CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE STONE AGAIN.

"Well? What is it, dear? Forgotten something?"

With an effort he had put on a light, matter-of-fact tone. He pretended not to notice her perturbation.

"No. But--"

She looked genuinely distressed, worse still--genuinely frightened. She almost pushed past him in her anxiety to get into the full light, and he noticed a quick movement of half turning the head as though to look behind her.

"But--what? I think it's that bit of fried plum pudding; still, the touch of burnt brandy on it should have counteracted its effects," he went on, keeping up the role. "Nightmare of course. And our solemn discussion before you turned in would make that way."

"No, no," and she shook her head, decisively. "I wish it was. As sure as I sit here, Uncle Seward, there was a Something in the room. I heard it--first--heard it moving, but for the life of me I dared not move myself, not even to light the candle. It was the sound of steps--of light steps--coming towards the bed. Oh, it was horrible--awful?" she broke off, with a quick, scared glance around as though still expecting to see something. "And then--wait a bit," seizing him by the wrists.

"Something cold and clammy touched my face, just touched it--like the feel of dead fingers. I could see something shadowy too in the light of the fire--and then I just dashed out of bed and came straight down here."

"Melian, pull yourself together child," he said gently. "You've had a bad dream, coming on top of what we were talking about." But the look on her face was that of one who had had a very bad scare indeed, and somehow Mervyn had been under the impression that his niece was the sort of girl who would take a great deal of scaring. "Here, put this down.

It'll pull you together."

"This" was a gla.s.s of port, which he had got out of the sideboard. She sipped a little, and looked as if she didn't like it, then a little more, and felt better.

"That's right," he went on. "Now, look here, you've been using that room for over a fortnight, and have never thought of bothering about anything of the kind. Why I slept in it myself for several nights before you came."

He had meant the a.s.surance to be rea.s.suring, but hardly had he made it than Mervyn saw he had made a false step.

"But why did you sleep in it, Uncle Seward?" said the girl, quickly.

"Eh? Why to see that it was comfortable--not damp and all that sort of thing."

He wondered if she accepted this explanation. In his heart he doubted it.

"The cold touch on your face was probably a bat," he went on. "Do you sleep with your window open?"

"Oh yes, always."

"There you are then. I think we've got at the solution. Now let's go straight up and look for the bat."

He had as yet not gauged the extent of his niece's knowledge of natural history, and would have given much to have had a real live bat in his possession at that moment, that he might privily have set it loose when they gained the room. She, however, seemed not inclined to question the probability of bats hawking around at large in what was nearly mid-winter!

"Now," he said, holding up the light, and making a careful inspection of the room, "we'll find him probably, hanging on somewhere in the corner.

No," after an exhaustive search. "Oh well, he's probably gone out by the way he came. Better keep the window nearly up to the top--then he can't get back again."

"Do you think it was really that, Uncle Seward?" Melian asked.

"Why of course," he answered with the uneasy consciousness of skating on thin ice. "Unless it was a common or house mouse which had found its way in through somewhere. But now you go to bed again, child, and I'll come up and turn in too. Then you'll know there's some one right near you, and all you've got to do is to knock on the part.i.tion in case you get another scare. It's not a very thick one, and I shall hear at once.

But you mustn't get another scare, if only that there's nothing on earth to get scared at. Look--you can see all over the room now. It's just an ordinary room--old, but with no secret panels or anything of that kind, and I'm only just the other side of that part.i.tion. You'll sleep like a humming top now, I should think."

"I believe I will," she answered, feeling more rea.s.sured by his tone of decisive confidence, the recent gla.s.s of port, to one unaccustomed, contributing largely to that end. "Tell me, Uncle Seward, do you think me an awful fool? I wouldn't like that?"

"My dear child, of course I don't. All women get nervy at times--not only women either--for the rest the plum pudding, _and_ the subject of conversation. Now good-night, darling, you'll be as jolly as Punch in the morning. And remember, there's only the part.i.tion between us."

