Sweet Danger

by Margery Allingham

  ‘You only saw her in her “working clothes”, as she calls them,’ said Eager-Wright. ‘She looks a bit young in that get-up, I admit.’

  ‘She looks about ten,’ said Guffy coldly. ‘How old is she? Fourteen? But they’re nice people. It seemed a pity that the bar-sinister crept in in the fifties.’

  The three young men were paying a call. Earlier in the day a note had arrived from the white house opposite the church, in which Dr Edmund Galley, after describing himself as a ‘lonely old scholar remote from modern enlightened conversation,’ had begged the three ‘visitors to our little sanctuary’ to drink a glass of port with him after dinner.

  Campion had the note in his pocket, and he took it out to re-read it. It was an odd document, written in such appalling script that Amanda alone had been able to decipher it at first. The paper was yellowed with age but of an expensive variety, and the address, oddly enough was ‘The Rectory’.

  This peculiarity had been explained away by Amanda. The village of Pontisbright no longer possessed a parson. A visiting curate bicycled over from Sweethearting every other Sunday to take a service in the little Norman church.

  Guffy glanced at the paper in Campion’s hand.

  ‘He’s a rum old boy, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘He stitched up my arm quite satisfactorily this morning, though. Looks like a gnome, by the way.’

  ‘Did it occur to you,’ remarked Eager-Wright, ‘that the people up at the mill seemed rather dubious about our coming along here to-night?’

  Guffy turned to him. ‘I thought that,’ he said. ‘Why were you so keen on going, Campion?’

  ‘Educational reasons mostly,’ said the young man in the spectacles. ‘There is no pastime more calculated to instil into the young gentleman a Thorough Knowledge of Life and a Dignity of Manner than the exercise of polite conversation with his elders. That’s on the first page of my etiquette book.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Guffy, ignoring this outburst. ‘I’d forgotten. There’s rather a sweet story about this old doctor. Apparently he inherited the house, furniture, library, everything, from his great-uncle, the last incumbent of the living. The uncle’s rectory had been inadequate, so he built himself that white house. He lived to ninety-five or so, and died leaving the whole thing and a small income to this man Edmund Galley, who was a penniless medical student at the time, on condition that he lived there. Galley accepted the legacy and simply set up as a doctor. It must have been about forty years ago. There was no other medical man in the place, or for a radius of ten miles for that matter, and so he’s done very well for himself.’

  Mr Campion remained thoughtful. ‘If the uncle was ninety-odd and our present friend, the hospitable doctor, whose port I trust is inherited with the house, has been here forty years, the probable date of his uncle’s appointment as Rector of Pontisbright would seem to be about 1820. In which case he may very well have been the foolish cleric who was under the thumb of the wicked Countess Josephine.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Guffy with dignity. ‘Do you?’

  ‘In the main, yes,’ said Mr Campion judicially. ‘Well, since we’ve arrived, let us walk up the garden path looking as though we might be able to dispense modern enlightened conversation, and let the bravest of us pull the bell.’

  The white house, which had looked so modern compared with the thatched cottages of Pontisbright proper, proved, upon nearer inspection, to be much more old-fashioned than they had at first supposed. The garden was well kept without being trim, and the flower borders were filled with herbs whose pungent scents hung heavy on the evening air.

  The steps up to the porch were green with age, and as they climbed them they found that the hall door stood open. From the darkness within an odd figure materialized, and with a chirrup of appreciation Dr Edmund Galley came out to meet his guests.

  At first sight he appeared somewhat eccentric, in costume at least, for above a pair of ordinary grey flannel trousers he had arrayed himself in a smoking jacket which must have first seen the light in those days when men hid themselves away in little morocco dens, dressed themselves up, and settled down to a pipe as to some secret and ceremonial rite, requiring fortitude and patience in its accomplishment.

  Above this display of magnificence the doctor’s face was round and smiling, albeit a little wizened, like an old baby.

