Sweet Danger (17 page)

‘Nor do I,' said Guffy stoutly. ‘But the person Parrott went into a lot of details. Apparently he insured his life with the firm and then Parrott saw him on to the
Marquisita
himself. They flew from Croydon to Southampton – or so he says.'

‘Campion was doped,' said Farquharson with conviction. ‘They obviously shanghaied him some way or other. If only that damned note hadn't been so horribly convincing I should feel like starting a hue and cry.'

Guffy was silent for some moments, and when he spoke it was with the utmost reluctance, his good-humoured kindly face red with shame.

‘He can't have been shanghaied,' he said. ‘Not in the ordinary way. This place, Xenophon House, is a cross between the Regent Palace and the Bank of England, with a spot of the Victoria and Albert thrown in. Of course, I believe in Campion. Whatever he's done, he's done it for the best. But I think we've got to face the fact that he's gone – for the time being, at any rate. I wish that letter of his had contained some sort of code. I've gone over it again and again. The beastly thing looks almost genuine. What we've got to do is to decide if we're going to drop the whole thing, or if we're going to carry on exactly as if he were here.'

‘Oh, we must carry on.' Farquharson spoke impulsively. ‘I don't see that we've got much authority, but we can't back out. I think Campion knows us well enough to realize we'd carry on. That's probably what he's relying on.'

Eager-Wright nodded. ‘I agree emphatically,' he said. ‘Frankly, I couldn't drop this thing now if I tried. I feel we're on the verge of discovering something at any minute. Did you take that copy of the inscription on the oak to the man you spoke about?'

Guffy nodded. ‘I left it with Professor Kirk at the British Museum. I didn't explain much to him, but he didn't mind. He's an extraordinarily nice old boy and absolutely brilliant in his own line. If he can't make anything of it no one can. Then I came straight back. There didn't seem anything else to do after my interview with Parrott.'

His despondency would have been comic in any other situation. Cowardice, and the letting down of friends, were the two cardinal sins in Mr Randall's calendar.

‘We went up to the church and had a look at the drums there,' said Farquharson in an attempt to change the conversation from a topic which was painful to them all. ‘But I'm afraid there's not much to report. There are eleven of them in the gallery, all in an appalling state of repair. It's evident that no one thinks much of them. They're very dusty and one supports a pile of ancient hymn-books. We examined them carefully, but we couldn't find anything of particular interest save that they are certainly a good deal earlier than Malplaquet.'

‘As a matter of fact,' Eager-Wright continued, ‘we put in a spot of “strickening”. Farquharson played “God Save the King” on each drum, but without any result, save that we stirred up a cloud of bats in the roof.'

It was at this moment that Mr Bull appeared for orders.

‘You don't look so well to-day sir,' he remarked, peering at Guffy with bright, inquisitive eyes. ‘Some people'd tell you you looked well even if you didn't, but I wouldn't, because that wouldn't be right. You don't look so well as I've seen you. Try some Colne Springs. There's nothing like a good dark beer if you're not quite up to the mark. Now some people would say that just to make custom,' he went on shamelessly, ‘but I wouldn't. If I didn't think that'd do you good I wouldn't serve you, and that's the truth now.'

Before such a simple confession of virtue Guffy was
stricken dumb. Mr Bull went off to get the more expensive beverage without hindrance. When he returned with the three pewter tankards, discovering no opposition, he pursued his favourite subject.

‘I'm honest,' he said, gazing at his visitors with a self-satisfied smile. ‘That's what's made this house as popular as it is. I've turned away nearly a dozen visitors to-day, or the promise of 'em, which is as good. A person came along here this afternoon in a little car and asked me if I could put up twelve members of the party who were coming to dig for remains – something to do with history. I put him off. “We don't want a lot of people here,” I said. And you can believe me, because I'm telling you the truth: he went to every other house in the village and not a soul would put his friends up. And why? Because we want the place to ourselves, and I'm not being offensive neither. We've kept ourselves to ourselves and always have done, and always will do until the great bell rings again.'

