FOOTSTEPS IN THE ROOM
During the few months that elapsed between the murder of Percy Osmond
and the arrival of General St. George in England, Park Newton had been
shut up, Pearce, the old family butler, being left as custodian of the
house. Of the former establishment he was allowed to retain his niece,
Miss Piper, who had been still-room maid, and Finch, formerly a
footman, but afterwards promoted to be Mr. Dering’s body-servant;
together with a woman or two to do the rough work of the house.
When the General fixed his home at Park Newton these people were all
retained in their places, but their numbers were augmented by eight or
ten more. All his life the General had been used to be waited upon by a
number of people, and he could not quite get out of the way of it even
in England.
On a certain wintry evening early in the new year, Finch and Miss Piper
were sitting in the drawing-room toasting their toes before a
seasonable fire. Between them was a small table on which stood a
decanter of Madeira and two glasses, together with a dish of apples,
nuts, and oranges. The family had gone out to dinner, and would not be
home till late; Mr. Pearce had driven into Duxley to pay the
tradesmen’s accounts, and for the time being Mr. Finch and his fair
companion commanded the situation.
Miss Piper wore a dress of rustling plum-coloured silk. At her elbow
was a smelling-bottle and a lace-edged handkerchief. Mr. Finch, with
one of General St. George’s snuffboxes by his side, was lounging in his
easy-chair, with all the graceful nonchalance of an old club-man who
has just partaken of an excellent dinner.
“This Madeira is not so bad,” he said condescendingly, as he swallowed
his third glass at a gulp with the gusto of a connoisseur. “Miss
Piper,” refilling his glass, “I look towards you. Here’s your very good
health. May you live long and die happy.”
“Oh, Mr. Finch! deeply gratified, I’m sure.”
“I must have fallen into a doze just now, because I never heard you
when you opened the door, and was quite startled when I saw you
standing beside me. But then you always do go about the house more
quietly than anybody else—except the ghost himself.”
Miss Piper glanced round with a shudder, and hitched her chair a little
nearer the fire and Mr. Finch. “But surely, Mr. Finch,” she said, “you
are not one of those who believe that Park Newton is haunted? Uncle
Pearce says that he never heard of such rubbish in the whole course of
his life.”
“Can a man doubt the evidence of his own senses, ma’am? I have lived in
too many good families to have any imagination: I am matter-of-fact to
the back-bone. Such being the case, what then? Why simply this, Miss
Piper: that I know for a fact this house is haunted. Haven’t I heard
noises myself?”
“Gracious goodness! What kind of noises, Mr. Finch?”
“Why—er—rumblings and grumblings, and—er—moanings and scratchings. And
haven’t I woke up in the middle of the night, and sat up in bed, and
listened and heard strange noises that couldn’t be made by anything
mortal? And then in the dusk of evening, haven’t I seen the curtains
move, and heard feet come pitter-pattering down the stairs; and
far-away doors clash in the dark as if shut by ghostly hands? Dreadful,
I assure you.”
“You make me feel quite nervous!” cried Miss Piper, edging an inch
nearer.
“The old clock on the second landing has never kept right time since
the night of the murder. And didn’t Mary Ryan swear that she saw Mr.
Percy Osmond coming downstairs one evening, in his bloodstained
shirt?—asking your pardon, Miss Piper, for mentioning such a garment
before a lady. These are facts that can’t be got over. But there’s
worse to follow.”
“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Finch?”
“At first the house was haunted by one ghost, but now they do say
there’s two of them.”
“Oh, lor! Two! And whose is the second one?”
“Why, whose ghost should it be but that of our late master, Mr. Lionel
Dering? Five servants have left in six weeks, and I shall give warning
next Saturday.”
“My nerves are turning to jelly,” returned Miss Piper. “Oh, Mr. Finch,
we should be dull indeed at Park Newton if you were to go away!”
