The Shrieking Pit
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Arthur J. Rees >> The Shrieking Pit
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"Without being conscious of it?"
"Without being conscious of it then or afterwards. After the patient
recovers from one of these attacks his mind is generally a complete
blank, but occasionally he will have a troubled or confused sense of
something having happened to him--like a man awakened from a bad dream,
which he cannot recall. This young man may come to his senses without
remembering anything which occurred downstairs, or he may be vaguely
alarmed, and ask a number of questions. In either case, it will be some
time--from half an hour to several hours--before his mind begins to work
normally again."
"Do you think it was his intention, when he got up from his table, to
attack the group at the table nearest him--that elderly clergyman and
his party?"
"I think it highly probable that he would have attacked the first person
within his reach--that is why I wanted to prevent him."
"But he didn't carry the knife with him from his table."
"My dear sir"--Sir Henry's voice conveyed the proper amount of
professional superiority--"you speak as though you thought a victim of
_furor epilepticus_ was a rational being. He is nothing of the kind.
While the attack lasts he is an uncontrollable maniac, not responsible
for his actions in the slightest degree."
"But, if he is capable of conceiving the idea of attacking his fellow
creatures, surely he is capable of picking up a knife for the purpose,
particularly when he has just previously had one in his hand?" urged
Colwyn. "I have no intention of setting up my opinion against yours, Sir
Henry, but there are certain aspects of this young man's illness which
are not altogether consistent with my own experience of epileptics. As a
criminologist, I have given some study to the effect of epilepsy and
other nervous diseases on the criminal temperament. For instance, this
young man did not give the usual cry of an epileptic when he sprang up
from the table. And if it is merely an attack of petit mal, why is he so
long in recovering consciousness?"
"The so-called epileptic cry is not invariably present, and petit mal
is sometimes the half-way house to haut mal," responded Sir Henry. "I
have said that this case presents several unusual features, but, in my
opinion, there is nothing absolutely inconsistent with epilepsy,
combined with _furor epilepticus_. And here is one symptom rarely found
in any fit except an epileptic seizure." The specialist pointed to a
faint fleck of foam which showed beneath the young man's brown
moustache.
Colwyn bent over him and wiped his lips with his handkerchief. As he did
so the young man's eyes unclosed. He regarded Colwyn languidly for a
moment or two, and then sat upright on the bed.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed.
"It's quite all right, Mr. Ronald," said the specialist, in his most
soothing bedside manner. "Just take things easily. You have been ill,
but you are almost yourself again. Let me feel your pulse--ha, very good
indeed! We will have you on your legs in no time."
The young man verified the truth of the latter prediction by springing
off his bed and regarding his visitors keenly. There was now, at all
events, no lack of sanity and intelligence in his gaze.
"What has happened? How did I get here?"
"You fainted, and we brought you up to your room," interposed Colwyn
tactfully, before Sir Henry could speak.
"Awfully kind of you. I remember now. I felt a bit seedy as I went
downstairs, but I thought it would pass off. I don't remember much more
about it. I hope I didn't make too much of an ass of myself before the
others, going off like a girl in that way. You must have had no end of a
bother in dragging me upstairs--very good of you to take the trouble."
He smiled faintly, and produced a cigarette case.
"How do you feel now?" asked Sir Henry Durwood solemnly, disregarding
the proffered case.
"A bit as though I'd been kicked on the top of the head by a horse, but
it'll soon pass off. Fact is, I got a touch of sun when I was out
there"--he waved his hand vaguely towards the East--"and it gives me a
bit of trouble at times. But I'll be all right directly. I'm sorry to
have given you so much trouble."
He proffered this explanation with an easy courtesy, accompanied by a
slight deprecating smile which admirably conveyed the regret of a
well-bred man for having given trouble to strangers. It was difficult to
reconcile his self-control with his previous extravagance downstairs.
But to Colwyn it was apparent that his composure was simulated, the
effort of a sensitive man who had betrayed a weakness to strangers, for
the fingers which held a cigarette trembled slightly, and there were
troubled shadows in the depths of the dark blue eyes. Colwyn admired the
young man's pluck--he would wish to behave the same way himself in
similar circumstances, he felt--and he realised that the best service he
and Sir Henry Durwood could render their fellow guest was to leave him
alone.
