Within That Room! (6 page)

CHAPTER NINE

NO PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

Dick looked again at the plant specimens, a frown crossing his face.

“Something wrong?” Vera questioned, at which he looked at her and smiled.

“No—nothing wrong. Just a passing thought.... Now, what about the book department?”

They turned to the shelves, and after a general survey they glanced at each other and registered the same reaction.

“Not so hot,” Dick sighed. “Most of them seem to be about plants, animals or insects. Doesn't look as though your uncle went in for thrillers, Vera?”

“Don't be too sure,” she said slowly, stooping to look at several books on a lower shelf. “There are about twenty detective stories here.”

“Evidently uncle had his lighter moments after all,” Dick decided. “There is none here that is any good to me, though. I've read 'em all—mostly when I was in the R.A.F.”

“I've read them, too,” Vera said.

Then suddenly Dick pulled down a heavy volume.

“Say, what's this?
The History of Sunny Acres
, including all about the legend, together with maps of the district! Looks as if it might be interesting. To judge from the dog-ears, somebody's been studying it pretty closely already.”

“Not for me, thanks,” Vera said. “I don't want to know the history of this place. I know it too well. All I want to know, anyway!”

“Then I'll have a look at it,” Dick decided, tucking it under his arm. “Somebody has spent a good deal of time on it so I'll do likewise.”

Vera reached out her hand at random and took down a volume. Its title made her start—Macaulay's
Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome
.

“Wow!” Dick exclaimed. “If you're going to read through that, I shan't see you again until next year!”

“It'll do,” she said. “Come on.”

Dick extinguished the lamps and they made their way slowly upstairs. In the gloom of the corridor outside Vera's rooms, they stopped.

“You'll be all right?” Dick questioned.

“Of course, I'll lock my door.... And tomorrow we'll telephone Thwaite?”

“Definitely!”

Vera waited for him to move on, but instead his hand gripped hers.

“No use taking up the matter of that engagement kiss, is there?” Dick asked.

“Not yet,” she answered calmly.

“That's what you think,” he murmured—and suddenly she felt his lips press on her cheek; then he was gone, skipping into the gloom, faintly outlined against the dim stained glass window.

“You—you fathead!” Vera breathed after him. It was not quite the right word, but it was the only one she could think of at that moment. She turned into her room with a smile on her face....

Much though she admired the massive prose of Macaulay, Vera found it impossible to pursue for very long his masterly exposition on Machiavelli once she got into bed. She couldn't help thinking about that kiss she had received. It took priority in her memory over the horrible events in the ghost room; it even made her forget the problem of the transformed basement below. She was almost willing to think that she had imagined things after all.

Just at this moment she was feeling comfortable for the first time since she had arrived at Sunny Acres. She was drowsily tired; a strong young man was next door ready to protect her. The sheets were cool.... She stirred in the richness of comfort and lay on her back, head deep in the pillow, her hands locked behind it. Meditations took possession of her as she watched cool moonlight steal through the un-curtained window—meditations which trailed off into sleep.

Dick Wilmott was not asleep. He was propped up in the pillows, squinting at
The History of Sunny Acres
and muttering uncomplimentary remarks about the dimness of the oil lamp at his side on the bed table.

He twisted and turned sharply, laid his book flat on the bed. Stolidly he forced himself to read, not consecutively, but snatches of the close-packed text.

“It is an undoubted fact that a representative of the Devil does exist in Sunny Acres. In a long line of owners of Sunny Acres, all of the have referred to the evil presence which makes itself apparent every year on the 21
st
of June. There have been times, it is recorded, when it has also been seen on the 20
th
and 22
nd
of June....”

“Mmmm—think of that!” Dick murmured, nodding approvingly. “Just in case it missed fire the first time, I suppose....”

“...Whether the ghost is a genuine manifestation of the psychic realm, or whether it is the outcome of some peculiarity of the room itself is not known. Psychic experts have studied the room carefully—at times when the ghost has not been present—but they have all failed to detect the least trace of psychic phenomena.”

