Eltonsbrody

by Edgar Mittelholzer

  I grunted assent. ‘Didn’t you notice the date over the front door? No, but, of course, it was too dark for you to see it. It was built in 1887.’

  Another silence fell between us.

  The windows in the sitting-room prattled in a sudden onslaught from the wind, and I felt a draught twining its way, chilly and tickling, up my leg. Though the windows were closed, intangible gusts of air seemed to rush in full anguished fury across the dim spaciousness of the sitting-room, melting mysteriously just as they were on the point of assaulting us here at this long, dark table. Now and then the flame of the lamp would shudder and reach abruptly for the top of the glass shade that imprisoned it, as though at the beckoning of some invisible finger, then as abruptly subside and grow steady again, red and unconcerned, spilling its soft light upon everything round it with a quiet, almost slyly intelligent passivity.

  More than once I found my gaze straying towards the clump of brain-coral on the sideboard. Like the epergne in the sitting-room, it was one of the objects in this house to which I had taken a dislike. The epergne possessed a disturbing elusiveness in the semi-dark, and the brain-coral seemed to me sly and secretive as though it knew much that I would like to know, and deliberately mocked at my ignorance.

  To keep from seeing it I tried again to concentrate on Miss Linton’s profile, and was engaged in this occupation when I noticed her brows lower slightly. She had been looking idly towards the stairway, the bottom half of which was coated dimly with the light from the lamp. The higher steps were in gloom—a gloom that preceded the utter blackness that prevailed in the corridor upstairs.

  I said: ‘You seem to be contemplating those stairs very earnestly. As if you might be weighing the possibility of a headlong fall down them.’

  She laughed. ‘Nothing so alarming. Did you drop anything on the steps when you were coming down?’

  ‘Drop anything? Anything like what?’

  ‘Look there,’ she said. I followed her gaze. ‘I saw it since we first sat down to eat, but I didn’t think of remarking on it. It looks like a skein of thread—or is it some kind of watch-guard?’

  I saw it, too. I had not noticed it before. A dark object coiled in a semi-circular loop. It was lying on the third step from the bottom.

  I rose and crossed to the stairway, bent and had a closer look. My hand reached out to pick it up. Then I hesitated.

  ‘What’s it?’ she asked.

  ‘Come and see.’

  She rose at once and joined me.

  ‘Why, it’s a lock of hair!’ She stretched out and picked it up. Then a look of repugnance came to her face, and she tossed it down. ‘Ugh. How could this have got here?’

  For attached to the roots of the hair we could make out what was unmistakably a clump of ragged scalp tissue. Tissue that had a fresh, damp look, with slight traces of blood.

  And it was human hair. Human hair which must have been forcibly uprooted from the head which had once borne it.

  Another sly draught came crawling along the floor and wriggled itself between our legs. And the windows in the sitting-­room prattled violently as a savage gust of wind moaned round Eltonsbrody. I shivered and turned my head quickly, for some reason expecting to see the epergne grinning greenly at me out of the musty darkness.

  11

  It was a lock of dark, wavy hair, and, from its length, I felt fairly certain that it must have been from the head of a man. Despite this conviction, however, and in an attempt to allay her uneasiness, I said: ‘Perhaps it was torn from Malverne’s head when she fell down here. Nothing to worry about, I suppose.’

  She glanced at me. ‘Malverne? The patient you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shook her head. ‘That couldn’t be. Her hair is light-brown. I’ve got a whole bunch of it on the little table near the bed. The doctor must have clipped it off so as to shave the area of the wound on her head. You’ve only got to glance at it to see it’s different from this.’

  I made mumbling sounds of assent. ‘Of course—yes. Now you mention it, Malverne’s hair is certainly fair—and dead-straight.’

  ‘This hair is dark, and it’s got a slight wave. It’s a man’s hair.’

  I tried to laugh nonchalantly. ‘It could easily be mine—but if you’ll look you’ll see that I haven’t got a clump missing. Have I?’

  She laughed, too—uneasily. ‘No. But even your hair is a little lighter in colour than this.’

