The Shadow on the House

by Mark Hansom

  I tried to attend to what Lady Somerton was saying, and I think I succeeded in concealing my terror from her at least.

  But Sylvia was watching me. Many times during the drive I caught her looking at me with wide, horror-stricken eyes — eyes that added to my fear in spite of my trying to assure myself that she could not even suspect the existence of this unearthly power that was so ill-advisedly (if I may use such an expression) working on my behalf.

  In Park Lane I assisted them to alight. They expected me to drive straight on then to my cousin’s flat; but I could not make up my mind whether to do so or not. The thought of being on the scene of the tragedy filled me with horror. And yet it might look queer if I did not go.

  The ladies were going up the steps. I was immediately behind them. I suddenly asked myself, the question springing from nowhere: “Ought I not to give up all thought of Sylvia? My love for her has already caused two deaths: I cannot account for the deaths by any other means. And it might cause other tragedies in the future. Wouldn’t it be better — ”

  At that moment Sylvia turned, leaving Lady Somerton to go on ahead. She stood a step or two above me. The shimmering silver and blue of her opera cloak caught the faint light from the lamps in Park Lane and invested her slim figure with an ethereal and maddening beauty. There was about her the alluring mystery of a goddess.

  And I knew it was useless to ask myself whether I ought to give up all thought of her.

  “Come in for a moment,” she said — rather, she pleaded. “I have something to say — something that I must say.”

  I inclined my head, wondering, suddenly fearful lest she might have discovered my secret.

  I returned to the taxi and paid the driver off, and when I reached the top of the steps the ladies were in the hall and a manservant was holding the door open for me.

  Sylvia disposed of her aunt with a few words that I did not overhear. In the circumstances in which we now found ourselves conventional behaviour was not the greatest thing in the world.

  We were once more in the little panelled room at the rear of the house, and once more Sylvia took up a position by the fire, leaning with one hand on the mantelpiece and looking down into the flames. I stood hesitatingly in the middle of the floor, my light overcoat still on, my crush hat and gloves in my hand.

  “You asked me a question this afternoon,” she said, in a voice so quiet that I could barely catch the words.

  “Yes,” I murmured, advancing a step in my eagerness.

  She turned suddenly and drew away from me.

  “Keep away!” she said, intensely excited all at once. “I can’t allow you to come near me. Two deaths are enough.”

  Her words — and especially her manner — repelled me. I concluded, of course, that she had guessed my secret.

  “But,” I stammered, my mind made up to fight to the very last, “what have the two deaths to do with you and me? I don’t understand. You’re upset, Sylvia.”

  And I took another step towards her. Now that I was fighting for the greatest prize in life my own fears had sunk out of sight. My mind was wholly concerned with the business of convincing her that there was nothing abnormal in anything that had happened.

  “You are right,” she said, taking another step away from me and holding out a hand as though to ward me off. “I am upset, and I don’t understand any more than you do. Haven’t these two deaths made you think — made you wonder?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes,” I replied. “It seems unusual that two people whom we know should die in circumstances not normal.”

  “Haven’t you thought more deeply about it than that?”

  “No,” I lied. “The coincidence certainly struck me.”

  At all costs I must discourage in her the suspicions that had become certainties with me. My own fears had gone completely. I should have defied hell’s legions only so that I might embrace that lovely form.

  “And no more than that?” she questioned, going back to the fireplace and leaning again on the mantelpiece. “Didn’t you attach any significance to the fact that they were both men — young men? And to the fact that they were both in love — with me?”

  “Both in love with you!” I exclaimed. She was getting dangerously near the truth, but what surprised me was the certainty with which she made the statement that they were both in love with her. “But my cousin saw you only once,” I added. “How do you know that he was in love with you?”

  “How do I know!” She seemed to mock me, and I felt chastened under that faint touch of scorn. “This isn’t a time for being reserved about such matters. I know that he was. He told me; but I knew before he told me. I ought to have resented his precipitancy, but I didn’t. I felt attracted to him as well. I don’t say that I was in love with him. No, no. It was merely that he had a novel personality.”

  “But you might have fallen in love with him?” I suggested. “That was why you asked me to wait for my answer until after the theatre? You wanted to see whether he improved on a further acquaintance?”

  “Something like that,” she said, without emotion. “But it doesn’t matter now. I repeat that both of these men were in love with me. And they have both died violent deaths.”

  I could say nothing more that would prevent her from coming to the terrible conclusion towards which she was driving.

  “And what do you think that means?” I asked, looking into the fire though my whole attention was on what she was about to say next.

  “It means,” she said, raising her head and looking at the blank panelled wall in front of her, “that there is a curse upon me . . . You laugh,” she added hastily, turning and looking at me with something of anger in her glance, “but it’s too serious to be set so easily aside.”

  I had indeed smiled, or, at least, my face had lighted up with relief at knowing that she did not suspect what I firmly believed to be the truth of the matter. And now I did really laugh. Even at the risk of arousing her fully to anger I felt that I must keep her mind off thoughts of superstition and darkness. “Nonsense!” I exclaimed.

