The chronicles of Michael Danevitch of the Russian Secret Service

A strange, weird sort of place was Corbie Hall. There was an eeriness about it that was calculated to make one shudder. For years it had been practically a ruin, and tenantless.

Although an old place, it was without any particular history, except a tradition that a favourite of Queen Mary had once lived there, and suddenly disappeared in a mysterious way. He was supposed to have been murdered and buried secretly.

The last tenant was one Robert Crease, a wild roisterer, who had travelled much beyond the seas, scraped money together, purchased the Hall, surrounded himself with a number of boon companions, and turned night into day. Corbie Hall stood just to the north of Blackford Hill, as those who are old enough will remember.

In ‘Rab’ Crease’s time it was a lonely enough place; but he and his brother roisterers were not affected by the solitude, and many were the curious tales told about their orgies.

However, Rab came to grief one night. He had been into the town for some purpose, and, staggering home in a storm of wind and rain with a greater burden of liquor than he could comfortably carry, he missed his way, pitched headlong into a quarry, and broke his neck.

He left the place to a person whom he described as his nephew. But the heir could not be found, nor could his death be proved. Then litigation had ensued, and there had been fierce wrangles; bitterness was engendered, and bad blood made. The place, however, remained empty and lonely year after year, until, as might have been expected, it got an evil reputation. People said it was haunted. They shunned it. The wildest possible stories were told about it. It fell into dilapidation. The winter rains and snows soaked through the roof. The window-frames rotted; the grounds became a wilderness of weeds.

At last the heir was found. His name was Raymond Balfour. He was the only son of Crease’s only sister, who had married a ne’er-do-weel of a fellow, who came from no one knew where, and where he went to no one cared. He treated his wife shamefully.

Her son was born in Edinburgh, and when he was little more than a baby she fled with him and obtained a situation of some kind in Deeside. She managed to give her boy a decent education, and he was sent to Edinburgh to study law.

He seemed, however, to have inherited some of his father’s bad qualities, and fell into disgrace. His mother dying before he was quite out of his teens, he found himself friendless and without resources.

His mother in marrying had alienated herself from her relatives, what few she had; and when she died no one seemed anxious to own kindredship with Raymond, whose conduct and ‘goings on’ were described as ‘outrageous.’ So the young fellow snapped his fingers at everyone, declared his intention of going out into the world to seek his fortune, and disappeared.

After many years of wandering in all parts of the world, and when in mid-life, he returned to Edinburgh, for he declared that, of all the cities he had seen, it was the most beautiful, the most picturesque.

He was a stalwart, sunburnt, handsome fellow, though with a somewhat moody expression and a cold, distant, reserved manner. He had heard by mere chance of his inheritance, and, having legally established his claim, took possession of his property.

Although nobody could learn anything at all of his affairs, it was soon made evident that he had plenty of money. He brought with him from India, or somewhere else, a native servant, who appeared to be devoted to him. This servant was simply known as Chunda.

He was a strange, fragile-looking being, with restless, dreamy eyes, thin, delicate hands, and a hairless, mobile face, that was more like the face of a woman than a man. Yet the strong light of the eyes, and somewhat square chin, spoke of determination and a passionate nature. When he first came he wore his native garb, which was exceedingly picturesque; but in a very short time he donned European clothes, and never walked abroad without a topcoat on, even in what Edinburgh folk considered hot weather.

When it became known that the wanderer had returned, apparently a wealthy man, those who years before had declared his conduct to be ‘outrageous,’ and declined to own him, now showed a disposition to pay the most servile homage.

But he would have none of them. It was his hour of triumph, and he closed his doors against all who came to claim kinship with him.

Very soon it was made manifest that Raymond Balfour was in the way to distinguish himself as his predecessor and kinsman, Crease, had done.

Corbie Hall was turned into a place of revel and riot, and strange, even startling, were the stories that came into currency by the vulgar lips of common rumour. Those whose privilege it was to be the guests at Corbie Hall were not people who, according to Edinburgh ethics, were entitled to be classed amongst the elect, or who were numbered within the pale of so-called ‘respectable society.’ They belonged rather to that outer fringe which was considered to be an ungodly Bohemia.

