“No, she can’t! You’ve got to go,” snapped Sandra. “What do you think we made you a member for?”
“But Mr. Bennison died there!”
“Well, Miss Pomfret-Brown said that wasn’t our fault,” said Caroline.
“A fat lot she knows about it!” said Sandra. “Of course it was our fault. I’ve thought about it time and again, and I don’t see what else anybody can think. We put a curse on the place, and somebody died.”
“Marchmont didn’t die, though, and she was with him,” said Mavis.
“I expect the guilty wolf was punished and the innocent lamb escaped,” said Gillian unctuously.
“What are you talking about?” asked Caroline. “You don’t really think . . .?” Her eyes grew round and large with delighted horror.
“Yes,” said Gillian impressively. “They were treading the primrose path of silken dalliance. We had a housemaid who did that with the chauffeur, so, of course, she had to be dismissed.”
“You haven’t got a chauffeur,” said Sandra, withering her. “And Marchmont isn’t a housemaid.”
“Who said she was? She was resisting his importunate advances when he was struck down in the midst of his infamy.”
“Where on earth did you pick up all that rot?”
“It isn’t rot. It was in an old magazine I found in the attic cupboard at home.”
“Well, it is rot, anyway. And stop wasting time. We haven’t got all day. Now, then, those of you who are not coming to Little Monkshood on Saturday are responsible for getting what we need out of the cottage before the new lab. is built. Gillian can organise that. Don’t take any phosphorus. It’s dangerous. Grab any magnesium wire you see—things like that. Oh, and litmus paper ought to come in useful. If we ever start the coven again, we shall need things to make spells. Don’t take anything that looks like stealing, but a retort and a few beakers and test-tubes might be useful and will never be missed.”
“How will we get into the cottage?” asked Caroline.
“Since Vere left, and we haven’t had a science mistress, I expect Miss Salter or Miss Pomfret-Brown has the only key.”
“Oh, Gillian will see to all that,” said Sandra blithely. “She likes to organise things.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to organise taking the spell off Little Monkshood if the house is going to be full of people,” said Gillian sourly.
“There isn’t much you do see,” retorted Sandra.
In spite of what she had said to Timothy, Alison was still prepared to sell Little Monkshood to the Society for the Preservation of Buildings of Historic Interest. Before the sale went through, she was astonished to receive a letter from her half-sister.
“I don’t suppose you will want to keep Little Monkshood after what has happened. I should like to make you an offer for it. You are better off than I, because you have your mother’s money as well as half of what our father left, but I can well afford to pay your price, about which I know you well enough to realise that you will be perfectly fair. I shall not live in the house, but shall turn it into a shrine for the lover you took away from me. I want us to be friends, so meet me halfway over this, and let bygones be bygones.
“You will know by this time that, as soon as I have worked out my notice here, I shall be on the staff of Purfleet again. The new laboratory, I am assured, will be ready for me, and I am renting the cottage laboratory from the school and shall furnish it as a residence, so we need hardly meet except at school lunch, but that is as you like.”
Alison read the letter twice, once hastily and angrily, and the second time slowly, attentively and, for some reason she could not explain to herself, with foreboding. She wrote back that same evening and informed Vere that the matter was out of her hands. The Society which had repaired and restored it had the first option on Little Monkshood, and, if she sold, it must be to them unless they were no longer interested. A week later she received a letter from Timothy. He had returned to his home and since their last meeting he had not so much as communicated with her.
“We have had a letter from Miss Constance Vere Pallis, and should like your comments before we answer it. Enclosed is a copy of the letter and our tentative reply,” he had written.
That was all. Alison was astonished and alarmed by her own sense of sickening disappointment. She hardly knew what she had expected from his letter, but the sheer anticlimax of this bald and businesslike communication was like falling through the ice into a bitter sea. The ice had been slippery enough at times, but at least it gave a glimpse of a further shore. Now, it seemed, there was no reason to look ahead.
She wrote back crisply:
“Of course I do not want Vere to have Little Monkshood. Her suggestion that your Society should sell out to her is ridiculous. Under no circumstances could I agree to it. I realise that there is no clause in our contract to prevent Phisbe from selling, if they feel so inclined, but my express wish is against this, if it means that Vere will become the owner.”
Timothy did not attend the official opening of Little Monkshood to the public. He had made a point of having a pressing engagement in Northern Ireland that week-end. The house was declared open by the president of Phisbe, who was supported by Tom Parsons, Lady Grace Norton, the treasurer, and other members of the Society. Valuable trade was put in the way of the mill-house restaurant, the curator was installed, and a small number of people, representing the general public, trickled in and out during the afternoon. During the last half-hour that the house was open, these included three little girls in light, summer frocks who had thoughtfully left their school straw hats in the bushes in the lane which led to the house.
“Now you know the drill,” said Sandra, just before they reached the foot of the outside stone staircase which led up to the only door. “When they blow a whistle, or whatever they do to say the house is being closed, nip into the basement part where we’ve been before, and tuck yourselves away behind the pillars. If anybody spots us, of course we’ll be bunged out, but that’s all a matter of luck.”
