Within That Room! (8 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BACK STAIRWAY

Dick opened the door again swiftly, Vera clinging to him—and they were so astounded at what they saw that he forgot for the moment to slam the door shut again.

For the phantom was there—clearly visible in the sunlight, which now blazed across the upper half of the great window. A strange, incredible caricature of a being hung in the dusty air, a haze of blurry light surrounding it from the back. There was the pointed tail, the simian ears, the long, needle-chinned face, bent arms flexed as though to pounce forward. He seemed to be grinning horribly. Yet he was in mid-air, and through him the ancient stone wall could be distinctly seen.

Dick slammed the door and found himself looking into Vera's dumbfounded eyes.

“Then it...it does exist,” she gasped, shocked by incredulity. “It's not...not just a legend, after all! Look, dare we try again, just long enough to study it!”

Dick opened the door once more and they peered in on the apparition for the second time, then suddenly they began to feel the awful sensations of the previous evening. Dick slammed the door immediately, his face damp and sickly white. Firmly he drove home the imprisoning screw.

“That's enough of that,” he muttered. “The ghost's there—but so is that awful influence. We've seen enough. Unless—” His eyes gleamed abruptly. “Come with me!” he said.

Vera didn't ask questions. She followed him at top speed as he raced down the staircase and into the hall. At the door leading into the basement he stopped and pulled at it. It was locked.

“Penny to a pound, if my theory is right, that the Dragon and her husband are down here,” he panted, as Vera came hurrying up to him. “Haven't you got a duplicate key?”

“Sorry, I haven't.”

“All right—we'll wait.”

Dick stood by the door, grim-faced, then he looked around and gave a start as Mrs. Falworth appeared from the kitchen regions with vague surprise on her features.

“Oh, it is you, sir! I thought I heard somebody knocking on the front door.”

Dick looked at her blankly, then recovered himself.

“I was rattling this basement door,” he explained. “Have you been down there at all this evening, Mrs. Falworth?”

“Why should I?” Her voice was flat and hard.

“That doesn't answer the question. Have you or not?”

“Most certainly not!”

“What about your husband?”

“He is tidying up the coke in one of the outhouses if you wish to speak to him.”

“Oh!” Dick rubbed his chin and scowled. Mrs. Falworth fixed him with her abysmal eyes for a while, then she glanced at Vera.

“Have you seen the phantom, Miss?” she inquired, her tone so offhand she might have been referring to a visitor.

“Yes, not ten minutes ago, and we both felt that aura of evil. But I still believe that there has got to be an explanation.”

“If you persist,” the housekeeper shrugged. “And now, if you do not require me any further—”

Dick waved a dismissal impatiently and the woman turned and glided back towards her own domain. Vera gave Dick a puzzled look.

“You're making Mrs. Falworth decidedly suspicious. If she isn't up to anything, I'm afraid she'll be resenting our attitude before very long.”

“She's up to something all right!” There was no uncertainty in Dick's statement. “The only trouble is that I'm a bit stumped at the moment.”

“Why did you expect to find Mrs. Falworth and her husband in the cellar?”

Dick glanced around, then motioned across to the drawing room. Once they were within it he closed the door and began to speak in a lowered voice.

“I've been having plenty of hard thinking about this horror business, as you know—and it seems pretty obvious to me that if it isn't genuine terror-manifestation then it is a gas.”

“A gas!” Vera looked at him incredulously.

“What else can it be?” he insisted. “It's invisible, impalpable—and we know that there are gases which can cause unconsciousness, which can deaden the nerve centers to kill severe pain, which can maim and destroy—so why not one which acts on the nerves? That would cause those awful sensations? The brain becomes deranged because of it.”

“Well, it sounds a bit wild, but granting you are right, how does it ever get into the room with nobody but ourselves present?”

“That,” Dick said, “is the point! There is only one way—the fireplace! Is it coincidence that the back of it is knocked out so that we can see the flue behind? Is it coincidence that the back of the fireplace in the basement is also knocked out? If gas fumes were directed up from the basement fireplace they would go up between the walls and gush out again in the horror-room! That is, providing there was a stoppage in the chimney. The horror-room is exactly over the basement, wall for wall, I mean. Now you can see why I expected the Falworths to be in the cellar, directing a gas up the chimney in an attempt to wipe us out when we went in that room. That they were not down there rather upsets my theory.”

