known career, and it is not easy to fill it up. And this brings us to
that fatal night at Wiesbaden, when ill-starred Jack Redcar met the
enchantress on the hotel stairs. From that point to the moment when,
her rôle being finished, she disappeared for ever from the ken of men,
the reader of the story can fill in for himself. She played out her
last act under the name of Annette. In selecting her many names she
seemed actuated by a fine sense of poetic euphony, and in selecting her
victims she was guided by a ‘damnable’ discrimination.
‘Annette,’ as we will now call her, was a human riddle, and she
illustrates for the millionth time the trite adage that ‘Truth is
stranger than Fiction,’ besides which she presents the world with an
object lesson in the study of the occult.
III
THE CORPSE LIGHT
My name is John Patmore Lindsay. By profession I am a medical man, and
a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Member of the Royal
College of Physicians, London. I am also the author of numerous medical
works, the best known, perhaps, being ‘How to Keep in Good Health and
Live Long.’ I was educated at one of the large public schools, and took
my degree at Oxford. I have generally been regarded as ‘a hard-headed
man,’ and sceptical about all phenomena that were not capable of
being explained by rational and known laws. Mysticism, occultism,
spiritualism, and the like only served to excite my ridicule; and I
entertained anything but a flattering opinion of those people who
professed belief in such things. I was pleased to think it argued a
weakness of mind.
I have referred to the few foregoing facts about myself because I
wish to make it clear that I do not belong to that class of nervous
and excitable people who fall a prey to their own fancies; conjure up
shapes and scenes out of their imaginings, and then vow and declare
that they have been confronted with stern realities. What I am about
to relate is so marvellous, so weird and startling, that I am fain
to begin my story in a half apologetic way; and even now, as I dwell
upon it all, I wonder why I of all men should have been subjected to
the unnatural and unearthly influence. But so it is, and though in a
sense I am only half convinced, I no longer scoff when somebody reminds
me that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our
philosophy.
But to my story, and when it is told the reader can judge for himself
how powerful must have been the effect of what I witnessed, when it
could induce a man of my mental fibre to commit to paper so astounding
a narrative as the one I now pen. It is about twenty years ago that I
took up a practice in the old-fashioned and picturesque little town of
Brinton-on-sea. At that time there was no railway into Brinton, the
nearest station being some seven or eight miles away. The result was,
the town still retained a delightful old-time air, while the people
were as primitive and old-fashioned as their town. Nevertheless,
Brinton was far ahead of its neighbours, and, though in a purely
agricultural district, was enterprising and business-like, while its
weekly Tuesday market brought an enormous influx of the population of
the district for miles around, and very large sums of money changed
hands. Being the chief town of the parish, and boasting of a very
curious and ancient church, and a still more ancient market cross, to
say nothing of several delightful old hostelries, and a small though
excellent museum of local curiosities, consisting principally of Roman
remains and fossils, for which the district was renowned, it attracted
not only the antiquary and the gourmand, but artists, tourists, and
lovers of the picturesque, as well as those in search of quietude and
repose. The nearest village was High Lea, about three miles away.
Between the two places was a wide sweep of magnificent rolling down,
delightful at all times, but especially so in the summer. Many an
ancient farmhouse was dotted about, with here and there a windmill.
The down on the seaside terminated in a high headland, from which a
splendid lighthouse sent forth its warning beams over the fierce North
Sea. Second only in conspicuousness to this lighthouse was an old and
half-ruined windmill, known all over the country side as ‘The Haunted
Mill.’
