Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  Delacroix writhed to his knees and with the strength of panic, gained his bound feet, and hopped from the clearing. He moved in huge staggering hops round the spiral to the gate, then fell on the wider public path and rolled. His senses became blurred and eventually left him. He lay senseless, bound hand and foot half way to the foot of the mound.

  Just after dawn, one of the gardeners passing near the labyrinth on his way to look at the Tropical House furnace, heard Monsieur Delacroix groan. Monsieur Delacroix was very feeble with cold and cramp and not very intelligible. The gardener spread his thick coat over Delacroix, then went off to phone the police and ambulance. The gardener returned with a bottle of brandy and a pair of secateurs. He cut the innumerable strands of string that bound Monsieur Delacroix’s wrists and ankles, then helped him to sit up and drink from the bottle. Both the restored circulation and the brandy were agony and Monsieur Delacroix fainted again.

  An hour later, in a private room in a nearby hospital he was able to tell his story to a policeman. The man had him repeat the story, asking only short questions from time to time. He then went off and to Monsieur Delacroix’s consternation Madame Delacroix was then admitted. The ensuing scene was astonishing for the mixture of tenderness and temper. Monsieur Delacroix was forced to admit his own imbecility in undertaking to sit up all night in the Jardin at this time in the year. At length he was asked to tell what had happened. Madame Delacroix looked at him with increasing bewilderment. “Are you joking, Paul?” she interrupted. “No, my dear,” he replied, “what I tell you is true.” Madame Delacroix burst out crying. “Oh, my poor Paul!” she sobbed. The nurse came in and administered a potent sleeping draught, then led Madame away. As he slipped into sleep, Monsieur Delacroix realised with dismay that neither his wife or the policeman had believed him.

  There was another visit the next day from a more superior police officer, accompanied by a doctor, who sat listening intently to everything that passed Monsieur Delacroix’s lips but only made comment with his eyes. Monsieur Delacroix found himself watching the doctor when making his replies and endeavouring to make his story less spectacular, but there is little that can be done to make a man-eating plant appear mundane.

  The police officer stood up and retrieved has cap from the bedside table.

  “It is an astonishing story, Monsieur,” he said. “The only part we have been able to confirm so far is that Philippe Medan has not been seen since the evening on which you claim the events took place, although his car has been found in Rue Cuvier outside the Jardin. Also, we have not been able to find Monsieur Abime, but he appears to have been a man of somewhat peculiar ways and may have taken it into his mind to go off. Never fear, Monsieur, we shall investigate every aspect of your account until we arrive at the truth.”

  Monsieur Delacroix was rather put out by this ambiguous statement.

  “Have you found no blood by the gazebo!” he exclaimed despairingly.

  “No, Monsieur,” replied the officer briskly. “Now, please excuse us. We shall return again.”

  The ensuing week was the most depressing Monsieur Delacroix remembered spending. He was most courteously imprisoned in the hospital, despite all his vehement assurances that he was well. They were, apparently, afraid of “shock.” The doctor lectured Monsieur Delacroix on the mysterious unpredictability and dreadfulness of “shock.” “At your age, you are more prone to after effects than at any age,” he affirmed. “It would be—we shall not say suicidal, but most certainly extremely dangerous—for you to resume your normal life until the body has had a chance to adjust.”

  “Is it shock or mania you are afraid of,” asked Monsieur Delacroix with a bitterness that was most unusual for him. “Never have I heard of a physically well man being detained in hospital at government expense just in case he should experience a reaction. If I had been assaulted by a thief instead of a mad botanist I have no doubt but that I should have been released the first day. You believe I am mad and that I have made away with two men.”

  The doctor moved to the door.

  “The police are checking your story for truth. I am only interested in you as a medical patient, and I know you are unwell. Please try to rest. Good day.”

  “Unwell,” the euphemism did not deceive Monsieur Delacroix.

