A LITTLE WHITE GHOST.
With the putting of that most awkward question as to what had become of
Gregory Pennington, it may be said that a sort of bombshell fell into
our midst. I leaned further back, determined to gain what respite I
could in the shadows of the room before the inevitable discovery should
fall upon me; and of the four of us only the girl, Debora Matchwick,
leaned forward eagerly, peering round the lamp at the man who had asked
the question.
"That's what we want to know," she said, in a quick, nervous voice.
"Gregory has disappeared."
"Nonsense!" It was the doctor who broke in testily, still keeping his
face in shadow. "You mustn't get such ideas into your head, child. Young
men, strong, and well, and healthy, don't disappear in that fashion. I
ordered him away from the house, and he has respected my wishes. Don't
let me hear such nonsensical talk again."
The girl drew back, with a little quick sigh, and for a moment or two
there was an abashed silence on the part of Scoffold and myself. But
Scoffold was never the man to be abashed long by anything; in a moment
or two he leaned his big body forward over the table, so that I saw his
face fully in the light of the shaded lamp, and glanced quickly from
one to the other of us, and began to put questions. And with each
question it seemed that he probed the matter more deeply.
"But tell me, what had my young friend done to be forbidden the house?"
he asked. Then, answered in a fashion by the silence about him, he
shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his great hands deprecatingly.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" he went on. "I see that I'm prying into secrets, and
that was never my way at all. Only I was interested in Gregory--a fine
fellow, with a future before him. A little reckless, perhaps--a little
given to the spending of money; but then, that is ever a fault of the
young. If I did not wish to pry into secrets," he added a little
maliciously, as he peered round the lamp at the girl, "I might suggest
that perhaps his disappearance may have had something to do with Miss
Debora here--eh? There are so many hearts to be broken in this world of
pretty faces, Miss Debora."
The girl sat rigid and silent; presently the man leaned back in his
chair again, with a little laugh, as the servants entered with the next
course. I saw the woman Leach hovering about near the doorway; I
wondered if we were to have another such scene as we had had that
morning. But nothing happened until the servants had gone, with Leach
following last. Then this unlucky guest had another word to say.
"I see you still keep your faithful retainer," said Harvey Scoffold,
with a jerk of his great head towards the door. "Remarkable woman,
that--and quite devoted to you, doctor."
"Servants are servants, and are kept in their places," retorted Bardolph
Just coldly.
"But, my dear Just," broke in the irrepressible one again, "Leach is
surely more than a servant. How many years has she been with you?"
"I haven't taken the trouble to count," replied the doctor. "Shall we
change the conversation?"
Mr. Scoffold abruptly complied, by turning his attention to me, somewhat
to my dismay. "Do you belong to these parts, Mr.--Mr. John New?" he
asked.
I murmured in a low tone that I belonged to London, and as I spoke I saw
him lean forward quickly, as if to get a better glimpse of me; but I
obstinately kept my face in shadow.
"Ah!" he went on. "London's a fine place, but with temptations. I often
think that it would be well if we could prevent young men from ever
going to London at all--let 'em wait until they have reached years of
discretion, and know what the world is like. I've seen so much in that
direction--so many lives that have gone down into the shadows, and never
emerged again. I could give you a case in point--rather an interesting
story, if you would not be bored by it." He glanced round the table amid
silence.
Now, I knew instinctively what story he was going to tell, before ever
he said a word of it; I knew the story was my own. I sat there,
spellbound; I strove to get a glimpse of Bardolph Just at the further
end of the table, but he did not move, and the only face of the four of
us that could be seen was the face, animated and smiling, of Harvey
Scoffold.
"The story is a little sad--and I detest sad things," the man began,
"but it has the merit of a moral. You are to imagine a young man, of
good education, and with a credulous and doting old man--an uncle, in
fact--as his sole guardian. He rewards the credulous old man by robbing
him right and left, and he spends the proceeds of his robberies in
vicious haunts in London."
I may here interpolate that the only vicious haunt I had known in London
had been the house of Mr. Harvey Scoffold, and that most of the money I
had stolen had gone, in one way and another, into his pockets--but this
by the way.
