studies that he neither saw nor heard anything of either of the men
beneath him. At the hours when Bellingham had been accustomed to visit
him, he took care to sport his oak, and though he more than once heard a
knocking at his outer door, he resolutely refused to answer it. One
afternoon, however, he was descending the stairs when, just as he was
passing it, Bellingham’s door flew open, and young Monkhouse Lee came
out with his eyes sparkling and a dark flush of anger upon his olive
cheeks. Close at his heels followed Bellingham, his fat, unhealthy face
all quivering with malignant passion.
“You fool!” he hissed. “You’ll be sorry.”
“Very likely,” cried the other. “Mind what I say. It’s off! I won’t hear
of it!”
“You’ve promised, anyhow.”
“Oh, I’ll keep that! I won’t speak. But I’d rather little Eva was in her
grave. Once for all, it’s off. She’ll do what I say. We don’t want to
see you again.”
So much Smith could not avoid hearing, but he hurried on, for he had no
wish to be involved in their dispute. There had been a serious breach
between them, that was clear enough, and Lee was going to cause the
engagement with his sister to be broken off. Smith thought of Hastie’s
comparison of the toad and the dove, and was glad to think that the
matter was at an end. Bellingham’s face when he was in a passion was not
pleasant to look upon. He was not a man to whom an innocent girl could
be trusted for life. As he walked, Smith wondered languidly what could
have caused the quarrel, and what the promise might be which Bellingham
had been so anxious that Monkhouse Lee should keep.
It was the day of the sculling match between Hastie and Mullins, and a
stream of men were making their way down to the banks of the Isis. A May
sun was shining brightly, and the yellow path was barred with the black
shadows of the tall elm-trees. On either side the grey colleges lay
back from the road, the hoary old mothers of minds looking out from
their high, mullioned windows at the tide of young life which swept so
merrily past them. Black-clad tutors, prim officials, pale reading men,
brown-faced, straw-hatted young athletes in white sweaters or
many-coloured blazers, all were hurrying towards the blue winding river
which curves through the Oxford meadows.
Abercrombie Smith, with the intuition of an old oarsman, chose his
position at the point where he knew that the struggle, if there were a
struggle, would come. Far off he heard the hum which announced the
start, the gathering roar of the approach, the thunder of running feet,
and the shouts of the men in the boats beneath him. A spray of
half-clad, deep-breathing runners shot past him, and craning over their
shoulders, he saw Hastie pulling a steady thirty-six, while his
opponent, with a jerky forty, was a good boat’s length behind him. Smith
gave a cheer for his friend, and pulling out his watch, was starting off
again for his chambers, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder, and
found that young Monkhouse Lee was beside him.
“I saw you there,” he said, in a timid, deprecating way. “I wanted to
speak to you, if you could spare me a half-hour. This cottage is mine. I
share it with Harrington of King’s. Come in and have a cup of tea.”
“I must be back presently,” said Smith. “I am hard on the grind at
present. But I’ll come in for a few minutes with pleasure. I wouldn’t
have come out only Hastie is a friend of mine.”
“So he is of mine. Hasn’t he a beautiful style? Mullins wasn’t in it.
But come into the cottage. It’s a little den of a place, but it is
pleasant to work in during the summer months.”
It was a small, square, white building, with green doors and shutters,
and a rustic trellis-work porch, standing back some fifty yards from the
river’s bank. Inside, the main room was roughly fitted up as a
study--deal table, unpainted shelves with books, and a few cheap
oleographs upon the wall. A kettle sang upon a spirit-stove, and there
were tea things upon a tray on the table.
“Try that chair and have a cigarette,” said Lee. “Let me pour you out a
cup of tea. It’s so good of you to come in, for I know that your time is
a good deal taken up. I wanted to say to you that, if I were you, I
should change my rooms at once.”
“Eh?”
Smith sat staring with a lighted match in one hand and his unlit
cigarette in the other.
“Yes; it must seem very extraordinary, and the worst of it is that I
cannot give my reasons, for I am under a solemn promise--a very solemn
promise. But I may go so far as to say that I don’t think Bellingham is
a very safe man to live near. I intend to camp out here as much as I can
for a time.”
