The Door of the Unreal

by Gerald Biss

  Everything we do or try to do simply turns out to be wasted energy apparently, as so often the case in these matters. You would not believe how many men we have working upon the case all over the country.

  Then, as he walked back through the woods, he told us about his interview with the Professor.

  At first he had been disinclined to see him, saying that he was tired of being interrupted by the police when he could do nothing to help them. Then he seemed to think better of it after reading Burgess’s letter, and eventually was quite affable to him over a pernicious German cigar, which Blenkinsopp, who has a very particular taste in tobacco, had felt himself bound to smoke for diplomatic reasons.

  “A very remarkable-looking man and a most unusual type,” he said, describing him so vividly that I registered a little mental note I must meet him personally, “and undoubtedly very clever and well-read. He was more prepared to be expansive upon entomology and botany, his two hobbies, than to talk about the business in hand; but by judicially taking an interest in his bugs and plants, and smoking hard at his horrible cabbagio, I led him gently round, and in the end he answered all my questions promptly and lucidly, showing a well-ordered, logical brain. He described the finding of Miss Clymping and Lord Bullingdon and all he had done in the way of first aid, detailing the injuries as though entering up a case-book. He professed himself at a loss to account for the torn shoulder; knew of no dog locally likely to have found the body and tried to drag it to safety; certainly did not keep one, or for the matter any animals, himself—disliked them, in fact; had been forced to cut away the garments in small pieces from the wounded shoulder, as any other doctor would have done. He added that he had treated the wound with a wonderful ointment he always carried for use in case of bites or stings or other wounds— “not one you will find in your renowned B.P., as you call it,” he had added, with a laugh, but he would guarantee that there would be no blood-poisoning now, whatever the cause of the wounds.

  He was affable enough, but seemed quite glad when I rose to go, and showed me out himself: so I fear there is not much to be learnt in that quarter—one more blind alley. He is evidently a very clever man,” he concluded; “but frankly I did not cotton on to him somehow. There was something indefinable about him that repelled me—perhaps the insular Briton’s dislike of that type of foreign savant outside his own particular circles.”

  However, what he had said about Professor Wolff had caught my cosmopolitan imagination; and I determined to meet this interesting, if not attractive, personality quite apart from the case in hand, which was obsessing us all so completely for the moment.

  “But what a delightful little Tudor place you have got down there hidden in that damp hollow, Mr. Clymping,” continued Blenkinsopp, “a regular architectural gem and a most paradoxical setting for our friend, the Herr Professor! That great studded oak door alone is worth going a good way to see, though I was not much impressed with the dour female with the brown fur tippet, who opened it to me.”

  And Burgess, drawn on one of his pet hobbies, held forth enthusiastically upon the beauties and history of the Dower House till we got back to the old Georgian mansion, which, with its greater size superiority of position, had supplanted it everywhere except in the atavism of its owner’s heart.

  ***

  We found that Verjoyce and Wellingham had just arrived; and after lunch, when Ann left us, Burgess and Blenkinsopp told them about the finding of Tony Bullingdon in full detail.

  “But what about Wuffles?” asked Bill Wellingham. “Tony would never have left her.”

  Blenkinsopp shook his head.

  “Not a sign or a clue of the remotest description. She has, as far as can be ascertained, vanished as completely as the Bolsovers.”

  And for a few minutes we all smoked in silence without looking at each other.

  Soon after half-past two Dr. Drake arrived, and a minute or two after three Sir Humphrey’s car drove up; and the doctors all went up together to see Lord Bullingdon.

  There was no variation in their report, which was satisfactory so far as it went, especially as regarded the tears on the shoulder, which were doing very well: and Blenkinsopp told Sir Humphrey about the Professor’s ointment, and he was obviously interested.

  “But why was this not mentioned to Sir Bryan and myself last night?” he asked in his most professional manner, raising his eyebrows and turning to the other doctors.

  “Because it was not then known to any of us,” answered Burgess, intervening; “that is the reason why. Professor Wolff did not mention the matter either to my sister or myself; and she did not notice him put on any ointment. It may have been done when she was taking off her petticoat.”

  “Well, anyhow, the wounds are making wonderfully satisfactory progress,” admitted the big man from London, apparently disinclined to probe the matter more deeply under such satisfactory conditions, which could only react favourably upon himself and his colleagues.

  “Colonel Gorleston has wired from Gorleston Castle that he will cross tonight; and I expect he will be down with you to-morrow night, but I will telephone you. I shall probably drive him down myself.”

  As Lord Bullingdon was still unconscious, he allowed Wellingham and Verjoyce to peep into the room for a moment, and then left, offering Blenkinsopp a lift up to town in his car, which was gladly accepted.

  The two youngsters left a little later, giving me my first quiet time with Burgess and Ann.

  The next evening Sir Humphrey arrived, bringing down Colonel Gorleston, who stopped till the following afternoon, when, feeling that he could do no good by staying on, he left with Sir Humphrey.

  Meanwhile Lord Bullingdon continued comatose, but otherwise there was no change: but towards Friday evening he began to grow feverish and restless, and the next morning he was delirious, a phase which lasted several days, causing the doctors and all of us the greatest anxiety. All the time it was touch-and-go; and several times it seemed as though the thin flame of life had burnt itself out.

