The Door of the Unreal

by Gerald Biss

  A glance showed that there was no sign of either of them in or under the car. The holocaust had not gone far enough to leave any doubt of that, although some of the wooden-headed police tried to insist first go off that they had been burnt but both Harry and I were firm on the point.

  “Thank God,” we both exclaimed at the thought that they had at least escaped such an awful death: and then we started to draw the ground round to see where they had been thrown. A few feet from the car I trod on Tony’s cap; but, strange to say, there was no sign of them anywhere within reasonable radius.

  They had both disappeared as totally and absolutely as the Bolsovers!

  There was no lack of light between the moon and the blazing car; and there was no doubt about it.

  “You take this side of the hedge,” I called out to Harry, as I dashed back through the gap, “and I’ll take the other.”

  The girls, white as death and sobbing hysterically, were hanging on to each other against the side of the car.

  “No sign of either of them,” I shouted, trying to buck them up. “At any rate they aren’t burnt.”

  And no sign of them there was either. Harry and I drew the hedge on both sides, the road, the ditches, and again the field, making wider and wider detours, till we felt that it was pretty hopeless and made our way hack to the blazing car, which was getting red-hot and beginning to buckle about the frame.

  We looked into each other’s faces.

  All he said was, “Good God, Bill”; and all I said was, “Good God, Harry”—both feeling that there was something deeper behind it, something intangible and uncanny, something beyond our crude ken. And we made our way slowly back to the girls: and in the minds of both of us was the memory of the Bolsover mystery.

  ***

  As we got back to the old Daimler, we heard the sound of another car hooting as it came tearing up the hill; and Harry and I jumped out into the road and yelled to it to stop. The driver was already slowing down at the sight of the blaze on the other side of the hedge; and he turned out to be an awfully good chap—Fitzroy Manders by name, as I found out afterwards. He had a pal with him called Greville: and there were two ladies in the back of the car.

  I explained to him as shortly as I could what had happened, though in rather disjointed fashion, I’m afraid; and I saw his face grow pretty grave in the white light.

  “It looks devilish fishy,” was all he remarked; and he went back to his own car and said a few words to the ladies. The one on the near side got out; and he beckoned me to join them and introduced me.

  “My wife, Mr. Wellingham,” he said without any frills, as I raised my cap.

  “My wife and her sister will look after the girls with you,” he added. “Naturally they must be frightfully upset by this extraordinary business. They had better get into my car, and Greville will drive them up to Handcross and leave the ladies at the Red Lion; and then he can bring the police back with him.”

  He had a strong, managing way about him which was very welcome after the shock, which I don’t mind admitting had knocked me out a bit—and old Harry, too—while the girls were a jolly sight worse, and on the verge of hysterics. Mrs. Manders proved a topper, and took them in hand with a few kind words, and had them in her car before you could say knife, tucked in securely between her sister and herself to give them a nice sense of companionship and protection Greville jumped into the driver’s seat, while Manders cranked the engine.

  “Drive like the devil,” I overheard him say to Greville. “There is no saying what may not be out on this ill-omened hill to-night.”

  And off they went as though there were no hill at all.

  “Now,” said Manders curtly, “draw your car well in on its own side; and then we’ll have another search.”

  There was little left by that time of the famous old racing Napier save red hot iron and distorted metal. So that did not delay us long, and under Manders’ direction we started a methodical search: but all to no purpose, and not a trace of anything, except poor old Tony’s cap, could we discover.

  We found ourselves back on the road again and searched it up and down once more without the faintest result.

  Manders lit a cigarette and passed us his case; and I noticed Harry’s hand was a bit shaky, as though he had had a late night. So was mine, I don’t mind confessing.

  “There is something damned funny at work somewhere,” said Manders, in a detached sort of way, as though he were thinking hard, “especially coming on top of the Bolsover case. Hullo! there’s the car”—and we heard it hooting down the hill, hell for leather.

  Two minutes later it was alongside of us; and out jumped a sergeant and a couple of policemen almost before Greville had drawn up.

  “I have telephoned Chief Inspector Mutton, sir,” said the sergeant, saluting Manders, “and have left orders to advise Scotland Yard immediately: and I have telephoned to Crawley to send assistance by car without a moment’s delay.”

  “Excellent,” said Manders, and he explained the whole situation to the sergeant in as few words as possible; and I couldn’t help marvelling at the clear concise way he put things. But then it turned out afterwards that he is a barrister, you see; so I could hardly be expected to compete.

  “It looks on all fours with the Bolsover case,” said the sergeant, when Manders had finished. “I had a good deal to do with that business myself, and know the ground pretty well. If you don’t mind, sir, I think we had better have another search.”

  And after he had examined the car, which had nearly burnt itself out, he organized the seven of us, and we drew every inch methodically in an ever-widening circle.

  Help was not long in arriving from Crawley, and in little over an hour Chief Inspector Mutton was on the spot and had taken over from Sergeant Handcock. And by daybreak the whole place was alive with all sorts of people.

