The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  He sighed as though there were some regret over what had occurred, but Eve was soon to realize it wasn’t because of the harm done to poor young Stefan.

  ‘All that followed was because of the Jewish boy.’ Pyke scowled with resentment, as if events might have turned out otherwise but for the bodged ‘operation’. ‘Magda ordered me to bring towels, and then more towels, but nothing could staunch that bleeding. The boy was draining of colour before our eyes because of blood loss. Naturally, taking him to a hospital or calling a doctor wasn’t an option; how could we have explained the injury? No doubt Augustus would have been imprisoned for what he had done and Magda too, probably, for being an accomplice. I didn’t care for my own chances either: they had special places for naughty boys in those days. All the other children would have ganged up on me, they would have told the police what a bad person I’d been. They never liked me.’

  Eve could hardly believe what she was hearing. Pyke was now wallowing in self-pity. But while he was preoccupied she took a sly glance up the stairway behind her. If she and Loren could only reach Cally’s bedroom there might be a chance to barricade themselves in . . .

  Light in the vast room dipped and she wondered if the generator in the basement could take the strain of running all the electrics in Crickley Hall. Perhaps Gabe hadn’t done such a good job on it after all, and if the lights went out once more, it might give them another opportunity to get away from Pyke. But then the lights came up again, although their glow was weaker than before.

  In the darker regions of the hall there seemed to be a slight movement, lighter shadows shifting inside the darker shadows again. The air was heavy, oppressive, the kind of heaviness that usually came before an electrical storm. The fine hairs on Eve’s arms bristled and there was an uncomfortable creeping sensation along her spine, the arctic breath of ungovernable fear. Oddly, although the source of light came from high above – the iron chandelier and the landing light – it was much darker round the ceiling, as if a blackness were hanging there, a kind of murky fog that was pressing down on the room below.

  Pyke appeared not to have noticed, or if he did, he was ignoring it. Rain rattled the tall window.

  He began to speak again, revisiting a past that was obviously important to him. ‘Magda knew we couldn’t save the boy, although by God, she did try. Stefan was fading away fast and she realized what we had to do. We had used the well to get rid of the teacher’s body before; we could use it again.’

  Despite her terror, Eve was aghast. Magda Cribben and Pyke – or Maurice Stafford as he was then – had murdered Nancy Linnet and thrown her corpse into the well, knowing that it would probably be swept out to sea by the subterranean river. Then they had decided to do the same with Stefan.

  ‘Magda said that we would tell the authorities that Stefan Rosenbaum had wandered down the cellar alone – which was strictly out of bounds for the children, of course – and had accidentally fallen into the well. The wall round the well is very low so it could easily happen. In all likelihood, his body would never be recovered and none of the other children had witnessed what Augustus had done to the boy, although they must have heard the screams. Magda was sure they’d be too scared to speak out.’

  My God, thought Eve, was Pyke insane even then, as a boy? All three of them – the brother and sister and Maurice Stafford – must have been crazy to imagine they would get away with such a crime.

  Pyke flexed his knee to loosen the joint. ‘So that’s what we did. We dropped Stefan’s body down the well. To be perfectly frank with you, I wasn’t sure he’d bled to death by then. I don’t think Magda was sure either.’

  The revelation seemed to numb both Eve’s body and her mind. She had to stop this madman getting his hands on her daughters.

  Pyke gave a laboured shake of his head as if chiding himself for something. ‘We had underestimated the interest that had been aroused in the disappearance of the teacher, though. She had been gone several weeks and could not be traced, despite the efforts of the education authorities to find her. We had assumed she wouldn’t be missed, not with the kind of disruption a war brought to the country.’

  He studied Eve, then Loren, with half-hooded eyes. ‘The very day after we rid ourselves of Stefan Rosenbaum, we received notice that government inspectors were to visit Crickley Hall. Oh, it might well have been a routine call, something the inspectors were apt to do from time to time, but Magda thought not. She thought suspicions had been kindled by Nancy Linnet’s abrupt departure.’

