WISC OF 411ร AIND IBRARY UNIVER SITY show that it really was a suicide ? He might have come back for something he'd forgotten, and kicked against the tap by accident, as somebody did in June. Why make a point of doing the deed at home ? ” "Because he didn't want his wife to know." “But she was bound to know. Sooner or later, of course; but the later the better from his point of view, and their own shut-up house was the one place where he might not have been found for weeks. And that would have made all the difference -in the circumstances." “But what do you know about the cir- cumstances, Uvo?” I could not help ask- ing a bit grimly; for his air of omniscience always prepared me for some specious crea- tion of his own fancy. But for once I was misled, and I knew it from his altered face before I heard his unnatural voice. “What do I know ? ” repeated Uvo De- lavoye. “Only that one of the neighbours has just had a wire from Mrs. Royle's peo- ple to say that she's got a son! That's all,” he added, seizing a pipe, “ but if you think 82 THE HOUSE WITH RED BLINDS me. a minute you'll see that it explains every other blessed thing." And I saw that so it did, as far as the un- fortunate Royle was concerned ; and there was silence between us while I ran through my brief relations with the dead man and Delavoye filled his pipe. “I never took to the fellow," he continued, in a callous tone that almost imposed upon “ I didn't like his eternal buttonhole, or the hat on one side, or the awful shade of their beastly blinds, or the colour of the good lady's hair for that matter! Just the wrong red and yellow, unless you happen to wear blue spectacles ; and if you'd ever seen them saying good-bye of a morning you'd have wished you were stone-blind. But if ever I marry_which God forbid-may I play the game by my wife as he has done by his! Think of his feelings—with two such things hanging over him—those African ac- counts on the way as well! Is he to throw himself on his old friend's mercy ? No; he's too much of a man, or perhaps too big a villain--but I know which I think now. What then? If there's a hue and cry the 83 WITCHING HILL wife'll be the first to hear it; but if he lays a strong false scent, through an honest chap like you, it may just tide over the days that matter. So it has, in point of fact; but for me, there'd have been days and days to spare. But imagine yourself creeping back into your empty hole to die like a rat, and still thinking of every little thing to prevent your being found!” “And to keep it from looking like suicide when you were !” said I, with yet a linger- ing doubt in my mind. "Well, then I say you have the finest suicide ever!” declared Uvo Delavoye. “I only wish I knew when he began to think it all out. Was it before he called you in to see the tap that didn't turn off ? Or was it the defective tap that suggested the means of death ? In either case, when he nailed up his letter-box, it was not, of course, to keep the postman from the door, but to keep the smell of gas inside if he or any- body else did come. That, I think, is fairly plain." “It's ingenious," I conceded, “ whether the idea's your own or Royle's." 84 THE HOUSE WITH RED BLINDS “It must have been his,” said Delavoye with conviction. “ You don't engineer an elaborate fake and get in one of your best bits by accident. No; there was only one mistake poor Royle made, and it was un- premeditated. It was rather touching too. Do you remember my trying to get some- thing from his fingers, just when the knock came ?" I took a breath through my teeth. “I wish I didn't. What was it?" “A locket with yellow hair in it. And he'd broken the glass, and his thumb was on the hair itself! I don't suppose,” added Delavoye, “it would have meant to anybody else what it must to you and me, Gillon; but I'm not sorry I got it out of his clutches in time.” Yet now he could shudder in his turn. And to think," I said at last, recalling the secret and forgotten foreboding with which I myself had entered the house of death ; only to think that at the last I was more prepared for murder than suicide ! I almost suspected the poor chap of having killed his wife, and shut her up there !" 85 WITCHING HILL “ Did you ?” said Delavoye, with an un- timely touch of superiority. That never occurred to me.” “But you must have thought something was up ?” “ I didn't think. I knew." “Not what had happened ? " More or less." "I wish you'd tell me how !” Uvo smiled darkly as he shook his head. “It's no use telling certain people certain things. You shall see for yourself with your own two eyes . He got up and crossed the room. “ You know what I'm up to at the British Museum ; did I tell you they'd got a fine old last-century plan of the original Estate ? Well, for weeks I've had a man in Holborn trying to get me a copy for love or money. He's just suc- ceeded. Here it is." A massive hereditary desk, as mid-Vic- torian as all the Delavoye possessions, stood before the open window that looked out into the moonlight; on this desk was a reading gas-lamp, with a smelly rubber tube, of the same maligned period; and there 86 THE HOUSE WITH RED BLINDS and thus was the plan spread like a table- cloth, pinned down by ash-tray, inkpot, and the lamp itself, and duly overhung by our two young heads. I carry it pretty clearly still in my mind's eye. The Estate alone, or rather the whole original property and nothing else, was outlined and filled in, and the rest left as white as age permitted. It was like a map of India upside down. The great house was curiously situated in the apex, but across the road a clump of shrubberies stood for Ceylon. Our present Estate was at the thick end, as Delavoye explained, and it was a thrilling moment when he laid his nail upon the Turkish Pa- vilion, actually so marked, and we looked out into the moonlit garden and beheld its indubitable site. The tunnel was not marked. But Delavoye ran his finger to the left, and stopped on an emblem illegi- bly inscribed in small faint ancient print. “ It's ‘Steward's Lodge,' "I peered in vain ; you shall have a mag- nifying glass, if you like, to show there's no deception. But the story I'm afraid you'll have to take on trust for the moment. 1 said he as ܙܙ ܝ 87 WITCHING HILL If you want to see chapter and verse, apply for a reader's ticket and I'll show you both any day at the B.M. I only struck them myself this afternoon, in a hairy tome called · The Mulcaster Peerage '--and a whole page of sub-titles. They're from one of the epistles of the dear old sinner himself, written as though other people's money had never melted in his noble fist. I won't spoil it by misquotation. But you'll find that there was once an unjust steward, who robbed the wicked lord of this very vineyard, and then locked himself into his lodge, and committed suicide rather than face the fear- ful music !” I did not look at Delavoye ; but I felt his face glowing like a live coal close to mine. “This road isn't marked,” I said as though I had been simply buried in the plan. * Naturally ; it wasn't made. Would you like to see where it ran ?” “I shouldn't mind,” I said with the same poor quality of indifference. He took a bit of old picture-rod, which he kept for a ruler on his desk, and'ran a pair of parallel lines in blue pencil from west to 88 THE HOUSE WITH RED BLINDS east. The topline came just under the factor's cottage. “It's in this very road!” I exclaimed, . “Not only that,” returned Delavoye," but if you go by the scale, and pace the distance, you'll find that the Steward's Lodge was on the present site of the house with red blinds !” And he turned away to fill another pipe, as though finely determined not to crow or glow in my face. But I did not feel myself an object for magnanimity. "I thought it was only your ignoble kins- man, as you call him," I said, “who was to haunt and influence us all. If it's to be his man-servant, his maid-servant- “Stop," cried Delavoye ; stop in time, my dear man, before you come to one or other of us! Can you seriously think it a mere coincidence that a thing like this should happen on the very spot where the very same thing has happened before ?” “I don't see why not." “I had only the opposite idea to go upon, Gilly, and yet I found exactly what I ex- pected to find. Was that a fluke ? " “Or a coincidence-call it what you like." 89 WITCHING HILL “Call it what you like,” retorted Delavoye with great good-humour. “ But if the same sort of thing happens again, will it still be a coincidence or a fluke ?" “In my view, always," I replied, harden- ing my heart for ever. “That's all right, then,” said he with his schoolboy laugh. "You pays your money and you takes your choice." 90 CHAPTER III A VICIOUS CIRCLE THE Berridges of Berylstow-a house near my office in the Witching Hill Road-were per- haps the very worthiest family on the whole Estate. Old Mr. Berridge, by a lifetime of faithful service, had risen to a fine position in one of the oldest and most substantial assurance societies in the City of London. Mrs. Ber- ridge, herself a woman of energetic character, devoted every minute that she could spare from household duties, punctiliously fulfilled, to the glorification of the local Vicar and the denunciation of modern ideas. There was a daughter, whose name of Beryl had inspired that of the house ; she was her mother's iniature and echo, and had no desire to ride a bicycle or do anything else that Mrs. Berridge had not done before her. An only 91 WITCHING HILL son, Guy, completed the partie carrée, and already made an admirable accountant under his father's eagle eye. He was about thirty years of age, had a mild face but a fierce moustache, was engaged to be married, and already picking up books and pictures for the new home. As a bookman Guy Berridge stood alone. “There's nothing like them for furnishing a house," said he ; "and nowadays they're so cheap. There's that new series of Vic- torian Classics-one-and-tenpence-halfpenny! And those Eighteenth Century Masterpieces -I don't know when I shall get time to read them, but they're worth the money for the binding alone—especially with everything peculiar taken out !" Peculiar was a family epithet of the widest possible significance. It was peculiar of Guy, in the eyes of the other three, to be in such a hurry to leave their comfortable home for one of his own on a necessarily much smaller scale. Miss Hemming, the future Mrs. Guy, was by no means deficient in peculiarity from his people's point of view. She affected flowing fabrics of peculiar 92 A VICIOUS CIRCLE shades, and she had still more peculiar ideas of furnishing. On Saturday afternoons she would drag poor Guy into all the second-hand furniture shops in the neighbourhood-not even to save money, as Mrs. Berridge com- plained to her more intimate friends—but just to be peculiar. It seemed like a judg- ment when Guy fell so ill with influenza, obviously contracted in one of those highly peculiar shops, that he had to mortgage his summer holiday by going away for a complete change early in the New Year. He went to country cousins of the subur- ban Hemmings; his own Miss Hemming went with him, and it was on their return that a difference was first noticed in the young couple. They no longer looked radiant together, much less when apart. The good young accountant would pass my window with a quite tragic face. And one morning, when we met outside, he told me that he had not slept a wink. That evening I went to smoke a pipe with Uvo Delavoye, who happened to have brought me into these people's ken. And we were actually talking about Guy Berridge and his 93 WITCHING HILL affairs when the maid showed him up into Uvo's room. I never saw a man look quite so wretched. The mild face seemed to cower behind the truculent moustache; the eyes, bright and bloodshot, winced when one met them. I got up to go, feeling instinctively that he had come to confide in Uvo. But Berridge read me as quickly as I read him. Don't you go on my account,” said he gloomily. “I've nothing to tell Delavoye that I can't tell you, especially after giving myself away to you once already to-day. I daresay three heads will be better than two, and I know I can trust you both.” “Is anything wrong? ” asked Uvo, when preliminary solicitations had reminded me that his visitor neither smoked nor drank. Everything ! " was the reply. Not with your engagement, I hope ? " That's it," said Berridge, with his eyes on the carpet. It isn't-off ?" “Not yet.” “I don't want to ask more than I ought,” said Uvo, after a pause, “but I always 94 A VICIOUS CIRCLE imagine that, between people who're engaged, the least little thing. It isn't a little thing." And the accountant shook his downcast head. “I only meant, my dear chap, if you'd had some disagreement- We've never had the least little word !” “Has she changed ? ” asked Uvo Dela- voye. “Not that I know of," replied Berridge ; but he looked up as though it were a new idea ; and there was more life in his voice. She'd tell you,” said Uvo, “if I know her.” “Do people tell each other ? " eagerly in- quired our friend. 'They certainly ought, and I think Miss Hemming would. “Ah! it's easy enough for them!” cried the miserable young man. “ Women are not liars and traitors because they happen to change their minds. Nobody thinks the worse of them for that; it's their privilege, isn't it? They can break off as many en- gagements as they like; but if I did such 95 WITCHING HILL a thing I should never hold up my head again! He buried his hot face in his hands, and Delavoye looked at me for the first time. It was a sympathetic look enough; and yet there was something in it, a lift of the eye- brow, a light in the eye, that reminded me of the one point on which we always dif- fered. “Better hide your head than spoil her life,” said he briskly. “But how long have you felt like doing either? I used to look on you as an ideal pair.” “So we were," said poor Berridge, readily. “It's most peculiar !” I saw a twitch at the corners of Uvo's mouth; but he was not the man for sly glances over a bowed head. “How long have you been engaged ? ” he asked. “Ever since last September." “You were here then, if I remember?" "Yes; it was just after my holiday." In fact you've been here all the time?" Up to these last few weeks." Delavoye looked round his room as a 96 A VICIOUS CIRCLE « But cross-examining counsel surveys the court to mark a point. I felt it about time to intervene on the other side. you looked perfectly happy," said I, all the autumn ? " So I was, God knows ! Everything was all right until you went away ?" Everything.' " Then," said I, “it looks to me like the mere mental effect of influenza, and nothing else." But that was not the sense of the glance I could not help shooting at Delavoye. And my explanation was no comfort to Guy Berridge ; he had thought of it before ; but then he had never felt better than the last few days in the country, yet never had he been in such despair. "I can't go through with it,” he groaned in abject unreserve. "It's making my life a hell—a living lie. I don't know how to bear it-from one meeting to the next-I dread them so! Yet I've always a sort of hope that next time everything will sud- denly become as it was before Christmas. 97 WITCHING HILL Talk of forlorn hopes! Each time's worse than the last. I've come straight from her now. I don't know what you must think of me! It's not ten minutes since we said good-night.” The big moustache trembled. “I felt a Judas," he whispered—“an abso- lute Judas !” “I believe it's all nerves,” said Delavoye, but with so little conviction that I loudly echoed the belief. “But I don't go in for nerves," protested Berridge; none of us do, in our family. We don't believe in them. We think they're a modern excuse for anything you like to do or say; that's what we think about nerves. I'm not going to start them just to make myself out better than I am. It's my heart that's rotten, not my nerves.' "I admire your attitude,” said Dela- voye, " but I don't agree with you. It'll all come back to you in the end-everything you think you've lost--and then you'll feel as though you'd awakened from a bad dream.” “But sometimes I do wake up, as it is !” cried Berridge, catching at the idea. “Nearly every morning, when I'm dressing, things 98 A VICIOUS CIRCLE look different. I feel my old self again- the luckiest fellow alive-engaged to the sweet- est girl! She's always that, you know; don't imagine for one moment that I ever think less of Edith; she always was and would be a million times too good for me. If only she'd see it for herself, and chuck me up of her own accord! I've even tried to tell her what I feel ; but she won't meet me half-way; the real truth never seems to enter her head. How to tell her outright I don't know. It would have been easy enough last year, when her people wouldn't let us be properly engaged. But they gave in at Christmas when I had my rise in screw; and now she's got her ring, and given me this one-how on earth can I go and give it her back ?" May I see?” asked Delavoye, holding out his hand; and I for one was grateful to him for the diversion of the few seconds we spent inspecting an old enamelled ring with a white peacock on a crimson ground. Ber- ridge asked us if we thought it a very peculiar ring, as they all did at Berylstow, and he babbled on about the circumstances of 99 WITCHING HILL its purchase by his dear, sweet, open-handed Edith. It did him good to talk. A tinge of health returned to his cadaverous cheeks, and for a time his moustache looked less out of keeping and proportion. But it was the mere reactionary surcease of prolonged pain, and the fit came on again in uglier guise before he left. “It isn't so much that I don't want to marry her," declared the accountant with startling abruptness, “as the awful thoughts I have as to what may happen if I do. They're too awful to describe, even to you two fellows. Of course nothing could make you think worse of me than you must already, but you'd say I was mad if you could see inside my horrible mind. I don't think she'd be safe; honestly I don't! I feel as if I might do her some injury-or-or violence !" He was swaying about the room with wild eyes staring from one to the other of us and twitching fingers feeling in his pockets. I got up myself and stood within reach of him, for now I felt certain that love or ill- ness had turned his brain. But it was only a very small scrap of paper that he fished 100 A VICIOUS CIRCLE out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed first to Delavoye and then to me. "I cut it out of a review of such a peculiar poem in my evening paper," said Berridge. I never read reviews, or poems, but those lines hit me hard." And I read : "Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword !” But you don't feel like that!” said De- avoye, laughing at him; and the laughter rang as false as his earlier consolation ; but this time I had not the presence of mind to supplement it. Guy Berridge nodded violently as he held out his hand for the verse. I could see that his eyes had filled with tears. But Uvo rolled the scrap of paper into a pellet, which he flung among the lumps of asbestos glow- ing in his grate, and took the outstretched hand in his. I never saw man so gentle IOI WITCHING HILL with another. Hardly a word more passed. But the poor devil squeezed my fingers be- fore Uvo led him out to see him home. And it was many minutes before he returned. “I have had a time of it!" said he, put- ting his feet to the gas fire. “ Not with that poor old thing, but his people, all three of them! I got him up straight to bed, and then they kept me when he thought I'd gone. Of course they know there's something wrong, and of course they blame the girl ; one knew they would. It seems they've never really approved of her ; she's a shock- ing instance of all-round peculiarity. They little know the apple of their own blind eyes -eh, Gilly ?." "I hardly knew him myself,” said I. "He must be daft! I never thought to hear a grown man go on like that.” And such a man !" cried Uvo. “It's not the talk so much as the talker that sur- prises me; and by the way, how well he talked, for him! He was less of a bore than I've ever known him; there was passion in the fellow, confound him! Red blood in that lump of road metal ! He's not only 102 A VICIOUS CIRCLE sorry for himself. He's simply heartbroken about the girl. But this maggot of morbid introspection has got into his brain and -how did it get there, Gilly ? It's no place for the little brute. What brain is there to feed it? What has he ever done, in all his dull days, to make that harmless mind a breeding-ground for every sort of degenerate idea ? In mine they'd grow like mustard and cress. I'd feel just like that if I were engaged to the very nicest girl; the nicer she was, the worse I'd get ; but then I'm a degenerate dog in any case. Oh, yes, I am, Gilly. am, Gilly. But here's as faithful a hound as ever licked his lady's hand. Where's he got it from? Who's the poi- soner ?” I'm glad you ask,” said I. “I was afraid you'd say you knew.” Meaning my old man of the soil ? " "I made sure you'd put it on him." Uvo laughed heartily. " You don't know as much about him as I do, Gilly! He was the last old scoun- drel to worry because he didn't love a woman as much as she deserved. It was IO3 WITCHING HILL quite the other way about, I can assure you." “Yes; but what about those almost mur- derous inclinations ?" “I thought of them. But they only came on after our good friend had shaken this demoralising dust off his feet. As long as he stuck to Witching Hill he was as sound as a marriage bell! It's dead against my doctrine, Gillon, but I'm delighted to find that you share my disappointment.” “And I to hear you own it is one, Uvo!” There's another thing, now we're on the subject,” he continued, for we had not been on it for weeks and months. It seems that over at Hampton Court there's a portrait of my ignoble kinsman, by one Kneller. I only heard of it the other day, and I was rather wondering if you could get away to spin over with me and look him up. It needn't necessarily involve contentious topics, and we might lunch at the Mitre in that window looking down stream. But it ought to be to-morrow, if you could manage it, because the galleries don't open on Friday, and on Saturdays they're always crowded.” 