The Year's Best Horror Stories 9 (14 page)

So saying, he shuffled stiffly out of the room while Sanderton looked worriedly toward his friend and shook his head.

“All this is very disturbing,” he murmured. “I hate subversive writings but I think the doctor is magnifying Faik’s mischief. Theft’s a plain thing: why not stick to that and dispense with these scruples and precautions?”

“That’s what I felt,” said Courtleigh, “but I think he’s on the track of something important. Faik may, or may not, be a criminal but I think he’s the sort to go beyond mere burglary.”

“What do you mean?” asked the rector with puzzled surprise.

“Blackmail? Pornography? Treason? Oh, I don’t know,” replied the professor with a shrug. “We’ll soon see. When the doctor comes down I’ve one or two direct questions to ask him.”

The doctor was, however, a long time. The two men had heard him open an upstairs door, but after that the house was silent save for the ticking of an antique clock. Sanderton went out to listen in the hall.

“Dr. Propert, are you there?” he called at length, ascending the stairs.

He entered the bedroom and there saw, in the light of his single candle, the old man collapsed over an oak chest by the window, with the curtains drawn back as if he had been staring out. As Sanderton raised and helped him to the bed, his lips faltered out what appeared to be part of a psalm; but he had scarcely got to the Gloria Patri when he died in his faithful cleric’s arms.

Courtleigh and the butler were by this time upstairs in answer to Sanderton’s cry. More lights were brought, but as Perkins moved to draw the curtains again, he exclaimed, “Lord spare us, Mr. Sanderton, there’s someone across in the Chapel Library. I saw the big window light up, all colors like a lantern. One flash it was, sir, but it’s all dark again now.”

Courtleigh had seen it too. Whether it meant thieves or fire he did not know, but in any case it boded no good. Leaving Perkins to help Mr. Sanderton with his dead master, he ran downstairs, sent a boy to the lodge ordering the gardener to watch that no one passed the gate, while he himself tore across to the library with Hook the joiner to catch whomsoever might be there.

Someone certainly had been in since the doctor locked the place that afternoon. The outside door was open and stood slightly ajar. Snatching the lantern from Hook and bidding him stay there on guard, the resolute scholar, with his stick very grimly poised, went peering inside.

The place was deathly still as he made first for the Muniment Room and tried the strong oak door at the top of the steps. With a grunt of relief he found it quite secure. Next he searched the gallery and sent the shadows sweeping around alarmingly as the lantern’s beams played through into the cabinet and down into the oratory below. But no sign of a trespasser could he find. In a few minutes Hook’s voice from the door was growing less reverently subdued as the danger of encounter faded out. He was even becoming jocose when the professor gave up the search and rejoined him.

As luck would have it, though, a gust of wind swung the door hard back and sent the lantern crashing out of Courtleigh’s hand.

“Devils of hell!” he muttered in a tone quite unlike himself when, as he fumbled for a match, a scurry of dead leaves swirled against his face.

“You don’t think anybody did that so as to get past us, do you, sir?” asked the old servant, once more querulous.

“It was the wind, of course,” retorted the professor rather shortly. “What makes you ask such silly questions?”

“Well, I just kind of thought I saw a figure—leastways a face—slide behind you, sir, as the lantern went out. But very like it was all my fancy, sir,” mumbled the apologetic Hook.

“A face! What sort of a ‘face’?” rapped Courtleigh with a challenging scorn as they walked back to the house in time to meet the other searchers also returning.

“See anybody at all?” he cried, hailing them by the steps. “Not a soul, sir,” replied the stolid gardener, “ ’cept Lizzie what thinks she see Mr. Faik, bless yer life, slip behint a bush. Must be able to see double if yer ask me. All I say is—there’s not a living soul in this ’ere park, barring present company, sir.”

“Thank you, Jennings,” replied the professor. “It seems to have been a false alarm; or at any rate no damage has been done. We’d better all get off to bed, I think.”

As the party filed into the house again, Hook could be heard muttering, “Faik! By Christmas, that was the face. I couldn’t call it to mind. That was ’im all right—either ’im or the spelk of ’im.”

