THE NIGHT-WATCHES
David returned home angry with himself in all ways, not least for his
loss of self-control in pursuing Van Hupfeldt with no object but to
vent himself in mere threats. His suggestion to Van Hupfeldt that
other documents besides the certificates might be hidden among the
picture-frames in the flat was in the tone of a child's boasting. One
should find first, he told himself, and boast afterward. However, one of
Mrs. Grover's excellent little lunches put him straight, and, though
work was a thousand miles from his mood that day, he compelled himself
to do it, and the pen began to run.
But first he had said to Mrs. Grover: "I want you to get the steps, and
take down every picture in the flat, except the three big ones, which I
will see to myself."
Then, with his flower-pot of violets on each hand, he was soon in the
thick of the cow-boy and prairie-flower history which he had on hand.
His stories were already known on this side by the whiff of reality they
brought from the States, and were in some demand. Already the postman
handed him printers' proofs, and he had proved to himself that he
possessed some of the wisdom of the serpent in choosing a reputable
abode, because the men whom he entertained went away saying: "Harcourt
has private means. He has taken to literature as a hobby," an idea which
made him popular. If certain editors, on the strength of it, wished to
pay him half-rates, they were soon undeceived. David was much too hard a
nut to crack in that easy way.
Meantime, neither by sight nor sound had he been reminded of the eery
experience of his first night in No. 7. True, there were noises during
the still hours, such as had twice thrilled Miss L'Estrange and Jenny.
But they seemed quite natural to him. The dryness of the interior of the
block of flats had loosened flooring-boards and dislocated cross-beams,
until the mere movement of an article of furniture overhead, or the
passing of a next-floor tenant from one room to another, would set going
creaks enough to give rise to half a dozen ghost-panics.
That night he had to be at the Holborn Restaurant for an annual dinner
of internationals, so he struck work soon after four, seeing that by
then Mrs. Grover's task of taking down and dusting was ended, and the
pictures now lay in a pile by the dining-room sideboard. David procured
himself a quantity of brown paper, with gum and pincers, sat on the
floor by the pile, and, with an effort to breathe no faster than usual,
set himself to work. It was not so slight a task as it looked, some of
the pictures being elaborately fastened with brown paper, tacks, and
bars; and, since they were not his own, he had to leave them not less
trim than he found them. He was resolved to trust not even a workman in
this search. However, being handy, a Jack of all trades, he had got some
half dozen unfastened and again fastened before six o'clock.
His gum failing, he called upon Mrs. Grover, received no answer, called
again, went searching, but could not find her in the flat. Wondering at
this, he stepped outside the front door to invoke the services of the
lift-man, when a little way down the stairs he caught a sound of voices
in low talk. His ready ear seemed to detect the particular accent of his
housekeeper, and he went downward, spying out who it might be. He wore
slippers, and for this reason, perhaps, approached near the speakers
before he was seen. They were Mrs. Grover and a young man. The latter,
the moment he was aware of David's presence, was gone like a thief, so
David did not see his face--it was dark there at that hour--but he had
an impression that it was Neil, Van Hupfeldt's valet, and his legs of
themselves started into chase; but he checked himself.
"Who was the man?" he asked Mrs. Grover, when they had gone back into
the flat.
"I'm sure I don't know his name, sir," was her answer.
"You know him, perhaps. Is it the same who came here to speak with the
girl I left in your charge?"
"I believe it is the same," said Mrs. Grover, "though I didn't see him
well."
"Oh, you believe. What on earth does he want of you?"
"He kept asking me questions. I told him to go about his business--"
"What did he want to know?"
"Whether I was satisfied with my place, and whether I didn't think that
a woman like me could better herself, considering the wages I'm
getting--"
"That all he wanted to know?"
"That's about all--things like that."
David, looking at her, said: "I am sure he was quite right. You deserve
five times the wages I am giving you; so if I pay you a month's wages in
advance now--"
"But, sir!"
"No, it's no use, Mrs. Grover. You were born for greater things than
this. Yet, wherever you go next, do be loyal to the man from whom you
earn your bread against all the world. Here's your money."
