'My dear,' began Dr. Fell, and started to fire up again. 'We could have forgotten all about it, yes, if only you hadn't written that letter to the police. In it you stressed evidence, direct evidence, which would be found if you and I opened the vault tonight.'
(Exactly, Holden thought, what Celia had told Dr. Shepton last night in that playground. But there had been no mention of a vault.)
Celia, drawing a deep breath, went up to him. Her eyes searched his face, intently and questioningly.
'I couldn't tell you, Don,' she said. 'I couldn't! That’s what's been worrying me all day; that's why I couldn't see you. But I want you to listen now. And don't laugh at me. Call me mad, if you like. Only: please don't laugh at me.' 'Of course I won't laugh at you.' 'Two days after Christmas, when Margot was—put in that place,' she swung her head round, the soft brown hair flying, to look at the vault, and turned back again, 'Dr. Fell and I attended to certain things.
'After the funeral was over, and everybody had left the churchyard, we came here just about dusk. I had the key of the vault it was supposed to be Thorley's key, but I knew where he kept it Call me a beast if you like, but don't laugh at me.
'Dr. Fell and I unlocked the vault. After we'd—we'd attended to something inside, we shut it up again and locked it Then Dr. Fell was to do what I'd asked him. He was to seal up the lock, with modeling clay pressed through the keyhole until it was filled. He was to stamp that clay with some private seal or mark of his own, so he'd know it Then ...'
'Go on, Celia.'
'Then,' answered Celia, 'he was to go away, with both the key and the seal, and not speak about it until I wrote to him. And
Abruptly Celia turned away, stamping her foot on the ground.
'I can't think now what made me do it,' she said. 'I must have been distracted. Anyway, that's what we did.' 'But why did you do it?'
'Because of what happened in the Long Gallery,' said Celia, 'on the night after Margot died.' Still she would not look at him.
But, as though needing someone near her, she sat down beside Dr. Fell. Surprisingly, Celia did not seem at all frightened. She looked merely resolute, her chin up and a fixity of conviction in her eyes. She was just inside the shadow of the right-hand cypress: sideways to the vault, in the little crooked path of pebbles, and perhaps twenty feet from its door.
'It started as a dream,' Celia said. 'I knew that, as you always do, and I admit it
'It was Christmas Eve, remember, though not exactly the sort of Christmas we had planned. Margot was dead, and she had committed suicide, and before our generation that was thought to be a fearful sin. And I was in bed, asleep, on Christmas Eve.
'I dreamed I was in the Long Gallery, standing on the lowest step down from the Blue Drawing Room, looking straight along the gallery from the north end. It was all dark, except for bright starlight. Then I realized, in my dream, that there was not a stick or shred of furniture in the gallery. On my right ran the bare wall where the portraits ought to have been. On my left was the wall with the three oriel windows, and the stars outside.
'I wondered, with that sense of being m both the present and the past at once, whether the gallery had been cleared for the old Christmas dances and games. And then, far away from me, by the third oriel window, I saw half of a white face.
' 'It was the side half, with the eye wide open. I saw a curve of hair out to the cheekbone, and a high uniform collar, and part of a red coat. And I thought: Why, that's the portrait of Lieutenant General Devereux, who died at Waterloo! 'And then . ...”
'Something gave me a shock and a start, with a gasp in it, and a sensation of cold all over. Then I realized I was awake. Dazed and frightened, but awake.
'I was in the Long Gallery. I was standing on that lowest step, in blackness and starlight, after all. It was bitterly cold, because I had nothing on but my nightgown. I could feel the rough carpet of the step under my feet, and my heart beating to suffocation. I reached out and touched the side of the arch around the stairs. It was real.
'Then I looked down the gallery again.
'And the real house, all quiet and shadowy, it was looking at me. Something seemed to close up my throat, like fingers, when I saw that. I looked again, and it wasn't alone. There were others standing near it. They were the faces and figures that should have been in the portraits, but with one difference.
'The first horror was that they were all hatefully angry. I could feel that anger flowing toward me: dumb, dull, passive, yet still an anger. It filled the gallery with hatred. That was when, very slowly, they began moving toward me. The next horror was that, as they approached, I could see how each one of them had died.
'Those who died peaceful deaths had their eyes closed, like great dumb images. Those who died violent deaths had their eyes wide open, with a ring of white round the iris. I saw Madame Rambouillet with her wired ringlets, all bloated from dropsy; and Justin Devereux, in a starched ruff, with the dagger wound in his side.
'They were real. They had bodies. They could touch you. Past one window they came, and then another window, throwing shadows. But still I couldn't move. It was when the wave of them seemed to get higher and higher, and I could catch the gleam of a silver shoe buckle, I knew that their anger was not directed toward me at all. It was directed toward someone, a woman, crouching and cowering behind me, trying to shield herself.
'And all the time these dead things were speaking together, or whispering. First dry and rustling, then hatefully muffled like voices through cloth; but louder and louder, over and over, dinning and repeating, the same whispery three words. General Devereux, with the two bullet holes in his face, reached out and took my wrist to push me aside.
'And all the time those voices, paying no attention to me, went on with their refrain:
' 'Cast her out! Cast her out! Cast her out! '
CHAPTER XII
Celia's voice rose up wildly on those last words, and then trailed away. She sat there, just inside shadow, so that Holden could not read her expression. Her laughter, clear and ringing, rose up in the grass-scented churchyard.
'Stop that!' Holden said sharply.
'Stop what?'
'Stop laughingl'
'I'm s-sorry. But aren't you glad, Don, I didn't tell you this story last night?'
'What—happened after that? In the gallery?'
'I don't know. Obey found me lying there at daybreak on Christmas morning. She swore I'd die of pneumonia, and raved, and tried to pack me into bed with three or four hot-water bottles. But it didn't trouble me. I'm not sensitive to cold, as poor Margot was.'
(At her side Dr. Fell made a short, slight movement)
“Celia.' Holden cleared his throat
'Yes, Don?'
'You know, of course, that you dreamed all this?'
'Did I?' asked Celia. She edged sideways into the moonlight. The extraordinary glitter of her eyes, the set of her mouth, contrasted with the soft face. 'They were real. They had bodies. I saw them.'
'Do you remember last night, Celia? Dr. Shepton? I'd hate to agree with one single word Shepton said . . .'
'I don't blame you for agreeing, Don.' Celia turned her face away. 'If s only natural. I'm ma—'
'No. It was a quite ordinary nightmare. I've had some myself that were as bad or worse.' (Lord, he prayed, let me handle this properly I) 'But it was inspired, as Shepton suggested, by that thrice-damnable Murder game in masks.'
'Don! Pleasel'
'You're intelligent, Celia. Use your wits on this. The very faces in your nightmare suggest masks. Now think of the voices, 'muffled like voices through cloth.' My darling, listen! Thaf s exactly how voices sound when they speak inside masks, as you heard them all through the questioning of the Murder game.'
'Don, I ...'
