Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts Read online

  ‘I walked over to one at the far end of the place and found myself looking down into it. The lid was off. There was just enough light for me to see that it was a woman and that she didn’t seem to be dead at all. Instead of being dark and parchmenty, her flesh was white and healthy where it showed through the decayed stuff of her shroud. Then I saw that her head was covered with long golden hair. That was strange, wasn’t it, because in a place like that one would naturally have expected her to be black-haired like all the Egyptian women, but perhaps she was one of those slaves that they imported from Greece, or a Princess who had married into Egypt from some country far away in the north.

  ‘After a little time her eyes opened and she lay there staring up at me. I felt a kind of chill run right through my body because they were the same dark living eyes that I had seen on the coffin lid at the museum. There was a horrid sort of soullessness about them.

  ‘She spoke then, or rather, she sent a message to my brain, for her lips never moved although I heard her just as clearly as if she had said the words.

  ‘ “You must help me to get up.”

  ‘It was terribly cold down in that crypt, and I could feel myself shivering as I stood there. I wanted most terribly to get away from it. Then I found myself stooping down and putting my arms round her naked shoulders.

  ‘She was cold as an icicle, and try as I would I couldn’t lift her up; it was as though she was made of marble and screwed down inside that box.

  ‘After a moment, though, a little colour just tinged her cheeks, then, very slowly, she raised her hands and laid them on my shoulders while the faintest flicker of a smile twisted her pale lips. Those hands of hers seemed to weigh on my arms like lumps of solid lead, but her shoulders shifted and raised a little from the bottom of the coffin.

  ‘ “Help me—help me,” she was saying all the time, and it seemed to me as if I struggled for hours to get her up.

  ‘I’m fairly strong, you know, and I could carry an average-sized woman upstairs without turning a hair, but this girl seemed to weigh a ton. As I hauled at her shoulders her grip on my arms tightened, and she seemed to gain strength, but mine was ebbing from me. With a last frantic heave I managed to pull her into a sitting position. Then I woke up.

  ‘I was panting as though I’d run a mile and shivering in a cold sweat from one end of my body to the other. It took me a good ten minutes to get back my breath and even then I was so exhausted I could hardly turn in my bed. Afterwards I fell into a sort of lethargy and then dropped off to sleep.

  ‘All next day I felt tired and depressed, but then I thought it was only a darned unpleasant nightmare as a kind of after-effect of my visit to the museum. I dismissed it as that more or less and went to bed the following night quite cheerfully as usual, but I had hardly fallen asleep when I had the same dream again.

  ‘There she was, sitting upright in the long wooden box, her white flesh showing through the shreds of her grave clothes just as I had left her.

  ‘ “You must help me to get up,” she said again.

  ‘I was struggling with myself already to get away, and the chill of the place seemed to eat into my very bones, but I could not help bending down towards her.

  ‘She had some strength of her own, too, now, for before I even touched her she lifted her arms, and next moment, as I stooped there, I felt them close like a vice round my neck.

  ‘For a little I struggled to break away from her, but I had my arms round her body all the time, and, in spite of myself, I was trying to lift her up. I felt the terrible weight of her again just as though she were a life-size stone figure. As she pressed against me I could feel her flesh was cold as ice but soft and yielding. Then as she stood upright I felt her heart suddenly begin to pound and beat just below my breast.

  ‘I seemed to be falling. Then I must have cried out, for I woke to find myself sitting up in bed screaming fit to bring the house down.

  ‘Maggie had woken, of course, and we put on the light. She lectured me for eating too many baked beans for supper, which is what we’d had, and told me to dose myself with bicarbonate. I was so weak that I could hardly crawl out of bed, but she’s that fixed in her opinions she would have thought I was going potty if I’d tried to tell her the truth, so I made a pretence of getting the bicarbonate although I knew that it wasn’t the least use.

  ‘Afterwards I slept from sheer exhaustion, and next morning I felt like death. I dragged myself off to work as usual, but I couldn’t add a column of figures to save my life, and the boss was pretty shirty with me. It wasn’t so much that I was scared and obsessed with this thing then but that I was just utterly tired out.

