As I packed my few belongings that evening, the reflections that filled my mind were bitter indeed. I could not for the life of me see how else I could have acted. How could I have stood by while Carswall mauled Sophie? But what had I achieved by my intervention?
There was a tap on the door. Pratt poked his sharp little face into the room and told me that a groom would be waiting with the dog-cart at eight o’clock sharp in the morning. The footman’s expression was a mixture of sly excitement and glee, and I knew at once that he had heard the news of my disgrace. You cannot keep secrets for long in a house like Monkshill-park.
When Pratt had gone, I flung open my window. Snowflakes drifted out of the darkness. I had been expelled from Monkshill; I had almost certainly lost my position at Mr Bransby’s; and once Miss Carswall was married, Sophie would be at Mr Carswall’s mercy – I knew all these things but my emotions were too numb to feel them. I draped a blanket over my shoulders, lit a cigar and leaned on the sill to smoke it. Hardly a moment had passed before I heard another tap on my door. Cigar in hand, I opened it and to my consternation saw Sophie herself outside. I retreated in confusion.
“Sophie,” I said, flinging the smouldering butt from the window. “Sophie, my dear, you should not –”
She cut me off with a wave of her hand. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were huge. She wore a cloak which covered her from neck to ankles. “The boys,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Have you seen them?”
“Surely they’re in bed?”
“They were. But I looked in a few minutes ago and found them gone. Kerridge and Harmwell are searching the house, but I think they must be outside, for they have taken their coats and hats, as well as their boots.” She pressed her hand against her bosom, as if to calm the beating of her heart. “The dogs are out.”
“The mastiffs are well acquainted with them – Charlie has made pets of them – they will not harm the boys, I’ll take my oath on it. Who else knows they are gone?”
“Most of the servants are already in bed. I tried to tell Mr Carswall but he is – he is asleep in the library. Kerridge was in my room waiting to undress me, and fortunately she knew that Mr Harmwell was still reading in the servants’ hall.”
I nodded. “Depend upon it, the boys are engaged on some prank or other. I am sure they are safe.”
“You are not their mother, Tom.” She turned her face away from me. “Oh, where can they be?”
“Stay – if they’re not in the house, I have an idea where they might have gone.”
She looked up at me, her face alive with hope.
“You have heard about the monk and the treasure?”
“What?”
“The boys have woven a story around the ruins. They pretend that when the abbey was dissolved, one of the Flaxern monks buried the monastery’s treasure in the park. They have been searching for it.”
“But that is just a childish game.”
“Of course it is. But both boys have a lively fancy and I believe the game has become almost real to them. Indeed, they may sometimes forget the distinction between fiction and truth. Part of their story is that the monk who hid the treasure is now a ghost, and if you find him and talk to him the right way, he will show you where the treasure is.”
“It is quite absurd.”
“Not to them.”
“But they cannot have gone down to the ruins on a night like this,” she protested, clinging to the door for support. “It is as black as pitch and still snowing.”
“That would not necessarily deter two high-spirited boys. If they are not in the house, then the next place to look would be the ruins and the ice-house.”
“The ice-house? Where is that?”
“Tucked into the side of the hill near the lake. The boys think it a highly suitable location for treasure. I will visit it directly, and if they’re not there go on down to the ruins.”
“Harmwell shall go with you.”
“Very well. I will meet him by the door to the terrace.”
“Kerridge and I will accompany you.”
“It will be better if you stay at the house,” I said quickly. “They may still be here. Or they may return by a different path.”
Sophie slipped away to make the necessary arrangements. It did not take me long to find my outdoor clothes and go downstairs. Mrs Kerridge and Sophie arrived, followed in a moment by Harmwell, who was carrying two lanterns. Sophie pressed a flask of brandy into my hand, and Mrs Kerridge had brought a spare cloak.
“If I know boys,” she said, “one or both of them will have found a way of getting theirselves wet.”
Harmwell and I slipped out on to the terrace. It was still snowing, though not as heavily as before. Nevertheless there were two or three inches on the ground, and more where the wind had blown it up into drifts: virgin snow, white and crisp, the very devil to walk through when you were in a hurry.
Not only was it dark, but the snow had covered the path and obliterated many familiar landmarks. We made our way round the corner of the house to the path leading to the lake. Harmwell discovered what might have been small footprints; but they had been blurred to the point of ambiguity by subsequent falls of snow.
In silence, we plodded along in the shelter of the wall of the kitchen gardens. It was not long before we stumbled, quite literally, on our first unwelcome discovery. There, lying near the doorway where Edgar and Charlie had prepared their ambuscade for me on a cold, clear afternoon, was a shadow, black against the snow.
Harmwell swore. We stooped over what proved to be the body of one of the mastiffs. I bent down to examine him as well as I could, for the great dog was so heavy that it was impossible to move him. I ascertained only that he was dead and that there was no obvious mark on him, only dribbles of what looked like foam or vomit around his mouth and on the snow where he lay.
My companion grunted. “Poison?”
