violins, but, unlike themselves, who only kept their specimens to look
at, he was a skilful and exquisite player. He was the only person they
ever permitted to handle their pedigree instruments, to take them from
the glass cases where they reposed in silent splendour, and to draw
the sound out of their wondrous painted hearts of golden varnish. The
brothers loathed to see his fingers touch them, yet loved to hear
their singing voices in the room, for the latter confirmed their sound
judgment as collectors, and made them certain their money had been well
spent. Hyman, however, made no attempt to conceal his contempt and
hatred for the mere collector. The atmosphere of the room fairly pulsed
with these opposing forces of silent emotion when Hyman played and the
Gilmers, alternately writhing and admiring, listened. The occasions,
however, were not frequent. The Hebrew only came by invitation,
and both brothers made a point of being in. It was a very formal
proceeding--something of a sacred rite almost.
John Gilmer, therefore, was considerably surprised by the information
Morgan had supplied. For one thing, Hyman, he had understood, was away
on the Continent.
"Still in there, you say?" he repeated, after a moment's reflection.
"Still in there, Mr. John, sir." Then, concealing his surprise from the
liftman, he fell back upon his usual mild habit of complaining about the
billycock hat and the uniform.
"You really should try and remember, Morgan," he said, though kindly.
"That hat does _not_ go well with that uniform!"
Morgan's pasty countenance betrayed no vestige of expression. "'At
don't go well with the yewniform, sir," he repeated, hanging up the
disreputable bowler and replacing it with a gold-braided cap from the
peg. "No, sir, it don't, do it?" he added cryptically, smiling at the
transformation thus effected.
And the lift then halted with an abrupt jerk at the top floor. By
somebody's carelessness the landing was in darkness, and, to make things
worse, Morgan, clumsily pulling the iron rope, happened to knock the
billycock from its peg so that his sleeve, as he stooped to catch it,
struck the switch and plunged the scene in a moment's complete
obscurity.
And it was then, in the act of stepping out before the light was turned
on again, that John Gilmer stumbled against something that shot along
the landing past the open door. First he thought it must be a child,
then a man, then--an animal. Its movement was rapid yet stealthy.
Starting backwards instinctively to allow it room to pass, Gilmer
collided in the darkness with Morgan, and Morgan incontinently screamed.
There was a moment of stupid confusion. The heavy framework of the lift
shook a little, as though something had stepped into it and then as
quickly jumped out again. A rushing sound followed that resembled
footsteps, yet at the same time was more like gliding--someone in soft
slippers or stockinged feet, greatly hurrying. Then came silence again.
Morgan sprang to the landing and turned up the electric light. Mr.
Gilmer, at the same moment, did likewise to the switch in the lift.
Light flooded the scene. Nothing was visible.
"Dog or cat, or something, I suppose, wasn't it?" exclaimed Gilmer,
following the man out and looking round with bewildered amazement upon
a deserted landing. He knew quite well, even while he spoke, that the
words were foolish.
"Dog or cat, yes, sir, or--something," echoed Morgan, his eyes narrowed
to pin-points, then growing large, but his face stolid.
"The light should have been on." Mr. Gilmer spoke with a touch of
severity. The little occurrence had curiously disturbed his equanimity.
He felt annoyed, upset, uneasy.
For a perceptible pause the liftman made no reply, and his employer,
looking up, saw that, besides being flustered, he was white about the
jaws. His voice, when he spoke, was without its normal assurance. This
time he did not merely repeat. He explained.
"The light _was_ on, sir, when last _I_ come up!" he said, with
emphasis, obviously speaking the truth. "Only a moment ago," he added.
Mr. Gilmer, for some reason, felt disinclined to press for explanations.
He decided to ignore the matter.
Then the lift plunged down again into the depths like a diving-bell into
water; and John Gilmer, pausing a moment first to reflect, let himself
in softly with his latch-key, and, after hanging up hat and coat in the
hall, entered the big sitting-room he and his brother shared in common.
The December fog that covered London like a dirty blanket had
penetrated, he saw, into the room. The objects in it were half shrouded
in the familiar yellowish haze.
