IN WHICH I MEET A FEW SURPRISES
I awoke with the sense of threatened danger strong in my mind. For a
moment I was unable to recall where I was, or on what errand I had come.
Then memory returned in a flood, and I sprang from the bed and peered
about me.
A dim light struggled in from the darkened window, but no cause for
apprehension could be seen. I was the only creature that breathed the
air of that bleak and dingy room.
I drew aside the curtain, and threw up the window. It opened merely on
a light-well, and the blank walls beyond gave back the cheery reflection
of a patch of sunlight that fell at an angle from above.
The fresher air that crept in from the window cleared my mind, a dash
of water refreshed my body, and I was ready once more to face whatever
might befall.
I looked at my watch. It was eight o'clock, and I had slept four hours
in this place. Truly I had been imprudent after my adventure below, but
I had been right in trusting Mother Borton. Then I began to realize
that I was outrageously hungry, and I remembered that I should be at
the office by nine to receive the commands of Doddridge Knapp, should he
choose to send them.
I threw back the bolt, but when I tried to swing the door open it
resisted my efforts. The key had been missing when I closed it, but
a sliding bolt had fastened it securely. Now I saw that the door was
locked.
Here was a strange predicament. I had heard nothing of the noise of the
key before I lost myself in slumber. Mother Borton must have turned
it as an additional precaution as I slept. But how was I to get out? I
hesitated to make a noise that could attract attention. It might bring
some one less kindly disposed than my hostess of the night. But there
was no other way. I was trapped, and must take the risk of summoning
assistance.
I rapped on the panel and listened. No sound rewarded me. I rapped again
more vigorously, but only silence followed. The house might have been
the grave for all the signs of life it gave back.
There was something ominous about it. To be locked, thus, in a dark room
of this house in which I had already been attacked, was enough to shake
my spirit and resolution for the moment. What lay without the door, my
apprehension asked me. Was it part of the plot to get the secret it was
supposed I held? Had Mother Borton been murdered, and the house seized?
Or had Mother Borton played me false, and was I now a prisoner to my own
party for my enforced imposture, as one who knew too much to be left at
large and too little to be of use? On a second and calmer thought it
was evidently folly to bring my jailers about my ears, if jailers there
were. I abandoned my half-formed plan of breaking down the door, and
turned to the window and the light-well. Another window faced on the
same space, not five feet away. If it were but opened I might swing
myself over and through it; but it was closed, and a curtain hid the
unknown possibilities and dangers of the interior. A dozen feet above
was the roof, with no projection or foothold by which it might be
reached. Below, the light-well ended in a tinned floor, about four feet
from the window sill.
I swung myself down, and with two steps was trying the other window.
It was unlocked. I raised the sash cautiously, but its creaking protest
seemed to my excited ears to be loud enough to wake any but the dead. I
stopped and listened after each squeak of the frame. There was no sign
of movement.
Then I pushed aside the curtain cautiously, and looked within. The room
appeared absolutely bare. Gaining confidence at the sight, I threw the
curtain farther back, and with a bound climbed in, revolver in hand.
A scurrying sound startled me for an instant, and with a scramble I
gained my feet, prepared to face whatever was before me. Then I saw the
disappearing form of a great rat, and laughed at my fears.
The room was, as I had thought, bare and deserted. There was a musty
smell about it, as though it had not been opened for a long time, and
dust and desolation lay heavy upon it. A dark stain on the floor near
the window suggested to my fancy the idea of blood. Had some wayfarer
less fortunate than I been inveigled to his death in this evil place?
There was, however, nothing here to linger for, and I hastened to try
the door. It was locked. I stooped to examine the fastening. It was of
the cheapest kind, attached to door and casement by small screws. With a
good wrench it gave way, and I found myself in a dark side-hall between
two rooms. Three steps brought me to the main hall, and I recognized
it for the same through which I had felt my way in the darkness of the
night. It was not improved by the daylight, and a strange loneliness
about it was an oppression to the spirits. There were six or eight rooms
on the floor, and the doors glowered threateningly on me, as though they
were conscious that I was an intruder in fear of his life.
The intense stillness within the house, instead of reassuring me, served
as a threat. After my experience of the night, it spoke of treachery,
not of peace.
I took my steps cautiously down the stairs, following the way that led
to the side entrance. The saloon and restaurant room I was anxious to
evade, for there would doubtless be a barkeeper and several loiterers
about. It could not be avoided, however. As I neared the bottom of the
stairs, I saw that a door led from the hallway to the saloon, and that
it was open.
I moved slowly down, a step at a time, then from over-cautiousness
tripped and came down the last three steps at once with the clatter of a
four-horse team.
But nobody stirred. Then I glanced through the open door, and was
stricken cold with astonishment. The room was empty!
The chairs and tables that a few hours ago I had seen scattered about
were gone. There was no sign that the place had been occupied in months.
I stepped into the room that I had seen crowded with eager friends and
enemies, eating, drinking, ready for desperate deeds. My step echoed
strangely with the echo of an untenanted house. The bar and the shelves
behind it were swept clear of the bottles and glasses that had filled
them. Dust was thick over the floor and walls. The windows were stained
and dirty, and a paper sign on each pane informed the passers-by that
the house was “To Let.”
Bewildered and apprehensive, I wondered whether, after all, the events
of the night, the summons from Dicky Nahl, the walk in the darkness, the
scene in the saloon, the encounter with the snake-eyed man, the riot,
the rush up the dark stair, and the interview with the old crone, were
not a fantastic vision from the land of dreams.
I looked cautiously through the other rooms on the first floor. They
were as bare as the main room. The only room in the whole house that
held a trace of furniture or occupancy must be the one from which I had
escaped. It seemed that an elaborate trap had been set for my benefit
with such precautions that I could not prove that it ever had been.
There was, however, no time to waste in prying into this mystery. By my
watch it was close on nine o'clock, and Doddridge Knapp might even now
be making his way to the office where he had stationed me.
The saloon's front doors were locked fast, but the side door that led
from the stairway to the street was fastened only with a spring lock,
and I swung it open and stepped to the sidewalk.
A load left my spirits as the door closed behind me. The fresh air of
the morning was like wine after the close and musty atmosphere I had
been breathing.
The street was but a prosaic place after the haunt of mystery I had
just left. It was like stepping from the Dark Ages into the nineteenth
century. Yet there was something puzzling about it. The street had no
suggestion of the familiar, and it appeared somehow to have been turned
end for end. I had lost my sense of direction. The hills were where the
bay ought to be. I seemed to have changed sides of the street, and it
took me a little time to readjust the points of the compass. I reasoned
at last that Dicky Nahl had led me to the street below before turning to
the place, and I had not noticed that we had doubled on our course.
I hurried along the streets with but a three-minute stop to swallow a
cup of coffee and a roll, and once more mounted the stairs to the office
and opened the door to Number 15.
The place was in disorder. The books that had been arranged on the desk
and shelves were now scattered about in confusion, as though they had
been hurriedly examined and thrown aside in a fruitless search. This
was a disturbing incident, and I was surprised to discover that the door
into the adjoining room was ajar. I pushed it wide open, and started
back. Before me stood Doddridge Knapp, his face pale as the face of a
corpse, and his eyes starting as though the dead had risen before him.