Coming downstairs I heard through the open kitchen door some scraps of conversation—or rather of a monologue delivered by my housekeeper—to the effect that no one ought to be about the droves after dark as much as I was, and that it was a providence that things were no worse. Her own mother’s uncle had—it appeared—been down just such another drove on just such another night, forty-two years ago come next Christmas Eve. ‘They brought ’im ’ome on a barrow with both is eyes drawed down, and every drop of blood in ’is body turned. But ’e never would speak to what ’e see, and wild cats couldn’t ha’ scratched it out of him.’
An inaudible remark from one of the maids was met with a long sniff, and the statement: ‘Girls seem to think they know everything nowadays.’ I spent the next day in bed, as besides the shock which I had received I had caught a bad cold. When I got up on the second I was not surprised to hear that Mrs Vries had been found dead on the previous afternoon. I had hardly finished breakfast when I was told that the policeman, whose name was Winter, would be glad to see me.
It appeared that on New Year’s morning a half-witted boy of seventeen, who lived at one of the other cottages down the drove, had come to him and said that Mrs Vries was dead, and that he must come and enter her house. He declined to explain how he had come by the information: so at first Mr Winter contented himself with pointing out that it was the first of January not of April. But the boy was so insistent that finally he went. When repeated knockings at Mrs Vries cottage produced no result he had felt justified in forcing the back door. She was sitting in a large wooden armchair quite dead. She was leaning forward a little and her hands were clasping the arms so tightly that it proved to be a matter of some difficulty to unloose her fingers. In front of her was another chair, so close that if anyone had been sitting in it his knees must have touched those of the dead woman. The seat cushions were flattened down as if it had been occupied recently by a solid personage. The tea things had not been cleared away, but the kitchen was perfectly clean and tidy. There was no suspicion of foul play, as all the doors and windows were securely fastened on the inside. Winter added that her face made him feel ‘quite sickish like’, and that the house smelt very bad for all that it was so clean.
A post-mortem examination of the body showed that her heart was in a very bad state, and enabled the coroner’s jury to return a verdict of ‘Death from Natural Causes’. But the doctor told me privately that she must have had a shock of some kind. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘if anyone ever died of fright, she did. But goodness knows what can have frightened her in her own kitchen unless it was her own conscience. But that is more in your line than mine.’
He added that he had found the examination of the body peculiarly trying: though he could not, or would not, say why.
As I was the last person who had seen her alive, I attended the inquest, but gave only formal evidence of an unimportant character. I did not mention that the second armchair had stood in a corner of the room during my visit, and that I had not occupied it.
The boy was of course called, and asked how he knew she was dead. But nothing satisfactory could be got from him. He said that there was right houses and there was wrong houses—not to say persons—and that ‘they’ had been after her for a long time. When asked whom he meant by ‘they’ he declined to explain, merely adding as a general statement that he could see further into a mile-stone than what some people could, for all they thought themselves so clever. His own family deposed that he had been absolutely silent, contrary to his usual custom, from tea-time on New Year’s Eve to breakfast-time next day. Then he had suddenly announced that Mrs Vries was dead; and ran out of the house before they could say anything to him. Accordingly he was dismissed, with a warning to the effect that persons who were disrespectful to Constituted Authorities always came to a bad end.
It naturally fell to me to conduct the funeral, as I could have given no reason for refusing her Christian burial. The coffin was not particularly weighty, but as it was being lowered into the grave the ropes supporting it parted, and it fell several feet with a thud. The shock dislodged a quantity of soil from the sides of the cavity, so that the coffin was completely covered before I had had time to say ‘Earth to earth: Ashes to ashes: Dust to dust.’
Afterwards the sexton spoke to me apologetically about the occurrence. ‘I’m fair put about, Sir, about them ropes,’ he said. ‘Nothing o’ that sort ever ’appened afore in my time. They was pretty nigh new too, and I thought they’d a done us for years. But just look ’ere, Sir.’ Here he showed two extraordinarily ravelled ends. ‘I never see a rope part like that afore. Almost looks as if it ’ad been scratted through by a big cat or somethink.’
That night I was taken ill. When I was better my doctor said that rest and change of scene were imperative. I knew that I could never go down a drove alone by night again, so tendered my resignation to my Bishop. I hope that I have still a few years of usefulness before me: but I know that I can never be as if I had not seen what I have seen. Whether I met with my adventure through any fault of my own I cannot tell. But of one thing I am sure. There are powers of darkness which walk abroad in waste places: and that man is happy who has never had to face them.
If anyone who reads this should ever have a similar experience and should feel tempted to try and investigate it further, I commend to him the counsel of Jesus-ben-Sira.
‘My son, seek not things that are too hard for thee: and search not out things that are above thy strength.’
NEW CORNER
L. T. C. Rolt
All but two of Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt’s ghostly tales were published in Sleep No More (1948), a collection that reflected his fascination with industrial archaeology in general and transport history in particular. Between 1940 and his death in 1974 he wrote over forty books on railways, inland waterways, and a multitude of other topics. One of the best-known, Narrow Boat (1944), was inspired by the two years he spent living on a canal boat in the Midlands during the Second World War. Rolt was supremely successful at combining Jamesian horrors with determinedly industrial settings. In Sleep No More there are stories of haunted mines, canals, railway tunnels, iron foundries and even vintage racing cars . . .
The Blighs were late as usual, and practice day was nearly over when their familiar old Vauxhall with its loaded trailer rumbled into the paddock.
It was the first meeting of the 1938 season at the famous Highbury Hill, and promised to be the best of a long series, for the enthusiastic organizers, the Mercia Motor Club, had been preparing for the event as never before. Not only had they managed to secure an international date for the first time, but they had improved the hill out of all recognition, widening, re-surfacing and constructing one entirely new section of road. These efforts had been justly rewarded by what was probably the finest entry list that a speed hill climb in this country had ever produced.
Germany had sent over one of her Grand Prix Rheinwagens—a 3-litre, 16-cylinder, rear-engined job—to be handled by no less a person than Von Eberstraum himself. France had entered her most successful driver, Camille, with Monsieur Rene Lefevre’s latest masterpiece, a double-cam straight-eight of conventional design—somewhat untried, but a joy to the eye, like all Rene’s cars. Most noteworthy of all, Italy was to be represented by her veteran ‘Maestro’, Emilio Volanti, driving a marque which had not been associated with his name for some time, a 3-litre Maturati, the first Italian car seriously to challenge German speed supremacy.