Chalice of Darkness, page 21
It did not matter. What mattered was that he was going to get inside Bastle House – that strange, empty, mysterious old place. Saul Vallow had been dismissive of it, but the place intrigued Jack. Empty houses held secrets. Mr A.V. Athlone might know something about Vallow’s history. It could be more grist to the mill, although Jack would admit that the grist he had collected so far was not yet amounting to anything very useful.
It was still only ten o’clock, so he collected his overcoat, and went out into the market square. One or two people nodded to him in friendly recognition, and two of them called out that they hoped he had enjoyed last evening’s concert at Chauntry. Jack smiled and said he had enjoyed it very much. It was all very friendly and relaxing, and it was almost a pity he was not really here to seek out properties to buy.
He explored several of the little shops, exchanging a few words with the shopkeepers, picking up various snippets of local gossip, but nothing about Vallow Hall or Saul Vallow. Certainly nothing about Maude.
There was one attractive establishment advertising itself as ‘Clockmakers, Repairers of Time-pieces, and Purveyors of Good Silverware since 1825’ that Jack spent some time studying. Its window display included some very nice silver candlesticks and an epergne. He considered these with professional interest, but the shop looked like a family concern, and the Fitzglens had standards from which they seldom diverged. Filching from modest, hard-working establishments was considered unkind and unmannerly. Apart from that, it would be mad in the extreme to confuse the present situation by staging a secondary filch while he was here.
Saul found himself constantly watching the clock, counting the hours until he could set off for Bastle House this afternoon. He needed to be there well ahead of Jack Fitzglen, so he partook of an early luncheon, then from the small safe in his study he took the Bastle House keys. It felt curious to hold them – had Maude had the same feeling when the keys were given to her by that profligate young man all those years ago? Had Aiden Fitzglen been with them when that happened? The angry fear welled up again, and with it a burning jealousy. Maude ought not to have had all those things in her life, with Saul not knowing any of them. A lover – moreover a lover who had been heir to the throne – a house conveyed to her – and all of it done in that sly secrecy. Had she enjoyed having those secrets? Had she shared them with Aiden Fitzglen, perhaps?
Waiting until Lily and Miss Grout were out of the way, Saul took candles and matches from a store cupboard and stowed them in a small bag. There would be no lights in Bastle House, and for part of the plan at least he needed to be able to see.
The fifteen years seemed to dissolve as he went along the meadow path, and he could almost have been back in that afternoon when he had lured that grasping bitch Agnes Scroop out here, and had brought Hilda Grout to discover Maude with her body. So damning a sight it had been. Since that day, he had had to make some difficult decisions – decisions from which he dared say many men would have flinched, but he had held firm. He was holding firm to the decision he had made about Jack Fitzglen now, but he was aware of a tremor of apprehension when finally he stood before the old house. He walked around it, mindful of the need to make sure the low-set door from the bastle itself was secure. There was a key on the iron keyring that looked as if it fitted, and the door must certainly be locked.
It was all right, though. The door was locked, and it was as firm and strong a door as Saul could wish. He went back to the short flight of steps that led up to the door at the house’s front, glanced about him, then unlocked the door and pushed it open. The scent of age – of old timbers and of dust and damp – came out.
The room immediately beyond the door was exactly as he remembered – it was remarkable how vividly that memory had stayed with him. There were the pieces of furniture, thickly covered with dust, and the surfaces dull in the shadows. It was very dark, and Saul managed to open one of the shutters across the larger of the windows, and then light a couple of the candles. There were, in fact, candle holders on the big dresser standing against the wall, which he would use. Jack Fitzglen, when he arrived – if he did arrive, which Saul thought he would – would expect to see some slight signs of occupation. He might be suspicious if Bastle House’s owner did not appear to have provided himself with some light.
Saul lit and set out the candles, listening intently for the sounds that would herald Fitzglen’s arrival. He positioned the candles in all the downstairs rooms with care, making sure that they could not be seen by a casual walker through the meadow, but so that anyone entering the house would see lights burning in the inner room, and investigate. He wanted Aiden’s son to explore – to follow the candlelight, and to end in the cellar room itself.
