As I crossed the second-floor hall, I passed the Swedish maid, walking toward Miss Octavia's room. I was somewhat annoyed to find, on looking over my shoulder to make sure of her destination, that she, too, had paused, her hand on Miss Octavia's door, and was watching me with interest. She vanished immediately; but to throw her off the track I went to my own room, closed the door noisily, and then came out quickly and ran up to the third floor.
Bassford Hollister's mysterious exit had lingered in my mind as the most curious incident of the eventful Friday night. Having been baffled in my effort to get hold of the architect's plans, my thought now was to await in the upper part of the house a repetition of the various phenomena that had so puzzled me. By the process of exclusion I had eliminated nearly every plausible theory, but if the ghost manifested himself with any sort of periodicity (and the hour of the chimney's queer behavior had been nine) I was now prepared to meet him in the regions he had chosen for his exploits. When it is remembered that I had always been most timorous, not at all anxious to shine in any heroic performances, it will be understood that the atmosphere of Hopefield Manor was exerting a stimulating effect upon my courage. Or, more likely, my inherent cowardice had been brought into subjection by my curiosity.
I had a pretty accurate knowledge by this time of the position and function of all the electric switches between the lower hall and the fourth floor, but I tested them as I ascended, glancing down now and then to make sure I was not observed. From the sound of voices in the library I judged that most of Cecilia's suitors must now have arrived, and so much the better, I argued; for with Miss Octavia and her niece fully occupied, I could the better carry on my ghost-hunt above stairs.
At a quarter before nine I switched off the lights on the third and fourth floors, and established myself at the head of the stairway, and quite near the trunk-room door. This door I had opened, as I fancied that if Bassford Hollister were at the bottom of the business, he would probably wish to find his way to the roof again. So far as I was able to manage it, the stage was in readiness for the entrance of the goblin. And I may record my impression, that as we wait for a visitation of this sort, it is with a degree of credence in things supernatural, to which we would not ordinarily confess. In spite of ourselves we expect something to appear, something unearthly, impalpable, and unresponsive to those tests we apply to the known and understood.
The clock below struck nine upon these meditations, and almost upon the last stroke I heard a sound that set my nerves tingling. I crouched in the dark waiting. Some one was coming toward me, but from where? The bottom of a well at midnight was not blacker than the fourth floor, but the switch lay ready to my hand, and my pockets were stuffed with matches of the sort that light anywhere. The stairways were all carpeted, as I have said, and yet some one was ascending bare treads, lightly, and with delays that suggested a furtive purpose. Meanwhile, as a background for this unreality, murmurs of talk and occasional laughter rose from the library.
This concealed stairway, wherever it was, could not be of interminable length, and I had counted, I think, fifteen steps of that strange ascent when it ceased. I heard a fumbling as of some one seeking a latch, and suddenly a light current of air swept by me, but its clean fresh quality was not in itself disturbing. I stooped and struck a match smartly on the carpet and at the same time clicked the switch. I should say that not more than ten seconds passed from the moment the soft rush of air had first advertised the opening of a passage near me until the hall was flooded with the glow of the electric lamps overhead. My match had also performed its office, but finding the electric current behaving itself normally, I blew it out. What I saw now interested me immensely.
In the solid wall, near the stair, and almost directly opposite the trunk-room, a narrow door had swung outward,—a neat contrivance, so light in its construction that it still swayed on its concealed hinges from the touch of the hand that had released it. How it had opened or what had become of the prowler who had unlatched it remained to be discovered. It seemed impossible that whoever or whatever had climbed the hidden stairway had descended, nor had I been conscious of a ghostly passing as on the previous night. I had only my senses to apply to this problem, and their efficiency was minimized for a moment by fear.
The opening in the wall engaged my attention at once, and I was steadied by the thought that here was a practical matter susceptible of investigation. I stepped within the door and lighted a candle; and just as the wick caught fire, click went a switch somewhere, and out went the hall lamps. But having, so to speak, put my foot to the mysterious stair I would not turn back, and I continued on down the steps.
Great was my astonishment to find that I had apparently stepped from a new into an old house. The stair treads were worn by long use, the plaster walls that inclosed them were battered and cracked, and I seemed to have plunged from the glory of Hopefield into some dim lost passage of a domicile of another era, that lay within or beneath the walls of the Manor. As I slowly descended, holding high my candle, I recalled, not without a qualm, the story of the British soldier whom tradition or superstition linked to the site of Miss Hollister's property. This stairway might certainly have been built in the early days of the republic, and it refuted my disdain of the ghost-myth on the theory that new houses are inhospitable to spirits.