  Silence—then she glanced at me and asked: ‘Look here, is anything wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say wrong, but—oh, I don’t know!’ She gave another uneasy laugh and said: ‘It may be foolish of me, but, for some reason, the moment I entered this house I sort of sensed everything wasn’t as it should be.’

  ‘After the greeting you got from Mrs. Scaife you can hardly be blamed for coming to such a conclusion.’

  ‘It may be that, yes—and yet—well, it’s more than that, to be truthful. I suppose I’m letting my imagination run away with me, but the whole house has a strange feel. And look what happened upstairs in the room before I came down for dinner. I could have sworn I caught a whiff of the fluid they use when embalming dead bodies.’

  ‘What? What’s that? Fluid they use when embalming—’

  ‘Yes. Oh, I’m sure it must be something else, but it seemed—well, it seemed exactly like embalming fluid.’

  I frowned at her, then asked: ‘Look, let’s hear more about this. Why didn’t you mention this before? Where did the smell come from?’

  ‘It was in the room upstairs. The room with the patient. It didn’t occur to me to remark on it before. I didn’t think anything of it.’

  ‘Can you describe it more exactly? I mean, what sort of smell was it?’

  ‘A sickly smell—and sweetish. I’ve smelt it often in the hospital-mortuary in Bridgetown when the undertaker’s man was at work on some corpse.’

  ‘And you say you had a whiff of this same fluid up there in the room with Malverne?’

  ‘Well, it seemed to be the same, but—well, I must have been mistaken. There’s no corpse up there, is there?’

  ‘I should hope not,’ I said, grunting.

  She stared at me hard, then said: ‘I’m really beginning to feel there’s something you’re keeping from me, Mr. Woodsley­.’

  I grinned. ‘I’m a bad actor. I’d intended not to tell you anything until tomorrow, because I don’t want to scare you. Anyway, it looks as if I’ve gone and put my foot in it.’

  Jackman entered at this point, and I turned towards the table and said: ‘Shall we finish our dinner?’

  ‘I’m not hungry anymore.’

  ‘Same here. Jackman, you’d better clear away the things. Miss Linton and I have decided we’re not very hungry this evening. No reflection on your cooking, of course.’

  Miss Linton and I made our way into the sitting-room. I offered her a cigarette, but she said she did not smoke. We stood at one of the eastern windows and watched the yellow blebs of light in Martin’s Bay while I told her briefly about the events of the past two days.

  She was impressed, but did not appear frightened. ‘It does seem queer,’ she agreed. ‘Of course, we have to remember that she’s a very eccentric person. She’s known over the island for being eccentric.’

  I nodded. ‘At first, she didn’t even impress me as being eccentric—but these past two days have convinced me she’s more than eccentric. The woman is clean round the bend.’

  A silence followed. We stared out at the night. Once the window before which we were standing suddenly broke out into a frenzied rattling as though some powerful hand had taken hold of it and wanted to shiver it to bits. The wind whistled in through the crevices with an angry frustration, and draughts twined chilly tentacles about us. The whole house seemed to vibrate under the pressure of the wind. I even thought I could sense the dryish smell of limestone and mortar that, to my fancy, appeared to be seeping out of the walls as a resu
lt of the anguished struggle between the wind and the gnarled, resistant frame of the building. The gloom about us had an animated quality, alive with shadows that, if tested, it seemed, might prove more than mere insubstantial shadows, and often I found myself turning round with a slow, uneasy stealth to glance at the epergne on the centre table. Once I saw a filmy wisp swirling about it, pale and ghostly, and I grew rigid, staring. Then I realised that it was only smoke from my cigarette which had drifted across the room.

  ‘I think I’d better be going up now,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘You’re not very scared, I hope?’

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘Not exactly scared—but I’m glad you’ve told me what you know. Now, at least, I know what to expect.’

  We were moving across the room and were nearing one of the fluted columns which marked the boundary between the sitting-room and the dining-room when we were brought to a halt by a sound from upstairs. A heavy bumping thud. We glanced up at the ceiling, exclaiming softly, for the sound had come from right overhead.

