Hangmans Holiday (7 page)

“For, my children,” said he, “this is no evil sorcerer, but a Christian man, speaking the language of the Faith. He and I have conversed together with edification. Moreover, he keeps very good wine and is altogether a very worthy person. Nor did I perceive any familiar spirits or flaming apparitions; but it is true that there is a crucifix and also a very handsome Testament with pictures in gold and colour.
Benedicite,
my children. This is a good and learned man.”

And away he went back to his presbytery; and that winter the chapel of Our Lady had a new altar-cloth.

After that, each night saw a little group of people clustered at a safe distance to hear the music which poured out from the wizard’s windows, and from time to time a few bold spirits would creep up close enough to peer through the chinks of the shutters and glimpse the marvels within.

The wizard had been in residence about a month, and sat one night after his evening meal in conversation with his servant. The black hood was pushed back from his head, disclosing a sleek poll of fair hair, and a pair of rather humorous grey eyes, with a cynical droop of the lids. A glass of Cockburn 1908 stood on the table at his elbow and from the arm of his chair a red-and-green parrot gazed un-winkingly at the fire.

“Time is getting on, Juan,” said the magician. “This business is very good fun and all that—but is there anything doing with the old lady?”

“I think so, my lord. I have dropped a word or two here and there of marvellous cures and miracles. I think she will come. Perhaps even to-night.”

“Thank goodness! I want to get the thing over before Wetherall comes back, or we may find ourselves in Queer Street. It will take some weeks, you know, before we are ready to move, even if the scheme works at all. Damn it, what’s that?”

Juan rose and went into the inner room, to return in a minute carrying the lemur.

“Micky had been playing with your hair-brushes,” he said indulgently, “Naughty one, be quiet! Are you ready for a little practice, my lord?”

“Oh, rather, yes! I’m getting quite a dab at this job. If all else fails, I shall try for an engagement with Maskelyn.”

Juan laughed, showing his white teeth. He brought out a set of billiard-balls, coins and other conjuring apparatus, palming and multiplying them negligently as he went. The other took them from him, and the lesson proceeded.

“Hush!” said the wizard, retrieving a ball which had tiresomely slipped from his fingers in the very act of vanishing. “There’s somebody coming up the path.”

He pulled his robe about his face and slipped silently into the inner room. Juan grinned, removed the decanter and glasses, and extinguished the lamp. In the firelight the great eyes of the lemur gleamed strongly as it hung on the back of the high chair. Juan pulled a large folio from the shelf, lit a scented pastille in a curiously shaped copper vase and pulled forward a heavy iron cauldron which stood on the hearth. As he piled the logs about it, there came a knock. He opened the door, the lemur running at his heels.

“Whom do you seek, mother?” he asked, in Basque.

“Is the Wise One at home?”

“His body is at home, mother; his spirit holds converse with the unseen. Enter. What would you with us?”

“I have come, as I said—ah, Mary! Is that a spirit?”

“God made spirits and bodies also. Enter and fear not.”

The old woman came tremblingly forward.

“Hast thou spoken with him of what I told thee?”

“I have. I have shown him the sickness of thy mistress—her husband’s sufferings—all.”

“What said he?”

“Nothing; he read in his book.”

“Think you he can heal her?”

“I do not know; the enchantment is a strong one; but my master is mighty for good.”

“Will he see me?”

“I will ask him. Remain here, and beware thou show no fear, whatever befall.”

“I will be courageous,” said the old woman, fingering her beads.

Juan withdrew. There was a nerve-shattering interval. The lemur had climbed up to the back of the chair again and swung, teeth-chattering, among the leaping shadows. The parrot cocked his head and spoke a few gruff words from his corner. An aromatic steam began to rise from the cauldron. Then, slowly into the red light, three, four, seven white shapes came stealthily and sat down in a circle about the hearth. Then, a faint music, that seemed to roll in from leagues away. The flame flickered and dropped. There was a tall cabinet against the wall, with gold figures on it that seemed to move with the moving firelight.

Then, out of the darkness, a strange voice chanted in an unearthly tongue that sobbed and thundered.

