The House of the Wicked (a psychological thriller combining mystery, murder, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  Hendra got to his feet. “If you wait a moment I shall summon my man Kenver to help guide you back home. It will never do to have you lost and never found again on your first night here in Porthgarrow!” He sailed out of the room, belching smoke like a steamer.

  “It appears Miss Hendra had you all in a flutter, Stephen,” noted Wilkinson, staring into his cognac.

  “Is it so obvious that I wear my passion like a buttonhole? Ah, but don’t you think she is a beauty?”

  “I find her tolerable, for a woman of her kind. A little plain and ordinary, coarse around the edges, one might say. You’d have difficulty in presenting her to your friends in London. The finish to her is but a tissue-thin gilding; beneath that deceptive sheen is a crude base metal never far from poking through.”

  “Pah!” he sneered. “What do I care about friends or what they think?” He thought bitterly how they’d thinned like boiling water poured over ice till they’d all melted clean away, just when he needed them the most. What a waste of good wine, good food, and pretending to like their wives and fiancés till it stuck like a bone in his throat to compliment them. “Jenna is so refreshingly different. I never expected it so. Terrance, I believe I am falling in love.”

  His dark eyes rolled ever so slightly. “Again, Stephen?”

  “This time it is different. I can feel it is different, right here.” He put a fist to his chest.

  “Possibly a touch of indigestion; the dessert had been overly sugared. In a little time it will pass. Stephen, if we are to make something of this venture of ours you must have all your energies focussed on the subject in hand.”

  He hated feeling beholden to the man. “What do you hold against her? You scarce acknowledged her all evening. Are you jealous?” Wilkinson looked surprised and stiffened in his seat. “Do you wish her for yourself? Are you jealous that she paid me far more attention than you this evening?”

  Wilkinson relaxed again and his reply was a thin smile. He took a hefty swig and swallowed hard. “My dear fellow, you may have every tough Cornish piece of her, gladly.”

  Wilkinson peered thoughtfully over his glass at Denning. “Another thing. Did you not bring enough paints with you, Stephen? Mrs Carbis tells me you brought enough trunks to sink a small ship. What can be so special you need to order it from Penleith?”

  He grinned mischievously in reply. “I forgot to pack a horse,” he said.

  The clock struck eleven.

  “You have the very devil in you, Stephen. Be careful of it; it has landed you in trouble before.”

  * * * *

  In places the darkness was almost complete, the light from the man’s oil lamp beating it back but a little way. Every now and again the thick cloud parted to reveal a thin strip of moon, but it was quickly swallowed again. Denning and the man Hendra called Kenver followed the steep path down from Hendra’s house to the beach where men were still working on the boats. They then began the climb back up, heading towards Denning’s rented cottage. The village was silent, but a few windows burning lights, their footsteps echoing down the narrow chamber formed by the closely packed houses. A stiff, cold breeze shivered the air around them.

  “That’s not good,” said Kenver. Denning supposed from his cloudy immature beard that the man must be about his own age, but his manner appeared far older.

  “What isn’t?” he said.

  “Feels like another storm’s on its way. You could hear the swells in the cove, too. And I don’t like this chill. It entereth into a man it does. Another storm. Had too many o’em already which ain’t good for the start of the season. Last year was bad for the pilchard, but this year…” he tut-tutted loudly. “Watch that there shit, sir,” he said, pointing out a sludgy pile that the lamplight held in sharp relief for a moment or two.

  “I must say, it appears further in the dark than it does during the day.”

  “True, ‘tis on the outer boundary of Porthgarrow, so a fair enough distance for them whose shanks ain’t accustomed.”

  They continued up the hill.

  “Forgive me, Kenver,” asked Denning. “Why do you think my cottage has remained empty for so long till my arrival?” He was struggling to keep up with the man, starting to wheeze.

  “Oh, you wouldn’ get a fisherman, either local to Porthgarrow or from outside settin’ foot in that house. It would bring fearful bad fortune on a man.” He stopped and turned to Denning; when he smiled he had teeth missing. “But you needn’t worry on that account, sir. You’re safe, being an outsider and not a man of the sea.”

  “Safe? Safe from what?”

