Footsteps in the Dark (26 page)

She agreed. "Is it all printed by that big machine in the middle?" she inquired.

Michael heard her. "No, this is where they roll it off. Come and look."

She went up to him, and he showed her an engraved plate. "See? That's the plate. The paper goes between those rollers and when the current's turned on, that plate slides backwards and forwards, while the rollers press the paper on to it, and shoot it out this end, roughly speaking."

"I see. It's like looking-glass writing, isn't it? What are the other machines?"

"One of them cuts the paper. This one. I don't understand all of them."

"Neat little affair," Peter said. "I suppose this is the engraver's corner. Wonder who does it?"

"Unless I'm much mistaken, Duval was the engraver," Michael answered. He looked round the room. "Only the one door. Better test the walls, though. Where you find one moving stone-block you're likely to find another."

Peter looked up quickly. "Oh, so it was you, then?"

"Yes. Sorry if I gave you all a scare. It wasn't me you saw in the cellars, though. That was Fripp. He was trying to find a way into this place from there."

"Look here!" Peter said. "Have we also to thank you for our skeleton? Because if so…'

"What skeleton?" Michael asked, moving along one wall, testing as he went.

"That one we found in the priest's hole."

"I never knew you did. No, that must have been one of the Monk's attentions."

"But, Michael, you said that day at the Inn that you were responsible for what had happened at the Priory!" Margaret objected.

"I don't think I said that, did I? If I did I thought you were referring to the groaning stone. Anything that side, Jimmy?,

"Not that I can find, sir. Nothing there, Mr. Fortescue?"

"Nothing," Peter said, dusting his hands.

"Well, that's something, anyway," Michael said. "They can't get out of this room by any other way than the door. If I can only find the Monk's own entrance I may get him yet."

Margaret was puzzled. "But doesn't he come in through the Inn? What's that entrance for, then?"

"The rest of his gang. I watched them go down this evening, and I watched them come up. At neither time was the Monk with them, and from what I heard they none of them, with the possible exception of Wilkes, know his way in or who he is."

"By Jove!" Peter said. "Then I'll bet that's what Duval had discovered! You know, he came up to see Charles the very night he was murdered, and he told him that though he hadn't found out who the Monk was — "seen his face," was the way he put it - he had found out something."

"I think there's no doubt he did find the Monk's way, and that's why the Monk murdered him. What's more, I still believe it comes out at the chapel."

Margaret remembered something. "Peter, didn't Charles say Duval talked about finding the Monk if he had to go down amongst the dead to do it?"

"Yes, I believe he did. We thought he was cracked. Have you tried to-find an entrance in the chapel, Strange - I mean Draycott?"

"Till I'm sick of the sight of masonry," Michael replied. "And unless I find it I can't be sure that is his way in, so that I daren't make a raid in case he gets away by some passage we don't know of. The rest of the gang's no use unless I can get the Monk. No, there's no other entrance here. We'd better try and find the secret stairway. If we can't, I'll nip back to the Inn, and go to the Priory, and attack it from that side. Come along, Jimmy, and take care how you lock the door."

They went out again into the passage, switching off the light. While Fripp locked the door, Michael bolted the one into the Fortescues' late prison, and fixed the shutter in position again.

"Now as far as I can make out," he said, "we must be standing at the moment either on the level of the cellars, or below them. Probably below, judging from the depth of that opening into the well. And we mustn't forget that on the library side of the Priory the cellars are on the level of the ground. Moreover, if that machine was only just below the sitting-room you must have heard it. The question is what part of the house are we under? If the Inn is there' - he pointed up the passage - "then the chapel ought to be more or less in that direction. Well, we'll see where the passage leads this way." He led them on, flashing his torch ahead. The passage ended in an archway and through this they went, finding themselves in another of the cell-like apartments. It was bare of furniture, and out of it led yet one more.

"Talk about the 'Astings Caves!" said Mr. Fripp. "They aren't in it with this."

"Try for a moving block," Michael said. "Time's getting on, and I must be back at the Inn before anyone's up. Fortescue, you take that wall, will you? Just run along it: never mind about the upper blocks. Get on with it, Fripp!

Don't stand mooning about!"

