It was some time before Swaffam recovered consciousness. He listened to Low’s story of how he had found him with a red angry gleam in his sombre eyes.
“The ghost has scored off me,” he said, with an odd, sullen laugh, “but now I fancy it’s my turn! But before we adjourn to the Museum to examine the place, I will ask you to let me hear your notion of things. You have been right in saying there was real danger. For myself I can only tell you that I felt something spring upon me, and I knew no more. Had this not happened I am afraid I should never have asked you a second time what your idea of the matter might be,” he added with a sort of sulky frankness.
“There are two main indications,” replied Low. “This strip of yellow bandage, which I have just now picked up from the passage floor, and the mark on your neck.”
“What’s that you say?” Swaffam rose quickly and examined his neck in a small glass beside the mantelshelf.
“Connect those two, and I think I can leave you to work it out for yourself,” said Low.
“Pray let us have your theory in full,” requested Swaffam shortly.
“Very well,” answered Low good-humouredly—he thought Swaffam’s annoyance natural in the circumstances—“The long, narrow figure which seemed to the Professor to be armless is developed on the next occasion. For Miss Van der Voort sees a bandaged arm and a dark hand with gleaming—which means, of course, gilded—nails. The clicking sound of the footsteps coincides with these particulars, for we know that sandals made of strips of leather are not uncommon in company with gilt nails and bandages. Old and dry leather would naturally click upon your polished floor.”
“Bravo, Mr. Low! So you mean to say that this house is haunted by a mummy!”
“That is my idea, and all I have seen confirms me in my opinion.”
“To do you justice, you held this theory before tonight—before, in fact, you had seen anything for yourself. You gathered that my father had sent home a mummy, and you went on to conclude that I had opened the case?”
“Yes. I imagine you took off most of, or rather all, the outer bandages, thus leaving the limbs free, wrapped only in the inner bandages which were swathed round each separate limb. I fancy this mummy was preserved on the Theban method with aromatic spices, which left the skin olive-coloured, dry and flexible, like tanned leather, the features remaining distinct, and the hair, teeth, and eyebrows perfect.”
“So far, good,” said Swaffam. “But now, how about the intermittent vitality? The postule on the neck of those whom it attacks? And where is our old Baelbrow ghost to come in?”
Swaffam tried to speak in a rallying tone, but his excitement and lowering temper were visible enough, in spite of the attempts he made to suppress them.
“To begin at the beginning,” said Flaxman Low, “everybody who, in a rational and honest manner, investigates the phenomena of spiritism will, sooner or later, meet in them some perplexing element, which is not to be explained by any of the ordinary theories. For reasons into which I need not now enter, this present case appears to me to be one of these. I am led to believe that the ghost which has for so many years given dim and vague manifestations of its existence in this house is a vampire.”
Swaffam threw back his head with an incredulous gesture.
“We no longer live in the middle ages, Mr. Low! And besides, how could a vampire come here?” he said scoffingly.
“It is held by some authorities on these subjects that under certain conditions a vampire may be self-created. You tell me that this house is built upon an ancient barrow; in fact, on a spot where we might naturally expect to find such an elemental psychic germ. In those dead human systems were contained all the seeds for good and evil. The power which causes these psychic seeds or germs to grow is thought, and from being long dwelt on and indulged, a thought might finally gain a mysterious vitality, which could go on increasing more and more by attracting to itself suitable and appropriate elements from its environment. For a long period this germ remained a helpless intelligence, awaiting the opportunity to assume some material form, by means of which to carry out its desires. The invisible is the real; the material only subserves its manifestation. The impalpable reality already existed, when you provided for it a physical medium for action by unwrapping the mummy’s form. Now, we can only judge of the nature of the germ by its manifestation through matter. Here we have every indication of a vampire intelligence touching into life and energy the dead human frame. Hence the mark on the neck of its victims, and their bloodless and anæmic condition. For a vampire, as you know, sucks blood.”
