Chapter One

"And I suppose this is the approach-course," said Charles Malcolm. "Full of natural hazards." His wife, Celia, replied with dignity: "That is the tennis-court." Charles made a derisive noise. "All it needs," she said, eyeing him, "is a little levelling."

"All it needs," said Charles rudely, "is a hay-cutter and a steam-roller. And this is the place you wouldn't sell!"

His sister-in-law took up the cudgels. "It's perfectly lovely, and you know it. As soon as Celia and I set eyes on it we fell for it."

"That I can believe," said Charles. "A mullioned window or two, and a ruined chapel, and I'd expect you two to go over at the knees. But Peter was with you. What did he fall for? Beer at the local pub?"

"There's a trout-stream at the bottom of the garden," Margaret pointed out.

"So there is," Charles agreed. "And another in the servants' hall for wet days. Bowers showed it to me."

"Simply because there was a pane of glass out of one of the windows!" Celia said hotly. "Of course the rain came in!"

Margaret tucked her hand in Charles' arm. "Wait till you've seen your bedroom. It's got linen-fold panelling, and there's a cupboard which is all part of it, and which takes you ages to find."

"That really is jolly," Charles said. "Then if anyone burgles our room he won't be able to find my dress-coat. I suppose I can mark the place with a cross."

"No, you have a compass, and take bearings," retorted his wife. "Come on in, and we'll show you."

They turned away from the tennis-court and began to walk back towards the house down one of the neglected paths that wound between flower-beds to the terrace on the south side of the building.

"Chas, can you look at it with the sun on that heavenly grey stone, and blame us for refusing to part with it?" Margaret exclaimed.

"I'll wait till I've seen my room," Charles replied.

But he had to admit that this house, which had been left to his wife and her brother and sister, was artistically all that could be desired. Built originally many hundreds of years before of grey stone, much of it was now ruined, and much had been added at different periods, so that the present house was a rambling structure, set in wooded grounds where oaks, which had been there when the Conqueror landed, reared up huge gnarled trunks from out of a tangle of undergrowth. A drive of about a quater of a mile twisted through the trees to the gates that opened on to the road which led to the village of Framley , a mile away if yuu went by road, but much less if you walked across the fields at the back of the house.

Down the road towards the village, but set back imside the Priory grounds, were the ruins of the chapel which had so captivated Celia's fancy. Dismantled during the Reformation, and later battered by Cromwell's cannon, not much of it now remained, but fragments of the walls rose up crumbling out of the grass. Here and there part of the walls remained to show the Gothic windows, but for the most part they were no more than a few feet in height.

The Priory itself had been restored so that the many rebuildings and additions had left little outward appearance of the old home of the monks. Celia, who had acquired a book on Old Abbeys, declared that the library, a big room giving on to the terrace, was the original refectory, but she admitted that the panelling was probably of later date.

The place had come to her quite unexpectedly. An uncle whom she, in company with Peter and Margaret, had visited at dutiful intervals during his lifetime, had bequeathed the Priory to his nephew and his two nieces. No lover of rural solitudes, he himself had never occupied the house. In his turn he had inherited it some five years before from his sister, who had lived there through marriage and widowhood. As she left it so it now stood, and no sooner had Celia Malcolm, and Peter and Margaret Fortescue seen it, than they declared it was just the place they had dreamed of for years. At least, the two sisters said so. Peter was less enthusiastic, but agreed it would be a pity to sell it.

It had been to let for quite a long time, but ever since the first tenants who rented the house two years after the death of its original owner, had left, no one had made even the smallest offer for it.

"Your uncle had a good deal of trouble over the house," had said Mr. Milbank, the solicitor. "When she lived in it his sister never made any complaint, but she was an eccentric old lady, and it's conceivable she wouldn't have cared. But the fact of the matter is, Mrs. Malcolm, the house has got rather a bad name. The people your uncle let it to took it for three years - and they left at the end of one. They said the place was haunted."

"Oo!" said Margaret. "What a thrill for us!"

The lawyer smiled. "I shouldn't build on it, Miss Fortescue. I think you'll find that it's nothing more thrilling than rats. But I thought I'd warn you. So that if you feel you'd rather not take possession of a reputedly haunted house you might like me to follow up this offer." He lifted up a sheet of note-paper that lay on his desk, and looked inquiringly at Peter.

"Is that the offer you wrote to us about?" Peter asked. "Some fellow who saw the board up when he was motoring in that part of the world, and wanted to know particulars?"

Mr. Milbank nodded. Celia and Margaret turned anxiously to their brother, and began to urge the desirability of owning a country house so near to town, and yet so ideal in situation and character.

The trout stream won Peter over. Charles, a young barrister with a growing prctice , had no time to waste, so he siad,in going to look at a house which his wife was apparently set on inhabiting whether he liked it or not.

He placed his trust in Peter.

" And nicely you've abused it," he said, over tea in thelibrary." For two months you three have dashed to and fro,doing what you called "getting it ready to live in." Incidentally you lulled my suspicions with lying stories about the house, till I almost believed it was something like your description. You' - he pointed an accusing finger at Margaret - "said it was the ideal home. The fact that there was only one bathroom and a system of heating water that won't do more than one hot bath at a time, you carefully concealed."

"Do you good to have a few cold baths," remarked Peter, spreading jam on a slice of bread and butter. "It isn't as though we propose to live here through the winter. Moreover, I don't see why we shouldn't convert one of the bedrooms into a second bathroom, and put in a better heating arrangement. Not immediately, of course, but at some future date."

Charles eyed him coldly. "And what about light? Oh, and a telephone! I suppose we can wire the house while we're about it. This must be what Celia called "getting a country-house for nothing." I might have known."

"Personally," said Celia, "I prefer lamps and candles. Electric light would be out of place in a house like this, and as for a telephone, that's the one thing I've been wanting to escape from." She nodded briskly at her husband. "You're going to have a real holiday this year, my man, quite cut off from town."

"Thanks very much," said Charles. "And what was it you said just before tea? Something about going to the village to order bacon for breakfast?"

"Well, you can take the car," Celia pointed out. "And you might try and get hold of a gardener in the village. I think the garden is rather more than you and Peter can manage.

"It is," said Charles, with conviction. "Much more."

The door opened at that moment to admit a middle aged lady of comfortable proportions, and placid demeanour. This was Mrs. Bosanquet, the Fortescues' aunt. She accepted a chair, and some tea, condemned a solid-looking cake, and embarked on bread and butter.

"I have unpacked my boxes," she announced, "but I twice lost the wardrobe."

"What, have you got one of those little practical jokes?" Charles demanded.

Mrs. Bosanquet turned an amiable and inquiring countenance towards him. She was deaf. When Charles had repeated his question, she nodded. "Yes, dear, but I have stuck a piece of stamp-paper on the catch. A very quaint old house. I was talking to Mrs. Bowers, and she tells me you could lose yourself in the cellars."

"That's nothing," said Charles, getting up. "I lost myself getting from our room to my dressing-room. Of course it would simplify matters if we locked a few of the empty rooms, but I agree it would take away from the sporting element. Are you coming to the village, Peter?"

"I am," Peter replied. "I will introduce you to some very fine draught beer there."

"Lead on!" Charles said, brightening.

The lane that led to Framley was wooded, and picturesque enough to draw a grudging word of approval from Charles. Peter, negotiating a hairpin bend, said: "Seriously, Chas, the place has possibilities."

"I don't deny it. But what's all this bilge about noises and hauntings, and footsteps in the dark?"

"God knows. In the village they all but cross themselves if you mention the Priory. I daresay there are rats. Milbank said…'

"Look here, do you mean to say you knew about this haunting before you came down here? And not one word to me?"

Peter said in some surprise: "I didn't think anything of it. You aren't going to tell me you'd have refused to live in the place if you'd known?"

"Aren't I?" said Charles grimly. "If you'd left as many desirable residences and hotels at a moment's notice as I have, all because Celia "felt something queer" about them, you'd never have come near the place."

"She says she doesn't believe there's anything wrong with the house. All village superstition."

"Does she? Well, I'll lay you six to one in sovereigns that the first rat heard scuttling overhead will spell our departure. Especially with Bowers shivering round the house."

"What's the matter with him? Been listening to village gossip?"

"That, and natural palsy of spirit. He unpacked my things and gave a life-like imitation of the mysterious butler of fiction while he did so. "All I know is, sir, I wouldn't go down those cellar stairs after dark, not if I were paid to." Oh yes, and I need hardly say that the first night he and Mrs. Bowers spent alone in the house before you came down, he heard footsteps outside his door, and a hand feeling over the panels."

"Silly ass!" Peter said. "You can console yourself with the thought that it would take more than a ghost to upset the redoubtable Mrs. Bowers. Allow me to tell you that we are now approaching the Bell Inn. Genuine fourteenth century — in parts."

The car had emerged from the tree-shadowed lane into the outskirts of the village, which stretched aimlessly along one narrow main street. The Bell Inn, a picturesque and rambling old hostelry built round a courtyard, was one of the first buildings on the street. Peter Fortescue ran the car up to the door and switched off the engine. "Opening time," he grinned. "Take heart, Chas, I can vouch for the beer."

They entered into a long, low-pitched taproom, with a beamed ceiling, and little latticed windows that gave on to the street. Oak settles formed various secluded nooks in the room, and behind the bar stood a landlord of such comfortable proportions and such benevolent mien that he might well have stepped from the pages of Dickens.

Leaning against the bar, and apparently engaging Mr. Wilkes in desultory conversation, was his very antithesis, a thin, wiry little man, with a very sharp face and pale eyes that darted from object to object with a quickness that gave a disagreeable impression of shiftiness. He glanced at Peter as Peter crossed the threshold, and at once looked away again.

"Evening, Wilkes," Peter said. "I've brought my brother-in-law along to try that draught bitter of yours."

Mr. Wilkes beamed upon them both. "Very glad to see any friend of yours here, sir. Two half-cans, sir? You shall have it." He took down a couple of pewter tankards from a shelf behind him, and drew two half-pints of frothing beer. Having supplied his patrons with this, he wiped clown the bar with a mechanical action, and said affably: "And how are you getting on up at the Priory, sir, if I may ask?"

"All right, thanks. We haven't seen your ghost yet. Wlicn does he usually show up?"

The smile faded. Mr. Wilkes looked at Peter rather queerly, and said in an altered voice: "I wouldn't joke about it, sir, not if I was you."

Charles emerged from his tankard. "Has my man Bowers been in here at all?" he demanded.

The landlord looked surprised; the small stranger, who had edged away a little when the newcomers first entered, shot a quick look at Charles.

"Yes, sir, several times," Wilkes answered.

"I thought so," said Charles. "And did you tell him that the ghost prowled round the passages, and pawed all the doors?"

Wilkes seemed to draw back. "Has he heard it again?" he asked.

"Heard my eye!" Charles retorted. "All he heard was what you told him, and his own imagination."

Joking apart, Wilkes, you don't really believe in the thing, do you?" Peter asked.

The small man, who had looked for a moment as though he were going to say something, moved unobtrusively away to a seat by one of the windows, and fishing a crumpled newspaper from his pocket began to read it.

For a moment Wilkes did not reply; then he said quite simply: "I've seen it, sir." Peter's brows lifted incredulously, and Wilkes added: "And what's more, I've seen as reasonable a man as what you are yourself pack up and leave that place with two years of his lease still to run. A little over five years it is since I took over this house, and when I first come here the Priory was standing as empty as when you first saw it. I suppose old Mrs. Matthews, that used to own it, had been dead a matter of a year or fifteen months. From all accounts she was a queer one. Well, there was the Priory, going to ruin, as you might say, and never a soul would go near the place after dark, not if they was paid to. Now, I daresay you'll agree I don't look one of the fanciful ones myself, sir, and nor I'm not, and the first thing I did when I heard what folk said of the place, was to make a joke of it, like what you're doing now. Then Ben Tillman, that keeps the mill up to Crawshays, he laid me I wouldn't go up to the old ruin after dark one night." He paused, and again wiped down the bar with that odd air of abstraction. He drew a long breath, as though some horror still lingered in his memory. "Well, I went, sir. Nor I wasn't afraid - not then. It was a moonlit night, and besides that I had my torch if I'd needed it. But I didn't. I sat down on one of those old tombs you'll find in the chapel, half covered by grass and weeds. I didn't think anything out of the ordinary for some while. If I remember rightly, I whistled a bit, by way of passing the time. I couldn't say how long it was before I noticed the change. I think it must have come gradual."

"What change?" asked Charles, unimpressed.

Again the landlord paused. "It's very hard to telll you, sir. It wasn't anything you could take hold of, as you might say. Things looked the same, and there wasn't more than a breath of wind, yet it got much colder all at once. And it was as fine a June night as you could hope for. I don't know how I can explain it so as you'd understand, but it was as though the cold was spreading right over in and into me. And instead of whistling tunes to mysell; and thinking how I'd have the laugh over Ben Tillman, I found I was sitting still - still as death. It had sort of crept on me without my noticing, that fear of moving. I couldn't have told you why then, but I knew I daren't stir a finger, nor make a sound. I can tell you, with that fear in my very bones I'd have given all I had to get up and run, and let Ben say what he would. But I couldn't. Something had got me. No, I don't know what it was, sir, and I can't explain it anyhow else, but it was no laughing matter. Do you know how it is when you've got the wind up, and you sit listening like as if your eardrums 'ud burst with the strain? Well, that's how I was, listening and watching. Whenever a leaf rustled I strained my eyes to see what was there. But there was nothing. Then it stole over me that there was something behind me." He stopped, and passed the back of his hand across his forehead. "Well, that's a feeling anyone can get if he's properly scared, but this was more than a feeling. I knew it. I'd still got some of my wits left and I knew there was only one thing to be done, and that was turn round, and look. Yes, it sounds easy, but I swear to you, sir, it took every ounce of courage in me. I did it. I fair wrenched myself round, with the blood hammering in my head. And I saw it, plain as I see you, standing right behind me, looking down at me."

"Saw what?" demanded Peter, quite worked up.

The landlord gave a shiver. "They call it the Monk round here," he answered. "I suppose it was that. But I only saw a tall black figure, and no face, but just two eyes looking out of blackness straight at me."

"Your pal Tillman dressed up to give you a fright," said Charles.

Wilkes looked at him. "Ben Tillman couldn't have vanished, sir. And that's what the Monk did. Just disappeared. You may say I imagined it, but all I know is I wouldn't do what I did that night again, not for a thousand pounds."

There was a slight pause. The man by the window got up and strolled out of the taproom. Peter set his tankard down. "Well, thanks very much," he said. "Cheery little story."

Charles had been watching the thin stranger. "Who's our departed friend?" he inquired.

"Commercial, Sir. He's working the places round here with some sort of a vacuum-cleaner, so I understand, and doing a bit of fishing in between-whiles."

"Seemed to be interested in ghosts," was all Charles said.

But when he and Peter had left the Bell Inn, Peter asked abruptly: "What did you mean by that, Chas? Did you think the fellow was listening to us?"

"Didn't you?" Charles said.

"Well, yes, but I don't know that that was altogether surprising."

"No. But he didn't seem to want us to notice his interest, did he? Where's this grocer we're looking for?"

At the grocer's, which turned out to be also the post office and linen-draper, after the manner of village shops, the two men were accosted by a gentleman in clerical attire, who was buying stamps. He introduced himself as the Vicar, and told them that he and his wife were only waiting until the newcomers had had time to settle into the Priory before they paid a call on them.

"One is glad to see the Priory occupied once more," he said. "Alas, too many of our old houses are spurned nowadays for lack of "modern conveniences."'

"We were rather under the impression, sir, that this particular house has been spurned on account of ghosts,"

Peter said.

The Vicar smiled. "Ah, I fear you must seek confirmation of that story from one more credulous than my poor self," he announced. "Such tales, I find, invariably spring up round deserted houses. I venture to prophesy that the Priory ghost proves itself to be nothing more harmful than a mouse, or perhaps a rat."

"Oh, so we think," Charles answered. "But it's really rather a nuisance, for my wife had banked on getting a local housemaid, and the best she can manage is a daily girl, who takes precious good care she's out of the place before sundown."

Mr. Pennythorne listened to this with an air of smiling tolerance. "Strange how tenacious these simple countryfolk are of superstitions," he said musingly. "But you are not without domestic help, one trusts?"

"No, no, we have our butler and his wife." Charles gathered up his change from the counter, and thrust an unwieldy package into Peter's hands. "Are you going our way, sir? Can we drop you anywhere?"

"No, I thank you. Is it your car that stands outside the Bell Inn? I will accompany you as far as that if I may."

They strolled out of the shop, and down the street. The Vicar pointed out various tumbledown old buildings of architectural interest, and promised to conduct them personally round the church some day. "It is not, I fear, of such antiquity as the ruins of your chapel," he sighed, "but we pride ourselves upon our east window. Within the last few years we have been fortunate enough to procure a sufficient sum of money to pay for the cleaning of it - no light expense, my dear Mr. Malcolm - but we were greatly indebted to Colonel Ackerley, who showed himself, as indeed he always does, most generous." This seemed to produce a train of thought. "No doubt you have already made his acquaintance? One of our churchwardens; and an estimable fellow - a pukka sahib, as he would himself say."

"Is he the man who lives in the white house beyond ours?" asked Peter. "No, we haven't met him yet, but I think I saw him at the Bell one evening. Cheery-looking man, going grey, with regular features, and a short moustache? Drives a Vauxhall tourer?"

The Vicar, while disclaiming any knowledge of cars, thought that this description fitted Colonel Ackerley. They had reached the Bell Inn by this time, and again refusing the offer of a lift the Vicar took his leave, and walked off briskly down the street.

When Charles and Peter reached the Priory it was nearly time for dinner,, and long shadows lay on the ground. They found the girls in the library with Mrs. Bosanquet, and were greeted by a cry of "Oh, here you are! We quite forgot to tell you to buy a couple of ordinary lamps to fix on to the wall."

"What, more lamps?" demanded Peter, who had a lively recollection of unpacking a positive crate of them. "Why on earth?"

"Well, we haven't got any for the landing upstairs," explained Celia, "and Bowers says he'd rather not go up without a light. Did you ever hear such rot? I told him to take a candle."

"To fell you the honest truth," confessed Margaret, "I don't awfully like going up in the dark myself:'

Charles cast up his eyes. "Already!" he said.

"It isn't that at all," Margaret said defiantly. "I mean, I'm not imagining ghosts or anything so idiotic, but it is a rambling place, and of course one does hear odd sorts of noises - yes, I know it's only rats, but at night one gets stupid, and fanciful, and anyway, there is a sort of feeling that - that one's being watched. I've had it before, in old houses."

"Have you really felt it here?" asked Celia, wide-eyed.

"Oh, it's nothing, Celia, but you know how it is when you go to Holyrood, or Hampton Court, or somewhere. There's a sort of atmosphere. I can't explain, but you know."

"Damp?" suggested Peter helpfully.

His sisters looked their scorn. "No, silly," said Margaret. "As though the spirits of all those dead and gone people were looking at one from the walls. That's a bit what I feel here."

Mrs. Bosanquet put down her needlework and said mildly: "You feel someone in the wall, my dear? I do hope to goodness there isn't a skeleton anywhere. I never could bear the thought of them, for they seem to me most unnatural."

"Aunt!" shrieked Celia. "A skeleton in the wall? Don't be so awful! Why should there be?"

"I daresay there's no such thing, my dear, but I always remember reading a most unpleasant story about someone who was walled up in a monastery, or a convent - I forget which, but it was something to do with monks, I know."

"Oh Aunt Lilian, Aunt Lilian!" groaned Charles. "Et tu, Brute!"

"If I thought for one moment," said Celia emphatically, "that anyone had been walled up inside this house, I'd walk out here and now."

"Quite right, my dear," agreed Mrs. Bosanquet. "One can't be too careful. I always remember how there was an outbreak of the plague when they disturbed the old burial place somewhere in London."

"On which cheerful thought," said Charles, as a gong sounded in the hall, "we go in to dinner. Anyone any appetite?"

In spite of Mrs. Bosanquet's gloomy recollections it seemed that no one's appetite had failed. Dinner was served in the square dining-room at the side of the house, and though the undrawn curtains let in the soft evening light, Cclia had placed shaded candles on the table, so that the room had a warm, inviting appearance. By common consent there was no more talk of ghosts or skeletons. They went back to the library after dinner, and while Mrs. Bosanquet proceeded to lay out a complicated Naticaue, the others sat down to the Bridge-table. Even when a stutter somewhere in the wainscoting startled them all it did not need the men's assurances to convince the girls that the place was rat-ridden.

"I know," said Celia, gathering up her cards. "Mrs. Bowers is going to set a trap."

"I am not fond of rats," remarked her aunt. "Mice I don't mind at all. Poor little things. Ah, if that had been a red queen I might have brought it out. I once stayed in a farmhouse where they used to run about in the lofts over our heads like a pack of terriers."

