Female of the Species Page 9

  I crouched against the wall, with my heart going in sickening thumps and listened. Not a sound. The silence was as complete as the darkness. And I began to wonder if there was anyone in the house – any human that is. Was it a material agency that had shut that door – or was it something supernatural? Would some ghastly thing suddenly hurl itself on me: something against which even Drummond with all his strength would be powerless? Every ghost story I’d ever heard of came back to me, along with the comforting reflection that I had always ridiculed the idea that there were such things. But it is one thing to be sceptical in the smoking-room of your club, and quite another when you are crouching in inky darkness in a deserted house from which your line of escape has been cut off.

  Suddenly I started violently: an odd slithering noise had begun. It was rather as if a sack full of corn was being bumped on the floor, and it seemed to come from my left. I peered in what I thought was the right direction, while the sweat ran off me in streams. Was it my imagination, or was there a faint luminosity in the darkness about three feet from the ground? I stared at it and it moved. With each bump it moved, and it was coming closer. Step by step I backed away from it: step by step it kept pace with me. And for the first time in my life I knew the meaning of the word terror. Frightened I had been many times: this was stark, raving horror. I was stiff and paralysed with fear. Was this the thing that had sent the other man mad?

  Then, as if a veil had suddenly been torn away, came the change. One instant there had been merely a faint lessening of the darkness: the next I found myself staring into a shining yellow face of such inconceivable malignity that I almost screamed. It was not two feet away, and about on a level with my chest. I hit at it blindly, and found my wrist caught in a grip of steel. Then I felt a hand creeping up my coat, until it reached my throat, and I began to struggle wildly.

  I kicked into the darkness, and my foot hit something solid. There was a grunt of pain, and the grip on my throat tightened savagely. The face drew nearer, and there came a roaring in my ears. And I had just given myself up as finished, when a thing happened so staggering that I could scarcely believe my eyes.

  Out of the darkness from behind the shining face there came a pair of hands. I could see them clearly – just the hands and nothing more, as if they were disembodied. There was a curious red scar on the middle finger of the right hand, and the left thumb-nail was distorted. With the utmost deliberation they fastened on the throat of my assailant, and began to drag him backwards. For a while he resisted: then quite suddenly the grip on my throat relaxed. Half insensible I sank down on the floor, and lay there watching. For the moment my only coherent thought was relief that I could breathe again, that the yellow face was going. Writhing furiously, its mouth twisted into a snarl of rage, it seemed to be borne backwards by those two detached hands. And even as I tried foolishly to understand what it all meant, there came from down below a well-known voice – “The more we are together.” The relief was too much: I did another thing for the first time in my life. I fainted.

  I came to, to find the whole bunch regarding me by the light of half a dozen candles.

  “Look here, little man,” said Drummond, “what merry jaunt have you been up to this time?”

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked feebly.

  “The landlord’s son told us you’d borrowed his bicycle,” he answered. “And since they all seemed very alarmed at the pub we thought we’d come along and see. We found your machine outside, and then we found you here unconscious. What’s the worry? Have you seen a ghost?”

  “Seen and felt it,” I said grimly. “A ghastly shining yellow face, with fingers like steel bars that got me by the throat. And he’d have killed me but for a pair of hands that came out of the darkness and got him by the throat as well.”

  They looked at me suspiciously, until Jerningham suddenly peered at my neck.

  “Good God!” he said, “look at the marks on his throat.”

  They crowded round, and I laughed irritably.

  “You don’t imagine I dreamed it, do you? The thing that attacked me had a grip like a man-trap.”

  “Tell us again exactly what happened,” said Drummond quietly.

  I told them, starting with my conversation with the old gentleman that afternoon. And when I’d finished he whistled softly.

  “Well done, Dixon: well done! It was a damned sporting thing to come here alone. But, laddie, don’t do it again – I beg of you. For unless I’m greatly mistaken, but for our happening to arrive when we did your only interest by this time would have been the site for your grave.”