They started once more to try and move one of the stone blocks that made up the wall. "The things the perlice get up to!" Mr. Fripp remarked. "Give me an honest job of burglary, that's what I say! Well, it ain't 'ere, sir. If we've got many more of these rooms to go over you'll have to send me to one of them sanatoriums where you lay out on a nice balcony the whole blooming day."

But only one other room led out of the one they were in, and it was comparatively small. They started to test its walls, but before Peter had got more than half-way along his side of the room Michael said: "Got it!"

He set his shoulder to the block, and it swung easily and silently on its hidden pivot.

"Took the trouble to oil this one," commented Mr. Fripp. "Now mind what you're about, sir. Let me 'ave a look!"

"It's all right," Michael said, drawing his head and shoulders back into the room. "Only be careful how you step, Margaret. We're right on the staircase. Can you get through if I go first, and give you a hand?"

"Good Lord, yes!" she said. As soon as he had climbed through the gap, she scrambled after him, and found herself standing on the narrow stone stairway. They seemed to be somewhere in the middle of it, for the stairs went down as well as up.

The other two squeezed through the opening, and Michael pressed the block back into position. The light of his torch showed nothing to distinguish this block from any of the others.

"We shall have to count the stairs," Michael said. "I propose to explore downstairs after I've deposited you two at the Priory. Mind how you step, Margaret: the stairs are very steep and narrow."

They climbed in silence, each of them counting to themselves as they went. Margaret's legs were aching badly by the time they came to a halt; and she was thankful to get even a short rest.

Michael's torch was playing over the wall that flanked the staircase on the right, and they saw that the stone had ended, and they were standing behind rough brick. Michael moved on again.

"There! If I haven't lorst count!" said Mr. Fripp disgustedly.

The brick gave place to what looked like a wooden partition of thick deal.

"Clever," Michael said. "Nailed the deal on behind the oak panel to deaden the hollow sound. Here we are!" His torch showed a plain round knob past the panel. He went on up two more stairs, and twisted it. Nothing happened. "That's odd!" Michael said. "It surely must be this knob that corresponds to the apple in the carving the other side. You didn't do anything but turn it, did you, Margaret?"

"No, nothing."

He asked abruptly: "Did the Monk come up or down?"

"Up. I was standing on the second stair, where Peter is now, when the panel closed."

"There's no knob farther down," Michael said. An idea occurred to him. "I wonder - get off that stair, will you, Fortescue?"

Peter moved, and as Michael once more turned the knob the panel slid back.

"Clever little dodge," Michael remarked.

He was interrupted by a strangled shriek from within the library. "Charles, look! look!" Celia cried.

"Seventy-three, counting this one," Peter said. "It's all right, Celia, it's us!"

Chapter Eighteen

He stepped through the opening into the library, as he spoke, and found himself confronting Charles' levelled revolver. Celia and Mrs. Bosanquet were gazing with startled fixity at him, and Inspector Tomlinson had just lowered a Colt automatic.

Charles put down his revolver, and swallowed twice before he spoke. Then he said: "Oh, hullo! Just back?" His flippancy deserted him. "Gosh, you have given us a fright! Where's Margaret? What happened?"

Margaret came through the aperture, and at sight of her Celia jumped up and flew to embrace her. "Oh, darling, I've been thinking you dead ever since ten o'clock!" she said, half-crying. "Who found you? Did you escape by yourselves?"

By this time both Michael and Fripp had come into the room. Charles wrung Michael's hand. "Good man! Yes, we know all about you. The inspector had to split on you."

There was a positive babel of talk. After a while Mrs. Bosanquet made herself heard above it. "But surely that is the man who cleaned all the rooms so thoroughly?" she said in a bewildered voice, and pointed at Fripp.

"Yes, ma'am," said Fripp with feeling, "and if I was you I wouldn't have one of them cleaners in the house, not if I was paid to. They're enough to break your heart."

