Weekend with Death (23 page)

“You are certainly entitled to an explanation, but I do not know that I can give you one. The communications we have just received have no bearing on what happened in this room a hundred and fifty years ago. As to what exactly did happen, that has never been cleared up. The dead body of a young woman dressed only in her shift was found beneath that window on a snowy January night. It was said that she had walked in her sleep and fallen, breaking her neck. Her name was Olivia Perrott, and she was the ward and kinswoman of Roger Perrott to whom the house belonged. It was said that he had wished to marry her, but that she preferred his brother Humphrey. They were betrothed and the wedding day fixed. The matter was never cleared up. Humphrey, who was absent on the night of the tragedy, never returned. His brother gave out that he was travelling abroad to mend his broken heart. But as time went on it began to be whispered that Humphrey did not come back because he was dead, and dead by his brother Roger's hand. When Roger broke his neck out hunting about a year later the property passed to a cousin, John Perrott, who shut up this side of the house. It has never been occupied since. Every now and then there have been hardy investigators who have offered to spend a night alone here. One of them was found dead on the very spot where Olivia Perrott fell. Another had a severe illness and was never the same man again. I have not myself spent a night in the room—I must confess that I was unwilling to do so without company—but I have heard—well—sounds.” His voice went away into a deep whisper and ceased.

Sarah wondered whether the story was a true one, or whether he had made it up. It might be true. She felt a horrified pity for that long-ago Olivia and her murdered lover.

“And where does Emily come in?” said Wilson Cattermole.

“My dear friend—” the Reverend Peter was warmly explanatory—“don't you see, we have here an old tragedy producing disturbances in the psychic atmosphere. These are recurrent. They are especially pronounced at this time of year and in snowy weather. But if some newer disturbance were introduced—can't you see that this might cause a fading of the older manifestations? The force of the disturbance might be turned into the newer channel.”

“Yes, yes, but has there been any fresh tragedy—that's the point.”

“That is what we do not know. It need not necessarily have happened here. Any one of us four might provide the point of contact.”

“How could we?” said Joanna Cattermole crossly. “I've never known anyone called Emily, and I don't suppose I ever shall! It isn't a name that anyone has, except that poor thing who got murdered the other day in a train—what was her name—Emily Case.”

From the other side of the room, from the thick shadow beyond the jutting chimney-breast, there came a long, desolate sigh. Like a wavering echo a faint voice said,

“
Emily Case
—”

CHAPTER XXIX

Sarah felt her spine creep. She could almost have sworn that something cold had touched it. It wasn't true—no part of this ghastly play was true. Mr. Brown had faked the message on the slate and played tricks with planchette. For all she knew, the words which he had read from the paper had already been there when they came into the room. It would be quite easy. All he need do was to turn the paper over as he took it up.

All this was in her mind before that wavering echo came. It stayed there. A cold drop might run down her back, but nothing was going to make her believe that whispering voice had anything to do with Emily Case. She stiffened herself, and heard Joanna catch her breath and say, “Oh dear!”

“Who are you?” said the Reverend Peter Brown in a solemn voice.

The whisper came again, low on the edge of sound:

“
Emily Case
—”

“Oh dear! Why does she come to us?” Joanna's voice died away into a whisper.

Quite suddenly with no warning at all the low, heavy door of the room burst open with a crash. There was a sense of impact, of noise, and of force, which was startling in the extreme. The hinges creaked and strained. The latch struck the panelling. A cold air moved in the room.

Sarah stared in the direction of the sound. She could just make out the swinging, quivering door, the shape of the arched doorway against the unbroken darkness of the passage which lay beyond. Nothing moved there. The cold wind moved in the room, and all at once a high, desperate scream went up. The window rattled and shook behind them, and they all heard something fall.

Some thing, or some one. The sound was not loud. It did not seem as if it was in the room. If anyone had sat where they were sitting, Olivia Perrott's fall might have sounded just like that—Because there was snow on the ground.