Margaret, who was Dummy, got up from the table and went over to the window. The moon had risen, and now bathed the whole garden in silver light. She gave an exclamation: "Oh, look how beautiful! I wish we could see the chapel from here." She stepped out on to the terrace, and stood leaning her hands on the low parapet. The night was very still and cloudless, and the trees threw shadows like pools of darkness. The shrubbery hid the ruins of the chapel from sight.

"You can see it from your bedroom, I should think," called Peter. "Come on in: we're two down, all due to your reckless bidding."

She came in reluctantly and took her place at the table. "It seems a pity to be playing bridge on a night like this. Does anyone feel inclined to wander up to the chapel with me?"

"Don't all speak at once," Charles advised them unnecessarily.

"Personally," said Celia, "I'm going to bed after this rubber. We'll all go some other night."

Half an hour later only the two men remained downstairs. Charles went over to the windows,. and shut and bolted them. "Think it's necessary to make a tour of the back premises?" he asked, yawning.

"Lord, no! Bowers'll have taken precious good care to see that it's all locked up. I'll go and put the chain on the front door." Peter went out, and Charles bolted the last window, and turned to put out the big oil-lamp that hung on chains from the ceiling. The moonlight shone in at the uncurtained window, and as Charles turned towards the door he heard what sounded like the rustling of a skirt against the wall behind him. He looked quickly over his shoulder. There was no one but himself in the room, but he could have sworn that he heard faint footsteps.

Peter's voice called from the hall. "Coming, Chas?"

"Just a moment." Charles felt in his pocket for matches and presently struck one, and walked forward so that its tiny light showed up the shadowed corner of the room.

Peter appeared in the doorway, candle in hand. "What's up? Lost something?"

The match burned out. "No, I thought I heard something - a rat," Charles said.

Chapter Two

The Vicar and his wife came to call at the Priory two days later. Mrs. Pennythorne wore pince-nez and white kid gloves, and she told Celia that there was little society in the neighbourhood. There were the Mastermans, at the Manor House, but they never called on anyone, and there was Mr. Titmarsh, at Crossways, but he was so very odd in his habits that Mrs. Pennythorne could hardly recommend him as an acquaintance. Further questioning elicited the explanation that the oddness of Mr. Titmarsh's habits was due to his hobby, which was collecting moths. Mrs. Pennythorne said that his manners were sadly brusque, and he wandered about at night, presumably in search of specimens for his collection. Then there was Dr Roote, and his wife, and although Mrs. Pennythorne was loth to speak ill of anyone really she ought to warn Celia that it was all too certain that the doctor drank. Finally there was Colonel Ackerley, at the White House, who neither drank nor collected moths, but who was a bachelor, which was a pity. Mrs. Pennythorne went on to enumerate the failings of various farmers and villagers, and Charles, who, his wife was wont to say, was never backward in devising methods of escape for himself, suggested to the Vicar that he might like to stroll out to look at the ruins of the chapel.

The Vicar was nothing loth, and ignoring a look of mingled threat and appeal from his wife, Charles led him out.

The Vicar discoursed on Norman and Early English architecture in the chapel, and strove to decipher long obliterated inscriptions upon the few tombs that thrust up through the grass and weeds that had grown over the floor of the building.

They returned presently to the house to find that another caller had arrived. This was Colonel Ackerley, and he proved to be a more congenial guest than either of the Pennythornes, who soon took their leave.

The Colonel was a man of some forty-five years, or more, with a manner rather typical of the army, but otherwise inoffensive. He shook hands with great heartiness, and said that had he known of the presence of Mrs. Pennythorne in the house he should have turned tail and run.

"The girls promptly warmed to him. "You must stay ;iud have tea with us," Celia said. "And does the doctor really drink, or is it drugs?"

"Ah, poor old Roote!" said the Colonel charitably. "Mustn't be unchristian, I suppose. Leave that to the Vicar's wife, what?" His ready laugh broke from him. "Still, I must admit poor Roote is rather too fond of the bottle. A good doctor, mind you, and whatever they say I'll not believe he was ever the worse for wear except in his off hours. Wife's a bit of a tartar, I believe."

"What about the eccentric Mr. Titmarsh?" inquired Celia.

"Not an ounce of harm in him, my dear young lady," the Colonel assured her. "Queer old bird: not much in my line, I'm afraid. Very clever, and all that sort of thing, so they say. Don't be surprised if you run up against him in the dark one night. Gave me the shock of my life when I first found him in my garden. Thought he was a burglar." He burst out laughing again. "Told me he was putting lime on a tree, or some such flum-diddle. He's a - what d'ye call it? - entomologist."

Peter handed him his cup and saucer. "Well, I'm glad you warned us, Colonel. Otherwise we might have mistaken him for our ghost."

"You don't mean to tell me you believe in that story?" demanded Colonel Ackerley.

"Of course we don't!" said Celia. "But our butler does, and so does the housemaid. Bowers swears he's heard ghostly hands feeling over his door at night."

The Colonel set down his cup. "Has he, by Gad?" he said. "But you haven't heard anything yourselves, have you?"

Celia hesitated. It was Margaret who answered. "Yes, I think we all have, but we put it down to rats."

The Colonel looked from one to the other. "Footsteps, do you mean?"

"That and other odd sounds. It's nothing."

The Colonel drank the rest of his tea in two gulps. "Well, it's not often one comes across two such sensible ladies," he said. "I don't mind admitting to you that if I were in a house and heard what you call odd sounds I don't believe I could stand it. Bullets I can put up with at a pinch, but I draw the line at spooks. Yes, I draw the line at spooks, and I'm not ashamed to say so."

"I quite agree with you," Mrs. Bosanquet said, bestowing her placid smile upon him. "I can't approve of this modern craze for the supernatural. I once spent a whole hour with a Ouija board, and the only thing it wrote was M about a hundred times, and then something that looked like Mother's Marmalade, which seemed to me absurd."

"You ought to try again here, Aunt," said Margaret. "Then, if there's anything in it, perhaps our ghost will tell you the story of his life."

"Who knows?" said Peter flippantly, "he might even lead you to some hidden treasure."

Mrs. Bosanquet merely shook her head, but the idea seemed to take root in her mind, for when Charles and Peter came back from seeing the Colonel out, she suddenly said: "Though mind you, Peter, if there were a ghost here I know just what I should do."

"Of course you do, darling," said Charles. "You'd put your head under the clothes, and say your prayers, same as you did when your flat was burgled."

Mrs. Bosanquet was quite unabashed. "I should instantly summon the Vicar to exorcise it," she said with dignity.

Charles' shout of laughter was broken off sharply. A sound, like a groan, muffled as though by stone walls, startled him into silence. "Good God, what's that?" he rapped out.

Celia had grown suddenly white, and instinctively Margaret drew closer to her brother. The groan had held a note almost like a wail, long-drawn-out and slowly dying.

No one answered Charles for a moment. Only Celia gave a little shiver, and glanced round fearfully. Mrs. Bosanquet broke the awed silence. "What is what, my dear?" she asked calmly.

"Didn't you hear it?" Margaret said. "As though - as though - someone - gave an awful — groan."

"No, my dear, but you know I don't hear very well. Probably a creaking door."

Charles recovered himself. "Not only probably, but undoubtedly," he said. "It startled me for the moment. Comes of talking about ghosts. I'm going round with an oil-can." He left the room, ignoring an involuntary cry from his wife.

"Do you really think it was that?" Margaret said. "I'm not being spooky, but - but it seemed to come from underneath somewhere."

"Don't be an ass, Peg," her brother advised her. "If you ask me it came from outside. I'll bet it's the door leading out of the garden-hall. I meant to oil the hinge before, and it's got worse after the rain we had last night."

"If you're going to look, I'm coming with you," Margaret said firmly.

Celia half-rose from her chair, and then sat down again.

"I shall stay and keep Aunt Lilian company," she announced in the voice of a heroine. "Whoever heard of a daylight ghost? We're all getting nervy. I shall bar ghost-talk for the future."

In the garden-hall, where Celia was in the habit of filling the flower-vases, Peter and Margaret found Charles with Bowers beside him, holding an oil-can in a shaking hand.

"Oh, so you thought it was this door too, did you?" Peter said. "What's the matter with you, Bowers?"

Bowers cast him a look of reproach. "We heard it, sir, Mrs. Bowers and me. Seemed to come from somewhere quite close. It gave Mrs. Bowers such a turn she nearly dropped her frying-pan. "Good gracious alive!" she said. "Who's being murdered?" And she's not one to fancy things, sir, as you well know." Gloomily he watched Charles open the door into the garden. It squeaked dismally, but the sound was not the groan they had heard before. "No, sir, it's not that, and nor it's not any other door in the house, though they do squeak, I won't deny. There's something uncanny about this place. I said it as soon as I set eyes on it, and I can tell you, sir, it's taking years off my life, living here."

"Is there any other door leading out on this side of the house?" Peter said. "I could swear it came from this direction."

"There'ss only the long window in the drawing-room," said Margaret. She stepped out on to the gravel-path, and looked along the side of the house. "I can't see any other. I say, it is rather beastly, isn't it? Of course I know things do echo in these places, but… Why, who's that?"

Charles came quickly out to her side. "Where?" he said sharply. "Hullo, there's a chap walking past the shrubbery!" He started forward, Peter at his heels, and hailed the stranger rather sharply.

A man in fisherman's attire, and carrying a creel and a rod, was walking through the trees beyond the shrubs that ran close up to the wall of the house. He stopped as Charles hailed him, and came to meet him. He was a dark young man of about thirty, with very black brows that grew close over the bridge of his nose, and a mouth that was rather grim in repose. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I'm afraid I'm trespassing." He spoke in a curt way, as though he were either shy or slightly annoyed. "I've been fishing the Crewel, and a man told me I could get back to the village by a short cut through your grounds. Only I don't seem able to find it."

Charles said: "There is a right-of-way, but you are some distance from it. In fact, your guide seems to have directed you to the wrong side of the house."

The stranger reddened. "I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "Could you point out the way to it?"

Margaret who had come up, and had been listening curiously, said suddenly: "Why you're the man who changed the wheel for me yesterday!"

The stranger raised his hat, slightly bowing.

"Are you staying at the Bell?" Margaret inquired.

"Yes. I've come down for some trout-fishing," he answered.

"There seems to be some quite good fishing here," Peter said, bridging yet another gap in the conversation.

"Quite good," agreed the dark young man. He shifted his rod from one hand to the other. "Er - can I reach the right-of-way from here, or must I get back to the road?"

"Oh no, I'll show you the way," Margaret said, with her friendly smile. "It's only just across the drive."

"It's very good of' you, but really you must not trouble…'

"It's no trouble. And this place is so overgrown with trees and bushes you can easily miss the way. Peter, you'd better go back and tell Celia it's all right. Come on, Mr. - I don't think I know your name?"

"Strange," said the young man. "Michael Strange."

"I'm Margaret Fortescue," she told him. "This is my brother, and this is my brother-in-law, Mr. Malcolm."

Again the young man bowed. "Are you staying long in this part of the world?" asked Charles.

Just for a week or two," Strange replied. "I'm on my holiday."

"Er - won't you come into the house?" Peter suggested. "And have a cocktail or something?"

"Thanks, but I think I must be getting along. If Miss Fortescue will really be so kind as to show me the short cut to the village…'

"Yes, rather," Margaret said. "Perhaps you'll look us up some other time. Come on."

They set off together, leaving the two others to watch them out of sight.

"Well, there you are," said Charles. "Apparently she's got off again. And would you explain to me how a man making for a perfectly well-known right-of-way fetches up under our drawing-room windows?"

Peter was frowning. "He doesn't - if he is looking for the right-of-way. Common sense must tell him that it can't run this side of the house. To tell you the truth, Chas, I don't like your black-browed friend. Just what was he doing, snooping around here?"

"He wasn't exactly communicative, so I can't say. Might have wanted to take a look at the Priory, of course. Lots of people can't keep off a ruin."

"He didn't look to me that sort," Peter said, still frowning.

Charles yawned. "Probably a mere ass without any bump of locality."

"And he didn't look like that either."

"Oh, all right, then, no doubt he came to abduct Margaret. Now what about this groaning door?"

But Michael Strange made no attempt to abduct Margaret. She led him round the corner of the house on to the avenue that ran down to the gates, and cut across this into the wood that lay between the house and the road.

"I'm taking you past the chapel," she said. "The footpath is beyond that, you know. You must have asked the way of one of the yokels. Isn't it odd that they never can direct one intelligibly?"

"They always assume too much local knowledge on one's part," he nodded. A smile, which showed a row of very white teeth, put his rather grim expression to flight. "There's altogether too much of the "past-Parson Gregory's-and-turn-right-handed-when-you-get-to Jackson's-farm" about their directions."

"I know," she said, laughing. "I'm one of those unfortunate people who never know which way I ought to go, too. Tell me, do you know many of the people down here, or is it your first visit?"

"My first," he answered. "I was told the fishing was good, and the inn comfortable, so I thought I'd give it a trial. You're new to the place yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes, we only moved in a week ago." Her dimple peeped out. "I must tell you, because it's really rather funny: when we saw you just now we thought you were our ghost."

He glanced down at her. "Have you got a ghost?" he asked. "How exciting! What sort of a ghost?"

"Well, we're not sure about that. A squeaking one, anyway."

"That doesn't sound very awful. Haven't you seen it?"

"No, thank goodness. Of course I don't suppose it's a ghost at all, really, but when we came out we'd just heard the most gruesome sort of a groan. Honestly, it made one's blood run cold. So Chas - my brother-in-law — is going round oiling all the door-hinges. Look, that's the chapel. Doesn't it look eerie and romantic?"

"Yes, I don't think I should care to spend the night up there alone," Strange admitted.

They stood still for a moment, surveying the ruin. Strange glanced back towards the house. "H'm. It's rather cut off by the trees, isn't it? Can you see it from the house at all?"

"No, not from downstairs. You can from my window, and the landing window. Why?"

"I only thought it was rather a pity anything so picturesque should be out of sight."

They walked on slowly. "If the place is haunted at all, I'm sure the ghost lives in the chapel," Margaret said lightly. "lf I had the courage of a mouse, which I haven't, I'd get my brother to sit up with me and watch."

"I think it's just as well you haven't," said Strange, with another of his swift transforming smiles. "You never know, and - I should hate you to get a fright."

"Oh, nothing would induce Peter to forsake his bed," she said. "Besides, he doesn't believe in ghosts. Here's your path. You can't miss the way now." She stopped and held out her hand.

Michael Strange took it in his. "Thank you very much," He said. "It was awfully good of you to bother. I - hope you get another puncture when I'm in the offing."

" How nice of you." She smiled, and withdrew her hand. "Do come and see us if ever you feel like it. Goodbye!"

She watched him stride away down the footpath, and turned, and went slowly back to the house.

"Well, did you find out anything about the fellow?" her brother asked when she entered the library.

"Oh, he's just on his holiday," she replied.

"So we gathered," said Charles. "What's his job?"

"I didn't ask. Why were you two so stuffy? You don't think he was responsible for the noise we heard, do you?"

"That solution hadn't occurred to me," said Charles. "I admit he didn't give me the impression of one who would stand under someone else's window and groan at them. Still, you never know."

Celia held up her finger. "I protest. We are not going to talk about groans or ghosts any more. Carried?"

"Carried unanimously," said Peter.

That resolution might have been kept longer had it not been for the happenings of the next night.

It was about half-past ten when a crash that resounded through the house penetrated even to Mrs. Bosanquet's ears, and made Celia, who was improvising idly on the piano, strike a jangling discord. The crash seemed to come from the upper landing, and it was followed by a bump-bump-bump, as though some hard object were rolling down the stairs.

"Good Lord, who's smashing up the place now?" said Charles, getting out of his chair. He went to the door, and opened it. "That you, Peter?" he called.

The study door opposite opened. "No. What on earth's happened?" Peter asked.

"Dunno. Without wishing to leap to conclusions I should hazard a guess that something has fallen over." Charles picked up the lamp that stood on the hall table, and walked to the foot of the stairs.

"I believe it was a picture," Celia said, at his side. "It sounded to me like glass breaking."

She ran up ahead of him, and rounded the halflanding. A little exclamation broke from her. "Oh, there's something on the stairs! Do hurry up with the lamp, 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."

Chapter Three

For a moment they stared at one another; then Peter began to laugh. Mr. Ernest Titmarsh, far from being offended, beamed affably upon him. Peter pulled himself together as soon as he could, and said with a quiver in his voice: "I beg your pardon, but really it's rather funny. You see, whenever we catch sight of anyone wandering about in our grounds we think he's a ghost."

Mr. Titmarsh blinked at him. "Dear me, is that so indeed? A ghost, did you say?"

"Yes," Charles said gravely. "It's - it's an idiosyncrasy of ours."

Mr. Titmarsh replaced his hat upon his head, and seemed to give the matter some thought. Light broke upon him. "Of course, of course!" he said. "This is the Priory!"

"Didn't you know?" asked Peter, somewhat surprised.

"Now I come to look about me, yes," replied their eccentric visitor. "But I fear I am very absent-minded. Yes, yes, indeed, I owe you an apology. You are not, I suppose, interested in entomology?"

"I'm afraid I know very little about it," confessed Peter.

"An absorbing study," Mr. Titmarsh said with enthusiasm. "But it leads one into committing acts of trespass, as you perceive. Yes, I am much to blame. I will at once depart."

"Oh, don't do that!" Charles interposed. "We haven't the smallest objection to you - er - catching moths in our grounds. Now we know who you are we shan't take you for a ghost again."

"Really," said Mr. Titmarsh, "this is most kind. I repeat, most kind. Am I to understand that I have your permission to pursue my studies in your grounds? Tuttut, this puts me under quite an obligation. Two evenings since, I observed what I believe to be an oleander hawkmoth. Yes, my dear sir, actually that rarest of specimens. I have great hopes of adding it to my collection. That will be indeed a triumph."

"Well, in that case, we won't interrupt you any longer," Charles said. "We'll just wish you luck, and retire."

Mr. Titmarsh bowed with old-world courtesy, and as though his hobby suddenly called him, turned, and darted back amongst the trees.

"And there we are," said Charles. "Might as well live in a public park, as far as I can see. I wish I'd remembered to ask him if he was interested in skeletons."

"I admit it looked a bit fishy, finding him snooping about just at this moment," said Peter, "but somehow I see him in the role of house-breaker. We'd better go in and reassure the girls."

In the garden-hall they found Bowers, who had watched their proceedings with a gradual return to calm. He looked slightly sheepish when he learned who was the visiter, but he advanced the opinion that they had not heard the last of the Monk yet. This they were inclined to believe, but when they rejoined the girls they assumed the manner of those who had successfully laid a ghost.

Celia was not convinced, however. The discovery of the skeleton, she said, accounted for every strange noise they had heard, since its unquiet spirit was obviously haunting the scene of its ghastly end.

"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Bosanquet firmly, "but I do know that it is most unhygienic to have dead bodies walled up in the house, and unless it is at once removed, and the place thoroughly fumigated, I shall return to town tomorrow."

"Oh!" said Celia, shuddering, "you don't suppose I'm going to stay here any longer do you, Aunt? We shall all go home to-morrow. I only wish we'd sold the place when we had the offer."

"Look here, Celia," Peter said. "If the ghost of that poor devil really has been haunting the place it's ten to one it'll stop bothering us once we've buried the remains. Don't fuss, Aunt Lilian. Of course we're going to bury the skeleton, and you can fumigate as much as you like. But I do think we oughtn't to throw up the sponge quite so easily."

"Easily!" said Celia. "I don't know what more you're waiting for! I shan't know a quiet moment if I have to stay in this place another day."

Margaret was looking from Charles to her brother. "Go on, Peter. You think we ought to give the place another chance?"

"I do. Hang it all, we shall look a pretty good set of asses if we bunk back to town simply because we've heard a few odd noises, and discovered a skeleton in a priest's hole."

"Shall we?" said Celia, with awful irony. "I suppose we ought to have expected an ordinary little thing like a skeleton?"

"Not the skeleton, but we might have guessed there'd be a priest's hole. Be a sport, Celia! If you actually see a ghost, or if any more skulls fall out of cupboards I'll give in, and take you back to town myself."

Celia looked imploringly at her husband. "I can't, Chas. You know what I am, and I can't help it if I'm stupid about these things, but every time I open my wardrobe I shall be terrified of what may be inside."

"All right, darling," Charles replied. "You shan't be martyred. I suggest you and Margaret and Aunt Lilian clear out to-morrow. I'll run you up to town, and…'

Celia sat bolt upright. "Do you mean you'll stay here?"

"That's rather the idea," he admitted.

"Charles, you can't!" she said, agitated. "I won't let you!"

"I shan't be alone. Peter's staying too."

Celia clasped his arm. "NO, don't, Charles. You don't know what might happen, and how on earth could I go away like that, and leave you here?"

Margaret's clear voice made itself heard. "Why are you so keen to stay?" she asked.

"Pride, my dear," Charles said. "Of course, with me it's natural heroism. Peter's trying to live up to me."

