Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  “‘The hand!’ I cried. ‘The horrid hand! I saw it; I felt its clammy fingers!’ But, to my surprise, mademoiselle was asleep in her chair—asleep, and almost snoring. Running across to her side I had quite a difficulty in waking her up. I had to shake her more than once, and she seemed half dazed as her eyes opened.

  “That is what is troubling me, Mr. Vyse—she seemed so very sound asleep, and yet only a moment before she had been talking! She was almost unnaturally difficult to wake, and I cannot help having my suspicions. It is hard to see how it could be a trick, to do it seems almost impossible—and the reason? Can you help me to be free of this nightmare! What is your opinion? No one can help me if you cannot, I am sure of that—but if this goes on, I must leave the villa, and forfeit it under my father’s will. My nerves are already on edge; the hand will draw me some day, and I shall follow—I feel it—follow those most repulsive, crooked fingers—and go mad! I am going to marry the dearest, most—but I won’t trouble you with that—and I don’t want to go to him quite empty-handed. Tell me what to do—how to stop this horrible visitation that for all these years past has never troubled us at all. Why should it do so now? I am trying to be brave, I want to stay and face it, but some day it will be too much for me. Is Mlle. Gourget playing tricks? She seems so pleasant and friendly it is hard to believe—or were the old tales true? I know you will help me if you can.—Yours sincerely, AVERY WHITBURN.”

  “It would seem Miss Whitburn agrees with your suspicions of the companion,” Vyse remarked, putting the letter into his pocket. “As for me—I have my opinion, but for the present it can wait.”

  Three days later he produced a telegram.

  “As you are evidently interested in the case, Swinnerton, you may as well know how it progresses. I wired to Miss Whitburn after receiving her letter, urging her to do nothing definite until she heard further from me, and asking for details of what she calls ‘the old tales’ immediately.”

  The message ran, “Will obey directions, posting details asked for,” and the following morning Vyse received the letter.

  He slipped it into his pocket unopened, and after finishing breakfast caught up his hat and walked off towards the mountainside without a word, leaving Swinnerton, whose interest in further developments was now thoroughly aroused, to make what conjectures he saw fit.

  At twelve-thirty he returned.

  “We will have lunch and then walk to the post-office, if you feel inclined,” he replied to the other’s unspoken question, “the poor girl is getting pretty desperate. I want Oliver Whitburn’s address, and as we walk I will tell you the past history of the Villa Adelaide.”

  As they set out along a narrow lane towards the primitive hamlet, tucked into a fold of high hills, where lay the nearest post-office, Vyse began:

  “This, according to Miss Whitburn’s letter, is the story. Fifty years ago it belonged to a Frenchman called Chamies, who lived there alone with his step-daughter. By all accounts he led her an awful life; screams were heard late at night from the cottage as it was then, and three times she tried to escape. She ran away, but each time he caught her and brought her back. On the last occasion she attacked him with a carving knife, inflicting a terrible gash across his fingers—you may remember the scar Miss Whitburn mentioned having noticed on the hand? Finally, she disappeared; no one knew what became of her, and apparently no one made it their business to find out. The old man died, having led the life of a hermit, soon after. The next occupants were a man and his family of two or three boys, but after living in the place for a week or two, they complained of hair-raising experiences and left hurriedly. It then remained empty for some years, until Avery Whitburn’s grandfather bought it, built on to it, made it habitable and attractive, and lived there for a good part of every year. He would never believe a word against it, and ‘didn’t believe in ghosts,’ flattering himself doubtless he knew everything in Heaven and earth there is to be known! From that time till now, with the exception of the occasion when the caretaker called in the assistance of the scrubbing-maid, there have never been any complaints. The general opinion seems to be that the maid played the tricks to frighten the caretaker. I think they were wrong,” Vyse remarked with decision, “but that is the history of the Villa Adelaide, or all of it Miss Whitburn seems likely to get.”

