The Year's Best Horror Stories 9 (16 page)

While the rector lingered at the hall conversing with Sir Leslie, Professor Courtleigh was in fact up at the rectory awaiting his return. By a stroke of fate he had arrived before his time.

That morning when Sanderton was getting ready to set out for Hengsward, the Professor had received two letters in his rooms at Durham. The first was his friend’s hurried note giving news of the sale and regretting that since it was such short notice he would have to go alone. “I should like you to have come a day earlier and gone with me to bid for those books of Faik’s,” ran the message, “but I know how difficult it is for you to come, even on Tuesday.”

The second letter was from the secretary to say the examiners’ meeting, called for that day, had to be unexpectedly postponed. On receiving this, Courtleigh pondered the irony which could cause last-minute situations like that. Here he was, after all, comparatively at a loose end. When he came to think of it, this Peryford visit might well prove to be more important than anything else he could be doing for his university just then. He had another matter too which would take him to York. With a sudden resolution he reached down the railway time-table.

“I’ll be there for lunch at any rate,” he thought as the train went moving south, “and we shall be able to go on to Hengsward together in the afternoon. It will be a pleasant surprise for Nat.” He had somehow had it in his head that the sale began at 2:30 or so. Not till he arrived at Peryford Rectory and found that Sanderton had gone off hours before, on the only possible train that way, did he realize how irritating it can be to follow an impulse without going into the practical details.

Mrs. Willerby, poor lady, housekeeper at the rectory, thought out all the ways of bringing the two friends together but it turned out to be as impossible to get word to the rector as it was to get a train till nearly tea-time. Unfortunately, too, Sanderton had left word that he hoped to call after the sale on a friend near Malton but would be back at Peryford in the evening in time for dinner. “But, sir, you’ll surely stay for lunch, and I’ll stack up a good fire in the study and it’s all cozy and private.”

Courtleigh had no mind to be “all cozy and private” for seven or eight hours. He had business in York and there was plenty of time to do that and still be back to meet Sanderton on his return. After a slight snack, therefore, he was strolling leisurely through the park while the stable boy caught the cob and got ready the rector’s gig.

And then it was he could not forbear having another peep at the fateful library. It was unlocked—probably left ready for the decorators—so he went inside. Certainly it was dingy and neglected beyond words. Dust lay thick upon the furniture everywhere, and shaggy cobwebs hung from the roof timbers and festooned the corners of every alcove and recess. Most of the books had been removed of course, but some miscellaneous volumes remained up in the gallery. Courtleigh, in idle vein, reached down a few of these, but the place was so imbued with melancholy that he soon gave up and went below again.

He was crossing the center of the floor when he noticed that the matting, which ran full length there, had got pulled on one side. Was that an old brass he could detect beneath it? Throwing the matting back, he discovered a large square flagstone of white marble bearing a circular pattern inlaid in black. It was divided out in sectors and marked off somewhat like the chart of a mariner’s compass; but in place of the cardinal points and sub-points were curious hieroglyphics around the edge. The main spaces were quite blank, and it was a puzzle to Courtleigh to think what the purpose of it all could be.

As he was stooping over it, he again sensed—for in that position he could not see—the swoop of something above. It darkened the atmosphere for one quick second, and his ears pricked up at that faint, uneasy pattering sound once more.

That old fear, experienced at his first visit, was upon him again. He had a guilty feeling of being watched. He looked up and got a shock to see Dr. Propert observing him from the gallery with a most intent and frightening look. Another moment and he knew it could not have been so. Nevertheless he decided to retreat before morbid thoughts took any further hold upon him. So he wisely left the place and went around to the stables where the gig was just about ready.

He had an excellent time in York. He saw his man—a fellow antiquary—enjoyed yet another visit to the minster, had a meal at a curious little inn nearby, and left himself but little daylight for returning. The cob, it seemed, knew its own way to Peryford and the lamp-lit ride had almost lulled the professor to sleep by the time they got to the rectory. To his disappointment, though, Sanderton had not yet returned. Mrs. Willerby was almost distracted with anxiety but rallied a little at the guest’s reassurances and set about serving dinner for him. Had she but known it, her master was not a mile away dining with Sir Leslie.

