Terror keep
arrangement, of which you approve? I am sure you do.”
Conversation with Mr. Daver was a little superfluous. He supplied his
own answers to all questions.
He was leaving the bureau when she remembered his great study.
“Mr. Daver, do you know anything about the Flacks?”
He frowned.
“Flax? Let me see, what is flax----”
She spelt the name.
“A friend of mine told me about them the other day,” she said. “I
thought you would know the name. They are a gang of criminals----”
“Flack! To be sure, to be sure! Dear me, how very interesting! Are you
also a criminologist? John Flack, George Flack, Augustus Flack”--he
spoke rapidly, ticking them off on his long, tobacco-stained fingers.
“John Flack is in a criminal lunatic asylum; his two brothers escaped
to the Argentine. Terrible fellows, terrible, terrible fellows! What a
marvellous institution is our police force! How wonderful is Scotland
Yard! You agree with me? I was sure you would. Flack!” He frowned and
shook his head. “I thought of dealing with these people in a short
monograph, but my data are not complete. Do you know them?”
She shook her head smilingly.
“No, I haven’t that advantage.”
“Terrible creatures,” said Mr. Daver. “Amazing creatures. Who is your
friend, Miss Belman? I would like to meet him. Perhaps he could tell
me something more about them.”
Margaret received the suggestion with dismay.
“Oh no, you’re not likely to meet him,” she said hurriedly, “and I
don’t think he would talk even if you met him--perhaps it was
indiscreet of me to mention him at all.”
The conversation must have weighed on Mr. Daver’s mind, for just as
she was leaving her office that night for her room, a very tired girl,
he knocked at the door, opened it at her invitation and stood in the
doorway.
“I have been going into the records of the Flacks,” he said, “and it
is surprising how little information there is. I have a newspaper
cutting which says that John Flack is dead. He was the man who went
into Broadmoor. Is he dead?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she replied untruthfully. “I only heard a
casual reference to him.”
Mr. Daver scratched his round chin.
“I thought possibly somebody might have told you a few facts which
you, so to speak--a laywoman!”--he giggled--“might have regarded as
unimportant, but which I----”
He hesitated expectantly.
“That is all I know, Mr. Daver,” said Margaret.
She slept soundly that night, the distant hush-hush of the waves as
they rolled up the long beach of Siltbury Bay lulling her to dreamless
slumber.
Her duties did not begin till after breakfast, which she had in her
bureau, and the largest part was the checking of the accounts.
Apparently Mrs. Burton attended to that side of the management, and it
was only at the month’s end, when cheques were to be drawn, that her
work was likely to be heavy. In the main her day was taken up with
correspondence. There were some 140 applicants for her post who had to
be answered; there were in addition a number of letters from people
who desired accommodation at Larmes Keep. All these had to be taken to
Mr. Daver, and it was remarkable how fastidious a man he was. For
example:
“The Reverend John Quinton? No, no; we have one parson in the house,
that is enough. Tell him we are very sorry, but we are full up. Mrs.
Bagley wishes to bring her daughter? Certainly not! I cannot have
children distracting me with their noise. You agree? I see you do. Who
is this woman… ‘coming for a rest cure’? That means she’s ill. I
cannot have Larmes Keep turned into a sanitorium. You may tell them
all that there will be no accommodation until after Christmas. After
Christmas they can all come--I am going abroad.”
The evenings were her own. She could, if she desired, go into
Siltbury, which boasted two cinemas and a pierrot party, and Mr. Daver
put the hotel car at her disposal for the purpose. She preferred,
however, to wander through the grounds. The estate was a much larger
one than she had supposed. Behind, to the south of the house, it
extended for half a mile, the boundary to the east being represented
by the cliffs, along which a breast-high rubble wall had been built,
and with excellent reason, for here the cliff fell sheer two hundred
feet to the rocks below. At one place there had been a little
landslide, the wall had been carried away and the gap had been
temporarily filled by a wooden fence. Some attempt had been made to
create a nine-hole golf course, she saw as she wandered round, but
evidently Mr. Daver had grown tired of this enterprise, for the greens
were knee-deep in waving grasses.
At the south-west corner of the house, and distant about a hundred
yards, was a big clump of rhododendrons, and this she explored,
following a twisting path that led to the heart of the bushes. Quite
unexpectedly she came upon an old well. The brickwork about it was in
ruins; the well itself was boarded in. On the weather-beaten
roof-piece above the windlass was a small wooden notice-board,
evidently fixed for the enlightenment of visitors:
“This well was used from 935 to 1794. It was filled in by the present
owners of the property in May 1914, one hundred and thirty-five
cart-loads of rock and gravel being used for the purpose.”
It was a pleasant occupation, standing by that ancient well and
picturing the collar serfs and bare-footed peasants who through the
ages had stood where she was standing. As she came out of the bushes
she saw the pale-faced Olga Crewe.
Margaret had not spoken either to the colonel or to the clergyman;
either she had avoided them, or they her. Olga Crewe she had not seen,
and now she would have turned away, but the girl moved across to
intercept her.
“You are the new secretary, aren’t you?”
Her voice was musical, rather alluring. “Custardy” was Margaret’s
mental classification.
“Yes, I’m Miss Belman.”
The girl nodded.
