The Burning Court (8 page)

As he went up the drive, Stevens kept himself thinking of this. He refused to think of anything else.
Non cognito, ergo sum.

The house was long and low, built of stone in the form of the head of a letter T with its short wings towards the road. There was nothing at all distinguished about the house, except that it had grown old well. It did not butt against the years, or show its bones and wait for death; but it had become a part of the soil. Its curved roof-tiles had become an unobtrusive reddish brown; its thin chimneys seemed proper, though no smoke went up from them. The windows were small, in casement fashion after the French style of the late seventeenth century. Some one in the nineteenth century had added a low front porch, but even this had ceased to obtrude itself; and had almost taken root. The porch light was burning. Stevens went up and hammered the knocker.

Otherwise the house seemed to be dark. After a few minutes Mark opened the door. He led the way through the familiar hall, which smelt of age and Bibles and furniture-polish, out through the house into the kitchen. Modern implements looked small in that kitchen, and it had the appearance of a workroom as well. Partington, more bulky than ever in ancient sheathing of Harris tweeds, remained stolidly by the gas-range and smoked a cigarette. At his feet lay a black bag and a large leather-covered box. Ranged against the table were the hammers, the shovels, the picks, the steel wedges, and two flat steel bars about eight feet long, of which Henderson was taking stock now. Henderson was a smallish but very wiry old man in corduroys, with a long nose, blue eyes encircled in wrinkles like walnuts, and a bald head brushed over with such indeterminate wisps of grey hair that they seemed like an illusion of hair. There was an air of uneasiness in the kitchen, a conspiratorial air which drew everyone together, and Henderson was the most uneasy. When Mark and Stevens came in, he jumped up, scratching the back of his neck.

“It’s all right,” Mark said, testily. “We’re not going to commit any crime. Got all your doings, Part? You, Ted, you can make yourself useful. Fill these up.” From under the sink he brought out two lanterns and a big tin of kerosene. “I’ve got a flashlight for the crypt, but these will be the only things to use while we dig. Yes, I hope it’s all right. You know, we’re going to make a hell of a lot of racket with those hammers. …” He hesitated. “You don’t suppose——?”

Henderson spoke aggrievedly, in a heavy bass voice. He still scratched the back of his neck, and squared round. “Well, Mr. Mark, don’t
you
get to being nervous now. I don’t like this thing, and your pap wouldn’t ’a’ liked it; but if you say it’s all right, I’ll do it. If you want me to, I can muffle up them hammers a little, so they’ll make less noise. Do you remember, I did it once when Miss Edith was sick and we were changing the wall in the garden? But I don’t think anybody’ll hear, down as far as the road; no, it’s not likely anybody’ll hear, down as far as the road; and all I’m afraid of is that maybe your wife or your sister or my wife will come back here, or Mr. Ogden. I can tell you, and you know yourself, Mr. Ogden he’s a pretty curious young fellow, and if he takes it into his head…”

“Ogden’s in New York,” Mark said, shortly. “The rest of them are in good hands, and they won’t be back until next week. Ready?”

Stevens had found a tin funnel in the kitchen cupboard, and had filled both lanterns. Laden with their gear, they went out the back door. Mark and Henderson walked ahead with the lanterns swinging. That homely, honest, look-out-for-the-railway-crossing light gave a better look to their body-snatchers’ implements. All the same, the Park did not like it. Ahead the broad path stretched in patchwork paving, first with the sunken gardens on either side, then the tall lines of elms, and, far at the end, the chapel dark under starlight. Presently they passed the small house occupied by the Hendersons, and some twenty feet farther on—no great distance in front of the chapel door—Mark and Henderson set down the lanterns. The latter dug the heel of his boot into mud and drew out on the stones the area they were to attack, before he put each into position.

“Now just you be careful you don’t kill each other with them picks,” he said, rather malevolently. “That’s all I ask of you, just you be careful. Make a hole with the pick for the wedge to go in, and then use your hammers. All I have to say is——”

“Right,” said Partington cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

The picks came down with a crash, and Henderson wailed.

It took two hours. At a quarter to twelve by his wrist watch, Stevens found himself sitting back flat in the wet grass beside the path, taking big breaths. His whole body was clammy with sweat in the cool wind, his heart was bumping, and he felt as though he had been through the wringer. Sedentary life, eh? That was it. But, with the possible exception of Mark, he was the strongest of the three, and he felt that the whole weight of that stone had been on him.

