"Which according to her account, moved towards her," Charles interpolated.
"True, and as I say, she's not nervous or given to imaginative flights. I don't say she didn't see all that. But I do say that some trick of the shadows cast by a feeble light held in her probably not very steady hand, coupled with her own quite natural fears, may have deceived her. The only other thing we've got to go on is the ravings of this artist-bloke, in whom you can't place much reliance."
"Not quite," Charles said. "We know that there is something queer about this house. I don't want to lay undue stress on all that has happened, but on the other hand I don't want to run to the other extreme of poohpoohing undoubtedly odd proceedings. There was the episode of the groaning stone; there was the exceedingly fishy conversation we overheard between Strange and Fripp. Without that proof that someone is taking an extraordinary interest in the Priory I might easily discount everything Duval said. But we know that someone broke into the place by a secret entrance; we know that Strange had something to do with it. What he's after I don't pretend to say, but it's fairly obvious that he is after something. Given those facts I don't feel justified in brushing Duval aside as irrelevant. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I have a strong conviction that he is perhaps the most relevant thing we've struck yet."
Peter tucked a clean handkerchief into the breastpocket of his dinner jacket. "But the whole thing seems so utterly fantastic," he complained. "I daresay Duval is in someone's power: I always said he looked a wrong 'un. But what the hell has it got to do with the Priory?"
"That;' said Charles, "is what we've got to find out."
"Thanks very much. And just where do we start? The most likely explanation advanced so far is hidden treasure. Well, if you want to spend the rest of our stay prising up solid stone slabs in the cellar, you've more energy than I've ever yet seen you display."
Charles threw the end of his cigarette out of the open window. "If it's buried treasure the field isn't as narrow as that. Fripp, to my mind, wanted a chance to explore the rest of the house:'
"Well, that settles it. You can't take up the floorboards in every room, and go twisting every bit of moulding in the panelling in the hope of discovering another priest's hole. If we'd a history of the place no doubt we should find out all about it. But we haven't."
"No," said Charles. "We haven't. And, do you know, I find that rather surprising."
Peter stared. "Do you mean someone may have pinched it?"
"Hasn't that occurred to you? This place obviously has a history - must have had. You'd expect to find some record in the library."
"Well, yes, you might, but on the other hand the house. has changed hands a lot since the place was a monastery. It may have got lost, or bought by a collector or something like that."
"Quite so. But there's something more to it than that. When the point was first raised it struck me as being curious. I thought it worth while to drop a line to Tim Baker, and ask him to see whether a history of this place existed in the British Museum library. To-night I had his answer." He drew a letter from his pocket, and opened it. "There is a history, and a copy of it is in the Museum.
And two pages have been torn out. What do you make of that?"
"Good Lord!" Peter said blankly. "I say, things do begin to look a bit sinister, don't they? What do you propose we do about it? Call in Scotland Yard?"
"I've been playing with that idea for some days, but I'm not in love with it. I don't quite see myself spinning this yarn to some disillusioned official. If we'd any real data to give the Yard, well and good. But I ask you, what does our tale sound like, in cold blood? A hotch-potch without one solid fact to go on. We hear noises, we discover a skeleton, we listen to what a drunken Frenchman has to say, and see various people wandering about the grounds. The only fact we've got is that someone broke into the cellars, and that's a matter for the local police to deal with. It's not good enough."
Peter nodded. "That's what I feel myself, I must say. At the same time we're not getting anywhere - principally because we don't know where to start. If this inquiry agent of yours throws any discreditable light on Fripp's past, what do you say to running over to Manfield, and having a chat with the District Inspector?"
A gong chimed in the hall below them. Charles got up. "We can do that, of course. Personally, I'm rather pinning my faith to Duval. I rather think he'll let something out sooner or later which may give us a line on it."
They went slowly down to the library, where Celia and Mrs. Bosanquet were awaiting them.
"Margaret not back yet?" Charles said.
Celia prepared to go in to dinner. "No, but I was hardly expecting her. She said if Peggy Mason was free she might have an early dinner with her in town, and get back here about nine-thirty, before it's quite dark."
"I hope," said Mrs. Bosanquet, "that she will not have forgotten to call at my flat for the planchette."
Chapter Nine
Margaret spent a successful day in London. The dentist did not keep her waiting more than a quarter of an hour, and his excavations were not too painful. In the afternoon she visited the flat Peter and she owned in Knightsbridge, and unearthed his service revolver from a trunk in the box-room. Next she drove to Celia's house in Kensington, and after prolonged search located Charles' revolver. There remained only Mrs. Bosanquet's planchette, and this the maid she had left in charge of her flat was easily able to find. By the time all these commissions had been executed Margaret was feeling ready for tea, and after that she had some shopping of her own to do. This occupied her till six o'clock, and then, somewhat weary, but with the consciousness of having left nothing undone, she drove to her club, and sat down to await the arrival of her friend, Peggy Mason.
She did not expect Mrs. Mason before seven o'clock, so that she had almost an hour to while away. Under the disapproving glare of one of the more elderly members of the club she ordered a cocktail, and curled herself up in a large arm-chair with an illustrated journal, a cigarette, and her Bronx.
The journal was, as usual, full of pictures of sunburnt people snapped on the Lido, but the odd thing about it was that though the legend under the snapshots might read: "Lord So-and-so and Miss Something-else in a happy mood," Lord So-and-so's face became unaccountably the face of Michael Strange. Information concerning the doings of all these leisured people changed to such irrelevant scraps as: "But what was he doing in the garden at that hour?" and: "Could he really have been in our cellars that day we tried to locate the groan and saw him by the drawing-room windows?"
Margaret told herself severely that she was thinking a great deal too much about Michael Strange, and applied herself to the Tatler with a firm resolve to think about him no more.
But excellent though the resolve might be it was impossible to keep to it. Margaret gave up all pretence of doing so after five minutes, and permitted her refractory mind to do as it pleased.
Except for a brief infatuation for her drawing-master which attacked her at the age of sixteen she had never been in love. Her mother had died when she was still at school, her father three years later, and since that time she and Peter had kept house together. They were a very devoted couple, and so far Margaret had not felt in the least tempted to leave him for any one of the several suitors who had wished her to marry them. In the nicest possible way she had refused all offers, and it said much for her that these rejections never interfered with her friendship with the young man in question, nor, which was more important, with his friendship with her brother. One or two continued to cherish hopes, but when the most importunate of her suitors consoled himself eventually elsewhere, Margaret, no dog-in-the manger, was unaffectedly glad and promptly made a friend of his bride, the very lady who was to dine with her this evening.