At the foot of the stair I found two rooms, one on either side of a small hall, and these, also, were clearly part of an old house that seemed to be somehow merged into the Hollister mansion. I remembered now that the mansion stood wedged against a rough spur of rock, and that the front and rear entrances were upon different levels, and it was conceivable that the back part of the mansion might inclose these rooms of an earlier house that had occupied the same site; why they should have been retained was beyond me.
Through the carefully-preserved windows, many-paned and quaint, of these hidden rooms, the infolding walls of the new house were blank and black. An odd thing indeed, that Pepperton should have lent himself to the preservation of a commonplace and thoroughly uninteresting relic, for beyond doubt he must have countenanced it; and Miss Hollister's prompt removal of the plans from the architect's office became more enigmatical than ever.
One door only remained in this shell of the old house, and I hastened to fling it open, still lighting my way with a candle. Before me lay the coal cellar, at which I had merely glanced on the morning after my installation at Hopefield. I now began to get my bearings. I remembered two iron lids in the cemented surface of an area on the east side of the house where fuel was deposited, and mounting a few steps that were of recent construction, and had evidently been built to afford communication between the remnant of the old house and the subterranean portion of the new, I found to my relief and satisfaction beneath one of these openings a short ladder, through which the court might be reached. Here, then, the manner of ghostly ingress was illustrated by perfectly plausible means. The lid of the coal-hole was entirely withdrawn, and a bar of moonlight lay brightening upon a pile of anthracite at the foot of the ladder.
The ghost I believed to be still in the upper halls of the house, and now that I was in a position to watch the ladder by which he had entered I felt confident that I had cut off his retreat. I was surveying the cellar, when I heard faint sounds in a new direction. Far away under the house, and remote from the secret steps, some one was moving toward me, and rapidly, too! The ghost that I believed to have disappeared into the fourth-floor hall must then have changed the line of his retreat and descended by one of the regular stairways.
I blew out my candle and stood with my back to the wall of the long corridor on which opened the various store-rooms, the heating plant, laundry and other accessories of the modern house. My ghost was coming in haste,—a haste that did not harmonize with the stately tread of the spooks of popular superstition. A slower pace and I should doubtless have fled before him; but quick light steps echoed in the dark corridor, and I gathered courage from the thought that ghosts create echoes no more than they cast shadows.
As the steps drew nearer I prepared myself to spring upon him. I must unconsciously have taken a step, for he paused suddenly, stood still for a moment, then turned and scampered back the way he had come. After him I went as fast as I could run. The cement-paved corridor was four or five feet wide, and I plunged through the dark at my best speed. At the end of the corridor I was pretty certain of my quarry, and I made ready to grapple with him. Then as I plunged into the wall my hands touched a man's face and for a moment clutched the collar of his coat. He had been waiting for me to strike the wall, and as he slipped out of my grasp he ran back toward the coal cellar. I had struck the wall with a force that knocked the wind out of me, but I got myself together with the loss of only an instant and renewed pursuit. I had no fear but that, if he attempted to reach the open by means of the coal-hole, I should catch him on the ladder, and I sprinted for all I was worth to make sure of him.
My fleeting grasp of the man's collar and the agility with which he had slipped from my clasp had settled the ghost question, and I had now resolved the intruder into a common thief. As we neared the coal cellar I increased my pace, and felt myself gaining on him; though in the dark I saw nothing until I glimpsed the faint light from the coal-hole.
It had evidently occurred to him by this time that if he tried to climb the ladder I could easily pull him down by the legs; and when he reached the cross hall, he turned quickly and dived through the opening into the hidden chambers. I lost no time in following, but the fellow put up a good race, and as I reached the old stairway he was mounting it two steps at a time, as I judged from the sound. I had hoped to catch and dispose of him without alarming the house, but it seemed inevitable now that the chase would end in such fashion as to arouse the company assembled in the library.
I heard him stumble and fall headlong at the door above; then he shot off into the still darkened hall, and when I had gained the top I lost track of him for a moment. I paused and was about to strike a match, when he resumed his flight, and I was forced to grapple with the fact that some one else was pursuing him. I held my match unstruck upon this new disclosure, and stepped back within the concealed door and waited. Up and down the hall, two persons were running, and when they reached the ends of the corridor I heard hands touch the wall and the sound of dodging, and then almost instantly the two runners flashed by me again. The hall was so dark that I saw nothing, but as the runners passed the door I felt the rush of air caused by their flight.
