John Carr: The Plague Court Murders

"As a matter of fact, they're out in the little stone house. Lighting a fire for Mr. Darworth when he goes to watch." She attempted to speak lightly. "Ted made this fire. It's not very good, is it? Oh, my dear, what is the matter with you?"

He had begun to pace to and fro, so that the candle flames swung with his passage. Now he said: "Good! That reminds me; you gentlemen will want to see over the house, and that little fountainhead of iniquity out in the yard.... "

"You're not going out there?"

The sandy eyebrows went up. "Certainly, Marion. I was out there last night."

"He will be a fool," Lady Benning said gently and sweetly, with closed eyes. "But we will protect him in spite of himself. Let him go. Mr. Darworth, dear Mr. Darworth, can protect him."

"Come along, Blake," said Halliday, and nodded curtly.

The girl made as if to stop him, with an uncertain gesture. I could hear a curious scraping, ticking sound; it was the rings on Lady Benning's fingers brushing the arm of the chair, but it sounded horribly like rats in a wall. The small dainty face was turned dreamily towards Halliday and I saw how much she hated him.

"Don't disturb Mr. Darworth," she said. "It is nearly time."

Halliday got out his flashlight and we followed him into the hall. There was a tall creaky door, which he scraped shut by putting his finger into the empty knobhole. Then we stood in the damp, heavy darkness, and there were three electric torches switched on now. Halliday flashed his light first into my face and then into Masters'.

'Anoint ye, witch,'" he said, as mockingly as he could. "Well? What do you think, now, about what I've been through for the last six months?"

Blinking in the light, Masters put on his hat again. He picked his words with care. "Why, Mr. Halliday, if you'll take us somewhere else-where we couldn't be overheard-why, maybe I can tell you. A little, at least. I'm even more grateful at being brought here, now."

I saw him smile as the light moved away. From what we could see of it, the hall was even more desolate than the room behind. Its floor was of stone flags, over which patterned wood had been at one time laid; but this was long carried away, like the paneling. It remained a bleak, square vault, with a heavy staircase at the far end, and three tall doors on either side. A rat scuttled across the light; we could hear the scrape of its feet as it vanished near the staircase. Masters went along ahead, his light probing. Halliday and I followed as quietly as we could; Halliday whispered to me, "Can you feel it again?" and I nodded. I knew what he meant. It had gathered round again, tightening and closing. If you have ever done any swimming underwater, and stayed down too long, and been suddenly terrorized that you will never get to the surface again, you will understand a very similar sensation.

"Don't," said Halliday, "don't let's get separated." For Masters was some distance ahead, prowling near the staircase. It was with a sense of shock that we saw him stop beside the paneling that enclosed its side; stop dead, and stare down. The light before him silhouetted his prim bowler hat and his big shoulders. Stooping, he went down on one knee. We heard him grunt.

There were some darkish stains on the flagstones near the side of the stair. The little space thereabouts was clean of dust. Masters reached out and touched the panel. It was a little door to a low closet under the steps; as Masters pushed it, there was a wild stirring and rushing of rats inside. A few of the creatures darted out - one of them over Masters' foot but he did not move from his kneeling position. I could see the reflection on the high gloss of one shoe as he poked the flashlight into the foul little space beyond. .

He stared; the damp, musty air turned suffocating in my lungs; then he spoke, gruffly.

"It's all right, sir," said Masters. "All right. It ain't nice, though. It's only a cat." "A cat?"

"Yes, sir. A cat. It's got its throat cut."

Halliday jerked back. I leaned over Masters' shoulder and turned my light inside. Somebody or something had thrust it in there to be out of sight. It had not been dead long, and lay on its back, so I could see that the neck had been slit through. It was a black cat, stiffened out with agony; now turning shrunken and wiry and dusty, and the half-open eyes looked like shoe-buttons. There were things moving about it.

"I'm beginning to think, Mr. Blake," said Masters, rubbing his chin, "that maybe there's a kind of devil in this house after all."

With a stolid disgust he pulled the door shut again, and got up.

"But," said Halliday, "who would-?" He peered over his shoulder.

"Ah! That's it. Who would? And why? Would you call it a piece of deliberate cruelty, now, or was there a reason? Eh, Mr. Blake?"

"I was thinking," I said, "of the enigmatic Mr. Darworth. You were going to tell us something about him, you know. By the way, where is he?"

"Steady-!" Masters struck in quietly, and raised his hand.

We could hear voices and the sound of footsteps coming through the house. They were palpably human voices; yet such was the trick of echoes in this stone labyrinth that they seemed to sheer off the wall and echo softly in your ear just behind you. First there was a gruff mumble in which we could catch scattered words:

"-don't hold with the mumbo-jumbo ... all the same ... look a damned fool ... something.”

"That's it, that's just it!" The other voice was lower, lighter, more excited. "Why do you feel like that? Look here, do I look like any namby-pamby aesthete who could be gulled and hypnotized by my own nerves? That's the ridicule you're afraid of. Trust yourself! We've accepted modern psychology...."

The steps were coming from beyond a low archway at the rear of the hall. I saw the light of a candle shielded in somebody's hand; there was a glimpse of a whitewashed passage with a brick floor; then a figure stepped into the hall, and saw us. It jerked back, bumping into another figure. Across that space you could almost feel its shock and stiffening. I saw a mouth suddenly pulled back, and the teeth, over the candle it held. It muttered, "Oh, Christ. . ." And Halliday threw back in a matter-of-fact tone, faintly edged with spite: "Don't get the wind up, Ted. It's only us."

The other peered, straightening his candle. He was very young. Over the candle-flame hung first a careful Etonian tie, then an uncertain chin, the sproutings of a fair mustache, the faint outline of a square face. His coat and hat were sodden. He said, querulously:

"You ought to have better sense than to try to scare a fellow like that, Dean! I mean, hang it all, you can't go crawling about the place, and-and-" We heard the whistle of his breath.

"Who the devil are these people?" rasped his companion, who had come out from behind him. We threw up our lights mechanically to see the newcomer; he cursed and winked, and we lowered them. Besides these two, there was a thin little red-headed figure behind them.

"Good evening, Major Featherton," Halliday greeted. "As I say, you needn't be alarmed. I seem to have the unenviable quality of making everybody I meet jump like a rabbit." His voice kept rising. "Is it my face, or what? Nobody ever used to think it was so frightful as all that, but as soon as they begin talking to Darworth---“

"Confound you, sir, who says I'm alarmed?" said the other. "I like your infernal, blasted cheek. Who says I'm alarmed, sir? Furthermore, I will repeat to you, as I will repeat to everybody I meet, that I hope I am a fair-minded man, whose motives will not be misunderstood or made a subject for ridicule because I preserve-because, in short, I am here." He coughed.

The voice in the gloom sounded like a disembodied letter to The Times. The paunchy figure tilted slightly backwards. From the brief glimpse I had had of him, of the map-veined cheeks and cadaverous eyes, I could fill out the bigness of an outworn buck and gallant of the eighties, tightened into his evening clothes like a corset.