2
In dressing-gown and slippers, William Gilmer, almost invisible in his
armchair by the gas-stove across the room, spoke at once. Through the
thick atmosphere his face gleamed, showing an extinguished pipe hanging
from his lips. His tone of voice conveyed emotion, an emotion he sought
to suppress, of a quality, however, not easy to define.
"Hyman's been here," he announced abruptly. "You must have met him. He's
this very instant gone out."
It was quite easy to see that something had happened, for "scenes" leave
disturbance behind them in the atmosphere. But John made no immediate
reference to this. He replied that he had seen no one--which was
strictly true--and his brother thereupon, sitting bolt upright in the
chair, turned quickly and faced him. His skin, in the foggy air, seemed
paler than before.
"That's odd," he said nervously.
"What's odd?" asked John.
"That you didn't see--anything. You ought to have run into one another
on the doorstep." His eyes went peering about the room. He was
distinctly ill at ease. "You're positive you saw no one? Did Morgan
take him down before you came? Did Morgan see him?" He asked several
questions at once.
"On the contrary, Morgan told me he was still here with you. Hyman
probably walked down, and didn't take the lift at all," he replied.
"That accounts for neither of us seeing him." He decided to say nothing
about the occurrence in the lift, for his brother's nerves, he saw
plainly, were on edge.
William then stood up out of his chair, and the skin of his face changed
its hue, for whereas a moment ago it was merely pale, it had now
altered to a tint that lay somewhere between white and a livid grey. The
man was fighting internal terror. For a moment these two brothers of
middle age looked each other straight in the eye. Then John spoke:
"What's wrong, Billy?" he asked quietly. "Something's upset you. What
brought Hyman in this way--unexpectedly? I thought he was still in
Germany."
The brothers, affectionate and sympathetic, understood one another
perfectly. They had no secrets. Yet for several minutes the younger one
made no reply. It seemed difficult to choose his words apparently.
"Hyman played, I suppose--on the fiddles?" John helped him, wondering
uneasily what was coming. He did not care much for the individual in
question, though his talent was of such great use to them.
The other nodded in the affirmative, then plunged into rapid speech,
talking under his breath as though he feared someone might overhear.
Glancing over his shoulder down the foggy room, he drew his brother
close.
"Hyman came," he began, "unexpectedly. He hadn't written, and I hadn't
asked him. You hadn't either, I suppose?"
John shook his head.
"When I came in from the dining-room I found him in the passage. The
servant was taking away the dishes, and he had let himself in while the
front door was ajar. Pretty cool, wasn't it?"
"He's an original," said John, shrugging his shoulders. "And you
welcomed him?" he asked.
"I asked him in, of course. He explained he had something glorious for
me to hear. Silenski had played it in the afternoon, and he had bought
the music since. But Silenski's 'Strad' hadn't the power--it's thin
on the upper strings, you remember, unequal, patchy--and he said no
instrument in the world could do it justice but our 'Joseph'-the small
Guarnerius, you know, which he swears is the most perfect in the world."
"And what was it? Did he play it?" asked John, growing more uneasy as he
grew more interested. With relief he glanced round and saw the matchless
little instrument lying there safe and sound in its glass case near the
door.
"He played it--divinely: a Zigeuner Lullaby, a fine, passionate, rushing
bit of inspiration, oddly misnamed 'lullaby.' And, fancy, the fellow had
memorized it already! He walked about the room on tiptoe while he played
it, complaining of the light----"
"Complaining of the light?"
"Said the thing was crepuscular, and needed dusk for its full effect. I
turned the lights out one by one, till finally there was only the glow
of the gas logs. He insisted. You know that way he has with him? And
then he got over me in another matter: insisted on using some special
strings he had brought with him, and put them on, too, himself--thicker
than the A and E _we_ use."
For though neither Gilmer could produce a note, it was their pride that
they kept their precious instruments in perfect condition for playing,
choosing the exact thickness and quality of strings that suited the
temperament of each violin; and the little Guarnerius in question always
"sang" best, they held, with thin strings.
"Infernal insolence," exclaimed the listening brother, wondering what
was coming next. "Played it well, though, didn't he, this Lullaby
thing?" he added, seeing that William hesitated. As he spoke he went
nearer, sitting down close beside him in a leather chair.
