Chapter VII: Part TWO (6)

Mr. Cranmer, who is incorrigibly a man of peace, began suggesting he was rather partial to boarding-houses and wouldn’t mind a bit, but Mr. Partridge waved him aside and strode menacingly down the passage after the hotel-keeper, who went through the outer office into a small room at the back, which Mr. Partridge saw was already occupied by a female of the Buxom Brighton Barmaid type, with whom the landlord began a colloquy, in a whisper sufficiently audible to allow Mr. Partridge to catch a sentence here and there.

“Well, chance it,” murmured the female.

“But supposing----” the flaccid one--obviously a hen-pecked one--started feebly to object.

“_His_ look-out,” replied the female. “Anyway, you’ve took a room for him at Mrs. Brown’s, it’s his look-out.”

“I don’t like it,” said the flaccid one, “honest I don’t,” and then he shuffled out.

“I find,” he said shiftily, “that I _can_ manage the fourth room, but I assure you the boarding-establishment is a clean, comfortable house.”

“No thanks,” said Mr. Partridge. “Show us the four rooms, please.”

Leading the way, the specimen unlocked in turn three rooms on the second floor, in which the others were deposited, and then he took Mr. Partridge up to the third and opened a door at the end of a passage.

“This will be yours, sir,” he said, his eyes on his fingers, and a moment later Mr. Partridge was alone, and receiving a sharp, vivid yet vague impression of malaise. He had had such impressions just once or twice before--immediate, apparently causeless aversions for certain persons, places, things, rooms--yes, rooms. He experienced again this irritating, irrational distaste when that little worm closed the door of Number 39. It wasn’t violently obtrusive, but it was certainly there.

He looked round the room. It was furnished with the conventional Royal Hotel properties--a chest of drawers with a couple of knobs missing, a wardrobe slightly down at one heel, one picture at a rakish angle, depicting Mr. Marcus Stone’s reactions to Sacred and Profane Love, a row of pegs with one missing. Mr. Partridge, being an essayist of the lightest sort, was observant of detail, and he noted that a new panel had been inserted beneath one of them. Then there was a loutish wash-stand with a mirror, into which he gazed. Yes, certainly he wanted a holiday--one could almost tell a man’s age from his eyebrows, his were growing wispy and errant--and then he stepped back abruptly, for it seemed to him for a moment that the image he saw reflected had changed--as if someone had peeped over his shoulder and--absurd of course! It must be because the room was so dark. He began fussing with the blind, which refused to go right up. Well, curse the thing! He started and looked back quickly over his shoulder--it was only the Boots with his bag. “This is a damnably dark room, Boots,” he said testily. “See if you can get the blind up a little.”

“Always seems a bit dim,” said the Boots, putting down the bag and jerking at the blind cord. “There, sir, that’s a little better.”

Mr. Partridge changed quickly into his golf attire and went down to lunch. Afterwards they took sides in the traditional four-ball match which inaugurated these reunions. The play was not of a very par standard, and the balls were slyly provocative in concealing themselves, so that it was growing dusk as they entered the little garden of the Hotel. As they came through the gate Willie Cranmer said to Mr. Partridge, “Got a decent room, Jim?”

“No,” said the latter. “Dark and poky, but it will do all right. It’s that one, I think, next to the chimney, with the small window.”

“Well,” said Willie, “there’s someone in there, I saw him look out for a moment.”

Mr. Partridge stared up for a moment. “Probably the Boots,” he said, a little shortly.

When he went up to dress for dinner, he found his distaste for Number 39 decidedly intensified. He went to the window and looked out. Yes, it _was_ the one next to the chimney. He could find no trace of any activity by the Boots.

In fact, there was too little activity on the part of everybody in this rotten place--no hot water, for example. He’d let his ancient friend Armitage know what he thought of R.A.C. recommended Hotels! He rang the bell viciously, which presently resulted in a timid knock--a maid with a japanned tin can--who came in with the expression of a heifer facing the pole-axe, hurried across the room, rattled down the can in the basin, and ran out again.

“Do I look as great a menace to rustic virtue as all that?” wondered Mr. Partridge. “I should like to think so, but I don’t.” And he set himself to a smart piece of changing.

During dinner the conversation took the natural form of a riot of golf-shop--the usual immortality for green-finders, the usual Nirvana for shanks, tops and flubs, but afterwards in the lounge they turned to less momentous topics. For example, Mr. Partridge asked Willie Cranmer if he had secured any notable prizes in the book-market lately.

“Nothing of any great value,” he replied, “but one thing which interests me very much. It’s a privately printed--very badly printed--account of some troublesome events in an Essex Manor, dated 1754. Its abominable title page is inscribed as follows:

THE HAUNTINGE OF MY HOUSE
BY
CHAS. SWINTON
A GENTLEMAN OF ESSEX.

“He seems to have inherited the place in 1750, but his joy at such good fortune speedily turned to foreboding and exasperation. He goes into great detail, and certainly Swinton Manor seems to have housed a disturbing company. He must have had his fair share of guts and pertinacity to have stuck it as long as he did. It’s the most curious chronicle of its kind I ever read. Eventually he had the house pulled down, having endured enough.”

