Roboshobery, who was knocking out his pipe against the socket of his wooden leg, paused and stared.
“All black, you say?” he queried. “An’ laid out straight like someone might ha’ putt him there?”
“Why, yes, so it seemed; but then, as I was saying—”
“Head hangin’ all aside?”
“Yes—what seemed the head. I might have guessed it fancy, from that, now I come to think of it—it was so unnatural.”
The old man never took his eyes from mine.
“You’ve seen Derifal,” he said.
“Derifal?”
“Ay, sir, you’ve seen Derifal, an’ not the first, either. Though ’tis nigh ten year since I heard of it last, that not bein’ a road much used o’ nights. ’Twere Derifal.”
“And who is Derifal?”
“What he be now you may make your guess, sir,” Dove answered deliberately, giving his attention once more to his pipe. “Once he were a man, an’ he hung in chains on the gibbet at that there corner.”
“But Derifal? I never heard the name before. I have heard of Cavell, and Munt, and Apprice, that Prentice remembers—the last that hung there; but never of Derifal.”
“Cavell, an’ Munt, an’ Apprice—I saw ’em all myself when I were a boy. But Derifal were before that, long; an’ the last man that saw him hangin’ died fifty year ago. I’ll tell ’ee, sir. ’Tis a true proper tale for wilful youth.”
Roboshobery filled his pipe from the steel box engraved with a frigate in full sail, and I saw in his eye the quaint twinkle that ever accompanied a rebuke to a junior. He smoked a few puffs in silence, and then began his tale:
“It were fair to count that Derifal had a father, like most on us, but none hereabout ever heard tell on him. His mother dropped into the place out o’ nowhere, so to say, in a po’-chay, nobody but her and her boy, about six year old or so, then. D’ye know the waste corner in the lane by t’ oad common, leadin’ to Beggar’s Bush—the place where so much wallflower and snapdragon grows wild?”
The place was very noticeable to anybody passing the lane, and here and there the footings of old walls were still visible, showing it to be the site of a vanished cottage.
“Well,” the old man proceeded, when I had answered him, “they lived in a cottage that stood there. There were some sort o’ walls to it when I were a boy, though no roof; but the bricks were hiked off a few at a time, till ’twere as you see it now. But that makes nothen’, here or there. The cottage were bought an’ the furnitude put in by the lawyer at Rochford, by orders from another lawyer in London; an’ nobody knew where the orders come from to begin with. But when all were ready, down comes Mrs. Derifal an’ the boy, an’ here they lived the rest o’ their lives.
“Rather a gentry sort o’ person, ’twould seem, were this Mrs. Derifal; an’, keepin’ to herself, there were tales a-plenty about—some I heard myself many’s a year after she were dust and bones. But not a soul knew anything certain till the boy growed up, an’ then they knew bad things of him. ’Twere as you might expect. He never went to school—his mother teached him, or wanted; but he learnt little that he hadn’t a mind to. She were all for him, body an’ soul, an’ he growed up to prove her folly. She drew money quarterly through the lawyers, an’ spent it all on the boy; an’ as soon as he was old enough to do it, he spent it himself.
“There were little o’ the genelman about he, whatever his father may or may not ha’ been. He couldn’t find company low enough hereabouts; an’ that ’ud sound strange enough to you if you knew these parts as I’ve known ’em. He was away days together, an’ ’twas said his mother never slept those times, but sat watchin’. An’ like as not, when his humour was bad, he’d knock her down for it. He took her money as soon as she got it, every farden; an’ what she lived on nobody could guess. She, that had been as neat an’ lady-lookin’ a woman as you might find in Essex, turned into a poor oad trollops with half a gownd to cover her, an’ eyes blistered red with cryin’ when they wasn’t black with beatin’. But with it all she wouldn’t hear a word against him, an’ tried to make believe to be the best-fortuned mother in the parish. She bought him out o’ trouble with selling the furnitude an’ he turned on her for her ill-kep’ house. She would take him by the hem of his coat, an’ pray him to come back home, till he drove her away; an’ she’d find him drunk in a ditch an’ sit by him all night till she could take him home with her.
