The Last Seance Read online

  Mrs Harter nodded her head several times. Charles would be a very rich man when she was dead. Well, he had been a dear good boy to her. Always kind, always affectionate, and with a merry tongue which never failed to please her.

  She looked at the clock. Three minutes to the half hour. Well she was ready. And she was calm—quite calm. Although she repeated these last words to herself several times, her heart beat strangely and unevenly. She hardly realized it herself, but she was strung up to a fine point of overwrought nerves.

  Half past nine. The wireless was switched on. What would she hear? A familiar voice announcing the weather forecast or that far-away voice belonging to a man who had died twenty-five years before?

  But she heard neither. Instead there came a familiar sound, a sound she knew well but which tonight made her feel as though an icy hand were laid on her heart. A fumbling at the door . . .

  It came again. And then a cold blast seemed to sweep through the room. Mrs Harter had now no doubt what her sensations were. She was afraid . . . She was more than afraid—she was terrified . . .

  And suddenly there came to her the thought: Twenty-five years is a long time. Patrick is a stranger to me now.

  Terror! That was what was invading her.

  A soft step outside the door—a soft halting footstep. Then the door swung silently open . . .

  Mrs Harter staggered to her feet, swaying slightly from side to side, her eyes fixed on the doorway, something slipped from her fingers into the grate.

  She gave a strangled cry which died in her throat. In the dim light of the doorway stood a familiar figure with chestnut beard and whiskers and an old-fashioned Victorian coat.

  Patrick had come for her!

  Her heart gave one terrified leap and stood still. She slipped to the ground in a huddled heap.

  There Elizabeth found her, an hour later.

  Dr Meynell was called at once and Charles Ridgeway was hastily recalled from his bridge party. But nothing could be done. Mrs Harter had gone beyond human aid.

  It was not until two days later that Elizabeth remembered the note given to her by her mistress. Dr Meynell read it with great interest and showed it to Charles Ridgeway.

  ‘A very curious coincidence,’ he said. ‘It seems clear that your aunt had been having hallucinations about her dead husband’s voice. She must have strung herself up to such a point that the excitement was fatal and when the time actually came she died of the shock.’

  ‘Auto-suggestion?’ said Charles.

  ‘Something of the sort. I will let you know the result of the autopsy as soon as possible, though I have no doubt of it myself.’ In the circumstances an autopsy was desirable, though purely as a matter of form.

  Charles nodded comprehendingly.

  On the preceding night, when the household was in bed, he had removed a certain wire which ran from the back of the wireless cabinet to his bedroom on the floor above. Also, since the evening had been a chilly one, he had asked Elizabeth to light a fire in his room, and in that fire he had burned a chestnut beard and whiskers. Some Victorian clothing belonging to his late uncle he replaced in the camphor-scented chest in the attic.

  As far as he could see, he was perfectly safe. His plan, the shadowy outline of which had first formed in his brain when Doctor Meynell had told him that his aunt might with due care live for many years, had succeeded admirably. A sudden shock, Dr Meynell had said. Charles, that affectionate young man, beloved of old ladies, smiled to himself.

  When the doctor departed, Charles went about his duties mechanically. Certain funeral arrangements had to be finally settled. Relatives coming from a distance had to have trains looked out for them. In one or two cases they would have to stay the night. Charles went about it all efficiently and methodically, to the accompaniment of an undercurrent of his own thoughts.

  A very good stroke of business! That was the burden of them. Nobody, least of all his dead aunt, had known in what perilous straits Charles stood. His activities, carefully concealed from the world, had landed him where the shadow of a prison loomed ahead.

  Exposure and ruin had stared him in the face unless he could in a few short months raise a considerable sum of money. Well—that was all right now. Charles smiled to himself. Thanks to—yes, call it a practical joke—nothing criminal about that—he was saved. He was now a very rich man. He had no anxieties on the subject, for Mrs Harter had never made any secret of her intentions.

  Chiming in very appositely with these thoughts, Elizabeth put her head round the door and informed him that Mr Hopkinson was here and would like to see him.

