The Statue of Three Lies

by David Cargill

  The Prof allowed his eyes to wander round the animated group at the dinner table. Mrs. Isabella Ramsden, the matriarch of Maskelyne Hall...demure and benign...who wouldn’t hurt a fly! Why did the words, from Act 3 Scene 8 of William Congreve’s play The Mourning Bride leap into his head? Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.

  Demure and benign! Was she? She sat and listened to an agitated conversation between her two sons, Victor and Conrad.

  Victor, aged thirty nine, born same year as Giles, tall, dark hair, dark complexion and brown eyes, he’d always had a chip on his shoulder, even in boyhood, belligerent, uneasy .but capable of murder? Hardly!

  Conrad, slightly shorter than his brother and two years younger at thirty seven, dark brown bushy hair, brown eyes, intelligent, sporting but competitive. The killer type? Very doubtful! Neither seemed likely! But then, neither did Crippen, Ruxton or Haigh.

  Mabel, Conrad’s wife, fair-hair, blue eyes, pale skin with rosy cheeks, fun loving, supportive and poetic, was giggling as she and Laura enjoyed something amusing. Laura, early thirties, attractive and lively, a mysterious enigmatic adventuress, would try most things. But murder? Unthinkable! He had almost dismissed Mabel as a possible suspect and he wondered why?

  ‘You were miles away, Giles!’ Laura’s voice brought him out of his coma.

  ‘Penny for them!’ said a smiling Mabel.

  ‘Not much profit in that, I’m afraid.’ The Prof advised. ‘I’m so sorry, I was dreaming.’

  ‘Oh, how ...er...interesting!’ Mabel’s eyes were on Laura as she spoke.

  ‘Victor was trying to get through to you.’ Laura informed him gently. ‘I think he wanted to ask you a question.’

  ‘I do apologise,’ said The Prof, looking across towards Victor. ‘I’ll do my best to give you an answer. Fire away!’ He regretted the use of those last two words as he watched the elder son’s eyes giving him a chilly stare under raised brows.

  ‘Conrad and I were having an argument about that story he told this afternoon. You know! The one about the November Handicap and the lamp, and all that! I just cannot go along with the idea that some people can predict the future and I said so! Pure coincidence. Nothing more! Anyway that’s what I think. I was trying to ask what you really believe...about prediction or premonition. You know, that sort of thing. You seemed to be in some kind of hypnotic trance!’

  ‘No disrespect intended.’ The Profs tone was subdued. ‘Anyway, whether I believe in Prediction or Premonition isn’t relevant, I’ll leave that to you. Let me just say you’re quite correct Victor, about coincidence, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure I get your drift.’

  ‘Firstly, we have to decide what are meant by coincidences and whether they have a hidden meaning for us, and what unknown force, if any, they represent.’

  Warming to his subject, he continued: ‘I have a very close friend...Freddie, Freddie Oldsworth, who lives near Evesham with his wife and two little girls! Anyway, Freddie has been studying this subject for some time now. We’re both members of The Society of Psychical Research and The Ghost Club, as well as The Magic Circle. A mathematician by profession, Freddie devotes his expertise these days to the world of horse racing and the science of probability.’

  ‘Daddy would’ve been more than a little interested in someone like that. Next time you come back to see us bring him with you. He’d be very welcome,’ said Laura.

  ‘That’s very generous of you. Now where was I? Oh, yes .coincidences! Freddie and I have tended to accept the wisdom of the Philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. He defined Coincidence as the simultaneous occurrence of casually unconnected events.’

  ‘Oh, come on Giles, cut the gobbledegook!’ The heckler was Mabel.

  ‘No, no! Please continue,’ Isabella Ramsden said, showing interest for the first time. ‘I’d like to hear more!’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am! I bow to your superior judgement!’ Giles acknowledged with a smile and was about to resume when Laura intervened.

  ‘What say we pour The Prof another glass of wine, Conrad. to help lubricate the throat.’ she said with a wink.

  ‘And when you’re on your feet, I think we could all do with a refill.’ Victor said, looking round for approval.

