Chapter VI: Part TWO (5)

Mr. Cheltenham began to mumble rapidly through the first paragraph--“An agreement between Charles Cheltenham, hereinafter referred to as the Publisher, and F. Gonesara, hereinafter--Gonesara?” he repeated puzzled, and then looked up with a smile. “Why I should have made such a mistake with the name I cannot”--and then he paused, for Mr. Kato was not looking his best. His eyes were staring and his hands were working, and he was muttering to himself in a foreign tongue. “Please excuse,” he murmured, “and read remainder of contractual document.” Mr. Cheltenham did so perfunctorily and hurriedly, for he had the impression Mr. Kato was not listening, and was anxious to be gone. When he had finished the latter took it up and almost ran from the room. As he got up the publisher saw, or seemed to see, that shadow rise with him and dart away behind him.

The agreement came back the next day, laconically labelled “O.K. J. Kato.”

Then did Mr. Cheltenham get exceedingly busy. He decided it should be a beautiful little book bound in batik, price 7s. 6d.

He had some of the poems typed out and sent to certain influential literary critics of his acquaintance for their opinion, and there were many other details to attend to. He had a highly-trained mind, and by that evening everything concerning the production of the book was settled.

He worked late, till long after his small staff had gone home.

Shortly before leaving he had occasion to go down to the ground floor for the estimate book which his manager guarded. On returning to his room it seemed to him that a small figure was leaning over his desk, but a second later it was gone.

Hallucinations had not been included in the content of Mr. Cheltenham’s experience up till then, and he walked home to his flat in Westminster in rather a thoughtful mood. “Possibly,” he said to himself, “I have been overworking.”

Several days passed in an eminently satisfactory manner. Mr. Kato signed his agreement without demur. The influential literary critics were one and all most enthusiastic, and eager to know all there was to be known about the author. That suggested a problem to Mr. Cheltenham. Should he treat Mr. Kato as a mysterious and enigmatic figure, and rouse interest in him in that way, or should he do the usual thing and supply full details.

He decided first of all to see what facts concerning his career Mr. Kato could supply. He wrote him the usual letter strongly urging him to overcome that loathing for publicity which he probably cherished.

He received a reply by return of post:

“Dear Charles Cheltenham,

“Please excuse. I am, as you would say, middle classes Jap Gentleman,
formally in Rice Affair. Therefore complete void of interesting
publicity dope.
“J. Kato.”

There were some Japanese characters under the signature. When he had read this missive and decided to treat Mr. Kato as a mystery, Mr. Cheltenham ruminated, and not for the first time, on the incredible workings of the creative imagination. How was it possible for a person who could write “Please excuse”--“Formally in Rice Affair”--to be the author of the many masterpieces in _And he shall sing as best he can_? He gave it up.

He wondered what might be the meaning of the delightfully decorative postscript.

When he went to lunch at his Club, he took the letter with him--Sanders of the Far Eastern section of the British Museum was usually to be found there. He was in on this occasion and talking very loudly, wittily, and provocatively in the smoking-room.

He glanced casually at the letter which the publisher held out to him. Then it seemed to hold his attention. “A morbid prophet, your friend,” he said, “but I have always understood that even the shortest experience of publishers sharply stimulates a suicidal neurosis.”

“Publishers, like saxophones and beards,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “should be exempted by a truce of God from being made subjects of the cheap jokes of inferior humorists for Eternity. And now tell me what those Jap words mean.”

“Well,” said Sanders, “they follow on the signature, so the whole thing reads ‘J. Kato who will die on Feb. 13th!’”

Mr. Cheltenham was taken sharply aback.

“Is that what it says?” he replied sharply. “What’s the fool mean?”

As he walked back to his office he felt for the first time a slight diminution of his enthusiasm for the book, a vague premonition of coming fear, such as a swimmer far out in a calm and golden sea might know when he felt the first pull of a strong and hostile current.

His experiences during the next fortnight were not calculated to reassure him. During that period he found it necessary to stay late at the office several times, and he felt a growing dislike to doing so. He was tempted to keep his manager back on some excuse, but he was a considerate employer who realised what staying late means for the inhabitants of the outer suburbs. The reason for this lively distaste was something which after dark kept visiting the corners of his eyes. He could never see it clearly; it was always on the margin of vision, but it was uncomfortably suggestive of a small, dark man.

He found himself looking up quickly to try to catch it when he should have been concentrating on agreements and estimates, but it was always just too quick for him. He stood it as long as he could, and then went to see a famous nerve specialist who had written a treatise on Abnormal Psychology which Mr. Cheltenham had published.

The latter described his solitary symptom and was subjected to a rigorous examination. “Well,” said the specialist, when he had finished, “all I can say for a confirmed celibate and ‘sedentary brain worker’ you are disgustingly fit physically, and, I should judge, mentally. If you see a small dark man out of the corner of your eye you can take it from me he’s there. But it is a curious story. Tell me frankly, do you know any possible explanation?”

The publisher received the verdict with mixed feelings, and he paused before replying. To say that the appearance of this phenomenon coincided with his acceptance of a book of poems seemed merely to darken counsel, so he answered--not quite frankly--that he had no such explanation to offer.

“Then,” said the doctor, “let me know how things turn out, for honestly I’m interested and curious--and don’t stay late at the office.” Still a victim of mixed feelings, Mr. Cheltenham found his zeal for Mr. Kato and his work steadily diminishing. A genuine lover of good books and a sincere and single-minded person, he hated to feel this irrational repulsion for what was after all indisputably a work of genius, and, from a publisher’s point of view, the book of a lifetime.

