Tales of Terror and Mystery
he reading at his desk and I sitting in a recess by the window reducing
to order the chaos which existed among his books. In spite of these
close relations I was never again asked to enter the chamber in the
turret.
And then came my revulsion of feeling. A single incident changed all
my sympathy to loathing, and made me realize that my employer still
remained all that he had ever been, with the additional vice of
hypocrisy. What happened was as follows.
One evening Miss Witherton had gone down to Broadway, the neighbouring
village, to sing at a concert for some charity, and I, according to my
promise, had walked over to escort her back. The drive sweeps round
under the eastern turret, and I observed as I passed that the light was
lit in the circular room. It was a summer evening, and the window,
which was a little higher than our heads, was open. We were, as it
happened, engrossed in our own conversation at the moment and we had
paused upon the lawn which skirts the old turret, when suddenly
something broke in upon our talk and turned our thoughts away from our
own affairs.
It was a voice--the voice undoubtedly of a woman. It was low--so low
that it was only in that still night air that we could have heard it,
but, hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its feminine timbre. It
spoke hurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences, and then was silent--a
piteous, breathless, imploring sort of voice. Miss Witherton and I
stood for an instant staring at each other. Then we walked quickly in
the direction of the hall-door.
"It came through the window," I said.
"We must not play the part of eavesdroppers," she answered. "We must
forget that we have ever heard it."
There was an absence of surprise in her manner which suggested a new
idea to me.
"You have heard it before," I cried.
"I could not help it. My own room is higher up on the same turret. It
has happened frequently."
"Who can the woman be?"
"I have no idea. I had rather not discuss it."
Her voice was enough to show me what she thought. But granting that
our employer led a double and dubious life, who could she be, this
mysterious woman who kept him company in the old tower? I knew from my
own inspection how bleak and bare a room it was. She certainly did not
live there. But in that case where did she come from? It could not be
anyone of the household. They were all under the vigilant eyes of Mrs.
Stevens. The visitor must come from without. But how?
And then suddenly I remembered how ancient this building was, and how
probable that some mediaeval passage existed in it. There is hardly an
old castle without one. The mysterious room was the basement of the
turret, so that if there were anything of the sort it would open
through the floor. There were numerous cottages in the immediate
vicinity. The other end of the secret passage might lie among some
tangle of bramble in the neighbouring copse. I said nothing to anyone,
but I felt that the secret of my employer lay within my power.
And the more convinced I was of this the more I marvelled at the manner
in which he concealed his true nature. Often as I watched his austere
figure, I asked myself if it were indeed possible that such a man
should be living this double life, and I tried to persuade myself that
my suspicions might after all prove to be ill-founded. But there was
the female voice, there was the secret nightly rendezvous in the
turret-chamber--how could such facts admit of an innocent
interpretation. I conceived a horror of the man. I was filled with
loathing at his deep, consistent hypocrisy.
Only once during all those months did I ever see him without that sad
but impassive mask which he usually presented towards his fellow-man.
For an instant I caught a glimpse of those volcanic fires which he had
damped down so long. The occasion was an unworthy one, for the object
of his wrath was none other than the aged charwoman whom I have already
mentioned as being the one person who was allowed within his mysterious
chamber. I was passing the corridor which led to the turret--for my
own room lay in that direction--when I heard a sudden, startled scream,
and merged in it the husky, growling note of a man who is inarticulate
with passion. It was the snarl of a furious wild beast. Then I heard
his voice thrilling with anger. "You would dare!" he cried. "You would
dare to disobey my directions!" An instant later the charwoman passed
me, flying down the passage, white-faced and tremulous, while the
terrible voice thundered behind her. "Go to Mrs. Stevens for your
money! Never set foot in Thorpe Place again!" Consumed with
curiosity, I could not help following the woman, and found her round
the corner leaning against the wall and palpitating like a frightened
rabbit.
"What is the matter, Mrs. Brown?" I asked.
"It's master!" she gasped. "Oh, 'ow 'e frightened me! If you had seen
'is eyes, Mr. Colmore, sir. I thought 'e would 'ave been the death of
me."
"But what had you done?"
"Done, sir! Nothing. At least nothing to make so much of. Just laid
my 'and on that black box of 'is--'adn't even opened it, when in 'e
came and you 'eard the way 'e went on. I've lost my place, and glad I
am of it, for I would never trust myself within reach of 'im again."
So it was the japanned box which was the cause of this outburst--the
box from which he would never permit himself to be separated. What was
the connection, or was there any connection between this and the secret
visits of the lady whose voice I had overheard? Sir John Bollamore's
wrath was enduring as well as fiery, for from that day Mrs. Brown, the
charwoman, vanished from our ken, and Thorpe Place knew her no more.