She shook her head. "You've got something up your sleeve. Neither of you would be so silly as to stay on here, mucking up your holiday, just to prove you weren't afraid of ghosts."

"But it's getting worse!" Celia cried. "What have you got up your sleeve? I insist on knowing! Chas! Peter!"

Peter hesitated. "To tell you the truth, Sis, I don't quite know. As far as I can make out, Chas has got an idea someone's at the root of all this ghost business."

With great deliberation Mrs. Bosanquet put down her Patience pack. "I may be stupid," she said, "but I don't understand what you're talking about. Who is at the back of what you call this "ghost business," and why?"

"Dear Aunt," said Charles, "that is precisely the problem we hope to solve by staying here."

"All those noises? The picture falling down?" Margaret said eagerly. "You think someone did it all? Someone real?"

"I don't know, but I think it's possible. I may be wrong, in which case I'll eat my disbelief, and go about henceforward swearing there are such things as ghosts."

"Yes, that's all very well," objected Celia, "but why on earth should anyone want to make ghost-noises and things at us? And who could have done it? Neither of the Bowers would, and how could anyone else get into the house without us knowing?"

"Easily," said Charles. "There's more thann one way in, besides windows."

"That quite decides me," Mrs. Bosanquet announced. "No one is a greater believer in fresh air than I am, but if I am to remain in this house, I shall sleep with my windows securely bolted."

"I still don't quite see it," Margaret said. "I suppose it would be fairly easy to get into the house, but you haven't explained why anyone should want to."

"Don't run away with the idea that I'm wedded to this notion!" Charles warned her. "I admit it sounds farfetched, but it has occurred to me that someone for reasons which I can't explain - may be trying to scare us out of this place."

There was a short silence. Celia broke it. "That's just like you!" she said indignantly. "Sooner than own you've been wrong all these years about ghosts you make up a much more improbable story to account for the manifestations. I never heard such rot in all my life!"

"Thank you, darling, thank you," Charles said gravely.

"Hold on a minute!" interrupted Margaret. "Perhaps Chas is right."

Celia almost snorted. "Don't you pay any attention to him, my dear. He'll tell us next it's the man who wanted to buy the Priory from us trying to get us out of it."

"Well, while we're on the improbable lay, what about that for a theory?" demanded Peter. "Resourceful sort of bloke, what?"

Mrs. Bosanquet resumed her Patience. "Whoever it may be, it's a piece of gross impertinence," she said. "You are quite right, Charles. Iam certainly not going to leave the place because some ill-bred person is trying to frighten me away. The proper course is to inform the police at once."

"From my small experience of local constabulary I don't think that'd be much use," said Charles. "Moreover what with Margaret's sinister pal and the egregious Mr. Titmarsh, we've got quite enough people littered about the grounds without adding a flat-footed bobby to the collection."

"Further," added Peter, "I for one have little or no desire to figure as the laughing-stock of the village. I move that we keep this thing quiet, and do a little sleuthing on our own."

Margaret waved a hand aloft at once. "Rather! I say, this is getting really thrilling. Come on, Celia, don't be snitchy!"

"All right," Celia said reluctantly. "I can't go away and leave you here, so I suppose I've got to give in. But I won't go upstairs alone after dark, and I won't be left for one moment by myself in this house, day or night, and Charles isn't to do anything foolhardy, and if anything awful happens we all of us clear out without any further argument."

"Agreed," Peter said. "What about you, Aunt Lilian?"

"Provided the dead body is decently interred, and a secure bolt fixed to my door, I shall certainly remain," answered Mrs. Bosanquet.

"What could be fairer than that?" said Charles. "If you like you can even superintend the burial."

"No, thank you, my dear," she replied. "I have never yet attended a funeral, and I don't propose to start with this body in which I have not the smallest interest. Not but what I am very sorry that whoever it was died in such unpleasant circumstances, but I do not feel that it has anything to do with me, and I could wish it had happened elsewhere."

"Well, since we're all making stipulations," Margaret put in, "I can't help feeling that I should rather like to have the door between Peter's room and mine open. D'you mind, Peter?"

"I can bear it," he answered. "As for the bones, Chas and I will bury them tomorrow, and we'll say nothing about them, any of us. See?"

"Just as you please, my dear," Mrs. Bosanquet replied. "But I cannot help feeling that the police should be told. However, that is for you to decide. Celia, you had better come up to bed. I am coming too, so there is nothing to be alarmed about."

"I hate the idea of going up those stairs," Celia shuddered.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Bosanquet, and bore her inexorably away.

The two men's task next morning was sufficiently gruesome to throw a cloud of depression over their spirits. Not even the sight of Mrs. Bosanquet sprinkling Lysol in the priest's hole could lighten the general gloom, and when, after lunch, Charles suggested that he and Peter might go out fishing it was with somewhat forced cheerfulness that Peter agreed.

But an afternoon spent by the trout stream did much to restore their spirits. The fish were rising well, and the weather conditions were ideal.

They worked some way down the stream, and when they at last set out to return to the Priory they found themselves a considerable distance away from it. Charles' bump of locality, however, served them well, and he was able to lead the way home across country, by a route that brought them eventually to the footpath Michael Strange had so unaccountably failed to find.

It was already nearly time for dinner, and the two men quickened their steps. They had left the footpath, and were just skirting the ruined chapel when the sound of footsteps made them glance back towards the right of way. Where they stood they were more or less hidden from the path by a portion of the chapel wall.

Thinking the pedestrian one of the villagers on his way home, they were about to continue on their way when the man came into sight round a bend in the path, and they saw that it was none other than the commercial gentleman they had first seen in the taproom of the Bell Inn. This in itself was not very surprising, but the stranger's behaviour caused both men, as though by tacit consent, to draw farther into the lee of the chapel wall. The small stranger was proceeding rather cautiously, and looking about him as though he expected to meet someone. He paused as he came abreast of the chapel, and peeped into the ruins. Then, after hesitating for a moment he gave a surprisingly sweet whistle, rather like the notes of a thrush. This was answered almost at once from somewhere near at hand; there came a rustling amongst the bushes, and Michael Strange stepped out on to the path from the direction of the Priory gardens.

Charles placed a warning hand on Peter's arm; Peter nodded, and stayed very still.

"Any luck?" inquired the small man, in a low voice.

Strange shook his head. "No. We shall have to try the other way again."

"Ah!" said the other gloomily. "I don't half like it, guv'nor, and that's the truth. Supposing we was to be seen? It would look a bit unnatural, wouldn't it? It's risky, that's what it is. One of them might wake up, and I don't see myself doing no spook stunts. Clean out of my line, that is. I done some jobs in my time, as you know, but I don't like this one. It's one thing to crack a crib, but this job ain't what I'd call straightforward."

"You'll be all right," Strange said rather impatiently. "If you'd remember not to waylay me where we might easily be seen together. Go on ahead. I'll follow."

"All right, guv'nor: just as you say," the small man replied, unabashed, and moved off down the path.

When Strange had gone Charles looked at Peter. "Very interesting," he said. "What did you make of it?"

"God knows. It sounded as though they were going to burgle the place, but I suppose it's not that. It looks very much as though one or both of them were responsible for last night's picnic."

"And they'll have to "try the other way again,"' mused Charles. "Look here, Peter, are you game to sit up tonight with me, and see what happens?"

"Of course, but Celia'll throw a fit."

"I'll join you as soon as she's asleep. If nothing happens we've simply got to repeat the performance till something does. I wish I knew what they were after."

"Meanwhile," said Peter, consulting his wrist-watch, "it's already half-past seven, and we're dining with old Ackerley at eight." He stopped suddenly. "By Jove! Think that mysterious pair will get going in the house while we're out? I hadn't thought of that."

"No," said Charles. "The little chap spoke of one of us "waking up."'

"All the same," Peter said, "I move that we don't stay late at the White House."

In spite of what Charles said, Peter felt ill at ease about leaving the Priory in the sole charge of the Bowers. Clever crooks, he was sure, would know the movements of their prospective victims. Yet if burglary were mediated surely these particular crooks would find it an easy enough task to break into the Priory without shadowing the place at all hours, and searching for - what? There he found himself up against a blank wall again. Strange and his odd companion had certainly been looking for something, but what it was, or what connexion it could have with a possible burglary he had no idea.

He realised that his mind harped all the time on burglary, and was forced to admit to himself that it was an improbable solution. There was very little of value in the house, and if anything so unlikely as hidden treasure were being sought for it was incredible that the thieves should have waited until the house was tenanted before they made an attempt to find it.

Charles obviously connected the affair of the previous evening with Strange, in which case it looked as though Strange's primary object was to frighten the tenants out of the house. He wondered whether he would seize the opportunity this dinner-party afforded to stage another, and even more nerve-racking, booby-trap.

Peter arrived at the White House with the rest of his family just as eight o'clock struck. His sisters, who had reviled both him and Charles for staying out so late, drew two sighs of relief.

"Scaremongers," said Charles. "I told you it wouldn't take us ten minutes to get here."

They had walked to the White House across their own grounds, a proceeding which Celia had condemned, dreading the return late at night, but which had been forced on them, not only on account of its convenience, but on account also of the car, which had developed slight magneto trouble, and refused to start.

They entered the drawing-room to find that Mr. Titmarsh, and Dr Roote and his wife, fellow-guests, had already arrived, and Celia was just telling her host laughingly that if they were late he must blame her menfolk, when the Colonel's butler opened the door to announce yet another guest. To Peter's amazement Michael Strange walked into the room.

"I don't think you know Strange, do you?" the Colonel said, to the room at large. He began to introduce the dark young man.

"Yes, we've met twice," Margaret said, when it came to her turn. She smiled at Strange. "How do you do? How's the fishing?"

"Splendid!" he said. He turned to Charles. "Have you tried the streams here yet?"

Seen in such civilised surroundings it was hard to believe that this young man was the same who had, not an hour ago, held a furtive conversation with a character whose own words proclaimed him to be a member of the criminal classes. Feeling more completely at sea than ever, Charles answered his question with a description of the afternoon's sport. Dinner was announced almost immediately, and the Colonel began to marshal his guests.

"I must apologise for our uneven numbers," he said breezily. "Four ladies to six men! Well, I think we'd better go in all together. Mrs. Bosanquet, let me show you the way."

"Too many men is a fault on the good side, anyway, isn't it?" Mrs. Roote said. She was a good-looking blonde, grown a little haggard, and with a rather harsh voice. Her husband was an untidy individual of some forty years whose huskiness of speech and rather hazy eye betrayed his weakness. His address, however, was pleasant, and he seemed to be getting on well with Celia, whom he took in to dinner behind the Colonel and Mrs. Bosanquet.

The White House was a solid Victorian building, with large airy rooms, and the boon of electric light. It was furnished in good if rather characterless style, but evidence of the Colonel's ownership existed in the various trophies that adorned the dining-room walls. Mrs. Bosanquet remarked as she took her seat at the round table that it was pleasant to find herself in an upto-date house again.

"Oh, I'm afraid the White House is a very dull affair after the Priory," Colonel Ackerley replied. "Suits me, you know; never had much use for old buildings. Full of draughts and inconvenience, I always say, but I'm afraid I'm a regular vandal. I can see Mrs. Malcolm shaking her head at me."

Celia laughed. "I wasn't," she assured him. "I was shaking it at Mr. Titmarsh." She turned to her other neighbour again. "No, I'm absolutely ignorant about butterflies and things, but it sounds most interesting. Do…'

Mr. Titmarsh eyed her severely. "Moths, madam!" he said.

"Yes, moths. I meant moths. I've noticed quite a number here. They will fly into our candles."

Margaret, who was seated between her brother and Strange, said softly: "Do listen to my sister floundering hopelessly!" She shook out her table-napkin, and began to drink her soup. "You know, you're a fraud," she said. "You told me you didn't know anyone in Framley."

"Honestly, it was quite true," Michael replied. "I only met the Colonel last night. He blew into the Bell, and we got talking, and he very kindly asked me to dine with him. In fact' - his eyes twinkled -'he wouldn't take No for an answer."

"I think you must be a recluse, or something," Margaret teased him. "Why should you want him to take No for an answer?"

"I didn't," said Strange, looking down at her, with a smile. "He told me you were coming."

Margaret blushed at that, but laughed. "I feel I ought to get up and bow," she said.

Peter, who had heard, leaned forward to speak to Strange across his sister. "Were you on the right-of-way late this afternoon?" he asked. "I thought I caught a glimpse of you."

If he hoped that Michael Strange would betray uneasiness he was disappointed. "Yes," Strange said tranquilly. "I was fishing the Crewel again today. I didn't see you."

"Oh, I was some way off," Peter answered.

In a momentary lull in the general conversation Celia's voice was heard. "And you saw this rare moth in our grounds? How exciting! Tell me what it looks like."

"Ah, that oleander hawk-moth," said Charles. "Did you have any luck, sir?"

"Not yet," Mr. Titmarsh said. "Not yet, but I do not despair."

The Colonel broke off in the middle of what he was saying to Mrs. Bosanquet to exclaim: "Hullo, have you been chasing moths at the Priory, Titmarsh? Never shall forget how I took you for a burglar when I first found you in my garden."

His hearty laugh was echoed more mildly by the entomologist, who said: "I fear I am somewhat remiss in asking the permission of my good neighbours if I may trespass harmlessly on their land. Your husband," he added, looking at Celia, "mistook me for a ghost."

"Oh, have you seen the Priory ghost yet?" Mrs. Roote inquired. "Do harrow us! I adore having my flesh made to creep."

Strange, who had looked directly across the table at Mr. Titmarsh from under his black brows, said quietly to Margaret: "Is that really true? Does he prowl round the countryside looking for moths?"

"Yes, so they all say. Charles and Peter saw him in our garden last night. He's rather eccentric, I think."

"What with myself and - what's his name? Titmarsh? - you seem to be beset by people who roam about your grounds at will," Strange remarked. "If I remember rightly you said you took me for the ghost as well."

"Ah, that was just a joke," Margaret answered. "I didn't really. And of course Charles and Peter wouldn't have taken Mr. Titmarsh for one in the ordinary course of events."

"You mean that you all rather expect to see the famous Monk?"

"No, but that was the night…' She broke off.

Strange looked inquiringly down at her. "Yes?"

"Nothing," Margaret said rather lamely.

"That sounds very mysterious," Strange said. "Have you been having trouble with the Monk?"

She shook her head. Colonel Ackerley called across the table: "What's that? Talking about the Priory ghost? These fair ladies are much too stout-hearted to believe in it, Strange. It would take more than the Monk to shake your nerve, Mrs. Bosanquet, wouldn't it?"

"I am thankful to say I have never suffered from nerves," Mrs. Bosanquet responded. "But it is certainly very disturbing when…' She encountered Charles' eye and blinked. "When the servants are afraid to stay in the house after dark," she concluded placidly.

"I'm sure you've seen something!" chattered Mrs. Roote. "Or at least heard awful noises. Now haven't you, Mrs.. Bosanquet?"

"Unfortunately," replied Mrs. Bosanquet, "I suffer from slight deafness."

"I see you're all of you determined not to satisfy our morbid curiosity," said Strange.

Mr. Titmarsh took off his spectacles and polished them. "On the subject of ghosts," he said, "I am a confirmed sceptic. I am devoid of curiosity."

"Well, I don't know so much about that," said Dr Roote. "I remember a very queer experience that happened to a friend of mine once. Now, he was one of the most matter-of-fact people I know…' He embarked on a long and rather involved ghost story, interrupted and prompted at intervals by his wife, and it only ended with the departure of the ladies from the dining-room.

Two bridge tables were formed presently, but the party broke up shortly before eleven. The Rootes were the first to leave, and they were soon followed by the Priory party and Strange. Strange's two-seater stood at the door, and when he found that the others were walking back across the park he promptly offered to take the three women in his car.

Celia, who had already begun to peer fearfully into the darkness, jumped at the offer, but stipulated that Strange should not leave them until Charles and Peter had reached the house. "You'll think me a fool," she said, "but the Priory after dark is more than I can bear. Can we really all get into your car?"

"If one of you doesn't mind sitting in the dickey I think it can be managed," Strange replied. "And of course I'll wait till your husband gets back. I'm only sorry I can't take you all."

"Well, really, this is most opportune," said Mrs. Bosanquet, getting into the little car. "I notice that there is quite a heavy dew on the ground."

Whatever Strange's wishes may have been it was Margaret who sat in the dickey, while Celia managed to insert her slim person between Mrs. Bosanquet and the door.

"We've no business to impose on you like this, of course," Celia said, as the car slid out of the White House gates. "It's only a step, across the park, but I do so hate the dark."

"It's not an imposition at all," Michael answered. He drove down the road for the short distance that separated the White House from the Priory, and turned carefully in at the rather awkward entrance to the long avenue. The headlights showed the drive winding ahead, and made the tall trees on either side look like walls of darkness. The house came presently into sight, and in a few moments they were all inside the softly-lighted hall.

Celia stood for an instant as though listening. The house seemed to be wrapped in stillness. "I love it by day," she said abruptly. "It's only at night it gets different. Like this. Can't you feel it? A sort of boding."

"Why are you so afraid of it?" Strange asked her. "You must have some reason other than village-gossip. Has anything happened to alarm you?"

She gave a tiny shiver. "I'm a fool, that's all," she answered. "Let's go into the library." A tray with drinks had been set out there. "Do help yourself," she said. "There's whisky, or a soft drink, whichever you prefer."

"Can I bring you anything?"

"I'd like some lemonade, please."

Mrs. Bosanquet emerged from the cloud of tulle she had swathed round her head. "My own opinion is, and always will be," she said firmly, "that there are no such things as ghosts. And if - mind you, I only say if - I thought there was anything odd about a house, I, personally, should inform the police."

Strange carried a glass over to where Celia was sitting. "Is that what you've done?" he asked.

"Not at all," she replied. "I said "if."'

"Would you do that, Mr. Strange?" Margaret inquired. Just supposing you heard weird sounds and things?"

"No, I don't think I should," he said. "I'm afraid I haven't much opinion of village policemen."

"My husband hasn't either," Celia said. She heard a latchkey grate in the lock. "Here he is!" she said. "Is that you, Charles?"

"I'm not quite sure," came the answer. "It used to be, but since the experiences of the last ten minutes…'

"Good heavens, you haven't seen the ghost, have you?" cried Margaret.

Charles appeared in the doorway, minus his shoes. Over his shoulder Peter said, grinning: "He encountered a little mud, that's all."

"If you want to know the truth," said Charles, "I have narrowly escaped death by drowning in quicksands. Thank you, yes, and don't overdo the soda! Too much of water hast thou, poor Charles Malcolm."

"Oh, I know! You must have found that boggy patch," said Margaret.

"I trust it was not the cesspool," Mrs. Bosanquet said, in mild concern.

"So do I," Charles said. "That thought had not so far occurred to me, but - but I do hope it wasn't."

"Take heart," said Strange, setting down his glass. "I think your cesspool is more likely to be down near the river." He went up to Celia, and held out his hand. "I'm sure you're longing to get to bed, Mrs. Malcolm, so I'll say good-night."

He took his leave of them all. Peter escorted him to the front door, and when the two of them had left the room Charles said: "Well, of all the miserable conspirators commend me to you three! I should think by to-morrow the whole countryside will know that something has happened here."

"Really, Charles!" Mrs. Bosanquet expostulated. "It is true that I was about to make a reference to what happened last night, but I am sure I covered it up most naturally.,

"Dear Aunt," said Charles frankly, "not one of you would have deceived an oyster."

Peter came back into the room. "You seem to be getting very thick with Strange," he said to his sister. "Did you happen to find out what he is, or anything about him?"

"He's a surveyor," said Charles, finishing what was left of his whisky and soda.

"A surveyor?" echoed Margaret. "How do you know? Did he tell you so?"

"To the deductive mind," said Charles airily, "his profession was obvious from his knowledge of the probable whereabouts of our cesspool."

"Ass!" said Celia. "Come on up to bed. What does it matter what he is? He's nice, that's all I know."

It was two hours later when Charles came downstairs again, and he had changed into a tweed suit, and was wearing rubber-soled shoes. Peter was already in the library, reading by the light of one lamp. He looked up as Charles came in. "Celia asleep?" he asked.

"She was when I left her; but I've trod on nineteen creaking boards since then. Have you been round the house?"

"I have, and I defy anyone to get in without us hearing."

Charles went across to draw the heavy curtains still more closely together over the windows. "If Strange really means to try and get in to-night, he won't risk it for another hour or two," he prophesied. "Hanged if I can make that fellow out!"

"From what I could gather," Peter said, "he did his best to pump Margaret. Seemed to want to find out how we were getting on here."

Charles grunted, and drew a chair up to the desk and proceeded to study a brief which had been sent on from town that morning. Peter retired into his book again, and for a long while no sound broke the silence save the crackle of the papers under Charles' hand, and the measured tick of the old grandfather clock in the hall. At last Peter came to the end of his novel, and closed it. He yawned, and looked at his wrist-watch. "Good Lord! two o'clock already! Do we sit here till breakfast-time? I've an idea I shan't feel quite so fresh to-morrow night."

