by Florence Warden, author of "The House on the Marsh," "St. Cuthbert's Tower," etc.
As published in Strange Doings in Strange Places (Cassell & Company, Ltd.; 1890), originally published in Cassell's Saturday Journal.
I.
Brendham Bell was the largest and oldest of a peal that hung rusting in the square tower of Brendham church; unused, grimy with years, a shelter for the birds and the bats which flew across to the little country town from the broads and the marshes of eastern Norfolk.
The bells had hung since the time when Brendham was an important town on the coast, busy with trade, its stone flags echoing with the clang of fishermen's feet. Now the sea had deserted it, and the town, losing its proud place as a port, had dropped behind in the world's race, and fallen quietly to sleep with its red-tiled roofs and quaint little open marketplace.
There was some young life in the place, though, for all that.
Maggie Hill was a sweet-faced, high-spirited lassie, who made the sunshine of her father's home, but who rebelled strongly against the limitations of life in the quiet country town, and against the fate which would force her, with her will or without it, into the arms of young Dr. Fulton. It was not that she disliked him. If the truth must be told, she would have chosen him out of a score of suitors as the handsomest, manliest, and altogether "nicest" man imaginable. But the other nineteen were not, in the limited area of Brendham's "best" people, forthcoming; and Maggie had too much spirit, too many pretty young girl's yearnings for romance, to give herself up without the least show of a contest.
So she did a thing that was very unwise. A well-dressed and well-mannered man, who looked about thirty-five years of age, a stranger to the place, had taken lodgings in a cottage on the outskirts of the town. This was a very common occurrence during the fishing and boating season, and excited no remark. But these visitors were always treated by the residents, according to the strict English code, as outlaws and vagabonds; being strangers they were socially accurst, non-existent, and the penalties upon intercourse with them were severe. Now, however bad a law--and especially a social law--may be, it is better for the individual to obey than to break it. Maggie Hill, therefore, did very unwisely in encouraging her father to strike up an acquaintance with Mr. Leonard Oakes, to invite him constantly to his house, and thereby to scandalise the neighbours. This gentleman had travelled; he had stories to tell; he was good-looking, with dark hair and a well-trimmed dark beard, and was altogether what ladies call "interesting." In the old, square-built, red-brick house where Lawyer Hill lived with his bonnie daughter, the presence of a man who had not passed most of his days at Brendham was certainly welcome. The old gentleman even went so far as to invite Mr. Oakes to leave his riverside lodgings and to stay in his house.
Leonard Oakes was too discreet to avail himself of the lawyer's impulsive offer.
"I am afraid you would find me rather too erratic for your peaceful household," he said. "It is awfully kind of you to make me such an offer. Indeed, I don't know how to thank you. But I--I couldn't on any account avail myself of it."
Maggie, whose view of the young man's face was unimpeded, saw on it a strange expression, which roused her curiosity and her interest very strongly. With a woman's quick instinct, she leaped at once to a conclusion which had hovered in her mind before—namely, that Mr. Oakes had some more important object in his visit to Brendham than either boating or fishing. Not a pleasant object either, she thought, as she noted a sudden clouding of eyes and a lowering of the brows. She had seen this look on his face before, though never yet so strongly; indeed, it was one of the "interesting" attributes which made him an object of curiosity to her, and of suspicion to her admirer, young Dr. Fulton. In any case, she felt thankful that he was not coming to stay at their house; for it would give Mr. Oakes further opportunities for attentions which had already begun to excite Dick Fulton's jealousy.
For Maggie had no intention of rousing a tempest in her admirer's breast--only a mild summer breeze.
She left her father and his guest alone presently, and peeped into the room, ten minutes later, with her hat and waterproof on.
"Hullo, my dear, where are you off to?" cried her father. "It's the last Friday of the month, papa, and I have to help Mrs. Darcy with her school books and things. I shan't be long. Good-bye, Mr. Oakes."
And she shut the door, and tripped out of the house, anxious to avoid an escort.
