‘Darling, you haven’t yet told me how you managed to get this leave.’
He smiled mockingly. ‘Isn’t it enough that I’m here?’
‘Of course, but how did you? I’m simply panting to know—it was so unexpected.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, it’s no secret. I had to bring over some special reports that were too important to be posted.’
Her eyes widened. ‘But oughtn’t you to have given them in right away?’
‘No. The man I have to see wouldn’t be in his office at this hour.’
‘But where are they?’
‘Oh, they’re in my suitcase.’ He turned and beckoned the waiter to refill their glasses with champagne as though tired of the subject.
‘And you left it in the cloakroom?’ she persisted. ‘Darling, they might be stolen!’
‘Now, stop worrying your lovely little head; they’ll be perfectly all right. It’s locked, anyway.’
* * * * *
They danced then and Lorna forgot everything save that she was young and loved and very much in love, but as the evening wore on she became puzzled and uneasy. John was drinking a lot, a thing he never used to do, and he was getting very gay on it. At twelve o’clock, really worried, she suggested going home.
‘Go home? Nonsense, darling! Why, the evening’s only just begun. Come and dance again.’ He leaned over and covered her hand with his own. ‘I do love you so and it’s just heaven to see you after all this time.’
Lorna’s heart softened and she rose to her feet. He was quite right. It seemed years since he had left for France, and his letters had shown how deadly he found life there, even after he had been given a job at Corps Headquarters.
They both loved dancing and were very good together, so it was not until the band had played ‘God Save the King’ that John settled the bill.
While she was waiting for him to collect his suitcase she noticed two men standing by the bar. Involuntarily she gave a start of surprise. They were the foreigners who had eyed her so unpleasantly on Waterloo Station.
John came unsteadily towards her. ‘Whoopee, darling! Let’s face the cold winter winds on the hilly heights of Hampstead!’ He laughed loudly and several people turned to stare.
It took them five minutes to reach the garage, and as she climbed into the car Lorna said: ‘Wouldn’t you rather I dropped you at your flat in Down-street?’
‘Good Lord, no! I wouldn’t dream of letting you go home alone.’
She shrugged and slipped in the clutch.
* * * * *
John sang all the way back, his arm flung negligently round her shoulders each time she had to check the car at traffic lights. He had never done this before, and he knew she hated anyone who got drunk. Somehow it frightened her. He knew that, too, yet he had done it just the same. Her eyes shone angrily in the green light of the dashboard.
At last she swung up the drive and came to an abrupt halt in front of the house. John pulled her towards him and buried his face in her neck.
‘Oh, darling, you’re so beautiful,’ he murmured.
Lorna caught her breath. It was no good—she couldn’t be angry with him for long—he was too precious, and once these few brief hours were over, heaven only knew when she might see him again.
‘It may take ages to get you a taxi,’ she said, as they walked into the house.
‘The longer it takes the better,’ he laughed quite naturally, and putting his arms round her looked down into her large, blue eyes. ‘Are you very angry with me, sweetheart?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Go into the lounge and sit down. I’ll be back in a minute.’
He thought she meant to slip upstairs, but she had suddenly remembered his suitcase. If she didn’t fetch it from the car they might forget it when he left. As he walked into the lounge she re-crossed the hall to the front door.
* * * * *
For a moment Lorna was blinded by the inky darkness. A faint wind was whispering in the trees and it wasn’t until she had the car door open that she realised someone had opened the opposite door and was groping about inside.
As her fingers touched the suitcase it was snatched away from under them. The gravel crunched behind her. She opened her mouth to scream but an arm was thrown round her neck, choking her cry. Rough hands hauled her backwards, whirled her round and flung her headlong on to the flag-stones of the porch.
Half-dazed from her fall she heard a voice exclaim: ‘Quick! Jump in the car! Our taximan will questions ask if the girl begins to shout.’
