Gaslight

by William Drummond

  At the bottom of the basement stairs, he said, “Where is the poor little fellow?” Seeing where he was, cowering back in the corner, he said to Nancy, “Bring a door mat quick!”

  He spread it on the dusty floor so that he would not soil his dressing gown. The puppy, frightened of him, crouched further back. But Mr. Manningham grasped the trap with his left hand and with his right he lifted the wire spring back to free the paw. But the wire pin on the bait platform had bitten into the puppy’s flesh and blood had congealed round it, sealing it firm. The puppy yelped as he tried to draw his paw free.

  “Nancy!” Mr. Manningham said. “Come and help. You must lift the paw up. Hurry. This spring’s strong.”

  Nancy crept down beside him, her head so close to his that his beard touched her cheek. She took the puppy’s paw in her right hand, but to get a firm grasp, she put—had to put—her left hand on his. “Be careful, Nancy!” He was frightened that he might let the trap snap on her fingers. But she lifted the paw from the pin.

  Before she took her left hand away, she gave a pressure of her fingers on the back of his hand, partly to indicate that he could now release the spring, but more because he excited her more than any other man she had been with.

  Elizabeth was watching them, holding the candle to give them illumination, but all she saw was Nancy’s trim bustle and his broad silk-flanked haunches. Very gently he let the trap spring close. “You’re a brave girl,” he said, and he turned to Nancy all tucked up close beside him under the stairs and gave her such a look it made her tremble. She bent down, blushing, and pulled the poor little puppy out, holding him under the front legs. Cerberus was shivering even more than Nancy was and as she rose, holding him up to her, the puppy licked her face.

  “Look, Elizabeth!” Manningham said. “The poor little creature’s kissing Nancy. It makes my heart bleed.” Then he turned to Nancy. “Let me take him!”

  He bent down to fondle the puppy and Nancy felt the hair of his beard brush her forehead. He used some scent which, mixed with the aroma of cigar smoke, made her feel weak.

  As he took the puppy, his right hand touched her breast with a caressing movement which made her blush because Elizabeth might have seen. Nancy thought she might have imagined it, except that with his other hand, in taking over the puppy, he squeezed hers and Nancy grasped his convulsively.

  “There must be some veterinary surgeon within call,” Manningham said. “This is a terrible thing for my wife. I just don’t dare to think of the effect it may have on the balance of her mind.” He bore the puppy into the kitchen. “Nancy, will you run upstairs and put your coat and bonnet on? Don’t bother to change your uniform. Then inquire next door, or as many doors next after that as may be, for the name of the nearest vet and summon him post haste.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Elizabeth interposed, “would it not be quicker to take the little dog to the vet than ask the vet to come to us?” Elizabeth asked as Nancy hurried up the stairs.

  “It might indeed be,” Manningham said, “if I were dressed and could go round to the vet with Nancy, or you, Elizabeth. But do you think that without me, the vet would take much notice of the puppy? And besides we must think of Mrs. Manningham. Cerberus is her puppy. It might . . . well I do not like to hazard a guess to know what it might do . . . to the balance of her mind, I mean; if she found that . . . oh, dear!” He stroked his beard and looked at her intently. “I don’t know what is going to happen, Elizabeth. You may not know, since Mrs. Manningham is the most reticent of ladies, that before we came down to London, she had a baby who lived only, alas! a matter of hours. She went, poor lady, almost out of her mind. I feared not almost, but quite.” He looked up at the gas stove. “You might turn up the gas under the kettle, if I am to be shaved before going to the vet,” he said. And as Elizabeth did so, he tickled the puppy on the hearth rug, who did not seem to welcome the interruption to the licking of his wounds.

  “Mrs. Manningham,” he went on, “according to the doctor, is balanced on a knife edge—a knife edge, Elizabeth. She may, pray God, be recovered completely; that is why I made her the present of Cerberus. But she may also fall into a complete insanity. This is my direst fear.”

  “What I can’t understand, sir,” Elizabeth said, “is how the puppy come to be downstairs, when Mrs. Manningham is always so careful to have ’im sleep in that basket in her bedroom.”

  “That does not greatly surprise me,” Mr. Manningham said. “Since . . . since recently, her memory has not been what it was . . . you may have noticed. Perhaps the puppy strayed down, feeling hungry . . .”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “The door was locked at the head of the basement stairs. This was done deliberate.”

  “He might not have been down here already when you locked up?”

  “Of that I am positive. Before I lock up, I look in all the basement rooms; and close all the doors, too. This morning the pantry door was open!”

  “This is terrible.” Manningham tugged at his beard. “It seems impossible to contemplate, and yet what other explanation?” He held his hand over his eyes, as if seeing some vision too horrible to behold.

  Elizabeth once more turned the gas lower beneath the kettle. She did not want to miss some revelation, but the master’s train of thought seemed to break off. “You remember some days ago, Elizabeth,” he said, “I asked Mrs. Manningham to prepare the accounts and leave them for me on my desk?”

  “We spent the whole day on them accounts,” Elizabeth said. “I never see a lady so thorough.”

  “And yet when I came home from the club,” he said, “there were no accounts on my desk. I asked Mrs. Manningham next morning where she had put them. I’m telling you this in confidence, you understand, it must go no further. And do you know where she produced them? From the wastepaper basket. I thought this was just another instance of her absent-mindedness; even when she produced the preposterous suggestion that I had found the accounts on my desk and placed them in the wastepaper basket myself. I said nothing; not wanting to distress or humiliate her, but suddenly, in view of what has happened to the puppy, a new, and rather sinister explanation has struck me.” He turned and walked to the window, laboring obviously under so deep an emotion that he could not trust himself to speak face to face. “You may have noticed, Elizabeth, that when some tragedy occurs, it is human nature to try to find someone on whom to pin the blame. This happened when we so tragically lost our first-born. Mrs. Manningham tried to make her agony more tolerable by putting the blame on me. This was the substance of her nervous collapse. I thought it had passed with time. But now I fear it lingers.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow,” Elizabeth said.

  He turned to her. “What if she is madly trying to prove that I am the monster that, in her crazy grief, she would have me be? She hid the accounts and then accused me of doing so, a monstrous charge. Supposing she’s done it again, but this time with the poor little puppy?”

  “Oh, no, sir!” Elizabeth said. “I couldn’t believe that, I just could not, not with the way she dotes on it.”

  Manningham sighed. “I pray God you’re right, Elizabeth,” he said. “If she does not lay wild charges against me, I shall gladly admit my worst fears were groundless.” Then he noticed the time. “Quick. Fill me the jug of shaving water and I will take it up myself. I think it would be wise to tell Mrs. Manningham nothing about the puppy, until she makes inquiries. Then break it in the gentlest way.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nancy returned shortly after Manningham went upstairs. She had found a vet named Grass three streets away; but Mr. Grass was still in bed. He would make Cerberus his first call after his surgery, he sent down to say, but if it was a matter of urgency it would be quicker if someone brought the puppy round in quarter of an hour, when he would be pleased to examine it before he took his breakfast.

  “Go up and ask ’im,” Elizabeth said. “It would spare ’er seein’ the shape the puppy’s in now. ’E’s terrified
she’s losing ’er reason.”

  It did not take Manningham long to shave, since hair was allowed to grow freely over most of his face. He was in fact just putting on his waistcoat, when Nancy entered at his call. She felt embarrassed, remembering the intimacy of the scene beneath the stairs. For Nancy something had happened which was not surprising, since from the moment that Mr. Manningham had picked her out at Mrs. Weston’s, she had expected it to happen sooner or later, but it had changed what had hitherto been the relationship of master and maid. It would move forward by a slow or rapid succession of exchanges, the more thrilling because clandestine.

  Mr. Manningham, however, did not appear to notice any difference in their relationship. “A splendid idea!” he agreed, producing from his purse a florin for the vet’s fee. “And if there is change, you shall keep it for your pains. Make haste, though. I fear the terrible scene if Mrs. Manningham sees that paw as it is.”

  There certainly was need for haste because as they were fastening the stick to secure the hamper, there came a peal from Mrs. Manningham’s bell. “Scoot, Nancy,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go up for you.”

  As Nancy ran up the steps, there was the peal of another bell, from the dining room this time. To Elizabeth this was a reprieve. It was the acknowledged rule of the house that “the Master” came first. She put his breakfast in the service lift and hoisted it up, then went upstairs to unload it. “The mistress is ringing from her room, sir.”

  “Well, I’ve seen Nancy leaving. There can be no harm in answering it.”

  “But, if it’s about the puppy, sir?” Elizabeth did not want to become involved.

  “Would you say that breakfast is ready and I will explain?”

  Elizabeth was grateful.

  “But I would like you to wait at table until Nancy returns. It is not a part of your duties, I know. But if, as I fear, matters are coming to a head, Dr. Frost would like to hear from you what happens. It might be necessary to tell it also to another doctor.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t grasped till that moment what that long-winded talk downstairs was all about.

  Manningham removed his egg cozy, which was in the form of a white Leghorn rooster. “Let us not look upon the dark side,” he said with a single stroke of his knife he cut off the top of his egg.

  Elizabeth went up to Mrs. Manningham’s room and tapped on the door. Bella called, “Come in,” and Elizabeth entered. Bella was hurriedly dressing. “Oh, it’s you, Elizabeth. What’s happened this morning? Where’s Nancy? Why wasn’t I called with early morning tea? I suppose the Master’s already down?”

  “I’m sorry, madam,” Elizabeth said. “I would have been up before but I was serving his breakfast.”

  “But why? I don’t understand. I slept so badly. I do depend on Nancy to wake me.” Bella fluttered, her hands were like the crippled wings of a bird. Elizabeth had always thought of her as “not very well”; but now she realized that this was how a lunatic might look. “Mr. Manningham is so vexed if I am late for breakfast.”

  “He said to say he was sorry to have started, but please to come down, when you are ready. He will explain.”

  In the looking glass Elizabeth saw fears start in Mrs. Manningham’s eyes, like a scare of starlings. “What’s happened, Elizabeth?” Bella cried.

  “The Master! I must go down!” She fled, discretion the better part of her valor. For twelve pounds a year she could find a quieter place than this.

  Yet, as an observer in the dining room, she found herself awaiting Mrs. Manningham’s arrival eagerly. She could enjoy drama as long as she remained in the audience.

  Bella came down some three minutes later. She had not troubled to finish her toilet with elegance. There were bags under her eyes; any beauty she had left was like the dress she had given Nancy, fine but worn. She touched her fob watch. “I forgot to wind it. I’m sorry. But I wasn’t called.”

  Manningham half rose from his chair and remained in that posture until his wife was seated. Then he resumed his seat and waited until she had poured herself tea and buttered a piece of toast.

  “Is Nancy ill?” Bella asked.

  “No,” Manningham answered. “She is out.”

  “At this hour? Where?”

  “You have no idea? Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know what this is about,” Bella said sharply. “Please enlighten me.”

  “Need I say more than that Nancy has gone to a veterinary surgeon?”

  “Cerberus? What’ve you done to him?”

  “Nothing, my dear. I thought you might enlighten me.”

  “What’s happened? For goodness sake, don’t torment me, Jack.”

  “I was summoned this morning by Elizabeth to go down to the basement because Cerberus had caught his paw in a rat trap. With Nancy’s help, I released him.”

  “Oh, my God!” she said, closing her eyes. “Is he badly hurt? Why didn’t you call me?” she asked Elizabeth. “Cerberus is my dog.”

  “Elizabeth was quite right,” said Manningham. “It was not a pretty sight; one she did well to spare you. There was nothing to do immediately except take him for treatment. You must appreciate that, surely?”

  Bella said nothing.

  “You do appreciate it, Bella, don’t you? If a puppy has been hurt, the first thing is to take it to the doctor, don’t you agree?”

  She nodded impatiently. “But what is all this leading to?”

