“‘Morrison,’ I repeated, stopping and staring at him. ‘Not Rupert
Morrison, by any chance?’
“‘Yes. Rupert is his name. Do you know him?’
“I’d pulled myself together by this time, and we resumed our stroll.
“‘I know Rupert Morrison quite well,’ I answered. ‘As distance goes in
that country, Jack, he’s a near neighbour of ours’; and I heard him
catch his breath a little quickly.
“‘What sort of a fellow is he?’ asked Jack quietly, and then he went on,
which saved me the trouble of a reply: ‘She hasn’t seen him for four
years. They got engaged before he left England, and now she’s going out
to marry him.’
“‘I see,’ I murmured non-committally, and shortly afterwards I made my
excuse and left him.
“I didn’t turn in at once when I got to my cabin, I wanted to try and
get things sorted out in my mind. The first point, which was as obvious
as the electric light over the bunk, was that if Jack Manderby was not
in love with Molly Felsted he was as near to it as made no odds. The
second and far more important point was one on which I was in the
dark—was the girl in love with him? If so, it simplified matters
considerably; but if not, if she was only playing the fool, there was
going to be trouble when we got to Burma. And the trouble would take the
form of Rupert Morrison. For the more I thought of it the more amazed
did I become that such a girl could ever have become engaged to such a
man.
“Of course, four years is a long time, especially when they are passed
in comparative solitude. I had no idea what sort of fellow Morrison had
been when first he arrived in the country, but I had a very shrewd idea
what manner of man he was now. Perhaps it had been the
loneliness—loneliness takes some men worse than others—but, whatever
the cause, Morrison, after four years in Burma, was no fit mate for such
a girl as Molly Felsted. A brooding, sullen man, given to fierce fits of
almost animal rage, a heavy drinker of the type who is never drunk,
and——”
The Ordinary Man paused and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, it’s unfair to mention the last point. After all, most of us did
that without thinking; but the actual arrival of an English girl—a
wife—who was to step, blindly ignorant, into her predecessor’s shoes,
so to speak, made one pause to think. Anyway, that was neither here nor
there. What frightened me was the prospect of the girl marrying the
Morrison of her imagination and discovering, too late, the Morrison of
reality. When that happened, with Jack Manderby not five miles away, the
fat was going to be in the fire with a vengeance.
“It was after Colombo that matters came to a head. We left the P. & O.
there, and got into another boat going direct to Rangoon. The weather
was glorious—hot as blazes by day, and just right at night. And it was
after dinner one evening a couple of days before we were due in, that
quite inadvertently I butted into the pair of them in a secluded spot on
deck. His arms were round her, and they both sounded a bit incoherent.
Of course, there was no use pretending I hadn’t seen—they both looked
up at me. I could only mutter my apology and withdraw. But I determined,
even at the risk of being told to go to hell, to have a word with young
Jack that night.
“‘Look here, old man,’ I said to him a bit later, ‘you’ve got a perfect
right to request me to mind my own business, but I’m going to risk that.
I saw you two to-night, kissing to beat the band—confound it all, there
wasn’t a dog’s earthly of not seeing you—and what I want to know is
where Morrison comes in, or if he’s gone out?’
“He looked at me a bit shamefacedly, then he lit a cigarette.
“‘Hugh,’ he said, with a twisted sort of smile, ‘I just worship the
ground that girl walks on.’
“‘Maybe you do, Jack,’ I answered. ‘But the point is, what are her
feelings on the matter?’
“He didn’t answer, and after a while I went on.
“‘This show is not my palaver,’ I said ordering two whisky pegs from the
bartender. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, except that you and I are going
to share the same bungalow, which is within easy calling distance of
Morrison’s. Now, Morrison is a funny-tempered fellow, but, apart from
that altogether, the situation seems strained to me. If she breaks off
her engagement with him and marries you, well and good. But if she isn’t
going to do that, if she still intends to marry Morrison—well, then,
old man, although I hold no brief for him, you’re not playing the game.
I’m no sky pilot, but do one thing or the other. Things are apt to
happen, you know, Jack, when one’s at the back of beyond and a fellow
gets playing around with another fellow’s wife—things which might make
an English court of justice sit up and scratch its head.’
“He heard me out in silence, then he nodded his head.
“‘I know it must seem to you that I wasn’t playing the game,’ he said
quietly. ‘But, believe me, it’s not for want of asking on my part that
Molly won’t marry me. And I believe that she’s as fond of me—almost—as
I am of her.’
“‘Then why the——?’ I began, but he stopped me with a weary little
gesture of his hand.
“‘She feels that she’s bound to him in honour,’ he went on. ‘I’ve told
her that there can’t be much question of honour if she doesn’t love him
any more, but she seems to think that, as he has waited four years for
her, she can’t break her bargain. And she’s very fond of him; if it
hadn’t been for fate chucking us together she would never have thought
of not marrying him. To-night we both forgot ourselves, I suppose; it
won’t occur again.’
“He sat back staring out of the port-hole. The smoke-room was empty, and
I fairly let myself go.
“‘You very silly idiot,’ I exploded, ‘do you imagine I’ve been
delivering a homily on the sins of kissing another man’s fiancée. What I
want to get into your fat head is this. You’re going to a place where
the only white woman you’ll see from year’s end to year’s end is that
girl, if she marries Morrison. You can prattle about honour, and
forgetting yourselves, and not letting it occur again, and it’s worth
the value of that used match. Sooner or later it will occur again, and
it won’t stop at kissing next time. And then Morrison will probably kill
you, or you’ll kill him, and there’ll be the devil to pay. For Heaven’s
sake, man, look the thing square in the face. Either marry the girl, or
cut her right out of your life. And you can only do that by cabling the
firm—or I’ll cable them for you from Rangoon—asking to be posted to
another district. I shall be sorry, but I’d far rather lose you than sit
on the edge of a young volcano.’
“I left him to chew over what I’d said and went to bed, feeling
infernally sorry for both of them. But the one fact over which there was
no doubt whatever in my mind was that if Morrison married Molly Felsted,
then Jack Manderby would have to be removed as far as geographically
possible from temptation.
“My remarks apparently had some effect, because the next day Jack
buttonholed me on deck.
“‘I’ve told Molly what you said last night, old man, and we’ve been
talking it over. Morrison is meeting her apparently at Rangoon, and she
has agreed to tell him what has happened. And when he knows how the land
lies it’s bound to be all right. Of course, I’m sorry for him, poor
devil, but——’ and he went babbling on in a way common to those in
love.
“I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention; I was thinking of Morrison and
wondering whether Jack’s optimism was justified. Apart from his
moroseness and drinking, there were other stories about the man—stories
which are not good to hear about a white man. I’d never paid any heed to
them before, but now they came back to me—those rumours of strange
things, which only the ignorant sceptic pretends to scorn; strange
things done in secret with native priests and holy men; strange things
it is not well for the white man to dabble in. And someone had it that
Rupert Morrison did more than dabble.”
The Ordinary Man paused and sipped his whisky.
“He met the boat at Rangoon,” he continued after a while, “and came on
board. Evidently the girl wasted no time in telling him what had
occurred, because it was barely ten minutes before I saw him coming
towards Jack and myself. There was a smouldering look in his eyes, but
outwardly he seemed quite calm. He gave me a curt nod, then he addressed
himself exclusively to Jack.
“‘Miss Felsted has just made a somewhat unexpected announcement to me,’
he remarked.
“Jack bowed gravely. ‘I am more than sorry, Mr. Morrison,’ he said, ‘if
it should appear to you that I have acted in any way caddishly.’ He
paused a little constrainedly and I moved away. The presence of a third
person at such an interview helps nobody. But once or twice I glanced at
them during the next quarter of an hour, and it seemed to me that,
though he was trying to mask it, the look of smouldering fury in
Morrison’s eyes was growing more pronounced. From their attitude it
struck me that Jack was protesting against some course of action on
which the other was insisting, and I turned out to be right.
“‘Morrison has made the following proposal,’ he said irritably to me
when their conversation had finished. ‘That Molly should be left here in
Rangoon with the English chaplain and his wife—apparently he’d fixed
that already—and that we—he and I—should both go up country for a
month or six weeks. Neither of us to see her during that time, and at
the end of it she to be free to choose. As he pointed out, I suppose
quite rightly, he had been engaged to her for more than four years, and
it was rather rough on him to upset everything for what might prove only
a passing fancy, induced by being thrown together on board ship. Of
course, I pointed out to him that this was no question of a passing
fancy—but he insisted.’
“‘And you agreed?’ I asked.
“‘What else could I do?’ he cried. ‘Heaven knows I didn’t want to—it’s
such awful rot and waste of time. But I suppose it is rather rough luck
on the poor devil, and if it makes it any easier for him to have the
agony prolonged a few weeks, it’s up to me to give him that
satisfaction.’
“He went off to talk to the girl, leaving me smoking a cigarette
thoughtfully; for, try as I would, I could not rid my mind of the
suspicion that there was something behind this suggestion of
Morrison’s—something sinister. Fortunately, Jack would be under my
eye—in my bungalow; but even so, I felt uneasy. Morrison had been too
quiet for safety, bearing in mind what manner of man he was.
“We landed shortly after and I went round to the club. I didn’t see
Morrison—he seemed to have disappeared shortly after his interview with
Jack; but he had given the girl full directions as to how to get to the
chaplain’s house. Jack took her there, and I’d arranged with him that he
should come round after and join me.
“The first man I ran into was McAndrew—a leather-faced Scotsman from up
my part of the country—who was down in Rangoon on business.
“‘Seen the bridegroom?’ he grunted as soon as he saw me.
“‘Travelled out with the bride,’ I said briefly, not over-anxious to
discuss the matter.
“‘And what sort of a lassie is she?’ he asked curiously.
“‘Perfectly charming,’ I answered, ringing the bell for a waiter.
“‘Is that so?’ he said slowly, and our eyes met. ‘Man,’ he added still
more slowly, ‘it should not be, it should not be. Poor lassie! Poor
lassie!’
“And then Jack Manderby came in, and I introduced him to two or three
other fellows. I’d arranged to go up country that evening—train to
Mandalay, and ride from there the following morning—and Jack, of
course, was coming with me. He had said good-bye to the girl; he wasn’t
going to see her again before he went up country, and we spent the
latter part of the afternoon pottering round Rangoon. And it was as we
were strolling down one of the native bazaars that he suddenly caught my
arm.
“‘Look—there’s Morrison!’ he muttered. ‘I distinctly saw his face
peering out of that shop.’
“I looked in the direction he was pointing. It was an ordinary native
shop where one could buy ornaments and musical instruments and trash
like that—but of Morrison I could see no sign.
“‘I don’t see him,’ I said; ‘and anyway there is no reason why he
shouldn’t be in the shop if he wants to.’
“‘But he suddenly vanished,’ persisted Jack, ‘as if he didn’t want to be
seen.’ He walked on with me slowly. ‘I don’t like that man, Hugh; I hate
the swine. And it’s not because of Molly, either.’
