The Manson Curse

Book 694: Murder Room

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

When American journalist Jon Harkness is reassigned to his paper's London office, he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre tale involving an ancient family curse. Whilst out for a drive, his car is surrounded by an eerie fog and he finds himself on the wild Cornish coast by a medieval-looking pub named The Drowned Man. It is here that Harkness overhears the locals talking about an ancient curse that haunts the prominent Manson family, which piques his interest. Upon visiting the family's mansion, Harkness is plunged headlong into the chilling tale of a spell that has worked its power over the Manson clan for centuries. 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

Release date: November 21, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

IT WAS DAMNED strange, how I found myself involved in the affair.

I came back to England in January, six years after my last stint there. Since then I’d been a lot of places for two years and at home—New York or Chicago—the rest of the time.
When Barclay went on sick leave, someone was needed to replace him in the London office, and I was offered the job; it was a step up to editorship, if only temporary. Whether Barclay came back or
not, it wasn’t likely that I’d get the London office on a permanent basis, nor did I particularly want it. An editorship, yes, but preferably somewhere at home. I’m a sedentary
individual—read it sybaritic—and I like my creature comforts.

But I was pleased enough to spend six or eight months in England. I had a number of old acquaintances there, both British and American. I took over Barclay’s bachelor flat in Bloomsbury
and settled in quite comfortably.

There wasn’t much going on just then in the way of news. Most of the previous year’s anti-Americanism had been given decent burial, the Russians were remarkably quiet, and for once
there were no visiting film stars. Outside the office I pottered around, renewing my acquaintance with London and a few other old friends, and I started a series of articles, “The Face of
England,” primarily for home consumption.

In the middle of February I decided it was time to see something of England outside London so I took off in Barclay’s old Morris to spend a week collecting a few different backgrounds for
my columns.

I’d been in England for three years, on and off, that other time, but in an odd way much of the country seemed new and fresh to me this time around, because I came to it in a different
frame of mind, maybe as a different man. My last six months in England, six years before, had been spoiled by my resentment of an enforced absence from home, and most of my spare time had been
devoted to writing long cheerful letters to Betty. It’s not easy to write that kind of letter to someone who is dying, someone you love, and it had taken a good deal of my time and energy.
Well, that was over now.

I went west from London; I’d never seen the West Country. Most of it was fine, even in the rain; the weather cleared by the time I reached Devon, and the next day I drove
across Dartmoor in watery sunlight. I stopped for lunch in Liskeard, over the Cornish border, and cut south for the coast.

Devon (with the exception of Dartmoor) is the picture on a chocolate box, but Cornwall—I remember somebody once wrote that in Devon one may meet pixies, but in Cornwall bogles. It was a
wild coast; I liked it until the fog came in. The fog was not like river fog; it was thin and white, and I had to slow almost to walking pace on a strange road. I felt that I’d been creeping
along three hundred feet above a dimly heard, menacing surf for hours, though my watch told me it was just past four, when I came to a scattering of small cottages that constituted a village, and
on the other side of it was a larger building with a sign. Relieved at these evidences of civilization, I drew up. There would be, of course, no chance of whiskey; but I might be offered decent
tea.

There are Londoners who collect pubs; I fancied this would be a star in my collection. To begin with, it was called The Drowned Man and its sign was gruesomely realistic. There was one long, low
room with the bar at the back, a few chairs and scarred tables, two kettles beside an enormous hearth; the only ornamentation was a row of collection boxes ranged neatly along the mantel, which was
at least nine feet high.

When I came in, all talk stopped dead and five pairs of eyes turned to me. These belonged to four customers at one table and the publican, who leaned on the bar.

There was neither surprise, hostility, nor friendliness in the eyes; only veiled curiosity and suspicion of the outlander.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

The publican grunted; the other four fixed their eyes on their glasses and were silent. “I don’t suppose,” I pursued, “you can give me a whiskey?”

“Sorry, sir, none left. Beer.”

I’m not a beer drinker. “Er—no. Tea?”

“Tea,” said the publican meditatively. He was a middle-aged man with a great barrel of a chest. He had a pale, broad, secretive face with slate-gray eyes; he was shining-bald, but
his bare arms were covered with coarse black curly hair. “Tea. I daresay—if you’d not be wanting anything with it.”

“Tea will do fine, thanks.”

Without a word the publican turned into the rear premises by a door behind the bar. I leaned on the counter and surveyed the room while I got out a cigarette. The others were all watching
me—three older men, one young: they might be fishermen. Suddenly, in accord, they all looked away and began their talk again. They were like the men who laid out Stonehenge:
timeless—the old distrust of the stranger, whether he be from ten miles distant or a thousand. Now they had dismissed me, summed me up: one of the Americans, not important.

