Edgeworth closed the casement, and turned to me; his face had lost some of its colour. "Queer!" he said. "Damned queer!" He waited for me to speak; but seeing that I offered no explanation―"How do you account for it?" he asked me.
"I don't," said I; and I moved slowly back towards the table, looking about me with fearful eyes as I went, yet utterly, physically unable to direct my glance towards the bed. "I have no explanation unless―unless it was the Jacobite."
Suddenly something cold touched my face. I cried out hoarsely, in utter terror.
"What's the matter now?" demanded Edgeworth.
"Something touched my cheek," I said, and even as I spoke the touch was repeated. It was precisely as if an icy finger had stroked me from temple to chin.
Edgeworth peered at me, and burst into a laugh. "A snowflake on your hair―it's melting," he explained, and his assurance entirely returned.
Not so mine. This physical explanation did not quite satisfy me; and then just as, completely unnerved and trembling, I had sunk into one of the chairs, the windows flew open with a crash, and the candles were extinguished by the cold gust that enveloped me.
I cried out, whilst Edgeworth swore. He swung round in the firelit gloom, and closed the windows once more. I sat huddled in my chair, scarcely breathing, whilst he thrust a spill into the fire, and one by one, relighted the candles. His hand shook a little, and his face was undoubtedly pale. Nevertheless―
"Come, come, Dennison! What the devil ails you?" he cried. "It's a fine ghost-hunter you are!"
"Don't talk like that," I begged him.
"And why shouldn't I now?" he blustered. "What's happened, after all? I forgot to latch the window, and the wind blew it open and put the candles out."
Here again were physical explanations. Yet again they failed to satisfy me. Rather I began to form the notion that supernatural forces were employing natural, commonplace media in which to express themselves. And I could not dispel the rooted conviction that something was in this room that had not been here before―something supremely evil. For the tapping at the window, at least, no physical explanation was forthcoming or possible, and it was a significant and uncanny circumstance that since the window had been opened the tapping had not been repeated.
I mentioned this to Edgeworth; but he was entirely, almost angrily contemptuous.
"We don't know what the physical explanation is," said he. "That's all."
He replaced his pistol on the mantelpiece, then stooped to poke the fire. "Tell you what, my boy," he grumbled, "it's devilish cold in this room."
"What do you say to going into the ante-chamber?" I asked him. "We could leave the door open. It's―it's cosier in there."
His dark eyes mocked me. "You can go if you like, Dennison. I undertook to spend the night here, and here I'll spend it though the spooks of all the Jacobites that were at Culloden should come to wish me a merry Christmas."
His mockery jarred upon me; it increased my fears; it seemed like a challenge to this evil thing to manifest itself. I could stand no more of it. Had the tapping at the window recommenced it would have reassured me, I think. But since it did not, my conviction grew firmer than ever that whatever the thing was that had knocked, it had already gained admission.
I got up, conscious that my knees were trembling, seeking in vain to steady them. "I am going, anyway," I grumbled. And without waiting for his answer I went down the room towards the door in the panelling. My eyes sought to avoid the bed; yet I caught a glimpse of the tapestried hangings, and I had a distinct impression that they moved. I checked, almost paralysed by fear, expecting some monstrous thing to leap out upon me as I passed. Then in a panic I dashed forward, wrenched open the door, and sprang into the light, fresh space of the ante-room, followed by Edgeworth's mocking laugh.
I dropped into one of the big chairs by the fire, and for a moment felt more at ease. Presently, however, my fancy began to people the dark space of the open door. The impression grew that someone, or something, was watching me thence.
"Edgeworth!" I called, and my voice was far from steady. "It's infinitely cosier in here. Do come along, and bring the cards with you."
He yawned for answer. "Too sleepy for cards. Besides, I'm all right here. But I wish you'd shut the door. There's an infernal draught."
You will say that I am a coward, and that a man of my temperament has no right to undertake the investigation of supernatural matters. Perhaps so. Anyway, I did not need to be twice invited to shut that door. Had it remained open, I should no more have been able to stay in the ante-chamber than to return to the tapestried room now that I had left it.
So I closed the door, and returned to my seat by the fire. Soon, as my pulses grew calmer, I began to feel ashamed of myself. And then I heard Edgeworth's steps approaching the door of communication. The latch clicked, and he stood under the lintel, a wineglass in one hand and a decanter in the other. "Four fingers of brandy is your most urgent need, my boy. Your nerves have mutinied, and you've been imagining things."
"Did I imagine the taps on the shutters?" I asked him.
"The devil take the taps on the shutters!" said he. But for all his jauntiness, he spilled some of the brandy in pouring for me.
I drained the glass gladly enough.
"Another?" he questioned, raising the decanter again. "It's the very distilled essence of courage."
I refused, and again I begged him to remain with me. But he would not, and he explained his obstinacy.
"The fact of the matter is, Dennison, that it's frightened I am, myself. I am quite frank. I am scared―for the first time in my life. So you'll understand that it's quite impossible for me not to return to that room. You see, 'tisn't cowardly to be scared, Dennison, but it's infernally cowardly to run away when you're scared; and Jack Edgeworth isn't going to turn coward―not for all the disembodied Jacobites in the universe." And with that he swung on his heel, and marched back into the tapestried chamber, slamming the door after him.
I heard him cross to the fireplace, and I heard the creak of his chair as he settled down. He had made the difference between us pitilessly clear. We were both frightened, but I was the only coward of the two. And a coward I must remain, for his confessing to his fears did not tend to give me courage. Rather it glued me where I was, determined that nothing should take me into the tapestried room again that night. It was a determination I was later to disregard. But for the moment I hugged it to myself.
Now the genial warmth of the fire, combining with the effect of the brandy I had drunk, induced a pleasant torpor. For a little while I resisted it; but in the end I succumbed to the extent of resting my head on the tall back of my chair. From that moment I remember nothing until I was very wide awake again, startled without yet knowing the reason for it, my pulses throbbing at the gallop, and my ears straining to listen for something that I knew must come.
I must have slept some hours, for the fire was burning low, and the room had grown chilly.
Suddenly the thing I instinctively awaited came.
Through the wall from the tapestried chamber I heard Edgeworth calling my name in a terrified, choking voice. "Dennison! Dennison!"
I sprang up at the sound, and I felt as if I had been suddenly plunged into cold water. Horror fettered me where I stood.
And then came the sound of a falling body―just outside the door of communication, just where the murdered lady had fallen. I distinguished a swishing, dragging noise, a groan, and, finally―and most terrific of all―a faint cackle of indescribably malicious laughter.