But Leonard Oakes was too quick for her. She had not gone many yards up the stony street, in the drizzling rain of a rather chilly May evening, when she heard his steps by her side. Maggie felt her heart leap up with something like fear. She would have to pass the little Queen-Anne house, on the door of which a bright brass plate bore the name of "Dr. Fulton." Besides, if the truth must be told, that interesting scowl which she had seen on Mr. Oakes's face at tea time had rather frightened her.
"May I have the pleasure of seeing you as far as you are going?" a voice was already saying behind her.
She stopped and looked up from under her umbrella. Perhaps it was only her fancy that the expression on his face had in it something new and startling--a wolfish look, as of some fierce animal in search of prey.
"No!" she said. "I--I must go by myself: thank you--thank you--very much."
And turning from him abruptly, with a scared look on her pretty face, she bowed "good-bye" and hastened up the hill.
She was within a few paces of Dr. Fulton's house, and the bay-window of the dining-room commanded the whole street. Maggie caught sight of Dick watching her from the window with an angry scowl on his face. She had been all humility, all repentance, a moment before; but this suggestion of a right to criticise her actions roused her spirit and put meeker feelings to flight. As she went on up the hill, she soon heard the slamming of a front door, and heavy footsteps on the stone flags behind her. Well, Dr. Fulton should not think she was afraid of him, and ready to run away! No, indeed! So Maggie slackened her steps when she reached the top of the steep street, and finding herself close to the police-station, she tilted back her umbrella and affected to read with much interest a couple of bills which had for the last few days been pasted on the wall. The first proved to be nothing more interesting than a police caution, calling upon all owners of dogs to muzzle them, in consequence of an outbreak of rabies in the county. The second was more exciting. It ran as follows:--
MURDER!
"Whereas, on the 15th of April last, the body of Thomas Everdene, Esq., was found with the throat cut at Dene Grange, late the residence of the above; and whereas, on the 21st of April last, the body of Rhoda Simmons was found, with the throat cut, at Winston in Berkshire; and whereas Robert Everdene, son of the above-mentioned Thomas Everdene, is wanted on suspicion of being connected with the above-named murders: a reward of £100 will be paid to any person, not being actually concerned in the murders, and not being a member of the Police Force, who shall give such information as will lead to the arrest of the above-mentioned Robert Everdene. The following cut is from a recent photograph of the above-mentioned Robert Everdene, and the following is an accurate description of him:--
"Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Age 27; looks younger. Complexion fair, but sunburnt. Grey eyes. Light brown hair and moustache (possibly now clean shaved). Small feet and hands. When last seen was dressed in light tweed suit and deer-stalker cap. Supposed to have gone to Scotland."
The woodcut represented a handsome man, looking about twenty-five, with a drooping moustache. Maggie had taken in the details of both illustration and description when the young doctor came up.
II.
"Good-evening, Miss Hill," he said, raising his hat very stiffly.
"Good-evening, Dr. Fulton."
A pause. Maggie went on reading the police notice, but Dr. Fulton did not take this hint and walk on. He was a hot-tempered young man, and was burning to say something which he did not dare to say. At last he remarked, in a tone which he had a struggle to render indifferent--
"You seem much interested. I should not have thought you would concern yourself with the appearance of a common criminal."
"This man seems to have been an uncommon criminal. And criminals are interesting to me because in this quiet place they are unknown creatures."
"Not altogether. At least I happen to know that there is a London detective staying in the town now, presumably on the look-out for some one."
Maggie's heart gave a sudden leap; for a most unpleasant thought had darted into her mind. Was this Mr. Oakes, to whom she and her father had extended such warm hospitality, really a detective on the watch for some one wanted by the police? She was not too ignorant of the world to know that men who by birth and education were gentlemen are to be found in every grade of life. And this supposition would account for the minute knowledge he had shown, in discussion with her father, of several well-known criminal cases; for his refusal to stay under their roof; for the curious, furtive look she had more than once seen in his eyes.
She glanced up at the sky and shut up her umbrella.
"May I ask where you are going?" asked the doctor, in rather too peremptory a tone.
Maggie rebelled again directly.
"I have an appointment," she said, coldly.