  And his delirium was as strange as the rest of the strange case. He was continuously crying out “Wuffles,” not in tones of love so much as those of horror, repeating over and over again the strange disconnected words: “Big dog… jumped over moon… green eyes… big dog… jumped over moon… green eyes.

  It was his incessant cry day and right when not lying still in a stupor of exhaustion.

  The words were so ridiculous and bizarre in themselves, part and parcel of the bizarre character of the whole thing, that I must confess that in their very nonsense, reminiscent of the old nursery rhyme, they fascinated me and echoed through and through my head by the hour, to the exclusion of everything else, as I sat and smoked and pondered, trying occasionally to read, but without success. At times he babbled less boisterously of things having no possible connexion with or bearing upon the case: and then with redoubled excitement and horror he would take up the old cry of “Wuffles,” followed by the same insistent words: “Big dog… jumped over moon … green eyes.”

  It was a very absorbed and concentrated house within, with the shadow of tragedy and death hanging over it, doctors and relatives and police officials coming and going all the time: and from outside neither Blenkinsopp nor Mutton had any developments or hopeful clues to report.

  They were frankly in despair and very down in the mouth; and everything looked hopeless.

  ***

  On Monday afternoon, when Burgess and I returned from a walk, taken in the interests of exercise rather than anything else, we were surprised—and I was delighted—to hear that the Professor and his daughter had called to inquire after the invalid, and were at tea in the drawing- room with Ann, awaiting our return. I had intended to make Burgess take me down to call at the first opportunity: but one thing and another had prevented me from urging the point.

  The daughter, Dorothy—a lovely girl, as Burgess has already described her in his “Document”—was dressed in white ermine with a cap of the same fur, which set
off her beauty remarkably well—still in her winter things, perhaps not unwisely, as it had set in cold again on Sunday with the treacherousness of spring in England. She bowed rather shyly to me, when introduced: but the Professor held out his hairy hand with its long pointed fingers and almond shaped nails, and, as I took it, a queer feeling of repulsion, both psychological and physical, came over me—a strange, unaccountable aversion to the touch.

  Him, too, Burgess has described in detail, with strange slanting eye-brows that met over eyebrows, and his piercing black eyes, his low-set pointed ears, and his full red-lipped mouth with its conspicuous white teeth; and above all, I noticed, with a strange sensation, his peculiar swinging gait as he crossed the room towards me. He was apparently in his most affable and approachable mood, and deprecated any assistance he had been able to give.

  “Ah, my magic ointment!” he said, with a guttural laugh. “The medical profession would give their noses to learn the secret of my famous concoction of herbs; but I will not divulge it, though I am no patent medicine-monger with a desire to make a large fortune by advertising it.

  Moreover, the ingredients are rare and unobtainable in this highly civilized country.”

  And he licked his lips with his long, facile red tongue in the way already described to me: and I found that I could not take my eyes off the man. He fascinated me and set all sorts of strange, weird ideas coursing through my usually cool and well-controlled brain.

  He made his inquiries into Bullingdon’s condition, and appeared only passingly interested in the strange cry of his delirium, turning the subject with a shrug of his sloping shoulders.

  “I am not a psycho-analyst,” he said, turning to me. “I am absorbed in entomology and botany, and am writing a great master-work at present. Hence my presence in your quiet Sussex away from the many calls and distractions which surround me in my beloved Fatherland.”

  “I must admit to being fascinated myself, as an amateur, with this new science of psychoanalysis,”

  I answered, trying to size him up and draw him out. “But I think of all subjects botany is the one to which I have given the most consistent attention in my travels.”

  I had struck the right note; and soon we were traversing Europe together—the Black Forest, the Austrian Tyrol, Poland, the Balkans, and the whole of the Near East, of which he showed an intimate first-hand knowledge. All the time we talked I watched him with a curious fascination which grew upon me every moment; and I was intensely disappointed when suddenly he rose quite abruptly to take his departure.

  Burgess accompanied Miss Wolff to the door, and I, following with her father, could not help noticing his manner towards her, something indefinable and, perhaps, more an instinct on my part than anything else: but that, too, gave me much food for thought during the succeeding weeks. Had Burgess, hitherto apparently impervious, succumbed at last? I helped the Professor into his grey fur coat, which I had already learnt was a characteristic of his appearance; and, as he put on his Russian cap of the same fur, he looked a most unexpected and strange figure in the old panelled Georgian hall.

  “May I come down with Mr. Clymping one afternoon and see some of your specimens, Professor?” I asked, boldly forcing the invitation which had not been offered.

  “I do not…” he began; and then he seemed reconsider the question. “By all means, if they will interest you, as I fancy they will. So few people know anything outside the commonplace in these matters: but you seem to do so. It is so rare to meet a widely travelled man in this self- satisfied island.”

  And with these strange uncouth words, not too graciously spoken with a strong guttural accent, he turned on his heel without even the formality of shaking hands, preceding his daughter.

