and the questionings that followed. The upshot was this. Early in
January the gentleman had come to see over the Chapel, and thought a
great deal of it, and said he must come back in the spring weather
and take some photografts. And only a week ago he had drove up in his
motoring car, and a very ’eavy box with the slides in it, and she had
locked him in because he said something about a long explosion, and she
was afraid of some damage happening; and he says, no, not explosion,
but it appeared the lantern what they take the slides with worked very
slow; and so he was in there the best part of an hour and she come and
let him out, and he drove off with his box and all and gave her his
visiting-card, and oh, dear, dear, to think of such a thing! he must
have changed the books and took the old ones away with him in his box.
“What sort of man was he?”
“Oh, dear, he was a small-made gentleman, if you can call him so after
the way he’ve behaved, with black hair, that is if it was hair, and
gold eye-glasses, if they was gold; reely, one don’t know what to
believe. Sometimes I doubt he weren’t a reel Englishman at all, and yet
he seemed to know the language, and had the name on his visiting-card
like anybody else might.”
“Just so; might we see the card? Yes; T. W. Henderson, and an address
somewhere near Bristol. Well, Mrs Porter, it’s quite plain this
Mr Henderson, as he calls himself, has walked off with your eight
Prayer-Books and put eight others about the same size in place of them.
Now listen to me. I suppose you must tell your husband about this, but
neither you nor he must say one word about it to anyone else. If you’ll
give me the address of the agent,--Mr Clark, isn’t it?--I will write to
him and tell him exactly what has happened, and that it really is no
fault of yours. But, you understand, we must keep it very quiet; and
why? Because this man who has stolen the books will of course try to
sell them one at a time--for I may tell you they are worth a good deal
of money--and the only way we can bring it home to him is by keeping a
sharp lookout and saying nothing.”
By dint of repeating the same advice in various forms, they succeeded
in impressing Mrs Porter with the real need for silence, and were
forced to make a concession only in the case of Mr Avery, who was
expected on a visit shortly. “But you may be safe with father, sir,”
said Mrs Porter. “Father ain’t a talkin’ man.”
It was not quite Mr Davidson’s experience of him; still, there were no
neighbours at Brockstone, and even Mr Avery must be aware that gossip
with anybody on such a subject would be likely to end in the Porters’
having to look out for another situation.
A last question was whether Mr Henderson, so-called, had anyone with
him.
“No, sir, not when he come he hadn’t; he was working his own motoring
car himself, and what luggage he had, let me see: there was his
lantern and this box of slides inside the carriage, which I helped him
into the Chapel and out of it myself with it, if only I’d knowed! And
as he drove away under the big yew tree by the monument, I see the long
white bundle laying on the top of the coach, what I didn’t notice when
he drove up. But he set in front, sir, and only the boxes inside behind
him. And do you reely think, sir, as his name weren’t Henderson at all?
Oh, dear me, what a dreadful thing! Why, fancy what trouble it might
bring to a innocent person that might never have set foot in the place
but for that!”
They left Mrs Porter in tears. On the way home there was much
discussion as to the best means of keeping watch upon possible sales.
What Henderson-Homberger (for there could be no real doubt of the
identity) had done was, obviously, to bring down the requisite number
of folio Prayer-Books--disused copies from college chapels and the
like, bought ostensibly for the sake of the bindings, which were
superficially like enough to the old ones--and to substitute them at
his leisure for the genuine articles. A week had now passed without
any public notice being taken of the theft. He would take a little
time himself to find out about the rarity of the books, and would
ultimately, no doubt, “place” them cautiously. Between them, Davidson
and Witham were in a position to know a good deal of what was passing
in the book-world, and they could map out the ground pretty completely.
A weak point with them at the moment was that neither of them knew
under what other name or names Henderson-Homberger carried on business.
But there are ways of solving these problems.
And yet all this planning proved unnecessary.
IV
We are transported to a London office on this same 25th of April.
We find there, within closed doors, late in the day, two police
inspectors, a commissionaire, and a youthful clerk. The two latter,
both rather pale and shaky in appearance, are sitting on chairs and
being questioned.
“How long do you say you’ve been in this Mr Poschwitz’s employment?
