The Return of Mr Campion Read online

  Aieda rose and looked over his shoulder. "Do you see how each bit of glass has some characters on it between the flowers?"

  Mr Chigwell took one of the crystals in his hand and looked at it. "Yes," he said. "I see what do they mean, Aieda? You're the expert."

  The girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I can't recognize even one of them. It's very old, I should think."

  "Old, eh?" Mr Chigwell's tone was satisfied again. "Oh, well, we'll hang it up," he said to Benjamin. "Go and get a hammer and a nail, Vicky."

  In a moment the child was back and her father mounted a chair and drove the nail into the soft woodwork of the verandah just opposite to the open French windows. The wind glass was then hung on the nail and Mr Chigwell climbed down to survey his handiwork.

  The curiously shaped crystals hung perfectly quiet in the calm air. Shining and beautiful, but silent, as though waiting for something.

  Mr Chigwell looked up at the lowering sky. "We shall have a storm tonight," he said. "A good job, too. This heat is stifling." Aieda sighed and stretched her arms above her head. "Yes," she said, "all this thunder in the air gives me a headache." Victoria laughed and pirouetted round the lawn. "Oh, I don't feel like that," she said. "I feel excited. I hope we shall have a storm."

  Gathering up the remnants of Mr Yasen's packages Aieda passed under the wind glass and the faint draught she made stirred the slender glasses. She stopped and turned back. "Did anyone call?" she asked.

  Mr Chigwell looked up. "No," he answered. "I didn't hear anything." The girl laughed. "Funny," she said. "I thought I heard someone say Aieda." Mr Chigwell shook his head. "No," he repeated, "I heard nothing.",

  His daughter seemed but half-convinced. "I was dreaming, I suppose," she said and ran into the house. As she did so, however, she passed to the right of the wind glass and this time there was no movement among the little painted crystals.

  For another half-hour Mr Chigwell sat out waiting for the storm to break but there was no change in the heavy, clouded sky and the atmosphere seemed to become even more oppressive. It grew darker and still there was no breeze anywhere. He pulled out his watch a quarter to seven. Slowly he pushed back his chair and rose heavily to his feet. Then he turned and went into the house. As he did so, he knocked his head against the wind glass and jerked it half off its nail. He swore at it and pushed it safely on again. "Someone'll have that down if we're not careful," said Mr Chigwell.

  Suddenly, far off down at the end of the long neat road, the leaves of a tall poplar tree began to tremble, and a little breath of cool wind fled over first one garden wall and then another until at last it ruffled the leaves of the sycamore tree at the end of the Chigwells' grass path and, flying swiftly over the laurel bushes and the tall sunflowers, crept round the corner of the verandah and swept through the wind glass softly, caressingly.

  The children playing on a swing in the big laurel clump at the end of the lawn stopped so as to listen. In her room upstairs, Aieda leaned out of the window to hear the better.

  The breeze was followed by another and the wind glass continued to play fitfully. It was uncanny music, sweet and yet frightening; now dying away completely and then bursting out into a positive jangle as a rougher wind chased its brother. Sometimes it was like water falling on to stones, sometimes like a tiny bell rung in the night; now and again it seemed almost to cry her name "Ai-e-da!" once or twice it had a strange sound, something that was almost a summons.

  Aieda thought it rather attractive but Mrs Chigwell, sitting at the open French windows, braced her shoulders and said to her husband, "I don't like it. It gives me a most extraordinary feeling listen!" She put up a plump white hand. "Doesn't that sound queer to you?"

  Mr Chigwell listened. "No," he said in his deep matter-of fact voice. "What do you mean queer?"

  His wife seemed confused. "I suppose I'm stupid," she said, "but to me it has an almost evil sound there!" She broke off suddenly, a note of triumph in her voice. "Didn't you hear it then? A lot of queer little notes together like like calls?"

  "Calls?" Mr Chigwell looked mystified.

  "Yes, as though it was calling something something evil."

  Mr Chigwell laughed. "Here, you want your dinner," he said, putting his hand on her arm. "Don't you get talking like that or we'll begin to wonder how many drinks you've had."

  He got up and looked out into the fast-darkening garden.