It was true that in their ranks were certain young men who were supposed to be seriously pursuing their studies in order that they might ultimately qualify for the Church, the Law, and Medicine.

But their chief sin, perhaps, was youth, which, as the years advanced, would be overcome. Nevertheless, the frowns of the ‘superior people’ were directed to them, and they were solemnly warned that Corbie Hall was on the highroad to perdition; that, as it had always been an unlucky place, it would continue to be unlucky; in short, that it was accursed.

Raymond Balfour’s guests were not all of the sterner sex. Ladies occasionally graced his board. One of them was a Maggie Stiven, who rejoiced in being referred to as the best hated woman in Edinburgh.

She was the daughter of a baker carrying on business in the High Street; but Maggie had quarrelled with her parents, and taken herself off to her only brother, who kept a public-house in College Street.

He, too, had quarrelled with his people, so that he not only welcomed Maggie, but was glad of her assistance in his business.

Maggie bore the proud reputation of being the prettiest young woman in Edinburgh. Her age was about three-and-twenty, and it was said she had turned the heads of half the young fellows in the town. She was generally regarded as a heartless coquette, a silly flirt, who had brains for nothing else but dress.

She possessed a will of her own, however, and seemed determined to shape her course and order her life exactly as it pleased her to do.

She used to say that, if ‘the grand folk’ turned up their noses at her, she knew how to turn up her nose at them.

When she found out that a rumour was being bandied from lip to lip, which coupled her name with the name of Raymond Balfour—in short, that he and she were engaged to be married—she was intensely delighted; but, while she did not deny it, she would not admit it. It was only in accordance with human nature that some spiteful things should be said.

‘It’s no for his guid looks nor his moral character that Maggie Stiven’s fastening herself on to the reprobate of Corbie Hall,’ was the sneering comment. ‘It’s his siller she’s thinking of. She’s aye ready to sell her body and soul for siller. Well, when he’s married on to her he’ll sune find that it taks mair than a winsome face tae make happiness. But fules will aye be fules, and he maun gang his ain way.’

It is pretty certain that Maggie was not affected by this sort of tittle-tattle. She knew the power of her ‘winsome face,’ and made the most of it. She knew also that the scathing things that were said about her came from her own sex.

She could twist men round her little finger. They were her slaves. That is where her triumph came in. She could make women mad, and bring men to their knees.

Whether or not there was any truth in the rumour at this time, that she was likely to wed the master of Corbie Hall, there was no doubt at all that she was a frequent visitor there.

Sometimes she went with her brother, who supplied most of the liquor consumed in the Hall—and it was a pretty good source of income to him—and sometimes she went alone.

Scarcely a night passed that Mr. Balfour was without company; and Maggie was often there three or four nights a week. She had even been seen driving about with him in his dogcart.

It seemed, therefore, as if there was some justification for the surmise as to the probable match and the ultimate wedding.

These preliminary particulars about Maggie and the new owner of Corbie Hall will pave the way to the series of extraordinary events that has now to be described.

It was New Year’s Eve. Raymond Balfour had then been in possession of his property for something like nine months, and during that period had made the most of his time.

He had gone the pace, as the saying is; and the old house, after years of mouldiness and decay, echoed the shouts of revelry night after night. There were wild doings there, and sedate people were shocked.

On the New Year’s Eve in question there was a pretty big party in the Hall. During the week following Christmas, large stores of supplies had been sent out from the town in readiness for the great feast that was to usher in the New Year.

Some fifteen guests assembled in the house altogether, including Maggie Stiven and four other ladies, and in order to minister to the wants of this motley crowd, three or four special waiters were engaged to come from Edinburgh.

The day had been an unusually stormy one. A terrific gale had lashed the Firth, and there had been much loss of life and many wrecks. The full force of the storm was felt in Edinburgh, and numerous accidents had occurred through the falling of chimney-cans and pots. Windows were blown in, hoardings swept away, and trees uprooted as if they had been mere saplings.

The wind was accompanied by hail and snow, while the temperature was so low that three or four homeless, starving wretches were found frozen to death.