“He shut up at that, and I did not pursue the topic. It struck me that
we should have quite enough of Morrison in the next few weeks.”
The Ordinary Man paused and lit a cigarette; then he smiled a little
grimly.
“I don’t know what I expected,” he continued thoughtfully: “I certainly
never said a word to Jack as to my vague suspicions. But all the time
during the first fortnight, while he was settling down into the job, I
had the feeling that there was danger in the air. And then, when nothing
happened, my misgivings began to go.
“After all, I said to myself, what could happen, anyway? And perhaps I
had misjudged Rupert Morrison. On the two or three occasions that we met
him he seemed perfectly normal; and though, somewhat naturally, he was
not over effusive to Jack, that was hardly to be wondered at.
“And then one morning Jack came to breakfast looking as if he hadn’t
slept very well. I glanced at him curiously, but made no allusion to his
appearance.
“‘Did you hear that music all through the night?’ he said irritably,
half-way through the meal. ‘Some infernal native playing a pipe or
something just outside my window.’
“‘Why didn’t you shout at him to stop?’ I asked.
“‘I did. And I got up and looked.’ He took a gulp of tea; then he looked
at me as if he were puzzled.
“‘There was no one there that I could see. Only something black that
moved over the compound, about the size of a kitten.’
“‘He was probably just inside the jungle beyond the clearing,’ I said.
‘Heave half a brick at him if you hear it again.’
“We said no more, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. I was on the
opposite side of the bungalow, and it would take more than a native
playing on a pipe to keep me awake. But the following night the same
thing happened—and the next, and the next.
“‘What sort of a noise is it?’ I asked him. ‘Surely to Heaven you’re
sufficiently young and healthy not to be awakened by a bally fellow
whistling?’
“‘It isn’t that that wakes me, Hugh,’ he answered slowly. ‘I wake before
it starts. Each night about the same time I suddenly find myself wide
awake—listening. Sometimes it’s ten minutes before it starts—sometimes
almost at once; but it always comes. A faint, sweet whistle—three or
four notes, going on and on—until I think I’ll go mad. It seems to be
calling me.’
“‘But why the devil don’t you go and see what it is?’ I cried peevishly.
“‘Because’—and he stared at me with a shamefaced expression in his
eyes—‘because I daren’t.’
“‘Rot!’ I said angrily. ‘Look here, young fellow, nerves are bad things
anywhere—here they’re especially bad. You pull yourself together.’
“He flushed all over his face, and shut up like an oyster, which made me
rather sorry I’d spoke so sharply. But one does hear funny noises in the
jungle, and it doesn’t do to become fanciful.
“And then one evening McAndrew came over to dinner. It was during the
meal that I mentioned Jack’s nocturnal serenader, expecting that Mac
would treat it as lightly as I did.
“‘Seven times you’ve heard him, Jack, haven’t you,’ I said, ‘and always
the same tune?’
“‘Always the same tune,’ he answered quietly.
“‘Can you whistle it now?’ asked McAndrew, laying down his knife and
fork and staring at Jack.
“‘Easily,’ said Jack. ‘It goes like this’—and he whistled about six
notes. ‘On and on it goes—never varying——Why, McAndrew, what the
devil is the matter?’
“I glanced at McAndrew in amazement; then out of the corner of my eye I
saw the native servant, who was shivering like a jelly.
“‘Man—are you sure?’ said Mac, and his face was white.
“‘Of course I’m sure,’ answered Jack quietly. ‘Why?’
“‘That tune you whistled—is not good for a white man to hear.’ The
Scotsman seemed strangely uneasy. ‘And ye’ve heard it seven nights? Do
you know it, Walton?’
“‘I do not,’ I said grimly. ‘What’s the mystery?’
“But McAndrew was shaking his head dourly, and for a while he did not
answer.
“‘Mind ye,’ he said at length, ‘I’m not saying there’s anything in it at
all, but I would not care to hear that whistled outside my window. I
heard it once—years ago—when I was ’way up in the Arakan Mountains.
Soft and sweet it was—rising and falling in the night air, and going on
ceaselessly. ’Way up above me was a monastery, one into which no white
man has ever been. And the noise was coming from there. I had to go; my
servants wouldn’t stop. And when I asked them why, they told me that the
priests were calling for a sacrifice. If they stopped, they told me, it
might be one of us. That no one could tell how Death would come, or to
whom, but come it must—when the Pipes of Death were heard. And the tune
you whistled, Manderby, was the tune the Pipes of Death were playing.’
“‘But that’s all bunkum, Mac,’ I said angrily. ‘We’re not in the Arakans
here.’
“‘Maybe,’ he answered doggedly. ‘But I’m a Highlander, and—I would not
care to hear that tune.’
“I could see Jack was impressed; as a matter of fact I was myself—more
than I cared to admit. Sounds rot here, I know, but out there, with the
dim-lit forest around one, it was different.
“McAndrew was stopping with us that night. Jack, with the stubbornness
of the young, had flatly refused to change his room, and turned in
early, while Mac and I sat up talking. And it was not till we went to
bed ourselves that I again alluded to the whistle.
“‘You don’t really think it meant anything, Mac, do you?’ I asked him,
and he shrugged his shoulders.
“‘Maybe it is just a native who has heard it,’ he said guardedly, and
further than that he refused to commit himself.
“I suppose it was about two o’clock when I was awakened by a hand being
thrust through my mosquito curtains.
“‘Walton, come at once!’ It was McAndrew’s voice, and it was shaking.
‘There’s devil’s work going on, I tell you—devil’s work.’
“I was up in a flash, and together we crept along the passage towards
Jack’s room. Almost instinctively I’d picked up a gun, and I held it
ready as we paused by the door.
“‘Do you hear it?’ whispered Mac a little fearfully, and I nodded. Sweet
and clear the notes rose and fell, on and on and on in the same cadence.
Sometimes the whistler seemed to be far away, at others almost in the
room.
“‘It’s the tune,’ muttered McAndrew, as we tiptoed towards the bed. ‘The
Pipes of Death. Are ye awake, boy?’
“And then he gave a little cry and gripped my arm.
“‘In God’s name,’ he whispered, ‘what’s that on the pillow beside his
head?’
“For a while in the dim light I couldn’t make out. There was something
big and black and motionless on the white pillow, and I crept nearer to
see what it was. And then suddenly seemed to stand still. I saw two
beady, unwinking eyes staring at Jack’s face close by; I saw Jack’s eyes
wide open and sick with terror, staring at the thing which shared his
bed. And still the music went on outside.
“‘What is it?’ I muttered through dry lips.
“‘Give me your gun, man,’ whispered McAndrew hoarsely. ‘If the pipes
stop, the boy’s doomed.’
“Slowly he raised the gun an inch at a time, pushing the muzzle forward
with infinite care towards the malignant, glowing eyes, until at last
the gun was almost touching its head. And at that moment the music died
away and stopped altogether. I had the momentary glimpse of two black
feelers shooting out towards Jack’s face—then came the crack of the
gun. And with a little sob Jack rolled out of bed and lay on the floor
half-fainting, while the black mass on the pillow writhed and writhed
and then grew still.
“We struck a light, and stared at what was left of the thing in silence.
And it was Jack who spoke first.
“‘I woke,’ he said unsteadily, ‘to feel something crawling over me on
the bed. Outside that infernal whistling was going on, and at last I
made out what was—what was——My God!’ he cried thickly, ‘what was it,
Mac—what was it?’
“‘Steady, boy!’ said McAndrew. ‘It’s dead now, anyway. But it was touch
and go. I’ve seen ’em bigger than that up in the Arakans. It’s a
bloodsucking, poisonous spider. They’re sacred to some of the sects.’
“Suddenly out of the jungle came one dreadful, piercing cry.
“‘What was that?’ Jack muttered, and McAndrew shook his head.
“‘Well find out to-morrow,’ he said. ‘There are strange things abroad
to-night.’
“We saw the darkness out—the three of us—round a bottle of whisky.
“‘They’ve been trying to get you for a week, Manderby,’ said the
Scotsman. ‘To-night they very near succeeded.’
“‘But why?’ cried Jack. ‘I’ve never done ’em any harm.’
“McAndrew shrugged his shoulders.
“‘Don’t ask me that,’ he answered. ‘Their ways are not our ways.’
“‘Has that brute been in my room every night?’ the boy asked.
“‘Every night,’ answered McAndrew gravely. ‘Probably two of them. They
hunt them in pairs. They starve ’em, and then, when the music stops,
they feed.’ He thoughtfully poured out some more whisky.
“And then at last came the dawn, and we went out to investigate. It was
Jack who found him. The face was puffed and horrible, and as we
approached, something black, about the size of a big kitten, moved away
from the body and shambled sluggishly into the undergrowth.
“‘You’re safe, boy,’ said McAndrew slowly. ‘It was not the priests at
all. Just murder—plain murder.’
“And with that he took his handkerchief and covered the dreadful,
staring eyes of Rupert Morrison.”
_V_ _The Soldier’s Story, being A Bit of Orange Peel_
“YOU can set your minds at rest about one thing, you fellows,” began the
Soldier, with a grin. “My yarn isn’t about the war. There have been
quite enough lies told already about that performance without my adding
to the number. No; my story concerns peace soldiering, and, strangely
enough, I had an ocular demonstration when dining at the Ritz two nights
ago that everything had finished up quite satisfactorily, in the
approved story-book manner. At least, when I say quite
satisfactorily—there was a price, and it was paid by one of the
principal actors. But that is the unchangeable rule: one can but shrug
one’s shoulders and pay accordingly.
“The regiment—I was a squadron-leader at the time—was quartered at
Murchester. Not a bad station at all: good shooting, very fair hunting,
especially if you didn’t scorn the carted stag, polo, and most excellent
cricket. Also some delightful houses in the neighbourhood; and as we’d
just come home from our foreign tour we found the place greatly to our
liking. London was an hour and a bit by train; in fact, there are many
worse stations in England than the spot I have labelled Murchester.
“The only fly in the ointment when we first arrived was a fairly natural
one, and a thing which only time could cure. The men were a bit restive.
We’d been abroad, don’t forget, for more than ten years—India, Egypt,
South Africa—and the feel of the old country under their feet unsettled
’em temporarily. Nothing very bad, but an epidemic of absence without
leave and desertion broke out, and the officers had to settle down to
pull things together. Continual courts-martial for desertion don’t do a
regiment any good with the powers that be, and we had to stop it.
“Of course, one of the first things to look to, when any trouble of that
sort is occurring, is the general type and standard of your N.C.O.’s. In
my squadron they were good, though just a little on the young side. I
remember one day I discussed the matter pretty thoroughly with the
squadron sergeant-major—an absolute top-notcher.
“‘They’re all right, sir,’ he said. ‘In another two or three years there
will be none better in the British Army. Especially Trevor.’
“‘Ah! Sergeant-Major,’ I said, looking him straight in the face, ‘you
think Trevor is a good man, do you?’
