CHAPTER III. WHAT POLICE CONSTABLE ASKEW SAW

The doctor, whose name was Clements, dashed in his car across the bridge to his surgery in East Molesey, where he snatched up some drugs and restoratives, and ten minutes later had recrossed the river and was again beside his unconscious patient.

By dint of constant and unremitting attention, lasting for over two hours, the stricken man was brought back to consciousness, and presently was able to describe his symptoms.

“I believe this is an accursed house!” he said. “I felt a curious dizziness as soon as I entered this room. Though I said nothing, I felt a strange sensation in my arms, which spread slowly across my chest until a sudden spasm shot through my heart, causing me to hold my breath. Time after time I felt the pain repeatedly, until it became excruciating. I couldn’t get my breath, and suddenly I was plunged in darkness and knew nothing more.”

“Have you ever had similar attacks before?” asked Dr. Clements, standing beside the patient’s chair and holding his hand.

“Never. It is the first—and I hope it will be the last,” he replied, smiling faintly.

“Well, I must run you home in the car, and you must keep quiet for a few days. I will examine you to-morrow,” said the doctor. “I think you may be suffering from what we term false angina—nothing to be really alarmed about.”

“I have never experienced such curious pains in my arms and chest,” Mr. Gray declared. “I’m forty, and have had excellent health up to the present.”

“The heart is always a mysterious thing,” remarked Dr. Clements. “While every other organ of the body may be in perfect order, the heart may be seriously affected and give no warning until suddenly death intervenes. Therefore nobody should ever boast of his good health. It is always dangerous to do so.”

Hence, about two hours and a half after Mr. Herbert Gray’s sudden illness, he was conveyed by the doctor to his home at Surbiton, he giving strict injunctions to his clerks that no word was to be said in the office concerning his mysterious seizure.

The house having been opened forcibly, the locksmith that evening placed a new Yale latch upon the front door, while an ex-constable named Farmer, who frequently became caretaker on premises for which the firm of Shalford, Stevens & Gray acted as agents, was placed in charge.

The autumn twilight was falling as the stout, round-faced Farmer was standing alone on the moss-grown doorstep smoking his pipe, when suddenly a police constable on his beat made his appearance.

Knowing the house so well, he was naturally surprised to see the shutters open and the caretaker at the door. Instantly he recognised him as an ex-constable of his own Division, and, approaching, exclaimed:

“Hulloa, Dick! What’s up here?”

“I dunno! They seem to have opened this old place for some reason. It’s in a horrible state o’ dirt. I’ve been half choked with dust and cobwebs. Come in and have a liker.”

Thus invited by his friend Farmer, Police Constable Askew of the T Division Metropolitan Police, followed him into the hall, dark, dusty, and mysterious in the fading light.

“I don’t like this place,” Askew said, glancing around. “It’s haunted.”

“Haunted be blowed! You aren’t afraid of ghosts, are yer?”

“I don’t know,” replied the constable in an uncertain tone. “I don’t like this house—and never have ever since I’ve been in Hampton.”

“Only because it’s been shut up a long time,” replied Farmer. “I’ve lived in lots of old houses since I went on pension, and I’ve never seen anything more terrifying than a rat or two, or perhaps a bat. I’ve heard lots of noises that I couldn’t account for—but noises hurt nobody. I tell yer, Askew, you haven’t done twenty-eight years on the streets as I have, but you’ll never see anything uglier than your own self. And that’s the truth!”

“That’s all right,” replied the younger man in uniform. “But I’ve seen something in this here place that I don’t like at all. I haven’t told anybody, because they’d laugh at me, a constable. At the section house they’d say I was drunk, and the subdivisional inspector would have his eye on me. But I saw something here a week ago what wants a lot of explaining away.”

“Now that’s interesting!” said the caretaker. “Get a chair and let’s sit outside. I’d like to know what you saw.”

Both men took valuable old spindle-legged chairs from beneath the staircase and placed them in the portico, in the darkening night.

Distant lights twinkled across the wide, level swards of Bushey Park, while at the barracks a bugle sounded, and somewhere from afar up the winding Thames came the shrill whistle of a tug towing barges to the upper reaches.

Askew, an ex-sergeant of Fusiliers in the Great War, pulled out a “gasper” and lit it, though not supposed to smoke on duty, while Farmer filled his heavy briar, applied a match deliberately, and said:

“Now, tell me. What did you see here?”