  He questioned Madame Delacroix closely about her conversation with the police and with the Matron of the ward. He persisted in an attempt to make her admit that she herself thought him mad, until she exhausted the number of ways of saying “no” and cut short her visit in exasperation.

  Monsieur Delacroix spent one day laying on his back in silent despair, examining all the signs of madness within his mind. He spoke to no one and drank only one cup of coffee the whole day.

  Eventually the police officer reappeared, accompanied once more by the doctor. The door was fastened behind them. The officer would not sit down and stood stiffly beside the bed with his light-grey eyes pinning Monsieur Delacroix to the pillow.

  “We have completed our investigations,” he announced. “We have found the bodies of Monsieur Abime and Medan.”

  From the corner of his eyes Monsieur Delacroix could see the face of the doctor fixed rigid like a staring under-coloured tailor’s dummy. His heart seemed to turn over. He knew that the bodies had been found in circumstances that incriminated him. His mind suffered a sudden confusion of thoughts that centred upon the certainty that, after all, he was mad, and the whole terrible night was an illusion thrown up by his guilty mind to drown out the actual crime. What had he done!

  “Are you all right, Monsieur?” queried the doctor in concern. He took Monsieur Delacroix’s wrist.

  The police officer remained silent, keeping his unwavering eyes on Monsieur Delacroix while the doctor counted out the pulse.

  “A drink of water,” said the doctor, and helped Monsieur Delacroix to take it.

  “Go on,” croaked Monsieur Delacroix.

  “It took time because we had to obtain permission from the directorate of the Jardin for our every move,” said the officer. “But we dug up the gazebo. We found the tube. I was there when we found it. Monsieur, you must have had a terrifying experience.”

  “Oh!” said Monsieur Delacroix, closing his eyes. His relief was so intense that tears ran from beneath his lids.

  “Fortunately, the thing was inert and did not attack us. We obtained permission and dug up the cactus described by yourself. The remains of both men were found in a sac at the base of the plant. It is thought that some chemical that Medan kept about himself as a protection from the plant poisoned it. The plant was already beginning to decay when we dug it up.”

  “Oh!” sighed Monsieur Delacroix. He looked at the police officer through the distorting lenses of his tears. “That was a terrible experience for you.”

  “One gets used to such things,” said the officer grimly.

  “So I’m not mad,” murmured Monsieur Delacroix. “Am I free?”

  “Of course, Monsieur!” answered the officer. “You have not been a prisoner. Of course you are free.”

  Monsieur Delacroix looked at the doctor, who shrugged as he stood up. “I think you may go.”

  The two men left. The nurse opened the door and ushered in Monsieur Delacroix’s full family. The youngest child bore a giant bouquet of flowers.

  Monsieur Delacroix shrieked and fell back on to the bed. The doctor re-entered almost immediately.

  “That’s better,” he observed with satisfaction as he stooped over the trembling Delacroix. “Didn’t I tell you about the dangers of shock.”

  RALPH TYLER IN

  ST. MICHAEL & ALL ANGELS

  MARK VALENTINE

  Mark Valentine (b. 1959) is one of the new breed of devotees of the occult detective. He is a connoisseur of books and a dedicated researcher into all matters weird and fantastic, being editor of the journal Wormwood and having written several books such as the studies Arthur Machen (1995) and Time, a Falconer (2010) about the diplomat and fantasist �
�Sarban.” His love of books is evident in the volume Haunted by Books (2015). Much of his own fiction is collected in volumes issued by specialist publishers so are increasingly rare, such as In Violet Veils (1999) and The Nightfarers (2009), but more accessible are Selected Stories (2012) and Seventeen Stories (2013). He has edited several anthologies including one of occult detectives, The Black Veil and Other Tales (2008). He has written two separate series featuring occult detectives. The earliest was Ralph Tyler which have been collected in the volume Herald of the Hidden (2013), who features in the following story. Tyler is not like other such sleuths. He has no special esoteric knowledge or private means. As the author himself says, “Ralph Tyler was an attempt to have a scruffier, less reliable occult detective than the classic figures. Like me, he was untidy, vegetarian, leftish, and smoked foul cigarettes. Unlike me, he was also adventurous.” His other detective, in stories written with John Howard, is The Connoisseur, the complete opposite to Tyler, being an aesthete brimming with arcane knowledge. His stories have been assembled in The Collected Connoisseur (2010).

