We all had lunch at Friars House, but were by no means a jovial party.
Sir James seemed worried and preoccupied, and Clement Leyland even
more reticent than usual. Moris Klaw talked, certainly, but his
conversation turned entirely upon the subject of the Borgias,
concerning which notorious family he was possessed of a stock of most
unsavoury anecdote. So realistic were his gruesome stories, delivered
in that rumbling whisper, wholly impossible to describe or imitate,
that every mouthful of food which I swallowed threatened to choke me.
Afterward we wandered idly about the beautiful old grounds, which bore
ineffaceable marks of monkish cultivation. Sir James, who was walking
ahead with Moris Klaw and Isis, suddenly turned and waited for me. I
had been examining a sundial with much interest, but I now walked on
and joined our host.
“Mr. Searles,” he said, “may I press you to remain here over the
week-end?”
“That’s very good of you,” I replied. “I think I could manage it, and
I should enjoy the stay immensely.”
I concluded that Moris Klaw also was remaining, and consequently was
surprised when a short time later he drew me aside into a rose-covered
arbour and announced that he was leaving by the four-o’clock train.
“But I shall be back in the morning, Mr. Searles,” he assured me,
wagging his finger mysteriously; “I shall be back in the morning!”
“And Miss Klaw?”
“She, too, goes by the four-o’clock train and will not be
returning--for the present.”
“I understand that Sir James is taking up his residence here at Friars
House from now onward?”
“It is so, my friend; he deserts Grange. The servants come over here
to-day. Is he not well advised? Mr. Clement has all along recommended
that this shall be his residence. He was against it, the idea of
inhabiting Grange, from the first. He is wise, that Mr. Clement. He
has lived in these parts so long. He knows that Grange is haunted, is
uninhabitable.”
Later, then, Moris Klaw and Isis took their departure; and just as the
car was about to drive off my eccentric friend removed his brown
bowler and sprayed his bald brow with verbena. He bent to me:
“Day and night,” he whispered, huskily, “do not lose sight of him, Sir
James! Above all, allow him not to _explore!_”
With that the car drove off, and I stood looking after it, wondering,
utterly mystified. On the steps behind me stood Clement Leyland and
his cousin. The latter’s gaze followed the course of the car along the
picturesque winding road until it became lost from view. I thought I
heard him sigh.
Ensued an uneventful day and night. Life was pleasant enough at Friars
House, if a trifle dull; and Sir James seemed unsettled, whilst his
disquietude was reflected in his cousin. The latter, now that his
active labours in preparing this new residence for the baronet were
checked, seemed a man at a loss what to do with himself. His was one
of those quietly ardent temperaments, I divined, and idleness palled
upon him. Apparently he had no profession, and although I presumed
that he had some residence of his own in the neighbourhood, he,
apparently, was prepared indefinitely to prolong his stay at Friars
House. I think his companionship was welcome to Sir James, for the
latter was yet strange to the new duties of a landed gentleman.
The next morning brought Moris Klaw, and I learned with ever-growing
surprise that he had made arrangements to spend the following week
beneath the hospitable roof of Friars House.
I have nothing to record of interest up to the time I left; but often
during the ensuing six days the problem of the haunting of Grange, and
the mystery of Moris Klaw’s protracted visit to Friars House came
between me and my work. Then on the Saturday morning arrived a
telegram:
“Can you join us for week-end--car will meet 2:30. Wire reply. Best
wishes.--Leyland.”
I determined to accept the invitation; for respecting the nature of
Moris Klaw’s business at Friars House--and that he had some other
motive than ordinary in sojourning there I was persuaded--my curiosity
knew no bounds. Accordingly, I packed my grip, and at about five
o’clock on a delightful afternoon found myself taking tea in a
cloister-like apartment of the former Friary.
“Grange,” said Sir James, in answer to a question of mine, “is shut
up.”
“It is shut, yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “What a pity! What a pity!”
