Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 6

by R. Austin Freeman

  Andrew noted mentally the appropriateness of the phrase, "passing through my hands," and saw unpleasant possibilities looming in the future. He only hoped that "they", whoever they were—supposing them to have any real objective existence—would make suitable arrangements for "their" own security.

  Meanwhile he replied: "It is an open cheque; but if that doesn't quite meet the case, I dare say I could manage to let you have cash. But I should like to know a little more about the business."

  "Of course you would," Ronald agreed heartily, "though the essential fact is that I have to lay down fifty pounds as security before I can take up the appointment. Look at that jolly old windmill. What a pity they have taken the sails off! Makes it look such a ruinous affair. But they nearly always do, if they don't pull the whole thing down. Soon there won't be a complete windmill in the whole country."

  Here he broke off into a discourse on windmills in particular and the deterioration of the countryside in general, and, for the time being, the subject of the security lapsed. It being obvious that he did not mean to be drawn into any intelligible account of the business transaction, real or imaginary, Andrew resigned himself to the inevitable and accepted the conversational lead; with the reservation that no arrangements for a visit to Fairfield were entertained.

  Apart from its unpleasant antecedents, the walk was agreeable enough. They had soon left the little town behind, and the country, though not romantically beautiful, offered a pleasant rural prospect. The cornfields, it is true, were denuded of their crops, which now, in the form of rows of ricks, lined the hedgerows at the bottom of the fields. But the stubble, now faded to a soft purplish grey, was enriched by the daisies that had sprung up since the harvest, and the groups of scarlet poppies. The only drawback to the landscape was the scarcity of trees and the lack of any relief from the glare of the hot afternoon sun. For, late as it was in the year, the summer continued with unabated heat and brilliancy. The sky was cloudless, a tremulous haze hung over the ground, and the sea, which was visible over the edge of the cliffs, was still of the clear summer blue. "It's deuced hot," said Ronald, taking off his hat to wipe his forehead. "How would it be to get down to the beach and have a stroll along the sands? It would be fresher there than up here."

  "Can we get down?" asked Andrew.

  "Yes," replied Ronald. "There is a sunken road leading to a gap-way that opens out on to the beach. I found it by following a couple of seaweed carts, and I've been there once or twice since for a bathe. Nobody ever seems to come there, so you don't have to bother about bathing suits."

  He turned off the road and led the way across a stubble field, and, after walking about a quarter of a mile, they came to a shallow sunken road, marked by deep ruts in its chalky surface made by the wheels of the heavily laden seaweed carts. Gradually the road sank deeper as it declined towards the sea level until it took on the character of a narrow gully enclosed by lofty walls of chalk. Down this gully the two men picked their way over the rough road in the deep, cool shadow until they reached the bottom of the slope and stood looking out on the sun-lit sands.

  Ronald cast a glance at the two lofty headlands which enclosed the little bay and remarked: "We shan't be able to walk very far along the beach. The tide is coming in, and it won't be long before it is up to the cliffs where they jut out. We mustn't get caught on the hop."

  "Well," said Andrew, "there's a good stretch of smooth sand in the bay. It will be quite pleasant to walk up and down by the sea without going out of the bay; and it will seem cooler by the water's edge, even if it isn't."

  "Yes," Ronald agreed, "there is something cooling in the very sound of the waves breaking on the beach. But I don't see why we need stop at the sound. A dip would be a good deal more refreshing. What do you say? The sea looks just perfect for a bathe."

  Andrew cast an approving glance at the calm blue sea and the lines of creamy white where the little surf broke with a gentle murmur on the shore. "It does look rather inviting," he admitted; "but it seems a bit primitive—no bathing suits and no towels."

  "As to the suits," said Ronald, beginning to slip off his jacket, "you can see for yourself that the place is as solitary as the Sahara; and what do you want with towels when you have got a roasting sun like this to dry you?"

