Footsteps in the Dark (22 page)

Peter refused to be put off by such flippancy. "I don't want to be officious," he explained painstakingly, "and I don't say for a moment that you aren't quite capable of looking after yourself, but I have got a distinct impression that Strange has got on your soft side. Am I right?"

"Very seldom," Margaret retorted. "But I've already said I like the man. Perhaps that's partly your fault, because you and Chas run him down so much."

"Rot!" Peter said sweepingly. "All Charles and I have said is that Strange behaves in a way that can't be described as anything but fishy. You must admit that he does."

Margaret was silent. Peter struck a match and said between puffs: "I've a suspicion you've seen rather more of the fellow than I have. Has he ever told you anything ahout himself?"

She could answer that quite truthfully. "No."

"Well, has he ever said anything to make you think that we're on the wrong track about him?"

She thought for a moment, wondering how much she could divulge without breaking her word to Strange. Peter had always been her confidant, more so than Celia, who was older, and who no longer lived with them, and never till now had she kept anything from him. It was uncomfortable to be so torn between two feelings, uncomfortable and unaccustomed. Yet something deeper than her friendship with her brother now had her in its hold, and even while one part of her longed to tell him everything, the other prompted her to keep silence. She looked up to find that Peter was regarding her steadily. She coloured, and said: "It's very hard to say. But from - things he has said to me I do feel perfectly sure that whatever he may be doing he doesn't want to hurt or alarm us in any way."

Peter's brows rose. "Really? Then he admits he's at the bottom of our mystery?"

"No. He never said that. But he did say that he wished we would leave the Priory. I think I can safely tell you that."

"Did he, indeed? Any reason?"

She hesitated. "N-no. Only that — he didn't want us to be in any danger."

"Think he was responsible for that skeleton?"

"I don't know, Peter," she said honestly.

He smoked in silence for a while. At last he said:

"Don't you see, Sis, that what you've told me practically proves that my suspicions aren't by any means groundless?"

"In a way I do, but… Look here, Peter, you know I'm not the sort of silly fool who gasses about intuition and all that sort of rot, don't you?"

He grinned. "Yes, thank God!"

"Well, I'm not, but I don't mind admitting that about Strange I have got an absolute conviction that he isn't out to harm any of us. I agree he's being mysterious, and I agree that for some reason or other he may want to get us out of this place. But I don't believe the reason is a bit what you think."

"My dear girl, I don't know what to think!"

"No, but you've got an idea that he's a wrong 'un. And that's where I think you're mistaken. If he wants to get possession of this house it's for some purpose we've none of us guessed."

He hunched his shoulders lower in his chair. "Quite sure you aren't being a bit led away by a personable exterior?"

"Ever known me fall for a handsome face?"

"I haven't, but I shouldn't like to swear that you never would. And I grant you Strange is a nice-looking chap, and a powerful-looking one too, which as far as I can make out is what most women like in a man."

"Well, if that's the line you mean to stick to it's not much good my arguing," Margaret said with some asperity.

Conversation showed a tendency to flag after that. Presently Peter said: "One thing that seems to me to stand out a mile is that you're keeping something up your sleeve. Not cricket, Sis."

"Oh, shut up!" Margaret said crossly. "Even supposing I were I don't see that it makes much odds now that you've told the police the whole story."

"If you know anything about Strange that we don't, it might help the police considerably."

"I haven't the smallest desire to help the police," Margaret replied. "I hate policemen: they come nosing round after wireless licences, and tell you you don't know how to drive your car just because you misunderstand their silly signals. Anyway, I don't want to talk about Michael Strange any more." She gave a little shiver. "I say, don't you think it's beastly cold?"

"It is chilly," he agreed. "Wind's in the north. Like me to shut the window?"

"You might push it to just a bit. It'll get airless if we have it completely shut. I've half a mind to put a match to the fire. Look and see if there's any coal in the scuttle."

He lifted the lid. "Empty. We can soon get some though, if you really want a fire. Seems ridiculous in July, I must say."

"Nothing's ridiculous with the English climate. Honestly, wouldn't you rather like a fire?"

"I don't mind one way or the other. If you're cold, have one." He reached out a hand to the bell-pull, and tugged it.

"It's broken," Margaret informed him. "Celia didn't think it was worth while having it mended. If you take the scuttle out to the kitchen Bowers'll fill it, and bring it back."

