OLD MAN'S BEARD Read online

  ‘Of course I must be slightly tight,’ he said to himself. ‘That’s why I can’t sleep, that’s why I see things through telescopes. No more double ports for me. All the same——’ And for a moment he felt a powerful inclination to go down again and take up the telescope and make quite sure that—— He looked at his watch — five o’clock — and he did not feel sleepy. He decided to read till it was time to get up; something which would mobilise his powers of concentration, Essays on Truth and Reality, for example. Once he found himself dozing off and there was just the vague, spectral outline of a cairn and a shadow beginning most exasperatingly to reappear. He pulled himself back to consciousness, and taking each sentence slowly etched it on his brain.

  As Mr Reddle had prophesied, the morning was fine but overcast, and the glass remaining high, Seebright announced his intention of starting at 12:30. He would reach the wood about 2:00 and the summit about 3:30 — just as dusk was beginning to fall. There would be enough light to see him down to the wood and he would be back at the inn before 5:00.

  ‘And you can follow my progress, Leonard, through the telescope,’ he said, ‘and mutter prayers for my safety. Now, Mr Reddle, are you sure you won’t come with me?’

  ‘No, thank ’ee, sir, and if you’d take my advice you’d change your mind. Why not have a try for some of them ducks on the marsh?’

  ‘I’m going to climb the Haunted Hill,’ said Seebright with the utmost emphasis. ‘I am determined to convince the superstitious natives of these parts that climbing this measly hill with two inches of snow on it is not precisely the perilous ordeal they profess to consider it. I shall — if he appears — tweak the nose of the local bogey, and I am off to do this now.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ replied the landlord, ‘and I wish you luck.’

  Seebright set forth punctually at 12:30 and Welland watched his strong, stocky figure striding away down the village street. As he reached the third turning on the right he turned back and waved.

  Welland lunched at 1:00, and afterward sat down by the telescope, and attempted once again to concentrate upon the profound yet racy speculations of Dr Bradley, but again without much success. His body seemed to protest against its immobility. It joined in a conspiracy with his nervous system to compel fidgets and fussiness and a sort of tingling unease, so that he repeatedly pulled out his watch and yawned and lit cigarettes and shifted his position, and these tendencies developed and became more insistent — they almost took charge of him — and the effort to resist them was exhausting in a small way.

  Presently he gave up the attempt to read and took up the telescope. He searched very carefully the slopes between the wood and the cairn. If those weren’t footmarks in the snow what were they? Very possibly the locals were in the habit of pulling Mr Reddle’s — ‘the foreigner’s’ — leg. Certainly someone had travelled those slopes. Those marks were extraordinarily distinct. Would that be due to their size? He looked at his watch again — five minutes to two. Pat should be appearing at any moment now. Looking through a small telescope like this was a damned tiring business. Ah, there he was! As he came out from the wood Welland saw him pause — he is looking at those footprints — or whatever they are — he thought. Seebright remained peering down for half a minute or so and then began climbing steadily again. Welland found he could just follow him with the naked eye, so he put down the telescope. Mr Reddle came in just then. ‘How’s he getting on?’ he asked.

  ‘He should be at the top in twenty minutes or so.’

  The landlord seemed not quite at his ease. ‘Getting a bit misty near the cairn, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Welland, ‘the clouds are coming down; looks like a change in the weather, I fancy.’

  ‘Well sir, I shall be in the kitchen for a bit yet. Would you mind letting me know when Mr Seebright gets back to the wood again.’

  ‘All right,’ replied Welland, looking at him a shade sharply.

  ‘It’s just a fancy of mine, sir,’ said Mr Reddle, ‘if it’s no bother,’ and he went out again.

