Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne
Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this interesting
fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
which I was rereading, and by which I was requested
to present myself at his house not later than seven
o’clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki had,
as I and the others of his strictly limited circle
of friends knew, been away in Kent for the past three
weeks; but beyond that, we had no knowledge.
Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
only when he was ready to speak. When this stage
arrived, I and his three other friends Jessop,
Arkright, and Taylor would receive a card
or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever
willingly missed, for after a thoroughly sensible
little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down into his
big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks.
Then he would begin to talk.
Upon this particular night I was the
first to arrive and found Carnacki sitting, quietly
smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me firmly
by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again,
never having uttered a word.
For my part, I said nothing either.
I knew the man too well to bother him with questions
or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
Presently the three others turned up and after that
we spent a comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself
down into his great chair, as I have said was his
habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of
us, if I may so express it, made ourselves cozy, each
after his own particular manner. A minute or
so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary
remarks, and going straight to the subject of the
story we knew he had to tell:
“I have just come back from
Sir Alfred Jarnock’s place at Burtontree, in
South Kent,” he began, without removing his gaze
from the fire. “Most extraordinary things
have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over
and see whether I could help to clear matters up a
bit. I went.
“When I got there, I found that
they have an old Chapel attached to the castle which
has had quite a distinguished reputation for being
what is popularly termed ‘haunted.’
They have been rather proud of this, as I managed
to discover, until quite lately when something very
disagreeable occurred, which served to remind them
that family ghosts are not always content, as I might
say, to remain purely ornamental.
“It sounds almost laughable,
I know, to hear of a long-respected supernatural phenomenon
growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
the tale of the haunting was considered as little more
than an old myth, except after nightfall, when possibly
it became more plausible seeming.
“But however this may be, there
is no doubt at all but that what I might term the
Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become
suddenly dangerous deadly dangerous too,
the old butler being nearly stabbed to death one night
in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
“It is, in fact, this dagger
which is popularly supposed to ‘haunt’
the Chapel. At least, there has been always a
story handed down in the family that this dagger would
attack any enemy who should dare to venture into the
Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this
had been taken with just about the same amount of
seriousness that people take most ghost tales, and
that is not usually of a worryingly real nature.
I mean that most people never quite know how much
or how little they believe of matters ab-human or
ab-normal, and generally they never have an opportunity
to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I
am as big a skeptic concerning the truth of ghost
tales as any man you are likely to meet; only I am
what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am
not given to either believing or disbelieving things
‘on principle,’ as I have found many idiots
prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported
‘hauntings’ as unproven until I have examined
into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy.
But the hundredth! Well, if it were not for the
hundredth, I should have few stories to tell you eh?
“Of course, after the attack
on the butler, it became evident that there was at
least ‘something’ in the old story concerning
the dagger, and I found everyone in a half belief
that the queer old weapon did really strike the butler,
either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in
the hand of some invisible thing or monster of the
Outer World!
“From considerable experience,
I knew that it was much more likely that the butler
had been ‘knifed’ by some vicious and quite
material human!
“Naturally, the first thing
to do, was to test this probability of human agency,
and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination
of the people who knew most about the tragedy.
“The result of this examination,
both pleased and surprised me, for it left me with
very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
of those extraordinary rare ‘true manifestations’
of the extrusion of a Force from the Outside.
In more popular phraseology a genuine case
of haunting.
“These are the facts: On
the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred Jarnock’s
household had attended family service, as usual, in
the Chapel. You see, the Rector goes over to
officiate twice each Sunday, after concluding his
duties at the public Church about three miles away.
“At the end of the service in
the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his son Mr. George
Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went
’round, putting out the candles.
“Suddenly, the Rector remembered
that he had left his small prayer book on the Communion
table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler
to get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
“Now I have particularly called
your attention to this because it is important in
that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner
at an extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector’s
turning to speak to Bellett had naturally caused both
Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the direction
of the butler, and it was at this identical instant
and whilst all three were looking at him, that the
old butler was stabbed there, full in the
candlelight, before their eyes.
“I took the opportunity to call
early upon the Rector, after I had questioned Mr.
George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place
of Sir Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a
nervous and shaken condition as a result of the happening,
and his son wished him to avoid dwelling upon the
scene as much as possible.
