"On the morning after you had left us I had a long letter from Phyllis,"
continued Allen. "In it she told me of an extraordinary request my
father had made to her during that moonlight walk--nothing more nor less
than an earnest wish that she would herself terminate our engagement.
She spoke quite frankly, as she always does, assuring me of her
unalterable love and devotion, but saying that under the circumstances
it was absolutely necessary to have an explanation. Frantic with almost
ungovernable rage, I sought my father in his study. I laid Phyllis's
letter before him and asked him what it meant. He looked at me with the
most unutterable expression of weariness and pathos.
"'Yes, my boy, I did it,' he said. 'Phyllis is quite right. I did ask of
her, as earnestly as a very old man could plead, that she would bring
the engagement to an end.'
"'But why?' I asked. 'Why?'
"'That I am unable to tell you,' he replied.
"I lost my temper and said some words to him which I now regret. He made
no sort of reply. When I had done speaking he said slowly,--
"'I make all allowance for your emotion, Allen; your feelings are no
more than natural.'
"'You have done me a very sore injury,' I retorted. 'What can Phyllis
think of this? She will never be the same again. I am going to see her
to-day.'
"He did not utter another word, and I left him. I was absent from home
for about a week. It took me nearly that time to induce Phyllis to
overlook my father's extraordinary request, and to let matters go on
exactly as they had done before.
"After fixing our engagement, if possible, more firmly than ever, and
also arranging the date of our wedding, I returned home. When I did so I
told my father what I had done.
"'As you will,' he replied, and then he sank into great gloom. From that
moment, although I watched him day and night, and did everything that
love and tenderness could suggest, he never seemed to rally. He scarcely
spoke, and remained, whenever we were together, bowed in deep and
painful reverie. A week ago he took to his bed."
Here Allen paused.
"I now come to events up to date," he said. "Of course, as you may
suppose, I was with my father to the last. A few hours before he passed
away he called me to his bedside, and to my astonishment began once more
talking about my engagement. He implored me with the utmost earnestness
even now at the eleventh hour to break it off. It was not too late, he
said, and added further that nothing would give him ease in dying but
the knowledge that I would promise him to remain single. Of course I
tried to humour him. He took my hand, looked me in the eyes with an
expression which I shall never forget, and said,--
"'Allen, make me a solemn promise that you will never marry.'
"This I naturally had to refuse, and then he told me that, expecting my
obstinacy, he had written me a letter which I should find in his safe,
but I was not to open it till after his death. I found it this morning.
Bell, it is the most extraordinary communication, and either it is
entirely a figment of his imagination, for his brain powers were failing
very much at the last, or else it is the most awful thing I ever heard
of. Here is the letter; read it for yourself."
I took the paper from his hand and read the following matter in shaky,
almost illegible writing:--
"My dear Boy,--When you read this I shall have passed away. For
the last six months my life has been a living death. The horror
began in the following way. You know what a deep interest I have
always taken in the family history of our house. I have spent the
latter years of my life in verifying each detail, and my
intention was, had health been given me, to publish a great deal
of it in a suitable volume.
"On the special night to which I am about to allude, I sat up
late in my study reading the book which I saw you show to Bell a
short time ago. In particular, I was much attracted by the
terrible curse which the old abbot in the fourteenth century had
bestowed upon the family. I read the awful words again and again.
I knew that all the other details in the volume had been
verified, but that the vault with the coffin had never yet been
found. Presently I grew drowsy, and I suppose I must have fallen
asleep. In my sleep I had a dream; I thought that some one came
into the room, touched me on the shoulder, and said 'Come.' I
looked up; a tall figure beckoned to me. The voice and the figure
belonged to my late father. In my dream I rose immediately,
although I did not know why I went nor where I was going. The
figure went on in front, it entered the hall. I took one of the
candles from the table and the key of the chapel, unbolted the
door and went out. Still the voice kept saying 'Come, come,' and
the figure of my father walked in front of me. I went across the
quadrangle, unlocked the chapel door, and entered.