The best thing to do was to hurry the book out. It was occupying too much of his time and his thoughts. That reminded him the proofs were late. He rang up the printer, whose representative came round to see him. “Proofs to-morrow, for certain, sir. You’d have had them before, but--well, there’s been a sort of a little trouble,” and he gave Mr. Cheltenham a funny, deprecating, dubious glance.

“What sort of trouble--machine trouble?” asked the publisher.

“It sounds a bit of a yarn,” replied the printer, “and it’s only what I’ve been told, but the men in the setting room, who’ve been working overtime, say they keep seeing a little dark chap--well, they don’t exactly see him, but they know he’s there--it fusses them.”

“Do you mean an actual person?” asked Mr. Cheltenham perfunctorily.

“Well,” replied the printer, “the men don’t seem to think so, it sounds ridiculous and is probably ‘all my eye’--I only mention it to account for the delay. They get gassing and fussing, and won’t get on with the job. However, as I say, to-morrow for certain.”

After his departure Mr. Cheltenham sat staring at the wall and drumming on his table for a while. Then he rang for his typist and dictated a letter to Mr. Kato, informing him that the proofs of his book would be ready for him if he would call in the next day. He, Mr. Cheltenham, would then explain to him, Mr. Kato, what it was necessary for him to do regarding them. Then, in accordance with doctor’s orders, he went home early.

Mr. Kato arrived punctually at 3.30, and the publisher was immediately impressed by his appearance. He looked shrunken and wasted. His face was drawn and hollowed, and his eyes were those of one from whom sleep has gone, and to whom fear has come.

Mr. Cheltenham began apologising for the leisurely behaviour of the proofs, but Mr. Kato obviously took little interest on what he was saying. “The publication date will be February 13th”--as he said this, Mr. Cheltenham paused. Till he made the remark he had not considered the date of publication definitely. Why then had he mentioned February 13th so decisively? The date seemed vaguely familiar, as if he had heard it recently in some other connection.

“Yes,” said Mr. Kato listlessly.

“You don’t look very fit, if I may say so,” said Mr. Cheltenham. “I hope you’re not worrying about the book. I can assure you there’s not the slightest need to. Everything is progressing quite satisfactorily, and I feel certain that you will have an amazingly favourable Press.”

“I do not worry about it,” said Mr. Kato--and then paused, his haggard eyes fixed on Mr. Cheltenham’s face. (“As if,” thought the latter, “he wants sympathy pretty badly, and I’m the first person who has shown him any.”)

Suddenly Mr. Kato’s expression changed, he looked sharply behind him, and a hunted look overspread his face. “Please excuse,” he muttered, “my nerves are not so good, I think,” and he got heavily up and went out.

“Unless he does something about it,” thought the publisher, “this will be the last as well as the first book he has his name to. Funny thing! If I’d written it, I should be thrilling with excitement to see it published, but he seems bored to death with it. He is the easiest author I’ve ever had to deal with. Poets are usually the devil--fussing about perfectly fatuous little details and trying to teach me my business. But he’s a model.”

The printer was as good as his word, and the proofs arrived the next morning and were immediately sent off to the author for correction, and they arrived back the following afternoon. “Pretty quick work, that,” thought Mr. Cheltenham in astonishment. Having finished his other work, he took up the proofs and began to look through them. And then he got one of the greatest surprises of his life. The printers had warned him that, being a rush job, the proofs would probably be full of mistakes. There was one Mr. Cheltenham noticed in the title of the very first poem, “Cherry” being spelt with one “r,” but Mr. Kato had not altered it. The publisher turned over the galley slips. There was not one single correction from beginning to end, yet a quick scrutiny showed him there were many and some ludicrous errors. He put down the proofs and sat back in his chair. He knew he was in the presence of a mystery, and many thoughts passed through his mind. Gradually the several, single, isolated puzzles began to knit themselves into coherency. “Curse the fellow, whoever he is,” he said to himself, “this means another late night.” As he took up his pen and began to make the first correction that strange drowsiness he knew so well seized him once more....

When he awoke the clock was just striking eight. “Good Lord,” he thought, “I’ve been to sleep for two hours and a half and not one stroke of work have I done at these cursed----” and he leapt to his feet, for there on the first page was an added “r” in the margin opposite the title of the first poem, and in the poem itself an epithet had been struck out and another substituted in a delicate, exotic handwriting, which was certainly not his own. He turned the pages rapidly, and on nearly every one was some alteration or revision, which Mr. Cheltenham saw at a glance was invariably completely right. He turned back to the title page, and there was Mr. Kato’s name neatly crossed out and “F. Gonesara” substituted. Mr. Cheltenham was frightened, and he knew it. He reached for his hat and coat and ran from the room and down the stairs; just as he reached the ground floor he saw out of the corner of his eye a small, dark figure on the landing above.

Mr. Cheltenham had a will of his own when he chose to utilise it, and for the next few weeks he resolutely refused to allow his mind to wander along forbidden and dangerous paths, even when there was that curious incident at the binder’s. He never stayed late and kept himself busy. Contrary to his custom he took several manuscripts home and read them in bed till his eyes closed. Eventually his plans and preparations for the publication of _And he shall sing_ were completed, advertising space was booked, review copies sent out, the trade supplied, and there was nothing to do but wait for February 13th, the date of publication. On February 12th he spent a very quiet day. Business was good. The latest masterpiece of his best-seller, Miss Vera de Vere, _Passionate Desire_, was selling passionately. He had no worries, he dined lightly and drank sparingly. It was, therefore, all the more unexplicable that he should have been afflicted with the most dreadful nightmare of his life.

