Footsteps in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

Charles." She bent and groped for the thing her foot had kicked against. "Whatever can it be?" she wondered. Then Charles reached the half-landing, and the light he carried showed Celia what she held between her hands.
    It was a human skull and the hollow eye-sockets glared up at her, while the teeth of the fleshless upper jaw grinned as though in macabre mockery.
    Celia gave a shuddering cry, and dropped the hideous thing, shrinking back against the wall. "Oh Charles! Oh Charles!" she whispered, like a frightened child.
    He was beside her in a moment, holding her in the circle of his arm, himself staring down at the skull at their feet. For a moment words apparently failed him.
    Peter came up the stairs two at a time. "What is it?" he asked impatiently. Then he too saw, and stopped dead. "Gosh!" he gasped. Over his shoulder he jerked: "Don't come up, Margaret."
    "Oh, it's nothing!" said Charles, recovering his sangfroid. Just a skull rolling about the place. You trot off downstairs, Celia, while I investigate."
    " I I think I will," she said, and went past the skull with her eyes steadily averted.
    "Take her into the library, Peg," Charles ordered. He watched her go shakily downstairs, and turned to Peter. "Look here, this is a bit thick," he said. "I don't know about you, but I'm all of a sweat. Footsteps and groans I can put up with, but when it comes to finding people's remains lying about the place I've had enough."
    Peter bent and picked up the skull, and placed it on the window-seat. "Question is, where did it come from?" he said. "Bring that lamp upstairs."
    They went on up to the landing, holding the lamp high so that the light was thrown before them. At the head of the stairs a big picture had fallen to the ground, and pieces of glass winked at them from the carpet. The lamplight showed a dark aperture where the picture had hung, and when the two men went closer they saw that part of the panelling was apparently missing. Peter felt in his pocket for the torch he carried, and switched it on, flashing the light into the hidden cupboard. It revealed a small chamber in the wall, and something else besides. A heap of bones were huddled on the floor of the chamber.
    "Good Lord! A priest's hole!" Peter said. "And some poor devil got in and couldn't get out. I say - pretty beastly, what?"
    Charles set the lamp down on the table against thee wall, and in silence looked at the dreadful remains. After a moment Peter cleared his throat, and said: "Well that's that. How did it all happen? I mean - there must have been something besides the picture hiding this hole." He began to inspect the moulding all round the cavity. One of the rosettes was out of place. He put his hand on it, trying to see whether it would move, and found that it twisted stiffly between his fingers. The missing panel at once slid back into place. He opened it again, frowning. "Odd. It looks as though the corner of the picture must have knocked it as it fell, yet I don't quite see how it can have forced the rosette round like that. Obviously the - the skeleton was huddled against the panel, and when it opened the skull fell out. You know, Chas, the idea of that poor beggar shut up there, dying of thirst…'
    Just a moment," Charles said. "Give me the torch, will you? Thanks." He directed its light into the hole again and closely scrutinised the bones that lay there. "Take a look, Peter. Does it strike you the bones are in rather a funny position?"
    "What do you mean?" Peter peered at them. "I don't know. There are the leg-bones, and the arms, all right. Difficult to say how they'd fall once the flesh had rotted away."
    "They look wrong to me," Charles said. "Almost as though they'd been put there by someone who wasn't an expcrt. Give me a hand up: I'm going to see if there isn't an answering catch on the inside of the panelling."
    Peter helped him to climb into the hole. "What are you driving at? D'you mean that the fellow was murdered and his bones thrown in