There are shades in the fen; ghosts of women and menWho have sinned and have died, but are living again.O'er the waters they tread, with their lanterns of dread,And they peer in the pools—in the pools of the dead....
There are shades in the fen; ghosts of women and menWho have sinned and have died, but are living again.O'er the waters they tread, with their lanterns of dread,And they peer in the pools—in the pools of the dead....
A light was dancing out upon the moor, a witch-light that came and went unaccountably, up and down, in and out, now clearly visible, now masked in the darkness!
"Lock the door!" snapped my companion—"if there's a key."
I crept across the room and fumbled for a moment; then—
"There is no key," I reported.
"Then wedge the chair under the knob and let no one enter until I return!" he said amazingly.
With that he opened the window to its fullest extent, threw his leg over the sill, and went creeping along a wide concrete ledge, in which ran a leaded gutter, in the direction of the tower on the right!
Not pausing to follow his instructions respecting the chair, I craned out of the window, watching his progress, and wondering with what sudden madness he was bitten. Indeed, I could not credit my senses, could not believe that I heard and saw aright. Yet there out in the darkness on the moor moved the will-o'-the-wisp, and ten yards along the gutter crept my friend, like a great gaunt cat. Unknown to me he must have prospected the route by daylight, for now I saw his design. The ledge terminated only where it met the ancient wall of the tower, and it was possible for an agile climber to step from it to the edge of the unglazed window some four feet below, and to scramble from that point to the stone fence and thence on to the path by which we had come from Saul.
This difficult operation Nayland Smith successfully performed, and, to my unbounded amazement, went racing into the darkness toward the dancing light, headlong, like a madman! The night swallowed him up, and between my wonder and my fear my hands trembled so violently that I could scarce support myself where I rested, with my full weight upon the sill.
I seemed now to be moving through the fevered phases of a nightmare. Around and below me Cragmire Tower was profoundly silent, but a faint odour of cookery was now perceptible. Outside, from the night, came a faint whispering as of the distant sea, but no moon and no stars relieved the impenetrable blackness. Only out over the moor the mysterious light still danced and moved.
One—two—three—four—five minutes passed. The light vanished and did not appear again. Five more age-long minutes elapsed in absolute silence, whilst I peered into the darkness of the night and listened, muscles tensed, for the return of Nayland Smith. Yet two more minutes, which embraced an agony of suspense, passed in the same fashion; then a shadowy form grew, phantomesque, out of the gloom; a moment more, and I distinctly heard the heavy breathing of a man nearly spent, and saw my friend scrambling up toward the black embrasure in the tower. His voice came huskily, pantingly:
"Creep along and lend me a hand, Petrie! I am nearly winded."
I crept through the window, steadied my quivering nerves by an effort of the will, and reached the end of the ledge in time to take Smith's extended hand and to draw him up beside me against the wall of the tower. He was shaking with his exertions, and must have fallen, I think, without my assistance. Inside the room again—
"Quick! light the candles!" he breathed hoarsely. "Did any one come?"
"No one—nothing."
Having expended several matches in vain, for my fingers twitched nervously, I ultimately succeeded in relighting the candles.
"Get along to your room!" directed Smith. "Your apprehensions are unfounded at the moment, but you may as well leave both doors wide open!"
I looked into his face—it was very drawn and grim, and his brow was wet with perspiration, but his eyes had the fighting glint, and I knew that we were upon the eve of strange happenings.
O
f the events intervening between this moment and that when death called to us out of the night, I have the haziest recollections. An excellent dinner was served in the bleak and gloomy dining-room bythe mulatto, and the crippled author was carried to the head of the table by this same herculean attendant, as lightly as though he had had but the weight of a child.
Van Roon talked continuously, revealing a deep knowledge of all sorts of obscure matters; and in the brief intervals, Nayland Smith talked also, with almost feverish rapidity. Plans for the future were discussed. I can recall no one of them.
I could not stifle my queer sentiments in regard to the mulatto, and every time I found him behind my chair I was hard put to it to repress a shudder. In this fashion the strange evening passed; and to the accompaniment of distant, muttering thunder, we two guests retired to our chambers in Cragmire Tower. Smith had contrived to give me my instructions in a whisper, and five minutes after entering my own room, I had snuffed the candles, slipped a wedge, which he had given me, under the door, crept out through the window on to the guttered ledge, and joined Smith in his room. He, too, had extinguished his candles, and the place was in darkness. As I climbed in, he grasped my wrist to silence me, and turned me forcibly toward the window again.
"Listen!" he said.
I turned and looked out upon a prospect which had been a fit setting for the witch scene inMacbeth. Thunderclouds hung low over the moor, but through them ran a sort of chasm, or rift, allowing a bar of lurid light to stretch across the drear, from east to west—a sort of lane walled by darkness. There came a remote murmuring, as of a troubled sea—a hushed and distant chorus; and sometimes in upon it broke the drums of heaven. In the west lightning flickered, though but faintly, intermittently.
Then came thecall.
Out of the blackness of the moor it came, wild and distant—"Help! help!"
"Smith!" I whispered—"what is it? What...."
"Mr. Smith!" came the agonized cry ... "Nayland Smith, help! for God's sake...."
"Quick, Smith!" I cried, "quick, man! It's Van Roon—he's been dragged out ... they are murdering him...."
Nayland Smith held me in a vice-like grip, silent, unmoved!
Louder and more agonized came the cry for aid, and I felt more than ever certain that it was poor Van Roon who uttered it.
"Mr. Smith! Dr. Petrie! for God's sake come ... or ... it will be ... too ... late...."
"Smith!" I said, turning furiously upon my friend, "if you are going to remain here whilst murder is done,Iam not!"
