by John Glasby
“You’re still intent on trying to prove that I’m insane, aren’t you?” The thin, bloodless lips were pursed into a tight line. “I’m not sure why you’re doing it. Either you think that will make things easier for you, or you’re getting to be frightened yourself and you’re deliberately trying to convince yourself. But you saw something and you’re still wondering whether or not it was your imagination.”
“I may have seen something,” admitted the other reluctantly. “But I’m not prepared to believe that it was anything out of the normal. I must confess that I had thought you were alone in this house. Everyone in the village thought that too. But if you aren’t, well that’s your affair entirely. Perhaps you’d like to talk about it.” Better humour the other, he thought grimly. Evidently there was something on his mind and if he talked about it, it might help him.
Outside, the thunder rolled and roared savagely, beating like some huge fist against the heavens. An occasional flash of lightning lit the grotesque limbs of the trees beyond the windows as the branches swayed and tossed in some weird devil-dance. With an effort, Calder tore his gaze away and concentrated on what Belstead was saying. The other smiled thinly at him, frowning a little.
“The funny thing is that I never really understood why my father hated me so much. It was almost as if he were insanely jealous of everything I did. I left home when I was eighteen, determined I had to get out on my own, otherwise his will would have dominated mine entirely. He was that kind of man. You may remember him too, even though it was over forty years ago.”
“I do recall that he was determined to have his own way in everything he did,” acknowledged Calder quietly. “But knowing his personality, I hardly think things could have turned out otherwise. He was an extremely strong-willed man. More so than almost anyone I’ve ever met. But I never knew that he hated you.”
“You think that I’m exaggerating somewhat.” Belstead shook his head. “I assure you that I’m not. If anything, I’m understating the position. I was the only child. My mother died when I was seven. I don’t remember much about her. My only impressions of her are of a tall, pale woman who did her best to fall in with my father’s wishes; someone who seemed content to stay in the background, the perfect foil to his own personality. You know, I think that in this world, it can only be the cruel and ruthless people who are ever successful.” He smiled again, weakly. “Perhaps success is the reward for cruelty, who knows? But he was successful. No matter what he did, no matter what he turned his hand to, it was highly successful. He was a very rich man when he died. I’d been in London for a good many years then, only coming back here to see him when I had to. Oh, I know what the people in the village used to say about me behind my back. There goes an ungrateful son who takes everything his father gives and yet gives nothing in return, who squanders every penny of his allowance, a very generous allowance, and yet comes home to see his father only once in two years.” He broke off and ran a finger down the side of his long nose reflectively. “I sometimes wonder what those people would have said if they had only known the truth. They saw only the side of him that he wanted them to see. They didn’t often come into contact with him, as I did before I left home. To them, he was the rich and powerful man who donated huge sums of money for hospitals and schools, who gave money prizes to the pupils, helped them with grants. But that was only money that he was giving away, and he had more than enough of that to spare. He never missed any of it. Perhaps he even thought that the more he gave away, the less there would be for me when he finally died.”
“Aren’t you being a little harsh in your judgement? After all, it’s been more than forty years—”
“You think that’s long enough for hate to die?” blazed the other fiercely. “Real hate, I mean! No, I remember these things only too clearly and as I said before, being here alone in this house for so long has made me see things a lot more clearly than I ever did before.”
“What sort of things?” There was a change in the atmosphere of the room. A change that Calder could feel, but that was extremely hard for him to define.
“I remember coming home once—I think I must have been almost twenty at the time. I caught an earlier train than I usually did and no one was expecting me when I arrived. I’d walked from the station across the fields, because it was such a beautiful afternoon, coming in over the wall at the back and through the gardens. I came over the lawn and through those windows there—at least, I meant to come in that way—but I didn’t.”
“Why on earth not?” Calder felt a strange tightening of the muscles of his chest and he knew that his breathing was a little harsh on the back of his throat. He ought not to be listening to talk such as this, he told himself fiercely. The other had evidently become obsessed by something that had happened all those long years ago, something with probably quite a simple explanation, but his mind had caught hold of it, twisted it, warped it into something far removed from the actual proof, until now he could not get it out of his mind, and it had taken over control of him almost entirely. This was how hate could distort anyone’s outlook, if one allowed it to take a tight hold.
Belstead paused for a long moment, then leaned forward holding out his skinny hands to the blaze as though for warmth. There was a curious expression on his wizened features and his eyes seemed brighter than usual, with something lurking in their depths that Calder had never seen before and which made him feel a little afraid.
“I can remember it all so clearly as if it were yesterday and not almost forty-five years ago. I knew there was someone in the library before I reached the windows, because I heard the mutter of voices as I crossed the lawn. But I thought it was just father and the housekeeper having one of their never-ending arguments. She was a domineering woman too and they clashed far too often for my liking. But as I got closer, I realised that it wasn’t the housekeeper, although I could hear my father’s voice quite plainly. It was a man’s voice I heard talking to him, but one that, at the moment, I didn’t recognise, although it was familiar. For some reason that I can’t explain, I felt scared. That voice was one I had heard before, though why it should have frightened me like that I didn’t know as I stood out there on the lawn, behind the bushes, hidden from them, wondering whether or not I ought to cough and make my presence known. You might think that was making a mountain out of a molehill, but I’ve already explained that my father hated me, he had a really violent temper when he was roused. So I crept forward quite slowly, without making a sound, and peered into the windows. I could see the whole of this room quite clearly. As I said, it was a fine, sunny afternoon, and the sunlight came directly into the library at that time of the day.”