"His name was Norton Hyde," went on Scoffold. "I beg your pardon--did
you speak?" This last was to the doctor, who had leaned forward, so that
I saw his face clearly, and had uttered an exclamation.
"No," he replied. "Pray proceed with your story." He leaned sideways,
under pretence of filling his glass, and gave me a warning glance down
the length of the table.
"Well, this Norton Hyde paid the penalty, in due course, of his crime,"
went on Scoffold, leaning back in his chair again. "He was sentenced to
a certain term of penal servitude, served part of it, escaped from his
prison----"
"The story is well known, and we need hear no more, my dear Scoffold,"
broke in the doctor. "I don't want to shock Miss Debora, nor to have her
shocked."
"But I am interested," said the girl, leaning forward. "Please go on,
Mr. Scoffold."
"You hear--she's interested," said the man with a smile, as he leaned
forward again, and looked round the lamp at the girl. "It's very
dreadful, but very fascinating. You must know, then, Miss Debora, that
the fellow broke prison, and made a desperate attempt to get back to
London; reached a house somewhere on its outskirts; and then, being
evidently hard pressed, gave up the game in despair, and committed
suicide."
"Poor, poor fellow!" commented the girl, in a low tone; and I felt my
heart go out to her in gratitude.
"And that was the end of him," went on Mr. Scoffold, with a snap of the
fingers. "They carried him back--dead--to his prison; and they buried
him within its walls. So much for Buckingham!"
"Now, perhaps, you can contrive to talk of something a little more
pleasant," said the doctor testily. "You've given us all the horrors,
with your talk of imprisonments, and suicides, and what not. You used to
be pleasant company at one time, Harvey."
"And can be so still," exclaimed the other lightly. "But I'm afraid it's
this dark room of yours that gave that turn to the conversation: one
sits in shadow among shadows. May I move this lamp, or may I at least
take the shade off?" He put a hand to it as he spoke.
If ever I had trembled in my life, I trembled then; but I sat rigid, and
waited, trusting in that stronger man at the further end of the table.
Nor was my trust in him betrayed.
"Leave the lamp alone," he said sharply. "It's not safe to be moved;
it's rather an old one, and shaky. Besides, I prefer this light."
"You always were a queer fellow," said Scoffold, dropping back into his
seat again. "And to-night you're a dull one. I swear I couldn't endure
your company," he proceeded with a laugh, "if it were not for the
charming lady who faces me, and who is mostly hidden by your beast of a
lamp. Even our friend, Mr. New here, hasn't a word to say for himself;
but perhaps he'll come out stronger under the influence of one of your
cigars presently."
I vowed in my heart that there should be no cigars for me that night in
his company; my brain was active with the thought of how best I could
escape. I was perplexed to know how it was that he had not remembered
that it was in this very house, according to the tale, that Norton Hyde
had committed suicide; but for that point, he had the whole thing in
chapter and verse. I was comforted, however, by the thought that it was
to the interests of Bardolph Just to help me out of the scrape; I saw
that he was as much astonished to learn that Harvey Scoffold knew me as
I was to find the man in that house.
But for my desperate strait, I must have been amused at the doctor's
perplexity. I saw, just as surely as though he had stated it in words,
that he was working hard at that puzzle: how to get Norton Hyde out of
that room unobserved. Fortunately for the solution of that problem, he
must have known how eager I was to get away; and presently he contrived
the business in the simplest fashion.
We had come near to the end of the dinner, and it was about time for
Debora to leave us. I knew that he dreaded that if she got up it would
mean a breaking-up of our relative positions at the table, and I must be
discovered. I was dreading that, too, when relief came.
"I say, New," he called to me down the length of the table, "I know you
have that business of which you spoke to clear up to-night. We're all
friends here, and we'll excuse you."
I murmured my thanks, and got up, designing to pass behind Harvey
Scoffold, and so escape observation. But, as ill luck would have it,
Debora saw in the movement an opportunity for her own escape; she rose
quickly, and the inevitable happened. Harvey Scoffold blundered to his
feet to open the door.
