Читать книгу The Finger of Fate and Other Stories - Sapper - Страница 9

Table of Contents

THE wedding was fixed for the end of September. On the 31st of August Jack Tennant was killed. To this day I remember the blank feeling of numbed shock I experienced when I heard the news. I had almost forgotten the photograph, and I just sat staring speechlessly at my butler as he told me.

It appeared that he had fallen over the edge of Draxton Quarry, and had broken his neck on the rocks below. I knew the place as well as I knew my own garden—but so did Jack Tennant. It was an old disused chalk quarry, and for years people had been agitating to have railings put round the top. And because it was everybody's business, no one had attended to it. To a stranger it was a dangerous place, but it was extraordinary that a man who knew the quarry as well as he did should have ventured so near the edge. As always when the soil is small landslips were frequent.

"It was Mr. Trent who found him, sir," concluded my butler, and instantly my thoughts reverted to the photograph. So the legend of the black monk had not proved false.

I ordered my car, and went round to see Trent. He was in a terrible state of distress, and it appeared that not only had he found Jack's body but he had seen the whole thing happen.

"I was walking back from Oxshott Farm," he said, "and when I got level with the quarry, I saw old Jack away to the left close by the top. So I started to stroll towards him. I hadn't gone more than about twenty yards, when he suddenly threw up his arms, gave a great shout and disappeared. The ground had crumbled under his feet, but what I can't understand is why he should have been standing so close to the edge. I got down to the bottom as quickly as I could, but the poor old chap was stone dead.'

"What a ghastly thing," I muttered.

We looked at one another, the same thought in both our minds.

"Did you tear up that photograph?" he said at length.

"No, I kept it. It is in my pocket now. Have you got yours?"

He nodded. "Yes, I have. Look here, Mercer, what are we going to do about them?"

"I don't see that there's anything to be done," I said. "The poor old chap is dead, and nothing can alter the fact."

"I know that," he answered. "But there will be an inquest, and of course I shall be called. In fact, as far as I know, I'm the only witness: the place was absolutely deserted when it happened. Oughtn't I to say something about it?"

"What on earth is the use?" I cried. "As the thing stands at the moment it is merely a ghastly accident. There's nothing to tickle the public fancy over it, and it will be dismissed by the Press in a few lines. But if you mention those photographs, you will immediately start a first-class sensation. You'll have every reporter in England buzzing round, and it will be most unpleasant for all of us."

"I suppose you're right," he said slowly. "And yet—I don't know. It's all so extraordinary, isn't it? I almost feel as if I was suppressing a piece of vitally important evidence."

A shadow fell across the room, and I looked up quickly. A man was standing in the open window—a man who bore a marked resemblance to Jack Tennant.

"Forgive my intrusion," he said gravely, "but I heard that Mr. Trent was on the lawn and..." He paused, looking from one to the other of us...

"That's me," said Trent, and the other bowed. "And this is Mercer."

"I'm Jack's brother," he remarked. "I gather it was you who found him."

"Not only that, but I saw the whole thing," said Trent. "I've just been telling Mercer about it."

Once again he told the story, and the other listened in silence.

"Is that all?" he said when Trent had finished. "Everything. Why?"

"Because I could not help overhearing, as I came in a remark you made to Mr. Mercer. You said you felt as if you were suppressing a piece of vitally-important evidence."

Trent glanced at me, question in his eyes.

"I think," I said at length, "that Mr. Tennant at any rate should be told. And then he, as Jack's brother, had better decide."

And so Trent told him the other story too, whilst Tennant listened with ever-growing amazement on his face.

"You feel," said Trent, "just as I felt: just as Mercer felt when I first told him. I don't believe there was a man in England more profoundly sceptical on psychic matters than I was. But there you are: look at it."

He took his copy from his pocket and handed it to the other.

"The film I destroyed, and have never ceased regretting that I did so. But I am as convinced in my own mind that poor old Jack was under sentence of death from that day, as I am that we three are in this room. We talked it over, Mercer and I, and rightly or wrongly we came to the conclusion that it would be worse than useless to tell him. If there was nothing in it we should only be upsetting him needlessly: if the reverse then it would do no good."

