The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood. Certain houses, like certain persons, manage
somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the
latter, no particular feature need betray them. They may boast an open countenance
and an ingenious smile, and yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable
conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being, that they are evil.
Willy nilly. They seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts,
which makes those in their immediate neighborhood shrink from them, as from a
thing diseased. Perhaps with houses, the same principle as operative. And it
is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the
actual doers have passed away, that makes the goose flesh come and the hair
rise. Something of the original passion of the evil doer, and of the
horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and
he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of
the blood. He is terror stricken without apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing
in the external appearance of this house, to bear out the tails of the
horror that was said to rain within, it was neither lonely nor unkempt.
It stood crowded into a corner of the square and looked exactly like the houses
on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its
neighbors, the same balcony overlooking the gardens, the same white steps leading up
to the heavy black front door, and in the rear there was the same
narrow strip of green with neat box borders running up to the wall that divided
it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number
of chimney pots on the roof was the same, the breadth and angle of
the eaves, and even the height of the dirty area railings. And yet
this house in the square that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors,
was, as a matter of fact, entirely different, horribly different. Wherein
lay this marked, invisible difference is impossible to say. It cannot be ascribed
wholly to the imagination, Because persons who had spent some time in this house,
knowing nothing of the facts, had declared positively that certain rooms were so
disagreeable they would rather die than enter them again, and that the atmosphere of
the whole house produced in them symptoms of genuine terror, while the series of
innocent tenants who had tried to live in it and been forced to DeCamp at
the shortest possible notice was indeed little less than a scandal in the town.
When Shorthouse arrived to pay a week end visit to his aunt Julia in her
little house on the sea front at the other end of town, he found
her charge to the brim with mystery and excitement. He had only received her
telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating boredom. But the moment he
touched her hand and kissed her apple skin wrinkled cheek, he caught the first
wave of her electrical condition. The impression deepened when he had learned that there
were to be no other visitors, and that he had been telegraphed for with
a very special object. Something was in the wind, and the something would
doubtless bear fruit. For this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for physical
research, had brains as well as willpower, and by hook or by crook
she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea,
when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along the sea
front in the dusk. I've got the keys, she announced, in a
delighted yet half awesome voice, got them till Monday, the keys of the
bathing machine, or he asked, innocently, looking from the sea to the
town. Nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity. Neither,
she whispered, I've got the keys of the haunted house in the square,
and I'm going there to night. The shorthouse was conscious of the slightest
possible tremor down his back. He dropped his teasing tone. Something in her
voice and manner thrilled him. She was in earnest. But you can't go
alone, he began. That's why I wired for you, she said,
with decision. He turned to look at her. The ugly lined, enigmatical
face was alive with excitement. There was the glow of genuine enthusiasm round it
like a halo. Her eyes shone. He caught another wave of her excitement,
and a second tremor, more marked than the first, accompanied it.
Thanks Aunt Julia, he said, politely, Thanks awfully I should not dare
to go quite alone, she went on, raising her voice. But with
you I should enjoy it immensely. You're afraid of nothing, I know.
Thanks so much, he said again. Er is anything likely to happen?
A great deal has happened, she whispered, though it's been most cleverly hushed
up. Three tenants have now come and gone in the last few months,
and the house is said to be empty for good. Now. In spite
of himself, Shorthouse became interested. His aunt was so very much in earnest.
The house is very old, indeed, she went on. And the
story, an unpleasant one, dates a long way back. It has to
do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with the
servant in the house. One night, he managed to secrete himself in the
cellar, and when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants quarters,
chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come
to the rescue, threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below.
And the stableman was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder. But
it all happened a century ago. And I've not been able to get more
details at the story. Shorthouse now felt his interest thoroughly aroused, but though
he was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's
account. On one condition, he said, at length, nothing will prevent
my going. She said firmly, but I may as well hear your condition
that you guarantee your power of self control if anything really horrible happens. I
mean that you are sure you won't get too frightened, Jim, she said
scornfully. I'm not young, I know, nor are my nerves. But
with you I should be afraid of nothing in the world. This, of
course settled it. Her. Shorthouse had no pretensions to being other than a
very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He
agreed to go instinctively. By a sort of subconscious preparation, he kept himself
and his forces well in hand the whole evening, compelling an accumulative reserve of
control by that nameless inward process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning
the key upon them, a process difficult to describe but wonderfully effective. As
all men who have lived through severe trials of the inner man well understand later
it stood him in good stead. But it was not until half past ten,
when they stood in the hall well, in the glare of friendly lamps,
still surrounded by comforting human influences, that he had to make the first
call upon this store of collected strength. For once the door was closed and
he saw the deserted, silent streets stretching away in the white moonlight before them,
it came to him clearly that the real test that night would be in
dealing with two fears instead of one. He would have to carry his aunt's
fear as well as his own, And as he glanced down at her sphinxlike
countenance and realized that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a rush of real
terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure, that
he had the confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock
that might come. Slowly, they walked along the empty streets of the town.
