John Seward Mervyn lay back in his accustomed armchair, and--looked.
The room was of medium size, partly panelled, and partly hung with dark
red papering. It was low ceiled, and the bending beams between the
strips of whitewash were almost black. This added to the gloominess of
the apartment whether by day or night; and now it was night. To be
precise it was the stroke of midnight.
A bright fire glowed and flared in the wide, old-world chimney grate,
but even this failed altogether to dispel a certain suggestion of the
hauntings of vague, shadowy evil influences that seemed to be in the
atmosphere. The lamplight too, was cheerful enough, and yet not. It
would have been, anywhere else, but here it seemed that any element of
cheerfulness must somehow infallibly miss its way.
The moan of the winter wind surged around the gables of the old house,
rising now and then to a most doleful howling, and within, beams and
rafters cracked, breaking out loudly in new and unexpected places. Also
in a manner somewhat nerve-trying to one who sat there in the ghostly
midnight solitude--as this one sat, and he in the full consciousness
that for years and years past nobody had been found to inhabit this
house even rent free and for the sole consideration of residing within
the same. And he was trying the experiment.
John Seward Mervyn was a man who prided himself on being an absolute and
cynical sceptic with regard to the supernatural, and he was poor.
Dreadful tales were afloat with regard to this particular tenement, but
at such he laughed. Nobody had been able to inhabit it even for weeks.
Several had made the attempt, allured by the inducement of rent free.
They had remained just long enough to begin to congratulate themselves
upon such a find--and then--out they had gone, bag and baggage, without
so much as a day's notice. Several in succession; and what they had
seen--or heard--somehow or other none had been willing--or able--to
disclose. But the present occupant had been in possession for some
months, to the marvel of the neighbourhood.
Now he sat there at dead midnight in absolute solitude. Not a soul was
within call; the nearest habitations were two or three labourers'
cottages on the further side of a wooded hill. His thoughts were of the
past, and they were not pleasant, those of the past seldom are. A
couple of pipes were on the table at his elbow, and a tobacco jar--
likewise a square whisky bottle, a syphon and a tumbler, but of this he
had partaken but little. But somehow he felt his solitude to-night as
he had never felt it since he had entered on possession. To-night he
felt he would have given something for human companionship in almost any
shape. The winter wind howled without, not loud but inexpressibly
dismal. And he sat, and--looked.
Looked! At what?
In a corner of the room was a door--a massive door. It had a curious
old-world, wrought-iron handle. And at this he was looking--gazing, in
fact, more than intently. Was it slowly turning?
He could have sworn that it was. Well, what, then? The door was
securely locked, the key was in a very safe place. And the door led
nowhere and from nowhere. It led, in fact, to a vault-like underground
cellar whose solid walls were totally devoid of outlet. When he had
entered on possession he had exhaustively verified this, and having thus
satisfied himself had laughed all the startling and shadowy
possibilities which popular report ascribed to the place to utter scorn.
And yet, now to-night, he could have sworn that the handle of this door
was slowly turning.
To anybody less sceptical--less unaffectedly and wholesouledly
sceptical--there was that in the conviction which would have set up a
blood-chilling, hair-raising effect. The utter loneliness of the place,
the midnight sounds, the moaning of the doleful winter wind, the
crackings and creakings of the ghostly old house, the dreadful legends
that centred round that very vault, of which the movement of this very
door handle was a preliminary incident--would have been sufficient to
have driven out such into the pitiless winter night rather than remain
sitting there--on the watch.
On the watch--for what? Could a spectral hand undo that lock? Then the
watcher rubbed his eyes and looked again. Certainly the handle had
turned. Its broad iron loop had been horizontal before, now it was at
an angle of forty-five. Of that he was as sure as that he was alive and
sitting there. And then he remembered that--this was the night.
It doesn't matter what day of the month it was. Manifestations were
liable to occur at any time, and sporadically, but there were two nights
in the year when--Well he had obtained a vague inkling as to what might
be expected, but the last of these two dates had befallen prior to his
occupation. This was the second of them within the year. This was the
night.
"Now this is all unutterable bosh," Mervyn said to himself. "I'll have
another drink anyhow. Then I'll turn in."
He reached for the whisky bottle, and filled up. Yet he was conscious
of a feeling as though a chill were running down him from head to foot,
notwithstanding that the fire was glowing with a heat that was almost
fierce; and with the hissing squirt of the syphon into the tumbler there
mingled a sound as though something or somebody were shuffling or
groping behind that heavily locked door. He took a long pull at his
tumbler, almost emptying it. Then he looked again at the broad iron
loop handle. Its straight lower end, which before had stood at an angle
of forty five, was now vertical.
