The Mysterious Light
It was some moments before I could think clearly, so real and vivid had
that vision been. I threw out my arms to assure myself that I was still
in bed; I could scarcely believe that I was not really shivering behind
the hedge, staring across at that lighted window and the dreadful drama
it revealed. I was bathed in perspiration and yet felt chilled to the
very marrow.
Indeed, my teeth were chattering as I groped my way to the light, turned
it on, and looked at my watch. It was nearly one o'clock. The night was
clear and pleasant, with a faint breeze stirring. There was no moon, but
the stars were shining so brightly that one looked for it instinctively.
I knew it was no use to return to bed until my nerves were quieter; and,
indeed, that vision had banished all desire for sleep; so I filled my
pipe, lighted it, drew up a chair and sat down by the open window. The
street below was deserted; and for an instant I found myself wondering
that it was not thronged with people, roused by the scream which had
awakened me. Then I remembered that there had been no scream, that I had
simply dreamed it.
But I had only to close my eyes to see again that lighted window and the
shadows on the blind. It seemed even clearer to me than it had been in
the dream. I could see every detail of the struggle, and I opened my
eyes abruptly so that I might escape the end. There was something
supernatural about it; I had never dreamed a dream like that before--a
dream which, waking, I could rehearse at pleasure. Perhaps it was not
wholly a vision; perhaps it had some foundation in reality, some
telepathic origin. I had read of such things, sceptically; but some of
the phenomena of thought transference had, I knew, been accepted,
reluctantly enough, even by the scientific world.
Was it not possible that Marcia Lawrence had been lured to the Kingdon
cottage or taken there against her will? Who could say how that old
injury done the Endicotts would flower and fruit? Who could say what
hatred, what desire for vengeance, rankled in the hearts of the
Kingdons? I remembered how the face of the maid had darkened with
malice, how her eyes had blazed with infernal joy, as she stood there in
the door of the library, thinking herself unseen. Her sister I knew
nothing of, but if they resembled each other as sisters usually do, I
could well believe them capable of any cruelty. Was it not possible that
Marcia Lawrence was in their hands? Was it not possible that my dream
possessed a basis of reality? I had been thinking of her all the
evening; I had gone to sleep with the problem of her disappearance still
on my mind; I had been studying her photograph--I was, in a word, in
spiritual touch with her, responsive to any suggestion emanating from
her--we were tuned to the same pitch. Such, I fancied, was the
explanation of the phenomena which a telepathist would give. She had
sent that cry into the night, and I, being en rapport with her, had
heard it--had witnessed the tragedy which called it forth. Perhaps the
struggle was not yet ended; perhaps, even at this moment----
I sprang to my feet, hurried into my clothes, caught up my hat, opened
my door and ran noiselessly down the stair. I would solve this problem
to-night, if it could be solved. I had been wrong in turning away from
the Kingdon cottage the evening before; I should, at least, have made an
effort to discover if Marcia Lawrence were really there. But it had not
occurred to me then that she could be in any danger. I had thought too
much of what Curtiss would wish me to do; too little of what the
necessities of the case required. Well, I would not make that mistake a
second time.
As I look back upon my frame of mind at that moment and consider the
impulse which sent me forth from my room at that hour of the night, I
realise how overwrought I was. At a distance, in cold blood, it seems an
absurd thing to have done; yet, under the same conditions, I should no
doubt behave again in much the same way. And even admitting its
absurdity, I am not prepared to say, in view of the event, that there
was not back of it some instinct worth following. There are forces in
nature not yet explained or recognised, and I am still inclined to think
that it was one of these which drew me forth upon that midnight errand.
In a very fever of impatience, I hurried along the street, under the
trees, meeting no one except a patrolman. I heard him stop, as I passed
him, and knew that he was looking back after me, but I kept on without
pausing, and heard him finally start on again. In a minute more I
reached the Lawrence place, and stopped in the shadow of a tree for a
look around. The house loomed through the darkness grim and gloomy, with
no light showing anywhere. I leaped the fence, assured that I was
unseen, and pushed my way forward through the grove toward the path
which led to the cottage.
Beneath the trees, the darkness was absolute and I could go forward but
slowly; yet, starting from the library steps, I found the path without
difficulty, and felt my way cautiously along it, until I came to the
hedge which marked the limits of the Kingdon place. I examined the house
with care, but there was fronting me no lighted window upon which a
tragedy could be pictured. Indeed, I saw no vestige of a light and was
about to conclude that my midnight pilgrimage had been in vain, when my
eye was caught by a faint glimmer near the ground. At first, I was not
sure it was a light at all; then I decided that it was a reflection of
some sort, or perhaps a phosphorescent glow. But as I stared at it, with
eyes contracted, it suddenly took shape in the darkness, and I saw that
the light proceeded from a small ventilator set in the foundation of the
house.