“The Rector’s version
was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me
the whole affair Bellett, up at the chancel
gate, going for the prayer book, and absolutely alone;
and then the blow, out of the Void, he described
it; and the force prodigious the
old man being driven headlong into the body of the
Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector
said, his benevolent old eyes bright and intense with
the effort he had actually witnessed, in defiance
of all that he had hitherto believed.
“When I left him, he went back
to the writing which he had put aside when I appeared.
I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear
old chap, and I should certainly like to have heard
it.
“The last man I visited was
the butler. He was, of course, in a frightfully
weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing
that did not point to there being a Power abroad in
the Chapel. He told the same tale, in every minute
particle, that I had learned from the others.
He had been just going up to put out the altar candles
and fetch the Rector’s book, when something
struck him an enormous blow high up on the left breast
and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
“Examination had shown that
he had been stabbed by the dagger of which
I will tell you more in a moment that hung
always above the altar. The weapon had entered,
fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous
force of the blow, the dagger itself being driven
clean through the body, and out through the scapula
behind.
“The poor old fellow could not
talk much, and I soon left him; but what he had told
me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
person had been within yards of him when he was attacked;
and, as I knew, this fact was verified by three capable
and responsible witnesses, independent of Bellett
himself.
“The thing now was to search
the Chapel, which is small and extremely old.
It is very massively built, and entered through only
one door, which leads out of the castle itself, and
the key of which is kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock, the
butler having no duplicate.
“The shape of the Chapel is
oblong, and the altar is railed off after the usual
fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the
place; but none in the chancel, which is bare, except
for the tall candlesticks, and the chancel rail, beyond
which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
“Above the altar hangs the ‘waeful
dagger,’ as I had learned it was named.
I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum,
which describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal
properties. I took the dagger down, and examined
it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering
to a rounded but sharp point, rather peculiar.
It is double-edged.
“The metal sheath is curious
for having a crosspiece, which, taken with the fact
that the sheath itself is continued three parts up
the hilt of the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion),
gives it the appearance of a cross. That this
is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other,
in Latin, is the inscription: ‘Vengeance
is Mine, I will Repay.’ A quaint and rather
terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade
of the dagger is graven in old English capitals:
I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt
there is carved deeply a Pentacle.
“This is a pretty accurate description
of the peculiar old weapon that has had the curious
and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either
of its own accord or in the hand of something invisible)
to strike murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family
who may chance to enter the Chapel after nightfall.
I may tell you here and now, that before I left, I
had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me;
for I tested the deadliness of the thing myself.
“As you know, however, at this
point of my investigation, I was still at that stage
where I considered the existence of a supernatural
Force unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the
Chapel drastically, sounding and scrutinizing the
walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
“At the end of this search,
I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of the
groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion,
and by the evening of the third day I had proved to
my entire satisfaction that there is no place in the
whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress
to and from the Chapel is through the doorway which
leads into the castle, the door of which was always
kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course,
that this doorway is the only entrance practicable
to material people.
“Yes, as you will see, even
had I discovered some other opening, secret or otherwise,
it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery
of the incredible attack, in a normal fashion.
For the butler, as you know, was struck in full sight
of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched
him.... ’Out of the Void,’ the
Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack.
’Out of the Void!’ A strange feeling it
gives one eh?
“And this is the thing that
I had been called in to bottom!
“After considerable thought,
I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the
Chapel, and keep a constant watch upon the dagger.
But to this, the old knight a little, wizened,
nervous man would not listen for a moment.
He, at least, I felt assured had no doubt of the reality
of some dangerous supernatural Force a roam at night
in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been
his habit every evening to lock the Chapel door, so
that no one might foolishly or heedlessly run the
risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing
after what had happened to the butler.
“I could see that Sir Alfred
Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would evidently
have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make
the experiment and any harm come to me; so I said
nothing in argument; and presently, pleading the fatigue
of his years and health, he said goodnight, and left
me; having given me the impression of being a polite
but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
“That night, however, whilst
I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve the thing
I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark,
without making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On
the morrow, when I borrowed the key, I would take
an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then,
with my private key, I could do just what I liked.
“In the morning I carried out
my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to take
a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When
I had done this I locked up the Chapel and handed
the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having first taken
an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
plate in its slide with me; but
the camera I had left exactly as it was, as I wanted
to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
from the same position.
