The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 59

But they neither moved nor spoke.

When Sonia had last seen them in the glare of the electric globes, they had been a collection of ordinary waxworks, some of which were the worse for wear. The black velvet which lined the walls of the Gallery was alike tawdry and filmed with dust.

The side opposite to the window was built into alcoves, which held highly moral tableaux, depicting contrasting scenes in the career of Vice and Virtue. Sonia had slipped into one of these recesses, just before closing-time, in order to hide for her vigil.

It had been a simple affair. The porter had merely rung his bell, and the few courting-couples who represented the Public had taken his hint and hurried towards the exit.

No one was likely to risk being locked in, for the Waxwork Collection of Oldhampton had lately acquired a sinister reputation. The foundation for this lay in the fate of a stranger to the town-a commercial traveller-who had cut his throat in the Hall of Horrors.

Since then, two persons had, separately, spent the night in the Gallery and, in the morning, each had been found dead.

In both cases the verdict had been "Natural death, due to heart failure." The first victim-a local alderman-had been addicted to alcohol, and was in very bad shape. The second-his great friend-was a delicate little man, a martyr to asthma, and slightly unhinged through unwise absorption in spiritualism.

While the coincidence of the tragedies stirred up a considerable amount of local superst.i.tion, the general belief was that both deaths were due to the power of suggestion, in conjunction with macabre surroundings. The victims had let themselves be frightened to death by the Waxworks.

Sonia was there, in the Gallery, to test its truth.

She was the latest addition to the staff of the Oldhampton Gazette. Bubbling with enthusiasm, she made no secret of her literary ambitions, and it was difficult to feed her with enough work. Her colleagues listened to her with mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and boredom, but they liked her as a refreshing novelty. As for her fine future, they looked to young Wells-the Sporting Editor-to effect her speedy and painless removal from the sphere of journalism.

On Christmas Eve, Sonia took them all into her confidence over her intention to spend a night in the Waxworks, on the last night of the old year.

"Copy there," she declared. "I'm not timid and I have fairly sensitive perceptions, so I ought to be able to write up the effect of imagination on the nervous system. I mean to record my impressions, every hour, while they're piping-hot."

Looking up suddenly, she had surprised a green glare in the eyes of Hubert Poke.

When Sonia came to work on the Gazette, she had a secret fear of unwelcome amorous attentions, since she was the only woman on the staff. But the first pa.s.sion she awoke was hatred.

Poke hated her impersonally, as the representative of a Force, numerically superior to his own s.e.x, which was on the opposing side in the battle for existence. He feared her, too, because she was the unknown element, and possessed the unfair weapon of charm.

Before she came, he had been the star turn on the Gazette. His own position on the staff gratified his vanity and entirely satisfied his narrow ambition. But Sonia had stolen some of his thunder. On more than one occasion she had written up a story he had failed to cover, and he had to admit that her success was due to a quicker wit.

For some time past he had been playing with the idea of spending a night in the Waxworks, but was deterred by the knowledge that his brain was not sufficiently temperate for the experiment. Lately he had been subject to sudden red rages, when he had felt a thick hot taste in his throat, as though of blood. He knew that his jealousy of Sonia was accountable. It had almost reached the stage of mania, and trembled on the brink of homicidal urge.

While his brain was still creaking with the idea of first-hand experience in the ill-omened Gallery, Sonia had nipped in with her readymade plan.

Controlling himself with an effort, he listened while the sub-editor issued a warning to Sonia.

"Bon idea, young woman, but you will find the experience a bit raw. You've no notion how uncanny these big deserted buildings can be."

"That's so," nodded young Wells. "I once spent a night in a haunted house."

Sonia looked at him with her habitual interest. He was short and thick-set, with a three-cornered smile which appealed to her.

"Did you see anything?" she asked.

"No, I cleared out before the show came on. Windy. After a bit, one can imagine anything."

It was then that Poke introduced a new note into the discussion by his own theory of the mystery deaths.

Sitting alone in the deserted Gallery, Sonia preferred to forget his words. She resolutely drove them from her mind while she began to settle down for the night.

Her first action was to cross to the figure of Cardinal Wolsey and unceremoniously raise his heavy scarlet robe. From under its voluminous folds, she drew out her cushion and attache-case, which she had hidden earlier in the evening.

Mindful of the fact that it would grow chilly at dawn, she carried on her arm her thick white tennis-coat. Slipping it on, she placed her cushion in the angle of the wall, and sat down to await developments.

