THE UNQUIET GRAVE

He went over and raised the lights in the room. Slowly the shape appeared again but it was relaxed now and all its body seemed to have uncoiled. In the full light and without these distortions, I recognised it to my amazement as a man I had glimpsed briefly downstairs as Bulweather and I entered the bar. Seen in ordinary life without his contortions he was certainly striking, with a bare fleshy head that was greatly oversized for his squat body, but he bore almost no resemblance at all to the thing I had just encountered. Indeed even the nakedness was an illusion, for he had merely lowered his skin-coloured shirt below his shoulders.

‘But,’ added Bell as the man got up and came forward to me, smiling very politely, ‘I am sure we should now honour him with his real name, which is Daniel Morton.’

The man nodded gratefully and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I am not, to be truthful, so used to the Daniel, sir,’ he said in an accent that was distinctly London. ‘Just Danny Morton, that is how I am known. But that, what you saw, is what you were talking of, sir, I take it?’

‘It certainly was,’ said Bell ruefully. ‘Indeed, to be truthful with you, Mr Morton, I was not expecting quite as much.’

‘Oh, it was only an indication, sir.’ He looked pleased. ‘In the halls I used to do it as “The Human Wolf”, but I hadn’t done it for a while till the two gentlemen saw me in Westons in High Holborn. They knew our lot was coming down here to Lowestoft, which was when they asked me to participate in the wager.’

‘I am very grateful to you, Mr Morton,’ said Bell. ‘But my colleague has not heard your story. Perhaps you would like to explain it to him.’

‘Of course, sir.’ He turned to me in his likeable way. ‘It was confidential, but your friend here was on to it anyway so I see no harm. Like I say, I work in the halls and these two gentlemen see me at Holborn. I think they had heard something of what I do. So they came to me and later they bought me some refreshment and told me of this wager.’

‘What wager?’ I said.

‘Why, as I understand it, they had a friend who said he cared nothing for staying out in the wood and bet them fifty pounds he would stay there till midnight on a dark night and they wanted to give him a scare. So they asked me to do just that. I am known too for having some skills at ventriloquism, sir. I am able to make it seem as if a sound comes from far off. Evidently I did the trick the first time but this gentleman, they say, he never learns and he wants to try it again and I wasn’t so keen on that. But they were generous and so I went along with it, even though the weather was perishing. It was a very short time that last occasion. The only thing is, sir, I think I saw a woman and I may have scared her but I could not let my gentlemen down. They understood and said they would square it with her.’

I was aghast. ‘So you were in the woods on those nights?’

‘I was, sir. I suppose most would think I was a wolf,’ he said shyly.

His ignorance staggered me. Bell had made a cache of all the newspapers containing the story and they were laid out in a pile by his bed. I crossed there now, seizing the most sensational of all and pushed it in front of Morton, pointing to the headline:

HOWLING MAN SEEN

‘But did you see this?’ I asked.

He glanced at it uneasily and turned to Bell. ‘No, sir. What is it, sir?’

Bell had been watching and came over to him. ‘Well, it is just a description of how some people heard you, Mr Morton,’ said the Doctor kindly. And it was only then I realised that, of course, Morton could not read and was too, I suspected, very short-sighted. ‘I think you can go back to your people now,’ Bell added. ‘They will be waiting and I know you all have to get on to Ipswich.’ He took some coins and handed them to him. ‘You have been a great help to me and we are agreed if you hear from these gentlemen again you will talk to your manager and he will know what to do.’

‘Yes, sir. That is agreed, sir. I am grateful, sir, and much obliged for the refreshment you laid on for my people too.’ And with a bow to me, he took up his coat and left the room.

‘He cannot read or write,’ said Bell quietly. ‘He knows nothing of the sensation. I can be certain from his descriptions the gentlemen who employed him in such confidence were Jefford and Cream. He met them both in London, where the thing was first discussed. Later he met Jefford only, around the twenty-eighth of November in Lowestoft, where he was given precise instructions regarding the first appearance. Mr Morton has limited eyesight but he has a very good memory and an excellent sense of direction and of geography. The second unexpected engagement, though in the same spot and of shorter duration, was delivered via an intermediary, the stage manager. I have interviewed this man. He believed the employment offered to Mr Morton was some kind of private performance. As to Mr Morton’s transport, it was a cab from Lowestoft, instructed again at second hand. The cab driver set him down for a fixed period of about sixty minutes on the first occasion, much less on the second.’

‘So he cannot lead us to them?’ I said.