"All right," he said obligingly. "Though you're a pest, you know." He dragged himself out of his chair and picked up the scuttle. "This is where an electric heater would come in handy."

"Oh no, think how cheery it'll be to see a blaze!" Margaret encouraged him.

He went out, and she picked up the matches and knelt down before the wide grate. A fire had already been laid, and enough coal to start it had been arranged on top of the wood. Margaret lit the edges of the newspaper, and had the satisfaction of hearing, in a few seconds, a promising crackle. The wood was dry, and caught easily, and Margaret, seeing that no frenzied fanning was going to be necessary, got up from her knees. She put out her hand to help herself up by one of the projecting bits of the moulding that ran round the fireplace, and to her surprise the carved wooden apple that her fingers had grasped twisted right round. She stared at it, and then quickly looked round the room, remembering the rosette that had moved to slide back the panel of the priest's hole.

Beside the fireplace a dark cavity yawned in the panelling.

She scrambled up, and forgetting that Peter had gone through the door that led to the servants' quarters, called to him. "Peter, come here quickly!"

Then she remembered that he could not hear her, and she stood for a minute, looking at the gap in the panels. Not for worlds, she thought, would she venture inside until Peter came back, but sheer curiosity impelled her to tiptoe towards it, and try to peep in.

It was so dark that she could only see that it seemed to be a narrow stone stairway, leading up in the thickness of the wall. The central lamp threw its light so that it only illumined the step immediately in a line with the opening, and the stone wall beyond. Margaret could not see more than the dim outline of another step leading downwards. She was half afraid that some horrible skeleton might be inside, but she could not perceive anything of that nature. Holding with one hand to the edge of the panel, she ventured to step just inside, in the hope of being able to see where the stairs led. Leaning her other hand against the wall she craned forward trying to pierce the darkness below her. She moved her right hand from the wall to feel ahead of her, wondering whether she was really standing on a staircase, or whether it was only another priest's hole. Her hand did not, as she had half expected, encounter another wall, but to her annoyance a gold bangle that she wore and whose clasp she had been meaning to have strengthened, came undone, and fell with a tinkle on to the second step, which she could just perceive. Involuntarily she stooped to pick it up, but to reach it she had to let go of the panel she still held, and take one step down on to the second stair. Her fingers had closed on the bangle and she was about to step back on to the level of the library floor when she was startled to see the shaft of light cast by the lamp in the room disappearing. She turned like a flash, and saw to her horror that the panel was sliding noiselessly back into place.

She flung herself forward, but she was too late. The panel had closed, and she was in utter darkness.

In the terror of finding herself a prisoner she lost her head, and shrieked for her brother, beating wildly on the back of the panel, trying to tear it open. She only succeeded in breaking a finger-nail, and her panic grew.

She screamed, "Help! help! Peter, Peter, Peter!"

Somewhere below her she heard a soft, padding step, and the hush of a robe brushing against the wall. Like a mad woman she clawed at the panel. "Quick! oh quick! Peter, help!"

Then in the darkness a gloved hand stole across her mouth, and an arm in a wide sleeve was round her, holding her in a vice.

She tried to break free, to jerk her head away, but her arms were clamped to her sides and that horrible, gloved hand was like a gag over her mouth.

She felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, and through the sudden roaring in her ears she heard as though from a great distance Peter's voice calling: "Margaret, what is it? Where are you?"

A low, inhuman chuckle sounded immediately above her head, and there was something so gloating and fiendish in that soft sound that terror such as she had never known seized her. Then the waves met over her head and she fainted.

Chapter Fifteen

As he came into the hall from the servants' wing Peter heard Margaret's scream. It sounded muffled, but he heard her shriek his name, and crossed the hall in three bounds.

"Margaret, what is it?" he cried. "Where are you? Margaret! Margaret!"

The room was empty, and no answering call came to him. He stared round, then sprang instinctively to the window, only to find that the falling bolt was as he had left it, just holding the double windows together. She could not have gone that way, and hardly knowing what he did he tore the curtains apart and dragged the big leather screen aside. But she was not in the room. Yet a moment before he had heard her voice coming from this direction: she could not have gone far!

"Think! think!" drummed his brain. "Don't lose your head! Think!"

He came back into the middle of the room, and as he once more glared round for some clue to her whereabouts his eye caught sight of a crumpled handkerchief lying near the wall beside the fireplace. Quickly he crossed to where it lay, and picked it up. It was one of the flimsy scraps of crepe-de-chine she always used; he had returned it to her twice already this evening, for she invariably dropped it about.