Michael, who had been speaking to Inspector Tomlinson, now glanced at his watch. "Good Lord, it's almost five o'clock! Fripp and I had better hurry, or we shall run into one of the servants at the Inn. Look here, you people, the best thing you can do is to go to bed, and get what sleep you can. I'll come back after breakfast, tell you some of the things you're all dying to know, and set about the job of finding that other entrance. Now that you've discovered this panel it ought to be easy. There's only one other thing: Fortescue and his sister have got to keep themselves hidden. No one must know that they've been found. See? No one. In fact you must give the impression to anyone you happen to see that you're worried to death, and are sure that they must have gone out, and got kidnapped in the grounds, or something of that sort." He looked at Mrs. Bowers rather dubiously, but she nodded. "Sure you understand? And don't let that housemaid of yours find them here."

"It's her half-day," said Mrs. Bowers. "Nor she don't turn up till nine in the mornings, and mostly late. I'll nip up and make Miss Margaret's and Mr. Peter's beds before she gets here, and she don't ever go into any of the sitting-rooms."

"Better not have her at all to-morrow," Charles said. "Can you get rid of her without her smelling a rat, Emma?"

She thought for a moment. "Yes, sir. If Miss Margaret and Mr. Peter aren't supposed to be here there'll only be the two bedrooms to do. I'll say she can have the whole day, since we're all at sixes and sevens. You leave it to me."

Mrs. Bosanquet had been scrutinising Michael through her lorgnette. She now turned to Charles, and said in the perfectly audible voice deaf people imagine to be a whisper: "My dear, you may say what you please about that young man being a detective, but it appears to me that he is the same malicious person who pointed at me in the dark."

Michael laughed. "I've never pointed at you, Mrs. Bosanquet. I'll explain it all to you later. Come on, Fripp: we'll go back the way we came. You'll turn up again later in the morning, inspector. You understand what I want you to do?"

"Yes. Send a man over to make a lot of inquiries, and make it seem we're on the wrong track. Well, Flinders will do a bit of searching all the morning, I don't doubt, and so long as he doesn't know the truth he'll put every one off the scent. I'll get back to the station now, and be with you again about ten."

Margaret said worriedly: "Must you go back that way? I suppose it's safe, but I don't like to think of you down there."

Charles opened his eyes at that, but Margaret did not notice his surprise.

"I shall be all right," Michael said. "You go and get some sleep. So long!" He went through on to the stair, Fripp followed him, and as Michael set his foot on the second step the panel slid into place again.

Charles went to see the inspector off the premises. When he came back Margaret was telling her story to her sister and aunt. Charles listened to it in silence, but when she had finished he drew a long breath. "Talk about halfwits!" he said. "Why did you want to go and step into the cavity?"

"I know it was silly, but…'

"Silly?" said Charles. "Call a spade a spade for once. You go through the opening, drop bracelets about, shout to Peter to come and have a look at what you've found, as though it were a sovereign left over from before the war, and then you're surprised the Monk grabs you. I don't blame him, poor chap. As for Peter - can you beat it? If his face was different he'd be cut out for the hero in a popular thriller. He knew Margaret had been pinched, but did he get his revolver? Not a bit of it! After making enough noise on the panel to bring up half a hundred monks, he bursts in, all full of heroism, and very properly gets knocked on the head."

"Well, I'd like to know what you'd have done in my place," Peter said.

"I should at least have remembered the planchette," Charles said.

Celia interposed as Peter was about to retort. "No, don't bother to answer him, Peter. Come up to bed. You must both be worn out."

Accordingly they all went upstairs, and in spite of the fact that Margaret felt she would not be able to close her eyes, so wide-awake did she feel, she dropped into a dreamless sleep almost as soon as her head had touched the pillow.

She awoke four hours later, feeling rather heavyeyed, but not in the least inclined to stay in bed. She wondered whether it would be safe to venture out of her room, and at that moment Celia cautiously looked in.

"Oh, you're awake! Darling, will you have breakfast in bed?"

"No, rather not!" Margaret said, getting up. "Where's Jane? Is it all right for me to go and have a bath?"

"My dear, it's absolutely providential! She's apparently so scared by the news of your disappearance, which Flinders seems to be zealously spreading round the village, that she hasn't come at all! Her father turned up at eight with a feeble excuse, and we're quite safe. I told Mrs. Bowers we'd have breakfast at half-past nine. I'll go and see if Charles is out of the bathroom yet." She withdrew, and Margaret collected her towels and sponges, and prepared to follow her.

