Old House of Fear

by Russell Kirk

  “On the yacht a light was burning, and she lay hard up against the stone quay, with the launch moored just beyond her. Two men were on deck, worse luck, and there might be a third below; I thought I heard his voice. And one of the men – Powert, I thought – had a rifle across his knees as he sat there. ‘Seamus,’ say I in my head, ‘this must be neatly done, if ’tis to be done at all.’ So back along the quay to the harbor-head I make my way, like a mouse, and to the shed by the quayside. They had forgot to lock the door.

  “Now if I might keep the men aboard the yacht with their hands full of work, I might hope to take the launch; or, failing that, I might burn both boats, making a beacon to be seen in Daldour or out to sea, and vexing Jackman’s damned soul. In the shed, along with ropes and paints and such, I found what I had hoped for, a tin of petrol and a brace of empty bottles. And there were some oily bits of waste and rags on the floor. You’ll have made a Molotov cocktail, Mr. Detective Logan? Now that would have been a fine present for Dr. Jackman, considering his political tastes; but I hadn’t the proper ingredients. And the real explosives were tucked away at the Old House, beyond my reach. So the bottles filled with petrol, and the waste and rags stuffed into the mouths, would have to serve me. The matches I already had in my pocket.

  “With the bottles in my coat, back I go along the quay, keeping out of sight. But close to the yacht, my foot strikes a stone, that tumbles into the harbor with a splash. Powert and Carruthers, sitting on deck, seem to be nervous as pregnant cats, for Powert springs up with his rifle and calls out, ‘Who’s there?’ And he catches a glimpse of my bald head above the dyke. ‘Donley,’ he sings, ‘if that’s you, show yourself.’

  “What with Powert’s rifle in his hands, it was a risky stratagem. Yet I bob up from behind the dyke and lob the first burning bottle right for the open hatch, Powert firing at me on the moment. Powert misses, but the bottle sails true. Right down the companionway it falls, and in a second flames come bursting up. And up comes another thing: Till, who has been below decks. I see him as I toss the second bottle. His hair and shirt are all afire, and him screaming like a mad thing.

  “The second bottle goes down the hatch, too, and more flames shoot up; and then Carruthers takes panic and dives over the side into the harbor, for I have lugged out Meg and sent a shot across the deck. Powert runs aft for a fire-extinguisher, while Till rolls screaming by the deckhouse; but I try another shot at Powert, and he follows Carruthers over the side, rifle and all, though I do not think I hit him. If those three had kept their heads about them, they could have put out the flames, but now it is too late. And now Seamus will have his try at the launch; for below decks in the yacht, the fire from the spattered petrol is gaining fine. Powert and Carruthers will have struck out for the far side of the harbor, not liking the bark of little old Meg in my paw.

  “It was down the slimy old quayside steps and into the launch I went then. Ferd and the rest from the Old House would be upon me in a matter of minutes, seeing the fire from the yacht; and then, too, the yacht might explode, if there were fuel in her tanks, though she did not burn so hard and fast as I might have liked. The mist being heavy that night, it was odds against the fire being seen from land, unless from Daldour, for Askival harbor lies snug among the cliffs; and the weather was too much for any chance aircraft.

  “I tried the engine of the launch, but she was as dead as Lagg must be. It may be they had taken the plug, or tampered with the wires, Jackman being a man of forethought. Be it whatever, Mr. Logan, I could do nothing with her. If there had been even oars, I would have put to sea with no motor; but the launch was too big for rowing. One thing I did find in the bows, for all that: a spanner. ‘Well, Seamus,’ I think, ‘if you’re not to have her, no more shall they.’ And with that spanner I did abuse the engine so that no man might mend it, paying no heed to the noise I made.

  “On the yacht’s deck, Till had made an end of his moaning, and I could not see him; like enough he had fallen over board, which he should have done the moment my bottle set him afire. But I could hear feet running and voices near the harbor-head.

