CHAPTER VII
THE MAN ON THE WALL
I was so thoroughly angry with myself that afteridling along the shores for an hour I lost my way in thedark wood when I landed and brought up at the reardoor used by Bates for communication with the villagerswho supplied us with provender. I readily foundmy way to the kitchen and to a flight of stairs beyond,which connected the first and second floors. The housewas dark, and my good spirits were not increased as Istumbled up the unfamiliar way in the dark, with, Ifear, a malediction upon my grandfather, who had builtand left incomplete a house so utterly preposterous. Myunpardonable fling at the girl still rankled; and I wascold from the quick descent of the night chill on thewater and anxious to get into more comfortable clothes.Once on the second floor I felt that I knew the way tomy room, and I was feeling my way toward it over therough floor when I heard low voices rising apparentlyfrom my sitting-room.
It was pitch dark in the hall. I stopped short andlistened. The door of my room was open and a faintlight flashed once into the hall and disappeared. I heardnow a sound as of a hammer tapping upon wood-work.
Then it ceased, and a voice whispered:
“He’ll kill me if he finds me here. I’ll try again to-morrow.I swear to God I’ll help you, but no morenow—”
Then the sound of a scuffle and again the tapping ofthe hammer. After several minutes more of this therewas a whispered dialogue which I could not hear.
Whatever was occurring, two or three points struckme on the instant. One of the conspirators was an unwillingparty to an act as yet unknown; second, theyhad been unsuccessful and must wait for another opportunity;and third, the business, whatever it was, wasclearly of some importance to myself, as my own apartmentsin my grandfather’s strange house had beenchosen for the investigation.
Clearly, I was not prepared to close the incident, butthe idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my senseof humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightlydown, found the front door, and, from the inside,opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurriedscamper above, and the heavy fall of one who had stumbledin the dark. I grinned with real pleasure at thesound of this mishap, hurried into the great library,which was as dark as a well, and, opening one of the longwindows, stepped out on the balcony. At once from therear of the house came the sound of a stealthy step,which increased to a run at the ravine bridge. I listenedto the flight of the fugitive through the wood until thesounds died away toward the lake.
Then, turning to the library windows, I saw Bates,with a candle held above his head, peering about.
“Hello, Bates,” I called cheerfully. “I just got homeand stepped out to see if the moon had risen. I don’tbelieve I know where to look for it in this country.”
He began lighting the tapers with his usual deliberation.
“It’s a trifle early, I think, sir. About seven o’clock,I should say, was the hour, Mr. Glenarm.”
There was, of course, no doubt whatever that Bateshad been one of the men I heard in my room. It waswholly possible that he had been compelled to assist insome lawless act against his will; but why, if he hadbeen forced into aiding a criminal, should he not invokemy own aid to protect himself? I kicked the logs in thefireplace impatiently in my uncertainty. The man slowlylighted the many candles in the great apartment.He was certainly a deep one, and his case grew morepuzzling as I studied it in relation to the rifle-shot ofthe night before, his collision with Morgan in the wood,which I had witnessed; and now the house itself hadbeen invaded by some one with his connivance. Theshot through the refectory window might have been innocentenough; but these other matters in connectionwith it could hardly be brushed aside.
Bates lighted me to the stairway, and said as I passedhim:
“There’s a baked ham for dinner. I should call it extradelicate, Mr. Glenarm. I suppose there’s no changein the dinner hour, sir?”
“Certainly not,” I said with asperity; for I am not aperson to inaugurate a dinner hour one day and changeit the next. Bates wished to make conversation,—thesure sign of a guilty conscience in a servant,—and I wasnot disposed to encourage him.
I closed the doors carefully and began a thoroughexamination of both the sitting-room and the little bed-chamber.I was quite sure that my own effects couldnot have attracted the two men who had taken advantageof my absence to visit my quarters. Bates hadhelped unpack my trunk and undoubtedly knew everyitem of my simple wardrobe. I threw open the doorsof the three closets in the rooms and found them all inthe good order established by Bates. He had carried mytrunks and bags to a store-room, so that everything Iowned must have passed under his eye. My money even,the remnant of my fortune that I had drawn from theNew York bank, I had placed carelessly enough in thedrawer of a chiffonnier otherwise piled with collars. Ittook but a moment to satisfy myself that this had notbeen touched. And, to be sure, a hammer was not necessaryto open a drawer that had, from its appearance,never been locked. The game was deeper than I hadimagined; I had scratched the crust without result, andmy wits were busy with speculations as I changed myclothes, pausing frequently to examine the furniture,even the bricks on the hearth.
