CHAPTER XIII
But even while Varick and Blanche Farrow were arranging together that this disturbing and mysterious occurrence should remain secret, Helen Brabazon was actually engaged in telling one who was still a stranger to her the story of her amazing experience.
Perhaps this was owing to the fact that the door of the hall had scarcely shut behind her when she met Sir Lyon Dilsford face to face.
Almost involuntarily he exclaimed, with a good deal of real concern in his voice: "Is anything the matter? I hope you haven't had bad news?"
She said, "Oh, no," and shook her head; but the tears welled up again into her eyes.
When an attractive girl who generally shows remarkable powers of quietude and self-control breaks down, and proves herself a very woman after all, the average man is generally touched, and more than a little moved. Sir Lyon felt oddly affected by Helen's evident distress, and an ardent desire to console and to help her rose instinctively in his mind.
"Come into the study!" he exclaimed in a low voice. "And tell me if there's anything I can do to help you?"
She obeyed him, and, as he followed her in, he shut the door.
She sat down, and for a while he stood before her, gazing sympathetically into her flushed, tear-stained face.
"I'm afraid you'll think it so absurd," she said falteringly. "Even I can hardly believe now that what happened did happen!"
"Don't tell me—if you'd rather not," he said suddenly; a very disagreeable suspicion entering his mind.
Was it within the bounds of possibility that James Tapster had tried to—to kiss her? Sir Lyon had a great prejudice against the poor millionaire, but he instantly rejected the idea. If such a thing had indeed happened to her, Helen Brabazon was the last girl ever to offer to tell anyone, least of all a man.
Helen all at once felt that it would be a comfort to confide her strange, terrifying experience to this kind new friend.
"I'd rather tell you, I think."
She waited a moment, and then came out with a bald statement of what had happened. "I was sitting knitting, when something seemed to force me to look up—and I saw, or I thought I saw, the spirit of a dear, dead friend."
Sir Lyon uttered an exclamation of extreme astonishment.
"Yes, I know it was only my imagination," Helen went on in a low, troubled voice. "But it gave me a most fearful shock, and I feel that, however long I live, I shall never forget it!"
"I wish you would tell me a little more about it," he said persuasively. "I don't ask out of idle curiosity. I was very much impressed by what happened on the first night of our visit here—I mean at the séance."
"So was I," she said reluctantly. "But, of course, this had nothing to do with—with anything of that sort. In fact, Bubbles (as she has asked me to call her) was sitting, asleep, I think, in that curious old carved confessional box. My aunt and Mr. Varick were reading—Mr. Varick had just come up from the village with this morning's London papers; Miss Farrow was doing her embroidery, and I'd just been counting some stitches in my knitting, when I looked up and saw—"
She stopped, as if not able to go on.
"Was what you saw, what you took to be an apparition, close to the confessional?" asked Sir Lyon abruptly.
"No, not so very close—still, not very far away. It—she—seemed to be standing behind Mr. Varick, a little to his left, on the door side."
"I suppose you would rather not tell me who it was you saw?"
Sir Lyon thought he knew, but he wished to feel sure.
"I don't see why I shouldn't tell you," yet she hesitated. "It was poor Milly, Sir Lyon—I mean Mrs. Lionel Varick. She and I became great friends during the weeks preceding her death. She even told me that, apart from her husband, she had never cared for anyone as she grew to care for me. And yet—oh, Sir Lyon, what was so very, very terrible just now, was that I felt her looking at me with a kind of hatred in her dead face," and, as she uttered these last words, an expression of deep pain came over Helen Brabazon's countenance.
Sir Lyon then asked a rather curious question: "How was the apparition clothed?"
"In her shroud. A woman in Redsands made it. I saw the woman about it—perhaps that impressed it on my mind," her mouth quivered. "The figure standing there was exactly like Milly dead, excepting that her eyes seemed alive, and that there was that dreadful look of anger on her face."
"How long did the vision last?"
"Oh, not a whole minute altogether! When I first saw it I got up, and without knowing what I was doing, I screamed; and then she, Milly, seemed to fade away—to melt into the air.
"Did anyone else see anything?" asked Sir Lyon eagerly.
"No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm quite sure not. My aunt was sitting with her back to Mr. Varick."
There was a pause. And then Helen asked: "You don't believe that the dead can appear to the living—do you, Sir Lyon?"
"I've never been able quite to make up my mind," he said slowly. "But I do believe, absolutely, in what is now called materialization. I must believe in it, because I've witnessed the phenomena a number of times myself. But, of course, always under a most carefully prepared set of conditions. I wish you'd tell me," he went on, "exactly how the figure struck you? Can you describe to me in greater detail the appearance of what seemed to be the spirit of your friend?"
Helen did not quite understand what he meant, but she answered obediently: "It's very difficult to describe more exactly what I did see. As I told you just now, the eyes alone seemed to be really alive in the pale, waxen-looking face, and I thought the mouth quivered."
"I know," he interjected quickly.
"But the rest of her poor, thin, emaciated looking body seemed to be so stiff and still, swathed in the long, white grave-clothes—and I can't express to you the sort of growing horror of it all! I knew it was only a few moments, yet it seemed like hours of time. I felt as if I must call out and indeed I did. But before I could go on to utter her name, Miss Farrow spoke to me, my aunt got up from her chair, and Mr. Varick rushed forward! Of course it all happened in much less time than it takes to tell."
