all," he muttered, with a sidelong look back at the house. "Lucetta
hasn't a particle of belief in that man's friendship, or, rather, she
believes he never goes anywhere without a particular intention, and
I do believe she's right, or why should he come spying around here
just at a time when"--he caught himself up with almost a look of
terror--"when--when you are here?" he completed lamely.
"I do not think," I retorted, more angrily than the occasion perhaps
warranted, "that the word spying applies to Mr. Trohm. But if it does,
what has he to gain from a pause at the gate and a word to such a new
acquaintance as I am?"
"I don't know," William persisted suspiciously. "Trohm's a sharp fellow.
If there was anything to see, he would see it without half looking. But
there isn't. You don't know of anything wrong here, do you, which such a
man as that, hand in glove with the police as we know him to be, might
consider himself interested in?"
Astonished both at this blundering committal of himself and at the
certain sort of anxious confidence he showed in me, I hesitated for a
moment, but only for a moment, since, if half my suspicions were true,
this man must not know that my perspicacity was more to be feared than
even Mr. Trohm's was.
"If Mr. Trohm shows an increased interest in this household during the
last two days," said I, with a heroic defiance of ridicule which I hope
Mr. Gryce has duly appreciated, "I beg leave to call your attention to
the fact that on yesterday morning he came to deliver a letter addressed
to me which had inadvertently been left at his house, and that this
morning he called to inquire how I had spent the night, which, in
consideration of the ghosts which are said to haunt this house and the
strange and uncanny apparitions which only three nights ago made the
entrance to this lane hideous to one pair of eyes at least, should not
cause a gentleman's son like yourself any astonishment. It does not seem
odd to me, I assure you."
He laughed. I meant he should, and, losing almost instantly his air of
doubt and suspicion, turned toward the gate from which I had just moved
away, muttering:
"Well, it's a small matter to me anyway. It's only the girls that are
afraid of Mr. Trohm. I am not afraid of anything but losing Saracen, who
has pined like the deuce at his long confinement in the court. Hear him
now; just hear him."
And I could hear the low and unhappy moaning of the hound distinctly. It
was not a pleasant sound, and I was almost tempted to bid William
unloose the dog, but thought better of it.
"By the way," said he, "speaking of Mother Jane, I have a message to her
from the girls. You will excuse me if I speak to the poor woman."
Alarmed by his politeness more than I ever have been by his roughness
and inconsiderate sarcasms, I surveyed him inquiringly as he left the
gate, and did not know whether to stand my ground or retreat to the
house. I decided to stand my ground; a message to this woman seeming to
me a matter of some interest.
I was glad I did, for after some five minutes' absence, during which he
had followed her into the house, I saw him come back again in a state of
sullen displeasure, which, however, partially disappeared when he saw me
still standing by the gate.
"Ah, Miss Butterworth, you can do me a favor. The old creature is in one
of her stubborn fits to-day, and won't give me a hearing. She may not be
so deaf to you; she isn't apt to be to women. Will you cross the road
and speak to her? I will go with you. You needn't be afraid."
The way he said this, the confidence he expected to inspire, had almost
a ghastly effect upon me. Did he know or suspect that the only thing I
feared in this lane was he? Evidently not, for he met my eye quite
confidently.
It would not do to shake his faith at such a moment as this, so calling
upon Providence to see me safely through this adventure, I stepped into
the highway and went with him into Mother Jane's cottage.
Had I been favored with any other companion than himself, I should have
been glad of this opportunity. As it was, I found myself ignoring any
possible danger I might be running, in my interest in the remarkable
interior to which I was thus introduced.
Having been told that Mother Jane was poor, I had expected to confront
squalor and possibly filth, but I never have entered a cleaner place or
one in which order made the poorest belongings look more decent. The
four walls were unfinished, and so were the rafters which formed the
ceiling, but the floor, neatly laid in brick, was spotless, and the
fireplace, also of brick, was as deftly swept as one could expect from
the little scrub I saw hanging by its side. Crouched within this
fireplace sat the old woman we had come to interview. Her back was to
us, and she looked helplessly and hopelessly deaf.
