Dracula's Guest
Accordingly he lit another lamp and placed it so that it would shine
well into the right-hand corner of the wall by the fireplace. Then he
got all the books he had with him, and placed them handy to throw at
the vermin. Finally he lifted the rope of the alarm bell and placed the
end of it on the table, fixing the extreme end under the lamp. As he
handled it he could not help noticing how pliable it was, especially
for so strong a rope, and one not in use. “You could hang a man with
it,” he thought to himself. When his preparations were made he looked
around, and said complacently:
“There now, my friend, I think we shall learn something of you this
time!” He began his work again, and though as before somewhat disturbed
at first by the noise of the rats, soon lost himself in his
propositions and problems.
Again he was called to his immediate surroundings suddenly. This time
it might not have been the sudden silence only which took his
attention; there was a slight movement of the rope, and the lamp moved.
Without stirring, he looked to see if his pile of books was within
range, and then cast his eye along the rope. As he looked he saw the
great rat drop from the rope on the oak arm-chair and sit there glaring
at him. He raised a book in his right hand, and taking careful aim,
flung it at the rat. The latter, with a quick movement, sprang aside
and dodged the missile. He then took another book, and a third, and
flung them one after another at the rat, but each time unsuccessfully.
At last, as he stood with a book poised in his hand to throw, the rat
squeaked and seemed afraid. This made Malcolmson more than ever eager
to strike, and the book flew and struck the rat a resounding blow. It
gave a terrified squeak, and turning on his pursuer a look of terrible
malevolence, ran up the chair-back and made a great jump to the rope of
the alarm bell and ran up it like lightning. The lamp rocked under the
sudden strain, but it was a heavy one and did not topple over.
Malcolmson kept his eyes on the rat, and saw it by the light of the
second lamp leap to a moulding of the wainscot and disappear through a
hole in one of the great pictures which hung on the wall, obscured and
invisible through its coating of dirt and dust.
“I shall look up my friend’s habitation in the morning,” said the
student, as he went over to collect his books. “The third picture from
the fireplace; I shall not forget.” He picked up the books one by one,
commenting on them as he lifted them. “_Conic Sections_ he does not
mind, nor _Cycloidal Oscillations_, nor the _Principia_, nor
_Quaternions_, nor _Thermodynamics_. Now for the book that fetched
him!” Malcolmson took it up and looked at it. As he did so he started,
and a sudden pallor overspread his face. He looked round uneasily and
shivered slightly, as he murmured to himself:
“The Bible my mother gave me! What an odd coincidence.” He sat down to
work again, and the rats in the wainscot renewed their gambols. They
did not disturb him, however; somehow their presence gave him a sense
of companionship. But he could not attend to his work, and after
striving to master the subject on which he was engaged gave it up in
despair, and went to bed as the first streak of dawn stole in through
the eastern window.
He slept heavily but uneasily, and dreamed much; and when Mrs. Dempster
woke him late in the morning he seemed ill at ease, and for a few
minutes did not seem to realise exactly where he was. His first request
rather surprised the servant.
“Mrs. Dempster, when I am out to-day I wish you would get the steps and
dust or wash those pictures—specially that one the third from the
fireplace—I want to see what they are.”
Late in the afternoon Malcolmson worked at his books in the shaded
walk, and the cheerfulness of the previous day came back to him as the
day wore on, and he found that his reading was progressing well. He had
worked out to a satisfactory conclusion all the problems which had as
yet baffled him, and it was in a state of jubilation that he paid a
visit to Mrs. Witham at “The Good Traveller”. He found a stranger in
the cosy sitting-room with the landlady, who was introduced to him as
Dr. Thornhill. She was not quite at ease, and this, combined with the
doctor’s plunging at once into a series of questions, made Malcolmson
come to the conclusion that his presence was not an accident, so
without preliminary he said:
“Dr. Thornhill, I shall with pleasure answer you any question you may
choose to ask me if you will answer me one question first.”
The doctor seemed surprised, but he smiled and answered at once, “Done!
What is it?”
“Did Mrs. Witham ask you to come here and see me and advise me?”
Dr. Thornhill for a moment was taken aback, and Mrs. Witham got fiery
red and turned away; but the doctor was a frank and ready man, and he
answered at once and openly.
“She did: but she didn’t intend you to know it. I suppose it was my
clumsy haste that made you suspect. She told me that she did not like
the idea of your being in that house all by yourself, and that she
thought you took too much strong tea. In fact, she wants me to advise
you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours. I was a
keen student in my time, so I suppose I may take the liberty of a
college man, and without offence, advise you not quite as a stranger.”
Malcolmson with a bright smile held out his hand. “Shake! as they say
in America,” he said. “I must thank you for your kindness and Mrs.
Witham too, and your kindness deserves a return on my part. I promise
to take no more strong tea—no tea at all till you let me—and I shall go
to bed tonight at one o’clock at latest. Will that do?”
