The league of guilt

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Chapter II

MORE FAMILY HISTORY. MY PRIDE HAS A FALL

“Mr. Dacre stood looking at my lady for a moment, after her last insulting order for him to be gone, as if he was about to tell her what he thought; then he threw his arms around Miss Dora in one passionate embrace, forced open the hall door and strode away.

“ ‘For heaven’s sake, sir, be careful at that bridge, ’ old Thomas called after him.

“ ‘Your father, my good old master, wouldn’t have turned a dog out on such a night as this, my lady, ’ he said, with strange boldness and awful solemnity.

‘ In Craven a curse rests on them and theirs as turns away a guest , ’ he added, while he looked sternly into the face of his proud mistress.

“Miss Dora never closed her eyes that night, but just lay and moaned like a stricken lamb. It was well on to morning when I fell asleep myself, and when I woke she was standing by my bedside, very white, but quite calm and determined.

“ ‘Annie, please dress quickly, ’ she said, ‘I am going to Stony Place, and you must come with me. I 22

MORE FAMILY HISTORY will not stay another day in a house where he is not welcome. ’

“By eight o’clock we were on our way. It was a lovely morning; the sun seemed to have swept from the earth all that was not beautiful and sweet. My young mistress talked away quite calmly as we walked. She told me she should stay with her sister and Sir Lionel until she was married.

“ ‘It will only be a week or two now, ’ she said, with a smile and a faint flush, and that then she would go to London, and I was to go, too.

“Now, at about half a mile from the manor there is a little stream that separates the park from the meadows. I call it a stream, and so it is in a usual way; in summer, even, you can ford across it, although after a heavy rain it swells out into quite an important river. You will see it, sir, as you go to the Manor — just at the park entrance; there is no bridge at that side.

“In those days there was an old-fashioned wooden bridge that the gentlefolks set a great store by, and artists used to come from all around to sketch. As we drew near I noticed that the river was more swollen than I had ever seen it before, and also that something was wrong with the bridge. One of the shafts that supported it had been washed away and had dragged down with it the little handrail. I was just wondering what we should do, for it is a long way by the road to Stony Place, when Miss Dora sprang from my side, and with one bound was at the brink of the river.

“What followed, sir, to this day I never rightly knew. I heard a shriek — Oh, heavens! I can hear that shriek still; it was more like the cry of a wounded animal than a human creature — and saw Miss Dora jump into the river.

“She fell just in the middle, where the current was most strong, and in a second she was carried away by the force of the stream far beyond my reach. Some men were working in a field near and heard my cries; but they were too late.

“Miss Dora was dead long before they reached her.”

The woman stopped to dry her tears.

“What could have induced her to commit so wild a deed?” I asked.

“Ah, sir! she had cause enough for what she did, as I saw when I came back to the stream; for there, on the further bank, Mr. Dacre was lying, white and ghastly, with a terrible wound in the side of his head. He must have been on the bridge when it fell, for the doctor said he was not drowned — I myself saw that his face was out of the water — but died from hitting his head against a stone. Miss Dora must have caught sight of him and tried to spring across the river to his side.”

“What became of Lady Barchester?”

The woman shuddered as she replied:

MORE FAMILY HISTORY

“The news that something was wrong must have reached her, for we had just taken the body of the poor young gentleman free of the water, and laid it on the grass, when I saw my lady coming toward us. She came quite close and stood for a moment looking down at the dead face, with such a strange, fierce look, almost as if she was glad to see him so.

“When her eyes fell on me she asked angrily what I was doing there, and bade me go and see to my young mistress.

“‘She must know nothing of this,’ she said savagely. ‘Do you understand? I forbid you to tell her a word of this, ’ and she turned toward the house.

“The plank of wood on which her dead daughter was lying barred her way.

“We were all on the soft grass and had never heard the footsteps of the men who were carrying it. It was terrible to look on the cold faces of these two poor young creatures, but theirs were nothing to compare to my lady’s. When I am alone the awful look that came over her when she saw Miss Dora lying before her, haunts me often, even now. She stood perfectly still, just as if in a dream, and not one of us dared to move.

“Then Sir Lionel rode up. Some one must have told him what had happened, for he was white as death. My lady looked at him for a moment, and then said quietly, but in a voice that seemed to come from far-off caves or hollows: ‘Lionel, I killed him, so God has killed her — The curse of Craven is upon me . 1 And then she turned and walked to the house with her usual stately gait.