  ***

  Lincoln Osgood says that I can now hand over to him and retire, as I have shot my bolt, and I am jolly glad, as not only do I hate writing, but it is particularly hard to write about that awful night, which will always remain a nightmare in my mind.

  V

  DOCUMENT

  CONTRIBUTED BY SIR HENRY VERJOYCE, PART.,

  2nd LIEUT., COLDSTREAM GUARDS

  I am a worse hand even than Bill Wellingham at writing; and Lincoln Osgood says that there is no need for me to go over the ground again, as Bill has already covered fully the only part I could deal with first hand. So all I have got to do is to testify that every word of his statement is gospel truth; and to this I herewith append my signature for what it is worth by way of corroboration.

  (Signed) HARRY NERJOYCE

  MEMORANDUM

  By LINCOLN OSGOOD

  I do not enter the story of these strange events directly at this point, but I feel that a memorandum collated by myself will, at this juncture, save the publication of a burdensome number of documents from the press and other sources, and help to state the position concisely and put things in perspective.

  This naïve, but convincing statement, contributed from direct participation and observation by young Wellingham, brings the evolution of this chronicle to a point infinitely more sensational than the disappearance of the comparatively obscure Bolsovers; and it is hard even to suggest the enormous and unparalleled excitement, not only in Great Britain, but all over the world. It may almost be said that even the more sober section of the press thoroughly let themselves go over it, while the “yellow” oracles fairly went mad over such a sensation as the disappearance of the richest and most eligible parti in the peerage and the most popular leading lady in revue, whose names had been coupled together by gossip under such romantic circumstances—especially under such inexplicable and extraordinary conditions following so close upon the heels of the Bolsover mystery. The very familiarity of the spot at which these tragedies had occurred added fuel to the flames of excitement: and, moreover, a new element of fear had entered the realms of commonplace everyday life and gripped
the public imagination.

  The sub-editors of the halfpenny papers ran riot over the new mystery of the Brighton Road, and “featured” it with headlines suggestive of some of the organs of my native country: and no Wild or fatuous rumour was considered too impossible or foolish to find a place. The reporters made high holiday all over the country, especially between London and Brighton, and Sussex was obsessed day and night by “specials” and space-men in search of copy. Even the leader- writers, locked in their sanctums in Fleet Street, were busy evolving theories without availing anything.

  But to revert to the point at which Willingham’s statement left off, all the searching of the police proved unavailing; and though they looked wise and hinted at clues in response to the importunities of the legion of pressmen, Chief Inspector Mutton and the cracks of the detective force from Scotland Yard had glumly to admit amongst themselves that they had found not a single thing to help them, and did not see a single ray of light through the utter darkness any more than in the case of the Bolsovers, who had retreated right into the background as a minor and subsidiary issue in view of the later and far greater sensation.

  It must be frankly admitted that everything was against them, especially the state of the ground, which was as hard as iron, and had been frozen on the night of April 1 and the early hours of the morning of April 2; and, to crown all, with daylight it had begun to rain, and settled down into a regular downpour as the day went on. This not only precluded the use of bloodhounds, which had actually been telephoned for, but soon reduced the ploughed land and the vicinity to a sludgy condition, which in a short time became pock-marked with the footprints of the many searchers to the exclusion of any possible traces which might have escaped observation.

  Photographs of Lord Bullingdon and Miss Yvette St. Clair, already familiar enough to the pubic were circulated immediately throughout the country; and every port, station, and all other such possible places were closely watched. In fact, every member of the public might have been said to have constituted himself or herself into a private detective—all without the least result.

  Moreover, there was not the slightest object in any such voluntary disappearance, especially when preceded by the dangerous feat of wrecking a fifteen-hundred-pound racing-car—less object in fact, I may say, than there could have been even in the case of the Bolsovers.

  Town Tit Bits, in its usual impertinent way, hinted at an elopement engineered upon original lines, or, at least, a big theatrical advertisement for Miss Yvette St. Chair of a fashion that left the imaginative efforts of any American press-agent cold stiff, and a million miles behind.

  A certain section stuck to the theory that the bodies had been burnt in the holocaust of the car; but, apart from the direct and unshakable evidence of Wellingham and Verjoyce, expert examination absolutely negatived the possibility. In fact, no one familiar with the history of the disposal of bodies by burning and the interesting cases on the subject in the annals of criminology gave it a moment’s serious consideration in the circumstances. Besides, there was the Bolsover parallel; and their joint disappearance under circumstances identical, save for the wrecking and burning of the car, was directly against the theory of incineration.

  The theory of motor bandits and the victims being held up for ransom was the most popular one of all, and had, on the face of it, more logic and possibility behind it: but here again rose the Bolsover parallel to question it. If ransom were the object and kidnapping the solution, why had two whole months passed without any word or attempt to reap the benefits of such a hold criminal stroke? Of course it was possible, dealing admittedly with a criminal gang of very exceptional ability and organization, that the victims might be held for a considerable time or until a sufficiently large “bag” had been accumulated: and, of course, if so, in Lord Bullingdon and Miss Yvette St. Chair they had indeed, consciously or unconsciously, dropped upon a haul as rich as any in Great Britain, which would, properly handled, assure such affluence as to render minor business in the future superfluous.

