He Arrived at Dusk

by Ashby, R. C.

  About five o’clock I saw him coming and he went straight into the Post Office. A few minutes later he came out with a letter and a big parcel. There’s only one delivery—in the morning—and if people want their letters in an evening they have to go and fetch them.

  When Mr. Ahrman came out I was standing just across the way, as if making up my mind whether I’d go into the Institute for a game of billiards.

  “Oh! Is that you, Hamleth?” he said.

  I jumped, as if he was the last person I expected to see.

  “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Ahrman,” I said. “Have you got that big parcel to carry home?”

  “Looks like it,” he said.

  “I’ll take it up for you,” I said. “It’s on my way home.”

  So we started off to Palmer’s, but I was very disappointed because he talked about nothing but farming and fishing and coal-mining and wireless.

  However, when we got to the farm he said, “Come right in with it,” and I took the parcel into the sitting-room where his things were and put it down on the table.

  “Books,” he said. “They’re heavy things to carry. Thanks very much.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, looking round and wondering where Mr. Mertoun was.

  “You’ve got eight miles to walk,” he said. “You must have something before you start.”

  He fetched a pie out of the sideboard cupboard, and a bottle of something, and some cheese.

  “Fall to it,” he said; so I did, and he sat down and lit his pipe and looked right through me.

  In a few minutes Mr. Mertoun walked in.

  “Hullo, Ahrman!” he said. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. We’ve been all day in search of some falls that Joan wanted to show me; she said, a most marvellous sight. Well, her bump of locality must be faulty because though we walked for miles and she swore we were going in the right direction, we never got to any falls. However we had a good enough day. When we got back we found that the Mother Shipton housekeeper had taken to her bed with spasms, so I didn’t stay for supper as Joan said it would have to be boiled eggs and I couldn’t think of anything worse. . . . Did you get down to the Post Office? Any letters?”

  “Yes. There’s your reply from Barr.”

  “Oh, good. What does he say?”

  “Well, naturally I didn’t open it. Shall I?”

  “Yes, do,” said Mr. Mertoun. “Read it while I’m having a wash.”

  He went upstairs, and I finished my supper very slowly and watched Mr. Ahrman out of the corner of my eye. He took the letter out of his pocket and slit the envelope, and then he unfolded the letter so carefully you’d think it was likely to fade away, and he read it and left it lying on his knee. I was so excited I could hardly remember to keep my eyes down, wondering what they were planning now.

  Mr. Mertoun came down. “Well? What’s the answer?”

  “No good. Nothing doing.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll read it while you unboot yourself. . . .[1] ‘Dear Mr. Mertoun,’ he says, ‘it is good of you to write and offer me friendly help. I appreciate your motive, but I must emphatically state that under the circumstances I prefer solitude and a policy of non-interference on the part of my acquaintances. At the risk of being churlish let me say that I shall really resent any well-meant efforts on my behalf in this neighbourhood. I have no intention of going away, at least not for the present, and I would not think of having another séance or attempting any such form of provocation. The idea is repugnant to me. M‘Coul tells me you left your note in person. He has the strictest orders to admit no one to the house in future. . . . Yours truly, Charles Barr.’ That’s definite enough, I think.”

  [1] Hamleth was afterwards permitted to copy the original of this letter, which accounts for his accuracy.

  Mr. Mertoun frowned. “Of course I shan’t approach him again after this, but I’m sorry he’s cut himself off from society. If the danger is imminent . . . well, the barred doors of The Broch won’t keep it out, and personally I’d always prefer to fight for my life in the open air. At any rate we’ve done our best.”

  Mr. Ahrman put the letter back in the envelope and I thought it was time to go. I had quite enough for one day to tell Winifred.

  April 29.

  What a black and awful day! When I woke I thought from the darkness that it was still night, and then I heard the sluicing and the roaring and the gurgling of the rain and I knew what sort of a day it was going to be. As far as I could see from the window was a blowing, creeping mist, and when it lifted long enough for me to see the hillsides, there were the same cold mist-shapes trailing their ragged skirts over the rocks.

  My uncle was in a terrible temper. He turned on me. Told me I’d been here a week, guzzling his food and swilling his drink, and hadn’t done a hand’s turn of work, always gadding off by myself. Of course that was true, but I managed to stand up for myself pretty well. Then I got my waterproofs and walked out in high dudgeon. I hadn’t a place to go but the Red Buck, nine miles away, and I wasn’t feeling in the mood for Lily, so I mooched about the moor and felt badly used.

  Everything was sodden and cold, and the road was like a river. When I did come in sight of the village I stood still, not knowing quite what I should do, and just then I saw somebody who was actually enjoying the wetness and the wildness of the morning, somebody I didn’t expect to see.

  She was leaning against a stone wall, wrapped in an old blue shawl and her hair was flying; short, black hair round her gipsy face. She was laughing and talking to somebody, a baby as dark as herself, sitting up in a corner of the shawl and crowing when the rain beat in its little face.

