“I wondered that Uncle Oldys remained as quiet as he did under this address. Mary, I knew, was amused by it, and he probably had been taught by experience that it was useless to break in upon it. At any rate he did not, but merely said at the end, ‘Have you that box handy, Mrs. Maple? If so, you might bring it here.’ Mrs. Maple pointed her finger at him, either in accusation or in gloomy triumph. ‘There,’ she said, ‘was I to choose out the very words out of your mouth, Doctor, them would be the ones. And if I’ve took it to my own rebuke one half-a-dozen times, it’s been nearer fifty. Laid awake I have in my bed, sat down in my chair I have, the same you and Miss Mary gave me the day I was twenty year in your service, and no person could desire a better—yes, Miss Mary, but it is the truth, and well we know who it is would have it different if he could. “All very well,” says I to myself, “but pray, when the Doctor calls you to account for that box, what are you going to say?” No, Doctor, if you was some masters I’ve heard of and I was some servants I could name, I should have an easy task before me, but things being, humanly speaking, what they are, the one course open to me is just to say to you that without Miss Mary comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which her wits may manage what’s slipped beyond mine, no such box as that, small though it be, will cross your eyes this many a day to come.’
“‘Why, dear Mrs. Maple, why didn’t you tell me before that you wanted me to help you to find it?’ said my Mary. ‘No, never mind telling me why it was: let us come at once and look for it.’ They hastened off together. I could hear Mrs. Maple beginning an explanation which, I doubt not, lasted into the furthest recesses of the housekeeper’s department. Uncle Oldys and I were left alone. ‘A valuable servant,’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘Nothing goes wrong under her: the speeches are seldom over three minutes.’ ‘How will Miss Oldys manage to make her remember about the box?’ I asked.
“‘Mary? Oh, she’ll make her sit down and ask her about her aunt’s last illness, or who gave her the china dog on the mantel-piece—something quite off the point. Then, as Maple says, one thing brings up another, and the right one will come round sooner than you could suppose. There! I believe I hear them coming back already.’
“It was indeed so, and Mrs. Maple was hurrying on ahead of Mary with the box in her outstretched hand, and a beaming face. ‘What was it,’ she cried as she drew near, ‘what was it as I said, before ever I come out of Dorsetshire to this place? Not that I’m a Dorset woman myself, nor had need to be. “Safe bind, safe find,” and there it was in the place where I’d put it—what?—two months back, I daresay.’ She handed it to Uncle Oldys, and he and I examined it with some interest, so that I ceased to pay attention to Mrs. Ann Maple for the moment, though I know that she went on to expound exactly where the box had been, and in what way Mary had helped to refresh her memory on the subject.
“It was an oldish box, tied with pink tape and sealed, and on the lid was pasted a label inscribed in old ink, ‘The Senior Prebendary’s House, Whitminster.’ On being opened it was found to contain two keys of moderate size, and a paper, on which, in the same hand as the label, was ‘Keys of the Press and Box of Drawers standing in the disused Chamber.’ Also this: ‘The Effects in this Press and Box are held by me, and to be held by my successors in the Residence, in trust for the noble Family of Kildonan, if claim be made by any survivor of it. I having made all the Enquiry possible to myself am of the opinion that that noble House is wholly extinct: the last Earl having been, as is notorious, cast away at sea, and his only Child and Heire deceas’d in my House (the Papers as to which melancholy Casualty were by me repos’d in the same Press in this year of our Lord 1753, 21 March). I am further of opinion that unless grave discomfort arise, such persons, not being of the Family of Kildonan, as shall become possess’d of these keys, will be well advised to leave matters as they are: which opinion I do not express without weighty and sufficient reason; and am Happy to have my Judgment confirm’d by the other Members of this College and Church who are conversant with the Events referr’d to in this Paper. Tho. Ashton, S.T.P., Præb. senr. Will. Blake, S.T.P., Decanus. Hen. Goodman, S.T.B.,Præb. junr.’