She looked at him earnestly. What a kind, dependable face he had!
"Have you, Sir Lyon, any explanation to suggest?" she asked.
"I don't suppose," he said slowly, "that you would accept my explanation, Miss Brabazon."
"I think I would," she said simply. "After what happened that first night I feel that anything is possible. I am sure my dear father's spirit was there."
"I am inclined to think so too. But as to this instance I am not so sure that what you saw was your dead friend. Unless—"
"Unless?" repeated Helen questioningly.
"You told me that during her lifetime you were on the best terms of friendship with this poor lady, and yet that on her dead face there was a look of hatred? How do you account for that?"
He looked questioningly, penetratingly, into the girl's distressed face.
Sir Lyon had always prided himself on his self-command and perfect self-control, and yet he would have given almost anything for a really honest answer to this question.
And poor Helen did give him an honest answer—honest, that is, from her own simple-hearted point of view. "I can't account for it!" she exclaimed. "But I am sure it was there. I felt the hatred coming out from her towards me. And oh, Sir Lyon, it was horrible!"
"Try and think it was not Mrs. Varick's spirit," he said impressively. "Try and tell yourself that it was either a dream, a waking phantom of your brain, or—or—"
"Or what?" asked Helen eagerly.
But there are thoughts, questions, suspicions that no human being willingly puts into words.
During the last few days Sir Lyon had become convinced that Lionel Varick had resolved in his powerful, unscrupulous mind to make Helen Brabazon his wife. It was in vain that he argued with himself that the question of Miss Brabazon's future concerned him not at all. He found himself again and again, when watching those two, giving a great deal of uneasy thought to the matter. Now and again he would remind himself that Varick had been no greater an adventurer than many a man who, when utterly impecunious, has married an heiress amid the hearty approval and acclamation of most of the people about them. And Varick could not now be regarded as impecunious; he was a man of substance, though no doubt even his present income would seem as nothing compared with the Brabazon fortune.
Sir Lyon was ashamed of his growing distaste, even dislike, of his courteous host. It was as if in the last few days a pit had been dug between them. It was not pleasant to him to be accepting the hospitality of a man whom he was growing to dislike and suspect more and more every day. And yet though he could have made a hundred excuses to leave Wyndfell Hall, he stayed on, refusing to inquire too closely into the reason.
At times he tried to persuade himself that he was keenly interested in the problem presented by Bubbles Dunster. The girl was beyond question a most rare and exceptional medium. At one time he had made a close study of psychic phenomena; and though he had come to certain conclusions which had led to his entirely giving up the practices which had once seemed to him the only thing worth living for, he was still sufficiently interested in the subject to feel that Bubbles' powers were well worth watching.
Sir Lyon would have given much to have been present at what, if Helen's account were correct, had been an extraordinary example of what is called materialization.
Had this terrible vision of Mrs. Varick been an emanation of Helen Brabazon's own brain—some subconscious knowledge that she, Helen, was now the object of Varick's pursuit? Or was this woman, whom they all called "poor Milly," an unquiet spirit, wandering about full of jealous, cruel thoughts, even with regard to the two who had evidently been so selflessly devoted to her—her girl friend and her husband?
And then, suddenly a queer feeling of intense relief swept over him. Whether a sentient being or not had appeared to Helen Brabazon, there could be no doubt that what had just happened would make the course of Varick's wooing more arduous. He was ashamed to find that this conviction made him suddenly feel oddly light-hearted—almost, so he told himself, a young man again!
CHAPTER XIV
As he walked into his bedroom, which was pleasantly warm—for there was a good fire, and the curtains across the three windows were closely drawn—Dr. Panton told himself that he was indeed beginning the New Year very well.
Half-an-hour ago the whole party, with the exception of Miss Burnaby, who had gone to bed at her usual time, had stood outside the front door under the starry sky while the many clocks of Wyndfell Hall rang out the twelve strokes which said farewell to the Old Year, and brought the New Year in. Then they had all crowded back again into the hall, and, hand in hand, sung "Auld Lang Syne."
As everyone had shaken hands and wished each other a Happy New Year, many and sincere had been the good wishes felt and expressed. Even James Tapster had looked genial and happy for once. He was beginning to feel as if he would, after all, throw the handkerchief to Bubbles (his own secret, graceful paraphrase for making an offer of marriage). But as yet Dr. Panton knew nothing of this little under-current in the broad stream which seemed to be flowing so pleasantly before him. Had he done so, he would have been startled and distressed, for he had already, with a shrewd medical man's judgment, "sized up" his fellow guest, and found him very much wanting.
Thus not knowing or divining anything of the various human under-currents, save, perhaps, that he guessed Donnington to be in love with Bubbles, Dr. Panton went off to bed in a very cheerful and contented state of mind. So contented was he that as, with leisurely fingers, he lit the candles on his dressing-table, he incidentally told himself that Wyndfell Hall was the only house in which he had ever stayed which, lacking any other luminant but lamps and candles, yet had amply enough of both!
Lighting a pipe—for he didn't feel in the least sleepy—he drew forward a deep, comfortable armchair close to the fire, and took up a book. But soon he put it down again, and, staring at the dancing flames, his mind dwelt with retrospective pleasure on the last few hours.
Seated between Helen Brabazon and Bubbles Dunster, he had thoroughly enjoyed the delicious New Year's Eve dinner composed by Varick's chef. Miss Brabazon had admitted to having a headache this evening, and she certainly looked very far from well—less well than he had thought her to be when they had first seen one another again, after so long an absence, this afternoon.
