there any meat in it, fresh meat--raw meat?"
The secretary felt, somehow, that at the least sign of fear the beast on
his arm would leap upon him and tear him with his teeth.
"Nothing of the sort," he answered vigorously. "It wouldn't hold enough
to feed a cat."
"True," said Garvey with a vile sigh, while the other felt the hand upon
his arm twitch up and down as if feeling the flesh. "True, it's too
small to be of any real use. As you say, it wouldn't hold enough to feed
a cat."
Shorthouse was unable to suppress a cry. The muscles of his fingers,
too, relaxed in spite of himself and he let the black bag drop with a
bang to the floor. Garvey instantly withdrew his arm and turned with a
quick movement. But the secretary had regained his control as suddenly
as he had lost it, and he met the maniac's eyes with a steady and
aggressive glare.
"There, you see, it's quite light. It makes no appreciable noise when I
drop it." He picked it up and let it fall again, as if he had dropped it
for the first time purposely. The ruse was successful.
"Yes. You're right," Garvey said, still standing in the doorway and
staring at him. "At any rate it wouldn't hold enough for two," he
laughed. And as he closed the door the horrid laughter echoed in the
empty hall.
They sat down by a blazing fire and Shorthouse was glad to feel its
warmth. Marx presently brought in coffee. A glass of the old whisky and
a good cigar helped to restore equilibrium. For some minutes the men sat
in silence staring into the fire. Then, without looking up, Garvey said
in a quiet voice--
"I suppose it was a shock to you to see me eat raw meat like that. I
must apologise if it was unpleasant to you. But it's all I can eat and
it's the only meal I take in the twenty-four hours."
"Best nourishment in the world, no doubt; though I should think it might
be a trifle strong for some stomachs."
He tried to lead the conversation away from so unpleasant a subject, and
went on to talk rapidly of the values of different foods, of
vegetarianism and vegetarians, and of men who had gone for long periods
without any food at all. Garvey listened apparently without interest and
had nothing to say. At the first pause he jumped in eagerly.
"When the hunger is really great on me," he said, still gazing into the
fire, "I simply cannot control myself. I must have raw meat--the first I
can get--" Here he raised his shining eyes and Shorthouse felt his hair
beginning to rise.
"It comes upon me so suddenly too. I never can tell when to expect it. A
year ago the passion rose in me like a whirlwind and Marx was out and I
couldn't get meat. I had to get something or I should have bitten
myself. Just when it was getting unbearable my dog ran out from beneath
the sofa. It was a spaniel."
Shorthouse responded with an effort. He hardly knew what he was saying
and his skin crawled as if a million ants were moving over it.
There was a pause of several minutes.
"I've bitten Marx all over," Garvey went on presently in his strange
quiet voice, and as if he were speaking of apples; "but he's bitter. I
doubt if the hunger could ever make me do it again. Probably that's what
first drove him to take shelter in a vacuum." He chuckled hideously as
he thought of this solution of his attendant's disappearances.
Shorthouse seized the poker and poked the fire as if his life depended
on it. But when the banging and clattering was over Garvey continued his
remarks with the same calmness. The next sentence, however, was never
finished. The secretary had got upon his feet suddenly.
"I shall ask your permission to retire," he said in a determined voice;
"I'm tired to-night; will you be good enough to show me to my room?"
Garvey looked up at him with a curious cringing expression behind which
there shone the gleam of cunning passion.
"Certainly," he said, rising from his chair. "You've had a tiring
journey. I ought to have thought of that before."
He took the candle from the table and lit it, and the fingers that held
the match trembled.
"We needn't trouble Marx," he explained. "That beast's in his vacuum by
this time."
III
They crossed the hall and began to ascend the carpetless wooden stairs.
