Eltonsbrody

by Edgar Mittelholzer

  ‘When she was conscious?’

  ‘Yes. I was a bit embarrassed to tell you that part of the business,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s nothing new.’ And I went on to tell her about Malverne’s aberration.

  She went a little pink, then laughed and said: ‘This is a strange household, isn’t it?’

  ‘I agree. But tell me. Is this the first time she’s mumbled things?’

  ‘Oh, no. She’s been doing that a lot—especially during the early hours this morning. And she keeps exposing her bosom. I couldn’t understand why—but now you’ve explained—’

  ‘Ssssh! Listen!’

  Malverne had begun to mumble again. We heard her say: ‘ ’E look at me and ’e smoile. Big ugly, black face!’

  ‘Know who she’s referring to?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean Borkum?’

  I nodded. Suddenly my gaze came to rest on the bookshelf over the washstand, and I remembered something. One of the books was standing at a slant, and there were two dark triangular spaces on either side of it—a clear indication that a volume in that vicinity had been removed.

  I went over to the book-shelf, frowning. I remembered how on Sunday night—the night things had begun to go awry in this house—Mrs. Scaife had stood behind me with the lamp, her body rigid, her manner one of breathless, suppressed excitement as I looked over the titles. I remembered the remark she had made: ‘All these books were given to me by my husband during our courting days. With the exception of one.’ And the following morning at breakfast: ‘If you go upstairs and look on my book-shelf—I’m not telling you to do so, mind—you’ll find there a volume that might shock you. It would tell you many astounding and horrifying things. It’s not a printed book. It’s a loose-leaf manuscript enclosed within the covers of a book.’

  I felt sure that it was from this manuscript that this sheet we had here now had come. And this space on the book-shelf was where the manuscript enclosed in its mock book-covers had stood.

  I shut my eyes and tried to recall the titles I had seen on the shelf on Sunday night. Almost without any effort, and just in a flash, I had it.

  The missing title was Human Anatomy.

  ‘What was the name of the author?’ Miss Linton asked me when I told her. But I had to admit that I couldn’t remember. ‘It’s possible the cover was made by some book-binder in Bridgetown.’

  ‘You mean the title was only a sort of blind?’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said.

  I wandered over to the dressing-table again, and taking up the cheque-book, began to compare the writing on the counterfoils with that on the manuscript folio—to make quite sure that it really tallied, for somehow I still found myself reluctant to believe that a frail, harmless-looking creature like the mistress of Eltonsbrody could have penned the words on this yellowed sheet. True that she had been forty years younger at the time, a girl in her early twenties, but, if anything, that made it even more monstrous.

  I broke off in my reflections.

  Flicking through the counterfoils, I had reached the one last written on. I saw that it bore the previous day’s date—and the sum involved was a thousand dollars. But this was not what had made me pause and frown. This amount—this thousand dollars—had been made out in favour of one Simeon Borkum.

  Miss Linton asked me what was the matter.

  ‘This,’ I said. ‘Mrs. Scaife has made out a cheque here in Borkum’s favour. Didn’t you notice when you looked through it?’

  ‘I didn’t pay any special attention to the names—only the handwriting. But what’s so important about that?’

  ‘It’s the last cheque she made out. Yesterday’s date.’

  ‘A thousand dollars to Borkum! Yes, I see now. It does seem a bit strange. I wonder why she wanted to pay him all that?’

  ‘I’d like to know myself. I’m going to ask her.’

  ‘You’re going to ask her!’

  I grinned. ‘Seems like cheek, eh? She’s accustomed to me by now—and, in any case, she’s told me I must never consider it inquisitive to ask her anything about her affairs.’

  She said nothing.

  On the bed, Malverne began to shift about again and mumble.

  I put down the cheque-book and moved over to a window, stood for a while looking out at the bright morning and listening to the hissing rustle of the casuarinas. The wind droned with unabated steadiness round the house, a thing of un­alterable purpose. Malverne mumbled fragments of phrases. She sighed and moaned, her hands clawing at the bedsheet. A whiff of the sickly, sweetish smell of the embalming fluid came to my senses, and my gaze wandered to the door of the small room.