And yet, as is sometimes the case, a look of languor suited her; and he thought she had grown decidedly better-looking in the last year. At Redsands Miss Brabazon had been a little too buxom, a little too self-possessed, also, for his taste. And yet—and yet how wonderfully good she had been to poor Mrs. Varick! With what tender patience had she put up with the invalid's querulous bad temper, never even mentioning it to him, the doctor, who so often received painful confidences of the kind from those who were far nearer and dearer to a dying patient than Helen had been to querulous Milly Varick.
As for Miss Bubbles, he felt it would be easy to lose one's heart to that strange, queer young creature. They had made real friends over Span. And, apropos of Span, Dr. Panton frowned to himself. He feared that the dog was going to be the one blot on this delightful visit. Span had been very, very badly behaved—setting up that unearthly howl whenever his master brought him in contact with the rest of the party. Yet he was quite good in the servants' hall. "It is clear that, like so many cleverer people than himself, Span likes low company," Bubbles had whispered mischievously to Span's master. "I daresay they're all very much nicer than we are, if we only knew it!" she had gone on, but Dr. Panton had shaken his head. He had no great liking for the modern domestic servant. He was one of the many people who consider that the good old type of serving-man and waiting-woman has disappeared for ever. To-night, remembering Bubbles' words, he gave a careless, rueful thought to the question of how Varick, who was always generous about money, must be cheated—"rooked" was the expression the doctor used in his own mind—by these job servants who were here, so his host told him, just for the one month. Still, they were all fulfilling their part of their contract very well, especially the chef! Everything seemed to go on oiled wheels at Wyndfell Hall. But this might be owing to clever Miss Farrow, for Varick had told him that Miss Farrow was acting as hostess to the party.
Panton didn't much like that composed, clever-looking lady. She made him feel a little shy, a little young—a sensation he didn't very often experience nowadays! She treated him with a courtesy which, if elaborate, was also distant. It was odd to think that Miss Farrow was the unconventional, friendly Bubbles Dunster's aunt.
Sir Lyon Dilsford, on the other hand, he liked very much. He smiled a queer little smile as he thought of this new acquaintance. He had looked up in the middle of dinner, and caught a rather curious look on Sir Lyon's face. It was a thoughtful, considering, almost tender look. Was Sir Lyon attracted to Helen Brabazon? Well, Miss Brabazon, with her vast wealth, and Sir Lyon, with his fine old name, and agreeable, polished personality, would seem well matched, according to a worldly point of view. But Panton told himself that he would far prefer Lionel Varick werehe a young woman. But he feared there was no hope of such a chance coming Miss Brabazon's way. Varick's heart—his big, sensitive heart—was buried in the grave of his wife....
How strange to think that "poor Milly"—for so had even her doctor come to call her in his own mind—had been born and brought up in this delightful old house! She had once spoken to him of her unhappy girlhood, coupling it with an expression of gratitude to her husband for having so changed her life.
"Poor Milly" was very present to Dr. Panton to-night. He, who had hardly given her a thought during the last twelve months, found himself dwelling on her to an almost uncanny extent. He even recalled some unusual features of her illness which had puzzled and worried him greatly. He dismissed the recollection of certain of her symptoms with an effort. There is no truer saying—at any rate from a doctor's point of view—than "Let the dead bury their dead." He had done his very best for Mrs. Varick, lavished on her everything that skill and kindness could do, and she had been extraordinarily blessed, not only in her devoted husband, but in that sudden, unexpected friendship with another woman—and with such a good, conscientious, sweet-tempered young woman as was Helen Brabazon....
Half-past one struck on the landing outside his room, and Dr. Panton got up from the comfortable easy chair; time to be going to bed, yet he still felt quite wide awake.
He walked over to the window nearest to the fire-place, and drew back the heavy, silk-brocaded curtain. It was a wonderful night, with a promise, he thought, of fine weather—though one of the men who had stood outside with him had predicted snow. What a curious, eerie place this old Suffolk house was! Probably the landscape had scarcely changed at all in the last five hundred years. Below he could see gleaming water....
He let fall the curtain, and, blowing out the candles, got slowly, luxuriously, into the vast, comfortable four-post bed.
As he composed himself to sleep, broken, disconnected images floated through his brain. Bill Donnington—what a nice boy! And yet not exactly, he felt, in sympathy with any of the people there. He wondered why Bill Donnington had come to spend Christmas at Wyndfell Hall. Then he remembered—and smiled in the fitful firelight. What a pity there wasn't some nice, simple, gentle girl for young Donnington! That was the sort of girl he, Panton, would have chosen for him. Miss Bubbles, so much was clear, rather despised the poor lad. She had implied as much in her clever, teasing, funny way, more than once.
And the thought of Bubbles unexpectedly brought up another image—that of James Tapster. Of the little party gathered together at Wyndfell Hall, Tapster was the one whom the doctor felt he really didn't like. He couldn't imagine why Varick had asked that disagreeable fellow here!
