Shadows at Midnight.: The Maynard Sims Library. Vol 1 Read online

  The morning after this sleepless night I tried working again, but with the same lack of success as before. I couldn't concentrate, and the final straw came when I ran out of paper, went to my desk in the study and realised that I had forgotten to buy more. It was an oversight I never usually made, and it seemed to me a sure sign the unfinished book was preying on my mind. I had to get out of the house, away from the damned book. As I now needed some more paper I decided to go into town, and while I was there I might as well call into the library and return two of the books I had on loan, and renew another two that I still needed for my research.

  The girl behind the desk knew me well, and she smiled warmly as I entered. "Hello, Mr Clark," she said in that hushed, restricted tone peculiar to libraries. "Still the Suffolk history is it?"

  I grimaced. "I'm afraid so, not coming along too well unfortunately. I need to renew these, if that's all right, and I'm returning these."

  She began to search for the tickets in her file. "We were all so sorry to hear about Mr Lambert."

  "Yes, a sad business," I said. "I take it you read about it in the papers?"

  "That's right. There are your tickets; I'll just stamp these out again. He came in here quite often."

  That was something I hadn't expected. Bill was not a lover of libraries. "I'm surprised I never bumped into him in here. I wasn't even aware he used the library."

  "Well it was strange really. I knew he was a friend of yours because he asked me once how often you came in here, and he wanted to know when, on what days. Of course, I told him you had no set days. I thought he wanted to know so that he could meet you here, so I told him the dates when your books were due. But then he never once came while you were here."

  I was puzzled. Bill Lambert disliked libraries. He didn't like the principle of borrowing books and having to read them in a set time before they were due for return. The books Bill Lambert read were the books he owned, he would never even borrow from friends. So why had he suddenly started making use of the public library?

  "How long had he been coming here?" I said to the girl, as I watched her stamp the books.

  "Only about five or six months. He didn't take out many books as a matter of fact, and he usually overran as well. I had to fine him twice."

  "And what type of books did he borrow?"

  She looked up, a questioning expression in her eyes. She was probably wondering why I was so interested. For that matter so was I. But there was something about this that intrigued me, something that a small voice at the back of my mind told me was important.

  "Books on furniture at first, you know? English furniture design, one book on eighteenth century cabinet-makers, that sort of thing. But then in the last two months he started taking out books on other subjects." Her cheeks flushed and she looked down at her ink pad.

  "Other subjects?" I persisted.

  She didn't look up. "Books on witchcraft, demonology."

  I took my books and left.

  When I went into my bedroom that evening I found total chaos. The doors of the wardrobe were wide open, and the clothes I had carefully laid in there were thrown about the room. Some were lying in a heap in front of the gaping doors, some were strewn across my bed. A tie was even draped over the shade of the light that hung from the centre of the ceiling. The wardrobe drawers had been wrenched from the frame, and were hanging at odd angles like broken limbs. Their contents were jumbled, some of my handkerchiefs ripped to rags, torn by something thin and razor-sharp.

  I cursed under my breath, but only to assuage the feeling of unease I felt. Picking up the pile of clothes from in front of the wardrobe I carried them to the bed, then went back and cleared out the rest of them. I looked warily into the wardrobe, half expecting to find a rat or some such animal; living in the country these things had become an occasional hazard. But there was another part of my mind insisting that this was not the work of rats. The Cromwell, ripped to pieces, shredded like so much waste paper, and now my clothes.

  I sat down wearily on the bed and began to tidy the jumble into some kind of order. But even as I performed this mundane task my eyes kept being drawn back to the wardrobe, to the veneers which, in the light of a late summer sun pouring in through the window, seemed to take on all manner of patterns and dancing shapes. I kept seeing movements in the veneer, although perhaps seeing is too definitive, I sensed movements there, like seeing someone in the periphery of your vision, only to turn and find there was no one there at all. Finally this constant, infuriating distraction proved too much. I picked up the bundle of clothes, carried them through to the spare room and completed the job there.

  I visited Emily soon after. We had lunch at the local pub, and during the course of the meal she told me how the sale of the house was progressing.

  Most of her clothes, and the belongings she had left, were packed in cases, ready for the completion of the sale. She was living in just one room of the huge house, sleeping on a camp bed provided by a friend. She had shut down the Aga to save on fuel, and was cooking on a small gas ring in the one room she occupied. It was an arrangement I found to be wholly unsatisfactory, but one she insisted on keeping to, which led me to wonder about the thin dividing line between pride and sheer pig-headedness. As I left her at her door, I made her promise to telephone me as soon as she had a firm completion date, so I could at least help her with the removals.

  A few evenings later Paul Thurston came round to see me. I greeted him over-enthusiastically, welcoming him with a drink and a friendly chat, sub-consciously compensating for out-bidding him on the wardrobe, I suppose. We talked generally for a while, him asking about my book, and I enquiring about his work. He mentioned he had been to see Emily, and I gathered he had tried to persuade her to stay with him at his flat, rather than staying by herself at the house. She had refused, as I knew she would have done had I made the same offer. As we talked I noticed that his usually cool manner seemed somewhat shaken. His attitude became increasingly anxious as time went by, and he began casting nervous glances about the room, as if expecting to see something, or as if he had caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. Eventually it became so noticeable I had to comment.