My blood boiled now with hot resentment. It was incredible, inhuman, that we should remain there inert whilst a fellow-man, and our host to boot, was being done to death out there in the darkness. I exerted all my strength to break away; but although my efforts told upon him, as his loud breathing revealed, Nayland Smith clung to me tenaciously. Had my hands been free, in my fury I could have struck him; for the pitiable cries, growing fainter now, told their own tale. Then Smith spoke—shortly and angrily—breathing hard between the words.
"Be quiet, you fool!" he snapped. "It's little less than an insult, Petrie, to think me capable of refusing help where help is needed!"
Like, a cold douche his words acted; in that instant I knew myself a fool.
"You remember the Call of Siva?" he said, thrusting me away irritably, "—two years ago—and what it meant to those who obeyed it?"
"You might have told me...."
"Toldyou! You would have been through the window before I had uttered two words!"
I realized the truth of his assertion, and the justness of his anger.
"Forgive me, old man," I said, very crestfallen, "but my impulse was a natural one, you'll admit. You must remember that I have been trained never to refuse aid when aid is asked."
"Shut up, Petrie!" he growled; "forget it."
The cries had ceased, now, entirely, and a peal of thunder, louder than any yet, echoed over distant Sedgemoor. The chasm of light splitting the heavens closed in, leaving the night wholly black.
"Don't talk!" rapped Smith; "act! You wedged your door?"
"Yes."
"Good. Get into that cupboard, have your Browning ready, and keep the door very slightly ajar."
He was in that mood of repressed fever which I knew and which always communicated itself to me. I spoke no further word, but stepped into the wardrobe indicated and drew the door nearly shut. The recess just accommodated me, and through the aperture I could see the bed, vaguely, the open window, and part of the opposite wall. I saw Smith cross the floor, as a mighty clap of thunder boomed over the house.
A gleam of lightning flickered through the gloom.
I saw the bed for a moment, distinctly, and it appeared to me that Smith lay therein, with the sheets pulled up over his head. The light was gone and I could hear big drops of rain pattering upon the leaden gutter below the open window.
My mood was strange, detached, and characterized by vagueness. That Van Roon lay dead upon the moor I was convinced; and—although I recognized that it must be a sufficient one—I could not even dimly divine the reason why we had refrained from lending him aid. To have failed to save him, knowing his peril, would have been bad enough;to haverefused, I thought, was shameful. Better to have shared his fate—yet....
The downpour was increasing, and beating now a regular tattoo upon the gutter-way. Then, splitting the oblong of greater blackness which marked the casement, quivered dazzlingly another flash of lightning in which I saw the bed again, with that impression of Smith curled up in it. The blinding light died out; came the crash of thunder, harsh and fearsome, more imminently above the tower than ever. The building seemed to shake.
Coming as they did, horror and the wrath of heaven together, suddenly, crashingly, black and angry after the fairness of the day, these happenings and their setting must have terrorized the stoutest heart; but somehow I seemed detached, as I have said, and set apart from the whirl of events; a spectator. Even when a vague yellow light crept across the room from the direction of the door, and flickered unsteadily on the bed, I remained unmoved to a certain degree, although passively alive to the significance of the incident. I realised that the ultimate issue was at hand, but either because I was emotionally exhausted, or from some other cause, the pending climax failed to disturb me.
Going on tiptoe, in stockinged feet, across my field of vision, passed Kegan Van Roon! He was in his shirt-sleeves and held a lighted candle in one hand whilst with the other he shaded it against the draught from the window. He was a cripple no longer, and the smoked glasses were discarded; most of the light, at the moment when first I saw him, shone upon his thin, olive face, and at sight of his eyes much of the mystery of Cragmire Tower was resolved. For they were oblique, very slightly, but nevertheless unmistakably oblique. Though highly educated, and possibly an American citizen,Van Roon was a Chinaman!
Upon the picture of his face as I saw it then, I donot care to dwell. It lacked the unique horror of Dr. Fu-Manchu's unforgettable countenance, but possessed a sort of animal malignancy which the latter lacked.... He approached within three or four feet of the bed, peering—peering. Then, with a timidity which spoke well for Nayland Smith's reputation, he paused and beckoned to some one who evidently stood in the doorway behind him. As he did so I saw that the legs of his trousers were caked with greenish-brown mud nearly up to the knees.
The huge mulatto, silent-footed, crossed to the bed in three strides. He was stripped to the waist, and excepting some few professional athletes, I had never seen a torso to compare with that which, brown and glistening, now bent over Nayland Smith. The muscular development was simply enormous; the man had a neck like a column, and the thews around his back and shoulders were like ivy tentacles wreathing some gnarled oak.
Whilst Van Roon, his evil gaze upon the bed, held the candle aloft, the mulatto, with a curious preparatory writhing movement of the mighty shoulders, lowered his outstretched fingers to the disordered bed linen....
I pushed open the cupboard door and thrust out the Browning. As I did so a dramatic thing happened. A tall, gaunt figure shot suddenly upright frombeyondthe bed. It was Nayland Smith!
Upraised in his hand he held a heavy walking cane. I knew the handle to be leaded, and I could judge of the force with which he wielded it by the fact that it cut the air with a keenswishingsound. It descended upon the back of the mulatto's skull with a sickening thud, and the great brown body dropped inert upon the padded bed—in which not Smith, but his grip, reposed. There was no word, no cry. Then—
"Shoot, Petrie! Shoot the fiend!Shoot!..."
Van Roon, dropping the candle, in the fallinggleam of which I saw the whites of the oblique eyes, turned and leapt from the room with the agility of a wild cat. The ensuing darkness was split by a streak of lightning ... and there was Nayland Smith scrambling around the foot of the bed and making for the door in hot pursuit.
We gained it almost together. Smith had dropped the cane, and now held his pistol in his hand. Together we fired into the chasm of the corridor, and in the flash, saw Van Roon hurling himself down the stairs. He went silently in his stockinged feet, and our own clatter was drowned by the awful booming of the thunder which now burst over us again.
