Part 21

There, in mid-air, between floor and ceiling, surrounded or made visible by a trembling, nebulous light, that was weird beyond the power of any words to describe, was the head and bust of a woman. The face was paralysed into an unutterably awful expression of stony horror; the long black hair was tangled and dishevelled, and the eyes appeared to be bulging from the head. But this was not all. Two ghostly hands were visible. The fingers of one were twined savagely in the black hair, and the other grasped a long-bladed knife, and with it hacked, and gashed, and tore, and stabbed at the bare white throat of the woman, and the blood gushed forth from the jagged wounds, reddening the spectre hand and flowing in one continuous stream to the oak floor, where I heard it drip, drip, drip until my brain seemed as if it would burst, and I felt as if I was going raving mad. Then I saw with my strained eyes the unmistakable sign of death pass over the woman’s face; and next, the devilish hands flung the mangled remnants away, and I _heard_ a low chuckle of satisfaction--heard, I say, and swear it, as plainly as I have ever heard anything in this world. The light had faded; the vision of crime and death had gone, and yet the spell held me. Although the night was cold, I believe I was bathed in perspiration. I think I tried to cry out--nay, I am sure I did--but no sound came from my burning, parched lips; my tongue refused utterance; it clove to the roof of my mouth. Could I have moved so much as a joint of my little finger, I could have broken the spell; at least, such was the idea that occupied my half-stunned brain. It was a nightmare of waking horror, and I shudder now, and shrink within myself as I recall it all. But the revelation--for revelation it was--had not yet reached its final stage. Out of the darkness was once more evolved a faint, phosphorescent glow, and in the midst of it appeared the dead body of a beautiful girl with the throat all gashed and bleeding, the red blood flowing in a crimson flood over her night-robe, which only partially concealed her young limbs; and the cruel, spectral hands, dyed with her blood, appeared again, and grasped her, and lifted her, and bore her along. Then that vision faded, and a third appeared. This time I seemed to be looking into a gloomy, damp, arched cave or cellar, and the horror that froze me was intensified as I saw the hands busy preparing a hole in the wall at one end of the cave; and presently they lifted two bodies--the body of the woman, and the body of the young girl--all gory and besmirched; and the hands crushed them into the hole in the wall, and then proceeded to brick them up.

All these things I saw as I have described them, and this I solemnly swear to be the truth as I hope for mercy at the Supreme Judgment.

It was a vision of crime; a vision of merciless, pitiless, damnable murder. How long it all lasted I don’t know. Science has told us that dreams which seem to embrace a long series of years, last but seconds; and in the few moments of consciousness that remain to the drowning man his life’s scroll is unrolled before his eyes. This vision of mine, therefore, may only have lasted seconds, but it seemed to me hours, years, nay, an eternity. With that final stage in the ghostly drama of blood and death, the spell was broken, and flinging my arms wildly about, I know that I uttered a great cry as I sprang up in bed.

‘Have I been in the throes of a ghastly nightmare?’ I asked myself.

Every detail of the horrific vision I recalled, and yet somehow it seemed to me that I had been the victim of a hideous nightmare. I felt ill; strangely ill. I was wet and clammy with perspiration, and nervous to a degree that I had never before experienced in my existence. Nevertheless, I noted everything distinctly. On the hearthstone there was still a mass of glowing red embers. I heard the distant booming of the sea, and round the house the wind moaned with a peculiar, eerie, creepy sound.

Suddenly I sprang from the bed, impelled thereto by an impulse I was bound to obey, and by the same impulse I was drawn towards the door. I laid my hand on the handle. I turned it, opened the door, and gazed into the long dark corridor. A sigh fell upon my ears. An unmistakable human sigh, in which was expressed an intensity of suffering and sorrow that thrilled me to the heart. I shrank back, and was about to close the door, when out of the darkness was evolved the glowing figure of a woman clad in blood-stained garments and with dishevelled hair. She turned her white corpse-like face towards me, and her eyes pleaded with a pleading that was irresistible, while she pointed the index finger of her left hand downwards, and then beckoned me. Then I followed whither she led. I could no more resist than the unrestrained needle can resist the attracting magnet. Clad only in my night apparel, and with bare feet and legs, I followed the spectre along the corridor, down the broad oak stairs, traversing another passage to the rear of the building until I found myself standing before a heavy barred door. At that moment the spectre vanished, and I retraced my steps like one who walked in a dream. I got back to my bedroom, but how I don’t quite know; nor have I any recollection of getting into bed. Hours afterwards I awoke. It was broad daylight. The horror of the night came back to me with overwhelming force, and made me faint and ill. I managed, however, to struggle through with my toilet, and hurried from that haunted room. It was a beautifully fine morning. The sun was shining brightly, and the birds carolled blithely in every tree and bush. I strolled out on to the lawn, and paced up and down. I was strangely agitated, and asked myself over and over again if what I had seen or dreamed about had any significance.

Presently my host came out. He visibly started as he saw me.

‘Hullo, old chap. What’s the matter with you?’ he exclaimed. ‘You look jolly queer; as though you had been having a bad night of it.’

‘I have had a bad night.’

His manner became more serious and grave.

‘What--seen anything?’

‘Yes.’

‘The deuce! You don’t mean it, really!’

‘Indeed I do. I have gone through a night of horror such as I could not live through again. But let us have breakfast first, and then I will try and make you understand what I have suffered, and you shall judge for yourself whether any significance is to be attached to my dream, or whatever you like to call it.’

We walked, without speaking, into the breakfast room, where my charming hostess greeted me cordially; but she, like her husband, noticed my changed appearance, and expressed alarm and anxiety. I reassured her by saying I had had a rather restless night, and didn’t feel particularly well, but that it was a mere passing ailment. I was unable to partake of much breakfast, and both my good friend and his wife again showed some anxiety, and pressed me to state the cause of my distress. As I could not see any good cause that was to be gained by concealment, and even at the risk of being laughed at by my host, I recounted the experience I had gone through during the night of terror.

So far from my host showing any disposition to ridicule me, as I quite expected he would have done, he became unusually thoughtful, and presently said:

‘Either this is a wild phantasy of your own brain, or there is something in it. The door that the ghost of the woman led you to is situated on the top of a flight of stone steps, leading to a vault below the building, which I have never used, and have never even had the curiosity to enter, though I did once go to the bottom of the steps; but the place was so exceedingly suggestive of a tomb that I mentally exclaimed, “I’ve no use for this dungeon,” and so I shut it up, bolted and barred the door, and have never opened it since.’

I answered that the time had come when he must once more descend into that cellar or vault, whatever it was. He asked me if I would accompany him, and, of course, I said I would. So he summoned his head gardener, and after much searching about, the key of the door was found; but even then the door was only opened with difficulty, as lock and key alike were foul with rust.

As we descended the slimy, slippery stone steps, each of us carrying a candle, a rank, mouldy smell greeted us, and a cold noisome atmosphere pervaded the place. The steps led into a huge vault, that apparently extended under the greater part of the building. The roof was arched, and was supported by brick pillars. The floor was the natural earth, and was soft and oozy. The miasma was almost overpowering, notwithstanding that there were ventilating slits in the wall in various places.

We proceeded to explore this vast cellar, and found that there was an air shaft which apparently communicated with the roof of the house; but it was choked with rubbish, old boxes, and the like. The gardener cleared this away, and then, looking up, we could see the blue sky overhead.

Continuing our exploration, we noted that in a recess formed by the angle of the walls was a quantity of bricks and mortar. Under other circumstances this would not, perhaps, have aroused our curiosity or suspicions. But in this instance it did; and we examined the wall thereabouts with painful interest, until the conviction was forced upon us that a space of over a yard in width, and extending from floor to roof, had recently been filled in. I was drawn towards the new brickwork by some subtle magic, some weird fascination. I examined it with an eager, critical, curious interest, and the thoughts that passed through my brain were reflected in the faces of my companions. We looked at each other, and each knew by some unexplainable instinct what was passing in his fellow’s mind.

‘It seems to me we are face to face with some mystery,’ remarked Dick, solemnly. Indeed, throughout all the years I had known him I had never before seen him so serious. Usually his expression was that of good-humoured cynicism, but now he might have been a judge about to pronounce the doom of death on a red-handed sinner.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘there is a mystery, unless I have been tricked by my own fancy.’

‘Umph! it is strange,’ muttered Dick to himself.

‘Well, sir,’ chimed in the gardener, ‘you know there have been some precious queer stories going about for a long time. And before you come and took the place plenty of folks round about used to say they’d seen some uncanny sights. I never had no faith in them stories myself; but, after all, maybe there’s truth in ’em.’

Dick picked up half a brick and began to tap the wall with it where the new work was, and the taps gave forth a hollow sound, quite different from the sound produced when the other parts of the wall were struck.

‘I say, old chap,’ exclaimed my host, with a sorry attempt at a smile, ‘upon my word, I begin to experience a sort of uncanny kind of feeling. I’ll be hanged if I am not getting as superstitious as you are.’

‘You may call me superstitious if you like, but either I have seen what I have seen, or my senses have played the fool with me. Anyway, let us put it to the test.’

‘How?’

‘By breaking away some of that new brickwork.’

Dick laughed a laugh that wasn’t a laugh, as he asked:

‘What do you expect to find?’ I hesitated what to say, and he added the answer himself--‘Mouldering bones, if your ghostly visitor hasn’t deceived you.’

‘Mouldering bones!’ I echoed involuntarily.

‘Gardener, have you got a crowbar amongst your tools?’ Dick asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Go up and get it.’

The man obeyed the command.

‘This is a strange sort of business altogether,’ Dick continued, after glancing round the vast and gloomy cellar. ‘But, upon my word, to tell you the truth, I’m half ashamed of myself for yielding to anything like superstition. It strikes me that you’ll find you are the victim of a trick of the imagination, and that these bogey fancies of yours have placed us in rather a ridiculous position.’

In answer to this I could not possibly resist reminding Dick that even scientists admitted that there were certain phenomena--they called them ‘natural phenomena’--that could not be accounted for by ordinary laws.

Dick shrugged his shoulders and remarked with assumed indifference:

‘Perhaps--perhaps it is so.’ He proceeded to fill his pipe with tobacco, and having lit it he smoked with a nervous energy quite unusual with him.

The gardener was only away about ten minutes, but it seemed infinitely longer. He brought both a pickaxe and a crowbar with him, and in obedience to his master’s orders he commenced to hack at the wall. A brick was soon dislodged. Then the crowbar was inserted in the hole, and a mass prized out. From the opening came forth a sickening odour, so that we all drew back instinctively, and I am sure we all shuddered, and I saw the pipe fall from Dick’s lips; but he snatched it up quickly and puffed at it vigorously until a cloud of smoke hung in the fœtid and stagnant air. Then, picking up a candle from the ground, where it had been placed, he approached the hole, holding the candle in such a position that its rays were thrown into the opening. In a few moments he started back with an exclamation:

‘My God! the ghost hasn’t lied,’ he said, and I noticed that his face paled. I peered into the hole and so did the gardener, and we both drew back with a start, for sure enough in that recess were decaying human remains.

‘This awful business must be investigated,’ said Dick. ‘Come, let us go.’

We needed no second bidding. We were only too glad to quit that place of horror, and get into the fresh air and bright sunlight. We verily felt that we had come up out of a tomb, and we knew that once more the adage, ‘Murder will out,’ had proved true.

Half an hour later Dick and I were driving to the nearest town to lay information of the awful discovery we had made, and the subsequent search carried out by the police brought two skeletons to light. Critical medical examination left not the shadow of a doubt that they were the remains of a woman and a girl, and each had been brutally murdered. Of course it became necessary to hold an inquest, and the police set to work to collect evidence as to the identity of the bodies hidden in the recess in the wall.

Naturally all the stories which had been current for so many years throughout the country were revived, and the gossips were busy in retailing all they had heard, with many additions of their own, of course. But the chief topic was that of the strange disappearance of the wife and daughter of the once owner of the castle, Greeta Jones. This story had been touched upon the previous night, during the after-dinner chat in my host’s smoking room. Morgan, as was remembered, had gambled his fortune away, and married a lady much older than himself, who bore him a daughter who was subject to epileptic fits. When this girl was about twelve she and her mother disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, according to the husband’s account, they had gone to London.

Then he left, and people troubled themselves no more about him and his belongings.

