Nor did they linger over coffee, cigars, and port, as was the doctor's; custom. Afterwards Rampole went up to his room. He lighted the oil-lamp and began to change his clothes. Old soiled tennis-flannels, a comfortable shirt, and tennis shoes. His room was a small one with a sloping roof, under the eaves, its one window looking out towards the side of Chatterham prison and the Hag's Nook. Some sort of flying beetle banged against the window-screen with a thump that made him start, and a moth was already fluttering round the lamp.
It was a relief to be doing something. He finished dressing and took a few restless strides about. Up here the heat was thick with a smell of dry timber, like an attic; even the paste behind the flowered wall-paper seemed to give out a stifling odour; and the lamp was worst of all. Putting his head against the screen, he peered out. The moon was rising, unhealthy and yellow-ringed; it was past ten o'clock. Damn the uncertainty! A travelling-clock ticked with irritating nonchalance on the table at the head of his four-poster bed. The calendar in the lower part of the clock-case showed a staring figure where he had been last July 12th; and couldn't remember. Another gust of wind swished in the trees. Heat, prickling out damply on him and flowing over the brain in dizzy waves; heat…. He blew out the lamp.
Stuffing pipe and oilskin pouch into his pocket, he went downstairs. A rocking-chair squeaked tirelessly in the parlour, where Mrs. Fell was reading a paper with large pictures. Rampole groped out across the lawn. The doctor had drawn two wicker chairs round to the side of the house looking towards the prison, where it was very dark and considerably cooler. Glowing red, the bowl of the doctor's pipe moved there; Rampole found a cold glass put into his hand as he sat down.
"Nothing now," said Dr. Fell, "but to wait."
That very distant thunder moved in the west, with a noise which was really like a bowling-ball curving down the alley, never to hit any pins. Rampole took a deep drink of the cold beer. That was better! The moon was far from strong, but already the cup of the meadow lay washed in a light like skimmed-milk, which was creeping up the walls.
"Which is the window of the Governor's Room?" he asked, in a low voice.
The red bowl gestured. "That large one — the only large one. It's in an almost direct line from here. Do you see it? Just beside it there's an iron door opening on a small stone balcony. That's where the governor stepped out to oversee the hangings."
Rampole nodded. The whole side was covered with ivy, bulging in places where the weight of the masonry had made it sink into the crest of the hill. In the skimmed-milk light he could see tendrils hanging from the heavy bars in the window. Immediately beneath the balcony, but very far down, was another iron door. In front of this door, the limestone hill tumbled down sheer into the pointed fir trees of the Hag's Nook.
"And the door below," he said, "is where they took the condemned out, I suppose?"
"Yes. You can still see the three blocks of stone, with the holes in them, that held the framework of the gallows… The stone coping of the well is hidden in those trees. They weren't there, of course, when the well was in use."
"All the dead were dumped into it?"
"Oh yes. You wonder the whole countryside isn't polluted, even after a hundred years. As it is, the well is a rare place for bugs and vermin. Dr. Markley had been agitating about it for the last fifteen years; but he can't get the borough or council to do anything about it, because it's Starberth land. Hmf."
"And they won't let it be filled in?"
"No. That's a part of the old mumbo-jumbo, too; a relic of the eighteenth-century Anthony. I've been going over Anthony's journal again. And when — I think of the way he died, and certain puzzling references in the journal, I sometimes think…"
"You haven't yet told me how he died," Rampole said, quietly.
As he said it he wondered whether he wanted to know. Last night he thought, he was certain, that something wet had been looking down from the prison wall. In daytime he had not noticed it, but now he was aware of a distinct marshy smell, which seemed to be blowing across the meadow from the Hag's Nook.
"I forgot," muttered the old lexicographer. "I was going to read it to you this afternoon when Mrs. F. interrupted us. Here." There was a rustle of paper, and a thick bundle of sheets was put into his hand. "Take it upstairs later; I want you to read it and form your own opinions."
Were those frogs croaking? He could hear it plainly above the twitching and pulsing of insects. By God! that marshy odour was stronger; it was no illusion. There must be some natural explanation of it — the heat of the day released from the ground, or something. He wished he knew more about nature. The trees had begun to whisper uneasily again. Inside the house, a clock bonged out a single note.
"Half-past ten," grunted his host. "And I think that's the rector's car coming up the lane."
Unsteady headlights were gleaming there. Bumping and rattling, a high old Model T Ford — the kind they used to tell the jokes about-swung round to a stop, the rector looking huge on his perch. He hurried over in the moonlight, catching up a chair from the front of the lawn. His bluff and easy airs were not so much in evidence now; Rampole had a sudden feeling that they were assumed, for social purposes, to cover an intense self-consciousness. They could not see his face well in the gloom, but they knew he was perspiring. He panted as he sat down.
"I snatched a quick meal, he said, "and came straightway. Did you arrange everything?"
"Everything. She'll telephone when he leaves. Here, have a cigar and a glass of beer. How was he when you saw him last?"
A bottle jittered and clicked against the side of a glass. "Sober enough to be frightened," the rector answered. "He went for the sideboard as soon as we reached the Hall. I was of two minds as to whether to stop his drinking. Herbert's got him in hand, though. When I left the Hall he was sitting up in his room lighting one cigarette from the end of the last; he must have smoked a whole box
just while I was there. I — er — I pointed out the deleterious effect of so much tobacco — No, thanks; I won't smoke — on his system, and he flew at me."
They all fell silent. Rampole found himself listening for the clock. Martin Starberth would be watching it, too, in another house.
Inside the house, the telephone rang stridently.
"There it is. Will you get the message, my boy?" asked Dr. Fell, breathing a little faster. "You're more spry than I am."
Rampole almost fell over the front steps in his hurry. The telephone was of the ancient type you crank up, and Mrs. Fell was already holding out the receiver to him.
"He's on his way," the voice of Dorothy Starberth told him. It was admirably calm now. "Watch the road for him. He's carrying a big bicycle lamp."
"How is he?"
"A little thick-spoken, but sober enough." She added, rather wildly, "You're all right, aren't you?"
"Yes. Now don't worry, please! We'll take care of it. He's in no danger, dear."
It was not until he was on his way out of the house that he remembered the last word he had quite unconsciously used over the phone. Even in the turmoil it startled him. He had no recollection whatever of using it at the time.
"Well, Mr. Rampole?" the rector boomed out of the dark.
"He's started. How far is the Hall from the prison?"
"A quarter of a mile beyond, in the direction of the railway station. You must have passed it last night." Saunders spoke absently, but he seemed more at his ease now that the thing was begun. He and the doctor had both come round to the front of the house. He turned, big and bold-shining in the moonlight. "I've been imagining-dreadful things-all day. When this business was far off, I laughed at it. Now that it's here… well, old Mr. Timothy Starberth…"