The Terror Page 3

  ‘I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That was the impression I had the night I arrested them, but I’ve changed my opinion since.’

  The chief warder came in at that moment and gave a friendly nod to the superintendent.

  ‘I’ve kept those two men in their cells this morning. You want to see them both, don’t you, superintendent?’

  ‘I’d like to see Connor first.’

  ‘Now?’ asked the warder. ‘I’ll bring him down.’

  He went out, passed across the asphalt yard to the entrance of the big, ugly building. A steel grille covered the door, and this he unlocked, opening the wooden door behind, and passed into the hall, lined on each side with galleries from which opened narrow cell doors. He went to one of these on the lower tier, snapped back the lock and pulled open the door. The man in convict garb who was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, rose and eyed him sullenly.

  ‘Connor, a gentleman from Scotland Yard has come down to see you. If you’re sensible you’ll give him the information he asks.’

  Connor glowered at him.

  ‘I’ve nothing to tell, sir,’ he said sullenly. ‘Why don’t they leave me alone? If I knew where the stuff was I wouldn’t tell ’em.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ said the chief good-humouredly. ‘What have you to gain by hiding up—?’

  ‘A fool, sir?’ interrupted Connor. ‘I’ve had all the fool knocked out of me here!’ His hand swept round the cell. ‘I’ve been in this same cell for seven years; I know every brick of it—who is it wants to see me?’

  ‘Superintendent Hallick.’

  Connor made a wry face.

  ‘Is he seeing Marks too? Hallick, eh? I thought he was dead.’

  ‘He’s alive enough.’

  The chief beckoned him out into the hall, and, accompanied by a warder, Connor was taken to the Deputy’s office. He recognised Hallick with a nod. He bore no malice; between these two men, thief-taker and thief, was that curious camaraderie which exists between the police and the criminal classes.

  ‘You’re wasting your time with me, Mr Hallick,’ said Connor. And then, with a sudden burst of anger: ‘I’ve got nothing to give you. Find O’Shea—he’ll tell you! And find him before I do, if you want him to talk.’

  ‘We want to find him, Connor,’ said Hallick soothingly.

  ‘You want the money,’ sneered Connor; ‘that’s what you want. You want to find the money for the bank and pull in the reward.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Try Soapy Marks—maybe he’ll sit in your game and take his corner.’

  The lock turned at that moment and another convict was ushered into the room. Soapy Marks had not changed in his ten years of incarceration. The gaunt, ascetic face had perhaps grown a little harder; the thin lips were firmer, and the deep-set eyes had sunk a little more into his head. But his cultured voice, his exaggerated politeness, and that oiliness which had earned him his nickname, remained constant.

  ‘Why, it’s Mr Hallick!’ His voice was a gentle drawl. ‘Come down to see us at our country house!’

  He saw Connor and nodded, almost bowed to him.

  ‘Well, this is most kind of you, Mr Hallick. You haven’t seen the park or the garage? Nor our beautiful billiard-room?’

  ‘That’ll do, Marks,’ said the warder sternly.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure.’ The bow to the warder was a little deeper, a little more sarcastic. ‘Just badinage—nothing wrong intended. Fancy meeting you on the moor, Mr Hallick! I suppose this is only a brief visit? You’re not staying with us, are you?’

  Hallick accepted the insult with a little smile.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marks. ‘Even the police make little errors of judgment sometimes. It’s deplorable, but it’s true. We once had an ex-inspector in the hall where I am living.’

  ‘You know why I’ve come?’ said Hallick.

  Marks shook his head, and then a look of simulated surprise and consternation came to his face.

  ‘You haven’t come to ask me and my poor friend about that horrible gold robbery? I see you have. Dear me, how very unfortunate! You want to know where the money was hidden? I wish I could tell you. I wish my poor friend could tell you, or even your old friend, Mr Leonard O’Shea.’ He smiled blandly. ‘But I can’t!’

  Connor was chafing under the strain of the interview.

  ‘You don’t want me any more—’

  Marks waved his hand.

  ‘Be patient with dear Mr Hallick.’

  ‘Now look here, Soapy,’ said Connor angrily, and a look of pain came to Marks’ face.

