The Plague Court Murders

by John Dickson Carr

  Again she spoke softly, without emotion.

  “Why have you come here, Dean? And who are these men with you?”

  The voice was thin. It seemed to explore and probe, despite its professional sweetness, and I almost shuddered. Her black eyes never left his face, and she retained that mechanical smile. There was a sickliness about her.

  Halliday straightened up. He made an effort.

  “I don’t know whether you are aware of it,” he said, “but this is my house.” (She had put him on the defensive, as, I imagined, she always had. At his remark she only smiled, dreamily.) “I hardly think, Aunt Anne, that I need your permission to come here. These gentlemen are my friends.”

  “Present us.”

  He did so, first to Lady Benning and then to Miss Latimer. It was a mad business, those formal introductions in the damp-smelling vault of a room, among the candleflames and the spiders. Both of them—the cold, lovely girl standing against the mantelpiece, the reptilian pseudo-marquise nodding against her red silk cloak—were hostile. We were intruders in more senses than one. About them both was a kind of exaltation, which some might call self-hypnosis; a repressed and waiting eagerness, as at some tremendous spiritual experience they had once undergone and hoped to undergo again. I stole a sideways glance at Masters, but his face was as bland as ever. Lady Benning opened her eyes.

  “Dear, dear,” she murmered to me, “of course you are Agatha Blake’s brother. Dear Agatha. And her canaries.” Her voice changed. “The other gentleman I fear I have not the pleasure of recognizing. … Now, dear boy, perhaps you will tell me why you are here?”

  “Why?” repeated Halliday. His voice cracked. He struggled with a baffled anger, and put out his hand towards Marion Latimer. “Why? Look at you—look at both of you! I can’t stand this fog. I’m a normal, sane human being, and you ask me what I want here and why I’m trying to stop this nonsense! I’ll tell you why we came. We came to investigate your blasted haunted house. We came here to get hold of your blasted turnip-ghost and smash it in little bits for good and all; and, by God—!”

  The voice echoed and rang blatantly, and we all knew it. Marion Latimer’s face was white. Everything was very quiet again.

  “Don’t challenge them, Dean,” she said. “Oh, my dear, don’t challenge them.”

  But the little old lady only twitched up her fingers again, from palms flat on the chair-arm, and half shut her eyes, and nodded.

  “Do you mean that something impelled you to come here, dear boy?”

  “I mean that I came here because I damned well chose.”

  “And you want to exorcise this thing, dear boy?”

  “If you want to call it that,” he said grimly; “yes. Look here, don’t tell me—don’t tell me that’s why you’re all here?”

  “We love you, dear boy.”

  There was a silence, while the fire sputtered in small blue flames, and the rain ran soft-footed through the house; splashing and echoing in its mysterious places. Lady Benning went on in a voice of ineffable sweetness:

  “You need not be afraid here, dear boy. They cannot come into this room, But elsewhere, what then? They can take possession. They took possession of your brother James. That was why he shot himself.”

  Halliday spoke in nothing more than a low, calm, serious voice. He said: “Aunt Anne, are you trying to drive me mad?”

  “We are trying to save you, dear boy.”

  “Thanks,” said Halliday. “That’s jolly good of you.”

  His hoarse tones had struck the wrong note again. He looked round at stony faces.

  “I loved James,” said Lady Benning, and her face was suddenly pitted with wrinkles. “He was strong, but he could not stand them. So they will come for you, because you are James’s brother and you are alive. James told me so, and he cannot … you see, it is to give him peace. Not you. James. And until this thing is exorcised, not you nor James will sleep.

  “You came here tonight. Perhaps it is best. There is safety in the circle. But this is the anniversary, and there is danger. Mr. Darworth is resting now. At midnight he will go alone to the little stone house in the yard, and before daylight he will have cleansed it. Not even the boy Joseph will go with him. Joseph has great powers, but they are receptive. He has not the knowledge to exorcise. We shall wait here. Perhaps we shall form a circle, although that may only hinder him. That is all, I think.”

