They Walk in Darkness Page 8

  ‘Eh?’ said the Chief Constable. ‘What’s that? Doesn’t . . . what the deuce d’you mean?’

  ‘He still had to leave,’ explained Peter, patiently. ‘He had to lock the door and leave, taking the key with him, after these four people had arrived, presumably after they were dead. And he still had to do it without leaving any tracks.’

  Colonel Shoredust’s face slowly suffused with blood.

  ‘It’s blasted impossible!’ he exploded, throwing politeness to the four winds.

  ‘I entirely agree with you,’ said Peter. ‘But there it is.’

  ‘Here comes the ambulance,’ broke in Superintendent Odds.

  Chapter Four

  When the remains of Laura Courtland, Robin Mallory, Fay Bennett, and André Severac had, with difficulty, been transferred to the ambulance — with difficulty because of the extreme rigidity of the bodies — and it had driven away to the mortuary, taking with it, at his own request, Doctor Culpepper, Superintendent Odds also prepared to take his departure. Leaving the reluctant Police Constable Cropps, who had arrived with the ambulance, to guard the cottage, with the strictest instructions that he was not on any account to enter the room where the deaths had taken place, or to touch anything, and to remain at his post until another constable could be sent over from Hinton to relieve him, the superintendent requested that Peter would drive Colonel Shoredust, Sergeant Quilt, and himself, back to the police station at Fendyke St. Mary. Peter readily agreed, and once more Ann found herself squeezed in the back of the car, only this time she was between Odds and the Chief Constable, which was more comfortable, because the superintendent was not so stout as Doctor Culpepper. On this trip, too, Colonel Shoredust did not try to ‘tire the sun’ with talking. He remained completely silent, and Ann thought he was thinking deeply until a sudden and completely unexpected snore disillusioned her.

  When they arrived at the police station, Colonel Shoredust announced his intention of going home. He lived, apparently, at Hinton, which was the nearest town to Fendyke St. Mary, and from which Superintendent Odds and Sergeant Quilt also came. Odds made no effort to dissuade him. Indeed, he seemed to be considerably relieved that he was going, and after arranging for the superintendent to report immediately by telephone should any fresh developments take place, the Colonel departed in a rakish-looking two-seater coupé.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Odds, when he had gone, and heralding his remark with a sound that was suspiciously like a sigh of relief, ‘I don’t think I need detain you and your wife any longer. I understand that you are staying at Wymondham Lodge and are likely to be there for some time, so I can get in touch with you if the occasion should arise. Of course, you’ll be required to attend the inquest, but you’ll be notified of that in due course.’

  Peter was reluctant to be dismissed so easily. The strangeness of the whole business had taken hold of his imagination and whetted his appetite to know more — a lot more. These people who had died in such extraordinary circumstances were merely names to him at present. He wanted to learn more about them — their backgrounds, habits, interests, friends, all the things that made up their essential personalities. The only one with whom he had come in actual contact during life was Laura Courtland, and, although she had not impressed him very favourably, she was, at least, real. The others were only lay figures.

  ‘I suppose, superintendent, you have a lot of work to do before you can call it a day?’ he said, conversationally.

  ‘You’re right there, sir,’ replied Odds, feelingly. ‘My wife won’t be seeing me this side o’ midnight, I don’t suppose. And I was out all last night, too. Oh, well, I managed to snatch two or three hours’ sleep earlier on today, an’ it’s a lucky thing I did by the look of things.’

  ‘What’s the next move?’ asked Peter, ‘or is that a police secret?’

  The superintendent’s tired face relaxed into a slight smile.

  ‘There’s nothing very secret about it, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m going along with Sergeant Quilt to where those four people lived to see if there’s anything to be picked up that’ll throw a light on this business . . .’

  ‘Look here,’ said Peter, grasping the nettle firmly, and hoping that he’d get away without too bad a sting, ‘would you mind if I came with you?’

  Odds was surprised, and looked it. He considered for a moment and then he shook his head.