  Well, of course that was Molly Blaik. She’d always been as mad as a hare, running out in all weathers and liking it, being half a gipsy. Her father was one of the Cowens who had a big farm and were almost gentry. He was tall and fair and merry, and a champion at sports like throwing darts and wrestling at fairs. In the end he went to one fair too many for his family—his mother had a nose a yard long and was very much above herself—for he brought home a gipsy wife, a quiet little thing called Roasinda Luck, and the Cowens threw him out and he got work on a croft miles away from his home. He and Roasinda had six children, and five of them were Cowens and one was a Luck. The five eldest, little Cowens, were as good as gold with long yellow curls and cheeks like pink sugar, and they went to Sunday School and grew up respectable if not noteworthy. But the youngest, Molly, was a real little gipsy, a bad little black-faced thing like a wild-cat, always running away from home and biting her teachers. Her own father and mother wanted nothing but to be rid of her, and when she was fourteen they sent her into service on a farm, which she tried to set on fire because she wanted to see what a burning house looked like. After that she ran wild for a year or two, and when she was sixteen she married James Blaik, her father’s shepherd—Cowen had come in for some of the family property by then—and the pair got on very well together, for they were both fond of fighting. She had three or four children, and she was just twenty-one when her husband was murdered on the moor. I always liked her and she liked me. We were of an age and used to go to school together. I’ve been beaten many a time for playing with Molly Cowen, as she was then.

  “Hey, Molly!” I said when I caught sight of her in the rain. “I thought you were miles away from here.”

  She looked at me with her queer, twisty smile.

  “I’ve come back,” she said.

  Her long black eyes dived into mine and held them fast. She always had a way of making you feel a good deal more than she told you.

  Presently she straightened herself up and jerked the baby against her shoulder. “Come along with me,” she said.

  We went to her cottage, and she lifted the latch and slipped in, I fol
lowing her. The room was in a terrible mess and more dismal than the rainy moor outside. The fire was made of twigs which only smouldered, for they were damp, and gave out no heat and a lot of yellow smoke. There was hardly any furniture and the table was heaped up with rubbish, rags and papers and green rushes for basket-plaiting. On the stone floor a dirty white dog and several half-dressed children rolled about together. It was worse than anything I’d expected, even from Molly.

  She pushed a chair towards me with her knee.

  “You can sit down, Hamleth,” she said. “I shan’t eat you, though I could do. I’m clemmed, and I’ve got no money.”

  “No money?” I stammered.

  “Not a penny.”

  “But how long have you been here?” I said.

  “Two days.”

  “But surely you haven’t——”

  “No,” she said. “They gave me a stale loaf and a drink of beer at the Red Buck, and the children pinched two big swedes last night.”

  I dived into my pockets while she looked at me, greedy like a crow, but all I found was a shilling and a packet of Gold Flakes, so I gave her those and she tied them up in a corner of her shawl.

  “Why did you come back to—this?” I said. “Weren’t you better off where you were?”

  She said sulkily: “I came back to get my rights. You won’t tell?”

  “I was always a friend of yours, Molly,” I said, wondering what sort of a tale she had stored up in her black head.

  “It’s treasure,” she said. “Gold and diamonds.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “Buried deep.” Her eyes went flitting from side to side. I didn’t doubt her; the gipsies know queer things.

  “Is it here?” I said. “Where we can find it?”

  She nodded slyly.

  “Who told you?”

  “Blaik,” she answered.

  I was surprised. I thought she had overheard something among the gipsies.

  “But he’s dead!” I said stupidly.

  “Ah,” she said. “He wasn’t quick enough. The Roman got him. But a gipsy woman’s worth two of any mullo (ghost). I’ll have the treasure.”

  “Where’s the treasure, and all?” I said.

  “In the Roman’s castle,” she said. “In the tower of the mullo on the hill.”

  “The haunted tower?”

  She laughed. “Look here. Look what I’m going to tell you. Blaik came home that morning in such a state. Rubbing his hands and licking his lips. ‘What’s the matter now?’ I said. ‘We’re going to be rich,’ he said. ‘Now you keep your mouth shut, Molly, or it’ll come to naught.’—‘What’s that, then?’ I said. ‘Have you found some money?’ He laughed in his teeth. ‘Found a gold-mine,’ he said. ‘You wait, woman, and you’ll see.’—‘The mullo’s tower!’ I said. ‘Is it hidden there?’ ‘Hush, woman!’ he said. . . . ‘If it’s the Roman’s treasure,’ I began, and he hushed me up and said he wasn’t afraid of any mullo. He was like that was Blaik; asking for what came to him. I could have told him if he’d have listened that the Roman wouldn’t stand by and see his treasure carried away, but he wouldn’t listen, so it didn’t surprise me when he died on the Roman’s sword. I went away for a bit to think it over, but now I’ve come back for what’s mine. I’ve learnt two fine spells, one for a mullo and one for a devil, and I can take the gold under his very nose. But I’m not strong in the arm, Hamleth; I’ll want a man to dig.”