Charles pushed his papers from him with a short sigh of exasperation. "I don't know why people go to law," he said gloomily. "More money than sense."

"Got a difficult case?" inquired Peter.

"I haven't got a case at all," was the withering retort. "And that's counsel's learned opinion. Would you like to go and fetch me something to eat from thee larder?"

"No," said Peter, "since you put it like that, I shouldn't."

"Then I shall have to go myself," said Charles, getting up. "There was a peculiarly succulent pie if I remember rightly."

"Well, bring it in here, and I'll help you eat it," Peter offered. "And don't forget the bread!"

Before Charles could open his mouth to deliver a suitable reply a sound broke the quiet of the house, and brought Peter to his feet in one startled bound. For the sound was that same eerie groan which they had heard before, and which seemed to rise shuddering from somewhere beneath their feet.

Chapter Four

The weird sound died, and again silence settled down on the house. Yet somehow the silence seemed now to be worse than that hair-raising groan. Something besides themselves was in the house.

Peter passed his tongue between lips that had grown suddenly dry. He looked at Charles, standing motionless in the doorway. Charles was listening intently; he held up a warning finger.

Softly Peter went across to his side. Charles said under his breath:

"Wait. No use plunging round the house haphazard. Turn the lamp down."

Peter went back, and in a moment only a glimmer of light illumined the room. He drew his torch out of his pocket and stood waiting by the table.

It seemed to him that the minutes dragged past. Straining his ears he thought he could hear little sounds, tiny creaks of furniture, perhaps the scutter of a mouse somewhere in the wainscoting. The ticking of the clock seemed unusually loud, and when an owl hooted outside it made him jump.

A stair creaked; Charles' torch flashed a white beam of light across the empty hall, and went out again. He slightly shook his head in answer to Peter's quick look of inquiry.

Peter found himself glancing over his shoulder towards the window. He half thought that one of the curtains moved slightly, but when he moved cautiously forward to draw it back there was nothing there. He let it fall into position again, and stood still, wishing that something, anything, would happen to break this nerveracking silence.

He saw Charles stiffen suddenly, and incline his head as though to hear more distinctly. He stole to his side. "What?" he whispered.

"Listen!"

Again the silence fell. Peter broke it. "What did you hear?"

"A thud. There it is again!"

A muffled knock reached Peter's ears. It seemed to come from underneath. In a moment it was repeated, a dull thud, drawing nearer, as though something was striking against a stone wall.

"The cellars!" Peter hissed. "There must be a way in that we haven't found!"

Again the knocking, deadened by the solid floor, was repeated. It was moving nearer still, and seemed now to sound directly beneath their feet.

"Come on!" Charles said, and slipped the torch into his left hand. He picked up the stout ash-plant which he had placed ready for use, and stole out, and across the hall to the door that shut off the servants' wing from the rest of the house.

The stairs leading down to the cellars were reached at the end of the passage. They were stone, and the two men crept down them without a sound to betray their presence. At the foot Charles said in Peter's ear: "Know your way about?"

"No," Peter whispered. "We don't use the cellars."

"Damn!" Charles switched on his torch again.

The place felt dank and very cold. Grey walls of stone flanked the passage; the roof was of stone also, and vaulted. Charles moved forward, down the arched corridor, in the direction of the library. Various cellars led out of the main passage; in the first was a great mound of coal, but the rest were empty.

The passage seemed to run down one side of the building, but the vaults that gave on to it led each one into another, so that the place was something of a labyrinth. The knocking sounded distinctly now, echoing through the empty cellars. Charles held his torch lowered, so that the circle of light was thrown barely a yard in front of him.

Suddenly the knocking ceased, and at once both men stood still, waiting for some sound to guide them.

Ahead of them, where the passage ended, something moved. Charles flashed his torch upwards, and for a brief instant he and Peter caught a glimpse of a vague figure. Then, as though it had melted into the wall, it was gone, and a wail as of a soul in torment seemed to fill the entire place.

The sweat broke out on both men's foreheads, and for a second neither could move for sheer horror. Then Charles pulled himself together and dashed forward, shouting to Peter to follow.

"My God, what was it?" Peter gasped.

"The groan we've all heard, of course. Damn it, he can't have got away!"

But the place where the figure had stood was quite empty. An embrasure in the wall seemed to mark the spot where they had seen it, yet if the apparent melting into the wall had been no more than a drawing back into this niche that could not solve the complete disappearance of the figure.

The two men stared at one another. Charles passed the back of his hand across his forehead. "But - but I saw it!" he stammered.

"So did I," Peter said roughly. "Good God, it can't be… This is getting a bit too weird to be pleasant. Look here… Damn it, that was no ghost. There must be a secret way through the wall." His torch played over the wall. It was built of great stone slabs each about four foot square. He began to feel them in turn. "We must be under the terrace," he said. "Gosh, don't you see? We're standing on the level of the ground here!" One of the blocks gave slightly under the thrust of his hand. "Got it!" he panted, and set his shoulder to it. It swung slowly outward, turning on some hidden pivot, and as it moved that hideous wail once more rent the stillness.

"So that's it, is it?" Charles said grimly. "Well, I don't mind telling you that I'm damned glad we've solved the origin of that ghastly noise." He squeezed through the opening in Peter's wake, and found himself, as Peter had prophesied, in the garden directly beneath the terrace. There was no sign of anyone amongst the shrubs near at hand, and it was obviously useless to search the grounds. After a moment both men slipped back into the cellar, and pushed the stone into place again.

"Might as well have a look round to see what that chap was after," Peter said. "Why the banging? Is he looking for a hollow wall, do you suppose? Dash it, I rejected hidden treasure as altogether too far-fetched, but it begins to look remarkably like it!"

"Personally I don't think we shall find anything," Charles answered. "Still, we can try. What a maze the place is!"

Together they explored all the cellars, but Charles was right, and there was nothing to be seen. Deciding that their nocturnal visitor would hardly attempt another entrance now that his way of ingress had been discovered, they made their way up the stairs again.

As they crossed the hall towards the library door a glimmer of light shone on the landing above, and Margaret's voice called softly: "Peter."

"Hullo!" Peter responded.

"Thank goodness!" breathed his sister, and came cautiously down to join him. In the lamplight her face looked rather pale, and her eyes very big and scared. "That awful groan woke me," she said. "I heard it twice, and called to you, Peter. Then when you didn't answer I went into your room and saw the bed hadn't been slept in. I got the most horrible fright."

"Don't make a row. Come into the library," Peter commanded. "You didn't wake Celia, did you?"

"No, I guessed you and Charles had staged something. Did you hear the groan? What have you been doing?"

"We not only heard it, but on two occasions we caused it," Peter said, and proceeded to tell her briefly all that had happened.

She listened in wondering silence, but when he spoke of the part he believed Strange to be playing, she broke in with an emphatic and somewhat indignant headshake. "I'm sure he isn't a crook! And I'm perfectly certain he'd never make awful noises to frighten us, or put skeletons where we should find them. Besides, why should he?"

"I'm not prepared to answer that question without due warning," Charles said cautiously. "All I know about him at present is that he's a rather mysterious fellow who holds distinctly fishy conversations with a palpable old lag, and who - apparently - knows how to get round persons of your sex."

"That's all rot," Margaret said without hesitation. "There's nothing in the least mysterious about him, and I expect if you'd heard more of it you'd have found that the fishy conversation was quite innocent really. You know how you can say things that sound odd in themselves, and yet don't mean anything."

"I hotly resent this reflection upon my conversation," Charles said.

"You've got to remember too, Peg, that when we heard that groan before, we found Strange close up to the house, and on the same side as the secret entrance," Peter interposed. "I don't say that that proves anything, but it ought to be borne in mind. I certainly think that Mr. Michael Strange's proceedings want explaining."

"I think it's utterly absurd!" Margaret said. "Why, you might as well suspect Mr. Titmarsh!" Having delivered herself of which scornful utterance, she rose, and announced her intention of going back to bed.

To be on the safe side, Charles and Peter spent the following morning in sealing up the hidden entrance. An account of the night's happenings did much to reconcile Celia to her enforced stay at the Priory. Human beings, she said, she wasn't in the least afraid of.

"I only hope," said Mrs. Bosanquet pessimistically, "that we are not all murdered in our beds."

Both she and Celia were agreed that the latest development made the calling in of police aid imperative. The men were still loth to do this, but they had to admit that Celia had reason on her side.

"There's no longer any question of being laughed at," she argued. "Someone broke into this house last night, and it's for the police to take the matter in hand. It's all very well for you two to fancy yourselves in the role of amateur detectives, but I should feel a lot easier in my mind if some real detectives got going."

"How can you?" said Charles unctuously. "When you lost your diamond brooch, who found it?"

"I did," Celia replied. "Wedged between the bristles of my hair-brush. That was after you'd had the waste up in the bath, and two of the floor-boards in our room."

"That wasn't the time I meant," said Charles hastily.

Celia wrinkled her brow. "The only other time I lost it was at that hotel in Edinburgh, and then you stepped on it getting out of bed. If that's what you mean…'

"Well, wasn't that finding it?" demanded Charles. "Guided by a rare intuition, I rose from my couch, and straightway put my - er - foot on the thing."

"You did. But that wasn't quite how you phrased it at the time," said Celia. "If I remember rightly…'

"You needn't go on," Charles told her. "When it comes to recounting incidents in which I played a prominent part you never do remember rightly. To put it bluntly, for gross misrepresentation of fact you're hard to beat."

"Time!" called Peter. "Let's put it to the vote. Who is for calling in the police, or who is not? Margaret, you've got the casting vote. What do you say?"

She hesitated. "I think I rather agree with Celia. You both suspect Mr. Strange. Well, I'm sure you're wrong. Let the police take over before you go and make fools of yourselves." She added apologetically: "I don't mean to be rude about it, but…'

"I'm glad to know that," said Charles. "I mean, we might easily have misunderstood you. But what a field of conjecture this opens out! I shall always wonder what you'd have said if you had meant to be rude."

"Well, you'll know in a minute," retorted Margaret. "And it's no good blinking facts: once you and Peter get an idea into your heads, nothing on God's earth will get it out again. You will make fools of yourselves if you go sleuthing after the unfortunate Mr. Strange. If he is at the root of it the police'll find him out, and if he isn't they'll find that out weeks before you would."

After that, as Peter said, there was nothing to be done but to go and interview the village constable at once. Accordingly he and Charles set out for Framley after lunch, and found the constable, a bucolic person of the name of Flinders, digging his garden.

He received them hopefully, but no sooner had they explained their errand than his face fell somewhat, and he scratched his chin with a puzzled air.

"You'd better come inside, sir," he said, after profound thought. He led them up the narrow path to his front door, and ushered them into the living-room of his cottage. He asked them to sit down and to excuse him for a moment, and vanished into the kitchen at the back of the cottage. Sounds of splashing followed, and in a few moments Constable Flinders reappeared, having washed his earth-caked hands, and put on his uniform coat. With this he had assumed an imposing air of officialdom, and he held in his hand the usual grimy little notebook. "Now, sir!" he said importantly, and took a chair at the table opposite his visitors. He licked the stub of a pencil. "You say you found some person or persons breaking into your house with intent to commit a robbery?"

"I don't think I said that at all," Charles replied. "I found the person in my cellars. What he came for I've no idea."

"Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "That's very different, that is." He licked the pencil again, reflectively. "Did you reckernise this person?"

Charles hesitated. "No," he answered at last. "There wasn't time. He escaped by this secret way I told you about."

"Escaped by secret way," repeated Mr. Flinders, laboriously writing it down. "I shall have to see that, sir."

"I can show you the spot, but I'm afraid we've already cemented it up."

Mr. Flinders shook his head reproachfully. "You shouldn't have done that," he pronounced. "That'll make it difficult for me to act, that will."

"Why?" asked Peter.

Mr. Flinders looked coldly at him. "I ought to have been called in before any evidence of the crime had been disturbed," he said.

"There wasn't a crime," Peter pointed out.

This threw the constable momentarily out of his stride. He thought again for some time, and presently asked:

"And you don't suspect no one in particular?"

Peter glanced at Charles, who said: "Rather difficult to say. I haven't any good reason to suspect anyone, but various people have been seen hanging about the Priory at different times."

"Ah!" said Mr. Flinders. "Now we are getting at something, sir. I thought we should. You'll have to tell me who you've seen hanging round, and then I shall know where I am."

"Well," said Charles. "There's Mr. Titmarsh to start with."

The constable's official cloak slipped from his shoulders. "Lor', sir, he wouldn't hurt a fly!" he said.

"I don't know what he does to flies," retorted Charles, "but he's death on moths."

Mr. Flinders shook his head. "Of course I shall have to follow it up," he said darkly. "That's what my duty is, but Mr. Titmarsh don't mean no harm. He was catching moths, that's what he was doing."

"So he told us, and for all I know it may be perfectly true. But I feel I should like to know something about the eccentric gentleman. You say he's above suspicion…'

He was stopped by a large hand raised warningly. "No, sir, that I never said, nor wouldn't. It'll have to be sifted. That's what I said."

"… and," continued Charles, disregarding the interruption, "I can't say that I myself think he's likely to be the guilty party. How long has he lived here?"

Mr. Flinders thought for a moment. "Matter of three years," he answered.

"Anything known about him?"

"There isn't nothing known against him, sir," said the constable. "Barring his habits, which is queer to some folk's way of thinking, but which others who has such hobbies can understand, he's what I'd call a very ordinary gentleman. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying is. He's not married, but Mrs. Fellowes from High Barn, who is his housekeeper, hasn't never spoken a word against him, and she's a very respectable woman that wouldn't stop a day in a place where there was any goings-on that oughtn't to be."

"She might not know," Peter suggested.

"There's precious little happens in Framley that Mrs. Fellowes don't know about, sir," said Mr. Flinders. "And knows more than what the people do themselves," he added obscurely, but with considerable feeling.

"Putting Mr. Titmarsh aside for the moment," said Charles. "The other two men we've encountered in our grounds are a Mr. Strange, who is staying at the Bell, and a smallish chap, giving himself out to be a commercial traveller, who's also at the Bell." He recounted under what circumstances he had met Michael Strange, and the constable brightened considerably. "That's more like it, that is," he said. "Hanging about on the same side of the house as that secret entrance, was he?"

"Mind you, he may have been speaking the truth when he said he had missed his way," Charles warned him.

"That's what I shall have to find out," said Mr. Flinders. "I shall have to keep a watch on those two."

"You might make a few inquiries about them," Peter suggested. "Discover where they come from, and what Strange's occupation is."

"You don't need to tell me how to act, sir," said Mr. Flinders with dignity. "Now that I've got a line to follow I know my duty."

"There's just one other thing," Charles said slowly. "You'd probably better know about it."

"Certainly I had," said Mr. Flinders. "If you was to keep anything from me I couldn't act."

"I suspect," said Charles, "that whoever got into the Priory has some reason for wishing to frighten us out of it."

Mr. Flinders blinked at him. "What would they want to do that for?" he asked practically.

"That's what we thought you might find out," Charles said.

"If there's anything to find you may be sure I shall get on to it," Mr. Flinders assured him. "But you'll have to tell me some more."

"I'm going to. A few nights ago a picture fell downn at the top of the stairs, and when we went up to investigate my wife found the upper half of a human skull on the stairs. My brother-in-law and I then discovered a priest's hole in the panelling where the picture had hung, and in it a collection of human bones."

The effect of this on the constable was not quite what they had hoped. His jaw dropped, and he sat staring at them in round-eyed horror. "My Gawd, sir, it's the Monk!" he gasped. "You don't suppose I can go making inquiries about a ghost, do you? I wouldn't touch it - not for a thousand pounds! And here's me taking down in me notebook what you told me about Mr. Titmarsh and them two up at the Inn, and all the time you've seen the Monk!" He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. "If I was you, sir, I'd get out of that house," he said earnestly. "It ain't healthy."

"Thanks very much," said Charles. "But it is my firm belief that someone is behind all this Monk business. And I suspect that that skeleton was put there for our benefit by the same person who got into the cellars."

"Hold hard!" said Peter suddenly. "It's just occurred to me that we didn't hear the groan of that stone-slab being opened on the night the picture fell."

They stared at one another for a moment. "That's one up to you," Charles said at length. "Funny I never thought of that. We couldn't have missed hearing it, either. Then…' he stopped, frowning.

The constable shut his notebook. "I'd get out of the Priory, sir, if I was you," he repeated. "The police can't act against ghosts. What you saw that night was the Monk, and the noise you heard…'

"Was caused by the stone-block opening," finished Charles. "We proved that."

Mr. Flinders scratched his chin again. A solution dawned upon him. "I'll tell you what it is, sir. Maybe you're right, and what you saw in the cellars was flesh and blood. I shall get on to that, following up the line you've given me. But there wasn't any flesh and blood about that skeleton."

"I'm thankful to say that there wasn't," said Charles. "Dry bones were quite enough for us."

"What I meant," said Mr. Flinders, with a return to his official manner, "was that no human being caused that skeleton to be put into this hole you speak about. What you've done, sir, is you've found out the secret of the Priory. That's what you've done. Now we know why it's haunted, and my advice to you is, "Pull it down."'

"You won't mind if we don't follow it, will you?" Charles said, sarcastically.

"That's for you to decide," said Mr. Flinders. "But how you've got to look at it is like this: When this stone, which you have improperly sealed up, opened, it made a noise which could be heard all over the house. Following on that, the person or persons that nefariously broke into the Priory by that way couldn't do it without you knowing. That's fact, that is. The police have to work on facts, sir, and nothing else. Now you say that when this picture fell down you hadn't heard that stone open. From which it follows that no person or persons did open it that night. That's logic, isn't it, sir?"

"I'll take your word for it," said Charles. "And here's a second way for you to look at it: It is just possible that there is another entrance to the Priory which we don't know anything about."

Chapter Five

The immediate effect of the visit to Constable Flinders was a visit to the Priory paid by that worthy individual the very next day. Celia received him with a flattering display of relief, and the constable, a shy man, flushed very red indeed when she told him she was sure everything would be cleared up now that he had taken the matter in hand. However, he knew that she spoke no less than the truth, and said as much. He then requested her to show him the priest's hole.

"I will, of course," she said, "but I wish my husband or my brother were in, because I can hardly bear to open that ghastly panel."

Following her delicately up the stairs Mr. Flinders said that he could quite understand that. When she had succeeded in locating the rosette which worked the panel, and had twisted it round, he peered inside the dark recess almost as fearfully as Celia herself. There was nothing there, but it smelted strongly of Lysol. After deliberating for a while, the constable announced his intention of climbing into the hole. He succeeded in doing this, not without inflicting several scratches on the panelling, and once inside he very carefully inspected the walls. Celia watched him hopefully, and wondered whether the scratches could be got rid of.

Mr. Flinders climbed out again, and picked up his helmet from the floor where he had placed it. "Nothing there, madam," he said.

"What were you looking for?" inquired Celia.

"There might have been a way in," explained Mr. Flinders. "Not that I think so meself," he added, "but the police have to follow everything up, you see."

"Oh!" said Celia, a little doubtfully. She closed the panel again. "Is there anything else you'd like to see upstairs?"

Mr. Flinders thought that he ought to make a reconnaissance of the whole house. He seemed depressed at being unable to explore Mrs. Bosanquet's room, but when he learned that that lady was enjoying her afternoon rest he said that he quite understood.

A thorough examination of the other rooms took considerable time, and Celia grew frankly bored. Beyond remarking that the wall-cupboards were a queer set-out, and no mistake; that a thin man might conceivably get down the great chimney in the chief bedroom; and that a burglar wouldn't make much trouble over getting in at any one of the windows, Mr. Flinders produced no theories. On the way downstairs, however, he volunteered the information that he wouldn't sleep a night in the house, not if he was paid to. This was not reassuring, and Celia at once asked him whether he knew anything about the Priory hauntings. Mr. Flinders drew a deep breath, and told her various stories of things heard on the premises after dark. After this he went all over the sitting-rooms, and asked to be conducted to the secret entrance to the cellars.

"I'll tell Bowers to take you down," said Celia. "He knows, because he helped seal it up."

In the kitchen she left him in charge of Mrs. Bowers, a formidable woman who eyed him with complete disfavour. An attempt on his part to submit her kitchen to an exhaustive search was grimly frustrated. "I don't hold with bobbies poking their noses where they're not wanted, and never did," she said. "It 'ud take a better burglar than any I ever heard of to get into my kitchen, and if I find one here I shall know what to do without sending for you."

Mr. Flinders, again very red about the ears, said huskily that he had to do his duty, and meant no offence.

"That's right," said Mrs. Bowers, "you get on and do your duty, and I'll do mine, only don't you go opening my cupboards and turning things over with your great clumsy hands, or out you go, double-quick. Nice time I should have clearing up after you'd pulled everything about."