  I PEERED WISTFULLY INTO THE MURKY DUSK OF AN OCTOBER evening from a window of number 14, Bellchamber Tower. I knew from his preoccupied air that my friend Ralph Tyler had become absorbed in a certain slender pamphlet.

  I had found him studying it when I called: aside from brief greetings and an assurance that he would “be with me in a minute” we had exchanged hardly any conversation.

  At length he sighed, put down this intriguing literature, stretched, then adopted the slumped, lazy position in his threadbare armchair which usually betokened a reflective mood, or the prelude to some thinking aloud. In accompanying Ralph Tyler during his researches into strange and disturbing matters I cannot pretend to have very often contributed much by way of practical insight or specialised knowledge, but I believe that he was often glad of the presence of someone to whom he could expound his theories, or put forward several possibilities. This process seemed to enhance the ready intuition which was his most notable faculty.

  “It is like this,” he began, suddenly, and without any other preamble, almost as if resuming an interrupted conversation. “St. Michael and All Angels, near Enderby, is a redundant church, obtained by a trust last year, who have taken on the task of preservation. It stands on the edge of parkland belonging to the local Hall, though of course it was previously used by both the family and the village. Enderby is much depopulated and the retention of the church was no longer a viable proposition; demolition was even a possibility, but the exertions of certain local figures sufficed to raise enough funds to prevent this. St. Michael and All Angels is therefore administered by its own charitable trust, but kept freely open to visitors who naturally are encouraged to donate towards expenses. I believe the sale of guidebooks . . .”—Ralph indicated the booklet he had been reading—“and postcards and so on also helps in this way.”

  I nodded, murmured my interest, and waited for Ralph to resume his narrative. He lit a cigarette, whose fumes stole insidiously through the air with a bizarre reek, before continuing.

  “I became interested in all this because of a brief note in The County—” (This was a weekly newspaper covering mostly village affairs in the south and west of our shire). “. . . It said that vandals have been hindering restoration work on St. Michael’s. They supposedly climb up the scaffolding against the tower and then throw large blocks of masonry down.”

  “Pretty dangerous,” I commented.

  “For the vandals, yes. Very hazardous. Clambering up apparatus about sixty feet high, balancing along an unsafe roof and hoisting off heavy chunks without toppling over? Hardly likely, I thought.”

  I began to appreciate my friend’s point. Whilst someone out for a “lark” might well want a certain element of risk involved, this escapade seemed to stack the odds rather too highly.

  “With little else to do, I decided to take a look out there. You know I’m always keen to delve into anything curious of this kind. Often there is the most prosaic and uninspiring explanation, but then again, once in a while. . . . Anyway, I found that the church is quite notable in its way. For one thing, it is built in the form of an equal-armed cross, not the conventional elongated crucifix. But it also has an interesting past. I’ll come to that in a minute.

  “When I arrived at Enderby, I was straightaway doubtful about the vandal accusation. The place is so remote: even allowing for the possibility of drunken hooligans on a rural joyride, it was scarcely the most likely area for such exploits as the paper described. Daubing graffiti, smashing windows, trampling over graveyards, that goes on from time to time, due to sporadic outbursts, but not this. My examination of the outside of the church confirmed my suspicion. The possibility of footholds is slim, beyond trained workers: and although the stolid bulk of the tower could be tackled by use of scaffolding, it would require an astonishing attainment of dexterity and coolness.

  “On the path which encircles the church could be seen several large lumps of stone amid debris which made it plain they had hit the ground with considerable force. I gave them a pretty thorough examination. Yes, I’m sorry, I even applied the old magnifying glass to a few.”