At first he seemed to be standing against the wall of a room, a very silent and dark room, incapable of moving hand and foot, gripped and held by a malicious power which was quite determined he should do its bidding. But Mr. Cheltenham wanted to leave that room very, very badly. He longed with a desperate longing not to have to witness the horror which he knew was coming. Gradually his eye grew accustomed to the darkness, and then he could pick out the dim outline of the room, and then a shaft of moonlight came pouring in its thin radiance. He saw he was in a bedroom, looking down on a bed in which someone was lying motionless. He knew something vile was about to happen before his eyes: he strained at his invisible bonds, but inexorably they held him. By the light of the moonbeam he could see the room was carpetless, the worn polish of the floor reflected the moonlight hazily. And then Mr. Cheltenham saw that a plank was rising slowly. Once again he strained at his bonds. The plank rose steadily and stealthily, and suddenly something had moved up from under it, and had climbed out and was crouching on the floor.

Mr. Cheltenham trembled violently. That something, he knew, was or had been human. For a moment it stayed motionless, and then it began crawling stealthily towards the bed. A foul and deadly stench filled the room, and the publisher swayed reeling to his knees. He saw that that something was naked, livid, and that blood was streaming jerkily from its rotting lips. Mr. Cheltenham flung himself on the floor, and with a terrible effort turned his head away--and he found himself clawing at the carpet beside his own little iron bed, sweating and whimpering. Distressed and nauseated, he made no attempt to go to sleep again, but read _Pickwick_ for the rest of the night.

He had not been at his office long the next morning when his bell rang.

“Chief Inspector Walsh to see you, sir.”

“Show him up,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, who spent the next few moments puzzling over the possible causes of this visitation. Had the author of _Passionate Desire_ overstepped the liberal bounds allowed her? He never read her books himself, but his manager had assured him that her latest was no more stimulating than usual. A knock on the door, and in stepped a large, dominating personality, hairy and red-faced. “Good morning, sir,” said he, “I’ve come about a Mr. Kato. I want to know if you can give me any information about him.”

“I’ve just published his book this morning,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “but I’m afraid I know absolutely nothing personal about him. Why, has he got into some trouble?”

“Well,” said the Inspector, “I think you can put it that way. He was found murdered in his bed this morning.”

The publisher started to his feet.

“Murdered! By whom?”

“Well, sir, it’s a funny case, a very funny case, you might say. The instrument used was a book--his own book, I take it, and whoever did it was a strong man, for he’d brought it down on his face so that he’s--not a pretty sight, but that’s not the end of it. One of my men noticed a board in the floor was loose. It was pulled up, and underneath was a body, much decomposed, with its throat cut. He was a Jap, too. Looks like a feud of some kind. Kato killed this chap and another chap got him. I came to see you, sir, because nothing is known of this Kato, and except some letters from you we found nothing suggesting he had any friends or acquaintances in this country. The Embassy people know nothing about him.”

“As I say,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “I knew him purely in a business way, but I do think there was some mystery about him, for I had come to the conclusion that he was not the author of the book which he pretended to have written.”

“How’s that?” asked the Inspector.

“It is a collection of extremely subtle and beautiful poems,” replied the publisher, “and from my experience of Kato I am convinced he could not have written them. He was always very nervous and uneasy, by the way.”

“Don’t you be too sure he didn’t write ’em, sir,” said Mr. Walsh. “Besides your letters, the only papers we found in his rooms were poems, stacks of them. I’ve brought some of them along, and in view of what you say I’d like you to look through them and see if they shed any light on the business, and then I’m afraid I must ask you to come along and identify the body.”

“Must I really do that?” said Mr. Cheltenham.

“I’m afraid so, sir; you’re the only person who seems to know anything about him, and you’ll be wanted at the inquest.”

“Very well,” replied the publisher, “I’ll ring you up when I have looked through these papers.”

“Much obliged, sir,” said the Inspector, and left the room.

The first thing Mr. Cheltenham did was to send for his manager.

“Dixon, I have decided to withdraw _And he shall sing_.”

“But, sir----”

“I’m afraid there are no ‘but’s’ about it. I’ll explain to the Trade and the reviewers, you hustle up and get the books back; there aren’t many out yet, and reviewers don’t hurry over poetry.”

* * * * *

Some people may remember a curious little mystery about a book of poems--it had another title--which was reviewed enthusiastically in one or two papers, but apparently never published. A few copies are in existence, and sell for good sums when a collector consents to part.

Mr. Cheltenham destroyed every copy he could get hold of. Perhaps an impulsive and unnecessary performance, but he felt he could do no other. Having completed his plans for the withdrawal of the book he turned to the inspector’s bag and its contents. They were “poems,” as he had said, the feeblest, most bathetic, utterly commonplace rubbish on which Mr. Cheltenham in a long and bitter experience had ever cast his eyes. “It is the poetic fame which I desire,” these words came back to his mind as he thrust the heap back into the bag. Perhaps he understood; and “F. Gonesara”? He shrugged his shoulders and took a taxi to Mr. Kato’s flat in a typical Bloomsbury street.

The Inspector was waiting for him.

“Well?” he said.