Crack!—crack!—crack! Three times our pistols spat venomously after the flying figure ... then we had crossed the hall below and were in the wilderness of the night with the rain descending upon us in sheets. Vaguely I saw the white shirt-sleeves of the fugitive near the corner of the stone fence. A moment he hesitated, then darted away inland, not toward Saul, but toward the moor and the cup of the inland bay.
"Steady, Petrie! steady!" cried Nayland Smith. He ran, panting, beside me. "It is the path to the mire." He breathed sibilantly between every few words. "It was out there ... that he hoped to lure us ... with the cry for help."
A great blaze of lightning illuminated the landscape as far as the eye could see. Ahead of us a flying shape, hair lank and glistening in the downpour, followed a faint path skirting that green tongue of morass which we had noted from the upland.
It was Kegan Van Roon. He glanced over his shoulder, showing a yellow, terror-stricken face. We were gaining upon him. Darkness fell, and the thunder cracked and boomed as though the very moor were splitting about us.
"Another fifty yards, Petrie," breathed Nayland Smith, "and after that it's uncharted ground."
On we went through the rain and the darkness; then—
"Slow up! slow up!" cried Smith. "It feels soft!"
Indeed, already I had made one false step—and the hungry mire had fastened upon my foot, almost tripping me.
"Lost the path!"
We stopped dead. The falling rain walled us in. I dared not move, for I knew that the mire, the devouring mire, stretched, eager, close about my feet. We were both waiting for the next flash of lightning, I think, but, before it came, out of the darkness ahead of us rose a cry that sometimes rings in my ears to this hour. Yet it was no more than a repetition of that which had called to us, deathfully, awhile before.
"Help! help! for God's sake help! Quick! I am sinking...."
Nayland Smith grasped my arm furiously.
"We dare not move, Petrie—we dare not move!" he breathed. "It's God's justice—visible for once."
Then came the lightning; and—ignoring a splitting crash behind us—we both looked ahead, over the mire.
Just on the edge of the venomous green patch, not thirty yards away, I saw the head and shoulders and upstretched, appealing arms of Van Roon. Even as the lightning flickered and we saw him, he was gone; with one last, long, drawn-out cry, horribly like the mournful wail of a sea-gull, he was gone!
The eerie light died, and in the instant before the sound of the thunder came shatteringly, we turned about ... in time to see Cragmire Tower, a blacker silhouette against the night, topple and fall! A red glow began to be perceptible above the building.The thunder came booming through the caverns of space. Nayland Smith lowered his wet face close to mine and shouted in my ear:
"Kegan Van Roon never returned from China. It was a trap. Those were two creatures of Dr. Fu-Manchu...."
The thunder died away, hollowly, echoing over the distant sea....
"That light on the moor to-night?"
"You have not learnt the Morse Code, Petrie. It was a signal, and it read: S M I T H ... S O S."
"Well?"
"I took the chance, as you know. And it was Kâramanèh! She knew of the plot to bury us in the mire. She had followed from London, but could do nothing until dusk. God forgive me if I've mis-judged her—for we owe her our lives to-night."
Flames were bursting up from the building beside the ruin of the ancient tower which had faced the storms of countless ages only to succumb at last. The lightning literally had cloven it in twain.
"The mulatto?..."
Again the lightning flashed, and we saw the path and began to retrace our steps. Nayland Smith turned to me; his face was very grim in that unearthly light, and his eyes shone like steel.
"I killed him, Petrie ... as I meant to do."
From out over Sedgemoor it came, cracking and rolling and booming towards us, swelling in volume to a stupendous climax, that awful laughter of Jove the destroyer of Cragmire Tower.
I
n looking over my notes dealing with the second phase of Dr. Fu-Manchu's activities in England, I find that one of the worst hours of my life was associated with the singular and seemingly inconsequent adventure of the fiery hand. I shall deal with it in this place, begging you to bear with me if I seem to digress.
Inspector Weymouth called one morning, shortly after the Van Roon episode, and entered upon a surprising account of a visit to a house at Hampstead which enjoyed the sinister reputation of being uninhabitable.
"But in what way does the case enter into your province?" inquired Nayland Smith, idly tapping out his pipe on a bar of the grate.
We had not long finished breakfast, but from an early hour Smith had been at his eternal smoking, which only the advent of the meal had interrupted.
"Well," replied the Inspector, who occupied a big armchair near the window, "I was sent to look into it, I suppose, because I had nothing better to do at the moment."
"Ah!" jerked Smith, glancing over his shoulder.
The ejaculation had a veiled significance; for our quest of Dr. Fu-Manchu had come to an abrupt termination by reason of the fact that all trace of that malignant genius, and of the group surrounding him, had vanished with the destruction of Cragmire Tower.
"The house is called The Gables," continued the Scotland Yard man, "and I knew I was on a wild-goose chase from the first—"
"Why?" snapped Smith.
"Because I was there before, six months ago or so—just before your present return to England—and I knew what to expect."
Smith looked up with some faint dawning of interest perceptible in his manner.
"I was unaware," he said with a slight smile, "that the cleaning-up of haunted houses came within the province of New Scotland Yard. I am learning something."
"In the ordinary way," replied the big man good-humouredly, "it doesn't. But a sudden death always excites suspicion, and—"
"A sudden death?" I said, glancing up; "you didn't explain that the ghost had killed any one!"
"I'm afraid I'm a poor hand at yarn-spinning, doctor," said Weymouth, turning his blue, twinkling eyes in my direction. "Two people have died at The Gables within the last six months."
"You begin to interest me," declared Smith, and there came something of the old, eager look into his gaunt face, as, having lighted his pipe, he tossed the match-end into the hearth.
"I had hoped for some little excitement, myself," confessed the Inspector. "This dead-end, with not a shadow of a clue to the whereabouts of the Yellow fiend, has been getting on my nerves—"
Nayland Smith grunted sympathetically.