As darkness set in the wind abated, but snow then began to fall, and in the course of two or three hours roads and railways were blocked, and the streets of the city could only be traversed with the greatest difficulty. Indeed, by seven o’clock all vehicular traffic had ceased, and benighted wayfarers despaired of reaching their homes in safety.

The storm, the darkness, the severity of the weather, the falling snow, did not affect the spirits nor the physical comfort of the guests assembled at Corbie Hall.

To the south of Edinburgh the snow seemed to fall heavier than it did in the city itself. In exposed places it lay in immense drifts, but everywhere it was so deep that the country roads were obliterated, landmarks wiped out, and hedges buried.

In the lonely region of Blackford Hill, Corbie Hall was the only place that gave forth any signs of human life. Light and warmth were there, and the lights streaming from the windows must have shone forth as beacons of hope to anyone in the neighbourhood who might by chance have been battling with the storm and struggling to a place of safety.

But no one was likely to be abroad on such a night; and the guests at the Hall, when they saw the turn the weather had taken, knew that they would be storm-stayed at the Hall until the full light of day returned. But that prospect did not concern them.

They were there to see the old year out and the new one in; and so long as the ‘meal and the malt’ did not fail they would be in no hurry to go.

From all the evidence that was collected, they were a wild party, and did full justice to the stock of eatables and drinkables—especially the drinkables—that were so lavishly supplied by the host.

When twelve o’clock struck there was a scene of wild uproar, and everyone who was sober enough to do so toasted his neighbour. During the whole of the evening Balfour had openly displayed great partiality for Maggie Stiven.

He insisted on her sitting next to him, and he paid her marked attention. When the company staggered to their feet to usher in the new year, Raymond Balfour flung his arms suddenly round her neck, and, kissing her with great warmth, he droned out a stanza of a love-ditty, and then in husky tones exclaimed:

‘Maggie Stiven’s the bonniest lass that ever lived, and I’m going to marry her.’

About half-past one only a few of the roisterers were left at the table. The others had succumbed to the too-seductive influences of the wine and whisky, and had ceased to take any further interest in the proceedings. Suddenly there resounded through the house a shrill, piercing scream. It was a scream that seemed to indicate intense horror and great agony.

Consternation and silence fell upon all who heard it. In a few moments Raymond Balfour rose to his feet and said:

‘Don’t be alarmed. Sit still. I’ll go and see what’s the matter.’

He left the room with unsteady gait, and nobody showed any disposition to follow him. Something like a superstitious awe had taken possession of the revellers, and they conversed with each other subduedly.

Amongst them was a tough, bronzed seafaring man, named Jasper Jarvis. He was captain of the barque Bonnie Scotland, which had arrived at Leith a few weeks before from the Gold Coast with a cargo of palm-oil and ivory.

Jarvis, who seems to have been quite in his sober senses, got up, threw an extra log on the fire, and in order to put heart into his companions, began to troll out a nautical ditty; but it had not the inspiriting effect that he expected, and somebody timidly suggested that he should go in search of the host.

To this he readily assented, but before he could get from his seat, Maggie Stiven jumped up and exclaimed:

‘You people all stay here. I’ll go and look for Raymond.’

Captain Jarvis offered no objection, and no one else interposed, so Maggie hurriedly left the room. From this point the narrative of what followed can best be told in the skipper’s own words.

THE STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN JASPER JARVIS.

When Maggie had gone we were six all told. The four ladies had previously gone to bed. Two out of the six were so muddled that they seemed incapable of understanding anything that was going on.

The other three appeared to be under the spell of fear. They huddled together round the fire, and all became silent.

It is curious that they should have been so affected by the scream; and yet, perhaps, it wasn’t, for somehow or other it didn’t seem natural at all. But the fact is, we had all been so jolly and happy, and the cry broke in upon us so suddenly, that it impressed us more than it would have done otherwise.

And then another thing was, it was difficult to tell whether it was a woman or a man who had screamed. It was too shrill for a man’s cry, and yet it wasn’t like the scream of a woman.

