Chapter Fifteen
NIGHT AT WELLING HALL
THE plump man was likely to stay for some hours, probably for the night: and Collyn was at Welling Hall. That was evidence enough for Mannering.
He walked back towards the drive gates, and turned towards the village, hoping the cabby had been loyal. As he walked, with a long swinging stride that made the distance with surprising speed, the turmoil in his mind eased. He even felt hungry! A glance at his watch made him realise how time had lost all its importance that day. It was nearly eight o’clock, he had had a poor lunch, and the excitement of the chase, with the shock of Savoyan’s murder added to the discovery of Collyn’s apparent involvement had made him forget it. The crisp May air, the approach of dusk, the serenity of the wooded countryside, brought more rational thoughts.
The old Austin was standing outside an inn which was pleasant and gabled, with the woodwork freshly oiled and green paint bright on flower-boxes and tubs, from which young cypresses were growing. No other car stood on the uneven cobbles of the yard, but the mellow light from a tavern window, early though it was, held a cheery invitation.
The cabby was investigating beer, in a tankard. He caught sight of Mannering entering the bar parlour, finished his drink, and smacked his lips.
‘Ready, sir?’
‘I’m going to have dinner,’ said Mannering.
A short, pot-bellied man behind the bar lifted his plump hands from the armholes of his check pattern waistcoat, eyed the newcomer genially and with welcome, and assured him that he could do roast beef and Yorkshire with spring greens. Garden greens, he said with emphasis. In the quiet of the pleasant dining-room, where old silver glistened in shaded lights, polished glass and cutlery winked and gleamed, and the linen was as freshly white as driven snow, Mannering felt the tension of the day easing, and dwelt not without longing on the life of a country gentleman of leisure. The years stretched back in vivid episodes, the hectic rush, the struggles with Bristow, the Sûreté, and others of Corbertes’ persuasion, even the thrill of forcing an entry seemed to grow out of all proportion, repugnant, even hateful.
A girl in starched white cap and apron and neat black dress served him silently; the food was well cooked and plentiful, he drank ale out of a tankard, and lingered over the nostalgia for the days before the Baron had been born. Longer, perhaps, than he should have done. He knew that a great deal of his present state of mind was due to the memory of Lorna and Forsyth bundling into the Bentley, obviously prepared for enjoyment; it left a bitterness he could not dispel. And when he found himself thinking of it he forced the thoughts away savagely and tried to bring his mind to the immediate problems. They were numerous and urgent enough.
‘And,’ Mannering said aloud, ‘they’re all connected by a common denominator. I’ve got to find it.’ Mine host came in, prepared to talk.
Wind from the north whipped through the parkland of Welling Hall, rustling the young leaves of the trees, sometimes crackling a small branch so that it fell noisily to the long lush grass, but no cloud hid the unwinking stars, nor disturbed the serenity of the dark heavens.
There was no moon, but Mannering could see well enough as he approached Welling Hall, after parking a small car he had hired – not without difficulty, for he had not dared to show his Mellor licence, nor his own – in a clearing thirty yards from the entrance.
The cabby had driven him back to Reading. About the hall and its new owner – Mannering had pricked up his ears at the ‘new’ – the man of the inn had been talkative, but not approving. The owner was a man named Hawley who had taken the old place over, four months before, lock, stock, and barrel. Not, the innkeeper had said, that there was much of a catch. The furniture was falling to pieces and, he believed, some of the walls would not stand up to a strong wind. It had been empty for five years, except for a decrepit caretaker, and not a penny had been spent on it.
Mannering had eventually reached the source of his disgruntlement.
Hawley, it seemed, made no purchases in the village, contributed in no way to the prosperity of the locality. If he bought beer, wines, and spirits it was from Reading or London. Even the three menservants came from London. It was rumoured that Hawley was a ‘writing gent’, and the innkeeper admitted a grudging possibility that eccentricity was thus explained.
Not even the garage benefited, although there were three cars at the Hall. Now and again one of the servants put in a couple of gallons at the village pump, but he maintained the reputation that the new owner and his staff had earned for sullenness and unsociability.
Visitors?
The innkeeper had lowered his voice, as though to speak of dark deeds. Yes, Hawley had visitors, mostly there at nights. Women and men: he stressed the ‘women’.
To the Baron it was blessedly obvious that Welling Hall was the headquarters of the syndicate in England, and he blessed Chloe for enabling him to find it. And from a vague description of Hawley he knew that Mike was the man.
On the journey back to Reading, Mannering calculated the chances of breaking into Welling Hall. Three men-servants, one of whom would probably be on duty all night, the possibility of visitors, and Hawley himself. A strong opposition, and yet to Mannering the need for getting at some measure of the truth was urgent; and the evening papers in Reading had confirmed it.