  He settled the question by backing into a shallow recess in the cliff and proceeding rapidly to divest himself of his clothes, when Andrew, after a moment's hesitation, followed suit. As both men were rather scantily clad in the ubiquitous grey flannel suits that were then the vogue, the process was not a long one. In a couple of minutes they were scampering across the sand towards the surf in a condition which Mr. Titmarsh would have described as "naked as a pair of Hottentots", Ronald taking a certain satisfaction in the defiance of convention and Andrew slightly self-conscious.

  The breach of the proprieties, however, was only potential, for Ronald's description of the place was so far justified that the nearest approach to a spectator was a small fishing lugger with dark brown sails which was beating up the coast some three or four miles away. Meanwhile the two cousins swam up and down in the calm water outside the surf, with intervals of resting and wallowing in the shallows or basking in the sun on the dry sand before once more splashing into the water.

  In these disports the best part of an hour passed. At length, Andrew suggested that it was time to be turning homeward, and they emerged for the last time, shaking themselves as they stepped out on to the wet sand, and took their way across the beach to the place where their clothes were deposited close under the cliff. Ronald led the way at a brisk run, and, on arrival at the "dressing station", sat down and reclined at his ease on one of the heaps of clothes—it happened to be Andrew's, and the similarity of the two suits may possibly have misled him; but the enjoyment with which he rubbed his wet body on the dry garments strongly suggested an intentional "mistake". It would have been like Ronald. Andrew followed, shivering slightly, and sat down on the other heap in an upright posture, to catch as much of the sun's heat as possible; for the afternoon was drawing out and the sun was now appreciably lower.

  For some time neither of the two men spoke. Ronald lay stretched at full length with his eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight which played on his rapidly drying skin, while Andrew sat absently watching the fishing lugger, now tacking out to sea and now going about to make a tack in-shore. At length, Ronald spoke, in a drowsy tone and without opening his eyes. "So you think you will be able to manage cash in place of that cheque? I hope you will. It will be a lot more convenient for me."

  "Well," replied Andrew, "I'll see what can be done. But you haven't given me any particulars, you know."

  "What's the good?" protested Ronald. "I don't know much about it myself. It's an insurance job. I shall have to rout out new clients and, when I get a bite, I shall have to take the first premium. That's why they want a deposit. So that I shan't mizzle with the takings. Isn't that enough for you?"

  As it was all the information he was likely to get, Andrew assented with a grunt and once more fixed his eyes on the distant lugger. Another interval of silence followed. Then Ronald inquired, sleepily: "Molly send me any message?"

  "She doesn't know I was going to see you; and I don't want her to know anything about this transaction. She mightn't be best pleased at my dropping money in this way."

  "Don't you believe it, dear boy," said Ronald, with a faint smile. "Molly is quite fond of her cousin. She would be only too delighted to help him out of a difficulty. She knows what an affection he has for her. And, by Jove! What a good-looking girl she is! I don't know of any girl that I admire so much. You're a lucky beggar. But I'll remember that mum's the word when I come over to see you."

  "I think," Andrew said, huskily, "that it would be as well if you did not come over just at present. In fact, I would rather you did not."

  Ronald opened his eyes and looked curiously at his cousin. Then he shut them again and smiled a smile of deep cunning. "So that's how you f
eel, is it?" said he. "I suspected something of the kind when you had this very opportune business appointment in Crompton. However, I can take a hint. I should be devilish obtuse if I couldn't take one of that breadth."

  He spoke without anger but in a tone of undisguised contempt which brought the hot blood to Andrew's cheeks and which made it clear that he grasped the position exactly. Andrew squirmed with shame and anger; shame of the paltry, unreasonable jealousy of which Ronald evidently suspected him, and anger at the suspicion. For a moment he looked down at the face of the man beside him, with its closed eyes and the sinister, cunning, insolent smile; and an impulse surged through him to batter it with his fists until it was even as his own. But he conquered the impulse and looked away, fixing his eyes once more on the lugger, which was now tacking in-shore and would soon be hidden by the projecting headland. He followed it with a dull interest as it drew nearer and nearer to the headland, idly watching for the moment when it should pass into eclipse, or should go about and head again out to sea.