“It’s a very curious subject, this business of hauntings,” said Mr. Frith judicially. “For one thing it is a nice instance of the scepticism of men, when they want to be sceptical--how often they prefer the greatest credulity! Looked at dispassionately, the evidence for such phenomena is far more catholic and irrefutable than is the evidence for ninety-nine things out of a hundred which are accepted without question. Read that encyclopædic catalogue of Richet, _Thirty Years of Psychical Research_, if you want to know how full and detailed that evidence is. Yet the average man mocks at the suggestion that even one out of this multiplicity is anything but an invention or an hallucination.”

“I think you have suggested the real reason,” said George Dunbar. “They pretend to refuse to believe because they’d vastly prefer to disbelieve, and comparatively very few have ever been compelled by personal experience to face such facts. Even then, when the intimidating vision is fading, they are satisfied to mutter something about ‘Subjective and Objective’--leave it at that and change the subject.”

“If there is one certain thing,” said Mr. Partridge, “it is that they can be objective. The identical experience has been shared a thousand times, the same apparition has been viewed by dozens of different people at the same and different times. The evidence for that is beyond argument.”

“I believe in such phenomena in a certain sense,” said Willie Cranmer, “but I am not prepared to allow them a supernatural--in the more esoteric sense of the word--existence. By some unexplained means, certain places, certain things, become impregnated, kinetic, sensitised. How or why one room, one chair, even one W.C., allows itself to be so impregnated is an utterly inexplicable mystery. One battlefield is ‘haunted’; a thousand are as placid as Port Meadow. Usually, I grant you, there is evidence that a potent emanation of some passion has at some time been released and operative in such disturbed areas, though not, I believe, by any means in every case. But the most singular thing to my mind about the supernatural is its caprice, its fortuitousness, its rarity--and indeed its essential lack of purpose. The eloquent and, considering its date, ingenious explanation of Lytton covers but a small percentage of the data and, even if one accepts it in its entirety, a vast legion of instances of hauntings and haunted would be left still as fortuitous, as unrelated, and as inexplicable.”

“I knew a house,” said George Dunbar, “in which I would not spend a week alone for one thousand guineas. Not merely is it impregnated, it is dripping with horror and beastliness. It is dark and brooding and has--it seems to me--an evil life of its own. Everyone, I know, who has entered it has taken an immediate and increasing loathing for it. It has a shocking record of suicides--eight in thirty years, but I agree with Willie that I never got the impression that there was any mind or will animating those coughs one heard, the steps behind one, the dim, drawn faces one thought one saw at windows; and all the symposium of dread one experienced there. I mean that one was left convinced that there was no consciousness working in our space and time--these things seemed to be passing in and out of another dimension--that is vague, but just the impression I got. All these phenomena seemed quite purposeless, and therefore should not have been, as they were, frightening--puppets without strings--like the mechanical recording of a gramophone.”

“I think that’s a better simile than mine,” said Cranmer. “Once the record is made by the living it goes on long after the recorder is dead, repeating and repeating until it wears out, and there is evidence that the influence does wear out in certain senses. All such comparisons between affairs on one plane and on another are fallacious, but they help to clear the air of debate.”

“But someone has to put the record on,” objected Mr. Partridge.

“I suggest it is never taken off,” replied Cranmer.

“What a typical ghost discussion it has been,” thought Mr. Partridge, “hopelessly inconclusive, tentative, vaguely disturbing, subjective, guess-work.”

At a quarter to twelve they decided to go to bed. Mr. Partridge and Willie Cranmer went out for a breath of air.

“Did you find you had identified your room all right?” the latter asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Partridge, wondering slightly irritably why the subject seemed to have this mild fascination for his old friend.

The night was fine, with a three-quarter moon. Willie Cranmer stared up at the hard shadows round the chimney for a moment or two, and then said, “Well, let’s go to bed. You’re sure you’re quite comfortable?”

“Oh, quite!” said Mr. Partridge in a clipped, slightly bothered tone, and they went in.

The corner of the corridor in which Number 39 was situated was so dark that Mr. Partridge had to light a match before he could find the keyhole. As he was fumbling with the key he checked himself sharply and listened intently. It seemed to him that a sound, difficult to define, had come from within. He lit another match to make sure this was Number 39. Yes, it was. That little sound must have come from the next room. He went in and turned on the light, which consisted of one blinking and superannuated bulb.

“This is a rotten pub,” he thought. “A moribund bulb, blinds not drawn, bed not pulled down! I’ll tell that worm what I think of his establishment in the morning!”

He went to hang up his coat on one of those pegs when he suddenly found himself staring uncertainly at them. His subconscious mind had uttered a protest. Then he remembered. “That’s rather funny,” he thought. “I could have sworn that one of those pegs was missing, and that one of those panels had been renewed.” Yet they were all there now, and the panels were identical. He peered at them closely; it was a quite unimportant and yet irritating little puzzle.

The room was stuffy. He went to the window and opened it. He must be getting old and unobservant. He’d never noticed that tree before--what was it?--a yew, and a very fine one. How could he have failed to see it? In how unreal, unearthly a way the moon painted the world sometimes! This view from the window, for example--how uncertain in a sense, unfamiliar, as if it were a reflection from a mind not his own; certain pictures of Cézanne gave one that tingling, groping “let me get back to reality” feeling. Reality! What was it? And what was that? That shifty little noise. Had he heard it or just imagined it? He listened intently. No, there was nothing. An idea for an article! He began to undress, whistling a vague little tune, and pretending to concentrate on pleasant, commonplace things. He pretended to do so because he refused to confess that he had a rather poisonous sensation of being watched and waited for. When he was examining those pegs he had had to exercise considerable self-control so as not to turn round quickly to see who was looking at them too, just over his shoulder. But he _had_ looked round sharply when he thought he’d heard that curious little noise. Well, he shouldn’t have done. That way panic lay. Panic! What on earth was there to panic about?

Instead of sinking at once into that ten-fathom-deep slumber to which a flawless conscience and eighteen strenuous holes entitled him, he passed into that exasperating border state where detached and leering images come flocking into one’s head, endlessly and inanely telescoping one another, composing indefinable patterns, humiliating puerilities, a state where there is neither the controlled rationality of full consciousness nor the deliciously serio-comic pantomime of the land of dreams. “This region,” he decided, “is the nearest approach to an understanding of that buzzing, wavering kaleidoscope called lunacy, which the sane person ever reaches. The mind can neither control, nor quite lose control of, these regurgitations of the memory--for that is what they must be.” Yet some of these images did not seem to be derived from the well-stored bins of his remembered experience. For example, he never recalled having entered long rows of figures--wild, whirling figures in a heavy ruled ledger. And that girl’s face which kept getting between his eyes and the ruled lines. He did not remember having seen anyone like her before. And there she was, sitting near him in a little enclosed garden, and then back came those figures--into what a raving rigmarole was he plunged! He woke up fully and sharply for a moment, and then--his will surrendering--fell into a deep sleep. Gradually the competing images hardened, and as the confused turmoil of a swiftly rising sea settles into the orderly march of mighty combers, they took unto themselves a sequence.

Rows of figures staring out from a book, and then someone standing beside him and beckoning him. And then that long room and a table at which two men were sitting with books and papers in front of them, who looked at him searchingly. It was coming! He sat down on a chair to which one of these men motioned him. Then the other one began pointing at more rows of figures on a paper on the table. It was all over! Then one of the men put down his pencil and looked at him, and that girl’s face, placid, smiling, gentle, rose and filled the room. A terrible sense of caged frustration seized him. He walked back to the door and through it, and found himself flinging clothes into a bag, and then he looked up, and there was that lovely childish face looking down so easily at him. A terrible sense of loss--and there he was walking warily and glancing back down a street beside the sea, and there he was on his hands and knees creeping across the floor of a moon-lit room. He reached the window, the moon was pacing rainbow clouds, but what was that--that shadow flung so silently and so still from the trees? He crawled back to the bed, and his head was in his hands, and they seemed to press and force out that girl’s face, radiating love and trust. He staggered up, and a moment later he felt life choking and twisting from him.

Mr. Partridge for good reasons only occasionally and reluctantly recalls his sensations at the moment when it seemed to him that at one moment he was dangling and gasping, and at the next when he was sitting up in bed watching with horror something which fluttered hideously on the wall, its tortured arms flung out as though from one crucified, its head jerking foully--something which suddenly writhed and crumpled to the floor out of the beam of the moon.

Mr. Partridge shouted and leapt from the bed, overturning as he did so the table by the side. As he reached his feet the door opened, a candle flickered, and there was the manager of the Royal Hotel, in a night-shirt, with terror in his eyes. “I know what’s the matter, sir,” he mumbled, “it’s my fault, I knew it would happen, but my wife thought----”

“Knew what would happen?” cried Mr. Partridge. “Tell me, is there anything on the floor there, is there a tree with a shadow out there? Is there? Is there?” His hands went to his throat.

“No, sir,” said the worm, “it’s all over, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have allowed it, sir. Come with me, sir.”

Mr. Partridge put on his dressing-gown, and after one quick look back followed him down to the floor below.

“This is my room, sir,” said the worm, opening a door. “You’ll sleep here, sir; I’m sorry, sir.”

“What is it? What have I seen?” cried Mr. Partridge, his nerves still dancing, but settling down.

“I don’t really know, sir,” said the worm. “But something happened in your room twenty-five years ago--long before I came. Some clerk it was, sir. Well, sir, he hanged himself.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Partridge, shuddering, “I know that.”

“It seems, sir, he’d been taking the Bank’s money for a good while; he wanted to marry and couldn’t afford it, and he slipped away down here, but the police were after him, and followed him. Well, sir, something always happens in your room on the night of it. That’s why it’s always kept empty.”

“Well then,” asked Mr. Partridge, “why the devil did you put me into it?”

The worm looked limply and hen-peckedly at him.

“Oh, I know,” said Mr. Partridge. “Because your wife hated to see fifteen shillings and sixpence go begging.”

“Well, sir, I did take a room at the boarding-establishment.”