His eyes dilated upon the phenomenon. The cold chill that ran through
his system seemed to intensify. Mervyn, though by no means a total
abstainer was a temperate man--so it was not that. Well, the obvious
thing was to go and get the key, and open the door and satisfy himself.
But, for the life of him he--could not.
No. He could not. He sat staring more and more wildly with dilated
eyes. He was even horribly conscious of a slow pallor creeping over his
face. What did it mean? The whole atmosphere of the room seemed
charged with some evil influence. An owl hooted melodiously outside.
It was answered by another. This seemed in a measure to break the
spell, for he loved birds and bird voices, and the hooting of owls in
the dark woods overhanging the long lake-like pond behind his dwelling
was a sound that often drew him forth on moonlight nights to stand on
the sluice and listen for an hour at a time. There was to him nothing
boding or sinister in the voices of the night birds, any more than there
was in the jubilant shout of the cuckoo by day, or the twanging of the
nightingale.
He looked again. Certainly that door handle was moving, and it could be
moved by no mortal hand. Yet to make sure, he found his voice.
"Any one there?" he called, and as he did so he was conscious of a
suspicion of a quake in his voice.
For answer only a soft drive of sleet against the curtained window, and
through it he could swear that the door handle slowly creaked. The door
itself stood shadowy in the gloom of the corner where the light only
half reached.
Then something moved. For the life of him the watcher could not repress
a start, a thrill of the nerves. But the sound, the movement, did not
come from the corner whereon his tense gaze was fixed. There was a
little black kitten curled up asleep in an armchair opposite the one in
which he was seated--a tiny ball of woolly fluff, which during its short
life had been the regular companion of his lonely evenings, and of which
he was almost humanly fond. It, now, was uncurling itself with a sudden
celerity totally foreign to the usual deliberation of its kind on
awakening from sleep. Its round eyes were wide open, and a crescendo
fire of shrill growls were proceeding from its little throat. Its back
was arched, and its fur all standing up, and--its gaze too, was fixed
upon that door in the shadowy corner. Then it spat, retreating further
and further till it was against the back of the chair, for all the world
as though to repel the onslaught of its natural and hereditary enemy--
dog.
"The fact is," thought Mervyn, noting this, "I have been too much shut
up with myself, and the utter, infernal loneliness of life here is
eating into my nerves." But the sensible side of this sceptical
reflection was undermined by another--that there are occasions when
animals can see what we cannot. And this tiny creature was showing
unmistakable and increasing signs of perturbation and alarm.
He spoke to it--softly, caressingly--then went over and picked it up.
As he returned with it to his own chair it struggled violently as though
to escape--a thing it had never done--growling the while with redoubled
intensity. And his own chair was nearer to that door.
"Now Poogie, don't be a little fool," he apostrophised, holding it
tighter. But the tiny creature became almost frantic, striking its
claws into his hand. He released it, and it darted like lightning into
the far corner of the room, where it crouched, still growling.
For all his scepticism the man was conscious of a chill feeling in the
region of the spine. He reached out a hand for the square bottle. The
hand shook, and glass clinked against glass more than once as he filled
out a liberal measure. This he tossed off, and as he glanced again
towards the centre of attention the glass fell from his hand on to the
table. _The door had opened_.
Had opened--was opening. As yet but a few inches of dense black slit,
but it seemed to be gaining in width. Mervyn gazed at it with dilated
eyes, and as he did so he realised that the blood had receded from his
face, leaving it cold--clammy. What on earth--or beyond the earth--
could have opened that door, secured as it was with a solid lock, the
key of which was at that moment safe within one of the drawers of his
writing table? What on earth--or from beyond the earth--was he going to
behold when that door should be opened to its full width? Moved by a
natural instinct of material defence, he backed towards the fireplace--
still without taking his gaze from that slowly opening door--and bent
down as though to seize the poker, but refrained, as the conviction
flooded his mind that whatever it might be that he was about to meet
certainly no material weapon would be available against it. Again he
found his voice.
"Any one there?" he repeated, this time conscious of very much more than
a suspicion of a quaver in his voice.
As if in answer, the door noiselessly opened further. The black gap now
occupied half the doorway. And then, while he was meditating a frantic
rush forward to make one desperate effort at clearing up the mystery
whatever it might be, something occurred to divert the awful tensity of
apprehension which had about reached its climax.
Through the doleful, long drawn howling of the winter wind and the
rattle of sleet, came a cry. A cry--ever so faint--distant--but just
audible; a cry, as of distress, of utter, dire, and hopeless extremity--
and it came from without. And it was clearly and unmistakably human.