Striding Folly by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online

squares at a time; and now the second white rook had darted out from its corner; they were closing in upon him – a double castle, twin castles, a castle and its mirror-image: O God! it was his dream of striding towers, smooth and yellow and painted. Mr Mellilow wiped his forehead.
        ‘Check!’ said Mr Moses. And again, ‘Check!’ And then, ‘Checkmate!’
        Mr Mellilow pulled himself together. This would never do. His heart was thumping as though he had been running a race. It was ridiculous to be so much overwrought by a game of chess; and if there was one kind of man in the world that he despised, it was a bad loser. The stranger was uttering some polite common-place – he could not tell what – and replacing the pieces in their box.
        ‘I must go now,’ said Mr Moses. ‘I thank you very much for the pleasure you have so kindly given me . . . Pardon me, you are a little unwell?’
        ‘No, no,’ said Mr Mellilow. ‘It is the heat of the fire and the lamp. I have enjoyed our games very much. Won’t you take anything before you go?’
     

     
     
        ‘No, I thank you. I must be back before the good Potts locks me out. Again, my hearty thanks.’
        He grasped Mr Mellilow’s hand in his gloved grip and passed out quickly into the hall. In another moment he had seized hat and coat and was gone. His footsteps died away along the cobbled path.
        Mr Mellilow returned to the sitting-room. A curious episode; he could scarecly believe that it had really happened. There lay the empty board, the pieces in their box, the Record on the old oak chest with a solitary tumbler beside it; he might have dozed off and dreamed the whole thing for all the trace the stranger’s visit had left. Certainly the room was very hot. He threw the french window open. A lop-sided moon had risen, chequering the valley and the slope beyond with patches of black and white. High up and distant, the Folly made a pale streak upon the sky. Mr Mellilow thought he would walk down to the bridge to clear his head. He groped in the accustomed corner for his goloshes. They were not there. ‘Where on earth has that woman put them?’ muttered Mr Mellilow. And he answered himself, irrationally but with complete conviction: ‘My goloshes are up at the Folly.’
        His feet seemed to move of their own accord. He was through the garden now, walking quickly down the field to the little wooden foot-bridge. His goloshes were at the Folly. It was imperative that he should fetch them back; the smallest delay would be fatal. ‘This is ridiculous,’ thought Mr Mellilow to himself. ‘It is that foolish dream running in my head. Mrs Gibbs must have taken them away to clean them. But while I am here, I may as well go on; the walk will do me good.’
        The power of the dream was so strong upon him that he was almost surprised to find the bridge in its accustomed place. He put his hand on the rail and was comforted by the roughness of the untrimmed bark. Half a mile uphill now to the Folly. Its smooth sides shone in the moonlight, and he turned suddenly, expecting to see the double image striding the fields behind him. Nothing so sensational was to be seen, however. He breasted the slope with renewed courage. Now he stood close beneath the tower – and with a little shock he saw that the door at its base stood open.
        He stepped inside, and immediately the darkness was all about him like a blanket. He felt with his foot for the stair and groped his way up between the newel and the wall. Now in gloom, now in the gleam of a loophole, the stair seemed to turn endlessly. Then, as his head rose into the pale glimmer of the fourth window, he saw a shapeless blackness sprawled upon the stair. With a sudden dreadful certainty that this was what he had come to see, he mounted further and stooped over it. Creech was lying there dead. Close beside the body lay a pair of goloshes. As Mr Mellilow moved to pick them up, something