Six months? And what was his business? Attended sales in various parts
and brought home parcels of books. Did he keep a shop anywhere? No?
Disposed of ’em here and there, and sometimes to private collectors.
Right. Now then, when did he go out last? Rather better than a week
ago? Tell you where he was going? No? Said he was going to start next
day from his private residence, and shouldn’t be at the office--that’s
here, eh?--before two days; you was to attend as usual. Where is his
private residence? Oh, that’s the address, Norwood way; I see. Any
family? Not in this country? Now, then, what account do you give of
what’s happened since he came back? Came back on the Tuesday, did he?
and this is the Saturday. Bring any books? One package; where is it?
In the safe? You got the key? No, to be sure, it’s open, of course.
How did he seem when he got back--cheerful? Well, but how do you
mean--curious? Thought he might be in for an illness: he said that, did
he? Odd smell got in his nose, couldn’t get rid of it; told you to let
him know who wanted to see him before you let ’em in? That wasn’t usual
with him? Much the same all Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Out a good
deal; said he was going to the British Museum. Often went there to make
inquiries in the way of his business. Walked up and down a lot in the
office when he was in. Anyone call in on those days? Mostly when he was
out. Anyone find him in? Oh, Mr Collinson? Who’s Mr Collinson? An old
customer; know his address? All right, give it us afterwards. Well,
now, what about this morning? You left Mr Poschwitz’s here at twelve
and went home. Anybody see you? Commissionaire, you did? Remained at
home till summoned here. Very well.
“Now, commissionaire; we have your name--Watkins, eh? Very well, make
your statement; don’t go too quick, so as we can get it down.”
“I was on duty ’ere later than usual, Mr Potwitch ’aving asked me
to remain on, and ordered his lunching to be sent in, which came as
ordered. I was in the lobby from eleven-thirty on, and see Mr Bligh
[the clerk] leave at about twelve. After that no one come in at all
except Mr Potwitch’s lunching come at one o’clock and the man left in
five minutes’ time. Towards the afternoon I became tired of waitin’
and I come upstairs to this first floor. The outer door what lead to
the orfice stood open, and I come up to the plate-glass door here. Mr
Potwitch he was standing behind the table smoking a cigar, and he laid
it down on the mantelpiece and felt in his trouser pockets and took
out a key and went across to the safe. And I knocked on the glass,
thinkin’ to see if he wanted me to come and take away his tray; but he
didn’t take no notice, bein’ engaged with the safe door. Then he got
it open and stooped down and seemed to be lifting up a package off of
the floor of the safe. And then, sir, I see what looked to be like a
great roll of old shabby white flannel, about four to five feet high,
fall for’ards out of the inside of the safe right against Mr Potwitch’s
shoulder as he was stooping over; and Mr Potwitch, he raised himself up
as it were, resting his hands on the package, and gave a exclamation.
And I can’t hardly expect you should take what I says, but as true as
I stand here I see this roll had a kind of a face in the upper end of
it, sir. You can’t be more surprised than what I was, I can assure you,
and I’ve seen a lot in me time. Yes, I can describe it if you wish it,
sir; it was very much the same as this wall here in colour [the wall
had an earth-coloured distemper] and it had a bit of a band tied round
underneath. And the eyes, well they was dry-like, and much as if there
was two big spiders’ bodies in the holes. Hair? no, I don’t know as
there was much hair to be seen; the flannel-stuff was over the top of
the ’ead. I’m very sure it warn’t what it should have been. No, I only
see it in a flash, but I took it in like a photograft--wish I hadn’t.
Yes, sir, it fell right over on to Mr Potwitch’s shoulder, and this
face hid in his neck,--yes, sir, about where the injury was,--more like
a ferret going for a rabbit than anythink else; and he rolled over, and
of course I tried to get in at the door; but as you know, sir, it were
locked on the inside, and all I could do, I rung up everyone, and the
surgeon come, and the police and you gentlemen, and you know as much as
what I do. If you won’t be requirin’ me any more to-day I’d be glad to
be getting off home; it’s shook me up more than I thought for.”
