The Pale Horse Read online

  I didn’t understand and my face showed it.

  “Slang term for a microphone,” he explained. “Tape recorders. All that sort of thing. No, I give you my personal word of honour that there’s nothing of that sort here. Our conversation will not be recorded in any way. And if you don’t believe me,” his candour was quite engaging—“and why should you?—you’ve a perfect right to name a place of your own, a restaurant, the waiting room in one of our dear English railway stations; and we’ll discuss the matter there instead.”

  I said that I was sure it was quite all right here.

  “Sensible! That sort of thing wouldn’t pay us, I assure you. Neither you nor I is going to say a word that, in legal parlance, could be ‘used against us.’ Now let’s start this way. There’s something worrying you. You find me sympathetic and you feel you’d like to tell me about it. I’m a man of experience and I might be able to advise you. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, as they say. Suppose we put it like that?”

  We put it like that, and I stumbled into my story.

  Mr. Bradley was very adroit. He prompted; eased over difficult words and phrases. So good was he, that I felt no difficulty at all in telling him about my youthful infatuation for Doreen and our secretive marriage.

  “Happens so often,” he said, shaking his head. “So often. Understandable! Young man with ideals. Genuinely pretty girl. And there you are. Man and wife before you can say Jack Robinson. And what comes of it?”

  I went on to tell him what came of it.

  Here I was purposefully vague over details. The man I was trying to present would not have gone into sordid details. I presented only a picture of disillusionment—a young fool realising that he had been a young fool.

  I let it be assumed that there had been a final quarrel. If Bradley took it that my young wife had gone off with another man, or that there had been another man in the offing all along—that was good enough.

  “But you know,” I said anxiously, “although she wasn’t—well, wasn’t quite what I thought her, she was really a very sweet girl. I’d never have thought that she’d be like this—that she’d behave like this, I mean.”

  “What exactly has she been doing to you?”

  What my “wife” had done to me, I explained, was to come back.

  “What did you think happened to her?”

  “I suppose it seems extraordinary—but I really didn’t think. Actually, I suppose, I assumed she must be dead.”

  Bradley shook his head at me.

  “Wishful thinking. Wishful thinking. Why should she be dead?”

  “She never wrote or anything. I never heard from her.”

  “The truth is you wanted to forget all about her.”

  He was a psychologist in his way, this beady-eyed little lawyer.

  “Yes,” I said gratefully. “You see, it wasn’t as though I wanted to marry someone else.”

  “But you do now, eh, is that it?”

  “Well—” I showed reluctance.

  “Come now, tell Papa,” said the odious Bradley.

  I admitted, shamefacedly, that, yes, lately, I had considered marrying….

  But I stuck my toes in and refused firmly to give him any details about the girl in question. I wasn’t going to have her brought into this. I wasn’t going to tell him a thing about her.

  Again, I think my reaction here was the correct one. He did not insist. Instead he said:

  “Quite natural, my dear sir. You’ve got over your nasty experience in the past. You’ve found someone, no doubt, thoroughly suited to you. Able to share your literary tastes and your way of life. A true companion.”

  I saw then that he knew about Hermia. It would have been easy. Any inquiries made about me would have revealed the fact that I had only one close woman friend. Bradley, since receiving my letter making the appointment, must have found out all about me, all about Hermia. He was fully briefed.

  “What about divorce?” he asked. “Isn’t that the natural solution?”

  I said: “There’s no question of divorce. She—my wife—won’t hear of it!”

  “Dear, dear. What is her attitude towards you, if I may ask?”

  “She—er—she wants to come back to me. She—she’s utterly unreasonable. She knows there’s someone, and—and—”

  “Acting nasty…I see…Doesn’t look as though there’s any way out, unless of course… But she’s quite young….”

  “She’ll live for years,” I said bitterly.

  “Oh, but you never know, Mr. Easterbrook. She’s been living abroad, you say?”

