by Mike Ashley
Telling Clinton to hold it back by force I stepped inside and saw at my feet the ghastly coffin. The legend then so far was true. I bent down and examined the queer, misshapen thing with great care. Its shape was that of an enormous wedge, and it was apparently made of some dark old wood and was bound with iron at the corners. Having looked at it all around, I went out and, flinging back the door which Clinton had been holding open, stood aside to watch. Slowly, very slowly, as we both stood in the passage, slowly, as if pushed by some invisible hand, the door commenced to swing around and, increasing in velocity, shut with a noisy clang.
Seizing it once again, I dragged it open and, while Clinton held it in that position, made a careful examination. Up to the present I saw nothing to be much alarmed about. There were fifty ways in which a door might shut of its own accord. There might be a hidden spring or tilted hinges; draught, of course, was out of the question. I looked at the hinges, they were of iron and set in the solid masonry. Nor could I discover any spring or hidden contrivance, as when the door was wide open there was an interval of several inches between it and the wall. We tried it again and again with the same result, and at last, as it was closing, I seized it to prevent it.
I now experienced a very odd sensation; I certainly felt as if I were resisting an unseen person who was pressing hard against the door at the other side. Directly it was released it continued its course. I allow I was quite unable to understand the mystery. Suddenly an idea struck me.
‘What does the legend say?’ I asked, turning to Clinton. ‘That the soul is to guard the door, to close it upon the coffin?’
‘Those are the words,’ answered Allen, speaking with some difficulty.
‘Now, if that is true,’ I continued, ‘and we take the coffin out, the spirit won’t shut the door; if it does shut it, it disproves the whole thing at once and shows it to be merely a clever mechanical contrivance. Come, Clinton, help me to get the coffin out.’
‘I dare not, Bell,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘I daren’t go inside.’
‘Nonsense, man,’ I said, feeling now a little annoyed at the whole thing. ‘Here, put the lantern down and hold the door back.’ I stepped in and, getting behind the coffin, put out all my strength and shoved it into the passage.
‘Now, then,’ I cried, ‘I’ll bet you fifty pounds to five the door will shut just the same.’ I dragged the coffin clear of the door and told him to let go. Clinton had scarcely done so before, stepping back, he clutched my arm.
‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘Do you see that it will not shut now? My father is waiting for the coffin to be put back. This is awful!’
I gazed at the door in horror; it was perfectly true, it remained wide open and quite still. I sprang forward, seized it and now endeavoured to close it. It was as if someone was trying to hold it open; it required considerable force to stir it, and it was only with difficulty I could move it at all. At last I managed to shut it, but the moment I let go it swung back open of its own accord and struck against the wall where it remained just as before. In the dead silence that followed I could hear Clinton breathing quickly behind me, and I knew he was holding himself for all he was worth.
At that moment there suddenly came over me a sensation which I had once experienced before, and which I was twice destined to experience again. It is impossible to describe it, but it seized me, laying siege to my brain until I felt like a child in its power. It was as if I were slowly drowning in the great ocean of silence that enveloped us. Time itself seemed to have disappeared. At my feet lay the misshapen thing, and the lantern behind it cast a fantastic shadow of its distorted outline on the cell wall before me.
‘Speak; say something,’ I cried to Clinton. The sharp sound of my voice broke the spell. I felt myself again and smiled at the trick my nerves had played on me. I bent down and once more laid my hands on the coffin, but before I had time to push it back into its place Clinton had gone up the passage like a man who is flying to escape a hurled javelin.
Exerting all my force to prevent the door from swinging back by keeping my leg against it, I had just got the coffin into the cell and was going out when I heard a shrill cry, and Clinton came tearing back down the passage.
‘I can’t get out! The stone has sunk into its place! We are locked in!’ he screamed, and, wild with fear, he plunged headlong into the cell, upsetting me in his career before I could check him. I sprang back to the door as it was closing. I was too late. Before I could reach it, it had shut with a loud clang in obedience to the infernal witch-craft.
‘You have done it now,’ I cried angrily. ‘Do you see? Why, man, we are buried alive in this ghastly hole!’
The lantern I had placed just inside the door, and, by its dim light, as I looked at him I saw the terror of a madman creep into Clinton’s eyes.
‘Buried alive!’ he shouted, with a peal of hysterical laughter. ‘Yes, and, Bell, it’s your doing; you are a devil in human shape!’ With a wild paroxysm of fury he flung himself upon me. There was the ferocity of a wild beast in his spring. He upset the lantern and left us in total darkness.
The struggle was short. We might be buried alive, but I was not going to die by his hand, and seizing him by the throat I pinned him against the wall.
‘Keep quiet,’ I shouted. ‘It is your thundering stupidity that has caused all this. Stay where you are until I strike a match.’
I luckily had some vestas in the little silver box which I always carry on my watch-chain, and striking one I relit the lantern. Clinton’s paroxysm was over, and sinking to the floor he lay there shivering and cowering.
It was a terrible situation, and I knew that our only hope was for me to keep my presence of mind. With a great effort I forced myself to think calmly over what could be done. To shout for help would have been but a useless waste of breath.
