Free Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer

known about him?"
    "There isn't nothing known against him, sir," said the constable. "Barring his habits, which is queer to some folk's way of thinking, but which others who has such hobbies can understand, he's what I'd call a very ordinary gentleman. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying is. He's not married, but Mrs. Fellowes from High Barn, who is his housekeeper, hasn't never spoken a word against him, and she's a very respectable woman that wouldn't stop a day in a place where there was any goings-on that oughtn't to be."
    "She might not know," Peter suggested.
    "There's precious little happens in Framley that Mrs. Fellowes don't know about, sir," said Mr. Flinders. "And knows more than what the people do themselves," he added obscurely, but with considerable feeling.
    "Putting Mr. Titmarsh aside for the moment," said Charles. "The other two men we've encountered in our grounds are a Mr. Strange, who is staying at the Bell, and a smallish chap, giving himself out to be a commercial traveller, who's also at the Bell." He recounted under what circumstances he had met Michael Strange, and the constable brightened considerably. "That's more like it, that is," he said. "Hanging about on the same side of the house as that secret entrance, was he?"
    "Mind you, he may have been speaking the truth when he said he had missed his way," Charles warned him.
    "That's what I shall have to find out," said Mr. Flinders. "I shall have to keep a watch on those two."
    "You might make a few inquiries about them," Peter suggested. "Discover where they come from, and what Strange's occupation is."
    "You don't need to tell me how to act, sir," said Mr. Flinders with dignity. "Now that I've got a line to follow I know my duty."
    "There's just one other thing," Charles said slowly. "You'd probably better know about it."
    "Certainly I had," said Mr. Flinders. "If you was to keep anything from me I couldn't act."
    "I suspect," said Charles, "that whoever got into the Priory has some reason for wishing to frighten us out of it."
    Mr. Flinders blinked at him. "What would they want to do that for?" he asked practically.
    "That's what we thought you might find out," Charles said.
    "If there's anything to find you may be sure I shall get on to it," Mr. Flinders assured him. "But you'll have to tell me some more."
    "I'm going to. A few nights ago a picture fell downn at the top of the stairs, and when we went up to investigate my wife found the upper half of a human skull on the stairs. My brother-in-law and I then discovered a priest's hole in the panelling where the picture had hung, and in it a collection of human bones."
    The effect of this on the constable was not quite what they had hoped. His jaw dropped, and he sat staring at them in round-eyed horror. "My Gawd, sir, it's the Monk!" he gasped. "You don't suppose I can go making inquiries about a ghost, do you? I wouldn't touch it - not for a thousand pounds! And here's me taking down in me notebook what you told me about Mr. Titmarsh and them two up at the Inn, and all the time you've seen the Monk!" He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. "If I was you, sir, I'd get out of that house," he said earnestly. "It ain't healthy."
    "Thanks very much," said Charles. "But it is my firm belief that someone is behind all this Monk business. And I suspect that that skeleton was put there for our benefit by the same person who got into the cellars."
    "Hold hard!" said Peter suddenly. "It's just occurred to me that we didn't hear the groan of that stone-slab being opened on the night the picture fell."
    They stared at one another for a moment. "That's one up to you," Charles said at length. "Funny I never thought of that. We couldn't have missed hearing it, either. Then…' he stopped, frowning.
    The constable shut his notebook. "I'd get out of the Priory, sir, if I was you," he repeated. "The police can't act against ghosts. What you saw that night was the Monk, and the