104 A VICIOUS CIRCLE I could not manage it very well. I was supposed to spend my day on the Estate, and, though there was little doing thus early in the year, it might be the end of me if my Mr. Muskett came back before his usual time and did not find me at my post. And I was no longer indifferent as to the length of my days at Witching Hill. But I re- solved to risk them for the man who had made the place what it was to me-a gar- den of friends—however otherwise he might people and spoil it for himself. We started at my luncheon hour, which could not in any case count against me, and quite early in the afternoon we reckoned to be back. It was a very keen bright day, worthier of General January than his chief- of-staff. Ruts and puddles were firmly frozen ; our bicycle bells rang out with a pleasing brilliance. In Bushey Park the black chestnuts stamped their filigree tops against a windless radiance. Under the trees a russet carpet still waited for March winds to take it up. The Diana pond was skinned with ice ; goddess and golden nymphs caught every scintillation of cold sunlight as we 105 WITCHING HILL trundled past. In a fine glow we entered the palace and climbed to the grim old galleries. “ Talk about haunted houses !” said Uvo Delavoye. “If our patron sinner takes such a fatherly interest in the humble material at his disposal, what about that gay dog Henry and the good ladies in these apartments ? I should be sorry to trust living neck to what's left of the old lady-killer.” It was the famous Holbein which had set him off. “But I say, Gilly, here's a far worse face than his. It may be my rude forefather ; by Jove, and so it is!” And he took off his cap with unction to a handsome, sinister creature, in a brown flowing wig and raiment as fine as any on the walls. There was a staggering peacock-blue surtout, lined with silk of an orange scarlet, the wide sleeves turned up with the same; and a creamy cascade of lace fell from the throat over a long cinnamon waistcoat piped with silk; for you could swear to the material at sight, and the colours might have been laid on that week. They lit up the gloomy chamber, and the eyes in the periwigged 106 You A handsome, sinister creature, in a brown flowing wig and raiment as fine as any on the walls. Page 106 WITCHING HILL narrow stem, the high, projecting, oval bezel- the white peacock enamelled on a crimson ground-one and all were there, as the painters of that period loved to put such things in " It must be the same, Gilly! There couldn't be two such utter oddities!" “It looks like it, certainly ; but how did Miss Hemming get hold of it ?" “Easily enough ; she ferrets out all the old curiosity shops in the district, and didn't Berridge tell us she bought his ring in one ? Obviously it's been lying there for the last century and a bit. Bear in mind that this bad old lot wasn't worth a bob towards the end ; then you must see the whole thing's so plain, there's only one thing plainer.” What's that ? The entire cause and origin of Guy Berridge's pangs and fears about his en- gagement. He never had one or the other before Christmas--when he got his ring. They've made his life a Hades ever since, every day of it and every hour of every day, except sometimes in the morning when he was getting up. Why not then ? Because 108 A VICIOUS CIRCLE he took off his ring when he went to his bath! I'll go so far as to remind you that his only calm and rational moments last night were while you and I were looking at this ring and it was off his finger!” Delavoye's strong excitement was attract- ing the attention of the old soldierly attend- ant near the window, and in a vague way that veteran attracted mine. I glanced past him, out and down into the formal grounds. Yew and cedar seemed unreal to me in the wintry sunlight; almost I wondered whether I was dreaming in my turn, and where on earth I was. It was as though a touch of the fantastic had rested for a mo- ment even on my hard head. But I very soon shook it off, and mocked the vanquished weakness with a laugh. “Yes, my dear fellow, that's all very well. But" “None of your blooming 'buts'!” cried Uvo, with almost delirious levity. “I should have thought this instance was concrete enough even for you. But we'll talk about it at the Mitre and consider what to do." 109 A VICIOUS CIRCLE Friday night, the pangs seemed keener and the fears even more enervating than before. Again he sat with us in Uvo's room ; but he was oftener on his legs, striding up and down, muttering and gesticulating as he strode. In the end Uvo took a strong line with him. I was waiting for it. He had conceived the scheme at Hampton Court, and I was curious to see how it would be received. “This can't go on, Berridge! I'll see you through-to the bitter end ! ” Uvo was not an actor, yet here was a mag- nificent piece of acting, because it was more than half sincere. “Will you really, Delavoye ? ” cried the accountant, shrinking a little from his luck. “Rather! I'm not going to let you go stark mad under my nose. Give me that ring." My-her--ring ? ' “Of course; it's your engagement ring, isn't it? And it's your duty, to yourself and her and everybody else, to break off that en- gagement with as little further delay as pos- sible.” III WITCHING HILL But are you sure, Delavoye ?" Certain. Give it to me. “ It seems such a a frightful thing to do!' “We'll see about that. Thank you ; now you're your own man again.” And now I really did begin to open my eyes; for no sooner had the unfortunate accountant parted with his ring, than his ebbing affections rushed back in a miracu- lous flood, and he was begging for it again in five minutes, vowing that he had been mad but now was sane, and looking more him- self into the bargain. But Delavoye was adamant to these hysterical entreaties. He plied Berridge with his own previous argu- ments against the marriage, and once at least he struck a responsive chord from those frayed nerves. Nobody but yourself," he pointed out, ever said you didn't love her ; but see what love makes of you! Can you dream of marriage in such a state ? Is it fair to the girl, until you've really reconsidered the whole matter and learnt your own mind once for all ? Could she be happy ? Would 112 A VICIOUS CIRCLE she be-it was your own suggestion-but are you sure she would be even safe?” Berridge wrung his hands in new despair ; yes, he had forgotten that! Those awful instincts were the one unalterably awful feature. Not that he felt them still; but to recollect them as genuine impulses, or at best as irresistible thoughts, was to freeze his self-distrust into a cureless cancer. "I was forgetting all that,” he moaned. " And yet here in my pocket is the very book those hopeless lines are from. I bought it at Stoneham's this morning. It's the most peculiar poem I ever read. I can't quite make it out. But that bit was clear enough. Only hear how it goes on!" And in a school-childish singsong, with no expression but that involuntarily im- parted by his quavering quavering voice, he read twelve lines aloud "Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old ; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold : The kindest use a knife, because II 113 WITCHING HILL He shuddered horribly The dead so soon grow cold. “ Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy ; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh : For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.” “It's all I'm fit for, death!” groaned Guy Berridge, trying to tug the fierce mous- tache out of his mild face. The sooner the better, for me! And yet I did love her, God knows I did !” He turned upon Uvo Delavoye in a sudden blaze. And so I do still—do you hear me? Then give me back my ring, I say, and don't encourage me in this madness-you-you devil !” Give it him back," I said. But Uvo set his teeth against us both, looking almost what he had just been called-looking abomin- ably like that fine evil gentleman in Hamp- ton Court—and I could stand the whole thing no longer. I rammed my own hand into Delavoye's pocket. And down and 114 Fc YUAN Trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face. Page 114 A VICIOUS CIRCLE away out into the night, like a fiend let loose, went Guy Berridge and the ring with the peacock enamelled in white on a blood- red ground. I turned again to Delavoye. His shoul- ders were up to his ears in wry good humour. * You may be right, Gilly, but now I ought really to sit up with him all night. In any case I shall have it back in the morning, and then neither you nor he shall ever see that unclean bird again!” But he went so far as to show it to me across my counter, not many minutes after young Berridge had shambled past, with bent head and unshaven cheeks, to catch his usual train next morning. “I did sit up with him," said Uvo. “We sat up till he dropped off in his chair, and eventually I got him to bed more asleep than awake. But he's as bad as ever again this morning, and he has surrendered the infernal ring this time of his own accord I'm to break matters to the girl by giving it back to her." You're a perfect hero to take it on!' “I feel much more of a humbug, Gilly.” 115 WITCHING HILL " When do you tackle her?" “Never, my dear fellow ! dear fellow ! Can't you see the point? This white peacock's at the bottom of the whole thing. Neither of them shall ever set eyes on it again, and then you see if they don't marry and live happy ever after !" But are you going to throw the thing away?" “Not if I can help it, Gilly. I'll tell you what I thought of doing. There's a little working jeweller, over at Richmond, who made me quite a good pin out of some heavy old studs that belonged to my father. I'm going to take him this ring to-day and see if he can turn out a duplicate for love or money." “I'll go with you," I said, “if you can wait till the afternoon." “We must be gone before Berridge has a chance of getting back," replied Uvo, doubt- fully; otherwise I shall have to begin all over again, because of course he'll come back cured and roaring for his ring. I haven't quite decided what to say to him, but I fancy my imagination will prove equal to the strain." 116 A VICIOUS CIRCLE This seemed to me a rather cynical atti- tude to take, even in the best of causes, and it certainly was not like Uvo Delavoye. Only too capable, in my opinion, of deceiv- ing himself, he was no impostor, if I knew him, and it was disappointing to see him take so kindly to the part. I preferred not to talk about it on the road to Richmond, which we took on foot in the small hours of the afternoon. A weeping thaw had re- duced the frozen ruts to mere mud piping, of that consistency which grips a tyre like teeth. But it was impossible not to com- pare this heavy tramp with our sparkling spin through Bushey Park. And the hot and cold fits of poor Guy Berridge afforded an inevitable analogy. “I can't understand him," I was saying. "I can understand a fellow falling in love and even falling out again. But Berridge flies from one extreme to the other like a ball in a hard rally." “And it's not the way he's built, Gilly! That's what sticks with me. You may be quite sure he's not the first breeder of sin- ners who began by shivering on the brink 117 A VICIOUS CIRCLE moustache clipped and curled. But a sporadic glow marked either cheek-bone, and he had forgotten to return our salute. Yes, Mr. Delavoye ! said Miss Hem- ming with arch severity. “ What have you been doing with my white peacock ?” She had a brown fringe, very crisply curled as a rule ; but the damp air had softened and improved it; and perhaps her young gentleman's recovery had carried the good work deeper, for she was a girl who some- times gave herself airs, but there seemed no room for any in her happy face. “To tell you the truth,” replied Uvo, un- blushingly, “ I was on my way to show it to a bit of a connoisseur at Richmond." He turned to Berridge, who met his glance eagerly. “That's really why I borrowed it, Guy. I believe it's more valuable than either of you realise.' " “Not to me!” cried the accountant readily. “I don't know what I was doing to take it off. I hear it's a most unlucky thing to do.” It was easy to see from whom he had heard it. Miss Hemming said nothing, but looked all the more decided with her mouth 119 WITCHING HILL quite shut. And Delavoye addressed his apologies to the proper quarter. “ I'm awfully sorry, Miss Hemming! Of course you're quite right; but I hope you'll show it to my man yourselves" “ If you don't mind,” said Berridge, hold- ing out his hand with a smile. But Uvo had broken off of his own accord. "I think you'll be glad "-he was feel- ing in all his pockets—"quite glad if you do~' and his voice died away as he began feeling again. 'Lucky I wired to you to meet me at Richmond, wasn't it, Edie ? Otherwise we should have been too late," said the accoun- tant densely. Perhaps you are !" poor Uvo had to cry outright. "I-the fact is I-can't find it anywhere." “ You may have left it behind,” suggested Berridge. We can call for it, if you did," said the girl. There was something in his sudden worry that appealed to their common_fund of gen- erosity 120 A VICIOUS CIRCLE “No, no! I told you why I was going to Richmond. I thought I had it in my ticket pocket. In fact, I know I had ; but I went with my sister this morning to get some flowers at Kingston market, and I haven't had it out since. It's been taken from me, and that was where! I wish you'd feel in my pockets for me. I've had them picked -picked of the one thing that wasn't mine, and was of value-and now you'll neither of you ever forgive me, and I don't deserve to be forgiven !! But they did forgive him, and that hand- somely-so manifest was his distress-s0 great their recovered happiness. It was only I who could not follow their example, when they had gone on their way, and Delavoye and I were hurrying on ours, ostensibly to get the Richmond police to telephone at once to Kingston, as the first of all the energetic steps that we were going to take. For we were still in that asphalt passage, and the couple had scarcely quitted it at the other end, when Delavoye drew off his glove and showed me the missing ring upon his little finger. I2I A VICIOUS CIRCLE wired to me this morning to say nothing to the girl, probably at the same time that he wired to her to meet him ? He carried it all off like a born actor just now, and yet you curse me for going and doing likewise to save the pair of them!” It is always futile to try to slay the bee in another's bonnet ; but for once I broke my rule of never arguing with Uvo Delavoye, if I could help it, on the particular point in- volved. I simply could not help it, on this occasion; and when Uvo lost his temper, and said a great deal more than I would have taken from anybody else, I would not have helped it if I could. So hot had been our interchange that it was at its height when we debouched from St. Stephen's Pas- sage into the open cross-roads beyond. At that unlucky moment, one small sub- urban Arab, in full flight from another, dashed round the corner and butted into that part of Delavoye which the Egyptian climate had specially demoralised. I saw his dark face writhe with pain and fury. With one hand he caught the offending urchin, and in the other I was horrified to 123 WITCHING HILL see his stick, a heavy blackthorn, held in murderous poise against the leaden sky, while the child was thrust out at arm's length to receive the blow. I hurled my. self between them, and had such difficulty in wresting the blackthorn from the mad- man's grasp that his hand was bleeding, and something had tinkled on the pave- ment, when I tore it from him. Panting, I looked to see what had become of the small boy. He had taken to his heels as though the foul fiend were at them; his late pursuer was now his companion in flight, and I was thankful to find we had the scene to ourselves. Delavoye was point- ing to the little thing that had tinkled as it fell, and as he pointed the blood dripped from his hand, and he shuddered like a man recovering from a fit. I had better admit plainly that the thing was that old ring with the white peacock set in red, and that Uvo Delavoye was once more as I had known him down to that hour. " Don't touch the beastly thing I" he cried. 'It's served me worse than it served poor 124 um 4. YONN A heavy blackthorn held in murderous poise. Page 124 A VICIOUS CIRCLE Berridge! I shall have to think of a fresh lie to tell him-and it won't come so easy now-but I'd rather cut mine off than trust this on another human hand!" He picked it up between his finger-nails. And there was blood on the white peacock when I saw it next on Richmond Bridge. Don't you worry about my hand," said Uvo as he glanced up and down the grey old bridge. It's only a scratch from the blackthorn spikes, but I'd have given a finger to be shot of this devil!” A fick of his wrist sent the old ring spin- ning ; we saw it meet its own reflection in the glassy flood, like a salmon-fly beautifully thrown; and more rings came and widened on the waters, till they stirred the mirrored branches of the trees on Richmond Hill. 125 CHAPTER IV THE LOCAL COLOUR THE Reverend Charles Brabazon, magnetic Vicar of the adjacent Village, had as strong a personality as one could wish to encounter in real life. He did what he liked with a congregation largely composed of the motley worldlings of Witching Hill. Small solicitors and west-end tradesmen, bank officials, outside brokers, first-class clerks in Govern- ment offices, they had not a Sunday soul to call their own, these hard-headed holders of season tickets to Waterloo. Throughout the summer they flocked to church when their hearts were on the river ; in the depths of winter they got up for early celebration on the one morning when they might have lain abed. Their most obse- quious devotions did not temper the preacher's truculence, any more than his strongest 126 THE LOCAL COLOUR onslaught discouraged their good works. They gave of their substance at his every call, and were even more lavish on their own initiative. Thus, in my second summer at Witching Hill, the Vicarage was practically rebuilt out of the pockets of parishioners ; and we had no difficulty in providing a furnished substitute on the favourite wood- land side of Mulcaster Park. Great was the jealousy in Witching Hill Road, but futile the fluttering of our Queen Anne dovecots; for we saw very little more of the Vicar for having him in our midst. He was always either immured in his study, or else hurrying to or from some service or parochial engagement; and although he had a delightful roadside manner, and the same fine smile for high and low, he would stop to speak to neither on his way. Out of church, in fact, Mr. Brabazon preserved a wise aloof- ness which only served to emphasise the fierce intimacy of his pulpit utterances, and combined with his contempt of popularity to render him by far the most popular figure in the neighbourhood. It goes without saying that this remarkable 127 WITCHING HILL man was a High Churchman and a celibate. His house was kept, and his social short- comings made good, by two Misses Brabazon, each as unlike him as possible in her own way. Miss Ruth, who was younger, added to her brother's energy a sympathetic charm and a really good voice which made her the darling of the Parish Hall and humbler edifices. Miss Julia's activities were more sedentary and domestic, as perhaps became the least juvenile of the trio, and so it was that I saw most of her. We had a whole day together over the inventory, and it was Miss Julia who interviewed me about everything else con- nected with the house. She was never short with me on those occasions, never ungracious or (what is worse) unduly gracious, but she had always a pleasant word, and nearly always an innocent little joke as well. Innocence and jocosity were two of her leading characteristics; another was a genu- ine but ingenuous literary faculty. This she exercised in editing the Parish Magazine, and supplying it with moral serials which occasionally reached volume form under the auspices of the Religious Tract Society. 128 THE LOCAL COLOUR On an evening late in April, when the cuckoo was wound up in the wood behind Mulcaster Park, and most of the beds in front were flowering for the first time, a gaunt figure came to the gate of the temporary vicarage and beckoned to me passing on the other side of the road. It was Miss Julia, and I found her looking gently humorous and knowing across the gate. “The trees are coming out so beautifully," she began,“ in the grounds behind these gardens. I was wondering if it would be possible to procure a permit to go over them, Mr. Gillon.' “Do you mean for yourself, Miss Bra- bazon ? " matter of fact I do.” As she spoke I could not but notice that she glanced ever so slightly towards the house behind her, and that her voice had fallen to a murmur, while a mottled colouring appeared between the lines of her guileless visage. I'm afraid I can't do anything," I said. But the Vicar could, Miss Brabazon !" I Well, yes, as а. 129 WITCHING HILL 1 added with conviction. “A line from him to Sir Christopher Stainsby- I stopped because Miss Julia shook her head so decidedly. That would never do, Mr. Gillon. Sir Christopher is such a very rabid Dissenter.” “So I have heard,” I admitted, thinking rather of what I had seen. “ But I don't believe he's as narrow as you think.” “ I couldn't trouble the Vicar about it, in any case,” said Miss Brabazon, hurriedly. “I shouldn't even like him to know that I had troubled you, Mr. Gillon. He's such a severe critic that I never tell him what I'm writing until it's finished." “ Then you are writing something about Witching Hill House, Miss Brabazon ? " “I was thinking of it. I haven't begun. But I never saw any place that I felt such a desire to write about. The old house in the old woods, say a hundred years ago! Don't you think it an ideal scene for a story, Mr. Gillon ?? " It depends on the story you want to tell,” said I, sententiously. A strange light was burning in the weak 130 THE LOCAL COLOUR eyes of Miss Julia. It might almost have been a flicker of the divine fire. But now she dropped her worn eyelids, and gazed into the road with the dreamy cunning of the born creator. “I should have quite a plot," she decided. “ It would be ... yes, it would be about some extraordinary person who lived in there, in the wood and the house, only of course ages and ages ago. I think I should make him—in fact I'm quite sure he would be-a very wicked person, though of course he'd have to come all right in the end." “ You must be thinking of the man who really did live there." " Who was that?" The infamous Lord Mulcaster. Really, Mr. Gillon ? Mr. Gillon ? I don't think I ever heard of him. Of course I know the present family by name; aren't these Dela- voyes connected with them in some way ?" I explained the connection as I knew it, which was not very thoroughly. But I unfortunately said enough to cause a rapid fall in poor Miss Julia's mottled countenance. Then I must give up the idea of that 131 WITCHING HILL story. They would think I meant their ancestor, and that would never do. I'm sorry, because I never felt so inclined to write anything before. But I'm very glad you told me, Mr. Gillon." “But they wouldn't mind a bit, Miss Brabazon! They're not in the least sen- sitive about him," I assured her. “I couldn't think of it," replied Miss Julia, haughtily. “It would be in the very worst of taste." “But Uvo would love it. He's full of the old villain. He might help you if you'd let him. He's at the British Museum at this moment, getting deeper and deeper into what he calls the family mire." “I happen to see him coming down the road,” observed Miss Julia, dryly. “I must really beg that you will not refer to the subject again, Mr. Gillon." But in her voice and manner there was a hesitating reluctance that emboldened me to use my own judgment about that, especi- ally when Uvo Delavoye (whose mother and sister were keen Brabazonians) himself in- troduced the topic on joining us, with a 132 THE LOCAL COLOUR gratuitous remark about his “unfilial ex- cavations in Bloomsbury." " I've opened up a new lazar-house this very day," he informed us, with shining eyes, when Miss Julia had shown an interest in spite of herself. By the way," I cut in," don't you think it would all make magnificent material for a novel, Uvo?" “ If you could find anybody to publish it!” he answered, laughing. You wouldn't mind if he was put into a book-and the place as well ? .” “I wouldn't, if nobody else didn't! Why? Who's thinking of doing us the honour ? " Dear Miss Julia coughed and laughed with delicious coyness. My liberty had been con- doned. “ Was it you, Miss Brabazon ? ” cried Uvo, straightening his face with the nerve that never failed him at a climax. “Well, it was and it wasn't,” she replied, exceeding slyly. “I did think I should like to write a little story about Witching Hill House, and put in rather a bad charac- ter ; at least he would begin by being rather 133 WITCHING HILL “ You may undesirable, perhaps. But I was forgetting that the place had been in your family, Mr. Delavoye. I certainly never knew, until Mr. Gillon told me, that one of the Lords Mulcaster had been-er-perhaps no better than he ought to have been." To put it mildly,” said Delavoye, with smiling face and shrieking eyes. paint the bad old hat as black as mine, Miss Brabazon, and still turn him out a saint com- pared with the villain of the case I've been reading up to-day. So you really needn't worry about anybody's susceptibilities. Lay on the local colour inches deep ! You won't make the place as red as the old gentleman painted it in blood and wine!” Really, Mr. Delavoye !” cried Miss Julia, jocosely shocked. “ You mustn't forget that my story would only appear in our Parish Magazine-unless the R.T.S. took it after- wards." My rude forefather in a Religious Tract!” “Of course I should quite reform him in the end." “ You'd have your work cut out, Miss Brabazon." 