Fear by Night: A Golden Age Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  She slipped out of her clothes and blew out the light. She said, “Darling Charles!” as she snuggled down in bed. “Angel darling Charles, do come quickly!” And almost at once she was asleep.

  Dreams are such strange things. Ann slipped straight into the middle of one and found herself running hand in hand with Charles Anstruther down the long, steep slope of the Milky Way. The starlight swirled past them as they ran, like a mist which is driven by the wind. It didn’t hide things as a mist does; it only made them look strange and far away. The Milky Way was very slippery. It shone under their feet as they ran. Charles held her hand in a very warm, strong clasp, and they went rushing down to the loch, which was as dark and as smooth as a piece of the midnight sky. The starlight didn’t reach it at all. The water was cold to their feet, as cold as ice. They didn’t sink down into it at all; they ran on the cold glassy surface. And then all at once there was a sound behind them. It wasn’t a sound that Ann had ever heard before, but when she heard it in her dream her heart beat with one great hammer stroke and then stopped, because this was Terror itself coming up behind them, formless and dreadful. If the dream had gone on for another moment, the Terror would have had them both, but in that instant she woke and found herself sitting up in bed with her hands at her breast and her breath coming in gasps.

  The room was not quite dark. The curtains were thin, and the moon made a pale square of the window. Against this square something moved. Ann’s hands pressed down upon the leaping fear at her heart, and as she caught her breath in another gasp, Mary’s voice said,

  “Whisht!”

  Ann was shaken by a shudder of relief. She didn’t know what she had thought. She had not indeed had time for conscious thought at all, but the fear that had been in her dream had followed her. It fell back now into the darkness to which it belonged. She relaxed and said,

  “What is it?”

  The shadow that was Mary came a step nearer.

  “Whisht!” she said again. And then she was on her knees by the bed and gripping the edge of it so hard that all the frame was shaken.

  “What is it, Mary? Are you ill?”

  She could see the shake of the head that meant no.

  “What is it then?”

  “I’m feared.”

  Was it Mary’s fear that had been the Terror of her dream? She could feel it now, shuddering through the dark figure by the bed, shaking them both.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m feared for ye.”

  “For me?”

  “Ay.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of the water.”

  “What water?”

  “I bade ye keep frae it, but ye’ll no keep frae it—it’ll draw ye.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a mune the nicht, and it’s ay when there’s a mune that it comes.”

  “What comes, Mary?”

  “Souming in the water.”

  The broad accent puzzled Ann for a moment. She made a guess at the word.

  “Swimming?”

  Mary’s voice dropped and flattened out. It was like hearing a ghost speak.

  “Ay,” she said, “souming in the water.”

  “What?”

  “I dinna ken—I’m feared for ye.”

  Ann put out a hand and met a rigid shoulder. The shuddering had stopped. There was only a thin calico night-dress between her palm and Mary’s cold flesh. It was very cold.

  “Mary—what do you mean? You must tell me.”

  “Dinna go in a boat—dinna go near the water.”

  “Mary, is there really something in the water?”

  “Ay.”

  “What is it?”

  “It comes souming in the munelicht—I’m feared for ye. Keep frae the water.”

  “Ssh!” said Ann. “What’s that?” She spoke with her lips so close to Mary’s ear that the words could scarcely have travelled beyond it.

  Out on the landing a board had creaked. There was a moment in which neither of them breathed. The board creaked again.

  Ann slipped out of bed, went to the door, and opened it. If anyone was prying, she meant to know who it was. But the landing was dark and felt empty. Old boards creak sometimes of themselves, old stairs repeat the footfalls of the day. She struck a match and held it up. A momentary yellow flicker showed the landing bare of all but shadows. Like one of them, Mary slipped past her and was gone. The flame of the match dropped to a yellow point and went out.

  Ann stepped back and shut her door. She felt a need for light. She went to the window and pulled the curtains back. The moon stood quite clear of the hills. It was very nearly full. It made strange shadows on the edge of the lawn. It showed the trees in a light that robbed them of life and colour, making them look like the forgotten trees of a dead world.

  From her window Ann could see the water. Mary’s words came back to her—“Keep frae the water.” A light shudder went over her as she thought how near the water she had been that night—not quite down to the edge, but very near. What could there be in the water to hurt her, or to hurt anyone? She remembered something she had heard about another Highland loch—of how it was a thousand feet deep, deeper than anywhere in the North Sea, and that there were still people living who believed that it contained monsters, huge and shapeless, which rose up out of the deep waters for a warning of death. That was Loch Morar. Perhaps this loch had some story of the same kind, and Mary was superstitious. Perhaps … But she had seen something move in the shadow after Charles had swum over the strait.

  Ann began to feel cold and a little sick. If there was something in the loch, and if she had seen it moving there, then it had been horribly near Charles as he swam. Suppose the water had broken before him and given up some monster out of its depths.…

  “Keep frae the water or it’ll get ye.”

  Ann put out a hand to steady herself against the wall. She had placed the signal that would call Charles back, and perhaps he would come as he had come before, swimming in the moonlight or in a moon-shot dusk—and then the waters breaking and something rising out of them.

