The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (good ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
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He laughed.
“You’re a very shrewd one, Mr. Glenarm. I came in
by the kitchen window, if you must know. I got in before
your solemn jack-of-all-trades locked up, and I
walked down to the end of the passage there”—he indicated
the direction with a slight jerk of his head—
“and slept until it was time to go to work. You can
see how easy it was!”
I laughed now at the sheer assurance of the fellow.
“If you can’t lie better than that you needn’t try
again. Face about now, and march!”
I put new energy into my tone, and he turned and
walked before me down the corridor in the direction
from which he had come. We were, I dare say, a pretty
pair—he tramping doggedly before me, I following at
his heels with his lantern and my pistol. The situation
had played prettily into my hands, and I had every intention
of wresting from him the reason for his interest
in Glenarm House and my affairs.
“Not so fast,” I admonished sharply.
“Excuse me,” he replied mockingly.
He was no common rogue; I felt the quality in him
with a certain admiration for his scoundrelly talents—
a fellow, I reflected, who was best studied at the point
of a pistol.
I continued at his heels, and poked the muzzle of the
revolver against his back from time to time to keep him
assured of my presence—a device that I was to regret a
second later.
We were about ten yards from the end of the corridor
when he flung himself backward upon me, threw his
arms over his head and seized me about the neck, turning
himself lithely until his fingers clasped my throat.
I fired blindly once, and felt the smoke of the revolver
hot in my own nostrils. The lantern fell from
my hand, and one or the other of us smashed it with our
feet.
A wrestling match in that dark hole was not to my
liking. I still held on to the revolver, waiting for a
chance to use it, and meanwhile he tried to throw me,
forcing me back against one side and then the other of
the passage.
With a quick rush he flung me away, and in the same
second I fired. The roar of the shot in the narrow corridor
seemed interminable. I flung myself on the floor,
expecting a return shot, and quickly enough a flash broke
upon the darkness dead ahead, and I rose to my feet,
fired again and leaped to the opposite side of the corridor
and crouched there. We had adopted the same tactics,
firing and dodging to avoid the target made by the flash
of our pistols, and watching and listening after the roar
of the explosions. It was a very pretty game, but destined
not to last long. He was slowly retreating toward
the end of the passage, where there was, I remembered,
a dead wall. His only chance was to crawl through an
area window I knew to be there, and this would, I felt
sure, give him into my hands.
After five shots apiece there was a truce. The pungent
smoke of the powder caused me to cough, and he
laughed.
“Have you swallowed a bullet, Mr. Glenarm?” he
called.
I could hear his feet scraping on the cement floor;
he was moving away from me, doubtless intending to
fire when he reached the area window and escape before
I could reach him. I crept warily after him, ready to
fire on the instant, but not wishing to throw away my
last cartridge. That I resolved to keep for close quarters
at the window.
He was now very near the end of the corridor; I
heard his feet strike some boards that I remembered
lay on the floor there, and I was nerved for a shot and
a hand-to-hand struggle, if it came to that.
I was sure that he sought the window; I heard his
hands on the wall as he felt for it. Then a breath of
cold air swept the passage, and I knew he must be
drawing himself up to the opening. I fired and dropped
to the floor. With the roar of the explosion I heard
him yell, but the expected return shot did not follow.
The pounding of my heart seemed to mark the passing
of hours. I feared that my foe was playing some
trick, creeping toward me, perhaps, to fire at close
range, or to grapple with me in the dark. The cold air
still whistled into the corridor, and I began to feel the
chill of it. Being fired upon is disagreeable enough,
but waiting in the dark for the shot is worse.
I rose and walked toward the end of the passage.
Then his revolver flashed and roared directly ahead,
the flame of it so near that it blinded me. I fell forward
confused and stunned, but shook myself together
in a moment and got upon my feet. The draft of air
no longer blew into the passage. Morgan had taken
himself off through the window and closed it after him.
I made sure of this by going to the window and feeling
of it with my hands.
