Corfe Castle
For a couple of days after Inspector Hanslet’s last visit to the house
in Westbourne Terrace, Dr. Priestley’s attitude had sorely puzzled
Harold. He had hardly spoken a word, and the greater part of his time
had been spent in sorting out the mass of documents which had
accumulated during the course of years in the massive presses which
lined the walls of his study. Harold said nothing, knowing from past
experience that it was useless to ask questions. When the Professor
was ready to issue his instructions he would do so. Until then,
untimely questions would merely be rewarded with a rebuff.
It was therefore with intense eagerness that Harold replied, one
morning shortly after breakfast, the Thursday following the death of
Mr. Copperdock, to an abrupt question by his employer: “My boy, what I
am about to say to you must remain a secret between ourselves, until
either my death occurs or I give you leave to speak. Is that
understood?”
“I undertake not to breathe a word to anybody,” replied Harold.
“To nobody,” repeated the Professor emphatically. “Not even to
Hanslet, however urgent the need may seem. I am going away for a time;
how long that time may be I cannot tell. I do not wish my whereabouts
to be known, as that would possibly place me in considerable danger.”
“You’re not surely going alone, sir!” exclaimed Harold. “You’ll let me
come with you, especially as you say there is danger attached to your
journey?”
But the Professor shook his head. “The danger may exist in London
equally,” he replied. “It is essential that someone I can trust should
remain here. Otherwise, my boy, I should be more than pleased to take
you with me. Now, listen very carefully to these instructions. Do not
leave the house for long at a time, especially in the evening. Open
all my correspondence, and deal with it to the best of your ability.
Should there be among it any letter of a startling character, put a
message in the personal column of _The Times_, ‘The asp has struck,’
and sign it ‘Cleopatra.’ Do you follow this so far?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Harold simply, but gazing at his employer in
bewilderment. There was something theatrical about these extraordinary
precautions utterly foreign to the Professor’s usual methods of
procedure.
“Very well,” continued the Professor. “If I find it necessary to
communicate with you it will be by letter. The contents of the letter
you may neglect. It may be typewritten, or in a disguised hand. You
will know the letter is from me by the fact that it will be addressed
in the first place to Westbourne Grove. The word _Grove_ will be ruled
through, and the correct word _Terrace_ substituted for it. The
envelope will in fact, convey the message. If the contents of the
letter are to be read, which will only be if any unexpected
developments take place, the envelope will be stamped with a
three-halfpenny stamp. If, on the other hand, it is stamped with a
penny and a halfpenny stamp, you will immediately proceed to the Post
Office from which it was sent, which you will discover from the
post-mark, where you will wait till I join you. If the envelope is
stamped with three separate halfpenny stamps, you will go to Inspector
Hanslet, explain what I am now telling you, and persuade him to come
with you at once to the place indicated by the post-mark. Is that
clear?”
“Perfectly clear, sir,” replied Harold. “I’ll just make a note of that
code, if you don’t mind, sir.”
“No, make no notes!” commanded the Professor. “I have purposely
contrived the code so simply that you can carry it in your head. You
must realize that our actions will very probably be watched, in fact,
I should not be surprised to learn that they have been under
observation for some considerable time. Now, the next thing I want you
to do is to type out a few copies of this paragraph and distribute
them to the news agencies.”
He held out a scrap of paper as he spoke, and Harold took it from him.
It ran as follows: “Dr. Priestley, whose scientific writings have
rendered his name familiar to the British public, has received a
cablegram begging him to deliver a series of lectures at a number of
the Australian Universities. Dr. Priestley, who has just completed the
manuscript of his forthcoming book, _Some Aspects of Modern Thought_,
has accepted the invitation. Since he is anxious to return to England
before the end of the year, he has left London hurriedly _via_
Southampton and Havre, in order to catch the Celestial liner _Oporto_
at Marseilles. He will travel by the _Oporto_ to Sydney.”
In spite of several attempts upon Harold’s part, he could elicit no
further information from the Professor. He typed out the paragraph,
and took it round to the agencies himself. When he returned, he found
the Professor upstairs busily engaged in piling a quantity of clothes,
which he was never likely to wear, into three or four large trunks.
“You aren’t really going to Australia, are you, sir?” he ventured.
“It would be quite useless for me to announce the fact unless I were
to make every appearance of so doing,” replied the Professor tartly.
“The boat train for Havre leaves Waterloo at half-past nine, I
understand. You will arrange for two taxis to be here at a quarter to
nine. I always like to give myself plenty of time to catch the train.”
