by Jack Fennell
Common humanity, of course, compelled me so to go, and I at once set out again through the rain, which still fell thickly. The young man in the dogcart explained as much of the situation as he could along the way. The family, he said, had been at Sandford Lodge for about a couple of years, and were well liked in the neighbourhood. Two gentlemen from the house had been out sailing that afternoon, and had either been caught in the squall, or run into a rock, but had gone down ‘clever and clean’ one way or the other. Mr Jack managed to swim ashore, but there was no sign of his brother, Mr Vincent, who was supposed to be getting married in two days’ time. After the awful news was delivered, they’d found the mistress of the house lying unconscious on the landing and couldn’t rouse her.
The young man drove a few hundred yards down a deeprutted, sandy lane, and pulled up next to an iron gate. ‘There’s a turnstile in the bank to your left, sir,’ he said, as I alighted, ‘and then if you go straight on up the lawn, you’ll find the porch-door open, and there’s safe to be someone about.’
I followed his instructions, feeling a curiously strong impression of familiarity with the place at which I had arrived – the sandy bank, the gate, the slope running up to the creeper-draped gabled house, standing out darkly against the struggling moonbeams. A common enough illusion, I reflected, but it was now without doubt unusually powerful and persistent. It was not dispelled even by my pricking my hand severely in brushing past a puzzle-monkey, which brandished its spiny arms in front of the turnstile. At the door I was met by two girls, who looked stunned and scared, but who reported that their mother had recovered from the long fainting-fit which had so much alarmed them.
They brought me upstairs to the room where she was sitting, and the first sight of her miserable face brought further latent memories to the surface, for she reminded me of someone I had met before, but I couldn’t remember who – even though I knew I was speaking to a Mrs Lynn.
I found the interview dreary and embarrassing. Mrs Lynn was so far recovered that her health called for but little professional discourse, and yet I feared to appear unsympathetic if I hastened away abruptly. At length I decided to end the conversation by producing a visiting-card, which I handed to Mrs Lynn, murmuring something about a hope that if I could at any time be of any service to her she would— But before I was half through my sentence, she started, and uttered an exclamation, with her eyes fixed upon the name and address. ‘Harlowe – Greystones,’ she said; ‘you’re the one who was so kind to poor Jack when he was with Dr Warden!’
As she spoke, a ray of recognition shot into my mind. It could be no one but John Lynn’s mother; of course I remembered John Lynn. Indeed, there was as strong a likeness between her and her son as there can be between an elderly lady and a young man. I was, however, still unable to recall the occasion upon which he had, as I now began to feel dimly aware, described this place to me.
Mrs Lynn appeared to be strangely agitated by her discovery of my identity. She sat for a minute or two glancing from the card to me, and said, ‘Dr Harlowe, I must tell you something that has been upon my mind for a long time.’ She continued, speaking low and rapidly, with many nervous glances towards the door. ‘Perhaps you may have heard that my youngest son Vincent is going to be married. Their wedding was to have been the day after tomorrow, his and Helen Ronaldson’s. She’s my ward, who has lived with us all her life; and they’ve been engaged for nearly a year. Well, Dr Harlowe, my son Jack – you know Jack – has been at home, too, for three or four years, and some time ago I began to suspect a feeling on his part of attachment towards Nellie. I hoped at first that I was mistaken, but lately I’ve realised I’m not. I believe he never realised it himself until the time of his brother’s engagement. And I fear he has at times, just occasionally, shown some jealousy towards Vincent. Not often at all, and nothing serious, you know; indeed, it may be only my own imagination.’
‘Very true,’ I said, because she looked at me as if wishing for assent.
‘But that’s not what I want to tell you,’ she hurried on. ‘Tonight, soon after he came back from that miserable boat, I was in here, when I heard Jack running upstairs, and I went to the door to speak to him, but before I could stop him, he had passed, and gone into his room. Just outside it he dropped something, and I picked it up. It was this!’ She took out of her pocket a small gold horseshoe-shaped locket with an inch or so of broken chain attached to it. One side of its case had been wrenched off at the hinge, showing that it contained a tiny photograph – a girl’s face, dark-eyed and delicately featured.
