Martin Edwards - The Terror

‘No, no, thank you. I’d rather walk,’ he said.

‘Stuff! Get in,’ scoffed Ferdie. ‘I am a better driver when I am tight than when I am sober, but I am not tight.’

Very reluctantly the tea merchant climbed into the seat beside the driver.

‘I’ll go very slowly,’ the new inmate of Monkshall went on. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

‘You think I am afraid?’ said Mr Goodman with a certain asperity.

‘I’m certain,’ said the other cheerfully. ‘Where have you been this fine day?’

‘I went up to London,’ said Mr Goodman.

‘An interesting place to go to,’ said Fane; ‘but a deuced uncomfortable place to live in.’

He was keeping his word and driving with remarkable care, Mr Goodman discovered to his relief.

He was puzzled as to where Ferdie had obtained the car and ventured upon an inquiry.

‘I hired it from a brigand in the village,’ said Ferdie. ‘Do you drive a car?’

Mr Goodman shook his head.

‘It is an easy road for a car, but a pretty poisonous one for a lorry, especially a lorry with a lot of weight in it. You know Lark Hill?’

Mr Goodman nodded.

‘A lorry was stuck there. I guess it will be there still even though the road is as dry as a bone. What it must be like to run up that hill with a heavy load on a wet and slippery night heaven knows. I bet that hill has broken more hearts than any other in the county.’

He rumbled on aimlessly about nothing until they reached the foot of the redoubtable hill where the heavy lorry was still standing disconsolate by the side of the road.

‘There she is,’ said Ferdie with the satisfaction of one who is responsible. ‘And it will take a bit of haulage to get her to the top, eh? Only a super-driver could have got her there. Only a man with a brain and imagination could have nursed her.’

Goodman smiled.

‘I didn’t know there were such things as super-brains amongst lorry drivers,’ he said. ‘But I suppose every trade, however humble, has its Napoleon.’

‘You bet,’ said Ferdie.

He brought the car up the long drive to Monkshall, paid the garage hand who was waiting to take it from him, and disappeared into the house.

Goodman looked round. In spite of his age his eyesight was remarkably good, and he noticed the slim figure walking on the far side of the ruins. Handing his umbrella to Cotton he walked across to Mary. She recognised and turned to meet him. Her father was in his study and she was going back for tea. He thought that she looked a little peaked and paler than usual.

‘Nothing has happened today?’ he asked quickly.

She shook her head.

‘Nothing. Mr Goodman, I am dreading the night.’

He patted her gently on the shoulder. ‘My dear, you ought to get away out of this. I will speak to the colonel.’

‘Please don’t,’ she said quickly. ‘Father does not want me to go. My nerves are a little on edge.’

‘Has that young man been—?’ he began.

‘No, no. You mean Mr Fane? He has been quite nice. I have only seen him for a few minutes today. He is out driving a motor car. He asked me—’

She stopped.

‘To go with him? That young man is certainly not troubled with nerves!’

‘He was quite nice,’ she said quickly; ‘only I didn’t feel like motoring. I thought it was he who had just come back, but I suppose it was you who came in the car.’ He explained the circumstances of his meeting with Ferdie Fane. She smiled for the first time that day.

‘He is—rather queer,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he is quite sensible and nice. Cotton hates him for some reason or other. He told me today that unless Mr Fane left he would.’

Mr Goodman smiled.

‘You seem to have a very troublesome household,’ he said; ‘except myself—oh, I beg his pardon, the new guest. What is his name? Mr Partridge? I hope he is behaving himself.’

She smiled faintly.

‘Yes, he’s quite charming. I don’t think I have seen him today,’ she added inconsequently.

‘You can see him now.’ Mr Goodman nodded towards the lawn.

The slim, black figure of Mr Partridge was not easily discernible against the dark background of the foliage. He was strolling slowly up and down, reading a book as he walked; but evidently his eyes and attention were not entirely for the literature which he studied, for he closed his book and walked towards them.

‘A delightful place, my dear Miss Redmayne,’ he said. ‘A most charming place! A little heaven upon earth, if I may use a sacred expression to describe terrestrial beauties.’

In the light of day, and without the softening effect of curtains, his face was not too pleasant, she thought. It was a hard face, angular, wasted. The dark eyes which surveyed her were not his least unpleasant feature. His voice was gentle enough—gentle to the point of unctuousness. Instinctively she had disliked him the first time they had met; her second impression of him did not help her to overcome her prejudice.

‘I saw you come up. Mr Fane was driving you.’ There was a gentle reproach in his tone. ‘A curious young man, Mr Fane—given, I fear, to the inordinate consumption of alcoholic beverage. “Oh,” as the prophet said, “that a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains!”’

‘I can testify,’ interrupted Mr Goodman staunchly, ‘that Mr Fane is perfectly sober. He drove me with the greatest care and skill. I think he is a very excitable young man, and one may often do him an injustice because of his peculiar mannerisms.’

The reverend gentleman sniffed. He was obviously no lover of Fane, and sceptical of his virtues. Yet he might find no fault with Ferdie, who came into the lounge soon after tea was served, and would have sat alone if Goodman had not invited him to the little circle which included himself, Mrs Elvery and Mary. He was unusually quiet, and though many opportunities presented themselves he was neither flippant nor aggressive.

Mary watched him furtively, more than interested in the normal man. He was older than she had thought; her father had made the same discovery. There was a touch of grey in his hair, and though the face was unlined it had the setness of a man who was well past his thirties, and possibly his forties.

His voice was deep, rather brusque. She thought she detected signs of nervousness, for once or twice, when he was addressed, he started so violently as to spill from the cup of tea which he held in his hand.

She saw him after the party had dispersed. ‘You’re very subdued today, Mr Fane.’

‘Am I?’ He made an attempt at gaiety and failed. ‘It’s funny, parsons always depress me. I suppose my conscience gets to work, and there’s nothing more depressing than conscience.’

‘What have you been doing all day?’ she asked.

She told herself she was not really interested. The question was one of the commonplaces of speech that she had employed a dozen times with guests.

‘Ghost-hunting,’ he said, and when he saw her pale he was instantly penitent. ‘Sorry—terribly sorry! I was being funny.’

But he had been very much in earnest; she realised that when she was in the privacy of her own room, where she could think without distraction. Ferdie Fane had spent that day looking for the Terror. Was he himself the Terror? That she could not believe.

NIGHT came—the dreary night with its black mysteries and its suggestive horrors.

The telephone in the deserted lounge rang shrilly. Cotton came from some mysterious recess in a hurry to answer it. He heard Hallick’s voice and winced painfully. He did not like Hallick, and wondered how soon this officer of Scotland Yard, with the resources at his disposal, would discover his own unsavoury antecedents.