Footsteps in the Dark (8 page)

After that, as Peter said, there was nothing to be done but to go and interview the village constable at once. Accordingly he and Charles set out for Framley after lunch, and found the constable, a bucolic person of the name of Flinders, digging his garden.

He received them hopefully, but no sooner had they explained their errand than his face fell somewhat, and he scratched his chin with a puzzled air.

"You'd better come inside, sir," he said, after profound thought. He led them up the narrow path to his front door, and ushered them into the living-room of his cottage. He asked them to sit down and to excuse him for a moment, and vanished into the kitchen at the back of the cottage. Sounds of splashing followed, and in a few moments Constable Flinders reappeared, having washed his earth-caked hands, and put on his uniform coat. With this he had assumed an imposing air of officialdom, and he held in his hand the usual grimy little notebook. "Now, sir!" he said importantly, and took a chair at the table opposite his visitors. He licked the stub of a pencil. "You say you found some person or persons breaking into your house with intent to commit a robbery?"

"I don't think I said that at all," Charles replied. "I found the person in my cellars. What he came for I've no idea."

"Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "That's very different, that is." He licked the pencil again, reflectively. "Did you reckernise this person?"

Charles hesitated. "No," he answered at last. "There wasn't time. He escaped by this secret way I told you about."

"Escaped by secret way," repeated Mr. Flinders, laboriously writing it down. "I shall have to see that, sir."

"I can show you the spot, but I'm afraid we've already cemented it up."

Mr. Flinders shook his head reproachfully. "You shouldn't have done that," he pronounced. "That'll make it difficult for me to act, that will."

"Why?" asked Peter.

Mr. Flinders looked coldly at him. "I ought to have been called in before any evidence of the crime had been disturbed," he said.

"There wasn't a crime," Peter pointed out.

This threw the constable momentarily out of his stride. He thought again for some time, and presently asked:

"And you don't suspect no one in particular?"

Peter glanced at Charles, who said: "Rather difficult to say. I haven't any good reason to suspect anyone, but various people have been seen hanging about the Priory at different times."

"Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "Now we are getting at something, sir. I thought we should. You'll have to tell me who you've seen hanging round, and then I shall know where I am."

"Well," said Charles. "There's Mr. Titmarsh to start with."

The constable's official cloak slipped from his shoulders. "Lor', sir, he wouldn't hurt a fly!" he said.

"I don't know what he does to flies," retorted Charles, "but he's death on moths."

Mr. Flinders shook his head. "Of course I shall have to follow it up," he said darkly. "That's what my duty is, but Mr. Titmarsh don't mean no harm. He was catching moths, that's what he was doing."

"So he told us, and for all I know it may be perfectly true. But I feel I should like to know something about the eccentric gentleman. You say he's above suspicion…'

He was stopped by a large hand raised warningly. "No, sir, that I never said, nor wouldn't. It'll have to be sifted. That's what I said."

"… and," continued Charles, disregarding the interruption, "I can't say that I myself think he's likely to be the guilty party. How long has he lived here?"

Mr. Flinders thought for a moment. "Matter of three years," he answered.

"Anything known about him?"

"There isn't nothing known against him, sir," said the constable. "Barring his habits, which is queer to some folk's way of thinking, but which others who has such hobbies can understand, he's what I'd call a very ordinary gentleman. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying is. He's not married, but Mrs. Fellowes from High Barn, who is his housekeeper, hasn't never spoken a word against him, and she's a very respectable woman that wouldn't stop a day in a place where there was any goings-on that oughtn't to be."

"She might not know," Peter suggested.

"There's precious little happens in Framley that Mrs. Fellowes don't know about, sir," said Mr. Flinders. "And knows more than what the people do themselves," he added obscurely, but with considerable feeling.

"Putting Mr. Titmarsh aside for the moment," said Charles. "The other two men we've encountered in our grounds are a Mr. Strange, who is staying at the Bell, and a smallish chap, giving himself out to be a commercial traveller, who's also at the Bell." He recounted under what circumstances he had met Michael Strange, and the constable brightened considerably. "That's more like it, that is," he said. "Hanging about on the same side of the house as that secret entrance, was he?"

"Mind you, he may have been speaking the truth when he said he had missed his way," Charles warned him.

"That's what I shall have to find out," said Mr. Flinders. "I shall have to keep a watch on those two."