“They lived like that for long enough to set such tales about those parts as I might go on tellin’ you for an hour, an’ all tales o’ the same sort. We’ve had our share o’ bad ’uns hereabout; but I never heard of the like of Derifal—not a man that ’ud so behave to his own mother, that is. His name was a sort o’ common sayin’ in my time, though he hanged at the four-wont way ’fore I was born, as I’ve said.
“The time came when all he could get from his mother wasn’t enough for Derifal, an’ he tried other ways. He were never taken for it; but I’ve heard he went with some others a-robbin’ on the road. An’ at last it came that he an’ two more had a plan that nobody ever learned the rights of, though ’tis to be guessed it were breaking into a house. His mother got some notion of it, though, an’ tried to keep him back. Much good that was.
“It seems she followed him unbeknown as he went out at night, an’ over by Dawes Heath he met his two pals. Whether or not she heard anything they said, I can’t tell ’ee; but sartain it is she ran an’ catched him about with her arms, pleadin’ an’ prayin’ he wouldn’t go. ‘Danny, my boy, ye’ll never go! Don’t listen to ’em, Danny! ’Tis your life, my boy! You sha’n’t go while I can hold ’ee, my Danny!’
“He threatened her, an’ she held him the tighter and begged the harder. He beat her with his shut fist, an’ she hung tight to save him. He couldn’t break her hold, and he maddened an’ cursed, an’ beat her down by the head with an iron bar from his pocket. She let go then, and dropped, dyin’!
“Derifal’s mates were hainish low enough; but this was beyond ’em. They went King’s evidence, an’ Derifal were hanged on Dawes Heath, with half Essex tryin’ to pull him out o’ the cart an’ limb him. An’ at the end of the hour he were taken down and hung in chains there at the four-wont way.
“Now a man hung in chains was padlocked, as you may have heard, an’ Derifal was padlocked in the reg’lar way. But the next mornin’ the chains hung empty, an’ the corpse was lying on the bank, put out straight an’ decent like it were in a coffin, barring that the head—Well, you remember about the head yourself. So they sent a man off a-hossback to Chelmsford, an’ before night Derifal were up in the chains again with a new padlock, it bein’ guessed that somebody had a key to fit the other. But that weren’t enough; for next morning they found Derifal laid out the same again on the bank, at the other side o’ the post! An’ the padlock were tight as ever!
“They did it again, an’ the sheriff set a secret watch. But in the night the two watchmen came down runnin’, half dead o’ fright. They’d watched a bit, and seen nothen’; an’ then they sat to take a rest behind the hedge, countin’ they could hear if anybody came a-nigh. They’d sat a while, an’ maybe dozed a bit, when they heard a most piteous noise of cryin’ and sobbin’—not screams nor like that, but just quiet, bitter cryin’. So they upped and peeped over the hedge, an’ there were Derifal, laid out straight an’ black on the bank again, an’ a gashly thin, pale woman over him, cryin’ as they’d never dreamed, an’ with her hands to his head, like as she’d knelt many a night with him drunk by the wayside. An’ with that they runned.
“In the morning they carried the body away from the bank, an’ it never went back. How ’twas done I don’t know, but after a time there came an order—’twas said from the King himself—that Derifal should be buried. So buried he was; an’ with that ’tis to be guessed his mother got her rest at last, for I never heard she were seen again. You saw no white woman, sir
, did you?”
“Certainly not; and as for the—”
“Ay, ay, sir, ’tis as I said; she’s at rest. But I can show you two men alive now that have seen the black man, besides yourself.”
