When Last I Died

"So if the one entrance or exit was not feasible or available, the other was," Mrs. Bradley explained, as the three of them emerged at the foot of the servants' staircase. "This passage, you see, is to the kitchen and scullery, and from the scullery the door opens almost on to the top of the well. The well is a good deal later in date than the crypt, of course, and may have existed independently of it for a hundred years or so. I know very little about such things, but I should put the date of the crypt as not much later than 1090. The well may have been sunk in the fifteenth century, and the passage connecting the two I should be inclined to associate with Tudor times, although I have nothing much to go on apart from the type of brickwork. I should think the connection was made to give protection to a Catholic priest. The Jesuits, I believe, were active towards the close of the sixteenth century.

"Anyhow, that's how the poltergeist worked. He could always be somewhere else—the essence of a good game of hide and seek. Let us return to the cellars. I have more to show you."

It was, the sergeant declared afterwards, as good as a film. They returned to the cellar by the way that they had used to ascend to the kitchen passage. A short length of linoleum had been removed to give free access to the trap-door.

"Accounts for the cold that people have noticed, I daresay," the inspector remarked, peering into the aperture which the open trap-door disclosed.

"And yet how necessary an adjunct to the presence of the supernatural," said Mrs. Bradley.^* "There is a way into this passage from the back stairs," she added. "You will have noticed that the back stairs have no doors."

^*"Such cold air currents, or psychic winds, have been experienced, we should add, with many mediums....

... the chill feeling upon wrists and forehead which is a recognized sign that contact has been made and that the mysteries have begun."—Sacheverell Sitwell.—"Poltergeists"

The inspector could not see that this had anything to do with it, and said so, but received no answer except an accidental dig in the back from the sergeant who, at Mrs. Bradley's request, had provided himself with one of the crowbars which the police had brought with them in their car.

Upon reaching the cellar (or crypt, as Mrs. Bradley preferred to call it), they examined the floor with great care, but for some time could find no indication of anything out of the ordinary except a slight depression near the well-side entrance, which was to the west. The wall on this side was extremely damp, and the sergeant twice stepped into a pool of water before it occurred to him or to the inspector to enquire why there was water on the floor in this spot.

"Must be a depression, and fills from the well," he said. He climbed up the well again as the nearest way back to the house, and procured a birch broom which he brought back by way of the inside staircase. When he had swept away the water the cause of the sinking still was not apparent, but by testing the bricks with the crowbar he discovered that they were loose and could be prised up. Whilst they were being moved, however, a rush of water filled up each hole as it was made.

"Put 'em back," said the inspector, helping in this part of the work. "I'd say you've given us enough to go on, ma'am," he added, when the three of them were in the house once more, "and I'm inclined to pass on the information so that we can get our hooks on the lady before she makes a getaway. You say she was here this afternoon, so she can't have hopped it very far. Once we've got her, we can examine that cellar more carefully, and if we don't find what we expect to find, well, we shall still have enough to go on for a bit. She'll have to explain the sister's suicide, if nothing else, and why she's been passing herself off as her. You've no doubt about getting her identified, I suppose?" "No doubt at all," replied Mrs. Bradley. As they re-entered the kitchen the sound of footsteps was heard outside, and the caretaker came in by way of the scullery door.

"Ah, so you be still here, mam?" he said. He looked at the two policemen. Mrs. Bradley took out one of the snapshots. "Is this your employer?" she asked.

"Never set eyes on her," replied the old man, "as I telled 'ee before. This ...?" His face changed. "Why, this be the lady as was tried for the murder of the gentleman what fell out the window."

"Are you sure?" enquired the inspector. "No photographs were taken at the trial," he added, turning to Mrs. Bradley.

"Ah. But her was living here in the village when the poor fellow fell," said the caretaker.

Mrs. Bradley put the snapshot away and then glanced at her watch.

"I'm staying the night here," she said. "Are you expecting visitors to-morrow afternoon?"

"Ah. A lady and gentleman named Lee-Strange wants to look over the house," replied the caretaker, "so you're bound to clear out before then; Miss Foxley's orders."