  “With the tide ebbing, it came to my mind that if I were to cast off, the current might carry the launch toward the harbor-mouth, perhaps close enough to the other side of the harbor that I might leap ashore dry. So I cut the painter with my clasp-knife, and no sooner than was needful. The tide began to take the launch the few rods between me and the harbor-mouth. But now four or five men were on the quay I had left, and two rifles were firing. They hit the launch sure enough, and put holes in her, like enough – but not in Seamus Donley. The blessed dark that preserved me! In no time at all the launch had drifted right up against the further quay, on her way to the harbor-mouth, and I had hold of an iron ladder that’s fixed in the stones, and up I went.

  “As for the launch, she will have drifted out with the tide, and sunk, what with the holes in her, for when I looked down toward the harbor from the cliffs the next morning, there was no trace of her. You can trust Seamus for a job of sabotage.

  “But there was no time for self-congratulations, Mr. Logan. They would have seen me get ashore again, even in the fog, and would be at my heels. The best route for myself was the low ground between the Old House and the empty cottages at Duncambus, and then up to the caves in the cliffs. Oh, I knew the island of Carnglass, what with shooting rabbits and birds over the best part of it, while I played at keeper. There was but one hope for Seamus left, and that was the coming of some one in a boat, such as yourself.

  “A man or two set out after me, I think, and there was shooting in the dark; but I showed them my heels, and made my way up the north cliffs; yet a climb it was that none but a drunken man, or a desperate one, would undertake. And before I had got to the foot of the cliffs, there came a great boom! behind me, and I looked round, and the yacht was blazing worse than ever, for her petrol-tanks had blown up. Yet they had been half drained earlier, so the explosion was not all I had hoped for. When I got to the cliff head, the fire in the yacht was out, so they must have got pumps to working on the quay; Jackman will have been back with his boys by that time, and what he told the boatmen could not have been fit for decent ears. At dawn, when I risked a look at the harbor, I could see the wreck of the yacht settled into the harbor mud, with the water up to her gunwales even at low tide; she must be all awash at high tide, and I doubt she’ll ever sail again. Sure, Jackman can’t repair her.”

  Logan had interrupted seldom; that seemed the best policy, when Donley was full of whiskey. Now he asked, “Do you mean you’ve bottled up Jackman’s people altogether, Mr. Donley?”

  “And myself with them, Mr. Detective Logan. Even had Jackman means for sending messages to the mainland, he’d say nothing concerning the yacht and the launch, for fear of police coming to investigate. And he has no such means, public or private. There was a wireless in the yacht, but that’s lost; and there was an old wireless in the Old House, but that’s been broken for a fortnight, how no one knows.

  “In a matter of days, sure, his agents in Glasgow will begin fretting after Jackman, what with no word from Carnglass, and will send out some boat with trusty men to see what’s wrong. Until he has another big launch, though, Jackman can do no more spying among the islands, under pretext of pleasure-cruising, nor get word from men that he pays in South Uist and other places. And now there’s no Seamus Donley to handle his explosives for him, though Royall and Jackman himself might make shift, if ever they find a good time and place to use them. And Jackman will be fearing that the fire was seen, and that inquiries will be made.”

  “How is it, Seamus Donley,” Logan asked him, “that you’ve contrived to keep clear of Jackman on this little island for three whole days?”

  Donley chuckled with a deep gratification. “There’ll be a dozen caves in Carnglass; and faint cliff-paths that only a Kerry man could follow; and two ruined villages, and the two empty farmhouses, and the barns and outhouses and the rest. And the mist, the blessed mist. Wo
uld you believe, Mr. Logan, that I’m sixty-four years of age? No more would they. But old Seamus is three times the man that the best of them ever was. Oh, I can lay false scents: I broke a window at night in the New House, so they might think me hid inside, though I never entered; and I smashed the lock on the door of this black house – it was kept for a hunting-lodge on this shore – though I’ve not slept inside, to fool them again; and they cannot tell where I lay my head. After dark, they give up the hunt, huddling together in the Old House, for fright of Seamus. And in the day, they dare not seek me in packs of less than three, though I’ve but little Meg here against their rifles. Twice they’ve come near to finishing me, the last time only this evening; but the mist saved me again, and I climbed down the sea-face of the cliffs, and came round to this hut of yours when the tide was low. They’ll be on the scent again so soon as there’s daylight. For if Seamus got away from Carnglass with a whole skin, their game would be played out.

