Ellingham did not appear to treat the matter very seriously. But in this, as I knew later, he was concealing his own attitude.
“Yes,” he said, “the old fellow is eccentric—very eccentric—I agree. What then? Eccentricities of learned men are common, generally harmless, often amusing. You can see that he is devoted to his wife and daughter, and I should say that either of them, alone, is perfectly capable of keeping him under control.”
Part IV
The Devil’s Hump
Chapter I
1
I am anxious to tell this incredible story in my own way, without exasperating the reader who has followed me so far, but without omitting any material circumstance. I want to recall, as far as possible, my own state of mind as the drama gradually moved from one stage to another, the climax unforeseen, unimagined, except in the busy brain of Ellingham. And Ellingham, until the evidence was complete, wisely refrained from communicating even the shadow of a doubt or the hint of a clue to any other mind.
It is only by a careful reconstruction of events that I can present to the reader the essential character of these strange happenings, and so not only prepare him for the culminating horror of the final scene, but also reveal its inevitability.
In the autumn of 1927 I was chosen to assist Sir Barlock-Winterslade, K.C., in the now celebrated case of Brackleton v. Duckwash and Others, Rex intervening. We were on the side of Duckwash and Others, and I had to examine and digest no fewer than forty-seven volumes of typewritten documents. The second hearing of the case was down for October. In order to read through the papers in quiet and make a précis for Sir Barlock, I decided, in the middle of September, to spend a week or ten days in the hotel at Aberleven. I was also anxious to have the opinion of Hilda Reisby on certain features of the case which could only be fully understood by a woman. I had consulted her on previous occasions and I had found her judgment invariably sound and often brilliant. It is a great pity that male barristers, in general, do not appreciate the immense value of such opinions.
However, the affair of Duckwash and Others has nothing to do with this particular story, though it would provide material for at least a dozen of the so-called “detective” novels. I took all the papers up to Aberleven, and I found my big seaward-facing bedroom almost ideal as a study. The only drawback was the difficulty of telephoning to Sir Barlock, but the occasions for doing so were fortunately not frequent.
Hilda was extremely kind in helping me, and I can hardly say how much the defence really owed to her perspicacity. Had it not been for her skill and insight we should never have realised and revealed the true motives of the door-keeper’s wife, nor should we have seen the deep significance of the dirty custard-cup.
I had several delightful walks with Hilda, refreshing and memorable walks; some in the bright wild air of the morning, and others in the calm warmth of an autumn twilight.
She told me various things about the Professor which made me feel uneasy again. The laughing-fits were more frequent and more alarming. Sometimes he would go off into these fits when he was alone in the study or laboratory. All would be silent, and then came those horrid reverberating peals of demonic hilarity, crashing and echoing through the entire house. This had occurred once or twice when there were visitors in the drawing-room, and it was very awkward.
But there were other fits—fits of an opposite kind—when a great cloud seemed to fall on the man. Then he sat motionless and soundless in his chair, his mighty head bowed over his chest, a massive hand resting on each arm of the chair, the eyes, clear and hard, fixed on vacancy.
Hilda Reisby had consulted secretly the doctors in Northport, and others, including her father in Manchester. Their opinions varied; some took a light view of the case, and others were exceedingly grave. All agreed on one point, and on one point only: nothing could be done unless the Professor would submit to treatment, unless he would agree to swallow the prescribed sedatives. Or he might go for a change somewhere. Best of all, in view of his love of the sea, he might go for a cruise. But it was hopeless. He rebutted with fury the idea that he was ill. Nothing would induce him to see “one of those blasted quacks, who made you pay through the nose for the privilege of listening to their pompous futilities.” He had given up his trips to Scandinavia, and except for an occasional visit to London he rarely left his home for more than a week.
“And that wretched little Goy has been worrying him about the Devil’s Hump, and running round to see Mrs. Macwardle and trying to make her give him leave to open it, and all that sort of thing.”
