The Man with a Shadow

“To-night, Hartley?” cried Leo, suddenly displaying great interest in her brother’s welfare. “No, no; don’t do that. You seem so fagged.”

“Yes, you seem tired out, dear,” said Mary.

“Go and have a good night’s rest,” said Leo, smiling, and rising to kiss him. “Good night, dear. Good night, Mary. But you will go to bed, Hartley?”

“Well,” he said, “if you two order it I suppose I must.”

“And we do order it,” said Leo playfully; “eh, Mary?”

“Yes, get up early and have a good morning’s walk,” said Mary, with the result that the lamp was extinguished after candles had been lit. Leo went to her room, and Hartley Salis performed his regular task of carrying his sister to her door; after which, by the help of a couple of crutch-handled sticks, she could manage to get about.

An hour later all was hushed at the Rectory, and another hour passed when Hartley Salis had been dreaming uneasily of listening to a lecture from the rector about his neglect of the parish, the rector striking hard on the principle of the rough who blunders against a person and exclaims —

“Where are yer shoving to?” The lecture had reached an imaginary point at which the rector had exclaimed, with his hand on the bell:

“And now we understand one another, Mr Salis. Good morning.”

The bell rang just over the curate’s head, and he jumped out of bed and hurried on his dressing-gown, for that bell communicated with Mary’s room, and had been there ever since her illness had assumed so serious a form.

“What is it, Mary; are you ill?”

“No, no, dear,” came back through the slightly opened door; “but there is something wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Yes. I certainly heard a door open and close downstairs.”

Volume Two – Chapter Five.

The Sexton has a Glass

The Candlish mausoleum had been built by an architect who had an excellent idea of the beauties of the Jacobean style, and he had got over the many-windowed difficulty by making those windows blank. The stone mullions, with their tracery, were handsome, and the way in which the arms of the Candlish family had been introduced where there was room reflected great credit upon him. In places where the arms would not stand there was always room for a crest or a shield, so that the chapel-like structure was an improvement to the old church.

But after the exterior had been named, with its grand roof, massive door, and finely forged gate and rails, the less said about design the better. Mausoleums were evidently not the architect’s strong point; and when he came to the interior he was at his worst.

This was to be a partly underground structure, and the architect’s ideas of underground structures were divided between coal-cellars and cellars to hold wine.

Now the former, he felt, would be antiseptic, and a great improvement upon the unhealthy contrivance designed by the sculptors of a past generation to do honour to the first baronet at the expense of his fellow-creatures who have malefited to a horrible extent by the proceedings of our forefathers in regard to the disposal of their mortal remains; but this architect wisely decided that the coal-cellar idea would be repugnant to the builder; so he fell back upon the other.

Consequently for generations the Candlishes had been regularly stowed away in so many stone bins, with labels at the ends of the coffins, to tell who and what they were.

But the great family did not resemble wine, for they did not improve by keeping; and when Moredock struck a match, and lit his lanthorn to hold it above his head, there were traces on all sides of the touch of time.

The wine-cellar idea was there, for the floor was deeply covered with turpentiny sawdust; cobwebs hung in folds; here and there loathsome-looking, slimy fungi had sprung up; mouldering destruction everywhere nearly; and Moredock watched the doctor eagerly as he gazed round, seeing much, but not that which the sexton wished concealed, for if the light of careful inspection had been brought to bear here, sad recollections respecting costly handles and plates would have been brought to light, while, had the inspection been carried further by the modern representatives of the family, the number of uncles and aunts and grandparents who were wholly or partially missing, as well as their leaden homes, would have been startling, and about all of whom Jonadab Moredock could have told a tale.

But the doctor’s was only a cursory glance round at the niches containing the dead, for he turned at once to the coffin lying upon a stone table in the very centre of the vault, which place it would occupy till the doors yawned for another of the Candlishes, when the late Sir Luke would be stowed somewhere on one side.

