12

Only H.M., Cy, and Davis approached that outfield fence. All others—even Bob Manning, who had not gone out to look for a lost ball—were sternly kept near the dugout

The board fence, ten feet high and painted dull green, marked the boundary of Manning's properly. Jean, Cy remembered, had said that It loomed up with disquieting effect in the twilight, pierced by a door of ordinary size, now wide open, with a small bolt on this side.

"You two," growled H.M. to Cy and Davis, "follow me single file. Anybody got a torch?"

Nobody had. H.M., his baseball cap now discarded, grunted again and lumbered into the old graveyard.

It was in a ruinous state. The whole graveyard could not have occupied a space more than a hundred feet square, and, beyond the fence, it was bounded on its three other sides by heavy yew hedges almost eight feet high.

But the hedges were toppling and sunken inwards with trailing weight Almost obscured by the high harsh grass, many headstones-blackened or grey—leaned at angles as though peering through that yellowish-green grass. A small mausoleum, half-covered with hedge, showed its blackened door on the south side. On the north side, also encroached on by the hedge, stood a smaller cenotaph: though no burying place, it had a door and what even looked like windows.

Not a noise whispered in that crooked forest of graves. The clock had been stopped; there was not time past the later nineteenth century.

"This way!" suddenly called a nervous voice, and Cy’s skin crawled with the shock of it

Some thirty feet ahead of them, some dozen feet away from the old pillared cenotaph, a young man knelt in the grass. His uniform in the dusk had seemed merely a whiter headstone until he spoke.

H.M. led the way through the rustling grass. At one place a black headstone, wafer-thin, had fallen or been uprooted. There were many bird droppings, and at one place a black scar where someone (probably now dead) had tried to light a fire.

The young man in the uniform stood up.

"I'm Bill Wadsworth," he said, and pointed. "We—we found..."

"Yes," grunted H.M. "That's Fred Manning."

Half-sitting, half-lying with his back against a gravestone, Manning sat hunched with his silver grey head hung forward and his legs in the grass along the mound of the grave. They saw him now in a light grey summer suit, with white collar and blue tie. Bloodstains, darkening the coat a few inches under the left armpit, had soaked the shirt on his left side, and still faintly trickled.

H.M., with infinite effort, managed to kneel beside him.

"I—I tried to take his pulse," Bill Wadsworth blurted out "I think he's breathing. Couldn't we get a doctor?"

Cy Norton forebore to mention other cases, or say that the old devil's degrees included an M.B. in medicine.

"Slide him down on his back," H.M. was saying. "E-asy, now!"

He glared at them while they took Manning's weight, as gently as they could, and eased him along the mound of the grave.

A faint bloodstain ran down the headstone. The headstone, for this graveyard was comparatively new. Cy Norton found himself staring at its lettering, only a little defaced:


Sacred to the Memory of Frederick Manning.


The hedges seemed to extend their tentacles, the old gravestones bend in the grass. And then Cy wondered why he had been such an idiot. Under the lettering he saw the dates of birth and death,

1822-1886.

"Has anybody got a penknife?" growled H.M., carefuly turning back the coat.

Young Bill Wadsworth hastily produced from his hip pocket a penknife more like a small clasp knife. Its biggest blade was four inches long, the longest permitted by law. H.M. looked at it with sudden curiosity; then he began carefully to cut the silk shirt.

"Strike matches, all of you!" he ordered. "Keep on strikin' matches!"

Cy Norton and Huntington Davis, who was breathing quickly, had match boxes instead of paper books. The little spurts of flame snapped, snapped again, and followed each other until the red spark winked out. Though they bent close, they could see little except the back of H.M.'s big bald head.

"Uh-huh. That'll do!" he said, and propelled himself up. "Where's the nearest telephone?"

Young Bill pointed to the eastern hedge.

"That's Fenimore Cooper Road out there," he said eagerly. "There's a gas station and a cigar store just along it."

"Phone the nearest hospital," said H.M., shovelling out a handful of change, "and get the most available doctor. I want you to give him a message from another medical man; and for the love of Esau remember what I say! Can you do that?"

"I’ll try, sir."

