by Derek Smith
There was no wind.
Algy Lawrence, who till that moment had felt nothing but pleasure at her touch, was conscious of a sudden chill.
Annoyed with himself, he said quietly:
"They're still, now."
His tone implied a question. She shook her head; and a wisp of hair strayed charmingly over her forehead.
"No, I didn't imagine it. Those bushes were moving. As if someone—." She broke off.
Lawrence said:
"A poacher, perhaps."
"So close to the house?"
Algy had to admit it wasn't very likely. "Does it matter though? If it was a prowler, he's gone now."
She nodded, and colour touched her cheeks. "I'm edgy and nervous, I suppose."
"Of course. You're worried about Roger."
"Yes." She shivered. "He's determined to go through with this silly business." She tried to laugh. "Imagine! A tryst with a ghost. Ridiculous, isn't it? Yet I'd do anything—to make him change his mind."
Lawrence looked into her troubled eyes and decided Roger Querrin was a stubborn idiot who didn't appreciate his luck.
"Never mind," he said quietly. "We'll look after him for you."
She slipped her arm round his, and her face was sunny again.
"You're nice," she said. "I like you."
"Thanks," said Algy; and meant it.
"Come along," said Audrey. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the family."
"Weren't you going out?"
"I was only going down to the village. Don't worry about that."
They fell into step. Lawrence thought that she moved with a superb and cat-like grace, and he liked the engaging pressure of her arm against his.
He murmured: "You mentioned—the family," and inflected the words as a question.
She looked a trifle startled, then blushed. "Oh! I meant Roger, principally." She laughed. "Imagine. Already I'm making noises like a wife."
Algy said sincerely:
"Roger's a lucky man."
"Thank you." She looked into his pleasant, lazy face; and liked what she saw. She went on:
"Then there's Uncle Russ."
Algy recalled that Chief Inspector Castle's references to Russell Craig had been anything but complimentary. He detected too an odd trace of uncertainty in the girl's tone as she mentioned the name.
It was a mixture, almost, of affection and embarrassment. Then Audrey said with amusement:
"I hope you won't disapprove of him."
"Should I?"
"Most people do, I'm afraid."
"Why?"
The twinkle of humour in her voice grew more pronounced. "He's an unhealthy influence."
Lawrence said he liked unhealthy influences.
By this time they had reached the house. Audrey drew free of Algy's arm and started up the steps, then turned back to the young man thoughtfully.
"We needn't," she murmured, "make a formal entrance."
"No?"
"No."
She hesitated. Lawrence said obligingly:
"I'm a furtive character. Sneak me in through the back."
She laughed. "I wasn't being rude. I thought you'd want to explore the ground."
Algy understood. He said:
"Hardinge mentioned there were two approaches to the Room."
(The capital letter was implicit and accepted in the minds of both: they had no need of definition.)
"That's right. From the passage; and from outside the house. That's the way"—she paused—"I'd like to show you now."
"Let's go then."
Lawrence stepped back, and the girl skipped gracefully down the steps to rejoin him.
She led the way along a flagged path that skirted the house and ran roughly parallel to its somewhat irregular contours. Between the path and the building proper lay wide, as yet unplanted, flower beds: the whole an expanse of soft brown earth broken only by a right-angled extension of the footway running up to a side door.
Audrey said:
"All this looks pretty barren now. But then, old Simon Turner was no gardener."
Algy glanced at her. She had spoken the name without any particular emphasis. He followed his thought out in words.
"Evidently you don't share Peter's suspicions."
She looked puzzled, then her face cleared again. Algy Lawrence decided approvingly that she was intelligent as well as beautiful.
"About Turner, you mean? Peter mentioned the talk he had with you." She paused. "No, I don't think old Simon's threats meant anything."
She added: "He's rather stupid."
"You don't have to be intelligent," said Algy mildly, "to be evil."
A silence fell between them.
They turned another corner. The flagged path stretched on before them under the partial shelter of leafy trees. To their left it was bordered by thickly clustered bushes; but to their right, sloping up to the house, was the usual expanse of bare brown earth.
Audrey's face had altered subtly. A pulse pounded in her throat.
She said queerlv:
"That's—the room."
He let his gaze follow hers.
Large french windows, closed now, gave access to the house. Behind them a man moved dimly. Lawrence had the swift and disturbing impression of an animal in a trap.
He glanced at the girl, then stared in wonder: for her face had changed again and her eyes were bright with love.
She said softly:
"That's Roger."
Lawrence nodded and smiled, though an unreasoning envy had tugged briefly at his heart.
They stepped off the path and Algy felt his shoes sinking into the softness of the soil.
Audrey said, by way of apology:
"We've planned an extension of the path."
"Leading up to the house?"
"Yes. But these things take time."
She spoke absently. All her attention had slipped away to the sturdy man pushing open the french windows to greet them.
Algy Lawrence, with an inward sigh, allowed himself to be introduced to Miss Craig's fiancé.
Roger Querrin was a strongly built man some ten years Peter's senior. He had steady brown eyes in a pleasant unhandsome face. His jaw-line was etched with determination; strength and decision seemed apparent in the set of his shoulders.
