Gaslit Horror (6 page)

“You wish for the services of a detective, but you shall have some one better,” said Bainbridge, turning towards me. “This gentleman, Mr. John Bell, is the man of all others for our business. I have just brought him down from London for the purpose.”

An expression of relief flitted across the inspector's face.

“I am very glad to see you, sir,” he said to me, “and I hope you will be able to spend the night with me in the signal-box. I must say I don't much relish the idea of tackling the thing single-handed; but with your help, sir, I think we ought to get to the bottom of it somehow. I am afraid there is not a man on the line who will take duty until we do. So it is most important that the thing should be cleared, and without delay.”

I readily assented to the inspector's proposition, and Bainbridge and I arranged that we should call for him at four o'clock at the village inn and drive him to the tunnel.

We then stepped into the wagonette which was waiting for us, and drove to Bainbridge's house.

Mrs. Bainbridge came out to meet us, and was full of the tragedy. Two pretty girls also ran to greet their father, and to glance inquisitively to me. I could see that the entire family was in a state of much excitement.

“Lucy Ray has just left, father,” said the elder of the girls. “We had much trouble to soothe her; she is in a frantic state.”

“You have heard, Mr. Bell, all about this dreadful mystery?” said Mrs. Bainbridge as she led me towards the dining-room.

“Yes,” I answered; “your husband has been good enough to give me every particular.”

“And you have really come here to help us?”

“I hope I may be able to discover the cause,” I answered.

“It certainly seems most extraordinary,” continued Mrs. Bainbridge. “My dear,” she continued, turning to her husband, “you can easily imagine the state we were all in this morning when the news of the second death was brought to us.”

“For my part,” said Ella Bainbridge, “I am sure that Felwyn Tunnel is haunted. The villagers have thought so for a long time, and this second death seems to prove it, does it not?” Here she looked anxiously at me.

“I can offer no opinion,” I replied, “until I have sifted the matter thoroughly.”

“Come, Ella, don't worry Mr. Bell,' said her father; “if he is as hungry as I am, he must want his lunch.”

We then seated ourselves at the table and commenced the meal. Bainbridge, although he professed to be hungry, was in such a state of excitement that he could scarcely eat. Immediately after lunch he left me to the care of his family and went into the village.

“It is just like him,” said Mrs. Bainbridge; “he takes these sort of things to heart dreadfully. He is terribly upset about Lucy Ray, and also about the poor fellow Wynne. It is certainly a fearful tragedy from first to last.”

“Well, at any rate,” I said, “this fresh death will upset the evidence against Wynne.”

“I hope so, and there is some satisfaction in the fact. Well, Mr. Bell, I see you have finished lunch; will you come into the drawing-room?”

I followed her into a pleasant room overlooking the valley of the Lytton.

By and by Bainbridge returned, and soon afterwards the dog-cart came to the door. My host and I mounted, Bainbridge took the reins, and we started off at a brisk pace.

“Matters get worse and worse,” he said the moment we were alone. “If you don't clear things up to-night, Bell, I say frankly that I cannot imagine what will happen.”

We entered the village, and as we rattled down the ill-paved streets I was greeted with curious glances on all sides. The people were standing about in groups, evidently talking about the tragedy and nothing else. Suddenly as our trap bumped noisily over the paving-stones, a girl darted out of one of the houses and made frantic motions to Bainbridge to stop the horse. He pulled the mare nearly up on her haunches, and the girl came up to the side of the dog-cart.

“You have heard it?” she said, speaking eagerly and in a gasping voice. “The death which occurred this morning will clear Stephen Wynne, won't it, Mr. Bainbridge? It will, you are sure, are you not?”

“It looks like it, Lucy, my poor girl,” he answered. “But there, the whole thing is so terrible that I scarcely know what to think.”

She was a pretty girl with dark eyes, and under ordinary circumstances must have had the vivacious expression of face and the brilliant complexion which so many of her countrywomen possess. But now her eyes were swollen with weeping and her complexion more or less disfigured by the agony she had gone through. She looked piteously at Bainbridge, her lips trembling. The next moment she burst into tears.

