Within That Room! (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

INEXPLICABLE PHENOMENA

When they reached the castle's massive front door and hammered with the griffin knocker, Mrs. Falworth opened it to them. For a second a trace of astonishment went over her features as she saw Dick Wilmott.

“Good morning. Remember me?” he asked.

“Mr. Wilmott, I believe! The gentleman with the—er—car?”

Mrs. Falworth regarded him with a composed stare, then turned her attention to Vera. The dark eyes aimed a question. Feeling well supported at last, Vera walked into the hall with a light tread, and then turned.

She said: “I owe you an explanation, Mrs. Falworth—and an apology,” she said as the woman closed the door quietly. “Mr. Wilmott is actually my fiancé, but last night I thought I would see first what kind of a place this was before I asked him to come over and stay with me. Besides, you had not been warned of his coming, and you might not have had the facilities for him to be a guest. Having seen the place, I know that everything can be easily arranged.”

Mrs. Falworth said nothing. Her hands were interlocked in front of her, her face expressionless.

“So that explains everything,” Dick added genially.

“You have not brought your car then, sir?” Mrs. Falworth asked coldly.

“That thing? Oh, no! It belongs to a friend of mine. I only borrowed it last night to run Vera over here.”

“As I recall, sir, you reside in Godalming. I heard you mention that fact to Miss Grantham last evening. How convenient that she could inherit this place, so near to you! How odd that you found it necessary to remind her of your telephone number.”

“I'd be glad if you'd have a room prepared for Mr. Wilmott,” Vera said sharply. “He will be staying indefinitely.”

“Very well, miss.” The housekeeper looked from one to the other of them and then asked, “And your luggage, sir?”

“Oh, that's over in Godalming—at my friend's house. The chap who owns the car. I'll go over later and fetch it.”

Mrs. Falworth walked away and Dick said: “She doesn't believe a word we told her.”

“Maybe not, but she can't prove anything—and you're in, which is all that counts. When we get a chance, I'll show you that sealed room, but we'd better go warily in case we seem overeager. If the dragon starts to suspect anything we may find ourselves in a mess.”

Dick followed Vera into the big drawing room. She motioned to a chair and he sat down opposite her and held out his cigarette case.

“What I want to know,” he said, “is what you meant by that bad smell. I've been thinking about it. What did it smell like, exactly?”

“Oh, like faulty drains, or maybe bad eggs.”

“Yet when you went through the cellar during the evening, on your first tour of inspection, you didn't notice it?”

“Not a thing, no. As far as I could tell, on my later visit, it seemed to be coming from behind the door where all the jiggery-pokery was going on.”

“And all you could see under the door was a piece of mechanism and two pairs of feet?”

“That's all. And I nearly had to stand on my head to see even that much.”

“Queer,” Dick mused, narrowing his eyes. “And you say the dragon refused to open the door of the sealed room and as good as threatened what would happen to her husband if he tried it?”

Vera nodded. “I did warn her, though, that I hadn't dropped the matter by any means. And I haven't! I mean to see in that room!”

“And rightly—” Dick fell to thought for a moment, then both he and the girl looked up as Mrs. Falworth entered silently.

“A room has been prepared, sir, next to Miss Grantham's. Am I to understand that you will attend to the matter of your luggage yourself?”

“That's right—and just a moment before you go, Mrs. Falworth.... Miss Grantham has been telling me about the ghost which haunts this place. I understand that it appears once a year. When is that? At Christmas time?”

“No sir—the 21st of June, at 8:30 in the evening or thereabouts.”

Vera and Dick exchanged astonished glances and the housekeeper stood waiting, unsmiling.

“In the daylight?” Dick queried, at length.

“Obviously so, sir, since the sun does not set officially until about 10:20 summer time.”

Vera commented: “I always thought that self-respecting ghosts clanked their chains when snow cakes the ground and a bitter wind is blowing!”

“Between fiction and fact, miss, there is a lot of difference,” Mrs. Falworth remarked.

“And for how many years has this ghost been performing?” Dick demanded.