Lawrence, regarding him with a prejudiced eye, reflected that Roger could also be a pig-headed ass.
The two men shook hands. Querrin's clasp was firm and friendly.
"Hallo, Lawrence. It's good of you to come. Though I don't mind telling you," Roger added with a smile, "you're wasting your time."
Algy grinned. He said:
"I hope so—for your sake."
Querrin stared. Then he put back his head and laughed.
"Good for you. Come in."
Lawrence walked through the open windows.
Then he stopped on the threshold, his mouth taut and unsmiling.
Perhaps it was the pinched look of fear on the girl's face as she went before him; perhaps it was the sight of Peter Querrin, standing uneasily in the shadows. Perhaps it was only the tyranny of his own imagination.
But he seemed to pass from the freedom and sanity of an outside world into the shade of a monstrous evil.
Lawrence saw with a slight start of surprise that Roger Querrin alone was quite unaffected by any premonition of danger. His laughter had sounded hollow enough, but it was entirely genuine.
His brother, however, seemed more nervous than ever. A nervous tic jumped intermittently at the corner of his mouth.
"Hallo. You found your way, then?"
"That's right," returned Algy gently. He could see that the other young man was trying to cover a deep anxiety with the tatters of banality.
Peter went on:
"I put your bag in your room." He paused. "You fixed things up—with Hardinge?"
"Thanks… Yes, I did. He'll arrive this evening."
"Eh, what's that?" Roger Querrin had caught their
words, and turned away from his fiancée with a grin. "You're not dragging the good Sergeant up here too?"
Lawrence inclined his head. "That's the plan," he agreed.
"The devil take it, then," said Roger with a kind of bluff contempt. "Peter, you are a young ass. You've thrown everyone into a panic."
"Everyone," remarked Algy dryly, "except you."
Querrin might have had little imagination but he was not lacking in perception. He looked at Lawrence closely, then said quietly:
"You think I'm being unreasonable."
"Perhaps."
Audrey moved closer and put her hand on Roger's shoulder: he patted it absently, but kept his gaze on Lawrence.
"It hasn't occurred to you," he said without rancour, "that I've made no fuss about this—that I'm the only one in fact who seems to have kept his head?"
"I'd rather," said Lawrence coolly, "you kept your life."
Querrin felt the girl's fingers clutch hard on the cloth of his coat; and in the tiny silence, heard something rattle in Peter's throat.
Roger turned on his brother with something like relief.
"Peter." His voice was almost brutal. "You've gone white. Pull yourself together." He finished flatly: "You young fool."
Peter Querrin flushed, opened his lips as if to speak, then went in silence from the room.
Roger had the grace to feel slightly ashamed. When he turned back to Lawrence, the anger had died from his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But Peter's been getting on everybody's nerves, including mine."
"He's worried about you."
"I know it," said Querrin, with a good-humoured growl. "But, dammit, I didn't ask him to act like this." He eyed Algy shrewdly. "Be honest, Lawrence. If it wasn't for young Peter's hysteria, would you give this plan of mine a second's thought?"
Lawrence said honestly:
"Probably not. But the way things are, we'd all prefer you didn't keep this, um, appointment. What do you hope to gain by it?"
"Blast it, man," returned Querrin irritably, "I don't hope to gain anything. Where's your sense of tradition?"
Lawrence knew he had struck the hard vein of obstinacy in the older man's make-up, but made one final attempt to dissuade him.
"You won't change your mind?"
Roger felt the swift pressure of Audrey's fingers on his shoulder again, and he hesitated.
Then he said slowly:
"No."
The hope which had flared suddenly in the girl's eyes flickered and went out.
Lawrence said equably:
"All right, then. It's your funeral."
Querrin's mouth twisted wryly in humorous protest.
He said:
"You might have phrased that more tactfully. Come now," and he waved his hand vaguely round the room, "you don't really believe there's danger here?"
Lawrence, by this time, had thrown off the phantoms. He had surrendered his imagination to his intelligence; and now was concerned only with the threat of physical violence. Which, as he both admitted and hoped, might be entirely non-existent.
He glanced round the room with deceptive casualness. Avoiding Roger's question, he murmured:
"You haven't modernized this room much."
"No." Querrin shrugged away a slight discomfiture. "I had the whole house done over, yet somehow—."
He broke off and smiled at his fiancée. "Audrey doesn't approve. But I couldn't bear to tamper with this part of the building. That's why there's no electric light, either in here or the passage outside."
Lawrence eyed an old-fashioned oil lamp on the table and reflected on the price that is paid by lovers of the past.
Roger guessed what he was thinking.
"Don't you approve either?"
Algy said he liked his creature comforts.
"So," murmured Audrey gently, "do I."
Querrin smiled down at her. "You hate this room, don't you? You'd like to destroy it."
She nodded.
She said:
"It's so—oppressive."
It was all that, and more. Lawrence stared at the old grim-looking furniture, the long musty drapes by the french windows which were the room's only source of daylight, and the knife which hung over the mantel.
