Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  “Have you followed them?” I exclaimed, astonished.

  “I did the first time—now I daren’t,” the housekeeper answered. “But I got Jim Bateman from the lodge to come up one night, and he heard them, and followed them, and they led him to the same place. And now he would no more cross the threshold of the house after dark than he would fly.”

  It was clear to me by this time that, whether fact or fancy, the story called for investigation.

  I am not naturally nervous, and in spite of the disagreeable memories of the last haunted house I had spent a night in, I determined to face whatever there was to face in Hailesbury Manor.

  Accordingly, I arranged with Mrs. Musgrave to make up a bed for me the next night but one. Not in the haunted room itself, that I did not feel disposed to risk, but so as to enable me to be at hand when the mysterious tapping began.

  I was careful to say nothing in the office meanwhile, and, above all, to keep the matter from the ears of my lady secretary. Miss Sargent had solved the mystery of the Green House for me, but she had done so at the cost of an experience to which I could not think of exposing her a second time.

  On the appointed evening I returned to Hailesbury with a small dressing-bag, prepared to stay the night.

  The housekeeper had prepared a bedroom for me on one of the upper floors, not far from her own. But as she told me that the ghostly tapping usually began about midnight, I decided to sit up for it and persuaded her to do the same.

  We had supper together in a room downstairs, the old lady getting it ready herself. Not a girl in the village, it appeared, could be induced to remain in the house after sunset.

  After supper Mrs. Musgrave nodded off to sleep in a rocking-chair before the fire, while I lit a cigar and waited in some excitement for what was to come.

  The room in which we sat was wainscotted, like all those on the ground floor. Every time a coal dropped from the fire, or a window-frame rattled, I fancied the mysterious summons had come and started nervously in my chair.

  I believe it is not merely fancy which causes us to hear so many more small noises in a house at night than in the day time, but that there is some scientific reason for it. Be that as it may, everyone must admit that the sense of hearing is more acute in the darkness than in the light.

  As twelve o’clock approached I deliberately turned the lamp out, keeping a candle and some matches by my side.

  Hardly had I done this when I received a shock which nearly made me jump out of my chair. It was a tap—loud, sharp, and imperative—on the door of the room.

  In my agitation the habitual phrase, “Come in,” rose to my lips, and I uttered it. At the same moment my companion woke with a start, and stared about her wildly in the dim firelight.

  “Did you hear It?” she asked in an awestruck whisper.

  “Yes. Did you?”

  As she nodded in answer, the tap sounded a second time, seeming fainter and further off.

  I rose to my feet and lit the candle.

  “Are you going to follow It?” the old woman breathed.

  “Yes; will you come?”

  She shook her head.

  “I dare not. Give me the matches! Don’t go till I have lit the lamp, for my sake!”

  I lingered, my own nerves becoming affected in sympathy with hers, while the frightened woman clutched the box from my hand and struck a match, which she applied to the wick of the lamp.

  At the same moment I heard the Tap for the third time, low, and fading away in the distance.

  I strode to the door of the room, opened it, and passed out into the passage, leaving the door ajar.

  The ghostly Tap sounded again far away in front of me, at the foot of the great staircase.

  I strode after It, with quickening steps and throbbing pulses, carefully screening the candle flame with one hand. It moved on up the stairs, seeming to fly before me, and I almost raced to catch up that beckoning sound.

  Along the main corridor overhead I was drawn, straight to the door of the death-chamber.

  As I crossed the threshold, and the huge four-poster loomed up in the shadow, the character of the ghostly sound underwent a change.

  Instead of a single tap, travelling with the speed of a terrified man fleeing from pursuit, it became a hurried knocking, moving round the room behind the wainscot as if in search of something. I could have sworn that Someone or Something was feeling its way along.

  The daunting sounds arrived at the middle of the wall opposite the foot of the great bed, and became stationary.

  Once—twice—thrice—that awful Tap broke the silence, louder and more menacing each time.

  And then all at once the flame of the candle turned blue and went out, leaving me in the stillness and the darkness, with the feeling that I was not alone.

  How I got downstairs again I can hardly remember, but I am not ashamed to say that never was sight more welcome than the lamplight streaming through the open door on to the passage as I rushed towards it.

  Mrs. Musgrave gave me a glance, and screamed:

  “You have seen It?”

  “No, no,” I said, “but the light went out, and I had no matches.”

  I related my experience in a few words, and then made a confession.

  “I cannot sleep in this house tonight, Mrs. Musgrave. I must go down to the village and try to get into the inn.”

  To my relief she offered no opposition. I fancy I was not the first person who had left her at the same hour for the same reason.

  Not even in the morning did I feel inclined to return to the haunted house. I went up to London by the first train, and, going straight to the office, asked Miss Sargent to come into my room, and told her everything.

  She listened with intense interest, not interrupting by so much as a movement till I had come to the end.

  Then she said with grave decision:

  “You must let me go down and spend a night in that room, Mr. Hargreaves.”

  “Don’t think of such a thing!” I exclaimed. “I should never permit you to run the risk of such a shock as I had last night.”