“Not safe! What do you mean?”
“Ah, that’s what I mustn’t say. But do take my advice, and move your
rooms. We had a grand row to-day. You must have heard us, for you came
down the stairs.”
“I saw that you had fallen out.”
“He’s a horrible chap, Smith. That is the only word for him. I have had
doubts about him ever since that night when he fainted--you remember,
when you came down. I taxed him to-day, and he told me things that made
my hair rise, and wanted me to stand in with him. I’m not strait-laced,
but I am a clergyman’s son, you know, and I think there are some things
which are quite beyond the pale. I only thank God that I found him out
before it was too late, for he was to have married into my family.”
“This is all very fine, Lee,” said Abercrombie Smith curtly. “But either
you are saying a great deal too much or a great deal too little.”
“I give you a warning.”
“If there is real reason for warning, no promise can bind you. If I see
a rascal about to blow a place up with dynamite no pledge will stand in
my way of preventing him.”
“Ah, but I cannot prevent him, and I can do nothing but warn you.”
“Without saying what you warn me against.”
“Against Bellingham.”
“But that is childish. Why should I fear him, or any man?”
“I can’t tell you. I can only entreat you to change your rooms. You are
in danger where you are. I don’t even say that Bellingham would wish to
injure you. But it might happen, for he is a dangerous neighbour just
now.”
“Perhaps I know more than you think,” said Smith, looking keenly at the
young man’s boyish, earnest face. “Suppose I tell you that some one else
shares Bellingham’s rooms.”
Monkhouse Lee sprang from his chair in uncontrollable excitement.
“You know, then?” he gasped.
“A woman.”
Lee dropped back again with a groan.
“My lips are sealed,” he said. “I must not speak.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Smith, rising, “it is not likely that I should
allow myself to be frightened out of rooms which suit me very nicely. It
would be a little too feeble for me to move out all my goods and
chattels because you say that Bellingham might in some unexplained way
do me an injury. I think that I’ll just take my chance, and stay where I
am, and as I see that it’s nearly five o’clock, I must ask you to excuse
me.”
He bade the young student adieu in a few curt words, and made his way
homeward through the sweet spring evening, feeling half-ruffled,
half-amused, as any other strong, unimaginative man might who has been
menaced by a vague and shadowy danger.
There was one little indulgence which Abercrombie Smith always allowed
himself, however closely his work might press upon him. Twice a week, on
the Tuesday and the Friday, it was his invariable custom to walk over to
Farlingford, the residence of Doctor Plumptree Peterson, situated about
a mile and a half out of Oxford. Peterson had been a close friend of
Smith’s elder brother Francis, and as he was a bachelor, fairly
well-to-do, with a good cellar and a better library, his house was a
pleasant goal for a man who was in need of a brisk walk. Twice a week,
then, the medical student would swing out there along the dark country
roads, and spend a pleasant hour in Peterson’s comfortable study,
discussing, over a glass of old port, the gossip of the ’varsity or the
latest developments of medicine or of surgery.
On the day which followed his interview with Monkhouse Lee, Smith shut
up his books at a quarter past eight, the hour when he usually started
for his friend’s house. As he was leaving his room, however, his eyes
chanced to fall upon one of the books which Bellingham had lent him, and
his conscience pricked him for not having returned it. However repellent
the man might be, he should not be treated with discourtesy. Taking the
book, he walked downstairs and knocked at his neighbour’s door. There
was no answer; but on turning the handle he found that it was unlocked.
Pleased at the thought of avoiding an interview, he stepped inside, and
placed the book with his card upon the table.
The lamp was turned half down, but Smith could see the details of the
room plainly enough. It was all much as he had seen it before--the
frieze, the animal-headed gods, the hanging crocodile, and the table
littered over with papers and dried leaves. The mummy case stood upright
against the wall, but the mummy itself was missing. There was no sign of
any second occupant of the room, and he felt as he withdrew that he had
probably done Bellingham an injustice. Had he a guilty secret to
preserve, he would hardly leave his door open so that all the world
might enter.