“To the best of my knowledge, sir, for the past fifty years at least. Of course I have only been here for ten years, but I know that it has appeared on the 21st of June for eight of the ten years. There were two consecutive years when it did not manifest, maybe due to unfavorable influences—”

“Or else it lost its way,” Dick suggested, grinning.

“I am afraid, sir, that I cannot regard the manifestation of an evil spirit as—humorous.”

“Well, that depends on how you look at it.... I suppose this spirit is that of some departed person who was wiped out in feudal times.”

“Quite the contrary, sir. The apparition takes the form of a demon—simian-eared, pointed-faced, bald, and possessing a tail. I need hardly add that a demon is an emissary of the devil, a member of his immediate retinue.”

Dick scratched his head somewhat ruefully, and Vera looked as if she were fighting hard to avoid a smile.

“Is there anything further, sir?” Mrs. Falworth asked.

“How do you know what the phantom looks like when to enter the room, according to you, means either death or the blasting of all normal reason?”

Mrs. Falworth said: “It is possible, sir, to open and close that door so rapidly that the vile influences within the room have not the time to affect you. But there is just time to see the manifestation. That has been done every year, until last year. Then Mr. Merriforth took too big a risk and went right into the room to study the phantom. As I have told Miss Grantham, he emerged—or rather tottered—outside very close to madness, and for many months was desperately ill. When he did make a slow recovery, he gave orders to screw up and tape the door and throw the key away. He said the door was never to be opened again.”

“That applied while he was alive,” Vera remarked, “but now I own this house and I have decided to have that door opened this very evening.”

“I shall not help you, miss, to meet your death—or you yours, sir. Nor will my husband lend assistance.”

“All right, then, if you're so scared I'll do it myself!” Dick said. “Just see that a screwdriver and chisel are brought to me after dinner this evening and I'll do the rest.”

“Very well, sir,” the woman answered levelly, “but I would urge you to reconsider.”

“One more question: what did Mr. Merriforth die of?”

“Heart failure, sir—accelerated, I believe, by his terrible experience in that room. Dr. Gillingham of Waylock Dean, who attended him during his illness, also signed the death certificate, if you require verification.”

Dick shook his head. “That's all, Mrs. Falworth, thank you.”

The woman swept out haughtily, and Dick tossed his cigarette end into the empty fireplace. Getting to his feet he began to prowl around, hands deep in his trouser pockets.

“Picked yourself a nice little legacy, didn't you?” he asked finally.

“How could I help it? It's just the way things have turned out.”

Vera rose and came over to where he was standing. The sunlight through the ancient mullioned window misted the gold in her hair.

“You're a darned sight prettier than I'd thought,” Dick murmured, studying her.

“Will you please remember that we have a demon on our hands, Mr. Wilmott? And will you also remember that today is the 19th of June? In two more evenings the ghost will appear and that will give us a chance to see it.”

“I never thought of that!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening. “Of course, it is the 19th today. Still, I think we ought to have a look inside that room anyway—as arranged, just to satisfy ourselves as to whether there really is a spirit of evil.”

“This evening,” Vera agreed. “I'm game—now that I have you!”

Dick smiled and gripped her arm reassuringly.

During the afternoon Vera returned with Dick Wilmott to Godalming so that he could collect his few belongings. Apparently the mystery of Sunny Acres had got such a hold upon him that his interest in the radio store had taken second place for the time being. Either it was that, or else the idea of being with Vera attracted him. She liked to think that this was the main reason.

They returned to Sunny Acres after a long, rambling walk though Godalming's beautiful countryside, arriving home just an hour before dinner was due. Old Falworth took Dick's bag upstairs without comment. Mrs. Falworth had no observations to make either. During dinner she maintained a respectful, not to say freezing, silence.

It was only when the meal had ended that she spoke.

“Am I to understand, miss, that you are still adamant in your decision to open up that room?”

“I am,” Vera assented. “And there is nothing further to be gained by discussion. Tell your husband to fetch a chisel and screwdriver and we'll get to work right away.”

