They return at evening A book of ghost stories
“Not as we did, sir, but he was always hearing barking and snarling and
something scratching at the door. He hated _that_ worst of all. Time
after time he’d tell me through the tube from his room to mine that
there was a dog at his door. I always got up, but, of course, there was
nothing there.
“I expect you wonder, sir, why I didn’t take it for granted it was
D.T.s--delirium tremens I should have said, sir, and fetched a doctor,
and I often thought of it, but the master was not drinking so heavily
now as before the trouble began. Then again the doctor would have
probably come during the day, and found the master almost himself.
Besides, I don’t believe he would have seen a doctor, he always hated
and despised them.”
“You didn’t think it _was_ drink, then?” he asked.
“I didn’t know what to think. You see, sir, there was that Sound.”
“I wonder you could stick it.”
“Well, sir, I did long to go, but if Mrs. Miles could put up with it
I could, and I felt I had to stand by the master in the bad time. I
was quite attached to him, sir, and I shouldn’t have felt right about
leaving him in the lurch. I tried to get him to go up to London and
stay at the club, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“There began to be a lot of talk in the neighbourhood, for the maids
said things before they left, and all the villagers and local people
round were certain it had something to do with Black Jack. He had never
been seen since that night his dog was killed, but he was believed to
be somewhere about. It was a funny thing the local people had a curious
knowledge when he was about, and they were always right.
“The master got worse and worse. He couldn’t seem to stay in the house
after dark unless I was with him. He’d be out all night in the grounds,
and I’d sometimes catch a sight of him crouching and hiding, and
sometimes he’d come running back as if something was after him. He took
to sleeping heavily during the day, but he had bad dreams then, and he
said some funny things in his sleep.
“I felt he must be getting near the end of his tether.
“When the Judge came down I never for a moment believed he would
attempt to entertain him, but, to my dismay, sir, he insisted, and
asked thirty people to meet him. Of course, I had to get a lot of help
down from London. The only good thing about it was, I felt, that some
of the gentlemen might see what a state he was in and help me to do
something for it.
“It was a terrible evening. The Sound was wicked that night. The hired
chaps got the wind up, sir, as soon as it began, and kept asking what
the hell it was, and several of them tried to slip away. It made all
the guests nervous and uneasy.
“The master made an effort for a time; it was a very brave effort, sir,
but after a time his eyes went to the corner by the door, and suddenly
he gave a sharp movement and then his eyes flitted about as if he was
following something. Twice he half rose from his chair as if something
was getting at him. Of course, the guests noticed it and, although
they made a pretence of talking, I could see them watching the master.
The hired men lost their heads and were dropping plates and waiting
shockingly. The Noise got so bad that everything was quivering and
shaking, and I could see the guests were beginning to get horrified and
very uneasy. I felt something was going to happen. Suddenly the master
jumped to his feet and began flinging all his glasses and anything he
could pick up from the table into the dark corner, shouting, ‘Go! go!
go! Drive it out, I tell you! Drive it out!’ and then he fell in a heap
on the floor. Some of the gentlemen helped me to carry him up to his
room, and then they left, and glad to go they were. One of them, Sir
Marcus O’Reilly, took me aside, and asked if this sort of thing had
been going on long. I said for just three weeks. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s
delirium tremens, and a bad case. I’ll do something about it in the
morning. He can’t go on like this.’
“Would you believe it, sir, the master pulled round about midnight and
spent the rest of the night out in the Park!”
“Did _you_ ever see anything unnatural, except those shadows, I mean?”
asked Mr. Ponders.
Mr. Millin paused. “There was just something I did see--marks very
like those made by the muddy paws of some animals outside the master’s
bedroom door several times, and one time, when Sir Roger woke me up and
told me the dog was on his bed, there were some marks on the blanket.
“There was one funny little thing. The master was fond of cats,
and kept six of them. Well, as soon as the Sound began, they all
disappeared and were never seen again, and the keeper told me his dog
wouldn’t go near the hall after dusk. But I don’t _think_ I ever saw
anything, though the master made it all seem so real that it was
enough to make anyone see things.
“Well, sir, the next night it happened--I had managed to get to sleep
about two o’clock--the master was out as usual. Suddenly I was awakened
by hearing him rushing down the passage. I heard his door slam and
then he began shouting, ‘Get down! Down, you brute! Down! Down! Down!’
and then I heard everything in the room begin crashing about. Just as
I reached my door there was a terrible screaming and choking kind of
cry--the most awful sound I ever heard, sir.
“I rushed to his room and turned on the light. He was lying across
the bed, his throat torn open and the blood pouring out. He was dead
already. As I lifted him and tried to staunch the blood I noticed
something about his eyes. There was something sort of photographed in
them.”
“What?” asked Mr. Ponders sharply.
“Well, sir, it might have been the head of a dog smashed up and
bleeding.”
“When I went to pull down the blinds, my eye was caught by a shadow
coming out from the big cedar. It was like the one I had seen in Grey
Fallow. And it almost seemed as if I saw another shadow, which was
leaping and bounding towards it--and then they both disappeared. And
then I noticed the Sound had stopped.