134 THE LOCAL COLOUR “I ought to begin with you, you know ! ' said Miss Julia, shaking a facetious finger in Uvo's face. " I'm afraid you're rather an irreverent young man, and I don't know what the Vicar would say if he heard us." She threw another deliciously guilty glance towards the house. But if you really mean what you say, and you're sure Mrs. Delavoye and your sister won't mind either Mind !” he interrupted. Forgive me, Miss Brabazon, but how could they be sensi- tive about the last head but five of a branch of the family which doesn't even recognise our existence ?" Very well, then! I'll take you at your word, and the—the blood and thunder," whispered Miss Julia, as though they were bad words,“ be on your own head, Mr. Delavoye ! ” Thereafter, in a quivering silence, Uvo took me home with him, and straight up into his own room, where he first shut door and window without a word. Never since have I heard man laugh quite so loud and long as he did then. 135 WITCHING HILL But you don't see the point ! ” he arro- gated through his tears, because I made rather less noise. What is it, then ? “I told you I'd opened up a new sink to-day ? " " You said something of the sort." " It was a sink of fresh iniquity. I came across it in an old collection of trials; it isn't as much as mentioned in any memoir of the old reprobate, nor yet in the many annals of Witching Hill. Yet he once figured in one of the most disgraceful cases on record.” The case was all that, as Delavoye summed it up for my benefit. The arch-villain of the piece was of course his scandalous progenitor, aided and abetted by a quite unspeakable crew. There was a sorely distressed heroine in humble life-a poor little milliner from Shoreditch—but because it was all too true, there had been no humble hero to wreak poetic vengeance on the miscreant. “Not a nursery story, I grant you! But there were some good touches in the version I struck," said Delavoye, producing his museum note-book. “ One or two I couldn't 136 THE LOCAL COLOUR help taking down. • In obedience to the custom of the times,' for instance, the young lord proceeded to perform the grand tour ; and it is reported that having sailed from Naples to Constantinople, he there imbibed so great an admiration for the manners of the Turks, that on his return to England in 1766, he caused an outlying portion of his family mansion to be taken down, and to be rebuilt in the form of a harem.'" “ Rot!” “ I took it down word for word. I've often wondered how the Turkish Pavilion got its name ; now we know all about it, and why it had a tunnel connecting it with the house." “ Poor little milliner!" “I believe you, Gilly. Listen to this, when she was a prisoner in his town house, before they spirited her out here -'Looking out of the window at about eight o'clock, she ob- served a young woman passing, to whom she threw out her handkerchief, which was then heavy with tears, intending to attract her attention and send to her father for assist- ance.' Because the handkerchief was marked ? 137 WITCHING HILL And so heavy with her tears that she could throw it like a tennis-ball !" The note-book was put away. There was an end also of our hilarity. “And this dear old girl," said Uvo, with affectionate disrespect, thinks she's a fit and proper writer to cope with that immortal skunk! False Sextus in a parish magazine ! Proud Tarquin done really proud at last !” It was on the tip of my tongue to make it quite clear to Uvo that Miss Julia had not wittingly proposed to write about his ancestor at all; that apparently she had never heard of his existence before that evening, and that it was her own original idea to make Witching Hill House the haunt of some purely imag- inary scoundrel. But I knew my Uvo well enough by this time to hold my tongue, and at least postpone the tiresome discussion of a rather stale point on which we were never likely to agree. But I stayed to supper at No. 7; and Uvo kept me till the small hours, listening to further details of his last researches, and to the farrago of acute conjecture, gay reminis- cence and vivid hearsay which his reading 138 THE LOCAL COLOUR invariably inspired. It was base subject- metal that did not gain a certain bright refine- ment in his fiery mind, or fall from his lips with a lively ring; and that night he was at his best about things which have an opposite effect on many young men. It must have been after one when I left him. I saw the light go out behind the cheap stained glass in the front door, and I heard Uvo going upstairs as I departed. The next and only other light I passed, in the houses on that side of the road, was at the top of the one which was now the Vicarage. Thence also came an only sound; it was the continuous crackle of a typewriter, through the open window of the room which I knew Miss Julia had appropriated as her own. That end of the Estate had by this time a full team of tenants, whereas I had two sets of painters and paperhangers to keep up to the mark in Witching Hill Road. This rather came between me and my friends in Mulcaster Park, especially as my Mr. Muskett lived in their road, and his house had eyes and a tongue. So it happened that I saw no more of Miss Julia Brabazon until she 139 WITCHING HILL paid me a queer little visit at my office one afternoon about five o'clock. She was out of breath, and her flurried manner quickened my ear to the sound of her brother's balls ringing in the distance for week-day evensong. “I thought I'd like to have one word with you, Mr. Gillon, about my story,” she panted, with a guilty shrinking from the sheet of glass behind her. “ It will be finished in a few days now, I'm thankful to say. I've been so hard at work upon it, you can't think!” “Oh, yes, I can, can,” said I; for there seemed to be many more lines on the simple, eager countenance; the drollery had gone out of it, and its heightened colouring had an un- healthy, bluish tinge. “ I'm afraid I have been burning the midnight oil a little,” she admitted with a sort of coy bravado. “But there seems so much to do during the day, and everything is so quiet at night, unless it's that wretched typewriter of mine! But I muffle the bell, and luckily my brother and sister are sound sleepers. You must be keen, Miss Brabazon, to turn night into day." 140 THE LOCAL COLOUR me. “ That “Keen? I never enjoyed writing half so much. It's no effort; the story simply writes itself. I don't feel as if it were a story at all, but something that I see and hear and have just got to get down as fast as ever I can! I feel as if I really knew that old monster we were talking about the other day. Sometimes he quite frightens And that's why I've come to you, Mr. Gillon. I almost fear I'm making him too great a horror after all !” It was impossible not to smile. would be a difficult matter, from all I hear, Miss Brabazon." “I meant from the point of view of his descendants in general, and these dear Dela- voyes in particular. Rather than hurt their feelings. Mr. Gillon, I need hardly tell you I'd destroy my story in a minute." “That would be a thousand pities,” said I, honestly thinking of her wasted time. “ I'm not so sure," said Miss Julia, doubt- fully. “ I sometimes think, when I read the newspapers, that there are bad people enough in the world without digging up more from their graves. Yet at other times I don't 141 WITCHING HILL more feel as if I were doing that either. It's as though this wicked old wretch had come to life of his own accord and in- sisted on being written about. I seem to feel him almost at my elbow, forcing me to write down I don't know what." “But that sounds like inspiration !” I exclaimed, impressed by the good faith pa- tent in the tired, ingenuous, serio-comic face. “I don't know what it is,” replied Miss Julia, or whether I'm writing sense or nonsense. I never like to look next day. I only know that at the time I quite frighten myself and—make as big a fool of myself as though I were in my poor heroine's shoes- which is so absurd !” She laughed uneasily, her colour slightly heightened. “But I only meant to ask you, Mr. Gillon, whether you honestly and truly think that the Delavoyes won't mind ? You see, he really was their ancestor, and I do make him a most odious creature.” “But I don't suppose you give his real name ?" Oh, dear, no. That would never do. I call him the Duke of Doehampton, and the 142 THE LOCAL COLOUR story is called 'His Graceless Grace.' Isn't it a good title, Mr. Gillon ? " I lied like a man, but was still honest enough to add that I thought it even better as a disguise. “I feel sure, Miss Brabazon, that you are worrying yourself unnecessarily,' I took it upon myself to assert; but indeed her title alone would have reassured me, had I for a moment shared her conscientious qualms. “I am so glad you think so," said Miss Julia, visibly relieved. Still, I shall not offer the story anywhere until Mr. Delavoye has seen or heard every word of it." “I thought it was for your own Parish Magazine ?” Miss Julia at last obliged me with her most facetious and most confidential smile. “I am not tied down to the Parish Maga- zine," said she. There are higher fields. I am not certain that ' His Graceless Grace' is altogether suited to the young--the young parishioner, Mr. Gillon! I must read it over and see. And yes—I shall invite Mr. Delavoye to come and hear it, before I decide to send it anywhere at all.” 143 WITCHING HILL The reading actually took place on an evening in May, when the Vicar had accom- panied his younger sister up to Exeter Hall ; and at the last moment I also received a verbal invitation, delivered and inspired by that rascal Uvo, who declared that I had let him in for the infliction and must bear my share. More justly, he argued that the pair of us might succeed in keeping each other awake, whereas one alone would infallibly disgrace himself ; and we had solemnly agreed upon a system of watch-and-watch, by the alternate quarter-of-an-hour, before we presented ourselves at the temporary vicarage after supper. Miss Julia received us in stiff silk that supplied a sort of sibilant obbligato to a nervous welcome; and her voice maintained a secretive pitch, even when the maid had served coffee and shut the door behind her, lending a surreptitious air to the proceedings before they could be said to have begun. It was impossible not to wonder what the Vicar would have said to see his elderly sister discoursing profane fiction to a pair of heathens who seldom set foot inside his church. 144 THE LOCAL COLOUR He would scarcely have listened with our resignation ; for poor Miss Julia read as badly as she wrote, and never was story opened with clumsier ineptitude than hers. We had sheet upon typewritten sheet about the early life and virtuous vicissitudes of some deplorably dull young female in the east end of London; and in my case slumber was imminent when the noble villain made his entry in the cinnamon waistcoat of the picture at Hampton Court. At that I tried to catch Uvo's eye, but it was already fixed upon the reader's face with an intensity which soon attracted her attention. Isn't that your idea of him, Mr. Dela- asked Miss Julia, apprehensively. Well, yes, it is; but it was Sir Godfrey Kneller's first." said Uvo, laughing. So you took the trouble to go all the way over there to study his portrait, Miss Brabazon ? What portrait ? All the way over where, Mr. Delavoye ? " Uvo entered into particulars which left the lady's face a convincing blank. She had seen no portrait; it was years since she had been through the galleries at Hampton Court, voye ? K 145 WITCHING HILL a and then without a catalogue. Uvo seemed to experience so much difficulty in crediting this disclaimer, that I asked whether cinna- mon had not been a favourite colour with the bloods of the eighteenth century. On his assent the the reading proceeded in slightly altered voice, in which I thought I detected a note of not unnatural umbrage. But far greater coincidences were in store, and those of such a character that it was certainly difficult to believe that they were anything of the sort. Considered as an attempt at dramatic narrative, the story was, of course, beneath criticism. all redundant description, gratuitous ex- planations, facetious turns to serious sen- tences, and declared intentions which entirely spoilt the effect of their due fulfil- ment. Bored to extinction with the heroine, who only became interesting on the villain's advent, as his predestined prey, we thence- forth heard no more of her until his ante- cedents had been set forth in solid slabs of the pluperfect tense. These dwelt with stolid solemnity upon the distinctions and debaucheries of his University career, and It was 146 THE LOCAL COLOUR then all at once on the effect of subsequent travel upon a cynical yet impressionable mind. In an instant both of us were attending, and even I guessed what was coming, and what had happened. Probably by half-forgotten hearsay, our dear good lady had tapped the same muddy stream as Uvo Delavoye, and some of the mud had silted into a mind too innocent to appreciate its quality. Debased and degraded by the wicked splendours of barbaric courts, the unprincipled young nobleman had decided not only to do in Turkey as the Turkeys did,' but to initiate the heathen institution of polygamy among his own broad acres on his return to England, home, and only too much beauty! Poor, innocent, confiding Millicent ; little did she dream, when he asked her to be his, that he only meant 'one of the many'; that the place awaiting her was but her niche in the seraglio which he had wickedly had built, in a corner of his stately grounds, on some Eastern model.” Delavoye looked at me without a trace of amusement, but rather in alarmed recogni- tion of the weirdly sustained parallel between 147 WITCHING HILL rascal fact and foolish fiction. But as yet we had only scratched the thin ice of the situation; soon we were almost shuddering from our knowledge of the depths below. The unhappy heroine had repulsed the advances of the villain in the story as in the actual case ; in both she was from the same locality (where, however, our Vicar had held his last curacy); in both, enticed into his lord- ship's coach and driven off at a great rate to his London mansion, where the first phase of her harrowing adventures ensued. So innocently were these described that we must have roared over them by ourselves ; but there was no temptation to smile under the rosy droll nose of poor Miss Julia, by this time warmed to her work, and reeling off her own interminable periods with pathetic zest. Yet even her jocose and sidelong style could no longer conceal an interest which had become more dramatic than she was aware. Just as it first had taken charge of her pen, so her story had now gained undisputed command of the poor lady's lips; and she was actually reading it far better than at first, as if subconsciously stimulated by our 148 THE LOCAL COLOUR rapt attention, though mercifully ignorant of its uncomfortable quality. I speak only for myself, and it may be that as a very young man I took the whole business more seriously than I should to-day. But I must own there were some beads upon my forehead when Delavoye relieved the tension by jump- ing to his feet in unrestrained excitement. " I'm glad you like that,” said Miss Julia, with a pleased smile,“ because I thought it was good myself. Her handkerchief would have her name on it, you see; and she was able to throw it out of the window like a stone, at the feet of the first passer-by, because it was so heavy with her tears. Of course she hoped the person who picked it up would see the name and “Of course!” cried Uvo, cavalierly. “It was an excellent idea-I always thought so.” Miss Julia eyed him with a puzzled smirk. “How could you always think a thing I've only just invented ? " she asked acutely. Well, you see, it's happened in real life before to-day,” he faltered, seeing his mistake. “ Like a good deal of my story, it ap- pears ? " 149 THE LOCAL COLOUR you'd been reading the other night-isn't it?" Perhaps it is." “ Was he actually tried—that Lord Mul- caster ?" The wretched Uvo groaned and nodded. “What for, Mr. Delavoye ? ” His life !” exclaimed Uvo, moistening his lips. Miss Julia beamed and puckered with excitement. How very dreadful, to be sure! And had he actually committed a murder ? " " I've no doubt he had,” said Uvo, eagerly. “I wouldn't put anything past him, as they say; but in those days it wasn't necessary to take life in order to forfeit your own. There were lots of other capital offences. The mere kidnapping of the young lady, exactly as you describe it-" But did he really do such a thing ? ' demanded Miss Julia. And her obviously genuine amazement redoubled mine. Exactly as you have described it,” re- peated Delavoye. “He travelled in the East, commenced Bluebeard on his return, fished 151 WITCHING HILL his Fatima like yours out of some little shop down Shoreditch way, and even drove her to your own expedient of turning her tears to account ! And he dared to give me another look- shot with triumph-while Miss Julia sup- ported an invidious position as best she might. Wait a bit !” said I, stepping in at last. “I thought I gathered from you the other day, Miss Brabazon, that you felt the reality of your story intensely ? “I did indeed, Mr. Gillon." It distressed you very much ? " “I might have been going through the whole thing." “ It—it even moved you to tears ? " “I should be ashamed to say how many." “I daresay," I pursued, smiling with all my might, that even your handkerchief was heavy with them, Miss Brabazon ? " “ It was! " Then so much for the origin of that idea! It would have occurred to anybody under similar circumstances." Miss Julia gave me the smile I wanted. I 152 THE LOCAL COLOUR Yet your felt I had gone up in her estimation, and sent Delavoye down. But I had reckoned without his genius for taking a dilemma by the horns. “This is an old quarrel between Gillon and me, Miss Brabazon. I hold that all Witching Hill is more or less influenced by the wicked old wizard of the place. Mr. Gillon says it's all my eye, and simply will not let belief take hold of him. Turkish building actually existed within a few feet of where we're sitting now; and suppose the very leaves on the trees still whisper about it to those who have ears to hear; suppose you've taken the whole thing down almost at dictation! I don't know how your story goes on, Miss Brabazon- “No more do 1,” said Miss Brabazon, manifestly impressed and not at all offended by his theory. “It's a queer thing—I never should have thought of such a thing myself- but I certainly did dash it all off as if some- body was telling me what to say, and at such a rate that my mind's still a blank from one page to the next." She picked the script out of her lap, and 153 WITCHING HILL we watched her bewildered face as it puckered to a frown over the rustling sheets. “I shouldn't wonder,” said Delavoye a little hastily, “if his next effort wasn't to subvert her religious beliefs.” “To make game of them ! ” assented Miss Julia in scandalised undertones. “ 'The de- moniacal Duke now set himself to deface and destroy the beauty of holiness, to cast away the armour of light, and to put upon him the true colours of an aristocratic atheist of the deepest dye.' Exactly what he did," murmured Uvo, with another look at me. It was not a look of triumph unalloyed; it was at least as full of vivid apprehension. “I shall cross that out,” said Miss Julia decidedly. “I “I don't know what I was thinking of to write anything like that. It really makes me almost afraid to go on. Uvo shot out a prompt and eager hand. “Will you let me take it away to finish by myself, Miss Brabazon ? " “ I don't think I can. I must look and see if there's anything more like that." 154 THE LOCAL COLOUR “But it isn't your fault if there is. You've simply been inspired to write the truth.” “But I feel almost ashamed." And the typewritten sheets rustled more than ever as she raised them once more. But Delavoye jumped up and stood over her with a stiff lip. “Miss Brabazon, you really must let me read the rest of it to myself !” " I must see first whether I can let any- body." “Let me see instead ! Heaven knows how she construed his wheedling eagerness ! ! There was a moment when they both had hold of the MS., when I felt that my friend was going too far, that his obstinate persistence could not fail to be resented as a liberty. But it was just at such moments that there was a smack of greatness about Uvo Delavoye; given the stimulus, he could carry a thing off with a high hand and the light touch of a born leader; and so it must have been that he had Miss Julia coyly giggling when I fully expected her to stamp her foot. 155 WITCHING HILL You talk about our curiosity,” she rallied him. You men are just as bad !” “I have a right to be curious," returned Uvo, in a tone that surprised me as much as hers. “ You forget that your villain was once the head of our clan, and that so far the fact is quite unmistakable." “But that's just what I can't understand ! " “ Yet the fact remains, Miss Brabazon, and I think it ought to count.” My dear young man, that's my only excuse for this very infliction !” cried Miss Julia, with invincible jocosity. “If you'd rather it were destroyed, I shall be quite ready to destroy it, as Mr. Gillon knows. But I should like you to hear the whole of it first.” "And I could judge so much better if I read the rest to myself !” And still he held his corner of the MS., and she hers with an equal tenacity, which I believe to have been partly reflex and in- stinctive, but otherwise due to the discovery that she had written quite serenely about a blasphemer and an atheist, and not for a moment to any other qualm or apprehension 156 WITCHING HILL Uvo bowed, and the other returned the courtesy with ironic interest. In quivering tones Miss Julia began," It's only something I've been “ Considering for the Parish Magazine," ejaculated Uvo. “Miss Brabazon did me the honour of consulting me about it.” “And may I ask your responsibility for the Parish Magazine, Mr. Delavoye ?” “It's a story," continued Uvo, ignoring the question and looking hard at Miss Julia- a local story, evidently written for local publication, the scene being laid here at Witching Hill House. The principal character is the very black sheep of my family who once lived there." “ I'm aware of the relationship,” said the Vicar, dryly unimpressed. “It's not one that we boast about; hence Miss Brabazon's kindness in trying to ascer- tain whether my people or I were likely to object to its publication.” Well,” said the Vicar, “ I'm quite sure that neither you nor your people would have any objection to Miss Brabazon's getting to bed by midnight.” 