  As glasses were being replenished Mabel banged on the table and, in as deep a voice as she could muster, announced ‘Pray silence for his professorship!’Giles cleared his throat amidst a spontaneous burst of mock clapping. ‘Now where was I?’ he said. ‘Ah, yes... coincidences!’ ‘Philosopher Arthur What’s-his-name,’ (a whoop of delight from Mabel stopped him in full flow). ‘He, er, divided coincidences into two categories; trivial and significant. The trivial kind has to do with spinning of coins, runs of numbers as in a Casino and, of course, hands of cards!’ (More whoops of delight from Mabel along with husband Conrad, the winners at Bridge). The Prof gave the two revellers a stony stare before continuing his lecture.

  ‘Researchers are more concerned with significant coincidences. Those that shuffle together people, events, time and space...your incredible story of the race and the lamp comes into this category.’

  ’Spoo-oo-ky!’

  All eyes turned to look at the source of this comment .. .Mabel.

  ‘There are recognisable types of coincidences such as literary ones and warning ones but even you, Victor, must surely agree that the mathematical odds against the commentator, in the November Handicap, and your mother uttering the words “Good Taste” at exactly the same time, miles apart and without being in communication would have to be astronomical! And for that coincidence to be repeated shortly afterwards and then for the horse in question to go on and win the race in dramatic circumstances takes the incident into the realm of something far beyond comprehension. Whatever it is, it has to be something much more than mere coincidence, and certainly bears investigation! Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘O.K., I take your point,’ said Victor ‘but it was still coincidence!’ With his arrogance more diffused than earlier Victor added: ‘I do admit that the way you state the mathematical implications puts a different light on things.’

  ‘Am I right, Giles? Did you say there were literary coincidences and warning coincidences?’ It was Laura who spoke.

  ’ESP!’ boomed out from the lips of Isabella and produced a shocked silence from everyone until this was broken by an intermittent gurgle from Conrad that eventually materialized into laughter. ‘Ha, ha, ha, he, he, of course, Mother, ESB...I thought you were asleep. ESB, a classic example of what The Prof was talking about! Won the Grand National in ‘56, I think, when Devon Loch collapsed and did the splits, just yards from the winning post when he looked home and dry, as they say. There hasn’t been a satisfactory explanation for that either. You really are a clever old girl?’

  ‘No!’ Isabella explained, slowly and deliberately, ‘I said ESP! Not that other horse!’

  ‘Extrasensory Perception!’ said The Prof. ‘The faculty of receiving and transmitting information through means other than the known senses: Clairvoyance and Clairaudience are the ESP of objects or events, Precognition is the ESP of the future and Telepathy is the ESP of one mind in direct contact with another. Freddie would have a field day if he were here. Experiences such as just knowing something was going to happen before it does or being alerted to danger or disaster are forms of Extrasensory Perception.’

  ’Very much like someone humming a tune then hearing the same tune when they switch on the radio!’ Laura said. ‘Or thinking about someone then bumping into them round the next corner!’

  ‘That’s just coincidence!’ insisted Victor.

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t happen to everyone!’ Isabella said as she rose from the table. ‘Please excuse me; I’m going to bed. I’ll see you all in the morning! I’ve enjoyed the chat!’

  A chorus of “good night” and “sleep well” accompanied her departure.

  ‘Why don’t we all head for the lounge,’ Laura said when her mother
had closed the door, ‘Mabel can help me rustle up some coffee and the lads can get the liqueurs and glasses ready. We might be in the mood for a ghost story as the midnight hour approaches!’

  ‘Sp-oo-oo-ooky!’

  Mabel’s words produced giggles of laughter as the two young women went off to the kitchen.

  Victor stoked the lounge fire; Giles arranged sofa and chairs into a cosy semi-circle and Conrad prepared a coffee table with assorted glasses and liqueurs.

  The girls arrived with tray complete with pot of coffee, sugar and cream and coffee-cups.

  ‘Cook left everything ready!’ said Laura. ‘Another example of coincidence, I suppose!’

  ‘Sp-oo-oo-ooky!’ Mabel was beginning to enjoy herself.