  His gaze was momentarily on Loren, although his mind seemed elsewhere.

  ‘Magda was in a state of panic,’ Pyke continued, ‘while Augustus was merely outraged that the authorities should even presume to inspect his province. The stress only made his pain worse and the usual method of relieving some of it had no effect whatsoever. In fact, it hadn’t worked for some days, which was why Augustus finally lost all reason.’

  The lightning and thunder came again and it was as though those elements were chained to the house itself; the storm just did not seem to be moving on.

  Pyke changed position on the landing, sitting on its lip, thick wrists resting on his knees, head turned to take in Eve and Loren. His back was to the cane, which lay across the landing.

  ‘Are you growing tired of my reminiscences, Eve? It gets more interesting, I assure you.’

  Tentatively, she said: ‘My husband will be home soon.’ It was a feeble warning.

  Pyke responded almost cheerfully. ‘No, you told me he’d gone off to London. Even if he were on his way back, he’d have stopped somewhere to avoid the worst of the storm. Nobody sane travels in this sort of weather.’

  ‘What would you know of sanity?’ She spat the words in spite of herself.

  ‘Ah, aggression. That’s quite understandable. You don’t know why I’m here yet?’

  ‘You were supposed to be proving there are no ghosts in this house.’

  ‘I lied. Unfortunately – especially for me – there are such things as ghosts. To my regret, I’ve been haunted for most of my life. I’ll explain it all to you, I promise.’

  There was that affable and concerned person again. Pyke was like an emotional chameleon, changing so fast it was difficult to keep up with him.

  Eve fought to control herself when she said: ‘I want to know the real reason you came here tonight and why you attacked Lili Peel.’

  ‘Lili Peel. So that’s her name, is it? Well, I’m afraid your friend was interfering where she shouldn’t. How did she know my original name?’

  ‘She’s psychic.’

  ‘She must be very good to pick up on it like that.’

  ‘I showed her an old photograph of the Cribbens and the children – the evacuees – who were here in 1943. You were among them.’ Eve was still waiting for the right moment to dash up the stairs with Loren.

  ‘I see. But does that mean you knew my name then?’

  ‘Our gardener pointed you out the other day when Gabe found the picture.’

  ‘I remember the time it was taken; all the other children were so glum.’

  ‘They had good reason to be.’

  ‘Yes. Where is the photograph now?’

  Eve indicated the hall. ‘Down there, near the spinning top.’

  ‘Dear Lord, I even remember that toy. It was one of the few items we were allowed to play with and that was only when the local vicar called in for afternoon tea. The Reverend Rossbridger, if I remember correctly. He thought well of Augustus Cribben – another disciplinarian, you see. He and Augustus were two of a kind in some ways. And of course, both strong believers in the Almighty.’

  Eve thought that Pyke might go back down to the hall to retrieve the photograph, but either he was too canny or he’d already lost interest in it. He seemed to be growing restless, one foot tapping on a lower step. Loren’s breaths were coming in quick shallow gasps.

  ‘How did the children come to drown in Crickley Hall?’ Eve was still playing for time, a distraction,
something that would give them a chance to make a break for it. Unaware that the phone lines were down, Eve prayed for the phone across the hall to ring, anything that would draw his attention for a second or two. He had a bad leg, he’d have difficulty chasing them (although he had moved remarkably quickly when he had attacked Lili). She was taken aback by his answer to her question.

  ‘None of the children drowned,’ he said. ‘They were all dead before the floodwaters broke.’

  Eve stared. Her fear of him reached new heights. ‘But everybody said that’s how they died,’ she managed to say.

  ‘Oh, everybody said it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. I’m sure there were those in the community who had their suspicions. And those who found the bodies – the police and a few members of the rescue services – must have realized the truth. Possibly Reverend Rossbridger was informed that the children had been murdered and the blame had to lie with Augustus Cribben, who also died that night.

