Chapter XXIII

Mr. Spragge felt himself engulfed in horror. Never, till that moment, had he known what real terror was. All his previous convictions as to the end of the Countess Fanny were blown aside by a breath of sheer dread, and wild and awful speculations took their place. Had she been to this house? Was such a conclusion possible? How explain this ornament, lying here in the middle of the empty room on the dusty floor? And for the first time there crept into the bewildered mind of the clergyman the ghastly thought that possibly the girl had met with foul play. He could not think of anyone on St. Nite’s Point who was capable of such a crime; but possibly some stranger, possibly some wandering sailor, for the sake of those few trinkets that she wore… he dared not pursue the thought, but stood with the broken bracelet in his hand, looking down at it.

Oliver Sellar was looking at it also.

“You see,” he said quietly, “she _is_ here somewhere. I thought so, did I not?”

The clergyman could not immediately answer; he was trying to control his own racing thoughts, to steady his own beating heart. Never had he been smitten with such utter amazement.

“Are you sure this is hers?” he asked unsteadily. “Let us keep our heads, and exercise our reason. Can you swear that this is hers?”

“Of course,” said Oliver; “one of the set, two bracelets and a necklace. I showed it you on the list, did I not?”

“Heaven support us!” murmured the clergyman.

Oliver had taken the bracelet now, and was examining it keenly. The clasp was broken, and a great deal of dust lay in between the fine pieces of coral which formed the leaves and berries.

“It has been here some time,” he remarked. “Now we must search the rest of the house.” And he slipped the bracelet into his pocket, with a calm that was, to Mr. Spragge, very horrible to behold.

The clergyman had indeed no stomach for any further search. It did not seem to him possible to follow Oliver any longer on such a ghastly quest, after this discovery of the bracelet. She might be in the house--yes, but how? Murdered, buried in a cellar, for all he knew. That was surely the only possible solution for such a discovery. She had been trapped and decoyed to this lonely house, or dragged there after she was dead. The clergyman’s brain reeled under the ghastly images that were forced upon him.

“We’d better go and get help,” he said, trying to detain the other man with a trembling hand. “Better have someone else in this. We can’t undertake any more alone.” He suggested wildly that they should get in the coachman, forgetting that it was impossible for the man to leave the horses.

Oliver took no heed of any of this. He thrust it all aside as a cloud of irritating words that had no meaning.

“Come on,” he said, “or leave me. Go outside and wait in the carriage if you will. I desire no further company.” And he advanced with his lantern, leaving Mr. Spragge in darkness. Sooner than be abandoned thus, the clergyman followed him.

They now went up a further flight of stairs and explored the attics. Nothing there. Then down again into the basement--the great kitchen, offices, and beneath them the cellars. Clinging, noisome damp filled these underground rooms, and Mr. Spragge found it difficult to discover the courage to descend into them. He recalled with what dread and dismay he had read of atrocious murders, where the victim was hidden in cellars, or under the stones of yards and kitchens. Even though he had read such things in the cold print of formal accounts in newspapers, he had not quite believed them; his mind had glanced away; he had dismissed the whole fearsome subject; and now, was it possible he was himself going to be brought face to face with some such atrocious incident?

He scarcely dared to glance round the cold blackness of the kitchen, so dimly illuminated by the rays of the lantern that Oliver held aloft. But there was nothing: dark emptiness was all.

So in the other rooms--the servants’ parlour, the china closet, the offices; one after another empty--bare shelves, bare cupboards. Mr. Spragge’s nerves began to recover from the jangling shock they had received from the discovery of the bracelet. After all, it must be some extraordinary coincidence. Perhaps it was not the bracelet of the Countess Fanny, but some ornament that had been dropped there when the house was stripped of its furniture--not so many years ago, after all.… He tried to reassure himself by this reflection. No, the bracelet could not have belonged to the Countess Fanny. There was nothing here; she had not been murdered and buried in any of these horrible underground rooms, nor could she, by any stretch of imagination or fancy, be supposed to be alive and in hiding in such a place as this desolate mansion.