“Has this happened before?”

“Yes, sir, twelve years ago, sir, the year I took over, and I didn’t know about it. A gentleman was in there, and he screamed and woke the whole house. I promise you, it was against my wishes and better judgment that we let you be there, but my wife thought it might have passed off, and we’re not usually so full at this time.”

“Well,” said Mr. Partridge, “before I take some aspirin and attempt to sleep, let me give you a word of advice. Make your wife sleep alone in that room this day next year!”

The worm smiled deprecatingly.

“Your things will be brought down in the morning, sir.”

“All right, all right,” said Mr. Partridge, “but tell me, _is_ there a peg missing in that wall?”

“Yes, sir, it was the one on which----”

“All right, all right,” said Mr. Partridge. “Call me at 8.30.”

And, taking ten grains of aspirin, he soon after sank into a dreamless sleep.

At breakfast next morning Mr. Partridge made a brave effort to appear his usual calm, flippant self, but the sharp eye of Willie Cranmer, with whom he was playing a single that morning, was not deceived.

As they walked together to the club house he remarked, “You had a bad night, Jim, tell me about it.”

Mr. Partridge did so.

When he had finished, Cranmer said, “I did not tell you at the time, but that face at the window in the afternoon had not a very reassuring expression, and I saw it again just before we went to bed, but I thought it better to say nothing to you.”

“Do you know, Willie, that, now I’m feeling almost all right again, the thing that impresses me is that until I had that experience last night I had never even vaguely conceived what it must be like to be driven to such vulgar lengths as embezzlement by such elementary impulses as love and poverty? Yet that sort of thing has been going on around me ever since I had eyes to see and read, ears to hear, and a mind to understand, though in my vanity I have considered myself rather a knowing fellow where humanity and its motives are concerned. I know now that I knew nothing about anything, above a certain pitch of intensity. I feel humiliated. What is it? How do these things happen?”

“Well,” said Cranmer, “as we agreed last night, some of the cleverest minds in the world have been trying to answer those questions for thousands of years. Your experience last night is as inexplicable as it always would have been and, in my opinion, will ever be.”

They had reached the first tee. Just below them baby waves frolicked in, chased by a small and scented breeze. Four alert, beady eyes, the property of a pair of black-headed gulls on the beach, regarded them sardonically. Mr. Partridge tried a practice swing, and then his hand went to his throat. He stroked it for a moment as he gazed out to sea.

Willie Cranmer noticed the little gesture, but merely said, “Now let’s be serious!” And he teed up. A little later, being an Injudicious Hooker, he disappeared into a bunker on the left, simultaneously Mr. Partridge, a master of cuts, retired into its counterpart on the right. Two little spurts of sand leapt into the air. And then--two more!

AN ECHO

AN ECHO

It was about a quarter past four on September 4th of last year that I knew, as I walked along a ride through Long Bottom Wood, that I was once again to be projected into a Fourth Dimension. I must explain, as well as I can, what I mean.

At irregular intervals I am compelled, though with extreme reluctance, to witness supernatural phenomena. Every haunted place seems longing to reveal its secret to me. There is a ghostly understanding between me and the Restless Ones. The experience I am about to relate was the fifty-sixth of its kind, and experts in this shadowy commerce tell me I am probably the most gifted clairvoyant known to the world.

They yield me this dubious palm for the certainty, precision and vividness of my recorded “successes.” For some time I tried to keep my dismal talent secret, but I betrayed it unconsciously far too often.

I regard this peculiarity of mine as a nuisance, often a profoundly disturbing nuisance. From none of my experiences have I gained anything of good, and as far as throwing light on the nature of this or any other world they seem utterly useless. I have called them “supernatural,” but they may be nothing of the kind; sometimes I doubt profoundly if they are.

As I say, I have no pride in my performances. I feel myself to be merely a peculiar kind of camera, the lens of which is sensitive to things to which an ordinary camera is insensitive.

The preliminary symptoms are always the same. Suddenly every sound, from the loudest to the softest, seems frozen in dreadful suspense. It is something more active than the mere absence of sound. Simultaneously everything is dimmed--a consistent toning down of every shade. It is as though I am gazing through one of those glasses used by artists when painting outdoors in too dazzling a light, and the world becomes sullen, brassy, livid. I feel that I am both within and without the bounds of reality, as though, as I have suggested, I have strayed into a fourth spacial dimension, a region dim, motionless, soundless. Once, when these first preliminary warnings came to me, I attempted to avoid seeing the vision I knew was coming, but it was in vain; some irresistible force compelled me to go through to the end--and now I never struggle.