  ‘Before I get The Prof to elaborate on what he was telling us would you all agree that we should keep the lights off and sit by the glow of the fire? The atmosphere might be more conducive to the subject of mystery and imagination. A bit of the Edgar Allan Poe’s!’

  Victor’s words were met with nods of approval and everyone settled down as if preparing for a seance!

  ‘The coincidences you talk about! I accept that, in some cases, they can’t be explained but the majority of them are pretty ordinary. I’d be less sceptical if you could provide evidence of situations involving major happenings! You know; world events!’

  ‘Wasn’t there something strange connected with the D-day landings towards the end of the war?’ Conrad asked. ‘I seem to recall reading something about it. Not sure where though! Didn’t you mention something in the dining room about literary and warning coincidences? Could the D-day thing be one of those? I wish I could remember! Now what was it?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right!’ said The Prof. ‘Literary coincidence, the researchers call it; the D-day affair is one of the classic examples!’

  ‘Go on then, Giles; don’t keep it to yourself! Laura said, pouring the coffee. ‘Black or white, Giles?’

  ‘What?’ The Prof looked puzzled.

  The coffee, Giles! Black or white?’

  ‘Oh, black please!’ He lapsed into silence.

  ‘This is like trying to get blood out of a stone!’ Mabel said in comic irritation.

  ‘I think you’ve just lost him, Mabel!’ Conrad said to his wife. ‘I do believe you were going to tell us something mysterious about D-day; weren’t you, Giles?’

  ‘Was I? Yes I was, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Literary coincidence, I think you said it was!’ prompted Victor as he poured a drink.

  ‘Quite right!’ The Prof gathered his thoughts. ‘Just before the Allied Invasion of Europe, in 1944, the campaign to try and end the Second World War was Top Secret and referred to only by code words. The entire operation was known as OVERLORD, the Naval Spearhead disguised as NEPTUNE, the two French beaches, where the landings were to be made, were coded UTAH and OMAHA and the artificial harbours, to be used by the troops at the beachhead, were known as MULBERRY. Incredibly, in the thirty-three days before D-day, which was June 6, each of those secret coded words appeared in the answer to a clue in the London Daily Telegraph crossword!’

  ‘Another unlikely mathematical and difficult-to-explain coincidence,’ said Conrad, ‘unless...’

  ‘Unless what?’ Victor probed his younger brother.

  ‘Spies! You know! Secret agents using the Newspapers, to convey information to the enemy, instead of wireless!’

  ‘A possibility, certainly! Ingenious, if true! However, the fact that the enemy was taken by surprise seems to rule out such a theory. Never mind; definitely an explanation well worth consideration! Well done, Conrad!’ said The Prof. ‘But that’s not all,’ Giles continued, ‘The Key word OVERLORD appeared only four days before the landing! Now that’s a classic example of a literary coincidence!’

  ‘You mentioned another kind, Giles. What was that?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Yes, as well as the literary coincidence, there is the warning coincidence. History seems to offer many examples. One of the strangest, and this is a combination of the literary and the warning kind, was when a United States’ writer, Morgan Robertson, published a novel, back in 1898, about a giant ocean liner called THE TITAN, which sank one freezing April night, in the Atlantic, after hitting an iceberg, on her maiden voyage!’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ said Laura, ‘Let me guess! The prediction came true when the TITANIC sank on a freezing April night in 1912 after hitting an iceberg...on her maiden voyage!’

  ‘Spot on! But not the whole story! It is believed that a copy of the novel was in the library of the Titanic on that fateful night. Also the two liners, the one in the story and the one in real life, were around the same tonnage, the disasters occurred in the same stretch of ocean, both were regarded as unsinkable and neither carried enough lifeboats! Fact and fiction...inextricably linked!’

  The noise of the fire was the only thing to be heard in the room.

  ‘S-s-spooky!’

  It required no guesswork, by the others, to know where that remark came from.

