I do not know how long we talked, but in the end everything was clear between us. Watching me as she had during the past weeks, she had become convinced that I was secretly searching for the bonds. But Grayce had declared me to be already in possession of them. Was it Grayce, then, who had removed them from “the old iron place” to hide them beneath my bathtub? If she had done that, then she had done it between the time Alice Hobbs had penciled her first note to her husband and this later one to Muriel. Was it Grayce who had “wronged” Alice Hobbs? Had Grayce been hand in glove with Agnes against Alice? Muriel confessed herself to be sorely puzzled, as I now admitted myself to be also. For I had supposed that Barbara might have done everything which Alice spoke of as a wrong against her.
“After I heard from Gray,” said Muriel, “that both of you wanted to find the bonds to turn them over to Ormes’s creditors, I purposely left them in my traveling bag, and that in your room. But you probably thought I left it there only for the purpose of drawing you to return it and thus giving me a chance to. . . . Do you see?” I nodded; I suppose I may even have blushed! For I had returned the bag, and I had thought that very thing. And I had been so distant and formal as to have precluded any attempt on the woman’s part to enmesh me in the toils of such passion as I knew she could arouse. But she continued: “I reasoned that if you had missed the bonds from under the tub, you’d look through the bag. But you didn’t. You merely handed it back to me. So I began to think that you must be entirely innocent.”
“Well,” I answered, “since all’s clear between us, let’s try to keep it so. It’s quite true that I’ve been hunting for these things, as has Gray. We’ll go now and give them to her, and she can turn them over to her brother’s creditors. And then I mean to have a look into that famous iron pipe, where Agnes must have put them at the first. I’ve a feeling that there’s still something undiscovered in that old well.”
Muriel accompanied me in search of Gray. A few words, together with Alice’s letter, sufficed to show Gray how the bonds had come into Muriel’s possession. But I—masculine as I am!—was astonished upon learning how little was necessary to convince Gray of Muriel’s reason for withholding delivery of the bonds until this moment. Say what you will, women have an understanding of all things affecting the heart which men seem never to attain.
Gray went immediately to the telephone and called Mr. Paget, who had returned to New York. He promised to come at once to Ormesby, in company of the investigating auditor, to take possession of the securities and to render a proper accounting and receipt for them. And then I descended, alone, to the crypt, intending to examine that iron pipe.
I carried with me a hammer and a small chisel, thinking to chip away the mortar which fastened the pipe in place. But when I had carried a folding step-ladder down there, I learned that there was no mortar to be chipped away. The pipe pierced the brick wall without binding of any kind, though there was evidence that it had once been cemented in place. By moving it a bit more than an inch into the wall, I was able to disconnect it at the uncemented joint and thus to remove and hold in my hands the end piece of pipe. It was a heavy piece of iron, but it was not above twenty inches in length. A woman, by exerting her strength, could have slipped it aside and then replaced it. It could have concealed the small package of bonds effectually enough. But now it was empty. Yet I could not rid myself of a feeling that the old cistern still concealed a mystery. Nor do I think this feeling was caused by my knowledge that it contained the bones of the elder Ormeses.
But I had learned the means whereby Barbara had been able to come into the crypt after I had left it. To slide down that pipe from its opening in her room, and then to remove the loose end piece and to drop to the floor, that was a feat requiring great strength and agility. Yet she must have done just that. No sane woman could have done it. But Barbara was not sane!
I saw that I could not break through the wall without larger tools than I had at hand. I must go and fetch others. Perhaps, also, I might call Hobbs to my aid.
Passing through the library, on my way to the shed adjoining the kitchen, in which most of the larger tools were kept, I heard a motor stop at the front door of the house. Paget could not yet be arriving from New York. It might be a tradesman from Tiltown. Of late, as if in contempt of the persons who still dwelt at Ormesby, following all the queer doings there, I had more than once noticed that drivers of trucks and delivery wagons did not trouble themselves to use the service entrance. Nor, so far as I knew, had any of the Ormes women protested against this want of courtesy. Nevertheless, suspicious as I had grown to be of every small happening in and about the house, I found myself hastening toward the front door, intent on learning something of the arriving person or persons before he or they should have been admitted. In this case I reached the door before Hobbs, who might have been busy somewhere on one of the upper floors, could come to open it. I opened it. A policeman in uniform stood there. I recognized him as the chief of the police of Tiltown.
“Howdy, Mist’ Seaverns,” he said, appearing to be somewhat embarrassed. “Nice day.”
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“Well—where’s all the Ormeses? But maybe I better talk to you first.”
“What’s happened?” I demanded, premonition of some disaster seizing me on the instant.
“A bad accident’s happened.”
“Who’s hurt?”
“Miss Ormes . . .”
“Gray?”
“No. . . . I ain’t sure, but I think it’s the other’n. And your man Hobbs. Kilt.”
“What? Where? How?”
“Yep. Both dead. It’s pretty bad. I seen the bodies myself. Hobbs musta been drivin’. He run the car over Mohawk Slide. Went down more’n a hundred feet. Ever’thing busted to flinders. Miss Ormes was jammed again’ him so hard she had her teeth sunk plumb into his throat when we got down to ’em.”
