A DOCTOR IN DURANCE
“What’s that?” Wilfred Barlow asked nervously.
“A police lantern! What did you think it was?” replied the old man
calmly. Then, putting his head out of the window, he ordered: “Sharp
to the right, and through the low woods. Did you leave the gates open
as I told you to?” The man on the driving seat mumbled something that
was evidently satisfactory, and the car, swinging sharply to the
right, rushed along a cart track used chiefly for communicating with
the game preserves. Fainter and fainter grew the sounds of the
whistles, and, as the driver got used to the road, the faster he drove
the car.
“Through Eggleham and across the marsh!” again ordered Mr. Benson, and
the driver nodded. They reached the main road after a run of two miles
through woods and fields belonging to the Evenden Priory estate, and,
for a few hundred yards, rushed along the great white thoroughfare,
then turned down a by-road leading to the little hamlet of Eggleham.
Swiftly, passing through the sleeping group of cottages, the car
continued along the narrow road, until Joe Litt observed to Mr.
Benson:
“Here’s the old occupation road, sir.”
“Then tell him to take it--if he knows it,” said the lawyer.
“Knows it like a book,” said Joe Litt, and spoke a word to the driver,
who slowed the car down. Then, after crawling along for a few yards,
he turned off the road and entered a grass-grown way, half field, half
road.
In reality the road, or narrow field, belonged to no one now in these
later days. Villagers with a cow or a horse could let the animals
graze at will there. It wound erratically along, turning and bending
for more than a mile, until it reached the marsh, when it lost itself
in the treacherous, swampy waste ground that stretched for many miles
to the Broads, in the south.
Now the car proceeded very carefully indeed; for, it was a work of
great skill, even in the daytime, to thread a safe way through the
hidden pools and morasses. The man driving, nearly stopped
occasionally, but never quite, and only an anxious glance, that he
kept giving over the side at the ground, told of their occasional
nearness to disaster.
Through all the journey Laidlaw remained unconscious, Wilfred
frequently feeling his pulse to make certain that he was in a safe
condition.
At last the ruined farm was reached, and the car drew up at the door.
“I’ve made things as comfortable as I can,” said Joe Litt, “but there
isn’t much need of comfort here, as you know, for me, sir.”
“That’ll be all right,” said Mr. Benson. “There’s not much comfort
needed now, I give you my word. Take him in.”
The last words were addressed to the farm hands, who were alighting,
and two of them immediately carried the insensible Dr. Laidlaw into
the farm kitchen. A great fire was burning on the hearth, and another
laborer got up sleepily from a settee on which he had been reclining.
“We’ll begin now as we mean to go on, Joe,” said the lawyer. “Appoint
some one to remain with him, and never let him be alone for a single
second, so that he can play no tricks. Where are you going to put
him?”
“I’ve had a bit of fire lit in the old parlor, sir, and there’s big
shutters to the window, and curtains, so no one can see a light there.
I thought of putting him in there.”
“Yes, that’ll do all right, but I don’t see any reason to keep the
window shuttered in the daytime. You can get warning of the approach
of anyone within two miles, and then you can slip him in the barn,
can’t you?”
“Yes, that was what I was thinking,” said Joe Litt. “If there was any
search or anything, I would have him fastened up and muzzled and put
under the hay.”
They carried the recumbent doctor through a door and along a
damp-smelling passage, to a room which had once been the great parlor
of the farm, but was now only the happy hunting ground of beetles and
occasional rats.
The old farm of Swinerigmire--always pronounced locally in three
words, Swine-Rig-Mire--had a curious history. Years ago it was in the
occupation of a family called Foulder, and was a very prosperous farm
on the outskirts of the marsh. The last of the Foulders married very
late in life, and his wife bore him a daughter. She left him at the
same moment that she presented him with the girl, who was to be the
apple of his eye.
When Norah Foulder was sixteen she “kept company” with Joe Litt, then
a lad of about twenty and her aged father’s right-hand man. Norah was
wonderfully sweet, but her beauty turned out to be fatal to Joe Litt’s
hopes. She met a young engineer taking a holiday in the Broad country,
who had wandered afield in the marshes and met a vision of unexpected
beauty in such a wilderness. Then, something happened that broke the
old man’s life, and destroyed for Joe Litt any hopes of happiness.
The engineer deserted Norah, but he had told her enough of the life of
the great cities to fire her imagination, and she went away with him.
No one ever heard from her again. Joe Litt, who never before in his
life had traveled beyond Norwich, journeyed to London, and for a week
wandered round in pathetic helplessness, searching for Norah. Then he
gave it up. Like her father, he gave up everything else, too,
dismissed the staff, and just let the farm go to rack and ruin, only
cultivating such acreage as was absolutely necessary to preserve life.
