Читать книгу The Finger of Fate and Other Stories - Sapper - Страница 8

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When Jack Tennant got engaged to Mary Darnley, their world at large decided that it was good. And it would have been difficult to decide otherwise. Jack was one of the dearest fellows imaginable: Mary was a darling. They each had looks: and—a detail which cannot be ignored in these prosaic days—there was a sufficiency of money on both sides to ensure comfort.

They both came from the same part of the county, so that their friends were mutual. So, too, were their tastes. They both went well to hounds—in fact, there was a considerable section of the hunt who would have liked to see Jack as Master: they both played tennis and golf above the average. So that, in a nutshell, the world's decision in their case could be pronounced correct.

We had all seen the drift of affairs during the hunting season, but it was not till May that the engagement was definitely announced. And, funnily enough, the man who actually told me was Laurence Trent. Which necessitates another peep into our little corner of England. It had been common knowledge for two or three years that nothing would have pleased him better than that Mary should take the name of Trent, and when he told me the news I glanced at him curiously to see if he was at all upset. But not a bit of it.

"Of course," he said, as he stuffed tobacco into his pipe, "it would be idle to pretend that I wouldn't have preferred Mary to choose someone else, but since she hasn't there is no one I'd sooner see her married to than old Jack. They ought to make a thundering good pair."

I agreed, and felt pleasantly surprised. Not that Trent wasn't a very good fellow: he was. But somehow I didn't expect him to take it quite so well. I'd always felt that there was something about him, something I couldn't define, which just spoiled an otherwise first-class sportsman. Perhaps it was that he didn't lose very well at games. True, he rarely lost at all—he was easily the best tennis player round about. But if by chance he did, though he kept himself under perfect control, and to all outward appearances took his defeat quite pleasantly, I'd seen a glint in his eyes that seemed to prove the old tag about appearances being deceptive. However, here he was taking his loss in the biggest game of all as well as Jack Tennant would have taken it himself.

"When are they going to be married?" I asked.

"Fairly shortly I gather," he answered. "There can't be anything to wait for."

And sure enough when the announcement appeared two or three days later in the Times, it stated that "a marriage had been arranged and would shortly take place."

They were inundated, of course, with congratulations. And I, being old enough to be their father, felt specially honoured when they both came to dine with me quietly.

"A dull evening, my children," I said. "It was good of you to come."

"Go to blazes, Bill," said Jack. "It was damned sporting of you as a confirmed old bachelor to run the risk of asking us. You are probably proposing to retire to your study after dinner, on the pretence of writing letters, and then herald your return with a coughing fit in the hall. I warn you that if you do we shall come too, and bonnet you with your own paper basket."

"It is true," I murmured guiltily, "that some such idea had entered my brain, but in view of your threat it shall be abandoned."

And, by Jove! they stopped till one. Just once or twice his hand would touch her arm: just once or twice a look would pass between them that made even a confirmed old bachelor wonder if he wasn't really a confirmed old fool. They were two of the best, and it did one's eyes good to see them together. Certainly if any couple ever seemed to have been smiled on by Fate, it was this one. Which made the tragedy all the more dreadful when it occurred.

However I will take things in their proper sequence. It was on the 15th of June, so I see from my diary, that a party of us went for a picnic. Jack and his girl were there, and Laurence Trent, and several others whose names are immaterial. We went in three cars, starting after lunch, and our destination was an old ruined Priory some forty miles away which was reputed to be haunted. The ghost was said to be the black cowled figure of a monk, and if it came to a man it meant death. There was a good deal of ragging and chaff, and one of the men, I remember, covered himself with a tablecloth and stalked about amongst the ruins. In fact the whole atmosphere of the party was what you would have expected when a bunch of healthy normal people find themselves in such a locality in broad daylight.

Laurence Trent was particularly scathing on things ghostly, and roared with laughter at the usual stories of people's aunts who had woken up in the middle of the night to feel a spectral hand clutching the bedclothes.

