The Ghost It Was

by Richard Hull

  ‘Because, Uncle James, you were with me when I saw — that, and it would bring it back almost too vividly.’

  ‘Which is exactly what you want to do. Bring it back vividly and get it right.’

  But with unusual, quiet persistence, Emily stuck to her point and finally, grumbling at the irrational nature of women, her uncle left her. But Mr Fenby was not so easily disposed of; it was a very long while before she had answered the last of his questions. With James present to interrupt, the interview would probably never have ended, or if it did, it would have been without Emily having had a chance to say half what she might have wished to express. It had been rather a thin excuse, but she had felt that some such action was necessary, and events had fully justified her.

  16

  The Harassed Coroner

  There are disadvantages, as is well known, in the latitude allowed in a coroner’s court, but there are also advantages, and the freedom to discuss matters which might, in other courts, be prohibited by the rules of evidence and of relevance, is sometimes one and sometimes the other.

  At any rate that unfortunate man, the Reverend Cyprian Thompson, saw his chance and decided to take advantage of it. Considerable sympathy must after all be felt for him. He had originally been induced to take any share in the proceedings only by the combination of James’ foolish and unkind practical joke and Arthur’s machinations. He had done so reluctantly and in order to produce results which he considered desirable.

  By the time that he had given his somewhat partial description of how he had been led on, step by step, there were many who felt that the animosity which had arisen against him had been overdone. There was, indeed, a very fair chance that he would be able to resume his life much as it had been before. A jury, mainly of his parishioners, had formed an admirable audience for the apologia that he had been able to deliver, even if they were of little other value. For the chance of delivering such a sermon uninterrupted, Thompson had to thank the forbearance of the coroner and also his own dialectical skill. When, however, he went on to describe what he had seen on the tower, he became less convincing. After confessing with wise frankness that he had pulled back the curtain at a prearranged time, he went on to say, ‘And then behind Mr Vaughan, I saw another—’ and then he paused.

  ‘Another figure?’ suggested the coroner.

  ‘Exactly. My friend, M. Warrenton, maintains that it was a ghost, but of course that is impossible.’

  ‘Mr Warrenton will say what he thinks himself later, but’ (and here the coroner squared his shoulders and delivered an obiter dictum which he hoped would become famous) ‘it is not the business of this court to decide on the reality of ghosts.’

  The remark did not have the success which it deserved. Emily was seen to look up apprehensively, and it is to be regretted that Gregory grinned broadly. Still worse, James was heard to remark: ‘Oh, isn’t it? We’ll soon see about that,’ while the rector rather truculently went on: ‘It having then been agreed, naturally, that it could not have been a ghost since there are no such things, and inquiries having conclusively proved that no real person was there, it is evident to anybody, or at least to any unbiased person, that some trick of light was visible to us and perhaps to my unfortunate friend, or perhaps some noise disturbed him. At any rate, he lost his balance and fell over. A perfectly natural, if very sad, accident, if I may say so.’

  Even the coroner felt that he might not say so but that he had already done so, but at this point Inspector Perceval asked leave to ask a question concerning the subsequent movements of what for the moment he consented to call the optical illusion.

  ‘Being an optical illusion only, naturally directly the rays of light which formed it — I fear, I am no scientist, had been disturbed, I saw no more of it.’

  The inspector tried a little longer, but he got no further. He found the prejudice of this self-styled ‘unbiased’ observer very trying. Nor was the next witness much better, for James persevered in his resolution to be unhelpful. If the rector had been allowed to give what he stigmatised as a sermon, he himself would give one too. He attempted to read long extracts from the various spiritualist journals, and when that was too much for the coroner’s patience, he recited what he could remember. As to any attempt to check him, he evaded it by a shameless use of his own deafness. The coroner’s triumphant ruling that it was not the business of the court to settle then and there the difficult question of psychic emanations dwindled to a pathetic pleading that the subject had surely better be omitted. It was quite useless. James boomed happily on and, when he did at last sit down, he had triumphantly established the fact that, so far as he was concerned, the holding of an inquest was a perfectly useless formality.

