The Riddle of the Frozen Flame Part 6

West nodded. He whipped the knife out of his pocket and began methodically to work at the worn lock with all the precision of an experienced burglar. But the action brought no smile to his lips, no little mocking jest to help on the job. There was something grim in the set of West's lips, and in the tension of the doctor's slight figure. Tragedy had stalked unnoticed into the Towers that evening and they had become enmeshed in the folds of its cloak. They felt it in the cold clamminess of the atmosphere, in the quiet peace of the long corridors.

Finally the thing was done. West turned the handle and the door swung inward. The doctor crossed to the bedside and took hold of the sleeping man's shoulder. He shook it vigorously.

"Nigel!" he called sharply once or twice. "Wake up! Wake up!"

But Merriton never moved. The performance was repeated and the call was louder.

"Nigel! I say, wake up-wake up! We've news for you!"

The sleeping man stirred suddenly and wrenched his shoulder away.

"Let go of me, Wynne, d.a.m.n you!" he broke out petulantly, his eyes opening. "I've beaten you this time, anyhow, so part of our score is marked off! Let go, I say-I-I-Doctor Bartholomew! What in Heaven's name's the matter? I've been asleep, haven't I? What is it? You look as though you had seen a ghost!"

He was thoroughly awake now, and struggled to a sitting position. The doctor's face twisted wryly.

"I-wish I had, Nigel," he said bitterly. "Even ghosts would be better than-nothing at all. We've been out searching for Wynne, and I-"

"Been out?"

"Yes, across the Fens. We were anxious. Wynne didn't come back, you know, and so after we'd got you to bed we thought we'd make up a search party among ourselves and look into the thing. But we haven't found him, Nigel. He's vanished-completely!"

"Impossible!"

Merriton was out of bed now, still staring sleepily at them. Something in the boyishness of him struck a chord of sympathy in the doctor's heart. He alone of all of them had guessed at the genuineness of Nigel's fear for Wynne, he alone had seen into the man's heart, and discovered the half-belief that lurked there.

"I'm afraid it's perfectly true," he said quietly, as Merriton came to him and caught him by the arm, his face white. "We followed his tracks across the Fens-it had been raining and it was extremely easy to do-until they suddenly ended in a patch of half-charred gra.s.s. It was uncanny! We made a further search to make sure, but nothing rewarded our efforts. Dacre Wynne's gone somewhere, and those devilish flames of yours will be counting another victim to their lengthening list to-night."

"Good G.o.d!"

Merriton's lips trembled, and his fingers dropped from the doctor's arm.

"But I tell you it's impossible, man!" he broke out suddenly. "The thing's beyond human credulity, Doctor."

"Well, be that as it may, the fact remains-Wynne's gone," returned the doctor gloomily. "Of course we must communicate with the police. That's the next thing to do. We'll send over to make sure Wynne isn't at the Brellier's but I think there isn't a chance of it myself. Where he did go beats me completely!"

"And it fair beats me, too!" said Merriton, in a shocked voice, beginning mechanically to struggle into his clothes. "One of you might 'phone the police-though what they'll be able to do for us I don't know. It's a one-horse show in the village, and the chap who's chief constable was the fellow who told me of the other man that disappeared, and seemed quite willing to accept a supernatural explanation. Still, of course, it's the thing to be done.... And I actually saw, with my own eyes, that new flame flash out!"

He said the last words in a sort of undertone, but the doctor heard them, and twitched up an enquiring eyebrow.

"You saw the new flame? Oh-of course. And you-never mind. Our next move is to telephone the police."

But what the police could do for them was so pitifully small as to be absurd. Constable Haggers was a man whose superst.i.tious fear of the flames got the better of his constabulary training in every way. He said he would do what he could, but he would certainly attempt nothing until broad daylight. He believed the story in every particular and said that it was well-nigh impossible to trace the vanished man. "There had been others," was all he would say, "and never a trace of 'em 'ave we ever seen!"

Telephoning the Brelliers was a mere matter of minutes, and by that means Merriton made perfectly sure that Wynne had not put in an appearance at Withersby Hall. Brellier himself answered the phone, and said that he was just thinking that as Wynne hadn't turned up yet, they must indeed have been making a night of it at the Towers.

"However," he continued, "if you say you all retired around about one o'clock, and Wynne left you soon after ten-well, I can't think what has become of him...."

"He went out to investigate those devilish flames!" remarked Merriton, as a rather shamefaced explanation. Then he fairly heard the wires jump with the force of Brellier's exclamation.

"Eh-what? What's that you say? He went out to investigate the flames, Merriton? What fool let him go? Surely you know the story?"

"We did. And we did our best to dissuade him, Mr. Brellier," replied Merriton wearily. "But he went. You know Dacre Wynne as well as I do. He was set upon going. But he has not come back, and some of the chaps here set up a search-party to hunt for him. They discovered nothing. Simply some charred gra.s.s in the middle of the Fens and the end of his footprints.... So he didn't come round to your place then? Thanks. I'm awfully sorry to have bothered you, but you can understand my anxiety I know. I'll keep you posted as to any news we get. Yes-horrible, isn't it? So-so beastly uncanny...."

He hung up the receiver with a drawn face.

"Well, Wynne didn't go there, anyway," he said to the group of men who cl.u.s.tered round him. "So that's done with. Now we'll just have to possess our souls in patience, and see what Constable Haggers can do for us. I vote we tumble in for forty winks before the sun gets too high in the heavens. It is the most reasonable thing to do in the circ.u.mstances."

