He knelt with her by the fire. Studying her tenderly, he said, “I think you allow your imagination to make you believe strange things. Things that have never taken place.”
She shook her head. “No. There was no imagination about my being shoved in the cellar at Moorgate.”
“You stumbled, that’s all.”
“It was more than that. I felt a pressure at my shoulder blades!”
Fred’s smile was grim. “Because you wanted to.”
“Not at all. And what about my being strangled here?”
“That could have been an attack of hysterics brought on by extreme fear,” he explained. “We know such cases in medicine. People are sure they have been attacked when all the while it’s the product of their own fears.”
“Too easy,” she said. “I’ve also seen shapes and shadows which I can’t easily explain.”
“Again your imagination,” he said. But he gave a worried glance about the room. “My feeling about this old house, for instance, is not that it is inhabited by ghosts but that it may have recently been lived in by humans.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve seen certain evidence as I wandered about the place,” her husband told her. “Ashes which can’t date far back. Several newspapers of recent date. And most important of all, some cigarette butts crushed under heel.”
“Mr. Farley may have a caretaker who comes over here occasionally,” Lucy suggested.
“I hope you’re right.”
“It has to be that,” she said.
“This island would make an ideal spot for anyone hiding out. I’m thinking of criminals,” he said by way of explanation.
His remark caused another ripple of fear to go through her. She had bargained only for evil ghosts. Now Fred was suggesting they might have evil humans to fear as well.
She said, “If there had been anyone here I’d have seen them when I was here earlier.”
“You did see something,” he reminded her.
She gazed nervously at the library doorway where the weird figure had so briefly appeared. “That wasn’t anyone human,” she said confidently. “It was another of my apparitions.”
Fred looked worried. “I think Dr. Boyce has ruined you with his talk of your being psychic.”
“I’m sure I am psychic,” she said. “There’s no other answer.”
Her husband gave a sigh as the wind rattled the old house again. “It doesn’t seem likely this storm will end before morning.”
“We couldn’t leave here until then anyway,” she said. “Even if the road is bare it wouldn’t be safe to drive it after dark.”
“With the tides running as they are it may be afternoon or early evening tomorrow before we’ll get away.”
Her eyes widened. “And in the meantime what will people think?”
“They’ll probably decide we’ve drowned,” her husband said. “Especially if my boat is found drifting.”
“I never thought of that!”
“Maybe if the fog clears and we go outside they’ll see us.” He put another log on the fire.
“Or see the car where I parked it.”
“That’s a better bet,” he agreed. “Since there’s nothing we can do about it, we should try to get some rest.”
She gave a little shiver. “I don’t think I could possibly sleep here.”
“You can try,” Fred said with a smile. “Doctor’s orders.”
Lucy smiled back. “Then I have no choice.”
He arranged a scatter rug under her and had her stretch out close by the fireplace. Then he lay down beside her. The storm seemed to be easing a little, but every so often the house rocked from the wind.
“I’m glad the boat did get away,” she said sleepily. “I know we’d have been drowned if it hadn’t.”
“You haven’t a high opinion of my boatmanship,” he said.
“I know the evil spirits of Moorgate wanted us to drown,” she said.
Fred made no reply and she didn’t attempt any further conversation. She stared up at the candle on the mantel as it flickered amid the shadows. At last her eyes drooped closed and she slept.
She had no idea what time it was when she wakened. But it was still dark. The fireplace blaze had dwindled to a few glowing embers and it was cold in the room. And the candle on the mantel above had gone out. The only remaining light in the library was the candle on the table some distance away.
Lucy was about to touch Fred and ask him about the fire when she saw the shadowy figure moving across the room towards them. The same weird man she’d seen earlier in the doorway. Now he came across the room in a crouched attitude. She recognized the long hair and straggly beard, and she screamed out a warning to her husband.
It came just in time, for the shadowy intruder plunged forward to attack him as she screamed. Fred roused himself to meet the attacker and she watched horrified as he and the phantom figure struggled on the floor. She got to her feet still screaming.
The phantom escaped from Fred and started to run from the room. But Fred sprang up from the floor in time to catch up with the figure and begin a new battle with him. This time it was a slugfest, with the two delivering heavy blows at each other. As Fred made a crashing right to his face, the phantom let out a loud groan and staggered back. Fred followed this with heavy body blows, and the long-haired, bearded figure fell back against the wall so hard that his weight splintered a panel. Then he slumped to the floor.
Fred stood panting over his fallen adversary. When he caught his breath, he told Lucy, “This ghost seems to be pretty much a human being.”
She came over to stare at the fallen man. “Who do you suppose it is?”
“I’d say my hunch was correct,” Fred told her. “He’s some fugitive from the law who has been hiding out here. No one comes to the island these days because of the ghost stories. It would be a perfect place for him.”
“He intended to attack you,” she said.