“Go on,” prompted Calder quietly. “If you want to get this off your chest, it will do you good to talk to me. After all, what is a friend for?” The words were more reassuring than the tone of the voice.
“My father was there, standing in the middle of the room. There were three other people with him, not one as I thought. They were standing around the room, watching him. He was—” the other broke off a moment as though finding it difficult to continue, then he swallowed jerkily and went on: “He was standing inside some strange markings that had been drawn on the floor, where the big carpet had been rolled back out of the way.”
“Strange markings?” echoed Calder. “What sort of markings were they? Do you know?”
“I didn’t then. But I do now.” The other spoke with a dark significance. “He had drawn a circle inside a five-sided figure and there were small metal cups, they looked like silver, at each point of the pentagon. In the sunlight, I could see that there was some kind of clear liquid in them.”
The shiver inside Calder’s body grew a little, became more insistent. “Are you absolutely certain about this?” he asked hoarsely. “You didn’t imagine it all?”
“Imagine it? Jeremiah, you don’t imagine things like that. I’d never seen anything like it before and if it had been nothing more than that, it would have stuck in
my mind. I assure you.”
“Then there was something more?” Somehow, Calder got the question out, although he felt a little sick inside.
“Those three people who were with my father in the library. I hadn’t recognised the voice at first, but I did recognise the faces. Doctor Talbot and his wife and Colonel Carter. They were all fairly frequent visitors to our house when I was a small boy but they—”
Calder stared at him incredulously, as though unable to believe his ears. He finished the other’s sentence for him in a voice that was not very steady. “All three of them had died before you were ten years old.”
* * * * * * *
An hour later, when the storm had abated a little, and the thunder was beating at the distant horizon, with the full moon striving to break through the scudding clouds overhead, Jeremiah Calder left the old house and walked back a little hurriedly along the overgrown drive towards the gate. He had tried vainly to get Belstead to come with him, to put up at one of the two hotels in the village, had even offered to put him up himself, but the other had steadfastly refused to accompany him. There had been something infinitely pathetic about that old man, old in mind and body, sitting there in front of the dying fire in the library—a room that must have held a host of horrible secrets. But he had been determined too. It had been impossible to tell whether or not the other had been afraid. If not, it could only have been because he was now so used to these things, that his mind no longer thought about them. He accepted them as something he had lived with most of his life and which he would have to go on living with until he died. Then perhaps, thought Calder inwardly, the house might really be empty.
He opened the gate, stepped through and latched it behind him. A few heavy drops of rain patted down on him from the dripping branches of the trees, which overlooked the lonely road leading back to the village. A strange little thought popped unbidden into his mind as he paused for a moment and stared back over his shoulder towards the looming bulk of the house. Was there just the possibility that when Charles Belstead died, the house would be—not empty, but full?
Back in his room, he made himself some hot coffee, drank it so quickly that it burned his tongue and the back of his throat. After that, he felt a little better. His first thought had been to dismiss entirely what he had heard from Charles Belstead that night. Looking back on it, trying to review everything that the other had said in an objective manner, it made little sense. Most of what he had told him could have stemmed from his strange sense of hatred that appeared to have existed between father and son. But did that explain fully why Charles Belstead had refused to leave the house after he had inherited it?
He checked his watch, saw that it was a little after ten-thirty. Woodbridge might still be up, he thought, and at a moment like this, he felt that he needed some practical medical advice about Belstead.
Woodbridge answered the phone almost immediately, his voice crisp and alert. Evidently he had not yet gone to bed.
“Calder here, Henry,” he said quietly. “I was wondering if I could have a talk with you—tonight. It’s important and I’d like your advice on a problem that has just come up.”
A pause then: “Very well, Jeremiah. If it’s as important as that. I’ll be right over. Give me ten minutes.”
He arrived exactly nine minutes later, stood inside the small hallway, shaking the drops of rain from his heavy coat. Calder closed the door behind him, shutting out the wind and the rain, which had begun again. Taking the other’s coat, he hang it up on the rack, then led the way into the small front room where a fire was burning in the grate. He nodded towards one of the chairs.
“Sorry to drag you out on a night like this, Henry,” he said quietly, “but I’ve just been up to see Charles Belstead.”
“Belstead?” The other looked surprised for a moment then nodded his head slowly, wisely. “I think I’m beginning to understand. You wish to talk about him? Is that it?”
“Yes.” Calder spoke decisively. “I went up there prepared to find him changed in some ways after his housekeeper died a little while ago. But I wasn’t quite prepared for what actually happened there tonight.”
