by John Burke
“Yes.” Harry spat out the word in a fury and said no more until he had opened the door and let Valerie walk in past him.
She crossed the room and lit the lamp. When she turned and looked into his face, she wavered and then ran to him. She put her arms round him.
“Darling, I’m sorry. I’m so awfully sorry. It was a stupid thing to say. It’s just that I was . . . oh, I was so upset.”
“Don’t think I wasn’t,” said Harry. “That house, that man . . . that loathsome little servant . . . I wish I knew what was going on.”
“And the animals,” said Valerie thoughtfully.
“The animals? Oh, yes. What was so special about those animals?”
Valerie shook her head. “They . . . well, they weren’t what I expected. They were all so small. Mice, and even rats, and little furry creatures of all kinds. A couple of puppies—but even the puppies weren’t romping around. They were all in cages.”
“Locked up for the night?”
“It looked as though they spent most of their time there. A sort of zoo, or . . . or . . .”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know.” Valerie’s brow was puckered with worry. “There was something . . . doomed about them. Something frightening. They weren’t just pets. Anna didn’t want to touch them—I could see that. And yet at the same time she was drawn towards them. She . . . at one moment I distinctly saw her gloating over them. That’s the only way I can describe it—gloating. And then she started sobbing and said her father would try to make us leave and we mustn’t leave, we must stay near her.”
“He certainly tried that,” Harry agreed.
They sat at the table in the glow of the lamp while he told her of Franklyn’s attempts to persuade him that Clagmoor was unhealthy and that they were not welcome here.
“And I believe him on that score,” he finished grimly, “but I’ve no intention of being driven out by that fellow or anyone like him.”
Valerie put out her hand to him across the table. He gripped it and they smiled at each other, then looked proudly round the little room. This was theirs. They were not going to abandon it.
His wandering gaze lit on the cat’s basket. It was empty. Katie must be exploring the kitchen or the bedroom. Or perhaps she was out sniffing the enticing smells of the night and would be back in the morning.
But Katie did not come back. Katie had vanished.
7
In the middle of the morning there was a knock at the front door of the cottage. Harry had only just got in after an unavailing tramp over the surrounding fields in search of the cat. He hurried to the door, wondering if some farmer or one of the villagers could at last be showing some sign of neighborliness and returning Katie.
When he opened the door he was confronted by Tom Bailey with a heavily laden basket on his arm.
Tom scuffed his feet, cleared his throat, and grunted: “I’ve brought you a few things.”
Valerie appeared from the kitchen.
“Mr. Bailey—how thoughtful of you!”
“Thought you might not know the best way of going about getting stuff,” said Tom with gruff awkwardness, “so to tide you over, like . . .”
He lowered the basket to the floor. Valerie picked it up, winced laughingly at the weight, and said: “Do come in and sit down for a few minutes, Mr. Bailey.”
“Well, I won’t say no. But please . . . call me Tom.”
Harry tried to take the basket from Valerie, but she shook her head and went out to the kitchen to unload the food which was piled high in it. Tom watched her go, then said with a diffidence that was touching in so tough and weatherbeaten a man:
“I . . . ur . . . I didn’t only come up to deliver that lot. I came to do something I don’t often have to do. And I don’t like it when I have to. I . . . I came to admit I was wrong, Mr. Spalding. I’m sorry.”
“Wrong?”
“Can’t keep yourself to yourself when there’s things like this going on. It ain’t right.”
“You mean”—light dawned on Harry—“you’ll help me?”
Tom nodded. “I’ll help you. And reckon I know a good place to begin.”
“When do we begin, then?”
“Not both of us,” said Tom. “Not right away. I do the first bit, and then I want you to come down to my place tonight. Late. Can you do that?” He jerked his head towards the kitchen door. “Will she be frightened to stay here on her own?”
“Not if I know her,” said Harry proudly. But he lowered his voice automatically. “What time tonight—how late?”
“After midnight.”
Tom would say no more, and would not stay long when Valerie was back in the room.
When he had gone, Harry explained what had happened. There was really not much to tell. It all sounded very flimsy, he realized. But it was the first offer of help he had received, and it came from a man for whom he felt an instinctive liking. Tom Bailey had lived here long enough to learn a great deal about the local people and their ways, but not so long that he had become as churlish and withdrawn as they were.
As he might have anticipated, Valerie said that she wanted to come with him that night. Not because she was frightened: simply because she wanted to know what secrets Tom had to tell. Harry refused to contemplate it. She argued. He finally defeated her. She bowed to his authority—reluctantly, but with a sweetness that warmed his heart.
“When I leave,” he said that evening, “you’re to lock the door behind me and keep it locked. And make sure the catch on the window is secure.”
“And I’ll keep the poker on my lap until you come home,” she laughed.
But although she tried to remain cheerful and to imply that really it was an absurd situation, probably exaggerated out of all proportion, when the time came for him to leave the cottage she held on to him for a long moment. There was a throb in her voice as she said:
“Don’t walk into a trap, will you? Don’t let yourself be tricked . . . and if there’s real danger, please run away. Please—for my sake!”