‘That’s Nellie,’ said Mrs Lynn, ‘and it belongs to Vincent; he always wore it on his watch-chain. So if he had really been washed away, as they said, I don’t understand how Jack came to have it with him. Do you, Dr Harlowe?’ This poor mother leaned forward and laid a hand on my sleeve, in her eagerness for an answer.
‘He might have been trying to rescue his brother – to pull him ashore, or into the boat, and have accidentally caught hold of it in that way,’ I suggested. ‘It looks as if it had been torn off by a strong grip.’
‘Do you think that may be how it was?’ she said with what seemed to me an odd mingling of relief and disappointment in her tone. ‘When I had picked it up, I waited about outside Jack’s door, and thought I heard him unlocking and opening a drawer. Presently he came out, in a great hurry: he ran past, saying, ‘I can’t stop now, mother.’ I went into his room, and the first thing I noticed was the drawer of the writing-table left open. I knew it was the one where he keeps his revolver, and when I looked into it, I saw that the case was empty. Just then I suddenly got very faint, and they say I was unconscious for a long time. One of the maids says that she saw Jack running down towards the beach, about an hour ago. I believe numbers of people are there, searching. I said nothing to anyone about the revolver – perhaps I ought to have done so. What can he have wanted with it? I’ve been thinking that he may have intended to fire it off for a signal, if the night was very dark. Don’t you think that is quite possible?’
‘I don’t know … I can’t say,’ I answered. At this moment a whole sequence of recollections stood out abruptly in my mind, as if my thoughts had been put under a stereoscope.
‘Can you tell me whether there is an old, disused boat-house, perhaps a mile along the shore, built in a hollow between two banks?’ I went on, impatiently adding what particulars I could, in hopes of prompting her memory, which seemed to be at fault.
‘Yes, yes, there is one like that,’ she said at last; ‘in the direction of Mainforthing; I remember we walked as far as it not very long ago.’
‘Someone ought to go there immediately,’ I said, moving towards the door.
‘Why?’ exclaimed Mrs Lynn, following me. ‘Is there any chance that the boys—?’
But I did not wait to explain my reasons, which, in truth, were scarcely intelligible to myself.
Hurrying down the lawn, and emerging on the beach, I fell in with a small group of men and lads, of whom I asked the way to Mainforthing. To the right, they told me by word and gesture, but the search party had set off in the opposite direction. I explained that my object was to find the old boat-house, whereupon they assured me that I would do so easy enough if I kept straight along by the strand for a mile and a bit, and two or three of them accompanied me as I started.
The stretches of crumbling, moon-bleached sand seemed to lengthen out interminably, but at last, round a corner I came breathlessly upon my goal. The door of the boat-house was wide open, and the moonlight streamed brightly through it, full in the face of a youth who, at the moment when I reached the threshold, was standing with his back to the wall, steadying himself by a hold on the window-ledge beside him, and looking as if he had just with difficulty scrambled to his feet. He was staring straight before him with a startled and bewildered expression, and saying ‘Jack – I say, Jack, what the deuce are you up to?’
And not without adequate cause. For opposite to him stood John Lynn – altered, but still recognisabl
e as my former acquaintance – who held in his hand a revolver, which he was raising slowly, slowly, to a level as it seemed with the other’s head. The next instant I had sprung towards him, but he was too quick for me, and, shaking off my grasp on his arm, turned and faced me, still holding his weapon. ‘Dr Harlowe! You here?’ he said, and had scarcely spoken the words when he put the barrel to his temple, and before the echoes of the shot had died on the jarred silence, and while the smoke-wreaths were still eddying up to the boat-house roof, he lay dead at our feet with a bullet in his brain.
The coroner’s jury, of course, returned their customary verdict, perhaps with better grounds than usual. Upon my own private verdict, I have deliberated often and long, but without arriving at any conclusive result. That crime that John Lynn had been about to commit – was it a premeditated one, or had he taken the revolver with some different intention, and then yielded to a sudden mad impulse? This question I can never hope to answer definitely, though my opinion inclines towards the latter. Upon the whole it seems clear to me that by his last act my unhappy friend took the easiest way out of a maze of mortal misery. Furthermore, I cannot avoid the conviction that but if he hadn’t told me of his dream, or trance experiences, a fratricide’s guilt would have been added to the burdens of his mind, and his passion mocked by Fate.
