|I CAME to my senses. I looked up slowly.
The thing was gone. I put out the light and fled like a hunted creature
to my room. There I locked myself in and dropped down on my knees beside
my bed.
At first it was entirely a battle with fear that kept me, rigid and
silent, on my knees. I knew that unless I overcame the extremity of my
nervous terror, I should lose my mind. If I went out of my room at all,
it would be to go raving and shrieking down the hall and to alarm the
house. Self-control was possible only if I should stay here and
conquer the evil spirit of “The Pines”--conquer its effect upon my
own steadiness and self-respect. I would not repeat the grotesque
tragi-comedy of Jane and Delia and Annie, and present myself, gasping
and wild-eyed, to Mrs. Brane demanding my dismissal on the spot. Neither
would I be like the other three housekeepers. Even in that moment of
prostration I am glad to say that I was not utterly a victim; the demon
that had possessed the house had to a certain extent already met its
match in me.
Of course, during those first hours, I did entertain the belief that I
was possessed by a denizen from another world who had come to this
house to terrify and to kill and had borrowed my astral body for
its clothing--a horrid idea enough and not unnatural under the
circumstances. If I remember rightly I decided that if the awful figure
came again or if any other tragedy should happen at “The Pines” I should
kill myself. Fortunately my reason, though badly shaken, did at least
reassert itself. After all, I am not a natural believer in ghosts. The
supernatural has never greatly interested or impressed me. It is not
so much-that I am skeptical as that I am pragmatic--that is, I have to
discern some use or meaning in spiritual experiences. It is this turn of
mind, inherited, I think, from my French father, that saved me now. Very
gradually, as I knelt there in that God-given attitude of prayer, an
attitude whose subjective benefit to the human race no one will ever be
able to measure, an attitude which, in its humility, in its resignation,
in its shutting out of this world's light, so opens the inner eyes of
the soul--as I knelt there, my mood began to change from one of insane
superstition and fear to one of quiet and most determined thought.
In fact, my reason reasserted itself and powerfully. One by one, all the
alarming incidents began to link themselves together, to suggest a plan,
a logical whole. It was as though, with my eyes shut and hidden in my
hands, I saw for the first time.
Three housekeepers, one after the other, had been frightened away from
“The Pines.” The old servants of the house had been forced, also by
supernatural fears, to leave. A most determined attempt had been made
against Robbie's nerves and Mary's courage. And now, at the climax
of the crescendo--for then it seemed to me, God forgive me! that
my experience had been worse than Robbie's death--I, the fourth
housekeeper, was being terrified almost out of my wits. All these things
pointed to one conclusion. It was somebody's interest to isolate little
Mrs. Brane. It was especially somebody's interest to frighten every one
away from the northern wing. Somewhere in this house, and presumably
in this part of the house, there was something enormously valuable,
something to tempt evil spirits clad in substantial flesh and blood,
as substantial, for instance, as that of the bolster-like figure of
the Baron. And the leader of this enterprise, the master-spirit, was a
hell-cat with red-gold hair and a face like my own.
This was a horrid thought in itself and almost an incredible one, but it
was, at least, not supernatural. The creature that had seemed to rise
up on the threshold of the bookroom was a living being, a woman of flesh
and blood. I repeated this over and over to myself. I felt that I must
possess my mind perfectly of this fact and lay hold of it so that no
future manifestations might so nearly drive me to distraction as the
manifestation of to-night. She was a real woman, a female criminal,
wily and brave and very cunning. She had deliberately made use of this
extraordinary chance resemblance, had artfully heightened it, had copied
my habitual costume, for excellent reasons of her own. It was probably
entirely by her agency that I had been brought to “The Pines.” With a
blinding realization of my own stupidity I remembered the suspicious
fashion in which I had learned of the position--a slip of paper handed
to me on the street! I had been chosen deliberately, for my resemblance,
by this thief for a double purpose of mystification and of diverting
suspicion. What more convenient for a night-prowler than to possess a
double in some authorized inmate of the house? Night-prowler?--why, she
might walk up and down the house in broad daylight, and, providing only
that she was careful not to be seen simultaneously with me, nor at
too close intervals of time at an unreasonable distance from my known
whereabouts, she might stand at Mrs. Brane's elbow or flit past Mary
down the stairs or go through the kitchen under Sara Lorrence's very
nose.