Three or four times this had happened, and then, still without having made a light, I thrust out my foot at the next return of the unseen runners. Some one tripped and fell headlong, and I promptly flung myself upon him.
My prisoner's resistance engaged my best attention a moment, but when I had sat upon his legs and got hold of his struggling hands, some one stole softly by me. My prisoner, too, heard and was attentive. Not only did I experience the same sensation as on the previous night, of a passing near by, but I was conscious of the same faint perfume, as of a flower-scent half-caught in a garden at night, that had added to my mystification before. Then without the slightest warning the lights flashed on, and a door closed somewhere, but it was not the hidden one leading down into the remnant of the old house, for my prisoner's head and shoulders lay across its threshold. He sighed deeply, bringing my dazed wits back to him, and I found myself gazing into the blinking eyes of Lord Arrowood.
"Bounders, I say, bounders!" he gasped.
"In the circumstances, Lord Arrowood, I should not call names. Will you tell me what you mean by running through this house in this fashion? Stand up and give an account of yourself."
I helped him to his feet and bent over the stair-rail leading down to the third floor. Evidently our strange transactions beneath and above had not disturbed the assembled suitors and their hostesses; but in common decency Lord Arrowood must be disposed of promptly; there was no doubt about that.
"I was an ass to try it," muttered his lordship, pulling his tie into shape. "And now I want to get out. I want to go away from here."
He was tugging at the belt of his Norfolk coat, and something between it and his waistcoat evidently gave him concern. It did not seem possible that he was really a thief, with chattels concealed on his person, but he continued to smooth his jacket anxiously, meanwhile eyeing me apprehensively. He puffed hard from his recent game of hide-and-seek, and his face was wet with perspiration. Our conversation was carried on in half-whispers. He was so crestfallen that if it had n't been for the necessity of maintaining silence I should have laughed outright.
"Out with it, my lord. What have you stuck in your coat?"
"They're bounders, all the rest of 'em," he asserted doggedly, "but I believe you to be a gentleman."
"I thank you, Lord Arrowood, for this mark of confidence; but you have led me a hot chase through this house, and it is clear that you have something tucked under your coat that you have seized feloniously. We're standing here in the light, and our voices may at any moment attract Miss Hollister and the others in the library. Open your coat! I declare that even if you have lifted a bit of the Hollister plate I will let you go. My lord, if you please, stand and unfold yourself!"
Reluctantly, shamefacedly, and still breathing hard from his late exertions, Lord Arrowood of Arrowood, Hants, England, obeyed me. There were five buttons to the close-fitting jacket, and the loosening of every succeeding one seemed to give him pain. Then with his head slightly lifted as though in disdain of me, he held out for my observation a pie, in the pan in which it had been baked! The top crust was browned to a nicety; its edges were crimped neatly; and in spite of the fact that I had so lately dined sumptuously at Miss Hollister's hospitable board, at sight of this alluring pastry I experienced the sharp twinges of aroused appetite.
He held out for my observation a pie.He held out for my observation a pie.
He held out for my observation a pie.He held out for my observation a pie.
"Now you have it, and I hope you are satisfied," said Lord Arrowood. "Kindly allow me to retire by the way I came."
"First," I replied, sobered by the gravity of his manner, "it would interest me as a student of character to know just what species of pie lured you to this burglarious deed."
"I have reason to think," he answered, with tears in his eyes, "that it is a gooseberry. I was damned hungry, if you must know the truth, and having sampled the old lady's pies this morning, and had nothing to eat since, I saw the coal-hole open and ladder beneath, and the rest of it was easy. If you and the other chap had n't chased me all over the estate, I 'd have been off with my pie and no harm done. The old lady 's insane, you know, and has no manner of use for pies. The house is haunted in the bargain. When you had about winded me down in the cellar and cut me off from the ladder and chased me up here, the ghost took a hand, and if you had n't tripped me and sat on me the spirits would certainly have nailed me. O Lord, what a night!"
"It's your impression then that when you got up here somebody else broke into the game."
"Quite that, only I should say something, not somebody. It was a lighter step than yours. It had its hand on me once; but I could n't touch it. Damn me," he concluded hoarsely, "it was n't there to touch!"
