Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (38 page)

“Er—well, but I’m so sorry that Mr. Garrett should have been taken ill in this way while he was obliging me. I think I must leave the book, and call and inquire after him. You can give me his address, I suppose.”

That was easily done. Mr. Garrett, it appeared, lodged in rooms not far from the station.

“And one other question. Did you happen to notice if an old gentleman, perhaps a clergyman, in a—yes—in a black cloak, left the library after I did yesterday? I think he may have been a—I think, that is, that he may be staying—or rather that I may have known him.”

“Not in a black cloak, sir. No. There were only two gentlemen left later than what you done, sir, both of them youngish men. There was Mr. Carter took out a music-book and one of the prefessors with a couple o’ novels. That’s the lot, sir; and then I went off to me tea, and glad to get it. Thank you, sir, much obliged.”

Mr. Eldred, still a prey to anxiety, betook himself in a cab to Mr. Garrett’s address, but the young man was not yet in a condition to receive visitors. He was better, but his landlady considered that he must have had a severe shock. She thought most likely from what the doctor said that he would be able to see Mr. Eldred tomorrow.

Mr. Eldred returned to his hotel at dusk and spent, I fear, but a dull evening.

On the next day he was able to see Mr. Garrett. When in health Mr. Garrett was a cheerful and pleasant-looking young man. Now he was a very white and shaky being, propped up in an armchair by the fire, and inclined to shiver and keep an eye on the door. If, however, there were visitors whom he was not prepared to welcome, Mr. Eldred was not among them.

“It really is I who owe you an apology, and I was despairing of being able to pay it, for I didn’t know your address. But I am very glad you have called. I do dislike and regret giving all this trouble, but you know I could not have foreseen this—this attack which I had.”

“Of course not; but now, I am something of a doctor. You’ll excuse my asking; you have had, I am sure, good advice. Was it a fall you had?”

“No. I did fall on the floor—but not from any height. It was, really, a shock.”

“You mean something startled you. Was it anything you thought you saw?”

“Not much
thinking
in the case, I’m afraid. Yes, it was something I saw. You remember when you called the first time at the library?”

“Yes, of course. Well, now, let me beg you not to try to describe it—it will not be good for you to recall it, I’m sure.”

“But indeed it would be a relief to me to tell anyone like yourself: you might be able to explain it away. It was just when I was going into the class where your book is—”

“Indeed, Mr. Garrett, I insist. Besides, my watch tells me I have but very little time left in which to get my things together and take the train. No—not another word—it would be more distressing to you than you imagine, perhaps.

“Now there is just one thing I want to say. I feel that I am really indirectly responsible for this illness of yours, and I think I ought to defray the expense which it has—eh?”

But this offer was quite distinctly declined. Mr. Eldred, not pressing it, left almost at once. Not, however, before Mr. Garrett had insisted upon his taking a note of the class-mark of the Tractate Middoth, which, as he said, Mr. Eldred could at leisure get for himself.

But Mr. Eldred did not reappear at the library.

William Garrett had another visitor that day in the person of a contemporary and colleague from the library, one George Earle.

Earle had been one of those who found Garrett lying insensible on the floor just inside the “class” or cubicle (opening upon the central alley of a spacious gallery) in which the Hebrew books were placed, and Earle had naturally been very anxious about his friend’s condition. So as soon as library hours were over he appeared at the lodgings.

“Well,” he said (after other conversation), “I’ve no notion what it was that put you wrong, but I’ve got the idea that there’s something wrong in the atmosphere of the library.

“I know this, that just before we found you I was coming along the gallery with Davis, and I said to him, ‘Did ever you know such a musty smell anywhere as there is about here? It can’t be wholesome.’ Well now, if one goes on living a long time with a smell of that kind (I tell you it was worse than I ever knew it) it must get into the system and break out sometime, don’t you think?”

Garrett shook his head. “That’s all very well about the smell—but it isn’t
always there, though I’ve noticed it the last day or two—a sort of unnaturally strong smell of dust. But no—that’s not what did for me. It was something I
saw
. And I want to tell you about it.

