coming directly from the bed. His voice had such an unfamiliar sound
that Marriott did not care to repeat his questions, but he went down on
his knees and examined the bed above and below, pulling the mattress off
finally, and taking the coverings away separately one by one. But
though the sounds continued there was no visible sign of Field, nor was
there any space in which a human being, however small, could have
concealed itself. He pulled the bed out from the wall, but the sound
_stayed where it was_. It did not move with the bed.
Marriott, finding self-control a little difficult in his weary
condition, at once set about a thorough search of the room. He went
through the cupboard, the chest of drawers, the little alcove where the
clothes hung--everything. But there was no sign of anyone. The small
window near the ceiling was closed; and, anyhow, was not large enough to
let a cat pass. The sitting-room door was locked on the inside; he could
not have got out that way. Curious thoughts began to trouble Marriott's
mind, bringing in their train unwelcome sensations. He grew more and
more excited; he searched the bed again till it resembled the scene of a
pillow fight; he searched both rooms, knowing all the time it was
useless,--and then he searched again. A cold perspiration broke out all
over his body; and the sound of heavy breathing, all this time, never
ceased to come from the corner where Field had lain down to sleep.
Then he tried something else. He pushed the bed back exactly into its
original position--and himself lay down upon it just where his guest had
lain. But the same instant he sprang up again in a single bound. The
breathing was close beside him, almost on his cheek, and between him and
the wall! Not even a child could have squeezed into the space.
He went back into his sitting-room, opened the windows, welcoming all
the light and air possible, and tried to think the whole matter over
quietly and clearly. Men who read too hard, and slept too little, he
knew were sometimes troubled with very vivid hallucinations. Again he
calmly reviewed every incident of the night; his accurate sensations;
the vivid details; the emotions stirred in him; the dreadful feast--no
single hallucination could ever combine all these and cover so long a
period of time. But with less satisfaction he thought of the recurring
faintness, and curious sense of horror that had once or twice come over
him, and then of the violent pains in his arm. These were quite
unaccountable.
Moreover, now that he began to analyse and examine, there was one other
thing that fell upon him like a sudden revelation: _During the whole
time Field had not actually uttered a single word!_ Yet, as though in
mockery upon his reflections, there came ever from that inner room the
sound of the breathing, long-drawn, deep, and regular. The thing was
incredible. It was absurd.
Haunted by visions of brain fever and insanity, Marriott put on his cap
and macintosh and left the house. The morning air on Arthur's Seat would
blow the cobwebs from his brain; the scent of the heather, and above
all, the sight of the sea. He roamed over the wet slopes above Holyrood
for a couple of hours, and did not return until the exercise had shaken
some of the horror out of his bones, and given him a ravening appetite
into the bargain.
As he entered he saw that there was another man in the room, standing
against the window with his back to the light. He recognised his
fellow-student Greene, who was reading for the same examination.
"Read hard all night, Marriott," he said, "and thought I'd drop in here
to compare notes and have some breakfast. You're out early?" he added,
by way of a question. Marriott said he had a headache and a walk had
helped it, and Greene nodded and said "Ah!" But when the girl had set
the steaming porridge on the table and gone out again, he went on with
rather a forced tone, "Didn't know you had any friends who drank,
Marriott?"
This was obviously tentative, and Marriott replied drily that he did not
know it either.
"Sounds just as if some chap were 'sleeping it off' in there, doesn't
it, though?" persisted the other, with a nod in the direction of the
bedroom, and looking curiously at his friend. The two men stared
steadily at each other for several seconds, and then Marriott said
earnestly--
"Then you hear it too, thank God!"
"Of course I hear it. The door's open. Sorry if I wasn't meant to."
"Oh, I don't mean that," said Marriott, lowering his voice. "But I'm
awfully relieved. Let me explain. Of course, if you hear it too, then
it's all right; but really it frightened me more than I can tell you. I
thought I was going to have brain fever, or something, and you know what
a lot depends on this exam. It always begins with sounds, or visions, or
some sort of beastly hallucination, and I--"
"Rot!" ejaculated the other impatiently. "What _are_ you talking about?"