  ‘Not Soapy—that’s vulgar. Don’t you agree, Mr Hallick?’

  ‘I’m going to answer no questions. You can do as you like,’ said Connor. ‘If you haven’t found O’Shea, I will, and the day I get my hands on him he’ll know all about it! There’s another thing you’ve got to know, Hallick; I’m on my own from the day I get out of this hell. I’m not asking Soapy to help me to find O’Shea. I’ve seen Marks every day for ten years, and I hate the sight of him. I’m working single-handed to find the man who shopped me.’

  ‘You think you’ll find him, do you?’ said Hallick quickly. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘I only know one thing,’ said Connor huskily, ‘and Soapy knows it too. He let it out that morning we were waiting for the gold lorry. It just slipped out—what O’Shea’s idea was of a quiet hiding-place. But I’m not going to tell you. I’ve got four months to serve, and when that time is up I’ll find O’Shea.’

  ‘You poor fool!’ said Hallick roughly. ‘The police have been looking for him for ten years.’

  ‘Looking for what?’ demanded Connor, ignoring Marks’ warning look.

  ‘For Len O’Shea,’ said Hallick.

  There came a burst of laughter from the convict.

  ‘You’re looking for a sane man, and that’s where you went wrong! I didn’t tell you before why you’ll never find him. It’s because he’s mad! You didn’t know that, but Soapy knows. O’Shea was crazy ten years ago. God knows what he is now! Got the cunning of a madman. Ask Soapy.’

  It was news to Hallick. His eyes questioned Marks, and the little man smiled.

  ‘I’m afraid our dear friend is right,’ said Marks suavely. ‘A cunning madman! Even in Dartmoor we get news, Mr Hallick, and a rumour has reached me that some years ago three officers of Scotland Yard disappeared in the space of a few minutes—just vanished as though they had evaporated like dew before the morning sun! Forgive me if I am poetical; Dartmoor makes you that way. And would you be betraying an official secret if you told me these men were looking for O’Shea?’

  He saw Hallick’s face change, and chuckled.

  ‘I see they were. The story was that they had left England and they sent their resignations—from Paris, wasn’t it? O’Shea could copy anybody’s handwriting—they never left England.’ Hallick’s face was white.

  ‘By God, if I thought that—’ he began.

  ‘They never left England,’ said Marks remorselessly. ‘They were looking for O’Shea—and O’Shea found them first.’

  ‘You mean they’re dead?’ asked the other.

  Marks nodded slowly.

  ‘For twenty-two hours a day he is a sane, reasonable man. For two hours—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Mr Hallick, your men must have met him in one of his bad moments.’

  ‘When I meet him—’ interrupted Connor, and Marks turned on him in a flash.

  ‘When you meet him you will die!’ he hissed. ‘When I meet him—’ That mild face of his became suddenly contorted, and Hallick looked into the eyes of a demon.

  ‘When you meet him?’ challenged Hallick. ‘Where will you meet him?’

  Marks’ arm shot out stiffly; his long fingers gripped an invisible enemy.

  ‘I know just where I can put my hand on him,’ he breathed. ‘That hand!’

  Hallick went back to London that afternoon, a baffled man. He had gone to make his last effort to secure informati
on about the missing gold, and had learned nothing—except that O’Shea was sane for twenty-two hours in the day.

  CHAPTER V

  IT was a beautiful spring morning. There was a tang in the air which melted in the yellow sunlight.

  Mr Goodman had not gone to the city that morning, though it was his day, for he made a practice of attending at his office for two or three days every month. Mrs Elvery, that garrulous woman, was engaged in putting the final touches to her complexion; and Veronica, her gawkish daughter, was struggling, by the aid of a dictionary, with a recalcitrant poem—for she wooed the gentler muse in her own gentler moments.

  Mr Goodman sat on a sofa, dozing over his newspaper. No sound broke the silence but the scratching of Veronica’s pen and the ticking of the big grandfather’s clock.

  This vaulted chamber, which was the lounge of Monkshall, had changed very little since the days when it was the anteroom to a veritable refectory. The columns that monkish hands had chiselled had crumbled a little, but their chiselled piety, hidden now behind the oak panelling, was almost as legible as on the day the holy men had written them.