"Ask her," said William, pointing towards her with a rude gesture, "if
she will come to the house at sunset. My sisters have some work for her
to do. They will pay her well."
Advancing at his bidding, I passed a rocking-chair, in the cushion of
which a dozen patches met my eye. This drew my eyes toward a bed, over
which a counterpane was drawn, made up of a thousand or more pieces of
colored calico, and noticing their varied shapes and the intricacy with
which they were put together, I wondered whether she ever counted them.
The next moment I was at her back.
"Seventy," burst from her lips as I leaned over her shoulder and showed
her the coin which I had taken pains to have in my hand.
"Yours," I announced, pointing in the direction of the house, "if you
will do some work for Miss Knollys to-night."
Slowly she shook her head before burying it deeper in the shawl she wore
wrapped about her shoulders. Listening a minute, I thought I heard her
mutter: "Twenty-eight, ten, but no more. I can count no more. Go away!"
But I'm nothing if not persistent. Feeling for her hands, which were
hidden away somewhere under her shawl, I touched them with the coin and
cried again:
"This and more for a small piece of work to-night. Come, you are strong;
earn it."
"What kind of work is it?" I asked innocently, or it must have appeared
innocently, of Mr. Knollys, who was standing at my back.
He frowned, all the black devils in his heart coming into his look at
once.
"How do I know! Ask Loreen; she's the one who sent me. I don't take
account of what goes on in the kitchen."
I begged his pardon, somewhat sarcastically I own, and made another
attempt to attract the attention of the old crone, who had remained
perfectly callous to my allurements.
"I thought you liked money," I said. "For Lizzie, you know, for Lizzie."
But she only muttered in lower and lower gutturals, "I can count no
more"; and, disgusted at my failure, being one who accounts failure as
little short of disgrace, I drew back and made my way toward the door,
saying: "She's in a different mood from what she was yesterday when she
snatched a quarter from me at the first intimation it was hers. I don't
think you can get her to do any work to-night. Innocents take these
freaks. Isn't there some one else you can call in?"
The scowl that disfigured his none too handsome features was a fitting
prelude to his words.
"You talk," said he, "as if we had the whole village at our command. How
did you succeed with the locksmith yesterday? Came, didn't he? Well,
that's what we have to expect whenever we want any help."
Whirling on his heel, he led the way out of the hut, whither I would
have immediately followed him if I had not stopped to take another look
at the room, which struck me, even upon a second scrutiny, as one of the
best ordered and best kept I had ever entered. Even the strings and
strings of dried fruits and vegetables, which hung in festoons from
every beam of the roof, were free from dust and cobwebs, and though the
dishes were few and the pans scarce, they were bright and speckless,
giving to the shelf along which they were ranged a semblance of
ornament.
"Wise enough to keep her house in order," thought I, and actually found
it hard to leave, so attractive to my eyes are absolute neatness and
order.
William was pushing at his own gate when I joined him. He looked as if
he wished I had spent the morning with Mother Jane, and was barely civil
in our walk up to the house. I was not, therefore, surprised when he
burst into a volley of oaths at the doorway and turned upon me almost as
if he would forbid me the house, for tap, tap, tap, from some distant
quarter came a distinct sound like that of nails being driven into a
plank.
XXII
THE THIRD NIGHT
Mother Jane must have changed her mind after we left her. For late in
the evening I caught a glimpse of her burly figure in the kitchen as I
went to give Hannah some instructions concerning certain little changes
in the housekeeping arrangements which the girls and I had agreed were
necessary to our mutual comfort.
I wished to address the old crone, but warned, by the ill-concealed
defiance with which Hannah met my advances, that any such attempt on my
part would be met by anything but her accustomed good-nature, I
refrained from showing my interest in her strange visitor, or from even
appearing conscious of her own secret anxieties and evident
preoccupation.
