John let out a low whistle, then said, ‘It’s not for me to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but d’you really think you ought to take such a risk, C.B.? I mean, of blotting your copy-book so badly that even your Department will feel that it must wash its hands of you?’
‘Yes. I think so in a case like this, for which no provision is made by our ordinary laws. I don’t want to sound stuffy, but there are times when every man must be guided by his own conscience, and this is one of them. We have learnt tonight that we are up against not just a dabbler in Black Magic who threatens the well-being of one young woman, but a Satanist of the first order, who is striving to perfect and launch upon the world one of the worst horrors that even his master, the Devil, can have conceived. To stop that I am prepared to go to any lengths.’
‘Since you put it that way, you are absolutely right; but where is this place you intend to break into?’
‘I mean to pay a midnight visit to The Grange.’
‘What good will that do us, as Beddows isn’t there?’
‘Probably none. It’s just a long shot; but there’s a chance that we might find some useful pointers to Beddows’ whereabouts and his tie-up with the Canon.’
John spoke with a touch of deference. ‘I don’t pretend to be psychic, but I didn’t at all like the atmosphere of The Grange when we called there this evening. Perhaps that is because it is such a gloomy old place, but as these two beauties appear to be mixed up together I should think it is quite on the cards that The Grange, too, has got some pretty nasty spooks in it. Haven’t you had enough of that sort of thing for one night?’
‘To be honest, John, I have,’ C.B. replied quietly. ‘But in the late war, whenever one of the R.A.F. boys was shot down, or made a crash landing, they used to send him up again just as soon as they could. It was an excellent principle. That’s the way to keep one’s nerve, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the Canon and his pals must be on the qui vive I’d make myself go back into that crypt. As such a move would mean sticking out my neck a bit too far, I’m going into the moated Grange at midnight instead.’
‘Well, you’re the boss.’ John tried to make his voice sound flippant. The few minutes he had spent in the crypt had been more than enough for him. He could only guess what C.B. must have been through while bound hand and foot there and expecting to be murdered within the hour; but he knew that to show admiration for the elder man would only embarrass them both, so without further remark he took the car round the village green and drove back the way they had come.
As they were passing the church, C.B. said, ‘All the same, John, you mustn’t get the idea I’m about to risk running into something very nasty, or having to appear in the dock, for no better reason than to test my own nerve. I’m going into The Grange because this matter has become too urgent for me to neglect any chance of getting a new line on these people. We left France with the object of interviewing Beddows, because we felt confident that he would be able to tell us what lay behind Copely-Syle’s attempts to get hold of Christina. We have found that out from the Canon himself; but what we have learnt tonight makes it more important than ever that we should get hold of Beddows with the least possible delay. At the moment we have only half the picture. He must be able to give us the other half. We’ve got to know why it was Christina that the Canon selected as his potential victim, and why her father left her marooned in the South of France. I have an idea that Copely-Syle may be blackmailing him. If so, we’ll get something on the enemy that way. If not, he may be able to provide us with some other line by which we can use the normal processes of the law to spike the Canon’s guns. But we’ve got to trace him first, and it seems to me that our best chance of doing that is by raiding his house. With a little luck we may find some papers there which will give us a lead to where he has got to.’
‘I hadn’t thought of any of those things,’ John admitted ruefully, and, angry with himself for having suggested going to bed while the night still held a chance to further elucidate the grim mystery which surrounded Christina, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator.
Two minutes later he drove the car a little way up a blind turning that he had noticed earlier, barely a hundred yards from the gates of The Grange, brought it to a standstill and switched out its lights. C.B. produced a big torch from under the seat and went round to the boot. From it he got out several implements that are not usually found in a motor repair outfit, then they walked along the road to the entrance to the drive. As they reached it, C.B. said: ‘Now this time—’
‘Sorry, C.B.,’ John interrupted him before he had a chance to get any further, ‘I’m much too cold and wet to hang about here. I’m coming in with you.’
‘Then if we are caught we may both be jugged for housebreaking.’
‘No. You know jolly well that doesn’t follow. If we are surprised, the odds are that one of us will have time to get away. I couldn’t go in with you before, because the Canon would have recognised me; but this is different. Honestly, we’ll both be much safer if we stick together.’
