The Whispering Lane/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
HEARD IN THE DARKNESS
When in possession of the really valuable information supplied both by Mrs. Grutch and the shabby little inquiry agent, Dick lost no time in making use of it. There was true wisdom in his thus speeding up matters, since Edith Danby’s appearance before the Tarhaven magistrate could not easily be postponed, and it was urgently necessary to find some evidence in her favour, however scanty. This, the young lawyer hoped, would be discoverable in Wessbury, and, within twenty-four hours of his acquiring the knowledge, he was dining in the private parlour of the village inn. As the landlord was a communicative individual, the landlady an excellent cook, and the room warmly home-like with a brisk fire, Hustings felt very well satisfied with the beginnings of this wild goose chase. For so, he inwardly termed it, so blurred was the trail. “I expect I am not the first person who has asked you about The Whispering Lane?” said Dick, when he arrived at the coffee and tobacco stage of after-dinner delights.
“Not by a long chalk, sir,” grinned the landlord, a cheerful young ex-soldier, intelligently frank, “but you ain’t like most of them spirit-merchants, sir: a weedy lot they are. Off their rockers, I reckon with their gone-west tosh. Beg pardon, sir, I hope I haven’t”
Dick shook his head, guessing why the man was confused, “I am a common-sense lawyer, Webb—I think you told me your name is Webb.”
“Yes, sir. And I take it, sir, that you’re an officer?”
“An ex-officer, R.G.A. Like yourself, one of the ‘also rans,’ Webb. But this Whispering Lane: is that story I repeated to you, as told to me, a true one?”
“Quite true, sir. Mrs. Brine did live in that bungalow; she did kill herself when her husband was killed; and she does haunt the lane.”
“Oh, come now, Webb, what about your talk of gone-west tosh?”
The landlord scratched his head, thoughtfully. “Well I do think that there’s a lot of nothing in that: all the same, sir, there’s something in it, which ain’t to be explained easily,” he looked serious and sank his voice to a whisper, “for I’ve heard the voices myself.”
“And they said?”
“Something like—‘Oh where are you, Edgar! Edgar!’ and such-like. Plain enough.”
“It must be a trick.”
“Maybe, sir; but it’s a trick no one has found out. Them spirit-merchants by the dozen have been hanging round for weeks, poking and prying and holding their blinking séances, but they’ve not got hold of the right end of the stick—if there is any right end,” added the man as an afterthought.
Hustings looked thoughtfully into the fire for a few minutes then brought out of his pocket the patched-up photograph of Slanton—torn by Edith—which he had induced Trant to send him. “Is that the picture of an inquirer?”
Webb took the photograph, scrutinized it carefully, and returned it with a dubious look, “I can’t say as I remember anyone like that, sir. But my wife might have seen him.”
“Ask Mrs. Webb to step this way, please!”
The landlady appeared in a few minutes, inspected the photograph, and also declared her ignorance. “Never set eyes on him before,” she said, sharply, “but, of course, everyone drawn to Wessbury by this ghost-business doesn’t come to us. Lots go straight to the lane and straight back to London when they’ve heard what they came to hear. And some stay with friends, going night after night to listen. No, sir,” she passed back the photograph to its owner, “I don’t know him.”
Baffled in this direction, Dick tried another. “This Mrs. Jerr. Who is she?”
“Oh, quite a nice old lady, sir, who rented the Brine bungalow from Mr. Chane some six months ago,” it was Webb who explained, anticipating his wife. “I’ve taken eggs and milk to her lots of times, when Wu Ti didn’t come for them.”
“A Chinaman!” Hustings feigned ignorance. “How does an old lady in an English village come to have a servant of that nationality?”
This time it was Mrs. Webb who gave the information. “Mrs. Jerr is the widow of a Hong Kong silk-merchant, who has lived all her life in the East. She brought Wu Ti with her when she returned to England after the death of her husband. He’s devoted to her is Wu Ti. Although,” added Mrs. Webb with a shiver, “I don’t like him myself: a creepy-crawly kind of man.”
“It’s the English way of looking at foreigners that speaks, sir,” said Webb, with a broad smile. “Wu Ti’s just the same as any other Chink. Eve seen lots of ’em in the Mile End Road, when I lived there, afore the war. But Minnie,” he grinned at his wife, “she’s lived in this here village all her life and don’t know things.”
“I knew enough to marry you when you were billeted here,” said the landlady, tartly. “Father was alive then. Now you’ve got this hotel he left me, and me too. What else do you want?”