Loreen and Lucetta exchanged a meaning look as I rejoined them in the
sitting-room; but my volubility in regard to the domestic affair which
had just taken me to the kitchen seemed to speedily reassure them, and
when a few minutes later I said good-night and prepared to leave the
room, it was with the conviction that I had relieved their mind at the
expense of my own. Mother Jane in the kitchen at this late hour meant
business. What that business was, I seemed to know only too well.
I had formed a plan for the night which required some courage. Recalling
Lucetta's expression of the morning, that I might expect a repetition of
the former night's experiences, I prepared to profit by the warning in a
way she little meant. Satisfied that if there was any truth in the
suspicions I had formed, there would be an act performed in this house
to-night which, if seen by me, would forever settle the question
agitating the whole countryside, I made up my mind that no locked door
should interfere with my opportunity of doing so. How I effected this
result I will presently relate.
Lucetta had accompanied me to my door with a lighted candle.
"I hear you had some trouble with matches last night," said she. "You
will find them all right now. Hannah must be blamed for some of this
carelessness." Then as I began some reassuring reply, she turned upon me
with a look that was almost fond, and, throwing out her arms, cried
entreatingly: "Won't you give me a little kiss, Miss Butterworth? We
have not given you the best of welcomes, but you are my mother's old
friend, and sometimes I feel a little lonely."
I could easily believe that, and yet I found it hard to embrace her. Too
many shadows swam between Althea's children and myself. She saw my
hesitancy (a hesitancy I could not but have shown even at the risk of
losing her confidence), and, paling slightly, dropped her hands with a
pitiful smile.
"You don't like me," she said. "I do not wonder, but I was in hopes you
would for my mother's sake. I have no claims myself."
"You are an interesting girl, and you have, what your mother had not, a
serious side to your nature that is anything but displeasing to me. But
my kisses, Lucetta, are as rare as my tears. I had rather give you good
advice, and that is a fact. Perhaps it is as strong a proof of affection
as any ordinary caress would be."
"Perhaps," she assented, but she did not encourage me to give it to her
notwithstanding. Instead of that, she drew back and bade me a gentle
good-night, which for some reason made me sadder than I wished to be at
a crisis demanding so much nerve. Then she walked quickly away, and I
was left to face the night alone.
Knowing that I should be rather weakened than helped by the omission of
any of the little acts of preparation with which I am accustomed to calm
my spirits for the night, I went through them all, with just as much
precision as if I had expected to spend the ensuing hours in rest. When
all was done and only my cup of tea remained to be quaffed, I had a
little struggle with myself, which ended in my not drinking it at all.
Nothing, not even this comfortable solace for an unsatisfactory day,
should stand in the way of my being the complete mistress of my wits
this night. Had I known that this tea contained a soporific in the shape
of a little harmless morphine, I would have found this act of
self-denial much easier.
It was now eleven. Confident that nothing would be done while my light
was burning, I blew it out, and, taking a candle and some matches in my
hand, softly opened my door and, after a moment of intense listening,
stepped out and closed it carefully behind me. Nothing could be stiller
than the house or darker than the corridor.
"Am I watched or am I not watched?" I queried, and for an instant stood
undecided. Then, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, I slipped down the
hall to the door beyond mine and, opening it with all the care possible,
stepped inside.
I knew the room. I had taken especial note of it in my visit of the
morning. I knew that it was nearly empty and that there was a key in the
lock which I could turn. I therefore felt more or less safe in it,
especially as its window was undarkened by the branches that hung so
thickly across my own casement, shutting me in, or seeming to shut me
in, from all communication with the outside world and the unknown
guardian which I had been assured constantly attended my summons.
That I might strengthen my spirits by one glimpse of this same outside
world, before settling down for the watch I had set for myself, I
stepped softly to the window and took one lingering look without. A belt
of forest illumined by a gibbous moon met my eyes; nothing else. Yet
this sight was welcome, and it was only after I had been struck by the
possibility of my own figure being seen at the casement by some possible
watcher in the shadows below, that I found the hardihood necessary to
withdraw into the darker precincts of the room, and begin that lonely
watch which my doubts and expectations rendered necessary.