"Magnificent! Pure fire of genius!" was the reply with enthusiasm, the
voice at the same time dropping lower. "Staccato like a silver hammer;
harmonics like flutes, clear, soft, ringing; and the tone--well, the G
string was a baritone, and the upper registers creamy and mellow as a
boy's voice. John," he added, "that Guarnerius is the very pick of the
period and"--again he hesitated--"Hyman loves it. He'd give his soul to
have it."
The more John heard, the more uncomfortable it made him. He had always
disliked this gifted Hebrew, for in his secret heart he knew that he had
always feared and distrusted him. Sometimes he had felt half afraid
of him; the man's very forcible personality was too insistent to be
pleasant. His type was of the dark and sinister kind, and he possessed
a violent will that rarely failed of accomplishing its desire.
"Wish I'd heard the fellow play," he said at length, ignoring his
brother's last remark, and going on to speak of the most matter-of-fact
details he could think of. "Did he use the Dodd bow, or the Tourte? That
Dodd I picked up last month, you know, is the most perfectly balanced I
have ever----"
He stopped abruptly, for William had suddenly got upon his feet and was
standing there, searching the room with his eyes. A chill ran down
John's spine as he watched him.
"What is it, Billy?" he asked sharply. "Hear anything?"
William continued to peer about him through the thick air.
"Oh, nothing, probably," he said, an odd catch in his voice; "only---- I
keep feeling as if there was somebody listening. Do you think,
perhaps"--he glanced over his shoulder--"there is someone at the door?
I wish--I wish you'd have a look, John."
John obeyed, though without great eagerness. Crossing the room slowly,
he opened the door, then switched on the light. The passage leading past
the bathroom towards the bedrooms beyond was empty. The coats hung
motionless from their pegs.
"No one, of course," he said, as he closed the door and came back to the
stove. He left the light burning in the passage. It was curious the way
both brothers had this impression that they were not alone, though only
one of them spoke of it.
"Used the Dodd or the Tourte, Billy--which?" continued John in the most
natural voice he could assume.
But at that very same instant the water started to his eyes. His
brother, he saw, was close upon the thing he really had to tell. But he
had stuck fast.
3
By a great effort John Gilmer composed himself and remained in his
chair. With detailed elaboration he lit a cigarette, staring hard at his
brother over the flaring match while he did so. There he sat in his
dressing-gown and slippers by the fireplace, eyes downcast, fingers
playing idly with the red tassel. The electric light cast heavy shadows
across the face. In a flash then, since emotion may sometimes express
itself in attitude even better than in speech, the elder brother
understood that Billy was about to tell him an unutterable thing.
By instinct he moved over to his side so that the same view of the room
confronted him.
"Out with it, old man," he said, with an effort to be natural. "Tell me
what you saw."
Billy shuffled slowly round and the two sat side by side, facing the
fog-draped chamber.
"It was like this," he began softly, "only I was standing instead of
sitting, looking over to that door as you and I do now. Hyman moved to
and fro in the faint glow of the gas logs against the far wall, playing
that 'crepuscular' thing in his most inspired sort of way, so that the
music seemed to issue from himself rather than from the shining bit
of wood under his chin, when--I noticed something coming over me that
was"--he hesitated, searching for words--"that wasn't _all_ due to the
music," he finished abruptly.
"His personality put a bit of hypnotism on you, eh?"
William shrugged his shoulders.
"The air was thickish with fog and the light was dim, cast upwards upon
him from the stove," he continued. "I admit all that. But there wasn't
light enough to throw shadows, you see, and----"
"Hyman looked queer?" the other helped him quickly.
Billy nodded his head without turning.
"Changed there before my very eyes"--he whispered it--"turned
animal----"
"Animal?" John felt his hair rising.
"That's the only way I can put it. His face and hands and body turned
otherwise than usual. I lost the sound of his feet. When the bow-hand or
the fingers on the strings passed into the light, they were"--he uttered
a soft, shuddering little laugh--"furry, oddly divided, the fingers
massed together. And he paced stealthily. I thought every instant the
fiddle would drop with a crash and he would spring at me across the
room."