"Although Dr. Fu-Manchu had been in England for some months, now," continued Weymouth, "I have never set eyes upon him; the house we raided in Museum Street proved to be empty; in a word, I am wasting my time. So that I volunteered to run up to Hampstead and look into the matter of The Gables, principally as a distraction. It's a queer business, but more in the Psychical Research Society's line than mine, I'm afraid. Still, if there were no Dr. Fu-Manchu it might be of interest to you—and to you, Dr. Petrie—because it illustrates the fact that, given the right sort of subject, deathcan be brought about without any elaborate mechanism—such as our Chinese friends employ."
"You interest me more and more," declared Smith, stretching himself in the long, white cane rest-chair.
"Two men, both fairly sound, except that the first one had an asthmatic heart, have died at The Gables without any one laying a little finger upon them. Oh! there was no jugglery! They weren't poisoned, or bitten by venomous insects, or suffocated, or anything like that. They just died of fear—stark fear."
With my elbows resting upon the table cover, and my chin in my hands, I was listening attentively, now, and Nayland Smith, a big cushion behind his head, was watching the speaker with a keen and speculative look in those steely eyes of his.
"You imply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has something to learn from The Gables?" he jerked.
Weymouth nodded stolidly.
"I can't work up anything like amazement in these days," continued the latter; "every other case seems stale and hackneyed alongsidethecase. But I must confess that when The Gables came on the books of the Yard the second time, I began to wonder. I thought there might be some tangible clue, some link connecting the two victims; perhaps some evidence of robbery or of revenge—of some sort of motive. In short, I hoped to find evidence of human agency at work, but, as before, I was disappointed."
"It's a legitimate case of a haunted house, then?" said Smith.
"Yes; we find them occasionally, these uninhabitable places, where there issomething, something malignant and harmful to human life, but something that you cannot arrest, that you cannot hope to bring into court."
"Ah," replied Smith slowly; "I suppose you are right. There are historic instances, of course:Glamys Castle and Spedlins Tower in Scotland, Peel Castle, Isle of Man, with itsMaudhe Dhug, the grey lady of Rainham Hall, the headless horses of Caistor, the Wesley ghost of Epworth Rectory and others. But I have never come in personal contact with such a case, and if I did I should feel very humiliated to have to confess that there wasanyagency which could produce aphysicalresult—death,—but which was immune from physical retaliation."
Weymouth nodded his head again.
"Imight feel a bit sour about it, too," he replied, "if it were not that I haven't much pride left in these days, considering the show of physical retaliation I have made against Dr. Fu-Manchu."
"A home-thrust, Weymouth!" snapped Nayland Smith, with one of those rare boyish laughs of his. "We're children to that Chinese doctor, Inspector, to that weird product of a weird people who are as old in evil as the Pyramids are old in mystery. But about The Gables?"
"Well, it's an uncanny place. You mentioned Glamys Castle a moment ago, and it's possible to understand an old stronghold like that being haunted, but The Gables was only built about 1870; it's quite a modern house. It was built for a wealthy Quaker family, and they occupied it, uninterruptedly and apparently without anything unusual occurring for over forty years. Then it was sold to a Mr. Maddison—and Mr. Maddison died there six months ago."
"Maddison?" said Smith sharply, staring across at Weymouth. "What was he? Where did he come from?"
"He was a retired tea-planter from Colombo," replied the Inspector.
"Colombo?"
"There was a link with the East, certainly, if that's what you are thinking; and it was this fact which interested me at the time, and which led meto waste precious days and nights on the case. But there was no mortal connection between this liverish individual and the schemes of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I'm certain of that."
"And how did he die?" I asked interestedly.
"He just died in his chair one evening, in the room which he used as a library. It was his custom to sit there every night, when there were no visitors, reading, until twelve o'clock or later. He was a bachelor, and his household consisted of a cook, a housemaid, and a man who had been with him for thirty years, I believe. At the time of Mr. Maddison's death, his household had recently been deprived of two of its members. The cook and housemaid both resigned one morning, giving as their reason the fact that the place was haunted."
"In what way?"
"I interviewed the precious pair at the time, and they told me absurd and various tales about dark figures wandering along the corridors and bending over them in bed at night, whispering; but their chief trouble was a continuous ringing of bells about the house."
"Bells?"
"They said that it became unbearable. Night and day there were bells ringing all over the house. At any rate, they went, and for three or four days The Gables was occupied only by Mr. Maddison and his man, whose name was Stevens. I interviewed the latter also, and he was an altogether more reliable witness; a decent, steady sort of man whose story impressed me very much at the time."
"Did he confirm the ringing?"
"He swore to it—a sort of jangle, sometimes up in the air, near the ceilings, and sometimes under the floor, like the shaking of silver bells."
Nayland Smith stood up abruptly and began to pace the room, leaving great trails of blue-grey smoke behind him.
"Your story is sufficiently interesting, Inspector," he declared, "even to divert my mind from the eternal contemplation of the Fu-Manchu problem. This would appear to be distinctly a case of an 'astral bell' such as we sometimes hear of in India."
"It was Stevens," continued Weymouth, "who found Mr. Maddison. He (Stevens) had been out on business connected with the household arrangements, and at about eleven o'clock he returned, letting himself in with a key. There was a light in the library, and getting no response to his knocking, Stevens entered. He found his master sitting bolt upright in a chair, clutching the arms with rigid fingers and staring straight before him with a look of such frightful horror on his face, that Stevens positively ran from the room and out of the house. Mr. Maddison was stone dead. When a doctor, who lives at no great distance away, came and examined him, he could find no trace of violence whatever; he had apparently died of fright, to judge from the expression on his face."
"Anything else?"
"Only this: I learnt, indirectly, that the last member of the Quaker family to occupy the house had apparently witnessed the apparition, which had led to his vacating the place. I got the story from the wife of a man who had been employed as gardener there at that time. The apparition—which he witnessed in the hall-way, if I remember rightly—took the form of a sort of luminous hand clutching a long, curved knife."
