“‘Stop,’ she cried. ‘One step nearer and I will smite you with the magic of Astarte.’
“Richard Haydon laughed and quickened his pace, when all at once a curious thing happened. He hesitated for a moment, then seemed to stumble and fall headlong.
“He did not get up again, but lay where he had fallen prone on the ground.
“Suddenly Diana began to laugh hysterically. It was a strange horrible sound breaking the silence of the glade.
“With an oath Elliot sprang forward.
“‘I can’t stand this,’ he cried, ‘get up, Dick, get up, man.’
“But still Richard Haydon lay where he had fallen. Elliot Haydon reached his side, knelt by him and turned him gently over. He bent over him, peering in his face.
“Then he rose sharply to his feet and stood swaying a little.
“‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘Doctor, for God’s sake come. I—I think he is dead.’
“Symonds ran forward and Elliot rejoined us walking very slowly. He was looking down at his hands in a way I didn’t understand.
“At that moment there was a wild scream from Diana.
“‘I have killed him,’ she cried. ‘Oh, my God! I didn’t mean to, but I have killed him.’
“And she fainted dead away, falling in a crumpled heap on the grass.
“There was a cry from Mrs. Rogers.
“‘Oh, do let us get away from this dreadful place,’ she wailed, ‘anything might happen to us here. Oh, it’s awful!’
“Elliot got hold of me by the shoulder.
“‘It can’t be, man,’ he murmured. ‘I tell you it can’t be. A man cannot be killed like that. It is—it’s against Nature.’
“I tried to soothe him.
“‘There is some explanation,’ I said. ‘Your cousin must have had some unsuspected weakness of the heart. The shock and excitement—’
“He interrupted me.
“‘You don’t understand,’ he said. He held up his hands for me to see and I noticed a red stain on them.
“‘Dick didn’t die of shock, he was stabbed—stabbed to the heart, and there is no weapon.’
“I stared at him incredulously. At that moment Symonds rose from his examination of the body and came towards us. He was pale and shaking all over.
“‘Are we all mad?’ he said. ‘What is this place—that things like this can happen in it?’
“‘Then it is true,’ I said.
“He nodded.
“‘The wound is such as would be made by a long thin dagger, but—there is no dagger there.’
“We all looked at each other.
“‘But it must be there,’ cried Elliot Haydon. ‘It must have dropped out. It must be on the ground somewhere. Let us look.’
“We peered about vainly on the ground. Violet Mannering said suddenly:
“‘Diana had something in her hand. A kind of dagger. I saw it. I saw it glitter when she threatened him.’
“Elliot Haydon shook his head.
“‘He never even got within three yards of her,’ he objected.
“Lady Mannering was bending over the prostrate girl on the ground.
“‘There is nothing in her hand now,’ she announced, ‘and I can’t see anything on the ground. Are you sure you saw it, Violet? I didn’t.’
“Dr. Symonds came over to the girl.
“‘We must get her to the house,’ he said. ‘Rogers, will you help?’
“Between us we carried the unconscious girl back to the house. Then we returned and fetched the body of Sir Richard.”
Dr. Pender broke off apologetically and looked round.
“One would know better nowadays,” he said, “owing to the prevalence of detective fiction. Every street boy knows that a body must be left where it is found. But in these days we had not the same knowledge, and accordingly we carried the body of Richard Haydon back to his bedroom in the square granite house and the butler was despatched on a bicycle in search of the police—a ride of some twelve miles.
“It was then that Elliot Haydon drew me aside.
“‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I am going back to the grove. That weapon has got to be found.’
“‘If there was a weapon,’ I said doubtfully.
“He seized my arm and shook it fiercely. ‘You have got that superstitious stuff into your head. You think his death was supernatural; well, I am going back to the grove to find out.’
“I was curiously averse to his doing so. I did my utmost to dissuade him, but without result. The mere idea of that thick circle of trees was abhorrent to me and I felt a strong premonition of further disaster. But Elliot was entirely pigheaded. He was, I think, scared himself, but would not admit it. He went off fully armed with determination to get to the bottom of the mystery.