The Professor was normally one of those people who travel without any
fuss. But on this occasion it seemed that he could not accept anything
unless he had seen it done with his own eyes. He stood on the steps of
the house for at least five minutes, directing the taxi-drivers where
and how to distribute his trunks. When he and Harold arrived at
Waterloo, he insisted upon interviewing innumerable officials, to each
of whom he gave his name, asking endless and apparently irrelevant
questions. Finally, having secured his seat, he walked up and down the
platform several times the whole length of the train, instructing
Harold as to the disposition of his household in his absence. It was
not until the train was on the point of starting that he took his
seat.
“Remember what I told you, my boy,” were his last words as the train
moved off.
The Professor had booked to Paris, where he arrived before noon on
Friday. He fussed about the Gare St. Lazare for some little time, and
finally put his trunks in the cloak-room. He then went to one of the
smaller hotels in the Quartier de l’Europe, booked a room, for which
he paid in advance, and arranged for the collection of his trunks from
the station. He lunched at a big restaurant in the boulevards, and
spent the afternoon at the Louvre. In the evening he returned to the
Gare St. Lazare, ten minutes before the Southampton boat train was due
to leave. He booked a ticket for Southampton, and with a directness in
singular contrast with the indecision he had displayed on the outward
journey, took his seat in the train. He reached Southampton early on
Saturday morning, and remained in his cabin until the London train had
left the docks. Then, carrying a single suit-case, he walked to the
West station and took a ticket to Corfe Castle.
Dr. Priestley, although he was known by name to a very large circle of
newspaper readers, who were periodically entertained by one or other
of his thrusts at some pet nostrum of the moment, such as the craze
for brown bread or the discovery of vitamines, rarely or never
appeared in public. He had even escaped the doubtful honour of having
his photograph reproduced in the evening papers, though this perhaps
was a disadvantage, since it would certainly have been unrecognizable.
He was therefore in no sense a public figure, in that he was most
unlikely to be distinguished from the ordinary crowd of travelling
humanity. He sat in the train without any attempt at disguise,
studying an ordnance map which he had laid open upon his knees.
It was still early when he reached Corfe Castle. The village, with its
commanding ruin perched upon the summit of a conical hill, was in full
flood of its morning activity. Dr. Priestley, standing at the station
gate, watched the passers-by for a moment with keen interest. Not one
of them paid him the compliment of more than a fleeting and incurious
glance.
He walked towards the heart of the village, and entered the first inn
he came to. Having ascertained that he could have a single room for as
long as he liked, he announced his determination of spending a few
days, and was finally shown into a comfortable room with a view of the
Castle. Here he remained until lunch.
The Professor lunched with keen enjoyment. His adventure was giving
him an appetite. In spite of the amount of travelling which he had
done during the last couple of days he felt thoroughly fit and well,
much better than he had during the winter in town. The menace which
had been revealed to him seemed far away to him in this peaceful spot,
it almost seemed to him as though the whole of his discoveries had
been merely some impossible dream, the penalty of overwork, and that
the fresh country air, tinged with the faintly salt tang of the sea,
had swept it from his brain into the realms of the unreal. Perhaps,
after all, he was entirely wrong in his deductions. Those mysterious
murders in Praed Street might have been the result of some entirely
different influence. He had merely conjecture to guide him: somehow,
now he had reached the place where alone the corroborative facts could
be gathered, it seemed as though his actions and his fears were the
effect of a sudden and unaccountable impulse.
He wandered from the luncheon room past the little saloon bar, and
glanced in at the open door. The place was empty; it was past two
o’clock, and the local habitués had returned to their labours. It was
too early in the year for visitors. The Professor walked into the bar,
and took a seat by the side of the counter.
The proprietor, who was serving a few belated customers in the
tap-room, came in at the sound of the Professor’s entrance, and
greeted him with professional courtesy.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Deacon,” he said cheerfully. (Deacon was the name
which the Professor had inscribed in the hotel register—it said much
for the proprietor’s skill that he had deciphered it correctly.) “I
hope you found your room to your liking, and enjoyed your lunch?”
“Yes, thank you,” replied the Professor. “I think I shall be very
comfortable here for a day or two. I looked in here to ask you for a
liqueur after my lunch. Perhaps you will join me in one?”
“Liqueurs ain’t much in my line, thankee, sir,” replied the landlord.
“But I’ll take a drop o’ gin with you, since you’re so kind. What’ll
be yours, sir? I’ve got Benedictine, Crème de Menthe——”
“I should prefer some old brandy, if you have it,” interrupted the
Professor.
“Ah, you know a thing or two, Mr. Deacon, I can see that,” replied the
landlord with a knowing wink. “I’ve got a rare drop of brandy put away
in the cellar. I never had only six bottles of it, and there’s still
four left. My customers don’t hardly ever ask for it, it’s mostly beer
or whiskey with them. Unless it happens to be a gentleman from London
like yourself, sir.”