  Nor really was Emily much better in effect. She tried her best to be helpful, but she was utterly unable to be definite about anything. Faced on the one hand with the prospect of her uncle’s thunder, and on the other with the rector’s disapproval, which would almost certainly take the form of a magnanimous and infuriating forgiveness, she qualified every statement that she made, and Inspector Perceval’s questions only further confused her.

  ‘I saw something — but I don’t know what it was. Of course, it might have been a ghost; that is, if there are such things, but I really don’t know. It might have been an optical illusion. Oh yes, it might have been an actual person. Only I don’t see how it could, but it might. No, it — or do I mean he? — anyhow may I say it? — it didn’t touch him. It only held out its right hand towards — yes, I’m almost sure it was the right hand — but it did seem as if Cousin Arthur was pushed.’

  ‘You are sure of that last fact?’

  ‘That he was pushed? Oh no, I’m not sure of anything. Only it looked like it. At least I thought so.’

  Immediately, Fenby was on his feet demanding to make a statement, and indignantly muttering when the coroner refused to let him, that he only wanted to say that spirits did not do that sort of thing.

  ‘In that case, you’ve said it.’ The coroner was getting a little harassed. ‘Now, where were we? Oh yes, Miss Warrenton wasn’t sure.’

  Apparently, Inspector Perceval decided not to pursue the point further, nor did he press very deeply the question as to how the apparition had disappeared. To her infinite relief, Emily was allowed to leave the witness box and sit down beside her uncle. Not that there was much consolation to be found there. James addressed her in a voice which might be intended for a whisper, but actually boomed round the small room and was entirely audible to everyone. ‘Idiot! Why can’t you stand up for the truth, and have the courage of your convictions?’

  With the knowledge that all eyes were once more on her, Emily feebly protested that she hoped that she had spoken the truth. Her ideas on the subject were very vague, but really it sounded as if her uncle’s words might be misconstrued and that she might find herself in prison for perjury. How like Uncle James to say that everyone was lying who did not accept implicitly his views on every subject! Comfort unexpectedly came from her Aunt Julia. It was no more than a slight squeeze of the hand, but it was full of understanding.

  Sitting opposite to the descendants of Jude Warrenton, Fenby amused himself by trying to decide if there was any family resemblance amongst them. Despite their varying colouring, he finally decided that they had something in common. At least they all had determined faces; James and Henry in a thrusting, aggressive way; Julia and Gregory alike in that they both assumed other people’s compliance and ignored, rather than battered down, opposition; Christopher in his quiet tenacity was the nearest to Emily, who, even if she qualified everything she said, could not be induced to alter it fundamentally. Finally, just as Fenby decided that their chins were all the same, the keeper, Young, started on his evidence.

  He, it appeared, was mainly interested in his pheasants, and his natural enemies were poachers. He and his ancestors had waged war against the village of Amberhurst on that score for centuries and, he presumed, would go on doing so for generations m
ore. As for the Warrentons, they were of no account to him at all. He tolerated their existence without hostility, except in the case of Henry, and then only because he would interfere, but his job in life was to see that in the autumn his pheasants were as plentiful as could reasonably be expected, and he told the coroner perfectly bluntly that he regarded his time spent in giving evidence as entirely wasted since it was not connected with what he had to do in life. Arthur Vaughan, in his opinion, as a Warrenton, had a right to be in Amberhurst village, but not really in Amberhurst Place; still less had he any call to go falling off towers, and if he did, to Young’s mind, it was a matter of no interest to anybody except those immediately concerned. Unexpectedly he and James had the same outlook on inquests.

  But he could not get away as quickly as that. Inspector Perceval had failed entirely to get anything out of him previously, but now he was obliged to answer the questions put to him, and suddenly it dawned on him where these questions were leading. As to the finding of the body, he had answered as usual merely with a surly grunt; he had explained his presence there as being solely to do with his pheasants, a fact which he clearly considered should not have needed explanation, but when he realised that implications were possibly being made against Malcolm, he became more loquacious.

