With that abruptness characteristic of the coast and season, a high wind
had sprung up since the party had separated. Now a continuous booming
filled the night, telling how the wrath of the North Atlantic spent
itself upon the western rocks.
To a town-dweller, more used to the vaguely soothing hum of the
metropolis, this grander music of the elements was a poor sedative.
Sleep evaded me, tired though I was, and I presently found myself
drifting into that uncomfortable frame of mind between dreaming and
waking, wherein one's brain becomes a torturing parrot-house, filled
with some meaningless reiteration.
"The riddle of the ragged staff--the riddle of the ragged staff," was
the phrase that danced maddeningly through my brain. It got to that pass
with me, familiar enough to victims of insomnia, when the words began to
go to a sort of monotonous melody.
Thereupon, I determined to light a candle and read for a while, in the
hope of inducing slumber.
The old clock down in the hall proclaimed the half-hour. I glanced at my
watch. It was half-past one. The moaning of the wind and the wild song
of the sea continued unceasingly.
Then I dropped my paper--and listened.
Amid the mighty sounds which raged about Ragstaff Park it was one slight
enough which had attracted my attention. But in the elemental music
there was a sameness which rendered it, after a time, negligible.
Indeed, I think sleep was not far off when this new sound detached
itself from the old--like the solo from its accompaniment.
Something had fallen, crashingly, within the house.
It might be some object insecurely fastened which had been detached
in the breeze from an open window. And, realising this, I waited and
listened.
For some minutes the wind and the waves alone represented sound. Then my
ears, attuned to this stormy conflict, and sensitive to anything apart
from it, detected a faint scratching and tapping.
My room was the first along the corridor leading to the west wing, and
therefore the nearest to the landing immediately above the hall. I
determined that this mysterious disturbance proceeded from downstairs.
At another time, perhaps, I might have neglected it, but to-night,
and so recently following upon Lorian's story of the attempt upon his
father's studio, I found myself keenly alive to the burglarious
possibilities of Ragstaff.
I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and, having extinguished the
candle, was about to open the door when I observed a singular thing.
A strong light--which could not be that of the moon, for ordinarily the
corridor beyond was dark--shone under the door!
Even as I looked in amazement it was gone.
Very softly I turned the knob.
Careful as I was, it slipped from my grasp with a faint _click_. To
this, I think, I owed my failure to see more than I did see. But what I
saw was sufficiently remarkable.
Cloud-banks raced across the sky tempestuously, and, as I peered over
the oaken balustrade down into the hall, one of these impinged upon the
moon's disc and, within the space of two seconds or less, had wholly
obscured it. Upon where a long, rectangular patch of light, splashed
with lozenge-shaped shadows spread from a mullioned window across
the polished floor, crept a band of blackness--widened--claimed
half--claimed the whole--and left the hall in darkness.
Yet, in the half-second before the coming of the cloud, and as I first
looked down, I had seen something--something indefinable. All but
immediately it was lost in the quick gliding shadow--yet I could be sure
that I had seen--what?
A gleaming, metallic streak--almost I had said a sword--which leapt from
my view into the bank of gloom!
Passing the cloud, and the moon anew cutting a line of light through the
darkness of the hall, nothing, no one, remained to be seen. I might have
imagined the presence of the shining blade, rod, or whatever had seemed
to glitter in the moon-rays; and I should have felt assured that such
was the case but for the suspicion (and it was nearly a certainty) that
a part of the shadow which had enwrapped the mysterious appearance had
been of greater depth than the rest--more tangible; in short, had been
no shadow, but a substance--the form of one who lurked there.
Doubtful how to act, and unwilling to disturb the house without good
reason, I stood hesitating at the head of the stairs.
A grating sound, like that of a rusty lock, and clearly distinguishable
above the noise occasioned by the wind, came to my ears. I began slowly
and silently to descend the stairs.
At the foot I paused, looking warily about me. There was no one in the
hall.
A new cloud swept across the face of the moon, and utter darkness
surrounded me again. I listened intently, but nothing stirred.
Briefly I searched all those odd nooks and corners in which the rambling
place abounded, but without discovering anything to account for the
phenomena which had brought me there at that hour of the night. The big
doors were securely bolted, as were all the windows. Extremely puzzled,
I returned to my room and to bed.
In the morning I said nothing to our host respecting the mysterious
traffic of the night, since nothing appeared to be disturbed in any way.
"Did you hear it blowing?" asked Colonel Reynor during breakfast. "The
booming of the waves sounded slap under the house. Good job the wind has
dropped this morning."
It was, indeed, a warm and still morning, when on the moorland strip
beyond the long cornfield, where the thick fir-tufts marked the warren
honeycomb, partridges might be met with in many coveys, basking in the
sandy patches.
There were tunnels through the dense bushes to the west, too, which led
one with alarming suddenness to the very brink of the cliff. And here
went scurrying many a hare before the armed intruder.
Lorian and I worked around by lunch-time to the spinneys east of
the cornfield, and, nothing loath to partake of the substantial
hospitalities of Ragstaff, made our way up to the house. There is a kind
of rock-garden from which you must approach from that side. It affords
an uninterrupted view of the lower part of the grounds from the lawn up
to the terrace.
Only two figures were in sight; and they must have been invisible from
any other point, as we, undoubtedly, were invisible to them.
They were those of a man and a girl. They stood upon the steps
leading down from the lawn to the rose-garden. It was impossible to
misunderstand the nature of the words which the man was speaking. But
I saw the girl turn aside and shake her head. The man sought to take
her hand and received a further and more decided rebuff.
We hurried on. Lorian, though I avoided looking directly at him,
was biting his lip. He was very pale, too. And I knew that he had
recognized, as I had recognized, Sybil Reynor and Felix Hulme.