Unholy Relics and Other Uncanny Tales

THE BEAM

“What on earth is that?” I exclaimed, as a series of loud explosions and rumblings, followed by a sputter and then silence, sounded on the gravel drive outside our residence one afternoon.

“Well,” grinned Alan, “I suppose its owner, whoever he is, calls it a car!”

Putting my head through the open study window, I was treated to the spectacle of our old friend Father Manson clambering from a vehicle of very ancient vintage and rakish aspect.

I leapt over the low sill as a short cut, very glad to see the Dominican again, after an absence of at least a month since he had last dropped in.

“Well, Father,” I laughed, “you seem to be going in for the study of antiquity with a vengeance this time. Where on earth did you pick that up?”

He explained somewhat sheepishly that a friend had lent it to him, his own motor-cycle being out of order, as he wished to reach our rather inaccessible Wold manor-house quickly.

It was evident the old priest had something urgent to communicate, so I led him into the study by the orthodox route of the door, only stopping to give an order for tea to James.

Settled in what we had come to look upon as his special chair, Father Manson got his pipe going and lost no time in launching on his news.

“You see,” he began, “you fellows have had such queer experiences by accident, as it were, in the course of your historical researches, that I feel you can help me in a matter which has left me nonplussed.

“You know that quarrying village, Mount Stanton, of course? Well, there are quite a lot of Catholics round there, and they have a district priest with a little tin church for the area. The priest is a friend of mine; he rang me up a few days ago to tell me that during quarrying on the great hill behind the village, the workmen have found a couple of Roman burials.

“That’s interesting,” put in Alan, “one of the best Roman cemeteries ever found in Leicestershire was not far away—just across the river; but there is one record of a Roman grave at Mount Stanton, found in the ’sixties.

“Probably,” I contributed, “most of the signs of the Roman occupation were destroyed when that robber-chief Hugh Lupus built his castle on the rock—but you’re not going to tell us the Roman burials are haunted, or something?”

“No,” smiled Father Manson, “but one of the quarrymen is! I’m just coming to that. Anyhow, my priest friend thought I would be able to let you know as—wise men—you are not to be found in the ’phone directory.

“The priest added on the ’phone that there was another matter on which he was seriously in need of my advice, and begged me to kill two birds with one stone—see the relics, and help him—by going over as soon as I possibly could. He seemed rather mysterious about it, so I went at once, as it is not many miles from Leicester.

“We saw the finds—which are well worth a visit from you, and which the quarry company is most willing shall be safely housed in a museum—and then in my friend’s presbytery I heard a most remarkable story, which has left both of us very puzzled men. This is what he told me:

“A parishioner of his, a quarry worker rejoicing in the wonderful name of Montague Danvers Smith (he is alleged to be some sort of a descendant of the famous Danvers family of Swithland) has been to ask the priest’s help, in a very distressed state.

“It appears that this humble workman has a daughter, a schoolgirl just under 14 years of age, and that their cottage has recently become the scene of a most unpleasant and violent form of poltergeist haunting. In addition to the usual features of that type of disturbance—you know, coal, furniture and crockery suddenly flung all over the place—a vile-looking thing they describe as like the arm of a hairy ape, but covered with loathsome grey-green hairs, rises by magic from under the table-cloth at meals and throws off everything, remaining poised above the table for a few seconds and then suddenly vanishing into air.

“Now the queer thing about it is this: these disturbances seem to be associated exclusively with the daughter plus the house; when the business started—the child was reduced to a nervous, hysterical state, and no wonder—the doctor advised that she have a change of air, and she was sent off for a week to stay with her aunt at the seaside.

“While she was away, nothing happened either at the Mount Stanton cottage or at the aunt’s. As soon as she returned, it all began again. For a second time they sent her away, with the same result; she came back last week-end, and the disturbances have resumed with increased violence.

“The parish priest has in vain tried exorcism. We went to the house together and attempted it, but with no better success. You know the Church’s view—that things like this are evil spirits. I know you do not agree with that, but you will admit that it seems at least to be a very malevolent form of energy; and so, in view of previous cases within your experience that you have confided to me. I’ve come to you, as a last resort, to see if you can help—possibly trace something connected with the past (though in this very modern setting it seems unlikely) and get to the bottom of it.

“Anyhow,” the Father concluded with his winning smile, “I know you won’t be able to resist the temptation of a visit, if only for the inducement of the Roman remains.”