“The men that were carrying the bodies of Miss Dora and Mr. Dacre followed her slowly, we walking behind them. My lady must have gone more quickly than we, for when we reached the broad avenue she was already out of sight, and just as we crossed the threshold of the Manor House the report of a gun rang out, my lady had shot herself.”

“But what has all this to do with your Jim’s not being able to take my letter? It is not only a favor to me, but will be a matter of serious import to your Sir Lionel,” I said, after a long pause, during which the good woman had in some degree recovered her composure.

She looked at me for a moment as though she thought I must be singularly lacking in intelligence to ask such a question, and then said, solemnly:

“It is the twentieth of September, sir, to-day, — twenty years ago to-night that poor young gentleman died by the Manor park bridge. My mind’s been dwelling on it all day, else you'd have heard no talk of the family matters from me. Mr. Dacre will be at that bridge again to-night.”

“Oh, that is all — ” I commenced.

“Jim, go you out and see if you can see or hear anything of your father,” she said to the boy, who left the room for outdoors.

MORE FAMILY HISTORY

Then approaching me with a fresh poultice of some leaves she had been applying, at regular intervals, to my injured ankle, now much better, she said, in low, most impressive tones:

“He, Jim, knows much about it, from hearsay, but I don’t like him to know of my talking of such matters.

“They do say that my lady shot herself in the head, but did not die, though her name was cut in the stone over the family vault ; but there is no date of her birth or death following it.

“Some say she hurt herself so that she became worse, in her worst way, than ever. Anyhow, Sir Lionel and his wife moved from Stony Point to Waltham Manor, and have been there close ever since, and him that was such a fine, gallant young man is aged with trouble, far past his years, and Miss Kathleen that was his wife, is — well — queer , and shows more — queerness — than Lady Barchester even, ever did. And there are strange people come there at all times and go away at all hours — and — the curse of Craven is on the house and all in it, and no man or woman goes nigh it can help it, let alone this night, of all nights in the year.”

She closed her mouth, with a look upon her face that told I would get no more information from her, a look seeming to imply that she felt both shame and regret that she had been betrayed into such evidently unusual confidence in a stranger.

But I was so much interested and excited by what I had heard, and my national and professional pride so aroused, that I really felt no more pain from the sprained ankle. “Here is a case,” I thought, “to which only a Yankee detective can do justice. No wonder those beer-heads of Scotland Yard and this Sir Lionel saw that they were unable to cope with it. I’ll get there to-night, if it takes a leg.”

So, after tearing some of Mrs. Metcalf’s strong home-spun linen into bandages, and firmly bracing the injured section of my anatomy, I insisted, in spite of all her entreaties, that I would make my way to the Manor.

“You are tempting fate,” she said; “you never can walk that distance, and that poor young gentleman will be at the bridge you must cross this night.” She repeated these warnings again and again.

“I’m always tempting fate,” I replied. “If I cannot walk to the Manor, I’ll crawl. I’m a Yankee, and I’ll get there! I only hope I may meet the ghost of Mr. Dacre. I never had the pleasure of interviewing a ghost yet;” and with a laugh, a last effort to force pay upon her, which was refused, and with many thanks for her real, motherly kindness, I bade her good night and set out for Waltham Manor, philosophizing as I went on the strange persistency with which superstitions still linger in these old countries.

“There is a fine field for an American school-board here,” I muttered, with a sniff of scorn, as I tramped

MY PRIDE HAS A FALL ahead in the fine night air. “How can people in this practical day be capable of such folly ?”

All my life I had had a peculiar contempt for so-called psychic experiences, and my calling had only the more firmly convinced me that in every case they were the inventions of impostors, or the ravings of hysterical women. So far did my antipathy go that I had given up taking my favorite magazine simply because it would persist in recording the meetings and doings of the Psychical Society.

If, when I started to Waltham Manor, any one had asked me whether I believed in ghosts, I should have regarded the question as a stupid joke, so convinced was I that no sensible man could believe in anything of that sort.

Before I was at the end of my journey that night, I was doomed to discover that, even in myself, there were more things than I had dreamed of in my philosophy.

My path lay along a narrow lane, with thick bushes growing on either side, from which, now and then, tall trees raised up their heads. It was one of those sometime September nights when light and darkness seem to be playing some fitful, restless game.