The great love of my life is ornithology--to put it less pompously, I adore birds, and have written many articles and a few books about them. And this was the cause of my stay at Balland Manor, for its owner, Ronald Lawton, is an enthusiastic amateur, and had implored me to catalogue the birds on the estate. He and his wife were abroad on this occasion, so I had the house to myself, and very pleasant I found it. I had strolled out for an afternoon examination of the amazing nut-hatch colony in Long Bottom, when, just as I reached the last turn in the ride, there came that silence and that dimming, and I knew that round the corner something was waiting to reveal itself to me. It was there. Some eighty yards ahead of me a man was walking in the same direction as myself. He had a gun under his arm. Suddenly he stopped, looked first to his right and then to his left: as he did so a woman came out a little way from the trees and raised her arm to the level of her shoulder. The man turned to his right again, and then threw up his arms and fell. Then the woman ran out, picked up his gun, held it poised for a moment, dropped it again, and then stepped back to the shelter of the trees. As she did so she paused for a moment and then disappeared. Then the veil came down, rose again, and the birds were singing, the sun shining, and it was over and all trace of it was gone.

I turned at once and went back to the house. These experiences always distress me, and I feel nervous and depressed for some time afterwards. But the period varies; sometimes their memory speedily becomes blurred; sometimes the vividness lingers. It lingered on this occasion. I knew that I had witnessed some tragedy of the past, for these records are infallible, and in spite of my repulsion I felt a certain interest concerning it. I have said that I hate these manifestations; at the same time I must confess I sometimes feel a certain sense of curiosity.

I had never felt this curiosity so strongly on any previous appearance. So I left Balland the next morning, and in the evening went round to call upon a very old friend, Jim Myers, who, besides being an artist of very considerable and growing repute, is a fanatical criminologist. He greatly respects my singular gift.

“Hullo, Robert,” said he, “I can see you’ve had another attack. It’s curious, but your personality seems to echo them for days after.”

“I believe,” I replied, “I have seen the ghost of a murder, and that’s why I’ve come to you.”

“Tell me.”

When I had finished I could see he was highly excited.

“It sounds marvellously like--where did you see this?”

“At a place called Balland Manor, near----”

But Jim had leapt to his feet. “My God, it is! it’s the fifteenth anniversary, too. You mean to say you didn’t remember and recognise it at once?”

“Remember what? Recognise what?” I asked.

“You’re incredible, Robert. Do you mean to say you’ve never heard of the Balland Mystery?”

“I don’t think so; I take no interest in those things.”

“Well, I’m damned! Let me tell you, you’ve had the amazing experience of seeing solved before your eyes one of the greatest murder puzzles of all time.” He went to a shelf and took down a book. “Here it is, a classic of the _Great Trials_ series. I’ve read it a dozen times, and puzzled and wondered. Now, partly for my own amusement--for I love talking murder--and partly to show you what an absolutely marvellous and mysterious person you are, I’ll tell you the story.

“Richard Eagles was at Univ. with me. He was a flabby animal of no marked attractions, and lots too much money. He was an orphan, and at twenty-one came into the Barton Estate, amongst a number of other very pleasant things.

“He was by no means a genius where men were concerned, and about women he was a complete ass. He wasn’t what we mean by a womaniser exactly, but he had a mania for being seen about with female celebrities of the lighter sort. Most of them spent his money avidly, but he had a streak of caution inherited from his very able father, and, as he was a bore into the bargain, he was forced to change his partner pretty frequently. These ladies pretended to like him at first, but made him realise that ‘that little more and what worlds away’ was only to be obtained _via_ a Registrar’s Office; but Richard was not the marrying sort; the streak of caution saved him, and he disappointed them one by one. It used to be quite a joke in the old days, for these so jealously guarded charms were often surprisingly surrendered by their fair owners, and even I remember being present at a capitulation or two. Acquit me of boasting. Like you, Robert, I have reached the age when one is visited neither by pangs of conscience nor gusts of vanity by the remembrance of successful indiscretion; at an age, in other words, when emotions of that _genre_ are recollected with tranquility.

“Eventually, probably inevitably, however, he got caught, and one ill-omened evening he was introduced to Miss Patty Golden at the Regent Night Club, where she was the professional dancer.

“All that could be known about this young person’s antecedents and mode of life came out at the trial. Both her mother and father, who had kept a small shop at Luton, were dead. Apparently they had been completely commonplace individuals, but by some Mendelian miracle they had produced between them one of the most fascinating human animals on whom it has been my, or anybody else’s, luck to cast an eye. I tell you frankly that, if she had gone for me, I would have gone to the devil for her myself.

“Her hair was a most shining auburn, her eyes large, violet sirens, her figure delicious--at least by the standards of those times, and they are still mine. But hosts of damsels can display such charms more or less; what they don’t possess is the amazing vitality, sparkle and ‘devil’ which Patty had more than any woman I have ever known.

“That she was a completely immoral little ‘gold-digger’ was apparent at a glance, but it was not generally realised till the trial that she was utterly vicious, and perhaps something more; but her personal fascination was such that men could not resist her, even though they realised perfectly she was a soulless little tough, out for money and for nothing else.