“Just you wait and see, that’s all, Jem. Just wait.”

“What I say. It’ll come, it will, and some strange way to it, too. You wasn’t borned when young James was drownded.” The oldest man of all contented himself with a grunt
of agreement also directed at the youth.

“You’re a lot of bloody fools,” said that one, contempt and uncertainty in his tone. “Things like that don’t happen nowadays—if they did any time.”

“Young James was no fool about water,” said the oldest. “Little bit of a boat be kept just for goin’ about, likin’ to be at the sea. I remember my da tellin’
it. And it weren’t a rough day, calm as a pond. But over she go and he drownded.”

“It was more than fifty year ago,” said the youth sullenly. “We’re not talkin’ of young James.”

“Manson be Manson,” said the first man, “and eldest son be eldest son, you can’t get from it—that’s what it do say.”

The landlord reappeared silently and set a cracked saucer with a violet-patterned cup on the bar. The tea was strong and scalding hot. I stirred it reflectively. Manson was after all a common
enough name; but I had a sudden vague memory of Manson being from the West Country, though it was not a Cornish name. Manson: I hadn’t thought of him in years, until just the other day.

“Old parson got a book with all that in. You’d ought to ax him to see it, Jem. In a book, all wrote out. And a picture.”

The youth laughed sharply. I sipped my tea, lit another cigarette, and wondered about Manson. I could understand Fowler’s curiosity. When was it I had seen Fowler?—at the Press Club,
ten days ago or two weeks. . . .

“Manson? No, I’ve never heard of or from him since the day I left England.”

“I had the idea you knew him pretty well,” Fowler had said.

“At one time I did, fairly. Strange type—nervous. And if you say, ‘Well, he’s a writer . . .’” I’d said with a grin. Fowler did not laugh. His long
equine countenance was gloomier than usual.

“Yes, well, I’d rather like to get in touch with him. More out of curiosity than anything else. Fellow seems to have dropped out of existence. No one’s seen or heard from him
in God knows how long. No one I know, anyway.”

“Perhaps he’s dead,” I’d said idly.

“Not unless his ghost is endorsing checks. He’s still collecting occasional royalties on Troth.”

“I should imagine so,” I said, a little enviously. “Let’s see, it’s what—six years, seven . . .”

“Nearer eight. I can’t make out what’s happened to the man. I haven’t laid eyes on him in three years, or heard from him either. His only address is his bank. It’s
a bit late,” said Fowler, “to cash in on Troth now, but it could be done. What sort of fool doesn’t follow up a best seller? My God, any sort of trash—and he
doesn’t write trash, you know.”

“No.” Troth had not been trash. “Really. That is rather odd. As I say, I lost touch with him when I left England. Isn’t he writing at all?”

“Not so far as I know. I’ve written him care of the bank, of course—not a line in answer. Pity, you know. We both made money with Troth—I’d like another
Manson. Though God knows why, when they take it away as fast as I make it.” Fowler is executive editor of an old and respected publishing house. “He was always a queer fish, of
course—for all I know he’s in China, or turned hermit, or breeding hens in the country.”

It was rather strange about Manson. That kind of thing happens so gradually you don’t mark it; men you knew in another life, a different time, men you called friends, somehow fading away
to acquaintances, and then altogether. As it was with Manson, so it was with Cunningham, Adams, Wakefield, a dozen others I had once known. But you assumed they were placed somewhere, at work in a
routine even if you didn’t know it.

The meeting with Fowler had brought Manson back to mind, and I speculated idly about him a little before dismissing it with a shrug. Now, I heard the name on the slow, rough tongues of Cornish
fishermen, and at the same time remembered, with startling clarity, Manson sitting at a table in a dirty little Soho café, looking down his nose at the foreign proprietor and waxing
nostalgic about the West of England. Had he said Cornwall? The West might mean anything, logically, from Cornwall to Cumberland.

It was odd that after all this time my mental vision of Manson should be so sharp: the slight wiry figure, the fair hair and clipped mustache, the well-bred, chilly, English features and the
pale eyes.

“A shame,” said the oldest man. “A pity it do be, the only one. But it’ll happen.”

The publican, who had been leaning on the bar staring into space, unexpectedly entered the conversation. “That’s her blame, the London female. All sort o’ sly tricks they know
to keep from it, can’t bother theyselves with a fambly. A bad day he married that one. He shoulda thought for it. I daresay she won’t shed tears when it do happen.”

“No comfort to him, sure. That city way she have.” All the voices but the young man’s were slow, ruminative, monotoned. The five of them took no more notice of me than if
I’d been a piece of the furniture, and my own voice startled me with its urban inflection.

