“Do I not?” Fred grimaced. “The bastard kept taking swipes at me with a dirty great rope.”
“How awful for you,” Jennifer Halliday gasped. “What on earth did you do?”
“Bashed him in the unmentionables with me handbag. Turned out to be some joker dressed up.”
“We come across any number of fakes,” Francis observed airily. “Surprising the people who get their kicks out of imagining they have a ghost on the premises. Still, I suppose it’s better than taking to drink.”
“I can assure you …” Reggie began.
“I think our friends will be convinced in a few hours’ time,” Nina observed softly. “It was possibly a good idea not to tell them the details. Surprise is a great educator.”
“I’m convinced already,” Fred said, cleaning her plate with a piece of bread. “Francis, my love, something has just come into the room.”
“Indeed?” Francis filled his glass with some inferior red wine. “Malignant?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Fred was peeling a peach. “Rather sad—frightened. Nothing visual, but I can feel. It’s near the fireplace.”
All eyes were drawn in the general direction of the marble fireplace and Francis murmured softly: “Keep your shirts on—don’t stare.”
“But it’s too early,” Betty Smith wailed. “Nothing happens before nightfall.”
“Nothing you can see,” Francis commented dryly. “Power comes with darkness. Fred, where is it now?”
“Behind me,” said that young lady cheerfully. “I think it would like to tell me something, but it doesn’t know how.”
“Masculine or feminine?”
Fred closed her eyes.
“Don’t know. Very weak … said … frightened … very … very frightened. Hold on a sec … it’s gone.”
“Sure?” Francis watched the girl’s face with some anxiety. “Put out mental feelers.”
Fred remained motionless for a full minute, her eyes closed and her face devoid of expression. The silence was heavy with subdued fear and Betty Smith whimpered.
“Shut up,” Francis snapped. “This is not the time for an attack of the vapours. Well, Fred?”
“Gone.” She opened her eyes, but the cynical, irresponsible expression was missing; her body was rigid, the face paler than usual. “It’s a strange one, Francis. Rather like the wailing waif of Battersea, but weaker.”
His eyes were like chips of blue granite as his glance flickered from face to face.
“You say nothing happens before nine o’clock or thereabouts, but has anyone experienced a strange coldness? As though a door had been left open?”
“I have,” Nina confessed, “and once or twice it seemed that someone was staring at me. You know, a feeling of eyes boring into the back of your neck.”
Francis nodded. “Right. Anyone else? And don’t start imagining. I want facts.”
Five heads were shaken and St. Clare smiled grimly.
“One latent psychic and the rest gross materialists, which means five of you shouldn’t see or hear anything at all. Let’s have that girl in again.”
“You mean Gertrude?” Reggie asked.
“I didn’t mean the Queen of Sheba. Ring that bell so I can find out what she knows, sees or imagines.”
Betty shook the cowbell violently and presently Gertrude entered, wearing her outdoor coat and seemingly not happy at being summoned.
“Jew want me? Got to be off, me mum don’t like me out after dark.”
“Gertrude,” Francis smiled genially, “you said a while back nothing would make you stay in this house after sunset. If I recall correctly, you stated it was haunted. What makes you think that?”
Gertrude hung her head and swung her left foot back and forth like a tongue-tied schoolgirl.
“Everyone knows its ’aunted.”
“You mean you have been told it is haunted. You’ve never seen anything unusual yourself?”
Gertrude did not answer, but continued to swing her foot; her face was a sulky mask.
“Well,” Francis insisted gently, “have you seen anything?”
Almost reluctantly, Gertrude shook her head.
“So,” Francis said relaxing slightly, “how can you be certain the house is haunted?”
“Want to go ’ome. Me mum said I must be ’ome before dark.”
“When you have answered my question. How can you be sure the house is haunted?”
