“Her chief concern seems to be not to let us in,” said Abbershaw, but he returned to the door and spoke again.
“Who’s there?” he said, and waited, hardly hoping for an answer, but the voice replied with unexpected directness:
“That’s a thing I won’t hide from anybody,” it said vigorously. “Daisy May Meade’s my name. A married woman and respectable. A churchgoing woman too, and there’s some that’s going to suffer for what’s been going on in this house. Both here, and in the next world. The pit shall open and swallow them up. Fire and brimstone shall be their portion. The Lord shall smite them.”
“Very likely,” said Abbershaw dryly. “But who are you? How did you get here? Is it possible for you to get us out?”
Apparently his calm, matter-of-fact voice had a soothing effect upon the vengeful lady in the next room, for there was silence for some moments, followed by an inquisitive murmur in a less oracular tone.
“What be you doing of?”
“We’re prisoners,” said Abbershaw feelingly. “We’ve been shut up here by Mr. Dawlish, and are most anxious to get out. Can you help us?”
Again there was silence for some moments after he had spoken, then the voice said considerately, “I’ve a good mind to have the door open and have a look at ye.”
“Good heavens!” said Abbershaw, startled out of his calm. “Do you mean to say that you can open this door?”
“That I can,” said the voice complacently. “Didn’t I bolt it myself? I’m not having a lot of foreigners running round me. I told the German gentleman so. Oh, they shall be punished. ‘To the devil you’ll go,’ I told them. ‘Fire and brimstone and hot irons,’ I said.”
“Yes, I know,” said Abbershaw soothingly, “but have you any idea how we can get out?”
A grunt of consideration was clearly audible through the door. “I will have a look at ye,” said the voice with sudden decision, and thereupon there began a fearsome noise of chains, bolts, and the scraping of heavy furniture, which suggested that Mrs. Meade had barricaded herself in with a vengeance. Soon after there was a creaking and the door swung open an inch or two, a bright black eye appearing in the crack. After a moment or so, apparently satisfied, Mrs. Meade pushed the door open wide and stood upon the threshold looking in on them.
She was a striking old woman, tall and incredibly gaunt, with a great bony frame on which her clothes hung skimpily. She had a brown puckered face in which her small eyes, black and quick as a bird’s, glowed out at the world with a religious satisfaction at the coming punishment of the wicked. She was clothed in a black dress, green with age, and a stiff white apron starched like a board, which gave her a rotundity of appearance wholly false. She stood there for some seconds, her bright eyes taking in every nook and corner of the room. Apparently satisfied, she came forward.
“That’ll be your sister, I suppose,” she said, indicating Meggie with a bony hand, “seeing you’ve both red hair.”
Neither of the two answered, and taking their silence for assent, she went on.
“You’re visitors, I suppose?” she demanded. “It’s my belief the devil’s own work is going on in this house. Haven’t I seen it with me own eyes? Wasn’t I permitted—praise be the Lord!—to witness some of it? It’s four shall swing from the gallows, their lives in the paper, before there’s an end of this business.”
The satisfaction in her voice was apparent, and she beamed upon them, the maliciousness in her old face truly terrible to see. She was evidently bursting with her story, and they found it was not difficult to get her to talk.
“Who are you?” demanded Abbershaw. “I know your name, of course, but that doesn’t make me much wiser. Where do you live?”
“Down in the village, three mile away,” said the redoubtable Mrs. Meade, beaming at him. “I’m not a regular servant here, and I wouldn’t be, for I’ve no need, but when they has company up here I sometimes come in for the week to help. My time’s up next Wednesday, and when I don’t come home my son’ll come down for me. That’s the time I’m waiting for. Then there’ll be trouble!”
There was grim pleasure in her tone, and she wagged her head solemnly.
“He’ll have someone to reckon with then, the German gentleman will. My son don’t hold with foreigners nohow. What with this on top of it, and him being a murderer too, there’ll be a fight, I can tell you. My son’s a rare fighter.”
“I shouldn’t think the Hun would be bad at a scrap,” murmured Abbershaw, but at the same time he marvelled at the complacency of the old woman who could time her rescue for four days ahead and settle down peacefully to wait for it.
There was one phrase, however, that stuck in his mind.
“Murderer?” he said.
The old woman eyed him suspiciously and came farther into the room.
“What do you know about it?” she demanded.
“We’ve told you who we are,” said Meggie, suddenly sitting up, her clever pale face flushing a little and her narrow eyes fixed upon her face.
“We’re visitors. And we’ve been shut up here by Mr. Dawlish, who seems to have taken over charge of the house ever since Colonel Coombe had his seizure.”
The old woman pricked up her ears.
“Seizure?” she said. “That’s what they said it was, did they? The fiery furnace is made ready for them, and they shall be consumed utterly. I know it wasn’t no seizure. That was murder, that was. A life for a life, and an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that’s the law, and they shall come to it.”
“Murder? How do you know it was murder?” said Abbershaw hastily. The fanatical forebodings were getting on his nerves.
Once again the crafty look