  Welland watched the little dark speck climbing steadily towards the cairn till it was but a hundred yards or so from it and then once again put the telescope to his eye. A few minutes later he saw Seebright reach the cairn, slap it with his hand and then turn and face towards the inn and wave his right arm above his head. And then he began rapidly to descend. Welland had started instinctively to wave back and then had smiled at his stupidity. He was just about to put the glass down again when he suddenly became tense and intent. He put the telescope down sharply and rubbed both lenses with his handkerchief, and then he put it to his eye again. For a moment he remained taut and rigid, and then he began to tremble, and then he dropped the telescope to the floor, and then he rushed from the room, out through the front door and down the village street. As it happened there was only one person who saw him pass, old Mrs Elm, who was beating a rug outside her cottage door. When she saw a hatless figure dash hobbling past, and that queer look on his face too, her mouth fell open and the rug dropped from her hands. A moment later she saw this figure turn up the lane and disappear, and then for several minutes she remained staring open-mouthed.

  Now Mrs Elm’s brain never exceeded largo in its tempo, and seldom reached it. At the same time she had a sense for the unusual. She went back to her kitchen and wrestled with the problem of what to do. So presently she put her shawl around her head and trotted up to the Hare and Form, where she found Mr Reddle squeezing the digestive apparatus from a chicken.

  ‘Mr Reddle,’ she began, and fiddled with her shawl.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ asked the landlord, pausing in the midst of his culinary business.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Elm. ‘I sees one of those young chaps who’s putting up here, and I sees him running by in his slippers and without his hat and he turned up Dim Lane. I thought I ought to tell you.’

  Mr Reddle stared at her for a moment; then he rushed past Mrs Elm and into the guest parlour, stood stock still for a moment gazing round the room, then noticed the end of the telescope sticking out from beneath the table. He picked it up, stared for a moment through it at the dusk-rimmed crest of Brudon, and then rushed through the front door and down the village street. By a lucky chance he met the local representative of Law and Order, Constable Lamb. Mr Reddle clutched his arm. ‘I think there’s maybe something wrong on Brudon,’ he said, ‘maybe something’s happened to those young chaps staying with me.’

  Mr Lamb stared at him sharply, but something in Mr Reddle’s face, and a rather disturbing memory which had often recurred to lubricate the somewhat sluggish machinery of his imagination, prevented him from asking some rather natural questions. All he said was, ‘We’d better see if the doctor’s in.’

  They ran together down the street to where a brass plate announced that ‘R. Ford, M.D., Physician and Surgeon’ had there his habitat. He was in and he did ask a few questions, but his natural skepticism was also diluted with a certain memory, and presently he picked up his bag, his hat and coat and an electric torch and started off with the other two. Soon they were climbing in panting silence through the dusk, the doctor’s torch faintly revealing the way. They had just reached the last turn on the path through Dim Wood when the doctor stumbled over something . . .

  ‘Just describe to us, constable, exactly how you found the deceased,’ said the coroner.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Lamb, ‘Mr Seebright was lying on his back, his arms thrown out like, and Mr Welland was about six yards away. He was lying on his face — more crouching than lying — but his face was in the snow. They’d both fallen hard.’

  ‘Did you examine the snow for tracks of a third person?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You saw tracks of Mr Seebright going up and coming down to the wood, but nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing else, sir.’

  Dr Ford was the next witness.

 
‘Dr Ford,’ said the coroner, ‘I take it you have performed an autopsy on the deceased.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Would you tell the Court what you learned from so doing?’

  ‘Both were strong, healthy young men, organically flawless. They had sustained extensive superficial injuries, bruises and so forth, and Mr Welland had a broken arm. These injuries were consistent with the fact that they had been thrown down with great violence.’

  ‘Were these injuries sufficient to cause death?’

  ‘No, emphatically not.’

  ‘Then can you suggest why these two young men died?’

  ‘Frankly, I cannot. It is conceivable that some very violent shock, sudden terror for example, may have resulted in heart failure in each case. When I say conceivable I mean just possible, but I am at a loss for a convincing explanation of their deaths. I have known no parallel case.’

  ‘Is Mr Reddle still here?’ asked the coroner.

  Mr Reddle was, and returned to the box.

  ‘Mr Reddle, as I understand it, Mr Welland had decided not to accompany Mr Seebright on this climb?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he’d hurt his heel.’

  ‘Then the fact that he suddenly made up his mind to go to meet his friend was a complete surprise to you.’

  ‘Yes, ’twas, sir.’

  ‘Can you account for it?’