“Capital,” said the doctor. “Now tell us all that you noticed in the
old house,” and so Malcolmson then and there told in minute detail all
that had happened in the last two nights. He was interrupted every now
and then by some exclamation from Mrs. Witham, till finally when he
told of the episode of the Bible the landlady’s pent-up emotions found
vent in a shriek; and it was not till a stiff glass of brandy and water
had been administered that she grew composed again. Dr. Thornhill
listened with a face of growing gravity, and when the narrative was
complete and Mrs. Witham had been restored he asked:
“The rat always went up the rope of the alarm bell?”
“Always.”
“I suppose you know,” said the Doctor after a pause, “what the rope
is?”
“No!”
“It is,” said the Doctor slowly, “the very rope which the hangman used
for all the victims of the Judge’s judicial rancour!” Here he was
interrupted by another scream from Mrs. Witham, and steps had to be
taken for her recovery. Malcolmson having looked at his watch, and
found that it was close to his dinner hour, had gone home before her
complete recovery.
When Mrs. Witham was herself again she almost assailed the Doctor with
angry questions as to what he meant by putting such horrible ideas into
the poor young man’s mind. “He has quite enough there already to upset
him,” she added. Dr. Thornhill replied:
“My dear madam, I had a distinct purpose in it! I wanted to draw his
attention to the bell rope, and to fix it there. It may be that he is
in a highly overwrought state, and has been studying too much, although
I am bound to say that he seems as sound and healthy a young man,
mentally and bodily, as ever I saw—but then the rats—and that
suggestion of the devil.” The doctor shook his head and went on. “I
would have offered to go and stay the first night with him but that I
felt sure it would have been a cause of offence. He may get in the
night some strange fright or hallucination; and if he does I want him
to pull that rope. All alone as he is it will give us warning, and we
may reach him in time to be of service. I shall be sitting up pretty
late tonight and shall keep my ears open. Do not be alarmed if
Benchurch gets a surprise before morning.”
“Oh, Doctor, what do you mean? What do you mean?”
“I mean this; that possibly—nay, more probably—we shall hear the great
alarm bell from the Judge’s House tonight,” and the Doctor made about
as effective an exit as could be thought of.
When Malcolmson arrived home he found that it was a little after his
usual time, and Mrs. Dempster had gone away—the rules of Greenhow’s
Charity were not to be neglected. He was glad to see that the place was
bright and tidy with a cheerful fire and a well-trimmed lamp. The
evening was colder than might have been expected in April, and a heavy
wind was blowing with such rapidly-increasing strength that there was
every promise of a storm during the night. For a few minutes after his
entrance the noise of the rats ceased; but so soon as they became
accustomed to his presence they began again. He was glad to hear them,
for he felt once more the feeling of companionship in their noise, and
his mind ran back to the strange fact that they only ceased to manifest
themselves when that other—the great rat with the baleful eyes—came
upon the scene. The reading-lamp only was lit and its green shade kept
the ceiling and the upper part of the room in darkness, so that the
cheerful light from the hearth spreading over the floor and shining on
the white cloth laid over the end of the table was warm and cheery.
Malcolmson sat down to his dinner with a good appetite and a buoyant
spirit. After his dinner and a cigarette he sat steadily down to work,
determined not to let anything disturb him, for he remembered his
promise to the doctor, and made up his mind to make the best of the
time at his disposal.
For an hour or so he worked all right, and then his thoughts began to
wander from his books. The actual circumstances around him, the calls
on his physical attention, and his nervous susceptibility were not to
be denied. By this time the wind had become a gale, and the gale a
storm. The old house, solid though it was, seemed to shake to its
foundations, and the storm roared and raged through its many chimneys
and its queer old gables, producing strange, unearthly sounds in the
empty rooms and corridors. Even the great alarm bell on the roof must
have felt the force of the wind, for the rope rose and fell slightly,
as though the bell were moved a little from time to time and the limber
rope fell on the oak floor with a hard and hollow sound.
As Malcolmson listened to it he bethought himself of the doctor’s
words, “It is the rope which the hangman used for the victims of the
Judge’s judicial rancour,” and he went over to the corner of the
fireplace and took it in his hand to look at it. There seemed a sort of
deadly interest in it, and as he stood there he lost himself for a
moment in speculation as to who these victims were, and the grim wish
of the Judge to have such a ghastly relic ever under his eyes. As he
stood there the swaying of the bell on the roof still lifted the rope
now and again; but presently there came a new sensation—a sort of
tremor in the rope, as though something was moving along it.
Looking up instinctively Malcolmson saw the great rat coming slowly
down towards him, glaring at him steadily. He dropped the rope and
started back with a muttered curse, and the rat turning ran up the rope
again and disappeared, and at the same instant Malcolmson became
conscious that the noise of the rats, which had ceased for a while,
began again.
All this set him thinking, and it occurred to him that he had not
investigated the lair of the rat or looked at the pictures, as he had
intended. He lit the other lamp without the shade, and, holding it up
went and stood opposite the third picture from the fireplace on the
right-hand side where he had seen the rat disappear on the previous
night.
At the first glance he started back so suddenly that he almost dropped