At this remark Eager-Wright roused himself sufficiently from a gloomy reverie to regard the landlord thoughtfully.

‘I don't suppose there's anyone left alive who actually heard the great bell ring before it was melted down,' he observed.

‘No,' said Mr Bull. ‘I do suppose not. Mrs Bull's father lived to a hundred and eight, and he heard it,' he went on cheerfully, but unhelpfully. ‘And that's the gospel truth and you can believe it because I've said it. He was a wonderful old man in his time. He remembered the Pontisbrights theirselves, and he could drink half a gallon without drawing breath. He wore the same pair of boots for twenty years and died in 'em. He could shave himself, too, and pull his own teeth,' he went on, to the glory of his wife's house. ‘And his youngest daughter – that's Mrs Bull – was born when he was eighty-five. That shows you, don't it?'

‘What's this story about the voice of the old bell being heard in times of storm or disaster?' enquired Guffy.

The landlord looked dubious. ‘I've never heard it,' he said. ‘And if I told you I had I'd be a liar. But old Fred Cole heard it – or always said he did. Anyway, he died and the devil took him, three or four days before you come down. He was a wicked one, he was. Both Fred and his wife and their little girl that used to live with them down in the little cottage by the church, they all three said they used to hear it when there was a tempest. But they were all three uncommonly evil-minded, and, finally, the devil come for Fred.'

‘What about the wife and the little girl?' enquired Eager-Wright.

‘Oh, they've been dead these ten years,' said Mr Bull with relish. ‘Fred used to thrash 'em, and one after the other they died. Some on us reckon he killed 'em. Anyway, after he beat 'em they died.'

‘It almost looks as if he did,' said Farquharson reasonably.

‘Ah,' said Mr Bull, ‘it do, indeed, yes, yes, and that's the truth now. He were a powerful wicked old man.'

There seemed no point in pursuing the conversation with the determinedly worthy landlord, and they paid their score and went out to the car.

‘What about Lugg?' enquired Farquharson as they drove over the heath. ‘And everyone else, for that matter. What do we say about Campion?'

‘Detained in London, don't you think so?' said Guffy. ‘After all,' he added hopefully, ‘it might even be true.'

There were more lights in the house than usual when they drew up in the mill yard, and the old place looked very lovely against its peaceful background of feathery trees, half hidden in the mist rising up from the river.

As Guffy sprang out he glanced towards the door. He had half expected Mary Fitton to come out when she heard the car. He had no reason, but still he had expected it. The whole house was unnaturally quiet, he thought, and he wondered that at least Amanda had not come bouncing to the door.

But as no one appeared he turned the handle and stepped over the threshold, closely followed by the others. It was dark in the hall, but he thought nothing of it, and turned to the stand to hang up his coat.

It was at this precise moment that something dull and heavy was thrust over his head and pulled down round his shoulders. Similar scufflings in the gloom behind him told him that his assailant had companions, who were attending to Eager-Wright and Farquharson.

After the first shock of surprise Guffy's reaction was intense anger. The sack which enveloped him was damp and smelt abominably, and his captor had contrived to catch the bridge of his nose with the raw edge of the bag. Guffy began to swear in a savage undertone and, stiffening himself, proceeded to heave at his enemy with his shoulders, since his arms were pinioned. A grunt of pain escaped him; the swines were kicking. This was the final insult. Mr Randall went berserk. He struggled wildly in his canvas prison, and actually succeeded in finding the lower end of the sack. He had wrenched an arm free when the butt of a revolver smashed down across his wrist, numbing his hand and arm from finger-tip to elbow.

Once again the sack was dragged down almost to his knees and this time a narrow rope was pushed round his shoulders, and wound so tightly that the strands cut into his flesh.

He was helpless, blinded, and without the use of his arms. He crouched and butted in the direction in which he fancied his enemy to be, and he had the satisfaction of feeling a man's yielding ribs beneath his weight and of hearing the smothered grunt as their owner collapsed. Crippled without his arms he stumbled over yet another struggling figure, missed his footing, and crashed on top of his winded assailant. The two rolled over and over together.

