Dark Detectives Page 16

  His shoes were worn and out at heel and I was astonished, even given our visitor’s general appearance, to see that instead of laces his shoes were held to his feet by lengths of knotted string. Grimstone was probably nearer seventy than sixty and his face was lined, with deep furrows running from the corners of his eyes to his nostrils. His eyes were a pale green and the most cunning I had ever seen in my varied experience as a medical practitioner.

  His nose was thin and raw red which I put down to the wind and the current cold weather and his mouth had a cadaverous and lopsided look. I found out later that this resulted from his wearing a set of secondhand dentures which did not fit him properly. As Pons had so properly observed, few men had ever existed with such miserly habits. His rimless pince-nez had evidently been garnered from the same source as the dentures; some dingy secondhand shop, for I was certain that they did not suit his eyesight, for he squinted ferociously over the top of them from time to time.

  Altogether, he was one of the most remarkable specimens I ever beheld and the more I saw of him the more my initial impression of unpleasantness and shiftiness were reinforced. But Solar Pons seemed oblivious of all this and smiled at him pleasantly enough through his pipe-smoke, as he sat back in his easy-chair and favoured me with a subtle droop of his right eyelid.

  “Well, Mr. Grimstone,” he said at length. “Just how can I serve you?”

  The old man looked at him suspiciously.

  “You got my letter, Mr. Pons?”

  “Indeed,” said my companion. “In fact there was some difficulty in the matter. Some trifling oversight in the matter of the stamp. There was a surcharge of three-pence that my landlady had to pay.”

  I was astonished at Pons’ words but even more so at our client’s response. Far from being offended he drew himself up frostily and his eyes positively twinkled as he looked at Pons with something like admiration.

  “A minor problem, my dear sir,” he snapped. “No doubt covered by the overcharges on my bill.”

  He wagged his grubby forefinger at Pons.

  “I have never yet met anyone who failed to overcharge me.”

  Solar Pons looked at him imperturbably, his penetrating eyes shot with humour through the pipe-smoke.

  “In that case had you better not consult someone else in your problem?” he said mildly.

  Grimstone jerked in his chair as though stung by some venomous insect. His voice rose to a high, strangled squawk.

  “After having come all this way up from Kent, Mr. Pons? With the scandalously expensive fares imposed by the railways …?”

  There was dismay as well as anger in the tones and Solar Pons glanced at me with an open smile.

  “I have touched upon your Achilles heel, it would appear, Mr. Grimstone. Pray lay your problem before me without further ado.”

  Grimstone fixed Pons with glittering eyes.

  “Ah, then you have decided to take the case, Mr. Pons?”

  My companion shook his head slowly.

  “I have not said so. If it presents points of interest I may agree to do so.”

  Our visitor actually rocked to and fro in his chair as though with anguish.

  “And if you do not?” he snapped. “The railway fare, Mr. Pons! The fare! I shall write to my Member of Parliament.”

  Solar Pons chuckled easily, sending a lazy plume of smoke up toward the ceiling.

  “I am not quite sure whether you are referring to the iniquitously high cost of railway travel, Mr. Grimstone, or to my conduct. But in either event your M.P. will be no more pleased at having to pay a surcharge on his letter than I was.”

  Grimstone was off on another tack. He crossed his bony legs and smirked.

  “Ah, then we are at one, Mr. Pons,” he mumbled, as though my companion had agreed with him. “I must have your help in this monstrous persecution to which I am being subjected. When could you come down? We do not exactly keep open house but we could accommodate you in some corner of the Manor.”

  “I should first prefer to hear something of the business which brings you here, Mr. Grimstone. Your letter was nothing if not sensational in its implications.”

  Grimstone drew down the corner of his mouth as though Pons had said something distasteful and momentarily lapsed into silence. For a second or two I glimpsed such fear on his face as I have seldom seen on a human being. It was obvious to me that Pons had also seen it and that Grimstone’s newly assumed businesslike manner was a mere façade, which might crack at any moment.

