“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.
“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.
Chapter XIV
Upstairs in his bedroom that poor old lonely man—lonely save for his wife (and how grateful he was for her having treated him as she just had done, and for her last look at him as he painfully climbed the stairs)—sat waiting to recover from the ascent. Stairs tried him a great deal now … his health was breaking … he thought. Perhaps that’s what accounted for what he had been feeling … what he thought he had been hearing; and he huddled his shoulders together. He wouldn’t undress at once—he would rest awhile … rest awhile … rest awhile. He would get steadier then.
A knock somewhere? … It might have been downstairs, but in his condition he thought it was at his own door, and it made him jump.
“Come in!” he said.
There was no reply; and he went a little white. He steadied himself and leaned forward painfully to take up the poker and stir the fire. But he dropped it with a loud clatter that startled him again.
“Foolishness!” he muttered.
He heard the knock once again. This time he did not say “Come in!” He nerved himself to rise painfully from his chair, and threw the door wide open. There was nothing but empty darkness outside. He shut the door again and fell rather than sank into the place he had just left.
“George,” he said to himself, half aloud, “George, pull yerself together. This’ll never do! You’re ‘igh-strung, George, that’s what you are; remember what the doctor said about yer blood pressing. Wot was it ’e said? He said, ‘No whisky,’ ’e said. Well, I don’t know wot’s right about that, but I know it steadies me.” He stretched out his arm to the table by his side, and took up his flask from where it lay on the table—a large flask with a silver cup, and his coat of arms—supporters talbots, three mancuses quartered chevron and the devil and all on a field azure—engraved thereon. It shone under the electric shaded light on the table and the warmer glow of the fire. Other light in the room there was none.
He slowly poured out the strong drink into the silver.
“It’ll calm yer, George,” he said.
Below, he heard the noise of many voices. Too many, he thought, for the few guests. But it was company like. Then he heard people moving across the lawn. Perhaps some neighbours had come in, and gone again. Then the voices quietened down. He took his first sip of the whisky, pre-war.
“That’s better, George,” he said. “That’ll put yer right.”
His back, as he sat in the deep chair facing the fire, was to the side door which led to the little box-room. It opened so noiselessly that he heard no sound, tense though his nerves were.
He waited a moment, less unmanned, raising the silver cup again for a second sip—when there came, whether within his mind or from the air without he could not tell, a hint of rustling, a suspicion of a Presence in the room—near the bed. The start stopped the cup as he still held it in his hand, and he poised it in mid-air, staring—there came the pleading words from very far away:
“Not again, George! Oh, not again! It’s yer pison!”
“It’s me mother’s voice,” groaned the old man in a dreadful whisper.
He let the cup fall to the floor at his feet, careless of the liquor running out upon the rug. His hand shook, as did his whole body.
“Er voice,” he said again, frozen with fear.
A hand came out from behind the head of the bed—a hand the wrist of which was draped in black. Lord Mere de Beaurivage did not see it—he was staring into the air before him—it was Her Voice.
The hand found the switch, and all was suddenly dark, save for the glow of the fire. He had heard but the slightest of sounds—he looked round into that darkness—and there he saw, dreadfully-distinct in the half light which the glowing coals threw upon the dull red damask and the tapestry—what he had seen too often that day in his unhappy mind. There IT stood, for the half second in which he still retained his sanity. He was on his gouty feet groping towards it, his mouth open and giving small inarticular sounds. IT was there by the side of the bed against the wall, a gleam on the sword-hilt, tall, black, too vague, but the white ruff standing out glaring—and above that ruff nothing: only the wall. Even as he looked he saw a hand which appeared from beneath the cloak slowly moving. He gave a loud shriek and crashed to the ground.
In a flash the figure had passed the fallen man, and was through the door into the side room, and had turned the key. But quick as the motion was, even as he turned the key in the lock the great swirl of feet was running up the sounding wood of the staircase, the main door of the bedroom was thrown,: open, all the lights were turned on, and the hubbub, of guests and servants flocked to what might to be the living or the dead.
Amathea was the first of them, kneeling by her husband, trying to lift him up in her arms, calling him by his name, and sobbing loudly.
Three of the menservants hoisted the motionless form and got it on to the bed. He was breathing. His eyes opened for a moment, but he stared vacantly, seeing no one, and with yet another loud cry and a shudder his head fell back upon the pillow.
