They return at evening A book of ghost stories
down to the servants’ hall I found Godson, sitting at the table, his
head in his hands. He looked up at me, and his face was haggard.
“‘I’m through!’ he said. ‘The ----’s mad, bloody mad’--he was never one
to swear as a rule, sir.
“‘What’s up?’ I asked, ‘where’s the car?’
“‘What’s up!’ he cried; ‘that ----’s up the pole! I tell you I’m
through. I’ll tell you what sort of a blasted, bloody lunatic he is!
When I met him at the Club I could see he’d been drinking, but he
_would_ drive coming home. I’ve never seen him wilder, we ought to have
been killed ten times. I was just beginning to think we’d get through
when we reached that switchback in the woods near Ollen. I should think
we touched 90 on the way down. As we reached the bottom I saw there was
someone standing at the side of the road half-way up the hill. Suddenly
he began braking hard and peering ahead. It was then I could see the
chap in the road was Black Jack. Just as we were drawing up to him
that dog of his bounded out into the road behind him. Then I felt the
car swing. He drove her straight at Black Jack, missed him by a foot,
and then swung back and caught the dog fair and square. The next thing
I knew was that I was lying on my ear in a field. Both front tyres had
gone, and we’d bust clean through a gate, bounced on the plough, and
then turned half over in a dew-pond.’
“‘Well, His Highness was out in a flash, and I followed him back to the
road. When we got there Black Jack was bending over the dog. When he
saw us he picked it up and walked towards us. Sir Ruddy Roger went to
meet him. Black Jack lifted his cap, and then held up the dog by the
back of his neck. Its face was all bloody and dusty and smashed up.
“‘Good evening, Sir Roger,’ said Black Jack. ‘Scottie’s dead all right,
you got him at last, you got him!’
“‘Get to hell from here, you poaching blackguard!’ cried the Guv’nor.
‘Certainly I’ve got one of you, and if ever you come on my land again
I’ll get you, too!’
“‘I was rather fond of Scottie,’ said Black Jack, ‘and knew all his
tricks. He’d got some funny tricks, too; don’t be too sure you’ve done
with him!’ Then suddenly his face went hard and fierce, and there were
tears in his eyes. He shoved the dog’s muzzle right into the Guv’nor’s
face and gave a funny little sharp whistle which seemed to scream in
one’s head, and he muttered something in some foreign language, gipsy,
I guess, and I got the idea that the dog was listening as if it was
alive again, and in a twinkling Jack and the dog had disappeared--into
the woods I suppose, but it was quick work.
“‘The Guv’nor never said a word, but started off to walk home, and here
we are, and the ruddy car can drown for all I care! I leave to-morrow.
He can get some other stiff to be killed with him. I’m through. Christ,
I’ve got a head!’
“‘You go to bed,’ I said, ‘I’ll get the car brought in in the morning.’
“He was as good as his word, sir; he left before lunch and I never saw
him again.
“The next afternoon I had to go down to the village, and at once I
noticed a change. Nobody from the Hall was ever much welcomed there,
but I had always been treated with civility, and some of them were
quite friendly. That day they looked at me out of the corners of their
eyes, and were short and abrupt in their manner. It made me feel very
uncomfortable, sir.”
“What had Sir Roger done to make himself so unpopular with the local
people?” asked Mr. Ponders.
“Well, sir, he was a harsh landlord, and never put himself out to
please. In this way he was very unlike his father. I think that’s what
they hated most about him.”
“I remember Fred Wallington,” said Mr. Ponders. “A genial, easy-going
old fox-hunter. Well, go on.”
“Of course I couldn’t get anything out of them, but they were behaving
so queerly that I sent one of the maids, who had a sweetheart working
in the local public-house, the Bee and Clover, to see if she could pick
up anything. When she got back she said that Joe had ‘been funny,’
and that she’d had to make a bit of a scene before she could get
anything out of him, and that he’d only mutter that Black Jack had said
something the night before. He’d come in for a drink and left almost
at once. When she asked what he’d said, he wouldn’t answer, but had
left her and gone home. She’d never seen him like that, she’d said.
So putting two and two together, sir, I made out that Black Jack had
made some sort of threat against the master which the local people
believed he would carry out, and so they wanted to have as little to
do with the Hall as possible. I thought the master seemed a bit uneasy
at dinner that night. Sometimes he’d seem to be listening to something,
and several times I noticed him giving sudden quick looks into a dark
corner there was between the door and the serving table. After dinner
he went out on to the lawn and walked in a stealthy sort of way over
towards the clump of big cedars.
“Well, my pantry window looked out that way, and I saw the master
suddenly come running back, and then I heard him slam the window of
the morning-room. When I took in the whisky and soda he was looking a
little queer, I thought. His face was flushed and his eyes were sort of
screwed up, sir, as if he wasn’t sure if he could see something or not.
“The next morning when I went to call him I found him wide awake--which
I never remembered him being before.
“‘Whose dog is that?’ he asked, as soon as I came in.
“‘What dog, sir?’ I asked.
“‘I don’t know,’ he answered shortly. ‘I was restless during the night,
and got up, and I saw it on the lawn. Find out whose it is and keep it
away. Tell whoever owns it I shall have it shot if I see it again.’
