The Man Who Could Not Shudder (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 12) Page 2

  “So far as I can gather, he’s a Yorkshireman who has spent most of his life in southern Italy. He had some sort of business there; he prospered and prospered, and finally he decided to retire to England for good. He’s got about twenty hobbies, and an insatiable curiosity about life in general. At the moment he’s ‘doing’ London with a thoroughness beyond any guide book. In particular—”

  “Yes,” said Tess. “Museums.”

  I could agree with this in some detail, for I was beginning to feel something of an authority on museums. Clarke missed nothing, but his particular enthusiasm was museums. The man was nuts on museums. Not only for big show places like the Victoria and Albert, or the Royal United Service, but also for exhibitions I had never even heard of before. Even if you know the byways of the town, do you know the London Museum in St. James’s? Or the Guildhall Museum? Or the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields? Or the Dickens Museum in Doughty Street? Or the manuscript museum of the Public Records Office in Chancery Lane?

  In these places Clarke was as excited as a schoolboy. We wandered through a half-lighted world, a world of charts and musty clothes. We pored over Keats’s death mask and the signature of Guy Fawkes. In dim basements we studied models of old London. We worked out, from decaying shirts and breeches, the height and weight of Charles the First.

  I don’t mean that I was forever in Clarke’s company. He knew two other people—a Mr. and Mrs. Logan, Mr. Logan being something in the wholesale grocery trade—who entertained him royally. But whenever he tracked down a new museum, he came rushing round and got me to go with him. It seemed a harmless enough hobby.

  “Oh, harmless!” said Tess, pouring tea. “I admit that!” She lifted her eyes. “But, Bob. Which is the museum where they have all the Hogarth engravings?”

  “The Soane. Hold on! Didn’t you go with us to that one?”

  “I did,” answered Tess, without expression. The white china teapot gleamed as she manipulated it. “Did you notice the expression on his face when he was looking at those pictures?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “The picture of the hanging, for instance?”

  “No.”

  But discomfort touched that chimney corner, palpably and uneasily. The steam of the hot tea drifted up past Tess’s face as she poured. She handed me the cup.

  “Look here,” I said; “what are you getting at?”

  “Oh, I’m being a silly fool! All the same, what’s this talk about his trying to buy a house that’s supposed to be haunted?”

  “He’s trying, right enough. He’ll get it if he can get it cheaply enough.”

  “But why? I mean, why does he want it?”

  And here, I confess, I felt a trifle guilty. I had not told Tess about Clarke’s great scheme, the scheme for which I was feeling almost as enthusiastic as he was.

  “Well, it’s like this. Among other things, he wants to give a ghost party.”

  “A ghost party?”

  “Damn it, Tess, it’ll be the psychological experiment of the age! It’ll be material for me! It’ll be … See here. This is how we do it. Clarke invites down to the country, for a housewarming, say six guests. Each guest is carefully chosen as being a different emotional type. Do you see? We invite, for instance, the hard-headed business man who doesn’t believe in any ruddy nonsense. We invite the artistic type, all imagination and nerves. We invite the scientific type. We invite the lawyer or the legal type, who believes in nothing but evidence. And so on. For several days we expose these people to the influence of Longwood House; and see how it takes each of ’em in turn.

  “There is no deception, of course. Each guest is warned beforehand what to expect, and comes at his own wish and of his own free will. It’s a psychological experiment, including the experiment on ourselves. For all I know, I myself may be the first to bolt. But as a week-end game for a dull month—wow!”

  Tess smiled.

  “And did you think I would object, Bob?”

  “Object?”

  “I mean, by the way you’re arguing? You’re standing up and shouting as though you were trying to convince a jury.”

  “Sorry. But—”

  “I think it would be terribly interesting,” said Tess. She beckoned to me, and I went over to sit down on the arm of her chair. She put her head against my shoulder, so that for the moment I could not see her face. “And you want me to come?”

  “Of course. Clarke particularly wants it. Mind you, this may not lead to anything, because Clarke may not get the house. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it before.”

