They Walk in Darkness

by Gerald Verner

  Hewson listened attentively while Peter gave him a detailed description.

  ‘I don’t know whether you’ll be able to persuade them to turn out on a night like this,’ he concluded, doubtfully. ‘But . . .’

  ‘Persuade them?’ said Miss Wymondham, indignantly. ‘I should just like to see Tom Acheson refuse, that’s all! Go along and ring up at once, Hewson, and tell Roberts to bring me my blue slippers — the satin ones. They’re in the bottom of the little cupboard beside my bed . . .’

  ‘They’ll have to call here for the key,’ said Peter, as Hewson was departing on his errand. ‘I locked the car before I left it.’

  ‘I’ll tell them, sir,’ said the old man, and went out.

  ‘You really shouldn’t bother about the slippers . . .’ began Ann, but Miss Wymondham refused to listen.

  ‘Nonsense, my dear,’ she said, firmly. ‘I’m not going to have you catching cold if I can prevent it, and spending your stay with me in bed. Just you be a good girl and take off your shoes and stockings at once . . .’

  ‘It’s no good arguing with Aunt Helen,’ said Peter. ‘I found that out years ago, didn’t I, Aunt Helen?’

  ‘It took a long time for you to realize it,’ said the old lady. ‘As a little boy you were a most argumentative and stubborn creature.’

  ‘He hasn’t changed,’ remarked Ann, taking off her shoes and beginning to remove one of her stockings, showing a great display of very shapely leg in the process. ‘He can be like a mule at times . . .’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ declared Miss Wymondham, with an affectionate smile at her nephew. ‘Oh, well, it runs in the family, I suppose. Peter’s father was the most obstinate man that ever lived. Even a mule can be persuaded, I believe, not that I’ve ever had much to do with mules, but the Angel Gabriel would have had his work cut out persuading Robert Chard to do anything that he’d decided not to . . .’

  ‘That is strength of will,’ broke in Peter, loftily.

  ‘Rubbish!’ exclaimed his aunt. ‘Don’t you let him stuff you up with that, my dear. That’s what his father always called it. Strength of will has nothing whatever to do with it. Sheer, stubborn obstinacy, that’s what it is.’

  ‘It seems to run in the Wymondham family as well,’ said Peter with a grin, ‘so I must have inherited it from both sides . . .’

  ‘I always thought you had double your fair share,’ said Ann, sticking out her naked feet to the fire and luxuriously wiggling her numbed toes. ‘Never mind, darling, you’re very sweet. I always had a soft spot in my heart for mules . . .’

  ‘You’ll have a soft spot in your feet for chilblains if you do that,’ broke in Peter, reprovingly.

  There came a tap on the door and it opened to admit an elderly woman with a pleasant face and a laden tray.

  ‘Oh, here you are, Roberts,’ said Miss Wymondham, as though her arrival was a great surprise to her. ‘Put the tray down on this table. Did you bring the slippers . . .? Oh, yes, I see you did. Here you are, my dear. Now put them on and you’ll feel more comfortable. Roberts, take Mrs. Chard’s stockings and shoes and clean them — the shoes, I mean, of course. You can wash the stockings. Is the fire all right in Mr. and Mrs. Chard’s bedroom?’

  ‘Yes’m,’ said Roberts, smiling cheerfully at everybody. ‘Will that be all, ’m?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Miss Wymondham, busy with the tea things. ‘Did Hewson get through to Acheson . . .? Oh, here is Hewson. Well?’

  ‘Acheson’s are sending to tow Mr. Peter’s car back, madam,’ said the butler. ‘It will take about an hour, they think.’

  ‘That will do splendidly,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘Thank you, Hewson. There you are,’ she added, triumphantly, when Hewson and Roberts had gone. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I knew Tom Acheson would never dare to refuse. Here you are, my dear, here’s a nice hot cup of tea, which I’m sure you’re dying for. You’ll be able to have hot baths and change in time for dinner — a really hot bath is always so comforting and refreshing when you’re cold and tired, I always think. I’ve asked one or two people to dinner. Doctor Culpepper — a charming man, and such a clever doctor, I’m sure you’ll like him — and the Sherwoods — such a nice young couple — and Laura Courtland. She’s the daughter of Felix Courtland, the man who bought Priors Keep three years ago. He was a stockbroker, or something, but he’s retired. He was coming, too, but he’s in bed with a chill, poor man, so he can’t. They’re all looking forward to meeting you, Peter. They’ve read all your books . . .’

