‘I see. Well, stand by until further orders,’ said Drex.
He parked his car at the inn and resolved to walk to the manor house. It was a beautiful moonlit night, but with a chill nip in the air.
Cheriton Hall, a magnificent Tudor mansion, stood in the centre of a rolling deer park, perfect in its seclusion, yet on the main London road.
Drex had easily secured a ticket of admission from Torino, his invaluable mâitre d’hôtel, and though he seldom indulged in Society functions, he was pleasurably anticipating a novel evening in its sylvan setting.
He made a handsome, distinguished figure as he stepped briskly up the long carriage driveway towards the manor. It was a fine old house, well built of creeper-clad brick, and with yellow, friendly lights shining behind the leaded panes of the old mullioned windows.
A butler took his invitation card in the hallway and a moment later he faced his host.
Sir Charles was a lean, tanned young man, with a sharp, hooked nose, high cheekbones, and an air of alert wiry fitness that spoke of the open prairies.
He greeted Drex with breezy cordiality, but it was obvious that he had little idea of his identity.
‘Come right in, sir. Let’s go to the bar and be friendly,’ he said.
Drex glanced appreciatively at the fine oak panelling of the manor as his host led him through the thronged corridor.
It was about nine p.m., and Drex recognised the usual fashionable crowd who frequent first-night functions.
‘Looks pretty good, eh?’ said Sir Charles complacently. ‘A change from a prairie shack.’
Drex smiled.
‘I hear you have made many innovations.’
‘You bet I have!’ said the baronet. ‘My uncle only bothered about old parchments and armour—but me, I’m all for the modern stuff. Take a slant at that, sir.’
He waved his hand towards the open door of the conservatory which led to the spacious gardens of the manor. Hundreds of coloured lights glittered like some strange exotic fruits in the trees, and the scene looked ethereally beautiful in the moonlight.
‘So that’s the famous swimming pool,’ said Drex, as he gazed across a velvet lawn to where a silver sheet of water glittered in the moonlight.
The baronet glanced at him sharply.
‘Yes, but I’m afraid it’s not quite complete yet. In any case, we don’t expect bathers tonight. It’s too darned chilly.’
He shivered slightly, and excused himself to greet other guests.
Drex strolled through the grounds and studied the decorations. The outlay had evidently been costly, but it seemed worth it. He heard the subdued hum of voices and a gay lilt of laughter from the arbours beneath the trees that surrounded the swimming pool.
The latter was nearly two hundred yards in length and built of green-veined marble. It had two diving-boards, and dominating the deep end was a bronze statue of a Grecian beauty blowing a shell horn.
Drex lit a cigarette and heard a burst of hilarious laughter from a near-by shrubbery. He drew back in the shadows as he saw three young men in evening dress swaying rather uncertainly to the rhythm of the music.
Drex recognised the Hon. Jimmy Welbank, a young racing motorist, and his crony Gillie Fletcher, a wealthy and dissipated young clubman.
He smiled cynically. Judging by their unsteady movements they were evidently enjoying themselves.
‘Lesh go and ’ave a swim!’ said Fletcher. ‘Lesh play mermaids.’
‘Not on your life!’ echoed his companions. ‘Too darn cold. Besides, what about the Silver Bride? The jolly old ghost!’
‘Don’ marrer! I love ghosts,’ hiccoughed Fletcher.
Drex shrugged his shoulders and drew aside as they lurched towards the swimming pool.
Suddenly he heard a loud splash and a gout of silver water jetted skywards.
It was followed instantly by a shrill cackle of drunken laughter, and Drex smiled grimly as the floundering figure of Gillie Fletcher spluttered in the water of the pool.
‘Kish the ghost for me!’ chuckled Welbank as Fletcher, snorting like a grampus, threshed the water.
He looked a hideous sight in his evening dress and his vacuous, fish-like face spluttered indignantly.
‘Drunken young fools!’ said Drex impatiently, then suddenly stopped dead.
A shrill scream of terror rang out from the pool, an ear-splitting shriek of mortal agony—a threshing of water, then silence.
