The stairs leading down to the cellars were reached at the end of the passage. They were stone, and the two men crept down them without a sound to betray their presence. At the foot Charles said in Peter’s ear: ‘Know your way about?’
‘No,’ Peter whispered. ‘We don’t use the cellars.’
‘Damn!’ Charles switched on his torch again.
The place felt dank and very cold. Grey walls of stone flanked the passage; the roof was of stone also, and vaulted. Charles moved forward, down the arched corridor, in the direction of the library. Various cellars led out of the main passage; in the first was a great mound of coal, but the rest were empty.
The passage seemed to run down one side of the building, but the vaults that gave on to it led each one into another, so that the place was something of a labyrinth. The knocking sounded distinctly now, echoing through the empty cellars. Charles held his torch lowered, so that the circle of light was thrown barely a yard in front of him.
Suddenly the knocking ceased, and at once both men stood still, waiting for some sound to guide them.
Ahead of them, where the passage ended, something moved. Charles flashed his torch upwards, and for a brief instant he and Peter caught a glimpse of a vague figure. Then, as though it had melted into the wall, it was gone, and a wail as of a soul in torment seemed to fill the entire place.
The sweat broke out on both men’s foreheads, and for a second neither could move for sheer horror. Then Charles pulled himself together and dashed forward, shouting to Peter to follow.
‘My God, what was it?’ Peter gasped.
‘The groan we’ve all heard, of course. Damn it, he can’t have got away!’
But the place where the figure had stood was quite empty. An embrasure in the wall seemed to mark the spot where they had seen it, yet if the apparent melting into the wall had been no more than a drawing back into this niche that could not solve the complete disappearance of the figure.
The two men stared at one another. Charles passed the back of his hand across his forehead. ‘But – but I saw it!’ he stammered.
‘So did I,’ Peter said roughly. ‘Good God, it can’t be… This is getting a bit too weird to be pleasant. Look here… Damn it, that was no ghost. There must be a secret way through the wall.’ His torch played over the wall. It was built of great stone slabs each about four foot square. He began to feel them in turn. ‘We must be under the terrace,’ he said. ‘Gosh, don’t you see? We’re standing on the level of the ground here!’ One of the blocks gave slightly under the thrust of his hand. ‘Got it!’ he panted, and set his shoulder to it. It swung slowly outward, turning on some hidden pivot, and as it moved that hideous wail once more rent the stillness.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ Charles said grimly. ‘Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’m damned glad we’ve solved the origin of that ghastly noise.’ He squeezed through the opening in Peter’s wake, and found himself, as Peter had prophesied, in the garden directly beneath the terrace. There was no sign of anyone amongst the shrubs near at hand, and it was obviously useless to search the grounds. After a moment both men slipped back into the cellar, and pushed the stone into place again.
‘Might as well have a look round to see what that chap was after,’ Peter said. ‘Why the banging? Is he looking for a hollow wall, do you suppose? Dash it, I rejected hidden treasure as altogether too far-fetched, but it begins to look remarkably like it!’
‘Personally I don’t think we shall find anything,’ Charles answered. ‘Still, we can try. What a maze the place is!’
Together they explored all the cellars, but Charles was right, and there was nothing to be seen. Deciding that their nocturnal visitor would hardly attempt another entrance now that his way of ingress had been discovered, they made their way up the stairs again.
As they crossed the hall towards the library door a glimmer of light shone on the landing above, and Margaret’s voice called softly: ‘Peter.’
‘Hullo!’ Peter responded.
‘Thank goodness!’ breathed his sister, and came cautiously down to join him. In the lamplight her face looked rather pale, and her eyes very big and scared. ‘That awful groan woke me,’ she said. ‘I heard it twice, and called to you, Peter. Then when you didn’t answer I went into your room and saw the bed hadn’t been slept in. I got the most horrible fright.’
‘Don’t make a row. Come into the library,’ Peter commanded. ‘You didn’t wake Celia, did you?’
‘No, I guessed you and Charles had staged something. Did you hear the groan? What have you been doing?’
‘We not only heard it, but on two occasions we caused it,’ Peter said, and proceeded to tell her briefly all that had happened.