“Has the Professor any plans in regard to the Devil’s Hump?”
“Yes. I think he has made up his mind to open it—next year probably—if only to keep Goy quiet.”
“Defying the superstitions of the people?”
“I don’t think they are likely to trouble him very much—either the people or the superstitions. Tolgen is very popular here, and they know he would make a proper job of it.”
“It would be uncommonly interesting. Next year, you think?”
“That is my impression. But you must ask him yourself. He will certainly want you and Mr. Ellingham to be present.”
Soon after this conversation I had supper with the Reisbys. The Professor was in a fine, unclouded humour, full of his old, abounding jocularity, his Gargantuan jesting.
“Ah, ha! Tra-la-di-dee! Are you a member of the growing conspiracy, eh? Are you of the Goy alliance?” He shook his head with a humorous affectation of sorrow.
“God forbid, sir!”
“Well, well! I suppose I shall have to open the poor old tumulus, if only to defend it against the Northport league, the man with a packet of labels, eh? Still, you are not to suppose that I deride the worthy Goy. No, no, sir! Goy is a very excellent fellow, a very dogged excellent fellow, sir. It is astounding, with what pertinacity he pursues his object, with what eager zeal he prepares the adhesive label! Why, sir, he has a box of these labels in his pocket, every label with ‘Northport City Museum’ printed across the top of it, and when he sees anything covetable—why, sir, he labels it, not merely giving it what he considers an appropriate description, but also converting it into the property of the museum. Yes indeed,” (laughing immoderately) “I am told that he put one of his tickets on the Saxon cross in Aggersdon churchyard, and then wrote to Ingleworth asking him to arrange for its removal. Ha, ha!”
“That’s a wicked invention of yours, Tolgen,” said Mrs. Reisby.
“Is it, my dear? Well, you know, it is never easy to draw the line between fact and fiction in matters archaeological. The antiquary’s nimble mind is not by evidence confined; give him a tiny scrap or bit, he’ll find a theory to fit; at once, to his divining eyes, what grand hypotheses arise! Ah, ho, ha!”
So he boomed away, cheerfully and irresistibly, and I could feel again the peculiar dominance, the imposition, of this redoubtable mind. It seemed impossible for an ordinary person, like myself, to meet him on his own level. But I was keen on the subject of the Devil’s Hump, if only on account of Ellingham’s unaccountable enthusiasm, and I persisted:
“Then, sir, you are going to dig—”
“Of course I am! Magno cum periculo custoditur, quod multis placet! I shall dig in self-defence. I shall prevent the vigilance of Goy by inviting him to share in the toil and the glory, and I shall offer him the spoils—provided only that I am in command of the operations.”
“I hope, sir, that you will allow me, and our friend Ellingham—”
“Of course, my dear fellow, of course! How should we dig without the help, the encouragement of our distinguished associates? Come, let me speak plainly. I intend to open this famous mound in about a year’s time, say in August. Actually I have obtained the necessary authority from the Office of Works and also from Mrs. Macwardle. So everything is ready. A young pupil of mine, William Tuffle, will come down from Northport to make plans or
measurements; he is very good at that sort of thing. I expect Goy and his wife will stay at the hotel. If Ellingham is free, I hope he will undertake any photography that is desirable, for I do not know anybody who is better fitted for the task. You see, my dear Farringdale, I anticipate a regular congress, a social gathering of a particularly delightful kind.”
He spoke in a smoother, more conventional style, but I observed a curious twitch or flicker of his brows and lips, as if he was keeping under control an impulse to laugh uproariously. His wife and daughter looked at him with evident concern.
But Reisby was entirely, I might almost say unusually, normal. He continued to discuss his plans, and eventually asked me to find out if August in the following year (1928) would be convenient for Ellingham.
I can hardly say why the Professor’s decision excited me, as it certainly did.
