Scarweather

by Anthony Rolls

  3

  Frances Reisby, looking radiant and surprised, opened the door to us.

  “Hullo! What an awful shock! I mean—what a great pleasure! We had no idea you were coming. Mother has gone to Manchester for a few days, but Daddy’s at home—he’s in the bone-room. I’ll call him.”

  “It is quite an impromptu visit, almost a caprice,” said Ellingham, pleasantly smiling, “and we don’t want to disturb him if he is busy. We had a few days to spare, and where could we spend them with more enjoyment than in our beloved north? Also, I have a set of enlarged photographs.” He carried a leather portfolio under his arm.

  “Oh, then I’ll just run along and tell him. And how’s Peter—and Mrs. Ellingham? Will you wait in the hall and hang up your coats and things?”

  “Now, Farringdale,” said Ellingham gravely, after the girl had lightly run along the passage, “this is likely to be a grim affair. I’m not armed, and I hope there will be no occasion for violence but I want you to be ready.”

  I nodded. But before I had time to say anything, Frances came skipping back to the hall.

  “Daddy’s delighted,” she cried. “He says you are to come along at once. Of course you are staying to lunch, and then you must come and see the new boat-house. We’ve not taken up the boat yet; Daddy was out only yesterday. We’ve had such a wonderful autumn.”

  There was a little friendly chatter, and then we entered the study.

  4

  Tolgen Reisby, towering and thundering in his most amiable manner, rose to greet us. Even then I could not help admiring the noble immensity of the man, the deep volume of his voice, the saturnine majesty of his magnificent head. Even then, with all the horrible certainty in my mind, and all the dangers of the interview before me, I felt myself momentarily dominated by this colossal presence.

  “Hey-di-dey-di-da! What happy freak, what fantasy or inspiration brings you to the uncivilised and inhospitable north? When I say inhospitable, I do not speak of myself or of my household! You are welcome, my dear fellows. And we shall not lack topics, I can assure you. Ha-ho! Ho, ho, ho! Here are the proofs of my humble monograph on the skeleton of the Devil’s Hump. It is handsomely and adequately illustrated, Professor Ellingham, by your admirable photographs, and by a few of my own as well. Be so good as to seat yourselves at this table.”

  Presently we were all three sitting at an oblong deal table—the very table on which the bones of the skeleton had been displayed—approximately in the middle of the room. Ellingham and I were side by side, but Reisby was at one end of the table, between the table and his capacious desk. The main door of the room was in front of us. Behind us was the door leading to the laboratory.

  Reisby spread upon the table a set of collotype proofs, beautifully reproduced pictures of the skeleton in the chamber, and also of the skull from different points of view. He gave us, with extraordinary gusto, the results of measurements and investigations—brain-capacity, craniological data, and so forth.

  After a few minutes of this appalling foolery I could feel that Ellingham was coiling himself up for the attack.

  We could neither of us have endured the situation for much longer.

  Ellingham struck the decisive blow, rather abruptly.

  “Professor Reisby,” he said, in a hard, emphatic voice, “there are some highly interesting particulars relating to that skeleton which are not included in your monograph.”

  Reisby was turning over a bundle of proofs. He paused in arrested motion, his fingers were still holding the sheets of paper. His expression, at first, was that of petrified astonishment.

  “In fact,” Ellingham continued, “the skeleton is modern. I can tell you all about it. Pray listen, sir. It is the skeleton of a young man who played football for the Old Hibernians in 1912. Unfortunately he broke his knee-cap in a match played against the Tiddleswick Crusaders, and the fragments of the bone were skilfully wired, in a particular manner, by Dr. Flummidge of Wimpole Street. He was also indebted to surgery for the artful replacement of a molar tooth; the actual tooth has been identified by Mr. Cope Wetherby, the dentist, now retired and living in Devonshire. What is more—”

  Professor Reisby had pushed his chair towards the desk. He bellowed with demonic fury:

  “By God in heaven, it is a filthy lie! What do you mean, sir? Have you come here to insult me with your crazy foolery? You—you—damn you, sir!—what do you mean?”