"I'm sure the place does you credit," said Mr. Flinders feebly, with a vague idea of propitiating her. "What I thought was, there might be a way in at the back of that great dresser."

"Well, there isn't," she replied uncompromisingly, and began to roll and bang a lump of pastry with an energy that spoke well for her muscular powers.

"I suppose," said Mr. Flinders, shifting his feet uneasily, "I suppose you wouldn't mind me taking a look inside the copper? I have heard of a man hiding in one of them things."

"Not in this house, you haven't," responded Mrs. Bowers. "And if you think I'm going to have you prying into the week's washing you're mistaken. The idea!"

"I didn't know you'd got the washing in it," apologised Mr. Flinders.

"No, I expect you thought I kept goldfish there," retorted the lady.

This crushing rejoinder quite cowed the constable. He coughed, and after waiting a minute asked whether she would show him the cellars. "Which I've been asked to inspect," he added boldly.

"I've got something better to do than to waste my time trapesing round nasty damp cellars at this hour," she said. "If you want to go down I'm sure I've no objection. You won't find anything except rats, and if you can put those great muddy boots of yours on one instead of dirtying my clean floor with them you'll be more use than ever I expected. Bowers!"

In reply to this shrill call her husband emerged presently from the pantry, where it seemed probable that he had been enjoying a brief siesta. Mrs. Bowers pointed the rolling-pin at Mr. Flinders. "You've got to take this young fellow down to the cellars and show him the place where the master made all that mess with the cement yesterday," she said. "And don't bring him back here. I've never been in the habit of having bobbies in my kitchen and I'm not going to start at my time of life."

Both men withdrew rather hastily. "You mustn't mind my missus," Bowers said. "It's only her way. She doesn't hold with ghosts, and things, but I can tell you I'm glad to see you here. Awful, this place is. You wouldn't believe the things I've heard."

By the time they had explored the dank, tomb-like cellars, and twice scared themselves by holding the lamp in such a way that their own shadows were cast in weird elongated shapes on the wall, Bowers and the constable were more than ready to confirm a sudden but deep friendship in a suitable quantity of beer. They retired to the pantry, and regaled themselves with this comforting beverage until Bowers found that it was time for him to carry the tea-tray into the library. Upon which Constable Flinders bethought himself of his duty, and took his departure by the garden-door, thus avoiding any fresh encounter with the dragon in the kitchen.

It was at about the same moment that Margaret, returning from a brisk tramp over the fields, emerged on to the right-of-way, and made her way past the ruined chapel towards the house. The sight of someone kneeling by one of the half-buried tombs apparently engaged in trying to decipher the inscription, made her stop and look more closely. Her feet had made no sound on the turf, but the kneeling figure looked round quickly, and she saw that it was Michael Strange.

She came slowly towards him, an eyebrow raised in rather puzzled inquiry. "Hullo!" she said. "Are you interested in old monuments?"

Strange rose, brushing a cake of half-dry mud from his ancient flannel trousers. "I am rather," he said. "Do you mind my having a look round?"

"Not at all," Margaret said. "But I'm afraid you won't find much of interest." She sat down on the tomb, and dug her hands into the pockets of her Burberry. "I didn't know you were keen on this sort of thing."

"I know very little about it," he said, "but I've always been interested in ruins. It's a pity this has been allowed to go. There's some fine Norman work."

She agreed, but seemed to be more interested in the contemplation of one of her own shoes. "Are you staying here long?" she asked.

"Only for another week or so," he replied. "I'm on holiday, you know."

"Yes, you told me so." She looked up, smiling. "By the way, what do you do, if it isn't a rude question?"

"I fish mostly."

"I meant in town."

"Oh, I see. I have my work, and I manage to get some golf over the week-ends. Do you play?"

"Very badly," Margaret answered, feeling baulked. She tried again. "What sort of work do you do?"

"Mostly office-stuff, and very dull," he said.

Margaret decided that further questioning would sound impertinent, and started a fresh topic. "If you're interested in old buildings," she said, "you ought to go over the Priory itself. It's the most weird place, full of nooks and crannies, and rooms leading out of one another."

"I noticed some very fine panelling when I took you home the other night," he said. "Have you any records of the place, I wonder?"

"No, funnily enough we haven't," she answered. "You'd think there ought to be something, and as far as I know my uncle didn't take anything out of the house when Aunt Flora died, but we can't find anything."

"Nothing amongst the books?"

"There aren't many, you know. No, nothing. Celia was awfully disappointed, because she thought there was bound to be a history, or something. And we should rather like to find out whether there's any foundation for the story of the haunting."

Strange sat down beside her on the tomb. "How much store do you set by that tale?" he asked. "Do you really believe in it?"

"I don't really know," she said, wrinkling her brow. "I haven't seen the famous Monk, and until I do - I'll reserve judgment."

"Very wise," he approved. "And if you do see it I wish you'd tell me. I should like to have first-hand evidence of a real ghost." He chanced to glance up as he spoke, and his eyes narrowed. "Oh!" he said, in rather a curt voice. "So you did call in the police after all?"

Margaret looked quickly in the same direction. Mr. Flinders was tramping down one of the paths, very obviously on his way from the house back to the village. Without quite knowing why, she felt slightly guilty. "Yes. We - we thought we'd try and get to the bottom of our ghost."

He turned his head, and looked directly at her. "You've made up your minds to keep whatever you've seen, or heard, to yourselves," he said abruptly. "You're scared of this place, aren't you?"

She was startled. "Well, really, I - yes, a bit, perhaps. It's not surprising considering what tales they tell about it round here."

"You'll think me impertinent," he said, "but I wish you'd leave it."

It was her turn now to look at him, surprised, rather grave. "Why?" she said quietly. "Because if the place is haunted, and you saw anything, it might give you a really bad fright. Where's the sense in staying in a house that gives you the creeps?"

"You're very solicitous about me, Mr. Strange. I don't quite see why."

"I don't suppose you do," he said, prodding the ground between his feet with his walking stick. "And I daresay I've no right to be - solicitous about you. All the same, I am."

She found it hard to say anything after this, but managed after a short pause to remark that a ghost couldn't hurt her.

He made no answer, but continued to prod the ground, and with a nervous little laugh, she said: "You look as though you thought it could."

"No, I'm not as foolish as that," he replied. "But it could scare you badly."

"I didn't think you believed in the Monk. You know, you're being rather mysterious."

"I believe in quite a number of odd things," he said. "Sorry if I sounded mysterious."

She pulled up a blade of grass, and began to play with it. "Mr. Strange."

He smiled. "Miss Fortescue?"

"It isn't what you sound," she said, carefully inspecting her blade of grass. "It's — things you do."

There was an infinitesimal pause. "What have I done?" Strange asked lightly.

She abandoned the grass, and turned towards him. "Last night, at about one o'clock when we had summer lightning, I - it woke me."

"Did it? But what has that got to do with my mysterious behaviour?"

She looked into his eyes, and saw them faintly amused. "Mr. Strange, I got up to close my window, in case it came on to rain. I saw you in one of the flashes."

"You saw me?" he repeated.

"Yes, by the big rose bush just under my window. I saw you quite clearly. I didn't say anything about it to the others."

"Why not?" he said.

She flushed. "I don't quite know. Partly because I didn't want to frighten Celia."

"Is that the only reason?" She was silent.

"I was in the Priory garden last night," he said. "I can't tell you why, but I hope you'll believe that whatever I was doing there - I'd - I'd chuck it up sooner than harm you in any way, or - or even give you a fright." He paused, but she still said nothing. "I don't know why you should trust me, but you seem to have done so, and I'm jolly grateful. Can you go on trusting me enough to keep this to yourself?"

She raised troubled eyes. "I ought not to. I ought to tell my brother. You see, I - I don't really know anything about you, and - you must admit - it's rather odd of you to be in our grounds at that hour. I suppose you can't tell me anything more?"

"No," he said. "I can't. I wish I could."

She got up. "I shan't say anything about having seen you. But I warn you - you may be found out, another time. You want to get us out of the Priory - and we aren't going. So - so it's no use trying to frighten us away. I - I expect you know what I mean."

He did not answer, but continued to watch her rather closely. She held out her hand. "I must go, or I shall be too late for tea. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," Strange said, taking her hand for a moment in his strong clasp. "And thank you."

The rest of the family noticed that Margaret was rather silent at tea-time, and Mrs. Bosanquet asked her if she were tired. She roused herself at that, disclaimed, and, banishing Strange from her thoughts for a while, gave her attention to Celia, who was recounting the proceedings of Constable Henry Flinders.

"And as far as I can see," Celia said, "there those scratches will remain."

"You would have him," Charles reminded her. "You despised our efforts, and now that you've got a trained sleuth on to the job you're no better pleased."

"What I'd really like," Celia said, "and what I always had in mind was a detective, not an ordinary policeman."

"You don't appreciate friend Flinders," Peter told her. "He may not be quick, but he's thorough. Why, he even inspected the bathroom, didn't he?"

"That's right," said Charles. "Dogged does it is Henry's watchword. He won't leave a mouse-hole undisturbed. You wait till he comes down our chimney one night to see if it can be done, before you judge him."

But during the next two days, as fresh evidence of the constable's devotion to duty was continually forthcoming, he became even less popular. On the first day of his watch, Jane, the housemaid, was with difficulty persuaded to rescind her "notice," which she promptly gave on discerning the constable crouched under a rhododendron bush. She was on her way home, soon after sundown, and this unnerving sight induced her to give way to a strong fit of hysterics under the drawingroom window. Celia and Peter rushed out in time to witness the aghast constable endeavouring to reassure Jane, while Mrs. Bowers, first upon the scene, divided her attention between scolding the distraught damsel, and predicting the future that awaited those who could find nothing better to do than to frighten silly girls out of their wits.

When Constable Flinders had stumbled over a cucumber-frame in the dark, and smashed two panes of glass with the maximum noise, got himself locked in the gardener's shed by mistake, and arrested Charles on his return from a game of billiards with Colonel Ackerley, it was unanimously agreed that his energy should be gently but firmly diverted. In spite of his incorrigible habit of doing the wrong thing they had all of them developed quite an affection for the constable, and it was with great tact that Peter suggested that a watch on the Priory was useless, and that Mr. Flinders would do well to turn his attention to the possible suspects.

The constable, whom only the strongest sense of duty induced to patrol the dread Priory after dark, was not at all hurt, but on the contrary much relieved at being dismissed from his heroic task, and thereafter the Priory saw him no more. Celia, who had been the bitterest in denunciation of his folly, even confessed to missing him. During his guard he had been quite useful in giving her horticultural advice and he had very kindly weeded three of the flower-beds for her, incidentally rooting up a cherished cutting of hydrangea, which he assured her would never flourish in such a spot.

It was not long, however, before they heard of Mr. Flinders' new activities, for Charles encountered Mr. Titmarsh in the village street, and Mr. Titmarsh, catching sight of the constable some way off, remarked fretfully that he did not know what had come over the fellow.

With a wonderful air of blandness Charles inquired the reason of this sudden remark. Mr. Titmarsh said with asperity that the constable was apparently running after his parlour-maid, since he was forever stumbling over him, either waiting by the gate or prowling round the house. "And apparently," said Mr. Titmarsh, "he thinks it necessary to enlist my sympathy by exhibiting a wholly untutored interest in my hobby. He has taken to bringing me common specimens- for my opinion, and last night when I was out with my net I found the man following me. Most irritating performance, and I fear I spoke a little roughly to him. However, it seems he is genuinely anxious to observe the methods I employ, and really it is of no use to lose one's temper with such a simple fellow."

When this was recounted to the others it afforded them considerable amusement, but when Peter said: "I never met such an ass in my life," Charles reproved him. "He's doing well," he said, selecting a walnut from the dish. "Much better than I expected. I admit his Boy Scout stunts are a little obvious, but look at his ready wit! When old Titmarsh discovered him in ambush, did his presence of mind desert him? Not at all. He said he wanted to look for moths too. That's what I call masterly."

"I think myself," said Mrs. Bosanquet, carefully rolling up her table-napkin, "that we were very wise to call him in. Not that I consider him efficient, for I do not, but ever since he took the matter in hand we have heard nothing out of the way in the house. No doubt whoever it was who caused us all the annoyance knows he is on the watch and will trouble us no more."

"No one could fail to know it," said Peter. "During the three days when he sojourned with us he so closely tracked and interrogated everyone who came to the house that the whole countryside must have known that we'd called him in. I'm beginning to feel positively sheepish about it. The villagers are all on the broad grin."

"I don't care what the villagers think," Celia said. "We did the only sensible thing. Other people don't grin. The Colonel told me he thought it was a very wise precaution."

"You didn't tell him why we did it, I hope?" Peter said.

"No, but I don't really see why we should keep it so dark. I merely said we'd heard noises, and Bowers was getting the wind-up so much that something had to be done."

"The reason why we should keep it dark," explained her brother patiently, is, as I've told you at least six times…'

"Seven," said Charles. "This makes the eighth. And I've told her three - no, let me see…'

"Shut up!" said Celia. "I know what you're going to say. If we tell one person he or she will repeat it, and it'll get round to the person who did it all. Well, why not?"

"I should be guided by what your husband says, my dear," said Mrs. Bosanquet. "The least said the better, I am sure. And if the Colonel's coming in to coffee and bridge with you this evening we had better move into the drawing-room, for he may arrive at any moment."

The party accordingly adjourned, and in a few minutes Bowers announced Colonel Ackerley.

"Upon my soul," the Colonel said, accepting the coffee Peter handed him, and a glass of old brandy, "I must say I hope you people won't allow yourselves to be scared away from the Priory. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have any neighbours." He bowed gallantly to Celia. "And such charming ones too." He sipped his liqueur. "It's a great boon to a lonely old bachelor like myself to be able to pop in for a quiet rubber in the evenings."

"Think how nice it is for us to have such a friendly neighbour," Celia smiled. "So often people who live in the country get stuffy, and won't call on newcomers till they've been in the place for years."

"Well, when one has knocked about the world as I have, one gets over all that sort of rubbish!" replied the Colonel. "Never had any use for stand-offishness. Aha, Miss Fortescue, I see you are preparing for the engagement. What do you say? Shall we two join forces and have our revenge on Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm?"

Margaret had swept the cards round in a semi-circle. "Yes, do let's!" she agreed. "We owe them one for our awful defeat last time we played. Shall we cut for seats?"

They took their places at the table, and as the cards were dealt the Colonel bethought himself of something, and said with his ready laugh: "By the way, what have you done with your watch-dog? Give you my word I was expecting him to pounce out on me at any moment, for I strolled across the park to get here."

"Oh, we've diverted him," Charles answered. "Our nerves wouldn't stand it any longer."

"Besides, he's done the trick," Celia said. "Bowers, whose faith in him is really touching, seems to be settling down quite happily. If I did this, I shall say a spade."

The game proceeded in silence for some time, but at the end of the rubber the Colonel reverted to the subject, and cocking a quizzical eyebrow in Charles' direction said: "By the by, Malcolm, have you been setting your sleuth on to old Titmarsh? Oh, you needn't mind telling me! I shan't give you away!"

"We had to get rid of him somehow," Peter said. "So we thought Titmarsh would keep him well occupied."

This seemed to amuse the Colonel considerably, but after his first outburst of laughter he said: "But you don't think old Titmarsh has been playing jokes on you, do you?"

"Not at all," said Peter. "It was our Mr. Flinders who thought he ought to be watched. All very providential."

"Well, if he discovers anything against the old boy, I'll eat my hat," the Colonel declared.

Shortly after eleven he took his leave of them, and in a little while the girls and Mrs. Bosanquet went up to bed. Having bolted the drawing-room windows, the men prepared to follow them, and in another hour the house was dark and silent.

Mrs. Bosanquet, who had been troubled lately with slight insomnia, was the only one of the party who failed to go to sleep. After lying awake for what seemed to her an interminable time she decided that the room was stuffy, and got up to open the window, which she still kept shut in case anyone should attempt to effect an entrance by that way. "But that is all put a stop to now," she told herself, as she climbed back into bed.

The opening of the window seemed to make matters worse. At the end of another twenty minutes sleep seemed farther off than ever. Mrs. Bosanquet felt for the matches on the table beside her bed, and lit her candle. She looked round for something to read, but since she was not in the habit of reading in bed there were no books in the room. It at once seemed to her imperative that she should read for a while, and she sat up, debating whether she should venture down to the library in search of a suitable book, or whether this simple act demanded more courage than she possessed. There was a tin of sweet biscuits in the library, she remembered, and the recollection made her realise that she was quite hungry. "Now I come to think of it," Mrs. Bosanquet informed the bedpost, "my dear mother used always to say that if one could not sleep it was a good plan to eat a biscuit. Though," she added conscientiously, "she did not in general approve of eating anything once one had brushed one's teeth for the night."

The tin of biscuits began to seem more and more desirable. Mrs. Bosanquet lay down again, sternly resolved to think of something else. But it was no use. Biscuits, very crisp and sweet, would not be banished from her mind, and at the end of another ten minutes Mrs. Bosanquet would have faced untold dangers to get one.

She got out of bed and put on her dressing-gown. It occurred to her that she might wake Peter, whose room was opposite hers, and ask him to go down to the library for her, but she dismissed this pusillanimous idea at once. Mrs. Bosanquet was a lady who prided herself upon her level-headedness; she did not believe in ghosts; and she would feel very much ashamed to think that anyone should suspect her of being too nervous to walk downstairs alone in the middle of the night.

"Nerves," Mrs. Bosanquet was in the habit of saying severely, "were never encouraged when I was young."

"I shall go quietly downstairs, get a biscuit to eat, and select a book from the shelves without disturbing anyone," she said firmly, and picked up her candle.

The lamp had been turned out in the passage, and since there was no moon the darkness seemed intense. Another woman might have paused, but Mrs. Bosanquet was not afraid of the dark. "What would alarm me," she reflected, "would be a light burning; for then I should know that someone was in the house."

But the ground-floor was as dark as the upper storey. Mrs. Bosanquet went cautiously downstairs with one hand on the baluster-rail, and the other holding her candle up. The stairs creaked annoyingly, and in the stillness each creak sounded abnormally loud. Mrs. Bosanquet murmured: 'Tut-tut!" to herself, and hoped that Celia would not be awakened by the noise.

The library door was ajar; she pushed it open, and went in. The biscuit-tin, she remembered, stood on a small table by the door, and she peered for it, blinking. Yes, there it was. She set the candle down and opened it, and slipped two of the biscuits into the pocket of her dressing-gown. She had quite recovered from her rather shame-faced feeling of trepidation, for no skulls had bounced at her feet, or anything else of such a disturbing nature. She picked up the candle again, and turned to the bookshelves that ran along the wall opposite the fireplace. It was very hard to see far by the light of one candle, and she knocked her shin on a chair as she moved across the room.

The difficulty was to find anything one wanted to read. She held the candle close up to the row of books, and slowly edged along in front of the shelves, surveying a most unpromising selection of titles. "Meditations on Mortality," read Mrs. Bosanquet. "Dear me, how gloomy. The Sermons of Dr Brimley. That might send me to sleep, but I really don't think… Tyndall on Light… Ah, this is better!" She came opposite a collection of novels, and reached up a hand to pull one down from the shelf. Then, just as her fingers had half-pulled the volume from its place an unaccountable feeling of dread seized her, and she stayed quite still, straining her ears to catch the least sound. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart, but it did not reassure her. Mrs. Bosanquet, who did not believe in nerves, knew that something was in the room with her.

"It's nonsense," she told herself. "Of course there isn't. Of course there isn't!" She forced herself to draw the book out from its place, but her unreasoning conviction grew. It seemed as though she dared not move or look round, but she knew that was absurd. "I've got to turn round," she thought. "It's all nonsense. There's nothing here. I can't stand like this all night. I must turn round."

Fearfully she began to edge towards the door. She found that it had become almost impossible to breathe, and realised that her terror was growing.

"It's always worse if one turns one's back on things," Mrs. Bosanquet thought. "Suppose it crept up behind me? Suppose I felt a hand touching me?"

The leap of her heart was choking her; she felt as though she might faint if she went on like this. She stopped, and very cautiously peered over her shoulder. There was nothing. Yet what was that vague, dark figure by the fireplace? Only the tall-backed arm-chair, of course. She was so sure of it that she took a step towards it, and lifted her candle to see more clearly.

The dark shape grew distinct in the tiny light. A cowled figure was standing motionless by the fireplace, and through the slits in the cowl two glittering eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Bosanquet. She stood as though paralysed, and even as she stared at it the figure moved, and glided towards her with one menacing hand stretched out like the talon of a bird of prey.

The spell broke. For the first time in her life Mrs. Bosanquet gave a wild, shrill scream, and crumpled up in a dead faint on the floor.

