“I’m not going to stay here!” he muttered. “I’m all right—just a bit hot—but all right. I’m going down again!”
He sat up. The outlines wobbled. He turned the sheets back. The sheets wobbled, as did the hand that turned them. He put a foot out of bed.
Somehow or other he left the bed, and somehow or other he managed to crawl half-way to the door. Then he stopped, and space rushed at him. He tried to grip supports that were not there. The floor rose. He found himself flat upon it. Somehow or other, he crawled back to bed....
“What made you so late?” asked his aunt.
They were riding from the station to her house on a couple of elephants.
“The snow,” answered Thomson.
“People have always got excuses when they’re not kind to me,” retorted his aunt.
“But it really was the snow,” replied Thomson. “The train got held up.”
“There’s been no snow here. Look, it’s sunny. I don’t leave any money to people who aren’t kind to me.”
“You don’t think I visit you because of your money, do you?”
“Of course, that’s the reason. It’s everybody’s reason. You think I don’t know what’s going on in your mind all the time, but I do. You’re never really interested in me, and you’re scared stiff that I’ll find it out, well, I have found it out, and now you shan’t have anything. I shall leave it all to my elephants.”
They reached the house and dismounted. The elephants went into two large kennels. As his aunt took a big key from her pocket she said:
“I was going to give you twenty thousand pounds for Christmas, but now you shall only have a tie. You could have married on twenty thousand pounds. Do you know how late you are? A week. It’s next year. What’ll they say to you at the office?”
She opened the door, and he walked into his office. His aunt turned into his boss, who scowled at him.
“What made you so late?” demanded his boss.
“The snow, sir,” answered Thomson.
“Well, don’t let it happen again,” snapped his boss. “If it does, you’ll be sacked. The auditors are coming. Suppose you haven’t got your books done before they come? What’ll happen? They’ll murder us all.”
Thomson walked to his desk. It was a kitchen table. He opened the drawer in which he kept the bread-knife for sharpening his pencil. There was no bread-knife.
“There you are!” shouted his boss behind him. “The auditors have taken it! Hurry!”
A big pile of books was on the table. He had to get through them all, otherwise he would receive the bread-knife in his back. He opened the first one, and began adding figures: “Seven, nine, sixteen, twenty-three, four, eight, thirty-two, forty-one——” But when he wanted to jot down the total, he found that his pencil had no point! And the auditors had his bread-knife!
He ran round the room, trying to find another pencil. He searched everywhere. In cups, tea-pots, railway carriages, elephant-kennels. He must find a pencil before the auditors came! Returning at last to the kitchen table, he dipped his finger desperately in a bottle of ink, and tried to write the total by using his nail as a nib. The result was a blot. The blot grew larger and larger, till it covered the whole sheet. Bathed in perspiration—the room was like an oven—he tore the page out and threw it into a waste-paper basket.
“I’ll be all right,” he thought, “so long as they don’t look in the waste-paper basket.”
Then the door opened. He kept very still. He knew it was an auditor, and he did not want to be seen. He had not written down the total yet. The figures were swimming before his hot eyes. If only the auditor would go—give him just a little more time—he was sure he could do it.
But the auditor did not go. He was an old man, and he was creeping round the room. He was getting nearer and nearer to the waste-paper basket. Thomson dared not look at him, but he heard him dive down, and he knew the withered hand had taken the paper out of the waste-paper basket.
“He’s found it,” gasped Thomson. “Now for the bread-knife. Well, anyhow, I won’t need my aunt’s money now.”
The old man left the waste-paper basket, and bent over Thomson. It was Mr. Maltby, but Thomson did not know that. Everything went black.
The blackness dissolved. Now another face was peering at him. It was a wonderful face, a face he had known years ago, when life was smiling. Again Thomson did not know it was Lydia’s face. The face melted away while he strove to retain it. It melted into the blackness from which it had come, and he took a long journey through a dark tunnel trying to find it again. The tunnel was dotted with little specks of white. Flying, whirling, blinding, choking. He ran fast. He stopped running. Somewhere in that whirling confusion a person had screamed....
Now he ran again. He ran back to the table and the ledgers. The pile had grown a mile in height, but as he looked upwards, becoming smaller and smaller as the pile grew taller and taller, he made a tremendous effort to escape from the dark world of oppressions that was trying to stamp him out. He knew there was something that could save him—one thing—if only he could remember it. What was it? What was it? What was it? If the kitchen fire with the boiling kettle had not been quite so hot, he could have thought of it at once. What was it?
Then, suddenly, he found it. He was looking in the right direction. Far, far above the tall pile of ledgers was a little moving dot. A tiny light, like a star skimming through the black sky. An aeroplane.
He rose. Bedclothes sprayed from him. He became entangled in them, escaped from them, fled from their retaining grasp, and knocked over a small table. He had found his star, and he must follow it, because he knew what would happen when it crashed. She would be in it—she who had worn a thousand different faces, but whose heart was always the same. She was up there in that swiftly moving, swiftly falling star. And when she crashed (she would not be hurt—she never was) he would be on the spot to help her from the burning aeroplane, and to carry her to a cottage, and to receive her thanks, and her understanding, and the oblivion she always brought....
