to drop at full length on a patch of green turf at his feet. With such
breath as remained to her she expelled a sigh of relief.
"Scared, eh? I didn't suppose there was anything on earth that could
scare you!"
She pounced instantly on his phraseology. "Perhaps not--on earth!" In
a smaller voice than she was wont to employ, she added timidly, "Simon,
d-do you believe in ghosts?"
"_Ghosts_!" He fortified himself by a glance at the cabbages. "Talk
sense, Ocky!"
"Who says it isn't sense?" snapped Miss Copley. "Anyway, I just got
the shock of my long and exciting life. See here, Simon--didn't you
come up that path a few minutes ago?"
"I did. What of it?"
"I was sure it was you ahead of me as we crossed the meadow. Tell me,
did you meet anything--I mean, any one?"
"What do you mean? Did _you_?"
"Y-yes. A figure in black--dressed something like a monk. I didn't
meet him, exactly--he dodged into the woods as I came along. That is,
I suppose he did--he just seemed to vanish!"
"Oh--he seemed to vanish, did he?" Varr shifted nervously on his
granite throne. "You say he was dressed like a monk? Did--did you see
his _face_?"
"No, I couldn't see that--"
"Ah! You couldn't, eh?" He rubbed the palms of his hands on his
handkerchief as he probed a little deeper. "Too far away, I suppose."
"No. He had on a mask."
"A _mask_!" Comprehension came to him at once, and he inwardly cursed
himself for an imaginative fool before continuing. "Well, Ocky, to
tell you the truth, I did see him--right here at the head of the trail.
He had his back to the light so I couldn't make out any mask. Er--what
made you think of ghosts?"
"Because I had such a creepy feeling when I saw him. Didn't you?"
"Humph. For a moment, perhaps."
"Did you pass each other after you met?"
"Why--why-- Confound it--_no_! He just _disappeared_!"
"Gosh!" said Miss Copley fervently. "Simon, it _was_ a spook! I know
it was! Have you ever seen or heard of a monk around here before?"
"N-no. But that doesn't mean anything. There's no law that says they
can't travel if they want to."
"But what would a monk be doing on a private path through this
property? Why should he disappear from people? Why should he wear a
mask? Monks don't wear masks." She reflected a moment. "Come to
think of it, he wasn't dressed exactly like a monk--Simon! did you
ever see a picture of those creatures of the Spanish Inquisition?
'Familiars' I think they used to call them. They dressed that way and
wore masks!"
"Humph." Despite that skeptic snort, Varr was conscious of a nervous
chill. "You've been drinking too much coffee, Ocky! Indigestion!"
"_Oh_!" cried Miss Copley suddenly. She raised herself on an elbow and
looked all about her on the ground. "Oh--_pshaw_!"
"Eh? What is it?"
"Coffee! Your mentioning it just reminded me! I was coming back from
a walk and I stopped at Wimpelheimer's to get a pound of it--I knew it
was needed at the house. Now it's gone! I must have dropped it when
that creature frightened me." She looked woebegone. "It's not very
far back, but I'm so tired!"
"Are you?" repeated Varr restlessly.
"You'll get it for me, won't you, Simon?" She regarded him
appealingly. "Oh--please!"
He got up from the rock and glanced at her with marked distaste. His
gaze traveled to the dark entrance of the trail, came back to rest
briefly on the consoling cabbages, went again to the trail. He took an
irresolute, halting step--and then was struck by an inspiration that
cleared his brow as if by magic.
"What do I keep a houseful of idle servants for?" he demanded crisply.
"Let Bates hunt it up--he'd better take a torch."
"Simon--you're _scared_!"
"Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, it's going to storm. I felt a drop of
rain a moment ago. Come along to the house and stop your nonsense
about monks and familiars and--and ghosts!"
Perhaps the last word came out a little uncertainly, but as he strode
through the kitchen garden and around to the front door, followed
closely by Miss Copley, he decided with pardonable pride that he had
extricated himself from an embarrassing position with his accustomed
masterful dexterity. The thought comforted him, for he vaguely
realized that he had come close to experiencing a nervous panic during
those minutes in the woods.