  He greeted Guffy as a friend. ‘My boy, this is very good of you to take pity on an old man. How’s the arm? Mending, I hope. You want to be careful in this district!’

  Guffy introduced the others, and, after the ceremony was over, they followed their host through the dark hall to a room on their left, whose long windows looked out over an expanse of flowers.

  The whole house seemed to be permeated by the scent of the herb garden. The effect was extraordinary, but not at all unpleasant, though their first impression of the room they entered was that it had been undisturbed, even by the housemaid’s brush, for many years.

  It was a ridiculous room to house such a queer little person. In spite of its windows it contrived to be dark, and the furniture had one disconcerting peculiarity: it was almost all serpentine. Guffy judged that the original Rector of Pontisbright must have had a pretty taste and considerable means for a man of his calling.

  Practically all one wall was taken up by a huge serpentine bureau which curled and curved its undulating length, a baroque monstrosity if ever there was one. Even the chairs had this engaging habit of sprawling and curling until they looked as if one saw them in a trick mirror.

  The little doctor noticed Eager-Wright’s startled expression and chuckled with unexpected humour.

  ‘What a room to get drunk in, eh, my boy?’ he said. ‘When I first came down here I was about your age, and when I came into this room I thought I was drunk. Nowadays I’m used to it. When I feel I’m a bit under the weather I go and have a look at my surgery-table and if that appears to have legs like this cabinet, then, damme, I know I’m drunk.’

  He seemed to concentrate upon Eager-Wright, and the reason for his interest was soon apparent.

  ‘I hear in the village you’re writing a book?’ he remarked, after waving them to chairs round the window. He had a curious birdlike voice and the likeness was enhanced by his habit of speaking in little staccato sentences and holding his head slightly on one side as he put a question.

  ‘You mustn’t be surprised,’ he went on as the young man looked at him blankly. ‘Strangers are an event here. Everybody talks about ’em. When I went on my rounds this morning everyone was full of your arrival. A man who writes a book is still something of a rarity here. I’m proud to meet you, sir.’

  Eager-Wright cast a savage glance at Campion and smiled at his host with suitable gratitude.

  Guffy, his huge frame balanced on one of the ridiculous chairs, gazed mournfully in front of him. The evening, he was convinced, was going to be wasted.

  ‘A glass of port?’ said the doctor. ‘I think I can recommend it. It’s from my uncle’s cellar. I’m not a great port drinker myself, but I’ve come to like this. The cellar was full of it when I came.’

  He opened a totally unexpected cupboard in the panelling and produced a decanter and glasses of such exquisite cut and colour that they were easily recognizable as museum pieces. The deep rich red of the wine promised well, but it was not until they tasted it that the truth came home to them. Guffy and Campion exchanged glances, and Eager-Wright held his glass even more reverently than before.

  ‘Did you – did you say you had much of this, sir?’ he ventured.

  ‘A cellar full,’ said the doctor cheerfully. ‘It’s good, isn’t it? It must be very old.’

  A gloom settled over the party. That a man could live for forty years with a cellarful of priceless wine, and drink it, perhaps even – sacrilegious thought! – get drunk upon it, without realizing its value, was, to Eager-Wright and Guffy at least, a tragic and terrible discovery.

  As they drank, the little doctor’s a
ffable pomposity became less noticeable. Seated in a huge arm-chair with the priceless glass in his hand and the shadows of the room enhancing the depth of colour of his jacket, he became less of a person and more of a personage; a queer little personage in his big aromatic mausoleum of a house.

  The conversation was very general. The doctor was surprisingly uninformed upon most present-day subjects. Politics had passed him by and the only names which interested him were those of a bygone era.

  Once they touched upon the architecture of the church opposite, however, and he blossomed out immediately, displaying a wealth of archaic knowledge backed up by sound original thought which astounded them.

  Gradually, as the evening wore on, the light failed and the shadows at the back of the room deepened until the baroque bureau had melted into the background. The three young men became aware that the indefinable something about the little doctor they had noticed all the evening was growing stronger and had become recognizable. The man was waiting for something. He was quite evidently marking time, waiting for some psychological moment which must now surely be close at hand.