They were in the well of the house and the air cut like ice. Garvey,
the flickering candle in his hand throwing his face into strong outline,
led the way across the first landing and opened a door near the mouth of
a dark passage. A pleasant room greeted the visitor's eyes, and he
rapidly took in its points while his host walked over and lit two
candles that stood on a table at the foot of the bed. A fire burned
brightly in the grate. There were two windows, opening like doors, in
the wall opposite, and a high canopied bed occupied most of the space on
the right. Panelling ran all round the room reaching nearly to the
ceiling and gave a warm and cosy appearance to the whole; while the
portraits that stood in alternate panels suggested somehow the
atmosphere of an old country house in England. Shorthouse was agreeably
surprised.
"I hope you'll find everything you need," Garvey was saying in the
doorway. "If not, you have only to ring that bell by the fireplace. Marx
won't hear it of course, but it rings in my laboratory, where I spend
most of the night."
Then, with a brief good-night, he went out and shut the door after him.
The instant he was gone Mr. Sidebotham's private secretary did a
peculiar thing. He planted himself in the middle of the room with his
back to the door, and drawing the pistol swiftly from his hip pocket
levelled it across his left arm at the window. Standing motionless in
this position for thirty seconds he then suddenly swerved right round
and faced in the other direction, pointing his pistol straight at the
keyhole of the door. There followed immediately a sound of shuffling
outside and of steps retreating across the landing.
"On his knees at the keyhole," was the secretary's reflection. "Just as
I thought. But he didn't expect to look down the barrel of a pistol and
it made him jump a little."
As soon as the steps had gone downstairs and died away across the hall,
Shorthouse went over and locked the door, stuffing a piece of crumpled
paper into the second keyhole which he saw immediately above the first.
After that, he made a thorough search of the room. It hardly repaid the
trouble, for he found nothing unusual. Yet he was glad he had made it.
It relieved him to find no one was in hiding under the bed or in the
deep oak cupboard; and he hoped sincerely it was not the cupboard in
which the unfortunate spaniel had come to its vile death. The French
windows, he discovered, opened on to a little balcony. It looked on to
the front, and there was a drop of less than twenty feet to the ground
below. The bed was high and wide, soft as feathers and covered with
snowy sheets--very inviting to a tired man; and beside the blazing fire
were a couple of deep armchairs.
Altogether it was very pleasant and comfortable; but, tired though he
was, Shorthouse had no intention of going to bed. It was impossible to
disregard the warning of his nerves. They had never failed him before,
and when that sense of distressing horror lodged in his bones he knew
there was something in the wind and that a red flag was flying over the
immediate future. Some delicate instrument in his being, more subtle
than the senses, more accurate than mere presentiment, had seen the red
flag and interpreted its meaning.
Again it seemed to him, as he sat in an armchair over the fire, that his
movements were being carefully watched from somewhere; and, not knowing
what weapons might be used against him, he felt that his real safety lay
in a rigid control of his mind and feelings and a stout refusal to admit
that he was in the least alarmed.
The house was very still. As the night wore on the wind dropped. Only
occasional bursts of sleet against the windows reminded him that the
elements were awake and uneasy. Once or twice the windows rattled and
the rain hissed in the fire, but the roar of the wind in the chimney
grew less and less and the lonely building was at last lapped in a great
stillness. The coals clicked, settling themselves deeper in the grate,
and the noise of the cinders dropping with a tiny report into the soft
heap of accumulated ashes was the only sound that punctuated the
silence.
In proportion as the power of sleep grew upon him the dread of the
situation lessened; but so imperceptibly, so gradually, and so
insinuatingly that he scarcely realised the change. He thought he was as
wide awake to his danger as ever. The successful exclusion of horrible
mental pictures of what he had seen he attributed to his rigorous
control, instead of to their true cause, the creeping over him of the
soft influences of sleep. The faces in the coals were so soothing; the
armchair was so comfortable; so sweet the breath that gently pressed
upon his eyelids; so subtle the growth of the sensation of safety. He
settled down deeper into the chair and in another moment would have been
asleep when the red flag began to shake violently to and fro and he sat
bolt upright as if he had been stabbed in the back.
Someone was coming up the stairs. The boards creaked beneath a stealthy
weight.
