The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
disappoint my mother. But there was no conveyance to be had, and I could
go no farther afoot that night. My weariness fairly forced me to stop at
the inn.
I may say for myself that I am a temperate man. My supper simply consisted
of some rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread, and a pint of ale. I
did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up with
the landlord, talking about my bad prospects and my long run of ill-luck,
and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horse-flesh and racing.
Nothing was said, either by myself, my host, or the few laborers who
strayed into the tap-room, which could, in the slightest degree, excite
my mind, or set my fancy--which is only a small fancy at the best of
times--playing tricks with my common sense.
At a little after eleven the house was closed. I went round with the
landlord, and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being
secured. I noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars, and
iron-sheathed shutters.
"You see, we are rather lonely here," said the landlord. "We never have
had any attempts to break in yet, but it's always as well to be on the
safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house.
My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant girl takes after her
missuses. Another glass of ale, before you turn in?--No!--Well, how such a
sober man as you comes to be out of a place is more than I can understand
for one.--Here's where you're to sleep. You're the only lodger to-night,
and I think you'll say my missus has done her best to make you
comfortable. You're quite sure you won't have another glass of ale?--Very
well. Good night."
It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as we went upstairs to
the bedroom. The window looked out on the wood at the back of the house.
I locked my door, set my candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got
me ready for bed. The bleak wind was still blowing, and the solemn,
surging moan of it in the wood was very dreary to hear through the night
silence. Feeling strangely wakeful, I resolved to keep the candle alight
until I began to grow sleepy. The truth is, I was not quite myself. I was
depressed in mind by my disappointment of the morning; and I was worn out
in body by my long walk. Between the two, I own I couldn't face the
prospect of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal moan of
the wind in the wood.
Sleep stole on me before I was aware of it; my eyes closed, and I fell off
to rest, without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.
The next thing that I remember was a faint shivering that ran through me
from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at my heart, such as I had
never felt before. The shivering only disturbed my slumbers--the pain woke
me instantly. In one moment I passed from a state of sleep to a state of
wakefulness--my eyes wide open--my mind clear on a sudden as if by a
miracle. The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow,
but the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light was, for the
moment, fair and full.
Between the foot of the bed and the closet door, I saw a person in my
room. The person was a woman, standing looking at me, with a knife in her
hand. It does no credit to my courage to confess it--but the truth _is_
the truth. I was struck speechless with terror. There I lay with my eyes
on the woman; there the woman stood (with the knife in her hand) with
_her_ eyes on _me_.
She said not a word as we stared each other in the face; but she moved
after a little--moved slowly toward the left-hand side of the bed.
The light fell full on her face. A fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen
hair, and light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. I noticed
these things and fixed them in my mind, before she was quite round at the
side of the bed. Without saying a word; without any change in the stony
stillness of her face; without any noise following her footfall, she came
closer and closer; stopped at the bed-head; and lifted the knife to stab
me. I laid my arm over my throat to save it; but, as I saw the blow
coming, I threw my hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked my
body over that way, just as the knife came down, like lightning, within a
hair's breadth of my shoulder.
My eyes fixed on her arm and her hand--she gave me time to look at them as
she slowly drew the knife out of the bed. A white, well-shaped arm, with a
pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin. A delicate lady's hand, with
a pink flush round the finger nails.
She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the
bed; she stopped there for a moment looking at me; then she came on
without saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of her
face; without any noise following her footfall--came on to the side of the
bed where I now lay.
Getting near me, she lifted the knife again, and I drew myself away to the
left side. She struck, as before right into the mattress, with a swift
downward action of her arm; and she missed me, as before; by a hair's
breadth. This time my eyes wandered from _her_ to the knife. It was like
the large clasp knives which laboring men use to cut their bread and bacon
with. Her delicate little fingers did not hide more than two thirds of the
handle; I noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the
blade was, and looking like new.
For the second time she drew the knife out of the bed, and suddenly hid it
away in the wide sleeve of her gown. That done, she stopped by the bedside
watching me. For an instant I saw her standing in that position--then the
wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket. The flame dwindled to
a little blue point, and the room grew dark.