"Most extraordinary," said Tennant. "A pity you destroyed the film. You have kept your copy, Mr. Mercer?"

"As a matter of fact, I have it on me now," I said, taking it from my pocket.

"They are exactly the same," cried Trent. "Two prints of the same film. Good Lord! I'm sorry. How infernally clumsy of me."

A stream of ink had shot across his desk soaking one of the prints that Tennant was examining side by side.

"My dear sir—ten thousand apologies." He dashed round with blotting paper. It's not on your clothes, is it?"

"Luckily not," said Tennant. "But I'm afraid one of your prints is ruined."

"That doesn't matter. Anyway one is all right. And that brings us to the point we've got to decide—whether or not anything shall be said about this at the inquest. Mercer thinks it will bring a swarm of journalists about our heads, and he is probably right. I, on the other hand—well, you overheard my remark. Ought we to suppress it?"

"It's certainly most strange," said Tennant thoughtfully. "You say, Mr. Trent, that you actually saw this apparition?"

"I did. And it shook me badly at the moment, as Mercer will tell you."

The other rose and went to the window, where he stood looking down the drive.

"And you didn't see it, Mr. Mercer?

"No," I said, "I didn't. But I can vouch for Trent's agitation."

"Which was quite understandable," agreed Jack's brother. "However the point on which you apparently want my advice is whether or not this photograph should be produced at the inquest. I unhesitatingly agree with Mr. Mercer. To produce it can do no good, and will inevitably throw us all into the limelight."

"Very good," said Trent, "I will say nothing about it."

He picked up his copy and replaced it in his pocket.

"Not much good keeping yours, Mercer, I'm afraid."

"I don't want it," I said. "Tear it up and throw it away."

"Well then it's understood," he said as he dropped the pieces in his waste-paper basket, "that nothing should be said about this. On second thoughts I think you're right."

He paused for a moment, and then turned to Tennant.

"May I tender you my sincere sympathy in your great loss?"

"Thank you," said the other. "Jack was a dear boy. Well, Mr. Mercer, if that is your car outside I wonder if you would give me a lift back. I'm staying at the Boar's Head."

"Of course," I cried, and Trent followed us through the hall.

"Will you be at the inquest?" he said as we got in.

"I certainly shall," said Tennant, and with that we drove off.

"How is Mary taking it?" I said, as we turned into the road.

Instead of answering he made a remark which seemed to be in the most questionable taste.

"I believe I'm right in thinking that Mr. Trent was—shall we say—a runner up for Mary?"

"Really, Mr. Tennant," I said stiffly, I am not in his confidence to that extent. And anyway this is hardly the time to discuss it."

"I think I remember Jack mentioning the fact to me in a letter last winter. They were getting up some amateur theatricals, and Trent was acting.

"He is a very good actor," I remarked. "In fact I believe for a while he was on the stage in London. Before he came into money."

"I thought he must be," was his somewhat surprising reply. "It's strange that a man who is presumably neat with his fingers should be so clumsy with his hands."

"I don't know that I should have called Trent particularly neat with his fingers," I said.

"That makes it even stranger," he remarked. "People who are not neat with their fingers—men especially—generally dislike sewing."

For a moment or two I stared at him blankly, but his face was expressionless.

"What on earth?" I began.

"Though of course," he continued, "occupation of some sort is a great help if one is upset. But sewing a button on a coat is hardly one I should have expected a man to select. You didn't notice that? Well—it's not surprising. Like the majority of people you see—but you don't observe. Now on Mr. Trent's desk was a reel of black cotton and a needle—a sufficiently unusual thing to find on a man's desk to make one wonder why it was there. When one further notices that the bottom leather button of his shooting coat is sewn on very crudely with black cotton the connection becomes obvious."

I confess I found myself disliking the man intensely. Within a few hours of his brother's death, that he should callously discuss little deductions and inferences struck me as absolutely indecent.

"Of course I may be wrong," I said coldly. "But the death of a boy who was almost like a son to me, seems of more importance to my mind than the sewing on of fifty buttons."

He turned to me with a sudden very charming smile—a smile that brought back Jack irresistibly. "Forgive me, Mr. Mercer," he said. "Believe me I am not as callous as you think."

And with that he relapsed into a silence that continued till we reached the Boar's Head.