  He lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “Phosphorous evidently on the man’s face who attacked you. An old trick. Probably our headlights alarmed them, and the owner of the hands dragged him off. So that there are at least two unpleasing persons in this house, beside us.”

  He rubbed his hands gently together.

  “Splendid! At last we come to grips. Blow out those candles, boy: there’s no good advertising our position too clearly. And then I think a little exploration of the old family mansion.”

  Once more we were in darkness save for the beam of Drummond’s torch. He had it focussed on the floor, and after a while he stooped down and examined the marks in the dust.

  “What an extraordinary track,” he remarked. “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of footmarks. It’s one broad smear.”

  We crowded round, and it certainly was a most peculiar trail. In width about eighteen inches to two feet, it stretched down the middle of the passage, as far as we could see. And suddenly Drummond turned to me with a queer look in his eyes.

  “You say this face seemed to be about on a level with your chest,” he said.

  “Just about,” I answered. “Why?”

  “Because it strikes me that you’ve had even a narrower escape than we thought,” he remarked. “The thing that attacked you hadn’t got any legs. It was a monstrosity: some ghastly abnormality. The owner of the pair of hands dragged it after him, and that’s the trail it left.”

  “It is a jolly house,” murmured Darrell. “What does A do now?”

  “What the devil do you think?” grunted Drummond. “A follows the trail, and for the love of Mike don’t get behind the light.”

  Now I don’t suppose I should ever have thought of that. I could see Drummond in front, his right arm fully extended, holding the torch, while he kept over to the left of the passage. Behind him, in single file, we all of us followed, and, once when I drifted over to the right, Sinclair, who was just behind me, pulled me back.

  “If anyone shoots,” he muttered, “they shoot at the torch. Keep in line.”

  And the words had hardly left his mouth when there came an angry phut from in front of us, and a splintering of wood from behind. Simultaneously Drummond switched off the light. Silence, save for our heavy breathing – and then once again did I hear that ominous slithering noise.

  “Look out,” I cried. “That’s the thing moving.”

  Then came Drummond’s voice, sharp and insistent.

  “Light. Give me light. My God! what is it?”

  And never to my dying day shall I forget the spectacle we saw when Darrell’s torch focussed and steadied on Drummond. The thing was on him – clawing at him: a thing that looked like a black sack. Its hands were fastened on his throat, and it was by his throat that it was supporting itself. Because it had no legs – only two stumps. It was mouthing and gibbering, and altogether dreadful. Some faint luminosity still remained on its face, but in the light of the torch it was hardly noticeable. And then I forgot everything in watching that ghastly struggle.

  The dust was rising in little eddies as Drummond moved, carrying the thing with him. Of its almost superhuman strength no one knew better than I, and in a few seconds the veins were standing out on Drummond’s forehead. Then he braced himself against the wall, and gripped its wrists with his hands. I could see the muscles taut and bulging under the sleeves of h
is coat, as he tried to wrench the thing’s hands away from his throat. But in spite of his enormous strength, he told me afterwards that but for the knowledge of a certain ju-jitsu grip by which a man’s fingers can be forced open, the thing would have throttled him unless we had helped. As it was, help was unnecessary: the murderous hold relaxed, and, with a heave, Drummond flung the thing away from him. It landed on the floor with a thud, and for a space it stood there balancing itself on its hands and glaring at us. Then, like some great misshapen ape, it disappeared up the passage, moving on its hands and stumps.

  “Good Lord!” grunted Drummond, “what a little pet.”

  “Where’s the gun, Hugh?” said Darrell curtly.

  His torch was flashing on the empty passage.

  “Put it out, Peter,” snapped Drummond. “I’m thinking that gun belonged to the other bloke. We’ll follow up in darkness.”

  And then, before we had gone two steps, there came from in front of us a loud crash, followed by a terrible scream. The scream was not repeated: only a low moaning noise could be heard, and after a while that also ceased. Once again the silence was absolute.