"You are sure you speak the truth when you say that the coal-hole was open and that you found the ladder there when you came?"
"No manner of doubt of it. As I have already said, I believe you to be a gentleman, and between gentlemen certain confidences may pass that would n't be possible between a gentleman and thosecanailledown there."
He jerked his head scornfully to indicate the suitors below.
I bowed with such dignity as is possible in addressing a nobleman whom you have just caught in the act of lifting a gooseberry-pie from a lady's pantry,—a pie which you hold perforce in your hands.
"The fact is that I was without the price of food; and to repeat, I was beastly hungry."
"Poverty and hunger, my lord, are pardonable sins. And I dare say that Miss Hollister would be highly pleased to know that a gentleman of your high position—she told me herself that you were descended from the Jutish chiefs—had paid so high a compliment to the excellence of her pastry. Your only error, as I view the matter, lies in the fact that you have laid felonious hands upon a gooseberry-pie. All gooseberry pastries are sacred to Hezekiah. My impressions of Hezekiah are the pleasantest, and I cannot allow you to intervene between her and the pie I hold in my hands. If you will accompany me below, I will undertake to gain access to the pie vault, return this pie to its proper place, and hand you, at the foot of the ladder, an apple-pie in place of it. I dare say it never will be missed; but from what I know of Hezekiah, any trifling with her appetite would be a crime indictable at common law."
His lordship seemed reassured, and we were about to descend by the concealed stair when he arrested me.
"Mr. Ames, you are a gentleman, and possess a generous heart. We understand each other perfectly. And as I have every reason to believe that my suit is hopeless, I ask the loan of five dollars until I can confer with my friend the British consul at New York. I shall sail at once for England."
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 gratitude 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.
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 Dick, 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 passages. 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 passing 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. Bassford 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 knob 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 unobserved—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!
Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labelsof a dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!
Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labelsof 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 circumstances. 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 assume 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."
"Do you mean to say that you have really found traces of the ghost?"
"Not only that, Miss Hollister, but I have met the ghost face to face,—even more, I have had speech with him!"
Her face brightened, her eyes flashed. It was plain that she was immensely pleased.
"And are you able to say, from your encounter, that he is in fact a British subject, uneasily haunting this house in America long after the Declaration of Independence and Washington's Farewell Address have passed into literature?"
"You have never spoken a truer word, Miss Hollister. The ghost with whom or which I have had speech is still a loyal subject of the King of England. But by means which I am not at liberty to disclose, I have persuaded him not to visit this house again."
"Then," said Miss Hollister, "I cannot do less than express my gratitude; though I regret that you did not first allow me to meet him. Still, I dare say that we shall find his bones buried somewhere beneath my foundations. Please assure me that such is your expectation."
She was leading me into deep water, but I had skirted the coasts of truth so far; and with Hezekiah on my hands I felt that it was necessary to satisfy Miss Hollister in every particular.
"To-morrow, Miss Hollister, I shall take pleasure in showing you certain hidden chambers in this house which I venture to say will afford you great pleasure. I have to-night discovered a link between the mansion as you know it and an earlier house whose timbers may indeed hide the bones of that British soldier."
"And as for the chimney?"
"And as for the chimney, I give you my word as a professional man that it will never annoy you again, and I therefore beg that you dismiss the subject from your mind."
I saw that she was about to recur to the shoe she held in her hand and at which she glanced frequently with a quizzical expression. This, clearly, was an issue that must be met promptly, and I knew of no better way than by lying. Hezekiah herself had plainly stated, on the morning of that long, eventful day, when she walked into the breakfast-room in her aunt's absence and explained Cecilia's trip to town, that it was perfectly fair to dissimulate in making explanations to Miss Hollister; that, in fact, Miss Octavia enjoyed nothing better than the injection of fiction into the affairs of the matter-of-fact day. Here, then, was my opportunity. Hezekiah had thrown the responsibility of contriving her safe exit upon my hands. No doubt, while I held the door against her aunt, that remarkable young woman was coolly sitting on the trunk within, eating another cracker and awaiting my experiments in the gentle art of lying.
"Miss Hollister," I began boldly, "the slipper you hold in your hand belongs to me, and if you have no immediate use for it I beg that you allow me to relieve you of it."
"It is yours, Mr. Ames?"
A lifting of the brows, a widening of the eyes, denoted Miss Octavia's polite surprise.
"Beyond any question it is my property," I asserted.