"With Mr. Oakes, I suppose!" burst in her admirer, no longer disguising his anger. "Very well, Miss Hill, I have no wish to detain you, nor will I ever venture to do so again. Perhaps I ought to apologise for having dared to speak to you, since I have no better justification than the fact that I am an old friend."
"You ought to apologise for being rude and bad tempered," said Maggie, candidly. "For really I think I am at liberty to make appointments with whom I please."
"Certainly. But as we don't agree as to the propriety of getting at once on familiar terms with a perfect stranger, I will take care not to obtrude. myself upon you any more."
Maggie paused. Did he know that the supposed Mr. Oakes was a detective? She was too much alarmed by this thought to resent Dick's impertinence as she would otherwise have done.
"Pray, what have you to to say against Mr. Oakes?" she asked, at last, in a rather hesitating tone.
"Nothing, except that you don't know him yet," was the somewhat reassuring answer.
"Oh, I see. ''Ere comes a stranger; let's 'eave 'arf a brick at 'im?'" quoted Maggie, saucily. "Very well, Dr. Fulton, it will be very distressing to me to have to forego the friendship of such a liberal-minded man; but I will try and bear it. For the last time, then--good-evening."
Although it had left off raining, the sky was still thick with clouds, so that night was closing in rapidly, and it was dark before Maggie reached the church. As she turned the last corner, a man, coming round it very sharply, ran up against her, stepped back quickly, and apologised. He seemed to have been running fast, for he was panting; his eyes twinkled under his hat and scanned the darkness all round her as he spoke, with an accent which was not that of Norfolk.
"Beg pardon, Miss. But you don't happen to have seen a gent go by this way--some time the last five minutes?" he asked, abruptly, in a hoarse whisper, as he continued to shoot furtive glances behind and before him.
Maggie, already on the alert since the doctor's words, felt a great shock. Whether Leonard Oakes was, or was not, the detective Dick had mentioned, she felt certain that this was the man who was "wanted." Her conviction was strengthened when, not waiting for an answer to his question, the man shot past her stealthily and disappeared at the first turning. She was cold with fright and trembling when she at last reached the churchyard gate, and let herself in by a private key.
The huge, massive, square stone tower stood quite apart from the church itself. The atmosphere of the lowest chamber was vault-like and chilling, and Maggie hurried to the worn stone staircase in the wall, which led to the next, or bell-ringers', chamber.
For four years now there had been no bell-ringing there. The old bells wanted recasting, and were unsafe, and liable, at any moment, to come crashing through the rotten wooden frame in which they hung into the clock-chamber beneath. But while the money was collecting for their restoration, the bells hung silent, and the ropes, still pendent in their places, rotted in the damp chamber below. Thus it happened that the vicar's wife found the ringers' chamber a convenient place for the transaction of various little matters connected with the business of the parish; for the only people who ever came through the room were the man who had charge of the church clock, and, in the summer, an occasional visitor enterprising enough to climb to the top of the tower for the sake of the view. Maggie herself was the only towns-woman who enjoyed this exercise; and when her work with Mrs. Darcy was done, she would generally reward herself for her industry by slipping up the stone staircase to drink in the cold, fresh air in the starlight.
On this occasion, however, she found the vicar's wife at the door of the bell-chamber in a great state of fussy excitement, quite incapable of settling down to accounts for some time to come.
"My dear Maggie," she cried, before the girl was more than halfway up the stone staircase, "what do you think I found when I arrived here five minutes ago?"
"A thief?" suggested Maggie, whose head was full of crime and criminals.
"N-no; at least I haven't seen him yet. But I found this door burst open, and the lock hanging down. See!"
Yes, there was the rusty old lock, not a very sure protection, forced out of its place, and hanging by two rusty nails.
But Maggie, after a careful examination of the room, where nothing appeared to have been disturbed, came to the unsensational conclusion that the guardian of the clock had come that day without his key, and, to save himself the trouble of a journey home to fetch it, had burst the old lock off, and then forgotten to replace it. Even Mrs. Darcy, on finding the missionary boxes intact, was fain at last to agree in this view, and then their work went on smoothly until the big clock in the chamber above them chimed out eight. The vicar's wife started up. It was the time at which she ought to have been home superintending her husband's supper.