While the men were still in the dining-room, and Varick had gone out for a moment to look for some very special, new kind of cigarette which had come down from London a day or two before, Tapster had spoken very disagreeably of the richness of the French chef's cooking. He had seemed to think it an outrage that something of a special, very plain, nature had not been provided for him every day, and he had hinted that perhaps the doctor could suggest some antidote to all this richness! There was another reason, so Panton's sleepy mind told him, why he didn't like his sulky, plain fellow-guest. It became suddenly, unexpectedly, clear to him that Tapster was much taken with Miss Bubbles. The man had hardly taken his eyes off her during the whole of dinner, and it had been a disagreeable, appraising look—as if he couldn't quite make up his mind what she was worth! He told himself, while remembering that look, that Tapster was the kind of man who is always hesitating, always absorbed in some woman, and yet always afraid to try his luck—in the hope that if he waits, he may do better next time! Miss Bubbles was a hundred times too good for such a fellow, however rich the fellow might be....
Gradually Panton felt himself slipping off into that pleasant condition which immediately precedes a dreamless, healthful sleep.
And then, all at once, his senses became keenly alert, for a curious sound became audible in the darkening room. It was without doubt a sound created by some industrious mouse, or perhaps—though that idea was a less pleasant one—by a greedy rat. Swish, swish—swish—just like the rustling of a lady's silk dress!
Panton stretched out his right arm, and knocked the wall behind him sharply twice or thrice, and the sound stopped suddenly. But after a few minutes, just as he was dropping off, it began again. But it no longer startled him, as it had done the first time, and soon he was fast asleep.
It might have been a moment, it might have been an hour, later, when there came a sudden, urgent knocking at his door. He sat up in bed.
"Come in," he called out, now wide awake.
The door opened slowly—and there came through it a curious-looking figure. It was James Tapster, arrayed in a wonderful dressing-gown made of Persian shawls, and edged with fur. He held a candlestick in his hand, and the candle threw up a flickering light on his pallid, alarmed-looking face.
"Dr. Panton," he whispered, "I wish you'd come out here a moment."
And the doctor, cursing his bad luck, and feeling what he very seldom felt, thoroughly angry, said ungraciously: "What is the matter? Can't you tell me without my getting out of bed?"
Last night's excellent dinner, which couldn't have hurt any healthy man, had evidently upset the unhealthy millionaire.
"Can't you hear?" whispered Tapster. His teeth were, chattering; he certainly looked very ill.
"Hear! Hear what?"
Tapster held up his hand. And then, yes, the man sitting up in the big four-post bed did hear some very curious noises. It was as if furniture was being thrown violently about, and as if crockery was being smashed—but a very, very long way off.
This was certainly most extraordinary! He had done Tapster an injustice.
He jumped out of bed. "Wait a minute!" he exclaimed. "I'll get my dressing-gown, and we'll go and see what it's all about. What extraordinary sounds! Where on earth do they come from?"
"They come from the servants' quarters," said Tapster.
There came a sudden silence, and then an awful crash.
"How long have these noises gone on?" asked Panton.
He had put on his dressing-gown, and was now looking for his slippers.
"Oh, for a long time."
Tapster's hand was trembling, partly from excitement, partly from fear. "How d'you account for it?" he asked.
"One of the servants has gone mad drunk," replied Panton briefly. "That's what it is—without a doubt! We'd better go down and see what can be done."
And then, as there came the distant sounds of breaking glass, he exclaimed: "I wonder everyone hasn't woken up!"
"There is a heavy padded door between that part of the house and this. My room is on the other side, over what they call the school-room. I left the padded door open just now when I came through—in fact I fastened it back."
"That wasn't a very clever thing to do!"
The doctor did not speak pleasantly, but Tapster took no offence.
"I—I wanted someone to hear," he said humbly; "I felt so shut off through there."
"Still, there's no use in waking everybody else up," said Panton, in a businesslike tone.
He didn't look forward to the job which he thought lay before him; but, of course, it wasn't the first time he had been called in to help calm a man who had become violent under the influence of drink. "Go on," he said curtly. "Show me the way! I suppose there's a back staircase by which we can go down?"
He followed his guide along the broad corridor to a heavy green baize door. Stooping, he undid the hook which fastened the door back. It swung to, and, as it did so, there came a sudden, complete cessation of the noise.
"Hullo!" he said to himself, "that's odd."
The two men waited for what seemed to Panton a long time, but in reality it was less than five minutes.
"Would you like to come into my room for a few moments? I wish you would," said Mr. Tapster plaintively.
Unwillingly the doctor walked through into what was certainly a very pleasant, indeed a luxurious room. It was furnished in a more modern way than the other rooms at Wyndfell Hall. "There's a bath-room off this room. That's why Varick, who's a good-natured chap, gave it me. He knows I have a great fear of catching a chill," whispered Mr. Tapster.
"We'd better go down," said the doctor at last.
"D'you think so? But the noise has stopped, and, after all, it is no business of ours."
Dr. Panton did not tell the other what was really in his mind. This was that the man who had now become so curiously quiet might unwittingly have done a mischief to himself. All he said was: "I have a feeling that I ought to go down, at any rate."
The words had hardly left his lips before the noises began again, and, of course, from where the two men were now, they sounded far louder than they had done from the doctor's bed-room. Heavy furniture was undoubtedly being thrown about, and again there came those curious crashes, as if plates and dishes were being dashed against the wall and broken there in a thousand pieces.
"I say, this won't do!" Quickly he went towards the door, and as he reached the corridor he saw the swing door between the two parts of the house open, and Miss Farrow came through, looking her well-bred, composed self, and wearing, incidentally, a short, neat, becoming dressing-gown.