  Tess pressed her head closer. Rain squalls stung the windows at dusk, and the warmth of the fire was good.

  “Bob, I don’t know what to think. I mean—you don’t think we’re likely to see anything, do you?” She forced out the words, still without looking round. “I don’t mind funny noises, creaks and taps and that sort of thing. But, honestly, if I actually saw something in a house, I don’t think I could bear it. That’s what’s so odd. Do you think the house is haunted? I didn’t know you believed in ghosts.”

  “I don’t. That’s just the point.”

  “Well, then?”

  “But you don’t like it, Tess. And that’s enough. If you don’t like it, it’s off.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Darling, of course I mean it.” She pressed her warm body closer into the crook of my arm. “But it’s no good saying I don’t think there’s something awfully queer about it. Mr. Clarke sent Andy Hunter down to have a look at the house, didn’t he? What does Andy have to say about it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Andy since.”

  “And that,” said Tess, suddenly disengaging herself and getting to her feet as the doorbell began to buzz and clamor through the flat, “is Mr. Clarke’s ring now. Bob, I’ve got a feeling—”

  Mr. B. Martin Clarke, beaming all over his face, brought life and enthusiasm into the flat. To dull people like myself and Tess, content as a rule with our commonplace existence (she with her dress-buying and I as a hack writer) there was stimulus in Clarke’s sheer zest for things.

  He shook out his wet overcoat in the entry, and hung it up. He carefully hung up his bowler hat. He passed his hand across his flat whitish hair, to make sure no brittle strand was out of place. He straightened the jacket of his neat tobacco-brown suit: he affected such suits, and must have had half a dozen of them, though their shade seldom varied. Then he came bustling in to the fire, holding out his wet hands to the blaze.

  “I’ve got it,” he announced triumphantly.

  There was a clatter on the tea tray. Tess righted the milk jug.

  “Congratulations,” I said. “You remember Miss Fraser?”

  “I do indeed remember Miss Fraser,” smiled Clarke, taking Tess’s hand and pressing it. He had an old-fashioned courtesy of manner, mixed with just the right informality of manner to show that he was no desiccated dodderer, but knew a thing or two himself.

  “That is why I chose a Saturday afternoon,” he went on. “Because I hoped I should find you two together. First, I have to report the great news that I am the new owner of Longwood House. It’s mine. Mine! By Jove, I can’t believe it!”

  The infectious enthusiasm of his manner was as overpowering as it is difficult to describe. For a moment I thought he was going to dance a jig on the hearthrug.

  “Second, the time has come and the hour has struck. I have been bottling myself up long enough. But now I can tell you. Miss Fraser, I have a proposition to put before you—both of you.”

  “I know,” said Tess. “The ghost party. Tea?”

  Clarke did not seem too well pleased.

  “You know about it?”

  “Yes; Bob has just been telling me. Tea?”

  “And—er—what do you think of my idea?”

  “I should love it,” said Tess.

  Clarke’s enthusiasm boiled and bubbled again. “Miss Fraser,” he said in a low, fervent voice, “you don’t know w
hat a load you have taken off my mind.” It was curious: he seemed almost dazzled with relief. He went over to press her hand again, and pat her on the shoulder. “I depended on you and Morrison, above all people, to help me. If you had let me down I should have sulked and chewed nails.” He looked at me, and spoke more quietly. “Morrison, the house is haunted.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Clarke’s face assumed an air of desperate seriousness.

  “I make no rash statements,” he said. “I will withdraw the word supernatural, if you like. I only say that there are certain manifestations which may be natural or supernatural, but which puzzle me. I quote Samuel Wesley: ‘Wit, perhaps, might find many interpretations; but wisdom none.’ I only say that the house is infested and polluted most damnably. We are in for a rare time.”

  “Tea?” asked Tess patiently.

  “We are—tea? Admirable, admirable, admirable!”

  He took the cup from her rather absently. Sitting down on the couch that faced the fire, he put forward one foot and balanced the cup and saucer on his knee.

