Finger of Fate Read online

  “It’s always somebody’s aunt,” he jeered. “What I want to know is if any one of you personally have ever felt this clutching hand. It’s rot – the whole thing. Due to indigestion. For all that I’m glad we came, because it’s a beautiful old place. I’m going to take some photographs.”

  He set up his camera – photography was his great hobby – and took several exposures from different angles.

  “Perhaps we’ll see the black monk in one of them,” he laughed. “Come on, Jack – I’ve got one film left. You and Mary go and pose in the foreground.”

  Now I was standing at his side at the moment, and the rest of the party were fooling about behind us.

  “That’s right,” he said, with his hand on the bulb. And even as I heard the click of the shutter, he muttered “My God!” under his breath. I glanced at him: his face was as white as a sheet, and he was staring with dilated eyes in front of him. Jack and Mary had turned away: no one had seen his agitation except myself.

  “What’s the matter, Trent?” I asked quickly.

  “Nothing,” he said at length, “nothing.”

  The colour was coming back to his cheeks, though his hands shook a little as he dismantled his camera.

  “You didn’t see anything, did you, Mercer? Standing by Jack?”

  “Nothing at all,” I said brusquely. “Did you?”

  “I thought,” he began, and then he shook himself suddenly. “Of course not,” he laughed. “A trick of the light.”

  But it seemed to me that his laughter didn’t ring quite true, and I watched him curiously.

  “Did you think you saw the black monk?” I said jocularly.

  “Go to Hell,” he snapped. And then, “Sorry, Mercer. But it’s best not to chaff about these things.”

  Which coming from the person who had chaffed about them more than anyone else struck me as a little cool. However I thought no more about it. We drove home in different cars, and when, two or three mornings later, I saw him walking up my drive I had completely dismissed the matter from my mind. In fact I merely wondered what had brought him: Trent was not a frequent visitor of mine.

  “Can you give me a few minutes, Mercer?” he said gravely, and I wondered still more at his tone of voice. “I want to ask your advice.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Come indoors.”

  I led the way, and he followed in silence.

  “You remember our picnic at the old Priory,” he remarked when I had closed the study door.

  “Perfectly,” I answered, suddenly recalling his strange agitation.

  “You remember that when I took a photograph of Jack and Mary, you pulled my leg and asked me if I thought I’d seen the black monk?”

  “I do,” I said. “You seemed so upset.”

  “I was,” he answered quietly. “Because that is exactly what I had seen.”

  “My dear Trent,” I laughed. “You! The most scathing cynic of us all!”

  But he wasn’t to be drawn.

  “I admit it,” he said gravely. “I admit that up to that moment I regarded anything of that sort as old women’s foolishness. All the way home in the car: all that night I endeavoured to persuade myself that what I had seen was a trick of the light as I said to you. And I almost succeeded. Now I know it wasn’t!”

  “You know it wasn’t!” I echoed incredulously. “But how?”

  “You may remember that I took the photograph,” he said. “And, Mercer, the camera cannot lie.”

  He was taking a print out of his pocket as he spoke, and I stared at him wonderingly. In silence he handed it across to me, and, as I looked at it the hair at the back of my scalp began to prick. In the background stood the ruins of the Priory: in front were Jack and Mary. But it was not at them that I was looking. Standing by Jack was a black cowled figure, with one arm outstretched towards him. The face was concealed: the hand could not be seen. But the whole effect was so incredibly menacing that I felt my throat go dry.

  “A defect in the film,” I stammered after a while.

  “Then it’s a very peculiar one,” he said gravely. “I tried to think it was that, Mercer, but it was no good. That’s not a defect. You see” – he paused a minute – “I saw it myself.”

  “Then why didn’t I?” I demanded.

  “God knows,” he said, and for a while we fell silent.

  “But this is impossible,” I said at length. “Things like that don’t happen.”

  “Exactly what I’ve been saying to myself,” he remarked. “Things like that don’t happen. And in your hands you hold the proof that in this case it has. And to me of all people. I, who have always ridiculed anything of the sort. I’ve heard – who hasn’t? – of spirit photographs, and I’ve always regarded them as a not very clever type of fraud.”

  “You’ve got the film?” I said.

  “No,” he answered. “I haven’t. I made two prints of it, and then I got into a sort of panic. Damned foolish of me, but ’pon my soul, Mercer, I’ve hardly been able to think straight since I developed that roll. Anyway I put a match to it and burnt it. However that’s not the point, is it? The point is, what are we going to do?”

  “Do,” I repeated stupidly. “What can we do?”

  “Well, ought we to warn Jack? You know the legend. Heaven knows I do. No one jeered at it as much as I did, and now I can’t get it out of my mind. If the black monk goes to a man it means death. And that afternoon it went to Jack.”

  “Confound it, Trent,” I cried irritably, “this is the twentieth century. We’re talking drivel.”

  “Go on,” he said wearily. “Say again all the things I’ve said already to myself. Say we’re two grown men, and not hysterical children. Say that the whole thing is absurd. Say everything you darned well please. I have – several times. And then, Mercer, look at the photograph you hold in your hand.”

  He got up and began pacing up and down the room.

