The Haunting Of Low Fennel - free ebook by Sax Rohmer

THE HAUNTING OF LOW FENNEL

BY SAX ROHMER Author of “Brood of the Witch Queen,” “The Quest of the Sacred Slipper,” etc., etc. London: C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. Henrietta Street, W.C. 2 Printed in Great Britain by Butler &amp; Tanner Ltd., Frome and London...

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I

“There’s Low Fennel,” said Major Dale. We pulled up short on the brow of the hill. Before me lay a little valley carpeted with heather, purple slopes hemming it in. A group of four tall firs guarded the house, which was couched in the hollow of the dip—a low, rambling building, in parts showing evidence of great age and in other parts of the modern improver. “That’s the new wing,” continued the Major, raising his stick; “projecting out this way. It’s the only addition I’ve made to the house, whi

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II

Filled with the liveliest curiosity, I set out to explore Low Fennel. First I directed my attention to the exterior, commencing my investigations from the front. That part of the building on either side of the door was evidently of Tudor date, with a Jacobean wing to the west containing apartments overlooking the lawn—the latter a Georgian addition; whilst the new east wing, built by Major Dale, carried the building out almost level with the clump of fir-trees, and into the very heart of the fer

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III

Aubrey Wales stayed to dinner, and since he had no opportunity of dressing, his presence afforded a welcome excuse for the other members of the party. The night was appallingly hot; the temperature being such as to preclude the slightest exertion. The Major was an excellent host, but I could see that the presence of the younger man irritated him, and at times the conversation grew strained; there was an uncomfortable tension. So that altogether I was not sorry when Mrs. Dale left the table and t

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IV

The following day I lunched alone with the Major, Mrs. Dale being absent on a visit. It had been impossible to keep the truth from her (or what we knew of it) and at present I could not quite foresee the issue of last night’s affair. Young Wales, who had been driven home in a car sent from his place at a late hour, had not since put in an appearance; and it was sufficiently evident that Mrs. Dale would not welcome him should he do so, the hysterical panic which he had exhibited on the previous n

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V

As I had hoped, for my plans were dependent upon it, the mercury towered steadily throughout that day, and showed no signs of falling at night; the phenomenal heat-wave continued uninterruptedly. The household was late retiring, for the grey lord—Fear—had imposed his will upon all within it. Every shadow in the rambling old building became a cavern of horrors, every sound that disturbed the ancient timbers a portent and a warning. That the servants proposed to leave en masse at the earliest poss

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VI

Close upon a month had elapsed. Major Dale and I sat in my study in London. “Young Aubrey Wales has gone abroad,” I said. “He’s ashamed to show up again, I suppose.” “H’m!” growled the Major—“I’ve got nothing to crow about, myself, by the Lord Harry! There’s courage and courage, sir! I’ve led more than one bayonet attack, but I’d never qualify for the D.S.O. as a ghost-hunter!—never, by Gad!—never!” He reached out for the decanter; then withdrew his hand. “Doctor’s orders,” he muttered. “Discipl

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I

The merciless sun beat down upon the little caravan, winding its way upward and ever upward to the hill-land. Beneath stretched a panorama limned in feverish greens and unhealthy yellows; scarlike rocks striated the jungle, clothing the foothills, and through the dancing air, viewed from the arid heights, they had the appearance of running water. Swamps to the south-east showed like unhealing wounds upon the face of the landscape; beyond them spread the muddy river waters, the bank of the stream

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II

Dusk fell, a quick curtain, and the lamps of night shone out with glorious brilliancy, illuminating the little plateau. The tents gleamed whitely in the cold radiance; there was a dancing redness to show where the fire had been built, with figures grouped dimly around it. On a jagged rock, which started up from the very heart of a thicket, black against the newly risen moon, was silhouetted the figure of Major Fayne. Night things swept the air about him, and rustled in the cane brake below him;

