by Ashby, R. C.
Early next morning I was wakened as usual by a tapping at my door, but this tapping went on insistently and obviously required an answer. I called, ‘What is it?’ and M‘Coul put his head in. ‘If you please, sir, will you come down? The policeman wants to speak to you.’
‘The policeman!’ I said. ‘What’s the time? Where’s Mr. Barr?’
‘I thought I’d better tell you before rousing Mr. Barr,’ the man said; ‘it’s six o’clock only, sir. And they’ve found a dead man, sir, on the moor. It’s young James Blaik.’”
xiv
“You remember who James Blaik was—the young shepherd who had defied what he considered superstition by sheltering his flock at night in the ruined tower on the hill. I threw on the minimum of clothing and bounded downstairs. It was still dark, of course, and very cold. In the hall a stout country policeman accosted me and asked whether he might make use of the ’phone to call up the Superintendent of Police at Heaviburgh and also a doctor—Mackie’s locum, in fact. Of course, I told him to go ahead and quickly, so when he’d done that he began to explain to me what had happened. Two labourers on their way to a distant farm had come an hour ago upon the body of a man, sodden with rain, lying out on the moor. It was James Blaik, the shepherd. They had shown no more surprise then than did the officer of the law now in telling it to me.
‘He’s been asking for it; now it’s come to him,’ the policeman said. Gruesome fatalism! But I told you before how the countryside had prophesied some kind of disaster for Blaik ever since he ventured into the ruined broch with his ewes.
‘Where is the place?’ I asked.
‘Not above half a mile from here,’ I was told; ‘just between the broch, there, and the cliff-edge.’ I felt a kind of sinister shiver.
‘Can I come back with you?’ I asked.
‘If you like, sir. Can’t do with a crowd, of course.’
‘Wait!’ I said, ‘I must tell Mr. Barr myself.’
I went up to Charlie’s room and knocked. In rather a surprised voice he told me to enter, and I found him in bed, sticking a puzzled head above the sheets.
‘Something’s happened,’ I said abruptly, and for the life of me I couldn’t keep the ring of the unusual out of my voice. He lifted himself on his elbow and looked alert.
‘Happened? What?’
‘Young Blaik, the shepherd,’ I said; ‘he’s been found dead on the moor. It’s only just past six o’clock.’
‘Dead? Do you mean they’ve brought him here?’
‘No,’ I said; ‘two labourers found him and they’re staying with the body. The constable came here to telephone. He’s below now. I’m going up with him to see. I shouldn’t come if I were you.’
‘Why not?’ he asked in a curious voice.
‘Because I don’t like the sound of it,’ I said. ‘You remember what the village has been saying about Blaik . . . and you know what I saw last night. I think it’s about the same place.’
He swallowed convulsively and his eyes widened until I could see the white eyeballs above the dark pupils. He well understood what I meant.
‘I’ll come . . . later,’ he said; ‘you go, Mertoun. And find out. . . .”
I nodded and left him. I took my torch and the constable had a swinging lantern. By the light of these we tramped through the rain up the slippery moorland road. Across the heather we could see the dark forms of two men against the greyish, livid sky. The place, as the policeman had said, was between the ruined broch and the cliffs. One of the men came to meet us, a rough labourer with sacking round his shoulders and corduroys tied at the knees with string.
‘How did you find him?’ I asked.
‘Me and Dordy was gangin’ ower the moor to Hurstin’s,’ he said, ‘when Dordy sees summat dark juist awa’ theer from sheep-path. So we comes up and we sees ’tis Jamie Blaik, on his back and deead. Starin’ up. Wet and clarty, like he’d been theer all neet. So he munna, for sheep havena been folded; broch or no broch. So Ah bides, and Dordy gangs to fetch pollis. And when Dordy’s awa, I sees as Jamie’s a-liggin’ in a puddle o’ his own bluid.’
