But God knows there is one passion that defies argument. The house next Herr Krapp’s had a fascination for me which I could not resist; and though I did not again leave my lady unguarded, but arranged that Steve should stop at home and watch the door, four o’clock the next afternoon saw me sneaking away in search of St. Austin’s. Of course I soon found it; but there I came to a check. Round the churchyard stood a number of quiet family houses, many-gabled and shaded by limes, and doubtless once occupied by reverend canons and prebendaries. But no one of these held such a position that it could shoulder Herr Krapp’s, or be by any possibility the house I wanted. The churchyard lay too far from the street for that.
I walked up the row twice before I would admit this; but at last I made it certain. Still Herr Krapp must know his own premises, and not much cast down, I was going to knock at a chance door and put the question, when my eyes fell on a man who sat at work in the churchyard. He wore a mason’s apron, and was busily deepening the inscription on a tablet let into the church wall. He seemed to be the very man to know, and I went to him.
‘I want a house which looks into the Neu Strasse,’ I said. ‘It is the next house to Herr Krapp’s. Can you direct me to the door?’
He looked at me for a moment, his hammer suspended. Then he pointed to the farther end of the row. ‘There is an alley,’ he said in a hoarse, croaking voice. ‘The door is at the end.’
I thought his occupation an odd one, considering the state of the city; but I had other things to dwell on, and hastened off to the place he indicated. Here, sure enough, I found the mouth of a very narrow passage which, starting between the last house and a blind wall, ran in the required direction. It was a queer place, scarcely wider than my shoulders, and with two turns so sharp that I remember wondering how they brought their dead out. In one part it wound under the timbers of a house; it was dark and somewhat foul, and altogether so ill-favoured a path that I was glad I had brought my arms.
In the end it ran into a small, paved court, damp but clean, and by comparison light. Here I saw the door I wanted facing me. Above it the house, with its narrow front of one window on each floor, and every floor jutting out a little, gave a strange impression of gloomy height. The windows were barred and dusty, the plaster was mildewed, the beams were dark with age. Whatever secrets, innocent or the reverse, lay within, one thing was plain — this front gave the lie to the other.
I liked the aspect of things so little that it was with a secret tremor I knocked, and heard the hollow sound go echoing through the house. So certain did I feel that something was wrong, that I wondered what the inmates would do, and whether they would lie quiet and refuse to answer, or show force and baffle me that way. No foreign windows looked into the little court in which I stood; three of the walls were blind. The longer I gazed about me, the more I misdoubted the place.
Yet I turned to knock again; but did not, being anticipated. The door slid open under my hand, slowly wide open, and brought me face to face with an old toothless hag, whose bleared eyes winked at me like a bat’s in sunshine. I was so surprised both by her appearance and the opening of the door, that I stood tongue-tied, staring at her and at the bare, dusty, unswept hall behind her.
‘Who lives here?’ I blurted out at last.
If I had stopped to choose my words I had done no better. She shook her head and pointed first to her ears, and then to her lips. The woman was deaf and dumb!
I would not believe it at the first blush. I tried her again. ‘Who lives here, mother?’ I cried more loudly.
She smiled vacuously, showing her toothless gums. And that was all.
Still I tried again, shouting and making signs to her to fetch whoever was in the house. The sign she seemed to understand, for she shook her head violently. But that helped me no farther.
All the time the door stood wide open. I could see the hall, and that it contained no furniture or traces of habitation. The woman was alone, therefore a mere caretaker. Why should I not enter and satisfy myself?
I made as if I would do so. But the moment I set my foot across the threshold the old crone began to mow and gibber so horribly, putting herself in my way, that I fell back cowed. I had not the heart to use force to her, alone as she was, and in her duty. Besides, what right had I to thrust myself in? I should be putting myself in the wrong if I did. I retired.
She did not at once shut the door, but continued to tremble and make faces at me awhile as if she were cursing me. Then with her old hand pressed to her side, she slowly but with evident passion clanged the door home.
I stood a moment outside, and then I retreated. I had been driven to believe Herr Krapp. Why should I not believe this old creature? Here was an empty house, and so an end. And yet — and yet I was puzzled.
As I went through the churchyard, I passed my friend the mason, and saw he had a companion. If he had looked up I should have asked him a question or two. But he did not, and the other’s back was towards me. I walked on.
In the silent street, however, three minutes later, a sudden thought brought me to a stand. An empty house? Was there not something odd in this empty house, when quarters were so scarce in Nuremberg, and even my lady had got lodgings assigned to her as a favour and at a price? The town swarmed with people who had taken refuge behind its walls. Where one had lain two lay now. Yet here was an empty house!
In a twinkling I was walking briskly towards the Neu Strasse, determined to look farther into the matter. It was again the hour of evening drill; the ways were crowded, the bells of the churches were ringing. Using some little care as I approached Herr Krapp’s, I slipped into a doorway, which commanded it from a distance, and thence began to watch the fatal window.
If the old hag had not lied with her dumb lips I should see no one; or at best should only see her.
