CHAPTER II
THE FROZEN FLAMES
Merriton Towers had been called the loneliest spot in England by manyof the tourists who chanced to visit the Fen district, and it was nomisnomer. Nigel, having seen it some thirteen years before, found thathis memory had dimmed the true vision of the place considerably; thatwhere he had builded romance, romance was not. Where he had softenedharsh outlines, and peopled dark corridors with his own fancies, thosesame outlines had taken on a grimness that he could hardly believepossible, and the long, dark corridors of his mind's vision were longerand darker and lonelier than he had ever imagined any spot could be.
It was a handsome place, no doubt, in its gaunt, gray, prisonlike way.And, too, it had a moat and a miniature portcullis that rather tickledhis boyish fancy. The furnishings, however, had an appalling grimnessthat took the very heart out of one. Chairs which seemed to have grown intheir places for centuries crowded the corners of hallway and stairs likegigantic nightmares of their original prototypes. Monstrous curtains ofred brocade, grown purple with the years, seemed to hang from everywindow and door crowding out the light and air. The carpets were thickand dark and had lost all sign of pattern in the dull gloom of thecenturies.
It was, in fact, a house that would create ghosts. The atmosphere wasalive with that strange sensation of disembodied spirits which somevery old houses seem to possess. Narrow, slit-like windows in perfectkeeping with the architecture and the needs of the period in which it wasbuilt--if not with modern ideas of hygiene and health--kept the roomsdark and musty. When Nigel first entered the place through the greatfront door thrown open by the solemn-faced butler, who he learned hadbeen kept on from his uncle's time, he felt as though he were enteringhis own tomb. When the door shut he shuddered as the light and sunshinevanished.
The first night he hardly slept a wink. His bed was a huge four-poster,girt about with plush hangings like over-ripe plums, that shut him in asthough he were in some monstrous Victorian trinket box. A post creaked atevery turn he made in its downy softnesses, and being used to the light,camp-like furniture of an Indian bungalow he got up, took an eiderdownwith him, and spent the rest of the hours upon a sofa drawn up beside anopen window.
"That people could live in such places!" he told himself, over and overagain. "No wonder my poor old uncle disappeared! Any self-respectingChristian would. There'll be some slight alterations made in MerritonTowers before I'm many days older, you can bet your life on that. Oldgreat-grandmother four-poster takes her _conge_ to-morrow morning. IfI must live here I'll sleep anyhow."
He settled himself back against the hard, horsehair sofa, and pulled upthe blind. The room was instantly filled with gray and lavender shadows,while without the Fens stretched out in unbroken lines as though all therest of the world were made up of nothing else. Lonely? Merriton hadknown the loneliness of Indian nights, far away from any signs ofcivilization: the loneliness of the jungle when the air was so still thatthe least sound was like the dropping of a bomb; the strange mysticalloneliness which comes to the only white man in a town of natives. Butall these were as nothing as compared to this. He could imagine a chapcommitting suicide living in such a house. Sir Joseph Merriton haddisappeared five years before--and no wonder!
Merriton lay with his eyes upon the window, smoking a cigarette, andsurveyed the outlook before him with despairing eyes. What a future fora chap in his early thirties to face! Not a sign of habitation anywhere,not a vestige of it, save at the far edge of the Fens where a clump oftrees and thick shrubs told him that behind lay Withersby Hall. This,intuition told him, was the home of Antoinette Brellier, the girl of thetrain, of the wreck, and now of his dreams. Then his thoughts turned toher. Gad! to bring a frail, delicate little butterfly to a place likethis was like trying to imprison a ray of sunshine in a leaden box!...
His eyes, rivetted upon where the clump of trees stood out against thesemi-darkness of the approaching dawn, saw of a sudden a light prick outlike a tiny flame, low down upon the very edge of the Fens. One light,two, three, and then a very host of them flashed out, as though someunseen hand had torn the heavens down and strewn their jewels broadcastover the marshes. Instinctively he got to his feet. What on earth--? Buteven as his lips formed the unspoken exclamation came yet another lightto join the others dancing and twinkling and flickering out there acrossthe gloomy marshlands.