The Gallery was far more mysterious now that the lights were out. At either end, it seemed to stretch away into impenetrable black tunnels. But there was nothing uncanny about it, or about the figures, which were a tame and conventional collection of historical personages. Even the adjoining Hall of Horrors contained no horrors, only a selection of respectable-looking poisoners.

Sonia grinned cheerfully at the row of waxworks which were visible in the lamplight from the street.

"So you are the villains of the piece," she murmured. "Later on, if the office is right, you will a.s.sume unpleasant mannerisms to try to cheat me into believing you are alive. I warn you, old sports, you'll have your work cut out for you ... And now I think I'll get better acquainted with you. Familiarity breeds contempt."

She went the round of the figures, greeting each with flippancy or criticism. Presently she returned to her corner and opened her notebook ready to record her impressions.

Twelve o'clock. The first hour has pa.s.sed almost too quickly. I've drawn a complete blank. Not a blessed thing to record. Not a vestige of reaction. The waxworks seem a commonplace lot, without a sc.r.a.p of hypnotic force. In fact, they're altogether too matey.

Sonia had left her corner, to write her entry in the light which streamed through the window. Smoking was prohibited in the building, and, lest she should yield to temptation, she had left both her cigarettes and matches behind her, on the office table.

At this stage she regretted the matches. A little extra light would be a boon. It was true she carried an electric torch, but she was saving it, in case of emergency.

It was a loan from young Wells. As they were leaving the office together, he spoke to her confidentially.

"Did you notice how Poke glared at you? Don't get up against him. He's a nasty piece of work. He's so mean he'd sell his mother's shroud for old rags. And he's a cruel little devil, too. He turned out his miserable pup, to starve in the streets, rather than cough up for the license."

Sonia grew hot with indignation.

"What he needs to cure his complaint is a strong dose of rat-poison," she declared. "What became of the poor little dog?"

"Oh, he's all right. He was a matey chap, and he soon chummed up with a mongrel of his own cla.s.s."

"You?" asked Sonia, her eyes suddenly soft.

"A mongrel, am I?" grinned Wells. "Well, anyway, the pup will get a better Christmas than his first, when Poke went away and left him on the chain ... We're both of us going to over-eat and over-drink. You're on your own, too. Won't you join us?"

"I'd love to."

Although the evening was warm and muggy the invitation suffused Sonia with the spirit of Christmas. The shade of d.i.c.kens seemed to be hovering over the parade of the streets. A red-nosed Santa Claus presided over a spangled Christmas-tree outside a toy-shop. Windows were hung with tinselled b.a.l.l.s and coloured paper festoons. Pedestrians, laden with parcels, called out seasonable greetings.

"Merry Christmas."

Young Wells's three-cornered smile was his tribute to the joyous feeling of festival. His eyes were eager as he turned to Sonia.

"I've an idea. Don't wait until after the holidays to write up the Waxworks. Make it a Christmas stunt, and go there tonight."

"I will," declared Sonia.

It was then that he slipped the torch into her hand.

"I know you belong to the stronger s.e.x," he said. "But even your nerve might crash. If it does, just flash this torch under the window. Stretch out your arm above your head, and the light will be seen from the street."

"And what will happen then?" asked Sonia.

"I shall knock up the miserable porter and let you out."

"But how will you see the light?"

"I shall be in the street."

"All night?"

"Yes; I sleep there." Young Wells grinned. "Understand," he added loftily, "that this is a matter of principle. I could not let any woman-even one so aged and unattractive as yourself-feel beyond the reach of help."

He cut into her thanks as he turned away with a parting warning.

"Don't use the torch for light, or the juice may give out. It's about due for a new battery."

As Sonia looked at the torch, lying by her side, it seemed a link with young Wells. At this moment he was patrolling the street, a st.u.r.dy figure in an old tweed overcoat, with his cap pulled down over his eyes.

As she tried to pick out his footsteps from among those of the other pa.s.sers-by, it struck her that there was plenty of traffic, considering that it was past twelve o'clock.

"The witching hour of midnight is another lost illusion," she reflected. "Killed by nightclubs, I suppose."

It was cheerful to know that so many citizens were abroad, to keep her company. Some optimists were still singing carols. She faintly heard the strains of "Good King Wenceslas." It was in a tranquil frame of mind that she unpacked her sandwiches and thermos.

