Fyshe saw it all. He said he watched her fighting against the inevitable realisation like a fanatic fighting for his creed. It seemed, he said, as if she would not allow it to beat her. As the great waves of fact, made by the myriad drops of little things, beat themselves against her one after another, she refused to be crushed by them. It was her barbarism, as the poet said, it was her Northern barbarism which kept her so steadfastly blind.
She refused to accept her defeat. Refused to acknowledge the trick the gods had played upon her. She had set herself to conquer fate, to conquer fact, to disprove that which existed.
As the months passed the fight became harder. It seemed as if she must become convinced in spite of herself, but she fought on. And every day, so Fyshe said, she grew more and more of a wild thing, more and more beautiful and more and more barbaric.
Then it happened.
Fyshe told the story once years afterwards. There were four of them in his dusty study and his husky drawl sounded strained and emotional in the warm, smoke-misted room.
“He died of pneumonia, you know,” he said, “eighteen months after they were married and she mourned him faithfully and passionately. I came into the room at just that moment when he reached the crisis and gradually took the turn for the worse which killed him.”
He paused deliberately and relit his pipe but no one spoke and presently he went on again.
“He was very ill and I visited them so often that I used to go in and out as I pleased. I knew when I entered that day that Vickers had been practically at death’s door, although I had heard the doctor say that so long as nothing untoward happened such as a draught catching him or the fire going out, he might be expected to recover. I had really gone along to congratulate her on this and I pushed open the door quietly, expecting to be met by a rush of warm, sick-room air. There were curtains hung across the corner where the door was so that no sudden draught could possibly reach the bed. These curtains were thick heavy things, weighted at the ends, yet as I came in they were swaying to and fro. I shut the door quickly, frightened for a moment that I had let in the draught and then I went forward and pulled aside the curtains.
“Vickers lay in the bed hardly breathing, the bedclothes thrown clear of his great chest and neck, while a current of cold rain-soaked air rushed in upon him from the open window. Elfrida was in the room. She stood with her back to me staring out across the square. Her straight back was stiff as a soldier’s and her head was held high and defiant.”
His voice stopped and they sat round and stared at him. He backed farther into his chair and hugged his knee.
‘You—you went out without speaking,” said someone, and his voice sounded strident and unnatural.
“Yes,” said Fyshe. “Without speaking, without a sound. She never knew I came.”
There was another pause, then he said: “The next time I saw her was at the funeral. I daresay you remember it, an extraordinary—a wonderful affair.”
His voice sank to a whisper as he remembered the majesty of it and he rocked backwards and forwards, a grotesque figure in the big chair.
“It was barbaric though,” he went on suddenly. “It horrified some people. They called it vulgar—ostentatious—but it wasn’t, it was magnificent. It was beautiful, sombre, terrible—the funeral of a god. The great house dismantled—the open coffin—the gorgeous pall—it was all majestic, Northern, and, as I said, barbaric. Some fools who didn’t understand her blamed her for it—they said she made a show of Death. I could have killed them. If Elfrida made a show, she made it for the honour of the dead and from no petty, horrible thought of personal glorification. She would not understand such reasoning. She mourned him at the funeral, and she mourned him ever afterwards—her husband, the man she married. Her grief was terrible, freezing, petrifying grief and it was sincere—no woman loved more than Elfrida, no woman grieved more deeply.”
“I don’t see how you make that out,” said Meyer, “if as you say she—”
Fyshe interrupted him.
“Her grief is sincere,” he said, and his black eyes flashed, “she mourns her husband, the man she married. If she had allowed herself to think clearly she would have mourned him a week after her marriage: as it was however, his body had to die before she could allow herself to see that he was dead.”
“Or that he never existed!”
Fyshe smiled curiously.