  And to dismiss such an idea once and for all I strode swiftly across to her, and before she had time to draw back I had her in my arms.

  “Forgive me for contradicting you!” I whispered, playfully. “But it is nonsense, you know. Such things don’t happen. Even Professor Wetherhouse says that he doesn’t know of one authenticated instance of ghostly happenings. It’s all imagination. You’re upset, as I told you at first.”

  For a moment she struggled, but I held her firmly.

  “Oh, Martin, I’m afraid!” she said, beginning to cry. “I know it all sounds foolish, but I feel that there are hidden, terrible forces at work all around me. Uncanny! I feel that people — beings — are looking at me. It seems — ”

  “You’re thoroughly upset, and that’s the short and long of it,” I said lightly. And then my emotion got the upper hand of me and, without fear of a rebuff, I pressed my lips to hers, fondling her shoulders and stroking her hair, everything forgotten except the supreme wonder of her physical closeness.

  And she did not attempt to discourage me. Rather, she gave herself up to my embrace and, with unexpected passion, returned my kisses. I was in the highest heaven.

  Then she drew away from me. I was quite content that she should, for she was now mine.

  But she would return to the old theme. I could only be patient with her, and I was far too happy to be otherwise.

  “I can’t help saying it, Martin,” she murmured, taking my hand in hers; “but I’m so afraid that something might happen to you next.”

  “I’m not — not in the least,” I told her lightly. “Why should anything happen to me?”

  “Three men have loved me. The other two are dead.”

  “Only three!” I exclaimed. “Why, there are hundreds who love you. Nobody can set eyes on you without falling in love with you.”

  It was not wise of me to say such a thing, but fortunately she was not a girl re
adily affected by flattery. She would not think the less of me because everybody else was in love with her.

  “But only three whom I have allowed to tell me so,” she went on. “I know there are some who want only very little encouragement. But that is what makes me fear for your safety. Two of those who have offered me their love have been killed by — ”

  “By what? You can’t tell me . . . The one by a burglar, perhaps, who was disturbed and flew into a panic. The other — we don’t know yet why he should have fallen over the balcony. But it’s very certain that ghosts don’t exert physical force on people — if that’s what you are thinking.”

  For my own part, I was certain that ghosts did exert physical force on people. The tragedy of my cousin had brought back to me the inevitableness of the circumstances of Christopher Knight’s death. And though that might have been merely coincidence, I could not credit that a second death that would benefit me in my wooing of this girl could be other than the work of some conscious power somewhere.

  “Ghosts (such a crude term, but you know what I mean!),” went on Sylvia, “might have caused your cousin — through fear or from some kind of suggestion — to throw himself over the balcony.”

  “But a man couldn’t strangle himself with his own hands,” I put in, dryly; “and Christopher was strangled.”

  It seems now that on that night we discussed things with an almost brutal freedom. But the physical fact of death could be spoken of easily and without emotion. There was about us an atmosphere more grim and mysterious than death — an atmosphere of dark foreboding and stealthy terror.

  Sylvia had no answer to my last remark except the inconclusive one that something beyond argument made her afraid.

  And I could not convince her of the fact that the shock of this second death had unsteadied her nerves.

  I could not, I might say, convince myself that her fears were only imaginary. Her suggested explanation had sent my thoughts into fresh avenues of inquiry. That the cause of these tragedies was supernatural I had not the faintest doubt; but I could not guess at the ultimate intention of the power that caused them, nor could I guess at the extent of that power, nor could I guess who might be the victim of its next manifestation. Sylvia might be the next victim, or I might be the next victim.

  I was almost trembling again. Man is a puny, defenceless creature in the face of unfathomable mystery — a creature capable only of terror when threatened by brooding darkness beyond his knowledge.

  “I wish I could be as carefree as you,” said Sylvia.

  I laughed lightly and, putting my arm about her shoulders, led her to the door. I dared not let her know that my fears were perhaps more intense than her own.

  “You will be, to-morrow,” I said. “A good night’s sleep — that’s all you want.”

  Yet to the last she remained unconvinced; and when I said good night, notwithstanding the presence of Lady Somerton who as yet knew nothing of our declaration of love, she threw her arms about my neck and kissed me passionately. She did not say, “It might be your turn to-night!” but I knew that that was what she was thinking.

  I went on to Green Bay Mansions, but I made my visit one of pure duty. For one thing I could do nothing but acknowledge the valet’s goodness in taking the trouble to find me.

  I did not look at the body. I mumbled some excuse — I forget what I said — and left again as quickly as I could. To see that bedroom again, and to be near that gallery with its perspective of galleries almost vanishing down by that concrete courtyard, would have filled me with horror.

  My only chance of mental peace lay in not encouraging morbid thoughts — in deliberately refusing to think of all that might lie behind these two deaths.

  In the busy streets again, where innocent life was in full swing, the happiness of my few rapturous moments with Sylvia came back to me — if it had ever left me — and the world was once more a place of joy and promise. Contact with my fellows made fear stand aside for a while. Morbid thoughts could go to the devil. The great fact was Sylvia’s acceptance of my love.