More light here broke upon me so brilliantly that it brought me to
my feet. I began walking up and down the room in a fever of excited
thought. I knew now why Henry Lorrence and the woman who called herself
his wife, cringed when they met my eye, whitened at my lightest
reproof, and, at the same time, could barely repress that leer of evil
understanding. They, too, had been brought to “The Pines.” They were
members of the gang of which my double was the leader. Only--and this
cleared up a whole fog of mystery--they did not know the secret of the
dual personality. They thought that the criminal and the housekeeper
were one and the same person under a different make-up. They were
evidently under strict orders not to betray, even by a word or look,
even when there was no one by, their knowledge of collusion with Mrs.
Brane's reputed housekeeper; but Sara had made a bad slip. She had
spoken of “instruction” and she had said that she had not expected to
see me come out of the kitchen closet in the daytime.
My God! What danger we were all in! While we shivered and shook over
ghosts and nightmares, light footsteps in the wall and draughts of cold
air going by, a dangerous gang of thieves had actually taken up its
abode with us; one of them was hiding somewhere in the old house, the
others served us, walked about amongst us, took our orders, spoke to
us discreetly with soft voices and hypocritical, lowered eyes. We were
entirely at their mercy and the only suspecting person in the house,
Paul Dabney, suspected _me_. Undoubtedly he, too, had explained to
his own satisfaction the mystery of “The Pines,” and _his_ explanation
was--Janice Gale. He knew nothing about me, but he did--he must--know
something about Mrs. Brane's mysterious fortune. Bobbie's nightmares,
the strand of hair about his little fingers, were evidence enough
against my innocence. I might be a sleep-walker,--he could not prove
that I was not,--but in his heart he believed me to be a sleep-walker
with a purpose. He was watching me, playing amateur detective in the
house. He had constituted himself a guardian of Mrs. Brane. Perhaps he
was in love with her.
You see, this is not only the history of the Pine Cone mystery. It is
the history of my love for Paul Dabney. This must be understood, for it
explains my actions. The part I managed to play, which it astounds
me even now to think that I was able to play, would barely have been
possible without the goad of my bitterness and pain and anger. I would
have gone at once to Paul Dabney and have told him everything I knew
and let him call in outside help. But, ever since he had held me by the
wrist and, in spite of his very apparent mental abhorrence for me,
had taken me into his arms, my pride was up. I would fight this thing
through alone. I would make no appeal to him, rather I would save the
household myself, and when I had exposed the real criminal and shamed
Paul Dabney's cruelty to a lonely girl and humbled him in his conceit, I
would go away and begin life again as far as possible from him.
This resolution utterly possessed me. Under its spur I began to think
with great lucidity. I suppose it was then, at about four o'clock on
that November morning, with the quiet house sleeping around me and the
quiet world outside just faintly turning gray with dawn, that I began to
see the weapon which lay within my grasp. It was a matter of turning
the situation upside down. In fact, if we did that more often with our
mental tangles, if suddenly in the midst of a train of thought we made a
_volte-face_, and from looking at things from our own obvious viewpoint,
we suddenly chose a right angle for contemplation, I am sure there would
be many illuminations similar to mine that night. But I did not make any
_volte-face_ deliberately. It was a sort of accident. Quite suddenly I
saw the situation as though I were a criminal myself, a criminal or
a sleuth, the mental attitude must be in some respects the same. What
advantage did this fantastic resemblance give the woman downstairs that
it did not also give me?
Now you have it, the whole astounding situation. You see what decision I
was coming to. I would deliberately play out the dangerous game. For
the woman's benefit I would pretend that I believed the apparition to
be ghostlike, dreamlike, the fabrication of my own feverish mind, but to
Sara and Henry and any other Barons that might visit us, I would play my
vixen as skilfully, as informingly as Heaven and my own wits and courage
would let me. I would discover the whereabouts of Mrs. Brane's fortune,
I would save it for her, and I would trap the thieves. That was my
resolve, the fruit of my night's vigil. Having made it, I undressed
myself and went to bed. I fell asleep at once like an overwearied child.