A voice from the dark

Front matter

os A Oaruat ips a at ‘és ah i rts i

St ie Rey ae A ey ene Gt yipbeeniit

Oe whe iting pied ee i oe tack

Chapter I The Ghost

HE “Old Manor House” Hotel stood upon

high land facing south. Perched on a plateau

six hundred feet above the sea it stood with

a ridge of fallow and woodland rising behind it, while farms dotted the slopes sea-ward and a stream ran through the valley beneath. Beyond this vale the coast-line rose once more to a range of irregular and open downs from which fell low, sponge-coloured cliffs to the shore. Due south swept the British Channel, while easterly ran Chesil Bank and, lifting like a cloud above the winter waves, there rose the dim and massy heights of Portland Bill. The “Old Manor House” stood at a cross roads, in lonely, wind-swept country, and largely depended for success upon sportsmen and wayside custom. Few persons stopped at the inn for more than a night or two, when hounds were due to meet on the outlying common lands; but now, in the dusk of a November evening, a motor from the neighbouring market town of Bridport drew up at the entrance and one wayfarer alighted at the wide, low porch of stone. Only in the centre of the building did any second storey rise. To east and west the ground floor extended in narrow wings; while the yard, loose boxes, stables and other outbuildings lay grouped in the rear.

John Ringrose leaping to the ground, drew out his luggage and gun-case, then rang a bell which boomed heavily within.

He was a brisk man of five-and-fifty; with spare and active habit and build. His clean-shaved countenance attracted by its genial and kindly expression; his shrewd eyes revealed a twinkle of humour in them. Existence had not robbed him of that, though people who knew how his life had been spent, wondered, foolishly, why its progress could create such a benignant attitude toward his fellow-creatures. But John was ever a humanist; experience lacked the power to change that gift of nature.

Mr. Ringrose was clad in a large-checked, Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, with worsted stockings on his thin legs. He wore a cap over his short, grey hair, and heavy, square-toed shges of dark-brown leather. He twisted up his nose now—a little trick of which he was unconscious—and allowed himself to survey a familiar scene. He knew these uplands of Dorset very well, but he had never stopped before at the “Old Manor House.” He was here at the invitation of the landlord; for he had within the past year done Mr. Jacob Brent an inestimable service.

Mr. Brent himself now filled his porch and displayed keen pleasure at the visitor’s arrival. He was a stout, simple man of vast proportions—too big, as he always declared, to permit himself either hurry or annoyance. A white beard obscured the lower portion of his face and above it rose a wide, gentle brow and a big nose inclined to be ruddy. Jacob’s eyes were large and grey. They blinked behind steel-rimmed glasses. His immense shoulders had grown round; his back seemed somewhat bowed beneath the weight of his great head. Had he been able to stand quite upright he must have been a man of six feet, four inches; and despite his permanent stoop, he towered above John Ringrose, who stood no more than five feet, eight.

A very hearty welcome greeted the newcomer and he was presently conveyed to his room, where a bright fire burned. John’s chamber stood in the left wing of the building and the approach lay through a passage.

It was the visitor’s custom to acquaint himself exactly with any quarters into which he might be called to spend a night. ‘When I’m going to lose consciousness in a strange bed, I always want to know all about my surroundings if possible,” Mr. Ringrose was wont to say.

He discovered now that his window opened five feet above the highway outside, being separated from it by a strip of grass and a railing only. It was a square, commonplace window fastened by the usual bolt. The door opened in a line with it, where the passage terminated, and the room completed the eastern wing so that three of its sides represented outer walls. The solitary inner wall separated the visitor’s bedroom from the next, which also opened upon the passage. The fireplace stood in an outer wall and no features of any interest marked the square chamber destined for a fortnight to contain Mr. Ringrose during his hours of sleep. A heavy curtain drew across the window and a white blind descended behind the curtain. The room was lighted by an electric bulb over a dressing-table.

John Ringrose unpacked his luggage and stowed his clothes in a chest of drawers. He noted a hanging cupboard let into the thickness of one wall of the room, and there disposed of his coats. At the bottom he stored his cartridges, gun-case, sporting-leggings and _ boots. For he was here to enjoy the rough shooting that his friend had promised him.

