The Grindle Nightmare

by Q. Patrick

  On Saturday night Toni and I were invited to the Middletons’. It was, Valerie announced, to be a non-Baines party similar to the non-stock-market parties so frequent in 1929, where any reference to recent calamities was frowned upon as a serious breach of etiquette.

  Throughout dinner even Mrs. Middleton observed the rules with unexpected propriety. We all talked and acted like civilized people who had never had even a nodding acquaintance with battle, murder or sudden death. Sancho Panza, too, was on his best behavior and did not bark once until he had emptied his supper bowl and politely asked for someone to open the door so that he might answer the call of nature.

  Soon afterwards the Goschens. arrived and everyone forgot about Sancho Panza. Charlie had brought a quart of rye and we fixed highballs and started to get as raucous as was possible under the pessimistic eye of Mrs. Middleton.

  It must have been about half an hour after their arrival that the first extraordinary incident occurred.

  “Where’s Sancho, Valerie?” Millie’s eyes darted about the room. “Don’t say that anything—” She broke off, remembering the rules of the evening.

  There was a little lull in the conversation, and the room seemed strangely still. It was just one of those moments which often occur in the most convivial gatherings when all animation is suspended for the moment as if everyone were watching and waiting for somebody else to speak.

  Then, without warning, the quiet air of the Middletons’ living-room was rent by a woman’s shriek. We all looked at once toward Mrs. Middleton who was sitting by the fire, her face contorted into a strange expression of alarm and surprise. Her hand was pointing shakily toward the furthest window.

  “God! did you see it?”

  Even as she spoke, I saw it, too, though it had disappeared in a flash. A face pressed against the window pane; a face seemingly without features; an inhuman face in which nothing was recognizable except a fleeting impression of maniacal rage and hatred …

  Millie Goschen had upset her drink and was staring at the window in open-mouthed horror. But I had no time to take in further details. Toni had snatched a flashlight from the mantelpiece and was striding across the room.

  “I’ll go,” he exclaimed. “No, you stay here, Doug.”

  He slammed the door and was gone.

  No one spoke while he was out of the room. Solemnly I went round and pulled all the shades whilst the practical Charlie poured everyone a stiff drink. I do not know how long Toni was gone, but before he returned I distinctly remember hearing a car start. It seemed as though he was away for an hour, but it was probably less than ten minutes.

  At length he stood in the doorway blinking at the lights. His complexion, normally olive-brown, was grey. In his arms he held the body of a dog. At first no one would have dreamed that it was Sancho Panza, whose white, well-groomed coat had always been Valerie’s pride and delight. This animal was ragged, limp and dirty. Across its belly there was an ugly brown stain which was darker than the other marks on its matted hair.

  White to the lips, Valerie ran forward.

  ‘‘It isn’t—! Oh, my God!”

  As she spoke I noticed something which Toni was evidently trying to conceal. Tied tightly around the dog’s back leg was a piece of cord about a foot long. The end was frayed as though it had been hacked off with a blunt knife.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Yes.” Toni’s eyes met Valerie’s in a look of understanding and sympathy. “Let’s take him out into the kitchen. Maybe Doug and I can do something. Put on a kettle quick. We’ll need some hot water.” The dog gave a little whine of pain and struggled in Toni’s arms. “Oh, Charlie, you might go round to our place and get my emergency kit. It’s a black bag and you’ll find it in my bedroom. Here’s the key.”

  Charlie was off like a bullet. Then, with admirable calm, Valerie led us into the back kitchen, got rags and hot water, and pulled out the enamel-topped table. It was only when she saw the piece of cord that she showed any symptoms of breaking down. Once again her eyes met Toni’s.

  “If anyone did this on purpose,” she said slowly, “I think I shall kill him—myself.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear. I’ll do it for you.” Toni patted her arm and smiled. “Now—go get yourself a good strong drink. It’s going to be all right.”

