XXI.The Midnight ExpeditionOctober 8. 11A.M.Furtively, yet with a strange half-fearful pleasure, I made my way in safety to the top of the stairs and down. I knew it was useless to inspect the rooms which had been examined many times by day during the past week. So I would have passed the library entrance without a moment’s check in my rapid movement, had not a streak of light shot forth from beneath the door just as I reached the bottom stair. Someone had lit the chandelier.I felt shock. I curdled. To investigate is one thing; to run point-blank on revelations in the wrong place is another. I had a panicky impulse to slip upstairs again and lock myself in. But instead I loitered where I stood, staring at the yellow drugget spread from the lintel.The door was slightly ajar, and I saw a portion of the panelling of the library wall; yet no sound came from within. A pale screen of light, of which the edge drew a line on the opposite side of the corridor, indicated that I might peep into the room through the slit of the door. And though my curiosity had somehow turned sick within me, presently I found myself with my eye at the crack.My legs seemed to wilt. If it had been Cosgrove himself, burly as life, I could not have had a worse turn. A trim young fellow, clad in dinner clothes and wearing a black cap, was inside, and he was a stranger!He had been standing beyond the table, apparently in thought, his head three-quarters from me, so that I caught only the remote profile of his smooth face, and a narrow slice of his white shirt-front. But now he moved across the room to a bookcase just within my triangle of vision, drew open its glass doors, and commenced looking for some volume. He stood in full view with his back toward me, turning his head from side to side in a survey of the upper shelves. I could see then that though slight of stature, he was, for his height, no mere skeleton, but of fairly solid build, being even a bit broader across the hips than at the shoulders.A minute later he was beneath the light, his chosen volume lay open before him. I recognized it instantly as the Book of Sylvan Armitage. With his face cast into shadow by the peak of his cap, he leaned across the table with one hand flat on the red velvet, while the other ran through the pages. I could tell that the outspread hand was delicate and tapering, an “artistic” hand; but what I wanted to see plainly was that clean-shaved face.Of a sudden he picked the book up from the table, pushed himself erect from his leaning position, walked toward the armoury door and beyond my range of vision. There was a click, and the chandelier faded out; a moment later I heard a tiny jingling sound, as of curtain rings disturbed. The young man was restoring the portières to their original places. Then—nothing.The debonair manner I discerned in this youth even during observation so brief and cramped, the easy, natural way in which his dapper feet carried him across the floor, as if the place belonged to him—all so much at variance with the stealthy habits of a lawless intruder—rather increased the numb, foreboding ill-ease I felt.At last I ventured into the library, and found it, as I expected, in moon-bathed vacancy. The armoury and the Hall of the Moth were also empty save for their furnishings. I stood in the midst of the Hall, wondering where the young chap had betaken himself, whether out of doors, which seemed unlikely, whether into some crypt or cove in the massive walls, which seemed unlikely, too, or into thin air, which, in spite of the compulsion of ancient sorceries, seemed less likely than either. Anyhow, he was gone, and it remained for me to consider what course to take.No need to retail my devious thoughts. In the end I saw no good in rousing the house, particularly since I must reveal my secret projects. I went on as before, with caution redoubled.The corridor—no one there, apparently. The dinner-room—no one there for certain. The kitchen—now I was in unknown territory. I waited, listened, breathless. Only the whistle of a bat outside, the creak of a timber within. I ran the shifting circle of my torch about the walls, across the floor. A cockroach, devil’s coachman, fled across the flags, and a great moth with eyes glimmering green fluttered toward me from some corner. There on its pillar hung the gate-house key; there, beside the chimney-place where a modern stove presided, was the door I sought.With prodigious care I passed through this portal, for besides leading ultimately to the bowels of the earth, it ushered me at first into a passage off which opened the precincts of the servants. These half-subterranean chambers lay beneath the dinner-room and conservatory. While I stole past the doors, I had audible evidence a-plenty that the dwellers within were sleeping soundly enough.This passage I was traversing had a distinct downward tendency and stretched underneath the corridor of the ground floor. It terminated in a door which, when I passed my light over it, appeared very black and cumbrous. The key was in the lock.To my surprise, when by a series of graded pressures I commenced to turn this key, it moved easy and soundless, as if very recently oiled. Beyond was a winding stone stair.By way of sensible precaution I removed the key and brought it with me, having no wish to be immured in the depths for any cause whatsoever. The stairs, a dozen or so in number, brought me to the entrance of another passage beneath the first, leading me in exactly the opposite direction. While it proceeded it widened into a goodly cellar, and I made out the yawning mouths of bins on either side, a comforting sight. There were dark archways leading to other caverns. And when I stamped, an unmistakable hollow sound came from below, proof that some buried chamber existed