The Filigree Ball - Anna Katharine Green (historical books to read txt) 📗

which, hung with vines, surrounded and nearly hid from sight the little cottage he had mentioned as the only house on the block with the exception of the great Moore place; in other words, his own home.

As I came abreast of him I heard him muttering, not to his dog as was his custom, but to himself. In fact, the dog was not to be seen, and this desertion on the part of his constant companion seemed to add to his disturbance and affect him beyond all reason. I could distinguish these words amongst the many he directed toward the unseen animal:

“You’re a knowing one, too knowing! You see that loosened shutter over the way as plainly as I do; but you’re a coward to slink away from it. I don’t. I face the thing, and what’s more, I’ll show you yet what I think of a dog that can’t stand his ground and help his old master out with some show of courage. Creaks, does it? Well, let it creak! I don’t mind its creaking, glad as I should be to know whose hand - Halloo! You’ve come, have you?” This to me. I had just stepped up to him.

“Yes, I’ve come. Now what is the matter with the Moore house?”

He must have expected the question, yet his answer was a long time coming. His voice, too, sounded strained, and was pitched quite too high to be natural. But he evidently did not expect me to show surprise at his manner.

“Look at that window over there!” he cried at last. “That one with the slightly open shutter! Watch and you will see that shutter move. There! it creaked; didn’t you hear it?”

A growl - it was more like a moan - came from the porch behind us. Instantly the old gentleman turned and with a gesture as fierce as it was instinctive, shouted out:

“Be still there! If you haven’t the courage to face a blowing shutter, keep your jaws shut and don’t let every fellow who happens along know what a fool you are. I declare,” he maundered on, half to himself and half to me, “that dog is getting old. He can’t be trusted any more. He forsakes his master just when -” The rest was lost in his throat which rattled with something more than impatient anger.

Meanwhile I had been attentively scrutinizing the house thus pointedly brought to my notice.

I had seen it many times before, but, as it happened, had never stopped to look at it when the huge trees surrounding it were shrouded in darkness. The black hollow of its disused portal looked out from shadows which acquired some of their somberness from the tragic memories connected with its empty void.

Its aspect was scarcely reassuring. Not that superstition lent its terrors to the lonely scene, but that through the blank panes of the window, alternately appearing and disappearing from view as the shutter pointed out by Uncle David blew to and fro in the wind, I saw, or was persuaded that I saw, a beam of light which argued an unknown presence within walls which had so lately been declared unfit for any man’s habitation.

“You are right,” I now remarked to the uneasy figure at my side. “Some one is prowling through the house yonder. Can it possibly be Mrs. Jeffrey or her husband?”

“At night and with no gas in the house? Hardly.”

The words were natural, but the voice was not. Neither was his manner quite suited to the occasion. Giving him another sly glance, and marking how uneasily he edged away from me in the darkness, I cried out more cheerily than he possibly expected:

“I will summon another officer and we three will just slip across and investigate.”

“Not I!” was his violent rejoinder, as he swung open a gate concealed in the vines behind him. “The Jeffreys would resent my intrusion if they ever happened to hear of it.”

“Indeed!” I laughed, sounding my whistle; then, soberly enough, for I was more than a little struck by the oddity of his behavior and thought him as well worth investigation as the house in which he showed such an interest: “You shouldn’t let that count. Come and see what’s up in the house you are so ready to call yours.”

But he only drew farther into the shade.

“I have no business over there,” he objected. “Veronica and I have never been on good terms. I was not even invited to her wedding though I live within a stone’s throw of the door. No; I have done my duty in calling attention to that light, and whether it’s the bull’s-eye of a burglar - perhaps you don’t know that there are rare treasures on the book shelves of the great library - or whether it is the fantastic illumination which frightens fool-folks and some fool-dogs, I’m done with it and done with you, too, for tonight.”

As he said this, he mounted to his door and disappeared under the vines, hanging like a shroud over the front of the house. In another moment the rich peal of an organ sounded from within, followed by the prolonged howling of Rudge, who, either from a too keen appreciation of his master’s music or in utter disapproval of it, - no one, I believe, has ever been able to make out which, - was accustomed to add this undesirable accompaniment to every strain from the old man’s hand. The playing did not cease because of these outrageous discords. On the contrary, it increased in force and volume, causing Rudge’s expression of pain or pleasure to increase also. The result can be imagined. As I listened to the intolerable howls of the dog cutting clean through the exquisite harmonies of his master, I wondered if the shadows cast by the frowning structure of the great Moore house were alone to blame for Uncle David’s lack of neighbors.

