“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 neighbor 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 were a horrible set of people; he had invented a new religion for himself, and practiced no one could tell what appalling rites; he was very easily offended, and never forgave anybody. He had a dreadful face (so the lady insisted, her husband somewhat demurring); he never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous.
“Do the poor man justice, dear,” the husband interrupted. “You forget the treat he gave the school children.”
“Forget it, indeed! But I’m glad you mentioned it, because it gives an idea of the man. Now, Florence, listen to this.
“The first winter he was at Lufford this delightful neighbor of ours wrote to the clergyman of his parish (he’s not ours, but we know him very well) and offered to show the school children some magic-lantern slides. He said he had some new kinds which he thought would interest them.
“Well, the clergyman was rather surprised, because Mr. Karswell had shown himself inclined to be unpleasant to the children—complaining of their trespassing, or something of the sort; but of course he accepted, and the evening was fixed and our friend went himself to see that everything went right.
“He said he never had been so thankful for anything as that his own children were all prevented from being there—they were at a children’s party at our house, as a matter of fact. Because this Mr. Karswell had evidently set out with the intention of frightening these poor village children out of their wits, and I do believe, if he had been allowed to go on, he would actually have done so.
“He began with some comparatively mild things. Red Riding Hood was one, and even then, Mr. Farrer said, the wolf was so dreadful that several of the smaller children had to be taken out. And he said Mr. Karswell began the story by producing a noise like a wolf howling in the distance, which was the most gruesome thing he had ever heard.
“All the slides he showed, Mr. Farrer said, were most clever. They were absolutely realistic, and where he had gotten them or how he worked them he could not imagine.
“Well, the show went on, and the stories kept on becoming a little more terrifying each time, and the children were mesmerized into complete silence.
“At last he produced a series which represented a little boy passing through his own park—Lufford, I mean—in the evening. Every child in the room could recognize the place from the pictures. And this poor boy was followed, and at last pursued and overtaken, and either torn to pieces or somehow made away with, by a horrible hopping creature in white, which you saw first dodging about among the trees, and gradually it appeared more and more plainly.
“Mr. Farrer said it gave him one of the worst nightmares he ever remembered and what it must have meant to the children doesn’t bear thinking of.
“Of course this was too much, and he spoke very sharply indeed to Mr. Karswell, and said it couldn’t go on. All he said was: ‘Oh, you think it’s time to bring our little show to an end and send them home to their beds? Very well!’ And then, if you please, he switched on another slide, which showed a great mass of snakes, centipedes, and disgusting creatures with wings, and somehow or other he made it seem as if they were climbing out of the picture and getting in amongst the audience. And this was accompanied by a sort of dry rustling noise which sent the children nearly mad, and of course they stampeded. A good many of them were rather hurt in getting out of the room and I don’t suppose one of them closed an eye that night.
“There was the most dreadful trouble in the village afterward. Of course the mothers threw a good part of the blame on poor Mr. Farrer, and, if they could have got past the gates, I believe the fathers would have broken every window in the Abbey.
“Well, now, that’s Mr. Karswell—that’s the Abbot of Lufford, my dear, and you can imagine how we covet his society.”
“Yes, I think he has all the possibilities of a distinguished criminal, has Karswell,” said the host. “I should be sorry for anyone who got into his bad books.”
“Is he the man, or am I mixing him up with someone else?” asked the Secretary (who for some minutes had been wearing the frown of the man who is trying to recollect something). “Is he the man who brought out a History of Witchcraft some time back—ten years or more?”
“That’s the man, do you remember the reviews of it?”
“Certainly I do. And what’s equally to the point, I knew the author of the most incisive of the lot. So did you—you must remember John Harrington; he was at John’s in our time.”
“Oh, very well indeed, though I don’t think I saw anything of him between the time I went down and the day I read the account of the inquest on him.”
“Inquest?” said one of the ladies. “What has happened to him?”
“Why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. But the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there. It was a mysterious business, I must say.
“Here was this man—not an athletic fellow, was he? And with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticed—walking home along a country lane late in the evening—no tramps about—and he suddenly begins to run like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a tree—quite a difficult tree—growing in the hedgerow. A dead branch gives way, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he’s found next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that cou
ld be imagined.
