Watching the House.
Mrs. Jinks's new lodger, Mr. Strange, was making himself at home, not
only at Mrs. Jinks's, but in the village generally, and gradually
getting familiar with its stories and its politics. Talking with the
men at the station one hour, chatting to the field labourers the next;
stepping into the shops to buy tobacco, or paper, or lozenges, or what
not, and staying a good twenty minutes before he came out again: Mr.
Strange was ingratiating himself with the local world.
But, though he gossiped freely enough without doors and with Mrs.
Jinks within, he did not appear anxious to cultivate intimacy with the
social sphere; but rather avoided it. The Rev. Mr. Cattacomb, relying
on the information that the new lodger was a gentleman reading for
Oxford, had taken the initiative and made an advance to
acquaintanceship. Mr. Strange, while receiving it with perfect
civility, intimated that he was obliged to decline it. His health; he
said, left him no alternative, and he had come to the country for
entire quiet. As to his reading for Oxford, it was a mistake he
hinted. He was reading; but not with a view of going to any college.
After that, the gentlemen bowed when they chanced to meet in the
passages or out of doors, exchanged perhaps a remark on the fine
weather; and there it ended.
The reader has not failed to detect that this "Mr. Strange," the name
caught up so erroneously by Mrs. Jinks, was in reality the shrewd
detective officer sent down by Scotland Yard in search of Philip
Salter. His instructions were, not to hurry matters to an abrupt
conclusion and so miss his game, but to track out Salter patiently and
prudently. A case on which he had been recently engaged _had_ been
hurried and lost. Circumstances connected with it had caused him to
lose sight of his usual prudence: he thought he was justified in doing
what he did, and acted for the best: but the result proved him to have
been wrong. No fear, with this failure on his mind, and the caution of
his masters in his ears, that he would be in over much hurry now. In
point of fact he could not if he would, for there was nothing to make
hurry over.
For some time not a trace of any kind could Mr. Strange find of Philip
Salter. People with whom he gossipped talked to him without any
reserve; he was sure of that; and he would artfully lead the
conversation and twist it the way he pleased; but he could hear
nothing of any one likely to be Salter. The man might as well never
have been within a hundred miles of Foxwood; for the matter of that,
he might as well never have had existence, for all the trace there was
left of him. Scotland Yard, however, was sure that Salter was to be
found not far off, and that was enough: Mr. Strange, individually,
felt sure of it also.
Knowing what he had been told of the visits of Sir Karl Andinnian to
Detective Burtenshaw, and their object, Mr. Strange's attention was
especially directed to Foxwood Court. Before he had been three days in
the place, he had won the heart of Giles the footman (much at liberty
just then, through the temporary absence of his master and mistress)
and treated him to five glasses of best ale at different times in
different public-houses. Giles, knowing no reason for reticence,
freely described all he knew about Foxwood Court: the number of
inmates, their names, their duties, their persons, and all the rest of
it. Not the least idea penetrated his brain that the gentleman had any
motive for listening to the details, save the whiling away of some of
the day's idle hours. There was certainty no one at the Court that
could be at all identified with the missing man; and, so far, Mr.
Strange had lost his time and his ale money. Of course he put
questions as to Sir Karl's movements--where he went to in the day,
what calls he made, and what he did. But Giles could give no
information that was available. Happily, he was ignorant of his
master's visits to the Maze.
In short--from what Mr. Strange could gather from Giles and others,
there was no one whatever in or about Foxwood, then or in time past,
that at all answered to Philip Salter. He heard Mr. Smith spoken
of--"Smith the agent, an old friend of the Andinnian family"--but it
did not once occur to him to attempt to identify him with the
criminal. Smith the agent (whom by the way Mr. Strange had not chanced
yet to see) was living openly in the place, going about amid the
tenants on the estate, appearing at church, altogether transacting his
business and pursuing his course without concealment: that is not how
Salter would have dared to live, and the detective did not give Smith
a suspicious thought. No: wherever Salter might be he was evidently in
strict concealment: and it must be Mr. Strange's business to hunt him
out of it.
In the meantime, no speculation whatever had been aroused in the
village as to Mr. Strange himself. He had taken care to account for
his stay there at the first onset, and people's minds were at rest.
