Penny looked dubious. ‘It’s hardly possible, is it?’ she said.
Mr Campion did not answer her, but proceeded equably. ‘It’s perfectly obvious to me,’ he continued, ‘and probably to you, my dear Watson, that there’s something fishy in Pharisees’ Clearing – something very fishy if Lugg is to be believed. I have a hunch that if we can lay that ghost we’ll get a line on The Daisy.’
‘But,’ said Penny, ‘if The Daisy, as you call him, is responsible for the ghost and Aunt Di was frightened intentionally, why should the creature go on haunting?’
‘That,’ observed Mr Campion, ‘is the point under consideration. Of course Lugg may have gone batty and imagined the whole thing.’
Penny shot a quick glance at him. ‘You don’t believe that,’ she said.
Mr Campion met her gaze.
‘You,’ he said, ‘believe it’s something supernatural.’
The girl started violently and the colour came into her face.
‘Oh,’ she burst out suddenly, ‘if you only knew as much about the country folk as I do, if you’d been brought up with them, listened to their stories and heard their beliefs, you wouldn’t be so supercilious about things that aren’t, well, quite right things. Of course,’ she went on after a pause, ‘I’m not saying anything definite. I don’t know. But ever since Aunt Di’s death more and more Gypsies have been pouring into the district. They say there’s a small army of them on the heath.’
Mr Campion raised his eyebrows. ‘Good old Mrs Sarah,’ he said. ‘Always do all you can for the Benwell tribe, Penny; the finest chals and churls in the world.’
Penny was mystified. ‘You seem to know something about everything,’ she said. ‘Why are we going to see the Professor?’
‘Because,’ said Mr Campion, ‘if our bogle in Pharisees’ Clearing is a genuine local phenomenon you can bet your boots Professor Cairey knows all there is to know about it. Besides that, when dealing with the supernatural there’s nothing quite so comforting as the scientific mind and a scientific explanation.’
They found the Professor at work in a green canvas shelter in the garden of his attractive Tudor house, whose colour-washed walls and rusty tiled roof rose up in the midst of a tangle of flowers. The old man rose to meet them with genuine welcome in his face.
‘This is delightful. You’ve come to lunch, I hope? Mrs Cairey is somewhere in the house and Beth with her.’
Penny hesitated awkwardly, and it was Mr Campion who broached the all-important matter in hand.
‘Professor,’ he said, ‘I’m in trouble again. We’ve come to you for help.’
‘Why, sure.’ The Professor’s enthusiasm was indubitable. ‘Judge Lobbett, one of my greatest friends, owes his life to this young man,’ he added, turning to Penny. ‘Now what can I do for you two?’
‘Have you ever heard of the ghost in Pharisees’ Clearing?’ said Penny, unable to control her curiosity any longer.
The Professor looked from one to the other of them, a curious expression in his round, dark eyes.
‘Well,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I don’t know what you’ll think of me, but I’ve got a sort of idea that I’ve a photograph of it. Come into the library.’
CHAPTER 16
Phenomenon
—
IN THE depths of the Professor’s study, a cool old-fashioned room with stamped plaster walls striped with unstained oak beams, Penny and Mr Campion listened to an extraordinary story.
‘I don’t want you to get me wrong,’ said the Professor, as he knelt down before an exquisite old lowboy and unlocked the bottom drawer. ‘I admit I’ve been poking my nose into other people’s business and I’ve been trespassing. Way over across the water we don’t mind if we do set our feet in a neighbour’s back garden,’ he added slyly.
Penny looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘Don’t tease us about that, Professor,’ she said pleadingly. ‘That was just an unfortunate accident. Aunt Di made it awkward all round, and Father was silly about the Gypsies.’
The Professor paused with his hand on the drawer handle.
‘You don’t say it was that?’ he said. ‘Well, your father had one up on me that time. I’ve lost half a dozen pedigree hens to those darn hobos. I sent them off my land yesterday morning when I saw they were back again.’
Penny hardly heard him. ‘The – the ghost,’ she said. ‘Is it a real one?’
