He Arrived at Dusk Read online

  My bedroom was quite comfortable, though there wasn’t a fire. Victorian, with a pompous-looking bed, scarlet rep curtains, a good carpet, skin rugs, and a winged chair. On the end of the mantelpiece was an anachronism, a very modern ash-tray in the form of a Bonzo dog holding a plate in its mouth. It made me grin and I was glad to see that there were no rules against smoking in my bedroom.

  A jug of hot water came up in the hands of a particularly rustic young housemaid, and then a great silence descended and I was left to my own devices. It was eight o’clock and I was frightfully hungry. Nobody had suggested tea or told me the time of dinner or supper—if any. I wondered if I were expected to go quietly to bed. However at eight-thirty a cracked gong sounded and I found my way down.

  There was supper laid for two in a rather dismal dining-room. The northern cold was beginning to get into my bones. I waited, and presently the retainer appeared and suggested that I should begin, as Mr. Barr had not returned yet. So I had my supper, which meant tackling a huge meat-pie, steaming hot and of positively medieval proportions, very roughly served in an earthenware dish, and associated with strong coffee and Stilton cheese. Then I sat back, lit a pipe, and the retainer left me.

  The next bit is going to be difficult. I know I shall describe it crudely, and I’m afraid you’ll completely miss the point. I felt something. There was a coldness that went from the tips of my fingers and shivered into my shoulders—that began it—and then, as though something had struck me, all the nerves of my brain gave a tortured leap and my hand flew up to my throat. I swallowed hard, twice, and it was all over. It lasted thirty seconds, and I never felt anything like it either before or after. It was like an electric shock from an unearthly battery. A hideous feeling.

  In a few minutes I was quite normal again, but I felt restless and rather gloomy. I lit my dead pipe, and looked about me. If this were one of the rooms I had to value, the prospect for the owner wasn’t remarkable. The fireplace was spurious Adam; there was a fairly good dresser worth perhaps twenty pounds; but the rest of the furniture was rough, farmhouse stuff, of no value apart from its obvious antiquity, and that value of course would be fluctuating. I mean, I was prepared to swear that the bench along the far side of the table from where I sat was no later than thirteenth century, and some people might be prepared to pay a good price for it if it came into the market, but in these days the demand is for named period furniture and not for isolated fragments, the flotsam of the Middle Ages.

  And suddenly the most ridiculous idea came into my mind . . . I wonder if this place is haunted? I grinned rather, because it was such a schoolboy surmise; and then I stopped grinning and wondered why it was I was feeling so hideously uncomfortable, ill at ease. I know what you’re going to say. That it was the pie, the Stilton, and the coffee on top of a particularly cold and miserable journey. I offered myself that explanation too.

  I strolled over to the window and pulled aside the blind, one of those heavy green linen ones with a roller at the bottom. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness and rain; only dripping bushes and the distant shoulder of a humpy hill, crowned with a heap of rocks. And beside the rocks was something that looked like a watch-tower. I remember thinking that I should hate to have to live long in that house or that neighbourhood. Two days, I guessed, would see my business through and myself back in London with an agreeable fee to compensate me. I don’t mean to sound mercenary, but jobs and money do count in these days.

  I stood against the window until I shivered. A cold wind was stealing through the chinks and it had a salty flavour I couldn’t account for, not knowing how near I was to the sea. And yet that salty sniff made me think of the sea, and I thought of the cold seas of Eternity and, unaccountably, of the man who had fallen from the cliffs to his death. Morbid of me. I’m not like that as a rule.

  It was half-past nine now, and I thought it was time that my client or some representative of his put in an appearance. If Colonel Barr were ill there was presumably another member of the family prepared to do business with me.

  Presently I heard a door slam far away; then footsteps, and in came a man of my own age, and very glad I was to see him. He was a good-looking fellow, dark, a bit scholarly, and spoke with a slight American accent. It was so slight that it wasn’t until he told me he had lived in the States that I placed his accent at all. However, he came in quite calmly, nodded to me, asked me if I’d had supper, and sat down himself to the cold remains.

  ‘How long is it going to take you to do your job?’ he asked conversationally.

  ‘Probably about two days,’ I said. ‘Are you Colonel Barr?’

  Of course I knew he wasn’t, only nobody had told me anything since I entered that house, and I wasn’t supposed to know.

  ‘No, no,’ he said brightly; ‘I’m Charlie Barr. My uncle’s ill. Been ill for a long time. I don’t really know why he sent for you. I suppose you know what you have to do?’

  I told him that of course I had the general idea, but I should like more definite instructions.

  ‘Hasn’t the nurse told you?’ he asked, eating pie.

  ‘I haven’t seen any nurse,’ I said; ‘I haven’t seen anyone except a man and a maidservant.’

  He nodded. ‘Oh, she’ll be seeing you. She’s probably busy. If I were you I should be inspecting the library. There are pictures and books.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said; ‘I may as well begin.’

  I stood, looking awkward.

  ‘Oh, don’t you know the way?’ he cried. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll show you.’

  He jumped up and led the way down a passage to a long and lofty room, and began snapping on lights. Of course the house had its own electric plant.