“Come away now,” he said, endeavouring to speak sensibly and moderately. “We can return to Sellar’s Mead, and you can show the bracelet to the Italian maid. She can tell you if it is really the belonging of her mistress. After all, it’s a common pattern; I’ve seen many ladies wearing such ornaments.”

“But I know,” said Oliver, in tones that chilled Mr. Spragge’s heart, “that this is Fanny’s bracelet, and Fanny is somewhere here.”

Again he must proceed through all these underground rooms, flashing his light into every nook and corner, opening every cupboard, eyeing the windows.

Here, as on the other floor, all was bolted and secured. Rain and damp had entered, but nothing else could possibly have done so. The rusty bolts had been long in place; the wooden shutters were stout.

Oliver now proceeded down the long stone passage which led to the back door. Rats fled before them, startled by the light. At the sound of those scampering feet Mr. Spragge shuddered with disgust and terror. Most heartily now did he repent of his encouragement of Oliver to visit Flimwel Grange, and he looked desperately at his companion, hoping for some flicker of emotion on that dark, inflexible face. Surely the moment would come when Oliver would break down and declare “I can’t go on!”

There was no sign of this. Undeterred and grim, Oliver proceeded on his progress round the deserted house.

The back door was as secure as the front door; a most thorough examination revealed that it had not been tampered with. Oliver stood erect, pausing. He had at last been brought to a stop, because there was nowhere else where he could very well turn any longer. Mr. Spragge waited, shivering; hoping every moment that he would say: “Let us now return to the carriage.” But what Oliver did say, at length, was something totally different from this.

“There is a window open somewhere,” he remarked. “I feel a blast of cold outer air.”

“Oh, no,” muttered the clergyman fearfully. “How can you feel that, Mr. Sellar, when everything here is like ice?”

“But there is a window open,” persisted Oliver, “in that direction.” He made a motion with his free hand towards the left of the passage, and then strode down it. Mr. Spragge, from a sense of duty and also because he did not care to be left there without the light, was at his heels.

It seemed to him that it was impossible for Oliver’s perception to be so delicate as to be able to perceive an extra blast of cold in what was so chill already, and it was with a horrible surprise that he discovered that his companion had been correct in his surmise. One of the windows in the passage was open; that was to say, it was broken. A shutter had been wrenched back, and the glass smashed; the fragments of splintered wood and broken glass lay on the stone floor of the corridor.

The window-frame had been latched, but it was easily possible to unlatch it from the outside, and when it was so open the aperture was sufficiently large for anyone to have entered the house--anyone, that is, of not too great a bulk.

“You see,” said Oliver; “someone has been here.”

“This is indeed dreadful,” murmured the vicar, sick at heart. “What are we to do?”

“It was she,” said Oliver unheedingly. “She came through here.”

“No, no!” protested Mr. Spragge vehemently. “Don’t nourish such ideas, sir, I entreat you. This has been some wandering vagabond who broke through to get a night’s shelter.”

“And that bracelet?”

“We’ll call it part of his spoils; they get such things, you know.” The clergyman’s voice faltered. He could not think of what words to choose.

“None of this has anything to do with the Countess Fanny; I beseech you to believe that! Have we not already searched every part of the house?”

Oliver proceeded along the stone-flagged passage. There was, indeed, nowhere else to look. The long and exhaustive search had only produced these two results--the broken window and the coral bracelet.

“Let us go outside and look beneath the window,” said he sombrely; and after some difficulty he contrived to pull back the creaking bolts of the door and to open this on to the yard or garden at the back of the place.

As he did this he was met by a blast of wind that blew in howling, and raged in triumph through all the empty rooms. So violent and icy was this wind that Mr. Spragge bent his head towards it, and even then felt his breath choked in his throat at the fury of this onslaught. He could hardly keep his feet as he followed Oliver Sellar out into the blackness, which the lantern only so faintly dispersed.

