by Sax Rohmer
“Quite finished,” he answered.
“Just look at my hair!” she went on, with returning animation. “My head was so bad — I think that was why I took it down. Then I must have dropped off to sleep.”
“All right, dear,” said Brearley. “I want you to come downstairs; be as quick as you can.”
He rejoined me in the corridor.
“She was lying with her hair strewn all over the pillow!” he whispered, “and she had been burning something — ashes in the hearth—”
Ailsa came out. She seemed suddenly to observe her brother’s haggard face.
“Is there anything the matter?” she said, quickly. “Oh! has something dreadful happened?”
“No, dear,” he answered, reassuringly. “Only Dr. Fairbank was overcome—”
She turned very pale.
“He is not ill?”
“No. He became faint. You can come and see for yourself.”
Very quickly, we all hurried downstairs. Moris Klaw, on his knees beside the doctor, was trying to force something between his clenched teeth. Ailsa, with a little cry, ran forward and knelt upon the other side of him.
“Ralph!” she whispered; “Ralph!” — and smoothed the hair back from his forehead.
He sighed deeply, and with an effort swallowed the draught which Klaw held to his lips. A moment later he opened his eyes, glaring wildly in Ailsa’s face.
“Ralph!” she said, brokenly.
Then, realising how tenderly she had spoken — using his Christian name — she hung her graceful head in hot confusion. But he had heard her. And the wild light died from his eyes. He took both her hands in his own and held them fast; then, rather unsteadily, he stood up.
As his features came more fully into the light, we all saw that a small bruise discoloured his forehead, squarely between the brows.
Then Brearley, who had been back into the study, came running, crying —
“The papyrus! And my translation! Gone!”
I thought of the ashes in Ailsa Brearley’s room.
IV
“My friends,” rumbled Moris Klaw, impressively, “we are fortunate. We have passed through scorching fires unscathed!”
He applied himself with vigour to the operating of the scent-spray.
“God forgive me!” said Brearley. “What did I do?”
“I will tell you, my friend,” replied Klaw; “you clothed a thought in the beautiful form which you knew as your sister! Ah! you stare! Ritual, my friends, is the soul of what the ignorant call magic. With the sacred incense, kyphi (yes, I detected it!), you invoked secret powers. Those powers, Mr. Brearley, were but thoughts. All such forces are thoughts.
“Thoughts are things — and you gathered together in this house, by that ancient formula, a thought-thing created by generations of worshippers who have worshipped the moon!
“The light that we saw was only the moonlight, the sounds that we heard were thought-sounds. But so powerful was this mighty thought-force, this centuries-old power which you loosed upon us, that it drove out Miss Ailsa’s own thoughts from her mind, bringing what she mistook for sleep; and it implanted itself there!
“She was transformed by that mighty power which for a time dwelled within her. She was as powerful, as awful, as a goddess! None might look upon her and be sane. Hypnotism has similarities with the ancient science of thought — yes! Suggestion is the secret of all so-called occult phenomena!”
With his eyes gleaming oddly, he stepped forward, resting his long white hands upon Fairbank’s shoulders.”
“Doctor,” he rumbled, “you have a bruise on your forehead.”
“Have I!” said Fairbank, in surprise. “I hadn’t noticed it.”
“Because it is not a physical bruise; it is a mental bruise, physically reflected! Nearly were you slain, my friend — oh, so nearly! But another force — as great as the force of ancient thought — weakened the blow. Dr. Fairbank, it is fortunate that Miss Ailsa loves you!”
His frank words startled us all.
“Look well at the shape of this little bruise, my friends,” continued Moris Klaw. “Mr. Brearley — it is a shape that will be familiar to you. See! it is thus:” (He drew an imaginary outline with his long forefinger) —
“And that is the sign of Isis!”