When Maggie Stiven had been gone about ten minutes—it seemed much longer than that to us—Rab Thomson, who was one of three men who sat by the fire, looked at me with white face, and said:

‘Skipper, you go and look after them. I don’t feel easy in my mind. I’ve a sort of feeling something queer has happened.’

On that I rose, saying I would soon find out, and went to the door. As I opened it I heard a sigh, and then a sort of prolonged groan, and I saw, or fancied I saw, a shadowy figure flit up the stair.

The hall was in darkness, save for the light that fell through the doorway as I held the door partly open. I’m ashamed to say it, but when I saw—if I did see it—that ghostly figure glide up the stairs, and heard the sigh and the groan, I shut the door quickly and drew back into the room.

Like most sailor men, I’m not without some belief in signs, omens, wraiths, and those kind of things; though nobody can say, and nobody must say, I’m wanting in pluck.

I’ve been at sea for thirty-two years, and during that time I’ve faced death in a thousand forms, and never had any feeling of fear. But, to be straight, I don’t like anything that’s uncanny. I like to be able to get a grip of things, and to understand them.

When I started back into the room, Rab Thomson rose to his feet and asked me what I’d seen. I told him I had seen a shadowy figure glide up the stairs, and had heard a sigh and a groan.

He laughed, but it wasn’t a real kind of laugh. He was as white as death, and I heard his teeth chatter, and with a sudden movement he went to one of the long windows, pulled aside the heavy curtain, and, pressing his face to the glass, peered out.

I think his intention was to get out of the window and go home; but he saw what an awful night it was. The snow was still falling heavily; it was piled up against the window, and no one but a madman or a fool would have dreamed of going forth in such a storm, for it was all but certain he would have lost his life in the drifts.

Rab let the curtain fall, and, drawing back, filled himself a measure of whisky, and, tossing it off, said to me:

‘Why don’t you go and see what’s the matter, man? Surely, you are no’ frightened?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but you are.’

And I walked to the door again, flung it open wide, so that the light streamed forth, and as I did so I saw a woman lying huddled up on the mat at the foot of the stairs.

I recognised her at once by the dress, which was a kind of pink silk, with a lot of fluffy lace all round the neck part of it, as Maggie Stiven, and, thinking she had fainted, I rushed forward, lifted her up with ease—for I am a powerful man, and she was a lightly-built little woman—and carried her to a big chair that stood empty near the fire. As I put her in the chair I noticed that her head fell forward on to her bosom with a strange kind of limpness, and her face was of a greenish, chalky kind of hue.

I felt frightened, and called out to the others to rouse up James Macfarlane, who had been studying medicine, but had nearly finished his course, and expected to get his diploma the next session.

Jamie had stowed away too much liquor in his hold in the early part of the evening, and had foundered, so somebody had rolled him up in a rug and put him on a couch, where he had been sleeping for hours. Notwithstanding that fact, it took a long time to waken him.

In the meanwhile I chafed Maggie’s hand, and Rab tried to get brandy down her throat, but it flowed out of her mouth again.

When James Macfarlane realized that something was wrong, he pulled himself together at once, and having felt Maggie’s pulse, he exclaimed with a horrified expression on his face:

‘My God, boys, she’s dead!’

This was only a confirmation of my own fears; nevertheless, the definite assertion by one who was qualified to tell was an awful shock to us.

A little more than a quarter of an hour before, Maggie, radiant with health and spirits, and looking very bonnie—she was one of the prettiest girls I think I’ve ever seen—had run out of the room; and now she was there in the chair, dead.

At Macfarlane’s suggestion we laid her flat on her back on the rug before the fire, and he tried to force a little brandy down her throat, but failed; and as he rose to his feet again, he said sadly:

‘There’s no mistake about it, boys: she’s dead as a herring.’

Our first thought now was of our host. What had become of him? I and Rab, who had recovered from his fright by this time, undertook to go in search of him. We lit the swinging lamp in the hall, and, taking candles with us, went upstairs to his room; but he was not there, and there were no signs of his having been there. Then we went to the room of the black fellow, Chunda.

The door was locked, and we had to shake and hammer it pretty hard before we roused him up. As he opened the door and stood before us in his night-clothes, he looked dazed, as one does when just wakened from sound sleep.