The spiral stair was as black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making his
way down its irregular steps, when he was suddenly conscious that
something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a
whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he
could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind
was rustling among the ivy outside, and he could hear nothing else.
“Is that you, Styles?” he shouted.
There was no answer, and all was still behind him. It must have been a
sudden gust of air, for there were crannies and cracks in the old
turret. And yet he could almost have sworn that he heard a footfall by
his very side. He had emerged into the quadrangle, still turning the
matter over in his head, when a man came running swiftly across the
smooth-cropped lawn.
“Is that you, Smith?”
“Hullo, Hastie!”
“For God’s sake come at once! Young Lee is drowned! Here’s Harrington of
King’s with the news. The doctor is out. You’ll do, but come along at
once. There may be life in him.”
“Have you brandy?”
“No.”
“I’ll bring some. There’s a flask on my table.”
Smith bounded up the stairs, taking three at a time, seized the flask,
and was rushing down with it, when, as he passed Bellingham’s room, his
eyes fell upon something which left him gasping and staring upon the
landing.
The door, which he had closed behind him, was now open, and right in
front of him, with the lamp-light shining upon it, was the mummy case.
Three minutes ago it had been empty. He could swear to that. Now it
framed the lank body of its horrible occupant, who stood, grim and
stark, with his black shrivelled face towards the door. The form was
lifeless and inert, but it seemed to Smith as he gazed that there still
lingered a lurid spark of vitality, some faint sign of consciousness in
the little eyes which lurked in the depths of the hollow sockets. So
astounded and shaken was he that he had forgotten his errand, and was
still staring at the lean, sunken figure when the voice of his friend
below recalled him to himself.
“Come on, Smith!” he shouted. “It’s life and death, you know. Hurry up!
Now, then,” he added, as the medical student reappeared, “let us do a
sprint. It is well under a mile, and we should do it in five minutes. A
human life is better worth running for than a pot.”
Neck and neck they dashed through the darkness, and did not pull up
until panting and spent, they had reached the little cottage by the
river. Young Lee, limp and dripping like a broken water-plant, was
stretched upon the sofa, the green scum of the river upon his black
hair, and a fringe of white foam upon his leaden-hued lips. Beside him
knelt his fellow student, Harrington, endeavouring to chafe some warmth
back into his rigid limbs.
“I think there’s life in him,” said Smith, with his hand to the lad’s
side. “Put your watch glass to his lips. Yes, there’s dimming on it. You
take one arm, Hastie. Now work it as I do, and we’ll soon pull him
round.”
For ten minutes they worked in silence, inflating and depressing the
chest of the unconscious man. At the end of that time a shiver ran
through his body, his lips trembled, and he opened his eyes. The three
students burst out into an irrepressible cheer.
“Wake up, old chap. You’ve frightened us quite enough.”
“Have some brandy. Take a sip from the flask.”
“He’s all right now,” said his companion Harrington. “Heavens, what a
fright I got! I was reading here, and had gone out for a stroll as far
as the river, when I heard a scream and a splash. Out I ran, and by the
time I could find him and fish him out, all life seemed to have gone.
Then Simpson couldn’t get a doctor, for he has a game-leg, and I had to
run, and I don’t know what I’d have done without you fellows. That’s
right, old chap. Sit up.”
Monkhouse Lee had raised himself on his hands, and looked wildly about
him.
“What’s up?” he asked. “I’ve been in the water. Ah, yes; I remember.”
A look of fear came into his eyes, and he sank his face into his hands.
“How did you fall in?”
“I didn’t fall in.”
“How then?”
“I was thrown in. I was standing by the bank, and something from behind
picked me up like a feather and hurled me in. I heard nothing, and I saw
nothing. But I know what it was, for all that.”
“And so do I,” whispered Smith.
Lee looked up with a quick glance of surprise.
“You’ve learned, then?” he said. “You remember the advice I gave you?”
“Yes, and I begin to think that I shall take it.”