Suddenly an idea struck me. ‘Have you got your father’s letter?’ I cried eagerly.
‘I have,’ he answered. ‘It is in my pocket.’
My last ray of hope vanished. Our only chance was that if he had left it at the house someone might discover the letter and come to our rescue by its instructions. It had been a faint hope, and it disappeared almost as quickly as it had come to me. Without it no one would ever find the way to the vault that had remained a secret for ages. I was determined, however, not to die without a struggle for freedom. Taking the lantern I examined every nook and cranny of the cell for some other exit. It was a fruitless search. No sign of any way out could I find, and we had absolutely no means to unfasten the door from the inner side. Taking a few short steps I flung myself again and again at the heavy door. It never budged an inch, and, bruised and sweating at every pore, I sat down on the coffin and tried to collect all my faculties.
Clinton was silent and seemed utterly stunned. He sat still, gazing with a vacant stare at the door.
The time dragged heavily, and there was nothing to do but to wait for a horrible death from starvation. It was more than likely, too, that Clinton would go mad; already his nerves were strained to the utmost. Altogether I had never found myself in a worse plight.
It seemed like an eternity that we sat there, neither of us speaking a word. Over and over again I repeated to myself the words of the terrible curse: ‘And whoso entereth into the cell shall be the prisoner of the soul that guardeth the door till it shall let him go.’ When would the shapeless form that was inside the coffin let us go? Doubtless when our bones were dry.
I looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven o’clock. Surely we had been more than ten minutes in this awful place! We had left the house at eleven, and I knew that must have been many hours ago. I glanced at the second hand. The watch had stopped.
‘What is the time, Clinton?’ I asked. ‘My watch has stopped.’
‘What does it matter?’ he murmured. ‘What is time to us now? The sooner we die the better.’
He pulled out his watch as he spoke and held it to the lantern.
‘Twenty-five minutes past el
even,’ he murmured dreamily.
‘Good heavens!’ I cried, starting up. ‘Has your watch stopped, too?’
Then, like the leap of a lightning flash, an idea struck me.
‘I have got it. I have got it! My God! I believe I have got it!’ I cried, seizing him by the arm.
‘Got what?’ he replied, staring wildly at me.
‘Why, the secret, the curse, the door. Don’t you see?’
I pulled out the large knife I always carry by a chain and swivel in my trouser pocket and, telling Clinton to hold the lantern, opened the little blade-saw and attacked the coffin with it.
‘I believe the secret of our deliverance lies in this,’ I panted, working away furiously.
In ten minutes I had sawn half through the wooden edge, then, handing my tool to Clinton, I told him to continue the work while I rested. After a few minutes I took the knife again and, at last, after nearly half an hour had gone by, succeeded in making a small hole in the lid. Inserting my two fingers, I felt some rough, uneven masses. I was now fearfully excited. Tearing at the opening like a madman, I enlarged it and extracted what looked like a large piece of coal. I knew in an instant what it was. It was magnetic iron ore. Holding it down to my knife, the blade flew to it.
‘Here is the mystery of the soul,’ I cried. ‘Now we can use it to open the door.’
I had known a great conjurer once who had deceived and puzzled his audience with a box trick on similar lines: the man opening the box from the inside by drawing down the lock with a magnet. Would this do the same? I felt that our lives hung on the next moment. Taking the mass, I pressed it against the door just opposite the hasp, and slid it up against the wood. My heart leaped as I heard the hasp fly up outside, and with a push the door opened.
‘We are saved,’ I shouted. ‘We are saved by a miracle!’
‘Bell, you are a genius,’ gasped poor Clinton. ‘But now, how about the stone at the end of the passage?’
‘We will soon see about that,’ I cried, taking the lantern. ‘Half the danger is over, at any rate, and the worst half, too.’
We rushed along the passage and up the stair until we reached the top.
‘Why, Clinton,’ I cried, holding up the lantern, ‘the place was not shut at all.’
Nor was it. In his terror he had imagined it.
‘I could not see in the dark, and I was nearly dead with fright,’ he said. ‘Oh, Bell, let us get out of this as quickly as we can!’
We crushed through the aperture and once more stood in the chapel. I then pushed the stone back into its place.
Dawn was just breaking when we escaped from the chapel. We hastened across to the house. In the hall the clock pointed to five.
‘Well, we have had an awful time,’ I said, as we stood in the hall together, ‘but at least, Clinton, the end was worth the ghastly terror. I have knocked the bottom out of your family legend for ever.’
‘I don’t even now quite understand,’ he said.
‘Don’t you? But it is so easy. That coffin never contained a body at all, but was filled, as you perceive, with fragments of magnetic iron ore. For what diabolical purposes the cell was intended, it is, of course, impossible to say, but that it must have been meant as a human trap there is little doubt. The inventor certainly exercised no small ingenuity when he devised his diabolical plot, for it was obvious that the door, which was made of iron, would swing towards the coffin wherever it happened to be placed. Thus the door would shut if the coffin were inside the cell, and would remain open if the coffin were brought out. A cleverer method for simulating a spiritual agency it would be hard to find. Of course, the monk must have known well that magnetic iron ore never loses its quality and would ensure the deception remaining potent for ages.’
