Wicked Spirits, page 29
‘The Line Went Dead’ was first published in The Tatler, 21 December 1960.
THE HOUSE OF THE LIONS
Desmond Bagley
In the year 1887, in the town of Totnes in the County of Devonshire, a man bought a house. His name was William Cooper Johnson and he was a retired clergyman; the house was called Mount Elwell.
William Johnson was in his middle age and he had spent much of his life in Africa as a missionary. The climate of that continent and the agues induced thereby had, however, caused his early retirement and encouraged him to dwell in a more salubrious environment, of which none better can be found in Devonshire. And so he bought the house known as Mount Elwell in the ancient borough of Totnes.
The house was in the style of the last century, having been built in 1791, and was but a simple dwelling and sorely lacking in that elegance of ornamentation which has become the pride and hallmark of our civilisation. Yet the rooms were large and stood foursquare, the walls were thick and the house was warm, there was a small wing attached for the housing of an abigail, and so William Johnson was content.
He had married young and his children were adult and gone into the world, except for his youngest daughter, Alice. And so there dwelt in Mount Elwell William Johnson; his wife, Elizabeth; his daughter, Alice; and the abigail, one Susan Beer who was but a poor half-witted girl, the only child of a farm labourer who was the best servant Mrs Johnson could obtain because there seemed to be a curious reluctance on the part of the lower classes of Totnes to offer themselves or their daughters in the service of this kind and holy man. The Johnsons found this unaccountable and, at first, put it down to the natural conservatism of an isolated folk to whom a traveller from even the next county was a foreigner. It was only later that the truth was to be made terribly apparent.
William Johnson was determined in his early retirement to write an account of his experiences in Africa which he believed would be of use to his fellow men. However, he discovered that the room most natural to use as a study and library was to the rear of the house and faced north, thus being very cold. His wife insisted that, due to his precarious state of health, it would be impossible for him to work in that room, and it was decided to adapt the dining room as his work place. It faced to the south and on to the walled garden and was flooded with sunshine for many hours of the day, both in summer and winter.
There were odd features about this room. It had only three corners—as we generally regard the corners of a room. The fourth corner swept in a curve which Mrs Johnson found to be a nuisance since it inhibited the placing of furniture. Next to this architectural curiosity was a tall cupboard which was even more curious, since its doors opened, not to the room, but to a passage off the hall. It was a tall and unusually narrow cupboard with split doors of the Dutch or stable variety, and it projected inconveniently into William Johnson’s new study. He was in half a mind to tear it down but let it stand because his wife found it convenient to have such a cupboard close to the kitchen.
Being a prudent man Johnson decided to insure the house against fire or other disasters and so he made the journey to Exeter where he consulted Mr Frederick Milford of the West of England Fire and Life Assurance Society, obtaining very good terms—thirteen shillings and sixpence premium against a capital sum of £800. It was in the course of this transaction that Mr Milford remarked, ‘Ah! Mount Elwell! I believe the property has been standing vacant for some time.’
‘That is so,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘I cannot understand why, because it is a very good property.’
‘Just so,’ said Mr Milford and said no more on that score, but a little while later he said apparently apropos of nothing, ‘The last owner of the house was Captain Hampson, a military man. He died four years ago. Captain Hampson was a very strange man—or so I am led to understand.’
‘Would it be he who extended the house—who built the servants’ wing?’
‘That is so.’ Mr Milford paused. ‘His servants were black.’
‘Black!’ echoed Mr Johnson in astonishment.
‘Just so,’ said Milford. ‘Captain Hampson had a great deal to do with Africa, so I believe. He was an explorer and when he retired to England he brought his own servants—heathen black fellers from the jungle. It caused quite a bit of talk, I must say.’
‘So I can imagine,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘I wonder if it was he who was responsible for the lions?’
Milford started nervously and his eyebrows crawled up his scalp. ‘Lions?’ he said doubtfully.
‘Yes. Each bracket supporting the roof guttering is decorated with the head of a lion.’
