The night was still--clear and starlit.
Between two and three in the morning is the one hour when, in London,
the very houses seem to slumber, save in a few districts, such as Fleet
Street, Covent Garden and its purlieus, where night and day are alike--
equally active, equally feverish--those streets which never sleep.
I wore an old suit, a golf cap, shoes with rubber soles, and in my
jacket-pocket carried an electric torch. I had decided not to take a
pistol. After all, I was not bent on mischief. Also I was going, as I
supposed, among friends. Even if Sir Charles were to turn upon me I
could not believe he would do me an injury, in spite of my beloved's
warning. He and I had known each other such a long time.
Vera, finding that nothing would dissuade me, had ended by giving me the
bunch of keys which I had forgotten she still possessed--the keys I had
taken from old Taylor's pocket. "If you are determined to do this mad
thing, Dick," she had said to me, kissing me fondly, "you may as well
get in with the key, instead of house-breaking." On the bunch were the
key which would unlock the iron gate, and the one of the little door.
This greatly simplified matters, for there were no bolts on the little
door, as there were upon the front door and on the tradesmen's door.
The light appeared in the same window on the first floor at exactly
twenty minutes past two. Standing in Belgrave Street with my constable
friend, who was now on duty, I saw it flicker suddenly. Without further
delay we both went round Crane's Alley. Nobody was about. Not a sound
anywhere. Noiselessly I unlocked the iron gate, then the little door...
"Good luck, sir," the policeman whispered, as I crept into the dark,
low-roofed passage. "And if you want any help, remember you've got the
whistle."
There were two little stone-walled cellar-passages, and I took the one
to the right. Before I had gone a yard I uttered an exclamation. I was
up against a great veil of grey cobwebs which hung from everywhere and
was stretched right across the stone passage. So thick were they that I
had to push into them to make my way along. How I regretted I had not
brought a stick! Suddenly something damp creepy, large, horrible, ran
across my face, then another, and another.
Ugh! My blood ran cold at their touch, for I hate spiders.
I pulled out my electric torch. Its sudden glare sent scores of spiders
scurrying in all directions. I could actually hear them--nay, I could
smell them, and, wherever I looked, I could see them. The sight made me
shudder, for they were not, apparently, house-spiders of the usual
variety--but large, fat, oval-bodied things, with curved legs, and with
protruding heads that seemed to look at me. Indeed, I don't think that
in the whole of my life I have ever spent moments that I less like to
dwell upon than the two minutes it took me to push my way through that
loathsome tangle of evil-smelling cobwebs alive with spiders. I would
not go through such an experience again for any sum.
At last I got through them, and I recollect thinking, as I emerged, how
foolish I had been to take the wrong turning.
Of course, when Vera had led me out we must have come by the other
passage, as there had been no cobwebs then. And that led me further to
wonder whether at that time the passage had not been in regular use by
some person or persons. I did not for a moment believe that old Taylor
had been so conscientious as to keep either passage free of cobwebs,
seeing how utterly neglected had been the rest of the house.
In the servants' quarters, where I presently found myself, I recognised
at once that same acrid smell of dry rot I had noticed when last in the
house, only now it was more "pronounced." Noiselessly I crept along, in
my rubber shoes, to the hall. Everywhere the deathly stillness was so
intense that one seemed almost to feel it. Cautiously I crept up the
front stairs, keeping close to the wall in order to prevent their
creaking. My electric torch proved most useful.
I was outside the door of the drawing-room that overlooked Belgrave
Street--the first room I had entered on that previous occasion--the room
into which I had peered the night before, as I stood upon the ladder. A
tiny ray of faint light percolated through the keyhole. I listened,
hardly breathing, but could hear no sound at all, except my own
heart-beats.
Should I turn the handle gently, slowly push the door ajar, and peep in?
It might squeak. Should I fling open the door and rush in? Faced with
a problem, I was undecided. I admit that at that moment I felt inclined
to run away. Instead, I stood motionless, hesitating, frightened at my
own temerity. Had I, after all, been wise in disregarding Vera's good
advice?
I thought of that curious brown stain I remembered so distinctly upon
the ceiling in this very room. It had been in the right hand corner--
the corner farthest from me. What was above that corner? Ah, I knew
just where that spot would be in the room above.
Suddenly an idea struck me. I would creep up to the next floor and
enter the room above. I had taken from the bunch about eight keys I
thought might prove of use. Vera had told me which they were. All were
loose in different pockets, each with a tag tied to it, bearing the name
of the room it belonged to.
The room upstairs was in darkness, but the door of it was not locked.
Cautiously I entered, pushed to the door behind me, and then pressed the
button of my electric torch.
Everything was in disorder. Most of the dusty furniture had been pushed
into a corner. Some of it was still covered with sheets, but much of it
was not. Clearly people had been in here a good deal of late. I picked
my way between various pieces of furniture across to the corner I
sought. On arriving there I started, and at once switched off my light.
In the floor at that corner, was a big hole, a very big hole indeed,
several feet across.
The carpet had been rolled back. The boards had all been ripped up.
Two of the beams below them had been sawed across, and about three feet
of each of these beams removed. The ceiling of the room below had been
smashed away--this I judged to be the exact spot where the brown stain
had been--and, as I cautiously bent forward, and craned my neck, I could
see right down into the drawing-room.
Voices were murmuring--men's voices. The sight upon which my gaze
rested made me recoil.
Stretched out on the floor, right below me, was a human body--
shrivelled, dry, quite brown, but undoubtedly a body. It looked exactly
like a mummy, a mummy five feet or more in length. Beside it knelt two
figures. As I looked, I saw them slowly lift the body from the floor,
one man holding either end of it. In a moment or two they had carried
it out of sight. And the men who had taken it away were Sir Charles
Thorold and the man I had known as Davies, but whose name I now knew to
be Whichelo.
This was more, a great deal more than I had expected or even dreamt I
should see when I entered the house of mystery.
What could it all mean? Had there been foul play? And if so, had
Thorold had a hand in it? I could not think this possible. And yet
what other construction could I possibly place upon what I had just
witnessed?
I did not know what to think, much less had I any idea of what I ought
now to do. And then, all at once, an inspiration came to me.
I took several long breaths. Then, setting my voice at a low, unnatural
pitch, I gave vent to a deep, long-drawn-out wail, gradually raising my
voice until it ended in a weird shriek.
The stillness below became intense. I paused for perhaps half-a-minute.
Then I slowly repeated the wail, ending this time in a kind of
unearthly yell.
I knew I had achieved my purpose--knew that the men below were
terrified, panic-stricken. I could picture them kneeling beside the
shrivelled corpse, literally petrified by horror, their eyes starting
from their sockets, their faces bloodless.
Then I walked with measured tread about the floor, the dull "plunk
plunk" of my rubber soles sounding, in the depth of the night, and in
the stillness of that unoccupied house--ghostly even to me. Next I
began to push the furniture about, and a moment later I slammed the
door.
There was a wild, a frantic stampede. Both men had sprung to their feet
and were dashing headlong down the stairs. I pursued them in the
darkness! They heard the quick patter of my rubber shoes upon the
stairs behind them, and it seemed to give them wings. Furniture was
knocked spinning in the darkness. A terrific crash echoed through the
house as, in their blind rush, they hurled on to the stone floor of the
hall a big china vase the height of a man which had stood upon a
pedestal. A door slammed. Then another, more faintly, a long way down
some corridor.
Then once more all was still.
Chuckling at the grim humour of the situation, I went slowly up the
stairs again. There was still a light in the first-floor room. I
pushed the door open and walked boldly in.