They had just started breakfast when Michael came in.

"Hullo!" Peter said. "Had breakfast?"

"Yes thanks, I had some at the Bell. How are you both feeling?"

"I've got a whacking great bump on my head, but otherwise we're all right. Sit down and have a second breakfast. Did you get back safely last night?"

"Yes, but only just in time," Michael answered, sitting beside Margaret. "Thanks, Mrs. Malcolm." He took the coffee-cup she had handed him. "Look here, the first thing I want to know…'

Charles, who had got up to carve some ham for him, turned. "I beg your pardon? I admit I'm not feeling at my best this morning, but it seemed to me that you said you wanted to know something."

"I do," Michael said brazenly.

Charles returned to his chair and sat down. "Someone else can go on carving," he said. "I'm not strong enough.

Moreover, I don't want to give him any of that peculiarly succulent ham now. A remark more calculated to provoke a peaceful man to homicide I've never yet heard."

"Sorry," Michael grinned. "But it's important. Did either you or your sister, Fortescue, get any idea of the Monk's identity?"

"What, don't you know who he is?" Charles demanded.

"Not yet."

Charles looked round at the others. "I don't believe he's a detective at all. Let's exorcise him. Anyone got any wolfbane, or is that only good against vampires?"

"You needn't pay any attention to Charles," Margaret said. "We never do. Peter didn't see the monk, and I didn't recognise him at all. He never spoke, and the disguise absolutely covered him."

"Just one thing!" Peter said. "There was a button missing from one glove."

Michael's eyes brightened. "So even the Monk slips up occasionally! That's going to be very valuable. You can't tell me anything more about him?"

"No, except that he's about your height," Margaret said, "and very strong."

"I see. I hoped he might have given you some clue to his identity."

"Haven't you got any idea who he is?" Margaret asked.

"I've got a strong suspicion, but that's not quite enough."

"Oh, do tell us," Celia begged.

He shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

Charles reached out a hand for the marmalade. "Let it be clearly understood," he said, "that if you don't propose to gratify our curiosity, you've obtained that ham under false pretences. Kindly let us have the whole story."

"All right," Michael said. "How much did Tomlinson tell you?"

"Practically nothing. When he turned up last night I told him that I'd rung you up at the Bell, and found you out. Where were you, by the way?"

"Hidden in the cellar. Where did you ring up from?"

"Ackerley's place. He was out, but the butler let me in."

"I see," said Michael. "What time was it?"

"About midnight. Well, considering everything you'll hardly be surprised when I say that I regarded your absence as fishy in the extreme. The inspector seemed extraordinarily loth to do anything, and I rather lost patience. I threatened to go to the Bell, knock them up, and lie in wait for you. That upset old Tomlinson, and after a bit he took me aside and after swearing me to secrecy, told me who you were. That rather changed the complexion of things, of course. His point was that if you weren't at the Bell you were on the Monk's tracks. Who the Monk was, or what he was up to, he wouldn't tell me. The only thing he was worrying about was to keep me from giving the alarm and thus spoiling your game. He held that nothing could be done till you turned up. I agreed to give you till this morning to put in an appearance, and then you turned up. Now let's have your story."

"It's rather long," Michael said, "but I'll make it as brief as I can. It began four years ago. I wasn't on it then, of course, but about that time the French police discovered that there were a number of forged Banque de France notes circulating through the country. These notes were obviously the work of an absolute master, and it takes an expert all his time to detect them. Well, I won't go into all the early details, but it soon became apparent that whoever was responsible for the notes was a pretty cunning rogue who knew not only how to hide his tracks, but how to keep his staff in such dread of him that they'd go to gaol sooner than speak. About three years ago the French police got hold of one of the Monk's agents, but nothing they could threaten or promise had the slightest effect on him. He's serving his term now. The only thing he said from start to finish was that prison was better than what would certainly happen if he spoke."

"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Bosanquet charitably. "Let us hope that he will see the error of his ways and reform. Though I believe the French prisons are not so good as ours in that respect. But do go on, Mr.… Do you mind telling me what your name is?"

"Draycott," he replied.

"A much better name than Strange," she approved.