“Probably figured he could take some money from me,” Fred said, brushing back his hair.
She studied him anxiously. “Your cheek is cut.”
“I’m lucky to escape that easy,” he said. “The next thing to do is find something to bind his wrists and ankles with. We don’t want him coming to and starting another riot.”
They finally used some old draperies. Fred cut them into thin lengths and bound the long-haired man. The fugitive opened his eyes to glare at them after they had tied him up. But he would say nothing.
Fred turned to Lucy. “You can’t say it hasn’t been an exciting night.”
“I wish it was over.”
He nodded towards the window. “It soon will be. Dawn is breaking over there. And the storm is almost over.”
She realized this was true. There was a light streak across the horizon and the wind had gone down a good deal. The rain had ended.
Fred found an ancient water pump and they each had a drink. He also gave one to their mute prisoner. As daylight seeped into the library Fred suddenly turned his attention to the splintered wall. A gaping hole in the panel was the grim reminder of the struggle between him and the man they’d taken prisoner.
Fred examined it and thrust his arm inside. Then he gave a low whistle. “I think we have a find here,” he told Lucy.
She went over to him. “What is it?”
“Tell you in a minute,” he said. And he brought out a square iron box with a padlock. “Some sort of strongbox,” he told her. “I’ve no doubt it belonged to Frank Clay.”
“And it’s been hidden there in that secret compartment all these years,” she marveled.
Fred gave a glance at the man on the floor. “It would still be there if our friend hadn’t started that battle. Maybe some good will come out of this after all.”
“What do you suppose is in the box?” Lucy wondered.
“We’ll have to wait until we get back to the mainland to know that,” he said. “I’m not going to start opening it here.”
In mid-morning she and Fred went down to the shore and found the car safe and the tide out. She could hardly believe their good luck on seeing the sandy road clear of water.
She turned to her husband happily. “Now we can drive back.”
He was staring across at the mainland. “It seems we’re to have visitors here first. That’s a Mounted Police patrol car on its way over.”
She gave him a despairing glance. “And I must look a fright!” she said in true feminine fashion.
Fred smiled at her good-naturedly. “Don’t worry about it. I have an idea they’ll be pleased just to discover we’re still alive.”
It turned out that he was right. The missing boat had been found by the Mounted Police and they’d feared they were drowned. As soon as they learned they were all right they turned their attention to the fugitive Fred had bound up in the old house. They recognized him as an escapee from the St. Stephen jail and took him away in their car.
Fred told Lucy, “Now we’re ready to drive back to Moorgate. I’ll put a call through to the hospital and tell them I won’t be able to get in this morning.”
“You better had,” she warned him. “We both need a rest and I want to find out what is in that strongbox.”
“All in good time,” he said with a maddening display of patience.
The first thing they did when they reached Moorgate was get out of their cold, damp clothes and take hot showers. Then Fred made his most urgent phone calls while she prepared them a good breakfast. When they had eaten and had second cups of coffee she approached him on the matter of the strongbox again.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
He eyed the box, which he’d placed on a side table in the kitchen, and said, “You’re mighty interested in it.”
“I have reason to be. There may be something in it to justify all I’ve gone through.”
“I wonder,” he said. “I’ll have to break the lock.”
“I don’t think that’s important.”
“And by all accounts the box should be Henry Farley’s property. He owns the cottage and its contents.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” she said.
She stood by him as he pried the lid of the box free. When it was opened it revealed several stacks of ancient bills and some legal-looking yellowed documents. There was also a large envelope sealed with a heavy daub of sealing wax.
Fred took out the letter. “It’s addressed to a Jarvis Clay.”
“Probably some relative of the old man’s,” she said. “Jim Stevens would know, or be able to find out through his mother.”
Fred looked at her. “Should we open it?”
“Please,” she said.
“It wasn’t meant for us,” he warned her. “Perhaps we should turn the whole business over to the authorities.”
“No,” she said. “I want to see the letter.”
“Very well,” he said, and he opened it. For what seemed an endless moment he scanned the yellowed note which had been folded three times. After he’d studied the message carefully he handed it to her with a strange expression on his face. “You’ll be interested,” was his comment.
Her hands trembled as she took the sheet of paper from him. And she began to read it slowly. It began:
“My Dear Cousin Jarvis Clay.”
“For these many years I have intended writing you of a matter weighing heavily on my conscience. Many times when I have been about to do so I have thought of the consequences and postponed the letter. But now I am a very old man and I am soon to die. So it would seem that I had best get the matter set down in pen and ink.
“Whether you ever see the message or not depends on my decision in my final hours. It shall be placed in my personal strongbox and hidden in the secret compartment in the library wall. If I want you to find it I will leave word of its hiding place with my lawyer. Otherwise it will remain hidden in darkness forever. And perhaps better so.