  She turned and held out her hand, which I noticed was particularly small and dainty—quite unlike her father’s, except as to the pointing of the fingers.

  “My father, like so many other geniuses,” she said apologetically, “is very absorbed and absentminded.”

  She spoke in a soft well-modulated voice, free from accent; and for the first time I became fully aware of her charm. I had been so unpleasantly fascinated with the father that I had not had a moment up till then to pay any attention to the daughter, and I felt a guilty twinge at my unintentional rudeness: but, at the same time, I registered a mental vow to follow up his ungracious consent to my visit.

  ***

  One thing and another had set up a wild train of thought in my head, and my brain was pounding hard like a big engine, as I sat smoking in the old hall after Ann had gone to bed: and Burgess, with the affinity of old friendship, seemed to realize it as he settled himself down to read the evening papers without comment.

  At the end of half an hour I got up and helped myself to a drink.

  “I am sorry, Burge, old man,” I said; “but I must run up to town to-morrow.”

  “Why?” he asked, looking up, with obvious disappointment in his voice.

  “An idea has been working in my brain which I cannot discuss,” I answered frankly. “It contains the germ of a theory too bizarre to put into words: and please do not press me upon the subject. I want to consult someone in town,” I added “and Manders will do—if he be willing to take on the job I want. He is the very man to help, and I will approach him first: but not a word to Ann or Blenkinsopp or any living soul. I don’t want to an egregious ass of myself by flying too high, or too wide of human probability. I must probe and if possible, test my wild idea first.”

  “Why not me?” asked Burgess in rather a hurt tone.

  “Because, my dear old chap, in the first place are absolutely essential in Sussex; and, secondly, you might be out of your depth elsewhere.”

  Burgess nodded his characteristic nod of understanding.

  “Will you take the car? “No, thanks, I’ll go by train, as I shall probably have to stay at least one night,” I replied.

  “But you will return? Promise me. God knows I should be lost without you at present. I grudge you even one night’s absence.”

  “I will return,” I answered, giving him my hand,” whatever happens. I promise you to see this matter through to the bitter end.”

  And God knows, when I spoke those words by no means lightly, I never dreamt how bitter the end was destined to be.

  Part II

  BETWEEN LONDON AND CLYMPING

  I

  The next morning I went up to town by the 9.45 from Crawley: and Burgess drove me to the station, very loth to let me go. I could see, however, that he was both piqued and puzzled that I had not spoken more openly to him as to what was working in my mind: but the whole idea was so bizarre and at such an embryonic stage, that I frankly did not feel myself justified in unburdening myself at the expense of burdening him with what could only be throughout my absence an ever-present horror in his mind, as ghastly in its uncertainty almost as in its actuality, if correct. Moreover, it was something entirely outside the scope of his mental diathesis, and would seem to him an utterly wild absurdity in the absence of any proof. Therefore I had decided, after turning the matter over in my mind from every point of view, that Fitzroy Manders was the only man to whom I could talk openly—the only man whose help I could enlist in the first instance at such an early stage of the ultimate possibilities.

  In the train I skimmed through all the morning papers, which were still full of the sensation, padding out the lack of anything fresh with a whole carnival of rumour, which may have served to appease the hungry public, but certainly took the matter no further from a practical point of view. Amongst them were one or two hot and windy attacks upon Scotland Yard and its ineptitude, which secretly rather pleased me, as they promised to make the difficult task I saw ahead of me easier at the psychological moment, when I should find myself forced to call in official help in what was likely to be a very unofficial and certainly unconventional manner.

  From Victoria I took the Underground to the Temple, making my way in by the Embankment entrance by the Library. F
itzroy Manders had chambers in the new buildings in Garden Court overlooking the beautiful old gardens; but in the train I had been struck with unpleasant misgivings as to finding him, as I had suddenly realized that it was the vacation.

  And time was an urgent factor.

  However, I was in luck, as his clerk told me that he had just arrived, being detained in town correcting the proofs of his new book on “Criminal Law,” which he had not had time to finish while the Courts were sitting.

  He ordered me to be shown in at once and welcomed me warmly.

  “Osgood, by Jove, this is a pleasant surprise,” was his greeting, as he shook hands cordially. “Wherever have you sprung from in your wanderings to and fro up and down the earth?”

  “Clymping Manor,” I replied; and he started with surprise.

  “By Jove,” he exclaimed again, “of all the peculiar coincidences! How did that happen?”

  I told him of my old friendship with Burgess, and the tie that always drew me there first upon arriving in England.

  “And a strange state of affairs you found there,” be commented. “Of course Clymping mentioned my name in connexion with the Bullingdon affair; and that is what recalled my existence so promptly to your mind?”

  “Not exactly that,” I answered, taking the armchair by the fire, to which he pointed. “I was intending anyhow to renew our very pleasant acquaintanceship at an early date: but it is on account of this strange mystery that I have run up to consult you to-day, much to the disgruntlement of poor old Burgess, and I hope to enlist your help.”

  “Anything I can do, of course,” he said warmly. “But how? Have a cigar?”

  He passed the box; and I took one and lit it without haste, pondering the best line of approach, while he seated himself upon the leather fender, puffing at his pipe.