Terror keep
“Have you shown Mr. Reeder all the attractions of the estate?” she
asked, a hint of sarcasm in her tone. “I almost expected to find you
at the bathing-pool this morning.”
“I didn’t even know there was a bathing-pool,” said Mr. Reeder. “In
fact, after my terrible scare last night, this--um--beautiful house
has assumed so sinister an aspect that I expect to bathe in nothing
less dramatic than blood!”
She was not amused. He saw her eyes close quickly, and she shivered a
little.
“How gruesome you are! Come along, Miss Belman.”
Inwardly Margaret resented the tone, which was almost a command, but
she walked by their side. Clear of the house, Olga stopped and
pointed.
“You must see the well. Are you interested in old things?” asked Olga,
as she led the way to the shrubbery.
“I am more interested in new things, especially new experiences,” said
Mr. Reeder, quite gaily. “And new people fascinate me!”
Again that quick frightened smile of hers.
“Then you should be having the time of your life, Mr. Reeder,” she
said, “for you’re meeting people here whom you’ve never met before.”
He screwed up his forehead in a frown.
“Yes, there are two people in this house I have never met before,” he
said, and she looked round at him quickly.
“Only two? You’ve never met me before!”
“I’ve seen you,” said Mr. Reeder, “but I have never met you.”
By this time they had arrived at the well, and he read the inscription
slowly, before he tested with his foot the board that covered the top
of the well.
“It has been closed for years,” said the girl. “I shouldn’t touch it,”
she added hastily, as Reeder stooped and, catching the edge of a
board, swung it back trap fashion, leaving an oblong cavity.
The trap did not squeak or creak as he turned it back; the hinges were
oiled; there was no accumulation of dust between the two doors. Going
on to his hands and knees, he looked down into the darkness.
“How many loads of rubble and rock were used to fill up this well?” he
asked.
Margaret read from the little notice-board.
“Hum!” said Mr. Reeder, searched in his pockets, brought out a
two-shilling piece, poised the silver coin carefully and let it drop.
For a long, long time he listened, and then a faint metallic tinkle
came up to him.
“Nine seconds!” He looked up into Olga’s face. “Deduct from the
velocity of a falling object the speed at which sound travels, and
tell me how deep this hole is.”
He got up to his feet, dusted the knees of his trousers, and carefully
dropped the trap into position.
“Rock there may be,” he said, “but there is no water. I must work out
the number of loads requisite to fill this well entirely--it will be
an interesting morning’s occupation for one who in his youth was
something of a mathematical genius.”
Olga Crewe led the way back to the shrubbery in silence. When they
came to the open:
“I think you had better show Mr. Reeder the rest of the
establishment,” she said. “I’m rather tired.”
And with a nod she turned away and walked towards the house, and Mr.
Reeder gazed after her with something like admiration in his eyes.
“The rouge would of course make a tremendous difference,” he said,
half speaking to himself, “but it is very difficult to disguise
voices--even the best of actors fail in this respect.”
Margaret stared at him.
“Are you talking to me?”
“To me,” said Mr. Reeder humbly. “It is a bad habit of mine, peculiar
to my age, I fear.”
“But Miss Crewe never uses rouge.”
“Who does--in the country?” asked Mr. Reeder, and pointed with his
walking-stick to the wall along the cliff. “Where does that lead? What
is on the other side?”
“Sudden death,” said Margaret, and laughed.
For a quarter of an hour they stood leaning on the parapet of the low
wall, looking down at the strip of beach below. The small channel that
led to the cave interested him. He asked her how deep it was. She
thought that it was quite shallow, a conclusion with which he did not
agree.
“Underground caves sound romantic, and that channel is deeper than
most. I think I must explore the cave. How does one get down?”
He looked left and right. The beach was enclosed in a deep little bay,
circled on one side by sheer cliff, on the other by a high reef of
rock that ran far out to sea. Mr. Reeder pointed to the horizon.
“Sixty miles from here is France.”
He had a disconcerting habit of going off at a tangent.
“I think I will do a little exploring this afternoon. The walk should
freshen me.”
They were returning to the house when he remembered the bathing-pool
and asked to see it.
“I wonder Mr. Daver doesn’t let it run dry,” she said. “It is an awful
expense. I was going through the municipality’s account yesterday, and
they charge a fabulous sum for pumping up fresh water.”
“How long has it been built?”
“That is the surprising thing,” she said. “It was made twelve years
ago, when private swimming-pools were things unheard of in this
country.”
The pool was oblong in shape; one end of it was tiled and obviously
artificially created. The further end, however, had for its sides and
bottom natural rock. A great dome-shaped mass served as a
diving-platform. Mr. Reeder walked all round, gazing into the limpid
water. It was deepest at the rocky end, and here he stayed longest,
and his inspection was most thorough. There seemed a space--how deep
he could not tell--at the bottom of the bath, where the rock overhung.
“Very interesting,” said Mr. Reeder at last. “I think I will go back
to the house and get my bathing-suit. Happily, I brought one.”
“I didn’t know you were a swimmer,” smiled the girl.
“I am the merest tyro in most things,” said Mr. Reeder modestly.