  His brows raised in surprise. “Why, has no one ever thought fit to tell you of what took place in that house?”

  “It is all new to me.” He sensed Kenver was having an internal tussle as to whether he ought to say any more. “Please,” he encouraged, “it cannot do any harm, after all.”

  Kenver’s lively expression signalled his decision and he launched into his story with relish. “A long while ago, the house was owned by a Connoch – Jowan Connoch. It hasn’t been occupied since his wife was found brutally murdered, her poor body sliced from neck to groin, gutted like a big white fish. All that was inside was spewed outside.”

  “Good God!” said Denning.

  “Good God indeed, sir. It was Jowan did it. An evil man. Blamed too for another such death, a poor fish girl, found in the same sorry state on the cliffs. No mistake, the Connochs is a wretched race, sir, but we have none left in Porthgarrow now. Jowan paid for his sin and is burning even now in Hell’s fires. Like I say, sir, nothin’ for you to be afeared of.”

  They arrived at the cottage door and Kenver hoisted his lamp. Denning made out the shape of the smashed nameplate above the door, the remains of letters that he now realised had once spelled Connoch. “The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked – that’s what it says in Proverbs,” Kenver said. “Preacher Biddle said as much as he took out his sketchbook and pencilled the poor woman’s image to add to his collection. The house is tainted by the murder. Fishermen take such things seriously and none of them will now venture as much as a single step into the Connoch house.”

  “What a horrible thought,” said Denning, his brow creased in disgust, both at the grisly story and at the image of a ghoulish Biddle stooped eagerly over the dead woman. “And you mean your vicar actually took the time to draw the woman’s likeness?”

  “Yes sir, told everyone to leave things be till he was satisfied he’d caught her just as she lay. Wasn’t the first time. He’d always done it. Wasn’t many years afterwards he bought himself one of those photo-box-contraptions and he’s been pointing that thing at all and sundry since, living or dead. Sometimes he’s more like a damn alchemist – excuse my language, sir – and his house smells something foul with his use of all those strange chemicals.”

  “I find that very disturbing to say the least! Are all your vicars cast in such an ardent mould?”

  “His sermons are singularly fiery, ‘tis true. But fire and brimstone keeps a man from straying.”

  “I speak not of his religious fervour, only of this extraordinary preoccupation with the pictorial cataloguing of the dead. Do you not think it a little strange for a man of his calling?”

  He stopped, screwed up one eye as he appraised Denning then gave a chuckle. “A more powerful Christian there isn’t, sir, but oh yes, Mr Denning, we all find him strange. Mad as a hatter, as the old saying goes.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger and gave a knowing wink. “True, he takes an uncommon interest in dead people, beyond that of your average man of the church. He’s been sketching and then taking those photographical pictures of every corpse hereabouts for many years, swooping as eager as any vulture on hearing of such a tragic consequence, whether ‘tis people that have fallen from boats, drowned and washed ashore, tumbled from cliffs, or – “ He fell silent.

  “Or?”

  “Or otherwise. Like I say, mad as a hatter. Don’t be surprised if you see him spending man
y an hour up there in the Huer’s lookout on the cliff top, smoking a pipe – loaded with opium, as many are led to believe – staring out to sea with his spyglass and jotting all sorts of wild imaginings down in his notebooks. We pay no heed now to his many visions, strange utterances and melancholic pastimes. Best to leave him to his own devices, as it were, and take him as we find him. He does deliver a might fine sermon, though, to give him his rightful due.”

  That explained a great deal, thought Denning. Biddle was clearly a little unhinged, and had been shipped off by his superiors to this far flung, lonely place many years ago where he would be free to exercise his eccentricities out of sight and out of mind, so to speak. The knowledge gave him a kind of smug gratification.

  “The entire fabric of this village is riddled through with rampant superstition and tales of the peculiar,” he said, half to himself.

  “So it is, if you say so, sir. Well take care, Mr Denning, and sleep tight.” Kenver tramped away down the road, taking his friendly circle of light with him and leaving Denning to be enveloped by the cold disquieting dark.

  He heard a sighing noise and saw the dim outline of the large black dog Mrs Carbis had called Baccan’s Hound.