  ‘There is a footnote to my little tale,’ Giles was now speaking in a voice reminiscent of The Man in Black, from the BBC radio series, Appointment With Fear, broadcast during the War Years. ‘A further coincidence happened twenty three years later, in 1935, when the TITANIAN, note the similarity of name, that was carrying coal from the Tyne to Canada, was sailing in those same Atlantic waters. A member of the crew began to feel a terrible foreboding and, by the time the Titanian reached the spot where the other ships went down, the feeling was overpowering. He wondered if he should try and stop the ship simply because of a premonition? One thing made his mind up for him. A further coincidence; if you like. ‘As he yelled "Danger Ahead!” at the top of his voice he was only just in time to alert the helmsman on the bridge and avoid the enormous iceberg in the path of the ship.’

  ‘What was that other, er...coincidence?’ Mabel could hardly get the words out.

  ’The crewman, who screamed the warning, was born on the night of the Titanic disaster!’

  The crash, following those final words, came from the coffee cup dropping from Mabel’s trembling fingers on to the hard surface of the fireplace. It had an electrifying effect!

  ‘I’m so sorry; it just slipped out of my hand!’

  Conrad put an arm round his wife’s shoulders. ‘My God, Mabel, you’re as cold as ice! Can I get you anything? What about a brandy?’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right. I’ll be going to bed shortly! I was a bit carried away by The Prof’s story and my imagination! Well it reminded me of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow! I was thinking of Haunted Houses!’ Mabel, her composure returned, started to recite.

  ‘ All houses wherein men have lived and died

  Are haunted houses. Through the open doors

  The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

  With feet that make no sound upon the floors.’

  As Mabel began to shiver Conrad, with his arm still around her shoulders, escorted his wife from the room.

  ‘I won’t be long.’ he whispered. ‘I’ll just put her to bed!’

  The door closed behind them.

  ‘I think I’ll get the head down as well...’ said The Prof ‘.. .it’s been a long day!’

  ‘Take my advice and have a long lie,’ Victor suggested. ‘The baby of the family won’t arrive until late tomorrow afternoon!’

  ‘You mean.. .today,’ Laura corrected her brother. ‘It’s already after the witching hour! Goodnight, Giles! See you in the morning.’

  Giles, stifling a yawn, slipped out of the lounge and headed upstairs.

  As he drifted towards sleep, at the end of that, first, long and exhausting, day at Maskelyne Hall, Giles thought of Jack Ramsden and his strange death. What had really happened in the library on that fateful Hallowe’en? Was this one of those Haunted Houses? He thought of Laura; thought of their meeting in the library; that library again and how she had, secretly, and silently left the room, like one of Longfell
ow’s harmless phantoms that made no sound upon the floor. Was she a...?

  He turned over and, purring gently, was soon fast asleep.

  Chapter 4

  “DID YOU SEE DR. HYDE?”

  The Prof rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to sit up in bed. He struggled to check the time on his watch but his eyes wouldn’t focus. The light from his bedroom window was hurting his eyes. Only it wasn’t his bedroom window! Where the hell was he? He swung his feet on to the floor, almost stood upright, staggered to the window and looked out on to a gravel path, a manicured lawn looking as if mowing was over for the year, with a pile of leaves on one side, a row of trees and, beyond them, what appeared to be a stable block.

  His head felt heavy and was starting to throb. Disbelief at his strange surroundings and a lack of balance forced him to steady himself against the window frame until his brain grasped the situation. ‘Not London; that’s for sure!’ He was talking to himself again. Suddenly the mist cleared. ‘Of course, Maskelyne Hall!’ Had he taken too much to drink last night or was his glass doctored...? The pain increased as he had another glance at his watch. ‘Good lord 9.30!’

  He slipped his arms into his dressing gown, grabbed his shaving kit and headed for the bedroom door. Something white lay on the floor. It was a small envelope that had been pushed under the door as he slept. There was a familiar perfume as he picked it up, reminding him of the letter that had brought him here in the first place. Inside he found a card with a message.

  Meet me in the lounge at 11 o’clock. I need to talk to you. Alone!

  No signature! He tucked the card into the pocket of his dressing gown and moved along the hallway towards the bathroom. He tried the door but it was locked.

  ’That you, Giles?’ It was Conrad’s voice. ‘Shan’t be long, but you could try the one across the hall. It should be free!’