The days that followed brought them little light upon the matter. Wynne, it proved, was a man apparently without relations, and devoid of friends. The local police could make nothing of it. They had had such cases before, and were perfectly willing to let the matter rest where it was. Interest, once so high, began to flag. The thing dropped into the commonplace, and was soon forgotten, together with the man who had caused it.

But Nigel was far from satisfied. That he and Dacre Wynne were really enemies, who had posed as friends made not a particle of difference. Dacre Wynne had disappeared during the brief time that he was a guest in Merriton's house. The subject did not die with the owner of Merriton Towers. He spent many long evenings with Doctor Bartholomew talking the thing over, trying to reconstruct it, probe into it, hunt for new clues, new anything which might lead to a solution. But such talks always came to nothing. Every stone had already been turned, and the dry dust of the highway afforded little knowledge to Merriton.

Across the clear sky of his happiness a cloud had gloomed, spoiling for a time the perfection of it. He could not think of marriage while the mystery of Dacre Wynne's death remained unsolved. It seemed unthinkable.

Tony West told him he was getting morbid about it, and to have a change.

"Come up to London and see some of your friends," was West's advice. But Merriton never took it.

'Toinette seemed the only person who understood how he felt, and the knowledge of this only served to draw them closer together. She, too, felt that marriage was for the time being unthinkable, and despite Brellier's constant urging in that direction, she held her ground firmly, telling him that they preferred to wait awhile.

"I'm going to solve the blessed thing, 'Toinette," Nigel told her over and over again during these long weeks and days that followed, "if I grow gray-headed in the attempt. Dacre Wynne was no true friend of mine, but he was my guest at the time of his disappearance, and I mean to find the reason of it."

If he had only known what the future held in store for them both, would he still have clung to his purpose? Who can tell?

It was at night that the thing obsessed him worst. When darkness had fallen Merriton would sit, evening after evening, looking out upon that same scene that he had shown his companions that eventful night. And always the flames danced on their maddening way, mocking him, holding behind the screen of their brilliancy the key to Dacre Wynne's inexplicable disappearance. Merriton would sit and watch them for hours, and sometimes find himself talking to them.

What was the matter with him? Was he going insane? Or was this Dacre Wynne's abominable idea of a revenge for having stolen 'Toinette's heart away from him? To have died and sent his spirit back to haunt the man he hated seemed to Merriton sometimes the answer to the questions which constantly puzzled him.

CHAPTER IX

THE SECOND VICTIM

The alterations at Merriton Towers were certainly a success, from the builder's point of view at any rate. White paint had helped to dispel some of its gloominess, though there were whose who said that the whole place was ruined thereby. However, it was certainly an improvement to be able to have windows that opened, and to look into rooms that beckoned you with promises of cozy inglenooks, and plenty of brilliant sunshine.

Borkins looked upon these improvements with a censorious eye. He was one of those who believed in "lettin' things be"; to whom innovation is a crime, and modernity nothing short of madness. To him the dignity of the house had gone. But when it came to Nigel installing a new staff of servants, the good Borkins literally threw up his hands and cried aloud in anguish. He did not hold with frilled ap.r.o.ns, any more than he held with women a.s.suming places that were not meant for them.

But if the maids annoyed Borkins, his patience reached its breaking point when Merriton-paying a flying visit to town-returned in company with a short, thickset person, who spoke with a harsh, c.o.c.kney accent, and whom Merriton introduced as his "batman", "Whatever that might be," said Borkins, holding forth to Dimmock, one of the under-grooms. James Collins soon became a necessary part of the household machinery, a little cog in fact upon which the great wheel of tragedy was soon to turn.

Within a week he was completely at home in his new surroundings. Collins, in fact, was the perfect "gentleman's servant" and thus he liked always to think himself. Many a word he and Borkins had over their master's likes and dislikes. But invariably Collins won out. While every other servant in the place liked him and trusted him, the sight of his honest, red face and his ginger eyebrows was enough to make Borkins look like a thundercloud.

The climax was reached one night in the autumn when the evening papers failed to appear at their appointed time. Collins confronted Borkins with the fact and got snubbed for his pains.

"'Ere you," he said-he hadn't much respect for Borkins and made no attempt to hide the fact-"what the dooce 'as become of his lordship's pypers? 'Ave you bin 'avin' a squint at 'em, ole pieface? Jist like your bloomin' cheek!"

"Not so much of your impidence, Mr. Collins," retorted Borkins. "When you h'addresses a gentleman try to remember 'ow to speak to 'im. I've 'ad nothink whatever to do with Sir Nigel's evenin' papers, and you know it. If they're late, well, wouldn't it be worth your while to go down to the station and 'ave a gentle word or two with one of the officials there?"

"Oh well, then, old Fiddlefyce," retorted Collins, with a good-natured grin, "don't lose yer wool over it; you ain't got any ter spare. 'Is Lordship's been a-arskin' fer 'em, and like as not they ain't turned up. Let's see what's the time? 'Arf-past eight." He shook his bullet-shaped head. "Well, I'll be doin' as you say. Slap on me 'at and jacket and myke off ter the blinkin' stytion. What's the shortest w'y, Borkins, me beauty?"

Borkins looked at him a moment, and his face went a dull brick colour. Then he smirked sarcastically.