The Empty Coffins
Page 1
ALSO BY JOHN RUSSELL FEARN
1,000-Year Voyage: A Science Fiction Novel
The Crimson Rambler: A Crime Novel
The Empty Coffins: A Mystery of Horror
Here and Now: A Science Fiction Novel
What Happened to Hammond? A Scientific Mystery
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1984, 2009 by Philip Harbottle
(Originally published under the title, No Grave Need I)
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To my good friend,
Matt Japp
INTRODUCTION, BY PHILIP HARBOTTLE
In 1948 Blackpool writer John Russell Fearn began what was to become a fateful association with a new firm of publishers in London, Scion Ltd. His first commissions were for romantic fiction, and were not full-length novels—they were novelettes, which Scion published (under various feminine pseudonyms) as pamphlet-type booklets of 16, 32, or 48 pages, according to length. Late in 1949, Scion diversified into full-length books, and Fearn was commissioned to write 40,000-word western novels.
Fearn was the Chairman of the Fylde Writing Society, a local writers’ club, which he had founded after the war. One of his close friends in the club was Matthew Japp. Matt Japp was not an experienced writer, but he had a facility for plotting westerns, and Fearn collaborated with him on a number of his westerns for Scion: Japp wrote a very short synopsis of the plot, identifying the main characters and action, with Fearn doing all of the actual writing. The westerns were published under Fearn’s own name, and Fearn privately paid Japp 25% of the proceeds.
In the 1970s, during my frequent visits to Blackpool as Mrs. Fearn’s literary representative, I actively pursued my researches into Fearn’s life and work by seeking out any of his surviving writer friends. I met Matt, and his wife Nini, who became a mine of valuable information, as they had kept quite a number of Fearn’s letters during the period they were members of the writers’ club, and its later manifestation as a cine-club.
In May 1950 Fearn had sent Matt a postcard asking him to hold off doing any more western synopsis until the Autumn, because “Scion seem to be plunging into a science fiction streak, and now they also want blood-curdling horror yarns!”
But in the event, Scion decided to concentrate on science fiction, and their idea of a horror-detective line was dropped. No such titles were ever issued by them. Fearn signed an exclusive science fiction contract with Scion, and the famous ‘Vargo Statten’ series was born.
Ten years passed. Fearn died, and was survived by his wife Carrie, whom he had married in 1956. His study, containing his papers and mss, was left intact by his grieving widow who, after completing the typing of his last novel from his finished draft, became so affected that she could not bear to go inside the room because of the poignant memories it evoked.
It was not until after Mrs. Fearn’s death in January 1982, that—as a beneficiary under her will—I gained access to the study. The room proved to be an Aladdin’s Cave of manuscripts, books, and cans of films written and produced by Fearn himself, using amateur actors and actresses (including some from his cine-club days featuring Matt and Nini Japp,)
Many exciting literary discoveries were made, including the typescript of the unpublished NO GRAVE NEED I (which I was then able to tie in to Matt’s 1950 postcard). After sending Scion science fiction mss, Fearn must have also subsequently written a new horror-detective novel, NO GRAVE NEED I, only for Scion to return his typescript. This was put away in a drawer, and apparently forgotten—the title page of his typescript still carried Scion’s name, indicating that the mss had not been tried on any other market. This was because the terms of his new Scion contract prevented him from placing any mss. elsewhere with other publishers (except for the Toronto Star Weekly, for which it was unsuitable.).
In January 1984, following my acquisition of an electric typewriter, I myself published a small chapbook edition of the novel. It is only in recent years, with the work of Fearn now enjoying an unprecedented posthumous popularity, that the novel has finally appeared in professional book form (retitled as THE EMPTY COFFINS.) along with all of the other unpublished mss I had salvaged.
Similar in some ways to Fearn’s group of short stories in the US pulp magazine Thrilling Mystery Stories in the 1930s, this novel is yet unique, combining elements of supernatural terror and the scientific detective thriller at which Fearn was adept.
