The Occult Detective Megapack

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  I could have wished for a longer and a better look at the man who honoured me so far as to feel interested in my movements; but I did not wish to arouse his suspicions.

  I had scored one trick; I had met him full, and seen his face distinctly—so distinctly that I was able to feel certain I had seen it before, but where, at the moment, I could not remember.

  “Never mind,” I continued: “that memory will come in due time; meanwhile the ground of inquiry narrows, and the plot begins to thicken.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Miss Blake Once More

  Upon my return to River Hall I found in the letter-box an envelope addressed to —— Patterson, Esq. Thinking it probably contained some circular, I did not break the seal until after dinner; whereas, had I only known from whom the note came, should I not have devoured its contents before satisfying the pangs of physical hunger!

  Thus ran the epistle:—

  “DEAR SIR,—

  “Until half an hour ago I was ignorant that you were the person who had undertaken to reside at River Hall. If you would add another obligation to that already conferred upon me, leave that terrible house at once. What I have seen in it, you know; what may happen to you, if you persist in remaining there, I tremble to think. For the sake of your widowed mother and only sister, you ought not to expose yourself to a risk which is worse than useless. I never wish to hear of River Hall being let again. Immediately I come of age, I shall sell the place; and if anything could give me happiness in this world, it would be to hear the house was razed to the ground. Pray! pray! listen to a warning, which, believe me, is not idly given, and leave a place which has already been the cause of so much misery to yours, gratefully and sincerely,

  “HELENA ELMSDALE.”

  It is no part of this story to tell the rapture with which I gazed upon the writing of my “lady-love.” Once I had heard Miss Blake remark, when Mr. Craven was remonstrating with her on her hieroglyphics, that “Halana wrote an ‘unmaning hand,’ like all the rest of the English,” and, to tell the truth, there was nothing particularly original or characteristic about Miss Elmsdale’s calligraphy.

  But what did that signify to me? If she had strung pearls together, I should not have valued them one-half so much as I did the dear words which revealed her interest in me.

  Over and over I read the note, at first rapturously, afterwards with a second feeling mingling with my joy. How did she know it was I who had taken up my residence at River Hall? Not a soul I knew in London, besides Mr. Craven, was aware of the fact, and he had promised faithfully to keep my secret.

  Where, then, had Miss Elmsdale obtained her information? from whom had she learned that I was bent on solving the mystery of the “Uninhabited House”?

  I puzzled myself over these questions till my brain grew uneasy with vain conjectures.

  Let me imagine what I would—let me force my thoughts into what grooves I might—the moment the mental pressure was removed, my suspicions fluttered back to the man whose face seemed not unfamiliar.

  “I am confident he wants to keep that house vacant,” I decided. “Once let me discover who he is, and the mystery of the ‘Uninhabited House’ shall not long remain a mystery.”

  But then the trouble chanced to be how to find out who he was. I could not watch and be watched at the same time, and I did not wish to take anyone into my confidence, least of all a professional detective.

  So far fortune had stood my friend; I had learnt something suspected by no one else, and I made up my mind to trust to the chapter of accidents for further information on the subject of my unknown friend.

  When Mr. Craven and I were seated at our respective tables, I said to him:

  “Could you make any excuse to send me to Miss Blake’s today, sir?”

  Mr. Craven looked up in utter amazement. “To Miss Blake’s!” he repeated. “Why do you want to go there?”

  “I want to see Miss Elmsdale,” I answered, quietly enough, though I felt the colour rising in my face as I spoke.

  “You had better put all that nonsense on one side, Patterson,” he remarked. “What you have to do is to make your way in the world, and you will not do that so long as your head is running upon pretty girls. Helena Elmsdale is a good girl; but she would no more be a suitable wife for you, than you would be a suitable husband for her. Stick to law, my lad, for the present, and leave love for those who have nothing more important to think of.”

  “I did not want to see Miss Elmsdale for the purpose you imply,” I said, smiling at the vehemence of Mr. Craven’s advice. “I only wish to ask her one question.”

  “What is the question?”

  “From whom she learned that I was in residence at River Hall,” I answered, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “What makes you think she is aware of that fact?” he inquired.

  “I received a note from her last night, entreating me to leave the place, and intimating that some vague peril menaced me if I persisted in remaining there.”

  “Poor child! poor Helena!” said Mr. Craven, thoughtfully; then spreading a sheet of note-paper on his blotting-pad, and drawing his cheque-book towards him, he proceeded:

  “Now remember, Patterson, I trust to your honour implicitly. You must not make love to that girl; I think a man can scarcely act more dishonourably towards a woman, than to induce her to enter into what must be, under the best circumstances, a very long engagement.”

  “You may trust me, sir,” I answered, earnestly. “Not,” I added, “that I think it would be a very easy matter to make love to anyone with Miss Blake sitting by.”

  Mr. Craven laughed; he could not help doing so at the idea I had suggested. Then he said, “I had a letter from Miss Blake this morning asking me for money.”

  “And you are going to let her have some of that hundred pounds you intended yesterday to place against her indebtedness to you,” I suggested.