  A tempest of anger shook his powerful frame. He swung his great fist heavily down on the table and I saw the wooden top of it crack from one end to the other.

  “Shall I tell you his name? Shall I describe the manner in which he met his death?”

  Ellingham spoke very quietly, but I knew that he was keyed up for a sudden movement.

  “His name, you fool? What in hell do you mean?”

  “Professor Reisby, the evidence is complete. You are responsible for the death and the burial and the exhumation of Eric Foster.”

  In a flash Reisby’s left hand shot out to a drawer in the desk, and I saw the blue glint of gun-metal.

  At the same instant we rose to our feet.

  “Put it away,” said Ellingham coolly, “it’s no use. The house is surrounded. Every detail of the case, and the whole of the damning evidence, is ready for the police. My own part has been played, and I have nothing more to do. And we are two to one.”

  The door opened and Frances ran into the room.

  I saw Reisby slip the pistol into his pocket.

  “Daddy! Professor Ellingham! What’s the matter? What are you all shouting about? Oh, do tell me what’s the matter! This is dreadful! Uncle Tom, do tell me—”

  We did not look at her, we kept our eyes on the Professor. But we were not quick enough.

  He gave a whoop of mad laughter, sprang forward, pushed the girl out of the way, bolted through the door and out of the house.

  Frances, with a cry of terror, unconsciously moved back towards the door. We hustled round the corner of the table, but the girl barred our way, and by the time we had got to the hall Reisby was out of it.

  Rushing out of the front door, which was wide open, we stood for a moment bewildered. There was no one in sight.

  “Quick!” shouted Ellingham. “The boat!—he’s making for the boat!”

  But the madman raced like the wind along the path to the creek. Long before we could reach him, he had unmoored the boat and was pulling with great powerful strokes.

  “He’s got the gun!” cried Ellingham. “Come along! We must get down to the harbour and seize or commandeer a boat, if we can, and send a message to Morgan.”

  We ran along by the side of the creek, over the bridge, over Scarweather Point, and so to the harbour.

  There was only one man by the boats, but as luck would have it we knew him—a good fellow called Billy Simmons. He was preparing to push off, and Ellingham shouted to him as we ran. I do not remember what he said, but he explained the position briefly and concisely. Two boys who were mending nets on the foreshore were sent with a message to Morgan, asking him, if possible, to follow us with the motor-boat. We did not know, of course, if Morgan was at the hotel—but we devoutly hoped that he was! In less than five minutes the whole place was informed that Professor Reisby had gone off his head and was pulling out to sea.

  Billy Simmons’ boat was broad in the beam and heavy, but it was not long before Billy and I, each with an oar, were driving her briskly through the water. Ellingham, still panting from the excitement and the exertion of the run, sat in the stern and held the yoke-ropes.

  We had got between Scarweather Point and the heel of the island when Ellingham sang out:

  “There he is!”

  Looking over my shoulder, I could see Reisby and his boat, about a quarter of a mile away from us. The Professor was rowing more slowly, but he was making steady headway.

 
“It’s near half-ebb,” said Billy, “and he’s got to keep her away from the Bank. We’re coming down on the tide and we shall overhaul him pretty fast. Do you reckon he’s dangerous?”

  “Well!” replied Ellingham, “it’s only fair to tell you that he’s got a pistol, and he may use it.”

  Billy had served in the War. “By gum!” he said, “it’s like the pictures, isn’t it? But he can’t do much with his pistol until we get to close quarters, and by that time I dare say Mr. Morgan and some of the other fellows will have come out. What’s his idea, do you suppose?”

  “I cannot say. Any idea may come into the head of a madman. Shall I keep her up towards the island a little? Right! By the way, does that old German barque still come up to Northport?”

  “Ah!—you remember him, Mr. Ellingham? Yes, he still comes up occasionally. I believe he’s there now—about due to sail, I should think.”

  Reisby had seen us and he was rowing with a quicker stroke. But I have always been a pretty good hand with an oar, and our boat ran steadily through the grey water, with a slip-slap and a chattering at the bow as we drove her through the crisp ripples.

  We pulled for a few minutes without speaking.

  The oars moved with a steady rhythm, a creak and heave, a smack and rumble, as they swung back and forth against the pins.