  “What do you make of it?” Swinnerton asked, “the clutching hand—the hand that brought the poor girl back each time she tried to get away? There seems a connection between present experiences and that story?”

  “The step-daughter, you mean? He probably murdered her,” Vyse replied abstractedly, “but I don’t think we need trouble ourselves further about the past. It is the present—but here we are,” he finished, stopping short at what appeared to be a universal emporium in miniature, with a rustic porch overshadowed by a tangle of wild clematis. “We shall know more in a day or two. I don’t want to cross to France just now, if the matter can be settled on this side.”

  Two days later Vyse sauntered into the small parlour with a telegram in his hand.

  “Do you feel inclined to do a little journey with me?” he asked his friend. “I may be glad of you as a witness, and anyway the expedition won’t take more than a few hours.”

  The offer was accepted without hesitation.

  “Had an answer to the wire?”

  Vyse nodded.

  “I have also had another letter in reply to certain questions. The poor girl is growing desperate. Twice since writing the ‘hand’ has not only grasped her, but each time shown itself in the act. She can neither eat nor sleep, so she says, starts at every sound, and lives in constant terror of feeling the horror on her shoulder. There is no time to be lost if we are to be of practical assistance.”

  “May I ask if you have learnt anything more of value?”

  “I have learnt that Mlle. Gourget is always present when these manifestations take place; that she is normal in appearance and behaviour; and that she certainly does not give the impression of a woman likely to play practical jokes. Miss Whitburn is now rather indignant at the hint of suspicion”—Vyse smiled gently—“and writes she is sure it is mere accident that her companion happens to be always present”; and, somewhat to Swinnerton’s surprise, he added, “and I think so, too—in a way. Miss Whitburn adds that she has generally been quite out of reach of contact in any form whatever, and has actually been asleep in her chair more than once.”

  “Well,” Swinnerton remarked sapiently, “I would put my money on the companion all the same! It’s easy enough to pretend to be asleep, and as for the form of trickery”—he hesitated—“if one were present oneself—”

  “Your superior intelligence would easily detect fraud where other intelligences have failed,” Vyse laughed. “The attitude is familiar to me.”

  And Swinnerton, after an instant’s pause, laughed too.

  “I expect that is what I mean! Human nature coming out. But do you really think the companion innocent?”

  “I do—and I don’t,” was the reply. “I shall know more about it after today’s journey. If there is any delay, Miss Avery will either go off her head or the Villa Adelaide will revert to Oliver Whitburn—which would annoy me very much.”

  “You mean you don’t think she will ‘stick it’ much longer?”

  “I mean just that, and if you will be ready at ten-thirty, we’ll walk to the station and catch the eleven-five to Little Mongrove.”

  When, a few hours later, they were ushered into the library where Oliver Whitburn sat writing, Swinnerton received something of a shock. He hardly knew what he had expected, but he saw a small, wizened, weasel-faced man, with little eyes looking hither and thither with uneasy restlessness, as though anxious to avoid the direct glance of other eyes, and a perfunctory smile, more a distortion of the lips than an expression of either welcome or amusement. Vyse’s vague memory of the man of early college days had hardly prepared him for this unimpressive, freakish specimen of his sex, who spoke with a whine in h
is voice and looked straight-forwardly at no man.

  The approach to the house had borne eloquent testimony to its owner’s character. The drive was wild and unkempt, the building itself in bad repair. The hall-door cried for a fresh coat of paint, the library for a new carpet. A general air of neglect and economy, amounting to parsimony in a man of Whitburn’s means, told Vyse an illuminating tale. A maid, slipshod and not too clean, announced them, and Vyse, following close on her heels, intercepted a frown and muttered anathema from her master. But the coolness of the welcome only confirmed his intention to see the matter through.

  Their host glanced at the card handed to him by the maid, and rose with an obvious change of manner.

  “Mr. Vyse, I see,” he said, looking at anything rather than the man he addressed, but speaking with an evident desire to placate. Vyse hated him for a manner that was almost servile. “I know you by name. I am interested in the subjects you have made your special study, but—?”