  Gradually the distance between the vessel's bows and the jutting promontory contracted, and Andrew still watched with a strange, foolish eagerness to see whether she would vanish or turn about. At last the dwindling space dwindled to extinction and the boat's bows and the dark brown mainsail began to slip out of sight behind the promontory; and at that moment, Andrew was startled by a heavy thud at his side, a rattle and clatter above and around him and a volley of falling fragments of chalk, one of which struck him a shrewd blow on the shoulder. With a cry of alarm, he scrambled to his feet and raced away for dear life across the sand, pausing only to look round when he had run a full thirty yards.

  What he saw when he did at last look round, seemed to turn him to stone. Beside the place where he had been sitting was a litter of fragments of chalk and one great block which rested where Ronald's head had been. Out of the litter the naked legs projected, moving with a slow, twitching, purposeless motion which was horrible to look on, and which, even as he looked, slowly died away and gave place to a dreadful limp stillness.

  For some moments, Andrew stood gazing with starting eyes at this awful spectacle without conscious or intelligible thought. He was literally stunned. Presently, regaining some semblance of consciousness, he began to creep back towards the place where his cousin lay with some vague idea of help or rescue. But when he drew nearer, that idea faded from his mind. The way in which the great block sat on the flattened clothing, to say nothing of the gory oozings around it, told the horrible story. That block, weighing perhaps a hundredweight, had come down on the smiling face with the closed eyes with the impact of a steam hammer. It was useless to think of trying to move it, even if that had been within the compass of one man's strength. The head that had been there was a head no longer.

  Still confused and bewildered by the suddenness of the catastrophe, Andrew stood with his eyes riveted on the great block, shaking like a man in the cold stage of an ague. He was aware of a dreadful feeling of faintness and nausea and of a cold sweat that had broken out on his face and trickled down in chilly drops. But, for a time, his power of thought seemed to be in total abeyance. He could only stand and stare vacantly at the great block and the naked, motionless legs.

  Suddenly, he became conscious of his own nude condition; and with that consciousness his faculties awoke. With a nervous glance up the face of the cliff to the white patch which marked the spot from which the block had fallen, he ran to the heap of clothes, and, snatching them up, backed away from the cliff and began to huddle them on as quickly as his shaking limbs would permit. But still, his actions were those of an automaton, for, all the while, his eyes strayed continually to the motionless form under the litter of chalk fragments and the great block which rested where, but a few minutes ago, had been that comely head with the closed eyes and the sinister, insolent, smiling face.

  When he had dressed himself, he looked around for his hat, but he could only see Ronald's panama. His own hat must be somewhere under that gory heap, which he would not even dare to approach. With a shudder at the very thought, he picked up the panama and flung it on his head, careless of the fact that it came down nearly to his ears. Then, with a last look at the figure that reposed with such dreadful stillness at the foot of the cliff, he turned and walked away quickly towards the gap that opened on to the sunken road. As he entered the now sombre and gloomy gully, the dark silhouette of the lugger stole out from behind the headland and began to shape a course towards the bay.

  IV. THE SHADOW OF THE GALLOWS

  Andrew stumbled up the rough sunken road with an appearance of haste and speed which was in curious contrast with his actual lack of conscious purpose. Vaguely, there was in his mind an intention to give information to somebody of the terrible mishap, and a desire to get back to the town to that end. But he was still shaken by the horror of what he had seen, was still haunted by the vision of that great block of chalk resting so flatly where a head had been that there had seemed to be no space underneath it. Quickly as he went, his knees trembled weakly, the faintness and nausea were only beginning to subside and a chaotic whirl of thoughts surged through his mind. To the bearing on the future of the thing that had happened, he was as yet unable to give any consideration. His whole attention was focused on the dreadful disaster that had befallen in the twinkling of an eye; the heavy thud of the falling block, the rattling down of the fragments, and, above all, the sight of those horrible, twitching legs.

