Part 3

In the evening old Fritaker doped me, and Margaret went to bed in another room. Eventually I dozed off, and woke again, and then, as I turned sleepily, someone slipped into my arms. For a moment I had the ecstasy of feeling Margaret’s heart beating against mine. And then I doubted, shook, and turned on the reading lamp beside the bed, and there was Ethel. For a moment she was warm and whole, and then she glazed, swelled and burst asunder, and became a seething bladder of corruption.

That, my dear Weldon, was five hours ago. It is now 6.30. This dirty little tale is ready for its envelope addressed to you. One bullet stands between me and release--for I can’t fight _that_--and, I hope, between my hands and Ethel’s throat. I’m not mad, I’m not mad, I swear it!

OR PERSONS UNKNOWN

OR PERSONS UNKNOWN

Mr. James Ponders rubbed his nose, and then read again his brother’s letter:--

“Dear Jim,

“I’ve just got back from Madeira, and am so sorry to hear about poor old Reynolds. How you must miss him! Have you got anyone else yet? If not, I have someone I can recommend with perfect confidence. He is a man of the name of Millin, who was my valet for a time many years ago; I don’t suppose you remember him. He left me to take up ‘butling,’ and was with Harry Roper till his death. He then went to Sir Roger Wallington, a very curious cove. You may remember that there was a mighty mystery about his passing. Well, Millin was suspected of having murdered him, not that there was any motive brought forward, but simply because he was sleeping in a room near by, and there was no other man in the house. Superficially it looked fishy. However, there was no real evidence against him, and he was never arrested. Now when I read the case I _knew_ quite positively that Millin was innocent. He is one of the best fellows in the world, kind, thoughtful, a gentleman if ever there was one, besides being as efficient and hard-working as they’re made. So I asked him to come to see me. When he came, looking weary and worn, he suddenly blurted out the very curious story which I hope you’ll permit him to tell to you.

“Now you know what an arrant old sceptic I am, nevertheless I believed every word of this very curious story, though it tends to drive a hole clean through all my scandalous and antediluvian materialism.

“Now there are many more things in _your_ heaven and earth than in mine, so if I can believe it, you should have no difficulty in doing likewise. If you can, that act of faith will give you the finest servant in Europe, and a charming companion. His past has made it impossible for him to get a decent job, so I have been looking after him for the last two years. This seems a heaven-sent opportunity to do you and him a very good turn. At any rate see him. He is 46 and a bachelor. I hope you’re flourishing; I should like to pay you a visit in June some time, if you’d like to have me. “LEONARD. “P.S.--His address is 38, Mustard Row, Clapham.”

Certainly Mr. Ponders missed Reynolds, his devoted companion for 25 years. To middle-aged bachelors with large Tudor houses, dwarfed social senses and a great appreciation of personal comfort, to perhaps a little bit selfish gentry of this sort, their butlers are, next to themselves, the most important people in the world. Mrs. Dupine did her best, Mr. Ponders conceded, but he had noted several little unpleasant omissions during the last three weeks. He had interviewed several highly recommended and rotund individuals since Reynolds’ death, but none of them had really appealed to him.

But was there anything less appealing than to have always near one somebody who had been seriously suspected of having cut his master’s throat! for that was how Sir Roger had come to his end, as he remembered. Might not such an one, encouraged by the success of his first--if it were his first--butchery, proceed with careful and cunning planning to commit another!

Had these questions been raised by anyone but his brother Leonard, Mr. Ponders would have scorned to put himself to the trouble of answering them. But his brother Leonard was without exception the finest judge of character he knew. He was _inspired_, his instinct flawless. He _could_ not disregard his opinion in this case. Mr. Ponders was rather a timid, and perhaps a little old-fashioned and prejudiced person, but he prided himself on his courage and open-mindedness. Would he have a claim to either if he refused to see this Mr. Millin? He would not. Besides, it sounded as though his story might be of interest to an earnest student of psychic phenomena. And he _did_ want a butler. So he straightway sat down at his bureau in that glorious study, the pride of that famous show-place, Ponders Manor, in the County of Bucks, the ancestral seat of the Ponders line, and wrote a note to Mr. Millin in his flowing yet staccato script, asking him, were it convenient to him, to come down the following Thursday. He suggested the 11.30 train from Marylebone. A car would meet him at Great Missenden. All this would be, of course, at his, Mr. Ponders’ expense.

He also wrote to his brother Leonard. Then he looked at his watch and found it was 4.30. Chess time for a man of habit, so out came the ivory pieces, the chequered board, and the book of the New York Tourney, and he began studiously analysing that mighty tilt, “Capablanca _v._ Alechin, Round I.”

