“Yes, I am aware of that,” he said.
He sighed heavily. “I am not an evil person, Marcus,” he said. “But I have done something very wrong. Yet you must understand I did it for all the right reasons.”
“Was it you that set the men on Jowan?” he said bluntly.
Hendra looked as if his very soul had been scooped out and laid bare before him. “Yes, it was I. You see, I could not have the old fears resurface with his presence. The business could ill afford the disruption. I tried to scare him away. But I had other reasons, Marcus. He was trying to unearth what truly happened to his mother, his father…”
At this Biddle came nearer to Hendra, bent down close to him. He could smell the alcohol hot on his breath. “And what was it that truly happened to his mother? Is there some secret you know, Gerran, for I have found out this very day that Jowan did not kill himself but was seen to be pushed?”
“Pushed?” He looked suddenly quite terrified; pale, old and vulnerable. His lower lip quivering. “That cannot be…”
“The men who did it, they were in your employ. What do you know about this, Gerran? Is this true?”
He moaned loudly. “That was never the intention. None of this was ever intended. My fault! My entire fault!” he said, his eyes wide and wild, “And the girl, last night, that too was my doing!”
“Keziah?” said Biddle incredulously.
“Yes, Keziah. But I did not mean any harm to befall her, or anyone. But it was the storm…”
“You are not making any sense, man,” said Biddle.
“And Jowan’s mother, all those years ago…” He sank his head into his hands and sobbed. “Poor, poor woman…”
He reached out, placed a hand on each of Hendra’s shoulders. “My friend, if you know something then you must confess it.”
His head snapped up, his face a twisted, manic mask. He rose sharply to his feet. “This has to end, Marcus. I cannot hide this any longer. I cannot keep the secret. It has been eating at me for thirteen years. I am damned and I must show you…”
“Show me what?”
He had dashed to the door, sweeping it open. “Come with me, Marcus.”
He followed. They raced down corridors and Hendra strode purposefully, if a little drunkenly, into his library. It was lit only by a couple of oil lamps which gave the faces of the portraits on the wall a luminous quality, floating spectrally out of the gloom above them. Hendra yanked open a drawer in a Davenport, and frantically searched inside, moving aside papers, tossing them onto the floor. He opened another drawer and did the same. “It’s not here!” he said. “It’s not here!”
“What is missing?” Biddle asked.
“The key!” he retorted. “The key is missing!”
“You are raving, man. Calm down!”
Hendra rushed from the room. He met a maid exiting another and called for her. She came to him a little uncertainly. “Yes, sir?”
“Who has been in my library? Who has taken something from my drawer? Is it you?” He grabbed her by the arm and she screwed her face up n horror.
“No, sir, I have not been in the library. I would not take anything, sir…” She pulled back. “You are hurting me, Mr Hendra, sir,” she said.
“Gerran!” said Biddle. “Let the woman free!”
He released her. “Have you seen anyone in there? Anyone at all?”
“Only Miss Hendra, sir. I saw her a little while ago, coming out of the library as she is often want to do. Nothing unusual, sir.”
Hendra swept his hair back and massaged his forehead. “Oh my God,” he said. “She is going to the Bolt…”
“The bolt, Gerran?”
He did not reply but dashed back down the corridor with Biddle hot on his heels. He went immediately to the desk drawer and took out the pistol.
“What on earth are you doing with that thing, Gerran?” he said, alarmed by his friend’s frenzied expression.
“It is my fault,” he said, checking to see if it were loaded. “If anything should happen to her…” He paused to stare deep into Biddle’s unbelieving eyes. “Her ignorance is putting her in grave danger, Marcus,” he said.
* * * *
“Please bring your lantern nearer, Tunny.”
He knelt down, holding the lantern so that it fell upon the trapdoor. “The place is empty save for this in its centre,” he said. “It looks like it has not been used in a long while.”
