VII.Court of InquiryWe ate beneath a sprinkling of electric lights and my mind was glum with foreboding.As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a shrill staccato was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen Aire, a new arrival. Him I had not yet met, the table being already seated when I came down from revising my toilet in my lofty bed-chamber.“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, thenewpsychology, forsooth!”A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in the nature of a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the challenge would be received by Doctor Aire, who was seated at the same side of the table as I. All that was visible of him, of course, was head and shoulders, extraordinarily broad and square shoulders in rough purplish tweed, and a shocking small and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched skin, a balt spot like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and short pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat only two away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be twinkling amusement.“The new psychology, sir—”“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips curved sharply upward at the ends, “not thenewpsychology, of course.Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone living to-day!”At this iteration of his own words of the night before his Lordship stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small but delighted squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the other end gave away the secret of pre-arrangement, and a laugh murmured about the table.Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this very young lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I took in her appearance, I became almost intuitively aware of another gaze making an angle with mine. Cosgrove was staring at her, so enigmatically that I removed my glance from her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with a quick little movement of her head. Vastlyinterested, totally engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of his interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I guessed his to be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed fascinated, yet scandalized. Then the fleeting expression was gone, and he leaned back, turned to his neighbour.Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on Cosgrove!Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. The ends of the table, however, were broad enough to seat two of our numerous party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the foot with a youth of sturdy appearance. Bob Cullen completed the American group among us. His alert eyes had the queer habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he possessed also a pug nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless and determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of “Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He was very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had happened to overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” addressed with schoolboy gruffness to Alberta Pendleton, who smiled on him with aunt-like approbation. He has attended for a year, I understand, one of the great American universities.He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s regard rested in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. The American youth’s face went unwontedly white, and his eyes, now wide open, glared. There was nothing puzzled in his expression, only resentment and a vague awe, as if he knew he confronted a better man than he.Then Cosgrove shifted, and the drama of three seconds, which has taken three pages to describe, was over.Chairs scraped; we rose to our several heights. “Lib” and Bob were distinctly the shortest among us, and Doctor Aire was not much taller. But the physician, standing up, was the strangest creature in the room—a clockwork man.That broad-shouldered body in the tweed-suiting was boiler-shaped, and the long, gaunt arms and short, stodgy legs, seemed casual appendages joined at convenient locations. Atop this mechanical contrivance his head stuck like an absurd plaster carving on a pedestal. I could not but feel a queer, half-repugnant sensation when, on my being introduced to him, his yellowy, almost Chinese-looking face was close to mine, and I saw only the blue shadows where his eyes had retreated and the narrow-lipped mouth nigh to white in its bloodlessness.I looked about to be presented to the pair of young Americans; they had already skipped out of the room.“Since it’s still raining and we’re tired of the things we’ve been doing anyhow, we’re going to get Doctor Aire to tell us about the old magic in this neighbourhood,” said Alberta.“That will be frightfully jolly,” I remarked, surprised at the bizarre field of knowledge evidently studied by the physician.“I’m afraid it will be, as you say, ‘frightfully jolly,’ ” remarked Doctor Aire, with his smile at the very ends of his mouth. “I’m not sure the subject—in view of events—”“Why not the new magic instead?” asked Crofts.Doctor Aire turned his head sharply; I almost expected to hear a ratchet click. “What’s that?”“The stuff in old Watts’ attic, I mean. We’ve found a conjurer’s outfit there, Doctor. Why not give ’em a show? That performance of yours at Coventry was as good as any professional’s.”“Oh, we’ll settle that in the Hall,” smiled Alberta. “Come along, Mr. Bannerlee.”“But I want him here,” objected Crofts. “We’re going to examine the servants.”“You really want me?” I exclaimed. “But I don’t know your servants—haven’t seen but four of ’em yet.”“That’s just it,” he explained. “I want someone to be here who can get a good unprejudiced impression of how they behave.”“Well, if I can assist—”“But have you asked Mr. Bannerlee if hewantsto stay and listen to the silly—”Crofts besought me. “Oh, come, Bannerlee, you know as much as Doctor Aire does about magic—you with your antiquities.”“On the contrary, it is one of the fields where I have done very little spading, but—”“There, see,” smiled Alberta.“But I was going to say that this interrogation of yours sounds particularly interesting. I’ll stay, if you don’t mind, Alberta.”“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. “I only tried to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded inquisitor.”