“When Richard met her she was living with a blackguard called Mason, a man of good family, but born with a seed of evil in him which had flowered freely. He was the leader and brains of a gang who made it their highly lucrative business to complete the education of young gentlemen with money. And brilliantly led as they were, they succeeded in ruining more than one, fleecing dozens, and dodging Scotland Yard. Patty was one of the cleverest and toughest of the bunch, and, as a dancer at a fashionable night club, she occupied an admirable strategic position. Richard was a rich prize. Patty, who had planned the introduction, mobilised all her powers, and he was immediately overwhelmed. They became inseparable. Richard’s infatuation made him an abject, drivelling serf, and there is no doubt he bored her to screaming point, and I am certain she resolved to make a quick job of it. But while she could get plenty of small sums and unlimited entertainment out of him, that saving streak of caution stopped him from signing any big cheques, and it was the big cheques she was after. Eventually, there is no doubt, though it was disputed at the trial, she forced him to make a will leaving her £30,000. She claimed in the box that he had done this unknown to her and that she was expecting to marry him.

“By this time Richard’s friends--and he had a few decent ones--were warning him very vigorously about the character of the object of his devotion, and one of them at the trial stated that Richard had sworn to him he would never marry her, and would do his best to conquer his infatuation.

“Well, this will was signed on August 25th, and on September 2nd Patty and her ‘chaperone,’ an elderly shark, also, of course, a member of the gang, and Richard went down to Balland for the week-end. On the Monday afternoon, the 4th, your day, Robert, the two went out, leaving the shark to her ‘knitting,’ Richard carrying a gun, and walked in the direction of Long Bottom. About half an hour after, a shot or two shots--testimony at the trial differed--were heard, and a little later Patty came running back to the house, apparently in a great state of agitation, saying that Richard had stumbled and as he fell his gun had gone off, and he was lying in the ride dead. According to her story she had been walking behind him, and had not seen very clearly how the tragedy occurred.

“At the inquest she repeated her story, and the local doctor, who obviously and naturally believed her, gave evidence which decided the jury unhesitatingly to bring in a verdict of ‘Accidental death.’ And that might have been the end of the story but for the fact that Sir Rex Moore, the greatest expert on head wounds in the world, had read the very full description the local doctor had given of the injuries to Richard’s head, and considered it his duty to write to Scotland Yard, stating that in his opinion it was impossible for the injuries described to have been caused by a gunshot wound, even if fired at the closest range. About the same time it came to the knowledge of the Yard that the only witness of the tragedy had been someone who was going to benefit to the tune of £30,000 by it, and, moreover, that this person was one to whom their attention had been drawn on more than one occasion. By a coincidence, about the same time they succeeded at last in running Mason to earth for an ingenious fraud, rather luckily discovered. Amongst his papers was found a letter which, combined with the other suspicious circumstances, led to the arrest of Patty for murder. Incidentally the police relied enormously on the evidence of Sir Rex, which he had formulated in great detail.

“Richard’s body was exhumed and examined by Sir Rex and the expert medical witnesses for the defence.

“The trial began on November 10th at the Old Bailey, and stirred the interest of the public more than any murder trial of the century. So like you, Robert, not to have heard of it!

“The Attorney-General led for the Crown and Sir Leonard Venables, K.C., for the defence. As I don’t suppose you have heard of him either, I may say he was the greatest verdict-getter who ever wore a wig. His florid, fruity style exactly suited a jury. His voice was beautifully musical and persuasive, and he used it like an artist. Altogether, he commanded gifts as a pleader which more than one guilty murderer had cause to bless.

“Patty’s sojourn in prison had not damaged her looks. She was more beautiful than I had ever seen her, and seemed full of confidence and fight.

“The two strongest cards the prosecution had to play were the evidence of Sir Rex and the letter found in Mason’s flat.

“The surgeon was examined and cross-examined at great length. Most of his evidence is meaningless to a layman, but he held unswervingly to his opinion that the injuries to the head could not have been caused by a gunshot, but were certainly the result of a rifle or revolver bullet which had glanced off after striking. He stated that his examination at the autopsy had more than supported his early suspicions. The only admission useful to it which the defence could extract from him was that decomposition had set in strongly by the time the body was exhumed. With regard to the letter, the prosecution merely proved its discovery at Mason’s flat and that it was in the handwriting of the accused. It ran as follows:

Sept. 7th. Balland Manor,
Bucks.

“Dear Tim,

“The agreement all along was for you to get a third and I see no
reason to change it. It will be some time before I get anything, and
anyway practically the whole risk was mine. I have to stay here till
after the inquest. I believe everything will be O.K. But don’t ask
for more, you won’t get it.
‘P.’

“The first witness for the defence was a famous hospital surgeon, who was shown to have had wide experience of shooting cases. He had taken part in the examination of the body, and declared that in his opinion the injuries might have been caused by a shotgun in the manner described by the prisoner, but that all possibility of giving a categorical answer was destroyed by the fact that decomposition had proceeded so far.

“Briefly and non-technically the whole point lay in whether the injuries were the result of a glancing blow from a charge of shot or a glancing blow from a bullet--in either case fired at point-blank range. All this would remind you, had you read of it, Robert, of that matchless mystery, the Ardlamont Case.

“This witness was examined and cross-examined for a full two hours, and searching questions were volleyed at him. Near the end he was beginning to give ground, but he just held out to the end, and regained some of his confidence in re-examination.

