vacation in Marsh’s Library, where they have an excellent collection of medieval cryptogram manuscripts. I hesitated-hesitated and was lost. I had to admit that I was intrigued to hear more of the matter in spite of my emotional distress, for any mystery sends the adrenaline coursing in my body.
“The very next morning I accompanied Jack Phillimore to Kingsbridge Railway Station and boarded the train to Killarney. En route he explained some of the problems.
“Tullyfane Abbey was supposed to be cursed. It was situated on the extremity of the Iveragh Peninsula in a wild and deserted spot. Tullyfane Abbey was, of course, never an abbey. It was a dignified Georgian country house. The AngloIrish gentry in the eighteenth century had a taste for the grandiose and called their houses
“Phillimore told me that the firstborn of every generation of the lords of Tullyfane were to meet with terrible deaths on the attainment of their fiftieth birthdays even down to the seventh generation. It seems that first lord of Tullyfane had hanged a young boy for sheep stealing. The boy turned out to be innocent, and his mother, a widow who had doted on the lad as insurance for comfort in her old age, had duly uttered the curse. Whereupon, each lord of Tullyfane, for the last six generations, had met an untimely end.
“Phillimore assured me that the first lord of Tullyfane had not even been a direct ancestor of his, but that his greatgrandfather had purchased Tullyfane Abbey when the owner, concerned at the imminent prospect of departing this life on his fiftieth birthday, decided to sell and depart for healthier climes in England. This sleight of hand of ownership had not prevented Jack’s greatgrandfather, General Phillimore, from falling off his horse and breaking his neck on his fiftieth birthday. Jack’s grandfather, a redoubtable judge, was shot on his fiftieth birthday. The local inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary had assumed that his untimely demise could be ascribed more to his profession than to the paranormal. Judges and policemen often experienced sudden terminations to their careers in a country where they were considered part of the colonial occupation by ordinary folk.
“ ‘I presume your father, Colonel James Phillimore, is now approaching his fiftieth birthday and hence his alarm?’ I asked Phillimore as the train rolled through the Tipperary countryside toward the Kerry border.
“Phillimore nodded slowly.
“’My sister has, in her letters, written that she has heard the specter crying at night. She reports that my father has even witnessed the apparition, the form of a young boy, crying on the turret of the abbey.’
“I raised my eyebrows unintentionally.
“ ‘Seen as well as heard?’ I demanded. ‘And by two witnesses? Well, I can assure you that there is nothing in this world that exists unless it is due to some scientifically explainable reason.’
“’Nothing in this world,’ muttered Phillimore. ‘But what of the next?’
“ ‘If your family believes in this curse, why remain at Tullyfane?’ I demanded. ‘Would it not be better to quit the house and estate if you are so sure that the curse is potent?’
“ ‘My father is stubborn, Holmes. He will not quit the place, for he has sunk every penny he has into it apart from our town house in Dublin. If it were me, I would sell it to Moriarty and leave the accursed spot.’
“ ‘Sell it to Moriarty? Why him, particularly?’
“ ‘He offered to buy Father out in order to help resolve the situation.’
“ ‘Rather magnanimous of him,’ I observed. ‘Presumably he has no fear of the curse?’
“ ‘He reckons that the curse would only be directed at AngloIrish families like us, while he, being a pure Milesian, a Gael of the Gaels, so to speak, would be immune to the curse.’
“Colonel Phillimore had sent a caleche to Killarney Station to bring Phillimore and me to Tullyfane Abbey. The old colonel was clearly not in the best of spirits when he greeted us in the library. I noticed his hand shook a little as he raised it to greet me.
“ ‘Friend of Jack’s, eh? Yes, I remember you. One of the Galway Holmeses. Mycroft Holmes is your brother? Works for Lord Hartington, eh? Chief Secretary, eh?’
“He had an irritating manner of putting
“It was then that Agnes Phillimore came in to welcome us. God, Watson, I was young and ardent in those days. Even now, as I look back with a more critical eye and colder blood, I acknowledge that she was rare and wonderful in her beauty. She held out her hand to me with a smile, but I saw at once that it lacked the warmth and friendship that I thought it had once held for me alone. Her speech was reserved, and she greeted me as a distant friend. Perhaps she had grown into a woman while I held to her image with boyish passion? It was impossible for me to acknowledge this at that time, but the passion was all on my side. Ah, immature youth, what else is there to say?
“We dined in somber mode that evening. Somber for me because I was wrestling with life’s cruel realities; somber for the Phillimores because of the curse that hung over the house. We were just finishing the dessert when Agnes suddenly froze, her fork halfway to her mouth. Then Colonel Phillimore dropped his spoon with a crash on his plate and gave a piteous moan.
“In the silence that followed I heard it plainly. It was the sound of a sobbing child. It seemed to echo all around the room. Even Jack Phillimore looked distracted.
“I pushed back my chair and stood up, trying to pinpoint the direction from which the sounds came.
“ ‘What lies directly beneath this dining room?’ I demanded of the colonel. He was white in the face, too far gone with shock to answer me.
“I turned to Jack Phillimore. He replied with some nervousness.
“ ‘The cellars, Holmes.’
“’Come, then,’ I cried, grabbing a candelabra from the table and striding swiftly to the door.
“As I reached the door, Agnes stamped her foot twice on the floor as if agitated.
“ ‘Really, Mr. Holmes,’ she cried, ‘you cannot do battle with an ethereal being!’
“I paused in the doorway to smile briefly at her.
“ ‘I doubt that I shall find an ethereal being, Miss Phillimore.’
“Jack Phillimore led the way to the cellar, and we searched it thoroughly, finding nothing.
“ ‘What did you expect to find?’ demanded Phillimore, seeing my disappointment as we returned to the dining room.
‘”A small boy, corporeal in form and not a spirit,’ I replied firmly.
“ ‘Would that it were so,’ Agnes greeted our return without disguising her look of satisfaction that I could produce no physical entity in explanation. ‘Do you not think that I have caused this house to be searched time and time again? My father is on the verge of madness. I do believe that he has come to the end of his composure. I fear for what he might do to himself’.
“’And the day after tomorrow is his fiftieth birthday,’ added Phillimore soberly.
“We were standing in the entrance to the dining room when Malone, the aging butler, answered a summons to the front door by the jangle of the bell.
“ ‘It’s a Professor Moriarty,’ he intoned.
“Moriarty was tall and thin, with a forehead domed in a white curve and deeply set eyes. His face protruded forward and had a curious habit of slowly oscillating from side to side in what, in the harsh judgment of my youth, I felt to be a curiously reptilian fashion. I suppose, looking back, he was handsome in a way and somewhat distinguished. He had been young for his professorship, and there was no doubting the sharpness of his mind and intellect.
“Agnes greeted him with warmth while Phillimore was indifferent. As for myself, I felt I had to suppress my ill humor. He had come to join us for coffee and brandy and made sympathetic overtures to the colonel over his apparent state of ill health.
“’My offer still stands, dear sir,’ he said. ‘Best be rid of the abbey and the curse in one fell swoop. Not, of course, that you would lose it entirely, for when Agnes and I are married, you will always be a welcome guest here….’
“Colonel Phillimore actually growled. A soft rumbling sound in the back of his throat, like an animal at bay and goaded into response.
“ ‘I intend to see this through. I refuse to be chased out of my home by a specter when Akbar Khan and his screaming Afghans could not budge me from the fort at Peiwar Pass. No, sir. Here I intend to stay and see my fiftieth birthday through.’
