Miss Marple and Mystery (73 page)

We set our shoulders against it, and heaved with all our might. It gave with a crash – and we almost fell into the room.

Lady Carmichael lay on the bed bathed in blood. I have seldom seen a more horrible sight. Her heart was still beating, but her injuries were terrible, for the skin of the throat was all ripped and torn . . . Shuddering, I whispered: ‘The Claws . . .’ A thrill of superstitious horror ran over me.

I dressed and bandaged the wounds carefully and suggested to Settle that the exact nature of the injuries had better be kept secret, especially from Miss Patterson. I wrote out a telegram for a hospital nurse, to be despatched as soon as the telegraph office was open.

The dawn was now stealing in at the window. I looked out on the lawn below.

‘Get dressed and come out,’ I said abruptly to Settle. ‘Lady Carmichael will be all right now.’

He was soon ready, and we went out into the garden together. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Dig up the cat’s body,’ I said briefly. ‘I must be sure –’

I found a spade in a toolshed and we set to work beneath the large copper beech tree. At last our digging was rewarded. It was not a pleasant job. The animal had been dead a week. But I saw what I wanted to see.

‘That’s the cat,’ I said. ‘The identical cat I saw the first day I came here.’

Settle sniffed. An odour of bitter almonds was still perceptible. ‘Prussic acid,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked curiously. ‘What you think too!’

My surmise was no new one to him – it had passed through his brain also, I could see.

‘It’s impossible,’ he murmured. ‘Impossible! It’s against all science – all nature . . .’ His voice tailed off in a shudder. ‘That mouse last night,’ he said. ‘But – oh! it couldn’t be!’

‘Lady Carmichael,’ I said, ‘is a very strange woman. She has occult powers – hypnotic powers. Her forebears came from the East. Can we know what use she might have made of these powers over a weak lovable nature such as Arthur Carmichael’s? And remember, Settle, if Arthur Carmichael remains a hopeless imbecile, devoted to her, the whole property is practically hers and her son’s – whom you have told me she adores. And Arthur was going to be married!’

‘But what are we going to do, Carstairs?’

‘There’s nothing to be done,’ I said. ‘We’ll do our best though to stand between Lady Carmichael and vengeance.’

Lady Carmichael improved slowly. Her injuries healed themselves as well as could be expected – the scars of that terrible assault she would probably bear to the end of her life.

I had never felt more helpless. The power that defeated us was still at large, undefeated, and though quiescent for the minute we could hardly regard it as doing otherwise than biding its time. I was determined upon one thing. As soon as Lady Carmichael was well enough to be moved she must be taken away from Wolden. There was just a chance that the terrible manifestation might be unable to follow her. So the days went on.

I had fixed September 18th as the date of Lady Carmichael’s removal. It was on the morning of the 14th when the unexpected crisis arose.

I was in the library discussing details of Lady Carmichael’s case with Settle when an agitated housemaid rushed into the room.

‘Oh! sir,’ she cried. ‘Be quick! Mr Arthur – he’s fallen into the pond. He stepped on the punt and it pushed off with him, and he overbalanced and fell in! I saw it from the window.’

I waited for no more, but ran straight out of the room followed by Settle. Phyllis was just outside and had heard the maid’s story. She ran with us.

‘But you needn’t be afraid,’ she cried. ‘Arthur is a magnificent swimmer.’ I felt forebodings, however, and redoubled my pace. The surface of the pond was unruffled. The empty punt floated lazily about – but of Arthur there was no sign.

Settle pulled off his coat and his boots. ‘I’m going in,’ he said. ‘You take the boathook and fish about from the other punt. It’s not very deep.’

Very long the time seemed as we searched vainly. Minute followed minute. And then, just as we were despairing, we found him, and bore the apparently lifeless body of Arthur Carmichael to shore.

As long as I live I shall never forget the hopeless agony of Phyllis’s face.

‘Not – not –’ her lips refused to frame the dreadful word.

‘No, no, my dear,’ I cried. ‘We’ll bring him round, never fear.’

But inwardly I had little hope. He had been under water for half an hour. I sent off Settle to the house for hot blankets and other necessaries, and began myself to apply artificial respiration.

We worked vigorously with him for over an hour but there was no sign of life. I motioned to Settle to take my place again, and I approached Phyllis.

‘I’m afraid,’ I said gently, ‘that it is no good. Arthur is beyond our help.’

