by Paul Halter
‘I asked Briggs for a piece of information about the Fielder case. A simple request which had nothing to do with your hypothesis, believe me. Ah! Here we are.’
After dropping his friend off, Hurst set off with but a single thought in his mind: sleep.
16
The Red Painting
The sky had long ago turned out its lights and the veil of night which covered the Vickers property was rendered darker still by the invasive fog. At three o’clock in the morning a heavy silence reigned inside the house where every light had been extinguished save one: Henrietta was putting the finishing touches to her canvas.
‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed in a loud voice.
She stepped back to consider the painting and an expression of pride spread across her pretty face.
‘Spectacular! I would never have thought myself capable of such a great work.’
At that very moment, a figure glided along the dark corridor. It stopped in front of Henrietta’s room.
Meanwhile, she was gloating over the depiction of her father slumped over the dinner table:
‘Sublime! Divine! All I need to do now is to find a title for this masterpiece.’
A strange smile, a mixture of madness and tenderness, appeared on her lips:
‘It was for you that I painted it, Grandpapa, and I’m dedicating it to you.’ Her face lit up. ‘“Grandfather’s Return.” That’s it. “Grandfather’s Return.”’
With infinite caution, the figure opened the door and slid into the room, closing it afterwards. It went over to the dividing curtain and pulled it partly aside. Henrietta was looking out of the window in the direction of the cemetery, calling out: ‘Grandpapa, Grandpapa, how I wish you would come back.’
The figure silently drew back the curtain and tiptoed towards Henrietta. Alerted by some sixth sense, the young girl turned suddenly, saw the figure in front of her and murmured:
‘Oh, Grandpapa!’
At around half past three, a hideous scream broke the silence of the sleeping household. Philip Kesley, who had hastily donned his dressing-gown, bounded down the stairs. His wife, who had also heard the scream, cowered under the bedcovers. Kesley stopped at the first floor. An open door illuminated the far end of the corridor: Valerie’s room. He ran there without hesitation and found Roger Sharpe in his pyjamas trying vainly to calm Valerie, who was trembling from head to foot in her bed.
‘Calm down, Valerie, calm down,’ said Roger in a soothing but firm voice. ‘You just had a terrible nightmare, that’s all. Ah, Kesley, you’re here. Come and help me..’
‘What happened?’ asked the butler.
‘Valerie had a nightmare and cried out, that’s all. There’s no need to panic.’
‘No, I didn’t dream it!’ cried the young woman, sitting up in the bed. ‘I saw it, right there in front of me. It was horrible!’
Sharpe let out a deep sigh and said:
‘We’re listening, Valerie. Tell us exactly what happened.’
Her nightdress wrapped tightly around her and her arms crossed over her chest, she spoke in a trembling voice:
‘I was asleep and having a frightening dream: Grandfather had come out of his tomb and was speaking to me. “I’m here, my little Valerie, I’m here... I’ve come back...” I woke up but I could still hear his deep, cavernous voice: “I’m here, my little Valerie, I came out of my tomb... I’ve come back.” I still thought I was dreaming, but then I turned on my bedside lamp.’ Paralysed with fear, Valerie stared wide-eyed and clutched at her uncle with both hands. ‘Then I saw him... I saw him... in a white sheet... a white death’s head with long grey hair... he was sneering... I screamed out... he ran away through the door.’
She burst into tears and her uncle wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders.
‘It was a nightmare, darling. It’s over now.’
‘It wasn’t a nightmare,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Gladys appeared in the doorway:
‘Heaven be praised! I thought someone had been murdered. I... I called the police.’
At a quarter to four, the sound of a ringing telephone reached Inspector Hurst’s ears and caused him to stagger out of bed. He let go a string of oaths, fumbled around in the dark and eventually picked up the receiver:
‘Yes?... Yes, that’s me... What! A murder at the Vickers residence? And you don’t know who? ... Ah! I see. You did well to call me, Dickson. I’m on my way. Call Dr. Twist and tell him I’ll pick him up in ten minutes.’
Shortly after four o’clock Hurst’s car hurtled into the driveway of the Vickers residence.