On the next evening he received a note from Mr. Millin respectfully announcing his intention of catching the 11.30 next Thursday.

Mr. Ponders looked forward to this interview with controlled trepidation. Fancy meeting someone--all alone in his study--who but for the lack of a little evidence might have been hanged--might have been “jerked,” they called it, didn’t they?

Certainly, but for Leonard, he would not have put himself in such a position.

However, when 12.40 saw Mr. Millin entering the study his trepidation wavered and died. He saw an erect and rather lean figure appropriately garbed in black with a gold watch-chain. But it was Mr. Millin’s face that almost persuaded Mr. Ponders forthwith to engage him without further ado. His features were nondescript, but there was something in his expression, so candid, benign, if a little dejected, the expression of one who had known terror and danger, which encountering, he had conquered--at a cost, that went straight to Mr. Ponders’ really kind little heart.

He opened the conversation with a conventional gambit, describing the circumstances--already well-known to Mr. Millin--by which the latter found himself there.

Mr. Millin paid murmured thanks to the kindness of all concerned.

“And now, Mr. Millin,” said Mr. Ponders, “I will be frank with you. My brother has told me about your connection with Sir Roger Wallington, the difficult position in which you were placed, and your explanation. The latter, I understand, takes the form of a rather remarkable story which my brother believed implicitly. In some way, I take it, it explains the mystery of Sir Roger’s death?”

“In some way, I suppose it does, sir,” replied Mr. Millin, “but it is so unlikely a tale that I wouldn’t have had the courage to tell it to anyone but Sir Leonard. But he’s always been so good to me that I dared to tell it to him. You can imagine my relief, sir, when he believed it. I quite understand that you, sir, wouldn’t dream of taking me into your service unless you believed it too, and thought it freed me from all suspicion concerning Sir Roger’s death.”

“That is so,” said Mr. Ponders. “Let me hear it.”

“Well, sir, after Mr. Roper’s death I was out of a position, and seeing Sir Roger’s advertisement in the _Morning Post_ I answered it, and received a request from Sir Roger to go down to see him.

“Sir Roger was a remarkable-looking gentleman, sir--very tall and strong, with very hard blue eyes, and a contemptuous, nervous, fighting look about him; yet somehow I took a fancy to him.

“‘Well, Millin,’ he said, ‘so you think you’d like to be my butler. Five strong men have thought that in the last eighteen months, and then--they have decided otherwise. The fellow who’s here now, for example, Mr. Peters, well--_he’s_ decided otherwise. He spent some time in America, Millin. The United States have much to be said for them, but they’re not good for British butlers. Have you been abroad?’

“‘Only for one day, sir,’ I said, ‘from Brighton to Boulogne and back.’

“‘I shan’t hold that up against you. I rather like the look of you--you look _soothing_. I want someone soothing. Would you like to try it?’

“I said I would, sir (for one thing, the wages Sir Roger offered were much above the average).

“‘Very well,’ he said, ‘come next Wednesday and stay as long as you can stick it.’

“I had some dinner with the servants before leaving, and what I heard made me realise I was taking something on. Apparently Sir Roger had always been famous for his tempers; during the War he had been wounded in the head, and still had a good deal of pain, and his rages had become very hot indeed, sir.

“‘Well, old man, I wish you luck,’ said Peters, ‘take out some All-Risk insurance, and when you see his chin go kind of down and back and his mouth open, and his left hand begin to twitch, and his eyes begin to spit blood, you’ll know you were the wise guy, isn’t that so, Mary?’ (Mary was one of the housemaids, sir, with whom, I found, this Peters had been too free.)

“‘How often does he get that way?’ I asked.

“‘Ordinary times about once a month. Depends how things are. But when this poacher bird Black Jack gets busy--well, I won’t pump the breeze up you, one of these sunny days you’ll know what I haven’t said! Anyway, I’m through, thank Theodore! Last Monday he threw a four-pound vase at my head, and I only side-stepped it by a millimetre. I’m not as young as I was. I’m off to Philadelphia next Thursday morning, so I should worry! Anyway, just remember when Black Jack is working his nets you watch his Lordship’s eyes when you take in his early morning brandy and soda, and _keep on your toes_!’

“Well, sir, I didn’t like this chap’s way of carrying on, though his obvious relief at leaving his job made me think twice, but I am easy to get on with as a rule, I wanted work badly, and the pay was very tempting. Also I thought this Peters was the wrong sort of person for Sir Roger, with all his American slang and loud ways. There was another thing which helped to persuade me to accept. Elm Court is a very beautiful place, and I’m very partial to good surroundings.”