‘You won’t, because you will be taking a quite unnecessary risk.’ C.B. grinned at him in the darkness. ‘Still, since you insist, I won’t deny that I’ll be glad to have you with me. Come on, then.’
In single file they walked along the grass verge of the drive until they reached the sweep in front of the house; then C.B. led the way round to its back. The rain had eased a little and in one quarter of the dark heavens the moon was now trying to break through between banks of swiftly drifting cloud. The light it gave was just enough to outline dimly the irregularities of the building, parts of which were four hundred years old, and it glinted faintly on its windows. No light showed in any of them, neither was there now any sound of a wireless; but as it was still only a little after eleven o’clock C.B. feared that the Jutson couple might not yet have gone to sleep; so he continued to move with great caution.
As John peered up at the flat over the stables in which they lived, he whispered: ‘I wonder if they keep a watchdog.’
‘If they do it would be a pretty definite indication that there is nothing worse here. Dogs will always run away rather than stay in a place where there are spooks.’
No growl or whine disturbed the stillness and, having been right round the house, they turned back. Drawing on a pair of rubber gloves, C.B. told John to put on his wash-leather ones; then he selected a small window in a semi-circular two-storied turret that jutted out from a main wall, and had evidently been built on at a much later date. Inserting a short jemmy opposite the catch, he pressed down on it: there was a sharp snap, and the window flew open.
Climbing inside he found, as he had expected, that the turret contained a back staircase. As he turned to help John in after him he whispered: ‘Never break in by a room, my lad, unless you know it to be the one room in the house you want to get into. Otherwise the odds are that you will find its door bolted and may have half-an-hour’s hard work before you can get any further. On the other hand, if you come in by the hall or stairs the whole house is your oyster.’
He flashed his torch for a second. It disclosed a short passage ahead of them and a baize door. Tip-toeing forward, he reached the door and pushed it gently. Yielding to his touch, it swung silently open. They listened intently for a moment, but no sound came to them. C.B. shone his torch again and kept it on while he swept its beam slowly round, then up and down. The door gave on to the main hall of the house. It was large and lofty, with heavy oak beams. A broad staircase on one side of it led up to the landing of the first floor, and there was a small minstrels’ gallery on the other. Opposite the intruders stood the front door, and to either side there were other doors, evidently giving on to the principal rooms of the house. The moving beam was suddenly brought to rest on a large oak chest under the stairs. On it stood a telephone.
Moving softly forward, C.B. shone the light down behind the chest till it showed a square, plastic box that was fixed to the skirting. Producing a pair of clippers from his pocket, he cut the main wire a little beyond the box. John, who had come up behind him, said in a low voice: ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, eh? We won’t be able to laugh off the breaking and entering business now by spinning a yarn that we found a window open and just came in out of the rain.’
‘Worth it,’ replied C.B. tersely. ‘On a job like this, cutting the enemy’s communications as a first move quadruples one’s chances of getting away safely. If it becomes necessary to run for it they can’t call out the police cars to scour the roads.’
‘It’s a great comfort to be in the hands of a professional.’ John’s voice betrayed his amusement.
‘That’s quite enough from you, young feller. I have to know these things; but my own visits to strangers are nearly always by way of the front door, with a search warrant.’
‘I suppose that’s why you carry such things as jemmies, wire-cutters and rubber gloves in your car kit, and always …’
John’s banter was cut short by a faint noise that seemed to come from the top of the house. It sounded like the muffled clanking of some small pieces of metal. C.B.’s torch flicked out: they stood in silence for a minute; then John whispered a trifle hoarsely: ‘What was that? It … ghosts don’t really ever rattle their chains, do they?’
‘Not as far as I know; but it certainly sounded like it,’ C.B. whispered back. ‘Keep dead quiet now, so that next time we’ll hear it clearly.’
For three minutes, that seemed like thirty to John, they stood absolutely still in the darkness; but the only sound they could catch was that of one another’s breathing. At last, switching on his torch again, C.B. shone it aloft and round about. There was no sign of movement up on the landing or in the minstrels’ gallery, and nothing to be seen other than the black oak beams outlined against the white walls and ceiling. Lowering the light, he said: ‘False alarm, I think. Just one of those noises there is no accounting for that one often hears in old houses at night. Come on! Let’s explore.’