  Sancho Panza was a sad spectacle. His hind leg was broken, and there were large patches of bare skin where the hair had been rubbed off in nasty abrasions. He was quite conscious and obviously in great pain, for as we washed his wounds he kept whining and turning toward us reproachful brown eyes. There was not much we could do until Charlie got back.

  “Was there anyone there?” I asked at length. “That face at the window …?”

  Toni shot me a swift look. “Only the dog,” he said quietly. Somehow I felt that he was not speaking the truth.

  “But I thought I heard the engine of an automobile while you were out.”

  Toni grunted.

  “Well, it looks to me as though Sancho had been dragged behind a car—like Baines.”

  “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut—at any rate for the present—”

  Toni broke off as Charlie Goschen came in with his bag, and we were now able to relieve the creature’s pain by an injection of morphine. This enabled us to work with greater freedom though it took us nearly an hour to sterilize the wounds and set the leg in roughly constructed splints.

  Just as we were tidying up, I became conscious of a curious sound which came in from the open windows. As if in sympathy with Sancho Panza, it seemed that all the dogs in the valley had started to bark. First of all came the deep throated baying of the Grindle hounds; then Mr. Alstone’s hunting dogs started; after a bit, we could hear the whining and barking of almost every dog in the neighborhood. The chorus swelled to open diapason. I went across and shut the window.

  We had done all we could for Sancho. Toni gave his final instructions to Valerie when we rejoined the others in the living-room.

  “Keep him warm tonight and have the vet. in tomorrow. I think he’ll live but—” he paused and smiled—“he may be a dot and carry one for a while.”

  Valerie’s eyes looked their gratitude to us both. It was obvious that she could not trust herself to speak. Immediately she set about fixing us some highballs.

  The others were eager with their questions as to exactly what had happened to Toni when he left the room. Had he seen anyone? Had there been a car?

  Toni replied curtly that he had found Sancho Panza lying by the side of the road, but it was too dark to see anything else. From his tone it was obvious that he did not wish to talk, and he was not the kind of person that anyone cared to question after he had made up his mind to silence.

  “I think I’d better be getting home to see that the kids are all right,” said Millie at length. “Those noises give me the creeps.”

  “Wonder what’s biting ’em?” Charlie had gone to the front door.

  As he opened it, the wailing of the dogs sounded wilder than before. Grindle Valley seemed to be in a state of tumult.

  “A sign of death!” said Mrs. Middleton quietly.

  Valerie had gone down into the cellar to make a bed near the furnace for Sancho Panza. No one spoke for a moment.

  Suddenly Charlie came running back into the room. The expression on his face was a mixture of alarm and impish glee.

  “Hey, folks, come quick. I believe Seymour’s house is on fire. It’s light enough to read by out there, and the glare comes from over his way.”

  Regardless of the night air, we all crowded to the front door. We knew immediately why the dogs had been barking, for the breezes brought the acrid smell of smoke to our nostrils, and there was a weird illumination in the sky. Millie, fearful for her own property, had run up a nearby incline which commanded a view of the valley, and, without bothering about hats or coats, we all followed her.

  From our elevation we saw at once that it was not Seymour’s home that was on fire, but a
large barn standing some three hundred yards from the house itself. One end of it was well ablaze, and the flames leapt skyward in gorgeous spirals of color.

  “He’s got two thousand dollars worth of alfalfa in that barn,” commented Millie drily.

  Charlie, who was rather stout, had not kept up with the rest of us. When he reached the top of the slope, I noticed that the expression on his face had changed to one of genuine concern.

  “Good God!” he exclaimed. “It’s the barn, and Franklin told me today that his father had just put his two hunters in there while the stables were being repaired.”

  It was obvious that Charlie was far more upset by the danger to the horses than he would have been if Alstone’s house had been burnt down with all its inmates.

  “Come on, let’s go and see if we can help.”

  Toni shepherded all of us (with the exception of Mrs. Middleton) into cars, and, in a few minutes, we were tearing up Seymour Alstone’s drive and round to the barn which lay behind the house.

