Dressing in his bedroom, poor Lord Mere de Beaurivage was not content.
He had only done it for Mattie—and he was not content.
Two quite separate parts of the man were disturbed; first, the old
business part—fifty thousand was monstrously too much: he got feverish
over it (and that delayed his dressing. He never would have a man to
help him). It was monstrous. Good Lord! There was some he knew would
have ’ad it for half. He’d have had it for half himself if he’d been
developing the site. But there—Mattie wanted it.
Deeper down, and much worse, was the underlying wreathing mist of
terror which came and went, half below his consciousness. It worried
him extremely. Was he doomed to live under such influences the last
poor years of his life? He still delayed his dressing.... But there,
they’d only come down from London at week-ends. There was no nonsense
about the house in Mayfair. That was old, too, but respectable, at any
rate. A man could sleep quiet there. Leastways at the back, away from
the motors. And there! He’d done it for Mattie.
If it be true that this world is governed by appetite, fear, avarice,
hate, and affection, in this case affection had conquered—for the
moment.
The poor old boy had nearly finished dressing. He was carefully
brushing a scant white wisp of hair over a bold, broad head. As he did
so he began nervously to start at a sound which he thought was like a
whispering call. He tracked it down; it was only a curtain rustling
slightly along the wall before the open window. Once or twice again he
found himself looking oddly round as though something might be watching
him; but he told himself that one must get rid of all that, or one
could not carry on.
He was still struggling with the tying of his white tie (though he had
taken innumerable lessons in the art) when Mattie came in, looking
younger than she ought to have looked what with cosmetics and the rest,
and shaded lights. She gave him a powdery kiss to thank him once again;
and he was half-consoled when he came down late into the drawing-room
and found them all awaiting him to go in to dine.
During dinner, by Bo’s strict orders (for Bo knew a good deal more
about psychology than Lord Hambourne), John said not a word of the
ghost.
It was sound policy to give the old man rope, and a breathing space.
The greater would come the final shock of surprise; and surprise is the
essence of victory. John’s marching orders were not to say a word of
it till the women had gone. And even then to play delicately, and not
to force the pace.
She couldn’t prevent Lord Hambourne making a fool of himself and
speaking of The Thing once or twice. It was his damned profession to
make a fool of himself. Dons all do. She couldn’t prevent her father
asking a question or two about measurements—especially what size of
ruffs they wore in those days, and how they got their food to their
mouths over them, and whether they could see their feet.
But Hilda Maple had a growing instinct that the subject was dangerous,
and though she had fifty thousand pounds as good as in her pocket, that
same instinct bade her change this sort of conversation whenever it
arose, and, so long as the women remained, it played little part.
But when they were gone John fulfilled his orders, and over the wine
talked discreetly to his three guests.
He talked of apparitions, of Sussex tales, of the Fates of houses. He
flattered the Turtle Professor of Psychology by listening eagerly to
his appeals. He managed with great skill to distil some little poison
into Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s not heroic veins—principally by dropping
the subject once or twice rather obviously. He fought on two fronts,
for he knew very well that Lord Hambourne believed in no spirit,
creative or uncreative, finite or infinite, human or divine, and he had
to make Lord Mere de Beaurivage more and more uncomfortably familiar
with a spirit drawing more and more uncomfortably near.
The men were back in the drawing-room, and the first words they heard
as they entered was Isabeau saying:
“Well, it may be all talk, as you say, but I didn’t dare look in the
glass since I thought I saw _That_ looking over my shoulder.”
And Hilda Maple was answering almost angrily:
“Oh, that’s enough about the whole business, surely! I can’t make out
why anyone should take it seriously.”
Then, to stop that very nonsense, she bustled at making up four for
bridge. Lord Hambourne was her partner (it would never do to quarrel
with Lord Hellup); and as for Hellup, he was a good counter-weight for
Amathea, whose bridge was not experienced, though at whist she had
flattered herself all her life upon a pretty play, and boasted that at
cribbage she was unequalled.
Lord Mere de Bruvvish sat apart in a darker recess where burned a
second fire. He was fatigued by certain emotions. He needed repose.
He was still disappointed. The figure, £50,000, still returned to his
mind, and once, as the card-players, whom he would not interrupt by any
remark, brought out their short monologues, “I pass,” “Double,” “She
made it spades,” and the other brilliancies of the exercise, he had a
horrible brief recollection of a little Voice too near the ground,
wickedly evil, in the thick of the rhododendrons.
Bo kindly determined to bear him company in his loneliness.