"Oh, heavens!" cried Smith, and laughed shortly; "that's quite in order!"
"This gentleman told no one of the occurrence until after he had left the house, no doubt in order that the place should not acquire an evil reputation. Most of the original furniture remained, and Mr. Maddison took the house furnished. I don't thinkthere can be any doubt that what killed him was fear at seeing a repetition—"
"Of the fiery hand?" concluded Smith.
"Quite so. Well, I examined The Gables pretty closely, and, with another Scotland Yard man, spent a night in the empty house. We saw nothing; but once, very faintly, we heard the ringing of bells."
Smith spun around upon him rapidly.
"You can swear to that?" he snapped.
"I can swear to it," declared Weymouth stolidly. "It seemed to be over our heads. We were sitting in the dining-room. Then it was gone, and we heard nothing more whatever of an unusual nature. Following the death of Mr. Maddison, The Gables remained empty until a while ago, when a French gentleman, named Lejay, leased it—"
"Furnished?"
"Yes; nothing was removed—"
"Who kept the place in order?"
"A married couple living in the neighbourhood undertook to do so. The man attended to the lawn and so forth, and the woman came once a week, I believe, to clean up the house."
"And Lejay?"
"He came in only last week, having leased the house for six months. His family were to have joined him in a day or two, and he, with the aid of the pair I have just mentioned, and assisted by a French servant he brought over with him, was putting the place in order. At about twelve o'clock on the Friday night this servant ran into a neighbouring house screaming 'the fiery hand!' and when at last a constable arrived and a frightened group went up the avenue of The Gables, they found M. Lejay, dead in the avenue, near the steps just outside the hall door! He had the same face of horror...."
"What a tale for the Press!" snapped Smith.
"The owner has managed to keep it quiet so far,but this time I think it will leak into the Press—yes."
There was a short silence; then—
"And you have been down to The Gables again?"
"I was there on Saturday, but there's not a scrap of evidence. The man undoubtedly died of fright in the same way as Maddison. The place ought to be pulled down; it's unholy."
"Unholy is the word," I said. "I never heard anything like it. This M. Lejay had no enemies?—there could be no possible motive?"
"None whatever. He was a business man from Marseilles, and his affairs necessitated his remaining in or near to London for some considerable time; therefore, he decided to make his headquarters here, temporarily, and leased The Gables with that intention."
Nayland Smith was pacing the floor with increasing rapidity; he was tugging at the lobe of his left ear and his pipe had long since gone out.
I
started to my feet as a tall, bearded man swung open the door and hurled himself impetuously into the room. He wore a silk hat, which fitted him very ill, and a black frock-coat which did not fit him at all.
"It's all right, Petrie!" cried the apparition; "I've leased The Gables!"
It was Nayland Smith! I stared at him in amazement.
"The first time I have employed a disguise," continued my friend rapidly, "since the memorableepisode of the false pigtail." He threw a small brown leather grip upon the floor. "In case you should care to visit the house, Petrie, I have brought these things. My tenancy commences to-night!"
Two days had elapsed, and I had entirely forgotten the strange story of The Gables which Inspector Weymouth had related to us; evidently it was otherwise with my friend, and utterly at a loss for an explanation of his singular behaviour, I stooped mechanically and opened the grip. It contained an odd assortment of garments, and amongst other things several grey wigs and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.
Kneeling there with this strange litter about me, I looked up amazedly. Nayland Smith, the unsuitable silk hat set right upon the back of his head, was pacing the room excitedly, his fuming pipe protruding from the tangle of factitious beard.
"You see, Petrie," he began again, rapidly, "I did not entirely trust the agent. I've leased the house in the name of Professor Maxton...."
"But, Smith," I cried, "what possible reason can there be for disguise?"
"There's every reason," he snapped.
"Why should you interest yourself in The Gables?"
"Does no explanation occur to you?"
"None whatever; to me the whole thing smacks of stark lunacy."
"Then you won't come?"
"I've never stuck at anything, Smith," I replied, "however undignified, when it has seemed that my presence could be of the slightest use."
As I rose to my feet, Smith stepped in front of me, and the steely grey eyes shone out strangely from the altered face. He clapped his hands upon my shoulders.
"If I assure you that your presence is necessary to my safety," he said, "that if you fail me I must seek another companion—will you come?"
Intuitively, I knew that he was keeping something back, and I was conscious of some resentment, but, nevertheless, my reply was a foregone conclusion, and—with the borrowed appearance of an extremely untidy old man—I crept guiltily out of my house that evening and into the cab which Smith had waiting.
The Gables was a roomy and rambling place lying back a considerable distance from the road. A semi-circular drive gave access to the door, and so densely wooded was the ground, that for the most part the drive was practically a tunnel—a verdant tunnel. A high brick wall concealed the building from the point of view of any one on the roadway, but either horn of the crescent drive terminated at a heavy, wrought-iron gateway.
Smith discharged the cab at the corner of the narrow and winding road upon which The Gables fronted. It was walled in on both sides; on the left the wall being broken by tradesmen's entrances to the houses fronting upon another street, and on the right following, uninterruptedly, the grounds of The Gables. As we came to the gate—
"Nothing now," said Smith, pointing into the darkness of the road before us, "except a couple of studios, until one comes to the Heath."
He inserted the key in the lock of the gate and swung it creakingly open. I looked into the black arch of the avenue, thought of the haunted residence that lay hidden somewhere beyond, of those who had died in it—especially of the one who had died there under the trees ... and found myself out of love with the business of the night.
"Come on!" said Nayland Smith briskly, holding the gate open; "there should be a fire in the library, and refreshments, if the charwoman has followed instructions."