“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door closed, cutting short his speech and her laugh.There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale was made. The dessert dishes from luncheon had not been removed. Crofts sat at the head of the board; I was inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the window where Belvoir had sat at breakfast-time.From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with lovely flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On both sides were topless and toppled walls much gnawed by time, clearly a portion of the ancient, much vaster edifice of which Highglen House is a survival. A group of well-preserved square stone buildings about thirty yards away on my right were, of course, the stables and garage.The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, besides the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs along the inner side of the room, while the other men stood with marked differences of composure before the screens that guarded the entrance to the pantries and the kitchen. The number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much greater, of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not to bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, and for the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.”Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of Parson Lolly.”Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe the master of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I may make so bold, that any ofushave anything to do with the honfortunate affair?”“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum of dismay and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t misunderstand, please. I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this ridiculous Parson Lolly—of course, we don’t believe in any such nonsense. What I want to do is to get from each one of you, if you can pull yourselves together and give plain, straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you see?”“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice had the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little chirruppy uptilt at the end of each phrase.“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that common talk of you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads such wild, romantic, and unfounded legends through the countryside. Now, a man four hundred years old—which of you has seen such a man?”“If I may hinterpose,” came in Blenkinson again, “I might remind you, sir, that most of us are not of Welsh extraction. These foolish stories don’t ’ave much credit with us from London and other parts, you may be sure.”This speech was approved by vigorous nods on the part of several, while three or four, the darker-faced and smaller ones, glowered for a bit, particularly two of the women, strikingly handsome and strikingly alike. Old Finlay the gardener smiled with sublime sarcasm, such as to elicit a question from Pendleton.“I was thinkin’ as how they was all flummoxed and flabbergasted last night. It tickle me—that it do. They fules!” The ancient slapped his knee and burst into a silent guffaw. “Why, they tales—”“One moment, Finlay,” said Pendleton; “we must go through this in an orderly way.”“Sir,” Blenkinson cautioned.“Oh, yes, yes, of course—what you say is very true—forgotten about it.” Pendleton scratched his head, saw light suddenly. “Why, of course, er—most of you are English, not British—”“What’s that, sir?”“Not Welsh—same thing. I suppose, then—there won’t be much—well, let’s see how much we do know. I’ll take you in turn.”He spoke to the men standing by the screen. “Wheeler, Tenney, Morgan—any of you had any, er, experiences in the stables? Wheeler?”“No, sir,” answered a young, rubicund fellow with a swollen and discoloured cheek and blue-ringed eye. (He drove the Pendleton car.) “Nothing but when we were called out last night.”“Where did you get that eye?”“Fell over pitchfork, sir, and hit the side of a stall.”“Tenney, you?”“No, sir.” He who answered was a tired-looking man, whose eyelids were most of the time let down. The two words, his total contribution to the inquiry, were drawn out to the length of polysyllables.“Morgan, you’re a Welshman from around this district. You must have a lot of these old wives’ tales simmering inside that head of yours.”The man, a swart, square-bearded little man, speaking with the sing-song of local accent, answered that he had heard tell of Parson Lolly “out of the cradle.”“I’ve no doubt—ignorant folly,” commented Pendleton. “Well, what is all this nonsense?”“You mean about Parson Lolly, sir?”“Yes, what about him?”“Well, sir, they do say he be the biggest of the farises and he be out of sight of any man for age.”“Farises?”“He means the fairies, sir,” interpreted one of the women, a mite of a person sitting on the edge of her chair, with a wisp of tartan colour at the throat of her black lady’s maid’s uniform.“Eh? Oh, Ardelia, thanks,” exclaimed Pendleton, while the stableman Morgan mumbled something about the propriety of a “not Welshly person’s” keeping still, and one of the two handsome women gave her small fellow-servant an unsisterly look and ejaculated, “Hop-o’-my-thumb!”“Go on, Morgan,” bade Pendleton, quieting a general stir.The ensuing account was full of omens and transformation, of black calves and fairy ovens, of wizard marks, sucking pigs, “low winds,” and horses ridden by the “goblin trot” in stables at night.“Great Scott, man! Do you believe all this?”The “London servants” and those from other parts tittered.Morgan seemed to be weighing his words. “Well, that be hard to say, sir.”“What’s hard about it? Don’t you know what believing is?”“Right well I do, sir, but—”The small Ardelia woman with the fleck of colour at her collar bobbed forward. “If he can’t say it, I’ll say it for him. Sometimes he does believe, and sometimes he doesn’t. Now, Saul Morgan, say if ’tisn’t so.”The stableman gave her a critical glare, but assented. “That’s nigh the way of it, as Miss Lacy says, sir.”“Well!” snorted the interlocutor. “Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t! And what causes these changes of front?”“I beg your pardon, sir?”“What makes you believe—”“Well, sir, sometimes it’s right dark outside, you understand, and things or somethin’ you can’t see—well, they—”“What, the things you can’t see?”“Yes, sir. They have a way of surely creepin’ in your blood, if you understand what I mean, sir.”