there.The trap-doors by which one gained these sub-cellars, Crofts had said, were long disused, inch-deep in dust. And a few seconds later I came upon one of them, a heavy iron plate in the floor, clamped down with a clumsy padlock—but the dust was cleared away, and the padlock was not fastened at all! I picked the thing up from where it was lying by the flange, and stared at it stupidly. It would never lock anything again; it had been forced.Now, surely, this was none of Salt’s work; he had promised to do no more than inspect the dust-covered entrances. It became increasingly evident that someone had preceded me in this search, someone careful not to be detected while he came, but careless whether it was known that he had been. God forbid that he was still below!With one fierce tug I lifted the door by a ring in the centre; it fell backward with a heavy clang, and an atmosphere of choking damp came up from the hole it left.A stair descended therein, very steep and narrow, with a thinnish fuzzy coating which must have been dust, though where it came from would have been difficult to tell. In the dust there were footprints, big footprints.I didn’t like it, but I went on down. The rough stone walls were crumbling with water-rot and the sheer decay of age. While the air grew more smothering, I ran my head into stalactitic cobwebs and rubbed elbows with evil fungi sprouting in every crevice.It seemed as if there must be a hundred of those steps, though actually they were about the same number as had been in the winding stair. At length I saw that I had come to the last of them, for the big footsteps tramped across a lumpy floor, athwart the glistening path of a snail. The door was earth, soggy and covered with that same thin dust-layer.Midnight was midnight there indeed. Without my torch, I should never have returned a sane man. Nor did my light, dancing about from wall to wall, make it endurable. Fungi grew riotously everywhere, and the cobwebs, black as a funeral, hung down thick from the vaulted ceiling, like infamous hair. One or two spiders darted out and scurried immediately back into their loathsome jungle. Whenever I shifted my light, I had a feeling that from the place left in darkness the vile growth was reaching out tentacles to grasp and cling to me.I intended to make my business here as brief as possible, but first I must find what the other visitor had been doing before me. I followed the big footprints across the marshy floor, and noted a thick mark drawn beside them. Something had been dragged.Then the traces ceased, and I drew back suddenly with a cry at my lips. I had had a narrow escape.There was little to tell that the floor stopped here, for like it the water was covered with an unclean growth. I stood on the brink of the water-pit, where Aidenn’s lord had once drowned thirty wretches in a single day! If ever a place was accurst for the cruelties performed there, this is it.Over the stagnant pit the ghastly festoons hung so thick that the torchlight could scarcely pierce the darkness to the farther wall. From that wall a queer shape protruded, round like an enormous barrel, but too vague to be identified.I suddenly caught sight of an object beside me on the verge of the water. A stake had been driven into the earth through the gathered-up mouth of a large cloth bag. The bottom of the bag hung over the edge and down into the water, and the weight of its contents drew the whole bag taut.I gave a prolonged look through the shaggy gloom, where the black streamers faintly shivered in the air my body had stirred. Was some obscene presence spying on me from the murk?Banishing fear, I wrenched up the stake, lifted the bag from the pool, and let its burden fall upon the floor. Stark and stiff, with its eyes staring, its tongue thrust out, its fur tousled into knarls and lumps, its claws extended, the enormous cat of the sisters Delambre lay outstretched at my feet. I stooped over the body; my fingers touched a cord drawn tight about the neck.So Maryvale had made this abysmal journey before me, and there had been substance in his madness when he announced that Parson Lolly is no more. Since bullets would not kill, with cord and water he made assurance double. The long despairing cry will never shudder down the Vale again.I must have stood there a long while almost oblivious, gazing into the invisible, until the darkness seemed to enter my brain. The most infinitesimal sounds crept into my consciousness: the muffled murmur of water in motion somewhere, the charnel breath of the things that drooped from the vault, the very voice of silence! Then disgust at my surroundings mounted in an instant almost to nausea, and I wheeled about in flight to the cellar above.I took the stairs in a leap and a scramble, the trap-cover closed with a shout behind me while I darted among the bins and arches to the winding steps. At the top of these I paused to replace the key but not to turn it, then made tiptoes past the doors until I gained the kitchen. With the key of the gate-house in my hand I passed into the dinner-room, thence through the corridor into the conservatory, one of whose smaller windows I proposed to use as a means of egress.The valley seemed pale and quiet in the moonlight. In a trice I had the casement open and had stepped through to the ground, concealed beneath those outside stairs leading to the door at the end of the first floor corridor. I pushed the window shut, and on the instant the long screech of some predatory night-bird shrilled from the summer-house park. If it was an omen, it was not for good—and my path lay among those shadows!This was for secrecy. If I passed directly across the lawn, some wakeful eye in one of the long range of windows might find me out; so I had no choice but a long three