He picked up the heavy, brass-handled poker from the deep hearth, and went back to the cellar. The candle on the stone ledge was burning up, casting its light across the floor and showing up the trapdoor. Saul looked at it. He knew what he must do, but it did not stop him from remembering what was still down there.
He wedged the cellar door open, and placed the brass poker just behind it. Then he knelt at the edge of the trapdoor – the lid of the bastle itself – and grasped the thick black bar to lift it. At first it resisted, but finally it gave a creaking shudder and moved slightly. Saul recoiled – it had almost felt as if something under the trapdoor was trying to push it open from beneath. The memory of Agnes Scroop as he had seen her that day – her hands imploringly thrust upwards, her lips stretched in that silent scream – came to him, and he had to take several deep breaths before he could take hold of the iron bar again.
But he had definitely succeeded in moving it – he could feel that it was lifting, and a dark rim was showing around the edges. A sour, dank stench breathed up from the darkness – as if a tomb had been unsealed. Saul wished he had not thought about tombs, but he reminded himself that he had been prepared for the stench. It was not as bad as he had feared, anyway.
The trapdoor suddenly came up all the way, and crashed down on to the floor with a sound that reverberated through the house. Saul recoiled, his hands instinctively clapped over his ears, but looking towards the open door leading back up to the main rooms. If Jack Fitzglen arrived now, the entire plan might go awry.
But the echoes were already dying away, and there were no footsteps and no enquiring voice calling out. Saul forced himself to look into the yawning blackness. No need to hold up the light, no need to look for what he knew to be lying down there. It was the rungs in the wall he needed to deal with – the iron rungs that he had not known existed last time, and that Agnes Scroop had tried to use to get out. There they were, rusting away from the wall, several of them broken away altogether. Saul reached for the heavy poker, and by dint of wedging it between the rungs and the wall was able to lever off the four topmost rungs. They fell clattering into the darkness. Good. No one could climb up now and reach the underside of the trap.
He went back into the main room. The main door was as he had left it – partly ajar, so that he would see anyone approaching the house. He did not think he would have to wait long – if Fitzglen was coming, he would be here quite soon. Saul was glad about that, because he was disliking this room – this entire house – very much. Despite the candles and the partly open door, a darkness clung everywhere. He was not a man to be made uneasy by a few shadows, but he began to feel as if he was being watched. This was ridiculous. And there was a glint of brightness in here after all – a patch of brilliance that owed nothing to the candles. For a moment he could not see where it came from, then he realized it was an engraved glass bowl – or was it a chalice? It stood on the oak settle, and although a film of dust lay over it, its brightness showed through.
Saul, briefly curious, went across to examine it, taking it between his hands, turning it around slowly to study it. He supposed most people would regard it as a beautiful object, and he would admit that the engravings were finely and delicately worked. He had no idea what they were intended to portray, although he suspected that several were Eastern and probably outright pagan. He stared at the bowl. It was absurd to imagine it stared back – that the flickering light from the candles turned its brilliance into a single eye that watched and that knew …
Wherever it had come from, it was an odd thing to find in a deserted border fortification. That ridiculous Title Deed had not referred to Bastle’s contents or any furniture, and it had certainly not referred to an engraved glass bowl, glowingly coloured rather in the manner of a stained-glass window in a church. That being so, there was no reason why Saul could not take it back to Vallow Hall with him. If it remained here, it would simply collect even more dust, and spiders would spin webs around it. Also, it might be quite valuable. He could get it valued in Alnwick; there were several good jewellers’ establishments, and he could let it be thought he was the rightful owner – perhaps say it had come to light while an attic was being cleared out. With this in mind he placed it in the small bag in which he had carried the candles and the tinder box, and set the bag by the door.
TWENTY
After an early lunch at the Mercian Arms, Jack spent half an hour reading the local paper. He was annoyed to realize he kept glancing at the time – that he was counting the hours until he could set off for Bastle House. Probably it would not contain anything at all, and Mr A.V. Athlone would not know anything in the least helpful.
At a quarter to two o’clock he felt it would be a reasonable time to set off. He thought it would allow about twenty minutes to reach the house, and to get there shortly after two o’clock ought to fit with Mr Athlone’s idea of ‘afternoon’.