“But it's a good theory!” Vera said. “It might be possible—”

“It is possible. If only I could remember what I have at the back of my mind!” Dick said. “I've looked right at the stuff that causes such terror, here in the house somewhere. Anyway, I'm convinced that a gas is at the back of all this horror, and that means that the Falworths engineer it.”

“And the ghost?” Vera questioned.

“Afraid I don't know.” Dick shrugged and looked at her moodily. “It has me stumped. If it is not the genuine psychic article, it is the nearest thing to it that I've ever seen. Still, one thing at a time. We want this gas problem solved first, to prove if we're right. I wonder if there are two ways to the basement? We had no chance for a proper look.” He snapped his fingers. “Gosh, I wonder! That map of the house that I found torn out of the Sunny Acres book would show a second stairway, if there is one. Maybe that is why it was removed! Just a thought, but I'll bet it isn't far wrong. The map was taken for some reason, obviously.”

They fell silent, evening gloom creeping into the room.

“It can't be the only copy of the book, surely,” Vera said. “There might be one in the nearest public library—or Dr. Gillingham might have one, or know of one.”

“Gillingham!” Dick exclaimed, his eyes widening. “Of course! Too late now to search for a library, but we might catch him in. Grab your hat; we're on our way.”

It was a still, warm evening outside. Without giving the forbidding housekeeper any inkling of their intentions, they hurried out, and when they reached Dr. Gillingham's home they found him off duty, with pipe in hand.

“Well, well!” He gave a welcoming smile. “What's it this time?”

“To ask a favor, doctor,” Dick answered. “Do you happen to have a copy of a book called
The History of Sunny Acres
?”

“Yes, I have. It's a pretty popular volume in this district. Do you want to borrow it?”

“Only for a moment, if you don't mind.”

“Keep it as long as you wish. I'll get it for you.”

With a nod he hurried out of the room, to return shortly with the book in his hand. Dick glanced at the flyleaf and noted that it was a copy of the same edition.

“Thanks, doctor. It's very good of you. I'll let you have it back in no time. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not at all.” He saw them to the door and then said: “You seem to be a most energetic young couple! Are you doing a little detective work?”

“Just that,” Dick assented. “I believe I was right when I told you that I thought Cyrus Merriforth had been murdered.... Incidentally, there's something that you might be able to tell me. Do you think it is possible for a gas or poisonous fumes to exist which might cause a feeling of intense horror?”

Dr. Gillingham reflected.

“Well, I wouldn't be so hasty as to deny the possibility,” he said slowly, “but to the best of my knowledge none exists, at the moment. I admit, though, that my medical powers by no means constitute the last word.”

“But it might exist?” Dick persisted. “It isn't a hare-brained theory?

“By no means. Human nerves are responsive to the most amazing things sometimes.”

“Well—thanks again,” Dick smiled. “Come on, Vera; we've taken up quite enough of the doctor's time.”

He took her arm and they went down the front pathway together, Gillingham waving a genial farewell.

As they walked back along the street, Dick already peering at the book in the fast dying daylight, studying, Vera noticed, a glossy-surfaced plate intently. Then he came to an abrupt stop.

“There are two cellar exits,” he said.

Vera halted too, astonished. “What?”

“It's right! Look here—” He moved to the grass bank and sat down, Vera squatting at his side. He traced his finger quickly over the interior plan of the house. “See, here is the ordinary entrance where we went down. Here's the big cellar with the fireplace and chimney clearly marked; and here's the little cellar where the queer business seems to be going on. But from that, in this corner here, there is another exit—a backway set of stairs which come up in the kitchen regions!”

Vera snapped her fingers, her eyes bright.

“Now, let's see.” Dick narrowed his eyes in reflection. “Covering this corner when we looked into that cellar was a big old bookcase—obviously to cover the door. As for the kitchen regions, we didn't even bother to look—”

“I did, on my first night,” Vera interrupted, thinking. “But I thought the doors I saw led to pantries and similar places. I didn't trouble to make sure. Those two could have been down there tonight and have come up that way.”

“That's just what they did do! I'm convinced of it!”

“Then how was it that on the first night I arrived they used the normal stairway?”

“Did you see them use it?” Dick questioned.

“Well, no. They were down in the cellar when I found them, and I didn't wait to see which way they came out. But the basement door was unlocked.”

“Perhaps to tempt you down, and then they never heard you.”

“Or else she forgot to lock it after our tour of inspection. I don't know. Anyway, we've got this far. What happens next?”