“Not exactly,” he said, “for from the day she first saw him—he existed—for her. Oh, her grief was sincere, as sincere as her love was. When I went up to her that day, where she sat in the great dim room with the solemn preparations for that mighty funeral going on around us, she looked up at me and I saw in her face a depth of sorrow so deep, so majestic and awful that it struck me dumb, and made me feel I was a little soul incapable of feeling a tenth so much. I mumbled something about Vickers at last and her eyes darkened a little. Then she sighed and looked steadily and honestly into my eyes.
“‘He was a king of men,” she said, ‘my husband”.” Fyshe finished speaking. There was a stir among his listeners and then Meyer spoke again. “I don’t see,” he said obstinately. “She must have been a hypocrite, Fyshe, she killed him—”
“Killed him!” The hunchback poet crouched forward in his chair and stared at the other man in fierce exasperation. “No, she didn’t kill him, Meyer,” he said. “Don’t you understand—she gave him birth!”
Mr. Campion’s Lucky Day
When Mr. Albert Campion arrived at the luxury flat, Detective Inspector Stanislaus Oates had just reached the unwelcome conclusion that Chippy Figg was not, after all, guilty of the murder of the man in the sitting-room.
Chippy, who was fidgeting in the kitchenette, his peaky face yellow with anxiety, had been saying so for some time.
“I was with me auntie all the evening,” he was protesting, as Campion, an ineffable glow of well-being about him, appeared in the doorway. “She’ll swear to it, auntie will.”
“I don’t doubt it, my lad,” said Oates gloomily. He turned and caught sight of the slender newcomer in the horn-rimmed spectacles. “Oh, hallo, Campion, glad to see you. Come over here, will you? There’s nothing to grin about, let me tell you.” Taking his old friend by the elbow, he pushed him firmly across the wide passage, now crowded with officials, to the sitting-room. As the door of the brilliantly lit apartment closed behind them his exasperation boiled over. “Ten minutes ago I had a pretty little open-and-shut case to show you, yet the moment you come beaming into it it turns sour on me.”
The smile had vanished from Mr. Campion’s face as his eyes took in the scene. He stood looking down at the heavy figure of a middle-aged man, bald and running badly to fat, which sprawled over the desk before the curtained window.
“Nothing exactly decorative about this,” he observed grimly. “Shot?”
“Yes. From the doorway. Death instantaneous. He’s the owner of the flat and lived alone here.”
“I see. Our friend in the purple suit didn’t do it.”
“Chippy. No. Couldn’t have. That’s the devil of it. Constable Richards, who lives next door to Chippy’s aunt and who overlooks her lighted kitchen from his back door, gives him an alibi.” He paused. “Look, Campion, consider this. It’s now midnight. Two hours ago we were called in by a doctor who lives in the apartment above this one. He—”
Mr. Campion coughed. “Introduce me to the corpse.”
“Well—” Oates hesitated, “—his name was Fane and he wasn’t pleasant. He made money on the turf and more in ways less orthodox.”
“Blacking merchant?”
“No evidence to date but considerable suspicion.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Campion mildly. “Continue with the doctor.”
“He phoned at ten and his story is quite straightforward. He knew Fane slightly and came in here at a quarter to six to give him a draught for a violent headache. Fane refused to go to bed because he was expecting Figg. The doctor left in time to reach a cocktail pa
rty some distance away at six.”
“Did the doctor know Figg?”
“Slightly. The whole block did. He’s a colourful figure who always called on Fane on Thursday nights. He does quite a lot of bookmaking.”
“Any more on Figg?”
“A little. Last week the two quarrelled and were heard all over the building. Tonight, while the doctor was at the Eclipse Sporting Club, he received a mysterious message on the phone in a cockney accent telling him to go to Fane quickly. He hurried back to find this door on the latch and Fane lying as you see him, still warm, the radio going full blast.”
Campion eyed the set. “Powerful?” he inquired.
“Terrific. The couple below say it was roaring from ten minutes to six until the doctor turned it off after he found Fane. No one could have noticed the shot above the row.”
“Depressing neighbour. Anyone see anything?”
