“Can’t find him anywhere,” Ambrose Robinson said, rubbing his eyebrow. “I just don’t understand it. Why should he walk out?”
“But he can’t have done that!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed. “He must be up to some prank or other. Come on; we’ll all have a look.”
This was a game none of the party had expected. They all crowded out of the drawing room and dispersed in various directions to undertake the search, which, for Pat and Ambrose Robinson, had already proved fruitless. Even the garage and outhouses were not ignored, but there was still no sign of Keith anywhere.
“If he went out we’d have seen him go down the front path,” Betty Andrews said brightly.
“I just can’t understand it,” Ambrose Robinson said, as they congregated in the hall.
“Neither can I,” Mr. Taylor added, frowning. Then an inspiration seemed to strike him. “Say, what about the cellar? Anybody look there?”
From the shaking of heads it appeared nobody had.
“In any case, what on earth could he want down there?” Pat asked blankly.
“I don’t know. Let’s see, anyway.” Her father moved to the cellar door in the staircase and turned the knob. He fell back in surprise as the door remained secure. Then he grinned. “The mystery’s solved!” he exclaimed. “Keith’s up to something in the cellar. He must be. He—”
“Say, look!” Gregory exclaimed abruptly. “There’s a gleam of light under the cellar door there—I can just see it. A faint line.… What the blue blazes can he be playing at?”
“Key’s gone: must be inside the door.” Mr. Taylor spoke as though sudden alarm had got him. “Usually there’s a key on the outside of this door.… Gone! See?” He pointed. Then he thumped the panels fiercely.
“Hey, Keith! What goes on?”
There was no response. The party glanced at one another. Pat, seized with a sudden premonition, gave a startled cry.
“Something may have happened to him! Smash the door, Dad.”
Without hesitation he slammed his massive body into it. It creaked but it did not give. Gregory lent his shoulders. Under the combined onslaught the door flew open and nearly flung Mr. Taylor down the steps beyond. He brought up sharp, clinging to both sides of the door frame. He remained motionless. There was a deadly silence for a moment or two.
As Gregory had noticed, the light was on, but from this point at the top of the wooden stairway the bulb itself was not visible—only the brilliance casting from beyond the point where the wall jutted out at the base of the curving stairway. Nobody was noticing this, however. Their eyes were fixed on a shadow on the left-hand wall of the stairway.
It was the shadow of a man, hanging. A black line extended tautly upwards from his neck to the ceiling.
* * * *
At about this time, Miss Maria Black, M.A., Principal of Roseway College for Young Ladies, was experiencing a shock of another kind. In fact, to her it was a far bigger shock than the vision of any hanging man would have been. Briefly, her Austin Seven had mysteriously become immobile.
She had left the college in Sussex in ample time, and to the accompaniment of considerable backfiring had proceeded at a fair speed to within twenty miles of her destination in Redford. Now she sat at the steering wheel, gazing in front of her and wondering what to do next.
“Extraordinary!” she observed finally. “Most extraordinary! I really think I must consider writing a letter to the managing director of the Austin Motor Company.”
She tried the self-starter again, opened the choke to the full, switched the ignition on and off—and plain nothing happened.
With a sigh she squeezed out of the car and stood erect, a massive-bosomed woman in the late fifties attired in a fashion-able two-piece, with a stylish hat perched on her severely coiffured hair. Her hair was greying black and ended in a bun at the nape of her short, strong neck
“I suppose,” she said, staring at the car musingly, “that the mind should be equal to any problem—even this.”
Satisfied.as to this possibility, she drew off her gloves tossed them into the car, and then with masculine strength and purpose heaved up the side of the bonnet. With eyes the colour of a blue glacier she considered the Austin’s innards. There seemed to be a lot of oil-filmed metal and that was about all. Understanding the engine of a motor car was not one of Maria Black’s accomplishments. She understood fractious young ladies and criminal minds a great deal better.
“Hmm!” she observed finally, and there was nobody on the long white, dusty road to hear her. Only a singing lark high overhead in the cobalt-blue sky. On every side of her were fields. With the usual lack of consideration shown by mechanical vehicles, the car had not chosen the runway of a garage on which to break down.
With an effort Maria cast aside her reluctance to fiddle with the oily mess, and began an investigatory tapping of carburettor, plugs, distributor, and everything else she could find. She was thus engaged, her massive body visible only from the waist down, when she became aware of a squeak of brakes and the scrape of tyres on gravel surface. A young man climbed out of an ancient two-seater and came over to her.
“Trouble, ma’m?” he asked.
Maria straightened up, her dignity marred, had she but known it by a smear of oil that looked startlingly like a moustache. Except for this unique addition her features were keen. Her month and jaw were firm without being cruel: her nose was long and straight, and definitely inquisitive. When she spoke, she could not help sounding superior. It was born in her.
“I can assure you, young man, that I am not doing this for my own entertainment.”
The young man grinned. “As it ’appens, I know a bit about cars. I’ll take a look if you like.”
Maria nodded thankfully and stood aside, studying her messy hands in nauseated disgust. The young man did something to the engine that she could not see.
“Probably over’eating in this weather,” he commented, his voice sounding as though it were coming from the bottom of a well.
“Overeating?” Maria frowned. “How on earth can my gastronomic activities have anything to do with it? I can assure you I do not overeat.”
“’Ere’s your trouble,” the young man exclaimed. “A wire to your distributor is corroded. Ought to ’ave the wirin’ checked now and again. Soon ’ave you going now.”
Maria pulled a duster from the dashboard cubby, wiped her hands, threw the duster away, and then waited. In five minutes the young man had the car started. Maria beamed on him.
“Splendid, young man! Excellent! Every man to his trade. And how much am I in your debt?”
“Only too ’appy,” he replied, shrugging. “No job for a lady of your class, anyway.”
He held the door open for her and she settled at the steering wheel again, as upright as a general on his charger. The engine was now ticking over sweetly.
“Thank you again, young man,” she said, still beaming— and then she started the car off down the road at ever-gathering speed. The clock showed her she had lost a valuable hour and ten minutes. It annoyed her. If there was one thing on which she prided herself, it was punctuality.
CHAPTER FOUR
Suddenly, as she stared at the wall and the shadow of the hanging figure, Pat Taylor gave a hoarse shout that rose into a scream.
“It’s Keith! He’s gone down there and—”
“Back!” her father snapped, stopping her from hurling herself forward down the wooden staircase. “Get back, all of you! There’s something horrible here.…”
He forced them away by main strength