He enjoyed the walk along Candle Lane. He slowed his steps as he went past Vallow Hall, looking through the iron gates. He could just see the house beyond the trees surrounding it. The afternoon sunlight lay across it, lending it a faint radiance it had not possessed on his earlier visit. Then, under a lowering grey sky, it had been the sombre near-gothic mansion of the darker kind of fiction, but today it might almost be the remote fairytale house at the heart of one of the old legends. With a captured heroine inside, held fast by some spell? asked Jack’s mind sarcastically, and he went on to the farm track.
The stile was there as described, and the meadow path. It would be absurd to imagine Bastle House was watching his approach – it was simply the narrow windows, like vertical eyes, that gave that impression.
The door at the centre was partly open, so clearly Mr Athlone was here, and had left the door open for his visitor.
He went up the steps, glancing up at the old walls, wondering briefly what stories they might be able to tell of battles and border raids, and reached for the heavy door knocker. It fell dully on the weather-beaten oak, and died away. Jack waited, but there was no response. Still, the door was open, which seemed welcoming, so after a moment, he pushed it a little wider, and stepped inside.
A candle was burning on an oak dresser, and he called out.
‘Hello? Mr Athlone? I’m Joseph Glennon. I had your letter – I hope this is a convenient time.’
His voice echoed hollowly, and Jack began to feel very slightly apprehensive. But perhaps Mr Athlone was upstairs – or in one of the rooms at the rear of the house. Perhaps he was elderly and a bit deaf. But the feeling of apprehension was increasing. There’s something wrong about all this, he thought.
But he glanced into a room on the left of the huge old chimney breast, and found it empty. What about the door on the right? He pushed it cautiously open, and saw that a light was burning at the farthest end. He called out again, and this time thought there was a scrape of sound. He looked about him. For a weapon in case you have to defend yourself? his mind asked a bit jeeringly. No, of course he was not looking for a weapon. He was not liking this, though. He would look into this room, and if no one was around, he would leave, and Bastle House – Mr Athlone, too – could keep whatever secrets might be in here. Yes, but supposing there was something here that would lead him to the chalice?
At the far end of the room was a short flight of steps, leading down. The light seemed to be coming from the foot of the steps. Jack considered whether to go down there. Just down the steps, perhaps. He walked warily down into what looked like a kind of lower scullery, cobwebs dripping from the ceiling, everywhere thick with the grime and the dust of years. An old-fashioned bullseye lantern stood near the steps, its flickering light showing up the old stones of the floor. And in the far corner …
Jack stopped dead. The light showed up a yawning black square in the floor, with a trapdoor propped up against the wall behind it. An open cellar. He frowned, because this was becoming sinister, if it was not starting to be downright menacing. He turned to go back up the steps, but just then a shadow seemed to step out of a dim corner, and dealt him a hefty blow. Jack cried out, threw up his hands, partly in defence, partly to fight the shadow, then fell dizzily back on to the ground.
He did not quite lose consciousness, but the room spun sickeningly around him for several moments. He fought the dizziness off and looked up to see someone standing over him, a heavy brass candlestick in one hand, raising it, clearly with the intention of dealing a second blow.
Jack rolled out of the way, and managed to half sit up. He said, ‘Mr Saul Vallow. Or should I say Mr A.V. Athlone? What the devil is this about?’
Saul was still holding the candlestick, and Jack eyed it warily. Vallow must be a good twenty-five years his senior, and he was quite slightly built. Normally Jack would have felt perfectly confident in dealing with him if a second physical assault came. But that first blow had rendered him dizzy and he was by no means sure if he could overcome Saul if it came to it.
Playing for time, willing the dizziness to recede, he said, ‘You’re the one who sent me that letter?’
‘I am. I posted it very discreetly, making sure no one saw.’
‘It was a trap,’ said Jack.
‘Of course it was. You were just too stupid to realize it. You didn’t even recognize the name I used. Athlone. One of the minor titles of the Duke of Clarence. And A for Albert, V for Victor.’