“It is!” said Mr. Ponders. “The finest medium-sized Tudor House in Great Britain, and the grounds are perfection.”

“Yes, sir. After I had been in Sir Roger’s service for a week or so, I found out, sir, that he was subject to fits of heavy drinking. He was fairly moderate most of the time, sir, but about once a week he’d drink nearly a bottle of whisky besides other things. The housekeeper, Mrs. Miles, who had been with him many years, told me the habit was growing upon him. I was glad to find, sir, he seemed to take a liking to me; in fact, he quite made a friend of me. He saw very few people; it seemed he had got the wrong side of many of the gentry in the neighbourhood through rubbing them up the wrong way; it was as if he enjoyed doing it.

“Now and again he’d have some friends down from London, but he only entertained the local people, sir, when the Judge came down for the Assizes at Lewes. Otherwise he kept to himself, spending his time riding, looking after the farms on the estate, and, in the season, shooting. Peters had been right about the poachers. Sir Roger had the finest shoot in that part of the world, and the poachers were always at it. It was partly because he was so badly liked, for I found out that a lot of the local chaps were on the poachers’ side and helped them. This Black Jack was the worst. The local people seemed to be very much afraid of him, and didn’t like to talk about him. They were superstitious about him and very careful to keep on his right side. They told some funny tales. The first time I saw him was in the village about three weeks after I arrived. He was tall and slim and very dark, a good bit of the gipsy in him, I should say, sir. His face was like a hawk’s, and he had a very piercing look, a nasty customer to get up against, he seemed to me. He had his dog, Scottie, with him, a big mongrel, a mixture of collie and lurcher he looked, who’d got the name of being the cleverest at his job in the county, a savage, cunning looking brute. Well, Black Jack came up to me with a cheeky contemptuous look on his face. ‘You’re the new bottle-washer at the Hall, aren’t you,’ he said. He had almost a gentleman’s voice, sir. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll stay any longer than the other bottle-washers. You haven’t met Scottie, have you?’ The dog bared its teeth and snarled and growled. ‘Doesn’t seem to like you, never does seem to like Hall folk, somehow; can’t think where he learnt to hate ’em. Well, tell that old ---- of yours I shall be working the East Side for the next week or so,’ and he sauntered off.

“I gave Wilkins, the head-keeper, the tip. ‘That’s like his blasted sauce,’ he said. ‘I’ll get that fine gentleman one of these days! I’ve had enough of him. It’ll mean a new job for me if I miss him this time. I sometimes think he’s got the Devil on his side. Say nothing to the master if you like a quiet life.’

“Well, Black Jack started his business as he said he would. He and his gang cleaned up the coverts on the East Side, but none of them was caught. Directly the poaching began the master began to drink. He was out every night, and his temper was something I’d never seen before, but he never actually went for me--Wilkins got it, though, sir. He and three other keepers got the sack, and a new lot came in. Wilkins didn’t seem sorry to go. He told me he’d had enough of it, and that the master’s cursing was too bad to put up with.

“It was a difficult time for me, sir. Sir Roger was drinking hard and up most of the night, chasing after Black Jack, and he’d come in at four and five in the morning, and I had to wait up for him. The servants were a great trouble. Sir Roger hated to see any of the maids about the house, and when he sacked one of the girls he found dusting his study at seven one morning all of them gave notice. However, I calmed them down and got Sir Roger to raise their wages. After a time Black Jack took his gang elsewhere, and things were a bit more peaceful for a few days.

“One day, early in February, Sir Roger drove up to town, taking Godson, the chauffeur, with him. He had said he’d be back about five, but it was a quarter past eight when they arrived--on foot. When I opened the door I knew that something had happened and that he’d had one of his rages. His face was always white and heavily lined after them, and his eyes looked swollen and red. He pushed past me without saying a word and began drinking whisky in his study. Presently he rang and said he would not dine, but that I was to bring him some sandwiches. When I got down to the servants’ hall I found Godson, sitting at the table, his head in his hands. He looked up at me, and his face was haggard.

“‘I’m through!’ he said. ‘The ----’s mad, bloody mad’--he was never one to swear as a rule, sir.

“‘What’s up?’ I asked, ‘where’s the car?’