158 THE LOCAL COLOUR He returned to the door, which he held wide open with urbane frigidity. “Now, Julia, if you'll set us an example." And at the door he remained when the bewildered lady, delivered from an embarrass- ment that she could not appreciate, and committed to a subterfuge in which she could see no point, had flown none the less readily, with a hectic simper and a whistle of silk. Now, gentlemen," continued the Vicar, “it's nearly midnight, as I've said more than once." “I was to take the story with me, to finish it by myself,” explained Uvo, with the smile of a budding ambassador. Oh, very well,” rejoined the Vicar, shut- ting the door. “ Then we must keep each other a minute longer. I happen myself to constitute the final court of appeal in all matters connected with the Parish Magazine. Moreover, Mr. Delavoye, I'm a little curious to see the kind of composition that merits a midnight discussion between my sister and two young men whose acquaintance I myself have had so little opportunity of cultivating." He dropped into a chair, merely waving to 159 WITCHING HILL us to do the same; and Delavoye did ; but I remained standing, with my eyes on the reader's face, and I saw him begin where Miss Julia had left off and the MS. had fallen open. I could not be mistaken about that ; there was the mark of his own boot upon the page ; but the Vicar read it without wincing at the passage which his sister had declared her intention of crossing out. His brows took a supercilious lift ; his cold eyes may have grown a little harder as they read; and yet once or twice they lightened with a human relish-an icy twinkle-a gleam at least of something I had not thought to see in Mr. Brabazon. Perhaps I did not really see it now. If you look long enough at the Sphinx itself, in the end it will yield some semblance of an answering look. And I never took my eyes from the Vicar's granite features, as typewritten sheet after sheet was turned so softly by his iron hand, that it might have been some doctrinal pamphleteer who claimed his cool attention. When he had finished he rose very quietly and put the whole MS. behind the grate. Then I remembered that Delavoye also was 160 THE LOCAL COLOUR in the room, and I signalled to him because the Vicar was stooping over the well-laid grate and striking matches. But Delavoye only shook his head, and sat where he was when Mr. Brabazon turned and surveyed us both, with the firewood crackling behind his clerical tails. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Delavoye,” said he ; " but I think you will agree that this is a case for the exercise of my powers in connection with our little magazine. The stupendous production now perishing in the flames was of course intended as a practical joke at our expense. And I never saw it !” cried Uvo, scram- bling to his feet. “Of course, if you come to think of it, that's the whole and only explanation - isn't it, Gillon ? A little dig at the Delavoyes as well, by the way!" Chiefly at us, I imagine," said the Vicar dryly. “I rather suspect that the very style of writing is an attempt at personal caricature. The taste is execrable all through. But that is only to be expected of the anony- mous lampooner.” L 161 WITCHING HILL Was there really no name to it, Mr. Brabazon ?" The question was asked for information, but Uvo's tone was that of righteous disgust. “ No name at all. And one sheet of type- writing is exactly like another. My sister had not read it all herself, I gather ? Evidently not. And she only read the first half to us.” “Thank goodness for that!” cried the Vicar, off his guard. The whole impertin- ence," he ran on more confidentially, “is so paltry, so vulgar, so egregiously badly done! It's all beneath contempt, and I shall not descend to the perpetrator's level by attempting to discover who he is. Neither shall I permit the matter to be mentioned again in my household. And as gentlemen I look to you both to resist the ventilation of a most ungentlemanly hoax.” But the promise that we freely gave did not preclude us from returning at once to No. 7, and there and then concocting a letter to Miss Julia, which I slipped into the letter-box of the makeshift vicarage as the birds were waking in the wood behind Mulcaster Park. 162 THE LOCAL COLOUR It was simply to say that Uvo was after all afraid that his kith and kin really might resent the publication of her thrilling but painful tale of their common ancestor ; and therefore he had taken Miss Brabazon at her word, and the MS. was no more. Its destruc- tion was really demanded by the inexplic- able fact that the story was the true story of a discreditable case in which the infamous Lord Mulcaster had actually figured ; and the further fact that Miss Brabazon had neverthe- less invented it, so far as she personally was aware, would have constituted another and still more interesting case for the Psychical Research Society, but for the aforesaid objec- tions to its publication in any shape or form. All this made a document difficult to draw up, and none too convincing when drawn; but that was partly because the collaborators were already divided over every feature of the extraordinary affair, which indeed afforded food for argument for many a day to come. But in the meantime our dear Miss Julia accepted sentence and execution with a gentle and even a jocose resignation which made us both miserable. We did not even 163 WITCHING HILL know that there had been any real occasion for the holocaust for which we claimed re- sponsibility, or to what extent or lengths the unconscious plagiarism had proceeded. Delavoye, of course, took the view that coincided with his precious theory, whereas I argued from Mr. Brabazon's coolness that we had heard the worst. But the Vicar always was cool out of the pulpit; and it was almost a pity that we rewarded his moderation by going to church the next Sunday, for I never shall forget his ferocious sermon on the modern purveyor of pernicious literature. He might have been raving from bitter experience, as Delavoye of course declared he was. But there is one redeeming point in my recollection of his tirade. And that is a vivid and consoling vision of the elder Miss Brabazon, listening with a rapt and unconscious serenity to every burning word. 164 CHAPTER V THE ANGEL OF LIFE COPLESTONE was the first of our tenants who had taken his house through me, and I was extremely proud of him. It was precisely the pride of the mighty hunter in his first kill; for Coplestone was big game in his way, and even of a leonine countenance, with his crested wave of tawny hair and his clear sunburnt skin. In early life, as an in- comparable oar, he had made a name which still had a way of creeping into the sporting papers; and at forty the same fine figure and untarnished face were a walking adver- tisement of virtue. But now he had also the grim eyes and stubborn jaw of the man who has faced big trouble ; he wore sombre ties that suggested the kind of trouble it had been; and he settled down among us to a solitude only broken in the holidays of his ; 165 THE ANGEL OF LIFE going to take each other on the river every blessed day of the holidays." Ronnie beamed with the brightest little face in all the world. He had bright brown eyes and dark brown hair, and his skin burnt a delicate brown instead of the paternal pink. His expression was his father's, but not an atom of his colouring. His mother must have been a brunette and a beautiful woman. I could not help think- ing of her as I looked at the beaming boy who seemed to have forgotten his loss, if he had ever realised it. And yet it was just a touch of something in his face, a some- thing pensive and constrained, when he was not smiling, that gave him also such a look of Coplestone at times. But as a rule Ronnie was sizzling with happiness and excitement; and it was my privilege to see a lot of him those hot holi- days. Coplestone did not go away for a single night or day. Most mornings one met him and his boy in flannels, on their way down to the river, laden with their lunch. But because the exclusive society of the best of boys must eventually bore 167 WITCHING HILL the most affectionate of men, I was some- times invited to join the picnic, and on Sat- urdays and Sundays I accepted more than once. Those, however, were the days on which I was nearly always bespoke by Uvo Delavoye, and once when I said so it ended in our all going off together in a bigger boat. That day marked a decline in Ronnie's regard for me as an ex-member of a minor school eleven. It was not, perhaps, that he admired me less, but that Delavoye, who played no games at all, had nevertheless a way with him that fascinated man and boy alike. With Ronnie, it was a way of cracking jokes and telling stories, and taking an ex- traordinary interest in the boy's prepara- tory school, so that its rather small beer came bubbling out in a sparkling brew that Coplestone himself had failed to tap. Then Uvo could talk like an inspired pro- fessional about the games he could not play, about books like an author, and about ad- ventures like a born adventurer. In Egypt, moreover, he had seen a little life that went a long way in the telling ; conversely, one 168 THE ANGEL OF LIFE To a always felt that he had done a bigger thing or two out there than he pretended. small boy, at all events, he was irresistible. Had he been an usher at a school like Ron- nie's he would have had a string of them on either arm at every turn. As it was, a less sensible father might well have been jealous of him before the holidays were nearly over. But it was just in the holidays that Cople- stone was at his best; when the boy went back in September, we were to see him at his worst. In the beginning he was merely moody and depressed, and morose towards us two as creatures who had served our turn. The more we tried to cheer his solitude, the less encouragement we received. If we cared to call again at Christmas, he hinted, we should be welcome, but not before. We watched him go off bicycling alone in the red autumn afternoons. We saw his light on half of the night; late as we were, he was always later; and now he was never to be seen at all of a morning. But his grim eyes had lost their light, his ruddy face had changed its shade, and erelong I saw him reeling in broad daylight. 169 WITCHING HILL Coplestone had taken to the bottle--and as a strong inan takes to everything-with- out fear or shame. Yet somehow I felt it was for the first time in his life ; so did De- lavoye, but on other grounds. I did not be- lieve he could have been the man he was when he came to us, if this curse had ever descended on Coplestone before. Yet he seemed to take it rather as a blessing, as a sudden dis- covery which he was a fool not to have made before. This was no case of surreptitious, shamefaced tippling; it was a cynically open and defiant downfall, at once an out- rage on a more than decent community, and a new interest in many admirable lives. Soon there were complaints which I was requested to transmit to Coplestone in his next lucid interval. But I only pretended to have lone so. I thought the complainants a set of self-righteous busybodies, and I vastly preferred the good will of the delin- quent. That was partly on Ronnie's ac- count, partly for the sake of the man's own magnificent past, but partly also because his present seemed to me a fleeting phase of sheer insanity, which would end as suddenly 170 THE ANGEL OF LIFE as it had supervened. The form was too bad to be true, even if Coplestone had ever shown it before ; and there was now some evidence that he had not. Delavoye had come down from town with eyes as bright as Ronnie's. “ You remember Sawrey-Biggerstaff by name? He was second for the Diamonds the second year Coplestone won them, and he won them himself the year after. I met him to-day with a man who lunched me at the United University. I told him we had Coplestone down here, and asked him if it was true that he had ever been off the rails like this before, only without breathing a word about his being off them now. Sawrey- Biggerstaff swore that he had never heard of such a libel, or struck a more abstemious hound than Harry Coplestone, or ever heard of him being or ever having been anything else! So you must see what it all means, Gilly." “It means that he's never got over the loss of his wife.” But that happened nearly three years ago. Ronnie told me. Why didn't the old 171 WITCHING HILL boy break out before ? Why save it all up for Witching Hill ? “I know what you're going to say." “But isn't it obvious ? Our wicked old man drank like an aquarium. His vices are the weeds of this polluted soil; they crop up one after the other, and with inveter- ate irony he's allotted this one to the noblest creature on the place. It's for us to save him by hook or crook-or rather it's my own hereditary job.” “And how do you mean to set about it? You'll be angry with me, Gilly, but I shan't be happy till I see his house on your hands again. It's the only chance to drive him into fresh woods and pastures new ! ” I was angry. I declined to discuss the matter any further; but I stuck to my opinion that the cloud would vanish as quickly as it had gathered. And Coplestone of all men was man enough to stand his ground and live it down. But first he must take himself in hand, instead of which I had to own that he was going from bad to worse. He was a man of leisure, and he drank as though he had 172 THE ANGEL OF LIFE a found his vocation in the bottle. He was a lonely man, and he drank as though drink was a friend in need and not the deadliest foe. He was the only drunkard I ever knew who drank with impenitent zest; and I saw something of him at his worst; he was more approachable than he had been before his great surrender. All October and November he kept it up, his name byword far beyond the confines of the Estate, and by December he must have been near the inevitable climax. Then he disappeared. The servants had no idea of his where- abouts; but he had taken luggage. That was the best reason for believing him to be still alive, until he turned up with his boy for the Christmas holidays. It would be too much to say that he looked as he had looked last holidays. The man had aged; he seemed even a little shaken, but not more than by a moderate dose of influ- enza; and to a casual eye the improve- ment was more astounding than the previous deterioration, especially in its rapidity. His spirits were at least as good as they had been before, his hospitality in keeping with the 173 WITCHING HILL season. I ate my Christmas dinner with father and son, and Delavoye and I first- footed them on New Year's morning. What was most remarkable on these occasions was the way Coplestone drank his champagne, with the happy moderation of a man who has never exceeded in his life. There was now no shadow of excess, but neither was there any of the weakling's recourse to the opposite extreme of meticulous austerity. A doctor might have forbidden even a hair of the sleeping dog, but to us young fellows it was a joy to see our hero so completely his own man once more. Early in January came a frost-a thrill- ing frost—with skating on the gravel-pit ponds beyond the Village. It was a pas- time in which I had taken an untutored delight, all the days of my northern youth, and now I put in every hour I could at the clumsy execution of elementary figures. But Coplestone had spent some winters in Switzerland, and he was a past master in the Continental style. Ordinary skaters would form a ring to watch his dazzling displays, and those who had not seen him in the autumn 174 THE ANGEL OF LIFE must have found it hard to credit the whispers of those who had. His pink skin regained its former purity, his blue eyes shone like fairy lamps, and the whole ice rang with the music of his “edge" as he sped careening like a human yacht. It was better still to watch him patiently imparting the rudiments to Ronnie, who picked them up as a small boy will, and worked so hard that the perspira- tion would stand upon the smooth brown face for all that wondrous frost. It froze, more or less, all the rest of those holidays, and the Coplestones never missed a day until the last of all. I was hoping to find them on the ice at dusk, if only I could manage to get away in time, but early in the after- noon Uvo Delavoye came along to disabuse my mind. That young Ronnie's caught a chill,” said he--"I thought he would. It'll keep him at home for another day or two, so the ill wind may blow old Coplestone a bit of good. I'm feeling a bit anxious about him, Gilly; wild horses won't drag him from this haunted hill! Just at this moment, how- ever, he's on his way to Richmond to see 175 WITCHING HILL if he can get Ronnie the new Wisden; and I'm sneaking up to town because I know it's not to be had nearer. I was wondering if you could make time to look him up while we're gone?” I made it there and then at the risk of my place; it was not so often that I had Ronnie to myself. But at the very gate I ceased to think about the child. A Pickford van was delivering something at the house. At a glance I knew it for a six-gallon jar of whisky- to see poor Coplestone some little way into the Easter term. Ronnie lay hot and dry in his bed, but brown and bright as he had looked upon the ice, and sizzling with the exuberance of a welcome that warmed my heart. He told me, of course, that it was “awful rot " losing the last day like this; but, on the other hand, he seemed delighted with his room- he always was delighted with something -and professed himself rather glad of an opportunity of appreciating it as it deserved. Indeed, there was not a lazy bone in his little body, and I doubt if he had spent an unnecessary minute in his bedroom all the 176 THE ANGEL OF LIFE holidays. But they really were delightful quarters, those two adjoining rooms for which no paper in our stock had been good enough. Both were now radiant in a sky- blue self-colour that transported one to the tropics, and certainly looked better than I thought it would when I had the trouble of procuring it. In the bedroom the blue was only broken by some simple white furniture, by a row of books over the bed, and by groups of the little eleven in which Ronnie already had a place, and photographs of his father at one or two stages of his great career. I was still exploring when an eager summons brought me to the bedside. “Let's play cricket ! ” cried Ronnie- “ do you mind ? mind ? With a pack of cards—my own invention ! Everything up to six counts properly; all over six count singles, except the picture cards, and most of them get you out. King and queen are caught and bowled, but the old knave's Mr. Extras !" Capital, Ronnie!” said I. "Shall it be single wicket between us two, or the next test-match with Australia ? ' M 177 WITCHING HILL Ronnie was all for the test, and really the rules worked very well. You shuffled after the fall of every wicket, and you never knew your luck. Tom Richardson, the last man in for England, made sixty-two, while some who shall be nameless went down like ninepins in the van. In the next test (at Lord's) we elaborated the laws to admit of stumping, running out, getting leg-before and even hitting wicket. But the red kings and queens still meant a catch or what Ronnie called a row in your timber yard." And so the afternoon wore on, until I had to mend the fire and light the gas; and then somehow the cards seemed only cards, and we put them away for that season. I forget why it was that Ronnie suddenly wanted his knife. I rather think that he was deliberately rallying his possessions about him in philosophic preparation for a lengthy campaign between the sheets. In any case there was no finding that knife, but something much more interesting came to light instead. I was conducting the search under direc- tions from the bed, but I was out of sight 178 THE ANGEL OF LIFE a behind the screen when I kicked up the corner of loose carpet and detected the loosened board. Here, thought I, was secret repository where the missing posses- sion might have been left by mistake; there were the actual marks of a blade upon the floor. “This looks a likely place,” I said; but I did not specify the place I meant, and the next moment I had discovered neither knife nor pencil, but the soiled, unframed photograph of a lovely lady. There it had lain under the movable bit of board, which had made a certain noise in the moving. That same second Ronnie bounded out of bed, and I to my feet to chase him back again. Who told you to look in there? Give that to me this minute! No-no-please put it back where you—where you found it!" His momentary rage had already broken down in sobs, but he stood over me while I quickly did as he begged and replaced the carpet ; then I tucked him up again, but for some time the bed shook under his an- guish. I told him how sorry I was, again 179 WITCHING HILL and yet again, and I suppose eventually my tone bewrayed me. “So you know who it is ?” he asked, suddenly regarding me with dry bright eyes. “I couldn't help seeing the likeness," I replied. It's my mother," he said unnecessarily. His manner was curiously was curiously dogged and unlike him. And you keep her photograph under the floor?" “Yes; you don't see many about, do you ?" he inquired with precocious bitterness. There was not one to be seen downstairs. That I knew from my glimpse of the photo- graph under the floor; there was nothing like it on any of the walls, nothing so beau- tiful, nothing with that rather wild, defiant expression which I saw again in Ronnie at this moment. “But why under the floor ? ” I persisted, guessing vaguely though I did. “ You won't tell anybody you saw it there?” Not a soul.” “ You promise ?" 