The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 27
The first emotion that swept over Val was one of unreasonable, incontrollable fear. It was the fear of the unknown, an emotion that overwhelms the senses not under the direction of the brain. Why the vision of the mysterious man at the window should so have affected him Val could scarcely have told; instinctively, however, Val had felt that this was not a being of any word he knew—rather was it something that returned to walk the earth at night when storms raged and the elements lashed the earth in fury.
Yet the figure, even in that brief glance, had seemed flesh and blood enough. There was something in that face that reminded Val of something—of something he had known, or had seen. He could not place the memory anywhere, at present, but even in the wave of fear that covered him momentarily he thought of it, and now that the apparition was gone it occurred to his mind insistently. Who was this old man, and what did he want here?
The storm shattered its waves resonantly, thunderously, upon the empty shell that resembled a house. The room was now as black as something the other side of the eternal pit; strain his eyes as he would Val could make out nothing except the dim rectangle that he knew was the window. What was the meaning of the blood that dripped down upon him, through the ceiling? A slight shudder passed through him, and he told himself that he was chilly; but it was hardly the night air that caused that shudder.
Was a man dying over his head? Was he already dead? A human being was up there, his life fluid ebbing away, and Val could do nothing to help. He struggled blindly, furiously, with his bonds, and though he gained no material advantage, yet he profited by it, when once he had stopped his struggles, panting. It had steadied his mind and driven away this mysterious fear that had possessed his soul, that had entered into him regardless of the dictates of his reason. He felt more himself.
And that shriek? Who was that? Could it have been Jessica? He did not know—a feminine shriek, especially one such as he had heard, such as had congealed his blood momentarily, is sometimes a quite indistinguishable thing; it is a disembodied thing, knowing neither age nor color; it is simply the incarnation of terror, verbal and articulate.
There was still Teck to reckon with, Val thought. Teck and his man surely would be here soon; they had bound him, and for one purpose or another they were certain to return. He wondered, almost impersonally, whether Teck would put him out of the way permanently this time. He rather inclined to the idea that Teck would not; but then, it was not a thing anyone could be sure about. Not that Teck would hesitate at murder! Especially here, where he could do almost anything he cared to do, with no one any the wiser. But he had the feeling that the handless one was not yet ready to put an end to his existence summarily.
There was always Jessica for Val to think about, in these moments. He wondered where she was, and whether she was in the power of Teck. He gave himself little concern about that—as to whether she was in his power—because he did not believe for an instant that Teck would willingly cause any harm to come to her. But he was aware, by now, that this sinister fellow had an uncanny influence over the girl; that he could cause her to do things against all her nature and judgment; he was afraid that, sometime, Teck would actually induce her to marry him. That, he felt certain, was what the argument had been about this night, when they had so stubbornly faced each other in the cottage.
He paused for a moment in his meditations and glanced around hastily. The room was as black as ever, and he could make out nothing, but it seemed to him, for an instant, that he had heard a movement in the room; not a solid, concrete movement, something of the flesh, of humankind—this was a different kind of movement, like the sobbing of the wind through a midnight forest, or the intangible, nebulous movement light as the moonlight; of a graveyard Thing crossing a tombstone.
He could see nothing, but he could feel a Presence in the room; behind him, on the sides, shrinking in the lee of the lowering walls, moving, peering at him from all sides. He gave an involuntary shudder, and tried to laugh it off, but it would not down. Something was in the room with him. Outside the rain fell suddenly, in solid sheets, beating on the dull earth regularly, dripping off the eaves, pounding on the reverberant roof. Val shifted uneasily in his seat, and tried to pierce the darkness.
“Who is there?” he asked suddenly, loudly; over the beat of the elements.
There was no answer, but the next instant his every sense was on the alert, the gooseflesh prickling on his skin. As he turned back to the front of the room, he could have sworn that a shadow had slipped from one side of the room to the other—across the lightened gloom of the window. It was no more than a shadow, and made no more noise than one in its passage—but it was something that he had seen, he was sure of that. There was something in the room with him.
