Stubbing out his cigarette, John put his foot on the self starter. As it ceased to whirr and the engine began to fire, he said, `Since we've had the luck to get out all right, I'm glad we went in. It enabled you to find out a tremendous lot, and at least we know what we are up against now. I wish we could have made a job of it tonight, and called in the police to haul him off to jail; but since you've ruled that out, the sooner we can grab a hot toddy, get our wet things off, and hop into bed, the better.'
`Not so fast, laddie,' C. B. replied, as the car gathered speed. `I'll gladly dig the barman out to fix us hot toddies, whatever time we get back to Colchester, but I've no intention of returning yet. First, I mean to try to pick up a little evidence against his Satanic Reverence.'
Slowing down the car, John turned and stared at him. `You . . . you don't mean that you're going back into that hellish place?'
`No. I'm not poking my head into that hornets' nest again till the hornets have had a chance to settle down. But we are up to our necks in this thing now, and we've got no time to lose. I hate to think what my chief will have to say should matters go wrong, and you had better keep out of it; but I really do mean to risk finding myself in the dock this time. I intend to break, enter and, I hope, burgle private premises without the least excuse to justify my act if I am caught.'
17
The Mystery of The Grange
John let out a low whistle, then said, `It's not for me to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but d'you really think you ought to take such a risk, C. B.? I mean, of blotting your copy book so badly that even your Department will feel that it must wash its hands of you?'
`Yes. I think so in a case like this, for which no provision is made by our ordinary laws. I don't want to sound stuffy, but there are times when every man must be guided by his own conscience, and this is one of them. We have learnt to night that we are up against not just a dabbler in Black Magic who threatens the well being of one young woman, but a Satanist of the first order, who is striving to perfect and launch upon the world one of the worst horrors that even his master, the Devil, can have conceived. To stop that I am prepared to go to any lengths.'
`Since you put it that way, you are absolutely right; but where is this place you intend to break into?'
`I mean to pay a midnight visit to The Grange.' 'What good will that do us, as Beddows isn't there?' `Probably none. It's just a long shot; but there's a chance that we might find some useful pointers to Beddows' and his tie up with the canon.'
John spoke with a touch of deference. `I don't pretend to be psychic, but I didn't at all like the atmosphere of The Grange when we called there this evening. Perhaps that is because it is such a gloomy old place, but as these two beauties appear to be mixed up together I should think it is quite on the cards that The Grange, too, has got some pretty nasty spooks in it. Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing for one night?'
`To be honest, John, I have,' C. B. replied quietly. `But in the late war, whenever one of the R.A.F. boys was shot down, or made a crash landing, they used to send him up again just as soon as they could. It was an excellent principle. That's the way to keep one's nerve, and if it wasn't for the fact that the Canon and his pals must be on the qui vive I'd make myself go back into that crypt. As such a move would mean sticking my neck out a bit too far, I'm going into the moated Grange at midnight instead.'
`Well, you're the boss.' John tried to make his voice sound flippant. The few minutes he had spent in the crypt had been more than enough for him. He could only guess what C. B. must have been through while bound hand and foot there and expecting to be murdered within the hour; but he knew that to show admiration for the elder man would only embarrass them both, so without further remark he took the car round the village green and drove back the way they had come.
As they were passing the church, C. B. said, `All the same, John, you mustn't get the idea I'm about to risk running into something very nasty, or having to appear in the dock, for no better reason than to test my own nerve. I'm going into The Grange because this matter has become too urgent for me to neglect any chance of getting a new line on these people. We left France with the object of interviewing Beddows, because we felt confident that he would be able to tell us what lay behind Copely Syle's attempts to get hold of Christina. We have found that out from the Canon himself; but what we have learnt to night makes it more important than ever that we should get hold of Beddows with the least possible delay. At the moment we have only half the picture. He must be able to give us the other half. We've got to know why it was Christina that the Canon selected as his potential victim, and why her father left her marooned in the South of France. I have an idea that Copely Syle may be blackmailing him. If so, we'll get something on the enemy that way. If not, he may be able to provide us with some other line by which we can use the normal processes of the law to spike the Canon's guns. But we've got to trace him first, and it seems to me that our best chance of doing that is by raiding his house. With a little luck we may find some papers there which will give us a lead to where he has got to.'
`I hadn't thought of any of those things,' John admitted ruefully, and, angry with himself for having suggested going to bed while the night still held a chance to further elucidate the grim mystery which surrounded Christina, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator.
Two minutes later he drove the car a little way up a blind turning that he had noticed earlier, barely a hundred yards from the gates of The Grange, brought it to a standstill .and switched out its lights. C. B. produced a big torch from under the seat and went round to the boot. From it he got out several implements that are not usually found in a motor repair outfit, then they walked along the road to the entrance to the drive. As they reached it, C. B. said
`Now this time. ..'
`Sorry C. B.,' John interrupted him before he had a chance to get any further, `I'm much too cold and wet to hang about here. I'm coming in with you.'
`Then if we are caught we may both be jugged for housebreaking.'
`No. You know jolly well that doesn't follow. If we are surprised, the odds are that one of us will have time to get away. I couldn't go in with you before, because the Canon would have recognised me; but this is different. Honestly, we'll both be much safer if we stick together.'
`You won't, because you will be taking a quite unnecessary risk.' C. B. grinned at him in the darkness. `Still, since you insist, I won't deny that I'll be glad to have you with me. Come on, then.'
In single file they walked along the grass verge of the drive until they reached the sweep in front of the house; then C. B. led the way round to its back. The rain had eased a little and in one quarter of the dark heavens the moon was now trying to break through between banks of swiftly drifting cloud. The light it gave was just enough to outline dimly the irregularities of the building, parts of which were four hundred years old, and it glinted faintly on its windows. No light showed in any of them, neither was there now any sound of a wireless; but as it was still only a little after eleven o'clock C. B. feared that the Jutson couple might not yet have gone to sleep; so he continued to move with great caution.
As John peered up at the flat over the stables in which they lived, he whispered