Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton

Author:Miles Burton [Burton, Miles]
Language: nld
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Crime, Fiction
ISBN: 9780824023577
Publisher: Mystery League
Published: 1929-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The journey back to the yacht was accomplished without adventure. It was past midnight when Merrion turned in, tired with his day’s work, and welcoming the gentle swell which rolled into the lagoon, causing Alisette to rock softly. No cradle seemed half so sleep-inducing as his bunk. Yet, after he had blown out the light, and lay in the utter darkness unrelieved by any sound save the soft splashing of the water against the little vessel’s side, he found that sleep had deserted him.

It was easy enough in the daytime, when there was plenty to distract his thoughts. Then he could put aside this strange new longing which had come to him. He could relegate it impatiently to the background, as a subject unworthy of serious consideration. But, in spite of his rebuffs, it had a habit of returning, and it seemed to-night that it was determined to take its revenge by a general assault upon his brain.

Well, he would retreat from his advanced position of denial, and meet the assault upon his own ground. He would admit in his own heart that he loved Mavis. It was ridiculous, of course, he had only spoken to the girl once. Still, there it was, he loved her. And this sort of love, he discovered with some surprise, was a new experience for him. What the devil did one do in such circumstances? Ask the girl to marry one? It seemed to be the natural thing, somehow. But how, when, and where? Was he to lie in this confounded river until she came past in that speed-boat of hers, and then bawl the question at her? If so, he would want a megaphone to make himself heard above the roar of the engine.

No, it wasn’t a bit of good fencing with the thing like that. It wasn’t the question of asking her that worried him. That moment was a long way off yet. The root of the matter was that he felt a vague and most uncomfortable anxiety on her account. There was a subtle terror about High Eldersham that was beginning to affect even his robust nerves. It was impossible to define it. The fact that a murder had been committed, and that the murderer was still at large, influenced it not at all. Murder seemed a clean and honest business compared with the gruesome fancies that his mind persisted in dwelling upon. That mysterious grove, hidden in the shade of the impenetrable trees, had reminded him of the hideous rites that accompanied the worship of Isis or of Ashtaroth.

It was no good to tell himself that such imaginings were ridiculous in England of the twentieth century. It was equally ridiculous to believe that the practice of witchcraft still continued. Yet he had seen the latter, almost with his own eyes. Even admitting that this practice had been continued, or more probably revived, for some obscure purpose, and not for the sake of the thing itself, it had still produced effects of which the immediate cause was unexplained.

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