I heard the great gate clang to behind us. Even had there been any moon (and there was none) I doubted if more than a patch or two of light couldhave penetrated there. The darkness was extraordinary. Nothing broke it, and I think Smith must have found his way by the aid of some sixth sense. At any rate, I saw nothing of the house until I stood some five paces from the steps leading up to the porch. A light was burning in the hall-way, but dimly and inhospitably; of the façade of the building I could perceive little.
When we entered the hall and the door was closed behind us, I began wondering anew what purpose my friend hoped to serve by a vigil in this haunted place. There was a light in the library, the door of which was ajar, and on the large table were decanters, a siphon, and some biscuits and sandwiches. A large grip stood upon the floor also. For some reason which was a mystery to me, Smith had decided that we must assume false names whilst under the roof of The Gables; and—
"Now, Pearce," he said, "a whisky-and-soda before we look around?"
The proposal was welcome enough, for I felt strangely dispirited, and, to tell the truth, in my strange disguise not a little ridiculous.
All my nerves, no doubt, were highly strung, and my sense of hearing unusually acute, for I went in momentary expectation of some uncanny happening. I had not long to wait. As I raised the glass to my lips and glanced across the table at my friend, I heard the first faint sound heralding the coming of the bells.
It did not seem to proceed from anywhere within the library, but from some distant room, far away overhead. A musical sound it was, but breaking in upon the silence of that ill-omened house, its music was the music of terror. In a faint and very sweet cascade it rippled; a ringing as of tiny silver bells.
I set down my glass upon the table, and rising slowly from the chair in which I had been seated,stared fixedly at my companion, who was staring with equal fixity at me. I could see that I had not been deluded; Nayland Smith had heard the ringing, too.
"The ghosts waste no time!" he said softly. "This is not new to me; I spent an hour here last night—and heard the same sound...."
I glanced hastily around the room. It was furnished as a library, and contained a considerable collection of works, principally novels. I was unable to judge of the outlook, for the two lofty windows were draped with heavy purple curtains which were drawn close. A silk-shaded lamp swung from the centre of the ceiling, and immediately over the table by which I stood. There was much shadow about the room; and now I glanced apprehensively about me, but specially toward the open door.
In that breathless suspense of listening we stood awhile; then—
"There it is again!" whispered Smith tensely.
The ringing of bells was repeated, and seemingly much nearer to us; in fact it appeared to come from somewhere above, up near the ceiling of the room in which we stood. Simultaneously we looked up, then Smith laughed shortly.
"Instinctive, I suppose," he snapped; "but what do we expect to see in the air?"
The musical sound now grew in volume; the first tiny peal seemed to be reinforced by others and by others again, until the air around about us was filled with the pealings of these invisible bell-ringers.
Although, as I have said, the sound was rather musical than horrible, it was, on the other hand, so utterly unaccountable as to touch the supreme heights of the uncanny. I could not doubt that our presence had attracted these unseen ringers to the room in which we stood, and I knew quite well that I was growing pale. This was the room in which atleast one unhappy occupant of The Gables had died of fear. I recognized the fact that if this mere overture were going to affect my nerves to such an extent, I could not hope to survive the ordeal of the night; a great effort was called for. I emptied my glass at a draught, and stared across the table at Nayland Smith with a sort of defiance. He was standing very upright and motionless, but his eyes were turning right and left, searching every visible corner of the big room.
"Good!" he said in a very low voice. "The terrorizing power of the Unknown is boundless, but we must not get in the grip of panic, or we could not hope to remain in this house ten minutes."
I nodded without speaking. Then Smith, to my amazement, suddenly began to speak in a loud voice, a marked contrast to that, almost a whisper, in which he had spoken formerly.
"My dear Pearce," he cried, "do you hear the ringing of bells?"
Clearly the latter words were spoken for the benefit of the unseen intelligence controlling these manifestations; and although I regarded such finesse as somewhat wasted, I followed my friend's lead and replied in a voice as loud as his own:
"Distinctly, Professor!"
Silence followed my words, a silence in which both stood watchful and listening. Then, very faintly, I seemed to detect the silvern ringing receding away through distant rooms. Finally it became inaudible, and in the stillness of The Gables I could distinctly hear my companion breathing. For fully ten minutes we two remained thus, each momentarily expecting a repetition of the ringing, or the coming of some new and more sinister manifestation. But we heard nothing and saw nothing.
"Hand me that grip, and don't stir until I come back!" hissed Smith in my ear.
He turned and walked out of the library, hisboots creaking very loudly in that awe-inspiring silence.
Standing beside the table, I watched the open door for his return, crushing down a dread thatanotherform than his might suddenly appear there.
I could hear him moving from room to room, and presently, as I waited in hushed, tense watchfulness, he came in, depositing the grip upon the table. His eyes were gleaming feverishly.
"The house is haunted, Pearce!" he cried. "But no ghost ever frightenedme! Come, I will show you your room."
S
mith walked ahead of me upstairs; he had snapped up the light in the hall-way, and now he turned and cried back loudly:
"I fear we should never get servants to stay here."
Again I detected the appeal to a hidden Audience; and there was something very uncanny in the idea. The house now was deathly still; the ringing had entirely subsided. In the upper corridor my companion, who seemed to be well acquainted with the position of the switches, again turned up all the lights, and in pursuit of the strange comedy which he saw fit to enact, addressed me continuously in the loud and unnatural voice which he had adopted as part of his disguise.
We looked into a number of rooms all well and comfortably furnished, but although my imagination may have been responsible for the idea, they all seemed to possess a chilly and repellent atmosphere. I felt that to essay sleep in any one of them would be the merest farce, that the place to all intents and purposes was uninhabitable, that something incalculably evil presided over the house.
And through it all, so obtuse was I that no glimmer of the truth entered my mind. Outside again in the long, brightly lighted corridor, we stood for a moment as if a mutual anticipation of some new event pending had come to us. It was curious—that sudden pulling up and silent questioning of one another; because, although we acted thus, no sound had reached us. A few seconds later our anticipation was realized. From the direction of the stairs it came—a low wailing in a woman's voice; and the sweetness of the tones added to the terror of the sound. I clutched at Smith's arm convulsively whilst that uncanny cry rose and fell—rose and fell—and died away.
