Part 5 (2/2)

”I agree,” said Coram; ”most certainly there must be no prosecution; no scandal. Mr. Pettigrew, I am very, very sorry for this.”

Grimsby, with a rather wry face, removed the handcuffs. A singular expression proclaimed itself upon Pettigrew's shriveled countenance.

”The thing I'm most sorry for,” he said, dryly, but with the true fever of research burning in his eyes, ”if you will excuse me saying it, Coram, for I'm very deeply indebted to you a” is that I can't cut off the head of this fourth mummy!”

Mr. Mark Pettigrew was a singularly purposeful and rudely truculent man.

”It would be useless,” rumbled Moris Klaw. ”I found the fifth mummy in Egypt two years ago! And beholda”” He swept his hand picturesquely through the aira”” I beheaded him!

”What!” screamed Pettigrew, and leapt upon Klaw with blazing eyes.

”Ah,” rumbled Klaw, ma.s.sive and unruffled, ”that is the question a” what? And I shall not tell you!”

From his pocket he took out the scent-spray and squirted verbena into the face of Mr. Pettigrew.

THE GREY HOUSE.

[Psychic sleuth: Flaxman Low].

E. and H. Heron.

One summer Mr. Flaxman Low happened to be slaying in a lonely village on the coast of Devon. He was deeply immersed in some antiquarian work connected with the old Norse calendars, and therefore limited his acquaintance in the neighborhood to one individual, a Dr. Fremantle, who, beside being a medical man, was a botanist of some note.

One afternoon, when driving together, Mr. Low and Dr. Fremantle pa.s.sed through a valley which nestled cup-like in the higher ground a few miles inland. As they pa.s.sed along a deep, steep lane with overhanging hedges they caught a glimpse, through a break in the leaves, of a gray gable peeping out between the horizontal branches of a cedar.

Flaxman Low pointed it out to his companion.

”That's young Montesson's house,” answered Fremantle, ”and it bears a very sinister reputation. Nothing in your line, though,” with a smile. ”Indeed, no ghost would lend the same hideous a.s.sociations to the place it now possesses as the result of a succession of mysterious murders that have occurred there.”

”The ground seems neglected. I don't recall to have seen such rank growth, not inside the British Isles!” returned Fremantle, ”The estate is left to take care of itself, partly because Montesson won't live there, partly because it is impossible to find laborers to work near the house. Our warm, damp climate and this sheltered position give rise to extraordinary luxuriance of growth. A stream runs along the bottom, and I expect all the low-lying land, where you see that belt of yellow African gra.s.s, is little better than a mora.s.s now.

Fremantle drew up as they gained the top of the slope. From there they could overlook the tangle of vegetation, dimmed by a rising mist, which surrounded and almost hid the roof of the Grey House.

”Yes,” said Fremantle, in answer to an observation of Mr. Low, ”Montesson's guardian, who lived here and looked after the property for him, turned the place into a subtropical garden. It used to be one of my chief pleasures to wander about here, but since my marriage my wife objects to my doing so. On account of the tales she has heard.”

”What is the danger?”

”Death!” replied Fremantle shortly.

”What form of death? Malaria?”

”No disease at all, my dear fellow. The persons, who die at the Grey House, are hanged by the neck until they are dead!”

”Hanged?” repeated Flaxman Low in surprise.

”Yes, hanged! Not only strangled but suspended, as the marks on the necks show. If there were any hint of a ghost in it, you might investigate a” Montesson would be only too grateful if you could fathom the mystery.”

”Tell me something more definite!”

”I'll tell you what has happened in my own knowledge. Montesson's father died some fifteen years ago and left him to the guardians.h.i.+p of a cousin named Lampurt, who, as I told you, was a horticulturist, and planted the place with a wonderful variety of foreign shrubs and flowers.

Lampurt had a bad name in the country, and his appearance was certainly against him a” a squint-eyed, pig-faced fellow, who sidled along like a crab, and could not look you in the face. He died first.”

”Was he hanged? Or did he hang himself?” Low asked.

”Neither, in this case. He dropped in a kind of fit, right up in front of the house, while he was engaged in planting some new acquisition. Had it not been for the evidence of the persons who were present at the time, I should have said his death resulted from some tremendous mental shock. But the gardener and his relation, Mrs. Montesson, agreed in saying that he was not exerting himself unduly, and that he had had no disturbing news. He was a healthy man and I could see no sufficient reason for his death. He was simply gardening, and had apparently p.r.i.c.ked himself with a nail for he had a spot of blood upon his forefinger.

”After that all went well for a couple of years, when, during the summer holidays, the trouble began. Montesson must have been about sixteen at the time, and had a tutor with him. His mother and sister a” a pretty girl rather older than himself a” were also here. One morning the girl was found lying on the gravel under her window, quite dead. I was sent for, and, upon examination, discovered the extraordinary fact that she had been hanged!”

”Murder.”

