The Ritual of the Dagger
After dinner, Abbershaw was one of the first to enter the great hall
or drawing-room which, with the dining-room, took up the best part of
the ground floor of the magnificent old mansion. It was an amazing
room, vast as a barn and heavily panelled, with a magnificently carved
fire-place at each end wherein two huge fires blazed. The floor was
old oak and highly polished, and there was no covering save for two or
three beautiful Shiraz rugs.
The furniture here was the same as in the other parts of the house,
heavy, unpolished oak, carved and very old; and here, too, the faint
atmosphere of mystery and dankness, with which the whole house was
redolent, was apparent also.
Abbershaw noticed it immediately, and put it down to the fact that the
light of the place came from a huge iron candle-ring which held some
twenty or thirty thick wax candles suspended by an iron chain from the
centre beam of the ceiling, so that there were heavy shadows round the
panelled walls and in the deep corners behind the great fire-places.
By far the most striking thing in the whole room was an enormous
trophy which hung over the fire-place farthest from the door. It was a
vast affair composed of some twenty or thirty lances arranged in a
circle, heads to the centre, and surmounted by a feathered helm and a
banner resplendent with the arms of the Petries.
Yet it was the actual centre-piece which commanded immediate interest.
Mounted on a crimson plaque, at the point where the lance-heads made a
narrow circle, was a long, fifteenth-century Italian dagger. The hilt
was an exquisite piece of workmanship, beautifully chased and
encrusted at the upper end with uncut jewels, but it was not this that
first struck the onlooker. The blade of the Black Dudley Dagger was
its most remarkable feature. Under a foot long, it was very slender
and exquisitely graceful, fashioned from steel that had in it a
curious greenish tinge which lent the whole weapon an unmistakably
sinister appearance. It seemed to shine out of the dark background
like a living and malignant thing.
No one entering the room for the first time could fail to remark upon
it; in spite of its comparatively insignificant size it dominated the
whole room like an idol in a temple.
George Abbershaw was struck by it as soon as he came in, and instantly
the feeling of apprehension which had annoyed his prosaic soul so much
in the other room returned, and he glanced round him sharply, seeking
either reassurance or confirmation, he hardly knew which.
The house-party which had seemed so large round the dinner-table now
looked amazingly small in this cathedral of a room.
Colonel Coombe had been wheeled into a corner just out of the
firelight by a man-servant, and the old invalid now sat smiling
benignly on the group of young people in the body of the room. Gideon
and the man with the expressionless face sat one on either side of
him, while a grey-haired, sallow-faced man whom Abbershaw understood
was a Dr White Whitby, the Colonel’s private attendant, hovered about
them in nervous solicitude for his patient.
On closer inspection Gideon and the man who looked like Beethoven
proved to be even more unattractive than Abbershaw had supposed from
his first somewhat cursory glance.
The rest of the party was in high spirits. Anne Edgeware was
illustrating the striking contrast between Victorian clothes and
modern manners, and her vivacious air and somewhat outrageous
conversation made her the centre of a laughing group. Wyatt Petrie
stood amongst his guests, a graceful, lazy figure, and his
well-modulated voice and slow laugh sounded pleasant and reassuring in
the forbidding room.
It was Anne who first brought up the subject of the dagger, as someone
was bound to do.
‘What a perfectly revolting thing, Wyatt,’ she said, pointing at it.
‘I’ve been trying not to mention it ever since I came in here. I
should toast your muffins with something else, my dear.’
‘Ssh!’ Wyatt turned to her with mock solemnity. ‘You mustn’t speak
disrespectfully of the Black Dudley Dagger. The ghosts of a hundred
dead Petries will haunt you out of sheer outraged family pride if you
do.’
The words were spoken lightly, and his voice had lost none of its
quiet suavity, but whether it was the effect of the dagger itself or
that of the ghostly old house upon the guests none could tell, but the
girl’s flippancy died away and she laughed nervously.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should just loathe to be haunted. But quite
seriously, then, if we mustn’t laugh, what an incredible thing that
dagger is.’
The others had gathered round her, and she and Wyatt now stood in the
centre of a group looking up at the trophy. Wyatt turned round to
Abbershaw. ‘What do you think of it, George?’ he said.
‘Very interesting – very interesting indeed. It is very old, of
course? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it in my life.’ The
little man spoke with genuine enthusiasm. ‘It’s a curio, some old
family relic, I suppose?’