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III

Moreen lay, sleepless, wide-eyed, staring up at the roof of the tent. She had eaten, could eat, nothing, but she was consumed by a parching thirst. The sounds of the night had no terrors for her; indeed, she scarcely noticed them, for she had other and more dreadful things to think of. Ramsa Lal had been her father’s servant; him she could trust. But the others—the others were Major Fayne’s. They were no more than spies upon her; guards. What did it mean, this sudden dash from the bungalow into

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IV

Dawn saw the dreadful march resumed. Major Fayne now exhibited unmistakable traces of his course of heavy drinking. He brought up the rear as hitherto, and often tarried far behind where some peculiar formation of the path enabled him to study the country already traversed. He had altered the route of the march, and now they were leaving the Shan Hills upon the north-east and dipping down to a chasm-like valley through which ran a tributary of the Selween River. Since the dry season was commence

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V

The temple stood in a kind of clearing. Grotesquely horrible figures guarded the time-worn entrance. Moreen drew a deep breath of relief on emerging from the jungle path by which, amid the rustle of retreating snakes, they had come, but shrank back affrighted from the blackness of the ruined doorway. Ramsa Lal stood the lantern upon the stump of a broken pillar, where its faint yellow light was paled by the moon-rays. “It is you who must restore,” he said. One by one he handed her the jewel-encr

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VI

“Mem Sahib!” Moreen opened her eyes. She lay, propped against a saddle, at the camp beside the jungle. She shuddered icily. “Ramsa Lal—how——” “I carried the Mem Sahib! the treasures of the temple I restored to their resting-place——” “And the—the other——” “The door that the Mem Sahib opened she opened by the decree of Fate. It was not for Ramsa Lal to close it. That is a passage——” “Yes?” “—To the tomb of the great one who is buried in the temple!” “Oh! heavens! that white thing——” She raised her

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VII

At about that same hour, Deputy-Commissioner Jack Harringay opened his eyes and looked wonderingly at a grey-haired, white-aproned nurse who sat watching him. “Don’t speak, Mr. Harringay,” she said soothingly. “You have been very ill, but you are on the high road to recovery now.” “Nurse!...” “Please don’t speak; I know what you would ask. There has been no scandal. The attack upon you was ascribed to robbers. You have been delirious, Mr. Harringay, and have told me—many things. I am old enough,

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I

A tropically hot day had been followed by a stuffy and oppressive evening. In the tiny sitting-room of our tiny cottage, my friend—who, for the purposes of this story, I shall call Mr. East—by the light of a vapour lamp was busily arranging a number of botanical specimens collected that morning. His briar fumed furiously between his teeth, and, his grim, tanned face lowered over his work, he brought to bear upon this self-imposed task all the intense nervous energy which was his. I sat by the op

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II

Five minutes later, East and I set out across the moor, leaving Miss Baird at the cottage. By reason of the lonely situation, and the fact that the nearest house, The Warrens, was fully a mile and a half away, no other arrangement was possible, since delay could not be entertained. East had managed to glean some few important facts. Sir Jeffrey, whose museum at The Warrens was justly celebrated, had been to London that day to attend an auction at Sotheby’s. His Greek secretary, Mr. Damopolon, an

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III

At East’s request (for my friend was a man of very great influence) the police, beyond the unavoidable formalities, took no steps to apprehend the murderer of Sir Jeffrey. East had a long interview with the dead man’s daughter, and, shortly afterwards, went off to London, leaving me to my own devices. The subject of the strange death of the baronet naturally engrossed my attention to the exclusion of all else. Especially, my mind kept reverting to the tracks which we had discovered leading from

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IV

Again I sat in the fine old library of The Warrens. At the further end of the long, book-laden table, facing me, sat East; Mr. Damopolon occupied a chair on the right, and midway between us, in the centre of the table, presiding over that strange meeting, was the fateful blue monkey. “You see, Mr. Damopolon,” said East, “I knew that Sir Jeffrey was carrying this thing”—he indicated the image—“at the time of his death, and, since it had disappeared, I assumed at first that it had been the motive