  As we turned the corner by the gun-room, it was like passing from the wings of a theatre on to a brilliantly lit stage. The whole scene—even the sky—was blood red. Quite a number of villagers had collected, and their shadows fell like weird symbols across the strip of grass in front of us. Everyone was shouting, yet it was difficult to catch an intelligible word. The heat was considerable. I can remember the heavy beads of sweat which gleamed on the foreheads of the people I jostled against in my anxiety to get closer.

  In the past I had never taken any particular notice of the barn, except as just another manifestation of Seymour’s opulence. He had constructed it several years previously, when, defying the scriptural warning, he had pulled down the original erection to build greater. It was built on a foundation of brick with a superstructure of frame. Already most of the woodwork on the right hand side was well alight, and, every now and then, above the roaring of the flames and the shouts of the onlookers, I could hear a dull crash as the dislodged bricks and rafters tumbled to the ground below. The other side was still intact, though almost obscured by the sparkladen smoke from the burning alfalfa. Fortunately the wind was blowing away from the house; otherwise it would have been impossible to approach from that quarter.

  The Rhodes fire-brigade had not yet arrived. A long chain of people were valiantly passing buckets down from the house. Among them I recognized several familiar faces—one of Alstone’s colored kitchen-maids, Hall, the thin, dignified butler, even old Bill Strong from the village. The whole neighborhood seemed to have turned out for the occasion, and were rallying around Seymour in his hour of trouble. Their efforts at fire-fighting were pretty futile, but I knew Alstone well enough to realize that he would go on struggling even after all reasonable hope of extinguishing the blaze had been abandoned.

  “The horses are still inside. Isn’t it awful?” I turned at the sound of Millie’s voice in my ear. “Old Seymour’s hoping for a chance to get in and shoot them. He has got some decent feelings after all.”

  She pulled at my arm, and together we hurried across to where Alstone stood with a revolver in his hand. He did not take the slightest notice of our offers of help. I believe he did not. even know we were there. Every now and then a servant would run up, and clearly, abruptly, he would give an order. There was something splendid about him. He reminded me of a general in absolute command. His rugged features, somehow strengthened and hardened by the firelight, seemed to typify Authority. Yet there was another and softer expression on his face. For the first time I realized that pity did have a place in his composition—pity which he had never shown to his own flesh and blood, but which sprang suddenly up in him now that his horses were in danger.

  “Do you know,” Millie whispered in my ear, “I can’t help feeling a little sorry for the old son-of-a-gun. Isn’t there something we can do? It’s so feeble standing around and gaping.”

  “We might get a bucket,” I suggested flippantly.

  As a matter of fact, spitting would have been almost as effective.

  At that moment the wind must have veered, for suddenly Millie was completely blotted out from view, and I found myself half smothered in a cloud of pungent smoke. I spluttered and rubbed my eyes. Near by I could hear Seymour shouting something, and then, as though in answer to his voice, came one of the most dreadful noises I have ever heard—agonized and almost human. It was the whinnying of the two frightened horses.

  I hurried forward in Seymour’s direction. Still unable to see an inch in front of me, I could hear voices in rapid conversation. One of them was Toni’s.

  “You’ve got to let me try and make it, sir. Don’t you see, it’s the only chance we have to save them?”

  Seymour’s reply came quiet and authoritative.

  “I tell you the horses are not yet in any real danger. Their stalls are at the back and well protected. It would be madness to risk a human life in all this smoke and flame. Thank you, Dr. Conti, but I must forbid you to disobey me.”

  I heard no more, for at that moment the smoke cleared, swerving fanwise toward the creek. I blinked and stared around me. A few feet away, their faces vivid and strangely tense, stood Toni and Valerie. They were gazing at the barn, and Valerie had her hand on the tweed of his coat.

  “No, Toni, you mustn’t. Even Uncle Seymour says it’s madness.”

  He pushed her hand away and made a move forward.

  “Toni, you darned fool,” I shouted, “those horses are beyond hope.”