He disappeared, and returned in a few moments with a long-necked
bottle, from which he poured a glass of pale amber liquid. “There,
just try that, sir,” he exclaimed proudly.
The Professor picked up the glass and sampled the contents gravely.
“Excellent, very excellent indeed!” he commented approvingly. “I am
quite sure that my doctor would have prescribed this as part of the
cure, had he known of it.”
“Cure, sir?” enquired the landlord sympathetically. “I hope the
illness has not been serious?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” replied the Professor. “One could scarcely call
it an illness. I have been rather run down, that is all. Men of my age
have to take care of themselves, you know, and I have been devoting
rather more time and energy than was perhaps wise to my business in
the City. I found myself suffering from headaches and loss of
appetite, so my doctor ordered me a complete rest. He said it was the
only thing to set me up again.”
“Well, here’s your very good health, sir,” said the landlord, tossing
off his gin. “You couldn’t have come to a better place than this for a
rest. I was afraid, when you comes in, that you’d find it too quiet at
this time of year. I says to myself, ‘Here’s a gentleman from London
who’ll be looking for a band and a promenade and what not?’ Why, sir,
there isn’t even a sharry running at this season.”
“That fact adds another attraction to your most comfortable house,”
replied the Professor. “It was my doctor who recommended me to come
here. He motored through on his way to Swanage last year. He
recommends me to take a fairly long walk after every meal. I
understand that you have some very beautiful heaths around here?”
“They may be beautiful, but they’re precious lonely,” said the
landlord. “They may suit you all right, sir, but for my part I take
the bus into Wareham or Swanage when I wants to get out for a bit.”
“I shall not be sorry to enjoy the loneliness of the countryside,
after the bustle of London,” replied the Professor. “But I suppose
people do live on these heaths, do they not?”
“Well, there’s a few clay pits, and now and then a gravel quarry,”
said the landlord. “But, take it all round, you can walk a long way
without meeting a living soul, so long as you keep off the main road.
It is like that all over Purbeck, whichever way you go. Of course,
there’s a few cottages where the clay-workers live, but that is about
all, outside the villages, and there ain’t many of them.”
“What an ideal spot on which to build a country retreat!” exclaimed
the Professor. “Not one of those villa residences, which are growing
up so plentifully all over the country, but just a cottage, in the
true sense of the word, where one could enjoy without distraction the
glories of nature!”
The landlord looked at the Professor with a curious expression. “You
wasn’t thinking of doing anything like that, was you, sir?” he
enquired.
“Why, no, not at present, however much the idea might appeal to me,”
replied the Professor, artlessly. “I fear that my duties in London
would not allow me sufficient leisure.”
“Queer thing, now, that you should say that about a cottage, sir,”
said the landlord confidentially. “It puts me in mind of an odd thing
that happened in these parts, not so many years ago. All along of
another gentleman, about the same age as you might be, sir, coming
into this very bar and asking me if I knew of a lonely cottage for
sale.”
“Indeed?” replied the Professor casually. “Perhaps you would refill my
glass with that most excellent brandy. And if you will do me the
honour of taking another glass of gin with me——”
“You’re very kind, sir,” said the landlord, filling up the glasses. “I
thought you’d take to that brandy. As soon as I sees you taste it, I
says to myself, ‘Here’s a gentleman that knows a good drop of liquor
when he sees it.’ ’Tisn’t every gentleman that takes kindly to the
drink nowadays, sir. Why, there’s some of them what drops in here for
lunch as takes water with it! Can’t say I hold with it myself. Well,
here’s your very good health, sir!”
He consumed his glass of gin at a gulp, and stood with his elbows on
the counter, looking at the Professor. “Your saying that about the
cottage does put me in mind of that other,” he said, reminiscently.
“Mind you, sir, not that he was like you at all. Of course I didn’t
know who he was when he came in, but I say to myself, ‘That fellow’s
no business man, I’ll warrant!’ And, as it turned out, I was right!
But you can always tell, can’t you, sir?”
“Usually,” agreed the Professor. “He was not a business man then?”
“Not he!” exclaimed the landlord, contemptuously. “He was one of them
scientific chaps, like you reads about in the papers. What good they
does I don’t know! Always seems to me as though they’d be better
employed doing something useful instead of talking a lot of gibberish
decent folks don’t understand. Well, this poor chap suffered for his
folly, anyhow.”
“Why, what happened to him?” enquired the Professor without any great
show of interest.
“Burnt to death!” replied the landlord, impressively. “Burnt till
there wasn’t nothing but a heap of charred bones left, sir. Terrible
thing it was, and him all alone out on the heath there. Quiet enough
chap he seemed too. Why, I couldn’t believe my ears when the constable
told me about him afterwards. You wouldn’t have guessed what the chap
was really, not if you was to try for a twelvemonth.”