“It was a very dreadful night, none of us could sleep, or attempt to do so. The police, when they arrived, were frankly incredulous of the whole thing. They evinced a strong desire to cross-examine Miss Ashley, but there they had to reckon with Dr. Symonds, who opposed the idea vehemently. Miss Ashley had come out of her faint or trance and he had given her a long sleeping draught. She was on no account to be disturbed until the following day.
“It was not until about seven o’clock in the morning that anyone thought about Elliot Haydon, and then Symonds suddenly asked where he was. I explained what Elliot had done and Symonds’s grave face grew a shade graver. ‘I wish he hadn’t. It is—it is foolhardy,’ he said.
“‘You don’t think any harm can have happened to him?’
“‘I hope not. I think, Padre, that you and I had better go and see.’
“I knew he was right, but it took all the courage in my command to nerve myself for the task. We set out together and entered once more that ill-fated grove of trees. We called him twice and got no reply. In a minute or two we came into the clearing, which looked pale and ghostly in the early morning light. Symonds clutched my arm and I uttered a muttered exclamation. Last night when we had seen it in the moonlight there had been the body of a man lying face downwards on the grass. Now in the early morning light the same sight met our eyes. Elliot Haydon was lying on the exact spot where his cousin had been.
“‘My God!’ said Symonds. ‘It has got him too!’
“We ran together over the grass. Elliot Haydon was unconscious but breathing feebly and this time there was no doubt of what had caused the tragedy. A long thin bronze weapon remained in the wound.
“‘Got him through the shoulder, not through the heart. That is lucky,’ commented the doctor. ‘On my soul, I don’t know what to think. At any rate he is not dead and he will be able to tell us what happened.’
“But that was just what Elliot Haydon was not able to do. His description was vague in the extreme. He had hunted about vainly for the dagger and at last giving up the search had taken up a stand near the Idol House. It was then that he became increasingly certain that someone was watching him from the belt of trees. He fought against this impression but was not able to shake it off. He described a cold strange wind that began to blow. It seemed to come not from the trees but from the interior of the Idol House. He turned round, peering inside it. He saw the small figure of the Goddess and he felt he was under an optical delusion. The figure seemed to grow larger and larger. Then he suddenly received something that felt like a blow between his temples which sent him reeling back, and as he fell he was conscious of a sharp burning pain in his left shoulder.
“The dagger was identified this time as being the identical one which had been dug up in the barrow on the hill, and which had been bought by Richard Haydon. Where he had kept it, in the house or in the Idol House in the grove, none seemed to know.
“The police were of the opinion, and always will be, that he was deliberately stabbed by Miss Ashley, but in view of our combined evidence that she was never within three yards of him, they could not hope to support the charge against her. So the thing has been and remains a mystery.”
There was
a silence.
“There doesn’t seem anything to say,” said Joyce Lemprière at length. “It is all so horrible—and uncanny. Have you no explanation for yourself, Dr. Pender?”
The old man nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I have an explanation—a kind of explanation, that is. Rather a curious one—but to my mind it still leaves certain factors unaccounted for.”
“I have been to séances,” said Joyce, “and you may say what you like, very queer things can happen. I suppose one can explain it by some kind of hypnotism. The girl really turned herself into a Priestess of Astarte, and I suppose somehow or other she must have stabbed him. Perhaps she threw the dagger that Miss Mannering saw in her hand.”
“Or it might have been a javelin,” suggested Raymond West. “After all, moonlight is not very strong. She might have had a kind of spear in her hand and stabbed him at a distance, and then I suppose mass hypnotism comes into account. I mean, you were all prepared to see him stricken down by supernatural means and so you saw it like that.”