The Professor looked at her curiously and did not answer directly. ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘As I was saying, I’ve been trespassing. I heard this yarn of a ghost long before your poor aunt passed over, and naturally I was interested. You see, I’m something of an authority on medieval witchcraft and magic – it’s my hobby, you know – and there were certain peculiarities about the tales I heard that got me interested. I sat up waiting in your father’s wood for several nights and I can’t say I saw anything. Still, I had a gun with me and maybe that had something to do with it.’
He paused and looked at Penny searchingly. ‘You probably know these stories better than I do,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I’ve heard several things,’ she admitted. ‘But the photograph –?’
‘I was coming to that,’ said the Professor. ‘I don’t know if you know it, but there’s a way that folks have for setting a trap to photograph animals at night. It’s a dandy little arrangement whereby the animal jerks a string stretched across its path, that releases a flashlight and snaps open the camera lens. I set a thing like this two or three nights, and finally, about a fortnight back, I got a result. Now I’ll show you.’
He rose to his feet carrying a big envelope. While they watched him he raised the flap and produced a large shiny reproduction.
‘I had it enlarged,’ he said. ‘It’s not good – I warn you it’s not good, but it gives you an idea.’
Mr Campion and Penny bent forward eagerly. As in all flashlight photographs taken in the open at night, only a certain portion of the plate bore a clear picture, and the snapshot conveyed largely an impression of tangled leaves and branches shown up in vivid black and white. But on the edge of the circle of light, and largely obscured by the shadows, was something that was obviously a figure turned in flight.
It was horned and very tall. That was all that was clear. The rest was mostly hidden by the undergrowth and the exaggerated shadows thrown by the foliage. In the ordinary way the photograph might have been dismissed as a freak plate, an odd arrangement of light and shadow, but in view of the Professor’s story and Lugg’s horrific description it took on a startling significance. Seen in this light, every blur and shadow on the figure that might have passed as accidental took on a horrible suggestion of unnamable detail.
Campion looked at the Professor.
‘Have you got a nice satisfying explanation for all this?’ he said.
Professor Cairey’s reply was guarded. ‘There is a possible explanation,’ he said, ‘and if it’s the right one it’ll be one of the most interesting examples of medieval survival I’ve ever heard of. Naturally I haven’t cared to bring this matter up, nor to go trespassing lately. You’ll appreciate that the situation was a little delicate.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Campion, straightening his back, ‘first catch your ghost. A cheery night’s work for our little Albert.’
The Professor’s face flushed with enthusiasm. ‘I’m with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been itching to do just that for the last month.’
There was something boyish in the old man’s heartiness which Penny hardly shared. ‘Look here,’ she said quietly, ‘if you really mean to go wandering about in Pharisees’ Clearing tonight I think I can put you on to the man to help you. Young Peck. He works for you, doesn’t he, Professor? He and his father know more about the countryside than all the rest of Sanctuary put together.’
Professor Cairey beamed.
‘I was just about to suggest him myself,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, old Peck has been my chief source of information in this affair. A fine old chap,’ he ad
ded, turning to Mr Campion. ‘It took me three weeks to find out what he was talking about, but we get on famously now. He has a cottage on the edge of my willow plantation, and he spends all his days sitting in the sun “harkening in”, as he calls it. His son’s put him up a radio. See here,’ he went on, ‘if you’ll stay to lunch we’ll go down there afterwards and get the youngster on the job.’
‘Oh, we can’t force ourselves on you like this,’ Penny protested. But the luncheon gong silenced her and the Professor bore them off in triumph to the dining-room.
Mrs Cairey, a gracious little woman with grey eyes and white shingled hair, received the unexpected addition to her luncheon table with charming equanimity. Whatever her quarrel with Lady Pethwick had been, she did not allow its shadow to be visited upon the young people. Mr Campion appeared to be an old favourite of hers, and Penny was a friend of Beth’s. By her pleasant personality the meal was made a jolly one, in spite of the sinister business which lay in the background of the minds of at least three of the party.
‘I’m real glad Albert is no longer a secret,’ said she as they settled themselves at the fine Georgian table in the graceful flower-filled room. ‘Beth and I kept our promise to you,’ she went on, smiling at the young man. ‘Not a word about us knowing you has passed our lips. I thought this was a quiet old-fashioned county. I never dreamed I’d have so much mystery going on around me.’