But Sir Henry was far from regarding the matter in the same light. As a
doctor he was more at home in other people's bedrooms than his own, for
rumour whispered that Lady Durwood was so jealous of her husband's
professional privileges as a fashionable ladies' physician that she was
in the habit of administering strong doses of matrimonial truths to him
every night at home. Sir Henry settled himself in his chair, adjusted
his eye-glasses more firmly on his nose and regarded the young man
standing by the mantelpiece with a bland professional smile, slightly
dashed by the recollection that he was not receiving a fee for his
visit.
"You have made a good recovery, but you'll need care," he said.
"Speaking as a professional man--I am Sir Henry Durwood--I think it
would be better for you if you had somebody with you who understood your
case. With your--er--complaint, it is very desirable that you should not
be left to the mercy of strangers. I would advise, strongly advise you,
to communicate with your friends. I shall be only too happy to do so on
your behalf if you will give me their address. In the meantime--until
they arrive--my advice to you is to rest."
A look of annoyance flashed through the young man's eyes. He evidently
resented the specialist's advice; indeed, his glance plainly revealed
that he regarded it as a piece of gratuitous impertinence. He answered
coldly:
"Many thanks, Sir Henry, but I think I shall be able to look after
myself."
"That is not an uncommon feature of your complaint," said the
specialist. An oracular shake of the head conveyed more than the words.
"What do you imagine my complaint, as you term it, to be?" asked the
young man curtly.
Colwyn wondered whether even a fashionable physician, used to the
freedom with which fashionable ladies discussed their ailments, would
have the courage to tell a stranger that he regarded him as an
epileptic. The matter was not put to the test--perhaps fortunately--for
at that moment there was a sharp tap at the door, which opened to admit
a chambermaid who seemed the last word in frills and smartness.
"If you please, Sir Henry," said the girl, with a sidelong glance at the
tall handsome young man by the mantelpiece, "Lady Durwood would be
obliged if you would go to her room at once."
It speaks well for Sir Henry Durwood that the physician was instantly
merged in the husband. "Tell Lady Durwood I will come at once," he said.
"You'll excuse me," he added, with a courtly bow to his patient.
"Perhaps--if you wish--you might care to see me later."
"Many thanks, Sir Henry, but there will be no need." He bowed gravely to
the specialist, but smiled cordially and held out his hand to Colwyn, as
the latter prepared to follow Sir Henry out of the room. "I hope to see
you later," he said.
But when Colwyn, after a day spent on the golf-links, went into the
dining-room for dinner that evening, the young man's place was vacant.
After the meal Colwyn went to the office to inquire if Mr. Ronald was
still unwell, and learnt, to his surprise, that he had departed from the
hotel an hour or so after his illness.
CHAPTER III
Lunch was over the following day, and the majority of the hotel guests
were assembled in the lounge, some sitting round a log fire which roared
and crackled in the old-fashioned fireplace, others wandering backwards
and forwards to the hotel entrance to cast a weather eye on the black
and threatening sky.
During the night there had been one of those violent changes in the
weather with which the denizens of the British Isles are not altogether
unfamiliar; a heavy storm had come shrieking down the North Sea, and
though the rain had ceased about eleven o'clock the wind had blown hard
all through the night, bringing with it from the Arctic a driving sleet
and the first touch of bitter, icy, winter cold.
The ladies of the hotel, who the previous day had paraded the front in
light summer frocks, sat shivering round the fire in furs; and the men
walked up and down in little groups discussing the weather and the war.
The golfers stood apart debating, after their wont, the possibility of
trying a round in spite of the weather. The elderly clergyman was
prepared to risk it if he could find a partner, and, with the aid of an
umbrella held upside down, was demonstrating to an attentive circle the
possibility of going round the most open course in England in the teeth
of the fiercest gale that ever blew, provided that a brassy was used
instead of a driver.
"I don't see how you could drive a ball with either to-day," said one
of the doubtful ones. "You'd be driving right against the wind for the
first four holes, and when you have the wind behind you at the bend in
the cliff by the fifth, the force of the gale would probably carry your
ball half a mile out to sea. These links here are supposed to be the
most exposed in England."