"Your words interest me greatly, Mr. Ames. As you know, the grim hard life of the twentieth century palls upon me, and I am deeply interested in everything that pertains to adventure and romance. Tell me more, if you are free to do so, of this slipper which I now return to you."
I received Hezekiah's worn little pump into my hands as though it were an object of high consecration, and with a gravity which I hope matched Miss Octavia's own. I was, I think, by this time completely hollisterized, if I may coin the word.
"As I am nothing if not frank, Miss Hollister, I will confess to you that this shoe came into my possession in a very curious way. One day last spring I was in Boston, having been called there on professional business. In the evening, I left my hotel for a walk, crossed the Common, took a turn through the Public Garden, where many devoted lovers adorned the benches, and then strolled aimlessly along Beacon Street."
"I know that historic thoroughfare well," interrupted Miss Hollister, "as my friend Miss Prudence Biddeford has lived there for half a century, and once, while I was staying in her house, she gave me her recipe for Boston brown bread, thereby placing me greatly in her debt."
"Then, being acquainted with the neighborhood and its sublimated social atmosphere, you will be interested in the experience I am about to describe," I continued, reassured by Miss Octavia's sympathetic attention to my recital. "I was passing a house which I have not since been able to identify exactly, though I have several times revisited Boston in the hope of doing so, when suddenly and without any warning whatever this slipper dropped at my feet. All the houses in the neighborhood seemed deserted, with windows and doors tightly boarded, and my closest scrutiny failed to discover any opening from which that slipper might have been flung. The region is so decorous, and acts of violence are so foreign to its dignity and repose, that I could scarce believe that I held that bit of tan leather in my hand. Nor did its unaccountable precipitation into the street seem the act of a housemaid, nor could I believe that a nursery governess had thus sought diversion from the roof above. I hesitated for a moment not knowing how to meet this emergency; then I boldly attacked the bell of the house from which I believed the slipper to have proceeded. I rang until a policeman, whose speech was fragrant of the Irish coasts, bade me desist, informing me that the family had only the previous day left for the shore. The house he assured me was utterly vacant. That, Miss Hollister, is all there is of the story. But ever since I have carried that slipper with me. It was in my pocket to-night as I traversed the upper halls of your house, seeking the ghost of that British soldier, and I had just discovered my loss when I heard you calling. In returning it you have conferred upon me the greatest imaginable favor. I have faith that sometime, somewhere, I shall find the owner of that slipper. Would you not infer, from its diminutive size, and the fine, suggestive delicacy of its outlines that the owner is a person of aristocratic lineage and of breeding? I will confess that nothing is nearer my heart than the hope that one day I shall meet the young lady—I am sure she must be young—who wore that slipper and dropped it as it seemed from the clouds, at my feet there in sedate Beacon Street, that most solemn of residential sanctuaries."
"Mr. Ames," began Miss Hollister instantly, with an assumed severity that her smile belied, "I cannot recall that my niece Hezekiah ever visited in Beacon Street; yet I dare say that if she had done so and a young man of your pleasing appearance had passed beneath her window, one of her slippers might very easily have become detached from Hezekiah's foot and fallen with a nice calculation directly in front of you. But now, Mr. Ames, will you kindly carry your candle into that trunk-room?"
And I had been pluming myself upon the completeness of my hollisterization! There was nothing for me but to obey, and my heart sank as my imagination pictured Hezekiah's discomfiture when we should find her seated on the huge trunk behind the door. And that stockinged foot already called in appealing accents to the shoe I held in my hand! The foundations of the world shook as I remembered the compact by which Hezekiah was excluded from the house, and realized what the impending discovery would mean to Cecilia, her father, and the wayward Hezekiah, too! But I was in for it. Miss Octavia indicated by an imperious nod that I was to precede her into the trunk-room, and I strode before her with my candle held high.
But the sprites of mystery were still abroad at Hopefield. The room was unoccupied save for the trunks. Hezekiah had vanished. Instead of sitting there to await the coming of her aunt, she had silently departed, without leaving a trace. Miss Hollister glanced up at the trap-door in the ceiling, and so did I. It was closed, but I did not doubt that Hezekiah had crawled through it and taken herself to the roof. Miss Octavia would probably order me at once to the battlements; but worse was to come.
"Mr. Ames," she said, "will you kindly lift the lid of that largest trunk."
I had not thought of this, and I shuddered at the possibilities.