180 THE ANGEL OF LIFE Solemnly." You won't say a single word about it, if I tell you something ? “Not a syllable." " Well-then-it's because I don't want Daddy to see it, for fear- "_it would grieve him?” I suggested as the end of his broken sentence. And I held my breath in the sudden hope that I might be right. “For fear he tears it up!” the boy said harshly. “He did that once before, and this is the last I've got.” I made no comment, and there were no further confidences from Ronnie. So many things I wanted to know and could not ask! I could only hold my peace and Ronnie's hot hand, until it pinched mine in sudden warning, as the whole house lept under a springy step upon the stairs. “Not a word to anybody, you know, Mr. Gillon ? " "Not one, to a single soul, Ronnie!” But it was a heavy seal that was thus placed upon my lips ; heavy as lead when I discussed the child with Uvo Delavoye; and 181 WITCHING HILL that was almost every minute that we spent together for days to come. For Ronnie became very ill. In the beginning it was an honest chill. The chill turned to that refuge of the Gen- eral Practitioner—influenza. Double pneu- monia was its last, most definite stage; the local doctor made no mistake about that, and Coplestone appealed in vain against the verdict, before specialists who came down from London at a guinea a mile. It was a mild enough case so far. The boy was strong and healthy, and capable of throwing off at least as much as most strong men. He was also a capital little patient-and Coplestone was a magnificent patient's father. He did not harry the doc- tors; he treated the elderly Scotch nurse like a queen; he was not always in and out of the sick-room by day, and he never set foot in it during the night. In the daytime Delavoye took him for long walks, and I would sit up with him at night until he started nodding in his chair. The first night he said : “ You must have 182 THE ANGEL OF LIFE some whisky, Gillon. I've got a new lot in." And when I said I seldom touched it -"I know you don't, in this house," he re- joined, with his hand for an instant on my shoulder. But that's all right, Gillon ! Do you happen to know much about Dr. Johnson ? " Hardly anything. You should try Uvo." “Well, I don't know much myself; but I always remember that when the poor old boy was dying he refused the drugs which were giving him all the peace he got, be- cause he said he'd made up his mind to * render up his soul to God unclouded.' Now I come to think of it, there's not much analogy," continued Coplestone with a husky laugh. “But I know I'd rather do what Dr. Johnson wouldn't than go up clouded to my little lad if ever he—wanted me!” And he took about a teaspoonful from a mistaken sense of hospitality, but no second allowance as the night wore on. The next night I was able to refuse without offending him; after that the decanter was never touched. Yet once or twice I saw the stop- per taken out in sheer absence of mind, 183 THE ANGEL OF LIFE But white clouds were tumbling behind the red houses opposite, and Delavoye dashed out again to catch his train, like the desperate leader of a forlorn hope, leaving his dark eyes burning before mine and his wild words ringing in my ears. Quite apart from the point on which he was never sane, he seemed to have lost the otherwise level head on which I had learnt to rely at any crisis; but Coplestone still kept his, and him I admired more and more. He still took his exercise like a man, re- frained from harrying nurse or doctor, showed an untroubled face by the sick-bed, but avoided the room more and more, and altogether during the terrible delirious stages. “ If I were to stay there long," he said to me once, “I should make a scene. I couldn't help it. There are more things than one to cloud your mind, and I've got to keep mine unclouded all the time." He kept it very nearly serene; and his serenity was not the numbness of despair which sometimes wears the same appear- ance; for I do not think there was a mo- ment at which Coplestone despaired. He 185 THE ANGEL OF LIFE interiors that time cannot dismantle in my mind. It was filled with the memorials of a brilliant boyhood. There were framed photographs of four Cambridge crews, of two Eton eights, of the Eton Society with Cople- stone to the fore in white trousers, of the " long low wall with trees behind it” and of the “old grey chapel behind the trees." There were also a number of parti-coloured caps under suspended oars, and more silver in the shape of cups, salvers, and engraved cigar- ette boxes than his modest staff of servants could possibly keep clean. Over the mantel- piece hung the rules of the Eton Society —under glass—with a trophy of canes decked with light blue ribbons. It all looks pretty blatant, I'm afraid,” said Coplestone apologetically. But I thought it would interest Ronnie and per- haps hound him on to cut me out. And now- He stopped, and I hoped he was not going on, for this was when Ronnie was at his worst and the second nurse had arrived. “And now," said Coplestone, “the little sinner wants to be a dry-bob !” 187 THE ANGEL OF LIFE as poor mother must have been before him. And he was tragically like his hidden portrait of her. I saw it as often as I was permitted a peep at Ronnie. What had she done amiss before she died ? That was perhaps the chief thing I wanted to know about her, but after my pledge to Ronnie I felt unable even to discuss the poor soul with Delavoye. But she was only less contin- ually in my mind than Ronnie himself, and to-night it seemed she was in his well. "O Mummie ! Mummie-darling! My very, very, own little Mummie!" God knows what had taken me upstairs, except the awful fascination of such wan- derings, the mental necessity of either hear- ing them or knowing that they had ceased. On the stairs I felt so thankful they had ceased; it was in the darkened play-room, now a magazine of hospital appliances, ket- tles, bottles, and the oxygen apparatus ; it was here I heard the joyous ravings of his loving little heart-here, on the threshold between his own two rooms, that I even saw him with his thin arms locked round 189 FC YOUN His thin arms locked round the neck of the young nurse. Page 190 WITCHING HILL such welcome evidence of human interest and affection. And there was the tender tact of the pretence to which she had lent herself before my eyes ; even as a memory it nearly filled them afresh. Yet I could not speak of it to Coplestone, and to Dela- voye I would not, lest I were led into be- traying that which I had promised Ronnie to keep entirely to myself. Nurse Agnes we all called her, but I for one hardly saw her again, save on the daily constitutional in grey uniform and flowing veil. The fact was that the improvement in Ronnie was so marked, and so splendidly sustained, that both his father and I were able to get to bed again. The boy himself had capital nights, and said he looked for- ward to them; on the other hand, for final sign of approaching convalescence, he be- came just a little difficult by day. Alto- gether it was no surprise to me to learn that two nurses would not be necessary after the second week; but I was sorry to hear it was Nurse Agnes who was going, and I thought that Uvo Delavoye would be sorrier still. There was something between them. I 192 THE ANGEL OF LIFE felt sure of that. His rushing up to town to fetch her down, the absurd grounds on which he had pretended to justify that officious proceeding, and then his candid enthusiasm next day, when his protégé had shown her quality, all these were suspicious circumstances in themselves. Yet by them- selves, at such a time, they might easily have escaped one's attention. It was a more than suspicious circumstance that brought the whole train home to me. I was getting my exercise one mid-day when there was nothing doing; suddenly I saw Nurse Agnes ahead of me getting hers. Her thin veil flew about her as she stepped out briskly, but I was walking quicker still; in any case I must overtake her, and it was a chance of hearing more good news of Ronnie ; for we never saw anything of her at night, except in firelit glimpses through the sick-room door. Evidently these were not enough for Uvo either ; presently I espied him sauntering ahead, and when Nurse Agnes overtook him, instead of my overtak- ing her, he hardly took the trouble to lift his hat. But they walked on together at a N 193 THE ANGEL OF LIFE “I fancy that's her cab,” said I, unwill- ing to give Delavoye away, but feeling much more strongly that Nurse Agnes had saved Ronnie's life. “I didn't hear the bell,” said Coplestone. Still, I believe that's Nurse Agnes on the stairs." I had heard one creak, but only one, and the nurse was on tip-toe outside the door as Coplestone opened it. She might have been a thief, she seemed so startled. Why, nurse, what do you mean by try- ing to give me the slip ?” he said in his hearty voice. “Do you know they all tell me you've saved my little chap's life, and yet I've hardly seen you all the time ? You'd always fixed him up for the night by the time I'd finished dinner, and I've been so late in the morning that we've kept on missing each other at both ends. You've got to spare me a moment now, you know !" But Nurse Agnes would only stand mum- bling and smiling in the half-lit hall. "I-I mustn't lose my train,” was all I heard. And then I realised that even I had only 195 WITCHING HILL heard her voice once before, and that now it did not sound the same voice. It was not meant to sound the same—that was why- I had it in a flash. And in that flash I saw that Nurse Agnes had been keeping out of our way all these days and nights, keeping us out of her way by a dozen tacit little regulations which had seemed only proper and professional at the time. But a fiercer light had struck Cople- stone like a lash across the eyes. And he started back as though stung and blinded, until Nurse Agnes tried to dart past the door; then his long arm shot out, and I shuddered as he dragged her in by hers. “ You !” he gasped, and his jaw worked as though he had been knocked out in the ring. Yes,” she said coolly, facing him through her veil ; "and they're quite right—I've saved your boy for you. Do you mind letting me go I forced my way past the pair of them, and rushed out to Delavoye waiting with the cab. Who is she? Who on earth is this nurse of yours ? ” I cried without restraint. ? 196 THE ANGEL OF LIFE He drew me out of ear-shot of the cab- man. " Has Coplestone spotted her ?." " This very minute—but who is she?" His wife.” ' I thought she was dead ? ' No; he divorced her three years ago." “Who told you ? Ronnie." And you never told me !" " I promised him I wouldn't tell a soul.” The little rascal! He had bound us both; but there was a characteristic difference as between Delavoye and me, and the feelings that we inspired in that gallant little heart. Whereas I had surprised its secret, Ronnie had confided in Uvo of his own free will and accord. And it was he who begged me to bring her, Gilly, when he was at his worst! He said it was his one hope—that she could pull him through-that he knew she could ! So I found her, and she did. She wasn't really a nurse, but she was his mother; she was his Angel of Life." Will she be forgiven ? " I asked, when 197 WITCHING HILL we had looked askance at the study windows, that gave us back only the wavering reflection of shrubs and of the chimneys opposite. “ Will she forgive ? ” returned Uvo sar- donically. "It's always harder for the one who's in the wrong, and there's always something to be said for him or her!” Does she know that her husband needs to be saved as well ? " “Hush !” said Delavoye. The door had opened. Coplestone came out upon the step, and stood there feeling in his pockets. I held my breath ; and the only creature who counted just then, in all that road of bleak red houses, and in all the wintry world beyond, was the great shaken fellow com- ing down the path. “ You might give this to the cabby,” said he, filling my palm with loose silver. “ Just tell him we shan't want him now !" 198 WITCHING HILL miracle how the rascals escaped with their lives. The first I heard of this affair was a vol- ley of gravel on my window at dead of night. Then came Uvo Delavoye's voice through the fog before I quite knew what I was doing at the open window. Colonel Cheffins lived in the house opposite the Dela- voyes', where he had lately started a cram- ming establishment on a small scale; and on his rushing over the road to the rescue, at the first sound of the fusillade, poor Uvo had himself been under fire in the fog. The good colonel was in a great way about it, I gathered, although no harm had been done, and it was only one of the pupils who had loosed off in his excitement. But would I care to come along and inspect the damage then and there? If so, they would be glad to see me, and as yet there was whisky for all comers. I turned out instantly in my dressing- gown and slippers, found Uvo shivering in his, and raced him to the scene. It took some finding in the fog, until the lighted hall flashed upon us like a dark lantern at arm's 200 UNDER ARMS length. In the class room at the back of the house, round the gas fire which obtained in all our houses, pedagogue and pupils were still telling their tale by turns and in chaotic chorus. Their audience was smaller than I expected. A little knot of unsporting tenants seemed more disposed to complain of the disturbance than to take up the chase; but indeed that was hopeless in the fog and dark- ness, and before long Uvo and I were the only interlopers left. We remained by special invitation, for I had made friends with the colonel over the papering and paint- ing of his house, while Uvo had just shown himself a would-be friend indeed. "It's a very easy battle to reconstruct," said the crammer at the foot of his stairs. “I was up there on the landing when I took my first shot at the scoundrels. You'll find it in the lower part of the front door. One of them blazed back, and there's the hole in the landing window. I had last word from the mat, and I've been looking for it in the gate, but I begin to hope we may find a drop or two of their blood instead to- morrow morning." 201 WITCHING HILL Colonel Cheffins was a little bald man with a tooth-brush moustache, and bright eyes that danced with frank delight in the whole adventure. He looked every inch the old soldier, even in a Jaeger suit of bed- room overalls, and I vastly preferred him to his two young men ; but scholastic connec- tions are not formed by picking and choosing your original material. Delavoye and I, however, made as free as they with the whisky bottle as a substitute for adequate clothing, and the one who had nearly com- mitted manslaughter had some excuse in his depression and remorse. “ If I'd hit you,” he said to Uvo, “ I'd have blown my own silly brains out with the next chamber. I'm not kidding. I wouldn't shoot a man for twenty thousand pounds ! ” And he shuddered into the chair nearest the glowing lumps of white asbestos licked by thin blue flames. God bless my soul, no more would I ! cried the crammer heartily. “I aimed low on purpose not to do more than wing them; there's my bullet in the door to say so, whereas theirs fairly whistled past my head 202 UNDER ARMS on its way through that upstairs window. They're a most desperate gang of sports- men, I assure you." “There's certainly something to be said for keeping a revolver," observed Uvo, eyeing the brace now lying on the cast-iron chimneypiece. “Do you mean to say you haven't got one ? " cried Colonel Cheffins. “I do. I wouldn't keep one even out in Egypt. I hate the beastly things,” said Uvo Delavoye. “But why? Oh, I don't know. There's something so uncanny about them. They lie so snug in your pocket, and you needn't even take them out to send yourself to Kingdom Come !" Why yourself, Mr. Delavoye ? " You never know. You might go mad with the beastly thing about you." God bless my soul ! ” cried the colonel, with cocked eyebrows. “ You might go mad while you're shaving, and cut yourself too deep, for that matter!” “Or when you're waiting for a train, or looking out of a window ! ” I put in, to 203 WITCHING HILL -- laugh Uvo out of the morbid vein which I understood in him but others might easily misconstrue. I could see the two young pupils exchanging glances as I spoke. No," he replied, laughing in his turn, to my relief; “ “none of those ways would come as easy, and they'd all hurt more. However, to be quite serious, I must own it isn't the time or place for these little prejudices against the only cure for the present epidemic. And yet for my part I'd always rather trust to one of my Soudanese weapons, with which you couldn't have an accident if you tried.” Over the way, his own rooms were freely hung with murderous trophies acquired in the back-blocks of the Nile ; but I felt more and more that Uvo Delavoye was wilfully misrepresenting himself to these three stran- gers ; and the best I could hope was that a certain dash of sardonic gaiety might lead them to suppose that it was all his chaff. Well," said the colonel, “if those are your views I only hope you haven't many Aqenjeſes in the house." On the contrary, colonel, everything we've got over there is a few sizes too big for its 204 UNDER ARMS place, and our plate-chest simply wouldn't go into the strong-room of the local bank. So where do you think we keep it ? " ' I've no idea." In the bathroom !” cried Uvo Delavoye, with the shock of laughter which was the refreshing finish of some of his moodiest fits. But you had to know him to appre- ciate his subtle shades, especially to separ- ate the tangled threads of grim fun and gay earnest, and I feared that the gallant little veteran was beginning to regard him as a harmless lunatic. A shake of his bald head was all his comment on the statement that moved Delavoye himself to sudden mirth. And on the whole I was thankful when the return of a man-servant with a nervous con- stable, grabbed out of the fog by a lucky dip, provided us with an excuse for groping our way across the road. What on earth made you talk all that rot about revolvers ?” I grumbled as we struck his gate. “ It wasn't rot. I meant every word of it.” The more shame for you, if you did; but you you don't.” know very very well 205 WITCHING HILL My dear Gilly, I wouldn't live with one of those nasty little weapons for worlds. I - I couldn't, Gilly-not long ! He had me quite tightly by the hand. “ I'm coming in with you,” I said. “You're not fit to be alone.” “Oh, yes, I am !” he laughed. “I haven't got one of those things yet, and I shall never get one. I'd rather thieves broke in and stole every ounce of silver in the place." So we parted for what was left of the night, instead of turning it into day as we often did with less excuse; and for once my powers of sleep deserted me. But it was not the attempted burglary, or any one of its sensational features, that kept me awake; it was the lamentable conversation of Uvo Delavoye on the subject of fire-arms, and that no longer as affecting other minds, but as revealing his own. I had often heard him indulge his morbid fancies, but never so gratuitously or before strangers. To me he could and would say anything, but of late he had been less free with me and more anxious about him. He had now been over eighteen months on the shelf. 206 UNDER ARMS That was his whole trouble. It was not that he was ever seriously ill, but that he was always well enough to worry because he was no better or fitter for work. His mind raced like an engine, and the futile wear and tear was beginning to tell on the whole machinery. To be sure, he had written a little in a desultory way, but I never thought his heart was in his pen, and his fastidious taste was a deterrent rather than a spur. Yet he railed about the bread of idleness, said a man should be fit or dead, and that his mother and sister would be better off without him. Those ladies were again from home, and the fact did not make it easier to dissociate such sayings from an unhealthy horror of loaded revolvers. So you may think what I felt the very next evening—which I did insist on spend- ing at No. 7—when the distasteful conver- sation was renewed and developed to the point of outrage. Daylight and less fog had failed to reveal any trace whatever of the thieves, and it became evident that the colonel's moral victory (he had lost a few spoons) was also a regrettably bloodless 207 WITCHING HILL one. I saw no more of him during a day of vain excitement, but at night his card was brought up to Uvo's room, and the old fel- low followed like a new pin. I was in those days none too nice about my clothes, and both of us young fellows were more or less as we had been all day; but the sight of the dapper coach in his well-cut dinner jacket, with shirt-front shining like his venerable pate, and studded with a couple of good pearls, might well have put us to the blush. Under his arm he carried a big cigar-box, and this he pre- sented to Delavoye with a courtly sparkle. You rushed to our aid last night, Mr. Delavoye, and we nearly shot you for your pains !” said the colonel. “Pray accept a souvenir which in your hands, I hope, and in similar circumstances, is less likely to end in so much smoke." Uvo lifted the lid and the gaslight flashed from the plated parts of a six-chambered revolver with a six-inch barrel. It was one of the deadly brace that we had seen on the colonel's chimneypiece in the middle of the night. 