III

Aubrey Wales stayed to dinner, and since he had no opportunity of

dressing, his presence afforded a welcome excuse for the other members

of the party. The night was appallingly hot; the temperature being such

as to preclude the slightest exertion. The Major was an excellent host,

but I could see that the presence of the younger man irritated him, and

at times the conversation grew strained; there was an uncomfortable

tension. So that altogether I was not sorry when Mrs. Dale left the

table and the quartet was broken up. On closer acquaintance I perceived

that Wales was even younger than I had supposed, and therefore I was the

more inclined to condone his infatuation for the society of Mrs. Dale,

although I felt less sympathetically disposed toward her for offering

him the encouragement which rather openly she did.

Ere long, Wales left Major Dale and myself for the more congenial

society of the hostess; so that shortly afterwards, when the Major,

who took at least as much wine as was good for him, began to doze in

his chair, I found myself left to my own devices. I quitted the room

quietly, without disturbing my host, and strolled around on to the lawn

smoking a cigarette, and turning over in my mind the matters responsible

for my presence at Low Fennel.

With no definite object in view, I had wandered towards the orchard,

when I became aware of a whispered conversation taking place somewhere

near me, punctuated with little peals of laughter. I detected the words

"Aubrey" and "Marjorie" (Mrs. Dale's name), and, impatiently tossing my

cigarette away, I returned to the house, intent upon arousing the Major

and terminating this tête-à-tête. That it was more, on Mrs. Dale's

part, than a harmless flirtation, I did not believe; but young Wales was

not a safe type of man for that sort of amusement.

The Major, sunk deep in his favourite chair in the study, was snoring

loudly, and as I stood contemplating him in the dusk, I changed my mind,

and retracing my steps, joined the two in the orchard, proclaiming my

arrival by humming a popular melody.

"Has he fallen asleep?" asked Mrs. Dale, turning laughing eyes upon me.

I studied the piquant face ere replying. Her tone and her expression had

reassured me, if further assurance were necessary, that my old friend's

heart was in safe keeping; but she was young and gay; it was a case for

diplomatic handling.

"India leaves its mark on all men," I replied lightly; "but I have no

doubt that the Major is wide-awake enough now."

My words were an invitation; to which, I was glad to note, she responded

readily enough.

"Let's come and dig him out of that cavern of his!" she said, and

linking her right arm in that of Wales, and her left with mine, she

turned us about toward the house.

Dusk was now fallen, and lights shone out from several windows of Low

Fennel. Suddenly, an upper window became illuminated, and Mrs. Dale

pointed to this.

"That is my room," she said to me; "isn't it delightfully situated? The

view from the window is glorious."

"I consider Low Fennel charming in every way," I replied.

Clearly she knew nothing of the place's sinister reputation, which

seemed to indicate that she employed herself little with the domestic

side of the household; otherwise she must undoubtedly have learnt of the

episode of the man with the contorted face, if not from the housekeeper,

from the maid. It was a tribute to the reticence of the servants that

the story had spread no further; but the broken study window and the

sadly damaged Airedale already afforded matter for whispered debate

among them, as I had noted with displeasure.

The "digging out" of the Major did not prove to be an entire success. He

was in one of his peculiar moods, which I knew of old, and rather surly,

being pointedly rude on more than one occasion to Wales. He had some

accounts to look into, or professed to have, and the three of us

presently left him alone. It was now about ten o'clock, and Aubrey Wales

made his departure, shaking me warmly by the hand and expressing the

hope that we should see more of one another. He could not foresee that

the wish was to be realised in a curious fashion.

Mrs. Dale informed me that the Major in all probability would remain

immured in his study until a late hour, which I took to be an intimation

that she wished to retire. I therefore pleaded weariness as a result

of my journey, and went up to my room, although I had no intention of

turning-in. I opened the two windows widely, and the heavy perfume

of some kind of tobacco plant growing in the beds below grew almost

oppressive. The heat of the night was truly phenomenal; I might have

been, not in an English home county, but in the Soudan. An absolute

stillness reigned throughout Low Fennel, and, my hearing being

peculiarly acute, I could detect the chirping of the bats which flitted

restlessly past my windows.

