And yet all this planning proved unnecessary.

  4

  We are transported to a London office on this same 25th of April. We find there, within closed doors, late in the day, two police inspectors, a commissionaire, and a youthful clerk. The two latter, both rather pale and agitated in appearance, are sitting on chairs and being questioned.

  ‘How long do you say you’ve been in this Mr Poschwitz’s employment? Six months? And what was his business? Attended sales in various parts and brought home parcels of books. Did he keep a shop anywhere? No? Disposed of ’em here and there, and sometimes to private collectors. Right. Now then, when did he go out last? Rather better than a week ago? Tell you where he was going? No? Said he was going to start next day from his private residence, and shouldn’t be at the office – that’s here, eh? – before two days; you was to attend as usual. Where is his private residence? Oh, that’s the address, Norwood way; I see. Any family? Not in this country? Now, then, what account do you give of what’s happened since he came back? Came back on the Tuesday, did he? and this is the Saturday. Bring any books? One package; where is it? In the safe? You got the key? No, to be sure, it’s open, of course. How did he seem when he got back – cheerful? Well, but how do you mean – curious? Thought he might be in for an illness: he said that, did he? Odd smell got in his nose, couldn’t get rid of it; told you to let him know who wanted to see him before you let ’em in? That wasn’t usual with him? Much the same all Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Out a good deal; said he was going to the British Museum. Often went there to make enquiries in the way of his business. Walked up and down a lot in the office when he was in. Anyone call in on those days? Mostly when he was out. Anyone find him in? Oh, Mr Collinson? Who’s Mr Collinson? An old customer; know his address? All right, give it us afterwards. Well, now, what about this morning? You left Mr Poschwitz’s here at twelve and went home. Anybody see you? Commissionaire, you did? Remained at home till summoned here. Very well.

  ‘Now, commissionaire; we have your name – Watkins, eh? Very well, make your statement; don’t go too quick, so as we can get it down.’

  ‘I was on duty ’ere later than usual, Mr Potwitch ’aving asked me to remain on, and ordered his lunching to be sent in, which came as ordered. I was in the lobby from eleven-thirty on, and see Mr Bligh [the clerk] leave at about twelve. After that no one come in at all except Mr Potwitch’s lunching come at one o’clock and the man left in five minutes’ time. Towards the afternoon I became tired of waitin’ and I come upstairs to this first floor. The outer door what lead to the orfice stood open, and I come up to the plate-glass door here. Mr Potwitch he was standing behind the table smoking a cigar, and he laid it down on the mantelpiece and felt in his trouser pockets and took out a key and went across to the safe. And I knocked on the glass, thinkin’ to see if he wanted me to come and take away his tray; but he didn’t take no notice, bein’ engaged with the safe door. Then he got it open and stooped down and seemed to be lifting up a package off of the floor of the safe. And then, sir, I see what looked to be like a great roll of old shabby white flannel, about four to five feet high, fall for’ards out of the inside of the safe right against Mr Potwitch’s shoulder as he was stooping over; and Mr Potwitch, he raised himself up as it were, resting his hands on the package, and gave a exclamation. And I can’t hardly expect you should take what I says, but as true as I stand here I see this roll had a kind of a face in the upper end of it, sir. You can’t be more surprised than what I was, I can assure you, and I’ve seen a lot in me time. Yes, I can describe it if you wish it, sir; it was very much the same as this wall here in colour [the wall had an earth-coloured distemper] and it had a bit of a band tied round underneath. And the eyes, well they was dry-like, and much as if there was two big spiders’ bodies in the holes. Hair? no, I don’t know as there was much hair to be seen; the flannel-stuff was over the top of the ’ead. I’m very sure it warn’t what it should have been. No, I only see it in a flash, but I took it in like a photograft – wish I hadn’t. Yes, sir, it fell right over on to Mr Potwitch’s shoulder, and this face hid in his neck – yes, sir, about where the injury was – more like a ferret going for a rabbit than anythink else; and he rolled over, and of course I tried to get in at the door; but as you know, sir, it were locked on the inside, and all I could do, I rung up everyone, and the surgeon come, and the police and you gentlemen, and you know as much as what I do. If you won’t be requirin’ me any more today I’d be glad to be getting off home; it’s shook me up more than I thought for.’

  ‘Well,’ said one of the inspectors, when they were left alone; and ‘Well?’ said the other inspector; and, after a pause, ‘What’s the surgeon’s report again? You’ve got it there. Yes. Effect on the blood like the worst kind of snakebite; death almost instantaneous. I’m glad of that, for his sake; he was a nasty sight. No case for detaining this man Watkins, anyway; we know all about him. And what about this safe, now? We’d better go over it again; and, by the way, we haven’t opened that package he was busy with when he died.’

  ‘Well, handle it careful,’ said the other; ‘there might be this snake in it, for what you know. Get a light into the corners of the place, too. Well, there’s room for a shortish person to stand up in; but what about ventilation?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the other slowly, as he explored the safe with an electric torch, ‘perhaps they didn’t require much of that. My word! it strikes warm coming out of that place! like a vault, it is. But here, what’s this bank-like of dust all spread out into the room? That must have come there since the door was opened; it would sweep it all away if you moved it – see? Now what do you make of that?’