The gentleman in delicate health was free to come and go; his
appearance in the street, or roads, or fields, excited no more
conjecture or observation than did that of the oldest inhabitant. The
Reverend Mr. Cattacomb was stared at whenever he appeared, in
consequence of the proceedings of St. Jerome's: Mr. Strange passed
along in peace.
Still, he learnt nothing. Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian had returned
home long and long ago; he often saw them out (though he took care
they should not see him), together or separately as might be, Sir Karl
sometimes driving her in a beautiful little pony-chaise: but he could
learn no trace of the man he was sent after. Sir Karl heard that some
young student was in the village, out of health and reading for
Oxford; he somehow caught up the notion that it was only a lad, and as
he never chanced to see him, thought no more of him. And whether Mr.
Strange might not have thrown up the game in a short time for utter
lack of scent, cannot be told. A clue--or what he thought was a
clue--arose at last.
It arose, too, out of a slight misfortune that happened to himself.
Entering the house one evening at dusk before the passage lamp was
lighted, he chanced to put his foot into a tray of wine-glasses, that
the young maid had incautiously placed on the floor outside the
parlour-door. In trying to start back and save the glasses, Mr.
Strange slipped, went down with his right hand upon the tray, broke a
glass or two, and cut his hand in three or four places. Miss Blake was
there at the time, helping to catechise some young children: she
felt really sorry for the mishap, and kindly went upstairs to the
drawing-room to see its extent. The hand was in a bowl of warm water,
and Mrs. Jinks was searching for linen to bind it up.
"Why do you put it into warm water, Mr. Strange?" she asked. "It will
make it bleed all the more."
"Some bits of glass may have got in," he replied.
"Will you have Mr. Moore?"
But he laughed at the notion of sending for a doctor to cut fingers,
and he bound up the hand himself, saying it would be all right. The
next day, in the afternoon, Miss Blake made her appearance in his room
to inquire how the damage was progressing, and found Mrs. Jinks in the
act of assisting him to dress it with some precious ointment that she
vowed was better than gold, and would not fail to heal the cuts in a
day or two.
Miss Blake had previously a speaking acquaintanceship with Mr.
Strange, having often met him going in and out. She sat down; and the
three were chatting amicably when they were pounced in upon by little
Mrs. Chaffen. Happening to call in to see her cousin, and hearing from
the maid downstairs what Mrs. Jinks was then engaged upon--dressing
the gentleman's hand--the nurse ran up to offer her more experienced
services.
She took the hand out of Mrs. Jinks's into her own, and dressed it and
bound it up as well as Mr. Moore himself could have done. It was
nearly over when, by a curious coincidence--curious, considering what
was to come of it--the conversation turned upon _ghosts_. Upon ghosts,
of all things in the world! Some noise had been heard in the house the
previous night by all the inmates--which noise had not been in any way
accounted for. It was like the falling down of a piece of heavy
furniture. It had awoke Mr. Cattacomb; it had awoke Mrs. Jinks; it had
startled Mr. Strange, who was not asleep. The history of this was
being given to Miss Blake, Mr. Strange gravely asserting it could have
been nothing but a ghost--and that set Mrs. Chaffen on. She proceeded
to tell them with real gravity, not assumed, that she did believe a
ghost, in the shape of a gentleman in dinner dress, haunted the Maze:
or else that her eyes were taking to see visions.
It should be mentioned that after a week's attendance on Mrs. Grey,
Nurse Chaffen had been discharged. The patient was then going on quite
well: and, as Mr. Moore saw that it worried her to have the nurse
there--for whom she seemed to have conceived an insurmountable
dislike--he took her away. The summary dismissal did not please the
nurse: and she revenged herself by reporting that the Maze had a ghost
in it. As a rule, people laughed at her, and thought no more about it:
this afternoon her tale was to bear different fruit.
She told it consecutively. How she had been quite flurried by being
called out by Dr. Moore all on a sudden; how he had taken her straight
off to the Maze without saying where it was she was going till she got
to the gate; how she and the doctor had seen the gentleman at the top
of the stairs (which she took it to be the sick lady's husband), and
watched him vanish into an end room, and had never seen the least sign
of him afterwards; how the servant, Mrs. Hopley, had vowed through
thick and thin that no gentleman was, or had been, or could have been
in the house, unbeknown to her and Hopley.