"Now, listen to me, Greene," said Marriott, as calmly as he could, for
the breathing was still plainly audible, "and I'll tell you what I
mean, only don't interrupt." And thereupon he related exactly what had
happened during the night, telling everything, even down to the pain in
his arm. When it was over he got up from the table and crossed the room.
"You hear the breathing now plainly, don't you?" he said. Greene said he
did. "Well, come with me, and we'll search the room together." The
other, however, did not move from his chair.
"I've been in already," he said sheepishly; "I heard the sounds and
thought it was you. The door was ajar--so I went in."
Marriott made no comment, but pushed the door open as wide as it would
go. As it opened, the sound of breathing grew more and more distinct.
"_Someone_ must be in there," said Greene under his breath.
"_Someone_ is in there, but _where_?" said Marriott. Again he urged his
friend to go in with him. But Greene refused point-blank; said he had
been in once and had searched the room and there was nothing there. He
would not go in again for a good deal.
They shut the door and retired into the other room to talk it all over
with many pipes. Greene questioned his friend very closely, but without
illuminating result, since questions cannot alter facts.
"The only thing that ought to have a proper, a logical, explanation is
the pain in my arm," said Marriott, rubbing that member with an attempt
at a smile. "It hurts so infernally and aches all the way up. I can't
remember bruising it, though."
"Let me examine it for you," said Greene. "I'm awfully good at bones in
spite of the examiners' opinion to the contrary." It was a relief to
play the fool a bit, and Marriott took his coat off and rolled up his
sleeve.
"By George, though, I'm bleeding!" he exclaimed. "Look here! What on
earth's this?"
On the forearm, quite close to the wrist, was a thin red line. There was
a tiny drop of apparently fresh blood on it. Greene came over and looked
closely at it for some minutes. Then he sat back in his chair, looking
curiously at his friend's face.
"You've scratched yourself without knowing it," he said presently.
"There's no sign of a bruise. It must be something else that made the
arm ache."
Marriott sat very still, staring silently at his arm as though the
solution of the whole mystery lay there actually written upon the skin.
"What's the matter? I see nothing very strange about a scratch," said
Greene, in an unconvincing sort of voice. "It was your cuff links
probably. Last night in your excitement--"
But Marriott, white to the very lips, was trying to speak. The sweat
stood in great beads on his forehead. At last he leaned forward close to
his friend's face.
"Look," he said, in a low voice that shook a little. "Do you see that
red mark? I mean _underneath_ what you call the scratch?"
Greene admitted he saw something or other, and Marriott wiped the place
clean with his handkerchief and told him to look again more closely.
"Yes, I see," returned the other, lifting his head after a moment's
careful inspection. "It looks like an old scar."
"It _is_ an old scar," whispered Marriott, his lips trembling. "_Now_ it
all comes back to me."
"All what?" Greene fidgeted on his chair. He tried to laugh, but without
success. His friend seemed bordering on collapse.
"Hush! Be quiet, and--I'll tell you," he said. "_Field made that scar._"
For a whole minute the two men looked each other full in the face
without speaking.
"Field made that scar!" repeated Marriott at length in a louder voice.
"Field! You mean--last night?"
"No, not last night. Years ago--at school, with his knife. And I made a
scar in his arm with mine." Marriott was talking rapidly now.
"We exchanged drops of blood in each other's cuts. He put a drop into my
arm and I put one into his--"
"In the name of heaven, what for?"
"It was a boys' compact. We made a sacred pledge, a bargain. I remember
it all perfectly now. We had been reading some dreadful book and we
swore to appear to one another--I mean, whoever died first swore to show
himself to the other. And we sealed the compact with each other's blood.
I remember it all so well--the hot summer afternoon in the playground,
seven years ago--and one of the masters caught us and confiscated the
knives--and I have never thought of it again to this day--"
"And you mean--" stammered Greene.
But Marriott made no answer. He got up and crossed the room and lay down
wearily upon the sofa, hiding his face in his hands.
Greene himself was a bit non-plussed. He left his friend alone for a
little while, thinking it all over again. Suddenly an idea seemed to
strike him. He went over to where Marriott still lay motionless on the
sofa and roused him. In any case it was better to face the matter,
whether there was an explanation or not. Giving in was always the silly
exit.
