Three John Silence Stories
Page 24
a bullet.Thus, he showed plainly his surprise that Dr. Silence had not comealone.
"My confidential secretary, Mr. Hubbard," the doctor said, introducingme, and the steady gaze and powerful shake of the hand I then receivedwere well calculated, I remember thinking, to drive home the impressionthat here was a man who was not to be trifled with, and whose perplexitymust spring from some very real and tangible cause. And, quiteobviously, he was relieved that we had come. His welcome wasunmistakably genuine.
He led us at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, thatopened out of the low-ceilinged hall. The Manor House gave theimpression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient,comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. And so it was. Only the heat ofthe place struck me as unnatural. This room with the blazing fire mayhave seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the nightair; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphereof the house, breathed a warmth that hardly belonged to well-filledgrates or the pipes of hot air and water. It was not the heat of thegreenhouse; it was an oppressive heat that somehow got into the head andmind. It stirred a curious sense of uneasiness in me, and I caughtmyself thinking of the sensation of warmth that had emanated from theletter in the train.
I heard him thanking Dr. Silence for having come; there was no preamble,and the exchange of civilities was of the briefest description.Evidently here was a man who, like my companion, loved action ratherthan talk. His manner was straightforward and direct. I saw him in aflash: puzzled, worried, harassed into a state of alarm by something hecould not comprehend; forced to deal with things he would have preferredto despise, yet facing it all with dogged seriousness and making noattempt to conceal that he felt secretly ashamed of his incompetence.
"So I cannot offer you much entertainment beyond that of my own company,and the queer business that has been going on here, and is still goingon," he said, with a slight inclination of the head towards me by way ofincluding me in his confidence.
"I think, Colonel Wragge," replied John Silence impressively, "that weshall none of us find the time hangs heavy. I gather we shall have ourhands full."
The two men looked at one another for the space of some seconds, andthere was an indefinable quality in their silence which for the firsttime made me admit a swift question into my mind; and I wondered alittle at my rashness in coming with so little reflection into a bigcase of this incalculable doctor. But no answer suggested itself, and towithdraw was, of course, inconceivable. The gates had closed behind menow, and the spirit of the adventure was already besieging my mind withits advance guard of a thousand little hopes and fears.
Explaining that he would wait till after dinner to discuss anythingserious, as no reference was ever made before his sister, he led the wayupstairs and showed us personally to our rooms; and it was just as I wasfinishing dressing that a knock came at my door and Dr. Silence entered.
He was always what is called a serious man, so that even in moments ofcomedy you felt he never lost sight of the profound gravity of life, butas he came across the room to me I caught the expression of his faceand understood in a flash that he was now in his most grave and earnestmood. He looked almost troubled. I stopped fumbling with my black tieand stared.
"It is serious," he said, speaking in a low voice, "more so even than Iimagined. Colonel Wragge's control over his thoughts concealed a greatdeal in my psychometrising of the letter. I looked in to warn you tokeep yourself well in hand--generally speaking."
"Haunted house?" I asked, conscious of a distinct shiver down my back.
But he smiled gravely at the question.
"Haunted House of Life more likely," he replied, and a look came intohis eyes which I had only seen there when a human soul was in the toilsand he was thick in the fight of rescue. He was stirred in the deeps.
"Colonel Wragge--or the sister?" I asked hurriedly, for the gong wassounding.
"Neither directly," he said from the door. "Something far older,something very, very remote indeed. This thing has to do with the ages,unless I am mistaken greatly, the ages on which the mists of memory havelong lain undisturbed."
He came across the floor very quickly with a finger on his lips, lookingat me with a peculiar searchingness of gaze.
"Are you aware yet of anything--odd here?" he asked in a whisper."Anything you cannot quite define, for instance. Tell me, Hubbard, for Iwant to know all your impressions. They may help me."
I shook my head, avoiding his gaze, for there was something in the eyesthat scared me a little. But he was so in earnest that I set my mindkeenly searching.
"Nothing yet," I replied truthfully, wishing I could confess to a realemotion; "nothing but the strange heat of the place."
He gave a little jump forward in my direction.
"The heat again, that's it!" he exclaimed, as though glad of mycorroboration. "And how would you describe it, perhaps?" he askedquickly, with a hand on the door knob.
"It doesn't seem like ordinary physical heat," I said, casting about inmy thoughts for a definition.
"More a mental heat," he interrupted, "a glowing of thought and desire,a sort of feverish warmth of the spirit. Isn't that it?"
I admitted that he had exactly described my sensations.
"Good!" he said, as he opened the door, and with an indescribablegesture that combined a warning to be ready with a sign of praise for mycorrect intuition, he was gone.
I hurried after him, and found the two men waiting for me in front ofthe fire.
"I ought to warn you," our host was saying as I came in, "that mysister, whom you will meet at dinner, is not aware of the real object ofyour visit. She is under the impression that we are interested in thesame line of study--folklore--and that your researches have led to myseeking acquaintance. She comes to dinner in her chair, you know. Itwill be a great pleasure to her to meet you both. We have few visitors."
So that on entering the dining-room we were prepared to find Miss Wraggealready at her place, seated in a sort of bath-chair. She was avivacious and charming old lady, with smiling expression and brighteyes, and she chatted all through dinner with unfailing spontaneity. Shehad that face, unlined and fresh, that some people carry through lifefrom the cradle to the grave; her smooth plump cheeks were all pink andwhite, and her hair, still dark, was divided into two glossy and sleekhalves on either side of a careful parting. She wore gold-rimmedglasses, and at her throat was a large scarab of green jasper that madea very handsome brooch.
Her brother and Dr. Silence talked little, so that most of theconversation was carried on between herself and me, and she told me agreat deal about the history of the old house, most of which I fear Ilistened to with but half an ear.
"And when Cromwell stayed here," she babbled on, "he occupied the veryrooms upstairs that used to be mine. But my brother thinks it safer forme to sleep on the ground floor now in case of fire."
And this sentence has stayed in my memory only because of the sudden wayher brother interrupted her and instantly led the conversation on toanother topic. The passing reference to fire seemed to have disturbedhim, and thenceforward he directed the talk himself.
It was difficult to believe that this lively and animated old lady,sitting beside me and taking so eager an interest in the affairs oflife, was practically, we understood, without the use of her lowerlimbs, and that her whole existence for years had been passed betweenthe sofa, the bed, and the bath-chair in which she chatted so naturallyat the dinner table. She made no allusion to her affliction until thedessert was reached, and then, touching a bell, she made us a wittylittle speech about leaving us "like time, on noiseless feet," and waswheeled out of the room by the butler and carried off to her apartmentsat the other end of the house.
And the rest of us were not long in following suit, for Dr. Silence andmyself were quite as eager to learn the nature of our errand as our hostwas to impart it to us. He led us down a long flagged passage to a roomat the very end of the house, a room provided with double doors, andwindows
, I saw, heavily shuttered. Books lined the walls on every side,and a large desk in the bow window was piled up with volumes, some open,some shut, some showing scraps of paper stuck between the leaves, andall smothered in a general cataract of untidy foolscap and loose-halfsheets.
"My study and workroom," explained Colonel Wragge, with a delightfultouch of innocent pride, as though he were a very serious scholar. Heplaced arm-chairs for us round the fire. "Here," he added significantly,"we shall be safe from interruption and can talk securely."
During dinner the manner of the doctor had been all that was natural andspontaneous, though it was impossible for me, knowing him as I did, notto be aware that he was subconsciously very keenly alert and alreadyreceiving upon the ultra-sensitive surface of his mind various and vividimpressions; and there