He Arrived at Dusk

by Ashby, R. C.

  M‘Coul’s footsteps were heard coming along the hall. Charlie snatched up The Times and hid his face. Just before the servant entered he said: ‘Go and see Ingram to-day, and tell him that we’ll have a séance.’”

  viii

  “‘I want to see the stone,’ I reminded Charlie.

  So we went down to the cellars, which would have housed an army, provided the army was not particular about darkness and damp. All those old houses are built on a huge foundation of cellarage. These flagged chambers opened one from another, and very dirty they were as well as miserably dank and cold. Charlie carried an electric torch, for though it was the middle of the morning there wasn’t a gleam of daylight in those horrible vaults. I commented on this, and he showed me the reason. The barred windows were buried deep under a dead weight of snow, and as Charlie flashed the torch I could see the greyish mass behind each frozen pane.

  There was a wooden trap-door about a yard square let into the flags and this Charlie raised easily with the aid of a ring, and flashed down the light of the torch. I noticed that he himself didn’t look down. He rather withdrew.

  ‘You look,’ he said. ‘Tell me just what you see.’

  So I looked, and a couple of feet down I saw the grey surface of a flat rock, bright under the glare of the torch.

  ‘It’s there!’ I said. ‘And I can read the words quite plainly . . . ROMA . . . and VITELLIUS GRACCHUS. . . . Barr! It’s amazing . . . almost incredible.’

  ‘What is?’ he said in a curious flat voice.

  ‘Why, of course, that those words carved sixteen hundred years ago by a dying man should be not only legible to-day, but clear. May I look more closely?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he said, in the same queer, lifeless way. ‘Take the torch.’

  I went down on my knees and flashed the torch into the cavity. The words were deep and clear, though dark with earth and moss.

  I suddenly knelt back. ‘What did you expect to find, Charlie?’

  ‘I was hoping that it would have disappeared,’ he said, ‘as suddenly as it came.’

  ‘As suddenly as it came?’

  ‘When the stone was first uncovered,’ he said, ‘the traces of an inscription were found. They were quite illegible. Gradually, over a period of years, the words formed. Early last December they were found to have become clear, as you see them to-day. As you see them to-day, Mertoun.’

  I gave him back his torch, he closed the trap, and we left the cellar. I didn’t ask him anything more. I felt chilled and wretched, not for my own sake, but for his.

  In the afternoon I set out to keep my appointment with Ingram. You never saw such a landscape! A rolling plain of grey, windswept snow, and a rolling grey sky over all. I kept to the road by following the tracks of a cart that had brought milk from the village, but the drifts dragged at my feet and nearly brought me to my knees. I thought of London with its swept streets, and it seemed like a place I had seen in a dream years ago. I plodded on, hunched like an old shepherd.

  At the junction where the main road branched off to cross the moor I saw a Ford car buried to its axles. The driver was my friend the Glasgow out-porter, who acknowledged me with a surly nod. In the front of the stranded car, huddled into a coat of curly grey fur, was a fair-haired girl, the loveliest girl I think—no, I know!—that I ever saw in my life.

  ‘Hullo!’ she said, staring straight at me.

  I grabbed at my hat, but honestly my fingers were so frozen that in pulling it off I dropped it in the churned-up snow where the car had made wild plunges in its efforts to escape.

  ‘How do you do?’ I said. ‘May I help?’

  ‘You jolly well can!’ she answered promptly, with an exquisite smile. Her eyes were grey, with long curling lashes, and one blonde tress had escaped from her scarlet béret. ‘Can you get me out of this catastrophe and up to Doctor Ingram’s house? If you’ll be good King Wenceslas I’ll be the world’s model page. I can leave my luggage.’

  ‘I’m going to Doctor Ingram’s,’ I said. ‘It’s a mile from here, and under present conditions we’ll do it easily in two hours.’

  She laughed eagerly. ‘Angel!’ she said. ‘I’m adoring this adventure.’