“Who’s that?” he asked again, staccato.
As before, the beat of the rain was his only answer.
Suddenly, he felt that this Presence was standing behind his chair; he twisted in his seat to try to make it out. There was a twicking at his bonds, light as the sunlight on the tops of trees, and he felt the cords loosen. There was another lithe motion, and he felt a sharp bladed knife glide through the cords that held his hands fast.
Stiff, he tried to rise, and found that he could. The cords fell off him, and he was a free man. He whirled from one side of the room to the other in the endeavor to make out who or what it was that had freed him, but could see nothing. A cold gust of wind, coming from an unexpected angle, blew on him, and he saw, dimly, that the door was open. It had been closed before.
“That’s how he—or It—got out,” he told himself, grimly. “Well, whoever you are, thanks awfully.”
His first act was to feel in his pocket for his tiny, powerful electric flashlight. He sighed with relief when he found it, because one needed light here rather badly at times. He must get out of this room, he decided. Teck and his confederate knew he was in this room—having placed him there—therefore he must be gone when they returned.
He felt his way to the door and out into the little entrance room, which he ascertained was also empty. It seemed plain to him that Teck and his man had left the place—temporarily, at any rate. But there was something upstairs that must be looked at; something lying on the floor, bleeding, perhaps dead—almost certainly dead. Val could not go away and leave that lying there; a fellow human, perhaps needing assistance. He believed he knew how to find his way to the room—he had noted the room when he had been up there, directly above the living room, where he had been bound.
A room with thin floors, with great cracks between the boards, so that in the day time one could probably look down into the living room. Val could imagine a burning, intense eye staring eternally through the crack into the room below.
He made his way silently upstairs, not making use of his flash for fear of divulging his whereabouts. Quietly he moved, and so carefully, feeling each step before he put his weight down upon it, that it took him quite five minutes before he reached the top of the stairway. He paused at the door of the room above the living room—paused, and touched his hand lightly to the automatic in his pocket—which they had neglected, strangely, to take away from him. For bandits, it occurred to Val, Teck and his playmates were as careless as they could well be. Now, if he were banditting. . . .
He touched the knob of the half falling door, and entered the dark room. At first he could see nothing. Cautiously, he allowed the beam from his flashlight to play on the floor, around the walls; he discovered nothing. He turned it on the center of the floor—where he had been almost afraid to train it.
“Who’n’ell’s there!” grated an exasperated voice at him, and a warm glow of thanksgiving came over Val. He was no more alone—and the man who was dripping blood was evidently alive.
“Hello, Eddie,” he chirped. “I’m not keeping you up, I hope.”
He trained the flashlight on the floor, where the figure of Eddie Hughes was staggering, a bit unsteadily, to its feet. With a quick movement he was at Eddie’s side, assisting him.
“No—I’ve had my beauty sleep, sir,” replied Eddie.
Val turned the light on his face. He was a ghastly figure, with his face streaked with blood from a deep, ugly gash over his right eye. Evidently he had fallen immediately over a large crack in the floor, and it was this freely flowing blood that had put out Val’s flickering candle. The blood was clotted now, though he must have lost rather more of it than a man can conveniently spare.
“Hurt much, Eddie?” inquired his employer.
“No, I’m all right now,” said Eddie. “Knocked me for a gool, for awhile, though. Dunno how long I’ve been lyin’ there, dead to the world. Never had a chance to take a wallop at ’im⸺”
“At whom?” inquired Val.
“That guy without no hands. I⸺”
“How do you get into this, anyway?” asked Val. “I thought you were at the pictures⸺”
“Oh, them pitchers! I sorta changed my mind. I came along to the little house an’ I seen how things was, so I guessed you had gone down here—so naturally I strung along. I sneaked into the house, quiet like, an’ tried to get into the room downstairs. It was locked, so, after I give the once over to the other rooms downstairs, I came up here, where they jumped me. I got a flash of old boy Teck swinging for me, but I didn’t worry none about it, because that bird’s got no hands, so how could he hurt me? That’s all I know, sir,” he finished simply.