Crossing the hall, he opened the door on the right of the entrance. It gave on to a long low-ceilinged drawing-room. The place had a slightly musty smell, as though it had been shut up and no fire lit in it for a considerable time. The furniture in it was very ordinary: some of it had faded chintz covers, the rest was black, spindly-legged stuff. On the walls there were some quite awful pictures in gilt frames.
As they advanced into it John caught sight of a photograph of Christina on an occasional table, which must have been taken when she was about seventeen. Picking it up, he stared at it and said: ‘How fantastic that anything so sweet should be even remotely connected with such ugly surroundings as these.’
C.B. had always preferred small, fair, vivacious women, so he saw nothing particularly attractive in Christina; and, being a realist, it was on the tip of his tongue to reply, ‘I’ve known better lookers who were reared in the slums of Paris and Vienna’, but it occurred to him that that might be unkind; so he forbore to comment and continued to flash his torch this way and that, until he had decided that the room contained nothing worth closer examination—at all events for the time being.
Leaving the drawing-room, they crossed the hall to the room opposite. It proved to be the dining-room. It also had an air of long disuse and chill dampness owing to lack of regular heating. John followed C.B. in and walked straight over to the bulky Victorian sideboard. At one end of it stood a tarnished silver tantalus containing the usual three square cut-glass decanters. Taking the stopper from one, he smelt it and said: ‘Good. This is brandy. Shine your torch here a moment, C.B., and we’ll have a quick one.’
‘I see you are becoming quite a professional yourself.’ C.B. smiled as he focused the beam.
John found some glasses in one of the sideboard cupboards, poured two stiff tots, then turned and grinned back. ‘Oh no; I’m only carrying out my role of Christina’s fiancé. If I were really Mr Beddows’ prospective son-in-law, I’m sure he would expect me to play host to you in his absence.’
‘You’ve certainly taken to the role like a duck to water,’ C.B. twitted him. ‘I believe you have become jolly keen on that girl, although you haven’t yet known her a week.’
‘We’ve seen a great deal of each other in a short time, and in quite exceptional circumstances,’ John replied in a noncommittal voice. ‘That makes a big difference; so naturally I’ve a very personal interest in helping to protect her.’
‘Here’s to our success in that, then.’
They clinked glasses and drank. The brandy was not of very good quality, but it was nonetheless welcome at the moment. John’s shoes were soaked right through from standing about in the mud and wet, while C.B. had had to leave his hat and coat in the Canon’s house; so he had since had a steady wetting from the drizzling rain. Both were feeling the chill of the raw night; and, although their behaviour was now light-hearted, beneath the surface the nerves of neither of them had yet fully recovered from the shaking they had had in the crypt.
Warmed in body and fortified in mind by the fiery spirit, they put the glasses back and resumed their reconnaissance. While they were drinking, C.B. had already surveyed the dining-room, and it contained no piece of furniture in which it seemed likely that papers would be kept; so they went out into the hall and tried a door under the stairs. It led only to a stone-flagged passage, which was obviously the way to the kitchen quarters. Closing it quietly, C.B. shot its bolt, so that should Jutson be roused and, entering the house by a back door, seek to come through it, he would find his way blocked. They then tip-toed across to the door opposite and, opening it, found themselves in a study, three walls of which were lined shoulder-high with books.
‘Ah, this looks more promising,’ C.B. murmured, as the torch lit up a big roll-top desk. ‘You stay by the door, John, and keep your ears open, just in case the Jutsons are not asleep yet and we have disturbed them. If you hear anyone trying that door across the hall that leads to the kitchen quarters, slip in and warn me. We’ll have time then to get back into the drawing-room and out through one of the front windows.’
While he was speaking he walked to the study window and drew its curtains as a precaution against the Jutsons seeing a light in the room, for it looked out on to the backyard. Then, producing a bunch of keys from his pocket, he set to work on the desk. In less than a minute he had its roll-top open.
With swift, practised fingers he went systematically through one pigeon-hole after another. When he had done, the owner of the desk would never have guessed that the papers it contained had been examined; but the search had revealed nothing of interest. The pigeon-holes and shallow drawers held only Henry Beddows’ household accounts, notepaper, cheque-books, pencils, rubbers and so on. None of the bills or receipts suggested any activity which could be considered unorthodox.
C.B. was just about to reclose the desk-top when John stepped back through the door and swiftly swung it nearly shut.
‘What is it?’ C.B. asked below his breath.