"A death-like silence was around me. I crossed the nave to the
north aisle; the figure still went in front of me; it entered the
great pew which is said to be haunted, and walked straight up to
the effigy of the old abbot who had pronounced the curse. This,
as you know, is built into the opposite wall. Bending forward,
the figure pressed the eyes of the old monk, and immediately a
stone started out of its place, revealing a staircase behind. I
was about to hurry forward, when I must have knocked against
something. I felt a sensation of pain, and suddenly awoke. What
was my amazement to find that I had acted on my dream, had
crossed the quadrangle, and was in the chapel; in fact, was
standing in the old pew! Of course there was no figure of any
sort visible, but the moonlight shed a cold radiance over all the
place. I felt very much startled and impressed, but was just
about to return to the house in some wonder at the curious vision
which I had experienced, when, raising my startled eyes, I saw
that part of it at least was real. The old monk seemed to grin at
me from his marble effigy, and beside him was a _blank open
space_. I hurried to it and saw a narrow flight of stairs. I
cannot explain what my emotions were, but my keenest feeling at
that moment was a strong and horrible curiosity. Holding the
candle in my hand, I went down the steps. They terminated at the
beginning of a long passage. This I quickly traversed, and at
last found myself beside an iron door. It was not locked, but
hasped, and was very hard to open; in fact, it required nearly
all my strength; at last I pulled it open towards me, and there
in a small cell lay the coffin, as the words of the curse said. I
gazed at it in horror. I did not dare to enter. It was a wedged-
shaped coffin studded with great nails. But as I looked my blood
froze within me, for slowly, very slowly, as if pushed by some
unseen hand, the great heavy door began to close, quicker and
quicker, until with a crash that echoed and re-echoed through the
empty vault, it shut.
"Terror-stricken, I rushed from the vault and reached my room
once more.
"Now I know that this great curse is true; that my father's
spirit is there to guard the door and close it, for I saw it with
my own eyes, and while you read this know that I am there. I
charge you, therefore, not to marry--bring no child into the
world to perpetuate this terrible curse. Let the family die out
if you have the courage. It is much, I know, to ask; but whether
you do or not, come to me there, and if by sign or word I can
communicate with you I will do so, but hold the secret safe. Meet
me there before my body is laid to rest, when body and soul are
still not far from each other. Farewell.
"--Your loving father,
"Henry Clinton."
I read this strange letter over carefully twice, and laid it down. For a
moment I hardly knew what to say. It was certainly the most uncanny
thing I had ever come across.
"What do you think of it?" asked Allen at last.
"Well, of course there are only two possible solutions," I answered.
"One is that your father not only dreamt the beginning of this
story--which, remember, he allows himself--but the whole of it."
"And the other?" asked Allen, seeing that I paused.
"The other," I continued, "I hardly know what to say yet. Of course we
will investigate the whole thing, that is our only chance of arriving
at a solution. It is absurd to let matters rest as they are. We had
better try to-night."
Clinton winced and hesitated.
"Something must be done, of course," he answered; "but the worst of it
is Phyllis and her mother are coming here early to-morrow in time for the
funeral, and I cannot meet her--no, I cannot, poor girl!--while I feel
as I do."
"We will go to the vault to-night," I said.
Clinton rose from his chair and looked at me.
"I don't like this thing at all, Bell," he continued. "I am not by
nature in any sense of the word a superstitious man, but I tell you
frankly nothing would induce me to go alone into that chapel to-night;
if you come with me, that, of course, alters matters. I know the pew my
father refers to well; it is beneath the window of St. Sebastian."
Soon afterwards I went to my room and dressed; and Allen and I dined
_tete-a-tete_ in the great dining-room. The old butler waited on us
with funereal solemnity, and I did all I could to lure Clinton's
thoughts into a more cheerful and healthier channel.
I cannot say that I was very successful. I further noticed that he
scarcely ate anything, and seemed altogether to be in a state of nervous
tension painful to witness.
After dinner we went into the smoking-room, and at eleven o'clock I
proposed that we should make a start.
Clinton braced himself together and we went out. He got the chapel keys,
and then going to the stables we borrowed a lantern, and a moment
afterwards found ourselves in the sacred edifice. The moon was at her
full, and by the pale light which was diffused through the south windows
the architecture of the interior could be faintly seen. The Gothic
arches that flanked the centre aisle with their quaint pillars, each
with a carved figure of one of the saints, were quite visible, and
further in the darkness of the chancel the dim outlines of the choir and
altar-table with its white marble reredos could be just discerned.