Martha’s knees gave under her. She sank down. The seven white cats rose and stretched themselves, and came sidling slowly about her. She looked up and saw the wizard standing before her, a book in one hand and a silver wand in the other. The upper part of his face was hidden, but she saw his pale lips move and presently he spoke, in a deep, husky tone that vibrated solemnly in the dim room:

“ὧ πέπov, ἐi µὲv γàp, πóλεµov πεpì τóvδε φuγόvτε, aìεì δὴ µέλλoiµεv ἀγήpω τ’ ἀθaváτω τε ἕσσεθ’, oὔτε κεv aὐτòς ἐvì πpώτoiσi µaχoίµηv, oὔτε κέ σε στέλλoiµi µάχηv ἐς κuδiávεipav …”

The great syllables went rolling on. Then the wizard paused, and added, in a kinder tone:

“Great stuff, this Homer. ‘It goes so thunderingly as though it conjured devils.’ What do I do next?”

The servant had come back, and now whispered in Martha’s ear.

“Speak now,” said he. “The master is willing to help you.”

Thus encouraged, Martha stammered out her request. She had come to ask the Wise Man to help her mistress, who lay under an enchantment. She had brought an offering—the best she could find, for she had not liked to take anything of her master’s during his absence. But here were a silver penny, an oat-cake, and a bottle of wine, very much at the wizard’s service, if such small matters could please him.

The wizard, setting aside his book, gravely accepted the silver penny, turned it magically into six gold pieces and laid the offering on the table. Over the oat-cake and the wine he showed a little hesitation, but at length, murmuring:

“Ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu”

(a line notorious for its grave spondaic cadence), he metamorphosed the one into a pair of pigeons and the other into a curious little crystal tree in a metal pot, and set them beside the coins. Martha’s eyes nearly started from her head, but Juan whispered encouragingly:

“The good intention gives value to the gift. The master is pleased. Hush!”

The music ceased on a loud chord. The wizard, speaking now with greater assurance, delivered himself with fair accuracy of a page or so from Homer’s Catalogue of the Ships, and, drawing from the folds of his robe his long white hand laden with antique rings, produced from midair a small casket of shining metal, which he proffered to the suppliant.

“The master says,” prompted the servant, “that you shall take this casket, and give to your lady of the wafers which it contains, one at every meal. When all have been consumed, seek this place again. And remember to say three Aves and two Paters morning and evening for the intention of the lady’s health. Thus, by faith and diligence, the cure may be accomplished.”

Martha received the casket with trembling hands.

“Tendebantque manus ripæ ulterioris amore,” said the wizard, with emphasis. “Poluphloisboio thalasses. Ne plus ultra. Valete. Plaudite.”

He stalked away into the darkness, and the audience was over.

“It is working, then?” said the wizard to Juan.

The time was five weeks later, and five more consignments of enchanted wafers had been ceremoniously dispatched to the grim house on the mountain.

“It is working,” agreed Juan. “The intelligence is returning, the body is becoming livelier and the hair is growing again.”

“Thank the Lord! It was a shot in the dark, Juan, and even now I can hardly believe that anyone in the world could think of such a devilish trick. When does Wetherall return?”

“In three weeks’ time.”

“Then we had better fix our grand finale for to-day fortnight. See that the mules are ready, and go down to the town and get a message off to the yacht.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“That will give you a week to get clear with the menagerie and the baggage. And—I say, how about Martha? Is it dangerous to leave her behind, do you think?”

“I will try to persuade her to come back with us.”

“Do. I should hate anything unpleasant to happen to her. The man’s a criminal lunatic. Oh, lord! I’ll be glad when this is over. I want to get into a proper suit of clothes again. What Bunter would say if he saw this—”

The wizard laughed, lit a cigar and turned on the gramophone.

The last act was duly staged a fortnight later.

It had taken some trouble to persuade Martha of the necessity of bringing her mistress to the wizard’s house. Indeed, that supernatural personage had been obliged to make an alarming display of wrath and declaim two whole choruses from Euripides before gaining his point. The final touch was put to the terrors of the evening by a demonstration of the ghastly effects of a sodium flame—which lends a very corpse-like aspect to the human countenance, particularly in a lonely cottage on a dark night, and accompanied by incantations and the “Danse Macabre” of Saint-Saens.

