“You think, of course, that you may share the fate of your mother, father, and brother?” I asked.
“I think it extremely likely,” he replied.
“You are the only one left in your family?”
“Yes,” he said, “the only one.”
“And what are your plans with regard to the Caspar Beeches?” I inquired. “Do you think of residing there?”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” he replied; “that is one of the points upon which I want your advice. I want to know what you think about these deaths. Do you think they were due to some as yet undiscovered physical cause, as, for instance, some unknown disease, or some gas the sanitary authorities have not been able to trace—or, to the superphysical?”
“I can form no opinion at present,” I replied; “I must first have more details. But from what you have said, I think this case presents some novel and very extraordinary features. I should like to see the house. By the way, you haven’t told me your name.”
“Mansfield,” the young man said—“Eldred Mansfield.”
“The son of Sir Thomas Mansfield, the Bornean explorer?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are the present baronet?”
The young man nodded.
“And in the event of your death,” I remarked, “to whom do the title and estates revert?”
“I believe to some distant relative,” Sir Eldred replied. “I cannot say definitely, for I have never inquired. I have no first cousins, and I know nothing about any others.”
“That is rather odd,” I observed, “not to know who succeeds you. Now, tell me—of whom does your household at the Caspar Beeches consist?”
“The butler Parry, his wife, who is housekeeper, and four other servants.”
“Have the Parrys been with you long?”
“About four years.”
“Do you like them?”
“Not altogether,” Sir Eldred replied. “Parry is rather fussy and officious, and his wife much too soapy. My father, however, found them honest, and I don’t suppose I could improve on them.”
“Well,” I said, “as I have already remarked, I can’t give you an opinion till I’ve seen the house. Supposing you engage me as your secretary?”
“An excellent idea,” Sir Eldred cried, his face lighting with enthusiasm. “To tell the truth, I don’t much like the idea of sleeping there alone. Will you go back with me to-night? I will wire to Parry to get a room ready for you.”
As my time was my own just then, I agreed, and that afternoon saw me tearing off in a taxi to meet Sir Eldred at Waterloo.
The Caspar Beeches, a large old family mansion, is situated nearer Winton than Bournemouth proper, and in the midst of the most lovely forest scenery. An air of impressive sadness hung around it, which, although no doubt largely due to the season and lateness of the hour, still, I thought, owed its origin, in part, to some very different cause; and when, on entering, I glanced round the big, gloomy, oak-panelled hall with its dim, far-reaching galleries, I inwardly remarked that this might well be the home of a dozen hidden mysteries, a dozen lurking assassins, that could prowl about and hide there, without the remotest fear of discovery.
The door had been opened to us by a tall, thin, bald-headed old man, with small and rather deep-set eyes of the most pronounced blue, and a rather cut-away chin. He expressed himself overjoyed to see his young master back again, and was most emphatic in his assurances that our rooms were quite ready for us.
His wife, an elderly woman with dark, keen, penetrating eyes and slightly prominent cheekbones, met us in the hall. I knew, of course, that she was Mrs. Parry, when she spoke, but her voice came as a surprise. In striking contrast to her appearance it was soft and low, and not altogether unmusical. The other servants did not interest me much—they were the type one sees in all well-to-do establishments—and yet I felt that if I were to get at the bottom of the mystery that unquestionably shrouded the deaths of Sir Eldred’s three relatives, I must watch everyone very closely; for the key to a great secret is often found where least expected.
We dined at eight o’clock, and after dinner I took a brief survey of the house. This enabled me to form some idea of the general arrangement of the rooms and where certain of them were situated. My bedroom, I found, was separated from that of Sir Eldred by the entire length of a corridor, and at my suggestion the room adjoining his own was allotted to me instead. Mrs. Parry demurred a little at the change, remarking that the room next Sir Eldred’s had not been aired; but I told her I was not in the least degree likely to catch cold, as I had often slept in queer places, having spent a considerable portion of my life in the backwoods of Canada. Sir Eldred laughed.
“You don’t know what care we are taken of here,” he said. “I can assure you, if I were to feel even the suspicion of a draught it would be considered a most terrible calamity.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Parry said, with a sigh, “after what has happened, Sir Eldred’s life is so precious we feel we cannot be too careful.”
“Have you any idea what killed your late master and mistress?” I asked her aside. “What terrible times you have gone through!”
“Ay, terrible indeed,” she said. “A kinder master and mistress no one could have had. Parry and I always thought something blew in from outside. There is too much vegetation in the grounds, and it grows so near the house. They do say the place is built on the site of a morass.”
“A morass, and in Hampshire!” I laughed. “Why, that sounds incredible. The soil is surely gravel.”
“So it may be—now,” she replied. “I’m speaking of many years ago. The house is very ancient, sir.”
I asked Sir Eldred afterwards if there was any truth in her remark, and he said, “Yes, I believe there was a swamp here once; at least there is mention of one in a very old history of Hampshire that we have in the library. It was drawn off towards the end of the sixteenth century when the house was built. But I’m surprised at the Parrys knowing anything about it, for I’ve never heard anyone allude to it—not even my father.”