“Look’s like a glancing gash you got,” remarked Val. “Guess it’s lucky it didn’t catch you full; I suppose he thinks you’re dead.”
“Well, I don’t feel so darn strong, sir,” came back Eddie. “I suppose I musta lost a quart of claret. I think a drink’ll fix me up all right, though. What’s the next move?”
Val considered a moment. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “What do you think?”
“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” replied Eddie. “It seems to me we ought to beat it back to Miss Pomeroy’s house—I have a hunch that big yegg’s there; we’ll corner him there an’ give him what for.” This sounded reasonable.
“He has been running around loose rather too long, hasn’t he?” said Val. “I think you’re right.”
“Let’s go, then. But lissen, boss—he belongs to me,” insisted Eddie.
“Nonsense,” said Val. “He belongs to the Law—and that’s where he’s going. He’s interfered with us just once too often. I didn’t want to do that, but⸺”
“But you don’t have to do it, Mr. Morley,” protested his man. “Just hand the big bum over to me—an’ the law’ll never see him.”
“Your ethics are all wrong, Eddie,” Val put in. “What do you want to do—slug him? You can’t slug a man with no hands—a defenseless human⸺”
“Defenseless me eye!” burst in Eddie. “How do you get that way? Beggin’ your pardon, sir. But if he’s defenseless, I’m in me cradle listenin’ to me mother jazzin’ about the treetops an’ the cradle rocking, an’ all. Defenseless—say, I guess you wouldn’t think so if he’d cracked you one on the bean like he did me⸺” Eddie’s language, careful in his calmer moments, was decidedly slipshod and slangy when he was moved.
“He did, Eddie,” broke in Val, soberly. “I wonder what he carries there⸺”
“Whatever it is, it’s a world beater—that’s all I got to say,” said Eddie. “Gee! That crack he give me was enough to make my whole family sick.”
Silently they made their way out of the house, seeing and hearing no one; evidently the place was deserted once more, left to its long sleep as before, “one with the darkness and the powers thereof,” as Val repeated to himself, half audibly.
A few handfuls of rainwater sufficed to wash the blood off Eddie’s face, and, bound up with his employer’s handkerchief over his right eye, he was once more ready for whatever the night should bring forth. By the time they reached Jessica’s little cottage the rain had got in its work well, and they were soaked, with their clothes clinging to their limbs affectionately and moisture dripping from every seam.
A broad beam of light emanated from the living room window, cutting a few feet into the night with its golden glow and leaving the rest of outdoors blacker by contrast. Val knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened by Jessica herself.
In silence she preceded them into the living room, where Val and Eddie stood, two dripping figures, curiously out of place in the secure comfort of the small room.
“Is Teck here?” asked Val. He looked at her for a reply, but she stood singularly silent, a new, a different Jessica Pomeroy than he had known.
There was a subtle change in her, and as he looked again he saw that the change was not too subtle; he could sense it easily. The atmosphere was different, somehow; her attitude toward him was different. He could see a peculiar tenseness about her demeanor, about the corners of her eyes, for instance, out of which she regarded him quietly.
“Why do you ask?” she inquired calmly.
It was now his turn to stare at her, in inquiry. “Why do I ask?” he echoed.
“Yes—what is Mr. Teck to you?” she asked again, intoning monotonously, as though repeating a lesson that had been drilled into her by constant iteration.
Val looked at her unbelievingly; was this the Jessica Pomeroy he knew? The Jessica Pomeroy who had made an appointment to explore the old house with him this night? She was different, and he could scarcely say how, though her attitude was plain enough now—it was no longer friendly; it was almost openly hostile. But it was not that he was thinking of—external differences were easy to detect; but something inside of her had gone wrong, he could see that; some fuse burned out; some fine wire of determination severed.
“What’s wrong, Jessica?” he asked, stepping up a bit closer to her impulsively. “You’re so changed from⸺”
She stepped away from him, two spots of color flaring in her pale cheeks.