  ‘I only discovered he died of a broken neck and multiple piercings to his body when I searched back through old newspaper stories of that time. I’ve visited his grave in the church cemetery down the hill and, disappointingly, his marker is quite humble. It’s also situated in a very neglected part of the graveyard. Yes, I’m certain the authorities were aware that Augustus killed the children in his care with his bare hands. The marks on the children’s necks could hardly have gone unnoticed.’

  Appalled, and further shocked, Eve could only react by saying, ‘But you – he didn’t kill you. How . . .?’

  ‘I told you I would explain.’ Pyke was finding it a relief finally to share his secrets with someone who was neither dumb nor mad like Magda. ‘There was a terrible storm that night of the flood, much like this one tonight, which makes it all the more apposite. No thunder and lightning that night, though, just heavy rainfall. None of the children were sleeping. . .’

  71: CAUGHT

  Lili groaned and tried to lift her head again, but it was no use: it sank back to the drenched earth.

  It was almost cosy lying there. She hardly felt the rain that battered her, even where it drummed on her head and neck; she could not feel the cold at all. No, she was snug, dozing in and out of consciousness, half dreaming, but aware those half-dreams were more like revelations.

  Lightning exposed the brown, churning river nearby, its level reaching the top of the banks. Woodland detritus, that which hadn’t entangled behind the short wooden bridge – the unstable wooden bridge – was swept along by the current and carried down to the harbour estuary where the twin rivers, the Bay River and the underground Low River, met.

  Lili felt rather than saw the hugeness of the room she was in, a room whose only lighting was from strategically placed oil lamps so that shadows hung like dark drapes around its walls.

  There is movement, a sound followed by a warning whisper as small figures appear from a doorway on the landing above the hall.

  Nine children make their quiet way towards the broad staircase at the end of the L-shaped landing, shoes in their hands, stockinged feet almost silent on the wooden boards. They stop and hold their breaths whenever a floorboard creaks and move on only when there is no reaction to the noise. The older children hold the hands of the younger ones. No one must speak, Susan Trainer has told them all, and no one must cough, sneeze or make a noise of any kind, especially when they passed by certain closed doors behind which their guardians would be sleeping.

  Down the stairs they come, in twos, with the eldest, Susan, leading the way, unable to prevent a cracked stairboard creaking here and there even if the children’s soft feet tread as lightly as possible. They are all dressed apart from their outdoor coats, which hang in a row on the rack beside the big front door. They will put them on, along with their shoes, before leaving the house.

  They steal into the great hall, all of them shivering with trepidation and cold, following their leader, who is as scared as any of them but does her best not to show it. She dreads to think of the consequences if they are caught.

  Despite the terrible storm outside, tonight she will take the children away from Crickley Hall. They can no longer stay in the house: it’s too dangerous. Mr Cribben has done something bad to little Stefan, something horrible, and the children haven’t seen their friend since. Susan is afraid Mr Cribben might do bad things to the rest of them, for he seems to have lost his mind; there is no telling what he might do now. They will make their way down to the village and knock on the door of the first house that has a light in its window. They will beg to be taken in and Susan will tell everything – their cruel treatment at Crickley Hall, the punishments, their meagre rations, the missing boy.

  Lili Peel, lying prone on the ground more than six decades later, witnessed this as if she were a ghost herself, hovering close to the terrified orphans, hearing their thoughts, sensing their emotions. But unable to help. Unable to intervene in any way. Her heart reached out to them, for she already knew their bid for freedom would fail.

  They are almost halfway across the hall, heading for the coat rack and the locked and bolted front door, when it happens . . .

  Pyke smiled as he related the story, but there was no humour in his eyes. The expression in them, Eve observed, ranged from lunacy to kindness, then to an emotionless vacuity, which was how they were at present. Dead eyes. Deadly eyes.

  ‘You see, I had overheard Susan Trainer’s plan to escape the night before,’ he said. ‘I’d just left Magda’s room – she was so worried about her brother, who had taken to his bed all that day because of his illness. The pain in his head was so bad he could barely think, and daylight – any bright light – made his agony even worse, so much so that he could hardly see.’

