DANGER
‘Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse.’
――_Shakespeare._
Jim once more dipped his finger into the pot, and then proceeded to
suck it luxuriously.
“I say, you might leave just a little,” Palmer remonstrated. “Of course
if you’re very keen on it――――”
‘It’ was a brownish, extremely unattractive-looking preparation, of
a treacly nature, which Palmer had compounded with the intention of
smearing the trunks of the trees after dark, to entrap moths for his
collection. Jim protested virtuously:
“I’ve hardly touched it: you needn’t be so rottenly selfish.” He
returned to his stamp album, whose leaves presented that richly glossy
appearance which is imparted by an over-liberal use of gum. “I wonder
if the Batts could give me some stamps? They must have lots in the
house: the old captain must have sent letters from all kinds of
countries.”
“I don’t think you’d better ask,” said Grif. “I expect his grandson got
any there were.”
“They might tell me I could have his collection, if I asked,” remarked
Jim, thoughtfully.
“They wouldn’t. They keep all his things. They’re all together in the
room he used to have.”
“But you don’t even know that he collected stamps; and at any rate
there isn’t any harm in trying.”
“If I were you I would go up to the church to-morrow afternoon and ask
Mr. Bradley for some,” said Palmer, ironically. “_He’s_ sure to have a
lot.”
“To-morrow’s Sunday,” Jim objected.
“Oh, that won’t matter with such a friendly old chap.”
“The reason he got angry with you,” said Grif, “was because you
frightened him. I did it too, the first time I went.”
Palmer nodded. “He’s very easily frightened. There’s something queer
about him altogether.”
Grif frowned a little: he did not like his friends to be criticized. “I
don’t see how it’s your business, even if there is,” he said.
“There are some things that are everybody’s business,” returned Palmer,
wisely.
“What things?”
“Oh, all kinds of things.”
“He thinks Bradley must have done something wrong,” Edward interposed.
“He hasn’t,” said Grif, “and even if he had it wouldn’t be any business
of Palmer’s.”
“You don’t think Mr. Bradley is a burglar, do you, Balmer?” asked Ann,
in thrilled tones; for more than ever now she was willing to take
Palmer’s opinion upon any subject that happened to crop up.
Palmer seemed annoyed. “I don’t know what he is,” he answered shortly.
“I only said there was something queer about him. What are the letters
he’s always expecting, and which never come? And why does he want to go
at night and play on the organ? It must be because he can’t sleep. And
if he can’t sleep it may be because there is something on his mind to
keep him awake.”
“I think it’s rotten to talk like that,” Grif burst out indignantly.
“And I think all that sort of prying about and asking questions is
rotten too. You may call it being a detective, but I don’t like it, and
I don’t believe any decent boy would do it.”
Such an explosion, coming from such a quarter, was so unusual that
everybody stared.
Palmer coloured, and Grif instantly became filled with contrition.
“I’m sorry, Palmer,” he said quickly. “I know you’re not like that.
Only――why can’t you leave him alone?”
“I shouldn’t _tell_, even if I did find out,” said Palmer, coldly.
“That is, unless he was dangerous. And I believe he is,” he added with
a sudden change of tone. “I don’t see why otherwise he should have
wanted to hurt me to-day. And he _did_ want to――pretty badly. If you’d
just seen his eyes! I never saw anyone look like that before.”
“Jim and Ann, it’s bedtime!” Aunt Caroline stood upon the threshold,
surveying the assembly. “Grif, I think you had better go, too. In fact
we’ll all be going soon, for I’m sure nobody got much sleep last night.”
* * * * *
Undressing by candlelight, Grif that evening for the first time
regretted that he was not in the room with the other boys. For the
first time he remembered what Aunt Caroline had told him about his
sleeping quarters being so far away from those of the rest of the
household. It was true he had Pouncer with him, but he should have
liked somebody else as well, though nothing would have induced him to
confess this, or ask to be moved.