“Then why not go with me and make my life one long happiness? You know
my feelings, you know that I——”
“No more of that Mr. Finch, if you please. I know your feelings, and
you know my sentiments. Nothing can ever change them. But don’t let us
talk any more nonsense. I want you to tell me about the ghosts.”
“I don’t know that I’ve much more to tell,” said Finch, in a mortified
tone.
“But about Mr. Dering—Mr. Lionel, I mean? Which of the servants was it
that saw his ghost?”
“I am unable to give you any details, Miss Piper, as I never condescend
to listen to the gossip of my inferiors; but I believe it to be the
general talk in the servants’ hall that the ghost of Mr. Lionel has
been seen three or four times slowly pacing the big corridor by
moonlight.”
“How were the idiots to know that it was Mr. Lionel Dering?” asked
Piper with a toss of the head. “Not one of them ever saw him when he
was alive.”
“Yes, Jane Minnows saw him in court during the trial, and she knew the
ghost the moment she saw it.”
“But then Jane Minnows was a terrible storyteller, and just as likely
as not to invent all about the ghost simply to get herself talked
about. But tell me, Mr. Finch, have you not noticed the remarkable
likeness that exists between Mr. Richard Dering and his poor brother?”
“As a gentleman of discernment, Miss Piper, I have noticed the likeness
of which you speak. He has the very same nose, the very same hands, the
very same way of sitting in his chair. And then the voice! I give you
my word of honour that when Mr. Richard yesterday called out rather
suddenly ‘Finch,’ you might have knocked me down with a cork. It
sounded for all the world as if my poor master had come back from the
grave, and had called to me just as he used to do.”
“You are not one of those, Mr. Finch, who believed in the guilt of Mr.
Dering?”
“I never did believe in it and I never will to the last day of my
life,” said Finch, sturdily. “No one, who knew Mr. Lionel as I knew
him, could harbour such a thought for a single moment.”
“Uncle Pearce says exactly the same as you. ‘No power on earth could
make me believe it.’ Them’s his very words. But I say, Mr. Finch, isn’t
the old General a darling?”
“Yes, Miss Piper, I approve of the General—I approve of him very much
indeed. But Mr. Kester St. George is a sort of person whom I would
never condescend to engage as my employer. I don’t like that gentleman.
It seems a strange thing to say, but he has never looked his proper
self since the night of the murder. His man tells me that he has to
drench himself with brandy every morning before he can dress himself.
Who knows? Perhaps it’s the ghosts. They’re enough to turn any man’s
brain.”
“I know that I shouldn’t like to go after dark anywhere near where the
murder was done,” said Miss Piper. “It’s a good job they have nailed
the door up. There’s no getting either in or out of the room now.”
“And yet they do say,” remarked Finch, “that on the eighth of every
month—you know the murder was done on the eighth of May—a little before
midnight, footsteps can be heard—the noise of some one walking about in
the nailed-up room. You, as the niece of Mr. Pearce, have not been told
this, but it has been known to me all along.”
“But you don’t believe it, Mr. Finch?”
“Well, I don’t know so much about that,” answered Finch, dubiously.
“You see it was on account of them footsteps that Sims and Baker left
last month. They had been told about the footsteps, and they made up
their minds to go and hear them. They did hear them, and they gave
warning next day. They told Mr. Pearce that the place wasn’t lively
enough for them. But it was the footsteps that drove them away.”
“After what you have told me, I shall be frightened of moving out of my
own room after dusk. Listen!” cried Miss Piper, jumping up in alarm.
“That’s uncle’s ring at the side bell. He must have got back before his
time.”
