Footsteps in the Dark Read online

  ‘Why should we go?’ Peter asked calmly. ‘We’re not afraid of ghosts, you know!’

  The artist swayed with his insane giggling. ‘But Le Moine is not like other ghosts, my friend. Ah non, he is not – like – other ghosts!’

  The landlord had crossed the room, and now threw an apologetic glance at Peter. But he spoke to the artist. ‘You’d like your usual table, moossoo, wouldn’t you? You’ll take your lunch in the coffee-room, I daresay, and there’s as nice a leg of lamb waiting as ever I saw.’

  The artist turned on him with something of a snarl. ‘Away, cattle! You think you can tell me what I shall do and what I shall not do, but it is not so!’

  ‘I’m sure, sir, I never had no such idea, but your lunch’ll be spoiled if you don’t come to eat it, and I’ve got some of the green peas cooked the French way you like.’

  ‘I do not eat in this place, where you cook food fit for pigs. Yes, you wish that I go, but I do not go till I choose, and you dare not speak, my gross one, for me. I am Louis Duval, and there is not another in the world can do what I do! Is it not so? Hein? Is it not so?’

  The landlord had an ugly look in his eye, but to Charles’ and Peter’s surprise he said soothingly: ‘That’s right, sir. Wonderful your pictures are.’

  M. Duval looked at him through half-shut eyes; his voice sank; he said almost in a whisper: ‘Sometimes I have thoughts in my head, gross pig, which you do not dream. Sometimes I think to myself, has no one seen the face of Le Moine? Has not Wilkes seen it? Eh? You do not like that, perhaps. Perhaps, too, you are afraid, just a little afraid of poor Louis Duval.’

  ‘Me seen it?’ echoed the landlord. ‘Lor’, Mr Dooval, I’m thankful I haven’t, and that’s a fact. Now you give over talking of spooks, sir, do. You’ve got half the room listening to you, like silly fools, and these gentlemen don’t want to hear them sort of stories.’

  Contrary to Peter’s expectations the drunken artist allowed himself to be helped out of his chair, and gently propelled across the bar to the coffee-room door. Those villagers who still remained in the bar watched his exit with grins and nudges. When he had disappeared, and Wilkes with him, Peter addressed a solid-looking farmer who was seated near to him. ‘Who’s that chap?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s a furriner, sir,’ the farmer answered. ‘An artist. I daresay you’ve seen his cottage, for it ain’t far from the Priory.’

  ‘Oh, he lives here, does he? Which is his cottage?’

  ‘Why, sir, it’s that white cottage with the garden in front that’s a sin and shame to look at, it’s that covered in weeds.’ He began to sketch with a stubby finger on the table before him. ‘Supposing the Priory’s here, sir, where I’ve put my thumb. Well, you go on down the road, like as if you was coming to the village, and there’s a bit of a lane leading off a matter of a quarter of a mile from this inn. You go up there not more’n a hundred yards, and you come right on the cottage. That’s where he lives.’

  ‘I see. Yes, I know the place. Has he lived there long?’

  The farmer rubbed his ear. ‘I don’t know as I could rightly say how long he’s been here. Not more’n five years, I reckon. We’ve kind of got used to him and his ways, and I never heard he did anyone any harm, bar walking over fields while the hay is standing. Mind you, it ain’t so often you see him like he is to-day. He gets fits of it, so to speak. Now I come to think on it, it hasn’t had a bout on him for a matter of three months. But whenever he gets like this he goes round maundering that silly stuff you heard. Enough to get on your nerves it is, but he’s fair got the Priory ghost on the brain.’ He got up as he spoke, and wishing them a polite good-day, made his way out.

  ‘Quite interesting,’ Charles said. ‘I think it’s time we made a move.’

  On their way home down the right-of-way they talked long and earnestly over all that the drunken artist had said.

  ‘It is well known,’ Charles said at last, ‘that you can’t set much store by what a drunken man may say, but on the other hand it’s always on the cards that he’ll let out something he didn’t mean to. I feel that M. Louis Duval may be worth a little close investigation.’

  ‘What surprised me,’ Peter remarked, ‘was the way Wilkes bore with him. I expected to see Duval kicked out.’

  ‘If he’s in the habit of eating his meals at the Bell you can understand Wilkes humouring him. And apparently he’s not always tight by any means. The most intriguing thing about him was his interest in the Monk. I don’t know what you feel about it, but I should say he knew a bit about monks.’

  ‘I’m all for getting on his tracks,’ Peter answered. ‘At the same time, he was so dam’ fishy and mysterious that I’m inclined to think it was a bit too sinister to mean anything. Think he is the Monk?’

  ‘Can’t say. If I knew what the Monk was after I should find this problem easier to solve.’

  They walked on for some time in silence. Peter broke it by saying suddenly: ‘I don’t know. It was typical drunken rot when you come to think of it. All that stuff about the Monk walking up and downstairs though we don’t see him, and watching us though we don’t know it. You can’t get much sense out of that. Ghost-twaddle.’

  ‘I was thinking of something else he said,’ Charles said slowly. ‘I’d rather like to know what he meant by no one ever having seen the Monk’s face, not even himself. That wasn’t quite the usual ghost-talk we hear in this place.’

  ‘N-no. But I’m not sure that it’s likely to lead anywhere. Still, I agree he wants looking into.’

  They had reached the Priory by this time, and agreeing to say nothing of the morning’s encounter to the others they went in, and found the three women already seated at the lunch-table.

  ‘Did you have any luck?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘No, there’s too much sun,’ Peter answered. He paused in the act of helping himself to salad, and lifted his head. ‘What’s the strange noise?’

  There was a distinct and rather unpleasant sound of humming that seemed to proceed from somewhere above. Margaret laughed. ‘Ask Celia. She let us in for it.’

  They looked inquiringly at her. ‘Sounds like a vacuum cleaner or something,’ said Charles.

  ‘It is,’ Celia confessed. ‘I couldn’t help it, though. Really, he was so persistent I hadn’t the heart to go on saying no.’

  ‘I think it’s a very good plan,’ said Mrs Bosanquet. ‘I’m sure there must be a great deal of dust in all the carpets, and this will save having them taken up, which I was going to suggest.’

  ‘But what do you mean?’ Peter demanded. ‘We’ve no electricity here, so how can you…’

  ‘Oh, it isn’t an electric one! It’s some new sort of patent affair, but I really didn’t pay much attention, because I’ve no intention of buying it. Only the man was so anxious to show me the amount of dust it would draw out of the carpets and chairs that I let him demonstrate. After all, it’s costing us nothing, and it seems to please him.’

  ‘A man, with a vacuum-cleaner for sale,’ Charles repeated. ‘A man…’ He looked at Peter, and as though by common consent they both got up.

  ‘Well, what on earth’s the matter?’ Celia asked. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘I’m not at all sure,’ said Charles. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve seen this clever salesman.’ He threw down his table-napkin, and went quickly out of the room, and up the stairs. The droning noise came from Mrs Bosanquet’s room, and he went in. Busily engaged in running a cleaner over the floor was the shifty-eyed commercial staying at the Bell Inn.

  Seven

  FOR A MOMENT THEY EYED ONE ANOTHER IN SILENCE. THEN the man with the vacuum-cleaner said: ‘Good morning, sir. I wonder whether I can interest you in this here cleaner? No electric power required. Practically works itself, needing only the ’and to guide it. Like this, sir, if you will kindly watch what I do.’ He began to run it over the carpet, still talking volubly. ‘You can see for yourself, sir, ’ow easy to work this here cleaner is. Sucks up every speck of du