Nurse Chaffen talked away to her heart's content, enlarging upon
points of her story. Not one of them interrupted her: not one but
would have listened with interest had she run on until midnight. Mrs.
Jinks from her love of marvellous tales; the detective because he
believed this might be the clue he wanted to Philip Salter; and Miss
Blake in her resentful condemnation of Sir Karl Andinnian. For, that
the "gentleman in dinner dress" was no other than Sir Karl, who had
stolen in on one of his secret visits, she could have staked her life
upon.
"A tall gentleman with dark hair, you say it looked like?" questioned
Mr. Strange indifferently.
"Tall for certain, sir. As to his hair, I don't know; it might have
been darkish. I see he had nice white teeth."
"Salter had good teeth," was the mental comment of the detective. "_I
have found him_."
"And in dinner dress?" added Miss Blake with a cough.
"So it looked like, ma'am. The sort of coat that gentlefolks wears in
an evening."
"And you mean to say you never see him after; never but that there one
time?" tartly interposed the Widow Jinks.
"Never at all. The rooms was all open to daylight while I was there,
but he wasn't in never a one of 'em."
"Then I tell you what, Betsey Chaffen; it was a ghost, and you need
not hesitate to stand to it."
"Well, you see he didn't look like a ghost, but like an ordinary
gentleman," confessed Mrs. Chaffen. "What came over me, and what I
can't make out, was Ann Hopley's standing it out that neither ghost
nor gentleman was there: she said she'd take her oath to it."
"Thank you, you've done my hand up beautifully, Mrs. Chaffen," said
the patient. "I should give my credence to the spirit theory. Did Mr.
Moore see the appearance of this ghostly gentleman?"
"Yes he did, sir. I'm sure he did. For he lifted his head like at the
gentleman, and stood still when he got to the top of the stairs,
staring at the room he had vanished into. I told him a day or two
afterwards that Mrs. Hopley denied that any one had been there, and
the doctor quietly said, 'Then we must have been mistaken.' I did not
like to ask whether he thought it was a ghost."
"Oh I think you may depend upon the ghost," returned Mr. Strange,
biting his lips to prevent a laugh.
"Well, sir, queer stories was told of that Maze house in the late
tenant's time. My cousin Jinks here knows that well enough."
"It was haunted by more than one ghost then, if all folks told true,"
assented Mrs. Jinks. "Mr. Throckton's son--a wild young blade he
was--hung hisself there. I was but a girl at the time."
"Ah, one of the old ghosts come back again; not been laid yet,"
solemnly remarked the detective, staring at Mrs. Chaffen. "Did the
lady herself seem alarmed?"
"Well, sir, I can't say she did then, because she couldn't have seen
it, and was too ill besides. But she had got a curious manner with
her."
"Curious?" questioned Mr. Strange.
"Yes, sir, curious. As if she was always frightened. When everything
was as still as still could be, she'd seem to be listening like, as
though expecting to hear something. Now and then she'd start up in bed
in a fright, and cry out What was that?--when there had been no noise
at all."
"Feverish fancies," quietly remarked Mr. Strange, with a cough.
By and by, the party separated. As Nurse Chaffen was descending to the
kitchen, leaving Mrs. Jinks putting the room straight, Miss Blake, who
had gone down first, put forth her hand and drew the nurse into Mr.
Cattacomb's parlour; that reverend man being absent on some of his
pastoral calls.
"I have been _so much_ interested in this that you have been telling
us, nurse," she breathed. "It seems quite to have taken hold of me.
What was the gentleman like? Did he resemble any one you know--Sir
Karl Andinnian, for instance?"
"Why, ma'am, how can I tell who he resembled?---I didn't get enough
look at him for that," was the answer. "I saw his head and the tails
of his coat when he turned--and that was all. Except his teeth: I did
see them."
"And they were white teeth--good teeth?"
"Oh, beauties. White and even as a die."
"Sir Karl's teeth are white and even," nodded Miss Blake to herself.