She listened in wondering silence, but when he spoke of the part he believed Strange to be playing, she broke in with an emphatic and somewhat indignant headshake. ‘I’m sure he isn’t a crook! And I’m perfectly certain he’d never make awful noises to frighten us, or put skeletons where we should find them. Besides, why should he?’
‘I’m not prepared to answer that question without due warning,’ Charles said cautiously. ‘All I know about him at present is that he’s a rather mysterious fellow who holds distinctly fishy conversations with a palpable old lag, and who – apparently – knows how to get round persons of your sex.’
‘That’s all rot,’ Margaret said without hesitation. ‘There’s nothing in the least mysterious about him, and I expect if you’d heard more of it you’d have found that the fishy conversation was quite innocent really. You know how you can say things that sound odd in themselves, and yet don’t mean anything.’
‘I hotly resent this reflection upon my conversation,’ Charles said.
‘You’ve got to remember too, Peg, that when we heard that groan before, we found Strange close up to the house, and on the same side as the secret entrance,’ Peter interposed. ‘I don’t say that that proves anything, but it ought to be borne in mind. I certainly think that Mr Michael Strange’s proceedings want explaining.’
‘I think it’s utterly absurd!’ Margaret said. ‘Why, you might as well suspect Mr Titmarsh!’ Having delivered herself of which scornful utterance, she rose, and announced her intention of going back to bed.
To be on the safe side, Charles and Peter spent the following morning in sealing up the hidden entrance. An account of the night’s happenings did much to reconcile Celia to her enforced stay at the Priory. Human beings, she said, she wasn’t in the least afraid of.
‘I only hope,’ said Mrs Bosanquet pessimistically, ‘that we are not all murdered in our beds.’
Both she and Celia were agreed that the latest development made the calling in of police aid imperative. The men were still loth to do this, but they had to admit that Celia had reason on her side.
‘There’s no longer any question of being laughed at,’ she argued. ‘Someone broke into this house last night, and it’s for the police to take the matter in hand. It’s all very well for you two to fancy yourselves in the rôle of amateur detectives, but I should feel a lot easier in my mind if some real detectives got going.’
‘How can you?’ said Charles unctuously. ‘When you lost your diamond brooch, who found it?’
‘I did,’ Celia replied. ‘Wedged between the bristles of my hair-brush. That was after you’d had the waste up in the bath, and two of the floor-boards in our room.’
‘That wasn’t the time I meant,’ said Charles hastily.
Celia wrinkled her brow. ‘The only other time I lost it was at that hotel in Edinburgh, and then you stepped on it getting out of bed. If that’s what you mean…’
‘Well, wasn’t that finding it?’ demanded Charles. ‘Guided by a rare intuition, I rose from my couch, and straightway put my – er – foot on the thing.’
‘You did. But that wasn’t quite how you phrased it at the time,’ said Celia. ‘If I remember rightly…’
‘You needn’t go on,’ Charles told her. ‘When it comes to reco
unting incidents in which I played a prominent part you never do remember rightly. To put it bluntly, for gross misrepresentation of fact you’re hard to beat.’
‘Time!’ called Peter. ‘Let’s put it to the vote. Who is for calling in the police, or who is not? Margaret, you’ve got the casting vote. What do you say?’
She hesitated. ‘I think I rather agree with Celia. You both suspect Mr Strange. Well, I’m sure you’re wrong. Let the police take over before you go and make fools of yourselves.’ She added apologetically: ‘I don’t mean to be rude about it, but…’
‘I’m glad to know that,’ said Charles. ‘I mean, we might easily have misunderstood you. But what a field of conjecture this opens out! I shall always wonder what you’d have said if you had meant to be rude.’
‘Well, you’ll know in a minute,’ retorted Margaret. ‘And it’s no good blinking facts: once you and Peter get an idea into your heads, nothing on God’s earth will get it out again. You will make fools of yourselves if you go sleuthing after the unfortunate Mr Strange. If he is at the root of it the police’ll find him out, and if he isn’t they’ll find that out weeks before you would.’