CHAPTER ONE
EIGHT MONTHS TO LIVE
In a small village there are invariably small minds, eager to seize on the slightest hint of scandal—and Little Payling, tucked away on the south coast, was no exception when it came to the case of Peter Malden and Elsie Timperley.
Elsie, a young widow of a month’s standing, had been seen in the company of young Peter Malden for more times than seemed ‘decent’ considering Elsie’s first husband was barely cold in the grave.
Tongues wagged, eyes watched from cottage windows, the local clergyman preached on the evils of carnal desire: in fact all Little Payling was concerned with a business which, strictly, was not its own.
“I hate Little Payling! I hate all the people in it! If I had the power to destroy them, I would!”
In this manner Elsie Timperley released her feelings a fortnight after the hint-and-whisper campaign had begun against her. She strode the big drawing room of her house as she spoke, her mother, Peter Malden, and Dr. Meadows watching her in silence.
“Take it easy, dear,” Peter murmured, with an uneasy smile. “After all, the folks in this place have never seen any further than their front gardens and they naturally think things.”
“Why should they?” Elsie twirled on her heel and faced Peter directly as he sat in the deep armchair by the fire. “Why? What are we doing that’s wrong? We love each other and we mean to marry. What’s so uncommon about that? After all, we’ve been friendly for years, long before George died.”
Silence. Elsie moved to the divan and sat down slowly, her fingers working in nervous irritation. She was a blonde girl of almost ethereal beauty. Though actually twenty-five she looked little more than eighteen. She had never seemed, even to her mother, to age with the years. The grace and lissomness of the adolescent had never left her. Blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, with a ruby-red mouth untouched by lipstick, she had more the appearance of an expensive doll than a human being.
“Perhaps,” Peter said at last, musing, “we’re moving too fast. We don’t intend to marry for another four or five months—with all due respect to George—so why should—”
“I hated George!” Elsie flared at him, her eyes glinting. “He was a beast! He made my life a misery. You know that particularly, Dr. Meadows.”
Dr. Meadows, slight, fiftyish, grey-haired, looked up with a start from contemplating the crackling fire. Outside the night was wild. The windows rattled under the buffeting of a rising winter gale.
“Yes, I know it, my dear,” he admitted, shrugging. “He drank too heavily: he ill-treated you to the point of causing bruises and cuts which I had to patch up— Yet you never divorced him on the grounds of cruelty.”
Elsie glanced about her. “I had only one reason for not doing. So that I could inherit all this. George had close on half a million pounds, most of which he told me would come to me when he died. I thought it better to put up with his abuses. Had I divorced him he would have hired the best lawyers to ensure I got as little as possible.”
Mrs. Burrows, Elsie’s mother, gave a sigh. She was a stout, immovable woman, seated at the moment in the shadows just beyond the fireplace. Her eyes had been ranging from her neurotic, agitated daughter to Peter Malden. Peter, dark-haired, lean about th
e jaw, only just escaping being good-looking, had been listening mostly in silence, his gaze on the rug.
“George left you this fine house and a fortune,” Mrs. Burrows said at length. “Whatever he may have been in life, Elsie, I think you ought to pay him a little more respect in death. The dead are all equal, remember.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Elsie asked. “Go to his grave and weep upon it?”
“No. I just think you ought to wait a year before marrying Peter, that’s all. It would be more...delicate.”
Elsie was silent for a moment. A change had come over her expression. The anger died out of it and a wistful smile came instead.
“A year?” she repeated. “I couldn’t wait that long.”
“Why not?” her mother demanded. “I’m sure Peter would, if he really loves you.”
“If!” Peter laughed. “That’s an understatement. Elsie knows I’ve loved her ever since the days we roamed the riverbanks together as kids. It just so happened that instead of things becoming a village romance—Elsie Burrows, as she was then, marrying Peter Malden, the local motor dealer and garage owner, she was swept off her feet by George Timperley instead. He blew in to build his housing estate, built this house in the meantime, and…married Elsie. But he’s dead. It’s all over. Elsie’s right back where she started—except for the money she’s had left her. Since Elsie knows I loved her long before the money came into things it shows I’m not just a fortune hunter.”