  “So she tells me. I don’t know where she’s been.”

  “May have been out East. Sometimes, you know, you pick up a germ out in those parts—dormant for years! And then you came back home, and suddenly it blows up. I’ve known two or three cases like that. Might happen in this case. If it will cheer you up,” he paused, “I’d bet a small amount on it.”

  I shook my head.

  “She’ll live for years.”

  “Well, the odds are on your side, I admit… But let’s have a wager on it. Fifteen hundred to one the lady dies between now and Christmas: how’s that?”

  “Sooner! It will have to be sooner. I can’t wait. There are things—”

  I was purposely incoherent. I don’t know whether he thought that matters between Hermia and myself had gone so far that I couldn’t stall for time—or that my “wife” threatened to go to Hermia and make trouble. He may have thought that there was another man making a play for Hermia. I didn’t mind what he thought. I wanted to stress urgency.

  “Alter the odds a bit,” he said. “We’ll say eighteen hundred to one your wife’s a goner in under a month. I’ve got a sort of feeling about it.”

  I thought it was time to bargain—and I bargained. Protested that I hadn’t got that amount of money. Bradley was skillful. He knew, by some means or other, just what sum I could raise in an emergency. He knew that Hermia had money. His delicate hint that later, when I was married, I wouldn’t feel the loss of my bet, was proof of that. Moreover, my urgency put him in a fine position. He wouldn’t come down.

  When I left him the fantastic wager was laid and accepted.

  I signed some form of I.O.U. The phraseology was too full of legal phrases for me to understand. Actually I very much doubted that it had any legal significance whatever.

  “Is this legally binding?” I asked him.

  “I don’t think,” said Mr. Bradley, showing his excellent dentures, “that it will ever be put to the test.” His smile was not a very nice one. “A bet’s a bet. If a man doesn’t pay up—”

  I looked at him.

  “I shouldn’t advise it,” he said softly. “No, I shouldn’t advise it. We don’t like welshers.”

  “I shan’t welsh,” I said.

  “I’m sure you won’t, Mr. Easterbrook. Now for the er—arrangements. Mrs. Easterbrook, you say, is in London. Where, exactly?”

  “Do you have to know?”

  “I have to have full details—the next thing to do is to arrange an appointment with Miss Grey—you remember Miss Grey?”

  I said of course I remembered Miss Grey.

  “An amazing woman. Really an amazing woman. Most gifted. She’ll want something your wife has worn—a glove—handkerchief—anything like that—”

  “But why? In the name of—”

  “I know, I know. Don’t ask me why. I’ve not the least idea. Miss Grey keeps her secrets to herself.”

  “But what happens? What does she do?”

  “You really must believe me, Mr. Easterbrook, when I tell you that honestly I haven’t the least idea! I don’t know—and what is more, I don’t want to know—let’s leave it at that.”

  He paused, and then went on in an almost fatherly tone.

  “My advice is as follows, Mr. Easterbrook. Pay a visit to your wife. Soothe her down, let her think that you’re coming round to the idea of a reconciliation. I should suggest that you have to go a
broad for a few weeks, but that on your return etc., etc….”

  “And then?”

  “Having purloined a trifle of daily wear in an unobtrusive manner, you will go down to Much Deeping.” He paused thoughtfully. “Let me see. I think you mentioned on your previous visit that you had friends—relations—in the neighbourhood?”

  “A cousin.”

  “That makes it very simple. This cousin will doubtless put you up for a day or so.”

  “What do most people do? Stay at the local inn?”

  “Sometimes, I believe—or they motor over from Bournemouth. Something of that kind—but I know very little about the matter.”

  “What—er—is my cousin likely to think?”

  “You express yourself as intrigued by the inhabitants of the Pale Horse. You want to participate in a séance there. Nothing can sound simpler. Miss Grey and her medium friend often indulge in séances. You know what spiritualists are. You go protesting that of course it’s nonsense, but that it will interest you. That is all, Mr. Easterbrook. As you see, nothing can be simpler—”

  “And—and, after that?”