Dick found the lines blurring and he yawned hugely. He closed his eyes peacefully—then suddenly he sat bolt upright.

“What?” he said to himself. “‘Failed to detect the least trace of psychic phenomena'? But what the heck! After this evening, and we were only in the room a few minutes, we were nearly laid out.” He scowled in front of him and bit the ends of his fingers, a habit from the days when he had released bombs on Berlin. “No trace of— Vera's got to hear of this!”

He rolled out of bed and went for his dressing gown; then he slowed up and sighed, rubbed his tousled hair.

“Better not,” he muttered. “Get back to bed, you dope!”

Disconsolate, he returned to his position between the sheets; but he was definitely awakened. The glaring fact that psychic experts had examined that room at leisure during the ghost's absence and had failed to find a thing wrong with it was full of deep significance. It meant—

“Either,” Dick whispered, “the evil influence didn't operate in the days when this was written, or else it is a sort of induced horror! Induced? Why not? And that ties up somewhere. Something I've seen—done—felt.”

He gave it up. The notion he had drifting in the back of his mind refused to be tempted out. He looked at the book's flyleaf and found that it had been published in 1912. “Still, an evil influence could hardly come on slowly. It is one of those phenomena that should have been as pungent in 1912 as it has been this very evening.”

He flicked over more pages but found nothing as moving as those other few lines. Finally he scanned the index and studies the various plates referred to. One—“Complete Map of Sunny Acres and District”—took his fancy most, but when he looked for it, he got his second shock.

It was not there! The map had been torn out. Dick frowned deeply and resumed the biting of his fingernails. His mind, already jarred, had been jarred a good deal more. Of what use could the theft of a map of Sunny Acres and district be to anybody? For it had been theft. Whoever had taken it had not cut it out carefully. It had been torn out violently, hurriedly.

Dick muttered, “There must be something in the book about it....”

This new angle impelled him to the book once more and he held it close under the smelly oil lamp. Between spells of heavy yawning, he read stubbornly until at last he alighted on a few relevant sentences:

“Sunny Acres—so named because from dawn to sunset some part of the house or grounds is in the sunshine—stands on the rising ground which forms the valley side of Waylock, in the trough of which lies Waylock Dean (See Plate 18...listed in the Gazetteer as a hamlet). The district is rich in minerals and ancient volcanic deposits, while the atmosphere is mainly dry. It has been proven geologically that Sunny Acres has been built right across a now-sealed volcanic seam, and in consequence the grounds of the residence are richly fertile.”

“Only needs the volcano to erupt and then everybody will be happy,” Dick sighed, closing the book with a bang and relaxing wearily. “The ‘Fall of the House of Usher' wouldn't be in it! Rich in minerals and volcanic deposits, eh? See a plate that isn't there! No psychic phenomena....”

He forced himself to meditate for a whole, his eyes on the high ceiling. Then again an active idea took possession of him. To his way of thinking, an overcrowded mind needs a tabulated list. He took a notebook and pencil from his coat and began writing:

“No psychic phenomena. Red-brown ash in cellar. Bad smell. Volcanic deposits. Something seen somewhere which links up....”

He looked critically at “Bad smell,” then crossed it out, replacing it with “Unpleasant odor.”

“Not that I lay any claim to being a detective,” he explained to himself, as he put the note away; “but there is something in all these incidents that forms a chain. If I could only remember the odd bit that keeps bothering me! Ah, well, I'll probably have an inspiration in time.”

Satisfied—partly at least—he blew out the lamp flame and climbed back into bed. It said much for his power of detachment that he was soon asleep.

CHAPTER TEN

MERCILESS EROSION

If there were any disturbances in the night neither Dick nor Vera knew anything about them. They were both young, amazingly resilient, and in a way pretty pleased with themselves—so Morpheus found them willing slaves.