  He ended on an interrogative note. As he made no reference to college days, his visitor felt no inclination to remind him of them.

  “But you don’t know what business I have here,” Vyse rejoined cheerfully, summing up his man at a glance, and accepting the chair pushed towards him. “None in the world, Mr. Whitburn, unless it is everybody’s business to help a fellow creature in distress. I may as well come to the point at once, and waste neither my own time nor yours.” He had never believed in circuitous methods. “Did you ever hear that the Villa Adelaide was—haunted?” he finished, looking at him sharply.

  Whitburn started, gripped the arms of the chair, let them go again, and frowned. Then the frown changed to a deprecatory smile.

  “I have heard a good bit of nonsense in my day, and—”

  “You who have studied these things know as well as I do that stories of hauntings are not all nonsense, but, on the contrary, can be very serious. Is the villa haunted?” Vyse repeated steadily.

  The other rubbed his hands together and laughed smoothly.

  “Are you thinking of renting it?” he asked facetiously.

  “I don’t fancy it is in the market,” Vyse replied pleasantly. “Your niece, Miss Avery, intends to stay there. That is, in fact, what I have come to talk about. I suggest, Mr. Whitburn”—he leaned forward, speaking seriously—“that you telegraph to your—protege, Mlle. Gourget, to leave the villa at once—at once!” he insisted. “It can be easily done”—he rose as he spoke—“and I mean to see that it is done.”

  “Well”—Whitburn began, in an attempt at bluster—“of all the impertinent—”

  “Never mind about that,” Vyse interrupted. “It can be done without any scandal, or in any way injuring Mlle. Gourget, who I think myself is more or less an innocent instrument. You doubtless discovered her peculiar gifts—that she was a powerful—”

  “That will do,” the other rejoined querulously. “You can’t prove a thing. What court of law would listen?” He laughed unpleasantly. “I can see the faces of the jury—”

  “We needn’t discuss the jury,” Vyse observed drily. “It won’t come to that. Heavens, man,” he cried, laying a hand on the other’s shoulder, “do you understand you are driving a poor girl mad?”

  “There is an alternative,” Whitburn retorted.

  “To your advantage,” Vyse snapped. “You have got to do it, Whitburn, or—”

  He broke off so suddenly that Swinnerton, from the other side of the table, glanced at him quickly. There was a moment’s pause, then:

  “I’ll tell you a story,” Vyse said slowly; and Swinnerton noticed he looked curiously tense—wound up—“of a house. It is a square house, built of stone, with honeysuckle hanging over the porch. A woman lives in it—a woman dressed in black.” He paused, and the man on whose shoulder his hand still rested sat quite still, as though half paralysed. “Her husband is dead—died for his country—for you and me, Whitburn. Two children cling to her, and she is crying—bitterly—hopelessly. There is a letter in her hand—a legal-looking thing—”

  Whitburn seemed suddenly to regain control of himself; he rose, shaking Vyse’s hand from his shoulder.

  “Where the devil—” he began.

  “Shall I finish the story?” Vyse broke in blandly. “Or would it be better for Mlle. Gourget to leave the villa? Come, Swinnerton,” he went on, picking up hat and stick, “I feel sure we may leave it in Mr. Whitburn’s hands now. The world would, of course, be very interested in the end of that story—an unfinished tale is always unsatisfying. There is a certain newspaper I am in touch with—but I fancy, somehow, it will not be necessary to publish the story at all. I am sure Mr. Whitburn will think so on reflection”; and with a glance of contempt at the ignoble specimen of humanity huddled at the table in a paroxysm of indecision, he preceded Swinnerton into the open air.

  “What a cur!” he exclaimed, walking down the untidy approach. “And like all such cattle, he will cave in!”

  “I would like to know the end of that story,” Swinnerton observed curiously. But Vyse, vouchsafing nothing, only laughed.

  He was unexpectedly recalled to London the following morning, and it was three weeks or more before Swinnerton heard the sequel to that day’s expedition.