‘The clanking of that chain again,’ John whispered.
He was still holding the door a few inches open. C.B. stepped up to him and, their heads cocked slightly sideways, they listened with straining ears for some moments. As no further sound reached them, John mumbled rather shamefacedly: ‘Sorry. I could have sworn I heard a chain being dragged across the floor somewhere at the top of the house; but I must have been mistaken. Nerves, I suppose.’
‘The dank, unlived-in atmosphere of this place is enough to give anyone the creeps,’ C.B. said understanding. ‘It was probably a fall of soot in one of the chimneys brought down by the rain.’
Returning to the desk, he closed its top, and set about opening the drawers in its two pedestals, most of which were locked. The locked ones he found to contain a number of stamp albums and the impedimenta of a philatelist.
A glance showed him that the albums covered only the British Empire. Quickly he flicked through a couple of them and saw that they were a fairly valuable collection. Then he noticed a curious thing. The pages for some of the smaller Colonies had on them the remains of a number of stamp hinges but not a single stamp of any denomination. Turning to John he said: ‘This is interesting. Beddows evidently started a general collection of the British Empire; then, unless I’m right off the mark, he began to specialise in Barbados, Cyprus and perhaps a few other places. Being a rich man, he could afford to buy rarities and his special collections soon grew too valuable for him to leave them with the rest; so he removed his pet Colonies into a separate album.’
‘Where does that get us?’ asked John, a little mystified.
‘Come, come, my dear Watson. Surely you realise that a keen philatelist would never keep the best part of his collection in his office, where he couldn’t look at it in the evenings. The fact that it is not here suggests that it is in a safe somewhere in the house. If Christina’s papa has a safe, it is there that he would also keep the sort of highly private papers in which we are interested.’
‘That sounds logical; but if there is a safe surely it would be a bit beyond you to get it open?’
‘Probably, but not necessarily. If it is an old type, patience and my skeleton keys might do the trick. Anyhow it would be worth trying.’
Returning the stamp albums to their drawers C.B. relocked them. He had already noticed a door between two sets of bookshelves that stood against the further wall. Walking over, he opened it and looked through. The room beyond was another sitting-room. From some fashion magazines, a bowl of pot-pourri and a work basket it looked as if it might be Christina’s sanctum on the rare occasions when she was at home. After a quick glance round he left it and they returned to the hall.
They had now explored all the downstairs livingrooms without success, and it seemed that if there was a safe in the house at all it must be up in Beddows’ bedroom.
At the foot of the main staircase they paused, while C.B. shone his torch upward. No movement was to be seen and no sound reached them. Yet the very silence of the damp, chill house seemed to have something vaguely sinister about it; so that, instead of advancing boldly, both of them half-held their breath and trod gently as they went upstairs.
They were within two steps of the main landing, and could see across it to a dark rectangle between a pair of oak uprights, through which a narrower flight of stairs led to the top floor of the house, when the clanking came again.
This time it was distinct and unmistakable; a noise of chains being dragged across a wooden floor. The sound was so eerie, so uncanny, in that dark, deserted house that it caused their hearts to leap. The blood seemed to freeze in their veins, and momentarily they were inflicted with a semi-paralysis. Yet it was the very terror that caused their throats to close and their muscles to contract that saved C.B. from a broken neck.
He was in the act of planting his right foot on the landing. Instead of coming down firmly, it was arrested in mid-air by the same nervous shock that made his scalp prickle. For a second or so it hovered; then, by no act of will but by the residue of its own momentum, it sank gently on to the carpet.
The carpet gave as though it was a feather bed. There came a faint snap, then a swift slithering noise. A large piece of carpet suddenly flopped downwards from the topmost stair. Its loose end and sides had been secured to the main carpet of the landing only by threads. It now hung straight down between the newel post of the banisters and the wall, leaving a four foot square gulf of blackness. The square of carpet at the stairhead had been cunningly suspended to conceal the fact that the flooring beneath it had been removed. Anyone stepping firmly upon it must have been flung down into the hall fifteen feet below.
C.B. gasped, staggered, and recovered his balance. Then, flashing his torch through the gaping hole that the vanished carpet had left in the nearest corner of the landing, he muttered: ‘My God, that was a near one! It’s a modern oubliette. The sort of death-trap that the French Kings used to have in their castles for troublesome nobles whom they invited to stay with intent to murder. But this one must have been made quite recently. Look at the torn edges of those boards, where some tool has been used to prise up the ones that have been removed.’