“Gently with him,” said Mr. Maltby, from the dining-room doorway. “I think we’d better get him to the settee in the drawing-room for the moment. And let Miss Carrington know.”
CHAPTER XVII
REFLECTIONS OF THE PAST
BUT Lydia did not need telling; she already knew. After finding Thomson’s bedroom empty, she had returned to the top of the stairs just as the delirious man had crumpled into David’s arms at the bottom, and now she came flying down. “It’s a miracle only one of us is off his head!” she gasped, half-hysterically. “I’m not guaranteeing how much longer I’ll last!”
Fortunately Thomson gave them no trouble. His babbling ceased, and they quickly got him to his new quarters on the drawing-room couch. The bedclothes with which he had wrestled were brought down, and Lydia placed them over him again. But when it was suggested that he should not be left alone and that she should act as night nurse, she hesitated.
“I’m game to do whatever’s best,” she said, “but can I be spared for the job? I’ve got some one else to look after, you know—Miss Noyes.”
“She is nervous upstairs?” queried Mr. Maltby.
“Who wouldn’t be?” she answered. “I’ve had to get her out of bed, too!”
“Why’s that?” exclaimed David in surprise.
“Don’t ask me, my dear! She’s the one to tell you. My own explanation would just be the bald one that the bed is haunted.”
“Eh? Haunted?” cried Mr. Hopkins.
“Yes, haunted,” responded Lydia. “The bed gives her strange feelings and pains in her stomach, so I’ve stuck her in an arm-chair. What’s going to be the next? Ours is a nice house, ours is!”
Mr. Maltby looked thoughtful. They were standing in the hall, and his eyes moved towards the watchful old gentleman on the wall over the fireplace. David received a queer impression that a live old man was asking a mute question of a dead one.
“What is she doing now?” Mr. Mal
tby inquired.
“Waiting for me,” answered Lydia.
“Then you’d better go up to her.”
“And what are you going to do? About him?” She nodded towards the drawing-room door, which was ajar. “And—other things?”
“I’m going to see about the other things,” replied David grimly.
“You’re not going out?”
“Got to. If I can. Just a little way.”
“Expect you’re right, but for God’s sake be careful!”
“Don’t worry.”
“Better wait until we know how Miss Noyes is,” advised Mr. Maltby, and added as Lydia turned to mount the stairs: “Is it only the bed?”
“You mean, that’s—worrying her?”
“Yes.”
“She hasn’t mentioned anything else.”
“Nothing about the room itself?”
“No. But——”
“What?”
“She’s a funny little thing. All nerves and no admission. She doesn’t admit her nerves till you drag things out of her. I had to drag this.”
“Yes—she’s sensitive. I wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to have her down here?”
“Much better,” agreed Mr. Hopkins, “if we’re going to sit up all night.”
“Oh, then you don’t think of returning to your own room?” asked Mr. Maltby dryly.
“Eh? Well, the way things are working out, it might be a good idea if we all stick together. More companionable, you know. Knowing where we all are.”
“Well, see how Miss Noyes feels about it, will you, Miss Carrington?” said Mr. Maltby.
“I’ll come up and lend a hand if she wants to return to the happy family,” added David.
“Right, I’ll tell her,” replied Lydia. “But she may not need your help this time, her foot’s improving.”
She vanished up the stairs.
“Interesting about that bed,” murmured Mr. Maltby.
David moved to the drawing-room door and poked his head in. Thomson was lying quietly on the couch, his form flickering in the firelight. None of the fires had been allowed to die down. They were the warm spots in a house of chills.
“Is he all right?” asked Mr. Hopkins, as David turned back to the hall.
“O.K.,” replied David.
“We owe him one for the shock he gave us,” said Mr. Hopkins. “What did he mean about that crash?”
“A delirious person never means anything,” returned David.
“On the contrary, Mr. Carrington, a delirious man always means something,” remarked Mr. Maltby, “but the meaning is usually obscure. Nothing in existence is without a meaning, or a result. If you dream that you are punting on the Amazon with a toothpick, the dream will have both a reason and a consequence, though you may never become conscious of either.”
“The one thing I have learned in this house, Mr. Maltby,” answered David, “is never to argue with you. Hallo, here comes Lydia. Well, what news from the first floor front? Reinforcements wanted?”
“Yes, please,” responded Lydia from the stairs. “We held a lightning conference, and we decided to retreat to the base!”
David found Jessie standing on one foot by her chair. She was trying to prove how much better she was, and she declared that she no longer needed to be carried. He waved her objections aside, however, lifted her small weight in his arms, and carried her down to the dining-room, depositing her in a chair near the door.
“What’s the matter?” he exclaimed suddenly.
She appeared on the verge of collapse.
“I—I don’t know!” she gasped. “Please! Somewhere else!”
Without understanding he complied quickly, helping her to another chair, and waiting for the explanation that did not come. She just sat and panted.
“Good Lord, I’ve hurt her!” he murmured with anxious penitence.