Webb grinned at Dick to intimate that his wife’s bark was a deal worse than her bite. “She don’t mean half she says, sir.”
“Oh yes she does, and a lot more if she’s time to say it,” snapped Mrs. Webb, with a betraying smile. “But Mr. Hustings doesn’t want to hear of your goings-on, Alf; tell him about Mrs. Jerr.”
Webb scratched his head again. “There ain’t anything to tell.”
“Well,” volunteered his wife, placidly, “you’re about right. She’s a quiet old lady, Mr. Hustings, keeping herself to herself, and Wu Ti looks after her.”
Dick nodded. So far everything seemed to be fair and square and above-board, so he tried another track. “Did you know Mr. Chane?”
The landlord gave the information. “Oh yes, sir. Minnie and me have seen him lots of times. He bought the bungalow two years ago from the cove as got it by will. But he didn’t live in it altogether. Stayed mostly in Town and came down week-ends.”
“And he rented the bungalow to Mrs. Jerr some six months ago,” Mrs. Webb took up the story promptly, “saying he was going abroad on some scientific business. A pleasant gentleman he was, and clever with science things.”
“Oh, indeed. What was his particular line?”
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
“Have you his London address?”
“No, Mr. Hustings. All I know is that he used to come down here, as Alf says, at week-ends; Saturday night he’d arrive and return to Town early Monday.”
“Did he live alone in the bungalow?”
“There was a man-servant who came and went with him, but he mostly stayed in the bungalow, while Mr. Chane went about enjoying himself. I never saw him.”
“No more did I,” struck in Webb, hastily, “queer cove keeping himself to himself in the way he did.”
“Like Mrs. Jerr,” observed Dick, dryly; “by the way, was this voice, or these voices, heard in Mrs. Brine’s time?”
“No, sir. Only during the last few months have the voices been heard.”
“And Mrs. Jerr has been in the bungalow for six months,” mused Hustings, with a nod. “I wonder if she has anything to do with the business—or Wu Ti?”
Mrs. Webb laughed disbelievingly. “She doesn’t bother about spirit rubbish, Mr. Hustings, and is willing to let anyone examine the bungalow. What’s more, she never knew Mrs. Brine, or anything about her, except what’s common gossip. As to Wu Ti, he’s a poor heathen, bowing down to stocks and stones, that ignorant you wouldn’t believe. It’s my opinion,” ended Mrs. Webb, firmly, “that it’s the parrot.”
“The parrot!” echoed Dick, remembering Mrs. Grutch’s mention of some such bird.
“Mrs. Brine’s pet parrot,” repeated the landlady, “a grey bird with pink underneath. He talked wonderful. So I believe that when Mrs. Brine wandered about the bungalow and lane crying for her husband, the parrot picked up some of her words and goes about saying them.”
“How long has Mrs. Brine been dead?”
“Close upon three years, sir.”
“What became of the parrot?”
“The cove as got the property took it away with him,” said Webb, striking into the conversation, “but it might have flowed back with its chatter. I don’t know as Minnie’s idea ain’t right.”
“What is the name of the man who inherited the property and took away the parrot?” asked Dick, taking out pencil and note-book.
“Brine, sir,” said Mrs. Webb, quickly, “Horace Brine—the brother of the poor young lady. He lives somewhere in Hampstead, but I don’t know the exact address. Why sir?”
“Because I wish to find out if he has the parrot. If so, the voice can’t be that of the bird. I daresay I’ll find Mr. Horace Brine’s address in the London Directory.” Hustings stood up and warmed his back against the fire. “I am much obliged to you both for telling me all this. I am down here on behalf of a client, who is interested in these ghostly happenings. And I wish to prove to her that they are all nonsense.”
Both Webb and his wife shook their heads simultaneously. “I thought so once, and so did Minnie,” said the former, seriously, “but she’s heard the voices, and so’ve I. Everyone in the village has heard them; that’s why we call the place—The Whispering Lane.”
“With all this widely spread publicity, local as it is, why hasn’t the mysterious business got into the newspapers?”
“I dunno sir,” answered Webb, scratching his head as usual, “but it is getting in sure enough. Two days ago a gent from a London daily come down here to ask questions.”
“And we answered him as we’re answering you, sir,” chimed in the brisk little landlady, “for if there’s a stir in the newspapers about The Whispering Lane lots of people will come to The Pink Cow, and that’s our name for our hotel.”
Dick laughed approvingly, as he quite understood their desire to make hay while the sun of curiosity was shining. “Well, so far, so good. How do I get to The Whispering Lane?”