"I say, Marriott," he began, as the other turned his white face up to
him. "There's no good being so upset about it. I mean--if it's all an
hallucination we know what to do. And if it isn't--well, we know what to
think, don't we?"
"I suppose so. But it frightens me horribly for some reason," returned
his friend in a hushed voice. "And that poor devil--"
"But, after all, if the worst is true and--and that chap _has_ kept his
promise--well, he has, that's all, isn't it?"
Marriott nodded.
"There's only one thing that occurs to me," Greene went on, "and that
is, are you quite sure that--that he really ate like that--I mean that
he actually _ate anything at all_?" he finished, blurting out all his
thought.
Marriott stared at him for a moment and then said he could easily make
certain. He spoke quietly. After the main shock no lesser surprise could
affect him.
"I put the things away myself," he said, "after we had finished. They
are on the third shelf in that cupboard. No one's touched 'em since."
He pointed without getting up, and Greene took the hint and went over to
look.
"Exactly," he said, after a brief examination; "just as I thought. It
was partly hallucination, at any rate. The things haven't been touched.
Come and see for yourself."
Together they examined the shelf. There was the brown loaf, the plate of
stale scones, the oatcake, all untouched. Even the glass of whisky
Marriott had poured out stood there with the whisky still in it.
"You were feeding--no one," said Greene "Field ate and drank nothing. He
was not there at all!"
"But the breathing?" urged the other in a low voice, staring with a
dazed expression on his face.
Greene did not answer. He walked over to the bedroom, while Marriott
followed him with his eyes. He opened the door, and listened. There was
no need for words. The sound of deep, regular breathing came floating
through the air. There was no hallucination about that, at any rate.
Marriott could hear it where he stood on the other side of the room.
Greene closed the door and came back. "There's only one thing to do," he
declared with decision. "Write home and find out about him, and
meanwhile come and finish your reading in my rooms. I've got an extra
bed."
"Agreed," returned the Fourth Year Man; "there's no hallucination about
that exam; I must pass that whatever happens."
And this was what they did.
It was about a week later when Marriott got the answer from his sister.
Part of it he read out to Greene--
"It is curious," she wrote, "that in your letter you should have
enquired after Field. It seems a terrible thing, but you know only a
short while ago Sir John's patience became exhausted, and he turned him
out of the house, they say without a penny. Well, what do you think? He
has killed himself. At least, it looks like suicide. Instead of leaving
the house, he went down into the cellar and simply starved himself to
death. . . . They're trying to suppress it, of course, but I heard it all
from my maid, who got it from their footman. . . . They found the body on
the 14th and the doctor said he had died about twelve hours before. . . .
He was dreadfully thin. . . ."
"Then he died on the 13th," said Greene.
Marriott nodded.
"That's the very night he came to see you."
Marriott nodded again.
WITH INTENT TO STEAL
To sleep in a lonely barn when the best bedrooms in the house were at
our disposal, seemed, to say the least, unnecessary, and I felt that
some explanation was due to our host.
But Shorthouse, I soon discovered, had seen to all that; our enterprise
would be tolerated, not welcomed, for the master kept this sort of thing
down with a firm hand. And then, how little I could get this man,
Shorthouse, to tell me. There was much I wanted to ask and hear, but he
surrounded himself with impossible barriers. It was ludicrous; he was
surely asking a good deal of me, and yet he would give so little in
return, and his reason--that it was for my good--may have been perfectly
true, but did not bring me any comfort in its train. He gave me sops now
and then, however, to keep up my curiosity, till I soon was aware that
there were growing up side by side within me a genuine interest and an
equally genuine fear; and something of both these is probably necessary
to all real excitement.
The barn in question was some distance from the house, on the side of
the stables, and I had passed it on several of my journeyings to and fro
wondering at its forlorn and untarred appearance under a régime where
everything was so spick and span; but it had never once occurred to me
as possible that I should come to spend a night under its roof with a
comparative stranger, and undergo there an experience belonging to an
order of things I had always rather ridiculed and despised.
