by Mark Hansom
“And Sydney?” I queried. “Sydney will come too, surely.”
I had to include Sydney. But I noticed that in this case Sylvia did not add her voice to mine. She turned, though in a perfectly natural manner, and wandered across towards the window, apparently looking to see whether there were yet any signs of her aunt.
“Yes, we must have Sydney down,” I said, eager to show, I suppose, that I was pleased to forget all that had happened.
“Well, I can’t say off-hand whether he’ll be free or not,” the Professor explained. “But I shall certainly convey your very kind invitation to him.”
“Here’s Auntie!” exclaimed Sylvia, running from the window out into the hall.
The remainder of the Professor’s stay was made in an atmosphere of excited chatter.
But at the back of the excited chatter there was an element of disturbance. Between Lady Somerton and the Professor one could detect hostility. With us she was spontaneous in her expressions of delight at seeing us again, but towards the Professor she showed a certain coldness, failing to catch fire from any expressions that he might venture.
“You called to see me?” she asked him suddenly.
“I did,” he replied. “Yes, I did call to see you, Lady Somerton; but — but it doesn’t matter now. The pleasure of meeting these young people makes my business of no account.”
“Is it the same old business? I thought that was all settled.”
“Yes, yes. Never mind.”
The Professor was anxious not to have his business brought to the fore at that moment. Sylvia and I were uncomfortable because of the hostility that Lady Somerton showed and which she made no effort to conceal. Her eye glinted as it caught the Professor’s.
I could not help wondering whether the trouble between these two was the same as had existed before our marriage. Could it be that the Professor was still interested in me as a “case” worthy of investigation? He had failed to stop the marriage, and that, I had thought, would put an end to his activities. He could not undo the marriage. Was he still existing in hope of being able to verify his theories regarding the shadow that was on my house?
He took his leave very shortly afterwards.
Lady Somerton’s eyes followed him to the door, then she turned to me.
“And now — about this house-warming party of yours . . .” she began.
“The Professor is coming, to begin with,” I said. “And Sydney as well, I believe.”
She looked at me in surprise.
“Sylvia, darling,” she said sweetly. “Would you mind going and amusing yourself for ten minutes? I want to have a private talk to this husband of yours.”
Sylvia, assuming, I suppose, that an aunt has the right to ten minutes’ private conversation with her niece’s husband, withdrew, looking at us with a quizzical smile as though wondering what pleasant mystery was afoot.
“Sit down, Martin,” said Lady Somerton, when she and I were alone. “I want to tell you something.”
Her manner was serious, almost nervous. I took a chair facing her.
“Did you ask the Professor?” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Or — or did he ask himself?”
“Oh, I asked him,” I said. “He would hardly ask himself.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I’ve found him out to be a most interfering and a most persistent man. And he is very eager to get on an intimate footing with you. I understand that something happened between you — I don’t know what — and that for a week or two before your marriage you didn’t see one another. Well, since then he’s been trying to get on the right side of me so that the trouble — whatever it is — might be overcome. He’s got a suspicion — I haven’t the faintest idea of what he suspects — that everything is not quite as it ought to be. He has begged of me to help him. He has almost gone down on his knees to me. He wants to be on good terms with you — that is as much as I can make of it at the moment. I told him that if he couldn’t tell me what it was that he suspected I could do nothing for him. He says he daren’t tell me. It’s much too serious, he says. Have you any ideas about what he is driving at?”
“None whatever,” I assured her, trying to appear mystified, and certainly feeling uneasy.
“All that I can make out of it,” she went on, “is that he wants to study you or something of the sort. Perhaps there’s something about you of scientific interest to him. We mustn’t forget that he’s a scientist, and that what he regards as of the utmost seriousness might be — ”
“Yes, yes. I understand,” I interrupted. “Probably it is nothing more than some scientific theory he is trying to verify.” I was not eager to talk on this subject.
“I had intended to keep you apart,” she went on. “If I had known that you were coming here to-day I should certainly not have allowed him to meet you. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“We intended to take you by surprise.”
“Well, you did that. But you have also given the Professor the very chance he wants. That’s why I’m speaking to you now. He told me not to breathe a word to you or to Sylvia.”
“So you take the first opportunity of telling us!” I exclaimed, smiling.
“Yes. I resent his manner. I don’t like to feel that a relative of mine (How delightful to think of you as a relative, Martin!) — I don’t like to feel that a relative of mine is being regarded as a ‘case,’ and that is what it appears to amount to. So I warn you. If he has any scientific observations to conduct let him conduct them openly. You don’t feel like a patient who ought to be kept under observation, do you?”
“I certainly don’t,” I told her, with a smile that hid my uneasiness at learning that the Professor had not yet given up his investigations.