  Solar Pons paused a little to allow our visitor to recover himself, looking not unsympathetically at our strange caller through the aromatic clouds of tobacco-smoke.

  “You spoke of a crawling horror, Mr. Grimstone?” he said at length. “Can you amplify that somewhat enigmatic statement?”

  Grimstone shook his head, waving it from side to side so agitatedly that it looked as though he had palsy.

  “I can, Mr. Pons,” he said in a dead voice. “It is something that haunts me; something that I can never forget.”

  “You had better start at the beginning, my dear sir,” said Solar Pons softly. “Take your time and tell the story in your own words.”

  Our client sat puffing his cheeks in and out for a few moments, looking with cunning eyes first at me and then at my companion. I must say that my distaste for him and his malodorous clothing was growing by the minute, but Solar Pons stared imperturbably in front of him and continued ejecting sweet-scented smoke from his pipe until our bizarre visitor should be ready to continue.

  He began abruptly, without preamble, with the look upon him of a man who has suddenly made up his mind to take the plunge only because of dire necessity at his elbow.

  “You probably know about me, Mr. Pons. My activities have not passed unnoticed in the City. I have amassed a certain amount of money, it is true, but I am a poor man in comparison with many I could name; and my expenses have been heavy—extremely heavy.”

  He paused as though expecting Pons to agree with him and receiving no reaction continued in a disappointed tone.

  “I live quite frugally as befits my station, Mr. Pons, in an old manor house on the marshes near Gravesend. My niece, Miss Sylvia Grimstone, lives with me and keeps house and we do tolerably well. I am not much in the City these days and keep in touch by telephone. My health has not been too good these last few years and I have had to ease up a little.”

  Solar Pons ejected a cloud of blue smoke into the air of our sitting-room.

  “What staff have you at the Manor, Mr. Grimstone?”

  Our visitor looked startled.

  “Staff, Mr. Pons?”

  He smirked.

  “Good gracious me, I cannot run to that. My niece sees to all our wants. In return she receives bed and board and a yearly stipend.”

  His voice dropped on the last words as though the stipend were a matter of great regret to him. Pons could not forbear an amused glance across at me.

  “We lived an uneventful life until a few months ago, Mr. Pons, when these terrible things happened.”

  “What terrible things, Mr. Grimstone? You have told me little as yet. Pray be most precise as to circumstance and detail.”

  Solar Pons tented his thin fingers before him and fixed our visitor with a steady glance.

  “As I have indicated, Mr. Pons, we live an isolated and sheltered life there on the Marsh. The Manor has been in our family for centuries and descended to me from my brother. Its isolation suited me and the property, which is a curious one, is actually on an island in the Marsh and approached by a causeway.”

  Solar Pons glanced at Grimstone, his eyes penetrating beneath his half-lowered lids.

  “The Marsh is dangerous?”

  “Oh, yes indeed, Mr. Pons. In some places it is actual swamp, though sheep and cattle graze on it here and there. Sometimes it claims an unwary beast and some areas are reputed to be literally bottomless.”

  “I see. But you know it well?”

  “Certainly, Mr.
Pons. I spent some time there with relatives when a child. But the Manor itself and the area immediately surrounding it is safe enough, and the causeway which links it with the firmer ground runs direct to a good secondary road.”

  Solar Pons nodded.

  “It is as well to get the background details firmly in one’s mind, Mr. Grimstone. I find it a great aid to the ratiocinative processes. Eh, Parker?”

  “Certainly, Pons.”

  Our client nodded, his mean little eyes gleaming.

  “Well, Mr. Pons, Grimstone Manor may seem a somewhat strange and out of the way place to a stranger, but it suits me and my niece.”

  He shifted in his chair and once again I caught the unpleasant smell of mould and old clothing.

  “It was October, Mr. Pons. A cold, windy day, but toward sunset the wind dropped and a thin mist began to rise. I had been in to our local village of Stavely, some miles from Allhallows, and was walking back along the marsh road, which is, as you may imagine, elevated some way above its surroundings. It is a wild, bleak, lonely place even in summer and you can imagine what it must be like at dusk on a bitter autumn day.”