A moment, or less, if possible, passed so--and then the wick flared up,
smokily, for the last time. My eyes were still looking for her over the
right-hand side of the bed when the last flash of light came. Look as I
might, I could see nothing. The woman with the knife was gone.
I began to get back to myself again. I could feel my heart beating; I
could hear the woeful moaning of the wind in the wood; I could leap up in
bed, and give the alarm before she escaped from the house. "Murder! Wake
up there! Murder!"
Nobody answered to the alarm. I rose and groped my way through the
darkness to the door of the room. By that way she must have got in. By
that way she must have gone out.
The door of the room was fast locked, exactly as I had left it on going to
bed! I looked at the window. Fast locked too!
Hearing a voice outside, I opened the door. There was the landlord, coming
toward me along the passage, with his burning candle in one hand, and his
gun in the other.
"What is it?" he says, looking at me in no very friendly way.
I could only answer in a whisper, "A woman, with a knife in her hand. In
my room. A fair, yellow-haired woman. She jabbed at me with the knife,
twice over."
He lifted his candle, and looked at me steadily from head to foot. "She
seems to have missed you--twice over."
"I dodged the knife as it came down. It struck the bed each time. Go in,
and see."
The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a
minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.
"The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn't a
mark in the bedclothes anywhere. What do you mean by coming into a man's
place and frightening his family out of their wits by a dream?"
A dream? The woman who had tried to stab me, not a living human being like
myself? I began to shake and shiver. The horrors got hold of me at the
bare thought of it.
"I'll leave the house," I said. "Better be out on the road in the rain and
dark, than back in that room, after what I've seen in it. Lend me the
light to get my clothes by, and tell me what I'm to pay."
The landlord led the way back with his light into the bedroom. "Pay?" says
he. "You'll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I
wouldn't have taken you in for all the money you've got about you, if I
had known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the
bed--where's the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window--is the lock
bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten yourself)--is it broke
in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!"
My eyes followed his hand as it pointed first to the bed--then to the
window--then to the door. There was no gainsaying it. The bed sheet was as
sound as on the day it was made. The window was fast. The door hung on its
hinges as steady as ever. I huddled my clothes on without speaking. We
went downstairs together. I looked at the clock in the bar-room. The time
was twenty minutes past two in the morning. I paid my bill, and the
landlord let me out. The rain had ceased; but the night was dark, and the
wind was bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the
doubt about the way home matter to _me_. My mind was away from all these
things. My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom. What had I seen
trying to murder me? The creature of a dream? Or that other creature from
the world beyond the grave, whom men call ghost? I could make nothing of
it as I walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by
midday--when I stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the
doorstep of home.
VI
My mother came out alone to welcome me back. There were no secrets between
us two. I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to you.
She kept silence till I had done. And then she put a question to me.
"What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?"
I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the
hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Allowing for the time consumed
in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that
I must have first seen the Woman at two o'clock in the morning. In other
words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my
birth.
My mother still kept silence. Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the
hand, and led me into the parlor. Her writing-desk was on the table by
the fireplace. She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her
side.
"My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me. Tell me
again what the Woman looked like. I want her to be as well known to both
of us, years hence, as she is now."
I obeyed; wondering what strange fancy might be working in her mind. I
spoke; and she wrote the words as they fell from my lips:
"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a
golden-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little,
lady's hands, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails."
"Did you notice how she was dressed, Francis?"
"No, mother."
"Did you notice the knife?"
"Yes. A large clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, as good as new."
My mother added the description of the knife. Also the year, month, day of
the week, and hour of the day when the Dream-Woman appeared to me at the
inn. That done, she locked up the paper in her desk.
"Not a word, Francis, to your aunt. Not a word to any living soul. Keep
your Dream a secret between you and me."
The weeks passed, and the months passed. My mother never returned to the
subject again. As for me, time, which wears out all things, wore out my
remembrance of the Dream. Little by little, the image of the Woman grew
dimmer and dimmer. Little by little, she faded out of my mind.
VII
The story of the warning is now told. Judge for yourself if it was a true
warning or a false, when you hear what happened to me on my next birthday.