The Spirit Murder Mystery (25 page)

“No, Heather, I'm not. I'm not very much interested in Ephraim Noy's exploits at the moment, though I may be more so, later. I'd only be poaching on your preserves. We've taken absolutely different lines in this case, and I don't think they are going to converge as they've done on some former occasions. But there goes the gong for dinner. You'd better stay and share it with me. There's always enough and to spare.”

“Thanks, I will. Anything good to drink?”

“What would you like?”

“Anything but lime-juice and its nasty relations. About this woman in white you saw. What was she like? Did she resemble any of the servants or any woman in the village?”

“It was too dark to see her features. It's strange that you should have asked me that question, Heather, because I've been very much troubled by the cut of the intruder. I can't explain why, but it struck me that she bore a strong resemblance to Miss Thurlow. She was about the same height, and the pose was rather characteristic. Then I thought I smelt a faint trace of scent in the air, and that scent was certainly the same as Miss Thurlow's favourite brand. Mind you, this may be pure fancy on my part, and as for the scent, that's easily explained when you remember that Miss Thurlow uses this room a great deal.”

“Oh yes, I spotted that scent on coming into the room this very evening. You can't make much out of that. And now I'm going to give you a helping hand. I hate to see a pupil floundering about on the wrong lines. To ease your mind, I can tell you that Miss Thurlow is in London. I had my suspicions about her sudden departure from Yarham, so I've had her kept under observation.”

“Well I'm jolly thankful for the information, Heather. I'm rather favourably impressed by Miss Eileen Thurlow, and I'd hate to think she had any hand in this ghost business.”

“Then that's satisfactorily settled, but don't let your favourable impressions get any stronger. You've been in the danger zone before, rather too frequently in my opinion, and it would never do for an amateur detective to fall in love. It's against all the rules of the game, even in detective yarns.”

“I don't read them, so I don't profess to know. Now I think we'll go into the dining-room.”

“And discuss the right kind of spirits over our grub,” concluded Heather as he gave an extra twirl to his pointed moustaches.

Next day, about noon, Ricardo arrived in his car at Old Hall Farm. He looked tired from his recent activities and the strain of the journey, but greeted Vereker with his usual perky cheerfulness.

“You're looking excited about something, Algernon. I'm not conceited enough to think it's at my return,” he remarked as he glanced at Vereker, who was standing at the entrance to Old Hall Farm with a measuring tape in his hand.

“I've made a momentous discovery, Ricky,” replied Vereker with a preoccupied air.

“That's a habit with me. I make several every day. This morning when I was shaving, I found that my ears weren't in alignment. ‘Manuel,' I exclaimed, ‘you're a monstrosity,' and the thought depressed me till breakfast time. I forgot all about it after my second egg, which was bad, but it'll recur every time I look in a mirror. I hardly dare brush my hair now.”

“Never mind your ears, Ricky. Come into the study and see my discovery for yourself,” said Vereker, and led the way to that room.

There, taking his tape measure, he measured the floor from the eastern and inner wall to the western outer wall.

“Twenty-four feet, six inches, Ricky!” he exclaimed.

“Frightfully interesting, Algernon. Now, I'd have sworn it was only twenty-four feet, five and a half inches. It just shows you how easily you can be mistaken.”

“The joke's rather moth-eaten, Ricky. The length of the room is twenty-four foot six, but if you measure the wall outside, from the junction of the inner dividing wall to the gable of the house, it's twenty-nine feet. What do you make of it?”

“The calculation's abstruse, but there's a difference of four feet six inches. I was always dux when it came to what was called mental arithmetic.”

“It means that there's a space of four feet, six inches between the wainscoting and the facing bricks outside. In my opinion that wall cannot be solid.”

“Well, don't get upset about it. What does it matter? It's not your wall anyway, Algernon.”

“There's a secret passage in that wall, Ricky, and I'm going to find the entrance to it.”

“A secret passage? Where on earth will it lead to?”

“The church, I think.”

“But no one would want to go to church by a secret passage. Church-goers must be seen. It's the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace, especially in rough weather. That's why I never go when it's fine...”

“To change the subject, I believe you've got some important news for me,” interrupted Vereker.

“Stunning news, Algernon. You can't guess what's happened.”