  About time, too, Charles thought. Repressing a tendency to whistle, he composed his face to one of suitable gravity and repaired to the library. There he greeted the precise old gentleman who had been for over a quarter of a century the late Mrs Harter’s legal adviser.

  The lawyer seated himself at Charles’ invitation and with a dry cough entered upon business matters.

  ‘I did not quite understand your letter to me, Mr Ridgeway. You seemed to be under the impression that the late Mrs Harter’s will was in our keeping?’

  Charles stared at him.

  ‘But surely—I’ve heard my aunt say as much.’

  ‘Oh! quite so, quite so. It was in our keeping.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘That is what I said. Mrs Harter wrote to us, asking that it might be forwarded to her on Tuesday last.’

  An uneasy feeling crept over Charles. He felt a far-off premonition of unpleasantness.

  ‘Doubtless it will come to light amongst her papers,’ continued the lawyer smoothly.

  Charles said nothing. He was afraid to trust his tongue. He had already been through Mrs Harter’s papers pretty thoroughly, well enough to be quite certain that no will was amongst them. In a minute or two, when he had regained control of himself, he said so. His voice sounded unreal to himself, and he had a sensation as of cold water trickling down his back.

  ‘Has anyone been through her personal effects?’ asked the lawyer.

  Charles replied that her own maid, Elizabeth, had done so. At Mr Hopkinson’s suggestion, Elizabeth was sent for. She came promptly, grim and upright, and answered the questions put to her.

  She had been through all her mistress’s clothes and personal belongings. She was quite sure that there had been no legal document such as a will amongst them. She knew what the will looked like—her mistress had had it in her hand only the morning of her death.

  ‘You are sure of that?’ asked the lawyer sharply.

  ‘Yes, sir. She told me so, and she made me take fifty pounds in notes. The will was in a long blue envelope.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Mr Hopkinson.

  ‘Now I come to think of it,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘that same blue envelope was lying on this table the morning after—but empty. I laid it on the desk.’

  ‘I remember seeing it there,’ said Charles.

  He got up and went over to the desk. In a minute or two he turned round with an envelope in his hand which he handed to Mr Hopkinson. The latter examined it and nodded his head.

  ‘That is the envelope in which I despatched the will on Tuesday last.’

  Both men looked hard at Elizabeth.

  ‘Is there anything more, sir?’ she inquired respectfully.

  ‘Not at present, thank you.’

  Elizabeth went towards the door.

  ‘One minute,’ said the lawyer. ‘Was there a fire in the grate that evening?’

  ‘Yes, sir, there was always a fire.’

  ‘Thank you, that will do.’

  Elizabeth went out. Charles leaned forward, resting a shaking hand on the table.

  ‘What do you think? What are you driving at?’

  Mr Hopkinson shook his head.

  ‘We must still hope the will may turn up. If it does not—’

  ‘Well, if it does not?’

  ‘I am afraid there is only one conclusion possible. Your aunt sent for that will in
order to destroy it. Not wishing Elizabeth to lose by that, she gave her the amount of her legacy in cash.’

  ‘But why?’ cried Charles wildly. ‘Why?’

  Mr Hopkinson coughed. A dry cough.

  ‘You have had no—er—disagreement with your aunt, Mr Ridgeway?’ he murmured.

  Charles gasped.

  ‘No, indeed,’ he cried warmly. ‘We were on the kindest, most affectionate terms, right up to the end.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr Hopkinson, not looking at him.

  It came to Charles with a shock that the lawyer did not believe him. Who knew what this dry old stick might not have heard? Rumours of Charles’ doings might have come round to him. What more natural than that he should suppose that these same rumours had come to Mrs Harter, and the aunt and nephew should have had an altercation on the subject?

  But it wasn’t so! Charles knew one of the bitterest moments of his career. His lies had been believed. Now that he spoke the truth, belief was withheld. The irony of it!