It was difficult to decide how to act. My experience of so-called

supernatural appearances had strengthened my faith in the theory

set forth in the paper "Chemistry of Psychic Phenomena"--which had

attracted unexpected attention a year before. Therein I classified

hauntings under several heads, basing my conclusions upon the fact that

such apparitions are invariably localised; often being confined, not

merely to a particular room, for instance, but to a certain wall, door,

or window. I had been privileged to visit most of the famous haunted

homes of Great Britain, and this paper was the result; but in the case

of Low Fennel I found myself nonplussed, largely owing to lack of data.

I hoped on the morrow to make certain inquiries along lines suggested by

oddities in the structure of the house itself and by the nature of the

little valley in which it stood.

When meditating I never sit still, and whilst marshalling my ideas I

paced the room from end to end, smoking the whole time. Both windows

and also the door, were widely opened. The amazing heat-wave which we

were then experiencing promised to afford me a valuable clue, for I had

proved to my own satisfaction that the apparitions variously known as

"controls" and "elementals," not infrequently coincided with abrupt

climatic changes, thunder-storms, or heat waves, or with natural

phenomena, such as landslides and the like.

This pacing led me from end to end of the room, then, between the open

door and the large dressing-table facing it. It was as I returned from

the door towards the dressing-table that I became aware of the presence

of the _contorted face_.

My peculiar studies had brought me into contact with many horrible

apparitions, and if familiarity had failed to breed contempt, at least

it had served to train my nerves for the reception of such sudden and

ghastly appearances. I should be avoiding the truth, however, if I

claimed to have been unmoved by the vision which now met me in the

mirror. I drew up short, with one sibilant breath, and then stood

transfixed.

Before me was a reflection of the open door, and of part of the landing

and stairs beyond it. The landing lights were extinguished, and

therefore the place beyond the door lay in comparative darkness. But,

crawling in, serpent-fashion, inch by inch, silently, intently, so that

the head, throat, and hands were actually across the threshold, came a

creature which seemed to be entirely naked! It had the form of a man,

but the face, the dreadful face which was being pushed forward slowly

across the carpet with head held sideways so that one ear all but

touched the floor, was the face, not of a man, but of a ghoul!

I clenched my teeth hard, staring into the mirror and trying to force

myself to turn and confront, not the reflection, but the reality.

Yet for many seconds I was unable to accomplish this. The baleful,

protruding eyes glared straight into mine from the glass. The chin and

lower lip of this awful face seemed to be drawn up so as almost to

meet the nose, entirely covering the upper lip, and the nostrils were

distended to an incredible degree, whilst the skin had a sort of purple

tinge unlike anything I had seen before. The effect was grotesque in the

true sense of the word; for the thing was clearly grimacing at me, yet

God knows there was nothing humorous in that grimace!

Nearer it came and nearer. I could hear the heavy body being drawn

across the floor; I could hear the beating of my own heart ... and I

could hear a whispered conversation which seemed to be taking place

somewhere immediately outside my room.

At the moment that I detected the latter sound, it seemed that the

apparition detected it also. The protruding eyes twisted in the head,

rolling around ridiculously but horribly. Despite the dread which held

me, I identified the whisperers and located their situation. Mrs. Dale

was at her open window and Aubrey Wales was in the garden below.

The thought crossed my mind and was gone--but gone no quicker than the

contorted face. By a sort of backward, serpentine movement, the thing

which had been crawling into my room suddenly retired and was swallowed

up in the shadows of the landing.

I turned and sprang toward the open door, the fever of research hot

upon me, and my nerves in hand again. At the door I paused and listened

intently. No sound came to guide me from the darkened stair, and when,

stepping quietly forward and leaning over the rail, I peered down into

the hall below, nothing stirred, no shadow of the many there moved to

tell of the passage of any living thing. I paused irresolute, unable to

doubt that I was in the presence of an authentic apparition. But how to

classify it?

Slowly I returned to my room, and stood there, thinking hard, and all

the while listening for the slightest sound from within or without the

house.

The whispered conversation continued, and I stole quietly to one of the

windows and leant out, looking to the left, in the direction of the

new wing. A light burnt in the Major's study, whereby I concluded that

he was still engaged with his accounts, if he had not fallen asleep.

Between my window and the new wing, and on a level with my eyes, was the

window of Mrs. Dale's room; and in the bright moonlight I could see her

leaning out, her elbows on the ledge. Her bare arms gleamed like marble

in the cold light, and she looked statuesquely beautiful. Wales I could

not see, for a thick, square-clipped hedge obstructed my view ... but I

saw something else.