"My dear sir, you surely do not call this a gale," retorted the
clergyman. "I have played some of my best games in a stronger wind than
this. And as for this being the most exposed course in England--well,
let me ask you one question: have you ever played over the Worthing
course with a strong northeast gale--a gale, mind you, not a
wind--sweeping over the Downs?"
"Can't say I have," grunted the previous speaker, a tall cadaverous man,
wrapped from head to foot in a great grey ulster, and wearing woollen
gloves. "In fact, I've never been on the Worthing course."
"I thought not." The clergyman's face showed a golfer's satisfaction at
having tripped a fellow player. "The Worthing course is the most
difficult course in England, all up hill and down dale, and full of
pitfalls for those who don't know its peculiarities. I had a very
remarkable experience there, last year, with the crack local player--his
handicap was plus two. We played a round in a gale with the wind
whistling over the high downs at the rate of seventy or eighty miles an
hour. My partner didn't want to play at first because of the weather,
but I persuaded him to go round, and I beat him by two up and four to
play solely by relying on the brassy and midiron. He stuck to the
driver, and lost in consequence. I'll just show you how the game went.
Suppose the first hole to be just beyond the hall door there, and you
drive off from here. Now, imagine that umbrella stand--would you mind
moving away a little from it, sir? Thank you--to be a group of fir trees
fully a hundred yards to the right of the fairway. Well, I got a shot
160 yards up the fairway with a low straight ball which never lifted
more than a yard from the green, but my opponent, instead of sticking to
the brassy, as I did, preferred to use his big driver, and what do you
think happened to him? The wind took his ball clean over the fir trees."
The story was interrupted by the sudden entrance from outside of a young
officer who had been taking a turn on the front. He strode hurriedly
into the lounge, with a look of excitement on his good-humoured boyish
face, and accosted the golfers, who happened to be nearest the door.
"I say, you fellows, what do you think has happened? You remember that
chap who fainted yesterday morning? Well, he's wanted for committing a
murder!"
The piece of news created the sensation that its imparter had counted
upon. "A murder!" was echoed from different parts of the lounge in
varying degrees of horror, amazement and dread, and the majority of the
guests came eagerly crowding round to hear the details.
"Yes, a murder!" repeated the young officer, with relish. "And, what's
more, he committed it after he left here yesterday. He walked across to
some inn a few miles from here along the coast, put up there for the
night, and in the middle of the night stabbed some old chap who was
staying there."
There was a lengthy pause while the hotel guests digested this startling
information, and endeavoured to register anew their previous faint
impressions of the young man of the alcove table in the new light of his
personality as an alleged murderer. The pause was followed by an excited
hum of conversation and eager questions, the ladies all talking at once.
"What a providential escape we have all had!" exclaimed the clergyman's
wife, her fresh comely face turning pale.
"That's just what I said myself, madam, when I heard the news," replied
the young officer.
"I presume this murderous young ruffian has been secured?" asked the
clergyman, who had turned even paler than his wife. "The police, I hope,
have him under arrest."
The young officer shook his head.
"He's shown them a clean pair of heels. He may be heading back this way,
for all I know. There will be a hue and cry over the whole of Norfolk
for him by to-night, but murderers are usually very crafty, and
difficult to catch. I bet they won't catch him before he murders
somebody else."
The men looked at one another gravely, and some of the ladies gave vent
to cries of alarm, and clung to their husband's arms. The clergyman
turned angrily on the man who had brought the news.
"What do you mean, sir, by blurting out a piece of news like this before
a number of ladies?" he said sternly. "It was imprudent and foolish in
the last degree. You have alarmed them exceedingly."
"Oh, that's all tosh!" replied the other rudely. "They were bound to
hear of it sooner or later; why, everybody on the front is talking about
it. I thought you'd be awfully bucked to hear the news, seeing that you
were sitting at the next table to him yesterday morning."
"Who gave you this information?" asked Colwyn, who had just come down
stairs wearing a motor coat and cap, and paused on his way to the door
on hearing the loud voices of the excited group round the young officer.
"One of the fishermen on the front. The police constable at the place
where the murder was committed--a little village with some outlandish
name--came over here to report the news. This is the nearest police
station to the spot, it seems."
"But is he quite certain that the man who is supposed to have committed
the murder is the young man who fainted yesterday morning?" asked Sir
Henry Durwood, who had joined the group. "Has he been positively
identified?"