The discovery put a new complexion on the night’s adventure. We hurried on as fast as we could. We found no trace of the other mastiff, alive or dead. Every now and then, we called the boys’ names. At least we knew we were on the right track for we found clearer traces of their footsteps. The going was hard enough for two grown men: what must it be like for the boys? My mind ran ahead: if we could not find them, we would have to rouse the household and organise a party to search the park. Without shelter, they might well freeze to death.
We reached the obelisk, the hub of the paths in the northern part of the park. A little beyond it, the spreading branches of a Spanish chestnut had protected the ground beneath it from much of the snow. Lantern in hand, Harmwell crouched and took a few lurching steps sideways like an ungainly crab.
“What the devil are you doing?” I said between chattering teeth.
“Look –” He angled the beam so it fell on a particular spot on the ground. “You see?”
I squatted beside him. In the light covering of snow was a perfectly formed small footprint. Harmwell moved the lantern a fraction and the beam shifted to reveal another.
“How should we interpret them?” I asked. “The lake or the ruins?”
“The lake, I think. They were going west, not east.”
“To the ice-house?”
“Perhaps.” He began to walk on. “It was an evil day I mentioned the word treasure.”
“There is nothing to reproach yourself for, Mr Harmwell. They started on about treasure as soon as they saw the monastery ruins, and that was long before you and Mr Noak arrived.”
“I made it worse.”
“Nonsense. You cannot prevent boys from being boys.”
We walked in silence until we came to the shores of the lake. Here Harmwell crouched again and began his crab-like examination of the ground.
“Yes – I have them.”
“Coming or going?”
He straightened up. “I cannot be sure. But I do not think they have returned. If we are lucky we will not be far behind.”
We had not gone further than a few yards along the path when a strange sound came out of the darkness. Though deadened by the snow, it was unmistakably metallic in nature. I judged its source to be perhaps a quarter of a mile away from us. Such was the silence, however, that it was perfectly audible.
“The door of the ice-house?” I said to my companion. “Or perhaps a spade or a pickaxe?”
“I think not, Mr Shield.” Harmwell’s face was invisible, and his deep voice came at me out of the darkness and appeared to be part of it. “I believe it may have been the sound the jaws of a mantrap make when they meet.”
“My God! The boys!”
“I doubt it. Why should they have gone into the woods?”
“But we cannot be sure they did not.”
Harmwell said matter-of-factly, “They had no reason to. Besides, if a living creature had been caught in a mantrap, man or beast, we should almost certainly have heard the screams.”
He strode tirelessly forward with long gliding steps, his legs slightly bent at the knee. I staggered after him, thinking of reasons why a boy in a mantrap might not scream: he had fainted from the pain, he had lost his voice, he was dead. The image of the mantrap filled my mind until it became an emblem of all that was cold, ruthless and inhumane, all that preyed on the weak, the poor and the unfortunate. The snow slackened and at last dwindled to the occasional flake. To the east a few stars appeared over the lake, though most of the sky remained cloudy.
“How did you know it was a mantrap?” I asked in a trembling voice.
“When one is habituated to it, the clang it produces is quite distinctive.”
“You speak with the experience of the hunter?”
He left a pause before he replied, “And of the hunted.”
We came at length to the mouth of the defile leading to the ice-house. Our progress became slower and slower. The ground was strewn with the consequences of the autumn gales, pieces of rock, uprooted trees, and branches, all disguised by the snow and blanketed further by the darkness. Nor was there as much shelter here as I had expected, for the wind had changed direction during the evening and was now blowing across the lake and up towards the ice-house. With the wind had come the snow.
A few paces ahead of me, Harmwell crouched and again examined the ground. “Someone else has been here recently,” he said over his shoulder. “Perhaps more than one.”
I brought my mouth so close to his ear I felt the coldness of his skin. “You do not mean the boys?”
“Grown men, I think. But I cannot be sure, not in this light – the tracks are confused.”
We hurried up the path until at last we came to the ice-house. The double doors stood wide.
“They are here!” I cried.
“It does not follow,” Harmwell said. “The place was left open. The workmen desired to air the place overnight.”
“But someone has been here,” I said. “Look at the snow in the doorway.”
As I spoke, we stepped into the passage. The familiar stench of decay, less powerful than before, swept out to meet us. Harmwell pushed roughly past and, holding his lantern high, preceded me towards the chamber. I pulled my muffler over my nose and mouth and followed.
The inner doors were open. We looked into the black depths of the pit. The light from the lanterns, feeble though it was, flowed like water into the darkness below.
“Oh God,” I murmured. “Oh dear God.”
Harmwell clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Who is it?” he said.
I did not answer. Lying on the floor of the pit was the body of a man, face-down, his head obscured by a hat. He wore a long dark coat with a high collar. His arms were outstretched, and his body was embedded in the thin layer of dirty straw and slush.
“Who is it?” said Harmwell again, and there was a thrill of urgency in his voice. “For Christ’s sake, man, who is it?”