  “For the love of Heaven,” came Drummond’s hoarse whisper. “Keep your eyes skinned. Who is the last man?”

  “I am,” said Jerningham. “Don’t worry about this end.”

  We crept forward, guided by momentary flashes of Drummond’s torch. The trail was easy to follow. It led along the passage for about fifteen yards, and then turned to the right through an open door.

  “Stop here,” said Drummond quietly. “I’m going in alone.”

  And just as little details about him had struck me before, so on this occasion did the almost incredible swiftness and silence of his movements impress my mind. One instant he was there: the next he was not, but no sound had marked his going.

  We clustered round the open door waiting. Once a board creaked inside, and then suddenly we heard a startled exclamation, and Drummond rejoined us.

  “There’s something pretty grim happened,” he muttered. “Stand well away from the door. I’m going to switch on the torch.”

  The beam flashed on, and outlined against it was the ominous silhouette of a revolver held in his other hand. And for a space the two remained motionless: then the revolver fell to his side.

  “Great Scott!” he muttered. “Poor brute!”

  The crash and the scream were accounted for: also the silence that had followed.

  Lying motionless on the floor close to the further wall was the thing that had attacked him. And it needed no second glance to see that it was dead. There was a dreadful wound in the head; in fact, it was split completely open. And further details are unnecessary.

  For a while we stared at it stupidly – the same thought in all our minds. How had it happened? Because save for the motionless figure on the floor the room was empty. What was it that had struck the poor brute this ghastly blow in the darkness. Nothing had come out of the door, and the only window was boarded up.

  It was a peculiar room with stone walls and a stone ceiling, and what it could have been used for in the past completely defeated me. Let into the wall near which the body was lying were six iron rings: except for them, the walls were absolutely bare. They were fixed in a straight line about a yard from the floor, and were three or four feet apart. And below each ring the boarding was worn away as if it had been gnawed by rats. “Didn’t the landlord say that the farmer who was murdered kept savage dogs!” said Darrell. “He probably used those staples to chain them up.”

  “Maybe he did,” said Drummond grimly. “But there ain’t any dogs here now, Peter, and what I want to know is what killed that poor brute.”

  Once again we fell silent, staring at the twisted body.

  “He looks as if he had been bashed over the head with a steam-hammer,” said Jerningham at length. “That crash we heard was it.”

  “Yes, damn it!” cried Drummond. “But what caused the crash.”

  He took a step or two towards the body, and even as he did so there came to me, out of the blue so to speak, an idea. What made me think of it I don’t know: what made me suddenly remember my conversation with the old gentleman that afternoon, I can’t say. But the fact remains that mercifully I did.

  It was the remark he had made to me that had first caused me to suspect him. I could see him, even as I stood there, giving me that strange, penetrating stare and saying – “Was it fifth or sixth? It might make a lot of difference.” And the dead thing was lying between the fifth and sixth ring.

  “I think I’ve got it,” I said slowly. “It’s part of the clue I was given this afternoon, and up till now I’d forgotten it.”

  They listened while I told them, and when I’d finished, Drummond nodded his head thoughtfully.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “Let’s work on the assumption, at any rate.”

  “That’s all very fine and large,” grunted Darrell. “But we don’t want the same result, old boy. And it strikes me that if you make a mistake you won’t make a second.”

  “I’ve got to chance it, Peter,” answered Drummond doggedly. “If Dixon is right, we’re on the track of the next clue. And nothing matters except getting that. Let’s think for a moment. What’s the natural thing to do when you see a ring in a wall? Pull the blamed thing, isn’t it?”

  “Probably what that poor brute was doing when he was killed,” said Sinclair.

  “Then I will pull it, too,” announced Drummond calmly.

  “For Heaven’s sake, man,” cried Jerningham. “What’s the use?”

