CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS
I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the littledetective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced oldpriest on his way home to his convent school, armed with a roll of dancemusic and surreptitious bundles that looked like boxes of candy.From scraps of conversation I gleaned that there had been mysteriousoccurrences at the convent,--ending in the theft of what the reverendfather called vaguely, "a quantity of undermuslins." I dropped asleep atthat point, and when I roused a few moments later, the conversation hadprogressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an envelope.
"With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you say,the--er--garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the keyto the other door,--I think you said the convent dog did not raise anydisturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in yoursleep?"
The priest looked bewildered.
"I'll tell you what to do," Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaningforward, "look around a little yourself before you call in the police.Somnambulism is a queer thing. It's a question whether we are mostourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly lifeall day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mindhikes you out of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft,so to speak. Better examine the roof."
I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, froma corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary.
It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that hadforced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beatback from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up themain street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, ofthe threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. My draggledcondition, I should say, for he improved every moment,--his eyesbrighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and glossier.Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man's neck, I shall testthat collar with a match.
I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and itsnecessity. I had always held that a man who played the spy on a womanwas beneath contempt. Then, I admit I was afraid of what I might learn.For a time, however, this promised to be a negligible quantity. Thestreets of the straggling little mountain town had been clean-washed ofhumanity by the downpour. Windows and doors were inhospitably shut, andfrom around an occasional drawn shade came narrow strips of light thatmerely emphasized our gloom. When Hotchkiss' umbrella turned inside out,I stopped.
"I don't know where you are going," I snarled, "I don't care. But I'mgoing to get under cover inside of ten seconds. I'm not amphibious."
I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawningentrance to a livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. Hotchkisswiped his collar with his handkerchief. It emerged gleaming andunwilted.
"This will do as well as any place," he said, raising his voice abovethe rattle of the rain. "Got to make a beginning."
I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door,and stared out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an air ofunreality. Now that I was there, I doubted the necessity, or the value,of the journey. I was wet and uncomfortable. Around me, with Cressonas a center, stretched an irregular circumference of mountain, withpossibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to find the residence of awoman whose first name I did not know, and a man who, so far, had been apurely chimerical person.
Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now hisvoice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses' hoofs, came to me.
"Something light will do," he was saying. "A runabout, perhaps." He cameforward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. "Mr. Pecksays," he began,--"this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,--says that theplace we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. It'sclearing, isn't it?"
"It is not," I returned savagely. "And we don't want a runabout, Mr.Peck. What we require is hermetically sealed diving suit. I supposethere isn't a machine to be had?" Mr. Peck gazed at me, in silence:machine to him meant other things than motors. "Automobile," Isupplemented. His face cleared.
"None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a rubberapron. Mike, is the doctor's horse in?"
I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out thatnight over the mountains was the doctor's horse or not. If it was, thedoctor may be a good doctor, but he doesn't know anything about a horse.And furthermore, I hope he didn't need the beast that miserable evening.
While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had learned.
"Six Curtises in the town and vicinity," he said. "Sort of family namearound here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. Person weare looking for is--was--a wealthy widow with a brother named Sullivan!Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier."
"Her brother," I repeated stupidly.
"You see," Hotchkiss went on, "three people, in one party, took thetrain here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The twowomen had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want tofind out is just who these people were, where they came from, if Bronsonknew them, and how Miss West became entangled with them. She may havemarried Sullivan, for one thing."
I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into theweather, Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The liverymanstood in the doorway and called directions to us. "You can't miss it,"he finished. "Got the name over the gate anyhow, 'The Laurels.' Theservants are still there: leastways, we didn't bring them down." He eventook a step into the rain as Hotchkiss picked up the lines. "If you'regoing to settle the estate," he bawled, "don't forget us, Peck and Peck.A half-bushel of name and a bushel of service."
Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much ashe would drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles andsplashed ink--mud, that is--until I was in a frenzy of irritation.
"What are we going to say when we get there?" I asked after I hadfinally taken the reins in my one useful hand. "Get out there atmidnight and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions aboutthe family? It's an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed at home."
