Tarnhelm: The Best Supernatural Stories Read online

  At the midday dinner he watched his aunt and ate his food in frightened silence. They were talking at the end of the table, and it seemed that there was some dispute between them.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head violently. ‘There are other ways, I tell you. We’ll find it out if we wait.’

  ‘I tell you I can’t wait,’ he said, angrily. ‘I’ve waited here long enough. You’re always telling me to wait. A man would think he could spend his time hanging round and waiting—as if a fellow hadn’t things to do. I tell yer I’m off tomorrow.’

  Her face went very white, and she clutched his arm. ‘No. You can’t leave me like that. You wouldn’t dare. You promised.’

  ‘Well, and you promised,’ he answered, roughly. ‘You said I should have it.’

  ‘We should have it,’ she caught him up eagerly. Then she went on quickly: ‘He isn’t so well today. It won’t be so long to wait—a week or two—’

  ‘No—I’m sick of it,’ he said. ‘Waiting and waiting. He’s got the life of Methuselah.’

  ‘Well, he suspects’—nodding her head in the direction of the fool. ‘He’s had his eyes on us this long time. He’s sharper than folk know.’

  ‘Well—he’d better not be,’ muttered Bulstrode. ‘That’s all—he’d better not be. And what’s it matter? A year or two less to his days. He’s lived long enough, blast him!’

  Old Tackity wasn’t so well today. He wasn’t so well as he’d been at breakfast. He took his little piece of beef without a murmur, finished it, and stared dismally into the fireplace. Every now and again he jerked his head round in a frightened way and glanced at the table, but he said nothing.

  The afternoon was the fool’s holiday. He wandered through the fields, up the hill, and down into the wood. There he was fascinated—frightened. The darkness and the silence terrified, but the colours, the little wind that blew the leaves across his feet, pleased him. But today there was utter silence. The leaves hung in so thick a tapestry overhead that the sun could not pierce them, and it was very dark. At his frightened ear seemed to crowd things that he could not see; and down the long silence of the forest paths came the whispering patter of mysterious feet.

  He fled back into the sunshine, fearing pursuers as he ran. He flung himself, panting, on to the side of the hill in the full glare of the sun, and watched the dark and sinister house, the high stone wall, the clustering gables, the enclosing trees. What were they doing there, he wondered? Had anything happened? Something was going to happen. He knew—the clocks had told him. Supposing it had happened already? He drew his coat up over his collar and waited throughout the afternoon. Then when the sun grew low and the shadows slipped, like birds with trailing wings over the long golden breast of the corn, he returned. The house, with its thick walls and small diamond-paned windows, was already dark. A fire burned in the kitchen; the room was empty. He tossed his hair back from his forehead, and groped in the cupboard; he was hungry, he had been hungry all day, and if they would not give him anything, then he must take it. But the cupboard was empty, and a sound made him draw back in sudden alarm. It was the clocks again; he could hear their beat in every part of the house. There was one in the room there with him, and he watched its round, smooth face with growing fury. It was laughing at him—he could almost see the grin, and it mocked him for his ignorance. As he looked at it the madness surged in his brain, and suddenly he leapt at it, and with his fist broke the face. His hand was cut and began to bleed furiously; the glass fell with a little sound like a cry to the ground. He noticed the blood, and began to whimper. His face grew white with terror, for the hands had stopped, and the great pendulum had ceased to swing.

  ‘What will it do? What will it do?’ He cowered back against the wall and stared at it. It seemed to him that its grin had changed to a frown, and its silence frightened him more than its noise had done. With trembling knees and shaking hands he crept from the room and up the dark staircase. On the landing he paused to think. He must hide somewhere, for they were pursuing him; even now he thought that he could hear their footsteps. He turned blindly to the first door that was at hand and pushed it open. As he did so there was a sudden noise from every part of the house—all the clocks struck eight. He gave a little scream of terror; to him it sounded as though they were all calling to each other, bearing news of the thing that he had done. They knew, and they would follow him; and he stumbled blindly head-foremost into the room. The place was thick with dust, so that he coughed and choked; at last he made out a dim lamp and by the side of it, sitting propped up at the table, his grandfather.