  ‘So, you think he acted ghost and pushed him over?’ He almost grinned at Inspector Perceval and half drawled the broad vowels and half swallowed the consonants of his words. ‘Well, he be quite capable. He do interfere in a wonderful number of things that ain’t no manner of concern of his.’

  This was too much for the coroner. ‘You really must not give your opinions on that type of subject. Stick to what you know.’

  Unfortunately, though, what he knew was tantalisingly little. He mentioned that Arthur’s hands had been greasy — a detail that had escaped James’ memory, but no one apparently took much notice of this point. He was urged to describe what he had seen of Malcolm’s movements. He had happened, he said, to step back when James had reached the body, and so had seen round the corner of the tower. Consequently, he had been able to see Malcolm come out through the door at the bottom of it. Moreover, as he had been approaching the house in pursuit of the poacher who turned out to be Arthur, he had thought that he had seen someone enter the turret after Arthur. Not that he had taken much interest in that. What happened there was no business of his. So far as it went, thought Perceval, it only confirmed what Malcolm had told him already and would no doubt repeat in a few minutes.

  In due course, Malcolm did repeat it, and, having the character that he had, it was a thoroughly truculent performance. He objected to the wild insinuations made by the previous witness, he objected to Perceval being allowed to ask questions, and he strongly disapproved of the laborious way in which the coroner took down everything in longhand. After quite a short while, he had managed to get on the wrong side of almost everybody concerned, and yet everything which he said had considerable justification. Young’s comments had certainly been uncalled for and the procedure was undoubtedly slow, but there was no need to tread on quite so many corns as he contrived to do. Finally, not content with that, he went on to launch a counter offensive.

  ‘The worst trouble about this inquiry,’ he began brightly and a little sweepingly, ‘is that it is not concerned with what matters. You have said, sir, that you have not got to decide whether it really was a ghost or not, but actually half the time you have been discussing exactly that.’

  ‘Really,’ the coroner protested, quite unmollified by the casual ‘sir’ in the middle of the sentence, ‘I have shown the greatest patience, but I must ask you to be more civil.’

  Perfectly truthfully and with an almost pained expression, Malcolm averred that he had no intention of being rude, ‘but really all this nonsense about ghosts makes me quite sick. Of course, there are no such things.’

  Once more Fenby intervened. In the interest of truth, he could not allow that to pass. At first it seemed as if it would be difficult to quieten him down, but somewhat suddenly he gave way, to the great relief of the much-tried coroner, who was expecting another outburst from James. But though Malcolm’s uncle was regarding his nephew with cold fury, for once he kept silent.

  As if nothing had occurred, Malcolm went on. ‘There being, as I said, no such things as ghosts, it follows that the figure which was seen was someone real, and the only suggestion that anyone has made so far, which is worth considering, is that it was I. As it happens, it was not, although I have told you how close I was, and I agree that I have not absolutely cleared myself. But there are lots of others, and if people are going to be allowed to say things about me, I’m going to take the same privilege myself. After all,’ he added unnecessarily, ‘I’ve got as much sense as Young.’

  The coroner remarked quietly that he thought he need not take the last sentence down.

  ‘Just as you please.’ Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. ‘The important facts in this case aren’t being given at all. My cousin Christopher, for instance, has given evidence of identification which was childishly unnecessary — at least in my opinion—’ (he anticipated the coroner) ‘but he has not told us where he was, or whether that tyre really punctured.’

  ‘We can recall Mr Vaughan if necessary,’ the coroner put in.