Wyatt nodded, and his lazy grey eyes flickered with faint amusement.
‘Well, yes, it is,’ he said. ‘My ancestors seem to have had high old
times with it if family legends are true.’
‘Ah!’ said Meggie, coming forward. ‘A ghost story?’
Wyatt glanced at her.
‘Not a ghost,’ he said, ‘but a story.’
‘Let’s have it.’ It was Chris Kennedy who spoke; the young rugger blue
had more resignation than enthusiasm in his tone. Old family stories
were not in his line. The rest of the party was considerably more
keen, however, and Wyatt was pestered for the story.
‘It’s only a yarn, of course,’ he began. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told
it to anyone else before. I don’t think even my uncle knows it.’ He
turned questioningly as he spoke, and the old man shook his head.
‘I know nothing about it,’ he said. ‘My late wife brought me to this
house,’ he explained. ‘It had been in the family for hundreds of
years. She was a Petrie – Wyatt’s aunt. He naturally knows more about
the history of the house than I. I should like to hear it, Wyatt.’
Wyatt smiled and shrugged his shoulders, then, moving forward, he
climbed on to one of the high oak chairs by the fire-place, stepped up
from one hidden foothold in the panelling to another, and stretching
out his hand lifted the shimmering dagger off its plaque and carried
it back to the group who pressed round to see it more closely.
The Black Dudley Dagger lost none of its sinister appearance by being
removed from its setting. It lay there in Wyatt Petrie’s long,
cultured hands, the green shade in the steel blade more apparent than
ever, and a red jewel in the hilt glowing in the candle-light.
‘This,’ said Wyatt, displaying it to its full advantage, ‘is properly
called the “Black Dudley Ritual Dagger”. In the time of Quentin
Petrie, somewhere about 1500, a distinguished guest was found murdered
with this dagger sticking in his heart.’ He paused, and glanced round
the circle of faces. From the corner by the fire-place Gideon was
listening intently, his grey face livid with interest, and his little
black eyes wide and unblinking. The man who looked like Beethoven had
turned towards the speaker also, but there was no expression on his
heavy red face.
Wyatt continued in his quiet voice, choosing his words carefully and
speaking with a certain scholastic precision.
‘I don’t know if you know it,’ he said, ‘but earlier than that date
there had been a superstition which persisted in outlying places like
this that a body touched by the hands of the murderer would bleed
afresh from the mortal wound; or, failing that, if the weapon with
which the murder was committed were placed into the hand which struck
the blow, it would become covered with blood as it had been at the
time of the crime. You’ve heard of that, haven’t you, Abbershaw?’ he
said, turning towards the scientist, and George Abbershaw nodded.
‘Go on,’ he said briefly.
Wyatt returned to the dagger in his hand.
‘Quentin Petrie believed in this superstition, it appears,’ he said,
‘for anyway it is recorded that on this occasion he closed the gates
and summoned the entire household, the family, servants, labourers,
herdsmen, and hangers-on, and the dagger was solemnly passed around.
That was the beginning of it all. The ritual sprang up later – in the
next generation, I think.’
‘But did it happen? Did the dagger spout blood and all that?’ Anne
Edgeware spoke eagerly, her round face alive with interest.
Wyatt smiled. ‘I’m afraid one of the family was beheaded for the
murder,’ he said; ‘and the chronicles have it that the dagger betrayed
him, but I fancy that there was a good deal of juggling in affairs of
justice in those days.’
‘Yes, but where does the ritual come in?’ said Albert Campion, in his
absurd falsetto drawl. ‘It sounds most intriguing. I knew a fellow
once who, when he went to bed, made a point of taking off everything
else first before he removed his topper. He called that a ritual.’
‘It sounds more like a conjuring trick,’ said Abbershaw.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ agreed the irrepressible Albert. ‘But I don’t
suppose your family ritual was anything like that, was it, Petrie?
Something more lurid, I expect.’
‘It was, a little, but nearly as absurd,’ said Wyatt, laughing.