“‘Ah!’ said Uncle Oldys, ‘grave discomfort! So he thought there might be something. I suspect it was that young man,’ he went on, pointing with the key to the line about the ‘only Child and Heire.’ ‘Eh, Mary? The viscounty of Kildonan was Saul.’ ‘How do you know that, Uncle?’ said Mary. ‘Oh, why not? it’s all in Debrett—two little fat books. But I meant the tomb by the lime walk. He’s there. What’s the story, I wonder? Do you know it, Mrs. Maple? and, by the way, look at your sawflies by the window there.’
“Mrs. Maple, thus confronted with two subjects at once, was a little put to it to do justice to both. It was no doubt rash in Uncle Oldys to give her the opportunity. I could only guess that he had some slight hesitation about using the key he held in his hand.
“‘Oh them flies, how bad they was, Doctor and Miss, this three or four days: and you, too, sir, you wouldn’t guess, none of you! And how they come, too! First we took the room in hand, the shutters was up, and had been, I daresay, years upon years, and not a fly to be seen. Then we got the shutter bars down with a deal of trouble and left it so for the day, and next day I sent Susan in with the broom to sweep about, and not two minutes hadn’t passed when out she come into the hall like a blind thing, and we had regular to beat them off her. Why her cap and her hair, you couldn’t see the colour of it, I do assure you, and all clustering round her eyes, too. Fortunate enough she’s not a girl with fancies, else if it had been me, why only the tickling of the nasty things would have drove me out of my wits. And now there they lay like so many dead things. Well, they was lively enough on the Monday, and now here’s Thursday, is it, or no, Friday. Only to come near the door and you’d hear them pattering up against it, and once you opened it, dash at you, they would, as if they’d eat you. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “If you was bats, where should we be this night?” Nor you can’t cresh ‘em, not like a usual kind of a fly. Well, there’s something to be thankful for, if we could but learn by it. And then this tomb, too,’ she said, hastening on to her second point to elude any chance of interruption, ‘of them two poor young lads. I say poor, and yet when I recollect myself, I was at tea with Mrs. Simpkins, the sexton’s wife, before you come, Doctor and Miss Mary, and that’s a family has been in the place, what? I daresay a hundred years in that very house, and could put their hand on any tomb or yet grave in all the yard and give you name and age. And his account of that young man, Mr. Simpkins’s I mean to say—well!’ She compressed her lips and nodded several times. ‘Tell us, Mrs. Maple,’ said Mary. ‘Go on,’ said Uncle Oldys. ‘What about him?’ said I. ‘Never was such a thing seen in this place, not since Queen Mary’s times and the Pope and all,’ said Mrs. Maple. ‘Why, do you know he lived in this very house, him and them that was with him, and for all I can tell in this identical room’ (she shifted her feet uneasily on the floor). ‘Who was with him? Do you mean the people of the house?’ said Uncle Oldys suspiciously. ‘Not to call people, Doctor, dear no,’ was the answer; ‘more what he brought with him from Ireland, I believe it was. No, the people in the house was the last to hear anything of his goings-on. But in the town not a family but knew how he stopped out at night: and them that was with him, why they were such as would strip the skin from the child in its grave; and a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost, says Mr. Simpkins. But they turned on him at the last, he says, and there’s the mark still to be seen on the minster door where they run him down. And that’s no more than the truth, for I got him to show it to myself, and that’s what he said. A lord he was, with a Bible name of a wicked king, whatever his godfathers could have been thinking of.’ ‘Saul was the name,’ said Uncle Oldys. ‘To be sure it was Saul, Doctor, and thank you; and now isn’t it King Saul that we read of raising up the dead ghost that was slumbering in its tomb till he disturbed it, and isn’t that a strange thing, this young l