“Something funny—can’t account for it any way.”

“Before that article appeared in the Richmond and Twickenham Times—or after?”

“A week before,” Askew replied. “I of course saw what they said in the paper about the happenings in this house thirty years ago.”

“And what did you actually see? Personally I don’t believe in anything supernatural.”

“Well, I don’t hardly know how to describe it,” said the constable, taking a long draw at his cigarette and holding his helmet on his knee. “It was last Monday week, at about a quarter-past two in the morning. The weather was rainy, and I was coming up the road to the Green when I saw something in the window just here on the left of the hall”—and he pointed to it. “It’s the window where the shutter had fallen half away. I saw an indistinct green light. For the moment I thought I was dreaming, for no light had ever been seen in the house before. I stood and watched. The light got greener, and then slowly it faded away. Once I thought that it was flames and that the place was on fire. That’s all, Dickie. Now how do you account for that, eh?”

“Did you examine the premises?” asked Farmer, recollecting the strict official orders in the case of anything mysterious seen at night.

“I did most certainly. The first thing I did was to see that the lock on the gate had not been tampered with. Then, ten minutes after the light had faded, I climbed the wall and made a thorough examination of the premises in order to be able to give evidence if any burglars had been at work. But I found absolutely nothing. I’ve been over the wall here dozens of times, especially when those fire-raisers of country houses were about. I had special orders to keep this place under observation when I was on night duty. All I’ve ever seen, however, was that funny dull green light. The dirty old holland blind was down, so I could not see anybody inside. That’s where the mystery of it all comes in. I’ve told my wife, and she tells me to say nothing to nobody.”

“Are you quite sure that nobody was in the house—no thief?” asked Farmer, puzzled, for Askew was so insistent.

“As certain as I sit here. I examined all the doors and windows, as we’ve been ordered to do, as you know. Nothing had been disturbed.” Then, after a pause, he added, “I don’t like the place, and I can quite imagine that people die mysteriously here. Why has it been opened after thirty years?”

“Perhaps it is to release the evil spirits, of which your green light is one,” Farmer laughed.

Police Constable Askew, a tall, athletic Cornishman, drew himself up in his chair, and asked:

“Do you think I’m a liar? Do you doubt what I tell you—that I saw the green light with my own eyes?”

“No, I don’t,” replied the caretaker. “But, while some people see things, it seems that others see nothing. They aren’t gifted with second sight as they calls it. How long did this light last?”

“Oh, only about a second or two. If it hadn’t been for that dirty old blind I could have seen right into the hall here. I tell you, Dickie, I’ve seen something that can’t be explained, and I fully agree with that article in the Richmond Times that this here house on the Green brings sudden death on to people. Mind you yourself don’t have heart disease,” he added warningly.

“Phew! No fear of that, old man,” Farmer laughed. “After all my years on the streets in the ‘T’ I’m not addicted to either fright or heart trouble in any way. I was married twenty-one years ago, when I joined at Bow Street. But,” he added, “don’t you think it was just a little bit of imagination on your part—that green light? Just think!”

“No. I’ve seen it three times now.”

“Tell me exactly what it’s like,” asked Farmer, most interested.

“Well, I can only describe it as a dull, pale-green glow—and then it quickly fades away. If it was at sunset I could quite imagine that it was a light reflected through a window upon some bright, polished surface, but there isn’t any sun at two o’clock in the morning. Further, the place being locked and barred as it has been all these years, there can have been nobody inside. If there had been, then Mr. Gray and his people would have noticed traces of anybody being unlawfully on the premises.”

“Quite true. They found the place just as it had been left thirty years ago. Perry, our chief clerk, told me. It seems that the heavy dust and close atmosphere upset Mr. Gray, so he went home early, a bit off color.”

“Yes. The air is pretty thick inside, I should fancy.”

“It is. To-morrow I’m going to clear up one of the rooms and bring my old camp-bed and some cooking things,” said Farmer. “There’s going to be an auction, and I feel sure the things’ll fetch good prices unless there’s a big ‘knock-out.’ ”

“Knock-outs aren’t fair. They ought to be stopped,” declared the tall man in uniform. “But I tell you, Farmer, I’d rather that you took care of these blooming premises than me. I’ll have to go on now, for I’ve got to meet my sergeant at the Palace Gates, and I have only just time,” he added, glancing at his wristlet watch.