"It's always somebody's aunt," he jeered. "What I want to know is if any one of you personally have ever felt this clutching hand. It's rot—the whole thing. Due to indigestion. For all that I'm glad we came, because it's a beautiful old place. I'm going to take some photographs."

He set up his camera—photography was his great hobby—and took several exposures from different angles.

"Perhaps we'll see the black monk in one of them," he laughed. "Come on, Jack—I've got one film left. You and Mary go and pose in the foreground."

Now I was standing at his side at the moment, and the rest of the party were fooling about behind us.

"That's right," he said, with his hand on the bulb. And even as I heard the click of the shutter, he muttered "My God!" under his breath. I glanced at him: his face was as white as a sheet, and he was staring with dilated eyes in front of him. Jack and Mary had turned away: no one had seen his agitation except myself.

"What's the matter, Trent?" I asked quickly. "Nothing," he said at length, "nothing."

The colour was coming back to his cheeks, though his hands shook a little as he dismantled his camera. "You didn't see anything, did you, Mercer? Standing by Jack?"

"Nothing at all," I said brusquely. "Did you?"

"I thought," he began, and then he shook himself suddenly. "Of course not," he laughed. "A trick of the light."

But it seemed to me that his laughter didn't ring quite true, and I watched him curiously.

"Did you think you saw the black monk?" I said jocularly.

"Go to Hell," he snapped. And then, "Sorry, Mercer. But it's best not to chaff about these things."

Which coming from the person who had chaffed about them more than anyone else struck me as a little cool. However I thought no more about it. We drove home in different cars, and when, two or three mornings later, I saw him walking up my drive I had completely dismissed the matter from my mind. In fact I merely wondered what had brought him: Trent was not a frequent visitor of mine.

"Can you give me a few minutes, Mercer?" he said gravely, and I wondered still more at his tone of voice. "I want to ask your advice."

"Of course," I said. "Come indoors."

I led the way, and he followed in silence.

"You remember our picnic at the old Priory," he remarked when I had closed the study door.

"Perfectly," I answered, suddenly recalling his strange agitation.

"You remember that when I took a photograph of Jack and Mary, you pulled my leg and asked me if I thought I'd seen the black monk?"

"I do," I said. "You seemed so upset."

"I was," he answered quietly. "Because that is exactly what I had seen."

"My dear Trent," I laughed. "You! The most scathing cynic of us all!"

But he wasn't to be drawn.

"I admit it," he said gravely. "I admit that up to that moment I regarded anything of that sort as old women's foolishness. All the way home in the car: all that night I endeavoured to persuade myself that what I had seen was a trick of the light as I said to you. And I almost succeeded. Now I know it wasn't!"

"You know it wasn't!" I echoed incredulously. "But how?"

"You may remember that I took the photograph," he said. "And, Mercer, the camera cannot lie."

He was taking a print out of his pocket as he spoke, and I stared at him wonderingly. In silence he handed it across to me, and as I looked at it the hair at the back of my scalp began to prick. In the background stood the ruins of the Priory: in front were Jack and Mary. But it was not at them that I was looking. Standing by Jack was a black cowled figure, with one arm outstretched towards him. The face was concealed: the hand could not be seen. But the whole effect was so incredibly menacing that I felt my throat go dry.

"A defect in the film," I stammered after a while.

"Then it's a very peculiar one," he said gravely. "I tried to think it was that, Mercer, but it was no good. That's not a defect. You see "—he paused a minute—"I saw it myself."

"Then why didn't I?" I demanded.

"God knows," he said, and for a while we fell silent.

"But this is impossible," I said at length. "Things like that don't happen."

"Exactly what I've been saying to myself," he remarked. "Things like that don't happen. And in your hands you hold the proof that in this case it has. And to me of all people. I, who have always ridiculed anything of the sort. I've heard—who hasn't?—of spirit photographs, and I've always regarded them as a not very clever type of fraud."