  Ralph grinned rather sheepishly at this commonplace contrivance of detection.

  “Then I decided I might like a brief tour inside, but not surprisingly the door was locked. A note pinned to the porch board advised that keys were available from the custodian at a nearby address. I strolled over and obtained these, and naturally did not miss the chance to cast a few pertinent questions. The opportunity arose when the old chap urged me to ‘Please be sure to lock up after, what with the trouble they’d had lately.’”

  “I wonder he let you in,” I interposed drily.

  “I was looking quite respectable I assure you,” returned Ralph with mock dignity.

  I snorted.

  “I told him I’d read about the vandal problem,” continued Ralph, unperturbed by my jibe. “And asked whether they’d caught anybody yet. He ventured the opinion that the (ahem) so-and-sos had got clean away. No, he could not say what they looked like, no-one had actually seen the culprits, despite their decidedly prominent position high on the church roof. Perhaps it was after all accidental damage, I suggested. Certainly not—the contractors for the restoration were adamant that there was outside interference.

  “I murmured in sympathy, then made my way back to St. Michael’s. Inside, I picked up the booklet which describes its history and architecture. I already knew some of this, having consulted some background material before setting out on my excursion. The church was founded about 1140 by the Fitzgilbert brothers, Guy and Peter, barons of this domain. They had conducted an irregular war against each other in those troubled times of King Stephen, skirmishes over lands or possessions, but these culminated in a feud so bloody and stained with such atrocities that the intercession of neighbouring magnates, prelates, and even the King himself was necessary. The enforced truce was to be commemorated and sustained by the building of this church as a united enterprise between the brothers. It is presumed the design of the equal-armed cross symbolised the absolute parity between them, and such careful balance is evident elsewhere in the fabric of the church. The eastern arm contains the altar; the western the tower; the southern the entrance porch; and the northern, the Fitzgilbert family crypt.

  “The endowment of the church did not succeed in tempering the enmity between the brothers, but it taught them to lace their hatred with religious zeal. As well as proclaiming each other traitor, outlaw, and usurper, charges of heathenism and witchcraft were levelled. This picturesque era was brought to an end when, before work on the church had even finished, Peter Fitzgilbert died suddenly, how and why not being known, and his brother Guy was left in sole possession of all he surveyed. His dynasty retained this state of affairs until it succumbed during the Wars of the Roses.

  “As to the interior of the church itself, it was fairly unexceptional, rather colder than some I have visited, due
to disuse no doubt, and missing the minor trappings which go to make up what you might call a working church. It gives the impression of being an empty, forlorn shell. The crypt of the Fitzgilberts is railed off, and, as the booklet reminds people, not accessible to visitors. After a few cursory glances around, I placed some coins in the collection box and left, carefully locking the low arched door behind me.

  “When I returned the keys, I asked the custodian if I might obtain permission to go into the Fitzgilbert crypt. I said (which was by now quite true) that I was very interested in the church and wished to research it further. He gave me the address of the Trust’s secretary and recommended I put my request in writing. I have done so. I also mentioned in my letter that I was disturbed to read of the vandalism, and should they require any help and support in this matter I would be glad to oblige. I hope I expressed this in such a way that it might sound like common concern for such an antiquity, yet with rather more significant interest between the lines.”

  “Very deft,” I complimented, ironically. “Any response?”

  “This.” My friend produced from within the guidebook by his side a letter on headed blue notepaper:

  From R.W. Alwyn, M.A., F.R.S.A., Hon. Secretary.

  St. Michael’s (Enderby) Trust.

  Dear Mr. Tyler,

  Thank you for your letter of third inst.

  I confirm that access to the Fitzgilbert crypt at St. Michael’s will be permitted on the date you propose. I shall myself be present to accompany your inspection.

  I am grateful for your concern regarding certain unfortunate incidents at the church recently. Perhaps we may discuss this matter further when we meet.

  Yours faithfully etc. etc.

  “Hmm, impressive, if cautious,” I conceded. “When are we going?”