THE HAUNTING OF LOW FENNEL
CONTENTS
The Haunting of Low Fennel
The Valley of the Just
The Blue Monkey
The Riddle of Ragstaff
The Master of Hollow Grange
The Curse of a Thousand Kisses
The Turquoise Necklace
The Haunting of Low Fennel
I
“There’s Low Fennel,” said Major Dale.
We pulled up short on the brow of the hill. Before me lay a little valley carpeted with heather, purple slopes hemming it in. A group of four tall firs guarded the house, which was couched in the hollow of the dip — a low, rambling building, in parts showing evidence of great age and in other parts of the modern improver.
“That’s the new wing,” continued the Major, raising his stick; “projecting out this way. It’s the only addition I’ve made to the house, which, as it stood, had insufficient accommodation for the servants.”
“It is a quaint old place.”
“It is, and I’m loath to part with it, especially as it means a big loss.”
“Ah! Have you formed any theories since wiring me?”
“None whatever. I’ve always been a sceptic, Addison, but if Low Fennel is not haunted, I’m a Dutchman, by the Lord Harry!”
I laughed reassuringly, and the two of us descended the slope to the white gate giving access to a trim gravel path flanked by standard roses. Mrs. Dale greeted us at the door. She was, as I had heard, much younger than the Major, and a distinctly pretty woman. In so far Dame Rumour was confirmed; other things I had heard of her, but I was not yet in a position to pass judgment.
She greeted me cordially enough, although women are usually natural actresses. I thought that she did not suspect the real object of my visit. Tea was served in a delightful little drawing-room which bore evidence of having but recently left the hands of London decorators, but when presently I found myself alone with my host in the Major’s peculiar sanctum, the real business afoot monopolised our conversation.
The room which Major Dale had appropriated as a study was on the ground floor of the new wing — the wing which he himself had had built on to Low Fennel. In regard to its outlook it was a charming apartment enough, with roses growing right up to the open window, so that their perfume filled the place, and beyond, a prospect of purple heather slopes and fir-clad hills.
Sporting prints decorated the walls, and the library was entirely, or almost entirely, made up of works on riding, hunting, shooting, racing, and golf, with a sprinkling of Whyte-Melville and Nat Gould novels and a Murray handbook or two. It was a most cosy room, probably because it was so untidy, or, as Mrs. Dale phrased it, “so manny.”
On a side table was ranked enough liquid refreshment to have inebriated a regiment, and, in one corner, cigar-boxes and tobacco-tins were stacked from the floor some two feet up against the wall. We were soon comfortably ensconced, then, the Major on a hard leather couch, and I in a deep saddle-bag chair.
“It’s an awkward sort of thing to explain,” began Dale, puffing away at a cigar and staring through the open window; “because, if you’re to do anything, you will want full particulars.”
I nodded.
“Well,” the Major continued, “you’ve heard how that blackguard Ellis let me down over those shares? The result? — I had to sell the Hall — Fennel Hall, where a Dale has been since the time of Elizabeth! But still, never mind! that’s not the story. This place, Low Fennel, is really part of the estate, and I have leased it from Meyers, who has bought the Hall. It was formerly the home farm, but since my father’s time it has not been used for that purpose. The New Farm is over the brow of the
hill there, on the other side of the high road; my father built it.”
“Why?”
“Well,” — Dale shifted uneasily and a look of perplexity crossed his jolly, red face— “there were stories — uncomfortable stories. To cut a long story short, Seager — a man named Seager, who occupied it at the time I was at Sandhurst — was found dead here, or something; I never was clear as to the particulars, but there was an inquiry and a lot of fuss, and, in short, no one would occupy the property. Therefore the governor built the New Farm.”
“Low Fennel has been empty for many years then?”
“No, sir; only for one. Ord, the head gardener at the Hall, lived here up till last September. The old story about Seager was dying out, you see; but Ord must have got to hear about it — or I’ve always supposed so. At any rate, in September — a dam’ hot September, too, almost if not quite as hot as this — Ord declined to live here any longer.”
