The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories
chosen for his residence and on this particular afternoon it presented a
more than usually dismal appearance. An expanse of flat fields covered
with dirty snow stretched away on all sides till the sky dropped down to
meet them. Only occasional farm buildings broke the monotony, and the
road wound along muddy lanes and beneath dripping trees swathed in the
cold raw fog that swept in like a pall of the dead from the sea.
It was six miles from the station to Garvey's house, and the driver of
the rickety buggy Shorthouse had found at the station was not
communicative. Between the dreary landscape and the drearier driver he
fell back upon his own thoughts, which, but for the spice of adventure
that was promised, would themselves have been even drearier than either.
He made up his mind that he would waste no time over the transaction.
The moment the signature was cut out he would pack up and be off. The
last train back to Brooklyn was 7.15; and he would have to walk the six
miles of mud and snow, for the driver of the buggy had refused
point-blank to wait for him.
For purposes of safety, Shorthouse had done what he flattered himself
was rather a clever thing. He had made up a second packet of papers
identical in outside appearance with the first. The inscription, the
blue envelope, the red elastic band, and even a blot in the lower
left-hand corner had been exactly reproduced. Inside, of course, were
only sheets of blank paper. It was his intention to change the packets
and to let Garvey see him put the sham one into the bag. In case of
violence the bag would be the point of attack, and he intended to lock
it and throw away the key. Before it could be forced open and the
deception discovered there would be time to increase his chances of
escape with the real packet.
It was five o'clock when the silent Jehu pulled up in front of a
half-broken gate and pointed with his whip to a house that stood in its
own grounds among trees and was just visible in the gathering gloom.
Shorthouse told him to drive up to the front door but the man refused.
"I ain't runnin' no risks," he said; "I've got a family."
This cryptic remark was not encouraging, but Shorthouse did not pause to
decipher it. He paid the man, and then pushed open the rickety old gate
swinging on a single hinge, and proceeded to walk up the drive that lay
dark between close-standing trees. The house soon came into full view.
It was tall and square and had once evidently been white, but now the
walls were covered with dirty patches and there were wide yellow streaks
where the plaster had fallen away. The windows stared black and
uncompromising into the night. The garden was overgrown with weeds and
long grass, standing up in ugly patches beneath their burden of wet
snow. Complete silence reigned over all. There was not a sign of life.
Not even a dog barked. Only, in the distance, the wheels of the
retreating carriage could be heard growing fainter and fainter.
As he stood in the porch, between pillars of rotting wood, listening to
the rain dripping from the roof into the puddles of slushy snow, he was
conscious of a sensation of utter desertion and loneliness such as he
had never before experienced. The forbidding aspect of the house had the
immediate effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the
abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures that
only dared to come out under cover of darkness. He groped for the
bell-handle, or knocker, and finding neither, he raised his stick and
beat a loud tattoo on the door. The sound echoed away in an empty space
on the other side and the wind moaned past him between the pillars as if
startled at his audacity. But there was no sound of approaching
footsteps and no one came to open the door. Again he beat a tattoo,
louder and longer than the first one; and, having done so, waited with
his back to the house and stared across the unkempt garden into the fast
gathering shadows.
Then he turned suddenly, and saw that the door was standing ajar. It had
been quietly opened and a pair of eyes were peering at him round the
edge. There was no light in the hall beyond and he could only just make
out the shape of a dim human face.
"Does Mr. Garvey live here?" he asked in a firm voice.
"Who are you?" came in a man's tones.
"I'm Mr. Sidebotham's private secretary. I wish to see Mr. Garvey on
important business."
"Are you expected?"
"I suppose so," he said impatiently, thrusting a card through the
opening. "Please take my name to him at once, and say I come from Mr.
Sidebotham on the matter Mr. Garvey wrote about."
The man took the card, and the face vanished into the darkness, leaving
Shorthouse standing in the cold porch with mingled feelings of
impatience and dismay. The door, he now noticed for the first time, was
on a chain and could not open more than a few inches. But it was the
manner of his reception that caused uneasy reflections to stir within
him--reflections that continued for some minutes before they were
interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps and the flicker of a
light in the hall.
The next instant the chain fell with a rattle, and gripping his bag
tightly, he walked into a large ill-smelling hall of which he could only
just see the ceiling. There was no light but the nickering taper held by
the man, and by its uncertain glimmer Shorthouse turned to examine him.
He saw an undersized man of middle age with brilliant, shifting eyes, a
curling black beard, and a nose that at once proclaimed him a Jew. His
shoulders were bent, and, as he watched him replacing the chain, he saw
that he wore a peculiar black gown like a priest's cassock reaching to
the feet. It was altogether a lugubrious figure of a man, sinister and
funereal, yet it seemed in perfect harmony with the general character of
its surroundings. The hall was devoid of furniture of any kind, and
against the dingy walls stood rows of old picture frames, empty and
disordered, and odd-looking bits of wood-work that appeared doubly
fantastic as their shadows danced queerly over the floor in the shifting
light.