  “That is so,” he replied. “Of course, when Miss Helena comes of age, we must turn over a new leaf—we really must.”

  To this I made no reply. It would be a most extraordinary leaf, I considered, in which Miss Blake did not appear as debtor to my employer but it scarcely fell within my province to influence Mr. Craven’s actions.

  “You had better ask Miss Blake to acknowledge receipt of this,” said my principal, holding up a cheque for ten pounds as he spoke. “I am afraid I have not kept the account as I ought to have done.”

  Which was undeniably true, seeing we had never taken a receipt from her at all, and that loans had been debited to his private account instead of to that of Miss Blake. But true as it was, I only answered that I would get her acknowledgment; and taking my hat, I walked off to Hunter Street.

  Arrived there, I found, to my unspeakable joy, that Miss Blake was out, and Miss Elmsdale at home.

  When I entered the shabby sitting-room where her beauty was so grievously lodged, she rose and greeted me with kindly words, and sweet smiles, and vivid blushes.

  “You have come to tell me you are not going ever again to that dreadful house,” she said, after the first greeting and inquiries for Miss Blake were over. “You cannot tell the horror with which the mere mention of River Hall now fills me.”

  “I hope it will never be mentioned to you again till I have solved the mystery attached to it,” I answered.

  “Then you will not do what I ask,” she cried, almost despairingly.

  “I cannot,” was my reply. “Miss Elmsdale, you would not have a soldier turn back from the battle. I have undertaken to find out the secret attached to your old home, and, please God, I shall succeed in my endeavours.”

  “But you are exposing yourself to danger, to—”

  “I must take my chance of that. I cannot, if I would, turn back now, and I would not if I could. But I have come to you for information. How did you know it was I who had gone to River Hall?”

  The colour flamed up in her face as I put the question.

  “I—I was told so,” she
stammered out.

  “May I ask by whom?”

  “No, Mr. Patterson, you may not,” she replied. “A—a friend—a kind friend, informed me of the fact, and spoke of the perils to which you were exposing yourself—living there all alone—all alone,” she repeated. “I would not pass a night in the house again if the whole parish were there to keep me company, and what must it be to stay in that terrible, terrible place alone! You are here, perhaps, because you do not believe—because you have not seen.”

  “I do believe,” I interrupted, “because I have seen; and yet I mean to go through with the matter to the end. Have you a likeness of your father in your possession, Miss Elmsdale?” I asked.

  “I have a miniature copied from his portrait, which was of course too large to carry from place to place,” she answered. “Why do you wish to know?”

  “If you let me see it, I will reply to your question,” I said.

  Round her dear throat she wore a thin gold chain. Unfastening this, she handed to me the necklet, to which was attached a locket enamelled in black. It is no exaggeration to say, as I took this piece of personal property, my hand trembled so much that I could not open the case.

  True love is always bashful, and I loved the girl, whose slender neck the chain had caressed, so madly and senselessly, if you will, that I felt as if the trinket were a living thing, a part and parcel of herself.

  “Let me unfasten it,” she said, unconscious that aught save awkwardness affected my manipulation of the spring. And she took the locket and handed it back to me open, wet with tears—her tears.

  Judge how hard it was for me then to keep my promise to Mr. Craven and myself—how hard it was to refrain from telling her all my reasons for having ever undertaken to fight the dragon installed at River Hall.

  I thank God I did refrain. Had I spoken then, had I presumed upon her sorrow and her simplicity, I should have lost something which constitutes the sweetest memory of my life.

  But that is in the future of this story, and meantime I was looking at the face of her father.

  I looked at it long and earnestly; then I closed the locket, softly pressing down the spring as I did so, and gave back miniature and chain into her hand.

  “Well, Mr. Patterson?” she said, inquiringly.

  “Can you bear what I have to tell?” I asked.

  “I can, whatever it may be,” she answered.

  “I have seen that face at River Hall.”

  She threw up her arms with a gesture of despair.

  “And,” I went on, “I may be wrong, but I think I am destined to solve the mystery of its appearance.”

  She covered her eyes, and there was silence between us for a minute, when I said:

  “Can you give me the name of the person who told you I was at River Hall?”

  “I cannot,” she repeated. “I promised not to mention it.”

  “He said I was in danger.”

  “Yes, living there all alone.”

  “And he wished you to warn me.”

  “No; he asked my aunt to do so, and she refused; and so I—I thought I would write to you without mentioning the matter to her.”

  “You have done me an incalculable service,” I remarked, “and in return I will tell you something.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “From tonight I shall not be alone in the house.”

  “Oh! how thankful I am!” she exclaimed; then instantly added, “Here is my aunt.”

  I rose as Miss Blake entered, and bowed.

  “Oh! it is you, is it?” said the lady. “The girl told me some one was waiting.”

  Hot and swift ran the colour to my adored one’s cheeks.

  “Aunt,” she observed, “I think you forget this gentleman comes from Mr. Craven.”

  “Oh, no! my dear, I don’t forget Mr. Craven, or his clerks either,” responded Miss Blake, as, still cloaked and bonneted, she tore open Mr. Craven’s envelope.