‘Hampson did a lot of reconstruction on Mount Elwell,’ said Milford cautiously. ‘Lions, eh! A curious man was Hampson—in every way, including his death. There was a lot of talk about that too.’
‘In what way?’
Milford shrugged. ‘Just a lot of gossip. I didn’t listen closely.’
He said no more about it, and Johnson did not pursue the matter although he was curious. All the long journey home the next day he pondered over it and decided to consult the Reverend Burrough, the Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, which was the fine church in Totnes. Johnson was a man who did not like mysteries.
Over the teacups that evening his wife said, ‘I’m sure there’s a cat in the house, William, although I can’t find it. I have heard it mewing and thought it was locked in the cellar—or the attic, perhaps; but although I have searched, I cannot find it anywhere.’
‘But I’ve seen it,’ said Alice unexpectedly. ‘It was in the garden—and a very strange animal it was.’
‘How was it strange, my dear?’
Alice frowned. ‘It had a curious colouring; light brown with a black—or dark brown—head and paws. What was most startling were the eyes—they were a bright sapphire blue.’
Johnson smiled tolerantly. ‘Your imagination is running away with you,’ he said. ‘Whoever heard of a blue-eyed cat? It was probably an ordinary tom-cat—a stray.’
He thought no more about it, but that night he was awakened by a whispered conversation at the door of his bedroom and discovered his wife and daughter in the midst of an agitated argument.
‘What is the matter?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing, dear,’ replied his wife. ‘Alice had a bad dream, that is all.’
‘It was not a dream,’ protested Alice. ‘A cat did run over my bed. I felt the paws distinctly.’
Johnson calmed down his daughter and they all returned to bed, but just before falling asleep he thought he heard the mew of a cat, although whether that was his imagination or not he was afterwards unable to tell.
Two days later Johnson went to the vicarage of St Mary the Virgin and saw the Reverend Burrough who was an old man, failing in health and not long for this world as Johnson judged. After a few minutes of small-talk he said, ‘I’ve been hearing some strange tales about my predecessor at Mount Elwell. I understand that he was in Africa.’
‘That is correct,’ said Burrough. ‘He was an Army man in East Africa, engaged in putting down the slave trade, and was invalided out of the Army because of a recurring ague of the kind the Italians call the malarin.’
‘I know the disease,’ said Johnson grimly.
Burrough said, ‘What tales have you heard?’
‘Nothing definite. How did he die?’
‘Dreadfully!’ said Burrough somewhat forcibly. ‘He was killed by an animal.’
‘Thrown from his horse?’ queried Johnson.
Burrough appeared hesitant. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘He was deliberately killed by a … a predatory animal.’
‘My dear sir,’ said Johnson in astonishment, ‘This is nineteenth-century England. What kind of predators have we here capable of killing a man?’
Burrough shook his head. ‘We could but go by the evidence of his body. I have never seen anyone die so bloodily. The whole of his torso was ripped open and there were dreadful claw marks on all limbs.’ His voice wavered. ‘It was as though …’
‘As though …?’ prompted Johnson.
‘As though he had been killed by a … let us say, a large cat or member of the cat family such as a tiger or a leopard.’
‘Or a lion.’ mused Johnson.
‘Just so … a lion,’ agreed Burrough. He appeared ill at ease.
‘And was such an animal found and destroyed?’
Burrough shook his head. ‘No,’ he said sombrely.
Johnson smiled. ‘I really cannot believe that in this day and age such a thing could happen. Cats and lions indeed! Even my daughter is seeing cats and feeling and hearing them when they are not there.’
Burrough sat up straight. ‘Your daughter saw a cat! Tell me, did it have blue eyes?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Johnson. ‘Don’t tell me there is such an impossible animal hereabouts.’
Burrough seemed disturbed. ‘So it has been seen again,’ he said softly and then looked Johnson straight in the eye. ‘We are both churchmen—do you believe in the physical power of evil?’
‘I doubt if the Devil moves among us in physical shape,’ said Johnson. ‘But that he has spiritual power cannot be denied.’