  Halliday glanced at his fiancée.

  “You two,” he said harshly, “came here alone with Darworth?”

  She smiled faintly. His presence seemed to comfort her, though she was a little afraid of him. She came close, and took his arm.

  “Dear old boy,” she said—and it was the first human tone of voice we had heard in that literally damned house—”you are rather a tonic, you know. When I hear you talking like that, in just that particular way, it seems to change everything. If we’re not afraid, there’s nothing to fear. …”

  “But this medium—”

  She shook his arm. “Dean, a thousand times, I’ve told you Mr. Darworth is not a medium! He is a psychic, yes. But he concerns himself with causes rather than effects.” She turned to Masters and me. Marion Latimer looked tired, but she was making an effort to be light and easy in an almost teasing fashion. “I suppose you know something about it, if Dean doesn’t. Tell him the difference between a medium and a psychical researcher. Like Joseph and Mr. Darworth.”

  Masters shifted heavily from one foot to the other. He was impassive, he did not even look pleased, standing there turning his bowler round in his hands; but I, who knew him well, could detect a curious ring in the slow, patient, reflective tones.

  “Why, yes, miss,” he said. “I think I can tell you from my certain knowledge that I have never known Mr. Darworth to lend himself to—demonstrations. Of himself, that is.”

  “You know Mr. Darworth?” she asked quickly.

  “Ah! No, miss. Not exactly, that is. But I don’t want to interrupt; you were saying—eh?”

  She looked at Masters again, rather puzzled. I was uneasy; the words “police officer” were to me as patent as though he had worn a placard, and I wondered if she had spotted him. Her cool, quick eyes searched his face; but she dismissed whatever notion she had.

  “But I was telling you, Dean. We’re certainly not alone here with Mr. Darworth and Joseph. Not that we should have minded. …” (Now what was this? Halliday had muttered something and jerked his head; while she was trying to look him out of countenance with a thin, bright imperiousness.) “Not that we should have minded,” she repeated, straightening her shoulders, “but, as a matter of fact, Ted and the major are here too.”

  “Eh? Your brother,” he said, “and old Featherton? Oh, my Lord!”

  “Ted—believes. Be careful, my dear.”

  “Because you do. Oh, I don’t doubt it. I went through the same phase at Cambridge, at his age. The soundest beefeater isn’t immune. Mystical—incense-swinging—love and glory of God wrapping you round. I believe they get it worse at Oxford.” He stopped. “But where the devil are they, then? Not out daring the emanations?”

  “As a matter of fact, they’re out in the little stone house. Lighting a fire for Mr. Darworth when he goes to watch.” She attempted to speak lightly. “Ted made this fire. It’s not very good, is it? Oh, my dear, what is the matter with you?”

  He had begun to pace to and fro, so that the candle flames swung with his passage. Now he said: “Good! That reminds me; you gentlemen will want to see over the house, and that little fountainhead of iniquity out in the yard. …”

  “You’re not going out there?”

  The sandy eyebrows went up. “Certainly, Marion. I was out there last night.”

  “He will be a fool,” Lady Benning said gently and sweetly, with closed eyes. “But we will protect him in spite of himself. Let him go. Mr. Darworth, dear Mr. Darworth, can protect him.”

  “Come along, Blake,” said Halliday, and nodded curtly.

  T
he girl made as if to stop him, with an uncertain gesture. I could hear a curious scraping, ticking sound; it was the rings on Lady Benning’s fingers brushing the arm of the chair, but it sounded horribly like rats in a wall. The small dainty face was turned dreamily towards Halliday—and I saw how much she hated him.

  “Don’t disturb Mr. Darworth,” she said. “It is nearly time.”

  Halliday got out his flashlight and we followed him into the hall. There was a tall creaky door, which he scraped shut by putting his finger into the empty knobhole. Then we stood in the damp, heavy darkness, and there were three electric torches switched on now. Halliday flashed his light first into my face and then into Masters’.