‘There’s already one of our colleagues here,’ observed the inspector, parking next to a police car. He extinguished the headlights. ‘Hell’s bells, you can’t see anything. And there’s fog, too. Always, when we’re trying to solve a mystery.’
Dr. Twist closed his door and his footsteps crunched on the gravel.
‘Hell’s bells,’ repeated Hurst behind him, shaking his foot to get rid of a piece of cloth which had stuck to his shoe.
As they approached the front door it was opened by a policeman.
‘There’s more fear than actual harm,’ said the officer, looking embarrassed. ‘One of the young ladies had a nightmare and screamed out. One of the servants became frightened and called us. I’m afraid it’s a false alarm, chief. We were called out for nothing.’
‘Come in, gentlemen,’ said Roger Sharpe, who had appeared in the doorway. ‘A lamentable mistake, I’m afraid.’
He showed them into the living-room where Philip Kesley was comforting Gladys, flushed with embarrassment, and Valerie, who was moaning:
‘It wasn’t a nightmare, I’m absolutely sure of that. I saw him, right in front of me.’
Twist went over to the young woman, reassured her gently and asked her to tell him what happened. Somewhat comforted, Valerie repeated what she had told her uncle and Kesley a few moments earlier.
When she had finished Hurst and the magician exchanged meaningful glances but Twist remained thoughtful.
‘A death’s head with grey hair,’ he said, looking sympathetically at Valerie. ‘Could you be more specific? Did you recognise your grandfather?’
She leant back to discipline her dishevelled hair and sighed:
‘He looked like a dead man: dark eye sockets in a white, emaciated face, wrapped in a sort of white sheet, stained and dirty. He had long white hair and was sneering. It all happened so quickly. As to whether it was Grandfather or not, I can’t say. A dead man. A dead man or a ghost, what can I say?’
‘And when he left by the door?’
‘I repeat, it all happened so quickly. I was terrified and I screamed.’
Dr. Twist thanked her courteously, then spoke to Hurst and Sharpe.
‘Either one thing or the other: either Miss Vickers had a nightmare or someone dressed up so as to frighten her. Consider the second hypothesis for a moment. The first question which springs to mind is: why?’
Hurst’s expression suddenly changed:
‘Dammit, Twist, do you remember? Last night—or, rather, the night before last—Cunningham also thought he saw an old man. An old man going into the cemetery.’
There were exclamations of surprise amongst those present. Twist nodded:
‘I thought about that, actually. That’s why I think Miss Vickers wasn’t dreaming. Two people with the same hallucination in twenty-four hours, it seems too much of a coincidence. The descriptions of the two apparitions are roughly the same: an old man with long hair dressed in a shroud. Cunningham saw him going into the cemetery and Miss Vickers said he talked about a tomb. “I came out of my tomb,” to be exact.’
‘Dr. Twist,’ said Sharpe, taken aback, ‘don’t tell me you think it’s Grandfather Theodore. I now the tomb is only a short distance away, but he was well and truly dead when he was buried. And if you believe in ghosts, allow me to say—.’
‘No, not at all,’ retorted Twist irritably. ‘But admit that there’s been a
great deal of talk about the grandfather, the cemetery and tombs. And, by the way, I think it’s about time we went to look at the place... But where are Mrs. Vickers and the other daughter?’
‘My sister took a strong dose of sleeping pills,’ said Sharpe reassuringly. ‘She must be sleeping like a log. She didn’t even hear the scream. There’s no point in waking her up, her nervous system is already in a sorry state.’
‘And Miss Henrietta?’
‘Leave her alone,’ replied Sharpe curtly. ‘There’s no point in getting her mixed up in all this, especially with all this stuff about a ghost who looks like her grandfather.’
There was a silence. Twist appeared thoughtful as he looked at Hurst’s shoes. His friend frowned:
‘What’s the matter? Haven’t you seen a pair of shoes before?’
Twist didn’t reply. He got out of his chair and knelt down in front of the inspector.
‘What’s that?’ he asked tersely, pointing to a stain on the bottom of Hurst’s trouser leg.