We all sat smoking and thinking hard for a few minutes. Then:

“Did this upset start before or after the discovery of the Roman burials?” I asked, “and was this man Smith one of the workers concerned in their discovery?”

“Ah, I thought you’d ask that,” said the Dominican, “it seemed to me, at first sight, the most obvious connection—but the trouble in Smith’s house started two months before the men got anywhere near the site of these burials; and Smith works on a different section altogether—so there is no connection there.”

We readily agreed to inspect both the finds and the ‘haunted’ cottage, and left it to Father Manson to arrange for a visit next day, as the area is but a short drive from our home.

We duly arrived, and managed to get Smith as he was coming off duty for his dinner-hour. Father Manson introduced us and the man, a typical rough, honest-looking navvy in corduroys, insisted, with the true courtesy more often found in his class than among the so-called ‘aristocracy,’ that we join his humble board. He seemed very relieved that somebody had been called in to try and help his family.

“Yer see, genelmen,” he explained, “me an’ the missus is very fond of our kid—Eileen’s ’er name—and we don’t want no ’arm to come to ’er. I ain’t an eddicated man, an’ this ’ere’s summat as I can’t get to the bottom of—nor can ’is Reverence ’ere. The gel’s just got a scollership an’ this bloody business—beggin’ your pardon, gents, but I feels strongly about it—is gettin’ ’er nerves all to a frazzle an’ mine an’ the missus’ too.”

“I imagine it is, Mr. Smith,” I said sympathetically, “and we will do what we can.”

We thanked him genuinely for the offer of dinner, and were soon at his cottage, kept in spotless condition by a hard-working, pleasant-faced wife, to whom, as also to the victimised daughter, we were soon made known.

Eileen was a pretty girl, with an extraordinarily-developed figure for her age, not quite fourteen, and a wide intelligent head; she was obviously happy and fond of her humble parents. We did not broach the matter in hand till we were all comfortably seated at table.

We then got Smith, encouraged by the priest’s presence, to tell us all he knew about it, then the daughter.

“I can’t understand it, sir,” she said addressing me in particular, “it started about two months ago, with me being thrown out of bed one night. Then next morning at breakfast all the things was—I mean were—thrown off the table; and during the morning it was in the ’olidays—holidays—I was helping Mum get coal in and great lumps came flying through the air. After that, every night for a week I was knocked about in bed—sometimes I felt great hands pull me out by the hair.

“An’ it was after a week of that as we sent ’er to Auntie’s,” put in her mother, “for the poor dear was near mad with it.”

They related how peace followed her departure, and renewed violence her return; and having got them warmed up to the subject, I judged it discreet to introduce the matter of the remarkable hairy arm.

“’Orrible it was!” declared her father, “I seed it meself, an’ I’m not a drinkin’ man, am I, me duck?” (his wife agreed warmly that he was not).

“It was like something right out of ‘Ell itself,” he declared dramatically, “and pore Eileen, she faints when she seed it the fust time.”

“Very strange,” I said, “do you know, somehow, when this thing is coming, Eileen, or is it always sudden?”

Sometimes, she replied, it came without warning. At others, she had an awful premonition that the Thing was there, waiting its chance to rise and play havoc with the table.

“It would be most interesting to see this weird arm,” remarked Alan injudiciously.

Eileen went very pale, and let out an ear-piercing scream that made us all jump up.

“It’s coming!” she yelled.

Almost as she cried out, the centre of the tablecloth went up like a cone, the remains of the meal and the whole of the crockery went flying, and an invisible hand grabbed the cloth from below, flinging it off.

There arose to our amazed eyes, practically out of the centre of the very table, but hovering above it, a most appalling object—a loathsome, ape-like arm, just as had been described, covered with long grey-green hairs and ending in a cruel hand furnished with long talons. It was like the arms in the devil-drawings from an illustrated edition of the Jackdaw of Rheims.

Father Manson feverishly began the prayer of exorcism, telling his beads—but it had not the least effect on the Thing, which hung quivering over the table for fully three minutes. I noted with surprise that the Father had omitted to have any holy water with him, but I doubt if it would have been much use against an elemental thought-form of this kind.[1]

I lurched across the table and made a grab at the arm, but as I did so, it vanished like smoke.

Eileen, who had fainted, now regained consciousness, with the aid of her mother’s ministrations, and whispered faintly: “It’s all right now, I know it’s gone.”

