“What should I do if I were to have a bad illness in that house?” I wondered to myself, and for a few minutes I pondered over the expediency of returning home; but this idea was soon set aside.
Where could I go that the Uninhabited House would not be a haunting presence? I had tried running away from it once before, and found it more real to me in the King’s Road, Brighton, than on the banks of the Thames. No!—ill or well, I would stay on; the very first night of my absence might be the night of possible explanation.
Having so decided, I dressed and proceeded to the office, remaining there, however, only long enough to write a note to Mr. Craven, saying I had a very bad cold, and begging him to excuse my attendance.
After that I turned my steps to Munro’s lodgings. If it were possible to avert an illness, I had no desire to become invalided in Mr. Elmsdale’s Hall.
Fortunately, Munro was at home and at dinner. “Just come in time, old fellow,” he said, cheerily. “It is not one day in a dozen you would have found me here at this hour. Sit down, and have some steak. Can’t eat—why, what’s the matter, man? You don’t mean to say you have got another nervous attack. If you have, I declare I shall lodge a complaint against you with Mr. Craven.”
“I am not nervous,” I answered; “but I have caught cold, and I want you to put me to rights.”
“Wait till I have finished my dinner,” he replied; and then he proceeded to cut himself another piece of steak—having demolished which, and seen cheese placed on the table, he said:
“Now, Harry, we’ll get to business, if you please. Where is this cold you were talking about?”
I explained as well as I could, and he listened to me without interruption. When I had quite finished, he said:
“Hal Patterson, you are either becoming a hypochondriac, or you are treating me to half confidences. Your cold is not worth speaking about. Go home, and get to bed, and take a basin of gruel, or a glass of something hot, after you are in bed, and your cold will be well in the morning. But there is something more than a cold the matter with you. What has come to you, to make a few rheumatic pains and a slight sore throat seem of consequence in your eyes?”
“I am afraid of being ill,” I answered.
“Why are you afraid of being ill? why do you imagine you are going to be ill? why should you fall ill any more than anybody else?”
I sat silent for a minute, then I said, “Ned, if I tell you, will you promise upon your honour not to laugh at me?”
“I won’t, if I can help it. I don’t fancy I shall feel inclined to laugh,” he replied.
“And unless I give you permission, you will not repeat what I am going to tell you to anyone?”
“That I can safely promise,” he said. “Go on.”
And I went on. I began at the beginning and recited all the events chronicled in the preceding pages; and he listened, asking no questions, interposing no remark.
When I ceased speaking, he rose and said he must think over the statements I had made.
“I will come and look you up tonight, Patterson,” he observed. “Go home to River Hall, and keep yourself quiet. Don’t mention that you feel ill. Let matters go on as usual. I will be with you about nine. I have an appointment now that I must keep.”
Before nine Munro appeared, hearty, healthy, vigorous as usual.
“If this place were in Russell Square,” he said, after a hasty glance round the drawing-room, “I should not mind taking a twenty-one years’ lease of it at forty pounds a year, even if ghosts were included in the fixtures.”
“I see you place no credence in my story,” I said, a little stiffly.
“I place every credence in your story,” was the reply. “I believe you believe it, and that is saying more than most people could say nowadays about their friends’ stories if they spoke the truth.”
It was of no use for me to express any further opinion upon the matter. I felt if I talked for a thousand years I should still fail to convince my listener there was anything supernatural in the appearances beheld at River Hall. It is so easy to pooh-pooh another man’s tale; it is pleasant to explain every phenomenon that the speaker has never witnessed; it is so hard to credit that anything absolutely unaccountable on natural grounds has been witnessed by your dearest friend, that, knowing my only chance of keeping my temper and preventing Munro gaining a victory over me was to maintain a discreet silence, I let him talk on and strive to account for the appearances I had witnessed in his own way.
“Your acquaintance of the halting gait and high shoulder may or might have some hand in the affair,” he finished. “My own opinion is he has not. The notion that you are being watched, is, if my view of the matter be correct, only a further development of the nervous excitement which has played you all sort of fantastic tricks since you came to this house. If anyone does wander through the gardens, I should set him down as a monomaniac or an intending burglar, and in any case the very best thing you can do is to pack up your traps and leave River Hall to its fate.”
I did not answer; indeed, I felt too sick at heart to do so. What he said was what other people would say. If I could not evolve some clearer theory than I had yet been able to hit on, I should be compelled to leave the mystery of River Hall just as I had found it. Miss Blake had, I knew, written to Mr. Craven that the house had better be let again, as there “was no use in his keeping a clerk there in free lodgings for ever”: and now came Ned Munro, with his worldly wisdom, to assure me mine was a wild-goose chase, and that the only sensible course for me to pursue was to abandon it altogether. For the first time, I felt disheartened about the business, and I suppose I showed my disappointment, for Munro, drawing his chair nearer to me, laid a friendly hand on my shoulder and said:
“Cheer up, Harry! never look so downhearted because your nervous system has been playing you false. It was a plucky thing to do, and to carry out; but you have suffered enough for honour, and I should not continue the experiment of trying how much you can suffer, were I in your shoes.”