  “That remains to be seen,” said Drummond. “But we’re going to pull those rings – and we’re going to pull ’em now. Toby, go back to the car with Algy. Keep close together going through the house. In the tool-box you’ll find my tow-rope. Bring it. And don’t forget that there is at least one unconsidered little trifle loose in the house.”

  “If I’m right,” he went on as they left the room, “the danger must lie close to the wall. That thing never moved with a wound like that in his head: he died on the spot where he was hit. Anyway, one must take a chance.”

  And his hand as he lit a cigarette was as steady as a rock.

  Chapter 8

  In which we explore the Mere

  It is nervy work waiting. I know that my feelings were strongly reminiscent of those that I had experienced in France when the latest reports from the seats of the mighty indicated that enemy mining was proceeding underneath one’s trench. To dangers seen and heard one can get tolerably used, but the unseen, silent horror of this room was making me jumpy. I felt I almost preferred my fight in the darkness with the thing that now lay dead.

  At last, after what seemed an interminable time, Sinclair and Longworth returned with the rope.

  “See anyone?” said Drummond casually.

  “Not a soul. But I thought I saw a gleam of light from one of the top rooms,” said Sinclair.

  “Probably our friend of the gun. Give me the rope, and let’s get on with it.”

  “Look here, old man,” said Darrell, “let’s toss.”

  “Go to hell,” remarked Drummond tersely. “It’s good of you, Peter, old lad, but this is my show. The only point is that in case anything happens I rely on you to carry on the good work.”

  He walked across to the fifth ring and slipped the rope through it. Then he stepped back, and we breathed again. Nothing had happened so far.

  “Stand clear,” he said. “I’m going to pull.”

  He gave a tug on the rope, and the next instant it was wrenched out of his hand. Some huge object had flashed downwards through the beam of his torch and landed with a sickening thud on the dead man, tearing the rope out of his grasp as it fell. Instinctively he turned the light upwards. In the ceiling was a square, black hole, and we had a momentary glimpse of a face peering at us through it. Then it was gone, and we were left staring upwards foolishly.

  It was Drummond who recovered himself first.

/>   “A booby-trap that I like not the smell of,” he said savagely. “Keep that hole in the ceiling covered, Ted, and shoot on sight.”

  It must have weighed a couple of hundredweight – the slab that had come out of the ceiling. There was a staple let into the centre of it, with a wire rope attached, by which it had evidently been hoisted back into position the first time. One could see the faint outline of some sort of winding gear above the opening, but of the man who had operated it there was no sign.

  “No – I like not the smell of it,” he repeated grimly. “It’s murder – pure and simple. But if the swine think they’re going to stop us they’re wrong.”

  “What’s the next move?” said someone shakily.

  “See what happens when we pull the sixth ring,” he said. “If what Dixon said is right, that’s the other important one.”

  “Probably the floor will give way this time,” remarked Algy Longworth gloomily. “I feel I should like a mother’s soothing comfort.”

  We waited tensely while Drummond again adjusted the rope. He began to pull, and suddenly he gave a triumphant exclamation.

  “It’s moving.”

  It was: a crack was appearing in the wall. And then with a faint creak the whole block of stone swung round on a pivot, leaving an opening about three feet wide and six feet high.

  “The poor brute was looking for that, I suppose,” said Drummond, “and in the darkness pulled the wrong ring.”

  He crossed the room, and then stopped abruptly. He was staring at a piece of paper fastened to the back of the part that had moved.

  “Well done, little man,” he read slowly. “Any casualties yet? But you’ve still got a long way to go, and I’ve got some far better jests for you before you’ve finished. Incidentally the charming gentleman without any legs is an impromptu turn as far as I am concerned. I found him on the premises when I arrived, and he struck me as being quite in keeping with the general character of the house. I rather think he must be the so-called ghost and I do hope he’s behaved himself. But if he hasn’t don’t blame me. His predilections seem quite delightfully murderous, and he resents any intrusion terribly. But doubtless somebody loves him. Phyllis is still quite well, though just a leetle bit off her food. Isn’t this fun?”