The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
inn--an ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting on the
sign-board is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front
windows are all closed. A cock and his hens are the only living creatures
at the door. Plainly, this is one of the old inns of the stage-coach
period, ruined by the railway. We pass through the open arched doorway,
and find no one to welcome us. We advance into the stable yard behind; I
assist my wife to dismount--and there we are in the position already
disclosed to view at the opening of this narrative. No bell to ring. No
human creature to answer when I call. I stand helpless, with the bridles
of the horses in my hand. Mrs. Fairbank saunters gracefully down the
length of the yard and does--what all women do, when they find themselves
in a strange place. She opens every door as she passes it, and peeps in.
On my side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the point of shouting
for the hostler for the third and last time, when I hear Mrs. Fairbank
suddenly call to me:
"Percy! come here!"
Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened a last door at the end of
the yard, and has started back from some sight which has suddenly met her
view. I hitch the horses' bridles on a rusty nail in the wall near me, and
join my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.
"Good heavens!" she cries; "look at that!"
I look--and what do I see? I see a dingy little stable, containing two
stalls. In one stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is
lying asleep on the litter.
A worn, withered, woebegone man in a hostler's dress. His hollow wrinkled
cheeks, his scanty grizzled hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale
of past sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his
eyebrows--there is a painful nervous contraction on the side of his mouth.
I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and
sighs in his sleep. It is not a pleasant sight to see, and I turn round
instinctively to the bright sunlight in the yard. My wife turns me back
again in the direction of the stable door.
"Wait!" she says. "Wait! he may do it again."
"Do what again?"
"He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked in. He was
dreaming some dreadful dream. Hush! he's beginning again."
I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks in a
quick, fierce whisper through his clinched teeth. "Wake up! Wake up,
there! Murder!"
There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm slowly until it
rests over his throat; he shudders, and turns on his straw; he raises his
arm from his throat, and feebly stretches it out; his hand clutches at the
straw on the side toward which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is
grasping at the edge of something. I see his lips begin to move again; I
step softly into the stable; my wife follows me, with her hand fast
clasped in mine. We both bend over him. He is talking once more in his
sleep--strange talk, mad talk, this time.
"Light gray eyes" (we hear him say), "and a droop in the left
eyelid--flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it--all right, mother!
fair, white arms with a down on them--little, lady's hand, with a reddish
look round the fingernails--the knife--the cursed knife--first on one
side, then on the other--aha, you she-devil! where is the knife?"
He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him writhing on the straw.
He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes
open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in
them--then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes;
but the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the
tone is altered; the words are few--sadly and imploringly repeated over
and over again. "Say you love me! I am so fond of _you_. Say you love me!
say you love me!" He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep, faintly repeating
those words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.
By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by
curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the
imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance
hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.
"Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love
and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the
yard, and call to them again."
My wife belongs, on her mother's side, to the South of France. The South
of France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men
will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are
occasions when we must not only love and honor--we must also obey--our
wives.
I turn to the door to obey _my_ wife, and find myself confronted by a
stranger who has stolen on us unawares. The stranger is a tiny, sleepy,
rosy old man, with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head. He
wears drab breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient
black coat. I feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.
"Good morning, sir," says the rosy old man. "I'm a little hard of hearing.
Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?"
Before I can answer, my wife interposes. She insists (in a shrill voice,
adapted to our host's hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate
person is sleeping on the straw. "Where does he come from? Why does he say
such dreadful things in his sleep? Is he married or single? Did he ever
fall in love with a murderess? What sort of a looking woman was she? Did
she really stab him or not? In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole
story!"
Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done--then
delivers himself of his reply as follows:
"His name's Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was
forty-five year old last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."
My wife's hot southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses
itself by a stamp on the stable yard.
The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses. "A
fine pair of horses, them two in the yard. Do you want to put 'em in my
stables?" I reply in the affirmative by a nod. The landlord, bent on
making himself agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more. "I'm a-going
to wake Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five
year old last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."
Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the
landlord enters the stable. We follow him to see how he will wake Francis
Raven, and what will happen upon that. The stable broom stands in a
corner; the landlord takes it--advances toward the sleeping hostler--and
coolly stirs the man up with a broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage.