The Professor grinned. ‘Mother likes her mysteries kept in the kitchen,’ he said.
His wife’s still beautiful face flushed. ‘Will I never hear the end of this teasing, Papa?’ she said. ‘He’s making game of me,’ she added, turning to the visitors, ‘because when I came over here and saw this house I was so charmed with the old brick oven and the pumps and the eighteenth-century brew-house that I just made up my mind I wouldn’t have the electric plant we planned, but I’d set up housekeeping as they did in the old days, and I’d bake and brew and I’d make Devonshire cream in the right old-fashioned way.’ She paused and spread out her hands expressively. ‘I had six girls in the kitchen before I’d finished, and not one of them could I get to do the necessary chores.’
The Professor chuckled. ‘We bought a brewing licence down at the Post Office,’ he said. ‘But do you think one of the lads on the farm would drink the home-made stuff? Not on your life. They’d rather have their fourpence to go to the pub with.’
‘It was the refrigerator that did it,’ said Beth.
Little Mrs Cairey laughed. ‘How you manage to exist without ice I don’t know,’ she said to Penny. ‘I stuck it out for a long time, just so Papa wouldn’t get the laugh on me. Then one day Beth and I went into Colchester and got just what we wanted – all worked by paraffin. Half the village came to see it, and the tales we heard about illnesses that could only be cured by an ice cube you wouldn’t believe.’
Penny grinned. ‘They’re terrible,’ she said. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t let yourself in for too much fairy godmothering. You see,’ she went on, ‘all the little villages round here are really estates that have got too big and too expensive for the Squires to take care of. Death duties at ten shillings in the pound have rather spoilt the feudal system. But the people still expect to be looked after. If they live on your land they consider themselves part of the family.’
‘You can get very fond of them, though,’ said Mrs Cairey placidly. ‘Although they like their “largesse”, as they call it.’
The meal passed, and as they rose and went out on to the lawn Penny felt as though a peaceful interlude in a world of painful excitement had passed.
The Professor had a word with Campion in private under the pretence of showing him a magnificent rambler.
‘I guess we ought to keep the ladies out of this,’ he said.
Mr Campion nodded. ‘Emphatically,’ he agreed. ‘But I don’t know about Penny. She’s a strong-minded young woman, and, as I take it, an old friend of the worthy gentleman we’re just about to visit. I don’t think she’ll want to come ghost hunting, but her influence with the Pecks may be useful.’
The Professor hesitated. ‘If it’s what I think it is,’ he said, ‘it’s no business for a woman. Still, as you say, Miss Gyrth may be a deal of help just at first. If you’ll excuse me I’ll have a word with Mother.’
Five minutes later the remarkable old gentleman had succeeded in allaying both the fears and the curiosity of the feminine part of his establishment, and the three walked down the shady gravel path of his flower garden and through a tiny wicket gate into a broad green meadow beyond, which was a belt of marshy land where a clump of slender willows shook their grey leaves in the sunlight.
They were unusually silent for the best part of the way, but just before they entered the clearing Penny could contain her fears no longer.
‘Professor,’ she said, ‘you know something. Tell me, you don’t think this – this phenomenon, I suppose you’d call it – is definitely supernatural?’
The old man did not answer her immediately.
‘My dear young lady,’ he said at last, ‘if it turns out to be what I think it is, it’s much more unpleasant than any ghost.’
He offered no further explanation and she did not like to question him, but his words left a chill upon her, and the underlying horror which seems always to lurk somewhere beneath the flamboyant loveliness of a lonely English countryside in the height of summer, a presence of that mysterious dread, which the ancients called panic, had become startlingly apparent.
Peck’s cottage was one of those picturesque, insanitary thatched lath-and-plaster dwellings which stir admiration and envy in the hearts of all those who do not have to live in them. The thatch was moss-covered, and the whole building almost obscured by the high grass and overgrown bushes with which it was surrounded. A weed-grown brick path led up to the front door which stood open, revealing an old man in a battered felt hat seated on a low wooden chair beside an atrocious loud-speaker, which was at this moment murmuring a nasal reproduction of the advertising gramophone music from Radio Paris.