“Don’t you think she’d better go and lie down a bit on her bed. Father?” said Mrs. Smith, addressing Father Manson.

He was about to agree, when, struck by the development of an idea I had been turning over in my mind, I interposed:

“No, Mrs. Smith—not there. Get her on the couch in the front parlour, then I’ll tell you why.”

When the mother returned after leading the still-shaken girl away, I said:

“Now, Mr. and Mrs. Smith! This weird, horrible business, as you will well be able to agree, is something connected closely with the girl and the house at the same time. When they are apart, nothing happens.

“It therefore seems to me that there is something in this house—call it some kind of wave-vibration, like wireless, if you like, to use simple terms for it—for which your poor daughter acts like a receiving-set. So far as I can see, this is quite an ordinary cottage, and not very old, but perhaps you would allow us to see Eileen’s bedroom. I have a feeling that the cause of the trouble may be centred there.

“You see,” I added, feeling it incumbent on me to explain in non-scientific terms, “when we are asleep, that part of us which is called the subconscious mind comes uppermost, and it is more easily a prey to these queer forces than the conscious mind we use when awake; and Eileen has said it all started with her being thrown about in her room.

The parents consented at once to our inspection, and led the way up the stairs to a room at the back, which they invested as Eileen’s bedroom, and we all trooped in. The floor sounded very hollow, and I at once crossed to the window, to find that, as I thought, the room was built out as an addition to the house; and craning out of the window, I could see below the two thick brick pillars which supported it over the back garden and yard.

“Ah, Mr. Smith,” I said, “this room seems to have been added on to the house later?”

“Whoi, yes, sir,” he answered at once, “I’m a ’andy man with bricks—was ’prenticed as a bricklayer—and I put it up meself in me spare time to make a bit more room an’ give me a shelter over the yard for me macklin’ jobs, seein’ as ’ow I owns me cottage and nubuddy to say me nay.”

“And a very fine job you made of it, if I may say so,” I rejoined tactfully.

I looked round outside the room, and caught Alan’s eye as his gaze, like mine, travelled up to a noble oaken beam running right across the ceiling. Alan ‘signalled’ me to go on with the conversation, for Father Manson, deep in thought, was gaping at the beam with his mouth open and looking slightly ludicrous and fish-like.

“That’s a fine bit of oak you got hold of to put in there, anyhow,” I remarked to the proud handyman. “It’s very, very much older than anything else in the place, if I’m not mistaken in the tooling I can see on it. Do you know where it came from?”

The good workman suddenly went as white as a sheet and trembled all over.

“God almighty!” he gasped, “I do believe that’s what’s the cause of all this ’ere. Danged fule as I was, not to ha’ thought on it afore!”

He took out a huge and singularly unæsthetic red spotted handkerchief and mopped his brow.

“Aye, genelmen,” he went on, “thet theer beam come from the owd Sillington Mill down in the valley, as was burnt out a few years back. I bought it from the feller as owned the plaace—an’ its always said hereabouts as the owd miller about fifty year back ’anged ’imself in the mill.”

“Then,” I said, “we’ve solved the whole mystery. You see, what we call a thought-form, connected in some mysterious way with that miller committing suicide, has remained attached to the beam—I shouldn’t wonder it’s the very beam on which he did the hanging. If you can manage to shore up the ceiling while you replace it, and chop up and burn the beam, I think you will have no more trouble at all—and if I were you, I should have Father Manson and your parish priest here when you do it.”

The poor fellow was most grateful, and with that we felt our mission was ended.

As we climbed back in our car, Father Manson fired at me:

“Why did you suggest the Church should be present at the burning, Gregory? I always thought you were a hard old agnostic on these matters!”

“Well,” I replied slowly, “since my experience with the Unholy Relics at Toulouse, as to the violence of elementals, I’m not so sure as I used to be!”

Two days later, the priest came over again, heralding his arrival as before with many groans, stenches and explosions, to tell us that the burning had been done next day, and at last the house was quiet.

“Strange,” he said over the inevitable tea and muffins, “how the dying agony of a man can be translated into a dangerous emanation; and stranger still, how it can be rendered malevolent by the presence of an innocent young girl! Can you wonder priests don’t marry?”

“Go on, you old joker!” retorted Alan. “Have you got that burial pottery to the museum yet?”