The inspector leaned down.
‘I don’t know,’ he growled. ‘It’s either mud or....’
‘Blood,’ declared Twist gravely.
‘What the—but you’re right! How did that happen?’ He stood up, his eyes wide open. ‘Mr. Sharpe, do you happen to have a torch?’
‘Of course, but....’
‘Bring it here right away, if you would. We’ll be outside, near the front door. Let’s go, Twist!’
Before stepping outside, Hurst switched on the exterior lamp, whose light was dimmed by the fog. Whilst leading his friend towards the cars, he explained:
‘When I got out of the car just now my shoe picked up a piece of cloth which I kicked away somewhere on the lawn. That was the only moment when I could have got that stain on my trousers. I think it’s over there. Hell’s bells, we can’t see a thing.’
‘Where was this rag when you first stepped on it?’
‘About halfway between the front door and the cars.’
‘In other words, where the driveway crosses the path leading to the cemetery, is that right? ’
‘More or less. I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘And how did you get rid of it? With your hands?’
‘No, with my foot.’
‘So it can’t be far away. Here we are, this is where the paths cross.’
They heard oncoming footsteps and turned to see a beam of light approaching. The inspector explained the situation to Roger Sharpe, who handed over the flashlight. Their search didn’t last long. Hurst caught sight of a piece of white cloth covered in dark stains. He picked it up and shone the light on it, declaring:
‘Blood. Lots of blood... And it’s fresh.’
The three men looked at each other in deathly silence. Their faces were grim under the baleful light. Hurst was the first to speak:
‘So the apparition was made of flesh and bone because it bled. And I’m beginning to agree with you, Twist. We should pay a visit to the cemetery because this individual appears to have gone in that direction.’ He shone the light on the narrow path and asked Roger Sharpe: ‘Is there a passage at the end of this path?’
‘No, but if you go through the hedge and climb over the railings you’ll be in the cemetery.’
‘So, my friends, I propose we—.’
‘We’ve been fools!’ cut in Twist before sprinting towards the house.
With Hurst and Sharpe on his heels, Dr. Twist ran across the hallway under the startled gaze of Kesley and the police officer and went up the stairs three at a time, stopping in front of Diane’s room.
‘She’s asleep,’ said the conjurer in a breathless voice. ‘She took some pills. We can go in.’
He opened the door, turned on the light and gave a sigh of relief at the sight of his sister sleeping peacefully in her bed. He leant over her, straightened up and said:
‘She’s all right.’
Twist took off down the corridor to Henrietta’s room and banged loudly on the door. He looked questioningly at Sharpe, who had caught up with him. Without a word, the magician went into the room. When he switched on the lights, three pairs of eyes looked at the empty, unmade bed. Dr. Twist strode across the room and pulled back the separating curtain.
Henrietta lay on the floor beside her easel, her throat cut from ear to ear.
The painting of her father’s death had been given a touch of realism: it had been sprayed with Henrietta’s blood.
17
In the Kingdom of the Dead
At five o’clock in the morning the house was swarming with police. Valerie had gone to her room, horrified and prostrate. Mrs. Vickers was still in hers. It had been thought preferable to await the arrival of the medical examiner before waking her and announcing the dreadful news. Archibald Hurst was pacing up and down in the hall, the lock of his hair in disarray.
‘Look at this!’ exclaimed one of the police officers.
Hurst grabbed the grey wig and piece of white sheet offered to him and placed them on the floor.
‘Bloodstains,’ observed Dr. Twist upon examining the sheet. ‘And a piece has been torn off. Probably the bit we found outside.’
Hurst went to find the piece and placed it next to the torn sheet. It was an obvious match.
‘So Miss Valerie didn’t have a bad dream,’ said the criminologist. ‘Someone played at being the ghost of their grandfather and scared Miss Valerie and murdered her sister.’
‘And where did you find this stuff?’ Hurst asked the officer.
‘At the foot of the stairs, in front of the cellar door, sir. I’ll show you.’
They crossed the hallway and descended a couple of steps which led to a door.
‘It was here,’ said the officer.