The moon was a good-sized crescent, and shone with a brilliant light, but dark, heavy clouds kept flitting before its bright surface, casting thick darkness on the world. A gentle breeze was blowing, just enough to make the leaves, as they fluttered, moan and coo as if they had piteous tales to tell, if they could only find a listener. Perhaps it was they that kept more vividly in my mind the story I had heard from Mrs. Metcalf.

There was something almost grotesque in the thought of this peaceful little valley having been the scene of a tragedy so ghastly — of a young man full of life and bright hopes having met there with such a fate — to die like a dog in a ditch, and all through the mad, obstinate folly of a jealous old woman

I caught myself trying to imagine what Arthur Dacre must have felt that night when driven out into the storm. The air seemed to become suddenly chill, or perhaps the pain in my ankle, which came on with increased intensity, and weariness made me exaggerate what was only a natural change in the atmosphere. Be that as it may, I shivered as I dragged my weary body and throbbing limb along, vainly sighing for my journey to be speedily ended.

The solitude was terrible. There was no sign of human being or human habitation, not even bark or howl of a dog, and when a dead leaf blew against my face I started as if I had received a blow. I pulled myself together and tried to laugh at my own folly, but, struggle as I might, the conviction that there was something uncanny about, forced itself upon me.

The silence, broken only by the rustling of leaves, seemed to become more and more unnatural. I tried to whistle, but the weird force with which the trees

MY PRIDE HAS A FALL re-echoed the sound was more trying even than the stillness. These trees, too, began to assume all sorts of grotesque forms and shapes — one great, gaunt oak stretched out its arms like a skeleton seeking to clutch the passer-by; another bore a strange resemblance to a gallows. Just as I was passing this one something touched my feet — it was only a rabbit running across the path — and my heart began to throb and flutter.

“Clearly, I have been walking too much and overdone myself,” I said to myself, but a mocking voice whispered that it was the mind, not the heart, that was affected. “What about the superstitious folly now, eh ?” it asked. Could it be that I, the skeptic of skeptics, was disturbed by the remembrance of the stupid prophecy of a garrulous old woman? The thought was too absurd, and I hobbled manfully on.

Still, there was no good denying it, the road was uncanny, and in my life I had never seen such strange, human-looking trees; each one of them seemed to have a theory of its own as to how the sounds of my footsteps should be echoed. At length, just as the inexplicable feeling that had taken possession of me was becoming unbearable, I heard the sound of running waters, which told me that I must be near the bridge.

The thought that I had only half a mile more to go gave me new life and energy, and I limped, rapidly as I could, on to the solid stone erection that had replaced the rustic wooden bridge of other days. The park was, as I could see, fenced off from the stream by an iron railing.

Just as I was in the middle of the bridge I had another touch of that queer, jerky feeling at my heart, that had twice before on that night come over me. To this day I don’t know why I should have felt the sensation then, for I could swear that just at the moment I did feel it, there was no thought of Arthur Dacre in my mind.

I stood still, frightened at the rate my heart was beating, and, as I did so, I noticed something white glimmering close to the railing. What it was I could not tell, as the moon was hidden by a cloud; then, I will confess, the details of the tragedy which had been enacted there twenty years before flashed into my mind. My heart beat more spasmodically than before; I was conscious of a strange, choking sensation, as if something were pressing tightly around my throat, and I felt an unconquerable reluctance to advancing further, until I knew the meaning of that white gleam.

In a moment, however, an overwhelming sense of the absurdity of my conduct rushed into my mind. I took one step forward, but at that instant the moon pierced through the cloud that had enveloped it, and shone down with a clear, brilliant light, and I saw the white, ghastly face of a dead man turned toward me.

MY PRIDE HAS A FALL

The wish I had so rashly uttered as I left the farm had been gratified.

Arthur Dacre stood before me. His body was hidden by the bushes, but his face I saw as clearly as the words I now write.

I stood as one paralyzed, for my life I could not have moved an inch; my heart seemed to cease beating and my brain reeled, as an unutterable sense of horror — not fear, but something a thousand times more terrible, penetrated my whole being. I would rather face a hundred deaths than know that sensation again.

The figure seemed to motion me to advance, and then, as if it noticed my unwillingness, it wailed a cry so strange in the unutterable piteousness of the sorrow it expressed, that it froze my very heart, and —

Chapter III The Opening Of A Wonderful Case

When I returned to entire or partial consciousness after fainting from excess of terror, for truth compels me to admit that as the cause, I found myself lying on the grass, and heard a rough, kindly voice close muttering to my ear, as two strong arms were put about and lifted me;

“Queer job, this! Lean on me, sir; an’ ye’ll be all right soon’s I can get ye toth’ Manor.”