  “The difficulty,” he went on, stirring the tea so rapidly that it slopped over, “is to dig out the past history of the house. We must have exact details. I have tried making friends with the local parson, who should know if anybody does. The padre is inclined to be suspicious. I think he wishes the house had been allowed to rot. But a few generous contributions to home charities (tactfully made, of course!) should help. When the docket of wickedness is fully spread before us, then the time for our party will be ripe.”

  He gulped tea, slopping it on his chin; then, as though ashamed of himself, Clarke put down the cup and spoke more quietly.

  “All that remains, for the moment, is to choose the guests for our party—”

  I exchanged a glance with Tess.

  “Yes. What guests?”

  “Ah, that is where I shall have to enlist your help. In all this broad city I know only four persons: you two, and my friends Mr. and Mrs. Logan.” Clarke looked thoughtful. “That, however, is all to the good. Apart from any considerations of friendship,” he smiled, “I should want you four in any case. You represent exactly the sort of—er—”

  “Guinea pigs?”

  “My friend!” said Clarke, hurt. Thick contrition oozed from his voice and from his intricate gesture. “No, no, no. But as types we are all ideal. Miss Fraser, for instance, represents the practical business woman.”

  Tess made a face.

  “Whereas you, my friend, are the literary man.”

  “Hold on!” I said, with a sudden dark suspicion growing to annoyance. “You haven’t cast me as the type that’s all imagination and nerves, have you?”

  “To a certain extent. You don’t mind?”

  I suppose I shouldn’t have minded; and yet all of a sudden it annoyed me like hell. Nobody likes to be told a thing like this, more especially when it is not true. What really irritated me was any suggestion of the “artistic,” which is the word in the dictionary that I detest most. The thought that I might for all this time have figured in Clarke’s thoughts for this role made me want to get up and kick him, hard, in the seat of the pants. And—with that slippery intuition of his—he saw it.

  “On the strength,” I said, “of being a magazine hack?”

  “On the strength,” said Clarke, “of a powerful imagination. My dear sir, don’t misunderstand. You are confusing imagination with weakness. You are confusing nerve with nerves. No. The part of the ‘nervy’ person must be allotted to someone else.”

  “To whom?” Tess asked quickly.

  “To Mrs. Logan. You don’t know the Logans?”

  We shook our heads.

  “Mrs. Logan is Welsh,” said Clarke. “Or at least so I should judge from her Christian name, which is Gwyneth. She is much younger than her husband; extremely attractive physically; and not, I should have thought, of the temperament to enjoy this. But she seems keen to go. And in any case”—here a curious smile spread across Clarke’s face, showing teeth as white and strong as a dog’s—“I think her husband will persuade her to go. Logan himself you will like. He is the modern business man of the most hard-headed and skeptical type. A charming couple. Charming!”

  Tess regarded him with a look I could not decipher.

  “Then that’s five of us, including yourself,” she suggested. “How many others do you want?”

  Clarke spread out his hands.

  “I should prefer to have not more than seven. As for the persons, I leave that up to you. If you could suggest, for instance, someone of strongly scientific mind?”

  “Andy Hunter.”

  “Who?”

  “Andy Hunter,” I said. “The architect you sent down to look at the house. You must have met him.”

  Clarke hesitated. He seemed not to leap at this suggestion.

  “Yes, it is certainly worth considering. A very pleasant young man. I daresay he would do.”

  “Then that leaves you with one more person to complete it,” said Tess, though Clarke opened his mouth as though to protest. “And, I say! If you want to do the thing up right, isn’t there one type you’ve passed over? What about a spiritualist?”

  “I had thought of that, Miss Fraser. And I say very definitely: no. This is to be a representative group of ordinary, skeptical human beings. If I were to invite a professional spiritualist, we should hear much talk of auras and ‘conditions’ and similar tommyrot. We should be surrounded by a difficult theatricalism from the beginning. And that is precisely what we want to avoid. Do you agree?”

  “Then,” I put in, “what about a detective?”