  So we set out to walk. She was the gayest, prettiest thing you ever dreamed about. Her name was Joan Hope, she was nineteen, and had had one ‘perfectly gorgeous’ season. Her father was President of the First National Experimental Hospital in Boston, U.S.A., but she herself lived in London with her aunt, Mrs. Thelma Marchant, the popular Member of Parliament. She also explained to me what had brought her to this God-forsaken region. Ingram and her father had been great friends; in fact, it was Joan’s father who had come, as Miss Goff had told me, to try and persuade Ingram to go back to the healthier influences of his old life and friends. Joan’s father had been badly received, but where he had failed Joan, with the superb confidence and optimism of modern youth, hoped to succeed. She had been devoted to Ingram as a child, a little companion of his own children, and he had made a fuss of her. So she had packed her things, taken French leave of her aunt’s house while the worthy lady was away touring her constituency; and here she was in the wilds of Northumberland, ploughing through the snow-drifts as happy as a lark in summer, giving all her confidences quite frankly to the first stranger she met—who, thanks be to Allah, happened to be me!

  ‘He’ll be glad to see me,’ she kept on saying. ‘He’ll simply adore seeing me. I’m glad I’m easy to look at.’

  She certainly was that. I was half in love with her myself in the first ten minutes—I, of the cynical, war-weary, post-war-weary generation; and afterwards . . . well, I loved her to distraction, and though I’ll never tell her so, for she’s meant for some young, happy boy of her own age, and though I may never see her again, I’ll carry the little snapshot she gave me as long as I live. Sentimental? Thank God, yes.

  Well, we arrived at Ingram’s cottage; and while I was discreetly knocking she, with the divine impatience of youth, rattled the latch, found it open, burst in, and with a cry of ‘Cheer-oh, Uncle Peter!’ threw her arms round the mad doctor’s neck and kissed him heartily.

  ‘It’s me!’ she said. ‘It’s Joan. I’ve come to stop with you a bit. What a heavenly cottage!’

  He grew pale and stood as though he had been turned to stone. Then he caught sight of me. ‘Oh, your arm, Mr.—er——’ he said. ‘If you’ll come this way I’ll fix you up with another dressing. No discomfort, I hope?’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ said Joan gaily. ‘I’ll breeze off and unpack. And I’d adore some tea; the restaurant car was a swindle.’

  He looked at her with a marvellously softened look. ‘I don’t quite realize,’ he said slowly, ‘who you are.’

  ‘Oh, my angel!’ She clasped her hands to her scarlet béret. ‘Did you think I was a potty patient? You must have done. I’m Joan Hope, of course; old Philip Hope’s little bit of trouble. Don’t you remember playing with me at Forest End?’

  ‘Forest End?’ he said. ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘Darling,’ she inquired, ‘where do I strew my suitings? And may I have tea? I’d offer to make it myself, but I can’t boil water without burning it.’

  ‘I’ll ring for Mrs. Corlett,’ he said, as though in a dream. ‘There’s a nice little spare bedroom.’

  She squeezed his arm. ‘Splendid. Now you give the kind gentleman his cough mixture, and I’ll be back in half an hour. You haven’t said you’re glad to see me yet, but I’ve heard of people being stunned with joy. Cheer up. Your lucky number’s in the home.’

  His eyes, I noticed, followed her to the door. She pulled off her béret with a gay whisk, and her blonde hair caught up all the light in the room. He stood silently for quite a minute, and there was a new look in his eyes now; not madness, nor heavy sadness, but a kind
of sweet recollection struggling with the darker memories.

  Then he dressed my arm with the swift, pleasurable efficiency of the previous day.

  ‘Thanks most awfully!’ I said. ‘Will you let me send you something, a small memento, when I get back to London? A charming miniature of Marie Antoinette. It isn’t valuable, but you’ll love to look at the face.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll accept that, with pleasure. And you’ll have forgotten there was anything wrong with that arm in a week, unless you’re idiot enough to shovel snow with it. I’ve been shovelling snow all the morning. How are you for drifts at The Broch?’

  ‘I understand the outer doors wouldn’t open,’ I said, ‘until M‘Coul climbed out of the scullery window with a shovel and got to work. Charlie Barr’s working in his study. I don’t think it would worry him if the drifts cut us off. He certainly wouldn’t shovel snow; he says white is the most depressing hue on earth.’

  The mention of Charlie Barr was enough.

  ‘Did you ask him?’ Ingram flashed at me, and his face grew avid with unhappy eagerness.

  I felt suddenly sick of the whole subject; as though I didn’t want to discuss it or ever hear it discussed again. I didn’t ask myself why, or whether the coming of Joan Hope had been like a ray of clear, rainbow light penetrating our darkness; but because of what had happened yesterday I had to say: ‘Yes. He’ll have a séance.’