  ‘Make of it? About as much as I make of anything else in this case. One of London’s mysteries this is going to be, by what I can see. And I don’t believe a photographer’s box full of large-size old-fashioned prayer-books is going to take us much further. For that’s just what your package is.’

  It was a natural but hasty utterance. The preceding narrative shows that there was, in fact, plenty of material for constructing a case; and when once Messrs Davidson and Witham had brought their end to Scotland Yard, the join-up was soon made, and the circle completed.

  To the relief of Mrs Porter, the owners of Brockstone decided not to replace the books in the chapel; they repose, I believe, in a safe-deposit in town. The police have their own methods of keeping certain matters out of the newspapers; otherwise, it can hardly be supposed that Watkins’s evidence about Mr Poschwitz’s death could have failed to furnish a good many headlines of a startling character to the press.

  A Neighbour’s Landmark

  ‘Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up of those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser works of mercy. Happy in these employments, and in occasionally opening an eighteenth-century octavo, to see ‘what it is all about’, and to conclude after five minutes that it deserves the seclusion it now enjoys, I had reached the middle of a wet August afternoon at Betton Court – ’

  ‘You begin in a deeply Victorian manner,’ I said; ‘is this to continue?’

  ‘Remember, if you please,’ said my friend, looking at me over his spectacles, ‘that I am a Victorian by birth and education, and that the Victorian tree may not unreasonably be expected to bear Victorian fruit. Further, remember that an immense quantity of clever and thoughtful rubbish is now being written about the Victorian age. Now,’ he went on, laying his papers on his knee, ‘that article, “The Stricken Years”, in The Times Literary Supplement the other day – able? Of course it is able; but, oh! my soul and body, do just hand it over here, will you? it’s on the table by you.’

  ‘I thought you were to read me something you had written,’ I said, without moving, ‘but, of course – ’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Very well, then, I’ll do that first. But I should like to show you afterwards what I mean. However – ’

  And he lifted the sheets of paper and adjusted his spectacles. ‘ – at Betton Court, where, generations back, two country-house libraries had been fused together, and no descendant of either stock had ever faced the task of picking them over or getting rid of duplicates. Now I am not setting out to tell of rarities I may have discovered, of Shakespeare quartos bound up in volumes of political tracts, or anything of that kind, but of an experience which befell me in the course of my search – an experience which I cannot either explain away or fit into the scheme of my ordinary life.

  ‘It was, I said, a wet August afternoon, rather windy, rather warm. Outside the window great trees were stirring and weeping. Between them were stretches of green and yellow country (for the court stands high on a hillside), and blue hills far off, veiled with rain. Up above was a very restless and hopeless movement of low clouds travelling north-west. I had suspended my work – if you call it work – for some minutes to stand at the window and look at these things, and at the greenhouse roof on the right with the water sliding off it, and the church tower that rose behind that. It was all in favour of my going steadily on; no likelihood of a clearing up for hours to come. I, therefore, returned to the shelves, lifted out a set of eight or nine volumes, lettered “Tracts”, and conveyed them to the table for closer examination.

  ‘They were for the most part of the reign of Anne. There was as good deal of The Late Peace, The Late War, The Conduct of the Allies; there were also Letters to a Convocation Man; Sermons preached at St Michael’s, Queenhithe; Enquiries into a late Charge of the Rt Revd the Lord Bishop of Winchester (or more probably Winton) to his Clergy – things all very lively once, and indeed still keeping so much of their old sting that I was tempted to betake myself into an armchair in the window, and give them more time than I had intended. Besides, I was somewhat tired by the day. The church clock struck four, and it really was four, for in 1889 there was no saving of daylight.

  ‘So I settled myself. And first I glanced over some of the war pamphlets, and pleased myself by trying to pick out Swift by his style from among the undistinguished. But the war pamphlets needed more knowledge of the geography of the Low Countries than I had. I turned to the church, and read several pages of what the Dean of Canterbury said to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge on the occasion of their anniversary meeting in 1711. When I turned over to a letter from a beneficed clergyman in the country to the Bishop of C—r, I was becoming languid, and I gazed for some moments at the following sentence without surprise: “This abuse (for I think myself justified in calling it by that name) is one which I am persuaded Your Lordship would (if ’twere known to you) exert your utmost efforts to do away. But I am also persuaded that you know no more of its existence than (in the words of the country song) –

  That which walks in Betton Wood

  Knows why it walks or why it cries.”

  ‘Then indeed I did sit up in my chair, and run my finger along the lines to make sure that I had read them right. There was no mistake. Nothing more was to be gathered from the rest of the pamphlet. The next paragraph definitely changed the subject: “But I have said enough upon this Topick,” were its opening words. So discreet, too, was the namelessness of the beneficed clergyman that he refrained even from initials, and had his letter printed in London.