He felt a strange depression, a sort of shadow on his mind. The
loneliness and the darkness weighed upon him, and the sound of the
wind in the trees was unfriendly and forbidding. He was in a mood
when everything turns to gloom, and when the sense of proportion is
temporarily obliterated. He was sorry he had offended Palmer. Not
knowing that that curious boy had already found solace in an envious
appreciation of the methods of Doctor John Thorndyke, he magnified the
offence till it was driven from his memory by vaguer and more ominous
broodings. The physical lassitude which had been with him all day had
turned at last to a kind of mental distemper. He had left his candle
burning on a table by the bed, but the draught from the window bent and
bowed the flame, causing it to throw black shadows on the wallpaper,
and in this way bringing back to him, in a distorted and more terrible
form, much of what Mr. Bradley had said that afternoon. The vague,
fantastic danger Mr. Bradley had spoken of became a real danger. It was
curious how much more meaning seemed to have come into the organist’s
words now that Grif was alone with them in the silence of the sleeping
house. He felt very tired. A heaviness of sleep weighed upon his eyes
and on his brain, but a superstitious dread of what might happen
should he lose consciousness kept him awake and alert. He listened for
the sound of the flute, but the idea of hearing it had lost all beauty
for him now, and he only listened because he could not help doing so.
In his weariness, as he sat up against the propped pillows, his head
would begin to nod, and then, just as he was dropping off, his fear
would reawaken him. Every now and again his eyes slewed round, like the
eyes of a frightened dog, towards the looking-glass, as if it, too,
possessed a fatal fascination.
At length he blew out his candle. But when he glanced round again he
found he could still see the polished, reflecting surface of the glass,
and he buried his face under the bed-clothes.
The night was warm, with an oppressive, sultry stillness, and in a
little while he became bathed in perspiration and was obliged once
more to put his head out on the pillow. Then he got up and turned the
looking-glass towards the wall. At last, through sheer exhaustion,
he fell asleep, and his sleep grew deeper and deeper, though, from
his tossed limbs and restless movements, it might have been gathered
that it brought him little peace. Outside, on the landing, a clock
struck;――and Grif stirred uneasily.
It was perhaps some twenty minutes later when he sat up in bed.
Noiselessly, yet without hesitation, the slight, pallid figure threw
back the sheet and coverlet, and got out on to the floor. He went with
wide, yet sightless, eyes straight to the door, and turned the handle.
Soundlessly he stole downstairs, though not alone, for Pouncer was
following him――Pouncer quite awake, and not understanding in the least
the reason for this nocturnal ramble. Grif unlocked and unchained the
hall-door, and went out, Pouncer still following closely on his heels.
And just in time, for Grif pulled the door behind him and the latch
clicked.
He walked across the grass in the moonlight. The troubled look had left
his face, and he even smiled a little. The sound of a fitful wind that
had arisen washed through his dreams, like the tide of an enchanted
sea, and the sound was once more beautiful, and seemed to lead him on
and on. He passed the croquet-lawn and moved down the wooded slope
towards the road. The long wet grass reached above his ankles, and he
seemed to be guided by an invisible hand as he threaded his way between
the trees, while he listened to the song of the night:――
Swift, in the light of the stars,
Comes our darling, our sweet:
White on the dark green grass,
White are his feet.
Under the wrinkled old moon,
See, he pauses and stands:
Dew on his dark dim hair,
Dew on his hands.
Moonlight and starlight fall
Soft on his lifted face――
Lord of this kingdom of leaves,
Prince of this place!
Sing to our little prince!
Our angel, our lovely boy!
Pipe with a silver flute
A hymn of joy,
To welcome him into his kingdom
Of fountain and grove and lawn:
Pipe till the stars grow dim
In the light of dawn.
Prince Grif and his orange Pouncer,
That truest and dearest friend――
But hush!――the birds are awaking,
Our song must end.
Suddenly his foot struck against the root of a tree, and he stumbled
forward and awoke. He scrambled out of the bushes into which he had
fallen, while a cloud of pale moths fluttered about him. For a minute
or two the shock drove the blood thundering to his ears, and everything
wheeled round and round in a dizzy circle. Then terror gripped him.
Where was he? Who had brought him here? He gave a cry, and something
tugged at the jacket of his pyjamas, while a warm heavy body leaned
against him, and a warm tongue passed over his hands. It was Pouncer;
and in his relief Grif dropped down on his knees and hugged him, while
the bulldog licked his face and neck.