  “What they hope, Mr. Detective Logan, is that old Seamus will be worn down by lack of victuals and broken sleep and being run like a hare all day; and then they’ll bag him. And so they might have done, in a day or two more, had you not brought your dinghy to Dalcruach sands, Mr. Logan. But now I’ll take French leave of them.”

  In his wild and ruinous way, this was a wonderful man, Logan thought. “I’ve another plan, Seamus Donley,” he said. “It’s this: I suggest that you and I go up to the Old House together, in the morning, and face them down.”

  Donley slapped his hand upon the table, approvingly; and then, remembering his situation, glanced uneasily toward the door. “By St. Patrick and St. Merin – whoever she was – you’ve a heart in your body, Mr. Logan! You’d do honor to the Republican Army. Get thee behind me, Satan Logan. ’Tis a temptation: and I might yield, if only we had a brace of rifles. Mr. Detective Logan to stand for the majesty of the law, and Mr. Seamus Donley for justice outraged! Ah, the pleasure of seeing Jackman’s face, under the circumstances. Now tell me true: have you no gun hid anywhere?”

  “I’ve nothing but a walking-stick and a long razor,” Logan said.

  Donley shook his bald head. “No, the thing won’t do, sir. Look here: there’s but three bullets left in old Meg.” He swung open the revolver’s cylinder. “The rest were spent, though I had a pocketful of cartridges, in keeping off Jackman’s boys when they came within my range. Fine figures you and I would cut, Mr. Detective, with one little gun to the pair of us, tossing a sixpence for who might have the third shot at Jackman. No, they call me a reckless Irishman, but I’m not the fighting fool you seem to be. ’Tis away in your boat I must be tonight; and if you’ve mind as well as heart, Mr. Logan, you’ll come away with me, and let me set you ashore in safety, to fight another day.”

  “I’m thinking of the women’s safety,” Logan said. Donley nodded. “But you can do one thing for me, Seamus Donley: let me write a note or two, and you can carry them with you, and post them the moment you reach a post-box; for I take it that I’ll need help.”

  “That I will do,” Seamus Donley said. “And more: the moment I reach a telephone-kiosk, Mr. Detective, I will tele phone your damned police, and tell them there is trouble in Carnglass. But promise this much to me, that you’ll not put my name into your letter. And you must hurry, for midnight’s near, and I’ll need the ebbing of the tide to take me clear of the skerries.”

  “Give me five minutes,” Logan told him, “and your leave to light the lamp again, and you’ll have my word. You can read the note, for that matter. And then I’ll see you launched in the dinghy. But unless you’re a better boatman than any I’ve met, I can’t understand how you expect to keep clear of the rocks, and fight the currents, let alone cross open water, in an open boat.”

  “Seamus Donley,” that modest man said, “is as skilled with boats as with explosives. Trust me, Mr. Logan: I’ll bring your message to land.”

  In haste, Logan scribbled a few words to the chief constable, Glasgow, or any police-officer into whose hands the note might come, saying that a man probably had been murdered in Carnglass, and that more trouble might be expected, and that immediate action was required. He put the paper into a soggy envelope, and Donley thrust it into an inner pocket. “Now,” Logan said, “I’m your man, Seamus Donley. But watch for that current just beyond the needle-rocks: with the wind we’ve had for these past four or five hours, the odds are that it may be too strong for you, and smash the boat against the western cliffs.” Logan stripped off shoes, stockings, and trousers, for it would be drenching work to launch the dinghy. And then the two of them went cautiously out of the black house. So far as they could tell, they stood alone on the dark beach.

  Though the wind had gone down an hour earlier, and the tide was flowing back toward that lonely sea, still two strong men would be needed to launch even a light boat in that surge on the beach. Neither moon nor stars showed through the blackness. Between them, with much panting and heaving, they dragged the dinghy to the water’s edge, and then pulled her along the beach to a more sheltered spot behind an outcrop of gray, weed-shrouded stone, where there was a good chance of getting her really afloat. They staggered in water up to their waists; once Logan fell, taking in a mouthful of salt water. The dinghy having shipped some sea, Donley bailed her as best he could with her rusty bucket. Now the trial must be made, and they would thrust her against the surf.