The woman hesitated, then evidently realising that further protest was useless, she turned and left the room. In a few minutes she returned and handed the chisel and screwdriver to Dick.

“Thanks,” he said briefly; then to Vera, “Come on, dearest.”

She gave him a disapproving glance and he grinned faintly. Together they went up the stairs; then at the top they paused and looked below. They were just in time to see both Mrs. Falworth and her husband dodge back out of sight into the dining hall.

“Scared as rabbits,” Dick said. “Okay, dearest, let's go.”

“You're overdoing it,” Vera reminded him. “One ‘dearest' per day is all I'll allow.”

“As your fiancé I insist on at least two—and we'll take up the matter of a young lover's kiss later on, shall we?”

“What!” Vera stared at him wide-eyed—then he smiled slyly and motioned along the corridor.

“Come, Miss Grantham—we have an evil aura to detect.”

They went past the evening-lit stained glass window, past the bedroom doors, to the locked chamber at the extreme end, and stood looking at the sealed door.

Somehow, downstairs, it had not seemed much of a problem to either of them to get this door open and discover what lay beyond—but now, with the memory of Mrs. Falworth's warnings and the great house quiet as a sepulchre, it seemed a different matter.

“You realize what we are risking?” Dick questioned.

“Perfectly!” Vera set her chin. “And my mind is still made up. Go on, hurry up, before I lose my nerve.”

“Okay lady—here we go.”

He seized the screwdriver and struggled valiantly with the rusty notches in the screw heads. It was a hard task, which made him red in the face and short of breath but at least every screw was removed.

“So far, so good,” he murmured. “Now for the rest of it.”

Then, picking up the chisel, he wedged it between the door and the frame. As he pushed hard, Vera helped him by dragging forth the wadding from round the door edges. Then suddenly, as Dick gave a shove, the lock snapped and the door swung slowly inward on squeaking, rusty hinges.

Tense, motionless, they stood on the threshold and looked in. The room was completely empty. Dust lay thick and untrodden on the floor and hazed the musty atmosphere. A large stained-glass window, upon which was silhouetted the dark shadow of the “watchtower” parapet outside, formed the one means of illumination. There was an aged fireplace, the back of which had fallen out to reveal the darkness of the flue behind it.

“Deadly, eh?” Vera asked at last, with a little sigh of relief. “It just goes to show you what a lot of village gossip can do. Why, if it were cleaned up, this would make a nice bedroom.”

She went inside slowly, her hands on her hips, her feet making no noise in the thick dust on the carpet. It stirred up around her and into the air as she moved. Dick put down the chisel and followed her in.

“The fireplace wants fixing,” she said, as they surveyed it from the centre of the room. “I suppose we could get somebody to attend to—”

Suddenly Vera stopped and clutched at her throat. Dick had no need to ask why she had ceased speaking, for he had noticed it at the same moment—a curious sensation, a feeling of ghastly sinking, a terrific shifting and turning of the stomach.

“I—I feel as though—I'm going to be sick....” Vera got the words out in jerks, in whispers, her face deathly pale.

Dick nodded but said nothing. The lines in his face had set in a mask of strain. Both he and the girl stood still, not quite knowing what to do—but with every second, with every breath they took, they could feel inexplicable sensations creeping in upon them.

A horrible feeling crept into Dick's senses. The uncertain sunlight of the room seemed to change to a weird scrambling of shadows as intolerable pressures crushed behind his eyes.

Vera staggered. Then suddenly her knees gave way and she fell flat on the floor, face downward. Her fingers clutched vainly in the dust as she struggled to rise. Staring at her, Dick saw nameless anguish in her eyes as she looked up at him beseechingly.

With every second normalcy was deserting Dick. His brain was throbbing with horrible things that had no place in his normal make-up.

With an effort that drenched him in perspiration, he became himself for an agonising moment—but the room seemed to be filled with a myriad loathsome shapes. He bent down, caught Vera beneath her arms and dragged her out into the corridor. He slammed the door, drove home one of the screws with hands that felt numb and brittle.