‘I think you are wrong,’ said Burrough, folding his lean hands together. ‘Captain Hampson was the most evil man I have ever met in my stewardship of this parish—and I have been vicar for nearly fifty years. I am certain he dabbled in the Black Arts—arts he learned in Africa. And he brought devils to Totnes; his servants were black men of abnormal height, scarcely human in appearance. Not one of them was less than seven feet all were thin beyond belief.’
Johnson said thoughtfully, ‘I have heard of a strange tribe in East Africa in which the natives are of such a nature. I believe they are called Watusi.’
‘That is the name!’ cried Burrough. ‘They worship lions.’ He lifted a hand. ‘Strange things happened at Mount Elwell; curious sounds—the beating of drums and the roar of savage beasts—and an odd flickering glow used to appear in some of the rooms. None of the townsfolk would go near, nor will they do so to this day.’
‘That I have reason to know,’ said Johnson, somewhat morosely. ‘But you cannot really believe that …’
‘… that Hampson was worshipping the devil as he had been taught by those savages? Indeed I do. I was on the point of writing to the Bishop for guidance when the tragedy happened and Hampson was torn to pieces by the awful Power he had invoked.’ Burroughs’ eyes gleamed fanatically. ‘And after it was over none of those black devils were ever seen again. It was as though they disappeared from the face of the earth.’
That was certainly an odd circumstance, thought Johnson; a seven-foot blackamoor would find concealment difficult in South Devon. He cleared his throat nervously. ‘And what of the strange blue-eyed cat?’
‘It is well known that witches and warlocks have their familiars,’ said Burrough slowly. ‘And the Devil cannot be stupid. Would he appear in the form of a lion in this quiet English town for all to see? But many people have seen the blue-eyed cat and my parishioners know it for what it is.’
The old man was now becoming excited and it took all of William Johnson’s powers of persuasion to calm him. Johnson judged Burrough to be senile and failing in intellectual capacity and dismissed his strange story as the maunderings of an old man. All the same, he did not pass on this odd happening to either his wife or his daughter.
The year 1887 drew near to its close and certain events occurred which weighed heavily on his spirit. Alice saw the cat several times although William Johnson never did, nor did his wife. But Mrs Johnson complained continuously about the animal’s incessant mewing, and three times she woke up her husband in the dark of the night to tell him that the cat had jumped on the bed. Yet there was nothing there when he looked.
He worked in his study during the dark evenings and was conscious of a brooding spirit which seemed to hover in and around the house, pervading the atmosphere with a dankness that chilled his bones. There was also a heavy scent which seemed to drift about the place and which, at first, he could not identify, but then he recalled his visits to a zoo and could compare it to the musty smell of the lion house.
He became nervous and was strongly aware of being watched and would glance hastily over his shoulder only to see shadows. Then he would go and turn up the gas lights to their full strength and say a prayer before resuming work on his manuscript.
The Christmas of 1887 was not a happy one for the Johnsons. Since they had spent most of their lives in Africa they had no friends in England, and none of the local people, of high or low degree, would visit the house. Even Susan Beer gave notice just before Christmas, saying that her father forbade her to be in that house at that time of the year. There was no other explanation offered.
It was on Christmas Eve that they began to hear the noises—a faint but persistent drumming sound. ‘It seems to come from the attic,’ said Mrs Johnson, so William went upstairs, but from the attic the sound appeared to come from the cellar, yet the cellar was quiet apart from that eerie distant rhythmical beat.
‘We’ve heard that before,’ said Alice quietly. ‘In Africa.’
During the week that followed—between Christmas and New Year—life became very difficult at Mount Elwell. The noise of drums became gradually louder and reverberated through the house. All the Johnsons heard the drums although William Johnson could never determine whether he had actually heard the noise with his ears or whether it was purely in his mind, and when he consulted his wife and daughter he found them in like difficulty.
At last he could bear it no longer. ‘You must leave,’ he said firmly to his wife. ‘You and Alice must stay at the Seven Stars Hotel for a while.’
‘And you, William?’ asked his wife.
‘I will consult the vicar,’ said Johnson.