  ‘When?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  He began calculating. ‘To-morrow . . . Thursday . . . not enough time. I know of an excellent medium. Hunter of Holney would bring him. They could be here by Friday. Will you ask Barr if Friday night would do? You’ll press it, won’t you?’

  I said that I’d pass the suggestion on to Charlie. You’ll notice that I hadn’t gone into any details of my conversation with Charlie, or mentioned how at first he’d absolutely vetoed the séance, only to change his mind this morning after some rather disquieting experience or impression during the night. I thought it was enough for Ingram to know that Barr agreed.

  But I wasn’t going to get away from the subject easily. Ingram made me sit down in one of those comfortable old high-backed chairs before the log fire, and light a pipe; and, truth to tell, I wasn’t anxious to hurry away, for I rather hoped to be present when a refreshed and settled Joan Hope made her reappearance.

  ‘That’s a charming girl,’ I said. ‘She told me she was the daughter of an old friend of yours, and had suddenly taken it into her head to dart up north and pay you a visit. I found her in the station car, stuck in a snow-drift, so I helped her out and that was how we happened to walk in on you together. Modern young girls are rather sudden.’

  He shook his head. ‘I ought to know her,’ he said; ‘but that all belongs to something I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘You won’t be dull with her in the house,’ I said; ‘I wish she’d descended on The Broch.’

  ‘The Broch?’ He caught me up at once. ‘Did he show you the stone?’

  ‘Um,’ I said.

  ‘And is it——’

  ‘The inscription,’ I said, ‘is quite deep and legible. When did you see it?’

  ‘For the first time,’ he said, ‘when the Antiquaries uncovered the rock. I remember how we pored over those queer marks, too broken to be recognizable as letters, except for the R and the V, which certainly looked like Roman capitals. The second time was about ten months ago when Colonel Barr sent for me to see a curious sight; it was that faint inscription, now easily discernible and legible under a magnifying-glass. I remember how we all stared at each other, wondering what it meant, that gradual appearing of the words after long centuries. Mackie was there as well as myself and the Colonel, Mr. Ian Barr, and young Charlie Barr. Mackie crossed himself hastily—he’s a devout Catholic—and said, “Merciful saints! That Roman devil’s loose among us, and here’s his hand to it!” And the third time I saw the inscription—well, it was on the day of Ian Barr’s funeral, and the stone letters were as you saw them this morning, deep and clear, though dark with earth and moss. Mackie was groaning in the hospital by then, and the Colonel, Charlie and I stood by the rock. “Cover it up!” said Charlie; “cover it quick. It may fade, here in the dark.” But I think he hadn’t much hope of it fading. It must have been a shock to him when he saw it this morning, and the Colonel so ill. He’s living, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I assured him. ‘The nurse says he’s certain to recover so long as he has absolute quiet. I should have thought Charlie himself was in the worse position.’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  Ingram snapped his fingers to the blind dog, who came lurching across the floor, his claws clicking on the flags, and flopped down with a grunt on his master’s feet.

  ‘There’s only one story I want to hear,’ I said boldly, ‘and that’s what happened the night Ian Barr died—fell over the cliffs. The station porter told me that much. But there’s more behind it, isn’t there?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said promptly. ‘There was Mackie’s accident.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Then there was a connection.’

  ‘I shan’t forget that night,’ he said, staring at the logs; ‘the twelfth of December last. Things had been very quiet in the countryside; we hadn’t had anything to talk about for weeks. I’d had a particularly desolate and disquieting time myself, because someone I knew had been trying to come to see me and they wouldn’t let her through. I think that was on account of the moors being so dark on winter nights. . . .’

  This made me uncomfortable; I had to head him off from this subject, so I said quickly, ‘Yes. The village. On the twelfth of December, wasn’t it?’

