VI
AT NIGHT
When Simon Rattar came to his present villa, he brought from his oldhouse in the middle of the town (which had been his father's before him)a vast accumulation of old books and old papers. Being a man who neverthrew away an opportunity or anything else, and also a person of theutmost tidyness, he compromised by keeping this litter in the sparerooms at the top of the house. In fact Simon was rather pleased atdiscovering this use for his superfluous apartments, for he hatedwasting anything.
On this same morning, just before he started for his office, he hadagain called his housemaid and given her particular injunctions thatthese rooms were not to be disturbed during the day. He added that thiswas essential because he expected a gentleman that evening who would begoing through some of the old papers with him.
Perhaps it was the vague feeling of disquiet which possessed MaryMacLean this morning that made his injunction seem a little curious.She had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamtof presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thoughtshe, without having to tell her not to. Indeed, she felt a littleaggrieved at the command, and in the course of the morning she made adiscovery that seemed to her a further reflection on her discretion.
When she came to dust the passage in which these rooms opened her eyewas at once caught by a sheet of white paper pinned to each of the threedoors. On each of these sheets was written in her master's hand thewords "This room not to be entered. Papers to be undisturbed." Theresult was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Underordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching thehandles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments andthen tried the handle nearest to her. The door was locked. She tried thesecond and the third, and they stood locked too. And the three keys hadall been removed.
"To think of the master locking the doors!" said she to herself afterfailing at each in turn. "As if I'd have tried to open them!"
That top storey was of the semi-attic kind, with roofs that slopedand a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It wasa grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that largehouse save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slaterattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over thesky-light, she began all at once to feel uncomfortable. Those lockeddoors were uncanny--something was not as it should be; there was asinister moan in the wind; the slate did not rattle quite like anordinary slate. Tales of her childhood, tales from the superstitiouswestern islands, rushed into her mind. And then, all at once, sheheard another sound. She heard it but for one instant, and then witha pale face she fled downstairs and stood for a space in the halltrembling and wondering.
She wondered first whether the sound had really come from behind thelocked doors, and whether it actually was some one stealthily moving.She wondered next whether she could bring herself to confide in cookand stand Janet's cheerful scorn. She ended by saying not a word, andwaiting to see what happened when the master came home.
He returned as usual in time for a cup of tea. It was pretty dark bythen and Mary was upstairs lighting the gas (but she did not venture upto the top floor). She heard Mr. Rattar come into the hall, and then,quite distinctly this time, she heard overhead a dull sound, a kind ofgentle thud. The next moment she heard the master running upstairs, andwhen he was safely past she ran even more swiftly down and burst intothe kitchen.
"There's something in yon top rooms!" she panted.
"There's something in your top storey!" snapped cook; and poor Mary saidno more.
When she brought his tea in to Mr. Rattar, she seemed to read in hisfirst glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in themorning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy,laconic way.
"Have you noticed rats in the house?" he asked.
"Rats, sir!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think there are anyrats."
"I saw one just now," he said. "If we see it again we must get some ratpoison."
So it had only been a rat! Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet notaltogether easy. One could not venture to doubt the master, but it wasa queer-like sound for a rat to make.
Mr. Rattar had brought back a great many papers to-day, and satengrossed in them till dinner. After dinner he fell to work again, andthen about nine o'clock he rang for her and said:
"The gentleman I expect this evening will probably be late in coming.Don't sit up. I'll hear him and let him in myself. We shall be workinglate and I shall be going upstairs about those papers. If you hearanybody moving about, it will only be this gentleman and myself."
This was rather a long speech for silent Simon, and Mary thought itconsiderate of him to explain any nocturnal sounds beforehand; unusuallyconsiderate, in fact, for he seldom went out of his way to explainthings. And yet those few minutes in his presence made her uncomfortableafresh. She could not keep her eyes away from that red cut on his chin.It made him seem odd-like, she thought. And then as she passed throughthe hall she heard faintly from the upper regions that slate rattlingagain. At least it was either the slate or--she recalled a story of herchildhood, and hurried on to the kitchen.
She and the cook shared the same bedroom. It was fairly large with twobeds in it, and along with the kitchen and other back premises it wasshut off from the front part of the house by a door at the end of thehall. Cook was asleep within ten minutes. Mary could hear her heavybreathing above the incessant droning and whistling of the wind, and sheenvied her with all her Highland heart. In her own glen people wouldhave understood how she felt, but here she dared not confess lest shewere laughed at. It was such a vague and nameless feeling, a sixth sensewarning her that all was not well; that _something_ was in the air. Thelonger she lay awake the more certain she grew that evil was afoot; andyet what could be its shape? Everything in that quiet and respectablehousehold was going on exactly as usual; everything that any one elsewould have considered material. The little things she had noticed wouldbe considered absurd trifles by the sensible. She knew that as well asthey.
She thought she had been in bed about an hour, though the time passed soslowly that it might have been less, when she heard, faintly and gently,but quite distinctly, the door from the hall into the back premisesbeing opened. It seemed to be held open for nearly a minute, as thoughsome one were standing there listening. She moved a little and the bedcreaked; and then, as gently as it had been opened, the door was closedagain.
Had the intruder come through or gone away? And could it only bethe master, doing this curious thing, or was it some one--orsomething--else? Dreadful minutes passed, but there was not a sound ofany one moving in the back passage, or the kitchen, and then in thedistance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being openedand the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in amoment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and themaster's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff andmuffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently thelate caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library doorshut, and it was plain that he and Mr. Rattar were closeted there.
They seemed to remain in the library about a quarter of an hour beforethe door opened again, and in a moment the stairs were creaking faintly.Evidently one or both were going up for the old papers.
All this was exactly what she had been led to expect, and ought tohave reassured her, yet, for no reason at all, the conviction remainedas intense and disturbing as ever, that something unspeakable washappening in this respectable house. The minutes dragged by till quitehalf an hour must have passed, and then she heard the steps descending.They came down very slowly this time, and very heavily. The obviousexplanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filledwith dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yetthough Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter,a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain fromcrying out. If cook had not such a quick temper and
such a healthycontempt for this kind of fancy, she would have rushed across to herbed; but as it was, she simply lay and trembled.
The steps sounded still heavy but more muffled on the hall carpet,though whether they were the steps of one man or two she could not feelsure. And then she heard the front door open again and then close; sothat it seemed plain that the visitor had taken the box with him andgone away. And with this departure came a sense of relief, as devoid ofrational foundation as the sense of horror before. She felt at last thatif she could only hear the master going upstairs to bed, she might go tosleep.
But though she listened hard as she lay there in the oppressive dark,she heard not another sound so long as she kept awake, and that was forsome time, she thought. She did get off at last and had been asleep sheknew not how long when she awoke drowsily with a confused impressionthat the front door had been shut again. How late it was she could butguess--about three or four in the morning her instinct told her. Butthen came sleep again and in the morning the last part of herrecollections was a little uncertain.
At breakfast the master was as silently formidable as ever and he neversaid a word about his visitor. When Mary went to the top floor later thepapers were off the doors and the keys replaced.
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