Swaffam rose, and took up the lamp.
“Now, for proof,” he said bluntly. “Wait a second, Mr. Low. You say you fired at this appearance?” And he took up the pistol which Low had laid down on the table.
“Yes, I aimed at a small portion of its foot which I saw on the step.”
Without more words, and with the pistol still in his hand, Swaffam led the way to the Museum.
* * * *
The wind howled round the house, and the darkness, which precedes the dawn, lay upon the world, when the two men looked upon one of the strangest sights it has ever been given to men to shudder at.
Half in and half out of an oblong wooden box in a corner of the great room, lay a lean shape in its rotten yellow bandages, the scraggy neck surmounted by a mop of frizzled hair. The toe strap of a sandal and a portion of the right foot had been shot away.
Swaffam, with a working face, gazed down at it, then seizing it by its tearing bandages, he flung it into the box, where it fell into a life-like posture, its wide, moist-lipped mouth gaping up at them.
For a moment Swaffam stood over the thing; then with a curse he raised the revolver and shot into the grinning face again and again with a deliberate vindictiveness. Finally he rammed the thing down into the box, and, clubbing the weapon, smashed the head into fragments with a vicious energy that coloured the whole horrible scene with a suggestion of murder done.
Then, turning to Low, he said: “Help me to fasten the cover on it.”
“Are you going to bury it?”
“No, we must rid the earth of it,” he answered savagely. “I’ll put it into the old canoe and burn it.”
* * * *
The rain had ceased when in the daybreak they carried the old canoe down to the shore. In it they placed the mummy case with its ghastly occupant, and piled faggots about it. The sail was raised and the pile lighted, and Low and Swaffam watched it creep out on the ebb-tide, at first a twinkling spark, then a flare and waving fire, until far out to sea the history of that dead thing ended 3000 years after the priests of Armen had laid it to rest in its appointed pyramid.
Flaxman Low in “THE STORY OF YAND MANOR HOUSE,” by E. and H. Heron
By looking through the notes of Mr. Flaxman Low, one sometimes catches through the steel-blue hardness of facts, the pink flush of romance, or more often the black corner of a horror unnameable. The following story may serve as an instance of the latter. Mr. Low not only unravelled the mystery at Yand, but at the same time justified his life-work to M. Thierry, the well-known French critic and philosopher.
At the end of a long conversation, M. Thierry, arguing from his own standpoint as a materialist, had said:
“The factor in the human economy which you call ‘soul’ cannot be placed.”
“I admit that,” replied Low. “Yet, when a man dies, is there not one factor unaccounted for in the change that comes upon him? Yes! For though his body still exists, it rapidly falls to pieces, which proves that that has gone which held it together.”
The Frenchman laughed, and shifted his ground.
“Well, for my part, I don’t believe in ghosts! Spirit manifestations, occult phenomena—is not this the ashbin into which a certain clique shoot everything they cannot understand, or for which they fail to account?”
“Then what should you say to me, Monsieur, if I told you that I have passed a good portion of my life in investigating thi
s particular ashbin, and have been lucky enough to sort a small part of its contents with tolerable success?” replied Flaxman Low.
“The subject is doubtless interesting—but I should like to have some personal experience in the matter,” said Thierry dubiously.
“I am at present investigating a most singular case,” said Low. “Have you a day or two to spare?”
Thierry thought for a minute or more.
“I am grateful,” he replied. “But, forgive me, is it a convincing ghost?”
“Come with me to Yand and see. I have been there once already, and came away for the purpose of procuring information from MSS. to which I have the privilege of access, for I confess that the phenomena at Yand lie altogether outside any former experience of mine.”
Low sank back into his chair with his hands clasped behind his head—a favourite position of his—and the smoke of his long pipe curled up lazily into the golden face of an Isis, which stood behind him on a bracket. Thierry, glancing across, was struck by the strange likeness between the faces of the Egyptian goddess and this scientist of the nineteenth century. On both rested the calm, mysterious abstraction of some unfathomable thought. As he looked, he decided.