“It’s an oddly quiet night, isn’t it, Lord Bruvvish?” said Bo, seating
herself beside him and talking dreamily. “It feels strange—this
quietness of the country. I don’t know....” But even as she spoke there
came a very faint, very distant, and not pleasant laugh—where from no
one could tell—except John Maple, who was watching the players with
intelligent interest.
“What ... what’s that?” said Lord de Beaurivage, gripping the arm of
the sofa and sitting up suddenly.
“What was what?” said Bo innocently.
“I thought ... I thought I ’eard something—something like someone
laughing, very faint like.”
“Did you?” said Isabeau. “Well, perhaps someone did. I don’t know....”
And once again, a little less remote, a little less evanescent, a
little more defined, came the sneering chuckle of something evil.
Lord Mere de Beaurivage was fairly sitting up. He brought out a big
silk handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and said:
“There, Miss Hellup! There! I could a-sworn....”
Then he pulled himself together. He was afraid he was making himself
ridiculous. But he badly needed human support.
Isabeau rose suddenly with a startled look.
“Where’s my little dawg?” she said. And as she said it she looked
round, and was able to exchange a sharp glance with her lover. “Oh!
Something’s happened, Lord Mere! Lovey-Lad never leaves me!”
She went off past John, murmuring to him as she did so, “Hooked!” And
then she said aloud and awfully to the company at large:
“I feel a presentiment! Something’s happening!”
John Maple left the bridge players, who only looked up for a moment
from their game, and sat down in the seat that Bo had vacated, next to
his guest.
“You mustn’t mind Miss Hellup, Lord Mere,” he said. “She’s not like
other girls—about spiritual things, I mean. I think sometimes she
almost _feels_ the other world.”
“Oh, ah!” answered the old man, his yellow eyes filled with uneasiness.
“She told me once that the only time she was in a place of great
evil—evil all round her—the first sign was given by her dog. Dogs see
things.”
“Do they? Well, I ’ave ’eard something like that,” gasped Lord Mere de
Beaurivage.
Even as he said it there came more distinctly than before the low wail
from the darkness, and the poor old gentleman was almost startled into
speaking; but still on John’s face there was no sign of recognition.
Lord Mere remembered how the doctor had talked to him about blood
pressure and all sorts of other things a few months before, and warned
him that if he heard voices or saw pictures just as he was falling
asleep he was not to be alarmed. But far off at the bridge table he
caught what was being said. It was Lady Mere de Beaurivage asking Lord
Hellup what had troubled Isabeau.
[Illustration: _Growing nervousness of Lord de Beaurivage_]
“She got anxious about her dog. She thinks he’s got a terror. He does
sometimes. She thinks he’s seeing something.”
The inevitable Hambourne broke in where he was least wanted.
“Animals often feel those influences first,” he said, and then in a
suddenly louder voice, “we inv-v-v-estig-g-gated a house w-w-w-once in
the m-m-m-ost d-d-disg-g-gusting m-m-m-urder....”
“Lord Hambourne,” said Mrs. Maple sharply, “you’ve made me forget. Was
it a spade?” But Lord Hambourne went on in his stride:
“A _p-p-partic-c-cularly_ d-d-isg-g-usting m-m-m-urder.”
“Really, Lord Hambourne,” said his hostess, too brusquely. “I can’t
play if you talk like this. I can’t do two things at once.”
Lady de Beaurivage was dummy. She heard her husband calling in a
whisper to her: “Mattie!”
“What’s the matter,” she said, going up to him.
“Mattie, you didn’t hear nothing—not voices like?”
“Lor, Bruvvish, don’t be so sudden! You guv me a cold shock all down my
back, you did!”
“Don’t say you seen nothing, Mattie? You’ve not _seen_ nothing?”
“No. But I ’ad a sort of creeping-like looking in the glass just now.”
“Don’t, Mattie, don’t! I can’t a-bear it. Not now. I’ll slip away to
bed soon. I can’t a-bear it.”
Then came Hilda Maple’s voice calling to her: “Amathea, dear, another
deal,” and Amathea returned reluctantly to the cards.
John and the old gentleman sat together in silence looking into the
fire. The elder man heard, or thought he had heard ... well ... what?
He was fighting against the influence. He tried silence, and then an
attempt to speak of other things; when again he heard, or thought he
heard, a Voice, so slight as to be disembodied—a nothingness upon the
air—yet deep and full and of an intolerable sadness. Even as he thought
he heard that voice he saw John start and look into the darker corner,
where the firelight could not play, and where a bookshelf came up
towards the drawn curtains of the window. Lord Mere gave a paralysed
glance, put his hand graspingly on John Maple’s arm, squinted to the
left into that same dark place, and whispered rather than said:
“Did yer ’ear anything, Mr. Miple?”
