1939-05-12 — Page 15

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AD

CHINA

MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, MAY 12, 1939

the

DAM LUCK was in

habit of getting to the bot tom of things. It was because he had always got to the bottom of things, and had never admit- ted defeat by anything or any- body, that he had now managed, before he was fifty, to buy him- self a seventeenth-century manor- house he didn't really want.

At the moment, he was trying to get to the bottom of the strange piece of tarnished silver he was turning over between his blunt, stumpy fingers. Or, rath- er, he was trying to get at both ends of it at once, for he could- not make up his mind whether it was a key or a spoon. It was either a key with a handle shap- ed like the bowl of a spoon, or a spoon with a handle shaped like the business end of a key. It had been found by one of the workmen reconstructing the old- fashioned fireplace in the lounge, where it had apparently been ly- ing, bricked in, for generations.

He was perplexed, and he ob jected to being perplexed. If he were to get to the bottom of it, he would have to go back a good many years, because, according to records, that fireplace had been rebuilt by one of the Cranways when he had inherited the place from his father in the middle of the eighteenth century, and hadn't been touched since, until now.

The obvious way back, of course, would have been through Mark Cranway. But as Mark

Short Story

Cranway was a business rival and one of the two reasons why he had bought Kelswell Manor, it was a way that would have to be trod circumspectly.

an

Both reasons were in keeping with a quaint sense of humour which the most charitable as- cribed to

uphill struggle Mark against a bitter world. Cranway, a direct descendant of the Rupert Cranwell who had built Kelswell Manor somewhere about 1660, had been striving for years to re-stock the family coffers sufficiently to establish the Cranways

again at Kelswell after an absence of nearly a century, and had been on the point of attaining his ambition. It was a great joke.

once

The other reason—quite a tri- vial one, but it had its amusing side-was that Mrs. Adam Luck 'believed in ghosts, and was ter- rified of all old houses, especial- ly if they had reputations for ob- scure happenings in the dim past.

a

Ella was another example of Adam's refusal to accept defeat. He had married her because great many other men had want- ed to marry her, and because she had had a will of her... own which it, had amused him to break. It had taken him several years to break it, after which his interest in her had dropped, ex- cept as a handy target for his whims.

Having brusquely dismissed the workman, who had had the impertinence to look hopeful, Adam adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles on the upper portion of an expanse of nose and stud- fed the köy--0

прооп

"A THOUSAND DOORS"

The fact that it was silver, and not solid enough to stand the strain of a lock as big as the one it looked as if it ought to fit, brought him to the conclusion that it was primarily a spoon,

Now that he scrutinised it care- fully he saw that something was engraved on it. But he could only pick out a letter here and there. So he sent for some sil- ver polish and set about remov- ing a layer or two of tarnish.

After patient rubbing, a few more letters began fo take shape, and as Adam had had long and daily experience at crossword puzzles, he was able to supply the missing ones from his imagination, and to read the answer as "A Thousand Doors." But, having won that round, he removed his spectacles and sat back, more perplexed than

ever,

The spoon-key, or key-spoon, perhaps had some connexion with the vague stories he had heard about the happenings at Kels- well Manor in its earlier years, and which he had elaborated with such glee to Ella. But what con- nexion he hadn't the least idea.

He didn't know much about those happenings, except that in the days of Cranway-number- two, who lived to a ripe old age, there had been a series of un-

By Shaugh Courtenay

explained - deaths in the house. Of course, to Ella he had explain- ed them easily by curses and evil spirits, but that had nothing to do with history, except that it happened to agree to a certain extent with the theories of the victims' friends and relations, who had eventually grown so ex- asperated that they had carted off the protesting Mrs. Cranway- number-two and burned her as a witch. They had apparently neg-

·lected to take into consideration the facts that all the victims had offended in some way against Mr. Cranway-number-two, and that three of them were suspected of being his wife's lovers,

Anyhow, it hadn't stopped the mysterious deaths.

But what had all that to do with this strange instrument?

By early hours of the morning Adam was tired and disgusted with much fruitless pondering, but even more determined to get to the bottom of things. He decided that a little joke would cheer him up before going to bed, so he called in at Ella's room and woke her up..

.

"There ought to be plenty of ghosts about to-night," he an- nounced. "They'll be coming back for their spoon, or key, or whatever it is. You'll probably hear their shrieks as they fight over it." It did occur to him to tell her to keep the thing for safety under her pillow, which would have given him a good laugh, but he didn't trust her not, to get rid of it.