“On what grounds?”
“He told me a cock-and-bull story about his wife having seen a horrible-looking man with a contorted face peering in at her bedroom window! I questioned the woman, of course, and she swore to it.”
He mopped his heated brow excitedly, and burnt several matches before he succeeded in relighting his cigar.
“She tried to make me believe that she woke up and saw this apparition, but I bullied the truth out of her, and, as I expected, the man Ord had come home the worse for drink. I made up my mind that the contorted face was the face of her drunken husband — whom she had declined to admit, and who therefore had climbed the ivy to get in at the open window.”
“She denied this?”
“Of course she denied it; they both did; but, from evidence obtained at the Three Keys in the village, I proved that Ord had returned home drunk that night. Still” — he shrugged his shoulders ponderously— “the people declined to remain in the place, so what could I do? Ord was a good gardener, and his drunken habits in no way interfered with his efficiency. He gained nothing out of the matter except that, instead of keeping Low Fennel, a fine house, I sent him to live in one of the Valley Cottages. He lives there now, for he’s still head gardener at the Hall.”
I made an entry in my notebook.
“I must see Ord,” I said.
“I should,” agreed the Major in his loud voice; “you’ll get nothing out of him. He’s the most pig-headed liar in the county! But to continue. The place proved unlettable. All the old stories were revived, and I’m told that people cheerfully went two miles out of their way in order to avoid passing Low Fennel at night! When I sold the Hall and decided to lease the place from the new proprietor, believe me it was almost hidden in a wilderness of weeds and bushes which had grown up around it. By the Lord Harry, I don’t think a living soul had approached within a hundred yards of the house since the day that the Ords quitted it! But it suited my purpose, being inexpensive to keep up; and by adding this new wing I was enabled to accommodate such servants as we required. The horses and the car had to go, of course, and with them a lot of my old people, but we brought the housekeeper and three servants, and when a London firm had rebuilt, renovated, decorated, and so forth, it began to look habitable.”
“It’s a charming place,” I said with sincerity.
“Is it!” snapped the Major, tossing his half-smoked cigar on to a side table and selecting a fresh one from a large box at his elbow. “Help yourself, the bottle’s near you. Is it!... Hullo! what have we here?”
He broke off, cigar in hand, as the sound of footsteps upon the gravel path immediately outside the window became audible. Through the cluster of roses peered a handsome face, that of a dark man, whose soft-grey hat and loose tie lent him a sort of artistic appearance.
“Oh, it’s you, Wales!” cried the Major, but without cordiality. “See you in half an hour or so; little bit of business in hand at the moment, Marjorie’s somewhere about.”
“All right!” called the new arrival, and, waving his hand, passed on.
“It’s young Aubrey Wales,” explained Dale, almost savagely biting the end from his cigar, “son of Sir Frederick Wales, and one of my neighbours. He often drops in.”
Mentally considering the Major’s attitude, certain rumours which had reached me, and the youth and beauty of Mrs. Dale, I concluded that the visits of Aubrey Wales were not too welcome to my old friend. But he resumed in a louder voice than ever: —
“It was last night that the fun began. I can make neither head nor tail of it. If the blessed place is haunted, why have we seen nothing of the ghost during the two months or so we have lived at Low Fennel? The fact remains that nothing unusual happened until last night. It came about owing to the infernal heat.
“Mrs. Alson, the housekeeper, came down about two o’clock, intending, so I understand, to get a glass of cider from the barrel in the cellar. She could not sleep owing to the heat, and felt extremely thirsty. There’s a queer sort of bend in the stair — I’ll show you in a minute; and as she came down and reached this bend she met a man, or a thing, who was going up! The moonlight was streaming in through the window right upon that corner of the stair, and the apparition stood fully revealed.
“I gather that it was that of an almost naked man. Mrs. Alson naturally is rather reticent on the point, but I gather that the apparition was inadequately clothed. Regarding the face of the thing she supplies more details. Addison” — the Major leant forward across the table— “it was the face of a demon, a contorted devilish face, the eyes crossed, and glaring like the eyes of a mad dog!