“Well,” said one of the inspectors, when they were left alone; and
“Well?” said the other inspector; and, after a pause, “What’s the
surgeon’s report again? You’ve got it there. Yes. Effect on the blood
like the worst kind of snake-bite; death almost instantaneous. I’m glad
of that, for his sake; he was a nasty sight. No case for detaining this
man Watkins, anyway; we know all about him. And what about this safe,
now? We’d better go over it again; and, by the way, we haven’t opened
that package he was busy with when he died.”
“Well, handle it careful,” said the other; “there might be this snake
in it, for what you know. Get a light into the corners of the place,
too. Well, there’s room for a shortish person to stand up in; but what
about ventilation?”
“Perhaps,” said the other slowly, as he explored the safe with an
electric torch, “perhaps they didn’t require much of that. My word! it
strikes warm coming out of that place! like a vault, it is. But here,
what’s this bank-like of dust all spread out into the room? That must
have come there since the door was opened; it would sweep it all away
if you moved it--see? Now what do you make of that?”
“Make of it? About as much as I make of anything else in this case.
One of London’s mysteries this is going to be, by what I can see. And
I don’t believe a photographer’s box full of large-size old-fashioned
Prayer-Books is going to take us much further. For that’s just what
your package is.”
It was a natural but hasty utterance. The preceding narrative shows
that there was in fact plenty of material for constructing a case; and
when once Messrs Davidson and Witham had brought their end to Scotland
Yard, the join-up was soon made, and the circle completed.
To the relief of Mrs Porter, the owners of Brockstone decided not
to replace the books in the Chapel; they repose, I believe, in a
safe-deposit in town. The police have their own methods of keeping
certain matters out of the newspapers; otherwise, it can hardly be
supposed that Watkins’s evidence about Mr Poschwitz’s death could have
failed to furnish a good many head-lines of a startling character to
the press.
A NEIGHBOUR’S LANDMARK
Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing
books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of
accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a
stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and
if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble
himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed
sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up of those which
the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to
them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy. Happy in these employments,
and in occasionally opening an eighteenth-century octavo, to see “what
it is all about,” and to conclude after five minutes that it deserves
the seclusion it now enjoys, I had reached the middle of a wet August
afternoon at Betton Court----
“You begin in a deeply Victorian manner,” I said; “is this to continue?”
“Remember, if you please,” said my friend, looking at me over his
spectacles, “that I am a Victorian by birth and education, and that
the Victorian tree may not unreasonably be expected to bear Victorian
fruit. Further, remember that an immense quantity of clever and
thoughtful Rubbish is now being written about the Victorian age. Now,”
he went on, laying his papers on his knee, “that article, ‘The Stricken
Years,’ in the _Times_ Literary Supplement the other day,--able? of
course it is able; but, oh! my soul and body, do just hand it over
here, will you? it’s on the table by you.”
“I thought you were to read me something you had written,” I said,
without moving, “but, of course----”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Very well, then, I’ll do that first. But I
_should_ like to show you afterwards what I mean. However----” And he
lifted the sheets of paper and adjusted his spectacles.
----at Betton Court, where, generations back, two country-house
libraries had been fused together, and no descendant of either stock
had ever faced the task of picking them over or getting rid of
duplicates. Now I am not setting out to tell of rarities I may have
discovered, of Shakespeare quartos bound up in volumes of political
tracts, or anything of that kind, but of an experience which befell me
in the course of my search--an experience which I cannot either explain
away or fit into the scheme of my ordinary life.
It was, I said, a wet August afternoon, rather windy, rather warm.
Outside the window great trees were stirring and weeping. Between them
were stretches of green and yellow country (for the Court stands high
on a hillside), and blue hills far off, veiled with rain. Up above
was a very restless and hopeless movement of low clouds travelling
north-west. I had suspended my work--if you call it work--for some
minutes to stand at the window and look at these things, and at the
greenhouse roof on the right with the water sliding off it, and the
Church tower that rose behind that. It was all in favour of my going
steadily on; no likelihood of a clearing up for hours to come. I,
therefore, returned to the shelves, lifted out a set of eight or nine
volumes, lettered “Tracts,” and conveyed them to the table for closer
examination.
