17 - Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart

When English professor William A. Porter unexpectedly inherits a grand seaside mansion from his late Uncle Horace, his curiosity is piqued by the unexplained circumstances surrounding his uncles death. Along with his wife and niece, he decides to spend the summer in the propertys lodge, renting out the main house. As darkness falls, the quiet seaside neighborhood takes a sinister turn, with strange occurrences and eerie events becoming the norm. At the heart of these mysteries is an ominous red lamp, a subject of local folklore and believed to cast a malevolent spell. Can Professor Porter unravel the truth behind these oddities, or will he himself become a suspect in this webs of mysteries?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section seventeen of The Red Lamp by Murray Roberts Reinhardt.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Conclusion Chapter
one the journal takes us up to the evening of
September tenth, nineteen twenty two. It was to the fourth
and last tragedy of that summer, which filled the next
day's papers, that little Pettingill referred in the conversation recorded

(00:20):
in the introduction of this journal. It was with this
tragedy that, as Pettingill said, agrievably, the story quit on them,
and quit did. We felt then that the best thing
to do, under the circumstances was to let it rest
once more. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. There was nothing
to be gained by giving the story to the public,
and much to be lost. At that time, it is

(00:43):
to be remembered, a wave of spiritualism, or rather spiritism,
was spurting over the country. It was still filled too
with post war psychopaths. The very nature of the experiment
which had been tried was of the sort to seize
on the neurotic imagination had set it a flame. It
was not considered advice to allow at publicity. Now, of course,
things are different. The search goes on, and perhaps some day,

(01:07):
not by this method, but by some legitimate and scientific one,
survival may be proved. I do not know. I do
not greatly care. After all, I am a Christian and
my faith is built on a life after death. But
I accept that I do not require proof of it.
Picture us then, that evening of September tenth, when the
journal ends waiting for we knew not what. Jane picking

(01:28):
up her tapestry and putting it down again. Edith pottering
her nose with hands that shook in spite of her
best efforts. Holiday at the railroad station with the car
to meet Cameron, and off in the woodland, where the
red lamp of the lighthouse flashed its danger signal every
ten seconds from the end of Robinson's point. Greenow and
a half dozen officers. Picture us too, when we had
all gathered, Cameron, with his hands still bandaged, presented to

(01:50):
the dramatis personae of the play, and eyeing each one
in turn, shrewdly missus Livingstone, girrulous and uneasy, and Livingstone
a sort of waxy wight, and with a nervous trembling.
I had no observed before of us all only how
the day seemed natural, and Heyward natural, because he was
never at ease. What Kimeron made of it, I do
not know. Very Probably he saw in us only a

(02:12):
group of sensation seekers excited by some small contact for
the world beyond our knowledge. And if he felt surprised
at all, it was that I had joined the ranks.
He himself did not appear to take the matter seriously.
He made it plain that he had come in this
manner at my request, that his own methods would be
entirely different. When Edith I think it was, asked him
if he made any preparation for such affairs. He laughed

(02:33):
and shook his head. Except then I sometime take a
cup of coffee to keep me awake, he said. On
the way up the drive, I walked with Livingstone. Why
I hardly know, except that he seemed to drift toward me.
He never spoke but once, and it seemed to me
that he was surveying the shrubbery in trees, like a
man who suspected a trap. Once he was on my left,

(02:54):
I was aware that he had put his hand to
his hip pocket, and I was so struttled that I
stumbled and almost fell. I knew, as confidently as I
have ever known anything, that he had a revolver there,
careful man, he said. Those were his only words during
our slow progress toward the main house, and so tense
for his nerves that they sounded like a curse. Cameron
and Edith were leading, and I could hear her talking,

(03:16):
carrying on valiantly, although as it turned out, she knew
better than any of us, except Howaday the terrible possibilities ahead.
Heyward walked alone and behind us, his rubber soled shoes
making no sound on the drive. It made me uneasy somehow,
that silent progress of his. It was stealthy and disconcerting,
and I think Livingstone felt it so too, for he

(03:36):
stopped once and turned around. Yet at the time, as
between the two men, my suspicion that evening certainly pointed
to Livingstone not to go into the cruelty of my ignorance,
a cruelty which I now understand but then butterly resented.
I had had both men under close observation during the
time we waited for Cameron, and it had seemed to
me that Livingstone was the more uneasy of the two.
Another thing which I regarded as highly significant was his

(03:59):
asking for water just before we left the lodge, and
holding the glass with a trembling hand. And as it happens,
it was that very glass of water which Crystal asked
my suspicions. The glass and the hand which held it,
for the hand was a small and wide one with
a short thumb and a bent finger. From that time
on my mind was focused on Livingstone. It milled a

(04:19):
boat seeking some exclamation. I could see Livingstone in the case,
plainly enough. I could see him pursuing with Old Bethel
the sinister design to which Gordon had referred, but to
which I had no key. I could see him, with
his knowledge of the country, using that knowledge and furtherance
of that idea which my uncle Horace had termed menaced
to society in general. With the swiftness with which thought

(04:41):
creates visions, I could even see him hailing poor Maggie
Morrison in the storm, and her stopping her truck which
she recognized him. But I could not see him in
connection with Eugenia Rigs and her bowl of putty. Strange
that I did not that it required Jane's smelling salts
for me to find that connection. A small green glass
bottle in Edith's room, used as the temporary paper weight
on her desk. As I say, my suspicions were of

(05:04):
Livingstone during that strange walk up the drive, but I
had by no means eliminated Heyward. He was there behind me,
walking with a curious stealth and with an uneasiness that somehow,
without words, communicated itself to me. All the emotions are waves,
I dare say. I caught the contagion of fear from him, desperate,
deadly fear, and once in the house my suspicions of

(05:27):
him increased, rather than diminished. For one thing, he offered
to take Kimeron through the house, and on Halliday's ignoring
that and going off with Kimeron himself was distinctly surly.
He remained in the hall at the foot of the stairs,
apparently listening to their progress and gnawing at his fingers.
Watching him from the den, I saw him make a
move to go up the stairs, but he caught my

(05:48):
eye and abandoned the idea. It was then that Jane
felt faint, and I went back to the lodge for
her smiling salts. The letter undoubtedly the letter which Halliday
had shown to the police, was lying open Edith's desk
under the green bottle, and as I lifted the salts
it blew to the floor. I glanced at it as
I picked it up. End of Section seventeen.