  “It is a matter of necessity,” Miss Sargent replied firmly. “It is a matter of duty. I cannot doubt that the tapping on the wainscot has a meaning. It is a message from the dead.”

  “A message! I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t profess to understand it myself at present. But I do not believe that it is an ordinary case of what is called haunting, where a spirit appears to be bound in some way to a particular spot. Neither do I believe that the object of this manifestation has been to drive the new owner of the house away, or to render it uninhabitable.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “I feel sure there is a reason for the taps always coming back to one particular place on the wall of that one room.”

  A light seemed to break on her mind as she spoke, and she added quickly:

  “I should not wonder if there were something hidden behind the wainscot, perhaps a will or a paper of some kind.”

  I recalled what the housekeeper had told me about the adopted child of the dead man, turned adrift so heartlessly by the heir to his wealth.

  “Pray Heaven you are right!” I ejaculated fervently. “I will go down again and have the wainscot removed. But, mind, this must be kept a strict secret. If Sir Henry Weetman or his solicitors heard what I was doing, I might get into serious trouble.”

  Out of gratitude for Miss Sargent’s suggestion, I invited her to be present at the opening of the wainscot. I had confided my hopes and intentions to Mrs. Musgrave, who was intensely excited at the prospect of justice being done to her beloved young mistress.

  “To think that I should never have guessed what it meant!” she cried. “And I thought I understood it better than anyone else, too.”

  “Did you think there was any reason for the tapping on that particular spot, then?” Miss Sargent asked.

  “To be sure I did. That is just where Miss Alice’s picture
used to hang, so that Sir Christopher could see it every morning when he woke. Sir Henry had the picture sold with all the others, and I thought that was why Sir Christopher couldn’t rest in his grave.”

  I saw a look of disappointment steal over Miss Sargent’s face.

  “It may be that Mrs. Musgrave is right,” she said thoughtfully. “Very often the spirits seem to have very little motive—or what seems very little to us—for what they do.”

  “Well, we shall see,” I responded, not willing to give up my hope on the poor orphan’s behalf.

  I had brought down an expert cabinetmaker from London, and he went to work quickly and neatly. A great space of the wall was stripped of its wainscot, and we searched anxiously for any sign of a hiding-place behind.

  We searched vainly. To the bitter disappointment of all three of us there was not even a vestige, not so much as a scratch on the wall, to indicate that anything had ever been concealed there.

  To complete our discomfiture the cabinetmaker gave it as his opinion that the wainscot had never been disturbed since it was put up in the reign of James I.

  “I was right, you see, Miss,” said good Mrs. Musgrave sorrowfully. “It’s the thought of Miss Alice’s picture that keeps Sir Christopher out of his grave.”

  She spoke as though the deceased baronet were an invalid suffering from sleeplessness at night.

  Miss Sargent shook her head, but said nothing. She seemed to be reflecting deeply.

  We left the cabinetmaker with strict instructions to replace the wainscot, so as to leave no trace of his operations, and went downstairs.

  Half-an-hour later, as we were sitting at lunch, Miss Sargent suddenly spoke.

  “You must let me sleep in that bed, Mr. Hargreaves. I am a clairvoyant in sleep, as you know, and I may see something which will explain the mystery.”

  We both returned to town in the afternoon to make our arrangements. The following day we came down again, prepared to spend the night.

  None of us intended to go to bed. The four-poster in the haunted room had been furnished with blankets and pillows to serve as a bed for the clairvoyant. Mrs. Musgrave was to instal herself on a sofa before the fireplace, in which a fire had been lit, and I was to sit up in the next room, ready to come at the first call.

  Miss Sargent, who fortunately possessed the power of falling asleep at will, retired to her strange couch a little before eleven, accompanied by the housekeeper, whose excitement promised to keep her awake.

  As for myself, I cherished no wish to sleep. I had provided myself with lights, cigars, and a book to read, but I am bound to confess that I found it impossible to get interested in it.

  An hour later I heard a low tapping on the door of my own room.

  Not a little startled, I sprang up, only to find that the sound this time was free from any element of mystery.

  The old housekeeper had come to summon me.

  “Will you come and see the young lady?” she said. “I think something is the matter.”

  I felt myself turning cold.

  “What do you mean? Has the tapping begun?”

  The answer surprised me.

  “No, that is what frightens me. This is the first night I have not heard it for four months. But I think Miss Sargent sees something.”

  I led the way into the haunted room. There was not a sound to be heard, and the lights had been put out by the clairvoyant’s desire. But she was sitting half up in bed, her eyes fast closed, and yet appearing to stare with the most deadly fear at the opposite wall.

  Suddenly a sharp cry broke from her, followed immediately by the same frantic rush of half-articulated syllables which had so alarmed me on that night in the Green House.

  “Leave—it—alone—leave—it—alone—leave—it—alone—put—it—back—put—it—back—put—it—back——Ah, he’s taken it!”

  With these last words, uttered loudly in distinct tones, the sleeper’s eyes suddenly opened, and she gave a fearful shudder.

  Tap! tap! tap!

  If ever I have heard any sounds in my life I heard those knocks by an unseen hand on the wainscot at which we all gazed, unable to stir till the knocks ceased.