Presently he arranged a few books and a dispatch box and leather desk on a table in the window, and then, setting a wire guard over his fire, he left the room and joined his host in a private office where tea awaited him.

Mr. Brent was a widower and, thanks to his visitor’s services, his only son, a clerk in a private bank at Yeovil, had been proved innocent of very serious charges brought against him. The young man, the soul of honesty, had been the catspaw for a couple of very thorough rascals; and the pair were now serving their sentence, while Jacob Brent’s son was completely exonerated, thanks to the professional acumen of Mr. Ringrose. The lad’s father, more than grateful for such services, had long ago extended an open invitation to the detective, and now, as he drank his excellent China tea, the younger man defined his purpose in his usual exact fashion.

“I always meant to come, Brent. Not likely I was going to lose the chance of a good time and a bit of sport in your fine country; but I must tell you how the land lies. I’ve retired, as you know—didn’t want to yet; but I’m not greedy and I’ve done my bit and I’ve a great belief in the next generation. So I’ve made way and gone before the need to goarose. And by way of work— for I'll never stop working at one thing or another—I mean to write a book.”

“There’s nothing you can’t do,’”’ vowed Mr. Brent.

“T wish I thought so; but the Chief put the idea in my head. ‘You'll never twiddle your thumbs, Ringrose,’ he said to me. ‘I’ve just started to write my recollections of Scotland Yard and you can’t do better than follow my example; and your book will be much more exciting reading than mine.’ Those were Sir James Ridgway’s very words, so there it is; I’ve cast loose, and I’ve got a good lot of interesting stuff‘no doubt, full of the bright side of human nature as well as sensation and crime and mystery. And I’m going to see if I can get order into it. I’ve planned the book, and I’d much have liked one more good, sporting case to finish with; but I’m out of the game now and must do the best with what I’ve got.”

“Lord man! You’ve been in enough fearful and perilous affairs to fill ten books I should reckon.”

“Not the way I tell ’em. You can soon boil down a case to the bare bones, and I’ve never wasted words in my business, Brent, and I sha’n’t waste more than I can help in my book. So now we come to the point. You've asked me for a fortnight. And when that fortnight is ended, if I like the place and the run of the country, I’m

_ going to offer to stay with you for a few months, and enjoy a bit of sport off and on, and put my time—most of it— into my book. How will that suit you ?”

“Surprising well,” declared the inn-keeper. “And we won't quarrel about the terms neither. I owe you more than six months’ board and lodging, Ringrose; and to have a great man like you under my roof will pay me better than money. Because I’m an ignorant chap, but always wishful to learn when anybody’s inclined to teach.” 3

“Who else lives here ?”’

“Only one chronic. A Mrs. Bellairs. She’s a dear old lady struck with paralysis and this is her home nowa-days. She and her maid, Miss Manley, have been with me for two years now, and she means to bide till her end. One old friend or another will look her up now and again; but she’s very lonely, because she’s very old and has outlived her generation. There was a romantical idea that brought her here. She spent her honeymoon at the ‘Old Manor House,’ fifty years ago in my father’s time, and she took a liking to it for that reason; and after she’d been here a few weeks for her health, she ordained to stop for the rest of her life. It suits her and it suits me, for she’s very game and bright, though eightyfour years of age.”

Mr. Ringrose nodded.

“Sometimes those old women of a byegone generation have a lot of sense,’ he said. ‘‘My own mother was such a one. An amazing fine memory she had, and a sense of humour, and a very forgiving heart for the sins of others, as people with a sense of humour generally do have.”

At dinner that night the detective met his fellow-guest. She was a comely old lady with a strong, sensitive face and blue eyes still bright. She wore a purple gown with much lace upon it, a diamond brooch, which Mr. Ringrose judged to be of considerable value, and over her snow-white hair a dainty cap where a black bow sat in more lace. Her old, thin hands were still beautiful and she used them freely in conversation. But her lower limbs were paralysed and she never left her invalid chair in public. She was drawn to the dining table by her maid, and Mr. Ringrose stood up to greet her. Her attendant looked nearly as old as herself—a little, wizened, brown-faced woman still straight in the back and with a face not lacking intelligence and character. She spoke primly and correctly, but her réle was to listen, for Mrs. Bellairs loved to talk. Mr. Ringrose, who always put on a black frock-coat in the evening, found himself pleasantly attracted by his fellow-guest. The old lady proved genial and hearty. She was also shrewd and revealed an extensive knowledge of the world. She ate little and pressed the newcomer to drink a glass of port from her private bottle when the meal was concluded.

