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At the second meeting of the Tuesday Night Club, the clergyman Dr. Pender relates a case in which he participated many years ago. Within the estate of his friend Richard Haydon there was a very old forest full of archaeological treasures. It was said that bloody sacred rites had been performed in that place, right in front of a statue representing the goddess Astarte. During a meeting, Sir Richard's guests visit the site and a girl goes into a trance, while one of the men falls dead in front of everyone else. Will the members of the Club be able to solve a case that seems completely supernatural?
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Seitenzahl: 26
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Chapter 1
‘And now, Dr Pender, what are you going to tell us?’
The old clergyman smiled gently. ‘My life has been passed in quiet places,’ he said. ‘Very few eventful happenings have come my way. Yet once, when I was a young man, I had one very strange and tragic experience.’
‘Ah!’ said Joyce Lemprie`re encouragingly.
‘I have never forgotten it,’ continued the clergyman. ‘It made a profound impression on me at the time, and to this day by a slight effort of memory I can feel again the awe and horror of that terrible moment when I saw a man stricken to death by apparently no mortal agency.’
‘You make me feel quite creepy, Pender,’ complained Sir Henry.
‘It made me feel creepy, as you call it,’ replied the other. ‘Since then I have never laughed at the people who use the word atmosphere. There is such a thing. There are certain places imbued and saturated with good or evil influences which can make their power felt.’
‘That house, The Larches, is a very unhappy one,’ remarked Miss Marple. ‘Old Mr Smithers lost all his money and had to leave it, then the Carslakes took it and Johnny Carslake fell downstairs and broke his leg and Mrs Carslake had to go away to the south of France for her health, and now the Burdens have got it and I hear that poor Mr Burden has got to have an operation almost immediately.’
‘There is, I think, rather too much superstition about such matters,’ said Mr Petherick. ‘A lot of damage is done to property by foolish reports heedlessly circulated.’
‘I have known one or two “ghosts” that have had a very robust personality,’ remarked Sir Henry with a chuckle.
‘I think,’ said Raymond, ‘we should allow Dr Pender to go on with his story.’
Joyce got up and switched off the two lamps, leaving the room lit only by the flickering firelight.
‘Atmosphere,’ she said. ‘Now we can get along.’
Dr Pender smiled at her, and leaning back in his chair and taking off his pince-nez, he began his story in a gentle reminiscent voice.
‘I don’t know whether any of you know Dartmoor at all. The place I am telling you about is situated on the borders of Dartmoor. It was a very charming property, though it had been on the market without finding a purchaser for several years. The situation was perhaps a little bleak in winter, but the views were magnificent and there were certain curious and original features about the property itself. It was bought by a man called Haydon – Sir Richard Haydon. I had known him in his college days, and though I had lost sight of him for some years, the old ties of friendship still held, and I accepted with pleasure his invitation to go down to Silent Grove, as his new purchase was called.
