The Haunting of Low Fennel Part 14

Even as I looked in amazement it was gone.

Very softly I turned the k.n.o.b.

Careful as I was, it slipped from my grasp with a faint _click_. To this, I think, I owed my failure to see more than I did see. But what I saw was sufficiently remarkable.

Cloud-banks raced across the sky tempestuously, and, as I peered over the oaken bal.u.s.trade down into the hall, one of these impinged upon the moon's disc and, within the s.p.a.ce of two seconds or less, had wholly obscured it. Upon where a long, rectangular patch of light, splashed with lozenge-shaped shadows spread from a mullioned window across the polished floor, crept a band of blackness--widened--claimed half--claimed the whole--and left the hall in darkness.

Yet, in the half-second before the coming of the cloud, and as I first looked down, I had seen something--something indefinable. All but immediately it was lost in the quick gliding shadow--yet I could be sure that I had seen--what?

A gleaming, metallic streak--almost I had said a sword--which leapt from my view into the bank of gloom!

Pa.s.sing the cloud, and the moon anew cutting a line of light through the darkness of the hall, nothing, no one, remained to be seen. I might have imagined the presence of the shining blade, rod, or whatever had seemed to glitter in the moon-rays; and I should have felt a.s.sured that such was the case but for the suspicion (and it was nearly a certainty) that a part of the shadow which had enwrapped the mysterious appearance had been of greater depth than the rest--more tangible; in short, had been no shadow, but a substance--the form of one who lurked there.

Doubtful how to act, and unwilling to disturb the house without good reason, I stood hesitating at the head of the stairs.

A grating sound, like that of a rusty lock, and clearly distinguishable above the noise occasioned by the wind, came to my ears. I began slowly and silently to descend the stairs.

At the foot I paused, looking warily about me. There was no one in the hall.

A new cloud swept across the face of the moon, and utter darkness surrounded me again. I listened intently, but nothing stirred.

Briefly I searched all those odd nooks and corners in which the rambling place abounded, but without discovering anything to account for the phenomena which had brought me there at that hour of the night. The big doors were securely bolted, as were all the windows. Extremely puzzled, I returned to my room and to bed.

In the morning I said nothing to our host respecting the mysterious traffic of the night, since nothing appeared to be disturbed in any way.

"Did you hear it blowing?" asked Colonel Reynor during breakfast. "The booming of the waves sounded slap under the house. Good job the wind has dropped this morning."

It was, indeed, a warm and still morning, when on the moorland strip beyond the long cornfield, where the thick fir-tufts marked the warren honeycomb, partridges might be met with in many coveys, basking in the sandy patches.

There were tunnels through the dense bushes to the west, too, which led one with alarming suddenness to the very brink of the cliff. And here went scurrying many a hare before the armed intruder.

Lorian and I worked around by lunch-time to the spinneys east of the cornfield, and, nothing loath to partake of the substantial hospitalities of Ragstaff, made our way up to the house. There is a kind of rock-garden from which you must approach from that side. It affords an uninterrupted view of the lower part of the grounds from the lawn up to the terrace.

Only two figures were in sight; and they must have been invisible from any other point, as we, undoubtedly, were invisible to them.

They were those of a man and a girl. They stood upon the steps leading down from the lawn to the rose-garden. It was impossible to misunderstand the nature of the words which the man was speaking. But I saw the girl turn aside and shake her head. The man sought to take her hand and received a further and more decided rebuff.

We hurried on. Lorian, though I avoided looking directly at him, was biting his lip. He was very pale, too. And I knew that he had recognized, as I had recognized, Sybil Reynor and Felix Hulme.

IV

During lunch, a Mr. Findon, who had driven over with one of the Colonel's neighbours, asked Sybil Reynor whether the peculiar and far from beautiful ring which she invariably wore was Oriental. From his conversation I gathered that he was something of an expert.

"It is generally supposed to be Phoenician, Mr. Findon," she answered; and slipping it from her finger she pa.s.sed it to him. "It is my lot in life to wear it always, hideous though it is!"

"Indeed! An heirloom, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied the girl; "and an ugly one."

In point of fact, the history of the ring was as curious as that of the Riddle. For generations it had been worn by the heir of Ragstaff from the day of his majority to that of his eldest son's. Colonel Reynor had no son. Hence, following the tradition as closely as circ.u.mstances allowed, he had invested Sybil with the ring upon the day that she came of age--some three months prior to the time of which I write.

As Mr. Findon was about to return the ring, Lorian said:

"Excuse me. May I examine it for a moment?"

"Of course," replied Sybil.

He took it in his hand and bent over it curiously. I cannot pretend to explain what impelled me to glance towards Hulme at that moment; but I did do so. And the expression which rested upon his dark and usually handsome face positively alarmed me.

I concluded that, beneath the cool surface, he was a man of hot pa.s.sions, and I would have ascribed the fixed glare to the jealousy of a rejected suitor in presence of a more favoured rival, had it centred upon Lorian. But it appeared to be focused, particularly, upon the ring.

The incident impressed me very unfavourably. A sense of mystery was growing up around me--pervading the atmosphere of Ragstaff Park.

After lunch Lorian and I again set out in company, but my friend appeared to be in anything but sporting humour. We bore off at a sharp angle from the Colonel and some others who were set upon the rough shooting on the western rim of the moors and made for the honeycombed ground which led one upward to the cliff edge.

Abruptly, we found ourselves upon the sheer brink, with the floor of the ocean at our feet and all the great Atlantic before us.

"Let us relent of our murderous purpose," said Lorian, dropping comfortably on to a patch of velvety turf and producing his pipe. "I have dragged you up here with the malicious intention of talking to you."

I was not sorry to hear it. There was much that I wished to discuss with him.

"I should have stayed to say something to some one," he added, carefully stuffing his briar, "but first I wanted to say something to you." He paused, fumbling for matches. "What," he continued, finding some and striking one, "is Felix Hulme's little game?"

"He wants to marry Miss Reynor."

"I know; but he needn't get so infernally savage because she won't accept him. He looked at me in a positively murderous way at lunch to-day."

"So you noticed that?"

"Yes--and I saw that you noticed it, too."

"Listen," I said. "Leaving Hulme out of the question, there is an altogether more mysterious business afoot." And I told him of the episode of the previous night.

He smoked stolidly whilst I spoke, frowning the while; then:

"Old chap," he said, "I begin to have a sort of glimmering of intelligence. I believe I am threatened with an idea! But it's such an utterly fantastic hybrid that I dare not name it--yet."

He asked me several questions respecting what I had seen, and my replies appeared to confirm whatever suspicion was gathering in his mind. We saw little enough sport, but came in later than anyone.

During dinner there was an odd incident. Lorian said:

"Colonel, d'you mind my taking a picture of the Riddle?"

"Eh!" said the Colonel. "What for? Your father made a drawing of it."

"Yes, I know," replied Lorian. "I mean a photograph."

"Well," mused the Colonel, "I don't know that there can be much objection, since it has been copied once. But have you got a camera here?"