  Peter groaned and held out his cup for more tea.

  ‘Am I being ‘shown off’, Aunt Helen?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, dear, not exactly,’ said Miss Wymondham, complacently, ‘but I thought it would be more cheerful for both of you if I asked some people along. There’s not much fun in spending an evening alone with an old woman like me, and since you’re staying for a month you may as well get to know some of the neighbours. It will be more amusing for you. Now do either of you want any more tea? Because I must go and talk to cook about dinner. She’s very good, but she does want supervision. Just make yourselves quite at home, both of you, won’t you?’

  Miss Wymondham bounced across the room with great energy, beamed at them from the doorway, and went out.

  Chapter Three

  Peter came into the cosy bedroom clad in his dressing-gown, warm and fresh from a boiling hot bath. His wife, partially dressed, was sitting at the dressing-table brushing her dark, chestnut hair. Tom Acheson had been better than his word and brought the stranded car, and the luggage, back in under the time he had stipulated.

  ‘I feel much better,’ said Peter, stooping and kissing one of Ann’s bare, soft shoulders. ‘There’s a lot to be said for civilization and good plumbing. How do you like Aunt Helen?’

  ‘I think she’s a darling,’ said Ann.

  ‘Some people find her a little overwhelming at first,’ said Peter, lighting a cigarette and drifting happily about the room, ‘but they get used to it. Her energy is amazing.’

  ‘She’s altogether sweet,’ said Ann, laying down her hairbrush and getting up. ‘I hope she approves of me.’

  ‘Nobody could help approving of you, darling,’ said Peter, struggling into a shirt. ‘I wonder what these people are like she has invited tonight?’

  ‘I’m sure they’re quite nice, or your aunt would not have asked them,’ said his wife.

  ‘H’m. Aunt Helen seems to have made a definite conquest,’ said Peter. ‘I should have preferred a quiet evening on our own, but I wouldn’t say so for the world.’

  ‘So would I,’ agreed Ann, slipping a black frock over her head and pulling it down round her slim figure. ‘But I think it was very thoughtful of her to try and guard against the possibility of our being bored. I do hope, though, that it’s not going to be a late party, darling. I feel terribly tired . . .’

  ‘I don’t suppose it will be,’ said Peter. ‘I shouldn’t think people kept late hours round here. Where the devil has my tie got to . . .? Have you seen it anywhere . . .? Oh, here it is. How did it get there?’ He retrieved it from the mantelpiece.

  ‘You put it there yourself, darling,’ said his wife, calmly. ‘Will you fasten this dress for me?’

  He came over and dealt with it, kissing the top of her head before resuming his own interrupted toilet. Ann was ready first. She gave a final touch to her hair, and turned away from the mirror.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked, half mockingly and half seriously, pirouetting in front of him.

  ‘Lovely!’ said Peter, enthusiastically. ‘But then I’ve never seen you looking anything else but lovely.’

  ‘You’re the most satisfactory husband, darling,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘You always say the right thing at the right moment. How long are you going to be?’

  ‘I’m ready now,’ said Peter, putting on his dinner-jacket. He pulled down his waistcoat, gave a pat to his tie, and slipped his hand under his wife’s arm, giving it a little squeeze. ‘
Come along,’ he said.

  When they reached the drawing room they found that two of the expected guests had already arrived. Miss Wymondham, looking more rosy-faced and cherubic than ever in a black lace dress, was chattering volubly to a fair, rather nice-looking man, and a pretty, dark girl, while Hewson gravely dispensed sherry.

  ‘Oh, here you are,’ she exclaimed, breaking off in the midst of what she was saying. ‘My dear, how very nice you look. What a lovely frock . . . This is my nephew, Peter Chard, and his wife, Ann. Peter and Ann, this is Anthony Sherwood and April. Two more sherries, Hewson, please.’

  Peter’s outstretched hand was gripped firmly.

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,’ said Anthony Sherwood in a deep, pleasant voice, ‘and so has April. Haven’t you, dear? She’s a great fan of yours, Mr. Chard . . .’