She stayed quite still for a moment and then suddenly flung herself down on the lifeless body.

‘Arthur!’ she cried desperately. ‘Arthur! Come back to me! Arthur – come back – come back!’

Her voice echoed away into silence. Suddenly I touched Settle’s arm. ‘Look!’ I said.

A faint tinge of colour crept into the drowned man’s face. I felt his heart.

‘Go on with the respiration,’ I cried. ‘He’s coming round!’

The moments seemed to fly now. In a marvellously short time his eyes opened.

Then suddenly I realized a difference.
These were intelligent eyes, human eyes
. . .

They rested on Phyllis. ‘Hallo! Phil,’ he said weakly. ‘Is it you? I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.’

She could not yet trust herself to speak but she smiled at him. He looked round with increasing bewilderment.

‘But, I say, where am I? And – how rotten I feel! What’s the matter with me? Hallo, Dr Settle!’

‘You’ve been nearly drowned – that’s what’s the matter,’ returned Settle grimly.

Sir Arthur made a grimace. ‘I’ve always heard it was beastly coming back afterwards! But how did it happen? Was I walking in my sleep?’

Settle shook his head. ‘We must get him to the house,’ I said, stepping forward.

He stared at me, and Phyllis introduced me. ‘Dr Carstairs, who is staying here.’

We supported him between us and started for the house. He looked up suddenly as though struck by an idea.

‘I say, doctor, this won’t knock me up for the 12th, will it?’

‘The 12th?’ I said slowly, ‘you mean the 12th of August?’

‘Yes – next Friday.’

‘Today is the 14th of September,’ said Settle abruptly. His bewilderment was evident.

‘But – but I thought it was the 8th of August? I must have been ill then?’

Phyllis interposed rather quickly in her gentle voice. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’ve been very ill.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t understand it. I was perfectly all right when I went to bed last night – at least of course it wasn’t really last night. I had dreams though. I remember, dreams . . .’ His brow furrowed itself still more as he strove to remember. ‘Something – what was it? Something dreadful – someone had done it to me – and I was angry – desperate . . . And then I dreamed I was a cat – yes, a cat! Funny, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t a funny dream. It was more – horrible! But I can’t remember. It all goes when I think.’

I laid my hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t try to think, Sir Arthur,’ I said gravely. ‘Be content – to forget.’

He looked at me in a puzzled way and nodded. I heard Phyllis draw a breath of relief. We had reached the house.

‘By the way,’ said Sir Arthur suddenly, ‘where’s the mater?’

‘She has been – ill,’ said Phyllis after a momentary pause. ‘Oh! poor old mater!’ His voice rang with genuine concern. ‘Where is she? In her room?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but you had better not disturb –’

The words froze on my lips. The door of the drawing-room opened and Lady Carmichael, wrapped in a dressing-gown, came out into the hall.

Her eyes were fixed on Arthur, and if ever I have seen a look of absolute guilt-stricken terror I saw it then. Her face was hardly human in its frenzied terror. Her hand went to her throat.

Arthur advanced towards her with boyish affection. ‘Hello, mater! So you’ve been knocked up too? I say, I’m awfully sorry.’ She shrank back before him, her eyes dilating. Then suddenly, with a shriek of a doomed soul, she fell backwards through the open door.

I rushed and bent over her, then beckoned to Settle. ‘Hush,’ I said. ‘Take him upstairs quietly and then come down again. Lady Carmichael is dead.’

He returned in a few minutes. ‘What was it?’ he asked. ‘What caused it?’

‘Shock,’ I said grimly. ‘The shock of seeing Arthur Carmichael, restored to life! Or you may call it, as I prefer to, the judgment of God!’

‘You mean –’ he hesitated.

I looked at him in the eyes so that he understood. ‘A life for a life,’ I said significantly. ‘But –’

Oh! I know that a strange and unforeseen accident permitted the spirit of Arthur Carmichael to return to his body. But, nevertheless, Arthur Carmichael was murdered.’

He looked at me half fearfully. ‘With prussic acid?’ he asked in a low tone.

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘With prussic acid.’

Settle and I have never spoken our belief. It is not one likely to be credited. According to the orthodox point of view Arthur Carmichael merely suffered from loss of memory, Lady Carmichael lacerated her own throat in a temporary fit of mania, and the apparition of the Grey Cat was mere imagination.