“No. The porter says he saw no visitors but he’s been in and out of the hall and might have missed anyone. It seemed certain that Figg had slipped by him, but, as you heard, his alibi is perfect. He didn’t arrive until after we did.”
“Lucky chap. Can I see the doctor?”
“Of course. He’s still in his flat upstairs. I doubt if he can add to what he’s said already.”
Campion said nothing and was still silent when the doctor came bustling in a few minutes later.
“I admit I did not know him well,” he said waving at the dead man, “but it was a shock, you know, a considerable shock. Poor fellow, he was still warm when I found him, but there wasn’t a hope.”
“No,” said Campion, “not with a bullet through his heart. Tell me, doctor, have you a large practice here?”
“None at all. I’ve retired.” The man seemed put out. “I thought I made that clear. No, a G.P.’s life is too arduous for me, I’m afraid. I gave up medicine six years ago. Did you get hold of Figg, Inspector?”
“Yes, but the man has an alibi.”
“An alibi? But I could have sworn I…” The doctor bit back the words but Oates seized on them.
“You were going to say you recognised his voice on the phone.”
“No, no, I can’t be as explicit as that but I must admit that at the time it went through my mind that the voice resembled—Good Heavens, sir!”
The final exclamation was addressed to Campion, who had suddenly moved forward and, exerting all his strength, pulled the body up off the desk.
The sight was terrible. The entire corpse moved in one solid mass, the knees remaining bent, the head thrust out stiffly.
“Rigor very well advanced,” muttered Mr. Campion, a little breathless from the exertion.
“Good lord, yes. Much more so than I had expected.” The doctor’s eyes had widened. “It does happen, of course I’ve known it to be instantaneous. Cadaveric spasm, we call it. In this case…”
He got no further. Campion had released his hold on the body, allowing it to return to its original position. In his other hand was a sheet of paper torn from the scribbling pad which was covered with figures. It had lain hidden under the dead man’s head. When he looked up his eyes were hard. “How much did you owe him, doctor?” he inquired softly. “He was putting on the pressure, I suppose? What did you do with the revolver? Leave it at the club?”
“This is a monstrous accusation, sir. My solicitor…”
“Really, Campion…” Oates began nervously.
Campion’s voice silenced him. “Fane has got you, doctor. You may have shot him but he’ll convict you—with this.”
He held the paper out to Oates who snatched it. The doctor stared at it over his arm.
“It’s only a list of his day’s winnings,” he said angrily. “There’s no proof of anything here.”
Campion’s thin forefinger pointed to a single item: 4.30 Iron Ore won 6-4 £133.6.8.
Oates raised worried eyes. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What are you driving at?”
“Iron Ore didn’t win,” said Mr. Campion. “It passed the post first, and was credited with a win in the stop press of the afternoon editions but there was a spot of bumping and an objection was sustained. This was announced on the sports news. If Fane was sitting here with the radio going at six o’clock he could hardly have missed it unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless he was dead by then. The doctor says himself he saw him at ten minutes to six—quick, Oates!”
He sprang after the flying figure of the doctor who eluded him only to crash into a couple of constables in the vestibule.
In the excitement Mr. Figg, ever an opportunist, quietly took his leave.
Later, the Detective Inspector looked round for Mr. Campion. He found him sleeping peacefully in the bedroom with such a beatific smile on his face that Oates took pleasure in waking him. “How did you do that?” he demanded.
Campion yawned. “Doctor’s evidence,” he said. “What man with a headache sits by a blaring radio? Besides, a cadaveric spasm, as you know, is instantaneous. The doctor did not notice it when he found the body; therefore it was ordinary rigor, which takes some hours to develop.”
Oates laughed. “Fair enough, but I still call it luck,” he said. “You just happened to know the details of that race. It’s your lucky day.”
Mr. Campion’s smile broadened. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he murmured. “I had a tenner on the second horse. That was how I knew.”
Oates grunted. “Long odds?”
“Fifty to one.”
“Good lord, what’s its name?”
“Amateur,” whispered Mr. Campion. “That was why I came to back it. I’m not a betting man.”