Chapter Six

Mrs. Bosanquet groped her way back to consciousness to find the room full of lamplight, and the rest of the family gathered solicitously about her. Someone had laid her upon the sofa, someone else was bathing her forehead with water, while a third held a bottle of smelling-salts to her nose. She opened her eyes, and looked up, blankly at first, into Celia's concerned face. She heard a voice saying: "It's all right: she's coming round," and by degrees her recollection came back to her. She opened her eyes again, and struggled up into a sitting posture, unceremoniously thrusting aside the smelling bottle and the brandy that Margaret was trying to give her. "Where is it?" she demanded, looking round her suspiciously.

"Where is what, Aunt Lilian?" Celia said soothingly. "Are you feeling better now?"

"I am perfectly well. No, my dear child, I never touch spirits. Where did it go? Did you see it?"

Celia patted her hand. "No, dear, we didn't see anything. I woke up, hearing you scream, and when we got downstairs we found you had fainted. Did you feel ill in the night, Aunt, or what?"

"I came to get a book and a biscuit," Mrs. Bosanquet replied. "Was there no one but myself in the room?"

"Why no, darling, how should there be? Did you think you saw someone?"

"Think!" said Mrs. Bosanquet indignantly. "Do you suppose I should scream for help merely because I thought I saw someone? I did see it, as plainly as I can see you."

Charles came forward, ousting his wife from her place by the invalid's side. "What did you see, Aunt Lilian?" he asked. "Do you feel well enough to tell us about it?"

"Certainly I am well enough to tell you," she said. "My dears, it is all perfectly true, and I am not ashamed to own that I have been wrong. The house is haunted, and the first thing to be done in the morning is to summon the Vicar."

Celia gave a gasp of horror, and clasped her brother's arm nervously. "Oh, what have you seen?" she cried.

Mrs. Bosanquet took the glass of water from Margaret, and drank some. "I have seen the Monk!" she said dramatically.

"Good Lord!" Peter exclaimed. "You haven't really, have you? Are you sure you didn't imagine it?"

A withering glance was cast at him. "It is true that I so far forgot myself as to scream, and faint, but I can assure you, my dear Peter, that I am not such a fool that I would imagine such a thing. It was standing almost exactly where you are now, and it began to move towards me, with its arm stretched out as though it were pointing at me."

Celia shuddered, and looked round fearfully. Just what did it look like?" Charles asked quietly.

"Like a monk," said Mrs. Bosanquet. "It had a cowl over its face, and I trust I am not a fanciful woman, but there was something indescribably menacing and horrible about it. I can see its eyes now."

"Where?" shrieked Celia, clutching Peter again.

"In my mind's eye. Don't be foolish, my dear, it is not here now. Its robe was black, and so were its hands - at least the one that pointed at me was. I daresay I am stupid, but that seemed to me to make it even more unnerving."

Charles turned quickly towards Peter. "That settles it! Gloves! Now how did he make his get-away?"

"Almost any way," Peter said. "He'd have had plenty of time to get across the hall before any of us reached the stairs."

"It is no use being obstinate about it," Mrs. Bosanquet said. "It was no man,, but an apparition. I am now convinced of the existence of such things. Perhaps it was sent to open my eyes."

"All dressed up in a Dominican habit and black gloves," said Charles. "I hardly think so. Take a look at the front door, Peter."

"Bolted, and the chain in position. I happened to notice. What about this window?"

Charles strode across to it, and flung back the curtains. "It's bolted - no, by Jove, it's not!" He turned to Bowers, who up till now had been a scared auditor. "Bowers, do you remember if you bolted this to-night?"

Bowers shook his head. "No, sir. At least, I don't think so. Begging your pardon, sir, but the mistress always likes it left open till you go up to bed. I thought you bolted it."

"That's right," Peter said. "And to-night we sat in the drawing-room. That's how it got forgotten. Cheer up, Aunt Lilian! What you saw was someone dressed up to give you a fright, and that's how he got in."

"No, my dear, you are wrong," Mrs. Bosanquet said firmly. "It had no need of doors or windows. For all we know it is still present, though now invisible."

Celia gave one moan of horror, and implored Charles to take her back to town at once.

"I think we'd all better go back to bed for the rest of the night, and discuss it in the morning," Charles said. "I don't see that we shall do much good trying to search the garden now. We'll bolt this window, though. And what about having Margaret to sleep in your room, Aunt? Would you prefer it?"

"Not at all," she replied. "If it re-appeared, Margaret would be of no assistance to me, or any of you. I shall go quietly up, and to sleep, for I feel I shall not see it again to-night."

On account of the night's disturbance breakfast was put back next morning for an hour, but contrary to everyone's expectations Mrs. Bosanquet was the first down. When Celia, Margaret, and Peter appeared they found her looking as placid as ever, and reading the morning paper. "Good morning, my dears," she said, laying the paper down. "I see there has been fresh trouble in China. I feel one has so much to be thankful for in not being Chinese."

"Darling Aunt Lilian!" said Margaret, twinkling. "You really are a marvellous person!"

"On the contrary I fear I am a very ordinary one. And why you should think so merely because I remarked…'

"Oh, I didn't! But after what you went through last night I wonder you can be so calm."

"I lay awake and thought about that for some time after you had left me," said Mrs. Bosanquet. "Do you know, I have come to the conclusion that I behaved very foolishly?"

Celia looked up hopefully. "Do you mean you may have imagined it after all?"

"No, my dear, certainly not. I am not at all imaginative. In fact, your uncle used very often to say I was too mundane. But then he was extremely imaginative himself, and could tell the most entertaining stories, as I daresay you remember."

"Then how did you behave foolishly?" asked Peter, helping himself from one of the dishes on the sideboard.

"In screaming in that uncontrolled manner. I realise now that my proper course would have been to have challenged the apparition, and commanded it to tell me what it wanted. For, on thinking it over, I am convinced it manifested itself for some good purpose. Thank you, Peter, yes, I will have an egg." She began to tap the shell briskly. "It is obviously an unquiet spirit, and when you consider that it no doubt belongs to the remains you discovered in that very nasty, airless little cupboard, one can hardly wonder at it."

"I do wish you wouldn't, Aunt!" begged Celia. "Even in broad daylight you give me the creeps."

"Then you are being very silly, dear child. Good morning, Charles. I hope you slept well to make up for your loss of sleep earlier in the night."

Charles took his seat at the head of the table. "I am grateful for the inquiry, Aunt, but no, I didn't. I might have, but for the fact that I was constrained to get up three times; once to look under the bed, once to open the wardrobe, once to demonstrate to your niece that the noise she persistently heard was the wind rustling the creeper outside the window."

"Well, I'm sorry, darling," Celia said, "but after what happened you can't be surprised that I was nervous."

"Surprise, my love," responded her husband, "was not the emotion I found myself a prey to."

"Perhaps it'll convince you that the only thing to do is to go back to town this very day," Celia said pleadingly.

"I confess that a prospect of any more such nights doesn't attract me," said Charles. "But what's the opinion of Aunt Lilian?"

"I was about to say, when you came in," answered Mrs. Bosanquet, "that I have considered the matter very carefully, and come to the conclusion that we should be doing wrong to leave the Priory."

Charles paused in the act of conveying a piece of toast from his plate to his mouth, and stared at her. "Well, I'm damned!" he said inelegantly. "Give me some coffee, Celia: I must drink Aunt Lilian's health."

"Very wrong indeed," nodded Mrs. Bosanquet. "Perhaps we have it in our power to set the ghost free. It probably wants us to do something, and to that end it has been endeavouring to attract our notice."

"I see," said Charles gravely. "And probably it can't make out why we all seem so shy of it. I wonder how it'll try to - er - attract our notice next? It's already knocked a picture down, and thrown a skull at our feet, and made you faint. It must be getting quite disheartened at our failure to appreciate the true meaning of these little attentions."

"It is all very well for you to make a mock of such things, Charles," Mrs. Bosanquet said with dignity, "but I am perfectly serious. So much so that I am determined to do my best to get into communication with it. And since Margaret is going to town on Thursday to see her dentist I shall ask her to call at my flat, and request Parker to give her my planchette board, which is in the old brown trunk in the lobby."

Celia was regarding her in fascinated horror. "Are you really proposing to sit with a planchette in this house?" she asked faintly.

"Not only I, my dear, but all of us. We sit round in a circle, laying the tips of our fingers on the board, and wait for some message to be transcribed."

"Nothing," said Celia vehemently, "would induce me to take part in any such proceeding! The whole thing's bad enough as it is without us trying to invoke the Monk."

"Very well," said Mrs. Bosanquet, not in the least ruffled, "if that is how you feel about it it would be no good your attempting to sit with us. But I for one shall certainly make the attempt."

"This means you won't go back to town!" Celia said unhappily. "I knew what it would be! No, don't tell me I can go without you, Charles. I may be a bad wife, and wake you up to look in the wardrobe in the small hours, but I am not such a bad wife that I'd go away and leave you with a ghost and a planchette."

"I wish you would go back to town, old lady," Charles said. "I don't mean that I don't appreciate this selfimmolating heroism, but it's no use scaring yourself, and nothing dire is at all likely to happen to me. If I thought there was any danger," he added handsomely, "you should stay and share it with me."

"Thanks," said Celia. "I might have known you'd joke about it. I don't know whether there's what you call danger, but if you're going to ask for trouble by putting your hands on Aunt's horrible planchette I shan't leave your side for one moment."

"Cheer up!" Charles said. "I don't mind giving the board a shove to please Aunt Lilian, but last night has completely convinced me that the Monk is as real as you are. In fact, if Margaret is going to town on Thursday she can rout out my service revolver, and the cartridges she'll find with it, and bring them back with her."

"If you think that I should be pleased by you deliberately pushing the board, you are sadly mistaken," said Mrs. Bosanquet severely. "Moreover, I have the greatest objection to fire-arms, and if you propose to let off guns at all hours of the day I shall be obliged to go back to London."

She was with difficulty appeased, and only a promise extracted from Charles not to fire any lethal weapon without due warning soothed her indignation. Breakfast came to an end, and after Celia had had a heart-to-heart talk with her husband, and Margaret hadd begged Peter not to do anything rash, such as shooting at vague figures seen in the dark, the two men left the house, ostensibly to fish.

"What we are going to do now," said Charles, "is to carry on some investigations on our own."

"Then we'd better drift along to the Bell," said Peter. "We may as well put in some fishing till opening time, though. If you want to pump old Wilkes you won't find him up yet."

Charles consulted his watch. "I make it half-past ten."

"I daresay you do, but friend Wilkes takes life easy. He's never visible at this hour. Not one of our early risers.

"All right then," Charles said. "We might fish the near stream for a bit."

Sport, however, proved poor that morning, and shortly before twelve they decided to give up, and stroll on towards the inn. They were already within a few minutes' walk of it, and they arrived before the bar was open.

"Have you been into the courtyard yet?" Peter asked. "You ought to see that. Real Elizabethan work; you can almost imagine miracles and moralities being played there. Come on." He led the way through an arch in the middle of the building, and they found themselves in a cobbled yard, enclosed by the house. A balcony ran all round the first storey, and various bedroom windows opened on to this. A modern garage occupied the end of the building opposite the archway into the street, but Mr. Wilkes had had this built in keeping with the rest of the inn, and had placed his petrol pump as inconspicuously as possible. Some clipped yews in wooden tubs stood in the yard, and the whole effect was most picturesque. Having inspected the older part of the house, and ascertained that the original structure did indeed date from the fourteenth century, they wandered into the garage, which they found stood where the old stables had once been. Michael Strange's two-seater was standing just inside the entrance and one of the garage hands was washing it down. Charles, under pretext of examining the car, soon fell into easy conversation with the man, and leaving him to extract what information he could, Peter strolled off to where he could hear the throb of an engine at work. He had some knowledge of such machines, and a great deal of interest. He easily located the engine-room, went in, leaving the door open behind him, and found, as he had thought, that the engine drove the electric light plant. No one was there, and the first thing that struck him was the size of the plant. Puzzled, he stood looking at it, wondering why such a powerful machine and such a large plant had been installed for the mere purpose of supplying light for the inn. He was just about to inspect it more closely when someone came hurriedly into the room behind him.

"Oo's in 'ere?" demanded a sharp voice.

Peter turned to find Spindle, the barman, at his elbow. The man looked annoyed, but when he saw whom he was addressing he curbed his testiness, and said more mildly: "Beg pardon, sir, but no one's allowed inside this 'ere engine-room."

"That's all right," said Peter. "I shan't meddle with it. I was just wondering why…'

"I'm sorry, sir, but orders is orders, and I shall 'ave to ask you to come out. If the boss was to 'ear about me leaving the door unlocked I should get into trouble." He had edged himself round Peter, obscuring his view of the plant, and now tried to crowd him out. Somewhat surprised Peter gave way, and backed into the yard again.

"You seem to be afraid I shall upset it. What's the matter?" he said.

Spindle was locking the door of the place, and until he had pocketed the key he did not answer. Then he said: "It's not that, sir, but we 'ave to be careful. You wouldn't believe the number of young fellers we've 'ad go in and start messin' about with the plant, to see 'ow it worked. Cost Mr. Wilkes I wouldn't like to say 'ow much money to 'ave it put right once, sir. Not that I mean you'd go for to 'urt it, but I've 'ad me orders, and it's as much as my place is worth to let anyone in."

"Oh, all right," said Peter, still surprised at the man's evident perturbation. "But why has Wilkes installed such a large plant? Surely it's generating far more electricity than you can possibly use?"

"I couldn't say, sir, I'm sure. And begging your pardon, sir, it's opening time, and I've got to get back to me work." He touched his forehead as he spoke and scuttled off into the inn again, leaving Peter to stare after him in still greater bewilderment.

Charles came across the yard from the garage. "Did I hear certain magic words? I move that we repair to the bar forthwith. What have you been up to?"

"I went to look at the electric-light plant, only that ass, Spindle, hustled me out before I'd had time to see much. I must ask Wilkes about it."

Charles groaned. "Must you? I mean, we didn't come to talk about amps and dynamos, and I know from bitter experience that once you get going on that soul-killing topic…'

"I want to know why Wilkes has got such a powerful plant. I hadn't time to look closely, but from what I could see of it it was generating enough electricity to light the whole village."

"Well, perhaps it does," Charles suggested. "Can we get into the bar without going back into the street?"

"Yes, through the coffee-room." Peter opened a door which led into a dark little passage, with kitchens giving on to it. At the end of the passage was the coffee-room, and they walked through this to the frosted glass door that opened into the taproom itself.

There was no one but Spindle in the taproom when they entered, but they had hardly given their orders when Wilkes came in from his private sanctum, and bade them a cheery good morning.

"Hullo, Wilkes! Just up?" Peter twitted him.

The landlord smiled good humouredly. "Now, sir, now! You will have your joke. Two half-cans was it? Come on, Spindle, look alive! There you are, sir!" He seized the tankards from his henchman, and planked them down in front of his guests.

"Very quiet this morning, aren't you?" Charles said.

"Well, we're only just open, sir. They'll start coming in presently. I see you've been fishing. Bad weather for it today."

"Rotten. No luck at all." Charles took a draught of beer. "How's business with you?"

"So-so, sir, so-so. We get a fair sprinkling of car people in to lunch, but there's not many as stays the night."

"I see Mr. Strange is still here."

"Yes, sir, he's here. And there's Miss Crowslay and Miss Williams, down for their usual fortnight, and Mr. Ffolliot. Artists, sir, great place for artists and such-like, this is."

"Still got your commercial?"

"In a manner of speaking I suppose I have, but he's one of them as is here today and gone tomorrow, if you know what I mean. Well, it's the nature of his business, I daresay, but I'd rather have someone more regular, so to speak. That Mr. Fripp, well, you never know where you are with himm because some days he has to go off and spend the night away, and others he's back to supper when you wasn't expecting him. However, as my missus was saying only this morning, it's all in the way of business, and I'm sure times are that bad I'm glad to get anyone staying in the house."

Peter put down his tankard. "I say, Wilkes, what's the meaning of that monstrous electric plant you've got outside? You can't need a thing that size, surely?"

The landlord coughed, and looked rather sheepish. "I'm sorry you've seen that, Mr. Fortescue, sir."

"Yes, but why? Spindle pushed me out before I'd time to do more than glance at the thing. He seemed in a great way about it."

Spindle looked deprecatingly at the landlord, and withdrew to the other end of the bar.

"Spindle's a fool, sir," said Mr. Wilkes, not mincing matters. "Though mind you, you wouldn't hardly believe the number of people there are that ain't to be trusted anywhere near a delicate bit of machinery. I do have to be strict, and that's a fact. Of course, I know you're different, sir, and that's why I'm sorry you saw it." He went through the form of wiping down the bar, which seemed to be a habit with him. "You see, sir, in a manner of speaking I was a bit had over that plant."

"I should think you were," Peter said. "You could supply the whole village with it."

"Well, I don't know about that, sir," Mr. Wilkes said cautiously. "It ain't such a powerful machine as what it looks. Still, I don't deny it's bigger nor what I want. Not but what we use a lot of power here. Because, mind you, I had the whole place wired for heating as well, there not being any gas laid on, and then there's the refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners and what not."

"Rot!" Peter said, "you don't need a plant that size for the amount of electricity you use in heating."

Mr. Wilkes once more wiped down the bar. "True enough, sir, I don't. But when I took over this house I don't mind telling you I hadn't ever had anything to do with electric plants, me having always lived in a town. I didn't know no more about it than what half the young gentlemen do, who try and meddle with it. And I did have a notion to run a laundry off it, just by way of a sidebusiness, as you might call it. So what with one thing and another I let myself be talked into putting up a plant that cost me a mint of money, and ain't, between ourselves, as cheap to run as what the smooth-tongued fellow that sold it me said it would be. Excuse me, sir, half a moment!" He hurried away to attend to a farmer who had come in, and Charles and Peter went to sit down at a table in the window.

The taproom began to fill up, and soon there were quite a number of people in it. They were mostly villagers, and there was no sign of Strange, or his odd associate. But a few minutes before one o'clock a man came in who was obviously no farm-hand. He attracted Peter's attention at once, but this was not surprising, since his appearance and conduct were alike out of the ordinary. Artist was stamped unmistakably upon him. His black hair was worn exceedingly long; he had a carelessly tied, very flowing piece of silk round his neck; his fingers were stained with paint; he had a broadbrimmed hat crammed on to his head; and was the owner of a pointed beard.

"Good Lord, I thought that type went out with the 'Nineties!" murmured Peter.

The artist walked rather unsteadily up to the bar, and leaning sideways across it, said with a distinct foreign accent: "Whisky. Double."

Wilkes had watched his approach frowningly, and he now hesitated, and said something in a low voice. The artist smote his open hand down on the bar, and said loudly: 'My friend, you give me what I say. You think I am drunk, hein? Well, I am not drunk. You see? You give me…'

"All right, Mr. Dooval," Wilkes said hastily. "No offence I hope."

"You give me what I say," insisted M. Duval. "I paint a great picture. So great a picture the world will say, why do we not hear of this Louis Duval?" He took the glass Wilkes handed him, and drained it at one gulp. "Another. And when I have painted this picture, then I tell you I have finished with everything but my art." He stretched out a hand that shook slightly towards his glass. His eye wandered round the room: his voice sank to the grumbling tone of the partially intoxicated. "I will be at no man's call. No, no: that is over when I have paint my picture. You hear?"

Mr. Wilkes seemed to be trying to quieten him by asking some questions about the picture he was painting.

"It is not for such as you," M. Duval said. "What have the English to do with art? Bah, you do not know what feelings I have in me, here…' He struck his chest. "To think I must be with you, and those others - canaille!"

"Gentleman seems a little peevish," remarked Charles, sotto voce.

His voice, though not his words, seemed to reach Mr. Duval's ears, for he turned, and stared hazily across the room. A smile that closely resembled a leer curled his mouth, and picking up his glass he made his way between the tables to the window, and stood leaning his hand on the back of a chair, and looking down at Charles. "So! The gentleman who dares to live in the haunted house, not?" He shook with laughter, and raising his glass unsteadily, said: "Voyons! a toast! Le Moine!"

Charles was watching him under frowning brows. He went on chuckling to himself, and his eyes travelled from Charles' face to Peter's. "You do not drink? You do not love him, our Monk?" He pulled the chair he held out from the table, and collapsed into it. "Eh bien! You do not speak then? You do not wish to talk of Le Moine? Perhaps you have seen him, no?" He paused; he was sprawling half-way across the table, and the foolish look in his eyes was replaced by a keener more searching gleam. "But you have not seen his face," he said with a strange air of quite sudden seriousness. "There is no one has ever seen his face, not even I, Louis Duval!"

"Quite so," said Charles. "I haven't. Do you want to?"

A look of cunning crept into the artist's face. He smiled again, a slow, evil smile that showed his discoloured teeth. "I do not tell you that. Oh, no! I do not tell you that, my friend. But this I tell you: you will never see his face, but you will go away from that house which is his, that house where he goes, glissant, up and down the stairs, though you do not see, where he watches you, though you do not know. Yes, you will go. You will go." He fell to chuckling again.

