Here and Hereafter Part 4

A saddled horse was tethered in the court-yard, and the outer door was open. In the hall stood Mr Perrot with a penny note-book and a stumpy pencil in his hand. He looked up as he heard my step, and greeted me with his usual heartiness.

"This is a surprise, Mr Perrot," I said. "I didn't expect to find you here. I was looking for Tarn."

"Afraid you won't find him, sir. They all cleared out yesterday morning.

I've bought this place."

"Bought it?"

"House and land, furniture and stock, everything except the dog and their clothes. It's a little speculation of mine, and looks like being a very good speculation too. I knew you were going to have the dog--he told me he meant him as a present to you, and according to Tarn I could never have done anything with him. Truculent--too truculent."

"I didn't know he was leaving. How did it come about?"

"Oh, he came round one morning three weeks ago, and asked me if I'd buy his place. I said I'd buy that or anything else if the price were right.

And it was right enough because it was my own price; I came and went over everything and said what I'd give, and he never haggled. I paid my ten per cent. next day, and completed at the lawyer's in Helmstone afternoon before last."

"Tarn was there?"

"He was. What's more, we had a bottle of champagne wine at the Armada afterwards at his expense, and he drove me back to Sandene in his car."

"Car? I never knew he'd got one."

"Only had it two months, he said. It's a bigger one than yours, sir, and I expect he'll lose money on it. For he told me he shouldn't take it over to France with him, and they're bad things to sell. Yes, I felt like one of the gentlefolk that afternoon--drinking champagne wine and sitting in a motor-car. He must be a warmer man than ever I supposed."

"How was he looking?"

"Well, he was quiet, and yet he was a bit excited, if you know what I mean. He'd new clothes on--oh, quite the thing. It's my belief that he's come into money unexpected, and that he and the two n.i.g.g.e.rs--the wife and baby--are off on a jaunt together."

I did not share Perrot's belief, but I said nothing.

"In France they're not too particular, so I'm told," said Perrot. "I daresay n.i.g.g.e.rs go down better there than they do here."

"Did you see the woman and her baby when you were here?"

"No, they weren't shown, and I didn't ask for them. I don't think they were in the house when I came, for I went into each room. But they must have come in by another way before I left, for I heard them in the next room to us. What's more, the baby was laughing and the woman was sobbing."

"What was she crying about?"

Perrot laughed. "Why, women will cry for anything. Toothache perhaps.

Maybe he'd been giving her a bit of a dressing-down."

I did not agree with Perrot's conclusions, but again I made no comment.

Perrot had to get on his horse and ride back to Sandene. He confided to me that he'd got a tenant for Felonsdene already. Mrs Lane was going to live there with her married daughter and her son-in-law. Mrs Lane was Perrot's bad-tempered and dyspeptic aunt, and so far she had lived in Perrot's house at Sandene. "But I haven't got room for her any longer,"

said Perrot. "So she's taking her _exeatus_." I recommend _exeatus_ to the philologist.

Perrot had ridden off, and I was half-way up the hill to my car, when the idea struck me that I should like to have a look at the building which had been used for the curious rites that Ball had described and I turned back again. I found the place; it stood apart from the house, and was boarded on the inside. That curious smell of bitter smoke still hung about it. At one end I could see that some sort of fitment had been removed, and there were splashes of candle-wax on the floor.

Coming out into the sunlight again, I noted that Tarn had done a little levelling and road-making to enable him to get his car into Felonsdene from the lower side of the hollow. This would give him a greater distance to go if he were driving to Helmstone, but by the shorter route which I had taken the approach was quite impracticable for a car.

And then, quite by chance, I noticed among the stunted trees of the orchard something white that at a little distance looked not unlike a big milestone. As I entered the orchard the dog whined and lay down. I supposed that he was tired and left him there. A nearer view showed me a column about three feet square and about four feet in height, neatly built up of rough lumps of chalk. On the top of the column were a pile of ashes and charred wood. It was then that its resemblance to a sacrificial altar, such as I had seen pictured in an old ill.u.s.trated Bible, first struck me. Among the ashes something gleamed and sparkled.

I fished it out with a bit of stick. It was a small circlet of soft gold, evidently not European work, and might have served as a child's bangle. And my disturbance of the ashes had shown me other things.

I found an old wine-case in one of the sheds, and in this I placed all that I had found on the top of the altar. The lower part of the ashes and the top of the altar were still quite warm from the fire. I carried the case up to my car, sweating with the effort and my hurry. I put the case in the tonneau and covered it with a rug, and then, with the dog by my side, I went home as fast as I could drive.

My partner had returned from his round and joined me in my examination of what was in the case. Incineration had been imperfect and we had no doubt whatever. I could state confidently that on an altar in an orchard at Felonsdene the body of a young child had been burned, within thirty-six hours of the time of my discovery, which was precisely twenty minutes past twelve on the morning of 29th March. I returned at once to my car and drove to the police-station, where I gave my information.

The number and the appearance of Tarn's car were well known. A white man travelling with a negress cannot go anywhere in England without being noticed. He and the woman had been in Paris before, and the man had admitted to Perrot, under circ.u.mstances which might have overcome his usual reticence, that he was going to France. The inspector who saw me felt sure that Tarn would be found, and the whole mystery cleared up, in a very short time.

Tarn and Mala were never found. They had been seen in the car in the very early morning of the 28th. The car itself was found at Melcombe Cliffs, an unimportant place on the coast about five miles from Helmstone. Inquiries at ports gave negative results; no negress accompanied by a white man had gone by any of the boats; the only negress who had gone abroad bore no resemblance to Mala and was satisfactorily accounted for.

The coroner was extremely polite to me at the inquest on the remains of the child. He said that I had given my evidence in a most clear and open manner. I had mentioned circ.u.mstances which I thought to be suspicious, and of course it was my duty to mention them. But still I had admitted fully--and he thought it a most important point--that both Tarn and his wife were devoted to the child. It made any theory that they had been guilty of the horrible crime of murdering the child seem very improbable. Tarn had married a negress and was very sensitive on the point; he lived alone; he hated any publicity. It seemed to him more likely that the child died suddenly, perhaps as the result of an accident, when Tarn and his wife were on the point of departure; and that sooner than face the publicity and inquiry, they had taken this quite illegal way of disposing of the body. Tarn was an educated man and he would know that what he had done was illegal. He would be anxious to avoid detection, and would probably change his plans in consequence. He was also a wealthy man; the abandonment of the motor-car would not mean very much to him. Inquiries had been made on the supposition that Tarn and his wife had gone to France; but they might have gone elsewhere.

They might have shipped from Liverpool. A negress with the help of a thick motor-veil, a wig, and grease-paints might easily conceal her race for a little while. The absence of any evidence from people at Melcombe Cliffs and the neighbourhood seemed rather to point to this. Tarn was a gloomy man of rather morbid and religious temperament. He had certainly said some extraordinary things, but the bark of a man of that type was generally worse than his bite. The cremation of the child's body was wrong and illegal, but the jury had nothing to do with that. There was really no evidence pointing to murder; on the contrary, they had heard that both parents were devoted to their child. An inconclusive verdict was given.

It was on 27th March that the child was born; a year later precisely its body was burned. It may have been a coincidence; it may not. I, at any rate, have never been able to accept the coroner's comforting theory. I remember that negress too well, and the power that she and her horrible faith had over her husband. They loved their child, I believe. But in the propitiation of the Power of evil, the dearer the victim the more potent will be the sacrifice. They must have been insane in the end. And possibly the sea at Melcombe Cliffs still holds the secret of what became of them.

THE FEAST AND THE RECKONING

Mr Duncan Garth stood at his windows in park Lane and looked out. He was a man of forty-five, unusually tall and broad, with a strong, clean-shaven face.

"I should rather like," he said, "to buy Hyde Park."

His secretary, seated at a table behind him, chuckled.

"You are quite right, Ferguson," said Garth. "I can't buy Hyde Park or the National Gallery. But I presume I've got the money value of both.

Wouldn't you say so, Ferguson?"

Ferguson was a slender young man. He looked far too young for the important post of secretary to Mr Garth, and much younger than he really was. His scrupulous care as to his personal appearance rather amused Garth, who was careless in such matters almost to the point of untidiness.

Ferguson lit a cigarette and reflected. "I should say not," he said.

"Hyde Park alone, of course, you could buy, if it were for sale. I don't know what the National Gallery would figure out at, but silly people give absurd sums for paint and canvas nowadays, and there's any amount of it there. You might be able to do them both, but I should doubt it."

"Well, I'm going to give a luncheon-party, anyhow."

"Yes," said Ferguson, drily, "you can afford to do that. Whom am I to ask?"

Garth consulted some memoranda on the back of an envelope. "I'm going to mix 'em up a bit," he said. "You remember that girl in the post-office yesterday?"

"The one who asked if you'd got any eyes in your head?"

"Yes. One should not, of course, hand in telegrams to the money-order department. There was something in the bitter fury of the woman that interested me. Naturally, I don't know her name and address, but I suppose you can get that."

"Of course," said Ferguson, making a shorthand note.

"Then I must have old Lady Longsh.o.r.e. I should like an actor-manager, too. Could you suggest?"

"Want him for his egotism?"