Mystery in White (British Library Crime Classics)

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  The elderly bore was temporarily crushed. So was the chorus girl. But the brother and sister, anxious to be au fait with every phase of progressive thought, if only to discard it, and equipped with sufficient fortitude to withstand its shocks, were intrigued.

  “Reduced to words of not more than two syllables,” said David, “you mean we can conjure up the past?”

  “Conjure up is not a happy term,” answered the old man. “It suggests magic, and there is nothing magical in the process. We can reveal—expose—the past. The past is ineradicable.”

  “Bosh!” exclaimed the bore.

  He did not like being crushed. The old man who had crushed him bent forward to repeat the operation.

  “What is a simple gramophone record but a record of the past?” he demanded, tapping the bore on the knee. “Caruso is dead, but we can hear his voice to-day. This is not due to invention, but to discovery, and if the discovery had occurred three hundred years ago I should not have to travel to Naseby to hear Charles the First’s voice—if, that is, I am to hear it. But Nature does not wait upon our discoveries. That is a thing so many ignoramuses forget. Her sound-waves, light-waves, thought-waves, emotional-waves—to mention a few of those which come within the limited range of our particular senses and perceptions—all travel ceaselessly, some without interruption, some to find temporary prisons in the obstructions where they embed themselves. Here they may diminish into negligible influences, or—mark this—they may be freed again. The captured waves, of course, are merely a fragment from the original source. Potentially everything that has ever existed, everything born of the senses, can be recovered by the senses. Fortunately, sir, there will be no gramophone record of your recent expletive; nevertheless, in addition to its mere mark on memory, your ‘Bosh’ will go on for ever.”

  The bore, rather surprisingly, put up a fight, though it was something in the nature of a death struggle.

  “Then here is another Bosh to keep it company!” he snapped.

  “You need never fear for the loneliness of your words,” replied the old man.

  “And what about your words?”

  “They will go on, too. But it is unlikely that any future generation will recapture our present conversation. In spite of our obvious distaste for each other, our emotions are hardly virile enough. They will soon fade even from our own memories. But suppose—yes, sir, suppose they suddenly grow explosive? Suppose you leap upon me with a knife, plunging it into the heart of Mr. Edward Maltby, of the Royal Psychical Society, then indeed some future person sitting in this corner may become uncomfortably aware of a very unpleasant emotion.”

  He closed his eyes again; but his five travelling-companions all received the impression that he was still seeing them through his lids. The solid guard, passing along the corridor at that moment, was turned to with relief, although he had no comfort to offer.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say anything,” he replied to inquiries, repeating a formula of which he was weary. “We’re doing all we can, but with the line blocked before and behind, well, there it is.”

  “I call it disgraceful!” muttered the bore. “Where’s the damned breakdown gang or whatever they call themselves?”

  “We’re trying to get assistance, we can’t do more,” retorted the guard.

  “How long do you expect we’ll stick here?”

  “I’d like to know that myself, sir.”

  “All night?” asked Lydia.

  “Maybe, miss.”

  “Can one walk along the line?”

  “Only for a bit. It’s worse beyond.”

  “Oh, dear!” murmured the chorus girl. “I must get to Manchester!”

  “I asked because I was wondering whether there was another line or station near here,” said Lydia.

  “Well, there’s Hemmersby,” answered the guard. “That’s a branch line that joins this at Swayton; but I wouldn’t care to try it, not this weather.”

  “It’s this weather that gives us the incentive,” David pointed out. “How far is Hemmersby?”

  “I shouldn’t care to say. Five or six miles, p’r’aps.”

  “Which way?”

  The guard pointed out of the corridor window.

  “Yes, but we couldn’t carry our trunks!” said Lydia. “What would happen to them?”

  The guard gave a little shrug. Madness was not his concern, and he came across plenty.

  “They would go on to their destination,” he replied, “but I couldn’t say when they’d turn up.”

  “According to you,” smiled David, “they’d turn up before we would.”

  “Well, there you are,” said the guard.

  Then he continued on his way, dead sick of it.

  There was a little silence. Lydia turned her head from the corridor and stared out of the window next to her.

  “Almost stopped,” she announced. “Well, people, what about it.”

  “Almost is not quite,” answered her brother cautiously.

  A second little silence followed. Jessie Noyes gazed at the tip of her shoe, fearful to commit herself. The flushed clerk seemed in the same condition. The bore’s expression, on the other hand, was definitely unfavourable.

  “Asking for trouble,” he declared, when no one else spoke. “If none of you have been lost in a snowstorm, I have.”

  “Ah, but that was in Dawson City,” murmured David, “where snow is snow.”

  Then a startling thing happened. The old man in the corner suddenly opened his eyes and sat upright. He stared straight ahead of him, but Jessie, who was in his line of vision, was convinced that he was not seeing her. A moment later he swerved round towards the corridor. Beyond the corridor window something moved; a dim white smudge that faded out into the all-embracing snow as they all watched it.

  “The other line—yes, yes, quite a good idea,” said the old man. “A merry Christmas to you all!”