“We've got to scour that basement thoroughly—and the mystery basement as well—at the earliest moment, when things are propitious. Until then we—”

Dick stopped talking, peering closely at the book, at the map of the district under the plan of the castle, a map designed in geological wavy lines.

“Just look at the deposits in the district!” he cried. “Iron ore, salt, clay, rock sulphur. All volcanic stuff and Sunny Acres is over most of them.... That smell you noticed, was it like rotten eggs?”

“Could have been, yes.”

“Sulphur, sulphuretted hydrogen gas, anyway, smells very similar, and it's a volcanic product.”

“You don't mean that sulphur gas produces that awful sensation—?”

“No; that's something quite different, and anyway sulphuretted hydrogen gas is too heavy to go up a flue. It floats along the ground. No, I've got another idea about the smell, and these deposits. Pretty amazing idea, too, but it might be right....” He snapped the book shut. “We have got to inspect that cellar! Now let's get back before it's too dark to see.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THIRD FINGER, LEFT HAND

Mrs. Falworth was just lighting the oil lamps in the hall as they re-entered the house. She glanced in their direction as they came toward her.

“You can lock up,” Vera instructed. “We shall not be going out again. We'll have tea and biscuits and then retire.”

“Very good, miss....” The housekeeper's eyes traveled to the book Dick was carrying, then she crossed to the front door and began to push across the heavy bolts.

“She saw it,” Dick murmured, as he and Vera moved into the oil-lighted drawing room. “She must have guessed by now that we're hot-foot after her. Maybe it'll force her into the open and save us the trouble of having to sort this business out to the last detail.”

“Depends what coming into the open means,” Vera objected. “I don't relish the thought of being killed in the middle of the night.”

“Obvious murder is not Mrs. Falworth's game. That would ruin everything for her. She prefers the gradual breaking down of a mind. That woman is a fiend at heart—as deadly as a viper—” He broke off, patted his pockets and said, “I wonder where my cigarettes are?”

“You had them in here last, before we went up to see the ghost,” Vera reminded him, glancing round. “You should— There they are! Over on the table by the door.”

He got up and crossed the room. It was as he picked the case up that he gave a start and looked fixedly across the hall. The drawing room door was slightly open and he could clearly see into the yellow glow that marked the kitchen. On the wall hung an oval mirror and in it was Mrs. Falworth's reflection. Dick could faintly discern her bending over two cups upon a tray, shaking something into them. It wasn't sugar, or anything of that nature. It was something in a white packet.

He turned away abruptly, fearing his own reflection might be noticed.

“Whatever you do,” he said, extending his cigarette case to Vera, “don't drink your tea. Get rid of it somehow and pretend you have drunk it!”

“But, Dick, why on earth—?”

“Don't drink that tea. I can't explain now. Here she comes.”

Mrs. Falworth entered a second or two later and set the try down quietly on a side table. She poured the tea into the cups and brought them across.

“That'll be all, thanks,” Vera said. “I will ring when we have finished.”

“Very good, miss.” Mrs. Falworth went out and closed the door. Dick sniffed at his tea sharply.

“No smell,” he murmured under his breath, glancing at the door, “but I saw her put something in these cups. I don't think she'd try to poison us. It's more likely to be a sleeping draught to keep us nice and quiet during the night. We'll pour the stuff in the fireplace. Give me your cup.”

Vera handed it over and watched as Dick emptied both cups into the huge fireplace, raking a few remaining cinders over the wet patches in the grate. Then he went over to the teapot, rinsed the cups out thoroughly with some tea in each—which again he emptied into the fireplace; then he refilled them.

“Okay now,” he said. “Enjoy it.”

“Suppose she put some in the teapot as well?” Vera asked uneasily.

“I hardly think she would, as well as in the cups. Too much of it could kill. I'm risking it, anyway.”

So Vera risked is as well. Then they both sat quiet for ten minutes waiting for any unusual symptoms, but nothing happened.

“We're okay,” Dick decided, relieved—still keeping his voice low. “And incidentally, if she goes to the trouble of giving us a sleeping draught, there must be something pretty important planned for tonight. It may be the chance of a lifetime for us to see what really is going on, because they won't be expecting anything from us.”

“True,” Vera agreed.