“TI sit up for an hour in the drawing-room after dinner,” she said, ‘“‘and Manley is good enough to read to me as a rule. But if you are going to join us, then we won’t read but talk instead. 1 appear at lunch, but not sooner. My little suite is in the west wing. You must come and smoke your cigar in my sitting-room and see the beautiful view some day.”

“You don’t mind tobacco ?”’ he asked.

“Far from it. I still enjoy a cigarette myself sometimes.”

Ringrose knew that they were ignorant of his fame, as he had directed his host to keep that a profound secret. He felt, therefore, that under those circumstances a friendship might be developed if the old lady desired it. He had impressed upon his host that he desired to be incognito.

Now he chatted with Mrs. Bellairs for an hour and then returned to the bar parlour, drank the one whiskey and water he permitted himself and retired early to bed. For five minutes he stood alone under the inn porch and looked out upon the night. It was rough, wet and forbidding. When the wind lulled between gusts, Mr. Ringrose could hear the thunder of the waves two miles distant beneath the cliffs, and through the murk eastward a faint pencil of light behind Portland Bill flashed aloft from the distant lighthouse. The inn was very lonely and the few men who had assembled in the bar soon departed. John’s bedroom presented a snug and cheerful scene, for the fire was burning brightly. The electric light would need to be altered in the visitor’s opinion. He must have a hand-lamp upon his desk, for many evening hours he doubted not would be spent in literary labour.

Mr. Ringrose was soon prepared for rest, and as he sunk into a feather bed he perceived that other changes would be necessary. A hard bed was necessary to his comfort. He soon slept, however, and slept well.

And then a voice in the room awakened him. Indeed, it must have roused a heavier sleeper than the retired officer of the police, for its tones were shrill, piercing, and laden with mental agony. A child cried out in pain and terror; and John Ringrose, who, though a bachelor, loved children very heartily, sat up with indignation, _and heard every word of the frenzied appeal.

“Please—please—I will be good—TI will be good, Mr. Bitton! Don’t let him see me—don’t let him come— please—please !”’

The words were nothing to the cruel frenzy of childish fear with which they were uttered. They ended in a sob of terror, so abject that the listener already felt a fierce indignation banish sleep. He calculated afterwards that not three seconds elapsed between the last moan of the child’s voice and the flash of the electric light, the button of which stood in the wall beside his bed. But the room was empty. He leapt to the door and unlocked it, only to find no sign of any living thing in the dark passage outside. He then hastened to the window, but the curtains were drawn and the window bolted. The room itself contained no place but the cupboard wherein the smallest child could hide, but the cupboard held nothing but John’s gear.

Mr. Ringrose looked at the time. It was three o’clock. His fire had gone out and, in the silence, he marked a rough wind blowing round the corner of the old house in which his chamber was situated. Then he heard the heavy footfall of horses in the road. The creatures were alone, wandering by night as cattle will. He drew his blind and looked out. Two big, black cart horses moved together. One whinnied and seemed to laugh at something his companion had said. At the flash of the light from his window upon the empty road, both great beasts started and galloped heavily away. The wind shouted after them and the rain feil.

Mr. Ringrose drew the blind, put on his dressing-gown and went into the passage. He took his electric torch with him and peered about. But the house was silent, buried in darkness and sleep. Not a breath or murmur came from the room next his own. He tried the handle of the door and it gave to him. The room, a facsimile of that in which he had slept, was quite empty. A dust cloth covered the bed and he lifted it, to find only the mattress beneath. The cupboard door he flung open. That too was empty. He returned to his own apartment and repeated to himself the words which he had heard.

“Please—please—I will be good—I will be good, Mr. Bitton! Don’t let him see me—don’t let him come— please—please |”

John Ringrose wrote down the words; then he took off his dressing-gown, locked the door again, turned out the electric light and went back to bed. He lay listening for an hour and was not disturbed. Then he slept and did not waken until a maid called him.