The Haunting of Low Fennel Part 2

I raced out of the room, and down the dark stair into the hall.

Everywhere I was met by locked doors which baffled me. I had hoped to reach the garden by way of the kitchens, but now I changed my plan and turned my attention to the front-door. It was bolted, but I drew the bolts one after the other, and got the door open.

Outside, the landscape was bathed in glorious moonlight, and a sort of grey mist hovered over the valley like smoke. I ran around the angle of the house on to the lawn, and went plunging through flower-beds heedlessly to the scene of the incredible conflict.

I almost fell over Wales as he lay inert upon the gravel path. The shadows veiled him so that I could not see his face; but when, groping with my hands, I sought to learn if his heart still pulsed, I failed to discover any evidence that it did. With my hand thrust against his breast and my ear lowered anxiously, I listened, but he gave no sign of life, lying as still as all else around me.

Now this stillness was broken. Excited voices became audible, and doors were being unlocked here and there. First of all the household, Mrs.

Dale appeared, enveloped in a lace dressing-gown.

"Aubrey!" she cried tremulously, "what is it? where are you?"

"He is here, Mrs. Dale," I answered, standing up, "and in a bad way, I fear."

"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to him? Did you hear his awful cries?"

"I did," I said shortly.

Standing with the moonlight fully upon her, Mrs. Dale sought him in the shadows of the hedge--and I knew that by the manner of his frightened outcry the man lying unconscious at my feet had forfeited whatever of her regard he had enjoyed. She was dreadfully alarmed, not so much on his behalf, as by the mystery of the attack upon him. But now she composed herself, though not without visible effort.

"Where is he, Mr. Addison?" she said firmly, "and what has happened to him?"

A man, who proved to be a gardener, now appeared upon the scene.

"Help me to carry him in," I said to this new arrival; "perhaps he has only fainted."

We gathered up the rec.u.mbent body and carried it through the kitchens into the breakfast-room, where there was a deep couch. All the servants were gathered at the foot of the stairs, frightened and useless, but the outcry did not seem to have aroused Major Dale.

Mrs. Dale and I bent over Wales. His face was frightfully congested, whilst his tongue protruded hideously; and it was evident, from the great discoloured weals which now were coming up upon his throat, that he had been strangled, or nearly so. I glanced at the white face of my hostess and then bent over the victim, examining him more carefully. I stood upright again.

"Do you know first aid, Mrs. Dale?" I asked abruptly.

She nodded, her eyes fixed intently upon me.

"Then help to employ artificial respiration," I said, "and let one of the girls get ammonia, if you have any, and a bowl of hot water.

We can patch him up, I think, without medical aid--which might be undesirable."

Mrs. Dale seemed fully to appreciate the point, and in business-like fashion set to work to a.s.sist me. Wales had just opened his eyes and begun to clutch at his agonized throat, when I heard a heavy step descending from the new wing--and Major Dale, in his dressing-gown, joined us. His red face was more red than usual, and his eyes were round with wonder.

"What the devil's the matter?" he cried; "what's everybody up for?"

"There has been an accident, Major," I said, glancing around at the servants, who stood in a group by the door of the breakfast-room; "I can explain more fully later."

Major Dale stepped forward and looked down at Wales.

"Good G.o.d!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, "it's young Wales, by the Lord Harry!--what's he doing here?"

Mrs. Dale, standing just behind me, laid her hand upon my arm; and, unseen by the Major, I turned and pressed it rea.s.suringly.

IV

The following day I lunched alone with the Major, Mrs. Dale being absent on a visit. It had been impossible to keep the truth from her (or what we knew of it) and at present I could not quite foresee the issue of last night's affair. Young Wales, who had been driven home in a car sent from his place at a late hour, had not since put in an appearance; and it was sufficiently evident that Mrs. Dale would not welcome him should he do so, the hysterical panic which he had exhibited on the previous night having disgusted her. She had not said so in as many words, but I did not doubt it.

"Well, Addison?" said the Major as I entered, "have you got the facts you were looking for?"

"Some of them," I replied, and opening my notebook I turned to the pages containing notes made that morning.

The Major watched me with intense curiosity, and almost impatiently awaited my next words. The servant having left the room:

"In the first place," I began, glancing at the notes, "I have been consulting certain local records in the town, and I find that in the year 1646 a certain Dame Pryce occupied a cabin which, according to one record, 'stood close beside unto ye Lowe Fennel.'"

"That is, close beside this house?" interjected the Major excitedly.

"Exactly," I said. "She attracted the attention of one of the many infamous wretches who disfigure the history of that period: Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General. This was a witch-ridden age, and the man Hopkins was one of those who fattened on the credulity of his fellows, receiving a fee of twenty shillings for every unhappy woman discovered and convicted of witchcraft. Poor Pryce was 'swum' in a local pond (a test whereby the villain Hopkins professed to discover if the woman were one of Satan's band, or otherwise) and burnt alive in Reigate market-place on September 23, 1646."

"By G.o.d!" said the Major, who had not attempted to commence his lunch, "that's a horrible story!"

"It is one of the many to the credit of Matthew Hopkins," I replied; "but, without boring you with the details of this woman's examination and so forth, I may say that what interests me most in the case is the date--September 23."

"Why? I don't follow you."

"Well," I said, "there's a hiatus in the history of the place after that, except that even in those early days it evidently suffered from the reputation of being haunted; but without troubling about the interval, consider the case of Seager, which you yourself related to me. Was it not in the month of August that he was done to death here?"

"By Gad!" cried the Major, his face growing redder than ever, "you're right!--and hang it all, Addison! it was in September--last September--that the Ords cleared out!"

"I remember your mentioning," I continued, smiling at his excitement, "that it was a very hot month?"

"It was."

"From a mere word dropped by one of the witnesses at the trial of poor Pryce I have gathered that the month in which she was convicted of practising witchcraft in her cabin adjoining Low Fennel (as it stood in those days) was a tropically hot month also."

Major Dale stared at me uncomprehendingly.

"I'm out of my depth, Addison--wading hopelessly. What the devil has the heat to do with the haunting?"

"To my mind everything. I may be wrong, but I think that if the gla.s.s were to fall to-night, there would be no repet.i.tion of the trouble."

"You mean that it's only in very hot weather--"

"In phenomenally hot weather, Major--the sort that we only get in England perhaps once in every ten years. For the gla.s.s to reach the alt.i.tude at which it stands at present, in two successive summers, is quite phenomenal, as you know."

"It's phenomenal for it to reach that point at all," said the Major, mopping his perspiring forehead; "it's simply Indian, simply Indian, sir, by the Lord Harry!"

"Another inquiry," I continued, turning over a leaf of my book, "I have been unable to complete, since, in order to interview the people who built your new wing, I should have to run up to London."

"What the blazes have they to do with it?"

"Nothing at all, but I should have liked to learn their reasons for raising the wing three feet above the level of the hall-way."