  Suddenly, I turned from the window and said: ‘Look here, we should do a little talking about this thing, Miss Linton. Do you want to remain here? I mean, after reading this thing, I can well understand if you clear off back to Bridgetown.’

  She hesitated, then said: ‘I was thinking of phoning Doctor Dayton and asking him to get someone else, but—well, I don’t know. He’s been very good to me in helping me to build up my practice, and I shouldn’t like to walk out on this case because of some imagined threat to my life. I mean, what am I going to tell him? After all, there’s nothing really definite to go on. She might be just trying to poke fun at me.’

  ‘I understand. Still, I don’t like the way she’s behaving. Fun or no fun, it’s in bad taste. And disturbing, to say the least.’

  She laughed. ‘You sound like Sherlock Holmes or somebody like that.’

  ‘Do I?’ I felt the blood warm in my face. I chuckled and said: ‘I didn’t mean to sound like a fiction detective. Anyway, you’re going to remain, then?’

  ‘Yes, I think so—for the time being, anyway. You’re not going?’

  ‘If you hadn’t turned up yesterday I’d have gone this morning. The atmosphere of this house doesn’t suit me. I don’t like mysteries like this.’

  We fell silent. The wind seemed to mock us. It gave a sudden whooping whine. And I heard the wardrobe in the doctor’s old room creak. Then I glanced outside and saw Mrs. Scaife among the arrow-shaped leaves of the eddo plants in the kitchen-garden. I had an idea.

  ‘I say, she’s out there now in the kitchen-garden. See her? Suppose you keep an eye on her for me. I’ve just thought of something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m going into her room to see if I can find that manuscript.’

  ‘Do you think the door will be open?’

  ‘Well, if it’s locked I’m out of luck, of course.’

  ‘All right. Go on. I’ll warn you if I see her coming towards the house.’

  I left the room and moved west along the corridor. Automatically I found myself looking round to make sure that no one was observing me. Even by the light of day this corridor seemed desperately lonely and forbidding. I felt draughts chasing me, encircling me, tickling my neck as though they might have been wanton invisible presences intent on unnerving me. I heard them whining in under the eaves in the doctor’s old room. The wardrobe creaked ominously.

  When I tried the door of Mrs. Scaife’s old room I found that it was not locked, and grunted to myself with satisfaction, though my heart did give a bit of a bounce at the thought of the manuscript. What new horrible entries would I read?

  But I never got as far as glancing into the room. My hand was still on the door-knob when I heard a shriek from Miss Linton.

  I turned my head, and she appeared at the door of the room along the corridor. Her face was terrified.

  ‘Mr. Woodsley, come! Quickly, please! Quickly!’ she cried out.

  14

  It’s a good thing I have kept those two manuscript folios, for whenever any of my sceptical friends challenge the authenticity of this account I’m always able to produce the two yellowed sheets as evidence that I didn’t dream up at least that part of the business.

  Yes, there were two folios (you will hear about the second one in a moment)—the only two, as it happens, I ever succeeded in securing. Even thoug
h, afterwards, the servants and I searched everywhere throughout the house, we never found the rest of the manuscript.

  What caused Miss Linton’s shriek was a rat. My leg has often been pulled about this, many people suggesting, with banal wit, that they were certain it must have been a mouse.

  ‘I heard a soft sound,’ Miss Linton told me, ‘and when I glanced round I saw a huge rat running across the floor. It gave me a terrific fright. That’s why I screamed,’ she ended a little naively. She was trembling.

  ‘Where did it come from?’ I asked her. ‘I can’t say I’ve heard or seen rats here since I’ve come.’

  ‘I saw it all right, though,’ she said. ‘It climbed up the facing of the door there and ran along the beam out of sight. I think it must have gone out under the eaves.’

  I looked round the room, then my gaze paused at the washstand. It was one of these washstands with a small cupboard built in under the marble-topped section. I noticed that the door of this cupboard was ajar.

  ‘Did you open the cupboard door of the washstand?’

  She followed my gaze and shook her head. ‘No. Why? I haven’t had need to go in there for anything.’

