Footsteps in the Dark (15 page)

"As I live in the wilds of Hampstead, which fact you are well aware of, I regard that offer as a clear proof that you are dithering. And the only explanation for that…'

"Will you shut up?" said Margaret, and dragged her forth.

A quarter of an hour later her car drew up outside the Milbanks' house on the Embankment. She was ushered at once into the drawing-room on the first floor, and found both Mr. and Mrs. Milbank there. They both gave her a warm welcome, and for a little while they were all engaged in the usual conversation of old friends. But when Margaret had set down her coffeecup, Mr. Milbank said: "Well, what is it you want to see me about, Margaret? Have you been run in for furious driving?"

"C'ertainly not!" said Margaret indignantly. "I may not be one of the world's best drivers, but at least I've never been had up. It really isn't anything frightfully important, but I thought that since I happened to be in town I might as well drop in and ask you about it."

Mrs. Milbank began to fold up the work she had started to embroider. "Is it private, Margaret? Would you likee me to vanish, with a plausible excuse?"

"No, not a bit! Please don't go! I wanted to ask you, Mr. Milbank, whether you can remember the name of the man who wanted to know if the Priory was for sale."

The solicitor wrinkled his brow. "I'm not sure that I can. The file is at the office, of course, and I can let you know to-morrow. Rather an ordinary name, as far as I remember. I think it was Robinson." He gazed up at the ceiling. "Yes, I'm nearly certain it was. George Robinson. But I won't swear to it."

"I see. You didn't actually meet him, did you?"

"No, he wrote, and I distinctly remember that I sent your answer to a poste-restante address, as he explained that he was on a motor tour. Why? Have you reconsidered your decision?"

"No, but we - we rather wanted to know who it was. We don't mean to sell the Priory yet."

"I'm rather relieved to hear you say that," smiled the lawyer, "for I had another man in making inquiries, and turned him down."

Margaret looked quickly towards him. "Another man? Wanting to buy the place?"

"I imagine he must have had some such idea, though he didn't actually say so. I told him that you had no intention of selling."

"Who was he?" Margaret asked. "Anyone we know?"

"I shouldn't think so. He never told me his name, because, as I say, things never got as far as that. He was a youngish man —- between thirty and thirty-five, I should say. Nice looking, very dark, fairly…'

"Dark?" Margaret faltered.

"Yes, very dark. Black hair and eyebrows, rather a tanned complexion, fairly tall. My dear, what is all this about? Why are you so anxious to know what he looked like?"

"Well! - well, we - we met someone at a party who - who seemed rather interested in the Priory, and we suspected he wanted to buy it," Margaret explained. "Did he seem keen to when you saw him?"

"Not to the extent of badgering me to forward an offer. He didn't even make one."

"I wish you'd tell me just what he did say," Margaret begged.

"I'll try, since you make such a point of it," Mr. Milbank said, still rather surprised. "He said he had been asked to make some inquiries about a house which he understood had been standing empty for several years. I assumed he was acting for someone else, but of course he may have merely put it that way. Lots of people do, if they don't want you to think they're set on buying a thing. He said he hoped he was not too late in coming to see me, as he had heard that someone else had been after the house."

Margaret's eyes were fixed intently on the solicitor's face. "Oh! He'd heard that, had he? Did he say how?"

"No, and I'm afraid I didn't ask him. I told him that you had no thought of selling. Let me see: what did he say tie it? Yes, I think he said:" Then there'snot ruth in what I heard — that the present owners are considering an offer they have received?" I assured him that you were entertaining no such idea, that you had, in fact, definitely refused to sell. After that I think he chatted for a few minutes about the place. Something he said about having seen the house from his car made me suspect that he might be this man, Robinson, or whatever his name is, trying a new way of getting the Priory. I asked him whether I was not right in supposing he had written to me before concerning this matter. Whether it was he, or someone behind him who wrote I really don't know, but I distinctly remember that he did not answer for a moment. Which made me all the more certain, as you can imagine. However, I wasn't particularly interested, so I didn't go into it. He said it was quite possible that his friend had written to me, but no doubt I'd had a great many such letters, or something of the sort. I'm a busy man, as you know, and I thought I'd wasted enough time on the matter. So when he said that in the event of your wishing to sell after all, he hoped I'd let him know before you accepted any other offer, I fear I rather cut him short, and told him that I did not think he need worry himself, as for one thing you had no wish to sell the Priory, and for another the only other offer I had received on your behalf was entirely tentative. He still didn't seem satisfied, and even went so far as to request me not to advise my other client of any change in your decision before letting him know. So I told him that in any case it would be quite out of my power to do so since I had only an old poste-restante address to write to. That did seem to settle him, and he went off- quite forgetting, by the way, to leave me his address!"