The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. By thetime we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, and the smallbicycle lamp on the buggy was wavering only too certainly. We werecovered with mud, panting with exertion, and even Hotchkiss showed adisposition to be surly. The rain, which had lessened for a time, cameon again, the lightning flashes doing more than anything else to revealour isolated position.
Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in ourclothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder,and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And then throughthe rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a light. It was a smalllight, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps thirty seconds. Hotchkissmissed it, and was inclined to doubt me. But in a couple of minutes theroan hobbled to the side of the road and stopped, and I made out a breakin the pines and an arched gate.
It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse intoas much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. Hotchkisstied the beast and we left him there, head down against the drivingrain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the house.
It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then welost it. We were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights ahead,although it was only ten o'clock,--not later. Hotchkiss kept a littleahead of me, knocking into trees now and then, but finding the path inhalf the time I should have taken. Once, as I felt my way around a treein the blackness, I put my hand unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt ashudder go down my back.
"What do you expect me to do?" he protested, when I remonstrated. "Hangout a red lantern? What was that? Listen."
We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rainon leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came
back to us thestealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss'shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by,unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: thehouse was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming huge above aterrace, with an Italian garden at the side. Then the blackness again.Somebody's teeth were chattering: I accused Hotchkiss but he denied it.
"Although I'm not very comfortable, I'll admit," he confessed; "therewas something breathing right at my elbow here a moment ago."
"Nonsense!" I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to bethe direction of the steps of the Italian garden. "I saw a deer justahead by the last flash; that's what you heard. By Jove, I hear wheels."
We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close to us."Here's your deer," he said. "Bronze."
As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in thepark gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul ofa sun-dial, groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, wereached the steps finally and climbed the terrace.
It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which,with tall boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the door.He didn't make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on the brickfloor of the terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly in GovernmentEnglish.
The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see anoutline of the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant'sinvestigation showed that the windows were boarded and the house closed.Hotchkiss, still recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, tenderlypeeling down his stocking.
"Upon my soul," he said finally, "I don't know whether this moisture isblood or rain. I think I've broken a bone."
"Blood is thicker than water," I suggested. "Is it sticky? See if youcan move your toes."
There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found aknocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response savethe wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once Hotchkissdeclared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence with theknocker produced no effect.
"There's only one thing to do," I said finally. "I'll go back and try tobring the buggy up for you. You can't walk, can you?"
Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn't think he could stir,but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn't have anyfamily dependent on him, and that if he was going to have pneumonia hehad probably got it already. I left him there, and started back to getthe horse.
If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and onlyby a miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long breath ofrelief, followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For I had foundthe hitching strap and there was nothing at the end of it! In a lull ofthe wind I seemed to hear, far off, the eager thud of stable-bound feet.So for the second time I climbed the slope to the Laurels, and on theway I thought of many things to say.
I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute ofchairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better thanthe terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my wayto Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed perhapssix, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, and to findinstead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was startling, to say theleast.
I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and toldhim that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased;maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn't slip and thatthe horse must have chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiasticthan I had expected about the window.
"It looks uncommonly like a trap," he said. "I tell you there was someone in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth sense thatscientists ignore--a sense of the nearness of things. And all the timeyou have been gone, some one has been watching me."
"Couldn't see you," I maintained; "I can't see you now. And your senseof contiguity didn't tell you about that flower crock."
In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very lame, andI helped him around to the open window. He was full of moral courage,the little man: it was only the physical in him that quailed. And as wegroped along, he insisted on going through the window first.
"If it is a trap," he whispered, "I have two arms to your one, and,besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, thegovernment would merely lose an indifferent employee."
When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not waitfor his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made aclutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor undermy feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably ten feet and landed witha crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly shaken, butin some miraculous way the bandaged arm had escaped injury.
"For Heaven's sake," Hotchkiss was calling from above, "have you brokenyour back?"
"No," I returned, as steadily as I could, "merely driven it up throughmy skull. This is a staircase. I'm coming up to open another window."
It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, notwithout mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever dreamedof, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I had gota window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at last undershelter.
Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious investigationthat had landed us where we were, revealed that the house was lightedby electricity, and that the plant was not in operation. By accidentI stumbled across a tabouret with smoking materials, and found a halfdozen matches. The first one showed us the magnitude of the room westood in, and revealed also a brass candle-stick by the open fireplace,a candle-stick almost four feet high, supporting a candle of similarcolossal proportions. It was Hotchkiss who discovered that it had beenrecently lighted. He held the match to it and peered at it over hisglasses.
"Within ten minutes," he announced impressively, "this candle has beenburning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft."
"Perhaps it's the damp weather," I ventured, moving a little nearer tothe circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the flameturned over on its side and threatened demise. There was somethingalmost ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the window andnursed the flicker to life.
The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to theuncanniness of the situation. The furniture was swathed in white coversfor the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a niche betweentwo windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped, one arm extendedunder its winding sheet, made a most life-like ghost, if any ghost canbe life-like.
In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objectsfor mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing tomake himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghostin the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly morecomfortable appearance.
"When these people built," Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge dimensionsof the room, "they must have bought a mountain and built all over it.What a room!"
It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that itwas much more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long andtwenty-five feet wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling,and a gallery ran around the entire room, about fifteen feet above thefloor. The candle light did not penetrate beyond the dim outlines of thegallery rail, but I fancied the wall there hung with smaller pictures.
Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and in afew minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within the radiusof its light and heat, we were comfortable again. But the brightnessmerely emphasized the gloom of the ghostly corners. We talked in subduedtones, and I smoked, a box of Russian cigarettes which I found in atable drawer. We had decided to stay all night, there being nothing elseto do. I suggested a game of double-dummy bridge, but did not urge itwhen my companion asked me if it resem
bled euchre. Gradually, as theecclesiastical candle paled in the firelight, we grew drowsy. I drewa divan into the cheerful area, and stretched myself out for sleep.Hotchkiss, who said the pain in his leg made him wakeful, sat wide-eyedby the fire, smoking a pipe.
I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itselfviolently on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, anda large Angora cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire was stillbright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through the room, fromHotchkiss' shoes. The little detective was sound asleep, his dead pipein his fingers. The cat sat back on its haunches and wailed.
The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into theroom and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its mouthfor another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it refused to move.Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe clattered to the floor.
The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it wasfollowing with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved behindme. The tip of its tail waved threateningly, but when I wheeled I sawnothing.
I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the curtainthat had moved the door was securely closed. The windows were shut andlocked, and everywhere the silence was absolute. The cat followed memajestically. I stooped and stroked its head, but it persisted in itsuncanny watching of the corners of the room.
When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, Iwas reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for doing it,to put the fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the cat would not letme sleep. After a time I decided that it wanted water, and I startedout in search of some, carrying the candle without the stand. I wanderedthrough several rooms, all closed and dismantled, before I found a smalllavatory opening off a billiard room. The cat lapped steadily, and Ifilled a glass to take back with me. The candle flickered in a sicklyfashion that threatened to leave me there lost in the wanderings of themany hallways, and from somewhere there came an occasional violent puffof wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the hair on its back raisedmenacingly. I don't like cats; there is something psychic about them.
Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved hisboots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with sleep gonefrom me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many things: on myidiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that only a week beforeshe had been a guest in this very house; on Richey and the constraintthat had come between us. From that I drifted back to Alison, and to thebarrier my comparative poverty would be.
The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard footstepscoming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, and seemed tomount endless staircases without coming any closer. I realized finallythat I had not quite turned off the tap, and that the lavatory, which Ihad circled to reach, must be quite close.
The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in thewarmth and companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the greenwood hissed in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye. Through anunshuttered window the lightning flashed. Suddenly the cat looked up.It lifted its head and stared directly at the gallery above. Then itblinked, and stared again. I was amused. Not until it had got up on itsfeet, eyes still riveted on the balcony, tail waving at the tip, thehair on its back a bristling brush, did I glance casually over my head.
From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed afitting tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as I mightsee my own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with horrified eyes,the apparition faded. The rail was there, the Bokhara rug still swungfrom it, but the gallery was empty.
The cat threw back its head and wailed.