It was as Finch had stated. Kester St. George was staying as his
uncle’s guest at Park Newton. The General’s letter found him at Paris,
where he had been living of late almost en permanence. It was couched
in such a style that he saw clearly if he were to refuse the invitation
thus given, a breach would be created between his uncle and himself
which might never be healed in time to come; and, distasteful as the
idea of visiting Park Newton was to him, he was not the man to let any
sentimental rubbish, as he himself would have been the first to call
it, stand in the way of any possible advantage that might accrue to him
hereafter. Rich though he was, he still hankered after his uncle’s
money-bags almost as keenly as in the days when he was so poor; and in
his uncle’s letter there were one or two sentences which seemed to
imply that the probability of their one day becoming his own was by no
means so remote as he had at one time deemed it to be.
“And who has so much right to the old boy’s savings as I have?” he
asked himself. “Certainly not that scowling black-browed Richard
Dering. I hope with all my heart that he’ll be gone back to India—or to
Jericho—or to the bottom of the sea—before I get to Park Newton.”
But when he did reach Park Newton he found, greatly to his disgust,
that Richard Dering was still there, and that there were no signs
whatever of his speedy departure. That there was no love lost between
the two men was evident both to themselves and others; but although
their coolness towards each other could hardly fail to be noticed by
General St. George, he never made the slightest allusion to it, but
treated them both as if they were the best of possible friends. Kester
he treated with greater cordiality than he had ever accorded to him
before.
Richard and Kester saw hardly anything of each other except at the
dinner-table, and then the conversation between them was limited to the
baldest possible topics. Richard never sat over his wine, and generally
asked and obtained his uncle’s permission to leave the table the moment
dessert was placed upon it. He was an early riser, and had breakfasted
and was out riding or walking long before his uncle or cousin made
their appearance downstairs.
But these meetings over dinner, brief though they were, were to Kester
like a dreadful oft-recurring nightmare which, although it may last for
a minute or two only, murders sleep by the dread which it inspires
before it comes, and the horror it leaves behind it after it has gone.
Richard’s voice, his eyes, the swing of his walk, the very pose of his
head, were all so many reminders to Kester of a dead and gone man, the
faintest recollection of whom he would fain have erased not from his
own memory alone, but from that of every one else who had known him.
But to hear Richard speak was to hear, as it were, Lionel speaking from
the tomb.
General St. George made the delicate state of his health a plea for not
seeing much company at Park Newton, nor did he visit much himself. But
there was no such restriction on Kester, and he was out nearly every
day at one place or another, though he generally contrived to get back
in time to dine with his uncle. He had not forgotten Dr. Bolus’s
advice, and for the last month or two he had been leading a very quiet
life indeed. As a result of this, he fancied that there was a decided
improvement in the state of his health. In any case, he felt quite sure
that the symptoms which had troubled him so much at one time troubled
him less frequently now, and were milder at each recurrence. As a
consequence, he had shrunk with a sort of morbid dread from seeking any
further professional advice. He always felt the worst in a morning—so
weak, nervous, and depressed when he woke up from the three or four
hours of troubled sleep, which was all that nature could now be
persuaded to give him. Let him tire himself as he might, he never could
get much more sleep than when he went to bed comparatively fresh, the
consequence simply being that he was more weak and ill than usual next
morning. For a little while he tried narcotics; but the remedy proved
worse than the disease it was intended to cure. More sleep he got, it
is true; but sleep so burdened with frightful dreams that it seemed to
him as if it would be better to lie awake for ever, than run the risk
of floating helplessly in such a sea of horrors any more.
As Finch had said, he had to dose himself heavily with brandy before he
could dress and crawl downstairs to breakfast. But as the day wore on
he always got stronger and better, so that by the time it was necessary
to dress for dinner, he was quite like his old self again, as well
seemingly and as buoyant as the Kester St. George of a dozen years
before. It was the dark hours that tried him most, when he was left
alone in his great gloomy bedroom, with a candle, and a book, and his
own thoughts.
He had brought his valet with him to Park Newton. Not Pierre Janvard
this time. Pierre had left Mr. St. George’s service a little while
previously, and had started business on his own account as an hotel
keeper at Bath.
