The shadow had seemed to fall from the right, so he ran in that direction. He came to the head of a second stairway, the one probably in general use in former days when the reception-rooms were closed. Quite clearly he heard from somewhere below the sound of a closing door. At the risk of his neck, for on these stairs the shadows were deeper even than elsewhere, he raced down them, and found himself in a part of the house he did not think he had visited before. But again he was certain that he heard something. A cough, he thought, or was it a muffled step or perhaps a cautious signal of some kind? He hurried in the direction whence it seemed to come, his torch switched off, for he did not wish to give too clear warning of his coming. So far as he could judge he was in the west wing now, near the kitchens—he remembered there were two of them—and the other domestic offices.
He made up his mind to abandon a pursuit that had become an aimless game of hide-and-seek. Easy for any fugitive to peep and watch round corners, behind doors, through key-holes even, and so be warned in time to flee elsewhere. In this enormous and fantastic maze, where once perhaps half a hundred servants, of one sort and another, had made a bustling, active life, but which now was so silent and dark and still, it would be easy to avoid a dozen or a score of searchers. Easier still when there was but one solitary searcher.
Someone was in the house, of that Bobby was sure. Or was he sure? Had his imagination betrayed him? All old houses, no matter how silent they may seem to ears strained to listen, are in reality full of noises, echoes, rumblings, wind in the chimneys, the scuttlings of rats and mice, of this sound or of that. Even the creaking of the wainscoting can strike upon the ear and seem remote and ominous, as though in the distance men whispered secretly together.
“Getting on my nerves,” Bobby told himself impatiently. “Very likely there’s no one here at all.”
But all the same he knew there was, he knew that he was not alone, and he thought, too, that every movement he made was watched.
He tried to think of some means by which, without leaving the house, he could summon help. Collect dry wood and make a small bonfire outside in the hope that Bailey might see the smoke and come to investigate. Not too hopeful, and even if Bailey saw and came, on whose side would he be? A point on which Bobby was not very sure. For that matter, since the side door had been open, Bailey might be already in the building somewhere, using his knowledge of its interior to help to baffle Bobby’s search.
Or stand without and shout in the hope of summoning help? But he might shout all day and no one hear. Or wait till he was missed and headquarters sent to see what was happening? But that would not be till nightfall and complete darkness had come, and darkness would make search and pursuit impossible, escape easy. Even as it was, the gloom and heavy shadows in which these rooms and corridors were shrouded had proved too great a handicap for pursuit and search to succeed.
He decided again to abandon such useless efforts, and to go back to the lodge in the hope that the Baileys had returned. If he could send Bailey for help. He supposed, so far as he could judge his position, that straight on in the direction he was now facing should bring him back to the great entrance hall. So he followed the passage he was in, since it seemed to lead that way, and as he went the light from his torch he flashed occasionally here and there showed him to one side a door that was swinging slightly open. He looked at it cautiously. It opened on a flight of narrow stone steps leading down into utter darkness. He remembered the cellars in which two of his men had wandered for a while that other time, lost, smothered, according to their own account, in cobwebs and dirt.
But why was this door open now, swinging ever so slightly on silent hinges, and why were those hinges silent? Bobby threw the light of his torch upon them. They had been oiled recently, and so had been the bolts whereby the door was fastened.
So someone for some reason had wished to make access to the cellars silent and easy. Since the oiling had been done so recently, the explanation of the open door was not, as Bobby had thought it might be, any trifling lack of attention on the part of his two men. Since their visit someone else had descended through this door, and who and why? Or was it merely that the cellars were to be used as a refuge against search, a shelter from pursuit? Had the unknown, the unseen, whom he had followed all through the great, deserted spaces of the house with failure so complete, now sought safety there below in what seemed a labyrinth more complex, and darkness more complete, than even the labyrinth and the shadows above?
Or was it a trap?
