Diabolic Candelabra

by E. R. Punshon

  “Only material things,” interposed Bobby. “Only till I know what’s become of Crayfoot.”

  “You’ll go on digging ’em up all the same just to see if they are material,” retorted Sir Alfred. “Besides, I could bear myself to know what’s become of those El Grecos. They would be worth a pot of money if we could find them and establish our claim. Well, there it is. You had better tell the whole yarn, Dick. It was you started all this about the El Grecos—every one had forgotten all about them. Not going to fall in love with this Miss Floyd, are you?”

  Dick stared at his uncle as if such a thing had never occurred to him.

  “Fall in love with her?” he repeated vaguely.

  “It’s the same name,” said Sir Alfred. “History does repeat itself.” He went across the room to where, beneath the bookshelves were some closed, box like compartments. He opened one and began to rummage within. He produced a manuscript volume, opened it at random, and put it on the table. Bobby saw that the pages were covered with a thin spidery writing. The paper was still in good condition, the ink a little faded but the writing perfectly legible. “There’s the only proof,” he said, “El Grecos were ever here. Dick routed it out.”

  Dick took up the story.

  “One of a set,” he said. “I found them in the muniment room. It’s a diary kept for seventy years from 1700 to 1770 by the then vicar of Barsley Forest. His name was Floyd.”

  “Floyd?” repeated Bobby. “An ancestor of Miss Mary Floyd’s?”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” Dick said. “I don’t know. It’s odd, though, how everything seems to turn in upon itself in all this business. That’s what you are thinking, isn’t it? Like a maze with every path you take bringing you back to where you were before and none leading you to the centre.”

  “There must be one that takes you there,” Bobby told them, “and it’s my job to find it, because, you see, the centre is a missing man, whose wife is anxious.”

  “Yes, I know,” Dick agreed. “When I found these old manuscript books, all tucked away up there, nothing to show how they ever got there, it struck me they might be worth publishing. I don’t know if you remember but a few years back there was a sort of boom in old diaries. There used to be very long, very scholarly articles in the Times Literary Supplement about them. I happen to know a chap in the writing racket—and a racket it is all right if half the tales he tells are true.”

  “Probably they aren’t,” interposed Sir Alfred. “The fellow’s a journalist.”

  This last word was pronounced with a heavy and final condemnation against which none protested. Dick went on:

  “I sent him the whole bally lot of manuscript volumes—seventy of ’em, one to each year. He said they were no good—no juice he said. No human interest. All dry items of every day life. Never even said what he had for dinner. Merely noted the weather and the names of people he visited and the times of the services he took in church and that sort of thing. Lists of names and times and dates. Hardly ever any comment. But there was one entry my friend spotted and wrote me about. Old Mr Floyd remarks that Mr Richard of the Abbey is back that day from making the Grand Tour, as they used to call it, and had brought with him a number of paintings. There’s a list of them. The old boy had a passion for making lists. Most of the pictures can be identified. They are up in the gallery here all right. But the last item refers to ‘Two pictures in frames of gilded wood, very strange, as though done in Bethlem hospital, said to be the handwork of a Greek, as may well be the case.’ The price is put down as three guineas and a half for the pair, and the place of purchase as Seville. And that’s all.”

  Sir Alfred took up the tale.

  “You can imagine that set us all thinking. We had a look through the house on the off chance of finding ’em tucked away somewhere. I daresay you’ve heard the story of the Rembrandt found in a nursery where generations of kids had used it for a target for peashooters? No such luck here. So Dick started another search through the muniment room. There are piles of papers, old household books, leases, letters that have been kept for one reason or another.”

  “It would take years to make a thorough search,” Dick interposed. “I had a brain wave though.” He walked across to the bookshelves and took down a substantial looking volume, entitled History of European Art. He opened it at the chapter dealing with Spain. At the end of the chapter was a blank half page and on it was a note in a thin faded handwriting. Dick read it aloud: “Richard wrong as usual. No mention of his nightmare favourite and so no loss nor mentioned in the inventory. But the candlesticks are listed and are of value and should be recovered. June, 1887.”