When I first went to live in Brinton this mill early attracted my
attention, for it was one of the most picturesque old places of its
kind I had ever seen; and as I had some artistic instincts, and could
sketch with, as my too flattering friends said, ‘no mean ability,’
the haunted mill appealed to me. It stood on rising ground, close to
the high-road that ran between Brinton and High Lea. I gathered that
there had been some dispute about the ownership, and, as is usually the
case, the suckers of the harpies of the law had fastened upon it, so to
speak, and drained all its vitality away after the manner of lawyers
generally. The old-fashioned, legal luminaries of the country were a
slow-going set, and for over a quarter of a century that disputed claim
had remained unsettled; and during that long period the old mill had
been gradually falling into ruin. The foundations had from some cause
sunk, throwing the main building out of the perpendicular. Part of the
roof had fallen in, and the fierce gales of a quarter of a century had
battered the sails pretty well to match-wood. A long flight of wooden
steps led up to the principal door, but these steps had rotted away in
places, and the door itself had partly fallen inwards. Needless to say,
this mill had become the home of bats and owls, and, according to the
yokels, of something more fearsome than either. It was a forlorn and
mournful-looking place, anyway, even in the full blaze of sunshine;
but seen in moonlight its appearance was singularly weird, and well
calculated to beget in the rustic mind a feeling of horror, and to
produce a creepy and uncanny sensation in anyone susceptible to the
influence of _outre_ appearances. To me it did not appeal in any of
these aspects. I saw in it only subject matter for an exceedingly
effective picture, and yet I am bound to confess that even when
transferred to board or canvas there was a certain grim suggestiveness
of things uncanny, and I easily understood how the superstitious and
unreasoning rustic mind was awed into a belief that this mouldering old
mill was haunted by something more creepy and harrowing than bats and
owls. Anyway, I heard wonderful tales, at which I laughed, and when I
learned that the country people generally gave the mill a wide berth
at night, I blamed them for their stupidity. But it was a fact that
worthy, and in other respects intelligent, farmers and market folk
coming or going between Brinton and High Lea after dark preferred the
much longer and dangerous route by the sea cliffs, even in the wildest
weather.
I have dwelt thus long on the ‘Haunted Mill’ because it bulks largely
in my story, as will presently be seen, and I came in time to regard it
with scarcely less awe than the rustics did.
It was during the second year of my residence in Brinton that a young
man named Charles Royce came home after having been absent at sea
for three years. Royce’s people occupied Gorse Hill Farm, about two
miles to the south of Brinton. Young Charley, a fine, handsome, but
rather wild youngster, had, it appears, fallen desperately in love
with Hannah Trowzell, who was a domestic in the employ of the Rector
of the parish. But Charley’s people did not approve of his choice,
and, thinking to cure him, packed him off to sea, and after an absence
of three years and a month the young fellow, bronzed, hearty, more
rollicking and handsome than ever, returned to his native village. I
had known nothing of Charles Royce or his history up to the day of his
return; but it chanced on that very day I had to pay a professional
visit to the Rectory, and the Rector pressed me to lunch with him.
Greatly interested in all his parishioners, and knowing something of
the private history of most of the families in his district, the rev.
gentleman very naturally fell to talking about young Royce, and he told
me the story, adding, ‘Hannah is a good girl, and I think it’s rather a
pity Charley’s people objected to his courting her. I believe she would
have made him a capital wife.’
‘Has she given him up entirely?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, and is engaged to Silas Hartrop, whose father owns the
fishing smack the “North Sea Beauty.” I’ve never had a very high
opinion of Silas. I’m afraid he is a little too fond of skittles and
beer. However, Hannah seems determined to have him in spite of anything
I can say, so she must take her course. But I hope she will be able
to reform him, and that the marriage will be a happy one. I really
shouldn’t be a bit surprised, however, if the girl took up with her old
lover again, for I have reason to know she was much attached to him,
and I fancy Charley, if he were so minded, could easily influence her
to throw Silas overboard.’
This little story of love and disappointment naturally interested me,
for in a country town the affairs of one’s neighbours are matter of
greater moment than is the case in a big city.
So it came to pass that a few weeks after Charley’s return it was
pretty generally known that, even as the Rector had suggested it might
be, young Royce and pretty Hannah Trowzell were spooning again, and
Silas had virtually been told to go about his business. It was further
known that Silas had taken his dismissal so much to heart that he had
been seeking consolation in the beer-pot. Of course, folk talked a
good deal, and most of them sympathised with Silas, and blamed Hannah.