What the dickens was it, anyhow? A sort of unearthly fireworks display,or some new explosive experiment? The dancing flames got into his eyeslike bits of lighted thistledown blown here, there, and everywhere.
Merriton got to his feet and threw open another window bottom with a gooddeal of effort, for the sashes were old and stiff. Then, clad only in hissilk pyjamas, and with the cigarette charring itself to a tiny column ofgray ash in one hand, he leaned far out over the sill and watched thosetwinkling, dancing, maddening little star-flames, with the eyes of amazedastonishment.
In a moment sleep had gone from his eyelids and he felt thoroughly awake.Dashed if he wouldn't throw on a few clothes and investigate. The thingwas so strange, so incredible! He knew, well enough, from Borkins's (thevenerable butler) description earlier in the evening, that that part ofthe marshes was uninhabited. Too low for stars the things were, for theyhung on the edges of the marsh grass like tiny lanterns swung there byfairy hands. In such a house, in such a room, with the shadow of thatold four-poster winding its long fingers over him, Merriton began toperspire. It was so devilish uncanny! He was a brave enough man in humanmatters, but somehow these flames out there in the uninhabited stretch ofthe marshes were surely caused by no human agency. Go and investigate hewould, this very minute! He drew in his head and brought the window downwith a bang that went sounding through the gaunt, deserted old house.
Hastily he began to dress, and even as he struggled into a pair of tweedtrousers came the sound of a soft knock upon his door, and he whippedround as though he had been shot, his nerves all a-jingle from the veryatmosphere of the place.
"And who the devil are you?" he snapped out in an angry voice, all themore angry since he was conscious of a slight trembling of the knees. Thedoor swung open a trifle and the pale face of Borkins appeared around it.His eyes were wide with fright, his mouth hung open.
"Sir Nigel, sir. I 'eard a dreadful noise--like a pistol shot it was,comin' from this room! Anythink the matter, sir?"
"Nothing, you ass!" broke out Merriton, fretfully, as the butler beganto show other parts of his anatomy round the corner of the door. "Comein, or go out, which ever you please. But for the Lord's sake, do oneor the other! There's a beastly draught. The noise you heard was thatwindow which possibly hasn't been opened for a century or two, groaningin pain at being forced into action again! Can't sleep in this beastlyroom--haven't closed my eyes yet--and when I did get out of thatVictorian atrocity over there and take to the sofa by the window,why, the first thing I saw were those flames flickering out across thehorizon like signal-fires, or _something_! I've been watching them forthe past twenty minutes and they've got on my nerves. I'm goin' out toinvestigate."
Borkins gave a little exclamation of alarm and put one trembling handover his face. Merriton suddenly registered the fact as being a symptomof the state of nerves which Merriton Towers was likely to reduce one.Then Borkins shambled across the room and laid a timid hand uponMerriton's arm.
"For Gawd's sake sir--_don't_!" he murmured in a shaken voice. "Thoselights, sir--if you knew the story! If you values your life at any priceat all don't go out, sir, and investigate them. _Don't!_ You're a deadman in the morning if you do."
"What's that?" Merriton swung round and looked into the weak, ratherwatery, blue eyes of his butler. "What the devil do you mean, Borkins,talkin' a lot of rot? What _are_ those flames, anyway? And why inheaven's name shouldn't I go out and investigate 'em if I want to? Who'sto stop me?"
"I, your lordship--if I ever 'as any influence with 'uman nature!"returned Borkins, vehemently. "The story's common knowledge, Sir Nigel,sir. Them there flames
is supernatural. Frozen flames the villagerscalls 'em, because they don't seem to give out no 'eat. That part of theFens in unin'abited and there isn't a soul in the whole village as wouldventure anywhere near it after dark."
"Why?"
"Because they never comes back, that's why, sir!" said Borkins. "'Tisn'tany old wives' tale neither. There's been cases by the score. Only amatter of six months ago one of the boys from the mill, who was somewhatthe worse for liquor, said he was a-goin' ter see who it was wot made themflames light up by theirselves, and--he never came back. And that samenight another flame was added to the number!"