Lorna’s thoughts reeled. The two foreigners—John’s reports—he would be disgraced—cashiered. Then like a flash the heaven-sent inspiration came to her. Staggering to her feet, she snapped off the ‘No Road’ switch just as the car leaped forward.
For an awful moment she remained there, breathless. Suddenly there was a rending crash, followed by the tinkling of broken glass, and John came running out of the house.
‘What on earth was that?’ he gasped.
‘Those men—they followed us to steal your suitcase—but I stopped them—I stopped them by turning off the “No Road” sign—they’ve crashed into our dug-out.’
‘Good Lord!’ he cried, grabbing her hand. ‘You may have killed them. Come on, run!’
They raced down the drive to the hidden entrance that was now a death-trap. The car was completely overturned but both the men and the suitcase were gone. Only the faint patter of swift, receding footsteps broke the stillness.
Lorna gave a sob of despair. ‘Oh, John, we’ll never catch them now—your reports—you’ll get into the most frightful trouble.’
‘Well, that’s that,’ his voice was calm. ‘It would have been mighty awkward if you’d killed them both, but you put up a jolly good show.’
* * * * *
Suddenly Lorna realised that he was perfectly sober, as he went on: ‘Sorry I had to put on an act and pretend I was tight tonight. It must have been rotten for you.’
‘Put on an act?’
‘Why yes. We knew those chaps would be waiting for me on the leave train. It was for their benefit that I did my drunk stuff and sang so that they shouldn’t lose us on the way home, but, sweet little idiot that you are, you nearly wrecked our whole plan. Those reports were faked and they were meant to be stolen.’
‘Well!’ exclaimed Lorna, with mingled anger and relief. ‘I do think you might have told me. Just look what they’ve done to my car!’
STORY IV
This macabre piece is the direct result of The Devil Rides Out, a long novel with an occult background which I published in 1935. For many months, in fact for years, after its appearance I had the most amazing mail about it from readers all over the world. The majority of these letters were from people who had enjoyed the book and wanted me to write others on the same subject, or who asked for further information on various aspects of the occult. Quite a number of writers covered many pages in a curiously similar type of scrawl which, after a time, I came to recognise as indicating that my correspondent was a mental case, whether certifiable or not.
One gentleman signed himself ‘The Christ’ (no address, postmark Edinburgh) and wrote to me frequently for a long time giving the most fantastic explanations of the Book of Revelations. Another advanced the interesting theory that, the worship of Christ having failed to stop wars or materially to improve the conditions of the human race during the best part of 2,000 years, it might not be a bad idea if we transferred our allegiance to the Devil and gave him a chance. The author of this original idea was actually an inmate of Broadmoor.
Fortunately, however, in addition to these there reached me many letters from doctors, lawyers, police officials, magistrates, clergymen and others—all obviously sane—expressing appreciation of the warning conveyed in the book that nothing but harm could come of dabbling with the occult and often giving extraordinarily interesting accounts of its manifestations for the truth of which they could personally vouch. One such letter ca
me from a woman who wrote so convincingly of supernatural matters and offered me data of such an intriguing nature that I could not resist the temptation to break off my work one afternoon for the purpose of meeting her. The salient points of her story were as follows:
In the Essex village where she was born her grandmother had been well known as a witch. When she was very young her father had sold her to the Devil. She had not realised that until many years later when, after a violent quarrel with her elder sister, that sister had accused her of being ‘Devil’s Spawn’ and, in support of her accusation, recalled a scene of her childhood to her in which her father had opened a vein in her arm and made her scrawl her name on a piece of parchment in her own blood. As she grew up she had found to her alarm that she had the power to bring accidents and ill fortune to people by merely wishing them bad luck; she also developed second sight and could induce manifestations such as wall-rappings. To her distress all animals were terrified of her and she had never been able to keep a pet. Strangest of all it was impossible for her to go into a church without being physically sick.
Naturally I do not expect my readers to believe her fantastic tale, and I had neither the time nor the opportunity to check up on any part of it. I can only record the impression that she made on me.
