The Siege of the Seven Suitors Part 21

I was moved to pity by his humility. A man who, finding himself reduced to larceny by hunger, and being unable to win the woman of his choice, meekly yields to the inevitable, is not a fair mark for contumely. He stepped down before me into the dark stairway, and I closed the door after me and followed him.

I found my way to the pie pantry without difficulty, returned the gooseberry-pie to its proper shelf, chose an apple-pie and gave it, with a five-dollar note, to Lord Arrowood.

At the bottom of the ladder he pressed my hand feelingly, and expressed his grat.i.tude in terms that would have touched a harder heart than mine.

Then having closed the coal-hole and hidden the ladder under a pile of wood, I resumed my pursuit of the ghost.

XIV

LADY'S SLIPPER

I lighted my way with a candle through the lost chambers of the old house, up the hidden stairway, and out into the fourth-floor hall again. The old stair, I found on closer observation, reached only from the second to the fourth floor, and below this had been pieced with lumber carefully preserved from the earlier house. There was nothing so strange after all about the hidden stairway, though I was convinced that this had been no idea of Pepperton's, but that he had merely obeyed the orders of his eccentric client, the umbrella and dyspepsia-cure millionaire.

I had no sooner let myself through the secret door into the upper hall than I was aware of a disturbance in the library below. I heard exclamations from the men, and as I ran down toward the third floor Miss Octavia's voice rose above the tumult.

"We must have patience, gentlemen. Chimneys are subject to moods just like human beings; and we are fortunate in having in the house a gentleman who is an expert in such matters. I do not doubt that Mr.

Ames even now has his hand upon the chimney's pulse, and that he will soon solve this perplexing problem."

"If you wait for that man to mend your chimney you will wait until doomsday."

So spake John Stewart d.i.c.k, taking his vengeance of me with my client and hostess. I might have forgiven him; but I could not forgive Hartley Wiggins.

"He does n't know any more about chimneys than the man in the moon," my old friend was saying, between coughs.

And then quite unmistakably I smelt smoke, and bending further over the rail and peering down the stair-well I saw smoke pouring from the library into the hall. It seemed to be in greater volume to-night than at previous manifestations. A gray-blue cloud was filling the lower hall and rising toward me. I ran quickly to the third floor, to the chamber whose fireplace was served by the library chimney. The lights in the third-floor hall winked out as I opened the door,--I heard a step behind me somewhere; but I did not trouble about this. The switch inside the unused guest-chamber responded readily to my touch, and on kneeling by the hearth I found it cold, as I had expected. There was absolutely no way of choking the library flue at this point, for, as I had established earlier, all the fireplaces in this chimney had their independent flues. Pepperton would never have built them otherwise, and no one but a skilled mason could have tapped the library flue here or higher up, and the work could not have been done without much noise and labor.

The hall outside was still dark, and I did not try the switch. The pursuit was better carried on in darkness, and I had by this time become accustomed to rapid locomotion through unlighted pa.s.sages. I leaned over the stair-well and heard exclamations of surprise at the sudden cessation of the smoke, which had evidently abated as abruptly as it had begun. The windows and doors had been opened, and the company had returned to the library.

"Quite extraordinary. Really quite remarkable!" they were saying below. I heard Cecilia's light laughter as the odd ways of the chimney were discussed. And as I stood thus peering down and listening, the Swedish maid's blonde head appeared below me, bending over the well-rail on the second floor. She too was taking note of affairs in the library, and as I watched her she lifted her head and her eyes met mine. Then, while we still stared at each other, the second-floor lights went out with familiar abruptness, and as I craned my neck to peer into the blackness above me I experienced once more that ghostly pa.s.sing as of some light, unearthly thing across my face. I reached for it wildly with my hands, but it seemed to be caught away from me; and then as I fought the air madly, it brushed my cheek again. I have no words to describe the strange effect of that touch. I felt my scalp creep and cold chills ran down my spine. It seemingly came from above, and it was not like a hand, unless a hand of wonderful lightness!

Certainly no human arm could reach down the stair-well to where I stood. And in that touch to-night there was something akin to a gentle, lingering caress as it swept slowly across my face and eyes.

I waited for its recurrence a moment, but it came no more. Then on a sudden prompting I stole swiftly to the fourth floor, lighted my candle, and gazed about. I thought it well to let the electric light alone, for my ghost had once too often plunged me into darkness at critical moments, and a candle in my hands was not subject to his trickery.