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I

“Well , Harry, my boy, and what’s the latest news from Venice?” Harry Lorian stretched his long legs and lay back in his chair. “I had a letter from the governor this morning, Colonel. He appears to be filling his portfolio with studies of windows and doorways and stair-rails and the other domestic necessities dear to his architectural soul!” Colonel Reynor laughed in his short, gruff way, as my friend, Lorian, gazing sleepily about the quaint old hall in which we sat, but always bringing his ga

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II

Following dinner, the men—or, as my friend has it, “the gunners”—drifted into the hall. The hall at Ragstaff Park is fitted as a smoking lounge. It dates back to Tudor days and affords some magnificent examples of mediæval panelling. At every point the eye meets the device of a man with a ragged staff—from which the place derives its name, and which is the crest of the Reynors. A conversation took place to which, at the time, I attached small importance, but which, later, assumed a certain signi

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III

With that abruptness characteristic of the coast and season, a high wind had sprung up since the party had separated. Now a continuous booming filled the night, telling how the wrath of the North Atlantic spent itself upon the western rocks. To a town-dweller, more used to the vaguely soothing hum of the metropolis, this grander music of the elements was a poor sedative. Sleep evaded me, tired though I was, and I presently found myself drifting into that uncomfortable frame of mind between dream

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IV

During lunch, a Mr. Findon, who had driven over with one of the Colonel’s neighbours, asked Sybil Reynor whether the peculiar and far from beautiful ring which she invariably wore was Oriental. From his conversation I gathered that he was something of an expert. “It is generally supposed to be Phœnician, Mr. Findon,” she answered; and slipping it from her finger she passed it to him. “It is my lot in life to wear it always, hideous though it is!” “Indeed! An heirloom, I suppose?” “Yes,” replied

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V

Peters was awakened, the horse stabled and ourselves admitted without arousing another soul. As we came around from the back of the house (we had not entered by the main door), and, candles in hand, passed through the hall, nothing showed as having been disturbed. “Don’t breathe a word of our suspicions to anyone,” counselled Lorian. “What are our suspicions?” said I. “At present,” he replied, “indefinable.” To-night the distant murmur of the sea proved very soothing, and I slept soundly. I was

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VI

Ragstaff Park slumbered once more. But Lorian sat upon the edge of my bed, smoking and thinking hard. He had been to his own room for the print of the Riddle, and it lay upon a chair before him. “Listen to this,” he said suddenly: “( a ) Some one breaks into the governor’s studio, and takes nothing. His drawings of the Ragstaff Riddle happen to be at my studio. ( b ) You hear a noise in the night, and see (1) a bright light; (2) a gleaming rod. ( c ) You and I see a bright light on the following

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I

Jack Dillon came to Hollow Grange on a thunderous black evening when an ebony cloud crested the hill-top above, and, catching the upflung rays of sunset, glowed redly like the pall of Avalon in the torchlight. Through the dense ranks of firs cloaking the slopes a breeze, presaging the coming storm, whispered evilly, and here in the hollow the birds were still. The man who had driven him from the station glanced at him, with a curiosity thinly veiled. “What about your things, sir?” he inquired. D

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II

Jack Dillon leant from his open window and looked out over the valley to where a dull red glow crowned the hill-top. There was a fire somewhere in the neighbourhood of the distant town; probably a building had been struck by lightning. The storm had passed, although thunder was still audible dimly, like the roll of muffled drums or a remote bombardment. Stillness had reclaimed Hollow Grange. He was restless, uneasy; he sought to collate his impressions of the place and its master. Twelve years h

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III

“There’s many a fine walk hereabouts,” said the old man seated in the arm-chair in the corner of the Threshers’ Inn bar-parlour. Dillon nodded encouragingly. “There’s Ganton-on-the-Hill,” continued the ancient. “You can see the sea from there in clear weather; and many’s the time I’ve heard the guns in France from Upper Crobury of a still night. Then, four mile away, there’s the haunted Grange, though nobody’s allowed past the gate. Not as nobody wants to be,” he added, reflectively. “The haunte

