Footsteps in the Dark Read online

  These were miserable enough. The cottage, which bore signs of considerable antiquity, had but the one living-room, from which a precipitous staircase led up between two walls to the upper storey. At the back a door led into the kitchen; at the front were lattice windows and the principal door of the house, and on one side a huge fireplace occupied almost the entire wall. The ceiling was low, and a wealth of old oak formed worm-eaten beams, in between which the cobwebs of years had formed. Charles judged that originally the room had served as kitchen and living-room combined, for from the great central beam one or two big hooks still protruded, from which, doubtless, flitches of bacon had hung in olden days.

  The furniture was in keeping with the dilapidated building itself. A strip of dusty carpet lay across the floor; there were two sound chairs, and one with a broken leg that sagged against the wall; a table, an easel, a cupboard, and a deal chest that stood under the window, and which was covered with a litter of tubes, brushes, rags, and bits of charcoal.

  There remained the pictures, and until Duval came back with the tea-pot Charles occupied himself in trying to make up his mind which he could best bring himself to buy.

  Duval reappeared shortly, and set the tea-pot down on the table. He suggested, not without a hopeful note in his voice, that perhaps his guest would prefer a whisky and soda, but this Charles firmly declined.

  "Eh bien, then I give you sugar and milk, yes? So? You have looked at my pictures? Presently I will explain to you what I have tried to express in them."

  "I wish you would," Charles said. "I can see that they are full of ideas."

  No further encouragement was needed to start the artist off on his topic. He talked volubly, but rather incoherently, for over half an hour, until Charles' head reeled, and he felt somewhat as though he had stepped into a nightmare. But his polite questions and apparently rapt interest had the effect of banishing whatever guard the artist had set upon his tongue and he became expansive, though mysterious on the subject of his own enforced sojourn at Framley.

  Realising that in all probability any attempt to question Duval as to his obscure meaning would drive him into his shell, Charles contented himself with sympathising.

  "Whoever is to blame for keeping you here," he said solemnly, "is a criminal of the deepest dye."

  This pleased. "Yes he is wicked. You do not know, m'sieur! But I shall have my revenge on him, perhaps soon. I tell you, I will make him suffer! He shall pay. Yes, he shall pay and pay for the years which I have spent in exile." A little saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth; he looked unpleasantly like a dog drooling at the sight of a bone.

  With a feeling of disgust, and more than half convinced that he was wasting his time on a madman, Charles turned to the pictures, and soon made his choice. M. Duval seemed disappointed when he fixed on the least Futuristic of his works, but after an attempt to induce Charles to buy "Sunset in Hades' he consented to roll up the more innocuous "Reapers."

  Outside the sky had for some time been growing steadily more overcast, and as Charles prepared to take his leave, a flash of lightning lit up the darkening room, to be followed in a very few moments by an ominous rumble of thunder. The rain did not seem to be far off, and since he had no overcoat Charles was reluctantly compelled to postpone his departure.

  The artist seemed to become more restless with the approach of the storm, and as the light went he took to glancing over his shoulder as though he expected to see someone. When a second and much louder clap of thunder came he jumped uncontrollably, and muttered something about fetching a lamp. He went through into the kitchen, and came back presently with a cheap oillamp which he set down on the table.

  "I do not like the darkness," he said. "Perhaps you think I am strange to say that, but when one lives always alone, m'sieur, one has fancies." He gave a little shiver, and his eyes stared into Charles' for a moment. "But there are things which are not fancies." Again he looked round, then leaning towards Charles he said hardly above a whisper: "I know that there is one who watches. I have felt his eyes through my window, I bolt my door, but when I go out he follows. I have heard his footsteps, but when I look there is no one there. Sometimes I think I cannot bear it, for at night, m'sieur, it is so still, and I am alone. Sometimes I think maybe I shall go mad one day. But I am not mad. No, I am not mad yet."

  "Who watches you?" Charles said quietly. "Have you any idea?"

  Duval shook his head. "I do not know. Sometimes I think - but I do not say."

  "I hope," said Charles, "that it is not our Monk?"