"You might make a few inquiries about them," Peter suggested. "Discover where they come from, and what Strange's occupation is."

"You don't need to tell me how to act, sir," said Mr. Flinders with dignity. "Now that I've got a line to follow I know my duty."

"There's just one other thing," Charles said slowly. "You'd probably better know about it."

"Certainly I had," said Mr. Flinders. "If you was to keep anything from me I couldn't act."

"I suspect," said Charles, "that whoever got into the Priory has some reason for wishing to frighten us out of it."

Mr. Flinders blinked at him. "What would they want to do that for?" he asked practically.

"That's what we thought you might find out," Charles said.

"If there's anything to find you may be sure I shall get on to it," Mr. Flinders assured him. "But you'll have to tell me some more."

"I'm going to. A few nights ago a picture fell downn at the top of the stairs, and when we went up to investigate my wife found the upper half of a human skull on the stairs. My brother-in-law and I then discovered a priest's hole in the panelling where the picture had hung, and in it a collection of human bones."

The effect of this on the constable was not quite what they had hoped. His jaw dropped, and he sat staring at them in round-eyed horror. "My Gawd, sir, it's the Monk!" he gasped. "You don't suppose I can go making inquiries about a ghost, do you? I wouldn't touch it - not for a thousand pounds! And here's me taking down in me notebook what you told me about Mr. Titmarsh and them two up at the Inn, and all the time you've seen the Monk!" He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. "If I was you, sir, I'd get out of that house," he said earnestly. "It ain't healthy."

"Thanks very much," said Charles. "But it is my firm belief that someone is behind all this Monk business. And I suspect that that skeleton was put there for our benefit by the same person who got into the cellars."

"Hold hard!" said Peter suddenly. "It's just occurred to me that we didn't hear the groan of that stone-slab being opened on the night the picture fell."

They stared at one another for a moment. "That's one up to you," Charles said at length. "Funny I never thought of that. We couldn't have missed hearing it, either. Then…' he stopped, frowning.

The constable shut his notebook. "I'd get out of the Priory, sir, if I was you," he repeated. "The police can't act against ghosts. What you saw that night was the Monk, and the noise you heard…'

"Was caused by the stone-block opening," finished Charles. "We proved that."

Mr. Flinders scratched his chin again. A solution dawned upon him. "I'll tell you what it is, sir. Maybe you're right, and what you saw in the cellars was flesh and blood. I shall get on to that, following up the line you've given me. But there wasn't any flesh and blood about that skeleton."

"I'm thankful to say that there wasn't," said Charles. "Dry bones were quite enough for us."

"What I meant," said Mr. Flinders, with a return to his official manner, "was that no human being caused that skeleton to be put into this hole you speak about. What you've done, sir, is you've found out the secret of the Priory. That's what you've done. Now we know why it's haunted, and my advice to you is, "Pull it down."'

"You won't mind if we don't follow it, will you?" Charles said, sarcastically.

"That's for you to decide," said Mr. Flinders. "But how you've got to look at it is like this: When this stone, which you have improperly sealed up, opened, it made a noise which could be heard all over the house. Following on that, the person or persons that nefariously broke into the Priory by that way couldn't do it without you knowing. That's fact, that is. The police have to work on facts, sir, and nothing else. Now you say that when this picture fell down you hadn't heard that stone open. From which it follows that no person or persons did open it that night. That's logic, isn't it, sir?"

"I'll take your word for it," said Charles. "And here's a second way for you to look at it: It is just possible that there is another entrance to the Priory which we don't know anything about."

Chapter Five

The immediate effect of the visit to Constable Flinders was a visit to the Priory paid by that worthy individual the very next day. Celia received him with a flattering display of relief, and the constable, a shy man, flushed very red indeed when she told him she was sure everything would be cleared up now that he had taken the matter in hand. However, he knew that she spoke no less than the truth, and said as much. He then requested her to show him the priest's hole.

"I will, of course," she said, "but I wish my husband or my brother were in, because I can hardly bear to open that ghastly panel."

Following her delicately up the stairs Mr. Flinders said that he could quite understand that. When she had succeeded in locating the rosette which worked the panel, and had twisted it round, he peered inside the dark recess almost as fearfully as Celia herself. There was nothing there, but it smelted strongly of Lysol. After deliberating for a while, the constable announced his intention of climbing into the hole. He succeeded in doing this, not without inflicting several scratches on the panelling, and once inside he very carefully inspected the walls. Celia watched him hopefully, and wondered whether the scratches could be got rid of.