  I crossed and pulled the door wide open—and then we saw everything.

  It was the second folio. It was pinned up against one side of the cupboard, inside, and on the floor of the little enclosure we could see what looked like a small sack—one of these white canvas sacks in which samples of flour, I believe, are packed, though there were no markings on this one, and it had an old, battered and grimy look. A large hole with jagged edges gaped in the canvas near one end of the sack, and there were bits of the material strewn about. It didn’t need a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the rat Miss Linton had seen must have been sewn up into this sack. It must have gnawed its way out, pushed the door open and escaped into the room.

  ‘But why should she have wanted to do a thing like this?’ Miss Linton said.

  ‘Perhaps it’s her idea of a practical joke. What else to conclude?’

  ‘She must really be quite out of her mind.’

  ‘What interests me,’ I said, ‘is where she could have got it from. Not in the cemetery, I’m sure.’

  Meanwhile I had detached the folio. Miss Linton came close to me, and, together, we read what was written on it. There was no date, but the copperplate script was identical with that on the first one. It was not until afterwards that I realised that the contents of this folio were a continuation of the diary entry of the other folio.

  And knowing that she was going to die, we read, I went out of my way to torment her. My torment took the form of a series of practical jokes, and before noon I had succeeded in getting her into a terrible state of nerves—that was yesterday—and now to-day she is a corpse. And what a superb death! Falling through the window of the northwestern room which overlooks the old fence. My God! Imagine my joy and horror exquisitely intermingled when I rushed down to find her impaled on a sharp-pointed wallaba post! Her bowels were gushing out just as I had pictured might happen. My bliss was almost sexual! Poor Michael is disgusted because of my reactions, but it can’t be helped. I’m glad she is dead—sorry in a human way, but in my own strange way glad to an inordinate degree. And Michael doesn’t know I’ve rooted out two locks of her hair and cut out her heart, kidneys and what I believe to be her ovaries and Fallopian tubes. I’m going to preserve these in alcohol and add them to my little secret collection of ‘relics’. Oh, joy!

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think this proves it finally. It’s insanity. Not the slightest doubt about it now.’

  Miss Linton made no comment.

  I gripped her arm. ‘Look, I hope you’re not taking this thing seriously?’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I mean these folios and what’s written on them. You don’t believe she has the power to sense death from afar or anything absurd like that?’

  She gave an uneasy chuckle. ‘I should hope not—oh, I know I’m being very silly, but I can’t help thinking it seems rather queer. Wouldn’t you, in my place, have felt that her object in leaving these folios in here was to let me know I’m in the same boat as the Miss Fletcher she mentions? And look at how she greeted me last night when I arrived! It’s almost as if she looked for this “mark of death” on me and didn’t find it and so at once took a dislike to me. I won’t even be surprised if she thinks she’s seen the “shadow” on me, too!’

  I laughed. ‘This is getting a bit funny!’

  ‘It should be funny, you mean. I don’t like it. I feel I ought to get out of this house right away.’

  ‘Can’t say I disagree with you.’

  At this moment the door opened and Mrs. Scaife appeared.

  We both started, for we hadn’t heard her coming along the corridor.

  ‘I’ve come to inquire after the patient, Mr. Woodsley,’ she smiled at me. ‘Any signs of improvement this morning?’

  ‘Why don’t you address the inquiry to the proper person? Don’t you think Nurse Linton should better be able to answer you?’

  This rebuff did not put her out. If anything, it seemed to amuse her. She smiled on, and said: ‘Oh, dear! You do remind me so much of Michael, my boy. So full of propriety, but so forthright!’

  I grunted. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well you don’t object to my forthrightness, because I have one or two questions to ask you—one or two very forthright questions—and I want satisfactory answers. I don’t want any evasions.’

  ‘You don’t?’ She chuckled indulgently, her eyes affectionate as well as amused as she regarded me.

  ‘I notice you’ve made out a cheque in favour of Borkum for a thousand dollars. May I ask why you’ve suddenly decided to be so generous to an old servant?’

