by Mike Ashley
‘Your lordship is pleased to jest. My nephew is not likely to be so favoured.’
‘So, so. I must introduce myself.’
‘There is not likely to be anything in common,’ he said sneeringly, ‘between Ted Lovell, the draper’s son – I do not pretend to be a person of family – and your lordship.’
‘I am interested in people,’ I returned, observing him. ‘I have heard of the suicide. I am interested in that haunted front room.’
I saw the watch-chain on his waistcoat lift high. Then he spread his hands with a deprecatory gesture.
‘I regret that somebody has been playing on your lordship’s … I will not say, credulity.’
‘You have no message then?’
He followed me across the room with a curious cat-like tread. The air about him bristled with violence. ‘You are pleased to be interested in my affairs,’ he said with a suspicion of menace.
‘I am interested in the construction of a certain room in the house I saw you building. You remember, I went over it once,’ I added quickly, but not quickly enough. His eyebrows lifted.
‘I was not aware it had been so honoured.’ His manner changed.
‘As you are so kind,’ he said, smoothly, ‘I will take the liberty of asking you to talk with Lovell. Since Rudderford’s case he has spoken morbidly of suicide. It is idiocy in a man so well placed.’
‘I will advise him to sleep in the large front room,’ I said.
He turned as if I had struck him and went back to his work.
* * *
Hopkins opened the door. Her lids dropped on a gleam of recognition. It was the first rule of my institution that wheresoever or whensoever I should appear I was not to be identified. She took me into the drawing-room, and soon a pretty, fragile little creature in a tea-gown tripped into the room.
‘I am pleased to know you,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘I am Lord Syfret. You will, perhaps, have heard of me. Mr Simpkins is my agent.’
She blushed and fluttered, smiling up at me. ‘Uncle was good to speak of us, and your lordship is kinder to come and see us,’ she said prettily.
Lovell had followed her into the room. He was a pale-faced, ill-grown cockney, proud of his lately acquired money, proud of all he had exchanged it for and genuinely proud of his little wife. ‘She’s a jewel I wouldn’t change for the ’ighest lady in the land,’ he confided to me. His watery eyes were full of tears. The statement was not likely to be put to the test, but I believe he honestly meant it.
‘If you could put me up for the night I shall be infinitely obliged,’ I said. They would be greatly honoured. I hinted to be allowed to occupy the front large room.
‘Why, I’d just persuaded Milly we’d sleep there tonight –’ he blurted.
Milly broke in, ‘I will have a fire put there for you, Lord Syfret,’ and tripped away.
We had finished dinner, and Milly had sung me her songs – sweet little ballads she sang in a sweet little unaffected way – when there came a knocking at the front door. After an interval Simpkins entered. His eyes were bloodshot, his air restless. As he came in he shot a look at Lovell. That look said plainly, ‘I got your wire.’ I received him coolly. I regarded his intrusion as an impertinence. With his entry a reserve fell upon us. Poor Mrs Lovell lost all her confidence and smiling gaiety. She watched him with a fascinated terror. She stole nearer to me as if for protection. Presently, she made her apologies. She was not well, and might she be excused? She was faint and trembling. I gave her my arm to the door. She sent one long shuddering look back at him. Then she drew a little agitated hand across he brow.
‘O, my lord,’ she moaned through her white lips, ‘I am so afraid of him.’
I steadied her to a chair. Lovell came out. I went back to the drawing-room. Simpkins sat scowling there.
‘Your lordship’s and my visits were ill timed,’ he said with a coarse laugh. ‘This night, even, may make me a great uncle.’
After a few moments, professing anxiety about his niece, he left. Out in the hall an altercation sounded. I could hear his rough voice raised. I could hear the sob and pleading of a woman’s voice and Lovell’s cockney drawl. Once she cried out, ‘O, Ned, I cannot, cannot sleep there.’
I went out. ‘Is Mrs Lovell better?’ I questioned.
She came to me with pleading hands. ‘O, Lord Syfret …’ she began.