Shorthouse sprang from the chair and crossed the room swiftly, taking up
his position beside the door, but out of range of the keyhole. The two
candles flared unevenly on the table at the foot of the bed. The steps
were slow and cautious--it seemed thirty seconds between each one--but
the person who was taking them was very close to the door. Already he
had topped the stairs and was shuffling almost silently across the bit
of landing.
The secretary slipped his hand into his pistol pocket and drew back
further against the wall, and hardly had he completed the movement when
the sounds abruptly ceased and he knew that somebody was standing just
outside the door and preparing for a careful observation through the
keyhole.
He was in no sense a coward. In action he was never afraid. It was the
waiting and wondering and the uncertainty that might have loosened his
nerves a little. But, somehow, a wave of intense horror swept over him
for a second as he thought of the bestial maniac and his attendant Jew;
and he would rather have faced a pack of wolves than have to do with
either of these men.
Something brushing gently against the door set his nerves tingling
afresh and made him tighten his grasp on the pistol. The steel was cold
and slippery in his moist fingers. What an awful noise it would make
when he pulled the trigger! If the door were to open how close he would
be to the figure that came in! Yet he knew it was locked on the inside
and could not possibly open. Again something brushed against the panel
beside him and a second later the piece of crumpled paper fell from the
keyhole to the floor, while the piece of thin wire that had accomplished
this result showed its point for a moment in the room and was then
swiftly withdrawn.
Somebody was evidently peering now through the keyhole, and realising
this fact the spirit of attack entered into the heart of the beleaguered
man. Raising aloft his right hand he brought it suddenly down with a
resounding crash upon the panel of the door next the keyhole--a crash
that, to the crouching eavesdropper, must have seemed like a clap of
thunder out of a clear sky. There was a gasp and a slight lurching
against the door and the midnight listener rose startled and alarmed,
for Shorthouse plainly heard the tread of feet across the landing and
down the stairs till they were lost in the silences of the hall. Only,
this time, it seemed to him there were four feet instead of two.
Quickly stuffing the paper back into the keyhole, he was in the act of
walking back to the fireplace when, over his shoulder, he caught sight
of a white face pressed in outline against the outside of the window. It
was blurred in the streams of sleet, but the white of the moving eyes
was unmistakable. He turned instantly to meet it, but the face was
withdrawn like a flash, and darkness rushed in to fill the gap where it
had appeared.
"Watched on both sides," he reflected.
But he was not to be surprised into any sudden action, and quietly
walking over to the fireplace as if he had seen nothing unusual he
stirred the coals a moment and then strolled leisurely over to the
window. Steeling his nerves, which quivered a moment in spite of his
will, he opened the window and stepped out on to the balcony. The wind,
which he thought had dropped, rushed past him into the room and
extinguished one of the candles, while a volley of fine cold rain burst
all over his face. At first he could see nothing, and the darkness came
close up to his eyes like a wall. He went a little farther on to the
balcony and drew the window after him till it clashed. Then he stood and
waited.
But nothing touched him. No one seemed to be there. His eyes got
accustomed to the blackness and he was able to make out the iron
railing, the dark shapes of the trees beyond, and the faint light coming
from the other window. Through this he peered into the room, walking the
length of the balcony to do so. Of course he was standing in a shaft of
light and whoever was crouching in the darkness below could plainly see
him. _Below?_--That there should be anyone _above_ did not occur to him
until, just as he was preparing to go in again, he became aware that
something was moving in the darkness over his head. He looked up,
instinctively raising a protecting arm, and saw a long black line
swinging against the dim wall of the house. The shutters of the window
on the next floor, whence it depended, were thrown open and moving
backwards and forwards in the wind. The line was evidently a thickish
cord, for as he looked it was pulled in and the end disappeared in the
darkness.
Shorthouse, trying to whistle to himself, peered over the edge of the
balcony as if calculating the distance he might have to drop, and then
calmly walked into the room again and closed the window behind him,
leaving the latch so that the lightest touch would cause it to fly open.
He relit the candle and drew a straight-backed chair up to the table.
