Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (27 page)

They parted.

The next weeks were no doubt a severe strain upon Dunning’s nerves. The intangible barrier which had seemed to rise about him on the day when he received the paper, gradually developed into a brooding blackness that cut him off from the means of escape to which one might have thought he might resort.

No one was at hand who was likely to suggest them to him, and he seemed robbed of all initiative. He waited with inexpressible anxiety as May, June and early July passed on, for a mandate from Harrington. But all this time Karswell remained immovable at Lufford.

At last, in less than a week before the date he had come to look upon as the end of his earthly activities, came a telegram:

Leaves Victoria by boat train Thursday night. Do not miss. I come to you tonight. Harrington.

He arrived accordingly, and they concocted plans. The train left Victoria at nine and its last stop before Dover was Croydon West.

Harrington would mark down Karswell at Victoria, and look out for Dunning at Croydon, calling to him if need were by a name agreed upon. Dunning, disguised as far as might be, was to have no label or initials on any hand luggage, and must at all costs have the paper with him.

Dunning’s suspense as he waited on the Croydon platform I need not attempt to describe. His sense of danger during the last days had only been sharpened by the fact that the cloud about him had perceptibly been lighter. But relief was an ominous symptom, and, if Karswell eluded him now, hope was gone. And there were so many chances of that. The rumor of the journey might be itself a device.

The twenty minutes which he paced the platform and persecuted every
porter with inquiries as to the boat train were as bitter as any he had spent. Still, the train came, and Harrington was at the window. It was important, of course, that there should be no recognition, so Dunning got in at the farther end of the corridor carriage, and only gradually made his way to the compartment where Harrington and Karswell were. He was pleased, on the whole, to see that the train was far from full.

Karswell was on the alert, but gave no sign of recognition.

Dunning took the seat not immediately facing him and attempted, vainly at first, then with increasing command of his faculties, to reckon the possibilities of making the desired transfer.

Opposite to Karswell, and next to Dunning, was a heap of Karswell’s coats on the seat. It would be of no use to slip the paper into these—he would not be safe, or would not feel so, unless in some way it could be proffered by him and accepted by the other.

There was a handbag, open, and with papers in it. Could he manage to conceal this (so that perhaps Karswell might leave the carriage without it), and then find and give it to him? This was the plan that suggested itself. If he could only have counseled with Harrington! But that could not be.

The minutes went on. More than once Karswell rose and went out into the corridor. The second time Dunning was on the point of attempting to make the bag fall off the seat, but he caught Harrington’s eye, and read in it a warning. Karswell, from the corridor, was watching: probably to see if the two men recognized each other.

He returned, but was evidently restive, and, when he rose the third time, hope dawned, for something did slip off his seat and fall with hardly a sound to the floor.

Karswell went out once more, and passed out of range of the corridor window. Dunning picked up what had fallen, and saw that the key was in his hands in the form of one of Cook’s ticket-cases, with tickets in it. These cases have a pocket in the cover, and within very few seconds the paper of which we have heard was in the pocket of this one.

To make the operation more secure, Harrington stood in the doorway of the compartment and fiddled with the blind. It was done, and done at the right time, for the train was now slowing down toward Dover.

In a moment more Karswell re-entered the compartment. As he did so,
Dunning, managing, he knew not how, to suppress the tremble in his voice, handed him the ticket-case, saying, “May I give you this, sir? I believe it is yours.”

After a brief glance at the ticket inside, Karswell uttered the hoped-for response, “Yes, it is. Much obliged to you, sir,” and he placed it in his breast pocket.

Even in the few moments that remained—moments of tense anxiety, for they knew not to what a premature finding of the paper might lead—both men noticed that the carriage seemed to darken about them and to grow warmer; that Karswell was fidgety and oppressed; that he drew the heap of loose coats near him and cast it back as if it repelled him and that he then sat upright and glanced anxiously at both.

They, with sickening anxiety, busied themselves in collecting their belongings, but they both thought that Karswell was on the point of speaking when the train stopped at Dover Town. It was natural that in the short space between town and pier they should both go into the corridor.