"I see," Margaret said slowly. "Yes - I think that sounds like the man we thought was after the place. Thanks awfully for telling me."

"I may be very inquisitive," Mr. Milbank said, "but I do wish you'd tell me why you're so anxious to hear all this."

She smiled. "Sheer curiosity, Mr. Milbank. I - I wondered whether he'd have the cheek to come and interview you about it. Apparently he had." She glanced at the clock, and started up. "Oh, Lord, I shall be hideously late if I don't start."

She took her leave of them both and went down to her car. Mr. Milbank accompanied her to the front door, wondering what lay behind her visit, and waved farewell to her from the top of his steps. She let in the clutch, and the car slid forward.

Her suspicion had been a true one, but this afforded her very little satisfaction. It seemed to be just one more link in the chain of evidence against Strange.

"And I ought to tell Peter," she said to herself, slipping past a tram. "It's absolutely wrong of me not to. Michael Strange is nothing to me, nor ever likely to be, and for all I know he may be planning something perfectly dreadful. And it's no good getting sloppy and sentimental, and thinking how a Good Woman's Love might reclaim him, because that's the sort of rot that makes me sick. Besides, I'm not in love with him."

"Aren't you?" Conscience inquired. "Then are you going to tell Peter all you know?"

"I promised I'd say nothing," Margaret argued. "I may have been wrong to do so, but I did, and that's that."

"You didn't promise not to say anything about this visit to Milbank," Conscience pointed out.

"If I see any reason to of course I shall tell Peter," Margaret decided. "But for the present I mean to tackle Strange myself. And it's no good thinking he's the Monk because I don't believe it, and what's more I won't believe it."

"What about him saying that you might get a bad fright?"

"That doesn't prove anything at all. Anyway, I don't believe he'd be the one to frighten me."

"Doesn't it throw a little light on the fact that he seemed so anxious to get you away from the Priory?"

"No, it does not," Margaret muttered crossly, and took a corner recklessly wide.

The interminable argument went on throughout her drive back to the Priory. Only one clear point emerged from it, and that was that she didn't want to give Charles and Peter any fresh grounds for suspecting Strange unless she were absolutely forced to. Whereat Conscience said very nastily: "What price Loyalty, eh?"

Since she had not left the Milbanks' house until a few minutes before ten there was no hope of reaching the Priory till after eleven. Margaret knew that Celia, remembering her dinner engagement, would not be likely to worry over her lateness, but she was not quite at ease about it herself. It was true there was a moon, but all the same she did not relish the prospect of that drive up from the gates to the house. Even in daylight there was something rather eerie about woods, and the avenue led through unmistakable woodland. She and Celia had gone into ecstasies over it, for they had seen it first in bluebell time, but they had not then known that it had a reputation for being haunted.

The nearer she got to Framley the less inclined she was for the drive up the avenue, but by dint of telling herself she was not at all afraid, and thinking very hard of all sorts of things not even remotely connected with ghosts, she achieved a certain stoicism about it, and turned in at the iron gates quite determined to drive boldly and quickly up to the house, and not to peer furtively ahead.

And then the worst happened. The entrance to the drive was an awkward one, and the gates rather narrow. The avenue curved sharply just inside them, and was flanked on either side by a ditch that kept it drained. Margaret turned in at the gates much too boldly, and jammed the car. She said: "Damn!" under her breath, and proceeded to back. After some not very skilful manoeuvring she succeeded in clearing the gates. In she swept, misjudged the bend in the avenue, swung the wheel round too late and too hard, and skidded gently into the ditch.