208 UNDER ARMS “I can't take it from you,” said Delavoye, shrinking palpably from the pistol. “I really am most grateful to you, Colonel Cheffins, but I've done nothing to deserve such a handsome gift." “I beg to differ," said the colonel, " and I shall be sorely hurt if you refuse it. You never know when your turn may come; after your own account of that plate-chest, I shan't lie easy in my bed until I feel you are properly prepared against the worst." “But my poor mother would rather lose every salt-cellar, Colonel Cheffins, than have a man shot dead on her stairs." “I shouldn't dream of shooting him dead," replied the colonel. “I shouldn't even go as far as I went last night, if I could help it. But with that barrel glittering in your hand, Mr. Delavoye, I fancy you'd find it easier to keep up a conversation with some intrusive connoisseur." “Is it loaded ?" I asked as Uvo took the weapon gingerly from its box. Not at the moment, and I fear these few cartridges are all I can spare. I only 209 UNDER ARMS horrible harangue eked out with quotations that stuck like burs. More than once I looked to Colonel Cheffins for a disapproval which would come with more weight from him than me; but decanter and syphon had been brought up soon after his arrival, and he only sipped his whisky with an amused air that made me wonder which of us was going daft. “ Talk about bare bodkins, otherwise hollow-ground razors ! ” cried Uvo, empty- ing his glass. “I couldn't do the trick with cold steel if I tried; but with a revolver you've only got to press the trigger and it does the rest. Then I wonder if you even live to hear the row ?-then, Gilly, it's a case of that 'big blue mark in his forehead and the back blown out of his head!'" “That wasn't a revolver," said I, for he had taught me to worship his modern god of letters; that was the Snider that'squibbed in the jungle.'" Delavoye looked it up in his paper-covered copy. “Quite right, Gilly !” said he. what price this from the very next piece ? • But 213 UNDER ARMS I've smashed the other, but I mustn't say it too soon or he'll smell a rat. I must leave him to you meanwhile, Mr. Gillon, but I honestly believe it's all talk." And so did I as the dapper little coach smiled cheerily under the hall lamp, and I shut the door on him and ran up to Uvo's room two steps at a time. But on the threshold I fell back, for an instant, as though that accursed revolver covered me; for he was seated at his desk, his back to the room, his thumb on the trigger—and the muzzle in his right ear. I crept upon him and struck it upwards with a blow that sent the weapon flying from his grasp. It had not exploded ; it was in my pocket before he could turn upon me with a startled oath. What are you playing at, my good fel- low ? " cried he. " What are you ? " And my teeth chattered with the de- mand. “What do you suppose ? You didn't think I'd gone and loaded it, did you ? I was simply seeing -- if you want want to know- 215 UNDER ARMS "I prefer the Village mortuary, if you don't mind, Gilly.” “ Either would be so nice for your mother and sister!" “ And I'm such a help to them as I am, aren't I? Think of the bread I win and all the dollars I'm raking in ! ” “ It would be murder as well as suicide," I went on. " It would finish off one of them, if not both." He smoked in silence with a fatuous, drunken smile, though he was as sober as a man could be. That made it worse. And it was worst of all when the smile faded from the face to gather in the eyes, in a liquid look of unfathomable cynicism, new to me in Uvo Delavoye, and yet mysteriously familiar and repellent. “Yes; they're certainly a drawback, Gillon, but I don't know that they've a right to be anything more. We don't ask to be put into this world ; surely we can put our- selves out if it amuses us.' "If it amuses us !'" “But that's the whole point ! he cried, puffing and twinkling as before. “ How 217 WITCHING HILL many people out themselves for no earthly reason that anybody else can see, and have their memory insulted by the usual idiotic verdict? They're no more tempor- arily insane than I am. It's their curiosity that gets the better of them. They want to go at their best, with all their wits about them, as you or I might want to go to Court. If they could take a return ticket, they would ; they don't really want to go for good any more than I do. They're doing something they don't really want to do, yet can't help doing, as half of us are, half our time." " They're weak fools,” I blustered. They're destructive children who've never grown up, and they ought to be taken care of till they do." He smiled through his smoke with sin- ister serenity. “ But we all 'are children, my dear Gilly, and on the best authority most of us are fools. As for the destructive faculty, it's part of human nature and three parts of modern policy; but our politicians haven't the child's excuse of wanting to know how 218 UNDER ARMS things are made—which I see at the back of half the brains that get blown out by obvious accident." “Good-night, Uvo," I said, just grasping him by the arm. "I know you're only pull- ing my leg, but I've heard about enough for one night." “ Another insulting verdict !” he laughed. “Well, so long, if you really mean it; but do you mind giving me my Webley and Scott before you go ?” “ Your what? “My present from over the way. It's one of Webley and Scott's best efforts, you know. I had one like it, only the smaller size, when I was out in Egypt.” I thought he had forgotten about the concrete weapon, or rather that he did not know I had picked it up, but expected to find it in the corner where it had fallen when I knocked it out of his hand. My own hand closed upon it in my side pocket, as I turned to face Uvo Delavoye, who had somehow slipped between me and the door. “ So it's not your first revolver ? ” I tem- porised. 219 UNDER ARMS “I can't help it. You couldn't trust yourself in your fever. It's your own fault if I can't trust you now.” He glared at me like a caged tiger, and now I knew the wild sly look in his eyes. It was the look of the Kneller portrait at Hampton Court, but there was no time to think twice about that, with the tiger in him gnashing its teeth in very impotence. Oh, very well! You don't get out of this, with my property, if I can help it! I know I'm no match for you in brute strength, but you lay a finger on me if you dare ! ” He was almost foaming at the mouth, and the trouble was that I could understand his frenzy perfectly. I would not have stood my own behaviour from any man, and yet I could not have behaved differently if I had tried, for his insensate fury was all of a piece with his delirious talk. I kept my eye on him as on a wild beast, and I saw his roving round the uncouth weapons on the wall. He was edging nearer to them ; his hand raised to pluck one down, his worn face bloated and distorted with his passion. Neither of us spoke; we were past was 221 WITCHING HILL the stage ; but in the grate the gas fire burnt with a low reproving roar. And then all at once I saw Uvo turn his head as though his sensitive ear had caught some other sound; his raised hand swept down upon the handle of the door; and as he softly opened it, the other hand was raised in token of silence, and for one splendid second I looked into a face no longer possessed by the devil, but radiant with the keenest joy. Then I was at his elbow, and our ears bent together at the open door. Gas was burning on the landing as well as in the hall below; everything seemed normal to every sense. I was obliged to breathe before an- other sound came from any quarter but that noisy stove in the room behind us. And then it was more a vibration of the floor, behind the curtains of the half-landing, than an actual sound. But that was enough; back we stole into Uvo's room. “ They've come, he whispered, simply. They're in the bathroom-now!" “I heard.” for them! We'll go “ Of course. 222 UNDER ARMS He reached down the very weapon he had meant for my skull a minute before. It was a great club, studded with brass-headed nails, and also a most murderous battle-axe, so that the same whirl might fell one foe and cleave another. I had taken it from Uvo, and his dancing eyes were thanking me as he loaded the revolver I had handed him in exchange. There were three stairs down to the half- landing, but Uvo sat up too late at nights not to know the one that creaked. We reached the old maroon curtain without a sound; behind it was the housemaid's sink on the right, and straight in front the bath- room door with a faint light under it. But the light went out before we reached it, and then the door would not open, and with that there was a smothered hubbub of voices and of feet within. It was like the first shot from an ambuscade, but it was our ambus- cade, and Uvo's voice rang out in triumph. Down with the door or the devils'll do us yet !” And they sounded as though they might before bolt or hinges gave. As we brought 223 UNDER ARMS salvers and the like, which had not been removed; but Delavoye was already up to the right armpit in the chest, and my congratulations left him grim. They've got my mother's jewel-case all right !” said he. “She has one or two things worth all those put together; but we shall see them again unless I'm much mistaken. Come into my room and hear the why and wherefore. Ah ! I was forgetting young ambition's ladder; thanks, Gilly. I hope you see how hard it's hooked to the wood-work on this side ? It's only been their emergency exit; we shall probably find that they took their tickets at the pantry window. Now for a drink in my room and a bit of Sherlock Holmes' work on the lucky slipper ! I wish I could describe the change in Uvo Delavoye as he sat at his desk once more, his eager face illumined by the reading gas-lamp with the smelly rubber tube. Eager was not the word for it now, neither was it only the gas that lit it up. that lit it up. At its best, for all its bloodless bronze and premature furrows, the face of Uvo was itself a lamp, that only 227 WITCHING HILL flickered to burn brighter, or to beam more steadily; and now he was at his best in the very chair and attitude in which I had seen him at his worst not so many minutes before. Was this the fellow who had toyed so tremu- lously with a deadly weapon and a deadlier idea ? Was it Uvo Delavoye who had de- liberately debauched his mind with the thought of his own blood, until to my eyes at least he looked capable of shedding it at the morbid prompting of a deg degenerate impulse ? I watched him keenly examining the thing in his hands, chuckling and gloating over a trophy which I for one would have taken far more seriously; and I could not believe it was he whom I had caught with a revolver, loaded or unloaded, screwed into his ear. It was in a silence due to two divergent lines of thought that we both at once be- came aware of a prolonged but muffled tattoo on the door below. Coppers ahoy! ” cried Uvo softly. “I thought you hauled the rope-ladder up after us?" "So I did; but how do you know it's a copper?" 228 UNDER ARMS " Who else could it be at this time of night ? Stay where you are, Gilly. I'll go down and see." And in a moment there was a new tune from the hall below: Why, it's Colonel Cheffins ! ... How sporting of you, colonel ! . . . Yes, come on up and I'll tell you all about it.” The colonel's answers were at first inaudible up above ; but on the stairs he was explain- ing that he had awakened about an hour ago with a conviction that yet another house had been attacked, that in his inability to get to sleep again he had ultimately risen, and seeing a light still burning across the road, had ventured to come over to inquire whether we were still all right. And with that there entered the Jaeger dressing-suit and bedroom slippers, containing a very different colonel from the dapper edition I had seen out on the other side of midnight, and for that matter but a worn and feeble copy of the one we had both admired the night before. “ That's Witching Hill all over ! ” cried Uvo as he ushered him in. "You dreamed of what actually happened at the very time 229 WITCHING HILL " that it was actually happening. And yet our friend Gillon can't see that the whole place is haunted and enchanted from end to end !" I'm not sure that I should go as far as that,” said the colonel, sinking into a chair, while Delavoye mixed a stiff drink for him in his old glass. “In fact, now you come to put it that way, I'm not so sure that it was a dream at all. I sleep with my window open, at the front of the house, and I rather thought I heard shots of sorts." “ Of such a sort," laughed Uvo, you must be a light sleeper if they woke you up. Do you mind telling me, colonel, where you used to keep those cartridges you were kind enough to give me ?" “ In my washstand drawer. I hope there was nothing the matter with them ? " * They wouldn't go off. That was all." “God bless my soul !” cried Colonel Cheffins, putting down his glass. “ The caps were all right, but I am afraid you can't have kept your powder quite dry, colonel. I expect you've been swilling out that drawer in the heat of your ablutions. 230 WITCHING HILL butter. Which way did the blackguards run ? " “ Through the garden and over the wall at the back into" " Then they must have left their card this time!” said Colonel Cheffins, ten years younger in his excitement, and even more alert and wide-awake than we had found him the night before. He did not conceal his anxiety to conduct immediate investiga- tions in the garden. But Uvo persuaded him to wait till we had finished our drinks, and we got him to sit down at the desk, trembling with keenness. " You see," said Uvo, leaning forward in the arm-chair and opening a drawer in the pedestal between them, one of them did leave something in the shape of a card, and here it is." And there lay the cast shoe, in the open drawer, under the colonel's eyes and mine as I looked over his shoulder. Why, it's an evening pump!” he ex- claimed. “ Exactly." “ Made by quite a good maker, I should 232 UNDER ARMS say. All in one piece, without a seam, I mean.' “I see. I hadn't noticed that; but then I haven't your keen eye, colonel. You really must come out into the garden with us.” “ I shall be delighted, and we might take this with us to fit into any tracks Precisely; but there's just one thing I should like you to do first, if you would, ' said Uvo deferentially, and I bent still fur- ther over the colonel's shiny head. “ What's that, Mr. Delavoye ?” Just to try on the glass slipper-so to speak, Colonel Cheffins-because it's so ex- traordinarily like the one you were wearing when you were here before !" There was a moment's pause in which I saw myself quite plainly in the colonel's head. Then, with a grunt and a shrug, he reached out his left hand for the shoe, but his right slid inside his Jaeger jacket, and that same second my arms were round him. I felt and grabbed his revolver as soon as he did, and I held the barrel clear of our bodies while he emptied all six chambers through his garments into the floor. 233 WITCHING HILL Then we bound our fine fellow with his own rope-ladder, reloaded both revolvers with unexpurgated cartridges discovered upon his person, and prepared to hold a grand reception of his staff and pupils.” But those young gentlemen had not mis- construed the cannonade. And it was some days before the last of the gang was captured. They were all tried together at the Decem- ber sessions of the Central Criminal Court, when their elaborate methods were very much admired. The skilful impersonation of the typical Army coach by the head of the gang, and the adequate acting of his con- federates in the subordinate posts of pupils and servants, were features which appealed to the public mind. The taking of the house in Mulcaster Park, as a base for opera- tions throughout a promising neighbourhood, was measure somewhat overshadowed by the brilliant blind of representing it as the scene of the first robberies. It was generally held, however, that in present- ing a predestined victim with a revolver and doctored cartridges, the master thief had а. 234 CHAPTER VII THE LOCKED Room It was no great coincidence that we should have been speaking of Edgar Nettleton that night. Uvo. Delavoye was full of him just then, and I had the man on my mind for other reasons. Besides, I had to talk to Uvo about something, since he was down with a quinsy caught from the perfect sanita- tion in advertised vogue on the Estate, and could hardly open his own mouth. And perhaps I had to talk to somebody about the unpleasant duty hanging over me in connection with this fellow Nettleton, who had taken his house about the same time as Colonel Cheffins and his gang, had made up to Delavoye over that affair, and was him- self almost as undesirable a tenant from my point of view. “I know he's a friend of yours, and I 237 WITCHING HILL haven't come to curse him to your face," I had been saying. “But if you would just tell Nettleton, when you see him again, that we're in dead earnest this time, you might be doing both him and us a service. I sent him a final demand yesterday; if he doesn't pay up within the week, my orders are to distrain without further notice. Mus- kett's furious about the whole thing. He blames me for ever having truck with such a fellow in the first instance. But when a man has been science beak in a public school -and such a school-it sounds good enough for Witching Hill, doesn't it? Who would have thought he'd had the sack ? Public- school masters don't often get it." They've got to do something pretty desperate first, I fancy," whispered Uvo, with a gleam in his sunken eyes. He had not denied the fact. I felt encouraged to elaborate my grievance against against Edgar Nettleton. “Besides, I had his banker's reference. That was all right; yet we had trouble to get our very first rent, more trouble over the second, and this time there's going to 238 WITCHING HILL “ It would be six of one and very nearly half a dozen of the other," said I with hardi- hood. Set a Nettleton to catch a Cheffins, as you might say, Uvo!" But he only smiled, as though he would not have hesitated to say it in fun. “ Of course you're only joking, Gilly, but I could quite understand it if you weren't. There's no vice in old Nettleton, let alone crime; but there's a chuckle-headed irresponsibility that might almost let him in for either before he knew it. He never does seem to know what he's doing, and I'm sure he never worries about anything he's once done. If he did, he'd have gone further afield from the scene of his downfall, or else taken rooms in town instead of a red elephant of a house that he evidently can't afford. As a tenant, I quite agree that he is hopeless." “ If only he hadn't come here ! ” I grum- bled. What on earth can have brought him to Witching Hill, of all places ? " Uvo's eyes were dancing in the light of the reading gas-lamp, with the smelly tube, which had been connected up with his bed- room bracket. 240 WITCHING HILL than your own. And where they do catch on, remember, those wild ideas of yours may always get the upper hand. It isn't every- body who can think the things you do, Uvo, and never look like doing 'em!” “I don't agree with you a bit, Gilly. I never believe those blithering blighters who attribute their crimes to the bad example of some criminal hero of the magazines or of the stage. Villain-worship doesn't carry you to that length unless you're a bit of a villain in the first instance." “But suppose you are ?” I argued, almost before I saw the point that I was making. " Suppose you have as few scruples, principles, pangs and fears '-call them what you like-as this fellow Nettleton. Suppose you're full of fire of sorts, but also as irrespon- sible and chuckle-headed as you yourself say he is. Well, then, I say, it's taking re- sponsibility for two to go pumping your theories into as sensitive an engine as all that!" Uvo clapped his thin hands softly as there came a knock at the door. “Well, he's a practical man, Gilly, I must admit, 242 WITCHING HILL life, but without betraying a page of his past. She had come with him to Witching Hill Road as cook-general. There had been a succession of auxiliary servants who had never in any instance outstayed their month. The last of them had left precipitately, , threatening a summons, to the scandal of the neighbours; but beyond that fact the matter had been hushed up, and even I only knew that Sarah was now practically single- handed through her coming to me about a charwoman. I thought I ought to see her at once, but Uvo detained me with an almost piteous face. “Do wait a moment! Of course it's probably nothing at all; but you've given me an idea that certainly never crossed my mind before. I won't say you've put the fear of God on me, Gilly, but you have put me in rather a funk about old Nettleton ! He is a rum 'un-I must admit it. If he should have done anything that could pos- sibly be traced to ... all that never open my mouth about it again.” Oh, bless your life, it's only more ser- vant troubles," I reassured him. “I shouldn't . . I'll 244 THE LOCKED ROOM wonder if old Sarah herself finds him more than she can stick. They do say he assaulted that last girl, so that she could hardly limp into her cab!" Uvo rolled his head on the pillow. “It wasn't an assault, Gilly. I know what happened to her. But I must know what's happened to old Sarah, or to Net- tleton himself. Will you promise to come back and tell me?" “ Certainly.” Then off you go, my dear fellow, and I'll hang on to my soul till you get back. You may have to go along with her, if he's been doing anything very mad. Take my key, and tell them downstairs not to lock you out." Sarah was waiting for me on the front- door mat, but she refused to make any communication before we left the house. She really was what she herself would have described as an elderly party, though it is doubtful whether even Sarah would have considered the epithet appropriate to her years. She certainly wore a rather jaunty bonnet on her walks abroad.' It had a 245 WITCHING HILL garish plume that nodded violently with her funny old head, and simply danced with mystery as she signified the utter im- possibility of speech within reach of other ears. “I'm very sorry to trouble you, sir, very," said the old lady, as she trotted beside me up Mulcaster Park. “But I never did know such a thing to 'appen before, and I don't like it, sir, not at all I don't, I'm sure.' “But what has happened, Sarah ? " As a witness Sarah would not have been a success; she believed in beginning her story very far back, in following it into every by-way and blind alley of imma- terial fact, in reporting every scrap of dia- logue that she could remember or