The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

tell me how you got in here.”

 

He laughed.

 

“You’re a very shrewd one, Mr. Glenarm. I came in

by the kitchen window, if you must know. I got in before

your solemn jack-of-all-trades locked up, and I

walked down to the end of the passage there”—he indicated

the direction with a slight jerk of his head—

“and slept until it was time to go to work. You can

see how easy it was!”

 

I laughed now at the sheer assurance of the fellow.

 

“If you can’t lie better than that you needn’t try

again. Face about now, and march!”

 

I put new energy into my tone, and he turned and

walked before me down the corridor in the direction

from which he had come. We were, I dare say, a pretty

pair—he tramping doggedly before me, I following at

his heels with his lantern and my pistol. The situation

had played prettily into my hands, and I had every intention

of wresting from him the reason for his interest

in Glenarm House and my affairs.

 

“Not so fast,” I admonished sharply.

 

“Excuse me,” he replied mockingly.

 

He was no common rogue; I felt the quality in him

with a certain admiration for his scoundrelly talents—

a fellow, I reflected, who was best studied at the point

of a pistol.

 

I continued at his heels, and poked the muzzle of the

revolver against his back from time to time to keep him

assured of my presence—a device that I was to regret a

second later.

 

We were about ten yards from the end of the corridor

when he flung himself backward upon me, threw his

arms over his head and seized me about the neck, turning

himself lithely until his fingers clasped my throat.

 

I fired blindly once, and felt the smoke of the revolver

hot in my own nostrils. The lantern fell from

my hand, and one or the other of us smashed it with our

feet.

 

A wrestling match in that dark hole was not to my

liking. I still held on to the revolver, waiting for a

chance to use it, and meanwhile he tried to throw me,

forcing me back against one side and then the other of

the passage.

 

With a quick rush he flung me away, and in the same

second I fired. The roar of the shot in the narrow corridor

seemed interminable. I flung myself on the floor,

expecting a return shot, and quickly enough a flash broke

upon the darkness dead ahead, and I rose to my feet,

fired again and leaped to the opposite side of the corridor

and crouched there. We had adopted the same tactics,

firing and dodging to avoid the target made by the flash

of our pistols, and watching and listening after the roar

of the explosions. It was a very pretty game, but destined

not to last long. He was slowly retreating toward

the end of the passage, where there was, I remembered,

a dead wall. His only chance was to crawl through an

area window I knew to be there, and this would, I felt

sure, give him into my hands.

 

After five shots apiece there was a truce. The pungent

smoke of the powder caused me to cough, and he

laughed.

 

“Have you swallowed a bullet, Mr. Glenarm?” he

called.

 

I could hear his feet scraping on the cement floor;

he was moving away from me, doubtless intending to

fire when he reached the area window and escape before

I could reach him. I crept warily after him, ready to

fire on the instant, but not wishing to throw away my

last cartridge. That I resolved to keep for close quarters

at the window.

 

He was now very near the end of the corridor; I

heard his feet strike some boards that I remembered

lay on the floor there, and I was nerved for a shot and

a hand-to-hand struggle, if it came to that.

 

I was sure that he sought the window; I heard his

hands on the wall as he felt for it. Then a breath of

cold air swept the passage, and I knew he must be

drawing himself up to the opening. I fired and dropped

to the floor. With the roar of the explosion I heard

him yell, but the expected return shot did not follow.

 

The pounding of my heart seemed to mark the passing

of hours. I feared that my foe was playing some

trick, creeping toward me, perhaps, to fire at close

range, or to grapple with me in the dark. The cold air

still whistled into the corridor, and I began to feel the

chill of it. Being fired upon is disagreeable enough,

but waiting in the dark for the shot is worse.

 

I rose and walked toward the end of the passage.

 

Then his revolver flashed and roared directly ahead,

the flame of it so near that it blinded me. I fell forward

confused and stunned, but shook myself together

in a moment and got upon my feet. The draft of air

no longer blew into the passage. Morgan had taken

himself off through the window and closed it after him.

I made sure of this by going to the window and feeling

of it with my hands.

 

I went back and groped about for my candle, which

I found without difficulty and lighted. I then returned

to the window to examine the catch. To my utter astonishment

it was fastened with staples, driven deep

into the sash, in such way that it could not possibly

have been opened without the aid of tools. I tried it

at every point. Not only was it securely fastened, but

it could not possibly be opened without an expenditure

of time and labor.

 

There was no doubt whatever that Morgan knew

more about Glenarm House than I did. It was possible,

but not likely, that he had crept past me in the corridor

and gone out through the house, or by some other

cellar window. My eyes were smarting from the smoke

of the last shot, and my cheek stung where the burnt

powder had struck my face. I was alive, but in my vexation

and perplexity not, I fear, grateful for my safety.

It was, however, some consolation to feel sure I had

winged the enemy.

 

I gathered up the fragments of Morgan’s lantern and

went back to the library. The lights in half the candlesticks

had sputtered out. I extinguished the remainder

and started to my room.

 

Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread

as of some one following me—not on the great staircase,

nor in any place I could identify—yet unmistakably

on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My

nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the

ghost-like tread in the hall angered me—Morgan, or his

ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my

room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates’

room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute

any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he

was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand

that boded no good to me.

 

It was now past two o’clock and he should have been

asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room

and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest

idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma,

Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at

a table, the light of several candles falling on a book

over which he was bent with that maddening gravity

he had never yet in my presence thrown off.

 

He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head

slightly.

 

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

 

“Yes, the devil!” I roared at him, astonished at

finding him—sorry, I must say, that he was there. The

stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew

perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in

upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered

for words to explain myself.

 

“I thought I heard some one in the house. I don’t

want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?”

 

“Certainly not, sir,” he replied in a grieved tone.

 

I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a

volume of Shakespeare’s comedies, open at the first

scene of the last act of The Winter’s Tale.

 

“Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say,” he

remarked. “It was one of my late master’s favorites.”

 

“Go to the devil!” I bawled at him, and went down

to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.