“‘The best we’ve got, sir,’ he answered quietly, and he stared straight
back at me.
“‘You weren’t so sure when he first came,’ I reminded him.
“‘Well, I reckon there was a bit of jealousy, sir,’ he replied, ‘his
coming in from the link regiment over a good many of the chaps’ heads.
But he’s been with us now three months—and we know him better.’
“‘I wish I could say the same,’ I answered. ‘He defeats me, does
Sergeant Trevor.’
“The Sergeant-Major smiled quietly. ‘Does he, sir? I shouldn’t have
thought he would have. That there bloke Kipling has written about the
likes of Trevor.’
“‘Kipling has written a good deal about the Army,’ I said, with an
answering smile. ‘Mulvaney and Co. are classics.’
“‘It’s not Mulvaney I’m meaning, sir,’ he answered. ‘But didn’t he write
a little bit of poetry about “Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree”?’
“‘Why, yes, he did.’ I lit a cigarette thoughtfully. ‘I’d guessed that
much, Manfield. Is Trevor his real name?’
“‘I don’t know, sir,’ and at that moment the subject of our discussion
walked past and saluted.
“‘Sergeant Trevor,’ I called after him, on the spur of the moment, and
he came up at the double. I hadn’t anything really to say to him, but
ever since he’d joined us he’d puzzled me, and though, as the
sergeant-major said, the other non-commissioned officers might know him
better, I certainly didn’t.
“‘You’re a bit of a cricketer, aren’t you?’ I said, as he came up.
“A faint smile flickered across his face at my question. ‘I used to play
quite a lot, sir,’ he answered.
“‘Good; we want to get games going really strong.’ I talked with them
both—squadron ‘shop’—a bit longer, and all the time I was trying to
probe behind the impassive mask of Trevor’s face. Incidentally, I think
he knew it; once or twice I caught a faint gleam of amusement in his
eyes—a gleam that seemed to me a little weary. And when I left them and
went across the parade ground towards the mess, his face haunted me. I
hadn’t probed—not the eighth of an inch; he was still as much a mystery
as ever. But he’d got a pair of deep blue eyes, and though I wasn’t a
girl to be attracted by a man’s eyes, I couldn’t get his out of my mind.
They baffled me; the man himself baffled me—and I’ve always disliked
being baffled.
“It was a few nights after, in mess, that the next piece in the puzzle
came along. We had in the regiment—he was killed in the war, poor
devil!—a fellow of the name of Blenton, a fairly senior captain. He
wasn’t in my squadron, and his chief claim to notoriety was as a
cricketer. Had he been able to play regularly he would have been easily
up to first-class form—as it was he periodically turned out for the
county; but he used to go in first wicket down for the Army. So you can
gather his sort of form.
“It was over the port that the conversation cropped up, and it
interested me because it was about Trevor. As far as cricket was
concerned I hardly knew which end of a bat one held.
“‘Dog-face has got a winner,’ I heard Blenton say across the table. I
may say that I answered to that tactful sobriquet, for reasons into
which we need not enter. ‘One Sergeant Trevor in your squadron, old
boy,’ he turned to me. ‘I was watching him at the nets to-night.’
“‘Is he any good?’ I said.
“‘My dear fellow,’ answered Blenton, deliberately, ‘he is out and away
the best bat we’ve had in the regiment for years. He’s up to Army form!’
“‘Who’s that?’ demanded the commanding officer, sitting up and taking
notice at once.
“‘Sergeant Trevor in B squadron, Colonel,’ said Blenton. ‘I was watching
him this evening at nets. Of course, the bowling was tripe, but he’s in
a completely different class to the average soldier cricketer.’
“‘Did you talk to him?’ I asked, curiously.
“‘I did. And he struck me as being singularly uncommunicative. Asked him
where he learnt his cricket, and he hummed and hawed, and finally said
he’d played a lot in his village before joining the Army. I couldn’t
quite make him out, Dog-face. And why the devil didn’t he play for us
out in Jo’burg?’
“‘Because he only joined a couple of months before we sailed,’ I
answered. ‘Came with that last draft we got.’
“‘Well, I wish we had a few more trained in his village,’ said Blenton.
‘We could do with them.’
“After mess, I tackled Philip Blenton in the ante-room.
“‘What’s your candid opinion of Trevor, Philip?’ I demanded.
“He stopped on his way to play bridge, and bit the end off his cigar.
“‘As a cricketer,’ he said, ‘or as a man?’
“‘Both,’ I answered.
“‘Well, my candid opinion is that he learned his game at a first-class
public school,’ he replied. ‘And I am further of the opinion, from the
few words I spoke to him, that one would have expected to find him here
and not in the Sergeants’ Mess. What’s his story? Do you know?’
“‘I don’t,’ I shook my head. ‘Haven’t an idea. But you’ve confirmed my
own impressions.’
“And there I had to leave it for some months. Periodically I talked to
Trevor, deliberately tried to trap him into some admission which would
give me a clue to his past, but he was as wary as a fox and as close as
an oyster. I don’t know why I took the trouble—after all, it was his
business entirely, but the fellow intrigued me. He was such an
extraordinarily fine N.C.O., and there was never a sign of his hitting
the bottle, which is the end of a good many gentlemen-rankers. Moreover,
he didn’t strike me as a fellow who had come a cropper, which is the
usual cause of his kind.
“And then one day, when I least expected it, the problem began to solve
itself. Philip Blenton rang me up in the morning after breakfast, from a
house in the neighbourhood, where he was staying for a couple of two-day
matches. Could I possibly spare Sergeant Trevor for the first of them?
Against the I Z., who had brought down a snorting team, and Carter—the
Oxford blue—had failed the local eleven at the last moment. If I
couldn’t they’d have to rake in one of the gardeners, but they weren’t
too strong as it was.
“So I sent for Trevor, and asked him if he’d care to play. I saw his
eyes gleam for a moment; then he shook his head.
“‘I think not, thank you, sir,’ he said, quietly.
“‘It’s not quite like you to let Captain Blenton down, Trevor,’ I
remarked. ‘He’s relying on you.’
“I knew it was the right note to take with him, and I was very keen on
his playing. I was going out myself that afternoon to watch, and I
wanted to see him in different surroundings. We argued for a bit—I knew
he was as keen as mustard in one way to play—and after a while he said
he would. Then he went out of the office, and as it happened I followed
him. There was an old cracked mirror in the passage outside, and as I
opened the door he had just shut behind him, I had a glimpse of Sergeant
Trevor examining his face in the glass. He’d got his hand so placed that
it blotted out his moustache, and he seemed very intent on his
reflection. Then he saw me, and for a moment or two we stared at one
another in silence. Squadron-leader and troop-sergeant had gone; we were
just two men, and the passage was empty. And I acted on a sudden
impulse, and clapped him on the back.
“‘Don’t be a fool, man,’ I cried. ‘Is there any reason why you shouldn’t
be recognised?’
“‘Nothing shady, Major,’ he answered, quietly. ‘But if one starts on a
certain course, it’s best to go through with it!’
“At that moment the pay-sergeant appeared, and Trevor pulled himself
together, saluted smartly, and was gone.
“I suppose these things are planned out beforehand,” went on the
Soldier, thoughtfully. “To call it all blind chance seems a well-nigh
impossible solution to me. And yet the cynic would assuredly laugh at
connecting a child eating an orange in a back street in Oxford, and the
death while fishing in Ireland of one of the greatest-hearted men that
ever lived. But unless that child had eaten that orange, and left the
peel on the pavement for Carter, the Oxford blue, to slip on and sprain
his ankle, the events I am going to relate would, in all probability,
never have taken place. However, since delving too deeply into cause and
effect inevitably produces insanity, I’d better get on with it.
“I turned up about three o’clock at Crosby Hall, along with four or five
other fellows from the regiment. Usual sort of stunt—marquee and
lemonade, with whisky in the background for the hopeless cases. The I Z.
merchants were in the field, and Trevor was batting. There was an Eton
boy in with him, and the score was two hundred odd for five wickets.
Philip Blenton lounged up as soon as he saw me, grinning all over his
face.
“‘Thank Heaven you let him come, old man! He’s pulled eighty of the best
out of his bag already, and doesn’t look like getting out.’
“‘He wouldn’t come at first, Philip,’ I said, and he stared at me in
surprise. ‘I think he was afraid of being recognised.’
“A burst of applause greeted a magnificent drive past cover-point, and
for a while we watched the game in silence, until another long round of
cheering announced that Sergeant Trevor had got his century. As I’ve
said before, I’m no cricketer, but there was no need to be an expert to
realise that he was something out of the way. He was treating the
by-no-means-indifferent I Z. bowling with the utmost contempt, and old
Lord Apson, our host, was beside himself with joy. He was a cricket
maniac; his week was an annual fixture; and for the first time for many
years he saw his team really putting it across the I Z. And it was just
as I was basking in a little reflected glory that I saw a very dear old
friend of mine arrive in the enclosure, accompanied by a perfectly
charming girl.
“‘Why, Yeverley, old man!’ I cried, ‘how are you?’
“‘Dog-face, as I live!’ he shouted, seizing me by both hands.
‘Man-alive, I’m glad to see you. Let me introduce you to my wife; Doris,
this is Major Chilham—otherwise Dog-face.’
“I shook hands with the girl, who was standing smiling beside him, and
for a while we stopped there talking. He was fifteen years or so older
than I, and had left the service as a Captain, but we both came from the
same part of the country, and in days gone by I’d known him very well
indeed. His marriage had taken place four years previously while I was
abroad, and now, meeting his wife for the first time, I recalled bit by
bit the gossip I’d heard in letters I got from home. How to everyone’s
amazement he’d married a girl young enough to be his daughter; how
everybody had prophesied disaster, and affirmed that she was not half
good enough for one of the elect like Giles Yeverley; how she’d been
engaged to someone else and thrown him over. And yet as I looked at them
both it struck me that the Jeremiahs had as usual been completely wrong:
certainly nothing could exceed the dog-like devotion in Giles’s eyes
whenever he looked at his wife.
“We strolled over to find some easy chairs, and he fussed round her as
if she was an invalid. She took it quite naturally and calmly with a
faint and charming smile, and when he finally bustled away to talk to
Apson, leaving me alone with her, she was still smiling.
“‘You know Giles well?’ she said.
“‘Awfully well,’ I answered. ‘And having now returned from my sojourn in
the wilds, I hope I shall get to know his wife equally well.’
“‘That’s very nice of you, Dog-face’—she turned and looked at me—and,
by Jove, she was pretty. ‘If you’re anything like Giles—you must be a
perfect dear.’
“Now I like that sort of a remark when it’s made in the right way. It
establishes a very pleasant footing at once, with no danger of
miconstruction—like getting on good terms with a new horse the moment
you put your feet in the irons, instead of messing around for half the
hunt. Anyway, for the next ten minutes or so I didn’t pay very much
attention to the cricket. I gathered that there was one small son—Giles
junior—who was the apple of his father’s eye; and that at the moment a
heavy love affair was in progress between the young gentleman aged three
and the General’s daughter, who was as much as four, and showed no shame
over the matter whatever. Also that Giles and she were stopping with the
General and his wife for a week or ten days.