“We know you better than that, son,” Dr. Meadows said, smiling. “I imagine you’re not doing so badly yourself with that motor and garage business you’ve built up.”
“Yes, I can get by,” Peter admitted: and then he waited for Elsie to say something. Instead of doing so she remained looking into the fire, her wistful smile faded into a down-dragging of her mouth at the corners.
A sudden hurricane blast of wind against the windows made Dr. Meadows glance about him. He got to his feet deliberately.
“Time I was on my way.” he said. “I’ve Mrs. Naysmith to see before I get hone and I don’t want to be out late on a night like this.”
“Good of you to come, doctor,” Elsie’s mother said, also rising. “You are quite convinced I have nothing worse than indigestion?”
“Quite!” Meadows’ hazel eyes twinkled. “You get that prescription made up and you’ll be all right in no time— Now I really must be going. I had no intention of ever staying so long, but I could hardly refuse your hospitality and the wine.... Well, good night, everybody.”
“I’ll see you to the door,” Mrs. Burrows said, and followed him from the room.
The moment they were alone Peter got up and settled on the divan at Elsie’s side.
“What’s the matter?” he asked seriously. “First you had such a lot to say—and now nothing. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Elsie replied, with a shrug.
“Then why don’t you cheer up? After all, we are going to be married—”
“But it’s got to be before a year’s up, Peter. It must be!” Elsie gripped his arm tightly. “As soon as we possibly can.”
“That suits me fine. I’ve been advocating it all along. But I thought you were against it because of the villagers—”
“Hang the villagers! I can please myself, can’t I?”
“That’s what I’m hoping you’ll do—” Peter paused for a moment, obviously puzzled by something. He put his bands on Elsie’s slim shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Dearest, why this sudden wish for us to marry before a year is up? What on earth difference does that make?”
She hesitated. “I—I just don’t want any delay, that’s all. We’re neither of us—getting any younger.”
Peter laughed incredulously. “Great heavens, what a thing to say! Neither of us anywhere near thirty, yet you talk of us getting no younger— Honestly, dearest, there are times when I just don’t understand you. Still, I suppose no man ever yet understood a woman thoroughly.”
With a click of the door latch Mrs. Burrows came beck into the room. Coming to the fireplace she looked down on the two younger people pensively.
“In spite of the fact that I think you should both wait a reasonable time, in respect to the dead,” she said, “I suppose you’re still determined to get married as soon as possible?”
“That’s right,” Elsie said quietly. “After all, mother, it’s for us to decide—not you.”
“I suppose so. I think you’d both do wisely to go away from here for a long holiday after your marriage. It will give the villagers less opportunity to talk.”
“I’m sick and tired of considering them!” Elsie cried, leaping to her feet again. “I’ll do as I like, and if I hear any scandal being breathed I’ll have the law on them!”
“You could save it all by waiting perhaps a year,” her mother said. “I cannot see what is so wrong in that. Twelve months isn’t very long—”
“And lose my last chance of snatching a bit of happiness?” Elsie demanded tearfully.
Peter looked surprised. “But, dearest, I’d wait. I’ve no interest in any other girl, and never have had.”
“It isn’t that. It’s—it’s something else.” Elsie ran a hand distraughtly through her blonde hair. “I can’t explain. I’m probably horribly selfish, but I’m still human enough to want to snatch at life while it’s still there. I’ve wasted so many years, when I was married to George, and now—”
She stopped, as though she found it impossible to find any more words to express her emotions. Peter got up and moved across to her. To his surprise he found her trembling when he put his arm about her.
“Elsie, what is it?” he asked quietly, and his hand gently pressing under her chin forced her to look at him. To his surprise there were tears drowning her blue eyes.
“What is it?” he insisted.