“I have seen many wonderful things done with weapons and knives at music halls,” said Sir Henry. “I suppose it is possible that a man could have been concealed in the belt of trees, and that he might from there have thrown a knife or a dagger with sufficient accuracy—agreeing, of course, that he was a professional. I admit that that seems rather far-fetched, but it seems the only really feasible theory. You remember that the other man was distinctly under the impression that there was someone in the grove of trees watching him. As to Miss Mannering saying that Miss Ashley had a dagger in her hand and the others saying she hadn’t, that doesn’t surprise me. If you had had my experience you would know that five persons’ account of the same thing will differ so widely as to be almost incredible.”
Mr. Petherick coughed.
“But in all these theories we seem to be overlooking one essential fact,” he remarked. “What became of the weapon? Miss Ashley could hardly get rid of a javelin standing as she was in the middle of an open space; and if a hidden murderer had thrown a dagger, then the dagger would still have been in the wound when the man was turned over. We must, I think, discard all far-fetched theories and confine ourselves to sober fact.”
“And where does sober fact lead us?”
“Well, one thing seems quite clear. No one was near the man when he was stricken down, so the only person who could have stabbed him was he himself. Suicide, in fact.”
“But why on earth should he wish to commit suicide?” asked Raymond West incredulously.
The lawyer coughed again. “Ah, that is a question of theory once more,” he said. “At the moment I am not concerned with theories. It seems to me, excluding the supernatural in which I do not for one moment believe, that that was the only way things could have happened. He stabbed himself, and as he fell his arms flew out, wrenching the dagger from the wound and flinging it far into the zone of the trees. That is, I think, although somewhat unlikely, a possible happening.”
“I don’t like to say, I am sure,” said Miss Marple. “It all perplexes me very much indeed. But curious things do happen. At Lady Sharpley’s garden party last year the man who was arranging the clock golf tripped over one of the numbers—quite unconscious he was—and didn’t come round for about five minutes.”
“Yes, dear Aunt,” said Raymond gently, “but he wasn’t stabbed, was he?”
“Of course not, dear,” said Miss Marple. “That is what I am telling you. Of course there is only one way that poor Sir Richard could have been stabbed, but I do wish I knew what caused him to stumble in the first place. Of course, it might have been a tree root. He would be looking at the girl, of course, and when it is moonlight one does trip over things.”
“You say that there is only one way that Sir Richard could have been stabbed, Miss Marple,” said the clergyman, looking at her curiously.
“It is very sad and I don’t like to think of it. He was a right-handed man, was he not? I mean to stab himself in the left shoulder he must have been. I was always so sorry for poor Jack Baynes in the War. He shot himself in the foot, you remember, after very severe fighting at Arras. He told me about it when I went to see him in hospital, and very ashamed of it he was. I don’t expect this poor man, Elliot Haydon, profited much by his wicked crime.”
“Elliot Haydon,” cried Raymond. “You think he did it?”
“I don’t see how anyone else could have done it,” said Miss Marple, opening her eyes in gentle surprise. “I mean if, as Mr. Petherick so wisely says, one looks at the facts and disregards all that atmosphere of heathen goddesses which I don’t think is very nice. He went up to him first and turned him over, and of course to do that he would have to have had his back to them all, and being dressed as a brigand chief he would be sure to have a weapon of some kind in his belt. I remember dancing with a man dressed as a brigand chief when I was a young girl. He had five kinds of knives and daggers, and I can’t tell you how awkward and uncomfortable it was for his partner.”
All eyes were turned towards Dr. Pender.
“I knew the truth,” said he, “five years after that tragedy occurred. It came in the shape of a letter written to me by Elliot Haydon. He said in it that he fancied that I had always suspected him. He said it was a sudden temptation. He too loved Diana Ashley, but he was only a poor struggling barrister. With Richard out of the way and inheriting his title and estates, he saw a wonderful prospect opening up before him. The dagger had jerked out of his belt as he knelt down by his cousin, and almost before he had time to think he drove it in and returned it to his belt again. He stabbed himself later in order to divert suspicion. He wrote to me on the eve of starting on an expedition to the South Pole in case, as he said, he should never come back. I do not think that he meant to come back, and I know that, as Miss Marple has said, his crime profited him nothing. ‘For five years,’ he wrote, ‘I have lived in Hell. I hope, at least, that I may expiate my crime by dying honourably.’”
