A Caribbean Mystery

  He detached the little scrap of paper with care. It was not more than an inch square – but on it were printed two significant words: ‘The cat . . .’

  ‘This thing gives me the creeps,’ said Settle. ‘It’s simply horribly uncanny.’

  ‘I’d give anything to know,’ I said, ‘what book it is that is missing from here. Do you think there is any way of finding out?’

  ‘May be a catalogue somewhere. Perhaps Lady Carmichael –’

  I shook my head. ‘Lady Carmichael will tell you nothing.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I am sure of it. While we are guessing and feeling about in the dark Lady Carmichael knows. And for reasons of her own she will say nothing. She prefers to run a most horrible risk sooner than break silence.’

  The day passed with an uneventfulness that reminded me of the calm before a storm. And I had a strange feeling that the problem was near solution. I was groping about in the dark, but soon I should see. The facts were all there, ready, waiting for the little flash of illumination that should weld them together and show out their significance.

  And come it did! In the strangest way!

  It was when we were all sitting together in the green drawing-room as usual after dinner. We had been very silent. So noiseless indeed was the room that a little mouse ran across the floor – and in an instant the thing happened.

  With one long spring Arthur Carmichael leapt from his chair. His quivering body was swift as an arrow on the mouse’s track. It had disappeared behind the wainscoting, and there he crouched – watchful – his body still trembling with eagerness.

  It was horrible! I have never known such a paralysing moment. I was no longer puzzled as to that something that Arthur Carmichael reminded me of with his stealthy feet and watching eyes. And in a flash an explanation, wild, incredible, unbelievable, swept into my mind. I rejected it as impossible – unthinkable! But I could not dismiss it from my thoughts.

  I hardly remember what happened next. The whole thing seemed blurred and unreal. I know that somehow we got upstairs and said our good nights briefly, almost with a dread of meeting each other’s eyes, lest we should see there some confirmation of our own fears.

  Settle established himself outside Lady Carmichael’s door to take the first watch, arranging to call me at 3 a.m. I had no special fears for Lady Carmichael; I was too taken up with my fantastic impossible theory. I told myself it was impossible – but my mind returned to it, fascinated.

  And then suddenly the stillness of the night was disturbed. Settle’s voice rose in a shout, calling me. I rushed out to the corridor.

  He was hammering and pounding with all his might on Lady Carmichael’s door.

  ‘Devil take the woman!’ he cried. ‘She’s locked it!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘It’s in there, man! In with her! Can’t you hear it?’

  From behind the locked door a long-drawn cat yowl sounded fiercely. And then following it a horrible scream – and another . . . I recognized Lady Carmichael’s voice.

  ‘The door!’ I yelled. ‘We must break it in. In another minute we shall be too late.’

  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 sa
id 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.

  Chapter 46

  The Call of Wings

  ‘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 de
lightfully 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.