Footsteps in the Dark Read online

  ‘Saw what?’ demanded Peter, quite worked up.

  The landlord gave a shiver. ‘They call it the Monk round here,’ he answered. ‘I suppose it was that. But I only saw a tall black figure, and no face, but just two eyes looking out of blackness straight at me.’

  ‘Your pal Tillman dressed up to give you a fright,’ said Charles.

  Wilkes looked at him. ‘Ben Tillman couldn’t have vanished, sir. And that’s what the Monk did. Just disappeared. You may say I imagined it, but all I know is I wouldn’t do what I did that night again, not for a thousand pounds.’

  There was a slight pause. The man by the window got up and strolled out of the taproom. Peter set his tankard down. ‘Well, thanks very much,’ he said. ‘Cheery little story.’

  Charles had been watching the thin stranger. ‘Who’s our departed friend?’ he inquired.

  ‘Commercial, sir. He’s working the places round here with some sort of a vacuum-cleaner, so I understand, and doing a bit of fishing in between-whiles.’

  ‘Seemed to be interested in ghosts,’ was all Charles said.

  But when he and Peter had left the Bell Inn, Peter asked abruptly: ‘What did you mean by that, Chas? Did you think the fellow was listening to us?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Charles said.

  ‘Well, yes, but I don’t know that that was altogether surprising.’

  ‘No. But he didn’t seem to want us to notice his interest, did he? Where’s this grocer we’re looking for?’

  At the grocer’s, which turned out to be also the post-office and linen-draper, after the manner of village shops, the two men were accosted by a gentleman in clerical attire, who was buying stamps. He introduced himself as the Vicar, and told them that he and his wife were only waiting until the newcomers had had time to settle into the Priory before they paid a call on them.

  ‘One is glad to see the Priory occupied once more,’ he said. ‘Alas, too many of our old houses are spurned nowadays for lack of “modern conveniences.”’

  ‘We were rather under the impression, sir, that this particular house has been spurned on account of ghosts,’ Peter said.

  The Vicar smiled. ‘Ah, I fear you must seek confirmation of that story from one more credulous than my poor self,’ he announced. ‘Such tales, I find, invariably spring up round deserted houses. I venture to prophesy that the Priory ghost proves itself to be nothing more harmful than a mouse, or perhaps a rat.’

  ‘Oh, so we think,’ Charles answered. ‘But it’s really rather a nuisance, for my wife had banked on getting a local housemaid, and the best she can manage is a daily girl, who takes precious good care she’s out of the place before sundown.’

  Mr Pennythorne listened to this with an air of smiling tolerance. ‘Strange how tenacious these simple country folk are of superstitions,’ he said musingly. ‘But you are not without domestic help, one trusts?’

  ‘No, no, we have our butler and his wife.’ Charles gathered up his change from the counter, and thrust an unwieldy package into Peter’s hands. ‘Are you going our way, sir? Can we drop you anywhere?’

  ‘No, I thank you. Is it your car that stands outside the Bell Inn? I will accompany you as far as that if I may.’

  They strolled out of the shop, and down the street. The Vicar pointed out various tumbledown old buildings of architectural interest, and promised to conduct them personally round the church some day. ‘It is not, I fear, of such antiquity as the ruins of your chapel,’ he sighed, ‘but we pride ourselves upon our east window. Within the last few years we have been fortunate enough to procure a sufficient sum of money to pay for the cleaning of it – no light expense, my dear Mr Malcolm – but we were greatly indebted to Colonel Ackerley, who showed himself, as indeed he always does, most generous.’ This seemed to produce a train of thought. ‘No doubt you have already made his acquaintance? One of our churchwardens; and an estimable fellow – a pukka sahib, as he would himself say.’

  ‘Is he the man who lives in the white house beyond ours?’ asked Peter. ‘No, we haven’t met him yet, but I think I saw him at the Bell one evening. Cheery-looking man, going grey, with regular features, and a short moustache? Drives a Vauxhall tourer?’

  The Vicar, while disclaiming any knowledge of cars, thought that this description fitted Colonel Ackerley. They had reached the Bell Inn by this time, and again refusing the offer of a lift the Vicar took his leave, and walked off briskly down the street.

  When Charles and Peter reached the Priory it was nearly time for dinner, and long shadows lay on the ground. They found the girls in the library with Mrs Bosanquet, and were greeted by a cry of: ‘Oh, here you are! We quite forgot to tell you to buy a couple of ordinary lamps to fix on to the wall.’

  ‘What, more lamps?’ demanded Peter, who had a lively recollection of unpacking a positive crate of them. ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t got any for the landing upstairs,’ explained Celia, ‘and Bowers says he’d rather not go up without a light. Did you ever hear such rot? I told him to take a candle.’

  ‘To tell you the honest truth,’ confessed Margaret, ‘I don’t awfully like going up in the dark myself.’

  Charles cast up his eyes. ‘Already!’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t that at all,’ Margaret said defiantly. ‘I mean, I’m not imagining ghosts or anything so idiotic, but it is a rambling place, and of course one does hear odd sorts of noises – yes, I know it’s only rats, but at night one gets stupid, and fanciful, and anyway, there is a sort of feeling that – that one’s being watched. I’ve had it before, in old houses.’

  ‘Have you really felt it here?’ asked Celia, wide-eyed.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, Celia, but you know how it is when you go to Holyrood, or Hampton Court, or somewhere. There’s a sort of atmosphere. I can’t explain, but you know.’

  ‘Damp?’ suggested Peter helpfully.

  His sisters looked their scorn. ‘No, silly,’ said Margaret. ‘As though the spirits of all those dead and gone people were looking at one from the walls. That’s a bit what I feel here.’

  Mrs Bosanquet put down her needlework and said mildly: ‘You feel someone in the wall, my dear? I do hope to goodness there isn’t a skeleton anywhere. I never could bear the thought of them, for they seem to me most unnatural.’

  ‘Aunt!’ shrieked Celia. ‘A skeleton in the wall? Don’t be so awful! Why should there be?’

  ‘I daresay there’s no such thing, my dear, but I always remember reading a most unpleasant story about someone who was walled up in a monastery, or a convent – I forget which, but it was something to do with monks, I know.’

  ‘Oh Aunt Lilian, Aunt Lilian!’ groaned Charles. ‘Et tu, Brute! ’

  ‘If I thought for one moment,’ said Celia emphatically, ‘that anyone had been walled up inside this house, I’d walk out here and now.’

  ‘Quite right, my dear,’ agreed Mrs Bosanquet. ‘One can’t be too careful. I always remember how there was an outbreak of the plague when they disturbed the old burial place somewhere in London.’

  ‘On which cheerful thought,’ said Charles, as a gong sounded in the hall, ‘we go in to dinner. Anyone any appetite?’

  In spite of Mrs Bosanquet’s gloomy recollections it seemed that no one’s appetite had failed. Dinner was served in the square dining-room at the side of the house, and though the undrawn curtains let in the soft evening light, Celia had placed shaded candles on the table, so that the room had a warm, inviting appearance. By common consent there was no more talk of ghosts or skeletons. They went back to the library after dinner, and while Mrs Bosanquet proceeded to lay out a complicated Patience, the others sat down to the Bridge-table. Even when a scutter somewhere in the wainscoting startled them all it did not need the men’s assurances to convince the girls that the place was rat-ridden.

  ‘I know,’ said Celia, gathering up her cards. ‘Mrs Bowers is going to set a trap.’

  ‘I am not fond of rats,’ remarked her aunt. ‘Mice I don�€