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The Haunters and the Haunted edited by Ernest Rhys online
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VI THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS: OR THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN
F---- obeyed. "Was that you, sir?" said he, turning abruptly.
"I--what!"
"Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder--just here."
"No," said I. "But we have jugglers present, and though we may not discover their tricks, we shall catch _them_ before they frighten _us_."
We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms--in fact, they felt so damp and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs. We locked the doors of the drawing-rooms--a precaution which, I should observe, we had taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant had selected for me was the best on the floor--a large one, with two windows fronting the street. The four-posted bed, which took up no inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burned clear and bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window, communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself.
This last was a small room with a sofa-bed, and had no communication with the landing-place--no other door but that which conducted to the bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard, without locks, flushed with the wall, and covered with the same dull-brown paper. We examined these cupboards--only hooks to suspend female dresses--nothing else; we sounded the walls--evidently solid--the outer walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments, warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still accompanied by F----, went forth to complete my reconnoitre. In the landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly. "Sir," said my servant in surprise, "I unlocked this door with all the others when I first came; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for it is a--"
Before he had finished his sentence the door, which neither of us then was touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single instant. The same thought seized both--some human agency might be detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small blank dreary room without furniture--a few empty boxes and hampers in a corner--a small window--the shutters closed--not even a fireplace--no other door but that by which we had entered--no carpet on the floor, and the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no visible place in which a living being could have hidden. As we stood gazing around, the door by which we had entered closed as quietly as it had before opened: we were imprisoned.
For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break that trumpery door with a kick of my foot."
"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the vague apprehension that had seized me, "while I open the shutters and see what is without."
I unbarred the shutters--the window looked on the little backyard I have before described; there was no ledge without--nothing but sheer descent. No man getting out of that window would have found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.
F----, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me, and asked my permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gaiety amidst circumstances so extraordinary compelled my admiration, and made me congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick. Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself, equally in vain.