“I went into that Hebrew class to get a book for a man that was inquiring for it down below. Now that same book I’d made a mistake about the day before. I’d been for it, for the same man, and made sure that I saw an old parson in a cloak taking it out.

“I told my man it was out. Off he went, to call again next day. I went back to see if I could get it out of the parson: no parson there, and the book on the shelf.

“Well, yesterday, as I say, I went again. This time, if you please—ten o’clock in the morning, remember, and as much light as ever you get in those classes, and there was my parson again, back to me, looking at the books on the shelf I wanted. His hat was on the table, and he had a bald head. I waited a second or two looking at him rather particularly.

“I tell you, he had a very nasty bald head. It looked to me dry, and it looked dusty, and the streaks of hair across it were much less like hair than cobwebs. Well, I made a bit of a noise on purpose, coughed and moved my feet. He turned around and let me see his face—which I hadn’t seen before. I tell you again, I’m not mistaken.

“Though, for one reason or another I didn’t take in the lower part of his face, I did see the upper part; and it was perfectly dry, and the eyes were very deep-sunk. And over them, from the eyebrows to the cheek-bone, there were
cobwebs
—thick.

“Now that closed me up, as they say, and I can’t tell you anything more.”

What explanations were furnished by Earle of this phenomenon it does not very much concern us to inquire. At all events they did not convince Garrett that he had not seen what he had seen.

Before William Garrett returned to work at the library, the librarian insisted upon his taking a week’s rest and change of air. Within a few days’ time, therefore, he was at the station with his bag, looking for a desirable smoking compartment in which to travel to Burnstow-on-Sea, which he had not previously visited.

One compartment and one only seemed to be suitable. But, just as he approached it, he saw, standing in front of the door, a figure so like one bound up with recent unpleasant associations that, with a sickening qualm, and hardly knowing what he did, he tore open the door of the next compartment and pulled himself into it as quickly as if death were at his heels.

The train moved off, and he must have turned quite faint, for he was next conscious of a smelling-bottle being put to his nose. His physician was a nice-looking old lady, who, with her daughter, was the only passenger in the carriage.

But for this incident it is not very likely that he would have made any overtures to his fellow travelers. As it was, thanks and inquiries and general conversation supervened inevitably, and Garrett found himself provided before the journey’s end not only with a physician, but with a landlady: for Mrs. Simpson had apartments to let at Burnstow, which seemed in all ways suitable.

The place was empty at that season, so that Garrett was thrown a good deal into the society of the mother and daughter. He found them very acceptable company. On the third evening of his stay he was on such terms with them as to be asked to spend the evening in their private sitting room.

During their talk it transpired that Garrett’s work lay in a library.

“Ah, libraries are fine places,” said Mrs. Simpson, putting down her work with a sigh. “But for all that, books have played me a sad turn, or rather
a
book has.”

“Well, books give me my living, Mrs. Simpson, and I should be sorry to say a word against them: I don’t like to hear that they have been bad for you.”

“Perhaps Mr. Garrett could help us to solve our puzzle, mother,” said Miss Simpson.

“I don’t want to set Mr. Garrett off on a hunt that might waste a lifetime, my dear, nor yet to trouble him with our private affairs.”

“But if you think it in the least likely that I could be of use, I do beg you to tell me what the puzzle is, Mrs. Simpson. If it is finding out anything about a book, you see, I am in rather a good position to do it.”

“Yes, I do see that, but the worst of it is that we don’t know the name of the book.”

“Nor what it is about?”

“No, nor that either.”

“Except that we don’t think it’s in English, mother—and that is not much of a clue.”

“Well, Mr. Garrett,” said Mrs. Simpson, who had not yet resumed her work, and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, “I shall tell you the story. You will please keep it to yourself, if you don’t mind? Thank you.

“Now it is just this. I had an old uncle, a Dr. Rant. Perhaps you may have heard of him? Not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way he chose to be buried.”

“I rather think I have seen the name in some guidebook.”

