Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

sound came. Then, there was no more movement. Eldred was alone. He had fallen back into the grass behind the tree-trunk. The book was cast into the roadway. Garrett, his anger and suspicion gone for the moment at the sight of this horrid struggle, rushed up with loud cries of “Help!” and so too, to his enormous relief, did a labourer who had just emerged from a field opposite. Together they bent over and supported Eldred, but to no purpose. The conclusion that he was dead was inevitable. “Poor gentleman!” said Garrett to the labourer, when they had laid him down, “what happened to him, do you think?” “I wasn’t two hundred yards away,” said the man, “when I see Squire Eldred setting reading in his book, and to my thinking he was took with one of these fits⁠—face seemed to go all over black.” “Just so,” said Garrett. “You didn’t see anyone near him? It couldn’t have been an assault?” “Not possible⁠—no one couldn’t have got away without you or me seeing them.” “So I thought. Well, we must get some help, and the doctor and the policeman; and perhaps I had better give them this book.”

It was obviously a case for an inquest, and obvious also that Garrett must stay at Bretfield and give his evidence. The medical inspection showed that, though some black dust was found on the face and in the mouth of the deceased, the cause of death was a shock to a weak heart, and not asphyxiation. The fateful book was produced, a respectable quarto printed wholly in Hebrew, and not of an aspect likely to excite even the most sensitive.

“You say, Mr. Garrett, that the deceased gentleman appeared at the moment before his attack to be tearing a leaf out of this book?”

“Yes; I think one of the flyleaves.”

“There is here a flyleaf partially torn through. It has Hebrew writing on it. Will you kindly inspect it?”

“There are three names in English, sir, also, and a date. But I am sorry to say I cannot read Hebrew writing.”

“Thank you. The names have the appearance of being signatures. They are John Rant, Walter Gibson, and James Frost, and the date is 20 July, 1875. Does anyone here know any of these names?”

The Rector, who was present, volunteered a statement that the uncle of the deceased, from whom he inherited, had been named Rant.

The book being handed to him, he shook a puzzled head. “This is not like any Hebrew I ever learnt.”

“You are sure that it is Hebrew?”

“What? Yes⁠—I suppose.⁠ ⁠… No⁠—my dear sir, you are perfectly right⁠—that is, your suggestion is exactly to the point. Of course⁠—it is not Hebrew at all. It is English, and it is a will.”

It did not take many minutes to show that here was indeed a will of Dr. John Rant, bequeathing the whole of the property lately held by John Eldred to Mrs. Mary Simpson. Clearly the discovery of such a document would amply justify Mr. Eldred’s agitation. As to the partial tearing of the leaf, the coroner pointed out that no useful purpose could be attained by speculations whose correctness it would never be possible to establish.

The Tractate Middoth was naturally taken in charge by the coroner for further investigation, and Mr. Garrett explained privately to him the history of it, and the position of events so far as he knew or guessed them.

He returned to his work next day, and on his walk to the station passed the scene of Mr. Eldred’s catastrophe. He could hardly leave it without another look, though the recollection of what he had seen there made him shiver, even on that bright morning. He walked round, with some misgivings, behind the felled tree. Something dark that still lay there made him start back for a moment: but it hardly stirred. Looking closer, he saw that it was a thick black mass of cobwebs; and, as he stirred it gingerly with his stick, several large spiders ran out of it into the grass.

There is no great difficulty in imagining the steps by which William Garrett, from being an assistant in a great library, attained to his present position of prospective owner of Bretfield Manor, now in the occupation of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Mary Simpson.

Casting the Runes

April 15th, 190-

Dear Sir,⁠—I am requested by the Council of the ⸻ Association to return to you the draft of a paper on “The Truth of Alchemy,” which you have been good enough to offer to read at our forthcoming meeting, and to inform you that the Council do not see their way to including it in the programme.

I am,
Yours faithfully,

⸻ Secretary.

April 18th

Dear Sir,⁠—I am sorry to say that my engagements do not permit of my affording you an interview on the subject of your proposed paper. Nor do our laws allow of your discussing the matter with a Committee of our Council, as you suggest. Please allow me to assure you that the fullest consideration was given to the draft which you submitted, and that it was not declined without having been referred to the judgement of a most competent authority. No personal question (it can hardly be necessary for me to add) can have had the slightest influence on the decision of the Council.

Believe me (ut supra).

April 20th

The Secretary of the ⸻ Association begs respectfully to inform Mr. Karswell that it is impossible for him to communicate the name of any person or persons to whom the draft of Mr. Karswell’s paper may have been submitted; and further desires to intimate that he cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this subject.

“And who is Mr. Karswell?” inquired the Secretary’s wife. She had called at his office, and (perhaps unwarrantably) had picked up the last of these three letters, which the typist had just brought in.

“Why, my dear, just at present Mr. Karswell is a very angry man. But I don’t know much about