Benighted Page 17

  ‘Well, I’ll see,’ he muttered, receiving her quick glance of gratitude. ‘I’ll have a talk to him.’ He could see that door opening behind him in her very eyes.

  ‘The world’s great age begins anew.’ Penderel’s voice rang through that dim place. His sudden high spirits seemed to light it up. ‘Gladys, Sir William, I’ve changed my socks and trousers—in the dark too, mind you—and now I’m a new man. I don’t know what there was in that room. I just stood behind the door. Perhaps it was full of monsters, all watching me. By the way, you’ve been talking about me. I see it written in your faces. Your silence tells me all. I could even guess what you’ve been saying. Here’s the evidence. Sir William knows, in his heart of hearts, that even if he would, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’ve been listening,’ Gladys cried, making a face at him.

  ‘I only heard three words,’ he replied. ‘The rest was intuition, for which we men are now becoming famous. We may not be able to argue, to debate, to reason, but we know. Well, my first step in this new life is to locate the missing Wavertons. If necessary we could all creep round the house until we heard Waverton’s snore. Then we’ll sing Sir William here to sleep again, and after that, you and I, Gladys, will find a corner and talk and talk, at least I’ll talk and you’ll probably sleep. The dawn, which must be somewhere on its way, will find me talking. Mr. Femm will come down to breakfast—but you can’t imagine him at breakfast, can you?—in fact, you can’t imagine breakfast here at all. Try to think of it.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Gladys, decisively. Then, after a short pause, very slowly and clearly she added, ‘I hate this house.’

  ‘Rum old place certainly.’ This from Sir William. Penderel said nothing. He was staring curiously at Gladys, who was strolling away.

  She stopped. ‘It’s the worst house I’ve ever been in. And that’s saying a lot, as you’d admit if you knew anything about professional digs. There’s something about it—I dunno—like a bad smell—something putrid.’ She walked on and then stood looking at the staircase.

  Sir William took Penderel to one side. ‘No business of mine, of course,’ he said gruffly, ‘but what’s this about you and Gladys?’

  ‘I’ll let you into the secret,’ Penderel returned gaily. ‘And, by the way, isn’t it funny that officially, according to the book of words, you and I ought to be totally incapable of talking to one another like ordinary human beings? At the very least, we ought to be embarrassed to the stuttering point.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you something.’ Sir William was emphatic. ‘That’s just what I am.’

  ‘Not you!’ cried Penderel. ‘And I’m not even pretending to be. I’m going to marry Gladys, that is if she’ll have me; I haven’t asked her yet. And that’s the idea.’

  ‘Most people’d tell you that you were either a fool or a hero,’ Sir William remarked, rather heavily. This rising tide of high spirits made him feel heavy. But he was trying to deal honestly with the youngster, who wasn’t a bad sort in his own scatter-brained fashion. ‘But I don’t say so, though you may be both for all I know. It’ll probably be the best day’s work you’ve done for a damned long time.’

  ‘It could easily be that and still not be up to much,’ said Penderel. ‘But I know what you mean. And I can’t help feeling——’

  But there came an interruption from Gladys, who was still standing near the foot of the stairs. ‘I can hear somebody talking up there,’ she called to them.

  Penderel moved a step or two in her direction. ‘That’ll be the Wavertons. They must be introspecting together on one of the upper floors, walking up and down corridors still playing Truth. And quite right too!’

  Her hand went up. ‘Hush! I’m trying to listen. They’re coming down, I think. Oh! what’s that?’ They had all heard it—a kind of laugh. And now the Wavertons came running downstairs, pale and dusty and somehow rather tattered.

  ‘Listen, you fellows.’ Philip hurried across to the two men, and began to gasp out his news.

  ‘What is it?’ Gladys clutched at Margaret. ‘Tell me quick.’ Something terrible was going to happen, she knew there was. She felt sick. Everything was suddenly falling to pieces.

  ‘There’s a madman upstairs,’ Margaret cried jerkily. ‘Morgan’s let him out. He’s dangerous. They both are.’