One thing only I found—the slight scar of a hammer-headon the oak paneling that ran around the bedroom.The wood had been struck near the base and at the topof every panel, for though the mark was not perceptibleon all, a test had evidently been made systematically.With this as a beginning, I found a moment later a spotof tallow under a heavy table in one corner. Evidentlythe furniture had been moved to permit of the closestscrutiny of the paneling. Even behind the bed I foundthe same impress of the hammer-head; the test had undoubtedlybeen thorough, for a pretty smart tap on oakis necessary to leave an impression. My visitors hadundoubtedly been making soundings in search of a recessof some kind in the wall, and as they had failed oftheir purpose they were likely, I assumed, to pursuetheir researches further.
I pondered these things with a thoroughly-awakenedinterest in life. Glenarm House really promised to proveexciting. I took from a drawer a small revolver, filledits chambers with cartridges and thrust it into my hippocket, whistling meanwhile Larry Donovan’s favoriteair, the Marche Funèbre d’une Marionnette. My heartwent out to Larry as I scented adventure, and I wishedhim with me; but speculations as to Larry’s whereaboutswere always profitless, and quite likely he was in jailsomewhere.
The ham of whose excellence Bates had hinted was nodisappointment. There is, I have always held, nothingbetter in this world than a baked ham, and the specimenBates placed before me was a delight to the eye,—soadorned was it with spices, so crisply brown its outercoat; and a taste—that first tentative taste, before thesauce was added—was like a dream of Lucullus cometrue. I could forgive a good deal in a cook with thattouch,—anything short of arson and assassination!
“Bates,” I said, as he stood forth where I could seehim, “you cook amazingly well. Where did you learnthe business?”
“Your grandfather grew very captious, Mr. Glenarm.I had to learn to satisfy him, and I believe I did it, sir,if you’ll pardon the conceit.”
“He didn’t die of gout, did he? I can readily imagineit.”
“No, Mr. Glenarm. It was his heart. He had hiswarning of it.”
“Ah, yes; to be sure. The heart or the stomach,—onemay as well fail as the other. I believe I prefer to keepmy digestion going as long as possible. Those grilledsweet potatoes again, if you please, Bates.”
The game that he and I were playing appealed to mestrongly. It was altogether worth while, and as I ateguava jelly with cheese and toasted crackers, and thenlighted one of my own cigars over a cup of Bates’ unfailingcoffee, my spirit was livelier than at any timesince a certain evening on which Larry and I hadescaped from Tangier with our lives and the curses ofthe police. It is a melancholy commentary on life thatcontentment comes more easily through the stomachthan along any other avenue. In the great library, withits rich store of books and its eternal candles, I sprawledupon a divan before the fire and smoked and indulgedin plea
sant speculations. The day had offered muchmaterial for fireside reflection, and I reviewed its historycalmly.
There was, however, one incident that I found unpleasantin the retrospect. I had been guilty of mostunchivalrous conduct toward one of the girls of St.Agatha’s. It had certainly been unbecoming in me tosit on the wall, however unwillingly, and listen to thewords—few though they were—that passed between herand the chaplain. I forgot the shot through the window;I forgot Bates and the interest my room possessed forhim and his unknown accomplice; but the sudden distrustand contempt I had awakened in the girl by myclownish behavior annoyed me increasingly.
I rose presently, found my cap in a closet under thestairs, and went out into the moon-flooded wood towardthe lake. The tangle was not so great when you knewthe way, and there was indeed, as I had found, the faintsuggestion of a path. The moon glorified a broad highwayacross the water; the air was sharp and still. Thehouses in the summer colony were vaguely defined, butthe sight of them gave me no cheer. The tilt of hertam-o’-shanter as she paddled away into the sunset hadconveyed an impression of spirit and dignity that I couldnot adjust to any imaginable expiation.
These reflections carried me to the borders of St.Agatha’s, and I followed the wall to the gate, climbedup, and sat down in the shadow of the pillar farthestfrom the lake. Lights shone scatteringly in the buildingsof St. Agatha’s, but the place was wholly silent.I drew out a cigarette and was about to light it whenI heard a sound as of a tread on stone. There was, Iknew, no stone pavement at hand, but peering towardthe lake I saw a man walking boldly along the top of thewall toward me. The moonlight threw his figure intoclear relief. Several times he paused, bent down andrapped upon the wall with an object he carried in hishand.
Only a few hours before I had heard a similar soundrising from the wainscoting of my own room in GlenarmHouse. Evidently the stone wall, too, was undersuspicion!