“It appears,” she said, lifting the old lock on the trapdoor, “that father never intended it to house anything but this, almost as if the stables and its outbuildings had been purposely built around it when the old barn was demolished. This part has always been locked and shut up, never used, and in all honesty I never thought much about it. The only person I know ever to have used it is father.” She slid the key that Jowan had brought with him into the lock, giving Tunny a quick glance before she turned it. There was a satisfying click as the lock sprung open.
“So beneath this door lies what you call the Jacobite Bolt? The one Jowan also spoke of?” he asked.
“It would seem so. Please, take the ring and lift it for me and we can determine the truth.”
He stood the lantern on the floor, grasped the hefty iron ring in the trapdoor’s centre and heaved it open. A chill draught fanned their faces, rushing from a black, fathomless pit. Tunny brought the lantern over the hole and bathed in the weak, buttery glow it revealed a set of wooden steps leading down into the blackness.
“What do you suppose is down there?” he ventured.
“It is my intention to find out,” she said. “Take my hand and help me down, Tunny.”
“I don’t know, Miss Hendra. It does not look safe.”
“Nonsense!” she scolded, and lowered her leg into the cool dark, her foot settling on the wooden step which moved fractionally beneath her weight. “Hold the lantern so that I may see well.” She climbed down. He watched as she sank further beyond the reach of the lantern and out of sight then heard her shoes scrape against stone. He dropped the lantern further into the shaft; it was brick-lined and had the appearance of a chimney stack. Her moon of a face looked up at him from below. “Bring it down here, Tunny. I think there is a tunnel.”
Tunny clambered down and joined her at the base of the shaft, some fifteen feet or so high he estimated. The lantern revealed a low tunnel hewn out of the very rock. It extended beyond the reach of the lantern and again disappeared into blackness.
He squinted in the dull light. “Where do you suppose this leads?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but legend has it that it is an escape tunnel, and as such I warrant there is an exit somewhere, if it is indeed the Jacobite Bolt. Hand me the lantern and I shall lead the way.”
He shook his head. “Begging your pardon, Miss Hendra, but I will take the lead.” He squeezed past her and, at a crouch they began to ease their way down the tunnel.
The walls were wet and shiny with water in places, their shoes splashing in shallow puddles. In some instances the passage was barely wide enough for a person to pass through, the ceiling dropping so low that they were all but on their knees; in others they could almost stand upright. Every now and again Tunny would issue a warning of a proud rock at head height, or some other obstacle likely to trip the unwary. The air grew steadily colder, the draught a little stronger.
“This could go on for miles,” he said eventually, turning to her and calling a halt. “We have been in this tunnel for at least twenty minutes, I should guess, and as yet there appears to be no end to it.”
“There has to be an end. Go on,” she ordered.
He let out a breath that spilled from his lips in a gossamer vapour, said nothing and resumed their trek.
At length she bade him stop. “Look, Tunny,” she said, her hand brushing the rock face. “This tunnel is no longer man-made; this is a natural cave we enter now, probably carved out by an ancient underground river.”
It was true. The rock was smooth and lacked the jagge
d edges of the previous stretch. “What business does your father have down here?” he asked as they continued to traverse the prehistoric water course.
She did not answer. She glanced back over her shoulder; all she saw was an impenetrable blackness that caused her to shudder involuntarily. They continued for some time before Tunny stopped abruptly.
“Oh my Lord,” he said, turning to her, the lantern at his chest and casting strange, dancing shadows on his face. She could not see what had caused his unease. “This is not something you should see, Miss Hendra,” he said, putting a hand to her shoulder as she moved forward.
“Don’t be foolish, Man!” she chastised. “Give me the lantern.” She had to snatch it from him and held it out before her to light the narrow passage.
On either side the walls appeared to take on the form of gnarled, twisted tree roots. But as she advanced she saw what had caused Tunny’s concern. They were constructed of human skulls, stacked neatly on top of each other, from floor to ceiling, and in between them dense layers of other human bones, laced neatly and precisely together. The flickering lantern gave the effect of movement, as if the skulls were alive, their lipless mouths uttering silent words, their eyeless sockets staring balefully at them as them as they passed.