“Tis Not Hereafter
When I was sent out to the small house on the marsh to look for the ghost there, I went stolidly and uncomplainingly, as is my nature.
I was an ugly, over-energetic little beast in my late teens, and had just begun to realize that my chosen profession of journalism was not the elegant mixture of the diplomatic service and theatrical criticism which my careers mistress had led me to suppose.
The general direction in which the house lay was pointed out by the postmaster of the most forlorn village ever to have graced the Essex coast. He stood leaning over a narrow counter with a surface like cracked toffee and shook his head at me warningly.
‘That’s no place for a young lady,” he said. “That’s a terrible funny place down there. You don’t want to go there.”
It was encouraging to hear that the house on the marsh not only existed but that there was something definitely odd about it.
Our editor was a difficult man whose pet maxim was “If you hear something, go and tear its guts out’.
His present story sounded unhappily vague. Someone, he said, had come to him at the Thatcher’s Arms in the High-street and told him of a terrorised village which was in a state of near panic because of a ghastly white face, a woman’s face, which had appeared at the window of a lonely house on the marsh. It was my duty to go and bring back the ghost or its story.
“It’s great,” he said. “Most important thing that’s happened down here since the municipal election. Go and thrash it out. They’ll all be on it.”
By “all” he meant our rival, the Weekly Gazette, with offices a little lower down the town. I rather hoped they would. Bill Ferguson, their junior, was a friend of mine and I had looked out for him on the road. However, he had not appeared, and I had been depressed at the prospect of unearthing yet another mare’s nest when the postmaster had raised my hopes.
“I want to see the ghost,” I said cheerfully. “Who’s seen it so far?”
“There’s a lot on “em seen it,” he confessed unexpectedly. “That’s a proper vision.”
I got out my notebook.
“Who’s seen it? Who can I talk to?”
“They’ll be out at work now,” he said. “Best wait till tea-time. They’ll be home just after five.”
I looked out through the cluttered w
indow at the sky. It was getting on for four o’clock and as grey and bitter as only a February day on the marsh can be.
“I’d better see the house now and get the stories when I come back,” I said. “What’s the tale about the house? Why should it be haunted?”
He eyed me thoughtfully.
“There was a shootin’ down there years ago,” he said. “Likely that’s it.”
“Very likely,” I agreed blithely. “Who was it?”
He was vague, however. At first it looked as though he was hiding something, but at last it became obvious that he actually knew very little.
“There was a young couple took it from London,” he said. “The lady she got herself drownded and the man ’e shot hisself. Now she’s come back and sets peerin’ out the window. You don’t want to go down there, I keep tellin’ you.”
“I do,” I said. “Who were these people? When did it happen?”
The postmaster sighed.
“That I couldn’t say. Afore my time. I ain’t been here above twenty years. Ah, that’s a dreadful tumble-down sort of a place!”
In the end he directed me. He was not actively against my going; merely passively disapproving.
I drove down that chill, windswept little street to the point where the road suddenly ceased to be a road and became a waterlogged cart-track, and where a decrepit gate barred my path. I left my car since it was impractical to take it farther, and set out over the saltings on foot.
The house came into view after about half a mile of cold and uncomfortable walking. It sat huddled up on a piece of high ground, a miserable wooden shack of a place with a brick chimney leaning crazily on one side. At the big spring tides it must have been surrounded and, having a simple, gregarious nature, I felt I understood the young woman who had drowned herself rather than live in it.
It was still some considerable distance away, and I plodded on, hoping with cheerful idiocy to see something pretty grisly in the way of spectres for my trouble.
It is hard to say at what particular moment I suddenly became afraid. Alarm settled down on me like a mist, and I was aware of feeling cold and a little sick long before I realised what it was. I think I must have recognised fear at the instant that I came near enough to the house to see the details of those two upper windows which peered out at me like dreadful dead eyes under the rakish billycock hat of a roof.
Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories Page 6