“It was pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries. But there was nothing to be made of that.
“That was in ’89, and I believe his brother Henry (whom I remember well at Cambridge, but you probably don’t) has been trying to get on the track of an explanation ever since. He, of course, insists there was malice in it, but I don’t know. It’s difficult to see how it could have come in.”
After a time the talk reverted to the History of Witchcraft. “Did you ever look into it?” asked the host.
“Yes, I did,” said the Secretary. “I went so far as to read it.”
“Was it as bad as it was made out to be?”
“Oh, in point of style and form, quite hopeless. It deserved all the pulverizing it got. But, besides that, it was an evil book. The man believed every word of what he was saying, and I’m very much mistaken if he hadn’t tried the greater part of his receipts.”
“Well, I only remember Harrington’s review of it, and I must say if I’d been the author it would have quenched my literary ambition for good. I should never have held up my head again.”
“It hasn’t had that effect in the present case. But come, it’s half-past three. I must be off.”
On the way home the Secretary’s wife said, “I do hope that horrible man won’t find out that Mr. Dunning had anything to do with the rejection of his paper.”
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” said the Secretary. “Dunning won’t mention it himself, for these matters are confidential, and none of us will for the same reason.
“Karswell won’t know his name, for Dunning hasn’t published anything on the same subject yet. The only danger is that Karswell might find out, if he was to ask the British Museum people who was in the habit of consulting alchemical manuscripts. I can’t very well tell them not to mention Dunning, can I? It would set them talking at once.
“Let’s hope it won’t occur to him.”
However, Mr. Karswell was an astute man.
This much is in the way of prologue.
On an evening rather later in the same week, Mr. Edward Dunning was returning from the British Museum, where he had been engaged in research, to the comfortable house in a suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who had been long with him.
There is nothing to be added by way of description of him to what we have heard already. Let us follow him as he takes his sober course homewards.
A train took him to within a mile or two of his house, and an electric tram a stage farther. The line ended at a point some three hundred yards from his front door.
He had had enough of reading when he got into the car, and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of glass that faced him as he sat. As was not unnatural, the advertisements in this particular line of cars were objects of his frequent contemplation, and, with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing dialogue between Mr. Lamplough and an eminent K.C. on the subject of Pyretic Saline, none of them afforded much scope to his imagination.
I am wrong: there was one at the corner of the car farthest from him which did not seem familiar. It was in blue letters on a yellow ground, and all that he could read of it was a name—John Harrington—and something like a date.
It could be of no interest to him to know more, but for all that, as the car emptied, he was just curious enough to move along the seat until he could read it well. He felt to a slight extent repaid for his trouble. The advertisement was not of the usual type. It ran thus:
In memory of John Harrington, F.S.A., of The Laurels
Ashbrooke. Died Sept. 18th, 1889. Three months were allowed.
The car stopped. Mr. Dunning, still contemplating the blue letters on the yellow ground, had to be stimulated to rise by a word from the conductor.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I was looking at that advertisement—it’s a very odd one, isn’t it?”
The conductor read it slowly. “Well, my word,” he said, “I never see that one before. Well, that is a cure, ain’t it? Someone bin up to their jokes ’ere, I should think.”
He got out a duster and applied it, not without saliva, to the pane and then to the outside. “No,” he said, returning, “that ain’t no transfer. Seems to me as if it was reg’lar in the glass, what I mean in the substance, as you may say. Don’t you think so, sir?”
Mr. Dunning examined it and rubbed it with his glove, and agreed. “Who looks after these advertisements, and gives leave for them to be put up? I wish you would inquire. I will just take a note of the words.”
At this moment there came a call from the driver: “Look alive, George, time’s up.”
“All right, all right; there’s somethink else what’s up at this end. You come look at this ’ere glass.”
“What’s gorn with the glass?” said the driver, approaching. “Well, and oo’s ’Arrington? What’s it all about?”
“I was just asking who was responsible for putting the advertisements up in your cars, and saying it would be as well to make some inquiry about this one.”