  Pyke changed position, resting his back against the railings once more so that he could face Eve and Loren.

  ‘I sat on the stairway just beneath the hatchway into the dormitory and I listened to the whisperings, heard Susan scheme to escape Crickley Hall. She was aware that Augustus was demented with pain by now and that she and the other children were in danger. She intended to sneak out of the house with them the very next night. Susan knew the front-door key was kept on a hook in the kitchen and she would fetch it while the others were putting on their coats and shoes.’

  Pyke gave a short snigger as he remembered his own cleverness.

  ‘Oh, it was a fine escape plan. They would leave the house, closing the door behind them. Every child in turn had to promise to be silent when they left the dormitory; the smaller ones were made to promise twice.

  ‘Once outside they would go down to the village, avoiding the vicarage because they were aware of Reverend Rossbridger’s friendship with the Cribbens. They didn’t trust him and Susan was sure they’d get no sympathy from him. In Hollow Bay they would find someone to take them in and as soon as their story was known, the police would be called and the Cribbens taken off to prison.’

  The snigger was followed by a throaty chuckle, but the mood quickly passed.

  ‘The children had forgotten I liked to spy on them. Yes, I gained valuable bits of information when I listened to them out of sight on the stairs, titbits that earned me rewards from the Cribbens. That particular night I crept back down to Magda’s room and told her what I’d overheard. Augustus was too ill to be informed right then, but she revealed the children’s plan to him the very next day. Unfortunately, she failed to realize just how ill he was. His mind had snapped, although it wasn’t evident at that time.

  ‘Augustus kept to his room that fateful day. But when night-time came . . .’

  Lili, a silent witness, watched the orphans lift their coats from the rack, the bigger children reaching for those belonging to the younger ones and handing them down. She allowed her mind to follow Susan . . .

  . . . who is tiptoeing towards the kitchen. The kitchen door is closed and the girl gently turns its handle, pausing for a moment as the door creaks. A bunch of keys is hanging from a hook just inside and the long front-door k
ey is among them.

  Afraid to open the door any wider, Susan reaches in and her trembling hand runs up the wall searching for the large keyring. The keys jingle as her fingers brush against them and she quickly stops the sound by pressing them against the wall. She feels the long one with the palm of her hand and, although frightened, she allows herself a small smile. Slowly she lifts it.

  And that is when cold, hard fingers reach round her wrist to paralyse her for a moment.

  Susan cannot help but shriek. She pulls her arm back and so powerful is her fright that it is wrenched free from the grip round her wrist. The kitchen door is pulled wide open and there in the darkness stands the naked figure of Augustus Cribben. He is without clothes because he has been flagellating his own body for most of the evening. The fresh marks on his pale flesh are still livid.

  All the children scream in terror. Dropping their shoes and their feet slapping against the stone floor, they disperse in all directions. Three of them scurry into the classroom and conceal themselves beneath the tables. One more shuts himself in the cupboard beneath the stairs, while another chooses a storage closet set in a wall to conceal herself in. Three others, one of whom is barely six years old, flee up the stairs and hide in the landing cupboard where brooms, brushes and an iron bucket are kept. They pull the door closed after them and crouch on the floor as far back as they can go, pressing into the black-painted wall behind them. They clutch each other tightly and shiver in the darkness. They wait.

  Lili felt their horror and she stirred on the wet bed of grass and mud. She moaned in protest, but the vision continued. Like the children, she cannot escape.

  The naked man holds a long thin stick whose end is split into wicked slivers that spread the pain when struck against flesh. This is his own personal cane, the one he keeps in his room for himself alone, the other cane, defiled by the sinners he had used it on, temporarily hidden by his sister because the school inspectors are soon to visit. His gnarled left hand grabs the girl’s wrist again, for shock has frozen her to the spot, unable to run away. She now squirms and tries to pull away from him, kicking out at her captor, her stockinged feet having little effect. The keys fall from her grasp and skid across the floor.