  ‘Where’s he now?’ She knew, knew there was something, had known it all along.

  ‘Up there, somewhere.’ Margaret made a little gesture of helplessness. ‘Coming down, perhaps.’

  ‘We must all get out of the way then. Lock ourselves in somewhere.’

  ‘He might set fire to the place. He’s tried to do that before.’

  ‘They can prevent him. Three of them.’ Gladys looked towards the men, and then, moved by a common impulse, they both hurried across. They felt the whole house pressing down upon them.

  ‘Even if he’s as bad as all that,’ Sir William was saying, ‘the three of us can down him.’ He was quite cool, and evidently—rather to their surprise—a man of courage. But then no imagination was harrying him. He didn’t see the whole fabric of sense and security shredding, rotting away.

  ‘But there’s Morgan; don’t forget him,’ Philip replied. ‘I’ve had a tussle with him already and was lucky enough to trip him. He was a bit slow and silly, of course. But he’s as strong as a bull. I don’t know what sort of state he’s in now, but he might be as bad as the lunatic—worse.’

  ‘If the worst came to the worst,’ Sir William said, ‘we could all clear out. In fact the best thing we can do is to get out of the way.’

  ‘You’re forgetting what Waverton said,’ Penderel put in. ‘I mean about him setting fire to things. This old place’d burn easily, wouldn’t it?’ He looked at Philip.

  ‘I should think it would. It’s full of rotten old timber. That’s the danger. If he gets down here, left to himself, he could set the whole place going in a jiffy.’

  ‘Well, let him, I say,’ said Gladys, viciously. ‘Let the rotten old place burn.’

  ‘No, that’s mad, Gladys,’ Penderel told her.

  ‘Besides,’ Philip added hastily, ‘there are the other Femms——’

  ‘Poor old Sir Roderick upstairs, unable to move,’ cried Margaret. ‘It was he who warned us, only just in time too. We can’t leave him.’

  Philip and Penderel hastened to agree. Sir William looked at them and then at the stairs. ‘Well, what are we going to do, then?’ he asked. ‘Time’s going. Though nothing’s happened yet. It may be all piffle. All these people here are a bit crazy, so far as I can see.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Margaret was vehement. ‘Didn’t you hear that horrible laugh? And Philip saw the room.’

  Gladys wrung her hands. ‘I’m sure it’s true; I know it is.’ She sought out Penderel with hollowed eyes. ‘Yes, I do. I’ve felt it creeping.’ Then she recovered herself. ‘But we can do something, can’t we?’ It was addressed to him alone, wistfully; the others were nothing.

  ‘Of course we can,’ he told her. But he felt a sudden ache, and there followed closely upon it a growing anger.

  Then they all jumped. A door had been opened, and someone was standing there. It was Miss Femm. How she came to be there, nobody could imagine, but there she was, still fully dressed, peering at them over a stump of candle. They didn’t wait for her to screech out a question. ‘Your brother’s loose!’ cried Philip, who was nearest.

  ‘What, Saul?’ The name went screaming up.

  ‘They’re coming down now. Look!’ Gladys cried, pointing. A dark bulk was moving slowly down the stairs, and another behind it, with a vague blur of face turned towards them. The one behind must be Saul. That hand sliding down the banisters was Saul’s. Now it had stopped; but Morgan was still moving, coming down alone.

  ‘Don’t do anythi
ng yet,’ Philip whispered. ‘Morgan may be all right now. We’ll see.’

  Morgan reached the bottom, lurched forward a step or two, and then stood still, lowering at them. Such light as there was from the little lamp fell now on his face, which looked horrible—for it was all covered with blood. His hands too seemed to be reddened.

  ‘Cut himself with that glass,’ Philip whispered again.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ This was from Penderel, though he was not looking at Morgan but at that hand which still rested on the banisters.

  ‘Get back.’ Sir William was motioning to Margaret and Gladys.

  Miss Femm had been standing absolutely still, staring fixedly at Morgan. Now she shook her fist at him, and her voice went piercing through them all. ‘Morgan, you brute beast, go away. Hide yourself before God strikes you dead.’