John nodded. ‘Anyhow, this isn’t the work of spooks. It is good solid evidence that Beddows keeps something up here, and is so anxious that no one should see it that he doesn’t even stick at killing as a method of keeping out intruders.’
As he finished speaking there came the rattling of the chains once more.
It was a horribly unnerving sound. In spite of what had just been said the blood drained from the faces of the two men as they looked quickly at one another.
‘I expect it is some mechanical gadget made to scare people,’ John said a little dubiously.
‘Perhaps.’ C.B. hesitated. ‘On the other hand, if Copely-Syle and Beddows are buddies it may be something very different. Still, if you’re game to go on, I am.’
The vitality of both was now at a very low ebb, and John would have given a lot for a sound excuse to abandon their investigations there and then; but he hated the idea of losing face with C.B.; so he said in a low voice: ‘All right. But as we cross the landing I think you had better recite the Lord’s Prayer, as you did in the crypt, and I’ll join in.’
Handing the torch to John, C.B. grasped the newel post firmly and swung himself across the gap, carefully testing the firmness of the floor beyond before letting go. John passed him back the torch and followed. Together, they began to pray aloud. Shining the light downward on to the floor and taking each step cautiously, in case there was another trap, C.B. led the way across the landing. In the archway he paused, put one foot on the lowest stair of the upper flight, tested that, then swiftly raised the beam. The thing it fell upon caused them to break off their prayer. The chain clanked loudly. Simultaneously they jumped back.
For a moment the light had swept across a crouching form and lit up two reddish eyes. A dark hunched thing, with eyeballs that glowed like live coals, was squatting halfway up the narrow flight of stairs.
In a choking voice John cried, ‘For God’s sake let’s get out of here!’ And turned to run.
C.B.’s flesh was creeping and his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Yet, as he swung round to follow, he managed to shout a warning: ‘Careful! Look out for the hole!’
John was already halfway across the landing. He pulled up so abruptly that C.B. cannoned into him. The torch was knocked from C.B.’s hand, fell to the floor with a crash, and went out.
Total darkness descended upon them like a pall. John had been thrown off his balance. He staggered sideways a few steps. Their collision had robbed him of his sense of direction. He was no longer certain if the gaping chasm in the floorboards was in front of him or to his left. A few steps either way and he might become a whirling mass of arms and legs, hurtling down into the hall.
The chain was now rattling violently. Other sounds mingled with it. There was an irregular thumping, as if a soft, heavy body was flopping about on the upper stairs; and a quick champing noise, like the repeated snapping together of strong teeth.
John felt a cold sweat break out all over him. He was terrified of the Thing behind him, yet was held where he stood from fear of breaking his neck. Meanwhile C.B., cursing furiously, was on his hands and knees, frantically searching for the lost torch.
Within a matter of seconds his right hand knocked against it. Snatching it up, he pressed the switch. To his infinite relief it lit. The bulb had not, as he had feared, been broken. Still on his knees, he swung the beam towards the opening through which lay the upper stairs.
It was barely thirty seconds since he had dropped the torch. He expected to see that hideous Thing framed in the opening and about to spring upon them. There was nothing there—nothing whatever. Yet the rattling of the chain and the other noises continued with unabated violence.
As the torch flashed on, John swung half-right and grabbed the newel post at the head of the main stairs. Only his sense of loyalty to C.B. restrained him from jumping the hole and dashing down them; but hearing no following footsteps he halted, looked over his shoulder, and shouted: ‘Come on! What the hell are you waiting for?’
C.B. was still kneeling in the middle of the landing with his torch focused on the archway from which came the din of clanking, banging and champing. Without taking his eyes from it, he called: ‘Wait a minute! Don’t go, John! I’m going to have another look.’
‘You’re crazy!’ John shouted back, but he turned towards the landing again. With tightly clenched hands he watched C.B. rise and walk forward, once more reciting the Lord’s Prayer. As he reached the opening he made the sign of the Cross in front of his face, then he shone the torch upwards.