Mr. St. George’s new valet was an Englishman named Dobbs. He was a
well-trained servant—noiseless, deferential, smooth-spoken, and
treating all his master’s whims and capricious fluctuations of temper
as the merest matter of course: a man who would allow himself to be
sworn at, and called an idiot, an ass, the biggest blockhead in
existence; and retaliate only with a faint smile of deprecation, and a
gentle rubbing of his lean white hands.
Mr. St. George had a strange dislike to being left alone. When he could
not have any other society—that is to say, early in the morning, and
late at night, after everybody else was in bed—he would rather have the
company of Dobbs than that of his own thoughts only. In a morning,
between six and seven—long before daylight in winter—Dobbs was there in
his master’s room, arranging his clothes, laying out his dressing-case,
mixing him his cup of chocolate, supplying him with his brandy, doing
anything—it did not matter what—so long as he was not out of his
master’s sight for many minutes at a time.
Then at night, late, when the old house was as quiet as a tomb, Mr. St.
George would sit in his dressing-room, drinking cold brandy-and-water,
and smoking cigars till far into the small hours. It was Dobbs’s duty
at such times to sit with his master in a chair removed a few yards
away, and a little behind that of Mr. St. George. It was not that
Kester wanted him there for conversational purposes, for he rarely
condescended to speak to him except to ask him for something that he
wanted. The man’s silent presence was all that he required, and for
such a duty as that Dobbs was invaluable. He never dozed—he would have
sat up all night without closing an eye—he never read, he never sneezed
or coughed, or made his presence objectionable in any way; and he never
spoke unless first spoken to. Silent, watchful, and alert, he was
always there and always the same.
Mr. St. George never slept without a light in his room, and Dobbs, who
had a little sofa-bed in the dressing-room, and who was a remarkably
light sleeper, was instructed to arouse his master at once should he
hear the latter begin to toss about or moan in his sleep.
The eighth of February had come. Kester was beginning to think that it
was about time his visit to Park Newton should be brought to a close.
He had two horses in training at Chantilly, on which he based some
brilliant expectations, and his heart and thoughts were in the stable
with his pets. Every day that he prolonged his stay at Park Newton
merely served to deepen his hatred of the place. “I shall have a fit of
horrors if I stay here much longer,” he said to himself. “I’ll invent
some important business, and try to get away the day after to-morrow. I
must persuade the old boy to come and spend a month with me at
Chantilly when the spring sets fairly in.”
Dinner that day was quite an hour later than usual. General St. George
had been to see an old friend who was ill, and he did not get back till
late. Contrary to his usual practice, Richard Dering sat this evening
with his uncle and cousin, after the cloth was removed: He sat drinking
his wine in an absent mood, and scarcely joining in the conversation at
all. By-and-by Pearce brought a note to the General on a salver. He put
on his spectacles, opened the note, and read it. Then, with a little
peevish exclamation, he tossed it into the fire.
“Another of them,” he said. “We shall be left before long without a
servant to wait on us. I certainly did not anticipate this annoyance
when I came to live at Park Newton.”
“What is the annoyance of which you speak?” asked Kester.
“Why, that fellow Finch has just given me notice that he intends to
leave this day month. That will make the sixth of them, man or maid,
that has left me since I came here; and I hear that the rest, old and
new, are all likely to follow suit before long.”
“You astonish me,” said Kester. “You have always seemed to me the most
indulgent of masters. If anything, too lenient—excuse me, sir, for
saying so—and I can’t understand at all why these idiots should want to
leave you.”
“Oh, it’s not me they want to leave: it’s the house that doesn’t suit
them.”
“The house! And what have they to complain of as regards the house?”
“They swear, every man jack of them, that it’s haunted.”
Kester’s pale face became a shade paler. He fingered his empty wine
glass nervously and did not answer for a little while.
“Park Newton haunted! What ridiculous nonsense is this?” he said at
last with a forced laugh. “I lived in the house for years when I was a
lad; but I certainly never knew before that it had so peculiar a
reputation.”