What?” asked Vereker, looking up with a shade of anxiety on his face.

“I'm engaged.”

“What, again? Who's the victim this time?”

“I am, of course. I proposed to Gertie Wentworth and she has accepted me.”

“But, Ricky, surely you haven't wasted your time...”

“Algernon, how can you be so stupid! She's fabulously rich and she's simply crazy about me.”

“She's simply crazy, you mean. Haven't you done the job I asked you to?”

“Of course! I took that in my stride, so to speak. Firstly, about that business of Noy's. I copied out the police court proceedings from the
Daily Report
.”

“You needn't trouble about that now. I've found out all about it from Heather. Anything about Dawn Garford?”

“Amazing news of that young woman. Let me tell you the story without interrupting me peevishly. I was waffling along very pleasantly and had nearly reached Braintree, when I felt thirsty for the first time. I stopped at a roadside inn, and on entering the saloon bar, there was Miss Dawn. She was just coming out, figuratively wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. I simply necked my beer, and as she got away in her car, I stepped into ‘Gladys.' Dawn took the road running west to Dunmow, and keeping well in her rear, I followed her as far as Chipping Ongar.”

“Splendid!” ejaculated Vereker.

“That splendid's a bit premature. At Chipping Ongar she stopped once more, at a tea-shop this time. I didn't tittup after her in case she spotted me. Besides, I didn't want tea. I hied me to the nearest pub, where I got into an animated argument with a very pretty barmaid. We debated whether a pretty woman should use face powder. The subject is whiskered, but it somehow appeared dewy fresh at the time. She said powder was a necessity, and I suggested that in using it she was merely powdering the lily. It wasn't anything cataclysmic in the way of a compliment, but she blushed so coyly that I ordered another drink. From this pub s window I could see the tea-shop that Dawn had patronized. I ought to have kept my eyes glued on that shop instead of talking poppycock to Hebe. After another spot of lubricant, I glanced across at the tea-shop and found that Dawn's car had gone. I didn't see her again...”

“I might have expected that,” interrupted Vereker dismally.

“Let me finish my sentence, Algernon. I didn't see her again till I reached London. Having lost track of her, I dismissed the subject from my mind, and late that night, I looked in at the Blue Bottle Club. To my unbounded delight, she was among the crowd of dancers. It was just my astonishing luck. I immediately put on my pair of dark spectacles as an impenetrable disguise. By the way, I must really carry a false beard on future occasions. A blond beard, I think. However, Dawn spotted me and, doubtless thinking it funny that the gent she had met near Braintree should reappear at the Blue Bottle, hurriedly left. But not before I'd pointed her out to Poppy Knatchbull. ‘You don't mean to say you know her?' asked Poppy. ‘She's Mrs. Button, alias Miss Dawn Garford,' I replied. Then Poppy waxed confidential. ‘Ricky, have nothing to do with her; she's a dangerous lot,' she warned me. Poppy, by the way, thinks I'm a nice, ingenuous boy and always tries to play the guardian angel to me. I like to be mothered and encourage her propensity. I told her I was rather infatuated with this Miss Garford. She warned me again, but wouldn't give me any reason why I should be so cruel. To get the secret from her, I became heroic and said I was determined to marry the lady or perish in the attempt. I tried to look like a sheep and got a most effective bleat into my voice. This wrung her heart, and at last she told me that Miss Garford was a tout for ‘hooch.' ‘Hooch,' I believe, is Americanese for illicit drink, stuff that has escaped paying excise duty. You can imagine my astonishment, but I had to continue the role of boob, and said I couldn't and wouldn't believe it. As a last resource, Poppy took me into her office and, after swearing me to secrecy, she corroborated her story by producing a little sample of hooch that Miss Garford had left for her consumption. We necked it together.”

“That's most satisfactory, Ricky. Sorry I was impatient with you,” said Vereker, his eyes beaming with excitement.

“Next day I blew in at Gertie Wentworth's flat in Clarges Street. As I told you before, it's in the same block as Miss Garford's, in fact, the flat below hers. They're palatial flats, and the rent of one would keep me in dissipation for a year. So now you can see how Miss Garford pays her way. I don't know whether this discovery is vital to your work, but it's interesting per se.”