This was the third I had been forced to keep, and it was by far the most
dismal; for though the bolted door between me and the hall promised me
personal safety, there presently rose in some far-off place a smothered
repetition of that same tap, tap, tap which had sent the shudders over
me upon my sudden entrance into the house early in the morning. Heard
now, it caused me to tremble in a way I had not supposed possible to one
of my hardy nature, and while with this recognition of my feminine
susceptibility to impressions there came a certain pride in the
stanchness of purpose which led me to restrain all acknowledgment of
fear, by any recourse to my whistle, I was more than glad when even this
sound ceased, and I had only to expect the swishing noise of a skirt
down the hall, and that stealthy locking of the door of the room I had
taken the precaution of leaving.
It came sooner than I expected, came just in the way it had previously
done, only that the person paused a moment to listen before hastening
back. The silence within must have satisfied her, for I heard a low sigh
like that of relief, before the steps took themselves back. That they
would turn my way gave me a momentary concern, but I had too completely
lulled my young hostesses' suspicions, or (let me be faithful to all the
possibilities of the case) they had put too much confidence in the
powder with which they had seasoned my nightly cup of tea, for them to
doubt that I was soundly asleep in my own quarters.
Three minutes later I followed those steps as far down the corridor as I
dared to go. For, since my last appearance in it, a candle had been lit
in the main hall, and faint as was its glimmer, it was still a glimmer
into the circle of which I felt it would be foolhardiness for me to
step. At some twenty paces, then, from the opening, I paused and gave
myself up to listening. Alas, there was plenty now for me to hear.
You have heard the sound; we all have heard the sound, but few of us in
such a desolate structure and at the hour and under the influences of
midnight! The measured tread of men struggling under a heavy weight, and
that weight--how well I knew it! as well as if I had seen it, as I
really did in my imagination.
They advanced from the adjoining corridor, from the room I had as yet
found no opportunity of entering, and they approached surely and slowly
the main hall near which I was standing in such a position as rendered
it impossible for me to see anything if they took the direct course to
the head of the stairs and so down, as there was every reason to expect
they would. I did not dare to draw nearer, however, so concentrated my
faculties anew upon listening, when suddenly I perceived on the great
white wall in front of me--the wall of the main hall, I mean, toward
which the opening looked--the shapeless outline of a drooping head, and
realized that the candle had been placed in such a position that the
wall must receive the full shadow of the passing cortege.
And thus it was I saw it, huge, distorted, and suggestive beyond any
picture I ever beheld,--the passing of a body to its long home, carried
by six anxious figures, four of which seemed to be those of women.
But that long home! Where was it located--in the house or in the
grounds? It was a question so important that for a moment I could think
of nothing but how I could follow the small procession, without running
the risk of discovery. It had reached the head of the stairs by this
time, and I heard Miss Knollys' low, firm voice enjoining silence. Then
the six bearers began to descend with their burden.
Ere they reached the foot, a doubt struck me. Would it be better to
follow them or to take the opportunity afforded by every member of the
household being engaged in this task, to take a peep into the room where
the death had occurred? I had not decided, when I heard them take the
forward course from the foot of the stairs to what, to my straining ear,
seemed to be the entrance to the dining-room corridor. But as in my
anxiety to determine this fact I slipped far enough forward to make sure
that their destination lay somewhere within reach of the Flower Parlor,
I was so struck by the advantages to be gained by a cautious use of the
trap-door in William's room, that I hesitated no longer, but sped with
what swiftness I could toward the spot from which I had so lately heard
this strange procession advance.
A narrow band of light lying across the upper end of the long corridor,
proved that the door was not only ajar, but that a second candle was
burning in the room I was about to invade; but this was scarcely to
be regretted, since there could be no question of the emptiness of
the room. The six figures I had seen go by embraced every one who
by any possibility could be considered as having part in this
transaction--William, Mr. Simsbury, Miss Knollys, Lucetta, Hannah, and
Mother Jane. No one else was left to guard this room, so I pushed the
door open quite boldly and entered.
