The Cry at Midnight Part 34

"Maybe by staying, I can help Rhoda," she reflected. "Father Benedict intends to force her to tell where the sapphire is hidden!"

With noiseless tread she started toward the chapel bedroom which adjoined the church ruins. In pa.s.sing the monk's study she noticed that the door stood slightly ajar.

Peering cautiously in, she saw that the room was in disarray. All of Father Benedict's clothing, art treasures, and personal belongings had been removed. Drawers of the desk had been emptied of their contents.

In the fireplace, flames leaped merrily. Plainly, the monk had disposed of many papers by consigning them to the fire.

At the edge of the hearth lay several sheets torn from a notebook. One of the pages had caught fire and was burning slowly.

Recognizing it as a sheet listing society contributions, Penny darted forward and stamped out the flames.

Only half of the paper had been charred. Many of the names still could be read. Folding the good section, she placed it in her coat pocket.

Two other pages which had not caught fire proved to be blank.

Unable to rescue anything else from the flames, Penny quitted the study and moved hurriedly toward the chapel bedroom.

From the dormitories she now could hear m.u.f.fled cries and poundings which told her cult members had discovered themselves locked in their rooms.

"I can't get them out without keys," Penny thought. "But if they make enough noise, someone may hear and come here to investigate."

The closing of a nearby door brought the girl up short. As she froze against the pa.s.sageway wall, Father Benedict stepped from the closet adjoining the bedroom where Rhoda was imprisoned.

Instantly Penny guessed that he had been watching the girl through the peephole.

Father Benedict's satisfaction as he started toward the ruined church was frightening to behold. Thin lips were twisted into an ugly smile, and as he pa.s.sed within a few feet of where Penny stood he muttered:

"Ah rest!--no rest but change of place and posture; Ah sleep--no sleep but worn-out posture; Nature's swooning; Ah bed!--no bed but cus.h.i.+on fill'd with stones."

CHAPTER 22 _THE CANOPIED BED_

In the chapel bedroom Rhoda Hawthorne had been greatly cheered to realize that soon she might be freed from imprisonment.

The brief conversation with Penny through the closet peephole encouraged her to believe that almost at once help would come.

_Penny is proving to be one of the best friends I ever had and I hardly know her_, she thought. _I wish now I had told her everything, especially about the sapphire._

With regret the girl recalled how she had rebuffed Penny and Louise on the occasion when they had offered her a ride into Riverview.

But at that time she had considered them strangers who only meant to pry into her affairs. _If I had told everything then, Grandmother and I might have been spared much suffering_, she reflected. _I should have asked them to take me to the police._ _The worst mistake of my life was coming back to this horrible place._

Restlessly, Rhoda tramped about the chapel room. The air was very stuffy and the absence of windows distressed her. She felt oppressed, as if the four walls were pressing in upon her.

The room was scantily furnished with only the huge canopied bed, an old fas.h.i.+oned dresser, and a table. There were no chairs.

Groping on the dresser, the girl found a stub of a candle in a holder. At first she could discover no matches. However, after examining all the dresser drawers, she came upon one.

s.h.i.+elding it carefully from draughts, she managed to light it and ignite the wick of the candle.

"It won't burn longer than twenty minutes," she estimated. "But by that time, perhaps Penny will be back here with help."

The dim light depressed rather than cheered the girl. Cold currents of air coming from the c.h.i.n.ks of the walls caused the flame to flicker weirdly, and almost go out.

A grotesque figure weaved like a huge shadow-boxer on the expanse of smoky plaster. At first, watching it in fascination, Rhoda could not determine its cause. Then, with no little relief, she decided it was a shadow of the bed draperies, moving slightly with the draughts of cold air.

The room had no heat. Soon, against her will, Rhoda was driven by the chill to seek the warmth of the canopied bed.

With repugnance she eyed the strange, old-fas.h.i.+oned piece of furniture which dominated the room. The bed was wide enough to accommodate three or four persons comfortably. Tall posters of twisted wood supported a carved framework to which were attached dusty, scarlet draperies.

A moth-eaten carpet covered a section of floor directly beneath the bedstead. Rhoda gave it only a pa.s.sing glance and did not think to look under its curling, frayed edges.

With a s.h.i.+ver of distaste, she pulled aside the draperies and crawled into the bed. No cover had been provided, but there were clean sheets.

The damp-smelling spread offered a little relief from the cold.

For some time Rhoda lay staring at the beamed ceiling and trying in her mind to reconstruct the old chapel as it might have been in the days when the monastery was a religious center.

The girl had not the slightest intention of falling asleep. She felt wide awake, tense in every muscle. Not a sound escaped her, and every noise seemed intensified.

A board creaked.

_It's nothing_, she told herself. _All old houses make strange sounds, especially when a wind is blowing._

Yet disturbing thoughts plagued the girl. What did Father Benedict intend to do with her? Why had he locked her in this particular room?

Suddenly Rhoda stiffened and clutched the sheet convulsively. Was it imagination or had she heard a low moan?

The sound had seemed to come from beneath the bed. Half tempted to look beneath the draperies, she resisted the impulse.

_I did hear something_, she thought. _It sounded as if someone were in pain. And the noise came from the cellar below!_

Now to torment the girl came reflections of unexplained happenings since her arrival at the monastery. On several nights she had heard disturbances from the cellar region. Winkey, she knew, made frequent trips to the crypt upon one pretext or another.

Suddenly Rhoda was startled by a light and repeated tapping on the wall near the closet peephole.

Certain that it was Penny who had returned, she leaped out of bed and bounded across the room.

The panel of wood moved back and two eyes peered in at her.

"Is that you, Penny?" Rhoda whispered eagerly.

"Julia!" was the answer.

"Oh," Rhoda murmured in bitter disappointment. "I hoped--"