“Come away, Lucy,” said a woman who had followed her out of the cottage; “Fie—for shame! don't trouble the gentlemen; come back and stay quiet.”

“I can't, mother, I can't,” said the unfortunate girl. “If they hang him, I'll go clean off my head. Oh, Mr. Bainbridge, do say that the second death has cleared him!”

“I have every hope that it will do so, Lucy,” said Bainbridge, “but now don't keep us, there's a good girl; go back into the house. This gentleman has come down from London on purpose to look into the whole matter. I may have good news for you in the morning.”

The girl raised her eyes to my face with a look of intense pleading. “Oh, I have been cruel and a fool, and I deserve everything,” she gasped; “but, sir, for the love of Heaven, try to clear him.”

I promised to do my best.

Bainbridge touched up the mare, she bounded forward, and Lucy disappeared into the cottage with her mother.

The next moment we drew up at the inn where the Inspector was waiting, and soon afterwards were bowling along between the high banks of the country lanes to the tunnel. It was a cold, still afternoon; the air was wonderfully keen, for a sharp frost had held the countryside in its grip for the last two days. The sun was just tipping the hills to westward when the trap pulled up at the top of the cutting. We hastily alighted, and the Inspector and I bade Bainbridge goodbye. He said that he only wished that he could stay with us for the night, assured us that little sleep would visit him, and that he would be back at the cutting at an early hour on the following morning; then the noise of his horse's feet was heard fainter and fainter as he drove back over the frost-bound roads. The Inspector and I ran along the little path to the wicket-gate in the fence, stamping our feet on the hard ground to restore circulation after our cold drive. The next moment we were looking down upon the scene of the mysterious deaths, and a weird and lonely place it looked. The tunnel was at one end of the rock cutting, the sides of which ran sheer down to the line for over a hundred and fifty feet. Above the tunnel's mouth the hills rose one upon the other. A more dreary place it would have been difficult to imagine. From a little clump of pines a delicate film of blue smoke rose straight up on the still air. This came from the chimney of the signal-box.

As we started to descend the precipitous path the Inspector sang out a cheery “Hullo!” The man on duty in the box immediately answered. His voice echoed and reverberated down the cutting, and the next moment he appeared at the door of the box. He told us that he would be with us immediately; but we called back to him to stay where he was, and the next instant the Inspector and I entered the box.

“The first thing to do,” said Henderson the Inspector, “is to send a message down the line to announce our arrival.”

This he did, and in a few moments a crawling goods train came panting up the cutting. After signalling her through we descended the wooden flight of steps which led from the box down to the line and walked along the metals towards the tunnel till we stood on the spot where poor Davidson had been found dead that morning. I examined the ground and all around it most carefully. Everything tallied exactly with the description I had received. There could be no possible way of approaching the spot except by going along the line, as the rocky sides of the cutting were inaccessible.

“It is a most extraordinary thing, sir,” said the signalman whom we had come to relieve. “Davidson had neither mark nor sign on him—there he lay stone dead and cold, and not a bruise nowhere; but Pritchard had an awful wound at the back of the head. They said he got it by climbing the rocks—here, you can see the marks for yourself, sir. But now, is it likely that Pritchard would try to climb rocks like these, so steep as they are?”

“Certainly not,” I replied.

“Then how do you account for the wound, sir?” asked the man with an anxious face.

“I cannot tell you at present,” I answered.

“And you and Inspector Henderson are going to spend the night in the signal-box?”

“Yes.”

A horrified expression crept over the signalman's face.

“God preserve you both,” he said; “I wouldn't do it—not for fifty pounds. It's not the first time I have heard tell that Felwyn Tunnel is haunted. But, there, I won't say any more about that. It's a black business, and has given trouble enough. There's poor Wynne, the same thing as convicted of the murder of Pritchard; but now they say that Davidson's death will clear him. Davidson was as good a fellow as you would come across this side of the country; but for the matter of that, so was Pritchard. The whole thing is terrible—it upsets one, that it do, sir.”