Next day, as soon as the necessary arrangements for Dr. Propert’s funeral had been put in hand, Mr. Sanderton and the professor stepped over to the library to make a thorough daylight investigation. The lock of the great door—the only way in or out—had not been forced for the key was in it. Either it had been stolen from the house, or the doctor must have forgotten it while in the very act of locking the place. Which it was, no one would ever know now. The door to the Muniment Room was still locked and bore no signs of violence. But when the rector unfastened it and went inside the moments reached a tempo of feverish anxiety. At first they dare not believe it, but a rapid search assured them both that the
Household Book
was gone. All the other volumes remained as on the day before; but, look where they would, the quaint old quarto upon which so much depended was nowhere to be found.

Courtleigh was almost broken-hearted. “That means goodbye to our bequest,” he moaned with a bitter laugh. He paced about in silence for a while, then halted with a glint of comprehension. “Hook, that joiner fellow, was right!” he exclaimed. “Faik it must have been. Let me get down to the lawyer’s, and we’ll have him brought to justice no matter what the cost.”

Sanderton was much inclined to the same impulse, but how even Faik could have got in and out of that room was beyond his surmising, for apart from the door there was no other means of access. Courtleigh was quite convinced the villain must have had another key. Yet the rector refused to see how he could ever have got one, as the lock was of recent make and of intricate design by the doctor’s special order. Entry by a window was out of the question: the one small lancet with its leaded panes was still intact. In short, the mystery was not to be solved by any conjecture either of them could make.

Nor did time mend matters. Things looked more complicated than ever when it became evident that the search for Faik was futile. Besides the legal agents set on by Courtleigh, the man’s own sister—Miss Hariett Faik of Hengsward—had also instituted widespread inquiries to find him. Even the police were completely baffled. As the weeks passed, and months, and no one had seen the missing person alive or dead since October 17th, the very newspapers ceased to interest themselves in the “mysterious disappearance of a retired barrister”; and Edgar Faik had to be presumed dead.

Of course, every effort was made by Durham authorities to secure the bequest. But no plea, however reasonable, could override the inability of the intended recipients to fulfill the conditions imposed in Dr. Propert’s will. In the absence of the
Household Book
all negotiation was doomed to failure; and one of the finest private libraries in the country was left without a legal inheritor.

III

It was the second October after Propert’s death and Courtleigh (just returned from a lengthy research tour in Sicily) had almost forgotten about Peryford when he received a letter from Sanderton to say that Sir Leslie Marlop, a retired Indian banker, was taking the priory on lease and coming to live there.

A local firm had refurnished the house, and most of the old servants were already back awaiting the arrival of their new master. The deserted place was coming into its own again. But the best news of the letter was Sanderton’s joyful announcement that Sir Leslie knew about the unfulfilled bequest and was anxious to seek at least some means of loaning the books to Durham. To this end he would like Courtleigh to join him and the rector for lunch the following Tuesday at Peryford.

Term had just begun and the professor, after so long an absence, had little free time. But he determined, rather than disappoint Sir Leslie, to compress his engagements and get off to Peryford sometime on Tuesday. He replied to this effect and so it was arranged.

On the Saturday, however, Sanderton discovered something which made matters even more exciting. He had come across an announcement, previously overlooked, in an old
Yorkshire Post
: “Re: the Estate of Miss Hariett Faik, deceased.” She had died, it seemed, in London and there was to be a sale of her properties and effects at Hengsward. What specially intrigued the rector was the item—“Miscellaneous books and papers of the late E. Faik, Esq., F.S.A.”

There was not much time to be lost for the sale was to take place on Monday, the day before the proposed meeting with Sir Leslie. Sanderton decided he would have a look at those “miscellaneous books” at all costs, and wrote off to Courtleigh telling him of this latest bit of news and hoping to have something to report when they met on Tuesday. So, on the morning of the sale a hopeful-looking clergyman might have been seen among the crowd at the Black Bull at Hengsward. The auctioneer, though, began by apologizing for the withdrawal of certain lots, including the books, which a London firm had purchased by private treaty. Sanderton was crestfallen indeed; but having come, decided to stay on a little and see what other items were offered. Nor did he regret this when a bundle of old music, including some Tudor motets and madrigals, of Miss Faik’s, was knocked down to him for half a guinea. Things were, in fact, sufficiently interesting to keep him till the bidding was adjourned for lunch. But a stroll among the remaining lots, as the attendance dispersed, convinced him there was no reason to be there when business was resumed. He had an invitation to lunch with an old parishioner who had just taken a farm in the Hengsward district and wanted to show him round.