  All the while the wind glass played fitfully, tinkling loudly. The wind was getting up, the clouds were gathering fast and the suppressed excitement that belongs to the few moments of quiet before a storm quivered on every leaf in the garden.

  Mr Chigwell turned round to look at his wife. "I told the children they could stay up a bit tonight, Flo," he said.

  Mrs Chigwell nodded resignedly. "Very well, dear," she said, "but they ought not to be out as late as this. Where are they in the laurels?"

  Her husband stepped out of the French windows. "I think so," he said over his shoulder. "I'll go and fetch them."

  The wind still hovered about the garden and the sky was very dark but as yet there was no rain. Mr Chigwell stalked across the lawn, the red tip of his cigar showing brightly in the half-light, and behind him the wind glass tinkled and chattered like a live thing.

  As he neared the first clump of bushes he took the cigar out of his mouth ready to speak and, pulling aside one of the projecting branches, he put his head into the opening and peered into the center of the clump.

  "Kids ..." he began, and then stopped suddenly, the words dead on his lips and his prominent blue eyes bulging still farther out of their sockets.

  On the bare earth underneath the laurel bush there was a little crouching bundle. It was fairly dark and Mr Chigwell, after his first shock, thought the thing was a dog and, as he did not approve of strange dogs in his laurel bushes, he put out a foot to kick it. As he did so the creature stirred. It lifted up its head and Mr Chigwell stared down into a small and evil yellow face. It grinned up at him, the brown lips rolled back disclosing sharp teeth, and the slit-eyed sockets partly open showed black glittering eyes within. This in itself was terrifying enough but to Mr Chigwell's horrified eyes the thing, whatever it was, seemed to be so unnaturally small, as small as a baby.

  As he stared at it the wicked grin on the terrible little face broadened and the creature began to laugh a queer tinkling laughter uncomfortably like little bits of glass grating lightly together.

  Mr Chigwell could hardly breathe, his blood seemed to rush up in his throat and choke him, a cloud passed before his eyes, and when he again saw clearly the bare earth under the laurel bush was empty. He fancied he saw two or three little shadows flickering through the shrubberies at the other end of the lawn.

  He let the branch he was holding swing back with a jerk and a rustle of leaves and, straightening himself with an effort, he turned and walked back across the lawn with quick, irregular steps. A good half of his cigar still hung from his right hand. Absently he put it to his mouth only to throw it down almost immediately.

  The wind blew gustily over the garden, twisting the tree tops to strange fleeting groups of statuary and there were rustlings and faint laughter all round the flower beds and in the dark crevices beneath the shrubs; while, above the whisperings, the wind glass tinkled and rippled and called, a positive sound among so much indefinite noise.

  Mr Chigwell turned. "Victoria! Benjamin!" he called; his voice sounded jerky and nervous even to himself.

  There was no answer but he thought he heard whispers from behind the summerhouse. He called again. "Victoria! Vic-tor-ia! Benjamin! At once!"

  There was the sound of movement just behind him and the children came out together, not from the summer-house, but from a clump of bay trees and privet on the other side of the lawn. They were holding hands, laughing, and murmuring to each other, as though they shared some wonderful secret.

  As soon as they came within earshot they stopped talking and approached him with such
an air of assumed innocence that had he been himself at that moment Mr Chigwell would certainly have cross examined them. As it was he simply ordered them to bed.

  "Oh, I say, Dad, you promised," Benjamin began at once.

  "You promised," wailed Victoria.

  Mr Chigwell looked down at them. "Go go to bed," he said unsteadily.

  "Dad, need we? Need we? Please, please, it's so important tonight just tonight need we?" Benjamin's tone was eloquent.

  Mr Chigwell said nothing, he just glared at the children. There was a long pause. Then, "Go to bed at once," said Mr Chigwell for the last time.

  Victoria caught her brother's hand and pulled him away. As they went round to the back of the house she whispered something to him and they laughed. Then they turned to look back at the laurels, laughed again, and hurried out of sight.