  The artist gave a start, and grew sickly pale all at once. "No, no!" he said. "But do not speak so loud, m'sieur! You do not know who may be listening."

  Since a heavy rain was now beating against the windows it seemed absurd to suppose that anyone could be lurking outside, but Charles saw that it was useless to reason with one whose nerves were so little under control. To humour the artist, he lowered his voice. "It is unwise, then, even to mention the Monk?" he asked.

  Duval nodded vigorously. "For me, yes. There are those who listen to what I say though they seem to be deaf. M'sieur, I tell you it is too much!- Sometimes when I am alone in this house I think it would be better to give it all up, not to attempt - I have not the courage, he is clever, ah, but clever!"

  "My friend," Charles said, "I think someone has some sort of a hold over you. Don't be alarmed: I'm not asking what it is."

  The thunder crashed above their heads, and involuntarily Duval winced. "Yes, he has what you call a hold, but what if I get a hold over him? What then, hein?" His fingers curled and uncurled; he looked so haggard that once more Charles found himself pitying him against his will.

  "Forgive me if I say that I think you would do well to get away from this lonely life of yours. It has preyed too much on your mind."

  The artist's eyes stared wildly at him. "I cannot get away!" he burst out. "I am tied, tied! I dare not speak, even! What I could tell! Ah, m'sieur, there are things I know that you would give all to learn. Yes, I am not a fool; I know what you are seeking, you and that other. You will not find it, but I - I might! You do not believe? You think I talk so because perhaps I am drunk? You are wrong. It is true that sometimes I have drunk too much. To-day, no! What is it you desire to see? You will not answer? But I know, m'sieur! You desire to see the face of the Monk."

  Charles would have spoken, but he swept on, as though a spate of words had been loosed in him. "You will not. But I desire it also, and I tell you the day comes when I shall see it. And if I see it, only for one little minute! one little, little minute, what shall I do? Shall I tell you? Ah no, m'sieur! No, no, no, I tell no one, but I am free! And it will be for me then to revenge myself, for me to be master!"

  A flash of lightning made Charles blink. There was the scrape of a chair. Duval had sprung up, and was staring- towards the window. "What was that," he gasped. "What was that, m'sieur? A face? A face pressed to the glass?"

  "Nonsense," Charles said calmly. "It was nothing but that sunflower blown against the window. Look!"

  The sweat stood on Duval's forehead. "Truly? Yes, yes, I see. It was nothing. Yet for a moment I could have sworn I saw - something. It is this accursed storm. I do not like the lightning. It makes me what you call on edge. Sometimes I fear I have not the courage to go on with what I have made up my mind I must do to be free. For when I am here with the darkness I remember that other who died." He went to the cupboard and opened it, and pulled out a whisky bottle, half-full, and two thick glasses, "You will take a little drink with me? This storm - one's nerves demand it."

  "Not for me, thanks," Charles answered. "May I suggest that if you've reason to think someone is watching you your best course is to inform the police."

  Duval cast a quick, furtive look at him. The whisky spilled into his glass. He tossed it off, neat, and seemed to regain what little composure he possessed. "No, I do not do that. You will not listen to me: I talk folly, hein? Me, I am Louis Duval, and I am not afraid."
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br />   The rain had practically ceased by now, and Charles got up. "Then since the storm seems to be passing over you won't mind if I say good-bye, will you?" He picked up the picture he had bought. "I shall - er - value this, I assure you. And if at any time you'd like to take me rather more into your confidence you know where I'm to be found, don't you?"

  "I thank you. And for this' - he held up Charles' cheque - "I thank you also." With his self-command his arrogance too was creeping back. "The day comes when you will congratulate yourself that you were once able to buy a picture of Louis Duval's for so small a price."

  That view was not shared either by Charles, or by any of his relatives. When he exhibited the painting at the Priory an astonished silence greeted it.

  "Yes," he said blandly, "I thought you'd be hard put to it to find words to express your emotions."

  Peter breathed audibly through his nose. "You were right," he said.

  "Nice piece of work, isn't it? I particularly like the woman's splay feet. Where shall we hang it?"

