The haunted house
Lord Hambourne thought he would make conversation—but he made it
unfortunately.
“As I w-w-as s-s-aying j-j-j-ust now, I m-mean ab-b-about the
m-m-murder ...” he began.
His hostess interrupted him.
“Yes, it was very nasty,” she said quickly. “But do help me with this.
Do you make it 364?”
“Quate, quate!” said Lord Hambourne, a little puzzled at such a check.
He added the figures. It was a pleasure to him, for he certainly could
not have paid if he had lost; but he had not lost.
It was during the following silence, when Hilda Maple was in an agony
lest some further thing should be said to disturb the purchaser of
Rackham Catchings, that Corton came in with the glasses and decanters
on a tray.
But it was not the Corton of earlier hours. For the first time in
thirty years that great man was showing some lack of self-possession.
He came in too quickly; he was trembling slightly, and as he advanced
he so far forgot himself as to look over his shoulder; and in so doing
he dropped a glass.
“Good heavens, Corton!” shouted his mistress angrily. “What are you up
to? What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry, madam.” His teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not quite
myself to-night, madam.”
“So it seems,” answered the lady coldly, as he put down the tray.
Then she wondered whether she was awake or dreaming. For she saw that
honourable servitor make, not for the door, but for the window towards
the lawn, as though he would leave by that strange exit. With a hasty
glance which satisfied her that her guests were occupied, she followed
him and whispered quickly:
“What _are_ you doing, Corton?”
“If you please, madam,” said the unfortunate man, glancing with horror
at the door through which he had just come, “I’d rather not go back by
the passage.”
“Not go back by the passage!” whispered Mrs. Maple angrily and looking
him up and down. “Are you mad?”
“No, madam. No, not mad. Not mad.” He passed his hand over his
forehead—what great powers are revealed in man sometimes, quite late in
life! Corton was now in the very spirit of the romances upon which he
was modelling himself. “No, madam,” he said again, most tragically, and
with a tremor in his voice, “I am not mad.”
“Corton,” said Mrs. Maple, “you’re a disgrace. You’re drunk.”
His only reply was to shake his head sadly.
“It’s worse in the passage, madam. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t go back
by the passage.”
“Don’t go on repeating that like a parrot!” said Hilda Maple
passionately in the same low tones. Her guests might notice at any
moment what was going on. She took the bull by the horns and opened
the window herself, for she saw that if she did not act quickly there
would be a scene. “Then go back across the lawn, you fool!” she barked
at him aside; and then loudly and gaily, turning round, she added, to
the company, “You don’t mind my opening the window, do you? It’s an
astonishingly hot and still night for the time of year. Do you mind the
fresh air?”
Her guests assured Hilda Maple that they did not mind the air. But Lord
Hellup, who had watched the end of the little business, said the wrong
thing. He said it directly to his hostess, and what he said was:
“That guy’s rattled!”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Mrs. Maple. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s nearly
always like that about eleven o’clock.”
Lord Hellup was highly interested.
“Do say? Mebbe that’s because he doesn’t drink enough. When that kind
go dry between whiles their nerves just fray to old collars.”
It was getting worse and worse. The others were beginning to take
notice, and Lord Hambourne did not fail to come up true to type. He
butted in.
“In-inhib-b-b-ition,” he began, “with its ac-c-c-ompanying
c-c-c-comp-compl——” But Mrs. Maple cut him short savagely.
“Don’t, Lord Hambourne! Don’t say any more about it! It’s not that.
It’s religion. He says long prayers after dinner.”
“That’s not natural—not in a butler,” was Lord Hellup’s comment.
But Lord Hellup had seen few.
“P-p-p-raying,” broke in the Professor in his best donnish manner, “is
a w-w-well-known s-s-s-ymptom of re-e-e-ligious mania.”
“Maybe,” suggested Lord Hellup, “he struck that guy without a head.”
“There’s no such thing,” Aunt Hilda interrupted abruptly.
This was too much for Lady de Beaurivage.
“Why, Ilda,” she said, with real astonishment, “you told Bruvvage and
all of us yourself, and it’s part of the interest of the plice an’ all!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said her hostess. “I told you the story—the
legend. Many old houses have them—surely you know that. There’s nothing
really.”
“In this particular c-c-c-ase,” broke in the unfortunate Hambourne
again, “what with the d-d-dog, it may be suggestion. It’s a kind of
h-h-hyp....” He swallowed after that syllable, tried it again and
added, “nosis.”
Lord Hellup remarked that if it was anything about the hip, he knew a
bone setter in Park Lane.... Mrs. Maple in despair tried to put an end
to it all by saying, “No, no, no. Lord Hambourne means hypnotic, or
something of that sort. Don’t you, Lord Hambourne?”
And Lord Hambourne comforted her by quacking out: “Quate, quate.”
It looked as though the trouble was over; but she had had a bad time.
The telephone bell rang; John Maple took up the receiver and answered
it. He turned to his aunt.
“It’s from the stables, Aunt Hilda. They want you.”
“Want me?” said Mrs. Maple incredulously. “What can they want from the
stables at this hour of the night?” She took up the machine.
“Yes?... Oh, what nonsense!... Yes? Well, they often do get restless
these hot nights.... What! Corton? Corton’s got nothing to do with
it. Don’t listen to a _word_ Corton says.... What’s that? The new
mare’s frantic? Well, go and pat her. What?... Don’t be a coward. Go
and pat her on the neck. Pat her on the crupper. Pat her anywhere....