"I'll finish the accounts, Mrs. Darcy, and 'cook' them beautifully," said Maggie, laughing. "You run home and warm the vicar's slippers."
Mrs. Darcy tucked up her skirts and climbed gingerly down the stone staircase, while Maggie proceeded to finish off the work, which she did in a very few minutes. Then, according to her custom, she put away books and cashbox very quickly, climbed up to the clock-chamber, and proceeded thence, with slower and more careful feet, up the wooden ladder to the belfry.
III.
Maggie had to grope her way, for it was quite dark. But she had been up so often before, by daylight as well as in the evening, that she knew when to avoid the worn stair, and which rung of the old ladder to tread on lightly. Up in the belfry, too, as she crept round the wooden gallery, holding the rickety rail, and feeling her way with her feet, she knew just where the holes and the gaps were in the rotten boards, and passed with confidence and safety where a stranger would have been in serious danger. She had gone along one side of the square tower, hearing nothing but the ticking of the great clock in the chamber underneath, when her attention was arrested by an unaccustomed noise. It was momentary--over before she stopped to listen--but there could be no doubt about it. She had heard some sound she could not account for.
"Anybody here?" she called out.
But there was no answer.
She never came to the old tower without a box of matches in her pocket. She struck one, and looked round the belfry. Nothing to be seen but the rusty bells hanging in their places, the mouldy stone of the old tower walls, and the uneven gallery that ran round the bells. Reassured, she climbed up the second ladder, which led to the roof, and stood there in the night air, looking down at the little twinkling lights of the town beneath. She was about to make her way down again when a loud noise in the belfry underneath frightened her into her into a moment's immovability. Then she dashed down the steep wooden steps as fast as she could, and flying round the gallery with steps so quick that the old boards rebounded under her tread, she was about to descend into the clock-chamber, when, putting out her foot for the top rung of the ladder, she found, to her horror, that it had been taken away. She stepped back with a cry. As she did so, a hand touched her, and seemed to try to grip her by the shoulder.
Roused to a high pitch of nervous excitement and terror, Maggie turned fiercely, and, striking out in the darkness, caught something in her right hand. She was so familiar with every inch of the old tower that she was able to step back upon the boards, and evade for a moment the unseen creature that was pursuing her. There was a terrible silence of a few seconds, and then she heard a heavy panting sound coming slowly nearer, louder, as if the intruder was approaching stealthily. At all hazards, she felt she must see who it was: find out what it was she had seized and still held in her right hand. She crept a few steps back, keeping as close to the wall as she could, to avoid the holes in the old boards. Then she struck another match.
The weak light revealed the figure of a man, crouching down by the wall of the gallery which ran at right angles to that on which she was standing.
"Mr. Oakes?" escaped her lips in astonishment--in inquiry.
He did not move, and she could not see his face. Her glance fell upon her right hand, and then upon the thing she had snatched in it.
It was a false black beard.
Maggie started at the sight of this, and the match went out. But she had lost all fear.
"Are you angry because I pulled off your beard?" she asked in a hurried, tremulous voice. "It was dark, you know, and I couldn't see what I did. And I won't tell any one of your disguise if you don't wish it. I know who you are: a detective on the look-out for some criminal--a murderer perhaps?"
The last words froze on her lips, for a loud, harsh, diabolical laugh broke from her pursuer's lips and echoed through the belfry.
Seized with unutterable horror, and impelled by a deadly curiosity she did not dare, even if she had had time, to analyse, Maggie struck a match with clammy fingers, and held it so that she could clearly see the face of the man, who was moving stealthily and lightly towards her along the rotten rafters.
It was Leonard Oakes! But, with the beard torn off, his face stood revealed as that of the murderer, the portrait of whose face she had seen on the wall. In the eyes was the wolfish look she had seen before, now a thousand times fiercer, blazing like a madness burning out of the blood--the look of the homicidal maniac.