"Tell him," continued H.M., "there are two stab wounds, one above the other, in the left side on a line round from the nipple. They're both lung wounds, and didn't touch the heart. Got it so far?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Tell him both wounds are 'sucking.' Sure, that's the word! All the same (tell him) the left side of the lung is probably fillin' with blood clots. If s ruddy bad place to operate here; you can explain that; but, if he wants to operate at the hospital, he'd better get an ambulance here in a hurry. Got that? Then repeat it!"

Bill did so, with surprising accuracy.

"Next, phone the police at White Plains. Get Lieutenant Trowbridge, and ask him to get here as soon as he can. That's all. Hop it!"

Bill maneuvered through the graves and patches of stinging nettles, towards a high iron-barred gate in the eastern hedge. You only noticed the gate when he tore away foliage, and climbed over like an orangutan.

"You son!" said H.M., and pointed to Davis. The Old Maestro was now so nervous that his hand shook.

Davis was not all celluloid film. Though he still stared incredulously at the motionless figure on the grave mound, he had himself well under control.

"You name it," he said. "I’ll do it" "Lieutenant Trowbridge, d'ye see, left one copper here on guard. I dunno where the copper is. But find him and bring him here. Oh, ah! And you might bring some electric torches or lanterns."

Davis nodded, and was about to turn away. But human nature could not endure it Davis clenched his fists. His black hair seemed lustrous even in twilight Yet something, perhaps the unexpectedness of seeing a man he believed had vanished forever, seemed to cloud his usual charm.

"I want to know how he got here!" Davis burst out. "I want to know how he got out of that pool and—and flew"—here the unconventional beat him—"I mean, and landed here fully dressed!"

"We all want to know that, Mr. Davis," said Cy.

Davis's own dress consisted of white flannels and a sports coat His face, modelled usually on what-the-successful-man-must be, suddenly grew human.

"I don't ask for my own sake," he added. "I know I'm not much valued here. But Jean is nearly going out of her mind."

"That's true, son," H.M. agreed sombrely. "And she's goin' to feel a whole lot worse when she learns about this. Don't tell her—yet"

"I..." Davis began clearly and stopped. "Sorry," he added. "I forgot I had an errand to do."

And, a man out of his element and now half out of his mind, he strode away through the rustling grass.

The evening air was thickened by a scent of vegetation and decay. Some distance away there was a grey stone angel, its neck so cracked that a shove would make the head fall off. And, Cy realized, Davis had sensed one thing without knowing it

This graveyard, as such, held no eeriness or unease. It all flowed from Frederick Manning. It all flowed from the sprawled figure on the grave mound, with is own name written above his head.

Manning should have been up and bowing to them, with his suave smile and his imposing airs and his adroitness at trickery, But he lay there with disordered hair and a white face, even his shoes so very new—Cy bent closer—that the yellowish polished soles bore no more than a few stains or scratches. With the mainspring gone, it was worse. Manning's re-appearance made the problem harder than his disappearance.

Sir Henry Merrivale prowled among the graves, his big arms folded across his barrel chest.

"H.M.!" Cy spoke abruptly, and pointed to Manning. "How bad is it?"

"Blood clots f illin' the lung? Pretty bad. But he's got a chance."

"H.M., did you expect this?"

H.M. stopped and looked at him over the big spectacles.

"It's uncommon kind of you, son, to regard the old man as omniscient. Which the same I am not. No, burn it! I didn't expect this. But I can see now it's logical and—cor!—even inevitable."

"Presumably he didn't stab himself." Cy paused. "Murder?"

"Yes. As sure as guns."

The rank smell of the vegetation seemed to intensify.

"What kind of weapon? Or did you find a weapon?"

"No, I didn't see one. But d'ye know," scowled a worried H.M., taking from his trousers pocket the knife Bill had given him, and opening it, "I'd guess it was a thin blade about four inches long. A bit like this."

"You're not thinking that kid Bill...?"

"No, no! But is this a common kind of knife here?"

"If 8 a boy's knife. Or used to be. I was very proud of mine."

"Still, you could buy it and carry it without rousin' suspicion?"

"I suppose so." Again Cy indicated the grave. "One of Manning's relatives is buried here. Do you think it's a family graveyard?"