  “Oh, yes,” Vyse replied, in answer to a leading question, “the French companion was sent away right enough, and, as I foresaw, Miss Avery has not been troubled since. The ‘hand’ has vanished. I heard from her only yesterday, overflowing with gratitude, and happily settled with an English woman of her own choosing.”

  Swinnerton hesitated before asking the question on his lips; Vyse was not always tolerant of questions.

  “And yet you said you thought she was innocent—Mlle. Gourget, I mean?”

  They were sitting on the lawn; it was late autumn, and dusk was already throwing its veil over the glories of a radiant sunset.

  “Yes,” he replied after a pause, “the French companion was a more or less innocent instrument, in my opinion, though she probably had her suspicions. I made some inquiries through a friend in the neighbourhood.”

  “I never saw guilt more clearly depicted on a face than when you threatened to tell the end of that story,” Swinnerton remarked; “but I am still in the dark as to the true explanation of the apparition at the villa.”

  “Mlle. Gourget was a medium,” Vyse said abruptly. Swinnerton laughed.

  “I have no doubt that ought to be very enlightening, but I am not sure I know what a medium really is. I have always associated the word with fraud and credulity.”

  “Most people do,” Vyse replied, “who have never taken the trouble to try and understand. A medium is—a medium—literally, between physical matter and the more subtle, less tangible matter of the next plane. He—or she, as the case may be—has a superfluity of etheric substance in their composition. This etheric matter vibrates—and, as you doubtless know, all differentiation of matter is merely a question of the rate of its vibration—at a rate to which our five senses can barely respond, and forms the link with vibrations to which our physical senses cannot respond at all; without that link no physical phenomena can take place; they on that next plane are as hopelessly cut off from physical matter as the physical is from them. Without the presence of the medium the ‘hand’ could neither have made itself felt nor seen. You have heard of cases,” Vyse went on, pushing an open box of cigarettes towards his guest, “of haunted houses in which a family may live for years and nothing of a disturbing nature appears; another family takes it, and the ‘ghost’ shows itself at once, worries them out of the house, and gives it a character hard to live down.”

  “And the explanation?” Swinnerton asked, taking a cigarette and striking a match.

  “That in the first case there is no medium present in the family, and that in the second there is; possibly one of the servants, not even aware of it. There you have the truth of the scrubbing-maid incident at the Villa Adelaide. She was, unconsciously, a medium, and unless she was present, of course, n
o phenomena occurred. Roughly speaking, you can divide manifestations into two forms—astral, and apparent only to the inner senses; and physical, when everyone is conscious of them through the physical senses. There are other explanations of a few exceptional cases not necessary to go into now. What I mean is that when some only can perceive, you may take it as clairvoyance on the part of the percipient; where everyone can see or hear, you may conclude it to be a case of materialisation, and a medium for physical phenomena must necessarily be present. That may all sound great nonsense,” Vyse finished with a laugh, “it depends on your point of view, but I assure you it is the result of long years of study by those who are capable of investigating the subject.”

  “I am always interested in the ‘whys’ of things,” Swinnerton rejoined, “also I begin to get light on the Villa Adelaide case. I conclude it was through Mlle. Gourget’s mediumship the defunct owner of other days was able to make his unpleasant presence felt?”

  “Just so. I guessed the truth when Miss Whitburn wrote that the French woman was always present on these occasions. Also, that she was often found afterwards to be asleep. Some mediums go into trance when the etheric matter is drawn from them; some have so much to spare that loss of consciousness does not intervene; they remain perfectly normal during the manifestation.”

  Swinnerton seemed puzzled.

  “But the absence of the medium does not actually drive the ‘ghost’ away, I presume?”

  “Certainly not; but if it has no means of materialising no one is aware of its presence—a case of where ignorance is bliss!” Vyse replied.

  “According to that every house may be haunted?”

  “More than likely, but if no one is aware of it—what matter?”

  Swinnerton did not appear to consider this as consoling as it might be.