“Are you going there to-night, sir?”
“Yes, Mrs. Webb. I have little time to spare and must make the best use of it.”
The landlady opened her eyes widely and shivered. “I only went once myself, Mr. Hustings, and that was with Alf here. It was horrid—the darkness and the wailing. I wouldn’t go there again for pounds and pounds. Besides, it’s a nasty night, sir, with wind and rain and as black as pitch.”
“All the better atmosphere for psychic happenings. If you will tell me how I am to find this haunted place?”
Mrs. Webb looked intelligently at her husband. “Jimmy!” she said, meaningly.
“Yes!” he nodded apprehendingly. “Jimmy Took. What he don’t know about the business no one knows. I’ll send out for him, instanter,” and the ex-soldier left the room whistling an army song, while his wife began to clear away the dishes, talking all the time.
“Jimmy will lead you to the lane, sir. He knows the way blindfold, and it’s as well that he does, seeing how black the night is.”
“Who is Jimmy Took?” asked Dick, lighting his pipe and straddling before the fire with his hands in his pockets.
“The son of Arty Took the sexton, sir, and being so, is well up in ghosts. Some says as he’s got too many wits and some say not enough. But he’s a queer little chap, Mr. Hustings, as you’ll see when he comes. And such a reader.”
“Oh! Studious is he? What does he read?”
“Mostly them detective stories, sir,” Mrs. Webb paused in her clearing away to shudder. “I never did see such a child for horrors. Wants to be a detective and track down people to hang ’em. If he was a child of mine I’d slap that out of him, if it took years.”
“Detectives are useful people, Mrs. Webb. But for them many of us wouldn’t sleep so soundly at night. So Jimmy is interested in this business?”
“It’s bread and jam to him,” was Mrs. Webb’s homely metaphor, expressed emphatically, “never was there such a child for poking in odd corners.”
“Child? How old?”
“Sixteen, and with wickedness enough for forty years of age. That is”—the little woman took up the laden tray—“he’s not exactly wicked, as people call wickedness, for he doesn’t lie, or smoke, or swear, and keeps himself tidy enough, I will say that for him. But he’s—he’s—well—he’s touched. That’s what it is. There’s something as oughtn’t to be, about Jimmy.”
When she left the room, Dick, with his hands still in his pockets, swayed steadily, back to fire, like a meditative elephant. He guessed that Jimmy was a lad unusually clever, and being so, was dubbed wicked and queer by dull-minded people, who object to any departure from the normal. Even Mrs. Webb—and she was no fool—looked askance at a boy who took a larger interest in larger things than did the commonalty. Jimmy, evidently being original, had to endure the usual punishment of originality, which is always suspected and condemned by the ordinary person. Hustings was pleased that his good fortune should have brought him into contact with such an unusual human being. If Jimmy proved to be what he was reported to be—for the lawyer read between the lines—then he would be a useful helper. “And heaven only knows how badly I need a helper, muttered Dick, reflecting on the quagmire of doubt and perplexity, in which he was, so far, vainly struggling.
“Jimmy Took, sir,” announced Webb, suddenly entering, with a boy close on his heels. I’ll leave you to speak with him, sir, as I’ve to attend to customers in the tap-room. And Jimmy!” he fixed the boy with a terrific N.C.O. glare, “you do what Mr. Hustings here tells you: he being an officer, who don’t take no back-talk, nor side-answers. What he says—goes. D’jeer!” and with a smart salute to Dick’s departed dignity as a captain, the ex-soldier wheeled round with military precision, and departed.
Jimmy looked after him with twinkling eyes, and then turned those same twinkling eyes towards Dick, evidently possessing a sense of humour. Hustings, who had expected from early information to behold and condemn an under-sized freak, was surprised at the astonishing good looks of the lad; so tall and slender and well-knit; so graceful in his every attitude and movement. Gypsy blood undoubtedly ran in his veins, for there was more than a suggestion of the Romany in his oval, clearly-cut face, olive-tinted skin and glossy black eyes. Also his feet and hands were small, his dark, closely-clipped hair, decidedly wavy, and his teeth gleamed as white as those of a young dog, between the crimson of his lips. Not even the well-mended second-hand clothes he wore could disguise him as a common village lad. He looked as limber and sinuous and gracefully dangerous as a panther. “So you are Jimmy!” said Dick,, masking his surprise, for the boy—as he sensed—was a marvel of sharpness.
“Jimmy Took, sir. And I hope, Mr. Hustings, that you will not take me at the valuation of Mr. Webb.”