  ‘That evening—last night it was—I began to get the wind up. I made up my mind that somehow I’d got to keep awake. If I had been able to do as I liked I would have gone out to some place where there was a band and a lot of people and when it closed down I would have walked the streets till dawn, but with Maggie being the way she is I simply didn’t dare.

  ‘She put her foot down on my going out with my men friends when we first married—years ago—and she even hates me sitting up reading of a night. Says that she can’t sleep comfortable without me, and that if I do come up late when she’s dropped off it always wakes her and then she can never get to sleep again—you know how it is when you’ve lived with a woman year in year out as I have. She’s a good sort, too, even if she is narrow in her views. I cudgelled my wits for hours trying to think up some excuse for going out or staying down here in the parlour, but I couldn’t think of one that would pass muster with her, so in the end I had to throw my hand in, and we went up to bed round about half-past ten.

  ‘When I had to pretend to go to sleep, I began to recite things to myself—bits of songs and poems that I had learnt as a kid—the names of all the customers in my ledger and all the seaside places I could remember—working round the British Isles from John o’ Groats.

  ‘It’s a ghastly business trying to keep awake when you’re lying in the dark, and hardly dare to turn over. As it was I stuck it out till after three. Then I was stumbling down those beastly stairs again.

  ‘I crossed the crypt place, just as I had before, and there was the golden-haired woman waiting for me on the other side. I tried not to look at her. I was just terrified by then, but, standing in her coffin, she stretched out a hand and laid it on my arm, and I felt her speak again.

  ‘ “You must help me out of here.”

  ‘Next minute she half-jumped and half-fell out of the wooden box. I turned and tried to run, but she threw her bare arms round my neck and staggered along at my side.

  ‘As I tried to unloose her grip I saw her face for a moment within an inch or two of mine. It was human yet somehow not human if you understand what I mean. Lovely as that of any woman that I’ve ever looked on but set with a positively devilish determination.

  ‘“Help me out—help me out!” I felt her screaming from between her white clenched teeth, and she clung to me as if her slender arms were made of steel.

  ‘ “I can’t!” I kind of felt myself saying, although I never even opened my mouth. “You’re stronger than I am now. You must help me.”

  ‘She laughed then, and I’ve never heard anything like it. People talk about their flesh creeping—well, mine did then—and with me fighting like mad all the time to get away from her we stumbled along together until we reached the middle of the chamber.

  ‘ “Up the stairs—up the stairs,” she was panting, and those dark eyes of hers were set like flaming things on the entrance of the vault.

  ‘Her grip on me was so strong that I can feel it now. Her nails absolutely bit into my arm and shoulder, and every second I felt my strength ebbing from my body into hers. My knees were giving under me, and I suddenly knew with an awful certainty that if I could not free myself from her I should never wake in this life again.

  ‘I remember making a last gigantic effort. I saw her swaying there in the middle of the crypt glaring at me with those
wild dark eyes, then everything went black for a moment, and next thing I remember I was lying, too weak to move, upstairs beside Maggie in my bed.

  ‘I didn’t sleep again. Something seemed to tell me that if I dropped off I’d have to return to her. She was strong now, powerful with the life she had sucked out of me—and evil. She seemed to be calling to me the whole time that I lay there, with set teeth and my eyes wide open in the darkness—although of course I could hardly lift a limb.

  ‘By five o’clock I’d just strength enough to hoist myself out of bed and douse my face in cold water. That revived me a bit. Maggie had woken naturally and became a bit peevish, but I was too scared to worry much over that. I shut her up by saying that I had the pains again and told her that I was going down to the kitchen to make myself some hot coffee. I did too, although I was so weak that I could hardly lift the saucepan on to the stove.

  ‘When the light came I was still there. The coffee had done me good and I cut myself some cold meat sandwiches. I was hungry as if I hadn’t eaten for a week.