“Won’t they realise we haven’t left, though?” asked the practical Connie Moosedeer. “People always keep an eye on children in places like this, because they always think we’re up to something.”
“Not girls. That’s only boys,” said Sandra. “They know boys always are up to something. But if you’re worried, I’ve got a plan. Now, first thing we do is get into the basement place and each pick a good pillar, so we’ll know exactly where to go at closing time.”
Vere Pallis was apprised, in a courteous and regretful letter from Phisbe that, although they were unable, owing to their own rules and constitution, to re-sell any property or properties acquired by them, Little Monkshood would be open to the public every day from two until five p.m., other times by appointment. She caught the Friday evening train from Newcastle, breakfasted in London at the hotel she had booked for Saturday night, and paid her half-crown for admission to Little Monkshood at approximately four o’clock on Saturday afternoon.
She was still kneeling on the window-seat in the solar, gazing out over the distant Purbeck Hills, when Sandra, Veronica, and Connie Moosedeer were being given change for two half-crowns by a paternal curator at his little table in the reconstructed kitchen. They did not disturb her reverie, for they went nowhere nearer the solar than the top of the newel stair. They were the last visitors to be allowed into the house that day, and the kindly curator pointed out that it closed at five and that they would obtain better value for their money if they came at an earlier hour on another day.
This well-meant interest in them did not suit Sandra’s book at all, and when they had crept down the newel stair and were in the basement, she made low-toned but acid comment on the curator’s character, mutton-headedness, and lack of tact.
“We’ll have to use my second plan,” she said, “because he’ll remember us now, and will notice we haven’t left with the rest of the people. Now then, choose your pillars and then we’d better go up tha
t winding staircase and look in the biggest room, in case anybody asks us, and then we go back to that man at the door.”
Such visitors that still remained were beginning to straggle to the exit. Some had questions to ask. One or two bought postcards.
“Well,” said the curator to the three children. “You can’t have seen very much.”
“Actually,” said Sandra, a green light in her cat-like eyes, “we only came so as to be able to tell my mother whether it was worth while bringing the Women’s Institute. And, oh,” she added, her snub nose shining with enthusiasm, “oh, it is! It is!”
“Glad you liked it. You must come again. If you bring a party of ten or more, I can arrange to have somebody here to show you round. Tell your mother, will you? There would be no extra charge.”
“That would be super. Could I have three of the postcards, please?—Our alibi, in case we’re late back at school,” she explained to the others when they got outside. They had not long to wait. Sandra, keeping watch from the garden and screened by the solid side-wall of the outside stair, gave a signal. The curator left his post and was going the rounds, gently chivvying the last of the visitors. He missed Vere, who had left her kneeling position on the window-seat and was hidden in the angle of the fireplace furthest from the archway entrance to the solar, and he missed the children, who had nipped back into the house and were now stifling their nervous giggling behind the massive pillars of the undercroft. Satisfied that, except for himself, the house was empty, he returned to his table by the front and only door, checked his money and his roll of tickets and then went home to his tea.
“This is it,” muttered Sandra.
“We haven’t got the wand and things,” whispered Veronica.
“We only need draw the circles. I’ve got some chalk.”
“What about an altar? That table we used has gone.”
“I don’t think it matters for this.” She drew the three circles, quickly and clumsily. “That’ll do,” she said, chalking in the four dread names at the compass points.
“You haven’t drawn the triangle,” said Veronica. “Oh, I shall be glad when this is over!”
“We don’t need the triangle. That’s part of invoking the devils. What we’re doing is getting rid of them, silly!”
“Oh, I see.”
“I wonder if we ought to do it where Mr. Bennison actually died,” said Connie Moosedeer. “Do you think it’s any good if we do it down here?”
“Yes, of course it is! This is where we put the spell on, so this is where we have to take the spell off. That’s only common sense.”
“All right, so let’s get on with it. Wonder whether the others have saved us anything from tea?”
“You can’t think about that now! Pay attention, and both of you say after me . . .”
Upstairs in the solar Vere Pallis had heard the heavy sound of the front door being shut. So far as she knew, she was alone in the house. She crept to the archway and listened. A sound, as of muttered words, seemed to come to her, but she dismissed them as existing only in her nervous imaginings. She went back into the room and knelt before the great Tudor window. It faced directly west and looked into the setting sun which, even at that hour, was beginning to spread its gold across the sky.
“Oh, Simon!” she murmured. “Come back to me, my darling! It wasn’t you I meant to kill! Come once more! Once more!” She held her head between her hands. Her heart seemed to keep time with the murmurings she thought she had heard before. She raised her head and stretched her thin arms wide. “Come to me, come! Once more, only once!” she cried. The murmurings from below became audible voices, then one voice predominated.
“Now I’ll finish it off,” said Sandra. “You’d better cross your fingers, because this is rather powerful.
‘Asmodeus, creature of judgment,
Satan the adversary,
Behemoth, the beast from hell,
Diobolus, the down-flowing, killer of body and soul,
Belial, thou demon without a master,
Beelzebub, lord of flies,
Depart from hence, I conjure you, and haunt this house no more!’