After that, as Peter said, there was nothing to be done but to go and interview the village constable at once. Accordingly he and Charles set out for Framley after lunch, and found the constable, a bucolic person of the name of Flinders, digging his garden.
He received them hopefully, but no sooner had they explained their errand than his face fell somewhat, and he scratched his chin with a puzzled air.
‘You’d better come inside, sir,’ he said, after profound thought. He led them up the narrow path to his front door, and ushered them into the living-room of his cottage. He asked them to sit down and to excuse him for a moment, and vanished into the kitchen at the back of the cottage. Sounds of splashing followed, and in a few moments Constable Flinders reappeared, having washed his earth-caked hands, and put on his uniform coat. With this he had assumed an imposing air of officialdom, and he held in his hand the usual grimy little notebook. ‘Now, sir!’ he said importantly, and took a chair at the table opposite his visitors. He licked the stub of a pencil. ‘You say you found some person or persons breaking into your house with intent to commit a robbery?’
‘I don’t think I said that at all,’ Charles replied. ‘I found the person in my cellars. What he came for I’ve no idea.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Flinders. ‘That’s very different, that is.’ He licked the pencil again, reflectively. ‘Did you reckernise this person?’
Charles hesitated. ‘No,’ he answered at last. ‘There wasn’t time. He escaped by this secret way I told you about.’
‘Escaped by secret way,’ repeated Mr Flinders, laboriously writing it down. ‘I shall have to see that, sir.’
‘I can show you the spot, but I’m afraid we’ve already cemented it up.’
Mr Flinders shook his head reproachfully. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he pronounced. ‘That’ll make it difficult for me to act, that will.’
‘Why?’ asked Peter.
Mr Flinders looked coldly at him. ‘I ought to have been called in before any evidence of the crime had been disturbed,’ he said.
‘There wasn’t a crime,’ Peter pointed out.
This threw the constable momentarily out of his stride. He thought again for some time, and presently asked: ‘And you don’t suspect no one in particular?’
Peter glanced at Charles, who said: ‘Rather difficult to say. I haven’t any good reason to suspect anyone, but various people have been seen hanging about the Priory at different times.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Flinders. ‘Now we are getting at something, sir. I thought we should. You’ll have to tell me who you’ve seen hanging round, and then I shall know where I am.’
‘Well,’ said Charles. ‘There’s Mr Titmarsh to start with.’
The constable’s official cloak slipped from his shoulders. ‘Lor’, sir, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!’ he said.
‘I don’t know what he does to flies,’ retorted Charles, ‘but he’s death on moths.’
Mr Flinders shook his head. ‘Of course I shall have to follow it up,’ he said darkly. ‘That’s what my duty is, but Mr Titmarsh don’t mean no harm. He was catching moths, that’s what he was doing.’
‘So he told us, and for all I know it may be perfectly true. But I feel I should like to know something about the eccentric gentleman. You say he’s above suspicion…’
He was stopped by a large hand raised warningly. ‘No, sir, that I never said, nor wouldn’t. It’ll have to be sifted. That’s what I said.’
‘… and,’ continued Charles, disregarding the interruption, ‘I can’t say that I myself think he’s likely to be the guilty party. How long has he lived here?’
Mr Flinders thought for a moment. ‘Matter of three years,’ he answered.
‘Anything known about him?’
‘There isn’t nothing known against him, sir,’ said the constable. ‘Barring his habits, which is queer to some folk’s way of thinking, but which others who has such hobbies can understand, he’s what I’d call a very ordinary gentleman. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying is. He’s not married, but Mrs Fellowes from High Barn, who is his housekeeper, hasn’t never spoken a word against him, and she’s a very respectable woman that wouldn’t stop a day in a place where there was any goings-on that oughtn’t to be.’
‘She might not know,’ Peter suggested.
‘There’s precious little happens in Framley that Mrs Fellowes don’t know about, sir,’ said Mr Flinders. ‘And knows more than what the people do themselves,’ he added obscurely, but with considerable feeling.