  The laugh they had heard before, empty and terrible, rang down from the dim stairs. ‘That’s Rebecca, sister Rebecca. Don’t listen to her, Morgan. She’s been talking to God for years now and He’s never heard her once. He thinks she’s a maggot, a fat little white maggot. He doesn’t know she’s got a soul. She’ll have to die and be born again before He’ll hear her. They’re all maggots—still creeping in the rotting old corpse they call life.’ Saul’s voice thickened with sudden fury. ‘Trample ’em, smash ’em—and then I’ll burn their filthy pulp—leave nothing but ashes—clean ashes—clean, clean, clean!’ After that it was a foul gabble. They had a moment’s vision of a white and blindly working face, pushed out over the banisters into the light, while the voice went gibbering on.

  Then there was a little space of silence, during which nobody moved. But it seemed to them as if the ground beneath their feet was sinking, as if they were blackly descending through putrid air.

  Now the madman on the stairs spoke again and his mood had suddenly changed; he seemed quietly merry. ‘No, Morgan, old flesh and bone, wait, wait for me.’ They saw the hand disappear. ‘Still something yet to do. Then we’ll finish it together.’ A stir in the shadows, a creak or two from the stairs, and he was gone.

  Instead of waiting, however, Morgan, who had been standing there, glowering at Philip, was suddenly quickened into life. With a hoarse cry, he charged across, straight at Philip, like a mastodon. There was just time for Philip to swing aside and escape the full weight of the charge, and the next moment they were all struggling together. Sir William was hanging on to one great arm and shoulder, and Philip on to the other.

  ‘Get him in there,’ screamed Miss Femm, as they went desperately swaying. ‘You can shut him up.’ She was pointing to the door through which she had come.

  Penderel made up his mind now, and there was no time to be lost. He threw himself at Morgan, who went rolling back with the other two still clinging to him. ‘Can you do that?’ he cried to them, as he pushed at the struggling giant. ‘Shall I knock him on the head?’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ Philip gasped. They were now near the door, which Miss Femm had flung wide open. A tremendous heave of Morgan’s right arm sent Philip flying back, but he quickly recovered himself and sent his fist, with all his weight behind it, crashing into Morgan’s face. The man spun round, sending Sir William, pale now and dripping with sweat but still game, banging into the doorway. Philip grabbed at the loose arm and savagely twisted it behind its owner’s back, at the same time charging forward. ‘Rush him down the corridor,’ he cried to Sir William. They disappeared through the doorway, into the dark.

  Miss Femm stood there, holding the door with one hand and her lighted candle held high in the other. ‘Come on, you,’ she screeched at Margaret and Gladys. ‘In here with me.’

  Margaret, who had faltered forward, looked at her with horror and could not find her voice.

  ‘No, no!’ Gladys cried, looking from her to Penderel.

  Miss Femm stepped back. ‘Then stay there. Sluts!’ she yelled. She banged the door behind her and they heard her lock it.

  Margaret ran forward, crying, ‘She’s locked it. And Philip’s there, Philip!’ Her hands were fumbling at the door now.

  ‘It’s done now. Come away.’ Penderel was at her side, though his eyes were on Gladys.

  ‘But Philip’s in there, with that man,’ she cried again. Then she turned on him, with a flash of scorn: ‘And what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to wait here—for the other man,’ he told them very quietly.

  Gladys was clutching his arm. ‘No, no, you can’t. Come away.’

  ‘Listen, there’s no time to waste,’ he said, and as he spoke he hustled them across the room. ‘I must wait here until they’ve got Morgan safely tucked away. He may be down any moment. And you’ve got to be out of the way.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Gladys cried chokingly.

  ‘You can’t, my dear,’ he told her. ‘And we must hurry.’

  They were at the other side of the room now. ‘But where can we go?’ Margaret was asking, looking at him piteously.

