The Mystery of the Back Passage by C.M. Rawlins

Author:C.M. Rawlins [Rawlins, CM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Lady Darriby-Jones took charge. It was just something she tended to do.

“Alfie, are you up to collecting a few electric torches so we can see what on earth we’re facing?”

“Yes, of course, Lady Darriby-Jones,” he said, hobbling off.

“Freddie, go and find Smith. Ask him to come here if it’s at all possible. You’ll probably find him in his bedroom on the top floor. We need to pick his brains for more than a bit of fun now.”

“Will do. Over and out.”

That left just Sergeant Fisher. Inevitably, she turned to look at him.

Or rather, a pale imitation of the sergeant. He was whiter than a sheet, standing, eyes transfixed on the hole as if invisible arms had reached out and grabbed him by the head and forced him into terrified observation.

“What’s the matter, sergeant?” No answer came forth; indeed, Lady Darriby-Jones thought her question hadn’t made the remotest of impressions on the sickly white sergeant.

There was only one thing for it. She put herself between him and the hole, requiring a fine balancing act because Fisher didn’t move an inch, being fixed to the floor.

“What’s the matter, sergeant?” This time it did work. There was an advantage, Lady Darriby-Jones thought in having a certain size to herself; she could block out the hole with comparative ease.

“The…”

But her physical presence could not block out the sheer terror the hole induced in Fisher. Why could that be?

Then she thought that Fisher was a local. Moreover, he was older, not ancient, but certainly getting on a bit. He would remember the past, the old days. Clearly, something had provoked the terror he exhibited.

“It’s the…” She knew he wasn’t doing it to wind her up. If it had been Manners quizzing him, she could see it, but not with her. This was the genuine article, shock in its natural state.

“What is it, Haddock?” Had she actually called him by his nickname?

“I never really believed it existed, thought it was a story my grandpa made up to entertain us when we were nippers, back in the day.”

He had his tongue back, at least. Yet that made it worse, as Lady Darriby-Jones still had no idea what he was talking about.

“There’s all sorts down there,” he said, “down the back passage.”

“Wait a minute, sergeant, what did you say?” She raised her voice as loudly as she ever liked to do, her mother impressing on her from an early age that ladies don’t yell and shout.

“The back passage,” he repeated, her words getting through to him, “it’s a tunnel that some ancient Darriby had created to hide all sorts of evil things. There’s a story that he took his wife down there and bricked her in, did all the brickwork himself with a trowel he purchased in Oxford when he heard of her infidelity and…” His words petered out, just as Alfie and then Freddie rushed back in.

Alfie reported success as he brandished several electric torches and a big old lantern.

“I don’t know what fuel it takes, but it works.

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