“‘What’s up!’ he cried; ‘that ----’s up the pole! I tell you I’m through. I’ll tell you what sort of a blasted, bloody lunatic he is! When I met him at the Club I could see he’d been drinking, but he _would_ drive coming home. I’ve never seen him wilder, we ought to have been killed ten times. I was just beginning to think we’d get through when we reached that switchback in the woods near Ollen. I should think we touched 90 on the way down. As we reached the bottom I saw there was someone standing at the side of the road half-way up the hill. Suddenly he began braking hard and peering ahead. It was then I could see the chap in the road was Black Jack. Just as we were drawing up to him that dog of his bounded out into the road behind him. Then I felt the car swing. He drove her straight at Black Jack, missed him by a foot, and then swung back and caught the dog fair and square. The next thing I knew was that I was lying on my ear in a field. Both front tyres had gone, and we’d bust clean through a gate, bounced on the plough, and then turned half over in a dew-pond.’

“‘Well, His Highness was out in a flash, and I followed him back to the road. When we got there Black Jack was bending over the dog. When he saw us he picked it up and walked towards us. Sir Ruddy Roger went to meet him. Black Jack lifted his cap, and then held up the dog by the back of his neck. Its face was all bloody and dusty and smashed up.

“‘Good evening, Sir Roger,’ said Black Jack. ‘Scottie’s dead all right, you got him at last, you got him!’

“‘Get to hell from here, you poaching blackguard!’ cried the Guv’nor. ‘Certainly I’ve got one of you, and if ever you come on my land again I’ll get you, too!’

“‘I was rather fond of Scottie,’ said Black Jack, ‘and knew all his tricks. He’d got some funny tricks, too; don’t be too sure you’ve done with him!’ Then suddenly his face went hard and fierce, and there were tears in his eyes. He shoved the dog’s muzzle right into the Guv’nor’s face and gave a funny little sharp whistle which seemed to scream in one’s head, and he muttered something in some foreign language, gipsy, I guess, and I got the idea that the dog was listening as if it was alive again, and in a twinkling Jack and the dog had disappeared--into the woods I suppose, but it was quick work.

“‘The Guv’nor never said a word, but started off to walk home, and here we are, and the ruddy car can drown for all I care! I leave to-morrow. He can get some other stiff to be killed with him. I’m through. Christ, I’ve got a head!’

“‘You go to bed,’ I said, ‘I’ll get the car brought in in the morning.’

“He was as good as his word, sir; he left before lunch and I never saw him again.

“The next afternoon I had to go down to the village, and at once I noticed a change. Nobody from the Hall was ever much welcomed there, but I had always been treated with civility, and some of them were quite friendly. That day they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, and were short and abrupt in their manner. It made me feel very uncomfortable, sir.”

“What had Sir Roger done to make himself so unpopular with the local people?” asked Mr. Ponders.

“Well, sir, he was a harsh landlord, and never put himself out to please. In this way he was very unlike his father. I think that’s what they hated most about him.”

“I remember Fred Wallington,” said Mr. Ponders. “A genial, easy-going old fox-hunter. Well, go on.”

“Of course I couldn’t get anything out of them, but they were behaving so queerly that I sent one of the maids, who had a sweetheart working in the local public-house, the Bee and Clover, to see if she could pick up anything. When she got back she said that Joe had ‘been funny,’ and that she’d had to make a bit of a scene before she could get anything out of him, and that he’d only mutter that Black Jack had said something the night before. He’d come in for a drink and left almost at once. When she asked what he’d said, he wouldn’t answer, but had left her and gone home. She’d never seen him like that, she’d said. So putting two and two together, sir, I made out that Black Jack had made some sort of threat against the master which the local people believed he would carry out, and so they wanted to have as little to do with the Hall as possible. I thought the master seemed a bit uneasy at dinner that night. Sometimes he’d seem to be listening to something, and several times I noticed him giving sudden quick looks into a dark corner there was between the door and the serving table. After dinner he went out on to the lawn and walked in a stealthy sort of way over towards the clump of big cedars.

“Well, my pantry window looked out that way, and I saw the master suddenly come running back, and then I heard him slam the window of the morning-room. When I took in the whisky and soda he was looking a little queer, I thought. His face was flushed and his eyes were sort of screwed up, sir, as if he wasn’t sure if he could see something or not.

“The next morning when I went to call him I found him wide awake--which I never remembered him being before.

“‘Whose dog is that?’ he asked, as soon as I came in.

“‘What dog, sir?’ I asked.

“‘I don’t know,’ he answered shortly. ‘I was restless during the night, and got up, and I saw it on the lawn. Find out whose it is and keep it away. Tell whoever owns it I shall have it shot if I see it again.’

“‘Very good, sir,’ I said.

“I made some enquiries, but no one knew anything about it, and the new keeper told me both his dogs had been sleeping in his kitchen from eight o’clock on.

“The master was all right through the day, but as soon as dusk came on he seemed worried and not himself. We were all a bit on edge, sir, for it was then the Noise began.