"The fisherman tells me that there's no doubt it's him--the
description's identical. He cleared out before the murder was
discovered. There's a rare hue and cry all along the coast. They are
organizing search parties. There's one going out from here this
afternoon. I'm going with it."
Colwyn left the group of hotel guests, and went to the front door. Sir
Henry Durwood, after a moment's hesitation, followed him. The detective
was standing in the hotel porch, thoughtfully smoking a cigar, and
looking out over the raging sea. He nodded cordially to the specialist.
"What do you think of this story?" asked Sir Henry.
"I was just about to walk down to the police station to make some
inquiries," responded Colwyn. "It is impossible to tell from that man's
story how much is truth and how much mere gossip."
"I'm afraid it's true enough," replied Sir Henry Durwood. "You'll
remember I warned him yesterday to send for his friends. A man in his
condition of health should not have been permitted to wander about the
country unattended. He has probably had another attack of _furor
epilepticus_, and killed somebody while under its influence. Dear, dear,
what a dreadful thing! It may be said that I should have taken a firmer
hand with him yesterday, but what more could I have done? It's a very
awkward situation--very. I hope you'll remember, Mr. Colwyn, that I did
all that was humanly possibly for a professional man to do--in fact, I
went beyond the bounds of professional decorum, in tendering advice to a
perfect stranger. And you will also remember that what I told you about
his condition was in the strictest confidence. I should like very much
to accompany you to the police station, if you have no objection--I feel
strongly interested in the case."
"I shall be glad if you will come," replied the detective.
Colwyn turned down the short street to the front, where a footpath
protected by a hand rail had been made along the edge of the cliff for
the benefit of jaded London visitors who wanted to get the best value
for their money in the bracing Norfolk air. At the present moment that
air, shrieking across the North Sea with almost hurricane force, was too
bracing for weak nerves on the exposed path, and it was real hard work
to force a way, even with the help of the handrail, against the wind, to
say nothing of the spray which was flung up in clouds from the
thundering masses of yellow waves dashing at the foot of the cliffs
below. Sir Henry Durwood, at any rate, was very glad when his companion
turned away from the cliffs into one of the narrow tortuous streets
running off the front into High Street.
Colwyn paused in front of a stone building, half way up the street,
which displayed the words, "County Police," on a board outside. Knots of
people were standing about in the road--fishermen in jerseys and
sea boots, some women, and a sprinkling of children--brought together by
the news of murder, but kept from encroaching on the sacred domain of
law and order by a massive red-faced country policeman, who stood at
the gate in an awkward pose of official dignity, staring straight in
front of him, ignoring the eager questions which were showered on him by
the crowd. The group of people nearest the gate fell back a little as
they approached, and the policeman on duty looked at them inquiringly.
Colwyn asked him the name of the officer in charge of the district, and
received the reply that it was Superintendent Galloway. The policeman
looked somewhat doubtful when Colwyn asked him to take in his card with
the request for an interview. He compromised between his determination
to do the right thing and his desire not to offend two well-dressed
gentlemen by taking Colwyn into his confidence.
"Well, you see, sir, it's like this," he said, sinking his voice so that
his remarks should not be heard by the surrounding rabble. "I don't like
to interrupt Superintendent Galloway unless it's very important. The
chief constable is with him."
"Do you mean Mr. Cromering, from Norwich?" asked Colwyn.
The policeman nodded.
"He came over here by the morning train," he explained.
"Very good. I know Mr. Cromering well. Will you please take this card to
the chief constable and say that I should be glad of the favour of a
short interview? This is a piece of luck," he added to Sir Henry, as the
constable took the card and disappeared into the building. "We shall now
be able to find out all we want to know."
The police constable came hastening back, and with a very respectful air
informed them that Mr. Cromering would be only too happy to see Mr.
Colwyn. He led them forthwith into the building, down a passage, knocked
at a door, and without waiting for a response, ushered them into a
large room and quietly withdrew.
There were two officials in the room. One, in uniform, a heavily built
stout man with sandy hair and a red freckled face, sat at a large
roll-top desk writing at the dictation of the other, who wore civilian
clothes. The second official was small and elderly, of dry and meagre
appearance, with a thin pale face, and sunken blue eyes beneath
gold-rimmed spectacles. This gentleman left off dictating as Colwyn and
Sir Henry Durwood entered, and advanced to greet the detective with a
look which might have been mistaken for gratitude in a less important
personage.
