by W E Johns
“Very odd. You say you’ve got 100 acres of land. What do you do with it?”
“I let a farmer have it. Actually, being all overgrown there isn’t much feed on it except perhaps for sheep, although he does sometimes put a few head of young bullocks on it. He pays me ten pounds a year in cash and the rest in kind—milk, butter, eggs if I’m short, a fowl once in a while and a turkey at Christmas. Falkner has a few chickens in the vegetable garden, but what the farmer lets me have helps to cut down expenses.”
“You were speaking of your brother. What happened to him?”
“He was shot. The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of accidental death. Only I knew it was murder. I was prepared for it.”
“How? Why?”
“I had heard the raven croak.”
“What raven?”
“I don’t know. But the croaking of a raven outside has always meant death for the senior male member of the house.”
“Always?”
“Always. That’s the signal that the time has come for a Landaville.”
“Have you ever seen this raven?”
“No. I’ve never seen a raven, any raven, about the place.”
“How very queer.”
“There are a lot of queer things about this establishment.”
“Was the croaking of this raven the only reason you had for thinking your brother had been murdered?”
“No. I had proof of it—anyway, enough to satisfy me.”
“Didn’t you say so?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“What was the use? The only result would have been a lot of distasteful publicity.”
“Are you expecting me to find the murderer? Is that why you asked me to come here?”
“Certainly not. I’m prepared to let that pass. Nothing can be done about it now. I’m asking for your advice. What would you do if you were in my place? I’m the head of the family. The last survivor. If I marry I may have a son. Would you ask a girl to marry you with that Sword of Damocles hanging over your head—and hers?”
“Before I answer that let’s be practical. How are you going to support a wife—on nothing a year? You couldn’t very well bring her here, and if you lived anywhere else you wouldn’t even have your 400 a year.”
Leo hesitated. “I see I shall have to take you entirely into my confidence in a matter which is more than somewhat delicate. The lady concerned, who I’ve known all my life, understands my financial position. Circumstances compelled me to explain them to her. She happens to be extremely wealthy. She wants me to overcome my natural reluctance to live on her money in order that she can spend it usefully by having this house and estate put in order. Were it not for the fact that I happen to be in love with her my answer would be no, not in any circumstances. But I am in love with her; she knows it, and accuses me of ruining both our lives for the sake of my silly pride, as she puts it.”
“I see you’re on a spot,” said Biggles quietly. “I take it that were it not for The Curse you’d marry her.”
“Yes.”
“I see. How did your father die?”
“He was killed in the war.”
“So as far as he was concerned there was no question of murder.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. All I know for certain is that he went to France with the invasion force and never returned. Anything could have happened to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that by some uncanny fluke or devilish design every murder through The Curse could be taken to be the result of an accident. One could perhaps cope with plain straightforward murder but not with this.”
“You’re quite sure these murders were not accidents?”
“Certain.”
“Has no one ever been suspected of murder?”
“Not to my knowledge. There’s no record of it.”
“But if what you say is correct it can only mean that a fresh murderer appears with every generation. How do you account for that?”
“I can’t. I’m hoping that’s what you might be able to tell me.”
“Could you be a little more explicit about how these alleged murders happened?” requested Biggles.
“Certainly. Here’s Falkner to lay the table for lunch so it’s a good opportunity. Come over here.” Leo got up and walked to the wall to face the portraits of his ancestors. “These are all Landavilles,” he said, indicating the picture gallery with a wave of his left hand. “I don’t profess to know the history of all of them because there’s little in the way of a written record. Most of what I know, and that’s chiefly about the way they died, has been handed down from father to son by word of mouth. As I happen to be the last Landaville even that will soon be forgotten.”
“You’re not going to tell me that all these men met violent deaths here, in the house or on the estate!” exclaimed Biggles incredulously.
“Oh, no. But quite a few of them did. One would expect that since they all had to reside here. Take my grandfather, for instance. Here he is. There was no question of accident in his case. It was late evening at this time of the year and he was just sitting down to his dinner when there was a gunshot in the park. He jumped to his feet and said to his wife, who was at the table with him: ‘There are those damn poachers at it again. I’ll put a stop to this.’ Those were the last words he was heard to say. Taking a stick from the hall he went out. He didn’t come back. The next morning, when daylight came, he was found in some bushes with his skull bashed in.”
“Was the murderer never found?”
“No. The police had absolutely nothing to work on. Every known poacher in the district was questioned. Every one had an unbreakable alibi.”
