Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James (large screen ebook reader txt) 📕
'Is it possible that you found a body?' said the visitor, with an odd feeling of nervousness.
'We did that: but what's more, in every sense of the word, we found two.'
'Good Heavens! Two? Was there anything to show how they got there? Was this thing found with them?'
'It was. Amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies. A bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. One body had the arms tight round the other. They must have been there thirty years or more--long enough before we came to this place. You may judge we filled the well up fast enough. Do you make anything of what's cut o
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at which the cart was coming made him despair. At this rate it must
reach home ten minutes before him, and ten minutes would more than
suffice for the fulfilment of Mr Eldred’s project.
It was just at this time that the luck fairly turned. The evening was
still, and sounds came clearly. Seldom has any sound given greater relief
than that which he now heard: that of the cart pulling up. A few words
were exchanged, and it drove on. Garrett, halting in the utmost anxiety,
was able to see as it drove past the stile (near which he now stood) that
it contained only the servant and not Eldred; further, he made out that
Eldred was following on foot. From behind the tall hedge by the stile
leading into the road he watched the thin wiry figure pass quickly by
with the parcel beneath its arm, and feeling in its pockets. Just as he
passed the stile something fell out of a pocket upon the grass, but with
so little sound that Eldred was not conscious of it. In a moment more it
was safe for Garrett to cross the stile into the road and pick up—a box
of matches. Eldred went on, and, as he went, his arms made hasty
movements, difficult to interpret in the shadow of the trees that
overhung the road. But, as Garrett followed cautiously, he found at
various points the key to them—a piece of string, and then the wrapper
of the parcel—meant to be thrown over the hedge, but sticking in it.
Now Eldred was walking slower, and it could just be made out that he had
opened the book and was turning over the leaves. He stopped, evidently
troubled by the failing light. Garrett slipped into a gate-opening, but
still watched. Eldred, hastily looking around, sat down on a felled
tree-trunk by the roadside and held the open book up close to his eyes.
Suddenly he laid it, still open, on his knee, and felt in all his
pockets: clearly in vain, and clearly to his annoyance. ‘You would be
glad of your matches now,’ thought Garrett. Then he took hold of a leaf,
and was carefully tearing it out, when two things happened. First,
something black seemed to drop upon the white leaf and run down it, and
then as Eldred started and was turning to look behind him, a little dark
form appeared to rise out of the shadow behind the tree-trunk and from it
two arms enclosing a mass of blackness came before Eldred’s face and
covered his head and neck. His legs and arms were wildly flourished, but
no sound came. Then, there was no more movement. Eldred was alone. He had
fallen back into the grass behind the tree-trunk. The book was cast into
the roadway. Garrett, his anger and suspicion gone for the moment at the
sight of this horrid struggle, rushed up with loud cries of ‘Help!’ and
so too, to his enormous relief, did a labourer who had just emerged from
a field opposite. Together they bent over and supported Eldred, but to no
purpose. The conclusion that he was dead was inevitable. ‘Poor
gentleman!’ said Garrett to the labourer, when they had laid him down,
‘what happened to him, do you think?’ ‘I wasn’t two hundred yards away,’
said the man, ‘when I see Squire Eldred setting reading in his book, and
to my thinking he was took with one of these fits—face seemed to go all
over black.’ ‘Just so,’ said Garrett. ‘You didn’t see anyone near him? It
couldn’t have been an assault?’ ‘Not possible—no one couldn’t have got
away without you or me seeing them.’ ‘So I thought. Well, we must get
some help, and the doctor and the policeman; and perhaps I had better
give them this book.’
It was obviously a case for an inquest, and obvious also that Garrett
must stay at Bretfield and give his evidence. The medical inspection
showed that, though some black dust was found on the face and in the
mouth of the deceased, the cause of death was a shock to a weak heart,
and not asphyxiation. The fateful book was produced, a respectable quarto
printed wholly in Hebrew, and not of an aspect likely to excite even the
most sensitive.
‘You say, Mr Garrett, that the deceased gentleman appeared at the moment
before his attack to be tearing a leaf out of this book?’
‘Yes; I think one of the fly-leaves.’
‘There is here a fly-leaf partially torn through. It has Hebrew writing
on it. Will you kindly inspect it?’
‘There are three names in English, sir, also, and a date. But I am sorry
to say I cannot read Hebrew writing.’
‘Thank you. The names have the appearance of being signatures. They are
John Rant, Walter Gibson, and James Frost, and the date is 20 July, 1875.
Does anyone here know any of these names?’
The Rector, who was present, volunteered a statement that the uncle of
the deceased, from whom he inherited, had been named Rant.
The book being handed to him, he shook a puzzled head. ‘This is not like
any Hebrew I ever learnt.’
‘You are sure that it is Hebrew?’
‘What? Yes—I suppose…. No—my dear sir, you are perfectly right—that
is, your suggestion is exactly to the point. Of course—it is not Hebrew
at all. It is English, and it is a will.’
