The gentleman from America, alone in the haunted room, lost none of his
composure. Indeed, if anything disturbed him at all, it was that,
irritated by Quillier’s manner at a dinner-party a few nights before,
and knowing Quillier to be a bankrupt wastrel, he had allowed himself to
be dared into this silly adventure and had thus deprived himself for one
night of the amenities of his suite at Claridge’s Hotel. Five hundred
pounds more or less did not matter very much to Mr. Puce: although, to
be sure, it was some consolation to know that five hundred pounds more
or less must matter quite a deal to _Sir_ Cyril Quillier, for all his
swank. Mr. Puce, like a good American, following the gospel according to
Mr. Sinclair Lewis, always stressed the titles of any of his
acquaintance.
Now, he contented himself with a very cursory examination of the dim,
large room: he rapped, in an amateurish way, on the oak panels here and
there for any sign of any “secret passage junk,” but succeeded only in
soiling his knuckles: and it was only when, fully clothed, he had thrown
himself on the great bed that it occurred to him that five hundred
pounds sterling was quite a pretty sum to have staked about a damfool
haunted room.
The conclusion that naturally leapt to one’s mind, thought Mr. Puce, was
that the room must have something the matter with it: else would a hawk
like Quillier have bet money on its qualities of terror? Mr. Puce had,
indeed, suggested, when first the bet was put forward, that five hundred
pounds was perhaps an unnecessary sum to stake on so idiotic a fancy;
but Quillier had said in a very tired way that he never bet less than
five hundred on anything, but that if Mr. Puce preferred to bet with
poppycock and chickenfood, he, Quillier, would be pleased to introduce
him to some very jolly children of his acquaintance.
Such thoughts persuaded Mr. Puce to rise and examine more carefully the
walls and appointments of the room. But as the furniture was limited to
the barest necessities, and as the oak-panelled walls appeared in the
faint light to be much the same as any other walls, the gentleman from
America swore vaguely and again reclined on the bed. It was a very
comfortable bed.
He had made up his mind, however, that he would not sleep. He would
watch out, thought Mr. Puce, for any sign of this old ghost, and he
would listen with the ears of a coyote, thought Mr. Puce, for any hint
of those rapping noises, rude winds, musty odours, clanking of chains
and the like, with which, so Mr. Puce had always understood, the family
ghosts of Britishers invariably heralded their foul appearance.
Mr. Puce, you can see, did not believe in ghosts. He could not but
think, however, that some low trick might be played on him, since on the
honour of _Sir_ Cyril Quillier, peer though he was--for Mr. Puce, like a
good American, could never get the cold dope on all this fancy title
stuff--he had not the smallest reliance. But as to the supernatural, Mr.
Puce’s attitude was always a wholesome scepticism--and a rather
aggressive scepticism at that, as Quillier had remarked with amusement
when he had spoken of the ghost in, as he had put it, the house of
Kerr-Anderson’s aunt. Quillier had said:
“There are two sorts of men on whom ghosts have an effect: those who are
silly enough to believe in them, and those who are silly enough not to
believe in them.”
Mr. Puce had been annoyed at that. He detested clever back-chat. “I’ll
tell the world,” Mr. Puce had said, “that a plain American has to go to
a drug-store after a conversation with you.”
Mr. Puce, lying on the great bed, whose hangings depressed him, examined
his automatic and found it good. He had every intention of standing no
nonsense, and an automatic nine-shooter is, as Mr. Puce remembered
having read somewhere, an Argument. Indeed, Mr. Puce was full of those
dour witticisms about the effect of a “gun” on everyday life which go to
make the less pretentious “movies” so entertaining; although, to be
sure, he did not know more than a very little about guns. Travellers
have remarked, however, that the exciting traditions behind a
hundred-per-cent American nationality have given birth in even the most
gentle citizens of that great republic to a feeling of familiarity with
“guns,” as such homely phrases as “slick with the steel mit,” “doggone
son of a gun,” and the like, go to prove.
Mr. Puce placed the sleek little automatic on a small table by the bed,
on which stood the candle and, as he realised for the first time, a
book. One glance at the paper jacket of the book was enough to convince
the gentleman from America that its presence there must be due to one of
Quillier’s tired ideas. It showed a woman of striking, if conventional,
beauty fighting for her life with a shape which might or might not be
the wraith of a bloodhound but was certainly something quite outside a
lovely woman’s daily experience. Mr. Puce laughed. The book was called:
_Tales of Terror for Tiny Tots_, by _Ivor Pelham Marlay_.
The gentleman from America was a healthy man, and needed his sleep; and
it was therefore with relief that he turned to Mr. Marlay’s
absurd-looking book as a means of keeping himself awake. The tale at
which the book came open was called _The Phantom Foot-steps_; and Mr.
Puce prepared himself to be entertained, for he was not of those who
read for instruction. He read: