Within That Room! (12 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SCREECHES OF MADNESS

“Yes, and there are others. Likewise, while he was away we made tests for mineral samples and I realized their great value. But you can only expand into real glory by turning this entire district into a spa. Finally old Merriforth came back with some Pedis Diaboli Root of all things! Quite glibly he told my sister of its awful power, and she in turn told me. I had heard of it, but had never expected that such a chance would come my way. From then on, I freely admit, we worked for no other purpose than to be rid of Cyrus Merriforth. We succeeded, only to find that you came next.”

“And with my fiancé I proved too much for you,” Vera remarked, smiling coldly. “I'm not signing anything, Mr. Carstairs, so you may as well realize it.”

“Right!” Dick agreed, nodding. “And if you murder us in retaliation it won't do you any good. You'll never get the legal transfer that way, but you will have Scotland Yard on your track mighty quick.”

Carstairs sighed and thought for a moment.

“Actually,” he said, considering, “I was not contemplating anything so crude as murder. There are ways of persuasion, you know. As it happens we are just in the right spot to enforce that persuasion, too. I suppose you know that reluctant victims were dealt with quite thoroughly in here in medieval times?”

“Meaning what?” Vera asked, feeling herself going pale.

“Well, I could tie the pair of you up and do some root-burning from the supply by the fireplace there. Unfortunately, however, the laboratory masks are not proof against it, so that won't do. Alternatively, I could leave you bound on the floor and let sulphur gas crawl over you—only it might act so swiftly that you would die before I could get the signature.... So I'm afraid I shall have to resort to the old-fashioned branding iron.”

“What!” Vera shrieked, taking a step back.

“You try it!” Dick clenched his fist and, regardless of the revolver, he dived for the big chemist in a flying tackle. The revolver did not explode, but Carstairs' right fist came up with savage impact and sent Dick reeling backward.

Recovering himself, he charged again, but, strong though he was, he was no match for the six-foot-four chemist. Struggling savagely, while Vera was held immovable at the point of Mrs. Falworth's revolver, he found himself slammed against the wall and his wrists imprisoned with lengths of cord fastened through the rings that hung in the stone.

“So sorry,” Carstairs apologized, stepping back finally, “but you are a bit of a nuisance, Mr. Wilmott.” He turned to his sister and nodded. “Fasten her up,” he said.

The woman gave Vera a vindictive shove and unable to do a thing to resist, she found herself treated exactly as Dick had been, her hands fastened to the wall rings which drew her arms out tautly on either side of her.

“Good,” Carstairs murmured, surveying both of them. “I'm being quite lenient, you know. The old experts favored those hooks up in the ceiling there. However....”

He turned aside and nodded to old Falworth. Falworth hesitated, clearly not at all in favor of the proceedings, then he began to light a fire in the broken-down stonework. It took him about five minutes to get it kindled, then from a corner he took a shovelful of coke and laid it on the flames. Seizing the ancient bellows handle, he worked it up and down until the flames glowed bright red.

“You are wondering where the smoke and fumes go?” Carstairs murmured, seeing the fixed stares of Vera and Dick. “I am afraid they go up into the ghost room since the flue is blocked. As for the root fumes, a small tin a little way up the chimney is an excellent device— All right, Tom,” he broke off. “It's red enough now.”

The elderly man nodded, his pale eyes fixed on the core of red heat. Picking up a peculiarly fashioned iron with a long handle, he laid it in the coals. It began to heat steadily as the bellows handle went up and down squeakily.

“What are you planning?” Dick whispered hoarsely.

“Nothing that need pain you, Mr. Wilmott. You, fortunately, are valueless as a signatory. As for you, Miss Grantham, I don't think I ever knew a young lady so loath to accept £15,000. To think that I should have to burn you into taking it!”

Suddenly Carstairs dropped his easy banter, picked up the glowing iron and surveyed it. Then holding it in front of him, he advanced towards the girl. Every trace of color went from her face, but she turned toward the walls as far as her stretched arms would permit.

“Miss Grantham, if you are willing to sign that deed, you have only to nod your head.”

Carstairs' voice was pitiless, his eyes deadly. “I promise you that I mean every word I say! I mean to have your signature.”

Vera cringed as far as she could against the stonework. Then as, at last, she felt the heat of the iron beating on her face, across her eyes, her nerve broke.

“Wait! Wait a minute—!” The words came from her in a scream. “I'll sign it.”

“Good!” Carstairs cried in triumph, and threw the iron back into the fire. “Release her,” he added to his sister, who had been tensely watching.

Mrs. Falworth did as she was told, though apparently with no great enthusiasm. It seemed to Dick, watching her, as though she would have received far more satisfaction if Vera had been actually tortured.

Shaking, Vera lowered her freed arms and rubbed her wrists. Then she advanced slowly to the rough packing case upon which Carstairs had tossed the document. Calmly he unscrewed his fountain pen and handed it to her.

But before she could take it, there came an interruption. Old Falworth suddenly scooped up something from the floor and threw it in the fire.

“Get out!” he shouted. “It's Devil's Root, on the fire—what's left of it. Get out, Miss Grantham—quick!”