Quentin Drex raced towards the pool, his handsome face grim and set.
The two young men, momentarily sobered, were staring in an attitude of frozen terror at the quivering, silver-green water.
‘He—he fell in!’ gasped one thickly. ‘An’ the ghos’ got him. I—I saw her!’
Drex turned impatiently.
‘Nonsense!’ he snapped.
‘Look there, then!’ babbled Welbank.
Drex stared into the pool and saw a shimmering silver radiance that moved like the gauze bridal veil of a woman.
His keen eyes narrowed as he glimpsed a greenish phosphorescent glow from the depth of the pool. For an instant it stayed there and he could have sworn he saw a silvery bridal dress gliding through the water as if a woman were floating there.
Drex peeled off his faultless dress coat.
‘Lend a hand with the lifebelt!’ he snapped, pointing to a cork buoy on the edge of the pool.
‘Look! Blood!’ screamed Welbank as Drex poised for a dive on the springboard.
Quentin Drex stared down into the depths of the moonlit pool and, iron-nerved though he was, he gave a shiver of revulsion at the horror that lay in the bottom of the pool.
It was the body of a man in dress clothes, and where the face should have been was the grinning, fleshless bones of a skull.
The Silver Bride had claimed another victim.
SHIMMERING DEATH
Detective-Inspector Blacklock of Scotland Yard frowned gloomily at his colleague, Superintendent Baines of the Hertfordshire Police.
The C.I.D. man’s pleasant, oddly boyish face had worn that frown of perplexity for at least a week now since the adjourned inquest on Gillie Fletcher.
‘It’s moon madness. Stark, raving lunacy, super!’ he said. ‘This chap Fletcher, for a drunken frolic, dives into a brand-new pool. This fellow Drex turns up to rescue him a few minutes later—and finds Fletcher’s skeleton, the bones picked clean and his dress-suit lacerated to ribbons. It’s—it’s—fantastic—it couldn’t have happened!’
The superintendent calmly shrugged his burly shoulders.
‘Well, how d’you account for it?’ he queried. ‘There’s no doubt that the skeleton is that of Fletcher. There was enough flesh left for the medical evidence to verify that, to say nothing of the clothes and the contents of the pocket.’
‘Yes, and a lot of good the medical evidence is,’ growled the C.I.D. man. ‘The pool was drained immediately and there was no sign of any of those “sharp instruments” the doctor was so vague about. I tell you this case is getting on my nerves. The man’s flesh was lacerated to ribbons and the bathing pool is as smooth as glass. We’ve searched every inch of it and found nothing.’
The superintendent refilled his pipe.
The two colleagues were sitting in the local police court after the inquest had been adjourned.
A week had elapsed since the Fantastic Horror of Cheriton Hall, as the newspapers described it, and, despite the most rigorous police inquiries, no explanation of the mystery was forthcoming.
The little Hertfordshire village, thanks to the horde of news-hungry pressmen, had provided all England with a nine days’ thrill of horror and wonder.
The strange disappearance of Jem Walker was recalled, together with the still unexplained mystery of the Silver Bride.
All sorts of theories were advanced by Press a
nd public alike, ranging from vampires to vultures, to account for Fletcher’s dreadful death. The one person who remained aloof from the case was Quentin Drex. He stated exactly what happened and refused to formulate any theory whatsoever without further evidence.
The coroner had no alternative, therefore, but to adjourn the inquest, and Blacklock, after the most exhaustive investigations in the district, felt up against a blank wall.
‘Queer chap, that Drex,’ said the super.
The C.I.D. man smiled bitterly.
‘Queer? I’d give a lot to know what he suspects. He’s got an ice-cold brain, that man. Lives all alone at the Cliffstone Hotel. Must be lousy with money, too. Nobody seems to know much about him. Pleasant enough, but too reticent for my taste.’
The super puffed his briar reflectively.
‘Well, it’s up to you now, Nick. If we could only find Jem Walker. He might be able to tell us something. His dog was killed in the same way, too, and he swore to old Gorble that the Silver Bride did it.’
‘How’s Sir Charles taking it all?’ queried Nick.