His thoughts raced. She had been sitting on the other side of the fireplace all the evening; if she had dropped her handkerchief here she must for some reason or other have moved to this spot after he had left the room. What could have taken her there? His eyes ran swiftly over that side of the room. Not a book, for the shelves were on the opposite wall; nor the coal-scuttle, for he had taken that away. She must have stepped close up to the wall, too, for the handkerchief had been touching the wainscoting. Light began to break on Peter. She hadn't gone out by the window; she hadn't gone by the door, since when she screamed he had just come back into the hall, and must have seen her had she left the room by that exit. There remained only one solution: somewhere in the room was a secret entrance that they had none of them discovered.

He at once inspected the panelling, and went to the place where the handkerchief had lain, and sounded the panels all along that side of the fireplace. It was hard at first to detect a difference, but by dint of repeated banging on two panels he was almost sure that one had a different, and more hollow note. It was probably padded on the inside to disguise it, he guessed, and he began to feel all round the beading for any catch there might be. Some echo of Margaret's frantic cry still seemed to sound in his ears, and his hands moved with feverish haste over the woodwork. She must have accidentally discovered the moving panel, and then - what had happened? A rather sickening fear stole into him; his fingers tore fruitlessly at the beading; he even set his shoulder to the panel in a vain attempt to break it down. His reason checked him once more. It was no use getting desperate: he must think, and think quickly. How had she discovered the panel? Not by design, that much was certain. By accident it must have been, and what could she have been doing that led her to put her hand on the spring that worked it?

His gaze, searching the room, fell on the fire, which was now burning brightly. Of course! She had been lighting the fire! What a fool he was not to have remembered that earlier! He strode up to the grate, and as he bent to scrutinise it there flashed into his mind the recollection of the rosette that had moved to slide back the panel into the priest's hole at the top of the stairs. If another such hole existed it was almost certain that it was worked by the same sort of device.

He fell on his knees, wrenching and twisting at the carved surround of the grate. It was a garland in a design of apples and pomegranates and leaves. Inch by inch he went over it, his heart sinking as leaf after leaf, fruit after fruit remained immovable under his probing fingers. Then, when only one more cluster remained untested he found the wooden apple that turned, and almost let out a yell of triumph as it slid in his hold.

His eyes were fixed on the panel he suspected, and even as he turned the apple, he saw it glide back to reveal the same dark cavity that had startled Margaret.

He sprang to his feet. His only thought was to get to his sister; even had it entered his head in that moment of anxiety he would not have paused to fetch his revolver, upstairs, locked in a drawer of his dressing-table. Without stopping to consider he was through the aperture, and standing on the first step. "Margaret!" he shouted. "Margaret, Margaret! Where are you?"

There was a faint movement behind him, he started round, but just a second too late. Something struck him a stunning blow on the head, and he fell without a sound, sprawling down the narrow stairs. A moment later a cowled figure moved across the aperture, and then once more the panel slid back into place,, and the library was empty and silent.

Five minutes afterwards Bowers came into the room with the coal-scuttle. He looked round, rather surprised to see no one, but concluded that Peter and Margaret had either strolled out into the moonlight, or were in some other room. He made up the fire, and then went over to draw the curtains. He wondered why they had been pulled aside, for he distinctly remembered drawing them while his young master and mistress were still in the dining-room. As he pulled them together he noticed the position of the double French windows, which though open, had been set so that the falling-bolt just held them together, and prevented them swinging wide into the room. If Peter and Margaret had gone out, it was not by that way. He supposed they must have gone by the front door, perhaps meaning to stroll down the avenue to meet the rest of their party who would soon be returning from their dinner engagement. Funny tastes people had, Bowers reflected. As for him he'd do anything sooner than walk down that avenue after dark."

He began to tidy the room, shaking up cushions, and emptying the ash trays. The screen seemed to be out of place; he adjusted it carefully, and straightened the position of one of the chairs. Glancing at the clock he saw that it was already after ten, and time for him to bring in the usual tray of glasses, whisky decanter, soda-siphon and lemonade. With a final look round the room he went away to the pantry to prepare the tray. By the time he had collected the decanter from the dining-room, and returned to the library, ten minutes had gone by. Since there was still no sign of Peter or Margaret it seemed certain that they must have gone out. In which case, Bowers thought, remembering his friend Flinders' warning, it was very unwise of them to have left the window open. He moved across to it, and not only shut it, but bolted it as well. Then he went back again to the kitchen, where Mrs. Bowers was folding up her crochetwork preparatory to going to bed.

