TRANTER ATTACKS THE CROOKED HOUSE
In the evening, Tranter set off to the Crooked House.
It was dark when he reached it, and the roads were empty. Through the
open lodge gates he slipped into the garden unseen. The place seemed
deserted. The front of the house showed not a glimmer of light. The
whole ugly shape of it stood out gauntly against the sky of the summer
night. In the shadow of the trees, he stood watching it, alert to detect
a sign of life. But no such sign appeared. The Crooked House was as dark
and silent as a tomb.
He crept nearer, keeping under cover of the trees, and skirted the lawns
to the back of the house. There, also, darkness reigned. No sound
disturbed the stillness. Facing him were the dark shapes of the trees
surrounding the wing of the house which extended from the opposite
corner. The foliage was so dense that no part of the wing itself was
visible. He moved quickly across the back of the house, and reached the
trees. As he passed under them, it seemed that he was feeling his way
among monstrous sentinels of a dark mystery.
A thick hedge loomed up in front of him. It appeared to surround the
entire wing. He walked round, trying to find a place thin enough to
allow him to push his way through--but the hedge was evidently there for
the express purpose of defeating such an intention. It was impossible to
penetrate it, to creep under it, or to climb over it. At the extremity
of the wing, about which the trees were thickest, he saw a faint light,
escaping round the edge of a blind.
He stopped beneath it. It was a meager, unpleasant light, too dim to be
of any greater use in the room than to afford the barest relief from
complete darkness. The window was half overgrown with ivy, and he could
see that it was filthily dirty. The light continually flickered, and
once or twice it seemed to have died out altogether. An eerie sensation
began to possess him. He felt very strongly the evil influence of the
house. Curiosity to discover what sinister secret it really harbored
increased and nerved him.
Again he tried to force a way through the hedge, but everywhere it was
an impassable barrier. Slowly and noiselessly he worked his way round
the wing, only to find it completely enclosed on all sides. He returned,
and stood looking up at the window. Either the light was brighter, or
the gap at the edge of the blind had widened. He thought he saw a faint
shadow pass and re-pass.
It was not until, in moving to one side, he struck his head against a
massive bough of one of the great trees that the possibility of
utilizing them as a means of access to the forbidden enclosure occurred
to him. He examined the bough. It extended well over the hedge, and
would form a perfectly secure bridge. By creeping a few feet along it,
he would be able to drop down on the other side of the hedge. Finding
the main trunk, he tested his weight on a smaller bough, and swung
himself up into the tree.
A few minutes later he stood within the barrier. The window was some
twelve or fifteen feet above him. But the walls were thickly clad with
ivy, and ivy is an excellent ladder. Carefully he began to climb.
He reached the window, found himself a secure footing, and peered round
the edge of the blind. But the light was so poor, and the panes were so
dirty, on both sides, that had there been anything to see he could have
been very little the wiser. As it was, the small area of the room into
which he could dimly peer seemed to be carpetless and unfurnished. There
was no movement, no sound. The light itself apparently came from the
further end of the room, from the level of a table. He clung on,
undecided how to proceed. It appeared that the only thing to do was to
wait and listen for some indication of the purpose of the dismal
illumination.
He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. After a wait of what seemed
at least half an hour, he looked again. Ten minutes only had passed. No
discernible movement had taken place in the room. Yet he felt perfectly,
and very unpleasantly, certain that it was occupied--that something was
proceeding within it which, had the blind not intervened, would have
revealed the secret of the house. Of what it might be he could form no
idea--but, for the first time in his life, he was experiencing, in his
mental tenseness and the sinister silence of the surroundings, that
sensation which attests a proximity to evil. He was daunted. Fear was a
condition to which he was a stranger, but a vivid nervousness was
beginning to seize upon him. A sense of personal danger, an element
which, so far, he had scarcely considered, was attacking him, and
gaining ground. The perspiration was standing out on his face. He found
that his hands were cold and wet. The pulses of his body were throbbing;
he felt his strength growing less. Muttering a curse, he braced himself
with a strong effort. He was accustomed to consider his nerves
impregnable. Many times in his life he had known himself to be in far
greater danger than he could attribute to the present situation, and
such weakness had never assailed him. On four occasions he had been
aware that his life was hanging by a thread, and had gloried in his own
coolness. And now ... without a doubt the Crooked House was evil.
Still he waited. Another twenty minutes slowly passed.
He started. His hands closed tightly on the trunk of the ivy to which he
was clinging. The door of the room had been closed with a slam. He could
hear heavy footsteps on the uncarpeted floor. A shadow blotted out the
light.
A moment later, a voice--a man's voice, horribly strained and
unnatural--rose in a shout of fury.
"Damn you!" it screamed. "Look at your work! Look at it again! Open your
rotten eyes and look! Look! Look!"
Tranter was so startled that he almost lost his footing on the ivy.
There was no mistaking the voice--it was the scream of madness. He
listened for an answer, but there was no sound in response. Then the
same voice laughed--a laugh of awful bitterness.
"Are you satisfied? The thing is creeping on. I am getting nearer to
you hour by hour. I am more like you to-night. One more grain went
yesterday--another to-day. Another will go to-morrow...." Again the
voice rose to a shriek of rage and hatred. "Oh, God! There is no hope!
No hope! Only on--and on--to that!"
The words trailed off into a sob of agony. Still Tranter could hear no
reply.
Silence followed. The shadow again blotted out the light; then sprang
aside, and the voice burst out into a fresh paroxysm of madness, yelling
a stream of curses at the object of its fury. The madman's frenzy was
utterly revolting to listen to, but Tranter searched it closely for some
clue to the identity of the person, or thing, to whom it was addressed.
The voice rose again to a shriek; then subsided as before into a feeble
wail of misery.
"Oh God!" it moaned--"is there no way ... no way? No road but that road?
No end but that end? Oh God, have mercy ... have mercy...."
It was a cry of unspeakable anguish--the prayer of a soul in torment. It
seemed to Tranter that the speaker had thrown himself down, and was
beating the floor with his hands.
There was silence again. Then, for the first time, Tranter became aware
of another presence in the room. Though he could neither see nor hear
anything, he was conscious of a new, indefinable movement. For a moment
horror almost overcame him. He trembled. His nerves failed. The support
of the ivy seemed to be giving way under him. He clutched at the
framework of the window itself.
The shadow of a figure leapt up from the floor and bounded to the
window. The blind was wrenched aside, the window thrown open, and before
Tranter had time to recover himself or attempt to escape, the livid,
distorted face of George Copplestone was almost touching his own.
A hand closed on his throat in a murderous grip, another seized his
wrist. In spite of his frantic struggles, he was dragged with superhuman
strength through the window into the room.