by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XXXIV
GRAYWATER PARK
"This is a singular situation in which we find ourselves," I said,"and one that I'm bound to admit I don't appreciate."
Nayland Smith stretched his long legs, and lay back in his chair.
"The sudden illness of Sir Lionel is certainly very disturbing," hereplied, "and had there been any possibility of returning to Londonto-night, I should certainly have availed myself of it, Petrie. Ishare your misgivings. We are intruders at a time like this."
He stared at me keenly, blowing a wreath of smoke from his lips, andthen directing his attention to the cone of ash which crowned hiscigar. I glanced, and not for the first time, toward the quaint olddoorway which gave access to a certain corridor. Then--
"Apart from the feeling that we intrude," I continued slowly, "thereis a certain sense of unrest."
"Yes," snapped Smith, sitting suddenly upright--"yes! You experiencethis? Good! You are happily sensitive to this type of impression,Petrie, and therefore quite as useful to me as a cat is useful to aphysical investigator."
He laughed in his quick, breezy fashion.
"You will appreciate my meaning," he added; "therefore I offer noexcuse for the analogy. Of course, the circumstances, as we know them,may be responsible for this consciousness of unrest. We are neither ofus likely to forget the attempt upon the life of Sir Lionel Barton twoyears ago or more. Our attitude toward sudden illness is scarcely thatof impartial observers."
"I suppose not," I admitted, glancing yet again at the still vacantdoorway by the foot of the stairs, which now the twilight was drapingin mysterious shadows.
Indeed, our position was a curious one. A welcome invitation from ourold friend, Sir Lionel Barton, the world-famous explorer, had come ata time when a spell of repose, a glimpse of sea and awakeningcountryside, and a breath of fair, untainted air were very desirable.The position of Karamaneh, who accompanied us, was sufficientlyunconventional already, but the presence of Mrs. Oram, the dignifiedhousekeeper, had rendered possible her visit to this bachelorestablishment. In fact it was largely in the interests of the girl'shealth that we had accepted.
On our arrival at Graywater Park we had learnt that our host had beenstricken down an hour earlier by sudden illness. The exact nature ofhis seizure I had thus far been unable to learn; but a local doctor,who had left the Park barely ten minutes before our advent, hadstrictly forbidden visitors to the sick-room. Sir Lionel's man,Kennedy, who had served him in many strange spots in the world, wasin attendance.
So much we had gathered from Homopoulo, the Greek butler (Sir Lionel'shousehold had ever been eccentric). Furthermore, we learned that therewas no London train that night and no accommodation in the neighboringvillage.
"Sir Lionel urgently requests you to remain," the butler had assuredus, in his flawless, monotonous English. "He trusts that you will notbe dull, and hopes to be able to see you to-morrow and to make plansfor your entertainment."
A ghostly, gray shape glided across the darkened hall--and was gone. Istarted involuntarily. Then remote, fearsome, came muted howling toecho through the ancient apartments of Graywater Park. Nayland Smithlaughed.
"That was the civet cat, Petrie!" he said. "I was startled, for amoment, until the lamentations of the leopard family reminded me ofthe fact that Sir Lionel had transferred his menagerie to Graywater!"
Truly, this was a singular household. In turn, Graywater Park had beena fortress, a monastery, and a manor-house. Now, in the extensivecrypt below the former chapel, in an atmosphere artificially raisedto a suitably stuffy temperature, were housed the strange pets broughtby our eccentric host from distant lands. In one cage was an Africanlioness, a beautiful and powerful beast, docile as a cat. Housedunder other arches were two surly hyenas, goats from the White Nile,and an antelope of Kordofan. In a stable opening upon the garden werea pair of beautiful desert gazelles, and near to them, two cranes anda marabout. The leopards, whose howling now disturbed the night, werein a large, cell-like cage immediately below the spot where of old thechapel alter had stood.
And here were we an odd party in odd environment. I sought to make outthe time by my watch, but the growing dusk rendered it impossible.Then, unheralded by any sound, Karamaneh entered by the door whichduring the past twenty minutes had been the focus of my gaze. Thegathering darkness precluded the possibility of my observing withcertainty, but I think a soft blush stole to her cheeks as thoseglorious dark eyes rested upon me.
The beauty of Karamaneh was not of the typed which is enhanced byartificial lighting; it was the beauty of the palm and the pomegranateblossom, the beauty which flowers beneath merciless suns, which expands,like the lotus, under the skies of the East. But there, in the dusk,as she came towards me, she looked exquisitely lovely, and gracefulwith the grace of the desert gazelles which I had seen earlier in theevening. I cannot describe her dress; I only know that she seemed verywonderful--so wonderful that a pang; almost of terror, smote my heart,because such sweetness should belong to _me_.
And then, from the shadows masking the other side of the old hall,emerged the black figure of Homopoulo, and our odd trio obedientlypaced into the somber dining-room.