Chapter XV
All that night was a changed world for Rackham: messengers sent hither and thither; the telephone at work; a nurse from the Cottage Hospital; another nurse urgently sent for from Lewes; the local practitioner jumping into his trousers hurriedly after an insufficient sleep, and also jumping out of his skin for joy when he heard the great name of his patient; lanterns going back and forth through the spring night, as one and another was sent upon a further errand; motors purring, buzzing, hooting, and every human being stirred up to an unnatural vigil.
Meanwhile, upstairs Amathea sat steadfast by
her husband’s bed, glad to hear his breathing, for it told her that he lived. She looked like a vulgar queen of the Renaissance, of the swollen commercial families, with big lips curved downwards, determined on what she should do. Anger was flaming in her heart.
She sent order after order, and Hilda Maple’s servants humbly obeyed. She had them telephone for an ambulance to be at Rackham Catchings by nine the next morning—not a second later, or it would be the worse for them; and it had to be the best ambulance Maxton, who is open all night, could supply. It was she who had sent for the nurses and the doctors, often doubling her hostess’ orders.
She did more. She was determined that her George should return to recover—if recovery Gawd would grant him—in his own house in Mayfair. She knew the servants would have gone to bed, and she sent the message through an all-night office to knock the place up and compel them to have everything ready against the morning.
She thought of everything. Yet she did all this from where she sat, without moving from the bedside, despatching one after another to do her will.
It was half -past one o’clock in the small hours before she had received the final replies. She was still alone in the room, with the half-conscious, muttering man. She had given terrible commands that no one was to be admitted till she allowed it; and the nurses and the doctors were waiting, with the torturedly-anxious Hilda in the drawing-room below.
George Huggins stirred. Amathea leaned over the bed and tried to catch what confused words were coming from those lips which she had known for a lifetime, and so much loved. The old fellow propped himself up on his elbow, a momentary gleam of sanity entered his eyes as they looked into hers.
“Mattie,” he whispered hoarsely, “is that you?”
He smiled foolishly. Then his face changed dreadfully, and he went on in rising tones:
“It ’ad no ’ed, it ’ad no ’ed, Mattie! Oh, oh! OH!” and with a horrible groan he sank back, and went on muttering—but half sitting up at intervals and pointing, and catching her, and saying, “There ’tis! There ’tis! Keep it awye, Mattie! Keep it awye!”
She knew what had happened. He had seen IT. Her anger rose, enormous; but she contained it. She allowed the doctors and the nurses to come in. Hilda Maple, already stricken with fatigue, and showing her age under the strain, timidly followed them; but Amathea, Lady Mere de Beaurivage, on seeing her hostess, called out strongly, “Not that un! Keep ’er out, keep ’er out!” And poor Hilda had capitulated and retired.
The servants had gone to bed; Hilda herself lay down, all dressed as she was, half loosened and no more, to catch if she could an hour or two of sleep—but sleep came not to her.
John in his room, after helping to run innumerable messages and counter-messages, tried to sleep also, and did sleep a little, fitfully; but his conscience troubled him.
Lord Hellup thought it his duty to stay awake in the Little Red Room, and he did so too, with Motley and successive cigars.
Of all in that household only Isabeau slept placidly, when she had seen it all fixed up: so great conquerors on the night of victory. So William of Falaise in his tent after Hastings; so Mr. Gulp, at the Ritz after the Pugley deal, before he resigned in affluence his Secretaryship of State.
While the agony thus proceeded upstairs, Lord Hambourne showed initiative beyond his academic kind. But he was one whose wits had been sharpened by poverty. It was not the first time in his life that he had displayed those qualities which, with better luck, make millions. Had he not scooped the Chair of Psychology? Here was another little scoop, and he was going to pick it up. He had got the main event at once, overhearing two phrases in the frightened muttering of the servant. Leaving them to their agony upstairs, he himself went quietly into the deserted drawing-room, took up the telephone and got on to The Howl. It was not too late for a stop-press in that enterprising paper, at any rate for the London edition.
Carter was at the other end of the wire. No. It was not to be on the usual terms. He told Carter with great rapidity in a low, precise tone, conquering his stammer, what had happened, but he gave neither the place nor the name.
No. It was not to be in the contract. It would be a separate £100—posted that day. Would he accept the verbal promise on the telephone? He would. Carter could not undertake the responsibility? Then he must do without the scoop. Oh, he could, could he? All right. He would trust him. The place was Rackham Catchings, and the old fellow was Bruvvish himself.… Yes, it was a scoop, wasn’t it? Would Carter leave word for someone to be there when he rang up again, so that they could go on with it in the evening paper? It would be difficult for him to get to the telephone after they were down. He must have someone there to take it between six and seven o’clock in the morning. Yes, that was all.