1. Editor’s note: a ‘fetch’ is the Irish folkloric equivalent of a doppelgänger; it is the double of a person who is still alive, and its appearance heralds the death of the person it mimics.
The Luck of Pitsey Hall
L.T. MEADE AND ROBERT EUSTACE (1899)
The benefits of scientific progress are
manifold, but writers have found the
nefarious potential of science to be
just as fruitful. The following story is
taken from a sequence entitled The
Brotherhood of Seven Kings, in which
the narrator does battle with an ancient
organisation (currently headed by
his ex-girlfriend) that uses scientific
knowledge to criminal ends – including
assassination by disease, sports fixing
by means of a tsetse fly, and audacious,
‘impossible’ robberies.
AS THE DAYS AND WEEKS went on, Mme Koluchy became more than ever the talk of London. The medical world agitated itself about her to an extraordinary degree. It was useless to gainsay the fact that she performed marvellous cures. Under her influence and treatment weak people became strong again. Those who stood at the door of the Shadow of Death returned to their intercourse with the busy world. Beneath her spell, pain vanished. What she did and how she did it remained more than ever a secret. She dispensed her own prescriptions, but although some of her medicines were analysed by experts, nothing in the least extraordinary could be discovered in their composition. The cure did not therefore lie in drugs. In what did it consist?
Doctors asked this question one of another, and could find no satisfactory answer. The rage to consult Madame became stronger and stronger. Her patients adored her. The magnetic influence which she exercised was felt by each person with whom she came in contact.
Meanwhile Dufrayer and I watched and waited. The detective officers in Scotland Yard knew of some of our views with regard to this woman. Led by Dufrayer they were ceaselessly on the alert; but, try as the most able of their staff did, they could learn nothing of Mme Koluchy which was not to her credit. She was spoken of as a universal benefactress, taking, it is true, large fees from those who could afford to pay; but, on the other hand, giving her services freely to the people to whom money was scarce. This woman could scarcely walk down the street without heads being turned to look after her, and this not only on account of her remarkable beauty, but still more because of her genius and her goodness. As she passed by, blessings were showered upon her, and if the person who called down these benedictions was rewarded by even one glance from those lovely and brilliant eyes, he counted himself happy.
About the middle of January, the attention of London was diverted from Mme Koluchy to a murder of a particularly mysterious character. A member of the Cabinet by the name of Delacour was found dead in St James’s Park. His body was discovered in the early morning, in the neighbourhood of Marlborough House, with a wound straight through the heart. Death must have been instantaneous. He was stabbed from behind, which showed the cowardly nature of the attack. I knew Delacour, and for many reasons was appalled when the tidings reached me. As far as anyone could tell, he had no enemies. He was a man in the prime of life, of singular power of mind and strength of character, and the only possible motive for the murder seemed to be to wrest some important State secrets from his possession. He had been attending a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, and was on his way home when the dastardly deed was committed. Certain memoranda respecting a loan to a foreign Government were abstracted from his person, but his watch, a valuable ring, and some money were left intact. The police immediately put measures in active train to secure the murderer, but no clue could be obtained. Delacour’s wife and only daughter were broken-hearted. His position as a Cabinet Minister was so well known, that not only his family but the whole country rang with horror at the dastardly crime, and it was fervently hoped that before long the murderer would be arrested, and receive the punishment which he so justly merited.
On a certain evening, about a fortnight after this event, as I was walking slowly down Welbeck Street, and was just about to pass the door of Mme Koluchy’s splendid mansion, I saw a young girl come down the steps.
She was dressed in deep mourning, and glanced around from right to left, evidently searching for a passing hansom. Her face arrested me; her eyes met mine, and, with a slight cry, she took a step forward.
‘You are Mr Head?’ she exclaimed.
‘And you are Vivien Delacour,’ I replied. ‘I am glad to meet you again. Don’t you remember the Hotel Bellevue at Brussels?’
