The Fourth Generation

The theory supposed an escaped lunatic – a homicidal maniac, of course; that would account for everything. A maniac – a murderous maniac. He must have been lying concealed in the wood; he must have rushed out armed with his club, like that gorilla. This theory seemed to meet every point in the case. He shut up the book; he had found out the truth; he could now go about his own work again, forgetting the mysterious murder which drove his great-grandfather off his balance.

He sighed with satisfaction. He placed the book in a drawer out of the way; he need not worry any more about the thing. So with another sigh of relief he reached out for his books and returned once more to the study of his “subject.”

Presently he became aware that his eyes were resting on the page without reading it; that his mind was back again to the Book of Extracts, and that in his brain there was forming, without any volition of his own, one or two difficult questions about that maniac. As, for instance, if there had been such a creature wandering in the fields someone would have seen him; he would probably have murdered more than one person while he was in the mood for murder. There was a little boy, for instance, scaring birds; he would have killed that little boy. Then, the fact of a roving maniac would have been known. He must have escaped from somewhere: his madness must have been known. There would have been some sort of hue and cry after him: either at the inquest or at the trial there would have been some mention of this dangerous person going about at large; some suggestion that he might have been the guilty person. Dangerous maniacs do not escape without any notice taken, or any warning that they are loose.

No. It would not do. Another and a more workable theory must be invented.

He got another. Poachers! Everybody knows the deadly hostility, far worse seventy years ago than at present, that existed between a country gentleman and a poacher. The latter was accustomed, in those days, to get caught in a mantrap; to put his foot into a gin; to be fired upon by gamekeepers; to be treated like a weasel or a stoat. In return the poacher manifested a lamentably revengeful spirit, which sometimes went as far as murder. In this case, no doubt, the crime was committed by a poacher.

The theory satisfied him at first, just as much as its predecessor. Presently, however, he reflected that there is not much for a poacher to do in early June, and that poachers do not prowl about the woods and coverts in broad daylight and at noon; and that poachers do not, as a rule, murder gentlemen belonging to other parts of the country. Besides, poachers on one estate would not bear malice against the squire of another estate fifteen miles distant. Leonard pushed his papers away in despair.

Any other kind of work was impossible; he could think of nothing else. At this point, however, some kind of relief came to him. For he felt that he must make himself personally acquainted with the place itself. He wanted to see the wood of which so much mention was made – the place where the blow was struck, the place where the murderer lay hidden. He wanted the evidence of the wood itself, which was probably the same now as it had been seventy years before, unless it had been felled or built over. In that part of the country they do not destroy woods, and they do not build upon their site; it is a conservative country. As the fields were a hundred years ago, so they are now.

Visitors to the house most conveniently approach it from the Metropolitan Extension Line, which goes to Rickmansworth, Amersham, and Verney. Leonard resolved upon going there that very morning. He took a note-book and started, setting down the points on which he wished to inquire.

He arrived at the station a little before noon; a walk of ten minutes brought him to the house. On the terrace at the back the old man, tall, broad-shouldered, erect, walked as usual up and down, with his hard, resolute air. Leonard did not speak to him; he passed into the garden, and looking at his watch walked along the grass-grown walks, and at the end, turning to the right, entered the park.

It was but a small park: there was only one walk in the direction which the two would have followed; this was now, like the garden walks, overgrown with grass. At the end there was a lodge; but it had stood empty for nearly seventy years; the gates were rusting on their hinges, the windows were broken and the tiles had fallen off the roof.

Beyond the park was an open road – the highroad; beyond the road a narrow path led across a broad field into a small wood; on the right hand was a low rising ground. This, then, was the wood where the thing was done; this was the hillside on which the boy was scaring the birds when he saw the two go in and the one come out.

Leonard crossed the field and entered the wood. He looked at his watch again. It had taken him twenty minutes to walk from the house to the road; he made a note of that fact. He walked through the wood; it was a pretty wood, more like a plantation than a wood – a wood with a few large trees, many saplings, two or three trees lying on the ground and waiting to be cut up. The spring foliage was out, dancing in the sunlight; the varying light and shade were pleasing and restful, the air was soft, the birds were singing. A peaceful, lovely place.

This, then, was the spot where Langley Holme was suddenly done to death. By whom?

Now, as Leonard stood looking into the tangled mass of undergrowth, a curious thing happened. It was the same thing which had happened to the housekeeper, and was mentioned in her notes. By some freak of light and shade, there was fashioned in a part of the wood where the shade was darkest the simulacrum or spectre of a man – only the shoulders and upper part of a man, but still a man.

Leonard was no more superstitious than his neighbours; but at this ghostly presentment he was startled, and for a moment his heart beat quickly with that strange kind of terror, unlike any other, which is called supernatural.