They searched beneath the broken window, but again their search was fruitless. It was impossible now to tell if the ground had been ever disturbed by human footsteps--so wet was it, so beaten upon by rain and the rush of the water from one of the choked gulleys of the house which fell here in a steady stream, turning the small bed of earth that edged the flagged yard into a lake of mud about a tangle of dead, sodden weeds.

“Nothing, you can see, nothing,” murmured Mr. Spragge. “Shall we not now, sir, return? Ambrosia will be getting anxious. We have been a long time away.”

Oliver sighed. He seemed impervious to the elements--to the cold, the wind, the dark, the rain--and stood there, holding his lantern and staring at the broken window, absorbed in thoughts the clergyman did not dare to guess at; nay, he tried to put from his own mind what was probably passing in the mind of Oliver Sellar.

“Let us think, sir,” he said tremulously, “of those at sea to-night; this will be ghastly weather at sea. Let us contemplate the misfortunes of others, and that will give us the humility to endure our own.”

Baffled, mute, and terrible, Oliver Sellar continued to stare at the broken window, and made no reply. It seemed impossible to touch him by any reference except to his own loss. He was living in a world of his own creation--a world, Mr. Spragge thought, inhabitated by demons.

At length, with another long sigh, Oliver turned away, and, in a moody, absent voice, said:

“We will come again to-morrow. I do not see what more we can do to-night.”

They walked round the house, bending before the blast, making their way with difficulty to the arch where the carriage waited.

During the ride home Oliver Sellar did not speak a word, but remained, with arms folded and head sunk on his breast, in his corner, wrapped in his overcoat, with his hat pulled down over his sullen brow.

“I have been of no use,” thought Mr. Spragge, miserable with the sense of his own inadequacy. “This is the first time that I have been called upon to help anyone, and I cannot do it.”

It was late when they returned to Sellar’s Mead--even later than the clergyman had feared it would be; but Ambrosia was sitting up for them. She had, as usual, performed her housewifely duties perfectly. There were fires in all the rooms. She herself, with her air of decorous patience, sat in the large drawing-room before the hearth, on which a kettle was elegantly steaming. A table was beside her--a small table on which were cakes on a silver stand, biscuits and sandwiches, glasses, and various bottles of wine, besides a tea-service; all looking so homely, comely, and pleasing in the red light of the lamps.

Mr. Spragge wondered why he noticed, with such a poignant clarity, all these ordinary and familiar details.

“It must be,” he thought, with a shudder, “because of the contrast they make with the bleak, black desertion of Flimwel Grange.”

Ambrosia glanced from him to Oliver. The clergyman noted with compassion how strained and lined was her face; she looked almost an old, almost a plain, woman.

“You must both be very exhausted,” she remarked quietly. “It is a terrible night.”

Oliver did not answer this formal greeting; he thrust his hand into his pocket, and then held it out to Ambrosia--the coral bracelet on the palm.

“Fanny’s!” exclaimed Ambrosia. Then, on another breath: “Where did you find it?”

“At Flimwel Grange,” said Oliver. “In the middle of the floor of one of the upper rooms.”

Then Ambrosia, shrinking back, cried:

“It can’t be hers!”

“There was a window broken at the back,” added Oliver. “Quite possible, you see, for someone to have entered there. It would not take very much strength or skill to wrench the shutter and break the glass and lift the latch. She has been there, Amy; Fanny has been to Flimwel Grange.”

“Oh, heavens,” cried Amy, with a sick look. “What do you mean, Oliver? What can be the meaning of it? Why should she go there? You--you didn’t find her?” she added, in sinking tones.

“No, no,” said Mr. Spragge hastily, seeing that Ambrosia had sensed the same horror as he had sensed; the ghastly, unspeakable possibility of a slain and murdered Fanny. “No, no, my dear; nothing at all--just this bracelet, and the broken window. As I tell your brother, it would be quite possible that some wandering vagabond, some sailor, has pushed his way in there to sleep the night; and the bracelet--it is a common pattern.”