And there we were in a moment, above the light of the lamp, and all
making for the door together; for the doctor, in his consternation, had
risen also. Scoffold got to the door before me, and held it open for
the girl; and for one disastrous moment I hesitated. For there was a
light outside in the hall, and I dared not face it. Properly, of course,
I should have followed the girl with my face averted; but even in that I
blundered, and so found myself suddenly looking into the eyes of Harvey
Scoffold, as he stood there holding the door.
It was as though he had seen a ghost. He gasped, and took a step back;
and the next moment I was out of the room, and had pulled the door close
after me. Even as I did so, I heard his voice raised loudly and
excitedly in the room, and heard the deeper tones of Bardolph Just.
There was no time to be lost, and I looked about me for the quickest way
of escape. I was groping in the dark, as it were, because I did not even
know whether the man was a chance visitor, and I might safely hide in
some other room of the house, or whether he was staying there, and so
could leave me no choice but to get away altogether. And while I
hesitated, my mind was made up for me, as it has been so often in my
life, in the most curious fashion.
I saw that Debora had stopped at the foot of the stairs, and was looking
back at me; and in a moment, in the thought of her, I forgot my own
peril. I took a step towards her, and she bent her head towards mine, as
she stood a step or two above me on the stairs, and whispered--
"For the love of God, don't leave me alone in this house to-night!"
Then she was gone, before I could make reply, and I was left there,
standing helplessly looking after her.
In that moment I lost my chance. The dining-room door was opened, and
the two men came out quickly; it seemed to me that Harvey Scoffold was
speaking excitedly, and that the doctor, who had a hand on his arm, was
striving to soothe him. I made a dart for the stairs--too late, for the
voice of Scoffold called me back.
"Here, don't run away; I want to talk to you!" he cried. "There's a
mystery here----"
"Not so loud!" exclaimed the doctor sternly, in a low tone. "If you've
anything to say, don't shout it in the hall in that fashion. I trust
we're gentlemen; let us go and talk quietly in my study. John, you know
the way--lead on."
So, knowing well what was to follow, I went on up the stairs, until I
came to the door of that room that was half study and half surgery; I
opened the door and went in. To gain time, I went to the further end of
it, and stood looking out of the window into the darkness. I calculated
that it might be a drop of twelve or fourteen feet, if he drove me too
far and I had to take flight. I was prepared for everything, and had for
the moment--God forgive me!--clean forgotten what the girl had said to
me. The two other men came into the room, and the door was closed. I
heard the doctor speak in his most genial tones.
"Now, my dear Harvey, let's understand what bee you have in your bonnet.
What's this about an escaped convict--and in my house? If I didn't know
you better, I should suggest that my wine had been too much for you."
"Don't bluff, doctor: it would be far better to ask our friend there to
show us his face clearly. If a man's honest he doesn't turn his back on
his friends."
At that I threw discretion to the winds; I faced round upon him
savagely. "Friends!" I exclaimed bitterly. "When were you ever a friend
to me, Harvey Scoffold?"
The man laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. "Truly you are indiscreet,"
he said, with a triumphant glance at the doctor. "But youth is ever
impatient, and one cannot expect that you, of all men, should be
cautious. You never were. Come--can't we sit down and talk quietly, and
see what is to be done?"
"There is nothing to be done--at least nothing that concerns you," said
Bardolph Just quickly, as he stopped in the act of pulling open that
drawer in his desk which held the cigars. "What in the world is it to do
with you?"
"Oh-o! so _you_ are in the swim, too, eh?" exclaimed Scoffold, turning
upon him with raised eyebrows. "I thought it possible that you might
have been deceived--that our friend here might have come upon you
suddenly, and induced you to help him, without your knowing who he was."
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, and took out a cigar. In the act of
biting the end of it with his sharp white teeth he looked at the other
man with a smile that was deadly--it was as though he snarled over the
cigar. "I knew all about our friend here from the beginning," he said.
"Be careful, Harvey; you know me by this time, and you know it's better
to have me for a friend than an enemy. Once more I warn you not to ask
questions, and not to interfere in what does not concern you. Take a
cigar, and sit down and smoke."
Scoffold took the cigar, and stood for a moment or two, while he lighted
it, looking from one to the other of us, as though weighing the matter
carefully in his mind. He voiced his feelings as he put the match to the
cigar, and puffed at it.
"Norton Hyde escaped from prison"--puff--"Norton Hyde hangs
himself"--puff--"Norton Hyde is duly sat upon by a coroner and a
jury"--puff--"Norton Hyde is buried in a prison grave." He looked at the
lighted end of his cigar carefully, and tossed the match from him. "And
yet my dear friend, Norton Hyde, stands before me. Any answer to that
puzzle?" He looked at me and at the doctor, and laughed quietly.
Truly the game appeared to be in his hands, and I knew enough of him to
know that he was a man to be feared. It was, of course, a mere
coincidence that the man who had helped me to my ruin was a friend of
this man upon whose hospitality I had so unceremoniously flung myself;
nor did it mend matters to know that he was a friend of the dead boy. I
think we both waited for his next remark, knowing pretty well what it
would be.
"A natural answer springs up at once to the puzzle," he went on, seeming
literally to swell his great bulk at us in his triumph. "Some man was
buried as Norton Hyde--some man who must have been able to pass muster
for him. What man could that have been?"
"You're getting on dangerous ground: I tell you you'd better let it
alone," broke in the doctor warningly.
But the other man went on as though the doctor had not spoken. "Some man
lies in that grave, who has disappeared, and for whom no enquiry has
been made. Now, who can that man be? What man is there that hasn't been
seen for some days--what man is there that is being looked for now?"
In the tense silence of the room, while the man looked from one to the
other of us, absolutely dominating the situation, there came an
interruption that was so terrible, and so much an answer to what the man
was asking, that I could have shrieked out like a frightened woman.
Behind him, where he stood, I saw the door of the study slowly opening,
and then the smiling face of the little grey-haired man looked round it.
Scoffold did not see him; only the doctor and I turned our startled
faces to the smiling face of Capper. And Capper spoke--
"Forgive me, gentlemen"--and Scoffold swung round on the words and faced
him--"I'm looking for my master, Mr. Pennington."
"Gregory Pennington, by the Lord!" shouted Harvey Scoffold, with a great
clap of his hands together.
The doctor turned quickly to the door. I saw him thrust Capper outside,
and close the door, and turn the key in it. He put the key in his
pocket, and his eyes looked dangerous; he was as a man driven at bay.
"Well, you think you've made some great and wonderful discovery," he
snapped. "Perhaps you have--at all events, you shall know the truth of
the matter from beginning to end. I'll keep nothing back."
"You can't, you know," sneered the other, dropping his great bulk into
an arm-chair, and puffing luxuriously at his cigar.
I stood with my back to the window while the doctor told the story. He
told it from beginning to end, and quite clearly. Of the coming of the
disappointed Gregory Pennington to the house, after an interview with
the girl; of that mad, rash act of the unsuccessful lover; of the
finding of him hanging dead. He told of my coming, and painted a little
luridly my desperate threats and pleadings; told of how he had given
way, and had dressed poor Gregory Pennington in my shameful clothes.
When he had finished the narrative Harvey Scoffold nodded, as if
satisfied with that part of it, and sat for a time smoking, while we
awaited what he had to say.
"It never struck me that it was in this house the convict (as the
newspapers called him) hanged himself," he said at last. "Upon my word,
the puzzle fits together very neatly. But what happens, my friends,
when someone enquires for young Pennington? For instance, myself."
"You've no purpose to serve," I broke in quickly.
He laughed, and shook his head gaily. "Not so fast, my young friend, not
so fast!" he answered me. "I may have an axe to grind--I have ground
many in my time. Besides--putting me right out of the question--what of
the girl? How do you silence her?"
"I can find a way even to do that," replied the doctor in a low voice.
"Only let me warn you again, Harvey Scoffold, we are desperate men
here--or at least one of us--fighting for something more even than
liberty. I am fighting to keep this innocent girl's name out of the
business, and to keep scandal away from this house. Let Norton Hyde rest
in his grave; Gregory Pennington is not likely to be enquired for. He
was young and restless; he may have gone abroad--enlisted--anything.
That's our tale for the world, if questions are asked."
"It only occurs to me that the virtuous uncle of our young friend
here--the man who was robbed so audaciously--would give a great deal to
know that the nephew who robbed him was at large," suggested Harvey
Scoffold musingly over his cigar.
