Footsteps in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

months later?"
    "I don't know. No, there's no fastening on this side. Faugh! what a smell of must!" He clambered out again. "Let's take another look at the catch." He tested it several times. It moved very stiffly. "I shouldn't have said that it was possible for the picture to have pushed it out of place," he said. He went across to where the picture lay and closely inspected the broken wire. It was old and rusty and if it had been cut the operation had been preformed too skilfully for it to be apparent.
    "I agree with you," Peter said. "But that's how it must have happened. Hang it all, who could have faked this, and why? Not quite the sort of practical joke any of us would stage."
    "If it was faked," said Charles slowly, "I've an idea it wasn't done for a joke. Mind you, I'm not saying it was faked. It may have happened as we think it did. But I'm not entirely satisfied."
    "But who would… ?"
    "Damn it, I don't know! Put the skull back, and close it up for to-night. Tomorrow we shall have to bury the bones."
    "Tomorrow," said Peter, "Celia and Margaret will pack their trunks and we shall depart."
    Charles looked at him. "I'm staying. No ghost, or pseudo-ghost is going to frighten me out of this place. What about you?"
    Peter grinned. "Righto, I'm with you. But if you think this is part of a campaign to scare us away I'm going to town to fetch my old service revolver. Not that I think you're right. If the picture caught the rosette a pretty hard knock it might quite well have done the trick. Do you want to search the house?"
    "Too late," Charles said. "Whoever was here - if anyone was here at all - has had loads of time to make a get-away." He placed the skull back in the cavity, and closed the panel. "Bowers had better come and clear away these bits of glass. I think we won't mention the priest's hole to him." He started to go downstairs, and as he reached the half-landing the door leading into the servants' wing below was burst open, and Bowers himself came into the hall with a very white face, and starting eyes. Charles called to him before he could reach the library door, and the butler jumped as though he had been shot.
    A scared face was turned upward. "Oh, it's you, sir!" Bowers gasped. "Sir, I've seen it - I've seen the Monk! Oh Gawd, sir, we oughtn't ever to have come here!"
    "Rubbish!" said Charles testily. "What do you mean, you've seen the Monk? Where?"
    "Out there in the moonlight, sir, plain as I see you. Gliding over the lawn it was, in a long black cloak. It's more than flesh and blood can bear, sir, and stay in this place I daren't, not for a thousand pounds!"
    "Steady, you ass!" Peter interposed." Just you show us where you think you saw this Monk of yours."
    "Out of the pantry window, when I was bolting it for the night. Making for the trees at the end of the lawn it was, and it vanished amongst them, sir. You won't see it now: it's gone, but we've had our warning all right."
    "We'll see about that," said Charles. "Not a word of this to your mistress, Bowers." He ran down the remaining stairs into the hall, and selected a stout walking-stick from the stand by the front-door. "Bring your torch along, Peter. We'll go out through the garden-hall."
    "It's tempting Providence, sir," Bowers moaned, following at their heels.
    Charles was hawing back the bolts from the door leading into the garden. "Console yourself, Bowers. If it's a ghost it can't hurt you."
    "Dont you be so sure of that, sir!" Bowers said forebodingly.
    The door swung open. The gardens on that side of the house were flooded by moonlight, but where the spinney flanked the lawn it was very dark. The stillness seemed to wrap them round; not even a breath of wind stirred the leaves on the branches.
    "Better take a look amongst the trees," Peter said in a low voice.
    "Don't you go, sir, you don't know what might happen to you!"
    "Well, I'm not asking you to come," Peter said. "Do pull yourself together!"
    Together he and Charles stepped out on to