“And it was at that stage of the proceedings that a prolonged burst of
applause made us look at the cricket. Sergeant Trevor was apparently
out—how I hadn’t an idea—and was half-way between the wickets and the
tent next to the one in which we were sitting, and which Apson always
had erected for the local villagers and their friends. I saw them put up
one hundred and twenty-five on the board as Trevor’s score, and did my
share in the clapping line.
“‘A fine player—that fellow,’ I said, following him with my eyes.
‘Don’t know much about the game myself, but the experts tell me——’ And
at that moment I saw her face, and stopped abruptly. She had gone very
white, and her knuckles were gleaming like the ivory on the handle of
her parasol.
“‘Major Chilham,’ she said—and her voice was the tensest thing I’ve
ever heard—‘who is that man who has just come out?’
“‘Trevor is his name,’ I answered, quietly. ‘He’s one of the
troop-sergeants in my squadron.’ I was looking at her curiously, as the
colour slowly came back to her face. ‘Why? Did you think you knew him?’
“‘He reminded me of someone I knew years ago,’ she said, sitting back in
her chair. ‘But of course I must have been mistaken.’
“And then rather abruptly she changed the conversation, though every now
and then she glanced towards the next tent, as if trying to see Trevor.
And sitting beside her I realised that there was something pretty
serious in the wind. She was on edge, though she was trying not to show
it—and Trevor was the cause, or the man who called himself Trevor. All
my curiosity came back, though I made no allusion to him; I was content
to await further developments.
“They weren’t long in coming. The house team, with the respectable total
of three hundred and fifty odd, were all out by tea-time, and both
elevens forgathered in the tent behind. All, that is, except Trevor, who
remained in the other until Apson himself went and pulled him out. I
watched the old man, with his cheery smile, take Trevor by the elbow and
literally drag him out of his chair; I watched Trevor in his blue
undress jacket, smart as be damned, coming towards us with our host. And
then very deliberately I looked at Giles Yeverley’s wife. She was
staring over my head at the two men; then she lowered her parasol.
“‘So you weren’t mistaken after all, Mrs. Giles,’ I said, quietly.
“‘No, Dog-face, I wasn’t,’ she answered. ‘Would you get hold of Giles
for me, and tell him I’d like to get back. Say I’m not feeling very
well.’
“I got up at once and went in search of her husband. I found him talking
to the Zingari captain and Sergeant Trevor. He seemed quite excited,
appealing as he spoke to the I Z. skipper, while Trevor stood by
listening with a faint smile.
“‘What he says is quite right, Sergeant Trevor,’ remarked the Zingari
man as I came up. ‘If you cared to consider it—you are absolutely up to
the best county form. Of course, I don’t know about your residential
qualifications, but that can generally be fixed.’
“‘Dog-face,’ cried Yeverley, as soon as he saw me, ‘he’s in your
squadron, isn’t he? Well, it’s so long since I left the Army that I’ve
forgotten all about discipline—but I tell you here—right now in front
of him—that Sergeant Trevor ought to chuck soldiering and take up
professional cricket. Bimbo here agrees with me.’
“‘Giles, you’ll burst your waistcoat if you get so excited,’ I remarked,
casually. ‘And, incidentally, Mrs. Yeverley wants to go home.’
“As I said the name I looked at Trevor, and my last doubt vanished. He
gave a sudden start, which Giles, who had immediately torn off to his
wife, didn’t see, and proceeded to back into the farthest corner of the
tea-tent. But once again old Apson frustrated him. Not for him the
endless pauses and waits of first-class cricket; five minutes to roll
the pitch and he was leading his team into the field. Trevor had to go
from his sanctuary, and there was only one exit from the enclosure in
front of the tent.
“They met—Mrs. Giles and Trevor—actually at that exit. By the irony of
things, I think it was Giles who caused the meeting. He hurried forward
as he saw Trevor going out, and caught him by the arm; dear old
chap!—he was cricket mad if ever a man was. And so blissfully
unconscious of the other, bigger thing going on right under his nose.
“‘Don’t you forget what I said, Trevor,’ he said, earnestly. ‘Any county
would be glad to have you. I’m going to talk to Major Chilham about it
seriously.’
“And I doubt if Trevor heard a word. Over Giles’s shoulder he was
staring at Giles’s wife—and she was staring back at him, while her
breast rose and fell in little gasps, and it seemed to me that her lips
were trembling. Then it was over; Trevor went out to field—Giles
bustled back to his wife. And I, being a hopeless case, went in search
of alcohol.”
The Soldier paused to light another cigar.
“He carried out his threat, did Giles with regard to me. Two or three
days later I lunched with the General, and it seemed to me that we never
got off the subject of Trevor. It wasn’t only his opinion; had not Bimbo
Lawrence, the I Z. captain, and one of the shrewdest judges of cricket
in England, agreed with him? And so on without cessation about Trevor,
the cricketer, while on the opposite side of the table, next to me, sat
his wife, who could not get beyond Trevor, the man. Once or twice she
glanced at me appealingly, as if to say: ‘For God’s sake, stop
him!’—but it was a task beyond my powers. I made one or two abortive
attempts, and then I gave it up. The situation was beyond me; one could
only let him ramble on and pray for the end of lunch.
“And then he left the cricket and came to personalities.
“‘Know anything about him, Dog-face?’ he asked. ‘Up at old Apson’s place
he struck me as being a gentleman. Anyway, he’s a darned nice fellow.
Wonder why he enlisted?’
“‘Oh, Giles, for goodness’ sake, let’s try another topic?’ said his
wife, suddenly. ‘We’ve had Sergeant Trevor since lunch began.’
“Poor old Giles looked at her in startled surprise, and she gave him a
quick smile which robbed her words of their irritability. But I could
see she was on the rack, and though I didn’t know the real facts, it
wasn’t hard to make a shrewd guess as to the cause.
“It was just before we rose from the table, I remember, that she said to
me under the cover of the general conversation: ‘My God! Dog-face—it’s
not fair.’
“‘Will you tell me?’ I answered. ‘I might help.’
“‘Perhaps I will some day,’ she said, quietly. ‘But you can’t help; no
one can do that. It was my fault all through, and the only thing that
matters now is that Giles should never know.’
“I don’t quite know why she suddenly confided in me, even to that
extent. I suppose with her woman’s intuition she realised that I’d
guessed something, and it helps to get a thing off one’s chest at times.
Evidently it had been an unexpected meeting, and I cursed myself for
having made him play. And yet how could one have foretold? It was just a
continuation of the jig-saw started by that damned bit of orange peel.
As she said, all that mattered was that Giles—dear old chap!—should
never know.”
The Soldier smiled a little sadly. “So do the humans propose; but the
God that moves the pieces frequently has different ideas. He did—that
very afternoon. It was just as I was going that two white-faced nurses
clutching two scared children appeared on the scene and babbled
incoherently. And then the General’s groom hove in sight—badly cut
across the face and shaky at the knees—and from him we got the story.
“They’d started off in the General’s dogcart to go to some children’s
party, and something had frightened the horse, which had promptly
bolted. I knew the brute—a great raking black, though the groom, who
was a first-class whip, generally had no difficulty in managing him. But
on this occasion apparently he’d got clean away along the road into the
town. He might have got the horse under control after a time, when, to
his horror, he saw that the gates were closed at the railway crossing in
front. And it was at that moment that a man—one of the sergeants from
the barracks—had dashed out suddenly from the pavement and got to the
horse’s head. He was trampled on badly, but he hung on—and the horse
had ceased to bolt when they crashed into the gates. The shafts were
smashed, but nothing more. And the horse wasn’t hurt. And they’d carried
away the sergeant on an improvised stretcher. No; he hadn’t spoken. He
was unconscious.
“‘Which sergeant was it?’ I asked, quietly—though I knew the answer
before the groom gave it.
“‘Sergeant Trevor, sir,’ he said. ‘B squadron.’
“‘Is he—is he badly hurt?’ said the girl, and her face was ashen.
“‘I dunno, mum,’ answered the groom. ‘They took ’im off to the
’orspital, and I was busy with the ’orse.’
“‘I’ll ring up, if I may, General,’ I said, and he nodded.
“I spoke to Purvis, the R.A.M.C. fellow, and his voice was very grave.
They’d brought Trevor in still unconscious, and, though he wouldn’t
swear to it at the moment, he was afraid his back was broken. But he
couldn’t tell absolutely for certain until he came to. I hung up the
receiver and found Mrs. Giles standing behind me. She said nothing—but
just waited for me to speak.
“‘Purvis doesn’t know for certain,’ I said, taking both her hands in
mine. ‘But there’s a possibility, my dear, that his back is broken.’
“She was a thoroughbred, that girl. She didn’t make a fuss or cry out;
she just looked me straight in the face and nodded her head once or
twice.
“‘I must go to him, of course,’ she said, gravely. ‘Will you arrange it
for me, please?’
“‘He’s unconscious still,’ I told her.
“‘Then I must be beside him when he comes to,’ she answered. ‘Even if
there was nothing else—he’s saved my baby’s life.’
“‘I’ll take you in my car,’ I said, when I saw that she was absolutely
determined. ‘Leave it all to me.’
“‘I must see him alone, Dog-face.’ She paused by the door, with her
handkerchief rolled into a tight little ball in her hand. ‘I want to
know that he’s forgiven me.’
“‘You shall see him alone if it’s humanly possible,’ I answered gravely,
and at that she was gone.
“I don’t quite know how I did it, but somehow or other I got her away
from the General’s house without Giles knowing. Giles junior was quite
unhurt, and disposed to regard the entire thing as an entertainment got
up especially for his benefit. And when she’d made sure of that, and
kissed him passionately to his intense disgust, she slipped away with me
in the car.
“‘You mustn’t be disappointed,’ I warned her as we drove along, ‘if you
can’t see him alone. He may have been put into a ward with other men.’
“‘Then they must put some screens round him,’ she whispered. ‘I must
kiss him before—before——.’ She didn’t complete the sentence; but it
wasn’t necessary.
“We didn’t speak again until I turned in at the gates of the hospital.
And then I asked her a question which had been on the tip of my tongue a
dozen times.
“‘Who is he—really?’
“‘Jimmy Dallas is his name,’ she answered, quietly. ‘We were engaged.
And then his father lost all his money. He thought that was why—why I
was beastly to him—but oh! Dog-face, it wasn’t at all. I thought he was
fond of another girl—and it was all a mistake. I found it out too late.
And then Jimmy had disappeared—and I’d married Giles. Up at that
cricket match was the first time I’d seen him since my wedding.’
“We drew up at the door, and I got out. It’s the little tragedies, the
little misunderstandings, that are so pitiful, and in all conscience
this was a case in point. A boy and a girl—each too proud to explain,
or ask for an explanation; and now the big tragedy. God! it seemed so
futile.