“You are very kind, Munro,” I answered; “but I cannot give up. If I had all the wish in the world to leave here tonight, a will stronger than my own would bring me back here tomorrow. The place haunts me. Believe me, I suffer less from its influence, seated in this room, than when I am in the office or walking along the Strand.”
“Upon the same principle, I suppose, that a murderer always carries the memory of his victim’s face about with him; though he may have felt callously indifferent whilst the body was an actual presence.”
“Precisely,” I agreed.
“But then, my dear fellow, you are not a murderer in any sense of the word. You did not create the ghosts supposed to be resident here.”
“No; but I feel bound to find out who did,” I answered.
“That is, if you can, I suppose?” he suggested.
“I feel certain I shall,” was the answer. “I have an idea in my mind, but it wants shape. There is a mystery, I am convinced, to solve which, only the merest hint is needed.”
“There are a good many things in this world in the same position, I should say,” answered Munro. “However, Patterson, we won’t argue about the matter; only there is one thing upon which I am determined—after this evening, I will come and stay here every night. I can say I am going to sleep out of town. Then, if there are ghosts, we can hunt them together; if there are none, we shall rest all the better. Do you agree to that?” and he held out his hand, which I clasped in mine, with a feeling of gratitude and relief impossible to describe.
As he said, I had done enough for honour; but still I could not give up, and here was the support and help I required so urgently, ready for my need.
“I am so much obliged,” I said at last.
“Pooh! nonsense!” he answered. “You would do as much or more for me any day. There, don’t let us get sentimental. You must not come out, but, following the example of your gallant Colonel Morris, I will, if you please, smoke a cigar in the garden. The moon must be up
by this time.”
I drew back the curtains and unfastened the shutter, which offered egress to the grounds, then, having rung for Mrs. Stott to remove the supper-tray, I sat down by the fire to await Munro’s return, and began musing concerning the hopelessness of my position, the gulf of poverty and prejudice and struggle that lay between Helena and myself.
I was determined to win her; but the prize seemed unattainable as the Lord Mayor’s robes must have appeared to Whittington, when he stood at the foot of Highgate Hill; and, prostrated as I was by that subtle malady to which as yet Munro had given no name, the difficulties grew into mountains, the chances of success dwarfed themselves into molehills.
Whilst thus thinking vaguely, purposelessly, but still most miserably, I was aroused from reverie by the noise of a door being shut cautiously and carefully—an outer door, and yet one with the sound of which I was unacquainted.
Hurrying across the hall, I flung the hall-door wide, and looked out into the night. There was sufficient moonlight to have enabled me to discern any object moving up or down the lane, but not a creature was in sight, not a cat or dog even traversed the weird whiteness of that lonely thoroughfare.
Despite Munro’s dictum, I passed out into the night air, and went down to the very banks of the Thames. There was not a boat within hail. The nearest barge lay a couple of hundred yards from the shore.
As I retraced my steps, I paused involuntarily beside the door, which led by a separate entrance to the library.
“That is the door which shut,” I said to myself, pressing my hand gently along the lintel, and sweeping the hitherto unbroken cobwebs away as I did so. “If my nerves are playing me false this time, the sooner their tricks are stopped the better, for no human being opened this door, no living creature has passed through it.”
Having made up my mind on which points, I re-entered the house, and walked into the drawing-room, where Munro, pale as death, stood draining a glass of neat brandy.
“What is the matter?” I cried, hurriedly. “What have you seen, what—”
“Let me alone for awhile,” he interrupted, speaking in a thick, hoarse whisper; then immediately asked, “Is that the library with the windows nearest the river?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“I want to go into that room,” he said, still in the same tone.
“Not now,” I entreated. “Sit down and compose yourself; we will go into it, if you like, before you leave.”
“Now, now—this minute,” he persisted. “I tell you, Patterson, I must see what is in it.”
Attempting no further opposition, I lit a couple of candles, and giving one into his hand, led the way to the door of the library, which I unlocked and flung wide open.
To one particular part Munro directed his steps, casting the light from his candle on the carpet, peering around in search of something he hoped, and yet still feared, to see. Then he went to the shutters and examined the fastenings, and finding all well secured, made a sign for me to precede him out of the room. At the door he paused, and took one more look into the darkness of the apartment, after which he waited while I turned the key in the lock, accompanying me back across the hall.
When we were once more in the drawing-room, I renewed my inquiry as to what he had seen; but he bade me let him alone, and sat mopping great beads of perspiration off his forehead, till, unable to endure the mystery any longer, I said:
“Munro, whatever it may be that you have seen, tell me all, I entreat. Any certainty will be better than the possibilities I shall be conjuring up for myself.”
He looked at me wearily, and then drawing his hand across his eyes, as if trying to clear his vision, he answered, with an uneasy laugh:
“It was nonsense, of course. I did not think I was so imaginative, but I declare I fancied I saw, looking through the windows of that now utterly dark room, a man lying dead on the floor.”
“Did you hear a door shut?” I inquired.
“Distinctly,” he answered; “and what is more, I saw a shadow flitting through the other door leading out of the library, which we found, if you remember, bolted on the inside.”