I went back and groped about for my candle, which
I found without difficulty and lighted. I then returned
to the window to examine the catch. To my utter astonishment
it was fastened with staples, driven deep
into the sash, in such way that it could not possibly
have been opened without the aid of tools. I tried it
at every point. Not only was it securely fastened, but
it could not possibly be opened without an expenditure
of time and labor.
There was no doubt whatever that Morgan knew
more about Glenarm House than I did. It was possible,
but not likely, that he had crept past me in the corridor
and gone out through the house, or by some other
cellar window. My eyes were smarting from the smoke
of the last shot, and my cheek stung where the burnt
powder had struck my face. I was alive, but in my vexation
and perplexity not, I fear, grateful for my safety.
It was, however, some consolation to feel sure I had
winged the enemy.
I gathered up the fragments of Morgan’s lantern and
went back to the library. The lights in half the candlesticks
had sputtered out. I extinguished the remainder
and started to my room.
Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread
as of some one following me—not on the great staircase,
nor in any place I could identify—yet unmistakably
on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My
nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the
ghost-like tread in the hall angered me—Morgan, or his
ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my
room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates’
room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute
any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he
was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand
that boded no good to me.
It was now past two o’clock and he should have been
asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room
and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest
idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma,
Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at
a table, the light of several candles falling on a book
over which he was bent with that maddening gravity
he had never yet in my presence thrown off.
He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head
slightly.
“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”
“Yes, the devil!” I roared at him, astonished at
finding him—sorry, I must say, that he was there. The
stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew
perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in
upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered
for words to explain myself.
“I thought I heard some one in the house. I don’t
want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?”
“Certainly not, sir,” he replied in a grieved tone.
I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a
volume of Shakespeare’s comedies, open at the first
scene of the last act of The Winter’s Tale.
“Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say,” he
remarked. “It was one of my late master’s favorites.”
“Go to the devil!” I bawled at him, and went down
to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.
I RECEIVE A CALLER
Going to bed at three o’clock on a winter morning in
a house whose ways are disquieting, after a duel in
which you escaped whole only by sheer good luck, does
not fit one for sleep. When I finally drew the covers
over me it was to lie and speculate upon the events of
the night in connection with the history of the few
weeks I had spent at Glenarm. Larry had suggested
in New York that Pickering was playing some deep
game, and I, myself, could not accept Pickering’s statement
that my grandfather’s large fortune had proved
to be a myth. If Pickering had not stolen or dissipated
it, where was it concealed? Morgan was undoubtedly
looking for something of value or he would not risk
his life in the business; and it was quite possible that he
was employed by Pickering to search for hidden property.
This idea took strong hold of me, the more readily,
I fear, since I had always been anxious to see evil
in Pickering. There was, to be sure, the unknown alternative
heir, but neither she nor Sister Theresa was,
I imagined, a person capable of hiring an assassin to
kill me.
On reflection I dismissed the idea of appealing to
the county authorities, and I never regretted that resolution.
The seat of Wabana County was twenty miles
away, the processes of law were unfamiliar, and I
wished to avoid publicity. Morgan might, of course,
have been easily disposed of by an appeal to the Annandale
constable, but now that I suspected Pickering of
treachery the caretaker’s importance dwindled. I had
waited all my life f or a chance at Arthur Pickering,
and in this affair I hoped to draw him into the open
and settle with him.
I slept presently, but woke at my usual hour, and
after a tub felt ready for another day. Bates served
me, as usual, a breakfast that gave a fair aspect to the
morning. I was alert for any sign of perturbation in
him; but I had already decided that I might as well
look for emotion in a stone wall as in this placid, colorless
serving man. I had no reason to suspect him of
complicity in the night’s affair, but I had no faith in
him, and merely waited until he should throw himself
more boldly into the game.
By my plate next morning I found this note, written
in a clear, bold, woman’s hand:
The Sisters of St. Agatha trust that the intrusion upon
his grounds by Miss Armstrong, one of their students, has
caused Mr. Glenarm no annoyance. The Sisters beg that
this infraction of their discipline will be overlooked, and
they assure Mr. Glenarm that it will not recur.
An unnecessary apology! The note-paper was of the
best quality. At the head of the page “St. Agatha’s,
Annandale” was embossed in purple. It was the first
note I had received from
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