and presently struck one, and walked forward so that its tiny light showed up the shadowed corner of the room.