He went up to his room, undressed and slipped into a bathing-suit,
over which he put his overcoat. Olga Crewe and Mr. Daver had gone down
to Siltbury. To his satisfaction he saw the hotel car descending the
hill road cautiously in a cloud of dust.
When Mr. Reeder threw off his coat to make the plunge there was
something comically ferocious in his appearance, for about his waist
he had fastened a belt to which was attached in a sheath a long-bladed
hunting-knife, and in addition there dangled a waterproof bag in which
he had placed one of the many little hand-lamps that he invariably
carried about with him. He made the most human preparations: put his
toes into the cold water, and shivered ecstatically before he made his
plunge. Losing no time in preliminaries, he swam along the bottom to
the slit in the rock which he had seen.
It was about two feet high and eight feet in length, and into this he
pulled his way, gripping the roof to aid his progress. The roof ended
abruptly; he found nothing but water above him, and he allowed himself
to come to the surface, catching hold of a projecting ledge to keep
himself afloat whilst he detached the waterproof bag from his belt,
and, planting it upon the shelf, took out his flash-lamp.
He was in a natural stone chamber, with a broad, vaulted roof. He was
in fact inside the dome-shaped rock that formed one end of the pool.
At the farthermost corner of the chamber was an opening about four
feet in height and two feet in width. A rock passage that led
downward, he saw. He followed this for about fifty yards, and noted
that although nature had hewn or worn this queer corridor at some
remote age--possibly it had been an underground waterway before some
gigantic upheaval of nature had raised the land above water level--the
passage owed something of its practicability to human agency. At one
place there were marks of a chisel; at another, unmistakable signs of
blasting. Mr. Reeder retraced his steps and came back to the water. He
fastened and resealed his lamp, and, drawing a long breath, dived to
the bottom and wormed his way through the aperture to the bath and to
open air. He came to the surface to gaze into the horror-stricken face
of Margaret Belman.
“Oh, Mr. Reeder!” she gasped. “You--you frightened me!… I heard you
jump in, but when I came here and found the bath empty I thought I
must have been mistaken.… Where have you been? You couldn’t stay under
water all that time…”
“Will you hand me my overcoat?” said Mr. Reeder modestly, and when he
had hastily buttoned this about his person: “I have been to see that
the County Council’s requirements are fully satisfied,” he said
solemnly.
She listened, dazed.
“In all theatres, as you probably know, my dear Miss--um--Margaret, it
is essential that there should be certain exits in case of
necessity--I have already inspected two this morning, but I rather
imagine that the most important of all has so far escaped my
observation. What a man! Surely madness is akin to genius!”
He lunched alone, and apparently no man was less interested in his
fellow-guests than Mr. J. G. Reeder. The two golfers had returned and
were eating at the same table. Miss Crewe, who came in late and
favoured him with a smile, sat at a little table facing him.
“She is uneasy,” said Mr. Reeder to himself. “That is the second time
she has dropped her fork. Presently she will get up, sit with her back
to me… I wonder on what excuse?”
Apparently no excuse was necessary. The girl called a waitress towards
her and had her glass and table shifted to the other side. Mr. Reeder
was rather pleased with himself.
Daver minced into the dining-room as Mr. Reeder was peeling an apple.
“Good morning, Mr. Reeder. Have you got over your nightmare? I see
that you have! A man of iron nerve. I admire that tremendously.
Personally, I am the most dreadful coward, and the very hint of a
burglar makes me shiver. You wouldn’t believe it, but I had a quarrel
with a servant this morning, and she left me shaking! You are not
affected that way? I see that you are not! Miss Belman tells me that
you tried our swimming-pool this morning. You enjoyed it? I am sure
you did!”
“Won’t you sit down and have coffee?” asked Mr. Reeder politely, but
Daver declined the invitation with a flourish and a bow.
“No, no, I have my work--I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Miss
Belman for putting me on the track of the most fascinating character
of modern times. What a man!” said Mr. Daver, unconsciously repeating
J. G. Reeder’s tribute. “I’ve been trying to trace his early
career--no, no, I’ll stand: I must run away in a minute or two. Is
anything known about his early life? Was he married?”
Mr. Reeder nodded. He had not the slightest idea that John Flack was
married, but it seemed a moment to assert the universality of his
knowledge. He was quite unprepared for the effect upon Daver. The jaw
of the yellow-faced man dropped.
“Married?” he squeaked. “Who told you he was married? Where was he
married?”
“That is a matter,” said Mr. Reeder gravely, “which I cannot discuss.”
“Married!” Daver rubbed his little round head irritably, but did not
pursue the subject. He made some inane reference to the weather and
bustled out of the room.
Mr. Reeder settled himself in what he called the banqueting-hall with
an illustrated paper, awaiting an opportunity which he knew must
present itself sooner or later. The servants he had passed under
review. Girls were employed to wait at table, and these lived in a
small cottage on the Siltbury side of the estate. The men servants,
including the hall porter, seemed above suspicion. The porter was an
old army man with a row of medals across his uniform jacket; his
assistant was a chinless youth recruited from Siltbury. He apparently
was the only member of the staff that did not live in one of the
cottages. In the main the women servants were an unpromising lot--the
infuriated waitress was his only hope, although as likely as not she
would talk of nothing but her grievances.