“Tell me what happened--if you dare tell it,” I said.
“You were abroad, and so you wouldn’t be likely to hear of the fire at
The Grange,” said my friend, after a pause.
“I heard nothing of it.”
“It took place only two days before last Christmas. I had been in the
south of France, where I had spent a month or two with my mother,--she
cannot stand a winter at home,--and I had promised Sylvia to return to
The Grange for Christmas. When I got to Northavon I found her and her
mother and their servants at the Priory Hotel. The fire had taken place
the previous night, and they found the hotel very handy when they hadn’t
a roof of their own over their heads. Well, we dined together, and were
as jolly as was possible under the circumstances until bedtime. I had
actually said ‘Good night’ to Sylvia before I recollected what had taken
place the previous Christmas Eve in the same house. I rushed upstairs,
and found Sylvia in the act of entering the room--that fatal room. When
I implored of her to choose some other apartment, she only laughed at
first, and assured me that she wasn’t superstitious; but when she saw
that I was serious--I was deadly serious, as you can believe, Jim----”
“I can--I can.”
“Well, she agreed to sleep in her mother’s room, and I went away
relieved. So soon as I returned to the fire in the dining-room I began
to think of poor Tom Singleton. I felt curiously excited, and I knew
that it would be useless for me to go to bed,--in fact, I made up my
mind not to leave the dining-room for some hours, at any rate, and when
the landlord came to turn out the lights I told him he might trust me
to do that duty for him. He left me alone in the room about half-past
eleven o’clock. When the sound of his feet upon the oaken stairs died
away I felt as fearful as a child in the dark. I lit another cigar and
walked about the room for some time. I went to the window that opened
upon the old Priory ground, and, seeing that the night was a fine one,
I opened the door and strolled out, hoping that the cool air would do me
good. I had not gone many yards across the little patch of green before
I turned and looked up at the house--at the last window, the window of
that room. A fire had been lighted in the room early in the evening,
and its glow shone through the white blind. Suddenly that faint glow
increased to a terrific glare,--a red glare, Jim,--and then there
came before my eyes for a moment the shadow of two figures upon the
blind,--one the figure of a woman, the other--God knows what it was. I
rushed back to the room, but before I had reached the door I heard the
horrible laughter once again. It seemed to come from that room and
to pass on through the air into the distance across the river. I ran
upstairs with a light, and found Sylvia and her mother standing together
with wraps around them at the door of the room. ‘Thank God, you are
safe!’ I managed to cry. ‘I feared that you had returned to the room.’
‘You heard it--that awful laughter?’ she whispered. ‘You heard it, and
you saw something--what was it?’ I gently forced her and her mother
back to their room, for the servants and the landlord’s family were now
crowding into the corridor. They, too, had heard enough to alarm them.”
“You went to the room?”
“The scene of that dreadful morning was repeated. The door was locked on
the inside. We broke it in and found a girl lying dead on the floor, her
face contorted just as poor Singleton’s was. She was Sylvia’s maid,
and it was thought that, on hearing that her mistress was not going to
occupy the room, she had gone into it herself on account of the fire
which had been lighted there.”
“And the doctor said----?”
“Cardiac attack--the same as before--singular coincidence! I need
scarcely say that we never slept again under that accursed roof. Poor
Sylvia! She was overwhelmed at the thought of how narrow her escape had
been.”
“Did you notice anything remarkable about the room--about the shutters
of the window?” I asked.