The Mortover Grange Affair/Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE DARK HOUSE
The masses and drifts of snow in the courtyard were so deep, and the darkness was so thick that it was only by straining his recollection of the place that Wedgwood contrived, with great difficulty, to guide his bewildered companions to the stone porch. That, too, was filled with snow, and it was evident that no attempt had been made to clear it. Knowing no other entrance to the house he was obliged to force a way through the congregated mass to the door within—repeated knockings on that failed to produce any answer. Minutes went by; Mrs. Patello began to protest that she could bear the exposure no longer; Mr. Patello suggested they should seek the rear of the house. But just then Wedgwood was aware of a voice on the other side of the door, faintly enquiring who was there—Mrs. Patello revived.
"That's Mattie!" she exclaimed. "Oh, tell her to let us in!"
"Your father and mother!" shouted Wedgwood. "Open the door!"
The undoing of bolts, the turning of keys took some time; the door, opened at last, revealed Mattie Patello, huddled in various odd garments, a candle in one hand, relieved yet bearing plain evidences of fright and misery.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" she said. "There isn't a soul in this awful place but me—I've never seen anybody to speak to since the postman and a telegraph boy were here this morning, and I've been all alone in the house since yesterday afternoon. I've been frightened to death"—she broke off short, staring at Wedgwood. "I've seen you here before!" she exclaimed. "You're the man that made a picture———"
"All right, my girl!" interrupted Wedgwood. "Your father and mother know me! Now—is there a fire anywhere?"
"There's a big fire in the kitchen," answered Mattie. "It's never been out since yesterday. I sat up by it all last night, and I was going to sit up by it again—I'm terrified to go to bed. I think I'd have gone mad to-night if you hadn't come—you've no idea what it's been like!"
"Well, we're here now," said Wedgwood. "See to your mother—she must be wet through. Let's get dry and warm and we'll hear all about it. One word, though—you've not seen or heard anything of those three since last night?"
"Neither seen nor heard!" the girl answered. "They went—and they've never been back!"
Wedgwood turned and fastened the door again with his own hands, before following Mattie and her father and mother into a great kitchen, where a fire of logs roared up the chimney. And then he proved himself a practical man by making immediate preparations for food and drink—he had taken the precaution to bring a couple of bottles of whisky with him from the hotel at Netherwell, and he lost no time in administering liberal doses of it to his companions and himself—not before there was dire need, for Mrs. Patello was on the verge of exhaustion, and Mr. Patello was speechless with cold, and it was some time before either was in a fit state to hear any account of their daughter's doings. Wedgwood was in no hurry about that—he knew that nothing could be done while that storm lasted; he knew, too, that there was no chance whatever of either Levigne, or Janet Clagne, or Philip Mortover coming back that night. And he waited for news until his two companions had revived and become gradually thawed by the big fire: then he quietly asked Mattie to tell what had happened.
Mattie Patello was obviously as anxious to talk as Wedgwood—secretly—was to listen. She had been bottling things up all day; the detective was quick to notice the relief it gave her to let out the accumulated flood.
"If I'd known what I know now I'd never have come into this house!" she exclaimed. "There's something wrong here, mother, whether you know it or not! Aunt Janet—she's queer! I've seen it ever since I came, but yesterday—I don't know what you'd have done if you had had to go through yesterday and to-day!"
"Tell us about yesterday," suggested Wedgwood. "What happened?"
"It began in the morning," continued Mattie. "Mr. Levigne—he's a man from London that has something to do with the new colliery, and he's been here once or twice before since I came—came here just before noon. He came in a cab from Netherwell, just about when the snow-storm was starting, and sent the cab away. He and Aunt Janet had some talk before dinner, in the little parlour, and at dinner she was in a very bad temper. After dinner she got me to wash up for her, and she and Mr. Levigne were in the little parlour again, and I could hear that they were quarrelling—at high words. I didn't hear anything of what they said, but you could tell they were quarrelling. Once I had to go into the little parlour—a man had come to the door who wanted something and I had to see her about it. She and Mr. Levigne were at opposite sides of the table, with a lot of papers between them, and she looked as black as thunder and he looked vexed. She packed me out, pretty sharp, and I took good care not to go near them again, but I could hear them at it, hammer and tongs, all the afternoon—she was shouting at him sometimes."