He knew now that he must have walked in his sleep. He was living
still, and this was the solid old earth beneath him, but for one brief
terrible moment he had imagined he was dead. The dew penetrated through
his light flannel clothing, and he felt it cold and pleasant on his
burning skin. He heard the cry of a bird he had frightened in falling;
he saw the pale moths settling down once more in the shadow of the
bushes.
He hurried back through the trees, till, beyond the croquet-lawn, he
saw the house standing square and white and strange――that sleeping
house out of which he had wandered. The freshness of dawn was in the
air. When he came up to the porch he found the door shut, and knew that
his adventure was not yet over.
He walked round the house, for he thought he might perhaps have come
out through a window, but all the windows on the ground-floor were
shuttered and latched. He would have to ring and awaken somebody. Then
another plan occurred to him, and he gathered a handful of gravel from
the drive, and stepping back from the porch threw in a small stone at
the boys’ bedroom window. He threw a second and a third, listening
between each, till at last he heard a movement. Directly afterwards a
head and shoulders leaned over the sill, and Grif whispered eagerly,
“Don’t make a noise. It’s me――Grif――I’ve been shut out. Come down and
let me in.”
The head was withdrawn, and Grif entered the porch. In a moment or two
the door was softly opened.
Grif slipped inside, followed by Pouncer, while Palmer, a lighted
candle in his hand, asked, “How on earth did you get out there? What
have you been doing? I thought at first it was one of those chaps from
the circus come back.”
“I walked in my sleep. Keep very quiet going upstairs; I don’t want
anybody to know.”
They crept up like mice, Palmer following Grif to his room. There he
put down the lighted candle on the dressing-table, and he himself sat
down on the side of the bed to consider this curious exploit.
Grif had been rummaging in a drawer in search of a clean sleeping-suit,
and he now began to change. “I’m wet through,” he said. “It’s the dew.
I was in the long grass and it was soaking wet.”
“But how did you get there?”
“I walked in my sleep. I’ve done it often before, though not lately,
not for more than a year. Are the others awake?”
“Edward and Jim? No. I was wakened because a stone hit me on the head.”
Grif slid between the bed-clothes while Palmer, with wrinkled forehead,
still gazed at him, as if uncertain what he should do next.
“Are you all right?” he asked doubtfully. “Are you sure I shouldn’t
fetch Miss Annesley or Miss Johnson? I mean, oughtn’t you to get
something to drink――brandy or something? How long were you out?”
“I don’t know. Not very long.... I’ll be all right thanks.... I was
frightened a little when I first woke up, because I didn’t know where I
was; but as soon as I saw Pouncer I knew.”
There was a silence till Grif added, “I’m awfully sorry, Palmer.”
“Sorry! What about? You couldn’t help it, could you?”
“Oh, I don’t mean about this: but――for being so beastly this
evening――what I said to you.”
“Oh, that! I’d forgotten what you said,” answered Palmer, truthfully.
“I don’t think it was fair to me, of course. I mean, I really _do_
think there’s something wrong about Bradley. For one thing, I know
he’s not here under his own name. Bradley is only a part of his name.
I found that out this afternoon. His real name is Tennant. I haven’t
told anybody else, and _he_ doesn’t know I know. I’m telling you in
confidence.”
“All right. And you will keep it a secret about my having walked in my
sleep?”
Palmer considered. “No, I won’t,” he said. “I’m going to tell Miss
Annesley in the morning. And I’m going to stay with you myself
to-night.”
“But!” Grif cried in astonishment and indignation.
Palmer patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t get in a bate. It’s not that
I want to tell but that I must. It’s too dangerous. You might just as
easily have gone out by the window as by the door, and if you had you
wouldn’t be talking to me now.”
“I wouldn’t have been killed,” said Grif stubbornly. “It’s not very
high. Besides, there’s grass below.”
“You’d have been badly hurt anyway. And you _might_ have been killed:
you might have fallen on your head.”
“But I won’t do it again. I told you I hadn’t, for more than a year;
and the doctor at home said I had outgrown it.”