He spoke so carefully, and with such a refined accent, that the lawyer was more surprised than ever. “I shall take you for what you prove yourself to be,” he said, stiffly, “you speak well?”
“My father, sir. He was a schoolmaster before he turned sexton. The war, Mr. Hustings. We are the dice of the gods, and they have shaken us into different positions during the last few years.”
This picturesque description of post-war circumstances, coming from such an unusual quarter, increased the lawyer’s interest. But for the pressing business on hand he would have probed the character of this unusual lad, forthwith. As it was—“Can you guide me straightly to this place?”
“Easily, Mr. Hustings.”
“It is a dark night and rainy, Mrs. Webb says.”
“I am like a cat, sir: all places, all weathers are alike to me,” smiled the boy.
Dick smiled also, struggled into his overcoat, put on his cap, and fumbled in his pockets to make sure that his electric torch was convenient. Then lighting his pipe, he glanced at the overmantel time-piece. “Nine o’clock. It is about this time that the voices are heard?”
“The voice—there is only one—is heard at different times and on different nights. We may hear it this evening; we may not. Sometimes it cries for three nights in succession: again, no one hears it for weeks and weeks.”
“A freakish ghost,” commented Dick with a shrug, “go ahead, Jimmy.”
Man and boy passed out of the warm well-lighted inn, to find themselves in a rainy semi-gloom, for a late-rising moon glimmered occasionally through the storm-clouds. Jimmy was laughing to himself, and went on laughing, as he guided his companion by touch along the cobblestone street. “And the joke, boy?” asked Dick, smiling also, for the lad’s merriment was infectious.
“Your talk of ghosts, sir.”
“Ah! Then you don’t believe in the supernatural?”
“Times I do: times I don’t. In this case—no.”
“It’s a trick, then?”
“More than a trick, Mr. Hustings.”
Halting abruptly on the edge of the village, Dick whipped out his torch to flash a revealing ray. “What do you mean by saying that?” he demanded, as the boy’s vivid face sprang out of the darkness. “Out with it. Quick!”
In the glare Jimmy’s head reared backward, menacingly, with the incredibly swift action of a striking snake. “If I told you, sir, you would be as wise as I am myself.”
“I wish to be,” retorted Dick, dryly, “what is more, I intend to be.”
The youth laughed with easy confidence. “That depends, Mr. Hustings. After you have heard the voice—that is if the voice speaks to-night—you can hear me. I didn’t talk to those bee-swarming hunters of ghosts. But I can talk to you and I will in my own time. You’re different.”
“And you are a remarkable lad,” the older man assured the younger, as he switched off the light to stumble onward through the dismal night.
“They call me a fool down here,” muttered Jimmy, bitterly.
“More fools they,” commented the lawyer, more to himself than to his companion. Then, on the sudden, an episode of Scott’s Kenilworth story came into his mind: the fantastic tricks of Dickie Sludge when guiding Tressilian to Wayland Smith’s forge. Here, setting aside the grotesque looks of Flibberty-gibbet, was just such another unusual boy. Therefore it would be wise to keep a watchful eye on Jimmy Took, who was evidently a diamond smothered, or nearly so, in the stodgy clay of a stolid English village—and no rough diamond either. Some good use might be made of his good looks and quick wits. Hustings thought this but did not say this, owing to the needs of the moment.
“Have we much further to go?” he inquired, as his guide elbowed him down a lengthy slope of watery mud.
“No. Here we stop to listen,” said Jimmy, letting go the lawyer’s arm, “not a pleasant post, sir. The lane is sunken and slushy with rain. Ah!”—he looked upward, as a pale radiance gleamed through the clouds—“the moon. Your luck holds, Mr. Hustings.”
Dick did not know whether to be amused or angry, so disarming were Jimmy’s methods of social intercourse. Nevertheless, he deemed it advisable to assert his dominance, somewhat imperiously. “Hold your confounded tongue, youngster, and allow me to listen for the voice—if there is a voice.”
“We may hear it, we may not,” said Jimmy with a shrug of indifference, “the light is growing stronger,” he observed, casually.