Mr. Flinders climbed out again, and picked up his helmet from the floor where he had placed it. "Nothing there, madam," he said.

"What were you looking for?" inquired Celia.

"There might have been a way in," explained Mr. Flinders. "Not that I think so meself," he added, "but the police have to follow everything up, you see."

"Oh!" said Celia, a little doubtfully. She closed the panel again. "Is there anything else you'd like to see upstairs?"

Mr. Flinders thought that he ought to make a reconnaissance of the whole house. He seemed depressed at being unable to explore Mrs. Bosanquet's room, but when he learned that that lady was enjoying her afternoon rest he said that he quite understood.

A thorough examination of the other rooms took considerable time, and Celia grew frankly bored. Beyond remarking that the wall-cupboards were a queer set-out, and no mistake; that a thin man might conceivably get down the great chimney in the chief bedroom; and that a burglar wouldn't make much trouble over getting in at any one of the windows, Mr. Flinders produced no theories. On the way downstairs, however, he volunteered the information that he wouldn't sleep a night in the house, not if he was paid to. This was not reassuring, and Celia at once asked him whether he knew anything about the Priory hauntings. Mr. Flinders drew a deep breath, and told her various stories of things heard on the premises after dark. After this he went all over the sitting-rooms, and asked to be conducted to the secret entrance to the cellars.

"I'll tell Bowers to take you down," said Celia. "He knows, because he helped seal it up."

In the kitchen she left him in charge of Mrs. Bowers, a formidable woman who eyed him with complete disfavour. An attempt on his part to submit her kitchen to an exhaustive search was grimly frustrated. "I don't hold with bobbies poking their noses where they're not wanted, and never did," she said. "It 'ud take a better burglar than any I ever heard of to get into my kitchen, and if I find one here I shall know what to do without sending for you."

Mr. Flinders, again very red about the ears, said huskily that he had to do his duty, and meant no offence.

"That's right," said Mrs. Bowers, "you get on and do your duty, and I'll do mine, only don't you go opening my cupboards and turning things over with your great clumsy hands, or out you go, double-quick. Nice time I should have clearing up after you'd pulled everything about."

"I'm sure the place does you credit," said Mr. Flinders feebly, with a vague idea of propitiating her. "What I thought was, there might be a way in at the back of that great dresser."

"Well, there isn't," she replied uncompromisingly, and began to roll and bang a lump of pastry with an energy that spoke well for her muscular powers.

"I suppose," said Mr. Flinders, shifting his feet uneasily, "I suppose you wouldn't mind me taking a look inside the copper? I have heard of a man hiding in one of them things."

"Not in this house, you haven't," responded Mrs. Bowers. "And if you think I'm going to have you prying into the week's washing you're mistaken. The idea!"

"I didn't know you'd got the washing in it," apologised Mr. Flinders.

"No, I expect you thought I kept goldfish there," retorted the lady.

This crushing rejoinder quite cowed the constable. He coughed, and after waiting a minute asked whether she would show him the cellars. "Which I've been asked to inspect," he added boldly.

"I've got something better to do than to waste my time trapesing round nasty damp cellars at this hour," she said. "If you want to go down I'm sure I've no objection. You won't find anything except rats, and if you can put those great muddy boots of yours on one instead of dirtying my clean floor with them you'll be more use than ever I expected. Bowers!"

In reply to this shrill call her husband emerged presently from the pantry, where it seemed probable that he had been enjoying a brief siesta. Mrs. Bowers pointed the rolling-pin at Mr. Flinders. "You've got to take this young fellow down to the cellars and show him the place where the master made all that mess with the cement yesterday," she said. "And don't bring him back here. I've never been in the habit of having bobbies in my kitchen and I'm not going to start at my time of life."

Both men withdrew rather hastily. "You mustn't mind my missus," Bowers said. "It's only her way. She doesn't hold with ghosts, and things, but I can tell you I'm glad to see you here. Awful, this place is. You wouldn't believe the things I've heard."

By the time they had explored the dank, tomb-like cellars, and twice scared themselves by holding the lamp in such a way that their own shadows were cast in weird elongated shapes on the wall, Bowers and the constable were more than ready to confirm a sudden but deep friendship in a suitable quantity of beer. They retired to the pantry, and regaled themselves with this comforting beverage until Bowers found that it was time for him to carry the tea-tray into the library. Upon which Constable Flinders bethought himself of his duty, and took his departure by the garden-door, thus avoiding any fresh encounter with the dragon in the kitchen.