  At the sound of the opening door the old man cried out: ‘No, no—I tell you! It’s no use your coming here! You devil! You devil! You devil!’ Then he saw who it was. ‘Oh, my poor flesh!’ he said, ‘It’s you, is it? Oh! I’m glad it’s only you. I thought it was the other. Deary me, what a shock for an old man!’

  ‘Let me in,’ said the fool, coming close to him. ‘Let me in. They’re after me. They’re coming up the stairs.’

  ‘Oh, they won’t come in here,’ said Tackity, confidently. ‘I’m too clever for ’em by half. They can’t do anything, they can’t.’

  ‘I’ve killed one of them,’ said the fool, shivering. ‘I broke his face with my hand. See!’ He held it up for the old man to see.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the other, nodding his head. ‘Brave boy! That’s right!’

  The fool crept into a corner, and at last he slept. His dreams were troubled, and he gave little cries, and he moved uneasily. Then suddenly he awoke. Someone was in the room. It was difficult to see because of the dim burning of the lamp. The old man was bending over the table, and in front of him was a great pile of round, yellow metal; he let it pass through his hands so that it tinkled, and glittered as it fell in front of him. But it was not that that had awakened the fool. Someone had opened the door. Suddenly through the mist he saw the Captain; he would have screamed had not fear held him silent. He was stepping very silently, like a cat, and his face was white and his neck bulged over his collar.

  The old man had not seen him; he was still murmuring to himself with pleasure at the sight in front of him. Then something warned him, and he turned round with a little cry.

  ‘No, no!’ he screamed. ‘You devil, you—’

  But Bulstrode was upon him. He said nothing at all, but he caught the skinny throat between his hands and bent over it. Another little strangled scream, then the hands beat the air wildly for a moment, the face turned purple under the light of the lamp, and the head fell right back, crookedly, across his shoulder and stared at the fool.

  Bulstrode looked for a moment at what he had done, then he began furiously to pour the gold into his pockets. He filled them all, and yet there was more; he filled his handkerchief and tied it; he found a box that was on the table, and he filled that. Then he crept from the room, locking the door after him.

  The fool did not move. He did not understand what had happened. He sat crouched there for a long while, and then the head, leering at him so strangely with fixed and staring eyes, annoyed him.

  ‘They’re gone,’ he said, in a whisper. ‘They’re gone, grandfather. Yer can move now.’ But old Tackity was silent.

  Then the fool began to be frightened. ‘Grandfather! Grandfather!’ he whispered. The light of the lamp jumped up and down and the shadows on the wall leaped with it. The house was absolutely still; he could not even hear the clocks. He moved from his corner and raised himself on his knees; he lifted his hand and, very gently, touched the old man’s coat.

  ‘Speak to me, grandfather,’ he said. ‘They’re gone. He won’t hurt you again. Oh! The shadows!’ The oil had nearly failed in the lamp, and the flame flared up and died down like a jack-in-the-box; the room seemed to jump with it. His hand touched the man’s shoulder, and now it travelled down the sleeve. He stopped and let his fingers travel round the buttons— they were so hard and cold that he started for a moment. Then his fingers slipped off the coat and
touched the back of the hand. The knotted veins stood out like iron but the flesh was clammy and warm. His own hand was suddenly frozen. He could not move it away, and he knelt there, rigid, with his eyes fixed in front of him.

  The flame of the lamp gave a leap and for an instant the room was alive with light.

  Everything sprang out of the darkness—the table, the shuttered windows, the dirty floor littered with papers and the unswept refuse of fifty years, and, at the last, for a moment, the white face, the crooked neck, the filmy eyes of the old man.