  Through the open French window there was a view of the broad, green park, with its clumps of trees and its little heap of ruins that had once been the Mecca of the antiquarian.

  Mr Goodman did not hear the excited chattering of the birds, but Miss Veronica, in that irritable frame of mind which a young poet can so readily reach, turned her head once or twice in mute protest.

  ‘Mr Goodman,’ she said softly.

  There was no answer, and she repeated his name impatiently.

  ‘Mr Goodman!’

  ‘Eh?’ He looked up, startled.

  ‘What rhymes with “supercilious”?’ asked Veronica sweetly.

  Mr Goodman considered, stroking chin reflectively.

  ‘Bilious?’ he suggested.

  Miss Elvery gave a despairing cluck.

  ‘That won’t do at all. It’s such an ugly word.’

  ‘And such an ugly feeling,’ shuddered Mr Goodman. Then: ‘What are you writing?’ he asked.

  She confessed to her task.

  ‘Good heavens!’ he said despairingly. ‘Fancy writing poetry at this time in the morning! It’s almost like drinking before lunch. Who is it about?’

  She favoured him with an arch smile. ‘You’ll think I’m an awful cat if I tell you.’ And, as he reached out to take her manuscript: ‘Oh, I really couldn’t—it’s about somebody you know.’

  Mr Goodman frowned.

  ‘“Supercilious” was the word you used. Who on earth is supercilious?’

  Veronica sniffed—she always sniffed when she was being unpleasant.

  ‘Don’t you think she is—a little bit? After all, her father only keeps a boarding house.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Miss Redmayne?’ asked Goodman quietly. He put down his paper. ‘A very nice girl. A boarding house, eh? Well, I was the first boarder her father ever had, and I’ve never regarded this place as a boarding house.’

  There was a silence, which the girl broke. ‘Mr Goodman, do you mind if I say something?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t objected so far, have I?’ he smiled.

  ‘I suppose I’m naturally romantic,’ she said. ‘I see mystery in almost everything. Even you are mysterious.’ And, when he looked alarmed: ‘Oh, I don’t mean sinister!’

  He was glad she did not.

  ‘But Colonel Redmayne is sinister,’ she said emphatically.

  He considered this.

  ‘He never struck me that way,’ he said slowly.

  ‘But he is,’ she persisted. ‘Why did he buy this place miles from everywhere and turn it into a boarding house?’

  ‘To make money, I suppose.’

  She smiled triumphantly and shook her head.

  ‘But he doesn’t. Mamma says that he must lose an awful lot of money. Monkshall is very beautiful, but it has got an awful reputation. You know that it is haunted, don’t you?’

  He laughed good-naturedly at this. Mr Goodman was an old boarder and had heard this story before.

  ‘I’ve heard things and seen things. Mamma says that there must have been a terrible crime committed here. It is!’ She was more emphatic.

  Mr Goodman thought that her mother let her mind dwell too much on murders and crimes. For the stout and fussy Mrs Elvery wallowed in the latest tragedies which filled the columns of the Sunday newspapers.

  ‘She does love a good murder,’ agreed Veronica. ‘We had to put off our trip to Switzerland last year because of the River Bicycle Mystery. Do you think Colonel Redmayne ever committed a murder?’

  ‘What a perfectly awful thing to say!’ said her shocked audience.

  ‘Why is he so nervous?’ asked Veronica intensely. ‘What is he afraid of? He is always refusing boarders. He refused that nice young man who came yesterday.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a new boarder coming tomorrow,’ said Goodman, finding his newspaper again.

  ‘A parson!’ said Veronica contemptuously. ‘Everybody knows that parsons have no money.’

  He could chuckle at this innocent revelation of Veronica’s mind.

  ‘The colonel could make this place pay, but he won’t.’ She grew confidential. ‘And I’ll tell you something more. Mamma knew Colonel Redmayne before he bought this place. He got into terrible trouble over some money—Mamma doesn’t exactly know what it was. But he had no money at all. How did he buy this house?’

  Mr Goodman beamed.

  ‘Now that I happen to know all about! He came into a legacy.’

  Veronica was disappointed and made no effort to hide the fact. What comment she might have offered was silenced by the arrival of her mother.