"Locked everything up, Bowers?" inquired that martial woman.

"All but the front door," he replied. "Lot of use it was me having to go down those cellar stairs for a scuttle-full of coal! They've gone out."

"Gone out?" Mrs. Bowers echoed. "At this time of night?"

"Must have. Neither of them was in the library when I went in with the scuttle, nor when I took the tray in."

"Well, that's not like Miss Margaret to want a fire one moment and then go trapesing out in the garden the next," remarked Mrs. Bowers. "They're probably in the study."

"What would they go and sit there for, when they've lit a fire in the library?" Bowers demanded.

"Don't ask me!" his wife abjured him. "But if that's what they are doing all I can say is Miss Margaret'll catch her death, and start one of her coughs, for it's the coldest room in the house. I think I'll go along and see what she is up to." She got out of her chair, not without effort, for she was a lady of ample proportions, and sailed away to scold Margaret for her imprudence.

But the study was in darkness, and Mrs. Bowers' opening gambit of "Now, Miss Margaret, you know you didn't ought to sit in this cold room," was cut off short. Mrs. Bowers went across to the library; that was empty too, and so were both the drawing and dining-rooms.

Bowers had followed his wife into the front part of the house by this time, and he again repeated his own conviction that they had strolled out.

"What, after Mr. Peter saying Miss Margaret was feeling shivery, and would like a fire? Stuff and nonsense!"

"Well, if they haven't gone out, where are they?" Bowers asked reasonably. "Perhaps Mr. Peter thought a walk would warm his sister up."

"If he thought anything so silly he'll have a few straight words with me when he comes in, grown up or not!" declared Mrs. Bowers with a look in her eye that all the Fortescues had been familiar with since babyhood. "Bowers, my man, just you pop up and knock on their bedroom doors to make sure they're not there."

"Well, they aren't, because they haven't taken their candles," said Bowers, pointing to the array on the hall table.

"Never you mind whether they've taken candles or not, you go up and see," commanded his wife.

Sighing, Bowers obeyed, but he soon reappeared with the intelligence that it was just as he had said: no one was upstairs. "I tell you what," he said. "They've gone to meet the others, and they wanted the fire lit for when they come in."

"It does look like it," Mrs. Bowers admitted. "And if that's what they have done, I'm not going up myself till they're in. I know Miss Margaret, none better! Never was there a child like her for catching colds, and the first thing she'll do when she gets in is to pop right into bed with a hot bottle, or my name's not Emma Bowers." With that she proceeded majestically back to the kitchen, and resumed her seat by the fire. She picked up her crochet again, but her eyes kept lifting to the clock on the mantelpiece, and when the hands pointed to eleven, she could no longer contain herself. "I'll give Mr. Peter a piece of my mind when he comes in!" she said wrathfully. "When did you take that scuttle to the library, Bowers?"

"I dunno. Bit after ten, I think," Bowers answered, deep in the racing columns of a newspaper.

"Then they've been out a full hour! I never did in all my life! Hark, was that the front door? For the love of goodness, stop reading that nasty trash!"

Bowers put the paper down meekly, and listened. Voices sounded in the hall. "That's the master I can hear," he said.

Mrs. Bowers once more arose and sallied forth. In the hall Mrs. Bosanquet was unwinding the inevitable tulle from her head. As Mrs. Bowers came into the hall Charles said: "Ten o'clock would have been a godly hour at which to have taken our leave. I shall never forgive you, Aunt Lilian. Never."

"I'm sorry if you were anxious to go, my dear," was the placid reply, "but I was in the middle of a very interesting discussion with the Vicar. I found him most enlightened: not in the least hide-bound, as I had feared might be the case."

Celia saw Mrs. Bowers. "Hullo, still up, Emma?" she said.

"Miss Celia, where's Miss Margaret and Mr. Peter? Didn't you meet them?"

"Meet them? No, did they set out to look for us?"

"That's what we don't know, madam. Bowers thought so, but I said all along they wouldn't do a thing like that on a night as cold as this is. All I do know is, they aren't in the house."

"What's that?" Charles stopped arguing with Mrs. Bosanquet, and stepped to his wife's side. "When did they go out?"