“I got the doctor and the police as soon as I could. The doctor was
very puzzled. He said he’d never seen a wound like it, and couldn’t
imagine how it had been caused.
“Next day the London police came down, and, of course, it began to be
a bit unpleasant for me, being so near in the next room like that, and
no one else about. They cross-examined me for a long time. All I could
say was that the master had been queer for a long time and taken to
roaming in the grounds at night, that I had been woken up by hearing
him scream and had rushed in to find what I have described, sir. But it
sounded weak and fishy. The Inspector heard something in the village
about Black Jack, and tried his best to find him, but he was never seen
again. The inquest was adjourned several times, and I think everyone
expected me to be arrested, but when the doctor had given his evidence
it seemed to me that everyone in the Court felt there was something
that couldn’t be explained about the business, and the verdict was
‘Murder by a person or persons unknown.’ After that the police left
me alone, but I suppose most people still believe I did it. And then
I came up to London and saw Sir Leonard. I’ve never been able to get
another place. As soon as they hear I was with Sir Roger they turn me
down.
“Well, that’s my story, sir, and it’s the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, though I know how it must sound.”
“Did you ever think of telling the whole truth and nothing but the
truth to the police?” asked Mr. Ponders.
“They wouldn’t have stood for it, sir. I’m sure they wouldn’t.”
“Well, Mr. Millin,” said Mr. Ponders smiling, “my brother has praised
you more than I have known him praise many people, but even he never
suggested you had the imagination to invent _that_ story. Do you know
why--amongst other reasons--I believe every word of it? It’s because
I’ve heard it before.”
“Heard it before, sir!”
“Well, almost. Do you see that black and red book on the shelf just
behind you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that contains an account of a very, very similar happening in
the year 1795 in this county, not ten miles away. It is called ‘A True
Account of the Curious Events connected with the death of Mr. Arthur
Pitts.’ You shall read it when you are installed here. By the way, how
soon can you come?”
Mr. Millin’s eyes were very bright as he answered, “Any time which will
suit you, sir.”
“HE COMETH AND HE PASSETH BY!”
“HE COMETH AND HE PASSETH BY!”
Edward Bellamy sat down at his desk, untied the ribbon round a
formidable bundle of papers, yawned and looked out of the window.
On that glistening evening the prospect from Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s
Inn, was restful and soothing. Just below the motor mowing-machine
placidly “chug-chugged” as it clipped the finest turf in London.
The muted murmurs from Kingsway and Holborn roamed in placidly. One
sleepy pigeon was scratching its poll and ruffling its feathers in
a tree opposite, two others--one coyly fleeing, the other doggedly
in pursuit--strutted the greensward. “A curious rite of courtship,”
thought Bellamy, “but they seem to enjoy it; more than I enjoy the job
of reading this brief!”
Had these infatuated fowls gazed back at Mr. Bellamy they would have
seen a pair of resolute and trustworthy eyes dominating a resolute,
nondescript face, one that gave an indisputable impression of
kindliness, candour and mental alacrity. No woman had etched lines upon
it, nor were those deepening furrows ploughed by the higher exercise of
the imagination marked thereon.
By his thirty-ninth birthday he had raised himself to the unchallenged
position of the most brilliant junior at the Criminal Bar, though
that is, perhaps, too flashy an epithet to describe that combination
of inflexible integrity, impeccable common sense, perfect health
and tireless industry which was Edward Bellamy. A modest person, he
attributed his success entirely to that “perfect health,” a view not
lightly to be challenged by those who spend many of their days in those
Black Holes of controversy, the Law Courts of London. And he had spent
nine out of the last fourteen days therein. But the result had been a
signal triumph, for the Court of Criminal Appeal had taken _his_ view
of Mr. James Stock’s motives, and had substituted ten years’ penal
servitude for a six-foot drop. And he was very weary--and yet here was
this monstrous bundle of papers! He had just succeeded in screwing his
determination to the sticking point when his telephone bell rang.
He picked up the receiver languidly, and then his face lightened.
“I know that voice. How are you, my dear Philip? Why, what’s the
matter? Yes, I’m doing nothing. Delighted! Brooks’s at eight o’clock.
Right you are!”
So Philip had not forgotten his existence. He had begun to wonder.
His mind wandered back over his curious friendship with Franton. It
had begun on the first morning of their first term at Univ., when
they had both been strolling nervously about the quad. That it ever
had begun was the most surprising thing about it, for superficially
they had nothing in common. Philip, the best bat at Eton, almost too
decorative, with a personal charm most people found irresistible, the
heir to great possessions. He, the crude product of an obscure Grammar
School, destined to live precariously on his scholarships, gauche, shy,
taciturn. In the ordinary way they would have graduated to different
worlds, for the economic factor alone would have kept their paths all
through their lives at Oxford inexorably apart. They would have had
little more in common with each other than they had with their scouts.
And yet they had spent a good part of almost every day together during
term time, and during every vacation he had spent some time at Franton