  When the sunken road at length reached the surface, it strayed away across the fields as a rough, chalky cart-track which seemed to lead in the direction of a distant farm. As it was the only road visible, Andrew followed it automatically without giving any thought to its direction. At least, it led away from the sea and that terrible haunted bay. As to the whereabouts of the town he had only a confused idea; for during the walk out with Ronald, his mind had been so preoccupied that he had taken no note of the way they had come. Ronald had selected the route and he had followed Ronald. Now nothing impinged on his vision with any kind of familiarity. So, for a time, he walked on rather like one in a dream, clearly conscious of nothing and only dimly aware of a certain feeling of discomfort, particularly in his feet.

  He had followed the cart-track for close upon a mile when it opened on a road; a small by-road enclosed by dust-whitened hedgerows. The necessity of deciding which way he should turn aroused him from his dreamy, half-conscious state. He wanted to get to Crompton, but he had only the vaguest idea as to the direction in which it lay; and the sinuous road, curving away on either hand, gave little indication as to whither it eventually led. After a few moments of hesitation, he turned towards the right and once more set forth at a quick pace, spurred on to haste by the agitation of his mind rather than by any conscious purpose.

  He hurried on along the road for more than half a mile before he met any human creature. Truly, Ronald had been right as to the scarcity of wayfarers in this part of the country. At length there appeared at a bend of the road a miller's cart with its tarpaulin cover raised, in the old-fashioned way, on a sort of ridge-pole, and the driver dimly visible in the dark triangle underneath. As it came in sight, Andrew decided to hail the driver and ask for a direction to Crompton; and then, becoming aware for the first time that his spectacles were not on his face, he instinctively thrust his hand into the pocket in which he usually carried them. But they were not there. Instead, he brought out a cigarette case which was certainly not his.

  For a few moments he stood staring foolishly at the case in his hand and wondering how it could have come into his pocket. Then his eye caught the wristband of the shirt which projected from the end of his sleeve; and he saw that the shirt also was not his. On this, with a sudden suspicion that something was amiss, he examined critically the clothes which he was wearing, including the shoes. Of them all, not a single item was his own. In his hurry and agitation, he had put on Ronald's clothes; indeed, he could not have done otherwise, for his own were under that dreadful heap w
hich he could never have brought himself to disturb.

  The discovery gave him a shock which was somewhat disproportionate to the occasion. Naturally, he was surprised; but there was really nothing in the affair that need have disturbed him. The clothes were almost exactly like his own, and they fitted him well enough to pass without attracting notice. The error could be easily explained, and he would probably be able to recover his own clothes, or at least the contents of the pockets. But the incident jarred on his already strained nerves as if there were something incriminating in it. Perhaps the need for explanation which would presently arise unnerved him; and certainly the loss of his spectacles and the necessity for going abroad with his hated disfigurement exposed affected him profoundly. So much so that he let the miller's cart pass unhailed and started forward once more, trusting to chance to find the right direction.

  By this time, his thought had become a little more coherent, and he began to look about him with some anxiety; for the afternoon was waning, and, at this time of year, the evenings begin to draw in. It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that he found himself approaching a cross-road and perceived at the crossing a four-armed finger-post. But, if he was relieved at the prospect of getting a reliable direction, he was rather disconcerted when he reached the post and read the inscription on the pointer; for it then became clear that he had been walking almost directly away from Crompton from the time when he emerged from the sunken road.

  He turned away from the post and started on what appeared to be the direct road to the town, though even this was only a larger by-road. But its surface was better than that of the one on which he had been travelling, and he set forth at a swinging pace to cover the three miles that, according to the finger-post, lay between him and the town, regardless of the slight discomfort due to the strange shoes. In spite of the unpleasant surprise of finding himself in the wrong clothes, the halt and the necessity for thought had done him good by diverting his attention from the horrors of his late experience to his present condition and the question as to what he would be called upon to do. He had found a wrist-watch in one of the pockets of the coat, and, as he now strapped it on his wrist and noted the lateness of the hour, he turned this latter question over in his mind.