CHAPTER VI
THE WARNING
“It is an extraordinary case,” said Lord Ilfran shaking his head. “One of the most extraordinary I have ever heard about.”
He was seated at his desk in the big room overlooking Whitehall and Jeremiah Jowlett was sitting on the opposite side of the table facing him.
Lord Ilfran ran his long, nervous fingures through his white hair, and stared out of the window.
“You say that this man Carter was a member of the Flack gang.”
Jeremiah nodded.
“I don’t think there can be any doubt about that,” he said, “His finger prints have been taken and identified; moreover, he didn’t seem to disguise his name. He went to prison at the same time as John Flack, the head of the gang, and they were released from prison within a few days of one another.”
“Has Flack been discovered?”
“No, sir,” replied Jeremiah. “We have put a call out to all stations, but up to now we have not been able to pull him in.”
“It’s curious,” said the Public Prosecutor again, “and what a terrible shock for that poor girl.”
“She stood it splendidly,” said the enthusiastic Jeremiah. “Most women would have fainted, but she was a brick.”
“There were no footsteps in the snow?”
“No. The garden path had been swept clear of snow, and the only clue we have is the one supplied by Mr. Stuart. He said he thought he heard footsteps a few minutes before the tragedy was discovered.”
Lord Ilfran leant back in his chair.
“The ghost suggestion is, of course, absurd,” he said. “Somebody is masquerading for a purpose of his own. By the way, have you seen the ghost?”
“Twice,” said Jeremiah to his chief’s surprise. “The fact is sir – “ he leant across the table and lowered his voice “-so far as a house can be said to be haunted, that description applies to my bungalow. I haven’t told Miss Panton because I did not want to alarm her, but the Ghost of Downhill is a very real quantity, and although my glimpses of this midnight wanderer have been more or less sketchy, yet the descriptions Miss Panton gave me of the man in the monk’s robe with a grinning skeleton face are identical with what I saw.”
Lord Ilfran was seldom surprised. A lifetime spent in the law had removed the novelty even from the bizarre, but now he was genuinely amazed, for Jeremiah was a hard-headed young man who had few illusions.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked curiously.
“About six months,” was the reply, “or about three months before Mr. Stuart returned from the Brazils. The first time I saw the ghost was one late summer night when a storm was working up from the sea. I was sitting in my study reading a law book, when I heard a tap-tap at the window. I thought that a shutter had worked loose and took no notice. Presently it was repeated. I walked to the window and looked out; it was a pitch black night and I saw nothing until suddenly there came a blinding flash of lightning, and there, standing in the middle of the path, I saw the figure of a monk. By the time I had got outside it was raining heavily, and the fitful flashes of lightning failed to reveal the visitor.
“The second time was a month ago, and on this occasion the visitation was a little more serious,” said Jeremiah quietly. “I had gone to bed and was asleep when Minter woke me to tell me he heard a noise in the cellar. We have a cellar beneath the house where I keep a small stock of wine. When I went to investigation I discovered the cellar door wide open and on going down I found that somebody had dug a deep hole in the floor of the cellar.”
“You saw nobody?” asked Lord Ilfran, intensely interested.
“Nobody,” replied Jeremiah. “at that moment. Behind the house is a covered passage-way which communicates with the kitchen, and affords me storage for my bicycle and a side entrance to the garage. In my search of the house I reached the passage-way, carrying a petrol lantern and then I saw the visitor for the second time. He was at the far end of the passage near the side door, and I am willing to confess that the sight of that fleshless face startled me. Before I could reach him, he was gone.”
“Has there been any other manifestation?”
Jeremiah smiled.
“It is curious you should used that word sir,” he said, still smiling. “It is a favourite one of Mr. James Stuart, who implicitly believes in spirits, and has asked me to give him permission to spend a night alone in the house in order that he may lay the ghost. I might add,” he went on, “that Minter, my servant, has also seen the figure – a fact which I learnt only last night.”
Lord Ilfran rose from his table and paced the room slowly.
“That will not bring us any nearer to the discovery of the murderer of Sibby Carter,” he said. “Are you going to fall in with Mr. Stuart’s suggestion?”
“I don’t know why I shouldn’t,” said Jeremiah. He did not explain that he was particularly anxious to be on good terms with the uncle of Margot Panton, and that as Mr. Stuart had offered him the use of his own house during the period of his ghost laying, he was all the more willing and ready to humour the old man in his whim.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I am taking Minter down to Mr. Stuart’s house the day after tomorrow.”
“That is Christmas Eve,” interrupted Lord Ilfran, “and a very excellent time for ghosts. I am sure I wish Mr. Stuart luck.”
Jeremiah Jowlett went home that night a little earlier. He was anxious to see the girl who had made so profound an impression upon him, and more anxious to learn whether any new evidence had come to light. He found Margot amazingly cheerful. Perhaps it had been her first shock which had steeled her to the subsequent tragedy, but at any rate, she was less distressed than he had dared to expect,
“Uncle is out,” she said, “Will you have some tea with me?”
Jeremiah did not want a second invitation. He lingered over the repast till it was nearly dinner time, but Mr. James Stuart had not returned, and at last he reluctantly took his leave.
It was a beautiful night, despite the cold and they stood for a moment talking at the garden gate. From where they were the outlines of Downhill house stood clear against the dying light in the western sky.
“I have allowed Minter to go home to see his sister,” explained Jeremiah, when the girl had remarked upon the darkness of the bungalow. “Please don’t worry about me, Miss Panton; I am an accomplished bachelor, who can grill a chop and boil a potato, with the best cook in Arthurton,”
“It seems horribly lonely for you,” said Margot. “Won’t you stay to dinner?”
“I’d like to,” said Jeremiah in all sincerity, “but I don’t want to annoy your uncle by living on the premises.”
He could only stare in speechless amazement.
Of a sudden every window in the little building was glowing redly, as though simultaneously every room was on fire. Fiercely it gleamed across the snow-white hill, and then as suddenly the red glow died down.
“I must investigate this,” said Jeremiah.
“Let me come with you,” she said, and he felt her grip tighten on his arm, and hesitated.
“I think you had better stay here,” he said, and a minute later she heard the thunder of his car as it took the steep hill road.
Jerry jumped from the machine at the entrance to his demesne, and raced along the garden path. Switching on a pocket lamp he tried the side door. It was locked. He thrust a key into the lock and a second later was in the covered passage-way. He did not meet any intruder, nor did he expect to. There was a strong smell of sulphur and the dining room, the first he entered, was hazy with smoke. A small fire, which Minter had lit before he went out, glowed on the hearth; but the room was empty, as was his bedroom where another small fire was burning.
He searched every inch of the bungalow without finding the slightest trace of a visitor. It was impossible that anybody could have made their escape, for all the doors, except the side door, were locked on the inside, and the side door had a lock which head recently put on, which he knew it was impossible to pick.
He came back to the dining room, and then, for the first time, saw a document which lay upon the table. It was not of paper, but of old fashioned vellum, and the words were written in quaint old English characters:
“Thy presence on this hallowed spot is a profanation. Leave thy house, lest the lonely monk of Down Hill bring thee a terrible death.”
END OF CHAPTER VI