  A cold fear went over her from head to foot. Charles mustn’t come—not yet. But if he mustn’t come, then the green branch must be taken away from the boat-house roof, and it must be taken away at once. Charles would swim over in the dusk—early dusk or late. If she were coming secretly to the shore to look for a signal she would take care to come in the dusk before the day, at the loneliest hour in all the twenty-four. It was wearing towards midnight now. Suppose Charles was over there in the fold between the hills, waiting to come down to the shore as soon as there was light enough to tell green bough from shadow across the strait. She saw him, in a vivid picture, come down to the water’s edge and strip and wade in. Everything was in shadow behind him, and the water like dark grey glass. She saw him swim. And then the waters broke and a blackness rose from them, and Charles was gone.

  Almost as the picture was formed, her movement shattered it. She had slipped her night-gown off and was putting on her clothes. She was very quick and she made no sound. Instead of her cotton dress she put on a dark skirt and jumper. Then she took her shoes in her hand and went down in her stocking feet. The stairs had creaked all by themselves just now, but they did not creak as Ann went down. She turned the key, opened the front door, and when she had closed it sat down upon the step and put on her shoes.

  Now she must cross the lawn, and if there were anyone to see her she would be seen. The grass was not green any more, but a blanched grey under the moon, with queer heavy shadows on the farther side. The dew wetted her feet as she ran. She had time to feel how damp they were when she stood listening under the trees.

  The moon shone full on the face of the house. Ann’s window was the only open one. The closed panes looked like blind eyes staring at her without sight. Her own open window showed the dark room behind it. Anything might be watching her from there.

  “My own room—nobody’s
watching me.” Nothing moved or stirred. One dark eye and three blank ones went on looking at Ann.

  She gave herself a shake and turned down the path to the beach. She needn’t go the whole way down. She could scramble along the steep bank to the place from which she had dropped the branch which was her signal to Charles. She broke another branch as she went. Now, if she caught this sapling in the crook of her arm, she could fish for the branch she had dropped. It was really quite easy to entangle the two boughs; birches had such a lot of small twigs.

  With both branches in her hand she swung herself back to the track. You couldn’t call it a path, for it was only a few inches wide, but such as it was, it seemed to run on to the headland on the right of the landing place. Ann pushed her branches away amongst the undergrowth and followed the track. She could not go back until she had looked out over the loch.

  At first there was a tangle of trailing thorny growth—bramble or wild raspberry. Her skirts were caught and her stockings fretted. There were trees and bushes to hide her. Then the undergrowth ceased and the trees grew sparser. She was in full moonlight. The track ceased. The ground sloped down and then rose sharply to the piled boulders of the headland.

  Ann climbed up to the highest point and stood there looking out over the water. She could see a long way. On the left the loch wound inland, and the last, least winding showed amongst the hills like melted silver. On the right it went away to the jutting cliff which hid the sea, long miles of it, shining under the moon. The island felt very small and dark on the bright mirror of the water. Right in front of her was the shore, and the ruined house, and the road which ran away to hide among the hills. The moon was almost overhead. Ann looked up and saw it very bright, and white, and clear, with a sharp cutting-edge that looked as if it would shear through any cloud. There were clouds about it now, light filmy vapours which shone with a reflected glow.

  Ann looked at the sky, and the moon, and the water. The air was warm and very still. There was a sound somewhere, but she could not tell what it was, it was so faint. Then, as she turned her head to listen, it came again, a strange booming that put a tremor on the air and faded away into silence. Ann put her hand to her throat. What was it? It was so vague a sound, so hardly caught, and yet the air still shook with it. It would have been an eerie sound at noon under a high sun. At midnight in grey moonlight it set more than the air shaking.

  She let herself down into a crouching position and held to a jutting point of rock. There was another sound now, a sound of water lapping. The first of the misty clouds just touched the moon and dimmed it as the polished surface of the water broke in foam. Ann saw the whitening ripples. The light dimmed, brightened, and failed. The surface of the water was an even grey patched with foam.

  And then something broke the foam. The ripples fell away from it with a gurgling sound. Ann felt the terror of her dream. There was something moving in the water. The black line of it stretched to a monstrous length. It might be a shadow under the hidden moon—only no shadow moved like that and churned the water into foam. For a moment something reared up dark and formless. Then the strait foamed and the thing was gone. The wreath of cloud passed on, and the moon shone down. There was a line of white upon the water between the island and the shore. There was nothing else. The booming sound came again from very far away.

  Ann put up her hand to her chin, because her teeth were chattering and she mustn’t make any noise in this horrible shining silent place. There mustn’t be any real sound. If you moved, something might hear you and come back, threshing the water into a white track of foam.

  It was a quarter of an hour before she could force herself to move, and then only in the dark of a passing cloud.

  The front door was as she had left it. She locked it and had lifted her foot to the first step of the stair, when she heard a sound in the house. There was no light. Her hand was on the baluster and her foot upon the stair. The sound came from the old part of the house. From the kitchen? She didn’t know, and she didn’t wait to know.