“Mr. Walsh,” replied Mr. Cheltenham, “when you have time I have a story to tell you, one you may not believe, but I think if you _could_ believe it you would be saved a lot of useless work on this case. And now let’s get the beastly ordeal over.”

“Any time you like, sir. Come with me.” He led the publisher along a passage and opened a door, and they entered a room. Mr. Cheltenham recognised it, as he had expected, and when he saw the bed and a red-stained sheet upon it, he trembled again--and then the Inspector went forward and drew back the sheet.

THE SEVENTEENTH HOLE AT DUNCASTER

THE SEVENTEENTH HOLE AT DUNCASTER

Mr. Baxter sauntered out of his office in the Dormy House at Duncaster Golf Club, just as the sun was setting one perfect evening late in September, 192-, his meagre labours finished for the day. He gazed idly around him over one of the finest stretches of golfing country in the world. Duncaster is a remote hamlet on the Norfolk coast and, being twelve miles from a railway station, would have remained delicately secluded if some roaming enthusiast in the late 90’s had not felt his heart seized by so fair, so promising, so Royal and Ancient a prospect, and rallied his golfing acquaintance to found the Duncaster Golf Club, with a small and select membership, and small and select it had remained. Almost deserted for most of the year, it was thickly sprinkled in August, and there was always a pleasant gathering of old friends at the Spring and Autumn meetings. Mr. Baxter, the popular and efficient secretary, was a portly little person, kindly, considerate, but not very happy. He let his eye roam placidly just over the superb sand-dune country bordering the North Sea, where gleaming alley-ways of perfect turf burrowed their way through the golden ramparts above them, sweet isolated pathways ending in the World’s Finest Greens--so the members considered--where little red flags gleamed, waving gently in a dying evening breeze; then his eyes wandered inland and became for a moment sharply intent as they reached the 17th green, the new 17th placed on a plateau in the big wood, the long shadows cast by the sleepy sun peeping through the trees, playing across it.

Mr. Baxter was in a slightly depressed and introspective mood. Golf secretaries, he decided, were born and not made, and born under no felicitous star. There was he, a student and a philosopher by taste and temperament, condemned to oversee for a slender remuneration the tiny activities of a blasted Golf Club. He had drifted into this blind alley as he had always drifted; it was all due, he supposed, to the fact that one of his glands functioned inadequately. Yes, golf secretaries were only explicable on some such derogatory hypothesis. This 17th green, for example, because it was the only alteration made since the opening of the links, what a “Yes and No,” what a discordant clamour of debate, what a fuss about almost nothing! Of course it was an improvement; by hacking a fairway through the wood and making the green on that ideal little plateau a bad 270-yarder had been changed into a very fine two-shotter--the best, though not the most pleasing hole, for the dunes made the real charm of the course. And yet--the student and philosopher rebelled.

He strolled across to the Pro.’s shop, whose tenant was standing in the doorway smoking a pipe, and gazing reflectively in front of him.

“Evening, Dakers,” said Mr. Baxter, “I thought I saw someone on the 17th a little while ago. Is anyone still out?”

The Pro. took his pipe out of his mouth. His face did not command a wide range of expression, but for a moment a look of a certain sharpness and subtlety flitted across it.

“No, sir, everyone’s in. Mr. and Mrs. Stannard finished a quarter of an hour ago; they were the last.”

“That’s funny,” said Mr. Baxter, “I could have sworn I saw someone.”

The Pro. paused a moment, as if carefully choosing his reply. “I think, sir, it’s the shadows. I’ve fancied the same thing.”

“Well, what do you think of it?” asked the Secretary.

“I’m sure it’s a very fine hole, sir, but it’s too good for me. I’ve played it seven times now, and done five fives and two sixes. It’s funny, too, because it’s just my length--a drive and push iron with the ground as hard as this, yet I haven’t found the green with my second shot once. The ball seems to leave the club all right, and then--well, it’s something I’ve never known happen before.”

“I hope it’s going to be a success, for it’s been enough bother and expense,” said Mr. Baxter.

The Pro. did not answer for a moment. He put his pipe back in his mouth and looked away over to the subject of discussion. At length he asked, “Did they ever discover what the contractor’s men died of, sir?”

“Not for certain,” replied the secretary, “blood-poisoning of some kind--a very unfortunate affair.”

“The other chaps thought it had something to do with those skulls and bones they dug up. They got talking to the villagers, who put the wind up them a bit, I’m thinking.”

“How was that?” asked Mr. Baxter.

“It’s some sort of talk about the wood, it seems,” replied Dakers.

Mr. Baxter was interested. “I should like to hear more about this,” he said, “but I have no time now. I’ll see you to-morrow.”

The next day, the Saturday before the opening of the Autumn meeting, Mr. Baxter played an afternoon round with Colonel Senlis. It was for both of them their first introduction to the new 17th. The Colonel had taken up the game after he retired, and he served it with an even more fanatical devotion than he had served his King. He was a jolly old maniac with a handicap of 16 and a style of his own. Mr. Baxter might have been a very fine player; he had balance, rhythm, and a beautiful pair of hands, but his heart had never been in it, and he was content to be a perfectly reliable 2.