  “ ‘Aroint ye, witch,’ ” he said, as mockingly as he could. “Well? What do you think, now, about what I’ve been through for the last six months?”

  Blinking in the light, Masters put on his hat again. He picked his words with care. “Why, Mr. Halliday, if you’ll take us somewhere else—where we couldn’t be overheard—why, maybe I can tell you. A little, at least. I’m even more grateful at being brought here, now.”

  I saw him smile as the light moved away. From what we could see of it, the hall was even more desolate than the room behind. Its floor was of stone flags, over which patterned wood had been at one time laid; but this was long carried away, like the paneling. It remained a bleak, square vault, with a heavy staircase at the far end, and three tall doors on either side. A rat scuttled across the light; we could hear the scrape of its feet as it vanished near the staircase. Masters went along ahead, his light probing. Halliday and I followed as quietly as we could; Halliday whispered to me, “Can you feel it again?” and I nodded. I knew what he meant. It had gathered round again, tightening and closing. If you have ever done any swimming underwater, and stayed down too long, and been suddenly terrorized that you will never get to the surface again, you will understand a very similar sensation.

  “Don’t,” said Halliday, “don’t let’s get separated.” For Masters was some distance ahead, prowling near the staircase. It was with a sense of shock that we saw him stop beside the paneling that enclosed its side; stop dead, and stare down. The light before him silhouetted his prim bowler hat and his big shoulders. Stooping, he went down on one knee. We heard him grunt.

  There were some darkish stains on the flagstones near the side of the stair. The little space thereabouts was clean of dust. Masters reached out and touched the panel. It was a little door to a low closet under the steps; as Masters pushed it, there was a wild stirring and rushing of rats inside. A few of the creatures darted out—one of them over Masters’ foot—but he did not move from his kneeling position. I could see the reflection on the high gloss of one shoe as he poked the flashlight into the foul little space beyond.

  He stared; the damp, musty air turned suffocating in my lungs; then he. spoke, gruffly.

  “It’s all right, sir,” said Masters. “All right. It ain’t nice, though. It’s only a cat.”

  “Yes, sir. A cat. It’s got its throat cut.”

  Halliday jerked back. I leaned over Masters’ shoulder and turned my light inside. Somebody or something had thrust it in there to be out of sight. It had not been dead long, and lay on its back, so I could see that the neck had been slit through. It was a black cat, stiffened out with agony; now turning shrunken and wiry and dusty, and the half-open eyes looked like shoe-buttons. There were things moving about it.

  “I’m beginning to think, Mr. Blake,” said Masters, rubbing his chin, “that maybe there’s a kind of devil in this house after all.”

  With a stolid disgust he pulled the door shut again, and got up.

  “But,” said Halliday, “who would–?” He peered over his shoulder.

  “Ah! That’s it. Who would? And why? Would you call it a piece of deliberate cruelty, now, or was there a reason? Eh, Mr. Blake?”

  “I was thinking,” I said, “of the enigmatic Mr. Darworth. You were going to tell us something about him, you know. By the way, where is he?”

  “Steady—!” Masters struck in quietly, and raised his hand.

  We could hear voices and the sound of footsteps coming through the house. They were palpably human voices; yet such was the trick of echoes in this stone labyrinth that they seemed to sheer off the wall and echo softly in your ear just behind you. First there was a gruff mumble in which we could catch scattered words:

  “—don’t hold with the mumbo-jumbo … all the same … look a damned fool … something …”

  “That’s it, that’s just it!” The other voice was lower, lighter, more excited. “Why do you feel like that? Look here, do I look like any namby-pamby æsthete who could be gulled and hypnotized by my own nerves? That’s ridicule you’re afraid of. Trust yourself! We’ve accepted modern psychology. …”

  The steps were coming from beyond a low archway at the rear of the hall. I saw the light of a candle shielded in somebody’s hand; there was a glimpse of a whitewashed passage with a brick floor; then a figure stepped into the hall, and saw us. It jerked back, bumping into another figure. Across that space you could almost feel its shock and stiffening. I saw a mouth suddenly pulled back, and the teeth, over the candle it held. It muttered, “Oh, Christ. …” And Halliday threw back in a matter-of-fact tone, faintly edged with spite: “Don’t get the wind up, Ted. It’s only us.”