THE THING IN THE UPPER ROOM
First published in The Story-Teller, May 1910
A shadow hung ever over the door, which stood black in the depth of its arched recess, like an unfathomable eye under a frowning brow. The landing was wide and panelled, and a heavy rail, supported by a carved balustrade, stretched away in alternate slopes and levels down the dark staircase, past other doors, and so to the courtyard and the street. The other doors were dark also; but it was with a difference. That top landing was lightest of all, because of the skylight; and perhaps it was largely by reason of contrast that its one doorway gloomed so black and forbidding The doors below opened and shut, slammed, stood ajar. Men and women passed in and out, with talk and human sounds—sometimes even with laughter or a snatch of song; but the door on the top landing remained shut and silent through weeks and months. For, in truth, the logement had an ill name, and had been untenanted for years. Long even before the last tenant had occupied it, the room had been regarded with fear and aversion, and the end of that last tenant had in no way lightened the gloom that hung about the place.
The house was so old that its weather-washed face may well have looked down on the bloodshed of St. Bartholomew’s, and the haunted room may even have earned its ill name on that same day of death. But Paris is a city of cruel history, and since the old mansion rose proud and new, the hôtel of some powerful noble, almost any year of the centuries might have seen the blot fall on that upper room that had left it a place of loathing and shadows. The occasion was long forgotten, but the fact remained; whether or not some horror of the ancien régime or some enormity of the Terror was enacted in that room was no longer to be discovered; but nobody would live there, nor stay beyond that gloomy door one second longer than he could help. It might be supposed that the fate of the solitary tenant within living memory had something to do with the matter—and, indeed, his end was sinister enough; but long before his time the room had stood shunned and empty. He, greatly daring, had taken no more heed of the common terror of the room than to use it to his advantage in abating the rent; and he had shot himself a little later, while the police were beating at his door to arrest him on a charge of murder. As I have said, his fate may have added to the general aversion from the place, though it had no in no way originated it; and now ten years had passed, and more, since his few articles of furniture had been carried away and sold; and nothing had been carried in to replace them.
When one is twenty-five, healthy, hungry and poor, one is less likely to be frightened from a cheap lodging by mere headshakings than might be expected in other circumstances. Attwater was twenty-five, commonly healthy, often hungry, and always poor. He came to live in Paris because, from his remembrance of his student days, he believed he could live cheaper there than in London; while it was quite certain that he would not sell fewer pictures, since he had never yet sold one.
It was the concierge of a neighbouring house who showed Attwater the room. The house of the room itself maintained no such functionary, though its main door stood open day and night. The man said little, but his surprise at Attwater’s application was plain to see. Monsieur was English? Yes. The logement was convenient, though high, and probably now a little dirty, since it had not been occupied recently. Plainly, the man felt it to be no business of his to enlighten an unsuspecting foreigner as to the reputation of the place; and if he could let it there would be some small gratification from the landlord, though, at such a rent, of course a very small one indeed.
But Attwater was better informed than the concierge supposed. He had heard the tale of the haunted room, vaguely and incoherently, it is true, from the little old engraver of watches on the floor below, by whom he had been directed to the concierge. The old man had been voluble and friendly, and reported that the room had a good light, facing north-east—indeed, a much better light than he, engraver of watches, enjoyed on the floor below. So much so that, considering this advantage and the much lower rent, he himself would have taken the room long ago, except—well, except for other things. Monsieur was a stranger, and perhaps had no fear to inhabit a haunted chamber; but that was its reputation, as everybody in the quarter knew; it would be a misfortune, however, to a stranger to take the room without suspicion, and to undergo unexpected experiences. Here, however, the old man checked himself, possibly reflecting that too much information to inquirers after the upper room might offend his landlord. He hinted as much, in fact, hoping that his friendly warning would not be allowed to travel farther. As to the precise nature of the disagreeable manifestations in the room, who could say? Perhaps there were really none at all. People said this and that. Certainly, the place had been untenanted for many years, and he would not like to stay in it himself. But it might be the good fortune of monsieur to break the spell, and if monsieur was resolved to defy the revenant, he wished monsieur the highest success and happiness.
So much for the engraver of watches; and now the concierge of the neighbouring house led the way up the stately old panelled staircase, swinging his keys in his hand, and halted at last before the dark door in the frowning recess. He turned the key with some difficulty, pushed open the door, and stood back with an action of something not wholly deference, to allow Attwater to enter first.