“I took the dark slide into
Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the impress.
The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was
something of a locksmith and promised to let me have
my duplicate, finished, if I would call in two hours.
This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a photographer
where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling
him I would call next day. At the end of the
two hours I went for my key and found it ready, much
to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
“After dinner that evening,
I played billiards with young Jarnock for a couple
of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went
off to my room, telling him I was feeling awfully
tired. He nodded and told me he felt the same
way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle
as soon as possible.
“I locked the door of my room,
then from under the bed where I had hidden
them earlier in the evening I drew out several
fine pieces of plate armor, which I had removed from
the armory. There was also a shirt of chain mail,
with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the
head.
“I buckled on the plate armor,
and found it extraordinarily uncomfortable, and over
all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
about armor, but from what I have learned since, I
must have put on parts of two suits. Anyway,
I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to move
my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the
thing I was thinking of doing called for some sort
of protection for my body. Over the armor I pulled
on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one
of the side pockets and my repeating flash-light
into the other. My dark lantern I carried in
my hand.
“As soon as I was ready I went
out into the passage and listened. I had been
some considerable time making my preparations and I
found that now the big hall and staircase were in
darkness and all the house seemed quiet. I stepped
back and closed and locked my door. Then, very
slowly and silently I went downstairs to the hall
and turned into the passage that led to the Chapel.
“I reached the door and tried
my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment later
I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me,
and all about me the utter dree silence of the place,
with just the faint showings of the outlines of the
stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and lonesomeness
almost the more apparent.
“Now it would be silly to say
I did not feel queer. I felt very queer indeed.
You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing
there in the dark silence and remembering not only
the legend that was attached to the place, but what
had really happened to the old butler only a little
while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could
believe that something invisible was coming toward
me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I had got to
go through with the business, and I just took hold
of my little bit of courage and set to work.
“First of all I switched on
my light, then I began a careful tour of the place;
examining every corner and nook. I found nothing
unusual. At the chancel gate I held up my lamp
and flashed the light at the dagger. It hung
there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember
thinking of the word ‘demure,’ as I looked
at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable
thoughts.
“I completed the tour of the
place, with a constantly growing awareness of its
utter chill and unkind desolation an atmosphere
of cold dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the
quiet was abominable.
“At the conclusion of my search
I walked across to where I had left my camera focused
upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had
put beneath the tripod I took out a dark slide and
inserted it in the camera, drawing the shutter.
After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was
an intense, brilliant flash, that made the whole of
the interior of the Chapel jump into sight, and disappear
as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern,
I inserted the shutter into the slide, and reversed
the slide, so as to have a fresh plate ready to expose
at any time.
“After I had done this I shut
off my lantern and sat down in one of the pews near
to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to
happen, but I had an extraordinary feeling, almost
a conviction, that something peculiar or horrible
would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
“An hour passed, of absolute
silence. The time I knew by the far-off, faint
chime of a dock that had been erected over the stables.
I was beastly cold, for the whole place is without
any kind of heating pipes or furnace, as I had noticed
during my search, so that the temperature was sufficiently
uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt
like a kind of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate
and frozen with cold and funk. And, you know,
somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
my face. I cannot say whether any of you have
ever had the feeling, but if you have, you will know
just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And then,
all at once, I had a horrible sense that something
was moving in the place. It was not that I could
hear anything but I had a kind of intuitive knowledge
that something had stirred in the darkness. Can
you imagine how I felt?
“Suddenly my courage went.
I put up my mailed arms over my face. I wanted
to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling
that something was hovering over me in the dark.
Talk about fright! I could have shouted if I
had not been afraid of the noise.... And then,
abruptly, I heard something. Away up the aisle,
there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it might be
the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle.
I sat immovable. I was fighting with all my strength
to get back my courage. I could not take my arms
down from over my face, but I knew that I was getting
hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly
I made a mighty effort and lowered my arms. I
held my face up in the darkness. And, I tell
you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought
truly at that moment that I was going to die.
But I think, just then, by the slow revulsion of feeling
which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
that instant, at the thought of having to die, than
at the knowledge of the utter weak cowardice that
had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits, for a time.
“Do I make myself clear?
You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of respect,
which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism;
because, you see, I am not blind to the state of mind
which helped me. I mean that if I had uncovered
my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much
more worthy of mention. But, even as it was,
there were elements in the act, worthy of respect.
