Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  We were conducted up two flights of winding steps to the storey which had, in the inn’s older days, plainly been an attic. There, Billings indicated, was the scene of the disappearance of the “bloomin’ boot, swingin’ along—unaccompanied—through the bloomin’ air.”

  It was a sunny corridor, lighted by the spring sunlight through several quaint, old-fashioned, mullioned windows. Billings showed us where he had sat, on a stool in the corridor, watching; indicated the location of the boots, outside a doorway of one of the less expensive guest-rooms; traced for us the route taken by the disappearing boots.

  This route led us around a corner of the corridor, a corner which, the honest “boots” assured us, he had been “too frightened” to negotiate on the dark night of the alleged marvel.

  But we went around it, and there, in a small, right-angled hallway, it became at once apparent to us that the boots on that occasion must have gone through one of two doorways, opposite each other at either side, or else vanished into thin air.

  Mr. Snow, in answer to our remarks on this subject, threw open the door at the right. It led into a small but sunny and very comfortable-looking bed-chamber, shining with honest cleanliness and decorated tastefully with chintz curtains and valances, and containing several articles of pleasant, antique furniture. This room, as the repository of air-travelling boots, seemed unpromising. We looked in silence.

  “And what is on the other side of this short corridor?” I enquired.

  “The ‘shut room,’” replied Mr. William Snow.

  Carruth and I looked at each other.

  “Explain, please,” said Carruth.

  “It is merely a room which has been kept shut, except for an occasional cleaning,” replied our host, readily, “for more than a century. There was, as a matter of fact, a murder committed in it in the year 1818, and it was, thereafter, disused. When I purchased the inn, I kept it shut, partly, I daresay, for sentimental reasons; partly, perhaps, because it seemed to me a kind of asset for an ancient hostelry. It has been known as ‘the shut room’ for more than a hundred years. There was, otherwise, no reason why I should not have put the room in use. I am not in the least superstitious.”

  “When was the room last opened?” I enquired.

  “It was cleaned about ten days ago, I believe,” answered Mr. Snow.

  “May we examine it?” asked Carruth.

  “Certainly,” agreed Snow, and forthwith sent Billings after the key.

  “And may we hear the story—if you know the details—of the murder to which you referred?” Carruth asked.

  “Certainly,” said Snow, again. “But it is a long and rather complicated story. Perhaps it would do better during dinner.”

  In this decision we acquiesced, and, Billings returning with the key, Snow unlocked the door and we looked into “the shut room.” It was quite empty, and the blinds were drawn down over the two windows. Carruth raised these, letting in a flood of sunlight. The room was utterly characterless to all appearance, but I confess to a certain “sensitivity” in such matters—I “felt” something like a faint, ominous chill. It was not, as the word I have used suggests, anything like physical cold. It was, so to express it, mentally cold. I despair of expressing what I mean more clearly. We looked over the entire room, an easy task as there was absolutely nothing to attract the eye. Both windows were in the wall at our right hand as we entered, and, save for the entrance door through which we had just come, the other three walls were quite blank.

  Carruth stepped halfway out through the doorway and looked at the width of the wall in which the door was set. It was, perhaps, ten inches thick. He came back into the room, measured with his glance the distance from window-wall to the blank wall opposite the windows, again stepped outside, into the passageway this time, and along it until he came to the place where the short passage turned into the longer corridor from which we had entered it. He turned to his right this time, I following him curiously, that is, in the direction opposite that from which we had walked along the corridor, and tapped lightly on the wall there.

  “About the same thickness, what?” he enquired of Snow.

  “I believe so,” came the answer. “We can easily measure it.”

  “No, it will not be necessary, I think. We know that it is approximately the same.” Carruth ceased speaking and we followed him back into the room once more. He walked straight across it, rapped on the wall opposite the doorway.

  “And how thick is this wall?” he enquired.

  “It is impossible to say,” replied Snow, looking slightly mystified. “You see, there are no rooms on that side, only the outer wall, and no window through which we could easily estimate the thickness. I suppose it is the same as the others, about ten inches I’d imagine.”