  “I am to take back an answer, I think,” said I.

  “You are, I see,” she answered. “He’s getting mighty particular, is William Craven. I suppose he thinks I am going to cheat him out of his paltry ten pounds. Ten pounds, indeed! and what is that, I should like to know, to us in our present straits! Why, I had more than twice ten yesterday from a man on whom we have no claim—none whatever—who, without asking, offered it in our need.”

  “Aunt,” said Miss Elmsdale, warningly.

  “If you will kindly give me your acknowledgment, Miss Blake, I should like to be getting back to Buckingham Street,” I said. “Mr. Craven will wonder at my absence.”

  “Not a bit of it,” retorted Miss Blake. “You and Mr. Craven understand each other, or I am very much mistaken; but here is the receipt, and good day to you.”

  I should have merely bowed my farewell, but that Miss Elmsdale stood up valiantly.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Patterson,” she said, holding out her dainty hand, and letting it lie in mine while she spoke. “I am very much obliged to you. I can never forget what you have done and dared in our interests.”

  And I went out of the room, and descended the stairs, and opened the front door, she looking graciously over the balusters the while, happy, ay, and more than happy.

  What would I not have done and dared at that moment for Helena Elmsdale? Ah! ye lovers, answer!

  CHAPTER 12

  Help

  “There has been a gentleman to look at the house, sir, this afternoon,” said Mrs. Stott to me, when, wet and tired, I arrived, a few evenings after my interview with Miss Elmsdale, at River Hall.

  “To look at the house!” I repeated. “Why, it is not to let.”

  “I know that, sir, but he brought an order from Mr. Craven’s office to allow him to see over the place, and to show him all about. For a widow lady from the country, he said he wanted it. A very nice gentleman, sir; only he did ask a lot of questions, surely—”

  “What sort of questions?” I inquired.

  “Oh! as to why the tenants did not stop here, and if I thought there was anything queer about the place; and he asked how you liked it, and how long you were going to stay; and if you had ever seen aught strange in the house.

  “He spoke about you, sir, as if he knew you quite well, and said you must be stout-hearted to come and fight the ghosts all by yourself. A mighty civil, talkative gentleman—asked me if I felt afraid of living here, and whether I had ever met any spirits walking about the stairs and passages by themselves.”

  “Did he leave the order you spoke of just now behind him?”

  “Yes, sir. He wanted me to give it back to him; but I said I must keep it for you to see. So then he laughed, and made the remark that he supposed, if he brought the lady to see the place, I would let him in again. A pleasant-spoken gentleman, sir—gave me a shilling, though I told him I did not require it.”

  Meantime I was reading the order, written by Taylor, and dated two years back.

  “What sort of looking man was he?” I asked.

  “Well, sir, there was not anything particular about him in any way. Not a tall gentleman, not near so tall as you, sir; getting into years, but still very active and light-footed, though with something of a halt in his way of walking. I could not rightly make out what it was; nor what it was that caused him to look a little crooked when you saw him from behind.

  “Very lean, sir; looked as if the dinners he had eaten done him no good. Seemed as if, for all his pleasant ways, he must have seen trouble, his face was so worn-like.”

  “Did he say if he thought the house would suit?” I inquired.

  “He said it was a very nice house, sir, and that he imagined anybody not afraid of ghosts might spend two thousand a year in it very comfortably. He said he should bring the lady to see the place, and asked me particularly if I was always at hand, in case he should come tolerably early in the morning.”

  “Oh!” was my comment, and I walked into the dining-room, wondering what the meaning of this new move might
be; for Mrs. Stott had described, to the best of her ability, the man who stood watching our offices in London; and—good heavens!—yes, the man I had encountered in the lane leading to River Hall, when I went to the Uninhabited House, after Colonel Morris’ departure.

  “That is the man,” thought I, “and he has some close, and deep, and secret interest in the mystery associated with this place, the origin of which I must discover.”

  Having arrived at this conclusion, I went to bed, for I had caught a bad cold, and was aching from head to foot, and had been sleeping ill, and hoped to secure a good night’s rest.

  I slept, it is true, but as for rest, I might as well, or better, have been awake. I fell from one dream into another; found myself wandering through impossible places; started in an agony of fear, and then dozed again, only to plunge into some deeper quagmire of trouble; and through all there was a vague feeling I was pursuing a person who eluded all my efforts to find him; playing a terrible game of hide-and-seek with a man who always slipped away from my touch, panting up mountains and running down declivities after one who had better wind and faster legs than I; peering out into the darkness, to catch a sight of a vague figure standing somewhere in the shadow, and looking, with the sun streaming into my eyes and blinding me, adown long white roads filled with a multitude of people, straining my sight to catch a sight of the coming traveller, who yet never came.

  When I awoke thoroughly, as I did long and long before daybreak, I knew I was ill. I had a bad sore throat and an oppression at my chest which made me feel as if I was breathing through a sponge. My limbs ached more than had been the case on the previous evening whilst my head felt heavier than a log of teak.

  “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.