  He looked up, almost gratefully. ‘Yes, the twelfth of December. The winter nights closed in very early, round about four o’clock. It was fine, cold weather with just a slight winter mist, not enough to prevent one seeing, say, twenty or thirty yards ahead. That’s important when you think of Ian Barr. . . . However, just before eight I put old Sturdy, here, on the lead and set off down to the village for some tobacco. You get it at the smith’s, you know, where they also sell kettles and candles, which always seems a queer thing to me. So while the smith was serving me he said, with all the importance of a village news-bearer, “Have you heard the tale?” “What’s that?” I said. “Why, they’re saying,” he said, “that Doctor Mackie’s smashed himself up coming over from Tibby’s farm in the dark. Alec Shawn came in a while ago and fetched some of the lads. Alec says the mare’s dead and the doctor as near to it as doesn’t matter. Mrs. Mackie’s rung up the cottage hospital to send an ambulance, so young Mona at the post office is telling me. Bad job, isn’t it?” “Very bad,” I said, “what can have happened?” He shook his head. “Deil knows,” he said. “It’s a clear road and the doctor’s been over it more times than I’ve got whiskers.” When I got out into the village they were all in little knots, waiting for the ambulance and talking as fast as they knew how. Then Alec Shawn came along and told how he’d found the mare on the road bleeding with the shaft in her breast, and the trap overturned, and the doctor underneath it. “The mare,” he said, “she must have jumped clear up into the air. But why? There hasn’t been so much as a motor-cycle that way this night.” After they’d taken Mackie away I went along to the Fox and Hounds and sat there. Somehow I seemed to want company that night. The men were talking, and I sat quietly in my corner. “Believe me,” one of them said, “it was no human thing that frighted the doctor’s mare. There’s things on that moor ’ud drive a man’s wits into his gullet and choke him.” They all seemed to agree. “What about that Roman felly,” another said, “that put a curse on old Geordie’s mare so that all her foals were born with five legs?” They considered that idea with approval; and remember it wasn’t until weeks later when Mackie came back from the hospital that he told us what had really frigh
tened the mare. It was undoubtedly the Roman ghost, and you must mark the fact that this was his first recorded manifestation. . . .

  But to go back to the night of the accident; you’d think enough had happened to give one village a topic for conversation; however, as we were sitting at the inn the door opened and Colonel Barr looked in. He didn’t see me at first. “Hullo, fellows,” he said, “have any of you seen my brother?” No one as it happened had seen Ian Barr that evening. Barr told us that his brother had left The Broch at four o’clock to walk over to a farm to see some spaniel puppies. He was fond of walking, was Ian, even in the dark of winter evenings. He had promised to be back by nine, which was the supper hour. It was now almost eleven and he had not arrived. What was more surprising, the Colonel while walking down to the village had met a labourer from the farm in question who said that he had seen Mr. Ian Barr leave the farm at eight o’clock. The homeward walk shouldn’t have taken more than an hour. “I made sure he’d dropped in here for a crack,” the Colonel said, looking in a disappointed way about the inn parlour which was veiled in tobacco smoke. Then he noticed me, called me out, and offered to walk home with me. So he brought me to this gate and we parted there. His last words to me were, “He’s sure to be at home when I get back.” He wasn’t in the least apprehensive.

  The body of Ian Barr was discovered at five o’clock next morning by two lads hunting on the shore—poaching, I should say—for lobster-pots. He had obviously fallen over the cliff, for there were the scuffled marks on the brink above. The place where he had fallen was at least a dozen yards from the path he must have been taking on his homeward way; he knew every step of the path; and it was a mystery how and why he should have come so near the edge of the cliff as to fall over. The mist was so slight, one couldn’t blame that. Ugly rumours began to float round. Suicide. But it was absurd on the face of it. Ian Barr was a contented man, fond of his hobbies and of country life; a healthy man, if not over-strong not subject to any disease. However, when it was broad daylight, they found in a patch of loose earth at the head of the cliff footmarks; those of Ian Barr, who had fallen, and of another man, and at that the whole countryside became like a boiling pot. It was murder. The men with their guns scoured the moorland for miles around. Women locked themselves into their houses, afraid of some desperate villain at large. But when we came to look closely at those mysterious footmarks it was easy to see they were made by a shoe the like of which was never worn by modern man. Though a Roman sandal could have made such prints. . . . Then a panic broke out, and somebody asked again what it might have been that the doctor’s mare saw, coming over the moor road. The terror was loose among us; a fierce, earth-bound spirit, struggling through the centuries to take shape. So that was the end of Ian Barr, and what his last moments were, no one will ever know . . . unless another Barr meets the same fate. One knows of no precautions. . . .’