Standing up, I placed it on the table; then, as I reached for my hat, I noticed on the floor a half-sheet of paper, which had evidently fallen from the diary as I read. Stooping, I picked it up. It was soiled and, in parts illegible, but what I saw there filled me with astonishment. Here, at last, in my hands, I held the key to the horrible mystery that surrounded us!
Hastily I crumpled the paper into my pocket and, opening the door, rushed from the room. Reaching the hotel, I bounded upstairs to where Will sat reading.
“I’ve found it out! I’ve found it out!” I gasped. Will sprang from his seat, his eyes blazing with excitement. I seized him by the arm and, without stopping to explain, dragged him hatless into the street.
“Come on,” I cried.
As we ran through the streets, people looked up wonderingly, and many joined in the race.
At last we reached the open space and the empty pedestal. Here I paused a moment to gain breath. Will looked at me curiously. The crowd formed round in a semi-circle, at some little distance.
Then, without a word, I stepped up to the altar and, stooping, reached up under it. There was a loud click and I sprang back sharply. Something rose from the centre of the pedestal with a slow, stately movement. For a second no one spoke; then a great cry of fear came from the crowd: “The image! the image!” and some began to run. There was another click and Kali, the Goddess of Death, stood fully revealed.
Again I stepped up to the altar. The crowd watched me breathlessly, and the timid ceased to fly. For a moment I fumbled. Then one side of the pedestal swung back. I held up my hand for silence. Someone procured a lantern, which I lit and lowered through the opening. It went down some ten feet, then rested on the earth beneath. I peered down, and as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I made out a square-shaped pit in the ground directly below the pedestal.
Will came to my side and looked over my shoulder.
“We must get a ladder,” he said. I nodded, and he sent a man for one. When it came, we pushed it through until it rested firmly; then, after a final survey, we climbed cautiously down.
I remember feeling surprised at the size of the place. It was as big as a good-sized room. At this moment as I stood glancing round, Will called to me. His voice denoted great perplexity. Crossing over, I found him staring at a litter of things which strewed the ground: tins, bottles, cans, rubbish, a bucket with some water in it and, further on, a sort of rude bed.
“Someone’s been living here!” and he looked at me blankly. “It wasn’t—” he began, then hesitated. “It wasn’t that after all,” and he indicated with his head.
“No,” I replied, “it wasn’t that.” I assented. Will’s face was a study. Then he seemed to grasp the full significance of the fact, and a great look of relief crossed his features.
A moment later, I made a discovery. On the left-hand side in the far corner was a low-curved entrance like a small tunnel. On the opposite side was a similar opening. Lowering the lantern, I looked into the right-hand one, but could see nothing. By stooping somewhat we could walk along it, which we did for some distance, until it ended in a heap of stones and earth. Returning to the hollow under the pedestal, we tried the other, and after a little, noticed that it trended steadily downwards.
“It seems to be going in the direction of the lake,” I remarked. “We had better be careful.”
A few feet further on the tunnel broadened and heightened considerably, and I saw a faint glimmer which, on reaching, proved to be water.
“Can’t get any further,” Will cried. “You were right. We have got down to the level of the lake.”
“But what on earth was this tunnel designed for?” I asked, glancing around. “You see it reaches below the surface of the lake.”
“Goodness knows,” Will answered. “I expect it was one of those secret passages made centuries ago—most likely in Cromwell’s time. You see, Colonel Whigman’s was a very old place, built I can’t say how long ago. It belonged once to an old baron. However, there is nothing here; we might as well go.”
“Just a second, Will,” I said, the recollection of the statue’s wild leap into the lake at the moment recurring to me.
I stooped and held the lantern close over the water which blocked our further progress.
As I did so I thought I saw something of an indistinct whiteness floating a few inches beneath the surface. Involuntarily my left hand took a firmer grip of the lantern, and the fingers of my right hand opened out convulsively.
What was it I saw? I could feel myself becoming as icy cold as the water itself. I glanced at Will. He was standing disinterestedly a little behind me. Evidently he had, so far, seen nothing.
Again I looked, and a horrible sensation of fear and awe crept over me as I seemed to see, staring up at me, the face of Kali, the Goddess of Death.
“See, Will!” I said quickly. “Is it fancy?”
Following the direction of my glance, he peered down into the gloomy water, then started back with a cry.
“What is it, Herton? I seemed to see a face like—”
“Take the lantern, Will,” I said as a sudden inspiration came to me. “I’ve an idea what it is.” And, leaning forward, I plunged my arms in up to the elbows and grasped something cold and hard. I shuddered, but held on, and pulled, and slowly up from the water rose a vast white face which came away in my hands. It was a huge mask—an exact facsimile of the features of the statue above us.
Thoroughly shaken, we retreated to the pedestal with our trophy, and from thence up the ladder into the blessed daylight.
Here, to a crowd of eager listeners, we told our story; and so left it.
Little remains to be told.