"Why should we go?" Peter asked calmly. "We're not afraid of ghosts, you know!"

The artist swayed with his insane giggling. "But Le Moine is not like other ghosts, my friend. Ah non, he is not - like - other ghosts!"

The landlord had crossed the room, and now threw an apologetic glance at Peter. But he spoke to the artist. "You'd like your usual table, moossoo, wouldn't you? You'll take your lunch in the coffee-room, I daresay, and there's as nice a leg of lamb waiting as ever I saw."

The artist turned on him with something of a snarl. "Away, cattle! You think you can tell me what I shall do and what I shall not do, but it is not so!"

"I'm sure, sir, I never had no such idea, but your lunch'll be spoiled if you don't come to eat it, and I've got some of the green peas cooked the French way you like."

"I do not eat in this plaice, where you cook food fit for pigs. Yes, you wish that I go, but I do not go till I choose, and you dare not speak, my gross one, for me. I am Louis Duval, and there is not another in the world can do what I do! Is it not so? Hein? Is it not so?"

The landlord had an ugly look in his eye, but to Charles' and Peter's surprise he said soothingly: "That's right, sir. Wonderful your pictures are."

M. Duval looked at him through half-shut eyes; his voice sank; he said almost in a whisper: "Sometimes I have thoughts in my head, gross pig, which you do not dream. Sometimes I think to myself, has no one seen the face of Le Moine? Has not Wilkes seen it? Eh? You do not like that, perhaps. Perhaps, too, you are afraid, just a little afraid of poor Louis Duval."

"Me seen it?" echoed the landlord. "Lor', Mr. Dooval, I'm thankful I haven't, and that's a fact. Now you give over talking of spooks, sir, do. You've got half the room listening to you, like silly fools, and these gentlemen don't want to hear them sort of stories."

Contrary to Peter's expectations the drunken artist allowed himself to be helped out of his chair, and gently propelled across the bar to the coffee-room door. Those villagers who still remained in the bar watched his exit with grins and nudges. When he had disappeared, and Wilkes with him, Peter addressed a solid-looking farmer who was seated near to him. "Who's that chap?" he asked.

"He's a furriner, sir," the farmer answered. "An artist. I daresay you've seen his cottage, for it ain't far from the Priory."

"Oh, he lives here, does he? Which is his cottage?"

"Why, sir, it's that white cottage with the garden in front that's a sin and shame to look at, it's that covered in weeds." He began to sketch with a stubby finger on the table before him. "Supposing the Priory's here, sir, where I've put my thumb. Well, you go on down the road, like as if you was coming to the village, and there's a bit of a lane leading off a matter of a quarter of a mile from this inn. You go up there not more'n a hundred yards, and you come right on the cottage. That's where he lives."

"I see. Yes, I know the place. Has he lived there long?"

The farmer rubbed his ear. "I don't know as I could rightly say how long he's been here. Not more'n five years, I reckon. We've kind of got used to him and his ways, and I never heard he did anyone any harm, bar walking over fields while the hay is standing. Mind you, it ain't so often you see him like he is to-day. He gets fits of it, so to speak. Now I come to think on it, it hasn't had a bout on him for a matter of three months. But whenever he gets like this he goes round maundering that silly stuff you heard. Enough to get on your nerves it is, but he's fair got the Priory ghost on the brain." He got up as he spoke, and wishing them a polite good-day, made his way out.

"Quite interesting," Charles said. "I think it's time we made a move."

On their way home down the right-of-way they talked long and earnestly over all that the drunken artist had said.

"It is well known," Charles said at last, "that you can't set much store by what a drunken man may say, but on the other hand it's always on the cards that he'll let out something he didn't mean to. I feel that M. Louis Duval may be worth a little close investigation."

"What surprised me," Peter remarked, "was the way Wilkes bore with him. I expected to, see Duval kicked out."

"If he's in the habit of eating his meals at the Bell you can understand Wilkes humouring him. And apparently he's not always tight by any means. The most intriguing thing about him was his interest in the Monk. I don't know what you feel about it, but I should say he knew a bit about monks."

"I'm all for getting on his tracks," Peter answered. "At the same time, he was so dam' fishy and mysterious that I'm inclined to think it was a bit too sinister to mean anything. Think he is the Monk?"

"Can't say. If I knew what the Monk was after I should find this problem easier to solve."

They walked on for some time in silence. Peter broke it by saying suddenly: "I don't know. It was typical drunken rot when you come to think of it. All that stuff about the Monk walking up and downstairs though we don't see him, and watching us though we don't know it. You can't get much sense out of that. Ghost-twaddle."

"I was thinking of something else he said," Charles said slowly. "I'd rather like to know what he meant by no one ever having seen the Monk's face, not even himself. That wasn't quite the usual ghost-talk we hear in this place."

"N-no. But I'm not sure that it's likely to lead anywhere. Still, I agree he wants looking into."

They had reached the Priory by this time, and agreeing to say nothing of the morning's encounter to the others they went in, and found the three women already seated at the lunch-table.

"Did you have any luck?" Margaret asked.

"No, there's too much sun," Peter answered. He paused in the act of helping himself to salad, and lifted his head. "What's the strange noise?"

There was a distinct and rather unpleasant sound of humming that seemed to proceed from somewhere above. Margaret laughed. "Ask Celia. She let us in for it."

They looked inquiringly at her. "Sounds like a vacuum cleaner or something," said Charles.

"It is," Celia confessed. "I couldn't help it, though. Really, he was so persistent I hadn't the heart to go on saying no."

"I think it's a very good plan," said Mrs. Bosanquet. "I'm sure there must be a great deal of dust in all the carpets, and this will save having them taken up, which I was going to suggest."

"But what do you mean?" Peter demanded. "We've no electricity here, so how can you…'

"Oh, it isn't an electric one! It's some new sort of patent affair, but I really didn't pay much attention, because I've no intention of buying it. Only the man was so anxious to show me the amount of dust it would draw out of the carpets and chairs that I let him demonstrate. After all, it's costing us nothing, and it seems to please him."

"A man, with a vacuum-cleaner for sale," Charles repeated. "A man…' He looked at Peter, and as though by common consent they both got up.

"Well, what on earth's the matter?" Celia asked. "You don't mind, do you?"

"I'm not at all sure," said Charles. "I'll tell you when I've seen this clever salesman." He threw down his tablenapkin, and went quickly out of the room, and up the stairs. The droning noise came from Mrs. Bosanquet's room, and he went in. Busily engaged in running a cleaner over the floor was the shifty-eyed commercial staying at the Bell Inn.

Chapter Seven

For a moment they eyed one another in silence. Then the man with the vacuum-cleaner said: "Good morning, sir. I wonder whether I can interest you in this here cleaner? No electric power required. Practically works itself, needing only the 'and to guide it. Like this, sir, if you will kindly watch what I do." He began to run it over the carpet, still talking volubly. "You can see for yourself, sir, "ow easy to work this here cleaner is. Sucks up every speck of dust, but does not take off the nap of the carpet, which is a thing as can't be said of every cleaner on the market. We claim that with this here cleaner we 'ave done away with all servant trouble. Cheap to buy, and costs nothing to run. I will now demonstrate to you, sir, what it has done, by turning out the dust at present contained in this bag, which you see attached to the cleaner. All of which dust, sir, "as been sucked out of this very carpet."

"Don't trouble," said Charles. "I'm not buying it."

The little man smiled tolerantly. "No, sir? Well I don't know as how I should expect a gentleman to be interested in this here cleaner, not but what I 'ave sold to bachelors many a time. But I hope when your good lady sees the dust and dirt which this here cleaner has extracted from all carpets, upholstered chairs, curtains, and etcetera, she'll be tempted to give me an order, which the firm which I 'ave the honour to represent will execute with their custom'ry dispatch."

"And what is the name of the firm you have the honour to represent?" Charles inquired blandly.

If he expected the invader to be embarrassed he was disappointed.

"Allow me, sir!" beamed the little man, and inserting a finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket he drew out a card, which he handed to Charles.

It was an ordinary trade-card, bearing the name and address of a firm in the city, and purporting to belong to a Mr. James Fripp.

""That's me name, sir," explained Mr. Fripp, pointing it out. "And I 'ope that when ordering you will 'ave the goodness to mention it, supposing I can't tempt you to give me an order now, which I 'ope I shall do when you 'ave seen for yourself that this here cleaner is all that we claim it to be."

Charles put the card carefully into his pocket-book. "We'll see," he said. "Do I understand that you propose to clean all the rooms of the house for us?"

"I'm sure I shall be pleased to, sir, but if you're satisfied, "awing seen what 'as been effected under your own eye…

"Oh no!" Charles said pleasantly. "For all I know it might break down before it had gone over half the house." Mr. Fripp looked reproachful. "This here cleaner," he said, "is constructed in such a way that it can't go wrong. I should mention that we give a year's guarantee with it, as is usual. But I shall be pleased to take it over every room in the 'ouse, to convince you, sir, of the truth of all I say."

"Excellent," said Charles. "And in case I make up my mind to buy it I'll send my man up to watch you, so that he will know in future how to manipulate it."

"That," said Mr. Fripp, "is as you like, sir, but I should like to assure you that a child could work this here cleaner."

"Nevertheless," said Charles, stepping to the bell-rope, and jerking it sharply, "I should like Bowers to - observe what you do."

Those quick-glancing eyes darted to his face for an instant. "I'm sure I shall be pleased to show him all I can, sir," Mr. Fripp said, not quite so enthusiastically.

Charles' smile was a little grim. When Bowers appeared in answer to the bell, he told him that he was to accompany Mr. Fripp from room to room, and closely to watch all he did. Mr. Fripp looked at him sideways.

"Yes, sir," Bowers said, a trifle perplexed. "But I haven't served the sweet yet, sir."

"Never mind," said Charles. "We'll manage on our own. You stay with Mr. Fripp — in case his cleaner goes out of action. And just see that he doesn't knock the panelling with it. We don't want any scratches."

"No, sir, very good," Bowers said, and resigned himself to his fate.

But the look that Mr. Fripp cast on Charles' vanishing form was one of something bordering on acute dislike.

In the dining-room Charles was greeted by a demand from his wife to explain what on earth was the matter with him.

"If," said Charles, resuming his seat, "you would occasionally employ your brain, dear love, you might realise that the last thing we desire is a stranger let loose in the house. Oh, and if anyone wants any pudding he or she will have to get it for themselves, as Bowers is otherwise engaged."

"It's on the sideboard," Celia said. "But really, Chas, I don't quite see what harm a man selling a vacuumcleaner can do. And I asked him for his card, just to be on the safe side."

"Was it our friend at the Bell?" Peter asked.

"It was. I am happy to think that I've given him a nice, solid afternoon's work." He inspected Mr. Fripp's card again. "Yes. I think this is where one calls for a little outside assistance."

Celia pricked up her ears. "Not Flinders again!" she begged.

"No, not Flinders," Charles said. "I should be loth to interrupt his entomological studies. But I feel a few discreet inquiries might be put through."

"If you're going to call in Scotland Yard, I for one object," Peter said. "We've no data for them, and they'll merely think us credulous asses."

Charles slipped his table-napkin into its ring, and got up. "I can hardly improve on the favourite dictum of Mr. Flinders," he said with dignity. "You don't need to tell me how to act."

"Well, what are you going to do?" Margaret asked.

"Write a letter," Charles answered, and went out.

Peter presently ran him to earth in the small study at the front of the house. "Why the mystery?" he inquired. "Are you getting an inquiry agent on to James Fripp?"

"I am," Charles said, directing the envelope. "There's a chap I've once or twice had dealings with who'll do the job very well."

"What about Strange? Think it's worth while setting your sleuth on him?"

"I did consider it, but I think not. As far as Fripp's concerned it ought to be fairly easy, since I've got his card. Brown can get on to this firm he apparently works for. But regarding Strange we've nothing to give Brown to start on. If he's a wrong 'un it's highly unlikely that Strange is his real name. The man we want now is friend Flinders."

Peter groaned. "Do we? Why?"

"To find out a little more concerning M. Louis Duval. I'm rather surprised Flinders hasn't mentioned him."

But the reason for this omission was soon forthcoming. Flinders, when they visited him in his cottage later that afternoon, said with considerable hauteur that they had only asked him questions about the gentry. "And that Dooval," he added, "ain't gentry, besides being a furriner. You've only got to look at the place he lives in. Pig-sty ain't in it. What's more, he does for himself. Ah, and in more ways than one!" He permitted himself to give vent to a hoarse crack of laughter at his own wit. "But what I meant was, he doesn't have no one up to clean the place for hirn, nor cook his breakfast." He shook his head. "He's a disgrace to the neighbourhood, that's what he is. He goes round painting them pictures what no one can make 'ead nor tail of as I ever heard on, and half the time he's drunk as a lord. Getting worse, he is. Why, I remember when he first come here, barring the fact of his being a furriner, there wasn't really much you could take exception to about him. Very quiet, he used to be, and you never saw him in drink more'n was respectable, though there are some as say that it ain't only drink as is his trouble."

"Drugs?" Charles said. "I rather suspected as much."

"Mind you, I never said so," Mr. Flinders warned him, "nor I wouldn't, me knowing my duty too well. But Mrs. Fellowes, what I told you about before - her as is housekeeper to Mr. Titmarsh - she spread it about that Dooval was one of those dope-fiends you read about in the News of the World. And the reason she had for saying it was on account of her working for a gentleman in London once, what was in the 'abit of taking drugs, which she said made her reckernise it right off."

"By the way," Peter interrupted, "how is Mr. Titmarsh getting on?"

The constable shook his head. "Ah, now you're asking, sir. Well, I don't mind telling you that when you first came here asking me questions about him, I didn't set much store by it. But I been keeping a close watch on him, sir, like I said I would, and I'm bound to say he's fishy."

"What's he done?"

""That," said Mr. Flinders cautiously, "I couldn't go so far as to say, him having got into the habit of giving me the slip. Behaves like as if he knew he was being followed, and didn't wish for anyone to see what he was up to." An odd sound proceeding from Charles made him turn his head inquiringly. "You was saying, sir?"

"Nothing," Charles replied hastily. "At the moment I'm more interested in Duval than in Titmarsh. Does Duval go down to the inn every morning?"

"He eats his dinner there most days," Flinders answered. "Though when he's got one of his fits on him I. don't believe he touches a bite. You'll see him at the Bell most evenings, but he's painting one of these 'orrible pictures of his now, and he's out most of the day."

"What's he painting?" Charles asked.

"Pink rats, I should think, sir, judging from what I see of hire last night," said the constable facetiously. "What's more, if he told me he was painting pink rats I'd believe him a lot easier than what I do when he says he's painting the mill-stream. Because anything more unnatural I never did see. Looks like a nightmare, if you ask me."

"The mill-stream. That's past the village, isn't it?"

"That's right, sir. If you was to think of taking a look at the picture you'll find him painting it on the near bank, just below the mill."

"I rather think I'll wander along that way," Charles said.

"I take it you don't want me?" Peter asked him.

"N-no. Might perturb him if two of us rolled up. I'll see what I can find out."

They took their leave of the constable, and drove on to the village. At the Bell, Charles got out of the car and proceeded on foot down the street to the fields that lay beyond.

It was no more than a ten minutes' walk to the mill, and as Flinders had predicted, Charles was rewarded by the sight of M. Duval at work on his sketch.

Charles approached from behind him, and thus had leisure to observe the artist before his own presence was detected. The man looked more of a scarecrow than ever, but if he was under the influence of drink or drugs this was not immediately apparent. He seemed to be absorbed in his work, and it was not until Charles stopped at his elbow that he looked round.

There was suspicion in his nervous start, and he glared up at Charles out of his bloodshot eyes.

"Good afternoon," Charles said pleasantly. "I apologise for being so inquisitive. If I may say so, you are painting a very remarkable picture."

This was no less than the truth. Privately Charles thought that Flinders' strictures were not without reason. The sketch before him was weird in the extreme, yet although it couldd hardly be said to represent the old mill, even Charles, no connoisseur, could see that it was executed with a certain perverted skill.

The artist sneered, and said disagreeably: "What do you English know of art? Nothing, I tell you!"

"I'm afraid you're right," Charles agreed. "But this, I take it, is not destined for our Academy? You exhibit in the Salon, no doubt?"

This piece of flattery found its mark. "It is true," M. Duval said. "With this picture, my chef-d'oeuvre, I make my name. The world will know me at last." The momentary fire died out of his face. He shrugged, and said with a return to his sullen manner: "But how should you appreciate a work of genius?"

"What strikes me particularly," Charles persevered, "is your treatment of shadows. In fact…'

"I see them red," M. Duval said sombrely. "Dull red."

"Very few people have the eye to see them like that," said Charles truthfully.

He soon found that no flattery was too gross to please M. Duval, and he proceeded, as he afterwards told Peter, to spread himself. At the end of twenty minutes the artist had mellowed considerably, and when Charles said solemnly that Framley was fortunate indeed to have attracted one who was so obviously a genius, he threw down his brush with a gesture of bitter loathing, and cried out: "You think I live here because I choose? Ah, mon Dieu!" He leaned forward on his camp-stool, and the hand which held his palette shook with some overpowering emotion. "I think all the time how I shall get away!" he said tensely. "Five years I have lived here, five years, m'sieur! Figure to yourselfl But the day comes when I see it no more. Then - poufl I am gone, I am free!" He seemed to recollect himself, and a smile of weak cunning showed his discoloured teeth. "You think I talk strangely, hein? Not like you English, who are always cold, like ice. To those others I am nothing but a mad Frenchman, but you, my friend, you have seen that I have a genius in me!" He slapped his chest as he spoke. "Here, in my soul! You have admired my picture; you have not laughed behind my back. And because you have sympathised, because you have recognised the true art, I will tell you something." He plucked at Charles' sleeve with fingers like talons, and his voice sank. "Take care, m'sieur, you who think to live in that house which is the home of Le Moine. I warn you, take care, and do not try to interfere with him. I tell you, it is not safe. You hear me? There is danger, much, much danger."

""Thanks for the warning," Charles said calmly. "But I don't really think a ghost could do me much harm, do you?"

The artist looked at him queerly. "I say only, take care. You have tried to find Le Moine, I think, because you do not believe in ghosts. But I tell you there is great danger."

"I see. You think I should be unwise to try and find out who he is?"

"There is no one who knows that," M. Duval said slowly. "No one! But maybe this poor Duval, who paints pictures that the world laughs at, maybe he might - one day — know - who is - Le Moine." He was smiling as he said it, and his eyes were clouded and far away. His voice sank still lower till it was little more than a whisper. "And if I know, then, then at last I will be free, and I will have revenge! Ah, but that will be sweet!" His claw-like hands curled as though they strangled some unseen thing.

"Forgive me," said Charles, "but has the Monk done you some injury?"

His words jerked Duval back from that dreamy, halfdrugged state. He picked up his brush again. "It is a ghost," he muttered. "You have said it yourself."

Seeing that for the present at least there was little hope of getting anything more out of the artist, Charles prepared to take his departure. "Ghost or no ghost," he said deliberately, "I intend to find out - what I can. You seem to have some idea of doing the same thing. If you want my assistance I suggest you come and call on me at the Priory."

"I do not want assistance," Duval said, hunching his shoulders rather like a pettish child.

"No? Yet if I were to say one day that I had seen the face of the Monk . ?" Charles left the end of the sentence unfinished, but its effect was even more than he had hoped.

Duval swung round eagerly. "You have seen - but no! You have seen nothing. He does not show his face, the Monk, and it is better if you do not try to see it." He fixed his eyes on Charles' face, and said in a low voice: "One man - saw - just once in his life. One man alone, m'sieur!"

"Oh? Who is he?"

"It does not matter now, m'sieur, who he is, for he is dead."

Charles was half-startled, and half-scornful. "What did he die of? Fright?"

The artist bent his gaze on his sketch again. "Perhaps," he said. "Yet me, I do not think he died of fright." He began to squeeze paint from one of his tubes. "You will go back to your Priory, m'sieur, but you will remember what I say, is it not?"

"Certainly," Charles said. "And I shall hope to see your picture again when it is more finished, if you will let me."

There was something rather pathetic about the way Duval looked up at that, unpleasant though the man's personality might be. "You like it enough to wish to see more? But I have many pictures in my cottage, perhaps not so fine as this, but all, all full of my genius! One day perhaps you come to see me, and I show you. Perhaps you will see something you like enough to buy from me, hero?"

"That was what I was thinking," lied Charles.

The Monk was forgotten; avarice gleamed in the artist's eye. He said swiftly: "Bon! You come very soon, and I show you the best that I have painted. Perhaps you come to-morrow? Or the day after?"

"Thanks, I'd like to come to-morrow if I may. Shall we say about this time?" He consulted his wrist-watch. "Halfpast three? Or does that break into your working hours?"

"But no! I am quite at your service," M. Duval assured him.

"Then au revoir," Charles said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

M. Duval's farewell was as cordial as his greeting had been surly. Charles walked briskly back to the village, trying as he went to separate the grain of his talk from the chaff.

