The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

They walked along, Kent consciously more erect, as he tried to match that superb straightness of body. His mind was seething. What would happen at the gate? Somewhere along here the old man’s body would become less substantial, but—

He couldn’t hold the thought. Besides, he’d better start laying his groundwork. He said tautly:

“The farm looks rather deserted from here, does it not, Mr Wainwright?”

Amazingly, the old man gulped; he said almost swiftly: “Have you noticed it, too, Mr Kent? I have long thought it an illusion on my part, and I have felt rather uneasy about my vision. I have found that the peculiar desolated appearance vanishes as soon as I pass through the gate.”

So it was the gate where the change began – He jerked his soaring thought back to earth, listened as the old man said in evident relief:

“I am glad that we both share this illusion, Mr Kent. It has had me worried.”

Kent hesitated, and then very carefully took his field glasses out of their case; and handed them to the old man.

“Try a look through these,” he said casually. “Perhaps they will help to break the illusion.”

The moment he had given the instrument over, compunction came, a hard, bright pity for the incredible situation he was forcing.

Compunction passed; pity yielded to an almost desperate curiosity. From narrowed eyes he stared at that lined face as the man’s thin, bony hands held the glasses up to his face and slowly adjusted the lens.

There was a harsh gasp; and Kent, who had expected it, leaped forward and caught the glasses as they fell toward the ground.

“Why,” the old man was quavering, “it’s impossible. Windows boarded up, and” – a wild suspicion leaped into his eyes – “has Mrs Carmody gone so swiftly?”

“What’s wrong, sir?” Kent said, and felt like a villain. But – he couldn’t let this go now.

The old man was shaking his head. “I must be mad. My eyes . . . my mind . . . not what they used to be —”

“Let’s go over,” Kent suggested. “I’ll get my drink and we’ll see what’s wrong.”

It was important that the old man retain in his wandering mind that he had a companion. The patriarch straightened, said quietly:

“By all means, you shall have your drink, Mr Kent.”

Kent had a sick feeling as he walked beside that tall form across the road to the gate, the empty feeling that he had meddled in human tragedy.

He watched, almost ill with his victory, as the trembling nonagenarian fumbled futilely with the padlocked gate.

He thought, his mind as tight as a drum: For perhaps the first time since this strange, strange phenomena had started, the old man had failed to walk through the gate.

“I don’t understand it!” the old man said. ‘This gate locked – why, this very morning, I—’

Kent had been unwinding the wire that held the large gate. “Let’s go in here,” he said gently.

The dismay of the old man was so pitiful it was dreadful. He stopped and peered at the weeds. Incredulously, he felt the black old wood that was nailed, board on board of it, over one of the windows. His high shoulders began to sag. A haunted expression crept into his face. Paradoxically, he looked suddenly old.

He climbed the faded veranda steps with the weariness of unutterable age. And then—

The flashing, terrible realization of the truth struck at Kent in that last instant, as the old man stepped timidly, almost blindly, toward the nailed door.

“Wait!” he shrilled. “Wait!”

His piercing voice died. Where the old man had been was – nothingness.

A thin wind howled with brief mournfulness around the house, rattling the eaves.

He stood alone on that faded, long-unused veranda. Alone with the comprehension that had, in one dreadful kaleidoscope of mind picture, suddenly cleared up – everything.

And, dominating everything else, was the dreadful fear that he would be too late.

He was running, his breath coming in great gulps. A tiny wind caught the dust that his shoes kicked up from the soft road-bed, and whipped it in little, unpleasant gusts around his nostrils.

The vague thought came that it was lucky he had done so much walking the past month; for the exercise had added just enough strength to bring the long, long mile and a half to the hotel within his powers—

A tangy, unpleasant taste of salt was in his mouth as he staggered up the steps. Inside, he was blurrily aware of the man, Tom, staring at him across the counter. Kent gasped:

“I’ll give you five dollars if you can pack my things and get me to Kempster in time to catch the twelve-o’clock train. And tell me how to get to the insane asylum at Peerton. For Heaven’s sake, make it fast.”

The man goggled. “I had the maid pack your things right after breakfast, Mr Kent. Don’t you remember, this is 17 August.”

Kent glared at him with a blank horror. That prophecy come true. Then what about the other, more awful one—

On the way to Kempster he was vaguely aware of the driver speaking, something about Peerton being a large town, and he’d be able to get a taxi at the station—

From the taxi the asylum showed as a series of long, white buildings, a green, tree-filled inclosure, surrounded by a high iron fence. He was led through an endless, quiet corridor; his mind kept straining past the sedate, white-clothed woman ahead of him. Couldn’t she realize this was life and death?

The doctor sat in a little, bright cozy room. He stood up politely as Kent entered, but Kent waited only for the woman to close the door as she went out.

“Sir, you have a woman here named Mrs Carmody.” He paused a fraction of a second to let the name sink in, then rushed on: “Never mind if you can’t remember her name. It’s true.”

The fine, strong face of the white-haired doctor cleared. “I remember the case.”

“Look!” said Kent desperately. “I’ve just found out the truth about that whole affair; and this is what you’ve got to do – at once:

“Take me to the woman, and I’ll assure her, and you assure her, that she has been found innocent, and will be freed. Do you understand?”

“I think,” said the doctor quietly, “that you had better begin at the beginning.”

Kent had a frantic sense of walls rising up between him and his purpose. “For Heaven’s sake, sir, believe me, there’s no time. I don’t know just how it is supposed to happen, but the prediction that she would be hanged can only come true in—”

“Now, Mr Kent, I would appreciate—”

“Don’t you understand?” Kent yelled. “If that prophecy is not to be fulfilled, you must act. I tell you I have information that will release this woman. And, therefore, the next few minutes are the vital ones.”

He stopped because the man was frowning at him. The doctor said: “Really, Mr Kent, you will have to calm down. I am sure everything will be all right.”

The strained wonder came to Kent, if all sane, be-calm people seemed as maddening as this quiet-spoken doctor.

He thought shakily: “He’d better be careful or they’d be keeping him in here with the rest of the lunatics.”

He began to speak, to tell what he’d heard and seen and done. The man kept interrupting him with incisive questions; and, after a while, it came to Kent, that he would actually have to begin at the beginning to fill in the gaps of this fellow’s knowledge.

He stopped, sat shaky for a moment, struggling to clear his brain, and then with a tense quietness, began again.

He found himself, as the minutes dragged, listening to his own voice. Every time his words speeded up, or rose in crescendo, he would deliberately slow down and articulate every syllable. He reached the point where the Dunne books came into the story, and—