CHAPTER XXIV. STORY OF THE GABLES
In looking over my notes dealing with the second phase of Dr.Fu-Manchu's activities in England, I find that one of the worst hoursof my life was associated with the singular and seemingly inconsequentadventure of the fiery hand. I shall deal with it in this place, beggingyou to bear with me if I seem to digress.
Inspector Weymouth called one morning, shortly after the Van Roonepisode, and entered upon a surprising account of a visit to a house atHampstead which enjoyed the sinister reputation of being uninhabitable.
"But in what way does the case enter into your province?" inquiredNayland Smith, idly tapping out his pipe on a bar of the grate.
We had not long finished breakfast, but from an early hour Smith hadbeen at his eternal smoking, which only the advent of the meal hadinterrupted.
"Well," replied the inspector, who occupied a big armchair near thewindow, "I was sent to look into it, I suppose, because I had nothingbetter to do at the moment."
"Ah!" jerked Smith, glancing over his shoulder.
The ejaculation had a veiled significance; for our quest of Dr.Fu-Manchu had come to an abrupt termination by reason of the fact thatall trace of that malignant genius, and of the group surrounding him,had vanished with the destruction of Cragmire Tower.
"The house is called the Gables," continued the Scotland Yard man, "andI knew I was on a wild goose chase from the first--"
"Why?" snapped Smith.
"Because I was there before, six months ago or so--just before yourpresent return to England--and I knew what to expect."
Smith looked up with some faint dawning of interest perceptible in hismanner.
"I was unaware," he said with a slight smile, "that the cleaning-upof haunted houses came within the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard. I amlearning something."
"In the ordinary way," replied the big man good-humoredly, "it doesn't.But a sudden death always excites suspicion, and--"
"A sudden death?" I said, glancing up; "you didn't explain that theghost had killed any one!"
"I'm afraid I'm a poor hand at yarn-spinning, Doctor," said Weymouth,turning his blue, twinkling eyes in my direction. "Two people have diedat the Gables within the last six months."
"You begin to interest me," declared Smith, and there came something ofthe old, eager look into his gaunt face, as, having lighted his pipe, hetossed the match-end into the hearth.
"I had hoped for some little excitement, myself," confessed theinspector. "This dead-end, with not a ghost of a clue to the whereaboutsof the yellow fiend, has been getting on my nerves--"
Nayland Smith grunted sympathetically.
"Although Dr. Fu-Manchu has been in England for some months, now,"continued Weymouth, "I have never set eyes upon him; the house we raidedin Museum Street proved to be empty; in a word, I am wasting my time.So that I volunteered to run up to Hampstead and look into the matterof the Gables, principally as a distraction. It's a queer business, butmore in the Psychical Research Society's line than mine, I'm afraid.Still, if there were no Dr. Fu-Manchu it might be of interest toyou--and to you, Dr. Petrie, because it illustrates the fact, that,given the right sort of subject, death can be brought about without anyelaborate mechanism--such as our Chinese friends employ."
"You interest me more and more," declared Smith, stretching himself inthe long, white cane rest-chair.
"Two men, both fairly sound, except that the first one had an asthmaticheart, have died at the Gables without any one laying a little fingerupon them. Oh! there was no jugglery! They weren't poisoned, or bittenby venomous insects, or suffocated, or anything like that. They justdied of fear--stark fear."
With my elbows resting upon the table cover, and my chin in my hands, Iwas listening attentively, now, and Nayland Smith, a big cushion behindhis head, was watching the speaker with a keen and speculative look inthose steely eyes of his.
"You imply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has something to learn from the Gables?"he jerked.
Weymouth nodded stolidly.
"I can't work up anything like amazement in these days," continued thelatter; "every other case seems stale and hackneyed alongside the case.But I must confess that when the Gables came on the books of the Yardthe second time, I began to wonder. I thought there might be sometangible clue, some link connecting the two victims; perhaps someevidence of robbery or of revenge--of some sort of motive. In short, Ihoped to find evidence of human agency at work, but, as before, I wasdisappointed."
"It's a legitimate case of a haunted house, then?" said Smith.
"Yes; we find them occasionally, these uninhabitable places, wherethere is something, something malignant and harmful to human life, butsomething that you cannot arrest, that you cannot hope to bring intocourt."
"Ah," replied Smith slowly; "I suppose you are right. There are historicinstances, of course: Glamys Castle and Spedlins Tower in Scotland,Peel Castle, Isle of Man, with its Maudhe Dhug, the gray lady of RainhamHall, the headless horses of Caistor, the Wesley ghost of EpworthRectory, and others. But I have never come in personal contact with sucha case, and if I did I should feel very humiliated to have toconfess that there was any agency which could produce a physicalresult--death--but which was immune from physical retaliation."
Weymouth nodded his head again.
"I might feel a bit sour about it, too," he replied, "if it were notthat I haven't much pride left in these days, considering the show ofphysical retaliation I have made against Dr. Fu-Manchu."
"A home thrust, Weymouth!" snapped Nayland Smith, with one of thoserare, boyish laughs of his. "We're children to that Chinese doctor,Inspector, to that weird product of a weird people who are as old inevil as the pyramids are old in mystery. But about the Gables?"
"Well, it's an uncanny place. You mentioned Glamys Castle a momentago, and it's possible to understand an old stronghold like that beinghaunted, but the Gables was only built about 1870; it's quite a modernhouse. It was built for a wealthy Quaker family, and they occupied it,uninterruptedly and apparently without anything unusual occurring, forover forty years. Then it was sold to a Mr. Maddison--and Mr. Maddisondied there six months ago."