Trembling with excitement, I softly opened the gate and entered the
grounds. Here, with nothing between me and the stars, I suddenly found
myself in what seemed a veritable blaze of light. I was seized with
panic lest I be seen and scurried into the shadow of the house, then
dropped beside the ventilator and examined it.
It was of the ordinary type--a plate of iron some six or eight inches
square, perforated with holes perhaps half an inch in diameter, and set
in the foundation about six inches from the ground.
I applied an eye to one of the holes and endeavoured to see what lay
beyond. For a moment, I saw absolutely nothing; then I perceived in
front of me a stretch of clay, which ended abruptly at a distance of six
or eight feet. A few inches above the level of my eye were the beams
supporting the floor of the cottage. But it was only a glance I gave to
these details, though I found them afterwards photographed upon my
brain; it was the space beyond which fixed my attention--the space where
the clay bank before me dropped abruptly to what was no doubt the cellar
of the cottage.
It was from this space that the light proceeded, but of what lay within
it I could see almost nothing--only enough, indeed, to fire my
curiosity. For from time to time a shadow moved between me and the
light--a shadow which showed that the cellar was not empty. The light, I
judged, had been placed on a stool or table on the opposite side of the
cellar. From the way it varied, now bright, now dim, I decided it was a
candle, and that the motions of the person working near it caused the
flame to flicker. These motions would continue for a time with
considerable regularity; then they would cease while the worker
evidently stopped to rest, and then begin again.
Who was this person and what was this work which must be done at such an
hour? In vain I sought an answer. I pressed my ear to the ventilator,
but could hear nothing; nothing, at least, beyond the faintest of faint
sounds, which gave me no clue to what was happening within. I peered
through the little orifice moment after moment, until the shadows grew
confused and blurred and my eyes ached under the strain.
I rose to rest myself. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the cellar
must have a window. Skirting the house cautiously, I at last came to it.
But it was closed and curtained so effectually that only a faint glimmer
here and there betrayed the light within. I listened, but could hear no
sound.
Fairly nonplussed, I returned to the hedge and sat down against it to
consider. The shadow had given me no indication of whether the worker
was man or woman; yet to the first question I had asked myself there
could be only one answer. It was one or both of the Kingdon women who
were working in the cellar--both, I finally decided, since it was
improbable that one could spend the night there without the knowledge of
the other. But what were they doing?
To this I could find no answer. It was not merely an errand, because the
light remained. Minute after minute I sat there, until I heard a clock
somewhere strike two, and still the light remained. I crept forward to
the ventilator and peered through again. The shadows were moving
backward and forward, just as they had been an hour before. There was
something uncanny about them, and I shivered as I watched. It seemed to
me that they were made by some person alternately rising and stooping,
but why should any one do that for hours at a time? Some subtle
association of ideas brought before my eyes the vision which had
confronted Jean Valjean on that night when he had peered through the
grated window into the Convent of Little Picpus--the dim light, the vast
hall, the motionless figure on the floor before the cross. Was some such
explanation to be sought here? Were these long-continued risings and
stoopings a series of genuflexions before some shrine--a penance,
perhaps, imposed for some transgression? The thought seemed absurd. But
I could think of no other explanation of these singular motions.
At last, weary with long staring, I went back to my seat beside the
hedge and waited. Half an hour passed, then I saw the glimmer at the
ventilator suddenly disappear, and a moment later, a light gleamed
through the kitchen window. It went on toward the front of the house,
and I saw the shadow of a woman's figure on the blind as it passed the
window in front of me. Only one shadow--there was only one woman in the
house, or, at least, only one awake and moving about. There had been
only one in the cellar.
My resolution was taken. I went straight forward to the door at the side
of the house and knocked sharply. At the same instant, the light
vanished. I waited a moment, then knocked again, more loudly.
"Who's there?" called a voice, so harsh, so fierce, that it fairly
startled me.
"Open the door," I said. "I wish to see Miss Lawrence."
"This is not Miss Lawrence's home," cried the voice.
"I know it; but she's here."
"She's not here!" and the voice rose to a scream. "Be off, or I'll fire
through the door!"
What sort of fury was this, I asked myself, and I stepped to one side to
be out of range of a possible bullet.
"Be off!" screamed the voice again. "I'll fire, I swear it! The law will
justify me."
There could be no question of that; it would be worse than folly to
attempt to force an entrance with this fury opposing me, so I retreated
again to the hedge and sat down to see what would happen. But nothing
happened, and deciding at last that Miss Kingdon, or whoever it was had
answered me, had gone to bed, I turned my steps toward the hotel just as
the dawn was tingeing the east with grey.
And one thing I determined on--I would purchase a revolver. Only a fool
ventures unarmed into the tiger's den.