improvise, and in eschewing the oblique oration as an unworthy economy of time and breath. If interrupted, she would invariably answer a question that had not been asked, and on getting up to any real point she would shy at it like a fractious old steed. It was then impossible to spur her on, and we had to retrace much ground at her pleasure. The 246 THE LOCKED ROOM epsissima verba of this innocent creature are therefore frankly unprintable. But to- wards the top of Mulcaster Park I did make out that a number of pointless speeches, delivered by Mr. Nettleton at his lunch, had culminated in the announcement that he was going to the theatre that night. “ The theatre!” I cried. “I thought he never even went up to town ? " I had gathered that from Delavoye, and Sarah confirmed it with much embroidery. I was also told his reasons for making such a sudden exception, and as given by Sarah they were certainly not convincing. “ Then he's in the theatre now, or ought to be ? ” I suggested; for it was then just after nine o'clock. Ah, that's where it is, sir !” said Sarah, weightily. “He ought to be, as you say, sir. But he's locked his lib’ry, and there's a light under the door, and I can't get no answer, not though I knock, knock, knock, till I'm tired of knocking!” I now ascertained that Sarah also had been given money to make a night of it, in her case at the Parish Hall, where one 247 WITCHING HILL on. of the church entertainments was going Sarah made mention of every item on the programme, as far as she had heard it out. But then it seemed she had be- come anxious about her kitchen fire, which she had been ordered to keep up for elab- orate reasons connected with the master's bath. There had been no fire in the lib'ry that day; it was late in February, but exceptionally mild for the time of year. She knew her master sometimes left his lib'ry locked, after that what happened the last house-parlourmaid, and serve people right for going where they had no business. She could not say that he had left it locked on this occasion ; she only knew it was so now, and a light under the door, though he had gone away in broad daylight. This room, in which Nettleton certainly kept his books, but also his carpenter's bench, test-tubes and retorts, and a rack of stoppered bottles, was the one at the back leading into the garden. It was meant for the drawing-room in this particular type of house, was of considerable size, but only divided from the kitchen by a jerry-built ; 248 THE LOCKED ROOM wall. Sarah could not say that she had heard a sound in the lib’ry—though she often did hear master, as she was setting there of a evening-since he went away without his tea. Of course she had not noticed the light under the door till after dark; not, in fact, till she came back from her entertainment. No; she had not thought of going into the room to draw the curtains. The less she went in there, without orders, the better, Sarah always thought. And yet, when she trotted in front of me through her kitchen and scullery, and so round to the French windows of the sealed chamber, we found them closely shuttered, as they must have been left early in the afternoon, unless Nettleton had returned from his theatre and locked himself in. It was with rather too vivid a recollec- tion of the finding of Abercromby Royle, in a corresponding room in Mulcaster Park, that I went on to my office for an assort- ment of keys. Now, Sarah, you stand sentinel at the gate,” I said on my return. “ If Mr. Net- tleton should come back while I'm busy, 249 WITCHING HILL keep him in conversation while I slip out through your kitchen. I don't much like my job, Sarah, but neither do I think for a moment that there's anything wrong." Yet there was a really bright layer of light under the door in which I now tried key after key, while the old body relieved me of her presence in order to keep a rather unwilling eye up the road. At last a key fitted, turned, and the door was open for me to enter if I dared ; and never shall I forget the scene that presented itself when I did. The room was unoccupied. That was one thing. Neither the quick nor the dead lay in wait for me this time. A mere glance explored every corner ; the scanty furniture was that of a joiner's shop and a laboratory in one; all the library to be seen was a couple of standing bookcases, not nearly full. But my eyes were rooted in horror to the floor. It also was bare, in the sense that there was no carpet, though a rug or two had been roughly folded and piled on the carpenter's bench. In their place, from skirting-board to skirting-board, the floor was ankle-deep 250 THE LOCKED ROOM in shavings. And among the shavings, like so many lighthouses in a yellow sea, burnt four or five fat ecclesiastical candles. They were not in candlesticks; at first I thought that they were mounted merely in their own grease. But Nettleton had run no such risk of one toppling before its time. Their innocent little flames were within an inch or so of the shavings—one was nearer still—but before I could probe the simple secret of the vile device, there was a rustle at my elbow, and there stood Sarah with her nodding plume. Well, I never did !” she exclaimed in a scandalised whisper. Trying to set fire to the 'ouse-oh, fie!” The grotesque inadequacy of these com- ments, taken in conjunction with her com- parative composure, made me suspect for one wild moment that Sarah herself was an accomplice in the horrible design. She grasped it at a glance, much quicker than I had done, and it seemed to shock her very much less. I snatched up one of the candles—they were pinned in place with black-headed toilet pins — and I lit the 251 WITCHING HILL gas with it before stalking through the shavings and setting a careful foot upon the rest in turn. When I had extinguished the last of them, I turned to find my innocent old suspect snivelling on the threshold, and nodding her gay plume more emphatically than ever. “ 'Ow awful ! ” she ejaculated in hushed tones. Madness, I call it. Setting fire to a nice 'ouse like this ! But there, he's been getting queer for a long time. I've often said so- to myself, you know, sir- I wouldn't say it to nobody else. That burgular business was the beginning." “Well, Sarah," I said, “ he's got so queer that we must think what's to be done, and think quickly, and do it double-quick ! But I shall be obliged if you'll stick to your excellent rule of not talking to outsiders. We've had scenes enough at Witching Hill, without this getting about.' “Oh! I shan't say a word, sir," said Sarah, solemnly. “Even pore Mr. Nettle- ton, he shall never know from me how I found him out!” I could hardly believe my ears. Good 252 THE LOCKED ROOM Do you God, woman! dream of spend- ing another night under this maniac's roof? " Why, of course I do, sir," cried old Sarah, bridling. “ Who's to look after him, if I go away and leave him, I should like to know? The very idea!” “ I'll see that he's looked after," said I, grimly, and went and bolted the front door, lest he should return before I had decided on my tactics. In the few seconds that my back was turned, Sarah seemed to have acquired yet another new and novel point of view. I found the old heroine almost gloating over her master's dreadful handiwork Well, there, I never did see anything so artful ! Him at his theatre, to come home and look on at the fire, and me at my concert, safe and sound as if I was at church! Oh, he'd see to that, sir; he wouldn't've done it if he 'adn't've arranged to put me out of 'arm's way. That's Mr. Nettleton, every inch. Not that I say it was a right thing to do, sir, even with the 'ouse empty as it is. But what can you expect when a pore gentleman goes out of 'is 'ead ? 253 WITCHING HILL There's not many would care what 'appened to nobody else! But the artfulness of 'im: in another minute the whole 'ouse might've been blazing like a bonfire! Well, there, you do 'ear of such things, and now we know ’ow they ’appen.” To this extraordinary tune, with many such variations, I was meanwhile making up my mind. The first necessity was to place the intrepid old fool really out of harm's way, and the next was to save, the house if possible, but also and at all costs the good name of the Witching Hill Estate. We had had one suicide, and it had not been hushed up quite as successfully as some of us flattered ourselves at the time; one case of gross intemperance, most scandalous while it lasted, and one gang of burglars actually established on the Estate. People were beginning to talk about us as it was; a case of attempted arson, even if the incendiary were proved a criminal lunatic, might be the end of us as a flourishing concern. It is true that I had no stake in the Company whose servant I was; but one does not follow the dullest avocation for three years without 254 THE LOCKED ROOM taking a certain interest of another kind. At any rate I intended the secret of this locked room to remain as much a secret as I could keep it, and this gave me an immediate leverage over Sarah. Unless she took herself off before her master returned, I assured her I would have him sent, not to an asylum, but to the felon's cell which I described as the proper place for him. I was not so sure in my own mind that I meant him to go to one or the other. But this was the bargain that I proposed to Sarah. It came out that she had friends, in the shape of a labouring brother and his wife and family, whom I strongly suspected of having migrated on purpose to keep in touch with Sarah's kitchen, no further away than the Village. I succeeded in packing the old thing off in that direction, after mak- ing her lock her door at the top of the house. Previously I had removed the marks of my boot from the extinguished candles, and had left the locked room locked once more and in total darkness. Sarah and I quitted the house together before ten o'clock. " I'll see that your master doesn't do 255 THE LOCKED ROOM was with considerable satisfaction that I heard old Sarah trot off into the night, and then myself ran every yard of the way back to the Delavoyes' house. Up to this point, as I still think, I had done better than many might have done in my place. But for my promise to Uvo, and the fact that he was even then lying waiting for me to redeem it, I would not have rushed to a sick man with my tale. Yet I must say that I was thankful I had no other choice, as matters stood. And I will even own that I had formed no definite plans beyond the point at which Uvo, having heard all, was to give me the benefit of his sound judgment in any definite dilemma. To my sorrow he took the whole thing in an absolutely different way from any that I had anticipated. He took it terribly to heart. I had entirely forgotten the gist of our conversation before I left him ; he had been thinking of nothing else. The thing that I had expected to thrill him to the marrow, that would have done nothing else at any other time, simply har- rowed him after what it seemed that I had 257 WITCHING HILL said three-quarters of an hour before. What- ever I had said was overlaid in my mind, for the moment, by all that I had since seen and heard. But Uvo Delavoye might have been brooding over every syllable. You said you wouldn't envy me,” he cried, huskily, "if poor old Nettleton fell under the influence in his turn. You spoke as if it was my influence; it isn't, but it may be that I'm a sort of medium for its trans- mission ! Sole agent, eh, Gilly? My God, that's an awful thought, but you gave it me just now and I sha'n't get shot of it in a hurry! None of these beastly things hap- pened before I came here—I, the legitimate son of this infernal soil! I'm the lightning- conductor, I'm the middleman in " “My dear Uvo, we've no time for all that," I said. He had started up in bed, painfully excited and distressed, and I began to fear that I might have my work cut out to keep him there. “ We agreed to differ about that long ago," I reminded him. " It's only another way of putting what you said just now," he answered. " You said you did believe in my power of infecting every deal! 258 THE LOCKED ROOM the asphalt curve, throwing a bright beam now upon its indigo surface, and now over the fussy fronts of the red houses, as a child plays with a bit of looking-glass in the sun. “Good-night, officer,” said Nettleton as the step and the light passed on. And I caught myself thinking what an improvement the asphalt was in Witching Hill Road, and how we did want it in Mulcaster Park. “We can't talk out here, and I wish to explain about this wretched rent," said Net- tleton. “Come in-or are you nervous too ?” I gave the gate a push, and he had to lead the way. I should not have been so anxious to see a real child in front of me. But Nettleton turned his back with an absence of hesitation that reassured me as to his own suspicions; and indeed none were to be gleaned from his unthoughtful countenance when he had lit up his hall without waiting for me to shut the front door. At that I did shut it, and accepted his invitation to smoke a pipe in his den ; for I thought I could see exactly how it was. Nettleton, having found his candles out and his servant flown, having even guessed 263 THE LOCKED ROOM “One moment, and I'll light the gas. We're getting in each other's way,” said Nettleton. I moved instinctively, in obe- dience to a light touch on the arm, and I heard him fumbling in the dark behind me. Then I let out the yell of a lifetime. I am not ashamed of it to this day. I had received a lifetime's dose of agony and amazement. My right foot had gone through the floor, gone into the jaws of some frightful monster that bit it to the bone above the ankle ! Why, what's the matter ? ” cried Net- tleton, but not from the part of the room where I had heard him fumbling, neither had he yet struck a light. You know, you blackguard ! I roared, with a few worse words than that. “ I'll sort you for this, you see if I don't! Strike a light and let me loose this instant! It's taking my foot off, I tell !” “Dear, dear!” he exclaimed, striking a match at once. “ Why, if you haven't gone and got into my best burglar-trap !” He stood regarding me from a safe dis- tance, with a sly pale smile, and the wax vesta held on high. I dropped my eyes to you ! 265 WITCHING HILL room, just out of your reach. So is the con- trol of the very unpleasant arrangement that's got you by the heel. Is it the ankle ? Oh ! I'm sorry; but it's no use your looking round. I only meant the trap-door control; the trap itself has to be taken out before you can set it again, and it's a job even with the proper. lever. After what's happened and the language you've been using, Mr. Gillon, I'm afraid I don't care to trust my- self within reach of your very powerful arms, either to light the gas or to meddle with my little monster.” See here," I said through the teeth that I had set against my pain. " You're as mad as a hatter ; that's the only ex- cuse for you “Thank you !” he snapped in. it won't be the worse for me if I do give you a taste of hell before your death and -cremation !" “I'm sorry for you,” I went on, partly because I did not know that the insane call for more tact than the sane, and partly because I was far from sure which this man was, but had resolved in any case to “ Then 268 THE LOCKED ROOM appeal with all my might to his self-interest. “I'm sorry for anybody who loses his wits, but sorriest for those who get them back again and have to pay for what they did when they weren't themselves. You go mad and commit a murder, but you're dead sane when they hang you! That seems to me about the toughest luck a man could have, but it looks very like being your own.” “ Which of these four candles do you back to win ? " inquired Nettleton, looking at them and not at me. “I put my money on the one nearest you, and I back this one here for a place.” “Two people know all about this, I may tell you,” said I with more effect. Nettle- ton looked up. “Uvo Delavoye's one, and your old Sarah's the other." “ That be blowed for a yarn 1” he an- swered, after a singularly lucid interval, if he was not lucid all the time. “I think I see you walking into a trap like this if you knew it was here ! “ It's the truth!” I blustered, feeling to my horror that the truth had not rung true. “ All right! Then you deserve all you 269 WITCHING HILL get for coming into another man's house When your servant came for me, and when we found out together that you were trying to burn it down ? " I was doing my best to reason with him now, but he was my master, sane or crazy. His cleverness was diabolical. He took the new point out of my mouth. Yes—for going away and standing by to see me do it !” he cried. “ But that's not the only crow I've got to pluck with you, young fellow, and the other jacks-in-office behind you. Must pay your dirty extortionate rent, must I ? Very last absolutely final application, was it? Going to put a man in possession, are you? Very nice-very good! You're in possession yourself, my lad, and I wish you joy of your job!” He made for the door, hugging the wall with unnecessary caution, leaving a book- case tottering as an emblem of his respect. But at the door he recovered both his courage and his humour. “I always meant to give him a warm reception,” he cried—"and by God you're going to get one !" 270 THE LOCKED ROOM He opened the door-made me a gro- tesque salute--and it was all that I could do to keep a horrified face till he was gone. Never had I thought him mad enough to leave me before he was obliged. Yet the front door closed softly in its turn; now I was alone in the house, and could have clapped my hands with joy. I plunged them into my pockets instead, took out the small shot of my possessions, and fired them at the candles, even to my watch. But my hand had shaken. I was balanced on one leg and suffering torments from the other. The four flames burnt undimmed. Then I stripped to the waist, made four bundles of coat and waistcoat, shirt and vest. It was impossible to miss with these. As I flung the fourth, darkness descended like a kiss from heaven -and a loud laugh broke through the door. Nettleton came creeping in along the wall, lit the candles one by one, and said he was indebted to me for doing exactly what he thought I would, and throwing away my own last means of meddling with his arrangements ! I went mad myself. I turned for an ap- preciable time into the madder man of the 271 WITCHING HILL two; the railing and the raving were all on my side. They are not the least horrible thing that I remember. But I got through that stage, thank God! I like to think that one always must if there is time. There was time, and to spare, in my case. And there were those four calm candles waiting for me to behave myself, burning away as though they had never been out, one almost down to the shavings now, all four in their last half-inch, yet without another flicker between them of irresolution or remorse, true ecclesiastical candles to the end ! I had spat at them till my mouth was like an ash-pit; but there they burnt, corpse candles for the living who was worse than dead, mocking me with their four charmed flames. But mockery was nothing to me now. Nettleton had killed the nerve that mockery touches. When I shouted he gave me leave to go on till I was black in the face; nobody would hear me through the front of the house, and perhaps I remembered the heavy shutters he had made for the French windows at the time of the burglar scare ? He went round to see if he could 272 WITCHING HILL the drop itself. It was only fools who looked forward or back, said Edgar Nettleton. And I, who have done a little of both all my life, like most ordinary mortals, as I look back to the hour which I had every reason to recognise as my last on earth, the one redeeming memory is that of the complete calm which did ultimately oust my undignified despair. It may have been in answer to the prayers I uttered in the end instead of curses; that is more than man can say. I only know that I was not merely calm at the last, but immensely interested in what Nettleton would have called the winning candle. It burnt down to the last thin disk of grease, shining like a worn florin in the jungle of shavings that seemed to lean upon the flame and yet did not catch. Then the wick fell over, the last quarter-inch of it, and I thought that candle had done its worst. Head and heart almost burst with hope. No! the agony was not to be prolonged to the next candle, or the next but one. The very end of the first wick had done the business in falling over. I had forgotten that strong 274 THE LOCKED ROOM smell and the pools now drying on the floor. It began in a thin blue spoonful of flame, that scooped up the worn grease coin, grew into a saucerful of violet edged with orange, and in ten or twenty seconds had the whole jungle of shavings in a blaze. But it was a violet blaze. It was not like ordinary fire. It was more like the thin blue waves that washed over the rocks of white asbestos in so many of our tenants' grates. And like a wave it passed over the surface of the floor, without eating into the wood. There were no hangings in the room. The incendiary had relied entirely on his woodwork, and within a minute the floor was a sea of violet flames with red crests. There was one island. I had stooped after Nettleton left me for the last time, and swept the shavings clear of me on all sides, garner- ing as many as possible into the hole in the floor where the trap had been set, and drying the floor within reach as well as I could with the bare hand. There was this island, per- haps the size of a hearth-rug; and I cannot say that I was ever any hotter than I should 275 WITCHING HILL have been on such a rug before a roaring fire. But this fire did not roar, though it surged over the rest of the floor in its blue billows and its red-hot crests, flowing under the carpenter's bench as the sea flows under a pier. And the floor was not on fire; the fire was on the floor; and it was dying down ! It was dying down before my starting eyes. Where the violet wave receded, it left little more mark than the waves of the sea leave on the sands. It was only the fiery crests that lingered, and crackled, and turned black and my senses left me before I saw the reason, or more than the first blinding ray of hope ! It was not Uvo Delavoye, and it was not Sarah, who was standing over me when I awoke to the physical agony on which that of the mind had acted lately as a perfect anodyne. It was the Delavoyes' doctor. Uvo had sent for him in the middle of the night, telling his poor people he felt much worse—having indeed a higher temperature —but being in reality only unbearably 276 THE LOCKED ROOM anxious about Nettleton and me. He wanted to know what Nettleton was doing. He wanted to be sure that I was safe in my bed. If his sister had not been nursing him, he would