parts of a circle screened by trees. First I stole behind the birches where I concealed myself at dawn the other day on catching sight of the red-bearded runner, next through the cypresses, then the sycamores of the park, and finally the strawberry trees. These last extended far enough south to enable me to reach the towers from the side opposite the House. The door was on the other side, unconcealed, but I had to risk being seen while I unlocked it.I stood still beneath the twin, mute towers for a minute or two before gathering determination for my effort. Salt, of course, visited this place the day after his arrival, but has kept his discoveries secret. My hope, of course, was that someone came hereafterSalt, in particular the black-robed object of our pursuit to-night.I noticed that the moon was near setting, since it had but a short progress to make from eastern to western hill. When it was down, the Vale would be dark indeed. Was it worth waiting until that happened?Impatience decided not. I sped around the tower that contained the door, turned the monumental key, got safely inside the entrance, and stood with bated breath. Seen or unseen, I was in for it now. Heaven help me if I found a presence inside these walls.My light showed the beginning of the spiral stair; there was absolutely no sound. I commenced to climb.It was a long way up. My stockinged feet were all but noiseless on the overlapping stony steps, and more than once I checked myself, thinking that I heard footfalls following mine. The torch, directed downward, revealed the empty stair winding into nether darkness. This delusion persisted; indeed, when I was at the point of entering the little room atop the tower, I thought that I heard even the breath of some stealthy climber. The light showed only the bare winding beneath me, and I spoke a murrain on the narrow tower which had no well to enable me to see clear to the bottom.My imagination cooled down, and I set about examining the circular chamber. Owing to the thickness of the walls, it was only some five feet in diameter. It was low, and save in the centre, where the pointed roof gave space, I could not stand upright. For windows it had three slots, through one of which the moon cast a slanting beam. The floor was thickly daubed with mud, but this in itself was not surprising when one considered that Salt had sloshed through here on the morning of the downpour.But that mud would have dried long ago, and this showed signs of damp!Eagerly, critically, I bent and studied the floor in the full glare of my torch. There were dubious faintly moist impressions, of feet, I believed; but I could make nothing of them. No entire footprint was evident. Over the general surface of the dirt, however, something sopping wet had recently been trailed, but not so heavily as to disturb the topography of the mud. The little ridges and knolls left by Salt’s rubber boots remained intact, but portions of that microscopic countryside looked as if they were recovering from an inundation; in one or two hollows there were positive pools, one-sixteenth of an inch deep.Something exceedingly wet, but not very heavy—what else but the gown of the creature that had fled from Aire and me and plunged into the stream? Only, how in the name of magic did that creature evade us to get here, unless it skippedupthe stream, which both Aire and I are prepared to attest on oath it did not do?A flat-headed aperture led the way across the bridge between the towers. In that direction the water-trail appeared to tend, although at the edge of the dirt, where the gown had been drawn along the stones themselves, almost complete evaporation had taken place. Further along there was no sign of damp at all; I suppose the intruder had observed the puddles he was making and had lifted the garment clear from the floor, perhaps doffed it and rolled it under his arm.I had to crouch nearly double in that low passageway to reach the inner room, which now I believed to be the headquarters of Parson Lolly. My light, cast ahead, showed that it was a chamber of identical mould with the one I had just quitted, and, much to my relief, it was empty. One difference there was, indeed: the corresponding stairway which led down from this tower had for some reason been walled up. I tested the mortared stones; I pounded them with my fist; I butted them with my shoulder. They were sound and secure, leaving no doubt that those stairs condemned to everlasting darkness held no secret connected with the present mysteries.When I had reached this comfortable certainty, I made a detailed search of the turret. Someone, for sure, had been in the habit of coming there; I found what appeared to me sufficient evidence of occupation, and of hurried, perhaps permanent, departure.There were pencil-whittlings on the floor, from an indelible pencil; I know the nasty taste of the aniline preparation. Now, when I re-examined the Parson’s placard inside the House this evening, I saw, though I did not comment on the fact, that such a pencil had been used in writing it.There were two or three dark stains, splashes now quite dried, which yet had a dim, offensive odour when my nose was close to them. To my mind, no more proof is needed that a young pig was murdered here.There were a few short lengths, an inch to four or five inches, of some pliant fibrous wood, perhaps bamboo, which I cannot account for. With these, perhaps, are associated the fragments of black crepe I found cut in wedges, rhombs, and various irregular shapes.I detected, while bending near one of the slender openings, a sub-acrid, faded scent, which seemed specially localized on the sill, so to speak, of the window, as if some pungent stuff had once been spilt there and removed. In its proper context the source of the odour would, I am sure, have been obvious in an instant; yet here it baffled me.Last I found a torn end of paper. The side uppermost was blank, but to my joy the other proved to contain printed words. The piece was obviously detached from the title-page of some old book, octavo size, with which I am not acquainted, though “CATTI” looks obscurely familiar. I shall hardly have any trouble in identifying it.