Leo walked on a little way and stopped in front of a picture portraying a handsome young man dressed with all the elegance of the late eighteenth century—blue frock coat with brass buttons, lace at the throat and wrists and a tricorn hat under his arm. “Another Leofric Landaville,” he said, without emotion. “I’m rather like him, don’t you think? He was twenty-one when he died in 1793, and the manner of his death was unusual. He was asked by someone he met to deliver a letter to a lady in Paris who was in great trouble. A lot of people were in trouble there at the time because the Revolution was in full swing. He was betrayed. The letter must have been a deliberate trap because the moment he arrived he was arrested as a spy. The letter he carried confirmed it. It was a plan for helping Countess du Barry to escape from prison. As you will remember she went to the guillotine. Leofric lost his head on the same day. No doubt he was innocent, but that was how he died.” Leo nodded towards another picture in passing. “Another Leofric Landaville. He was twenty-five, just married. Notice the date, 1741.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was shot dead one night as he rode home from Ringlesby village. Apparently by a highwayman. Anyhow the man wore a mask. As far as is known there was no reason for it. He wasn’t carrying any money. He wasn’t asked to ‘stand and deliver’. The ruffian simply shot him at point blank range and rode off.”
“How do you know?”
“One of our servants, actually one of Falkner’s forbears, saw it all. He was riding with him. He galloped on to the Hall to report what had happened.”
Leo walked a little farther and stopped again before a youth in his teens. “Another Leofric Landaville. He was drowned in the lake you may have noticed as we came up the drive. He went fishing. He never came back. His body was found in the lake. It could hardly have been an accident.”
“Why not?”
“Because the water is quite shallow, and in any case he was able to swim.”
Leo passed on to the next portrait, a young man dressed in the colourful clothes of the early eighteenth century. “Yet another Leofric Landaville,” he said calmly. “He was killed in a duel.”
“How did that happen?”
“He went to London to order some wine. While there he went one evening into one of the gami
ng clubs for which London was at that time famous. There was some trouble over a game of cards. He accused a man of cheating. The man—nobody seemed to know who he was—challenged him to a duel. As a matter of honour Leofric had to accept. The weapons chosen were pistols. Leofric fell dead before he had fired his shot, which isn’t surprising since he had never fired a pistol in his life. His opponent was an expert. Afterwards he disappeared. Another unfortunate accident —if you see what I mean. Here’s another.”
This time Leo stopped before a young man wearing the big white ruff and embroidered tunic of the Tudor era. “He was killed in the tilt-yard at Windsor,” he went on. “Henry VIII, who was taking part, saw it happen. It was a lamentable accident, of course—so they said. It turned out that in some unaccountable manner Leofric’s opponent was handed a sharpened spear instead of the blunt one normally used for jousting. You can imagine what happened. Afterwards, when they looked for the man who had done the spearing he couldn’t be found. Nor did anyone know who he was, for the simple reason no one had seen his face. Both parties had their visors down according to the usual practice. We needn’t go any further. It’s more or less the same story all along the line. I see Falkner is serving the soup. Let’s go back to the table.”
“Lunch is served, sir,” said Falkner.
The meal to which they sat down was as simple as they had been led to expect; some excellent soup, cold beef and pickles, cheese and a jug of beer. It was sufficient. In point of fact Biggles was hardly aware of what he was eating, so engrossed was he in the strange story told by his host. The sinister thread of death by violence that ran through the tale chilled him yet at the same time fascinated him. To unravel the mystery, if in fact there was one, did not, strictly speaking, come within the scope of his official duties. There had been no complaint, no report of murder or any other crime; wherefore it seemed that his position was more that of a consultant than a police officer.
He looked at the man in whose house they were. His pale face with its fine aristocratic features showed no sign of fear or even alarm, although if what he had said was true, and he obviously believed it to be true, he was living in the shadow of death by an unknown hand. Indeed, he appeared to accept his position as a matter of course. There was no anger, no resentment. His attitude was similar to the calm dignity with which men of the Middle Ages went to the block, the stake or the scaffold, for the things in which they believed.
How right Leo had been, pondered Biggles, when he had said that in Ringlesby Hall he would be aware of that indefinable thing which is usually described as atmosphere. With those unchanging faces looking down from all sides the feeling that crept over him was as if he had dropped off to sleep in the speed and bustle of the modern workaday world to awake in the slow moving pages of the history book. It was a queer sensation.
For a little while he said nothing. He wanted to think.
It was not until the soft-footed Falkner, himself a character out of the past, had cleared the table, leaving them once more alone, that the conversation was resumed.
CHAPTER III
STRANGER THAN FICTION
BIGGLES broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Tell me this, Leo. These forbears of yours who died sudden deaths. Couldn’t they have been warned of their danger?”
“They always were. It has long been a tradition in the family for a father to pass on to his children the story of The Curse; so the eldest son always knew that his expectation of life was short.”
“Did your father tell your elder brother?”