  Then I saw what she was after, and I came out in cold prickles from my head to my feet. I wasn’t so sure about her fine spells as she seemed to be, and I doubted if any spell was strong enough for the Roman soldier.

  “Will you come and dig for me, Hamleth?” she said.

  “Not by myself, I won’t,” I said, as quick as lightning.

  She gave a scoffing laugh. “A big fellow like you! If the digging wasn’t too heavy for Blaik——”

  “Ah,” I said, “and look what happened to him!”

  That quieted her for a minute, and then she muttered something about her spells.

  “Your spells won’t help me,” I said. “I must have another man—two other men.”

  Her face grew black with anger. “Two other men! To steal my treasure!”

  “They won’t touch your treasure,” I said. “You shall have it all. But I won’t come without two other men. It’ll have to be at dead of the night too.”

  “Under the moon,” she added. “The spells need the white of the moon. And do you swear I shall go away with my own treasure and nothing to stop me?”

  “I haven’t said I’ll dig yet,” I said. “I’ll have to see two other men.”

  “If they rob the widow,” she said wickedly, “they’ll come to beg their bread, but if they rob the gipsy they’ll rot in hell.”

  “I’ll tell them,” I said, and pushed away my chair, nearly choked with the wood-smoke.

  When I got outside the cottage I began to run, and I never stopped until I came to Palmer’s place.

  “Can I see Mr. Ahrman?” I said.

  They took me in, and he was in his sitting-room, standing at the window and staring out at the rain. The table was littered with books and papers and camera-films and drawing instruments that I didn’t know the names of.

  “You!” he said, turning round and catching sight of me.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” I said, “when the door’s shut.”

  “Ah!” he said, and he went over, and shut the door himself, first looking out to see there was nobody in the passage.

  “Now tell me,” he said. “You’re a good man, Hamleth, and there might be something for you at the end of the story.”

  “Molly Blaik has come back,” I blurted out.

  His eyes flicked open, and there was a bit of glowing thread in each one like the filament in an electric torch. What I liked about Mr. Ahrman was that he never asked you to explain what you said to him; he always understood at once.

  “What has she come for?” he said.

  I dropped my voice. “She says that the Roman soldier you’re so anxious to see keeps a treasure of gold buried deep in the ruin on the hill. Blaik found it. He told her so, and ordered her to keep her mouth shut. He said they were going to be rich. That night the Roman got him. Molly was afraid and ran away, but she’s learnt some spells from the gipsies and now she’s come back to get the treasure. She isn’t frightened. She told me all this because she likes me. I was the only one in the village who’d say a good word for her when she was a little thing and the children plagued her because she was dark and naughty. She wants me to go with her at the white of the moon and dig for the treasure. I think there’s something in it, Mr. Ahrman. Molly’s very shrewd. Blaik must have found something, and nobody else ever went near the broch, not for years.”

  “Wait!” Mr. Ahrman sat down and lit his pipe. Then he gazed into the fire, thinking, for a long time.

  “Of course she told you this in strictest secrecy?” he said at last.

  “That’s so,” I said, “but I haven’t finished. I told you she wanted me to promise to go with her to do the digging. She isn’t strong in the arms and she thinks it may be deep. She says it must be at the white of the moon because of the spells. Well, I wasn’t so sure about her spells—not if I know the Roman soldier—so I told her I wouldn’t come, not without two other men. I was thinking of you and Mr. Mertoun. Molly’s only fear was that she’d be robbed of the treasure, but I told her you’d want nothing for your trouble but the adventure. All the same, if there are diamonds I think you might pick up a few.”

  Mr. Ahrman laughed in his throat. “There won’t be diamonds,” he said. “I’ve a pretty good idea of what the Roman soldier’s treasure may be, and it isn’t diamonds
. But of course the whole affair may be well worth Mrs. Blaik’s while. Stout fellow, Hamleth!” His eyes sparkled, and he was so excited that he got up and walked about the room.

  “You’re not afraid,” he said, “to tackle the broch?”

  “Not with you, I’m not,” I said.

  He laughed. “Mertoun will be thrilled. He’s out at present; down at Doctor Ingram’s. He’s just got engaged to Miss Hope, the girl who went with us to the Crag, so I don’t see very much of him now. As a companion he’s a fiasco. Are you engaged, Hamleth?”

  “I’m going out with a young woman,” I said, “but I don’t let it worry me.”

  “Oh, you philosopher!” he said. “Now listen; when is the full moon?”

  “Night of Friday,” I said.

  He rubbed his chin with his finger-tips. “I don’t like this white of the moon business,” he said; “the sort of job we’re after is best done in the dark with an electric torch and a black cloth to screen it, don’t you think so?”