No incident of any moment occurred during the first 16 holes. The Colonel collected much fine sand in various portions of his attire; Mr. Baxter played sound but listless golf. When they reached the seventeenth tee the wind, which had been wandering vaguely and gustily round the compass, suddenly settled down to blow half a gale from due east, and the seventeenth became a tiger indeed. Mr. Baxter, after a couple of nice blows dead into the wind, lay some twenty yards short of the wood, which was beginning to shout wildly in the gale. The Colonel was in the rough on the right, an alliterative position he usually occupied. He played his fourth--one of the few properly struck golf shots of his existence--dead on the pin. The secretary took his number three iron, and knew from the moment the ball left the club that he didn’t want it back. It was ruled on the flag.

As the Colonel came up, a look of swelling pride on his rubicund visage, he remarked, “Did you see mine, Baxter? Never say again I can’t play a spoon shot! You hit yours, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” answered the secretary, smiling. “I’m inside you by a yard or two, I fancy.”

“I don’t,” said the Colonel. “You’ll be playing the odd, stroke gone, all right.”

They walked together along the avenue of lurching Scotch firs and larches, and climbed the bank of the plateau.

“My God!” cried the Colonel. “We’re neither of us on! Where the Hades are they?”

An exasperating search followed, which ended when the Colonel found his Dunlop No. 1 dozing behind a tree, and Mr. Baxter detected his No. 2 in a rabbit hole. The Colonel made robust use of an expletive much favoured by the gallant men he had once had the honour of commanding. Mr. Baxter quietly picked up his errant globe and walked off to the last tee.

“Damn it, Baxter!” cried the Colonel, “that hole meant to fight me, I felt it all the time.”

The secretary had played many holes with the Colonel on many different courses, but had never noticed any of them displaying any Locarno spirit towards or desire to fraternise with him, but all the same he had voiced his own thoughts. It _had_ been a ludicrous incident, but its humour did not appeal to him particularly. Both those shots should have been by the pin. Just what the Pro. had said. It was very curious. “I’m going to hate that hole,” he thought.

“There’s a damned funny mark on my ball,” grumbled the Colonel. “I suppose it hit a tree, though I could swear it didn’t. Looks more like a burn. Why, there’s the same thing on yours!”

Mr. Baxter examined them. They were funny symmetrical little marks, and they were remarkably like burns. “The wind must have caught them and blown them into the trees,” he said, unconvincingly. “It’s rather a gloomy spot in there, and it’s hard to follow the flight exactly.”

After tea the secretary went round to see Dakers.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve tried the new hole.”

“I saw you out, sir,” said the Pro., smiling. “Did you get your four?”

“I almost deserved it,” said Mr. Baxter. “My third was played like a golfer, and lined on the pin. I found it in a rabbit hole underneath the left bank.”

“That’s what I told you, sir. It’s that sort of hole. I shall be interested to see how the members like it next week. In this wind it’s certainly _some_ hole.”

“You mentioned last night something about talk in the village,” insinuated Mr. Baxter. “What kind of talk?”

“Well, sir, there’s been quite a clack, still is, for that matter; they’re a funny, old-fashioned lot, with funny ideas. Do you know, sir, they won’t go into that wood after dusk!”

“Why on earth not?”

“They don’t seem to think it’s healthy somehow; they call it ‘Blood Wood,’ some old superstition or other. I think some of them were a bit ashamed of feeling that way till the contractor’s men died; but that started them off again.”

“It’s a pretty vague sort of yarn,” said the secretary musingly. “Do they go into detail at all?”

“No, sir, it’s a village tradition of very old standing, I should say. They are scared of the wood. Old Jim the Cobbler’s father was found dead, apparently murdered, in it, and there are other tales of the old times like that.”

* * * * *

Sunday was a busy day for Mr. Baxter. The Dormy House filled up steadily, and by the evening the highly satisfactory total of forty-four, mostly hale and slightly too hearty, elderly gentlemen had assembled.

The Autumn meeting opened in a full easterly gale, and it was a battered and weary collection of competitors who arrived back at the club house.

Mr. Baxter, greeting them as they came in, found them on one subject unanimously eloquent. They one and all cherished loathing mingled with respect for the new seventeenth. The secretary examined their cards with curiosity. Only one five was recorded, the average was eight. When young Cyril Ward, the only scratch player in the club, came in, the secretary asked him how he had fared. “My ancient friend,” he replied, “I accomplished seventeen holes in seventy-two strokes; good going in this wind; my total is eighty. I give you one guess as to the other hole.”

“Oh, the seventeenth, I suppose.”

“You’ve said it. Baxter, there’s something funny about it. I hit two perfect shots and then took six more to hole out.”

“I’m sure of it,” said the Secretary, “but I’m getting most remarkably sick of hearing about it.”

After the second round of the thirty-six holes stroke competition Mr. Baxter found himself the centre of one of the fiercest indignation meetings in the history of the golf game. Everyone had something to say. Eventually he was forced to promise that, if at the end of the week they were still of the same opinion, he would have the old seventeenth restored. “But,” said he, “all this chopping and changing will cost us a lot of money.”

“More likely save us a bit,” grumbled a protestant. “I lost three new balls there to-day. Have you noticed what a stench there was coming from the back of the green?”

Cyril Ward went for a stroll with Mr. Baxter when the debate was over. “I wish the old boys weren’t so impatient,” he said. “That hole has beaten me badly twice, but I’d like to have many more shots at it. I shall protest strongly if they decide to change back. Look at it now, the green’s like a pool of blood!”

(“A sinister but apt description,” thought Mr. Baxter.)

The sun was setting in a wild and tortured sky, and its fiery dying rays certainly painted the seventeenth a sanguine hue.