Taking up the paving had not been over-difficult, though it seemed to rouse such a hellish din that he felt it must be audible for half a mile, and once Mark had made a trip to the front of the house to find out whether it was as bad as it sounded. Nor was the removing of the gravel and soil too difficult; but Henderson, a martinet, insisted on having it in neat piles afterwards, and it had taken some time. Afterwards the levering up of a stone slab weighing nearly half a ton was the hardest; once Partington had slipped, the stone had wavered, and for a second Stevens thought the whole thing was coming over on them. Now the stone stood upright on its side, like the lifted lid of a chest, held there by its own weight. The entrance to the crypt had the appearance of the inside of a chest, being a stone-wailed oblong with a flight of stone steps going down ten feet.

“Done it,” said Partington, still cheerfully, although he was panting and coughing. “Any more impediments? If not, I’ll go back to the house and wash my hands for what’s got to be done.”

“And
to get yourself a drink,” breathed Mark, looking after him. “Well, I don’t blame you.” He turned back again, holding up the lantern, and grinning at Henderson like a wolf.

“Do you want to go down first, H., my lad?”

“No, I don’t,” snapped the other, “and you know I don’t. I’ve never been down in that place, not when your father nor your mother nor your uncle was buried, and I wouldn’t go down now if it wasn’t for helping you lift the coffin—”

“You needn’t worry about that,” Mark told him, holding the lantern higher, “if you don’t want to go down. It’s a wooden coffin, not very heavy, and two men could handle it easily.”

“Oh, I’m going down, all right; you can bet your last dollar on that; I’m going
down,”
declared Henderson, with belligerent emphasis which was a trifle scared just the same. “You talking about poisons, like books! Poisons! Your pap’ud poison you if he was here! I never heard such foolishness in my life. I know, I know, I oughtn’t to sass you back. I’m only old Joe Henderson, that whacked you good and hard many’s the time when you was a kid. …” He stopped and spat. Now appeared the real reason behind this querulousness, for he said, quietly: “Honest to God, now, are you sure you haven’t heard anybody around here watching us? I been feeling like that ever since we came out here.”

His eyes flashed over his shoulder. Stevens got up, opening and shutting stiff hands, and came over to join them by the mouth of the crypt. Mark moved the lantern round; wind stirred in the elms; nothing more.

“Come on,” Mark said, abruptly. “Part’ll catch up with us. Leave the lanterns here. They use up air; and there’s no ventilation down there; and we want all the ventilation we can get. Smell it? I’ve got a flashlight. …”

“Your hand’s shaking, Mr. Mark,” said Henderson.

“And you lie,” said Mark. “Follow on.”

The enclosure of the little staircase, although damp, was completely free from marshiness. Its close air pressed the lungs with almost a feeling of warmth. At the foot of the stairs was a rounded archway, with a rotted wooden door hanging from its frame, opening into the crypt; and a heavier air stirred at their coming. The beam of Mark’s flashlight moved inside. That crypt had been opened only ten days ago: which, Stevens thought, made it easier to go into now. Its damp closeness was still thick with an overpowering odor of flowers.

Mark’s light showed a mausoleum oblong in shape, some twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet wide, and built throughout of massive granite blocks. In the centre an octagonal granite pillar supported the groined roof. On two sides the crypt was a catacomb. In the one long wall facing them as they entered, and in the short wall to the right, niches had been made in regular tiers to contain the dead. The exposed coffins were set into the wall endways, evidently from some one’s business-like wish to save space even in the grave; and the niches were barely larger than the coffins. Near the top, where the old Despards lay, most of the niches were ornamented with marble facings, scrollwork, a contorted angel or two, even a Latin eulogy; but lower down they became more severe. Some tiers were filled, some almost empty; and eight coffins could be laid along one tier.

At the other end of the crypt, towards their left, the light picked out a tall marble plaque on the wall, inscribed with the names of those who had been buried here. Over it drooped a marble angel, with head hidden. On either side of the plaque stood a great marble urn, out of which a mass of dead flowers still drooped; and there were the remains of more flowers on the floor.
¹
Stevens observed that on the plaque the first name was
Paul Desprez, 1650-1706.
The name turned into ‘Despard’ just past the middle of the eighteenth century; and it might be guessed that the family, having sided with the British during the French and Indian War, found it convenient to Anglicize their name. The last on the roll, boldly cut with a shock of obtruding the present, was
Miles Bannister Despard, 1873-1929.