But there are two facts that to my mind are unmistakable. One is the ripped chair in the corridor. The other is even more significant. A catalogue of the library was found, and after exhaustive search it was proved that the missing volume was an ancient and curious work on the possibilities of the metamorphosis of human beings into animals!

One thing more. I am thankful to say that Arthur knows nothing. Phyllis has locked the secret of those weeks in her own heart, and she will never, I am sure, reveal them to the husband she loves so dearly, and who came back across the barrier of the grave at the call of her voice.

‘The Call of Wings’ was first published in the hardback The Hound of Death and Other Stories (Odhams Press, 1933). No previous appearances have been found.

Silas Hamer heard it first on a wintry night in February. He and Dick Borrow had walked from a dinner given by Bernard Seldon, the nerve specialist. Borrow had been unusually silent, and Silas Hamer asked him with some curiosity what he was thinking about. Borrow’s answer was unexpected.

‘I was thinking, that of all these men tonight, only two amongst them could lay claim to happiness. And that these two, strangely enough, were you and I!’

The word ‘strangely’ was apposite, for no two men could be more dissimilar than Richard Borrow, the hard working East-end parson, and Silas Hamer, the sleek complacent man whose millions were a matter of household knowledge.

‘It’s odd, you know,’ mused Borrow, ‘I believe you’re the only contented millionaire I’ve ever met.’

Hamer was silent a moment. When he spoke his tone had altered. ‘I used to be a wretched shivering little newspaper boy. I wanted then – what I’ve got now! – the comfort and the luxury of money, not its power. I wanted money, not to wield as a force, but to spend lavishly – on myself! I’m frank about it, you see. Money can’t buy everything, they say. Very true. But it can buy everything I want – therefore I’m satisfied. I’m a materialist, Borrow, out and out a materialist!’

The broad glare of the lighted thoroughfare confirmed this confession of faith. The sleek lines of Silas Hamer’s body were amplified by the heavy fur-lined coat, and the white light emphasized the thick rolls of flesh beneath his chin. In contrast to him walked Dick Borrow, with the thin ascetic face and the star-gazing fanatical eyes.

‘It’s
you
,’ said Hamer with emphasis, ‘that I can’t understand.’ Borrow smiled.

I live in the midst of misery, want, starvation – all the ills of the flesh! And a predominant Vision upholds me. It’s not easy to understand unless you believe in Visions, which I gather you don’t.’

‘I don’t believe,’ said Silas Hamer stolidly, ‘in anything I can’t see, hear and touch.’

‘Quite so. That’s the difference between us. Well, good bye, the earth now swallows me up!’

They had reached the doorway of a lighted tube station, which was Borrow’s route home.

Hamer proceeded alone. He was glad he had sent away the car tonight and elected to walk home. The air was keen and frosty, his senses were delightfully conscious of the enveloping warmth of the fur-lined coat.

He paused for an instant on the kerbstone before crossing the road. A great motor bus was heavily ploughing its way towards him. Hamer, with the feeling of infinite leisure, waited for it to pass. If he were to cross in front of it he would have to hurry – and hurry was distasteful to him.

By his side a battered derelict of the human race rolled drunkenly off the pavement. Hamer was aware of a shout, an ineffectual swerve of the motor bus, and then – he was looking stupidly, with a gradually awakening horror, at a limp inert heap of rags in the middle of the road.

A crowd gathered magically, with a couple of policemen and the bus driver as its nucleus. But Hamer’s eyes were riveted in horrified fascination on that lifeless bundle that had once been a man – a man like himself! He shuddered as at some menace.

‘Dahn’t yer blime yerself, guv’nor,’ remarked a rough-looking man at his side. ‘Yer couldn’t ’a done nothin’. ’E was done for anyways.’

Hamer stared at him. The idea that it was possible in any way to save the man had quite honestly never occurred to him. He scouted the notion now as an absurdity. Why if he had been so foolish, he might at this moment . . . His thoughts broke off abruptly, and he walked away from the crowd. He felt himself shaking with a nameless unquenchable dread. He was forced to admit to himself that he was
afraid
– horribly afraid – of Death . . . Death that came with dreadful swiftness and remorseless certainty to rich and poor alike . . .

He walked faster, but the new fear was still with him, enveloping him in its cold and chilling grasp.

He wondered at himself, for he knew that by nature he was no coward. Five years ago, he reflected, this fear would not have attacked him. For then Life had not been so sweet . . . Yes, that was it; love of Life was the key to the mystery. The zest of living was at its height for him; it knew but one menace, Death, the destroyer!