  She ran up the stairs with her shoes in her hand, and was in her room with the door shut, whilst the blood still drummed in her ears. She leaned against the panels, holding the handle in a hard terrified grip. There was no key that she could turn and no bolt that she could shoot. And there was someone coming up the stairs. Her terror took her past all reason. It might have been the formless shadow of the loch rising up into the house, by the fear she felt.

  Then Jimmy Halliday spoke, and Gale Anderson answered him. She couldn’t hear any words, only the two voices, and the sound of their feet. Both sounds died away. A door shut with a click, and another more softly.

  Ann felt very cold. She took off her clothes with fumbling fingers and crept into bed. She did not think that she would sleep, but she slept at once, and only woke when the sun looked in through her uncurtained window.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Charles Anstruther got into his car and drove away he had every intention of returning to the island. He did not stay, because he could not continue to swim the strait every time he wanted to talk to Ann. He proposed, therefore, to find the nearest fishing village and there hire a boat. He supposed that this would be possible.

  He came in the morning to Ardgair, which boasts a small square whitewashed inn and a cluster of little grey cottages down by the water-side. Having breakfasted, he inquired of the landlord as to whether a boat could be hired and of whom, and was presently in conversation with Mr. John McLean, a very polite old gentleman with a grey beard and frosty blue eyes. He had a boat to be hired—oh yes, by all means. And on this promising opening some pleasant digressions on the weather, the fishing season, and kindred topics—a conversation between gentlemen neither of whom would be so impolite as to hurry the other.

  And where might Mr. Anstruther be wanting to fish?

  Mr. Anstruther hesitated to confess that he didn’t really want to fish at all, but this seemed to be the moment to mention Loch Dhu. And at once an unmistakeable blight fell upon the proceedings. There was some tacking backwards and forwards, and then a definite retreat.

  When was it that Mr. Anstruther would be wanting the boat? To-day? Well then, he was afraid it couldn’t be managed. To-morrow?—“Indeed, I am very sorry, Mr. Anstruther, but it just will not be possible.” The day after?—“Perhaps there is someone else who could oblige you.”

  And so, with no reason given, the prospect of hiring Mr. McLean’s boat receded and became one of the vast company of might-have-beens. Courtesies passed, and Charles went on his way. It took him, after recourse to the inn-keeper, to a black-haired and black-browed young man who was mending a net on the doorstep of one of the cottages. This, it appeared, was Donald McLean, part proprietor of a boat with his brother John.

  Once again everything went smoothly until Loch Dhu came into the conversation, when the young man’s black brows drew together and he said abruptly,

  “We’ll be overhauling the boat this week—we’ll not be able to hire her.”

  Charles leaned against a low stone wall in front of the cottage.

  “What’s the matter with Loch Dhu?” he said.

  The young man mended his net in silence.

  Charles repeated his question.

  He got a dark look and the rough side of Donald’s tongue. The boat was his own and he was overhauling her, and that was the end of it.

  Charles went back to the inn.

  “What’s all this about Loch Dhu?” he said. “Everyone’s got a boat to hire until I say I want to fish Loch Dhu, and then they’re off. What’s the matter with it?”

  The landlord was a little brisk man with a quick way of speech. He rubbed his chin and took up Charles’ words as a man does when he wants to gain time.

  “The matter with it? There’s nothing the matter with it that I know about, but there’ll be better fishing along the coast—oh, without doubt there’ll be grand fishing if you go the other way. There’s no fishing worth mentioning to be had on Loc
h Dhu. And that’s not taking into consideration that there are very dangerous currents setting in that way, and the channel just crowded with rocks.”

  “Rocks?” said Charles with a sarcastic intonation.

  The landlord nodded. He was another Donald McLean. His natural flow of speech returned. The blessed word rocks appeared to have restored it. Nowhere along the whole coast were there such rocks as beset the entrance to Loch Dhu. In fact, between the rocks and the currents, if you were to get a boat in without smashing her, you’d need to stay there, for you’d never get her out again.

  “Then why don’t those men say so?” said Charles.

  Mr. McLean stole a sly look at his guest.

  “They would not be wishing to give offence,” he suggested.

  “The last one didn’t seem to be bothering himself about that.”

  The landlord rubbed his chin.

  “Would that be Donald?”

  “Yes.”

  “He is a rude fellow You will not be taking any notice of him. He is a good fisherman, but he has no manners.”

  Charles smiled.

  “Yet he didn’t tell me this story about rocks and currents. He said he wanted to overhaul his boat.”

  Mr. McLean shrugged his shoulders. Donald was a young man without any manners and quite unaccountable.

  Charles continued to smile.

  “Is there anyone in this place who will take me into Loch Dhu?”

  In the end, and after a good deal of talk, he arrived at the conclusion that there was not. It was all very mysterious and very exasperating. Two undoubted facts emerged. Loch Dhu was considered dangerous. And no one would hire Charles a boat.

  He sat down to lunch in a puzzled frame of mind. If Loch Dhu was dangerous on account of its rocky inlet and its currents, why didn’t the men say so frankly? He had tried three or four of them, and they had all shut up like clams the moment he mentioned the loch. When questioned no one had anything to say. No one mentioned rocks or currents, no one mentioned anything. There was something odd about it.