“Yes,” said Pendleton, settling back, and, I thought, shivering a little, “I suppose I do.”Morgan, on account of his complete and ingenuous exegesis of the lore of Parson Lolly, the object of much ironic commiseration from the “Londoners,” pulled out a florid handkerchief and wiped the beads from his brow. He stole a half-ashamed glance at the diminutive Ardelia Lacy, whose wide disapproving eyes made him squirm and shrink.Pendleton turned to the women ranged along the wall, whose examination was shorter. Harmony, Em, and Jael, minxes with buxom bodies and good fresh faces, were “not Welshly people,” and had no traditions of Parson Lolly in their mental make-up, but they evidently had some respect for him born of the stories of indigenous servants. Harmony’s troubled look showed, to be sure, that she was remembering painfully to keep the secret of the new announcement of the Parson, but by none save Crofts and me was her embarrassment marked. Ardelia Lacy, minute and prim, personal maid of Alberta Pendleton, was also a “Londoner.”The two dark-featured, vivacious women, were the “Clays,” Rosa and Ruth, cook and housekeeper, nieces, it appeared, of Hughes. Rosa Clay it was who had shown a little animosity toward the “foreign” Ardelia, indicating possibly a rivalry in respect to the favour of Morgan the stableman. They knew of no doings of Parson Lolly prior to the arrival of the guests for the Bidding Feast.There remained three men-servants grouped in chairs about the foot of the table: Blenkinson the staid, Soames, footman, with mutton-chops and unction, and old Finlay the gardener with his irrepressible silent guffaws. And in the background against the screen loomed the figure of the man in out-of-doors clothing and cartridge-belt, the gamekeeper. Crofts looked at Soames and Blenkinson reflectively, but passed them as already examined. He raised his eyes.“How about you, Hughes?”“Whatabout me, sir?” Again the keeper’s voice betrayed his kinship of race with Morgan.“You, too, have this mythology of the Parson pat, like Morgan?”“Well, sir, I hardly think Morgan had it ‘pat,’ as you say,” answered the man, turning the eyes in his motionless head toward the stableman, who muttered something unintelligible. “I don’t think he was very well taught, sir—things mixed up, or something, and things that didn’t belong there, you might say. Now, as it was always told me—I come from down Powys-way, sir—”“You surprise me, Hughes, a man of your age and sense. Now, what about this? While the House was empty and you and the rest were caretaking, what signs were of Parson Lolly then? I don’t mean larks and pigeons—I mean real evidence lying around, or real activity.”“Nothing, sir.”“Not anywhere in the preserve? Not in the whole estate?”“No, sir. Nothing used to happen until you brought down the folk that are here now.”“I see, I see. And you know nothing of the cause of the disturbances of the last few days?”There was an ominous pause, while Hughes seemed to be considering his words. The room grew a little tenser; Pendleton looked up in surprise.“What! You do!”“Well, sir, I might say so; it’s connected with what I’ve heard about Parson Lolly. But it’s an old story, sir—tells about the great lord who built the castle that was here.”“Ha! it does? About Sir Pharamond Kay?”“It’s sure to, sir.”“Sir Pharamond—hm—built this castle—exactly—well, come on, man; what is this?”Contrasted with Morgan’s, that was a thoroughly intelligible tale the tall keeper recited in his voice with the mellow burr and up-ended sentences. Under those conditions of semi-darkness and suspense in the old, black-beamed chamber, it made a thoroughly moving story. And to one who knew the rigours and alarums of feudatory existence, who realized the ingrown awe of their masters felt by peasants with a long tradition of ancestral servitude to imperious Lords Marchers, it was quite obvious what a foothold in fact this tale of enchantments must have had. For from his youth, or ever that most ancient castle up the Vale was destroyed, Sir Pharamond Kay had been a wizard, and between him and Parson Lolly, then presumably a magnus in the prime of his powers, existed a rivalry shrewd and unflagging!Wizards, to be sure, are not born but made, and Sir Pharamond went through complicated and profound measures to acquire his occult influence. This was before he had achieved his turbulent lordship, and his father ruled all Aidenn Forest with mailed fist. Sir Pharamond first unbaptized himself by three times spewing out water from the Holy Well. Then he stitched up his own lips with three stitches and for a certain space fasted and remained dumb. When he had unsealed his mouth again, he went by himself to a lonely room and did certain rites with a Bible, a fire, and a circle drawn with blood upon the floor, whereafter the Bible was ashes and Sir Pharamond, as he well deserved, was a true and certified wizard.All this while Parson Lolly, whose sphere of influence included Aidenn Forest, had been watching the career of the ambitious necromancer with baleful interest, and now the older magician believed that he must try conclusions with the usurper or be shorn of his potency in this region. In the guise of a skipping hare he invaded the castle, and having come into the presence of its lord, suddenly assumed his wizard shape and challenged Sir Pharamond to a contest for supremacy. This took place at the Four Stones (monuments of an eldern time still standing lonely in a field-corner some miles beyond the mouth of the Vale) and the Lord of Aidenn proved to have an Evil Eye so strong the Parson was put to rout. In the form of a buzzard he fled to the desolate summit of Black Mixen at the top of Aidenn Forest. But Sir Pharamond, having assumed the shape of a small caterpillar, clung with all his legs between the shoulders of the bird and reconfronted his rival when he alighted where The Riggles are now. Those enormous scratches are the marks of his buzzard-claws.Then when the Parson strove with powers enforced by the deadly fear he was in, the tide of battle turned. On that solitary hilltop, moreover, the elemental influences were on the side of the older magician. With a dart of his beak the Parson sank a deep wound in the cheek of Sir Pharamond, destroying the efficacy of his Evil Eye. Then it was the Lord of Aidenn’s time to flee, and he escaped to the innermost black sanctuary of his castle.But Parson Lolly overthrew the castle, whose skeleton of clay slate chunks lies wasting up the Vale to this day.Thenceforth, although Sir Pharamond lived on, his magic was only the shadow of what it had been, and he lived in perpetual dread of Parson Lolly. He built him a new castle where the mill had stood, and where Highglen House stands to-day. But he never found content within his re-erected halls. The menace of the Parson hung over his days and nights. Whenever in his woeful heart he meditated regaining his former ascendancy, from the cheek of his portrait on the wall blood would run and in his own cheek he would feel overwhelming pain, as when the Parson had driven his buzzard-beak into the flesh.“One moment!” interjected Crofts. “Do you mean the painting in the corridor?”“No, sir; it’s that little one way up on the wall of the Hall of the Moth as I mean.”“Ah!” My host licked somewhat dry lips. “Go on.”“There’s not so much more to it, sir, I expect. The Parson finallywouldmake an end of Sir Pharamond. He sent Sir Pharamond’s own corpse-candle for Sir Pharamond to see.”“Corpse-candle!”