  Mr Chigwell walked slowly into the house and collapsed heavily in a chair. His mouth sagged and he sat silent, staring in front of him. Of course, he had seen nothing. He was quite sure of that now. What could he have seen? It was absurd! Some trick of the light and shadow had deceived him. He sat up and smiled reassuringly to himself. Presently he lit another cigar. It was odd that one could be so easily startled, he reflected.

  Aieda was curled up on the sofa. She held her mother's large Persian cat in her arms and was trying to soothe it.

  "Poor pussy-po-oo-or pussy," she said. "Look, Dad, he's terrified of something. I can't quiet him. I suppose the heat has got on his nerves. As soon as he came in here he went all dithery didn't you, darling? Didn't you?"

  Mr Chigwell looked round the room. Aieda jarred on him. "Where's your mother?" he asked. The girl did not look up from the frightened animal who was clawing her dress and trembling. "She went upstairs," she said lightly. "Felt a bit faint or something."

  Mr Chigwell rose a little unsteadily. "I'll go up to her," he said and, stifling an extraordinary impulse to run, he walked deliberately from the room.

  Aieda sat alone for several minutes, nursing the cat. She could hear the wind rustling in the garden and the wind glass tinkling.

  After a while she began to listen more attentively to the wind glass. It seemed to grow louder and louder. A breath of cold air blew through the room; she shivered and the cat, who had been lying almost peacefully in her lap, now sprang on to the floor and stood facing the open window, its fur on end, its tail erect, its back arched and its eyes blazing.

  Aieda looked from the quivering animal to the window and, for the first time in her life, she felt a slight sensation of fear. She sat stiffly on the sofa. The song of the wind glass beat into her brain so that it seemed as if she could think of nothing else, and then a slight sound outside made her start, her blue eyes fixed on the open doorway.

  The cat jumped back on all four feet and began to spit and swear.

  Then, just below the door-handle, very silently and very slowly, there appeared a little yellow mask like face. Aieda turned cold and her scalp seemed to contract.

  The face came round the side of the door; a small gnarled body followed, and in another moment a grotesque and awful little figure stood peering in upon her from the dark verandah.

  Like some fantastic oriental carving it stood there grinning up at her, its body crooked and bent beneath a brightly colored robe. And the wrinkled face was grotesque and twisted as it sneered and laughed at her across the room.

  The cat stood stiff with terror. Aieda was too frightened to move or speak. Slowly the thing raised an ivory claw from beneath its gaudy sleeve and beckoned to her. Fascinated, Aieda watched the long crooked finger. It seemed to draw her towards it. Slowly and against her will she slid off the couch. The little thing's grin grew wider and, with its twisted finger, again it beckoned. She tried to scream but no sound would come. In spite of herself she made a step towards the open window.

  Outside, the wind glass tinkled and jangled with the sound of the laughter of a thousand devils. The terrible creature in the doorway continued to smile and to beckon. Aieda stood swaying in the center of the room. The thing glided back a little, motioning her to follow. She felt her foot move forward, the electric light seemed to flicker and dance. Aieda shut her eyes still she was drawn forward and now she felt the cold air on her face; in another moment she would reach the window.

  "Have you seen Benjamin and? Oh, whatever is the matter? Are you ill?" Mrs Chigwell paused in the doorway.

  Aieda pulled up short. She felt dazed and giddy but the horrible fascination that had been drawing her towards the window was broken and the little yellow genie had vanished. There was a sudden lull in the wind and the tinkling glass on the verandah was silent. Aieda turned to her mother, her eyes still wide and terrified. "What were you saying when you came in?" she demanded quickly.

  "I was asking if you'd seen the children. They're not in their beds." Another gust of wind swept across the garden and there was the sound of tinkling laughter from the porch.

  Aieda started. For a second she stood staring at the open window, where the wind rustled, swaying the heavy velvet curtains as it passed. Then she turned and, rushing past her mother, called to her father.

  "Dad Dad quick the children must be in the garden quick!"

  Mr Chigwell came running, his heavy face the color of red sandstone, his blue eyes darkened and his mouth hanging open. He rushed straight through the room and out into the windswept dancing garden. Mrs Chigwell followed him. Aieda got as far as the threshold and paused. In the whirling darkness without she could make out the forms of her parents as they ran across the lawn.