‘Pretty bad,’ said the super. ‘He must have spent a tidy penny on the new alterations to the hall and this scandal’s fairly ruined him, they say. Nobody feels like bathing in the pool after what’s happened.’
‘I don’t blame ’em!’ said Nick succinctly. ‘By the way, what sort of a chap is this cousin of Cheriton’s? There’s a bit of bad blood between ’em, isn’t there?’
The super grunted.
‘Well, Captain Hawksbee’s naturally a bit sore at the long-lost heir turning up from nowhere when he’d set his heart on living at the manor. You can’t blame him, really. He’s a quiet, studious fellow, and he’s furious about all this country club nonsense.’
‘There won’t be much future for the club after this, I’m thinking,’ commented the Yard man.
The ’phone bell shrilled suddenly and, with a grunt, the superintendent lifted the receiver.
‘Hallo! Yes! Speaking!’ he barked, then suddenly his manner changed and he became deferential.
‘Oh, it’s you, Sir Charles!’
He paused and glanced meaningly at Blacklock as he listened.
Suddenly his face became grave, and he gave a soft, astonished whistle.
‘What’s that, sir? Half an hour ago? But this is dreadful! I’ll be along right away, and bring the inspector with me.’
Slowly he replaced the receiver and turned weightily to the Yard man.
‘Another of ’em!’ he said, in an awe-stricken voice. ‘They found the skeleton of Captain Hawksbee at the bottom of the Bride’s pool half an hour ago!’
‘What?’ ejaculated Nick incredulously.
‘Gospel truth! That was the squire speaking. He’s almost off his rocker—and I don’t blame him!’
‘Come on!’ said Nick Blacklock, grimly. ‘Let’s go. This devilish business has got to stop, or it’ll drive me mad!’
In his private suite at the Cliffstone Hotel, Drex sat back in his shining chromium chair, a black Malayan cigarette between his lips.
Opposite sat Morgan, his confidential agent.
On the floor were littered the latest evening papers, where flaring headlines announced:
‘NEW HERTFORD HORROR!
CHERITON VAMPIRE AGAIN.’
‘This is a ghastly business, chief,’ announced Morgan. ‘I’m beginning to believe in the supernatural. The whole thing is uncanny. Not a vestige of a clue.’
‘On the contrary,’ interposed Quentin Drex, ‘the problem bristles with clues. The more bizarre and strange a crime appears to be, the easier it is to elucidate. It’s your common, featureless murder that is so difficult to solve.’
Morgan sighed.
‘Maybe you’re right, chief, but this beats me. There’s the devil to pay in the village. The folks are scared stiff.’
Drex blew a smoke wreath ceilingwards.
‘I presume there’s no doubt about the body being Hawksbee’s,’ he said.
‘No doubt at all. Though there wasn’t a scrap of flesh on the bones, his sister, poor thing, identified the remains and the clothes as his. There were plenty of papers and personal property on the clothes to make it certain.’
‘H’m!’ said Drex. ‘And Blacklock, I suppose, is still in charge?’
Morgan grinned faintly.
‘He is, sir—and you never saw a more worried-looking man.’
‘You’d better get back to the Cheriton Arms,’ said Drex. ‘I’ll be along later this evening.’
‘You ought to see Sir Charles,’ said Morgan. ‘He’s like a walking ghost!’
‘The only ghost I want to see walking is the Silver Bride,’ said Drex, with a grim smile. ‘By the way, I shall have a companion with me tonight,’ he said. ‘A new assistant.’
Morgan looked surprised.
‘A new assistant, sir?’ he queried.
‘Yes. Nice fellow. Name of Alpha. You’ll like him,’ said Drex, with a chuckle.
The wind soughed mournfully in the trees, and a solitary oblong of lemon light shone in the mullioned window of Cheriton Hall.
It was 10 p.m., and the village pub was closed and shuttered for the night, for since the horror of the Shimmering Death, as some papers called it, not even the bravest would have ventured forth at night.
The latest tragedy of the pool had paralysed the village with terror. True, Captain Hawksbee was not very popular, as he seldom took part in parochial affairs, but he was respected as a scholar and a gentleman.