A white-haired man, still lithe, erect and agile despite his years,
opened the door for them as their steps sounded on the planking of the
veranda. This was Bates, the butler, a faithful retainer who had
served the father of Lucy Varr and her sister a full decade before
passing with the house and land into the keeping of the younger
daughter and her husband. At the time of Mr. Copley's death, Varr had
tentatively suggested letting the man go, but his wife had protested
against that idea and had gained her point by shrewdly convincing her
husband that good servants were becoming increasingly difficult to find
and that Bates could never be replaced for less than twice his wages.
It was one of the very rare occasions when Simon had credited the
gentle, self-effacing lady with showing sound sense.
The butler had just lighted the big lamp in the hall--electricity had
not yet found its way into the old house--and the warm cheerfulness of
the homely scene went far to rehabilitating Simon's convalescent nerve.
Ghosts did not fit into this atmosphere. Bates did--Bates was almost
as satisfying as a cabbage. Of course, Ocky would promptly do her best
to spoil it--! He could have dispensed willingly with the examination
to which she immediately subjected the servant.
"Bates, has any one called?"
"No, Miss Ocky."
"No one at all?"
"No, Miss Ocky." His wrinkled face showed his surprise at the
repetition.
"How about the back door? Any one come there?"
"No one, Miss Ocky."
"Well, have you seen any one around the grounds? A man dressed like a
monk? Wearing a mask?"
"A monk? In a mask?" The old man smiled indulgently at this quaint
whimsy, which might have come more suitably from the little girl with
flying pigtails whom he used to chase out of his pantry than from this
sensible, middle-aged woman who was waiting with apparent seriousness
for his answer. "A monk in a mask? Good gracious, no, Miss Ocky!"
"All right." Miss Copley sent a significant glance at Varr, which he
acknowledged by wrinkling his nose disdainfully. "By the way, Bates--I
left a pound of coffee a little ways down the short-cut, you might step
out and get it before dinner."
"Yes, Miss Ocky."
"You ought to find it right in the middle of the path."
"Yes, Miss Ocky."
Bates waited, and when nothing further appeared to be forthcoming he
betook himself wonderingly to his usual habitat in the rear quarter of
the house. Monks in masks, indeed! And why did any one want to leave
a pound of coffee down a trail with rain commencing to fall? He shook
his head despondently over a Miss Ocky returned from foreign parts so
changed from the Miss Ocky of the old days.
She seemed inclined to renew the ghostly topic of conversation when
left alone with her brother-in-law, but Simon gave her no chance. He
stalked off down the hall and entered his study, a small room that
opened off the comfortable, old-fashioned parlor. He closed the door
from the hall behind him, and also, for the sake of greater privacy,
the door that communicated with the living-room. Then he seated
himself at a roll-top desk and turned up the wick of the lamp that was
burning dimly in a wall bracket, close at hand.
He had remembered, as he left Miss Ocky to her eerie fancies, the note
which he had retrieved from the cleft stick. She had driven the
recollection of it from his mind by her idle chatter about ghosts! He
took the slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.
A few typewritten lines jumped to his eye, and he nodded as if that
were as he had expected. Before reading the text, however, he leaned
back in his chair and strove to recall the exact circumstances under
which he had discovered the missive. He had been hurrying--no, blast
it, he had been scuttling like a scared rabbit!--along the trail and
had run into the stick, which had been jabbed into the ground where he
could not fail to notice it--and at the very spot where the figure in
black had been standing! Apparition--pooh! If there was one thing
certain about the whole silly business it was that the note had been
put there by that--that creature. Simon did not profess to be versed
in the lore of spooks, but he could not vision an ambassador from
another world leaving behind him a tangible message composed on an
earthly typewriter--! Pooh, and again, _pooh_!
He paused at this stage of his reflections to grin at the thought of
Ocky, denied the knowledge of this consolatory bit of evidence. He
hadn't mentioned it to her, and he wouldn't. Let her go on believing
in ghosts! He was hugely pleased to think that there really existed
one thing that could get under the skin of that hard-boiled human!
He was still smiling grimly as he finally began to read the
message--but the smile had faded away before he finished.
"_Woe unto thee, stiff-necked son of Belial! Woe unto thee, oppresor
of the defensless! Woe unto thee, who hast ground the faces of the
poor, who hast turned the hopes of thy neighbers to ashes! Woe! Woe!