  ‘M‘Coul!’ he shouted. ‘Come along here and put a fire in the library for Mr. ——’

  ‘Mertoun,’ I supplied.

  He nodded. ‘All right. I don’t understand your requirements, but you can have a look around here. If you want paper and pens there are plenty on the writing-table.’

  He smiled, and left me to it; and presently the man arrived with a shovelful of burning coals which he heaped into the empty grate and added logs. The room was swirling in smoke by now, but when it cleared I saw shelves from floor to ceiling, and—literally—thousands of books. Thousands of books, not only on the shelves but piled in great heaps on the floor.

  ‘Ah!’ I thought. ‘A virgin gold-mine. Here’s the wealth of the house. Unique editions.’

  I wandered across and picked out a volume at random. It was Volume I of the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Next to it was a German book on criminology, called, I believe, Grundzüge der Kriminal-Psychologie. Next to that was a cheap modern edition of the works of Alexander Pope; next again, a handbook on Botany; then The Elements of Political Economy—I forget the author—published in Edinburgh, 1887. Then came, if I remember rightly, a reprint of Gordon’s Itinerarium Septentrionale, originally published in 1720; and an Italian book about gypsies called Gli Zingari, back cover missing.

  Believe me, in twenty minutes I was a sadder and a wiser man. That first random selection of mine was representative of the whole collection; there was no order, no coherence, no value; just thousands of miscellaneous volumes dumped together in one place, the possessions of a man, it was easy to see, who had never been able to pass a second-hand bookstall without filling his pockets with any rubbish that momentarily caught his fancy. And when read the volumes were flung upon a shelf or on the floor, without arrangement or plan. There could not have been in England such an appalling medley. I made a mental note; twenty thousand volumes at a penny each; roughly, eighty pounds. And I wondered whether a dealer would give ten pounds for the lot.

  I spent at least two hours in the library over that first inspection, and I guessed that if there had been any treasures I should have unearth
ed one or two of them. But by then I was dog-tired. I switched off the lights and left the library. Only one light was burning, on the stairs. Mr. Barr and the servants had gone unceremoniously to bed. However, that didn’t worry me, and I soon found my room and turned in myself.

  I had a wretched night, tossing in those vague, unpleasant dreams whose horror you can’t put a name to; and in the middle of the night the surging tide woke me and I saw the ocean horizon and the lighthouse.

  I was glad when morning came, though it was still raining and the air was bitter. From my window, which evidently looked the same way as the dining-room, I saw the humpy hill and the watch-tower I had noticed the night before. It was a circular tower and seemed to be roofless. It looked like a squat beast, crouching to eye the house.

  I cut myself in shaving, said a few words, and went down to breakfast.”

  ii

  “Charlie was already at breakfast, and there were newspapers. He greeted me quite cheerfully with a smile. There was something likeable about the man when he smiled. His smile had an almost feminine charm; not that he was in the least effeminate. I expect I shall give you a host of wrong impressions before I finish this story.

  Well, he smiled, and pushed across a dish of very well-cooked fish. ‘Hope you didn’t make a night of it,’ he said.

  I assured him that I was in bed before midnight.

  ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘No,’ I said frankly.

  I thought he raised his eyebrows a shade too quickly, but he casually picked up a newspaper, looked over the headlines, snapped his fingers, and put it down.

  ‘That watch-tower we can see from here,’ I said. ‘What is it? I can see it from my room too.’

  ‘Watch-tower?’ He looked blank. ‘Oh—you mean the broch? Well, that’s just the broch, you know, that the house takes its name from.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Of course,’—he gave a short laugh—‘the broch was here before the house.’

  ‘What’s it for?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s prehistoric. At least seventeen hundred years old. It was the fortress of some old Celtic tribe.’

  ‘Is there anything to see?’ I asked.

  ‘Au contraire. The thing looks infinitely better at a distance,’ he replied. ‘It’s really a mass of crumbling masonry and not too safe. I don’t care about that kind of thing—ruins, I mean.’

  ‘Aren’t there Roman antiquities here?’ I asked casually, reviving some ancient memory.

  He hesitated a fraction of a second, and then answered:

  ‘Farther south. You mean the Roman Wall. It’s quite worth seeing, if you ever happen to go that way. Hexham’s an interesting place—though I expect you’re really longing to get back to London. I don’t blame you. There’s nothing here.’

  ‘One gets attached to one’s own county,’ I suggested.

  He stared at me. ‘Oh, I’m not a native; I’ve only lived here for twelve months. As a matter of fact, I was brought up in the United States. I’m almost an American; not quite, thank Heaven. I shall settle in England now. And if anything happens to my uncle—which I devoutly hope it will not—I shall have this place.’

  ‘How old is the house?’ I asked.

  ‘It was built in 1817,’ he said. ‘As a family we’re rather attached to it. It was my father’s old home, and Americans think a lot of that kind of thing. You see, I can’t help being rather American in my outlook.’

  He read his newspaper for a few minutes, and then asked: ‘What did you think of the books?’

  I thought it best to be frank, and answered: ‘I’m afraid they’re not of any marketable value. I was rather disappointed. Did you think they were valuable?’

