“The fact is, Dyson, I have only just got out of the train. I drove to the station early this morning and caught the 10.45.”
“Well, I am very glad you looked in on me. How have you been getting on since we last met? There is no Mrs. Vaughan, I suppose?”
“No,” said Vaughan, “I am still a hermit, like yourself. I have done nothing but loaf about.”
Vaughan had lit his pipe and sat in the elbow chair, fidgeting and glancing about him in a somewhat dazed and restless manner. Dyson had wheeled round his chair when his visitor entered and sat with one arm fondly reclining on the desk of his bureau, and touching the litter of manuscript.
“And you are still engaged in the old task?” said Vaughan, pointing to the pile of papers and the teeming pigeon-holes.
“Yes, the vain pursuit of literature, as idle as alchemy, and as entrancing. But you have come to town for some time I suppose; what shall we do tonight?”
“Well, I rather wanted you to try a few days with me down in the west. It would do you a lot of good, I’m sure.”
“You are very kind, Vaughan, but London in September is hard to leave. Doré could not have designed anything more wonderful and mystic than Oxford Street as I saw it the other evening; the sunset flaming, the blue haze transmuting the plain street into a road ‘far in the spiritual city.’”
“I should like you to come down though. You would enjoy roaming over our hills. Does this racket go on all day and all night? It quite bewilders me; I wonder how you can work through it. I am sure you would revel in the great peace of my old home among the woods.”
Vaughan lit his pipe again, and looked anxiously at Dyson to see if his inducements had had any effect, but the man of letters shook his head, smiling, and vowed in his heart a firm allegiance to the streets.
“You cannot tempt me,” he said.
“Well, you may be right. Perhaps, after all, I was wrong to speak of the peace of the country. There, when a tragedy does occur, it is like a stone thrown into a pond; the circles of disturbance keep on widening, and it seems as if the water would never be still again.”
“Have you ever any tragedies where you are?”
“I can hardly say that. But I was a good deal disturbed about a month ago by something that happened; it may or may not have been a tragedy in the usual sense of the word.”
“What was the occurrence?”
“Well, the fact is a girl disappeared in a way which seems highly mysterious. Her parents, people of the name of Trevor, are well-to-do farmers, and their eldest daughter Annie was a sort of village beauty; she was really remarkably handsome. One afternoon she thought she would go and see her aunt, a widow who farms her own land, and as the two houses are only about five or six miles apart, she started off, telling her parents she would take the short cut over the hills. She never got to her aunt’s, and she never was seen again. That’s putting it in a few words.”
“What an extraordinary thing! I suppose there are no disused mines, are there, on the hills? I don’t think you quite run to anything so formidable as a precipice?”
“No; the path the girl must have taken had no pitfalls of any description; it is just a track over wild, bare hillside, far, even, from a byroad. One may walk for miles without meeting a soul, but it is all perfectly safe.”
“And what do people say about it?”
“Oh, they talk nonsense—among themselves. You have no notion as to how superstitious English cottagers are in out-of-the-way parts like mine. They are as bad as the Irish, every whit, and even more secretive.”
“But what do they say?”
“Oh, the poor girl is supposed to have ‘gone with the fairies,’ or to have been ‘taken by the fairies.’ Such stuff!” he went on, “one would laugh if it were not for the real tragedy of the case.”
Dyson looked somewhat interested.
“Yes,” he said, “‘fairies’ certainly strike a little curiously on the ear in these days. But what do the police say? I presume they do not accept the fairy-tale hypothesis?”
“No; but they seem quite at fault. What I am afraid of is that Annie Trevor must have fallen in with some scoundrels on her way. Castletown is a large seaport, you know, and some of the worst of the foreign sailors occasionally desert their ships and go on the tramp up and down the country. Not many years ago a Spanish sailor named Garcia murdered a whole family for the sake of plunder that was not worth sixpence. They are hardly human, some of these fellows, and I am dreadfully afraid the poor girl must have come to an awful end.”
“But no foreign sailor was seen by anyone about the country?”
“No; there is certainly that; and of course country people are quick to notice anyone whose appearance and dress are a little out of the common. Still it seems as if my theory were the only possible explanation.”
“There are no data to go upon,” said Dyson, thoughtfully. “There was no question of a love affair, or anything of the kind, I suppose?”
“Oh, no, not a hint of such a thing. I am sure if Annie were alive she would have contrived to let her mother know of her safety.”
“No doubt, no doubt. Still it is barely possible that she is alive and yet unable to communicate with her friends. But all this must have disturbed you a good deal.”
“Yes, it did; I hate a mystery, and especially a mystery which is probably the veil of horror. But frankly, Dyson, I want to make a clean breast of it; I did not come here to tell you all this.”
“Of course not,” said Dyson, a little surprised at Vaughan’s uneasy manner. “You came to have a chat on more cheerful topics.”
“No, I did not. What I have been telling you about happened a month ago, but something which seems likely to affect me more personally has taken place within the last few days, and to be quite plain, I came up to town with the idea that you might be able to help me. You recollect that curious case you spoke to me about at our last meeting; something about a spectacle-maker.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that. I know I was quite proud of my acumen at the time; even to this day the police have no idea why those peculiar yellow spectacles were wanted. But, Vaughan, you really look quite put out; I hope there is nothing serious?”