“Are the Parrys of the ordinary servant class?” I asked.
“I believe so,” Sir Eldred replied; “but I really know nothing of their antecedents, for I seldom encourage them to speak. As I told you, they both rather get on my nerves.”
That night, some hours after the household had retired to rest, I took a rope out of my portmanteau, and, fixing one end of it securely to the bedstead, lowered myself out of the window on to the ground beneath. Then, keeping under cover of the pine trees, and evading the moonbeams as much as possible, I made a detour of the house. The night air smelt pure and sweet. Heavily charged with the scent of pinewood and heather, there was absolutely nothing about it even remotely suggestive of poisonous gas.
As I was about to emerge from the trees to re-enter the house, I heard a slight crunching sound on the gravel. I sprang back again into the gloom, and as I did so, two figures—a man and girl—stole noiselessly past me.
The girl I could not see distinctly, as her head was partly enveloped in a cloak, but the face of the man stood out very plainly in the moonlight—it was the face of a black!
What could a black man and a young girl be doing prowling about the grounds of the Caspar Beeches at that hour of night? Who were they?
I did not say a word to anyone, but the following night—at the same hour—I again hid amongst the trees, and the same figures passed me. Then I stole out of my lair and followed them.
On quitting the premises they took the high road to Bournemouth, and finally entered a house in the Holdenhurst Road. Making a mental note of the number of the house, I retraced my steps homeward, and early the next morning I sent the following telegram to Vane, who often accompanies me on my expeditions, and to whose quick wits I owe much:
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br /> “Have an important case on hand. Meet me this evening entrance to Bournemouth pier 7 p.m.”
After dispatching this telegram I returned to the Beeches, and asked Sir Eldred to show me the rooms in which the three deaths had taken place. I then examined these rooms most minutely, but I could discover nothing in them that could in any way help me to form a theory or even get a suggestion.
“When were the deaths first discovered?” I asked.
“Not until the morning,” Sir Eldred replied, “when the servants, getting no reply to their knocks, became alarmed, and eventually the doors were forced open.”
“And in each case death had taken place in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have the same doctor to all three of your relatives after their deaths had been discovered?” I asked Sir Eldred.
“Yes,” he said. “Dr. Bowles. He has attended us for years.”
“What age is he?” I inquired.
Sir Eldred thought a moment. “About sixty-four or five,” he replied. “He attended my father long before he was married.”
“Then he would be a little old-fashioned,” I said. “He might not, for instance, have much knowledge of the newest poisons. New poisons, you know, both in the form of liquid and gases, are constantly being discovered. Many are imported from Germany and the East. Might I see Dr. Bowles?”
“Certainly,” Sir Eldred replied; “but I fear he cannot help you much, as all he knew he made public at the inquests.”
Sir Eldred was right practically. In my interview with Dr. Bowles, I found that he could tell me little beyond what I already knew. “Can you,” I asked him, “describe the appearance of the bodies and the effect on them of the gas which you say, in all probability, caused the asphyxiation? Was there anything specially remarkable in the facial contractions or colour of the skin?”
“Yes,” he said, “there was an infinite horror, such horror as I have never seen in human faces before,” and he shuddered as he spoke. Then he gave me a minute description of the bodies, which I took down in my notebook and posted to a specialist in Oriental poisons whom I knew in London.
“Was there nothing else in the three cases that struck you as unusual?” I asked Dr. Bowles. “No peculiarity in common?”
He thought for a moment, and then said, “Nothing beyond the fact that all three died precisely at the same time—ten minutes past two in the morning.”
“The time when human vitality is at the lowest, and superphysical phenomena the most common. Were the victims in a normal state of health? Was there any family or hereditary disease?”
“Yes, valvular weakness of the heart.”
“Which would render them more susceptible to the influence of poison?”
“Poison and shock. The inhalation of certain poisons has a particularly deadly effect on people suffering from cardiac defection.”
“Could the poison have been self-inflicted? Are people suffering with such a disease prone to suicide?”
“Only, as a rule, when the disease is in a very advanced state—you then get delirium, hallucinations, and morbid impulses.”
“And none of these symptoms were noticeable in the deceased?”
“Not in a sufficiently marked degree to warrant the suggestion of suicide.”
“Have you no theory?”
The doctor shook his head. “None whatever,” he said; “and yet I’m sorry to say I can’t help feeling there is something very sinister about it all—something that bodes ill for Sir Eldred.”
Much disappointed, I returned to the Caspar Beeches, and was making another inspection of the room in which one of the tragedies had occurred when, chancing to glance at the mirror over the mantelshelf, I caught the reflection of a pair of dark eyes fixed inquiringly at me. I looked round, and a figure passed along the passage. It was Mrs. Parry. She had evidently been peeping at me through the slightly open door, which I could have sworn I had closed. This made me careful. If I meant to unravel this mystery, I must on no account be seen doing anything that might arouse suspicion as to my real identity. Hence I determined to confine myself more to the study in future, and the rest of the morning I spent taking down in shorthand letters which Sir Eldred dictated. Walls have ears, and the sound of Sir Eldred dictating to me, I argued, might prove convincing.