She was too much annoyed with herself to think about ghosts. Feeling glad that Peter was not present to mock at her bad driving, she changed down into first and tried to get the car back on to the avenue. But the heavy storm of the day before had made the surface rather slimy, and the ditch, judging from the squelch which her back wheel made as it descended into it, was full of mud. The engine roared fruitlessly, and after several more attempts Margaret was forced to give it up. The car would have to be pulled out; and meanwhile she was faced with a lonely walk up to the house.

It serves me right for being such a fool, she thought. And it's no use sitting here getting cold feet about it. Out you get, you idiot!

She stepped out, and collected her handbag and coat. She eyed the planchette board dubiously, but decided to leave it, in company with her own purchases, and the two revolvers, which she had hidden under the back seat. She slipped on the coat to save having to carry it, and digging her hands into its capacious pockets, set off up the avenue.

She had rounded the second bend, and only one more separated her from the sight of the house when she saw the Monk. Straight ahead of her, gliding across the avenue in the cold silver light, was that sinister, hooded figure. She stopped dead in her tracks with a gasp of horror. She saw it plainly, caught a glimpse of a cowled face that was somehow more terrifying than all the rest, and then it melted into the shadows on the other side of the avenue.

Her instinct was to turn and run back the way she had come. The figure had vanished, but it might be there, in the shadows, waiting for her to come up to it. She stood as though chained to the spot, her knees shaking under her.

I can't go on! she thought. Where am I to go to if I run back? What shall I do? What shall I do?

It might be anywhere amongst the dark trees that surrounded her. It had come towards Mrs. Bosanquet, menacing her with an outstretched hand. If it had seen her it might even now be flitting up to her unseen in the shadows. It would be better to dart on to the house than to turn back. Perhaps someone would hear her if she screamed for help; no one would hear if she ran the other way.

A little rustle behind her decided the matter. Not daring to look round, or to shout for help, she ran as though for her life down the avenue towards the house. As she sped past the place where she had seen the Monk disappear she had an awful feeling that the cowled figure was following her. Sobbing dryly from sheer fright she gained the last bend and saw the house ahead of her.

Then immediately ahead of her a form stepped out from the shadow of a great rhododendron bush. She was breathless, and panting, but she gave one faint, desperate cry of "Peter!"

The figure seemed to leap towards her, she tried to call again, but a hand was clapped over her mouth, and a strong arm thrown round her shoulders. "Don't scream!" an urgent whisper commanded, and almost fainting from shock she stared wildly up into the face of Michael Strange.

Chapter Ten

For a moment he continued to hold her, then he removed his hand from her mouth, and said coolly, under his breath: "Sorry, but I couldn't let you give the alarm. Tell me quickly, what did you see?"

Irrationally, her fright had left her the instant she had recognised him. But her head whirled. What was he doing there? Was it possible that his had been the figure she had seen? And if so what had he done with his disguise?

His hand grasped her wrist, not roughly, but compellingly. "What did you see? You must tell me."

She looked at him, trying to read his face in the moonlight. "The Monk," she answered, in a low voice.

"Damnation!" Michael muttered. "Where?"

She pointed the way she had come, and as though by doing it she conjured up a presence, footsteps came to their ears.

Without ceremony Michael pulled her quickly into the shadow of the rhododendron bush. She glanced at him, and saw that his eyes were fixed on the bend in the avenue. A moment later a figure in a large ulster came into sight, peering about.

"Miss Fortescue!" called Mr. Ernest Titmarsh. "Miss Fortescue! Is there anything the matter? Tut, tut, I made sure I saw her!"

The grip on Margaret's wrist was removed; there was a movement beside her, she looked quickly round, and found that she was alone. As silently and as unexpectedly as he had appeared, Mr. Michael Strange had vanished.

Feeling utterly bewildered, and not a little shaken, Margaret stepped out into the moonlight, and waited for Mr. Titmarsh to come up with her. "I'm here," she said, with the calm of reaction.

He hurried up, butterfly net in hand. "Dear, dear, I did not at once perceive you. But what is the matter? I heard you call out, and saw you running. I do trust you did riot catch sight of me, and take me for a ghost?"

"Mr. Titmarsh, did you cross the avenue down there a moment ago?" she asked. "Going towards the chapel?"