  I strode off towards Oxford Street with the intention of finding a taxi to take me home to my dingy rooms in the Brompton Road.

  Then I realized that all my cousin’s wealth was now mine. I hadn’t thought of that until that moment.

  CHAPTER VIII

  A Voice from the Past

  D

  espite the ease with which I had consigned all morbid thoughts to the place from whence they come, I had no sooner put my latch-key into the door of my flat than I became conscious of dark forebodings.

  I did not immediately open the door. I stood for an instant with my key in the lock, thinking.

  What if Sylvia were right? I pictured the dark hall beyond this solid door (Makepeace was very niggardly on my behalf and resolutely refused to keep the hall light switched on unless somebody were going out or coming in), and I pictured my dark bedroom and I thought of the many hours between now and daybreak. And I remembered that Makepeace was growing deaf, and that, in any case, he was too old and feeble to be of any use in an emergency.

  Shame made me muster up my courage, and I turned the key and threw the door wide.

  The hall light, surprisingly, was blazing away heedless of expense; and as I shut the door behind me, the grizzled old Makepeace appeared from his own domain and came towards me, I thought, in quite a sprightly fashion.

  “Did they find you, sir?” he asked eagerly.

  “You mean about Mick? . . . Yes. You know that he’s gone?”

  “Ah! They told me — when they telephoned to ask how they could get into touch with you. I was hoping — I was hoping that they might not find you, sir. I should have liked to be the one to tell you the news.”

  This curious statement puzzled me, but I did not question it. While Makepeace was taking my hat and coat I contented myself with remarking, “Yes, he’s gone. Rather tragic!”

  The last thing I wanted was to have to discuss the affair.

  “Tragic in a way,” conceded the old man. “But he was a wild one, if I might take the liberty of saying so, who knew his grandfather.”

  “You know how he died, I suppose. Did they tell you that?”

  Averse though I was to speaking about the matter, I was forced to offer to give Makepeace the essential particulars.

  “Yes,” said Makepeace. “He died the same way as his grandfather died — him that I just mentioned — his grandfather on his mother’s side, that is to say.”

  I had been about to step forward to go to the sitting-room with the intention of reading for an hour or so before turning in, but the old man’s words arrested me.

  “Oh!” I said. “That’s curious.”

  “Yes, you might well say that, sir. And they never got at the rights of the case.”

  “They didn’t? Why, what happened? Funny that I’ve never heard anything about this!”

  “Not funny, Mister Martin. The case was hushed up as far as might be. There were too many queer rumours going about. It was best not to say too much — especially to them as were interested, as you might say.”

  “Interested?”

  “Yes. The family, you know. There was enough strife without adding to it. The Strange family have always been a lot for going at it hammer and tongs with each other.”

  “Would you care to tell me about it?” I asked, signing to the old man to precede me into the sitting-room.

  Here was something, I thought, that might help me at this time, when my mind was groping vaguely in darkness. It had never occurred to me to ask Makepeace whether there were any matters to be learned in the family history.

  “Well, seeing as you’re the only one left, Mister Martin, and you’ve no one to quarrel with and there’s no one to quarrel with you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t know. You can’t quarrel with your- self — though I don’t know about that, even. There’s some people who — ”

  Makepeace was perfectly willing to speak about matters that he had ke
pt faithfully hidden throughout generations; but he was not willing to precede me into the sitting-room. He insisted on my going first, while he took the door out of my hand and held it open and stood stiffly until I passed him.

  I could very well have turned to him and said, “Why do you humble yourself before me, Mr. Makepeace? It’s I who ought to hold the door for you. You have a greater right to my respect than I have to yours. Can I equal you in any of the things that matter — in fidelity, in experience, in wisdom, in a hundred other things by which the worth of a man is judged?”

  But I didn’t speak. For one thing, he was not humbling himself before me.

  He was good enough to take a seat. Had he been only a few years younger, I think he would have insisted upon standing throughout the interview.

  “When I heard the news, Mister Martin, I said to myself that it was his grandfather all over again. And so it is, and you mark my words — they’ll never get to the bottom of it.”

  “But the inquest hasn’t been held yet.”

  “That may be. But a hundred inquests won’t bring them a step farther forward. I don’t say that because it’s Mister Michael. I say it because there’ll be nobody to swear whether it was murder or whether it was suicide or whether it was misadventure — walking in his sleep, for instance. I know, because that was the difficulty with his grandfather. There was nothing to show one way or the other what had happened. They said it was misadventure.”

  “What grounds had they for saying that?”

  “No grounds whatever. Or, if you like, the grounds of Christianity. They couldn’t say anything else very well, if you understand me.”

  “No; of course not,” I admitted.

  “No more will they be able to say anything else in this case . . . Only with his grandfather’s death there was a difference. And that was what all the talk was about at the time, and it was a great pity that a word was spoken, though I kept my mouth shut and maybe I had more right to speak than some that had the most to say.”