Neither of us moved immediately. My mind was working with feverish rapidity and seeking to run down a memory which the sound had stirred into faint quickness. My heart was still leaping wildly when the wailing began again, rising and falling in regular cadence. At that instant I identified it.
During the time Smith and I had spent together in Egypt, two years before, searching for Kâramanèh, I had found myself on one occasion in the neighbourhood of a native cemetery near to Bedrasheen. Now, the scene which I had witnessed there rose up again vividly before me, and I seemed to see a little group of black-robed women clustered together about a native grave; for the wailing which now was dying away again in The Gables was the same, or almost the same, as the wailing of those Egyptian mourners.
The house was very silent, now. My forehead was damp with perspiration, and I became more and more convinced that the uncanny ordeal must prove too much for my nerves. Hitherto, I hadaccorded little credence to tales of the supernatural, but face to face with such manifestations as these, I realized that I would have faced rather a group of armed dacoits, nay! Dr. Fu-Manchu himself, than have remained another hour in that ill-omened house.
My companion must have read as much in my face. But he kept up the strange and, to me, purposeless comedy when presently he spoke.
"I feel it to be incumbent upon me to suggest," he said, "that we spend the night at an hotel after all."
He walked rapidly downstairs and into the library and began to strap up the grip.
"Yet," he said, "there may be a natural explanation of what we've heard; for it is noteworthy that we have actuallyseennothing. It might even be possible to get used to the ringing and the wailing after a time. Frankly, I am loath to go back on my bargain!"
Whilst I stared at him in amazement, he stood there indeterminate as it seemed. Then—
"Come, Pearce!" he cried loudly, "I can see that you do not share my views; but for my own part I shall return to-morrow and devote further attention to the phenomena."
Extinguishing the light, he walked out into the hall-way, carrying the grip in his hand. I was not far behind him. We walked toward the door together, and—
"Turn the light out, Pearce," directed Smith; "the switch is at your elbow. We can see our way to the door well enough, now."
In order to carry out these instructions, it became necessary for me to remain a few paces in the rear of my companion, and I think I have never experienced such a pang of nameless terror as pierced me at the moment of extinguishing the light; for Smith had not yet opened the door, and the utter darkness of The Gables was horrible beyond expression.Surely darkness is the most potent weapon of the Unknown. I know that at the moment my hand left the switch I made for the door as though the hosts of hell pursued me. I collided violently with Smith. He was evidently facing toward me in the darkness, for at the moment of our collision he grasped my shoulder as in a vice.
"My God, Petrie! look behind you!" he whispered.
I was enabled to judge of the extent and reality of his fear by the fact that the strange subterfuge of addressing me always as Pearce was forgotten. I turned in a flash....
Never can I forget what I saw. Many strange and terrible memories are mine, memories stranger and more terrible than those of the average man; but thisthingwhich now moved slowly down upon us through the impenetrable gloom of that haunted place was (if the term be understood) almost absurdly horrible. It was a mediæval legend come to life in modern London; it was as though some horrible chimera of the black and ignorant past was become create and potent in the present.
A luminous hand—a hand in the veins of which fire seemed to run so that the texture of the skin and the shape of the bones within were perceptible—in short a hand of glowing, fiery flesh, clutching a short knife or dagger which also glowed with the same hellish, infernal luminance, was advancing upon us where we stood—was not three paces removed!
What I did or how I came to do it, I can never recall. In all my years I have experienced nothing to equal the stark panic which seized upon me then. I know that I uttered a loud and frenzied cry: I know that I tore myself like a madman from Smith's restraining grip....
"Don't touch it! Keep away, for your life!" I heard....
But, dimly I recollect that, finding the thingapproaching yet nearer, I lashed out with my fists—madly, blindly—and struck something palpable....
What was the result, I cannot say. At that point my recollections merge into confusion. Something or some one (Smith, as I afterwards discovered) was hauling me by main force through the darkness; I fell a considerable distance on to gravel which lacerated my hands and gashed my knees. Then, with the cool night air fanning my brow, I was running—running—my breath coming in hysterical sobs. Beside me fled another figure.... And my definite recollections commence again at that point. For this companion of my flight from The Gables threw himself roughly against me to alter my course.
"Not that way! not that way!" came pantingly. "Not on to the Heath ... we must keep to the roads...."
It was Nayland Smith. That healing realization came to me, bringing such a gladness as no word of mine can express nor convey. Still we ran on.
"There's a policeman's lantern," panted my companion. "They'll attempt nothing, now!"
I gulped down the stiff brandy-and-soda, then glanced across to where Nayland Smith lay extended in the long cane chair.
"Perhaps you will explain," I said, "for what purpose you submitted me to that ordeal. If you proposed to correct my scepticism concerning supernatural manifestations, you have succeeded."
"Yes," said my companion musingly, "they are devilishly clever; but we knew that already."
I stared at him, fatuously.
"Have you ever known me to waste my time when there was important work to do?" he continued. "Do you seriously believe that my ghost-hunting was undertaken for amusement? Really, Petrie, although you are very fond of assuring methat I need a holiday, I think the shoe is on the other foot!"
From the pocket of his dressing-gown he took out a piece of silk fringe which had apparently been torn from a scarf, and rolling it into a ball, tossed it across to me.
"Smell!" he snapped.
I did as he directed—and gave a great start. The silk exhaled a faint perfume, but its effect upon me was as though someone had cried aloud: "Kâramanèh!"
Beyond doubt the silken fragment had belonged to the beautiful servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu, to the dark-eyed, seductive Kâramanèh. Nayland Smith was watching me keenly.
"You recognize it—yes?"
I placed the piece of silk upon the table, slightly shrugging my shoulders.