A bright autumn moon silvered the roofs, casting deep shadows. There was
no breath of the wind, and the trees in the formal gardens by the
sea front watched them silently as they passed along. To his aunt's occasional remarks,
Shorthouse made no reply, realizing that she was simply surrounding herself with mental
buffers, saying ordinary things to prevent herself thinking of extraordinary things. Few windows
showed lights, and from scarcely a single chimney came smoke or sparks. Shorthouse
had already begun to notice everything, even the smallest details. Presently, they
stopped at the street corner and looked up at the name on the side of
the house full in the moonlight, and with one accord, but without remark,
turned into the square and crossed over to the side of it that lay
in the shadow. The number of the house is thirteen, whispered a voice
at his side, and neither of them made the obvious reference, but passed
across the broad sheet of moonlight and began to march up the pavement in silence.
It was about half way up the square that short House felt an arm
slipped quietly but significantly into his own, and knew then that their adventure had
begun in earnest, and that his companion was already yielding imperceptibly to the influences
against them. She needed support. A few minutes later they stopped before a
tall, narrow house that rose before them into the night, ugly in shape
and painted a dingy white. Shutterless windows without blinds stared down upon them,
shining here and there in the moonlight. There were weather streaks in the wall
and cracks in the paint, and the balcony bulged out from the first floor
a little unnaturally. But beyond this generally forlorn appearance of an unoccupied house,
there was nothing at first sight to single out this particular mansion for the evil
character it had most certainly acquired. Taking a look over their shoulders to make
sure they had not been followed, they went boldly up the steps and stood
against the huge black door that fronted them forbiddingly. But the first wave of
nervousness was now upon them, and Shorthouse fumbled a long time with the key
before he could fit it into the lock at all. For a moment,
if truth were told, they both hoped it would not open, for they
were prey to various unpleasant emotions. As they stood there on the threshold of
their ghostly adventure, Shorthouse shuffling with the key, and hampered by the steady
weight on his arm, certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was
as if the whole world, for all experience, seemed at that instant,
concentrated in his own consciousness, were listening to the grating noise of that key.
A stray puff of wind wandering down down the empty street woke a momentary
rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was
the only sound audible, And at last it turned in the lock, and
the heavy door swung open and revealed a yawing gulf of darkness beyond. With
a last glance at the moonlit square, they passed quickly in, and the
door slammed behind them with a roar that echoed prodigiously through the empty halls and
passages. But instantly with the echoes, another sound made itself hurt, and
Aunt Julia leaned suddenly so heavily upon him that he had to take a step
backwards to save himself from falling. A man had coughed so close beside them,
so close that it seemed they must have been actually by his side in
the darkness, with the possibility of practical jokes in his mind. Shorthouse at
once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound, but it met
nothing more solid than air. He heard his eyes to give a little gasp
beside him. There's someone here, she whispered. I heard him be quiet,
he said sternly. It was nothing but the noise of the front door.
Oh, get a light, quick, she added, as her nephew,
fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them
all fall with a rattle, on to the stone floor. The sound,
however, was not repeated, and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps.
In another minute, they had a candle burning, using an empty end of
a cigar case as a holder, And when the first flare had died down,
he held the improptu lamp aloft and surveyed the scene. And it was
dreary enough in all conscience, For there is nothing more desolate in all the
abodes of men than an unfinished house, dimly lit, silent and forsaken,
and yet tenanted by rumor with the memories of evil and violent history. They
were standing in a wide hallway. On their left was the open door of
a spacious dining room, and in front the hall ran ever narrowing into a
long dark passage that led apparently to the top of the kitchen stairs. The
broad uncarpeted staircase rose in a sweep before them, everywhere draped in shadows,
except for a single spot about half way up, where the moonlight came in
through the window and fell on a bright patch on the boards. This shaft
of light shed a faint radiance above and below it, lending to the objects
within its reach a misty outline that was infinitely more suggestive and ghostly than complete
darkness. Filtered moonlight always seemed to paint faces on the surrounding gloom. And
a short house peered up into the well of darkness and thought of the countless
empty rooms and passages in the upper heart of the old house. He caught
himself longing again for the safety of the moonlit square or the cozy, bright
drawing room they had left an hour before. Then, realizing that these thoughts
were dangerous, he thrust them away again and summoned all his energy for concentration
on the present aunt Julia. He said aloud severely. We must now go
through the house from top to bottom and make a thorough search. The echoes
of his voice died away slowly all over the building, and in the intense
silence that followed, he turned to look at her. In the candle light.