“I don't wonder at your feelings,” I answered; “but now, see here, I want to make a most careful examination of everything. One of the theories is that Wynne crept down this rocky side and fractured Pritchard's skull. I believe such a feat to be impossible. On examining these rocks I see that a man might climb up the side of the tunnel as far as from eight to ten feet, utilizing the sharp projections of rock for the purpose; but it would be out of the question for any man to come down the cutting. No; the only way Wynne could have approached Pritchard was by the line itself. But, after all, the real thing to discover is this,” I continued, “what killed Davidson? Whatever caused his death is, beyond doubt, equally responsible for Pritchard's. I am now going into the tunnel.”

Inspector Henderson went in with me. The place struck damp and chill. The walls were covered with green, evil-smelling fungi, and through the brickwork the moisture was oozing and had trickled down in long lines to the ground. Before us was nothing but dense darkness.

When we re-appeared the signalman was lighting the red lamp on the post, which stood about five feet from the ground just above the entrance to the tunnel.

“Is there plenty of oil?” asked the Inspector.

“Yes, sir, plenty,” replied the man. “Is there anything more I can do for either of you gentlemen?” he asked, pausing, and evidently dying to be off.

“Nothing,” answered Henderson; “I will wish you good-evening.”

“Good-evening to you both,” said the man. He made his way quickly up the path and was soon lost to sight.

Henderson and I then returned to the signal-box.

By this time it was nearly dark.

“How many trains pass in the night?” I asked of the Inspector.

“There's the 10.20 down express,” he said, “it will pass here at about 10.40; then there's the 11.45 up, and then not another train till the 6.30 local tomorrow morning. We shan't have a very lively time,” he added.

I approached the fire and bent over it, holding out my hands to try and get some warmth into them.

“It will take a good deal to persuade me to go down to the tunnel, whatever I may see there,” said the man. “I don't think, Mr. Bell, I am a coward in any sense of the word, but there's something very uncanny about this place, right away from the rest of the world. I don't wonder one often hears of signalmen going mad in some of these lonely boxes. Have you any theory to account for these deaths, sir?”

“None at present,” I replied.

“This second death puts the idea of Pritchard being murdered quite out of court,” he continued.

“I am sure of it,” I answered.

“And so am I, and that's one comfort,” continued Henderson. “That poor girl, Lucy Ray, although she was to be blamed for her conduct, is much to be pitied now; and as to poor Wynne himself, he protests his innocence through thick and thin. He was a wild fellow, but not the sort to take the life of a fellow-creature. I saw the doctor this afternoon while I was waiting for you at the inn, Mr. Bell, and also the police sergeant. They both say they do not know what Davidson died of. There was not the least sign of violence on the body.”

“Well, I am as puzzled as the rest of you,” I said. “I have one or two theories in my mind, but none of them will quite fit the situation.”

The night was piercingly cold, and, although there was not a breath of wind, the keen and frosty air penetrated into the lonely signal-box. We spoke little, and both of us were doubtless absorbed by our own thoughts and speculations. As to Henderson, he looked distinctly uncomfortable, and I cannot say that my own feelings were too pleasant. Never had I been given a tougher problem to solve, and never had I been so utterly at my wits' end for a solution.

Now and then the Inspector got up and went to the telegraph instrument, which intermittently clicked away in its box. As he did so he made some casual remark and then sat down again. After the 10.40 had gone through, there followed a period of silence which seemed almost oppressive. All at once the stillness was broken by the whirr of the electric bell, which sounded so sharply in our ears that we both started. Henderson rose.

“That's the 11.45 coming,” he said, and, going over to the three long levers, he pulled two of them down with a loud clang. The next moment, with a rush and a scream, the express tore down the cutting, the carriage lights streamed past in a rapid flash, the ground trembled, a few sparks from the engine whirled up into the darkness, and the train plunged into the tunnel.