He hung up the receiver, just in time, as the shuffling of someone descending came down the stairs, while above altercation and confused advice filled the air. He managed to get into the hall and to mix with them before they had noticed his absence.
* * * * *
In the grey light of morning Lord Hambourne had taken up the telephone again. He felt secure. They had all been lying down, dressed as they were, exhausted, and he himself in his evening clothes, looking crumpled and dishevelled in the new light, was the only one doing business.
He gave rapid advice to Lord Toronto’s other serfs. The old boy was very bad indeed, he thought he would be moved that morning. He advised someone from The Howl to be sent to photograph the house and if possible the scene when the ambulance left. It would make a good picture. But he warned them that Mrs. Maple had got a policeman in plain clothes on the place, and there were orders to allow no one to come near. She didn’t want it in the papers—he laughed, gently, and there was another much louder laugh at the other end of the wire. No, he could not send a sketch of the ghost. They must do that. They could get that little drunken artist of their’s to make a line sketch—just a long black cloak and a sword and a big Elizabethan ruff, and no head, and an old curtained bed close by.
Even as he was talking he dropped the receiver at the sound of a piteous wail. It was Betsy Broom, casting her dustpan and brush to the winds and calling on her maker to deliver her from evil. Lord Hambourne himself was surprised to find how much his nerves were on edge. Betsy Broom might have been the ghost, he felt so startled. But he had the sense to quiet her.
“Hold your tongue,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, sir,” said the unfortunate young woman, “I thought you was the ghost! That’s the third time I thought I seen it!”
Lord Hambourne made another of those rapid decisions which I sincerely hope will sooner or later lead him to an independent income. He did not like parting with money, and he had very little to part with. But he decided it was worth his while; and after all, he had won at bridge. He took a crumpled ten-shilling note out of his waistcoat pocket, and put it into Betsy’s hand.
“Betsy,” he said, “if I were you I wouldn’t talk too much about my telephoning. Their nerves are all on edge, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” said the simple girl, bobbing and grateful, “I quite understand.” But she was still trembling. He patted her paternally upon the shoulder.
“There,” he said. “It’s all right. Even if there was anything, you wouldn’t see it after sunrise, you know.”
“So I’ve always heard, sir,” answered Betsy, with due acknowledgment of his learning. “That and runnin’ water lays ’em.”
“Yes, you’re right, Betsy,” he said loftily; and then gently left the scene of his misdeeds, hoping that the office would not commit the unpardonable folly of ringing him up. But he ought to have warned them.
* * * * *
We still have relics of an age when the Press could be managed by people of influence, because its owners, though millionaires, were commonly still climbing. Hilda Maple was of that age. She was quite secure in her own mind after she had telephoned to five or six London offices that she could keep the thing ou
t of the papers. There would be no reporters, at any rate, and it was a relief, and she had seen to a detective coming to watch the place against photographers. She had ordered that loudly before she had lain down, and Lord Hambourne had heard her.
Therefore it was that, while yet the morning was very young, and while there was still a dew upon the gardens of Rackham—so quiet that the second under-gardener could hear the low moans proceeding from the patient’s bedroom—a figure appeared by a very singular approach, to wit, pushing its way through the laurels to the west-south-west of the main approach. It would seem that the figure had avoided the publicity of the lodge, and preferred its own method of entry, which was by crawling under a barbed-wire fence, crashing through the brushwood and finding its way, a little torn and bleeding, to the edge of the lawn in front of the house. But with great gallantry the figure had borne with him throughout this adventure a huge contraption, a tripod covered with a black cloth, and reminiscent of the photography of thirty years ago. And the name of the figure was Columbus.
It was not his real name. It was the name facetiously given him in his good-nature and condescension by his master, Lord Toronto, who, having asked upon one occasion which serf of his had managed to secure unexpected photographs, in double quick time, of other people’s very private and intimate affairs, was respectfully given the efficient dependant’s name. His lordship had thereupon christened the good serf Columbus, because he got there, and Columbus he continued to be called.
It was the method of Columbus, I say, whenever he had to surprise the vigilance of those whose lack of public spirit prompted them to elude the Press, to carry with him this huge superstructure upon a tripod, covered with a black cloth. He knew well enough the attention it would excite, the gathering of menials ordering him off the place, even the approach of the police. But its weight and size also meant that he could not be driven off at a moment’s notice, and during the altercation nothing was easier than to bring out his little Zeiss camera on the sly and snap the whole concern, unbeknownst.
The Haunted House Page 17