ord to have such a name, and Mr. Simpkins’s grandfather to see him out of his window of a dark night going about from one grave to another in the yard with a candle, and them that was with him following through the grass at his heels: and one night him to come right up to old Mr. Simpkins’s window that gives on the yard and press his face up against it to find out if there was any one in the room that could see him: and only just time there was for old Mr. Simpkins to drop down like, quiet, just under the window and hold his breath, and not stir till he heard him stepping away again, and this rustling-like in the grass after him as he went, and then when he looked out of his window in the morning there was treadings in the grass and a dead man’s bone. Oh, he was a cruel child for certain, but he had to pay in the end, and after.’ ‘After?’ said Uncle Oldys, with a frown. ‘Oh yes, Doctor, night after night in old Mr. Simpkins’s time, and his son, that’s our Mr. Simpkins’s father, yes, and our own Mr. Simpkins too. Up against that same window, particular when they’ve had a fire of a chilly evening, with his face right on the panes, and his hands fluttering out, and his mouth open and shut, open and shut, for a minute or more, and then gone off in the dark yard. But open the window at such times, no, that they dare not do, though they could find it in their heart to pity the poor thing, that pinched up with the cold, and seemingly fading away to a nothink as the years passed on. Well, indeed, I believe it is no more than the truth what our Mr. Simpkins says on his own grandfather’s word, “A withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost.”’ ‘I daresay,’ said Uncle Oldys suddenly: so suddenly that Mrs. Maple stopped short. ‘Thank you. Come away, all of you.’ ‘Why, Uncle,’ said Mary, ‘are you not going to open the press after all?’ Uncle Oldys blushed, actually blushed. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are at liberty to call me a coward, or applaud me as a prudent man, whichever you please. But I am neither going to open that press nor that chest of drawers myself, nor am I going to hand over the keys to you or to any other person. Mrs. Maple, will you kindly see about getting a man or two to move those pieces of furniture into the garret?’ ‘And when they do it, Mrs. Maple,’ said Mary, who seemed to me—I did not then know why—more relieved than disappointed by her uncle’s decision, ‘I have something that I want put with the rest; only quite a small packet.’
“We left that curious room not unwillingly, I think. Uncle Oldys’s orders were carried out that same day. And so,” concludes Mr. Spearman, “Whitminster has a Bluebeard’s chamber, and, I am rather inclined to suspect, a Jack-in-the-box, awaiting some future occupant of the residence of the senior prebendary.”
3 Apparently the ichneumon fly (Ophion obscurum), and not the true sawfly, is meant.
LOST PROPERTY, by David Anderson
“Can I get a ride, Carol?”
“Sure, hop in.”
Ron Norrison grinned mischievously. “Actually, I was just kidding. Remember, I live right across the road!”
Carol Mills smiled in return. “We had a good meeting tonight. I really enjoyed chapter five of your historical novel.”
Ron nodded. “Yes, I’m pleased with how the Writers’ Group is going. Keep working on your chick lit novel, it’s bubbling along nicely.” He fumbled for a key in his pocket. “OhI almost forgot. I left my umbrella in the sanctuary last night. I’ll just go look for it now before I go home.”
“Take care then, Ron. Don’t forget to lock up.”
The engine of Carol’s minivan burst into life as Ron closed the side door of the church and made his way back through the lounge, then into the sanctuary itself. Propping open one of the big twin doors, he picked up a stray leaflet from the floor and clicked on the lights. In bold font the four-page program proclaimed: ‘Rev. Brent Gilson performs Milhaud’s Percussion Concerto and selections for snare drum by Jacques Delécluse.’ Instead of a regular Sunday evening service last night, Firview Presbyterian had put on a music concert featuring their minister, Rev. Brent Gilson, as solo instrumentalist. Ron had enjoyed it, though, as he’d cautiously remarked to Brent afterwards, the UFO-shaped Bernese Hang Drum had taken a bit of getting used to…
Ron placed the program leaflet on a chair by the door and peered into a cardboard box with ‘Lost Property’ scrawled on its side in thick black marker. No umbrella there. He’d arrived late last night and had sat at the back, in the far corner. Perhaps the umbrella had rolled under his pew; it was worth a quick look.