”Of course, though we could find no trace of the murderer. The girl had been taken from her bedroom and hanged. Then the rope was removed and she was thrown in a heap under her window. The crime caused a tremendous sensation in the neighborhood, and the police were busy for a long time, but nothing came of their inquiries. About a fortnight later, Platt, the tutor, sat up smoking at the open study window. In the morning he was found lying out over the sill. There could be no mistake as to how he met his death, for in addition to the deep line round his throat, his neck was broken as neatly as they could have done it at Newgate! But for all that as in the other case, there was nothing to show how he came by his death, no rope, no trace of footsteps or any struggle to lead one to suspect the presence of another person or persons. I tell you, though, from the facts it could not have been suicide!”

”I see you had some suspicion of your own,” said Flaxman Low.

”Well, yes, I had. But time has pa.s.sed, and I now think I must have been mistaken. I must explain that the branches of the cedar you saw jut to within a few feet of the windows of the rooms occupied by Miss Montesson and Platt respectively at the time of death. I told you there were no traces of any one having approached the house. It therefore struck me that some active person might have leaped from the cedar into the open windows and escaped in the same way, for the windows open vertically, and when both leaves are thrown back there is a large aperture. But the murders were so purposeless and disconnected that they suggested irresponsible agency.

I recollected Poe's story of the Rue Morgue, where, you remember, the crimes were committed by an orangutan. It seemed to me possible that Lampurt, who was of a morose and strange temper, meet, among other things, have secretly imported an ape and turned it, loose in the woods. I had a thorough search made in the park and grounds, but we found nothing, and I have long ago abandoned the theory.”

Low thought silently over the story for some time; then he asked for the dates of the three deaths. Fremantle answered categorically, and it appeared that all had taken place about the same season of the year a” during summer, in fact. Upon this, Mr. Low made an offer to investigate the affair on Psychical lines, if Montesson made no objection. In answer to this message, Montesson took the next train down to Devon, and begged to be allowed to accompany Mr. Low in his inquiries.

Flaxman Low quickly saw that Montesson might prove a very useful companion. He was a blonde, heavily-built man, and plainly possessed of a strong will and temper. Low put aside his books and went off at once with Montesson to have a closer look at 'the Gray House while the day-light lasted'. It is difficult to give any adequate impression of the teeming exuberance of wild and tangled growth through which they had to cut their way. Young, lush, sappy leaf.a.ge overlay and half-disguised the dank rottenness of the older vegetation beneath. After wading more than breast-high through the matted weeds, below which the spreading stream was fast reducing the land to swamp, they emerged into a fairly open s.p.a.ce that had once been the lawn around the house.

There brambles and l.u.s.ty weeds now grew abundantly under the untended trees. Curious shrubs and plants flourished here and there. As they came up, a stoat sneaked away by a narrow footpath, nettlegrown and caked with damp, which led past blackened bushes round the house. Otherwise the place was deserted; not a leaf seemed to move in the windless heat of the afternoon. The squat, gray face of the house was scarred across by a dark-leafed creeper, hung with orchid-like blossoms, a little to the left of which Low noticed the cedar mentioned by Dr. Fremantle.

Low drew up at the weed-twisted, sunken little gate that gave upon the lawns and spoke for the first time.

”Tell me about it,” he said, and nodded towards the house.

Montesson repeated the story already told, but added further details. ”From here,” went on Montesson, ”you can see the exact spot where all these things took place. The upper of these two windows, surrounded by the creeper and under the shadow of the cedar, belonged to my sister's room; the lower is that of the study where Platt died. The gravel path below ran the whole length of the house, but it is now overgrown. Has Fremantle told you of Lawrence?”

Low shook his head. ”No,” he said.

”I hate the very sight of the place!” said Montesson hoa.r.s.ely; ”the mystery and the horror of it all seem in my blood. I can't forget! My mother left on the day of Platt's death and has never been here since.

”But when I came of age, I resolved to make another attempt to live here, meaning to sift the past if I got the chance of doing so. I had the grounds cleared about the house, and, after leaving Oxford, came down with a man of my own year, called Lawrence. We spent the Easter vacation here reading, and all went right enough. Meanwhile I had the house examined, thinking there might be a secret entrance or room, but nothing of the kind exists. This house is not haunted. Nothing has ever been seen or heard of a supernatural character a” nothing but the same awful repet.i.tion of blind murder!”

After a few seconds, he resumed, ”During the following summer Lawrence came down with me again. One hot evening, we were smoking as we walked up and down the gravel under the windows. It was bright moonlight, and I remember the heavy scent of those red flowersa”” Montesson glanced round him strangely, ”I went in to fetch a cigar. It took me some minutes to find the box I wanted, and to light the cigar. When I came out Lawrence lay crumpled up as if he had fallen from a height and he was dead. Round his neck was the same bluish line I had seen in the two other cases. You can understand what it was to leave the man not five minutes before, in health and strength, and to come back to find him dead a” hanged a” to judge from appearances! But as usual, no trace of rope or struggle or murderer!”

After some further talk, Mr. Low pro, posed to go into the house. It had evidently been deserted in haste. In the room once occupied by Miss Montesson, her girlish treasures still lay about, dusty, motheaten, and discolored.

Montesson paused on the threshold. ”Poor little Fan! It's just as she left it!” he said hurriedly.

The cedar outside threw a gloomy shade into the room, and the fantastic red blossoms drooped motionless in the stagnant air.

”Was the window open when your sister was found?” inquired Low after he had examined the room.

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