At the pier they got out, but so empty was the train that they were forced to linger on the platform until Karswell should have passed ahead of them with his porter on the way to the boat, and only then was it safe for them to exchange a pressure of the hand and a word of concentrated congratulation.

The effect upon Dunning was to make him almost faint. Harrington made him lean up against the wall, while he himself went forward a few yards within sight of the gangway to the boat at which Karswell had now arrived.

The man at the head of it examined his ticket, and, laden with coats he passed down into the boat.

Suddenly the official called after him, “You, sir, beg pardon, did the other gentleman show his ticket?”

“What the devil do you mean by the other gentleman?” Karswell’s snarling voice called back from the deck.

The man bent over and looked at him. “The devil? Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” Harrington heard him say to himself, and then aloud, “My mistake, sir. Must have been your rugs! Ask your pardon.”

And then, to a subordinate near him, “’ad he got a dog with him, or what?
Funny thing: I could ’a’ swore ’e wasn’t alone. Well, whatever it was, they’ll ’ave to see to it aboard. She’s off now. Another week and we shall be gettin’ the ’oliday customers.”

In five minutes more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the Dover lamps, the night breeze, and the moon.

Long and long the two sat in their room at the “Lord Warden.” In spite of the removal of their greatest anxiety, they were oppressed with a doubt, not of the lightest. Had they been justified in sending a man to his death, as they believed they had? Ought they not to warn him, at least?

“No,” said Harrington. “If he is the murderer I think him, we have done no more than is just. Still, if you think it better—but how and where can you warn him?”

“He was booked to Abbeville only,” said Dunning. “I saw that. If I wired to the hotels here in Joanne’s Guide, ‘Examine your ticket-case, Dunning,’ I should feel happier. This is the 21st: he will have a day. But I am afraid he has gone into the dark.”

So telegrams were left at the hotel office.

It is not clear whether these reached their destination or whether, if they did, they were understood.

All that is known is that on the afternoon of the 23rd, an English traveler, examining the front of St. Wulfram’s Church at Abbeville, then under extensive repair, was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone falling from the scaffold erected around the northwestern tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no workman on the scaffold at that moment. And the traveler’s papers identified him as Mr. Karswell.

Only one detail shall be added. At Karswell’s sale a set of Bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by Harrington. The page with the woodcut of the traveler and the demon was, as he had expected, mutilated.

Also, after a judicious interval, Harrington repeated to Dunning something of what he had heard his brother say in his sleep. But it was not long before Dunning stopped him.

S
OME FEW YEARS BACK
I was staying with the rector of a parish in the West, where the society to which I belong owns property. I was to go over some of this land. And, on the first morning of my visit, soon after breakfast, the estate carpenter and general handy man, John Hill, was announced as in readiness to accompany us.

The rector asked which part of the parish we were to visit that morning. The estate map was produced, and when we had showed him our round, he put his finger on a particular spot.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “to ask John Hill about Martin’s Close when you get there. I should like to hear what he tells you.”

“What ought he to tell us?” I said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the rector, “or, if that is not exactly true, it will do till lunchtime.” And here he was called away.

We set out. John Hill is not a man to withhold such information as he possesses on any point, and you may gather from him much that is of interest about the people of the place and their talk.

An unfamiliar word, or one that he thinks ought to be unfamiliar to you, he will usually spell—as c-o-b cob, and the like. It is not, however, relevant to any purpose to record his conversation before the moment when we reached Martin’s Close.

The bit of land is noticeable, for it is one of the smallest enclosures you are likely to see—a very few square yards, hedged in with quickset on all sides, and without any gate or gap leading into it. You might take it for a
small cottage garden long-deserted, but that it lies away from the village and bears no trace of cultivation.

It is at no great distance from the road, and is part of what is there called a moor—in other words, a rough upland pasture cut up into largish fields.

“Why is this little bit hedged off so?” I asked, and John Hill (whose answer I cannot represent as perfectly as I should like) was not at fault.

