He nodded. “Come.”
Outside, he stared across the pond to the willow tree. “They were standing there,” he said. “Under the willow.”
“Who was?”
“The ghosts that Miss Turner saw.”
“Harry.”
He turned to me. “You must help me find it,” he said.
“Find what?”
“The tunnel.”
Chapter Thirty-six
"What tunnel?”
“The tunnel that runs from here to the manor. It must exist.” He looked around, narrowed his eyes. “You saw how the pathway curved back to the south? I estimate that we are perhaps sixty yards from the house itself. The west side of it.” He nodded toward another wall of trees and brambles. “Beyond the forest there.”
“Why a tunnel, Harry?”
He looked at me. “But Phil. How else could the ghosts get from here to the house without being seen?”
I remembered the gun again. “Harry-”
“Please, Phil. We do not have much time. We must find it. It cannot be far.”
It wasn’t. It was built into the side of a hill about twenty yards from the mill, hidden behind the overhanging leafy branches of a big oak. At its entrance was a pair of broad wooden doors, like the doors to the freight tunnel beneath the formal garden. Lying beside the doors, in the weeds, was a small wicker picnic basket.
“Harry?” I called out.
He was maybe forty feet away, thrashing through some bushes. He stopped and came running toward me. There were scratches on his cheeks that looked like African tribal marks.
“Aha!” he cried. He reached for the door. “You see, Phil!”
It swung open before he could reach it. He danced back.
“Miss Turner!” he said.
She stood there in the opening, a lantern in her hand. Her cheek was smudged and strands of pale brown hair were trailing across her face. She was smiling anyway.
“I heard you coming, Mr. Houdini! Look! I found it! She said this as if she were talking about El Dorado.
“But Miss Turner-”
“Wait a minute,” I said. I turned to her. “Miss Turner, you told me you wouldn’t wander off on your own. We agreed. Last night, in Mrs. Corneille’s room.”
“I know, I know,” she said in a rush. “But everyone else had gone to church and I was sitting out on the patio, where it was perfectly safe-there was a policeman on patrol every ten minutes, nearly-and then Mr. Houdini appeared and spoke with me, and I understood what he was thinking from the questions he asked, what he must be thinking, about the ghosts-”
“Okay,” I said. “Hold on. What’s the story on these ghosts?”
“… and so you see, Phil,” the Great Man said, “logically, this was the only possibility. The tunnel. It was the only way the two of them could have gotten into the house so quickly. And without being seen.”
I said, “Seen again, you mean.”
“Correct. Miss Turner had already seen them. Unfortunately for her. But, in any event, I determined to locate it. And I would have,” he said. He looked at Miss Turner. “I suppose,” he said stiffly, “that I should offer you my congratulations, Miss Turner.”
“But Mr. Houdini,” she said. “I should never have considered the possibility of a tunnel if you hadn’t spoken with me. It was you, after all, who first realized the significance of the ghosts. Once I understood what you suspected, I realized how important they must be. And how they must have returned to the house. I brought a lantern from the stables and I concealed it in the basket and I came out here. I found the tunnel, yes, but all the credit, really, is yours.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Well. Yes. You are correct, of course. And where does the tunnel lead?”
“It ends at a sort of pantry next to the kitchen,” she said. “They must have used it to transport milled grain, years ago. There’s an entrance to the kitchen from the pantry. And there’s another tunnel there, one that goes off at right angles to this one. I didn’t explore it.”
“The freight tunnel,” I said. “Under the garden.”
The Great Man nodded. “It is as I suspected.” He turned to me, smiling. “The entire house, Phil, all of Maplewhite, is one enormous gimmicked prop.”
“Okay, Harry.” I said. “You’ve figured things out. But you’re going to have a hard time proving it.”
He raised himself up to his full height. “I have a plan,” he announced.
“Uh-huh.”
“And Phil,” he announced, “there is one additional matter I have discovered.”
“What’s that?”
He told me. Miss Turner made a small gasp.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know that.”
“But… how?” he said. I had never seen him look surprised before. “How could you know?”
I told him.
“But what shall we do, Phil?” he asked when I finished.
I smiled. “I have a plan.”
“May I help?” asked Miss Turner I looked at her. “Maybe you can.”
The Great Man and Miss Turner took the path back to the house. Using Miss Turner’s lantern, I took the tunnel.
It led straight into Maplewhite, into the pantry Miss Turner had found, and from end to end it was only about sixty yards long. The floor of the thing was covered with the same gravel that covered the walkway around the grounds. The walls were made of dark stone, damp and slimy.
So were the walls of the other tunnel, leading out under the formal garden. I took a look down that, then came back and left the lantern in the pantry before I slipped into the kitchen. It was empty. The trip from the kitchen to the Great Hall took less than a minute. Lord Bob wasn’t there. I found him and Lady Purleigh in the library, sitting together on one of the sofas. Both of them were looking a bit depressed, maybe even a bit lost. I asked Lord
Bob if the Great Man and I could use his telephone. I told him we’d pay for the calls.
“Money,” he said sadly, “is the least of my worries just now.” Lady Purleigh smiled bravely and took his hand.
“Everything will work out,” I told them, but I knew that it wasn’t exactly the truth.
The Great Man and I were busy in Lord Bob’s office for an hour or so, on the telephone. Miss Turner helped out for a while. She did a good job, and we had some luck we didn’t deserve. By one o’clock, Miss Turner and I had done everything we could. She left and the Great Man stayed there, waiting for some calls. I went to find Higgens, the butler, and I asked him to ask Inspector Marsh to come to my room as soon as he got back from Purleigh. Then I went upstairs and lay down. There was nothing useful I could do at that point, and I was tired. It had been already been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. There was still the tea party.
I was asleep when someone knocked at the door. My watch was on the night table. Two-thirty. I sat up, swung my feet off the bed, and said, “Come in.”
It was Marsh, smiling happily. “Ah, Beaumont. Knitting up the raveled sleeve of care, were we?”
“Yeah. Grab a seat. How was Purleigh?”
“Lovely.” He pulled the chair out from under the desk, twirled it around, sat down on it. “A typical Devon hamlet, white walls and thatched roofs and cheerful inbred villagers. Very picturesque. I quite enjoyed myself.”
“Good. You find out anything?”
“I did, yes.” He smiled. “Would you care to hear?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Well,” he said, “for starters, Dr. Auerbach was telling the truth. He was in the graveyard, making rubbings of the tombstones. The vicar spoke with him, and he tells me that the doctor left on foot, for Maplewhite, sometime before one. But not much before one, and certainly after twelve-thirty. He’s a bit cloudy as to time. A bit cloudy in general, really. But I measured the distance between the church and Maplewhite. Six miles. Dr. Auerbach could not have returned here before one o'clock, and probably not much before two.”
I nodded.
“Sir David Merridale was also telling the truth,” he said. “As he said, he took a room at the Cock and Bull yesterday. He neglected to mention, however, that this was not the first time he'd done so. He’s stayed there several times over the past few months.”