  He shook his head smiling.

  “That’s all I can tell you. All, in fact, that I know. Miss Thyrza Grey will then be in charge. Don’t forget to take the glove, or handkerchief, or whatever it is with you. Afterwards, I would suggest that you take a little trip abroad. The Italian Riviera is very pleasant at this time of year. Just for a week or two, say.”

  I said that I didn’t want to go abroad. I said I wanted to stay in England.

  “Very well, then, but definitely not London. No, I must strongly advise, not London.”

  “Why not?”

  Mr. Bradley looked at me reprovingly.

  “Clients are guaranteed complete—er—safety,” he said. “If they obey orders.”

  “What about Bournemouth? Would Bournemouth do?”

  “Yes, Bournemouth would be adequate. Stay at a hotel, make a few acquaintances, be seen in their company. The blameless life—that is what we aim at. You can always go on to Torquay if you get tired of Bournemouth.”

  He spoke with the affability of a travel agent.

  Once again I had to shake his podgy hand.

  Seventeen

  Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative

  I

  “Are you really going to a séance at Thyrza’s?” Rhoda demanded.

  “Why not?”

  “I never knew you were interested in that sort of thing, Mark.”

  “I’m not really,” I said truthfully. “But it’s such a queer setup, those three. I’m curious to see what sort of a show they put on.”

  I did not find it really easy to put on a light manner. Out of the tail of my eye, I saw Hugh Despard looking at me thoughtfully. He was a shrewd man, with an adventurous life behind him. One of those men who have a kind of sixth sense where danger is concerned. I think he scented its presence now—realised that something more important than idle curiosity was at stake.

  “Then I shall come with you,” said Rhoda gleefully. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Rhoda,” growled Despard.

  “But I don’t really believe in spirits and all that, Hugh. You know I don’t. I just want to go for the fun of it!”

  “That sort of business isn’t fun,” said Despard. “There may be something genuine to it, there probably is. But it doesn’t have a good effect on people who go out of ‘idle curiosity.’”

  “Then you ought to dissuade Mark, too.”

  “Mark’s not my responsibility,” said Despard.

  But again he gave me that quick sidelong look. He knew, I was quite sure, that I had a purpose.

  Rhoda was annoyed, but she got over it, and when we chanced to meet Thyrza Grey in the village a little later that morning, Thyrza herself was blunt upon the matter.

  “Hallo, Mr. Easterbrook, we’re expecting you this evening. Hope we can put on a good show for you. Sybil’s a wonderful medium, but one never knows beforehand what results one will get. So you mustn’t be disappointed. One thing I do ask you. Keep an open mind. An honest inquirer is always welcome—but a frivolous, scoffing approach is bad.”

  “I wanted to come too,” said Rhoda. “But Hugh is so frightfully prejudiced. You know what he’s like.”

  “I wouldn’t have had you, anyway,” said Thyrza. “One outsider is quite enough.”

  She turned to me.

  “Suppose you come and have a light meal with us first,” she said. “We never eat much before a séance. About seven o’clock? Good, we’ll be expecting you.”

  She nodded, smiled, and strode briskly away. I stared after her, so engrossed in my surmises, that I entirely missed what Rhoda was saying to me.

  “What did you say? I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been very odd lately, Mark. Ever since you arrived. Is anything the matter?”

  “No, of course not. What should be the matter?”

  “Have you got stuck with the book? Something like that?”

  “The book?” Just for a moment I couldn’t remember anything about the book. Then I said hastily, “Oh yes, the book. It’s getting on more or less all right.”

  “I believe you’re in love,” said Rhoda accusingly. “Yes, that’s it. Being in love has a very bad effect on men—it seems to addle their wits. Now women are just the opposite—on top of the world, looking radiant and twice as good-looking as usual. Funny, isn’t it, that it should suit women, and only make a man look like a sick sheep?”