He got down on his knees and fumbled under the long wooden pew. There it is. Good, that was easy. He was about to get up when his eyes fell on something round in the surface of the floor next to the pew; something that faintly gleamed even under a thick covering of dust.
It was a metal ring set into the floor. He flicked his fingers over its surface and saw that it was a burnished yellow, probably brass, and looked very old. Without thinking he curled his fingers around it and yanked hard. With the stiffness of long disuse the ring came free of its dusty bed until it stood at right angles to the floor. Ron pulled again and lines appeared on the floor, the straight black lines of a trapdoor inching out of its frame. The door was heavy and Ron let it slide snugly back into place.
Why was there a trapdoor here, and why hadn’t it been used in years—decades by the look of it? It was a mystery he had to solve. He placed both hands on the ring, arched his back, and heaved with all his strength.
* * * *
Concrete steps led down into Stygian darkness and he was tempted to abandon the idea of exploration there and then. But he knew there was a flashlight under the sound console behind him, kept there for when the lights were off during PowerPoint presentations. It was only a small one but it would do just fine. He wouldn’t need it for long anyway, as the steps probably led down to a blank wall. Having checked that there was no way the trapdoor could accidentally close, he directed the thin beam into the hole and began his descent.
He gave up counting after the twentieth step as they seemed to be going on forever. There was nothing except the side wall to hold on to, but the steps were broadly cut so there was little danger of him falling. Another twenty or so steps and he reached the bottom. He shone the beam ahead and discovered a narrow tunnel carved through solid earth. Carry on or go back?
Once again curiosity got the better of him: he simply had to find out where it led. The tunnel brought him further downwards on a shallow gradient and it too seemed to continue forever. By now he had to be well outside church property boundaries but he had no idea in which direction he was going. He came to a sharp left hand turn, after which the declination became steeper. A couple of minutes later it turned to the right and another set of steps appeared in front of him.
Then the reality of it hit him: the direction he was going was neither left nor right, nor was it north, south, east or west. It was primarily down: ever further down into the depths of the ground. But he couldn’t stop now.
He walked for at least another ten minutes—descending several hundred metres underground—before the decision to stop was made for him. In front of him, set flush in an impenetrable wall of stone, was a small metal door without decoration of any kind. More to the point, it didn’t have a handle either. Or, rather, any handle it had was on the other side. It was time to go back. Only now did he start to get worried: his flashlight had gradually grown dim and he didn’t fancy feeling his way in darkness all the way back up. He shook the flashlight very gently and the bulb grew brighter. It was then that he saw it.
A small furry cap, like a child’s ushanka, was lying on the ground near his feet. He picked it up, noted short ear flaps and a curious little chin strap, and stuffed it into his pocket.
Twenty minutes later he closed the trapdoor, tossed the cap into the lost property box, and switched off the lights in the sanctuary.
* * * *
Rev. Brent Gilson finished his Sunday morning sermon and paused several seconds for effect. Then he quietly closed his Bible, gathered up his typed notes and sat down. Ron was already walking up the steps to the pulpit, having agreed to do the l
ong prayer of ‘thanksgiving and supplication’ that came next. He set his carefully composed oration on the podium in front of him and looked out over the heads of the congregation. Not many here today. There were large empty spaces at the front, and several rows of pews at the back were completely vacant.
Ron cleared his throat. “Let us pray. Almighty God and heavenly Father, you have promised to hear and answer our requests which we make to you in the name of your beloved son, Jesus Christ our Lord…”
He fastidiously followed his script, slowing his voice from time to time and keeping a steady tempo and tone. His text was double spaced, which had allowed him to make several short additions while Brent had been preaching. It was always good to integrate specific points from the sermon into the prayer. He’d added these in blunt pencil—his expensive red ink pen had gone missing sometime during the week—and had to peer closely at the page in order to make out the pencilled-in phrases.
The Haunts & Horrors Megapack: 31 Modern & Classic Stories Page 33
