The Communication ofApril 17, 1926No matter where I am. It is a different place from where you think, and it will be no good tracing this letter, for you’ll find only that you are mistaken. The man who is going to take it to Rangoon and mail it two months hence, is an outcast like myself and will certainly keep faith.Occasionally a paper gets through to me from England, and I read it with more or less amusement. Bloodthirsty wretches, the English, who would like nothing better than to see me suspended between time and eternity. But it shall not be.There has been some discussion as to what “really” happened the evening Maryvale attempted to shoot the cat. One copy of a newspaper I came across contained a sort of symposium on the subject. One or two letters came near the simple truth, which was that, being afraid of Maryvale’s revolver, I took the chance which was offered to remove the bullets from as many cartridges as I could, managing to insure that his first three shots would be ineffective. Hints that I deliberately intended to craze the poor fellow, for whom I had a sincere liking, are false.Through Lord Ludlow my diary has reached the authorities upon guarantee that it will not be confiscated, and from official announcements it seems they believe it to be an equal mixture of necessary truth and designing falsehood. To my astonishment, moreover, they have reported that it is a masterpiece of indiscretion—which is nonsense. About myself, to be sure, I have perhaps written a thing or two that most men would not care to have known of them during life. But I am dead. Yes, in all that concerns life as I knew it, my friends, my studies, my pleasures—in all that matters—I am dead. The authorities, however, scoff at the diary, and adduce the “mystic bone.”Fools! The episode of the bone hanging white in the gloom was not invention, or delusion either. It was the white patch on Cosgrove’s head while he waited in the darkness and surveyed the Hall, planning Noah’s Flood and the crisis which would arise when Sir Brooke met the gorilla-man. The close-cropped nape of his neck between his black hair and the black collar of his sportsman’s coat, and the knobs that were his ears—I did not comprehend at first that these were what I saw. When my amazement and alarm had subsided, and I realized that Cosgrove was in there—I think I hated him then. His odious behaviour toward his intended wife and the sinister hint beneath Bob’s bitter outbreak had rankled. My survey from outside my window a minute later happened to prove that no one was in the immediate vicinity of the Hall. Otherwise I should hardly have felt the sense of satisfaction snug at the heart of my shivering soul when—after the bracket had given way—I realized thatsomething had happened! But not until I reached the lawn did I know that it had happened to Cosgrove. I shall never be sure in my inmost soul whether or not I was quite aware that this trivial act might loose some destructive force—whether I am a murderer or the toy of Fate.They say, however, that the placards I left and the stone I cast down from the balcony convince me of malice prepense. They do not, though they seem to do so.The placard I left in Cosgrove’s chamber that morning (the bottom of a cardboard box I found in the store-rooms) meant no more than what it said: mischief. I never had any delusion about the supernatural aspect of Parson Lolly; indeed, the stressing of that element had made me a little suspicious of Cosgrove himself. Celts do odd things. I believed that for some clandestine reason he might be behind the manifestations, and I thought it would be good sport to play his own game against him. I merely proved to be wrong.The second placard was a flash of inspiration, after the bracket had given way and pandemonium burst out below me. There might be a way of shifting the onus, if anything actually catastrophic had taken place!—if therehadbeen a cat’s claw, and—! Parson Lolly again! It did not take twenty seconds to dash into the storeroom, find the cover of the same box, scrawl the words, and fling the placard out of the window for the wind to carry. Later I destroyed every scrap of the box.The stone I pitched down late that night. It was an obvious afterthought, and a good one.As for Heatheringham’s death, it was black misfortune and nothing else. It appears that on account of Cosgrove’s Will he looked askance on Paula Lebetwood, but even had he suspected me, I do not think I could have been so callous as to wipe him from the earth in a bloody smear. I was doubtful that minute in my room, which was the more prudent course for me: to dash the bracket down, creating a new disturbance, or to leave it untouched. Prudence certainly decided to let the accursed thing alone, but one moment’s recklessness defied prudence. I solemnly assert that I believed the Hall was empty and Heatheringham somewhere in the twilight north of the House.Salt, it seems, was a shrewder fellow than his appearance betokened. He had suspected me from the first night he came to the House. “The way he looked at Miss Lebetwood, or rather the way he avoided looking at her, set me thinking”; such are the