  “I tell you,” he went on, “I’ve thought of this thing from every angle. And the more I’ve thought of it the more utterly nonplussed have I become.”

  “Even granted,” I said slowly, “that this – this thing was there that afternoon…”

  “Damn it,” he almost shouted, “is there any doubt about it?”

  “Very well then,” I said, “I’ll put it a different way. Although this thing was there that afternoon, it doesn’t follow that the rest of the legend is correct. That it means – death.”

  “I know it doesn’t,” he cried eagerly. “That’s the one straw at which I’m clutching.”

  “And most emphatically,” I went on, “nothing must be said about it to Jack. If – Great Scott! you know, it seems too ridiculous to be even discussing it in the broad light of day – if it does portend death then death will come whatever we do. And if it doesn’t – if there’s nothing in it – there’s no earthly use making Jack’s life a burden to him. Wondering what’s going to happen. Why, he might even break off the engagement.”

  He nodded two or three times.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Perhaps I ought to have torn up the whole thing and said nothing about it. But to tell you the truth it’s given me such an appalling shock that I felt I simply must talk to somebody about it. And as you were with me when it happened, I naturally thought of you. I wish to Heavens I’d never suggested going to the beastly place.”

  “Was it your suggestion?” I said. “I thought it was Lady Taunton’s.”

  “I suggested it to her,” he said moodily. “Anyway it’s done now, and we went. Look here, Mercer, don’t think me an ass. And I shall quite understand if you would rather not. But I’d be most awfully grateful to you if you’d keep that print. Lock it away in your safe. I sort of feel,” he went on apologetically, “that it would help me considerably if I could know that there was somebody else – You know…”

  “Morbid,” I said. “Let’s tear it up, and try and forget it.”

  “Isn’t that tantamount to confessing that we’re frightened?”
he said. “You can tear it up easily enough, but that isn’t going to wipe it off our minds. However I leave it to you: do as you like.”

  He nodded abruptly, and stepped through the open window.

  “So long,” he grunted, and for a while I watched him striding down the drive. Then I went back to my desk and again picked up the print. The whole thing seemed so utterly incredible that my brain felt dazed. The average Englishman who leads an outdoor life doesn’t worry his head as a general rule about the so-called supernatural, and I had certainly been no exception to the rule. If I had been asked to sum up my ideas on the subject, I suppose I should have said that though I was quite prepared to believe that strange things happened outside our ken, I had never come across them and I didn’t want to. And here I found myself confronted with this astounding photograph. Back and forth, this way and that did I argue it out in my mind. And I got no further forward. If it was a defect in the film, then in view of what Trent had seen, it was the most amazing coincidence that had ever happened. And if it wasn’t.

  The lunch gong roused me, and for a moment or two I hesitated. My hand went out towards a box of matches: should I burn it? And then Trent’s remark came back to me – “Isn’t it tantamount to confessing that we’re frightened?” I went to my safe and opened it. I thrust the print far into the back. Time would tell. And as the days passed, and the weeks, gradually the thing faded from my mind. When I thought of it at all, I regarded it as one of those strange inexplicable things which are insoluble.

  2

  The wedding was fixed for the end of September. On the 31st of August Jack Tennant was killed. To this day I remember the blank feeling of numbed shock I experienced when I heard the news. I had almost forgotten the photograph, and I just sat staring speechlessly at my butler as he told me.

  It appeared that he had fallen over the edge of Draxton Quarry, and had broken his neck on the rocks below. I knew the place as well as I knew my own garden – but so did Jack Tennant. It was an old disused chalk quarry, and for years people had been agitating to have railings put round the top. And because it was everybody’s business, no one had attended to it. To a stranger it was a dangerous place, but it was extraordinary that a man who knew the quarry as well as he did should have ventured so near the edge. As always when the soil is small landslips were frequent.

  “It was Mr Trent who found him, sir,” concluded my butler, and instantly my thoughts reverted to the photograph. So the legend of the black monk had not proved false.

  I ordered my car, and went round to see Trent. He was in a terrible state of distress, and it appeared that not only had he found Jack’s body but he had seen the whole thing happen.

  “I was walking back from Oxshott Farm,” he said, “and when I got level with the quarry, I saw old Jack away to the left close by the top. So I started to stroll towards him. I hadn’t gone more than about twenty yards, when he suddenly threw up his arms, gave a great shout and disappeared. The ground had crumbled under his feet, but what I can’t understand is why he should have been standing so close to the edge. I got down to the bottom as quickly as I could, but the poor old chap was stone dead.”

  “What a ghastly thing,” I muttered.

  We looked at one another, the same thought in both our minds.

  “Did you tear up that photograph?” he said at length.

  “No, I kept it. It is in my pocket now. Have you got yours?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I have. Look here, Mercer, what are we going to do about them?”

  “I don’t see that there’s anything to be done,” I said. “The poor old chap is dead, and nothing can alter the fact.”

  “I know that,” he answered. “But there will be an inquest, and of course I shall be called. In fact, as far as I know, I’m the only witness: the place was absolutely deserted when it happened. Oughtn’t I to say something about it?”