Woe! Take heed to thy ways and mend them, lest thou be destroyed by
the thunderbolts of wrath!_"
A hand-written signature in a sprawling fist concluded the
communication; heavy, labored characters, inscribed in a crimson fluid
by a blunt pen, formed two words: "The Monk."
Simon Varr read the thing through twice. He laid it on the desk before
him and stared at it as though it had some power to hypnotize him. A
pulse of anger beat in his temple, but it was a more subdued anger than
his quick temper usually produced. His mental processes had ceased to
function normally as they sank beneath a wave of bewilderment such as
had submerged them in the woods. Feebly, they came again to the
surface.
This message was an event entirely outside the range of his previous
experience. He had heard of anonymous letters, naturally, and he knew
that the correct and courageous thing to do was to ignore them as if
they did not exist. But anonymous letters, as he understood them, were
brought by the postman and placed on the breakfast table with the
morning mail; they weren't planted in the middle of a lonely copse by
gentlemen attired as Spanish Inquisitioners!
The letter on his desk seemed to leer at its recipient and challenge
him to ignore it.
What did it mean? Who had sent it? Was it a genuine warning and
threat, or was it merely an elaborate hoax? He pondered the latter
possibility quite at length--and thanked his stars that he had not told
Ocky about it. Simon Varr was not the man to relish a jest against
himself, and if Ocky ever heard about it and it subsequently proved to
be the work of a practical joker--well, she would never let him forget
that he hadn't gone after the pound of coffee!
But the theory that it might be a hoax grew more and more implausible
as he contemplated it. He was positive he knew no one capable of such
a prank, and to suppose that any stranger had gone to so much trouble
to play a trick on him was absurd.
He had no lack of enemies--he knew that. Had one of them chosen this
fantastic method of declaring war on him? In that case he could
certainly afford to ignore the letter as coming from a source unworthy
of serious consideration. A worth-while enemy does not give a warning;
he strikes. The cheapest thing about a rattlesnake is its rattle.
Varr started to run over a list of recognized foemen who might have
done this ill-natured deed, but presently desisted; their name was
legion.
He did not overlook a third, quite reasonable theory. The whole
business might have sprung from the unbalanced mind of a lunatic--some
person who believed himself appointed to right the wrongs of the
world--the victim of religious mania. That would account for the
choice of a monastic costume in which to masquerade--and it would also
account for the queer language of the letter, savoring as it did of the
Bible. Again, the type of person most likely to suffer from that form
of mental affliction would be a poorly educated person--and Simon
entertained grave doubts as to the orthography of some of the words in
the letter.
He reached into a pigeonhole of the desk and took out a small
dictionary that he always kept at hand. He selected the dubious
spellings that had caught his attention and ran them down one by one.
"Oppresor" was wrong. "Defensless" was fearful. "Neighbor" started
out brilliantly but came a cropper at the end. And that curious
phrase, "Who hast"; what about that? Simon was a trifle hazy over
this, so he gave the writer the benefit of the doubt. It sounded
queer, though. Anyway, he had established to his satisfaction that the
fellow was illiterate--naively passing by the fact that he had himself
resorted to a dictionary to confirm his belief.
He congratulated himself frankly on one score--he had laid the ghost!
He could admit now--though with a blush of shame--that he had been
badly shaken for just a few minutes, what with his own nerves and
Ocky's confounded chattering! A man without a face! A "familiar" from
the Spanish Inquisition! What rot a man's imagination can trick him
into crediting. But that was over and done with now; he was back on
solid ground, self-confident, secure--
He jumped quite half a foot in his chair at a muffled tap on the
door--and swore at Bates for announcing dinner.
_IV: The Legend of the Monk_
Four people sat down to dinner that evening in the big dining-room
across the hall from the parlor and Varr's study. The walls of the
dining-room were plentifully equipped with sconces bearing lamps, but
Simon, in some moment of petty economy, had once decreed that these
should be lighted only on formal occasions. The only illumination this
evening came from the candles on the table, which stood in the center
of the room, and beyond the area reached by their rays the shadows
deepened into impenetrability. At one end of the room a narrow slit of
light at top and bottom marked the position of the swinging door which
gave access to the pantry.
