But Sir Eldred, fortunately, was spared that degradation; for hardly had Vane finished speaking when one of the C.I.D. men arrived at the house and informed us that George Mansfield was no more. He had evaded justice by swallowing a poisonous lozenge which he had secreted in his handkerchief.
The Parrys were let go; the law does not acknowledge the superphysical, and Sir Eldred recognised the futility of prosecuting them. They eventually went to Canada and were heard of no more. The Caspar Beeches, however, had got a sinister name; no tradespeople would venture within its grounds after dusk, and no servants would stay there. Sir Eldred himself lived in a constant state of fear, and confided in me that he frequently heard strange noises—doors opening and shutting of their own accord, and soft, inexplicable footsteps. Eventually the house was shut up, and, although it has since been periodically occupied, no one ever cares to remain in it for long.
When once invoked, it seems that spirits, especially evil ones, have an unpleasant habit of clinging to a person or place, and, in spite of what some people assert, can seldom, if ever, be laid.
CHAPTER XII
THE STEPPING-STONES
Between Coalbrookdale and the Wrekin, in a charmingly wooded valley, flows a stream crossed by seven stepping-stones, and on one bank of the stream are the ruins of what was once a farmhouse. People shun the spot at night, and tell strange tales of the uncanny things that are seen there.
The following narrative may very possibly afford an explanation of the alleged hauntings.
About noon one stifling hot day in August, rather more than thirty years ago, Robert Redblake Casson, senior partner of the firm of Casson, Hunter & Co., ivory merchants, of Old Queen Street, London, walked into the Fox and Greyhound Inn, Coalbrookdale, and ordered luncheon. While he was eating—there was no one else in the dining-room at the time—his eyes wandered to a large oil-painting hanging on the wall facing him. It represented a stream spanned by seven large stepping-stones. In the background of the picture, and leading to the bank of the stream, was a broad and very white pathway, bordered on either side by a thickly planted row of lofty pines. The artist, Casson thought, had depicted this scene with a more than ordinary touch of realism. The trees were no mere paint-and-canvas duds, but things of life—things that stood out prominently, each with an individuality of its own. He could almost see them move, see the rustling of their foliage and hear the creaking of their gently swaying bodies. Their shadows, too, were no empty, meaningless daubs, such as one too often sees in pictures, but counterparts, living, breathing counterparts, that, while conveying a sense of the physical, conveyed also a suggestion of the inexplicable. As to the water in the stream which rippled and babbled as it flowed, Casson could feel the speed and gauge the shallowness of it everywhere, saving round the centre stepping-stone, where it was green, and seemed to possess the stillness that great depths alone can generate. There was sunlight everywhere on the surface of the water, and here and there it shone and sparkled with all the brilliant lustre of the goldfishes’ scales; but despite this animation, a sense of utter loneliness, a feeling of intense isolation, seemed to permeate the whole thing, and Casson, as he gazed, felt both chilled and depressed.
He was still looking at the picture, and wondering what there could be in it to cause such a sensation of chilliness, when something made him glance at the stepping-stones, and, to his utter amazement, he saw the centre one suddenly begin to oscillate.
Thinking it must be some kind of optical illusion, Casson rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the stone was still shaking, and he fancied he could discern the shadowy and indistinct outline of something or someone standing on it, swaying violently to and fro.