  ‘Maggie had fallen into a doze again, she told me afterwards. She couldn’t do else, since I found her snoring when I went up to the bedroom round about seven o’clock.

  ‘We breakfasted and I found that the sandwiches hadn’t even taken the edge off my appetite. I was ravenous like a starving man. Then I went off to work, leaving Maggie in none too good a temper. At least she thinks I went to work. Actually I cut the office for the day. I was so dead beat that I simply could not face it. Instead I slept most of the morning in the free library and, when I was turned out from there, on a park bench well into the afternoon.

  ‘I had to get back home, of course, same time as if I’d been to work, and it just shows how little things can worry you when you’re faced with a real big trouble like this. I was scared stiff that Maggie would have heard from the boss some way that I had cut my job.

  ‘He was too busy with other things, I reckon. Anyhow, I didn’t have to face the grilling I’d expected, only a lot of questions as to why I’d brought home the bottle of whisky that’s on the mantel there. I thought I’d go barmy at supper and begin to break things or rush out of the house, but I’m terribly fond of Maggie. Then I suddenly thought that I might be able to save myself if I could get hold of you.’

  Sandmeyer paused, his eyes, purple-rimmed, bore down into those of the doctor. He shivered slightly and then exclaimed:

  ‘Well! There you are! You don’t believe me—do you? But I’m afraid, I tell you. Just terrified of going upstairs to bed.’

  The doctor was a little man with a little practice, the greater part of which lay in a slum area. In his mind he had already diagnosed the case of Herbert Sandmeyer. A steady fellow who through secret worry had taken to drink. As he stood up his eye fell upon the now nearly empty whisky bottle and then, looking at Herbert again, he decided that given a day or two he might be able to check these alcoholic ravings which were bordering on D.T.s

  ‘I’m not saying that I don’t believe you,’ he soothed the haggard man a little wearily. ‘But this sort of thing is a bit outside my sphere. I’ll give you some stuff which will make you sleep tonight, and then I think you had better come and see me at my consulting-room—round about ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘But you don’t understand!’ Sandmeyer burst out. ‘I don’t want to sleep. I’ve got to keep awake all night. If I don’t I’ll be drawn to that place again. That she-devil will draw all the life I’ve got left out of me and I’ll never come back—never wake up any more.’

  A heavy rapping sounded on the floor of the room above. Both men glanced up at the ceiling.

  ‘That’s your wife,’ said the doctor. ‘You had really better take this bromide.’ He produced a small bottle from his shabby black bag and shook a few pellets from it into the palm of his hand.

  Herbert Sandmeyer’s body suddenly seemed to go limp. He leaned heavily on the mantelpiece. The feverish light died out of his eyes, and they took on a dull, glazed, despairing look.

  With a feeble gesture he brushed the proffered pellets aside. ‘No, thanks. If you don’t believe me—but then—hardly thought you would.’

  The doctor glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘By Jove! It’s just on eleven. I must hurry, or that poor woman may be having her baby with only the district nurse to help her.’

  ‘Life’s queer, isn’t it, Doc’?’ said Sandmeyer slowly. ‘Whenever any of us go out of it there’s always another coming in to take our place.’

  ‘What?’ said the doctor as he shuffled into his worn brown coat.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ Sandmeyer led the way out into the narrow hall.

  ‘I think I know what’s wrong with you,’ the doctor remarked as they stood on the doorstep. ‘Come and see me in the morning.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc’,’ Herbert Sandmeyer replied evenly. ‘It was nice of you to call. Good night.’

  As he closed the front door a thin, querulous voice floated down the steep stairs to the hallway.

  ‘Herbert! Are you coming up?’

  ‘All right, Maggie, I’ll be with you in a moment,’ he called over his shoulder as he went back into the stuffy sitting-room. Then he poured the last of the whisky into his glass.

  For a moment he gazed again at his reflection in the mirror of the overmantel. The eyes he saw were panic-stricken and great furrows had appeared in his cheeks.

  ‘By God, she’ll get me—I know she will!’ he exclaimed hoarsely.