Tap, tap, tap! The man with the hammer was examiningthe farther side of the gate, and very likely hewould carry his investigations beyond it. I drew up mylegs and crouched in the shadow of the pillar, revolverin hand. I was not anxious for an encounter; I muchpreferred to wait for a disclosure of the purpose that laybehind this mysterious tapping upon walls on my grandfather’sestate.
But the matter was taken out of my own hands beforeI had a chance to debate it. The man dropped to theground, sounded the stone base under the gate, likewisethe pillars, evidently without results, struck a spitefulcrack upon the iron bars, then stood up abruptly andlooked me straight in the eyes. It was Morgan, thecaretaker of the summer colony.
“Good evening, Mr. Morgan,” I said, settling the revolverinto my hand.
There was no doubt about his surprise; he fell back,staring at me hard, and instinctively drawing the hammerover his shoulder as though to fling it at me.
“Just stay where you are a moment, Morgan,” I saidpleasantly, and dropped to a sitting position on the wallfor greater ease in talking to him.
He stood sullenly, the hammer dangling at arm’slength, while my revolver covered his head.
“Now, if you please, I’d like to know what you meanby prowling about here and rummaging my house!”
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Glenarm? Well, you certainlygave me a bad scare.”
His air was one of relief and his teeth showed pleasantlythrough his beard.
“It certainly is I. But you haven’t answered my question.What were you doing in my house to-day?”
He smiled again, shaking his head.
“You’re really fooling, Mr. Glenarm. I wasn’t inyour house to-day; I never was in it in my life!”
His white teeth gleamed in his light beard; his hatwas pushed back from his forehead so that I saw hiseyes, and he wore unmistakably the air of a man whoseconscience is perfectly clear. I was confident that helied, but without appealing to Bates I was not preparedto prove it.
“But you can’t deny that you’re on my grounds now,can you?” I had dropped the revolver to my knee, butI raised it again.
“Certainly not, Mr. Glenarm. If you’ll allow me toexplain—”
“That’s precisely what I want you to do.”
“Well, it may seem strange,”—he laughed, and I feltthe least bit foolish to be pointing a pistol at the headof a fellow of so amiable a spirit.
“Hurry,” I commanded.
“Well, as I was saying, it may seem strange; but Iwas just examining the wall to determine the characterof the work. One of the cottagers on the lake left mewith the job of building a fence on his place, and I’vebeen expecting to come over to look at this all fall.You see, Mr. Glenarm, your honored grandfather wasa master in such matters, as you may know, and I didn’tsee any harm in getting the benefit—to put it so—of hisexperience.”
I laughed. He had denied having entered the housewith so much assurance that I had been prepared forsome really plausible explanation of his interest in thewall.
“Morgan—you said it was Morgan, didn’t you?—youare undoubtedly a scoundrel of the first water. I makethe remark with pleasure.”
“Men have been killed for saying less,” he said.
“And for doing less than firing through windows at aman’s head. It wasn’t friendly of you.”
“I don’t see why you center all your suspicions onme. You exaggerate my importance, Mr. Glenarm. I’monly the man-of-all-work at a summer resort.”
“I wouldn’t believe you, Morgan, if you swore on astack of Bibles as high as this wall.”
“Thanks!” he ejaculated mockingly.
Like a flash he swung the hammer over his head anddrove it at me, and at the same moment I fired. Thehammer-head struck the pillar near the outer edge andin such a manner that the handle flew around andsmote me smartly in the face. By the time I reachedthe ground the man was already running rapidlythrough the park, darting in and out among the trees,and I made after him at hot speed.
Like a flash he swung the hammer, and at the same moment I fired.]
The hammer-handle had struck slantingly across myforehead, and my head ached from the blow. I abusedmyself roundly for managing the encounter so stupidly,and in my rage fired twice with no aim whatever afterthe flying figure of the caretaker. He clearly had theadvantage of familiarity with the wood, striking offboldly into the heart of it, and quickly widening thedistance between us; but I kept on, even after I ceasedto hear him threshing through the undergrowth, andcame out presently at the margin of the lake about fiftyfeet from the boat-house. I waited in the shadow forsome time, expecting to see the fellow again, but he didnot appear.
I found the wall with difficulty and followed it backto the gate. It would be just as well, I thought, topossess myself of the hammer; and I dropped down onthe St. Agatha side of the wall and groped about amongthe leaves until I found it.
Then I walked home, went into the library, alightwith its many candles just as I had left it, and satdown before the fire to meditate. I had been absentfrom the house only forty-five minutes.