‘That’ll do. That’ll do,’ said the constable. ‘None of that till the Superintendent comes.’
So a few yards farther on I saw James Blaik face to face for the first time, the man who’d given me such a jerk when I caught sight of him prowling round his sinister sheep-fold. He was lying flat on his back with his arms outflung, and his peaked face tipped up to the sky; a young, ashen, jutting kind of face; rigid, and glistening with rain. His poor clothes were sodden; he must have lain for hours. It was a starkly hideous thing to see. And behind his shoulders, in the strong light of my torch, the heather was darker still and gave a crimson gleam. I whipped the light away.
‘No touching him till the doctor comes,’ said the constable.
Then out of the grey stillness of that grisly morning came the rattle of wheels—the doctor’s trap. It was the young locum, a bumptious lad in his late twenties, with an exaggerated manner. He looked distastefully at the sopping ground, and went down on his knees with an exclamation of disgust as the icy moisture struck through his trouser-legs. His brief examination was soon over, and with a kind of lofty indifference he heaved the body over and said, just as though he were reprimanding the rest of us for a breach of etiquette, ‘This man has been stabbed in the back.’
Of course, that was obvious at once to what is generally described as the meanest intelligence. I mean, when you see a pair of hunched and sodden shoulder-blades with the hilt of a knife sprouting out between like some monstrous growth. . . .
I didn’t look for long, because I saw at the first glance that it was the same hilt. In the library that night . . . I’d tugged and tugged at it . . . and Charlie had finally wrested it out of the wall and tossed it into a drawer. . . .
About then the dawn began to creep, very yellowish and smoky, over the beaky brow of the moor; and a thunderstorm broke—as it often does at dawn in the hills—with violent slashes of lightning and ceaseless growlings of thunder. There were five of us now, standing as mutely miserable as wet cab-horses, round the dead man; and with the growing light and the electric flashes, faces came where before there had only been pale, blank ovals, and I remember noticing that one of the labourers, the one they called Dordy, had jutting red eyebrows which reminded me, for some lunatic reason, of the cliffs of Devon. Those rusty red eye-brows, and the rusty red heather, and our grim half-circle with the little, uppish doctor adjusting his tortoise-shell goggles and telling us that the death had taken place between nine and eleven hours previously. I could have told him that . . . for when I saw the Roman at nine o’clock he was without his sword. And I must have passed within a few yards of this very spot when Blaik lay warm, and perhaps still breathing. But I didn’t say anything. I was as dumb as a clod.
The Superintendent of Police came, and we had the whole story again; and then a curious, gaping straggle of ghouls from the village, and among them a draggled, loud-mouthed woman—Blaik’s sister. She took one look at the corpse, and wiped her lips with a dingy cotton handkerchief. ‘It’s a judgment on him,’ she said; ‘allus knew better than his elders, he did. An’ now it’s got him.’
‘What’s got him?’ somebody snarled.
‘How should I know?’ she snapped. ‘Them ’at meddles with the powers of darkness’ll come to a bad end any road. That’s the devil’s own knife in him, I’ll be bound. Never seed one like it before, any of you! And who’s to be telling his poor wife, I’d like to know, and her brought to bed with her fourth only this morning. Went out as jaunty as you please, he did at half-past seven. That’s the last I or anybody seed of him.’
She was voicing the general opinion, that Blaik had met his death through his foolhardy disregard of the sinister legends which surrounded the ruined tower where he
had persisted in sheltering his sheep. That leering audience on the moor wore I-told-you-so expressions. It was rather horrible; a sort of ghoulish satisfaction in the fulfilment of their nasty prophecies.
They were lifting the body into a flat cart when I saw Charlie coming up the road from the house, wearing an old ulster and a pulled-down hat. Only the lower part of his face was visible, and that was unshaven. He ignored me and spoke to the Superintendent.
‘What’s all this?’ he said; and I suppose it was obvious as he half-turned his head to the backing cart. ‘What happened?’