‘No, I am persuaded,’ said Bell, ‘he knows no more than what he told us. He only met Cream once several weeks ago.’

‘But he terrified Miss Jefford,’ I said bitterly. ‘Why? Did her brother wish it?’

‘That is very doubtful,’ said Bell.

‘Then what was the purpose?’

‘Certainly to resurrect the legend, also to confuse and distract. It has already wasted my time, as we saw to our cost today. But Mr Morton’s second commission was, I believe, rather different. There was another reason for it which gives me hope, though I do not wish to speculate on it further.’

‘So that,’ I asked, ‘was the purpose of your trips to Lowestoft?’

‘In part. Though to be fair, it has also yielded other fruit.’

Bell started to rearrange the room, closing the curtain. ‘You see, Doyle,’ he explained, ‘the effect of the howling man was so theatrical and yet I did not think either witness was lying. And that left only two real possibilities. The first that it was some remarkable amateur trick or illusion like our friend Hanbury’s lethal box in Rotherhithe. However, the more I studied the description, the less plausible this seemed. Everything about this apparition sounded like a full-blooded performance. And, if so convincing, surely a professional one? Of course that seemed an absurd notion at first, and then my thoughts turned to Mrs Marner’s theatrical associations. I could find nothing to implicate her, but unwittingly she led me to the music hall in Lowestoft.

‘The more I read in the local newspaper, to your great frustration I recall, the more interesting it became. A troupe from London were performing and fortunately for me the newspaper has an excellent reviewer with a passion for the halls. In the course of his notices, he alluded to Mr Morton’s skills as a contortionist and ventriloquist, even recalling his “Human Wolf” of days gone by. My interest naturally became intense, all the more when I established Morton did not go on stage on either of the nights the howling man was seen. But then I arrived at an impasse. You will recall how frustrated I was that day, for just as I felt I had my man, there was no reply to my telegram. Had he flown? Or perhaps all my assumptions were unfounded. It was only when I got to the town that I realised the stupidity of my error. How could there be a reply? It was sent to Mr Morton’s lodgings and he was unable to read it.

‘Finally I encountered him personally. At first he was guarded but, when I alluded to his “private engagements” and indicated I knew about them, he saw no harm in revealing his odd commission. Earlier today, when you were with me, I also talked to the stage manager. I was a little wary of him, fearing he might be implicated in some way, so I took you with me but in the event he proved perfectly helpful and certainly innocent.’

He had sat down back at his desk now, the paper in front of him. ‘However, I fear Mr Morton is only the dressing of the affair and now I must return to its heart. It will be a long night.’ Soon he was again engrossed in the rune and I left him.

That night, I slept very deeply and dreamt that I was in a dark well whose water was rising below me. Somehow I managed to wedge myself in a semi-horizontal position to stop myself falling. But it was impossible to climb further and, below me, the level rose remorselessly. I could feel the cold wetness of the water on my legs and elbows, and then my back. Outside and above someone was banging on the side of the well. The noise became louder and I awoke.

It was already dawn. The banging continued, for it was coming from my bedroom door. I got up, pulled on my dressing gown and opened it. Langton stood there, grim-faced. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘You must come at once, Bell is already downstairs.’

It took me only a few moments to dress and descend. Bell, Langton and Angus Hare were standing in the hall of the inn in outdoor clothes

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Bell came close up to me and I could see the deep concern on his face as he spoke softly. ‘Come with us, Doyle. We have been out already, but the site is secure so we returned here to raise you. Langton also had to arrange for certain messages to be sent.’

They moved out of the door. It was early dawn and the frost had gone but a wind was beginning to blow and there were white clouds overhead.

‘But why did you not wake me when you went out?’ I asked.

‘What?’ said Bell, obviously greatly preoccupied. ‘Oh, I was awake anyway — I have been working all night on the rune and made an early visit to the asylum. I encountered Langton on my return.’

We had no distance to go. I could see at once that the policeman Wallace stood at the end of the street, close to the small church that served the community. The place was not very old, for it had been built in 1830, but it was picturesque, with a small, overgrown graveyard. And a well, which reminded me at once of my dream.

A second uniformed constable from a nearby village stood in the graveyard itself. Beside him something lay on the ground and the gravestone beyond this shape was red, as if covered in paint.

But it was not paint, of course. That was obvious as I drew closer.

And then I saw the object. I was unable to assemble any proper thoughts as I stared at it, but the word Godhead came to me, for there was something saint-like in these features while the wind blasphemously blew the fair hair around the face.

What lay below me at an odd angle on the grass was Charlotte Jefford’s head.