Bobby had another look at those bolts. They looked solid. He drew them out from both top and bottom, so making sure they could not be shot against him. He had no desire to be made a prisoner in those murky regions, and he still had the feeling that he was being watched and spied upon. He pocketed the key as well; and, for additional precaution, he used one of the bolts to twist the staples out of form and place, so that the missing bolt could not be replaced by another piece of metal.
Satisfied, then, that he had taken every reasonable precaution, though none was likely to be required, he descended the flight of stone steps, and found himself in a vast subterranean region underlying the mass of Nonpareil. The darkness was intense, the walls were damp, here and there water dripped, the smell was of a noisome strength, the air was heavy and stagnant, from all around came a faint, angry rustling, as of indignant creatures disturbed in their immemorial sanctuary.
On each side of the passage along which Bobby was now making a slow and cautious progress were doors, some open, some closed, admitting to cellars. Into most of these cellars a little air, a few pale rays of light, penetrated from barred apertures. In others these apertures seemed to have become blocked by the long accumulation of the dirt of years, and in others it seemed as if such openings to light and air had never existed. All alike were empty, nothing left save the bare walls. One or two, though, had plainly been used for storing coal, since coal dust was so thick upon the floor that Bobby wondered whether, in the present shortage, it would not be worth while to remove it for the manufacture of briquettes or some similar purpose. Here and there broken shelving still remained, though generally the shelves seemed to have been removed, presumably for the sake of the wood.
He walked on, throwing around the light from his torch. Abruptly two small red lights became visible ahead, about a man’s height from the ground. But when he directed his torch towards them they vanished, and he realized that it had been the eyes of a rat, gleaming in the dark, that he had seen. The creature had been perched half-way up the wall where crumbling bricks permitted climbing and some crevice had seemed to offer a safe nesting place.
Bobby made up his mind to return. He felt he had had enough of this murky and unpleasant maze. Nor did it seem likely anyone could be hiding down here. Anyhow, impossible to organize any kind of effective search without more help. He remembered that his two constables he had sent to explore these nether regions had reported one cellar with a locked door, into which, therefore, they had been unable to penetrate. He wondered if he could find it, and presently, wandering on a little farther, he came to it.
It was still locked, but now the key was there, in place. Looking thoughtful, Bobby took it out. It was quite new, and of crude manufacture, certainly not the work of a skilled man. Effective enough, though, for it turned easily and silently, so that evidently oil had recently been applied here also. The door was of heavy and substantial make, and opened outwards. Bobby pulled it back and threw within the light from his torch. There, by its strong ray, he saw the prone, still figure of a man, and around his prostrate form a circle of a dozen or more great rats, one of them already nosing at his cheek, another sniffing, nibbling at his ear.
CHAPTER XVII
CAPTIVES
Bobby’s shout, the sudden flashing ray from his torch, sent that evil circle scuttling. They vanished as nightmare vanishes when a sleeper wakens. Bobby went forward and turned the prostrate man on his back. It was Clavering. Bobby looked at him thoughtfully
and doubtfully, and then took out the small first-aid case he always carried, and dressed the nibbled ear. Only superficial injury, but he supposed a rat’s bite might carry infection. There was a good-sized lump on the back of the head as well, and there had been bleeding from a deep scratch under the left eye. Probably it was the smell of blood that had drawn the rats from their holes, embolded them to approach so near. As Bobby attended to this scratch, too, he wondered, grimly, what would have happened if he had not seen the door, swinging slightly open, which led down to these cellars, or if he had not arrived when he did. For a rat’s teeth are sharp, it can bite fast and deep, and the jugular vein might have been reached before consciousness returned.
An unpleasant thought, and grisly the picture that came into his mind of rats busy at a ghastly feast. Now he saw Clavering had opened his eyes and was looking at him. Bobby said:
“How are you feeling?”