From this point to the sideboard, and thence to the table, and back
again, moved Bates on noiseless feet as he busied himself with the
service of the meal. In his black clothes, the instant he slipped out
of the magic lighted circle he was swallowed completely by the shadows,
to reappear presently with spectral abruptness in another segment of
activity. Several times he startled Simon by silently materializing
from the void at his elbow, and on each occasion the tanner found some
excuse to vent his anger in a curt rebuke to the servant.
The four who dined were of diametrically opposed temperaments. Across
the table from Varr sat his wife, Lucy, a pale, gentle soul who under
happier circumstances might have retained more of her youthful
freshness and beauty than she had. She appeared washed-out and
bloodless, so that her sister had remarked to herself that living with
Simon Varr must be not unlike associating permanently with a vampire.
His own abundant vitality sapped the life-juice from those about him,
leaving the desiccated bodies an easy prey to his appetite for
dominance.
At Varr's left was his son, Copley, a young man who had come of age
that summer. He was tall and straight, aquiline of feature, brown-eyed
and with dark chestnut hair that persisted, to his annoyance, in a
tendency to curl. He was a likable chap, popular with young and old of
both sexes. His good looks came from his mother, together with the
equable disposition that promised to be his as he grew older and
learned better to control his emotions. When a youngster he had been
willful at times and prone to flashes of fiery temper, a heritage,
beyond doubt, from his father's chronic irascibility, but the
discipline of boarding-school and college had taught him to restrain at
least its outward manifestations. From Simon, too, he had inherited a
flair for business--an invaluable asset, thought Miss Ocky, for a man
sentenced for life to this twentieth century America.
She was studying him now as she sat across the table from him, just as
she studied the other two when opportunity served. They were all three
practically strangers to her. The boy had not even been expected when
she went to China with the Oriental Languages committee from her
college, and in the twenty-three years that had elapsed before her
return two months ago, time had worked changes. She would never have
recognized her bright, joyous sister in this tired woman of the
listless air. As for her brother-in-law--well, perhaps it was not
quite accurate to say that he was a stranger to her; she had known
Simon Varr at the period of his courtship and marriage and he was still
Simon Varr, only a little more so! Detestable creature. She held him
accountable, quite justly, for the blight that lay upon Lucy.
And upon Bates, too, for that matter. Miss Ocky had always had a warm
place in her heart for the faithful old man, reposing in him the trust
and confidence that her father had shown in the same quarter. Bates
was something more than the ordinary servant, he came close to being a
throw-back to the feudal retainer type of other days in his loyalty and
devotion to his house, just as his former master, Sylvester Copley, had
approximated in his time the character of a country gentleman. Bates
was getting on in years, of course, which would account for much of his
increased graveness and passivity, but not all. Unless Miss Ocky's
suspicions were wide of the mark, he, too, had come under the deadening
influence of Varr's dominance--ah! but _had_ he _entirely_? At the
very moment she was thinking about it, Simon had uttered a terse
comment, as biting as acid, upon some negligible feature of the
dinner-service. No faintest flicker of his facial muscles gave any
hint that Bates had heard the remark, but his eyes revealed that he
had, and for the fraction of a second they glinted oddly red in the
candlelight. Was there a spark of manhood in his breast that still
glowed when breathed upon?
They dined in silence for the most part. Simon was never a brilliant
conversationalist, and to-night his thoughts were busy with matters far
afield. Young Copley was taciturn and moody, preoccupied by
reflections of no very agreeable nature, to judge by his glum manner.
Lucy Varr, helping herself but scantily from the dishes passed,
preserved her customary pose of nervous diffidence. Only Miss Ocky
tried to dispel the settled atmosphere of depression by occasionally
shooting point-blank questions at one or another of her companions--and
toward the end of the meal she did manage to stir up a little
excitement.
"Copley," she addressed the quiet young man across the table. "You've
been out in the great world for several days, what's going on in New
York? Haven't you brought back any news to us country folk?"