“A curious piece of evidence was then brought forward by the defence. It was that of a local farmer, who stated that about two hours after the tragedy he found one of his sheep dead in the field, and he found on examining it several pellets in its head. It was lying exactly opposite the spot where the body had been found, and it was proved that the trees in between were heavily marked by pellet scars, showing that a charge had been fired from the ride, through the trees, to the sheep. Do you remember, Robert, seeing her pick up his gun?

“Then came the question of the hypothetical revolver. The police were closely examined as to their efforts to find it. They confessed they had searched the whole terrain in the neighbourhood of the tragedy, but had discovered nothing, and there was no evidence to show that Patty ever had a revolver in her possession, either before or after the affair.

“Then Sir Leonard took his courage into both hands, and Patty stepped into the box to give evidence on her own behalf, the first woman to avail herself of that dubious privilege since the passing of the Act.

“She was marvellously composed, and under her counsel’s tactful handling gave a consistent and coherent account of her relations with Richard and the events of the fatal day.

“Eventually he came to the letter. Of course the two dangerous sentences were, ‘Anyway I took practically all the risk,’ and ‘I think everything will be O.K.’ She explained that by ‘risk’ she meant the risk of Richard not marrying her after all her trouble. ‘Everything will be O.K.’ she said, referred to the possibility of the will being disputed.

“Sir Leonard did not question her very closely, preferring to wait for his re-examination.

“Then the Attorney-General rose, and that famous duel began. Patty gave him one of her indomitable looks as he asked her his first question. He went straight to the letter.

“‘I take it there was an agreement between you and this man Mason by which you were to share any monies to be obtained from the dead man?’

“‘That is so.’

“‘How did you expect to obtain these monies?’

“‘Do you mean originally?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Well, he gave me money at times, but chiefly by my marriage with him.’

“‘Did you consider yourself engaged to him?’

“‘Informally, yes.’

“‘Informally? Do you mean that you knew he didn’t want to marry you, but that you were determined to force him to do so?’

“‘Certainly not. I believed he fully intended to marry me.’

“‘You have heard the evidence of a friend of his implying very strongly the contrary.’

“‘Yes, but Richard was rather weak and inclined to agree with the person he was with.’

“‘If you were certain he intended to marry, wherein lay the risk to which you refer?’

“(A pause.) ‘There was always a risk of the marriage not taking place.’

“‘Although you were convinced he intended it?’

“‘Yes, but certain things might have prevented it; his death has done so, as a matter of fact.’

“‘Did you regard his death as probable?’

“‘No, certainly not.’

“‘Did your agreement with this man cover any sums obtained in any way?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Sums obtained from the will?’

“‘Yes, all sums.’

“‘But you told us under examination that you did not know you were to benefit by his will?’

“(A pause.) ‘I didn’t know, but I suspected he might leave me a small amount.’

“‘But surely you had no reason to suspect that Mr. Eagles would die for forty or fifty years. Why should anything so problematical have formed part of your agreement with Mason?’

“‘The agreement covered all sums. I forget if we actually mentioned anything about a will.’

“‘Had you told Mason you suspected he had left you something?’

“‘I can’t remember, as I say. I don’t think so, but it’s possible.’

“‘You have told us that you did not encourage Mr. Eagles to leave you anything.’

“‘I did not.’

“‘Nor try to discover the amount?’

“‘No, it hardly interested me. I expected to marry him and have money settled on me.’

“‘Very well, we will leave that.’

“While the Attorney was looking through his papers Patty passed her handkerchief across her lips and forehead, and then set her teeth.

“‘You concluded your letter by saying, “I believe everything will be O.K.” Are you sure that doesn’t refer to the verdict at the inquest?’

“(Sharply.) ‘Yes, perfectly sure.’

“‘Then to what did it refer?’

“‘I have already said that it referred to the money I should get under the will.’

“‘Yet you weren’t sure you were to get a penny?’

“‘I can’t be sure, I thought the lawyer had told me.’

“‘You know he has denied that.’

“‘Yes, but he may be wrong.’

“‘But if he is right, you didn’t know you had inherited a penny?’

“‘I have told you I strongly suspected he had left me something.’

“‘If he had, why was there any doubt about your getting it?’

“‘I thought it might be disputed.’

“‘On what grounds?’

“‘Undue influence, I suppose.’

“‘Now I want to be fair to you. Do you seriously suggest that the Jury should believe that “It will be O.K.” referred, and referred only, to a legacy the very existence of which was unknown to you?’

“‘It is the truth; as I say, I believe the lawyer _had_ told me about it.’

* * * * *

“Those are the salient passages,” said Myers, “but there was much else. Patty’s character disappeared beneath the rain of questions, but her reputation for pluck was never more convincingly justified.

“Her counsel in his re-examination set himself to counteract the very perilous impression left by these answers.

* * * * *

“‘Had you heard anything which made you realise there was a serious risk that your marriage would not take place?’

“‘I knew that people, enemies of mine, were warning Mr. Eagles about me.’

“‘And you were afraid he would act on their advice?’

“‘Yes, he had spoken to me about it.’

“‘About this legacy--had you good reasons for suspecting its existence?’

“‘Yes, Mr. Eagles frequently said he would see that I was provided for if anything happened to him.’