“Me—me gran.” The words poured out in an unbroken torrent. “She was passing ’ere one night, the moon was bright it was and a bloody great man was walking the garden a bloody great man in black and his eyes glared so me gran fair split ’er drawers and he were walking on nutting …”
“You mean,” Francis interrupted, “he was walking on air?”
Gertrude nodded violently.
“Yus, walking on air. ’E was three or four feet up but me gran could ’ear his feet treading on summat ’ard and she ran like billy-o.”
“I bet she did.” Francis smiled gently. “Right, that will be all, Gertrude. You can go now.”
Gertrude escaped. She went through the doorway with great speed as though anxious to demonstrate her grandmother’s long-ago retreat, and presently they heard her footsteps running down the garden path.
“So far, so good.” Francis rubbed his hands with boyish glee. “The pattern is familiar up to a point, but from then on … I don’t know. By the way, where does the phenomenon take place?”
“Mostly in the hall,” Reggie volunteered, “but you can only see it from our sitting-room. The sound effects can be heard all over the house.”
“I gather the experience is rather disturbing.”
They all nodded and Reggie added, “You can say that again.”
“Well, that being the case—forgive the question—why do you stay here?”
“Because we’ve nowhere else to go.” Reggie raised his voice. “Damn it, man, we’ve all sunk our last pennies in this place and we like it. Frankly, you’re our last hope.”
“Hope is a white horse galloping towards a limitless horizon,” Francis murmured softly. “Very well, you lot scamper upstairs when the time comes, and Fred and I will sweat it out in the sitting-room.”
“You sure?” growled Roland Taylor. “There’s a natural explanation of course, but the whole damn business is pretty bloodcurdling.”
“Quite sure.” Francis rose. “You’d only be in the way. Your united fears would build up and feed whatever materialises.”
“I think we really ought to tell you what to expect,” Betty Smith said. “I know you’ve had lots of experience with this sort of thing, but …”
“No.” Francis shook his head. “Under no circumstances. It is important I have no preconceived opinions. I do not wish to be told the plot before I read the book. So upstairs with all of you and leave Fred and me to make some necessary preparations. When it is all over, I will call you.”
There were a few half-hearted attempts to discourage him, but finally they trooped upstairs while Francis and Fred retired to the Smith sitting-room. The girl grimaced.
“This is going to be a tough one, Frankie. I can feel the atmosphere building up.”
“Not to worry.” He opened a small suitcase and took out a bottle of water, a roll of tape and five little wooden crosses mounted on silver bases. “I don’t know if it will be of any use, but we might as well set up a pentacle, just in case a nasty gets rough. Let’s clear a space.”
They cleared the floor of furniture, rolled back the carpet, then proceeded to pin the white tape into the outline of a five-pointed star. On the apex of each point, Francis stood a cross, then, having opened the bottle, poured some of its contents into five little silver bowls which he placed on the tips of the inner points. He straightened up and rubbed his hands.
“Well, that’s done. Let’s hope it works. Do you remember the demon of Colchester Road?”
“Do I not?” Fred shuddered. “He chucked the crosses at us
and threw me around the room.”
“We’ve had a lot more experience since those days. Put a couple of chairs inside, we might as well be comfy.”
They lifted two chairs over the taped lines, then Francis drew the curtains and switched on all the lights.
“Storm coming up,” he announced, “beginning to rain and the wind is rising. Listen to it.”
A gust of wind buffeted the house and the rain could be heard lashing the garden. Fred shivered.
“I hope it is not going to thunder. I don’t mind spooks on the rampage, but I can’t stand thunder.”
“Shouldn’t think so,” Francis comforted. “Just a downpour—do the gardens good. Right, as the actress said to the bishop, all we have to do is wait for something to happen.”
They sat on two spindle-legged chairs in the middle of the star, like two children playing some bizarre game. Francis whistled and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling; Fred examined her fingernails and once she yawned.
Francis spoke at last. “I wonder what shape it will take? I can’t help thinking the disturbance here has nothing to do with the present house. Probably goes back to the old prison. Listen to that wind. A few chimney pots will go if it keeps up. What do you think of that lot upstairs?”
