Short Fiction - M. R. James (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📗

useless at first. When the boy got his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel’s legs. He was at last detached, but continued to howl.

“What in the world is the matter with you? What have you been up to? What have you seen?” said the two men.

“Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,” wailed the boy, “and I don’t like it.”

“What window?” said the irritated Colonel. “Come, pull yourself together, my boy.”

“The front winder it was, at the ’otel,” said the boy.

At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the Colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer for it in some way. And by a series of questions he made out this story: The boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the Globe with some others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he was just going, when he happened to look up at the front winder and see it a-wiving at him. It seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white as far as he knew⁠—couldn’t see its face; but it wived at him, and it warn’t a right thing⁠—not to say not a right person. Was there a light in the room? No, he didn’t think to look if there was a light. Which was the window? Was it the top one or the second one? The seckind one it was⁠—the big winder what got two little uns at the sides.

“Very well, my boy,” said the Colonel, after a few more questions. “You run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a stone⁠—well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter, or to Mr. Simpson, the landlord, and⁠—yes⁠—and say that I advised you to do so.”

The boy’s face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood of Mr. Simpson’s lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:

“And here’s a sixpence⁠—no, I see it’s a shilling⁠—and you be off home, and don’t think any more about it.”

The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins went round to the front of the Globe and reconnoitred. There was only one window answering to the description they had been hearing.

“Well, that’s curious,” said Parkins; “it’s evidently my window the lad was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my room.”

They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door. Then he stopped and felt in his pockets.

“This is more serious than I thought,” was his next remark. “I remember now that before I started this morning I locked the door. It is locked now, and, what is more, here is the key.” And he held it up. “Now,” he went on, “if the servants are in the habit of going into one’s room during the day when one is away, I can only say that⁠—well, that I don’t approve of it at all.” Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting candles. “No,” he said, “nothing seems disturbed.”

“Except your bed,” put in the Colonel.

“Excuse me, that isn’t my bed,” said Parkins. “I don’t use that one. But it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.”

It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered.

“That must be it,” he said at last: “I disordered the clothes last night in unpacking, and they haven’t made it since. Perhaps they came in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they were called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must be it.”

“Well, ring and ask,” said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as practical.

The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she had made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and hadn’t been there since. No, she hadn’t no other key. Mr. Simpson he kep’ the keys; he’d be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been up.

This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had been played with them. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson furthermore agreed that neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was, detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had been imposing on the Colonel.

The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout the evening. When he bade goodnight to Parkins, he murmured in a gruff undertone:

“You know where I am if you want me during the night.”

“Why, yes, thank you, Colonel Wilson, I think I do; but there isn’t much prospect of my disturbing you, I hope. By the way,” he added, “did I show you that old whistle I spoke of? I think not. Well, here it is.”

The Colonel turned it over gingerly in the light of the candle.

“Can you make anything of the inscription?” asked Parkins, as he took it back.

“No, not in this light. What do you mean to do with it?”

“Oh, well, when I get back to Cambridge I shall submit it