“Has this Poppy Knatchbull bought any of the stuff from her?” asked Vereker.

“Not on your life, Algernon. Poppy's much too eelish to run her pretty neck into that noose. She says that it's only a matter of time till the game's found out, and she's not going to have the ‘Blue Bottle' struck off the register for the sake of a little extra profit. It wouldn't pay her. She keeps strictly to the letter of the law. All her members are respectable people with reputations to lose, apart from their money. I'm one myself, without the money. It was now my turn to play the guardian angel, and I solemnly warned her to have nothing to do with such a risky enterprise. In fact, I said I was going to make a scoop of it by blowing the gaff to the Press. I went further. To ease her conscience, I confessed I'd known the secret all the time, and if she'd been ignorant of it I was going to warn her. Elated with my success, I proposed to Gertie Wentworth next day. That's the worst of success; it breeds success. I'm rather regretting it now. It's rather humiliating for a man of my principles to marry money. But there, our moral judgments are invariably on a higher plane than our lives!”

“Don't worry about it. You've never got further than an engagement before, and history ought to repeat itself if it's a friend of yours.”

“History has always been kind to me, but chiefly in the matter of making dates. Now I've got that off my chest, what's this obsession of yours about a secret passage, Algernon?”

“That reminds me, the rector has borrowed the book you were reading on the history of Yarham. A chapter on the village church in that book says that one of three secret passages runs from the crypt to Yarham Old Hall, this house. If you consider it for a moment you'll see that it goes a long way to explain the strange organ music we've heard. The tunnel evidently broadcasts the sound. Get me?”

“By jingo, Algernon, I thought I was right when I expressed the opinion that it had nothing to do with spiritual manifestation. Now you mention it, a similar thing happens somewhere else in England.”

“Is it at Rodbourne Cheney in Wiltshire?” asked Vereker.

“That's the place. I read an account of it some time ago. What made you think of Rodbourne Cheney?”

“The rector mentioned it when speaking of these underground tunnels. Another fact which strengthens my belief in the origin of that music is that the ‘manifestation' first occurred to Miss Thurlow at the end of May, at the very time that the rector pierced the wall sealing the entrance to the secret passage. Now we've got to find the outlet at this end.”

“It may be sealed like the other end,” suggested Ricardo.

“No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm certain it isn't.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“While you've been away, I've had a ghostly visitor,” explained Vereker and narrated to the wide-eyed Ricardo the details of that fantastic occurrence.

“You're sure it was a woman?” asked Ricardo.

“No doubt about it, Ricky.”

“But how amusing! Sounds like a mediaeval intrigue between ye blacksmith's daughter and ye knight's son. What a pity you didn't catch her. I'd give something to collar a ghost. Look at the Christmas story it'd make! Let's get busy and find the entrance to that passage, Algernon.”

“We'll start after lunch, if you're game,” replied Vereker.

“Certainly. ‘No sooner a word than a blow' is my motto. You've no idea who this woman is?”

“No; that's the most puzzling part of the whole affair. And why did she want to come here? If we could only hit on a motive, it might give us a pointer, but I see no motive.”

“Poor girl, she probably thought I was still in residence! But let's get that grub. I only had a snatch breakfast this morning and I'm ravenous.”

After lunch the two men returned to the study and rested for a while before commencing their search for the entrance to the secret passage. It was not long before Ricardo, after stifling several yawns, fell sound asleep in his chair. Vereker, without waking him, rose and once more began a very careful examination of the wainscoting along the western wall. The panels close to the study door especially engaged his attention, for it was at this point the “spectre” had stood before she had suddenly vanished. As his keen eye wandered over the old dark oak, it was arrested by a small disc-like insertion in the woodwork. That disc was about the size of a shilling and so neatly fitted that it was scarcely perceptible. Even the grain of its wood had been made to conform with the general grain of the panel's surface, rendering its detection almost impossible to anyone not searching for it. Filled with sudden excitement at this discovery, Vereker pressed the disc with his forefinger. To his amazement the whole panel into which that disc had been inserted, immediately moved away from him and left a double entrance, one on each side of it, into a narrow, dark passage beyond. Overwhelmed with astonishment, he called out loudly to Ricardo, still asleep in his chair: