Death at Swaythling Court Read online

  “I believe you’re clearing up Hubbard’s papers at the Court just now?”

  Simpson seemed quite eager to follow this lead:

  “Yes, I’ve been busy over ’em. I expect to be done with ’em to-morrow, with luck.”

  “Have you come across anything that might throw some light on his death, by any chance?”

  “Nothing whatever in the papers, so far’s I can find—and I’ve done a fair bit o’ looking, too, I can tell you. There’s more in that case than ever came out at the inquest, Colonel; and you can take my word for that, you can.”

  “Indeed?”

  Colonel Sanderstead took care to show only the most casual interest; but behind his mask he was on the alert. What had this clerk come across?

  Simpson seemed in no way loath to discuss the subject.

  “That was a rummy affair, if you ask me. Mysterious, I call it. There must ha’ been a lot o’ funny work, damn funny work. By the way, Colonel, you’re not a spiritualist, are you?”

  “Good Lord, no!” ejaculated the astonished Colonel.

  “Well, I am,” the clerk announced with the air of a martyr prepared to suffer for his faith. “Ignorant beggars laugh at us; but we know what we know. Now I believe in telepathy and materializations and controls. ’Cause why? ’Cause I’ve got dead cert proof that it’s all true. Gospel, I tell you.”

  “Indeed,” said the Colonel, dryly. He felt little interest in the clerk’s beliefs. Simpson interpreted the tone easily enough. It seemed to annoy him.

  “You don’t believe in these things, mebbe?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never taken much interest in spiritualism, so my opinion, one way or the other, isn’t of much value.”

  The clerk seemed to imagine that this tepid statement marked the Colonel as a potential convert; and he made up his mind to try his hand.

  “Would you believe in it if I was to give you absolute evidence that a disembodied spirit spoke to me? No hank about it either.”

  The Colonel fenced diplomatically with this. He had little liking for cranks; but the fellow was to a certain extent his guest; and the demands of courtesy had to be met. One can’t laugh in a man’s face after having invited him into one’s car.

  “Well, I can assure you, Colonel—and I’ll take my oath on it any time you like—that no longer than a month ago an astral body spoke to me from a place where no man could ’ave got into in ’is material body. It was ole man ’Ubbard, if you want to know.”

  The Colonel was now all attention. Simpson noticed the change, but naturally ascribed it to personal interest in Hubbard. The clerk continued in a would-be convincing tone.

  “You remember the evidence I gave at the inquest, eh? about ’Ubbard ringing me up on the ’phone the night ’e died?”

  The Colonel nodded.

  “Well, ’twasn’t ’Ubbard at all. Or if it was ’Ubbard, then ’e must ha’ been speaking from a place where ’e couldn’t possibly ’ave been in at that time o’ night. Now ’ow does that strike you?”

  “Go on. I’d like to hear the whole story.”

  Simpson supposed that he was making an impression.

  “After the inquest, I began to think over things, I did. There was something about that voice on the phone that I didn’t quite like, as it were. It was ’Ubbard’s voice all right. Nobody could mistake that lisp and ’is general way o’ speaking. It was ’Ubbard sure enough. But it wasn’t quite ’Ubbard, neither. There was something in the tone o’ the voice that somehow ’aunted me; it came back and back; and I couldn’t ’elp thinking about it. I can’t quite explain what I mean, if you understand me.”

  “Do you mean he sounded as if he had a cold in the head or something like that?”

  “No. You don’t get what I mean, Colonel. There was a sort o’ quality in the voice, if you understand me—something . . . I can’t quite describe it. What I mean to say is that it was ’Ubbard’s voice right enough and yet somehow it wasn’t, so to speak.”

  The Colonel’s face showed Simpson that he had failed to convey his meaning, whatever it might be. The clerk tried a fresh line.

  “You don’t understand what I mean? No? Well, anyway, that voice came back and back to me till I felt sure there was something behind it. A sort of command, like, to investigate into it. You know, Colonel, everything ’as a meaning if we can only guess what it is.”

  Politeness restrained the Colonel from comment.

  “I made up my mind that p’raps, somehow, there was a warning in this affair,” Simpson continued. “And so I began to look into it—careful. The more I worried my ’ead over it, the surer I got that the Powers was at work. They ’ave the strangest ways of manifesting themselves, y’know. It may be a knot in a bit of string or a tom-cat washing its ears or the way your ole lady puts your bloater on your plate in the morning; but no matter what it is, it ought to be followed up—and prompt. One never knows what it might lead to.”

  He paused, mysteriously, suggesting an unveiling of the wonders of an unseen universe.

  “Now, as it ’appens,” he went on after a moment or two, “I was able to trace that telephone call. You’d ha’ called it a marvellous coincidence; but we know the Powers work that way always, smoothing away difficulties in the path of the honest inquirer. When one’s able to trace out a thing easily, it’s because the Powers are ’elping one on and making things easy.”

  The Colonel was engaged in drawing in to the side of the road, hugging the hedge to allow Simon’s motor-bus to pass. He hated to meet Simon on the road.

  “I knew that night-call must ha’ come from the Micheldean Abbas exchange,” Simpson went on. “Now the Powers—just see ’ow easily you can trace Them at work!—the Powers ’ave arranged that a young lady friend o’ mine is one o’ the switchboard operators on that exchange, so I went to her about it. And it turned out that she ’erself ’ad put that call through to me. She remembered it, ’cause she knows my number, see? And see ’ow well the Powers ’ad fixed things up. At that time o’ night there ain’t but a few calls; and so she remembered where the call came from.”

  Simpson paused dramatically.

  “It came from Swaffham’s shop—the grocer’s, y’know.”

  The Colonel’s mind shot back in a moment to Bolam’s story of the haunted telephone. Here was corroboration from an unimpeachable source. Wild as the clerk’s tale was, it evidently had some substratum of fact.

  “Indeed?” said the Colonel.

  “Yes, Colonel, from Swaffham’s shop. And Swaffham’s shop was shut at that time o’ night. Nobody could get into it, nohow. And what’s more: everybody in the village knows that that night the telephone bell in Swaffham’s shop rang, although there was no one on the premises. I ’ad that on the best authority myself. Now what d’you make o’ that?”

  “What do you make of it yourself?” retorted the Colonel.

  “Oh, I know quite well what ’appened. It’s all plain sailing to us initiates. What ’appened was this. ’Ubbard, somehow or other, ’ad got out of ’is body on to the Astral Plane. On the Astral Plane one does the same sort o’ things as one does ’ere on earth—at least one does on the lower part o’ the Plane, one does. So ’Ubbard, ’aving somehow or other got out of ’is body—’ow ’e did it I can’t go so far as to say—but anyway ’e suddenly remembered ’e wanted to ring me up and give me a message. And so off ’e went to the nearest phone, of course. Being on the Astral Plane, ’e could walk through a stone wall as easy as you or me could go through an open door—it’s all a matter o’ the Fourth Dimension, same as you could step over a chalk-line on the floor. So ’e simply walked through the wall o’ Swaffham’s shop, rang up my ’ouse on Swaffham’s phone, gave me ’is message—same as I told ’em at the inquest—and that was all about it. And, o’ course, coming from the Astral Plane, ’is voice would sound a bit out o’ the common, different from an ordinary voice. My medium, Miss Hesby Mulligan, she says there’s always a slight inco-ordination of the dematerialized
muscular system when one gets into the Astral Plane. Only a real expert can manage ’is astral body, she says.”

  “H’m!” The Colonel was considering the matter from a fresh angle. “And would an astral body be visible to the ordinary eye? Would the man-in-the-street notice it?”

  “Oh, no! It requires the trained sight of an adept to see ’em. I c’n just see the astral figures faintly myself, after sitting a long time in the dark to polarize the retina. My medium, Miss Hesby Mulligan, ’as been able to show them to me sometimes. But then I’m a very good sensitive, you understand. My retina polarizes quicker’n most people’s, and the refraction of my choroid, Miss Mulligan says, is much above the average: so that gives me a pull. It requires a very active sclerotica to appreciate an astral body. I’ve no difficulty in seeing Miss Hesby Mulligan’s control—Sandra’s ’er name, a dark girl with short curly ’air. But for the ordinary person an astral body’s very difficult to see, very ’ard indeed. I doubt if an untrained eye would see one at all. It’s a question of the polarization of the retina, mainly.”

  The Colonel’s mind was occupied with the bearing of all this stuff upon Lonsdale’s story of an invisible Hubbard. It sounded like rubbish (in fact most of it was obviously rubbish): but so did the gamekeeper’s tale of an invisible man.

  “Suppose that an astral body were to pass within a couple of yards of an ordinary man with keen sight, would he notice it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure ’e wouldn’t. It takes a great deal o’ practice and a lot o’ knowledge to get to be an expert. It’s taken me years to get to that stage myself. And one needs faith, too. No, I don’t think an ordinary man would spot an astral body at all. Just as well expect a blind man to see a shadow on a wall. The Powers don’t lend Their ’elp, you know, unless one ’as gone through a severe course o’ discipline.”

  “And what would be happening to Hubbard’s real body all the time that his astral body was careering about the country?”

  “Very probably ’e would be lying in what you’d call a trance. ’E wouldn’t really be there, if you understand what I mean. The mere body in the flesh is just a glove, so to speak. So Miss Hesby Mulligan says. And the astral body is the ’and that fits the glove, as one might say. When the astral body goes away, it leaves the empty glove be’ind it. And then Something Else may come in and take possession of the body, just as somebody might put on your glove if you left it about.”

  “Indeed?” The Colonel was more than a little bored, but he meant to get all the information he could extract. “And have you taken any further steps to clear up the Hubbard business?”

  “I’ve done my best,” Simpson declared angrily, “but one comes up against such a pack o’ prejudiced blighters! ’Ere were the Powers ’elping me along no end; and I wanted to ’ave a séance at Swaythling Court and bring down my medium, Miss Hesby Mulligan, to try ’er ’and at the thing. And would you believe it? That stick-in- the-mud ole dry-as-dust lawyer, ’e put ’is flat foot right down on the thing and wouldn’t ’ear of it, no how. I sez to ’im, ‘You don’t understand the importance of these investigations.’ And ’e just grinned like a Cheshire cat, ’e did, and advised me ‘very seriously,’ ’e said, to get on with my work and mind my own business. What d’you think o’ that? And to an expert like me! If ’e ’ad seen some o’ the things I’ve seen, ’e wouldn’t ’ave ’ad much grin left. I could tell you some things, Colonel . . .”

  “Ah! Very interesting, Mr. Simpson. And here we are at Swaythling Court. Very glad to have been able to give you a lift. Do you mind standing clear while I put the reverse in? I’m afraid she’ll hardly turn without risking the edge of the grass.”

  Offended by the Colonel’s somewhat tactless interruption of his revelations, Simpson got out of the car rather huffily and clambered, with his parcels, up the perron without waiting to watch the Colonel drive off. Colonel Sanderstead swung his car into position facing the avenue again and was about to let in the clutch when his attention was attracted by the sight of Leake, the butler, who was approaching the house with the parrot-cage in his hand. The Colonel slipped his gear into neutral again. He thought he would like to have a few words with Leake.

  “Had the parrot out for an airing?” he inquired, as the butler came alongside the car.

  “Yes, sir. The bird has an hour or two out on the grass whenever the weather is fine enough. I believe the fresh air is good for its health.”

  “Is that so? I never had much to do with parrots myself. Rather treacherous brutes, aren’t they?”

  “Sometimes, sir.”

  “That one talks fluently enough, doesn’t it?” demanded the Colonel, to keep the conversation going.

  “Very fluently, sir. A great command of language—mostly bad.”

  “Yes, I remember hearing it once. Where did it get hold of that vocabulary?”

  “I think it listened a good deal to Mr. Hubbard, sir. It certainly could imitate his voice wonderfully. Took in the dog completely when it chose, sir.”

  “Indeed. A dog usually knows its master’s voice pretty well.”

  The Colonel was fond of dogs and disliked to think of any dog being taken in by a miserable parrot.

  “The parrot gave Mr. Hubbard’s dog a lot of trouble, sir. Used to call it whenever it saw it in the distance and make it think Mr. Hubbard was calling. Quite an amusing practical joke, it seemed to think, sir.”

  “Oh, very funny indeed,” said the Colonel, crossly. “It must have been an excellent imitation.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve often been deceived myself, sir. It has the very voice of Mr. Hubbard.”

  The Colonel looked at the shimmering green of the parrot’s plumage and noted with distaste the intelligence in its eye. Leake still stood beside the car, holding the cage by its ring; but the Colonel had lost his desire to pursue his inquiries. The butler’s precise answers left him without any reasonable excuse for prolonging the interview without obvious fishing; and he could think of nothing that would lead to anything better. So with a curt good-day he started his car and swept off down the avenue.

  But in some inexplicable way the sight of the parrot had set something at work in his mind. All Simpson’s nonsensical talk about the voice on the telephone came back into his mind coupled with the picture of that hatefully intelligent bird. The voice Simpson had heard was Hubbard’s and yet not exactly Hubbard’s. From all Leake had said, the parrot’s voice would correspond to that. But the Colonel dismissed the idea as soon as he had formed it. How could the parrot have got into Swaffham’s shop? And even if it had been there, how could it possibly have used the telephone?

  “Rubbish!”

  Colonel Sanderstead dismissed the parrot from his mind again. Things didn’t happen in such weird ways as that.

  Constable Bolam was emerging from the police station as the car passed; and, catching sight of him, Colonel Sanderstead pulled up.

  “’Afternoon, Bolam! Nice weather.”

  “Yes, sir. Sort of Indian summer, almost. By the way, sir, I’d like to speak to you for a moment, if you please. It’s about Sappy Morton, sir. He’s been a little strange lately.”

  The Colonel’s face showed his interest and Bolam took that as permission to continue.

  “He’s been very funny, sir. I don’t quite know what to make of him. You’ve heard all this silly chatter about the Green Devil, sir? Well, I’ve been at some pains to trace it back; and it seems that Sappy was the one that did most talking. So I took it on myself, sir, to speak to him about it and try to get him to stop putting these lies about—upsetting half the kiddies in the place and making them afraid to pass a tree on the road. But, sir, he would have it that he’d seen the Green Devil himself. Described it to me, sir. I could make nothing of him. I haven’t your way with him, sir, you know. But it’s getting to be a nuisance, sir; he’s given the children a regular scare. So I thought, perhaps, that you’d take him in hand yourself and persuade him to stop his lies, sir. Of course it’s onl
y his imagination—not downright lying—but it’s having a bad effect, sir; and I think something will have to be done about it.”

  The Colonel nodded sympathetically.

  “Poor Sappy! A hard case. One must deal gently with him, Bolam. I’ll see what I can do next time I come across him. We must manage to put a stop to this sort of thing, anyway.”

  And as Colonel Sanderstead drove on, he made up his mind to get hold of Sappy at the earliest possible moment and stop the legend at its source.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Green Devil in Person

  ON the following morning, Colonel Sanderstead made up his mind that his interview with Sappy Morton should be the first business of the day. It was useless to send for Sappy; the idiot’s peculiar temperament would have made any such arrangement futile. If he came in answer to an order, he would arrive in a mental condition which would defeat the Colonel’s aim immediately. The only way of effecting anything with Sappy was to come across him in an apparently casual manner. So in the forenoon, Colonel Sanderstead walked down to Fernhurst Parva and made a few inquiries as to Sappy’s probable whereabouts.

  Apparently the imbecile had been seen not long before walking towards Carisbrooke House; so Colonel Sanderstead, whistling his dog to heel, set out in a leisurely fashion in that direction. Sappy was erratic in his movements; but the Colonel trusted to his having been attracted by something on his road; and he hoped to overtake his quarry before long.

  He had passed the gate of the Bungalow and turned off towards the Swaythling Court lodge before anything out of the common attracted his attention; but shortly after leaving the Micheldean Abbas road he noticed three figures coming towards him; and a further glance enabled him to recognize two of them. Leake, the butler, walked in the centre; and the Colonel seemed to see something dejected in his gait. On one side Leake was flanked by Bolam, whilst at his left hand was a stranger who, the Colonel observed as they came up, wore constabulary boots. As the trio passed the Colonel, Bolam saluted punctiliously but made no attempt to halt. The stranger looked Colonel Sanderstead up and down curiously, but gave no sign of recognition. Leake, more hang-dog than the Colonel ever remembered having seen him, walked past without a glance.