“Well, sir, that’s all done at the Company’s office, that work is. It’s our Mr. Timms, I believe, looks into that. When we put up tonight I’ll leave word, and per’aps I’ll be able to tell you tomorrer if you ’appen to be coming this way.”
This was all that passed that evening. Mr. Dunning did just go to the trouble of looking up Ashbrooke, and found that it was in Warwickshire.
Next day he went to town again. The car (it was the same car) was too full in the morning to allow of his getting a word with the conductor. He could only be sure that the curious advertisement had been made away with.
The close of the day brought a further element of mystery into the transaction. He had missed the tram, or else preferred walking home, but at a rather late hour, while he was at work in his study, one of the maids came to say that two men from the tramways was very anxious to speak to him.
This was a reminder of the advertisement, which he had, he says, nearly forgotten. He had the men in—they were the conductor and driver of the car—and when the matter of refreshment had been attended to, asked what Mr. Timms had had to say about the advertisement.
“Well, sir, that’s what we took the liberty to step round about,” said the conductor. “Mr. Timms ’e give William ’ere the rough side of his tongue about that. ’Cordin’ to ’im there warn’t no advertisement of that description sent in, nor ordered, nor paid for, nor put up, nor nothink, let alone not bein’ there, and we was playing the fool takin’ up his time.
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘if that’s the case, all I ask of you, Mr. Timms,’ I says, ‘is to take and look at it for yourself,’ I says. ‘Of course if it ain’t there,’ I says, ‘you may take and call me what you like.’ ‘Right,’ he says, ‘I will,’ and we went straight off.
“Now, I leave it to you, sir, if that ad, as we term ’em, with ’Aarrington on it warn’t as plain as ever you see anythink—blue letters on yeller glass, and as I says at the time, and you borne me out, reg’lar in the glass, because, if you remember, you recollect of me swabbing it with my duster.”
“To be sure I do, quite clearly—well?”
“You may say well, I don’t think. Mr. Timms he gets in that car with a light—no, he telled William to ’old the light outside. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘where’s your precious ad what we’ve ’eard so much about?’
“‘’Ere it is,’ I says, ‘Mr. Timms’ and I laid my ’and on it.” The conductor paused.
“Well,” said Dunning, “it was gone, I suppose. Broken?”
“Broke!—Not it. There warn’t, if you’ll believe me, no more trace of them letters—blue letters they was—on that piece o’ glass, than—well, it’s no good me talkin’. I never see such a thing. I leave it to William here if—but there, as I says, where’s the benefit in me going on about
it?”
“And what did Mr. Timms say?”
“Why ’e did what I give ’im leave to—called us pretty much anythink he liked, and I don’t know as I blame him so much neither.
“But what we thought, William and me did, was as we seen you take down a bit of a note about that—well, that letterin’—”
“I certainly did that, and I have it now. Did you wish me to speak to Mr. Timms myself, and show it to him? Was that what you came in about?”
“There, didn’t I say as much?” said William. “Deal with a gent if you can get on the track of one, that’s my word. Now perhaps, George, you’ll allow as I ain’t took you very far wrong tonight.”
“Very well, William, very well. No need for you to go on as if you’d ’ad to frog’s-march me ’ere. I come quiet, didn’t I? All the same for that, we ’adn’t ought to take up your time this way, sir. But if it so ’appened you could find time to step round to the Company’s orfice in the morning and tell Mr. Timms what you seen for yourself, we should lay under a very ’igh obligation to you for the trouble.
“You see it ain’t bein’ called—well, one thing and another, as we mind, but if they got it into their ’ead at the orfice as we seen things as warn’t there, why, one thing leads to another, and where we should be a twelvemunce ’ence—well, you can understand what I mean.”
Amid further elucidations of the proposition, George, conducted by William, left the room.
The incredulity of Mr. Timms (who had a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Dunning) was greatly modified on the following day by what the latter could tell and show him, and any bad mark that might have been attached to the names of William and George was not suffered to remain on the Company’s books. But explanation there was none.
Mr. Dunning’s interest in the matter was kept alive by an incident of the following afternoon. He was walking from his club to the train, and he noticed some way ahead a man with a handful of leaflets such as are distributed to passers-by by agents of enterprising firms.