The old man cocked an eye at their approach, and rising with evident regret, switched off the instrument. Mr Peck senior was by no means an unhandsome old man, with a skin like red sandstone and a rugged toothless face, on the lower promontory of which he had raised a very fine tuft of bristly white hair. He was dressed in an odd assortment of garments, chiefly conspicuous among which were a pair of well-patched white canvas trousers and a red and green knitted waistcoat, obviously designed for a much larger man. His knuckles were swollen with rheumatism, and the backs of his hands were almost as furry as bears’ paws.
‘Old Man ’Possum,’ said Mr Campion, sotto voce.
‘Be quiet,’ said Penny reprovingly, and went forward to greet her friend. He touched his hat to her solemnly. ‘Mornin’, miss,’ he said.
‘Good morning,’ replied Penny politely but inaccurately. ‘Is your son anywhere about?’
Mr Peck glanced over his shoulder. ‘Perce!’ he bellowed. ‘Gentry be ’ere.’
‘I’m now comin’,’ a voice replied from the depths of the cottage, and the next moment a tall, loose-limbed young countryman appeared from an inner doorway. He was in shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, and was collarless. Smiling and unembarrassed, he indicated the seats in the cottage porch.
‘If you don’t mind settin’ there, sirs,’ he said, ‘I’ll get Miss Penny a chair.’
They sat down, and instantly the little gathering took on the air of a conspiracy. Young Perce hovered behind his father’s chair, his quick brown eyes watching their visitors, waiting for them to come to the object of their call.
‘My j’ints be bad,’ Mr Peck senior put forward as an opening gambit.
‘I’ll send you down some of cook’s liniment,’ Penny offered.
‘Huh,’ said Mr Peck, without pleasure or reproach.
‘Don’t take no notice on ’im,’ said Percy, reddening for his father’s delinquencies. ‘ ’E’s as right as ever ’e was, ain’t yer
, Father?’
‘No I ain’t,’ returned his father uncompromisingly, and added irrelevantly, ‘I ’ear that were a quiet buryin’. Yer aunt was pison to some on us. Still, I ’ont speak ill o’ the dead.’
A violent kick at the back of his chair almost upset him, and he sat quiet, mumbling, his lips together. His two subjects of conversation having been turned down, he was inclined to let people speak for themselves.
The formalities of the call being over, it was Penny who broached the all-important matter in hand.
‘Percy,’ she said, ‘I want you to take Mr Campion and Professor Cairey down to Pharisees’ Clearing tonight. They think there’s – there’s an animal there that wants snaring. Do you understand? You wouldn’t be afraid, would you?’
‘No, miss. I shouldn’t be scared.’ The boy spoke readily enough, but a shadow had passed over his face.
His father grunted. ‘That ain’t no animal, miss,’ he said. ‘That’s a spirit, like I told Master Cairey.’
His tone was so matter-of-fact that Mr Campion shot an inquiring glance at him. The Professor spoke hastily.
‘Of course, we won’t want any tales told about this, Peck, you understand?’
The boy laughed. ‘Us don’t talk, sir,’ he said. ‘Was you thinkin’ of trappin’ that, now, or do you want to shoot ut?’
‘Oh, trap it certainly,’ said the Professor firmly.
Penny looked up.
‘Percy,’ she said, ‘do you remember when Val and I were kids we helped you and young Finch to catch an old ram that had gone wild down in Happy Valley?’
‘That was with a stack net, warn’t ut?’ The idea evidently appealed to Mr Peck junior. ‘Yes, us could do that. Allowin’ that’s real,’ he added, practically.
‘You ’on’t catch nothin’,’ observed his father, accepting a fill of tobacco gratefully from the Professor’s pouch. ‘That’s a spirit. You’ll drop a net, and that’ll go right through ut, like that was water. You can make fules of yourselves ef you like: that ain’t nothin’ to me. Oi won’t hurt.’
Look to the Lady Page 14