  “I suppose that the next thing is to find out why it happened.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Bella said. “When you bought those horrible rat traps, I warned you about Cerberus.”

  “And I answered that a little puppy is no rat-catcher, and there is no reason at all why he should go down to the basement.”

  “Then how did he?”

  “This is what we have to find out. I am puzzled that your puppy, who sleeps in your bedroom, should be discovered under the basement stairs with a rat trap on his paw. I thought you might throw some light on it.”

  Elizabeth watched her mistress very closely, aware that this was the testing moment. Bella flushed not only on her cheeks but on her throat. She said nothing.

  “Where was Cerberus last night?” asked Manningham.

  She opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. She looked at Elizabeth. “Could we not talk about this in private?”

  “I think we must have somebody to listen,” Manningham said, “I could, of course, ask Dr. Frost. But Elizabeth after all knows much of what happened already. For example, when she came in last night, she went through the basement. She can vouch for it that the puppy wasn’t there. She closed every door downstairs and locked the door leading from the hall to the basement. That is correct, isn’t it, Elizabeth?”

  “I’m afraid it is, sir.” Elizabeth meant to apologize to Mrs. Manningham for saying this. The moment she had said it, she realized that the word “afraid” accused her mistress.

  “And yet,” went on Manningham, “as I understand Elizabeth, when she went downstairs this morning, the door at the head of the basement stairs was closed and locked, but the door into the pantry was standing open.”

  Bella looked at Elizabeth. “What time did you come in last night?”

  “Just before a quarter to eleven, madam. Nancy was with you and she came in about five minutes later and said you was going down to get the master’s milk.”

  “I see daylight!” Manningham said, with relief. “Of course, you went down, my dear, to the pantry to get my milk, after Elizabeth had locked up. The puppy followed you down. You didn’t notice him. He probably went sniffing round the kitchen. You left the door of the pantry open and went upstairs and locked the door leading into the hall. That’s what must have happened.”

  Bella did not answer.

  “Wouldn’t that sound likely to you, Elizabeth?” Manningham asked.

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “If this were true,” Bella asked, “what would you do?”

  “It is not for me to say,” her hu
sband answered, lighting a cheroot. “I can only depend on the advice of Dr. Frost on your behalf and the vet’s on behalf of the unfortunate puppy. I would not anticipate what they might recommend as best for you both.” He calmly contemplated his smoke.

  Elizabeth watched Mrs. Manningham. She sympathized with her more than with Mr. Manningham. She knew that Mrs. Manningham cared about Cerberus more than about any other creature on earth; and rightly so, if the puppy was all she had to take the place of her baby. What did the truth really matter compared to keeping her puppy? She might be dotty, but she was dotty in a good way; Mr. Manningham was sane in a sort of bad way.

  Bella turned to her. “Have you ever seen Cerberus with me when he wasn’t jumping round my heels or running back to me?”

  Elizabeth had to admit that the idea of Cerberus lopping down the basement stairs and sniffing round the kitchen instead of following his mistress was impossible—well, not impossible, she agreed with Mr. Manningham—but unlikely, she conceded to Mrs. Manningham, very unlikely.

  “You didn’t hear Mr. Manningham rap on my bedroom door, and when I refused to open it he said some abusive words?”

  Of course Elizabeth had. She and Nancy had had a snigger over them, because by all seeming they were near the mark. “Nancy and me must’ve been asleep by then.”

  Manningham smiled. “Even if you had been awake, Elizabeth, you would have had to have fanciful ears to hear it. What else didn’t Nancy and Elizabeth hear?”

  “Nothing,” Bella said. “But later I realized that Cerberus wasn’t in his basket and I went out to the landing because I knew he must have curled up in a chair in the drawing room. And I looked down and there were you, Mr. Manningham, coming up the stairs from the basement, carrying a bottle and a glass. So you must have been the last person down there and if Cerberus had been shut in, you would have noticed him.”

  “What do you argue from that, may I ask?”

  “I would like to think no more than that you had gone down to fetch a bottle of wine and Cerberus, being my dog not yours, had followed you down the stairs and then wandered into the kitchen.”