  Then the lamp flickered out into darkness. The fool struggled to his feet, and, with little cries, his hand stretched before his face, he crept towards the door. Suddenly he stumbled. There was something in the way. He pushed it aside and knew that it was the leg of the dead man. The touch that he gave it brought it heavily to the floor.

  He did not dare to move. He felt as though the body were on every side of him. He became wild with terror and there were strange noises in his ears. Suddenly he knew—it was the sound of the Clocks. They were coming up the stairs. The buzzing grew louder and louder. The room was filled with the sound.

  He shouted ‘You devils!’ and stumbled to his feet. He must get out, but the dead body stopped him—it stuck to him, so that he dragged it with him as he moved.

  Then they were upon him; the room was filled with them; their hands were at his throat, their cry was in his ears, their breath was on his cheek. He beat them off with his hands but they had him by the knees—they dragged him down and down—

  When the grim silence of the house stirred an inquisitive attention, its doors were invaded.

  In the dusty room at the head of the stairs they found the dead bodies of the fool and the old man lying, in a tangled heap, together.

  The Twisted Inn

  MR BANNISTER chose his carriage with some care. He was always careful in the train because if you had work to do it was obviously necessary to have the place to yourself—when people were talking nothing could be done.

  It was a dark, windy day in late November. The platform at King’s Cross was nearly deserted, and it was all very cold and gloomy. The bookstall stared vacantly across the empty lines and its books and papers fluttered discontentedly as though they protested indignantly against their unhappy neglect—a porter pushed a load of luggage vacantly down the platform and ran into Mr Bannister; he apologised still vacantly and passed on, dreaming.

  Mr Bannister chose his carriage—a dirty, unappetising third class furnished with six highly coloured representations of ‘The Spa Longton’, ‘The Beach’, ‘Hicheton-on-Sea’, ‘The Station Hotel, Trament’, ‘The High Street, Wotton’—illustrations that were neither truthful nor entrancing.

  Mr Bannister was thin and wore glasses; he had high cheekbones and sandy hair—his eyes were pale grey, watery and red at the edges; his greatcoat was threadbare and shiny, his collar was a little frayed and his trousers had never been intended to turn up. Mr Bannister was a journalist.

  Times were hard just then, and, to be strictly truthful, his meals had, of late, been desperately uncertain. On Monday there had been breakfast, on Tuesday lunch, on Wednesday an excellent supper, owing to the happy discovery of a new friend; but today there had, as yet, been nothing—he sat in the corner of his carriage and thought of sausages.

  During a year and a half he had worked on the Daily Post and pay had been, on the whole, regular. He was a bachelor and claims on his purse were few, so things had gone well with him.

  But the Daily Post had found the world a cold and unfeeling place and had passed silently away, leaving very few to regret its departure. Mr Bannister missed it very sincerely, and he discovered how hard life could be. Everything that he handled seemed to be a lost cause, and one paper after another faded away at his eager touch—he depended, eventually, for his living, on the crimes and misfortunes of his fellow men—the world seemed to his tired brain a procession of thieves and murderers with the divorce courts for a background.

  Today he was hurrying down to a little village in a remote part of Wiltshire to investigate a crime of the night before. It was an affair of the usual kind—a woman had been murdered and there were suspicions of a lover. Mr Bannister went to it as he would to his bath or morning cigarette—to his heated brain murder was the game that everybody played; and he must be back again by the evening to report on a religious revival meeting in Clapham. The clouds were lifting—it was long since he had had two jobs in one day, and the Telegraph had given him both of them. The Telegraph was an excellent paper.

  They had told him that he must be prepared, if necessary, to sleep there during the night—it would be annoying if that were to happen—he would miss the revival. He determined, therefore, to be as speedy as possible, and he would, he hoped, be able to catch the four-thirty train back to town.

  It was dark and stormy and the wind whistled outside the carriage—the scudding clouds seemed to catch the top of the trees and drag them in their own hurrying direction—but the roots clung to the grey earth and the furious heavens tossed the trees back again to their original abiding-place.