“I have three days to place at your disposal.”
“I thank you heartily,” replied Low. “To be associated with so brilliant a logician as yourself in an inquiry of this nature is more than I could have hoped for! The material with which I have to deal is so elusive, the whole subject is wrapped in such obscurity and hampered by so much prejudice, that I can find few really qualified persons who care to approach these investigations seriously. I go down to Yand this evening, and hope not to leave without clearing up the mystery.”
“You will accompany me?”
“Most certainly. Meanwhile pray tell me something of the affair.”
“Briefly the story is as follows. Some weeks ago I went to Yand Manor House at the request of the owner, Sir George Blackburton, to see what I could make of the events which took place there. All they complain of is the impossibility of remaining in one room—the dining-room.”
“What then is he like, this M. le Spook?” asked the Frenchman, laughing.
“No one has ever seen him, or for that matter heard him.”
“Then how—”
“You can’t see him, nor hear him, nor smell him,” went on Low, “but you can feel him and—taste him!”
“Mon Dieu! But this is singular! Is he then of so bad a flavour?”
“You shall taste for yourself,” answered Flaxman Low smiling. “After a certain hour no one can remain in the room, they are simply crowded out.”
“But who crowds them out?” asked Thierry.
“That is just what I hope we may discover tonight or tomorrow.”
The last train that night dropped Mr. Flaxman Low and his companion at a little station near Yand. It was late, but a trap in waiting soon carried them to the Manor House. The big bulk of the building stood up in absolute blackness before them.
“Blackburton was to have met us, but I suppose he has not yet arrived,” said Low. “Hullo! the door is open,” he added as he stepped into the hall.
Beyond a dividing curtain they now perceived a light. Passing behind this curtain they found themselves at the end of the long hall, the wide staircase opening up in front of them.
“But who is this?” exclaimed Thierry.
Swaying and stumbling at every step, there tottered slowly down the stairs the figure of a man.
He looked as if he had been drinking, his face was livid, and his eyes sunk into his head.
“Thank Heaven you’ve come! I heard you outside,” he said in a weak voice.
“It’s Sir George Blackburton,” said Low, as the man lurched forward and pitched into his arms.
They laid him down on the rugs and tried to restore consciousness.
“He has the air of being drunk, but it is not so,” remarked Thierry. “Monsieur has had a bad shock of the nerves. See the pulses drumming in his throat.”
In a few minutes Blackburton opened his eyes and staggered to his feet.
“Come. I could not remain there alone. Come quickly.”
They went rapidly across the hall, Blackburton leading the way down a wide passage to a double-leaved door, which, after a perceptible pause, he threw open, and they all entered together.
On the great table in the center stood an extinguished lamp, some scattered food, and a big, lighted candle. But the eyes of all three men passed at once to a dark recess beside the heavy, carved chimneypiece, where a rigid shape sat perched on the back of a huge, oak chair.
Flaxman Low snatched up the candle and crossed the room towards it.
On the top of the chair, with his feet upon the arms, sat a powerfully-built young man huddled up. His mouth was open, and his eyes twisted upwards. Nothing further could be seen from below but the ghastly pallor of cheek and throat.
“Who is this?” cried Low. Then he laid his hand gently on the man’s knee.
At the touch the figure collapsed in a heap upon the floor, the gaping, set, terrified face turned up to theirs.
“He’s dead!” said Low after a hasty examination. “I should say he’s been dead some hours.”
“Oh, Lord! Poor Batty!” groaned Sir George, who was entirely unnerved. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“Who is he?” said Thierry, “and what was he doing here?”
“He’s a gamekeeper of mine. He was always anxious to try conclusions with the ghost, and last night he begged me to lock him in here with food for twenty-four hours. I refused at first, but then I thought if anything happened while he was in here alone, it would interest you. Who could imagine it would end like this?”