  ‘In there.’ He pointed to the door that he had opened before, when he had been changing his clothes. He remembered that there was a key on the inside. Now he ran forward, took it out, and then swept them in, Margaret first. For one brief moment his arm was round Gladys. ‘Sorry there’s no light for you. Yes, there is, though.’ He rushed away and then returned carrying the candle that Philip had had, now guttering sadly, and thrust it into Gladys’s hand. ‘You’ll be all right in there.’ His eyes dwelt on her face as if he was trying to remember it for ever. ‘Quite all right. Cheerio!’

  Before they could do or say anything more he had closed the door and locked them in, leaving the key in the lock. If he left them free to rush out, anything might happen. He walked very slowly and quietly back into the middle of the hall, looking up at the stairs and listening.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Time stood still for Penderel, waiting there in the hall. A few moments before, when he had been hustling the women across to that room, it had seemed as if there wasn’t a second to waste, but now, as he listened in loneliness between those locked doors, he found there was time enough and to spare. No sound came from above. He crossed over to the door through which Morgan and Waverton and Sir William had disappeared in a struggling mass, and he tried the handle. It was locked, of course; he knew very well it was. That meant that Waverton and Sir William would first have to dispose of Morgan and then get the key from the Femm woman, before they could join him. And Morgan might easily be a match for both of them for some time yet. He listened at the door. Vague, distant sounds came through, suggesting that Morgan had not yet been overpowered but was still putting up a fight somewhere at the end of the corridor, perhaps in or near the kitchen. A creak from the stairs sent him back into the middle of the hall, with his heart-beats filling his ears. But nobody was there.

  If that had been the moment for action, he felt, all would have been well. There was, however, nothing to do but wait, listen to the mocking old timbers and wait, stare at the jumping shadows and wait; and now he suddenly felt sick and afraid. He wanted to run away, to take the good the night had brought him, out of its darkness, and hurry with it into safety. But he could not take it away, for if he went now, hiding his head, it would not go with him: all would be lost. Well, he had wanted something to do, and here was something to do. He hadn’t had to wait long, he told himself grimly. How queer it was that there was something inside you that could relish, grinning with irony, the most damnable situation you found yourself in, pointing out how damnable it was! He’d discovered that in France, when, as now, something in him was afraid and something else wasn’t, something shook and something grinned. Some of the old faces came popping up, smiled, and were gone; fellows he thought he’d forgotten; a spectral parade; and he wanted to keep one steadily before him so that he could cry ‘It’s a good war’ and once again hear it call back to hi
m, just one of the daft old slogans: ‘Jam for the troops, mate.’ He would feel better after that. He might give Gladys a shout. She’d understand. But no, that wouldn’t do.

  His eye went travelling idly up the dimly lighted stairs, waiting for madness to creep down from the dark, and then suddenly his mind cleared. His place wasn’t here, dithering and dreaming, but at the top of those stairs. Once down here, the madman might easily escape him and let hell loose, unless of course the other two came back before he arrived. So long as there wasn’t another way down, the best place for him was obviously at the top there; and even if there should be another way down, he wouldn’t be much worse off up there, because it wouldn’t take him long to get back again. And the sooner he went up the better.

  He walked forward, then stopped and looked round hesitantly. His hand went to his forehead, which was cold and wet. Wasn’t there something he could take with him, something to grip? Well, there was a poker, and that was better than nothing. Hastily he seized it, and was crossing to the foot of the stairs when he bethought himself of the light. He couldn’t take it with him, that would be too dangerous; but if he put the lamp somewhere near the front door it would throw a little more light on the place where he would have to take his stand, at the very top of the stairs.

  He crept up, slowly, shakily, his shadow leaping and sprawling before him. There were little noises everywhere now, not a stair in the house without its creak. All that part of the house that yawned above him seemed tense, expectant. The little patch of darkness at the top was thick and crawling with unrevealed terrors. A step or two more and out of that blackness would spring a white, gibbering face. He’d had a dream like that once—it all came back to him, raw and palpitating, the whole experience, almost between one stair and the next—and he remembered how he had wakened, a little boy sobbing in the night, to find his mother bending over him. Who would bend over him now? Why hadn’t they turned God into this vast maternal presence, smooth hands and a murmuring voice and a familiar lovely smell in the dark?