  “What on earth is the use?” I cried. “As the thing stands at the moment it is merely a ghastly accident. There’s nothing to tickle the public fancy over it, and it will be dismissed by the Press in a few lines. But if you mention those photographs, you will immediately start a first-class sensation. You’ll have every reporter in England buzzing round, and it will be most unpleasant for all of us.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said slowly. “And yet – I don’t know. It’s all so extraordinary, isn’t it? I almost feel as if I was suppressing a piece of vitally important evidence.”

  A shadow fell across the room, and I looked up quickly. A man was standing in the open window – a man who bore a marked resemblance to Jack Tennant.

  “Forgive my intrusion,” he said gravely, “but I heard that Mr Trent was on the lawn and…” He paused, looking from one to the other of us…

  “That’s me,” said Trent, and the other bowed. “And this is Mercer.”

  “I’m Jack’s brother,” he remarked. “I gather it was you who found him.”

  “Not only that, but I saw the whole thing,” said Trent. “I’ve just been telling Mercer about it.”

  Once again he told the story, and the other listened in silence.

  “Is that all?” he said when Trent had finished.

  “Everything. Why?”

  “Because I could not help overhearing, as I came in, a remark you made to Mr Mercer. You said you felt as if you were suppressing a piece of vitally important evidence.”

  Trent glanced at me, question in his eyes.

  “I think,” I said at length, “that Mr Tennant at any rate should be told. And then he, as Jack’s brother, had better decide.”

  And so Trent told him the other story too, whilst Tennant listened with ever-growing amazement on his face.

  “You feel,” said Trent, “just as I felt: just as Mercer felt when I first told him. I don’t believe there was a man in England more profoundly sceptical on psychic matters than I was. But there you are: look at it.”

  He took his copy from his pocket and handed it to the other.

  “The film I destroyed, and have never ceased regretting that I did so. But I am as convinced in my own mind that poor old Jack was under sentence of death from that day, as I am that we three are in this room. We talked it over, Mercer and I, and rightly or wrongly we came to the conclusion that it would be worse than useless to tell him. If there was nothing in it we should only be upsetting him needlessly: if the reverse then it would do no good.”

  “Most extraordinary,” said Tennant. “A pity you destroyed the film. You have kept your copy, Mr Mercer?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have it on me now,” I said, taking it from my pocket.

  “They are exactly the same,” cried Trent. ‘Two prints of the same film. Good Lord! I’m sorry. How infernally clumsy of me.”

  A stream of ink had shot across his desk soaking one of the prints that Tennant was examining side by side.

  “My dear sir – ten thousand apologies.” He dashed round with blotting paper. “It’s not on your clothes, is it?”

  “Luckily not,” said Tennant. “But I’m afraid one of your prints is ruined.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Anyway one is all right. And that brings us to the point we’ve got to decide – whether or not anything shall be said about this at the inquest. Mercer thinks it will bring a swarm of journalists about our heads, and he is probably right. I, on the other hand – well, you overheard my remark. Ought we to suppress it?”

  “It’s certainly most strange,” said Tennant thoughtfully. “You say, Mr Trent, that you actually saw this apparition?”

  “I did. And it shook me badly at the moment, as Mercer will tell you.”

  The other rose and went to the window, where he stood looking down the drive.

  “And you didn’t see it, Mr Mercer?”

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t. But I can vouch for Trent’s agitation.”

  “Which was quite understandable,” agreed Jack’s brother. “However the point on which you apparently want my advice is whethe
r or not this photograph should be produced at the inquest. I unhesitatingly agree with Mr Mercer. To produce it can do no good, and will inevitably throw us all into the limelight.”

  “Very good,” said Trent, “I will say nothing about it.”

  He picked up his copy and replaced it in his pocket.

  “Not much good keeping yours, Mercer, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “Tear it up and throw it away.”

  “Well then it’s understood,” he said as he dropped the pieces in his waste-paper basket, “that nothing should be said about this. On second thoughts I think you’re right.”

  He paused for a moment, and then turned to Tennant.

  “May I tender you my sincere sympathy in your great loss?”

  “Thank you,” said the other. “Jack was a dear boy. Well, Mr Mercer, if that is your car outside I wonder if you would give me a lift back. I’m staying at the Boar’s Head.”

  “Of course,” I cried, and Trent followed us through the hall.

  “Will you be at the inquest?” he said as we got in.

  “I certainly shall,” said Tennant, and with that we drove off.

  “How is Mary taking it?” I said, as we turned into the road.

  Instead of answering he made a remark which seemed to be in the most questionable taste.

  “I believe I’m right in thinking that Mr Trent was – shall we say – a runner up for Mary?”

  “Really, Mr Tennant,” I said stiffly, “I am not in his confidence to that extent. And anyway this is hardly the time to discuss it.”

  “I think I remember Jack mentioning the fact to me in a letter last winter. They were getting up some amateur theatricals, and Trent was acting.”

  “He is a very good actor,” I remarked. “In fact I believe for a while he was on the stage in London. Before he came into money.”

  “I thought he must be,” was his somewhat surprising reply. “It’s strange that a man who is presumably neat with his fingers should be so clumsy with his hands.”