“It is only of late—only since the murder last May—that people have got
into the way of saying these things.”
Again Kester was silent. Richard Dering’s keen glance was fixed on his
face. He felt it rather than saw it. His under lip quivered slightly.
He moved uneasily in his chair.
“What a parcel of blockheads these people must be!” he exclaimed at
last. “Do we live in the nineteenth century, or have we gone back to
the middle ages? If I were in your place, sir, I would send the whole
lot packing, and have an entirely new set from London. It is only these
superstitious country-bred louts who believe in such rubbish as ghosts:
your thoroughbred Cockney has no faith in anything half so
unsubstantial.”
“It is certainly very singular,” said the General, “that these idle
fancies of weak brains should be so contagious. The first man who
propagates the idea of a house being haunted has much to answer for. He
never finds any lack of ready-made believers; and it is remarkable that
we who know better, when we have a subject like this so persistently
forced on our notice, come at last, quite unconsciously to ourselves
and with no desire whatever to do so, to give a sort of half credence
to it. We listen with a more attentive ear to statements so obstinately
made, and emanating from so many different sources.”
“My dear uncle,” cried Kester, “you are surely never going to allow
yourself to be converted into a believer in this wretched nonsense!”
“My dear Kester, I am not aware that I have ever been accounted as a
superstitious man, and I don’t think that I am going to become one so
late in the day. I merely say that there is about these matters a
certain degree of contagion which it is next to impossible altogether
to resist.”
Richard, who up to this point had taken no part in the conversation,
now spoke. “From what I can make out,” he said, “there seems to be a
strange coherence, a remarkable similarity, in the stories told by the
different persons who profess to have seen these appearances. And now
they are not content with saying that Park Newton is haunted by one
ghost: they will have it that two of them have been seen of late.”
“Two of them!” exclaimed the General and Kester in one breath.
“Ay, two of them,” answered Richard. “One of them I need not name. The
other one is said to be the ghost of my poor lost brother.”
“What wretched fabrications are these!” exclaimed Kester. “Are you and
I, sir,” turning to the General, “to have our lives worried and our
peace of mind broken by the babbling of a set of idiots, such as there
unfortunately seems to be in this house?”
“They do not disturb my peace of mind, Kester.”
“They do mine, sir. This house is my property—pardon me for mentioning
the fact. Once let it acquire the unenviable reputation of being
haunted, and for fifty years to come everybody will swear that it is
so. Should you, sir, ever choose to leave the house, what chance shall
I have of getting another tenant? None! With the reputation of being
haunted, no one will live in it. Slowly but surely it will go to rack
and ruin.”
“It is hardly to be wondered at,” said the General, “that these people
have connected a tragedy so terrible, as that which will make Park
Newton memorable for a century to come, with certain ghostly
appearances. I myself find my thoughts dwelling upon the same thing
very frequently indeed. What a strange, sad fate was that of poor young
Osmond! Him I did not know. But in my dreams I am continually seeing
the face of my poor lost boy whose fate was only one degree less sad.
Do you never find yourself haunted in the same way, Kester?”
“Haunted, Uncle Lionel? That is a strange word to make use of. I have
not forgotten my cousin, of course—nor am I likely ever to do so.”
For a little while they all sat in silence. Nothing was heard save the
crackling of the fire, or the dropping of a cinder; or, now and then,
the moaning of the wintry wind, as it crept about the old house, trying
the doors and windows, and seeming as though it were burdened with the
weight of some terrible secret which it was striving to tell but could
not.