It was at about the same moment that Margaret, returning from a brisk tramp over the fields, emerged on to the right-of-way, and made her way past the ruined chapel towards the house. The sight of someone kneeling by one of the half-buried tombs apparently engaged in trying to decipher the inscription, made her stop and look more closely. Her feet had made no sound on the turf, but the kneeling figure looked round quickly, and she saw that it was Michael Strange.

She came slowly towards him, an eyebrow raised in rather puzzled inquiry. "Hullo!" she said. "Are you interested in old monuments?"

Strange rose, brushing a cake of half-dry mud from his ancient flannel trousers. "I am rather," he said. "Do you mind my having a look round?"

"Not at all," Margaret said. "But I'm afraid you won't find much of interest." She sat down on the tomb, and dug her hands into the pockets of her Burberry. "I didn't know you were keen on this sort of thing."

"I know very little about it," he said, "but I've always been interested in ruins. It's a pity this has been allowed to go. There's some fine Norman work."

She agreed, but seemed to be more interested in the contemplation of one of her own shoes. "Are you staying here long?" she asked.

"Only for another week or so," he replied. "I'm on holiday, you know."

"Yes, you told me so." She looked up, smiling. "By the way, what do you do, if it isn't a rude question?"

"I fish mostly."

"I meant in town."

"Oh, I see. I have my work, and I manage to get some golf over the week-ends. Do you play?"

"Very badly," Margaret answered, feeling baulked. She tried again. "What sort of work do you do?"

"Mostly office-stuff, and very dull," he said.

Margaret decided that further questioning would sound impertinent, and started a fresh topic. "If you're interested in old buildings," she said, "you ought to go over the Priory itself. It's the most weird place, full of nooks and crannies, and rooms leading out of one another."

"I noticed some very fine panelling when I took you home the other night," he said. "Have you any records of the place, I wonder?"

"No, funnily enough we haven't," she answered. "You'd think there ought to be something, and as far as I know my uncle didn't take anything out of the house when Aunt Flora died, but we can't find anything."

"Nothing amongst the books?"

"There aren't many, you know. No, nothing. Celia was awfully disappointed, because she thought there was bound to be a history, or something. And we should rather like to find out whether there's any foundation for the story of the haunting."

Strange sat down beside her on the tomb. "How much store do you set by that tale?" he asked. "Do you really believe in it?"

"I don't really know," she said, wrinkling her brow. "I haven't seen the famous Monk, and until I do - I'll reserve judgment."

"Very wise," he approved. "And if you do see it I wish you'd tell me. I should like to have first-hand evidence of a real ghost." He chanced to glance up as he spoke, and his eyes narrowed. "Oh!" he said, in rather a curt voice. "So you did call in the police after all?"

Margaret looked quickly in the same direction. Mr. Flinders was tramping down one of the paths, very obviously on his way from the house back to the village. Without quite knowing why, she felt slightly guilty. "Yes. We - we thought we'd try and get to the bottom of our ghost."

He turned his head, and looked directly at her. "You've made up your minds to keep whatever you've seen, or heard, to yourselves," he said abruptly. "You're scared of this place, aren't you?"

She was startled. "Well, really, I - yes, a bit, perhaps. It's not surprising considering what tales they tell about it round here."

"You'll think me impertinent," he said, "but I wish you'd leave it."

It was her turn now to look at him, surprised, rather grave. "Why?" she said quietly. "Because if the place is haunted, and you saw anything, it might give you a really bad fright. Where's the sense in staying in a house that gives you the creeps?"

"You're very solicitous about me, Mr. Strange. I don't quite see why."

"I don't suppose you do," he said, prodding the ground between his feet with his walking stick. "And I daresay I've no right to be - solicitous about you. All the same, I am."

She found it hard to say anything after this, but managed after a short pause to remark that a ghost couldn't hurt her.

He made no answer, but continued to prod the ground, and with a nervous little laugh, she said: "You look as though you thought it could."

"No, I'm not as foolish as that," he replied. "But it could scare you badly."

"I didn't think you believed in the Monk. You know, you're being rather mysterious."

"I believe in quite a number of odd things," he said. "Sorry if I sounded mysterious."