Sarah set her teeth. “It isn't true! It isn't,
isn't
true!”

The silence came back. It was not complete at first. The door whined on its hinges. There was a faint, dry rustling from the dark passage—no more than a withered leaf would make moving in the draught upon the floor. It might have been a leaf, or a shred of paper—or the rustle of silk. Olivia Perrott might have worn silk for her wedding. Perhaps she had her wedding dress for a shroud. Emily Case had had no silk—

The rustle ceased. The door stopped swinging. The hinges quietened. Now the room was still. Only the soundless sound of pulse and heart-beats moving to the tune of the blood.

And then, out of that dark corner, a long sigh, and sighing words:

“
Where is it? I gave it to you. Where is it?”
And again that long trembling sigh.

Mr. Brown said, “Miss Cattermole—do you know what it wants? If you do, answer it.”

Joanna took her breath with a gasp.

“Oh, I don't—I don't really—” The last word broke and failed.

“Cattermole?”

“I know nothing.”

“Miss Marlowe?”

Sarah said, “Nothing,” and thought, “That's a lie. And I don't mind if it is, because it's a trick, a trick, a trick.”

The glimmer of light from the lamp shot suddenly into a momentary rocketing flame. The room was there for as long as a flash may take to flare and fail again. For that space there was someone in the corner by the chimney-breast—a neat, shabby little woman in a black serge coat with a grey opossum collar and a flat, depressed-looking hat slipping a little over to one side—Horribly, unbelievably, Emily Case.

The light went out—clean out this time. They were in the dark. It filled the room like water. It rose black from floor to ceiling. It stretched from them to the chimney corner where the little shabby woman had stood and held a handkerchief to her face—a little, shabby woman who looked like Emily Case.

Everything in Sarah rose up to deny what she had seen. Suggestion and a trick of the light, the shadow of the chimney-breast and her own imagination—

The voice came whispering out of the dark again:

“
What have you done with the packet? I gave it to you. What have you done with it?
”

Sarah said to herself, “What I ought to do is to walk into the corner and prove to myself that there isn't anything there. Or if there's someone, it's a trick. I ought to do that—I ought to do it at once.”

And right there she was faced with a mutiny. She took hold of the arms of her chair and put her weight on them. She began to make the movement which would bring her to her feet, but her muscles refused it. They let her drop back again, slack and helpless. A wave of weakness passed over her. The whisper came again, dreadfully faint:

“
I gave it to you. Oh, where is it?
”

Wilson Cattermole put out his left hand and laid it on Sarah's wrist. She heard him say very quietly,

“Miss Sarah, she is speaking to you. Answer her if you can.”

Well, what was she to say? The warm weakness flowed over her in a sickly wave. She said,

“I can't—”

It was very nearly true. She thought she was going to faint, and the idea terrified her. To lose consciousness here, in this horrible room—no, not whilst she had any fight left in her! She bit hard into the inside of her lip, and then, with the faintness just held back from swamping her, there came to her ears a gasping sigh and the sound of a fall. At once the chair next to hers was pushed back and Mr. Brown was saying in a concerned voice,

“Miss Cattermole has fainted. I'm afraid—Cattermole, can you find the door? I really think we should get her away from here. We ought to have a light, but I haven't any matches—I forgot them.”

“I haven't any either.” Wilson's agitated voice came from the middle of the room. He could be heard stumbling, and groping for the door. “Can you lift her? If I keep speaking, you'll get the direction. I'm in the doorway. Can you manage? We ought to have a torch. I thought—”

Sarah made another effort to rise. This time she got to her feet. To her dismay, she was not very steady on them. Her head swam and her sense of direction was confused. When she felt Mr. Brown go past her she followed him. One of her hands, groping, touched Joanna's trailing velvet and clung there.