He turned out of the lighted thoroughfare. A narrow passageway, between high walls, offered a short-cut to the Square where his house, famous for its art treasures, was situated.

The noise of the street behind him lessened and faded, the soft thud of his own footsteps was the only sound to be heard.

And then out of the gloom in front of him came another sound. Sitting against the wall was a man playing the flute. One of the enormous tribe of street musicians, of course, but why had he chosen such a peculiar spot? Surely at this time of night the police – Hamer’s reflections were interrupted suddenly as he realized with a shock that the man had no legs. A pair of crutches rested against the wall beside him. Hamer saw now that it was not a flute he was playing but a strange instrument whose notes were much higher and clearer than those of a flute.

The man played on. He took no notice of Hamer’s approach. His head was flung far back on his shoulders, as though uplifted in the joy of his own music, and the notes poured out clearly and joyously, rising higher and higher . . .

It was a strange tune – strictly speaking, it was not a tune at all, but a single phrase, not unlike the slow turn given out by the violins of
Rienzi
, repeated again and again, passing from key to key, from harmony to harmony, but always rising and attaining each time to a greater and more boundless freedom.

It was unlike anything Hamer had ever heard. There was something strange about it, something inspiring – and uplifting . . . it . . . He caught frantically with both hands to a projection in the wall beside him. He was conscious of one thing only –
that he must keep down
– at all costs he must
keep down
. . .

He suddenly realized that the music had stopped. The legless man was reaching out for his crutches. And here was he, Silas Hamer, clutching like a lunatic at a stone buttress, for the simple reason that he had had the utterly preposterous notion – absurd on the face of it! – that he was rising from the ground – that the music was carrying him upwards . . .

He laughed. What a wholly mad idea! Of course his feet had never left the earth for a moment, but what a strange hallucination! The quick tap-tapping of wood on the pavement told him that the cripple was moving away. He looked after him until the man’s figure was swallowed up in the gloom. An odd fellow!

He proceeded on his way more slowly; he could not efface from his mind the memory of that strange impossible sensation when the ground had failed beneath his feet . . .

And then on an impulse he turned and followed hurriedly in the direction the other had taken. The man could not have gone far – he would soon overtake him.

He shouted as soon as he caught sight of the maimed figure swinging itself slowly along.

‘Hi! One minute.’

The man stopped and stood motionless until Hamer came abreast of him. A lamp burned just over his head and revealed every feature. Silas Hamer caught his breath in involuntary surprise. The man possessed the most singularly beautiful head he had ever seen. He might have been any age; assuredly he was not a boy, yet youth was the most predominant characteristic – youth and vigour in passionate intensity!

Hamer found an odd difficulty in beginning his conversation. ‘Look here,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I want to know what was that thing you were playing just now?’

The man smiled . . . With his smile the world seemed suddenly to leap into joyousness . . .

‘It was an old tune – a very old tune . . . Years old – centuries old.’ He spoke with an odd purity and distinctness of enunciation, giving equal value to each syllable. He was clearly not an Englishman, yet Hamer was puzzled as to his nationality.

‘You’re not English? Where do you come from?’

Again the broad joyful smile. ‘From over the sea, sir. I came – a long time ago – a very long time ago.’

‘You must have had a bad accident. Was it lately?’

‘Some time now, sir.’

‘Rough luck to lose both legs.’

‘It was well,’ said the man very calmly. He turned his eyes with a strange solemnity on his interlocutor. ‘They were evil.’

Hamer dropped a shilling in his hand and turned away. He was puzzled and vaguely disquieted. ‘They were evil!’ What a strange thing to say! Evidently an operation for some form of disease, but – how odd it had sounded.

Hamer went home thoughtful. He tried in vain to dismiss the incident from his mind. Lying in bed, with the first incipient sensation of drowsiness stealing over him, he heard a neighbouring clock strike one. One clear stroke and then silence – silence that was broken by a faint familiar sound . . . Recognition came leaping. Hamer felt his heart beating quickly. It was the man in the passageway playing, somewhere not far distant . . .

The notes came gladly, the slow turn with its joyful call, the same haunting little phrase . . . ‘It’s uncanny,’ murmured Hamer, ‘it’s uncanny. It’s got wings to it . . .’