‘But how did you discover by means of our watches?’ asked Clinton.
‘Anyone who understands magnetism can reply to that,’ I said. ‘It is a well-known fact that a strong magnet plays havoc with watches. The fact of both our watches going wrong first gave me a clue to the mystery.’
Later in the day the whole of this strange affair was explained to Miss Curzon, and not long afterwards the passage and entrance to the chapel were bricked up.
It is needless to add that six months later the pair were married, and, I believe, are as happy as they deserve.
Lucy G. Moberly
THE TRAGEDY OF A DOLL
Lucy Gertrude Moberly (1860–1931) was a consistent writer, chiefly of romances, but often with a sensitive depth reflecting the hardships of life. She is barely remembered now and left little behind her. She was the daughter of a vicar and part of a large family, and she trained as a nurse. Her first book was Sick Nursing at Home (1899), and nurses feature in several of her novels and stories. She also wrote poems, some of which were converted into songs. One of her poems, ‘Commandeered’, which recognized the role of horses in the First World War, was adopted by Our Dumb Friends’ League. She never married, though she was betrothed to the cello player William E. Whitehouse in 1909, but sadly the engagement was cancelled. Her nursing knowledge is central to a series she contributed to The Lady’s Magazine in 1903, ‘Experiences of a Lady Doctor’, as related by Cynthia Deane MD, from which the following story comes. So far as can be gleaned these were not collected into book form, and this story has not been reprinted until now.
The Tragedy of a Doll
I WAS ONE of the resident medical officers in the hospital where what I am about to tell took place, and I have always looked upon the events as some of the strangest in my not altogether uneventful experiences as a medical woman.
I well remember the time of year – it was in June, a particularly fine and lovely June – and we were rejoicing over the beautiful weather and congratulating ourselves upon the probability of being able to hold our annual hospital fête in what was called, by courtesy, the garden of the institution.
Rather more than a week before the day arrived I stood at the window of my little sitting-room, planning a pretty arrangement of tables for the refreshments of our distinguished guests, when a hasty knock on the door was followed by the entrance of Sister Clara, whose wards (the women’s and children’s) were in my special charge.
‘I have been planning a few flags,’ I said absently. And, hardly looking at her, ‘We must be extra gay this time. I hear the treasurer is bringing some rather important foreigner with him to the meeting and we must –’
‘Could you come and see a new patient at once, Miss Deane?’ Sister Clara broke in, and as I turned from the window I saw that her face looked worried and puzzled. ‘I would not have troubled you just at tea-time, but the case doesn’t seem quite straightforward, and I should like you to see it directly.’
I was my usual professional self instantly – flags and fêtes forgotten, the interest of a new case at once uppermost in my mind.
‘Who admitted it?’ I asked, as Sister and I passed down the stone passage to the ward. ‘And what is it supposed to be?’
‘The child was brought in by the police,’ was the reply, ‘and Mr Higgins sent her straight upstairs. She is unconscious.’
A circle of screens in the farthest corner showed me where my new patient lay, and Sister and I were soon behind them looking down at the bed beside which a nurse stood silently.
‘Has she moved since I left you?’ Sister Clara asked.
‘She turned a little and moaned once or twice, otherwise she has lain just as you see her,’ the nurse answered.
The patient was a child of perhaps ten or eleven years, whose white face bore lines of suffering and anxiety strange in one so young. Her eyes were shut, but her brows were drawn together in a painful frown, and every now and then she moved her head uneasily. Gathered tightly into one of her arms, clasped closely against her breast, she held a great wax doll, whose rosy face presented a curious contrast to the white worn face upon the pillow.
‘Poor little mite,’ I cried. ‘Was she brought in with her doll in her arms?’
‘We can’t get it away from her,’ Sister Clara answered. ‘Though she seemed quite unconscious she clung to that doll as tenaciously as though it were something very precious, and it evidently troubled and upset her so terribly when we tried to take it away that I thought it had better be left.’
‘Certainly,’ I answered with decision, ‘nothing must be allowed to trouble or irritate her. She shows every sign of brain disturbance, and the quieter and calmer we keep her, the better.’
I examined her carefully, and everything I found pointed to the correctness of my first diagnosis: that some brain trouble was at the bottom of the child’s condition, and, having given the necessary orders as to treatment, I moved from behind the screens with Sister Clara, leaving the nurse to watch the little sufferer, who seemed to grow increasingly uneasy at the sound of our voices.
When we were out of earshot of the bed I questioned Sister Clara about the child’s admission. ‘Who is she? Did no one come with her or give an account of her?’
‘Only the policeman who brought her. He is waiting to speak to you.’
The policeman, a big man with shrewd eyes and a kindly face, gave business-like replies to my questions. It appeared that he was that day on duty inside King’s Cross Station and that an hour or so earlier he had been summoned to the first-class waiting-room by the attendant. There he found our new patient crouching in a corner of one of the seats quite unconscious, her big doll hugged to her breast.