Meantime, Hibbard, who was the first to hear my signal, came running down the block. As he joined me, the light, or what we chose to call a light, appeared again in the window toward which my attention had been directed.

“Some one’s in the Moore house!” I declared, in as matter of-fact tones as I could command.

Hibbard is a big fellow, the biggest fellow on the force, and so far as my own experience with him had gone, as stolid and imperturbable as the best of us. But after a quick glance at the towering walls of the lonely building, he showed decided embarrassment and seemed in no haste to cross the street.

With difficulty I concealed my disgust.

“Come,” I cried, stepping down from the curb, “let’s go over and investigate. The property is valuable, the furnishings handsome, and there is no end of costly books on the library shelves. You have matches and a revolver?”

He nodded, quietly showing me first the one, then the other; then with a sheepish air which he endeavored to carry of with a laugh, he cried:

“Have you use for ‘em? If so, I’m quite willing, to part with ‘em for a half-hour.”

I was more than amazed at this evidence of weakness in one I had always considered as tough and impenetrable as flint rock. Thrusting back the hand with which he had half drawn into view the weapon I had mentioned, I put on my sternest sir and led the way across the street. As I did so, tossed back the words:

“We may come upon a gang. You do not wish me to face some half-dozen men alone?”

“You won’t find any half-dozen men there,” was his muttered reply. Nevertheless he followed me, though with less spirit than I liked, considering that my own manner was in a measure assumed and that I was not without sympathy - well, let me, say, for a dog who preferred howling a dismal accompaniment to his master’s music, to keeping open watch over a neighborhood dominated by the unhallowed structure I now propose to enter.

The house is too well known for me to attempt a minute description of it. The illustrations which have appeared in all the papers have already acquainted the general public with its simple facade and rows upon rows of shuttered windows. Even the great square porch with its bench for negro attendants has been photographed for the million. Those who have seen the picture in which the wedding-guests are shown flying from its yawning doorway, will not be especially interested in the quiet, almost solemn aspect it presented as I passed up the low steps and laid my hand upon the knob of the old-fashioned front door.

Not that I expected to win an entrance thereby, but because it is my nature to approach everything in a common-sense way. Conceive then my astonishment when at the first touch the door yielded. It was not even latched.

“So! so!” thought I. “This is no fool’s job; some one is in the house.”

I had provided myself with an ordinary pocket-lantern, and, when I had convinced Hibbard that I fully meant to enter the house and discover for myself who had taken advantage of the popular prejudice against it to make a secret refuge or rendezvous of its decayed old rooms, I took out this lantern and held it in readiness.

“We may strike a hornets’ nest,” I explained to Hibbard, whose feet seemed very heavy even for a man of his size. “But I’m going in and so are you. Only, let me suggest that we first take off our shoes. We can hide them in these bushes.”

“I always catch cold when I walk barefooted,” mumbled my brave companion; but receiving no reply he drew off his shoes and dropped them beside mine in the cluster of stark bushes which figure so prominently in the illustrations that I have just mentioned. Then he took out his revolver, and cocking it, stood waiting, while I gave a cautious push to the door.

Darkness! silence!

Rather had I confronted a light and heard some noise, even if it had been the ominous click to which eve are so well accustomed. Hibbard seemed to share my feelings, though from an entirely different cause.

“Pistols and lanterns are no good here,” he grumbled. “What we want at this blessed minute is a priest with a sprinkling of holy water; and I for one -”

He was actually sliding off.

With a smothered oath I drew him back.

“See here!” I cried, “you’re not a babe in arms. Come on or - Well, what now?”

He had clenched my arm and was pointing to the door which was slowly swaying to behind us.

“Notice that,” he whispered. “No key in the lock! Men use keys but -”

My patience could stand no more. With a shake I rid myself of his clutch, muttering:

“There, go! You’re too much of a fool for me. I’m in for it alone.” And in proof of my determination, I turned the slide of the lantern and flashed the light through the house.

The effect was ghostly; but while the fellow at my side breathed hard he did not take advantage of my words to make his escape, as I half expected him to. Perhaps, like myself, he was fascinated by the dreary spectacle of long shadowy walls and an equally shadowy staircase emerging from a darkness which a minute before had seemed impenetrable. Perhaps he was simply ashamed. At all events he stood his ground, scrutinizing with rolling eyes that portion of the hall where two columns, with gilded Corinthian capitals, marked the door of the room which no man entered without purpose or passed without dread. Doubtless he was thinking of that which had so frequently been carried out between those columns. I know that I was; and when, in