  “You’ll be cold, Mr. Ellingham,” said Billy, “you’d best get my spare oiler out of the locker below the seat there. That’s right! Pull up the collar, sir, and you’ll be as warm as if you was in an overcoat. Gosh!—this is a rum business, isn’t it?”

  He looked towards the shore.

  “There’s some of our folk running down to the harbour; looks to me like Ned Hoskins and old William. If Hoskins is not aground he’ll push off and sail his boat. And there’s poor Miss Frances down on the cliff under the house there. Poor young lady!—it’s a sad day for her, and no mistake.”

  “We’re gaining on him, hand over fist,” said Ellingham. “You had better go easy and reserve your strength for a final spurt, and maybe a tussle at the end of it.”

  Billy and I pulled our oars over the gunwale, and we turned round to look at Reisby.

  He was, I suppose, about a hundred yards away, rowing strongly and without any signs of fatigue.

  “I reckon he’s not got the mast and the tackle in the boat,” said Billy, “or he’d have put up the sail once he was clear of the Point.”

  “Now,” said I, after we had rested for a while, “let us quicken the stroke a little and show him the game is up. We shall be within hailing distance very shortly.”

  Again we bent over the oars, and the heavy boat ran scuffling and thudding among the choppy waves. We had now passed the lee of the Bank, and the water was more lively, with an occasional flashing of white foam.

  I was rowing stroke, and I looked alternately at the tense, vigilant face of Ellingham and at the now obscure outline of the harbour. We could not tell if Morgan was launching his boat, because of the intervening mass of the island. But presently I saw the brown flutter of a lug in the harbour—Ned Hoskins was evidently getting under way.

  It was a strange chase. As I look back at it, I do not believe that we realised how strange and how tragic it was; I think we felt only the primitive, invigorating thrill of pursuit. Ellingham, wrapped in the yellow oilskin, had the appearance of a highly intelligent pirate, his tough grey hair blowing free in wisps and tangles above his forehead. Every now and then a dash of bitter spray came spattering over the bows. Again, for a minute or two, there was nothing to be heard except the scuffle of the water, the regular thump and whine of the oars.

  Then I saw a gleam of sudden excitement on Ellingham’s face.

  “Look out, look out!” he cried, “he’s going to shoot!”

  Two bullets whanged into the sea; one about five yards astern of the boat, and the other considerably closer.

  Crack!—zip!—and a third bullet went over us, ploshing in the water and sending up a little jet of spray unpleasantly close to our port beam.

  “That’s a small calibre weapon,” said Ellingham coolly, “probably a thirty-two. I wonder how many shots he has in reserve. There would be a maximum of eight shots—one in the chamber and seven in the magazine. Stop rowing and let us take stock of the situation; but keep her bows-on to Reisby.”

  The other boat was fifty or sixty yards away from us. Reisby had pulled his oars inboard. He appeared to be in a crouching posture, with his right elbow resting on his knee.

  Both boats were now dipping and rolling in somewhat choppy water. Reisby’s chance of scoring a hit with a small automatic pistol was exceedingly remote. But still, it might be advisable to wait for reinforcements; we could then carry out an encircling movement and oblige him to surrender. Our decision was reached unanimously after a minute’s conference.

  Billy Simmons looked towards the harbour.

  “There’s Ned coming out,” he said, pointing towards the lurching brown sail. “And by gum!—there’s the t’gallants of a barque showing up over yonder—you can just see ’em, sir, if you look hard—”

  “Oh, ho!” said Ellingham, “then perhaps the Professor is not so mad after all.”

  “Double t’gallants, cut rather long,” observed Billy. “I wouldn’t swear to it… Anyhow he won’t be anywhere near us for another quarter of an hour.”

  The boats were now in a patch of cross-currents off the north-east corner of the Bank, and their relative position was not appreciably changing. We kept our boat end-on to the Professor, so as to offer him the smallest possible target: his own boat had swung round on the ebb current, and we could hear the slap of the wash on her sides.

  “I’ll see if he can hear me,” said Ellingham, and he stood up, unsteadily and recklessly, in the stern of the rocking boat.