Of course I had not forgotten the conversation in the Rouen hospital, but I did not attach any importance to it. How could any reasonable person attach importance to an idea so vague and incongruous? But then, I said to myself, Ellingham’s behaviour with regard to the Devil’s Hump had always been very mysterious, and he was not the man to wander off in pursuit of a mere fantasy. Anyhow, we were going to dig up the mystery, if there was one, and the Professor himself was the prime mover in the affair. No doubt it would be great fun. We should be a jolly party, and there is always a fascination in the unearthing of hidden things, even if those things are sepulchral.
The sanctity of a burial-place appears to evaporate in time: I suppose the antiquaries of the future will cheerfully dig up all our Christian cemeteries, assembling, for the purpose, at the nearest hotels… Consider the innumerable thousands of tombs we have violated in Egypt alone. Is it really decent?
2
When I told Morgan at the hotel about this future digging he looked rather serious.
“I wish you gentlemen would leave these things alone,” he said. “Of course I’m an ignorant fellow myself, but I must say it makes me feel a bit creepy—all this upsetting of the poor old bones! And our people here, between you and me, don’t like it at all. They don’t say much, because they are fond of the Reisbys; but this opening of the Devil’s Hump will be as much as they can stand, let me tell you.”
“What harm can it possibly do to anyone?”
“Well, you know what people are like, Mr. Farringdale. It’s those bones that make all the trouble. Superstition, no doubt; but we can’t help it. Takes a bit of education to destroy reverence, Mr. Farringdale.”
I was rather shocked.
“But really, Morgan, that’s going a bit too far—”
“I’ve no wish to be offensive. I’m only telling you what the people think. One of our farmers—Jenkins—thought he would get a bit of stone for repairs the other day. So he started to pick at one of those little tumps on the side of the moor, and out fell a bit of a skeleton. Well! As soon as they saw it they packed up and went away, and nothing on earth could induce ’em to touch any of those stones, I can tell you.”
I fell back on the half-hearted apology of the scientist.
“But you see, Morgan, the pursuit of knowledge—”
He shook his head.
“That’s where you beat us, of course. It’s the privilege of education. I have always lived among simple people—farmers and fishermen in England and black men in South Africa—and I have got the ideas of these people in my head. And there’s none of us like the notion of disturbing the bones of buried men. Looking at it only from the selfish point of view, we think it’s unlucky. And we don’t understand how it adds to knowledge—at least, to any useful knowledge.”
“But you don’t suggest that anyone is likely to interfere?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s the gentry, you see! That makes all the difference.”
3
On my way back to London I spent a few days with the Ellinghams at Cambridge. Fred Ellingham was now, as we had anticipated, the Woolhope Professor of Organic Chemistry.
As we sat together in his study, after dinner on the evening of my arrival, I told him about the forthcoming dig at the Devil’s Hump.
“No!” he cried, “you don’t say so!”
His excitement took me by surprise.
“I thought you anticipated something of the kind.”
“I have always wanted to see the tumulus opened, but I never thought old Reisby would undertake the job himself.”
“Surely he is the proper person.”
Ellingham cogitated for a few moments, rubbing both forefingers up and down the side of his nose. I knew that he had some bizarre theory about the Devil’s Hump, probably an archaeological theory, but I suspected nothing more.
“Yes, he’s the proper person, of course. Still, it is very astonishing, very unexpected… No doubt he is afraid of Goy getting there first.”
“Quite correct.”
“He admits it, does he?”
“Certainly he does.”
“Ah! I see. Precisely.”
“Will you be able to go there?”
“I shall not allow anything to stand in the way, if I can help it.”
“It ought to be interesting.”
“It ought to be devilish interesting—far more interesting than you suppose, my dear young friend.” Ellingham, from the advanced position of fifty years, regarded my mere thirty-five as the age of youth; and he also insulted me by saying that I was remarkably young, even for my age.
Then the conversation took a quite inexplicable turn, but the conversation of Ellingham was often quite inexplicable.