Very soon it began to be bruited about that Royce’s people no longer
opposed any objections to the wooing, and that in consequence Hannah
and Charley were to become husband and wife at Christmas, that was
in about seven weeks’ time. A month of the time had passed, and the
‘askings’ were up in the parish church, when one day there went forth
a rumour that Charles Royce was missing. Rumour took a more definite
shape a few hours later when it was positively stated that two nights
previously Charles had left his father’s house in high spirits and the
best of health to visit Hannah, and walk with her, as she was going
into the town to make some purchases. On his way he called at the ‘Two
Waggoners,’ a wayside inn, where he had a pint of beer and purchased
an ounce of tobacco. From the time he left the inn, all trace of him
was lost, and he was seen no more. Hannah waited his coming until long
past the appointed hour, and when he failed to put in an appearance,
she became angry and went off to the town by herself. Next day her
anger gave place to anxiety when she learnt that he had left his home
to visit her, and had not since returned; and anxiety became alarm
when two and three days slipped by without bringing any tidings of
the truant. On the night that he left his home, the weather was very
tempestuous, and it had been wild and stormy since. It was therefore
suggested that on leaving the ‘Two Waggoners’ he might have got
confused when he reached the common, which he had to cross to get to
the Rectory; and as there were several pools and treacherous hollows on
the common, it was thought he had come to grief, but the most diligent
search failed to justify the surmise.
Such an event as this was well calculated to cause a sensation, not
only in Brinton and its neighbourhood, but throughout the county.
Indeed, for many days it was a common topic of conversation, and at
the Brinton weekly market the farmers and the rustics dwelt upon it to
the exclusion of other things; and, of course, everybody, or nearly
everybody, had some wonderful theory of his or her own to account for
the missing man’s disappearance. One old lady, who every week for
twenty years had trudged in from a village five miles off with poultry
and eggs for the Brinton market, declared her belief that young Royce
had been spirited away, and she recommended an appeal to a wondrous
wise woman, locally known as ‘Cracked Moll,’ but whose reputation for
solving mysteries and discovering lost persons and things was very
great. Ultimately Royce’s people did call in the services of this
ancient fraud, but without any result. And despite wide publicity
and every effort on the part of the rural and county police, to say
nothing of a hundred and one amateur detectives, the mystery remained
unsolved. Charles Royce had apparently disappeared from off the face of
the earth, leaving not a trace behind.
In the process of time the nine days’ wonder gave place to something
else, and excepting by those directly interested in him, Charles Royce
was forgotten. Hannah took the matter very seriously to heart, and for
a while lay dangerously ill. Silas Hartrop, who was much affected by
his disappointment with regard to Hannah, went to the dogs, as the
saying is, and drank so heavily that it ended in an attack of delirium
tremens. I was called in to attend him, and had hard work to pull him
through. On his recovery his father sent him to an uncle at Yarmouth,
who was in the fishing trade, and soon afterwards news came that young
Hartrop had been drowned at sea. He was out in the North Sea in his
uncle’s fishing smack, and, though nobody saw him go, it was supposed
that he fell overboard in the night. This set the local tongues wagging
again for a time, but even the affairs of Brinton could not stand still
because the ne’er-do-weel Silas Hartrop was drowned. So sympathy was
expressed with his people, and then the affair was dismissed.
About two years later I received an urgent message late one afternoon
to hasten with all speed to High Lea, to attend to the Squire there,
who had been taken suddenly and, as report said, seriously ill. I had
had rather a heavy day of it, as there had been a good deal of sickness
about for some time past, and it had taken me several hours to get
through my list of patients. I had just refreshed myself with a cup of
tea and was about to enjoy a cigar when the messenger came. Telling him
to ride back as quickly as possible and say that I was coming, I busied
myself with a few important matters which had to be attended to, as I
might be absent for some hours, and then I ordered my favourite mare,
Princess, to be saddled.