The hall was perfectly quiet. The door leading down the hidden stair was invisible, and I had not yet learned how it might be opened from the hall, though Mr. Ba.s.sford Hollister had undoubtedly left the house by this means after my interview with him on the roof. And reminded of the roof, I opened the trunk-room door and peered in. The candle-light slowly crept into its dark corners, and looking up I marked the presence of the trap-door secure in the opening. As I stood on the threshold of the trunk-piled room, my hand on the k.n.o.b and the candle thrust well before me, I heard a slight furtive movement to my left and behind the door. I was quite satisfied now that I was about to solve some of the mysteries of the night, and to make sure I was un.o.bserved--for having gone so far alone I wanted no partners in my investigations--I listened to the murmur of talk below for a moment, then cautiously advanced my candle further into the room. I was not yet so valiant, even after all my night-prowlings and explorations of hidden chambers, but that I thrust the light in well ahead of me and bent my wrist so that the candle's rays might dispel the last shadow that lurked behind the door before I suffered my eyes to look upon the goblin. I took one step and then cautiously another, until the whole of the trunk-room was well within range of my vision.

And there, seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!]

As I recall it she was very much at her ease. She sat on one foot and the other beat the trunk lightly. She was bareheaded, and the candle-light was making acquaintance with the gold in her hair. She wore her white sweater, as on that day in the orchard; and with much gravity, as our eyes met, she thrust a hand into its pocket and drew out a cracker. I was not half so surprised at finding her there as I was at her manner now that she was caught. She seemed neither distressed, astonished nor afraid.

"Well, Miss Hezekiah," I said, "I half suspected you all along."

"Wise Chimney-Man! You were a little slow about it though."

"I was indeed. You gave me a run for my money."

She finished her cracker at the third bite, slapped her hands together to free them of possible crumbs, and was about to speak, when she jumped lightly from the trunk, bent her head toward the door, and then stepped back again and faced me imperturbably.

"And now that you've found me, Mr. Chimney-Man, the joke's on you after all."

She laid her hand on the door and swung it nearly shut. I had heard what she had heard: Miss Octavia was coming upstairs! She had exchanged a few words with the Swedish maid on the second-floor landing, and Hezekiah's quick ear had heard her. But Hezekiah's equanimity was disconcerting: even with her aunt close at hand she showed not the slightest alarm. She resumed her seat on the trunk, and her heel thumped it tranquilly.

"The joke's on you, Mr. Chimney-Man, because now that you 've caught me playing tricks you've got to get me out of trouble."

"What if I don't?"

"Oh, nothing," she answered indifferently, looking me squarely in the eye.

"But your aunt would make no end of a row; and you would cause your sister to lose out with Miss Octavia. As I understand it, you 're pledged to keep off the reservation. It was part of the family agreement."

"But I'm here, Chimney-pot, so what are you going to do about it?"

"Mr. Ames! If you are ghost-hunting in this part of the house"--

It was Miss Octavia's voice. She was seeking me, and would no doubt find me. The sequestration of Hezekiah became now an urgent and delicate matter.

"You caught me," said Hezekiah, calmly, "and now you've got to get me out; and I wish you good luck! And besides, I lost one of my shoes somewhere, and you've got to find that."

In proof of her statement she submitted a shoeless, brown-stockinged foot for my observation.

"The one I lost was like this," and Hezekiah thrust forth a neat tan pump, rather the worse for wear. "I was on the second floor a bit ago," she began, "and lost my slipper."

"In what mischief, pray?"

"Mr. Ames," called Miss Octavia, her voice close at hand.

"I wanted to see something in Cecilia's room; so I opened her door and walked in, that's all," Hezekiah replied.

"Wicked Hezekiah! Coming into the house is bad enough in all the circ.u.mstances. Entering your sister's room is a grievous sin."

"If, Mr. Ames, you are still seeking an explanation of that chimney's behavior"--

It was Miss Octavia, now just outside the door.

"Don't leave that trunk, Hezekiah," I whispered. "I'll do the best I can."

Miss Octavia met me smilingly as I faced her in the hall. She had switched on the lights, and my candle burned yellowly in the white electric glow.

Miss Octavia held something in her hand. It required no second glance to tell me that she had found Hezekiah's slipper.

"Mr. Ames," she began, "as you have absented yourself from the library all evening, I a.s.sume that you have been busy studying my chimneys and seeking for the ghost of that British soldier who was so wantonly slain upon the site of this house."

"I am glad to say that not only is your surmise correct, Miss Hollister, but that I have made great progress in both directions."