“It’s funny you should say that,” he remarked. “It’s called ‘Blood Wood’ by the locals.”

“From what I heard of the expletives used by our worthy fellow foozlers, they certainly agree with them,” laughed Ward.

That night Mr. Baxter had a short but disturbing dream. He seemed to hear a deep bell tolling sullenly, and then suddenly a voice cried, “Sacred to the memory of Cyril Ward, who screamed once in Blood Wood,” and then came a discordant chorus of vile and bestial laughter, and he awoke feeling depressed and ill at ease.

“This absurd business is getting on my nerves,” he thought, “I’m even dreaming about it,” and he suddenly felt he wanted to leave Duncaster, and the sooner the better. It was too lonely and idle a life, he decided.

The next day the gale continued, bringing torrents of rain with it, and there was no competition. The course was a melancholy and deserted waste. Mr. Baxter, as he worked in his office, could hear the great breakers booming beyond the Dunes. About six the rain dwindled to a light drizzle, and Cyril Ward came in to see him, a couple of clubs under his arm. “There’s just enough light to let me defeat that blasted hole,” he said; “the swine fascinates me!”

Mr. Baxter found himself rather vehemently trying to persuade him otherwise. “I shouldn’t; it’s still raining, and it will be almost dark in the wood.”

“Oh, rot,” said Ward, and presently the Secretary saw him tee up and drive off. He watched him until he had almost reached the wood, and then someone called him to settle a point of bridge law. The windows of the smoking-room were open, and the gale suddenly increased in fury.

Mr. Baxter had just given his decision when there came a long scream of agony shaking down the wind. He rushed to the door, the other occupants of the room hustling after him.

That terrible cry had come from the wood, and they began running towards it. Suddenly just visible in the gloom, a figure came staggering out from the wood, threw up its arms, and fell. Mr. Baxter dashed towards it as he had not run for twenty years, the others after him.

Cyril Ward was lying on his back, his eyes wide, staring, and horrible--obviously dead.

Amongst those who came up was the local doctor, who knelt down and made a short examination. “Must be heart. I believe he had a weakness there, poor Cyril!” Mr. Baxter helped to carry the body back to the Dormy House; his burden was Cyril’s left leg, a disgusting dangling thing. The memory of his dream came back to him, and his nerves shook. He tried to find reassurance by telling himself that such premonitions were common enough, however inexplicable.

It was decided at an informal meeting that the links should be closed the next day out of respect for the dead, but that the foursomes should be held on the Thursday. “A very typically British compromise,” thought Mr. Baxter.

“Will an inquest be necessary?” he asked the doctor.

“I think not; it’s clearly a case of heart.”

“Did you notice his eyes?” asked the secretary.

The doctor gave him a quick glance. “I did,” he replied, “but these attacks are often very painful. But did _you_ notice that appalling stink coming from the wood?”

“Yes,” said the secretary shortly.

“Well, I should find out the cause, it can’t be healthy.”

“I will to-morrow,” said Mr. Baxter.

The next day he spent in his office, and never before had a sense of the futility of his occupation so swept over him. This shifting of pieces of india-rubber from one spot to another! Oh, that a man should have to spend his few and gloriously potential days fussing about such banality! Perhaps he was only pitying himself. He went back to his card-marking. He felt utterly weary when he went to bed, and fell immediately asleep. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” there came that terrible tolling. He _must_ wake! He must not hear what was to come. “Sacred to the memory of Sybil Grant, who screamed twice in Blood Wood,” and once again came that foul and wicked laughter.

He awoke sweating and unnerved. He got up and mixed himself the strongest whisky and soda of his temperate existence. “Sybil Grant! Sybil Grant!” Thank God, he knew no one of that name! He tried to read, till light came.

He went down to the club house after breakfast, and met the doctor. “Hullo,” said the latter, “you’re not looking very fit! What’s the matter?”

“Oh, just a rotten night,” said the secretary. “By the way, I sent the green-keeper to find out about that smell, but he couldn’t discover any cause for it; and, as a matter of fact, says he couldn’t smell anything.”

“Well, he’s a lucky man,” said the doctor. “It was the most loathsome reek I’ve encountered, and I’ve met a few!”

After the foursomes had started, everyone desperately light-hearted and pathetically determined to allow no echo of the horror of a few hours before to disturb the atmosphere of laboured cheerfulness, Mr. Baxter felt he must be alone. He wandered off to the long No Man’s Land between the dunes and the sea, a famous haunt of sea birds; the sand showed everywhere the delicate tracings of their soft little feet.

As he reached the darker strata just surrendered by the angry, fading tide, his eye was caught by a patch of scarlet moving down to the sea some distance to his left. “A girl going to bathe,” he thought casually. “She must have warm blood in her to face such a sea on such a day. I hope she knows what she’s about. It’s none too safe a spot.” Presently he saw a man run down to join her, and felt reassured and yet depressed. “To be a dingy old bachelor like myself is the one unanswerable indictment. Ten King’s Councillors could not make it seem excusable.”

Then his mind turned to the question of the new post he was determined to secure. He would go up to London as soon as the meeting was over and get an exchange if possible.

* * * * *

His work kept him busy all the afternoon, and he did not emerge from his office till dusk was falling. “Best figure in England,” he heard the Colonel declaring, as he entered the smoking-room. “I believe she’s engaged to Bob Renton.”

“Who’s that?” asked the secretary.

“The Grant girl,” said the Colonel, “Sybil Grant.”

