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."