¹I felt actual elation, for Salt would never have overlooked this, or left it here, supposing he had found it in the course of his inspection.A torn piece of paper, missing much of the left side. The printing on the paper is laid out like a handbill or a book’s title page. What can be read says: “The ―es & Vagaries of ―on Catti, ―ones, Esq., ―d Wag of Wales; by ―yn Prichard”.Five minutes had revealed these things; an hour could not reveal more. I tucked the slip of paper into my breast pocket and departed from the turret. Half-way across the bridge I was again aware of the sound of footsteps climbing to the first chamber, but dismissed the idea as a renewal of the delusion which had troubled me before.But there was no mistake this time, as I realized very soon. The pad-pad of the unknown feet was growing louder, coming nearer. At once I was terrified, yet possessed of reason. I knew it might be fatal to let this creature see me before I saw him—it—her. Particularly disastrous it would be to be caught in this low passageway where I must go with my head almost touching my knees. I snapped off my light, staggered into the room beyond, and stood at the edge of the stair-head, leaning perforce on account of the funnel-roof. It was a position of vantage. There I was in darkness, whereas whatever was coming must emerge into the moonlight that shot through the opposite slit. I might even escape undetected down the stairs if the creature hurried past me to the bridge and the farther tower.But this hope was abortive. The creature knew I was there: that belief stuck like a knife in my heart.The steady steps were only ten feet below, one twist of the stair. They were like the steps of any ordinary man.The moon must have been nearly swallowed by the hills all this time, for now it went down with appalling suddenness and left the room in thick and absolute night. I could not see my foe in darkness; could it see me?Every nerve in me was ringing its own alarm. The subtle glue that holds the body-cells in friendly ties dissolved; it was every cell for itself. I was fleeing in all directions.The creature actually passed me by; I felt the touch of some part of it, cold as an Arctic stone, on my arm.It was like awakening from an evil dream. My fear welled up in fury. Silently I launched an attack; with the torch I held I let fly in blind and murderous onslaught. I struck something a blow that glanced; the torch slipped from my grasp, but the creature staggered and sank to the floor. I had my hands on its body now, and a crazy exultation took hold of me when I realized that my opponent was merely a man like myself and at my mercy. The stroke I had given blindly seemed to have stunned him, for he made no resistance, but lay crumpled up, as I found by groping. His breath came harsh and irregular.Who was he? For what seemed immeasurable time I searched, but I could not find my torch.Obviously I had made an important capture, and the best thing to do, since my light was lost, would be to lock the fellow-prisoner in and go for reinforcements.I had a handkerchief; so had he. With their assistance I triced him in a position from which he would not easily free himself. I placed him face downward, with his head turned aside for breathing and his legs doubled back, and I clipped each wrist to the opposite ankle.Then I groped my way down the long turnings, found the darkened world again, locked the tower door, and made for the House.The rest was like the return of horrid dreams. With the moon gone, still the stars gave a grey cast to the darkness. I saw some fluttering-draped figure descend from the first storey by the outside stairs; I heard distracted sobbing. I saw vague forms that followed one another on the lawn, heard phantom calls and a queer hysteric laughter. The place seemed more alive by night than at any hour of day.Maryvale, I discovered afterward, had come out again, clambered down all the way by the ivy. Lib, in the room next his, had heard him this time, caught sight of him, fled across the passage to Mrs. Bartholomew, shared that lady’s dismay on finding me also flown, summoned Pendleton, who had roused Aire and come helter-skelter in pursuit of the errant man of business. Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, in different styles of negligée, now stood spectators of the course. Millicent Mertoun, too, had come crying out of doors by those northern stairs, in her sleep, as she had come that first night with the American girl watchfully by her side.But to-night she roved alone. Where was Paula Lebetwood, whose room is next the stairs, and who, however soundly she may have slept, must have heard her dear friend’s weeping?Lights were awakening in various chambers. Maryvale, much surprised at the solicitude of his captors, was explaining courteously that he had merely descended to “pick herbs.” Alberta Pendleton had appeared and was taking Miss Mertoun back to the House.By the time I had called attention to myself and had caused my story to penetrate Crofts’ brain, many minutes had gone by. Four of us, followed by those audacious females, Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, approached the towers. The door stood open. The intruder, securely trussed and locked in by me, had made off. He had taken my torch, invaluable as both light and weapon.Satis.¹ Reproduced on following page. (V. Markham.)↩︎
October 8. 11A.M.