They were for the most part of the reign of Anne. There was a good
deal of _The Late Peace_, _The Late War_, _The Conduct of the Allies_:
there were also _Letters to a Convocation Man_; _Sermons preached at
St Michael’s, Queenhithe_; _Enquiries into a late Charge of the Rt.
Rev. the Lord Bishop of Winchester_ (or more probably Winton) _to his
Clergy_: things all very lively once, and indeed still keeping so much
of their old sting that I was tempted to betake myself into an armchair
in the window, and give them more time than I had intended. Besides,
I was somewhat tired by the day. The Church clock struck four, and it
really was four, for in 1889 there was no saving of daylight.
So I settled myself. And first I glanced over some of the War
pamphlets, and pleased myself by trying to pick out Swift by his style
from among the undistinguished. But the War pamphlets needed more
knowledge of the geography of the Low Countries than I had. I turned
to the Church, and read several pages of what the Dean of Canterbury
said to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge on the occasion
of their anniversary meeting in 1711. When I turned over to a Letter
from a Beneficed Clergyman in the Country to the Bishop of C....r, I
was becoming languid, and I gazed for some moments at the following
sentence without surprise:
“This Abuse (for I think myself justified in calling it by that name)
is one which I am persuaded Your Lordship would (if ’twere known to
you) exert your utmost efforts to do away. But I am also persuaded
that you know no more of its existence than (in the words of the
Country Song)
‘That which walks in Betton Wood
Knows why it walks or why it cries.’”
Then indeed I did sit up in my chair, and run my finger along the
lines to make sure that I had read them right. There was no mistake.
Nothing more was to be gathered from the rest of the pamphlet. The
next paragraph definitely changed the subject: “But I have said enough
upon this _Topick_” were its opening words. So discreet, too, was the
namelessness of the Beneficed Clergyman that he refrained even from
initials, and had his letter printed in London.
The riddle was of a kind that might faintly interest anyone: to me,
who have dabbled a good deal in works of folklore, it was really
exciting. I was set upon solving it--on finding out, I mean, what story
lay behind it; and, at least, I felt myself lucky in one point, that,
whereas I might have come on the paragraph in some College Library far
away, here I was at Betton, on the very scene of action.
The Church clock struck five, and a single stroke on a gong followed.
This, I knew, meant tea. I heaved myself out of the deep chair, and
obeyed the summons.
My host and I were alone at the Court. He came in soon, wet from a
round of landlord’s errands, and with pieces of local news which had to
be passed on before I could make an opportunity of asking whether there
was a particular place in the Parish that was still known as Betton
Wood.
“Betton Wood,” he said, “was a short mile away, just on the crest of
Betton Hill, and my father stubbed up the last bit of it when it paid
better to grow corn than scrub oaks. Why do you want to know about
Betton Wood?”
“Because,” I said, “in an old pamphlet I was reading just now, there
are two lines of a country song which mention it, and they sound as if
there was a story belonging to them. Someone says that someone else
knows no more of whatever it may be--
‘Than that which walks in Betton Wood
Knows why it walks or why it cries.’”
“Goodness,” said Philipson, “I wonder whether that was why.... I must
ask old Mitchell.” He muttered something else to himself, and took some
more tea, thoughtfully.
“Whether that was why----?” I said.
“Yes, I was going to say, whether that was why my father had the Wood
stubbed up. I said just now it was to get more plough-land, but I
don’t really know if it was. I don’t believe he ever broke it up: it’s
rough pasture at this moment. But there’s one old chap at least who’d
remember something of it--old Mitchell.” He looked at his watch. “Blest
if I don’t go down there and ask him. I don’t think I’ll take you,”
he went on, “he’s not so likely to tell anything he thinks is odd if
there’s a stranger by.”
“Well, mind you remember every single thing he does tell. As for me, if
it clears up, I shall go out, and if it doesn’t, I shall go on with the
books.”