The old man died a few months after his daughter had disappeared,
leaving Joe the farm--and there he lived alone. His companions were a
few sheep, a couple of cows, some poultry, and a horse which he yoked
occasionally to a crazy old cart and drove to the market.
The marsh, ever jealous of ground once wrested from its depths, came
into its own again after the centuries, slowly, ever so slowly, but
with deadly certainty and little suckling sounds of satisfaction it
encroached. Outlying fields were already bearing its mud and reeds in
exchange for the poppies and gold of the days when the marsh was made
to obey the behests of men, and reluctantly presented its master with
rolling fields of grain.
But, though a recluse, Joe Litt was not a bitter man. The old lawyer
was very fond of him. He had been of service to Mr. Benson on more
than one occasion; and, indeed, Joe was always only too ready to help
anyone. No farmer ever called to him in vain, and he was a giant among
men as a worker. Uncouth in appearance, he was not without a
gentleness of manner that endeared him to women and children and
animals.
Joe’s life was in no sense an idle one--it was simply that he had lost
interest in his own future, and took rather a sad delight in beholding
the ruin of the once prosperous farm. It seemed suitable, he
thought--a monument to the loss of the farm’s most precious
inhabitant, a register of ruin.
The room into which the unconscious little doctor was now brought,
still contained the faded furniture and the worn carpet of the old
days. Everything suffered from damp; the room smelt musty, the walls
were mildewed, the ceiling broken down in places, the floor boards
dangerous and rotten. Joe knew that these were all heralds of the
approaching marsh, but the lawyer sniffed.
“Joe, my lad,” he said, “this damp is enough to give a rhinoceros the
rheumatics. Keep a good fire on, Joe, because I’m going to spend a bit
of time with him to-morrow.”
Joe assented. And, after leaving two men in charge of Laidlaw, the
others went to the great kitchen, where a huge pot of coffee was
served, with rashers of ham.
“That smells good,” announced the lawyer. “Come on, Barlow, have a
plate of ham. This your own curing, Joe?”
“Yes, Mr. Benson. I never buy nothing in the way of bacon and that
sort of thing.” Mr. Benson nodded with his mouth full of the delicious
ham.
“Now then, Joe,” he said presently, when the meal was over, “I shall
be round about eleven o’clock to-morrow. Is my man ready?”
The driver was brought forward and the journey back across the marsh
was begun. It was more difficult now; for, the moon that had been
shining was set, and a mist was veiling the marsh. After a long time,
however, they threaded their way safely back to the road. And then it
was an easy matter to get to the Priory.
Mr. Benson stopped the car in the game coverts behind the house, and
he and Wilfred walked the remaining quarter of a mile.
They approached the house from the rear, skirted the kitchens, and
then very carefully surveyed the front of the building. There was not
a sign of life. Keeping close to the wall, Mr. Benson approached the
library window and opened it; then, followed by Wilfred, he stepped
through.
“Now, my boy,” announced the old lawyer, “we’ll get some sleep; we’ve
done a good night’s work, and we’ll do better work to-morrow, when we
get that little murderer talking. I’ve arranged for a bed for you next
door to me. Have a drink?”
The old lawyer and Wilfred talked for a further five minutes over a
tot of whisky, then went to bed. In the morning, while Wilfred was
still asleep, the old lawyer was up attending to his letters and
telephoning. At breakfast, the butler said that the police had blown
whistles and caused an alarm during the night. It appeared that a
constable had seen some men appear, apparently from nowhere, near the
Prior’s Tower, carrying a corpse to a waiting motor car.
“What had you been giving the constable to drink?” Mr. Benson asked
the butler severely. “This is a very serious thing, you know.”
After a moment, during which the butler seemed unhappy, Mr. Benson
looked up sharply. “What had you been giving the constable?”
“Well, sir,” said the butler, with a little cough, “the constable,
sir, is rather partial to Helen, the housemaid, sir, and I am given to
understand that he had a little game pie.”
“Game pies do not make constables see men appearing from nowhere,
carrying corpses to waiting motor cars!” announced Mr. Benson with
decision.
“No, sir, of course not,” agreed the butler seriously. “I am further
informed, sir, that the constable had a little ale----”
“Send for Helen immediately,” interrupted Mr. Benson, who was
thoroughly enjoying himself. Presently Helen appeared trembling. She
was a pretty, buxom girl, very dark, with laughing blue eyes--an Irish
type.
“What did the constable drink--your constable, I mean?” asked the
lawyer.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” she replied, “He had a little beer, if you
please, sir.”
“How many quarts?” asked Mr. Benson, thumping his fist upon the table
and looking terrible.
“Oh, only one, sir--well, not more than one-and-a-half at the outside,
sir.” Mr. Benson nodded solemnly.
“How much whisky?”
“Oh, sir, only a nip. Just a little to keep the cold out, sir. He
suffers with a weak chest. Oh, sir, I hope he will not get into
trouble.”