Furtively, yet with a strange half-fearful pleasure, I made my way in safety to the top of the stairs and down. I knew it was useless to inspect the rooms which had been examined many times by day during the past week. So I would have passed the library entrance without a moment’s check in my rapid movement, had not a streak of light shot forth from beneath the door just as I reached the bottom stair. Someone had lit the chandelier.
I felt shock. I curdled. To investigate is one thing; to run point-blank on revelations in the wrong place is another. I had a panicky impulse to slip upstairs again and lock myself in. But instead I loitered where I stood, staring at the yellow drugget spread from the lintel.
The door was slightly ajar, and I saw a portion of the panelling of the library wall; yet no sound came from within. A pale screen of light, of which the edge drew a line on the opposite side of the corridor, indicated that I might peep into the room through the slit of the door. And though my curiosity had somehow turned sick within me, presently I found myself with my eye at the crack.
My legs seemed to wilt. If it had been Cosgrove himself, burly as life, I could not have had a worse turn. A trim young fellow, clad in dinner clothes and wearing a black cap, was inside, and he was a stranger!
He had been standing beyond the table, apparently in thought, his head three-quarters from me, so that I caught only the remote profile of his smooth face, and a narrow slice of his white shirt-front. But now he moved across the room to a bookcase just within my triangle of vision, drew open its glass doors, and commenced looking for some volume. He stood in full view with his back toward me, turning his head from side to side in a survey of the upper shelves. I could see then that though slight of stature, he was, for his height, no mere skeleton, but of fairly solid build, being even a bit broader across the hips than at the shoulders.
A minute later he was beneath the light, his chosen volume lay open before him. I recognized it instantly as the Book of Sylvan Armitage. With his face cast into shadow by the peak of his cap, he leaned across the table with one hand flat on the red velvet, while the other ran through the pages. I could tell that the outspread hand was delicate and tapering, an “artistic” hand; but what I wanted to see plainly was that clean-shaved face.
Of a sudden he picked the book up from the table, pushed himself erect from his leaning position, walked toward the armoury door and beyond my range of vision. There was a click, and the chandelier faded out; a moment later I heard a tiny jingling sound, as of curtain rings disturbed. The young man was restoring the portières to their original places. Then—nothing.
The debonair manner I discerned in this youth even during observation so brief and cramped, the easy, natural way in which his dapper feet carried him across the floor, as if the place belonged to him—all so much at variance with the stealthy habits of a lawless intruder—rather increased the numb, foreboding ill-ease I felt.
At last I ventured into the library, and found it, as I expected, in moon-bathed vacancy. The armoury and the Hall of the Moth were also empty save for their furnishings. I stood in the midst of the Hall, wondering where the young chap had betaken himself, whether out of doors, which seemed unlikely, whether into some crypt or cove in the massive walls, which seemed unlikely, too, or into thin air, which, in spite of the compulsion of ancient sorceries, seemed less likely than either. Anyhow, he was gone, and it remained for me to consider what course to take.
No need to retail my devious thoughts. In the end I saw no good in rousing the house, particularly since I must reveal my secret projects. I went on as before, with caution redoubled.
The corridor—no one there, apparently. The dinner-room—no one there for certain. The kitchen—now I was in unknown territory. I waited, listened, breathless. Only the whistle of a bat outside, the creak of a timber within. I ran the shifting circle of my torch about the walls, across the floor. A cockroach, devil’s coachman, fled across the flags, and a great moth with eyes glimmering green fluttered toward me from some corner. There on its pillar hung the gate-house key; there, beside the chimney-place where a modern stove presided, was the door I sought.
With prodigious care I passed through this portal, for besides leading ultimately to the bowels of the earth, it ushered me at first into a passage off which opened the precincts of the servants. These half-subterranean chambers lay beneath the dinner-room and conservatory. While I stole past the doors, I had audible evidence a-plenty that the dwellers within were sleeping soundly enough.
This passage I was traversing had a distinct downward tendency and stretched underneath the corridor of the ground floor. It terminated in a door which, when I passed my light over it, appeared very black and cumbrous. The key was in the lock.
To my surprise, when by a series of graded pressures I commenced to turn this key, it moved easy and soundless, as if very recently oiled. Beyond was a winding stone stair.
By way of sensible precaution I removed the key and brought it with me, having no wish to be immured in the depths for any cause whatsoever. The stairs, a dozen or so in number, brought me to the entrance of another passage beneath the first, leading me in exactly the opposite direction. While it proceeded it widened into a goodly cellar, and I made out the yawning mouths of bins on either side, a comforting sight. There were dark archways leading to other caverns. And when I stamped, an unmistakable hollow sound came from below, proof that some buried chamber existed there.
