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.