The secretary felt a tug of horror at his heart.

“Is she coming down here?” he asked sharply.

“She _is_ here,” replied the Colonel. “If you’d been here ten minutes ago you’d have seen her.”

“Well, where is she now?” asked the secretary, seizing his arm. “Where is this girl?” he cried, his voice rising.

“Hullo, young feller, what’s all the excitement? I imagine she’s about at the seventeenth green; she’s staying with the Bartletts at the Old Cottage, and is walking back that way.”

At that moment a bell seemed to toll once shatteringly in the Secretary’s ears. He put his hands to his head, and without a word started running frantically down the seventeenth fairway. Suddenly there sprang down the wind a terrible cry of terror, followed by a desperate and prolonged scream. Mr. Baxter stopped dead and shuddered. He heard shouts behind him and the patter of others running. He tottered on. Somebody--several people--passed him; as he reeled into the wood he could see the fire-fly gleam of electric torches, and as he neared them he could see they were focussed on some object on the ground. It was white, and someone was kneeling over it. When he saw what it was he was suddenly and violently sick. It was flung down the bank, it was naked, its head was lolling hideously. It was sprawling, one knee flung high, its face--but someone covered that face with his coat and told Mr. Baxter to go for the doctor. And that terrible Death stench kept him company.

* * * * *

The inquest was fixed for the following Monday, and Mr. Baxter was told that his testimony would be required.

The little village swarmed with police and reporters. There hadn’t been a mystery of such possibilities for many moons, and the whole country was stirred. Murder so foul cried out for vengeance. But there was no arrest, “And there never will be,” thought Mr. Baxter as he took his stand in the improvised witness-box in the village school. The Coroner, a corpulent, hirsute and pompous person, soon put to him the question he had anticipated. “I understand that you started to run towards the scene of the tragedy before these screams were heard: is that so?”

“Yes,” replied the secretary.

“Why was that?”

And then Mr. Baxter uncontrollably laughed.

“I may be mistaken,” said the Coroner, “but this hardly seems a laughing matter.”

“I must beg your pardon,” said Mr. Baxter, “I laughed against my will, I laughed because I suddenly realised how absurd you would consider my explanation to be.”

“That is quite possible,” said the Coroner, “but I must ask you to let me hear it.”

“I had a premonition, a dream.”

“Of what character?”

“Well, I dreamed that Miss Grant would be killed.”

“Did you warn her?”

“I had never heard of her except in this dream. I did not know she was here till I was so informed a moment before these screams were heard.”

“A curious story,” replied the representative of Law and Order, who clearly regarded Mr. Baxter as a person of limited intelligence and dubious veracity.

“Murder by some person or persons unknown,” was the verdict, and unknown he, she or they remained.

* * * * *

The nine days ran their course, police and reporters departed, and Mr. Baxter went off to London, where he secured a job at a new course in Surrey. He was to have no successor at Duncaster. Resignations poured in, and it was decided at a final meeting of the committee that the links should be abandoned.

On arriving in London it occurred to Mr. Baxter to call upon a friend of his, a Mr. Markes. He very much wanted an expert confidant, and Mr. Markes, besides being very wealthy, was by some trick of temperament fascinated by all types of psychic phenomena, and had amassed the finest library on such matters in the world.

“Jim,” asked the Secretary, “is there any mention of Duncaster in your records?”

“When I read about your troubles there,” replied Mr. Markes, “I thought they sounded rather in the tradition, and so I looked up the history of Duncaster and was unexpectedly fortunate; for it is mentioned in a work, which, for the most part, is deservedly forgotten. _The Memoirs of Simon Tylor_, a peculiarly dull dog. I have them here,” he continued, walking over to a shelf and taking down a bulky volume.

“In the year 1839 Simon took a walking tour through Norfolk and arrived at Duncaster on September 10th. He liked the look of it, and decided to spend a couple of days there at the inn, ‘The Sleeping Sentinel.’”

“It is there still,” said Mr. Baxter.

“All this,” went on Mr. Markes, “is described at vast and damnable length, but his adventure, which occurred on the second evening of his stay, is much more crisply done. I will read it to you:

“‘I spent a pleasing and invigorating morning wandering over the wild expanse of moor and “dunes,” as they call the great sand mounds; and afterwards dined, rested and had some talk with my good host of the inn. Late in the afternoon I decided to make further exploration of the neighbourhood, and, noticing a fine wood of tall trees some distance away across the moor, I remarked to my host that I proposed to visit it. Greatly to my surprise he strongly opposed my doing so, but when I asked him for what reason, he returned me evasive replies--“No one wanders there after nightfall,” he said, “It has a bad repute.”

“‘On account of robbers?’ I asked. And though he replied with a short laugh that that was so, I did not believe it was the thought in his mind. To satisfy him, I declared I would but walk towards it, a promise I had better have kept.