  The other peered, straightening his candle. He was very young. Over the candle-flame hung first a careful Etonian tie, then an uncertain chin, the sproutings of a fair mustache, the faint outline of a square face. His coat and hat were sodden. He said, querulously:

  “You ought to have better sense than to try to scare a fellow like that, Dean! I mean, hang it all, you can’t go crawling about the place, and—and—” We heard the whistle of his breath.

  “Who the devil are these people?” rasped his companion, who had come out from behind him. We threw up our lights mechanically to see the new-comer; he cursed and winked, and we lowered them. Besides these two, there was a thin little red-headed figure behind them.

  “Good evening, Major Featherton,” Halliday greeted. “As I say, you needn’t be alarmed. I seem to have the unenviable quality of making everybody I meet jump like a rabbit.” His voice kept rising. “Is it my face, or what? Nobody ever used to think it was so frightful as all that, but as soon as they begin talking to Darworth—”

  “Confound you, sir, who says I’m alarmed?” said the other. “I like your infernal, blasted cheek. Who says I’m alarmed, sir? Furthermore, I will repeat to you, as I will repeat to everybody I meet, that I hope I am a fair-minded man, whose motives will not be misunderstood or made a subject for ridicule because I preserve—because, in short, I am here.” He coughed.

  The voice in the gloom sounded like a disembodied letter to The Times. The paunchy figure tilted slightly backwards. From the brief glimpse I had had of him, of the map-veined cheeks and cadaverous eyes, I could fill out the bigness of an outworn buck and gallant of the eighties, tightened into his evening clothes like a corset. “I shall have rheumatism for this,” he protested, weakly and almost cajolingly. “Besides, Lady Benning asked my assistance, and what could a man of honor do?”

  “Not at all,” said Halliday, without particular relevancy. He drew a deep breath. “Well, we’ve seen Lady Benning too. My friends and I are going to watch and wait for the ghost-laying with you. Now we’re going to have a look at the little house out there.”

  “You can’t,” said Ted Latimer.

  The boy looked fanatical. A smile twitched round his lips, as though he had lost control of the facial muscles. “You can’t, I tell you!” he repeated. “We’ve just put Mr. Darworth in there. He asked to go. He’s begun his vigil. Besides, you daren’t, even if you could. It’s too dangerous, now. They’ll be out. And it must be”—his thin, angular eager face, very much like his sister’s, bent over his wristwatch—“yes. Yes, it is five minutes past twelve.”

  “Damn,” said Masters. It was unexpected
, as though the word had been shaken out of him. He took a step forward, his footfall squeaking on the rotting boards towards the rear of the hall, where the floor had not been lifted from the flagstones. I remember thinking, with that dull focus of mind which fastens on trivial details at such moments, that the rest of the flooring had probably been fine hardwood. I remember Ted Latimer’s grimy hand, with its grease-covered knuckles, thrust far out of his sleeve. I remember that colorless figure of the red-headed youngster—in the background, vague by candlelight—toughing its hair, brushing its face, in inexplicable and rather horrible pantomime. …

  It was to him that Ted Latimer turned. The candleflame swung, fluttering with thin noise. His motions abruptly stopped.

  “We’d better go into the front room, hadn’t we?” Ted demanded. “In the front room, where it’s safe, and they can’t come. Hadn’t we?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” replied a colorless voice. “Anyway, that’s what I’m given to understand. I never see them, you know.”

  So this was Joseph, saving the fantastic incongruity of names, whose dull freckled countenance appeared incurious. The candle fluttered round again, and the shadows took him.

  “You see?” inquired Ted.

  “Monstrous!” said Major Featherton suddenly, for no reason at all.

  Halliday strode forward, with Masters after him. “Come along, Blake,’’ he said to me; “we’re going to have a look at that place.”