“No, I’ll fix it up for him,” said Mr. Benson, nodding towards the
door.
The girl withdrew, and soon Wilfred appeared. When the butler left the
room, Mr. Benson told him of the fortunate incident of the discredited
constable on watch. Wilfred enjoyed the joke heartily, and after
breakfast Mr. Benson sent for the constable’s sergeant and obtained
from him an assurance that no disciplinary action would be taken
against the constable for his stupid mistake.
Mr. Benson found that Lady Evenden was not so well that morning, and
decided not to see her. Wilfred took advantage of the opportunity to
spend half an hour with Jill, who was exceedingly surprised to see her
lover in the house. Wilfred told her that he was assisting Mr. Benson
in the general inquiry, and that, as there might be another nocturnal
visitor for the old lawyer, he had offered to sleep near him--an
offer, he said, which the lawyer had accepted.
Not a syllable did he breathe about the strange adventure in the
night.
At half-past ten, Mr. Benson was dressed ready for riding; and, as a
mount also had been arranged for Wilfred, the two set off across
country to the lonely farm of Swinerigmire.
Long before they approached, they were seen by Joe Litt’s trustworthy
watchers, and when they pulled up at the farm door, the master of the
ruined house himself met them.
“He’s been going on something terrible, sir,” said Joe to Mr. Benson.
“Cursing and threatening and all sorts of things.”
“Never mind, Joe,” said Mr. Benson darkly. “It’s nothing to how he’ll
go on in a few minutes. Come on, Wilfred.”
Followed by Joe Litt, Wilfred and Mr. Benson walked through the
kitchen, and through the darkened, damp passage to the parlor where
Laidlaw was.
The doctor sat by the fire in a huge armchair, looking very white and
sick, and glowering fiercely at two laborers who sat opposite him on
bench, smoking clay pipes. Their eyes never left him.
As the lawyer and Wilfred entered the room, the doctor was in the
midst of a tirade of threats, which was absolutely wasted upon his
audience; they merely sat stolidly there, watching him and smoking
their pipes. When he saw who his visitors were, Laidlaw stood up.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” he asked. “I’ll have the law on
you for this!”
“I certainly would, if I were you,” agreed Mr. Benson reasonably.
“Your treatment includes a good many indictable offences. There is,
for instance, the kidnaping--a most serious thing; there is the
violence; then the question of illegal detention and false
imprisonment arises. Oh, you have an unanswerable case against
me--that’s why I’m going to murder you and bury you in the marsh.”
The lawyer spoke so quietly, and in such matter-of-fact tones, that,
to begin with, the doctor could not understand whether he was being
chaffed or whether the lawyer was actually stating a case seriously.
At his last words, accompanied by a dangerous glint in Mr. Benson’s
terrible eyes, Laidlaw positively quailed; he gasped, and, with eyes
staring in horror at the lawyer, collapsed into his chair.
“Examine him,” said Mr. Benson briefly to Wilfred, and immediately the
young doctor went over and felt the prisoner’s pulse and examined his
eyes.
“H’m--not much wrong, beyond shock,” he declared. “I’ll give him a
dose of something.”
“Yes, and I’ll give him a dose of something, too!” Mr. Benson said
darkly, with an ominous nod of his head. And the unfortunate Laidlaw
shivered again.
Wilfred Barlow gave the terrified man a stimulant, and, after a few
moments, during which they watched the color return to his face, Mr.
Benson dismissed the two laborers, and he and Wilfred were left alone
with their prisoner.
“Now then,” began Mr. Benson, lighting a cigar. “To begin with, Dr.
Laidlaw, we’ll just hear exactly what happened on the night of the
murder of the late Sir John Evenden.”
“Ha! ha!” Laidlaw made a pathetic effort to laugh. “I thought as much.
You daren’t hand me over to the police, in case I ruined Lady Evenden,
so you struck the happy little idea of kidnaping me by violence, and
trying to get me to talk. Well, Mr. Lawyer Benson, you’ve overreached
yourself, for you’ll get nothing from me, understand? Nothing.
“What’s more, you’ll get punished--severely punished, the whole gang
of you--toughs, crook lawyers, and kidnapers. Lady Evenden will be
ruined, Frank Gough will hang, and I’ll laugh at the lot of you.”
In silence they listened to his outburst. Laidlaw was silent for a
minute; he looked a little less at ease, then continued rather
inconsistently: “What can you prove against me, anyway?”
“You’ve given the little rat too much stimulant, you know,” Mr. Benson
said to Wilfred, with a disapproving shake of his head. “He imagines
himself a man-eating tiger. Pity, because he might have told us
something before he died.”
Mr. Benson walked to the door.
“Joe!” he shouted. “Joe Litt! Bring that coffin in!”