  Donley flung his overcoat into the boat. “If you’ve no strong objection, Mr. Detective Logan,” he growled, “I’ll take with me the remnant of your good whiskey: I slipped the bottle into my coat pocket as we left the hut. You’ve a brave heart, but no eye for sneak-thieves. Yet I’ll give value for value.” He handed to Logan something dark and weighty: it was the little gun called Meg, in a shoulder-holster with a strap.

  Logan fitted the holster under his arm. “That’s generous of you, Seamus Donley.”

  “She’s a well-balanced weapon, Mr. Detective, and never was meant for a free gift to a policeman. But how bullets will prevail against Jackman’s boys, I cannot advise you.”

  “Give me your hand,” Logan said. The tremendous grip of the Irishman almost made him cry out.

  “We should have been Dominicans together, Mr. Logan,” Donley grinned. He let go Logan’s hand. “Now put your shoulder to the dinghy.”

  They forced her bow against the comber, and Donley, rolling his great body over the gunwale, seized the oars. Logan flung his weight against the stern, running up to his nose in the receding wave. Now Donley was plying his oars: the shelter of the rocks helped him; yet only a man of his vast strength could have made head against that surly swell.

  Then, suddenly, the crest of a wave was carrying the little boat outward: Donley got her round the rocks that had helped her launching. If he called out anything to Logan at the last, his voice was lost in the noise of waves smashing against stone and sand. The dinghy passed into the Hebridean night, and Logan wished that fierce man good fortune upon his nocturnal sea. A minute later, Logan caught one final glimpse of the boat passing over the inner reef, Donley rowing mightily. After that, the mist settled upon the face of the waters.

  Chapter 6

  SOME STRANGE BIRD, perhaps a shearwater, swept high above Logan as he made his way back to the hovel: it shrieked like nothing canny. That cry was a fitting farewell to Seamus Donley.

  How much might Logan credit of the gunman’s story? While Donley had sat before him, sinister and humorous, talking in his Kerry way, even the more amazing parts of the tale had seemed fairly credible. But now Logan felt grave doubts. Donley was a terrorist, his hand against every man’s. That someone named Jackman should have upon Lady MacAskival’s money was not improbable; but Donley’s assertion that Jackman meant sabotage, espionage, and murder would not quite go down: not in a quiet Scottish island owned by an old lady.

  Yet there had been Logan’s own encounter with violence in Mutto’s Wynd, and that unnerving scene in the valley just back of the cliff, with the three men firing a
t Donley. And Donley’s account of Lagg’s end had the ring of truth.

  Logan barred the cottage door behind him. Whatever measures Jackman’s people had taken with an escaped convict, surely they would not deal similarly with an American lawyer, known by several people to have been bound for Carnglass. Yet the feel of Donley’s pistol Meg, snug under his arm, was a comfort. Well, he must spend five hours more in the black house, though he had risen from his long sleep only ten hours ago, and did not feel in the least tired, even after the launching of the dinghy. There could be no climbing the cliffs until dawn. He let the fire expire altogether, and did not re-light the lamp: Donley’s warnings had that much effect upon him. Lying on the old bed with a blanket about him, Logan thought of what he must do as soon as the sun began to rise.

  The odds were that Donley’s pursuers would be out in force when light came; they had nearly caught or shot Donley the previous evening, and they would know he was tired, and probably almost out of ammunition. And if those men with rifles were even half so rough a crew as Donley had suggested, it would be more prudent for Logan to avoid a sudden encounter with them – particularly since they would take any moving figure to be Donley himself. The best course, it seemed, would be for Logan to keep to the clifftops, if possible, until close to the Old House; and then to descend and go straight up to the door. If they wouldn’t let him see Lady MacAskival, at least they could not mistake him for Donley; and he could lay his cards before this Dr. Jackman – or as many of his cards as might seem prudent. In Jackman, at least, Logan took it, he would confront a rational being.