Workmen were sent down and from the water they drew forth the dead body of an enormous Hindoo, draped from head to foot in white. In the body were a couple of bullet wounds. Our fire had been true that night, and he had evidently died trying to enter the pedestal through the submerged opening of the passage.
Who he was, or where he came from, no one could explain.
Afterwards, among the colonel’s papers, we found a reference to the High Priest, which led us to suppose that it was he who, in vengeance for the sacrilege against his appalling deity, had, to such terrible purpose, impersonated Kali, the Goddess of Death.
Terror of the Water-Tank
Crowning the heights on the outskirts of a certain town on the east coast is a large, iron water-tank from which an isolated row of small villas obtains its supply. The top of this tank has been cemented, and round it have been placed railings, thus making of it a splendid “look-out” for any of the townspeople who may choose to promenade upon it. And very popular it was until the strange and terrible happenings of which I have set out to tell.
Late one evening, a party of three ladies and two gentlemen had climbed the path leading to the tank. They had dined, and it had been suggested that a promenade upon the tank in the cool of the evening would be pleasant. Reaching the level, cemented surface, they were proceeding across it, when one of the ladies stumbled and almost fell over some object lying near the railings on the town-side.
A match having been struck by one of the men, they discovered that it was the body of a portly old gentleman lying in a contorted attitude and apparently quite dead. Horrified, the two men drew off their fair companions to the nearest of the afore-mentioned houses. Then, in company with a passing policeman, they returned with all haste to the spot.
By the aid of the officer’s lantern, they ascertained the grewsome fact that the old gentleman had been strangled. In addition, he was without watch or purse. The policeman was able to identify him as an old, retired mill-owner, living some little distance away at a place named Revenge End.
At this point the little party was joined by a stranger, who introduced himself as Dr. Tointon, adding the information that he lived in one of the villas close at hand, and had run across as soon as he had heard there was something wrong.
Silently, the
two men and the policeman gathered round, as with deft, skillful hands the doctor made his short examination.
“He’s not been dead more than about half an hour,” he said at its completion.
He turned towards the two men.
“Tell me how it happened—all you know?” They told him the little they knew.
“Extraordinary,” said the doctor. “And you saw no one?”
“Not a soul, doctor!”
The medical man turned to the officer.
“We must get him home,” he said. “Have you sent for the ambulance?”
“Yes, sir,” said the policeman. “I whistled to my mate on the lower beat, and ’e went straight off.”
The doctor chatted with the two men, and reminded them that they would have to appear at the inquest.
“It’s murder?” asked the younger of them in a low voice.
“Well,” said the doctor. “It certainly looks like it.”
And then came the ambulance.
At this point, I come into actual contact with the story; for old Mr. Marchmount, the retired mill-owner, was the father of my fiancée, and I was at the house when the ambulance arrived with its sad burden.
Dr. Tointon had accompanied it along with the Policeman, and under his directions the body was taken upstairs, while I broke the news to my sweetheart.
Before he left, the doctor gave me a rough outline of the story as he knew it. I asked him if he had any theory as to how and why the crime had been committed.
“Well,” he said, “the watch and chain are missing, and the purse. And then he has undoubtedly been strangled; though with what, I have been unable to decide.”
And that was all he could tell me.
The following day there was a long account in the Northern Daily Telephone about the “shocking murder”. The column ended, I remember, by remarking that people would do well to beware, as there were evidently some very desperate characters about, and added that it was believed the police had a clew.
During the afternoon, I myself went up to the tank. There was a large crowd of people standing in the road that runs past at some little distance; but the tank itself was in the hands of the police officer being stationed at the top of the steps leading up to it. On learning my connection with the deceased, he allowed me up to have a look round.
I thanked him, and gave the whole of the tank a pretty thorough scrutiny, even to the extent of pushing my cane down through lock-holes in the iron man-hole lids, to ascertain whether the tank was full or not, and whether there was room for someone to hide.
On pulling out my stick, I found that the water reached to within a few inches of the lid, and that the lids were securely locked. I at once dismissed a vague theory that had formed in my mind that there might be some possibility of hiding within the tank itself and springing out upon the unwary. It was evidently a common, brutal murder, done for the sake of my prospective father-in-law’s purse and gold watch.
One other thing I noticed before I quitted the tank top. It came to me as I was staring over the rail at the surrounding piece of waste land. Yet at the time, I thought little of it, and attached to it no importance whatever. It was that the encircling piece of ground was soft and muddy and quite smooth. Possibly there was a leakage from the tank that accounted for it. Anyhow, that is how it seemed to be.
“There ain’t nothin’ much to be seen, sir,” volunteered the policeman, as I prepared to descend the steps on my way back to the road.
“No,” I said. “There seems nothing of which to take hold.”
And so I left him, and went on to the doctor’s house. Fortunately, he was in, and I at once told him the result of my investigations. Then I asked him whether he thought that the police were really on the track of the criminal.
He shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “I was up there this morning having a look round, and since then, I’ve been thinking. There are one or two points that completely stump me—points that I believe the police have never even stumbled upon.”
Yet, though I pressed him, he would say nothing definite.