"If you'll come this way, Mr. Garvey will see you presently," said the
Jew gruffly, crossing the floor and shielding the taper with a bony
hand. He never once raised his eyes above the level of the visitor's
waistcoat, and, to Shorthouse, he somehow suggested a figure from the
dead rather than a man of flesh and blood. The hall smelt decidedly ill.
All the more surprising, then, was the scene that met his eyes when the
Jew opened the door at the further end and he entered a room brilliantly
lit with swinging lamps and furnished with a degree of taste and comfort
that amounted to luxury. The walls were lined with handsomely bound
books, and armchairs were arranged round a large mahogany desk in the
middle of the room. A bright fire burned in the grate and neatly framed
photographs of men and women stood on the mantelpiece on either side of
an elaborately carved clock. French windows that opened like doors were
partially concealed by warm red curtains, and on a sideboard against the
wall stood decanters and glasses, with several boxes of cigars piled on
top of one another. There was a pleasant odour of tobacco about the
room. Indeed, it was in such glowing contrast to the chilly poverty of
the hall that Shorthouse already was conscious of a distinct rise in the
thermometer of his spirits.
Then he turned and saw the Jew standing in the doorway with his eyes
fixed upon him, somewhere about the middle button of his waistcoat. He
presented a strangely repulsive appearance that somehow could not be
attributed to any particular detail, and the secretary associated him in
his mind with a monstrous black bird of prey more than anything else.
"My time is short," he said abruptly; "I hope Mr. Garvey will not keep
me waiting."
A strange flicker of a smile appeared on the Jew's ugly face and
vanished as quickly as it came. He made a sort of deprecating bow by way
of reply. Then he blew out the taper and went out, closing the door
noiselessly behind him.
Shorthouse was alone. He felt relieved. There was an air of obsequious
insolence about the old Jew that was very offensive. He began to take
note of his surroundings. He was evidently in the library of the house,
for the walls were covered with books almost up to the ceiling. There
was no room for pictures. Nothing but the shining backs of well-bound
volumes looked down upon him. Four brilliant lights hung from the
ceiling and a reading lamp with a polished reflector stood among the
disordered masses of papers on the desk.
The lamp was not lit, but when Shorthouse put his hand upon it he found
it was _warm_. The room had evidently only just been vacated.
Apart from the testimony of the lamp, however, he had already felt,
without being able to give a reason for it, that the room had been
occupied a few moments before he entered. The atmosphere over the desk
seemed to retain the disturbing influence of a human being; an
influence, moreover, so recent that he felt as if the cause of it were
still in his immediate neighbourhood. It was difficult to realise that
he was quite alone in the room and that somebody was not in hiding. The
finer counterparts of his senses warned him to act as if he were being
observed; he was dimly conscious of a desire to fidget and look round,
to keep his eyes in every part of the room at once, and to conduct
himself generally as if he were the object of careful human observation.
How far he recognised the cause of these sensations it is impossible to
say; but they were sufficiently marked to prevent his carrying out a
strong inclination to get up and make a search of the room. He sat quite
still, staring alternately at the backs of the books, and at the red
curtains; wondering all the time if he was really being watched, or if
it was only the imagination playing tricks with him.
A full quarter of an hour passed, and then twenty rows of volumes
suddenly shifted out towards him, and he saw that a door had opened in
the wall opposite. The books were only sham backs after all, and when
they moved back again with the sliding door, Shorthouse saw the figure
of Joel Garvey standing before him.
Surprise almost took his breath away. He had expected to see an
unpleasant, even a vicious apparition with the mark of the beast
unmistakably upon its face; but he was wholly unprepared for the
elderly, tall, fine-looking man who stood in front of him--well-groomed,
refined, vigorous, with a lofty forehead, clear grey eyes, and a hooked
nose dominating a clean shaven mouth and chin of considerable
character--a distinguished looking man altogether.
"I'm afraid I've kept you waiting, Mr. Shorthouse," he said in a
pleasant voice, but with no trace of a smile in the mouth or eyes. "But
the fact is, you know, I've a mania for chemistry, and just when you
were announced I was at the most critical moment of a problem and was
really compelled to bring it to a conclusion."
Shorthouse had risen to meet him, but the other motioned him to resume
his seat. It was borne in upon him irresistibly that Mr. Joel Garvey,
for reasons best known to himself, was deliberately lying, and he could
not help wondering at the necessity for such an elaborate
misrepresentation. He took off his overcoat and sat down.
"I've no doubt, too, that the door startled you," Garvey went on,
evidently reading something of his guest's feelings in his face. "You
probably had not suspected it. It leads into my little laboratory.
Chemistry is an absorbing study to me, and I spend most of my time
there." Mr. Garvey moved up to the armchair on the opposite side of the
fireplace and sat down.