I took a quick step towards him. "You wouldn't dare!" I exclaimed
threateningly.
He held up a large protesting hand. "My dear boy, I am your friend; I
was always your friend. You are quite safe with me," he said. Yet I knew
that he lied.
He made one other comment on the matter before wisely leaving the
subject alone. "It seems to me strange," he observed, with a furtive
look at the doctor, "that you should be so willing to help our young
friend here--a man you have never seen."
"I do that," replied the other quickly, "because in that way I can cover
up the miserable business of young Pennington. Unless you speak, it is
scarcely likely that anyone else will ever drag that business into the
light of day. Both Gregory Pennington and our friend here happen to have
been particularly alone in the world: in neither case is there anyone
who is likely to make awkward inquiries."
"Always excepting the girl," Harvey Scoffold reminded him. "So far as I
am concerned, you have nothing to fear from me; I shall merely be an
amused spectator of the little comedy; I don't know yet exactly how it's
going to end."
He was tactful enough to say nothing more then, and we presently
drifted, almost with cheerfulness, into some more ordinary conversation.
Yet I saw that the man watched us both from between half-closed eyelids
while he smoked and lounged in his chair; and I was far from
comfortable. It was late when the doctor rose, and with a glance at the
clock said that he had still much work to do before he could sleep. He
unlocked the door; at which hint Harvey Scoffold and I left him for the
night.
The excitement of the meeting had quite thrust out of my mind the
question whether the man was stopping in the house or had merely come
there as a chance visitor; but the question was answered now, when
Harvey Scoffold told me that he had a long walk before him, and was glad
that the night was fine. I felt some sudden uplifting of the heart at
the thought that at least I should be relieved of his presence, only to
feel that heart sinking the next moment, at the remembrance that he
would be free to spread his news in the outer world, if he cared to do
so. For it must be understood that my public trial, and all the
disclosures thereat, had given to the world the address of my uncle, and
my own movements on those secret expeditions of mine; it was possible
for Harvey Scoffold to put that veiled threat of his into instant
execution.
I knew, moreover, that he was a dangerous man, by reason of the fact
that he was chronically in want of money, and had never hesitated as to
the methods employed to obtain it. However, there was no help for it
now; the murder was out, and I could only trust to that extraordinary
luck that had befriended me up to the present.
I walked with him out into the grounds, and he shook hands with me at
parting, with some cordiality. "You have had a miraculous escape, dear
boy," he said, in his jovial fashion, "and you are quite a little
romance in yourself. I shall watch your career with interest. And you
have nothing to fear--I shall be as silent as the grave in which you
ought to be lying."
He laughed noisily at that grim jest, and took his way down the road in
the direction of London. I went back into the house and went to my room,
and slept heavily until late the next morning.
The doctor had left the house when I went down to breakfast, and I had a
dim hope that I might see the girl alone. But she did not put in an
appearance, nor did I see anything of her until the evening, when the
doctor had returned, and the three of us sat down to dinner. I had been
roaming desolately about the grounds, smoking the doctor's cigars, and
inwardly wondering what I was going to do with the rest of the life that
had been miraculously given back to me; and I did not know at what hour
Bardolph Just had returned. Yet I had a feeling that there had been some
strange interview between the doctor and the girl before I had come upon
the scene--and a stormy interview at that. Bardolph Just sat at his end
of the table, grim and silent, with his brows contracted, and with his
habitual smile gone from his lips; the girl sat white and silent,
sipping a little wine, but touching no food. During the course of a
melancholy meal no single word was heard in the room, for the doctor did
not even address the servants.
At the end of the meal, however, when the girl rose to quit the room,
the doctor rose also, and barred her way. "Stop!" he said quickly. "I've
got to speak to you. We'll have this matter cleared up--once and for
all."
"I have nothing more to say," she replied, looking at him steadily. "My
answer is what it has always been--No!"
"You can go, John New," said the man harshly, turning towards me. "I
want to talk to Miss Matchwick alone."
"No, no!" exclaimed the girl, stretching out her hands towards me; and
on the instant I stopped on my way to the door, and faced about.