“Good Lord!”
“Glad I found you here. You can help me break the news to the other folks. Gosh! Looks like hard luck’s tryin’ to git the best o’ this fam’ly, don’t it?”
I had turned back from the door, signing to the officer to follow me into the house. I wanted to hide my face from him, and was glad of an opportunity of turning my back, even though I should have allowed him to pass me while I held the door for him. But I dreaded lest he see that the horror I naturally felt at such news was much tempered by relief at losing from among our midst the two weakest of our members. The secrets of Ormesby would hereafter be the better kept. I do not say that I felt no sorrow for poor Hobbs. I think I must even have experienced a stab of pity for Grayce. But I will not protest that relief was not my dominant emotion, now that both Grayce and Hobbs were forever silenced.
My elation was, however, of short duration. As I opened the door which gave into one of the parlors, I started back from the threshold, treading on the officer’s foot as I did so.
A man was standing just before me. He remained there for an instant, fronting me, his horridly red and glaring eyes alight with something that looked like triumph. Had I not seen that look in the eyes of the portrait upstairs?
Then the thing, for I knew it was not a man, turned away, crossed the room swiftly, opened a farther door, and went through it, the door swinging noiselessly shut behind him.
“Who’s that?” It was the police officer behind me.
“One of the . . . one of the auditors, I believe,” I managed to say. “They’re still checking up. . . .”
“Uh-huh.” I was very glad of the Chief’s interruption. “Funny lookin’ feller, though. Looks a lot like old Mr. Ormes used to look.”
My friend the policeman said something further, but I shall never know what it was. My knees had gone very weak beneath me. I knew now, past all doubting, that the thing I had seen was not a subjective vision. Others could see it, also. Th
at undead emptiness actually walked in the halls and through the rooms where people lived!
XVII
It appeared that Hobbs had been on his way to Pittsfield, sent there by Barbara with several small commissions. Why he had consented to allow Grayce to accompany him, without, at least, notifying me, we, of course, could now never learn. No doubt she had presented herself, ready to go, at the last moment. Perhaps she had wheedled him, alleging that she desired to ride but a short distance and would walk back. Whatever the reason, we could none of us doubt that she had flung herself upon the man and had bitten into his throat, thus causing him to lose control of the car, so that it plunged through the heavy railing above Mohawk Slide. Knowing what we knew, we must seem to accept the theory of the police that the fall had hurled the girl against the man in such manner as to cause her teeth to become embedded in his neck. But we ourselves could accept no such harmless notion.
Gray had her sister’s and Hobbs’s bodies cremated, as she had had those of Ormond and Agnes—yes, and poor Alice Hobbs, also.
Doctor Barnes, whose visits to Ormesby had ceased, following Alice’s death, stopped one day as he was passing the house. He did not ask to see any of the others, and it was I alone who talked with him. He informed me that so many tragic endings in the Ormes family had caused no little gossip and wonder throughout the countryside. But the good man gave no indication of supposing that those deaths had not been caused by accidents due entirely to impersonal agencies. I was left with the comforting assurance that as he thought, so thought the people. I had noticed curious eyes turned upon me when I had entered Tiltown, on the few occasions of my going there, but I had not seen a single glance of hostility, nor even one of suspicion. Whatever troubles beset us, we were not, it seemed, to be pestered by the community in which we moved.
And now we were faced with the necessity of arranging something definite with regard to the future. With Hobbs gone, Gray and Barbara both refused to import another servant. The three remaining women took turns at the cooking and at keeping the house in order. Yet I fear that a scrupulous housekeeper, had such a person visited us, must have found not a little to cavil at.
Gray began to speak of selling the place. With what she should realize from such a transaction, together with her private funds and such little money as Barbara still possessed, she would take her aunt to England, buy or lease a cottage in the country, preferably somewhere in Devon, and there live quietly the rest of their lives. I doubted whether Gray should be able to accomplish that, with Barbara beside her. Moreover, Barbara herself, when the matter was broached to her, refused to consider it. She would never leave Ormesby, she declared. And while they two remained there, neither Gray nor Barbara would willingly allow Muriel and me to leave. We repeatedly declared that we must go. We protested that we could not remain living as pensioners under their roof. We were, I think, fully resolved to go, sooner or later. We had been half a year at Ormesby, and—for such is our human nature—the place had become, in spite of the horrors it held for us, something like home. We had no other home. The world outside still groaned under poverty, striving blindly to win back something of the wealth it had lost. We knew that if we left Gray’s roof, we should be plunged again into a bitter struggle for mere bread. Let me confess at once, then, that while I said and repeated that we must be going, yet I had, so far, made no active effort to get away.
I had begun, shortly after the last of the funerals, poking and prying into the masonry of the old cistern. My hands were soft and I soon found them covered with blisters, yet by dint of perseverance I at last succeeded in removing enough of the wall to permit of forcing the upper half of my body through the opening.