"You never heard anything she said?" asked Wedgwood.
"Only once—when I was passing the door. I heard her say 'It's all in her interest—all in her interest'—just like that. Of course, I didn't know what she meant."
"Did you hear Mr. Levigne make any reply?" asked Wedgwood.
"I heard him speak, but I couldn't distinguish anything. It wasn't Mr. Levigne who seemed to be quarrelling so much as Aunt Janet. He spoke as if he was trying to smooth her down, softly, like. It was she who did the loud talking—she seemed to be furious with him about something."
"And you say it went on all the afternoon?" enquired Wedgwood.
"Till past four o'clock, anyway," replied Mattie. "We had tea, then—I had to get it ready. Aunt Janet was sulkier than ever at tea—she wouldn't speak to anybody. And she looked—my, I never saw her look so angry!"
"Where was Philip Mortover while all this was going on?" asked the detective.
"Out! He'd gone out with his gun, in the morning, before Mr. Levigne came, and he didn't come in to dinner—he never came in till tea-time. I believe he'd been drinking."
Mr. Patello made an inarticulate sound; Mrs. Patello an incredulous one.
"Oh, Mattie, you don't mean to say he's that sort?" she exclaimed. "Your Aunt Janet never mentioned———"
"He does drink!" asserted Mattie. "He goes off, I don't know where, and drinks. He and Aunt Janet have rows about it. But he does! And I wouldn't marry him if he'd a million times as much money as you and Aunt Janet say he has—all I want is to get out of this and never see place or people again—it's a perfect nightmare!"
"Well—what about when he came in?" asked Wedgwood. "What happened?"
"Nothing!" replied Mattie. "He seemed grumpy—surly, you know. But he's always like that—I hate him!"
"Was there any talk between him and Levigne and Mrs. Clagne?" asked Wedgwood.
"No—he talked a bit to Mr. Levigne when we were having tea, but only about shooting."
"What happened after that?"
"Well, after tea, Philip went off to a room where he keeps his guns, and Aunt Janet asked me to wash up the tea-things. She and Mr. Levigne began talking again. I heard him say 'You may as well make up your mind—there's nothing else for it.' I didn't hear what she said to that, but after a while she went upstairs and came down again dressed to go out. She and Mr. Levigne went out—she said to me that they'd be back at eight o'clock, and that if a cab came for him, the man was to wait."
"You don't know where they went?" asked Wedgwood.
"No—she didn't say. And I couldn't see which way they went, because it was just then that the snow-storm began to get really bad; it hadn't been anything much until then. Besides that was five o'clock, and dark."
"Where could they go?" asked Wedgwood. "There's nowhere to go to, about here, is there?"
"There are two or three houses—farmhouses—not so very far off," replied Mattie. "And there's a new house been built near the colliery, where the manager, Mr. Malcolmson, lives, and there are cottages, too. I thought, perhaps, they'd gone to Mr. Malcolmson's."
"Well—and what about Philip Mortover? He went out, too, didn't he?"
"Yes, and not so long after they'd gone! He came in here, into this kitchen, and went to that cupboard in the corner. There's whisky and other stuff in there, but Aunt Janet had locked it up just before she went out and had put the key in her pocket—I saw her. When he found he couldn't get in, he swore awfully, and then he went and put on his leggings and a big coat and went off."
"Where's the nearest public-house?" asked Wedgwood.
"It's a good mile away, on the high-road between Harslow and Ruxton—the Drovers' Arms," replied Mattie. "High up on the moors—an awful wild spot. But there's a short cut from here. Then there's another between here and Netherwell—the Coach and Four. But that's further off."