“All right, let’s have it.” The other took the glass that the lawyer offered him and leaned back, resting his arms along the sides of his chair, stretching out his legs to their full length in front of him. “What’s on your mind as far as he’s concerned? If you’re worried about his sanity, I’ll tell you here and now, that you’re not the only one. I’ve been worried myself for a long time, but that’s as far as it’s gone.”
“Has he told you what happened forty-five years ago?”
The doctor paused, biting his lower lip. Then he nodded his head slowly, reluctantly. “Yes, he told me that some time ago. I didn’t believe him then and I’m not so sure that I believe him now.”
“Then how do you explain it? Imagination, and hallucination—or did he just make the whole story up to spite his father?”
“The last hypothesis is as good as any to my mind.” Woodbridge sipped his drink slowly. “Hate can often do strange things. Since his mother died, Charles Belstead lived under the almost complete dominance of his father. Even when he left home and started a life of his own, he was never utterly free of that influence. An evil thing, I feel sure. But it isn’t completely unheard of in medical science.”
“My own opinion,” said Calder, “for what it’s worth, is that we ought to get him away from that house as quickly as possible. I know it won’t be easy. He’s an old man, set in his ways, and for some strange reason he seems to be determined to stay there. I was hoping that you might be able to help there.”
“I agree with everything you say. But what can we do? Short of having the old man certified and removing him forcibly from the house, we can do nothing, and at the moment, I’m very reluctant to take that particular course.”
“Can you suggest anything else?” Calder lifted his brows into a bar-straight line. “I don’t like the idea of leaving him there much longer. The house seemed to possess some strange kind of morbid hold over him and I’m afraid that something may happen if we let this go on too long.”
Woodbridge got heavily to his feet and took a quick turn around the room. Pausing in front of the fire, he stared down at the other from beneath craggy, outjutting brows. “Tell me, Jeremiah,” he said softly. “Did Belstead ask you to go to the house tonight for any particular reason? It wasn’t exactly the kind of night I would have chosen for a purely social call.”
“He talked a lot about various things, seemed to want to get them off his mind. But at the back of it all, I had the idea there was some other reason, although he never mentioned it.”
Woodbridge coughed uneasily, then turned and warmed his hands at the fire for a long moment without speaking. He seemed to be debating some point within himself. Calder waited patiently for the other to speak, knowing that he had something further to say. Pulling his pipe from his pocket, the doctor began to fill it with quick motions of his fingers, thrusting the unruly strands of tobacco into the bowl. Then he struck a match and inhaled deeply, flicking the spent match into the fire.
“How long is it since you last went into that house, Jeremiah? Before tonight, I mean?”
The other thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Almost a year, I think. Why?”
“Before I answer that let me ask you one other question. Did you notice anything different there tonight—either with Belstead himself, or in the house?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. He seemed to have aged a lot since I last saw him, but I put it down to the strain of living alone, having to fend for himself. As to the house, there was dust everywhere, as if it had been utterly neglected since the housekeeper died. But neither of these things struck me as odd at the time.”
“And that’s all you noticed?” The other’s tone was strangely insistent.
“I—” He paused abruptly. How to explain to a practical, scientific man like the doctor, what he had seen looki
ng at him, through the door in the library?
“Go on. You did see something else, didn’t you?”
“But how do you know that? Unless you too—”
Woodbridge gave a quick, jerky nod of his head, drew deeply on the pipe, pressing the tobacco deeper into the bowl. “I called on Belstead less than a month ago. He asked me to go up and see him, thought there might be something wrong with his heart. I was there one afternoon. As soon as I saw him, I knew there was something wrong, but my examination told me it was nothing physical. Taking his age into account, his heart was in perfect shape. I tried to talk things out of him, but he was quite reticent and as soon as I suggested that he ought to pack up and leave the place, make the most of what life he still had left him, he almost bit my head off. It wasn’t until I was leaving that I noticed the three people down by the lake. It was a clear, sunny afternoon, no question of bad light and shadows giving false impressions.” He paused, sucked on his pipe for a moment, then went on: “You know that small boating house there is down by the lake. They were in there. I passed within twenty yards of them and I noticed them quite clearly. Time and again, I’ve been told that Belstead lived there alone, so it struck me as even more peculiar to notice anyone there at all.”
“Could you recognise any of them?” asked the other. In spite of the tight grip that he had on himself, Calder’s tone was not quite steady.
“Only from the pictures I’ve seen,” went on Woodbridge slowly. “One was old Doctor Talbot whose practice I took over when I first came here. His wife was with him and Colonel Carter.”
“Good God!” Stunned, shaking, Calder sat absolutely still, a sudden coldness on his face. He had almost known what was coming, but in spite of that, he found himself staring incredulously at the other, as if by staring, he could make it all sound completely impossible, make the other take back his words and say that he had been only joking. But it was not a joke, he told himself. His legal mind tried desperately to find some perfectly logical explanation for all that had happened. Those tales that the villagers whispered among themselves about what happened up at the Manor—just how much truth was in them, and how much had been exaggerated and fabricated?