  ‘The riddle was of a kind that might faintly interest anyone: to me, who have dabbled a good deal in works of folklore, it was really exciting. I was set upon solving it – on finding out, I mean, what story lay behind it; and, at least, I felt myself lucky in one point, that, whereas I might have come on the paragraph in some college library far away, here I was at Betton, on the very scene of action.

  ‘The church clock struck five, and a single stroke on a gong followed. This, I knew, meant tea. I heaved myself out of the deep chair, and obeyed the summons.

  ‘My host and I were alone at the court. He came in soon, wet from a round of landlord’s errands, and with pieces of local news which had to be passed on before I could make an opportunity of asking whether there was a particular place in the parish that was still known as Betton Wood.

  ‘ “Betton Wood,” he said, “was a short mile away, just on the crest of Betton Hill, and my father stubbed up the last bit of it when it paid better to grow corn than scrub oaks. Why do you want to know about Betton Wood?”

  ‘ “Because,” I said, “in an old pamphlet I was reading just now, there are two lines of a country song which mention it, and they sound as if there was a story belonging to them. Someone says that someone else knows no more of whatever it may be –

  Than that which walks in Betton Wood

  Knows why it walks or why it cries.”

  ‘ “Goodness,” said Philipson, “I wonder whether that was why . . . I must ask old Mitchell.” He muttered something else to himself, and took some more tea, thoughtfully.

  ‘ “Whether that was why – ?” I said.

  ‘ “Yes, I was going to say, whether that was why my father had the wood stubbed up. I said just now it was to get more ploughland, but I don’t really know if it was. I don’t believe he ever broke it up: it’s rough pasture at this moment. But there’s one old chap at least who’d remember something of it – old Mitchell.” He looked at his watch. “Blest if I don’t go down there and ask him. I don’t think I’ll take you,” he went on; “he’s not so likely to tell anything he thinks is odd if there’s a stranger by.”

  ‘ “Well, mind you remember every single thing he does tell. As for me, if it clears up, I shall go out, and if it doesn’t, I shall go on with the books.”

  ‘It did clear up, sufficiently at least to make me think it worth while to walk up the nearest hill and look over the country. I did not know the lie of the land; it was the first visit I had paid to Philipson, and this was the first day of it. So I went down the garden and through the wet shrubberies with a very open mind, and offered no resistance to the indistinct impulse – was it, however, so very indistinct? – which kept urging me to bear to the left whenever there was a forking of the path. The result was that after ten minutes or more of dark going between dripping rows of box and laurel and privet, I was confronted by a stone arch in the gothic style set in the stone wall which encircled the whole demesne. The door was fastened by a spring-lock, and I took the precaution of leaving this on the jar as I passed out into the road. That road I crossed, and entered a narrow lane between hedges which led upward; and that lane I pursued at a leisurely pace for as much as half a mile, and went on to the field to which it led. I was now on a good point of vantage for taking in the situation of the court, the village, and the environment; and I leant upon a gate and gazed westward and downward.

  ‘I think we must all know the landscapes – are they by Birket Foster, or somewhat earlier? – which, in the form of woodcuts, decorate the volumes of poetry that lay on the drawing-room tables of our fathers and grandfathers – volumes in “Art cloth, embossed bindings”; that strikes me as being the right phrase. I confess myself an admirer of them, and especially of those which show the peasant leaning over a gate in a hedge and surveying, at the bottom of a downward slope, the village church spire – embosomed amid venerable trees, and a fertile plain intersected by hedgerows, and bounded by distant hills, behind which the orb of day is sinking (or it may be rising) amid level clouds illumined by his dying (or nascent) ray. The expressions employed here are those which seem appropriate to the pictures I have in mind; and were there opportunity, I would try to work in the vale, the grove, the cot, and the flood. Anyhow, they are beautiful to me, these landscapes, and it was just such a one that I was now surveying. It might have come straight out of Gems of Sacred Song, selected by a Lady and given as a birthday present to Eleanor Philipson in 1852 by her attached friend Millicent Graves. All at once I turned as if I had been stung. There thrilled into my right ear and pierced my head a note of incredible sharpness, like the shriek of a bat, only ten times intensified – the kind of thing that makes one wonder if something has not given way in one’s brain. I held my breath, and covered my ear, and shivered. Something in the circulation: another minute or two, I thought, and I return home. But I must fix the view a little more firmly in my mind. Only, when I turned to it again, the taste was gone out of it. The sun was down behind the hill, and the light was off the fields, and when the clock bell in the church tower struck seven, I thought no longer of kind mellow evening hours of rest, and scents of flowers and woods on evening air; and of how someone on a farm a mile or two off would be saying “How clear Betton bell sounds tonight after the rain!”; but instead images came to me of dusty beams and creeping spiders and savage owls up in the tower, and forgotten graves and their ugly contents below, and of flying time and all it had taken out of my life. And just then into my left ear – close as if lips had been put within an inch of my head, the frightful scream came thrilling again.