PATTERING FEET
For a moment there was tense stillness in the room. Once more Bab felt
as though an icy wind enveloped her. She was about to move, desperately
intent upon breaking the spell that bound her, when the pressure of
Gerry’s fingers and a “For goodness’ sake be quiet, Bab!” halted her.
Then she heard it--the smallest of sounds, eerie and faint, yet
alarmingly distinct in the stillness of the room. The soft patter of
tiny, scurrying feet back of them.
They turned swiftly and, with frightened eyes, tried to pierce the
corners of the room where the shadows lay thickest.
No sight of anything, no sound, no movement!
If they had not both heard it, if their senses had not combined
to assure them that they were awake and in full command of their
faculties, they might have supposed they dreamed that sound, so faint,
so eerie, so utterly unreal had it seemed to them.
For a moment they stood frozen to the spot, bound by the nightmare
belief that they could not move, no matter how much they tried.
A faint laugh from Gerry floated upon the heavy atmosphere of the room.
“Nerves, Bab, nerves!” she cried. With a little gesture of
helplessness, she sank into one of the big arm chairs. “I’d never have
thought it of you, let alone me!”
She got to her feet again and stood close to Bab. The latter was still
staring into the shadows in the far corner of the room.
“We couldn’t have imagined that pattering of feet, could we, Bab?”
“Not unless we are more foolish than we look,” said Bab stoutly. “There
was certainly something over in that corner of the room!”
“Something we could hear but not see!”
“Oh, gracious!” cried Bab, looking wildly about her. “Why not say it
was the ghost and have done with it!”
She paused and regarded Gerry intently for a moment. Then she turned
and moved slowly over to the spot from which had come the unmistakable
sound of light, pattering footsteps.
This part of the room farthest from the windows held a sort of dim
twilight. Bab suddenly stumbled over a footstool that she had not
noticed and sprawled, headlong, to the floor.
With a cry, Gerry rushed forward, but as instantly stopped; for, as Bab
fell she heard again the pattering of feet, followed by a queer swish,
as though some object had hurtled swiftly through the air.
Shocked and breathless as she was, Bab heard that sound, too. Before
Gerry could come to her aid she was on her feet again and running away
from that dark corner toward the door of the library.
There Gerry overtook her and the two girls clung together for a moment
of panic.
“What was it?” breathed Gerry. “It was close to you, Bab. Did you see
anything?”
Bab shook her head.
“I was a bit dazed, I think. But I felt--I----”
“Yes!” Gerry prompted eagerly.
Bab paused and made an effort to pull herself together.
“It was like--oh, I know you will think I am silly----”
“I’m worse!” cried Gerry. “Don’t weaken, Bab. What did you feel?”
“A draught, a cold breeze. I distinctly felt it blowing on me and--oh,
it is silly--the draught smelled funny!”
“Smelled funny!” repeated Gerry, looking as though she thought
excitement had really turned her chum’s brain. “Now just what do you
mean by that?”
“What I say!” said Bab, gaining firmness in the face of Gerry’s
incredulity. “It smelled damp and musty like--well--sort of like the
way you might imagine a dungeon would smell.”
“You don’t happen to know by experience the way a dungeon would smell,
do you?” asked Gerry, with an irony that failed to bring even a shadow
of a smile to Bab’s grave face.
“I suppose it isn’t strange that things should smell damp and musty
in this house that has been closed up so long,” she mused. It was as
though she were trying to reason away her fears. “Open windows, fresh
air and sunshine ought to remedy all that. I should think----”
“But the draught you think you felt,” insisted Gerry. “How do you
account for that?”
“I’m not trying to account for anything,” said Bab. “All I know is that
to-morrow we are going to tear this old library apart if we have to and
find an answer to the mystery. I believe there must be one. And now,
come on, let’s see what we can find upstairs.”
Bab started for the staircase, but Gerry held back.
“Why not wait for the boys to come?” she said, in an odd tone. “It
looks so--dark--up there.”
“The darkness is caused by a thunderstorm approaching on horseback,”
explained Bab, with a faint smile. “There! Do you hear the clatter of
the horse’s hoofs?”
A faint rumble of thunder came from the distance, reaching them in
short, staccato taps, eerie and unreal as everything else in this
strange old house in the glen.
Bab was almost out of sight on the staircase. Gerry glanced about her
and shivered. The shadows seemed to be closing in, pressing upon her.
With a gasp she turned and fled in pursuit of her chum.
She found her around a turn in the staircase, staring through a small
window sunk into the outer wall.
To the east great cloud banks rolled up, piling one upon the other, the
dark mass shot through with vivid thrusts of lightning. The countryside
was bathed in a livid greenish light. The trees near the house began to
sway and rustle as the cool breath of the storm wind reached them.
Desolate enough prospect, in all truth. The girls turned from it to the
encroaching shadows of the old house almost with a feeling of relief.
They scuttled up the remaining few stairs and reached the upper hall.
This was broad and square, almost like a room in itself, and at various
points about it the girls could discern darker shadows against the
grayness that they supposed must be doors to the rooms opening out of
it.
Certainly, the examination of these rooms was made in the most cursory
manner imaginable. Themselves strung to a high pitch of tension by the
events in the library below, the noises of the storm without increasing
in violence with every moment, the girls did not linger long among the
shadows and mysteries of those upper-floor rooms.
They found that there were five of these and that in all but one--and
this was the smallest, a little room set, like an afterthought, at the
extreme end of the hall--was a double bed.
Though the rest of the furniture was old-fashioned and leered in
ghostly fashion at them through the shadows, it was more than adequate
to meet their simple needs.
Gerry had just asked with a rather forced bravado which room they
thought had belonged to Uncle Jerry during his last sickness, when a
tremendous clap of thunder and a moaning onrush of wind drove the girls
out into the hall.
Below they saw a bobbing point of light and a voice called up to them.
It was Gordon’s voice and Gordon was evidently the bearer of the light
as well.
“For Pete’s sake, what’s keeping you girls?” he cried.
“Have you fallen out of the window?” added Charlie’s drawling voice.
“Or has the ghost run away with you?”
“Both!” snapped Gerry.
The light below stairs suddenly attracted them with irresistible force.
Anything to dispel the horrible gloom.
They stampeded down the stairs. At the bottom Gerry fell against the
lightbearer, nearly flooring both him and his light.
“Have a heart, girl!” laughed Gordon. “‘Strike if you must this old
gray head, but spare the lamp,’ she said.”
Gerry giggled and would have continued on her way toward the kitchen,
from which came a suggestive and wholly irresistible clatter of dishes,
if Bab had not intercepted her.
“Gerry,” said the latter solemnly, “we must be careful not to say a
word about what happened in the library to Rosa Lee. You know how
superstitious she is. We would have her catching the next train for
home.”
Gerry nodded.
“Do you think we ought to tell Mrs. Fenwick?” she asked.
“Not yet,” said Bab hastily. “There really isn’t anything to tell yet,
you know. It’s just what we thought we felt or saw----”
“Or _smelled_!” shivered Gerry.
“Anyway, don’t let’s say anything to any one just yet,” finished Bab.
Gordon and Charlie regarded the speaker with interest.
“What’s all this, Bab?” demanded the former. “Where is the library and
what have I missed?”
“Not much,” said Bab--and jumped.
A bell jangled through the house, clanging brazenly above the noise
of the storm. The iron knocker on the door added to the din, striking
harshly, metal upon metal.
Bab smothered a startled exclamation and sprang toward the door. With a
swift motion she flung it wide open and peered out into the storm.
No one was there!