  ‘Well,’ he replied, slowly, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t, sir.’

  Peter, who had not expected such an easy victory, was delighted.

  ‘Good!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll just run my wife to Wymondham Lodge and come back. Will that be all right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Odds. ‘I was thinking of having a cup of tea before setting out, and I’ve got to ring up the station at Hinton to get them to send a man over to relieve Cropps, an’ see to one or two other things. I don’t mind admitting that your car ’ull come in very handy,’ he added. ‘I came over from Hinton in the Chief Constable’s and . . .’

  ‘I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go,’ promised Peter, realizing why the victory had been so easy. ‘Come along, darling.’ He took Ann by the arm and hurried her out to the car.

  ‘Well. I do think you’re mean, Peter,’ she said indignantly, as he opened the door for her to get in. ‘Why can’t I come, too?’

  ‘Because I don’t think Odds would have stood for both of us,’ he answered.

  ‘He’s only standing for you because of the car,’ she said.

  ‘I know that,’ he answered. ‘Look, darling, there’s something I wish you’d do. Find out from Aunt Helen all you can about those four people, Fay Bennett, Mallory, André Severac, and Laura Courtland . . .’

  ‘I shall dream about that room,’ she said, as he started the car. ‘It was horrible, Peter. The four of them sitting there round that beastly table — like dummies . . .’ She broke off and shivered.

  ‘The whole thing is horrible,’ he said. ‘The lambs and the children . . . all of it.’

  ‘Peter, do you think it’s connected?’ she asked. ‘All part of one thing?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know how, or why, or anything, but I’m certain of it.’

  ‘What were they all staring at in that chair?’ said Ann. ‘What was there, Peter, that came and went without leaving any marks in the snow . . .’

  ‘You are not suggesting that it was something supernatural, are you, darling?’ said Peter, looking at her sideways.

  ‘I’d believe almost anything,’ she answered, with a queer little laugh. ‘That house is steeped in something that’s evil — hideously and horribly evil. It envelops you like a fog when you cross the threshhold . . .’

  ‘Association of ideas,’ he commented, but she shook her head.

  ‘No. it isn’t — not altogether,’ she said. ‘I felt it before I knew anything about the history of the place . . . Yesterday afternoon. I told you . . .’

  ‘Whatever unsavoury reputation the place had in the past, this business is going to add to it with a vengeance,’ said Peter, ‘and more than half the village’ll range themselves on the side of the supernatural. They still believe in witchcraft in these parts, the majority of them . . .’ He broke off abruptly, braked, and gave a sharp twist to the wheel. The car swerved and Ann was thrown violently against him.

  ‘Did you see that damned fool?’ exclaimed Peter, angrily, swinging the car back into the straight. ‘Stepping off the pavement, like that, almost under my wheels . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ gasped Ann, rubbing her arm. ‘I shall have a huge bruise, Peter, and people will think that you knock me about . . .’

  ‘I just caught a glimpse of his face when he turned,’ went on Peter, ignoring her remark. ‘A great, vacant, moon-like face . . . I believe it was that chap that Culpepper was talking about, what’s-his-name? The village idiot . . .’

  ‘Twist,’ said Ann.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Peter. ‘I’m sure it must have been he . . .’
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br />   ‘Does it matter?’ asked Ann, resentfully. Her arm had come in contact with the hard curve of the bucket seat and it hurt. She was a little annoyed at Peter’s lack of sympathy.

  ‘Well, no, I suppose it doesn’t a great deal,’ he said, bringing the car to a halt at the gate of Wymondham Lodge. ‘Will you explain everything to Aunt Helen?’ He got out, came round to the other side of the car and opened the door for her. ‘And don’t forget to ask her all she knows about those four people, will you? It won’t be difficult. Once she gets started you’ll only have to listen . . .’

  ‘How long do you think you’ll be?’ she asked, as he helped her out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Not longer than I can help, but don’t wait dinner for me, darling. I’ll have a sandwich or something when I get back . . .’

