I TAKE THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
I was too much excited to go home by train, though I knew that my wife
would be waiting up for me. I felt the need of physical motion; the
idea of sitting down in a railway carriage, and being compelled to
keep still because of the people with which at this time of night it
was sure to be filled, was unendurable. The confinement and the close
air would stifle me. The advantage of walking through streets more or
less crowded is that you can be alone if you choose. Every person you
meet or pass is so wrapt up in his own affairs that no notice is taken
of you. You may wave your arms, flourish your stick or umbrella,
mutter to yourself, even talk aloud, without attracting conspicuous
attention. An idle fellow or two might think you eccentric--that is
all. In a railway carriage or an omnibus such license and freedom are
impossible; you cannot shift your seat without drawing all eyes upon
you, in a certain sense you become the property of other passengers,
who would be likely to regard you with alarmed suspicion, and would
probably conclude that you were an escaped lunatic. In such
circumstances you are deprived of the power of devoting yourself to
the one absorbing subject which occupies your mind.
"I shall walk home," I said to Bob.
He nodded, as though he understood why at so late an hour I
deliberately inflicted upon myself a good four mile tramp. For a
quarter of that distance we proceeded in silence, and only then did it
occur to me that Bob was coming out of his way. I made an observation
to this effect.
"If you don't object to my company," he said, "I shall be glad to walk
with you."
"What do you think of it all?" I asked.
"I don't know what to think," was his reply.
"No delusion, eh, Bob?" I said, in a tone of sarcastic triumph. "You
will not hunt up any more cases of spectral illusions to prove that I
am on the road to madness."
"No, Ned. Don't harp upon my lack of faith; the doubts I entertained
were reasonable doubts after all. It is altogether a most awful
mystery, but I accept it, and place myself at your service. Heaven
only knows if I can be of any assistance to you, but it may be that
even the renewal of our old friendship, and our coming together after
a separation of forty years, are not due to chance. If so, I stand
within the charmed circle."
"It was not by chance we met, Bob; in the smallest incident that has
occurred in connection with that house--which I can see now with my
mind's eye, dark, silent, spirit-haunted--I perceive the hand of fate.
You _can_ be of service to me."
"In what way?"
"I wish to take the house in Lamb's Terrace!"
A startled exclamation escaped his lips, but he said immediately
afterward, as if in apology, "Yes, Ned, yes."
"I should say, rather, that I wish to have the refusal for a certain
time of taking it for a term of years. This can be managed, I think,
through you, and the death of your client may make it easier than it
would otherwise have been. Say to your employer that I have not made
up my mind whether it will suit me, and that I want a few weeks for
consideration. Pending my decision, I will pay three months' rent, and
at the expiration of that period, if I do not then take it for a term
of years, it will be open to another tenant. I have no doubt that Mr.
Gascoigne has some sort of provisional power in the matter, and that
he will be glad of the chance there is in my offer of securing a
permanent and responsible tenant. Will you undertake to carry this
through?"
"Yes."
"Then you may as well walk all the way home with me, and I will write
a check to-night, which you can give to Mr. Gascoigne in the morning.
There is another thing which I must seriously consider. On the two
occasions to-day when we and your nephew, and this specter of Fate
gliding at my heels, were together, he was troubled by the fancy that
I had brought some creature with me of which we made no mention. Is
this new to you, or has your nephew expressed himself to a like effect
on other occasions?"
"It is quite new to me. Ronald has never had such a fancy before."
"The natural conclusion, therefore, is that he was conscious of the
presence of this apparition, without being able to define its nature.