But the doctor took a quick step towards me, and opened the door, and
jerked his head towards the hall. "I am master here," he said. "Go!"
I saw that I should not mend matters by remaining, but I determined to
be within call. I passed quickly along the hall after the door was
closed; I knew that just within the great hall door itself was another
smaller door, opening to a verandah which ran round the front of the
dining-room windows, on the old-fashioned early Victorian model. I knew
that the windows were open, and I thought that I might by good fortune
both see and hear what went on in the room.
And so it turned out. I slipped through that smaller door, and came on
to the verandah; and so stood drawn up in the shadows against the side
of the window, looking in and listening.
"I have given you the last chance," the doctor was saying, "and now I
shall trouble you no more. There is another way, and perhaps a better
one. I have treated you well. I have offered to make you my wife--to
place you in the position your father would have been glad to see you
occupy. Now I have done with you, and we must try the other way. Look
into my eyes!"
Then I saw a curious thing happen. At first, while the man looked
intently at her with those extraordinarily bright eyes of his, she
covered her own with her hands, and strove to look away; but after a
moment or two she dropped her hands helplessly, and shivered, and looked
intently at him full. It was like the fascination of some helpless bird
by a snake. I saw her sink slowly into a chair behind her; and still she
never took her eyes from those of the doctor, until at last her lids
fell, and she seemed to lie there asleep. Then I heard the man's voice
saying words that had no meaning for my ears at that time.
"You will not sleep well to-night, little one," he said, in a curious
crooning voice. "You will rise from your bed, and you will come out in
search of something. Is it not so?"
Very softly she answered him: "Yes, I understand."
"You will be restless, and you will seek to get out into the air. But
all the doors will be bolted, and the windows fastened. So you will turn
to the eastern corridor and will pass along there to the end wall. Do
you understand?"
And again she murmured: "Yes, I understand."
"And then you will walk on--into the air. You will do this at midnight."
She murmured, "At midnight"; and on a sudden he snapped his fingers
violently three times before her eyes, and she sprang up, wide awake,
and stared at him, looking at him in perplexity.
"You've been asleep for ever so long," he said, with a smile. "You must
be tired; go to your room."
She looked at him in a dazed fashion, and passed her hand across her
forehead. "What were we speaking of?" she asked him, as though referring
to the conversation they had had before he had sent her into that
species of trance.
"Nothing--nothing that matters now," he said, moving towards the door.
Fearing that he might come in my direction after he had sent her from
the room, I vaulted over the railing of the verandah, which was only
raised a few feet above the level of the ground. And so presently came
round by the side entrance into the house, and, as was my custom, went
up to the doctor's study to smoke with him.
I found him pacing up and down, chewing the butt of a cigar that had
long gone out. He glanced up quickly when I entered, and jerked his head
towards the open drawer in the desk where the cigars were.
"I must ask you to take your cigar and smoke it elsewhere to-night," he
said. "I have work to do, and I am very busy. Good-night."
I longed to stop and talk with him--cursed my own impotent position,
which gave me no chance of trying conclusions with him and befriending
the girl. I remembered bitterly the words she had said to me at the foot
of the staircase on the previous night, when she had begged me not to
leave her alone in that house. So I went away, reluctantly enough, to
smoke my cigar elsewhere.
I wandered down into the dining-room, and dropped into a chair, and
closed my eyes. Suddenly I remembered that it was that chair into which
the girl had dropped when the doctor had said those words I did not
understand. I sat up, very wide awake, remembering.
She was to walk along the eastern corridor, and was to come to a wall at
the end. And yet she was to walk out into the air! What did it all mean?
What trick was the man about to play upon her? What devilry was afoot?
I got up at once, and threw away my cigar, and set off to explore the
house. I wanted to know where this eastern corridor was, if such a place
existed, and what was meant by the doctor's words. I went up to my own
room first, and made out, as well as I could, by remembering which way
the sun rose, and other matters, in what direction the house was
situated; and so came to the conclusion that the room to which I had
been assigned was at the end of the eastern corridor, nearest to the
great bulk of the house. Which is to say, that if I stood in the doorway
of my room, and faced the corridor, the other rooms of the house would
be on my right hand, while on my left the corridor stretched away into
darkness, past rooms that, so far as I knew, were unoccupied.
