The Shrieking Pit by Arthur J. Rees (chrysanthemum read aloud TXT) 📕

says 'es sure that it wor the White Lady from the Shrieking Pit that he saw. 'Then Gawdamighty help yow, poor fat chap,' says Billy, looking at him solemn-like. 'The hearin' of her is narthin', it's th' seein' o' her that's the trouble.' The poor fat chap a' been nigh skeered out o' his wits ever since, and nobody in th' village wud go near th' pit a' nighttimes—no, not for a fortin. I ain't sure as it's safe to be here even in daytimes, thow I never heered of her comin' out in the light." Mr. Duney turned resolutely away from the pit, and called to his dog, who was sitting near the edge, regarding his master with blinking eyes and lolling tongue. "I'll be goin', in case that[Pg 249] Queensmead sees me from th' village. I cot this coney fair and square in th' open, but it be hard to make Queensmead believe it. Well, I'll be goin'. Good mornin', ma'aster."

He trudged away across the rise, with his dog following at his heels. Colwyn was about to turn away also, when his eye was caught by a scrap of stained and discoloured paper lying near the edge of the pit, where the rain had washed away some of the earth. He stooped, and picked it up. It was a slip of white paper, about five inches long, and perhaps three inches in width, quite blank, but with a very apparent watermark, consisting of a number of parallel waving lines, close together, running across the surface. Although the watermark was an unusual one, it seemed strangely familiar to Colwyn, who tried to recall where he had seen it before. But memory is a tricky thing. Although Colwyn's memory instantly recognised the watermark on the paper, he could not, for the moment, recollect where he had seen it, though it seemed as familiar to him as the face of some old acquaintance whose name he had temporarily forgotten. Colwyn ultimately gave up the effort for the time being, and placed the piece of paper in his pocket-book, knowing that his memory would, sooner or later, perform unconsciously the task it refused to undertake when asked.

Colwyn spent the afternoon in another solitary walk, and darkness had set in before he returned to the village. As he reached the inn he glanced towards the hut circles, and was startled to see something white move slowly along by the edge of the Shrieking Pit and vanish in the wood. There was something so weird and ghostly in the spectacle that Colwyn was momentarily astounded by it. Then his eye fell on the sea mist which covered the[Pg 250] marshes in a white shroud, and he smiled slightly. It was not the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit he had seen, but a spiral of mist, floating across the rise.

The sight brought back to his mind the stories he had heard that day, and when he was seated at dinner a little later he casually asked Charles if he believed in ghosts. The fat man, with a sudden uplifting of his black eyes, as though to ascertain whether Colwyn was speaking seriously, replied that he did not.

"I'm surprised to hear of your scepticism, Charles, for I'm told that the apparition from the pit—the White Lady, as she is called—has favoured you with a special appearance," said Colwyn, in a bantering tone.

"I see what you mean now, sir. I didn't understand you at first. It was like this: some of the villagers were talking about this ghost in the bar a few nights back, and one or two of the villagers, who all firmly believed in it, declared that they had heard her wandering about the previous night, moaning and shrieking, as is supposed to be her custom. I, more by way of a joke than anything else, told them I had seen something white on the rise the previous night, when I was shutting up the inn. But the whole village has got it into their heads that I saw the White Lady, and they think because I've seen her I'm a doomed man. The country folk round about here are an ignorant and superstitious lot, sir."

"And did you actually see anything, Charles, the night you speak of?"

"I saw something, sir—something long and white—like a moving white pillar, if I may so express myself. While I looked it vanished into the woods."

"It was probably mist. I saw something similar this evening!"

"Very likely, sir. I do not think it was a ghost."[Pg 251]

Colwyn did not pursue the subject further, though he was struck by the wide difference between Charles' account of the incident and that given to him by Duney at the pit that afternoon.

When Charles had cleared the table Colwyn sat smoking and thinking until late. After he was sure that the rest of the inmates of the inn had retired, he went to the kitchen and took the key of Mr. Glenthorpe's room from the hook of the dresser. When he reached his own bedroom, his first act was to push back the wardrobe and open the trap door he had discovered the previous night. He looked at his watch, and found that the hour was a little after eleven. He decided to wait for half an hour before carrying out the experiment he contemplated. By midnight he would be fairly safe from the fear of discovery. He lay down on his bed to pass the intervening time, but he was so tired that he fell asleep almost immediately.

He awakened with a start, and sat up, staring into the black darkness. For a moment or two he did not realise his surroundings, then the sound of stealthy footsteps passing his door brought him back to instant wakefulness. The footsteps halted—outside his door, it seemed to Colwyn. There followed the sound of a hand fumbling with a lock, followed by the shooting of a bolt and the creaking of a door. The truth flashed upon the detective; somebody was entering the next room. As he listened, there was the scrape of a match, and a moment later a narrow shaft of light streamed through the open wall-door into his room.

Colwyn got noiselessly off his bed and looked through the crack in the inner small door into the other room. The picture on the other side of the wall narrowed his range of vision, but through the inch or so of crack ex[Pg 252]tending beyond the picture he was able to see clearly that portion of the adjoining bedroom in which the bed stood. Near the bed, examining with the light of a candle the contents of the writing table which stood alongside of it, was Benson, the innkeeper.

He was searching for something—rummaging through the drawers of the table, taking out papers and envelopes, and tearing them open with a furious desperate energy, pausing every now and again to look hurriedly over his shoulder, as though he expected to see some apparition start up from the shadowy corners. The search was apparently fruitless, for presently he crammed the papers back into the drawers with the same feverish haste, and, walking rapidly across the room, passed out of the view of the watcher on the other side, for the picture which hung on the inside wall prevented Colwyn seeing beyond the foot of the bed. Although the innkeeper could not now be seen, the sound of his stealthy quick movements, and the flickering lights cast by the candle he carried, suggested plainly enough that he was continuing his search in that portion of the room which was not visible through the crack.

In a few minutes he came back into Colwyn's range of vision, looking dusty and dishevelled, with drops of perspiration starting from his face. With a savage gesture, which was akin to despair, he wiped the perspiration from his face, and tossed back his long hair from his forehead. It was the first time Colwyn had seen his forehead uncovered, and a thrill ran through him as he noticed a deep bruise high upon the left temple. The next moment the innkeeper walked swiftly out of the room, and Colwyn heard him close the door softly behind him.

Colwyn waited awhile. When everything seemed quiet, he cautiously opened his door in the dark, and[Pg 253] tried the door of the adjoining room. It was locked.

The innkeeper, then, had another key which fitted the murdered man's door. And what was he searching for? Money? The treasury notes which Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn out of the bank the day he was murdered, which had never been found? Money—notes!

By one of those hidden and unaccountable processes of the human brain, the association of ideas recalled to Colwyn's mind where he had previously seen the peculiar watermark of waving lines visible on the piece of paper he had picked up at the brink of the pit that afternoon: it was the Government watermark of the first issue of War Treasury notes.

Colwyn lit his bedroom candle, and examined the piece of paper in his pocket-book with a new and keen interest. There was no doubt about it, the mark on the dirty blank paper was undoubtedly the Treasury watermark. But how came such a mark, designed exclusively for the protection of the Treasury against bank-note forgeries, to appear on a dirty scrap of paper?

As he stood there, turning the bit of paper over and over, in his hand, puzzling over the problem, the solution flashed into his mind—a solution so simple, yet, withal, so remarkable, that he hesitated to believe it possible. But