“The legend of Myghal Connoch and his cave of skulls is true!” said Tunny, his face bathed in both awe and fear.
“It is an ossuary,” she said. “An ancient burial place used by a race of people long dead and forgotten.” She held the lantern closer to the rack of skulls. Some of them had crumbled into formless grey masses. “Myghal is a myth,” she continued, “but knowledge of this, or a distant memory of it, helped promulgate the myth.”
“There are hundreds of people buried here,” he said.
“It must have been used for many, many years, for generations of people lie in these walls of bones.” She moved on further into the cave, taking the light with her. Tunny hurried to catch up. “This place had to be accessible for it to have been used so.” She sniffed the air. “Do you smell that, Tunny?”
He tested the air. “Yes, it is the sea. I can smell the sea.”
“The escape route must lead to the coast,” she surmised, “to one of the many cave entrances that lie at the base of the cliffs.”
“The caves along the coast have been explored many times,” he said. “It would have been discovered long ago.”
“Unless the caves had become inaccessible over time, like the ones in Baccan’s Maw. Those are now impossible to reach from the cliff top, for it is so steep and dangerous to climb down, and they cannot be reached by sea because of Baccan’s Teeth and the many treacherous rocks.”
The bones extended for about fifty yards then gave way to bare rock face again. They took a sharp dogleg and were immediately brought up by a time-blackened wooden door barring the way.
“That is not something I expected,” said Tunny, inspecting the huge twin bolts that held it fast at top and bottom.
“Certainly this was not built by the ancients,” she replied. “The bolts have been recently greased, too.”
“Not a door designed to keep people out,” mused Tunny, “for there is no lock; but possibly designed to keep something in?”
She frowned. Beyond this door, she knew, lay the answer. Her delicate fingers grasped the bolt at the bottom and slid it back. The noise sounded like a gunshot in the narrow cave. She reached up for the top bolt.
* * * *
17
After All These Years
“I must confess, Mr Denning, that I am most concerned for him.” Mrs Carbis’s round form breezed over to a lamp and she lit it. She turned to him, her hands wringing with anxiety at her waist. “Fearing the cold would set in again, I came to light Mr Wilkinson’s fire, and upon knocking I found there to be no reply. But on trying the door, and finding it unlocked, I was so bold as to push it open and put my head around, calling out for him. There was no answer still, so I took the liberty of stepping over the threshold to make sure everything was well with him.” She gestured forlornly to the state of the room with her fat, outstretched hands.
It was clear to Stephen Denning that there had been a violent disturbance here, for a table had been overturned, with Wilkinson’s brushes and paints scattered on the floor amid shards of broken bottles that had hit the stone flags. A splintered chair lay on its side. A prepared canvas had been ripped. He frowned and went into the next room. On top of a neatly made bed that appeared not to have been slept in sat an open trunk, a few clothes scattered here and there.
“And still no sign of him?” he asked.
“Not a single hair, sir,” she returned gravely. “Upon seeing this I became worried, Mr Denning, for Mr Wilkinson is ordinarily such a neat and precise man who prefers to have everything in its proper place. If my eyes do not deceive me it looks like there has been a fight in here, but that is impossible, for Mr Wilkinson is not one I would think given to common brawling.”
“I don’t think your eyes deceive you, Mrs Carbis. It is quite evident there has been a struggle.”
She gave a tiny sigh of alarm. “Upon my word! Which is why I came straight to you. I know you and he are close friends. What do you suppose has happened? Is Mr Wilkinson safe? And where has he gotten to?”
He ignored her barrage of questions and went over to a spot near the upturned table. “Bring me the lamp, will you, please?”
“What if something tragic has befallen him?” she continued, her voice becoming ever shriller as her agitation increased. “Oh, we have never had such a bad run of ill fortune as we have had of late, Mr Denning!” She handed him the lamp.