Simpkins caught her by the arm. ‘You are hysterical,’ he said, roughly. ‘You must not bother his lordship.’
I took her hand. ‘Remember, my dear, that I am to have the haunted room.’
‘Do you say it is haunted?’ she asked with wild eyes.
‘You frighten her,’ Simpkins interposed, adding ceremoniously, ‘I regret the room has not been prepared for you. It is Mr and Mrs Lovell’s own room.’
She turned on him helplessly. She caught her breath with a sob. Lovell put his arm about her and persuaded her upstairs. At the top of the staircase she turned and swept one last terrified look down at us. Then she was gone. That look has never left me. To my death I shall regret that I did not act upon it and save her. I turned on Simpkins, who also stood looking up. There was in his face a singular malignant exultation.
‘Why the deuce did you interfere?’
He looked me insolently in the eyes. ‘Your lordship does not act with his accustomed breeding when he forces himself on an employee’s affairs and even dictates the room his host shall put him in.’
He followed me into the drawing-room. There was an aggressive triumph about him.
‘I sleep in town,’ he said. ‘Good-night.’
I bowed. At the door he turned back.
‘My agreement with you ends next week,’ he intimated airily.
* * *
In the middle of the night I was roused by a curious sound. It seemed to be a muffled rumbling close at hand. I threw on some clothes and slipped into the passage. In the dim light I could see a thin line of shadow sliding down the wall – almost as if the wall had been moving. From somewhere sounded a hollow ticking like that of an immense clock. Strange how the night develops sound. I had not seen nor previously heard a clock.
I was returning to my room, all noise but the sonorous tick having ceased, when I thought I heard a cry – a faint cry – in the same little voice that had sung me her ballads. It was followed by two deep groans. Heavens! What had happened? I stood listening with strained ears. But no other sound came, nothing but that ghostly ticking. I groped my way along the passage, feeling for a door. I missed it, but coming to the centre, where I had seen it earlier, I laid my ear against the wall. I was struck by a curious chillness. The wall was of iron! I did not stop to wonder, for now I could detect a deep-drawn breathing. It kept time intermittently with the clock. I knocked on the wall. It might be Lovell snoring, but I did not like the sound of it.
Suddenly I became aware of the same heavy odour I had before detected. It was no escape of gas. I remember Hopkins’s words about the bitter almonds. This was just such a smell. Then I laughed at myself. I should be seeing Rudderford’s ghost next. Yet so strongly were my senses worked upon that I grew presently faint with the overpowering odour. And it was unmistakeably a smell of bitter almonds. Again I groped for the door handle. I drew my hands along and up and down the wall, going over the whole expanse between the rooms at either end. I could find neither handle nor panel nor jamb. The whole extent was one smooth, iron-cold surface. The clock clacked – tick-tick-tick! – with sonorous beat. By this time the stentorious breathing had ceased. On the other side was silence.
Groping once more and finding no door I became alarmed. I ran back to my room – my head throbbing until I reeled – and lighted a candle. I dipped my handkerchief into water and bound it loosely across my mouth and nostrils. Then I carried my candle into the passage. It was as I had suspected. There was no door. As on that morning, so now the space between the rooms at either end of the corridor was one plain surface. Tapping and testing brought out the chill fee
l and hollow note of metal. An iron plate had been dropped over the door, barring egress and ingress. The horrible clock ticked on. For what purpose? I was now convinced of some catastrophe. I knocked and called. I pounded with my fists upon the iron plate. It sounded thunderously, reproducing in exaggeration the noise that had awaked me. But no other sound answered. I rushed upstairs and stood in the upper passage calling for help. I beat one or two doors. Soon a man appeared – the single manservant of the establishment. He thrust his head out sleepily.
‘Come,’ I insisted. ‘Something has happened.’
As we descended, the same low, rumbling sound was audible. In the flickering light the wall was crossed again by a rapid line of shadow, a line that now ascended. Then all was silent. Even the clock stopped. By this time the almond smell was overpowering. I made the man protect his mouth and nostrils. The first thing my light flashed on was the door of Lovell’s room, the door of which there had been no trace a minute earlier. Gracious, what devilry was this? And what the calamity? I knocked loudly on the panels. An ominous stillness reigned. I knocked again. Then I turned the handle and went in.
