“What frightened you, my little one?” His black eyes were fixed on hers, and seemed to possess an hypnotic quality, for she could not remove her gaze.
“A—a man,” she stammered.
He lit a cigarette very slowly—indeed with something of a ritual—and blew a cloud of smoke to the vaulted ceiling.
“At three o’clock in the morning?” He arched his eyebrows. “Surely the young miss who wanders about the country in the middle of the night is not to be frightened by a man? Sit down—on the floor. You are too tall for me. Women who are taller than me dominate, and I cannot suffer domination.”
He took the gimlet shape from the door, replaced it in the tool kit, and rolled up the leather, strapping it very carefully and deliberately.
“You have come to spy on me—yes? I heard you close the gate and creep down the stairs—I am in a quandary! What am I to do with a young lady who spies upon me? You realize, of course, that I am seriously compromised and that, if I tell you I am an antiquarian and interested in these strange and ancient mysteries, you will laugh in your sleeve and not believe me, nor will your employers. What was your name?”
She had to wet her dry lips before she replied. She saw his eyes narrow.
“Sybil Lansdown?” he said, almost sharply. “You are, of course, the girl—how coincident!”
He had a queer, un-English way of framing his sentences, which alone betrayed his foreign origin, for otherwise his English was perfect.
She had obeyed his command and was sitting on the stone-flagged floor.
She had never thought of hesitating or even questioning his commands, and it did not seem strange to her that she should accept his orders without any attempt to resist his wishes.
“The whole proceedings are incredibly bizarre,” he said, and then for a moment turned from her to examine the door with the seven locks. His long, uncleanly fingers touched the skull’s head caressingly.
“You are beyond change—she is also beyond change, for she is an old woman by an inflexible standard. Too old, too old, alas! too old!” He shook his head mournfully and again turned his dark eyes upon her. “If you were eight or nine it would be simple. But you are—what?”
“Twenty-two,” she said, and his lips clicked impatiently.
“Nothing can be done except—” His eyes strayed along the narrow, cell-like doors, behind which the dead and forgotten Selfords lay in their niches, and cold fear gripped her heart with icy fingers. “You are a woman, but to me women are that!” He snapped his fingers. “They are weak material for experiment. They do not react normally—sometimes they die, and years of experiment go for nothing.”
She saw him purse his wet lips thoughtfully, as he walked past her and tried one of the heavy oaken doors, peering through the rusty grating.
“The whole situation is incredibly bizarre and embarrassing—the man you saw outside, was he extraordinary of appearance?”
She nodded dumbly.
“That, of course, would be a way,” he said, as if he were speaking to himself. “On the other hand, he is so clumsy—which is natural. They cannot altogether be trained out of clumsiness, because fineness of execution requires delicate mental adjustments. Could a locomotive thread a needle? No! How much easier would it be for a sewing-machine to pull a train?”
He fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat, which scarcely met over his trousers, failed to find what he wanted, and dived his hand into the breast pocket of his frock-coat.
“Ah! Here she is!”
It was a small green phial he held in his hand, and when he shook it she heard the rattle of tablets, as she guessed. He drew the cork from the neck of the phial with his teeth and shook two little red pellets on to his hand.
“Swallow these,” he said.
She held out her palm obediently.
“Incredibly bizarre and unfortunate,” muttered Stalletti, as he went to the second of the tomb doors and pushed a key in the lock. “If all the doors in this miserable house opened so readily, what unhappiness and trouble would be saved, eh?”
He looked at her sharply.
“You have not done as I told you,” he said.
She was sitting, the two red pellets, like evil eyes, gleaming up from the white palm.
“Quick—do not hesitate!” he said commandingly.
She raised her hand to her lips. Yet her ego was fighting subconsciously and individually against the mastery of this strange man. Obedient to an order which she did not initiate, the white teeth caught the pellets and held them. Satisfied, Mr. Stalletti addressed himself to opening the third tomb. And the very physical movement of him for a second released her from his mental tyranny. The pellets dropped back into her hand.
He pulled open the wooden door, creaking and groaning, and, coming back, picked up the lamp, giving her only a casual glance as he passed, disappeared through the door. At that second his spell was broken. She sprang to her feet and fled along the passage, slamming the grille behind her. In another second she was in the open air. One fear for the moment had slain the other, and she did not pause to look left or right for the shape that lurked outside, but flew like the wind along the path which was by now familiar as though she had trod it all her life.
Where was Cawler? She thought of him now, but only for a second. Beyond this valley, she thought, there was another field of grass, then the wall of a farmhouse, then Selford Manor. A caretaker was there; perhaps other servants of whose existence she did not know. She remembered the last time she had come across this shallow valley. Dick Martin had been with her. At the thought of him she winced. What would she not give to have this calm personality at her elbow now!
It was still