  It was too much for the nerves of any of us to bear. I caught the half-fainting girl in my arms as she threw herself from the great four-poster, and the three of us did not breathe again till we were safe in the housekeeper’s little sitting-room downstairs.

  There, after she had rested and taken a soothing draught prescribed by the housekeeper, Miss Sargent related her vision.

  “I saw a picture hanging on the wall, the picture of a young girl, about seventeen, with blue eyes and very light golden hair.”

  “Miss Alice!” the old lady interrupted.

  “Two men came into the room, and moved about. I could not see what they were doing. Presently, one of them, who was in his shirt-sleeves, and looked like a workman, approached the picture, and raised his hands to take it down.”

  “One of the auctioneer’s men, my dear,” was Mrs. Musgrave’s murmured comment.

  “At that instant I saw suddenly, appearing from nowhere, in front of the picture, a corpse.”

  “A corpse!” we both ejaculated in horror.

  “Yes, a dead man, in a winding sheet, with his head swathed in white bandages. The corpse seemed to try to thrust back the living man. He went on without noticing it, and took down the picture, I can hardly describe how, but just as though the corpse were not there. The dead man seemed to try to detain him, but he walked off with it. Then I awoke.”

  A cry burst from the poor old housekeeper.

  “It was my poor master,” she moaned, “trying to save Miss Alice’s nice picture.”

  The other said nothing, but bent her brows as though profoundly dissatisfied with this seemingly puerile interpretation of the mystery.

  I watched her with expectation. I had come to look on Alwyne Sargent as a woman of more than ordinary powers of mind, apart altogether from her extraordinary occult faculty, and I confidently anticipated that she would not let the matter rest there.

  “The picture must be replaced,” she said, after a long interval of meditation. “We cannot leave things as they are. At all costs the picture must be found, and hung up there again, if it is only for one night.”

  “I should think that could be managed,” I said, though I did not much relish the idea.

  I saw that Miss Sargent wanted to make fresh trial of her clairvoyant powers, with the picture in its place, and I dreaded the injury which these agitating experiences seemed likely to do her.

  However, I shared her feeling that the mystery must be probed to the bottom. The very next day I called on the auctioneers who had charge of the sale at Hailesbury Manor, and asked them to let me go through their books. I told them nothing except that I had been asked to recover a family portrait included in the sale by oversight.

  They were very obliging, and with their assistance I found that a picture catalogued as “Portrait of a Girl” had been sold for £12 to a gentleman living at Sydenham.

  I went out there the same evening, and saw the purchaser, who was a Common Councilman of the City of London, and evidently given to speculating in pictures, with which the house was crowded.

  He saw his advantage, and drove a rather hard bargain with me, but in the end he agreed to let me have the picture to show to the client whom I pretended to have in the background, on my paying a deposit.

  Then he led me upstairs to a small smoking-room, where I saw the picture hanging in an obscure corner.

  With hands trembling with excitement, I took hold of the frame to lift it off the nail. As I did so, the nail itself gave way, and the precious portrait crashed to the ground, the frame coming in pieces.

  I fell on my knees with a cry of dismay, when I was astonished to see, among the broken portions of the frame, a blue foolscap envelope indorsed in shaky handwriting—“Will of Sir C. Weetman, Bart.” The will gave the whole of his property to his adopted d
aughter, Alice Weetman.

  Human nature is a curious thing. As soon as I had made out the contents of the document thus miraculously discovered, and he knew that the picture was that of a young lady who had come into a great fortune, the owner insisted on my accepting it as a free gift for the fortunate heiress.

  It now hangs, in its carefully restored frame, in its old place at the foot of the historic bed; and the tapping on the wainscot in Hailesbury Manor has been heard no more.

  WESTREL KEEN IN

  SAMARIS

  ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

  Robert W. Chambers (1865–1933) was a bestselling writer of romantic fiction and society novels, none of which is remembered today. What he is remembered for is an idiosyncratic little book, The King in Yellow (1895). This collection, a cornerstone of weird fiction, tells of events associated with a play called The King in Yellow, which has unsettling effects upon those who read it and hints at a real supernatural King in Yellow. Chambers studied as an artist and initially worked for many leading American magazines such as Life at the start of the 1890s, sharing a studio with Charles Dana Gibson. But he soon turned to writing. He wrote a few other volumes of weird fiction, including The Maker of Moons (1896), The Mystery of Choice (1897), and In Search of the Unknown (1904). Often overlooked amongst his many books is The Tracer of Lost Persons (1906). This book introduced Westrel Keen who runs an agency that claims to be able to trace anybody, living or dead. The series is a mixture of detective and weird tales, and it seems evident that Keen, with his immense fortune and network of contacts, does have some psychic abilities. Unfortunately, the book has some gratuitous racist passages, but the following story, thankfully, had to be edited for just one word. Westrel Keen was given a new lease of life when the book was adapted as Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons for a long-running radio series that ran from 1937 to 1955. Its theme music was titled, “Someday, I’ll Find You.”

  ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF MARCH, 1906, KERNS RECEIVED THE following cable from an old friend:

  Is there anybody in New York who can find two criminals for me? I don’t want to call in the police.