“I beg your pardon—I couldn’t help overhearing—you mentioned a Mr. Manson, I wonder if it’s a man I know.” Of course it couldn’t be. The intruding
remark startled them, too. They all turned on me with one look, the chained watchdog rearing up to examine the pauser at the gate. “A Mr. Richard Manson,” I said, half sorry I had
spoken.

After a silence the landlord said noncommittally, “Ar? Mr. Richard Manson do live up Poltressor House.”

“Oh.” It was still a common enough name. “Slight fellow, small, very fair, quick way of talking?”

They said nothing at all, looking at me. The young man made an impatient gesture; he was young enough that he would have been in the service, out and away from the narrow local insularities.

“That’s Mr. Manson, sure. You be a friend of his?”

“Yes,” I said, and then wondered. Had I been, was I? Manson had always been a standoffish guy. “He lives near here? Where am I, by the way? I don’t know
Cornwall.”

“This be Pentressor,” and the youth decided to append, “sir. Poltressor House be a long mile there,” and he nodded up the road.

“Well,” I said. I had the irrational feeling that I was being manipulated by destiny for some unknown end. I hadn’t been hunting Manson (as Fowler had hunted? Perhaps) but here
he was. Undoubtedly the right Manson. Had I any desire to see the man again? Few things bore me so much as postmortems on the past. What would Manson and I have to talk about except what each of us
had done and not done since we’d last met? I could just tell Fowler the address and let it go.

Even as I thought that, I felt it inevitable that I would call at Manson’s house now, and inevitable that the reason would be a residue of faint curiosity, as I remembered what Fowler had
said. The Manson I had known was no recluse. Why only the accommodation address? Why the unanswered letters? Why no more writing after Troth? Well, I am a journalist; they say we all have
more curiosity than the average man.

“You can’t miss it—sir. Up the road, the first house on your right. There’s a gate and a wall.” The young man was in the conspiracy with destiny to bring me
together with Manson.

“I see, thanks.” Because I knew I must, now, seek out Manson I didn’t want to: a bore, a waste of time. Quite definitely, I did not want to see him again.

“Thank you. Odd to run across him after all this while.” They were looking at me expectantly. No use; I was committed, if only by the pure chance of it.

I paid for the tea and came out into a cold salt breeze. The fog was blown in trailing wisps, white and insubstantial. As I started the car and drew away from The Drowned Man I reflected that at
least Manson might put me up for the night, a more comfortable lodging than any I was likely to find elsewhere here.

POLTRESSOR HOUSE (the little rhyme chased round my mind like a puppy after its tail, “By Pol, Tre and Pen you may know the Cornish men”) might have been built by a
recluse. It stood on a headland jutting out to sea, almost at the edge of a respectably tall cliff. There was a five-foot stone wall all around it, with ornamental iron gates; it was a square
Georgian house, an inland intruder on the coast. The gates were shut and I sat for a moment wondering if, after all, I would not just go on my way. In the end I got out and tried them; they were
not locked. I drove in by a curving broad way. No attempt at a lawn; a rock garden; a few pots. It was bare, but nothing grew well on the coast, no green, civilized garden stuff. There was an
old-fashioned bellpull.

I waited on the step. Just before the door opened I was thinking, I could still turn and go—now, quickly, before anyone answers.

The woman who opened the door was pleasant-faced, middle-aged, in a neat uniform. When had I last seen a uniformed maid? “Good afternoon, is Mr. Manson at home?”

“Yes, sir, if you’d come in? What name, sir?”

“Harkness—tell him Captain Harkness.”

She went down the hall. Whatever Manson was doing or not doing there was evidently no lack of money; the carpeting was thick, the visible furniture solid and good—some old, and lovingly
cared for. Inside, the house was light and fresh-seeming, with ivory woodwork, ivory-painted walls, a glimpse of flower-patterned draperies in what would be the sitting room to my left.

“Oh?” It was a breathy gasp of surprise. I glanced up. Bogles, not pixies? This was surely a pixie. A tiny, gray, very elderly woman: she stood on the stair landing and gazed at me
in consternation before running down to face me. A fierce gray terrier of an old lady: gray, old-fashioned dress with dark-gray beading at the shoulders, silver-gray pince-nez over pale gray eyes
(yes; Manson’s eyes), gray-white hair in an untidy bun, drab gray stockings, gray glacé slippers, and a knitting bag with gray wool protruding.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? You must go away at once—at once! Who let you in? Elsie? Elsie, come here immediately!” Like a lapdog with duty done, the warning bark
given, she backed away from me. “Elsie!”

I felt absurdly tall and awkward. “I’m so sorry if I startled you—my name is Harkness, I came to see Mr. Manson.”

“You can’t see him. He doesn’t want to see you. You must go away at once.” She ended on a gasp and her eyes looked beyond me. I turned.

