Valentine Williams - Dead Man Manor

Just then the doctor, with a faint shrug, turned away. He met the curé face to face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently, ‘this man is dead!’

The priest did not speak—he was staring fixedly at the dead man’s face. But it was evident that he understood, for he took one hand from under his cloak and, raising it, made the sign of the cross over the bed, then fell to his knees. Through the hushed room rolled, above the sound of the girl’s stifled sobbing, the prayer for the Dead: ‘De profundis clamavi ad Te, Dominum: Domine, exaudi orationem meam!’ Mr. Treadgold and the doctor knelt.

The door was flung back violently, making the candle-flame leap. Jacques stood there, mouth sagging, eyes staring. Mr. Treadgold rose hastily and went to enjoin him to silence.

‘Ah, mon Dieu,’ the man gasped. ‘Quel malheur! Back there in the salon. . .’

‘Quiet!’ the other whispered peremptorily. ‘Your master’s dead!’

‘Dead?’ Aghast the servant echoed him. He was a pigeon-breasted, sallow man with a curiously guarded air. His glance flashed to the bed and the priest beside it praying on his knees, but instantly came back to the Englishman’s face. ‘But, Monsieur,’ he cried distractedly under his breath, ‘it is as I say. Back there in the salon—I saw it myself. . .’

Firmly Mr. Treadgold pushed him into the lobby and closed the door behind them.

‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded sternly.

The man’s hands fluttered wildly. ‘I go to the linen-room for the candle, as Mademoiselle ordered. But the room is dark—someone has taken the lamp that stands on the table. Now I see a faint light under the door at the end. I open the door, and what do I perceive across the vestibule, through the doors of the salon beyond? Standing on the floor is the lamp—it is burning, you understand—and beside it the body of a man!’

‘What man?’ Mr. Treadgold’s tone was irritable, incredulous.

The yellowish eyeballs rolled in terror. ‘I was drawing nearer to look when I see that he is lying in a pool of blood. I call to him, but he does not budge, and I know he is dead. So I come back here. If Monsieur would go with me. . .’

The door behind them opened and the doctor appeared. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

‘He insists there’s a dead man in the drawing-room,’ Mr. Treadgold explained.

Wood stared at him. ‘What do you mean, in the drawing-room?’

The other shrugged. ‘It’s what he keeps on telling me. We’d better investigate!’ He signed to the servant to lead on.

The doctor’s torch lighted them through the darkened linen-room to the vestibule beyond. Across the vestibule the lofty doors of the dismantled drawing-room gaped wide, and beyond them, sprawling on the uncarpeted boards like a sack dropped from a truck, a formless mass was visible. It lay on the brink of the pool of light cast by the lamp which stood on the floor close by. As they approached, they could see it was a man, prone on his back, with one knee drawn up and limp hands flung wide.

Mr. Treadgold was the first to catch sight of the face. He stopped dead and turned, with a shocked expression, to Wood.

‘My God,’ he whispered, ‘it’s Adams!’

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