He winked at me and closed his door.
I did not like the looks of things.
I was being left severely alone. Drurock either slept through the whole of the stifling afternoon or was gone somewhere on his own business. I saw nothing of him.
I saw something of Aubrey and our hostess, and wished I hadn't. I had no intention of so doing, but it came about that I spied on what gave every evidence of developing into a clandestine affair. Under my breath I roundly cursed Aubrey for his utter folly. So this was what his Galahadian mission had come to! Kissing another man's wife behind doors! I decided to subscribe to Drurock's proposal, and leave my fool in blissful ignorance.
Towards Margery I extended a more charitable feeling. I could begin to guess at her horrible adventure in this noxious place, where she was tied to a thing immeasurably loathsome and impure. The return of healthy young Aubrey into her existence must have been like a letting of sunshine into a foul dungeon. Her reaching out to him must have been pure instinct, irresistible, as urgent a gesture as breathing.
I came upon them when I probed my way into the ancient wing. I wished to view the quarters deserted by the family of John Ord, this being the only place which, in my host's account of the resident spectre, was precisely located with reference to the phenomena described. I found my way through a servants' yard and to a fine old kitchen suggestive of days when earlier roasting was done on a royal scale. A cook startled from sleep gave me the directions I needed, and I was soon stumbling over the rotten flooring of one level of the old tower. The dank odour of a mushroom bed below came up through the generous floorcracks.
I discovered a partition and, behind it, a little hive of rooms showing shreds of wallpaper still upon the walls. This would be the erstwhile Ord habitat. Seeking to fix the location with reference to the general plan of the rambling pile, I put my head out of a paneless window and looked around. I was instantly aware of a murmuring of low voices close at hand. I recognised Aubrey's at once. I looked down.
The precious pair of love-sick fools were directly under my eyes. She was seated on a little hummock. Her hands lay in her lap and he was bending over to kiss them. Whatever he was saying had an imploring sound. I could guess the import — "Come, fly with me." She drew away from him, but it was plain that simple instinct would have bent her the other way.
I turned to find a little frisking dog dancing at my heels. I made friends. Then I made a discovery. In one of the inner rooms of the deserted Ord abode there was a deep embrasure with a door. This wall was obviously the outer shell of the tower, immensely thick, and the opening in it was either an egress to the outdoors or a means of communication with another part of the structure. I tried the door. It resisted. While I tugged at it, the little dog began to whine at my back and presently darted over and seized my trouser leg in his teeth. He tugged with all his little strength. I desisted from my vain efforts at the door, and the dog was at once reassured and began to frisk again.
The dog continued to yap at my heels all the way back to the new wing, to which I returned by covering, roughly, the arc of a circle around both of the older sections of the chateau. I was doing a small problem in geometry as I walked and I reached the conclusion that I had all but closed a complete circle by the time I reached the library doors. Unless my rough calculations had misled me, this meant that the door in the deserted Ord apartment gave communication into the modern wing. I was about to take one of my longest steps forward toward solution of the problem of Low Fennel at this juncture and, in the next moment, I took it. As I crossed the sill into the library, the little dog which had pestered me suddenly dropped back with a low whine and lay shivering on the gravel path outside the room. Nor would he budge to rejoin me when I emitted a coaxing whistle and snapped my fingers.
I suddenly darted back and, seizing the dog by the collar, dragged him into the study with me. The result was extraordinarily encouraging to the hypothesis forming in my mind. The brute whimpered and whined piteously. At the door he struggled furiously and even tried to snap at my hand. I got him inside and imprisoned him by closing the french window. Then only did I release him. What followed was immensely suggestive, in fact conclusive. The dog began circling about the room in a frenzy, seeking a way of escape. His neck-hairs stood out like a bottle-brush. He no longer barked, he roared. Finally, ending a dizzy circuit of the room, the small animal hurled himself like a projectile at the closed window and smashed his way to the open through sash and pane.
I did not need to make further inquiry into the geographical confines of the problem. It lay here, in the modern wing!
Dinner was a disastrous affair. The various causes of disunion which lay among us all were coming too close to reckless action and utterance to permit a flow of small talk. We nibbled at tasteless viands and were all ready enough for the signal to rise from the table. Each made a pretext to be alone.
I passed an inner door to the library as I started for my room, wanting nothing but a chance to lie on my back and puff on a pipe and think this thing out. Drurock intercepted me at the library door. He was in a listless, beaten mood.
"I spoke about a document I wanted you to see," he said, but I knew that this was a pretext to draw me into the room. I saw nothing for it but to join him in a cigar. He handed me a small bound volume, which I slipped into my pocket.
"I'll read it in bed," I said.
I sat, but he paced before me. His first question took me right in my wind by its brutal unexpectedness.
"Am I utterly repulsive?" he cried.
It was not the sort of thing that required answer and I held my tongue. He made another restless crossing of the room and stopped before me again.
"A man has a right to protect his home — even if it's not such a very happy one, hasn't he?" His manner bordered on complete loss of self-control and I was on my guard against feeding his state with any badly chosen comment. I elected to make none at all.
He pounded his palm with his fist and harangued the walls.
"Even in law, he has the right, hasn't he?"
I made some inconsequential comment and rose for a leave-taking which was flight.
"Sleep soundly," he recommended with an especial emphasis. "And don't leave your room."
The heat was intolerable. I discarded everything but a shirt and stretched out on the bed. Sleep was out of the question. I left my bed lamp burning, lit a pipe, and drew out the volume Drurock had given me. It was a piece of bound handwriting. The ink was very old and pale. There was no date anywhere to be found, but the script was Elizabethan.
"In the reign of Mary accursed," began the reading, "a Du-roque of Bas-Fenelle in Cornwall came to be martyred for his faith the manner of excecution being the ministration of a lethal draught which was handed him duly in his cell in the Tower and, which drinking, he did sit down upon his pallett showing no sign, nor yet suffering any discomfort, and this for two whole days and nights, until the warden, accounting it a miracle and being afraid, did privately release the prisoner for fear of offending heaven by detaining him.
"Truly it was a miracle, even as the warden supposed, but not one of heaven but rather of hell, and this has become known, to wit:
"The Duroques of Bas-Fenelle in Cornwall are immune to all lethal matters, such as the poxes and the potions and even the bite of the serpent and this not because of a virtue of their blood but because of a foulness of it which is fouler than any poison. This is the true account of how this comes to be.
"This was in the time of the first Plantagenet and the first Duroque of England built his house then close to the mouth of the rich mine of Fennel, granted him by his King. Having built, the first Duroque turned against his King and refused tribute, wherefor Plantagenet did send forces against him, but the King's soldiers never came to attack Bas-Fenelle, having all sickened or died long ere they could come to its walls and this by reason of the waters in the country about Duroque's house, which were fatal and accounted for all who drank.