“That’s what we call Martin’s Close, sir. ’Tes a curious thing ’bout that bit of land, sir. Goes by the name of Martin’s Close, sir. M-a-r-t-i-n Martin. Beg pardon, sir, did Rector tell you to make inquiry of me ’bout that, sir?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Ah, I thought so much, sir. I was tell’n Rector ’bout that last week, and he was very much interested. It ’pears there’s a murderer buried there, sir, by the name of Martin.

“Old Samuel Saunders, that formerly lived yurr at what we call South-town, sir, he had a long tale ’bout that, sir: terrible murder done ’pon a young woman, sir. Cut her throat and cast her in the water down yurr.”

“Was he hung for it?”

“Yes, sir, he was hung just up yurr on the roadway, by what I’ve ’eard, on the Holy Innocents’ Day, many hundred years ago, by the man that went by the name of the bloody judge: terrible red and bloody, I’ve ’eard.”

“Was his name Jeffreys, do you think?”

“Might be possible ’twas—Jeffreys—J-e-f—Jeffreys. I reckon ’twas, and the tale I’ve ’eard many times from Mr. Saunders—how this young man Martin—George Martin—was troubled before his crule action come to light by the young woman’s sperit.”

“How was that, do you know?”

“No, sir, I don’t exactly know how ’twas with it. But by what I’ve ’eard he was fairly tormented—and rightly tu. Old Mr. Saunders, he told a history regarding a cupboard down yurr in the New Inn. According to what he related, this young woman’s sperit come out of this cupboard: but I don’t racollact the matter.”

This was the sum of John Hill’s information. We passed on, and in due time I reported what I had heard to the Rector.

He was able to show me from the parish account-books that a gibbet had been paid for in 1684, and a grave dug in the following year, both for
the benefit of George Martin. But he was unable to suggest anyone in the parish, Saunders being now gone, who was likely to throw any further light on the story.

Naturally, upon my return to the neighborhood of libraries, I made search in the more obvious places.

The trial seemed to be nowhere reported. A newspaper of the time, and one or more newsletters, however, had some short notices, from which I learned that, on the ground of local prejudice against the prisoner (he was described as a young gentleman of a good estate), the venue had been moved from Exeter to London; that Jeffreys had been the judge, and death the sentence, and that there had been some “singular passages” in the evidence.

Nothing further transpired till September of this year.

A friend who knew me to be interested in Jeffreys then sent me a leaf torn out of a second-hand bookseller’s catalog with the entry: JEFFREYS, JUDGE:
Interesting old MS. trial for murder
, and so forth, from which I gathered, to my delight, that I could become possessed, for a very few shillings, of what seemed to be a verbatim report, in shorthand, of the Martin trial.

I telegraphed for the manuscript and got it.

It was a thin bound volume, provided with a title written in longhand by someone in the 18th century, who had also added this note:

My father, who took these notes in court, told me that the prisoner’s friends had made interest with Judge Jeffreys that no report should be put out: he had intended doing this himself when times were better, and had shew’d it to the Revd. Mr. Glanvil, who incourag’d his design very warmly, but death surpriz’d them both before it could be brought to an accomplishment.

The initials
W.G.
are appended. I am advised that the original reporter may have been T. Gurney, who appears in that capacity in more than one State trial.

This was all that I could read for myself. After no long delay I heard of someone who was capable of deciphering the shorthand of the 17th century,
and a little time ago the typewritten copy of the whole manuscript was laid before me.

The portions which I shall communicate here help to fill in the very imperfect outline which subsists in the memories of John Hill and, I suppose, one or two others who live on the scene of the events.

The report begins with a species of preface, the general effect of which is that the copy is not that actually taken in court, though it is a true copy in regard to the notes of what was said; but that the writer has added to it some “remarkable passages” that took place during the trial, and has made this present fair copy of the whole, intending at some favorable time to publish it; but has not put it into longhand, lest it should fall into the possession of unauthorized persons, and he or his family be deprived of the profit.