  Our client cleared his throat with a harsh rasping sound before going on with his narrative.

  “I had got quite close to my own dwelling, thank God, when my attention was arrested by a singular noise. It was a low, unpleasant sound, like somebody clearing his throat. A pony and trap had passed me some minutes before, going toward Stavely, but I was completely alone in that bare landscape, Mr. Pons, and I can tell you that I was considerably startled. But I moved on, as I was only a few hundred yards from the entrance to Grimstone Manor causeway. Fortunate that I did so.”

  Pons’ eyes were shining.

  “Why so, Mr. Grimstone?”

  “Because otherwise I would not be here talking to you now, Mr. Pons,” the old man replied.

  “I heard the strange noise a few moments later, and turned just short of the causeway. Mr. Pons, I had never seen anything like it. There was only the afterglow lingering in the sky and the harsh cry of some bird. I might have been upon the moon for all the human help at hand.”

  Our client swallowed heavily and his eyes were dark with fear.

  “Mr. Pons, as true as I sit here, a corpse-figure was dragging itself from the edge of the marsh, all burning and writhing with bluish fire!”

  III

  The silence which followed was broken by a sound like a pistol-shot. It was made by Solar Pons slapping his right thigh with the flat of his hand.

  “Capital, Mr. Grimstone! What then?”

  “Why, Mr. Pons, I took to my heels, of course,” said Silas Grimstone with commendable frankness, casting a resentful look at Pons.

  “But the thing which pursued me had devilish cunning. It seemed to make its way across the marsh in a series of hops, as though to cut me off.”

  “It did not follow on the causeway, then?”

  Solar Pons sat with his pipe wreathing smoke in his hand, completely absorbed in our visitor’s narrative. Grimstone shook his head.

  “It was trying to prevent me from getting to my house, Mr. Pons. I have never been so frightened in my life. At first it seemed to gain but when I looked back there was nothing but a bluish fire bobbing about some distance behind me. It was almost completely dark by this time and I had never been so glad to see the lights of the Manor, I can tell you.”

  “I can well imagine,” said Solar Pons drily. “This figure made no sound?”

  “No, Mr. Pons. Not that I heard. When I gained the safety of the courtyard in front of the house, I looked briefly back and saw a faint blue glow disappearing in the haze of the marsh.”

  “A terrifying experience, Mr. Grimstone,” I put in.

  “There is more to follow?” Solar Pons added crisply.

  The old man nodded sombrely.

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Pons. I did not tell my niece of the affair at first, as I did not wish to unduly alarm her. She is highly strung and it would be difficult to get someone to attend to my wants if she decided to leave.”

  “Indeed,” said Solar Pons gravely.

  “I thought at first, Mr. Pons, that I had been the victim of some sort of hallucination. The next time I went into Stavely, which was not until a fortnight later, I took the pony and trap and made sure I returned in daylight. I dismounted when I came to the spot near the causeway where I had seen the figure, but, of course, there was nothing to be seen.”

  Solar Pons replaced the pipe in his mouth and puffed thoughtfully.

  “Why do you say, ‘of course,’ Mr. Grimstone?”

  “Well, I had hoped that there would be some quite ordinary explanation such as marsh lights, or some strange but natural phenomenon to account for the apparition. But there was nothing to support such a theory.”

  “So you believe it to be a ghost?”

  “I do not know what to believe, Mr. Pons.”

  “It was a human figure, though?”

  “Undoubtedly, Mr. Pons. Though I could see no detail, just the blue phosphorescent fire.”

  “Pray continue.”

