The Eight of Swords

'I asked Kennings: that footman I was telling you about. He doesn't know. He remembers putting the shoes in the junk closet right enough, some time ago. Anybody could have taken 'em out. There's no mistake. They're not there now… Hullo!'

Hugh followed the direction of his glance. Another light had appeared in the west wing. 'Now I wonder' said Morley, rubbing his forehead with a heavy hand, 'who's in the oak room at this time?'

'The oak room?'

'Where our poltergeist hangs out,' Morley told him grimly. After a pause, during which he stared at the light, he said: 'Am I getting idiotic notions? Or do you think we ought to go up and see?'

They looked at each other. Hugh, was conscious of a tensity in the other's bearing; almost an explosiveness which the stolid Morley had been concealing. Hugh nodded. Almost in a rush they left the terrace. They were climbing the main staircase before Morley spoke again.

'See that fellow?' he asked, pointing to a bad portrait on the landing. It was that of a fleshy-faced man in a laced coat and full-bottomed periwig, with plump hands which seemed to be making an uncertain gesture, and an evasive eye. 'He was one of the Aldermen of Bristol, supposed to have been concerned in the Western Rebellion of 1685. He didn't actually do anything — didn't have the nerve, I suppose — but he was rumored to have favored Monmouth. When Chief Justice Jeffreys came down for the assize to punish the rebels, he had all his goods forfeited. Jeffreys was staying here, with a Squire Redlands who owned The Grange then. That man, Alderman Wyde, came here to plead with Jeffreys against the sentence. Jeffreys foamed, and preached him a long sermon. So Wyde cut his throat in the oak room. Hence…'

They were moving along a passage that led off the main hall upstairs: a narrow passage, badly lighted, and Morley was peering about him as though he expected to find somebody following. The whole house might have been deserted. Morley stopped before a door at the end. He waited a moment, straightened his shoulders, and knocked.

There was no answer. An eerie feeling crawled through Donovan, because they could see the light shining out under the door. Morley knocked again. 'All right!' he said, and pushed the door open.

It was a spacious room, but gloomy, because it was panelled to the ceiling. The only illumination was a lamp with a frosted-glass shade, which stood on a table by the bed: a canopied bed, unmade and uncurtained. In the wall facing them was a wooden mantelpiece, with leaded windows in embrasures on either side. There was another door in the right-hand wall. And the room was empty.

Morley’s footsteps rattled on the boarded floor. He called, 'Hallo!' and moved across to the other door, which was shut but unlocked. He pulled it open and glanced into the darkness beyond.

'That,' he said, 'is the junk closet.. It-'

He whirled round. Hugh also had backed away. There had been a sharp creak near the fireplace, and a flicker of light. A section of the panelling between the fireplace and the window embrasure was being pushed open: a hinged section, nearly as high as a door. The Bishop of Mappleham, with a candle in his hand, appeared in the aperture.

Hugh had the presence of mind not to laugh.

'Look here, sir,' he protested, 'I wish you wouldn't do that. Mysterious villains have a monopoly on entrances like that. When you appear—'

His father's face looked tired and heavy over the candle flame. He turned to Morley.

'Why,' he said, 'was I not told of this — this passage?'

Morley only returned his gaze blankly for a moment. 'That? I thought you knew about it, sir. It isn't a secret passage, you know. If you look closely, you can see the hinges. And the hole where you put your finger to open it. It leads—'

'I know where it leads,' said the bishop. 'Downstairs, to a concealed door opening on the gardens. I have explored it. Neither end is latched. Do you realize that any outsider could enter this house unseen at any time he chose?'

Morley’s dark, almost expressionless eyes seemed to recognize what the other was thinking. He nodded, slightly. But he said:

'For that matter, an outsider could walk in the front entrance if he chose. We never lock doors.'

