at ten minutes after eight i was back in the house. mr. reed admitted me, going through the tedious process of unlocking outer and inner vestibule doors and fastening them again behind me. he inquired politely if i had had a pleasant walk, and without waiting for my reply fell to reading the evening paper. he seemed to have forgotten me absolutely. first he scanned the headlines; then he turned feverishly to something farther on and ran his fingers down along a column. his lips were twitching, but evidently he did not find what he expected—or feared—for he threw the paper away and did not glance at it again. i watched him from the angle of the stairs.
even for that short interval mrs. reed had taken his place at the children’s door.
she wore a black dress, long sleeved and high at the throat, instead of the silk negligee of the previous evening, and she held a book. but she was not reading. she smiled rather wistfully when she saw me.
“how fresh you always look!” she said. “and so self-reliant. i wish i had your courage.”
“i am perfectly well. i dare say that explains a lot. kiddies asleep?”
“freddie isn’t. he has been crying for chang. i hate 32 night, miss adams. i’m like freddie. all my troubles come up about this time. i’m horribly depressed.”
her blue eyes filled with tears.
“i haven’t been sleeping well,” she confessed.
i should think not!
without taking off my things i went down to mr. reed in the lower hall.
“i’m going to insist on something,” i said. “mrs. reed is highly nervous. she says she has not been sleeping. i think if i give her an opiate and she gets an entire night’s sleep it may save her a breakdown.”
i looked straight in his eyes, and for once he did evade me.
“i’m afraid i’ve been very selfish,” he said. “of course she must have sleep. i’ll give you a powder, unless you have something you prefer to use.”
i remembered then that he was a chemist, and said i would gladly use whatever he gave me.
“there is another thing i wanted to speak about, mr. reed,” i said. “the children are mourning their dog. don’t you think he may have been accidentally shut up somewhere in the house in one of the upper floors?”
“why do you say that?” he demanded sharply.
“they say they have heard him howling.”
he hesitated for barely a moment. then:
“possibly,” he said. “but they will not hear him again. the little chap has been sick, and he—died to-day. of course the boys are not to know.”
no one watched the staircase that night. i gave mrs. reed the opiate and saw her comfortably into bed. when i went back fifteen minutes later she was resting, but not 33 asleep. opiates sometimes make people garrulous for a little while—sheer comfort, perhaps, and relaxed tension. i’ve had stockbrokers and bankers in the hospital give me tips, after a hypodermic of morphia, that would have made me wealthy had i not been limited to my training allowance of twelve dollars a month.
“i was just wondering,” she said as i tucked her up, “where a woman owes the most allegiance—to her husband or to her children?”
“why not split it up,” i said cheerfully, “and try doing what seems best for both?”
“but that’s only a compromise!” she complained, and was asleep almost immediately. i lowered the light and closed the door, and shortly after i heard mr. reed locking it from the outside.
with the bolt off my door and mrs. reed asleep my plan for the night was easily carried out. i went to bed for a couple of hours and slept calmly. i awakened once with the feeling that some one was looking at me from the passage into the night nursery, but there was no one there. however, so strong had been the feeling that i got up and went into the back room. the children were asleep, and all doors opening into the hall were locked. but the window on to the porte-cochère roof was open and the curtain blowing. there was no one on the roof.
it was not twelve o’clock and i still had an hour. i went back to bed.
at one i prepared to make a thorough search of the house. looking from one of my windows i thought i saw the shadowy figure of a man across the street, and i was comforted. help was always close, i felt. and yet, as i stood inside my door in my rubber-soled shoes, with 34 my ulster over my uniform and a revolver and my skeleton keys in my pockets, my heart was going very fast. the stupid story of the ghost came back and made me shudder, and the next instant i was remembering mrs. reed the night before, staring down into the lower hall with fixed glassy eyes.
my plan was to begin at the top of the house and work down. the thing was the more hazardous, of course, because mr. reed was most certainly somewhere about. i had no excuse for being on the third floor. down below i could say i wanted tea, or hot water—anything. but i did not expect to find mr. reed up above. the terror, whatever it was, seemed to lie below.
access to the third floor was not easy. the main staircase did not go up. to get there i was obliged to unlock the door at the rear of the hall with my own keys. i was working in bright light, trying my keys one after another, and watching over my shoulder as i did so. when the door finally gave it was a relief to slip into the darkness beyond, ghosts or no ghosts.
i am always a silent worker. caution about closing doors and squeaking hinges is second nature to me. one learns to be cautious when one’s only chance of sleep is not to rouse a peevish patient and have to give a body-massage, as like as not, or listen to domestic troubles—“i said” and “he said”—until one is almost crazy.