There are men who boast that they know it not, and have never felt it. These are men who would take their work into a deserted house, and would carry it on serenely, alone, through the watches of the livelong night. For my own part, I envy them not. Give me the indications of the unseen world; the whisper of the unseen spirit; the cold breath of the unseen guest; even though they are received with terror and superstitious shrinkings.

It was with such terror that Leonard saw this apparition. A moment after and it was gone; then he perceived that it was nothing but the shadows lying among the undergrowth, so that they assumed a solid form. Yet, as to the housekeeper, to whom that same apparition had appeared, it seemed to him the actual phantom of the murdered man.

He retraced his steps. It took no more than five minutes, he found, to walk through the wood from one end to the other. It was so small, and the undergrowth of so light a character, with no heavy foliage, that any person standing in any part of it would be easily visible; it would be impossible for any man to conceal himself. He made a note, also, of these facts.

He then remembered the boy on the hillside scaring the birds. There was no boy at the moment, but Leonard walked up the low hill in order to learn what the boy had been able to see.

The hill, although low, was a good deal higher than the trees in the wood; it commanded a view of the land beyond the wood – another field with young corn upon it. Leonard observed that one could not see through the wood, but that he could see over it, and beyond it, and on either side of it.

If, for instance, anyone approached the wood from any direction, or ran away from it, it would be quite possible for a boy standing on the hillside to see that person.

Then, in his imagination, he heard the boy’s evidence. “I see the Squire and a gentleman with him. They came as far as the wood together. Presently the Squire went away by himself. Then John Dunning came along, and presently he came out, running over to the farm. Then they brought a shutter and carried out something on it covered up. That’s all I see.”

The words were so clear and plain that when they ceased he looked round, and was astonished to find there was no boy. He sat down on a gate and looked at his notes.

1. The walk from the house to the wood took twenty minutes.

2. The time taken in walking through the wood was five minutes.

3. The wood was nowhere thick enough to conceal a man.

4. The wood could not be seen through from the hillside.

5. But it was overlooked on all sides from the hill.

He considered these things, being now more than ever seized and possessed with the weight and burden of the mystery. Consider. It was no ordinary crime, such as one might read about, when in the annals of a family one member of a long time ago was brutally and wickedly cut off. It was a crime whose effects were felt by every member of his family in the strange seclusion of the head. Whatever advantages might be possessed by any member of this ancient and honourable house were lost; for the head of it, and the owner of all the property, took no notice of anyone; knew nothing of his existence, even; and lived entirely to himself and by himself.

It was, again, the first of all the numerous misfortunes which had fallen upon the family. Lastly, it was a mystery which seemed continually on the point of being cleared up by some theory which would explain and account for everything.

He looked round. The place seemed too peaceful for any deed of violence, the sunshine was warm, the singing of birds filled his ear. The contrast with his own thoughts bewitched him. He would have preferred a thunderous atmosphere charged with electricity.

He argued with himself that the thing took place seventy years ago; that it might be very well left to be cleared up when the secrets of all hearts will be known; that after all these years he could not hope to clear it up; that he was only wasting his time; and so forth. He charged the mystery, so to speak, to leave him. No demon of possession, no incubus, ever refused more resolutely to be driven out. It remained with him, more burdensome, more intolerable, than ever.

He left the hillside and walked back to the road. There, instead of walking through the park again, he turned to the left and entered the village. One must eat; he ordered a chop at the village inn, and while it was getting ready he went to the church. The monuments of his own family were scattered about the church, and on the wall he read again the tablet to the memory of the unfortunate man.

Outside, in the churchyard, was the same old man who had accosted him when he brought Constance here. He was sitting on a tombstone, basking and blinking in the sun. He stood up slowly, and pulled off his hat.

“Hope you’re well, sir,” he said.

“Oh!” Leonard remembered. “You were the boy who was scaring birds on the day – seventy years ago – when Mr. Holme was murdered.”

“Surely, sir – surely. I haven’t forgotten. I remember it all – just as yesterday. Better than yesterday. I’m old, master, and I remember what happened when I was a boy better than what happened yesterday. To many old people the same hath happened.”

“Very likely; I have heard so. Now sit down and tell me all about it. I’ve just come down from London to look at the place, and I remembered your evidence.”

“I will tell you everything, sir. Will you ask me, or shall I tell my own story?”

“You may tell your own story first, and I will ask you questions afterwards.”