"It was sufficient evidence in itself," continued my friend, "but I thought it better to seek confirmation, and the obvious way was to pose as a new lessee of The Gables...."
"But, Smith—" I began.
"Let me explain, Petrie. The history of The Gables seemed to be susceptible of only one explanation; in short it was fairly evident to me that the object of the manifestations was to ensure the place being kept empty. This idea suggested another, and with them both in mind, I set out to make my inquiries, first taking the precaution to disguise my identity, to which end Weymouth gave me the freedom of Scotland Yard's fancy wardrobe. I did not take the agent into my confidence, but posed as a stranger who had heard that the house was to let furnished and thought it might suit his purpose. My inquiries were directed to a particular end, but I failed to achieve it at the time. I had theories, as I have said, and when, having paid the deposit and secured possession of the keys, I was enabled tovisit the place alone, I was fortunate enough to obtain evidence to show that my imagination had not misled me.
"You were very curious the other morning, I recall, respecting my object in borrowing a large brace-and-bit. My object, Petrie, was to bore a series of holes in the wainscoting of various rooms at The Gables—in inconspicuous positions, of course...."
"But, my dear Smith!" I cried, "you are merely adding to my mystification."
He stood up and began to pace the room in his restless fashion.
"I had cross-examined Weymouth closely regarding the phenomenon of the bell-ringing, and an exhaustive search of the premises led to the discovery that the house was in such excellent condition that, from ground-floor to attic, there was not a solitary crevice large enough to admit of the passage of a mouse."
I suppose I must have been staring very foolishly indeed, for Nayland Smith burst into one of his sudden laughs.
"A mouse, I said, Petrie!" he cried. "With the brace-and-bit I rectified that matter. I made the holes I have mentioned, and before each I set a trap baited with a piece of succulent, toasted cheese. Just open that grip!"
The light at last was dawning upon my mental darkness, and I pounced upon the grip, which stood upon a chair near the window, and opened it. A sickly smell of cooked cheese assailed my nostrils.
"Mind your fingers!" cried Smith; "some of them are still set, possibly."
Out from the grip I began to takemouse-traps! Two or three of them were still set, but in the case of the greater number the catches had slipped. Nine I took out and placed upon the table, and all were empty. In the tenth there crouched, panting, itssoft furry body dank with perspiration, a little white mouse!
"Only one capture!" cried my companion, "showing how well fed the creatures were. Examine his tail!"
But already I had perceived that to which Smith would draw my attention, and the mystery of the "astral bells" was a mystery no longer. Bound to the little creature's tail, close to the root, with fine soft wire such as is used for making up bouquets, were three tiny silver bells. I looked across at my companion in speechless surprise.
"Almost childish, is it not?" he said; "yet by means of this simple device The Gables had been emptied of occupant after occupant. There was small chance of the trick being detected, for, as I have said, there was absolutely no aperture from roof to basement by means of which one of them could have escaped into the building."
"Then—"
"They were admitted into the wall cavities and the rafters, from some cellar underneath, Petrie, to which, after a brief scamper under the floors and over the ceilings, they instinctively returned for the food they were accustomed to receive, and for which, even had it been possible (which it was not), they had no occasion to forage."
I, too, stood up; for excitement was growing within me. I took up the piece of silk from the table.
"Where did you find this?" I asked, my eyes upon Smith's keen face.
"In a sort of wine cellar, Petrie," he replied, "under the stair. There is no cellar proper to The Gables—at least no such cellar appears in the plans."
"But—"
"But thereisone beyond doubt—yes! It must be part of some older building which occupied the site before The Gables was built. One can onlysurmise that it exists, although such a surmise is a fairly safe one, and the entrance to the subterranean portion of the building is situated beyond doubt in the wine cellar. Of this we have at least two evidences: the finding of the fragment of silk there, and the fact that in one case at least—as I learnt—the light was extinguished in the library unaccountably. This could only have been done in one way: by manipulating the main switch, which is also in the wine cellar."
"But, Smith!" I cried, "do you mean thatFu-Manchu...?"
Nayland Smith turned in his promenade of the floor, and stared into my eyes.
"I mean that Dr. Fu-Manchu has had a hiding-place under The Gables for an indefinite period!" he replied. "I always suspected that a man of his genius would have a second retreat prepared for him, anticipating the event of the first being discovered. Oh! I don't doubt it! The place probably is extensive, and I am almost certain—though the point has to be confirmed—that there is another entrance from the studio further along the road. We know, now, why our recent searchings in the East End have proved futile; why the house in Museum Street was deserted: he has been lying low in this burrow at Hampstead!"
"But the hand, Smith, the luminous hand...."
Nayland Smith laughed shortly.
"Your superstitious fears overcame you to such an extent, Petrie—and I don't wonder at it; the sight was a ghastly one—that probably you don't remember what occurred when you struck out at that same ghostly hand?"
"I seemed to hit something."
"That was why we ran. But I think our retreat had all the appearance of a rout, as I intended that it should. Pardon my playing upon your very natural fears, old man, but you could not havesimulatedpanic half so naturally! And if they had suspected that the device was discovered, we might never have quitted The Gables alive. It was touch-and-go for a moment."
"But—"
"Turn out the light!" snapped my companion.
Wondering greatly, I did as he desired. I turned out the light ... and in the darkness of my study I saw a fiery fist being shaken at me threateningly!... The bones were distinctly visible, and the luminosity of the flesh was truly ghastly.
"Turn on the light again!" cried Smith.
Deeply mystified, I did so ... and my friend tossed a little electric pocket-lamp on to the writing table.
"They used merely a small electric lamp fitted into the handle of a glass dagger," he said with a sort of contempt. "It was very effective, but the luminous hand is a phenomenon producible by anyone who possesses an electric torch."
"The Gables will be watched?"
"At last, Petrie, I think we have Fu-Manchu—in his own trap!"