  It stared at him, rather pitifully, Denning thought.

  * * * *

  Baccan’s Maw

  The wind gasped mournfully at the window, like a spirit locked outside and begging entrance. Then the belligerent pounding of heavy drops of rain that exploded in his ears like cannon fire.

  His head was alight with a searing pain that drilled through his skull. The cold damp cloth he’d laid over his forehead and eyes was now warm and dry. He grimaced as he reached over to the bowl by his bed, dipped the cloth in water and squeezed it out, returning it to his forehead.

  He’d be plagued by these ever since he was a child. A pain so intense he would often black out, and when he awoke it left a legacy of a throbbing headache and debilitating tiredness that would linger for yet more hours. He had no idea what triggered the events but he lived in dread of their occurrence. “An overactive mind,” said his mother. “A lazy one,” said his father. “The cricket ball that hit you in the temple,” offered his brother, “stopping my six.” Whatever the cause, he’d had various treatments but nothing had worked. Yet another bane to carry around with him, he thought, feeling decidedly sorry for himself.

  The damned rain! Why must the night always amplify such things? His pillow felt ever more hard and unforgiving beneath his tired head.

  Eventually, as the pain subsided, replaced by a dull ache that rose and fell with every heartbeat, Denning rose shakily from his bed, rubbed his eyes, the back of his neck. He glanced at a bottle of wine on the table and thought about taking a glass but refrained; it would only make matters worse.

  What atrocious weather. Someone had told him it was the worst summer Pont Aven had seen in at least seven years. Of course, and it chooses the moment when he should be staying here to do it. That meant more fighting with the canvas just to keep it on its damned easel. More dust thrown up at his face, coating the smears of paint on his palette and turning the whole to sandpaper. He was beginning to detest the place. Maybe that’s what had brought on the headache.

  The Hotel des Voyageurs was at least tolerable, but for having to suffer the many young pretenders who were better skilled at articulating affected theories and bragging of their ambitious intentions than painting. Some, to be fair, were decent fellows, decent artists too, and had money to sprinkle around, which was no bad thing, but they were the exception and in truth most were so preoccupied by their work they were the dullest folk on earth to waste too much time on.

  He looked at the painting he’d been working on for a week now. Peasants cleaning out a country ditch. He screwed his face up at it, shook his head. Why, he asked himself? Why peasants, why the ditch? Yes, he knew the Realist theories that lay behind it; yes, it had felt new and exciting for a while; but he was quickly growing bored. If he’d wanted to paint misery he could find that in the streets of London. At times like these he began to seriously question what on earth he was doing here and what it was that would make him truly happy.

  The dawn sky outside was beginning to turn sloe berry-blue. He just wasn’t a dawn person. Part of him, the artist, was rather taken with the colour of the sky, the way the raindrops glistened like blue pearls as they collected and slid their snail trails down the glass, and in his mind he was mixing the colours on his palette to replicate it; another part of him complained that modern man was not designed to see the dawn and that he ought to go back to bed. Then he heard a frantic knocking at the door that made him start.

  “Stephen!” he heard. “Stephen! Open up!”

  Recognising Wilkinson’s voice immediately, Denning went to the door and let him in. The man almost fell into the room and closed the door quickly behind him.

  “Calm down, Terrance, there’s a good fellow! My head hurts like blazes.”

  His eyes were wild, looking at Denning but not quite seeing him. His hair was a mess and his forehead bore a silken sheen of sweat. Wilkinson didn’t reply but instead went to the bottle of wine on the table and snatched it up. “Glass?” he snapped. Denning pointed one out and he watched as he poured out the bottle’s last dregs of wine into it. He raised it to his lips and downed it in one angry swig. “I could do with another,” he said, the whites of his eyes flaring, searching the room. Denning noticed there was mud on the man’s trousers, his shoes thick with it.

  “I think you’ve had enough, judging by your appearance,” Denning said, taking the glass from him. “Whatever’s gotten into you? You look like you have the devil at your back. Sit down, man.”

  He swiped a clawed hand across his hair and gave a plaintive groan. “A terrible thing has happened, Stephen! A terrible thing!”