She was a motherly-looking middle-aged woman and she spoke of these things without any suggestion that her case was unusual or dramatic; but rather with a quiet resignation as though she had been suffering for many years from a well-known but incurable disease which had defeated all the doctors’ efforts to bring her relief.
She had trained herself not to make impulsive wishes detrimental to people who caused her annoyance; she had long since given up the cheap triumph of telling fortunes and table-turning, in order to avoid, as far as possible, drawing occult forces to herself; she would have nothing whatever to do with mediums, spiritualists or psychic healers for the same reason. I am convinced that there was nothing whatever evil about her but it certainly seemed that she was a focus for evil and she spoke of her sad fate with such simple candour that I found it extraordinarily difficult to believe that she was romancing deliberately.
She did not give the impression of being in any way an erudite woman, yet, in the space of some two hours, she told me many episodes from her supernatural experiences which were entirely in keeping with occult tradition and the details of which could only have been invented by a master of the subject. She did not attempt to borrow money from me, to enlist my aid in the publication of literary work or to persuade me to give a talk on ‘Ghosts’ to some club or society. She came only to beg me to continue to warn people in my writings of the ghastly death-in-life which might overtake those who attempted to peer behind the veil. Finally she described to me in a rather hesitant way but with great vividness a dream which she had had on several occasions and of her conviction that one night this ‘Vampire of the tomb’ would overcome her and that she would be found dead in bed in the morning.
She said that, if I liked, I might use the idea as the basis of a story and here it is. May God have mercy on her Spirit.
A Life for a Life
‘Well, good night, Doctor—it was nice of you to drop in so friendly.’ Mrs. Sandmeyer’s yellowish face broke into an artificial smile as she spoke from the doorway of the parlour. Her pale eyes travelled with faint disapproval to the half-empty whisky bottle among the cheap ornate china on the narrow mantelpiece, then across to her husband.
‘You won’t be long, Herbert, will you?’ She smiled again, half-archly, half-apologetically, at the doctor. ‘I can never get off to sleep without him beside me—I’m funny that way.’
The tired-looking little doctor stroked back his scanty hair and nodded to her. ‘Not more than a few minutes, Mrs. Sandmeyer. Good night to you.’
As the door closed behind his wife, Herbert Sandmeyer heaved a sigh of relief. He had only thought of consulting the doctor about his trouble after supper that evening when it was too late to frame an excuse for leaving the house again. It had needed considerable stage managing to get the doctor round, on an apparently unofficial call and even more to manœuvre his wife off to bed so as to get his visitor alone.
‘Well, what’s the trouble?’ the doctor asked, pulling thoughtfully at his ragged brown moustache as he watched Sandmeyer pour another tot of whisky into his glass.
‘I hardly know how to tell you, Doc’—you’ll think I’m crazy.’
‘Don’t be silly, now.’ The doctor took the proffered glass. ‘I’ve got a maternity case which should come off about eleven, so I can’t give you very long. Out with it, man.’
Sandmeyer poured himself a drink with an unsteady hand, and turning, caught the reflection of his dead-white face in the narrow mirror of the overmantel. He stared at it for a moment and then exclaimed:
‘I’m afraid! That’s what it is—I’m afraid!’
‘What of,’ asked the doctor quickly.
Sandmeyer turned upon him with sudden truculence. ‘Tell me I’m a loonie! Tell me I ought to be ashamed of myself at my age, if you like, but it’s a fact! I’m afraid to go up to bed!’
‘You’ve been overworking, I expect. Can’t sleep, eh! I get like that at times, especially when we get an epidemic of ‘flu going round the district.’
Sandmeyer gulped down his whisky, then violently shook his head. ‘It isn’t that. It isn’t ordinary nerves, either. Promise—promise you won’t laugh at me if I tell you about it.’
‘Of course not. As a professional man I’m used to confidences, so you can tell me and it won’t go any further. Patients often tell me things they wouldn’t care for the rest of the world to know.’