“‘Very good, sir,’ I said.
“I made some enquiries, but no one knew anything about it, and the new
keeper told me both his dogs had been sleeping in his kitchen from
eight o’clock on.
“The master was all right through the day, but as soon as dusk came on
he seemed worried and not himself. We were all a bit on edge, sir, for
it was then the Noise began.
“It was quite faint at first. Now, sir, I know I shall never be able
to explain what it was like, because the strange thing was that we
couldn’t really say we heard it, not through one’s ears, that is to
say. It was as if it was going on inside one’s head. Also it was as
much a shake as a noise; when it got worse it made everything in the
house--how would you call it, sir?”
“Vibrate?” suggested Mr. Ponders.
“Yes, sir, as for what sort of sound it was, it reminded one of what
Godson had said about Black Jack’s whistle, it seemed to scream in
one’s head. You know that high noise bats make, piercing, but so high
one can only just hear it. Well, sir, it was like that a thousand times
louder, and it never stopped from dusk till dawn for a second. It
seemed to cut us at the Hall from the rest of the world, close us in,
as it were. I can’t tell you, sir, how horrible it was at its worst,
but at first it was quite soft, though all the servants noticed it, and
kept going to the windows to look out, and wondering what it was.
“At dinner that night Sir Roger was very queer. He had just started on
the soup when I saw his eyes go to the dark corner I mentioned before,
sir. He never touched another mouthful of anything, but all the time
his eyes travelled round the room as if he was following something
about. Once or twice when he seemed to follow it right up to his side,
he half started from his chair, but he always had great self-control
of a sort, that is to say, he hated to make any kind of exhibition of
himself before other people, sir, and he held himself in, though I
could see his knuckles go white as he hung on to the chair. He got up
half-way through dinner and went back to the morning-room. When I took
in his coffee he was peeping through the blind on to the lawn.
“When I came in he turned round rather slowly and said, ‘You know that
dog I spoke to you about. It’s here again. Take the rook-rifle and see
if you can find it. I thought I heard it barking just now in Grey
Fallow.’ (Grey Fallow, sir, is a big copse in the Park, up the hill a
bit, about three hundred yards from the wild-rose hedge which cuts the
Park off from the lawn.)
“‘There,’ he said, ‘can’t you hear it?’
“‘I’ll see if I can find it, sir,’ I said, and got the rifle out, for I
thought it would upset the master if I said I couldn’t hear anything.
By the time I’d reached the rose-hedge I felt I wanted to turn back,
but I went through the gate up towards Grey Fallow. There was just
a little moon coming through the clouds. Suddenly I felt I couldn’t
go any further. It was cowardice, I expect, sir, but there were two
shadows which seemed to be coming from something standing, and another
one crouching just inside the wood, which were more than I could face
up to, sir. And then I found myself walking through the open window
into the morning-room.
“‘Well?’ asked the master.
“‘I couldn’t see anything, sir.’
“‘Damn you,’ he said, ‘I can hear it now; give me the rifle and pour me
out a whisky and soda!’
“Some time later I was working in the pantry when I heard a shot. I
looked out, but at first I couldn’t see anything. Then the moon came
through, and I picked out the master crouching down beside the big
cedar. ‘What’s he up to?’ I wondered, and it was then for the first
time I felt a sinking, creepy feeling, sir, as if I’d give anything to
be up in London with people and lights. But I was fond of the master,
sir, and I felt it was up to me to look after him, and I made up my
mind to stick it out.
“When I went back to the morning-room to ask about orders for the next
day he was on his knees peering through the blind. I went out and
knocked loudly, and he was sitting in his chair when I came in again,
but his left hand was twitching quickly. I was going to take the rifle
out to be cleaned, but he told me to leave it there till the morning.
“It was from then, sir, that the bad time really began. It was
all right till dusk came, and the master was quite boisterous and
good-humoured during the day, but as soon as the sun was down, and that
sound began, and the master started to be funny, and all the maids got
agitated and hysterical, it was as much as I could stand.
“When I say the master started to be funny, I mean that he got silent
and watchful and absorbed in something. From then on he ate nothing
at dinner, though he usually went in and sat down for a time. On the
third night, after he had been staring at the dark corner and round
the room for a time, he suddenly jumped to his feet and seemed to fling
something from him. His face was working, sir, and he pointed his hand
to the door. ‘Turn that dog out! Turn that dog out!’ he shouted.
“I was badly taken aback, but I pretended to drive something out of
the door. This finished the footman, who ran away the next morning. I
wasn’t sorry, as I thought I’d better have the master to myself. It
was from then on I had to pretend all the time when I was with him at
night, for there was no doubt by now, sir, that he was seeing some dog
most of the time, and he was scared of it. I had to sit with him in the
evening with a whip in my hand and let fly in the direction he pointed
to. Then he made me come and sleep in the room next to his. The sound
got steadily worse and became something shocking, sir, and the maids
went one by one. It seemed to drive them crazy, and they’d sit with
their hands to their ears crying. I replaced them at first and offered
every kind of high wages, but it was no good, they wouldn’t stay, and
very soon Mrs. Miles and I were left alone. She was a brave woman, sir,
she said she’d stick till she died, if necessary.”
“Did Sir Roger hear this sound?” asked Mr. Ponders.