  Carruth nodded and led the way out into the hallway once more. Snow looked enquiringly at Carruth, then at me.

  “It may as well be locked up again,” offered Carruth, “but—I’d be grateful if you’d allow me to keep the key until tomorrow.”

  Snow handed him the key without comment, but a slight look of puzzlement was on his face as he did so. Carruth offered no comment, and I thought it wise to defer the question which was on my lips until later when we were alone. We started down the long corridor towards the staircase, Billings touching his forehead and stepping on ahead of us and disappearing rapidly down the stairs, doubtless to his interrupted duties in the scullery.

  “It is time to think of which rooms you would prefer,” suggested our pleasant-voiced host as we neared the stairs. “Suppose I show you some which are not occupied, and you may, of course, choose what suit you best.”

  “On this floor, if you please,” said Carruth, positively.

  “As you wish, of course,” agreed Snow, “but the better rooms are on the floor below. Would you not, perhaps, prefer—”

  “Thank you, no,” answered Carruth. “We shall prefer to be up here if we may, and-—if convenient—a large room with two beds.”

  “That can be managed very easily,” agreed Snow. He stepped back a few paces along the corridor and opened a door. A handsome, large room, very comfortably and well furnished, came to our view. Its excellence spoke well for the management of The Coach and Horses. The “better’ rooms must indeed be palatial if this were a fair sample of those somewhat less desirable.

  “This will answer admirably,” said Carruth, directing an eyebrow at me. I nodded hastily. I was eager to acquiesce in anything he might have in mind.

  “Then we shall call it settled,” remarked Snow. “I shall have your things brought up at once. Perhaps you would like to remain here now?”

  “Thank you,” said Carruth. “What time do we dine?”

  “At seven, if you please, or later if you prefer. I am having a private room for the three of us.”

  “That will answer splendidly,” agreed Carruth, and I added a word of agreement. Mr. Snow hurried off to attend to the sending up of our small luggage, and Carruth drew me at once into the room.

  “I am a little more than anxious,” he began, “to hear that tale of the murder. It is an extraordinary step forward—do you not agree with me?—that Billings’ account of the disappearing boots—‘through the air’—should fit so neatly and unexpectedly into their going around the corner of the corridor where ‘the shut room’ is. It sets us forward, I imagine. What is your impression, Mr. Canevin?”

  “I agree with you heartily,” said I. “The only point on which I am not clear is the matter of the thickness of the walls. Is there anything in that?”

  “If you will allow me, I’ll defer that explanation until we have had the account of the murder at dinner,” said Carruth, and, our things arriving at that moment, we set about preparing for dinner.

  Dinner, in a small and beautifully furnished private room, did more, if anything more were needed, to convince me that Mr. William Snow’s reputation as a successful modern innkeeper had been well earned. It was a thoroughly delightful meal in all respect
s, but that, in a general way, is really all that I remember about it because my attention was wholly occupied in taking in every detail of the strange story which our host unfolded to us beginning with the fish course—I think it was a fried sole—and which ended only when we were sipping the best coffee I had tasted since my arrival in England from our United States.

  “In the year 1818,” said Mr. Snow, “near the end of the long reign of King George III—the king, you will remember, Mr. Canevin, who gave you Americans your Fourth of July—this house was kept by one James Titmarsh. Titmarsh was a very old man. It was his boast that he had taken over the landlordship in the year that His Most Gracious Majesty, George III, had come to the throne, and that he would last as long as the king reigned! That was in the year 1760, and George III had been reigning for fifty-eight years. Old Titmarsh, you see, must have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of eighty, himself.

  “Titmarsh was something of a ‘character.’ For some years the actual management of the inn had devolved upon his nephew, Oliver Titmarsh, who was middle-aged, and none too respectable, though apparently, an able taverner. Old Titmarsh, if tradition is to be believed, had many a row with his deputy, but, being himself childless, he was more or less dependent upon Oliver, who consorted with low company for choice, and did not bear the best of reputations in the community. Old Titmarsh’s chief bugbear, in connection with Oliver, was the latter’s friendship with Simon Forrester. Forrester lacked only a bard to be immortal. But—there was no Cowper to his John Gilpin, so to speak. No writer of the period, nor, indeed, since, has chosen to set forth Forrester’s exploits. Nevertheless, these were highly notable. Forrester was the very king-pin of the highwaymen, operating with extraordinary success and daring along the much-travelled Brighton Road.