She indicated the trunk upon which Hezekiah had sat and nibbled her cracker not more than ten minutes before. Could it be possible that when I lifted the cover that golden head would be found beneath? My life has known no blacker moment than that in which I flung back the lid of that trunk. I averted my eyes in dread of the impending disclosure and held the candle close.
But the trunk was empty, incredibly empty! My courage rose again, and I glanced at Miss Octavia triumphantly. I even jerked out the trays to allay any lingering suspicion. Why had I ever doubted Hezekiah? Who was she, the golden-haired daughter of kings, to be caught in a trunk? She had slipped up the ladder while I talked to her aunt and was even now hiding on the roof; but it was not for me to make so treasonable a suggestion. Miss Octavia might press the matter further if she liked, but I would not help her to trap Hezekiah.
Miss Hollister did not, to my surprise and relief, suggest an inspection of the roof. She nodded her head gravely and passed out into the hall.
"Mr. Ames, if I implied a moment ago that I doubted your story of the dropping of that tan pump from a Beacon Street roof or window, I now tender you my sincerest apologies."
She put out her hand, smiling charmingly.
"Pray return to the occupations which were engaging you when I interrupted you. You have never stood higher in my regard than at this moment. To-morrow you may tell me all you please of the ghost and the mysteries of this house, and I dare say we shall find the bones of that British soldier somewhere beneath the foundations. As for that trifling bit of leather you hold in your hand, it's rather passé for Beacon Street. The next time you tell that story I suggest that you play your game of drop the slipper from a window in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. Still, as I always keep an umbrella in the check-room of the Parker House, I would not have you imagine that I look upon Boston as an unlikely scene for romance. The last time I was there a Mormon missionary pressed a tract upon me in the subway, and I can't deny that I found it immensely interesting."
Hezekiah on the roof was safe for a time. Miss Octavia's gentle rejection of my Beacon Street anecdote and her intimation that Hezekiah had been an unbilled participant in the comedy of the ghost had been disquieting, and in my relief at her abandonment of the search I loitered on downstairs with my hostess. I wished to impress her with the idea that I was without urgent business. Hezekiah would, beyond doubt, amuse herself after her own fashion on the roof until I was ready to release her. As I had quietly locked the trunk-room door and carried the key in my pocket I was reasonably sure of this. Humility is best acquired through tribulation, and as Hezekiah sat among the chimney-crocks nursing one stockinged foot and waiting for me to turn up with her lost slipper, it would do her no harm to nibble the bitter fruit of repentance with another biscuit. I should find her much less sure of herself when I saw fit to seek her on the roof. It was a pretty comedy we were playing, but it was best that she should not too complacently take all the curtains. Hezekiah's naughtiness had been diverting up to a point now reached and passed, but the time had arrived for remonstrance, admonition, discipline. And it should be my grateful task to point out the error of her ways and urge her into safer avenues of conduct. Such were my reflections as I attended Miss Octavia in her descent.
The memoranda of my adventures at Hopefield Manor fall under two general headings. On the one hand was the ghost and the library chimney; on the other the extraordinary gathering of Cecilia's suitors. As I followed at Miss Octavia's side, she seemed to have dismissed the ghost and the fractious chimney from her mind; her humor changed completely. As in the morning when, unaccountably abandoning her habitual high-flown speech, she had asked me about Cecilia's silver note-book, she seemed troubled; and when we had reached the second floor she paused and lost herself in unwonted preoccupation.
"Let us sit here a moment," she said, indicating a long davenport in the broad hall. For the first time her manner betrayed weariness. She laid her hand quietly on my arm and looked at me fixedly. "Arnold," she said,—"you will let me call you Arnold, won't you?" she added plaintively, and never in my life had I been so touched by anything so sweet and gentle and kind,—"Arnold, if an old woman like me should do a very foolish thing in following her own whims and then find that she had probably committed herself to a course likely to cause unhappiness, what would you advise her to do about it?"
"Miss Hollister," I answered, "if you trusted Providence this morning to send you a corps of servants when yours had been most unfortunately scattered by ghosts or rumors of ghosts, why will you not continue to have confidence that your affairs will always be directed by agencies equally alert and beneficent?"