  The talk became uneasy and fitful and Guffy had glanced at his wrist-watch once or twice with pointed interest.

  Their host stirred finally, hopping up from his seat with a birdlike agility which was vaguely disconcerting. He moved to the window and looked up at the sky.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Come. You must see my garden.’

  Why he should have waited until it was almost dark to display this part of his establishment he did not explain, but he seemed to take it for granted that there was nothing odd in his behaviour and led them out of the room, down a passage to a side door and out into the tangled wilderness of flowers and herbs whose scent in the late evening air was almost overpowering.

  ‘These are all plants under the government of the Moon, Venus, and Mercury,’ he remarked casually. ‘It’s rather a quaint conceit, don’t you think? The flowers of the Sun, Mars, and Jupiter are in the front garden. I think my garden is my only hobby. I find it very interesting. But that isn’t what I brought you out here for. I want you to come along to the end of the garden, right up here on the mound. It’s a barrow, you know. It’s never been opened and I don’t see why it ever should. I don’t believe in prying about in graves, even in the service of science.’

  He went on ahead of them, scrambling up the round artificial hillock, the burial mound of some prehistoric chieftain, hopping through the trees and looking more gnome-like than ever.

  ‘What the hell are we up to now?’ muttered Guffy under his breath to Eager-Wright as they brought up the rear of the little procession. ‘Going to see a poppy under the influence of Neptune?’

  ‘Going to be seen by a poppy under the influence of drink,’ said the other softly. ‘Or there may be fairies at the bottom of the garden, of course.’

  Guffy snorted and they ploughed on until, upon reaching their host’s side on the top of the mound, they found themselves looking down upon a wide-sweeping valley. Pontisbright lay like a cluster of doll’s houses in the southern extremity, and, among the uncultivated fields which followed the winding valley, little dwellings nestled snugly. Even Guffy was partially mollified.

  ‘A wonderful view, sir,’ he said. ‘By jove! You can see the whole of the Bright Valley, nearly.’

  The little doctor looked at him sharply, and when he spoke his voice had an unexpected gravity which startled them.

  ‘The Bright Valley,’ he said. ‘No, my dear young sir, I see you don’t know the local name. In these parts we call it Cain’s Valley.’

  The phrase brought them back to the business in hand with a jerk. It seemed strange to hear the ancient title from this little man in his queer clothes, standing on the top of a barrow at the end of his garden.

  But this was only the beginning of the oddness of Dr Edmund Galley.

  ‘The Valley of the Accursed,’ he repeated. ‘And that, alas! my friends, is what it is.’

  He stretched out his hand and his voice sank to a whisper.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘See the little lights coming out?’

  They did, and it was a very pretty sight. In one cottage after another the lights sprang out, making little sick yellow patches against the fading sky.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there are very few of them. Every year they get fewer and fewer. There’s a blight on this land that we can never shake off, a curse from which we can never escape.’

  Guffy opened his mouth to remonstrate, but there was something in his host’s expression which silenced him. The little man had changed. Eager-Wright could not be sure if the shadows were responsible for the transformation, but the puckered face seemed to be altered completely by some giant emotion. The eyes looked strangely fixed and the lips were drawn back over the gums like the lips of a maniac.

  But in an instant the expression had faded, and when he spoke again it was in his normal conversational tone, save that it now carried a little more of solemnity than usual.

  ‘This is a great responsibility I take upon myself,’ he said slowly. ‘A serious responsibility. But if I don’t tell you I don’t know who will. And if I tell you, it may be too late. Still, a doctor has a public duty as well as a private one, and I think perhaps in these circumstances the course I am taking is the only one open to me.’

  He turned to them and addressed them collectively, his little bright eyes watching their faces anxiously.