  “Probably Old Titmarsh was philosopher enough to ignore his nephew’s associations and acts so long as he attended to the business of the inn. The difficulty, in connection with Forrester, was that Forrester, an extraordinarily bold fellow, whose long immunity from the gallows had caused him to believe himself possessed of a kind of charmed life, constantly resorted to The Coach and Horses, which, partly because of its convenient location, and partly because of its good cheer, he made his house-of-call.

  “During the evening of the first of June, in the year 1818, a Royal Courier paused at The Coach and Horses for some refreshment and a fresh mount. This gentleman carried one of the old king’s peremptory messages to the Prince of Wales, then sojourning at Brighton, and who, under his sobriquet of ‘First Gentleman of Europe,’ was addicted to a life which sadly irked his royal parent at Whitehall. It was an open secret that only Prince George’s importance to the realm as heir apparent to the throne prevented some very drastic action being taken against him for his innumerable follies and extravagances, on the part of king and parliament. This you will recall, was two years before the old king died and ‘The First Gentleman’ came to the throne as George IV.

  “The Royal Messenger, Sir William Greaves, arriving about nine in the evening after a hard ride, went into the coffee-room, to save the time which the engagement and preparation of a private room would involve, and when he paid his score, he showed a purse full of broad gold pieces. He did not know that Simon Forrester, sitting behind him over a great mug of mulled port, took careful note of this unconscious display of wealth in ready money. Sir William delayed no longer than necessary to eat a chop and drink a pot of ‘Six Ale.’ Then, his spurs clanking, he took his departure.

  “He was barely out of the room before Forrester, his wits, perhaps, affected by the potations which he had been imbibing, called for his own mount, Black Bess, and rose, slightly stumbling to his feet, to speed the pot-boy on his way to the stables.

  “‘Ye’ll not be harrying a Royal Messenger a-gad’s sake, Simon,’ protested his companion, who was no less a person that Oliver Titmarsh, seizing his crony by his ruffled sleeve of laced satin.

  ‘“Unhand me!’ thundered Forrester; then, boastfully, ‘There’s no power in England’ll stay Sim Forrester when he chooses to take the road!’

  “Somewhat unsteadily he strode to the door and roared his commands to the stable-boy who was not leading Black Bess rapidly enough to suit his drunken humour. Once in the saddle, the fumes of the wine he had drunk seemed to evaporate. Without a word Simon Forrester set out, sitting his good mare like a statue, in the wake of Sir William Greaves towards Brighton.

  “The coffee-room—as Oliver Titmarsh turned back into it from the doorway whither he had accompanied Forrester—seethed into an uproar. Freed from the dominating presence of the truculent ruffian who would as soon slit a man’s throat as look him in the eye along the sights of his horse-pistol from behind the black mask, the numerous guests, silent before, had found their tongues. Oliver Titmarsh sought to drown out their clamour of protest, but before lie could succeed, Old Titmarsh, attracted by the unwonted noise, had hobbled down the short flight of steps from his private cubby-hole and entered the room.

  “It required only a moment despite Oliver’s now frantic efforts to stem the tide of comment, before the old man had grasped the purport of what was toward. Oliver secured comparative silence, then urged his aged uncle to retire. The old man did so, muttering helplessly, internally cursing his age and feebleness which made it out of the question for him to regulate this scandal which had originated in his inn. A King’s Messenger, then as now, was sacred in the eyes of all decent citizens. A King’s Messenger—to be called on to ‘stand and deliver’ by the villainous Forrester! It was too much. Muttering and grumbling the old man left the room, but, instead of going back to his easy-chair and his pipe and glass, he stepped out through the kitchens, and, without so much as a lantern to light his path, groped his way to the stables.