“Well, you see you haven’t. I’m not going to risk it, Grif, so there’s
no use arguing. Of course, if you let me nail up your window to-morrow
so that it will only open a few inches, and let me lock your door from
the outside every night, I dare say that might do. But if I _do_ do
that it will be seen at once, so it will all come to the same in the
end.”
“I hate having my door locked from the outside.”
“_Some_thing must be done.”
Grif was silent.
“Do you think it would be a dreadful thing to die, Palmer?” he asked
suddenly.
The question was not of a kind Palmer was accustomed to, but he was
always ready to discuss a problem. “I think it would be dreadful to die
in a stupid sort of way like that. I think it’s all right running risks
for some purpose, and I’d run them myself fast enough; but this has no
purpose, it’s simply waste.”
“But suppose there was something you couldn’t avoid; some――some kind of
danger hanging over you? Suppose there was somebody who _wanted_ you to
die?”
“I’d find out who it was, and if I could manage it I’d jolly well see
that he died first.”
“Suppose it was somebody you couldn’t get at――somebody you _couldn’t_
kill?”
“If he could kill me, I could kill him:――it just depends on who’s
cleverest. Professor Moriarty was trying for Sherlock Holmes all the
time, but he didn’t get him: it wasn’t Sherlock who went down the
precipice.”
“But――――” Grif paused. Then he said, “Suppose you couldn’t kill him,
because he was already dead?”
Palmer’s lips closed tightly. “I don’t like that kind of thing,” he
said. “And it’s all rot, anyway.”
“I only said it,” Grif protested feebly.
“You didn’t only say it. Somebody’s been putting notions into your
head, and I know pretty well who it is.”
He relapsed into silence for a long time, while Grif watched him with
varied feelings, and watched the flickering candle that was growing
paler and paler in the broadening daylight. One of these feelings was
a desire to break the promise he had made yesterday afternoon to Mr.
Bradley. He felt extraordinarily weak and helpless, and Palmer, sitting
stolidly beside him, seemed, though there was but two years and a few
months between them, the embodiment of all that was strong and sane.
At last Palmer turned and looked straight into his eyes. “Will you
answer _one_ question if I put it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve made promises, of course. The boy who tried to raise the devil
got the kids to make promises. People of that sort always do. Was it
Mr. Bradley who put this idea into your head?”
“What idea?” asked Grif, faintly.
Palmer continued to look at him, his small, clear, brown eyes holding
Grif’s dark frightened ones. “It doesn’t matter,” he said with a
curious gentleness. “You needn’t break your word, for I know it was.
And what’s more, I know now――I think I know――why he is here, why he
came here.” Suddenly he flushed. “It’s a rotten shame! I’ll jolly soon
have him fired out of this.”
“You――you mustn’t do anything,” Grif whispered. “It’s awfully good of
you, Palmer. I mean, you’re awfully decent talking to me this way.
But――you mustn’t――――” His voice broke a little and he bit on his lower
lip to keep himself from crying.
Palmer again patted him on the shoulder. “Whatever I may do, you won’t
be in it, so you needn’t worry. And I’m not going to make a fuss, or
anything like that. Do you know that if I posted a certain letter
to-night you would never see your friend again.... At least, I believe
that――I’m almost convinced of it. But I’m going to get more solid proof
before I do anything.” His expression changed, and a smile came, first
in his eyes, and then spreading to his mouth. “Are you aware that the
sun is shining? You’re a nice chap keeping me talking here at this
hour. I’ll go and get my pillow.”
He yawned and got up, but Grif put out his hand and still held him.
“Don’t go for a minute. I don’t understand what you mean. You’re quite
wrong. I like Mr. Bradley very much. He has always been very decent
to me, and you mustn’t say anything to him, or do anything. Of course
I know you’re making it up, but――――” He relaxed his hold and his hand
dropped back on the bed. His face was very white, and Palmer, gazing
down at him, saw a sweat break out on his forehead.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, beginning to be frightened.
Grif made an effort. “I don’t feel very well, Palmer.... In the
morning――if you would tell――if you would send――――”
But the sentence was never finished, for Grif had fainted.