Holden darted a glance at Celia.
Celia, her head slightly lowered, was breathing in short and quick gasps. Instinctively she reached out and found his arm; but she hardly seemed conscious she was doing so.
Silence.
For ten mortal minutes Inspector Crawford hunched there while he compared those seals, moving only to ease cramped muscles and never moving his head. A small pattern of night noises crept out: the scuttling of an animal in the grass. Once Celia broke the silence.
"Can't you . . . ?"
"Easy, miss! Mustn't rush this!"
Momentarily Dr. Fell's light swept around as the Inspector spoke. That expression in Celia's eyes, Holden thought: where had he seen it? It reminded him of something. Where had he seen it before? The light swung back again.
"Right you are, sir," declared Crawford, straightening up and abruptly moving back from the door as though he loathed it. "Thaf s the original seal. Take my oath!"
"Would you also take your oath," asked Dr. Fell "that this vault is solidly built?"
"Not much doubt that, sir," retorted Crawford, handing him back the ring and the wash-leather bag.
"You're quite sure?"
"I was up here once or twice," said Crawford, "when Bert Farmer was building it. Walls eighteen inch thick. Stone floor. No vents or windows."
"Then if anything has happened," said Dr. Fell "it must have been caused by persons or things inside?"
"Happened?" repeated Inspector Crawford,
"Yes."
"Come off it, sir!" said Crawford, with sudden loudness. "What could happen, among a lot of dead men?"
"Possibly nothing. Perhaps much. Cut the clay out of that lock and we'll see."
"Can't you hurry?" cried Celia.
"Easy, miss!"
The beams of two torches were now fixed on that door as Crawford went to work with a sharp knife.
Holden had to admit to himself, in honesty, that he was now more nervous than at any time in fifteen months. No, far longer than that! At the end of the war, theoretically, you could forget your impulse to dodge into the nearest doorway at sight of any policeman. With him the feeling had lasted much longer.
If only he could remember (his thoughts ran on while Crawford's knife scraped and scraped) where he had seen that expression on Celia's face, and what it meant! It was associated with some risky business. It was associated with ...
"I only hope the key will work," Crawford kept muttering. "I only hope the key will work, that’ s all I hope. This clay stuff sets hard. But if s a very big keyhole; ought to be a simple lock. Got the key, sir? Ah! Thanks. Steady."
There was the heavy, clean click of a new lock as the key turned.
"All right," grunted Dr. Fell. "The door swings inward. Shove her open!"
"Sir. Listen." Crawford's red moustache turned slightly. "Do you honest-to-God think something's going to come out of there?"
"No! no! Certainly not! Shove her open!" "Right you are, sir."
The door creaked and squealed. Celia deliberately turned her back.
Now the beams of two electric torches were directed inside. They remained steady for perhaps two seconds, which seemed two minutes. Slowly they bepn to move. Down, up, across . . .
Inspector Crawford uttered a ringing expletive which burst out in that quiet place. The hand which held his torch was quite steady. But he had his left shoulder pressed to the side of the doorway as though he were trying to push the wall in. The red moustache bristled as he turned his head toward Dr. Fell.
"Those coffins have been moved," he said. "They've been moved."
" 'Flung,'" said Dr. Fell, "would be a more descriptive word. Flung as though by hands of such abnormal power that. . . Inspector!"
"Yes, sir?"
"When I locked and sealed that door, there were four coffins in the tomb. One was that of Mrs. Thorley Marsh. The other three had been brought down from the old vault to," Dr. Fell cleared his throat, "to keep her company. They were resting on the floor, in two piles, one on top of the other, in the middle of the vault Now look at them!"
Celia, shivering, an utter stranger, still kept her back turned. Holden came forward and looked past the others' shoulders.
The vault was not large. It was as bare as a stone jug except for an empty little niche in each side wall. Set perhaps four steps below ground level, it gaped at the lights with an evil sight
One coffin, of nineteenth century design, stood grotesquely and coquettishly half upright propped there, against the rear wall. Another—of very new gleaming wood over its lead casing and its inner shell of wood, which could only be Margot’s—lay pressed lengthways close against the left-hand wall The third, an old one, had been flung around so that it lay sideways to the door. Only the fourth, the oldest and most malignant looking of all, rested quiet
"And now," said Dr. Fell, "look at the floor."
"It’s . . ."
"It is sand," said Dr. Fell, rounding his syllables hollowly. "A layer of fine white sand, spread on a stone floor and smoothed out in my presence, just before the tomb was sealed. Look man! Use your light!"
"I'm doing it sir."
"The coffins," said Dr. Fell "have been lifted and thrown about. The sand has been disturbed. But there is not a single footprint in that sand."
Their voices, speaking through the doorway, reverberated and were thrown back at them. Warm moist air breathed out of the vault. It had a sickening effect The propped, drunken-looking coffin against the back wall, Holden could have sworn, trembled as though precariously balanced.
"This ain't," declared Crawford, and corrected himself instantly, "this isn't possible!" He said it simply, as a reasonable man.
"Apparently not But there it is."
"You and the young lady," Crawford's eyes flashed round quickly, "did this locking up and sealing up?"
"Yes."
"Why did you do it, sir?"
"To see whether there might be any disturbance like this." "You mean," Crawford hesitated, "things that aren't alive?" "Yes."
"Somebody," declared Crawford, "has been up to jiggery-pokery in there!" "How?"
That one word, like a knockout blow, sufficed. Yet Crawford, after a long pause, recovered doggedly. His keen eyes, over the bristling moustache, grew almost pleading.
"Dr. Fell, you're not fooling me?"
"On my word of honor, I have told you the literal truth."
"But sir, do you know anything about how modern coffins are built? Do you know how much they weigh?"
"I have never," said Dr. Fell, "actually occupied one."
"There's something funny about you," Crawford studied him, the eyes moving. 'You look... by George," he pounced on it "you look actually relieved/ Why, sir? Did you expect something worse than this to happen?"
"Perhaps I did."
Crawford shook his head violently, like a man coming up from under water.
"Besides," he argued, "what’s it got to do with you-know-what?" His glance was significant "It's no concern of ours, I mean the police's, if coffins start dancing about in their tombs. That's God Almighty's concern. Or the devil's. But it's not ours."
"True."
"The superintendent," persisted Crawford, "tells me I'm to take orders from you. He tells me a little about this murdering swine who's been—" Here the Inspector's professional caution stopped him. "Anyway, he tells me something about what you've got up your sleeve. We're after evidence. But look therel"
Straightening up, Crawford thrust his arm deep through the doorway. He sent the beam of the torch slowly playing over the grotesquely sprawled coffins and the sand.
"They're deaden," he went on. "Deaden are no good to us, unless it’s for a post-mortem. And that chap," the light fastened on the most malignant-looking coffin, a sixteenth-century one of decaying scrollwork, "that chap looks as though he'd be a good bit past any post-mortem.