"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.