"New York?" He roused himself by a palpable effort. "No, Aunt Ocky, I
didn't pick up anything in New York that would interest you. Nothing
much good at the theaters just now. But if you want a piece of local
news I may have one for you. It would be more interesting to you three
than to me. When I got off the train this afternoon there was another
chap who swung off just ahead of me, and I noticed him particularly
because he was so different from anything you'd expect to drop off the
four-sixteen. Tall and well-set-up, dressed like the mirror of
fashion, smooth and polished--and followed by a valet, if you please,
carrying his grips and a bag of golf clubs! Imagine a sight like that
in Hambleton! I thought he'd made a mistake in his station, until I
saw him walk right across the platform to where Adams, the
baggage-master, was standing. He said something and held out his hand,
and old Adams grabbed it and shook it as if he was greeting a prodigal
son. I thought the valet looked a bit shocked! Then this chap tucked
himself and his man and his baggage into one of Brown's jitneys and
drove off like a lord!"
"Who in the world could it have been?" wondered his mother, awakened to
a mild interest at the account of such grandeur in Hambleton. "Did you
ask, Copley?"
"I have my share of vulgar curiosity, mother; I did. As soon as he
disappeared I pounced on old Adams and asked him the name of his swell
friend. He told me that it was Leslie Sherwood, the son of the man who
died last winter--_hullo_!"
He broke off short and looked into the darkness behind him, whence had
come the crash of china as Bates dropped a tray of coffee cups.
Silence succeeded the tragedy, during which they could hear the
butler's muttered ejaculations of horror and distress as he bent to
retrieve the debris.
"Confound you, Bates! You get clumsier every day you live!"
Varr's outburst was swift, but not swift enough to deceive his
sister-in-law. Her quick eye had detected several little items of
interest, although they had occurred simultaneously and in opposite
directions.
At the mention of Leslie Sherwood's name, Lucy Varr had straightened in
her chair and turned to her son with parted lips as if eager for more
news, while a delicate flush--the first touch of color Ocky had seen
there in two months--sprang into her pale cheeks. This was fair
enough. In the old days, Leslie Sherwood had been attentive to Lucy
Copley in such degree that their circle confidently stood by for a
formal announcement. Then he had rather abruptly departed toward a
"business career in New York," making it plain that Hambleton would see
him no more for some while to come. His departure left clear the way
to the lady's hand for a colder, less attractive, but more determined
suitor. Lucy married Simon Varr.
She was entitled, then, to display some faint emotion at the mention of
a recreant knight, and Simon, with propriety, might have shown a
husbandly twinge of jealousy or contempt or dislike--any of a dozen
different sentiments other than the one he did reveal. At the bit of
news so casually dropped by his son, his head had jerked up sharply and
a look of fear had flashed into his eyes and out again. He had
cleverly seized upon the butler's mishap to cover his confusion, but
the ruse was too late to be effective as far as Miss Ocky was concerned.
So Simon was afraid of Leslie Sherwood, or else he had something to
fear from the sudden reappearance of that gentleman. Which was it? and
why? Miss Ocky determined to find out eventually. In the meantime she
would accept the curious circumstance and store it in that corner of
her brain where she was collecting odds and ends of data relating to
her brother-in-law.
"When did old Mr. Sherwood die?" she asked promptly.
"Last February," answered her sister. "He had been very ill for
several months--a general breakdown."
"Leslie was here at the time, I suppose."
"N-no; he wasn't. You're not posted on local topics, Ocky! This is
the first time Leslie has been back in Hambleton since he left to go
into business in New York. No one ever knew anything definite, but we
have always assumed that father and son quarreled over something so
bitterly that reconcilement was impossible. Still, when the old man
died he left everything to Leslie--and he has turned up, now. I wonder
if he will sell the place or--or live here?"
That was an unusually long speech for Lucy Varr, and it betrayed her
lively interest in the subject under discussion. Simon must have noted
that and perhaps resented it, for his face darkened. He made no
comment, however, but celebrated the end of dinner in his usual manner
by pushing back his chair a little, crossing his legs comfortably, and
beginning a series of excavating operations with a quill toothpick
which he drew from his vest pocket. Miss Ocky winced. This was the
postprandial habit of his that annoyed her excessively.
She had not changed for dinner. Now she took a cigarette case from a
side pocket of her coat, extracted a cigarette and lighted it from one
of the candles. Simon did not smoke himself, and he disliked intensely
the sight of a woman using tobacco. He glanced at Ocky, and to her
deep satisfaction made a wry face at the cloud of smoke she contentedly
exhaled. Winces were easy.