have made a third madman by crawling out to satisfy himself; as it was, he had sent for the doctor and told him all. And the doctor had not only come himself, but had knocked up his partner on the way, as they were both tenants on the Estate. They might have been utter strangers to me that night, and for a little time after Nor was it in accordance with their orders that I got to know things as soon as I did. That was where Uvo Delavoye did come in, and with him his mother's new cook, Sarah, in the bonnet with the nodding plume-just as she had been to see her pore old master. It's a beautiful mad-'ouse," said Sarah, with a moist twinkle in her funny old eye. " I only 'ope he won't want to burn it down!" “I only hope you're keeping his effort to yourselves,” said I. “It'll do the Estate no good, if it gets out, after all the other things that have been happening here." Trust us and the doctors !” said Uvo. 277 WITCHING HILL “We're all in the same boat, Gilly, and your old Muskett's the only other soul who knows. By the way ”-his glance had deepened- “both they and Sarah think it must have been coming on for a long time." “I'm quite sure it'as,” said Sarah, earnestly. “I never did 'ear such things as Mr. Nettle- ton used to say to me, or to hisself, it didn't seem to matter who it was. But of course it wasn't for me to go about repeating them.” I saw Uvo's mouth twitching, for some reason, and I changed the subject to the miraculous preservation of the house in Witching Hill Road. The doctors had assured me that the very floor, which my own eyes had beheld a sea of blazing spirit, was scarcely so much as charred. And Uvo Delavoye confirmed the statement. “ It wasn't such a deep sea as you thought, Gilly. But it was the spirit that saved the show, and that's just where our poor friend overshot the mark. Spirit burns itself, not the thing you put it on. It's like the brandy and the Christmas pudding. Those shavings would have been far more dangerous by themselves, but drenched in methylated 278 CHAPTER VIII THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS That spring I did what a great many young fellows were doing in those particular days I threw up my work at short notice, and went very far afield from Witching Hill. It was a long year before I came back, un- scathed as to my skin, but with its contents ignobly depreciated and reduced, on a visit to 7, Mulcaster Park. Uvo Delavoye met me at the station, and we fled before the leisurely tide of top-hats and evening papers, while one of the porters followed with my things. There were no changes that I could see, except in myself as I caught sight of myself in my old office window. The creepers might have made a modest stride on the Queen Anne houses ; brick and tile were perhaps a mellower red ; and more tenants appeared to be growing 280 WITCHING HILL bitterest things about the British forces, regular and irregular, that it ever was my lot to hear. I made no attempt to reply to them. His wife tried to present him with the rose which I fancied had been meant for one of us, and his prompt rejection of the offering only hardened me in that impression. Then Uvo asked him if he had seen good play at the Oval; and so the vitriolic stream was diverted into such congenial channels as the decadence of modern cricket and the calibre of the other members of the Surrey Club. "But won't you come in ? ” concluded the captain in his most forbidding manner. “I hate this talking at the gate like a pack of servants, but my wife seems to have a mania for it." It is only fair to state that Mrs. Ricardo had withdrawn during the denunciation of the game which her husband spent his use- less days in watching, as Uvo told me when we had declined his inhospitality and were out of earshot. It was all he did say about Captain Ricardo, and I said nothing at all. The people were evidently friends of his; at least the wife was, and it was she who 284 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS had set me thinking with her first smile. I was still busy wondering whether, or where, I could have seen her before. “It's quite possible,” said Uvo, when I had wondered aloud. “I wouldn't give her away if it weren't an open secret here. But Witch- ing Hill hasn't called on Mrs. Ricardo since it found out that she was once on the stage.” “Good Lord !" “ There's another reason, to give the neigh- bours their due. Ricardo has insulted most of them to their faces. A bit of gossip got about, and instead of ignoring it he limped out on the war-path, cutting half the Estate and damning the other half in heaps.” “But what was her stage name?” Delavoye gave a grim laugh as he ushered me into the garden of many memories. “You wouldn't know it, Gilly. You were never a great playgoer, you see, and Mrs. Ricardo was anything but a great actress. But she's a very great good sort, as you'll find out for yourself when you know her better.' I could quite believe it even then-but I was not so sure after a day or two with Uvo. I found him leading a lonely life, with 285 WITCHING HILL Nettleton's old Sarah to look after him. Miss Delavoye had been wooed and married while my back was turned, and Mrs. Delavoye was on a long visit to the young couple. Uvo, however, appeared to be enjoying his solitude rather than otherwise ; his health was better, he was plying his pen, things were being taken by all kinds of periodicals. And yet I was uneasy about him. Among many little changes, but more in this house than in most, the subtlest change of all was in Uvo Delavoye himself. He could not do enough for me ; from the few survivors of his father's best bins, to my breakfast served in bed by his own hands, nothing was good enough for the fraud he made me feel. Yet we were not in touch as we had been of old. I could have done with fewer deeds of unnecessary kind- ness and more words of unguarded intimacy. He did not trust me as he used. He had something or somebody on his mind; and I soon made up mine that it was Mrs. Ricardo, but not from anything else he told me. He never mentioned her name again. He did not tell me that, with a view to a third road, 286 WITCHING HILL that I had seen, and I proceeded to recon- noitre the position with some interest. Then it was that Mrs. Ricardo was discovered, seated on one of several stumps of similar pillars, on the far side of the wall. Mrs. Ricardo, without her hat in the shadow of the old grey wall, but with her glossy hair and glowing colour stamped against it with rich effect : a charming picture in its greenwood frame, especially as she was looking up to greet me with a radiant smile. But I was too taken aback to be appreciative for the moment. And then I decided that the high colouring was a thought too high, and a sudden self-conscious- ness disappointing after her excellent com- posure in the much more trying circum- stances of our previous meeting. "Haven't you been here before, Mr. Gil- lon?” Mrs. Ricardo seemed surprised, but quite competent to play the guide. mossy heap's supposed to have been the roof, and these stone stumps the columns that held it up. There's just that one standing as it was. There should be a 'sylvan prospect from where I'm sitting ; but it " This 288 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS must have been choked up for years and years." “You do know a lot about it!” I cried, recovering my admiration for the pretty woman as she recovered her self-possession. And then she smiled again, but not quite as I had caught her smiling. What Mr. Delavoye's friends don't know about Witching Hill oughtn't to be worth knowing !” said Mrs. Ricardo. Mrs. Ricardo. “I mean what he really knows, not what he makes up, Mr. Gillon. I hear you don't believe in all that any more than I do. But he does seem to have read everything that was ever written about the place. He says this was certainly the Temple of Bacchus in the good old days." “I don't quite see where Bacchus comes in," said I, thinking that Uvo and Mrs. Ricardo must be friends indeed. He's supposed to have been on this old wall behind us, in a fresco or something, by Villikins or somebody. You can see where it's been gouged out, and the stucco with it.” But I had to say what was in my mind. “ Is Uvo Delavoye still harping on about 289 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS “We are, and I hope we always shall be." " It must have been everything for you to have such a friend in such a place !" “It was so! I stayed on and on because of him. He was the life and soul of the Estate to me." Mrs. Ricardo looked as though she could have taken the words out of my mouth. “But what a spoilt life, and what a strange soul !” said she, instead; and I saw there was something in Mrs. Ricardo, after all. She was looking at me and yet through me, as we sat on our broken bits of Ionic columns. She had spoken in a dreamy voice, with a wonderful softening of her bold, flam- boyant beauty; for I was not looking through her by any means, but staring harder than I had any business, in a fresh endeavour to remember where we had met before. And for once she had spoken without a certain intonation, which I had hardly noticed in her speech until I missed it now. “Of course I've heard of all the extra- ordinary adventures you've both had here,” resumed Uvo's new friend, as though to em- phasise the terms that they were on. 291 WITCHING HILL “Not all of them?” I suggested. There were one or two affairs that he and I were to have kept to ourselves. Why not ? ” she flashed, suspiciously. “Oh! I don't know." " Which of them is such a secret ?" She was smiling now, but with obvious effort. Why this pressure on a pointless point ? And where had I seen her before ? Well, there was our very first adventure, for one,” said I. Underground, you mean ? " “ Yes—partly." I could not help staring now. Mrs. Ri- cardo had reddened so inexplicably. There was no need to tell me the other part !” she said, scornfully. “I was in it- as you know very well !” Then I did know. She was the bedizened beauty who had raked in the five-pound notes, and smashed a magnum of champagne in her excitement, at the orgy in Sir Chris- topher Stainsby's billiard room. “I know it now," I stammered, “but I give you my word- Fiddle !" she interrupted. ) “ You've 292 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS known it all the time. I've seen it in your face. He gave me away to you, and I shan't forgive him!” I found myself involved in a heated ex- position of the facts. I had never recognised her until that very minute. But I had kept wondering where we had met before. And that was all that she could have seen in my face. As for Uvo Delavoye, when I had spoken to him about it, he had merely as- sured me that I must have seen her on the stage : so far and no further had he given her away. Mrs. Ricardo took some assuring and reassuring on the point. But the truth was in me, and in her ultimate pacification she seemed to lose sight of the fact that she herself had done what she accused Uvo of doing. Evidently the leakage of her secret mattered far less to Mrs. Ricardo than the horrible thought that Mr. Delavoye had let it out. Of course I spoke as though there was nothing to matter in the least to anybody, and asked after Sir Christopher as if the entertainment in his billiard room had been one of the most conventional. It seemed 293 WITCHING HILL that he had married again in his old age; he had married one of the other ladies of those very revels. “That's really why I first thought of coming here to live," explained Mrs. Ricardo, with her fine candour. “ But there have been all kinds of disagreeables." She had known about the tunnel before she had heard of it from Uvo; some member of the lively household had discovered its existence, and there had been high jinks down there on more than one occasion. But Lady Stainsby had not been the same person since her marriage. I gathered that she had put her reformed foot down on the underground orgies, but that Captain Ri- cardo had done his part in the subsequent disagreeables. It further appeared that the blood-stained lace and the diamond buckle had also been discovered, and that old Sir Christopher had " behaved just like he would, and froze on to both without a word to Mr. Delavoye's grand relations.' I suggested that mining rights might have gone with the freehold, but Mrs. Ricardo quoted Uvo's opinion as to what still ailed 294 WITCHING HILL definite fear that was not removed by the manner of its conclusion. Mrs. Ricardo had looked at a watch pinned to a pretty but audacious blouse, and had risen rather hur- riedly. But she had looked at her watch just a minute too late; as we turned the corner of the ruin, there was Delavoye hurrying through the brake towards us; and though he was far enough off to conceal such confusion as Mrs. Ricardo had shown at my appearance on the scene, and to come up saying that he had found me at last, I could not but remember how he had shut himself up for the morning, after advising me to go on the river. I was uneasy about them both; but it was impossible to say a word to anybody. He never spoke of her; that was another bad sign to my suspicious mind. It was entirely from her that I had drawn my material for suspicion, or rather for anxiety. I did not for a moment suppose that there was anything more than a possibly injudicious friendship between them; it was just the possi- bilities that stirred my sluggish imagination; and I should not have thought twice about 296 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS these but for Uvo's marked reserve in speak- ing of the one other person with whom I now knew that he was extremely unreserved. If only I had known it from him, I should not have deplored the mere detail that Mrs. Ricardo was in one way filling my own old place in his life. My visit drew to an end ; on the last night I simply had to dine in town with a wounded friend from the front. It would have been cruel to get out of it, though Uvo almost tempted me by his keenness that I should go. I warned him, however, that I should come back early. And I was even earlier than my word. And Uvo was not in. gone out with his pipe,” said Sarah, looking gratuitously concerned. “I'm sure I don't know where you'll find him.” But this sounded like an afterthought; and there was a something shifty and yet wist- ful in the old body's manner that inclined me to a little talk with her about the master. “ You don't think he's just gone into the wood, do you, Sarah ? " Well, he do go there a good deal,” said “ He's 297 WITCHING HILL Sarah. “Of course he don't always go that way; but he do go there." · Might he have gone into Captain Ri- cardo's, Sarah ?” “He might,” said Sarah, with more than dubious emphasis. * They're his great friends now, aren't they?" I hazarded. Not Captain Ricardo, sir," said Sarah. " I've only seen him in the 'ouse but once, and that was when Miss Hamy was married ; but we 'ad all sorts then." And Sarah looked as though the highways and hedges had been scoured for guests. “ But do you see much more of Mrs. Ri- cardo, Sarah ? “I don't, sir, but Mr. Hugo do," said Sarah, for once off her loyal guard. more of her than his would like." “Come, come, Sarah! She's a charming lady, and quite the belle of the Estate.” That may be, sir, but the Estate ain't what it was," declared Sarah, with pregnant superiority. “ There's some queer people come since I was with pore Mr. Nettleton.” " He sees ma 298 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS " What about Mr. Nettleton himself, Sarah ?" “Mr. Nettleton was always a gentleman, sir, though he did try to set fire to the 'ouse with my methylated." I left the old dame bobbing in the door- way, and went to look for Uvo in the wood. I swear I had no thought of spying upon him. . What could there be to spy upon, at half- past nine at night, with Captain Ricardo safe and grumbling at his own fireside ? I had been wasting my last evening at a club and in the train, and I did not want to miss another minute of Uvo Delavoye's society. It was an exquisite night, the year near its zenith and the moon only less than full. The wood was changed from a beautiful bright picture into a beautiful black photo- graph; twig and leaf, and silent birds, stood out like motes in the moonbeams. But there were fine intervals of utter darkness, wide pools and high cascades of pitch, with never a bubble in the way of detail. And there was one bird to be heard, giving its own glory to the glorious night. But I 299 WITCHING HILL was not long alive to the heavenly song, or to the beauty of the moonlit wood. I had entered by way of a spare site a little higher up than the Delavoyes', who, unlike some of their newer neighbours, had not a garden gate into the wood. I had penetrated some score yards into the pitch and silver of leafy tree and open space when I became aware that someone else had entered still higher up, and that our courses were converging. I thought for a moment that it might be Uvo; but there was some- thing halt yet stealthy about the unseen advance, as of a shackled man escaping; and I knew who it was before I myself stole and dodged to get a sight of him. It was Captain Ricardo, creeping clumsily, often pausing to lean hard upon his tremendous stick. At first I thought he had two sticks; but the other was not one; the other was a hunting crop, for I saw the lash unloosed in one of the pauses, and a tree-trunk flicked again and again, about the height of a man's shoulder, as if for practice. When the limping, cringing figure again proceeded on its way, the big stick was in 300 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS the left hand, the crop in the right, and I was a second sneak following the first, in the direction of the Temple of Bacchus. I saw him stop and listen before I heard the voices. I saw the crop raised high in the moonlight, as if in the taking of some silent vow, and I lessened the distance be- tween us with impunity, for he had never once looked round. And now I too heard the voices; they were on the other side of the temple wall; and this side was laved with moonlight, so that the edges of the crumbling stucco made seams of pitch, and Ricardo's shadow crouched upon the wall for a little age before his bent person showed against it. Now he was at one end of the wall, peep- ing round, listening, instead of showing him- self like a man. My blood froze at his miserable tactics. I had seen men men keep cover under heavy fire with less precaution than this wretch showed in spying on his guilty wife; yet there was I copying him, even as I had dogged him through the wood. Now he had wedged himself in the heavy shadow between the wall and the one whole 301 WITCHING HILL pillar at right angles to the wall; now he was looking as well as listening. And now I was in his old place, now I was at his very elbow, eavesdropping myself in my watch and ward over the other eavesdropper. The big stick leant against the end of the wall, just between us, nearer to my hand than his. The man himself leant hard against the pillar, the crop grasped behind him in both hands, its lash dangling like the tail of a monster rat. Those two clasped hands were the only part of him in the moonlight, and I watched them as I would have watched his eyes if we had been face to face. They were lean, distorted, twitching, itching hands. The lash was wound round one of them; there might have been more whipcord under the skin. Meanwhile I too was listening perforce to the voices on the other side of the wall. I thought one came from the stone stump where Mrs. Ricardo had sat the other day, that she was sitting there again. The other voice came from various places. And to me the picture of Uvo Delavoye, tramping up and down in the moonlight as he talked, was as 302 WITCHING HILL Because we're taking a bit of a risk," resumed Uvo, finishing further off than he began. 'Oh, no, we're not. Besides, what does it matter? I simply had to speak to you- and you know what happened the other morning. Mornings are the worst of all for people seeing you." “But not for what they think of seeing you." ' Oh! what do I care what they think ?” cried the wife of the man beside me. “ I'm far past that. It's you men who keep on thinking and thinking of what other people are going to think !" “ We sometimes have to think for two,'. said Uvo-just a little less steadily, to my ear. “ You don't see that I'm absolutely desper- ate, mewed up with a man who doesn't care a rap for me!” I should make him care. That shows all you care !” she retorted, passionately. And then I felt that he was standing over her; there was something in the altered pose of the head near mine, something that took 304 THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS my eyes from the moonlit hands, and again gave me as vivid a picture as though the wall were down. It's no use going back on all that,” said Uvo, and it was harder to hear him now. “I don't want to say rotten things. You know well enough what I feel. If I felt a bit less, , it would be different. It's just because we've been the kind of pals we have been my dear. my dear! .. that we mustn't go and spoil it now.” The low voice trembled, but now hers was lower still, and I at least lost most of her “ if you really cared for me to take me away from a man who never did !" That much I heard, and this : “But you're no better! You don't know what it is to- care!" That brought an outburst, but not from the man beside me. He might have been turned into part of the Ionic pillar. It was Uvo who talked, and I for one who listened without another thought of the infamy of listening. I was not there to listen to any- body, but to keep an eye on Ricardo; my further action depended on his ; but from the answer . U 305 WITCHING HILL Witching Hill, and this was to be our last. I arranged it beautifully when I got in and had tried to explain how entirely I had lost my bearings in the wood. I told Uvo, and it happened to be true, that I had been wonder- ing why on earth he would not come up north with me next day. And before midnight he had packed. Then we sat up together for the last time in that back room of his on the first floor, and watched the moon set in the tree-tops, and silver leaves twinkle as the wood sighed in its sleep. One more pipe, and the black sky was turning grey. A few more pipes, much talk about old times, and the wood was a wood once more; its tossing crests were tipped with emeralds in the flashing sun ; and as tree after tree broke into a merry din, we spoke of joy-bells taken up by steeple after steeple, and Uvo read me eight lines that he had discovered somewhere while I was away. "Some cry up Gunnersbury, For Sion some declare, And some say that with Chiswick House No villa can compare } 312 ܨ> DATE DUE DE 18 73 AP 885 DEMCO 38-297 89005052014 b 89005052014 a 8900 5052014 b 89005052014 a