H.M. shook his head.

"No, son. There are other names on the graves. Besides, if Fred Manning had anything to do with it this place wouldn't be in ruins. I was just wondering if..."

He lumbered back to the grave. He looked at Manning. His eyes turned to the right

Facing them, only a dozen feet away, was the front of the blackened stone cenotaph or memorial. It had evidently been built at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was circular, with small circular pillars round it the roof a flattish dome. Lettering had been cut deep into a big plaque on the roof a little out from the door.

The first curled letters of the plaque were indecipherable. But as deep white carving will appear when it has been cut into darkened stone, even in that light they could read the rest


Major John Kedwick Manning, aetat lst May, 1734, Who perished at the Battle of Long Island, In the War for American Independence, 27th August, 1776.

The forgotten words crept into Cy Norton's heart, as at a stir of old bugles or ghostly drums.

"Manning would have been proud of that, wouldn't he?" H.M. rumbled softly.

"Yes."

"Then, why," raved H.M., "an 'abandoned' graveyard? Why this place o' skulls and weeds stuck down and lost between a baseball field and a modern road? In England you can't abandon a graveyard; it's church property. Why is it here, with no church at all? Who owns it?"

"I don't know!" Cy retorted. Gnats touched his face. He felt as though he were in the middle of the eighteenth century. "But Jean told us in the car, you remember, it's a place that 'nobody can touch because of laws or something.'"

"Stop a bit!" said H.M. "Gimme a match!"

Cy tossed over the box.

H.M. struck a match. Again with corporation trouble, he knelt down in the long grass beside the grave mound where Manning lay. Then he moved the match outwards, in the direction of the cenotaph.

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "That's got it. Blood drops. Blood drops leading in the direction of..." He nodded towards the cenotaph, whose door might once have been shining bronze. "One more shot!" added H.M.

Carefully, gingerly, he felt over Manning's inert body. From the right-hand side pocket of the coat he took out a very large key, brand-new. If it had not been so new, Cy thought, it might have fitted the lock of the cenotaph door.

"Again, I'm tellin' you, it's inevitable!" H.M. was arguing to a ghostly jury. He turned to Cy. "What time is it, son?"

Cy, consulting his wrist watch and reporting ten minutes past nine, suddenly remembered another wrist watch. Manning, when he plunged


into that pool had been wearing a wrist watch

H.M., with a ghoulish nod of understanding, watched Cy as the latter went round to inspect Manning's left arm. On the left wrist, when the palm lay upturned, he saw the brown strap of the wrist watch.

"Easy with that arm, now!" implored H.M., as Cy gently turned over the wrist

"Here's the watch," Cy said. "It's still so waterlogged you can see a drop or two under the crystal. Is stopped at nine thirty-six."

H.M. nodded, bending over to look.

"Right son. That's the time he dived into the pool. And he hasn't taken it off his wrist since."

"H.M.," Cy burst out wildly, "how the hell did he do it? Everything depends on that! He did do it, and yet..."

"Easy, Cy! Speakin' for myself, I'd like to hear some kind of explanation for the 'abandoned graveyard.'"

Whereupon two voices spoke out, one after the other, through that dusky hedge-walled place.

The first was Jean Manning's. "I can explain it'"

Stumbling from the direction of the fence, Jean carried a light whose beam swept past another stone angel hiding its face.

The second voice came from the top of the iron-barred gate in the eastern wall, where young Bill Wadsworth had swung himself up and sat with his white uniform outlined against a dark sky.

"The doctor," Bill shouted, "says he's going to operate here. He'll be here in two shakes."

H.M., stumbling in the grass, hurried out and intercepted Jean before she reached that inert figure on the grave mound. H.M. was upset. Much as he wanted to be the old man, loftily above human affairs, you would guess that he could not keep back sympathy and pity for the naive, loyal Jean.

So he barred her way and put his big hands on her shoulders.

"Where'd you learn this?" he asked in a low growl. "Did Davis...?"

The girl's light, an electric hand lamp, was now directed at the ground. But her face, with the broad mouth and blue eyes, was frantic.