“I left her sitting in the car, and went in search of Purvis. I found
him with Trevor—I still thought of him under that name—and he was
conscious again. The doctor looked up as I tiptoed in, and shook his
head at me warningly. So I waited, and after a while Purvis left the bed
and drew me out into the passage.
“‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘He’s so infernally bruised and messed about.
His left arm is broken in two places, and three ribs—and I’m afraid his
back as well. He seems so numb. But I can’t be certain.’
“‘Mrs. Yeverley is here,’ I said. ‘The mother of one of the kids he
saved. She wants to see him.’
“‘Out of the question,’ snapped Purvis. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’
“‘But you mustn’t forbid it, Doctor.’ We both swung round, to see the
girl herself standing behind us. ‘I’ve got to see him. There are other
reasons besides his having saved my baby’s life.’
“‘They must wait, Mrs. Yeverley,’ answered the Doctor. ‘In a case of
this sort the only person I would allow to see him would be his wife.’
“‘If I hadn’t been a fool,’ she said deliberately, ‘I should have been
his wife,’ and Purvis’s jaw dropped.
“Without another word she swept past him into the ward, and Purvis stood
there gasping.
“‘Well, I’m damned!’ he muttered, and I couldn’t help smiling. It was
rather a startling statement to come from a woman stopping with the
G.O.C. about a sergeant in a cavalry regiment.
“And then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, came the final turn in the
wheel. I was strolling up and down outside with Purvis, who was a sahib
as well as a Doctor and had asked no questions.
“‘If his back is broken it can’t hurt him,’ he had remarked, ‘and if it
isn’t it will do him good.’
“At that we had left it, when suddenly, to my horror, I saw Giles
himself going into the hospital.
“‘Good Lord, Doc!’ I cried, sprinting after him, ‘that’s her husband.
And he doesn’t know she’s here.’
“But a lot can happen in a few seconds, and I was just a few seconds too
late. As I got to the door I saw Giles in front of me—standing at the
entrance to the ward as if he had been turned to stone. A big screen hid
the bed from sight—but a screen is not sound proof. He looked at me as
I came up, and involuntarily I stopped as I saw his face. And then quite
clearly from the room beyond came his wife’s voice.
“‘My darling, darling boy!—it’s you and only you for ever and ever!’
“I don’t quite know how much Giles had guessed before. I think he knew
about her previous engagement, but I’m quite sure he had never
associated Trevor with it. A year or two later she told me that when she
married him she had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she had
loved another man—and loved him still. And Giles had taken her on those
terms. But at the time I didn’t know that: I only knew that a very dear
friend’s world had crashed about his head with stunning suddenness. It
was Giles who pulled himself together first—Giles, with a face grey and
lined, who said in a loud voice to me: ‘Well, Dog-face, where is the
invalid?’
“And then he waited a moment or two before he went round the screen.
“‘Ah! my dear,’ he said, quite steadily, as he saw his wife, ‘you here?’
“He played his part for ten minutes, stiff-lipped and without a falter;
then he went, and his wife went with him to continue the play in which
they were billed for life. Trevor’s back was not broken—in a couple of
months he was back at duty. And so it might have continued for the
duration, but for Giles being drowned fishing in Ireland.”
The Soldier stared thoughtfully at the fire.
“He was a first-class fisherman and a wonderful swimmer, was Giles
Yeverley, and sometimes—I wonder. They say he got caught in a
bore—that perhaps he got cramp. But, as I say, sometimes—I wonder.
“I saw them—Jimmy Dallas, sometime Sergeant Trevor, and his wife—at
the Ritz two nights ago. They seemed wonderfully in love, though they’d
been married ten years, and I stopped by their table.
“‘Sit down, Dog-face,’ she ordered, ‘and have a liqueur.’
“So I sat down and had a liqueur. And it was just as I was going that
she looked at me with her wonderful smile, and said, very softly: ‘Thank
God! dear old Giles never knew; and now, if he does, he’ll understand.’”
The Soldier got up and stretched himself.
“A big result for a bit of yellow peel.”
_VI_ _The Writer’s Story, being The House at Appledore_
“I’M not certain, strictly speaking, that my story can be said to
concern my trade,” began the Writer, after he had seen his guests were
comfortable. “But it happened—this little adventure of mine—as the
direct result of pursuing my trade, so I will interpret the rule
accordingly.
“My starting-point is the Largest Pumpkin Ever Produced in Kent. It was
the sort of pumpkin which gets a photograph all to itself in the
illustrated papers—the type of atrocity which is utterly useless to any
human being. And yet that large and unpleasant vegetable proved the
starting-point of the most exciting episode in my somewhat prosaic life.
In fact, but for very distinct luck, that pumpkin would have been
responsible for my equally prosaic funeral.’ The Writer smiled
reminiscently.
“It was years ago, in the days before a misguided public began to read
my books and supply me with the necessary wherewithal to keep the wolf
from the door. But I was young and full of hope, and Fleet Street seemed
a very wonderful place. From which you can infer that I was a
journalist, and candour compels me to admit—a jolly bad one. Not that I
realised it at the time. I regarded my Editor’s complete lack of
appreciation of my merits as being his misfortune, not my fault.
However, I pottered around, doing odd jobs and having the felicity of
seeing my carefully penned masterpieces completely obscured by blue
pencil and reduced to two lines.
“Then one morning I was sent for to the inner sanctuary. Now, although I
had the very lowest opinion of the Editor’s abilities, I knew sufficient
of the office routine to realise that such a summons was unlikely to
herald a rise of screw with parchment certificate of appreciation for
services rendered. It was far more likely to herald the order of the
boot—and the prospect was not very rosy. Even in those days Fleet
Street was full of unemployed journalists who knew more than their
editors.
“The news editor was in the office when I walked in, and he was a kindly
man, was old Andrews. He looked at me from under his great bushy
eyebrows for a few moments without speaking; then he pointed to a chair.
“‘Graham,’ he remarked in a deep bass voice, ‘are you aware that this
paper has never yet possessed a man on its staff that writes such
unutterable slush as you do?’
“I remained discreetly silent; to dissent seemed tactless, to agree,
unnecessary.
“‘What do you propose to do about it?’ he continued after a while.
“I told him that I hadn’t realised I was as bad as all that, but that I
would do my best to improve my style and give satisfaction in the
future.
“‘It’s not so much your style,’ he conceded. ‘Years ago I knew a man
whose style was worse. Only a little—but it was worse. But it’s your
nose for news, my boy—that’s the worst thing that ever came into Fleet
Street. Now, what were you doing yesterday?’
“‘I was reporting that wedding at the Brompton Oratory, sir,’ I told
him.
“‘Just so,’ he answered. ‘And are you aware that in a back street not
three hundred yards from the church a man died through eating a surfeit
of winkles, as the result of a bet? Actually while you were there did
that man die by the winkle-barrow—and you knew nothing about it. I’m
not denying that your report on the wedding isn’t fair—but the public
is entitled to know about the dangers of winkle-eating to excess. Not
that the rights of the public matter in the least, but it’s the
principle I want to impress on you—the necessity of keeping your eyes
open for other things beside the actual job you’re on. That’s what makes
the good journalist.’
“I assured him that I would do so in future, and he grunted
non-committally. Then he began rummaging in a drawer, while I waited in
trepidation.
“‘We’ll give you a bit longer, Graham,’ he announced at length, and I
breathed freely again. ‘But if there is no improvement you’ll have to
go. And in the meantime I’ve got a job for you this afternoon. Some
public-spirited benefactor has inaugurated an agricultural fête in Kent,
somewhere near Ashford. From what I can gather, he seems partially
wanting in intelligence, but it takes people all ways. He is giving
prizes for the heaviest potato and the largest egg—though I am unable
to see what the hen’s activity has to do with her owner. And I want you
to go down and write it up. Half a column. Get your details right. I
believe there is a treatise on soils and manures in the office
somewhere. And put in a paragraph about the paramount importance of the
Englishman getting back to the land. Not that it will have any effect,
but it might help to clear Fleet Street.’
“He was already engrossed in something else, and dismissed me with a
wave of his hand. And it was just as I got to the door that he called
after me to send Cresswill to him—Cresswill, the star of all the
special men. His reception, I reflected a little bitterly as I went in
search of him, would be somewhat different from mine. For he had got to
the top of the tree, and was on a really big job at the time. He did all
the criminal work—murder trials and so forth, and how we youngsters
envied him! Perhaps, in time, one might reach those dazzling heights, I
reflected, as I sat in my third-class carriage on the way to Ashford.
Not for him mammoth tubers and double-yolkers—but the things that
really counted.
“I got out at Ashford, where I had to change. My destination was
Appledore, and the connection on was crowded with people obviously
bound, like myself, for the agricultural fête. It was a part of Kent to
which I had never been, and when I got out at Appledore station I found
I was in the flat Romney Marsh country which stretches inland from
Dungeness. Houses are few and far between, except in the actual villages
themselves—the whole stretch of land, of course, must once have been
below sea-level—and the actual fête was being held in a large field on
the outskirts of Appledore. It was about a mile from the station, and I
proceeded to walk.
“The day was warm, the road was dusty—and I, I am bound to admit, was
bored. I felt I was destined for better things than reporting on bucolic
flower shows, much though I loved flowers. But I like them in their
proper place, growing—not arranged for show in a stuffy tent and
surrounded by perspiring humanity. And so when I came to the gates of a
biggish house and saw behind them a garden which was a perfect riot of
colour, involuntarily I paused and looked over.
“The house itself stood back about a hundred yards from the road—a
charming old place covered with creepers, and the garden was lovely. A
little neglected, perhaps—I could see a respectable number of weeds in
a bed of irises close to the drive—but then it was quite a large
garden. Probably belonged to some family that could not afford a big
staff, I reflected, and that moment I saw a man staring at me from
between some shrubs a few yards away.
“There was no reason why he shouldn’t stare at me—he was inside the
gate and presumably had more right to the garden than I had—but there
was something about him that made me return the stare, in silence, for a
few moments. Whether it was his silent approach over the grass and
unexpected appearance, or whether it was that instinctively he struck me
as an incongruous type of individual to find in such a sleepy locality,
I can’t say. Or, perhaps, it was a sudden lightning impression of
hostile suspicion on his part, as if he resented anyone daring to look
over his gate.
“Then he came towards me, and I felt I had to say something. But even as
I spoke the thought flashed across my mind that he would have appeared
far more at home in a London bar than in a rambling Appledore garden.
“‘I was admiring your flowers,’ I said as he came up. ‘Your irises are
wonderful.’
“He looked vaguely at some lupins, then his intent gaze came back to me.
“‘The garden is well known locally,’ he remarked. ‘Are you a member of
these parts?’
“‘No,’ I answered, ‘I come from London,’ and it seemed to me his gaze
grew more intent.