  He seized his bag from the rack, leapt across the corridor, jumped from the train, and in a few seconds he, too, had faded out.

  “There goes a lunatic,” commented the elderly bore, “if there ever was one!”

  CHAPTER II

  THE INVISIBLE TRACK

  “WELL, what do we all make of it?” inquired David after a pause.

  “I’ve already given you my opinion,” responded the bore, and repeated it by tapping his forehead.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid I daren’t agree with the opinion, in case others follow the alleged lunatic’s example,” answered David. “You’ll remember, we were just discussing what he has now done.”

  “Only we wouldn’t do it quite so violently,” interposed Lydia. “I almost thought for a moment that he’d spotted Charles the First!”

  She spoke lightly, but she was watching to see how the others took her remark.

  “Charles the Fiddlesticks!” muttered the bore.

  “Didn’t Nero use the fiddlesticks?” said David. “Anyhow, somebody was outside there before he hopped on to the line, so even if the going isn’t good it can’t be impossible.” He turned to Jessie Noyes. “How do you feel about it?”

  Jessie looked out of the window. The snow had ceased falling, and the motionless white scene was like a film that had suddenly stopped.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I—I can’t think what’ll happen if I don’t get to Manchester.”

  “It’s important, is it?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  David glanced at his sister, and she nodded.

  “We’ll go, if you go,” he said.

  “But you mustn’t go for me!” exclaimed Jessie quickly.

  “It would only be partly for you,” explained Lydia. “I really think we’d be using you as an excuse. You see, we want those nice downy beds! And then,” she added, half-hesitatingly, “there’s another thing. It least—it occurred to me.”

  “What?” asked David.

  “I dare say it’s quite ridiculous,” she answered, “but somehow or other I can’t help feeling just
a bit worried about that Mr.—what was it? Maltby?”

  “Edward Maltby, of the Royal Psychical Society,” nodded David.

  “He was such an old man! What’d we feel like if we read in to-morrow’s papers that he’d been found buried in snow!”

  “To-morrow’s Christmas, and there won’t be any papers,” her brother pointed out.

  “That doesn’t reduce his chance of being buried in the snow, my darling,” Lydia retorted.

  Jessie chimed in, now seeking her own excuse:

  “Yes, one does almost feel as if one almost ought to go after him, doesn’t one?”

  “This one doesn’t,” replied the bore, unconsciously adding a point in favour of departure.

  Jessie’s real excuse was that on the morrow a theatrical manager would have left Manchester, taking the chance of an engagement with him, and the possibility of missing both was emphasised by the voice of the guard when he returned along the corridor, answering questions that were flung at him as he went: “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t say.” “No, madam, nothing yet.” “Yes, sir, it may be all night.”

  “Oh, let’s!” cried Lydia.

  “I’ll—I’ll join you, if I might,” added the clerk with stammering boldness. “Make up a party, you know.”

  The tide of adventure was flowing fast. Lydia was already on her feet, bringing down her small suitcase. Had she known the suitcase’s destination she would have hesitated. Only the elderly bore frowned.

  “You’re not really going, are you?” he asked the chorus girl.

  “Why not, if they are?” she replied.

  “Well, you take my advice, and stay here—with me?”

  With the blindness of egotism, he was quite unconscious that his remark settled the matter.

  Glad to be rid of his company, and armed with their small luggage, the four adventurers lowered themselves to the thick carpet of snow. Then David reached up and banged the door to—the corridor was fast filling with interested spectators—and the journey through strange fairyland began.

  It began with disarming ease. Had difficulties arisen at once they might have returned, although pride would have rebelled against retreat at this early stage, and the vision of the bore’s triumphant expression was another deterrent factor. Following Mr. Maltby’s deep footprints for a few yards along the track, they came to a path bearing away from the line into the white distance. The line of the path was almost obliterated, but they identified it by a fence and a signpost: “Footpath to Hemmersby.” This was evidently a point at which, in normal times, pedestrians crossed the railway.

  The fence soon came to an end. The path lost its identifying boundary, and presumably continued diagonally across a field. Maltby’s footprints and something that looked like a road beyond a distant hedge maintained the party’s hope, but when they reached the thing that looked like a road to find that it belied its appearance, hope grew a little less.

  “I—I suppose we’re right?” queried Jessie.

  “We must be,” replied David cheerfully. “Follow the footprints!”

  “The footprints mightn’t be right,” said the clerk.

  “What depressing logic!” exclaimed David. “By the way, I suppose you’ve all noticed that we’re following more than one set?”

  “Yes, so the other man couldn’t have been Charles the First,” added Lydia, “because ghosts don’t have footprints. Come on! I want to get somewhere!”

  They continued on their uncertain way. While crossing a second field the snow began again. Each of the four travellers wondered whether to suggest going back, and each lacked the moral courage to put the wonder into words.

  The second field sloped down into a small valley. Suddenly David gave a shout. He had ploughed a little way ahead.

  “The road, people, the road!” he called.

  They overtook him to find him staring disconsolately at a long, narrow ditch. Camouflaged by the snow, it had continued the story of deception.