You follow me, don’t you?
“And, you know, nothing touched
me, after all! So that, in a little while, I
had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough
to go through with the business without any more funking.
“I daresay a couple of minutes
passed, and then, away up near the chancel, there
came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen.
And suddenly the thought came that the sound I heard
might be the rattle of the dagger above the altar.
It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the
sound was far too heavy and resonant for such a cause.
Yet, as can be easily understood, my reason was bound
to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a time.
I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing
becoming animate, and attacking me, did not occur
to me with any sense of possibility or reality.
I thought rather, in a vague way, of some invisible
monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger.
I remembered the old Rector’s description of
the attack on the butler.... of the void.
And he had described the stupendous force of the blow
as being ‘like the kick of a great horse.’
You can see how uncomfortably my thoughts were running.
“I felt ’round swiftly
and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close
to me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement,
I switched on the light. I flashed it up the
aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I could
see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly,
and sent the jet of light darting across and across
the rear end of the Chapel; then on each side of me,
before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put
me in fear, not a thing that need have set my flesh
thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold, and eternally
silent. You know the feeling.
“I had been standing, whilst
I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I pulled
out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort
of will, switched off the light, and sat down again
in the darkness, to continue my constant watch.
“It seemed to me that quite
half an hour, or even more, must have passed, after
this, during which no sound had broken the intense
stillness. I had grown less nervously tense,
for the flashing of the light ’round the place
had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal it
had given me something of that unreasoned sense of
safety that a nervous child obtains at night, by covering
its head up with the bedclothes. This just about
illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the
workings of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever
Creature, Thing, or Being it was that had made that
extraordinary and horrible attack on the old butler,
it had certainly not been visible.
“And so you must picture me
sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor, and
with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern,
ready, with the other. And then it was, after
this little time of partial relief from intense nervousness,
that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard
something. I listened, tense and rigid, my heart
booming just a little in my ears for a moment; then
I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something
had moved at the top of the aisle. I strained
in the darkness, to hark; and my eyes showed me blackness
within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that I took
no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked
at the dim loom of the stained window at the top of
the chancel, my sight gave me the shapes of vague
shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible
to me, as I felt just then. And suddenly I seemed
to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and repeated,
infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft
tread were coming slowly down the aisle.
“Can you imagine how I felt?
I do not think you can. I did not move, any more
than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but
sat there, stiffened. I fancied now, that
I heard the tread all about the Chapel. And then,
you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could
not hear it that I had never heard it.
“Some particularly long minutes
passed, about this time; but I think my nerves must
have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently
aware of my feelings, to realize that the muscles
of my shoulders ached, with the way that they
must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting
funk; but what I might call the ‘imminent sense
of danger’ seemed to have eased from around
me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that
there was a respite a temporary cessation
of malignity from about me. It is impossible
to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot
see them more clearly than this, myself.
“Yet, you must not picture me
as sitting there, free from strain; for the nerve
tension was so great that my heart action was a little
out of normal control, the blood beat making a dull
booming at times in my ears, with the result that
I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under
such circumstances.
“I was sitting like this, listening,
as I might say with body and soul, when suddenly I
got that hideous conviction again that something was
moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed
to stiffen me, as I sat, and my head appeared to tighten,
as if all the scalp had grown tense. This
was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
and at the same time intense; the whole head pained.
I had a fierce desire to cover my face again with
my mailed arms, but I fought it off. If I had
given way then to that, I should simply have bunked
straight out of the place. I sat and sweated
coldly (that’s the bald truth), with the ‘creep’
busy at my spine....
“And then, abruptly, once more
I thought I heard the sound of that huge, soft tread
on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There
was an awful little silence, during which I had the
feeling that something enormous was bending over toward
me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight
sound from the place where my camera stood a
disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and then a
sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left
hand, and now I snapped it on, desperately, and shone
it straight above me, for I had a conviction that
there was something there. But I saw nothing.
Immediately I flashed the light at the camera, and
along the aisle, but again there was nothing visible.
I wheeled ’round, shooting the beam of light
in a great circle about the place; to and fro I shone
it, jerking it here and there, but it showed me nothing.
“I had stood up the instant
that I had seen that there was nothing in sight over
me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and
see whether the dagger had been touched. I stepped
out of the pew into the aisle, and here I came to
an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel.