He held it over a dark patch on the flagstones, bent and dipped a finger into the thick ooze. “Ill fortune indeed, Mrs Carbis,” he said.
She hovered over him. “What is that, Mr Denning? Spilled paint?”
He straightened and shook his head. “It is not paint, I fear, but blood.”
She shrank back in horror from his red-tipped finger. “Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed. “Is Mr Wilkinson injured?”
“I suppose the answer to that lies in whose body this blood belongs to, Mrs Carbis.” He found more congealed blood on the tabletop; searched the floor carefully and spotted a couple more small drops by the door, and a single, almost insignificant smear on the door itself. “I require you to inform me the moment you see Mr Wilkinson, do you understand? At once. Though I believe he may have left Porthgarrow for good.”
“But he has left behind all his things, Mr Denning. And why leave in such a hurry? I am afraid I do not understand what is going on,” she admitted helplessly.
“Remember,” he said sternly, “you must come to me at once.” He paused. “And under no circumstances must you approach him, for I believe him to be a danger.”
Her eyes widened incredulously. “You jest, Mr Denning! Mr Wilkinson is such a dear lamb!”
“I have never been more deadly serious, Mrs Carbis,” he said.
* * * *
She pulled back the second bolt. It resisted stiffly.
“Do not be too hasty, Miss Hendra,” warned Tunny. He put his hand against the door, holding it shut as she prepared to pull at the iron-hoop handle. “Let me enter first,” he added. “We do not yet know what lies on the other side.”
She thought briefly and then offered a quick nod, letting him take her place. He took the lantern from her and gently eased open the old door. The first thing that struck them was the stench. It caused Jenna to put a hand to her nose.
“It is the smell of the night soil being emptied,” she said, “and worse. What can you see, Tunny?”
He held up the lantern. The cave widened out, about twelve feet in height, eight feet in width. But most surprising was that it had been dressed as a room. There was the faint glow from a candle, flickering in some dark corner in the far reaches of the cave; the floor had been freshly strewn with straw; a number of small natural alcoves in the rock walls were set with rough-hewn woo
den shelves on which had been arranged old bottles, jars, and even a couple of old, mould-wrapped leather books; there was a three-legged stool by the wall, beside a small table on which rested a pewter plate, sprinkled with scraps of food; above these was a picture hanging from a rusted nail that had been driven into a fissure in the rock. Jenna went over to it and gave a small gasp.
“It is a portrait of me, drawn when I was but a small girl.”
Tunny brought the light closer, revealing the paper behind the badly cracked glass to be heavily foxed and stained with damp. “What does this mean, Tunny?” she said, baffled.
They both started to a noise, a mournful grunt, like the snuffling of a pig, which came from around a bend in the cave. They next heard a faint scuffling, the sound of something moving around on the straw-padded floor.
“What is that, Tunny?” she breathed quietly.
“Stay behind me, Miss,” he advised, holding the lantern before him, but she stuck close by his side as he moved cautiously towards the sounds, reaching the bend. Faint, dancing candlelight threw a monstrous shadow of something onto the wall; it moved slowly, grotesquely, and there came more of the same animal-like grunting. “Who goes there?” said Tunny, his voice loud in the small confines of the cave.
The shadow lurched at the sound and a shrill mewling ensued. They moved around the bend. The cave here was in dark shadows where the light of the lantern could not penetrate. They saw the candle, in a blackened iron holder, fixed to the cave wall, its flame all but going out. A formless mass, as if it were a shadow itself, separated from the gloom, appearing to uncurl, to straighten and transform.
Tunny edged closer, holding the lamp out. The creature shrank back into the shadows as if to escape the circle of light, the gurgling of fear in its throat like that of a cornered dog. Tunny moved closer still.
The House of the Wicked (a psychological thriller combining mystery, murder, crime and suspense) Page 25