  Then the flicker of a smile spread over his pallid features and he murmured to his reflection in a puzzled tone:

  ‘I wonder why I told the Doc’ that Frank Dawson might be in China or some place? He’s dead as door nails, and I wished it on him, too. But he’s getting back on me now after all these years—or something is. It’s a Life for a Life all right.’

  He tilted his glass and swallowed the neat spirit, then shuddered and coughed a little as the fiery liquid caught his throat.

  ‘Herbert!’

  The strident, now angry call came from the room above.

  ‘And to think that I did it to get Maggie,’ he whispered to himself.

  ‘HERBERT!’ the voice came again.

  ‘All right—I’m coming!’ he called back.

  Then Herbert Sandmeyer took a last glance round the sitting-room, turned out the gas, and went up to bed.

  STORY V

  This is another of my early stories. Of the dozen or so that I wrote in 1932 about half were taken for publication and the remainder were returned to me with ‘The Editor regrets….’

  By the time the rejected scripts came back I was much too deeply immersed in other plots to hold a post-mortem on them with a view to discovering where they had failed to please and, possibly, re-writing them so that they might find a market. I simply parked them in a bottom drawer and ten years slipped by before I looked at them again.

  Now that I have re-read them one thing rather puzzles me. Why should some of these stories—all of which were written in the same period, when I was an enthusiastic amateur without a line published to my credit—have been taken by magazines of the first rank while others could not find a buyer?

  The present story is a little on the light side but I think it has point and quite a neat twist at its end which, I fear, is more than can be said for this introductory note. Therefore, I will only add that, having read the tale, it may intrigue you to decide whether you would have bought it for publication at the modest beginner’s price which I should have been happy to accept, had you been an editor to whom it had been submitted.

  In the Underground

  ‘Now isn’t that extraordinary?’ said Wendy. ‘That’s the second time today that I’ve run into Vera Nichols, and I haven’t seen her once in the last five years—not since I left school, in fact.’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, ‘it is queer how that sort of thing seems to happen sometimes. It’s just coincidence, I suppose, but it’s the sort of thing that may cost a man his life.’
/>   Wendy’s large blue eyes grew round with surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ she exclaimed.

  I laughed. ‘Didn’t I ever tell you about that extraordinary adventure I had a year or two ago in the Underground?’

  She shook her charming head. ‘Do tell me,’ she said eagerly.

  ‘All right,’ I agreed; ‘when we get home I will.’

  A quarter of an hour later Wendy set a lavish ration of her father’s Scotch whisky at my elbow. I pulled her down beside me, and there was a short interlude about which we need not bother, then I went on with the story.

  ‘It was when I was going down to the city one morning—a Monday, I remember, and I had been staying with the Jervises for a week-end’s golf; that was why I was so late. The usual crush had gone to their treadmill long before, and the train was three parts empty.

  ‘It got in at South Ken; you see, we’d motored up, and I’d dropped my bag at the flat. I’d left the paper in Bill Jervis’s car, so I had nothing to read on my way to the city, and just sat there looking vaguely at the advertisements. That thing “Monsol for colds” caught my eye, you know, the one that says “see how your neighbour’s looking”, with the funny picture of a man peering at the chap next door who’s got a stinking cold. But I couldn’t, I hadn’t got a neighbour. My side of the train was completely empty, there were only two chaps opposite.

  ‘They were an extraordinary couple; at least, one man was pretty odd—a real homosexual. He had a long, grey-looking face, with a pursed-up mouth, weak blue eyes, and one of those thin, mean-looking noses. He was about sixty, I suppose, but it was his kit that gave him character. A neat dark grey suiting, rather worn and early Edwardian in cut—a waistcoat that buttoned almost up to his neck, his coat collar only about an inch deep, and the lapels so small that they looked absurd. He wore a stiff collar, of course—one of the single kind—and the narrowest of little black ties, a sixpence would have covered the knot. A bowler and an unrolled umbrella completed his outfit. Oh—and a heavy gold watch-chain, with a little truncated cross made of some black stuff dangling from it.