  Overhead was the doctor’s old room.

  Before we could make any comment we heard a quick scampering of foot-steps, and then a cry angry and impatient. Even through the muffling moan of the wind and the rattle of the windows I recognised Mrs. Scaife’s voice.

  ‘I think you’d better wait down here a moment, Miss Linton,’ I said—and hurried towards the stairs. But despite my caution, I heard her coming after me.

  When I got to the top of the stairs the corridor seemed to envelop me in a gloom that was almost palpable. It swirled like wreaths of black silk. Straining my eyes, I managed to make out a dim figure in white. It was moving silently in a westerly direction as though it had just emerged from the doctor’s old room. Then it paused, and Mrs. Scaife’s voice said: ‘I hope you weren’t alarmed, Mr. Woodsley. I’m sure it was most clumsy of me. I dropped my trinket-box.’

  ‘What trinket-box?’ I snapped, suddenly nettled. ‘That was no trinket-box that dropped. And it happened in the doctor’s old room. Were you in there?’ As I spoke I began to advance slowly towards her. But, with a soft sound that might have been a grunt or a chuckle, she moved on, and the next instant had vanished into her old room. I heard the key click in the lock.

  Miss Linton had come up and was standing near the door of the room in which Malverne lay. I approached her and said: ‘You’d better go in at once—and lock the door. And keep it locked until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You’re in the next room, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Call out to me if anything bothers you.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, and went in. But the door had hardly closed on her when it opened again. She reappeared and said: ‘You advised me to lock the door, but I’m afraid there’s no key.’

  ‘No key? But there should be. I’m positive I’ve seen a key in the lock.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s not there now.’

  ‘That’s funny. Why should she have wanted to remove the key?’

  We stood for a moment, irresolute, then she said: ‘Well, it’s her own house. She’s entitled to remove the key if she wants. I’ll have to trust to luck I’m not disturbed.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m a light sleeper. You don’t hesitate to give a loud call if anything fishy turns up.’

  She smiled, seemed about to say something, then changed her mind.

  ‘What’s it?’ I asked. ‘You were going to say something.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t want to mention it, but—come inside a minute.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘Come in and see for yourself. I prefer you to detect it without my telling you.’

  I accompanied her in, my gaze automatically moving towards the big bed where the bandaged form of Malverne lay. I looked round, frowning, but could detect nothing un­usual, and was on the point of telling her so when suddenly the sweetish, sickly aroma struck my senses. I recognised it at once as the same smell I had experienced earlier that evening in Mrs. Scaife’s old room. ‘You mean the smell. Is that it?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. It seems to be coming from that room over there.’

  ‘Which room? Oh. That’s Gregory’s room.’ I moved towards the door that gave into the small room, and found that she was right. The smell was strongest about here. When I tried the door I found that it was locked.

  ‘This afternoon this door was open,’ I said.

  ‘Did you come in here and have a look inside the room?’

  ‘I did. Just after we found Malverne at the foot of the stairs. I came up here and made a thorough search. This door was open then, and there was no smell like this, either.’

  ‘What’s kept in here?’

  ‘A small bed, a clothes-cupboard with some of Gregory’s clothes, a little table with a portable gramophone and an album of records. Nothing else that I know of.’

  We heard a footstep behind us and turned.

  Mrs. Scaife, in her olive-green dressing-gown, was standing in the doorway regarding us, a slight smile on her face. Her gaze was focused on me. She said: ‘I came in to say good night to you, Mr. Woodsley. I trust you will spend a restful night.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you, I’m sure, Mrs. Scaife,’ I returned. ‘And can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t spend a restful night?’

  ‘None whatever.’ She spoke with her old benevolent twinkling humour, but she addressed herself reservedly to me. Not once, I noticed, did her gaze move over to the girl.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m afraid there’s a rather annoying smell in this room. Especially in the vicinity of this door. Can you explain it, or suggest how we can get rid of it?’