And so he did. Burrough nodded gravely when he heard of the manifestations in the house.
‘It is coming time,’ he said. ‘Hampson died on the first of the year.’ He clutched Johnson’s arm. ‘I tell you, sir; I tell you this house is accursed and must be re-dedicated to God. We are churchmen—and we both know what to do in a situation like this.’
Johnson thought of the ancient rituals of exorcism; he had learned them before he had been ordained into the priesthood, but he had never expected to use them. Burrough said briskly, ‘I will come and keep vigil with you on New Year’s Eve together with Alfred Earle, the archdeacon. We will drive the Devil from Totnes.’
So it was that on New Year’s Eve Johnson, Burrough and Alfred Earle gathered in Johnson’s study at Mount Elwell. Burrough lit the two big candles, laid out the brass-bound Bible, and placed the brazen bell conveniently to hand. Earle, a normally bluff and hearty Devonian, was subdued and quiet.
He carried with him an axe of which Burrough said, ‘You will find no target for that, Alfred. There is no physical enemy here. Put your faith in the Lord God.’
But Alfred Earle stubbornly clutched the haft of the axe and would not be parted from it.
The clamour of the drums almost deafened Johnson so that he had difficulty in hearing what the others said, but strangely they seemed to be unaware. ‘Can’t you hear them?’ he demanded wildly.
Burrough cocked his head on one side. ‘I hear nothing—nothing at all. But wait … yes, I hear a faint throbbing. Could it be coming from your attic?’
Johnson set his teeth. ‘It begins like that. If you stayed in this house as long as I have your ears would resound with nothing else.’
Time crept by and the three men knelt and prayed incessantly but Johnson, distracted by the drumming and the unexpected yowling of a cat, could not get the words right and made many mistakes.
At last the big grandfather clock in the hall struck the first stroke of midnight, and the tremendous racket suddenly stopped. There was the thick animal scent heavy on the still air, and another smell of putrefaction. The three men looked at each other in wonder, and Burrough made the sign of the cross.
At that instant a voice spoke, at once dry and glutinous, and it spoke words in a language none could understand. It came from the strange cupboard that opened on to the hall, and there was a scratching noise as though something were trying to get out. William Johnson uttered an inarticulate cry and, seizing the axe from Alfred Earle, he swung it at the cupboard in a great blow. The wood splintered under his onslaught, and he swung again and again, chopping the cupboard to matchwood.
Something loomed tall in the opening he had made and fell slowly forward. It was the figure of a giant of a man, seven feet tall—a corpse long dead and mummified which had been concealed in the false backing of the cupboard. It fell forward as a tree falls, but with the lips writhing and incoherent words spouting forth—a tall African dressed in skins and feathers and bones.
Alfred Earle shouted in terror but Burrough and Johnson were struck speechless as a cat, a strangely coloured, blue-eyed cat sprang from the cupboard to crouch on the fallen corpse, its ears flattened and spitting in rage. Johnson looked upon it in horror as it began to change. It seemed to grow subtly and fluidly and in no time at all it was transformed into a huge black-maned lion. He stared into those eyes, now lambent and yellow, and had no time to even shout as it sprang directly at him.
They found them the next day. Burrough and Earle were both dead and there was not a mark on them, but their faces were dreadfully contorted. The medical evidence was that they had died from heart failure. William Cooper Johnson, however, had been torn limp from limb as though by a great cat and his blood lay red and thick across the open Bible. Lying across the corpse was a barbaric necklace of lions’ teeth.
All that happened a long time ago. The house is no longer called Mount Elwell—it is now Hay Hill—and the cupboard has been torn down and the opening bricked up, although its doors are still there as you can see to this day.
And if you talk to the old men of Totnes as they drink their pints of cider in the Kingsbridge Inn they will tell you their reckonings of these strange happenings. They will tell you that the house is quite safe for the normal run of men—but if the blue-eyed cat is seen again, and if the house is again occupied by those who have lived in Africa, then the drums will be heard and the lion will walk again to rend and tear with claws and fangs.