The sudden flash of light in his eyes, together with the shriek Maggie gave, caused him to start back, catching one foot in a gap between the boards. The girl, fleeing round the gallery, got under the hand rail, and crept among the huge bells. The flooring, which was of wood and very old, trembled and cracked under her feet. She heard the panting sound of the madman's breath as he tried to find her in the darkness. For it was a moonless night, and no light came through the shuttered windows.
Then she heard, listening with straining, bursting ears, or thought she heard, a sound in the chamber below. Some one was there surely! She raised her voice suddenly in one shrill, despairing cry, that made the old bells vibrate. A cold chill seemed to freeze her blood. For the ladder was gone. The maniac had pulled it up. She had seen it lying along one side of the gallery.
If she could only find her way to it, and put it in position quickly enough to evade the murderous hands of her pursuer! She heard an answering shout to hers from below; it was Dick Fulton's voice. But he could not reach her. Unless she could find the ladder and descend by it, she might be strangled with her lover listening, powerless, to her dying cries. She could not tell where the maniac was; for a few seconds he had remained perfectly quiet, cunningly trying thus to discover her place of refuge. But, as the man's voice from below reached his ears, he uttered a sort of savage growl; and Maggie, half crazy with terror, stumbled towards the side of the gallery where the ladder lay. She was not quick enough. Even as she, creeping on hands and knees, touched the ladder, a faint ray of moonlight, struggling at last through the clouds, came through one of the windows, and showed the girl's stooping figure.
In an instant Maggie heard a spring behind her, felt hot breath on her neck, and the touch of cold, trembling, clinging fingers tightening in a horrible, murderous clutch about her throat. She shrieked, she struggled, fighting for life, hearing no sound from below, nothing but the breath coming fast through the madman's teeth as he tried to close his fingers together round her throat.
Suddenly, as she fought and writhed and screamed, with desperate but fast-ebbing strength, she saw something move behind her assailant--something huge and slow and dark. Even in her agony she stared at this with gaze so fascinated that her would-be murderer turned his head, still keeping his hands upon her, with a quick glance behind him. At that moment, a deep roaring noise seemed to stun them. It was a note struck upon Brendham bell.
For a moment the murderer relaxed his hold. Maggie sprang up, quick as thought, alive with a wild hope. For she had felt the rotten flooring tremble; she guessed, with a sickening, mad anxiety, how help was coming to her. She clapped her hands wildly, and rushed, shrieking, to the middle of the floor, which was shaking with ponderous blows. Before the maniac had time to seize her again, a great splinter from one of the rotten rafters flew up; then another; and the next moment a man's head and shoulders appeared, and Dick Fulton scrambled through, still holding to the rope of the big bell, up which he had swarmed. The maniac fell back; for out of Dick's pocket appeared the hatchet with which he had forced the belfry floor.
Maggie did not faint. She gave one great, heart-bursting sigh, and looked quickly round at her late assailant.
To her astonishment, he had suddenly become the quiet, gentlemanly Leonard Oakes she had always known until twenty minutes ago. On the appearance of a third person, he had in an instant got the better of the homicidal fit which had come upon him on his finding himself alone with a possible victim. He was gentle, apologetic; it was scarcely possible to believe that he had not, as he protested, been playing a ghastly trick upon the girl. The young doctor affected to think that this was the case. He put his hand on Maggie's shoulder, and pretended to laugh at her foolishness; then gently scolded the young man for his practical joke.
"And now," he said, "please help me to put the ladder back in its place."
"Leonard Oakes obeyed, and they all went down, he descending first. Maggie leaned on Dick's arm, for she was trembling violently.
"Do you believe him?" She formed the words with white lips.
He shook his head, and raised his hand warningly, keeping up light talk with Oakes until they reached the lowest floor of the tower. There Dick held Maggie back while a man, stepping forward from a group assembled there, clapped a pair of handcuffs on the other man's wrists. It was the London detective who had run against Maggie at the corner of the street on her way to the tower.
"Robert Everdene! That's the man right enough!" was all he said.
* * * * *
"Oh, Dick!" sobbed Maggie, as she tottered home, leaning on the young doctor's arm; "I'll never, never make any acquaintances again.""Yes, you will. You'll make the acquaintance of my mother about this day week; she will come down from town to see us married!"