to another time, and accustomed, on principle, to do at once whatever
occurred to her mind as a thing that had to be done, she gently opened
her door and lightly descended the staircase.
The steps were carpeted, so that her foot was noiseless. She had no
need of a candle, for the gas, though reduced, still burnt in the hall.
She reached the bottom quickly; she was unwilling to disturb and alarm
her mother, and so trod noiselessly through the hall to the closet door,
beneath the steps. Her garden-gloves, some tools in a little box that
had been given her by Janet, and the bulbs were there, the latter, in a
row, showing stout horns. She gathered these bulbs into a chip-basket,
and took the rest of her possessions in the other hand. Thus
encumbered, she closed the Pummy closet door with her foot, put down the
basket, turned the key, took up the basket and stepped out into the hall
with the intention of reascending the stairs as noiselessly as she had
come down.
But before she had reached the foot and had turned the balustrade, she
was startled to see a figure on the first landing. At first shock she
thought it was Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick dressed to go out, as she had
seen him on the night that he disappeared. If the hour was not now
midnight, it was near it.
Salome could not see whence the figure had come, whether from Philip's
room or from the spare bedroom. Only from the drawing-room he could not
have issued, as that door was in view, and was shut.
Who was it?
The figure descended slowly, and with inaudible tread. The light from
the gas was sufficient to show that the figure was that of a man, but
not to let her see his face.
With a sickening feeling at the heart, and a chill that ran through
every artery and frosted her blood, and deprived her both of motion and
the will to move, she stood looking at the apparition that glided down
the staircase, leisurely, noiselessly. She recognised the great-coat
and hat--they were those of Mr. Pennycomequick. The great coat was that
in which the corpse had been discovered invested.
Who was this coming--coming probably from the room recently tenanted by
that strange, awful, dead man?
That was the first thought of horror that shot through her brain,
followed by another still more horrible. 'What is it?'
For a while Salome was bereft of power of speech and motion. There was
a sensation in her brain as though a handle were being turned that had
attached to it every nerve in her body, and that they were being spun
off her and on to a reel, like silk from a cocoon. Her hands contracted
on what she held; she could not have let them fall had she willed to
relax her grasp. They stiffened as do the hands of a corpse. She could
not cry out, her tongue was paralyzed. She could not stir a step
forward or backward; all control over her knees was gone from her.
When the figure had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs, it stopped
and turned its head towards her, and looked at her.
The light of the lowered gas-jet was on her and off the face of the
apparition; all she saw was black shadow, as all she had seen of the
face of the corpse on the bed had been--a black handkerchief cast over
it. But she distinguished the hair, somewhat long behind the ears, and
frowzy whiskers about the jaws. That was all she could make out in that
moment of acute, agonizing horror. The figure stood looking at her, and
she heard the clock in the hall, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then begin
the premonitory growl that preceded striking. The figure moved down the
final steps, and stole in the same stealthy, noiseless manner to the
garden door, and disappeared through it.
The look of the back, the set of the well-known overcoat, the way in
which the hat was worn, all recalled to her the dear, lost friend, and
yet she knew it could not be he. He would never have inspired her with
shuddering dread. He would not have passed her without a word.
In another moment the spell of rigidity was taken off her. The blood
rushed tingling through every vein, her hands, her feet, recovered
activity, her heart bounded and shook off its fear, and her mind
recovered its proper energy.
She ran after the apparition, and found that the garden door was
actually open. Instantly, without further consideration, she shut and
locked it, and then flew upstairs and knocked vehemently, loudly, at
Philip Pennycomequick's door.
He opened it, and was surprised to see Salome on the landing,
breathless.
'Is your mother worse?' he asked, for he saw that she was shaking and
white.
'Oh, Mr. Pennycomequick, do tell me. Have you had a man here with you?'
'I do not understand.'
'I have seen someone descend the stairs. If he did not come from your
study, he issued from that room in which--in which----' She shuddered.
'I mean from the spare bedroom.'
'No one has been with me.'
'But he came down the staircase, slowly and silently. like a shadow, and
passed me.'
'I have seen and heard no one.'
'And yet, there has been someone in the house.'
Philip thought, and then said: 'Miss Cusworth, your nerves have been
over-wrought. You have been imposed on by your imagination.'
'But--the garden door. I found it open. I have just locked it. The
figure went out through it.'
'Did you distinguish who it was?'
'No, he came from the best bedroom, wearing dear uncle's--I mean Mr.
Pennycomequick's overcoat and hat.'
Philip again mused.
'All my poor uncle's clothing,' he said, after a moment of thought, 'all
that remained, the overcoat included, I ordered yesterday to be laid out
in the spare chamber. I told your mother to dispose of them as she
thought proper. I made no doubt that she knew of poor persons to whom
they would be serviceable.'
'But no poor person would come at this time of night, and slip out
stealthily at the garden door, which ought to be locked at half-past
nine.'
'Let us go into the spare room and reassure ourselves,' said Philip.
'You will find the overcoat there, and then, perhaps, you will come to
the same conclusion that I have, that you have been over-worried and
over-wrought, and that fancy has conjured up the ghost.'
He went back into his room for a candle, and Salome, standing alone,
with beating heart, on the landing, asked herself whether she had been
deluded by her imagination.
Philip returned with the candle. He smiled and said: 'I remember
particularly that great-coat. It was laid on the bed, and the hat by
it. I went into the room this evening, about half-past eight, and both
were there then.' He had his hand un the door. 'You are not afraid to
come in with me?'
Salome shook her head. She had begun to hope that she had been a prey
to fancy.
He opened the door, went in, and held the light over his head. The
great coat and the hat--were gone!
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.