“I’m not going to bed yet. Come back here and have a few whiffs when you’ve gone round.”

“Righto!” replied the tall constable, and, hitching up his belt, he descended the moss-grown, slippery steps, tramping heavily away in the direction of the gates of the old-world Palace of Wolsey, the point where he had to report to his sergeant.

The autumn night was still and warm. After Askew had gone, Farmer sat back lazily in his chair smoking his pipe and reflecting that for the first time in thirty years that heavy old front door had been opened. Now and then as he sat alone, whiffs of close, mouldy air came from within, air that filtered through those blankets of heavy dust-laden cobwebs which festooned the ceilings, the work of the busy spiders through three decades. Ever and anon strange noises, and creaks of highly seasoned wood, came from the dark interior. Weird they were in the dead silence, yet Farmer, used to “noises” in unoccupied houses, smoked on, quite unperturbed.

The old turret clock in Hampton Court Palace chimed the hour—two o’clock—and the paraffin lamp which the caretaker had set in the hall was growing dim because he had not replenished it before he began his vigil. Had there been sleeping accommodation Farmer would have gone to bed, but as there was none he sat quite unruffled in the old spindle-legged chair in the wide portico and dozed.

Presently he fell asleep. How long he was unconscious he did not know, but he was at last awakened by Askew crying:

“Are you asleep, Farmer? Did you see it?”

“See what?” asked the other, springing startled to his feet, with heavy eyes.

“Why! the light!”

“The light? What the deuce do you mean, sonny?”

“That funny light! It was showing in the window only a few seconds ago as I came across the Green!” cried the man excitedly.

“Now look here, Askew!” exclaimed Farmer. “You’ve gone dotty!”

“I swear that I saw it just for one second,” declared the constable. “You were asleep?”

“I suppose I must ha’ been,” admitted the stout caretaker. “But I don’t believe in ghosts and green lights at night.”

“Well, I don’t care what you or anybody says, that’s the fourth time I’ve seen that mysterious green glow. What the devil it is I don’t know—only I’ve seen it!”

“I wish I’d seen it also,” laughed Farmer, still unconvinced.

Constable Askew shone his lantern into the dark hall, but all remained undisturbed.

“Shall we have a look around?” he asked. “It won’t do us any harm.”

So the two men entered the dusty, neglected place, Askew shining his electric lantern into every dark corner, but finding nothing.

“It’s got on your nerves,” declared Farmer, when they were again standing together in the portico. “I’d ask for a change of beat, if I were you.”

“Then you really don’t believe what I’ve told you, eh?” asked the constable.

“I only believe what I see, my dear sonny,” was the caretaker’s quiet reply.

“You’ll see it one day, mark me! I haven’t told anybody, because I know I won’t be believed,” said the police officer excitedly.

“I sincerely hope I shall,” laughed Farmer, relighting his pipe and reseating himself in his chair. “But you take my advice, P.C. Askew, and get on another beat where you can’t give your imagination quite so much play.”

“I tell you it isn’t imagination,” declared the other vehemently. “Surely I can believe my own eyes!”

“You may be able to, but I’m older than you, and I find I sometimes can’t. In any case, my dear boy, I don’t believe in your green light till I myself sees it,” Farmer said frankly. “You’re surely old enough in the Force to know how many haunted houses there are about. Why, I’ve known dozens of ’em, but there’s never been any truth in any of the stories.”

“There is in this one. You saw what they said in the paper about it.”

“I did, of course. But they were only coincidences. Besides, they said nothing about this curious glow you’ve seen.”

“Because they know nothing about it,” he replied, taking a draw at the “gasper” he had lit.

“I’d write to the papers about it if I were you,” remarked Farmer sarcastically.

“And be put down as a blooming fool. Not quite!” was the constable’s reply.

“Then next time you see the green glow in the window just come straight in and have a good liker around to make sure your eyes haven’t deceived you,” urged the stout ex-policeman. “One thing, I’ll bet you, sonny, that in this place you’ll see nothing uglier than Police Officer Askew himself.” And he laughed.

“I don’t care what you think, but I’ve seen a mysterious light in this here locked-up house! And one day you’ll see it too. Mark me! Good morning, Farmer.”

And in the first grey dawn Askew turned and strode leisurely away from the Green, continuing his beat in the direction of Hampton Wick.