"Is the room haunted?"
"Please?"
"I say, is the room haunted?"
The caretaker smiled, as she wrapped her hands in the apron she wore. "If you mean ghosts, miss, I've never heard of any such."
"I'm simply asking of it has the reputation of being queer in any way?"
"Well, for one thing, miss, it's very old. Priday says it's far and away the oldest part of the house-all this end is. It wouldn't be natural if no stories was told about an ancient room like this."
"What kind of stories?"
"Ah, my husband's the one for all that, miss. He'll tell you all you want to know about the house-if you can get him to talk, that is. Not many can. The master never could get much out of him. The Pridays have served here for more than a hundred years, and it's to be expected that my husband knows a goodish bit about the place, which he doesn't want to lose by telling to the first asker. You talk to him, miss, and if he's in the mood he'll tell you some funny stories. I don't pretend to know much about it myself."
"Do you say that this part of the house is older than the hall?" asked Marshall.
"My husband says it's nigh fifteen centuries old, sir, only it's been patched up from time to time, and made to look more like the rest of the house."
"That's rather interesting. I wonder if Judge know it?"
No one answered him. Mrs. Moor again consulted her wrist-watch.
"We really must be getting back-we shall lose our lunch. You'll have to see the room some other time, Marshall, if it's a case of necessity."
There was nothing else to do, and they retraced their steps. Returning through the corridor, they descended the stairs. When once again in the hall, the ladies thanked Mrs. Priday and prepared to go outside, but Marshall stayed behind for a moment to slip a treasure-note in her hand.
Priday himself opened the lodge-gate to allow the car to pass. He was a tough, wrinkled little fellow of about fifty-five, with cheeks like Kentish apples, and a pair of small, wary, twinkling, sloe-black eyes. Isbel viewed him with great curiosity, but no words were exchanged.
"Then we'll run over there again next week-end, providing I can get the key of that room?" asked Marshall of Isbel on the same evening, at the hotel.
She looked at him closely. "Yes. And when you write to Mr. Judge, hint to him that aunt is quite prepared to bid for the house. You know how to put it."
"But is that definite?"
"Certainly. She may not know her own mind, but I know it for her. You'll do that?"
"You'd be prepared to live there yourself for a few months?"
"Yes-for it's such a short time that it makes no difference one way or the other."
And she lifted her hand to her hair with such an air of cold abstraction that Marshall thought she was really bored by the whole affair.
Chapter IV THE LEGEND OF ULF'S TOWER
The fine weather ran into Sunday. Mrs. Moor went to church in the morning, while Isbel dragged the unwilling Marshall with her to the West Pier to hear music. In honour of his return, she had to-day for the first time got back into colours, and was wearing a light summer frock, with cerise hat; her pale face was powdered as usual. She was a good deal stared at as they sauntered through the double-row of seated people, which had the effect of irritating her, for she was not feeling in a particularly social humour-she had slept abominably on the previous night.
The band was playing in the pavilion, but the windows were open, and they could hear perfectly well outside. They sank into a couple of deck-chairs which happened to be vacant. An undistinguished valse was just slowing to a finish.
A minute later Isbel nudged her escort; with a significant glance she directed his attention to his neighbour on the other side. It was Sherrup.
"Shall I speak?" he whispered.
"Of course."
Marshall drew reflectively at his cigarette, making no sign until the piece ended. Then he turned to the other good-humouredly.
"Bit warm this morning, Mr. Sherrup?"
The thick, red-bearded American was in the act of wiping his over-heated brow with an ornate handkerchief. He slipped it away, and calmly passed his hand over to the underwriter. The tail of his eye rested for a single instant on Isbel's face, but he did not venture to claim the acquaintanceship.
"You've got my name, I see?"
"The caretaker told us. My own name's Stokes-and this is Miss Loment."
Sherrup rose and bowed.
"Staying long in Brighton?" inquired Marshall.
"No, I'm getting back to London in the morning, en route to Italy."
"You won't be seeing Judge, then? You don't know him personally, I think you said."
"Why, no; I've never met him. My wife wished me to take that house in on my trip, so I wrote him about it, and he was good enough to mail me an order. That's all my connection with Mr. Judge."
"You know he's just back from America?"
"They told me at the house."
Isbel whispered to Marshall to change seats. He obeyed, and she found herself between the two men.
"Still in quest of music, it seems, Mr. Sherrup?"
He laughed. "Oh, well, music was invented for lonely men. "
"Your wife isn't with you, then?"
"You mustn't blame me for that, Miss Loment. It wasn't my fault. She just wouldn't come. Scared of the sea."
"Is it a professional trip for you, or a holiday?"
"Oh, I'm seeing the galleries, that's all."
"What is your particular branch of art?"
"I'm a portrait-painter."
"How awfully interesting! But don't you have to accept commissions from all sorts of objectionable types?"
"There are no objectionable types, Miss Loment. In an art sense, every man and woman alive is an individual problem, with special features you won't find elsewhere."
"I never looked at it in that light. It must be so. But how absorbing you must find it all!"
Marshall got up.
"I'm going to hunt for cigarettes, if you'll both excuse me. Stay here, Isbel. I won't be long."
"No, don't be long." She turned again to Sherrup.
"Do you find you get most of your applications from women or men?"
"The sexes are about equally vain, Miss Loment; but maybe the ladies are ahead in self-enthusiasm. I couldn't supply the statistics off-hand."
She laughed. A light entr'acte struck up, and further conversation was postponed for a few minutes. Isbel began to tap the pier flooring with the tip of her sunshade nervously and absently. As the last notes sounded she threw a hurried glance to the right, to see if Marshall were returning, and then leant over, almost confidentially, toward her companion.
"Tell me-what did you really think of that house yesterday?"
"A real impressive old pile, Miss Loment."
"Nothing more?"
He gave her a guarded look. "I guess a house can't be much more than a house."
"What made you sit down to that piano, then?"
"Oh, that!" He removed his hat, and slowly passed his hand over his broad, prominent forehead…"My little performance has surely struck your imagination. I thought we were through with that yesterday."
"But it was a strange notion, you must admit."
"Perhaps I'm a strange character, Miss Loment."
"Don't let's fence. Mr. Stokes will be back directly. I want to know, please-what had the house to do with it?"
Sherrup hesitated. "I had some sensations."
"I thought so. And where did you have them? Wasn't it in the gable of that dark corridor on the top floor?"
There was a short pause.
"We look to be in the same boat, Miss Loment."
"Then it was there?"
"Not there, but near there. It was outside the door of that room they call the East Room these days. It used to be Ulf's Tower. Did you get as far?"
"Yes. And what was it you heard?"
"Heard?…Oh, I guess you're referring to the sound in that passage? No, it wasn't that, Miss Loment."