When they met in the morning at breakfast in the gaunt dining hall, it was obvious how completely their good spirits had been restored by sleep.

“All I need,” Dick said, as he sat down at the table, “is a good five-barred gate to jump over. And you, dearest?”

Vera, with memories of the goodnight kiss, smiled sweetly.

“Never better, darling!”

“That's fine,” he approved. “Now we're getting really chummy!”

Mrs. Falworth, as calm and unsmiling as usual, glanced at them in turn and then proceeded to her normal routine of serving the breakfast. For a while neither Dick nor Vera spoke as they satisfied their hunger; then Mrs. Falworth broke the silence.

“With all respect, miss, might I inquire if you have made up your mind about disposing of this place? As I remember, you said last night that you would give it your consideration when you felt less fatigued.”

“I have,” Vera answered. “Only I don't know the answer yet. It's a weighty matter—very weighty.”

It looked as though Mrs. Falworth was having a mighty hard fight to keep her patience.

“Frankly, I cannot see that the issue is so profound. You either stay and risk final obliteration by the spirit of evil or you sell and permit all of us to have our liberty.”

Vera set down her knife and fork and looked at the housekeeper with sharp blue eyes.

“Look here, Mrs. Falworth. I feel inclined to resent your implication that I am responsible for you and your husband having to stay here! You make it sound as though it is my fault that you both have to be exposed to the dangers of this evil influence, just because I have not made up my mind to sell. If you wish to leave, you are at perfect liberty to do so.”

“I regret, madam, that I phrased my remarks improperly. I know that you are not in any way responsible for my husband and myself staying on here—but as I said before, when I leave I wish to do so with a clear conscience. I could not give up here with the knowledge that I had left you and your—er—fiancé exposed to other-world dangers.”

“We'll take that chance if you want to quit,” Dick remarked.

Mrs. Falworth shook her head. “I am sorry. You see, I know this house. I do not want it on my conscience that by withdrawing from it I also abandoned my protection, thereby condemning you both to insanity, or something worse. It is only my own power that holds this awful influence in check, and I do not mean that statement to sound egotistical. It is because I understand it all and can combat the evil.... But there are limits to human endurance. I beg of you, miss—sell! Before we are all overwhelmed!”

There was a silence. Mrs. Falworth was now standing very straight, gazing upwards with her intense dark eyes, her white hands clenching and unclenching emotionally.

“Mmm—very dramatic,” Dick said.

“Will you never learn?” the woman blazed at him suddenly; then she immediately remembered herself and inclined her head towards Vera. “Forgive me. I am not quite myself this morning. If you will excuse me, I will retire for a moment and compose my emotions.”

Vera nodded somewhat blankly and watched as the tall, somber figure went from the room. Then she raised an eyebrow at Dick as he munched cheerfully.

“I'll bet she'd be a hit as Jane Eyre,” he said. “Right down to the twiddly bits.”

“I never can make her out,” Vera said. “I never know whether she is just acting or whether she means it. Half the time I think she is psychic and really wants to save me from disaster; and the rest of the time I think she is just a sinister woman with a diabolical turn of mind!”

“Well, either way she's darned good entertainment.”

Shaking her fair head doubtfully Vera went on with her meal. Then she asked a question.

“I suppose our plans are unchanged? We still telephone Thwaite?”

“Definitely! And we'll make a pleasant walk out of it too. I know a long walk around to a telephone box—and I'm going to tell you a lot of things while we're on our way.”

“With or without endearments?” Vera asked coolly.

“Depends. If the weather stays as hot as it is now I may come over all romantic. It's the Latin in me— But joking apart, I want serious words with you. Very serious!”

Vera could tell from his expression that he was not fooling; so she hurried through her breakfast and finished up one slice of marmalade on toast ahead of him. Then they were preparing to leave when she saw Mrs. Falworth again. Her outburst seemed to have left her more somber than ever.

“We're going out, Mrs. Falworth,” Vera informed her. “Whether we will be back for lunch or not is not certain.”