  "I suggest the coal-cellar," said Peter.

  Mrs. Bosanquet was regarding the picture through her lorgnette. "What an exceedingly ill-favoured young person!" she remarked. "Really, almost disgusting. And what is she waving in her hand, pray?"

  "Since I am informed that the title of this masterpiece is "Reapers" I should hazard a guess that it must be a sickle," Charles replied.

  Celia found her tongue. "Charles, how could you?" she demanded. "Have you gone mad, or something?"

  "Not at all. I'm supporting modern art."

  "You don't know anything about art, ancient or modern. I can't get over you going out and wasting your money on an awful thing like this! You don't suppose that I could live with it on my walls, do you?"

  "Shove it up on the stairs," suggested Peter. "Then the next time the Monk goes glissant up and down, though we do not see, it'll give him something to think about. After all we owe him one for that skull."

  "My dear," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you should not make a jest of these things. When Margaret returns from London with my planchette board I shall hope to convince you as I myself have been convinced."

  "Aunt, you promised you wouldn't talk about the Monk!" Celia said uneasily. "Just when I was beginning to forget about it too!"

  "It was not I who started it, dear child," Mrs. Bosanquet pointed out. "But by all means let us talk of something else. I do trust, Peter, that you are not serious in wishing to hang that very unpleasant picture on the stairs."

  "Well, we shall have to hang it somewhere," Peter said. "Old Ackerley will want to see it. When he asked me where you were, Chas, and I told him you'd gone to buy one of Duval's pictures, I thought he'd throw a fit."

  "You can jolly well tell him then that you didn't buy a picture after all," Celia said. "I won't have you making yourself a laughing-stock. It'll be all over Framley that you've been had."

  Charles listened to this with a suspicious air of interest. "Do I understand you all to mean that you feel these walls are unworthy to bear the masterpiece?" he inquired.

  "You can put it like that, if you choose," Celia said.

  "Very well," he replied, and began carefully to roll it up again. "I've always wanted to see my name in the papers as one who has presented a work of art to the nation. I wonder where they'll hang it? It would go rather well amongst the Turners."

  "And the worst of it is," Celia said later to her brother, "he's quite capable of sending it to the National Gallery, if only to tease me."

  Peter was more interested in the result of Charles' visit than in the fate of the picture, but it was not until he was dressing for dinner that he had an opportunity of speaking to him alone. Charles came in while he was wrestling with a refractory stud, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "Good. I hoped you'd come in," Peter said. "God damn this blasted laundry! They starch the thing so that… Ah, that's got it! Well, did you discover anything, or is he merely potty?"

  "A bit of both," Charles said. He selected a cigarette fromm his case, and lit it. "From a welter of drivel just one or two facts emerge. The most important of these is that unless Duval is completely out of his mind, which I doubt, the Monk is a very real personage. Further, it would appear that he has some hold over Duval, who, with or without reason, fears him like the devil. It seems fairly obvious that the Monk - and very likely Duval too - is engaged in some nefarious pursuit, and I rather gathered from what our friend said that he - I'm talking now of Duval - is only waiting for the chance to blackmail him."

  "What about?" Peter asked, busy with his tie.

  "God knows. I couldn't arrive at it. It sounds absurd, but everything seemed to hinge on the Monk's face."

  "Talk sense," said Peter shortly.

  "Quite impossible," Charles replied, flicking the ash off his cigarette. "I'm giving you the gist of Duval's conversation. Put plainly, the Monk is strictly incognito. According to Duval the only man who ever saw his face immediately died. Manner not specified, but all very sinister."

  "Doesn't say much for the Monk's face," Peter commented. His eyes met Charles' in the mirror, and he saw that Charles was frowning slightly. He turned. "Look here, how much faith do you place in this rigmarole?"

  Charles shrugged. "Can't say. After all we had ourselves decided that the Monk was no ghost."