  “When you and I are all alone, David,” said Lydia, “I’ll tell you what I think of you!”

  “Which way now?” asked Jessie, struggling against panic.

  They stared around. The increasing snow had almost obliterated the marks of their predecessors. Just beyond the ditch they were being rapidly wiped out.

  “What about back?” proposed David, voicing sense at last.

  They turned. The slope they had descended was scarcely visible through the curtain of whirling white, and while they stood hesitating their own footprints became lost in the new covering.

  “Yes, back!” cried Lydia. “That beastly bore was right!”

  She began running. A voice hailed her immediately.

  “Hey! Not that way!” called David.

  Then they started arguing about the direction, while the thickening flakes blotted out all but themselves.

  In the end they decided that it was as hopeless to attempt to return as to go forward. They skirted the ditch, blundered through an area of trees, crossed another field, descended into another valley, and walked into another ditch. Three breathless figures scrambled out on the farther side unaided. The fourth, Jessie, had to be lugged out.

  “I say, are you hurt?” asked David anxiously.

  “No, not a bit,” answered Jessie, swaying.

  He caught her unconscious form just before it slid to the ground, and a situation which had been bad enough already became suddenly worse. Lydia hurried to his side.

  “What’s the matter?” she exclaimed.

  “The poor thing’s conked out,” he replied. “I say, Lydia, now we’ve just got to find somewhere!”

  “Can you carry her?”

  “She’s light.”

  “Then come along. It won’t help standing here. Where’s that other man?”

  His voice sounded as she spoke. The clerk had vanished, but now a muffled shout came through the white curtain.

  “Hi! A gate!”

  Lifting the unconscious figure in his arms, and telling his sister to take the suitcase she had dropped, David hastened towards the voice. He searched in vain for the origin.

  “Where’ve you got to?” he called. “Shout again!”

  The next instant the clerk loomed before him, and they almost collided.

  “Good Lord!” gasped the clerk, staring at David’s burden. “Is she bad?”

  “Hope not; she just went off,” answered David. “Where’s this gate?”

  “Just behind me. I think it leads somewhere.”

  At another time David would have commented that gates generally did lead somewhere, but he was not in a mood now for sarcasm or badinage.

  “Shove it open,” he said.

  “It won’t open,” returned the clerk. “The snow’s half-way to the top.”

  “Damn! Well, we’ll have to climb it. Get over first, will you, and I’ll pass her over to you. Think you can manage?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You hop over, too, Lydia, and help him.”

  They managed somehow. Beyond the gate, David took the chorus girl again, with the snow almost up to his knees. The snow was rising like a tide, and every yard seemed more difficult than the last.

  “If you ask me,” murmured Lydia, dragging a sopping leg out of a small white pit, “I think the unconscious lady is having the best of it!”

  “She won’t when she comes to,” answered David.

  “All correct to instruct me,” smiled Lydia.

  “Did she fall down?” inquired the clerk.

  “We all fell down,” David reminded him, “but she seems to have fallen the hardest.”

  Round a bend—the lane was full of bends—an incident occurred that brought both alarm and hope. A mass of snow nearly enveloped them. It was like a miniature avalanche, and it came sweeping down from nowhere. Warned by the preliminary swishing sound David and Lydia managed to evade it, but the clerk was less lucky. For a second he disappeared, and then emerged from an untidy white mound, spluttering.

&n
bsp; “Where did that come from?” cried David.

  “A roof, I should think,” answered Lydia.

  “Let’s hope so!” replied David devoutly. “Have a look round, you two, will you? I’m afraid the pack horse isn’t quite so mobile. But prenez garde!”

  He stood still while they searched, holding his burden close to him to give it warmth. In a few moments they reported a barn.

  “Splendid!” exclaimed David. “That’s first-class news! Barns don’t grow all by themselves! We’ll strike a house now before we know it.”

  “A house!” repeated Lydia, with almost delirious ecstasy. “I’d forgotten there were such things! A house—with a fire—and a bath! Oh, a bath!”

  “Sounds good,” chattered the clerk.

  With renewed hope they resumed their difficult way. They twisted round another bend. On either side of them great white trees rose, and the foliage increased. Once they walked into the foliage. Then the lane dipped. This was unwelcome, for it appeared to increase the depth of the snow and to augment the sense that they were enclosed in it. With their retreat cut off, they were advancing into a white prison.

  The atmosphere became momentarily stifling. Then, suddenly, the clerk gave a shout.

  “What? Where?” cried David.

  “Here; the house!” gulped the clerk.

  Almost blinded by the whirling snowflakes, he had lowered his head; and when the building loomed abruptly in his path he only just saved himself from colliding with the front door.

  CHAPTER III

  STRANGE SANCTUARY

  THE ringing of the bell brought no response. Knocking proved equally fruitless. For a short while it seemed as though they were doomed to further disappointment, although David was in a mood to break windows if the necessity arose. Then Lydia took the bull by the horns and tried the doorhandle. It turned, and she shoved the door open with a little sigh of relief. A roof, even without the invitation to stay beneath it, had become an urgent necessity.