‘Stabbed in the back.’
‘How?’
‘Dunno, sir. Queer sort of knife. Queer sort of felly he was.’
‘A knife? How—queer?’
‘See here, sir.’
‘Thanks,’ said Charlie grimly; ‘I don’t want to see it. Wasn’t this the man who came every night to the broch?’
A sort of shudder ran through the crowd of village people; half of them answered him. ‘Ay, sir. Ay, sir. This is him.’
‘But you don’t believe——’
‘Ay, sir. We do.’
‘You——’ He turned to the two policemen.
‘Well, sir, there’s queer things happen hereabouts, there’s no mistake.’
I said in a low tone: ‘I ought to tell them.’
‘If you think so,’ he said.
‘But don’t you think so?’
‘I hate it,’ he said; ‘but I suppose it’s necessary.’
I said aloud: ‘I saw the Roman soldier on the moor last night. It was about nine o’clock, as I was coming back from the village.’
Someone let his breath out in a sharp sigh.
I said: ‘It wasn’t a dozen yards from this place.’
The young locum was staring with his mouth wide open. The last flickers of lightning died out of the sky, and suddenly it was light and the rain was pelting down with renewed vigour.
Someone said: ‘So he’s back again! Well, we know now.’
The constable was suddenly at my side. ‘What’s your name, sir?’ He began to write on a page streaked with rain, and I read over his shoulder. ‘William Mertoun, 14, Richmond Mansions, London, N.W.8.’—I had to spell all that out for him—‘He says he saw the Roman soldier on the 7th inst. at nine p.m. within doz. yards of scene of crime.’
Everybody began shouting and chattering at once; a hideous uproar, like a fair-ground.
I said to Charlie: ‘It’s the very place. I must have passed within a few yards of the body last night. If I’d known . . .’
His shoulders twitched with either dread or disgust. ‘Did you see this knife?’
‘Yes,’ I said; ‘the same . . . the library wall . . .’
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
At that moment I saw Ingram and Joan come round the bend of the road. ‘Oh, look!’ I said; ‘she mustn’t come here. I must go and send her back.’
‘Who is it?’ Charlie asked irritably.
‘It’s Ingram, and a girl who’s staying with him. Daughter of a friend.’
Unfortunately Joan had caught sight of me and came running up to us. I had to introduce her and Charlie, but he barely acknowledged the introduction. It was an awkward moment.
‘Please go back,’ I said; ‘this isn’t a place for you.’
‘What’s happened?’ she asked in her gay young voice. ‘We heard there’d been an accident and Uncle Peter thought he might be wanted. So I came along. Sheer curiosity.’
‘I’m taking you back,’ I said; ‘there’s a man—been killed. Come along, Joan!’ That dreadful cart was creeping up behind us.
She looked rather shocked, but stood her ground, and the cart actually passed us. They hadn’t even covered Blaik’s face. I wouldn’t have had it happen for a hundred pounds, but by the time Ingram joined us her curiosity was more than sated! Her knees had given way and she was clinging to my arm with her face hidden on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry!’ she gasped; ‘I . . . I’m a fool. Oh, I must sit down . . . please!’ I could feel her slipping to the ground.
‘She’d better come to the house,’ I said to Charlie. It was less than half a mile away, you’ll remember.
‘I’m sorry,’ came from the corner of Charlie’s lips; ‘we’ve no accommodation for a lady. She ought not to have come.’ He swung round on his heel and took two paces; then turning said to me in a muffled voice, ‘You see, I’m all in!’ And went striding away towards his house.
However, that little incident revived Joan completely.
‘What a hateful man!’ she said, with the frankness of her age and generation.
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Mr. Barr is going through a very dreadful ordeal.’
Ingram suddenly supported me. ‘Yes, indeed!’ he said; and lowering his voice added: ‘I heard something as I came along. Can it be true?’
I nodded.
‘Then it was V. G.!’