“And also a chance to prove another theory,” Dick added, pondering. “If we can be sure that they are busily engaged in the cellar we might nip back and take a look at the horror-room. If we experience no sensations of terror, that will prove conclusively that it is induced by them. And we'll be well on the way towards getting to the root of this whole business. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Vera nodded, and they clinked empty cups to seal the bargain.

After a brief interval they put the cups on the tray and Vera rang the bell. Then she and Dick left, were halfway up the staircase as they saw the inscrutable housekeeper crossing the hall to take the tray to the kitchen.

“I'll bet she grins over those cups,” Dick murmured. “Thinking we're going to go to sleep.”

They came to the top of the stairs in sepulchral gloom.

“Don't overdo it with light up here, do they?” Vera sighed.

“Might reveal too much of their comings and goings. Anyway, we know where our bedrooms are....”

They stopped outside the girl's door.

“What's the program?” she murmured.

“Well, the first essential is to stay awake; but the ideal method would be for you to sit up in my room with me; or for me to sit up in your room. Both of us just as we are, dressed and ready.”

“All right,” Vera agreed. “Come on in.”

She could almost feel Dick staring at her. His voice sounded out of the gloom in surprise. “I thought you'd start a lot of argument about conventions!”

“Conventions be hanged,” she said. “I'm pretty sure by now that murder has been done and that we're next in line for it; that rubs out a lot of conventions.”

He followed her into the room, and she said: “By the way, next time you are near a jeweler's you might get a ring and seal this business bargain of ours—”

Suddenly, in the dim gloom, she felt his arms about her.

“Vera, you're not kidding? You mean it? We've really become engaged—?”

“I just said so,” she insisted.

Then she lit a lamp and drew the curtains.

“Queer sort of a night to get engaged, I suppose,” she reflected.

Dick said: “Since there may be a delay before I can get to a jeweler I think—Here! This'll show willingness, anyway!”

He drew the gold signet ring from his little finger, thrust it on the girl's third finger, left hand.

“Never did a chap meet a finer girl,” he whispered. “You've got a lot of courage, looks—”

“And a haunted castle!” she reminded him.

“It occurs to me,” he went on, “that I'd better hop along to my own room and lock the door from the outside in case the Falworths decide to take a peep in at me.”

He went out silently and was back in a minute with the key in his hand. He slipped it in his pocket and then motioned to chairs.

“Nothing to do now except wait for it!”

They settled themselves in easy chairs and for a while talked of commonplaces. About 11:30 they heard the Falworths come to bed.

Twelve o'clock and one o'clock sounded from the grandfather clock below—and finally two. Vera was coiled up in her chair, her head pressed against the back and her eyes closed. Dick sprawled with legs outthrust and hands locked over his chest—then suddenly he drew his knees up sharply and sat listening. Reaching out he gave the girl a nudge.

“Something moving,” he whispered.

She fought the sleep out of her head and listened. To both she and Dick came the sound of feet moving softly along the corridor outside. As on that first night when Vera had listened alone, they faded presently into silence.

“On the move, all right,” Vera agreed, standing up. “Let's go.”

Dick rose and felt in his coat pocket and brought a small flashlight into view.

“I grabbed this when I went to lock my door: it may be useful. Ready?”

Vera nodded, so he turned out the dim oil lamp and then opened the bedroom door. There was the customary vista of quiet, the moon shining through the stained-glass window. Making no sounds, they went downstairs and in a few minutes reached the doorway leading to the basement. It was locked.

“Might have known it,” Dick growled. “Only one other way—take the back staircase from the kitchen. That leads right into the storage cellar and we may get a proper chance to see what they are up to. But not a sound, mind!”

Cautiously, using his flash, he led the way into the kitchen regions. The beam settled on a table, a cupboard, a cook stove, and finally on the big door in the corner. It opened at Dick's gentle touch and revealed narrow wooden stairs leading downward. A miasmic, unpleasant smell floated up to them.

“Shoes off,” Dick whispered. “And mind the splinters.”

Vera kicked hers off and Dick untied his laces swiftly. Soundlessly they began the descent and found it ended in another door. They stood listening intently. From behind it there came that mysterious swishing of water, and borne on the air was the horrible smell. Dick sniffed at it critically.

“Very much like the residue of sulphuretted hydrogen gas,” he decided. “And since a small percentage in the air is fatal, we'd better watch our step.”

Very gently he took hold of the doorknob and turned it. The door opened ever so slightly, perhaps a quarter of an inch. Dick could feel Vera trembling with excitement as she peered over his shoulder....