Clavering began to struggle to get into a sitting position. Bobby helped him. Clavering rested his back against an empty packing-case and looked round him with an air of mild surprise. He felt tenderly the back of his head, and looked still more surprised. Finally he discovered his monocle, and tried and failed to put it in position. Then he said slowly:
“You, was it? I say, pretty drastic, what? You might have said something first.” Then he felt his ear, and started the bleeding again, so that when he took his hand away there was a little blood on it. He said: “What did that?”
“Rats,” said Bobby.
“Rats yourself,” retorted Clavering indignantly. “It hurts.”
“I mean,” explained Bobby, “rats were starting in to make a meal with your ear as hors-d’oeuvres. Who knocked you out?”
“Wasn’t it you?”
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Bobby impatiently. “Of course it wasn’t. Didn’t you see or hear anyone?”
Clavering attempted to shake his head. As a result everything started to revolve very rapidly around him, so that he felt it necessary to hold on hard to the packing-case against which he was supporting himself.
“I say, I do feel groggy,” he muttered, as the cellar began to recover some degree of stability. “I say, what did you mean just now? Rats?”
“I mean rats when I say rats,” retorted Bobby. “What do you suppose? Someone knocked you out and left you lying there. You hurt your face falling, and it bled. The rats smelled the blood and came along—a dozen or so. One was starting on that ear of yours when I came in. I’ve dressed it. That ought to stop any risk of blood poisoning.”
Clavering had been slowly getting to his feet, but now he sat down abruptly on the empty packing-case. Bobby, turning the ray from his torch here and there, saw that the cellar held a collection of odds and ends of all sorts and kinds—a broken wringing machine, an old bath, some ancient and damaged gardening tools, an old iron bedstead or two, broken chairs, a good deal of crockery, all of it chipped and cracked, apparently, and so on and so on, an indescribable medley of rubbish indeed. Even in these days of salvage it hardly looked as if it would do much more than pay the cost of collection and carriage. The cellar itself seemed larger than most, and was dimly lighted by a few rays of daylight that struggled in through a small grating high up in the outside wall.
From his brief inspection Bobby turned back to Clavering, still sitting on his packing-case.
“Feeling better?” Bobby asked him.
“No,” said Clavering. “Look. You—didn’t mean that, did you? Kidding, weren’t you? I mean to say—rats?”
“So do I,” Bobby answered. “Let’s have another look at that ear of yours. You’ve started it bleeding again, pulling at it.” He wiped it with a scrap of lint from his first-aid box and put on some more dressing and then had another look at the scratch under Clavering’s eye. It looked red and angry, and Bobby attended to it, too. He said: “Feel able to walk?”
“I do,” Clavering answered. “My inside doesn’t—it keeps trying to turn over or come up or something. Is that a rat over there? I think I’ve got the shivers. “
Bobby threw a bit of broken crockery in the direction whence there had come a sound of rustling. It ceased. Bobby said:
“They won’t bother us, they wouldn’t anyone who could move. It was only because you were unconscious they dared come so close. As soon as you moved they would have vanished.”
“I’ll leave a legacy in my will for the endowment of rat catchers,” Clavering said. He was beginning, now, to seem more normal, his voice was almost natural, his hands steadier. “I wonder if I could get some poison gas to let loose down here,” he added meditatively.
“What were you doing here?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, the Vermeer, of course,” Clavering answered.
“You didn’t expect to find it in a place like this, did you?”