  Of course his aunt had never burnt the will! Of course—

  His thoughts came to a sudden check. What was that picture rising before his eyes? An old lady with one hand clasped to her heart . . . something slipping . . . a paper . . . falling on the red-hot embers . . .

  Charles’ face grew livid. He heard a hoarse voice—his own—asking:

  ‘If that will’s never found—?’

  ‘There is a former will of Mrs Harter’s still extant. Dated September 1920. By it Mrs Harter leaves everything to her niece, Miriam Harter, now Miriam Robinson.’

  What was the old fool saying? Miriam? Miriam with her nondescript husband, and her four whining brats. All his cleverness—for Miriam!

  The telephone rang sharply at his elbow. He took up the receiver. It was the doctor’s voice, hearty and kindly.

  ‘That you Ridgeway? Thought you’d like to know. The autopsy’s just concluded. Cause of death as I surmised. But as a matter of fact the cardiac trouble was much more serious than I suspected when she was alive. With the utmost care, she couldn’t have lived longer than two months at the outside. Thought you’d like to know. Might console you more or less.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Charles, ‘would you mind saying that again?’

  ‘She couldn’t have lived longer than two months,’ said the doctor in a slightly louder tone. ‘All things work out for the best, you know, my dear fellow—’

  But Charles had slammed back the receiver on its hook. He was conscious of the lawyer’s voice speaking from a long way off.

  ‘Dear me, Mr Ridgeway, are you ill?’

  Damn them all! The smug-faced lawyer. That poisonous old ass Meynell. No hope in front of him—only the shadow of the prison wall . . .

  He felt that Somebody had been playing with him—playing with him like a cat with a mouse. Somebody must be laughing . . .

  The Wife of the Kenite

  Herr Schaefer removed his hat and wiped his perspiring brow. He was hot. He was hungry and thirsty—especially the latter. But, above all, he was anxious. Before him stretched the yellow expanse of the veldt. Behind him, the line of the horizon was broken by the ‘dumps’ of the outlying portion of the Reef. And from far away, in the direction of Johannesburg, came a sound like distant thunder. But it was not thunder, as Herr Schaefer knew only too well. It was monotonous and regular, and represented the triumph of law and order over the forces of Revolution.

  Incidentally, it was having a most wearing effect on the nerves of Herr Schaefer. The position in which he found himself was an unpleasant one. The swift efficient proclamation of martial law, followed by the dramatic arrival of Smuts with the tyres of his car shot flat, had had the effect of completely disorganising the carefully laid plans of Schaefer and his friends, and Schaefer himself had narrowly escaped being laid by the heels. For the moment he was at large, but the present was uncomfortable, and the future too problematical to be pleasant.

  In good, sound German, Herr Schaefer cursed the country, the climate, the Rand and all workers thereon, and most especially his late employers, the Reds. As a paid agitator, he had done his work with true German efficiency, but his military upbringing, and his years of service with the German Army in Belgium, led him to admire the forcefulness of Smuts, and to despise unfeignedly the untrained rabble, devoid of discipline, which had crumbled to pieces at the first real test.

  ‘They are scum,’ said Herr Schaefer, gloomily, moistening his cracked lips. ‘Swine! No drilling. No order. No discipline. Ragged commandos riding loose about the veldt! Ah! If they had but one Prussian drill sergeant!’

  Involuntarily his back straightened. For a year he had been endeavouring to cultivate a slouch which, together with a ragged beard, might make his apparent dealing in such innocent vegetable produce as cabbages, cauliflowers, and potatoes less open to doubt. A momentary shiver went down his spine as he reflected that certain papers might even now be in the hands of the military—papers whereon the word ‘cabbage’ stood opposite ‘dynamite’, and potatoes were labelled ‘detonators’.

  The sun was nearing the horizon. Soon the cool of the evening would set in. If he could only reach a friendly farm (there were one or two hereabouts, he knew), he would find shelter for the night, and explicit directions that might set him on the road to freedom on the morrow.

  Suddenly his eyes narrowed appreciatively upon a point to his extreme left.

  ‘Mealies!’ said Herr Schaefer. ‘Where there are mealies there is a farm not far off.’