"Maddison?" said Smith sharply, staring across at Weymouth. "What washe? Where did he come from?"
"He was a retired tea-planter from Colombo," replied the inspector.
"Colombo?"
"There was a link with the East, certainly, if that's what you arethinking; and it was this fact which interested me at the time, andwhich led me to waste precious days and nights on the case. But therewas no mortal connection between this liverish individual and theschemes of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I'm certain of that."
"And how did he die?" I asked, interestedly.
"He just died in his chair one evening, in the room which he used as alibrary. It was his custom to sit there every night, when there were novisitors, reading, until twelve o'clock--or later. He was a bachelor,and his household consisted of a cook, a housemaid, and a man who hadbeen with him for thirty years, I believe. At the time of Mr. Maddison'sdeath, his household had recently been deprived of two of its members.The cook and housemaid both resigned one morning, giving as their reasonthe fact that the place was haunted."
"In what way?"
"I interviewed the precious pair at the time, and they told me absurdand various tales about dark figures wandering along the corridors andbending over them in bed at night, whispering; but their chief troublewas a continuous ringing of bells about the house."
"Bells?"
"They said that it became unbearable. Night and day there were bellsringing all over the house. At any rate, they went, and for three orfour days the Gables was occupied only by Mr. Maddison and his man,whose name was Stevens. I interviewed the latter also, and he was analtogether more reliable witness; a decent, steady sort of man whosestory impressed me very much at the time."
"Did he confirm the ringing?"
"He swore to it--a sort of jangle, sometimes up in the air, near theceilings, and sometimes unde
r the floor, like the shaking of silverbells."
Nayland Smith stood up abruptly and began to pace the room, leavinggreat trails of blue-gray smoke behind him.
"Your story is sufficiently interesting, Inspector," he declared,"even to divert my mind from the eternal contemplation of the Fu-Manchuproblem. This would appear to be distinctly a case of an 'astral bell'such as we sometimes hear of in India."
"It was Stevens," continued Weymouth, "who found Mr. Maddison. He(Stevens) had been out on business connected with the householdarrangements, and at about eleven o'clock he returned, letting himselfin with a key. There was a light in the library, and getting no responseto his knocking, Stevens entered. He found his master sitting boltupright in a chair, clutching the arms with rigid fingers and staringstraight before him with a look of such frightful horror on his face,that Stevens positively ran from the room and out of the house. Mr.Maddison was stone dead. When a doctor, who lives at no great distanceaway, came and examined him, he could find no trace of violencewhatever; he had apparently died of fright, to judge from the expressionon his face."
"Anything else?"
"Only this: I learnt, indirectly, that the last member of the Quakerfamily to occupy the house had apparently witnessed the apparition,which had led to his vacating the place. I got the story from the wifeof a man who had been employed as gardener there at that time.The apparition--which he witnessed in the hallway, if I rememberrightly--took the form of a sort of luminous hand clutching a long,curved knife."
"Oh, Heavens!" cried Smith, and laughed shortly; "that's quite inorder!"
"This gentleman told no one of the occurrence until after he had leftthe house, no doubt in order that the place should not acquire an evilreputation. Most of the original furniture remained, and Mr. Maddisontook the house furnished. I don't think there can be any doubt that whatkilled him was fear at seeing a repetition--"
"Of the fiery hand?" concluded Smith.
"Quite so. Well, I examined the Gables pretty closely, and, with anotherScotland Yard man, spent a night in the empty house. We saw nothing; butonce, very faintly, we heard the ringing of bells."
Smith spun around upon him rapidly.
"You can swear to that?" he snapped.
"I can swear to it," declared Weymouth stolidly. "It seemed to be overour heads. We were sitting in the dining-room. Then it was gone, and weheard nothing more whatever of an unusual nature. Following the death ofMr. Maddison, the Gables remained empty until a while ago, when a Frenchgentleman, name Lejay, leased it--"
"Furnished?"
"Yes; nothing was removed--"
"Who kept the place in order?"
"A married couple living in the neighborhood undertook to do so. Theman attended to the lawn and so forth, and the woman came once a week, Ibelieve, to clean up the house."
"And Lejay?"
"He came in only last week, having leased the house for six months. Hisfamily were to have joined him in a day or two, and he, with the aidof the pair I have just mentioned, and assisted by a French servant hebrought over with him, was putting the place in order. At about twelveo'clock on Friday night this servant ran into a neighboring housescreaming 'the fiery hand!' and when at last a constable arrived and afrightened group went up the avenue of the Gables, they found M. Lejay,dead in the avenue, near the steps just outside the hall door! He hadthe same face of horror..."
"What a tale for the press!" snapped Smith.
"The owner has managed to keep it quiet so far, but this time I think itwill leak into the press--yes."
There was a short silence; then:
"And you have been down to the Gables again?"
"I was there on Saturday, but there's not a scrap of evidence. The manundoubtedly died of fright in the same way as Maddison. The place oughtto be pulled down; it's unholy."
"Unholy is the word," I said. "I never heard anything like it. This M.Lejay had no enemies?--there could be no possible motive?"
"None whatever. He was a business man from Marseilles, and his affairsnecessitated his remaining in or near London for some considerable time;therefore, he decided to make his headquarters here, temporarily, andleased the Gables with that intention."
Nayland Smith was pacing the floor with increasing rapidity; he wastugging at the lobe of his left ear and his pipe had long since goneout.