“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson again when the signs had come. He still tried to get back his magic power, and the blood stood out on the picture and the pain came in his cheek. But he knew that it was life-and-death, and he kept repeating his spells and made a man of wax against the Parson. But just as he was going to drive a bodkin through the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made him stagger, and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they couldn’t see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir Pharamond was dead!”
All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat quietly, seeming to cogitate.
At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless fairy-tale, but what makes you think it may have any connection with what’s going on here?”
The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. “You’ve just heard that, sir. And if there is a Parson Lolly, sir—”
Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. “We’ll not discuss such a preposterous supposition.”
“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come on the face of the picture when the time comes for Highglen House to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.”
There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable hits, besides the unaccountable business of the knocking on the wall, and Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, from the witness-box.
I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound door leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I happened to glance at the substantial iron handle of the door, for it had no knob, the roots of my hair stirred and a thrill shot down my spine.