He saw that her face was already ghastly pale. But she dropped his
arm for a moment and said in a whisper, stepping close in front of
him, I agree. We must be sure there's no one hiding. That's
the first thing. She spoke with evident effort, and he looked at her
with admiration. You feel quite sure of yourself. It's not too late,
I think so, she whispered, her eyes shifting nervously towards the shadows behind.
Quite sure. Only one thing, What's that? You must never leave
me alone for an instant, as long as you understand that any sound or
appearance must be investigated at once, For to hesitate means to admit fear.
That is fatal. Agreed, she said, a little shakily, after a
moment's hesitation, I'll try arm in arm shorthouse, holding the dripping candle in
the stick, while his aunt carried the cloak over her shoulders. Figures of
utter comedy to all but themselves. They began a systematic search, stealthily,
walking on tiptoe and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence. Through
the shutterless windows. They went first into the big dining room. There was
not a stick of furniture to be seen. The walls, ugly mantlepieces,
and empty grates stared at them. Everything they felt resented their intrusion, watching
them as it were, with veiled eyes. Whispers followed them. Shadows flitted
noiselessly to the right and left. Something seemed ever at their back, watching,
waiting an opportunity to do them injury. There was the inevitable sense that
operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they
were well out of the way again. The whole dark interior of the old
building seemed to become a malignant presence that rose up, warning them to desist
and mind their own business every moment the strain on the nerves increased. Out
of the gloomy dining room, they passed through large folding doors into a sort
of librri or smoking room, wrapped equally in silence, darkness, and dust,
And from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs.
Here a pitch black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions, and
it must be confessed. They hesitated, but only for a minute. With
the worst of the night still to come, it was essential to turn from
nothing. Aunt Julius stumbled at the top step of the dark descent, ill
lit by the flickering candle, and even Shorthouse felt at least half the decision.
Go out of his legs. Come on, he said, peremptorily,
and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark empty spaces below.
I'm coming, she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence. They went
a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air, meeting
them in the face, close and malodorous. The kitchen to which the stairs
led, along a narrow passage, was large, with a lofty ceiling.
Several doors opened out of it, some into cupboards with empty jars still standing
on the shelves, and others into horrible, little, ghostly back offices,
each colder and less inviting than the last. Black beetles scurried over the floor,
and once when they knocked against a deal table standing in a corner,
something about the size of a cat jumped down with a rush and fled,
scampering across the stone floor into the darkness. Everywhere there was a sense of
recent occupation, an impression of sadness and gloom. Leaving the main kitchen,
they next went towards the scullery. The door was standing ajar, and as
they pushed it open to its full extent, Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream,
which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth.
For a second. Shorthouse stood stock still, catching his breath. He felt
as if his spine had suddenly become hollow, and some one had filled it
with particles of ice. Facing them directly in their way, between the door
posts stood the figure of a woman. She had disheveled hair and wildly staring
eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death. She stood there
motionless for the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered and she
was gone, utterly gone, and the door framed nothing but the empty darkness,
only the beastly jumping candle light. He said quickly, in a voice
that sounded like some one else's and was only half under control. Come on,
Aunt there's nothing there. He dragged her forward, with a clattering of
feet and a great appearance of boldness. They went on, but over his
body the skin moved as if crawling ants covered it, and he knew by
the weight on his arm that he was supplying the force of locomotion. For
two. The scullery was cold, bare and empty, more like a large
prison cell than anything else. They went round it, tried the door into
the yard and the windows, but found them all fastened securely. His aunt
moved beside him like a person in a dream. Her eyes were tightly shut,
and she seemed merely to follow the pressure of his arm. Her courage
filled him with amazement. At the same time he noticed that a certain odd
change had come over her face, a change which somehow evaded his power of
analysis. There's nothing here, aunty, he repeated aloud. Quickly, let's
go upstairs and see the rest of the house. Then we'll choose a room
to wait up in. She followed him obediently, keeping close to his side,
and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was a relief to
get up again. In the hall, there was more light than before,
for the moon had traveled a little further down the stairs. Cautiously, they
began to go up into the dark vault of the upper house, the boards
creaking under their weight. On the first floor they found the large double drawing
rooms, a search of which revealed nothing. Here also was no sign of
furniture or recent occupancy, nothing but dust and neglect and shadows. They opened
the big folding doors between the front and back drawing rooms, and then came
out again to the landing and went on upstairs. They had not gone up
more than a dozen steps when they both simultaneously stopped to listen, looking into
each other's eyes with any new apprehension. Across the flickering candle flame from the
room they had left. Hardly ten seconds before came the sound of doors quietly
closing. It was beyond all question they had heard the booming noise that accompanies
the shutting of heavy doors, followed by the sharp catching of the latch.