  ‘No, but I think he’d been watching Mr Seebright through the telescope.’

  ‘Well, what’s that got to do with it?’

  Mr Reddle was silent for a moment, searching for words.

  ‘I should say nothing, sir, like as not. I only mentioned it, sir.’

  The coroner drummed on the table but there was otherwise no sound. From outside there came the light crack of a whip and the slow rumble of wheels.

  ‘Well,’ said the coroner at length, ‘this seems to me an extremely unsatisfactory affair. All I can do is to express my profound sympathy with the parents of these poor young men’ — and here he bowed to four persons in deep mourning — ‘and to express my hope that further light will be eventually shed on this highly mysterious and tragic affair, but I see no object in adjourning the inquest.’ The verdict was open.

  Mr Reddle followed P.C. Lamb out of the Court and suggested to him that he should come up to the Hare and Form and have some refreshment. The constable had no objection whatsoever. When they were seated in the parlour and furnished with some glossy old pewter, Mr Reddle said, ‘You didn’t tell the whole truth and nothing but it at the inquest, did you, Mr Lamb?’

  The constable put down his mug and looked suspiciously at the landlord. ‘How’s that?’ he said. ‘What makes you for to say that?’

  ‘Because I was watching you through the glass when you climbed Brudon the morning after we found those poor young chaps.’

  The constable shifted uneasily in his chair.

  ‘If I tell you what I see’d, will it go no further, will you keep your tongue quiet about it?’ he said at length.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ replied Mr Reddle.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Lamb, ‘a year or two afore you came, there was a London chap found dead in the wood and that time I did tell all I’d see’d. And the Chief Constable sent for me to Rendle and asked me a lot of questions. And at the end of it he said, “They brew strong ale in Borthwaite, don’t they?” ’

  ‘What did you say to make him laugh?’

  ‘I said I’d seen marks in the snow coming along behind the marks made by the London chap.’

  ‘What sort of marks?’

  ‘I don’t believe I’ll be after saying what those marks was like. I don’t somehow feel like doing it — not out loud that is, but I’ll say this: it seemed to me that whatever made those marks some of the time made four and not two of ’em.’

  ‘Sort of crouched down like a time or two?’

  ‘Maybe that,’ replied the constable.

  ‘About those tracks,’ said the landlord, ‘you could make out the ones Mr Seebright made up and down.’

  ‘Yes, I could.’

  ‘Would you say he noticed anything? I mean anything that might have to do with them other marks?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Lamb, ‘he went up steadily enough, but after he’d come down a couple of hundred yards I judge he’d stopped and looked round; well, you could tell that plain enough, and then he’d started to run.’

  ‘Started to run, did he!’ exclaimed Mr Reddle.

  ‘That was easy to read too; his stride got longer and he came down harder, and he kept up the running till he got to the top edge of the wood — where we found him. And just as he got there I take it this Mr Welland met him, and Mr Seebright stopped and the two of them faced up to whatever — well — to whatever there was to face up to.’

  ‘That’s what they would have done,’ said Mr Reddle emphatically. ‘I guess that’s the rights of it. They’d face up to it together.’

  And then there was a long silence in the Hare and Form.

  ‘Snow’s off Brudon now, I take it?’ asked the constable at length.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Reddle, ‘I looked through glass at it round about dinner-time and even that last big patch round cairn is melted.’