“When did you find him?” asked Low.
“I only got here from my mother’s half an hour ago. I turned on the light in the hall and came in here with a candle. As I entered the room, the candle went out, and—and—I think I must be going mad.”
“Tell us everything you saw,” urged Low.
“You will think I am beside myself; but as the light went out and I sank almost paralysed into an armchair, I saw two barred eyes looking at me!”
“Barred eyes? What do you mean?”
“Eyes that looked at me through thin vertical bars, like the bars of a cage. What’s that?”
With a smothered yell Sir George sprang back. He had approached the dead man and declared something had brushed his face.
“You were standing on this spot under the overmantel. I will remain here. Meantime, my dear Thierry, I feel sure you will help Sir George to carry this poor fellow to some more suitable place,” said Flaxman Low.
When the dead body of the young gamekeeper had been carried out, Low passed slowly round and about the room. At length he stood under the old carved overmantel, which reached to the ceiling and projected bodily forward in quaint heads of satyrs and animals. One of these on the side nearest the recess represented a griffin with a flanged mouth. Sir George had been standing directly below this at the moment when he felt the touch on his face. Now alone in the dim, wide room, Flaxman Low stood on the same spot and waited. The candle threw its dull yellow rays on the shadows which seemed to gather closer and wait also. Presently a distant door banged, and Low, leaning forward to listen, distinctly felt something on the back of his neck!
He swung round. There was nothing! He searched carefully on all sides, then put his hand up to the griffin’s head. Again came the same soft touch, this time upon his hand, as if something had floated past on the air.
This was definite. The griffin’s head located it. Taking the candle to examine more closely, Low found four long black hairs depending from the jagged fangs. He was detaching them when Thierry reappeared.
“We must get Sir George away as soon as possible,” he said.
“Yes, we must take him away, I fear,” agreed Low. “Our investigation must be put off till tomorrow.”
On the following day
they returned to Yand. It was a large country-house, pretty and old-fashioned, with lattice windows and deep gables, that looked out between tall shrubs and across lawns set with beaupots, where peacocks sunned themselves on the velvet turf. The church spire peered over the trees on one side; and an old wall covered with ivy and creeping plants, and pierced at intervals with arches, alone separated the gardens from the churchyard.
The haunted room lay at the back of the house. It was square and handsome, and furnished in the style of the last century. The oak overmantel reached to the ceiling, and a wide window, which almost filled one side of the room, gave a view of the west door of the church.
Low stood for a moment at the open window looking out at the level sunlight which flooded the lawns and parterres.
“See that door sunk in the church wall to the left?” said Sir George’s voice at his elbow. “That is the door of the family vault. Cheerful outlook, isn’t it?”
“I should like to walk across there presently,” remarked Low.
“What! Into the vault?” asked Sir George, with a harsh laugh. “I’ll take you if you like. Anything else I can show you or tell you?”
“Yes. Last night I found this hanging from the griffin’s head,” said Low, producing the thin wisp of black hair. “It must have touched your cheek as you stood below. Do you know to whom it can belong?”
“It’s a woman’s hair! No, the only woman who has been in this room to my knowledge for months is an old servant with grey hair, who cleans it,” returned Blackburton. “I’m sure it was not here when I locked Batty in.”
“It is human hair, exceedingly coarse and long uncut,” said Low; “but it is not necessarily a woman’s.”
“It is not mine at any rate, for I’m sandy; and poor Batty was fair. Good-night; I’ll come round for you in the morning.”
Presently, when the night closed in, Thierry and Low settled down in the haunted room to await developments. They smoked and talked deep into the night. A big lamp burned brightly on the table, and the surroundings looked homely and desirable.
Thierry made a remark to that effect, adding that perhaps the ghost might see fit to omit his usual visit.
The Occult Detective Megapack Page 59