We closed the door softly and, Clinton leading the way with the lantern,
we walked up the centre aisle paved with the brasses of his dead
ancestors. We trod gently on tiptoe as one instinctively does at night.
Turning beneath the little pulpit we reached the north transept, and
here Clinton stopped and turned round. He was very white, but his voice
was quiet.
"This is the pew," he whispered. "It has always been called the haunted
pew of Sir Hugh Clinton."
I took the lantern from him and we entered. I crossed the pew
immediately and went up to the effigy of the old abbot.
"Let us examine him closely," I said. I held up the lantern, getting it
to shine on each part of the face, the vestments, and the figure. The
eyes, although vacant, as in all statuary, seemed to me at that moment
to be uncanny and peculiar. Giving Allen the lantern to hold, I placed a
finger firmly on each. The next moment I could not refrain from an
exclamation; a stone at the side immediately rolled back, revealing the
steps which were spoken of by the old man in his narrative.
"It is true! It is true!" cried Clinton excitedly.
"It certainly looks like it," I remarked: "but never mind, we have the
chance now of investigating this matter thoroughly."
"Are you going down?" asked Clinton.
"Certainly I am," I replied. "Let us go together."
Immediately afterwards we crept through the opening and began to
descend. There was only just room to do so in single file, and I went
first with the lantern. In another moment we were in the long passage,
and soon we were confronted by a door in an arched stone framework. Up
till now Clinton had shown little sign of alarm, but here, at the
trysting-place to which his father's soul had summoned him, he seemed
suddenly to lose his nerve. He leant against the wall and for a moment I
thought he would have fallen. I held up the lantern and examined the
door and walls carefully. Then approaching I lifted the iron latch of
the heavy door. It was very hard to move, but at last by seizing the
edge I dragged it open to its full against the wall of the passage.
Having done so I peered inside, holding the lantern above my head. As I
did so I heard Clinton cry out,--
"Look, look," he said, and turning I saw that the great door had swung
back against me, almost shutting me within the cell.
Telling Clinton to hold it back by force, I stepped inside and saw at my
feet the ghastly coffin. The legend then so far was true. I bent down
and examined the queer, misshapen thing with great care. Its shape was
that of an enormous wedge, and it was apparently made of some dark old
wood, and was bound with iron at the corners. Having looked at it all
round, I went out and, flinging back the door which Clinton had been
holding open, stood aside to watch. Slowly, very slowly, as we both
stood in the passage--slowly, as if pushed by some invisible hand, the
door commenced to swing round, and, increasing in velocity, shut with a
noisy clang.
Seizing it once again, I dragged it open and, while Clinton held it in
that position, made a careful examination. Up to the present I saw
nothing to be much alarmed about. There were fifty ways in which a door
might shut of its own accord. There might be a hidden spring or tilted
hinges; draught, of course, was out of the question. I looked at the
hinges, they were of iron and set in the solid masonry. Nor could I
discover any spring or hidden contrivance, as when the door was wide
open there was an interval of several inches between it and the wall. We
tried it again and again with the same result, and at last, as it was
closing, I seized it to prevent it.
I now experienced a very odd sensation; I certainly felt as if I were
resisting an unseen person who was pressing hard against the door at the
other side. Directly it was released it continued its course. I allow I
was quite unable to understand the mystery. Suddenly an idea struck me.
"What does the legend say?" I asked, turning to Clinton. "'That the soul
is to guard the door, to close it upon the coffin?'"
"Those are the words," answered Allen, speaking with some difficulty.
"Now if that is true," I continued, "and we take the coffin out, the
spirit won't shut the door; if it does shut it, it disproves the whole
thing at once, and shows it to be merely a clever mechanical
contrivance. Come, Clinton, help me to get the coffin out."
"I dare not, Bell," he whispered hoarsely. "I daren't go inside."
"Nonsense, man," I said, feeling now a little annoyed at the whole
thing. "Here, put the lantern down and hold the door back." I stepped in
and, getting behind the coffin, put out all my strength and shoved it
into the passage.
"Now, then," I cried, "I'll bet you fifty pounds to five the door will
shut just the same." I dragged the coffin clear of the door and told him
to let go. Clinton had scarcely done so before, stepping back, he
clutched my arm.
"Look," he whispered; "do you see that it will not shut now? My father
is waiting for the coffin to be put back. This is awful!"