We must go back and see said Shorthouse briefly, in a low tone,
and turning to go downstairs again. Somehow she managed to drag after him,
her feet catching in her dress, her face livid. When they entered the
front drawing room, it was plain that the folding doors had been closed half
a minute before. Without hesitation, Shorthouse opened them. He almost expected to
see someone facing him in the back room, but only darkness and cold air
met him. They went through both rooms, finding nothing unusual. They tried
in every way to make the doors closed of themselves, but there was not
wind enough even to set the candle flame flickering. The doors would not move
without strong pressure. All was silent as the grave. Undeniably, the rooms
were utterly empty, and the house utterly still. It's beginning, whispered a
voice at his elbow, which he hardly recognized as his aunt's. He nodded
acquiescence, taking out his watch to note the time. It was fifteen minutes
before midnight. He made the entry of exactly what had occurred in his notebook,
setting the candle in its case upon the floor. In order to do
so, it took a moment or two to balance it safely against the wall.
Aunt Julia always declared that at this moment she was not actually watching him,
but had turned her head towards the inner room, where she fancied she
heard something moving. But at any rate, both positively agreed that there came
a sound of rushing feet, heavy and very swift, and the next instant
the candle was out. But to Shorthouse himself had come more than this,
and he has always thanked his fortunate stars that it came to him alone,
and not to his aunt too. For as he rose from the stooping position
of balancing the candle, and before it was actually extinguished, a face thrust
itself forward, so close to his own that he could have almost touched it
with his lips. It was a face working with passion, a man's face,
dark, with thick features and angry, savage eyes. It belonged to
a common man, and it was evil in its ordinary, normal expression,
no doubt. But as he saw it alive with intense, aggressive emotion,
it was a malignant and terrible human countenance. There was no movement of the
air, nothing but the sound of rushing feet, stalking or muffled feet,
the apparition of the and the almost simultaneous extinguishing of the candle. In spite
of himself, Shorthouse uttered a little cry, nearly losing his balance, as
his aunt clung to him with her whole weight. In one moment of real,
uncontrollable terror, she made no sound, but simply seized him bodily.
Fortunately, however, she had seen nothing, but had only heard the rushing
feet. For her control returned almost at once, and he was able to
disentangle himself and strike a match. The shadows ran away on all sides before
the glare, and his aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar case with
the precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had not been blown out
at all. It had been crushed out. The wick was pressed down into
the wax, which was flattened, as if by some smooth, heavy instrument.
How his companion so quickly overcame her terror. Shorthouse never properly understood,
but his admiration for her self control increased tenfold, and at the same time
served to feed his own dying flame, for which he was undeniably grateful.
Equally inexplicable to him was the evidence of physical force they had just witnessed.
He at once suppressed the memory of stories he had heard of physical mediums and
their dangerous phenomena, For if these were true, and either his aunt or
himself was unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were simply aiding to
focus the forces of a haunted house already charged to the brim. It was
like walking with unprotected lamps among uncovered stores of gunpowder. So with as little
reflection as possible, he simply ReLit the candle and went up to the next
floor. The arm in his trembled. It's true and his his own tread
was often uncertain, But they went on with thoroughness, and after a search
revealing nothing, they climbed the last flight of stairs to the top floor.