Alone at the rectory things were getting dull for Courtleigh. After vainly trying to keep himself interested in a bookseller’s catalog, he finally informed the housekeeper he would not wait up any longer but would see the rector in the morning. He then retired for the night.

Now it was the professor’s regular routine when undressing to take two special sedative pills which his doctor had ordered on account of his nerves. Without them he was subject to insomnia followed by most dreadful nightmares. You may judge of his annoyance, therefore, when he felt in the accustomed pocket for the little box and found it gone. He went downstairs again but it was not there. Could he have lost it on the road or while in the town? It seemed unlikely. Then he remembered—“This afternoon when I was in the library I took off my jacket in the gallery to shake the dust from it. My matchbox fell out and I picked it up. No doubt the box of pills fell out too and I never noticed. Yes, that will be it . . .”

He was not very keen to turn out again now, and tried for some time to settle down and forget it. But the thing went round and round in his mind and gave him no peace. It was no use denying it: he dare not face the night without that sleeping dose. So, after some reluctance, he put on his overcoat, opened the front door quietly, and sallied forth across the park.

There was almost a full moon, that orb casting about the whole prospect of lawns and trees a magic atmosphere of still expectancy, like an opera stage the moment before the eloping heroine steals across. The library itself, in the soft night air, stood out with toyland boldness, a pinnacled casket of silver steeped slantwise in pools of indigo shade. As he traversed the open moonlight toward the shadowed doorway, Courtleigh felt strangely conspicuous, and almost pathetic, like an insect crawling across the lens of a great telescope. In a dreamy surmise he brought his own Cassandra to the scene. What if a human speck entering that slumbering panorama should constitute a sort of outrage? But he knew he had to go and, putting aside poetics, was soon stepping to the heavy door.

Inside the library the gloom was so mottled with pale light that Courtleigh had no difficulty finding his way into the gallery. And there to be sure, at the far end against the banister, was the little box he was looking for. As he was picking it up, though, his foot tripped against the leg of one of the reading tables; and in regaining his balance he steadied himself against the wainscoted wall. To his surprise the woodwork gave back a little as his hand pressed upon its carved surface. Then the moonlight came flooding through most powerfully into the building, and showed a telltale crevice along one of the panels.

It was time, in all reason, for a professor of classical antiquities to be in bed. But Courtleigh was very human, and you will not be surprised that, at the thought of having discovered a secret panel, curiosity got the better of him. He determined at any rate to have one peep inside that little opening while he was there. But the door, after coming ajar some three or four inches, had somehow jammed. Hardening with impatience, Courtleigh got his shoulder to it and gave a quick thrust. Back it went and landed him staggering inside. There was a smart slam: and things went suddenly dark.

He got to his feet and struck a match—only to note that he was trapped. What on the other side might have seemed a panel of innocent thickness now showed itself to the captive as a stout oak door with a great iron spring but no visible lock or fastening of any kind. When every attempt to lever it around the edges with his penknife proved futile, he had nothing left but to look for another way out.

He tried the downward direction first, hoping to come out somewhere on the ground level. But the steps were getting soft and flaky and he had to be careful. There was also a suffocating thickness about the air as he neared the bottom and peered down, holding the lighted match in front of him.

Now what could that be? A heap of debris down there started to remind him of . . . but then the step crumbled under his foot, and the light fell from his hand. Instinctively he sprang back to the step above. It was giving too, like shale, and the flakes rattling around had strewn him from head to foot before he managed to again reach firm footholds at the top. As he brushed himself and collected his thoughts he heaved a sigh of relief to find himself safe once more. He felt as if there was something at the bottom he was glad he had not discovered. And, whatever it was, he had come within an ace of being entombed with it.