He crossed over to the fireplace and stretched up his hands to the dagger.
As the blade slipped out of its sheath, it glinted dully. He felt an indefinable sense of repulsion.
"A dangerous toy," he muttered softly.
Behind him, Audrey gave a little gasp.
Querrin said quietly:
"Put it back, Lawrence."
Algy slid the knife home again. The faint click of the blade against its casing seemed somehow very loud.
Audrey Craig said with muted urgency:
"Darling Roger. Won't you get rid of that horrible thing?"
Querrin soothed her.
"Perhaps, when our ghost is laid to-night. Till then," he finished with a smile, "I wouldn't feel justified in tampering with old Tom's property."
Lawrence asked:
"Is this really the knife that killed young Martin all those years ago?"
"It could be. Though," Roger admitted with a shrug, "we don't really know. The dagger is old enough anyway."
Audrey interrupted, with a shiver.
"Let's not talk about it."
Lawrence moved away from the fireplace. His face wore its usual expression of amiable laziness, but Audrey for one was not deceived. She knew he was inspecting the room with an eye to Roger's defence.
The fair-haired young man walked over to the french windows and examined them carefully. They could be secured top and bottom by two stout bolts. Not much danger there, he thought approvingly.
He peered through the glass panels at the double line of footprints he and the girl had left behind them. There was no way then of reaching the room from outside the house without leaving tell-tale traces… Better and better. He began to feel more cheerful.
There were no other windows, and the only remaining exit was the door in the opposite corner.
Lawrence crossed over to examine it.
The door had no bolt, but the lock was stout and new.
Algy straightened up, then looked a question.
"You see," said Roger Querrin by way of reply, "I haven't been entirely unco-operative. Steve Castle suggested a fresh lock, so I had a man down from London to-day. There's only one key. And this is it."
He pulled a key chain from his trousers pocket and showed Lawrence the bright new metal.
Algy murmured his approval. "Good. Hang on to that and we shan't have to worry about anybody making a duplicate."
Roger's eyebrows went up.
"There's no fear of that, surely?"
Lawrence was studiously banal. "You never know."
"No," said Querrin heavily. "I don't." His tone betrayed a certain impatience.
Algy said sleepily:
"Let's have a look at the passage."
He swung open the door and glanced outside.
A long corridor stretched before him between blank panelled walls towards closed double doors at the end of it. A solitary window, set half way along in the outside wall, did little to dispel the murky gloom.
Leaving Roger Querrin alone with his fiancée, Lawrence strolled out of the room and along the passage.
His footfalls were entirely muffled by a thick new carpet: the silence seemed brooding and oppressive.
Reaching the window, he examined it thoughtfully. Then he pushed up the frame and leaned out.
Immediately below, and stretching on either side, were the wide unplanted flower-beds. Straight ahead and parallel with the house, was the flagged path he had followed with Audrey Craig.
Once again, there was no method of reaching this part of the building without leaving clear traces in the soil.
He re-closed the window and pushed over the catch. All that remained now was to test its security from outside.
A voice bro
ke in on his thoughts. He turned to find Peter Querrin at his elbow.
"C-can I help you?"
"If you like." Lawrence explained that he wanted to make sure that the window, once fastened, could not be opened from outside the house.
Peter nodded eagerly, then set off through the double doorway again.
A minute or two later, he appeared on the path outside. Walking rather gingerly over the bare brown earth, he picked up an old wooden box which was lying nearby and upturned it directly beneath the window. Using this as an improvised step, he brought himself up to a convenient level and began to rattle enthusiastically at the frame.
"All right," said Lawrence, through the glass.
Peter, however, was by no means finished. Clambering up on the wide sill, he redoubled his onslaught.
Algy, struggling with an impolite urge to laugh, waved him down. Young Querrin's unintentional comedy had at least convinced Lawrence that the window was secure against any attack short of actual destruction.
Peter climbed down. Algy made his way along the corridor to meet him as he re-entered the house.
Pulling open the double doors, Lawrence twitched aside the curtains that barred his way and found himself in the main hall.
A broad staircase swept up to the bedrooms above. To his right a short passage led up to the side door he had noticed on his walk with Audrey.
As he watched, the door pushed open and Querrin came in from the gardens.
Peter asked nervously:
"Are you satisfied?"
"Well enough," returned Algy.
"It wouldn't matter—about the window, I mean," continued Querrin jerkily, "only Roger won't let us stand guard in the passage itself. He says he has to be alone."
Algy grinned. "You weren't proposing to squat on the mat all night, were you?"
"There isn't," said Peter anxiously, "any mat."
"I was speaking," replied Lawrence patiently, "figuratively." He hoped Querrin's jitters wouldn't get the better of him. "We can stand guard here. Hardinge will watch from the garden. There's no need to worry."
Peter nodded, and fumbled a cigarette from a crumpled packet to gently quivering lips.
Lawrence pulled out his lighter and flicked up a flame. Querrin drew deeply and felt the soothing smoke seep down to his lungs. His nerves were still bad, yet the approach of zero hour was bringing its own queer calm, and he knew he could do what was required of him.