She did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were closed.
“Let her alone,” came Mr. Maltby’s abrupt voice. “Don’t worry her! I’ll deal with this.”
He had been standing by the chair Jessie had just left, regarding it fixedly. It was a chair that had not previously been used. Unlike the rest, it had slender wooden arms.
Now, all at once, he darted to the table. Jessie’s eyes were still closed, and she did not see the object he was bringing towards her. But the others saw it. It was Exhibit A. The hammer.
While Lydia stared at it—she had not seen it before, and knew nothing of its significance—and while Mr. Hopkins fell back upon the chronic necessity of mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, David fought an impulse to rush at the old man and seize the hammer from his hands. He said afterwards that, at this moment, he felt almost murderous himself; not because he distrusted Mr. Maltby, but because the idea of Death had suddenly filled the air, making it nauseating and stifling. He could not bear the thought that the hammer was on its way towards Jessie’s closed eyes.
He did not move, however. Something held him motionless. He remained rooted to his spot even when Mr. Maltby raised the hammer slowly, and slowly touched Jessie’s forehead with it.
Her eyes opened. The pupils dilated with unspeakable horror. Then something snapped within David, and he leapt forward. As he did so, the old man retreated a pace, and brought the hammer quickly behind his back.
Mr. Maltby’s eyes never left Jessie’s. It was that invisible line of contact that stopped David’s onrush. He felt that if he had passed through it he would have been scorched.
“What was it?” asked Mr. Maltby quietly.
“A hammer,” came Jessie’s response. Her voice was flat and toneless.
“What happened?”
“It hit me?”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“What do you feel?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“You are asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Sleep.”
“Sleep.”
Her eyes closed again....
When she reopened them she was on the couch in the hall. She raised her head and looked around muzzily.
“Where——?” she murmured. “I—thought—”
Lydia, seated on a stool near her feet, quickly banished an anxious expression and smiled at her reassuringly. A little way off, the rather flabby form of Mr. Hopkins lolled limply in a chair. He was dozing fitfully, emitting tiny snores. Mr. Maltby was by the drawing-room door, listening.
“What’s happening?” asked Jessie.
“Nothing,” replied Lydia. “Go to sleep again.”
“Yes—but wasn’t I—didn’t he carry me into the dining-room?”
“You remember that?”
It was Mr. Maltby’s question. He left the drawing-room door as he spoke and approached the couch.
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Where is he?”
“What do you remember after Mr. Carrington took you into the dining-room?”
Lydia noticed that Mr. Maltby’s voice was very different now from the voice he had used in his previous interrogation of Jessie. It was no longer a compelling monotone—it was human and encouraging.
“I’m not sure,” replied Jessie. “My head aches. Yes, I remember. He——” She stopped suddenly. “He put me in a chair,” she whispered.
The hall clock began striking. She counted the chimes.
“Eleven!” she exclaimed, surprised. “Have I been asleep an hour? I—I expect I—dreamt it.”
“Can we hear the dream?” asked Mr. Maltby.
“But I only remember a little more—and I’d rather not remember it,” she answered.
“Why not? Didn’t you like the chair?”
“How did you know that?”
“Well, you said you’d rather not remember it.”
“Of course, so I did. No, it was horrible. I couldn’t stay in it.”
“In what way, horrible?�
��
“I can’t possibly describe what I felt like.”
“Angry?”
“Angry? No! Nothing like that.”
“Jealous?”
“No.”
“As though—you’d been hit?”
“No. What makes you say that?”
“Dizzy? Sick? Breathless——”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Breathless!”
“Pain anywhere? Dull? Sharp? Heart thumping——”
“No, no; just the opposite! I remember now—there was a pain, and I thought my heart had stopped.” She added, “It’s thumping now, though!”
Lydia glanced at Mr. Maltby.
“Let’s postpone this cross-examination,” she suggested. “I think she’s been through enough!”
“There is just one more question I want to ask,” replied the old man, and turned back to Jessie. “You thought, for an instant, that your heart had stopped. In that case you would have been dead.”
“It felt like that!”
“But you are not dead, so you need not worry on that score. Were your sensations similar to your sensations in the four-poster bed?”
Jessie looked at him wide-eyed.
“Yes! No! I mean, I don’t know! It was—the same pain!” She shuddered. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about other things. How’s poor Mr. Thomson? Has he done any more sleep-walking?”
“He’s sleeping, but not walking, in the drawing-room,” replied Lydia.
“And Mr. Carrington?” As no one answered her, she repeated the question sharply. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
“He’s just having a look round,” said Lydia. “He’ll be back in a few minutes.”
For Jessie’s peace of mind, she did not add that David’s look around had so far lasted three-quarters of an hour.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHAT HAPPENED TO DAVID
WHEN David left the house by the back window through which Smith had preceded him, to begin his overdue search for the cause of the murderers’s scream—both the front and the back doors were blocked, but the mounting snow had only just reached the level of the window-ledge and it was possible to clamber out on to a white slope—he found to his relief that the flakes were descending a little less thickly. This was the one crumb of consolation in the unsavoury but necessary journey.
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