"It's Christmas Day," she thought, as she drank hot coffee. "And I'm spending it with Don and the pup."

At that moment her career grew misty, and the flame of her literary ambition dipped as the future glowed with the warm firelight of home. In sudden elation, she held up her flask and toasted the waxworks.

"Merry Christmas to you all! And many of them."

The faces of the illuminated figures remained stolid, but she could almost swear that a low murmur of acknowledgment seemed to swell from the rest of her company-invisible in the darkness.

She spun out her meal to its limit, stifling her craving for a cigarette. Then, growing bored, she counted the visible waxworks, and tried to memorise them.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two ... Wolsey. Queen Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes, Napoleon ought to go on a diet. Ever heard of eighteen days, Nap? Poor old Julius Caesar looks as though he'd been sun-bathing on the Lido. He's about due for the melting-pot."

In her eyes they were a second-rate set of dummies. The local theory that they could terrorise a human being to death or madness seemed a fantastic notion.

"No," concluded Sonia. "There's really more in Poke's bright idea."

Again she saw the sun-smitten office-for the big unshielded window faced south-with its blistered paint, faded wall-paper, ink-stained desks, typewriters, telephones, and a huge fire in the untidy grate. Young Wells smoked his big pipe, while the sub-editor-a ginger, pig-headed young man-laid down the law about the mystery deaths.

And then she heard Poke's toneless deadman's voice.

"You may be right about the spiritualist. He died of fright-but not of the waxworks. My belief is that he established contact with the spirit of his dead friend, the alderman, and so learned his real fate."

"What fate?" snapped the sub-editor.

"I believe that the alderman was murdered," replied Poke.

He clung to his point like a limpet in the face of all counter-arguments.

"The alderman had enemies," he said. "Nothing would be easier than for one of them to lie in wait for him. In the present circ.u.mstances, I could commit a murder in the Waxworks, and get away with it."

"How?" demanded young Wells.

"How? To begin with, the Gallery is a one-man show and the porter's a bonehead. Anyone could enter, and leave, the Gallery without his being wise to it."

"And the murder?" plugged young Wells.

With a shudder Sonia remembered how Poke had glanced at his long, knotted fingers.

"If I could not achieve my object by fright, which is the foolproof way," he replied, "I should try a little artistic strangulation."

"And leave your marks?"

"Not necessarily. Every expert knows that there are methods which show no trace."

Sonia fumbled in her bag for the cigarettes which were not there.

"Why did I let myself think of that, just now?" she thought. "Really too stupid."

As she reproached herself for her morbidity, she broke off to stare at the door which led to the Hall of Horrors.

When she had last looked at it, she could have sworn that it was tightly closed ... But now it gaped open by an inch.

She looked at the black cavity, recognizing the first test of her nerves. Later on, there would be others. She realized the fact that, within her cool, practical self, she carried a hysterical, neurotic pa.s.senger, who would doubtless give her a lot of trouble through officious suggestions and uncomfortable reminders.

She resolved to give her second self a taste of her quality, and so quell her at the start.

"That door was merely closed," she remarked as, with a firm step, she crossed to the Hall of Horrors and shut the door.

One o'clock. I begin to realize that there is more in this than I thought. Perhaps I'm missing my sleep. But I'm keyed up and horribly expectant. Of what? I don't know. But I seem to be waiting for-something. I find myself listening-listening. The place is full of mysterious noises. I know they're my fancy ... And things appear to move. I can distinguish footsteps and whispers, as though those waxworks which I cannot see in the darkness are beginning to stir to life.

Sonia dropped her pencil at the sound of a low chuckle. It seemed to come from the end of the Gallery which was blacked out by shadows.

As her imagination galloped away with her, she reproached herself sharply.

"Steady, don't be a fool. There must be a cloak-room here. That chuckle is the air escaping in a pipe-or something. I'm betrayed by my own ignorance of hydraulics."

In spite of her brave words, she returned rather quickly to her corner.

With her back against the wall she felt less apprehensive. But she recognized her cowardice as an ominous sign.

She was desperately afraid of someone-or something-creeping up behind her and touching her.

"I've struck the bad patch," she told herself. "It will be worse at three o'clock and work up to a climax. But when I make my entry, at three, I shall have reached the peak. After that every minute will be bringing the dawn nearer."

But of one fact she was ignorant. There would be no recorded impression at three o'clock.