“Of course Richard wants to see Mr. Harkness, Miss Manson, we mustn’t seem so inhospitable.”

“Eve . . .”

Yes, Eve, I thought: indubitably, who else could it be? Infinite woman. She stood framed in the door of the sitting room, a tall slender woman, erect yet graceful. In this remote country place
she was City, everything right and smooth about her. Dark brown hair in sleek curls, a deep widow’s peak and smooth crown above a low smooth brow; pale matte-complexioned oval face with
sleek-plucked brows, a mature painted mouth, lengthened dark eyes; soft blue frock so simple that it said Money, sleek silk slender legs and high heels. The voice was creamy and smooth, and she
gave me a slow smile. “You must forgive Miss Manson, she’s nervous.”

“Of course, I’m sorry to have . . .”

“I’m sure Richard’s in. Won’t you come into the sitting room—it is Mr. Harkness? I am Mrs. Manson. Do sit down.” The little old lady had disappeared.
“You understand how it is—I hope you’re not offended. Miss Manson’s old and a bit strange.”

“Yes,” I said meaninglessly.

“I believe I’ve heard Richard mention your name.”

Another smile. It was not quite English, somehow; was it deliberately provocative? I thought, a bored urbanite in the wilds with a recluse for a husband? She offered me a cigarette, leaning
forward. Un-English?—but not foreign. Celtic, yes: the high cheekbones, the eyes put in with a smutty finger. It was not deliberate, I decided; only natural charm cultured to smoothness, and
wouldn’t Manson, little, nervous Manson, be just the one to possess such a woman? Too bad of him to keep her away in the country. “He’ll be so pleased to see you,” she said,
leaning forward again to my politely held match.

Somewhere a door opened and the grave sanity of Bach marched down the corridor. And then I noticed that despite the calmness of her voice, the poised serenity, her long white hands were shaking.
A quick light tread came nearer, and she said, “Please don’t mention it, Mr. Harkness, but Richard has been . . . hasn’t been too well. He’s sometimes . . . a bit nervous. I
know you’ll overlook it.”

Was that the explanation, then? Manson’s become a little ill, not enough to tuck away in a home but unfit for freedom in London? I could not altogether believe it. Manson as I remembered
him had always been nervous.

Manson came in. He was absurdly unchanged, the Manson of three, five, ten years ago: a type that does not age, wiry, boyish. Only his voice had risen and taken on petulance.

“Eve—Eve? They said someone—a stranger, someone pretending to know me—what did he want?” He saw me then and checked.

I rose and offered my hand. “Hello, Manson. Nice to see you again.”

Manson stared at me in silence for a moment. Then in a completely altered, normal tone he said, “Why, Harkness—Johnny Harkness. And good to see you, old boy—what are
you doing in Cornwall?”

I thought of Dorian Gray more than once as I looked at Manson, listened to Manson, dined at Manson’s board, accepted a bed for the night. We were the same age, but he might have been
twenty-six instead of ten years older. There was nothing wrong with Manson, certainly.

“You like the house? Rather a lonely spot, but it suits us—privacy at least.” Yes, he had always been something of a solitary, I supposed. “It used to be quite an
extensive property, Poltressor—been in the family almost since Elizabethan days. In those times it was valuable—shipping, you know, and smuggling as well. A good deal of it’s been
sold off—my land runs up the coast a quarter-mile or so, just a strip of the cliffs, you see—the inland part’s been sold. I expect some people would find it lonely—I
don’t mind,” and a careless smile for his wife. I wondered if she lied when she smiled back and agreed.

“You don’t come up to London much, then? I was talking to Fowler the other day and he mentioned that he hadn’t seen you in some time.”

“Oh—Fowler,” said Manson. “Yes, of course. He was always at me to write another novel. Well, when I don’t have to work at it . . .” and he shrugged. A trifle
arrogant? Manson was not, apparently, the true professional, restless when he was not writing: he had no inner drive to write. Yet Troth was a good novel, in its own way. Of course,
he’d made a small fortune from his one novel; the film rights alone would keep him comfortably for the rest of his life.

“No, we seldom visit London.” What a waste, this woman here. “More coffee, Mr. Harkness? Richard, the milk, please. Richard?”

“Oh—yes, certainly. We’re not Cornish, of course—the original ancestor acquired the place in payment of a debt, I believe—late sixteen-something. I was brought up
here except for school. No, we don’t find it lonely.”

That was the third time he had said so. Nothing wrong with Manson but his usual, remembered nervousness. He was fidgeting with the cutlery, the glasses, the salt cellar. “Elsie—where
is the woman? Elsie!”

“You needn’t shout, Richard”—quiet, modulated tone—“let me ring.”

“Elsie—there you are. Did you tell Evans to lock the gates?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Both gates. I fou. . .