  "Is everything all right, Paul?" I asked. "You seem edgy. Do you want a refill?" I gestured to the empty whisky glass he was turning over and over in his hands.

  He stared down at the glass as if seeing it for the first time. "What? Oh, yes."

  I took the glass from him and refilled it. He drained the glass again immediately. "How's that wardrobe of yours settling in?" he blurted out suddenly.

  So that was it. He was still resentful that I had the third piece of the set. "Come on, Paul, you know I only bought it for Emily's sake," I said placatingly.

  "You won't mind selling it then?"

  "Selling it?"

  "Yes, to me. I've got the other two pieces and you know it's a set. I'll give you twice what you paid for it."

  There was a strange, almost manic gleam in his eyes that I found unsettling. "You know I can't do that. What would Emily think? Anyway, I half had it in mind to give it to her as a moving in present for her new home."

  "No!" He leapt from his chair, the glass falling from his fingers and smashing in the fireplace. In two strides he was standing in front of me, towering over my chair, his hands balled into fists. "No, you can't do that. Just tell me how much you want for it? Come on, name your price." It wasn't so much a request as a threat.

  "Sit down, Paul," I said steadily. "I've told you I don't want to sell, and that's the end of the matter as far as I'm concerned." I got down on my knees and started to pick up the fragments of broken glass, tossing them into the empty coalscuttle. "Anyway, why are you so anxious? It's a nice set I grant you, but you have some marvellously attractive furniture at your flat. Why do you want this particular piece so badly?"

  He made a sound of disgust. "As if you didn't know. All right then, play it clever and see where it gets you." He went across to the drin
ks' table and, taking a fresh glass, poured himself another whisky. He took a long drink and then turned slowly to face me. It was as though he had aged twenty years in the time it had taken him to pour the drink. He stared at me, his eyes full of tears. "Then if you won't sell, for God's sake take the other two pieces. Please, I beg you." He seemed close to hysteria. "I can't stand it any more. You have them." He collapsed into the chair with his head in his hands.

  I didn't know what to say. I had no idea what had happened to frighten him in this way, because he was certainly terrified of something. It was in his voice, in his eyes. "Paul," I said gently. "Tell me what's happened."

  He looked up at me wearily. "Do you know when I last slept? Five days ago. Look at me, Frank, I'm a wreck, exhausted." He stared off into space. "I didn't mind the figures at first, ha!" He laughed bitterly. "But when they started moving about...disappearing here, reappearing there. And now I can feel them there all the time, watching me, waiting to catch me unawares." He stopped suddenly and stared hard at the door. "No," he hissed and jumped from his chair. "Keep away from me!" he shouted. "Keep away from me!" He had his arms outstretched, hands spread as if to fend something off. Then he rushed to the door and flung it open. He disappeared into the hall and I heard the front door being yanked open, and then slammed shut, making the windows in the study vibrate.

  I chased after him, but by the time I reached the front door he was already halfway down the drive, his arms waving in front of him like flails. I called after him, but if he heard me then he paid no heed. I stood there for a moment more, then went inside and poured myself another drink. It's strange how the fear of one person can transmit itself to another, but as I held my glass I noticed that my hand was trembling uncontrollably. I sat there in the study for the rest of the night. I must have dozed off at one point, because one moment I had been gazing out at the black starlit sky through the study window, and then my eyelids jerked open and I saw the sky was the milky, yellowish grey of the pre-dawn.

  I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. They felt gritty, and there was a dull ache in the small of my back where I had been sitting twisted in my chair. I hauled myself upstairs and entered my bedroom, slipped off my shoes and collapsed onto the bed. I expected to get at least a few hours comfortable sleep before the morning proper was upon me. Instead I slipped into a fitful half-sleep, roused by the slightest sound, the smallest movement; the timbers of the house settling, the unnaturally loud rustle of my bedclothes as I shifted my position on the bed. I could hear the engine of a car on the road beyond the woods, the first calls of a thrush perched in the tree outside my window.

  Finally daylight brushed across the window, and I knew sleep was gone for the night. A soft filter of morning sunlight caught the polished face of the wardrobe, and the illumination seemed to bring the veneer alive. The figured surface appeared to rise away from the wood, the patterns dancing and moving as if in ritual offering. As though lit by fire, the flickering images performed while I watched, fascinated by this trick of the light. I propped myself up on my elbows, and moved to a different position on the bed to get a clearer view, but as I did so the ceremony ended, and the wardrobe took on a more mundane aspect. A wave of tiredness swept over me and I yawned deeply and closed my eyes, but as my heavy lids were closing it looked as if the wardrobe was moving slightly, a swaying movement. I blinked again and it was stationary. My eyes shut and the sleep I thought had eluded me rushed up like a tide and swept me away.

  I awoke later to the sound of the telephone by my bedside. I glanced wearily at my watch and was shocked to see it was past noon. I reached out for the telephone, assuming it was Paul phoning to offer his apologies for his peculiar behaviour last night. It was Emily.