A constant, queer prickling went up and down my spine,
and a dull ache took me in the small of the back,
as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new
feeling of terror and horror. I tell you, that
no one who has not been through these kinds of experiences,
has any idea of the sheer, actual physical pain attendant
upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain
that ghostly fright sets up in the human system.
I stood there feeling positively ill. But I got
myself in hand, as it were, in about half a minute,
and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical
tin man, and switching the light from side to side,
before and behind, and over my head continually.
And the hand that held my revolver sweated so much,
that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does
not sound very heroic, does it?
“I passed through the short
chancel, and reached the step that led up to the small
gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from
my lantern upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it’s
all right. Abruptly, it seemed to me that there
was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
chancel gate to peer, holding the light high.
My suspicion was hideously correct. The dagger
had gone. Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
above the altar.
“In a sudden, frightened flash
of imagination, I pictured the thing adrift in the
Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly
beyond visibility. I turned my head stiffly over
to the left, glancing frightenedly behind me, and
flashing the light to help my eyes. In the same
instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left
breast, and hurled backward from the chancel rail,
into the aisle, my armor clanging loudly in the horrible
silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the
corner of a pew front, and brought me up, half stunned.
I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick and shaken;
but the fear that was on me, making little of that
at the moment. I was minus both revolver and
lantern, and utterly bewildered as to just where I
was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling
run in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew.
I jumped back, staggering, got my bearings a little,
and raced down the center of the aisle, putting my
mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the
font, and reeled back. Then I was at the exit.
I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for the
key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly,
for the keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned
the key, burst the door open, and was into the passage.
I slammed the door and leant hard against it, gasping,
whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time
to lock the door upon what was in the Chapel.
I succeeded, and began to feel my way stupidly along
the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come
to the big hall, and so in a little to my room.
“In my room, I sat for a while,
until I had steadied down something to the normal.
After a time I commenced to strip off the armor.
I saw then that both the chain mail and the plate
armor had been pierced over the breast. And,
suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had struck
for my heart.
“Stripping rapidly, I found
that the skin of the breast over the heart had just
been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain
my shirt, nothing more. Only, the whole breast
was badly bruised and intensely painful. You
can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn
the armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I
was not knocked senseless.
“I did not go to bed at all
that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking, and waiting
for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before
Sir Alfred Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide
from him the fact that I had managed a duplicate key.
“So soon as the pale light of
the morning had strengthened sufficiently to show
me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly
down to the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense
nerves, I opened the door. The chill light of
the dawn made distinct the whole place everything
seeming instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet.
Can you get the feeling? I waited several minutes
at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and likewise
my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun
threw an odd beam right in through the big, East window,
making colored sunshine all the length of the Chapel.
And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced myself
to enter.
“I went up the aisle to where
I had overthrown my camera in the darkness. The
legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior
of a pew, and I expected to find the machine smashed
to pieces; yet, beyond that the ground glass was broken,
there was no real damage done.
“I replaced the camera in the
position from which I had taken the previous photography;
but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets,
regretting that I had not taken a second flash picture
at the instant when I heard those strange sounds up
in the chancel.
“Having tidied my photographic
apparatus, I went to the chancel to recover my lantern
and revolver, which had both as you know been
knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found
the lantern lying, hopelessly bent, with smashed lens,
just under the pulpit. My revolver I must have
held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying
there in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned
into the pew corner. It was quite undamaged.
“Having secured these two articles,
I walked up to the chancel rail to see whether the
dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
above the altar. Before, however, I reached the
chancel rail, I had a slight shock; for there on the
floor of the chancel, about a yard away from where
I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure
upon the polished marble pavement. I wonder whether
you will, any of you, understand the nervousness that
took me at the sight of the thing. With a sudden,
unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot
on it, to hold it there. Can you understand?
Do you? And, you know, I could not stoop down
and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I
should think. Afterward, when I had done so,
however, and handled it a little, this feeling passed
away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass.
Quite natural, though, I assure you! Yet it was
a new kind of fear to me. I’m taking no
notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking
about the curiousness of learning in that moment a
new shade or quality of fear that had hitherto been
outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
interest you?
“I examined the dagger, minutely,
turning it over and over in my hands and never as
I suddenly discovered holding it loosely.