"You've got the film?" I said.

"No," he answered. "I haven't. I made two prints of it, and then I got into a sort of panic. Damned foolish of me, but pon my soul, Mercer, I've hardly been able to think straight since I developed that roll. Anyway I put a match to it and burnt it. However that's not the point, is it? The point is, what are we going to do?"

"Do," I repeated stupidly. "What can we do?"

"Well, ought we to warn Jack? You know the legend. Heaven knows I do. No one jeered at it as much as I did, and now I can't get it out of my mind. If the black monk goes to a man it means death. And that afternoon it went to Jack."

"Confound it, Trent," I cried irritably, "this is the twentieth century. We're talking drivel."

"Go on," he said wearily. "Say again all the things I've said already to myself. Say we're two grown men, and not hysterical children. Say that the whole thing is absurd. Say everything you darned well please. I have—several times. And then, Mercer, look at the photograph you hold in your hand."

He got up and began pacing up and down the room.

"I tell you," he went on, "I've thought of this thing from every angle. And the more I've thought of it the more utterly nonplussed have I become."

"Even granted," I said slowly, "that this—this thing was there that afternoon..."

"Damn it," he almost shouted, "is there any doubt about it?"

"Very well then," I said, "I'll put it a different way. Although this thing was there that afternoon, it doesn't follow that the rest of the legend is correct. That it means—death."

"I know it doesn't," he cried eagerly. "That's the one straw at which I'm clutching."

"And most emphatically," I went on, "nothing must be said about it to Jack. If—Great Scott! you know, it seems too ridiculous to be even discussing it in the broad light of day—if it does portend death then death will come whatever we do. And if it doesn't—if there's nothing in it—there's no earthly use making Jack's life a burden to him. Wondering what's going to happen. Why he might even break off the engagement."

He nodded two or three times.

"You're right," he said. "Perhaps I ought to have torn up the whole thing and said nothing about it. But to tell you the truth it's given me such an appalling shock that I felt I simply must talk to somebody about it. And as you were with me when it happened, I naturally thought of you. I wish to Heavens I'd never suggested going to the beastly place."

"Was it your suggestion?" I said. "I thought it was Lady Taunton's."

"I suggested it to her," he said moodily. "Anyway it's done now, and we went. Look hem. Mercer, don't think me an ass. And I shall quite understand if you would rather not. But I'd be most awfully grateful to you if you'd keep that print. Lock it away in your safe. I sort of feel," he went on apologetically, "that it would help me considerably if I could know that there was somebody else—You know..."

"Morbid," I said. "Let's tear it up, and try and forget it."

"Isn't that tantamount to confessing that we're frightened?" he said. "You can tear it up easily enough, but that isn't going to wipe it off our minds. However I leave it to you: do as you like."

He nodded abruptly, and stepped through the open window.

"So long," he grunted, and for a while I watched him striding down the drive. Then I went back to my desk and again picked up the print. The whole thing seemed so utterly incredible that my brain felt dazed. The average Englishman who leads an outdoor life doesn't worry his head as a general rule about the so-called supernatural, and I had certainly been no exception to the rule. If I had been asked to sum up my ideas on the subject, I suppose I should have said that though I was quite prepared to believe that strange things happened outside our ken, I had never come across them and I didn't want to. And here I found myself confronted with this astounding photograph. Back and forth, this way and that did I argue it out in my mind. And I got no further forward. If it was a defect in the film, then in view of what Trent had seen, it was the most amazing coincidence that had ever happened. And if it wasn't...

The lunch gong roused me, and for a moment or two I hesitated. My hand went out towards a box of matches: should I burn it? And then Trent's remark came back to me—"Isn't it tantamount to confessing that we're frightened?" I went to my safe and opened it. I thrust the print far into the back. Time would tell. And as the days passed, and the weeks, gradually the thing faded from my mind. When I thought of it at all, I regarded it as one of those strange inexplicable things which are insoluble.