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IV

“Yes,” admitted Phryné, “it is true. There were two of them.” “And”—Dillon hesitated—“were they in love with you?” “Of course,” said Phryné, naïvely. “But you——” Phryné shook her curly head. “I rather liked the French boy, but I do not believe anything that a Frenchman says to a girl; and Harry, the other, was handsome, but so silly....” “So you did not love either of them?” “Of course not.” “But,” said Dillon, and impulsively he swept her into his arms, “you are going to love me.” One quick upw

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V

Enlightenment came about in this fashion—seeking to quench a feverish thirst, Dillon discovered that no glass had been left in his room. He determined to fetch one from the buffet cupboard downstairs. Softly, in slippered feet, he descended the stairs and was crossing the hallway when he kicked something—a small book, he thought—that lay there upon the floor. Groping, he found it, slipped it into the pocket of his dressing-gown, and entered the dining-room. He found a tumbler without difficulty,

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Introductory

Saville Grainger will long be remembered by the public as a brilliant journalist and by his friends as a confirmed misogynist. His distaste for the society of women amounted to a mania, and to Grainger a pretty face was like a red rag to a bull. This was all the more extraordinary and, for Grainger, more painful, because he was one of the most handsome men I ever knew—very dark, with wonderful flashing eyes and the features of an early Roman—or, as I have since thought, of an aristocratic Orient

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The Manuscript

Two years have elapsed since I quitted the world, and the presence in Egypt of a one-time colleague, of which I have been advised, prompts me to put on record these particulars of the strangest, most wonderful, and most beautiful experience which has ever befallen any man. I do not expect my story to be believed. The scepticism of the material world of Fleet Street will consume my statement with its devouring fires. But I do not care. The old itching to make a “story” is upon me. As a “story” le

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I

“He is the lord of the desert, Effendi,” declared Mohammed the dragoman. “From the Valley of Zered to Damascus he is known and loved, but feared. They say”—he lowered his voice—“that he is a great welee , and that he is often seen in the street of the attars, having the appearance of a simple old man; but in the desert he is like a bitter apple, a viper and a calamity! Overlord is he of the Bedouins, and all the sons of the desert bow to Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah.” “What is a welee

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II

The crowd in the bazaar was excessive, and the bent old figure which laboured beneath a nondescript burden, wrapped up in a blue cloth, passed from the noisiness out into the narrow street which ran at right-angles with the lane of many shops. Perhaps the old Arab was deaf, perhaps wearied to the point of exhaustion; but, from whatever cause, he ignored, or was unaware of, the oncoming arabeeyeh , whose driver had lost control of his horse. Even the shrill scream of the corpulent, white-veiled G

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III

The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hair tent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume of the Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends and one side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side before which he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion before which hung a goat-hair curtain. This was the “house of hair” of the Sheikh El-Suleym, of the Masr-Bishareen—El-Suleym, “the Regicide” outcast of t

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IV

Mohammed the dragoman, with two hotel servants, came upon Graham some time later, gagged and bound behind a sand hillock less than five hundred yards from Mena House. They had him on his feet in an instant, unbound; and his face was ghastly—for he knew too well what the outrage portended. “Quick!” he said hoarsely. “How long is she gone?” Mohammed was trembling wildly. “Nearly an hour, Effendi—nearly an hour. Allah preserve us, what shall we do? I heard it in Cairo to-night—it is all over the ba

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V

The most simple Oriental character is full of complexity. Mohammed the dragoman, by birth and education a thief, by nature a sluggard, spared no effort to reach Cairo in the shortest space of time humanly possible. The source of his devotion is obscure. Perhaps it was due to a humble admiration which John Graham’s attempt to strangle him could not alter, or perhaps to a motive wholly unconnected with mundane matters. Certain it is that a sort of religious fervour latterly had possessed the man.

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VI

“ Wa-llah! she is dead, and we have slain her!” El-Suleym’s Bedouins stood before the pillar in the temple, and fear was in their eyes. They unbound the girl, beautiful yet in her marble pallor, and lowered her rigid body to the ground. They looked one at another, and many a glance was turned toward the Nile. Then the leader of the party extended a brown hand, pointing to the tethered horses. They passed from the temple, muttering. No one among them dared to brave the wrath of the terrible sheik

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