  Present at the End

  WHEN MR BENCHLEY NOTICED the rabbit he was for the moment out of sight of the other guns. The rabbit crouched and stared at him for a second or two, and then started to run past him across the ride. Mr Benchley swung his gun ahead of it and fired. The rabbit somersaulted and then lay kicking. Mr Benchley went up to it. Some of its fur, cut by the pellets, was shaken on to the pine needles as it kicked. One shot had struck its left eye, which was broken and bleeding. When it saw Mr Benchley looming hugely over it, it ceased to struggle for a moment, and with its uninjured eye it stared at the other animal who had done this to it. And then it kicked out convulsively once more, trembled throughout its length, and was dead. Mr Benchley picked it up by the hind legs and walked on. Before he rejoined the other guns at the edge of the wood he had three other opportunities of making the fur fly, but he did not take them. He could hear the other guns taking theirs to right and left of him. It was a very quiet and coldly radiant October morning. As Mr Benchley strode along, the rabbit swung as it dangled from his hand, and he saw there was a thin trickle of blood pouring down the white patch below its left eye and dripping to the ground. This somewhat distracted his attention from the beauty of the day. As he came out from the wood, an under-keeper took the rabbit from him and flung it down on a rapidly growing pile of its fellows, many of which had rosy cheeks also. One by one the other guns arrived, refilled their pipes and sat down to rest. After a short consultation between Mr Benchley’s host and his head-keeper it was decided to send the beaters round by the road and into the big field of roots facing them, for the purpose of driving the animal inhabitants of that field towards the guns. Those that were edible would be bombarded, and in certain cases the non-edible — stoats, poaching-cats, owls and so on. The guns spread themselves out, lightly concealed by the hedge bordering the wood. The beaters trudged off and Mr Benchley lit a cigarette. After ten minutes or so he could see the beaters in the distance forming into line and beginning to move forward. Soon he could hear the tapping of their sticks, and almost immediately a big covey rose and flew hard and low towards the wood. As they neared it they rose to clear it. ‘Bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang!’

  Mr Benchley got a beautiful right and left and he could hear the birds’ bodies crash into the trees behind him. The root field was well stocked and he was kept very busy for the next quarter of an hour. And he was so occupied with events overhead that he had no time to attend to two hares which, dazed by the din ahead of them, hesitated for a moment at the edge of the roots, and then with their ears back dashed wildly past him. When it was all over and the beaters were mopping their brows, the attention of Mr Benchley was attracted by a fluttering sound just behind him. This he discovered was being made by a hen partridge with a broken wing and leg,
which was attempting unsuccessfully to adjust itself to its altered circumstances. When Mr Benchley went up to it, it paid little attention to the person who had necessitated this adjustment, but continued to flutter and roll itself over on to its side, and, when this hurt, roll back again. Mr Benchley picked it up and struck its head twice against his right boot. Not hard enough, obviously, for it continued to writhe in his hand.

  ‘Not often you have to do that, Mr Benchley,’ said a voice. He looked up and there was his host’s rather pretty flapper daughter. He smiled back at her rather uncertainly, and again struck the bird’s head against his toe. It became inert in his hand. The girl took it from him, and he wiped the blood from his boot with a handful of grass. It was then time for lunch, which was eaten in a barn nearby. A rough count proved that the morning’s work had been reasonably successful. The number of hares seen and shot surprised his host. ‘Too damned many of ’em,’ he declared. Mr Benchley agreed with him, but remarked very emphatically that he derived little amusement from killing them.

  ‘No more do I,’ agreed someone. ‘Too much target. All right for anyone who can shoot, but the bad shots are always back-ending them, and even if they’re stopped, they scream, and I don’t like that sound a little bit.’ And he patted his retriever’s rump affectionately.

  ‘All the same,’ said the host, ‘there are too many of ’em. So shoot all you can.’

  Presently they moved off to Pearson’s spinney, one of the finest pheasant shoots in the country. Mr Benchley spent the next half-hour dexterously picking those gloriously high birds out of the sky, and hearing the pleasant plump with which they met the ground. His mind was disconnectedly busy with a certain problem, but he continued to load and fire with the virtuosity born of forty years’ practice and training. The flapper, who had heard many tales of his prowess, watched him with bright-eyed enthusiasm, and she never forgot having seen him kill fifty-eight pheasants stone dead with his first seventy cartridges. Mr Benchley was only vaguely aware of her presence, and it was a sudden sight of her dark blue jumper which made him a shade late on a hare which dashed out straight in front of him and then swung left for cover. It began to drag its hind legs and scream. It managed to pull itself into the heart of a thick thorn bush, and, though Mr Benchley could hear it well enough, he could not at first catch sight of it. Presently, however, he saw it move and gave it the left barrel. It died at once and he left it there. He jerked out the empty cases, but did not reload. It was near the end of the drive, and when the beaters came up he went to his host and told him he had gun-headache and wouldn’t shoot any more.