  ‘I’ve read all your books,’ said the dark girl, smiling, ‘and thoroughly enjoyed them.’

  Now this was a remark that Peter always found embarrassing. There was such a limited way in which it could be answered without appearing a fatuous idiot. He was saved the difficulty of finding anything reasonably suitable by the opportune arrival of Doctor Culpepper and Laura Courtland, who were ushered into the drawing room by Roberts. Miss Wymondham introduced them, and Hewson brought more sherry on a silver tray. Peter gave an inward sigh of relief when neither of the newcomers said anything about his books, or even hinted that they were aware that he wrote at all. Doctor Culpepper was a stoutish man of medium height with one of the largest noses that Peter had ever seen, and a mass of unruly grey hair. He wore shell-rimmed spectacles, behind which a pair of shrewd and very dark eyes twinkled humorously.

  Laura Courtland was a cat of a very different colour, and Peter thought ‘cat’ was quite an apt description, for there was something definitely feline about her. She was tall and sleek, with smooth dark hair which she wore dressed close to a well-shaped head. Her voice was deep and rather husky and she looked at you through her thick lashes without fully raising her heavy eyelids, which gave her a sleepy, langorous expression that some people might have found attractive but which Peter most definitely disliked. She was wearing a scarlet dress which fitted so closely, what there was of it, that it left very little to the imagination, and very high-heeled shoes of the same shade. A rather unexpected and surprising person to find in a small village in East Anglia, thought Peter. Much more suited to the sophistication of a nightclub, or restaurant, in the West End of London. He wondered what on earth there could be in common between this exotic girl — she couldn’t be much more than twenty-five — and his aunt. Ann was evidently thinking much the same for he saw her turn an appraising gaze from Laura Courtland to Miss Wymondham, and there was a slightly puzzled, questioning look in her eyes.

  ‘We met on the doorstep. It was quite coincidental. There was nothing prearranged about it.’ Miss Courtland was explaining, although nobody had asked her, the reason why she had arrived with Doctor Culpepper.

  ‘Not quite on the doorstep — at the gate,’ said the doctor, jovially, sipping his sherry with evident approval.

  ‘Why make me a liar for the sake of a few yards?’ said Laura, languidly. ‘Has anybody got a cigarette? I left mine at home . . .’

  Both Peter and Anthony Sherwood pulled out cases and extended them. After the fraction of a second’s hesitation she took a cigarette from Peter’s case.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, as he snapped a lighter into flame and lit it for her.

  ‘How is your father, Laura?’ asked Miss Wymondham. ‘I do hope he is not any worse. Colds are so treacherous, particularly in this weather, unless you take the utmost care of them . . .’

  ‘He’s not any worse — except in temper,’ answered Laura. She trickled smoke lazily from her nostrils. ‘That’s pretty foul at the moment.’

  ‘There’s nothing like a cold for bringing out the worst in people,’ said Doctor Culpepper, with a little throaty chuckle. ‘Always makes ’em irritable and depressed. Part of the symptoms. Even the vicar’s like a bear with a sore head.’

  ‘Oh, dear, has poor Mr. Benskill caught a cold, too?’ chimed in Miss Wymondham with great concern. ‘I am sorry to hear that . . .’

  ‘Half the village have got colds,’ said Doctor Culpepper. He finished his sherry and stared gloomily into the empty glass. ‘I wish that was the only trouble,’ he added, seriously.

  The rosy, smiling face of Miss Wymondham changed. She became grave and concerned, and Peter could have sworn that there was fear in her eyes as she looked at the doctor.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, in quite a different voice to her usual one. ‘There hasn’t been . . . anything more . . .?’

  Doctor Culpepper nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid there has,’ he began, and stopped as Hewson appeared at the door.

  ‘Dinner is served, madam,’ he announced.

  Chapter Four

  The memory of that dinner in the pleasant, panelled dining room at Wymondham Lodge lingered long after in Peter Chard’s mind. When the whole horrible and ghastly business, that brought something akin to panic to the village of Fendyke St. Mary, was over and done with, he was able to recall that scene so clearly and vividly, and with such a wealth of detail, that it might have been actually taking place all over again. For it was during that dinner, in so far, at least, as Peter himself was concerned, that the dreadful and beastly sequence of events had their beginning.

