Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

of that kind happened: yet it is to be doubted whether she got all the enjoyment from her new specimen that she expected. She was interested⁠—keenly interested⁠—to be sure, and pointed out to Humphreys a series of little depressions in the ground which, she thought, marked the places of the lettered blocks. She told him, too, what other mazes resembled his most closely in arrangement, and explained how it was usually possible to date a maze to within twenty years by means of its plan. This one, she already knew, must be about as old as 1780, and its features were just what might be expected. The globe, furthermore, completely absorbed her. It was unique in her experience, and she pored over it for long. “I should like a rubbing of that,” she said, “if it could possibly be made. Yes, I am sure you would be most kind about it, Mr. Humphreys, but I trust you won’t attempt it on my account, I do indeed; I shouldn’t like to take any liberties here. I have the feeling that it might be resented. Now, confess,” she went on, turning and facing Humphreys, “don’t you feel⁠—haven’t you felt ever since you came in here⁠—that a watch is being kept on us, and that if we overstepped the mark in any way there would be a⁠—well, a pounce? No? I do; and I don’t care how soon we are outside the gate.”

“After all,” she said, when they were once more on their way to the house, “it may have been only the airlessness and the dull heat of that place that pressed on my brain. Still, I’ll take back one thing I said. I’m not sure that I shan’t forgive you after all, if I find next spring that that maze has been grubbed up.”

“Whether or no that’s done, you shall have the plan, Lady Wardrop. I have made one, and no later than tonight I can trace you a copy.”

“Admirable: a pencil tracing will be all I want, with an indication of the scale. I can easily have it brought into line with the rest of my plates. Many, many thanks.”

“Very well, you shall have that tomorrow. I wish you could help me to a solution of my block-puzzle.”

“What, those stones in the summerhouse? That is a puzzle; they are in no sort of order? Of course not. But the men who put them down must have had some directions⁠—perhaps you’ll find a paper about it among your uncle’s things. If not, you’ll have to call in somebody who’s an expert in ciphers.”

“Advise me about something else, please,” said Humphreys. “That bush-thing under the library window: you would have that away, wouldn’t you?”

“Which? That? Oh, I think not,” said Lady Wardrop. “I can’t see it very well from this distance, but it’s not unsightly.”

“Perhaps you’re right; only, looking out of my window, just above it, last night, I thought it took up too much room. It doesn’t seem to, as one sees it from here, certainly. Very well, I’ll leave it alone for a bit.”

Tea was the next business, soon after which Lady Wardrop drove off; but, halfway down the drive, she stopped the car and beckoned to Humphreys, who was still on the front-door steps. He ran to glean her parting words, which were: “It just occurs to me, it might be worth your while to look at the underside of those stones. They must have been numbered, mustn’t they? Good-bye again. Home, please.”

The main occupation of this evening at any rate was settled. The tracing of the plan for Lady Wardrop and the careful collation of it with the original meant a couple of hours’ work at least. Accordingly, soon after nine Humphreys had his materials put out in the library and began. It was a still, stuffy evening; windows had to stand open, and he had more than one grisly encounter with a bat. These unnerving episodes made him keep the tail of his eye on the window. Once or twice it was a question whether there was⁠—not a bat, but something more considerable⁠—that had a mind to join him. How unpleasant it would be if someone had slipped noiselessly over the sill and was crouching on the floor!

The tracing of the plan was done: it remained to compare it with the original, and to see whether any paths had been wrongly closed or left open. With one finger on each paper, he traced out the course that must be followed from the entrance. There were one or two slight mistakes, but here, near the centre, was a bad confusion, probably due to the entry of the Second or Third Bat. Before correcting the copy he followed out carefully the last turnings of the path on the original. These, at least, were right; they led without a hitch to the middle space. Here was a feature which need not be repeated on the copy⁠—an ugly black spot about the size of a shilling. Ink? No. It resembled a hole, but how should a hole be there? He stared at it with tired eyes: the work of tracing had been very laborious, and he was drowsy and oppressed.⁠ ⁠… But surely this was a very odd hole. It seemed to go not only through the paper, but through the table on which it lay. Yes, and through the floor below that, down, and still down, even into infinite depths. He craned over it, utterly bewildered. Just as, when you were a child, you may have pored over a square inch of counterpane until it became a landscape with wooded hills, and perhaps even churches and houses, and you lost all thought of the true size of yourself and it, so this hole seemed to Humphreys for the moment the only thing in the world. For some reason it was hateful to him from the first, but he had gazed at it for some moments before any feeling of anxiety came upon