“It is Fanny’s,” said Oliver. And he returned the ornament to his pocket.

“Why not ask Luisa?” said the vicar, on a faint hope that the bracelet might have been proved not to be that of the missing girl.

Amy shook her head. She did not wish the extravagant hysterics of the Italian maid introduced into the matter; she knew too well that that was Fanny’s bracelet. She had noticed it again and again on her fine wrist.

Moving mechanically, and with an almost unnatural composure, she proceeded to make the tea and to offer it to the two men. She must do something, and these domestic actions came very naturally to her.

Mr. Spragge drank the beverage gratefully. He was exhausted and disturbed beyond measure. The events of that evening had been a great shock to him, and inexplicable.…

Ambrosia folded away her needlework into the mother-of-pearl inlaid satinwood work-basket, and locked it, and hung the key on the ring at her waist, and then poured herself a cup of tea and drank it. After she had performed these trivial actions, she asked her brother:

“What will you do to-morrow, Oliver?”

“Let us pray for resignation,” murmured Mr. Spragge humbly.

“I shall find her,” said Oliver. “Some day I shall find her.”

Mr. Spragge looked at the tormented man with grave and fearful compassion.

“God help you!” he said sincerely. “God, in His mercy, help you!”

“Oliver,” implored Ambrosia earnestly, “think of this--however much you dislike to be reasoned with on this subject, think of this--if she is alive, she is hiding from you; she does not want you to find her; and if she is dead, it must be that you vex her spirit by this refusal to leave her in peace. Don’t you think she would hear you crying on her, day and night, and be troubled in her grave?”

Oliver appeared impressed and startled by this. For the first time for many days he gave some personal attention to his sister, and looked at her keenly.

“Aye, aye,” he muttered. “I think even if she were at the bottom of the sea she would hear me.”

“Then leave her in peace,” said Mr. Spragge. “We know not what we do when we so trouble the repose of the dead. She might come back, sir, in some form that you would shudder to behold! While you search for her body, you might be brought face to face with her soul.”

“I don’t want her soul,” returned Oliver.

Mr. Spragge had known that; there was nothing spiritual in the passion of Oliver Sellar for this foreign girl; it was her body for which he searched, her body that he wanted, her body of which he had been cheated.…

“The wind rises,” said Ambrosia, glancing towards the curtained windows. “For three days now they have been trying to fetch old Joshua from the lighthouse; his leave is overdue.”

“Ah, yes, the lighthouse,” said the vicar. “I had forgotten. We may be thankful that there has been no wreck.”

“The winter is young,” remarked Oliver, with a horrid grin, as if he would have liked to have thought of the coast strewn with wreckage, fragments of great ships, and tattered bodies.

“Don’t remind me of that,” replied Ambrosia nervously. “Indeed, I do not know how I am going to live through it.”

Oliver pushed aside the cup of tea which Ambrosia had placed behind him, and instead poured himself out a large glass of port.

“I’ll go to bed,” said Ambrosia rising. She turned to the clergyman. “Your room, sir, is ready.” She knew what it would be now; Oliver would sit there for hours--perhaps till the dawn--piling coal on the fire, drinking, silent, taking no notice of her if she were in the room, not missing her if she went out of the room; merely keeping the blaze on the hearth replenished, and drinking; until, in the morning, they would find him in a sodden sleep, tumbled in a chair. So did he spend too many nights after these days of frantic and hopeless search.

And now there was the added horror of the coral bracelet for him to brood over; the horror that Ambrosia had put out of her own mind.

Mr. Spragge followed her to the door. He did not think that he could any longer endure the company of Oliver Sellar.

Then, to the surprise of both, Oliver spoke, without changing his attitude, nor looking at them.

“I’ll go to Lefton Park,” he said. “Perhaps, after all, Lucius knows where she is.”