At the moment I can only partially recall the process by which
Shorthouse persuaded me to lend him my company. Like myself, he was a
guest in this autumn house-party, and where there were so many to
chatter and to chaff, I think his taciturnity of manner had appealed to
me by contrast, and that I wished to repay something of what I owed.
There was, no doubt, flattery in it as well, for he was more than twice
my age, a man of amazingly wide experience, an explorer of all the
world's corners where danger lurked, and--most subtle flattery of
all--by far the best shot in the whole party, our host included.
At first, however, I held out a bit.
"But surely this story you tell," I said, "has the parentage common to
all such tales--a superstitious heart and an imaginative brain--and has
grown now by frequent repetition into an authentic ghost story? Besides,
this head gardener of half a century ago," I added, seeing that he still
went on cleaning his gun in silence, "who was he, and what positive
information have you about him beyond the fact that he was found hanging
from the rafters, dead?"
"He was no mere head gardener, this man who passed as such," he replied
without looking up, "but a fellow of splendid education who used this
curious disguise for his own purposes. Part of this very barn, of which
he always kept the key, was found to have been fitted up as a complete
laboratory, with athanor, alembic, cucurbite, and other appliances, some
of which the master destroyed at once--perhaps for the best--and which I
have only been able to guess at--"
"Black Arts," I laughed.
"Who knows?" he rejoined quietly. "The man undoubtedly possessed
knowledge--dark knowledge--that was most unusual and dangerous, and I
can discover no means by which he came to it--no ordinary means, that
is. But I _have_ found many facts in the case which point to the
exercise of a most desperate and unscrupulous will; and the strange
disappearances in the neighbourhood, as well as the bones found buried
in the kitchen garden, though never actually traced to him, seem to me
full of dreadful suggestion."
I laughed again, a little uncomfortably perhaps, and said it reminded
one of the story of Giles de Rays, maréchal of France, who was said to
have killed and tortured to death in a few years no less than one
hundred and sixty women and children for the purposes of necromancy, and
who was executed for his crimes at Nantes. But Shorthouse would not
"rise," and only returned to his subject.
"His suicide seems to have been only just in time to escape arrest," he
said.
"A magician of no high order then," I observed sceptically, "if suicide
was his only way of evading the country police."
"The police of London and St. Petersburg rather," returned Shorthouse;
"for the headquarters of this pretty company was somewhere in Russia,
and his apparatus all bore the marks of the most skilful foreign make. A
Russian woman then employed in the household--governess, or
something--vanished, too, about the same time and was never caught. She
was no doubt the cleverest of the lot. And, remember, the object of this
appalling group was not mere vulgar gain, but a kind of knowledge that
called for the highest qualities of courage and intellect in the
seekers."
I admit I was impressed by the man's conviction of voice and manner, for
there is something very compelling in the force of an earnest man's
belief, though I still affected to sneer politely.
"But, like most Black Magicians, the fellow only succeeded in compassing
his own destruction--that of his tools, rather, and of escaping
himself."
"So that he might better accomplish his objects _elsewhere and
otherwise_," said Shorthouse, giving, as he spoke, the most minute
attention to the cleaning of the lock.
"Elsewhere and otherwise," I gasped.
"As if the shell he left hanging from the rafter in the barn in no way
impeded the man's spirit from continuing his dreadful work under new
conditions," he added quietly, without noticing my interruption. "The
idea being that he sometimes revisits the garden and the barn, chiefly
the barn--"
"The barn!" I exclaimed; "for what purpose?"
"Chiefly the barn," he finished, as if he had not heard me, "that is,
when there is anybody in it."
I stared at him without speaking, for there was a wonder in me how he
would add to this.
"When he wants fresh material, that is--he comes to steal from the
living."
"Fresh material!" I repeated aghast. "To steal from the living!" Even
then, in broad daylight, I was foolishly conscious of a creeping
sensation at the roots of my hair, as if a cold breeze were passing over
my skull.