  “Who is ‘Richard’?” Bobby asked.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  AN EARLIER PETER

  BOBBY HAD ASKED this question almost casually, without expecting the answer to be of any special interest. Yet it was followed by a curious pause. Dick and his uncle exchanged quick glances. Mr Montague Hart seemed about to make a protest and then to change his mind. Bobby became aware of an odd impression that somehow this stray question of his had pierced near the heart of things. Yet he could not imagine why. He had the impression, too, that the other three had much the same feeling and yet that they also were not certain why.

  “The only Richard in the family at that time, taking it the reference is a family one,” Sir Alfred said at last, “was my uncle, Dick’s great-uncle.”

  “The Richard Rawdon who died the same year and is buried in Barsley Forest church,” interposed Mr Hart.

  Once more Sir Alfred and Dick exchanged quick glances. Then Dick said:

  “No. There is a memorial tablet there. If Inspector Owen goes to look at it—”

  “He would all right,” interrupted Sir Alfred, not so much resentfully as stating an unwelcome fact that had to be reckoned with. “Police johnnies are like that.”

  “I am sure,” said Bobby apologetically, for indeed to go and look at that tablet for himself had been his instant determination, though once more he had no idea why he should do so, “I am sure Mr Hart will agree that all evidence is the better for being confirmed. Memory is a very uncertain guide.”

  Mr Hart uttered a kind of grunt of unwilling and dissatisfied acquiescence, much as if implying that the statement might be generally correct but should not be applied to distinguished and wealthy clients.

  “Well, if he does,” Dick continued, “he will see the tablet only says ‘departed this life’, and the date and a long Latin inscription detailing the virtues of the deceased and the grief of his family.” Yet a third time uncle and nephew exchanged glances, a little this time as if the younger man were asking permission and the older were disclaiming all responsibility. Dick apparently made up his mind. “The date is June, 1887,” he said, and Mr Montague Hart got up and walked across to the window and stood there with his back to the room and an air of finally washing his hands of the whole affair.

  “June, 1887,” Bobby repeated and glanced at the open History of European Art and at the scribbled note bearing the same date.

  “Exactly,” said Sir Alfred.

  Hart came back from the window and began to waggle his eye-glasses again.

  “All this seems to me entirely beside the point,” he said. “If there is a point,” he added. “How is this piece of family history going to assist the inspector?”

  “I suppose,” observed Sir Alfred, “Dick’s got to explain why he went to see Crayfoot and why he was visiting the hut in the forest?”

  “It is always of the greatest possible help,” Bobby said, “when we are given the background of any investigation. It’s an enormous assistance to get some idea of what’s behind it all. We do have some idea then at least of how to set to work.” He spoke more directly to the lawyer. “Of course, I agree absolutely,” he said, “that the whole point for me is the anxiety of a wife over the disappearance of her husband. The Mr Richard Rawdon who died—”

  “Departed this life,” interrupted Sir Alfred.

 
“Well, departed this life,” Bobby said, accepting the correction with a touch of impatience, “is, as I understand it, buried somewhere else, not in the church here?”

  “The family story,” Sir Alfred answered, “is that he died on a walking tour in France, somewhere between Paris and Lyons. There seems no record of the exact place. It might be found perhaps if a search were made.”

  “A difficult undertaking, very costly too,” commented Mr Hart.

  “You see,” Dick continued the story, “there had been a fine old family row. That’s where Crayfoot’s footman grandfather and the portrait you spotted in his drawing-room come into it. The Richard of the memorial tablet fell in love with a Miss Mary Floyd and wanted to marry her. There was an awful upset. Her father was a farm labourer, rather a superior sort, a foreman on a biggish farm in fact, but still clearly a working man. Our family threw fits. So did the Floyd family apparently. Quite outside their idea of the eternal fitness of things for one of their girls to marry a future baronet and squire.”