  Not that Mrs Elvery ever ‘arrived’. She bustled or exploded into a room, according to the measure of her exuberance. She came straight across to the settee where Mr Goodman was unfolding his paper again.

  ‘Did you hear anything last night?’ she asked dramatically.

  He nodded.

  ‘Somebody in the next room to me was snoring like the devil,’ he began.

  ‘I occupy the next room to you, Mr Goodman,’ said the lady icily. ‘Did you hear a shriek?’

  ‘Shriek?’ He was startled.

  ‘And I heard the organ again last night!’

  Goodman sighed.

  ‘Fortunately I am a little deaf. I never hear any organs or shrieks. The only thing I can hear distinctly is the dinner gong.’

  ‘There is a mystery here.’ Mrs Elvery was even more intense than her daughter. ‘I saw that the day I came. Originally I intended staying a week; now I remain here until the mystery is solved.’

  He smiled good-humouredly.

  ‘You’re a permanent fixture, Mrs Elvery.’

  ‘It rather reminds me,’ Mrs Elvery recited rapidly, but with evident relish, ‘of Pangleton Abbey, where John Roehampton cut the throats of his three nieces, aged respectively, nineteen, twenty-two and twenty-four, afterwards burying them in cement, for which crime he was executed at Exeter Gaol. He had to be supported to the scaffold, and left a full confession admitting his guilt!’

  Mr Goodman rose hastily to fly from the gruesome recital. Happily, rescue came in the shape of the tall, soldierly person of Colonel Redmayne. He was a man of fifty-five, rather nervous and absent of manner and address. His attire was careless and somewhat slovenly. Goodman had seen this carelessness of appearance grow from day to day.

  The colonel looked from one to the other.

  ‘Good-morning. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Comparatively, I think,’ said Goodman with a smile. He hoped that Mrs Elvery would find another topic of conversation, but she was not to be denied.

  ‘Colonel, did you hear anything in the night?’

  ‘Hear anything?’ he frowned. ‘What was there to hear?’

  She ticked off the events of the night on her podgy fingers.

  ‘First of all the organ, and then a most awful, blood-curdling shriek. It came f
rom the grounds—from the direction of the Monk’s Tomb.’

  She waited, but he shook his head.

  ‘No, I heard nothing. I was asleep,’ he said in a low voice.

  Veronica, an interested listener, broke in.

  ‘Oh, what a fib! I saw your light burning long after Mamma and I heard the noise. I can see your room by looking out of my window.’

  He scowled at her.

  ‘Can you? I went to sleep with the light on. Has anyone seen Mary?’

  Goodman pointed across the park.

  ‘I saw her half an hour ago,’ he said.

  Colonel Redmayne stood hesitating, then, without a word, strode from the room, and they watched him crossing the park with long strides.

  ‘There’s a mystery here!’ Mrs Elvery drew a long breath. ‘He’s mad. Mr Goodman, do you know that awfully nice-looking man who came yesterday morning? He wanted a room, and when I asked the colonel why he didn’t let him stay he turned on me like a fiend! Said he was not the kind of man he wanted to have in the house; said he dared—“dared” was the word he used—to try to scrape acquaintance with his daughter, and that he didn’t want any good-for-nothing drunkards under the same roof.’

  ‘In fact,’ said Mr Goodman, ‘he was annoyed! You mustn’t take the colonel too seriously—he’s a little upset this morning.’

  He took up the letters that had come to him by the morning post and began to open them.

  ‘The airs he gives himself!’ she went on. ‘And his daughter is no better. I must say it, Mr Goodman. It may sound awfully uncharitable, but she’s got just as much—’ She hesitated.

  ‘Swank?’ suggested Veronica, and her mother was shocked. ‘It’s a common expression,’ said Veronica.

  ‘But we aren’t common people,’ protested Mrs Elvery. ‘You may say that she gives herself airs. She certainly does. And her manners are deplorable. I was telling her the other day about the Grange Road murder. You remember, the man who poisoned his mother-in-law to get the insurance money—a most interesting case—when she simply turned her back on me and said she wasn’t interested in horrors.’

  Cotton, the butler, came in at that moment with the mail. He was a gloomy man who seldom spoke. He was leaving the room when Mrs Elvery called him back.