They were dead. They lay quiet as in sleep, only a curious blueness of skin and glassiness of the widely staring eyeballs showed the sleep final. Her hand was in his; her head lay on his shoulder. So they stared straight into eternity, a smile on their faces.
But this was not all. The pitifulness of it – the pitifulness! For at her side, curled up as if in slumber, lay a new-born babe – a tiny premature thing that nestled a darkly curling head against her arm.
* * *
Before it was day I had interviewed the magistrate and police. They pooh-poohed my version of the case, rejecting it as melodrama: such things were not out of romances. The case was manifestly one of concerted suicide. The sliding wall excited smiles. In the middle of the night, they said, one can be pardoned some fogginess of sense. They did not consider there was so much as a tittle of evidence on which to arrest Simpkins.
I sent for a London detective. I set an expert to explore the wall. It would be impossible, he said, to explain a singular construction without some preliminary and considerable damage which, pending the inquest, was not advisable. There were grooves in the door-jambs of the small rooms off the passage; there was space to contain such a sliding wall as I had indicated.
That night I secreted in the house my detective, two police officers and a friend. I knew Simpkins would come, and he came, as I likewise expected, with materials for a conflagration. Hopkins admitted him. He would remain the night, he said. He professed an overwhelming grief. He had already supped. He would go straight to that room where the dead had lain. Through a peep-hole punctured in the wall we watched him from one of the adjoining rooms. No sooner was the door shut than he dragged chairs, cushions, towel-rack, all else combustible towards the door. He even tore the curtains from the bed. Then he saturated the whole with oil he had with him. He had lighted a fuse and was making for the door when suddenly he stopped.
Tick-tick, began the clock. Tick-tick! It startled us with its suddenness and nearness. In a panic he flung his fuse. It fell short and lay smouldering on the floor. But he heeded nothing. He was beating frenziedly upon the door. However, we had seen into that. Tick! Tick! went the clock. He thundered with his fists and feet and shouted desperately.
A rumbling began. He flung himself upon the panels, but they held out bravely. Tick! Tick! went the clock; rumble, rumble rolled the descending wall. He sprang to the windows, but we had seen to those. Suddenly, I realized what was about to happen. The devilry planned by himself was on his track, hastened, it might be, by the explorations of my expert.
‘Quick, quick!’ I urged. ‘Unlock the door. We must not take the law into our hands.’
But we were too late. Outside in the corridor the sliding wall came down – the door was sealed. The rumble ceased, but the clock ticked on, counting his moments. The almond smell rose strong.
‘Where do the fumes come from?’ I questioned.
The detective, with an impassive face, stepped aside from the peephole. I looked long enough to see that a soft spray, like tiny rain, was falling in the room. Already he lay on the floor with gasping breath and distended eyes. I left the peep-hole to more interested watchers. ‘He’s dead,’ they said.
Still the clock ticked. We passed into the corridor. The wall slid presently up with its curious rumble. Then the clock stopped. We opened the door and went in. He was dead, truly. And death in his guise was not dignified. He had been caught in the trap of his own ingenuity – for the mechanism showed a devilish ingenuity. The clockwork regulating it – clockwork set by his own hand – had with a fine unerring justice timed away his life. I will wager that clockwork has rarely done the world greater service.