It was as if I were subconsciously surprised that
it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even this feeling
passed, largely, after a short while. The curious
weapon showed no signs of the blow, except that the
dull color of the blade was slightly brighter
on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
“Presently, when I had made
an end of staring at the dagger, I went up the chancel
step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling
upon the altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath,
and came outside of the rail again, closing the gate
after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable because
the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed
place. I suppose, without analyzing my feelings
very deeply, I had an unreasoned and only half-conscious
belief that there was a greater probability of danger
when the dagger hung in its five century resting place
than when it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don’t
think this is a very good explanation, when I remember
the demure look the thing seemed to have when
I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only
I know this, that when I had replaced the dagger I
had quite a touch of nerves and I stopped only to
pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst
I examined the weapon, after which I went down the
quiet aisle at a pretty quick walk, and so got out
of the place.
“That the nerve tension had
been considerable, I realized, when I had locked the
door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think
of old Sir Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had
taken such hyperseeming precautions regarding the
Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy
in which the dagger had been concerned.
“I returned to my room, washed,
shaved and dressed, after which I read awhile.
Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to
give me some sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
“Half an hour later I was heading
for Burtontree, as hard as I could walk; for a sudden
idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test.
I reached the town a little before eight thirty, and
found the local photographer with his shutters still
up. I did not wait, but knocked until he appeared
with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing
with his breakfast. In a few words I made clear
that I wanted the use of his dark room immediately,
and this he at once placed at my disposal.
“I had brought with me the slide
which contained the plate that I had used with the
flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work
to develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I
had exposed, that I first put into the solution, but
the second plate, which had been ready in the camera
during all the time of my waiting in the darkness.
You see, the lens had been uncapped all that while,
so that the whole chancel had been, as it were, under
observation.
“You all know something of my
experiments in ‘Lightless Photography,’
that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work
that started me in that direction. Yet, you must
understand, though I was attempting to develop this
‘unexposed’ plate, I had no definite idea
of results nothing more than a vague hope
that it might show me something.
“Yet, because of the possibilities,
it was with the most intense and absorbing interest
that I watched the plate under the action of the developer.
Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the
upper part, and after that others, indistinct and
wavering of outline. I held the negative up to
the light. The marks were rather small, and were
almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but
as I have said, lacked definiteness. Yet, such
as they were, they were sufficient to make me very
excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the
solution.
“For some minutes further I
watched it, lifting it out once or twice to make a
more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the
markings might represent, until suddenly it occurred
to me that in one of two places they certainly had
shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet,
the shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me
careful not to let myself be overimpressed by the
uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills
adrift in me.
“I carried development a little
further, then put the negative into the hypo, and
commenced work upon the other plate. This came
up nicely, and very soon I had a really decent negative
that appeared similar in every respect (except for
the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate,
then having washed both it and the ‘unexposed’
one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them into
methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which
I carried them into the photographer’s kitchen
and dried them in the oven.
“Whilst the two plates were
drying the photographer and I made an enlargement
from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then
we did the same with the two that I had just developed,
washing them as quickly as possible, for I was not
troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
drying them with spirits.
“When this was done I took them
to the window and made a thorough examination, commencing
with the one that appeared to show shadowy daggers
in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged,
I was still unable to feel convinced that the marks
truly represented anything abnormal; and because of
this, I put it on one side, determined not to let
my imagination play too large a part in constructing
weapons out of the indefinite outlines.
“I took up the two other enlargements,
both of the chancel, as you will remember, and commenced
to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
without being able to distinguish any difference in
the scene they portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw
something in which they varied. In the second
enlargement the one made from the flashlight
negative the dagger was not in its sheath.
Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few minutes
before I took the photograph.
“After this discovery I began
to compare the two enlargements in a very different
manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a
pair of calipers from the photographer and with these
I carried out a most methodical and exact comparison
of the details shown in the two photographs.
“Suddenly I came upon something
that set me all tingling with excitement. I threw
the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked
out through the shop into the street. The three
enlargements I took with me, making them into a roll
as I went. At the corner of the street I had the
luck to get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
“I hurried up to my room and
put the photographs way; then I went down to see whether
I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock,
who met me, told me that his father was too unwell
to rise and would prefer that no one entered the Chapel
unless he were about.
