Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

“Still, they come. You haven’t lost your clients?” said Christopher.

“Not yet; for though most of those who arrive have read about the mystery in the papers (if they haven’t, we feel obliged to warn them) they don’t believe the stories. They think the thing must have been planned to work up a sensation, and they’re so certain things stolen will come back, though they’re enchanted with the house at first, before the Thing happens. Just now we’re getting crowds who come to try and ferret out the mystery, or because they’ve made bets that they won’t lose anythying. But soon the sort of people we want will stop away, and we shall get only vulgar curiosity-mongers; then, when we cease to be a nine days’ wonder, there’ll be nobody, and we shall have to give up. That’s what I look forward to, and it will break my heart.”

“Something will have to be done,” said Christopher – puzzled, but anxious to be encouraging. “Have you no guest who has been with you several weeks?”

“One,” the girl returned, half reluctantly, as if she guessed his reason for putting this question. “It’s – a man.”

“A young man?”

“Yes, a young man.”

“How long has he been in the house?”

“Several weeks. He’s painting a picture, using the King’s room, as we call it, for a background – the room Charles II had when an ancestor of ours was hiding him, and would dart down into a secret place underneath whenever a dangerous visitor arrived.”

“Oh, an artist?”

“Not a professional. He-”.

“Can’t you remember how long he has been with you?”

“Between three weeks and a fortnight.” The girl blushed, her white face lovely in its sudden flush of colour. “I see what’s in your mind. But there’s nothing in that, I assure you. The merest coincidence. You don’t look as if you were ready to believe me, but you will when I tell you that it’s Sir Walter Raven, the man I’m engaged to marry. When I wrote him about our scheme he didn’t like the idea, but soon I let him know what a success it was proving. I even hinted that I might think over the resolution I’d made not to marry him for years, because, after all, I mightn’t have to be a burden. He was so excited over the letter that he left his ranch in charge of his partner and came over at once. It was a great surprise to see him, but – it was a very agreeable one. He’s been my one comfort – except, of course, our dear cousins – since the evil days began.”

“He hasn’t been able to throw any light on the problem?”

“No, though he’s tried in every way.”

“Does he know you’ve sent for me?”

“I haven’t told him, because it would seem as if I couldn’t trust him to get to the bottom of the mystery. You see, though he’s tremendously clever, he isn’t that sort of man. He’s been in the Army, and used to drift along, amusing himself as he could, until he met me, and decided to go to work. He’s different from you.”

“Not so different as she thinks,” Christopher said to himself; only he had been driven from amusement to work by a reason less romantic, and, unlike Sir Walter Raven, had not met the right woman yet, but he expected to find her some day.

“When you’ve got hold of a clue, as I feel you will,” Sidney Chester went on, “then I’ll tell Sir Walter, and he’ll be delighted. Till then, though, you shall be for him, as for everybody else except myself, a guest in the house, like other guests. Luckily, we can give you a place to keep that famous car of yours. We’ve had part of the stables made into a garage. Now, have you asked me everything?”

“Not yet,” answered Christopher, selfishly less sorry to detain her than he would have been had she been middle-aged and plain. “I want to know what servants are in the rooms where these robberies occur?”

“The butler, Nelson, in the dining-hall, or one of the footmen if the meal is being served in a private sitting-room.”

“Only those, except the guests?”

“Since the mystery began I’ve sometimes been there to watch and superintend, and one of my cousins, either Morley or his wife. And in the dining-hall Sir Walter Raven is kind enough to keep an eye on what goes on, while appearing to be engaged with his luncheon or dinner.”

“Yet the robberies take place just the same under your very eyes?”

“Yes. That is the mysterious part. The whole thing is like a dream. But you will see for yourself. Only, as I said, take care not to have anything about you which They – whoever, whatever They are – can steal.”

“I don’t think I shall trouble to put away my valuables,” said Christopher. “It wouldn’t break me if I lost them, and I can’t feel that such a thing will happen to me.”

“Ah, others have felt that, and regretted their confidence.”

“I sha’n’t regret mine,” laughed the young man. “And I never carry much money.”

“Remember, I’ve warned you!” cried the girl.

“My blood be on my own head,” he smiled, in return, and at last announced that the catechism was finished. She gave him her hand, and he shook it reassuringly; then, it being understood that, as it was late, he would dine at the inn and arrive at Wood House after nine, she left him. Five minutes later, standing at the window, he saw her ride off on a fine hunter.

As he ate chops and drank a glass of ale Christopher considered what he had heard of the mystery, and did not know what to think of it.

He could not believe that things happened as Miss Chester described. He thought that a sensitive imagination, rendered more vivid by singular events, must have led her into exaggeration. However, he was keenly interested, and the fact that Sir Walter Raven had been in the house since the strange happenings began added to the piquancy of the situation. He admired the girl so much that he would regret disillusionment for her; yet her fiancé’s presence for precisely that length of time was an odd coincidence. He might be anxious to force her to abandon the scheme which he appeared to approve, and – he might have hit upon a peculiar way of doing it. How he could have gone about accomplishing such an object in such a manner Christopher could not see; yet his attention focused on Sir Walter Raven as a central figure in the mystery.

The road from the Sandboy and Owl, through Ringhurst and on to Wood House, was beautiful. Christopher had passed over it before, and, coming to the gateway and lodge of the place he sought, he remembered having remarked both, though he had not then known the name of the estate.

He steered Scarlet Runner between tall stone gate-posts topped with stone lions supporting shields, acknowledged a salutation from an elderly man at the door of the old black and white lodge, and drove up a winding avenue under beeches and oaks.

Suddenly, rounding a turn, he came in sight of the house, standing in the midst of a lawn cleared of trees, in a forest-like park.

It was a long, low building of irregular shape, the many windows with tiny lozenge-panes brightly-lit behind their curtains. In the moonlight the projecting upper storeys with gabled roofs and ivy-draped chimneys, the walls chequered in black and white, with wondrous diapering of trefoils, quatrefoils, and chevrons, were clearly defined against a wooded background. The house could have few peers in picturesqueness if one searched all England. Christopher was not surprised that the plan of turning it into an hotel had attracted many motorists and other tourists.

He was received by a mild, old, white-haired butler, and a footman in neat livery was sent to show him the way to the garage. Scarlet Runner disposed of for the night, he returned to the house and entered a square hall, where a fire of logs in a huge fireplace sent red lights flickering over the carved ceiling, the fine antique cabinets stored with rare china, the gate-legged tables, and high-backed chairs.