  “A few minutes later the sound of horse’s hoofs in the cobbled stable-yard brought a pause in the clamour which had once more broken out and now raged in the coffee-room. Listening, those in the coffee-room heard the animal trot out through the gate, and the diminishing sound of its galloping as it took the road towards Brighton. Oliver Titmarsh rushed to the door, but the horse and its rider were already out of sight. Then he ran up to his ancient uncle’s room, only to find the crafty old man apparently dozing in his chair. He hastened to the stables. One of the grooms was gone, and the best saddle-horse. From the others, duly warned by Old Titmarsh, he could elicit nothing. He returned to the coffee-room in a towering rage and forthwith cleared it, driving his guests out before him in a protesting herd.

  “Then he sat down, alone, a fresh bottle before him, to await developments.”

  “It was more than an hour later when he heard the distant beat of a galloping horse’s hoofs through the quiet June night, and a few minutes later Simon Forrester rode into the stable-yard and cried out for an hostler for his Bess.

  “He strode into the coffee-room a minute later, a smirk of satisfaction on his ugly, scarred face. Seeing his crony, Oliver, alone, he drew up a chair opposite him, removed his coat, hung it over the back of his chair, and placed over its back where the coat hung, the elaborate leather harness consisting of crossed straps and holsters which he always wore. From the holsters protruded the grips of ‘Jem and Jack,’ as Forrester had humorously named his twin horse-pistols, huge weapons, splendidly kept, each of which threw an ounce ball. Then, drawing back the chair, he sprawled in it at his ease, fixing on Oliver Titmarsh an evil grin and bellowing loudly for wine.

  “‘For,’ he protested, ‘my throat is full of the dust of the road, Oliver, and, lad, there’s enough to settle the score, never doubt me!’ and out upon the table he cast the bulging purse which Sir William Greaves had momentarily displayed when he paid his score an hour and a half back.

  “Oliver Titmarsh, horrified at this evidence that his crony had actually dared to molest a King’s Messenger, glanced hastily and fearfully about him, but the room, empty and silent save for their own presence, held no prying inimical informer. He began to urge upon Forrester t
he desirability of retiring. It was approaching eleven o’clock, and while the coffee-room was, fortunately, empty, no one knew who might enter from the road or come down from one of the guest-rooms at any moment. He shoved the bulging purse, heavy with its broad gold pieces, across the table to his crony, beseeching him to pocket it, but Forrester, drunk with the pride of his exploit, which was unique among the depredations of the road’s gentry, boasted loudly and tossed off glass after glass of the heavy port wine a trembling pot-boy had fetched him.

  “Then Oliver’s entreaties were supplemented from an unexpected source. Old Titmarsh, entering through a door in the rear wall of the coffee-room, came silently and leaned over the back of the ruffian’s chair and added a persuasive voice to his nephew’s entreaties.

  “‘Best go up to bed, now, Simon, my lad,’ croaked the old man, wheedlingly, patting the bulky shoulders of the hulking ruffian with his palsied old hands.

  “Forrester, surprised, turned his head and goggled at the greybeard. Then with a great laugh, and tossing off a final bumper, he rose unsteadily to his feet and thrust his arms into the sleeves of the fine coat which old Titmarsh, having detached from the back of the chair, held out to him.

  “‘I’ll go, I’ll go, old Gaffer,’ he kept repeating as he struggled into his coat, with mock jocularity, ‘seeing you’re so careful of me! Gad’s hooks! I might as well. There be no more purses to rook this night, it seems!’

  “And with this, pocketing the purse and taking over his arm the pistol-harness which the old man thrust at him, the villain lumbered up the stairs to his accustomed room.

  ‘“Do thou go after him, Oliver,’ urged the old man. ‘I’ll bide here and lock the doors. There’ll likely be no further custom this night.’

  “Oliver Titmarsh, sobered, perhaps, by his fears, followed Forrester up the stairs, and the old man, crouched in one of the chairs, waited and listened, his ancient ears cocked against a certain sound he was expecting to hear.