“Very good, miss.”

She stood with her face expressionless as the two went past her to the front door. It was good to get out into the blaze of June sunshine and the soft summer breeze.

“Just like stepping out of the middle ages into the modern era,” Dick summed up.

“Plenty of relics of the middle ages in that castle I've got,” Vera sighed. Especially in the basement. Did you notice those rings and hooks? You should have seen the ghoulish satisfaction on the Dragon's face when she told me how they used to torture people.” She shuddered. “What a sadistic old hag she is!”

“I noticed the...equipment, and guessed the purpose,” Dick's jaw set with uncommon firmness. “Things haven't changed much, Vera. In those days they tore folks to pieces with red-hot pliers and branding irons. In these days they rip up a fine mind—slowly, with merciless erosion. The sort of person who can do that wants acid pouring slowly down the throat...inside!”

“What lovely, uplifting conversation for a summer morning,” Vera murmured. They had come out of the tree-lined driveway now to the makeshift road beyond it. “And anyway, what in the world are you talking about?”

Dick said: “I have the most persistent thought at the back of my mind that horror can be induced! Somewhere in that castle I have seen the absolute explanation for it, but I can't think where on earth it fits in.... That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Look—take a look at this list I made in bed last night.”

Vera took the notebook leaf he handed to her and screwed up her eyes as the sunshine reflected back from it.

“‘No psychic phenomena. Red-brown ash in cellar—' Er, what's this? Oh! ‘Unpleasant odor! Volcanic deposits. Something seen somewhere which links up—'”

“I am not a detective,” Dick said, “and I don't even pretend to be clever, but I can see that it is significant that psychic investigators for the past fifty years have examined that horror-room carefully at leisure—at leisure, mind you! And have not found a single odd thing about it!”

Vera said: “But—” She hesitated and moved her hand indecisively. “This means that Uncle Cyrus and ourselves are the only ones who have experienced that sensation of being—being mentally torn apart.”

“Exactly! And we don't even know that Uncle Cyrus did have such an experience: we've only Mrs. Falworth's word for it, and that of that henpecked old rascal who's her husband. We got it good and hard, but apparently no person ever did before, except Uncle Cyrus!”

“Then what does it mean?” Vera asked helplessly.

“As I see it, one of two things. Either the evil influence came into being only recently—which to me seems absurd because an evil influence doesn't grow gradually into a full-blown aura of horror; or else it is being created deliberately! The first time it nearly bowled out old Cyrus, but not quite. He got over it, but the strain on his heart finished him not quite a year after. On the latest occasion we were attacked, but we got away with it. Not being very old, we survived to tell the tale—to wonder—to suspect!”

By mutual accord they had slowed to a standstill.

Vera's face was a picture of puzzled dismay and her blue eyes were very wide.

“If the first theory is ridiculous the second isn't much better,” she said. “How can one create horror—deliberately?”

“I admit I don't know. I've got the glimmering of an idea. It's somewhere in the house, and I saw it staring right at me! Only I can't quite fix it.”

“Most unsatisfying,” Vera sighed, walking on again with dainty footsteps. “And I still don't think you can induce horror.”

“I'm not so sure,” Dick said. “You can scare a sensitive child by wearing a terrifying mask; you can give it heart-failure even if you add the appropriate noises. They have a lot of fear in their make-up. The human mind is still sensitive to the unexpected: it can still recoil at the unknown and the unseen.”

Vera said: “Between scaring a youngster by wearing a mask and having your wits blown inside out by the horror we experienced there is a world of difference! Nobody with a mask played tricks on us, Dick. We were alone. It was not hypnotism. It was sheer diabolical, soul-searing terror. Explain that—if you can!”

“I can't,” he said. “But I do insist that if you understand the human mind well enough you can also judge how to scare it to death—literally. That's what I meant just now when I spoke of tearing a fine mind to pieces.”