“No, I think I have been exaggerating, and I want you to reassure me. But what has happened is very odd.”
“And what has happened?”
“I am sure that you will laugh at me, but this is the story. You must know there is a path, a right of way, that goes through my land, and to be precise, close to the wall of the kitchen garden. It is not used by many people; a woodman now and again finds it useful, and five or six children who go to school in the village pass twice a day. Well, a few days ago I was taking a walk about the place before breakfast, and I happened to stop to fill my pipe just by the large doors in the garden wall. The wood, I must tell you, comes to within a few feet of the wall, and the track I spoke of runs right in the shadow of the trees. I thought the shelter from a brisk wind that was blowing rather pleasant, and I stood there smoking with my eyes on the ground. Then something caught my attention. Just under the wall, on the short grass, a number of small flints were arranged in a pattern; something like this”: and Mr. Vaughan caught at a pencil and piece of paper, and dotted down a few strokes.
“You see,” he went on, “there were, I should think, twelve little stones neatly arranged in lines, and spaced at equal distances, as I have shewn it on the paper. They were pointed stones, and the points were very carefully directed one way.”
“Yes,” said Dyson, without much interest, “no doubt the children you have mentioned had been playing there on their way from school. Children, as you know, are very fond of making such devices with oyster shells or flints or flowers, or with whatever comes in their way.”
“So I thought; I just noticed these flints were arranged in a sort of pattern and then went on. But the next morning I was taking the same round, which, as a matter of fact, is habitual with me, and again I saw at the same spot a
device in flints. This time it was really a curious pattern; something like the spokes of a wheel, all meeting at a common centre, and this centre formed by a device which looked like a bowl; all, you understand, done in flints.”
“You are right,” said Dyson, “that seems odd enough. Still it is reasonable that your half-a-dozen school children are responsible for these fantasies in stone.”
“Well, I thought I would set the matter at rest. The children pass the gate every evening at half-past five, and I walked by at six, and found the device just as I had left it in the morning. The next day I was up and about at a quarter to seven, and I found the whole thing had been changed. There was a pyramid outlined in flints upon the grass. The children I saw going by an hour and a half later, and they ran past the spot without glancing to right or left. In the evening I watched them going home, and this morning when I got to the gate at six o’clock there was a thing like a half moon waiting for me.”
“So then the series runs thus: firstly ordered lines, then the device of the spokes and the bowl, then the pyramid, and finally, this morning, the half moon. That is the order, isn’t it?”
“Yes; that is right. But do you know it has made me feel very uneasy? I suppose it seems absurd, but I can’t help thinking that some kind of signalling is going on under my nose, and that sort of thing is disquieting.”
“But what have you to dread? You have no enemies?”
“No; but I have some very valuable old plate.”
“You are thinking of burglars then?” said Dyson, with an accent of considerable interest, “but you must know your neighbours. Are there any suspicious characters about?”
“Not that I am aware of. But you remember what I told you of the sailors.”
“Can you trust your servants?”
“Oh, perfectly. The plate is preserved in a strong room; the butler, an old family servant, alone knows where the key is kept. There is nothing wrong there. Still, everybody is aware that I have a lot of old silver, and all country folks are given to gossip. In that way information may have got abroad in very undesirable quarters.”
“Yes, but I confess there seems something a little unsatisfactory in the burglar theory. Who is signalling to whom? I cannot see my way to accepting such an explanation. What put the plate into your head in connection with these flint signs, or whatever one may call them?”
“It was the figure of the Bowl,” said Vaughan. “I happen to possess a very large and very valuable Charles II punch-bowl. The chasing is really exquisite, and the thing is worth a lot of money. The sign I described to you was exactly the same shape as my punch-bowl.”
“A queer coincidence certainly. But the other figures or devices: you have nothing shaped like a pyramid?”
“Ah, you will think that queerer. As it happens, this punch-bowl of mine, together with a set of rare old ladles, is kept in a mahogany chest of a pyramidal shape. The four sides slope upwards, the narrow towards the top.”
“I confess all this interests me a good deal,” said Dyson. “Let us go on then. What about the other figures; how about the Army, as we may call the first sign, and the Crescent or Half-moon?”
“Ah, there is no reference that I can make out of these two. Still, you see I have some excuse for curiosity at all events. I should be very vexed to lose any of the old plate; nearly all the pieces have been in the family for generations. And I cannot get it out of my head that some scoundrels mean to rob me, and are communicating with one another every night.”
“Frankly,” said Dyson, “I can make nothing of it; I am as much in the dark as yourself. Your theory seems certainly the only possible explanation, and yet the difficulties are immense.”
He leaned back in his chair, and the two men faced each other, frowning, and perplexed by so bizarre a problem.
“By the way,” said Dyson, after a long pause, “what is your geological formation down there?”
Mr. Vaughan looked up, a good deal surprised by the question.
“Old red sandstone and limestone, I believe,” he said. “We are just beyond the coal measures, you know.”