Of all. Here they found a perfect nest of small servants rooms with broken
pieces of furniture, dirty cane bottomed chairs, chests of drawers, cracked mirrors,
and decrepit bedsteads. The rooms had low sloping ceilings already hung here and
there with cobwebs, small windows, and badly plastered walls, a depressing and
dismal region which they were glad to leave behind. It was on the stroke
of midnight when they entered a small room on the third floor, close to
the top of the stairs, and arranged to make themselves comfortable for the remainder
of their adventure. It was absolutely bare, and was said to be the
room then used as a clothes closet into which the infuriated groom had chased his
victim and finally caught her outside. Across the narrow landing began the stairs leading
up to the floor above and the servants quarters, where they had just searched
in spite of the chilliness of the night. There was something in the air
of this room that cried for an open window. But there was more than
this. Shorthouse could only describe it by saying that he felt less master of
himself here than in any other part of the house. There was something that
acted directly on the nerves, tiring the resolution, in feebling the will.
He was conscious of this result before he had been in the room five minutes,
and it was in the short time they stayed there that he suffered the
wholesale depletion of his vital forces, which was for himself the chief horror of
the whole experience. They put the candle on the floor of the cupboard,
leaving the door a few inches ajar, so that there was no glare to
confuse the eyes and no shadow to shift about on walls and ceiling. Then
they spread the cloak on the floor and sat down to wait with their backs
against the wall shorthouse was within two feet of the door on to the landing.
His position commanded a good view of the main staircase leading down into the
darkness, and also of the beginning of the servants stairs going to the floor
above. The heavy stick lay beside him within easy reach. The moon was
now high above the house. Through the open window, they could see the
comforting stars, like friendly eyes watching in the sky. One by one,
the clocks of the town struck midnight, and when the sounds died away,
the deep silence of a windless night fell again over everything. Only the boom
of the sea, far away and lugubrious, filled the air with hollow murmurs.
Inside the house, the silence became awful, awful, he thought,
because any minute now it might be broken by sounds pretending terror. The strain
of waiting told more and more severely on the nerves. They talked in whispers,
when they talked at all. For their voices a loud sounded queer and
unnatural. A chilliness, not altogether due to the night air, invaded the
room and made them cold. The influences against them, whatever these might be,
were slowly robbing them of self confidence and the power of decisive action.
Their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on
a new and terrible meaning. He began to tremble for the elderly woman by
his side, whose pluck could hardly save her. Beyond a certain extent,
he heard the blood singing in his veins. It sometimes seemed so loud that
he fancied it prevented his hearing properly certain other sounds that were beginning very faintly
to make themselves audible in the depths of the house. Every time he fastened
his attention on these sounds, they instantly ceased. They certainly came no nearer.
Yet he could not rid himself of the idea that movement was going on
somewhere in the lower regions of the house. The drawing room floor, where
the doors that had been so strangely closed, seemed too near. The sounds
were further off than that. He thought of the great kitchen with the scurrying
black beetles, and of the dismal little scullery. But somehow or other,
they did not seem to come from there either. Surely they were not outside
the house. Then suddenly the truth flashed into his mind, and for the
space of a minute he felt as if his blood had stopped flowing and turned
to ice. The sounds were not downstairs at all. They were upstairs,
upstairs, somewhere among those horrid, gloomy little servants rooms with their bits of
broken furniture, low ceilings and cramped windows, upstairs where the victim had first
been disturbed and stalked to her death. And the moment he discovered where the
sounds were, he began to hear them more clearly. It was the sound
of feet moving stealthily along the passage overhead, in and out among the rooms
and past the furniture. He turned quickly to steal a glance at the motionless
figure seated beside him, to note whether she had shared his discovery. The
faint candle light coming through the crack and the cupboard door threw her strongly marked
face into vivid relief against the white of the wall. But it was something
else that made him catch his breath and stare again. An extraordinary something had
come into her face and seemed to spread over her features like a mask.
It smoothed out the deep lines and drew the skin everywhere a little tighter,
so that the wrinkles disappeared. It brought into the face, with the sole
exception of the old eyes, an appearance of youth and almost of childhood.
He stared in speechless amazement, amazement that was dangerously near to horror. It
was his aunt's face, indeed, but it was her face of forty years
ago, the vacant, innocent face of a girl. He had heard stories
of that strange effect of terror, which could wipe a human countenance clean of
other emotions, obliterating all previous expressions, but he had never realized that it
could be literally true, or could mean anything so simply horrible as what he
now saw. For the dreadful signature of overmastering fear was written plainly in that
utter vacancy of the girlish face beside him. And when feeling his intense gaze,
she turned to look at him. He instinctively closed his eyes tightly to
shut out the sight. Yet when he turned a minute later, his feelings
well in hand, he saw, to his intense relief another expression. His
aunt was smiling, and though the face was deathly white, the awful veil
had lifted and the normal look was returning anything wrong was all he could think
of to say at the moment, and the answer was eloquent coming from such
a woman. I feel cold and a little frightened, she whispered. He
offered to close the window, but she seized hold of him and begged him
not to leave her side, even for an instant. It's upstairs, I
know, she whispered, with an odd half laugh. But I can't possibly
co up. But Shorthouse thought otherwise, Knowing that an action lay their best
hope of self control, he took the brandy flask and poured out a glass
of neat spirit, stiff enough to help anybody over anything. She swallowed it
with a little shiver. His only idea da now was to get out of
the house before her collapse became inevitable. But this could not safely be done
by turning tail and running from the enemy. Inaction was no longer possible.