Francis Raven starts to his feet with a cry of terror--looks at us wildly,
with a horrid glare of suspicion in his eyes--recovers himself the next
moment--and suddenly changes into a decent, quiet, respectable
serving-man.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. I beg your pardon, sir."
The tone and manner in which he makes his apologies are both above his
apparent station in life. I begin to catch the infection of Mrs.
Fairbank's interest in this man. We both follow him out into the yard to
see what he will do with the horses. The manner in which he lifts the
injured leg of the lame horse tells me at once that he understands his
business. Quickly and quietly, he leads the animal into an empty stable;
quickly and quietly, he gets a bucket of hot water, and puts the lame
horse's leg into it. "The warm water will reduce the swelling, sir. I will
bandage the leg afterwards." All that he does is done intelligently; all
that he says, he says to the purpose.
Nothing wild, nothing strange about him now. Is this the same man whom we
heard talking in his sleep?--the same man who woke with that cry of terror
and that horrid suspicion in his eyes? I determine to try him with one or
two questions.
III
"Not much to do here," I say to the hostler.
"Very little to do, sir," the hostler replies.
"Anybody staying in the house?"
"The house is quite empty, sir."
"I thought you were all dead. I could make nobody hear me."
"The landlord is very deaf, sir, and the waiter is out on an errand."
"Yes; and _you_ were fast asleep in the stable. Do you often take a nap in
the daytime?"
The worn face of the hostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my
eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on
the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil
alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is given in these words:
"I was tired out, sir. You wouldn't have found me asleep in the daytime
but for that."
"Tired out, eh? You had been hard at work, I suppose?"
"No, sir."
"What was it, then?"
He hesitates again, and answers unwillingly, "I was up all night."
"Up all night? Anything going on in the town?"
"Nothing going on, sir."
"Anybody ill?"
"Nobody ill, sir."
That reply is the last. Try as I may, I can extract nothing more from him.
He turns away and busies himself in attending to the horse's leg. I leave
the stable to speak to the landlord about the carriage which is to take us
back to Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank remains with the hostler, and favors
me with a look at parting. The look says plainly, "_I_ mean to find out
why he was up all night. Leave him to Me."
The ordering of the carriage is easily accomplished. The inn possesses one
horse and one chaise. The landlord has a story to tell of the horse, and a
story to tell of the chaise. They resemble the story of Francis
Raven--with this exception, that the horse and chaise belong to no
religious persuasion. "The horse will be nine year old next birthday. I've
had the shay for four-and-twenty year. Mr. Max, of Underbridge, he bred
the horse; and Mr. Pooley, of Yeovil, he built the shay. It's my horse and
my shay. And that's _their_ story!" Having relieved his mind of these
details, the landlord proceeds to put the harness on the horse. By way of
assisting him, I drag the chaise into the yard. Just as our preparations
are completed, Mrs. Fairbank appears. A moment or two later the hostler
follows her out. He has bandaged the horse's leg, and is now ready to
drive us to Farleigh Hall. I observe signs of agitation in his face and
manner, which suggest that my wife has found her way into his confidence.
I put the question to her privately in a corner of the yard. "Well? Have
you found out why Francis Raven was up all night?"
Mrs. Fairbank has an eye to dramatic effect. Instead of answering plainly,
Yes or No, she suspends the interest and excites the audience by putting a
question on her side.
"What is the day of the month, dear?"
"The day of the month is the first of March."
"The first of March, Percy, is Francis Raven's birthday."
I try to look as if I was interested--and don't succeed.
"Francis was born," Mrs. Fairbank proceeds gravely, "at two o'clock in the
morning."
I begin to wonder whether my wife's intellect is going the way of the
landlord's intellect. "Is that all?" I ask.
"It is _not_ all," Mrs. Fairbank answers. "Francis Raven sits up on the
morning of his birthday because he is afraid to go to bed."
"And why is he afraid to go to bed?"
"Because he is in peril of his life."
"On his birthday?"
"On his birthday. At two o'clock in the morning. As regularly as the
birthday comes round."
There she stops. Has she discovered no more than that? No more thus far. I
begin to feel really interested by this time. I ask eagerly what it means?