"Done with you," Edgeworth interrupted eagerly. "We'll hunt this ghost together, Dennison―and, bedad! we'll lay it."
The ladies protested in a body, and Philip was their ally in this. But Sir James, thoroughly stung by the contemptuousness of Edgeworth's disbelief in the family ghost, encouraged the notion now that the colonel was to bear me company in that vigil.
We sat late at table that night. We had been joined by a couple of neighbours of Sir James's, and after the ladies had left the men settled down to the seasonable carouse, in which Edgeworth bore more than his share―for he was as hard-drinking as he was hard-riding and hard-fighting.
I ventured upon a reminder of what lay before us; but the colonel retorted with a laugh that having fought on the Douro for the preservation to England of the very wine we were drinking, it was unreasonable to desire him to stint himself under any circumstances.
At last we left the table and went to join the ladies for a little while before retiring. And then, towards half-past eleven, our host himself escorted us upstairs to the tapestried room, which had quickly been prepared for us.
A piled-up fire was burning brightly on the hearth. A round mahogany table and two arm-chairs stood immediately before it. On the table there was a silver candelabrum bearing four lighted candles, and a pack of cards, in case we should desire to while away the tedium of our vigil. Upon another table, in one of the recesses made by the fireplace, a tray with glasses, a decanter and a couple of bottles had very thoughtfully been provided.
But I must confess that despite these attempts to render the place cheerful, a chill of apprehension struck through me as I entered that long, low-ceilinged room; nor could the blazing fire and the light of the four candles suffice to dispel the ponderous gloom and the shadows cast by the vast canopied bed of carved walnut. The chamber was partly panelled in oak, partly hung with old tapestries, and this added to its sombreness. The tall window―through which the murderer had entered on that night some eighty years ago―was concealed by faded hangings, and from the very moment that I entered the room I could not conquer the feeling that someone or something was lurking behind them.
By the head of the bed Sir James showed us a door so artfully contrived in the panelling we might have overlooked it altogether. He opened it and disclosed a small ante-room in startlingly pleasant contrast to the gloomy bedchamber.
Dimity curtains festooned the windows; little red roses blossomed at intervals upon the white background of the fresh-looking wall-paper; a couch and a couple of arm-chairs of the "grandfather" type―which, with a table, completed the little room's furniture―were similarly covered in dainty chintzes. An oval gilt-framed mirror adorned the white overmantel, and a fire burned cheerfully in the little grate and was reflected upon the burnished fender. The whole was lighted by a lamp standing upon the table. An air of freshness, and a delicate perfume as of lavender, pervaded the little room.
"It is more cheery in here," said Sir James, "and my sister thought it as well to have it prepared for you, in case you should wish to change your quarters."
"Has this room no connection with the murder?" I inquired.
"A slight connection," Sir James replied. "It was in here that the poor lady's maid was sleeping. She was awakened by her mistress's cries, and attempted to go to her, but found it impossible to open the door."
"It has no fastening," said Edgeworth, in the tone of one who unmasks an error.
"But it may have had then," said Sir James, "or perhaps she was prevented from opening it by her mistress's body which lay against it."
Although I liked the room less when I had heard of its association with that sinister deed, it remained infinitely preferable to the bedchamber; and when I came to sit alone with Edgeworth in this gloomy apartment, I sighed secretly for the cheerful cosiness of the little ante-room.
Edgeworth did not seem in the least to share my feelings. Reclining in his ponderous arm-chair, he stretched his long legs, in their tight, strapped trousers, and yawned. "This is a damned piece of foolery, after all," said he. "I wonder how long I shall be able to keep awake. Devilish heady, that port of James's," he added as if to explain his somnolence; and then with an increasing brogue―"Let's hope this ghost of a Jacobite won't kape us waitin' too long," he ended, and laughed.
I shivered at the sound of it, and at the eerie, hollow echo which the ceiling seemed to return. He took up the pack and began to shuffle it, suggesting a hand at écarté for small points. I agreed, and we began to play.
My attention, however, was anywhere but upon the game. Beyond all doubt now there was something that was subtly disturbing in the atmosphere of that room. Two or three times I looked round, and it was with difficulty that I repressed a shudder; things seemed to be stirring in the shadowy corners, and the tapestried curtains before the windows again filled me with an enervating sense that they concealed something. I could swear that the lines in which they fell had undergone a change.
"I wish to Heaven they had given us more light," I burst out nervously. "The gloom is a trifle uncanny when one thinks of the associations of the place."
"Then why the devil do you think of them?" said he. "Egad!" he chuckled, "I thought you were as full-blooded a sceptic as I could wish. But I do believe you've a sneaking belief in these old wives' tales."
I took up my cards in silence, and made a foolish lead. I dared not admit that what he said was true―that the room, or something in it, was acting indefinably but unpleasantly upon me. I played foolishly, and Edgeworth, who had not his match at écarté, won the game with ease. I refused to continue, and he lounged back, yawning again.
"Faith, this is a damned unpunctual ghost," said he presently. "I wonder how much longer we shall have to wait."
He was answered upon the instant. Scarcely had he uttered the words when three distinct taps fell abruptly upon the window beyond the tapestry curtains.
We stared at each other. The faintest alarm showed in Edgeworth's face, whilst as for myself, I felt my skin turn cold and roughen.
"What was that?" I asked, scarcely above a whisper, and the very sound of my voice seemed to increase my fears.
He rose―a magnificently tall, soldierly fellow in his claw-hammer coat and black stock. He had recovered his composure instantly. "Some fool trying to scare us," he snapped. "I'll pepper him, by Gad!" And he stepped to the overmantel, where he had ostentatiously placed a pistol whilst Sir James had still been with us. He snatched it up, and in that moment the treble knock was repeated, more loudly and insistently than before.
It checked his confidence, and again he looked at me with a blank expression in his eyes. Outside, the wind howled and shrieked; it boomed and eddied in the chimney.
Abruptly Edgeworth crossed the room, and flung aside the tapestry curtains. I followed him, for all that my heart was hammering in my throat.
He pulled open the casement windows, disclosing shutters beyond them.
And then, in the very instant that he set his hand to the latch of these, the treble knock came for the third time―quick now and impatient.
I laid a hand on his arm to restrain him; but he shook me off, and sent the shutters crashing back against the wall on either side, where they remained arrested by the catches provided there.
There was nothing to be seen. All was blackness outside―a blackness through which scudded the ghostly snowflakes. The idea of anyone having attempted a practical joke was out of the question, as even Edgeworth realised. Nor was there any tree within fifty yards of the house, whose branches might have accounted for the knocks.
But as the shutters were flung open an icy draught had struck me―colder it seemed to me than could be accounted for by the weather. The candle-flames were beaten over, and the wax made shrouds down the sides of the candles; the hangings of the bed quivered under the touch of that icy breeze, and I could not avoid the horrible feeling that in opening that window in answer to the knocking we had admitted some awful, invisible presence.