THE MAN ON THE WALL
I was so thoroughly angry with myself that after
idling along the shores for an hour I lost my way in the
dark wood when I landed and brought up at the rear
door used by Bates for communication with the villagers
who supplied us with provender. I readily found
my way to the kitchen and to a flight of stairs beyond,
which connected the first and second floors. The house
was dark, and my good spirits were not increased as I
stumbled up the unfamiliar way in the dark, with, I
fear, a malediction upon my grandfather, who had built
and left incomplete a house so utterly preposterous. My
unpardonable fling at the girl still rankled; and I was
cold from the quick descent of the night chill on the
water and anxious to get into more comfortable clothes.
Once on the second floor I felt that I knew the way to
my room, and I was feeling my way toward it over the
rough floor when I heard low voices rising apparently
from my sitting-room.
It was pitch dark in the hall. I stopped short and
listened. The door of my room was open and a faint
light flashed once into the hall and disappeared. I heard
now a sound as of a hammer tapping upon wood-work.
Then it ceased, and a voice whispered:
“He’ll kill me if he finds me here. I’ll try again to-morrow.
I swear to God I’ll help you, but no more
now—”
Then the sound of a scuffle and again the tapping of
the hammer. After several minutes more of this there
was a whispered dialogue which I could not hear.
Whatever was occurring, two or three points struck
me on the instant. One of the conspirators was an unwilling
party to an act as yet unknown; second, they
had been unsuccessful and must wait for another opportunity;
and third, the business, whatever it was, was
clearly of some importance to myself, as my own apartments
in my grandfather’s strange house had been
chosen for the investigation.
Clearly, I was not prepared to close the incident, but
the idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my sense
of humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightly
down, found the front door, and, from the inside,
opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurried
scamper above, and the heavy fall of one who had stumbled
in the dark. I grinned with real pleasure at the
sound of this mishap, hurried into the great library,
which was as dark as a well, and, opening one of the long
windows, stepped out on the balcony. At once from the
rear of the house came the sound of a stealthy step,
which increased to a run at the ravine bridge. I listened
to the flight of the fugitive through the wood until the
sounds died away toward the lake.
Then, turning to the library windows, I saw Bates,
with a candle held above his head, peering about.
“Hello, Bates,” I called cheerfully. “I just got home
and stepped out to see if the moon had risen. I don’t
believe I know where to look for it in this country.”
He began lighting the tapers with his usual deliberation.
“It’s a trifle early, I think, sir. About seven o’clock,
I should say, was the hour, Mr. Glenarm.”
There was, of course, no doubt whatever that Bates
had been one of the men I heard in my room. It was
wholly possible that he had been compelled to assist in
some lawless act against his will; but why, if he had
been forced into aiding a criminal, should he not invoke
my own aid to protect himself? I kicked the logs in the
fireplace impatiently in my uncertainty. The man slowly
lighted the many candles in the great apartment.
He was certainly a deep one, and his case grew more
puzzling as I studied it in relation to the rifle-shot of
the night before, his collision with Morgan in the wood,
which I had witnessed; and now the house itself had
been invaded by some one with his connivance. The
shot through the refectory window might have been innocent
enough; but these other matters in connection
with it could hardly be brushed aside.
Bates lighted me to the stairway, and said as I passed
him:
“There’s a baked ham for dinner. I should call it extra
delicate, Mr. Glenarm. I suppose there’s no change
in the dinner hour, sir?”
“Certainly not,” I said with asperity; for I am not a
person to inaugurate a dinner hour one day and change
it the next. Bates wished to make conversation,—the
sure sign of a guilty conscience in a servant,—and I was
not disposed to encourage him.
I closed the doors carefully and began a thorough
examination of both the sitting-room and the little bed-chamber.
I was quite sure that my own effects could
not have attracted the two men who had taken advantage
of my absence to visit my quarters. Bates had
helped unpack my trunk and undoubtedly knew every
item of my simple wardrobe. I threw open the doors
of the three closets in the rooms and found them all in
the good order established by Bates. He had carried my
trunks and bags to a store-room, so that everything I
owned must have passed under his eye. My money even,
the remnant of my fortune that I had drawn from the
New York bank, I had placed carelessly enough in the
drawer of a chiffonnier otherwise piled with collars. It
took but a moment to satisfy myself that this had not
been touched. And, to be sure, a hammer was not necessary
to open a drawer that had, from its appearance,
never been locked. The game was deeper than I had
imagined; I had scratched the crust without result, and
my wits were busy with speculations as I changed my
clothes, pausing frequently to examine the furniture,
even the bricks on the hearth.