“‘So I wandered out as the light was fading, and drew near to the wood. Then I put it to myself that such village gossip was in most cases but idle tradition inscribed in the long and sparsely furnished memories of country folk. And this decision prevailing, I entered the wood, following a rough pathway. And then I had reason to doubt my host’s word, for instead of it being shunned by the local folk it seemed that the wood did house quite a company. The light being low and the trees growing close, I failed clearly to distinguish my companions, but only, as it were, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed them many times. “Lovers,” thought I. After I had traversed some two hundred paces I noted some little way in front of me a low mound with a single fine tree at its back. I was just fancying that I would go so far and then return when a movement in the gloom caught my eye, and at the same instant I perceived a very vile and curious stench. Something seemed to be reclining on the mound, a beast of some sort, and slowly gaining its feet. And then I knew the beginning of fear. This thing seemed to rise and rise till it towered above the tree, and then it couched its head as for a spring. I have no wish to see its like again. Seized with a great loathing and horror, I ran back along the path, and as I ran it seemed that many were running beside me and closing in upon me. I felt the Thing was close beside me, but I dared not turn to look. Just as my breath was leaving me I found myself at the edge of the wood, and then something seemed to touch me, and I screamed and swooned.

“‘When I regained my senses I found I was prone on the ground and my host and some others were standing round me conversing in low tones. They helped me back to the Inn, no one saying a word. I left early the next morning, that stench still lingering in my nostrils and the host seeming to avoid talk with me. All this is the truth as I have set it down.’

“And that’s what happened to Simon,” said Markes.

“A curious story,” said Mr. Baxter.

“Far more curious than uncommon. I could find you a dozen almost identical experiences. Almost certainly the work of our friends the Druids, whoever they were! A mound and an oak--such places are death traps. Not all the time; the peril is periodic, why, we don’t know. But our friend Simon was very lucky to be able to leave ‘early next morning,’ though he didn’t escape altogether. The rest of his book reads like a coda to this adventure. Bad dreams, depression and always that smell in his nose. He died within a year or two. And now tell me exactly what happened at Duncaster, for I gather it is still a disturbed area.”

So Mr. Baxter told him the curious events connected with the new seventeenth.

A PEG ON WHICH TO HANG----

A PEG ON WHICH TO HANG----

Before telling Mr. James Partridge’s displeasing experience at the Beach Hotel, Littleford, it may be as well to establish that gentleman’s credentials by briefly describing him. He is a writer by habit and inclination, though being the fruit of rich but honest parents, he is not in the paralysing position of being compelled to rely on his pen, ink and paper for his means of subsistence. He has made a nice little reputation as an essayist of the lightest sort. He has examined the surface of things, of persons and of life in general with a tolerant, mildly cynical assiduity. Below that surface he very sensibly refrains from looking. It is not in his character. He takes some homely and familiar topic--let us say, a Number 11e Omnibus--as his text, and manages to coax from a ruminating survey of its cargo and its route two thousand bland and gently ironic words of amusement without pedantry, for which he receives 25 guineas from a high-brow weekly.

Though on the whole a modest man, he believes in his heart of hearts that he does this sort of thing better than “Y.Y.”--an opinion not widely shared, and least of all by Mr. Robert Lynd.

Being a journalist, you will naturally suspect that he invented this narrative and foisted it on his credulous acquaintance. If so, you will do him a serious injustice, for he has no gift for fiction and, indeed, this is not the type of narrative he would care to pursue if he had. You may take it for granted then that his version of what happened on the night of March 23rd, 1924, at the Royal Hotel, Littleford, is plain, untouched-up fact.

If you would like to know some details of his appearance, he is thin, wiry, but lacking muscle, a mild edition of Sherlock Holmes, facially--a bit dusty and musty and bachelory, a bit donnish and British and formidable--a man’s man, but not every man’s man. People who like him like him very much--that’s all he cares about.

He found himself at the Royal Hotel, Littleford, on March 23rd, 1924, on this account. He has three firm and excellent friends about his own age--which is 47--like himself all keen golfers. Their handicaps range between nine and fourteen--almost certainly the most satisfactory range of all; for those embraced within it are not unduly cast down by the undesired uprising of playful divots, yet they can derive exquisite satisfaction from the production of a Stout Blow, and are sufficiently competent to perpetrate several in the course of a round--humble folk who realise that, if they will never be mistaken for Bobby Jones, it is hardly possible that they will be confused with Harry Tate. Mr. George Dunbar, K.C., masterful, hirsute, with a hypnotic power over juries, Mr. William Cranmer, who knows more about old books than most people, Mr. Alexander Frith, Professor of Moral Philosophy at an Ancient Foundation and a sceptic of sceptics, made up the four who journeyed down to Littleford on this occasion.

It had been their cherished custom for many years to leave their faithful readers, their burglarious clientèle, their candidates for firsts in Greats, their cultured bibliophiles to their own disconsolate devices at seasons of the year convenient to them all, and to forgather at certain famous golf courses; and they had chosen that admirable links, Littleford, for their spring pilgrimage in 1924. They intended to stay a week, and had secured their rooms prudently in advance.

They travelled down together in Mr. Partridge’s car, and on entering the Royal Hotel were met by a flaccid specimen of the genus Small Hotel-keeper, who was chafing his palms in a deprecating manner.

Mr. Partridge addressed him sternly. “You have four rooms engaged for us in my name, which is Partridge.”

“I regret to say, sir, only three,” replied the flaccid specimen, “but I have secured an excellent room at a boarding-establishment close at hand,” and he frotted his clammy hands again.

If Mr. Partridge had a failing it was a tendency to be choleric at times--and this was one of them. As the organiser of the party it would be his painful duty to sample the boarding-establishment, and, cherishing a peculiar loathing for this type of accommodation, he wasn’t having any.

“Look here,” he said with truculence, “I have your letter stating you had reserved _four_ rooms, and I must ask you to keep to your word.”

Something in Mr. Partridge’s demeanour daunted the specimen, and he shuffled off down the passage to his office.