“I—I—” she looked away and then apparently forced herself to speak. “I’m going to die, Peter,” she whispered.
He did not speak, and neither did her mother. There was only the sound of the storm, the wind blowing through the gables of the house, rain pattering hard against the windows. A sudden billow of smoke came from the chimney and belched into the room.
“Die?” Peter repeated at last. “Is that what you said? Die?”
Elsie nodded, but she did not speak.
“Stop being so utterly ridiculous!” her mother exclaimed, and it was hard for Peter to tell whether she was genuinely contemptuous or whether she hid fear under her sharpness.
“It isn’t ridiculous!” Elsie retorted. “How could it be? Certainly not for me! I said I was selfish—and I am. I wanted to marry you, Peter, so that before I die we can at least have a few months together...or at least I can. Now, I suppose, you’ll think twice—and I wouldn’t blame you.”
She turned away listlessly, but Peter caught her arm and drew her gently beck to him.
“I shall always want you, dearest, no matter how brief the time,” he said simply. “But I refuse to credit this nonsense you’re talking. You’re only twenty-five, full of health and strength. Where on earth did you get the idea that you’re going to die?”
“I was told so.”
“Who by? Dr. Meadows?’
“No. By Rawnee Singh, the mystic. He’s naturally psychic and can see the future. He’s featuring in the fun fair which is here for the Christmas holidays.”
Peter stared at her for a moment, then he burst into a laugh. It expressed, too, the overwhelming relief he felt.
“You actually mean you take notice of some double-crosser in a sideshow? Why, you poor, foolish little fathead—”
“I’m not!” Elsie interrupted angrily. “He’s genuine. He told me all about myself—my past, and my future. He said he was very sorry but I have no future beyond the next eight months; and that can only mean—death. He was very kind and sympathetic and—”
“I should think he was,” Mrs. Burrows interrupted dryly. “How much did he charge
for his infamous opinion?”
“Ten pounds. I went over to the fair last night—and I quite enjoyed myself until I went in to see him. I wish to heaven I’d never gone. I wouldn’t have done, only you had a breakdown job last night, Peter, and you couldn’t join me.”
Peter gave a grim look. “Elsie, the sooner you stop believing a lot of claptrap the better. You allow things to upset you too easily. The villagers’ gossip, for instance, and now this idiot, who claims to know the future— I know what I’m going to do. I’m going down there to have a word with him this evening, and I’m not so sure I shan’t bring an action against him for upsetting you like this.”
“But Peter, he’s genuine,” Elsie insisted. “How could he read my past like he did if he weren’t?”
“I dunno. These sideshow merchants are up to all the tricks. Anyway. I’m going to see him—now. Want to come with me?”
Elsie shuddered. “Not at any price. I just couldn’t bear to look at the man again. He’s so strange—and yet so gentle. So—other-worldly.”
“Maybe a good punch in the nose will even him up,” Peter snapped, then he relaxed a little and gave the girl a kiss. “Now stop worrying, sweetheart. I’ll be back later and let you know what happened. If it should be very late I’ll give a ring instead. In any case I’ll be here tomorrow evening as usual and we’ll keep that theatre date in Branscombe.”
He said good night to Mrs. Burrows, and Elsie saw him as far as the door. Her face, with the pink cheeks and tearful eyes, made him smile encouragingly.
“Such rubbish,” he chided, patting her arm. “When you’re ninety you’ll tell this piffle to your great-grandchildren.”
With that he opened the door and a hurricane blast of wind and rain smote him. Wrapping his coat collar up round his ears he went down the steps to his waiting saloon and clambered into it. In a moment or two he was driving down the wide driveway of the house and gained the main road into the village a few seconds later.
The night was the foulest he had known for some time. The leaf-bare trees at the side of the road, clearly illumined by the car headlights, were bending double in the fury of the gale. Rain splashed in torrents down the windscreen. Back and forth clicked the wiper, leaving a clear view ahead through the segment it cut into the downpour.