  “Reisby! Reisby! A-hoy there! A-hoy!”

  The reply was a couple of bullets, and I saw a long thin strip of the yellow oilskin peel off under Ellingham’s right arm. He sat down again with a whimsical grimace.

  “Not much of a sportsman, is he?”

  “Good God!” I cried, bending towards him, “are you hit?”

  “I’m not hit, but the damned thing has probably cut through my pocket-book and broken my pipe. I drew his fire properly, though I had no intention of doing so. Three, four, five—not more than three left, unless he has a supply of cartridges or a spare magazine.”

  I looked towards the seaward edge of the island. I saw, on the horizon-line, a blob of dancing foam with a dark centre.

  “Here he comes!” I shouted, almost hilariously. “The Mirabelle. Good old Morgan!”

  I think Reisby must have heard me, and probably he saw the motor-boat at the same time, for a yell of mad laughter came over the sea.

  “He’s off again,” said Ellingham, who never took his eyes off the other boat. “Keep in line astern of him. Let us draw a little closer. I can see if he is going to fire, and if I give you the warning we can crouch down in the boat. It is very unlikely that he can do any damage.”

  Again we pulled in silence.

  Our mood was grimmer now, more dogged. The prospect of a tussle with a powerful madman, in a small boat on a choppy sea, had a wonderfully sobering influence.

  “I wonder if Morgan has thought of bringing a gun.”

  The Mirabelle was bounding towards us in a whirl of tossing spray, and the fishing-boat, with two or three men aboard (we could not see very clearly), was beating out hand-over-hand.

  Meanwhile, the topsails and the flying jibs of the barque had risen above the skyline. Beyond a doubt, according to Billy, she was the Emil Guntershausen. But if Reisby had been reckoning on her for assistance, he must have seen, by this time, that she would be too late.

  We drove our boat closer and closer to the fugitive. When the distance between us was little more than fifty yards Ellingham san
g out:

  “Cease rowing! Look out for yourselves!”

  We crouched low in the boat, and I turned on the seat and looked at the other.

  Reisby had again pulled in his oars, and he stood up in the swaying stern of the little craft, a huge fantastic figure lurching between the grey water and the pallid sky, his beard and hair blowing out fiercely in the breeze; to the very last he was majestic, a figure of terrifying nobility and of incredible dominance.

  “Ho-ha! Ho-ha! Ho, ho, ho!” The voice boomed over the sea and the wind.

  He raised his hand with a slow deliberate movement.

  Crack—zip!

  The shot fell wide of the mark; a steady aim was impossible.

  And then it was all over before I could realise what he was doing. He stood up over the stern of his boat. For one moment he was there, hugely towering in superb defiance.

  “Ha-ho! Ha-ho!”

  He swung the weapon up to his head, and instantly—so it seemed—his body fell into the sea.

  Chapter II

  1

  There is little more to be said.

  Reisby sank in deep water and his body was never recovered. It was a plain case of suicide and of temporary insanity.

  On the very day of this tragic event Ellingham and I had a private conference in the parlour of the Aberleven hotel. We decided that no moral purpose could now be served by exposing the whole truth. The criminal had put himself beyond the reach of earthly justice. Briefly, we decided to say nothing. That Reisby had gone mad and committed suicide was unquestionably true; the motive behind his madness was known only to Ellingham and myself. By revealing what we knew, we should cause abominable suffering, shame and horror. Unless it was ever possible to tell the story without injury to others, it was better to be silent.

  And so the skeleton of the Bronze Age man, the Aberleven Man, is to be seen, elaborately and proudly displayed in the central saloon of the Northport Museum. Perhaps you have actually seen it.

  Why should Mr. Goy be deprived of his treasure? Why should innumerable articles in our scientific reviews be held up to ridicule? Why should dozens of learned pages in at least four manuals of archaeology be drastically expunged, and their authors be covered with eternal shame? Why should we justify the rude sarcasm of Professor H—at the expense of Professor B—? Why should we expose ruthlessly the ponderous and immense ignorance of our most reputable antiquarians? Why should we reveal the colossal futility of their jargon, and bring discredit upon their harmless pastimes?