I gazed at the door in horror; it was perfectly true, it remained wide
open, and quite still. I sprang forward, seized it, and now endeavoured
to close it. It was as if some one was trying to hold it open; it
required considerable force to stir it, and it was only with difficulty
I could move it at all. At last I managed to shut it, but the moment I
let go it swung back open of its own accord and struck against the wall,
where it remained just as before. In the dead silence that followed I
could hear Clinton breathing quickly behind me, and I knew he was
holding himself for all he was worth.
At that moment there suddenly came over me a sensation which I had once
experienced before, and which I was twice destined to experience again.
It is impossible to describe it, but it seized me, laying siege to my
brain till I felt like a child in its power. It was as if I were slowly
drowning in the great ocean of silence that enveloped us. Time itself
seemed to have disappeared. At my feet lay the misshapen thing, and the
lantern behind it cast a fantastic shadow of its distorted outline on
the cell wall before me.
"Speak; say something," I cried to Clinton. The sharp sound of my voice
broke the spell. I felt myself again, and smiled at the trick my nerves
had played on me. I bent down and once more laid my hands on the coffin,
but before I had time to push it back into its place Clinton had gone up
the passage like a man who is flying to escape a hurled javelin.
Exerting all my force to prevent the door from swinging back by keeping
my leg against it, I had just got the coffin into the cell and was going
out, when I heard a shrill cry, and Clinton came tearing back down the
passage.
"I can't get out! The stone has sunk into its place! We are locked in!"
he screamed, and, wild with fear, he plunged headlong into the cell,
upsetting me in his career before I could check him. I sprang back to
the door as it was closing. I was too late. Before I could reach it, it
had shut with a loud clang in obedience to the infernal witchcraft.
"You have done it now," I cried angrily. "Do you see? Why, man, we are
buried alive in this ghastly hole!"
The lantern I had placed just inside the door, and by its dim light, as
I looked at him, I saw the terror of a madman creep into Clinton's eyes.
"Buried alive!" he shouted, with a peal of hysterical laughter. "Yes,
and, Bell, it's your doing; you are a devil in human shape!" With a wild
paroxysm of fury he flung himself upon me. There was the ferocity of a
wild beast in his spring. He upset the lantern and left us in total
darkness.
The struggle was short. We might be buried alive, but I was not going to
die by his hand, and seizing him by the throat I pinned him against the
wall.
[Illustration: "It had shut with a loud clang."
A Master of Mysteries.--Page 86]
"Keep quiet," I shouted. "It is your thundering stupidity that has
caused all this. Stay where you are until I strike a match."
I luckily had some vestas in the little silver box which I always carry
on my watch-chain, and striking one I relit the lantern. Clinton's
paroxysm was over, and sinking to the floor he lay there shivering and
cowering.
It was a terrible situation, and I knew that our only hope was for me to
keep my presence of mind. With a great effort I forced myself to think
calmly over what could be done. To shout for help would have been but a
useless waste of breath.
Suddenly an idea struck me. "Have you got your father's letter?" I cried
eagerly.
"I have," he answered; "it is in my pocket."
My last ray of hope vanished. Our only chance was that if he had left it
at the house some one might discover the letter and come to our rescue
by its instructions. It had been a faint hope, and it disappeared
almost as quickly as it had come to me. Without it no one would ever
find the way to the vault that had remained a secret for ages. I was
determined, however, not to die without a struggle for freedom. Taking
the lantern, I examined every nook and cranny of the cell for some other
exit. It was a fruitless search. No sign of any way out could I find,
and we had absolutely no means to unfasten the door from the inner side.
Taking a few short steps, I flung myself again and again at the heavy
door. It never budged an inch, and, bruised and sweating at every pore,
I sat down on the coffin and tried to collect all my faculties.
Clinton was silent, and seemed utterly stunned. He sat still, gazing
with a vacant stare at the door.
The time dragged heavily, and there was nothing to do but to wait for a
horrible death from starvation. It was more than likely, too, that
Clinton would go mad; already his nerves were strained to the utmost.
Altogether I had never found myself in a worse plight.
It seemed like an eternity that we sat there, neither of us speaking a
word. Over and over again I repeated to myself the words of the terrible
curse: "And whoso entereth into the cell shall be the prisoner of the
soul that guardeth the door till it shall let him go." When would the
shapeless form that was inside the coffin let us go? Doubtless when our
bones were dry.
I looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven o'clock. Surely we had
been more than ten minutes in this awful place! We had left the house at
eleven, and I knew that must have been many hours ago. I glanced at the
second hand. _The watch had stopped._
"What is the time, Clinton?" I asked. "My watch has stopped."
"What does it matter?" he murmured. "What is time to us now? The sooner
we die the better."
He pulled out his watch as he spoke, and held it to the lantern.
"Twenty-five minutes past eleven," he murmured dreamily.
"Good heavens!" I cried, starting up. "Has your watch stopped, too?"
Then, like the leap of a lightning flash, an idea struck me.
"I have got it; I have got it! My God! I believe I have got it!" I
cried, seizing him by the arm.
"Got what?" he replied, staring wildly at me.
"Why, the secret--the curse--the door. Don't you see?"
I pulled out the large knife I always carry by a chain and swivel in my
trouser pocket, and telling Clinton to hold the lantern, opened the
little blade-saw and attacked the coffin with it.
"I believe the secret of our deliverance lies in this," I panted,
working away furiously.
In ten minutes I had sawn half through the wooden edge, then, handing my
tool to Clinton, I told him to continue the work while I rested. After a
few minutes I took the knife again, and at last, after nearly half an
hour had gone by, succeeded in making a small hole in the lid.
Inserting my two fingers, I felt some rough, uneven masses. I was now
fearfully excited. Tearing at the opening like a madman, I enlarged it
and extracted what looked like a large piece of coal. I knew in an
instant what it was. It was magnetic iron-ore. Holding it down to my
knife, the blade flew to it.
"Here is the mystery of the soul," I cried; "now we can use it to open
the door."
I had known a great conjurer once, who had deceived and puzzled his
audience with a box trick on similar lines: the man opening the box from
the inside by drawing down the lock with a magnet. Would this do the
same? I felt that our lives hung on the next moment. Taking the mass, I
pressed it against the door just opposite the hasp, and slid it up
against the wood. My heart leapt as I heard the hasp fly up outside, and
with a push the door opened.
"We are saved," I shouted. "We are saved by a miracle!"
"Bell, you are a genius," gasped poor Clinton; "but now, how about the
stone at the end of the passage?"
"We will soon see about that," I cried, taking the lantern. "Half the
danger is over, at any rate; and the worst half, too."
We rushed along the passage and up the stair until we reached the top.
"Why, Clinton," I cried, holding up the lantern, "the place was not shut
at all."
Nor was it. In his terror he had imagined it.
"I could not see in the dark, and I was nearly dead with fright," he
said. "Oh, Bell, let us get out of this as quickly as we can!"
We crushed through the aperture and once more stood in the chapel. I
then pushed the stone back into its place.
Dawn was just breaking when we escaped from the chapel. We hastened
across to the house. In the hall the clock pointed to five.
"Well, we have had an awful time," I said, as we stood in the hall
together; "but at least, Clinton, the end was worth the ghastly terror.
I have knocked the bottom out of your family legend for ever."
"I don't even now quite understand," he said.
"Don't you?--but it is so easy. That coffin never contained a body at
all, but was filled, as you perceive, with fragments of magnetic
iron-ore. For what diabolical purposes the cell was intended, it is, of
course, impossible to say; but that it must have been meant as a human
trap there is little doubt. The inventor certainly exercised no small
ingenuity when he devised his diabolical plot, for it was obvious that
the door, which was made of iron, would swing towards the coffin
wherever it happened to be placed. Thus the door would shut if the
coffin were _inside the cell_, and would remain open if the coffin were
_brought out_. A cleverer method for simulating a spiritual agency it
would be hard to find. Of course, the monk must have known well that
magnetic iron-ore never loses its quality and would ensure the deception
remaining potent for ages."
"But how did you discover by means of our watches?" asked Clinton.
"Any one who understands magnetism can reply to that," I said. "It is a
well-known fact that a strong magnet plays havoc with watches. The fact
of both our watches going wrong first gave me a clue to the mystery."
Later in the day the whole of this strange affair was explained to Miss
Curzon, and not long afterwards the passage and entrance to the chapel
were bricked up.
It is needless to add that six months later the pair were married, and,
I believe, are as happy as they deserve.