“Well, that’s all,” she said, rising. “I think the whole trouble is that the Professor is growing old. Perhaps he is becoming eccentric. I don’t know. I don’t like to doubt his good sense, but a lifetime of study might be affecting him in some way. Perhaps it’s best to look at it like that. If I were to take his manner at its face value I should say that what he has at the back of his mind is a grimly serious matter. He gives one the impression that it is a matter of life and death.”
Again I laughed.
“Shall we leave it at that then?” I said. “Let’s assume that he is labouring under a delusion of some sort . . . But thanks for warning me. I shan’t be startled should I find him surreptitiously examining me with a microscope.”
We went in search of Sylvia, whom we found standing with her back to the empty fireplace in the library intent on one of the morning newspapers which she held wide open, her arms outstretched.
When she heard us, she let the paper fall to the floor and buried her face in her hands.
We stood stock still at this unexpected sight. In an instant she recovered herself again.
“Why don’t they leave him alone?” she demanded. “Why don’t they forget about him, and let others forget?”
“Leave who alone?” said Lady Somerton, puzzled, as she went towards Sylvia and took her by the shoulders.
“Christopher,” said Sylvia, in a voice that suggested angry tears. “Why must they rake it all up again? Will it matter to me — to us who knew him — whether they ever find the murderer or not? Anything for a sensation! They never stop to think of our feelings. The — the ghouls!”
She buried her face on her aunt’s shoulder.
I stood by, feeling rather helpless in the circumstances. It was hardly a moment for pointing out that the murder of Christopher Knight would rightly be kept alive in the public memory until the law should have done its very utmost to find the murderer.
As she continued to sob — unduly moved, I thought, by a memory that ought by now to be dulled — I stooped and picked up the sheets.
The item that had caused this outburst was an article which recapitulated some of the recent unsolved crimes.
About the murder of Christopher it said:
&nbs
p; “Then there was the murder of the young man, Christopher Knight, in his rooms in Jermyn Street. This case affords an illustration of the obsolete laws that hamper the police. We were told some months ago that they were on the track of the murderer. We are told to-day that they are still on the track of the murderer. And that, if we reason from past experience, means that they have their man but dare not arrest him.
“We do not suggest that third-degree methods should be employed in this country, but — ”
I folded the paper carefully and placed it on the table.
“Some journalist trying to turn an honest penny,” I said. “Don’t let that upset you. You may be assured that we shan’t have to go through the ordeal of knowing that someone is being hanged because of Christopher’s death.”
“But someone ought to be hanged for it,” asserted Lady Somerton, forgetting for the moment that the chief thing to do was to pacify Sylvia.
“True,” I said. “But think of our feelings — even though it might be justice. However, the affair is too old now. The police are bound to say something to cover up their failure, so they say they are still on the track of the criminal. I bet they never catch him.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The Apparition
A
nd why is this called Sir Osmond’s room?” asked young Wetherhouse as I led him to the window of the bedroom that had been allotted to him at Bolton Towers.
I was about to point out to him the magnificent view that was to be had from that particular window, but his question stopped me.
“It used to be occupied, long ago, by someone of the name of Sir Osmond,” I told him. “He was a grandfather of a cousin of mine. Come and see the view.”
He came forward to the window, and for a few minutes I was occupied in pointing out the various features of the landscape to him. The window is high up in the West Tower and commands what I suppose is one of the finest views in this part of the country, looking, as it does, down five miles of thickly wooded valley towards the sparkling sea beyond.
But young Wetherhouse was not interested in the view. His mind was still on the name by which the room was known.
“Yes, it is delightful,” he agreed, glancing casually out towards the sea. “But what were you saying about this Sir Osmond? What did he do? Why should the room still be called after him? Tell me if I’m being too curious, but this old place has caught my imagination, and if there are any legends connected with it — ”
“The story of Sir Osmond isn’t old enough yet to have become a legend,” I told him. “It isn’t even a story,” I added, thinking I must be careful not to say too much or I might put this young man’s father on to the right track for finding out the truth. “It isn’t even a story because it has no dramatic shape. It’s only an incident.”
I was wondering whether Sydney was in his father’s confidence. It might be that the Professor had detailed his son to find out anything that was to be found out about my family history.
I had barely seen the Professor since his arrival along with the bulk of the week-end guests earlier on in the afternoon. But I had no doubt that I should be seeing quite a lot of him. Lady Somerton’s disclosures to me on the day of our arrival back in London showed how determined the Professor was. I was wondering what method he would adopt in the renewal of his inquiries.
“Tell me about it,” said Sydney, with his youthful smile.
“But you are going to sleep in the room,” I answered, taking a grim sort of pleasure in the expectation of making his hair stand on end, “Perhaps I had better not say anything until you are leaving. If you knew the truth perhaps you wouldn’t want to sleep here.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid of that!” he exclaimed. “I don’t — I don’t believe in ghosts, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is just what I mean,” I told him. “This room is supposed to be haunted.”
