CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BACK STAIRWAY

Dick opened the door again swiftly, Vera clinging to him—and they were so astounded at what they saw that he forgot for the moment to slam the door shut again.

For the phantom was there—clearly visible in the sunlight, which now blazed across the upper half of the great window. A strange, incredible caricature of a being hung in the dusty air, a haze of blurry light surrounding it from the back. There was the pointed tail, the simian ears, the long, needle-chinned face, bent arms flexed as though to pounce forward. He seemed to be grinning horribly. Yet he was in mid-air, and through him the ancient stone wall could be distinctly seen.

Dick slammed the door and found himself looking into Vera’s dumbfounded eyes.

“Then it...it does exist,” she gasped, shocked by incredulity. “It’s not...not just a legend, after all! Look, dare we try again, just long enough to study it!”

Dick opened the door once more and they peered in on the apparition for the second time, then suddenly they began to feel the awful sensations of the previous evening. Dick slammed the door immediately, his face damp and sickly white. Firmly he drove home the imprisoning screw.

“That’s enough of that,” he muttered. “The ghost’s there—but so is that awful influence. We’ve seen enough. Unless—” His eyes gleamed abruptly. “Come with me!” he said.

Vera didn’t ask questions. She followed him at top speed as he raced down the staircase and into the hall. At the door leading into the basement he stopped and pulled at it. It was locked.

“Penny to a pound, if my theory is right, that the Dragon and her husband are down here,” he panted, as Vera came hurrying up to him. “Haven’t you got a duplicate key?”

“Sorry, I haven’t.”

“All right—we’ll wait.”

Dick stood by the door, grim-faced, then he looked around and gave a start as Mrs. Falworth appeared from the kitchen regions with vague surprise on her features.

“Oh, it is you, sir! I thought I heard somebody knocking on the front door.”

Dick looked at her blankly, then recovered himself.

“I was rattling this basement door,” he explained. “Have you been down there at all this evening, Mrs. Falworth?”

“Why should I?” Her voice was flat and hard.

“That doesn’t answer the question. Have you or not?”

“Most certainly not!”

“What about your husband?”

“He is tidying up the coke in one of the outhouses if you wish to speak to him.”

“Oh!” Dick rubbed his chin and scowled. Mrs. Falworth fixed him with her abysmal eyes for a while, then she glanced at Vera.

“Have you seen the phantom, Miss?” she inquired, her tone so offhand she might have been referring to a visitor.

“Yes, not ten minutes ago, and we both felt that aura of evil. But I still believe that there has got to be an explanation.”

“If you persist,” the housekeeper shrugged. “And now, if you do not require me any further—”

Dick waved a dismissal impatiently and the woman turned and glided back towards her own domain. Vera gave Dick a puzzled look.

“You’re making Mrs. Falworth decidedly suspicious. If she isn’t up to anything, I’m afraid she’ll be resenting our attitude before very long.”

“She’s up to something all right!” There was no uncertainty in Dick’s statement. “The only trouble is that I’m a bit stumped at the moment.”

“Why did you expect to find Mrs. Falworth and her husband in the cellar?”

Dick glanced around, then motioned across to the drawing room. Once they were within it he closed the door and began to speak in a lowered voice.

“I’ve been having plenty of hard thinking about this horror business, as you know—and it seems pretty obvious to me that if it isn’t genuine terror-manifestation then it is a gas.”

“A gas!” Vera looked at him incredulously.

“What else can it be?” he insisted. “It’s invisible, impalpable—and we know that there are gases which can cause unconsciousness, which can deaden the nerve centers to kill severe pain, which can maim and destroy—so why not one which acts on the nerves? That would cause those awful sensations? The brain becomes deranged because of it.”

“Well, it sounds a bit wild, but granting you are right, how does it ever get into the room with nobody but ourselves present?”

“That,” Dick said, “is the point! There is only one way—the fireplace! Is it coincidence that the back of it is knocked out so that we can see the flue behind? Is it coincidence that the back of the fireplace in the basement is also knocked out? If gas fumes were directed up from the basement fireplace they would go up between the walls and gush out again in the horror-room! That is, providing there was a stoppage in the chimney. The horror-room is exactly over the basement, wall for wall, I mean. Now you can see why I expected the Falworths to be in the cellar, directing a gas up the chimney in an attempt to wipe us out when we went in that room. That they were not down there rather upsets my theory.”

“But it’s a good theory!” Vera said. “It might be possible—”

“It is possible. If only I could remember what I have at the back of my mind!” Dick said. “I’ve looked right at the stuff that causes such terror, here in the house somewhere. Anyway, I’m convinced that a gas is at the back of all this horror, and that means that the Falworths engineer it.”

“And the ghost?” Vera questioned.