  The bushes and trees seemed mad with excitement, they swayed and danced and chattered like wild things, and all the while the wind glass played, jangling, laughing, calling triumphantly.

  Aieda peered into the darkness, fearing to move. She fancied she could see little distorted figures hundreds of them moving in the lower branches of the trees. Then she heard her father calling "Vic-tor-ia Benjamin Benjamin Victoria Victoria!"

  The vagrant wind carried his voice in little fitful gusts of sound. Aieda strained her ears but there was no answering cry to her father's calls. Then, as she stood listening, Victoria's gurgling, joyous laugh rang out from behind the summerhouse. Next she heard Benjamin's voice speaking to his sister but it was so far off that she could not make out his words.

  The wind glass jingled furiously and a wave of rushing air swept over the garden. Somewhere a door clattered and banged. Again Victoria's laugh came to the waiting girl at the French windows but this time it was much farther off somewhere beyond the sycamore tree.

  Aieda shouted, straining to make her voice heard above the noise: "Vic, Vic, come back. Victoria, Victoria!"

  There was a momentary lull in the wind and she fancied she heard whispering among the bushes; then, very far off and high up, as though among the tumbling clouds, she heard the child cry again. This time it was a wail of terror. It came again, fainter and fainter still.

  Aieda gasped and her eyes dilated. "Victoria!" she screamed, throwing up her arms instinctively, "Victoria!"

  Again a faint, frightened cry came back to her out of the darkness. Aieda hesitated, then she sprang forward and, leaving the sanctuary of the lighted room, Aieda dashed out on to the verandah and the whirling garden beyond.

  As she passed under the wind glass the cat darted between her legs. To avoid the animal she sprang into the air, knocking her head into the dancing glass ornament.

  The thin brass ring at the top was lifted off its nail and the wind glass crashed down around her face and on to the ground. Instantly, and almost as though the sound of breaking glass had been a signal, the wind dropped and the first few heavy drops of rain fell upon the grass.

  Aieda paused. The excitement and horror that were in the garden a moment before had gone. The trees and bushes had their accustomed shapes and there were no new and frightening shadows. Straining her eyes she peered anxiously around her. She felt ashamed of her own excitement.

  A moment later
she heard Victoria's voice from somewhere down the end of the grass-path. Then she could hear her father scolding the children for disobeying him. His voice was quite natural, she noticed. Another minute and they all came up. The children were subdued and Mrs Chigwell was wiping her eyes, her husband was talking volubly, his face redder than ever.

  They went into the house together. Benjamin and Victoria were sent to bed and Aieda and her mother and father stood for a moment. Although she could not understand what it was, Aieda felt that something extraordinary had just happened. It was as though she had been awakened from an unpleasant dream which she could but half-remember.

  She frowned wonderingly, trying to understand, then she shrugged and smiled. After all, what did it matter? "What have you done to your forehead, dear?" said Mrs Chigwell. Aieda turned to the mirror above the mantelpiece. Then she took her handkerchief and wiped her forehead. "Blood!" she said uncomprehendingly. "I suppose that beastly thing cut me when I knocked it down."

  Mrs Chigwell looked at her daughter and there was in her large pale eyes a look more intelligent than usual. "They say," she said, or so it seemed to the others, rather fatuously, "that once blood is drawn honor is satisfied."

  Editor's Note

  "The Wind Glass," after her infant fairy story, the first of Margery Allingham's stories to achieve print, was written in the last months of 1923.

  For Marge that was a time of release, from the discipline of school and polytechnic and, most wondrous of all, in a few minutes of anger spurred by despair she had shed forever the stammer which had shackled her speech through most of her teens.

  Forty years later she remembered the miracle, how she sat with all the other students in the elocution class of the polytechnic as the principal sorted "the Possibles from the Hope lesses." Each student was set to read a few lines of verse, each received in return "a brief, brilliant caricature of his performance, delivered with relish."

  Dog ate dog without a qualm. Sycophantic laughter followed each excruciating performance. I saw and heard my stammering twenty times then, when the moment came and I stood up and looked at the page before me, my whole mind panicked and stuttered and appeared to explode. My speaking voice shot out naked, new and angry in a very cold and hostile world.