It was Farmer Metcalf, who, arriving at his home an hour after I left there, had, despite the warnings of his wife, ridden after me to be sure of my safety and to offer me his horse if he found me stalled on the road.

No common courage had the honest man, to face supernatural dangers in which he fully believed, to aid or protect an entire stranger.

We were soon at Waltham. Private explanation to Sir Lionel as to the nature of my business insured me the heartiest of welcomes from that gentleman. Fatigue and faintness from pain were excuses readily received as my excuse for desiring immediate rest, and I was, after partaking of some slight refreshment, 34

THE OPENING OF A WONDERFUL CASE shown to an apartment where bath and luxurious bed awaited me.

In that room I spent the following ten days, recovering from the shock to my nervous system. Sir Lionel changed some of his plans for travel, postponed his departure, arranged for the next day, and with feverish anxiety threw himself, heart and soul, into the task of enlightening me upon the wondrous web of complicated miseries which entangled him and his, seemingly enwrapping every living member of the family owning old Lady Barchester as its head.

As I gradually learned the ramifications and extent, the strangeness and apparently unexplainable, motiveless operations of all the actors in this family drama, I, who had thought I knew all about human nature, was compelled to confess that men, and women especially, were queerer cattle than even I had ever given them credit for being.

There was a vein of superstition in all this too. “The curse of Craven” was fully believed to be the cause of all the evil actions the race seemed foi'ced to commit. Death by violence, other than natural causes or the hand of human being, was, so tradition said, the only means of removing the ban; that is, such death overtaking the person who had called down upon the head of him or herself and family, the dreaded curse.

And certainly old Lady Barchester was not dead. She had attempted suicide on that fatal day, twenty years before, but the shot had failed to kill her; it still remained in her brain, and its action was to intensify and increase the insanity with which she had always been afflicted and to direct it into the most devilish, calculating cunning and malice that ever baffled the best wits and plans of wise, sane mortals.

To read the record of fantastic tricks, crimes, and ingenious devices for outraging all laws, divine and human, in which this cursed family had indulged for twenty years past, was to have belief in the reality of Words badly strained. I learned the cause of separation between Lady Barchester and her reckless husband, and bad as the man was, she was his good equal. The old lady was away, none knew where. For nearly twice ten years she had been a wanderer, in disguise and hiding, but ever taking care that her misdeeds should be known at the home which, with all in it, she seemed to hate with fiendish malignity.

Carefully following up threads and patching incidents, I knew, before my ten days of half-sick confinement were over, far more of the whole matter than even Sir Lionel, for he, heart-broken at the miseries that continually poured upon his innocent head, had long since abandoned all effort or desire to keep track of or learn the details regarding each new crime or outrage. I pitied, from my heart, this man who should have been so happy, condemned to agony, shame and self-imprisonment by no fault of his own, and, professional zeal aside, I was deeply interested in aid-

THE OPENING OF A WONDERFUL CASE ing him to the extent of my ability. He recognized the friendly and sympathetic feeling which moved me and avowedly gave me more full confidence than any man he ever engaged in like position.

Old Lady Barchester was wandering somewhere — in Spain at last accounts. The family had kept her confined at the Manor for nearly a year after her attempt at suicide. To convey the impression that she was dead, and had been very quietly buried, they caused her name to be cut in the stone covering of the family vault; then Sir Lionel had moved to the Manor House and taken up the weary task of his life. Within a year the old mad woman escaped, taking with her the jewels of her own family and also those of Sir Lionel’s house, a princely collection in all, and on these gems, Lady Barchester and the tools she employed had been living. Shrewd business woman she had always been, and her madness seemed only to increase her keenness for trade and her inventive faculties in obtaining wealth by questionable, often actually dishonest means.

To hunt down this insane woman as a criminal was something the family would never consent to. She must be trapped, be placed under control of an influence more powerful than the orderings of her disordered brain.

There was little of the money interest in this strange case. Sir Lionel was immensely wealthy, the retired life he and his were forced to live, owing to this terrible scandal, caused his income to accumulate and add largely each year to his principal.

But the shame, the solitude, the constant brooding over his disgrace, the continual dread of news of some new, devilish invention or deed to further tarnish his name and that of the house into which he had married — all these served to render the man halfmad, and it was little wonder.