“‘When you referred to the risk, can you explain a little more clearly what was in your mind?’

“‘Well, I thought it might be disputed on the ground of undue influence--not that I have used any, but, as I have said, I have many enemies.’

* * * * *

“To understand the beauty--to criminologists--of this duel concerning the letter, the whole of Patty’s examination and cross-examination should be closely studied. For five long hours Patty’s life was hanging by a thread.

“Sir Leonard, in order to neutralise the deadly implications in her letter, had been compelled reluctantly to reveal that she had a very strong motive. If she knew of the legacy she had 30,000 good reasons for shooting Richard; if she was ignorant of it, that terrible word ‘risk’ could not be explained.

“In my opinion they were the five finest hours the Old Bailey has given us.

“When the Attorney-General got up to make his closing speech everyone felt it was touch and go. He was perfectly fair, but perfectly firm. The evidence he marshalled would have been deadly but for the conflict in the medical evidence and the absence of the revolver. He characterised Patty’s answers about the letter as incredible.

“Then Sir Leonard got up and made the speech of his life. He began with one of his most impressive exordia.

“‘Gentlemen of the Jury, the prisoner at the Bar is accused of murder. If she is found guilty of that foul crime she will meet in three weeks’ time a shameful, felon’s death. On my poor efforts depend her defence: on your verdict her liberty or death. Gentlemen, it is an awful responsibility that you and I must share.’

“He made no attempt to disguise the fact that his client was a hardened little scoundrel, but he impressed on the Jury how much more she had to gain, and gain in perfect safety, by marrying Richard than by taking the frightful risk entailed by murdering him. She would not have been the calculating little intriguer which she had shown herself, if she had failed to realise the inevitable suspicion which was bound to fall upon her when the terms of the will became known. People of her type did not commit murders, they steadily fleeced, and so great was the dead man’s infatuation she had every reason to believe she could force him to marry her, when she could fleece him to her heart’s content.

“So did he dismiss the question of motive.

“He emphasised the sharp and irreconcilable conflict in the medical evidence. Would the Jury ever know a moment’s peace if they sent her to the gallows when such doctors could disagree?

“He made much of the absence of the revolver, and--this will interest you, Robert--he asked how could the shot have been fired? The dead man was shot from the front at point-blank range. He must have stood stock still and calmly allowed the prisoner to blow his brains out. Was it conceivable?

“The letter of which the prosecution made so much was perfectly capable of bearing the construction the prisoner put upon it. In a peroration of majestic power he demanded that the prisoner be given the benefit of the doubt. ‘If she is guilty,’ he concluded, ‘she will not escape, for there is One Who knows all: Vengeance is His, He will repay!’

“The Judge’s summing up was quiet and eminently judicial. On the whole it inclined, and I think rightly, to the defence. The police had not made out their case.

“At length the Jury filed out, and Patty was taken out of Court, her eyes blazing with excitement, and two red stains flaming in her cheeks. The Jury were out for three and a half hours. It was known afterwards that two of them long held out for a verdict of guilty, but in the end gave way, and in a quivering silence the foreman pronounced ‘Not guilty,’ which would undoubtedly have been ‘Not proven’ in Scotland.

“And that, Robert, was the end of the ‘Balland Mystery’--till you took that afternoon stroll.”

“What happened to Patty?” I asked.

“She dodged the vast crowd awaiting her, and disappeared from the knowledge of men till two years later she was found dead from an overdose of cocaine in a Buenos Aires Hotel--she had been ‘White-slaving’ apparently. She made no attempt to get the £30,000, Richard’s next of kin winning the action for undue influence unopposed. Mason died in prison three years after the trial.”

“Now tell me again just exactly what you saw.”

I did so. When I had finished he said, “There was one little detail you mentioned that time which you didn’t mention before: you say she paused for a moment by a tree?”

“Yes, she just hesitated for a moment or two and then disappeared.”

“Look here,” said Myers, “this fascinates me. Could I come down with you and see the place?”

“Of course you can,” I said. “We can go to-morrow if you like.”

“We’ll go down in the car,” said Myers. “I’ll pick you up at ten.”

We lunched at the house, and then walked down to the scene of my vision. I pointed out to my highly excited companion the exact spot, and he regarded it reverently.

“Was this the tree?” he asked, pointing to a fine cedar.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And she paused just here?”

“Yes.”

Myers examined the trunk carefully, and then turned to me suddenly. “Look here,” he said, and he pointed to a hole of medium size about the level of his waist in the cedar.

“Good Lord!” he said, “I wonder! I wonder! Look here, run up to the house and see if you can find a strong knife, I want to get my arm into that hole.”

I eventually waylaid a gardener, who produced a knife, which I took back to Myers. He set to work, and after a few minutes he put down the knife, and with a look of extreme excitement on his face, thrust in his arm to the shoulder. “Empty!” he groaned. “No, by God! it’s not!” He drew up his arm. “Robert, you are the most wonderful man in the world. Do you know what I’ve got in my hand?”

He drew his hand clear of the hole and then opened it, and there was the neatest little Colt revolver. He jerked it open, and there were six cartridges, five unused, one used.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

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