The chapels ran along two sides of the narrow passage in which they stood, and at the very end was the twenty-first cell, which differed from all the others in that its door was of stone, or so it appeared at first glance. It differed, too, in another respect, as Dick was to discover. Mr. Havelock turned to him and held up the lantern, that the visitor might better see.
“Here is what Miss Lansdown wishes you to see,” he said slowly. “The door with the seven locks!”
Dick stared at the door. There they were, one under the other. Seven circular bosses on the door, each with its long key slit.
Now he knew. It was to this awful place that Lew Pheeney had been led to work under the fear of death!
The door was enclosed in a fantastic frame and gruesomely ornamented. A stone skeleton was carved on each pillar; so real they looked that even Dick was startled. He tapped the door with his knuckles; it was solid—how solid, he soon learned.
“Who is in here?” he said, and Havelock’s finger pointed to the inscription:
“Sʳ Hughe Sellforde, Kᵗ
Founder of yᵉ Sellforde Houſe.Heare I wayte as quiet as a mouſe
Fownder of the Sellforde Houſe
A curſe on whosoever mocks
Who lieth fast with ſeven lockes.
Godde have mercie.”
“The inscription is of a much later period than Hugh’s death,” said Havelock.
“What is in there? Is he—buried here?” said Dick slowly.
Mr. Havelock shook his head.
“I don’t know. The late Lord Selford, who had the old door with its seven locks taken down, and this new door—which is steel, by the way—made in Italy, said there was nothing except an empty stone casket; and, indeed, nothing can be seen.”
“Seen?” repeated the girl in surprise. “How is it possible to see?”
There was a little panel about six inches in length and two inches broad, apparently part of the solid door, and running across its centre. Mr. Havelock caught its bevelled edge between his finger and thumb and it moved aside, leaving a small aperture not an inch in depth.
“I ought to have brought an electric torch,” he said.
“I’ve got one,” said Dick, and, taking a small lamp from his pocket, he held it up near to his eyes and sent the light into the interior.
He looked into a cell about six feet square. The walls were green and damp; the rudely carved stone floor was thick with dust. In the very centre, resting on a rough stone altar, was an oblong, box-shaped sarcophagus of crumbling stone.
“The stone box? I don’t know what that is,” said Havelock. “Lord Selford found it in the tomb and left it as it was. There was no sign of a body—”
Suddenly the passage was lit by a blue, ghastly flame, that flickered for a second and was gone. The girl, with a gasp of fright, clung to Dick’s arm.
“Lightning,” said Havelock calmly. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a wet journey back to town.”
Even as he spoke, the hoarse roar of thunder shook the earth. It was followed by another flash of lightning, that revealed the ghostly doors of the dead on either side, and sent the girl shrinking against the detective.
“We’ll not get wet, anyway,” said Dick, patting the shoulder of the trembling girl. “There’s a whole lot of nonsense talked about storms. They’re the most beautiful demonstrations that nature sends. Why, when I was in Manitoba—”
The flash was followed instantly by a deafening explosion.
“Something’s hit,” said Dick calmly.
And then, from the far end of the passage, came the sound of the clanging of metal against metal.
“What was that?” he asked, and, flying along the passage, dashed through the outer lobby, up the slippery stairs to the entrance gates.
A flash of lightning blinded him for a second; the thunder crash that came on top of it was deafening; but he had seen what he had feared. The great iron grille had been shut on them, and on the wet clay before the door he saw the prints of naked feet!
XV
Sybil and Havelock had followed closely behind him. Havelock’s face had lost its rubicund colour, and the hand that went up to shake at the rail was trembling.
“What foolery is this?” he said angrily, and the quavering note may have been due to his annoyance.
Suddenly Dick’s pistol leapt up. Twice he fired at the figure he glimpsed through the dripping rhododendrons. It had grown in a few minutes from bright sunlight to a gloom that was almost terrifying. The clouds sent the rain hissing in his face, but the flicker of lightning had given him a glimpse of the huge, fleshy arms.
“Oh, don’t shoot; please—please don’t!” The girl was sobbing, her head on his breast, and Dick dropped his pistol.
“You have a key to open the gate?” he asked in a low voice, and Havelock nodded.
“Give it to me.”
Martin took the key from the shaking hand, put his arm through the bars and inserted it in the lock. A sharp twist of his wrist and the door was pushed open.
“Go on ahead; I won’t be far behind you.”
He dashed into the bushes where he had seen the figure, and he saw that he had not altogether failed, for on the long yellow cylinder that lay on the grass was a spatter of blood. He turned the cylinder over; it was about four feet in length and immensely heavy. Attached to the nozzle was a rubber tube about an inch in diameter. Searching around, he found a second cylinder, with a similar equipment. At the nozzle end of this latest find was a circular red label which had evidently been scratched off its fellow. “W.D. Chlorine Gas. Handle Carefully. Poison.” There was no sign of the half-naked man, and he started off at a run to overtake Sybil.
The lightning flashed incessantly, and there was scarcely an interval between the peals of thunder. Both the girl and