  ‘But it won’t be. I don’t really think he did it, nor, I think, does anyone else. But I would like you to recall one witness — the only one who has tried to tell us everything conscientiously — and that is Mr Thompson. He told me the other day when we were talking this over that, when he was on the tower the first time, he was frightened because he heard knocking underneath, but he only mentioned it then to Arthur. Now I want to know what that knocking was. Was someone preparing some other way of getting to the tower? And I want to know, because I believe it is relevant, why when on both the occasions that the so-called ghost appeared, my uncle’s butler appeared with dust on his clothes, a thing he has never been known to do at any other time, because, though I could say a great many other things about him, he is careful of his appearance. Also, I want to know why, in between those two days, I saw him coming out of a room that is practically never used: a room which is next door to the library on one side and to the inner wall of the tower on another and is underneath the bedroom which Spring-Benson has got himself into.’

  ‘Spring-Benson?’ inquired the coroner. ‘I am not quite sure that I know who he is.’ An almost general conversation took place during which the coroner was told that he had had that explained before, and, practically speaking, that it was his fault for not knowing. Finally, the difficulty was solved by Gregory himself. With his best smile, he produced a genealogical tree, hurriedly but neatly written on the back of an envelope.

  The coroner studied it carefully through his spectacles. ‘I think,’ he said half to himself, ‘that Mr Warrenton has too many nephews.’

  ‘Well, that isn’t my fault,’ James snapped out, ‘and I’ll tell you one thing. I’m getting rid of quite a lot of them at the earliest opportunity.’

  ‘That does not concern this court.’

  ‘Perhaps not. We shall see. You’d better finish your examination of them today because some of them won’t be in my house much longer. It’s late already, and one of the very few true things said is that you take too long writing things down.’

  Pathetically the coroner turned back to Malcolm. It seemed to him to be hard that he should be bullied in his own court, he did not remember it ever happening before, and he did not quite know how to deal with it, but a more difficult set of people he had never met. Perhaps, after all, his policy of allowing anyone to say anything that he or she liked, in the hope that something would come out of it, was going to bear fruit in the end. He hoped so sincerely, though he rather doubted it. Usually he would not have permitted such things to happen, but on this occasion the police in the person of Inspector Perceval had rather suggested it to him. ‘You were talking about Mr Spring-Benson’s bedroom,’ he said rather faintly, his mi
nd in a whirl.

  ‘I was not.’ Malcolm, irritated by the general interruption, did not worry to disguise the direct contradiction, ‘I was talking about the behaviour of Rushton, the butler, but as you mention that particular room, I should like to add that Rushton seems to spend a great deal of his time there.’

  Not the faintest expression betrayed Gregory’s thoughts, but his mind was immediately quite made up. Rushton had been careless in letting himself be seen and might possibly therefore make things awkward. In that case, Gregory was quite determined that he would not have the slightest hesitation in professing complete ignorance of any story of hidden jewels or of his having made any alliance, however faint, with him.

  By now, with a sigh of relief, the coroner had got rid of Malcolm and recalled Thompson. Yes, he had heard, or thought he had heard, knocking. Sound, he pointed out didactically, was difficult to trace, but it was not impossible that it came from the wall between the tower and the rest of the house. It came from nearer the ground than the level of the top of the tower, but whether it originated from the ground floor or from the room which he understood was Spring-Benson’s bedroom, he had no idea. Once more the coroner and his jury felt that they were getting no further forward, but this time Inspector Perceval felt a little more interested. All along he had felt that Rushton was a little too perfect.

  In the witness-box he certainly was. Compared with the sermons of the rector, the shouting of James, the hesitations of Emily, and the gaucheries of Malcolm, he appeared as the one sane, simple man with a clear conscience and a natural explanation of everything that he had done. That it was mostly quite untrue was not of the slightest importance. After all, these hidden jewels — an old wife’s tale in the truth of which he now persuaded himself that he had never believed — was nothing to do with it. The story as he gave it was clear enough. ‘On the night when the rector had been, if I may say so, sir, performing the antics of the ghost, I, too, thought I heard a noise in the room in question. I put the disturbance down to rats or some such thing, and I proceeded to investigate. I did not find any actual traces of the quadrupeds, though nevertheless they may have been there, but the room being unoccupied, there may have been some dust, and I may have acquired a few particles—’