He had no time to think clearly, and he did not realize at first that no word had been spoken by the attackers, and that he had no clue at all as to their identity. His own fury
obsessed him. The sack was nauseating. Its dank and musty folds clung to his skin.

To outrage him still further, his adversary seemed to be gaining the upper hand. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath of sickening sack-tainted air. The cords took the strain; they cut deeper and deeper into his flesh. He felt the veins in his neck swelling until his head sang, and the pain between his eyes was unbearable. Then, just when it seemed that he must relinquish the effort or burst, the cords snapped with a report like a pistol shot. He heard a muffled exclamation from his enemy as the man strove to rise out of the knee-grip in which he held him.

Guffy rode the man like a recalcitrant horse for a second, while he strove to free himself from the insufferable sack. He had his shoulders out, and was already rewarded by a deep breath of comparatively pure air when a sense of impending danger swept over him. He ducked forward a second too late. A blow so heavy and savage that even the thick hessian with which his head was covered proved little or no protection crashed down upon his skull. He fought wildly to retain his senses, but the terrifying numbness which the blow had produced spread in spite of him, and he felt himself falling, falling, and finally drifting away into unconsciousness.

He came to his senses some considerable time later to find himself sick and dizzy, and still a prisoner in the unbearable sack. His shoulders had been rebound, and his arms and hands were numb. He moved cautiously and discovered that he was not lying on the flagstones of the hall, but upon some slightly softer material, which he suspected to be the threadbare drawing-room carpet.

Gradually, he became aware that he was not alone, but that someone was breathing very close to him. He held his own breath, rolled a few inches forward, paused and listened. Then to his complete astonishment he heard a whisper barely more than a foot away from him.

‘Who are you? Are you – are you dead?'

The terror in the familiar voice saved the question from banality. Guffy's heart leapt.

‘Mary,' he whispered back. ‘Where are you?'

‘Here.' The small voice sounded pathetically unsteady. ‘Tied to a chair, I can't move.'

Guffy's anger began to reboil. The pain in his head was almost unendurable, however, and since he was now conscious he was particularly anxious not to collapse again.

‘Where are they?' His lips grazed the sodden sacking as he spoke.

‘Hush, I think they've gone, but I'm not sure. Be careful.'

‘Where are the others?' Guffy found that the hard mound beneath his head, which he had been cursing a moment before, was the instep of his informant, and the discovery comforted him unduly.

‘In here, all except Amanda,' she said. ‘We were all gagged, too, but I got mine off by wriggling. I – I'm afraid to scream.'

‘How about Wright and Farquharson? Are they tied up too?'

What with fury, pain, and tender solicitude, Guffy was almost demented.

‘There are two more bundles – er like you,' said the voice diffidently. ‘I can only see where the moonlight falls, so I can't tell who they are, even by the legs.'

The young man settled himself as comfortably as he might. ‘I say, am I hurting you?' The idea occurred to him irritatingly.

‘Not at all.'

Guffy leant on.

‘They came when we were in the dining-room' she continued in a hushed but penetrating whisper. ‘We were waiting for you three, as a matter of fact. There were six men, I think. They came in an enormous Darracq which they left in the yard at the back. We saw the car at the
corner and we thought it was you until they all swooped down on us. I don't know where Amanda is. I heard her scream once. It sounded as though she were downstairs, but they bundled the rest of us, Aunt, Hal, and I, in here and tied us to chairs.'

‘Did you see them or get their idea?' Several futile efforts had convinced Guffy that his bonds were considerably stronger than those which had been used upon him before, and he gave up trying to escape them.

‘Of course I saw them.' Her tone was plaintive. ‘They were very ordinary people, like furniture movers, really.'

Remembering the strength and ruthlessness of the blow which had knocked him out, Guffy wryly reflected that she was probably right.

‘I don't know what they wanted,' she went on. ‘But as far as I can see they just turned the house inside out. They went over this room like customs men. They pulled up the carpet on one side, and it wasn't until they realized it had been down so long that it had practically grown to the floor that they gave up the idea. They looked behind all the pictures, too. We heard them shifting furniture all over the house.'