Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

“I didn’t say you were,” the little man snapped. “There’s nothing down there, anyway — though we’ll have to prove that, I suppose.” He glanced truculently at me, but went on talking to the constable: “Rig the rope around me, and don’t bungle the knot. I’ve no intention of falling into the place.”

“There is something there,” whispered the coroner, slowly, to me. His eyes left the little detective and the policeman, carefully tying and testing knots, and turned again to the square slab of stone.

“Suppose — while a man was looking into that hole — with the stone propped up — he should accidentally knock the prop away?” He was still whispering.

“A stone so light that he could prop it up wouldn’t be heavy enough to kill him,” I objected.

“No.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Not to kill him — to paralyze him — if it struck the spine in a certain way. To render him helpless, but not unconscious. The post mortem would disclose that, through the bruises on the body.”

The policeman and the detective had adjusted the knots to their satisfaction. They were bickering now as to the details of the descent.

“Would that cause death?” I whispered.

“You must remember that the housekeeper was absent for two days. In two days, even that pressure” — he stared at me hard, to make sure that I understood — “with the head down—”

Again the policeman interrupted: “I’ll stand at the well, if you gentlemen will grab the rope behind me. It won’t be much of a pull. I’ll take the brunt of it.”

We let the little man down, with the electric torch strapped to his waist, and some sort of implement — a trowel or a small spade — in his hand. It seemed a long time before his voice, curiously hollow, directed us to stop. The hole must have been deep.

We braced ourselves. I was second, the coroner last. The policeman relieved his strain somewhat by snagging the rope against the edge of the well, but I marveled, nevertheless, at the ease with which he held the weight. Very little of it came to me.

A noise like muffled scratching reached us from below. Occasionally the rope shook and shifted slightly at the edge of the hole. At last the detective’s hollow voice spoke.

“What does he say?” the coroner demanded.

The policeman turned his square, dogged face toward us.

“I think he’s found something,” he explained.

The rope jerked and shifted again. Some sort of struggle seemed to be going on below. The weight suddenly increased, and as suddenly lessened, as if something had been grasped, then had managed to elude the grasp and slip away. I could catch the detective’s rapid breathing now, also the sound of inarticulate speech in his hollow voice.

The next words I caught came more clearly. They were a command to pull up. At the same moment, the weight on the rope grew heavier, and remained so.

The policeman’s big shoulders began straining, rhythmically.

“All together,” he directed. “Take it easy. Pull when I do.”

Slowly, the rope passed through our hands. With each fresh grip that we took, a small section of it dropped to the floor behind us. I began to feel the strain. I could tell from the coroner’s labored breathing that he felt it more, being an old man. The policeman, however, seemed untiring.

The rope tightened, suddenly, and there was an ejaculation from below — just below. Still holding fast, the policeman contrived to stoop over and look. He translated the ejaculation for us.

“Let down a little. He’s stuck with it against the side.”

We slackened the rope, until the detective’s voice gave us the word again.

The rhythmic tugging continued. Something dark appeared, quite abruptly, at the top of the hole. My nerves leapt in spite of me, but it was merely the top of the detective’s head — his dark hair. Something white came next — his pale face, with staring eyes. Then his shoulders, bowed forward, the better to support what was in his arms. Then—

I looked away; but, as he laid his burden down at the side of the well, the detective whispered to us:

“He had her covered up with dirt — covered up...”

He began to laugh — a little, high cackle, like a child’s — until the coroner took him by the shoulders and deliberately shook him. Then the policeman led him out of the cellar.

It was not then, but afterward, that I put my question to the coroner.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “People pass there at all hours. Why didn’t my uncle call for help?”

“I have thought of that,” he replied. “I believe he did call. I think, probably, he screamed. But his head was down, and he couldn’t raise it. His screams must have been swallowed up in the well.”

“You are sure he didn’t murder her?” He had given me that assurance before, but I wished it again.

“Almost sure,” he declared, “though it was on his account, undoubtedly, that she killed herself. Few of us are punished as accurately for our sins as he was.”

One should be thankful, even for crumbs of comfort. I am thankful.