"Had Mrs. Grey any visitors while you were there, nurse?"
"Never a one. Never a soul came inside the gates, good or bad, but the
doctor. I don't fancy the lady has made friends in the place at all,
ma'am. She likes to keep herself to herself, Ann Hopley thinks, while
Mr. Grey's away."
"Oh, naturally," said Miss Blake. And she dismissed the woman.
The Widow Jinks had a surprise that night. Mr. Strange, hitherto so
quiet and well conducted, asked for the latch-key! She could not
forbear a caution as she gave it him; not to stay out too late on
account of his health. He laughed pleasantly in answer; saying he
expected a friend down by the last train from London, and might stay
out late with him.
But he never went near the station, and he met no friend. Keeping as
much in the shades of night as the very bright moon allowed him to do,
Mr. Strange arrived by a roundabout way at the gate of the Maze, and
let himself in with a master-key.
"The dolt I was, never to have suspected this shut-in place before!"
he exclaimed. "Salter is lying here in concealment: there can be no
doubt of it: and if his career's at an end he may thank his own folly
in having allowed himself to be seen by the woman, Chaffen. Wonder who
the sick lady is? Perhaps his wife: perhaps not. And now--how to get
through this maze that they talk of? Knowing something of mazes, I
daresay I shall accomplish it without trouble."
And he did. His keen intelligence, sharpened no doubt by experience,
enabled him, if not to hit upon the clue, at least to get through the
maze. A small compass was hanging to his watch-guard, and he lighted a
match frequently to consult it. So he got through. He regarded the
house from all points; he penetrated to the outer path or circle, and
went round and round it: he made, so to say, the outer premises his
own. Then he went through the maze to reconnoitre the house again.
It lay quiet, steeped in the moonlight. He stood at the back of the
lawn, against the laurel trees that were beyond the flower beds, and
gazed at it. In one of the rooms a night-light was burning faintly,
and he fancied he could hear the continuous wail of an infant. To make
sure whether it was so, or not--though in truth it mattered not to
him, and was a very probable thing to happen--he stood forward a
little on the lawn: but as that brought him into the moonlight, he
retreated into the shade again. Most of the windows had blinds or
curtains drawn before them; the only one that had none was the
casement over the portico. Mr. Strange stood there as if rooted to the
spot, making his silent observations.
"Yes; that's where my gentleman is lying concealed, safe enough! Safe
enough as _he_ thinks. There may be some difficulty in as safely
unearthing him. He'd not dare to be here without facilities for
guarding against surprise and for getting away on the first sound of
the alarm bugle. This is a queer old house: there may be all kinds of
hiding places in it. I must go to work cautiously, and it may be a
long job. Suppose I look again to the door fastenings?"
The moon was beginning to wane when the detective officer with his
false key got out again; and he thought he had his work tolerably well
cut out to his hand.
The faint wailing had not been fancy. For the first week or two of the
child's life it had seemed to thrive well, small though it was; but,
after that, it began to be a little delicate, and would sometimes
wail as though in pain. On this night the child--who slept with its
mother--woke up and began its wail. Ann Hopley, whom the slightest
noise awoke, hearing that her mistress did not seem to be able to
soothe it, left her own bed to try and do so. Presently, in going to
fetch some medicine-cordial for the child, she had to pass the
casement window in the passage; the one that was uncurtained. The
exceeding beauty of the night struck her, and she paused to look out
upon it, the old black shawl she had thrown on being drawn closely
round her. The grass shone in the moonlight; some of the leaves of the
laurels flickered white in its rays. At that self-same moment, as the
woman looked, some movement directed her attention to these very
laurels: and to her utter horror she thought she saw a man standing
there, apparently watching the house.
The sickness of intense fear seized upon her as she drew aside--but
the black shawl and the small diamond panes of the casement window had
prevented her from being observed. Yes: she was not mistaken. The man
came forth for an instant into the moonlight, and then went back
again. Ann Hopley's fear turned her heart to sickness. Her first
impulse was to rush on through the passages and arouse Sir Adam
Andinnian. Her second impulse was to wait and watch. She remembered
her master's most dangerous fiery temperament, and the pistols he kept
always loaded. This intruding man might be but some wretched night
marauder, who had stolen in after the fruit. Watching there, she saw
him presently go round in the direction of the fruit-trees, and
concluded that her surmise was correct.