  ‘Why, no!’ he exclaimed at once. ‘Personally I don’t think there’s anything in the house of much value. It was only a fad of my uncle’s to have you come. You have to humour ill people, and Nurse said he’d got this idea on his mind, so I let her send for you. I let her do pretty well what she likes. I have to.’ He smiled again, engagingly.

  Of course, that explained the feminine hand on the envelope, and a very simple explanation it was. I was in the mood for accepting simple explanations just then. It was different later. I didn’t say anything about the letter having been dated more than a month previously.

  ‘I suppose I have access to the various parts of the house?’ I said.

  ‘Go where you like,’ he replied promptly. ‘Nurse will see to it that you don’t disturb my uncle. Nobody’s allowed to see him; not even I.’

  I put on the appropriate face of condolence, and asked if Colonel Barr were seriously ill.

  Charlie shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m afraid he’s in a critical condition, poor old fellow. Not so old, either; he isn’t seventy, and I should have said quite strong. It came on him suddenly, after . . . but, look here, I’ll have to go. Can you manage? I suppose you’ll finish to-day?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t think I’m hurrying you!’ he said, with a quick smile. ‘I’m really quite glad of your company; but there’s a local farmer going to Heaviburgh with his car to-morrow morning, and if you’re ready he can take you along. Otherwise the station car has to fetch you, and it can’t be relied upon to turn up.’

  ‘I shall probably be ready to leave in the morning,’ I told him.

  ‘It’s a miserable day,’ he said. ‘I shall spend the day in my study, and they’ll bring me a tray at lunch-time. You don’t mind lunching alone? Good. I’m working pretty hard.’

  ‘Studying?’ I said.

  ‘Well, writing. I’m writing a book.’ He said it in the shamed way that writers always say it, as though it were a form of vice like secret drugging.

  ‘A novel?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘No. It’s just a handbook on psychology. Quite elementary, but there’s a big demand for it in the States. It’s an arrangement I have with a publisher.’

  ‘You must be an expert?’ I suggested.

  He laughed outright. ‘Oh no. But I’ve lectured in New York on the simple principles of mind-control. People there think it miraculous. It’s nothing but common sense. Psychology is one of New York’s steady crazes, especially among women. American women are nearly all unhappily married and they’ve got to have an outlet for their neuroses.’

  It was my turn to laugh. ‘You’re no Yankee,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a sense of humour.’ It struck me that his handsome looks had probably done the New York women as much good as his psychology; in the same way that a good-looking doctor can cure any feminine patient on sight.

  ‘Oh, but I’m quite serious in my intentions,’ he said. ‘I can’t help the kind of fools who come and listen to me.’

  I rather liked him by now, and I was enjoying myself better than on the previous evening. Everything was perfectly normal, and I’d practically forgotten those half-impressions that had disturbed me. I gave myself a quarter of an hour to read the Daily Mail, and then went up to my room to get pencil and notebook. I don’t know whether I opened the door too suddenly, but the next minute there was a crash, and there stood the young housemaid in the ruins of the water-jug.

  She gave a slight scream. ‘Oh, mercy!’ she said; ‘I thought you was him.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You’d better mop that water up with a towel or it’ll soak through.’

  She grabbed my towel from the rail. ‘I’m all of a tremble,’ she said. ‘Mrs. M‘Coul didn’t ought to have told me.’

  She began to scrub the carpet, and then replaced the dirty towel innocently upon the rail.

  ‘Did you sleep all right? Bed comfortable?’ she asked.

  ‘Quite,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t get many visitors,’ she went on;
‘it’s nice to have somebody new to do for. How long are you stopping?’

  Not being accustomed to the affable familiarity of north-country servants I murmured some sort of non-committal reply, and she said that she hoped it would stop raining for me. Clumsily preparing to depart, she said suddenly: ‘I hates it. The nasty thing. Ought to pull it down, they did.’

  I gave surprised attention and saw that she was looking straight out of the window at the broch, or watch-tower, or whatever you like to call the Celtic fortress.

  ‘Oh, that!’ I said.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she grunted fiercely. ‘It’s unlucky.’ And with that she clattered away.

  It was just as I thought. The tower was popularly supposed to be haunted, just like every other unusual or empty building in a credulous countryside. Superstitious country people must have something to talk about. I laughed, and went downstairs with my notebook.

  I spent that morning round about the house, and incidentally discovered the only two things in it that were of any importance to me. One of those I couldn’t quite believe in, though I gave my client the benefit of the doubt. They were both in the drawing-room; one a spinet with painted panels in a neglected condition. I lifted the lid and thrilled pleasantly. It was a Ruckers, Antwerp, 1594. The doubtful object was a faded mezzotint upon the wall; it was signed Valentine Green, 1782, and, as I say, may or may not have been the goods.

  To go back a little; half-way through the morning I returned to the appalling library which was my base for something or other, and in came rather a charming little person. Very trim little figure, fresh face, blue eyes; tawny hair under a full, spotless coif; no uniform, a sort of blue tweed dress. General effect rather nice, so I thought, ‘Ha-ha. The nurse.’