  Her features remained composed. Her eyes twinkled on. ‘This house is very old, you know, my boy. If you can call 1887 old, of course. Dear old Eltonsbrody! You shouldn’t be surprised it if yields a few odd smells now and again, my boy. That’s the privilege of an old house.’

  ‘Quite so. Odd smells and odd bumping sounds. And nasty draughts. Anyway, the point is that this particular smell wasn’t present in here this afternoon. And this door was open when I tried it. Now it’s locked.’

  She smiled. ‘Have you given up art for the profession of a detective, Mr. Woodsley?’

  ‘Don’t evade what I said. I’m talking about this door. Why is it locked? And why is this smell of embalming fluid about here?’

  ‘Oh, you know it’s embalming fluid, then?’

  ‘Yes. Nurse Linton identified it.’

  ‘That was very clever of her. Well, I’m sorry I can’t go into detailed explanations, but that smell won’t fade for a day or two, so I’m afraid Nurse Linton will have to tolerate it. And as for the door, it will have to remain locked.’ She chuckled, as though amused at some private joke. ‘You must admit, my boy, that I did warn you to expect unusual events in Eltonsbrody. And, believe me, they aren’t over yet. There’s more to come. Everything, so far, has gone, more or less, according to plan, but through a little accident—a happily gruesome accident—the programme will have to be extended. Just a little accident—which may not even have been an accident.’

  ‘No doubt you’re referring to what happened this afternoon to Malverne. I suppose you’re hoping it will prove fatal?’

  She wagged her finger at me. ‘Probing! Probing again, Mr. Woodsley! You naughty boy. But you’re off the track. You’re not a good detective. Stick to painting. Of course,’ she added, ‘the mark is strong on you, but I don’t think the time has come yet for you to dabble in deathly deeds. Good night, my boy!’ She turned and went out.

  Miss Linton looked at me and smiled. ‘What mark is this you have strong on you?’

  ‘I’d like to know myself. The woman’s potty, I tell you.’ I bade her good night and said: ‘If I were you I’d put a chair behind the door and hope for the best.’

  ‘I will do that,’ she said.

  I left her, and a moment later was on the point of going into my room when the door on the opposite side of the corridor opened a t
rifle so that a slit of yellow lamplight relieved the utter blackness. I heard a chuckle, and saw Mrs. Scaife’s face appear.

  Her voice came to me like a quavering groan through the sound of the wind.

  ‘She will have to hope for the best, my boy. I’m glad you warned her.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  But the door closed and the blackness of the corridor whirled thickly about me again. And the wind moaned dolefully round Eltonsbrody.

  12

  The night was quiet.

  I didn’t sleep as restfully as I should have liked, but I did sleep. Once, at about one o’clock, I thought I heard footsteps in the corridor, but when I went out with my electric torch and investigated, I found the corridor empty. On another occasion I was certain I caught faint thudding sounds in the doctor’s old room, but when I sat up and listened I heard nothing, so had to come to the conclusion that I must have been dreaming.

  When I opened my eyes finally the following morning there were yellowish wisps of cirrus in a pale-blue, watery sky. It was early—my watch said twenty to six—and rain seemed to have fallen not long before, for the trees dripped slowly and with a sound of contented wetness. I kept staring idly at the sky through one of the western windows, and was aware of the smell of leaves and earth in the air, and could hear the peep-peep of the chickens from the poultry-runs and the occasional squawk of a hen or the gobble of a turkey—all peaceful, innocuous noises that had a plaintive, coaxing quality so that the temptation to linger in bed in pleasant drowsiness was almost irresistible. Even the wind seemed to have fallen to a low humming, and once, when I heard a mule-cart—probably laden with canes—moving past along the road with a leisured swish and clatter, a weighty, detached lumbering, I had to shut my eyes, thinking what a lulling sound it was—what a rustic, sleepy sound. It seemed to deaden thoughts of activity and disarm the mind.

  However, I was determined to rise early and go down to Bathsheba for a dip in the sea, hence refused to allow enticements of any kind to baulk me.