“‘I am only a bird of passage, too,’ he said easily. ‘Are you just down
for the day?’
“I informed him that I had come down to write up the local fête; being
young and foolish, I rather think I implied that only the earnest
request of the organiser for me in particular had persuaded the editor
to dispense with my invaluable services even for a few hours. And all
the time his eyes, black and inscrutable, never left my face.
“‘The show is being held in a field about a quarter of a mile farther
on,’ he said when I had finished. ‘Good morning.’
“He turned abruptly on his heels and walked slowly away towards the
house, leaving me a little annoyed, and with a feeling that not only had
I been snubbed, but, worse still, had been seen through. I felt that I
had failed to convince him that editors tore their hair and bit their
nails when they failed to secure my services; I felt, indeed, just that
particular type of ass that one does feel when one has boasted
vaingloriously, and been listened to with faintly amused boredom. I know
that as I resumed my walk towards the agricultural fête I endeavoured to
restore my self-respect by remembering that he was merely a glorified
yokel, who probably knew no better.”
The Writer leant back in his chair with a faint smile.
“That awful show still lives in my memory,” he continued after a while.
“There were swing boats, and one of those ghastly shows where horses go
round and round with a seasick motion and ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’
emerges without cessation from the bowels of the machine. There were
coco-nut shies and people peering through horse-collars to have their
photographs taken, and over everything an all-pervading aroma of
humanity unsuitably clad in its Sunday best on a warm day. However, the
job had to be done, so I bravely plunged into the marquees devoted to
the competing vegetables. I listened to the experts talking around me
with the idea of getting the correct local colour, but as most of their
remarks were incomprehensible, I soon gave that up as a bad job and
began looking about me.
“There were potatoes and carrots and a lot of things which I may have
eaten, but completely failed to recognise in a raw state. And then
suddenly, through a gap in the asparagus, I saw a vast yellowy-green
object. It seemed about four times the size of an ordinary Rugby
football, and a steady stream of people circled slowly round it and an
ancient man, who periodically groomed it with a vast coloured
handkerchief. So I steered a zigzag course between a watery-eyed duck on
my right and a hand-holding couple on my left, and joined the stream. At
close quarters it seemed even vaster than when viewed from the other
side of the tent, and after I’d made the grand tour twice, I thought I’d
engage the ancient man in conversation. Unfortunately, he was stone
deaf, and his speech was a little indistinct owing to a regrettable
absence of teeth, so we managed between us to rivet the fascinated
attention of every human being in the tent. In return for the
information that it was the largest pumpkin ever produced in Kent, I
volunteered that I had come from London specially to write about it. He
seemed a bit hazy about London, but when I told him it was larger than
Appledore he appeared fairly satisfied that his pumpkin would obtain
justice.
“He also launched into a voluble discourse, which was robbed of much of
its usefulness by his habit of holding his false teeth in position with
his thumb as he spoke. Luckily a local interpreter was at hand, and from
him I gathered that the old man was eighty-five, and had never been
farther afield than Ashford, forty-eight years ago. Also that he was
still gardener at Cedarlime, a house which I must have passed on my way
from the station. Standing well back it was: fine flower gardens—‘but
not what they was. Not since the new gentleman come—a year ago. Didn’t
take the same interest—not him. A scholard, they said ’e was; crates
and crates of books had come to the house—things that ’eavy that they
took three and four men to lift them.’
“He rambled on did that interpreter, while the ancient man polished the
pumpkin in the time-honoured manner, and wheezed spasmodically. But I
wasn’t paying much attention, because it had suddenly come back to me
that Cedarlime was the name of the house where I had spoken to the
inscrutable stranger. Subconsciously I had noticed it as I crossed the
road; now it was brought back to my memory.
“‘Is the owner of Cedarlime a youngish, man?’ I asked my informant.
‘Dark hair; rather sallow face?’
“He shook his head. The owner of Cedarlime was a middle-aged man with
grey hair, but he often had friends stopping with him who came from
London, so he’d heard tell—friends who didn’t stop long—just for the
week-end, maybe, or four or five days. Probably the man I meant was one
of these friends.
“My informant passed on to inspect a red and hairy gooseberry, and I
wandered slowly out of the stuffy tent. Probably a friend—in fact,
undoubtedly a friend. But try as I would to concentrate on that
confounded flower show, my thoughts kept harking back to Cedarlime. For
some reason or other, that quiet house and the man who had come so
silently out of the bushes had raised my curiosity. And at that moment I
narrowly escaped death from a swing boat, which brought me back to the
business in hand.
“I suppose it was about three hours later that I started to stroll back
to the station. I was aiming at a five o’clock train, and intended to
write my stuff on the way up to Town. But just as I was getting to the
gates of the house that interested me, who should I see in front of me
but the venerable pumpkin polisher. He turned as I got abreast of him
and recognised me with a throaty chuckle. And he promptly started to
talk. I gathered that he had many other priceless treasures in his
garden—wonderful sweet-peas, more pumpkins of colossal dimensions. And
after a while I further gathered that he was suggesting I should go in
and examine them for myself.
“For a moment I hesitated. I looked at my watch—there was plenty of
time. Then I looked over the gates and made up my mind. I would
introduce this ancient being into my account of the fête; write up, in
his own setting, this extraordinary old man who had never left Appledore
for forty-eight years. And, in addition, I would have a closer look at
the house—possibly even see the scholarly owner.
“I glanced curiously round as I followed him up the drive. We went about
half-way to the house, then turned off along a path into the kitchen
garden. And finally he came to rest in front of the pumpkins—he was
obviously a pumpkin maniac. I should think he conducted a monologue for
five minutes on the habits of pumpkins while I looked about me.
Occasionally I said ‘Yes’; occasionally I nodded my head portentously;
for the rest of the time I paid no attention.
“I could see half the front and one side of the house—but there seemed
no trace of any occupants. And I was just going to ask the old man who
lived there, when I saw a man in his shirt-sleeves standing at one of
the windows. He was not the man who had spoken to me at the gate; he was
not a grey-headed man either, so presumably not the owner. He appeared
to be engrossed in something he was holding in his hands, and after a
while he held it up to the light in the same way one holds up a
photographic plate. It was then that he saw me.
“Now, I have never been an imaginative person, but there was something
positively uncanny in the way that man disappeared. Literally in a flash
he had gone and the window was empty. And my imagination began to stir.
Why had that man vanished so instantaneously at the sight of a stranger
in the kitchen garden?
“And then another thing began to strike me. Something which had been
happening a moment or two before had abruptly stopped—a noise, faint
and droning, but so steady that I hadn’t noticed it until it ceased. It
had been the sort of noise which, if you heard it to-day, you would say
was caused by an aeroplane a great way off—and quite suddenly it had
stopped. A second or two after the man had seen me and vanished from the
window, that faint droning noise had ceased. I was sure of it, and my
imagination began to stir still more.
“However, by this time my venerable guide had exhausted pumpkins, and,
muttering strange words, he began to lead me towards another part of the
garden. It was sweet-peas this time, and I must say they were really
magnificent. In fact, I had forgotten the disappearing gentleman at the
window in my genuine admiration of the flowers, when I suddenly saw the
old man straighten himself up, take a firm grip of his false teeth with
his one hand and touch his cap with the other. He was looking over my
shoulder, and I swung round.
“Three men were standing behind me on the path. One was the man I had
spoken to that morning; one was the man I had seen at the window; the
other was grey-haired, and, I assumed, the owner of the house. It was to
him I addressed myself.
“‘I must apologise for trespassing,’ I began, ‘but I am reporting the
agricultural fête down here, and your gardener asked me in to see your
sweet-peas. They are really magnificent specimens.’
“The elderly man stared at me in silence.
“‘I don’t quite see what the sweet-peas in my garden have to do with the
fête,’ he remarked coldly. ‘And it is not generally customary, when the
owner is at home, to wander round his garden at the invitation of his
gardener.’
“‘Then I can only apologise and withdraw at once,’ I answered stiffly.
‘I trust that I have not irreparably damaged your paths.’
“He frowned angrily and seemed on the point of saying something, when
the man I had spoken to at the gate took his arm and whispered something
in his ear. I don’t know what it was he said, but it had the effect of
restoring the grey-haired man to a better temper at once.
“‘I must apologise,’ he said affably, ‘for my brusqueness. I am a
recluse, Mr.—ah—Mr.——’
“‘Graham is my name,’ I answered, partially mollified.
“He bowed. ‘A recluse, Mr. Graham—and my garden is a hobby of mine.
That and my books. I fear I may have seemed a little irritable when I
first spoke, but I have a special system of my own for growing
sweet-peas, and I guard it jealously. I confess that for a moment I was
unjust and suspicious enough to think you might be trying to pump
information from my gardener.’
“I looked at old Methuselah, still clutching his false teeth, and smiled
involuntarily. The elderly man guessed my thoughts and smiled, too.
“‘I am apt to forget that it takes several months to interpret old
Jake,’ he continued. ‘Those false teeth of his fascinate one, don’t
they? I shall never forget the dreadful occasion he dropped them in the
hot bed. We had the most agonising search, and finally persistence
triumphed. They were rescued unscathed and restored to their rightful
place.’
“And so he went on talking easily, until half-unconsciously I found
myself strolling with him towards the house. Every now and then he
stopped to point out some specimen of which he was proud, and, without
my realising it, twenty minutes or so slipped by. It was the sound of a
whistle at the station that recalled me to the passage of time, and I
hurriedly looked at my watch.
“‘Good Heavens!’ I cried, ‘I’ve missed my train. When is the next?’
“‘The next, Mr. Graham. I’m afraid there isn’t a next till to-morrow
morning. This is a branch line, you know.’
“Jove! how I swore inwardly. After what old Andrews had said to me only
that morning, to go and fail again would finally cook my goose. You must
remember that it was before the days of motor-cars, and, with the fête
in progress, the chance of getting a cart to drive me some twelve miles
to Ashford was remote—anyway for the fare I could afford to pay.
“I suppose my agitation showed on my face, for the grey-haired man
became quite upset.
“‘How stupid of me not to have thought of the time,’ he cried. ‘We must
think of the best thing to do. I know,’ he said suddenly—‘you must
telegraph your report. Stop the night here and telegraph.’
“I pointed out to him rather miserably that newspapers did not like the
expense of wiring news unless it was important, and that by no stretch
of imagination could the Appledore Flower Show be regarded as coming
under that category.
“‘I will pay the cost,’ he insisted, and waved aside my refusal. ‘Mr.
Graham,’ he said, ‘it was my fault. I am a wealthy man; I would not
dream of letting you suffer for my verbosity. You will wire your
article, and I shall pay.’”
The Writer smiled reminiscently.
“What could have been more charming,” he continued—“what more
considerate and courteous? My stupid, half-formed suspicions, which had
been growing fainter and fainter as I strolled round the garden with my
host, had by this time vanished completely, and when he found me pens,
ink, and paper, as they say in the French exercise book, I stammered out
my thanks. He cut me short with a smile, and told me to get on with my
article. He would send it to the telegraph office, and tell his servants
to get a room ready for me. And with another smile he left me alone, and
I saw him pottering about the garden outside as I wrote.