‘Apparently it became a custom after that for the whole ceremony of
the dagger to be repeated once a year – a sort of family rite as far
as I can ascertain. That was only in the beginning, of course. In
later years it degenerated into a sort of mixed hide-and-seek and
relay race, played all over the house. I believe it was done at
Christmas as late as my grandfather’s time. The procedure was very
simple. All the lights in the house were put out, and the head of the
family, a Petrie by name and blood, handed the dagger to the first
person he met in the darkness. Acceptance was of course compulsory,
and that person had to hunt out someone else to pass the dagger on to,
and the game continued in that fashion – each person striving to get
rid of the dagger as soon as it was handed to him – for twenty
minutes. Then the head of the house rang the dinner gong in the hall,
the servants relit the lights, and the person discovered with the
dagger lost the game and paid a forfeit which varied, I believe, from
kisses to silver coins all round.’
He stopped abruptly.
‘That’s all there is,’ he said, swinging the dagger in his fingers.
‘What a perfectly wonderful story!’
Anne Edgeware turned to the others as she spoke. ‘Isn’t it?’ she
continued. ‘It just sort of fits in with this house!’
‘Let’s play it.’ It was the bright young man with the teeth again, and
he beamed round fatuously at the company as he spoke. ‘For sixpences
if you like,’ he ventured as an added inducement, as no one enthused
immediately.
Anne looked at Wyatt. ‘Could we?’ she said.
‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea,’ remarked Chris Kennedy, who was willing
to back up Anne in anything she chose to suggest. The rest of the
party had also taken kindly to the idea, and Wyatt hesitated.
‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t,’ he said, and paused. Abbershaw
was suddenly seized with a violent objection to the whole scheme. The
story of the dagger ritual had impressed him strangely. He had seen
the eyes of Gideon fixed upon the speaker with curious intensity, and
had noticed the little huddled old man with the plate over his face
harking to the barbarous story with avid enjoyment. Whether it was the
great dank gloomy house or the disturbing effects of love upon his
nervous system he did not know, but the idea of groping round in the
dark with the malignant-looking dagger filled him with a distaste more
vigorous than anything he had ever felt before. He had an impression,
also, that Wyatt was not too attracted by the idea, but in the face of
the unanimous enthusiasm of the rest of the party he could do nothing
but fall in with the scheme.
Wyatt looked at his uncle.
‘But certainly, my dear boy, why should I?’ The old man seemed to be
replying to an unspoken question. ‘Let us consider it a blessing that
so innocent and pleasing an entertainment can arise from something
that must at one time have been very terrible.’
Abbershaw glanced at him sharply. There had been a touch of something
in the voice that did not ring quite true, something hypocritical –
insincere. Colonel Coombe glanced at the men on either side of him.
‘I don’t know . . .’ he began dubiously.
Gideon spoke at once: it was the first time Abbershaw had heard his
voice, and it struck him unpleasantly. It was deep, liquid, and
curiously caressing, like the purring of a cat.
‘To take part in such an ancient ceremony would be a privilege,’ he
said.
The man who had no expression bowed his head.
‘I too,’ he said, a trace of foreign accent in his voice, ‘would be
delighted.’
Once the ritual had been decided upon, preparations went forward with
all ceremony and youthful enthusiasm. The man-servant was called in,
and his part in the proceedings explained carefully. He was to let
down the great iron candle-ring, extinguish the lights, and haul it up
to the ceiling again. The lights in the hall were to be put out also,
and he was then to retire to the servants’ quarters and wait there
until the dinner-gong sounded, at which time he was to return with
some of the other servants and relight the candles with all speed.
He was a big man with a chest like a prize-fighter and a heavy florid
face with enormous pale-blue eyes which had in them an innately sullen
expression. A man who could become very unpleasant if the occasion
arose, Abbershaw reflected inconsequentially.
As head of the family, Wyatt the last of the Petries took command of
the proceedings. He had the manner, Abbershaw considered, of one who
did not altogether relish his position. There was a faintly unwilling
air about everything he did, a certain over-deliberation in all his
instructions which betrayed, the other thought, a distaste for his
task.
At length the signal was given. With a melodramatic rattle of chains
the great iron candle-ring was let down and the lights put out, so
that the vast hall was in darkness save for the glowing fires at each
end of the room. Gideon and the man with the face like Beethoven had
joined the circle round the doorway to the corridors, and the last
thing George Abbershaw saw before the candles were extinguished was
the little wizened figure of Colonel Coombe sitting in his chair in
the shadow of the fire-place smiling out upon the scene from behind
the hideous flesh-coloured plate. Then he followed the others into the
dim halls and corridors of the great eerie house, and the Black Dudley
Ritual began.