Again it fell upon the hunched form and pair of burning eyes; but this time he kept it there. Round the eyes there was dark shaggy hair; below them a huge mouth, in which two rows of yellowish, gleaming teeth were gnashing. Chattering with fury, the creature began to leap up and down, its long limbs throwing grotesque shadows against the stairs behind it. C.B.’s voice came, no longer sharp from tension, but level and unhurried: ‘The fact that it didn’t come down and attack us made me think that this particular bogey must be chained up; and I was right. Its chain is attached to a post in the wall of the upper landing.’
John moved up beside him. For a moment they both stood staring at the creature on the stairs. It was a big ape; not as large as a baboon, but quite big enough to maul a man and do him serious injury. The chain was attached to a thick leather belt round its waist.
‘The presence of this pretty pet in addition to the oubliette makes one thing quite certain,’ said C.B. softly. ‘There is something up at the top of the house that Beddows is extraordinarily anxious that no one shall see.’
‘Yes. But how the devil are we to get up there?’
‘As you know, I’ve got quite a way with animals; so given an hour or two I don’t doubt that I could tame this chap sufficiently for him to let us pass. But we haven’t got that time to spare; so we’ll have to take stronger measures.’
As C.B. spoke, he turned away towards the nearest of four doors that were ranged round the landing. It opened on to a bedroom. Beside the bed hung an old-fashioned bell pull. Getting up on a chair he detached the rope from the wire spring and handed it to John, with the remark: ‘This is just the thing with which to secure our furry friend. By slipping one end of the rope through the pull ring at the other you’ll have a lasso that will run much more smoothly than if you knotted a loop. I want you to throw it over his head when I give the word. Get it well down to his waist, so that it pinions his arms, and tie it as tight as you can. But watch out that he doesn’t claw you with his feet.’
Taking the eiderdown from the bed, C.B. led the way back to the stairs and propped his torch up on the lowest one, so that its beam shone full upon the angry, snarling animal. Holding the eiderdown in front of him by two of its corners, he went up a few steps until he was near enough to flick its lower end as a matador does his cape. The enraged ape sprang at him, but was brought up with a jerk by the chain. C.B. darted forward up two more stairs, threw the eiderdown over the brute and grasped it firmly round the body.
‘Quick, John!’ he called; and next moment, squeezing past him, John had the rope round the heaving bundle. The strength and fierceness of the ape made it a far from easy matter to truss him securely, but the rope was long enough to take a second turn round his thighs, and after that had been managed the rest was easy. They rolled him up in his own chain till they had him up on the top landing, and there slipped his feet through a half-hitch in it.
To secure the creature without injury to themselves had required all their attention as well as their strength, so it was not until the job was done that either of them noticed another surprise that was in store for them. The top landing was quite small and had only two doors leading from it. From under one of them came a ribbon of light.
It was faint, but quite unmistakable, as its glow was enough to show the outline of the ape’s water-trough and a tin tray on which were the remains of his last meal. Their attention was caught by the narrow strip of light almost at the same second, and they looked quickly at one another, wondering what this new mystery could portend.
Why should there be a light in a room at the top of the house in the middle of the night, unless the room was occupied? If it was, even if its occupant had dropped asleep with the light still on, he must have been roused by the noise made by his guardian ape and the struggle with it that had ensued. Why, knowing that intruders were in the house, and on their way up to his well-protected sanctum, had he shown no sign of life?
Stretching out a hand, C.B. grasped the door-handle firmly and turned it. But the door did not yield to his pressure: it was locked. Not a sound came from beyond it. Except for the faint scuffling of the trussed ape, the house was again utterly silent.
John slipped down the stairs, retrieved the torch and shone it on the door. The light revealed nothing to indicate the use to which the room was put. Apart from the black oak beams in the walls and ceiling, the woodwork of this upper landing was painted cream; but it looked as if a dozen years or more had passed since it had received its last coat. About the bare boards of the floor the ape had scattered some of its food; otherwise the landing was reasonably clean, but the doors showed the slight griminess and innumerable small scratches that only time can bring. It seemed reasonable to assume that they led either to box-rooms or servants’ bedrooms.
C.B. knocked, but there was no reply. Again he rapped, louder this time. Still not a sound came from the room. Putting his shoulder to the door, he threw his weight upon it. The upper part gave slightly but the lock held. Taking a few steps back he ran at the door, lifting his right foot so that it landed flat across the key-hole with the full force of the kick behind his heel. There was a sound of tearing wood and the door flew open.
The room was much larger than they had expected, and lofty enough for the crossbeams of its roof to be only vaguely discernible by a dim blue light that radiated from the centre of its floor. It was, in fact, a huge attic which must have occupied the full breadth and nearly half the length of the house. In it there was no furniture, carpet or curtains, and its three dormer windows appeared to have been pasted over with thick brown paper. The low walls were naked; the whole place was as empty as a drum but for a single human figure and a number of strange objects in its immediate vicinity.
Of these, the thing that first sprang to the eye was a great five-pointed star. It was formed of long glass tubes, all connected together in the same manner as strip-lighting designed to show the name over a shop; and through their whole length glowed electric wires that gave off the cold blue light. Five tall white candles were placed in the points of the star; but these were unlit, so evidently there only against an emergency failure of the electric current. Behind them were placed five bright, brand-new horseshoes. In the valleys of the star were five little silver cups half full of water and some bunches of herbs. More faintly seen were two thick circles that had been drawn in chalk on the floor. The inner, which was about seven feet across, connected the valleys of the star; the outer, which was very much bigger, connected its points. Between the two were chalked a number of Cabalistic formulae and the signs of the Zodiac.
Unmoving, in the very centre of the star sat a man. He was dressed in striped pyjamas and socks, but appeared to have on several layers of underclothes beneath the pyjamas, as their coat was stretched tightly across his chest. He was short, thickset and looked about fifty. His hair was dark, his face broad, and his square, determined jowl so blue with bristles that it looked as if he had not shaved for a week. He was sitting cross-legged upon a thick pile of blankets, his back lightly touching a large tea-chest, and he was facing the door.
Neither of his uninvited visitors had the least doubt who he was. C.B. took a step into the room and said, ‘We must apologise for breaking in on you like this, Mr Beddows; but our business is extremely urgent.’
The man neither moved nor spoke.
‘You are Henry Beddows, aren’t you?’ C.B. asked.
Still the man stared through them as though they were not there.
‘Come on!’ exclaimed John impatiently. ‘We’ve come all the way from the South of France to see you. They told us at your office that you had gone abroad; and when we called here the Jutsons lied to us. Now we’ve run you to earth in spite of them, for goodness’ sake stop pretending to be dumb. Your daughter Ellen is in great danger.’
The man’s hands began to tremble and he averted his eyes, but he did not speak.
Together John and C.B. advanced into the room. The latter said, ‘What my friend has told you is quite true, sir. At the moment your daughter is in prison. We are doing our best—’
‘In prison!’ exclaimed the man, coming swiftly to his feet. Then his expression changed from one of surprise to disbelief. Suddenly he stretched out his hand, made the sign of the Cross and cried loudly: ‘Avaunt thee, Satan!’
John stared at him and muttered, ‘Good Lord! I believe he’s mad.’
C.B. shook his head. ‘No, he’s not mad. And he is Beddows all right. His attitude explains the mystery of all we’ve found in this house. Somebody is after him and he is scared stiff. That is why he has gone into hiding. The oubliette and the ape were to prevent his enemy paying him a visit in person; but there is something which terrifies him much more than that. He is afraid that some frightful monster from one of the lower Astral planes may be sent to get his spirit. That’s why he has made this pentacle. He has locked himself up in what amounts to an Astral fortress, and he doesn’t believe that we are real people at all. He thinks we are evil entities sent to lure him from safety to destruction.’
Suddenly Beddows gave a defiant laugh, then cried, ‘And so you are! Your cunning talk does not deceive me! Get back to him who sent you!’
‘Don’t talk like a fool!’ John snapped at him. ‘Surely you can tell real people when you see them? We’re real and we’re friends. You’re the only person who can give us the truth about this whole awful business; and we’ve got to have it to help us in our fight to save Christina … to save Ellen.’
‘Liar! And spawn of the Father of Lies! Get back whence you came.’
‘We are real flesh and blood, I tell you!’ cried John angrily. ‘Since you won’t believe me I’ll prove it to you.’
As he moved forward to step into the pentacle, C.B. gave a warning shout. ‘Stop! The shock may kill him.’
But his cry came too late. In a stride John had crossed the line of blue light, and was stretching out a hand to touch Beddows.
The wretched man’s face became transfixed with terror. He threw up his arms, gave a piercing scream, and fell at John’s feet as though he had been poleaxed.