“I don’t know what the deuce you fellows are talking about,” said
Hastie, “but I think, if I were you, Harrington, I should get Lee to bed
at once. It will be time enough to discuss the why and the wherefore
when he is a little stronger. I think, Smith, you and I can leave him
alone now. I am walking back to college; if you are coming in that
direction, we can have a chat.”
But it was little chat that they had upon their homeward path. Smith’s
mind was too full of the incidents of the evening, the absence of the
mummy from his neighbour’s rooms, the step that passed him on the stair,
the reappearance--the extraordinary, inexplicable reappearance of the
grisly thing--and then this attack upon Lee, corresponding so closely to
the previous outrage upon another man against whom Bellingham bore a
grudge. All this settled in his thoughts, together with the many little
incidents which had previously turned him against his neighbour, and the
singular circumstances under which he was first called in to him. What
had been a dim suspicion, a vague, fantastic conjecture, had suddenly
taken form, and stood out in his mind as a grim fact, a thing not to be
denied. And yet, how monstrous it was! how unheard of! how entirely
beyond all bounds of human experience. An impartial judge, or even the
friend who walked by his side, would simply tell him that his eyes had
deceived him, that the mummy had been there all the time, that young Lee
had tumbled into the river as any other man tumbles into a river, and
that blue pill was the best thing for a disordered liver. He felt that
he would have said as much if the positions had been reversed. And yet
he could swear that Bellingham was a murderer at heart, and that he
wielded a weapon such as no man had ever used in all the grim history of
crime.
Hastie had branched off to his rooms with a few crisp and emphatic
comments upon his friend’s unsociability, and Abercrombie Smith crossed
the quadrangle to his corner turret with a strong feeling of repulsion
for his chambers and their associations. He would take Lee’s advice,
and move his quarters as soon as possible, for how could a man study
when his ear was ever straining for every murmur or footstep in the room
below? He observed, as he crossed over the lawn, that the light was
still shining in Bellingham’s window, and as he passed up the staircase
the door opened, and the man himself looked out at him. With his fat,
evil face he was like some bloated spider fresh from the weaving of his
poisonous web.
“Good-evening,” said he. “Won’t you come in?”
“No,” cried Smith fiercely.
“No? You are busy as ever? I wanted to ask you about Lee. I was sorry to
hear that there was a rumour that something was amiss with him.”
His features were grave, but there was the gleam of a hidden laugh in
his eyes as he spoke. Smith saw it, and he could have knocked him down
for it.
“You’ll be sorrier still to hear that Monkhouse Lee is doing very well,
and is out of all danger,” he answered. “Your hellish tricks have not
come off this time. Oh, you needn’t try to brazen it out. I know all
about it.”
Bellingham took a step back from the angry student, and half-closed the
door as if to protect himself.
“You are mad,” he said. “What do you mean? Do you assert that I had
anything to do with Lee’s accident?”
“Yes,” thundered Smith. “You and that bag of bones behind you; you
worked it between you. I tell you what it is, Master B., they have given
up burning folk like you, but we still keep a hangman, and, by George!
if any man in this college meets his death while you are here, I’ll have
you up, and if you don’t swing for it, it won’t be my fault. You’ll
find that your filthy Egyptian tricks won’t answer in England.”
“You’re a raving lunatic,” said Bellingham.
“All right. You just remember what I say, for you’ll find that I’ll be
better than my word.”
The door slammed, and Smith went fuming up to his chamber, where he
locked the door upon the inside, and spent half the night in smoking his
old briar and brooding over the strange events of the evening.
Next morning Abercrombie Smith heard nothing of his neighbour, but
Harrington called upon him in the afternoon to say that Lee was almost
himself again. All day Smith stuck fast to his work, but in the evening
he determined to pay the visit to his friend Doctor Peterson upon which
he had started the night before. A good walk and a friendly chat would
be welcome to his jangled nerves.
Bellingham’s door was shut as he passed, but glancing back when he was
some distance from the turret, he saw his neighbour’s head at the window
outlined against the lamp-light, his face pressed apparently against the
glass as he gazed out into the darkness. It was a blessing to be away
from all contact with him, if but for a few hours, and Smith stepped out
briskly, and breathed the soft spring air into his lungs. The half-moon
lay in the west between two Gothic pinnacles, and threw upon the
silvered street a dark tracery from the stone-work above. There was a
brisk breeze, and light, fleecy clouds drifted swiftly across the sky.