Lizard fashion, a hideous unclad shape crawled past beneath me amongst

the tangle of ivy and low plants about the foot of the fir trees. The

moonlight touched it for a moment, and then it was gone into denser

shadows....

A consciousness of impending disaster came to me, but, because of its

very vagueness, found me unprepared. Then suddenly I saw young Wales. He

sprang into view above the hedge, against which, I presume, he had been

crouching; he leapt high in the air as though from some menace on the

ground beneath him. I have never heard a more horrifying scream than

that which he uttered.

"My God!" he cried, "Marjorie! Marjorie!" and yet again: "Marjorie!

_save me!_"

Then he was down, still screaming horribly, and calling on the woman

for aid--as though she could have aided him. The crawling thing made

no sound, but the dreadful screams of Wales sank slowly into a sort

of sobbing, and then into a significant panting which told of his dire

extremity.

I raced out of the room, and down the dark stair into the hall.

Everywhere I was met by locked doors which baffled me. I had hoped to

reach the garden by way of the kitchens, but now I changed my plan and

turned my attention to the front-door. It was bolted, but I drew the

bolts one after the other, and got the door open.

Outside, the landscape was bathed in glorious moonlight, and a sort of

grey mist hovered over the valley like smoke. I ran around the angle

of the house on to the lawn, and went plunging through flower-beds

heedlessly to the scene of the incredible conflict.

I almost fell over Wales as he lay inert upon the gravel path. The

shadows veiled him so that I could not see his face; but when, groping

with my hands, I sought to learn if his heart still pulsed, I failed

to discover any evidence that it did. With my hand thrust against his

breast and my ear lowered anxiously, I listened, but he gave no sign of

life, lying as still as all else around me.

Now this stillness was broken. Excited voices became audible, and doors

were being unlocked here and there. First of all the household, Mrs.

Dale appeared, enveloped in a lace dressing-gown.

"Aubrey!" she cried tremulously, "what is it? where are you?"

"He is here, Mrs. Dale," I answered, standing up, "and in a bad way, I

fear."

"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to him? Did you hear his awful

cries?"

"I did," I said shortly.

Standing with the moonlight fully upon her, Mrs. Dale sought him in the

shadows of the hedge--and I knew that by the manner of his frightened

outcry the man lying unconscious at my feet had forfeited whatever of

her regard he had enjoyed. She was dreadfully alarmed, not so much

on his behalf, as by the mystery of the attack upon him. But now she

composed herself, though not without visible effort.

"Where is he, Mr. Addison?" she said firmly, "and what has happened to

him?"

A man, who proved to be a gardener, now appeared upon the scene.

"Help me to carry him in," I said to this new arrival; "perhaps he has

only fainted."

We gathered up the recumbent body and carried it through the kitchens

into the breakfast-room, where there was a deep couch. All the servants

were gathered at the foot of the stairs, frightened and useless, but the

outcry did not seem to have aroused Major Dale.

Mrs. Dale and I bent over Wales. His face was frightfully congested,

whilst his tongue protruded hideously; and it was evident, from the

great discoloured weals which now were coming up upon his throat, that

he had been strangled, or nearly so. I glanced at the white face of my

hostess and then bent over the victim, examining him more carefully. I

stood upright again.

"Do you know first aid, Mrs. Dale?" I asked abruptly.

She nodded, her eyes fixed intently upon me.

"Then help to employ artificial respiration," I said, "and let one

of the girls get ammonia, if you have any, and a bowl of hot water.

We can patch him up, I think, without medical aid--which might be

undesirable."

Mrs. Dale seemed fully to appreciate the point, and in business-like

fashion set to work to assist me. Wales had just opened his eyes and

begun to clutch at his agonized throat, when I heard a heavy step

descending from the new wing--and Major Dale, in his dressing-gown,

joined us. His red face was more red than usual, and his eyes were round

with wonder.

"What the devil's the matter?" he cried; "what's everybody up for?"

"There has been an accident, Major," I said, glancing around at the

servants, who stood in a group by the door of the breakfast-room; "I can

explain more fully later."

Major Dale stepped forward and looked down at Wales.

"Good God!" he said hoarsely, "it's young Wales, by the Lord

Harry!--what's he doing here?"

Mrs. Dale, standing just behind me, laid her hand upon my arm; and,

unseen by the Major, I turned and pressed it reassuringly.