In vain Mrs. Grover protested. The place was good enough for her, the
flat not fit to be left as it was, things not washed, something on the
fire. It was of no avail. As David's servant she was suddenly dead. He
saw her out with a hearty hand-shake at the door, and his best wishes.
Only after she was well gone did he remember that she had forgotten to
deliver up the front door-key.
As it was now nearly time to dress for the dinner, he left his work on
the pictures for the day. In the half dozen or so which he had taken to
pieces he had found nothing, and was disillusioned, cross-tempered,
disturbed by many things.
He sat down and wrote to Miss Violet Mordaunt: "I am sorry to say that I
have failed to receive the documents of which I had the honor to speak
to you. I have reason, however, to believe that your fiance, Mr. Van
Hupfeldt, has bought them, and from his hand you will perhaps receive
them."
But his conscience felt this letter to be hard, ironical, and not
sincere; for if, as he suspected, Van Hupfeldt's name was on the
certificates as the husband of dead Gwendoline, Violet was little likely
to receive them from Van Hupfeldt's hand. So he tore up the note, and
wrote another which equally reflected his ill-humor. Nor did this go
through the post. In the end, though he knew that she must be anxiously
awaiting a word of news from him, he shirked for the present the task of
announcing his failure to her, and rushed out to the dinner.
He came home late, and as he stepped from the lift to the landing,
something--a light or a fancy--caused him to start. It seemed to
him that through the opaque glass of his door he had seen a light.
Certainly, the impression was gone in one instant, but he had it. He
went in with some disquiet of the nerves. All was dark, all still,
within. He turned on three or four of the lights in rapid succession,
and his eyes pierced here and there without discerning anything save
familiar articles of furniture.
The flat was lonely to him that night. Though Mrs. Grover would not in
any case have been there at that hour, yet the fact that she would not
come in the morning as usual, the fact that he was now the only life
in the little home, made him as solitary in London as a castaway in
mid-sea. The fires were dead. He sat a little while in his overcoat by
the dining-room fireplace, glanced at the heap of pictures, at the face
of Gwendoline. And now again he started. Something in the aspect of the
heap struck him as new, as not perhaps the same as when he had gone out.
But here again he seemed to himself the prey of his own fancies. He
asked himself angrily if he was losing his memory and his grip of facts.
He thought that he had left only two of the pictures in pieces; now
three of them were without their backs. As he sat looking at them, the
clock on the mantelpiece all at once ceased ticking, and this small
thing again, due solely to his omission to wind the clock, had an effect
upon his mood. He seemed to hear the sudden silence, as it were the
ceasing of a heart-beat, and the "all is over" of the bereaved when the
last breath passes. He rose and stretched himself and yawned, and took
in with him to his bed-room one of the pots of violets, so that, if he
scented violets, he should know whence the scent came. And he took care
to turn on the light in his bed-room before turning off all the other
lights. Could this be David, the man who used to sleep beneath the
stars?
Now he lay down in the dark, and all was quiet. Only, from far away,
from some other polygon in the hive of flats, came a tinkling, the
genteel sound of the piano, very faint, as remote from him as was the
life of her who played it. He was listening to it, thinking of the
isolation in which all souls are more or less doomed to live, when the
question occurred to him incidentally: "Am I really alone in this flat?
As a matter of fact, is not some one with me?" He had seemed to hear a
definite click, and if it was not in the flat, then, he thought, his
ears must be losing their old trick of exactness.
He stole out of bed, and, without making the faintest sound, peeped out
along the corridors. Nothing seemed to stir. Minute after minute he
stood patiently, hearing only that shell-music which the tympanum of the
ear gives out in deep silence. Once he caught a Lilliputian rush, and a
screech, an escapade in mouseland. Behind him a small clock ticked in
his bed-room, and presently there was yet another sound, low, but
prolonged, as if paper was being very cautiously torn somewhere.
Instantly the instinct to grip his six-shooter in his hand rose in
David. His former experience in the flat had caused him to have the
weapon ready. Great is that moment when awe rises into indignation and
action, as now with him. Silently, with every nerve strung, and each
muscle nimble for the encounter, he stepped backward into his bed-room,
and drew the weapon from beneath his pillow. No longer careful about
hiding the fact that he was awake, he made a rush along the longer
corridor into the hall, caught up the hall chair and table and threw
them against the door, heaved up the hat-stand and placed it also
against the door, thus blocking the enemy's retreat. And he said to
himself: "Be it ghost, or be it mortal man, let there be a fight to a
finish this time!"