Half an hour passed; an hour passed. Hundreds of people passed, among them the man I had seen talking with the mason in the churchyard. I noticed him, because he went by twice. But the window remained blank. Then on a sudden, as the light began to fail, I saw the Waldgrave at it.
The Waldgrave?
‘Gott im Himmel!’ I muttered, the blood rushing to my face. What was the meaning of this? What was the magic of this cursed window? First I had seen my love at it. Then the Waldgrave.
While I stood thunderstruck, he was gone again, leaving the window blank and black. The crowd passed below, chattering thoughtlessly. Groups of men with pikes and muskets went by. All seemed unchanged. But my mind was in a whirl. Rage, jealousy, and wonder played with it. What did it all mean? First Marie, then the Waldgrave! Marie, whom we had left thirty leagues away in the forest; the Waldgrave, whom I had seen that morning.
I stood gaping at the window, as if it could speak, and gradually my mind regained its balance. My jealousy died out, hope took its place. I did not think so ill of the Waldgrave as to believe that knowing of Marie’s existence he would hide it from me, and for that reason I could not explain or understand how he came to be in the same house with her. But it was undeniable that his presence there encouraged me. There must be some middle link between them; perhaps some one controlling both. And then I thought of Tzerclas.
The Waldgrave had seen him in the town, and had even spoken to him. What if it were he who occupied this house close by the New Gate, with a convenient secretive entrance, and used it for his machinations? Marie might well have fallen into his hands. She might be in his power now, behind the very walls on which I gazed.
From that moment I breathed and lived only to see the inside of that house. Nothing else would satisfy me. I scanned it with greedy eyes, its steep gable, its four windows one above another, its carved weather-boards. I might attack it on this side; or by way of the alley and door. But I quickly discarded the latter idea. Though I had seen only the old woman, I judged that there were defenders in the background, and in the solitude of the alley I might be easily despatched. It remained to enter from the front, or by way of the roof. I pondered a moment, an
d then I went across to Herr Krapp’s and knocked.
He opened the door himself. I almost pushed my way in. ‘What do you want, my friend?’ he said, recoiling before me, and looking somewhat astonished.
‘To get into your neighbour’s house,’ I answered bluntly.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
UNDER THE TILES.
He had a light in his hand, and he held it up to my face. ‘So?’ he said. ‘Is that what you would be at? But you go fast. It takes two to that, Master Steward.’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I am the one, and you are the other, Herr Krapp.’
He turned from me and closed the door, and, coming back, held the light again to my face. ‘So you still think that it was your lady’s woman you saw at the window?’
‘I am sure of it,’ I answered.
He set down his light on a chair and, leaning against the wall, seemed to consider me. After a pause, ‘And you have been to the house?’
‘I have been to the house — fruitlessly.’
‘You learned nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then what do you want to do now?’ he asked, softly rubbing his chin.
‘To see the inside of it.’
‘And you propose —— ?’
‘To enter it from yours,’ I answered. ‘Surely you have some dormer, some trap-door, some roof-way, by which a bold man may get from this house to the next one.’
He shook his head. ‘I know of none,’ he said. ‘But that is not all. You are asking a strange thing. I am a peaceful man, and, I hope, a good neighbour; and this which you ask me to do cannot be called neighbourly. However, I need say the less about it, because the thing cannot be done.’
‘Will you let me try?’ I cried.
He seemed to reflect. In the end he made a strange answer. ‘What time did you call at the house?’ he said.
‘Perhaps an hour ago — perhaps more.’
‘Did you see any one in the churchyard as you passed?’
‘Yes,’ I said, thinking; ‘there was a man at work there. I asked him the way.’
Herr Krapp nodded, and seemed to reflect again. ‘Well,’ he said at last,’ it is a strong thing you ask, my friend. But I have my own reasons for suspecting that all is not right next door, and therefore you shall have your way as far as looking round goes. But I do not think that you will be able to do anything.’
‘I ask no more than that,’ I said, trembling with eagerness.
He looked at me again as he took up the light. ‘You are a big man,’ he said, ‘but are you armed? Strength is of little avail against a bullet.’
I showed him that I had a brace of pistols, and he turned towards the stairs. ‘Dorcas is in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘My sons are out, and so are the lads. Nevertheless, I am not very proud of our errand; so step softly, my friend, and do not grumble if you have your labour for your pains.’
He led the way up the stairs with that, and I followed him. The house was very silent, and the higher we ascended the more the silence grew upon us, until, in the empty upper part, every footfall seemed to make a hollow echo, and every board that creaked under our tread to whisper that we were about a work of danger. When we reached the uppermost landing of all, Herr Krapp stopped, and, raising his light, pointed to the unceiled rafters.
‘See, there is no way out,’ he said. ‘And if you could get out, you could not get in.’
I nodded as I looked round. Clearly, this floor was not much used. In a corner a room had been at some period roughly partitioned off; otherwise the place was a huge garret, the boards covered with scraps of mortar, the corners full of shadows and old lumber and dense cobwebs. In the sloping roof were two dormer windows, unglazed but shuttered; and, beside the great yawning well of the staircase by which we had ascended, lay a packing-box and some straw, and two or three old rotting pallets tied together with ropes. I shivered as I looked round. The place, viewed by the light of our one candle, had a forlorn, depressing aspect. The air under the tiles was hot and close; the straw gave out a musty smell.