  Mr Bannister’s coat was thin and he shivered in his corner— it was too dark to see, and the train shook so that it was impossible to write; he flung his notebook down and stared moodily out of the window. He was very hungry and was inclined to regard the world as an evil place; his mind flew back to his younger days when his ambition had challenged heaven and his poverty had seemed certain proof of genius. He had breakfasted on Swinburne, lunched on Pater, and dined on Meredith—now his library had been sold to pay his debts and his debts were still unpaid; he was very hungry.

  At a small wayside station there came an old woman—a very massive old woman with a bright print skirt of blue and an immense bosom; she had also a large basket, a bundle of sticks and a little boy. The basket and the sticks she placed carefully at her side; the boy she flung behind her—he fell into the corner and crouched there, against the cushions, softly sobbing.

  From her treatment of the boy Mr Bannister concluded that she was cruel, and he hated her cruelty—so he looked at her sternly and frowned. She sat staring straight in front of her, her hands planted firmly on her knees—she was an enormous woman.

  It was growing very dark and horribly cold—it was curiously dark for that time of day, Mr Bannister thought—moreover, the pangs of hunger came crowding upon him, and, to forsake their company, he plunged into conversation.

  ‘It is strangely dark for the hour,’ he said, and he coughed nervously. But the woman made no reply; only the little boy ceased his sobbing and sat up in his corner to stare amazedly at Mr Bannister.

  ‘It is a dreary day,’ he said with a little sigh—but perhaps the wind and the noise of the train had drowned his words, for she gave no answer and sat there without movement.

  She was rude as well as cruel, he thought, and he leaned back in his corner and desolately thought of murders and religious meetings and the profitable emotions of highly strung people.

  He sat thus for a very considerable time. The train rushed furiously forward, and the landscape grew darker and darker. ‘There must be a terrible storm coming,’ thought Mr Bannister— he watched the ebony blackness of the sky, the dark wavering outlines of fantastic trees, the sudden whites and greys of spaces of cloud and the clear shining of sudden pools.

  Within the carriage there was silence, and obscurity gathered in the corners and hid the coloured views mercifully in its arms; the outline of the enormous woman was black against the window and the curve of her great basket stood out hooplike in front of her.

  Every now and again the train stopped, but no one ever seemed to get in or out, and the desolate little stations with their pathetically neat gardens stared at the train forlornly as though they would have liked to stay and talk for a little time.

  Mr Bannister felt quite sorry for the little gardens—he was arriving at that state of worldwide sympathy consequent on an empty stomach. He was growi
ng vaguely uneasy—he should surely have arrived at his destination some time before. He was afraid lest he should have passed his station, and so he spoke again to the woman.

  ‘Can you tell me,’ he said politely, ‘whether we have passed Little Dutton? I am afraid that I must have missed it.’

  But she did not answer him, and her silence frightened him so that he dared not speak to her again. The consequences of missing his stations would be very serious indeed at such a crisis in his affairs. There were plenty of other persons ready to take his place and the Telegraph could scarcely afford to pay men who missed their trains.

  He could not understand the darkness. He had left King’s Cross in the morning and, slow though the train had been, it could not be more than lunchtime now. But the carriage was most horribly dark, and only vaguely from beyond the window he caught distant outlines of trees and sombre houses.

  Then suddenly he saw a star. There could be no mistake. Vividly, brilliantly, it sparkled at him through the carriage windows. A star! Then the darkness was no pretence, no sudden and furious storm as he had supposed. It was night.

  But it couldn’t be. He was to have arrived at Little Dutton before one, and now it was dark. Then there came to him the horrible certainty that he had slept—there could be no other possible explanation. He must have slept for hours, and Little Dutton must have been left, far, far behind. The horrible discovery left him breathless. He would have to pay for all those miles that he had travelled, and he had nothing to give for them. He had ten shillings; it had been in his eyes a treasure trove on which he would have many meals in the future, and now it must go to pay for a fruitless journey, and even then it would not be enough. He began to speak excitedly to the woman.