“Young Jarnock made a half apologetic
excuse for his father; remarking that Sir Alfred Jarnock
was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
but that, considering what had happened, we must agree
that the need for his carefulness had been justified.
He added, also, that even before the horrible attack
on the butler his father had been just as particular,
always keeping the key and never allowing the door
to be unlocked except when the place was in use for
Divine Service, and for an hour each forenoon when
the cleaners were in.
“To all this I nodded understandingly;
but when, presently, the young man left me I took
my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried
out some intensely interesting and rather weird experiments.
These proved successful to such an extent that I came
out of the place in a perfect fever of excitement.
I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
he was in the morning room.
“‘Come along,’ I
said, when I had found him. ’Please give
me a lift. I’ve something exceedingly strange
to show you.’
“He was palpably very much puzzled,
but came quickly. As we strode along he asked
me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook
my head, asking him to wait a little.
“I led the way to the Armory.
Here I suggested that he should take one side of a
dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the
other. He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered,
and together we carried the thing to the Chapel door.
When he saw me take out my key and open the way for
us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself
in, evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered
the Chapel and I locked the door behind us, after
which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle to
the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon
its round, wooden stand.
“‘Stand back!’ I
shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
open the gate. ‘My God, man! you mustn’t
do that!’
“Do what?” he asked, half-startled
and half-irritated by my words and manner.
“One minute,” I said.
“Just stand to the side a moment, and watch.”
He stepped to the left whilst I took
the dummy in my arms and turned it to face the altar,
so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
well away on the right side, I pressed the back of
the thing so that it leant forward a little upon the
gate, which flew open. In the same instant, the
dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into
the aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the
polished marble floor.
“Good God!” shouted young
Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail, his face
very white.
“Come and look at the thing,”
I said, and led the way to where the dummy lay, its
armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions.
I stooped over it and pointed. There, driven
right through the thick steel breastplate, was the
‘waeful dagger.’
“Good God!” said young
Jarnock again. “Good God! It’s
the dagger! The thing’s been stabbed, same
as Bellett!”
“Yes,” I replied, and
saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of the
Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that
he never budged an inch.
“Come and see how it was done,”
I said, and led the way back to the chancel rail.
From the wall to the left of the altar I took down
a long, curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not
unlike a short spear. The sharp end of this I
inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section
of the post, from the floor upward, bent inward toward
the altar, as though hinged at the bottom. Down
it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing.
As I bent the movable portion lower there came a quick
click and a section of the floor slid to one side,
showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to enclose
the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove
the post down into the niche. Immediately there
was a sharp clang, as some catch snicked in, and held
it against the powerful operating spring.
I went over now to the dummy, and
after a few minute’s work managed to wrench
the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the
old weapon and placed its hilt in a hole near the
top of the post where it fitted loosely, the point
upward. After that I went again to the lever and
gave another strong heave, and the post descended
about a foot, to the bottom of the cavity, catching
there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post
and dagger, and looking no different from the surrounding
surface.
Then I shut the chancel gate, and
we both stood well to one side. I took the spear-like
lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something
sang through the air, striking the bottom wall of
the Chapel. It was the dagger. I showed
Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung
back into place, making the whole post as thick as
the one upon the right-hand side of the gate.
“There!” I said, turning
to the young man and tapping the divided post.
“There’s the ‘invisible’ thing
that used the dagger, but who the deuce is the person
who sets the trap?” I looked at him keenly as
I spoke.
“My father is the only one who
has a key,” he said. “So it’s
practically impossible for anyone to get in and meddle.”
I looked at him again, but it was
obvious that he had not yet reached out to any conclusion.
“See here, Mr. Jarnock,”
I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have done,
considering what I had to say. “Are you
quite sure that Sir Alfred is quite balanced mentally?”
“He looked at me, half frightenedly
and flushing a little. I realized then how badly
I put it.
“‘I I don’t
know,’ he replied, after a slight pause and was
then silent, except for one or two incoherent half
remarks.
“‘Tell the truth,’
I said. ’Haven’t you suspected something,
now and again? You needn’t be afraid to
tell me.’
“‘Well,’ he answered
slowly, ’I’ll admit I’ve thought
Father a little a little strange, perhaps,
at times. But I’ve always tried to think
I was mistaken. I’ve always hoped no one
else would see it. You see, I’m very fond
of the old guvnor.’