“I never gave you permission to call me Jessica, Mr. Morley,” she said. “And as for anything being wrong⸺”
“Why, this Teck⸺” he began.
“I am engaged to marry Mr. Teck,” she flashed back at him. “Really, I hardly see why you take it upon yourself to thrust your personal interference upon us in this matter. I told you at our first conversation that I was engaged to marry him⸺”
“Why, Jessica!” burst out Val, puzzled, and a little angry. “You said⸺”
“Never mind what I said, Mr. Morley,” she cut in calmly, monotonously. “You will confer a great favor upon me if you will go back to New York, and forget all that has gone before.”
“But surely, Jessica,” he protested, “you cannot marry this murderer! Why, he has twice tried to kill me, and⸺”
“Your opinions in the matter will hardly convince me, Mr. Morley, that there is any truth in what you say. Will you be good enough to do as I ask you—go away, and not come back?” she asked it appealingly, a tremor in her otherwise emotionless voice.
He examined her silently for a moment or two before speaking, his brain pounding with the unexpected development in the affair. He did not for a moment believe in what she was saying—that she was acting a part he was well aware. How could the woman he loved be so cold and indifferent to him! Why, she simply couldn’t—she was . . .
“Surely you’re joking, Jessica,” he exclaimed. “Why, you know, for a minute I thought you meant it⸺”
“I’m not joking, Mr. Morley. I mean every word I say. If you’re a gentleman, you’ll do as I ask.” She moved toward the door, an unmistakable sign that the interview was at an end. There was nothing for Val to do but bow and take his leave in silence, which he did, his head whirling dizzily from the suddenness of the let-down.
Without a word Val and Eddie walked around the house to the road where their car was cached. The rain had eased up a little now, and it was warmer, though Val did not notice these elemental changes in the least degree. It was a shock to the tense nerves of both of them when a small feminine figure suddenly stepped out in front of them from the shadows that lined the bushes at the side of the road.
“Mr. Morley!” she said in a whisper.
“Hello! What’s all this?” muttered Val to himself. He and Eddie stopped dead in their tracks.
“It’s me—Elizabeth—Miss Pomeroy’s servant,” said the voice.
“Oh, yes. What is it, Elizabeth?” Val asked kindly.
“Why, it’s about Miss Jessica,” said the old woman. “I—I heard what she was saying to you. You mustn’t mind what she says, Mr. Morley. I—know her true feelings in the matter—anything she said to you to-night is not herself speaking. It’s that devil Teck—he can make her say and do things she would never think of doing. He’s a kind of hypnotist—can make her say anything he likes by just looking deep in her eyes; that’s how she happened to come down here, you know,” the old woman hurried on in her recital.
“Down here?” queried Val.
“Yes. She wasn’t going to come—but he looked into her eyes and said she’d have to come—and here she is—that handless hypocrite! He told her what to say to you to-night—he’s still there, him and his friend—they’re in the kitchen, waiting for you to go. I just thought I’d tell you, because⸺”
“Thanks very much, Elizabeth,” said Val kindly, a warm glow fanning itself to a flame in his heart again. “I won’t forget. Now run along back to the house before they miss you.” She made a little curtsey and merged again with the darkness.
So his suspicions had been true. It was not Jessica who had spoken to him this evening—it had been Teck himself; Teck, speaking with the lips of Jessica Pomeroy. He would marry her, would he! Val grated this to himself, adding a few words that can scarcely be used in this highly moral story. He would marry the electric chair! Or better still, he, Val, would choke him with his bare hands. That would be satisfactory. He enlarged upon this idea by the time they reached the automobile; this was to be the real thing in chokings—none of your amateur affairs about it—satisfaction guaranteed, and all that sort of thing. Ah, it would feel good to get his fingers into the throat of the black-hearted scoundrel . . . et cetera . . . and so forth . . . ad lib . . .
It was a silent ride back to the hotel, with Eddie occupied wholly in making the rickety flivver keep to the road, and Val veiled in his thoughts. As for going home, as Jessica had suggested, he had not the slightest intention of doing any such foolish thing.