One thing seemed clear enough: unless the man were a consummate actor, he was not the Monk. It seemed improbable that, in his half-drugged condition, he could be acting a part, but on the other hand that very condition made it dangerous to set too much store by what he said. Much of it sounded suspiciously like the waking dreams experienced by drug-addicts, yet when he had spoken of the Monk, Charles thought that he had detected a look of perfectly sane hatred in his eyes. He had not been talking of a ghost: that much was certain. To Duval, the Monk was real, and, apparently, terrible. It was possible, of course, that in a state that resembled delirium his mind had seized on the idea of the ghostly inmate of the Priory, and woven a story about it. Possible, Charles admitted, but hardly probable.

If one accepted the provisional hypothesis that the Monk was no ghost, one was immediately faced with two problems. The first, Charles thought, was the reason he could have for what seemed a senseless masquerade; the second, which might perhaps be easier to solve if the first were discovered, was his identity.

Since they had had, so far, no means of identifying any single thing about him, he might be any one of the people with whom they had become acquainted, or, which was quite possible, someone whom they had never seen.

The artist apparently knew something, but how much it was hard to decide. Charles hoped that on the following day he might, by buying one of his pictures, induce him to disclose more. If he was weaving a fanciful tale out of his own clouded mind it would be merely misleading, of course, but Charles felt that for the sake of the remote chance of discovering the Monk's object in haunting the Priory, this must be faced.

He had reached the Bell Inn by this time. The bar was not open, but on the other side of the archway into the yard there was a draughty apartment known as the lounge. Here he found his brother-in-law seated in an uncomfortable leather chair, and chatting to Colonel Ackerley. The Colonel's golf clubs were propped against one of the tables, and he was wearing a suit of immensely baggy plus-fours.

"Aha, here's Malcolm!" he said, as Charles entered the room. "Sit down, my dear fellow! Been fishing? I'm on my way back from my day's golf! Noticed your car outside and looked in to see which of you was trying to get a drink out of hours. Found you out, eh?"

"It cannot be too widely known," said Charles, "that I am more or less of a teetotaller."

"But mostly less," Peter interpolated.

The Colonel was much amused by this, and repeated it. "More or less - that's very good, Malcolm. I must remember that. Might mean either, what? But what have you been doing? Calling on the Vicar's wife?"

"I regard that as a reflection on my sobriety, sir," Charles said gravely. "No. I've been watching a very odd specimen paint a still odder picture."

The Colonel lifted his brows. "That French Johnny?

Can't say I understand much about art, but I've always thought his pictures were dam' bad. I'm a plain man, and if I look at a picture I like to be able to see what it's meant to be. But I daresay I'm old-fashioned."

"I should rather like to know," said Charles, "what he's doing here. Know anything about him, sir?"

The Colonel shook his head. "No, afraid I don't. Never really thought about it, to tell you the truth."

"He's not exactly prepossessing," Peter remarked. "He may be a bit of a wrong 'un who finds it wiser not to return to his native shores."

"Pon my soul, you people have got mysteries on the brain!" exclaimed the Colonel. "First it's poor old Titmarsh, and now it's what's-his-name? — Duval. What's he been up to, I should like to know?"

"Intriguing us by his conversation," said Charles lightly. "Making our blood run cold by his sinister references to our Monk."

The Colonel threw up his hands. "No, no, once you get on to that Monk of yours I can't cope with you, Malcolm. Now really, really, my dear fellow, you don't seriously mean to tell me you've been listening to that sodden dope-fiend?"

Charles looked up quickly. "Ah! So you think he's a dope-fiend too, do you?"

The Colonel caught himself up. "Daresay one oughtn't to say so," he apologised. "Slander, eh? But it's common talk round here."

He glanced over his shoulder as someone opened the door. Wilkes had put his head into the room to see who was there. He bade them good afternoon, and wanted to know whether he might tell John, the waiter, to serve them with tea. They all refused, but the Colonell detained Wilkes. "I say, Wilkes," he called, "here's that artist fellow been maundering to Mr. Malcolm about the Priory ghost. Is he drunk again?"

Wilkes came farther into the room, shaking his head. "I'm afraid so, sir. Been carrying on something chronic these last three days. First it's the Monk, then it's eyes watching him in the dark, till he fair gives me the creeps, and yesterday nothing would do but he must tell me how there was a plot about to keep him from being reckernised. If you ask me, sir, he's gone clean potty."

"Dear, dear, something will have to be done about it if that's so," Colonel Ackerley said. "You never know with these drug fiends. He may turn dangerous."

"Yes, sir, that's what I've been thinking," Wilkes said. "He's got a nasty look in his eye some days."

"Better keep your carving-knife out of reach," the Colonel said laughingly.

At that moment Peter chanced to look at the window. "Hullo!" he said. "There's your pal, Fripp, Chas. Looks a trifle jaded."

Charles glanced round, but Fripp had passed the window. "I daresay. There are quite a lot of rooms at the Priory," he remarked.

The Colonel pricked up his ears. "Fripp? Fripp? Seem to know that name. Wait a bit! Is he a fellow with some sort of a vacuum-cleaner?"

"He is," said Charles. "He has been spending the afternoon demonstrating it at the Priory. In fact, all over the Priory."

"Perfect pest, these house-to-house salesmen," fumed the Colonel. "Came to my place the other day, but my man sent him about his business."

"I told him he wouldn't do no good in these parts," Wilkes said. "What I can't make out is how he comes to be making this place his headquarters, so to speak. Don't seem reasonable, somehow, but I suppose he knows his business. You're sure you wouldn't like tea, sir?"

"We must be getting along at any rate," Peter said, rising. "When are you coming in for another game of bridge, Colonel? Why not come home with us now, and have some tea, and a game?"

The Colonel said that nothing would please him more, and accordingly they all went out together, and drove back to the Priory to find Celia in ecstasies over the dustless condition of the house, and quite anxious to send an order for a cleaner at once.

Chapter Eight

On the following afternoon Peter went off with Colonel Ackerley to play golf on the nearest course, some four miles away on the other side of the village. Margaret, whose appointment with the dentist fell on this day, had taken the car up to London, so that Charles, no believer in such forms of exercise, was compelled to walk to M. Duval's cottage.

He found it easily enough, but even the farmer's disparaging remarks upon it had not quite prepared him for anything so tumbledown and dreary. It had an air of depressing neglect; the garden was overgrown with docks and nettles, every window wanted cleaning, and in places the original white plaster had peeled off the walls, leaving the dirty brown brick exposed.

The hinges of the gate were broken, and it stood open. Charles made his way up the path to the door of the cottage, and knocked on the blistered panels with his walking stick. After a few moments footsteps approached, Charles heard a bolt drawn, and the door was opened by M. Duval.

It was plain that he had made an effort to tidy not only the living-room of his abode, but also his own person. His shirt was clean, and he had evidently done his best to remove some of the stains from his coat. Also he was sober, but he betrayed by his nervousness, and his unsteady hand, what a hold over him drugs had obtained.

He was almost effusive in his welcome, and insisted that Charles should take tea with him as a preliminary to any negotiations they might enter into. The kettle, he said, was already on the stove. He seemed so anxious to play the host to the best of his ability that Charles accepted his offer.

"I will make it on the instant," Duval told him. "I do not keep a servant, m'sieur. You will excuse me?"

"Of course," Charles said. "And while you're getting tea perhaps I may take a look at your work?"

Duval made a gesture that swept the little room. "You see my work, m'sieur, before you."

All manner of canvases were propped against the walls, some so weird that they looked to be no more than irrelevant splashes of colour, some a riot of cubes, one or two moderately understandable.

"Look your fill!" Duval said dramatically. "You look into my soul."

For the sake of M. Duval's soul Charles hoped that this was an exaggeration. However, he bowed politely, and begged his host not to mind leaving him. Thus adjured, the artist disappeared into the lean-to kitchen that was built out at the back of the cottage, and Charles was left to take stock of his surroundings.

These were miserable enough. The cottage, which bore signs of considerable antiquity, had but the one living-room, from which a precipitous staircase led up between two walls to the upper storey. At the back a door led into the kitchen; at the front were lattice windows and the principal door of the house, and on one side a huge fireplace occupied almost the entire wall. The ceiling was low, and a wealth of old oak formed worm-eaten beams, in between which the cobwebs of years had formed. Charles judged that originally the room had served as kitchen and living-room combined, for from the great central beam one or two big hooks still protruded, from which, doubtless, flitches of bacon had hung in olden days.

The furniture was in keeping with the dilapidated building itself. A strip of dusty carpet lay across the floor; there were two sound chairs, and one with a broken leg that sagged against the wall; a table, an easel, a cupboard, and a deal chest that stood under the window, and which was covered with a litter of tubes, brushes, rags, and bits of charcoal.

There remained the pictures, and until Duval came back with the tea-pot Charles occupied himself in trying to make up his mind which he could best bring himself to buy.

Duval reappeared shortly, and set the tea-pot down on the table. He suggested, not without a hopeful note in his voice, that perhaps his guest would prefer a whisky and soda, but this Charles firmly declined.

"Eh bien, then I give you sugar and milk, yes? So? You have looked at my pictures? Presently I will explain to you what I have tried to express in them."

"I wish you would," Charles said. "I can see that they are full of ideas."

No further encouragement was needed to start the artist off on his topic. He talked volubly, but rather incoherently, for over half an hour, until Charles' head reeled, and he felt somewhat as though he had stepped into a nightmare. But his polite questions and apparently rapt interest had the effect of banishing whatever guard the artist had set upon his tongue and he became expansive, though mysterious on the subject of his own enforced sojourn at Framley.

Realising that in all probability any attempt to question Duval as to his obscure meaning would drive him into his shell, Charles contented himself with sympathising.

"Whoever is to blame for keeping you here," he said solemnly, "is a criminal of the deepest dye."

This pleased. "Yes he is wicked. You do not know, m'sieur! But I shall have my revenge on him, perhaps soon. I tell you, I will make him suffer! He shall pay. Yes, he shall pay and pay for the years which I have spent in exile." A little saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth; he looked unpleasantly like a dog drooling at the sight of a bone.

With a feeling of disgust, and more than half convinced that he was wasting his time on a madman, Charles turned to the pictures, and soon made his choice. M. Duval seemed disappointed when he fixed on the least Futuristic of his works, but after an attempt to induce Charles to buy "Sunset in Hades' he consented to roll up the more innocuous "Reapers."

Outside the sky had for some time been growing steadily more overcast, and as Charles prepared to take his leave, a flash of lightning lit up the darkening room, to be followed in a very few moments by an ominous rumble of thunder. The rain did not seem to be far off, and since he had no overcoat Charles was reluctantly compelled to postpone his departure.

The artist seemed to become more restless with the approach of the storm, and as the light went he took to glancing over his shoulder as though he expected to see someone. When a second and much louder clap of thunder came he jumped uncontrollably, and muttered something about fetching a lamp. He went through into the kitchen, and came back presently with a cheap oillamp which he set down on the table.

"I do not like the darkness," he said. "Perhaps you think I am strange to say that, but when one lives always alone, m'sieur, one has fancies." He gave a little shiver, and his eyes stared into Charles' for a moment. "But there are things which are not fancies." Again he looked round, then leaning towards Charles he said hardly above a whisper: "I know that there is one who watches. I have felt his eyes through my window, I bolt my door, but when I go out he follows. I have heard his footsteps, but when I look there is no one there. Sometimes I think I cannot bear it, for at night, m'sieur, it is so still, and I am alone. Sometimes I think maybe I shall go mad one day. But I am not mad. No, I am not mad yet."

"Who watches you?" Charles said quietly. "Have you any idea?"

Duval shook his head. "I do not know. Sometimes I think - but I do not say."

"I hope," said Charles, "that it is not our Monk?"

The artist gave a start, and grew sickly pale all at once. "No, no!" he said. "But do not speak so loud, m'sieur! You do not know who may be listening."

Since a heavy rain was now beating against the windows it seemed absurd to suppose that anyone could be lurking outside, but Charles saw that it was useless to reason with one whose nerves were so little under control. To humour the artist, he lowered his voice. "It is unwise, then, even to mention the Monk?" he asked.

Duval nodded vigorously. "For me, yes. There are those who listen to what I say though they seem to be deaf. M'sieur, I tell you it is too much!- Sometimes when I am alone in this house I think it would be better to give it all up, not to attempt - I have not the courage, he is clever, ah, but clever!"

"My friend," Charles said, "I think someone has some sort of a hold over you. Don't be alarmed: I'm not asking what it is."

The thunder crashed above their heads, and involuntarily Duval winced. "Yes, he has what you call a hold, but what if I get a hold over him? What then, hein?" His fingers curled and uncurled; he looked so haggard that once more Charles found himself pitying him against his will.

"Forgive me if I say that I think you would do well to get away from this lonely life of yours. It has preyed too much on your mind."

The artist's eyes stared wildly at him. "I cannot get away!" he burst out. "I am tied, tied! I dare not speak, even! What I could tell! Ah, m'sieur, there are things I know that you would give all to learn. Yes, I am not a fool; I know what you are seeking, you and that other. You will not find it, but I - I might! You do not believe? You think I talk so because perhaps I am drunk? You are wrong. It is true that sometimes I have drunk too much. To-day, no! What is it you desire to see? You will not answer? But I know, m'sieur! You desire to see the face of the Monk."

Charles would have spoken, but he swept on, as though a spate of words had been loosed in him. "You will not. But I desire it also, and I tell you the day comes when I shall see it. And if I see it, only for one little minute! one little, little minute, what shall I do? Shall I tell you? Ah no, m'sieur! No, no, no, I tell no one, but I am free! And it will be for me then to revenge myself, for me to be master!"

A flash of lightning made Charles blink. There was the scrape of a chair. Duval had sprung up, and was staring- towards the window. "What was that," he gasped. "What was that, m'sieur? A face? A face pressed to the glass?"

"Nonsense," Charles said calmly. "It was nothing but that sunflower blown against the window. Look!"

The sweat stood on Duval's forehead. "Truly? Yes, yes, I see. It was nothing. Yet for a moment I could have sworn I saw - something. It is this accursed storm. I do not like the lightning. It makes me what you call on edge. Sometimes I fear I have not the courage to go on with what I have made up my mind I must do to be free. For when I am here with the darkness I remember that other who died." He went to the cupboard and opened it, and pulled out a whisky bottle, half-full, and two thick glasses, "You will take a little drink with me? This storm - one's nerves demand it."

"Not for me, thanks," Charles answered. "May I suggest that if you've reason to think someone is watching you your best course is to inform the police."

Duval cast a quick, furtive look at him. The whisky spilled into his glass. He tossed it off, neat, and seemed to regain what little composure he possessed. "No, I do not do that. You will not listen to me: I talk folly, hein? Me, I am Louis Duval, and I am not afraid."

The rain had practically ceased by now, and Charles got up. "Then since the storm seems to be passing over you won't mind if I say good-bye, will you?" He picked up the picture he had bought. "I shall - er - value this, I assure you. And if at any time you'd like to take me rather more into your confidence you know where I'm to be found, don't you?"

"I thank you. And for this' - he held up Charles' cheque - "I thank you also." With his self-command his arrogance too was creeping back. "The day comes when you will congratulate yourself that you were once able to buy a picture of Louis Duval's for so small a price."

That view was not shared either by Charles, or by any of his relatives. When he exhibited the painting at the Priory an astonished silence greeted it.

"Yes," he said blandly, "I thought you'd be hard put to it to find words to express your emotions."

Peter breathed audibly through his nose. "You were right," he said.

"Nice piece of work, isn't it? I particularly like the woman's splay feet. Where shall we hang it?"

"I suggest the coal-cellar," said Peter.

Mrs. Bosanquet was regarding the picture through her lorgnette. "What an exceedingly ill-favoured young person!" she remarked. "Really, almost disgusting. And what is she waving in her hand, pray?"

"Since I am informed that the title of this masterpiece is "Reapers" I should hazard a guess that it must be a sickle," Charles replied.

Celia found her tongue. "Charles, how could you?" she demanded. "Have you gone mad, or something?"

"Not at all. I'm supporting modern art."

"You don't know anything about art, ancient or modern. I can't get over you going out and wasting your money on an awful thing like this! You don't suppose that I could live with it on my walls, do you?"

"Shove it up on the stairs," suggested Peter. "Then the next time the Monk goes glissant up and down, though we do not see, it'll give him something to think about. After all we owe him one for that skull."

"My dear," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you should not make a jest of these things. When Margaret returns from London with my planchette board I shall hope to convince you as I myself have been convinced."

"Aunt, you promised you wouldn't talk about the Monk!" Celia said uneasily. "Just when I was beginning to forget about it too!"

"It was not I who started it, dear child," Mrs. Bosanquet pointed out. "But by all means let us talk of something else. I do trust, Peter, that you are not serious in wishing to hang that very unpleasant picture on the stairs."

"Well, we shall have to hang it somewhere," Peter said. "Old Ackerley will want to see it. When he asked me where you were, Chas, and I told him you'd gone to buy one of Duval's pictures, I thought he'd throw a fit."

"You can jolly well tell him then that you didn't buy a picture after all," Celia said. "I won't have you making yourself a laughing-stock. It'll be all over Framley that you've been had."

Charles listened to this with a suspicious air of interest. "Do I understand you all to mean that you feel these walls are unworthy to bear the masterpiece?" he inquired.

"You can put it like that, if you choose," Celia said.

"Very well," he replied, and began carefully to roll it up again. "I've always wanted to see my name in the papers as one who has presented a work of art to the nation. I wonder where they'll hang it? It would go rather well amongst the Turners."

"And the worst of it is," Celia said later to her brother, "he's quite capable of sending it to the National Gallery, if only to tease me."

Peter was more interested in the result of Charles' visit than in the fate of the picture, but it was not until he was dressing for dinner that he had an opportunity of speaking to him alone. Charles came in while he was wrestling with a refractory stud, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Good. I hoped you'd come in," Peter said. "God damn this blasted laundry! They starch the thing so that… Ah, that's got it! Well, did you discover anything, or is he merely potty?"

"A bit of both," Charles said. He selected a cigarette fromm his case, and lit it. "From a welter of drivel just one or two facts emerge. The most important of these is that unless Duval is completely out of his mind, which I doubt, the Monk is a very real personage. Further, it would appear that he has some hold over Duval, who, with or without reason, fears him like the devil. It seems fairly obvious that the Monk - and very likely Duval too - is engaged in some nefarious pursuit, and I rather gathered from what our friend said that he - I'm talking now of Duval - is only waiting for the chance to blackmail him."

"What about?" Peter asked, busy with his tie.

"God knows. I couldn't arrive at it. It sounds absurd, but everything seemed to hinge on the Monk's face."

"Talk sense," said Peter shortly.

"Quite impossible," Charles replied, flicking the ash off his cigarette. "I'm giving you the gist of Duval's conversation. Put plainly, the Monk is strictly incognito. According to Duval the only man who ever saw his face immediately died. Manner not specified, but all very sinister."

"Doesn't say much for the Monk's face," Peter commented. His eyes met Charles' in the mirror, and he saw that Charles was frowning slightly. He turned. "Look here, how much faith do you place in this rigmarole?"

Charles shrugged. "Can't say. After all we had ourselves decided that the Monk was no ghost."

Peter picked up his waistcoat and put it on. "Neither you nor I have so far set eyes on this precious Monk," he reminded Charles. "We know there's a legend about a monk haunting this place; we've had a skull drop at our feet, and we suspect - suspect, mind you —- human agency. Not necessarily the Monk. The only person to see it is Aunt Lilian. I admit she's not the sort of person likely to imagine things, but you've got to bear in mind that it was late at night, and she, in common with the rest of us, had probably got the Monk slightly on the brain. She got the wind up - admits that herself. Started to "feel" things. Works herself into a state in which she's ripe for seeing anything. She has a candle only, and by its light she sees, or thinks she sees, a cowled figure."

"Which according to her account, moved towards her," Charles interpolated.

"True, and as I say, she's not nervous or given to imaginative flights. I don't say she didn't see all that. But I do say that some trick of the shadows cast by a feeble light held in her probably not very steady hand, coupled with her own quite natural fears, may have deceived her. The only other thing we've got to go on is the ravings of this artist-bloke, in whom you can't place much reliance."

"Not quite," Charles said. "We know that there is something queer about this house. I don't want to lay undue stress on all that has happened, but on the other hand I don't want to run to the other extreme of poohpoohing undoubtedly odd proceedings. There was the episode of the groaning stone; there was the exceedingly fishy conversation we overheard between Strange and Fripp. Without that proof that someone is taking an extraordinary interest in the Priory I might easily discount everything Duval said. But we know that someone broke into the place by a secret entrance; we know that Strange had something to do with it. What he's after I don't pretend to say, but it's fairly obvious that he is after something. Given those facts I don't feel justified in brushing Duval aside as irrelevant. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I have a strong conviction that he is perhaps the most relevant thing we've struck yet."