"I can't think what's happening!" she exclaimed. She looked from the one man to the other. "What can be happening downstairs?"
As Panton made no answer, Mr. Tapster replied for them both: "The doctor thinks one of the servants got drunk last night."
"Yes, that must be it, of course. I'll go down and see who it is," she said composedly.
But Dr. Panton broke in authoritatively: "No, indeed, Miss Farrow! If it's what I think it is, the fellow will probably be violent. You'd better let me go down alone and deal with him."
There had come again that extraordinary, sudden stillness.
"I think I'd rather come down with you," she said coolly.
All three started going down the narrow, steep wooden staircase which connected that portion of the upper floor with the many rambling offices of the old house.
Tapster and Blanche Farrow each held a candle, but Dr. Panton led the way; and soon they were treading the whitewashed passages, even their slippered feet making, in the now absolute stillness, what sounded like loud thuds on the stone floor.
"Listen!" said Blanche suddenly.
They all stood still, and there came a strange fluttering sound. It was as if a bird had got in through a window, and was trying to find a way out.
"D'you know the way to the kitchen? I think that the man must be in the kitchen, or probably the pantry," whispered the doctor to his hostess.
"I think it's this way."
Miss Farrow led them down a short passage to the right, and cautiously opened a door which led into the kitchen.
And then they all three uttered exclamations of amazement and of horror. Holding her candle high in her hand, their hostess was now lighting up a scene of extraordinary and of widespread disorder.
It was as if a tornado had whirled through the vast, low-ceilinged kitchen. Heavy tables lay on their sides and upside down, their legs in the air. Most of the crockery—fortunately, so Blanche said to herself, kitchen crockery—off the big dresser lay smashed in large and small pieces here, there, and everywhere. A large copper preserving-pan lay grotesquely sprawling on the well-scrubbed centre table, which was the one thing which had not been moved—probably because of its great weight. And yet—and yet it had been moved—for it was all askew! The man who did that, if, indeed, one man could alone have done all this mischief, must have been very, very strong—a Hercules!
The doctor took the candle from Miss Farrow's hand and walked in among the débris. "He must have gone through that door," he muttered.
Leaving her to be joined by the timorous James Tapster, he went boldly on across the big kitchen, and through a door which gave into what appeared to be a scullery. But here everything was in perfect order.
"Where can the man have gone?" he asked himself in astonishment.
Before him there rose a vision of the respectable old butler, and of the two tall, well-matched, but not physically strong-looking footmen. This must be the work of some man he had not yet seen? Of course there must be many men employed about such a place as was Wyndfell Hall.
He retraced his steps. "I think you and Mr. Tapster had better go upstairs again, and leave me to this," he said decidedly. "I'll have a thorough hunt through the place, and it'll probably take some time. Perhaps the man's taken refuge in the pantry. By the way, where do the servants sleep?"
"Oddly enough, they're none of them sleeping in the house," said Blanche quietly. "They're down at what are called 'the cottages.' You may have seen a row of pretty little buildings not very far from the gate giving on to the high road? Those cottages belong to Mr. Varick. They're quite comfortable, and we thought it best to put all the servants together there. When I say all the servants"—she corrected herself quickly—"the ladies' maids and Mr. Tapster's valet all sleep in the house. But Mr. Varick and I agreed that it would be better to put the whole of the temporary staff down together in the cottages."
"In that case I think it's very probable that the man, when he realized the mischief he'd done, bolted out of doors. However, I may as well have a look round."
"I'll come with you," said Blanche decidedly. She turned to Mr. Tapster: "I think you'd better go upstairs, and try and finish your night more comfortably."
She spoke quite graciously. Blanche was the one of the party who really tolerated Mr. Tapster—Blanche and Mr. Tapster's host.
"All right, I think I will. Though I feel rather a brute at leaving you to do the dirty work," he muttered.
He set off down the passage; and then, a few moments later, he had to call out and ask Miss Farrow to show him the way—he had lost himself!
It took a long time to search through the big commons of the ancient dwelling. There were innumerable little rooms now converted into store cupboards, larders, and so on. But everything was in perfect order—the kitchen alone being in that, as yet, inexplicable condition of wreckage.
But at last their barren quest was ended, and they came up the narrow staircase on much more cordial and kindly terms with one another than either would have thought possible some hours before. Then the doctor, with an "Allow me," pushed in front of Miss Farrow in order to open wide the heavy padded door. "I wonder that you heard anything through this!" he exclaimed.
She answered, "I was awakened by Mr. Tapster talking to you. Then, of course, I heard those appalling noises—for he had left the padded door open. I got up and, opening my own door, listened, after you had both gone through. When there came that final awful crash I felt I must go and see what had happened!"
CHAPTER XV
"Spirits? What absolute bosh! Miss Bubbles has been pulling your leg, Varick. And yet one would like to know who has been at the bottom of it all—whether, as you say the butler evidently believes, it is the chef himself, or, as the chef told you, one of the under-servants. In any case, I hope no one will suppose that that sort of thing can be owing to a supernatural agency."
"Yet John Wesley did so suppose when that sort of thing happened in the Wesley household," came in the quiet voice of Sir Lyon.