“I don’t know whether it has ever happened to any of you fellows”—the
Writer lit a cigarette—“to harbour suspicions which are gradually
lulled, only to have them suddenly return with redoubled force. There
was I, peacefully writing my account of the Appledore fête, while
outside my host, an enthusiastic gardener, as he had told me, pursued
his hobby. Could anything have been more commonplace and matter of fact?
He was engaged on the roses at the moment, spraying them with some
solution, presumably for green fly, and unconsciously I watched him. No,
I reflected, it couldn’t be for green fly, because he was only spraying
the roots, and even I, though not an expert, knew that green fly occur
round the buds. And at that moment I caught a momentary glimpse of the
two other men. They were roaring with laughter, and it seemed to me that
my host was the cause of the merriment. He looked up and saw them, and
the hilarity ceased abruptly. The next moment they had disappeared, and
my host was continuing the spraying. He went on industriously for a few
minutes, then he crossed the lawn towards the open window of the room
where I was writing.
“‘Nearly finished?’ he asked.
“‘Very nearly,’ I answered. ‘Green fly bad this year?’
“‘Green fly?’ he said a little vaguely. ‘Oh! so-so.’
“‘I thought you must be tackling them on the roses,’ I pursued.
“‘Er, quite—quite,’ he remarked. ‘Nasty things, aren’t they?’
“‘Is it a special system of yours to go for the roots?’ I asked.
“He gave me one searching look, then he laughed mysteriously.
“‘Ah, ha! my young friend,’ he answered. ‘Don’t you try and get my
stable secrets out of me.’
“And I felt he was lying. Without thinking something made me draw a bow
at a venture, and the arrow went home with a vengeance.
“‘Wonderful delphiniums you’ve got,’ I remarked, leaning out of the
window and pointing to a bed underneath.
“‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m very proud of those.’
“And the flowers at which I was pointing were irises. So this
enthusiastic gardener did not know the difference between a delphinium
and an iris. Back in an overwhelming wave came all my suspicions; I knew
there was a mystery somewhere. This man wasn’t a gardener; and, if not,
why this pretence? I remember now that every time he had drawn my
attention to a specimen he had taken the attached label in his hand.
Quite unobtrusive it had been, unnoticeable at the time, now it suddenly
became significant. Why was he playing this part—pretending for my
benefit? Futilely spraying the roots of roses, making me miss my train.
I was convinced now that that had been part of the plan—but why? Why
the telegraphing? Why the invitation to stop the night?
“The old brain was working pretty quickly by this time. No one, whatever
his business, would object to a _bona fide_ journalist writing an
account of a fête, and if the business were crooked, the people engaged
on it would be the first to speed that journalist on his way. People of
that type dislike journalists only one degree less than the police. Then
why—why? The answer simply stuck out—they suspected me of not being a
journalist, or, even if they did not go as far as that, they were taking
no chances on the matter.
“In fact, I was by this time definitely convinced in my own mind that I
had quite unwittingly stumbled into a bunch of criminals, and it struck
me that the sooner I stumbled out again the better for my health. So I
put my article in my pocket and went to the door. I would wire it off,
and I would not return.
“The first hitch occurred at the door, which had thoughtfully been
locked. Not being a hero of fiction, I confess it gave me a nasty
shock—that unyielding door. And as I stood there taking a pull at
myself I heard the grey-haired man’s voice outside the window:
“‘Finished yet, Mr. Graham?’
“I walked across the room, and in as steady a voice as I could muster I
mentioned the fact that the door was locked.
“‘So that you shouldn’t be disturbed, Mr. Graham’—and I thought of the
Wolf in ‘Red Riding Hood,’ with his satisfactory answers to all awkward
questions.
“‘If someone would open it, I’ll get along to the telegraph office,’ I
remarked.
“‘I wouldn’t dream of your going to so much trouble,’ he said suavely.
‘I’ve a lazy boy I employ in the garden; he’ll take it.’
“For a moment I hesitated, and a glint came into his eyes, which warned
me to be careful.
“It was then that I had my brainstorm. If I hadn’t had it I shouldn’t be
here now; if the powers that be in the newspaper world were not the
quickest people on the uptake you can meet in a day’s march, I shouldn’t
be here now either. But like a flash of light there came to my mind the
story I had once been told of how a war correspondent in the South
African War, at a time when they were tightening the censorship, got
back full news of a battle by alluding to the rise and fall of certain
stock. And the editor in England read between the lines—substituted
troops for stocks, Canadians for C.P.R., and so on—and published the
only account of the battle.
“Could I do the same? I hesitated.
“‘Oh! there’s one thing I’ve forgotten,’ I remarked. ‘I’ll just add it
if the boy can wait.’
“So I sat down at the table, and to my report I added the following
sentences:
“‘There was also some excellent mustard and cress. Will come at once,
but fear to-morrow morning may be too late for me to be of further use
over Ronaldshay affair.’
“And then I handed it to the grey-haired man through the window.”
The Writer leant back in his chair, and the Soldier stared at him,
puzzled.
“It’s a bit too cryptic for me,” he confessed.
“Thank God! it wasn’t too cryptic for the office,” said the Writer.
“There was no Ronaldshay affair, so I knew that would draw their
attention. And perhaps you’ve forgotten the name of our star reporter,
who dealt in criminal matters. It was Cresswill. And if you write the
word cress with a capital C and leave out the full stop after it, you’ll
see the message I got through to the office.”
“It’s uncommon lucky for you his name wasn’t Snooks,” remarked the Actor
with a grin. “What happened?”
“Well, we had dinner, and I can only suppose that my attempts to appear
at ease had failed to convince my companions.
“The last thing I remember that night was drinking a cup of coffee—the
old trick—and suddenly realising it was drugged. I staggered to my
feet, while they remained sitting round the table watching me. Then,
with a final glimpse of the grey-haired man’s face, I passed into
oblivion.
“When I came to I was in a strange room, feeling infernally sick. And I
shall never forget my wild relief when the man by the window turned
round and I saw it was Cresswill himself. He came over to the bed and
smiled down at me.
“‘Well done, youngster,’ he said, and a glow of pride temporarily
replaced my desire for a basin. ‘Well done, indeed. We’ve got the whole
gang, and we’ve been looking for ’em for months. They were bank-note
forgers on a big scale, but we were only just in time to save you.’
“‘How was that?’ I asked weakly.
“‘I think they had decided that your sphere of usefulness was over,’ he
remarked with a grin. ‘So after having removed suspicion by telegraphing
your report, they gave you a very good dinner, when, as has been known
to happen with young men before, you got very drunk.’
“‘I was drugged,’ I said indignantly.
“‘The point is immaterial,’ he answered quietly. ‘Drunk or drugged, it’s
much the same after you’ve been run over by a train. And we found two of
them carrying you along a lane towards the line at half-past eleven. The
down goods to Hastings passes at twenty to twelve.’
“And at that moment Providence was kind. I ceased to _feel_ sick. I
was.”
_VII_ _The Old Dining-Room_
I
I DON’T pretend to account for it; I am merely giving the plain
unvarnished tale of what took place to my certain knowledge at Jack
Drage’s house in Kent during the week-end which finished so
disastrously. Doubtless there is an explanation: maybe there are
several. The believers in spiritualism and things psychic will probably
say that the tragedy was due to the action of a powerful influence which
had remained intact throughout the centuries; the materialists will
probably say it was due to indigestion. I hold no brief for either side:
as the mere narrator, the facts are good enough for me. And, anyway, the
extremists of both schools of thought are quite irreconcilable.
There were six of us there, counting Jack Drage and his wife. Bill
Sibton in the Indian Civil, Armytage in the Gunners, and I—Staunton by
name, and a scribbler of sorts—were the men: little Joan
Neilson—Armytage’s fiancée—supported Phyllis Drage. Ostensibly we were
there to shoot a few pheasants, but it was more than a mere shooting
party. It was a reunion after long years of us four men who had been
known at school as the Inseparables. Bill had been in India for twelve
years, save for the inevitable gap in Mesopotamia; Dick Armytage had
soldiered all over the place ever since he’d left the Shop. And though
I’d seen Jack off and on since our school-days, I’d lost touch with him
since he’d married. Wives play the deuce with bachelor friends though
they indignantly deny it—God bless ’em. At least, mine always does.
It was the first time any of us had been inside Jack’s house, and
undoubtedly he had the most delightful little property. The house itself
was old, but comfortably modernised by an expert, so that the charm of
it still remained. In fact, the only room which had been left absolutely
intact was the dining-room. And to have touched that would have been
sheer vandalism. The sole thing that had been done to it was to install
central heating, and that had been carried out so skilfully that no
trace of the work could be seen.
It was a room by itself, standing apart from the rest of the house, with
a lofty vaulted roof in which one could just see the smoky old oak beams
by the light of the candles on the dinner-table. A huge open fireplace
jutted out from one of the longer walls; while on the opposite side a
door led into the garden. And then, at one end, approached by the
original staircase at least six centuries old, was the musicians’
gallery.
A wonderful room—a room in which it seemed almost sacrilege to eat and
smoke and discuss present-day affairs—a room in which one felt that
history had been made. Nothing softened the severe plainness of the
walls save a few mediæval pikes and battleaxes. In fact, two old muskets
of the Waterloo era were the most modern implements of the collection.
Of pictures there was only one—a very fine painting of a man dressed in
the fashion of the Tudor period—which hung facing the musicians’
gallery.
It was that that caught my eye as we sat down to dinner, and I turned to
Jack.
“An early Drage?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact—no relation at all,” he answered. “But a strong
relation to this room. That’s why I hang him there.”
“Any story attached thereto?”
“There is; though I can’t really do it justice. The parson here is the
only man who knows the whole yarn.—By the way, old dear,” he spoke to
his wife across the table, “the reverend bird takes tea with us
to-morrow. But he is the only man who has the thing at his finger tips.
The previous owner was a bit vague himself, but having a sense of the
fitness of things, he gave me a chance of buying the picture. Apparently
it’s a painting of one Sir James Wrothley who lived round about the time
of Henry VIII. He was either a rabid Protestant or a rabid Roman
Catholic—I told you I was a bit vague over details—and he used this
identical room as a secret meeting-place for himself and his pals to
hatch plots against his enemies.”
“Jack _is_ so illuminating, isn’t he?” laughed his wife.
“Well, I bet you can’t tell it any better yourself,” he retorted with a
grin. “I admit my history is weak. But anyway, about that time, if the
jolly old Protestants weren’t burning the R.C.’s, the R.C.’s were
burning the Protestants. A period calling for great tact, I’ve always
thought. Well, at any rate, this Sir James Wrothley—when his party was
being officially burned—came here and hatched dark schemes to reverse
the procedure. And then, apparently, one day somebody blew the gaff, and
the whole bunch of conspirators in here were absolutely caught in the
act by the other crowd, who put ’em all to death on the spot. Which is
all I can tell you about it.”
