A short story for Halloween, first published in the Daily Mail, 4 December 1939
*****
The young men looked at one another—each through a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and athwart a hank of hair that hung loosely across the left eye of each.
“Do you actually believe you’re going to see something to-night?” said Callister very seriously.
“I believe that I shall be conscious, though not necessarily through the sense of sight, of something or someone,” returned Egremont, no less seriously.
“You may be right,” said Callister.
It was a non-committal remark, besides being a broad-minded one. For young Callister was, as he himself said, scientifically-minded, whereas young Egremont was psychically-minded.
Both alike were agreed in thinking that it was important that Egremont should try the experiment arranged for that night.
“Give me the facts again: I want to get them absolutely clear in my own mind.”
“You don’t think,” Callister said, “that it will prevent your going into it completely unprejudiced and detached?”
“Certainly not. I feel definitely unprejudiced and absolutely detached, and anyway I don’t think I’m a suggestive type.”
With this last statement Callister was not wholly in agreement, but he obediently repeated his story.
*****
“That house in which you’re going to spend the night is a perfectly ordinary little suburban villa, belonging to my uncle, who bought it for a song very soon after the scandal, and thought he’d be able to sell it again when people had forgotten. Well, he couldn’t—but he did, two years ago, let it furnished—he’d put in some cheap furniture to give it a better chance.
“The tenants, who were a very ordinary middle-aged couple, cleared out without any warning at all, went straight to the agents and paid their rent in full rather, they said, than stay on. They’d both seen the same thing, at three o’clock on the morning of April 24—exactly ten years after the horrible affair to the day.”
“I see,” said Egremont, looking gravely intelligent. “And that was two years ago, and no one has actually lived there since?”
“My uncle spent a week there, soon after the tenants left, but saw nothing and heard nothing. My aunt made such a fearful fuss at the thought of his being there on the 24th of April—the date—that he had to give it up. They’ve put in a caretaker with a dog, and he’s made no complaint whatever—but it was arranged that he should take his holiday in the last fortnight of April. There’s no one there now.”
*****
“That’s exactly what I wish,” said Egremont. “I am a very strong believer in the great importance of conducting this kind of investigation absolutely alone. I’m extraordinarily grateful to your uncle, really, for giving me the chance.”
“He wasn’t frightfully keen on it,” Callister admitted. “And I had to swear you’d take a loaded revolver.”
“What a curious mentality it is,” he remarked in a detached way, “that sees any possible connection between firearms and the world of spirits! Still, naturally, I shall do as he asks. He doesn’t expect me to use it, I hope?”
“I don’t think he can, because he seems to be fairly convinced that what the tenants saw was not—anything human.”
“And I'm to have the same room' that they had. You made sure of that ? “
“Quite. It's the only bedroom that has a communicating door, besides the one that gives into the passage. And it's through that door—the one leading to the other bedroom— that. . . .”
“ I remember.”
“My uncle's tenants swore that it was locked—they always kept it locked. They heard the click of the handle, and they switched on the light and saw it turn, and then the door opened.”
Egremont nodded again. He had heard the story before.
“ Only” concluded his friend, “ as they knew, and as you know, arms that are only bleeding stumps can turn no handles.”
*****
Egremont lay in bed, face carefully towards the door of communication between the bedroom and its tiny adjoining dressing-room. Before lying down he had locked it, together with the door into the passage. The two keys lay on the bedside table, next the loaded revolver and a small travelling-clock with an illuminated face.
The illuminated face was unnecessary. Not only had Egremont failed to sleep, but he had left the light on and drawn up the blind. From half-past twelve, when Callister had left—after insisting on a thorough search of the house—until nearly two, Egremont had supposed himself to be reading some very modern poetry. Then he had discovered that not one line of it had penetrated his understanding. Since he knew all about very modern poetry and always understood it perfectly, he realised that this could only mean that his thoughts were elsewhere.
And so they were.
As the hands of the clock drew nearer and nearer to three o'clock Egremont became acutely conscious of the facts that his heart was thumping heavily and unpleasantly and that his hands and the back of his neck were wet.
Every muscle tense, he lay and listened. The only sound was that of his own laboured breathing coming through clenched teeth and distended nostrils. Forcing himself to the act as he had never had to force himself to anything before, Egremont, without removing his straining eyes for one instant from the door, stretched out one hand and felt for the revolver.
Groping, for a split second he knew panic lest it should no longer be there. Then his fingers met, and clutched at, the cold steel. At the same instant the hands of the clock pointed to three.
*****
Egremont lay, sweating, sick, and tense with a creeping horror, his staring eyes never leaving the door that led to the other room, one hand grasping the revolver and the other one forced between his teeth.
“Arms that are only bleeding stumps can turn no handles. . . .”
After an aeon of terror, suddenly he realised that the hands of the clock must have moved on. Three o'clock was past. Nothing had happened In the intensity of the relief that possessed him, young Egremont relaxed with the suddenness and completeness of a tautly drawn bowstring released.
A sigh that was almost a groan escaped him, exhaling every reserve of nervous energy in his body. He drew one hand, now shaking helplessly, across his streaming face and slumped over on his pillow. utterly unstrung now that he need no longer wait, eyeing the door.
Then, on the other side of the bed, he saw it—watching.
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