Fred shrugged her white shoulders.
“Pretty commonplace crowd. That Nina creature is probably psychic, although she doesn’t know it.”
Suddenly, as though a switch had been pulled, or a vast curtain had been dropped about the house, the sound of wind and rain ceased. An abrupt, absolute silence rushed in from all sides and Francis gasped.
“This is it, my sweet. Hang on to your seat.”
For the space of two minutes nothing happened, then, from afar-off, they heard a door slam, followed by the sound of bolts being driven home. Then footsteps; loud, heavy treads that seemed to be crashing down on a paved floor. They grew steadily louder and nearer before the sitting-room door crashed open and Francis saw that, instead of the carpeted hall, a long, door-lined passage lay beyond. Coming towards them was a tall man dressed completely in black.
“Quick, Fred!” Francis snapped his fingers, “What do you feel? What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Fred shook her head. “I can’t feel anything. No coldness, no sense of a presence—nothing.”
“What?”
Francis stared at the approaching figure in astonishment. “But you must, girl. Look, there’s a complete reconstruction out there. I’d say yer actual 17th-century prison, and that charlie must be governor or something, and a nasty-looking brute he is too.”
The tall man approached as far as the open doorway. There he stopped and appeared to be staring at the wide-eyed couple seated in the pentacle. He was at least six and a half feet tall and had a dark, intelligent, but evil face, framed with long black hair. He was dressed completely in black: black cut-away coat, black shirt and cravat, black buckskin trousers and black, silver-buckled shoes. He carried a long riding crop which he slashed spasmodically against his leg.
“Here goes,” Francis murmured, then raised his voice. “Who are you?”
The black, sinister figure continued to stare straight at him; there was a gloating expression in the dark eyes.
“What is it you want?” Francis spoke slowly. “You don’t belong here.”
The figure switched the riding crop several times, then, raising his left hand, began to prod with a rigid forefinger the empty space that lay between the door-posts. It was as though he were feeling an invisible wall.
“What the hell …?” Francis stood up, an expression of dawning comprehension lighting his eyes. “No, mate, it’s not ready for you to come through yet. I’d push off if I were you and come back another day.”
The black figure dropped its hand and looked at Francis with deepening interest; the thin lips slowly parted and a set of magnificent white teeth were bared in a mirthless grin. After a few moments, he turned slowly and began to walk back down the passage, trailing his riding crop along the right-hand wall, so that it made a rattling sound, slithered from brick to wooden door, then back to brick again. Without warning, the sitting-room door slammed, and instantly the sound of pelting rain and howling wind flashed back into being. Francis jumped to his feet and raced for the door. He flung it open, tore out into the hall and shouted:
“Downstairs all of you! Hurry!”
Way up on the first landing a solitary door opened, proving they had all been huddled in a single room for comfort, then they came down the stairs, every face alive with fearful expectancy.
“In here.” Francis led the way back into the sitting-room and the Smiths pretended not to see the rolled-back carpet or the displaced furniture.
“Now,” Francis said closing the door and taking up a position in front of the fireplace, “we have just witnessed a scene which is without parallel in my experience. The present—the now—was blocked out and we saw a stretch of corridor that rightfully belonged to the past. A tall, dark man walked up to that doorway and seemed to prod an invisible wall. Is this the phenomenon you have all seen at various times?”
They all nodded and Roland Taylor muttered: “Time picture.”
“What?”
“I said, a time picture.” The big man raised his voice. “An image that builds up under certain conditions. Rather like television waves, and we are the receiving sets.”
“I know all about time images,” Francis snapped, “only they rarely come equipped with sound and the viewer is usually a high-sensitive person and she felt nothing. Why?”
“I don’t understand,” Reggie Smith sounded and looked very distressed. “What’s it matter if she felt hot or cold? The place is still haunted.”