The three men—Dr. Panton, Sir Lyon, and Lionel Varick—were taking a walk along the high road. It was only eleven o'clock, but it seemed much later than that to two of them, for all the morning they had been busy. An hour of it had been taken up with a very close examination of the servants, especially of the respectable butler and of the French chef. They had both professed themselves, together and separately, as entirely unable to account for what had happened in the night. But still, it had been clear to the three who had taken part in the examination—Blanche Farrow, Varick, and the doctor—that the butler believed the chef to be responsible. "It's that Frenchman; they're tricky kind of fellows, ma'am," the man had said in a confidential aside. And, though the chef was less willing to speak, it was equally clear that he, on his side, put it down to one of the under-servants.
Then, quite at the end of the interrogation, they had all been startled by not only the chef, but the butler also, suddenly admitting that something very like what happened last night had happened twice before! But on the former occasions, though everything in the kitchen had been moved, including the heavy centre table, nothing had been broken. Still, it had taken the chef and his kitchen-maids two hours to put everything right. That had happened, so was now revealed, on the very morning after the party had just been gathered together. And then, again, four days ago.
Miss Burnaby, who had slept through everything, exclaimed, when the happenings of the night before were told her by Mr. Tapster, "The place seems bewitched! I shall never forget what happened yesterday afternoon to Helen." Turning to Dr. Panton, she continued: "My niece actually believes that she saw a ghost yesterday!"
Helen said sharply, "I thought nothing was to be said about that, Auntie."
Meanwhile the doctor stared at her, hardly believing the evidence of his own ears. "You thought you saw a ghost?" he said incredulously.
And Helen, turning away, answered: "I would so much rather not speak about it. I don't want even to think about it ever again!"
An hour later, as Panton and Sir Lyon stood outside the house waiting for Varick, the doctor said a word to the other man: "A most extraordinary thing happened here yesterday. Miss Brabazon apparently believes she saw a ghost."
"Did she tell you so herself?" asked Sir Lyon quietly.
"No, her aunt mentioned it, quite as if it was an ordinary incident. But I could see that it was true, for she was very much upset, and said she would rather not speak of it."
They had then been joined by their host, and when once through the gate, the doctor's first words had proved that his mind was still full of all that had happened in the night.
"Surely you don't put down what happened last night to a supernatural agency?"
He was addressing Sir Lyon, and though he spoke quite civilly, there was an under-current of sarcasm in his pleasant, confident voice.
"At one time I was very deeply interested in what I think one may call the whole range of psychic phenomena," replied Sir Lyon deliberately, "and I came to certain very definite conclusions—"
"And what," said Varick, with a touch of real eagerness, "were those conclusions?"
Till now he had not joined in the discussion.
"For one thing, I very soon made up my mind that a great deal of what occurs at every properly conducted séance can by no means be dismissed as 'all bosh,'" answered Sir Lyon.
"Do you consider that the séance which took place the first evening you were here was a properly conducted séance?" asked Varick slowly.
"Yes—as far as I was able to ascertain—it was. I felt convinced, for instance, that Laughing Water was a separate entity—that was why I asked her to pass me by. To me there is something indecent about an open séance. I have always felt that very strongly; and what happened that evening in the case of Mr. Burnaby of course confirmed my feeling."
Varick uttered under his breath an exclamation of incredulous amazement. "D'you mean that you believe there was a spirit present? It would take some time to do it, but I think I could prove that it was what I took it to be—thought-reading of quite an exceptional quality, joined to a clever piece of acting."
"You'd find it more difficult than you think to prove that," said Sir Lyon quietly. "I've been to too many séances to be able to accept that point of view. I feel sure that Miss Bubbles was what they call 'controlled' by a separate entity calling herself 'Laughing Water.' But if you ask me what sort of entity, then I cannot reply."
Panton turned on him: "Then you're a spiritualist?" he exclaimed. "Of course I was quite unaware of that fact when I spoke just now."
There was an underlying touch of scorn in his voice.
"No, I do not call myself a spiritualist. But still—yes, I accept the term, if by it you mean that I believe there is no natural explanation for certain of the phenomena we have seen, or heard of, in the last twenty-four hours."
He purposely did not allude to what had happened between tea and dinner in the hall last evening, but he felt certain that it was very present to Varick himself.
"I spoke just now of the curious occurrences in the Wesley household," he observed, turning to the young doctor. "That, of course, is the most famous case on record of the sort of thing which took place in the kitchen last night."
"But why," cried Varick, with a touch of excitement, "why should all these things happen just now at Wyndfell Hall? I know, of course, the story of the haunted room. But most old houses have one respectable ghost attached to them. I don't mind the ghost Pegler fancies she saw—but, good heavens, the place now seems full of tricksy spirits! Still, it's an odd fact that none of the servants, with the one exception of Miss Farrow's maid, have seen anything out of the way."
Here the doctor broke in: "That's easily accounted for!" he exclaimed. "I understand from Miss Farrow that her maid—a remarkable person without doubt—has held her tongue ever since she saw, or thought she saw, a ghost. But if the other servants knew everything we know, there'd be no holding them—there'd be no servants!"
"Of course, I admit that in the great majority of instances those who think they see what's commonly called a ghost probably see no ghost at all," said Sir Lyon thoughtfully. "They've heard that a ghost is there, and therefore they think they see it."
"Then," said Varick, turning on him, "you don't believe Pegler did see the ghost of Dame Grizel Fauncey?"
Sir Lyon smiled. "I daresay you'll think me very illogical, but in this one case I think Pegler did see what is commonly called a ghost. And I'll tell you why I think so."