He decided to explore things higher up. Ascending past his starting point, he had hopes of coming to an exit on the roof; for once in the open air he might climb down some buttress or at least call out for help. But his hopes on this score were also dashed. A few yards up and this time the stair was sealed by a blank wall of masonry.

Courtleigh was by now almost ready to despair. But, striking another match, he was relieved to discover a narrow door set back a little to the side by his right hand. It was not fast and he pulled it open with new expectancy. By a miracle he did not break his neck, for the passage was no more and he gasped to find himself on the verge of a sheer drop, looking into the moonlit library.

There, below him on the right, it lay like the auditorium of some deserted theater viewed from a scaffolding high up in the wings. Close by him on the left loomed the upper part of the great east window, the gigantic wheel of tracery sweeping overhead and foreshortened so as to seem toppling down upon the beholder. He was, in fact, standing in a niche, or panelled recess, within the framework of the window. What purpose such an outlet could have remained a puzzle. If it was intended to allow the window to be inspected and repaired from time to time there would still have to be some scaffolding to take workmen to the window face. But the thing which concerned Courtleigh was the prospect of his own escape. Could he scramble down the mullions into the well of the library? It looked so perilous that he thought better of it.

While craning his neck to take the situation in, his hand had found a convenient little rail fastened in the wall. His weight upon it seemed to loosen it a bit. Another look and he noticed it was really a lever of some sort, and as he pulled it farther his eyes almost dropped out of his head to see a line of what looked like ornamental masonry slide out horizontally from the window. In a few moments there had appeared a narrow footway, battlemented at the edge, stretching right across to the other side of the window. It was about a foot wide and had slid out like a shelf in an old-fashioned desk.

As his astonishment subsided, Courtleigh guessed that a certain ogee-headed panel at the far side would be a door like the one by which he was standing. Trying the proffered bridge with his foot, hesitating somewhat to trust his weight to it, he at last decided to make the crossing. He sidled forth slowly, steadied himself by grasping the curved stonework of the window, and reached the other side only after an agony of carefulness.

Yes, it was a door as he had hoped. He lost little time in pushing it open, but saw that any upward way was sealed, and found descent the only course open to him. This second stairway spiraled around till it brought him to another wooden barrier, and his heart beat wildly at the sight of a metal catch. In a moment he was through this panel and inside the Muniment Room, sighing with renewed hope.

He groped about the presses with a lighted match and found the door which led into the library. Of course, it was locked. He sat for a while quite beaten. Only one other possibility remained: without much hope, he looked into the little stair again to see if there was any way to the ground floor. No luck: it was built up. As he leaned against the wall considering things, he suddenly realized that he had at least discovered a possible solution to the mystery of the
Household Book.
If Faik had known about the panels into these two stairways and the transom bridge along the window, what could be easier for him than to get from the gallery across into the Muniment Room and steal the book! No wonder the ordinary door had shown no signs of violence. But if the man had entered, he must have got out as well. “Of course,” thought Courtleigh, “he had probably known about the spring catch behind the panel in the gallery and taken precautions not to be trapped inside as I have been, like a fool. And yet . . . and yet . . . neither Faik nor the book had been heard of since that fatal October night two years ago.
What if the man had not got out?
”

A panicky feeling of claustrophobia came over him as he pictured his own fate, burrowing like a trapped fox within walled passages each ending in a cul-de-sac. And then there came into his mind what might be lying down in the pit of the other stair where the steps had given way . . . Putting such thoughts aside, he determined to again get up to the window level where he could at least see into the library. He reached the top of the stair and saw the moonlit window, but the gangway across was no longer there. Still, there must also be a lever at this side to bring it out again. Ah! there it was. Pulling at it, Courtleigh breathed more easily to see the transom shelf emerge once more, and he could not but wonder at the ingenuity of it all. While pondering the situation, he found yet another handle! The curiosity was too much. Stiff as it was, he pressed hard upon it and managed to make it turn.