"By no means," he answered. "I was pursuing an oakeggar just by that swampy patch of ground on the other side of the avenue. Surely you have not seen someone unauthorised prowling about the park?"

"Yes. That is - it was the Monk. I knew I couldn't be mistaken. That horrible cowl… ! I'm sorry, but really I feel rather groggy. Would you mind coming with me as far as the house?"

"My dear young lady! Of course, of course, but your eyes must have deceived you. Pray take my arm! Quite impossible, Miss Fortescue. I saw no monk, and surely I must have done so had there been one."

She shook her head. "You might not. There are so many bushes. I couldn't have been deceived. I saw it plainly."

"Nerves, my dear Miss Fortescue, nothing but nerves. You must not let yourself believe in these silly ghost-tales. Why, you are quite upset by it! This will not do at all! Now I will pull the bell, and in a moment you will be inside, and quite safe."

The bell clanged noisily in answer to Mr. Titmarsh's vigorous tug, and almost at once quick steps sounded within, and Peter himself opened the door. "That you, Margaret? I began to think you must have had a — good Lord, what's the matter?"

She grasped his coat weakly, and gave a small uncertain laugh. "Oh Peter, I've seen the Monk! For goodness sake let me sit down; I feel like a piece of chewed string."

Mr. Titmarsh clucked rather like an old hen. "I saw Miss Fortescue running up the avenue, and went at once to her assistance. I am afraid she is a little over-wrought: she seems to have caught sight of something which she took for the Monk. Possibly a shrub, or even, though I should be grieved indeed to think so, myself."

Peter slipped his arm round Margaret. "Come in, sir. Very good of you to escort her. Buck up, old lady: it's all right now." He half-led, half-carried her into the library, and put her down into the nearest chair. "Like a drink, Sis? Feeling all right?"

Celia sprang up. "Margaret! What's the matter, darling? Oh, good heavens, don't say you've seen it!"

The colour was coming back to Margaret's face. She sat up. "Sorry, all of you. No, I'm perfectly all right now, Peter. Truly. Yes, I have, Celia. The Monk. And I made a dash for the house, and - and then - Mr. Titmarsh came up."

"And I am much distressed to think that I may have been the innocent cause of your alarm," Mr. Titmarsh put in. "If I had not obtained permission from your good brother-in-law to pursue my search in his grounds, I should be even more distressed."

"No, it wasn't you," Margaret said. "It was a cowled monk, just as Aunt Lilian described." She looked round. "Where is Aunt Lilian?"

"She had a headache, and went up to bed early," Celia replied. "But darling, how awful for you! Oh, we can't stay any longer in this beastly, hateful house!

"But Margaret, where's the car?" Charles asked. "Why were you on foot?"

"I ditched it," said Margaret fatalistically.

"Oh!" said Charles. "I suppose it seemed to you to be the only thing to do, but - don't think I'm criticising - why?"

This had the effect of making her laugh, and a great deal of her self-possession was restored. "I didn't do it on purpose. I made a muck of the turn at the gates, and one of the back wheels skidded into the ditch. It'll have to be pulled out. So then I had to walk up to the house. And all this happened." She got up. "I say - do you mind if I don't talk about it any more to-night? I feel a bit queer still, and I think I'd like to go up to bed."

"Of course you shall," Celia said instantly. "Don't worry her with questions, you two. Come along, darling."

At the door Margaret looked back. "Oh, I got the revolvers. They're under the back seat. I thought I'd better tell you."

"Revolvers?" said Mr. Titmarsh blinking. "Dear me, sounds very bloodthirsty. Really I do not think I should advise you to use them, Mr. Malcolm. Tut, tut, there is no knowing whom you might not shoot by mistake."

"Well I can safely promise not to shoot you by mistake," said Charles.

However, this assurance did not relieve Mr. Titmarsh's alarms. He seemed genuinely perturbed, and tried once more to convince the two men that Margaret had been the victim of a hallucination. Neither of them attempted to argue the point, and at last, after refusing the offer of a drink, Mr. Titmarsh took his leave, and made off again down the avenue.