A week passed and I discovered nothing. There was nothing in the demeanour of any of the servants to give me the slightest reason for suspecting them; if any of them were “in the know” they kept their secret absolutely to themselves. At night, as soon as I deemed it safe, I slipped on a pair of rubber shoes and crept about the house and grounds, but with no result. On the morning of the eighth day I received two letters—one from Vane, who had taken furnished apartments next door to the house I had noted in the Holdenhurst Road, and the other from Craddock, the poison specialist.
“I have at last found out something about those two people,” Vane wrote. “They call themselves Effie and George Tyson. Tyson is an assumed name; the girl is the daughter of Parry, Sir Eldred’s butler, and the man is Henry Mansfield, nephew of Sir Thomas.”
“Great heavens!” I could not help exclaiming. “This is news indeed. Sir Eldred assured me that he had no very near relatives.”
“Their bedroom is only separated from mine,” the letter went on, “by a very thin wall, and when I had removed a brick I could catch every word they said. There’s some mystery, and I’m going to try and solve it for you. Watch at the Beeches. I believe there is something extra in the wind. Effie has been there already this morning, and she and George are both going there again late this evening.”
The other letter, from Craddock, was as follows:
“There’s only one gas that produces all the effects you describe,” he said, “and that has certainly been hitherto unknown in England; indeed, the knowledge of it has been strictly confined to one region—a district in the south-east of Borneo. The natives there worship a great spirit, which they name the Arlakoo or Hell-faced one, and they never invoke it save when they desire the death of a criminal, or some very aged, useless member of the tribe. They then prepare a mixture of herbs and berries, which they first of all dry, and, at the psychical hour of two in the morning, put in an iron pot and take into the presence of their intended victim. Then, having set fire to the preparation, which, though rather difficult to ignite, burns slowly and surely when once aflame, they close all the openings of the hut or room and beat a precipitate retreat. A few minutes later the spirit they have invoked appears, and, simultaneous with its materialisation, the mixture burns a bright green and emits a peculiarly offensive gas. The result is invariably death: the shock produced by the harrowing appearance of the apparition, coupled with the poisonous nature of the fumes, is more than the human mechanism can stand. Of course all this would be mere moonshine to anyone who is uninitiated in Eastern ways and doesn’t believe in ghosts. The Bournemouth doctors would pooh-pooh it altogether. There is no other gas that I know of that produces the effects you have described. If there is another case, let me know, as I should much like to see the victim.”
A ghost! A ghost employed for the purpose of murdering someone! Even to me, confirmed believer in the Unknown as I am, the idea seemed wildly improbable and fantastic. And yet, what else could have produced that look of horror in the faces? What else could have killed them?
That evening, Sir Eldred and I sat in the smoke-room after dinner and chatted away as usual. We had our coffee brought to us at nine o’clock, and at ten-thirty we retired to bed. Sir Eldred had appeared fidgety and nervous all the evening, and, as we were ascending the stairs, he asked me if I would mind sitting up with him.
“I feel I shan’t sleep to-night,” he said, “as I’ve got one of my restless moods on. If it won’t be tiring you too much, will you come and sit with me?”
I said I would with pleasure, but I did not join him at once, as I wanted the servants to think we had gone to our respective rooms and to bed as usual. I also wanted whatever there might be in the wind to mature.
On entering my room, I opened the window with as little noise as possible, and was on the verge of lowering myself into the garden when I espied someone among the trees. I was going to draw back, when the figure signalled, and I at once knew it was Vane.
Another minute and I had found him. “He’s here,” he whispered, “be on the qui vive, and if you want help call. See, I’m armed.” And he pointed significantly to his breast pocket. He was going to say something else when we heard steps—soft, surreptitious steps that hardly sounded human—coming in our direction. I immediately withdrew to the house and hastened to Sir Eldred. At my suggestion we both sat by the window, which I noticed was shut—Sir Eldred, I knew, was very susceptible to the cold—and I arranged the curtains so that we could not be seen from the outside. Sir Eldred occupied a sofa and I an easy chair. For some time we talked in low voices, and then Sir Eldred grew more and more drowsy till he finally fell asleep.
It was one of the most exquisite nights I had ever seen—the moon, so full and silvery, and everywhere so calm, so gentle, and so still. Not a breath of air, not a leaf stirring, not a sound to be heard; nothing save the occasional burr of a great black bat as it hurled itself past the window and went wheeling and skimming in and out the tall, slender pines. I sat still, my eyes wandering alternately from the window to Sir Eldred. Whence would come the danger my instinct told me threatened him? How calmly he slept! How marked and handsome were his boyish features!
Suddenly from afar off a distant church clock began to strike two, each chime falling with an extraordinary distinctness on the preternatural hush.
The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack Page 63