so i made no noise. i closed the door behind me and stood blinking in the darkness. i listened. there was no sound above or below. now houses at night have no terror for me. every nurse is obliged to do more or less going about in the dark. but i was not easy. suppose mr. reed should call me? true, i had locked my door 35 and had the key in my pocket. but a dozen emergencies flew through my mind as i felt for the stair rail.
there was a curious odor through all the back staircase, a pungent, aromatic scent that, with all my familiarity with drugs, was strange to me. as i slowly climbed the stairs it grew more powerful. the air was heavy with it, as though no windows had been opened in that part of the house. there was no door at the top of this staircase, as there was on the second floor. it opened into an upper hall, and across from the head of the stairs was a door leading into a room. this door was closed. on this staircase, as on all the others, the carpet had been newly lifted. my electric flash showed the white boards and painted borders, the carpet tacks, many of them still in place. one, lying loose, penetrated my rubber sole and went into my foot.
i sat down in the dark and took off the shoe. as i did so my flash, on the step beside me, rolled over and down with a crash. i caught it on the next step, but the noise had been like a pistol shot.
almost immediately a voice spoke above me sharply. at first i thought it was out in the upper hall. then i realized that the closed door was between it and me.
“ees that you, meester reed?”
mademoiselle!
“meester reed!” plaintively. “eet comes up again, meester reed! i die! to-morrow i die!”
she listened. on no reply coming she began to groan rhythmically, to a curious accompaniment of creaking. when i had gathered up my nerves again i realized that she must be sitting in a rocking chair. the groans were really little plaintive grunts.
36
by the time i had got my shoe on she was up again, and i could hear her pacing the room, the heavy step of a woman well fleshed and not young. now and then she stopped inside the door and listened; once she shook the knob and mumbled querulously to herself.
i recovered the flash, and with infinite caution worked my way to the top of the stairs. mademoiselle was locked in, doubly bolted in. two strong bolts, above and below, supplemented the door lock.
her ears must have been very quick, or else she felt my softly padding feet on the boards outside, for suddenly she flung herself against the door and begged for a priest, begged piteously, in jumbled french and english. she wanted food; she was dying of hunger. she wanted a priest.
and all the while i stood outside the door and wondered what i should do. should i release the woman? should i go down to the lower floor and get the detective across the street to come in and force the door? was this the terror that held the house in thrall—this babbling old frenchwoman calling for food and a priest in one breath?
surely not. this was a part of the mystery, not all. the real terror lay below. it was not mademoiselle, locked in her room on the upper floor, that the reeds waited for at the top of the stairs. but why was mademoiselle locked in her room? why were the children locked in? what was this thing that had turned a home into a jail, a barracks, that had sent away the servants, imprisoned and probably killed the dog, sapped the joy of life from two young people? what was it that mademoiselle cried “comes up again”?
37
i looked toward the staircase. was it coming up the staircase?
i am not afraid of the thing i can see, but it seemed to me, all at once, that if anything was going to come up the staircase i might as well get down first. a staircase is no place to meet anything, especially if one doesn’t know what it is.
i listened again. mademoiselle was quiet. i flashed my light down the narrow stairs. they were quite empty. i shut off the flash and went down. i tried to go slowly, to retreat with dignity, and by the time i had reached the landing below i was heartily ashamed of myself. was this shivering girl the young woman mr. patton called his right hand?
i dare say i should have stopped there, for that night at least. my nerves were frayed. but i forced myself on. the mystery lay below. well, then, i was going down. it could not be so terrible. at least it was nothing supernatural. there must be a natural explanation. and then that silly story about the headless things must pop into my head and start me down trembling.
the lower rear staircase was black dark, like the upper, but just at the foot a light came in through a barred window. i could see it plainly and the shadows of the iron grating on the bare floor. i stood there listening. there was not a sound.
it was not easy to tell exactly what followed. i stood there with my hand on the rail. i’d been very silent; my rubber shoes attended to that. and one moment the staircase was clear, with a patch of light at the bottom. the next, something was there, half way down—a head, it seemed to be, with a pointed hood like a monk’s cowl. 38 there was no body. it seemed to lie at my feet. but it was living. it moved. i could tell the moment when the eyes lifted and saw my feet, the slow back-tilting of the head as they followed up my body. all the air was squeezed out of my lungs; a heavy hand seemed to press on my chest. i remember raising a shaking hand and flinging my flashlight at the head. the flash clattered on the stair tread harmless. then the head was gone and something living slid over my foot.
i stumbled back to my room and locked the door. it was two hours before i had strength enough to get my aromatic ammonia bottle.