  Doctor Culpepper’s interrupted reply to Miss Wymondham’s question had introduced an entirely new atmosphere into the little gathering. Whereas before it had been gay and light-hearted; the normal reaction of a group of people who had met to eat and drink and spend a pleasurable evening in each other’s company, there had now descended a curious kind of gloom that had settled over five of the septette like a blight. Neither Peter nor Ann had, at that period, any knowledge of the cause for this sudden blanketing depression, but it was so obvious that it was quite impossible to ignore it. They took their places at the long refectory table in almost complete silence, even Miss Wymondham’s usual verbosity having become quenched. While Hewson served the soup, Peter stole furtive glances at the faces of the others.

  Laura Courtland, the remains of her cigarette still smouldering between her fingers, looked suddenly tired and rather bored. Anthony Sherwood was frowning gravely at his plate, and his wife, who was sitting next to Peter, was crumbling her bread with nervous fingers and staring straight before her at a large vase of yellow and rust-coloured chrysanthemums in the middle of the table. Doctor Culpepper fidgeted with his napkin and made repeated, and apparently ineffective, attempts to clear his throat. Peter’s eyes met Ann’s, who was immediately opposite him, and she raised her eyebrows slightly, and almost imperceptibly shook her head, a tacit signal that she was as much puzzled as he. He was on the point of asking his aunt to explain the cause of this sudden change which had come over them, when she saved him the trouble.

  ‘What has happened now?’ she asked in a subdued voice, looking down the table at Doctor Culpepper. ‘You were going to tell us, weren’t you, when Hewson announced dinner?’

  Doctor Culpepper picked up his soup spoon, looked at it attentively, put it down again, and once more cleared his throat.

  ‘It’s Mrs. Coxen’s little girl,’ he answered slowly, at last. ‘She disappeared this afternoon . . .’

  ‘That makes the fifth,’ muttered Anthony Sherwood. ‘Thank God we haven’t any children, April.’

  ‘Somebody ought to do something about it,’ broke in April, passionately. ‘Instead of letting it go on and on . . . it’s horrible . . .’

  ‘The police are doing all they can, my dear . . .’ began Doctor Culpepper.

  ‘All they can?’ cried April, scornfully. ‘All they can? What have they done? Nothing. And now there’s another . . .’ Her voice, which had risen shrilly, cracked and broke. ‘All they can,’ she repeated, contemptuously.

  Laura stubbed out her cigarette on the side of her bread
plate.

  ‘It must be a lunatic,’ she said, huskily. ‘It must be.’

  ‘May I ask,’ said Peter, looking from one to the other curiously, ‘what you are all talking about?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, why of course I forgot,’ said Miss Wymondham, turning quickly towards him. ‘You don’t know anything about it, do you, Peter? No, of course you don’t. How could you? It’s really dreadful and shocking, and it’s been going on now for over eighteen months. It started with the Robsons’ baby . . .’

  ‘It started with the lambs,’ corrected Doctor Culpepper, quietly. ‘That was the real beginning.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose it was,’ agreed Miss Wymondham, who was recovering a little of her normal volubility. ‘But nobody took it really seriously, did they? until after the Robsons’ baby . . .’

  ‘What happened to the Robsons’ baby?’ asked Peter, as she paused. It was Doctor Culpepper who answered him.

  ‘Somebody stole it while it was lying in its pram in the garden,’ he said, very slowly and clearly. ‘Three days afterwards the poor little mite was found in a clump of reeds on the edge of Hinton Broad with its throat cut . . .’

  ‘Such a lovely baby she was too,’ murmured Miss Wymondham, shaking her white head sorrowfully. ‘A sweet, chubby little thing, only ten months old . . .’

  ‘How dreadful,’ said Ann. ‘What a horrible, beastly thing . . .’

  ‘That was only the beginning,’ said Doctor Culpepper, grimly. ‘There were three more after that and each case was practically identical . . .’ He broke off and began to drink his soup with almost savage intensity.

  ‘Do you mean . . . they were all found dead in the same way?’ said Peter, and the doctor nodded curtly.

  ‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ said Anthony Sherwood, and the lines of his young face were set and stern. ‘The eldest was only two and a bit . . .’