“Of course the poor woman fainted dead away on the spot. She might have died there if it hadn’t been for the amazing heat of the night. This certainly was the cause of her trouble, but it also saved her. About three o’clock I woke up in a perfect bath of perspiration. I never remember such a night, not even in India, and, as Mrs. Alson had done an hour earlier, I also started to find a drink. Addison! I nearly fell over her as she lay swooning on the stair!”
He helped himself to a liberal tot of whisky, then squirted soda into the glass.
“For once in a way I did the right thing, Addison. Not wishing to alarm Marjorie, I knocked up one of the maids, and when Mrs. Alson had somewhat recovered, gave her into the girl’s charge. I sat downstairs here in this room until she could see me, and then got the particulars which I’ve given you. I wired you as soon as the office was open; for I said to myself, ‘Dale, the devilry has begun again. If Marjorie gets to hear of it there’ll be hell to pay. She won’t live in the place.’”
He stood up abruptly, as a ripple of laughter reached us from the garden.
“Suppose we explore the scene of the trouble?” he suggested, moving toward the door.
I thought in the circumstance our inspection might be a hurried one; therefore:
“Should you mind very much if I sought it out for myself?” I said. “It is my custom in cases of the kind to be alone if possible.”
“My dear fellow, certainly!”
“My ramble concluded, I will rejoin Mrs. Dale and yourself — say on the lawn?”
“Good, good!” cried the Major, throwing open the door. “An opening has been made on the floor above corresponding with this, and communicating with the old stair. Go where you like; find out what you can; but remember — not a word to Marjorie.”
II
Filled with the liveliest curiosity, I set out to explore Low Fennel. First I directed my attention to the exterior, commencing my investigations from the front. That part of the building on either side of the door was evidently of Tudor date, with a Jacobean wing to the west containing apartments overlooking the lawn — the latter a Georgian addition; whilst the new east wing, built by Major Dale, carried the building out almost level with the clump of fir-trees, and into the very heart of the ferns and bushes which here grew densely.
There was no way around on this side, and not desiring to cross the lawn at present, I passed in through the house to the garden at the back. This led me thro
ugh the northern part of the building and the servants’ quarters, which appeared to be of even greater age than the front of the house. The fine old kitchen in particular was suggestive of the days when roasting was done upon a grand scale.
Beyond the flower garden lay the kitchen garden, and beyond that the orchard. The latter showed evidences of neglect, bearing out the Major’s story that the place had been unoccupied for twelve months; but it was evident, nevertheless, that the soil had been cultivated for many generations. Thus far I had discovered nothing calculated to assist me in my peculiar investigation, and entering the house I began a room-to-room quest, which, beyond confirming most of my earlier impressions, afforded little data.
The tortuous stairway, which had been the scene of the event described by my host, occupied me for some time, and I carefully examined the time-blackened panels, and tested each separate stair, for in houses like Low Fennel secret passages and “priest-holes” were to be looked for. However, I discovered nothing, but descending again to the hall I made a small discovery.
There were rooms in Low Fennel which one entered by descending or ascending two or three steps, but this was entirely characteristic of the architectural methods of the period represented. I was surprised, however, to find that one mounted three steps in order to obtain access to the passage leading to the new wing. I had overlooked this peculiarity hitherto, but now it struck me as worthy of attention. Why should a modern architect introduce such a device? It could only mean that the ground was higher on the east side of the building, and that, for some reason, it had proved more convenient to adopt the existing foundations than to level the site.
I returned to the hall-way and stood there deep in thought, when the contact of a rough tongue with my hand drew my attention to a young Airedale terrier who was anxious to make my acquaintance. I patted his head encouragingly, and, having reviewed the notes made during my tour of inspection, determined to repeat the tour in order to check them.