So the old man repeated, in a parrot-like way:

“It was on a fine morning in June, getting on to dinner-time. I’d been scaring since five, and I was hungry. I was all alone on the hill, in the field where there’s a little wood, and the path runs through the wood. Then I saw two gentlemen – one was the Squire, the other I’d seen at church with the Squire Sunday before, but I didn’t know his name. He was tall, but nothing like so tall as the Squire. They were talking high and loud and fast. I remember hearing them, but I couldn’t hear the words. They went as far as the wood together. Directly after, the Squire turned back; he looked up and down as if he was expecting somebody, then he turned and walked home fast. The other gentleman didn’t go out with the Squire, nor yet at the other end of the wood.

“A long time after, John Dunning came along. He had on his smock-frock; he hadn’t been in the wood two minutes before he came running out of it, and he made for the farm. I saw that his smock-frock was red; and the farmin’ men brought a shutter and carried out of the wood something covered up. That is all I remember.”

“Yes, that is all. That is what you said at the inquest and the trial, is it not?”

“That was it, sir.”

“Yes. Was the wood then such as it is now?”

“Just the same.”

“Not a close dark wood, but light and open – just as at present?”

“A light and open coppice with plenty of bushes.”

“Could you, then, see through the wood?”

“No; I could see over it and beyond it, but not through the road, where I was standing.”

“On that day what time was it when you arrived?”

“My time was half-past five. Mother gave me my breakfast and sent me out. I suppose it must ha’ been about that time.”

“Very well. You went straight to the hillside and began your work, I suppose?”

“No; I went through the wood first.”

“What for?”

“To see the birds’ nests there.”

“Oh! You were in the wood? Did you find anybody there, or any signs of anybody being concealed there?”

“Lord love you! how could a body hide in that little place?”

“There might have been poachers, for instance.”

“Not in June. If there was anyone at all, I should have seen him.”

“Well, then you went up the hill and began your scaring. Did you see anyone pass into the wood before the Squire and Mr. Holme arrived?”

“No; if there had been anyone, I must have seen him – for certain sure I must. There was no one all the morning – no one that way at all. There very seldom was anyone.”

“Where does the path lead?”

“It leads across the fields to the village of Highbeech and the church.”

“It is not a frequented way, then?”

“No. Most days there will be only a single person on that way.”

“Humph!” Leonard was disconcerted with the old man’s positiveness. Nobody in the wood on his arrival, no one passed into it all the morning. Where was the poacher? Where was the murderous maniac? “You were only a little boy at the time,” he said. “Don’t you think your memory may be at fault? It was seventy years ago, you know.”

The old man shook his head.

“Why, for months and months and for years and years I was asked over and over again what happened and what I saw. Sometimes it was the Vicar and his friends who talked about the matter and sent for me. Sometimes it was the men at the Crown and Jug who talked about the murder and sent for me. Sometimes it was the gossips. Don’t you think my memory fails, master, because it can’t fail. Why,” he chuckled, “the very last thing I shall see before I go up to the Throne will be the sight of them two gentlemen going along to the wood.”

“Very well, come back to that point. When they arrived at the wood, the Squire turned back.”

“Yes: first went in with the other gentleman.”

“Oh! It doesn’t matter. But he went a little way into the wood, did he?”

“I don’t know if it was a little way. It was a bit of a time – I don’t know how long, five minutes, perhaps – two minutes, perhaps – I don’t know – before he came out.”

“Oh! Was this in your evidence?”

“I answered what I was asked. Nobody ever asked me how long the Squire was in the wood.”

“Well, they entered the wood, and they were talking in an animated manner. That is not in your evidence, either.”

“Because I wasn’t asked. As for animated, they were talking high and loud as if they were quarrelling.”

“They could not be quarrelling.”

“I didn’t hear what they said.”

“Well: it doesn’t matter. The Squire turned back just at the entrance.”

Again the sexton shook his head.

“I know what I said,” he replied; “and I know what I saw.”

“Is there anybody in the village,” Leonard asked, “besides yourself, who remembers the – the event?”

“It was seventy years ago,” he said. “I’m the oldest man in the village, except the Squire. He remembers it very well, for all his mad ways. He’s bound to remember it. There’s nobody else.”

“Then they suspected one man.”

“John Dunning it was. Why, I was only seven years of age, but I knew well enough that it couldn’t be John. First, he wasn’t big enough – and then, he wasn’t man enough – and then, he wasn’t devil enough. But they tried him, and he got off and came back to the village. However, he had to go, because, you see, the people don’t like the company of a man who’s been tried for murder, even though he’s been let off; and they wouldn’t work with John, so the Squire gave him money, and he went away, out to Australia – him and all his family – and never been heard of since.”

“Was no one else ever suspected?”

“There might be some who had suspicions, but they kept their suspicions to themselves.”

“Did you yourself have suspicions?”