Then he put coal on the fire and stirred it up into a royal blaze. He
would willingly have folded the shutters over those staring windows at
his back. But that was out of the question. It would have been to cut
off his way of escape.
Sleep, for the time, was at a disadvantage. His brain was full of blood
and every nerve was tingling. He felt as if countless eyes were upon him
and scores of stained hands were stretching out from the corners and
crannies of the house to seize him. Crouching figures, figures of
hideous Jews, stood everywhere about him where shelter was, creeping
forward out of the shadows when he was not looking and retreating
swiftly and silently when he turned his head. Wherever he looked, other
eyes met his own, and though they melted away under his steady,
confident gaze, he knew they would wax and draw in upon him the instant
his glances weakened and his will wavered.
Though there were no sounds, he knew that in the well of the house there
was movement going on, _and preparation_. And this knowledge, inasmuch
as it came to him irresistibly and through other and more subtle
channels than those of the senses kept the sense of horror fresh in his
blood and made him alert and awake.
But, no matter how great the dread in the heart, the power of sleep will
eventually overcome it. Exhausted nature is irresistible, and as the
minutes wore on and midnight passed, he realised that nature was
vigorously asserting herself and sleep was creeping upon him from the
extremities.
To lessen the danger he took out his pencil and began to draw the
articles of furniture in the room. He worked into elaborate detail the
cupboard, the mantelpiece, and the bed, and from these he passed on to
the portraits. Being possessed of genuine skill, he found the occupation
sufficiently absorbing. It kept the blood in his brain, and that kept
him awake. The pictures, moreover, now that he considered them for the
first time, were exceedingly well painted. Owing to the dim light, he
centred his attention upon the portraits beside the fireplace. On the
right was a woman, with a sweet, gentle face and a figure of great
refinement; on the left was a full-size figure of a big handsome man
with a full beard and wearing a hunting costume of ancient date.
From time to time he turned to the windows behind him, but the vision of
the face was not repeated. More than once, too, he went to the door and
listened, but the silence was so profound in the house that he gradually
came to believe the plan of attack had been abandoned. Once he went out
on to the balcony, but the sleet stung his face and he only had time to
see that the shutters above were closed, when he was obliged to seek the
shelter of the room again.
In this way the hours passed. The fire died down and the room grew
chilly. Shorthouse had made several sketches of the two heads and was
beginning to feel overpoweringly weary. His feet and his hands were cold
and his yawns were prodigious. It seemed ages and ages since the steps
had come to listen at his door and the face had watched him from the
window. A feeling of safety had somehow come to him. In reality he was
exhausted. His one desire was to drop upon the soft white bed and yield
himself up to sleep without any further struggle.
He rose from his chair with a series of yawns that refused to be stifled
and looked at his watch. It was close upon three in the morning. He made
up his mind that he would lie down with his clothes on and get some
sleep. It was safe enough, the door was locked on the inside and the
window was fastened. Putting the bag on the table near his pillow he
blew out the candles and dropped with a sense of careless and delicious
exhaustion upon the soft mattress. In five minutes he was sound asleep.
There had scarcely been time for the dreams to come when he found
himself lying side-ways across the bed with wide open eyes staring into
the darkness. Someone had touched him, and he had writhed away in his
sleep as from something unholy. The movement had awakened him.
The room was simply black. No light came from the windows and the fire
had gone out as completely as if water had been poured upon it. He gazed
into a sheet of impenetrable darkness that came close up to his face
like a wall.
His first thought was for the papers in his coat and his hand flew to
the pocket. They were safe; and the relief caused by this discovery left
his mind instantly free for other reflections.
And the realisation that at once came to him with a touch of dismay was,
that during his sleep some definite _change_ had been effected in the
room. He felt this with that intuitive certainty which amounts to
positive knowledge. The room was utterly still, but the corroboration
that was speedily brought to him seemed at once to fill the darkness
with a whispering, secret life that chilled his blood and made the
sheet feel like ice against his cheek.