  These are the impressions on my own mind, when I landed in England after some months of travel through the remoter parts of Austria, Poland, and the Balkans on the evening of Monday, April 2, and read the first accounts of the whole business in the evening papers, which were full of it. And from that moment I never lost touch with the whole horrible, yet fascinating business until a tiny clue—a thing that would have meant nothing save to one person in a million, which I had chanced upon by accident in my travels—placed in my hands the key to the solution of this apparently impenetrable mystery. I claim no great perspicacity or credit in the matter for myself—far from it. I see in it rather the hand of Providence bringing me with the specialized and requisite piece of recondite knowledge on the spot at the psychological moment, in time to prevent further similar tragedies and to prove instrumental in eradicating the foul curse, which had fallen upon Sussex out of the mysterious realms of the real, yet the unreal at the same time.

  I had promised Burgess Clymping that I would go straight down to stay with him as soon as I reached England; and what I read in the papers of the “Mystery of the Brighton Road” fascinated me, and made me all the more eager not to delay a moment more than absolutely necessary in making good my promise, as his place Clymping Manor, is less than three miles off the Brighton Road and the scene of the two remarkable dual disappearances. Crime and mystery have always held my interest closely; and I have studied the subject most carefully from the scientific, the analytic, the human, and every other point of view. In fact, I may say that even now there are few places in which I can spend a more interesting afternoon than the Chamber of Horrors (so called) at Madame Tussaud’s, reconstructing the famous crimes of the past, and interviewing, in wax, the greater and lesser exponents of murder “as a fine art.”

  I was too late to go down to Clymping Manor that same night; and, in addition, I had certain business to transact the next morning in London in view of my long absence abroad. So I wired to Burgess that I would be with him the next day by the 3.50, when I stepped, personally and directly, right into the thick of it. Meanwhile, he will fill the gap with a most interesting and sensational happening, which I just missed personally by this delay.

  VI

  DOCUMENT

  CONTRIBUTED BY BURGESS CLYMPING, OF CLYMPING MANOR, NEAR

  HANDCROSS, IN THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX

  I must frankly confess to having been obsessed from the very first by the Bolsover affair on the Brighton Road, and it is perhaps only natural, as it happened so near to the boundaries of my own estate: but I never dreamt what a part I should find myself called upon to play in the elucidation and clearing up of the whole ghastly affair.

  Within three miles of my own home, and less than half the distance from the family Dower House, lay the scene of the two mysterious disappearances which had convulsed the whole country: and, great as had been the sensation over the Bolsover business, it was child’s play compared with that which followed the affair of Tony Bullingdon and Miss Yvette St. Chair.

  I had naturally worked with the police and rendered what personal assistance I could in the former case, all to no result. The local part of the business had proved itself utterly hopeless and entirely barren of any clue long before the police ‘would admit it even with the utmost reservation to the public. If the earth had opened and swallowed the Bolsovers, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, their disappearance could not have been more complete.

  My name is Burgess Clymping; and Lincoln Osgood, my dearest and closest friend, who at the immediate request of myself and all the others concerned, has consented to act as chronicler and collator of the events surrounding and explaining this extraordinary mystery, certainly the strangest of modern times in its dénouement and all that lay behind it, has in my opinion, in his preliminary covering memorandum, said sufficient about me personally for the purposes of this record.

  I live at Clymping Manor, which has been in the possession of my family in direct a
nd unbroken succession since the fourteenth century: and I have often felt it my duty to marry as the last of the line for this reason alone, but hitherto I have never had any real inclination—or rather the real inclination. I am not particularly wealthy, but the estate, which runs to some six thousand acres, renders me very comfortable and well-to-do as country squires go, and affords excellent shooting, which is my particular hobby. I farm nearly a thousand acres of it myself in a rather practical way; and that keeps me pretty busy, and my time fairly occupied.

  My constant companion is my only sister, Ann, a beautiful girl of just upon twenty-one, who keeps house for me and looks after my guests and myself in a most delightfully capable, yet unobtrusive fashion: and it is this, perhaps, which has kept me from ever contemplating marriage seriously, save as an abstract or academic duty to the House of Clymping. Our mother died when Ann was a child of three and I a boy of thirteen, and my father five years later: so it will easily be understood that she has meant very much to me all her life and has always been my special care.

  Now that she is grown up and, as I have already said, is a very lovely girl—tall, active, and wonderfully fair, a rare thing in these days, with remarkable grey eyes with long black lashes and arched black brow, and a magnificent lithe figure (I could write lots about Ann’s beauty and good points as but this is hardly the place to let myself go) feel that it will not be long before love claims and then, perhaps, marriage will assume a different personal perspective in my eyes.