Mark’s light moved away, and over to find Miles’s coffin. It was in the wall directly opposite them, and in the lowest tier, which was only a few feet from the floor. It was the last in its tier. All the niches to the left were occupied, and there were several vacant places to the right. It stood out not only because it was new and gleaming, where all the others were crusted with dust or rust or corruption, but because it was the only coffin in its tier made of wood.

They stood for a moment in silence, and Stevens heard Henderson breathing behind his shoulder. Mark turned and handed Henderson the light.

“Keep this on it,” he said. His voice came back in such echoes that he jumped; it was as though the voice itself raised dust. “Come on, Ted; take one side and I’ll take the other. I could lift it down by myself, but we have to go easy.”

As they moved forward, they all started again to hear footsteps coming down the stairs behind, and they whirled round. The lantern was burning on the path up at the top of the crypt; Partington, with his bag and box and two ordinary Mason jars perched on top. On either side of the coffin, Stevens and Mark Despard slid their hands into the niche and pulled. …

“It’s damned light,” Stevens found himself saying.

Mark said nothing, but he looked more startled than he had been that night. The coffin was made of polished oak scrolled at the edges, and of no great size; Miles had been five feet six. On the top was a silver name-plate, with Miles’s name and the dates. With a very small heave they hoisted it out and put it on the floor.

“It’s too damned light, I tell you,” Stevens found himself saying. “Here, you won’t need that screwdriver; this thing opens with two long bolts and clasps down through the centre of the edges. Catch hold.”

They heard the clink as Partington put down his Mason jars, together with a sheet in which he was apparently going to do some wrapping-up. Mark and Stevens tugged at the bolts until the coffin-lid began to lift. …

The coffin was empty.

The coffin, bedded with white satin, gleamed under the shaking light in Henderson’s hand; but it was empty. There was not even a pinch of dust.

Nobody said anything, though each could hear the others breathe. Mark sat back on his haunches so abruptly that he nearly fell over backwards. Then, with a common impulse, both he and Stevens turned down the lid of the coffin to look at the silver name-plate again.

“Mother of Go—” said Henderson, and stopped.

“You—you don’t suppose we’ve got the wrong coffin, do you?” asked Mark, rather wildly.

“I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles we haven’t.” Henderson declared. His hand was trembling so much that Mark took the light from him. “I saw him put into that. Look, there’s the nick in it they made when they bumped it coming downstairs. Besides, what other coffin? All the others—” He pointed to the tiers of steel ones.

“Yes,” said Mark, “that’s his coffin all right. But where is he? Where’s he got to?”

They looked at one another in the gloom, and into Stevens’s mind had come unnatural notions which were as stifling as the air of the crypt. Partington alone seemed to remain quiet, steady with either common sense or whisky; even a trifle impatient. “Buck up,” he said to Mark, sharply, and put his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Here! all of you! Don’t get any fool ideas about this. The body’s gone; well, what of it? You see what it means, don’t you? It only means that somebody’s got here ahead of us and stolen the body out of there—for whatever reason.”

“How?” asked Henderson, in a blank, querulous tone.

Partington looked at him.

“I said, How?” repeated Henderson, his voice rising doggedly. He backed away, his hands feeling behind him, as the full presentiment of what had happened soaked like water into every corner of his heavy mind. Mark put the light in his face, and the old man cursed and brushed the face with a corduroy sleeve as though to wipe something off. “How did somebody get in and out? That’s what I want to know, Doctor Partington. I said a minute ago I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that was Mr. Miles’s coffin, and I saw him put into it and carried down here. And I’ll tell you something else, Doctor Partington: nobody
could
’ve got in and out of this place! Look at it. It took four of us, working two hours and making a racket fit to wake the dead, just to open the entrance. Do you think somebody could get in here—opening it
up with me and Mrs. Henderson sleeping twenty feet away from it, with the windows up, and not hearing one single sound; and me a light sleeper, too?—and not only that, but of them putting all the things right back again, mixin’ their own concrete right there and setting the pavement down again? Do you think that? Yes, sir, and I’ll tell you something more. I laid that pavement myself, a week ago; I know how I laid it; and it’s exactly as I put it down myself. I’ll take my oath before God that nobody has touched that pavement, or monkeyed with it in any way, since then!”