“No,” Francis shook his head, “apart from the unknown presence Fred detected in the dining-room, I have found no trace of psychic phenomena here.”
“But …” Betty Smith was near tears. “The man, that awful passage?”
“Is the result of what I can only describe as a time slip. For a short while, part of this house reverts, for reasons I have yet to determine, to the original prison which stood on this site some two hundred years ago.”
“Rubbish,” Roland Tyler growled. “Don’t listen to him. All we have seen is a picture of how the passage used to look.”
“Ever thought of going through that door and meeting that bloke in the black gear, halfway?” Francis enquired.
Roland Taylor shook his head.
“Frankly, no. I was too scared. But if I had done so, the entire picture would have disintegrated.”
“Fancy trying your luck tomorrow night?”
Taylor flushed and growled, “Certainly not. We’re paying you to do the investigating.”
“Exactly.” Francis smiled grimly. “I’m the expert. The policeman you are paying to catch the criminal, the soldier you have engaged to fight your war. Now, let’s go one step further. Think carefully. How long would you say the passage was when you first saw it?”
“Four—six feet,” Betty Smith ventured.
“Oh, no.” Nina shook her head. “Ten feet I’d say. The man came out of a—kind of mist.”
“Eight to ten feet,” Halliday stated. “Certainly not longer.”
“This evening,” Francis said softly, “I’d be willing to bet my braces on it being all of thirty feet long.”
No one spoke for a full minute, then Roland Taylor asked quietly: “What are we supposed to deduce from that?”
Francis St. Clare stared thoughtfully at the speaker, then shook his head. “I’m honestly not certain. Perhaps when I said the house had slipped back into the past, I should have said ‘was slipping.’ Sliding down a time precipice. But why? Some people—special people—have entered the past for brief periods, but purely as spectators. We seem to be on the verge of becoming actors.”
“That’s absolute nonsense,” Roland protested. “There’s no way back into the past. Shadows, images of bygone years can manifest if the conditions are r
ight, but the idea of living people being transported back is ludicrous.”
“Suppose,” St. Clare said quietly, “you come to a river. It cannot be forded and only one of you can swim. How can you cross?”
“Build a bridge?” Jennifer Halliday suggested.
“Bright girl. But how? You have plenty of rope, there are trees on both sides, but the tallest cannot span the river. A rope can be thrown across, but there is no way to anchor it. What is the solution?”
“A strong swimmer …” Leslie Haliday began.
“Ah!” Francis nodded, then chuckled with boyish glee. “Go on.”
“Could swim across taking the ends of two ropes with him. These tied to a convenient tree would make a rope bridge.”
“Exactly.” Francis began to walk from one person to another, staring into each frightened or bewildered face, pouring out a torrent of words, clearly in the grip of some intense excitement. “Two ropes and agile men could cross; the river—the limbo—would be bridged. But the important first step, the essential action, is to get a man over to the other side. Without him, the would-be travellers can only stand and …”
He paused, looked back into the empty hall, then swung round to face the seven bewildered people. “… stare into the future.”
“What the hell?” Roland exploded.
“One of them came across,” Francis was shouting. “It’s no use shaking your heads. No use mouthing platitudes—impossible, farfetched, it couldn’t happen … It has happened and one of you bloody well know it’s happened.”
The babble of voices rose. Roland Taylor sneered and seemed on the point of striking the tall, elegant young man who appeared to be enjoying their discomfort.
“You’re stark, raving mad. I was against you being called in from the start, but I never dreamed you’d come up with such a harebrained, cracked stunt as this.”
“Shut up!” Francis roared. “I said, shut up and listen. There’s no other explanation. I know it must sound fantastic to people who have only travelled along the narrow road that runs between house and office, but reason it out for yourselves. Someone—some intelligence, has bridged the great gulf that divides the past from the present. It cannot—I repeat—it cannot be a one-way operation. An anchor man was sent over and he’s here with us—now.”
Dark Detectives Page 32