But he kept himself in the dark for safety's sake, and, bold as his
heart was, it beat fast, as he now stood in the farthest corner of the
hall near the door, listening for his life. And anon he sniffed with his
nostrils for a scent of violets, for a wafture from the grave, which
came not.
But this waiting for he knew not what was not long to be borne. Wounds
are not so grisly to the mind as the touch of a hand which cannot be
grasped. He crept back in the dark along the wall, again noiselessly,
into the corridor, into his bed-room, locked the door, and, with finger
on trigger, switched on the light. Keeping his ear alert for whatever
might happen outside, he searched the room. No one was under the bed,
or anywhere there. He turned off the light, went out, and, in a similar
manner, searched behind a locked door, wherever he found a key in the
lock, each of the other two bed-rooms, and the bath-room. In that end of
the flat there was no one, nor a scent of anything, save the perfume of
the violets in his bed-room. And again he began to think that he must
surely be the plaything of his fancies.
Along the corridor he crept again, and entered the drawing-room, locked
the door, turned on the light, looked round to search. At that instant
he heard, he felt, the flight of steps in the flat. It was the merest
sign of something detected by some sixth sense acquired by him in
harkening to the whispers of the jungle. These were steps as light and
swift as a specter's might be. But he had the notion that they fled out
of the dining-room down the short passage between the kitchen and the
servant's room, and, quick as thought, he had out the drawing-room
light, and was after them.
The door of the servant's bed-room was on the left of the cross passage,
that of the kitchen on the right, just opposite the other. He went like
a cat which sees in the night, swift and soft, along the left wall, his
breast pressed to it, until, coming to the servant's bed-room door, he
gave a twist to the handle to go in.
The handle turned a little, but not much. The door would not open. It
seemed to be held by some one within, for it was not locked, since there
happened to be no key in it.
Here, at any rate, was something tangible at last. And, when it came to
be a question of main force, natural or supernatural, David was in his
element. He set himself to get that door-handle round, and it turned.
He put himself into the effort to press that door open, and it opened a
little. But, all at once, it opened too much! and he plunged staggering
within. At the same time he was aware of something rushing out; he had
just time to snatch his revolver from the waist of his pajamas and fire,
when his silent adversary was gone, and had vehemently slammed the door
upon him. Almost at the same moment another door slammed--the
kitchen-door. Then all was still again.
It was as when a mighty momentary wind seizes upon a house in the dead
of night, slams two doors, causes something to bark, and passes on its
way. The two slammings and the bark of the revolver were almost
simultaneous--and silence swallowed them together.
David flew after the thing which had evaded him to the kitchen-door. His
blood was up. During his first experience of something queer in the flat
he had had an impression of a woman, perhaps on account of the scent of
violets. But this time there seemed to be no such scent, and this latest
impression was of a man--an impression hardly perhaps due to sight, for
the servant's room was about the darkest spot in the flat, its one small
window being shrouded with tapestry curtains, and the outer night itself
dark. But he somehow believed now that it was a man, and he flung
himself again and again against the kitchen-door with no good meaning
toward that man. For there could be no doubt that whoever or whatever it
was, his visitant was now in the kitchen, since the door would not open.
After some vain effort to force it, he stopped, panting, thinking what
he should do. There was a little pointed poker in the dining-room by
which he might pick the lock; but before deciding upon this he again
tried his power of shoulder and will against the door, and this time
felt something give within. The door, too, was not really locked, having
no key in it, as, in general, the keys of old flats become displaced. It
was apparently only fastened, if it were fastened at all, by some catch
or hook, for, after two or three more thumps, it flew wide.
David, catching the handle, held it a little ajar, and now again the
stillness of the night was outraged by his shout through the slit:
"Hands up! or I fire!" At the same instant he rushed in, and flooded the
kitchen with light.
But no one was there! A pallor struck from the corners of his mouth to
his cheek, even while his brow was flushed, and he stood aghast, with an
astounding question in his eyes and in his heart.