What I saw there I will relate later, or, rather, I will but hint at
now. A bed with a sheet thrown back, a stand covered with vials, a
bureau with a man's shaving paraphernalia upon it, and on the wall such
pictures as only sporting gentlemen delight in. The candle was guttering
on a small table upon which, to my astonishment, a Bible lay open. Not
having my glasses with me, I could not see what portion of the sacred
word was thus disclosed, but I took the precaution to indent the upper
leaf with my thumb-nail, so that I might find it again in case of future
opportunity. My attention was attracted by other small matters that
would be food for thought at a more propitious moment, but at that
instant the sound of voices coming distinctly to my ear from below,
warned me that a halt had been made at the Flower Parlor, and that the
duty of the moment was to locate the trap-door and if possible determine
the means of raising it.
This was less difficult than I anticipated. Either this room was
regarded as so safe from intrusion that a secret like this could be
safely left unguarded, or the door which was plainly to be seen in one
corner had been so lately lifted, that it had hardly sunk back into its
place. I found it, if the expression may be used of a horizontal object,
slightly ajar and needing but the slightest pull to make it spring
upright.
The hole thus disclosed was filled with the little staircase up which I
had partly mounted in my daring explorations of the day before. It was
dark now, darker than it was then, but I felt that I must descend by it,
for plainly to be heard now through the crack in the closet door, which
seemed to have a knack of standing partly open, I could hear the heavy
tread of the six bearers as they entered the parlor below, still
carrying their burden, concerning the destination of which I was so
anxious to be informed.
That it could be in the room itself was too improbable for
consideration. Yet if they took up their stand in this room it was for a
purpose, and what that purpose was I was determined to know. The noise
their feet made on the bare boards of the floor and the few words I now
heard uttered in William's stolid tones and Lucetta's musical treble
assured me that my own light steps would no more be heard, than my dark
gown of quiet wool would be seen through the narrow slit through which I
was preparing to peer. Yet it took no small degree of what my father
used to call pluck, for me to put foot on this winding staircase and
descend almost, as it were, into the midst of what I must regard as the
last wicked act of a most cowardly and brutal murder.
I did it, however, and after a short but grim communion with my own
heart, which would persist in beating somewhat noisily, I leaned forward
with all the precaution possible and let my gaze traverse the chamber in
which I had previously seen such horrors as should have prepared me for
this last and greatest one.
In a moment I understood the whole. A long square hole in the floor,
lately sawed, provided an opening through which the plain plank coffin,
of which I now caught sight, was to be lowered into the cellar and so
into the grave which had doubtless been dug there. The ropes in the
hands of the six persons, in whose identity I had made no mistake, was
proof enough of their intention; and, satisfied as I now was of the
means and mode of the interment which had been such a boundless mystery
to me, I shrank a step upward, fearing lest my indignation and the
horror I could not but feel, from this moment on, of Althea's children,
would betray me into some exclamation which might lead to my discovery
and a similar fate.
One other short glance, in which I saw them all ranged around the dark
opening, and I was up out of their reach, Lucetta's face and Lucetta's
one sob as the ropes began to creak, being the one memory which followed
me the most persistently. She, at least, was overwhelmed with remorse
for a deed she was perhaps only answerable for in that she failed to
make known to the world her brother's madness and the horrible crimes to
which it gave rise.
I took one other look around his room before I fled to my own, or
rather, to the one in which I had taken refuge while my own was under
lock and key. That I spent the next two hours on my knees no one can
wonder. When my own room was unlocked, as it was before the day broke, I
hastened to enter it and lay my head with all its unhappy knowledge on
my pillow. But I did not sleep; and, what was stranger still, never once
thought of sounding a single note on the whistle which would have
brought the police into this abode of crime. Perhaps it was a wise
omission. I had seen enough that was horrible that night without
beholding Althea's children arrested before my eyes.
_BOOK III_
FORWARD AND BACK
XXIII
ROOM 3, HOTEL CARTER