For the Baron had been publicly associated with the murder of Savoyan.
Headlines across all the papers proved the story’s public appeal. So far Mannering had not been mentioned, but he wondered how long it would be before the police allowed that to be circulated. No longer was it a question of unmasking the masqueraders for the sake of it, and because he was the Baron.
According to the Press, Savoyan had been murdered at the very time Mannering had been removing his make-up at the Russell Square flat. A hue and cry was being raised for Jonathan Mellor, a stop press announcement declared the finding of another flat and a house, rented by the man wanted in connection with the Westminster Flat Murder. The evidence was coming in fast; danger was closing on him.
The circumstances called for desperate measures.
And so the Baron moved unseen through the shadows of the shrubbery at Welling Hall, while from the distant village a church clock chimed the hour of one o’clock, and close by a startled rabbit sped through the undergrowth.
No lights glowed from any of the windows.
The vague, rambling shape of the old house loomed up through the darkness, blotting out the stars. Persistently from its roof came the melancholy call of an owl, eerie and unnerving. The shadows seemed to close about the Baron, whose dark mackintosh rustled as he made his way quickly and unhesitatingly.
He reached the front porch.
The oak door was solid, and the only glass was in two small, leaded panes, out of reach of the lock and the bolts. Mannering needed only a few seconds inspection to know that there was no entrance that way. He slipped towards the right, reached the first window, and met uncompromisingly solid shutters. He examined window after window, but none of them was accessible; back and front and sides were shuttered, several showing evidence of recent repair.
Hawley had prepared against burglary.
Mannering reached the out-buildings, ramshackle stables that offered him the first faint hope. The padlock was rusty and the chains loose. Standing in its shadows he looked up at the house, and he saw the faint reflection of the stars on third-floor windows, which were not shuttered. As far as he could see the precautions had been taken only with the ground and first-floor rooms.
He opened his tool-kit and took a pick-lock from his pocket. It was an intricate instrument, obtained from a one-time safe-maker’s assistant, and legally used for forcing the locks of doors or safes for which no key could be found. Mannering was as expert with it as any man in London, and the padlock presented little trouble. A few dexterous twists, and it opened. Silently he withdrew the chain, and pulled open the stable door. He was prepared for any emergency; danger would most likely come from a watchdog, but there was no sound from inside the building.
Breathing more easily, the Baron closed the door behind him, and used his torch.
It shone on the Daimler which Hawley had used from the station, on a Riley, and a family Morris. All three cars looked immaculate, and there was a faint smell of car polish as well as petrol.
The conversion of the stables to a garage had been done by removing the stalls, but there was the old carriage-house adjoining, the door unlocked. Mannering stepped through, and he saw exactly what he wanted. From that moment he felt confident.
There were three or four ladders, two of them of the extension type, and long enough to reach the second-floor windows. It was difficult to get them through the narrow door, but he managed it, and laid them on the concrete washdown outside the stables. Near by was a large water-tub, which Mannering eyed thoughtfully as he returned to the garage.
He took the sparking-plugs from the three cars, and smiled fleetingly as he dropped them one by one into the water-butt, anxious to make no unnecessary noise. He had avoided the likelihood of pursuit; if he was discovered and had to run for safety he had only to reach his car. He felt the thrill of the hunt coursing through his veins, an almost unholy excitement.
Still no light shone from any of the windows, and only the birds and the beasts of the fields made any sound. But the noise of the ladder as he carried it to the house and rested it against the wall, racked his nerves. When he started to push the extension up so that he could reach the window wood squeaked on wood; every second brought its dangers.
He had the ladder resting near the sill of a window at last, and there had been no hint of alarm. He tested it, felt secure, and mounted the rungs slowly.
As he reached the top and stood still he took his mask from his pocket and tied it about his neck, ready to be pulled up once he was inside. Then he examined the windows, and his pulse leapt; for on the top ledge of the lower half the putty had both worn and broken away, and the glass was loose. Once it shook and rattled in the wind, and he hesitated, swaying a little on the ladder.
Other windows, to his right and left, rattled noisily; the clamour did not die down until temporarily, the wind had blown itself out. Mannering’s lips tightened and he waited, determined on a change of method.
Another gust swept at him, wailing about the corners of the house and eaves, shaking the roof slates. As it came Mannering cracked his elbow hard against the glass. It was crude but effective and quick. The glass smashed, and the sharp noise of the splintering was lost in the howling of the wind. He did not hear the pieces falling on the floor of the passage beyond, and certainly no one in a nearby room could have heard it.