  “Thank you!” I said.

  “Oh, don’t be cross with me, Mark. I think it’s a very good thing really—and I’m delighted. She’s really very nice.”

  “Who’s nice?”

  “Hermia Redcliffe, of course. You seem to think I know nothing about anything. I’ve seen it coming on for ages. And she really is just the person for you—good-looking and clever; absolutely suitable.”

  “That,” I said, “is one of the cattiest things you could say about anyone.”

  Rhoda looked at me.

  “It is rather,” she said.

  She turned away and said she had to go and give a pep talk to the butcher. I said that I would go and pay a call at the vicarage.

  “But not”—I forestalled any comment—“in order to ask the vicar to put the banns up!”

  II

  Coming to the vicarage was like coming home.

  The front door was hospitably open, and as I stepped inside I was conscious of a burden slipping from my shoulders.

  Mrs. Dane Calthrop came through a door at the back of the hall, carrying for some reason unfathomable to me an enormous plastic pail of bright green.

  “Hallo, it’s you,” she said. “I thought it would be.”

  She handed me the pail. I had no idea what to do with it and stood looking awkward.

  “Outside the door, on the step,” said Mrs. Calthrop impatiently, as though I ought to have known.

  I obeyed. Then I followed her into the same dark shabby room we had sat in before. There was a rather moribund fire there, but Mrs. Dane Calthrop poked it into flame and dumped a log on it. Then she motioned me to sit down, plumped down herself, and fixed me with a bright impatient eye.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What have you done?”

  From the vigour of her manner we might have had a train to catch.

  “You told me to do something. I am doing something.”

  “Good. What?”

  I told her. I told her everything. In some unspoken way I told her things I did not quite know myself.

  “Tonight?” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop thoughtfully.

  “Yes.”

  She was silent for a minute, obviously thinking. Unable to help myself I blurted out,

  “I don’t like it. My God, I don’t like it.”

  “Why should you?”

  That, of course, was unanswerable.

  “I’m so horribly afraid for her.”

  She l
ooked at me kindly.

  “You don’t know,” I said, “how—how brave she is. If, in some way, they manage to harm her….”

  Mrs. Dane Calthrop said slowly:

  “I don’t see—I really don’t see—how they can harm her in the way you mean.”

  “But they have harmed—other people.”

  “It would seem so, yes…” She sounded dissatisfied.

  “In any other way, she will be all right. We’ve taken every imaginable precaution. No material harm can happen to her.”

  “But it’s material harm that these people claim to be able to produce,” Mrs. Dane Calthrop pointed out. “They claim to be able to work through the mind on the body. Illness—disease. Very interesting if they can. But quite horrible! And it’s got to be stopped, as we’ve already agreed.”

  “But she’s the one who’s taking the risk,” I muttered.

  “Someone has to,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop calmly. “It upsets your pride, that it shouldn’t be you. You’ve got to swallow that. Ginger’s ideally suited for the part she’s playing. She can control her nerves and she’s intelligent. She won’t let you down.”

  “I’m not worrying about that!”

  “Well, stop worrying at all. It won’t do her any good. Don’t let’s shirk the issue. If she dies as a result of this experiment, then she dies in a good cause.”

  “My God, you’re brutal!”

  “Somebody has to be,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “Always envisage the worst. You’ve no idea how that steadies the nerves. You begin at once to be sure that it can’t be as bad as what you imagine.”

  She nodded at me reassuringly.

  “You may be right,” I said doubtfully.

  Mrs. Dane Calthrop said with complete certainty that of course she was right.

  I proceeded to details.

  “You’re on the telephone here?”

  “Naturally.”

  I explained what I wanted to do.

  “After this—this business tonight is over, I may want to keep in close touch with Ginger. Ring her up every day. If I could telephone from here?”

  “Of course. Too much coming and going at Rhoda’s. You want to be sure of not being overheard.”