“This has to do with the matter of Dr. Graham Woods and his wife, Jennifer. As you must well recall, I was deeply in love with Jennifer Woods and she with me. I felt sure she was willing to leave her husband and go away from St. Andrews with me. That was what I thought. You know the aftermath. To all appearances Woods strangled Jennifer in a fit of jealousy and took her body out in a boat in the hurricane to try to dispose of it. The boat capsized and he was drowned. I led the searching party which found their bodies. I showed my grief and spread the gossip of the murder.
“Later, I erected a monument to the memory of my darling Jennifer. And I made scant mention of the husband who was buried at her side. This caused some withering comment from the elders of the community but I felt no shame.
“All that I have written of above you must know for yourself. Now I shall tell you the facts you don’t know. Graham Woods did not kill Jennifer. I was the guilty one. On that night of the storm I visited her at Moorgate in answer to a note she’d sent me. When I arrived she was strangely cold to me. She told me that she loved her husband and our affair had been wrong. That she was not prepared to break up her marriage for me.
“The argument developed into a true quarrel. And I found myself with her throat in my enraged hands. I throttled her in that awful moment of rage. Then, close to madness, I hastily drove my carriage back to the island before the road was impassable because of the rising tide and storm. I made it a point to spend some time with my mother and pretended to be calm.
“But I was haunted by the dead body of my beloved which I’d left behind at Moorgate. I feared that as soon as the storm abated Graham Woods would send the police for me. To add to my horror I discovered that a silver fob from my watch chain with my initials on it had been lost in my struggle with Jennifer. I was now certain I would be indicted as her killer.
“However, fortune played a strange prank. When the storm abated I received a message from the mainland saying that Dr. Woods’ horse had been found stabled in the church barns near the wharf and he had apparently started out across the bay in the boat he used for making sick visits in the company of his wife. The capsized boat had already been found and I was asked to head a search party to try to find the bodies. I was at once both relieved and agitated. I now realized that the doctor had returned to Moorgate and found his murdered wife, and my watch fob was on the floor beside her. He had then decided to take vengeance in his own hands. He’d carried her body to the carriage and with my watch fob in his pocket as evidence he’d driven down to the boat and placed her body in it.
“Then after stabling his horse from the storm he’d gotten into the boat himself and headed for this island to confront me with my crime and no doubt slay me. But he never reached the island. The boat was lost and he drowned.
“I accepted the call to head the search party. And I can promise that I went about the task thoroughly. As the tide receded more we found the two bodies not far apart on the sands. I quickly examined the doctor’s body and took my watch fob from his jacket pocket without any of the others being aware of what I had done. Then I made a show of carrying Jennifer’s body back to the mainland.
“After that I had to spread the story of her husband murdering her. Those marks on her throat had to be accounted for. And after what providence had done for me I saw no reason to give myself up for my crime. I still see no reason at most times, though moments of darkness do come when the guilt I feel is overwhelming. So I have set this down for you, Cousin Jarvis. But I make no promise that you will ever read it. I have not fully decided. Not yet!
“Your devoted cousin, Frank”
Lucy gasped as she lowered the letter. “And he still didn’t want us to find the letter. That is why he choked me when I entered the library.”
“If you want to think that,” Fred said quietly.
“I must,” she said. “And it was Jennifer’s gentle ghost here who stirred me into action to go to the island. She has haunted this house because she wanted her husband’s name cleared.”
“I’m almos
t ready to believe anything,” her young husband admitted. “One thing is certain. This letter and the box must be turned over to the local authorities.”
“Of course. And Graham Woods will be vindicated after all this time,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll mind continuing to live at Moorgate now.”
Fred gave her a cautioning glance. “It still remains a house in which a murder was committed. There is every expectation that if it has harbored a ghost it will continue to be haunted.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I can almost feel a new mood here. A more gentle mood.”
And she was right. A new atmosphere had taken over in the old stone house. She discussed it with both Dr. Boyce and Henry Farley, and both men agreed that with Frank Clay’s evil secret revealed the ghosts would fade away. And they did. From then on there were no more weird happenings at Moorgate or on Minister’s Island.
The local and national press carried stories on the strange adventure, and made Lucy and Fred out as true romantics. Shiela apparently decided she had no hope of stealing Fred for herself, and soon left St. Andrews to live in Montreal. Jim Stevens set himself the task of writing a book on the Clay family.
The portrait of Jennifer remained in its honored position in the hall of Moorgate. And often on moonlight nights when Lucy and Fred entered the house together, the first thing they’d see before switching on the lights was the moonglow on the portrait.
On one of these nights Lucy turned to her husband and said, “Can’t you tell she’s at peace now? She grows more radiant with the years.”
Fred nodded gently and took her in his arms. “And so do you,” he said as he gave her a tender kiss.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 1973 by Clarissa Ross
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Vintage Love Page 197