It did not take many minutes to show that here was indeed a will of Dr
John Rant, bequeathing the whole of the property lately held by John
Eldred to Mrs Mary Simpson. Clearly the discovery of such a document
would amply justify Mr Eldred’s agitation. As to the partial tearing of
the leaf, the coroner pointed out that no useful purpose could be
attained by speculations whose correctness it would never be possible to
establish.
*
The Tractate Middoth was naturally taken in charge by the coroner for
further investigation, and Mr Garrett explained privately to him the
history of it, and the position of events so far as he knew or guessed
them.
He returned to his work next day, and on his walk to the station passed
the scene of Mr Eldred’s catastrophe. He could hardly leave it without
another look, though the recollection of what he had seen there made him
shiver, even on that bright morning. He walked round, with some
misgivings, behind the felled tree. Something dark that still lay there
made him start back for a moment: but it hardly stirred. Looking closer,
he saw that it was a thick black mass of cobwebs; and, as he stirred it
gingerly with his stick, several large spiders ran out of it into the
grass.
*
There is no great difficulty in imagining the steps by which William
Garrett, from being an assistant in a great library, attained to his
present position of prospective owner of Bretfield Manor, now in the
occupation of his mother-in-law, Mrs Mary Simpson.
CASTING THE RUNESApril 15th, 190-
Dear Sir,
I am requested by the Council of the –- Association to return to you
the draft of a paper on The Truth of Alchemy, which you have been good
enough to offer to read at our forthcoming meeting, and to inform you
that the Council do not see their way to including it in the programme.
I am,
Yours faithfully,
– Secretary.
*
April 18th
Dear Sir,
I am sorry to say that my engagements do not permit of my affording you
an interview on the subject of your proposed paper. Nor do our laws allow
of your discussing the matter with a Committee of our Council, as you
suggest. Please allow me to assure you that the fullest consideration was
given to the draft which you submitted, and that it was not declined
without having been referred to the judgement of a most competent
authority. No personal question (it can hardly be necessary for me to
add) can have had the slightest influence on the decision of the Council.
Believe me (_ut supra_).
*
April 20th
The Secretary of the –- Association begs respectfully to inform Mr
Karswell that it is impossible for him to communicate the name of any
person or persons to whom the draft of Mr Karswell’s paper may have been
submitted; and further desires to intimate that he cannot undertake to
reply to any further letters on this subject.
*
‘And who is Mr Karswell?’ inquired the Secretary’s wife. She had called
at his office, and (perhaps unwarrantably) had picked up the last of
these three letters, which the typist had just brought in.
‘Why, my dear, just at present Mr Karswell is a very angry man. But I
don’t know much about him otherwise, except that he is a person of
wealth, his address is Lufford Abbey, Warwickshire, and he’s an
alchemist, apparently, and wants to tell us all about it; and that’s
about all—except that I don’t want to meet him for the next week or two.
Now, if you’re ready to leave this place, I am.’
‘What have you been doing to make him angry?’ asked Mrs Secretary.
‘The usual thing, my dear, the usual thing: he sent in a draft of a paper
he wanted to read at the next meeting, and we referred it to Edward
Dunning—almost the only man in England who knows about these things—and
he said it was perfectly hopeless, so we declined it. So Karswell has
been pelting me with letters ever since. The last thing he wanted was the
name of the man we referred his nonsense to; you saw my answer to that.
But don’t you say anything about it, for goodness’ sake.’
‘I should think not, indeed. Did I ever do such a thing? I do hope,
though, he won’t get to know that it was poor Mr Dunning.’
‘Poor Mr Dunning? I don’t know why you call him that; he’s a very happy
man, is Dunning. Lots of hobbies and a comfortable home, and all his time
to himself.’
‘I only meant I should be sorry for him if this man got hold of his name,
and came and bothered him.’
‘Oh, ah! yes. I dare say he would be poor Mr Dunning then.’
The Secretary and his wife were lunching out, and the friends to whose
house they were bound were Warwickshire people. So Mrs Secretary had
already settled it in her own mind that she would question them
judiciously about Mr Karswell. But she was saved the trouble of leading
up to the subject, for the hostess said to the host, before many minutes
had passed, ‘I saw the Abbot of Lufford this morning.’ The host whistled.
‘Did you? What in the world brings him up to town?’ ‘Goodness knows; he
was coming out of the British Museum gate as I drove past.’ It was not
unnatural that Mrs Secretary should inquire whether this was a real Abbot
who was being spoken of. ‘Oh no, my dear: only a neighbour of ours in the
country who bought Lufford Abbey a few years ago. His real name is
Karswell.’ ‘Is he a friend of yours?’ asked Mr Secretary, with a private
wink to his wife. The question let loose a torrent of declamation. There
was really nothing to be said for Mr Karswell. Nobody knew what he did
with himself: his servants
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