John did not answer at once; when he did he said:
“Perhaps, Lord Mere....” Then he looked down. “I really don’t know.
It’s better not to let oneself think too much of such things....”
They talked just so long as gave the old man time to think himself
recovered; when once again, but more certainly, though still distant
and of a phantom sort, the sound came.
“Oh, Mr. Miple, I ’eard it pline! It said, ‘The Night,’ Mr. Miple!
S’elp me, it did!”
There was terror in the eyes now, and he was gripping John Maple’s arm
convulsively. John Maple tossed his head slightly as though trying to
be rid of some bad influence.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes. Shall we move?”
Then suddenly Isabeau’s voice was heard from the landing as she ran
downstairs, tragically loud:
“Oh, poor Lovey-Lad! Poor little pup!” she cried.
The unfortunate bridge players, interrupted again, looked up.
“You f-found him?” stammered Lord Hambourne.
“Oh, yes. He was whining and shaking so, I couldn’t bear it. And all
huddled up on the landing, and bristling. He’s there yet. I couldn’t
fix him so’s to get him to come. I tried to carry him, but he was just
crazy. Snapped at me—for the first time in his life—poor li’l fellow!”
Then she lowered her voice, and leaning against the banister at the
end of her descent, she said hysterically: “It’s something in this
room!”
Lord Mere de Bruvvish fell back in his chair again like a man stunned.
He gasped; he clutched the padded arms on which his hands lay, leaned
back, his breath coming and going as though he had just taken violent
exercise. His head was thrown back, and his eyes were shut. Then he
called quite loudly:
“Mattie!”
The bridge party looked round: that excellent wife broke off in the
middle of a hand; she rushed—if such a form can be said to rush—across
the room, and knelt by the chair.
“What’s the matter, George?” she said. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m orl right. I shall be orl right. I come over queer,” he said. “I
ought not to have called yer. Go back, dear; go back.”
“’Ow was ’e took?” said the worthy woman to John Maple.
“It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing, Lady Mere,” said John, on his
feet. “It was something.... The night ... and this talk of ghosts has
made him nervous.”
“Mattie,” said the poor man in a low voice, “Mattie, I must go to bed.
You’ll excuse me, ma’am,” he added, turning to his hostess, “but I’m
that tired. I’m not as young as I was.”
Mattie accompanied him affectionately to the hall, gave him his
candle, and looked at him anxiously.
“Ye’re tired, dear,” she said, “you’re right when you sye you’re tired.”
“I’ll be orl right, Mattie,” he said. “Never mind me. You’ll find me
asleep. I’m orl right.”
But she watched him anxiously, gazing up after him as his unwieldy,
lumbering form went painfully up the stairs, candle in hand. He looked
back at her and smiled. She was a good wife, and as she went back to
the group in the drawing-room she wondered whether she ought not to go
and see to him; she was beginning to share his fears.
Mrs. Maple was rattled, and she could not hide it.
“Well,” she said, “so far as it’s possible to count in the middle of
all this, I make it 364.”
Lord Hambourne thought he would make conversation—but he made it
unfortunately.
“As I w-w-as s-s-aying j-j-j-ust now, I m-mean ab-b-about the
m-m-murder ...” he began.
His hostess interrupted him.
“Yes, it was very nasty,” she said quickly. “But do help me with this.
Do you make it 364?”
“Quate, quate!” said Lord Hambourne, a little puzzled at such a check.
He added the figures. It was a pleasure to him, for he certainly could
not have paid if he had lost; but he had not lost.
It was during the following silence, when Hilda Maple was in an agony
lest some further thing should be said to disturb the purchaser of
Rackham Catchings, that Corton came in with the glasses and decanters
on a tray.
But it was not the Corton of earlier hours. For the first time in
thirty years that great man was showing some lack of self-possession.
He came in too quickly; he was trembling slightly, and as he advanced
he so far forgot himself as to look over his shoulder; and in so doing
he dropped a glass.
“Good heavens, Corton!” shouted his mistress angrily. “What are you up
to? What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry, madam.” His teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not quite
myself to-night, madam.”
“So it seems,” answered the lady coldly, as he put down the tray.
Then she wondered whether she was awake or dreaming. For she saw that
honourable servitor make, not for the door, but for the window towards
the lawn, as though he would leave by that strange exit. With a hasty
glance which satisfied her that her guests were occupied, she followed
him and whispered quickly:
“What _are_ you doing, Corton?”