  But I was wrong, for, honking furiously, an automobile had crashed over the grass and was grinding to a stop within a few crazy feet of the barn. Everyone crowded round obscuring my vision, but I had caught a glimpse of Peter Foote jumping out. He shouted something, apparently asking a question, and before anyone could stop him, he was dashing toward the fire.

  “Come back! Come back at once!” Seymour’s voice boomed loud but somehow futile over the babel of cries that followed the boy.

  Peter ran on. For some moments he stood at the door, fumbling with the catch. Then, wrenching the fastening loose, he swung it back and disappeared from sight. Behind him the smoke bellied out like a sail in a high breeze. With the smoke, too, came the sound of horses, louder now and wilder.

  The barn, as though resenting human intrusion, was burning even more furiously. While we watched, the far side of the roof collapsed with a hollow crash and a great geyser of sparks spouted up into the smoke-thickened air. We waited, but there was no sign of the boy. Once more the horses cried out, and we heard the stamping of hoofs. Then there was silence.

  Silence, too, fell on the crowd, and in the lull I heard a voice strangely weak and soft after the din to which my ears had grown accustomed.

  “Dr. Swanson, Dr. Swanson. We must do something. Peter’s gone in there. He’s most likely burning to death.” It was Gerald Alstone standing at my side, his cheeks deathly white. “Don’t you realize? He’s in there! What shall we do?”

  I noticed Seymour eyeing him angrily.

  “The fool, the little fool,” he was muttering.

  One could not tell from the old man’s voice whether he referred to Peter or to his grandson, who had completely given way and was sobbing hysterically against Valerie’s shoulder.

  Although it was only a matter of seconds since Peter had disappeared, the crowd was already beginning to get anxious. Even the fire-fighters had paused in their work and were staring eagerly at the barn, the buckets idle in their hands. At this point, however, a vague figure detached itself from the fringe of onlookers and slipped unostentatiously toward the gaping doorway.

  “Did you see that?” I shouted to Millie, who had returned and was standing by my side. “Someone’s gone in after him.”

  A few seconds later, everyone tautened, and the vague shouting dwindled to an excited murmur as the figure re-emerged, calm and unhurried. Behind him lumbered two larger forms—the horses. As though accustoming their blinded eyes to the change in illumination, they all three paused. Then t
hey moved toward Seymour. The beasts seemed to have absolute confidence in the man who had saved them. They walked gently, their heads bent downward, their tails swishing. As the figure approached Alstone and thrust the halters into his hand, the whole crowd found its, breath and shouted:

  “Mark Baines!”

  Before we had time to realize what had happened, however, Mark had dashed back into the barn. Meanwhile the horses, sensing the fact that he had left them, seemed to go crazy. They both reared and whinnied, doing their utmost to follow him back into the burning building. Seymour fought like mad to hold them down, and, forgetting everything else, I rushed to his aid, clinging with him to the broken halters. At last we managed to get them under some sort of control.

  When next I was able to look at the barn, Mark was once, more appearing through the smoke. This time he carried something thrown over his shoulder. I realized then how incredibly strong he must have been. The body of Peter Foote seemed to have no more weight than that of a baby.

  Once more he came up to Seymour while the crowd surged round him, and then, dropping the body almost roughly at his feet, he disappeared before anyone had time even to applaud his heroism.

  Toni and I pushed forward and began an examination of Peter. As we did so I heard Seymour ordering someone to lead away the horses and bring up a car.

  The boy was unconscious. His hair was pretty badly singed and his face was blackened with smoke. Otherwise he seemed to have received no damage from the actual fire. His shinbone, however, was fractured.

  “One of the horses must have kicked him,” I muttered. “He might have lain there forever if it hadn’t been for Mark.”

  Throughout our examination, I could hear Gerald’s heavy breathing close to my ear, and when we were done, he pleaded to be taken with Peter to the hospital.

  Toni grunted and indicated the car.

  By now the barn was hopelessly ablaze, but everyone seemed to have lost interest. Even Seymour was returning to the house muttering something about insurance. After Toni had gone off with Peter, I turned to Valerie and offered to drive her home.