Suddenly he was like a man gone mad. Twirling, he hurled himself on his wife, wrenched the gun out of her hand as she stared in amazement.

“Thought you'd get me to do as you like, didn't you?” Falworth laughed, backing towards the stairs. “Well, now it's my turn! While you were so busy frightening this girl to death, I blocked up the space behind the fireplace with old brick-ends. The fumes can't escape upstairs. They'll come out down here! From that fire—” The old man flashed a lightning glance at Vera. “Get out, quick, miss!” he implored. “Go on!”

She hesitated, but instead of obeying, she raced to Dick and began to pull on the cords fastening his wrists.

“Penknife—hip pocket,” he muttered, struggling for calmness. “Hurry up.”

Vera dragged the knife out and snapped open the blade, slashed through the ropes. Dick dragged himself free just as Carstairs, who had made a futile effort to get near the fire, hurled himself at old Falworth. But he dodged and fired the revolver simultaneously. The chemist brought up sharp in surprised anguish, clutching his shoulder.

“You traitorous old fool!” he shouted. “I'll kill you for this!”

Dick and Vera sped for the stairs and not a yard behind them came Falworth. Up the stone steps they went, just as the first frightful vapors came drifting out of the depths to catch them.

They reached Carstairs just as he was halfway in pursuit. He stopped suddenly, his hand moving from his shoulder to his throat. Giddily he clutched at the wall and swallowed hard. Mrs. Falworth, too, lost her iron composure and began beating at her forehead desperately, staggering about the floor.

“We—we can't leave them—!” Dick panted, perspiration wet on his face as he looked back. “It's too horrible—”

“You're going to!” old Falworth insisted, pointing the gun. “Keep moving!”

Unable to argue with the revolver, they crawled up the last few steps and into the fresh air of the hall. Old Falworth swung the door to and locked it. From down below came a woman's frantic scream, and the roar of a man's insane laughter.

Shaken, Vera turned away and flopped down weakly in one of the hall chairs. Silent, Dick moved to her side. Falworth remained where he was, listening, chuckling to himself at each screech of raving madness from the depths.

“Serve 'em right!” he kept muttering, shaking his head. “They murdered! Murdered, I tell you! Never was there a moment when I had peace with that wife of mine, or that brother or hers. Killers, both of 'em, and they died the same way as they'd planned you two should die.”

“They might come up the other staircase into the kitchen,” Dick said suddenly—but the old man shook his head and came over from the locked door.

“No, sir, they won't. They won't have the strength. They must be dead by now—and though Lorna was my wife, I say that death's too good for her. She was a fiend, and her brother was worse. I tried hard at first to tell you to get out, miss, but you wouldn't listen. Trouble was, I really meant it for your own good. After that, Lorna wouldn't let me see you, and I had to do as I was told.”

Falworth straightened up as though experiencing a vast relief. He put the revolver in his pocket. Dick and Vera looked at him with dull eyes in the dim hall light.

“We're going for the police,” he said. “You tell them everything you've found out and I'll bear witness. They can come and look at all the evidence—the root ash, the conveyance, the check, the sulphur water—and the bodies!”

“You know what it will mean for you?” Vera asked quietly.

“Yes, miss, I know. But I'm not worrying. I was forced into what I did, and I know you two will speak for me. Now come on, will you, please?”

Dick looked at Vera steadily as she got to her feet. Then he slipped an arm round her shoulders.

“We've won, dearest,” he whispered. “We've won! The place—with all that goes with it—is yours!”

“No—ours,” she murmured, and he hugged her tightly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Worsley, England, in 1908,
John Russell Fearn
began his career as a fiction writer by writing science fiction novels for the then-leading American pulp magazine
Amazing
Stories
. His first two novels,
THE INTELLIGENCE GIGANTIC
and
LINERS OF TIME
, had been serialized in the magazine in 1933 and 1935 respectively. Both these early classics were restored to print a few years ago by Wildside Press.

After his debut in
Amazing Stories
, Fearn had continued to write magazine science fiction, but by 1937 the market had expanded—and changed.
Amazing Stories
had been overtaken by
Astounding Stories
as the leading sf magazine, and had been joined by
Thrilling Wonder Stories
. The magazine field was in a state of continuing flux.

Fearn became a leading contributor to all three magazines, but had discovered that in order to continue to sell to constantly changing markets, he needed to be able to change his style, and to be versatile. With the encouragement of his American agent, Julius Schwartz, Fearn created several pseudonyms, which greatly facilitated his experimenting with different styles, and increased his sales chances.

Then in July 1937, Fearn wrote to his friend Walter Gillings (editor of Britain's first sf magazine
Tales of Wonder
, to which Fearn was also a contributor) to reveal that he was planning to switch from science fiction to the wider detective story market:

“I'm turning my scientific angles to account in the production of a scientific detective for England. A book, by the way. Be two years in the making, I expect. Chief guy is a scientist, and solves all kinds of things that puzzle Scotland Yard. I'm trying to get out of the rut of Frenchman, Chinamen and what-have-you with this yarn. Guy will be something like Nero Wolfe, only he drinks tea, not beer.”