  They heard a noise from outside in the corridor. Wilkinson stiffened like card and stared manically at the door. The soft sound of boots thumping on carpet faded away.

  “What do you mean? He took the man’s arm and led him to a chair. “Have you been hurt?”

  “Hurt? Me?” He blinked stupidly. “No! No! Not hurt!” He shook Denning’s fingers away. “Get away from me! Oh, why did I ever get drawn into this?”

  He looked exhausted, but he was obviously quite drunk too. Under a firm hand he was encouraged to sit and he hunched himself into a pathetic shadow of his ebullient self. He raised his head. “You don’t look well, Stephen,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Another of your attacks?”

  “Never mind me. Whatever is wrong?”

  For a while Wilkinson simply stared into Denning’s eyes, then he seemed to relax, ran his hand through his hair again and gave a little laugh. “Forgive me, Stephen. I have taken far too much tonight. It has addled my brain, as you know it does. I shall leave you to your bed and try and find my own.” He got stiffly to his feet, swayed ever so slightly. “He glanced urgently about the room, his attention resting on Denning’s crumpled clothing thrown onto the back of a chair.

  Denning steadied him. “Are you sure you’re alright? You look damnably pale, even for you.”

  He smiled but it was a grim affair. “I am perfectly well. I am sorry to bother you. Goodnight, Stephen.”

  Wilkinson left the room giving a half-hearted wave of his hand, and Denning watched him stagger his way down the corridor.

  Not thinking too much about it – there had, after all, been many such occasions – Denning went back to bed and rested the cloth back on his head, the brief affair racking up the pain again.

  Two days later they had just taken breakfast and were in the lobby when two gendarmes arrived, their shining black boots rapping loudly on the tiled floor; they asked for and were greeted by Madame Guillou herself. They tipped their kepis in greeting and one of them engaged her in earnest conversation whilst the other, a shorter man with a rifle slung over his shoulder, looked about him. Madame Guillou put a hand to her chest as though surprised, and motioned with her hand to the lob
by. The two men immediately set about questioning the few people who were around.

  “I wonder what has happened now?” said Denning turning to Wilkinson. But the man’s face was ashen and he looked like he was about to keel over in a faint. “Terrance, what’s come over you, man?” he said. Then realised he stood in fear of the gendarmes.

  “I cannot say,” he breathed, and he turned about and dashed away, up the stairs. Denning quickly followed. He would not answer to his calls until they were safe inside his rooms and the door was closed.

  “Now tell me what all this madness is about. You were surely not afraid of the gendarmes.”

  He was pacing about in a panic. “It wasn’t me, Stephen! It wasn’t me!”

  “You’re not making sense. Is this to do with the other night, when you came home drunk, bursting into my room at God knows what unearthly hour of the morning?”

  “Yes! Yes!” He flung his arms up in the air. “A monstrous thing!”

  Denning was used to such emotional outpourings from Wilkinson, but today he felt there was something more ominous about his demeanour. He bade him sit down.

  Denning pulled up a chair beside him. “Calm yourself. It’s obviously not as bad as you make out. You are in one of your states again. Tell me what happened.”

  Wilkinson’s head swung round to a sound outside.

  “It is nothing, probably just those frightfully cheerful Norwegians off to the river,” explained Denning.

  “Yes, of course,” he muttered. And at this he sunk his head into his hands.

  “Now be a good man and explain why all this fuss over those two uniformed dullards downstairs.”

  “Let me think,” he said. “Let me think!” Finally he gave a deep sigh. “The other night,” he said, “I had been taking a drink and playing cards at Monsieur Jacques.” His fingers peeled away from his face like a grotesque bloom and he looked up. “Yes, I know, I have been warned of it before.”

  Monsieur Jacques was a small and notorious illegal house tucked quietly away into the Breton countryside on the fringes of the beech forest of Bois D’amour where it was supposedly hidden from prying eyes but of which everyone seemed to know, if not by frequentation then by its sordid reputation. The authorities had tried many times to stamp it out but it lingered like a bad stain, providing for the many young foreigners a raft of illicit diversions. He seemed obscenely attracted to these places, thought Denning. It had been the same in Paris. Driven by his art, Wilkinson would have him believe, but he’d never been entirely convinced of that.