  ‘Peter, you will be careful, won’t you?’ she said, anxiously

  ‘Of course.’ He kissed her and held open the gate. ‘Now you run along. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  He waited until she had disappeared in the gloom of the drive, and then he returned to the car and drove back to the police station.

  Chapter Five

  Prior’s Keep was about a mile and a half outside the village in the direction of Hinton, and when Peter and Superintendent Odds reached it, Sergeant Quilt had been sent back to Witch’s House to collect the remains of the food and wine for analysis, it was so dark that very little of the old house was visible. From what he could see, Peter judged it to be a fair-sized mansion and came to the conclusion, subsequently confirmed by the appointments of the interior, that whatever else the Courtlands might lack it was not money. The big hall, to which they were presently admitted by the expressionless Pitt, was furnished expensively if not quite in the best of taste. Everything was very good, but it gave the impression that cost had been the predominant factor in the choice rather than suitability. Peter could imagine whoever had been responsible saying: ‘Yes, that piece of furniture is very nice, but there is a piece over there that is four times the price. I’ll have that.’

  Superintendent Odds, less sensitive to such things, was obviously impressed. Having introduced himself and requested to see the master of the house, he waited beside Peter while the butler disappeared upstairs. He had been reluctant to disturb Mr. Courtland, who, he informed them, was confined to his bed with a severe cold, and only the superintendent’s rank, and his assurance that the matter was of the utmost urgency, had persuaded him to do so. He returned after the lapse of a few minutes, said: ‘Will you come this way, please?’ and conducted them up the great carved staircase to a large bedroom that was furnished with the same opulence as the hall. Mr. Courtland, reclining in the huge bed, and propped up against many pillows, looked, Peter thought, rather out of place amid all his luxurious surroundings. It was like finding the dustman stretched on a settee in the drawing room, reading the newspaper.

  ‘Well?’ said Mr. Courtland, hoarsely and thickly, dismissing the butler with a wave of a fat, hirsute hand. ‘What do you want? Pitt said it was something urgent, or I wouldn’t have seen you. What is it?’

  His small eyes flickered from one to the other with rather a hostile expression.

  Prefaced by a preliminary clearing of his throat, Odds explained. As he proceeded, Peter saw an expression of shocked astonishment come into the flabby face of the man in the bed. But, to his surprise, no sign of grief. He was startled and horrified, but that was all.

  ‘This . . . this is terrible news,’ he muttered, when the superintendent had finished his brief recital of the discovery. ‘Dreadful! I can scarcely believe it. Some kind of poison, you say . . .?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Odds. ‘I’m given to understand that it was a form of cyanide. We shall know more about that when the doctors have made their examination. In the meanwhile, I should be glad if you could give me any information, sir, that might help to throw a light on this business.’

  Mr. Courtland’s immediate reply to this rather stilted request was to reach for his handkerchief and blow his nose violently. When, by this means, he had partially cleared his head, he shook it slowly.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ he declared. ‘It’s . . . it’s incredible . . .’

  ‘Can you suggest why your daughter went to this place — Witch’s House, I believe, is the local name for it — with these people, sir?’

  Again Mr. Courtland’s bald head moved from side to side on the pillow.

  ‘I’ve no idea at all,’ he answered. ‘You say they had all partaken of a meal of some sort?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then I can only suggest that it was some kind of freak party. My daughter was very fond of anything unusual.’

  ‘What sort of freak party, sir?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. I’m only suggesting that that’s what it was. I have no definite knowledge concerning it. My daughter said nothing about it to me. She very seldom discussed her plans with me. I was under the impression that she was dining at Wymondham Lodge and returning home afterwards. If she had made other arrangements I was not aware of them.’

  ‘But when you found Miss Courtland had not returned, surely you wondered what had happened, sir?’

  ‘I naturally wondered where she had gone, but I wasn’t disturbed or worried. My daughter had a habit of going off to all sorts of places at the shortest possible notice.’