"My dear chap----"
"He moved with those big, lithe, striding steps one sees"--John held his
breath in the little pause, listening keenly--"one sees those big brutes
make in the cages when their desire is aflame for food or escape, or--or
fierce, passionate desire for anything they want with their whole
nature----"
"The big felines!" John whistled softly.
"And every minute getting nearer and nearer to the door, as though he
meant to make a sudden rush for it and get out."
"With the violin! Of course you stopped him?"
"In the end. But for a long time, I swear to you, I found it difficult
to know what to do, even to move. I couldn't get my voice for words of
any kind; it was like a spell."
"It _was_ a spell," suggested John firmly.
"Then, as he moved, still playing," continued the other, "he seemed to
grow smaller; to shrink down below the line of the gas. I thought I
should lose sight of him altogether. I turned the light up suddenly.
There he was over by the door--crouching."
"Playing on his knees, you mean?"
William closed his eyes in an effort to visualize it again.
"Crouching," he repeated, at length, "close to the floor. At least, I
think so. It all happened so quickly, and I felt so bewildered, it was
hard to see straight. But at first I could have sworn he was half his
natural size. I called to him, I think I swore at him--I forget exactly,
but I know he straightened up at once and stood before me down there in
the light"--he pointed across the room to the door--"eyes gleaming, face
white as chalk, perspiring like midsummer, and gradually filling out,
straightening up, whatever you like to call it, to his natural size and
appearance again. It was the most horrid thing I've ever seen."
"As an--animal, you saw him still?"
"No; human again. Only much smaller."
"What did he say?"
Billy reflected a moment.
"Nothing that I can remember," he replied. "You see, it was all over in
a few seconds. In the full light, I felt so foolish, and nonplussed at
first. To see him normal again baffled me. And, before I could collect
myself, he had let himself out into the passage, and I heard the front
door slam. A minute later--the same second almost, it seemed--you came
in. I only remember grabbing the violin and getting it back safely under
the glass case. The strings were still vibrating."
The account was over. John asked no further questions. Nor did he say a
single word about the lift, Morgan, or the extinguished light on the
landing. There fell a longish silence between the two men; and then,
while they helped themselves to a generous supply of whisky-and-soda
before going to bed, John looked up and spoke:
"If you agree, Billy," he said quietly, "I think I might write and
suggest to Hyman that we shall no longer have need for his services."
And Billy, acquiescing, added a sentence that expressed something of the
singular dread lying but half concealed in the atmosphere of the room,
if not in their minds as well:
"Putting it, however, in a way that need not offend him."
"Of course. There's no need to be rude, is there?"
Accordingly, next morning the letter was written; and John, saying
nothing to his brother, took it round himself by hand to the Hebrew's
rooms near Euston. The answer he dreaded was forthcoming:
"Mr. Hyman's still away abroad," he was told. "But we're forwarding
letters; yes. Or I can give you 'is address if you'll prefer it." The
letter went, therefore, to the number in Koenigstrasse, Munich, thus
obtained.
Then, on his way back from the insurance company where he went to
increase the sum that protected the small Guarnerius from loss by fire,
accident, or theft, John Gilmer called at the offices of certain musical
agents and ascertained that Silenski, the violinist, was performing at
the time in Munich. It was only some days later, though, by diligent
inquiry, he made certain that at a concert on a certain date the famous
virtuoso had played a Zigeuner Lullaby of his own composition--the very
date, it turned out, on which he himself had been to the Masonic
rehearsal at Mark Masons' Hall.
John, however, said nothing of these discoveries to his brother William.
4
It was about a week later when a reply to the letter came from Munich--a
letter couched in somewhat offensive terms, though it contained neither
words nor phrases that could actually be found fault with. Isidore Hyman
was hurt and angry. On his return to London a month or so later, he
proposed to call and talk the matter over. The offensive part of the
letter lay, perhaps, in his definite assumption that he could persuade
the brothers to resume the old relations. John, however, wrote a brief
reply to the effect that they had decided to buy no new fiddles; their
collection being complete, there would be no occasion for them to invite
his services as a performer. This was final. No answer came, and the
matter seemed to drop. Never for one moment, though, did it leave the
consciousness of John Gilmer. Hyman had said that he would come, and
come assuredly he would. He secretly gave Morgan instructions that he
and his brother for the future were always "out" when the Hebrew
presented himself.