“If you please, madam,” said the unfortunate man, glancing with horror
at the door through which he had just come, “I’d rather not go back by
the passage.”
“Not go back by the passage!” whispered Mrs. Maple angrily and looking
him up and down. “Are you mad?”
“No, madam. No, not mad. Not mad.” He passed his hand over his
forehead—what great powers are revealed in man sometimes, quite late in
life! Corton was now in the very spirit of the romances upon which he
was modelling himself. “No, madam,” he said again, most tragically, and
with a tremor in his voice, “I am not mad.”
“Corton,” said Mrs. Maple, “you’re a disgrace. You’re drunk.”
His only reply was to shake his head sadly.
“It’s worse in the passage, madam. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t go back
by the passage.”
“Don’t go on repeating that like a parrot!” said Hilda Maple
passionately in the same low tones. Her guests might notice at any
moment what was going on. She took the bull by the horns and opened
the window herself, for she saw that if she did not act quickly there
would be a scene. “Then go back across the lawn, you fool!” she barked
at him aside; and then loudly and gaily, turning round, she added, to
the company, “You don’t mind my opening the window, do you? It’s an
astonishingly hot and still night for the time of year. Do you mind the
fresh air?”
Her guests assured Hilda Maple that they did not mind the air. But Lord
Hellup, who had watched the end of the little business, said the wrong
thing. He said it directly to his hostess, and what he said was:
“That guy’s rattled!”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Mrs. Maple. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s nearly
always like that about eleven o’clock.”
Lord Hellup was highly interested.
“Do say? Mebbe that’s because he doesn’t drink enough. When that kind
go dry between whiles their nerves just fray to old collars.”
It was getting worse and worse. The others were beginning to take
notice, and Lord Hambourne did not fail to come up true to type. He
butted in.
“In-inhib-b-b-ition,” he began, “with its ac-c-c-ompanying
c-c-c-comp-compl——” But Mrs. Maple cut him short savagely.
“Don’t, Lord Hambourne! Don’t say any more about it! It’s not that.
It’s religion. He says long prayers after dinner.”
“That’s not natural—not in a butler,” was Lord Hellup’s comment.
But Lord Hellup had seen few.
“P-p-p-raying,” broke in the Professor in his best donnish manner, “is
a w-w-well-known s-s-s-ymptom of re-e-e-ligious mania.”
“Maybe,” suggested Lord Hellup, “he struck that guy without a head.”
“There’s no such thing,” Aunt Hilda interrupted abruptly.
This was too much for Lady de Beaurivage.
“Why, Ilda,” she said, with real astonishment, “you told Bruvvage and
all of us yourself, and it’s part of the interest of the plice an’ all!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said her hostess. “I told you the story—the
legend. Many old houses have them—surely you know that. There’s nothing
really.”
“In this particular c-c-c-ase,” broke in the unfortunate Hambourne
again, “what with the d-d-dog, it may be suggestion. It’s a kind of
h-h-hyp....” He swallowed after that syllable, tried it again and
added, “nosis.”
Lord Hellup remarked that if it was anything about the hip, he knew a
bone setter in Park Lane.... Mrs. Maple in despair tried to put an end
to it all by saying, “No, no, no. Lord Hambourne means hypnotic, or
something of that sort. Don’t you, Lord Hambourne?”
And Lord Hambourne comforted her by quacking out: “Quate, quate.”
It looked as though the trouble was over; but she had had a bad time.
The telephone bell rang; John Maple took up the receiver and answered
it. He turned to his aunt.
“It’s from the stables, Aunt Hilda. They want you.”
“Want me?” said Mrs. Maple incredulously. “What can they want from the
stables at this hour of the night?” She took up the machine.
“Yes?... Oh, what nonsense!... Yes? Well, they often do get restless
these hot nights.... What! Corton? Corton’s got nothing to do with
it. Don’t listen to a _word_ Corton says.... What’s that? The new
mare’s frantic? Well, go and pat her. What?... Don’t be a coward. Go
and pat her on the neck. Pat her on the crupper. Pat her anywhere....
Are you there? Are you _there_? (She tapped her foot in her agony.)
ARE YOU THERE? Hullo, why did you go away?... Good, she’s quieter, is
she? Well, don’t bother me any more. Get hold of Alphonse. There’s no
nonsense about _him_,” she added, looking up at her guests. “He’s a
Communist, you know, and knows all about machinery, so he won’t believe
in any of that rubbish. He’ll be a good tonic to those idiots.”