And so it was. Steady winds sweeping the rain-clouds from the face of the moon, now at full, permitted her cold white light to flood the depths of the haunted locality. An all-round glance conveyed the impression to ex-captain Hustings that he trod familiar ground,—the bottom of a Flanders trench, as muddy, as chilly, and as uncomfortable. On either side of him, almost within arm-reach, loomed sloping banks, rough with coarse grasses, tangled brambles and tall weeds, all streaming with moisture. From the topmost line of these, giant oaks shot skyward, bending over to interlace so closely as to make a veritable tunnel of the lane. But their withering leaves, showering down as the wind shook the branches, left the great tree so bare that the moonlight gleamed through a fanciful tracery of boughs, darkly silhouetted against the clear sky. The atmosphere of this sunken way with its skeleton roof—as Dick inwardly named it—was disturbing, shivery, uncanny. He could well understand why, with this and the ghostly happenings, the villagers avoided so damnable a neighbourhood. For a second or so he wished feverishly that it really was a front-line trench, echoing with the boom of guns.
But there was no sound, save the swishing of the wind stirring the trees, and the faint rustle of constantly falling leaves. For what seemed to be centuries of dragging time, man and boy stood motionless, scarcely breathing, so intently did they harken for the expected, unexpected. It came at the end of league-long hours—a long, dreary wail, far away, high above, towards the termination of the lane it would seem. Dick jumped involuntarily, so despairing was the sound, and Jimmy grasped him by the arm. “That’s the beginning,” he breathed softly, “now for the”
Before he could finish his sentence the cry became articulate, shaping itself into long-drawn-out words. “Edgar! Edgar! Edgar!” came the lamentable voice, faintly through the steady rushing sound of the wind, “where are you?—Oh, my darling, where are you? Oh! Oh! Edgar! Edgar! Edgar!” and the crying died murmuringly into the distance, as if the mourner was wandering further and further away. Then again the half-silence shut down, broken weakly by the whispering wind and the rustling leaves, falling, falling, ever falling. Dick the sceptic felt his hair standing on end, ice strike through his warm blood. Actual human beings, however dangerous, he could face, being war-hardened to numberless risks, but a ghost—“Oh, tosh,” he cried, shaking himself out of the momentary panic, “the dead don’t return. It’s a trick.”
“And more than a trick,” Jimmy whispered for the second time.
“What is your explanation?”
“I haven’t got any,” answered the boy bluntly, “all the same, Mr. Hustings, there are circumstances—” he stopped short.
“Connected with the bungalow?” asked Dick, reading his thoughts.
“Yes—no—I am not sure. But I think”
“So do I,” broke in Hustings, resolutely, “and for that reason I am going to inspect the bungalow and interview Mrs. Jerr, straight away.”
“Don’t say anything about me, Mr. Hustings.”
“Why!” Dick who had stepped forward, turned back, “Aren’t you coming?”
“No! I’ll wait for you here and explain myself later.”
“Damn it,” said Dick, irascibly, “are you in the infernal business too?”
“No, sir. But I mean to be. Go on, Mr. Hustings. It’s growing late and the old lady may be retiring to bed.”
“How can I find the bungalow?”
“You can’t mistake it in the moonlight. It’s just at the end of the lane: on the left hand—within a white-fenced garden.”
Dick, striking a match, consulted his wrist-watch. “Ten-thirty. H’m! Show over?”
“Perhaps! Times, it repeats itself. I think—hark—there it is again,” and once more came the wailing cry, the mournful words, the sounds of agonized weeping, all gradually receding into distant silence.
This time Dick listened critically, with fully controlled nerves. “If it is a trick, it’s jolly well done. And if Mrs. Jerr had anything to do with it, I’ll force her to explain how she works the oracle, and why?”
“Mrs. Jerr!” Jimmy wagged his wise young head, “better be careful not to waken her suspicions, Mr. Hustings.”
“Is that why you are not coming with me?”
The youngster nodded, and sat himself down comfortably upon a fallen tree-trunk. “Mrs. Jerr and Wu Ti call me a meddlesome brat.”
Hustings looked at him searchingly, but the play of the shadow-branches over his face confused its expression, so that nothing could be learned. Dick wasted no questions, since time was precious, but immediately began to walk up the opposite slope of the sunken lane, ploughing his way steadily through the clammy mud. Before reaching the top he heard the voice for the third time, but paid no heed to the thrice-told tale. All he desired was to find the bungalow, and this he did very speedily, for it confronted him, immediately he issued from the shadow of the trees. On the left, as Jimmy had said, was an attractive, red-tiled building, standing in a neat garden, which was encircled by a gleaming white-painted fence.
Without hesitation Dick opened the gate, walked up the path, and rapped three times on the door. As lights glimmered through two windows, he assured himself that Mrs. Jerr had not yet retired. As by magic the third knock opened the door, and a Chinaman appeared. Dick stared. The man’s jaw was working up and down rapidly, but no sounds issued from his mouth.