“But surely there are no flints either in the sandstone or the limestone?”
“No, I never see any flints in the fields. I confess that did strike me as a little curious.”
“I should think so! It is very important. By the way, what size were the flints used in making these devices?”
“I happen to have brought one with me; I took it this morning.”
“From the Half-moon?”
“Exactly. Here it is.”
He handed over a small flint, tapering to a point, and about three inches in length.
Dyson’s face blazed up with excitement as he took the thing from Vaughan.
“Certainly,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “you have some curious neighbours in your country. I hardly think they can harbour any designs on your punch-bowl. Do you know this is a flint arrowhead of vast antiquity, and not only that, but an arrow-head of a unique kind? I have seen specimens from all parts of the world, but there are features about this thing that are quite peculiar.”
He laid down his pipe, and took out a book from a drawer.
“We shall just have time to catch the 5.45 to Castletown,” he said.
II
The Eyes on the Wall
Mr. Dyson drew in a long breath of the air of the hills and felt all the enchantment of the scene about him. It was very early morning, and he stood on the terrace in the front of the house. Vaughan’s ancestor had built on the lower slope of a great hill, in the shelter of a deep and ancient wood that gathered on three sides about the house, and on the fourth side, the south-west, the land fell gently away and sank to the valley, where a brook wound in and out in mystic esses, and the dark and gleaming alders tracked the stream’s course to the eye. On the terrace in that sheltered place no wind blew, and far beyond, the trees were still. Only one sound broke in upon the silence, and Dyson heard the noise of the brook singing far below, the song of clear and shining water rippling over the stones, whispering and murmuring as it sank to dark deep pools. Across the stream, just below the house, rose a grey stone bridge, vaulted and buttressed, a fragment of the Middle Ages, and then beyond the bridge the hills rose again, vast and rounded like bastions, covered here and there with dark woods and thickets of undergrowth, but the heights were all bare of trees, showing only grey turf and patches of bracken, touched here and there with the gold of fading fronds. Dyson looked to the north and south, and still he saw the wall of the hills, and the ancient woods, and the stream drawn in and out between them; all grey and dim with morning mist beneath a grey sky in a hushed and haunted air.
Mr. Vaughan’s voice broke in upon the silence.
“I thought you would be too tired to be about so early,” he said. “I see you are admiring the view. It is very pretty, isn’t it, though I suppose old Meyrick Vaughan didn’t think much about the scenery when he built the house. A queer grey, old place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and how it fits into the surroundings; it seems of a piece with the grey hills and the grey bridge below.”
“I am afraid I have brought you down on false pretences, Dyson,” said Vaughan, as they began to walk up and down the terrace. “I have been to the place, and there is not a sign of anything this morning.”
“Ah, indeed. Well, suppose we go round together.”
They walked across the lawn and went by a path through the ilex shrubbery to the back of the house. There Vaughan pointed out the track leading down to the valley and up to the heights above the wood, and presently they stood beneath the garden wall, by the door.
“Here, you see, it was,” said Vaughan, pointing to a spot on the turf. “I was standing just where you are now that morning I first saw the flints.”
“Yes, quite so. That morning it was the Army, as I call it; then the Bowl, then the Pyramid, and yesterday, the Half-moon. What a queer old stone that is,” he went on, pointing to a block of l
imestone rising out of the turf just beneath the wall.
“It looks like a sort of dwarf pillar, but I suppose it is natural.”
“Oh, yes, I think so. I imagine it was brought here, though, as we stand on the red sandstone. No doubt it was used as a foundation stone for some older building.”
“Very likely.” Dyson was peering about him attentively, looking from the ground to the wall, and from the wall to the deep wood that hung almost over the garden and made the place dark even in the morning.
“Look here,” said Dyson at length, “it is certainly a case of children this time. Look at that.”
He was bending down and staring at the dull red surface of the mellowed bricks of the wall Vaughan came up and looked hard where Dyson’s finger was pointing, and could scarcely distinguish a faint mark in deeper red.
“What is it?” he said. “I can make nothing of it.”
“Look a little more closely. Don’t you see it is an attempt to draw the human eye?”
“Ah, now I see what you mean. My sight is not very sharp. Yes, so it is, it is meant for an eye, no doubt, as you say. I thought the children learnt drawing at school.”
“Well, it is an odd eye enough. Do you notice the peculiar almond shape; almost like the eye of a Chinaman?”
Dyson looked meditatively at the work of the undeveloped artist, and scanned the wall again, going down on his knees in the minuteness of his inquisition.
“I should like very much,” he said at length, “to know how a child in this out of the way place could have any idea of the shape of the Mongolian eye. You see the average child has a very distinct impression of the subject; he draws a circle, or something like a circle, and puts a dot in the centre. I don’t think any child imagines that the eye is really made like that; it’s just a convention of infantile art. But this almond-shaped thing puzzles me extremely. Perhaps it may be derived from a gilt Chinaman on a tea-canister in the grocer’s shop. Still that’s hardly likely.”
“But why are you so sure it was done by a child?”
The Arthur Machen Megapack: 25 Classic Works Page 24