Old’s was on the very border of the town, and in five minutes Smith
found himself beyond the houses and between the hedges of a May-scented
Oxfordshire lane.
It was a lonely and little frequented road which led to his friend’s
house. Early as it was, Smith did not meet a single soul upon his way.
He walked briskly along until he came to the avenue gate, which opened
into the long gravel drive leading up to Farlingford. In front of him he
could see the cosy red light of the windows glimmering through the
foliage. He stood with his hand upon the iron latch of the swinging
gate, and he glanced back at the road along which he had come. Something
was coming swiftly down it.
It moved in the shadow of the hedge, silently and furtively, a dark,
crouching figure, dimly visible against the black background. Even as he
gazed back at it, it had lessened its distance by twenty paces, and was
fast closing upon him. Out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a scraggy
neck, and of two eyes that will ever haunt him in his dreams. He turned,
and with a cry of terror he ran for his life up the avenue. There were
the red lights, the signals of safety, almost within a stone’s-throw of
him. He was a famous runner, but never had he run as he ran that night.
The heavy gate had swung into place behind him, but he heard it dash
open again before his pursuer. As he rushed madly and wildly through the
night, he could hear a swift, dry patter behind him, and could see, as
he threw back a glance, that this horror was bounding like a tiger at
his heels, with blazing eyes and one stringy arm out-thrown. Thank God,
the door was ajar. He could see the thin bar of light which shot from
the lamp in the hall. Nearer yet sounded the clatter from behind. He
heard a hoarse gurgling at his very shoulder. With a shriek he flung
himself against the door, slammed and bolted it behind him, and sank
half-fainting on to the hall chair.
“My goodness, Smith, what’s the matter?” asked Peterson, appearing at
the door of his study.
“Give me some brandy.”
Peterson disappeared, and came rushing out again with a glass and a
decanter.
“You need it,” he said, as his visitor drank off what he poured out for
him. “Why, man, you are as white as a cheese.”
Smith laid down his glass, rose up, and took a deep breath.
“I am my own man again now,” said he. “I was never so unmanned before.
But, with your leave, Peterson, I will sleep here to-night, for I don’t
think I could face that road again except by daylight. It’s weak, I
know, but I can’t help it.”
Peterson looked at his visitor with a very questioning eye.
“Of course you shall sleep here if you wish. I’ll tell Mrs. Burney to
make up the spare bed. Where are you off to now?”
“Come up with me to the window that overlooks the door. I want you to
see what I have seen.”
They went up to the window of the upper hall whence they could look down
upon the approach to the house. The drive and the fields on either side
lay quiet and still, bathed in the peaceful moonlight.
“Well, really, Smith,” remarked Peterson, “it is well that I know you to
be an abstemious man. What in the world can have frightened you?”
“I’ll tell you presently. But where can it have gone? Ah, now, look,
look! See the curve of the road just beyond your gate.”
“Yes, I see; you needn’t pinch my arm off. I saw some one pass. I should
say a man, rather thin, apparently, and tall, very tall. But what of
him? And what of yourself? You are still shaking like an aspen leaf.”
“I have been within hand-grip of the devil, that’s all. But come down to
your study, and I shall tell you the whole story.”
He did so. Under the cheery lamp-light, with a glass of wine on the
table beside him, and the portly form and florid face of his friend in
front, he narrated, in their order, all the events, great and small,
which had formed so singular a chain, from the night on which he had
found Bellingham fainting in front of the mummy case until this horrid
experience of an hour ago.
“There now,” he said as he concluded, “that’s the whole black business.
It is monstrous and incredible, but it is true.”
Doctor Plumptree Peterson sat for some time in silence with a very
puzzled expression upon his face.
“I never heard of such a thing in my life, never!” he said at last. “You
have told me the facts. Now tell me your inferences.”
“You can draw your own.”
“But I should like to hear yours. You have thought over the matter, and
I have not.”