Footsteps in the Dark Read online

  ‘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.’

  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?’