"Whew! Bit of a tall story that, Borkins!" Nevertheless a cold chillcrept over Merriton's bones and he gave a forced, mirthless laugh.
"As true as the gospel, Sir Nigel!" said Borkins, solemnly. "That's whatalways 'appens. Every time any one ventures that way--well, they'rea-soundin' their own death-knell, so to speak, and you kin see the newlight appear. But there's never no trace of the person that ventured outacross the Fens at evening time. He, or she--a girl tried it once, Lordsave 'er!--vanishes off the face of the earth as clean as though they'dnever been born. Gawd alone knows what it is that lives there, or whatthem flames may be, but I tells you it's sheer death to attempt to seefor yourself, so long as night lasts. And in the morning--well, it'sgone, and there isn't a thing to be seen for the lookin'!"
"Merciful powers! What a peculiar thing!" Despite his mockery of thesupernatural, Merriton could not help but feel a sort of awe steal overhim, at the tale as told by Borkins in the eeriest hour of the wholetwenty-four--that which hangs between darkness and dawn. Should he go orshouldn't he? He was a fool to believe the thing, and yet--He certainlydidn't want to die yet awhile, with Antoinette Brellier a mere handful ofyards away from him, and all the days his own to cultivate heracquaintance in.
"You've fairly made my flesh creep with your beastly story!" he said, ina rather high-pitched voice. "Might have reserved it until morning--aftermy _debut_ in this haunt of spirits, Borkins. Consider my nerves. India'smade a hash of 'em. Get back to bed, man, and don't worry over myinvestigations. I swear I won't venture out, to-night at any rate.Perhaps to-morrow I may have summoned up enough courage, but I've nofancy for funerals yet awhile. So you can keep your pleasant littlereminiscences for another time, and I'll give you my word of honour thatI'll do nothing rash!"
Borkins gave a sigh of relief. He passed his hand over his forehead, andhis eyes--rather shifty, rather narrow, pale blue eyes which Merriton hadinstinctively disliked (he couldn't tell why)--lightened suddenly.
"Thank Gawd for that, sir!" he said, solemnly. "You've relieved mymind on that score. I've always thought--your poor uncle, Sir JosephMerriton--and those flames there might 'ave been the reason for hisdisappearance, though of course--"
"What's that?" Merriton turned round and looked at him, his browfurrowed, the whole personality of the man suddenly awake. "My uncle,Borkins? How long have these--er--lights been seen hereabouts? I don'tremember them as a child."
"Oh, mostly always, I believe, sir; though they ain't been much noticedbefore the last four years," replied Borkins. "I think--yes--come Augustnext. Four years--was the first time my attention was called to 'em."
Merriton's laugh held a note of relief.
"Then you needn't have worried. My uncle has been missing for a littlemore than _five_ years, and that, therefore, when he did disappear theflames obviously had nothing to do with it!"
Borkins's wrinkled, parchment-like cheeks went a dull, unhealthy red. Heopened his mouth to speak and then drew back again. Merriton gave him akeen glance.
"Of course, how foolish of me. As you say, sir, impossible!" he stammeredout, bowing backward toward the door. "I'll be getting back to my bedagain, and leave you to finish your rest undisturbed. I'm sorry to 'avetroubled you, I'm sure, sir, only I was afraid something 'ad 'appened."
"That's all right. Good-night," returned Merriton curtly, and turned thekey in the lock as the door closed. He stood for a moment thinking, hiseyes upon the winking, flickering points of light that seemed dimmer inthe fast growing light. "Now why did he make that bloomer about dates, Iwonder? Uncle's been gone five years--and Borkins knew it. He was here atthe time, and yet why did he suggest that old wives' tale as a possiblesolution of the disappearance? Borkins, my lad, there's more behind thosewatery blue eyes of yours than men may read. Hmm! ... Now I wonder whythe deuce he lied to me?"
The Riddle of the Frozen Flame Page 2