Hark! This was it; there reached his ears, in which the blood was
already buzzing with warning clamour, a dull murmur of something that
rose indistinctly from the well of the house and became audible to him
without passing through walls or doors. There seemed no solid surface
between him, lying on the bed, and the landing; between the landing and
the stairs, and between the stairs and the hall beyond.
He knew that the door of the room _was standing open_! Therefore it had
been opened from the _inside_. Yet the window was fastened, also on the
inside.
Hardly was this realised when the conspiring silence of the hour was
broken by another and a more definite sound. A step was coming along the
passage. A certain bruise on the hip told Shorthouse that the pistol in
his pocket was ready for use and he drew it out quickly and cocked it.
Then he just had time to slip over the edge of the bed and crouch down
on the floor when the step halted on the threshold of the room. The bed
was thus between him and the open door. The window was at his back.
He waited in the darkness. What struck him as peculiar about the steps
was that there seemed no particular desire to move stealthily. There was
no extreme caution. They moved along in rather a slipshod way and
sounded like soft slippers or feet in stockings. There was something
clumsy, irresponsible, almost reckless about the movement.
For a second the steps paused upon the threshold, but only for a second.
Almost immediately they came on into the room, and as they passed from
the wood to the carpet Shorthouse noticed that they became wholly
noiseless. He waited in suspense, not knowing whether the unseen walker
was on the other side of the room or was close upon him. Presently he
stood up and stretched out his left arm in front of him, groping,
searching, feeling in a circle; and behind it he held the pistol, cocked
and pointed, in his right hand. As he rose a bone cracked in his knee,
his clothes rustled as if they were newspapers, and his breath seemed
loud enough to be heard all over the room. But not a sound came to
betray the position of the invisible intruder.
Then, just when the tension was becoming unbearable, a noise relieved
the gripping silence. It was wood knocking against wood, and it came
from the farther end of the room. The steps had moved over to the
fireplace. A sliding sound almost immediately followed it and then
silence closed again over everything like a pall.
For another five minutes Shorthouse waited, and then the suspense became
too much. He could not stand that open door! The candles were close
beside him and he struck a match and lit them, expecting in the sudden
glare to receive at least a terrific blow. But nothing happened, and he
saw at once that the room was entirely empty. Walking over with the
pistol cocked he peered out into the darkness of the landing and then
closed the door and turned the key. Then he searched the room--bed,
cupboard, table, curtains, everything that could have concealed a man;
but found no trace of the intruder. The owner of the footsteps had
disappeared like a ghost into the shadows of the night. But for one fact
he might have imagined that he had been dreaming: _the bag had
vanished_!
There was no more sleep for Shorthouse that night. His watch pointed to
4 a.m. and there were still three hours before daylight. He sat down at
the table and continued his sketches. With fixed determination he went
on with his drawing and began a new outline of the man's head. There was
something in the expression that continually evaded him. He had no
success with it, and this time it seemed to him that it was the eyes
that brought about his discomfiture. He held up his pencil before his
face to measure the distance between the nose and the eyes, and to his
amazement he saw that a change had come over the features. The eyes were
no longer open. _The lids had closed!_
For a second he stood in a sort of stupefied astonishment. A push would
have toppled him over. Then he sprang to his feet and held a candle
close up to the picture. The eye-lids quivered, the eye-lashes trembled.
Then, right before his gaze, the eyes opened and looked straight into
his own. Two holes were cut in the panel and this pair of eyes, human
eyes, just fitted them.
As by a curious effect of magic, the strong fear that had governed him
ever since his entry into the house disappeared in a second. Anger
rushed into his heart and his chilled blood rose suddenly to boiling
point. Putting the candle down, he took two steps back into the room and
then flung himself forward with all his strength against the painted
panel. Instantly, and before the crash came, the eyes were withdrawn,
and two black spaces showed where they had been. The old huntsman was
eyeless. But the panel cracked and split inwards like a sheet of thin
cardboard; and Shorthouse, pistol in hand, thrust an arm through the
jagged aperture and, seizing a human leg, dragged out into the room--the
Jew!