There is here a chain of psychological circumstances which would not
be admissible in a court of law, but which I, with my strange
experiences, cannot but believe to be of supreme importance. I have an
odd impression upon me that the mysterious adventure in which I am
engaged has lasted for some considerable time, whereas scarcely two
days have elapsed since my introduction to beings of another world. I
seem to be familiarized with mysterious incident, and I am so prepared
that I doubt if anything would astonish me. Reflect, Bob, upon the
links of a chain which is dragging me on, and which is not yet
completely formed. Fate directs my steps, through the agency of my
wife, to the office of Mr. Gascoigne; link number one. You, my old
schoolfellow, whom I never thought to meet again, are employed in that
office; link number two. My wife, against my wish, insists upon
looking at a house to let in Lamb's Terrace, which I am certain will
not suit us; link number three. These three links, to perfectly
disinterested observers, would appear to be the result of the merest
chance. We know that it is not so; we know that there is here at work
a supernatural agency, every step in which is directed by an unseen
power. You renew your old friendship with me, and accompany us home,
and there you attempt to dissuade us from having anything to do with
the house in Lamb's Terrace. Your kindly efforts are thrown away; link
number four. You may ask me here how this seemingly trivial incident
can be made into a link. My answer is that you are the uncle of Ronald
Elsdale, and that when we left Mr. Gascoigne's office, had you not
followed us and accepted my invitation to accompany us home, the
natural probability is that I should not at the present moment have
known of the existence of your nephew, who stands now a foremost stone
in this monument of mystery. My wife and I visit the haunted house,
and there we behold two apparitions, only one of which makes itself
visible to her. I perceive two reasons for this. The first is, that
she shall be so horrified by what she sees as to give up all idea of
taking the house, and perhaps of ever going near it again. The second
is, that I am the person appointed to carry this dark mystery to its
as yet unknown end. The apparition of the girl and the cat form link
number five. I visit your house this evening, and make the
acquaintance of Ronald Elsdale; link number six. On this occasion, and
on the occasion of my seeing him again in his own house an hour ago,
he has a troubled consciousness of a spiritual presence--the presence
of the specter now gliding at our feet; link number seven. The eighth
link is fashioned from the circumstance that the young lady whom
Ronald Elsdale loved and loves is said to have met her death in the
house in Lamb's Terrace."
"You have reasoned all this out," said Bob, "in a most wonderful way."
"It is not I who reason it out. I am conscious of the extent of my own
natural powers, and it would be impossible for me to bring forward
these links and to logically connect them were I not spiritually
directed. What is occupying my mind just now is the question whether I
ought to take Ronald Elsdale into my confidence without waiting for
further developments?"
Bob's reply was very humble. "Whatever you decide upon, Ned, will be
right. The fatalist never doubts that the least incident in his life
could have been otherwise than it is."
"Truly," I said, "I am in the position of a fatalist, and once a step
is decided upon I shall not hesitate to take it, and shall not
question its wisdom. By to-morrow morning the question will be
answered for me."
My wife opened the street door for us.
"Why, who would have thought of seeing you, Mr. Millet!" she
exclaimed. "But come in, come in; there's a bit of supper for you.
Now, you two keeping together at this time of night shows what friends
you must have been when you were boys. I hope you've had a pleasant
evening."
"Rather an exciting one," I said. "We have been at a fire."
"A fire! Where?"
"In Stanmore Street; a long way from here."
"No one hurt, I hope?"
"An unfortunate gentleman lost his life in the fire. It is rather
curious, Maria, that this gentleman should have been the owner of the
house we looked over in Lamb's Terrace yesterday."
The news made her grave. "There is nothing but trouble connected with
that dreadful place," she said. "But there, I don't want to think of
it. I'd have given a good deal never to have set foot in it."
Before Bob left I wrote out the check for Mr. Gascoigne, and when I
went to bed I was kept awake for a long time by thinking whether I
ought to take Ronald Elsdale immediately into my confidence. I fell
asleep with this question in my mind, and when I awoke in the morning
I decided that it would be first advisable that I should ascertain
some particulars of the last tenant, and of the death of the young
lady, Beatrice. It was not an easy task I now set myself, and I felt
that there was little chance of success, if I attempted it unaided.
Desultory inquiries could lead to no satisfactory result, and I
therefore determined to enlist the services of a private inquiry
agent. Casting my mind over the most likely person to assist me, I
recollected that a friend some years ago had need of the services of
such a person, and had employed one Mr. Dickson, with good effect.
Looking through the columns of a morning paper I saw Mr. Dickson's
advertisement; and at eleven o'clock I set out for his office, which
was situated in Arundel Street, Strand. On my doorstep I confronted a
telegraph boy with a telegram for me. It was from Bob, and it ran as
follows:
Arranged house, Lamb's Terrace; yours for three months.
My interview with Mr. Dickson was soon over. I explained to him what I
wanted done, and he undertook the commission for a specified sum. It
was arranged that he should give me his report in writing, and he
promised to set about the inquiry without delay.
"Will it lead to anything further?" he asked.
"It is quite probable," I replied; "but at present this is all I
require of you."
Two days afterward I received his report.