“Whose mind?” Vera demanded, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“Your mind, Vera. It's fine and clean. Like everything else about you. You're young and fresh, unspoiled, inexperienced enough to trust people where you ought to be suspicious of them.... If I could prove that an attempt is afoot to break you in mind and body I'd—I'd commit murder on that person!”

“And who,” Vera asked, “do you think is trying to do this to us? Mrs. Falworth?”

“Yes,” Dick said, his face dogged. “I believe that frosty-faced battle-axe has the whole answer to this affair.”

For a while they walked on, then Vera gestured again:

“But Dick, why? What have I done? What did old Uncle Cyrus do? What have you done, if it comes to that? Why should such efforts be made to either destroy our sanity or kill us?”

“The idea is probably to get you out of Sunny Acres. To make you sign away ownership!”

“I thought of that long ago, but then I hit up against a brick wall. What's the point in it? If I sell the castle, the Falworths will go too; they've said so. And even if they didn't, what good would sunny Acres be to them?”

“I don't know. There must be some purpose behind making you dissatisfied with Sunny Acres. I don't know whether it ties up with that extinct volcano over which the place is built, but it might.”

Vera's expression of wonder deepened.

“Extinct volcano? Now what? I know you've put it down on your note, and the bit about red-brown ash, but—don't you think that it's all a bit crazy?”

“Roughly speaking, yes. There's something deadly accurate about it all when it's sorted. Another thing I can't quite swallow is why the Falworths should be so willing to carry on without wages. That doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it.”

They were silent for a while, walking through Waylock Dean's sleepy main street. Then presently Vera gave a reminiscent smile.

“Those were nice things you said about me a while ago, but I'm not half the wonder girl you seem to think. I'm quite ordinary—somewhat frightened, and very puzzled.”

“I meant what I said,” Dick answered. “And I'm sorry I took advantage of you in the corridor last night. Put it down to masculine impulse and forget it.”

“Trouble is, I can't....” Vera sounded wistful and Dick gave her a sharp glance. She stopped walking and looked at him archly.

“I say—not here,” he protested, as she faced him, slender and appealing in the bright sunshine.

“You took advantage of the dark,” she murmured, “and you say it was masculine impulse. I'm going to take advantage of the daylight and call it feminine impulse. Like this—!”

Dick staggered a little as her soft arms suddenly reached up around his neck and she planted her lips firmly on his. She had to stand on tip-toe to do it and it gave Ebenezer Smith, the Village's oldest inhabitant, the biggest thrill he'd had for years as he sat watching the performance from outside the cottage door.

“Quits?” Vera asked, relaxing, and she gave a pert smile.

Dick said: “You shouldn't do such things in public!”

“Oh, go on with you!”

“When we get back to Sunny Acres,” he said, following her as she walked on again, “I'll tie you up in that torture dungeon. You see if I don't.”

“Just as long as it's you....”

Dick decided he had better be quiet. The in a few minutes they reached the village post-office and both crowded into the small telephone cabinet.

“If we can ever get through to Manchester from this one-eyed dump I'll be surprised,” he said. “What's the number?”

“I've no idea. You'll have to ask inquiry. The name's Morgan, Thwaite and Hendricks of Brazennose St., Manchester. We want Mr. Thwaite.”

Grinning, Dick picked up the telephone and so began a long verbal pilgrimage to Manchester. It was fifteen minutes later and he was rather hoarse and very weary before the piping voice of an office boy floated from the industrial north.

“Mr. Thwaite, please,” Dick growled. “And hurry it up. This is a trunk call from Surrey.”

“Wait a moment, please.”

Far beyond the three-minute call sign, the voice of Thwaite replied. Immediately Dick handed the telephone to Vera.

“Hello, Mr. Thwaite!” She reached up on tiptoe to the instrument—one of those pre-flood devices perched high in the wall and made exclusively for giants. “Vera Grantham speaking.” And she asked who had made the offer of £15,000 for Sunny Acres.