“A dimmery light, sir—it floats in the air. It’s a sure sign of a death in these parts. And the Tolaeth sounded, too; so Sir Pharamond knew then that it was all up with him.”“The Tolaeth—I don’t think I know what that means,” said Crofts. The Welsh folk stirred just a little.The keeper’s voice fell, I do not think by design. “The rappin’s, sir, that come just before a person dies. Tappin’, sir, like—”Our hearts were in our throats while he finished the speech in a sudden gasp—“like that.”For from the other side of the corridor wall, high toward the ceiling, had sounded three sharp knocks.And again, before a breath was taken in the room, three knocks again—and again.“It’s the Three Thumps.” Morgan’s voice was that of a strangling man.“Coffin-making,” muttered one of the Clay sisters, her eyes lightless.I saw Crofts’ glance flit about the room, taking in the whole group. I, too, had thought of collusion, but the number of servants was complete; none had slipped out while the keeper’s story was in progress.Crofts remained irresolute for only a few seconds before he jumped up and sprang to the door, flung it open and glared down the corridor.“Empty,” he said, and I could not tell whether satisfaction or distress was uppermost in his voice. Then the silence for a bit was blank and appalling. He returned to the table. “Get on with your story, Hughes. We’ll find out about this fol-de-rol later.”“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson again when the signs had come. He still tried to get back his magic power, and the blood stood out on the picture and the pain came in his cheek. But he knew that it was life-and-death, and he kept repeating his spells and made a man of wax against the Parson. But just as he was going to drive a bodkin through the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made him stagger, and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they couldn’t see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir Pharamond was dead!”All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat quietly, seeming to cogitate.At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless fairy-tale, but what makes you think it may have any connection with what’s going on here?”The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. “You’ve just heard that, sir. And if thereisa Parson Lolly, sir—”Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. “We’ll not discuss such a preposterous supposition.”“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come on the face of the picture when the time comes for Highglen House to be destroyed.”“Destroyed?”“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.”There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable hits, besides the unaccountable business of the knocking on the wall, and Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, from the witness-box.I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound door leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I happened to glance at the substantial iron handle of the door, for it had no knob, the roots of my hair stirred and a thrill shot down my spine.For, very slowly, the black bar was turning while something outside softly pressed downward on the handle.The fascination that took hold of me then was almost hypnotic. I forgot the room, the people there, the cracked fleering voice of the old gardener; all that existed for me then was the slowly descending bar. To call attention to the thing never so much as occurred to me. Nothing occurred to me. When the bolt of the lock had been drawn back, the door began to open with imperceptible motion—an inch—two inches—and was at rest. The handle gradually returned to its horizontal position. It seemed as if I had taken only one breath during those four or five minutes.Crofts’ questioning went on, and little by little I came out from the spell of the door, which remained ajar. The questioning went on, with some secret listener outside in the passage. Still I held silence, for, clouded with excitement as was my mind in those minutes, the notion of danger did not possess me. I kept my eyes on the motionless door, dreading that it might open further, distinctly unwilling to see what it might disclose—and the questioning went on.Pendleton was learning nothing from Finlay; I was vaguely aware that the old gardener was fencing with the over-anxious Crofts.Then a thing occurred to relieve the tension: from the kitchen entry came sound of hurried movement, of a dish falling to the floor, and presently was visible the tousled head of a boy peering around the edge of the screen, a head surprised into a gape by sight of the assemblage.“Come in, Toby,” said Crofts. “We’re—”“I just got back, sir, with Mr. Bannerlee’s bag and all. Oh, sir,” cried the head, bringing its body into the room, “the Water’s swellin’ awfully from the rain—”His hair was quite tangential, and his shoes and clothing bore marks of the storm. An ulster dangled both ends from his shoulders. He was breathing hard with exertion added to stress of spirit.Pendleton began to explain to him: “We are trying to clear up this business of—”“I waited under ellum, till the rain stopped,” persisted the excited lad. “It went under old bridge with a roar and a roar. I misdoubt—”The exciting thought of the door softly released and pushed ajar had grown weaker in my mind upon the entrance of Toby. But again my eyes chanced to light upon the portal, and again my blood rushed pell-mell through a throbbing temple. For, unless my senses were false, the door trembled a little, as if uncertain whether to open farther or to shut. The secret watcher’s hand must be upon it still!In a daze I arose and came out of my retirement in the window-place.“Crofts,” I said. . . . “Crofts.”So hushed was my voice that he spun around in his chair with open mouth, and the servants’ chorus gave a slight gasp.I tried to open a path through my throat for words to issue.“Crofts . . . there’s something—someone, I mean—watching us.”“How? What on earth do you mean? What’s the matter with you?”I extended my arm toward where showed a long narrow slit of blackness between jamb and door-edge.“There.”“How do you know?”My courage was small, but I summoned more to add to what I had. “I saw the door opened from the passageway. I tell you this inquiry has been overheard.”I strode toward the door, while from behind me came the scrape of Crofts rising to his feet, and the rustle of the servants. Open that door I would, if the fourfold centenarian himself were waiting outside to do me mischief. But I believed, and would not have been sorry to discover, that the unknown visitant had by this time fled, and with this hope upholding me I gripped the handle-piece and jerked the portal open.But no! A man stood in the corridor.
We ate beneath a sprinkling of electric lights and my mind was glum with foreboding.