In the course of the day occurred incidents which I have since
perceived to have been significant. I will pass over them, however,
and hasten to what I may term the catastrophe of this very singular
case.
Four of us sat down to dinner in an apartment which clearly had been
the ancient refectory of the monks. Clement Leyland, who had arrived
barely in time to dress, looked haggard and worried. I determined that
he had some private troubles of his own, and beneath his quiet
geniality I thought I could detect a sort of brooding gloom. His pale,
clean-shaven face, so like yet so unlike that of his cousin, was a
mask that ill repaid study; yet I knew that the real Clement Leyland
was a stranger to me, perhaps to all of us.
I was most anxious to learn if Moris Klaw had divulged the secret of
the hidden chamber at Grange to Sir James; and I was unspeakably
curious concerning the box of which I had had but a glimpse--the box
that he had found there. But he baffled my curiosity at every point.
Have you experienced that sense of impending calamity which sometimes
heralds tragic things? It was with me that night, throughout dinner;
and afterward, when we entered the library and sat over our cigars, it
grew portentously. I felt that I stood upon the brink of a precipice.
And literally I was not in great error. Moris Klaw, to the evident
discomfort of Sir James, brought the conversation around to the
subject of the haunting. I observed him to glance at his watch, with a
rather odd expression upon his vellum-hued face.
“Is it not singular,” he said, “how poor spectres are confined, like
linnets, to their cages? They seem, these spooks, never to roam. That
laughing demon of Grange--look at him. He remains in that empty,
desolate house; he----”
There was a dreadful interruption.
Commencing with a sort of guttural rattle, out upon the cloisteresque
stillness burst a peal of wicked laughter.
It rang throughout the room; it poured fear into my every fibre. It
died away--and was gone.
Sir James, clutching the leather-covered chair-arms, looked like a man
of stone. I was frankly terrorized. Moris Klaw stood behind me, by a
bookcase, him I could not see. But Clement Leyland’s face I can never
forget. It was positively deathlike. His eyes seemed starting from
their sockets, and his teeth chattered horribly.
“God in Heaven!” he whispered, brokenly. “What is it? O God! What is
it! Take it away--take it away!”
Then Moris Klaw spoke, slowly:
“It is for _you_ to take it away, Mr. Leyland!”
Clement Leyland rose from his seat; he swayed like a drunken man, and
there was madness in the glaring eyes that he turned in Klaw’s
direction.
“You--you----” he gasped.
“I--I----” rumbled Moris Klaw, sternly, and took a step forward; “I
have entered the Jacobite hiding place at Grange, and there I found a
box! Ah! you glare! glare on, my friend! I returned that box to where
I found it; but first I examined its contents! What! that demon
laughter frightens you! Then descend, Mr. Leyland, descend and bring
him out--the one who laughs!”
Rigidly, Sir James sat in his chair; I, too, seemed to be palsied. But
at sight of the next happening we both stood up. Moris Klaw stamped
heavily upon the oaken floor in a deep recess; then applied his weight
to a section of the seemingly solid stone wall.
It turned, as on a pivot, revealing a dark cavity.
He stood there, a bizarre figure, pointing down into the blackness.
“Descend, my friend!” he cried. “The one who laughs is upon the
seventh step!”
“_The seventh step!_”
In a whisper the words came from Clement Leyland. A draft of damp,
cavernous air blew into the library out of the opening.
“Descend, my friend!”
Remorselessly, Moris Klaw repeated the words. In the centre of the
room, Clement Leyland, a pitiable sight, stood staring--and
hesitating. Suddenly his cousin spoke.
“Don’t go, Clement!” he whispered.
The other turned to him, dazedly.
“Don’t go--down that place. But--O God! I understand at last, or
partly.… _Quit!_ I give you half an hour!”
Sir James sank back into his chair and buried his face in his hands;
Moris Klaw never moved from where he stood by the cavity. But Clement
Leyland, with bowed head, walked from the room.