It did clear up, sufficiently at least to make me think it worth while
to walk up the nearest hill and look over the country. I did not know
the lie of the land; it was the first visit I had paid to Philipson,
and this was the first day of it. So I went down the garden and through
the wet shrubberies with a very open mind, and offered no resistance
to the indistinct impulse--was it, however, so very indistinct?--which
kept urging me to bear to the left whenever there was a forking of
the path. The result was that after ten minutes or more of dark going
between dripping rows of box and laurel and privet, I was confronted by
a stone arch in the Gothic style set in the stone wall which encircled
the whole demesne. The door was fastened by a spring-lock, and I took
the precaution of leaving this on the jar as I passed out into the
road. That road I crossed, and entered a narrow lane between hedges
which led upward; and that lane I pursued at a leisurely pace for as
much as half-a-mile, and went on to the field to which it led. I was
now on a good point of vantage for taking in the situation of the
Court, the village, and the environment; and I leant upon a gate and
gazed westward and downward.
I think we must all know the landscapes--are they by Birket Foster,
or somewhat earlier?--which, in the form of wood-cuts, decorate the
volumes of poetry that lay on the drawing-room tables of our fathers
and grandfathers--volumes in “Art Cloth, embossed bindings”; that
strikes me as being the right phrase. I confess myself an admirer of
them, and especially of those which show the peasant leaning over a
gate in a hedge and surveying, at the bottom of a downward slope, the
village church spire--embosomed amid venerable trees, and a fertile
plain intersected by hedgerows, and bounded by distant hills, behind
which the orb of day is sinking (or it may be rising) amid level clouds
illumined by his dying (or nascent) ray. The expressions employed here
are those which seem appropriate to the pictures I have in mind; and
were there opportunity, I would try to work in the Vale, the Grove,
the Cot, and the Flood. Anyhow, they are beautiful to me, these
landscapes, and it was just such a one that I was now surveying. It
might have come straight out of “Gems of Sacred Song, selected by a
Lady” and given as a birthday present to Eleanor Philipson in 1852 by
her attached friend Millicent Graves. All at once I turned as if I had
been stung. There thrilled into my right ear and pierced my head a
note of incredible sharpness, like the shriek of a bat, only ten times
intensified--the kind of thing that makes one wonder if something has
not given way in one’s brain. I held my breath, and covered my ear,
and shivered. Something in the circulation: another minute or two,
I thought, and I return home. But I must fix the view a little more
firmly in my mind. Only, when I turned to it again, the taste was gone
out of it. The sun was down behind the hill, and the light was off the
fields, and when the clock bell in the Church tower struck seven, I
thought no longer of kind mellow evening hours of rest, and scents of
flowers and woods on evening air; and of how someone on a farm a mile
or two off would be saying “How clear Betton bell sounds to-night after
the rain!”; but instead images came to me of dusty beams and creeping
spiders and savage owls up in the tower, and forgotten graves and their
ugly contents below, and of flying Time and all it had taken out of my
life. And just then into my left ear--close as if lips had been put
within an inch of my head, the frightful scream came thrilling again.
There was no mistake possible now. It _was_ from outside. “With no
language but a cry” was the thought that flashed into my mind. Hideous
it was beyond anything I had heard or have heard since, but I could
read no emotion in it, and doubted if I could read any intelligence.
All its effect was to take away every vestige, every possibility, of
enjoyment, and make this no place to stay in one moment more. Of course
there was nothing to be seen: but I was convinced that, if I waited,
the thing would pass me again on its aimless, endless beat, and I could
not bear the notion of a third repetition. I hurried back to the lane
and down the hill. But when I came to the arch in the wall I stopped.
Could I be sure of my way among those dank alleys, which would be
danker and darker now? No, I confessed to myself that I was afraid: so
jarred were all my nerves with the cry on the hill that I really felt
I could not afford to be startled even by a little bird in a bush, or
a rabbit. I followed the road which followed the wall, and I was not
sorry when I came to the gate and the lodge, and descried Philipson
coming up towards it from the direction of the village.
“And where have you been?” said he.
“I took that lane that goes up the hill opposite the stone arch in the
wall.”
“Oh! did you? Then you’ve been very near where Betton Wood used to be:
at least, if you followed it up to the top, and out into the field.”
And if the reader will believe it, that was the first time that I put
two and two together. Did I at once tell Philipson what had happened to
me? I did not. I have not had other experiences of the kind which are
called super-natural, or -normal, or -physical, but, though I knew very
well I must speak of this one before long, I was not at all anxious to
do so; and I think I have read that this is a common case.
So all I said was: “Did you see the old man you meant to?”