  “Well, Mr. Pons, nothing further happened for some weeks and I had hoped that was the end of the matter. I had been out in the opposite direction, to look at a property in which I had some interest, and was unmindful of the time. I had the pony and trap and was coming along the same road but from the southerly direction. It was again almost dusk when for the second time I had the same terrifying experience. Once more this ghastly figure rose from the edge of the marsh. The pony took fright and I had so much to do to control him and what with my work at the reins I quite forgot my terror and when we at last rattled across the causeway and I had a moment to take stock there was no sign of the figure.”

  “You still told your niece nothing?”

  Grimstone shook his head.

  “There seemed no point, Mr. Pons. That was November. The next thing that happened was quite near Christmas. It was coming closer to the house all the time, Mr. Pons.”

  “Pray be more explicit, Mr. Grimstone.”

  “Well, I had been ill with a cold, and had to curtail my business activities. I had not been to London for over a month and it wanted but ten days to Christmas. Again, it was dusk and I was sitting in a ground-floor room near the window, well wrapped up, my feet toward the fire. The sunset was dying out across the marsh. My niece was preparing tea in the kitchen and I was musing ruminatively as one does at such times. Imagine my horror, Mr. Pons, when I suddenly saw this bluish light hopping across the yard outside the house. It came on with quick strides and as I sat half paralysed this hideous face made of bluish fire was thrust against the window.”

  Our client licked his lips, he was so visibly moved by the recollection, and I felt a momentary flash of pity for him.

  “Hmm. A nasty experience, Mr. Grimstone.”

  Solar Pons pulled reflectively at the lobe of his right ear.

  “What did you do?”

  “I gave a great cry, Mr. Pons. I jumped up at once but the thing had made off. It went in a strange, zig-zagging motion and the last I saw it was disappearing in the sunset haze toward the marsh. A coal had fallen from the fire about then and was threatening to burn the carpet. My niece came rushing in at my outburst but I gave the fallen coal as my excuse and the matter passed over. She made much of my paleness and agitation but I told her I felt ill again and went back to bed after tea. That was the third appearance of the apparition, Mr. Pons.”

  “There has been a fourth, then?”

  Silas Grimstone nodded, his lined face lightened but not softened by the flickering firelight of our sitting-room.

  “Before you come to that, Mr. Grimstone, I have one or two further questions. What do you think this thing is?”

  The old man stubbornly shook his head.

  “That is for you to tell me, Mr. Pons,” he snapped, with a return to his old manner. “It would appear to be supernatural in origin but why it should choose to haunt me, I have no ide
a.”

  “I see.”

  Solar Pons was silent for a moment, his brooding eyes gazing into the heart of the fire.

  “Tell me, Mr. Grimstone, are there any dwellings on the marsh itself from which this creature could have come?”

  “You mean a domestic animal, Mr. Pons? That is hardly possible.”

  “I did not ask that, Mr. Grimstone.”

  The old man winced at the asperity in my companion’s voice. “The marshes are a strange place, Mr. Pons. They extend for miles over that part of England. Between, there are agricultural areas, firm ground and rich fields. Then you will find a wild expanse of marsh, with here and there islands of solid farmland, which may be reached on foot by the bold. I understand there are some small-holdings on such pockets.”

  “I see. Tell me, Mr. Grimstone, have any persons been lost in the marsh? Sucked under or drowned, I mean?”

  Silas Grimstone stared at Solar Pons with shadowed eyes.

  “Many such, Mr. Pons, from time immemorial. In more recent times, the occasional sheep or cattle. I do not know of any other fatality, offhand.”

  “Why did you not inform the police of this figure which had chased you?”

  “Police!”

  There was a wealth of disgust in our client’s voice. “That would be worse than useless, Mr. Pons. I did not want them tramping about my property. And what could I tell them? That I had seen a ghost? They would have merely laughed. They do not deal in ghosts.”

  “Neither do I,” said Pons.

  “Mr. Grimstone has a point, Pons,” I interjected.

  My companion looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps, Parker, perhaps,” he said absently.

  He turned back to Grimstone.

  “What was this latest incident?”

  “Only two nights ago, Mr. Pons. That was what prompted me to come to you. It has become unbearable.”