“It’s a long time ago, sir. The Squire and me are the only two people that remember the thing. What’s the use, after all these years, of having suspicions? I don’t say I have, and I don’t say I haven’t. If I have, they will be buried with me in my grave.”

Leonard returned to London. He now understood exactly the condition of the ground, and he had examined the old man whose evidence was so important. Nothing additional was to be got out of him; but the verbal statement of a contemporary after seventy years concerning the event in which Leonard was so much interested was remarkable.

He returned to his own rooms. Hither presently came Constance.

“My friend and cousin,” she said, in her frank manner, as if there had never been any disturbing question between them, “you are looking worried. What is the matter?”

“Am I looking worried?”

“The more important point is – are you feeling worried? Leonard, it has nothing to do with that little conversation we had the other day?”

“No,” he replied. “Nothing.” It was not a complimentary reply, but, then, Constance was not a girl to expect or to care for compliments.

“Well – is it the discovery of the poor relations?”

“You will think me a very ridiculous person. I don’t worry in the least about the poor relations. But I am worried about that crime – that murder of seventy years ago.”

“Oh! But why?”

“It concerns you as well as me.”

“Do you mean that I ought to worry about it? I cannot, really. It is too long ago. I feel, really, no interest in it at all – except for a little pity about my grandmother, whose childhood was saddened by the dreadful thing. And that, too, was such a long time ago. But why should it worry you?”

“I can hardly tell you why. But it does. Constance, it is the most wonderful thing. You do not suspect me of nerves or idle fancies?”

“Not at all. You are quite a strong person as regards nerves.”

“Then you will perhaps explain what has happened. Last night I came home about eleven. I remembered that my newly discovered Great-Aunt had sent me as a present – a cheerful present – a book containing a full account, with cuttings from the papers of the time and notes by a woman who was housekeeper at Campaigne Park, of the crime – ”

“Well?”

“I took it out of its brown-paper covering. Again, Constance, am I a man of superstitions?”

“Certainly not!”

“Well – ” He considered the point for a few moments, as one perhaps better concealed. Then he resolved upon communicating it. “When I opened it I was seized with a most curious repulsion – a kind of loathing – which it was difficult to shake off. This morning on looking at the book again I had the same feeling.”

“Yes, it is strange. But you got over it.”

“In spite of it I persisted and resolutely went through the whole book. I am repelled and I am attracted by the subject. I sat up half the night reading it – I have never been so held by any book before.”

“Strange!” Constance repeated. “And for a thing so long ago!”

“I threw it aside at last and went to bed – and to dream. And the end – or the beginning – of it is that I am compelled – I use the word advisedly – compelled, Constance, to investigate the whole affair.”

“Oh! but you are not in earnest? Investigate? But it happened seventy years ago! What can be learned after seventy years?”

“I don’t know. I must investigate and find out what I can.”

Constance looked at him with astonishment. He sat at his desk – but with his chair turned towards her. His face was lined and somewhat haggard: he looked like one who is driven: but he looked resolved.

“Leonard, this is idle fancy.”

“I cannot help it; I must investigate the case. There is no help for me, Constance – I must. This was the first of the family misfortunes. They have been so heavy and so many that – well, it is weakness to connect them with something unknown.”

“I am sorry – I am very sorry – that you have learned the truth – even though it makes me your cousin.”

“I am very sorry, too. But Fate has found me – as it found my grandfather and my father and that old, old man. Perhaps my own career is also to be cut short.”

“Nonsense, Leonard! You will investigate the case: you will find out nothing: you will throw it aside: you will forget it.”

“No; it is not to be forgotten or thrown aside.”

“Well, make your inquiry as soon as you can and get it over. Oh, I should have thought you the last person in the world to be moved by fancies of compulsion or any other fancies.”

“I should have thought so, too, except for this experience. When I got up, Constance, I resolutely shut the book, and I made up my mind to forget the whole business.”

“And you could not, I suppose?”

“I could not. I found it impossible to fix my attention, so I pulled out the book again and went all over it from the beginning once more. Constance, it is the most remarkable story I ever read. You shall read it yourself.”

“If I do, not even my duty to our ancestor will make me take it so seriously as you are doing.”

“To-day I have been down to the place. I have visited the wood where the thing happened: I found again that old man of the churchyard, who paid you an undeserved compliment.” Constance blushed, but not much. “I made him tell me all he remembered: it was not much, but it sounded like the unexpected confirmation of some old document.”

“And have you come to any conclusion yet? Have you formed any theory?”

“None that will hold water. I don’t know what is going to happen over that business, but I must go on – I must go on.”

She laid a hand upon his arm.

“If you must go on, let me go with you. It is my murder as well as yours. Lend me the book.”

She carried it off to her own rooms, and that night another incubus sat upon another sleeping person and murdered rest.