A wave of mischievousness had come over me. “If they want to hear something about ghosts,” I said to myself, “there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. Do they want data on which to base their investigations? Right! I’ll give them something to be going on with. I can invent dozens of stories about ghosts. Anybody can. There’s no need to give chapter and verse in stories about ghosts, for nobody can prove or disprove them.”
“Is it really haunted?” he asked, and, despite his assurance of a moment before, his face became serious.
“Yes,” I went on, my face as serious as his. “So, at least, the story goes; and there’s usually some foundation for such stories.”
“What is it haunted by? What’s the ghost like?”
“That I can’t tell you. It hasn’t appeared during my lifetime. But, of course, the room hasn’t been occupied as far back as I can remember. In fact,” I added, glancing at him to see how he was taking my remarks, “it hasn’t been used since Sir Osmond was killed.”
I hoped I was not being indiscreet. But I reasoned that at this distance of time Sir Osmond’s death, in so far as it was an instance of ghostly activity, had almost passed into the realm of legends. In any case I did want to give these investigators — Professor Wetherhouse and his son — something to think about. I had no fear of their ever finding out anything of value.
“Since Sir Osmond was killed!” echoed young Wetherhouse, rather alarmed.
“Yes. He was thrown out of the window,” I said, with a conscious air of indifference, as though such happenings were everyday matters.
“Oh!”
“That’s what they say,” I went on. “Of course, it doesn’t follow that the throwing was done by a ghost. But certainly nobody ever found out by whom the throwing was done. And then there was a case before Sir Osmond,” I told him, beginning to bring my imagination into play — “a solicitor of the name of Watkins. In the days of the stage-coaches, you know. Called on business. Wild night. Didn’t relish the thought of the journey back home, so stayed the night. Slept in this room. Last sleep on earth.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed young Wetherhouse.
“That’s right, according to what has been handed on from one generation to another,” I said as I turned to leave him. “You’ll find your way down when you’re ready, won’t you?”
“But do you mean,” he said, detaining me, “that no one has slept in this room since Sir What’s-his-name?”
“That’s right. You see, the past generation was more superstitious than we are. Nowadays we don’t believe those old wives’ tales. Why? Do you want to change your room? If you do, just say the word.”
But it was daylight, and though he was affected by what I had told him, his moral fear was stronger than his physical. He was afraid to admit that he was afraid.
And, for my part, I did not blame myself for playing upon his susceptibilities.
The room itself had no peculiar power. It was associated with tragedy only in the matter of Sir Osmond Garway’s having “met his death through the window. He might have done the same through any other window in the building. As a room it was perfectly innocent. The story about the solicitor, Watkins, was merely an imaginary piece of corroborative detail, as was the statement that the room had never been slept in since Sir Osmond’s death. I didn’t know whether it had been slept in or not.
But if they were on the look-out for ghosts, I thought I could not do better than put them into the frame of mind best calculated to make their investigations exciting.
I should not have troubled to recount this interview with young Wetherhouse were it not for the fact that it has had a most disturbing sequel.
It is now Saturday morning. At odd moments during the past month or two I have been writing this manuscript and now I have brought it up to date. Whether it will ever see the light of day I do not know, but the facts round about which it is written are of profound interest — at least, to me — and there has been a certain inevitability in the events that has caused me to think that a crisis will come sooner or later and that the mystery will be explained.
Most of the guests retired early last night. All the ladies did, at least; and by half-past ten a handful of us men were finishing the evening in the billiard-room.
I was not playing. And the game that was in progress was not being taken seriously by anyone — not even by the two players, whose shots were constantly being interrupted so that they themselves could add something to the conversation.
In the midst of this pleasant winding up of the day I noticed that young Wetherhouse was missing. The thought of him took my mind back to the afternoon when I had tried to make his hair stand on end with stories of the haunted room in which he was to sleep. I suddenly felt sorry for him, and thought it would be a kindness to go up to his room and see how he was faring.
Accordingly I slipped out of the billiard-room and went up the main staircase and then along various corridors and up various smaller flights of stairs until I came to the West Tower.
As I went I was thinking that perhaps I had gone too far in my attempt at scaring the young man. The number of dim, echoing corridors that had to be traversed before the West Tower was reached were sufficient in themselves to give one a feeling of uneasiness, and when one’s sensibilities had been sharpened and one’s fears set on edge by stories of the supernatural, one would have to be brave indeed to face a night in that isolated part of the mansion with equanimity.
I intended to tell him that we had changed his room — that is, if he had not yet gone to bed. It was only because the place was very full that Sir Osmond’s room had been brought into use; but I had no doubt that another empty room could be found even at this time of night. The ghostly atmosphere of the corridors was beginning to get on my nerves. With every second I was becoming more and more sorry for young Wetherhouse.
His room was empty. I knocked first, and received no answer. And then I opened the door and switched on the light. A mere glance around the apartment showed that he had not yet come up to go to bed.