There was a pause.
“And he did die honourably,” said Sir Henry. “You have changed the names in your story, Dr. Pender, but I think I recognize the man you mean.”
“As I said,” went on the old clergyman, “I do not think that explanation quite covers the facts. I still think there was an evil influence in that grove, an influence that directed Elliot Haydon’s action. Even to this day I can never think without a shudder of The Idol House of Astarte.”
Three
INGOTS OF GOLD
“I do not know that the story that I am going to tell you is a fair one,” said Raymond West, “because I can’t give you the solution of it. Yet the facts were so interesting and so curious that I should like to propound it to you as a problem. And perhaps between us we may arrive at some logical conclusion.
“The date of these happenings was two years ago, when I went down to spend Whitsuntide with a man called John Newman, in Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” said Joyce Lemprière sharply.
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing. Only it’s odd. My story is about a place in Cornwall, too—a little fishing village called Rathole. Don’t tell me yours is the same?”
“No. My village is called Polperran. It is situated on the west coast of Cornwall; a very wild and rocky spot. I had been introduced a few weeks previously and had found him a most interesting companion. A man of intelligence and independent means, he was possessed of a romantic imagination. As a result of his latest hobby he had taken the lease of Pol House. He was an authority on Elizabethan times, and he described to me in vivid and graphic language the rout of the Spanish Armada. So enthusiastic was he that one could almost imagine that he had been an eyewitness at the scene. Is there anything in reincarnation? I wonder—I very much wonder.”
“You are so romantic, Raymond dear,” said Miss Marple, looking benignantly at him.
“Romantic is the last thing that I am,” said Raymond West, slightly annoyed. “But this fellow Newman was chock-full of it, and he intereste
d me for that reason as a curious survival of the past. It appears that a certain ship belonging to the Armada, and known to contain a vast amount of treasure in the form of gold from the Spanish Main, was wrecked off the coast of Cornwall on the famous and treacherous Serpent Rocks. For some years, so Newman told me, attempts had been made to salve the ship and recover the treasure. I believe such stories are not uncommon, though the number of mythical treasure ships is largely in excess of the genuine ones. A company had been formed, but had gone bankrupt, and Newman had been able to buy the rights of the thing—or whatever you call it—for a mere song. He waxed very enthusiastic about it all. According to him it was merely a question of the latest scientific, up-to-date machinery. The gold was there, and he had no doubt whatever that it could be recovered.
“It occurred to me as I listened to him how often things happen that way. A rich man such as Newman succeeds almost without effort, and yet in all probability the actual value in money of his find would mean little to him. I must say that his ardour infected me. I saw galleons drifting up the coast, flying before the storm, beaten and broken on the black rocks. The mere word galleon has a romantic sound. The phrase ‘Spanish Gold’ thrills the schoolboy—and the grown-up man also. Moreover, I was working at the time upon a novel, some scenes of which were laid in the sixteenth century, and I saw the prospect of getting valuable local colour from my host.
“I set off that Friday morning from Paddington in high spirits, and looking forward to my trip. The carriage was empty except for one man, who sat facing me in the opposite corner. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man, and I could not rid myself of the impression that somewhere or other I had seen him before. I cudgelled my brains for some time in vain; but at last I had it. My travelling companion was Inspector Badgworth, and I had run across him when I was doing a series of articles on the Everson disappearance case.
“I recalled myself to his notice, and we were soon chatting pleasantly enough. When I told him I was going to Polperran he remarked that that was a rum coincidence, because he himself was also bound for that place. I did not like to seem inquisitive, so was careful not to ask him what took him there. Instead, I spoke of my own interest in the place, and mentioned the wrecked Spanish galleon. To my surprise the Inspector seemed to know all about it. ‘That will be the Juan Fernandez,’ he said. ‘Your friend won’t be the first who has sunk money trying to get money out of her. It is a romantic notion.’
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 245