AN ENEMY HATH DONE THIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15500, 6 January 1914, Page 4

AN ENEMY HATH DONE THIS.

Author of All Men Are Liars." "The Scarlet Woman." etc., etc.

A NOVEL BY JOSEPH HOCKING,

COPYRIGHT. TART I. SYNOPSIS. David l.aunccston, a doctor, who is on a walking tour in Cornwall, is caught in a heavy thunderstorm one night, and wanders aion;t seeking shelter. This he eventually finds at a house, where he is grudgingly admitted by an unpleasant-looking man, and is given supper. The man whose name is Imla Jordan tells L.auncesioii th*.; he lives all alone with only an old servant named Bathshebn to look after the house. Launceston retires to bed. and shortly afterwards is awakened by the sound of a woman's voice calling for help. CHAPTER 111.

The time of which I write was in ho September of the year 1870 and the railway which opens up the north of Devon and Cornwall from Halwill junction to Padstow was not yet ret. There was a railway which ran* from Plymouth to Penzance, but all that huge tract of land along the north coast of the county was entirely without railroad communication. Cornwall was therefore utterly different from the Cornwall of to-day. There was a very primitive locomotive track between Wadebridge and Bodmin, over which what we to-day would call an apology for a train, ran every Saturday afternoon, but beyond that, nothing. Lumbering vans plied between villages and market towns, but this meant very little to the life of the people. In those days Cornwall was comparatively out of the world, and the people had none of the up-to-date customs which to-day characterise them. Newquay, the now fashionable watering-place, was known to but few, and although the mighty cliffs on which King Arthur's Castle is built at Tintagel was known to a few, practically the whole coast from Bude to Newquay was an undiscovered world as far as the general life of England was concerned. The beliefs of the people in the old-time stories were as yet unsettled, and it was no uncommon thing for the peasants in the district of which I am writing to spend whole we->ks without seeing anyone but members of their own family. It wan by no means an immoral county—the influence of John Wesley was too strong for that— it was superstitious and largelv unenlightened. Ihe district in which Trevadlock was situated was far removed from the two industries of Cornwall which led the people to settle in large numbers, viz., the mines and the clayworks. Much of the land was wild and uncultivated moorland, thus the houses were few and far between.

I am writing this that the reader may realise my position and understand something of my feelings. As 1 have said, I was not given to credulity, and my whole life and training had been of a nature to lead mo to be incredulous concerning the stories of the supernatural for which Cornwall was famous. Nevertheless, as I lay listening to the sounds outside the door, and remembered my experiences during the evening, I heard my heart beating loudly. Still, I was calm and collected. 1 had inherited a ..plendid physique and steady nerves, and while every sense was keenly alive, I was not in danger of losing my head.

Presently I heard a whisper. " I don't think he heard anything. He's asleep." "You ought to bo sure. It might be dangerous." The words did not reach me clearlv, but this was what I thought I heard. "l felt sure the speakers were Imla Jordan and the woman Bathsheba. I lay still, .md waited. "But I can do nothing.'' '"Speak, but not loudly. If he's awake he'll answer. Tell him you thought you heard him call." For some seconds there was a silence, then I heard Imla Jordan speak. " I Bav, mister." I made no reply. I thought it best to lie in silence. He spoke a little louder. "I say, mister, did you call?" For answer I breathed somewhat loud!?, but spoke no word. After that nothing more was said for at least a minute. Meanwhile I continued to breathe more loudly. I tried to simulate a man in a heavy sleep. There, he's asleep. He was dog tired and ho heard nothing." "Speak again. and then wait." "Did you tall, mister?" Still I made no reply, but went on breathing heavily, although my ears were keenly alert. " You may be right," it was Bathsheba.' voice. A little later I heard the sound of stockinged feet along the corridor, but reflecting that one might have remained I still continued to play my part. After the lapse of half an hour, I felt sure I was alone. I began to reflect deply. My adventure was becoming more and more interesting, and sleep was impossible. What was the secret of this old house? What was the meaning of the agonised cry I had heard? I seemed to hear it repeated time after time; it was plainer than the patter of the rain upon the window panes, or the roar of the wind among the trees. '"For the love of heaven, help!" Yes, it was a woman's voice, and it was full of pleading, full of anguish. I felt sure that the reason why lmla Jordon lived alone with Bathsheba in this forsaken old place was in some way connected with the cry I had heard. I lay a long time thinking it out. I considered what Imla Jordan had said. I called to mind his remarks about the house being haunted. I thought of the dog called Satan, and then remembered the agonised appeal. Little by little plans began to form in my mind, and resolutions began to take shape. I determined to probe the thing to the bottom. If it should turn out to be commonplace, and uninmportant. well and good; but I could not leave Trevadlock without having solved the, mystery of the appeal I had heard. Circumstances seemed to be in my favour. As it happened there was no need for me to return to London for three weeks. I had arranged with a friend to take my work for that time, and as I had been working very hard during the summer I felt that I deserved a holiday. My plans were utterly fluid. I had given no date when I should be in Truro, where m/ ~uggage awaited me, and beyond a gereral understanding that I should be back in Wimpole Street in three weeks' time I had no engagements. 1 had neither brother nor sister, and my parents had died when I was a child. I had come to Cornwall partly because, having come of an old Cornish family. I was anxious to see the county, and because, being tired of the roar and rush of I,ondon. I wanted l<> go to a quiet part of the world. I was at liberty, therefore, to follow ti"- own desires, and provided I turned up at Wimpole Street in three weeks' time no one would ask questions about me. Nothing further happened that night, to call for remark. The storm, I thought, lessened somewhat, although the wind blew a gale, and the rain continued to patter against the window panes. After what might be about two hours I grew sleepy again : my mind refused to fasten upon the things which so excited me during the earlier part of the night, and presently I fell into a deep slumber, from which I did not wake till morning. The storm had gone. The sunlight streamed into the room, and the air had become warm again. I jumped from my bed and looked out of the window. I saw that I was in the top storey of a wing of an old Jacobean house. L was granite built, lichen-covered, ivy-grown, and of considerable dimensions. Such of the gardens and ground as I could see were a wilderness. The courtyard where I had fought wit'- Satan was grass-grown, and an air of dilapidation prevailed. And yet, it looked fine in the sweet morning sunlight. The storm had washed everything clean. Through the great trees which sux-