“I nodded.
“‘Quite right, too,’
I said. ’There’s not the least need
to make any kind of scandal about this. We must
do something, though, but in a quiet way. No
fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with
your father, and tell him we’ve found out about
this thing.’ I touched the divided post.
“Young Jarnock seemed very grateful
for my advice and after shaking my hand pretty hard,
took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel.
He came back in about an hour, looking rather upset.
He told me that my conclusions were perfectly correct.
It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set the trap, both
on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and
on the past night. Indeed, it seemed that the
old gentleman had set it every night for many years.
He had learnt of its existence from an old manuscript
book in the Castle library. It had been planned
and used in an earlier age as a protection for the
gold vessels of the ritual, which were, it seemed,
kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
“This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock
had utilized, secretly, to store his wife’s
jewelry. She had died some twelve years back,
and the young man told me that his father had never
seemed quite himself since.
“I mentioned to young Jarnock
how puzzled I was that the trap had been set before
the service, on the night that the butler was struck;
for, if I understood him aright, his father had been
in the habit of setting the trap late every night
and unsetting it each morning before anyone entered
the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit
of temporary forgetfulness (natural enough in his
neurotic condition), must have set it too early and
hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
“That is about all there is
to tell. The old man is not (so far as I could
learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense
of the word. He is extremely neurotic and has
developed into a hypochondriac, the whole condition
probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings
and to overmuch of his own company and thoughts.
Indeed, young Jarnock told me that his father would
sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the Chapel.”
Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward
for a spill.
“But you’ve never told
us just how you discovered the secret of the
divided post and all that,” I said, speaking
for the four of us.
“Oh, that!” replied Carnacki,
puffing vigorously at his pipe. “I found on
comparing the photos, that the one taken
in the daytime, showed a thicker left-hand
gatepost, than the one taken at night by the flashlight.
That put me on to the track. I saw at once that
there might be some mechanical dodge at the back of
the whole queer business and nothing at all of an
abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
was simple enough, you know.
“By the way,” he continued,
rising and going to the mantelpiece, “you may
be interested to have a look at the so-called ‘waeful
dagger.’ Young Jarnock was kind enough
to present it to me, as a little memento of my adventure.”
He handed it ’round to us and
whilst we examined it, stood silent before the fire,
puffing meditatively at his pipe.
“Jarnock and I made the trap
so that it won’t work,” he remarked after
a few moments. “I’ve got the dagger,
as you see, and old Bellett’s getting about
again, so that the whole business can be hushed up,
decently. All the same I fancy the Chapel will
never lose its reputation as a dangerous place.
Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in.”
“There’s two things you
haven’t explained yet,” I said. “What
do you think caused the two clangey sounds when you
were in the Chapel in the dark? And do you believe
the soft tready sounds were real, or only a fancy,
with your being so worked up and tense?”
“Don’t know for certain
about the clangs,” replied Carnacki.
“I’ve puzzled quite a
bit about them. I can only think that the spring
which worked the post must have ‘given’
a trifle, slipped you know, in the catch. If
it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of
a ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long
way in the middle of the night when you’re thinking
of ‘ghostesses.’ You can understand
that eh?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And the other
sounds?”
“Well, the same thing I
mean the extraordinary quietness may help
to explain these a bit. They may have been some
usual enough sound that would never have been noticed
under ordinary conditions, or they may have been only
fancy. It is just impossible to say. They
were disgustingly real to me. As for the slithery
noise, I am pretty sure that one of the tripod legs
of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if
it did so, it may easily have jolted the lens cap
off the baseboard, which would account for that queer
little tap which I heard directly after.”
“How do you account for the
dagger being in its place above the altar when you
first examined it that night?” I asked.
“How could it be there, when at that very moment
it was set in the trap?”
“That was my mistake,”
replied Carnacki. “The dagger could not
possibly have been in its sheath at the time, though
I thought it was. You see, the curious cross-hilted
sheath gave the appearance of the complete weapon,
as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger
protrudes very little above the continued portion
of the sheath a most inconvenient arrangement
for drawing quickly!” He nodded sagely at the
lot of us and yawned, then glanced at the clock.
“Out you go!” he said,
in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
“I want a sleep.”
We rose, shook him by the hand, and
went out presently into the night and the quiet of
the Embankment, and so to our homes.