“Of course. He told us both at the same time in the little room he used as a study. He had to tell us while we were still rather young because he was going off to the war.”
“What did you think of it?”
“Naturally, Charles and I sometimes spoke of it. I suppose the knowledge that we were living under a cloud had some slight psychological effect but we got used to it. I imagine one can get used to anything, even the daily expectation of death. Towards the end of his life—he was then twenty-four—I think the only thing that worried Charles was the problem of marriage.” A suspicion of a smile hovered for a moment round Leo’s lips. “When he died he left the problem to me with the rest of the inheritance. Naturally, he was anxious to carry on the line, yet he knew that if he had a son he would eventually become a victim of The Curse. He tried to dodge the issue by avoiding women, for which reason he seldom went off the estate. So he never married. He was lucky in that he never met a woman he wanted to marry. With me, as I have told you, the position is different. I’ve met the girl I want to marry. So, as Shakespeare might say, ‘to marry or not to marry, that is the question’.”
“How exactly did your brother die?” inquired Biggles.
“He was shot. It happened on the estate within 200 yards of where we’re sitting now. He took the twenty-two rifle and went out to knock off something for the pot— hare, rabbit, bird, anything that came along. He often did that. We kept the rifle for that purpose. It helped to keep the larder stocked. I was in the vegetable garden with Falkner, digging some potatoes, when I heard a raven croak. It was the first time I’d heard the sound and I don’t mind admitting I went cold all over. A minute or two later, as I stood there wondering what to do, I heard a shot, and an instant later, another. Even then that struck me as odd—”
“Why?”
“Because the rifle is an old single cartridge type, not a repeater, and the two shots coming so close together I wondered how Charles had been able to reload so quickly, even if the first cartridge didn’t stick in the breech, as it often did, the ejector being worn. I felt something was wrong. In fact, I knew it. Call it instinct, intuition, anything you like, but I felt it. After all, as sometimes happens with brothers Charles and I were pretty close to each other. I dropped what I was doing and ran in the direction from which the sound of the shots had come.”
“Did you see a raven?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No. That is, not until I saw Charles. I found him lying on the edge of a coppice. He was just expiring. He died in my arms. He’d been shot through the heart. As I knelt beside him he said something, and I’m by no means sure he was really conscious then. He had difficulty in getting the words out. He looked up at me with a most extraordinary look in his eyes, as if he’d seen a revelation, and whispered: ‘Beware the three stars, Leo... the hollow stars.’ He struggled hard to say something else, as if he was groping for another word, but he couldn’t manage it.” For a moment Leo looked moved, as if his self-control was breaking down. Recovering quickly he went on: “The rifle had been fired. The empty shell was still in the breech. The verdict was inevitable. Accidental death. The jury honestly believed that, and in view of the evidence it was the only verdict they could return, unless it was one of suicide, which would have been even further from the truth.”
“What did you think it was?”
“I knew what it was. Murder.”
“Didn’t you dispute the verdict?”
“No. How could I tell a jury of simple country folk the long rigmarole of The Curse? Would they have believed it? They’d have thought I’d got a bee in my bonnet, or a bug in my brain, and advised me to see a doctor. No. Charles was dead. No argument could bring him back so why make a song and dance about it. I let it pass.”
“Knowing The Curse would fall on you?”
“I didn’t think of that at the time.”
“Why were you so sure this was not an accident?”
“Charles was not shot with his own rifle. He was shot by someone who was in that copse waiting for him; someone, therefore, who knew his habits. It was a case of deliberately premeditated murder. I remembered the speed with which he appeared to have reloaded. The truth was, he hadn’t reloaded. It wouldn’t have been possible in the time. He fired at something, and a split second later was struck by the bullet that killed him. If he had reloaded, assuming for a moment that was possible, the spent c
artridge case would have been at his feet, or within a yard of him.”
“Did you look for it?”
“Of course I did. I combed every inch of the ground round the spot where he fell. Remember, there were other factors. First, there was the warning croak of the raven, which practically told me what was about to happen. Then there was the look in his eyes when they looked up into mine. It was a sort of awful understanding, as if a mystery had been revealed. That’s the only way I can describe it. I’m sure he knew the truth about The Curse. He tried so hard to tell me what it was, but it was too late. He was too far gone. Then there were his last words, about the three stars—hollow stars.”
“Do they suggest anything to you?”
“Not a thing, except that he had seen something and was trying to tell me what it was.”
“But if he had seen something surely it must have been his assailant. Why didn’t he name him?”
“Obviously because he couldn’t. If he saw the man who shot him he didn’t, or couldn’t, recognize him. The only way he could identify him to me was by mention of those stars.”
“Which might mean anything.”
“Yes.”
“Could Charles have fallen foul of a poacher?”