I set off from Brinton soon after seven. It was a November night,
bitterly cold, dark as Erebus, while every now and then violent squalls
swept the land from seaward. Princess knew the road well, so I gave
the mare her head, and she went splendidly until we reached the ruined
mill, when suddenly she wheeled round with such abruptness that, though
I was a good horseman, I was nearly pitched from the saddle. At the
same moment I was struck in the face by something that seemed cold and
clammy. I thought at first it was a bat, but remembered that bats do
not fly in November; an owl, but an owl would not have felt cold and
clammy. However, I had little time for thought, as my attention had to
be given to the mare. She seemed disposed to bolt, and was trembling
with fear. Then, to my intense astonishment, I noticed what seemed to
be a large luminous body lying on the roadway. It had the appearance
of a corpse illuminated in some wonderful and mysterious manner. Had
it not been for the fright of my mare I should have thought I was the
victim of some optical delusion; but Princess evidently saw the weird
object, and refused to pass it. So impressed was I with the idea that
a real and substantial body was lying on the road, notwithstanding the
strange unearthly light, that I slipped from the saddle, intending to
investigate the matter, when suddenly it disappeared, and the cold and
clammy _something_ again struck me in the face.
I confess that for the first time in my life I felt a strange, nervous,
unaccountable fear. I say ‘unaccountable’ because it would have been
difficult for me to have given any explanation of my fear. Why and of
what was I afraid? Now, whatever the phenomenon was, there was the
hard, stern fact to face that my horse had seen what I had seen, and
was terrified. There was something strangely uncanny about the whole
business, and when a terrific squall, bringing with it sleet and rain,
came howling from the sea, it seemed to emphasise the uncanniness,
and the ruined mill, looming gaunt and grim in the darkness, caused
me to shake with an involuntary shudder. The next moment I was trying
to laugh myself out of my nervousness. ‘Princess and I,’ I mentally
argued, ‘have been the victims of some atmospheric delusion.’ That was
all very well, but the _something_ cold and clammy that struck me in
the face, and which _may_ have struck the mare in the face also, was
no atmospheric delusion. With an alacrity I did not often display, I
sprang into the saddle, spoke some encouraging words to the mare, for
she was still trembling, and when she bounded forward, and the haunted
mill was behind me, I experienced a positive sense of relief.
I found my patient at High Lea in a very bad way. He was suffering from
an attack of apoplexy, and though I used all my skill on his behalf
he passed away towards midnight. His wife very kindly offered me a bed
for the night, but as I had important matters to attend to early in the
morning I declined the hospitality, though I was thankful for a glass
or two of generous port wine and some sandwiches. It was half-past
twelve when I left the house on my return journey. The incident by the
haunted mill had been put out of my head by the case I had been called
upon to attend, but as I mounted my mare the groom, who had brought her
round from the stable, said, ‘It be a bad night, doctor, for riding;
the kind o’ night when dead things come out o’ their graves.’
I laughed, and replied:
‘Tom, lad, I am surprised to hear you talk such rubbish. I thought you
had more sense than that.’
‘Well, I tell ’ee what, doctor; if I had to ride to Brinton to-night
I’d go by the cliffs and chance being drowned, rather than pass yon old
mill.’
These words for the moment unnerved me, and I honestly confess that I
resolved to go by the cliffs, dangerous as the road was in the dark.
Nevertheless, I laughed at Tom’s fears, and ridiculed him, though
when I left the squire’s grounds I turned the mare’s head towards the
cliffs. In a few minutes I was ridiculing myself.
‘John Patmore Lindsay,’ I mentally exclaimed, ‘you are a fool. All your
life you have been ridiculing stories of the supernatural, and now, at
your time of life, are you going to allow yourself to be frightened by
a bogey? Shame on you.’
I bucked up, grew bold, and thereupon altered my course, and got into
the high-road again.
There had been a slight improvement in the weather. It had ceased to
rain, but the wind had settled down into a steady gale, and screeched
and screamed over the moorland with a demoniacal fury. The darkness,
however, was not so intense as it was, and a star here and there was
visible through the torn clouds. But it was an eerie sort of night,
and I was strangely impressed with a sense of my loneliness. It was
absolutely unusual for me to feel like this, and I suggested to myself
that my nerves were a little unstrung by overwork and the anxiety
the squire’s illness had caused me. And so I rode on, bowing my head
to the storm, while the mare stepped out well, and I anticipated
that in little more than half an hour I should be snug in bed. As we
got abreast of the haunted mill the mare once more gibbed, and all
but threw me, and again I was struck in the face by the cold clammy
_something_.