She sat up, white-faced and heavy-eyed.

"Spoon?" she whispered.

.

He told her. He didn't admit, of course, that he was still per- plexed about it. Ella was the last person to ask for details of the history of ghostly spoons at that time of night. So he was surprised when she repeated vac- antly: "A thousand doors thousand doors."

"Well?" he asked irritably. "What about it?”

"Massinger," she murmured. "I think it was Massinger. 'Death hath a thousand doors to let out life'

"

Adam had never heard of Mas- singer. He had no use for poe- try, and all that sort of rot. Un- til this moment! Now he hurried out of his wife's room, leaving her to imagine what she pleased for the rest of the night, and got into bed as quickly as he could, to follow up in peace the new train of thought that the quota- tion had suddenly set in motion. Death! A thousand doors! There was the connexion he'd been trying to find. The key of a thousand doors. The spoon of Death. Or the key of Death. Nonsense, of course; but people in those days were full of absurd superstitions. If stories of mys- terious death had been handed down, and probably grossly ex- aggerated, through some two hundred years, the chances were that somebody in the neighbour- hood would have heard of this spoon.

Next day he took it to old Win- gold, the local jeweller and anti- que dealer. Old Wingold knew nothing about it. Or, if he did know anything, he kept a poker face....Adam left it to be thor oughly cleaned, home disgruntled.

:

not to believe. There must be some limit to the length of the arm of coincidence. Perhaps I'd better tell you, as you have the spoon, what has always been kept a family secret.

"That spoon is supposed to be the cause of all the mysterious deaths in this house, of which no doubt you've heard.' Where it came from originally I don't know. One of my ancestors pick- ed it up from some mystic gen- tleman abroad. The inscription was his own idea. It was taken from a play published about the time this house was built, and suited what the mystic had told him about the thing that it represents the key to the doors of death.

"Everybody who eats or drinks anything that has been stirred by that spoon is said to die with- in an hour."

"Fairy-tale rubbish!" exploded Adam derisively. "I suppose you expect me to give you the thing.”

"I've never for a moment ex- pected you to give away any- thing," Cranway answered quietly.

"

"But of course I should like to see it safely in the keeping of the Cranway family, and I'm prepared to pay for it. I thought, as it had no family interest for you, and it wasn't the sort of thing you'd care to have lying about

"Then you've got another think coming," Adam interrupted. “I intend to have it lying about, Now it's polished, it's quite an amusing ornament. I like it." He might have added that it would be an amusing and novel torment for Ella, but he didn't.

shoulders. and returned

.

It was from a totally unexpect- ed source that information came. From Mark Cranway himself! Adam had a letter from him, two days after the visit to old Win- gold, asking if he could come down to Kelswell and place.

see

the

"By the way," he said casual- ly-rather too casually after lunch, when Adam, glowing with old port, had made several un- successful attempts to get a rise out of both him and Ella. "There's supposed to be an ex- traordinary old silver spoon hid- den away somewhere in the house. I suppose you haven't come across it?”'

Adam chuckled. He wasn't so full of port that he couldn't see through that.

"So that's what you came for!” he gurgled. "I suppose you heard I'd found it. That disre- putable old jeweller, probably."

Cranway, unlike Adam, was honest enough to admit when he was bested.

"Well guessed!" he laughed. “I was afraid the thing would be dug out. As long as it stayed where it was, there was no need to worry about it; but if it came to light, I thought you ought to warned. Dangerous thing to keep about the house, from all accounts.".

̈“Dangerous?" "Adam chuckled 'again." Ella bit her lip and said

nothing.

"Perhaps you don't believe in anything having supernatural powers. Knowing my own fam- ily history, I and it impa

Mark Cranway shrugged his "Have it yöùr own way. But don't say I haven't warned you.”

Like all sadists, Adam Luck was a coward. Although he refused to believe in the powers of the spoon, he wouldn't have been at all willing to stir his own tea with it. Incurably determined to get to the bottom of things, he began to con- sider how he could disprove the alleged powers to his own satisfac- tion, There wes always, of course, the dog. But it happened to be rather an expensive dog.

For the next week or so, how-

(Continued on Page 7)

PLEASE, MOTHER-

I WANT POWDER THAT'S ANTISEPTIC

MENNEN

BORATED POWDER.

Heliovos irritation, priokly heat and chafing.

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