“I daresay not,” remarked the Professor dryly. “I never was good at
guessing. What was he?”
“Ticket o’ leave man!” exclaimed the landlord, leaning over the
counter confidentially. “If you’ll believe me, that man had just
served fourteen years hard on Dartmoor for murdering a Duke, when he
walked into my bar as cool as a cucumber. Oh, he was a deep one, was
that Mr. Morlandson! And not a soul bar the super knew a word about
it!”
“Burnt to death, was he!” remarked the Professor. “Dear me, what a
terrible end. How did it happen?”
“No one knows rightly,” replied the landlord. “He lived all alone on
the heath, over yonder towards Goathorn. Built himself a concrete
place, I can’t remember what the super said he called it. Word
something like lavatory?”
“Laboratory, perhaps?” suggested the Professor.
“Aye, that’s it, sir. You can see the ruins of it still, they tell me.
I haven’t been out that way since it happened. Used to lock himself up
in this place of his, and fiddle about with all sorts of inflammable
stuff. Bound to go up it was, and sure enough it did. Just after
closing time one evening, Old George what lives way out towards
Studland, comes knocking at my door and says the heath’s on fire.
‘Heath on fire!’ I say, ‘Why, it’s been raining for a week. What are
you talking about?’ ‘’Tis that for sure!’ says old George. ‘You can
see the flames up along my way.’ ‘Flames!’ I says, ‘It’s the stuff
they gives you at the Red Bull over yonder that makes you see flames,
and I don’t wonder at it!’ Well, he keeps on, and at last I goes half
a mile or so up the road with him. Sure enough, there was a great
pillar of flame coming up from the middle of the heath.
“We hadn’t been there more than a minute when the constable comes
along. ‘What’s up yonder?’ I says. ‘Morlandson’s place on fire,’ says
he. ‘Super he’s gone off on his bike. You chaps best come along and
see what you can do.’
“Well, sir, it weren’t no manner of good to take the engine. She’s
only one of them hand concerns, and last time we’d had her out to
practice, she pumped back’ards like into the river instead of out of
it. Joe Stiggs, him what looks after her, said he found he’d put the
valves in the wrong way. Besides, it would have taken us best part of
an hour to push her out there, there ain’t no regular road. And,
what’s more, all the water out at Morlandson’s place was a well what
ran dry every summer.”
“Then there was nothing to be done?” commented the Professor.
“Nothing whatsoever,” replied the landlord emphatically. “Mind, we
didn’t know Morlandson was inside. We expected to find him running
round outside chucking water at it from a bucket. However, off we
goes, and as we gets close we catches the stink of it. Lord! I shan’t
forget it in a hurry. It was like the smell what comes from the pits
when they burns carcases when the foot-and-mouth’s about.
“The super he meets us, and I reckon I hollered out when I saw him by
the light of the fire. He was black as a sweep, and all the hair
singed off his face. Told us he’d been into the cottage, which was
burning like a dry rick, and that he couldn’t find Morlandson
anywhere. ‘I reckon he’s in there,’ he says, pointing to the
lav——labor——what you call it. ‘There’s a horrible smell of burnt flesh
about.’
“He was right there, it fair made me sick. But there was nothing to be
done. You couldn’t get within fifty yards of the place. We waited till
nigh on midnight, but even when the flames went down the walls was
red-hot and we weren’t no further for’ard. Super, he stays on all
night, and in the morning he finds what’s left of Morlandson, and
that’s precious little.”
“Dear me, what a terrible thing!” exclaimed the Professor.
“Aye, that it was,” agreed the landlord. “They brought back what there
was of the poor chap in a potato sack, held an inquest on him, and
buried him in the churchyard yonder. And that is what happened to the
last gent what fancied a lonely life on the heath, sir.”
The landlord glanced up at the clock, the hands of which pointed to
five and twenty minutes to three. “Hallo, I must close the bar, or
I’ll be getting into trouble,” he said, reluctantly removing his arms
from the counter.
“A visit to the scene of the tragedy would provide me with an object
for a walk,” said the Professor. “Which is my best way to it?”
“You can’t go wrong, provided you don’t mind a bit of rough going,”
replied the landlord. “If you go out of the village towards Wareham,
you’ll come upon a railway track, what they runs the trucks of stones
along. That goes to Goathorn pier, a matter of six mile away or more.
Follow the line for nigh on three mile, and you’ll come to a clay-pit.
Then, about a quarter or half a mile away, on your right, you’ll see
what’s left of the place, standing up among the gorse and heather.
There is a track, but it’s a long way round and plaguey hard to find
if you don’t know it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, sir, it’s past closing
time.”