He began to talk about my poor cousin, Eric Foster, introducing the subject by a clumsy invocation of sentiment, in which he failed altogether to deceive me. As a matter of fact, I knew that he did not care in the least whether he deceived me or not.
“Poor fellow!” he said, “it will be fourteen years since we had all that awful trouble… Yes, fourteen years… By the way, he was a keen football player, was he not?”
“He played for the Old Hibernians.”
“Am I right in saying that the poor lad broke a bone in the course of some match or other?—a collar-bone or something? Poor lad!—he was always such a keen player!”
“It was a knee-cap. He broke it in 1912 in a match against the Tiddleswick Crusaders.”
“Yes, yes!” Ellingham was strangely excited. “I remember! Such a fine plucky fellow. He thought nothing of it, I am sure. Was it the right or the left knee-cap?”
“Right, I believe. I cannot be quite sure.”
“In those days they used to mend a broken knee-cap by means of wire, silvered phosphor-bronze or something of the sort. What a charming fellow he was! Everybody was fond of Eric. Did they use wire, do you know?”
“Yes, I think so. Again, I cannot be quite certain. It was a very bad fracture.”
“Good enough,” said Ellingham, thinking aloud. “His aunt would remember all about it, no doubt. Have you seen her lately? I have the greatest admiration for Miss Foster—a most remarkable woman for her age—indeed for any age. The right knee-cap fractured. Hum! Old women often have a peculiar charm, a fragrance of personality, have they not? Tell me—did he ever break any other bones?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You consider me crazy or impertinent, perhaps. But that is not really the case, my dear fellow, let me assure you. One cannot help remembering these little things. I seldom think of the departed without recalling these odd particulars. It is a habit of thought, a morphological habit. And I cannot help thinking of your poor cousin at present. How excited he would have been, poor boy, if he knew that we were going to open the Devil’s Hump! He would have been keenly interested in our plans. Ah!—there is one other thing—do you remember anything about his teeth?”
“His teeth?”
“Yes. I seem t
o recall some little trouble—”
“So far as I know, he had remarkably good teeth.”
“Think again. Wasn’t there a replacement? A false molar, or something of the sort?”
“What an extraordinary memory you have, Ellingham! You are correct. I had forgotten it myself. He had a single false tooth, a back tooth, in his lower jaw. It was a clever bit of work, and you could not possibly have spotted it. How on earth did you know?”
“One of those curious mental notes of mine. No doubt he told me. I never met a lad with a more naturally engaging manner. He would have made a first-rate physician, so quick and sympathetic! Was it on the right or left side of the jaw?”
“The left side.”
“And all the other teeth were quite perfect, I remember. A singularly delightful nature, candid without being raw and vital without being obtrusive. He had also—what I should expect in your family, my dear Farringdale!—a most agile and rapid intelligence. What I regret is, that I was not able to meet him more frequently. Yet I remember him very well, poor fellow! You see what odd little details have lingered in my recollection. Odd, is it not?”
He smiled at me in his inscrutably sardonic manner, half closing his eyes, and wrinkling up his lean face until it was almost diabolical.
Looking back with an open mind, I realise that I was completely baffled. I knew all the peculiarities of this remarkable man, and I knew that it was his custom never to expose his thoughts or theories until he needed the information or the co-operation of somebody else, or until he considered a revelation morally or scientifically desirable. He did not cultivate mystery; he simply refrained from action or communication until it was possible to be absolutely definite. I saw no relevance in his questions about my cousin; I merely thought he was trying to recall certain features or memories. That he should have chosen such definitely anatomical features was not surprising to one who knew the peculiar workings of his mind. In short, I had no suspicion of any motive behind those questions, apart from the purely transient motives of a ruminating memory. It was quite reasonable to suppose that Eric might have told him about his broken bone (though I never heard him mention it to anyone). The detail of the tooth was more striking, because I had some difficulty in remembering it myself. Yet I think I can truthfully say that I should not have remembered this conversation, had it not been for the astounding events with which it was intimately connected.
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