He did not speak English, but I could manage a little Hindustani, having been much in India, and I asked him if he had seen his master lately, and he answered ‘No.’ I told him he must come with me and look for him, as he knew the run of the house better than I did.

He only stopped to slip on some of his clothes and wrap a heavy rug round his shoulders, for he felt the cold very much.

Then we roused up the other three house-servants and the temporary servants, who had retired soon after midnight, and we went from room to room, passage to passage; in fact, we searched the house from top to bottom, but all in vain; not a trace of our friend could we get.

Our next step was to ascertain if he had gone out. But all the doors and windows were fastened. Nevertheless, I undertook to search the grounds, and, having been provided with a horn lantern, we got the big hall door opened; but the snow had drifted against it to such an extent that a great mass of it fell into the hall.

The night was pitch-dark, the air thick with snow. I made some attempt to go forth, but sank up to my waist, and was forced to return.

We then tried the back of the house, where there was a stable-yard. The snow was pretty heavy there, but not so heavy as in the front. Two men slept over the stable. I roused them up, got the keys of the stable, and went in. Balfour kept three horses, and they were in their stalls all right.

The stable-yard gate was barred, and it was very clear no one had been out that way.

I returned to the house, half frozen and very depressed. We then consulted together, and decided that nothing could be done until daylight.

It was an awful ending to our merry meeting, and the mystery of the whole affair weighed upon us like a nightmare.

The ladies of our party, who had gone to bed soon after we had drunk in the New Year, got up and dressed themselves. In the meantime we carried Maggie Stiven’s body into another room, where it was laid out on a table. James Macfarlane’s opinion was that she had died from a sudden shock of fright; and when that was taken in connection with the eldritch scream which had so startled us, and the mysterious disappearance of our host, we felt that there was something uncanny about the whole business.

The rest of the night was wearily passed. The others of our party, having been o’er fu’ when they went to sleep, continued to sleep through it all, and knew nothing of the tragic ending until they awoke in the morning.

With the coming of the morning our spirits revived a little, though we still felt miserable enough. It had almost ceased to snow, but the whole country was buried, and round about the house the drift was piled up until it reached to the lower windows.

As soon as it was broad daylight we made another careful search of the house, but not a sign of Raymond Balfour could we see.

Chunda helped us in our search. He was terribly cut up, and became so ill from grief and the cold that he was obliged to go to bed.

The only reasonable theory that we could find to account for Balfour’s strange disappearance was that, by some means we could not determine, he had managed to leave the house, and had perished in the snow.

As it had continued to snow all night, and at eight o’clock was still falling lightly, all traces were, of course, obliterated.

Every one of the visitors was now anxious to get away, but before anyone went, I drew up a statement which was duly signed. James Macfarlane and I then undertook to report the matter to the police in Edinburgh.

Before any of us could leave, we had to clear the snow away from the door and dig a path out. And even then it was no easy matter to get clear.

We were a sorrowful enough party, as may be imagined, and we all felt that the New Year had commenced badly for us.

The death of Maggie Stiven was a terrible business, and I confess to feeling surprised that she should have died from fright, for she was by no means a nervous girl. Indeed, I think she was as plucky as any woman I have ever known, and I was certain that if fright had really killed her she must have seen something very awful.

With reference to this, nobody, I think, liked to put his thoughts into words, but somehow we seemed to divine that each believed Satan had spirited Raymond Balfour away and frightened poor Maggie to death. Any way, the mystery was beyond our solving, and we were silent and melancholy as we straggled into Edinburgh, where armies of labourers were busy clearing the streets of snow.

It was an awful day. The cold was intense, and overhead the sky was like one vast sheet of lead. Except the labourers, few people were abroad, and those few looked pinched up, draggled, and miserable.

God knows, we were miserable enough ourselves! I know that my heart was like a stone; for I was not so wanting in sense as not to see that trouble was bound to come out of the business, and I fairly shuddered when I thought of poor Balfour’s end, for it seemed impossible to hope that he was still alive.

Look at the matter whichever way I would, it was a mystery which absolutely appalled me, and it had all come about with such awful suddenness that, speaking for myself, I felt stunned.