‘Putting Mr Titmarsh aside for the moment,’ said Charles. ‘The other two men we’ve encountered in our grounds are a Mr Strange, who is staying at the Bell, and a smallish chap, giving himself out to be a commercial traveller, who’s also at the Bell.’ He recounted under what circumstances he had met Michael Strange, and the constable brightened considerably. ‘That’s more like it, that is,’ he said. ‘Hanging about on the same side of the house as that secret entrance, was he?’
‘Mind you, he may have been speaking the truth when he said he had missed his way,’ Charles warned him.
‘That’s what I shall have to find out,’ said Mr Flinders. ‘I shall have to keep a watch on those two.’
‘You might make a few inquiries about them,’ Peter suggested. ‘Discover where they come from, and what Strange’s occupation is.’
‘You don’t need to tell me how to act, sir,’ said Mr Flinders with dignity. ‘Now that I’ve got a line to follow I know my duty.’
‘There’s just one other thing,’ Charles said slowly. ‘You’d probably better know about it.’
‘Certainly I had,’ said Mr Flinders. ‘If you was to keep anything from me I couldn’t act.’
‘I suspect,’ said Charles, ‘that whoever got into the Priory has some reason for wishing to frighten us out of it.’
Mr Flinders blinked at him. ‘What would they want to do that for?’ he asked practically.
‘That’s what we thought you might find out,’ Charles said.
‘If there’s anything to find you may be sure I shall get on to it,’ Mr Flinders assured him. ‘But you’ll have to tell me some more.’
‘I’m going to. A few nights ago a picture fell down at the top of the stairs, and when we went up to investigate my wife found the upper half of a human skull on the stairs. My brother-in-law and I then discovered a priest’s hole in the panelling where the picture had hung, and in it a collection of human bones.’
The effect of this on the constable was not quite what they had hoped. His jaw dropped, and he sat staring at them in round-eyed horror. ‘My Gawd, sir, it’s the Monk!’ he gasped. ‘You don’t suppose I can go making inquiries about a ghost, do you? I wouldn’t touch it – not for a thousand pounds! And here’s me taking down in me notebook what you told me about Mr Titmarsh and them two
up at the Inn, and all the time you’ve seen the Monk!’ He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. ‘If I was you, sir, I’d get out of that house,’ he said earnestly. ‘It ain’t healthy.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Charles. ‘But it is my firm belief that someone is behind all this Monk business. And I suspect that that skeleton was put there for our benefit by the same person who got into the cellars.’
‘Hold hard!’ said Peter suddenly. ‘It’s just occurred to me that we didn’t hear the groan of that stone-slab being opened on the night the picture fell.’
They stared at one another for a moment. ‘That’s one up to you,’ Charles said at length. ‘Funny I never thought of that. We couldn’t have missed hearing it, either. Then…’ he stopped, frowning.
The constable shut his notebook. ‘I’d get out of the Priory, sir, if I was you,’ he repeated. ‘The police can’t act against ghosts. What you saw that night was the Monk, and the noise you heard…’
‘Was caused by the stone-block opening,’ finished Charles. ‘We proved that.’
Mr Flinders scratched his chin again. A solution dawned upon him. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, sir. Maybe you’re right, and what you saw in the cellars was flesh and blood. I shall get on to that, following up the line you’ve given me. But there wasn’t any flesh and blood about that skeleton.’
‘I’m thankful to say that there wasn’t,’ said Charles. ‘Dry bones were quite enough for us.’
‘What I meant,’ said Mr Flinders, with a return to his official manner, ‘was that no human being caused that skeleton to be put into this hole you speak about. What you’ve done, sir, is you’ve found out the secret of the Priory. That’s what you’ve done. Now we know why it’s haunted, and my advice to you is, “Pull it down.”’
‘You won’t mind if we don’t follow it, will you?’ Charles said, sarcastically.
‘That’s for you to decide,’ said Mr Flinders. ‘But how you’ve got to look at it is like this: When this stone, which you have improperly sealed up, opened, it made a noise which could be heard all over the house. Following on that, the person or persons that nefariously broke into the Priory by that way couldn’t do it without you knowing. That’s fact, that is. The police have to work on facts, sir, and nothing else. Now you say that when this picture fell down you hadn’t heard that stone open. From which it follows that no person or persons did open it that night. That’s logic, isn’t it, sir?’