  His reasoning proved correct. A rough track led through the cultivated belt of land. He came first to a cluster of kraals, avoided them dextrously (since he had no wish to be seen if the farm should not prove to be one of those he sought), and skirting a slight rise, came suddenly upon the farm itself. It was the usual low building, with a corrugated roof, and a stoep running round two sides of it.

  The sun was setting now, a red, angry blur on the horizon, and a woman was standing in the open doorway, looking out into the falling dusk. Herr Schaefer pulled his hat well over his eyes and came up the steps.

  ‘Is this by any chance the farm of Mr Henshel?’ he asked.

  The woman nodded without speaking, staring at him with wide blue eyes. Schaefer drew a deep breath of relief, and looked back at her with a measure of appreciation. He admired the Dutch, wide-bosomed type such as this. A grand creature, with her full breast and her wide hips; not young, nearer forty than thirty, fair hair just touched with grey parted simply in the middle of her wide forehead, something grand and forceful about her, like a patriarch’s wife of old.

  ‘A fine mother of sons,’ thought Herr Schaefer appreciatively. ‘Also, let us hope, a good cook!’

  His requirements of women were primitive and simple.

  ‘Mr Henshel expects me, I think,’ said the German, and added in a slightly lower tone: ‘I am interested in potatoes.’

  She gave the expected reply.

  ‘We, too, are cultivators of vegetables.’ She spoke the words correctly, but with a strong accent. Her English was evidently not her strong point and Schaefer put her down as belonging to one of those Dutch Nationalist families who forbid their children to use the interloper’s tongue. With a big, work-stained hand, she pointed behind him.

  ‘You come from Jo’burg—yes?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Things are finished there. I escaped by the skin of my teeth. Then I lost myself on the veldt. It is pure chance that I found my way here.’

  The Dutch woman shook her head. A strange ecstatic smile irradiated her broad features.

  ‘There is no chance—only God. Enter, then.’

  Approving her sentiments, for Herr Schaefer liked a woman to be religious, he crossed the threshold. She drew back to let him pass, the smile still lingering on her face, and just for a moment the thought that there was something here he did not quite understand flashed across Herr Schaefer’s mind. He dismissed the idea as of little importance.

  The house was b
uilt, like most, in the form of an H. The inner hall, from which rooms opened out all round, was pleasantly cool. The table was spread in preparation for a meal. The woman showed him to a bedroom, and on his return to the hall, when he had removed the boots from his aching feet, he found Henshel awaiting him. An Englishman, this, with a mean, vacuous face, a little rat of a fellow drunk with catchwords and phrases. It was amongst such as he that most of Schaefer’s work had lain, and he knew the type well. Abuse of capitalists, of the ‘rich who batten on the poor’, the iniquities of the Chamber of Mines, the heroic endurance of the miners—these were the topics on which Henshel expatiated, Schaefer nodding wearily with his mind fixed solely on food and drink.

  At last the woman appeared, bearing a steaming tureen of soup. They sat down together and fell to. It was good soup. Henshel continued to talk; his wife was silent. Schaefer contented himself with monosyllables and appropriate grunts. When Mrs Henshel left the room to bring in the next course, he said appreciatively: ‘Your wife is a good cook. You are lucky. Not all Dutch women cook well.’

  Henshel stared at him.

  ‘My wife is not Dutch.’

  Schaefer looked his astonishment, but the shortness of Henshel’s tone, and some unacknowledged uneasiness in himself forbade him asking further. It was odd, though. He had been so sure that she was Dutch.

  After the meal, he sat on the stoep in the cool dusk smoking. Somewhere in the house behind him a door banged. It was followed by the noise of a horse’s hoofs. Vaguely uneasy, he sat forward listening as they grew fainter in the distance, then started violently to find Mrs Henshel standing at his elbow with a steaming cup of coffee. She set it down on a little table beside him.

  ‘My husband has ridden over to Cloete’s—to make the arrangements for getting you away in the morning,’ she explained.