Down there all was, of course, absolute blackness. A damp and nauseating odor rose from the pit and rushed through the whole house, bringing Gray and Muriel down to learn the cause of it. I had not informed them of what I was doing. I should have been as well pleased had they both remained to the last in ignorance of it, but now I was obliged to explain my work. Gray remonstrated vigorously. She argued, later and privately, with me that no good could possibly come of opening what she called a tomb. Let the dead lie undisturbed in such grave as they had together. And I, to please the girl, for after all it was her house, put back in place the bricks I had removed, though without mortar, and remained away from the cistern for several days. Yet I could not avert my curiosity for very long. A fascination which I could not explain to myself drew me down there.
It was about the time of Christmas, I think, or a little after that, when I found an opportunity of working there undisturbed by any of my female companions. I carried with me, this time, a powerful flashlight. Having again removed the bricks I had loosened, I worked my head and shoulders through the aperture and played the beam of the torch over the bottom of the well. That bottom appeared to be not more than fifteen feet below my eyes. It was covered with what looked like fine white dust, the remains of the quicklime which Hobbs and Ormond Ormes had thrown down to cover and eat away the flesh and bones of the latter’s parents. The walls of the pit were perfectly dry, in spite of the damp smell that came from below. And there was no slightest sign of a body.
Yet—stay! Something was there. I returned the beam of the light to the spot I had noticed, and studied it carefully. I was looking straight down upon it, which was a disadvantage to me. Was I seeing bones—the bones of a human arm and hand? Or was I looking at a mere impression left in the lime by what had once been bones? I could not determine. Long and long I gazed at that place on the bottom of the cistern, gradually coming to think that I was looking at actual bones. But whether this were the case, or not, that appearance of bones must be finally and forever destroyed before I could rest secure in any bed by night. No stranger’s eye must ever be allowed to see what I was seeing. It would be necessary for me to enter the well and remove the relic, if relic it was, or so to disturb the hardened lime as to efface the impression made in it. It was not work that I could enjoy performing. Indeed, so great was my unreasoning horror of the place that it must have been quite the middle of January before I could fully make up my mind to delay no more, but to enter the pit. And all this in spite of the fascination I had felt, and continued to feel, and which drew me, almost every day, to descend those stairs. That fascination had been pulling me down there from the very first.
I shall not detail all my pains and exertions in getting into the well. I was obliged to desist frequently, owing to the near presence of Gray or Barbara in the library above. But at last I had knocked together a ladder sufficiently slender and, as I hoped, sufficiently strong to bear my weight. Carrying with me nothing but my torch and a heavy hammer, I went into the pit.
Arrived at the bottom, I very soon found that the figure of an arm was no more than the thick paste formed by quicklime after being exposed to dampness. Striking a portion of it with the hammer, it shattered inwardly, showing me that it was hollow. The bones it had once covered had been completely consumed. And there were no other bones, or parts of bones, anywhere. I made quite certain of that. The crusted lime lay flat on the ground all about me. Only in the case of this one right arm and hand to a point several inches above the elbow had the lime retained the shape of the human remains it once had fed upon. That it had been the right arm I could see from the shape of the hand. That it had been the arm of the man, and not of the woman, I decided from the size of it. The fist was doubled, save that the index finger pointed straight out along the line of the hand and arm. I shuddered, suddenly recalling how Grayce had said that her father had died with that finger beckoning to her and to the son who had killed him. It had beckoned them as if inviting them to join him in death. Well, two of them had gone to him, now, and the pointing index finger seemed to my disturbed imagination to be still beckoning. Perhaps for Gray and Barbara? It seemed somehow like a denunciation. And somehow it was like a threat.
But I wanted to leave that noisome place as
soon as might be. I had come down there to efface the last telltale traces of a deed of violence and blood. I set about destroying the shape of that high relief with the hammer. The lime cracked and crumbled under my blows. I worked methodically, beginning at the upper portion of the arm and proceeding toward the fist. I had got as far as the wrist, pounding on and breaking up the lime to either side, of the upraised portion, so as effectually to remove all semblance to a human arm. I now smashed that accusing finger and beat into powder the material on all sides of it. Then I was at the fist. The first blow of my hammer shattered it, though it did not yield inwardly with so hollow a small sound as had the other portions. I struck again and then again. And then I made out, under the light of my torch, that something within the fist had offered sufficient resistance to prevent the hammer from crashing down directly against the stone flooring of the cistern. It was something of a white color. It was something rounded. At last, fearing to touch it before I had made out plainly what it was, I saw that it was a piece of ordinary paper, wadded into a tight ball, having been clenched in the dead man’s fist, and now still preserved as paper by the fact that when the bones which had held it disappeared the lime had already hardened over and above it. It had not been touched by decay.
And there was writing upon it. So much I clearly distinguished. But I could not read the thin lines of ink. I dropped the thing into a pocket of my trousers, straightened, and carefully examined every square foot of the floor and walls about me. Then I turned away and scrambled up the ladder and emerged into the little room just as Gray, Muriel and Barbara came down the last of the steps and stood before me.
Fingers of Fear Page 23