"Well—so you were left alone?"
"Yes, and I didn't like it! There's noises in this old house when you're alone in it—queer noises—didn't I hear them, last night! However, I wasn't so frightened until eight o'clock came and went. They didn't come, and didn't come! And the man who was to come with the cab never came. I wasn't surprised at that—I could see from the windows that the snow was awful. And Philip didn't come—I was glad he didn't. And of course, none of them came back—I sat by this fire all night, all alone!"
Mrs. Patello made a moan of commiseration; Mr. Patello shook his head. And Mattie went on with her story.
"The postman managed to get through, on his pony, this morning," she said. "I told him about it, and I sent that telegram home. I'd have set off home myself there and then, but I hadn't enough money. Then, later on, a telegram came asking about Mr. Levigne, and I sent a reply to it. But nobody else came, and I heard nothing of Aunt Janet, or Philip, or Mr. Levigne. Then during the afternoon I saw a man struggling through the snow towards Netherwell, and I managed to get out to the gate to him and asked him to tell the police about those three. And after that—well, there was nothing happened until I heard you knock!"
Wedgwood persuaded Mrs. Patello and her daughter to go to bed; when they had followed his advice he turned to Mr. Patello. But Mr. Patello, wearied out, had fallen fast asleep on an old couch drawn up by the fireside, and the detective, throwing a rug over him, made up the fire and sat by it, musing over the events of the day and speculating on the probabilities of the story he had just listened to. Trying as that day had been he had no desire for sleep; his brain was actively at work on the problems that still required solution. He thought little about the disappearance of Philip Mortover—Philip, in his opinion, had made off to one of the adjacent inns on finding the cupboard locked and the key taken away, and there he had stayed and would probably be found. But the whereabouts of Levigne and Janet Clagne was a different matter. For he had learned enough by that time to know that there was a secret, dark and mysterious, between those two, and that whatever they were engaged in bore some sinister relationship to it.
Dark and mysterious—it struck him as he sat there by the blazing fire that everything about that old house, set there in the midst of the whirling snow, was as mysterious as it was dark. It was a place of secrets—and it looked it. He glanced around him at the queer and quaint quarters into which he and his companions had been so thankful to get—at the wide fireplace, with its ingle-nooks and black cavities; at the raftered roof; the ancient furniture, every stick of which he guaranteed to be two or three hundred years old, at least; at the slowly-ticking grandfather clock, bearing on its face the date 1720; at the various nooks and corners; at the old glass, china, pewter ranged in rows in the presses—it had an atmosphere of its own, that place, he thought, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he had suddenly seen it filled with the ghosts of long dead Mortovers. Many and many a Mortover must have sat in the very chair in which he sat now, stretching legs and feet to just such a blaze as that now roaring up the wide chimney; many a Mortover woman of bygone generations had doubtless kept vigil in that kitchen as the Patello girl had kept vigil the previous night. An eerie, creepy place. . . .
Wedgwood got up from his chair after a while, and pipe in mouth and hands in pockets began to examine the queer old objects by which he was surrounded. It was plain that the place was used, and had long been used, as a family living-room as well as a kitchen and there were all sorts of things in it that are not usually found in kitchens—an ancient spinet, framed pictures and samplers on the walls, a fine old bureau, a corner cupboard filled with tarnished silver, and, in a recess let deep into the wall, a pile of old, leather-bound books, folios, quartos, octavos the very sight of which was enough to make a bibliophile's mouth water. And Wedgwood was a bit of a book-lover, and he began to examine them, and finding one heavy volume to be in black leather, carried it over to the fireside for closer inspection. It proved to be a volume of Elizabethan travels, liberally furnished with charts and maps—unfolding one of these, a loose paper slipped out and fluttered to his feet—a paper in modern handwriting. He picked it up, and with a sudden gasp of astonishment, read the first few words:
This is the last Will and testament of me, Gilson Mortover. . . .