Jack said slowly, ‘But what has the Duke of Clarence got to do with this house?’
‘He owned it,’ said Saul.
‘But didn’t he die years ago?’ Keep him talking, said Jack’s mind. Get him off guard, and you can probably spring at him, and get away. But the conversation with Declan Kendal was vividly with him. Declan had said the Duke of Clarence had given the Talisman Chalice to Maude. And on one of the photographs Jack had found of her, she had been holding a legal-looking document. The Deeds to this house? Had the Duke not just given Maude the chalice, but also this house?
He moved cautiously, hoping he could bound forward and knock Vallow off balance, but the man was still gripping the candlestick. Jack eyed it uneasily.
‘You really have been very trusting and naïve, Mr Glennon,’ he was saying. ‘Or shall we dispense with the childish tricks and disguises, and shall I simply call you Mr Fitzglen?’
‘You know who I am?’ said Jack, staring at him.
‘Of course I do. You’re Aiden’s son.’
Jack started to say something, then stopped, because the old childhood memory was starting to force its way upwards – the memory that had lain in the darkest recesses of his mind, and that he had never allowed into the light. But now it was scalding its way into his mind, gradually taking dreadful shape.
Saul said softly, ‘You’re remembering, aren’t you? Or did you know all along?’
‘Know …?’
‘That day in the theatre.’
With the words, it was as if the memory finally thrust its way into a bright spotlight, and Jack said, in a half-whisper, ‘You’re the man who murdered my father fifteen years ago. I saw you do it. But I’ve never dared to remember. Until now.’
Saul said, ‘Do you know, I thought it was why you were here. That you were hunting me down, because you’d found out the part your father played in the conveyancing of this house? It doesn’t matter, though, because I can’t let you go now – not now you’ve recognized me. You do realize that?’
He said this as if it was all perfectly reasonable, and Jack stared at him, still not entirely understanding, but trying to decide if he dare leap upwards. But he was still unsure of himself after the blow to his head, and he saw it was too late, because Vallow had already crossed the short space between them, the hand that held the candlestick raised. Jack recoiled instinctively, and the blow, when it came, fell short, missing his head but crunching down on his shoulder. Pain ripped through him, and he cried out, then felt Saul thrusting his hands out and pushing him straight at the open cellar. Jack, reeling from the second blow, still dizzy from the first, struggled to fight back, but felt himself fall into a deep whirling blackness.
There was a sickening thud, and pain everywhere. Above him he saw Saul Vallow’s face framed in the opening, and then he heard the man speaking.
‘I had to get rid of you, Jack Fitzglen,’ he was saying in a dreadful whispering gloating tone. ‘I couldn’t risk you prying and snooping – finding out about the past. I couldn’t risk you asking questions about this house, either – finding out about the meddlesome bitch I killed to shut her up. She’s down there with you – where no one will find either of you. You’re both down there in the dark for ever.’
As if from a massive distance, Jack heard a scraping, clanging sound, then the faint light from above shut off. Darkness, complete and smothering, closed down.
Saul had been shocked to hear his own voice whispering like that into the darkness of the cellar. It was almost as if something had seized his mind, and spoken through him, without his control. But he thought he was entitled to feel triumphant at the way his plan had worked – at the way all of his plans had worked over the years.
When finally he slammed the bastle lid into place, the sound reverberated through the whole house, and he stood there for some minutes, looking down at the outline of the trapdoor. There was no sound from below, of course. Jack Fitzglen could not have survived that fall, but if by some remote chance he had, he would not last very long. He would certainly not be able to get out. The cellar had been designed to trap and hold enemies who had come rampaging over the border; once they were in there they could not get out – not through the trapdoor into the house and not through the outer door that opened on to the fields. There had not been a key to that door on the heavy iron ring, but Saul had tried it himself earlier, and it was locked as firmly as anyone could wish. It was a thick, heavy door, and it would take an army to batter it down. As for the trapdoor in this room, it was heavy and solid, and certainly immoveable from beneath. But to make sure, he dragged the scrubbed-top table across the ground, setting it immediately on top of the trapdoor. It took considerable effort, and he was out of breath when he had finished, but it was worth it.
