‘For goodness’ sake, Aubrey, come away from that window and let me go to bed,’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay petulantly. ‘Here is Louise. Good night, dear.’
‘Good night, mater. So long.’ And he slipped out. The maid bestowed upon his back the special smile she kept for every member of his sex, and turned to attend her mistress.
Aubrey shot into his own room like lightning, kicked off his pumps, pulled on a pair of rubber-soled gymnasium-shoes, flung off his dress clothes and climbed into shorts and a sweater, then tiptoed to the door, regardless of the wild disorder he was leaving in his bedroom. As quickly as he could manage to do without making a noise, he shot downstairs and into the library. It was in darkness, but a strong scent of roses with which the hot night filled the room informed him that the French windows were wide open. Fearful of being too late to see the fun, he stepped out on the gravel path, slipped quickly aside on to the short, friendly turf of the lawn which would deaden the sound of his footsteps, and ran towards the garage and the stables.
‘Elementary, Watson, you goop!’ crowed Aubrey, as, coming within sight of the stables, the circle of light cast by a hurricane lamp met his gaze. ‘So there you are, Jimsey my buck! Now we shall find out what the spade is for. Perhaps he’s robbed old Rupert’s safe and is going to bury the spoils! I wonder what the little game really is, though?’
Seeking the shelter of a thick clump of laurels, he lay with his face as close to the ground as was possible, and waited patiently. He crushed a spider, which was tunnelling a panic-stricken way between his shirt and his body, by the simple expedient of rolling on it, scratched his left ear, which was beginning to itch maddeningly, and held his breath so as not to betray his presence. He had not long to wait. A muffled oath, in a voice unmistakably belonging to his cousin James Redsey, who had dropped the spade with a clatter upon the brick flooring of the stable, was followed by the appearance of a large black shadow looming against the starlit-scented dimness of the night, and Redsey passed by at a swift pace, carrying the hurricane lamp in his left hand and the spade across his right shoulder. He seemed in great haste, and was obviously bent upon some secret and important errand.
‘Got gymmers on, like me,’ thought Aubrey, noting Redsey’s noiseless footsteps. ‘Silly ass to tread on the very edge of the turf like that, though! Any idiot could trace him to-morrow.’
He allowed Jim about thirty paces’ start, then, moving like the shadow of a cat, sinuous, gliding, and without a sound, he began to follow him.
When they were well away from the windows of the house, Jim abandoned the cover afforded by bushes and flowering plants, and struck out boldly across the park. On this open ground, Aubrey had need to exercise much care in order to keep his presence secret. At irregular intervals, Jim Redsey halted and looked round as though some sixth mysterious sense were warning him that he was being followed. Rejoicing at the absence of the moon, Aubrey, who was bending nearly double in his determination to avoid being discovered, sank down and lay full length in the dew-drenched grass of this open country and was soaked to the skin by the time they reached the outskirts of the Manor Woods. Here Jim made his last halt before plunging in among the trees.
He was immediately lost to sight, and a less venturesome person than Aubrey Harringay would have paused at this juncture and contemplated abandoning the chase. Such a thought, however, did not enter Aubrey’s head, so, although the chances were decidedly in favour of his running full tilt into his cousin in the confusion engendered by the countless tree-trunks and the darkness, he plunged in after Jim and was immediately swallowed up among the trees.
III
Human curiosity is a strange and awe-inspiring thing. Felicity Broome’s first impulse on beholding the gleam of light among the trees had been to turn and run. She was on the path; she could find the road. Inside ten minutes she could be safely between the sheets of her bed. The upbringing of the modern girl, however, can scarcely be said to encourage the instinctive adoption of first impulses. More powerful than this deterrent was the force of curiosity. Who was walking in the Manor Woods at night? Why was he armed with a lantern? Could it be poachers? But what was there to poach? The recollection of Jim Redsey’s stealthy, strange manoeuvres with the spade flashed into her mind. Felicity, her fears forgotten, her curiosity lusting to be sated, crept cautiously along the path to get a nearer view.
The first thing she saw was the Stone. There it crouched, a loathsome, toad-like thing, larger than ever in the semi-darkness. She herself was sheltering behind a pine. Away from her – in that most strange of symbols, a complete and perfect circle – stretched its tall upstanding brothers, a ring of witch’s sentries guarding unhallowed ground. Ten yards, or thereabouts, from the Stone, lantern in hand, like some gigantic, lumbering, hag-ridden will-o’-the-wisp, was Rupert Sethleigh’s cousin Redsey. Just as Felicity recognized him, he set down the lantern and began to dig.
IV
In less than a minute, Aubrey Harringay realized that he was hopelessly lost in the woods. The tree-trunks, crowding together, barred his progress. He tore his socks and shorts on briars and brambles, his woollen sweater caught on to low-growing branches, his face was soon scratched and bleeding, and, although he had explored the woods from end to end in daylight, he began to realize that they seemed a different place by night. He halted and listened. Suddenly, a few yards in front of him and a little to his right, the gleam of the hurricane lamp intensified the surrounding gloom.
‘Doggo!’ thought Aubrey, hastily stepping aside and concealing himself behind a tree. He had gained the middle of the wood. He crept forward, from tree to tree, until he was in sight of his cousin. The hurricane lamp, now standing on the ground, shone on the glinting surface of the quartz-encrusted triangular block of granite which went by the name of the Stone of Sacrifice, or the Druids’ Altar. The tree behind which Aubrey’s wiry body was concealed chanced to be a massive, smooth-trunked beech, but immediately in front of him, surrounding the rude stone altar which occupied the centre of the clearing, was a circle of sighing pines whose tall, straight trunks rose dread and awesome, towering into the night sky like guardian spirits of the brooding Stone.
Jim Redsey walked into the circle of light caused by the hurricane lamp and began to dig. The light loam was easy to move. Jim’s arms and body moved with rhythmic grace. The pile of earth beside him grew and grew.
‘Great jumping cats!’ said Aubrey to himself. ‘The chap is trying to get through to Australia! What is the little game? Is he walking in his sleep?’
Having effected a cavity some six feet long and of a fair depth – Aubrey judged it to be about three feet down – Jim laid down the spade. Then he stepped down into the hole very carefully and disappeared from view.
‘Chap must be off his chump!’ thought Aubrey, more amused than uneasy at these curious manoeuvres. ‘Must be sleep-walking! Thinks he’s in bed now, I expect. Wonder whether I ought to wake him up? Old Tompkins says it’s dangerous to wake up sleep-walkers. They go loony or something. Wonder what I’d better do? Anyway, I’ll pinch the spade before he can do any damage with it.’
He was about to act upon this idea when Jim Redsey’s head and shoulders appeared above the hole in the ground, and he stood up, stepped carefully out on to the sparse grass of the clearing, and walked away from Aubrey towards a clump of hazel bushes. Scarcely had he disappeared within their depths when Aubrey, worming his way snakewise over the short grass, approached the spade, seized it by the handle, and wriggled back into cover, dragging the spade after him. Felicity, more surprised than ever, witnessed this performance, but made no sign.