When I spoke her name, she coloured perceptibly and began to tremble. Suddenly putting out one of her hands, she laid it on my arm.
‘I am glad to see you again,’ she said, in a whisper. ‘You know of our – our most terrible tragedy?
‘I do,’ I replied.
‘Mother is completely prostrated from the shock. The murder was so sudden and mysterious. If it were not for Mme—’
‘Mme Koluchy?’ I queried.
‘Yes, Mr Head; Mme Koluchy, the best and dearest friend we have in the world. She was attending mother professionally at the time of the murder, and since then has been with her daily. On that first terrible day she scarcely left us. I don’t know what we should have done were it not for her great tact and kindness. She is full of suggestions, too, for the capture of the wretch who took my dear father’s life.’
‘You look shaken yourself,’ I said; ‘ought you to be out alone at this hour?’
‘I have just seen Madame with a message from mother, and am waiting here for a hansom. If you would be so kind as to call one, I should be much indebted to you.’
‘Can I do anything to help you, Vivien?’ I said; ‘you know you have only to command me.’
A hansom drew up at the pavement as I spoke. Vivien’s sad grey eyes were fixed on my face.
‘Find the man who killed my father,’ she said; ‘we shall never rest until we know who took his life.’
‘May I call at your house tomorrow morning?’ I asked suddenly.
‘If you will be satisfied with seeing me. Mother will admit no one to her presence but Mme Koluchy.’
‘I will come to see you then; expect me at eleven.’
I helped Miss Delacour into her hansom, gave directions to the driver, and she was quickly bowled out of sight.
On my way home, many thoughts coursed through my brain. A year ago, the Delacours, a family of the name of Pitsey, and I had made friends when travelling through Belgium. The Pitseys, of old Italian origin, owned a magnificent place not far from Tunbridge Wells; the
Pitseys and the Delacours were distant cousins. Vivien at that time was only sixteen, and she and I became special chums. She used to tell me all about her ambitions and hopes, and in particular descanted on the museum of rare curios which her cousins, the Pitseys, possessed at their splendid place, Pitsey Hall. I had a standing invitation to visit the Hall at any time when I happened to have leisure, but up to the present had not availed myself of it. Memories of that gay time thronged upon me as I hurried to my own house, but mixed with the old reminiscences was an inconceivable sensation of horror.
Why was Mme Koluchy a friend of the Delacours? My mind had got into such a disordered state that I, more or less, associated her with any crime which was committed. Hating myself for what I considered pure morbidness, I arrived at my own house. There I was told that Dufrayer was waiting to see me. I hurried into my study to greet him; he came eagerly forward.
‘Have you any news?’ I cried.
‘If you allude to Delacour’s murder, I have,’ he answered.
‘Then, pray speak quickly,’ I said.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘a curious development, and one which may have the most profoundly important bearing on the murder, has just taken place; it is in connection with it that I have come to see you.’ Dufrayer stood up as he spoke. He never liked to be interrupted, and I listened attentively without uttering a syllable.
‘Yesterday,’ he continued, ‘a man was arrested on suspicion. He was examined this morning before the magistrate at Dow Street. His name is Walter Hunt; he is the keeper of a small marine store at Houndsditch.
‘For several nights he has been found hovering in a suspicious manner round the Delacours’ house. On being questioned he could give no straightforward account of himself, and the police thought it best to arrest him.
‘On his person was discovered an envelope, addressed to himself, bearing the City post-mark and the date of the day the murder was committed. Inside the envelope was an absolutely blank sheet of paper. Thinking this might be a communication of importance it was submitted to George Lambert, the Government expert at Scotland Yard, for examination; he subjected it to every known test in order to see if it contained any writing on sympathetic ink, or some other secret cipher principles. The result is absolutely negative, and Lambert firmly declares that it is a blank sheet of paper and of no value. I heard all these particulars from Ford, the superintendent in charge of the case; and knowing of your knowledge of chemistry, and the quantity of odds and ends of curious information you possess on these matters, I obtained leave that you should come with me to Scotland Yard and submit the paper to any further tests you know of. I felt sure you would be willing to do this.’