They came like that to the door, and she remembered how low and narrow the opening was, and that there were two steps up to it. The Reverend Peter would never manage it with Joanna in his arms. She stood back to leave him room, and all in a moment the thing happened. A forward movement, a quick “Here—take her!”, the clatter of feet on the bare wooden steps, and, loud and dreadful, the slam of the heavy door. She heard it, and she heard a bolt go grinding home. The door was so thick that no other sound came to her. She stood in the dark and listened, but there was no other sound.

She sank down on the bottom step and hid her face in her hands.

CHAPTER XXX

At first nothing but the sense of darkness and fear. A mist of faintness, and as this receded, the fear rising in her, flooding upwards to the panic line. She sat there and fought to hold it back. Because once that line was reached, her control would go and anything might happen. Perhaps even what had happened to Olivia Perrott. She pressed her hands hard against her eyes, and then with a sudden desperate courage snatched them away and made herself look into the darkness. It was so deep, so dense, so complete, that the dropping of her hands and the lifting of her lids made no difference. Two lines which she had read somewhere came into her mind in a very uncomforting manner.

Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall

And universal darkness covers all.

The sort of lines that would come into your head when you have just been locked into a haunted room. No, not locked, bolted—“Be accurate, Sarah. Don't go on thinking about Olivia Perrott and how dark it is, or about whispering voices, or Emily Case.” Tricks—tricks—the whole lot of them—a bag of tricks to frighten Sarah Marlowe into giving up the oiled-silk packet. “Don't think about the packet—don't think about Emily Case. Don't think about Sarah Marlowe, or you'll begin to feel sorry for her, and the minute you begin to feel sorry for yourself you're done. Say the multiplication table. Say the Kings of England with their dates—William the Conqueror 1066 and all that. Say the names of the Underwood family out of
The Pillars of the House
—

Felix Chester Underwood. Felix because his parents were so happy when he was born and they didn't know they were going to have thirteen children on a curate's pay, and two lots of twins. And Chester after his godfather, Admiral Chester, who sent him a five-pound note for his birthday, and they spent a pound of it going for a picnic in a wagonette with a bottle of invalid port and a pie.

Wilmet Ursula and Alda Mary, the first lot of twins—

Something moved in the dark corner by the chimney-breast where it had moved before.

The thirteen Underwoods ignobly deserted Sarah, thinned away into the darkness, and left her alone with the thing that had moved. She stood up. It is an old, old instinct which gets you to your feet and sets your back against a wall and your face towards the enemy.

Sarah went up the two steps behind her and set her back against the bolted door. She was afraid, but she had herself in hand. She wouldn't run, or scream. She said in quite a loud, firm voice,

“Is there anyone there?”

She had braced herself to hear the whispering voice again, but it did not come—only that faint dry rustle as if a leaf was moving upon the boards—or the hem of a silk dress. As the sound of her own voice ceased and the rustle died and went out into the silence, she got a startling answer to her question. It came from behind her, right at her back. There was a rusty creak of the bolt. The door flung in and pushed her with it, so that she came down the steps at a run which took her half across the room. After the door the energetic entrance of John Wickham, calling her name.

“Sarah—are you there? Sarah! Where are you?”

“In the middle of next week,” said Sarah.

And then she wasn't. She was in his arms, and thankful to be there. He might be a bank-robber and a traitor, but he was most solidly and convincingly human. He held her hard, and he kissed her harder still. And Sarah held on to him with both hands and kissed him back. It was a thoroughly demoralizing and humiliating performance. She was to blush for it afterwards, but at the time those human arms and those human kisses were heaven. She shook from head to foot and pressed against him in the dark.

“Take me away!”

When she had said it once she couldn't stop. It kept on saying itself.

“Take me away—take me away—take me away!”

He left off kissing her and dropped his hands on her shoulders.

“I'm going to—that's what I'm here for. Sarah, stop it! Do you hear—stop it at once! Someone will hear you. Stop it, I say!”

She stopped, but the words went on in her head.

He said, “That's better. We'll go right away. You ought to have come when I told you. You just played into their hands. Come along! Have you got the papers?”