What’s going on here? I never actually saw a bright red cellar door in the kitchen—that was a bit from that bloody awful nightmare about walking down into the house’s stomach!
Redpath stood perfectly still, stroking the day’s growth of bristles on his chin, working out an explanation. The obvious one, the one the experts always used to discredit people who claimed to have precognitive dreams, was that he had glimpsed the red door without being consciously aware of it. That was a good explanation. It was a neat, sensible bit of reasoning—but the main trouble was that he could not bring himself to accept it. He was quite positive that on the few occasions on which he had traversed the hall the door to the kitchen had been fully closed, and that it would have been impossible for him to see anything inside.
All right, then—if one explanation failed to fit another one would take its place. Why, he wondered, should he bother about an explanation, anyway? Why not be content to get out while the going was good?
He teetered on the balls of his feet, knowing perfectly well why he needed to hound down and eradicate every last scrap of mystery concerning the events of the past night and day. The house had made him afraid. It had mounted an attack on the citadel of his materialism and commonsense, and if he flew now— half-convinced of the existence of supernatural terrors—the house would have won. It would have turned him into a different person, and he would never again be able to face the dark without reacting like a scared child or a superstitious savage. And life was hard enough as it was …
Redpath turned back and walked to the kitchen door.
The room was long and half-way down the left-hand wall was a cracked porcelain sink which was stacked high with unwashed dishes. That, too, was exactly as he had visualized it in the dream, but it failed to disturb him because it could be written off as deduction from experience. Older houses of this type were remarkably similar in their layout; the obvious lack of modernisation indicated that an old type of sink would still be in place; and Betty York had not struck him as the sort of person who would scrupulously wash up after every meal. There was also a refrigerator standing in the predicted corner, but it was in one of the few logical positions for such an item of equipment. The cellar door, presuming it did actually lead down into a cellar, was going to be the test case.
Redpath advanced two steps into the room and looked to his right, into the corner which had been screened from his view by the kitchen door. There was another door there, one which was painted an incongruous fire-engine red. A floating, dream-like sensation enveloped him as he reached out with his right hand and grasped the door’s old-fashioned farmhouse-style latch.
Hey, doc—there’s no need to go ahead with this! I’ve just thought of the perfect explanation. It’s our old friend Compound 183 again! You picked up details of the kitchen layout by telepathy from Betty York or the others. It’s the sort of thing that’s been happening to you all the time lately. Can’t you see that?
Redpath opened the door and was barely able to discern the beginning of a flight of stone steps which led downwards into darkness. The air which wafted up around him was warmer than he had expected. Warm and heavy. He moved forward, went down two steps to the limit of his vision and paused, listening.
Oh boy, I can’t believe you’re really doing this. You know what it’s like, don’t you? It’s like that big scene in all the old horror flicks, the one where the hero is dumb enough to walk right into the monster’s den. Every kid in the stalls is under the seat screaming for him to turn back, but he keeps right on going. Honest to God, John, I thought you’d more sense…
Redpath went down a third step and paused again, straining to penetrate the darkness with his senses. Something below him made a wet sound, a sucking sound.
Slughhh. Slughhh. Slughhh.
He withdrew to the second step, shaking his head, trying to make a connection in his memory between the sound and the various pieces of obsolete and noisy plumbing that an old house might contain.
Slughhh. Slughhh. Slughhh.
“All right, house—you win,” Redpath whispered, retreating to the top of the cellar steps. He closed the red door and, no longer caring about the possibility of being heard by anyone in the upper part of the building, strode quickly through the hall to the inner entrance door and unlocked it. The solid door was secured by two shoot-bolts as well as by a Yale lock, but Redpath undid all three fastenings with a nervous urgency which would not be denied.
A few seconds later he was outside in the quiet, morning-grey streets, outside and running.
PART TWO
INTERLUDE
CHAPTER SIX
Wachting the town’s diurnal return to life did something to restore Redpath’s faith in the ubiquity of the commonplace, but it was a bitter-sweet experience. A barrier had dropped solidly into place between him and all the other citizens of the Four Towns. He felt like a stranger, someone with an artificial reason for being there, like a visiting reporter trying to get the feel of the place for a television feature. During the hours he spent walking in the town centre or sipping coffee in steamy glass-fronted caverns, he looked at the faces of perhaps a thousand people and he knew that not one of those people had ever slain a fellow human being, or had any trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality, or had allowed himself to believe that a shabby old house could develop a malevolent personality of its own. He was totally alone, cut off.
When he felt he was ready to face the police he glanced at his watch, saw that the time was exactly nine o’clock and wondered briefly if his subconscious had chosen to wait for the beginning of what might be normal business hours for the CID. It was, he thought, the sort of lame-brained thing a subconscious like his might do. He set down a half-finished mug of weak coffee, went out into Calbridge’s shopping and commercial area, and walked the best part of a mile to the police station. It was a compact two-storey building of blue-red brick, with a gateway at one side leading into an enclosed yard used for parking official vehicles.
He was going up the entrance steps when a grey saloon car which had been turning into the yard stopped so abruptly in the gateway that its suspension creaked. The driver’s window slid down to reveal a fair-skinned, strongly-built man whose face looked familiar to Redpath. Pardey, he thought. Frank Pardey. How did I know that?
“You,” Pardey said coldly, aiming his forefinger like a pistol.
“Over here!”
Surprised to find that he was still capable of indignation, Redpath paused long enough to show that he was unused to peremptory commands, then walked slowly to the car. “Yes?”
“John Redpath, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I remember now—we met at a party somewhere. Probably Vicki Simpson’s place.
“What are you doing here, Redpath? What do you want?”
Perplexed by the other man’s hostility, Redpath decided to jolt him in the hardest possible way. “You know Leila Mostyn?”
“What of it?”
“I…I stabbed her to death yesterday.”
Pardey studied Redpath with blue eyes which showed neither shock nor surprise, only a considered and calm dislike. “Do yourself a favour, Redpath,” he snapped. “Bugger off.”
“What?”
“You heard me—bug off.”
“You don’t believe me?” Redpath said, angered by Pardey’s refusal to react in an appropriate manner. “All right, I’ll talk to somebody at the desk.” He turned to walk back to the police station entrance.