The bishop set down his candle on the mantel-shelf, and fell to brushing dust from his coat. Again his face was heavy and clouded, as though from anger or loss of sleep. 'However,' he said, It has been recently used. The dust is disturbed. And over there is the closet from which your shoes were taken…'

Heavily, with a forward stoop of his shoulders, he moved over towards the bed. Hugh saw that he was looking at a splattered red stain on the wall and on the floor. For a moment a vision of throat-cuttings, and periwigged gentlemen out of the seventeenth century, invaded the shrivelled old room; then, with a drop of anticlimax, Hugh remembered about the ink. This was where the poltergeist had been active. The whole thing was at once baffling, ludicrous, and terrible.

'Since our authorities,' he went on with bitter heaviness, 'Dr. Fell with his great knowledge of criminals, and that brilliant detective Inspector Murch, have not seen fit to take me into their confidence this afternoon — well, I have conducted my investigation along my own lines… Tell me: This room is not generally used, is it?'

'Never,' said Morley. 'It's damp, and there's no steam heat. Er — why do you ask, sir?'

'Then how did Mr. Primley happen to occupy it on the night of — on the night someone was assumed to be exercising a primitive sense of humor?'

Morley stared at him. 'Well, you ought to know, sir! You were with us when it was arranged. It was because he asked…'

The bishop made an irritated gesture. 'I am putting these questions to you,' he said, 'for my son's benefit. I wish him to understand exactly how the proper sort of examination is conducted.'

'Oh!' said Morley. A slightly humorous look appeared in his eyes. 'I see. Well, you and my father and Mr. Primley and I began talking about the story of the man who'd killed himself here, and 'the influence' or whatever you call it. So when Mr. Primley had to spend the night here, he asked to be put in this room

'Ah. Yes. Yes, quite so. That,' nodded the bishop, drawing back his chin, 'is what I want to establish. Listen, Hugh. But Mr. Primley had not originally intended to spend the night, had he?'

'No, sir. He missed the last bus back home, and he-'

'Consequently, I must point out to you, Hugh: consequently, no outsider could even have known of the vicar's intention to stay the night, even in the doubtful event an outsider knew he was here. It was a sudden decision, made late in the evening. Much less could any outsider have known Mr. Primley intended to occupy this room… Therefore this affair could not conceivably have been a joke put up on Mr. Primley by an outsider.'

'What ho!’ said Hugh, after a pause. 'You mean somebody sneaked up that passage to get into the junk closet and steal those shoes; but he didn't expect to find this room occupied…'

'Precisely. I am afraid you run ahead of my logic,' the bishop rebuked him in a somewhat annoyed voice: 'a practice against which I must caution you. But that is what I do mean. He did not expect to find the room occupied; and, either coming in or going out — probably the latter — he woke Mr. Primley. He raised a very brief ghost scare to cover himself?' The bishop's furry brows drew together, and he put his hand into his pocket. 'What is more, I can tell you exactly the person who would be apt to do that, and I can prove that he was here.'

From his pocket he drew a small notebook of red leather, smudged over with dirt. There were gilt initials stamped upon it.

This interesting little clue was dropped in an angle of the stairs that go down inside that passage. Do me the favor of looking at it. It is unfortunate that it was lost; it bears the initials H.M. Do I need to expatiate at length on the traits of character belonging to young Mr. Henry Morgan, or to point out his suspicious eagerness to lead Inspector Murch by the nose in this case? It was he, I believe, who called Murch's attention to that footprint by the Guest House, and kindly offered to take a plaster impression of the evidence.'

'ROT!' said Hugh violently. He swallowed hard. 'I mean-excuse me, sir, but that's fantastic. It won't work. It's-'

Morley cleared his throat.

“You have to admit, sir,' he urged persuasively, 'that it takes some believing. I don't mean the evidence! — but about Hank. He would be quite capable of playing a joke of that sort on Mr. Primley or anybody else who slept here, but the rest of it can't be right.'

The bishop spread out his hands. 'Young man,' he said; 'I urge nothing upon you. I simply inform you. Did