The trap-doors by which one gained these sub-cellars, Crofts had said, were long disused, inch-deep in dust. And a few seconds later I came upon one of them, a heavy iron plate in the floor, clamped down with a clumsy padlock—but the dust was cleared away, and the padlock was not fastened at all! I picked the thing up from where it was lying by the flange, and stared at it stupidly. It would never lock anything again; it had been forced.
Now, surely, this was none of Salt’s work; he had promised to do no more than inspect the dust-covered entrances. It became increasingly evident that someone had preceded me in this search, someone careful not to be detected while he came, but careless whether it was known that he had been. God forbid that he was still below!
With one fierce tug I lifted the door by a ring in the centre; it fell backward with a heavy clang, and an atmosphere of choking damp came up from the hole it left.
A stair descended therein, very steep and narrow, with a thinnish fuzzy coating which must have been dust, though where it came from would have been difficult to tell. In the dust there were footprints, big footprints.
I didn’t like it, but I went on down. The rough stone walls were crumbling with water-rot and the sheer decay of age. While the air grew more smothering, I ran my head into stalactitic cobwebs and rubbed elbows with evil fungi sprouting in every crevice.
It seemed as if there must be a hundred of those steps, though actually they were about the same number as had been in the winding stair. At length I saw that I had come to the last of them, for the big footsteps tramped across a lumpy floor, athwart the glistening path of a snail. The door was earth, soggy and covered with that same thin dust-layer.
Midnight was midnight there indeed. Without my torch, I should never have returned a sane man. Nor did my light, dancing about from wall to wall, make it endurable. Fungi grew riotously everywhere, and the cobwebs, black as a funeral, hung down thick from the vaulted ceiling, like infamous hair. One or two spiders darted out and scurried immediately back into their loathsome jungle. Whenever I shifted my light, I had a feeling that from the place left in darkness the vile growth was reaching out tentacles to grasp and cling to me.
I intended to make my business here as brief as possible, but first I must find what the other visitor had been doing before me. I followed the big footprints across the marshy floor, and noted a thick mark drawn beside them. Something had been dragged.
Then the traces ceased, and I drew back suddenly with a cry at my lips. I had had a narrow escape.
There was little to tell that the floor stopped here, for like it the water was covered with an unclean growth. I stood on the brink of the water-pit, where Aidenn’s lord had once drowned thirty wretches in a single day! If ever a place was accurst for the cruelties performed there, this is it.
Over the stagnant pit the ghastly festoons hung so thick that the torchlight could scarcely pierce the darkness to the farther wall. From that wall a queer shape protruded, round like an enormous barrel, but too vague to be identified.
I suddenly caught sight of an object beside me on the verge of the water. A stake had been driven into the earth through the gathered-up mouth of a large cloth bag. The bottom of the bag hung over the edge and down into the water, and the weight of its contents drew the whole bag taut.
I gave a prolonged look through the shaggy gloom, where the black streamers faintly shivered in the air my body had stirred. Was some obscene presence spying on me from the murk?
Banishing fear, I wrenched up the stake, lifted the bag from the pool, and let its burden fall upon the floor. Stark and stiff, with its eyes staring, its tongue thrust out, its fur tousled into knarls and lumps, its claws extended, the enormous cat of the sisters Delambre lay outstretched at my feet. I stooped over the body; my fingers touched a cord drawn tight about the neck.
So Maryvale had made this abysmal journey before me, and there had been substance in his madness when he announced that Parson Lolly is no more. Since bullets would not kill, with cord and water he made assurance double. The long despairing cry will never shudder down the Vale again.
I must have stood there a long while almost oblivious, gazing into the invisible, until the darkness seemed to enter my brain. The most infinitesimal sounds crept into my consciousness: the muffled murmur of water in motion somewhere, the charnel breath of the things that drooped from the vault, the very voice of silence! Then disgust at my surroundings mounted in an instant almost to nausea, and I wheeled about in flight to the cellar above.
I took the stairs in a leap and a scramble, the trap-cover closed with a shout behind me while I darted among the bins and arches to the winding steps. At the top of these I paused to replace the key but not to turn it, then made tiptoes past the doors until I gained the kitchen. With the key of the gate-house in my hand I passed into the dinner-room, thence through the corridor into the conservatory, one of whose smaller windows I proposed to use as a means of egress.
The valley seemed pale and quiet in the moonlight. In a trice I had the casement open and had stepped through to the ground, concealed beneath those outside stairs leading to the door at the end of the first floor corridor. I pushed the window shut, and on the instant the long screech of some predatory night-bird shrilled from the summer-house park. If it was an omen, it was not for good—and my path lay among those shadows!
