“No dog!” I exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Dead sure!” Thwaite returned, triumphantly, “And sure there never has
been a dog on the place.”
“How could you be sure of that?” I cavilled.
“I’m coming to that,” Thwaite went on, “I could not get anybody that
ever belonged to the place to talk, but I managed to arrange to
overhear two of them talking to each other; and more than once, too.
Most of what they said was no use to me, but I overheard scraps I could
piece together. There’s a cross-wall that divides the park. In the
smaller division, into which the lodge gates lead, are the homes of all
the caretakers and servants, of the overseers and manager and of the
estate doctor; for there is an estate doctor. He has two assistants,
young men, frequently changed. He is married like most of the retinue.
There is a sort of village of them inside the outer wall, outside the
inner cross-wall. Some of them have been there thirty-five years. When
they get too old they are pensioned off and sent away, somewhere; far
off, for I could not get a clue to any pensioner.
“The valets or keepers, whichever they are, and there are many of them,
to relieve each other, are all unmarried except two or three of the
most trusted. The rest are all brought over from England and shipped
back usually after four or five years of service. The men I overheard
were two of these, an old hand soon to finish his enlistment, as he
called it, and go home, and the lad he was training to take his place.
All these specials have plenty of time off to spend outside. They’d
sit over their beer for two or three hours at a time, chatting on,
Appleshaw giving points to Kitworth or Kitworth asking questions. I
learnt from them about the cross-wall.”
“Never’s been a woman t’ other side of it since it was built,”
Appleshaw said.
“I shouldn’t have thought it,” Kitworth ruminated.
“Can you imagine a woman,” Appleshaw asked, “standin’ him?”
“No,” Kitworth admitted, “I hardly can. But some women’ll stand more’n
a man.”
“Anyhow,” Appleshaw added, “he can’t abide the sight of a woman.”
“Odd,” said Kitworth, “I’ve heard his kind are all the other way.”
“They are, as we know,” Appleshaw replied, “havin’ watched ’em; but he
ain’t. He can’t endure ’em.”
“I suppose it’s the same way about dogs,” Kitworth reflected.
“No dog’d ever get used to him,” Appleshaw agreed, “and he’s that
afraid of dogs, they’re not allowed inside the place anywhere. Never’s
been one here since he was born, I’m told. No, nor any cat, either, not
one even.”
Another time I heard Appleshaw say:
“He built the museums, and the pavilion and the towers, the rest was
built before he grew up.”
Generally I could not hear much of Kitworth’s utterances, he talked so
low. I once heard Appleshaw reply:
Sometimes nights and nights he’ll be quiet as anybody, lights out early
and sleep sound for all we know. Again he’ll be up all night, every
window blazin’, or up late, till after midnight. Whoever’s on duty
sees the night out, nobody else’s business, unless they send an alarm
for help, and that ain’t often; not twice a year. Mostly he’s as quiet
as you or me, as long as he’s obeyed.
“His temper’s short though. Now he’ll fly into a rage if he’s not
answered quick; again he’ll storm if the watchers come near him
uncalled.”
Of long inaudible whispers I caught fragments.
Once:
“Oh, then he’ll have no one near. You can hear him sobbing like a
child. When he’s worst you’ll hear him, still nights, howlin’ and
screamin’ like a lost soul.”
Again:
“Clean-fleshed as a child and no more hairy than you or me.”
Again:
“Fiddle? No violinist can beat him. I’ve listened hours. It makes you
think of your sins. An’ then it’ll change an’ you remember your first
sweetheart, an’ spring rains and flowers, an’ when you was a child on
your mother’s knee. It tears your heart out.”
The two phrases that seemed to mean most were:
“He won’t stan’ any interference.”
And:
“Never a lock touched till daylight after he’s once locked in.”
“Now what do you think?” Thwaite asked me.
“It sounds,” I said, “as if the place were a one-patient asylum for a
lunatic with long lucid intervals.”
“Something like that,” Thwaite answered, “but there seems to be more in
it than that. I can’t make all the things I hear fit. Appleshaw said
one thing that runs in my head:
“Seein’ him in the suds give me a turn.”
And Kitworth said once:
“It was the bright colors alongside of it that made my blood run cold.”
And Appleshaw said more than once, in varying words, but always with
the same meaning tone:
“You’ll never get over bein’ afraid of him. But you’ll respect him more
and more, you’ll almost love him. You won’t fear him for his looks, but
for his awful wisdom. He’s that wise, no man is more so.”
Once Kitworth answered:
“I don’t envy Sturry locked in there with him.”
“Sturry nor none of us that’s his most trusted man for the time bein’
is not to be envied,” Appleshaw agreed. “But you’ll come to it, as I
have, if you’re the man I take you for.”
“That’s about all I got from listening,” Thwaite went on, “the rest
I got from watching and scouting. I made sure of the building they
call the Pavilion, that’s his usual home. But sometimes he spends his
nights in one or the other of the towers, they stand all by themselves.
Sometimes the lights are all out after ten o’clock or even nine; then
again they’re on till after midnight. Sometimes they come on late, two
o’clock or three. I have heard music too, violin music, as Appleshaw
described it, and organ music, too; but no howling. He is certainly a
lunatic, judging by the statuary.”
“Statuary?” I queried.
“Yes,” Thwaite said, “statuary. Big figures and groups, all crazy
men with heads like elephants or American eagles, perfectly crazy
statuary. But all well-done. They stand all about the park. The little,
square building between the Pavilion and the green tower is his
sculpture studio.”
“You seem to know the place mighty well,” I said.
“I do,” Thwaite assented, “I’ve gotten to know it well. At first I
tried nights like this. Then I dared starlight. Then I dared even
moonlight. I’ve never had a scare. I’ve sat on the front steps of the
Pavilion at one o’clock of starlight night and never been challenged.
I even tried staying in all day, hiding in some bushes, hoping to see
him.”
“Ever see him?” I inquired.
“Never,” Thwaite answered, “I’ve heard him though. He rides horseback
after dark. I’ve watched the horse being led up and down in front of
the Pavilion, till it got too dark to see it from where I was hid. I’ve
heard it pass me in the dark. But I could never get the horse against
the sky to see what was on it. Hiding and getting downhill of a road,
close to it, don’t go together.”
“You didn’t see him the day you spent there?” I insisted.
“No,” Thwaite said, “I didn’t. I was disappointed too. For a big auto
purred up to the Pavilion entrance and stood under the porte cochère.
But when it spun round the park there was nobody in it, only the
chauffeur in front and a pet monkey on the back seat.”
“A pet monkey!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” he said. “You know how a dog, a Newfoundland, or a terrier, will
sit up in an auto and look grand and superior and enjoy himself? Well,
that monkey sat there just like that turning his head one way and the
other taking in the view.”
“What was he like?” I asked.
“Sort of dog-faced ape,” Thwaite told me, “more like a mastiff.”
Rivvin grunted.
“This isn’t business,” Thwaite went on, “we’ve got to get down to
business. The point is the wall is their only guard, there’s no dog,
perhaps because of the pet monkey as much as anything else. They lock
Mr. Eversleigh up every night with only one valet to take care of him.
They never interfere whatever noise they hear or light they see, unless
the alarm is sent out and I have located the alarm wires you are to
cut. That’s all. Do you go?”
Rivvin was sitting close to me, half on me. I could feel his great
muscles and the butt of his pistol against my hip.
“I come with you,” I said.
“Of your own accord?” Thwaite insisted.
The butt of that pistol moved as Rivvin breathed.
“I come of my own accord,” I said.