Again she hoped that she had stopped the rot. But Lord Hambourne failed
not.
“It’s all d-d-d-eeply interesting,” the academic ass began. “It’s
f-f-f-ascinating. Animals receive sub-sub-sub-liminal m-m-m-essages.
And m-m-y c-c-colleague Pro-pro-fessor J-J-onah has sh-shown that while
m-m-motors are im-p-pervious the equidæ....” But just at that moment
the air was pierced by a very genuine shriek, and it came from Isabeau.
She was pointing at the darkness.
“Oh! Oh, dear! Something went by the window!”
“Mercy!” cried the sympathetic Lady Mere de Beaurivage. “I saw it too!”
Mrs. Maple’s patience was nearly exhausted.
[Illustration: _Lord Hellup accepting from Lord Hambourne the
interesting scientific discovery that motor-cars are less susceptible
to psychic influence than horses_]
“My dear Amathea—Isabeau dear, go back. Anyone in the household might
be passing.”
But, alas! her words were even truer than she knew; for a troop was
upon them. Coming into the shaft of light which streamed from the
window on to the lawn was Corton, and behind that Captain the whole
force of the Offices, and as Corton appeared respectfully at the head
of his regiment, full in the window behind him could be seen the ample
form of the cook, Mrs. Fry, and Betsy Broom, and the housemaids and the
groom, the boy, the footman and all. Only Alphonse was missing.
Corton, after a sepulchral but respectful cough, and begging leave to
enter, brought them in.
“My colleague, madam, Mrs. Fry ... and my other colleagues, and the
under-servants, and the maid Broom, madam, insisted upon seeing you
... and I thought it better to accompany them. They would not go by
_that_”—and he waved his hand towards the passage.
“Go back at once ...” Mrs. Maple had begun, “and I’ll come out to you
...” when Mrs. Fry gave tongue in her turn.
“I can’t a-bear it no more, ma’am, no, that I can’t! No, not if it was
the Queen herself, so there!”
“Really, Mrs. Fry!” commanded Mrs. Maple. But her command had no effect.
“No,” continued Mrs. Fry, in rising tones, “not if it was ’er sacred
Majesty Queen Victoria herself come back to life. I can’t a-bear it.”
“Oo—oo—ooo!” moaned the maid Broom—and Mrs. Fry made bold to comfort
her.
“And this poor child, ma’am. She feels it like the others. I done my
best to comfort ’em. I feel like a mother to ’em all, I do, but,” and
here she lowered her voice to a painful whisper and stepped forward,
“wot’s in this ’ouse to-night, ma’am, ain’t flesh and blood.”
“You’re a pack of fools!” shouted Mrs. Maple, beside herself. But
Corton went on gravely:
“The murder, madam, perpetrated under these ancient roof trees.” And he
pointed to the antique beam. “Under the reign of the Virgin Queen—it
was perpetrated this very night, madam. I have observed the anniversary
religiously for thirty years—since I was knife boy, madam. And now the
Unquiet Spirit will not rest.”
“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry proudly, by way of chorus, “has the whole
story like a book, ma’am.”
“The blood, ma’am,” continued Corton courageously, while the sobs of
the women behind him increased, and poor Bo put her fingers into her
ears, “the blood flowed down the stairs from under the door of the Blue
Room ... Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s room, madam.”
But Mrs. Maple was resolved to put an end to it all.
[Illustration: _Partial, but representative deputation of the domestic
staff of Rackham Catchings protesting against the Headless Thing_]
“Look here, all of you, it’s sheer bunkum, and dangerous at that.
If you want to sit up all night, I can’t prevent you. Go back across
the lawn, the whole lot of you, and I’ll come with you. And you,
Corton”—she turned to him—“I mean to have an explanation from you.” And
with that she drove the herd before her, back through the night. It is
just to add that her presence was a comfort to them—but not to Corton.
The guests looked at each other in silence: Lord Hambourne abominably
interested, Lord Hellup discreetly amused, Isabeau shrinking as though
worse were to come, and poor Lady de Beaurivage shaken almost as her
husband had been. Not one had yet spoken. Mrs. Maple’s voice could be
heard far off beyond the lawn in a last word with Corton as she turned
back to the house. She re-crossed the lawn, she entered the room.
Even as she did so there banged on the floor above a fearful crash as
of a heavy body falling, and with it a loud and horrible cry. Then dead
silence.
Amathea Lady de Beaurivage dashed to the door with an inspired shriek:
“It’s my George!”
The others followed her, and in a rapid, thrusting group they all
rushed through the hall and up the stairs.