“I must ask the padre to-morrow,” I said to his wife. “I’d rather like
to hear the whole story. I felt when I first came into this room there
was history connected with it.”
She looked at me rather strangely for a moment; then she gave a little
forced laugh.
“Do you know, Tom,” she said slowly, “at times I almost hate this room.
All my friends gnash their teeth with envy over it—but sometimes, when
Jack’s been away, and I’ve dined in here by myself—it’s terrified me. I
feel as if—I wasn’t alone: as if—there were people all round
me—watching me. Of course, it’s absurd, I know. But I can’t help it.
And yet I’m not a nervy sort of person.”
“I don’t think it’s at all absurd,” I assured her. “I believe I should
feel the same myself. A room of this size, which, of necessity, is dimly
lighted in the corners, and which is full of historical associations,
must cause an impression on the least imaginative person.”
“We used it once for a dance,” she laughed; “with a ragtime band in the
gallery.”
“And a great show it was, too,” broke in her husband. “The trouble was
that one of the musicians got gay with a bottle of whisky, and very
nearly fell clean through that balustrade effect on to the floor below.
I haven’t had that touched—and the wood is rotten.”
“I pray you be seated, gentlemen.” A sudden silence fell on the table,
and everybody stared at Bill Sibton.
“Is it a game, Bill?” asked Jack Drage. “I rather thought we were. And
what about the ladies?”
With a puzzled frown Bill Sibton looked at him. “Did I speak out loud,
then?” he asked slowly.
“And so early in the evening too!” Joan Neilson laughed merrily.
“I must have been day-dreaming, I suppose. But that yarn of yours has
rather got me, Jack; though in the course of a long and evil career I’ve
never heard one told worse. I was thinking of that meeting—all of them
sitting here. And then suddenly that door bursting open.” He was staring
fixedly at the door, and again a silence fell on us all.
“The thunder of the butts of their muskets on the woodwork.” He swung
round and faced the door leading to the garden. “And on that one, too.
Can’t you hear them? No escape—none. Caught like rats in a trap.” His
voice died away to a whisper, and Joan Neilson gave a little nervous
laugh.
“You’re the most realistic person, Mr. Sibton. I think I prefer hearing
about the dance.”
I glanced at my hostess—and it seemed to me that there was fear in her
eyes as she looked at Bill. Sometimes now I wonder if she had some vague
premonition of impending disaster: something too intangible to take hold
of—something the more terrifying on that very account.
It was after dinner that Jack Drage switched on the solitary electric
light of which the room boasted. It was so placed as to show up the
painting of Sir James Wrothley, and in silence we all gathered round to
look at it. A pair of piercing eyes set in a stern aquiline face stared
down at us from under the brim of a hat adorned with sweeping plumes;
his hand rested on the jewelled hilt of his sword. It was a fine picture
in a splendid state of preservation, well worthy of its place of honour
on the walls of such a room, and we joined in a general chorus of
admiration. Only Bill Sibton was silent, and he seemed
fascinated—unable to tear his eyes away from the painting.
“As a matter of fact, Bill,” said Dick Armytage, studying the portrait
critically, “he might well be an ancestor of yours. Wash out your
moustache, and give you a fancy-dress hat, and you’d look very much like
the old bean.”
He was quite right: there was a distinct resemblance, and it rather
surprised me that I had not noticed it myself. There were the same
deep-set piercing eyes, the same strong, slightly hatchet face, the same
broad forehead. Even the colouring was similar: a mere coincidence that,
probably—but one which increased the likeness. In fact, the longer I
looked the more pronounced did the resemblance become, till it was
almost uncanny.
“Well, he can’t be, anyway,” said Bill abruptly. “I’ve never heard of
any Wrothley in the family.” He looked away from the picture almost with
an effort and lit a cigarette. “It’s a most extraordinary thing, Jack,”
he went on after a moment, “but ever since we came into this room I’ve
had a feeling that I’ve been here before.”
“Good Lord, man, that’s common enough in all conscience. One often gets
that idea.”
“I know one does,” answered Bill. “I’ve had it before myself; but never
one-tenth as strongly as I feel it here. Besides, that feeling generally
dies—after a few minutes: it’s growing stronger and stronger with me
every moment I stop in here.”
“Then let’s go into the drawing-room,” said our hostess. “I’ve had the
card-table put in there.”
We followed her and Joan Neilson into the main part of the house; and
since neither of the ladies played, for the next two hours we four men
bridged. And then, seeing that it was a special occasion, we sat yarning
over half-forgotten incidents till the room grew thick with smoke and
the two women fled to bed before they died of asphyxiation.
Bill, I remember, waxed eloquent on the subject of politicians, with a
six weeks’ experience of India, butting in on things they knew less than
nothing about; Dick Armytage grew melancholy on the subject of the block
in promotion. And then the reminiscences grew more personal, and the
whisky sank lower and lower in the tantalus as one yarn succeeded
another.
At last Jack Drage rose with a yawn and knocked the ashes out of his
pipe.
“Two o’clock, boys. What about bed?”
“Lord! is it really?” Dick Armytage stretched himself. “However, no
shooting to-morrow, or, rather, to-day. We might spend the Sabbath
dressing Bill up as his nibs in the next room.”
A shadow crossed Bill’s face.
“I’d forgotten that room,” he said, frowning. “Damn you, Dick!”
“My dear old boy,” laughed Armytage, “you surely don’t mind resembling
the worthy Sir James! He’s a deuced sight better-looking fellow than you
are.”
Bill shook his head irritably.
“It isn’t that at all,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking of the picture.” He
seemed to be on the point of saying something else—then he changed his
mind. “Well—bed for master.”
We all trooped upstairs, and Jack came round to each of us to see that
we were all right.
“Breakfast provisionally nine,” he remarked. “Night-night, old boy.”
The door closed behind him, and his steps died away down the passage as
he went to his own room.
· · · · ·
By all known rules I should have been asleep almost as my head touched
the pillow. A day’s rough shooting, followed by bed at two in the
morning should produce that result if anything can, but in my case that
night it didn’t. Whether I had smoked too much, or what it was, I know
not, but at half-past three I gave up the attempt and switched on my
light. Then I went over, and pulling up an armchair, I sat down by the
open window. There was no moon, and the night was warm for the time of
year. Outlined against the sky the big dining-room stretched out from
the house, and, as I lit a cigarette, Jack Drage’s vague story returned
to my mind. The conspirators, meeting by stealth to hatch some sinister
plot; the sudden alarm as they found themselves surrounded; the
desperate fight against overwhelming odds—and then, the end. There
should be a story in it, I reflected; I’d get the parson to tell me the
whole thing accurately next day. The local colour seemed more
appropriate when one looked at the room from the outside, with an
occasional cloud scudding by over the big trees beyond. Savoured more of
conspiracy and death than when dining inside, with reminiscences of a
jazz band in the musicians’ gallery.
And at that moment a dim light suddenly filtered out through the
windows. It was so dim that at first I thought I had imagined it; so dim
that I switched off my own light in order to make sure. There was no
doubt about it: faint but unmistakable the reflection showed up on the
ground outside. A light had been lit in the old dining-room: therefore
someone must be in there. At four o’clock in the morning!
For a moment or two I hesitated: should I go along and rouse Jack?
Someone might have got in through the garden door, and I failed to see
why I should fight another man’s burglar in his own house. And then it
struck me it would only alarm his wife—I’d get Bill, whose room was
opposite mine.
I put on some slippers and crossed the landing to rouse him. And then I
stopped abruptly. His door was open; his room was empty. Surely it
couldn’t be he who had turned on the light below?
As noiselessly as possible I went downstairs, and turned along the
passage to the dining-room. Sure enough the door into the main part of
the house was ajar, and the light was shining through the opening. I
tiptoed up to it and looked through the crack by the hinges.
At first I could see nothing save the solitary electric light over the
portrait of Sir James. And then in the gloom beyond I saw a tall figure
standing motionless by the old oak dining-table. It was Bill—even in
the dim light I recognised that clean-cut profile; Bill clad in his
pyjamas only, with one hand stretched out in front of him, pointing. And
then, suddenly, he spoke.
“You lie, Sir Henry!—you lie!”
Nothing more—just that one remark; his hand still pointing inexorably
across the table. Then after a moment he turned so that the light fell
full on his face, and I realised what was the matter. Bill Sibton was
walking in his sleep.
Slowly he came towards the door behind which I stood, and passed through
it—so close that he almost touched me as I shrank back against the
wall. Then he went up the stairs, and as soon as I heard him reach the
landing above, I quickly turned out the light in the dining-room and
followed him. His bedroom door was closed: there was no sound from
inside.
There was nothing more for me to do: my burglar had developed into a
harmless somnambulist. Moreover, it suddenly struck me that I had become
most infernally sleepy myself. So I did not curse Bill mentally as much
as I might have done. I turned in, and my nine o’clock next morning was
very provisional.
So was Bill Sibton’s: we arrived together for breakfast at a quarter to
ten. He looked haggard and ill, like a man who has not slept, and his
first remark was to curse Dick Armytage.
“I had the most infernal dreams last night,” he grumbled. “Entirely
through Dick reminding me of this room. I dreamed the whole show that
took place in here in that old bird’s time.”
He pointed to the portrait of Sir James.
“Did you!” I remarked, pouring out some coffee. “Must have been quite
interesting.”
“I know I wasn’t at all popular with the crowd,” he said. “I don’t set
any store by dreams myself—but last night it was really extraordinarily
vivid.” He stirred his tea thoughtfully.
“I can quite imagine that, Bill. Do you ever walk in your sleep?”
“Walk in my sleep? No.” He stared at me surprised. “Why?”
“You did last night. I found you down here at four o’clock in your
pyjamas. You were standing just where I’m sitting now, pointing with
your hand across the table. And as I stood outside the door you suddenly
said, ‘You lie, Sir Henry!—you lie!’”
“Part of my dream,” he muttered. “Sir Henry Brayton was the name of the
man—and he was the leader. They were all furious with me about
something. We quarrelled—and after that there seemed to be a closed
door. It was opening slowly, and instinctively I knew there was
something dreadful behind it. You know the terror of a dream; the
primordial terror of the mind that cannot reason against something
hideous—unknown——” I glanced at him: his forehead was wet with sweat.
“And then the dream passed. The door didn’t open.”
“Undoubtedly, my lad,” I remarked lightly, “you had one whisky too many
last night.”
“Don’t be an ass, Tom,” he said irritably. “I tell you—though you
needn’t repeat it—I’m in a putrid funk of this room. Absurd, I know:
ridiculous. But I can’t help it. And if there was a train on this branch
line on Sunday, I’d leave to-day.”
“But, good Lord, Bill,” I began—and then I went on with my breakfast.
There was a look on his face which it is not good to see on the face of
a man. It was terror: an abject, dreadful terror.