words which commence an interview given to one of the more lurid newspapers. Salt’s homely yet somehow handsome face, accompanied by well-combed beard, adorns this report, which concludes with an irony I suppose must be accidental: “I am glad Mr. Bannerlee didn’t injure my car.”While irony is fresh in mind, irony was never more dramatic than in that business of the water-wheel, facts they found when the claw was dismantled and the channel investigated. That the Knight’s dead body, blundering down the channel, should have dislodged the obstruction which otherwise would have prevented the wheel from turning and the claw from darting out! So Sir Brooke, elderly and infirm, stumbling to his death, fulfilled his mission after all.I have received a message from Lib, and I may as well close with that. It was transmitted to me through an American newspaper, by means of a simple “dictionary” cipher code I explained to her in a farewell letter from that Mediterranean isle of mine:“Dear Bannerlee Paula’s going to marry a guy named Frank Andrews she knew here in the States before she bumped into Cosgrove Bobby and I too as soon as Bobby is twenty one the first boy will be named after you why not I hope you are not too sad in that place wherever you are and I wish you could come and see us sometime but I guess you’d better not a plain-clothes policeman says good morning to me every day when I go round the corner so it wouldn’t be healthy for you here I sure wish Paula had met you before this Andrews or Cosgrove there would have been nothing to it and everything would be rosy Paula is terribly sorry but she doesn’t hate you Love Lib.”Well, some day in the forties, when the Radnorshire riddles are buried in oblivion beneath the ashes of a hundred other mysteries—I shall return! I shall visit little Lib, and find it difficult to recognize in her matronly staidness a trace of the dash and frankness of her liking for me. Perhaps, too, I shall pat that “first boy” on the head.Shall I dare to seeher? Or, shall I stand outside her lighted window, remembering. That would be better, I believe. I can be nothing to her then, but once—After all, she did not despise me!
No matter where I am. It is a different place from where you think, and it will be no good tracing this letter, for you’ll find only that you are mistaken. The man who is going to take it to Rangoon and mail it two months hence, is an outcast like myself and will certainly keep faith.
Occasionally a paper gets through to me from England, and I read it with more or less amusement. Bloodthirsty wretches, the English, who would like nothing better than to see me suspended between time and eternity. But it shall not be.
There has been some discussion as to what “really” happened the evening Maryvale attempted to shoot the cat. One copy of a newspaper I came across contained a sort of symposium on the subject. One or two letters came near the simple truth, which was that, being afraid of Maryvale’s revolver, I took the chance which was offered to remove the bullets from as many cartridges as I could, managing to insure that his first three shots would be ineffective. Hints that I deliberately intended to craze the poor fellow, for whom I had a sincere liking, are false.
Through Lord Ludlow my diary has reached the authorities upon guarantee that it will not be confiscated, and from official announcements it seems they believe it to be an equal mixture of necessary truth and designing falsehood. To my astonishment, moreover, they have reported that it is a masterpiece of indiscretion—which is nonsense. About myself, to be sure, I have perhaps written a thing or two that most men would not care to have known of them during life. But I am dead. Yes, in all that concerns life as I knew it, my friends, my studies, my pleasures—in all that matters—I am dead. The authorities, however, scoff at the diary, and adduce the “mystic bone.”
Fools! The episode of the bone hanging white in the gloom was not invention, or delusion either. It was the white patch on Cosgrove’s head while he waited in the darkness and surveyed the Hall, planning Noah’s Flood and the crisis which would arise when Sir Brooke met the gorilla-man. The close-cropped nape of his neck between his black hair and the black collar of his sportsman’s coat, and the knobs that were his ears—I did not comprehend at first that these were what I saw. When my amazement and alarm had subsided, and I realized that Cosgrove was in there—I think I hated him then. His odious behaviour toward his intended wife and the sinister hint beneath Bob’s bitter outbreak had rankled. My survey from outside my window a minute later happened to prove that no one was in the immediate vicinity of the Hall. Otherwise I should hardly have felt the sense of satisfaction snug at the heart of my shivering soul when—after the bracket had given way—I realized thatsomething had happened! But not until I reached the lawn did I know that it had happened to Cosgrove. I shall never be sure in my inmost soul whether or not I was quite aware that this trivial act might loose some destructive force—whether I am a murderer or the toy of Fate.