  “Fifty years ago,” Sir Alfred reminded them. “They were pretty stuffy about that sort of thing then. Are now for that matter. Still, to-day it’s not quite the same as the skies falling as it was then.”

  “I expect we’re more used to the skies tumbling about our heads,” remarked Dick grimly. “The world’s not the snug, safe, secure place it used to be. Anyhow, it seems hell popped loose. There wasn’t much could be done about great-uncle Richard except kick him out; and as he was the second son, and the eldest son, the heir, was an invalid, there was every chance that he might come back again—strict entail.”

  “My father was the third brother,” Sir Alfred explained. “I inherit through him. Dick’s father was the youngest son—the fourth.”

  “Anyhow, as they couldn’t do an awful lot about great-uncle, the joint offensive of both families combined was concentrated on the unlucky girl,” continued Dick. “I suppose she wasn’t strong enough to hold on. Girls did as they were told in 1887 probably. Queen Victoria’s jubilee, and her shadow still long in the land. Well, the girl was married off to some one more suitable to a farmer’s foreman’s daughter than a probable future baronet was thought to be. Good tactics because that disposed of them both. Girl and boy, too. The girl safely married and the boy done in. Because he ‘departed this life’ as the tablet says, within a few months. Family legend is that it broke him up for good when he found the girl had let him down. No more interest in life, all women a bad lot, and glad to die when he fell ill on his French walking tour. Rosalind says ‘Men have died but not for love’. She didn’t know great-uncle Richard.”

  “It’s a tragic little story,” Bobby said; for somehow the telling of that tale of past despair and grief had a good deal affected him and then he found himself reflecting that probably the Mary Floyd of to-day, the one he had met the preceding Sunday, would not give in so easily or so soon.”

  “It’s how it came about,” Dick was saying now, “that the third son succeeded to the title and estates, and unless uncle marries—”

  “Not me,” interjected Sir Alfred.

  “—I shall succeed to them some day,” Dick continued.

  “To title and estates?” asked Bobby.

  “To title and debts,” corrected Sir Alfred.

  “Whereas, I suppose,” continued Dick, paying no attention to the interruption, “if those two poor young devils hadn’t been messed about the way they were and allowed to marry, he would have remained a younger son with a younger son’s portion and neither title nor estate—nor debts—would have come uncle’s way or mine.”

  “But what had the Crayfoot you said was footman here at the time to do with it?” Bobby asked. “Why was he dismissed without a character?”

  “It was through him great-uncle Richard met his Miss Floyd. He and great-uncle were rather pals, apparently. Great-uncle had rather a way of going off on his own—you remember he was on a walking tour in France when he ‘departed this life’. Taste for nature, taste for low company, whichever way you like to put it. ‘The wind on the heath, brother.’ That sort of idea. Somewhere or other he picked up Crayfoot. It seems likely they met in gaol, doing seven days’ hard as rogues and vagabonds. On one of his tramps great-uncle got into a row with local police, and was fined twenty shillings or seven days. He had lost all his money in the row, and preferred to do his seven days rather than let the family know. Afterwards he brought Crayfoot back with him to the Abbey, got him fixed up as a footman or valet, or something, and it was through Crayfoot that he met Miss Floyd. Crayfoot apparently had a bit of an artistic gift. Great-uncle thought he had discovered a genius and paid for him to have lessons. The family probably didn’t like that; a footman’s a footman and an artist’s an artist. Much the same, but you don’t mix ’em. But his real offence, of course, was his aiding and abetting great-uncle in his love affair; and there’s a vicious note, probably libellous, in the household accounts for June, 1887, accusing him of dishonesty.”

  “The same date,” observed Bobby.

  “Yes. When things came to a head,” agreed Dick. “The note goes on to say he was dismissed without a character and so can go back to his gipsy life in the forest.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby, interested. “Did he, I wonder?”