So she held her tongue to her master and mistress. The latter she
would not alarm; the former she dared not, lest another night he
should take up his stand at the window, pistol in hand. Two things
puzzled her the next morning: the one was, how the man could have got
in; the other, that neither fruit nor flowers seemed to have been
taken.
That same day, upon going to the gate to answer a ring, she found
herself confronted by a strange gentleman, who said he had called from
hearing the house was to let, and he wished to look at it. Ann Hopley
thought this rather strange. She assured him it was a mistake: that
the house was not to let: that Mrs. Grey had no intention of leaving.
When he pressed to go in and just look at the house, "in case it
should be let later," she persisted in denying him admittance, urging
her mistress's present sick state as a reason for keeping out all
visitors.
"Is Mr. Grey still at home?" then asked the applicant.
"Mr. Grey has not been at home," replied Ann Hopley. "My mistress is
alone."
"Oh, indeed! Not been here at all?"
"No, sir. I don't know how soon he may be coming. He is abroad on his
travels."
"What gentleman is it, then, who has been staying here lately?"
Ann Hopley felt inwardly all of a twitter. Outwardly she was quietly
self-possessed.
"No gentleman has been here at all, sir. You must be mistaking the
house for some other one, I think. This is the Maze."
"A lady and gentleman and two servants, I understand, are living
here."
"It is quite a mistake, sir. My mistress and us two servants live
here--me and my husband--but that's all. Mr. Grey has not been here
since we came to the place."
"Now that's a disappointment to me," cried the stranger. "I have lost
sight of a friend of mine, named Grey, for the past year or two, and
was hoping I might find him here. You are sure you don't know when Mr.
Grey may be expected?"
"Quite sure, sir. My mistress does not know, herself."
The stranger stepped back from the gate to take his departure. In
manner he was a very pleasant man, and his questions had been put with
easy courtesy.
"And you are equally sure the house is not about to be vacated?"
"I feel sure of this, that if Mrs. Grey had thoughts of vacating it,
she would have informed me. But in regard to any point connected with
the house, sir, you had better apply to the landlord, Sir Karl
Andinnian."
"Thank you; yes, that may be the best plan. Good morning," he added,
taking off his hat with something of French civility.
"Don't think she is to be bribed," thought he as he walked away. "At
least not easily. Perhaps I may in time work my way on to it."
Ann Hopley, locking the gate with double strength--at least, in
imagination--pushed through the maze without well knowing whether she
was on her head or her heels, so entirely had terror overtaken her. In
the height and shape of this man, who had been thus questioning her,
she fancied she traced a resemblance to the one who was watching the
house in the night. What if they were the same?
"The end is coming!" she murmured, clasping her faithful hands. "As
sure as my poor master is alive, the end is coming."
Not to her master or his wife, but to Karl Andinnian, did she impart
all this. It happened that Karl went over to the Maze that evening.
Ann Hopley followed him out when he departed, and told him of it
amidst the trees.
It startled him in a more painful degree even than it had startled
her: for, oh, what were her interests in the matter as compared with
his?
"Inside the grounds!--watching the house at night!" he repeated with a
gasp.
"Indeed, indeed he was, sir!"
"But who is it?"
"I don't know," said Ann; "I hoped it was only some thief who had come
after the fruit: I thought he might have got over from the fields by
means of a high ladder. That would have been nothing. But if the man
who came to the gate to-day is the same man, it must mean mischief."
"You have not told my brother?"
"How could I dare to tell him, sir? He might watch for the man; and,
if he came another night, shoot him. That would make things worse."
"With a vengeance," thought Karl. What was there to do? What could he
do? Karl Andinnian went out, the question beating itself into his
brain. Why, there seemed nothing for it but to wait and watch. He took
off his hat and raised his bare head to the summer sky, in which some
stars were twinkling, wishing he was there, in that blessed heaven
above where no pain can come. What with one tribulation and another,
earth was growing for him a hard resting-place.