  She wagged her head. ‘Oh, dear! I can see you would never have been a success at Scotland Yard. Why do you think I’d have paid Borkum a thousand dollars out of sheer generosity, my boy? He performed a very useful little job for me—that’s what I’ve paid him for.’ She laughed gaily and added: ‘It was a gruesome job, and one must pay well for gruesome work.’

  ‘What gruesome work?’

  She raised her brows. ‘This is astounding! Don’t you know?’

  ‘How could I know? What do you mean?’

  ‘After all the clues I’ve left lying around? A lock of hair on the stairs last night. The smell of embalming fluid. The heavy bump you heard in the doctor’s room after dinner last night. Mr. Woodsley! Mr. Woodsley!’

  ‘I take it the rat you left in the cupboard of the washstand there was also meant to be a “clue”?’

  ‘In a way. Just in a way. I got it from a man who specialises in catching rats in the canefields. The planters pay well for rats when you catch them. I had to give this one some chloroform to keep it asleep in the sack. I suppose it must have gnawed its way out when it awoke. Too bad, too bad. Did it scare anybody in the room here?’

  ‘No, it entertained us!’ I glared at her and said: ‘What’s it all about? What are you trying to do? I can’t understand what you’re after.’

  ‘Mystery, my boy. Mystery. Wouldn’t you say that a quiet old house like Eltonsbrody is the right setting for mysterious happenings? For gruesome, blood-curdling goings-on?’

  ‘Another evasion! Look here, Mrs. Scaife, Miss Linton came here at your request. You asked Doctor Dayton to get a nurse to take care of Malverne. When Miss Linton turned up yesterday evening you greeted her in a very curt manner. Now this morning you come in here and leave a folio on the table which was evidently intended for her to see. Then you play this silly joke on her with a rat and leave another folio in the washstand cupboard. Why are you going out of your way to pester her like this?’

  ‘Don’t get heated, my boy. I agree with everything you say. It’s really shocking the way I’m behaving towards the nurse, but if you’ll recall, I warned you I’m no ordinary person. You must always take that into consideration when judging me—’

  ‘That’s a poor excuse. Anyway, this
won’t stop me. I’m going to go on probing until I find out what’s at the bottom of this mystery. For instance, that accident yesterday—I’m inclined to think there’s more in it than seems apparent. Perhaps if I reported my suspicions to the police it could be rather unpleasant for you.’

  She chuckled, and gave me another genuinely affectionate look. ‘Mr. Woodsley, the more I see of you the more fond I grow of you. Please don’t go threatening a poor old lady like this. Concerning the accident yesterday, it really was nothing but sheer misadventure. I’d never dream of polishing off poor Malverne. She has the Mark on her, you forget? I’d never lift a finger against anyone with the Mark. No, you mustn’t go jumping to melodramatic conclusions. It was an accident. Borkum, like the clumsy, prurient fool he is, came out suddenly from the small room there. He happened to peep out into the room here, and when he saw Malverne waltzing round the place with her over-developed bosom exposed he simply couldn’t resist sallying forth and making a lunge at her. Poor girl! She was so scared that she rushed like a mad creature out of the room towards the stairs. But the bedroom rug she was holding tripped her up and sent her pitching headlong down. That’s all that happened. Borkum told me everything yesterday evening when I was in the doctor’s old room with him.’

  ‘Oh! So you admit you were in there! And Borkum, too!’

  She wagged her finger at me and made admonitory sounds. ‘Didn’t I tell you that if you’d only have a little patience I’d take you into my confidence? You’re such an impetuous young man—everything like my dear Michael!’

  ‘What was Borkum doing in the doctor’s old room?’

  ‘See! There he goes again! Ready to knock my head off! So impatient! I do hope you won’t show such impatience when you make love to Nurse Linton.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  She uttered a teasing cackle. ‘Nothing, my dear boy. Just a touch of senile jealousy, perhaps.’ Suddenly there was a sigh in her manner. She began to move towards the door, and I stared after her, too furious to say anything.

  As she was about to pass through the doorway she paused. She turned and gave me a sad look. She sighed and said in a murmur: ‘Careful. Your heart may suffer grief if you fell in love, Mr. Woodsley, with the Shadow so dark upon your friend.’