“My name you know, I suppose? Are you going to be terribly bored
here?”
“I don’t think so,” smiled Margaret. “It is a beautiful spot.”
The eyes of Olga Crewe surveyed the scene critically.
“I suppose it is: very beautiful, yes, but one gets very tired of
beauty after a few years.”
Margaret listened in astonishment.
“Have you been here so long?”
“I’ve practically lived here since I was a child. I thought Joe would
have told you that: he’s an inveterate old gossip.”
“Joe?” She was puzzled.
“The cab-driver, news-gatherer, and distributor.”
She looked at Larmes Keep and frowned.
“Do you know what they used to call this place, Miss Belman? The House
of Tears--the Château des Larmes.”
“Why ever?” asked Margaret.
Olga Crewe shrugged her pretty shoulders.
“Some sort of tradition, I suppose, that goes back to the days of the
Baron Augernvert, who built it. The locals have corrupted the name to
Larmes Keep. You ought to see the dungeons.”
“Are there dungeons?” asked Margaret in surprise, and Olga nodded. For
the first time she seemed amused.
“If you saw them and the chains and the rings in the walls and the
stone floors worn thin by bare feet, you might guess how its name
arose.”
Margaret stared back towards the Keep. The sun was setting behind it,
and silhouetted as it was against the red light there was something
ominous and sinister in that dark, squat pile.
“How very unpleasant!” she said, and shivered.
Olga Crewe laughed.
“Have you seen the cliffs?” she said, and led the way back to the long
wall, and for a quarter of an hour they stood, their arms resting on
the parapet, looking down into the gloom.
“You ought to get some one to row you round the face of the cliff.
It’s simply honeycombed with caves,” she said. “There’s one at the
water’s edge that tunnels right under the Keep. When the tides are
unusually high they are flooded. I wonder Daver doesn’t write a book
about it.”
There was just the faintest hint of a sneer in her tone, but it did
not escape Margaret’s attention.
“That must be the entrance,” she said, pointing down to a swirl of
water that seemed to run right up to the face of the cliff.
Olga nodded.
“At high tide you wouldn’t notice that,” she said, and then, turning
abruptly, she asked the girl if she had seen the bathing-pool.
This was an oblong bath, sheltered by high box hedges and lined
throughout with blue tiles; a delightfully inviting plunge.
“Nobody uses it but myself. Daver would die at the thought of jumping
in.”
Whenever she referred to Mr. Daver it was in a scarcely veiled tone of
contempt. She was not more charitable when she referred to the other
guests. As they were nearing the house Olga said, _à propos_ of
nothing:
“I shouldn’t talk too much to Daver if I were you. Let him do the
talking: he likes it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Margaret quietly; but at that moment Olga
left her side without any word of farewell and went towards the
colonel, who was standing, a cigar between his teeth, watching their
approach.
The House of Tears!
Margaret remembered the title as she was undressing that night, and,
despite her self-possession, shivered a little.
CHAPTER IV
/The/ policeman who stood on the corner where Bennett Street meets
Hyde Lane had the world to himself. It was nearing three o’clock on a
sultry spring morning, airless, unpleasantly warm. Somewhere in South
London there was a thunderstorm; the hollow echoes of it came at odd
intervals. The good and bad of Mayfair slept--all, apparently, except
Mr. J. G. Reeder, Friend of the Law and Terror of Criminals.
Police-Officer Dyer saw the yellow light behind the casemented window
and smiled benevolently.
It was so still a night that when he heard a key turn in a lock, he
looked over his shoulder, thinking the noise was from the house
immediately behind him. But the door did not move. Instead he saw a
woman appear on the top doorstep five houses away. She wore a flimsy
négligée.
“Officer!”
The voice was low, cultured, very urgent. He moved more quickly
towards her than policemen usually move.
“Anything wrong, miss?”
Her face, he noticed in his worldly way, was “made up”; the cheeks
heavily rouged, the lips a startling red for one who was afraid. He
supposed her to be pretty in normal circumstances, but was doubtful as
to her age. She wore a long black dressing-gown, fastened up to her
chin. Also he saw that the hand that gripped the railing which flanked
the steps glittered in the light of the street lamps.
“I don’t know… quite. I am alone in the house and I thought I heard…
something.”
Three words to a breath. Obviously she was terrified.
“Haven’t you any servants in the house?”
The constable was surprised, a little shocked.
“No. I only came back from Paris at midnight--we took the house
furnished--I think the servants I engaged mistook the date of my
return. I am Mrs. Granville Fornese.”
In a dim way he remembered the name. It had that value of familiarity
which makes even the most assured hesitate to deny acquaintance. It
sounded grand, too--the name of a Somebody. And Bennett Street was a
place where Somebodies live.
The officer peered into the dark hall.
“If you would put the light on, madam, I will look round.”
She shook her head: he almost felt the shiver of her.
“The lights aren’t working. That is what frightened me. They were
quite all right when I went to bed at one o’clock. Something woke me…
I don’t know what… and I switched on the lamp by the side of my bed.
And there was no light. I keep a little portable battery lamp in my
bag. I found this and turned it on.”
She stopped, set her teeth in a mirthless smile. Police-Officer Dyer
saw the dark eyes were staringly wide.
“I saw… I don’t know what it was… just a patch of black, like somebody