She flashed upon me that rare wonderful smile of hers; she looked me in the eyes quizzically with her head bent slightly to one side; but for once her usual readiness seemed to have forsaken her. Could it be possible that she was losing faith in her own play-world, and that the tuneful trumpets of adventure and romance which she had set vibrating on her own key jarred dully in her ears? It passed swiftly through my mind that it was incumbent on me to win her back to complete belief in the potency of the oracles that had called to her old age. She had dipped her paddle into bright waters and had splashed up all manner of gay imaginings, and what disasters awaited her now if she beached her argosy and found no gold at the end of the rainbow! It occurred to me, prosaic man and chimney-doctor that I was, that no one should be disappointed who has heard the dream-gods calling at twilight, or wakened to the chanting of the capstan-song, or heard the timbers creaking in the stout old caravel of romance as it wallows in the seas that wash the happy isles. I had not crawled through so many chimneys but that I still believed that dreams come true, not because they will but because they must! And in the case of Miss Octavia Hollister I felt a great responsibility; for what irremediable loss might not result to a world too little given these days to dreaming, if she, who at sixty had turned her heart trustfully to adventure, should find only sorrow and disappointment? The thing must not be! I was feeling the least bit elated over my success in solving the riddle of the ghost, and I knew that the hidden chambers and stair would delight her when I revealed them on the morrow; so I quite honestly sought to restore her to the joy of life. I felt that she was waiting for me to speak further, and I plunged ahead.
"Our meeting in the Asolando was the most interesting thing that ever happened to me, Miss Hollister. I was rapidly becoming hopelessly cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears as to the promise of life held out to us in the nursery, where, indeed, all education should begin and end. Your appearance at the Asolando that afternoon was well-timed to save me from death in a world that was rapidly losing for me all its illusion and witchery. But now that you have so readily won me back to the true faith, I beg of you do not yourself revert to the dreary workaday world from which you rescued me."
I had never in my life spoken more sincerely. I had never been so happy as since I knew her, and I was pleading for myself as well as for her—there where, from her own doorstep and in her own garden, one who listened attentively might hear the faint roar of trains bound toward the teeming city along iron highways. It was with relief that I saw my words had struck home. She touched my hand lightly; then she took it in both her own.
"You really believe that; you are not merely trying to please me?"
"I was never half so much in earnest! Please go on in the way you have begun. And have no fear that the charts will mislead you, or that the seas will grind your bark on hidden shoals. Shipwreck, you know, is one of the greatest joys of our adventures,—we have to be wrecked first before we find the island of the treasure-chests."
She sighed softly, but I felt that her spirits were rising.
"But those men down there? How shall I manage that?" she asked eagerly.
I snapped my fingers. We must get back into the air again. And it was remarkable how readily my long-untried wings bore me upward. The earth, after all, does not bind us so fast!
"I don't know the game; but I have found out a lot of things without being told, so tell me nothing! Remember that I have something quite remarkable, startling even, to show you to-morrow. I have even overcome, you know, the obstacle you placed in the way of my discoveries by sending in ahead of me this morning for the plans of the house."
I watched her narrowly, but she was in no wise discomfited.
"Well, I burned them the moment Hilda brought them back," she laughed. "I had faith in you, and I wanted you to manage it all for yourself. I rather guessed that you would go to Pepperton. That was when I still believed."
"But you must go on believing. Make-believing is the main cornerstone and the keystone of the arch of the happy life."
"You are sure you are not mocking a foolish old woman?"
"You are the wisest woman I ever knew!" I asserted, and my heart was in the words.
"I believe you have persuaded me; but Cecilia"—
She was again at the point of loosening her hold upon the cord that linked her shallop to Ariel's isle, but my own youth was resurgent in me.
I rose hastily, the better to break the current of her thought.
"Those men down there! They are in the hands of a higher fate than we control. I don't know the game"—
"But if"—she broke in.
"But if you gave away the secret, explained it to me, you would throw me back into my darkest chimney to hope no more. Leave it to me; trust me; lean upon me! I assure you that all will be well."
She bent her head and yielded herself to reverie for a moment. Then she sprang to her feet in that indescribably light, graceful way that erased at least fifty of her years from the reckoning, and was herself again.
"Arnold Ames," she said, laughing a little but gazing up at me with unmistakable confidence and liking in her eyes, "we will go through with this to the end. And whether that slipper really fell at your feet in Beacon Street or in the even less likely precincts of Rittenhouse Square, or under the windows of the Spanish Embassy in Washington, I believe that you are my good knight, and that you will see me safely through this singular adventure."
And I, Arnold Ames, but lately a student of chimneys, bent and kissed Miss Octavia's hand.