  There was a slight pause, while Clarke’s eyes slid sideways.

  “A detective?”

  “Yes. After all, these phenomena are open to investigation, aren’t they?”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Well, you see, some of us don’t believe in ghosts. You say that inexplicable things happen in the house. I imagine we’re at liberty to investigate them exactly like any other mystery? Then why not have a professional detective on the premises? I know a C.I.D. inspector—his name is Elliot, and he’s a very good fellow—whom we might be able to get if we tried.”

  Clarke pondered this.

  “I think not,” he decided politely. “In my estimation, that would be going as unnecessarily far in one direction as inviting a spiritualist would be going in the other. It would be asking for superfluous trouble. I am definitely against it. Of course, if you insist?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to insist, and I know Tess felt the same. I have since wondered what would have happened if we had insisted: whether black murder would have fallen among us just the same. But Tess diverted us, by whacking both arms of her chair and sitting up with an air of inspiration.

  “Julian Enderby!” she exclaimed.

  Clarke spoke quickly. “And who is Julian Enderby?”

  “That is, if he’d come,” mused Tess. “He’s not very good at what you might call ‘playing.’ But he’s a solicitor. If you want somebody of the legal type, who’ll consider evidence and nothing but evidence, I should think Julian would do wonderfully.”

  I had to agree with this, though it was an infernal nuisance how the name of Julian Enderby seemed to crop up forever between Tess and me. Enderby was all right, and doubtless a good enough chap. But he was an old admirer of Tess’s; and somehow we seemed to have got entangled with him as though with a revolving door.

  Clarke looked thoughtful. “Admirable!” he said. “That is just the sort of person we want. If, as you say, we can get him. You will—er—communicate with Mr. Enderby?”

  “Bob will. Won’t you, Bob?”

  “Then we are seven,” beamed Clarke. “As for our final consideration, the date of this house-warming …”

  Tess’s face clouded. “Yes, and that’s the trouble. Please don’t think I’m trying to be a spoilsport, Mr. Clarke. But I could be much more keen about a week end in
the country if it weren’t such foul weather. Just look at those windows! Do you think this is quite the right time of year for it?”

  Clarke stared at her.

  “My dear young lady,” he protested, “you don’t think I want to do this now?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Certainly not. That house has been vacant for upwards of seventeen years. It will take more than a month to put it in anything like a decent state of repair. No, no, no. I was merely, like a crafty host, planning ahead. Let us see.” He drew out a pocket diary and leafed through the pages.

  “What would you say to a Whitsuntide party? Whitsunday, this year, falls on May 17th. Suppose we made our party from Friday the 14th to Tuesday the 18th? Could you manage time away from business for that?”

  “Yes. I—I suppose I could.”

  Clarke laughed. “You’re not nervous, Miss Fraser? Come, come, come! Don’t tell me you’re nervous. Eh?”

  “Yes, I am, a bit. And I think you know it. I only want to ask one thing, though. Are we going to see anything?”

  “See anything?”

  “You know what I mean. You say you’ve been there, and seen or heard ‘manifestations.’ What kind of manifestations? What happens there, exactly? I was telling Bob a while ago that I wouldn’t so much mind a lot of noises, like mice or a creaky shutter; because I used to hear that sort of thing at home. But are we going to see anything?”

  “I hope so, Miss Fraser.”

  “What, for instance?”

  Again rain gusts spattered the windows, and ran across the roof tops. We could listen in comfort to the low growl of the chimney, drawing strength from these lighted boxes which stretch round in the ordered streets of a town. May 17th then seemed a remote date, a disappointingly remote date. I remember feeling a twinge of impatience at the remoteness of it: so much work to be done, so many dreary weeks to plod through, so many busses and tubes and thundering in our ears, before we should find romantic adventure in a house by the Essex coast. Why the devil couldn’t it happen next day?

  Why the devil should it ever have happened?

  III

  “THERE SHE IS,” SAID Andy Hunter. “There’s our home for the next four days.”