“Afraid I don’t know.” Dick shrugged and looked at her moodily. “It has me stumped. If it is not the genuine psychic article, it is the nearest thing to it that I’ve ever seen. Still, one thing at a time. We want this gas problem solved first, to prove if we’re right. I wonder if there are two ways to the basement? We had no chance for a proper look.” He snapped his fingers. “Gosh, I wonder! That map of the house that I found torn out of the Sunny Acres book would show a second stairway, if there is one. Maybe that is why it was removed! Just a thought, but I’ll bet it isn’t far wrong. The map was taken for some reason, obviously.”

They fell silent, evening gloom creeping into the room.

“It can’t be the only copy of the book, surely,” Vera said. “There might be one in the nearest public library—or Dr. Gillingham might have one, or know of one.”

“Gillingham!” Dick exclaimed, his eyes widening. “Of course! Too late now to search for a library, but we might catch him in. Grab your hat; we’re on our way.”

It was a still, warm evening outside. Without giving the forbidding housekeeper any inkling of their intentions, they hurried out, and when they reached Dr. Gillingham’s home they found him off duty, with pipe in hand.

“Well, well!” He gave a welcoming smile. “What’s it this time?”

“To ask a favor, doctor,” Dick answered. “Do you happen to have a copy of a book called The History of Sunny Acres?”

“Yes, I have. It’s a pretty popular volume in this district. Do you want to borrow it?”

“Only for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

“Keep it as long as you wish. I’ll get it for you.”

With a nod he hurried out of the room, to return shortly with the book in his hand. Dick glanced at the flyleaf and noted that it was a copy of the same edition.

“Thanks, doctor. It’s very good of you. I’ll let you have it back in no time. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not at all.” He saw them to the door and then said: “You seem to be a most energetic young couple! Are you doing a little detective work?”

“Just that,” Dick assented. “I believe I was right when I told you that I thought Cyrus Merriforth had been murdered.... Incidentally, there’s something that you might be able to tell me. Do you think it is possible for a gas or poisonous fumes to exist which might cause a feeling of intense horror?”

Dr. Gillingham reflected.

“Well, I wouldn’t be so hasty as to deny the possibility,” he said slowly, “but to the best of my knowledge none exists, at the moment. I admit, though, that my medical powers by no means constitute the last word.”

“But it might exist?” Dick persisted. “It isn’t a hare-brained theory?

“By no means. Human nerves are responsive to the most amazing things sometimes.”

“Well—thanks again,” Dick smiled. “Come on, Vera; we’ve taken up quite enough of the doctor’s time.”

He took her arm and they went down the front pathway together, Gillingham waving a genial farewell.

As they walked back along the street, Dick already peering at the book in the fast dying daylight, studying, Vera noticed, a glossy-surfaced plate intently. Then he came to an abrupt stop.

“There are two cellar exits,” he said.

Vera halted too, astonished. “What?”

“It’s right! Look here—” He moved to the grass bank and sat down, Vera squatting at his side. He traced his finger quickly over the interior plan of the house. “See, here is the ordinary entrance where we went down. Here’s the big cellar with the fireplace and chimney clearly marked; and here’s the little cellar where the queer business seems to be going on. But from that, in this corner here, there is another exit—a backway set of stairs which come up in the kitchen regions!”

Vera snapped her fingers, her eyes bright.

“Now, let’s see.” Dick narrowed his eyes in reflection. “Covering this corner when we looked into that cellar was a big old bookcase—obviously to cover the door. As for the kitchen regions, we didn’t even bother to look—”

“I did, on my first night,” Vera interrupted, thinking. “But I thought the doors I saw led to pantries and similar places. I didn’t trouble to make sure. Those two could have been down there tonight and have come up that way.”

“That’s just what they did do! I’m convinced of it!”

“Then how was it that on the first night I arrived they used the normal stairway?”

“Did you see them use it?” Dick questioned.

“Well, no. They were down in the cellar when I found them, and I didn’t wait to see which way they came out. But the basement door was unlocked.”

“Perhaps to tempt you down, and then they never heard you.”

“Or else she forgot to lock it after our tour of inspection. I don’t know. Anyway, we’ve got this far. What happens next?”

“We’ve got to scour that basement thoroughly—and the mystery basement as well—at the earliest moment, when things are propitious. Until then we—”

Dick stopped talking, peering closely at the book, at the map of the district under the plan of the castle, a map designed in geological wavy lines.

“Just look at the deposits in the district!” he cried. “Iron ore, salt, clay, rock sulphur. All volcanic stuff and Sunny Acres is over most of them.... That smell you noticed, was it like rotten eggs?”

“Could have been, yes.”

“Sulphur, sulphuretted hydrogen gas, anyway, smells very similar, and it’s a volcanic product.”

“You don’t mean that sulphur gas produces that awful sensation—?”

“No; that’s something quite different, and anyway sulphuretted hydrogen gas is too heavy to go up a flue. It floats along the ground. No, I’ve got another idea about the smell, and these deposits. Pretty amazing idea, too, but it might be right....” He snapped the book shut. “We have got to inspect that cellar! Now let’s get back before it’s too dark to see.”