I have generally prided myself on being a bold man, but my boldness had
evaporated now, and I almost think my hair rose on end as I observed
that the illuminated corpse was lying in the roadway again; but now it
appeared to be surrounded by a lake of blood. It was the most horrible,
weird, marrow-curdling sight that ever human eyes looked upon. I tried
to urge Princess forward, but she was stricken with terror, and,
wheeling right round, was setting off towards High Lea again. But once
more I was struck in the face by the invisible _something_, and its
coldness and clamminess made me shudder, while there in front of us lay
the corpse in the pool of blood. The mare reared and plunged, but I got
her head round, determining to make a wild gallop for Brinton and leave
the horrors of the haunted mill behind. But the corpse was again in
front of us, and I shrank back almost appalled as the _something_ once
more touched my face.
I cannot hope to describe what my feelings were at this supreme moment.
I don’t believe anything human could have daunted me; but I was
confronted by a supernatural mystery that not only terrified me but the
mare I was riding. Whichever way I turned, that awful, ghastly object
confronted me, and the blow in the face was repeated again and again.
How long I endured the unutterable horrors of the situation I really
don’t know. Possibly the time was measured by brief minutes. It seemed
to me hours. At last my presence of mind returned. I dismounted, and
reasoned with myself that, whatever the apparition was, it had some
import. I soothed the mare by patting her neck and talking to her, and
I determined then to try and find a solution of the mystery. But now a
more wonderful thing happened. The corpse, which was still made visible
by the unearthly light, rose straight up, and as it did so the blood
seemed to flow away from it in great, gurgling streams, for I solemnly
declare that I distinctly heard gurgling sounds. The figure glided
past me, and a sense of extraordinary coldness made me shiver. Slowly
and gracefully the shining corpse glided up the rotting steps of the
old mill, and disappeared through the doorway. No sooner had it gone
than the mill itself seemed to glow with phosphorescent light, and to
become transparent, and I beheld a sight that took my breath away. I
am disposed to think that for some moments my brain became so numbed
that insensibility ensued, for I am conscious of a blank. When the
power of thought returned, I was still holding the bridle of the mare,
and she was cropping the grass at her feet. The mill loomed blackly
against the night sky. It had resumed its normal appearance again. The
wind shrieked about it. The ragged scud raced through the heavens, and
the air was filled with the sounds of the raging wind. At first I was
inclined to doubt the evidence of my own senses. I tried to reason
myself into a belief that my imagination had played me a trick; but I
didn’t succeed, although the mystery was too profound for my fathoming.
So I mounted the mare, urged her to her fastest pace, galloped into
Brinton, and entered my house with a feeling of intense relief.
Thoroughly exhausted by the prolonged physical and mental strain I had
endured, I speedily sank into a deep though troubled slumber as soon as
I got into bed. I was unusually late in rising the next day. I found
that I had no appetite for breakfast. Indeed, I felt ill and out of
sorts; and, though I busied myself with my professional duties, I was
haunted by the strange incidents of the preceding night. Never before
in the whole course of my career had I been so impressed, so unnerved,
and so dispirited. I wanted to believe that I was still as sceptical
as ever, but it was no use. What I had seen might have been unearthly;
but I _had seen it_, and it was no use trying to argue myself out of
that fact. The result was, in the course of the afternoon I called on
my old friend, Mr. Goodyear, who was chief of the county constabulary.
He was a strong-minded man, and, like myself, a hardened sceptic about
all things that smacked of the supernatural.
‘Goodyear,’ I said, ‘I’m out of sorts, and I want you to humour a
strange fancy I have. Bring one of your best men, and come with me to
the haunted mill. But first let me exact from you a pledge of honour
that, if our journey should result in nothing, you will keep the matter
secret, as I am very sensitive to ridicule.’
He looked at me in amazement, and then, as he burst into a hearty
laugh, exclaimed:
‘I say, my friend, you are over-working yourself. It’s time you got a
_locum tenens_, and took a holiday.’
I told him that I agreed with him; nevertheless, I begged him to humour
me, and accompany me to the mill. At last he reluctantly consented to
do so, and an hour later we drove out of the town in my dog-cart. There
were four of us, as I took Peter, my groom, with me. We had provided
ourselves with lanterns, but Goodyear’s man and Peter knew nothing of
the object of our journey.