“Might—you can never tell. You spotted I was trying to trace the dealers who bought things at the Nonpareil sale. One of them told me a pal of his bought a lot of stuff—left overs that nobody wanted. He couldn’t manage removal at the time, and got permission to store it in one of the cellars. But then he was killed in a blitz, and no one knew if he had left any relations or heirs of any sort to whom the stuff here belonged, or who was responsible for moving it. No one bothered. It wasn’t worth anything, and it’s been lying here ever since. Well, it struck me there was just a chance the Vermeer might be there—not likely, but possible. It’s believed to have been on a panel, and some people seem to think a picture isn’t a picture unless it’s on canvas. I thought there was the off-chance it might have been put aside with odd bits of wood like bits of loose panelling. Anyhow, it seemed worth trying. I couldn’t make any one hear at the lodge when I got here, so I came on to the house. The door was open, but no sign of Bailey. I thought he must be somewhere around. I couldn’t find him, but I did find the door leading down to the cellars. I came across this place, and I was poking about in the rubbish—no sign of the Vermeer, of course, I didn’t think there would be—when I thought I heard someone. I went to the door and called out, but there wasn’t any answer. I turned to go back and have another look—and that’s about all I remember. Next thing I knew you were there, and I thought it was you laid me out. But I suppose cops don’t do that, they take you in instead.”
Bobby listened to all this in silence. It might be true, he supposed. Or it might not. Other possible explanations crossed his mind. He said presently:
“Then you can’t tell me anything to show who it was?”
Clavering again shook his head, though this time with less disastrous results. He said meditatively:
“I never did like rats.”
“I thought I had a glimpse of a youngish man of middle height in a grey suit in one of the passages,” Bobby said. “Did you see anyone like that?”
“I never saw anyone at all,” Clavering repeated. “There was a bloke hanging about in the road outside when I got here. I remember seeing him watching me while I was trying to make them hear at the lodge. I didn’t take much notice.”
“What was he like?”
“I hardly know—looked like a labourer, burly sort of chap, flat nose and broken teeth, slouched along with his hands in his pockets, and looked as if he were watching you, but hoped you hadn’t noticed him. I don’t think I liked his looks much, but I didn’t pay him any special attention.”
Bobby produced a print of the photograph of the dead man whose body had been found in the canal.
“Any likeness?” he asked.
Clavering looked puzzled.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Might be the same bloke—I couldn’t be sure. His twin brother perhaps.”
“This whole case seems to be rotten with twins,” Bobby grumbled, and put the photograph back in his pocket. “Had the fellow any scar on his face?”
“Not that I remember,” Clavering answered. “I didn’t take much notice,” he repeated. “I don’t suppose I should have noticed him at all but for the way I saw
him watching when I was trying to make the Baileys hear.” He got cautiously to his feet. “How about getting out of this hole?” he said. “I’ve had about enough of it, and my inside seems more restful.”
Bobby said he had had enough of it, too, but he would have another look round first. He spent a few minutes turning over some of the rubbish. He brought down clattering a pile of rusty old pots and pans that had been insecurely heaped up in one corner, he used his torch to peer behind the different piles of rubbish and into the various corners. He found nothing of any interest. Clavering, watching him, said presently:
“Have you got Vermeer fever, too?”
“There’s been one murder in this house already,” Bobby said. “And it looks as if someone didn’t much like you nosing about down here. I should like to know why.”
“Isn’t the Vermeer explanation enough for anything?” Clavering asked.
“Possibly,” Bobby agreed, “but possibly not the complete explanation. If I were you I should give it a rest. The thing has nearly cost you your life already. Better run no more risks.”
There was almost a religious fervour in Clavering’s voice as he answered:
“You could risk your life for a smaller thing.”
Bobby shrugged his shoulders slightly. A painting, the greatest painting, the Peruzzi frescoes by Giotto, for instance, he remembered seeing as a boy, and still remembered as vividly as though he had seen them yesterday, could not, he thought, be valued in terms of life. To do so would be to put the work of man in art above the work of God in life. However, this was no time for the consideration of such questions.
“Well, come along,” he said.
He went towards the door, but when he tried to open it, it resisted his efforts. Most of the time he had kept his torch switched off, to conserve the battery as long as possible, since batteries, too, are scarce. Besides, there was enough light coming through the barred aperture in the open wall to see by. But now he used the light of the torch to see what was stopping the door from opening. From behind Clavering asked:
There's a Reason for Everything: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 12