‘LOOK,’ HE WHISPERED. ‘DO YOU SEE THAT IT WILL NOT SHUT NOW?’
from ‘The Warder of the Door’ by L.T. Meade
L.T. Meade
THE WARDER OF THE DOOR
Elizabeth ‘Lillie’ Thomasina Meade (1844–1914) was a prolific Irish novelist once best known for her books for adolescent girls – of which she wrote close on 280 – plus many magazine essays and stories. She also edited the magazine Atalanta from 1888 to 1893 and stepped down only because of the demands upon her time for writing. By 1893 she was becoming one of the most successful contributors to the popular magazines because of her ability to create story series in the style of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
When Conan Doyle tired of Holmes and sent him and Moriarty plunging into the Reichenbach Falls in ‘The Final Problem’ (The Strand, December 1893) the editor and publisher of The Strand were at their wits’ end as to how to replace him. They sought among their contributors for similar stories. Meade was already working in that vein, having started a series ‘Stories from the Diary of a Doctor’, which began in the July 1893 issue, but after the completion of the customary six episodes she was asked to the continue the series for another six, and a further series of twelve followed in 1895. These subsequently appeared in book form in 1894 and 1896 respectively, and other magazine series also issued in book form followed, including The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings (1899), The Man Who Disappeared (1901) and The Sorceress of the Strand (1903). Meade wrote all these stories herself, though she frequently called upon a medical and scientific expert for advice, and the stories were usually co-credited. Her first ‘collaborator’ was Clifford Halifax (real name Edgar Beaumont, 1860–1921), but her primary colleague was Robert Eustace (real name Eustace Barton, 1868–1943), and it was he who assisted on the story reprinted here.
This was one of a series contributed to Cassell’s Family Magazine during 1897 that were published as A Master of Mysteries in 1898. The stories feature John Bell, an investigator into cases that appear to be of a supernatural origin but where he always finds the human agency.
The Warder of the Door
‘IF YOU DON’T believe it you can read it for yourself,’ said Allen Clinton, climbing up the steps and searching among the volumes on the top shelf.
I lay back in my chair. The beams from the sinking sun shone through the stained glass of the windows of the old library and dyed the rows of black leather volumes with bands of red and yellow.
‘Here, Bell!’
I took a musty volume from Allen Clinton, which he had unearthed from its resting place.
‘It is about the middle of the book,’ he continued eagerly. ‘You will see it in big, black, Old English letters.’
I turned over the pages containing the family tree and other archives of the Clintons until I came to the one I was seeking. It contained the curse which had rested on the family since 1400. Slowly and with difficulty I deciphered the words of this terrible denunciation.
And in this cell its coffin lieth, the coffin which hath not human shape, for which reason no holy ground receiveth it. Here shall it rest to curse the family of ye Clyntons from generation to generation. And for this reason, as soon as the soul sha
ll pass from the body of each first-born, which is the heir, it shall become the warder of the door by day and by night. Day and night shall his spirit stand by the door, to keep the door closed till the son shall release the spirit of the father from the watch and take his place, till his son in turn shall die. And whoso entereth into the cell shall be the prisoner of the soul that guardeth the door till it shall let him go.
‘What a ghastly idea!’ I said, glancing up at the young man who was watching me as I read. ‘But you say this cell has never been found. I should say its existence was a myth, and, of course, the curse on the soul of the first-born to keep the door shut as warder is absurd. Matter does not obey witchcraft.’
‘The odd part of it is,’ replied Allen, ‘that every other detail of the Abbey referred to in this record has been identified, but this cell with its horrible contents has never been found.’
It certainly was a curious legend, and I allow it made some impression on me. I fancied, too, that somewhere I had heard something similar, but my memory failed to trace it.
I had come down to Clinton Abbey three days before for some pheasant shooting.
It was now Sunday afternoon. The family, with the exception of old Sir Henry, Allen and myself, were at church. Sir Henry, now nearly eighty years of age and a chronic invalid, had retired to his room for his afternoon sleep. The younger Clinton and I had gone out for a stroll around the grounds, and since we returned our conversation had run upon the family history until it arrived at the legend of the family curse. Presently the door of the library was slowly opened, and Sir Henry, in his black velvet coat, which formed such a striking contrast to his snowy white beard and hair, entered the room. I rose from my chair, and, giving him my arm, assisted him to his favourite couch. He sank down into its luxurious depths with a sigh, but as he did so his eyes caught the old volume which I had laid on the table beside it. He started forward, took the book in his hand and looked across at his son.