Eventually the wizard was placated by a promise, and Martha departed, bearing with her a charm, engrossed upon parchment, which her mistress was to read and thereafter hang about her neck in a white silk bag.

Considered as a magical formula, the document was perhaps a little unimpressive in its language, but its meaning was such as a child could understand. It was in English, and ran:

“You have been ill and in trouble, but your friends are ready to cure you and help you. Don’t be afraid, but do whatever Martha tells you, and you will soon be quite well and happy again.”

“And even if she can’t understand it,” said the wizard to his man, “it can’t possibly do any harm.”

The events of that terrible night have become legend in the village. They tell by the fireside with bated breath how Martha brought the strange, foreign lady to the wizard’s house, that she might be finally and for ever freed from the power of the Evil One. It was a dark night and a stormy one, with the wind howling terribly through the mountains.

The lady had become much better and brighter through the wizard’s magic—though this, perhaps, was only a fresh glamour and delusion—and she had followed Martha like a little child on that strange and secret journey. They had crept out very quietly to elude the vigilance of old Tomaso, who had strict orders from the doctor never to let the lady stir one step from the house. As for that, Tomaso swore that he had been cast into an enchanted sleep—but who knows? There may have been no more to it than overmuch wine. Martha was a cunning woman, and, some said, little better than a witch herself.

Be that as it might, Martha and the lady had come to the cottage, and there the wizard had spoken many things in a strange tongue, and the lady had spoken likewise. Yes—she who for so long had only grunted like a beast, had talked with the wizard and answered him. Then the wizard had drawn strange signs upon the floor round about the lady and himself. And when the lamp was extinguished, the signs glowed awfully, with a pale light of their own. The wizard also drew a circle about Martha herself, and warned her to keep inside it. Presently they heard a rushing noise, like great wings beating, and all the familiars leaped about, and the little white man with the black face ran up the curtain and swung from the pole. Then a voice cried out: “He comes! He comes!” and the wizard opened the door of the tall cabinet with gold images upon it, that stood in the centre of the circle, and he and the lady stepped inside it and shut the doors after them.

The rushing sound grew louder and the familiar spirits screamed and chattered—and then, all of a sudden, there was a thunder-clap and a great flash of light and the cabinet was shivered into pieces and fell down. And lo and behold! the wizard and the lady had vanished clean away and were never more seen or heard of.

This was Martha’s story, told the next day to her neighbours. How she had escaped from the terrible house she could not remember. But when, some time after, a group of villagers summoned up courage to visit the place again, they found it bare and empty. Lady, wizard, servant, familiars, furniture, bags and baggage—all were gone, leaving not a trace behind them, except a few mysterious lines and figures traced on the floor of the cottage.

This was a wonder indeed. More awful still was the disappearance of Martha herself, which took place three nights afterwards.

Next day, the American doctor returned, to find an empty hearth and a legend.

“Yacht ahoy!”

Langley peered anxiously over the rail of the
Abracadabra
as the boat loomed out of the blackness. When the first passenger came aboard, he ran hastily to greet him.

“Is it all right, Wimsey?”

“Absolutely all right. She’s a bit bewildered, of course—but you needn’t be afraid. She’s like a child, but she’s getting better every day. Bear up, old man—there’s nothing to shock you about her.”

Langley moved hesitatingly forward as a muffled female figure was hoisted gently on board.

“Speak to her,” said Wimsey. “She may or may not recognise you. I can’t say.”

Langley summoned up his courage. “Good evening, Mrs. Wetherall,” he said, and held out his hand.

The woman pushed the cloak from her face. Her blue eyes gazed shyly at him in the lamplight—then a smile broke out upon her lips.

“Why, I know you—of course I know you. You’re Mr. Langley. I’m so glad to see you.”

She clasped his hand in hers.

“Well, Langley,” said Lord Peter, as he manipulated the syphon, “a more abominable crime it has never been my fortune to discover. My religious beliefs are a little ill-defined, but I hope something really beastly happens to Wetherall in the next world. Say when!

“You know, there were one or two very queer points about that story you told me. They gave me a line on the thing from the start.