Mr. Cromering's gratitude to Colwyn was not due to any assistance he had
received from the detective in the elucidation of baffling crime
mysteries. It arose from an entirely different cause. Wolfe is supposed
to have said that he would sooner have been remembered as the author of
Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" than as the conqueror of Quebec.
Mr. Cromering would sooner have been the editor of the _English Review_
than the chief constable of Norfolk. His tastes were bookish; Nature had
intended him for the librarian of a circulating library: the safe pilot
of middle class ladies through the ocean of new fiction which overwhelms
the British Isles twice a year. His particular hobby was paleontology.
He was the author of _The Jurassic Deposits of Norfolk, with Some
Remarks on the Kimeridge Clay_--an exhaustive study of the geological
formation of the county and the remains of prehistoric reptiles, fishes,
mollusca and crustacea which had been discovered therein. This work,
which had taken six years to prepare, had almost been lost to the world
through the carelessness of the Postal Department, which had allowed
the manuscript to go astray while in transit from Norfolk to the London
publishers.
The distracted author had stirred up the postal authorities at London
and Norwich, and had ultimately received a courteous communication from
the Postmaster General to the effect that all efforts to trace the
missing packet had failed. A friend of Mr. Cromering's suggested that he
should invoke the aid of the famous detective Colwyn, who had a name for
solving mysteries which baffled the police. Mr. Cromering took the
advice and wrote to Colwyn, offering to mention his name in a preface to
_The Jurassic Deposits_ if he succeeded in recovering the missing
manuscript. Colwyn, by dint of bringing to bear a little more
intelligence and energy than the postal officials had displayed, ran the
manuscript to earth in three days, and forwarded it to the owner with a
courteous note declining the honour of the offered preface as too great
a reward for such a small service.
"Very happy to meet you, Mr. Colwyn," said the chief constable, as he
came forward with extended hand. "I've long wanted to thank you
personally for your kindness--your great kindness to me last year.
Although I feel I can never repay it, I'm glad to have the opportunity
of expressing it."
"I'm afraid you are over-estimating a very small service," said Colwyn,
with a smile.
"Very small?" The chief constable's emphasis of the words suggested that
his pride as an author had been hurt. "If you had not recovered the
manuscript, a work of considerable interest to students of British
paleontology would have been lost. I must show you a letter I have just
received from Sir Thomas Potter, of the British Museum, agreeing with my
conclusions about the fossil remains of Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and
Mosasaurs, discovered last year at Roslyn Hole. It is very gratifying
to me; very gratifying. But what can I do for you, Mr. Colwyn?"
"First let me introduce to you Sir Henry Durwood," said Colwyn.
"Durwood? Did you say Durwood?" said the little man, eagerly advancing
upon the specialist with outstretched hand. "I'm delighted to meet one
of our topmost men of science. Your illuminating work on Elephas
Meridionalis is a classic."
"I'm afraid you're confusing Sir Henry with a different Durwood," said
the detective, coming to the rescue. "Sir Henry Durwood is the
distinguished specialist of Harley Street, and not the paleontologist of
that name. We have called to make some inquiries about the murder which
was committed somewhere near here last night."
"The ruling passion, Mr. Colwyn, the ruling passion! Personally I should
be only too glad of your assistance in the case in question, but I'm
afraid there's no deep mystery to unravel--it's not worth your while. It
would be like cracking a nut with a steam hammer for you to devote your
brains to this case. All the indications point strongly to one man."
"A young man who was staying at the _Grand_ till yesterday?" inquired
the detective.
The chief constable nodded.
"We're looking for a young man who's been staying at the _Grand_ for
some weeks past under the name of Ronald. He's a stranger to the
district, and nobody seems to know anything about him. Perhaps you
gentlemen can tell me something about him."
"Very little, I'm afraid," replied Colwyn. "I've seen him at meal
times, and nodded to him, but never spoken to him till yesterday, when
he had a fainting fit at breakfast. Sir Henry Durwood and I helped him
to his bedroom, and exchanged a few remarks with him on his recovery."
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