Dr. Twist tried the key and discovered the door was double-locked. Then he looked up pensively.
‘These things could quite easily have been thrown down from the bend in the staircase,’ he said. ‘And it’s not much of a hiding-place, either. So why did we find the bloodiest part of the sheet outside? None of it makes much sense. I can understand why the murderer wanted to get rid of these things as soon as possible: he couldn’t afford to be caught with them. Why, then, did he take the time to rip off the bloodiest part of the sheet and place it....’
‘On the path to the cemetery,’ added Hurst. ‘We should go there as soon as possible.’
‘You’re right,’ said Twist, ‘even though I get the feeling we’re being led by the nose. But we still have to go. We should bring Mr. Sharpe with us to save time.’
‘To save time?’ echoed Hurst.
‘Yes, to find the tomb of Grandfather Theodore.’
Dr. Twist followed behind the inspector and Roger Sharpe, who were progressing slowly along the narrow path, the light from their torches reflecting from the dense fog. They stopped at the hedge and Sharpe raised the beam of light to reveal a cracked pillar separating the railings bristling with spikes.
‘What fun this is!’ growled Hurst. ‘Chasing ghosts in a cemetery at five in the morning. The highlight of my career.’
Not without difficulty the three men managed to wriggle through the hedge and climb the railings of the cemetery. Hurst, seeing tombs emerge suddenly from the fog, couldn’t suppress a shudder.
‘Follow me,’ said Sharpe. ‘We need to find the centre aisle. It’ll be quicker that way.’
The small procession started on its way, shivering at the sight of the sinister, drab tombstones, the closest of which gleamed eerily under the baleful light of the cemetery lamps.
‘We’re going to have a devil of a job not to get lost,’ grumbled Roger Sharpe, hesitating between two parallel paths.
He shone his lamp on a block of granite, but the inscription was illegible, having been worn down by years of bad weather. He let loose a torrent of swearwords before continuing the search under the nocturnal dampness. But already the first pale streaks of dawn were trying to penetrate the thick fog.
Hurst seeme
d ready to pinch himself to prove he wasn’t dreaming. Everything seemed unreal: the forest of tombstones wrapped in wisps of fog; Roger Sharpe rummaging amongst the dead, the light from his lamp awakening new macabre shadows; and now this spectral dawn which seemed to make the fog even thicker.
The fact that he kept thinking of the Harold Vickers story which took place in a mortuary cave didn’t help....
‘Here we are!’ exclaimed Sharpe. ‘Theodore Vickers, 1848-1922.’
‘What the devil?’ exclaimed Twist, suddenly appearing by the magician’s side. ‘It looks as though the earth has been freshly dug. And that flowerpot has been smashed into a thousand pieces.’
As the two men were leaning over to examine the tomb of Theodore Vickers, Hurst, without knowing exactly why, started to feel nauseous. Was it the macabre surroundings which caused him to imagine that putrid smell?
‘You see?’ said Sharpe to Dr. Twist, ‘they’ve simply placed clods of earth on the tomb.’
‘Decidedly, our murderer goes to great lengths to make us believe in ghosts,’ replied Twist.
Hurst, frozen to the spot, stared at his companions, their features deformed by the baleful light and their breath appearing as vaporous clouds. And still that putrid stench which grabbed him by the throat.
‘Don’t you smell anything, Sharpe?’ asked Dr. Twist suddenly.
The magician sniffed the air around him, then turned to Twist in consternation.
‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
Hurst, attempting to get closer, tripped on an invisible obstacle and sprawled out on the wet soil. A torrent of curses erupted in the cemetery and, before he could get to his feet, Sharpe had joined him to point his lamp at the shape lying behind the tombstone. Hurst turned and found himself nose to nose with a corpse with swollen features.
‘Harold Vickers!’ he exclaimed in horror.
18
Harold or Stephen?
‘No,’ said Roger Sharpe, who had stepped forward to shine the lamp on the dead man’s face. ‘It looks like Harold, but it’s not. It’s Stephen. Stephen Vickers, his brother. He’s been dead for several days, to judge by his appearance and the smell.’