As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a shrill staccato was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen Aire, a new arrival. Him I had not yet met, the table being already seated when I came down from revising my toilet in my lofty bed-chamber.
“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, thenewpsychology, forsooth!”
A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in the nature of a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the challenge would be received by Doctor Aire, who was seated at the same side of the table as I. All that was visible of him, of course, was head and shoulders, extraordinarily broad and square shoulders in rough purplish tweed, and a shocking small and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched skin, a balt spot like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and short pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat only two away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be twinkling amusement.
“The new psychology, sir—”
“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips curved sharply upward at the ends, “not thenewpsychology, of course.Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone living to-day!”
At this iteration of his own words of the night before his Lordship stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small but delighted squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the other end gave away the secret of pre-arrangement, and a laugh murmured about the table.
Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this very young lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I took in her appearance, I became almost intuitively aware of another gaze making an angle with mine. Cosgrove was staring at her, so enigmatically that I removed my glance from her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with a quick little movement of her head. Vastlyinterested, totally engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of his interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I guessed his to be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed fascinated, yet scandalized. Then the fleeting expression was gone, and he leaned back, turned to his neighbour.
Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on Cosgrove!
Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. The ends of the table, however, were broad enough to seat two of our numerous party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the foot with a youth of sturdy appearance. Bob Cullen completed the American group among us. His alert eyes had the queer habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he possessed also a pug nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless and determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of “Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He was very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had happened to overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” addressed with schoolboy gruffness to Alberta Pendleton, who smiled on him with aunt-like approbation. He has attended for a year, I understand, one of the great American universities.
He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s regard rested in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. The American youth’s face went unwontedly white, and his eyes, now wide open, glared. There was nothing puzzled in his expression, only resentment and a vague awe, as if he knew he confronted a better man than he.
Then Cosgrove shifted, and the drama of three seconds, which has taken three pages to describe, was over.
Chairs scraped; we rose to our several heights. “Lib” and Bob were distinctly the shortest among us, and Doctor Aire was not much taller. But the physician, standing up, was the strangest creature in the room—a clockwork man.
That broad-shouldered body in the tweed-suiting was boiler-shaped, and the long, gaunt arms and short, stodgy legs, seemed casual appendages joined at convenient locations. Atop this mechanical contrivance his head stuck like an absurd plaster carving on a pedestal. I could not but feel a queer, half-repugnant sensation when, on my being introduced to him, his yellowy, almost Chinese-looking face was close to mine, and I saw only the blue shadows where his eyes had retreated and the narrow-lipped mouth nigh to white in its bloodlessness.
I looked about to be presented to the pair of young Americans; they had already skipped out of the room.
“Since it’s still raining and we’re tired of the things we’ve been doing anyhow, we’re going to get Doctor Aire to tell us about the old magic in this neighbourhood,” said Alberta.
“That will be frightfully jolly,” I remarked, surprised at the bizarre field of knowledge evidently studied by the physician.
“I’m afraid it will be, as you say, ‘frightfully jolly,’ ” remarked Doctor Aire, with his smile at the very ends of his mouth. “I’m not sure the subject—in view of events—”
“Why not the new magic instead?” asked Crofts.
Doctor Aire turned his head sharply; I almost expected to hear a ratchet click. “What’s that?”
“The stuff in old Watts’ attic, I mean. We’ve found a conjurer’s outfit there, Doctor. Why not give ’em a show? That performance of yours at Coventry was as good as any professional’s.”
“Oh, we’ll settle that in the Hall,” smiled Alberta. “Come along, Mr. Bannerlee.”
“But I want him here,” objected Crofts. “We’re going to examine the servants.”
“You really want me?” I exclaimed. “But I don’t know your servants—haven’t seen but four of ’em yet.”
“That’s just it,” he explained. “I want someone to be here who can get a good unprejudiced impression of how they behave.”
“Well, if I can assist—”
“But have you asked Mr. Bannerlee if hewantsto stay and listen to the silly—”
Crofts besought me. “Oh, come, Bannerlee, you know as much as Doctor Aire does about magic—you with your antiquities.”
“On the contrary, it is one of the fields where I have done very little spading, but—”
“There, see,” smiled Alberta.
“But I was going to say that this interrogation of yours sounds particularly interesting. I’ll stay, if you don’t mind, Alberta.”
“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. “I only tried to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded inquisitor.”
“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door closed, cutting short his speech and her laugh.
There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale was made. The dessert dishes from luncheon had not been removed. Crofts sat at the head of the board; I was inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the window where Belvoir had sat at breakfast-time.
From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with lovely flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On both sides were topless and toppled walls much gnawed by time, clearly a portion of the ancient, much vaster edifice of which Highglen House is a survival. A group of well-preserved square stone buildings about thirty yards away on my right were, of course, the stables and garage.
The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, besides the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs along the inner side of the room, while the other men stood with marked differences of composure before the screens that guarded the entrance to the pantries and the kitchen. The number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much greater, of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not to bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, and for the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.”
Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of Parson Lolly.”
Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe the master of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I may make so bold, that any ofushave anything to do with the honfortunate affair?”
“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum of dismay and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t misunderstand, please. I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this ridiculous Parson Lolly—of course, we don’t believe in any such nonsense. What I want to do is to get from each one of you, if you can pull yourselves together and give plain, straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you see?”
“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice had the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little chirruppy uptilt at the end of each phrase.