A sort of small lobby had been partitioned off at some time, though except for this the logement was of one large room only. There was something unpleasant in the air of the place—not a smell, when one came to analyse one’s sensations, though at first it might seem so. Attwater walked across to the wide window and threw it open. The chimneys and roofs of many houses of all ages straggled before him, and out of the welter rose the twin towers of St. Sulpice, scarred and grim.
Air the room as one might, it was unpleasant; a sickly, even a cowed, feeling, invaded one through all the senses—or perhaps through none of them. The feeling was there, though it was not easy to say by what channel it penetrated. Attwater was resolved to admit none but a common-sense explanation, and blamed the long closing of door and window; and the concierge, standing uneasily near the door, agreed that that must be it. For a moment Attwater wavered, despite himself. But the rent was very low, and, low as it was, he could not afford a sou more. The light was good, though it was not a top-light, and the place was big enough for his simple requirements. Attwater reflected that he should despise himself ever after if he shrank from the opportunity; it would be one of those secret humiliations that will rise again and again in a man’s memory, and make him blush in solitude. He told the concierge to leave door and window wide open for the rest of the day, and he clinched the bargain.
It was with something of amused bravado that he reported to his few friends in Paris his acquisition of a haunted room; for, once out of the place, he readily convinced himself that his disgust and dislike while in the room were the result of imagination and nothing more. Certainly, there was no rational reason to account for the unpleasantness; consequently, what could it be but a matter of fancy? He resolved to face the matter from the beginning, and clear his mind from any foolish prejudices that the hints of the old engraver might have inspired, by forcing himself through whatever adventures he might encounter. In fact, as he walked the streets about his business, and arranged for the purchase and delivery of the few simple articles of furniture that would be necessary, his enterprise assumed the guise of a pleasing adventure. He remembered that he had made an attempt, only a year or two ago, to spend a night in a house reputed haunted in England, but had failed to find the landlord. Here was the adventure to hand, with promise of a tale to tell in future times; and a welcome idea struck him that he might look out the ancient history of the room, and work the whole thing into a magazine article, which would bring a little money.
So s
imple were his needs that by the afternoon of the day following his first examination of the room it was ready for use.
He took his bag from the cheap hotel in a little street of Montparnasse, where he had been lodging, and carried it to his new home. The key was now in his pocket, and for the first time he entered the place alone. The window remained wide open; but it was still there—that depressing, choking something that entered the consciousness he knew not by what gate. Again he accused his fancy. He stamped and whistled, and set about unpacking a few canvases and a case of old oriental weapons that were part of his professional properties. But he could give no proper attention to the work, and detected himself more than once yielding to a childish impulse to look over his shoulder. He laughed at himself—with some effort—and sat determinedly to smoke a pipe, and grow used to his surroundings. But presently he found himself pushing his chair farther and farther back, till it touched the wall. He would take the whole room into view, he said to himself in excuse, and stare it out of countenance. So he sat and smoked, and as he sat his eye fell on a Malay dagger that lay on the table between him and the window. It was a murderous, twisted thing, and its pommel was fashioned into the semblance of a bird’s head, with curved beak and an eye of some dull red stone. He found himself gazing on this red eye with an odd, mindless fascination. The dagger in its wicked curves seemed now a creature of some outlandish fantasy—a snake with a beaked head, a thing of nightmare, in some new way dominant, overruling the centre of his perceptions. The rest of the room grew dim, but the red stone glowed with a fuller light; nothing more was present to his consciousness. Then, with a sudden clang, the heavy bell of St. Sulpice aroused him, and he started up in some surprise.
There lay the dagger on the table, strange and murderous enough, but merely as he had always known it. He observed with more surprise, however, that his chair, which had been back against the wall, was now some six feet forward, close by the table; clearly, he must have drawn it forward in his abstraction, towards the dagger on which his eyes had been fixed… The great bell of St. Sulpice went clanging on, repeating its monotonous call to the Angelus.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 177