In 1938, Fearn successfully introduced detective and mystery elements into science fiction, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Thornton Ayre'. The new technique (which Fearn called ‘webwork') involved connecting seemingly unrelated elements together to unravel a complex mystery. The method was already known in the detective field, the leading exponent being U.S. writer Harry Stephen Keeler.

By 1939, Fearn was expressing to friends his liking for crime mysteries, in preference to sf writing, but commercial exigencies dictated that, as a full-time writer, he had to continue to concentrate on science fiction during the early years of the war.

However, the American sf magazine market continued to expand, and so Fearn—as a full-time professional writer with a widowed mother to support—was obliged to continue writing mainly science fiction, with only occasional forays into detective and crime short stories for the American pulp magazine
Thrilling Mystery Stories
(the best of which are to be found in another Wildside title,
LIQUID DEATH AND OTHER STORIES
). Fearn's proposed book for English publishers, featuring his tea-drinking scientist detective, remained unwritten.

In November 1939, Fearn sent a letter to one of his regular correspondents, tyro-author (and cinema buff) William F. Temple, in which he referred to
Amazing Stories
editor Ray Palmer's acceptance of his story, “The Man Who Saw Two Worlds.” Fearn wrote:

“In this I introduce Brutus Lloyd, the first genuine criminologist who dabbles in scientific riddles, who is conceited, masterful and breezy. Palmer seems to like him immensely and requires more. I called him Alka Lloyd, but Palmer refused to be sold on it! The story is actually Wells' “The Plattner Story” brought bang up to date, and Lloyd is based on Ernest Truex in the film
Ambush
(starring Lloyd Nolan).”

Brutus Lloyd was popular with
Amazing Stories
readers, and so two further novelettes were published over the next couple of years. But by the mid 1940s, Fearn was beginning to raise his sights from the US pulp magazines, and he began to move into new book-length markets in England.

Since Fearn was well-known as a science fiction author, he was obliged to adopt pseudonyms for his detective fiction, writing hardcover novels as ‘John Slate' and ‘Hugo Blayn.'

As John Slate, he created the brilliant female detective “Black Maria,” who debuted in
BLACK MARIA. M.A
. (1944) and as Hugo Blayn he created “Dr. Carruthers” whose first adventure,
FLASHPOINT
appeared in 1950. All of their books have been reprinted in the UK in recent years, and a few of them were also issued by Wildside Press, most notably
FLASHPOINT
.

This was one of Fearn's best-written, and most carefully plotted novels, and the character of Dr. Carruthers is brilliantly realized. This is not so surprising when one realizes that the book is one he had been working on for several years: Carruthers is, in fact, the very same character that Fearn had first conceived back in 1937, and who had been first developed as Brutus Lloyd.

Writing an introduction to
OTHER EYES WATCHING
, a science fiction novel published in England by Pendulum Publications in 1946 (reprinted from the U.S. pulp
Startling Stories
) Fearn revealed that his favorite mystery and detective writer was John Dickson Carr, famous as the master the ‘locked room' mystery.

Fearn's own detective novels are classics of the ‘locked room' and ‘impossible crime' genres, but because they were written under pseudonyms, he did not achieve in England the recognition in the detective field that he deserved.

Fearn decided to try writing mysteries for the Toronto
Star
Weekly
under his own name
.
He knew he faced terrific competition in this genre: regular contributors included Margery Allingham, John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner, Philip MacDonald, Ellery Queen, and Roy Vickers.

During the war, Fearn had worked for three years as a cinema projectionist in his home town of Blackpool, and he continued to be an avid filmgoer. He had seen the many great ‘film noir' crime thrillers that Hollywood produced in the 1940s, with their atmosphere of menace and mystery. So he felt equal to the task.

His first ‘impossible crime' novel for the
Star Weekly
was
WITHIN THAT ROOM!
(1946) published under his own name. However, so great was the success of his science fiction character “The Golden Amazon” in the same magazine, that Fearn again switched to pseudonyms for his next detective novels there, writing as ‘Thornton Ayre' and ‘Frank Russell'.

Over the next ten years, Fearn's
Star Weekly
detective novels included
WITHIN THAT ROOM!
(1946),
THE CRIMSON RAMBLER
(1947; as Thornton Ayre),
SHATTERING GLASS
(1947), and
THE FOURTH
DOOR
(1948) both as by Frank Russell, and under his own name
ROBBERY WITHOUT VIOLENCE
(1957) this latter novel having a distinctly science fictional flavour.

Up until 1955, Fearn's Toronto
Star Weekly
novels were also reprinted in various American newspapers near to the Canadian border, in the New York and Maine areas, including
The Bangor News
(later as
Bangor Sunday Commercial
),
Newark Sunday Star Ledger,
and
Long Island Sunday Press.
In recent years, all of Fearn's
Star Weekly
mysteries have been reprinted in England and elsewhere, but no American book editions have ever been published. Until now!

Borgo Press will be reprinting all of Fearn's
Star Weekly
mysteries, along with several of his best detective novels, including some posthumous works. No discerning collector of locked room and ‘impossible crime' stories can afford to miss them!