  ‘Regarding these other three people, sir,’ went on the superintendent, consulting his notebook. ‘Miss Fay Bennett, Mr. Robin Mallory, and Monsieur André Severac.’ He boggled at the pronunciation. ‘Were they particular friends of your daughter’s?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Courtland. ‘I knew she was acquainted with Mallory — she invited him here to dinner one night. Quite an innocuous young man, I thought, though rather full of his own importance. So far as the other two people you mention are concerned, I didn’t even know she knew them. She had a number of friends and acquaintances that I knew nothing about.’ He paused and his small eyes flickered from Odds to Peter and back again, a curious habit he had. ‘My daughter’s ideas of enjoying herself were rather . . . well, rather modern, if you understand me. I’m afraid that we did not always agree on quite a number of things. The result was that she went her way and I went mine, which were in totally opposite directions.’

  Superintendent Odds moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and regarded the man in the bed a little dubiously. The emotionless way in which he had received the news of his daughter’s death and his apparent complete lack of knowledge concerning her affairs, obviously disconcerted him.

  ‘It seems, sir,’ he remarked, disappointedly, ‘that you can’t help me very much.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ agreed Courtland. ‘As I’ve told you, my daughter lived her own life, and it seldom came in contact with mine. We lived under the same roof and, occasionally, had our meals together, but apart from that we were almost strangers.’

  ‘You know of no one who had threatened your daughter, sir, or would in any way benefit by her death?’

  Courtland shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘My daughter had no money or property of her own. I made her an allowance, but that, of course, ceases now. I can imagine quite a number of people disliking her intensely, but none who would go to the length of killing her.’

  ‘There was no love-affair that had gone wrong, sir?’ suggested the superintendent, valliantly trying everything.

  ‘There were many,’ said Courtland, candidly. ‘My daughter was always involved with some man or other . . .’

  Odd pricked up his ears. It was a worn-out expression, but Peter thought it was the only way to describe the change that came over him.

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir,’ he said. ‘Now that . . .’

  ‘I shouldn’t rely on anything there,’ broke in Courtland, dashing his rising hopes. ‘There was nothing serious about any of ’em. Usually they resulted in a weekend or two, and that was all. My daughter was, I r
egret to say, er — promiscuous.’

  Odds looked slightly shocked.

  ‘Oh, I see, sir,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps something more serious may have developed on the part of one of her — er — friends?’

  ‘That I can’t possibly say,’ said Courtland. ‘I should think it was very unlikely, however. Anyway, how would these other people be affected? They were poisoned, too, weren’t they? If you are looking for a motive, surely you’ve got to find one that will cover them as well?’

  ‘I think the most important thing to find out,’ said Peter, speaking for the first time, ‘is why these four people went to that empty cottage late at night to eat a meal. If we could discover that, I believe we should be two-thirds of the way towards understanding everything.’

  ‘That is a most extraordinary thing,’ said Mr. Courtland, frowning. ‘The only explanation I can see is what I suggested, a freak party . . .’

  ‘A freak party, certainly,’ said Peter. ‘But what kind of freak party? What was its object? Whose idea was it, and who arranged it? And why was that particular rendezvous chosen? A place that has the reputation of being haunted and which nobody in the village will go near . . .’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why it was chosen,’ interrupted Courtland. ‘Perhaps they wanted to make certain that they wouldn’t be disturbed. I suppose there’s no doubt that this was murder . . .?’

  ‘Not any, sir, I don’t think,’ said the superintendent. ‘If you were thinking of suicide . . .’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said the man in the bed, shortly. ‘Laura was too fond of life for anything like that. I was just wondering if they might not have been experimenting with some sort of drug . . .’

  ‘Had Miss Courtland ever been addicted to drugs, sir?’ broke in Odds, quickly.

  ‘No,’ said Courtland, calmly. ‘Not so far as I know. But she’d try anything once, if it was likely to offer an unusual thrill.’