One thing only I found—the slight scar of a hammer-head
on the oak paneling that ran around the bedroom.
The wood had been struck near the base and at the top
of every panel, for though the mark was not perceptible
on all, a test had evidently been made systematically.
With this as a beginning, I found a moment later a spot
of tallow under a heavy table in one corner. Evidently
the furniture had been moved to permit of the closest
scrutiny of the paneling. Even behind the bed I found
the same impress of the hammer-head; the test had undoubtedly
been thorough, for a pretty smart tap on oak
is necessary to leave an impression. My visitors had
undoubtedly been making soundings in search of a recess
of some kind in the wall, and as they had failed of
their purpose they were likely, I assumed, to pursue
their researches further.
I pondered these things with a thoroughly-awakened
interest in life. Glenarm House really promised to prove
exciting. I took from a drawer a small revolver, filled
its chambers with cartridges and thrust it into my hip
pocket, whistling meanwhile Larry Donovan’s favorite
air, the Marche Funèbre d’une Marionnette. My heart
went out to Larry as I scented adventure, and I wished
him with me; but speculations as to Larry’s whereabouts
were always profitless, and quite likely he was in jail
somewhere.
The ham of whose excellence Bates had hinted was no
disappointment. There is, I have always held, nothing
better in this world than a baked ham, and the specimen
Bates placed before me was a delight to the eye,—so
adorned was it with spices, so crisply brown its outer
coat; and a taste—that first tentative taste, before the
sauce was added—was like a dream of Lucullus come
true. I could forgive a good deal in a cook with that
touch,—anything short of arson and assassination!
“Bates,” I said, as he stood forth where I could see
him, “you cook amazingly well. Where did you learn
the business?”
“Your grandfather grew very captious, Mr. Glenarm.
I had to learn to satisfy him, and I believe I did it, sir,
if you’ll pardon the conceit.”
“He didn’t die of gout, did he? I can readily imagine
it.”
“No, Mr. Glenarm. It was his heart. He had his
warning of it.”
“Ah, yes; to be sure. The heart or the stomach,—one
may as well fail as the other. I believe I prefer to keep
my digestion going as long as possible. Those grilled
sweet potatoes again, if you please, Bates.”
The game that he and I were playing appealed to me
strongly. It was altogether worth while, and as I ate
guava jelly with cheese and toasted crackers, and then
lighted one of my own cigars over a cup of Bates’ unfailing
coffee, my spirit was livelier than at any time
since a certain evening on which Larry and I had
escaped from Tangier with our lives and the curses of
the police. It is a melancholy commentary on life that
contentment comes more easily through the stomach
than along any other avenue. In the great library, with
its rich store of books and its eternal candles, I sprawled
upon a divan before the fire and smoked and indulged
in pleasant speculations. The day had offered much
material for fireside reflection, and I reviewed its history
calmly.
There was, however, one incident that I found unpleasant
in the retrospect. I had been guilty of most
unchivalrous conduct toward one of the girls of St.
Agatha’s. It had certainly been unbecoming in me to
sit on the wall, however unwillingly, and listen to the
words—few though they were—that passed between her
and the chaplain. I forgot the shot through the window;
I forgot Bates and the interest my room possessed for
him and his unknown accomplice; but the sudden distrust
and contempt I had awakened in the girl by my
clownish behavior annoyed me increasingly.
I rose presently, found my cap in a closet under the
stairs, and went out into the moon-flooded wood toward
the lake. The tangle was not so great when you knew
the way, and there was indeed, as I had found, the faint
suggestion of a path. The moon glorified a broad highway
across the water; the air was sharp and still. The
houses in the summer colony were vaguely defined, but
the sight of them gave me no cheer. The tilt of her
tam-o’-shanter as she paddled away into the sunset had
conveyed an impression of spirit and dignity that I could
not adjust to any imaginable expiation.
These reflections carried me to the borders of St.
Agatha’s, and I followed the wall to the gate, climbed
up, and sat down in the shadow of the pillar farthest
from the lake. Lights shone scatteringly in the buildings
of St. Agatha’s, but the place was wholly silent.
I drew out a cigarette and was about to light it when
I heard a sound as of a tread on stone. There was, I
knew, no stone pavement at hand, but peering toward
the lake I saw a man walking boldly along the top of the
wall toward me. The moonlight threw his figure into
clear relief. Several times he paused, bent down and
rapped upon the wall with an object he carried in his
hand.
Only a few hours before I had heard a similar sound
rising from the wainscoting of my own room in Glenarm
House. Evidently the stone wall, too, was under
suspicion!