Lest by any chance my windows should be watched, I lit the lamp in my
room and left it; then I came out into the corridor, and closed the
door. I looked over the head of the great staircase; the house was in
complete silence, though not yet in darkness. Listening carefully, I
moved away swiftly into the gathering darkness to the left, until at
last, at the end of the corridor, my outstretched hand touched the wall.
This was exactly as it should be, according to the doctor's words. I now
turned my attention to the wall itself, and found that it was
recessed--much as though at some time or other it had been a window that
had been bricked up. I could make nothing of it, and I went back to my
room, sorely puzzled.
I must have a torpid brain, for I was ever given to much sleeping. On
this occasion I sank down into a chair, intending to sit there for a
few minutes and think the matter out. In less than five, I was asleep.
When I awoke I felt chilled and stiff, and I blamed myself heartily for
not having gone to bed. While I yawned and stretched my arms, I became
aware of a curious noise going on in the house. With my arms still
raised above my head, I stopped to listen.
Whatever noise it was came from the end of the corridor where I had
found that blank wall. Some instinct made me put out the light; then in
the darkness I stole towards the door, and cautiously opened it. Outside
the corridor was dark, or seemed to be at my first glance; I dropped to
my knees, and peered round the edge of the door, looking to right and
left.
To the right all was in darkness; the servants had gone to bed, after
extinguishing the lights and locking up. To the left, strangely enough,
a faint light shone; and as I turned my eyes in that direction I saw
that a small hand-lamp was standing on the floor, and that above it
loomed the figure of a man, casting a grotesque shadow on the walls and
ceiling above him. I made enough of the figure to know that it was the
doctor, and that he was working hard at that end wall.
I was puzzling my brains to know what he was doing, and was striving
hard to connect his presence there with what he had said to the girl,
when I heard a grinding and a creaking, and suddenly the lamp that stood
beside him was blown out in a gust of wind that came down the corridor
and touched my face softly as I knelt there. Then, to my utter
amazement, I saw the night sky and the stars out beyond where that end
wall had been.
I had just time to get back into my room and to close the door, when the
doctor came tiptoeing back along the corridor, and vanished like a
shadow into the shadows of the house. I waited for a time, and then
struck a match, and looked at the little clock on the mantelpiece. It
wanted four minutes of midnight.
I opened the door again, and looked out into the corridor; then, on an
impulse, I stole along towards that newly-opened door, or whatever it
was, and, coming to it, looked out into the night. It was at a greater
height from the ground than I had thought possible, because on that side
of the house the ground shelved away sharply, and there was in addition
a deep, moat-like trough, into which the basement windows looked. More
than ever puzzled, I was retracing my steps, when I heard a slight sound
at the further end, like the light rustle of a garment mingled with the
swift patter of feet.
I will confess that my nerves were unstrung, and they were therefore
scarcely prepared for the shock they had now to endure. For coming down
the corridor, straight towards where I stood drawn up against the wall,
was a little figure in a white garment, and with fair flowing hair over
its shoulders; and that figure came swiftly straight towards that new
door which opened to the floor. While I stood there, paralysed by the
sight, certain words floated back to my mind.
"You will be restless, and you will seek to get out into the air. But
all the doors will be bolted, and the windows fastened. So you will turn
to the eastern corridor, and will pass along there to the end wall ...
and then you will walk on into the air.... You will do this at
midnight!"
With a great horror upon me, I leapt in a moment, though dimly, to what
was meant. The girl was walking to her death, and walking in her sleep.
In what devilish fashion Bardolph Just had contrived the thing, or what
ascendency he had gained over her that he could suggest the very hour at
which she should rise from her bed and do it, I did not understand; but
here was the thing nearly accomplished. She was within a couple of feet
of the opening, and was walking straight out into the air at that giddy
height, when I sprang forward and caught her in my arms.
She shrieked once--a shriek that seemed to echo through the night; then,
with a long sobbing cry, she sank into my arms, and hid her face on my
shoulder. And at the same moment I heard a door open down below in the
house, and heard running footsteps coming towards me. I knew it was the
doctor, and I knew for what he had waited.