The rector was leaving the inn-yard to look out for his farmer friend when his attention fell upon a dealer—from York or Harrogate perhaps—busy with a mass of unframed pictures and plates. The man was hastily sifting his purchases and casting aside most of them in disdain to a little old country fellow who was piling them up with grateful eagerness. As Sanderton drew nearer, the connoisseur made a final review of his prizes—a couple of mezzo-tints and some four or five engravings—slipped them into a portfolio, and was off.

“So you get the lion’s leavings, eh Hook? Or should we call them windfalls?” the rector remarked, turning good-naturedly to the old joiner. “By the way, have you seen Mr. Elders at all this morning?”

“Why, good morning, sir!” exclaimed Hook as he turned around from tying up his newly-acquired collection. “Mr. Elders? I know him as was churchwarden at Peryford? No, rector, I ’aven’t seen him about yet.”

“He’s half promised to meet me here—unless his wife’s got worse, poor woman. I’ll wait a while at any rate,” said Mr. Sanderton, setting down his parcel of music on the bench. “And what brings you here today?”

“Sentimental reasons I suppose you’d call it, sir,” replied the joiner. “I worked over here for Mr. Faik, you know, at one time.”

“Indeed!” responded the rector. “I had an idea you’d always lived at Peryford. I know you helped us at the library last year, just before Dr. Propert died, but now I come to think of it I’d not seen you before that.”

“Well, you see, I used to . . .” began Hook, but at that moment a trap flashed by the yard entrance.

“Excuse me. Was that Mr. Elders that just went past?” interrupted the rector suddenly starting up. “He may have been waiting for me inside and decided I’d not come.”

Hook ran out to look and after shouting loudly down the High Street turned back nodding, “Yes, sir, it’s him. He’s just pulling up.”

Mr. Sanderton seized his bundle hastily and trotted out to climb up alongside his old churchwarden. As the trap moved off he called out, “Thank you, Hook. Come round to the rectory sometime soon and we’ll finish our little talk there.”

What was done at Beckside Farm does not concern us much. Suffice it to say that Mrs. Elders had so far recovered as to provide a luncheon worthy of a churchwarden’s wife; that Elders himself, having made good bargains at Malton market, was proud as punch to show the rector around; and that Sanderton saw every field and sty with a critical nod, inspected all the stock approvingly, spoke wisely about modern manures and former governments and (after assembling the full household in the parlor for prayers) waved farewell to them all at the lane end with a feeling that something of the land was sticking to him inside as well as to his boots.

Night had set in by the time he alighted from the train at Peryford. But he was not destined to get home just yet.

“Good evening, rector,” cried a man loading trunks and boxes onto a drag in the station yard. “Can I take your bag along, sir, and would you care to ride back with me?”

“Why, it’s Jennings!” exclaimed Mr. Sanderton. “This is fortunate indeed. Have you room for me? Thank you, thank you. How come you to be here so late as this?”

“Simple, sir,” answered the cheerful groom as they jogged along. “It’s like this. Sir Leslie arrived an hour ago and I was sent down for the luggage right away. He came a bit afore expected and was asking for you, sir.”

“Hm,” murmured the rector, “perhaps I had better see him before I go to the rectory. Yes, I think I ought.”

Arrived at the house, he was ushered at once by Perkins into Sir Leslie’s dressing room.

“Ah!” cried the new master of Peryford, shaking himself into a tightish pair of pantaloons. “How are you, Sanderton? I’d have sent across to the rectory but they said you were out. I’m a bit before my time but the fact is that Bates—my lawyer, you know—tells me there’s a hitch over that idea of ours about the bequest. He’s coming tomorrow and I wanted to see you first.”

“I’ve been over to Faik’s sale as it happens,” explained the rector, “and I’m just on my way home . . .”

“Well, look here,” proposed the baronet eagerly. “Dinner’s out of the question now. They’re getting me some cold supper ready. I know you won’t refuse to join me; then we can talk at length. You can spruce yourself up without going home. Yes . . . and I’ll be down in a few minutes too.”