  “Don’t know,” answered Dick. He added casually: “Footman Crayfoot’s first name is given as Peter.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  DIABOLIC CANDELABRA

  MR MONTAGUE HART was the first to make any comment. Bobby had received the remark in silence. The other two were trying to look unconcerned but he knew that all the same they were watching him closely. Shrugging his shoulders, the lawyer said, a kind of angry impatience in his tone:

  “Peter is a common enough name.”

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby. He looked up at Sir Alfred, still leaning against the mantelpiece with his hands in his pockets, at Dick, who now removed his own gaze from Bobby to direct it out of the window towards the forest, visible in the distance like a vast strange sea of green. Bobby said:

  “You mean you think it possible this man they call the hermit may be the Crayfoot who once was a footman here?”

  Nobody answered. Bobby continued:

  “You think it possible when he left he took the El Greco pictures with him? You think it possible he has them still?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Sir Alfred vaguely.

  “There was no sign of them in the hut when I was there,” Bobby said.

  “No, I know,” agreed Dick. He added: “The place was all upset.”

  “Probably always is,” suggested Hart.

  “Not like that,” said Dick.

  “Oh, well,” Hart said.

  “That’s why you went to the hut?” Bobby asked Dick, who removed his gaze from the window and the distant view for one brief moment but otherwise made no reply.

  “If he had the pictures there,” Bobby said, “you would think some one would have noticed them and said something. I suppose he might have kept them covered up. If he has got them, he might easily claim they were a free gift, and it might be difficult to prove anything else.” He paused and said slowly: “Very much a case in which possession would be nine-tenths of the law, more than nine-tenths very likely.” When again none of them answered, he said: “There’s something about candlesticks, too, isn’t there?”

  “Supposed to be Cellini’s work,” Sir Alfred said. “Silver. Candelabra, really, each with six branches. Heirlooms. Always fully described in the old inventories and still solemnly stuck in, though they can’t be found. There’s that scribble now Dick has come across, if it means anything.”

  “Nothing much to go on,” Dick pointed out. “Candlesticks aren’t candelabra. A candlestick is only for one candle. It may mean something quite different.”

  “If candelabra answering the description in the settlement inventories were found, they could be identified?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, yes,” answered Sir Alfred. “They
are quite well-known things. Or were. Quite likely somebody stole them and they’ve been melted down long ago. But there are plenty of references to them up to about fifty years ago. They are known as the ‘Diabolic Candelabra’. Cellini mentions them in one of his letters. He doesn’t say so but the story is they were made for use at celebrations of the Black Mass.”

  “Cheerful idea,” observed Bobby.

  “They look like it all right,” Dick said. “At least, the photos do.”

  He went across to the bookshelves, found another volume, opened it and showed Bobby a photograph of two great spreading candelabra, enormous things, each one of the twelve branches, six to each stem, terminating in a grinning, fiendish head that seemed even in this pictorial representation as if it could have come only from the depths of some tortured, hell-inspired imagination. Bobby stared at them curiously. There was about them a kind of awful fascination that even this mere photograph managed somehow to convey.

  “Pretty things, aren’t they?” Dick remarked. He closed the book, replaced it on the shelves and all three of them were aware of a certain relief as though an evil thing had been put away. Dick went on: “Another story about them is that Cellini conceived them after committing one of his murders and celebrated their completion by another, and that this time the murdered man, as he was dying, laid a curse upon them, so that ever after whenever they are lighted, murder follows. Two or three times in the old inventories there is a note, ‘Let these never be used or lighted, for they are evil things and death follows’. A third version is that Cellini made two almost identical sets. One with heads of the twelve apostles, for the pope of his time, and one, in a kind of devilish caricature, with these heads of fiends. Only stories, of course, but if the originals are anything like that photo, you can understand what started them.”

  “So you can,” agreed Bobby heartily. “Enough to start anything. Anyhow, all that means they can easily be identified. They would be valuable, too?”