  ‘I am a good deal older than any of you,’ he said, ‘and when I heard you’d come here this morning I made up my mind that, whatever the risk of appearing a mere busybody, I would do my best to have a chat with you and put the facts before you; and when you answered my invitation – rather an odd one from a complete stranger – I realized that my task would not be as difficult as it had seemed at first. I saw that you were sensible, courteous men, and after talking to you this evening I am more than convinced that I should have been a positive villain had I neglected this self-imposed duty.’

  The young men had stood looking at him while he made this extraordinary announcement with a mixture of curiosity and polite astonishment in their eyes. Guffy, who had privately decided that a man who could drink ’78 port without recognizing it was a lunatic and not fit for human society anyway, was inclined to feel uncomfortable, but Eager-Wright was plainly interested. The doctor continued:

  ‘My dear young people,’ he said, ‘you must get away from here as soon as you possibly can.’

  ‘Really, sir!’ expostulated Eager-Wright, who had been completely taken aback by the culmination of the harangue. ‘I believe in keeping the country for country folk, but after all . . .’

  ‘Oh, my boy, my boy,’ protested the little doctor sadly, ‘I’m not thinking of anything of that sort. I’m thinking of you, of your safety, your health, your future. As a medical man I advise your instant departure; as a friend, if you will allow me to call myself one, I insist upon it. Look here, suppose you come back to the house. I can tell you about it better there. But I brought you up here because I wanted you to see the valley. Now, come along, and I will try to justify myself for what must have seemed to you a very inhospitable outburst.’

  Back in the baroque sitting-room, with a paraffin lamp at his elbow, Dr Galley surveyed the three young men in front of him thoughtfully. He had lost much of the dignity and impressiveness which he had displayed in the garden, but, nevertheless, he spoke as a man in authority and his quick, bright eyes took in each face in turn.

  The three young men responded according to their temperaments. Guffy was inclined to be irritated, Eager-Wright was puzzled, and Mr Campion apparently concentrated with great difficulty.

  The little doctor spread out his stubby hands. ‘You see how difficult it is for me to say all this,’ he said. ‘The place is my home, the people are my friends and patients, and yet I find myself reluctantly compelled to tell you a secret. But first I must beg that none of you will ever think of giving these facts to any newspaper. We d
on’t want any Royal Commissions, any gigantic hospital, to rob us of our freedom.’

  He wiped his forehead, which had been glistening. There was no doubt that he was suffering under some great emotion, and their curiosity was roused.

  ‘Has it occurred to you,’ said the doctor with sudden deliberation, ‘has it occurred to you that there’s something queer about this village – about the whole valley, in fact? Haven’t you noticed anything?’

  Eager-Wright spoke without glancing at Campion. ‘There was the mark on the gate,’ he ventured.

  The little doctor seized upon his words. ‘The mark on the gate,’ he said. ‘Exactly. The ancient God-help-us mark, no doubt. You recognized it? Good. Well, let me explain that. When I told you that this village was under a curse I said no more than the literal truth. I suppose the thought that ran through your minds when you first heard me use the word was of something supernatural, something fantastic. Well, of course, that is not so. The curse that lies over Cain’s Valley and the village of Pontisbright is a very real scourge; something that no exorcism can destroy; something from which there is only one escape, and that – flight. That curse, gentlemen, is a peculiarly horrible form of skin disease akin to lupus. I will not worry you with its medical name. Let it be sufficient to say that it is mercifully rare but absolutely incurable.’

  They stared at him.

  ‘Oh, don’t think me a crank,’ he said. ‘I’m not the man to advise you to leave a delightful holiday spot because two or three people have contracted a contagious disease in this district. When I said a curse I meant a curse. The place is poisoned. The air you breathe, the soil you walk upon, the water you drink is impregnated, soaked, drenched with the poison. There is no escape from it. If the facts were broadcast what would happen? Our county council would be forced to take action, people who have lived here all their lives would be driven from their homes, and the place would become a hunting ground for bacteriologists and no good purpose would be served. I ask you to leave here immediately, for your own sakes.’