Are you there? Are you _there_? (She tapped her foot in her agony.)
ARE YOU THERE? Hullo, why did you go away?... Good, she’s quieter, is
she? Well, don’t bother me any more. Get hold of Alphonse. There’s no
nonsense about _him_,” she added, looking up at her guests. “He’s a
Communist, you know, and knows all about machinery, so he won’t believe
in any of that rubbish. He’ll be a good tonic to those idiots.”
Again she hoped that she had stopped the rot. But Lord Hambourne failed
not.
“It’s all d-d-d-eeply interesting,” the academic ass began. “It’s
f-f-f-ascinating. Animals receive sub-sub-sub-liminal m-m-m-essages.
And m-m-y c-c-colleague Pro-pro-fessor J-J-onah has sh-shown that while
m-m-motors are im-p-pervious the equidæ....” But just at that moment
the air was pierced by a very genuine shriek, and it came from Isabeau.
She was pointing at the darkness.
“Oh! Oh, dear! Something went by the window!”
“Mercy!” cried the sympathetic Lady Mere de Beaurivage. “I saw it too!”
Mrs. Maple’s patience was nearly exhausted.
“My dear Amathea—Isabeau dear, go back. Anyone in the household might
be passing.”
But, alas! her words were even truer than she knew; for a troop was
upon them. Coming into the shaft of light which streamed from the
window on to the lawn was Corton, and behind that Captain the whole
force of the Offices, and as Corton appeared respectfully at the head
of his regiment, full in the window behind him could be seen the ample
form of the cook, Mrs. Fry, and Betsy Broom, and the housemaids and the
groom, the boy, the footman and all. Only Alphonse was missing.
Corton, after a sepulchral but respectful cough, and begging leave to
enter, brought them in.
“My colleague, madam, Mrs. Fry ... and my other colleagues, and the
under-servants, and the maid Broom, madam, insisted upon seeing you
... and I thought it better to accompany them. They would not go by
_that_”—and he waved his hand towards the passage.
“Go back at once ...” Mrs. Maple had begun, “and I’ll come out to you
...” when Mrs. Fry gave tongue in her turn.
“I can’t a-bear it no more, ma’am, no, that I can’t! No, not if it was
the Queen herself, so there!”
“Really, Mrs. Fry!” commanded Mrs. Maple. But her command had no effect.
“No,” continued Mrs. Fry, in rising tones, “not if it was ’er sacred
Majesty Queen Victoria herself come back to life. I can’t a-bear it.”
“Oo—oo—ooo!” moaned the maid Broom—and Mrs. Fry made bold to comfort
her.
“And this poor child, ma’am. She feels it like the others. I done my
best to comfort ’em. I feel like a mother to ’em all, I do, but,” and
here she lowered her voice to a painful whisper and stepped forward,
“wot’s in this ’ouse to-night, ma’am, ain’t flesh and blood.”
“You’re a pack of fools!” shouted Mrs. Maple, beside herself. But
Corton went on gravely:
“The murder, madam, perpetrated under these ancient roof trees.” And he
pointed to the antique beam. “Under the reign of the Virgin Queen—it
was perpetrated this very night, madam. I have observed the anniversary
religiously for thirty years—since I was knife boy, madam. And now the
Unquiet Spirit will not rest.”
“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry proudly, by way of chorus, “has the whole
story like a book, ma’am.”
“The blood, ma’am,” continued Corton courageously, while the sobs of
the women behind him increased, and poor Bo put her fingers into her
ears, “the blood flowed down the stairs from under the door of the Blue
Room ... Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s room, madam.”
But Mrs. Maple was resolved to put an end to it all.
“Look here, all of you, it’s sheer bunkum, and dangerous at that.
If you want to sit up all night, I can’t prevent you. Go back across
the lawn, the whole lot of you, and I’ll come with you. And you,
Corton”—she turned to him—“I mean to have an explanation from you.” And
with that she drove the herd before her, back through the night. It is
just to add that her presence was a comfort to them—but not to Corton.
The guests looked at each other in silence: Lord Hambourne abominably
interested, Lord Hellup discreetly amused, Isabeau shrinking as though
worse were to come, and poor Lady de Beaurivage shaken almost as her
husband had been. Not one had yet spoken. Mrs. Maple’s voice could be
heard far off beyond the lawn in a last word with Corton as she turned
back to the house. She re-crossed the lawn, she entered the room.
Even as she did so there banged on the floor above a fearful crash as
of a heavy body falling, and with it a loud and horrible cry. Then dead
silence.
Amathea Lady de Beaurivage dashed to the door with an inspired shriek:
“It’s my George!”
The others followed her, and in a rapid, thrusting group they all
rushed through the hall and up the stairs.
CHAPTER XIV
Upstairs in his bedroom that poor old lonely man—lonely save for his
wife (and how grateful he was for her having treated him as she just
had done, and for her last look at him as he painfully climbed the
stairs)—sat waiting to recover from the ascent. Stairs tried him a
great deal now ... his health was breaking ... he thought. Perhaps
that’s what accounted for what he had been feeling ... what he thought
he had been hearing; and he huddled his shoulders together. He wouldn’t
undress at once—he would rest awhile ... rest awhile ... rest awhile.
He would get steadier then.
A knock somewhere?... It might have been downstairs, but in his
condition he thought it was at his own door, and it made him jump.
“Come in!” he said.
There was no reply; and he went a little white. He steadied himself and