Tap, tap, tap! The man with the hammer was examining
the farther side of the gate, and very likely he
would carry his investigations beyond it. I drew up my
legs and crouched in the shadow of the pillar, revolver
in hand. I was not anxious for an encounter; I much
preferred to wait for a disclosure of the purpose that lay
behind this mysterious tapping upon walls on my grandfather’s
estate.
But the matter was taken out of my own hands before
I had a chance to debate it. The man dropped to the
ground, sounded the stone base under the gate, likewise
the pillars, evidently without results, struck a spiteful
crack upon the iron bars, then stood up abruptly and
looked me straight in the eyes. It was Morgan, the
caretaker of the summer colony.
“Good evening, Mr. Morgan,” I said, settling the revolver
into my hand.
There was no doubt about his surprise; he fell back,
staring at me hard, and instinctively drawing the hammer
over his shoulder as though to fling it at me.
“Just stay where you are a moment, Morgan,” I said
pleasantly, and dropped to a sitting position on the wall
for greater ease in talking to him.
He stood sullenly, the hammer dangling at arm’s
length, while my revolver covered his head.
“Now, if you please, I’d like to know what you mean
by prowling about here and rummaging my house!”
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Glenarm? Well, you certainly
gave me a bad scare.”
His air was one of relief and his teeth showed pleasantly
through his beard.
“It certainly is I. But you haven’t answered my question.
What were you doing in my house to-day?”
He smiled again, shaking his head.
“You’re really fooling, Mr. Glenarm. I wasn’t in
your house to-day; I never was in it in my life!”
His white teeth gleamed in his light beard; his hat
was pushed back from his forehead so that I saw his
eyes, and he wore unmistakably the air of a man whose
conscience is perfectly clear. I was confident that he
lied, but without appealing to Bates I was not prepared
to prove it.
“But you can’t deny that you’re on my grounds now,
can you?” I had dropped the revolver to my knee, but
I raised it again.
“Certainly not, Mr. Glenarm. If you’ll allow me to
explain—”
“That’s precisely what I want you to do.”
“Well, it may seem strange,”—he laughed, and I felt
the least bit foolish to be pointing a pistol at the head
of a fellow of so amiable a spirit.
“Hurry,” I commanded.
“Well, as I was saying, it may seem strange; but I
was just examining the wall to determine the character
of the work. One of the cottagers on the lake left me
with the job of building a fence on his place, and I’ve
been expecting to come over to look at this all fall.
You see, Mr. Glenarm, your honored grandfather was
a master in such matters, as you may know, and I didn’t
see any harm in getting the benefit—to put it so—of his
experience.”
I laughed. He had denied having entered the house
with so much assurance that I had been prepared for
some really plausible explanation of his interest in the
wall.
“Morgan—you said it was Morgan, didn’t you?—you
are undoubtedly a scoundrel of the first water. I make
the remark with pleasure.”
“Men have been killed for saying less,” he said.
“And for doing less than firing through windows at a
man’s head. It wasn’t friendly of you.”
“I don’t see why you center all your suspicions on
me. You exaggerate my importance, Mr. Glenarm. I’m
only the man-of-all-work at a summer resort.”
“I wouldn’t believe you, Morgan, if you swore on a
stack of Bibles as high as this wall.”
“Thanks!” he ejaculated mockingly.
Like a flash he swung the hammer over his head and
drove it at me, and at the same moment I fired. The
hammer-head struck the pillar near the outer edge and
in such a manner that the handle flew around and
smote me smartly in the face. By the time I reached
the ground the man was already running rapidly
through the park, darting in and out among the trees,
and I made after him at hot speed.
[Illustration: Like a flash he swung the hammer, and at the same moment I fired.]
The hammer-handle had struck slantingly across my
forehead, and my head ached from the blow. I abused
myself roundly for managing the encounter so stupidly,
and in my rage fired twice with no aim whatever after
the flying figure of the caretaker. He clearly had the
advantage of familiarity with the wood, striking off
boldly into the heart of it, and quickly widening the
distance between us; but I kept on, even after I ceased
to hear him threshing through the undergrowth, and
came out presently at the margin of the lake about fifty
feet from the boat-house. I waited in the shadow for
some time, expecting to see the fellow again, but he did
not appear.
I found the wall with difficulty and followed it back
to the gate. It would be just as well, I thought, to
possess myself of the hammer; and I dropped down on
the St. Agatha side of the wall and groped about among
the leaves until I found it.
Then I walked home, went into the library, alight
with its many candles just as I had left it, and sat
down before the fire to meditate. I had been absent
from the house only forty-five minutes.