It was a weird scene as the doctor set down a small leather bag upon the stone table beside the coffin, and produced a lamp with chimney and shade. This lamp when lit cast a yellow glare all over the place, and reflections were cast by tarnished plates and gilded nail-heads from the more obscure portions of the vault.

The sexton looked on curiously after setting his lanthorn, with open door, just inside one of the vacant niches, and his yellow features gave him the aspect of some ghastly old demon come hither for the performance of hideous rites.

“I’ve brought some tools, doctor,” he whispered, as he took a large screw-driver from his pocket.

“I too have come provided,” said the doctor, taking sundry implements from his black bag. “Now, Moredock, I want everything to remain here night after night, just as I leave it, ready for me when I come again.”

“Come again?” growled the sexton.

“What, shan’t you finish to-night?”

“Perhaps not this month,” was the stern answer.

Moredock stared. “Why, you – ”

“Hush!” said the doctor sternly. “Now, what are you going to do – stay and assist me, or go? If you have the slightest nervous dread, pray leave me at once.”

“Nay, I’m not skeared, doctor,” said the old man grimly. “I’ve seen too much o’ this sort o’ thing. I was a bit frightened when I saw that head going along through the church without the body, but I’m not feared of this.”

“Stop, then, and help,” said the doctor. “I’ll pay you well. Can you use a screw-driver?”

Moredock chuckled and took off his coat, which he hung upon one of the ornamental handles of an old coffin foot. Then rolling up his shirt-sleeves over his thin, sinewy arms, he took up a screw-driver – one that he had brought – and as deftly as a carpenter began removing the screws from the handsome coffin-lid.

As Moredock attacked the head, the doctor busied himself at the foot, with the result that in a few minutes the screws were all laid together upon the stone ledge at the side of the vault, and the coffin-lid, with its engraved breast-plate, setting forth the name, age, and date, was lifted up, and stood on end out of the way.

“What will be the best way of opening this?” said the doctor, as he held the lamp over the gleaming lead inner coffin, with its diamond pattern and silvery-looking solder marks along the sides. “Had we better melt the solder?”

“Melt the sawder?” said Moredock, with a chuckle. “I’ll show you a trick worth two of that.”

He went to where his coat hung, and took out of one of the pockets a short, curved, chisel-looking tool with a keen point and a stout handle.

“There, doctor, that’s the jockey for this job. Want it right open?”

“Yes; I want the lid right off. Can you manage it?”

“Can I manage it!” chuckled the old man derisively. “Look!”

Strange thoughts invaded the doctor’s breast as to what at different times had been the pursuits of the old sexton, as he saw him take the singular-looking tool, place its point at the extreme right-hand corner of the leaden coffin, place his shoulder against the butt of the handle, and press down, when the point penetrated the thin lead at once, right over the top of the curved blade. The rest was simple, for the old man only worked the handle up and down close to the side where, acting as a lever, the curved steel cut through the metal with the greatest ease, an inch slit at a time, so that in a very few minutes the top corner was reached. Then the head was cut across, and the old man paused to go back to the foot and cut across there.

“Why didn’t you continue cutting round?” said the doctor, speaking in a low, subdued tone.

“You let me be, doctor,” said Moredock, with an unpleasant laugh. “If it was a leg, I shouldn’t say naught, but let you do it. This is more in my way. Look here.”

He finished cutting the lead as he spoke, and then with a grim laugh inserted his fingers in the slit, raised it a little, and then going to the uncut side, hooked his fingers in again, placed his knee against the coffin, and after the exercise of some little force, drew the long leaf of lead over towards him, the uncut side acting like the hinges of a lid, and laying bare the contents of the ghastly case.

“There,” said the old sexton; “that means less trouble when we come to shut him up again.”

“You seem to know,” said the doctor quickly.

“Man in my line picks up a few things, doctor,” replied the sexton. “But there you are. What next?”