This was for secrecy. If I passed directly across the lawn, some wakeful eye in one of the long range of windows might find me out; so I had no choice but a long three parts of a circle screened by trees. First I stole behind the birches where I concealed myself at dawn the other day on catching sight of the red-bearded runner, next through the cypresses, then the sycamores of the park, and finally the strawberry trees. These last extended far enough south to enable me to reach the towers from the side opposite the House. The door was on the other side, unconcealed, but I had to risk being seen while I unlocked it.
I stood still beneath the twin, mute towers for a minute or two before gathering determination for my effort. Salt, of course, visited this place the day after his arrival, but has kept his discoveries secret. My hope, of course, was that someone came hereafterSalt, in particular the black-robed object of our pursuit to-night.
I noticed that the moon was near setting, since it had but a short progress to make from eastern to western hill. When it was down, the Vale would be dark indeed. Was it worth waiting until that happened?
Impatience decided not. I sped around the tower that contained the door, turned the monumental key, got safely inside the entrance, and stood with bated breath. Seen or unseen, I was in for it now. Heaven help me if I found a presence inside these walls.
My light showed the beginning of the spiral stair; there was absolutely no sound. I commenced to climb.
It was a long way up. My stockinged feet were all but noiseless on the overlapping stony steps, and more than once I checked myself, thinking that I heard footfalls following mine. The torch, directed downward, revealed the empty stair winding into nether darkness. This delusion persisted; indeed, when I was at the point of entering the little room atop the tower, I thought that I heard even the breath of some stealthy climber. The light showed only the bare winding beneath me, and I spoke a murrain on the narrow tower which had no well to enable me to see clear to the bottom.
My imagination cooled down, and I set about examining the circular chamber. Owing to the thickness of the walls, it was only some five feet in diameter. It was low, and save in the centre, where the pointed roof gave space, I could not stand upright. For windows it had three slots, through one of which the moon cast a slanting beam. The floor was thickly daubed with mud, but this in itself was not surprising when one considered that Salt had sloshed through here on the morning of the downpour.
But that mud would have dried long ago, and this showed signs of damp!
Eagerly, critically, I bent and studied the floor in the full glare of my torch. There were dubious faintly moist impressions, of feet, I believed; but I could make nothing of them. No entire footprint was evident. Over the general surface of the dirt, however, something sopping wet had recently been trailed, but not so heavily as to disturb the topography of the mud. The little ridges and knolls left by Salt’s rubber boots remained intact, but portions of that microscopic countryside looked as if they were recovering from an inundation; in one or two hollows there were positive pools, one-sixteenth of an inch deep.
Something exceedingly wet, but not very heavy—what else but the gown of the creature that had fled from Aire and me and plunged into the stream? Only, how in the name of magic did that creature evade us to get here, unless it skippedupthe stream, which both Aire and I are prepared to attest on oath it did not do?
A flat-headed aperture led the way across the bridge between the towers. In that direction the water-trail appeared to tend, although at the edge of the dirt, where the gown had been drawn along the stones themselves, almost complete evaporation had taken place. Further along there was no sign of damp at all; I suppose the intruder had observed the puddles he was making and had lifted the garment clear from the floor, perhaps doffed it and rolled it under his arm.
I had to crouch nearly double in that low passageway to reach the inner room, which now I believed to be the headquarters of Parson Lolly. My light, cast ahead, showed that it was a chamber of identical mould with the one I had just quitted, and, much to my relief, it was empty. One difference there was, indeed: the corresponding stairway which led down from this tower had for some reason been walled up. I tested the mortared stones; I pounded them with my fist; I butted them with my shoulder. They were sound and secure, leaving no doubt that those stairs condemned to everlasting darkness held no secret connected with the present mysteries.
When I had reached this comfortable certainty, I made a detailed search of the turret. Someone, for sure, had been in the habit of coming there; I found what appeared to me sufficient evidence of occupation, and of hurried, perhaps permanent, departure.
There were pencil-whittlings on the floor, from an indelible pencil; I know the nasty taste of the aniline preparation. Now, when I re-examined the Parson’s placard inside the House this evening, I saw, though I did not comment on the fact, that such a pencil had been used in writing it.
There were two or three dark stains, splashes now quite dried, which yet had a dim, offensive odour when my nose was close to them. To my mind, no more proof is needed that a young pig was murdered here.
There were a few short lengths, an inch to four or five inches, of some pliant fibrous wood, perhaps bamboo, which I cannot account for. With these, perhaps, are associated the fragments of black crepe I found cut in wedges, rhombs, and various irregular shapes.
I detected, while bending near one of the slender openings, a sub-acrid, faded scent, which seemed specially localized on the sill, so to speak, of the window, as if some pungent stuff had once been spilt there and removed. In its proper context the source of the odour would, I am sure, have been obvious in an instant; yet here it baffled me.