  "Frank, have you heard the dreadful news?"

  I told her she had woken me.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you slept so late. It's Paul, he's dead."

  I sat up in my bed, my mouth working silently, hunting for the words to express my shock.

  "Frank, are you still there?"

  "Yes, yes, sorry. How did it happen? When did he die?"

  "Late last night apparently. The police are still here; it seems they found my name and address in Paul's wallet. Frank, do you think you could come over? They need someone to identify the body. They asked me but..."

  "Give me half an hour," I said, interrupting her. "Can the police wait that long?"

  I heard her turn away from the phone and talk to someone, and then she was back speaking to me. "Yes, Frank, they'll wait."

  I put down the telephone and went to shave.

  The formal identification took place at the morgue of the local hospital, and it was an experience it will take me a long time to forget. Emily came with me and was waiting as I came out of the freezing room. I must have looked bad because she took my arm and led me from the hospital. We sat in my car in the hospital grounds, for a long time saying nothing. Finally Emily broke the silence.

  "How did it happen, Frank? How did Paul die?"

  "They won't know for sure until they perform the post-mortem examination, but they're saying it looks like natural causes." The words caught in my throat. I had seen him lying there in death, his eyes wide open, staring blindly, a look of abject terror on his face. Natural causes! "They found him in the woods behind my house, did you know?"

  "Yes, they said. Oh God, all those questions. They asked so many, but when I asked them anything, all they said was, `the results of our inquiries will be given at a later time, madam'. In a way I felt they were blaming me for Paul's death."

  "You? That's ridiculous, Emily. If anyone was to blame it was me. You know Paul came to visit me last night?"

  "I heard you telling the Inspector. Something about wanting to buy the wardrobe."

  "I shouldn't have let him leave the house, the state he was in."

  "Did you know he visited me too a few days ago?"

  "He mentioned it."

  "When you saw him did he seem excited about something? Because when he came to see me there was obviously something on his mind, although he didn't say anything that made any real sense."

  "Well, frantic would be a better description. He wanted me to sell him the wardrobe, and when I refused he begged me to take the tallboy and dresser off his hands. He became quite deranged when I wouldn't agree. The last I saw of him was when he ran out of the house."

  "It's that damned furniture, isn't it?" she said with a vehemence that made me turn in my seat and stare at her. She continued, "I used to think it was just Bill, playing games with me – you know what a mischievous sense of humour he had – but he used to talk about the furniture not liking him. Often he told me he had gone to the wardrobe to fetch a shirt or a tie, only to find that his clothes had been scattered about the room. As I say, at first I thought he was joking, but as the months wore on I noticed that he was becoming more and more distant. Something was occupying his thoughts, and he wasn't sharing those thoughts with me. I even thought it was another woman." She shook her head at the memory of it. "Oh, I know he wasn't a strong man morally. I knew about the gambling, the drinking, and dear Bill never could resist a pretty face..."

  Again I looked at her sharply. None of us, Bill's friends, realised that Emily had known just what kind of a man Bill Lambert really was. Now we were proved wrong. "Don't looked so shocked, Frank. I knew exactly the type of man I was marrying, but we don't choose who we fall in love with, and when you love someone as much as I loved him, you tend to overlook the faults and cling to the hope that one day the love between you will be enough to make all the other...other diversions unnecessary. I wonder how many people fall into the trap of believing that love conquers all? And yet until today I was willing to believe that the reason he took his own life was because of the gambling debts and so on. A gentleman doing the honourable thing, isn't that how they phrase it? But now I believe there was something more to poor Bill's suicide."

  "And it's something to do with the furniture?"

 
; "Yes," she said simply.

  "Do you know where the furniture came from?"

  She nodded slowly. "As a matter of fact I do. I was going through his papers the other day and I found the bill of sale. He bought it at auction. The set came from a house over Risley way. Barton Grange"

  "Do you think we could find the house? The owners might be able to shed some light on the history of the pieces."

  "I think we owe it to Bill and Paul to try, don't you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I think we do." I started the car and eased slowly out of the hospital grounds.

  Barton Grange was situated a few miles off the Risley Road. We encountered For Sale signs long before we caught a glimpse of the house. The boards looked weather-beaten and broken, much like the house itself, when we finally cleared a path through the briar-strewn track that led to it. The house was a massive red-bricked Victorian nightmare. Many of the windows had been broken and were boarded loosely with planks, mottled with green patches of moss and lichen. There was no front door, just two sheets of rusted corrugated iron, secured by a steel bar hinged at one end, and fettered with a sturdy padlock on the other.

  I tried the lock but, despite a thin surface coating of rust, it was still strong and it would take a crowbar to loosen it.

  I looked about at the grounds, and saw they were in a similar state to the house, sorely neglected. From where Emily and I stood, on the crumbling porch, if we looked east we could see what once must have been a grand lake, but what was now no more than a pool of stagnant water with leprous growths of yellow weed covering the surface. Even the trees looked in a sorry state, their crowns raddled and bare, as though a creeping disease was slowly laying waste to them, destroying them like a cancer.