"I haven't seen Dave," she told him. "But the rumours... Stuffy chased me all around the house, but I got away. I know it's Dad. Is he...?"

"No, my wench. That's straight. He's been hurt, but he's not going to die."

Outside the barred gate in the eastern wall, obscured by torn vines, flashed motor headlights; two cars ground to a stop.

"That's the doctor now," H.M. said woodenly. "And you're not going' to see..."

"I won't go away! You can't send me!"

Taking her by the left arm, signalling to Cy to get round on the other side, H.M. set his bulk against any view Jean might have of the grave mound. He marched her straight towards the small cenotaph.

I know a whole lot," Jean was still pleading. "I know why this cemetery can't be touched, but I didn't want to bother at the time. Ill tell you if you let me stay. I—I've even followed Dad sometimes. I followed him when he went to that place where they trace people. I even followed him when he went to visit—you-know-who. And what's more..."

H.M. had put away both large pocket knife and large key. He now produced the key, and nodded towards the cenotaph.

There's nothing to be scared of," he told Jean. "Nobody's buried there; if s a memorial you've probably seen a thousand times from outside."

"Of course. But why...?"

H.M. yelled over his shoulder at the white-clad figure still perched high on top of the iron gate.

"Will you tell 'em what’s what?" he yelled.

The figure waved assent, disappeared, and, from the ensuing sounds, appeared, to be smashing an old lock with a heavy stone.

Confidently H.M. took the large key from his pocket, and slid it into the lock of the age-crusted bronze door. Not only did the new key fit, but the lock was oiled. Cy Norton heard it snap.

"I've got some questions to ask you, my dolly," H.M. said to Jean, looking her in the eyes, "and they're awful important. Cy, you take the light That's it Now well try it."

The door opened with hardly a sound.

"Cor!" said H.M. in real astonishment.

No age-poisoned air thickened their breathing from inside. The air was close and stuffy, but little worse than in the graveyard. And, as the beam of the hand lamp moved round, Cy and Jean were just as startled at the transformation.

In the year 1802, according to a tablet on the wall, this smallish circular room had been painted round with a panorama of scenes from the Revolutionary War. By this time it should have been obliterated by age and dirt It was oil painting on very thick plaster. But someone— evidently recently—had washed it clean.

Despite heavy cracks and patches of damp, there stood out vividly the colours of a bad but zealous painter. Red uniforms were locked against buff-and-blue, amid cream-puff cannon smoke; Washington, at Yorktown, looked seven feet high.

"Cor!" muttered H.M., now in a thoughtful tone.

At waist height round the circular room ran a marble ledge. On this ledge stood three empty water buckets, an old-fashioned bowl and pitcher with two sponges, a metal bowl, and more cleaning material.

"Never mind that, son!" H.M. told Cy. "Turn that light under the ledge! And across the floor!"

Under the ledge stood a large and new pigskin suitcase, its brass brimmings a-gleam. Near the middle of the marble floor, which was comparatively clean, lay a .38 Smith and Wesson single-action revolver.

From that point one blood drop, then another, led towards the door.

"Easy, now!" said H.M., as Jean shied away. "Isn't that the revolver I found on top of my bag last night? Where's it been since?"

"As I reminded you this morning," Cy retorted, "Manning just put it away in an unlocked drawer. Where anybody could get it."

Disregarding his protest about fingerprints, H.M. climbed down on his knees in order to pick up the gun, and struggled to his feet

"Listen, son!" he said wearily. "I’ll simply tell you, as a crimonological fact that you never do get any usable prints of a gun except on the grip. And this grip is criss-crossed walnut wood that won't take prints."

After sniffing at the barrel, he explored the inside with a match stick.

"So!" he muttered. "This gun's clean. Hasn't been fired for some time. I wonder, now..."

Sudden inspiration seemed to distend H.M.'s cheeks, like an ogre in a pantomime. Breaking open the magazine, which showed the ends of cartridge cases, he plucked out one bullet He scrutinized it carefully, also weighing it in his hand. He did this, while Cy's nerves ached, with every bullet in the magazine; and shut it up again.

"So!" he repeated, dropping the revolver on the floor with an echoing clatter of marble. "Don't you see what this place means now!"



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