rounded the house I could sen a vast sweep of wild moorland, or "'downs" as the people called them. Last night they were drear and forbidding, but in the smiling sunlight they were tine and imposing. I opened the window, and the pure September air swept, into the room. Everything seemed utterly different in the black night of storm, from what it suggested that glorious morning. I began to doubt my experiences. The light, of day banished the thought of mystery. After all. whv should not a man of peculiar tastes choose to live there? The house was beautifully situated in spite of its loneliness. A.s for the. cry I had heard, it doubtless had no reality. I had been dreaming, and it was all "a part of my dream. At that moment I saw a huge dog cross the courtyard. It was a tawny, lieavyjowled, -M-i)-looking creature, and seemed to slink around ax if suspicious of everything it, saw. Presently it looked at the part of the house where I was situated, and opening its mouth uttered a howl similar to what 1 had heard the previous night. I t aw its fangs, too, and thought of the battle I had. *

If he had got those fangs into my throat, I shouldn't be here now," I reflected : and with the thought all my old fancies became real again. "It was not a dream, it was fact," I said aloud. " I'm sure of it. Besides I could not have been dreaming during the time Imla and Bathsheba were whispering at my door." The plans"l had formed, and the resolutions I had made, took shape again. I went to the door and opened it. Nothing had changed since the previous night, all that I could see was a bare carpeUess passage. The floor was of huge, badly-jointed oak planks, such as was common in the old days. I judged that except for the room in which I had slept, that part of the house was not only unoccupied, but unfurnished. I was about to close the door when I saw a slip of paper lying on the threshold. It might have been pushed under the door. I eagerly picked it up, and saw the following words scribbled in pencil:— "Help. For the love of God do not leave the house, without— Here the writing broke off, as though the writer had been disturbed. I locked the door and took the note to the window, where I examined it more closely. The words had evidently been written under great excitement, but nothing suggested illiteracy. Some of the letters were well formed, and although the whole formed a scrawl, it vis not the work of an uneducated person. I thought it suggested a masculine hand, but of this I was not sure. In fact, it was impossible to tell whether the writer was a man or a woman.

I went back to bed and tried to think out this new development. I concluded that someone had come to the door after the visit of Imla Jordan, and being afraid to v ake me had written the note and pushed it under the door. I noticed that the paper was wiled, and had, I judged, been torn from a large, coarse envelope. All doubts as to whether I had been dreaming were now set to rest. The written message was almost identical with the one I had first heard when I awoke. The suspicion which had formed itself in my brain when Imla Jordan refused to give me a night's shelter had foundations. The house possessed a secret, and Itr-Ia Jordan was afraid.

Again I recalled our conversation after supper. I brooded over it sentence by sentence, I carefully considered the possible significance of all he had said, and the more I thought the more I adhered to the resolutions I had taken during the night. But I saw the need, of great care. Imla Jordan had revealed to ms during the time he had denounced the medical faculty that he was not. a dullard. There was cunning in his eyes, and he was a man who could keep his own counsel. But he was fearful too. fie had more than ordinary interest in disease, and the discoveries of medical men.

True to the plan I had formed, 1 opened the little parcel of drugs I had bright and extracted one which met my need. A few minutes later I had all the appearance of a man suffering from a Dad cold. Any man who was not a doctor would have said that my previous night's experiences had resulted in a violent cbOL I lav in bed, and waited for what I felt suro would happen. Before long I heard footsteps coming along the corridor, and a knock at the door. "Yes, who's there?" "I just came along to see what time you thought, of getting up, and to a3k what sort of a night you have had!" It was Imla Jordan who spoke, and I felt tu-e I knew what he wanted. I unlocked the door, and came back to bed again. "Won't you come in?" I said with a snuffle. Imla Jordan opened, the door and entered. "Aren't you well?" he said as ho saw me. For answer I sneezed. " It's a beastly nuisance," I said- " I was so tired last night that I forgot to take a preventative against cold. Of course I was drenched to the skin, but I didn't think I should get in this condition." " Yes, you've got it bad," he said, looking at mo closely. " Didn't it keep you awake?"

'" I was asleep a-quarter of an hour after I laid my head on the pillow," I replied. "And did you—that is, didn't it wake you?" " I haven't been awake half an hoar," I replied. You see I was dog tired." He continued to look at me steadily; he seemed to be reflecting. " I daresay I shall shake it off in & few hours," I went on. "Believe me I never thought, when I sought shelter heio last night that I should have to trouble you after breakfast this morning. _ My word, just feel how mv hand burns." T caught his hand as he bent oyer the bed, and I felt him start as his flesh touched mine. "You are in a fever," he cried. There's nothing catching, is there?" " It's just the temperature natural to such a chill," I replied. "You needn't fear. Very likely by evening I shall be able to get away." (To he continued daily.)