Clearer and clearer, higher and higher – each wave rising above the last, and catching
him
up with it. This time he did not struggle, he let himself go . . . Up – up . . . The waves of sound were carrying him higher and higher . . . Triumphant and free, they swept on.

Higher and higher . . . They had passed the limits of human sound now, but they still continued – rising, ever rising . . . Would they reach the final goal, the full perfection of height?

Rising . . .

Something
was pulling – pulling him downwards. Something big and heavy and insistent. It pulled remorselessly – pulled him back, and down . . . down . . .

He lay in bed gazing at the window opposite. Then, breathing heavily and painfully, he stretched an arm out of bed. The movement seemed curiously cumbrous to him. The softness of the bed was oppressive, oppressive too were the heavy curtains over the window that blocked out the light and air. The ceiling seemed to press down upon him. He felt stifled and choked. He moved slightly under the bed clothes, and the weight of his body seemed to him the most oppressive of all . . .

‘I want your advice, Seldon.’

Seldon pushed back his chair an inch or so from the table. He had been wondering what was the object of this tête-à-tête dinner. He had seen little of Hamer since the winter, and he was aware tonight of some indefinable change in his friend.

‘It’s just this,’ said the millionaire. ‘I’m worried about myself.’ Seldon smiled as he looked across the table. ‘You’re looking in the pink of condition.’

‘It’s not that.’ Hamer paused a minute, then added quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going mad.’

The nerve specialist glanced up with a sudden keen interest. He poured himself out a glass of port with a rather slow movement, and then said quietly, but with a sharp glance at the other man: ‘What makes you think that?’

‘Something that’s happened to me. Something inexplicable, unbelievable. It can’t be true, so I must be going mad.’

‘Take your time,’ said Seldon, ‘and tell me about it.’

‘I don’t believe in the supernatural,’ began Hamer. ‘I never have. But this thing . . . Well, I’d better tell you the whole story from the beginning. It began last winter one evening after I had dined with you.’

Then briefly and concisely he narrated the events of his walk home and the strange sequel.

‘That was the beginning of it all. I can’t explain it to you properly – the feeling, I mean – but it was wonderful! Unlike anything I’ve ever felt or dreamed. Well, it’s gone on ever since. Not every night, just now and then. The music, the feeling of being uplifted, the soaring flight . . . and then the terrible drag, the pull back to earth, and afterwards the pain, the actual physical pain of the awakening. It’s like coming down from a high mountain – you know the pains in the ears one gets? Well, this is the same thing, but intensified – and with it goes the awful sense of
weight
– of being hemmed in, stifled . . .’

He broke off and there was a pause. ‘Already the servants think I’m mad. I couldn’t bear the roof and the walls – I’ve had a place arranged up at the top of the house, open to the sky, with no furniture or carpets, or any stifling things . . . But even then the houses all round are nearly as bad. It’s open country I want, somewhere where one can breathe . . .’ He looked across at Seldon. ‘Well, what do you say? Can you explain it?’

‘H’m,’ said Seldon. ‘Plenty of explanations. You’ve been hypnotized, or you’ve hynotized yourself. Your nerves have gone wrong. Or it may be merely a dream.’

Hamer shook his head. ‘None of those explanations will do.’

‘And there are others,’ said Seldon slowly, ‘but they’re not generally admitted.’

‘
You
are prepared to admit them?’

‘On the whole, yes! There’s a great deal we can’t understand which can’t possibly be explained normally. We’ve any amount to find out still, and I for one believe in keeping an open mind.’

‘What do you advise me to do?’ asked Hamer after a silence. Seldon leaned forward briskly. ‘One of several things. Go away from London, seek out your “open country”. The dreams may cease.’

‘I can’t do that,’ said Hamer quickly. ‘It’s come to this, that I can’t do without them. I don’t want to do without them.’

‘Ah! I guessed as much. Another alternative, find this fellow, this cripple. You’re endowing him now with all sorts of supernatural attributes. Talk to him. Break the spell.’

Hamer shook his head again. ‘Why not?’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Hamer simply.

Seldon made a gesture of impatience. ‘Don’t believe in it all so blindly! This tune now, the medium that starts it all, what is it like?’

Hamer hummed it, and Seldon listened with a puzzled frown.

‘Rather like a bit out of the Overture to
Rienzi
. There
is
something uplifting about it – it has wings. But I’m not carried off the earth! Now, these flights of yours, are they all exactly the same?’