Every minute he was growing less master of himself, and desperate aggressive measures were
imperative without further delay. Moreover, the action must be taken towards the enemy,
not away from it. The climax, if necessary and unavoidable, would
have to be faced boldly. He could do it now, but in ten
minutes he might not have the force left to act for himself, much less
for both. Upstairs, the sounds were meanwhile becoming louder and closer, accompanied
by occasional creaking of the boards. Someone was moving stealthily about, stumbling now
and thin awkwardly against the furniture, waiting a few moments to allow the tremendous
dose of spirits to produce its effect, and knowing this would last but a
short time under the circumstances, Shorthouse then quietly got on his feet, saying
in a determined voice, Now, Aunt Julia, we'll go upstairs and find
what all this noise is about. You must come too, It's what we
agreed. He picked up his stick and went to the cupboard for the candle.
A limp form rose shakily beside him, breathing hard, and he heard
a voice say, very faintly something about being ready to come. The woman's
courage amazed him, it was so much greater than his own, And as
they advanced, holding aloft the dripping candle, some subtle force exhaled from this
trembling, white faced old woman at his side. That was the true source
of his inspiration. It held something really great that shamed him and gave him
the support without which held have proved far less equal to the occasion. They
crossed the dark landing, avoiding with their eyes the deep black space over the
banisters. Then they began to mount the narrow staircase to meet the sounds,
which minute by minute grew louder and nearer. About half way up the stairs,
Aunt Julia stumbled, and Shorthouse turned to catch her by the arm,
and just at that moment there came a terrific crash in the servant's cortdor overhead.
It was instantly followed by a shrill, agonized scream that was a cry
of terror and a cry for help melted into one. Before they could move
aside or go down a single step, someone came rushing along the passage overhead,
blundering horribly, racing madly at full speed, three steps at a time
down the very staircase where they stood. The steps were light and uncertain,
but close behind them sounded the heavier tread of another person, and the staircase
seemed to shake. Shorthouse and his companion just had time to flatten themselves against
the wall when the jumble of flying steps was upon them, and two persons,
with the slightest possible interval between them, dashed past at full speed.
It was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon the midnight silence of the
empty building. The two runners, pursuer and pursued, had passed clean through
them where they stood, and already with a thud, the boards below had
received first one then the other. Yet they had seen absolutely nothing, not
a hand or arm, or face, or even a shred of flying clothing.
There came a second's pause, Then the first one, the lighter of
the two, obviously the pursued one, ran with uncertain footsteps into the little
room which Shorthouse and his aunt had just left. The heavier one followed.
There was a sound of scuffling, gasping and smothered screaming, and then out
onto the landing came the step of a single person treading weightily. A dead
silence followed for the space of half a minute, and then was heard a
rushing sound through the air. It was followed by a dull, crashing thud
in the depths of the house below. On the stone floor of the hall,
utter silence reigned after nothing moved. The flame of the candle was steady.
It had been steady the whole time, and the air had been undisturbed
by any movement whatsoever. Palsied with terror, Aunt Julia, without waiting for
her companion, began fumbling her way downstairs. She was crying gently to herself,
and when Shorthouse put her arm round her and half carried her, he
felt that she was trembling like a leaf. He went into the little room
and picked up the cloak from the floor, and arm in arm. Walking
very slowly, without speaking word or looking once behind them, they marched down
the three flights into the hall. In the hall they saw nothing but the
whole way down the stairs, they were conscious that some one followed them step
by step. When they went faster, it was left behind, and when
they went more slowly, it caught them up. But never once did they
look behind to see, and at each turning of the staircase they lowered their
eyes for fear of the following horror they might see upon the stairs above.
With trembling hands, Shorthouse opened the front door, and they walked out into
the moonlight and drew a deep breath of the cool night air. Blowing in
from the sea end of the empty house