As he shot the bolts of the front door home, Peter looked at Charles. "I think this is where we talk to the District Inspector," he said. "I still don't believe that Titmarsh is the man we're after, but his presence in the grounds at just that moment is a little too significant to be brushed aside."

Charles nodded. "All right, we'll go over to Manfield to-morrow."

It was long before Margaret fell asleep that night. She had omitted any reference to Michael Strange in her account of what happened. Until she started to tell the others all about it she had meant to keep nothing back. And then somehow or other she had left that gap, and at once had been horrified at herself for not telling the whole truth. Only the moment the words "and then Mr. Titmarsh came up' had passed her lips, it had seemed impossible to add, "but before that Michael Strange appeared, and clapped his hand over my mouth." It would look so odd not to have told that first of all. She asked instead to be allowed to go to bed, with a vague idea of thinking the whole situation over. She now realised that it would be far more impossible to say at breakfast next day: "By the way I quite forgot to tell you that Michael Strange was there too."

But on one point her mind was made up. Unless he gave some explanation of his conduct he could not expect her to go on blindly trusting him. She would see him without fail next day, and demand to know what he was doing in the Priory grounds at that hour.

On this resolve she at last fell asleep. When she awoke next morning she did not feel quite as guilty as she had the night before. After all, she thought, if Strange refused to explain himself, it would not be too late to inform the others, and she had no doubt she would be able to think out some plausible reason for not having done so before.

To the questions that Charles and Peter put to her during breakfast she returned perfectly composed replies, but when she learned that they intended to put the matter now into the hands of the County Police she rather changed colour. If a police-inspector were to question her it would be very difficult to know how to answer him. Like most people who have never had any dealings with it she had a somewhat nervous dread of the Law, and a hazy idea that you got had up for not telling the police all you knew. However, it was no good meeting your troubles half-way, and the main thing now was to tackle Michael Strange.

Mrs. Bosanquet, in spite of her own terrifying experience, was quite annoyed to think that Margaret and not she had encountered the Monk. She told Margaret she had missed a great opportunity, and when Charles made a dry reference to the manner in which she had greeted the opportunity when it came to her, she said severely that there were some things that were better forgotten. She was happy in the possession of her planchette, and she proposed that they should have a sitting that very evening.

"In the evening?" Celia said. "Not for worlds! I might summon up enough courage to sit in daylight, but not after dark, thank you!"

"I doubt very much whether we should get any results by day," Mrs. Bosanquet said dubiously. "I know that for some reason or other which I never fathomed spirits seem to find it easier to manifest themselves in the dark."

"Look here!" said Peter, "are we expected to sit round in the dark like a lot of lunatics with our hands on that board?"

"Not, I trust, like a lot of lunatics," Mrs. Bosanquet said coldly.

"I won't do it," Celia announced. "I know what it'll be. Either Chas or Peter will start pushing just to frighten us."

"What I was really thinking of," said Charles meditatively, "was appearing in a false nose and some luminous paint. But I won't if you don't care for the idea."

"Charles," said Celia quite seriously, "unless you swear to me you won't play the fool I'll walk out of this house here and now."

"My dear child," Mrs. Bosanquet said reassuringly, "if you feel any alarm it would be much better if you didn't attempt to sit at all. And of course Charles is only making fun of you."

"But if you're all going to sit I shall have to," Celia said. "I couldn't stay by myself while you conjured up ghosts. I should die of fright."

"I have been told," remarked Mrs. Bosanquet, "though I must say I never experienced anything of the sort myself, that sometimes the spirits actually lift tables off their legs, and give one quite hard knocks to manifest their presence."

"In that case," said Charles, "you can count me out. I'm not going to sit and allow myself to be buffeted about in this or any other cause."

"I think," Mrs. Bosanquet replied, "that we are unlikely to get any results at all if you approach the subject in a spirit of levity."

When breakfast was over Charles and Peter went off to see what could be done about hauling the car out of the ditch. They had no sooner gone than Margaret announced her intention of cycling into the village to buy darning-silk. Celia seemed inclined to accompany her, but since she had promised to go for a sedate walk with Mrs. Bosanquet, she had to give up the idea. She wrote out a list of groceries to be ordered at the village store, and said that she and Mrs. Bosanquet might stroll to meet Margaret on her way home.