  Peter picked up his waistcoat and put it on. "Neither you nor I have so far set eyes on this precious Monk," he reminded Charles. "We know there's a legend about a monk haunting this place; we've had a skull drop at our feet, and we suspect - suspect, mind you —- human agency. Not necessarily the Monk. The only person to see it is Aunt Lilian. I admit she's not the sort of person likely to imagine things, but you've got to bear in mind that it was late at night, and she, in common with the rest of us, had probably got the Monk slightly on the brain. She got the wind up - admits that herself. Started to "feel" things. Works herself into a state in which she's ripe for seeing anything. She has a candle only, and by its light she sees, or thinks she sees, a cowled figure."

  "Which according to her account, moved towards her," Charles interpolated.

  "True, and as I say, she's not nervous or given to imaginative flights. I don't say she didn't see all that. But I do say that some trick of the shadows cast by a feeble light held in her probably not very steady hand, coupled with her own quite natural fears, may have deceived her. The only other thing we've got to go on is the ravings of this artist-bloke, in whom you can't place much reliance."

  "Not quite," Charles said. "We know that there is something queer about this house. I don't want to lay undue stress on all that has happened, but on the other hand I don't want to run to the other extreme of poohpoohing undoubtedly odd proceedings. There was the episode of the groaning stone; there was the exceedingly fishy conversation we overheard between Strange and Fripp. Without that proof that someone is taking an extraordinary interest in the Priory I might easily discount everything Duval said. But we know that someone broke into the place by a secret entrance; we know that Strange had something to do with it. What he's after I don't pretend to say, but it's fairly obvious that he is after something. Given those facts I don't feel justified in brushing Duval aside as irrelevant. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I have a strong conviction that he is perhaps the most relevant thing we've struck yet."

  Peter tucked a clean handkerchief into the breastpocket of his dinner jacket. "But the whole thing seems so utterly fantastic," he complained. "I daresay Duval is in someone's power: I always said he looked a wrong 'un. But what the hell has it got to do with the Priory?"

  "That;' said Charles, "is what we've got to find out."

  "Thanks very much. And just where do we start? The most likely explanation advanced so far is hidden treasure. Well, if you want to spend the rest of our stay prising up solid stone slabs in the cellar, you've more energy than I've ever yet seen you display."

  Charles threw the end of his cigarette out of the open window.
"If it's buried treasure the field isn't as narrow as that. Fripp, to my mind, wanted a chance to explore the rest of the house:'

  "Well, that settles it. You can't take up the floorboards in every room, and go twisting every bit of moulding in the panelling in the hope of discovering another priest's hole. If we'd a history of the place no doubt we should find out all about it. But we haven't."

  "No," said Charles. "We haven't. And, do you know, I find that rather surprising."

  Peter stared. "Do you mean someone may have pinched it?"

  "Hasn't that occurred to you? This place obviously has a history - must have had. You'd expect to find some record in the library."

  "Well, yes, you might, but on the other hand the house. has changed hands a lot since the place was a monastery. It may have got lost, or bought by a collector or something like that."

  "Quite so. But there's something more to it than that. When the point was first raised it struck me as being curious. I thought it worth while to drop a line to Tim Baker, and ask him to see whether a history of this place existed in the British Museum library. To-night I had his answer." He drew a letter from his pocket, and opened it. "There is a history, and a copy of it is in the Museum.

  And two pages have been torn out. What do you make of that?"

  "Good Lord!" Peter said blankly. "I say, things do begin to look a bit sinister, don't they? What do you propose we do about it? Call in Scotland Yard?"

  "I've been playing with that idea for some days, but I'm not in love with it. I don't quite see myself spinning this yarn to some disillusioned official. If we'd any real data to give the Yard, well and good. But I ask you, what does our tale sound like, in cold blood? A hotch-potch without one solid fact to go on. We hear noises, we discover a skeleton, we listen to what a drunken Frenchman has to say, and see various people wandering about the grounds. The only fact we've got is that someone broke into the cellars, and that's a matter for the local police to deal with. It's not good enough."

  Peter nodded. "That's what I feel myself, I must say. At the same time we're not getting anywhere - principally because we don't know where to start. If this inquiry agent of yours throws any discreditable light on Fripp's past, what do you say to running over to Manfield, and having a chat with the District Inspector?"