A quarter of a century had passed since that period, and Bleak Hill Castle had gone through many vicissitudes until it fell into the hands of my friend Dick Dirckman. The more the history of Greeta Jones was gone into the more it was made clear that the remains which had been bricked up in the cellar were those of his wife and daughter. That the unfortunate girl and woman had been brutally and barbarously murdered there wasn’t a doubt. The question was, who murdered them? After leaving Wales Greeta Jones--as was brought to light--led a wild life in London. One night, while in a state of intoxication, he was knocked down by a cab, and so seriously injured that he died while being carried to the hospital; and with him his secret, for could there be any reasonable doubt that, even if he was not the actual murderer, he had connived at the crime. But there was reason to believe that he killed his wife and child with his own hand, and that with the aid of a navvy, whose services he bought, he bricked the bodies up in the cellar. It was remembered that a navvy named Howell Williams had been in the habit of going to the castle frequently, and that suddenly he became possessed of what was, for him, a considerable sum of money. For several weeks he drank hard; then, being a single man, he packed up his few belongings and gave out that he was going to California, and all efforts to trace him failed.

So much for this ghastly crime. As to the circumstances that led to its discovery, it was curious that I should have been selected as the medium for bringing it to light. Why it should have been so I cannot and do not pretend to explain. I have recorded facts as they occurred; I leave others to solve the mystery.

It was not a matter for surprise that Mrs. Dirckman should have been deeply affected by the terrible discovery, and she declared to her husband that if she were to remain at the castle she would either go mad or die. And so poor Dick, who was devoted to his charming little wife, got out as soon as he could, and once more Bleak Hill Castle fell into neglect and ultimate ruin, until at last it was razed to the ground and modern buildings reared on its site. As for myself, that night of horror I endured under Dick’s roof affected me to such an extent that my hair became prematurely grey, and even now, when I think of the agony I endured, I shudder with an indefinable sense of fear.

XII

THE ASTROLOGER

The Black Forest is rich in story and tradition of a weird and thrilling kind, but nothing can excel in ghastly horror that which is told of the sole heir of the once illustrious family of Di Venoni. For generations this family had held tyrannical sway over the district. Their power was tremendous; their word was law; they ruled with a hand of iron, and the peasants were their slaves. They were exceedingly wealthy. Their men were said to be brave, their women beautiful. But, as seems to be the fate of all powerful families sooner or later, they began to decay. The fatuous habit of intermarrying produced the usual result, and the curse of insanity fell upon them. Many were the tragedies that this led to; and the time came at last when there was but one sole remaining male representative. This was a youth, handsome and well proportioned, but of eccentric habits, and occasionally displaying those fatal signs which were only too well known. Nevertheless, it was believed that Reginald Di Venoni might escape the curse. The best medical advice was sought, and the opinion was that the chances were strongly in his favour, and he would escape.

Reginald was brought up under the care of his mother, who had been left a widow for some years. She was a haughty, austere, proud, and disdainful lady, who guarded her son with peculiar jealousy; for on him, as she knew, depended the existence of her house. If he failed, then indeed the power of the Di Venonis would be gone, and the family would crumble to decay.

The lady and her son lived in a large castle, which for generations had been the Di Venonis’ stronghold, and had withstood and repelled many a determined attack. It was a gloomy pile, distinguished for its strength rather than its beauty, although internally much had been done for the comfort of the occupants. The castle was situated in Suabia, just on the borders of the forest. It stood on elevated ground, and anyone standing on the turrets commanded an immense panorama of great beauty.

At some little distance rose the ruins of the once powerful castle of Rudstein. This had originally been the home of the Di Venonis; but an evil genius seemed to enter into it, and for two or three generations such ill-luck attended the family that they decided to desert their ancestral home. It was unroofed, and left to wind and weather and the evil things that haunt the great forest. One tower was left standing only, as a sort of landmark. In the meantime the new castle had risen, and here the family installed themselves. Here many of them paid the debt of nature, and here the last male representative was born. Here in lonely grandeur the widowed mother lived, surrounded by a retinue of servants and retainers, and having for companion her one sister--a much younger woman, of great beauty and lively disposition. She was known as the Lady Hilda, and it was said that she and her sister were by no means always in accord. She protested against the gloomy surroundings in which the scion of the noble house was being brought up, and she urged Madame Di Venoni to keep more company, and relieve the castle, if possible, of the air of brooding melancholy which seemed to envelope it. But madame had her own notions. She wanted to mould her son after her own fashion. She was afraid of exposing him to evil influences. She would not depart from the traditions of her race.