Rain had started as Harry walked away from the cottage. By the time he approached the village it was falling steadily. The edges of the lane were muddy, and the cobbles of the village street were streaming with water. The unrelenting hiss of the rain, though, had the effect of muffling his footsteps.
He reached the side door of the inn and rapped sharply but quietly on the woodwork.
Tom must have been waiting only a few feet away. The door was opened at once and Harry slipped inside. Tom led him into the centre of the bar and on towards the parlor at the back.
“You’re not squeamish, are you?”
“I’ve had practice in not being,” Harry bristled.
When the door of the parlor was closed, Tom turned up the wick of an oil lamp which was burning low. He stood aside and waved Harry forward.
Lying stretched out on the table was Mad Peter.
“It’s all right,” said Tom dourly, “he’s still dead.”
He edged past Harry and raised one of Peter’s eyelids. The dead eye stared hopelessly upwards.
Harry tried not to gag at the sight of that tragic face and the useless eye that would never see sun or moon, green fields or winding lanes again. He spluttered: “How in the devil’s name—”
“I dug him up. Just now. That’s his box.” Tom indicated a coffin propped up in the corner.
“And I called you a coward!”
“I’ve seen too many dead ’uns to be frightened of him.”
“But why?”
“I reckon there’s some things that ought to be looked at. Take some looking for, mind . . . but when I’d got him here in a good light I found what I was after. Here—give me a hand with him.”
The two of them lifted the body so that it was half sitting. The head lolled forward. Tom pointed to the neck and tried to turn it so that the lamplight fell on it.
Harry mastered his nausea and bent forward to look at the place Tom was indicating.
“What do you make of it?” asked Tom. “Two bites, close together? Or . . . the bite of an animal with two teeth—with fangs?”
He gave Harry time to inspect the marks, then began to lower the body again to the table.
Harry said: “But what sort of animal . . . in England, I mean . . . ?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
“Mad Peter may have fallen on something, scraped against something. If he was subject to epileptic fits, he could have injured himself without being aware of it. And those marks may be quite unconnected with his death.”
“There’s a way to find out,” said Tom.
“How?”
Tom reached a bottle of brandy from the shelf behind him and poured two glasses. He handed one to Harry.
“Have a look at your brother.”
Harry drank deeply. When he had steadied himself, his first impulse was to say no. The idea was appalling. Every instinct within him rebelled against such a monstrous notion. Then he caught Tom’s straight, sure gaze on him and realized what his friend had already been through on his behalf. He could not back down.
“All right,” he said hoarsely.
They took Mad Peter’s coffin back to the churchyard on a handcart which Tom dragged from the littered yard at the back of the inn. Beside the wooden box were two large spades.
The wheels of the cart squeaked over the cobbles, and in spite of all their efforts there was an occasional thump as the coffin shifted. Mercifully the rain continued, hammering out a tattoo on the roofs of the village and streaming noisily over the street towards the pond.
Tom had hurriedly covered Peter’s grave with boards. Now he dragged them aside, and the two men lowered the coffin into place again. Tom gave Harry one of the spades and took the other.
“I’ll fill this in. You start on your brother.”
Moisture streamed down Harry’s neck as he dug. It was a mixture of sweat and rain, hot and cold at the same time, numbing him and reducing him to a wet pulp. The numbness was welcome. He didn’t let himself think what he was doing. The desecration of the grave had to be carried out in mute obedience to a cause that would not bear sober analysis.
At last he had cleared the earth and revealed the lid of the coffin. Now, pausing, he almost lost heart. To look on what remained of his brother’s face . . . He was not sure he could do it.
Tom appeared at the graveside with a storm lantern. He held it out commandingly. Rain sparkled, falling past it into the dark hole.
Harry prised the lid off the coffin and looked in.
For a moment it was as though he were peering down at a hideous twin to Mad Peter. The black puffiness, the twist of the mouth, the screwed-up eyes . . . the lineaments of intolerable agony . . .
He retched.
“Turn his head,” said Tom inexorably.
With a shaking hand Harry got a grip on the head and turned it. Tom lowered the lantern.
“Well?”
There could be no mistake. The double mark was there just as it had been on Mad Peter’s neck.
“That about proves it, doesn’t it?” said Tom. “Ever see a mark like that before?”
Harry shook his head. He was beyond speech.
“I have,” said Tom. “Once. In India. On a man bitten by a king cobra.”
Harry stared. It was impossible. Here in England, nothing could be more madly incredible.
“It all fits,” said Tom. “The blackening of the face and that foaming at the mouth—”
“No!” cried Harry.
He couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it.
He felt Tom’s hand under his arm. Without knowing quite what was happening he allowed himself to be helped up from the grave.
Tom said: “You go on home and look after that wife of yours. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” When Harry groped blindly for his spade, Tom urged him away from the graveside. “I’ll clear up here. Don’t worry, it’ll all be left neat and tidy. Go on—go home before she gets upset and comes looking for you.”