A large lamp burned in the center of the table; a shaded candle wasplaced before each diner; and the subdued light made play upon thesnowy napery and fine old silver without dispersing the gloom aboutus. Indeed, if anything, it seemed to render it more remarkable, andthe table became a lighted oasis in the desert of the huge apartment.One could barely discern the suits of armor and trophies whichornamented the paneled walls; and I never failed to start nervouslywhen the butler appeared, somber and silent, at my elbow.
Sir Lionel Barton's _penchant_ for strange visitors, of which we hadhad experience in the past, was exemplified in the person of Homopoulo.I gathered that the butler (who, I must admit, seemed thoroughly tocomprehend his duties) had entered the service of Sir Lionel duringthe time that the latter was pursuing his celebrated excavations uponthe traditional site of the Daedalian Labyrinth in Crete. It wasduring this expedition that the death of a distant relative had madehim master of Graywater Park; and the event seemingly had inspired theeccentric baronet to engage a suitable factotum.
His usual retinue of Malay footmen, Hindu grooms and Chinese cooks,was missing apparently, and the rest of the household, including thecharming old housekeeper, had been at the Park for periods varyingfrom five to five-and-twenty years. I must admit that I welcomed thefact; my tastes are essentially insular.
But the untimely illness of our host had cast a shadow upon the party.I found myself speaking in a church-whisper, whilst Karamaneh wasquite silent. That curious dinner party in the shadow desert of thehuge apartment frequently recurs in my memories of those days becauseof the uncanny happening which terminated it.
Nayland Smith, who palpably had been as ill at ease as myself, and whohad not escaped the contagious habit of speaking in a hushed whisper,suddenly began, in a loud and cheery manner, to tell us something ofthe history of Graywater Park, which in his methodical way he hadlooked up. It was a desperate revolt, on the part of his strenuousspirit, against the phantom of gloom which threatened to obsess us all.
Parts of the house, it appeared, were of very great age, althoughsuccessive owners had added portions. There were fascinatingtraditions connected with the place; secret rooms walled up since theMiddle Ages, a private stair whose entrance, though undiscoverable,was said to be somewhere in the orchard to the west of the ancientchapel. It had been built by an ancestor of Sir Lionel who hadflourished in the reign of the eighth Henry. At this point in hisreminiscences (Smith had an astonishing memory where recondite factswere concerned) there came an interruption.
The smooth voice of the butler almost made me leap from my chair, ashe spoke out of the shadows immediately behind me.
"The '45 port, sir," he said--and proceeded to place a crusted bottleupon the table. "Sir Lionel desires me to say that he is with you inspirit and that he proposes the health of Dr
. Petrie and his fiancee',whom he hopes to have the pleasure of meeting in the morning."
Truly it was a singular situation, and I am unlikely ever to forgetthe scene as the three of us solemnly rose to our feet and drank ourhost's toast, thus proposed by proxy, under the eye of Homopoulo, whostood a shadowy figure in the background.
The ceremony solemnly performed and the gloomy butler having departedwith a suitable message to Sir Lionel--
"I was about to tell you," resumed Nayland Smith, with a gaietypalpably forced, "of the traditional ghost of Graywater Park. He is ablack clad priest, said to be the Spanish chaplain of the owner of thePark in the early days of the Reformation. Owing to some littlemisunderstanding with His Majesty's commissioners, this unfortunatechurchman met with an untimely death, and his shade is said to hauntthe secret room--the site of which is unknown--and to clamor upon thedoor, and upon the walls of the private stair."
I thought the subject rather ill chosen, but recognized that my friendwas talking more or less at random and in desperation; indeed, failinghis reminiscences of Graywater Park, I think the demon of silence musthave conquered us completely.
"Presumably," I said, unconsciously speaking as though I feared thesound of my own voice, "this Spanish priest was confined at some timein the famous hidden chamber?"
"He was supposed to know the secret of a hoard of church property, andtradition has it, that he was put to the question in some gloomydungeon ..."
He ceased abruptly; in fact the effect was that which must haveresulted had the speaker been suddenly stricken down. But the deadlysilence which ensued was instantly interrupted. My heart seemed tobe clutched as though by fingers of ice; a stark and supernaturalhorror held me riveted in my chair.
For as though Nayland Smith's words had been heard by the ghostlyinhabitant of Graywater Park, as though the tortured priest soughtonce more release from his age-long sufferings--there came echoing,hollowly and remotely, as if from a subterranean cavern, the soundof _knocking_.
From whence it actually proceeded I was wholly unable to determine.At one time it seemed to surround us, as though not one but a hundredprisoners were beating upon the paneled walls of the huge, ancientapartment.
Faintly, so faintly, that I could not be sure if I heard aright,there came, too, a stifled cry. Louder grew the the frantic beatingand louder ... then it ceased abruptly.
"Merciful God!" I whispered--"what was it? What was it?"