I was glad when Herr Krapp went to one of the windows and, letting down the bar, opened the shutters. On the instant a draught, which all but extinguished his candle, poured in, and with it a dull, persistent noise unheard before — the murmur of the city, of the streets, the voice of Nuremberg. I thrust my head out into the cool night air, and rejoiced to see the lights flickering in the streets below, and the shadowy figures moving this way and that. Above the opposite houses the low sky was red; but the chimneys stood out black against it, and in the streets it was dark night.
I took all this in, and then I turned to the right and looked at the next house. I saw as much as I expected; more, enough to set my heart beating. The dormer window next to that from which I leaned, and on a level with it, was open; if I might judge from the stream of light which poured through it, and was every now and then cut off as if by a moving figure that passed at intervals between the casement and the candle. Who or what this was I could not say. It might be Marie; it might not. But at the mere thought I leaned out farther, and greedily measured the distance between us.
Alas! between the dormer-gable in which I stood and the one in the next house lay twelve feet of steep roof, on which a cat would have been puzzled to stand. Its edge towards the street was guarded by no gutter, ledge, or coping-stone, but ended smoothly in a frail, wooden waterpipe, four inches square. Below that, yawned a sheer, giddy drop, sixty feet to the pavement of the street. I drew in my head with a shiver, and found Herr Krapp at my elbow.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you see?’
‘The next window is open,’ I answered. ‘How can I get to it?’
‘Ah!’ he replied dryly, ‘I did not undertake that you should.’ He took my place at the window and leaned out in his turn. He had set the candle in a corner where it was sheltered from the draught. I strode to it, and moved it a little in sheer impatience — I was burning to be at the window again. As I came back, crunching the scraps of mortar underfoot, my eyes fell on a bit of old dusty rope lying coiled on the floor, and in a second I saw a way. When Herr Krapp turned from the window he missed me.
‘Hallo!’ he cried. ‘Where are you, my friend?’
‘Here,’ I answered, from the head of the stairs.
As he advanced, I came out of the darkness to meet him, staggering under the bundle of pallets which I had seen lying by the stair-head. He whistled.
‘What are you going to do with those?’ he said.
‘By your leave, I want this rope,’ I answered.
‘What will you do with it?’ he asked soberly. He was one of those even-tempered men to whom excitement, irritation, fear, are all foreign.
‘Make a loop and throw it over the little pinnacle on the top of yonder dormer,’ I answered briefly, ‘and use it for a hand-rail.’
‘Can you throw it over?’
‘I think so.’
‘The pinnacle will hold?’
‘I hope so.’
He shrugged his shoulders, and stood for a moment staring at me as I unwound the rope and formed a noose. At length: ‘But the noise, my friend?’ he said. ‘If you miss the first time, and the second, the rope falling and sliding over the tiles will give the alarm.’
‘Two cats ran along the ridge a while ago,’ I answered. ‘Once, and, perhaps, twice, the noise will be set down to them. The third time I must succeed.’
I thought it likely that he would forbid the attempt; but he did not. On the contrary, he silently took hold of my belt, that I might lean out the farther and use my hands with greater freedom. Against the window I placed the bundle of pallets; setting one foot on them and the other heel on the pipe outside, I found I could whirl the loop with some chance of success.
Still, it was an anxious moment. As I craned over the dark street and, poising myself, fixed my eyes on the black, slender spirelet which surmounted the neighbouring window, I felt a shudder more than once run through me. I shrank from looking
down. At last I threw: the rope fell short. Luckily it dropped clear of the window, and came home again against the wall below me, and so made no noise. The second time I threw with better heart; but I had the same fortune, except that I nearly overbalanced myself, and, for a moment, shut my eyes in terror. The third time, letting out a little more rope, I struck the pinnacle, but below the knob. The rope fell on the tiles, and slid down them with some noise, and for a full minute I stood motionless, half inside the room and half outside, expecting each instant to see a head thrust out of the other window. But no one appeared, no one spoke, though the light was still obscured at intervals; and presently I took courage to make a fourth attempt. I flung, and this time the rope fell with a dull thud on the tiles, and stopped there: the noose was round the pinnacle.
Gently I drew it tight, and then, letting it hang, I slipped back into the room, where we had before taken the precaution to put out the light. Herr Krapp asked me in a whisper if the rope was fast.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I must secure this end to something.’
He passed it round the hinge of the left-hand shutter and made it safe. Then for a moment we stood together in the darkness.
‘All right?’ he said.
‘All right,’ I answered hoarsely.
The next moment the thing was done. I was outside, the rope in my hands, my feet on the bending pipe, the cool night air round my temples — below me, sheer giddiness, dancing lights, and blackness. For the moment I tottered. I balanced myself where I stood, and clung to the rope, shutting my eyes. If the pinnacle had given way then, I must have fallen like a plummet and been killed. One crash against the wall below, one grip at the rope as it tore its way through my fingers — and an end!
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 155