Both men turned and looked at him fixedly, both in their several ways being much surprised by his words.
"I have discovered," said Sir Lyon in a rather singular tone, "that this woman Pegler saw nothing for the first few days she occupied the haunted room."
Panton stared at the speaker with an astonished expression. "What exactly do you mean to imply?" he asked.
Sir Lyon hesitated. He was, in some of his ways, very old-fashioned. It was not pleasant to him to bring a lady's name into a discussion. And yet he felt impelled to go on, for what had happened in the hall yesterday afternoon had moved and interested him as he had not thought to be interested and moved again.
"The woman saw nothing," he said, slowly and impressively, "till Miss Dunster arrived at Wyndfell Hall. I take that to mean that Miss Dunster is a very strong medium."
"A medium?" repeated the doctor scoffingly. "Who says medium surely says charlatan, Sir Lyon—not to say something worse than charlatan!"
Sir Lyon looked thoughtfully at the younger man. "I admit that often mediums are charlatans—or rather, they begin by being mediums pure and simple, and they end by being mediums qua charlatans. The temptations which lie in their way are terrible, especially if, as in the majority of cases, they make a living by their—their"—he hesitated—"their extraordinary, as yet misunderstood, and generally mishandled gift."
"Do you mean," asked Varick gravely, "that you believe Bubbles possesses the power of raising the dead?"
Sir Lyon did not answer at once, but at last he said firmly: "Either the dead, or some class of intermediate spirits who personate the human dead. Yes, Varick, that is exactly what I do mean."
All three men stopped in their now slow pacing. Dr. Panton felt too much surprised to speak.
Sir Lyon went on: "I think that Miss Bubbles' arrival at Wyndfell Hall made visible, and is still making visible, much that would otherwise remain unseen."
As he caught the look of incredulous amazement on the doctor's face, he repeated very deliberately: "That is my considered opinion. As I said just now, I have had a very considerable experience of psychic phenomena, and I realized, during that séance which was held the first evening I spent here, that this young lady possessed psychic gifts of a very extraordinary nature. There is no doubt at all, in my mind, that were she a professional medium, her fame would by now be world-wide."
Perhaps it was the derisive, incredulous look on the young medical man's face which stung him into adding: "If I understand rightly"—he turned to Varick—"something very like what I should call an impromptu materialization took place in the hall yesterday—is that not so?"
There was a pause. Twice Varick cleared his throat. Who had broken faith and told Sir Lyon what had happened? He supposed it to have been Miss Burnaby. "Though I was present," he said at last, "I, myself, saw absolutely nothing."
"I, too, have heard something of it!" exclaimed Dr. Panton, looking from one of his two now moved, embarrassed, and excited companions to the other. "And you were actually present when it happened, Varick?"
As the other remained silent, he turned to Sir Lyon. "What was it exactly Miss Brabazon thought she saw?"
Sir Lyon, after a glance at Varick's pale, set face, was sorry that he had mentioned the curious, painful occurrence; and, though he was a truthful man, he now told a deliberate lie. "I don't know what the apparition purported to be," he observed. And he saw, even as he was uttering the lying words, a look of intense relief come over Varick's face. "But to my mind Miss Brabazon evidently saw the rare phenomenon known as a materialization. Miss Bubbles was lying asleep in the confessional which is almost exactly opposite the door through which one enters the hall from the house side, thus the necessary conditions were present."
"I wish I had been present!" exclaimed the doctor. "Either I should have seen nothing, or, if I had seen anything, I should have managed to convince myself that what I saw was flesh and blood."
As neither of his two companions said anything in answer to that observation, Panton went on, speaking with more hesitation, but also with more seriousness than he had yet shown: "Do I understand you to mean, Sir Lyon, that you credit our young fellow-guest with supernatural gifts denied to the common run of mortals?"
"I should not put it quite that way," answered Sir Lyon. "But yes, I suppose I must admit that I do credit Miss Bubbles with powers which no one as yet has been able to analyze or explain—though a great many more intelligent people than has ever been the case before, are trying to find a natural explanation."
"If that is so," asked the doctor, "why have you yourself given up such an extraordinarily important and valuable investigation?"
"Because," said Sir Lyon, "I consider my own personal investigations yielded a definite result."
"And that result—?"
"—was that what I prefer to call by the old term of occultism makes for evil rather than for good. Also, I became convinced that the practice of these arts has been, so to speak, put 'out of bounds'—I can think of no better expression—by whatever Power it be that rules our strange world."
He spoke earnestly and slowly, choosing his words with care.
"If your theory contains a true answer to the investigations which are now taking place," exclaimed the doctor, "there was a great deal to be said for those mediaeval folk who burnt sorcerers and witches! I suppose you would admit that they were right in their belief that by so doing they were getting rid of very dangerous, as well as unpleasant, elements from out of their midst?"
The speaker looked hard at Sir Lyon. Nothing, as he told himself, with some excitement, had ever astonished him, or taken him so aback, as was now doing this conversation with an intelligent, cultivated man who seemed to have broad and sane views on most things, but who was evidently as mad as a hatter on this one subject.
And then, before Sir Lyon had perchance made up his mind what to answer exactly, Varick's voice broke in: "Yes," he observed, smiling a little grimly, "that's the logical conclusion of your view, Dilsford. You can't get out of it! If a human being really possesses such dangerous powers, the sooner that human being is put out of the way the better."