“That would be it,” said Miss Simpson. “He left directions—horrid old man!—that he was to be put, sitting at a table in his ordinary clothes, in a brick room that he’d had made underground in a field near his house. Of course the country people say he’s been seen about there in his old black cloak.”

“Well, dear, I don’t know much about such things,” Mrs. Simpson went on, ‘but anyhow he is dead, these twenty years and more. He was a clergyman, though I’m sure I can’t imagine how he got to be one. But he did no duty for the last part of his life, which I think was a good thing.

“And he lived on his own property: a very nice estate not a great way from here. He had no wife or family; only one niece, who was myself, and one nephew, and he had no particular liking for either of us—nor for anyone else, as far as that goes. If anything, he liked my cousin better than he did me—for John was much more like him in his temper, and, I’m afraid I must say, his very mean sharp ways. It might have been different if I had not married; but I did, and that he very much resented.

“Very well: here he was with this estate and a good deal of money, as it turned out, of which he had the absolute disposal, and it was understood that we—my cousin and I—would share it equally at his death.

“In a certain winter, over twenty years back, as I said, he was taken ill, and I was sent for to nurse him. My husband was alive then, but the old man would not hear of
his
coming. As I drove up to the house I saw my cousin John driving away from it in an open fly and looking, I noticed, in very good spirits. I went up and did what I could for my uncle, but I was very soon sure that this would be his last illness; and he was convinced of it too.

“During the day before he died he got me to sit by him all the time, and I could see there was something, and probably something unpleasant, that he was saving up to tell me, and putting it off as long as he felt he could afford the strength—I’m afraid purposely in order to keep me on the stretch. But, at last, out it came.

“‘Mary,’ he said, ‘Mary, I’ve made my will in John’s favor: he has everything, Mary.’

“Well, of course that came as a bitter shock to me, for we—my husband and I—were not rich people, and if he could have managed to live a little easier than he was obliged to do, I felt it might be the prolonging of his life. But I said little or nothing to my uncle, except that he had a right to do what he pleased. Partly because I couldn’t think of anything to say, and partly because I was sure there was more to come: and so there was.

“‘But, Mary,’ he said, ‘I’m not very fond of John, and I’ve made another will in
your
favor.
You
can have everything. Only you’ve got to find the will, you see: and I don’t mean to tell you where it is.’ Then he chuckled to himself, and I waited, for again I was sure he hadn’t finished.

“‘That’s a good girl,’ he said after a time, ‘you wait, and I’ll tell you as much as I told John. But just let me remind you, you can’t go into court with what I’m saying to you, for
you
won’t be able to produce any collateral evidence beyond your own word, and John’s a man that can do a little hard swearing if necessary.

“‘Very well then, that’s understood. Now, I had the fancy that I wouldn’t write this will quite in the common way, so I wrote it in a book, Mary, a printed book. And there’s several thousand books in this house. But there! You needn’t trouble yourself with them, for it isn’t one of them. It’s in safe keeping elsewhere: in a place where John can go and find it any day, if he only knew, and you can’t.

“‘A good will it is: properly signed and witnessed, but I don’t think you’ll find the witnesses in a hurry.’

“Still I said nothing. If I had moved at all I must have taken hold of the old wretch and shaken him. He lay there laughing to himself, and at last he said:

“‘Well, well, you’ve taken it very quietly, and as I want to start you both on equal terms, and John has a bit of a purchase in being able to go where the book is, I’ll tell you just two other things which I didn’t tell him. The will’s
in English, but you won’t know that if ever you see it. That’s one thing, and another is that when I’m gone you’ll find an envelope in my desk directed to you, and inside it something that would help you to find it, if only you have the wits to use it.’

“In a few hours from that he was gone, and though I made an appeal to John Eldred about it—”

“John Eldred? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Simpson—I think I’ve seen a Mr. John Eldred. What is he like to look at?”

“It must be ten years since I saw him: he would be a thin elderly man now, and unless he has shaved them off, he has that sort of whiskers which people used to call Dundreary or Piccadilly something.”

“—Weepers. Yes, that
is
the man.”