“Wait!” was all he could tell me.
Yet I had not long to wait before something further happened, something that gave an added note of mystery and terror to the affair.
On the two days following my visit to the doctor, I was kept busy arranging for the funeral of my fiancée’s father, and then on the very morning of the funeral came the news of the death of the policeman who had been doing duty on the tank.
From my place in the funeral procession, I caught sight of large local posters announcing the fact in great letters, while the newsboys constantly cried:
“Terror of the Tank—
Policeman Strangled.”
Yet, until the funeral was over, I could not buy a paper to gather any of the details. When at last I was able, I found that the doctor who had attended him was none other than Tointon, and straightway I went up to his place for such further particulars as he could give.
“You’ve read the newspaper account?” he asked when I met him.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, you see,” he said, “I was right in saying that the police were off the track. I’ve been up there this morning, and a lot of trouble I had to be allowed to make a few notes on my own account. Even then it was only through the influence of Inspector Slago with whom I have once or twice done a little investigating. They’ve two men and a sergeant now on duty to keep people away.”
“You’ve done a bit of detective-work, then?”
“At odd times,” he replied.
“And have you come to any conclusion?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell me what you know of the actual happening,” I said. “The newspaper was not very definite. I’m rather mixed up as to how long it was before they found that the policeman had been killed. Who found him?”
“Well, so far as I have been able to gather from Inspector Slago, it was like this. They had detailed one of their men for duty on the tank until two A.M., when he was to be relieved by the next man. At about a minute or so to two, the relief arrived simultaneously with the inspector, who was going his rounds. They met in the road below the tank, and were proceeding up the little side-lane towards the passage, when, from the top of the tank, they heard someone cry out suddenly. The cry ended in a sort of gurgle, and they distinctly heard something fall with a heavy thud.
“Instantly, the two of them rushed up the passage, which as you know is fenced in with tall, sharp, iron railings. Even as they ran, they could hear the beat of struggling heels on the cemented top of the tank, and just as the inspector reached the bottom of the steps there came a last groan. The following moment they were at the top. The policeman threw the light of his lantern around. It struck on a huddled heap near by the right-hand railings—something limp and inert. They ran to it, and found that it was the dead body of the officer who had been on duty. A hurried examination showed that he had been strangled.
“The inspector blew his whistle, and soon another of the force arrived on the scene. This man they at once dispatched for me, and in the meantime they conducted a rapid but thorough search, which, however, brought to light nothing. This was the more extraordinary in that the murderer must have been on the tank even as they went up the steps.”
“Jove!” I muttered. “He must have been quick.”
The doctor nodded.
“Wait a minute,” he went on, “I’ve not finished yet. When I arrived I found that I could do nothing; the poor fellow’s neck had been literally crushed. The power used must have been enormous.
“ ‘Have you found anything?’ I asked the inspector.
“ ‘No,’ he said, and proceeded to tell me as much as he knew, ending by saying that the murderer, whoever it was, had got clean away.
“ ‘But,’ I exclaimed, ‘he would have to pass you, or else jump the railings. There’s no other way.’
“ ‘That’s what he’s
done.’ replied Slago rather testily. ‘It’s no height.’
“ ‘Then in that case, inspector.’ I answered, ‘he’s left something by which we may be able to trace him.’ ”
“You mean the mud round the tank, doctor?” I interrupted.
“Yes,” said Doctor Tointon. “So you noticed that, did you? Well, we took the policeman’s lamp, and made a thorough search all round the tank—but the whole of the flat surface of mud-covered ground stretched away smooth and unbroken by even a single footprint!”
The doctor stopped dramatically.
“Good God!” I exclaimed, excitedly. “Then how did the fellow get away?”
Doctor Tointon shook his head.
“That is a point, my dear sir, on which I am not yet prepared to speak. And yet I believe I hold a clew.”
“What?” I almost shouted.
“Yes,” he replied, nodding his head thoughtfully. “To-morrow I may be able to tell you something.”
He rose from his chair.
“Why not now?” I asked, madly curious.
“No,” he said, “the thing isn’t definite enough yet.”
He pulled out his watch.
“You must excuse me now. I have a patient waiting.”
I reached for my hat, and he went and opened the door.
“To-morrow,” he said, and nodded reassuringly as he shook hands. “You’ll not forget.”
“Is it likely,” I replied, and he closed the door after me.
The following morning I received a note from him asking me to defer my visit until night, as he would be away from home during the greater portion of the day. He mentioned 9:30 as a possible time at which I might call—any time between then and ten P.M. But I was not to be later than that.
Naturally, feeling as curious as I did, I was annoyed at having to wait the whole day. I had intended calling as early as decency would allow. Still, after that note, there was nothing but to wait.
During the morning, I paid a visit to the tank, but was refused permission by the sergeant in charge. There was a large crowd of people in the road below the tank, and in the little side lane that led up to the railed-in passage. These, like myself, had come up with the intention of seeing the exact spot where the tragedies had occurred; but they were not allowed to pass the men in blue.
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 41