Harry was not conscious of stumbling back to the cottage. There was a dull ache in his shoulders but it meant nothing to him. The rain was blowing into his face so that he could not see his way, but his legs plodded automatically on until he was at last aware of the cottage door immediately before him. He gasped for breath and drew himself up.
He tried the door. It was locked, as he had said it must be.
He knocked.
“Who is it?”
She was there; she was safe.
“It’s all right, darling.”
The key rattled in the lock and the door was drawn open. Valerie dragged him inside and hugged him. The living reality of her was a wonderful thing after the dank despair of the graveyard.
“You’re soaked,” she said when she drew away. “Come over by the fire and get those wet things off. The kettle’s on. I’ll make you a hot drink, then you can tell me all about it.”
Harry winced at the thought of having to explain his night’s work. He moved to the fire and began to peel his coat from his wet shoulders.
There was a small, folded note propped on the mantelpiece against an old brass candlestick.
“What’s this?”
“Oh. That was pushed under the door tonight,” said Valerie. “It was addressed to you, so I didn’t open it,” she added demurely.
Harry unfolded the note. It read:
I desperately need your help.
Please come before it is too late.
Anna Franklyn.
Perplexed, he held it out for Valerie to see.
“Why should she turn to me?”
“Who else has she to turn to?” asked Valerie.
“But why a note—why not come to the cottage and tell us what’s wrong?”
“Perhaps she did, and I didn’t hear her. I might have been in the kitchen. Or . . . perhaps she couldn’t get away and had to send the note down by someone.”
“Someone? Her father—or that Malay?”
Valerie took the note from him and shook her head over it. Harry began to put his coat on again. The weight of it squeezed a chill damp into his shoulders.
“You can’t go out again now,” protested Valerie.
“The girl needs help. I can’t just do nothing—now can I?”
“If you go, I’m coming too.”
“No.” He kissed her before she could argue and went quickly to the door. “No, darling.”
The rain had stopped but the ground was soggy underfoot. It slowed him down intolerably. An age seemed to pass before he reached the top of the hill, and the ache of his exertions in the churchyard began to pulse across his back and down his arms. Doggedly he went on.
The house reared up before him, gaunt against the stormy night sky.
8
A sticky mass of wet leaves muffled Harry’s footsteps as he trod cautiously along the side of the house. A frontal assault was out of the question. There must be some way to break in.
At the end of the side wall, past a door which looked as though it had not been opened for years, a small window was slightly ajar. Harry clawed upwards to get a grip on it. He could only just get his fingertips over the sash, and when he pulled there was no response. He prodded with his right foot against the wall, scraping about for a foothold. By ramming his toes hard against a ragged brick he was able to push upwards and keep himself there for a few seconds. He put all his weight on the window and shook it. For a moment it would not budge; then it let out a squeak and came down with a thud.
Harry swayed back but held on. He waited. There was silence.
He kneed himself up and over the window.
Inside he was in pitch darkness. He steadied himself against one wall and groped carefully out with his hands. As far as he could judge he was in a narrow passage. He took a few tentative steps and blun
dered into no furniture or other obstacle.
The faint light from the window began to pick out details. The passage was bare, without pictures on the walls. A few long strips of florid paper peeled away and curled to the floor. He walked warily on the bare boards. The place smelt damp but there was a thin stream of warm air coming from the far end.
He could make out the outlines of door panels. When he reached the door he turned the handle very slowly.
The door opened.
Warmth was an engulfing wave now. He had half expected to come out into a room opening off the hall, but he must have lost his sense of direction. This room had a musty, enclosed feeling; and the smell of damp gave way to a thick, pungent, animal stench. Harry stood quite still. All round him he was conscious of a stirring and twittering, a breathing and insistent fidget of life.
He thought vividly of Mad Peter and of Charles. The marks on their necks came vividly back to his mind as though a bright light had been beamed on them from the darkness.
If this was the room in which Franklyn kept monster snakes . . .
Harry could not bear any longer to hear these scuttering sounds and not see, not know. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a box of matches. One side of the box was damp, but after a couple of attempts he struck a match.
The flame sputtered and swayed. He raised it above his head.
The room was surrounded with cages from floor to ceiling, all of them with small padlocks. Inside the cages were small, furry animals of every description. Their eager eyes winked in the light and threw back a hundred reflecting gleams. Moles were humped at the backs of cages. Field mice ran suddenly round and round. A rabbit twitched its nose at Harry as he bent towards it.
Not snakes, then.
But perhaps, he thought with a shock, food for snakes . . .
Just as the light was burning towards his fingers he saw two things. One was a farther door leading out of the room. The other was Katie, Valerie’s little cat, also locked in a cage. He dropped the match and it went out. He groped towards the cage and tried to find the door, but it was padlocked like the others. Katie emitted a plaintive miaow. There was nothing he could do right away.