He lived in a huge, rambling house close to the Cheriton Estate, and had spent a good many years abroad as an explorer.
He was a silent, taciturn man, who lived with his widowed sister, and had been a favourite of old Sir Humphrey, the former baronet.
Inspector Blacklock had returned to Scotland Yard after the formal identification of the body by the sister, then to take conference with his superior at police H.Q. The pool of death had again been drained and subjected to a rigorous search, with no result, and by Blacklock’s orders refilled again.
It shimmered now in the watery rays of the moon, a greenish-silver menace in the dark shadows of the ancient elms.
Quentin Drex, at the controls of his ghostly grey gyroplane, hovered like a hawk over the manor grounds, and his shrewd, intellectual face was grim and unsmiling.
For fully ten minutes he reconnoitred the panorama of the Cheriton Estate, then dropped soundlessly to earth on a grassy plain.
From the pockets of his leather flying-jacket he withdrew a small cylindrical package, and from beneath the seat took out a wire cage in which something stirred and wriggled.
A motionless, grotesque figure sat in the cockpit beside him, and with a sibilant whisper Drex turned to it.
Soundless the robot’s steel limbs stirred into activity, and, guided by the detective, emerged from the cockpit.
An owl hooted mournfully from a near-by tree, and the thing in the cage gave a squeak of terror.
Drex smiled grimly.
He thrust the cage into a pocket set in the side of the automaton, and then, soundless as shadows, the two emerged from the clearing to a path that led to the spectral swimming pool.
On the right, near a shrubbery, loomed the ghostly shape of a stone summer-house, or arbour, built as a replica of a Greek temple. Drex softly skirted this, and, guiding the robot with his lean hand, directed it to the marble path that gave access to the pool. Straight ahead the steel figure moved, veering not an inch to right or left.
Quentin Drex stopped suddenly and crouched in the shadow of the bronze figure at the head of the pool.
His agate grey eyes glinted with excitement as he heard a faint stirring from the direction of the Greek temple.
The wind whirred eerily in the trees and the water shimmered with a baleful glitter in t
he rays of the wan moon. Ahead loomed the bulk of the old manor-house, with one window alight, like a yellow eye bright in the darkness and gloom.
Quentin Drex watched tensely as the steel figure of the automaton lowered itself deliberately into the sinister pool.
Crouched in the shadow, Drex waited.
Not a sound save for the rustling wind in the trees and the sluggish lap of water. A vein throbbed in his temple as the moments passed. The scar of his maimed forehead glowed dully, as it did in moments of excitement.
From his hiding-place he peered down into the water, then stiffened suddenly. He saw a moving, shimmering phosphorescence in its depths and the vague outline of a cold, deathly face. The silver shimmer was like a bridal veil, and Drex smiled mirthlessly as his hand snaked to his pocket. From it he withdrew the glass cylinder and hurled it against the side of the pool.
Crash!
It scattered into a myriad fragments, and Quentin Drex straightened. Hell itself seemed let loose from the darkness. He heard a demoniacal laugh, and then he was fighting for his life. His fists lashed out, and he felt his knuckles collide with flesh and bone. He chuckled exultantly. This was no phantom. It was something tangible, real.
He felt the bone give beneath the savage ferocity of his blows. His feet moved in the darkness with the poise and surety of a ballet dancer. He was a master-fighter, even in the dark. His keen ears gauged distance merely by the sobbing breathing of his foe.
Something hot slanted along his side, ripping his leather coat, jacket, and shirt to ribbons as a knife blade slashed down. His hands started out, caught the knife-hand as it was raised to strike again. As the weapon fell to the ground, he yanked the man towards him and drove a fist to where he judged his assailant’s face was.
He had the satisfaction of feeling his bunched knuckles strike home full and true to his enemy’s jaw.
The man wilted in his hands, and at that moment the moon emerged from behind the clouds.
‘I thought so!’ said Drex, savagely, as he saw that hate-contorted face and recognised it.
The other snarled an oath and again lunged with his knife.
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