He inserted his hand, found the catch, and unfastened it.
Another gust of wind covered the squealing as he pushed the window up and climbed through. As his weight was taken from the ladder it rattled noisily on the wall, and for a moment he thought it would fall. He grabbed it, took a piece of strong cord from his kit, looped it about the first rung of the ladder, and tied it to a hook fastened to the window-frame. That means of escape was open, but the wind cut through the open window and along the passage; a picture clattered.
The Baron used his torch, and the pencil of light showed two small pictures, both moving gently. He took them from their hooks before he felt that it was safe to leave the window and reconnoitre. It was one of the rare occasions that the Baron had entered a house knowing nothing of the layout, and only the urgency of the situation would have made him take the risk.
One end of the passage ended in a blank wall, the other led to a wide corridor. From the first passage a single door opened, and Mannering tried the handle and pushed. It opened without trouble. He stood there for a moment, his ears strained, but he caught no sound of breathing. His torch showed him a room empty but for the few oddments of furniture, and some rusty tin packing-trunks.
He went out, and made for the next corridor.
Three rooms led from it, and as he shot the pencil of light from his torch he saw a staircase, leading upwards. The beam did not carry to the extreme end of the passage. He crept along, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound, until he saw that a third passage led to the main stairs, and the first floor. It was safe to assume that the servants were on that floor, and he paused by one of the doors.
Heavy breathing sounded.
The next room was occupied, too, and he knew whence the main danger would come. But when he reached the end of the passage he found a stout door, made to segregate the servants’ quarters from the main rooms. He examined the lock and the key: neither had been used for a long time, and he drew the key out, oiled it from a can in his kit, and pulled the door behind him. He locked it; now the servants would not be able to get out without sending him warning.
The chance that there was a night-watchman had to be borne in mind, and Mannering went forward towards the staircase and the first floor, without a sound. The silence in the house was uncanny, the slightest noise was exaggerated out of all proportion, even his breathing seemed laboured.
But there were carpets, threadbare yet deadening sound, and he hurried down the stairs. At the landing he was faced with three short passages, all wide, all presumably with two or three main bedrooms opening from them. Instead of going towards them he went downstairs.
The dim light from his torch showed the old, heavy furniture, much of it decayed. Hawley appeared to care nothing for the conditions in which he lived. The hall was large, and the walls were dotted with trophies of the hunt, his light shone once on a pale, grinning skull of a deer. The hollow eye-sockets seemed to glare towards him. Mannering’s heart was thumping unpleasantly, the eerie silence was getting on his nerves.
The door was chained and bolted.
Mannering withdrew the bolts, thankful that they were well oiled and silent. The chains clicked a little, but he took them off their knobs without making much noise. Then he tested the door for opening. It moved easily despite its weight; and the catch was also well oiled.
Another way of escape was open, doubly important because of the shutting of the servants’ door.
Now for Collyn!
He had decided to try to find the peer first, and worry about Hawley afterwards. He paid a cursory visit to the main downstairs rooms, found them all unlocked and empty. The communicating door to the servants’ quarters was open, and he closed it. It had no lock, and he pulled a heavy chair from the hall in front of it. As far as he could he had to bar the servants’ progress.
He went back to the first-floor landing, and the three passages, and for the first time heard a sound.
He stood dead still by the head of the stairs, until the sound came more clearly, the footsteps of a man or woman. He slipped towards the wall, pulling his mask up. As it covered his face except for his eyes and forehead a door opened along the middle passage, and a dim light shone out, revealing the old busts on stone pedestals near by, the heavy furniture of the landing. The footsteps, muffled by the carpet, came more clearly, and the door closed.
They came no nearer; if anything they went farther away.
The Baron stepped to the end of the passage, and he saw the man clearly. He was fully dressed, but wore carpet slippers that slipped as he moved towards a door at the far end of the passage. He went in, closed the door, and Mannering stood there for some seconds.
It had not been Hawley, nor Collyn. Was it a visitor, or a watchman? The fact that he had been dressed suggested the latter, and Mannering fancied that he knew why he had been on guard inside a room.
He stepped towards the door from which the man had come, and tried the handle. It was not locked. As he opened it the soft light flooded the passage, and Mannering was able to see into the room.
Near the door was a small table on which a set of solitaire cards were laid out, as though the man had stopped in the middle of a game. But it was the bed that interested Mannering, for he saw Lord Collyn fully dressed but for collar, tie, and shoes. One arm was flung outwards, his legs were wide apart, and he was breathing very softly, unlike a man in a normal sleep.
The Baron went through, and closed the door.
And as he stepped behind it he heard the shuffling footsteps again, and he knew that the moment of testing had come.