"No, no! I don't agree!" Sir Lyon spoke with more energy than he had yet displayed. "Everything points to the fact that those unfortunate people—I mean the witches and sorcerers of the Middle Ages—could have been, and sometimes were, exorcised."
"Exorcised?" repeated Panton. He had never heard the word "exorcised" uttered aloud before, though he had, of course, come across it in books. "Do you mean driving out the devil by means of a religious ceremony?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes," said Sir Lyon, "I do exactly mean that. As you are probably aware, there is a form of exorcism still in common use. And if I were our host here, I should have Wyndfell Hall exorcised, preferably by a Roman Catholic priest, as soon as Miss Bubbles is safely off the premises."
The doctor again looked sharply at the speaker—but no, Sir Lyon evidently meant what he said; and even Varick seemed to be taking the suggestion seriously; for "That's not a bad idea," he muttered.
The three men walked on in silence for a few moments.
"It would be interesting to know," observed Sir Lyon suddenly, "what Miss Farrow conceives to be the truth as to her niece's peculiar gifts. I fancy, from something she told me the other day, that she hasn't the slightest belief in psychic phenomena, I wonder if she feels the same after what happened yesterday and last night?"
"I can tell you exactly what Miss Farrow thinks," interposed Varick. "I had a word or two with her about it all this morning, after we'd examined the servants in the white parlour."
"What does she think," asked Sir Lyon. He had always been interested in Blanche Farrow, and, in a way, he was fond of her.
"She thinks," said Varick, a little hesitatingly, "that Bubbles, in addition to her extraordinary thought-reading gift, has inherited from her Indian ancestress a power of collectively hypnotizing an audience—of making people see things that she wants them to see. That's rather awkwardly expressed, but it's the best I can do."
"I quite understand," broke in the doctor. "You mean the sort of power which certain Indian fakirs undoubtedly possess?"
"Yes," said Varick. "And, as I said just now Bubbles has got Indian blood in her veins. One of her ancestors actually did marry an Indian lady of high degree, and Bubbles is descended from one of the children of that marriage."
"I think that may account for the potency of her gift," said Sir Lyon thoughtfully, "though, of course, many Europeans have had, and now possess, these curious powers."
"But though, in a sense, spiritualism is no new thing, even those who believe in it admit that it has never led to anything," observed Varick musingly.
"Very rarely, I admit; but still, sometimes even a dream has contained a revelation of sorts. Thus it is on positive record that a dream revealed the truth as to what was called the Murder of the Red Barn."
"Can I take it that you do believe the dead return?" asked the doctor abruptly.
"I think," said Sir Lyon deliberately, "that certain of the dead desire ardently to return—not always from the best motives. As to whether they themselves are permitted to come back, or whether they are able to use other entities to carry out that purpose, I am still in doubt."
As he spoke he saw a curious change come over Lionel Varick's face. The rather set smile with which he had been listening to the discussion gave way to an odd expression of acute unease. But at this particular moment it was not Varick with whom Sir Lyon was concerned, but with the frank, eager, pleasant-faced, young doctor, in whose estimation, as he realized, he was falling further and further down with every word he uttered.
"To tell you the honest truth," he went on, "even in the days when I did little else than attend séances and have sittings with noted mediums, not only in this country but also on the Continent, I could never quite make up my mind whether the spirit with whom I was in communication was really the being he or she purported to be! There was a time," he spoke with some emotion, "when I would have given anything—certainly most willingly twenty years of my life—to be so absolutely convinced. But there it is," he sighed, and was himself surprised at the feeling of depression which came over him. "Even the most earnest investigation of the kind resolves itself always, after a while, into a kind of will-o'-the-wisp that leads no-whither."
"Not always," exclaimed Panton sharply. "Last year I had a patient who'd become insane owing to what I suppose you would call an investigation into psychic phenomena."
"And yet," said Sir Lyon rather sternly, "to your mind, Dr. Panton, a pursuit which you admit was capable of leading one unfortunate human being into insanity, is 'all bosh'!"
"Of course I could only go by what the poor lady's friends told me," Panton said uncomfortably. "She was not under my care long. But I need hardly tell you, Sir Lyon, that any obsession that takes hold of a human being may in time lead to insanity."
"I suppose that, according to your theory"—it was now Varick who was speaking, speaking rather lightly, twirling his stick about as he spoke—"I suppose," he repeated, "that, according to your theory, if Bubbles Dunster left Wyndfell Hall to-morrow, the spirits would cease from troubling, and we should be at rest?"
"No, that doesn't exactly follow. I once heard of a case which interested me very much. A house which had never been haunted before—as far as anyone knew—became so, following on the sojourn there of a professional medium, and it remained haunted for four years. Then, suddenly, all the psychic phenomena stopped."
"What a strange thing," said Panton, with an under-current of irony in his voice; "but doubtless the owner had had the house exorcised, as you call it?"
"No," said Sir Lyon thoughtfully. "No, the house had not been exorcised. As a matter of fact, the medium was killed in a railway accident."
They walked on, and fell to talking of indifferent things. But though Sir Lyon had at one time held many such conversations with sceptical or interested persons, this particular conversation will never be forgotten by him, owing to a strange occurrence which happened in the afternoon of that same day. But for two fortunate facts—the bravery of young Donnington, and the presence of a clever medical man—the pleasant comedy in which they were each and all playing an attractive part would have been transformed into a peculiarly painful tragedy.