I nodded again. Words failed me.
‘We’ll go back,’ he said. ‘Will you come?’
I suppose I nodded again, because we all walked along together, Joan rather pale and with bitten lips. I had never known her so silent before. Ingram, on the other hand, was fiercely interested, and would talk. He wanted to know everything that had happened to me since I left his house the night before; all about V. G.; where I’d seen him and when, and how, and what I did after that, and what I said to Charlie Barr and what he said to me, and what we both thought about it; and was Charlie taking any precautions such as not going out alone after dark, or was he just sitting down under it, waiting for what might come?
Ingram then advanced a wild scheme he had just thought of; getting together a party of sufficiently interested people and going out that night in search of V. G. I told him he could do what he liked about it, but he could count me out. I believe in the end he did try something of the kind, but had to give it up as nobody in the village was hardy enough to join his crusade; but he did tell me a day or two later something from which I should have done my best to dissuade him if I’d known of it in time, that he’d taken out his bicycle round about midnight and cycled slowly to and fro along the moor road where the lighthouse beam fell, in the hope of repeating my experience. But he hadn’t seen anything.
We went as far as his house, and I went in and had some coffee which I was glad of, as I’d gone off without breakfast. Then I said meaningly to Joan: ‘I hope I’ll see you in town soon. This is my last day here. I’m going back to London to-morrow.’
‘Good!’ she said briefly; ‘I’m rather sick of the place too.’
Ingram said: ‘But they won’t let you go until after the inquest.’
I looked blank, but he was quite right. The inquest was fixed for two days hence, at the pub where they had a big room, and I had to stay.
By now I was wondering about Charlie, and decided that I’d better get back to the house. Rain. Rain. Rain. And a road like a quagmire. Nobody much about by now; they were all discussing it indoors, and the house where the wretched wife was lying was probably packed with busybodies. I tramped back to The Broch, and when I walked into the flagged hall I heard a movement, a kind of rustling above, and got the impression that someone was looking down at me between the banisters. So I ran up, and at the top of the flight was Miss Goff with a face like death and both hands clutching the bodice of her uniform.
She gasped at me, ‘Mr. Mertoun! Mr. Mertoun!’
‘Good heavens!’ I said; ‘what is it now?’
She stared at me. ‘This awful thing . . . it’s true?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said; ‘I thought for the minute it was something worse.’
She shuddered. Heavens, how she shuddered; and gave a sho
rt moan.
‘Miss Goff!’ I said. ‘Don’t give way like that! Did you know this Blaik? He wasn’t anything to you, was he?’
‘No,’ she said, with a sound like a gritting sob. ‘No . . . no . . . no. It’s too terrible. I’m crazy . . . crazy, Mr. Mertoun. I can’t bear it. I must go. I’ll have to go.’
So that was it. She was going to leave in a fit of hysterics.
‘You won’t go,’ I said calmly; ‘you’ll stay here where your duty is. If you left you’d never forgive yourself.’
‘You’re going!’ she muttered, her eyes brilliant with fear.
‘It’s a different case,’ I said; ‘you’ll stay right here.’
She put up her hands to steady the quivering of her ashen cheeks.
‘Dead . . . stabbed . . . dead . . . oh, what shall I do? I don’t know . . . I don’t know. . . .’
‘Have you had breakfast?’ I asked.
‘No!’
‘Then have some strong tea,’ I said; ‘you’ll be better.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Never. It’s coming nearer . . .’
‘Where’s Mr. Barr?’ I asked sharply.
‘Who?’ Her teeth chattered.
‘Mr. Barr. For heaven’s sake, Miss Goff. . . . Didn’t you see him come in?’
‘He’s in the study.’
I went along to Barr’s study; it was the first time I’d disturbed him there, but I forgot everything except the occasion and he didn’t resent my intrusion. He at least looked sane, and had had breakfast and a shave. His desk was a muddle of papers.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Have you heard anything more?’