‘No—no. It’s nothing like that. I’ve been having dreams lately and I tell you I’m just scared stiff of going up to bed.’
The doctor nodded. ‘I can see your nerves are in a pretty rotten state. You need a tonic and a change if you could manage it.’ His eye fell again on the whisky bottle from which Sandmeyer was already pouring himself another drink.
‘This isn’t ordinary nerves, I tell you.’ Sandmeyer hit the table angrily with his fist. ‘It’s psychic trouble. That’s the only way I can describe it. Tell me, Doc’, do you believe in the old Biblical saying “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life”?’
‘Well, hardly.’ The tired little doctor demurred with a patient smile. ‘Although I’m by no means an atheist in the full sense of the word. I take it you have not told your wife anything about this.’
‘Not a thing. She’s Chapel and set in her beliefs. If I tried to tell her about it, she’d think I was going out of my mind. When I wake from these—these nightmares, gasping for breath and shaking just like I had a fit, she puts it down to chronic indigestion.’
‘You are sure that it is not something of that kind?’
‘Certain. I’ve got a digestion like an ostrich. This is psychic, I tell you; I don’t suppose you can do me any good but I had to talk it over with someone.’
The doctor adjusted the pince-nez on his bulbous nose. ‘Perhaps you had better tell me how it started,’ he said, a little wearily.
‘That’s a long way back.’ Sandmeyer regarded him for a moment with a despairing look, then he went on hurriedly. ‘You see, I was what they call psychic even as a child. I’ve always known things about people without being told and at one time I used to do a bit of fortunetelling, just among friends, you know, but I cut it out because sometimes misfortunes I’d predicted came about so that they said afterwards that I’d wished it on them. I can do that, too, if I want, and I did once with a fellow who did me a dirty trick. I wished him ill and he got it—never mind how. A fellow called Dawson, it was. He was after Maggie—Mrs. Sandmeyer, that is—and told her all sorts of lies about me, but I got even with him—more than even—and I got her, too. You can say that was coincidence, if you like, but I know better. Anyway, I was so scared afterwards at the thought of what I’d done that I determined to cut it out for the fu
ture.
‘I’ve never told her anything, of course, and I thought I’d been clear of the whole business for years now, but my brother-in-law came up from the country to stay for a bit about a month ago and, like a fool, I allowed him to persuade me into going to the British Museum with him to see the Egyptian galleries.
‘It’s wrong to show those mummies the way they do. I’ve always thought that. After all, they’re dead people—aren’t they—and directly I got inside that Egyptian gallery I could feel all sorts of forces moving around me.
‘I had a sort of feeling that Frank Dawson was somewhere in the place, watching me, as it were, though I haven’t even thought of him for years and he might have been in China for all I know. Then as we were moving round we stopped opposite one of the wall cases. There was a wooden coffin inside, all painted over with hieroglyphics and what-not, made in the shape of a body, and over the head part it had a kind of mask. This wasn’t the mummy itself, but the coffin that I’m speaking of.
‘Then—well, I can hardly expect you to believe me—but the black eyes in that mask suddenly became alive. They stared up at me out of that painted face deep and dark and liquid. I’m not raving—they were living eyes, black as pitch and full of smouldering fire. They held me rooted there like I was being hypnotised until my brother-in-law said something. It gave me such a turn that I darn near fainted; anyhow, I pulled myself together and got out of the place just as quickly as I could.
‘Well, that’s just on a month back, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about it when I went up to bed three nights ago.
‘We turned in about ten as usual and I dropped off to sleep without a worry in the world, but I had an extraordinary dream later.
‘I seemed to be walking down a flight of broken stairs into a sort of crypt. All round the walls there were rows of things like great bath tubs, some stone, some wood, and they were carved or painted with hieroglyphics all along their sides, just as you see them in the Egyptian rooms at the museum.
Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts Page 5