“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that common talk of you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads such wild, romantic, and unfounded legends through the countryside. Now, a man four hundred years old—which of you has seen such a man?”
“If I may hinterpose,” came in Blenkinson again, “I might remind you, sir, that most of us are not of Welsh extraction. These foolish stories don’t ’ave much credit with us from London and other parts, you may be sure.”
This speech was approved by vigorous nods on the part of several, while three or four, the darker-faced and smaller ones, glowered for a bit, particularly two of the women, strikingly handsome and strikingly alike. Old Finlay the gardener smiled with sublime sarcasm, such as to elicit a question from Pendleton.
“I was thinkin’ as how they was all flummoxed and flabbergasted last night. It tickle me—that it do. They fules!” The ancient slapped his knee and burst into a silent guffaw. “Why, they tales—”
“One moment, Finlay,” said Pendleton; “we must go through this in an orderly way.”
“Sir,” Blenkinson cautioned.
“Oh, yes, yes, of course—what you say is very true—forgotten about it.” Pendleton scratched his head, saw light suddenly. “Why, of course, er—most of you are English, not British—”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Not Welsh—same thing. I suppose, then—there won’t be much—well, let’s see how much we do know. I’ll take you in turn.”
He spoke to the men standing by the screen. “Wheeler, Tenney, Morgan—any of you had any, er, experiences in the stables? Wheeler?”
“No, sir,” answered a young, rubicund fellow with a swollen and discoloured cheek and blue-ringed eye. (He drove the Pendleton car.) “Nothing but when we were called out last night.”
“Where did you get that eye?”
“Fell over pitchfork, sir, and hit the side of a stall.”
“Tenney, you?”
“No, sir.” He who answered was a tired-looking man, whose eyelids were most of the time let down. The two words, his total contribution to the inquiry, were drawn out to the length of polysyllables.
“Morgan, you’re a Welshman from around this district. You must have a lot of these old wives’ tales simmering inside that head of yours.”
The man, a swart, square-bearded little man, speaking with the sing-song of local accent, answered that he had heard tell of Parson Lolly “out of the cradle.”
“I’ve no doubt—ignorant folly,” commented Pendleton. “Well, what is all this nonsense?”
“You mean about Parson Lolly, sir?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“Well, sir, they do say he be the biggest of the farises and he be out of sight of any man for age.”
“Farises?”
“He means the fairies, sir,” interpreted one of the women, a mite of a person sitting on the edge of her chair, with a wisp of tartan colour at the throat of her black lady’s maid’s uniform.
“Eh? Oh, Ardelia, thanks,” exclaimed Pendleton, while the stableman Morgan mumbled something about the propriety of a “not Welshly person’s” keeping still, and one of the two handsome women gave her small fellow-servant an unsisterly look and ejaculated, “Hop-o’-my-thumb!”
“Go on, Morgan,” bade Pendleton, quieting a general stir.
The ensuing account was full of omens and transformation, of black calves and fairy ovens, of wizard marks, sucking pigs, “low winds,” and horses ridden by the “goblin trot” in stables at night.
“Great Scott, man! Do you believe all this?”
The “London servants” and those from other parts tittered.
Morgan seemed to be weighing his words. “Well, that be hard to say, sir.”
“What’s hard about it? Don’t you know what believing is?”
“Right well I do, sir, but—”
The small Ardelia woman with the fleck of colour at her collar bobbed forward. “If he can’t say it, I’ll say it for him. Sometimes he does believe, and sometimes he doesn’t. Now, Saul Morgan, say if ’tisn’t so.”
The stableman gave her a critical glare, but assented. “That’s nigh the way of it, as Miss Lacy says, sir.”
“Well!” snorted the interlocutor. “Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t! And what causes these changes of front?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“What makes you believe—”
“Well, sir, sometimes it’s right dark outside, you understand, and things or somethin’ you can’t see—well, they—”
“What, the things you can’t see?”
“Yes, sir. They have a way of surely creepin’ in your blood, if you understand what I mean, sir.”
“Yes,” said Pendleton, settling back, and, I thought, shivering a little, “I suppose I do.”
Morgan, on account of his complete and ingenuous exegesis of the lore of Parson Lolly, the object of much ironic commiseration from the “Londoners,” pulled out a florid handkerchief and wiped the beads from his brow. He stole a half-ashamed glance at the diminutive Ardelia Lacy, whose wide disapproving eyes made him squirm and shrink.
Pendleton turned to the women ranged along the wall, whose examination was shorter. Harmony, Em, and Jael, minxes with buxom bodies and good fresh faces, were “not Welshly people,” and had no traditions of Parson Lolly in their mental make-up, but they evidently had some respect for him born of the stories of indigenous servants. Harmony’s troubled look showed, to be sure, that she was remembering painfully to keep the secret of the new announcement of the Parson, but by none save Crofts and me was her embarrassment marked. Ardelia Lacy, minute and prim, personal maid of Alberta Pendleton, was also a “Londoner.”
The two dark-featured, vivacious women, were the “Clays,” Rosa and Ruth, cook and housekeeper, nieces, it appeared, of Hughes. Rosa Clay it was who had shown a little animosity toward the “foreign” Ardelia, indicating possibly a rivalry in respect to the favour of Morgan the stableman. They knew of no doings of Parson Lolly prior to the arrival of the guests for the Bidding Feast.