Suddenly Richard Dering spoke. “This is the eighth of February,” he
said. “Nine months ago to-night, Percy Osmond was murdered, and under
this very roof. To-night, at twelve o’clock, if what these people
allege be true, footsteps will be heard—the noise of some one walking
up and down the room where the murder was committed. Such being the
case, what more easy than to prove or disprove the accuracy of at least
this part of the story? Why not go, all three of us, a few minutes
before twelve; and, accompanied by two or three of the servants who
shall be chosen by the rest as a deputation, station ourselves close to
the door of the nailed-up room, and there await the result? I do not
for one moment anticipate that we shall either see or hear anything out
of the ordinary way. Once let us prove this to the satisfaction of the
servants, and I don’t think that we shall be troubled with much more
nonsense about ghostly footsteps or appearances at Park Newton.”
“Not a bad idea, Dick, by any means,” said the General. “What say you,
Kester?”
Kester had pushed back his chair from the table while Richard was
speaking. There was a strange look on his face: in his eyes terror, on
his lips a derisive smile. He emptied his glass before answering.
“Faith, sir,” he said, “it seems to me that you attach far too much
importance to the cackling of these idiots. I would treat their
assertions with the contempt they deserve, and send the whole crew
about their business before they were two days older. Your presence
there, as it seems to me, would be like a confession of your belief in
the possible truth of certain statements which are really so childish
that no sensible person can treat them otherwise than with the most
supreme contempt.”
“I hardly agree with you there, Kester,” said General St. George. “Our
presence would be like a guarantee of good faith, and would set the
question at rest at once and for ever. At all events, the plan is one
which I mean to try, and I should like both of you to be there with me.
Richard, you can arrange for certain of the servants to be ready a few
minutes before midnight.”
“Really, sir, I should feel obliged if you would excuse me from
accompanying you,” said Kester. “I have a bad headache to-night, and
intend to get between the sheets as soon as possible.”
“Pooh—pooh—pooh!” said the General, hastily. “I shall not excuse you.
Hang your headaches! When I was a young fellow we left headaches to the
women, and did not know what such things were ourselves. I have set my
mind on having a game of backgammon with you this evening, and I shall
not let you go.”
His uncle’s tone was so peremptory that Kester dared not say another
word. He sat down again in silence.
At five minutes before twelve, they all met in the library—General St.
George, Richard, Kester, and a deputation from the servants’ hall,
headed by Finch with a pair of lighted candles. Finch led the way
through the cold and dismal passages, up the black oaken staircase,
through the dreary picture gallery, where the portrait of each dead and
gone St. George looked down inquiringly, and seemed to ask the meaning
of so strange a procession; and so at last they reached the door of the
nailed-up room. Finch deposited his candles on the nearest window-sill,
and by their dim, uncertain light, the company grouped themselves round
the door, the servants a little way behind their superiors, and waited.
No one spoke: no one wanted to speak. They were thinking of the dark
tragedy that, but a few short months before, and in the dead of night,
had been enacted behind that shut-up door. Presently the turret-clock
began to strike. Slowly and lingeringly it tolled, as if unwilling to
let the dying day drop into its grave. Over all there, a deeper hush
fell. Twelve solemn strokes, and then silence and another day.
Silence for, perhaps, the space of half a minute; when, with an
indescribable awe, they heard, one and all, a slight noise, as of a
chair being pushed back; and next moment came the sound, clear,
distinct, and unmistakable, of footsteps slowly pacing the bare,
polished floor of the nailed-up room. The servants all shrank back a
little, and turned their white and frightened faces on one another.
Kester St. George, too, staggered back a step or two, and leaned for
support against an angle of the wall.
Even at that supreme moment he could feel that the cold, stern eyes of
Richard Dering were fixed on his face, and he hated him with a hatred
like death.
Hardly breathing, they all listened, while the footsteps slowly,
unhesitatingly, paced the room. Suddenly they heard another sound which
several there present at once recognized. What they heard was the noise
of a man coughing; and the cough they heard was the short, dry, grating
cough that had been peculiar to Mr. Percy Osmond, and to him alone.
Finch recognized it in a moment. So did Kester St. George; who, with a
quick cry of pain, pressed his hand to his heart, and staggering back a
pace or two, fell to the ground in a dead faint.