They say, however, that the placards I left and the stone I cast down from the balcony convince me of malice prepense. They do not, though they seem to do so.
The placard I left in Cosgrove’s chamber that morning (the bottom of a cardboard box I found in the store-rooms) meant no more than what it said: mischief. I never had any delusion about the supernatural aspect of Parson Lolly; indeed, the stressing of that element had made me a little suspicious of Cosgrove himself. Celts do odd things. I believed that for some clandestine reason he might be behind the manifestations, and I thought it would be good sport to play his own game against him. I merely proved to be wrong.
The second placard was a flash of inspiration, after the bracket had given way and pandemonium burst out below me. There might be a way of shifting the onus, if anything actually catastrophic had taken place!—if therehadbeen a cat’s claw, and—! Parson Lolly again! It did not take twenty seconds to dash into the storeroom, find the cover of the same box, scrawl the words, and fling the placard out of the window for the wind to carry. Later I destroyed every scrap of the box.
The stone I pitched down late that night. It was an obvious afterthought, and a good one.
As for Heatheringham’s death, it was black misfortune and nothing else. It appears that on account of Cosgrove’s Will he looked askance on Paula Lebetwood, but even had he suspected me, I do not think I could have been so callous as to wipe him from the earth in a bloody smear. I was doubtful that minute in my room, which was the more prudent course for me: to dash the bracket down, creating a new disturbance, or to leave it untouched. Prudence certainly decided to let the accursed thing alone, but one moment’s recklessness defied prudence. I solemnly assert that I believed the Hall was empty and Heatheringham somewhere in the twilight north of the House.
Salt, it seems, was a shrewder fellow than his appearance betokened. He had suspected me from the first night he came to the House. “The way he looked at Miss Lebetwood, or rather the way he avoided looking at her, set me thinking”; such are the words which commence an interview given to one of the more lurid newspapers. Salt’s homely yet somehow handsome face, accompanied by well-combed beard, adorns this report, which concludes with an irony I suppose must be accidental: “I am glad Mr. Bannerlee didn’t injure my car.”
While irony is fresh in mind, irony was never more dramatic than in that business of the water-wheel, facts they found when the claw was dismantled and the channel investigated. That the Knight’s dead body, blundering down the channel, should have dislodged the obstruction which otherwise would have prevented the wheel from turning and the claw from darting out! So Sir Brooke, elderly and infirm, stumbling to his death, fulfilled his mission after all.
I have received a message from Lib, and I may as well close with that. It was transmitted to me through an American newspaper, by means of a simple “dictionary” cipher code I explained to her in a farewell letter from that Mediterranean isle of mine:
“Dear Bannerlee Paula’s going to marry a guy named Frank Andrews she knew here in the States before she bumped into Cosgrove Bobby and I too as soon as Bobby is twenty one the first boy will be named after you why not I hope you are not too sad in that place wherever you are and I wish you could come and see us sometime but I guess you’d better not a plain-clothes policeman says good morning to me every day when I go round the corner so it wouldn’t be healthy for you here I sure wish Paula had met you before this Andrews or Cosgrove there would have been nothing to it and everything would be rosy Paula is terribly sorry but she doesn’t hate you Love Lib.”
“Dear Bannerlee Paula’s going to marry a guy named Frank Andrews she knew here in the States before she bumped into Cosgrove Bobby and I too as soon as Bobby is twenty one the first boy will be named after you why not I hope you are not too sad in that place wherever you are and I wish you could come and see us sometime but I guess you’d better not a plain-clothes policeman says good morning to me every day when I go round the corner so it wouldn’t be healthy for you here I sure wish Paula had met you before this Andrews or Cosgrove there would have been nothing to it and everything would be rosy Paula is terribly sorry but she doesn’t hate you Love Lib.”
Well, some day in the forties, when the Radnorshire riddles are buried in oblivion beneath the ashes of a hundred other mysteries—I shall return! I shall visit little Lib, and find it difficult to recognize in her matronly staidness a trace of the dash and frankness of her liking for me. Perhaps, too, I shall pat that “first boy” on the head.
Shall I dare to seeher? Or, shall I stand outside her lighted window, remembering. That would be better, I believe. I can be nothing to her then, but once—
After all, she did not despise me!