Last I found a torn end of paper. The side uppermost was blank, but to my joy the other proved to contain printed words. The piece was obviously detached from the title-page of some old book, octavo size, with which I am not acquainted, though “CATTI” looks obscurely familiar. I shall hardly have any trouble in identifying it.¹
I felt actual elation, for Salt would never have overlooked this, or left it here, supposing he had found it in the course of his inspection.
A torn piece of paper, missing much of the left side. The printing on the paper is laid out like a handbill or a book’s title page. What can be read says: “The ―es & Vagaries of ―on Catti, ―ones, Esq., ―d Wag of Wales; by ―yn Prichard”.
Five minutes had revealed these things; an hour could not reveal more. I tucked the slip of paper into my breast pocket and departed from the turret. Half-way across the bridge I was again aware of the sound of footsteps climbing to the first chamber, but dismissed the idea as a renewal of the delusion which had troubled me before.
But there was no mistake this time, as I realized very soon. The pad-pad of the unknown feet was growing louder, coming nearer. At once I was terrified, yet possessed of reason. I knew it might be fatal to let this creature see me before I saw him—it—her. Particularly disastrous it would be to be caught in this low passageway where I must go with my head almost touching my knees. I snapped off my light, staggered into the room beyond, and stood at the edge of the stair-head, leaning perforce on account of the funnel-roof. It was a position of vantage. There I was in darkness, whereas whatever was coming must emerge into the moonlight that shot through the opposite slit. I might even escape undetected down the stairs if the creature hurried past me to the bridge and the farther tower.
But this hope was abortive. The creature knew I was there: that belief stuck like a knife in my heart.
The steady steps were only ten feet below, one twist of the stair. They were like the steps of any ordinary man.
The moon must have been nearly swallowed by the hills all this time, for now it went down with appalling suddenness and left the room in thick and absolute night. I could not see my foe in darkness; could it see me?
Every nerve in me was ringing its own alarm. The subtle glue that holds the body-cells in friendly ties dissolved; it was every cell for itself. I was fleeing in all directions.
The creature actually passed me by; I felt the touch of some part of it, cold as an Arctic stone, on my arm.
It was like awakening from an evil dream. My fear welled up in fury. Silently I launched an attack; with the torch I held I let fly in blind and murderous onslaught. I struck something a blow that glanced; the torch slipped from my grasp, but the creature staggered and sank to the floor. I had my hands on its body now, and a crazy exultation took hold of me when I realized that my opponent was merely a man like myself and at my mercy. The stroke I had given blindly seemed to have stunned him, for he made no resistance, but lay crumpled up, as I found by groping. His breath came harsh and irregular.
Who was he? For what seemed immeasurable time I searched, but I could not find my torch.
Obviously I had made an important capture, and the best thing to do, since my light was lost, would be to lock the fellow-prisoner in and go for reinforcements.
I had a handkerchief; so had he. With their assistance I triced him in a position from which he would not easily free himself. I placed him face downward, with his head turned aside for breathing and his legs doubled back, and I clipped each wrist to the opposite ankle.
Then I groped my way down the long turnings, found the darkened world again, locked the tower door, and made for the House.
The rest was like the return of horrid dreams. With the moon gone, still the stars gave a grey cast to the darkness. I saw some fluttering-draped figure descend from the first storey by the outside stairs; I heard distracted sobbing. I saw vague forms that followed one another on the lawn, heard phantom calls and a queer hysteric laughter. The place seemed more alive by night than at any hour of day.
Maryvale, I discovered afterward, had come out again, clambered down all the way by the ivy. Lib, in the room next his, had heard him this time, caught sight of him, fled across the passage to Mrs. Bartholomew, shared that lady’s dismay on finding me also flown, summoned Pendleton, who had roused Aire and come helter-skelter in pursuit of the errant man of business. Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, in different styles of negligée, now stood spectators of the course. Millicent Mertoun, too, had come crying out of doors by those northern stairs, in her sleep, as she had come that first night with the American girl watchfully by her side.
But to-night she roved alone. Where was Paula Lebetwood, whose room is next the stairs, and who, however soundly she may have slept, must have heard her dear friend’s weeping?
Lights were awakening in various chambers. Maryvale, much surprised at the solicitude of his captors, was explaining courteously that he had merely descended to “pick herbs.” Alberta Pendleton had appeared and was taking Miss Mertoun back to the House.
By the time I had called attention to myself and had caused my story to penetrate Crofts’ brain, many minutes had gone by. Four of us, followed by those audacious females, Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, approached the towers. The door stood open. The intruder, securely trussed and locked in by me, had made off. He had taken my torch, invaluable as both light and weapon.
Satis.
¹ Reproduced on following page. (V. Markham.)↩︎