And now I wish to tell you the singular chance which solved all these
strange questions and put my employer's secret in my possession. The
story may leave you with some lingering doubts as to whether my
curiosity did not get the better of my honour, and whether I did not
condescend to play the spy. If you choose to think so I cannot help
it, but can only assure you that, improbable as it may appear, the
matter came about exactly as I describe it.
The first stage in this denouement was that the small room in the
turret became uninhabitable. This occurred through the fall of the
worm-eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling. Rotten with age, it
snapped in the middle one morning, and brought down a quantity of
plaster with it. Fortunately Sir John was not in the room at the time.
His precious box was rescued from amongst the debris and brought into
the library, where, henceforward, it was locked within his bureau. Sir
John took no steps to repair the damage, and I never had an opportunity
of searching for that secret passage, the existence of which I had
surmised. As to the lady, I had thought that this would have brought
her visits to an end, had I not one evening heard Mr. Richards asking
Mrs. Stevens who the woman was whom he had overheard talking to Sir
John in the library. I could not catch her reply, but I saw from her
manner that it was not the first time that she had had to answer or
avoid the same question.
"You've heard the voice, Colmore?" said the agent.
I confessed that I had.
"And what do YOU think of it?"
I shrugged my shoulders, and remarked that it was no business of mine.
"Come, come, you are just as curious as any of us. Is it a woman or
not?"
"It is certainly a woman."
"Which room did you hear it from?"
"From the turret-room, before the ceiling fell."
"But I heard it from the library only last night. I passed the doors
as I was going to bed, and I heard something wailing and praying just
as plainly as I hear you. It may be a woman----"
"Why, what else COULD it be?"
He looked at me hard.
"There are more things in heaven and earth," said he. "If it is a
woman, how does she get there?"
"I don't know."
"No, nor I. But if it is the other thing--but there, for a practical
business man at the end of the nineteenth century this is rather a
ridiculous line of conversation." He turned away, but I saw that he
felt even more than he had said. To all the old ghost stories of
Thorpe Place a new one was being added before our very eyes. It may by
this time have taken its permanent place, for though an explanation
came to me, it never reached the others.
And my explanation came in this way. I had suffered a sleepless night
from neuralgia, and about midday I had taken a heavy dose of chlorodyne
to alleviate the pain. At that time I was finishing the indexing of
Sir John Bollamore's library, and it was my custom to work there from
five till seven. On this particular day I struggled against the double
effect of my bad night and the narcotic. I have already mentioned that
there was a recess in the library, and in this it was my habit to work.
I settled down steadily to my task, but my weariness overcame me and,
falling back upon the settee, I dropped into a heavy sleep.
How long I slept I do not know, but it was quite dark when I awoke.
Confused by the chlorodyne which I had taken, I lay motionless in a
semi-conscious state. The great room with its high walls covered with
books loomed darkly all round me. A dim radiance from the moonlight
came through the farther window, and against this lighter background I
saw that Sir John Bollamore was sitting at his study table. His
well-set head and clearly cut profile were sharply outlined against the
glimmering square behind him. He bent as I watched him, and I heard
the sharp turning of a key and the rasping of metal upon metal. As if
in a dream I was vaguely conscious that this was the japanned box which
stood in front of him, and that he had drawn something out of it,
something squat and uncouth, which now lay before him upon the table.
I never realized--it never occurred to my bemuddled and torpid brain
that I was intruding upon his privacy, that he imagined himself to be
alone in the room. And then, just as it rushed upon my horrified
perceptions, and I had half risen to announce my presence, I heard a
strange, crisp, metallic clicking, and then the voice.
Yes, it was a woman's voice; there could not be a doubt of it. But a
voice so charged with entreaty and with yearning love, that it will
ring for ever in my ears. It came with a curious faraway tinkle, but
every word was clear, though faint--very faint, for they were the last
words of a dying woman.
"I am not really gone, John," said the thin, gasping voice. "I am here
at your very elbow, and shall be until we meet once more. I die happy
to think that morning and night you will hear my voice. Oh, John, be
strong, be strong, until we meet again."
I say that I had risen in order to announce my presence, but I could
not do so while the voice was sounding. I could only remain half
lying, half sitting, paralysed, astounded, listening to those yearning
distant musical words. And he--he was so absorbed that even if I had
spoken he might not have heard me. But with the silence of the voice
came my half articulated apologies and explanations. He sprang across
the room, switched on the electric light, and in its white glare I saw
him, his eyes gleaming with anger, his face twisted with passion, as
the hapless charwoman may have seen him weeks before.
"Mr. Colmore!" he cried. "You here! What is the meaning of this, sir?"
With halting words I explained it all, my neuralgia, the narcotic, my
luckless sleep and singular awakening. As he listened the glow of
anger faded from his face, and the sad, impassive mask closed once more
over his features.
"My secret is yours, Mr. Colmore," said he. "I have only myself to
blame for relaxing my precautions. Half confidences are worse than no