The old lady and her confederates took delight in sending to him full details of every bit of devilment, great or small, that they indulged in, they knew that they could do so with impunity, that family pride would never permit Sir Lionel to publicly prosecute a criminal if there was the least probability of one of his connections, however distant, being connected with the crime.

When Sir Lionel had told me all he knew and furnished me with all documents in his possession, had signed such papers as enabled me to act in his name, in this matter, to draw money as was required, etc., etc., he at last took the trip and vacation of which he stood badly in need, and I was left to my own devices at the Manor, to decide upon my first move in the game, and to act precisely when and as I thought best.

Many times my mind turned upon the strange manner in which I had been brought into this affair, and more often than I desired I found myself dwelling upon the mysterious appearance of that ghost to

THE OPENING OF A WONDERFUL CASE me — the ghost of the man upon whose death hung all this great chain of horrors and troubles.

Was his appearing to me a pledge that I was to be successful in once more restoring peace to this distracted family, or was it a kindly warning that I should keep aloof from interference with matters in which the spiritual world concerned themselves?

For it must be confessed that my contempt of the supernatural had suffered a great shock, and I felt that I would never again presume to question the power of the departed to reappear on earth, or to work their will as they choose. I was not prepared to announce my full conversion, but I quite resolved that in the future I would hold my tongue on such subjects.

Within a week I had arranged my plans for a move, and the morning I started I met Farmer Metcalf as I drove from the Manor. He halted and I was glad, for I wished once more to thank him for his good, timely services to me on that dreadful night.

Evidently the good man had something on his mind, for after saying good-bye a dozen times he still stood there, hummed and ha’d and twirled his hat in dire confusion.

I knew he would not take money, for he had angrily refused it. So I said, finally: “Well, Farmer, I must be going. Once more good-bye, and good luck to you and all your house.”

“One moment, sir,” and he stepped to the side of the dog-cart, and whispered so that the man driving me would not hear:

“I ought t‘ tell ye, sir, I kind o’ guess, sir — ye’d had a bit o’ a fright that noight I found ye lyin’ by th’ bridge. That white thing, ye knows, sir; it did give me a mortal ugly turn when I fust seed it — but it were nobbut th’ squire’s white-faced mare as had gotten her head fast in th’ iron railings!”

I hadn’t voice to answer, and the driver whipped up before I could think what to say.

How was this upsetting of my ghost intervention belief going to act in my success with the case? It was only another puzzle added to the many, and really, I felt little thankful to good Farmer Metcalf for disturbing my newly formed ghost theory.

It’s hard to have one’s convictions knocked sideways, so soon after having decided to entertain them.

Chapter IV An Experience With French Assistants

Fully convinced, from the evidence laid before me, of the class of crimes committed under direction and by the accomplices of this talented but demented old woman, I at once sought the records to ascertain what villainy had been recently perpetrated, that by the “style of work,” as given in the details of the act, I might, with some chance of success, locate the then presence of the female outlaw.

The case of the killing of Daniel Pereira was just then the sensation in police circles. It was most extraordinary, and the acts connected with it presented such likelihood of being ordered by the hand of her I sought, that I determined to follow the matter up, and for that purpose I started immediately for Paris, and at once put myself in communication with such of the detectives of the French capital as I had learned were most efficient. It was my first visit to France, and, knowing the world-wide reputation for skill enjoyed by the detectives of that country, I was disposed to rely more on them than on my own diligence and devices.

Daniel Pereira was an Israelite, verging on three- 41 score years and ten. He had never been married, and resided alone in an old dwelling on the Rue St. Quentin. He was reputed to be immensely wealthy and such was doubtless the case. For years he had been one of the best known diamond merchants of Paris, and had had for his customers the most famous residents of the city, from royalty, in the time of the monarchy, downward.

The back parlor of his residence was his place of business, and there he had a safe containing jewels of immense value, and goblets and boxes of gold whose history made them more priceless than if they had been gigantic gems. For years he had been collecting these mementoes of the past and prided himself on their possession, having repeatedly refused fabulous sums offered for them.

The diamond merchant was fully aware of the temptation which his valuable stores offered to the lawless and avaricious, and the entrance to his dwelling was guarded all day long by a stalwart servitor, well armed, and all night through by two experienced and often-tested watchmen. These latter had been repeatedly approached and offered heavy bribes, but they had resisted all attempts to induce them to prove faithless, and had more than once successfully repelled the organized attacks of burglars.