There remained three men-servants grouped in chairs about the foot of the table: Blenkinson the staid, Soames, footman, with mutton-chops and unction, and old Finlay the gardener with his irrepressible silent guffaws. And in the background against the screen loomed the figure of the man in out-of-doors clothing and cartridge-belt, the gamekeeper. Crofts looked at Soames and Blenkinson reflectively, but passed them as already examined. He raised his eyes.
“How about you, Hughes?”
“Whatabout me, sir?” Again the keeper’s voice betrayed his kinship of race with Morgan.
“You, too, have this mythology of the Parson pat, like Morgan?”
“Well, sir, I hardly think Morgan had it ‘pat,’ as you say,” answered the man, turning the eyes in his motionless head toward the stableman, who muttered something unintelligible. “I don’t think he was very well taught, sir—things mixed up, or something, and things that didn’t belong there, you might say. Now, as it was always told me—I come from down Powys-way, sir—”
“You surprise me, Hughes, a man of your age and sense. Now, what about this? While the House was empty and you and the rest were caretaking, what signs were of Parson Lolly then? I don’t mean larks and pigeons—I mean real evidence lying around, or real activity.”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Not anywhere in the preserve? Not in the whole estate?”
“No, sir. Nothing used to happen until you brought down the folk that are here now.”
“I see, I see. And you know nothing of the cause of the disturbances of the last few days?”
There was an ominous pause, while Hughes seemed to be considering his words. The room grew a little tenser; Pendleton looked up in surprise.
“What! You do!”
“Well, sir, I might say so; it’s connected with what I’ve heard about Parson Lolly. But it’s an old story, sir—tells about the great lord who built the castle that was here.”
“Ha! it does? About Sir Pharamond Kay?”
“It’s sure to, sir.”
“Sir Pharamond—hm—built this castle—exactly—well, come on, man; what is this?”
Contrasted with Morgan’s, that was a thoroughly intelligible tale the tall keeper recited in his voice with the mellow burr and up-ended sentences. Under those conditions of semi-darkness and suspense in the old, black-beamed chamber, it made a thoroughly moving story. And to one who knew the rigours and alarums of feudatory existence, who realized the ingrown awe of their masters felt by peasants with a long tradition of ancestral servitude to imperious Lords Marchers, it was quite obvious what a foothold in fact this tale of enchantments must have had. For from his youth, or ever that most ancient castle up the Vale was destroyed, Sir Pharamond Kay had been a wizard, and between him and Parson Lolly, then presumably a magnus in the prime of his powers, existed a rivalry shrewd and unflagging!
Wizards, to be sure, are not born but made, and Sir Pharamond went through complicated and profound measures to acquire his occult influence. This was before he had achieved his turbulent lordship, and his father ruled all Aidenn Forest with mailed fist. Sir Pharamond first unbaptized himself by three times spewing out water from the Holy Well. Then he stitched up his own lips with three stitches and for a certain space fasted and remained dumb. When he had unsealed his mouth again, he went by himself to a lonely room and did certain rites with a Bible, a fire, and a circle drawn with blood upon the floor, whereafter the Bible was ashes and Sir Pharamond, as he well deserved, was a true and certified wizard.
All this while Parson Lolly, whose sphere of influence included Aidenn Forest, had been watching the career of the ambitious necromancer with baleful interest, and now the older magician believed that he must try conclusions with the usurper or be shorn of his potency in this region. In the guise of a skipping hare he invaded the castle, and having come into the presence of its lord, suddenly assumed his wizard shape and challenged Sir Pharamond to a contest for supremacy. This took place at the Four Stones (monuments of an eldern time still standing lonely in a field-corner some miles beyond the mouth of the Vale) and the Lord of Aidenn proved to have an Evil Eye so strong the Parson was put to rout. In the form of a buzzard he fled to the desolate summit of Black Mixen at the top of Aidenn Forest. But Sir Pharamond, having assumed the shape of a small caterpillar, clung with all his legs between the shoulders of the bird and reconfronted his rival when he alighted where The Riggles are now. Those enormous scratches are the marks of his buzzard-claws.
Then when the Parson strove with powers enforced by the deadly fear he was in, the tide of battle turned. On that solitary hilltop, moreover, the elemental influences were on the side of the older magician. With a dart of his beak the Parson sank a deep wound in the cheek of Sir Pharamond, destroying the efficacy of his Evil Eye. Then it was the Lord of Aidenn’s time to flee, and he escaped to the innermost black sanctuary of his castle.
But Parson Lolly overthrew the castle, whose skeleton of clay slate chunks lies wasting up the Vale to this day.
Thenceforth, although Sir Pharamond lived on, his magic was only the shadow of what it had been, and he lived in perpetual dread of Parson Lolly. He built him a new castle where the mill had stood, and where Highglen House stands to-day. But he never found content within his re-erected halls. The menace of the Parson hung over his days and nights. Whenever in his woeful heart he meditated regaining his former ascendancy, from the cheek of his portrait on the wall blood would run and in his own cheek he would feel overwhelming pain, as when the Parson had driven his buzzard-beak into the flesh.
“One moment!” interjected Crofts. “Do you mean the painting in the corridor?”
“No, sir; it’s that little one way up on the wall of the Hall of the Moth as I mean.”
“Ah!” My host licked somewhat dry lips. “Go on.”
“There’s not so much more to it, sir, I expect. The Parson finallywouldmake an end of Sir Pharamond. He sent Sir Pharamond’s own corpse-candle for Sir Pharamond to see.”