“Now you both say the last bit with me, starting at Depart, “said Sandra, in low and thrilling tones.
Vere, mad with mingled hope and terror, crept into the hall. Up from the depths of the house came the mingled voices, booming, unrecognisable, unearthly.
“Depart from hence, I conjure you, and haunt this house no more!”
“Simon! Simon!” shrieked Vere. She ran to the newel stair. “Stay, stay for me! Don’t go!” She tripped on the third stair down and lost her footing. Her egg-shell head crashed horribly against the unyielding wall.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Your Friend Alone
The petrified children ceased to breathe for a moment, then Veronica, bursting into hysterical tears, cried out:
“Oh, Sandra! What have you done! They’re here! They’re here in the house with us! They’ll kill us, like They killed Mr. Bennison!”
“Let’s get out,” said Sandra shakily.
“The other staircase! Quick!” said Connie Moosedeer. “I heard Them on this one!”
The other staircase, repaired and reinforced by Phisbe’s workmen, led into the great hall at the dais end. They stumbled up it in the darkness and raced for the outer door. It was locked. No amount of shaking and handle-twisting would budge it. It was as securely fastened as its originators could have wished, and the curator had taken away with him the impressive iron key.
Sandra rallied the hysterical Veronica.
“It’s all right. That was only Them going. We’ve got rid of Them! Don’t you see?”
The stolidly courageous Connie Moosedeer said:
“I guess we can drop out of the window.”
The Tudor window in the great hall matched the one in the solar. They returned to it, running quickly past the head of the newel staircase which was now blocked, although they did not know it, by the dead body of Vere Pallis. The window was at the back of the dais, and the workmen, in deference to modern prejudice, had given it an iron catch, so that it could be opened. Sandra unfastened this, and they looked out. Below it the restorers had laid down flagstones. The risk was too great to be taken.
The children were not missed until it was time to go into Lower School for prep.
“Where are those lunatics?” demanded Gillian. “They ought to have been back ages before this!”
“Well, we can’t help it,” said Caroline.
“The notice in the paper said Little Monkshood shuts at five,” said Stephanie. “They must have got locked in. Do you think we ought to tell Miss Salter?”
“They’ll be missed at prep., anyway,” said Mavis. “Marchmont is on, and she always knows if anybody hasn’t turned up. I vote we wait until then. Sandra won’t thank us if we go and panic on her.”
“But they may have got run over!”
“We’d have heard,” said Gillian. “Get your books. There’s the bell.”
Alison, from their point of view, ran true to form.
“Please, Miss Pallis,” said Gillian, in answer to her question, “we think they went out before tea.”
“Where?”
“We don’t quite know. They said they were going to look over Little Monkshood. It’s open for the first time today. They—they thought it would be good for them to see it.”
“Why?”
“Well,” said Gillian, attempting an ingratiating smile, for, with all her envy of Sandra, she was a loyal member of the gang when it became necessary to hold the fort for a delinquent sister, “I think they thought it would be good for their history.”
“What is good for their history is for me to decide, isn’t it?”
“They’re—they’re ever so interested in history, Miss Pallis.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Go and find Miss Salter and tell her that they are absent from preparation.”
Miss Salter was irritable. Sh
e was busy on next term’s timetable. She usually prepared a rough draft before Whitsun which could then be altered to accommodate changes on the staff—a frequent occurrence at the end of the school year. In the present instance she was trying to equate the absence of a visiting music master with the presence of a resident science mistress, unaware that in this respect she was wasting her time. She received Gillian with ill-concealed rancour.
“Well, what is it? I can’t see you now! You had better stand there until I can attend to you.”
“Please, Miss Salter, Miss Pallis sent me.”
This was sufficiently unusual for Hildegarde to raise her eyebrows. Junior staff, faced with impudence or insubordination, often sent children to her for disciplinary action, but it was far beneath the dignity and below the capabilities of senior staff to do so. Gillian, she felt, must have committed an offence of some magnitude.
“I am sorry you have given Miss Pallis so much trouble.” It was her dreaded stock phrase before she opened the flood-gates of torrential fury on a culprit. Gillian hastened to explain.
“I haven’t been sent out of prep. It’s only that some girls haven’t turned up, so Miss Pallis told me to . . .”
“Which girls? . . . Oh, I see. Go back to Miss Pallis and tell her that I’ll see to it. I imagine,” she said, when she had made her report to Miss Pomfret-Brown, “that the little nuisances have been playing hide-and-seek in Little Monkshood and have got themselves locked in. It’s just the sort of thing Sandra Davidson would do!”
“Perhaps you would take your car and go along. If they are there, can we get hold of a key?”
“Alison may still have one.”
“I very much doubt it, now that she’s sold the house.”
Alison had relinquished her keys (two had been provided by the contractors), but she knew the address of the curator.
The children were huddled in the undercroft. The searchers, first attempting to descend by the stair which was nearest to the front door, found that they could not use it.
Alison plodded her way through the rest of the term. On his return from Northern Ireland Timothy found a letter from her, but he had already read of Vere’s death. He went to the hotel at Peterminster and telephoned from there.
Your Secret Friend (Timothy Herring) Page 23