“And what inference do you draw from all this?”
“Either that some one is, in a to me unintelligible way, playing a very clever game at River Hall, or else that I am mad.”
“You are no more mad than other people who have lived in this house,” I answered.
“I don’t know how you have done it, Patterson,” he went on, unheeding my remark. “I don’t, upon my soul, know how you managed to stay on here. It would have driven many a fellow out of his mind. I do not like leaving you. I wish I had told my landlady I should not be back. I will, after this time; but tonight I am afraid some patient may be wanting me.”
“My dear fellow,” I answered, “the affair is new to you, but it is not new to me. I would rather sleep alone in the haunted house, than in a mansion filled from basement to garret, with the unsolved mystery of this place haunting me.”
“I wish you had never heard of, nor seen, nor come near it,” he exclaimed, bitterly; “but, however, let matters turn out as they will, I mean to stick to you, Patterson. There’s my hand on it.”
And he gave me his hand, which was cold as ice—cold as that of one dead.
“I am going to have some punch, Ned,” I remarked. “That is, if you will stop and have some.”
“All right,” he answered. “Something ‘hot and strong’ will hurt neither of us, but you ought to have yours in bed. May I give it to you there?”
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed, and we drew our chairs close to the fire, and, under the influence of a decoction which Ned insisted upon making himself, and at making which, indeed, he was much more of an adept than I, we talked valiantly about ghosts and their doings, and about how our credit and happiness were bound up in finding out the reason why the Uninhabited House was haunted.
“Depend upon it, Hal,” said Munro, putting on his coat and hat, preparatory to taking his departure, “depend upon it that unfortunate Robert Elmsdale must have been badly cheated by some one, and sorely exercised in spirit, before he blew out his brains.”
To this remark, which, remembering what he had said in the middle of the day, showed the wonderful difference that exists between theory and practice, I made no reply.
Unconsciously, almost, a theory had been forming in my own mind, but I felt much corroboration of its possibility must be obtained before I dare give it expression.
Nevertheless, it had taken such hold of me that I could not shake off the impression, which was surely, though slowly, gaining ground, even against the dictates of my better judgment.
“I will just read over the account of the inquest once again,” I decided, as I bolted and barred the chain after Munro’s departure; and so, by way of ending the night pleasantly, I took out the report, and studied it till two, chiming from a neighbouring church, reminded me that the fire was out, that I had a bad cold, and that I ought to have been between the blankets and asleep hours previously.
CHAPTER 13
Light at Last
Now, whether it was owing to having gone out the evening before from a very warm room into the night air, and, afterwards, into that chilly library, or to having sat reading the report given about Mr. Elmsdale’s death till I grew chilled to my very marrow, I cannot say, all I know is, that when I awoke next morning I felt very ill, and welcomed, with rejoicing of spirit, Ned Munro, who arrived about mid-day, and at once declared he had come to spend a fortnight with me in the Uninhabited House.
“I have arranged it all. Got a friend to take charge of my patients; stated that I am going to pay a visit in the country, and so forth. And now, how are you?”
I told him, very truthfully, that I did not feel at all well.
“Then you will have to get well, or else we shall never be able to fathom this business,” he said. “The first thing, consequently, I shall do, is to write a prescription, and get it made up. After that
, I mean to take a survey of the house and grounds.”
“Do precisely what you like,” I answered. “This is Liberty Hall to the living as well as to the dead,” and I laid my head on the back of the easy-chair, and went off to sleep.
All that day Munro seemed to feel little need of my society. He examined every room in the house, and every square inch about the premises. He took short walks round the adjacent neighbourhood, and made, to his own satisfaction, a map of River Hall and the country and town thereunto adjoining. Then he had a great fire lighted in the library, and spent the afternoon tapping the walls, trying the floors, and trying to obtain enlightenment from the passage which led from the library direct to the door opening into the lane.
After dinner, he asked me to lend him the shorthand report I had made of the evidence given at the inquest. He made no comment upon it when he finished reading, but sat, for a few minutes, with one hand shading his eyes, and the other busily engaged in making some sort of a sketch on the back of an old letter.
“What are you doing, Munro?” I asked, at last.
“You shall see presently,” he answered, without looking up, or pausing in his occupation.
At the expiration of a few minutes, he handed me over the paper, saying:
“Do you know anyone that resembles?”
I took the sketch, looked at it, and cried out incoherently in my surprise.
“Well,” he went on, “who is it?”
“The man who follows me! The man I saw in this lane!”
“And what is his name?”
“That is precisely what I desire to find out,” I answered. “When did you see him? How did you identify him? Why did—”
“I have something to tell you, if you will only be quiet, and let me speak,” he interrupted. “It was, as you know, late last night before I left here, and for that reason, and also because I was perplexed and troubled, I walked fast—faster than even is my wont. The road was very lonely; I scarcely met a creature along the road, flooded with the moonlight. I never was out on a lovelier night; I had never, even in the country, felt I had it so entirely to myself.
The Occult Detective Megapack: 29 Classic Stories Page 27