“Corpse-candle!”
“A dimmery light, sir—it floats in the air. It’s a sure sign of a death in these parts. And the Tolaeth sounded, too; so Sir Pharamond knew then that it was all up with him.”
“The Tolaeth—I don’t think I know what that means,” said Crofts. The Welsh folk stirred just a little.
The keeper’s voice fell, I do not think by design. “The rappin’s, sir, that come just before a person dies. Tappin’, sir, like—”
Our hearts were in our throats while he finished the speech in a sudden gasp—“like that.”
For from the other side of the corridor wall, high toward the ceiling, had sounded three sharp knocks.
And again, before a breath was taken in the room, three knocks again—and again.
“It’s the Three Thumps.” Morgan’s voice was that of a strangling man.
“Coffin-making,” muttered one of the Clay sisters, her eyes lightless.
I saw Crofts’ glance flit about the room, taking in the whole group. I, too, had thought of collusion, but the number of servants was complete; none had slipped out while the keeper’s story was in progress.
Crofts remained irresolute for only a few seconds before he jumped up and sprang to the door, flung it open and glared down the corridor.
“Empty,” he said, and I could not tell whether satisfaction or distress was uppermost in his voice. Then the silence for a bit was blank and appalling. He returned to the table. “Get on with your story, Hughes. We’ll find out about this fol-de-rol later.”
“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson again when the signs had come. He still tried to get back his magic power, and the blood stood out on the picture and the pain came in his cheek. But he knew that it was life-and-death, and he kept repeating his spells and made a man of wax against the Parson. But just as he was going to drive a bodkin through the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made him stagger, and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they couldn’t see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir Pharamond was dead!”
All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat quietly, seeming to cogitate.
At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless fairy-tale, but what makes you think it may have any connection with what’s going on here?”
The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. “You’ve just heard that, sir. And if thereisa Parson Lolly, sir—”
Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. “We’ll not discuss such a preposterous supposition.”
“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come on the face of the picture when the time comes for Highglen House to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.”
There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable hits, besides the unaccountable business of the knocking on the wall, and Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, from the witness-box.
I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound door leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I happened to glance at the substantial iron handle of the door, for it had no knob, the roots of my hair stirred and a thrill shot down my spine.
For, very slowly, the black bar was turning while something outside softly pressed downward on the handle.
The fascination that took hold of me then was almost hypnotic. I forgot the room, the people there, the cracked fleering voice of the old gardener; all that existed for me then was the slowly descending bar. To call attention to the thing never so much as occurred to me. Nothing occurred to me. When the bolt of the lock had been drawn back, the door began to open with imperceptible motion—an inch—two inches—and was at rest. The handle gradually returned to its horizontal position. It seemed as if I had taken only one breath during those four or five minutes.
Crofts’ questioning went on, and little by little I came out from the spell of the door, which remained ajar. The questioning went on, with some secret listener outside in the passage. Still I held silence, for, clouded with excitement as was my mind in those minutes, the notion of danger did not possess me. I kept my eyes on the motionless door, dreading that it might open further, distinctly unwilling to see what it might disclose—and the questioning went on.
Pendleton was learning nothing from Finlay; I was vaguely aware that the old gardener was fencing with the over-anxious Crofts.
Then a thing occurred to relieve the tension: from the kitchen entry came sound of hurried movement, of a dish falling to the floor, and presently was visible the tousled head of a boy peering around the edge of the screen, a head surprised into a gape by sight of the assemblage.
“Come in, Toby,” said Crofts. “We’re—”
“I just got back, sir, with Mr. Bannerlee’s bag and all. Oh, sir,” cried the head, bringing its body into the room, “the Water’s swellin’ awfully from the rain—”
His hair was quite tangential, and his shoes and clothing bore marks of the storm. An ulster dangled both ends from his shoulders. He was breathing hard with exertion added to stress of spirit.
Pendleton began to explain to him: “We are trying to clear up this business of—”
“I waited under ellum, till the rain stopped,” persisted the excited lad. “It went under old bridge with a roar and a roar. I misdoubt—”
The exciting thought of the door softly released and pushed ajar had grown weaker in my mind upon the entrance of Toby. But again my eyes chanced to light upon the portal, and again my blood rushed pell-mell through a throbbing temple. For, unless my senses were false, the door trembled a little, as if uncertain whether to open farther or to shut. The secret watcher’s hand must be upon it still!
In a daze I arose and came out of my retirement in the window-place.
“Crofts,” I said. . . . “Crofts.”
So hushed was my voice that he spun around in his chair with open mouth, and the servants’ chorus gave a slight gasp.
I tried to open a path through my throat for words to issue.
“Crofts . . . there’s something—someone, I mean—watching us.”
“How? What on earth do you mean? What’s the matter with you?”
I extended my arm toward where showed a long narrow slit of blackness between jamb and door-edge.
“There.”
“How do you know?”
My courage was small, but I summoned more to add to what I had. “I saw the door opened from the passageway. I tell you this inquiry has been overheard.”
I strode toward the door, while from behind me came the scrape of Crofts rising to his feet, and the rustle of the servants. Open that door I would, if the fourfold centenarian himself were waiting outside to do me mischief. But I believed, and would not have been sorry to discover, that the unknown visitant had by this time fled, and with this hope upholding me I gripped the handle-piece and jerked the portal open.
But no! A man stood in the corridor.