"The strong vitality of the living is what this sort of creature is
supposed to need most," he went on imperturbably, "and where he has
worked and thought and struggled before is the easiest place for him to
get it in. The former conditions are in some way more easily
reconstructed--" He stopped suddenly, and devoted all his attention to
the gun. "It's difficult to explain, you know, rather," he added
presently, "and, besides, it's much better that you should not know till
afterwards."
I made a noise that was the beginning of a score of questions and of as
many sentences, but it got no further than a mere noise, and Shorthouse,
of course, stepped in again.
"Your scepticism," he added, "is one of the qualities that induce me to
ask you to spend the night there with me."
"In those days," he went on, in response to my urging for more
information, "the family were much abroad, and often travelled for years
at a time. This man was invaluable in their absence. His wonderful
knowledge of horticulture kept the gardens--French, Italian, English--in
perfect order. He had carte blanche in the matter of expense, and of
course selected all his own underlings. It was the sudden, unexpected
return of the master that surprised the amazing stories of the
countryside before the fellow, with all his cleverness, had time to
prepare or conceal."
"But is there no evidence, no more recent evidence, to show that
something is likely to happen if we sit up there?" I asked, pressing him
yet further, and I think to his liking, for it showed at least that I
was interested. "Has anything happened there lately, for instance?"
Shorthouse glanced up from the gun he was cleaning so assiduously, and
the smoke from his pipe curled up into an odd twist between me and the
black beard and oriental, sun-tanned face. The magnetism of his look and
expression brought more sense of conviction to me than I had felt
hitherto, and I realised that there had been a sudden little change in
my attitude and that I was now much more inclined to go in for the
adventure with him. At least, I thought, with such a man, one would be
safe in any emergency; for he is determined, resourceful, and to be
depended upon.
"There's the point," he answered slowly; "for there has apparently been
a fresh outburst--an attack almost, it seems,--quite recently. There is
evidence, of course, plenty of it, or I should not feel the interest I
do feel, but--" he hesitated a moment, as though considering how much he
ought to let me know, "but the fact is that three men this summer, on
separate occasions, who have gone into that barn after nightfall, have
been _accosted_--"
"Accosted?" I repeated, betrayed into the interruption by his choice of
so singular a word.
"And one of the stablemen--a recent arrival and quite ignorant of the
story--who had to go in there late one night, saw a dark substance
hanging down from one of the rafters, and when he climbed up, shaking
all over, to cut it down--for he said he felt sure it was a corpse--the
knife passed through nothing but air, and he heard a sound up under the
eaves as if someone were laughing. Yet, while he slashed away, and
afterwards too, the thing went on swinging there before his eyes and
turning slowly with its own weight, like a huge joint on a spit. The man
declares, too, that it had a large bearded face, and that the mouth was
open and drawn down like the mouth of a hanged man."
"Can we question this fellow?"
"He's gone--gave notice at once, but not before I had questioned him
myself very closely."
"Then this was quite recent?" I said, for I knew Shorthouse had not been
in the house more than a week.
"Four days ago," he replied. "But, more than that, only three days ago a
couple of men were in there together in full daylight when one of them
suddenly turned deadly faint. He said that he felt an overmastering
impulse to hang himself; and he looked about for a rope and was furious
when his companion tried to prevent him--"
"But he did prevent him?"
"Just in time, but not before he had clambered on to a beam. He was very
violent."
I had so much to say and ask that I could get nothing out in time, and
Shorthouse went on again.
"I've had a sort of watching brief for this case," he said with a smile,
whose real significance, however, completely escaped me at the time,
"and one of the most disagreeable features about it is the deliberate
way the servants have invented excuses to go out to the place, and
always after dark; some of them who have no right to go there, and no
real occasion at all--have never been there in their lives before
probably--and now all of a sudden have shown the keenest desire and
determination to go out there about dusk, or soon after, and with the
most paltry and foolish excuses in the world. Of course," he added,
"they have been prevented, but the desire, stronger than their
superstitious dread, and which they cannot explain, is very curious."
"Very," I admitted, feeling that my hair was beginning to stand up
again.
"You see," he went on presently, "it all points to volition--in fact to
deliberate arrangement. It is no mere family ghost that goes with every
ivied house in England of a certain age; it is something real, and
something very malignant."