"He must have gone back to Germany, you see, almost at once after his
visit here that night," observed William--John, however, making no
reply.
One night towards the middle of January the two brothers came home
together from a concert in Queen's Hall, and sat up later than usual in
their sitting-room discussing over their whisky and tobacco the merits
of the pieces and performers. It must have been past one o'clock when
they turned out the lights in the passage and retired to bed. The air
was still and frosty; moonlight over the roofs--one of those sharp and
dry winter nights that now seem to visit London rarely.
"Like the old-fashioned days when we were boys," remarked William,
pausing a moment by the passage window and looking out across the miles
of silvery, sparkling roofs.
"Yes," added John; "the ponds freezing hard in the fields, rime on the
nursery windows, and the sound of a horse's hoofs coming down the road
in the distance, eh?" They smiled at the memory, then said good night,
and separated. Their rooms were at opposite ends of the corridor; in
between were the bathroom, dining-room, and sitting-room. It was a long,
straggling flat. Half an hour later both brothers were sound asleep, the
flat silent, only a dull murmur rising from the great city outside, and
the moon sinking slowly to the level of the chimneys.
Perhaps two hours passed, perhaps three, when John Gilmer, sitting up
in bed with a start, wide-awake and frightened, knew that someone was
moving about in one of the three rooms that lay between him and his
brother. He had absolutely no idea why he should have been frightened,
for there was no dream or nightmare-memory that he brought over from
unconsciousness, and yet he realized plainly that the fear he felt was
by no means a foolish and unreasoning fear. It had a cause and a reason.
Also--which made it worse--it was fully warranted. Something in his
sleep, forgotten in the instant of waking, had happened that set
every nerve in his body on the watch. He was positive only of two
things--first, that it was the entrance of this person, moving so
quietly there in the flat, that sent the chills down his spine; and,
secondly, that this person was _not_ his brother William.
John Gilmer was a timid man. The sight of a burglar, his eyes
black-masked, suddenly confronting him in the passage, would most likely
have deprived him of all power of decision--until the burglar had either
shot him or escaped. But on this occasion some instinct told him that it
was no burglar, and that the acute distress he experienced was not due
to any message of ordinary physical fear. The thing that had gained
access to his flat while he slept had first come--he felt sure of
it--into his room, and had passed very close to his own bed, before
going on. It had then doubtless gone to his brother's room, visiting
them both stealthily to make sure they slept. And its mere passage
through his room had been enough to wake him and set these drops of cold
perspiration upon his skin. For it was--he felt it in every fibre of
his body--something hostile.
The thought that it might at that very moment be in the room of his
brother, however, brought him to his feet on the cold floor, and set him
moving with all the determination he could summon towards the door. He
looked cautiously down an utterly dark passage; then crept on tiptoe
along it. On the wall were old-fashioned weapons that had belonged to
his father; and feeling a curved, sheathless sword that had come from
some Turkish campaign of years gone by, his fingers closed tightly round
it, and lifted it silently from the three hooks whereon it lay. He
passed the doors of the bathroom and dining-room, making instinctively
for the big sitting-room where the violins were kept in their glass
cases. The cold nipped him. His eyes smarted with the effort to see in
the darkness. Outside the closed door he hesitated.
Putting his ear to the crack, he listened. From within came a faint
sound of someone moving. The same instant there rose the sharp, delicate
"ping" of a violin-string being plucked; and John Gilmer, with nerves
that shook like the vibrations of that very string, opened the door wide
with a fling and turned on the light at the same moment. The plucked
string still echoed faintly in the air.
The sensation that met him on the threshold was the well-known one
that things had been going on in the room which his unexpected arrival
had that instant put a stop to. A second earlier and he would have
discovered it all in the act. The atmosphere still held the feeling of
rushing, silent movement with which the things had raced back to their
normal, motionless positions. The immobility of the furniture was a mere
attitude hurriedly assumed, and the moment his back was turned the whole
business, whatever it might be, would begin again. With this presentment
of the room, however--a purely imaginative one--came another, swiftly on
its heels.