Part 58 (1/2)
”For long?”
”No--o. I believe, not for long.”
”Have the tenants had any particular reasons for not remaining on there--if I may be so bold as to inquire?”
”All people have reasons to offer, but what they offer you are not supposed to receive as genuine.”
I could get no more from him than this. ”I think, sir, if I were you I would not go down to Fernwood till after November was out.”
”But,” said I, ”I want the shooting.”
”Ah, to be sure--the shooting, ah! I should have preferred if you could have waited till December began.”
”That would not suit me,” I said, and so the matter ended.
When we were settled in, we occupied the right wing of the house. The left or west wing was but scantily furnished and looked cheerless, as though rarely tenanted. We were not a large family, my wife and myself alone; there was consequently ample accommodation in the east wing for us. The servants were placed above the kitchen, in a portion of the house I have not yet described. It was a half-wing, if I may so describe it, built on the north side parallel with the upper arm of the western limb of the hall and the [Symbol: H]. This block had a gable to the north like the wings, and a broad lead valley was between them, that, as I learned from the agent, had to be attended to after the fall of the leaf, and in times of snow, to clear it.
Access to this valley could be had from within by means of a little window in the roof, formed as a dormer. A short ladder allowed anyone to ascend from the pa.s.sage to this window and open or shut it. The western staircase gave access to this pa.s.sage, from which the servants' rooms in the new block were reached, as also the untenanted apartments in the old wing. And as there were no windows in the extremities of this pa.s.sage that ran due north and south, it derived all its light from the aforementioned dormer window.
One night, after we had been in the house about a week, I was sitting up smoking, with a little whisky-and-water at my elbow, reading a review of an absurd, ignorantly written book on New South Wales, when I heard a tap at the door, and the parlourmaid came in, and said in a nervous tone of voice: ”Beg your pardon, sir, but cook nor I, nor none of us dare go to bed.”
”Why not?” I asked, looking up in surprise.
”Please, sir, we dursn't go into the pa.s.sage to get to our rooms.”
”Whatever is the matter with the pa.s.sage?”
”Oh, nothing, sir, with the pa.s.sage. Would you mind, sir, just coming to see? We don't know what to make of it.”
I put down my review with a grunt of dissatisfaction, laid my pipe aside, and followed the maid.
She led me through the hall, and up the staircase at the western extremity.
On reaching the upper landing I saw all the maids there in a cl.u.s.ter, and all evidently much scared.
”Whatever is all this nonsense about?” I asked.
”Please, sir, will you look? We can't say.”
The parlourmaid pointed to an oblong patch of moonlight on the wall of the pa.s.sage. The night was cloudless, and the full moon shone slanting in through the dormer and painted a brilliant silver strip on the wall opposite. The window being on the side of the roof to the east, we could not see that, but did see the light thrown through it against the wall.
This patch of reflected light was about seven feet above the floor.
The window itself was some ten feet up, and the pa.s.sage was but four feet wide. I enter into these particulars for reasons that will presently appear.
The window was divided into three parts by wooden mullions, and was composed of four panes of gla.s.s in each compartment.
Now I could distinctly see the reflection of the moon through the window with the black bars up and down, and the division of the panes. But I saw more than that: I saw the shadow of a lean arm with a hand and thin, lengthy fingers across a portion of the window, apparently groping at where was the latch by which the cas.e.m.e.nt could be opened.
My impression at the moment was that there was a burglar on the leads trying to enter the house by means of this dormer.