I.
The Obtrusion of Parson Lolly
Highglen House, Aidenn Vale, Radnorshire,
October 3, 1925. 12.30 A.M.
Heaven smile on us if it can! Heaven watch and ward us. This is a wedding party!
Crofts Pendleton has just brought me the fresh candles and this writing-book. He wished me God-speed in my endeavours and good-night.
“Good-night!” It sounded like a travesty, or a challenge.
Surely I am the sane one here if anyone is. Yet I cannot name the curse that lies on my spirit and keeps in my eyes the vision of the two faces, the golden hair above the black! Never-to-be-forgotten moment! But I shall not let it unnerve me now, as it seemed to then.
The worst of it is that I am confined in a musty chamber (among store-rooms!) on the second floor where the web-scribbled ceiling slants down with the roof and the eaves murmur uncannily just above my window—a room to make flesh thrill and creep. It looks like a chamber where murderers may have lurked in bygone days. The narrow, deep-set window, the old twisty candle-brackets high on the stone wall, the joined chest with never a nail to fasten its boards, the severely plain four-square bedstead—they all remind me that I am in a building centuries old where any or every fiendish deed may have been performed. I wish that this storey, like the rest of the house, were equipped with a good up-to-date electric service. The blinking light of candles is not very comfortable in the gloom.
Nearly a page written, yet nothing pertinent said. This isn’t economy in words. But now I’ll banish megrims, cease rambling, and come to the situation.
I have been in Highglen House for a scant six hours. Events have been moving with intermittent swiftness ever since I came, and they had not been precisely quiet before my arrival. To-night, though it takes until dawn, I shall describe as far as I can the happenings of the last day unless I drift off to sleep in the process. But no, even with doors locked, sleep is not likely to trouble anyone much to-night, not after the alarm all of us—I don’t except myself in this case—have just had.
Moreover, until the nowhere-to-be-found Sir Brooke puts in an appearance, or some word is heard from him, there will be little rest for me, with Eve Bartholomew knocking at the door every fifteen minutes, with, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Bannerlee; are you still up? It’s so silly of me, of course—Sir Brooke can take care of himself as well as any of us—better, I’m sure, than most—and yet I’m not so sure—but it’s really odd, isn’t it? Now I know it’s silly of me—but I’ve just had another idea. Don’t you think it’s possible that Sir Brooke took the wrong train? Of course I don’t know whether you can do that in Shrewsbury in the afternoon—but perhaps he got on the wrong platform, or something—he never was an expert on getting about, poor dear—and then he may have gone to sleep and not noticed where he was going. He has a way of doing that in trains—I know him so well, you see. Perhaps he didn’t learn until he got off at some scrubby little place where there’s no telegraph. And then, of course, that explains why there’s been no message from him.”