Even as her uncle had predicted, the girl laid her head on the pillow perfectly rea.s.sured and calmed, and in no time was breathing softly and evenly in a dreamless sleep. But this did not fall to Mervyn's lot.

The incident had banished all sleep from his mind. He had laughed off the situation, and effectually soothed Melian--in fact he was surprised to think how completely he had succeeded. But what if something of the sort recurred, and he found that it got too much upon the girl's nerves, and that, too, just as he flattered himself that everything was going on so well? There were reasons why he did not want to leave Heath Hover; reasons over and above his undoubted attachment to the place--and they were very vital reasons indeed; perhaps not wholly unconnected with Inspector Nashby.

He put up the window sash and leaned out. The night, was wild and rather heavy, and a moist earthy odour came up from the saturation of the fallen leaves in the wet woodland. Away on the bank, up towards the head of the long pond, a fox barked several times. He liked the sound, he liked all the sounds of the lonely night, and when an owl floated out on noiseless pinions and hooted beneath the murky sky--he could just make out its shadowy shape--that too, fitted in with his mood. There was a moon, a feeble one, and concealed behind the prevailing mistiness, but in such light as it afforded he could pick out the boardings which held up the steps of the footpath leading up to the sluice. And on one of these the round stone stood out just discernible.

Just discernible! To his gaze--to his then mood--it seemed the one thing discernible--it and the thing that it held--the thing that it entombed. And the pointed roundness of that thing seemed to rise from the earth and gleam dull white in the lack-l.u.s.tre of the night.

There it had lain for weeks, and for weeks, almost nightly, as now, he had gazed out upon the tomb of it--just as he was doing now--with a strange, uneasy, but wholly compelling fascination. Why had he left it there all this time? Any chance movement, on anybody's part, might dislodge the stone. Why, his niece had slipped on it, the first day she had been at Heath Hover! The time had come to bury this thing--this accursed thing--far away from any possibility of it being unearthed--at any rate in his lifetime. After that it would not matter.

A stout bag, a stone or two, and the deepest centre of Plane Pond would custody it until the crack of doom. And yet--and yet--somehow he had never been able to bring himself to touch it again. Was it that some instinct moved him to decide that the best hiding place for anything--or anybody--was the least likely hiding place? If so, the middle of that path stairway a.s.suredly was that.

The observation, of which he had spoken laughingly, contemptuously to his niece, was another factor in the situation. All shut in as the place was, Mervyn knew that he could never absolutely count upon a single moment when he could safely declare himself free from such observation. In the day time he certainly could not. In the hanging woods, on the road, anywhere, there was always the possibility of the presence of those who could see him while he could not see them.

But what about the dark--the night time?

Simple enough--doesn't it seem? But there was that about the thing that he wanted--or might have wanted--to remove--that rendered the effecting of that process in the dark out of the question. Yet, all things considered, as he told himself here, to-night, not for the first time-- why should he trouble his head about it at all? Why should he not let well alone?

A life of solitude and self-concentration breeds a--well, a not altogether satisfactory state of mind; which for present purposes may be taken to mean that this thing had got upon Mervyn's mind. It was too close--too near to him altogether. He would fain have known it farther away. Furthermore, there were all sorts of possibilities shrouding around the fateful thing which were wholly outside of such considerations as Inspector Nashby, and other people--up to date. And since the advent of his niece, with her youth and brightness, and above all, affection--which he had seen growing day by day to irradiate his life--the necessity of getting rid entirely and completely of this fateful horror had been growing upon him more and more.

He listened. No sound came from the other side of the part.i.tion. The girl had gone to sleep then, comfortably, calmly, as he thought she would. Some impulse now drew him to effect what he had long been contemplating, to remove that sinister thing beyond all chance of human eye ever falling upon it again. Everything favoured this. The night was here, and the night was not too dark, while just dark enough.

Another instinct told him that now was the time, now was his chance.

He pulled out a drawer--noiselessly, then another drawer. Yes--here was what he sought--a pair of thick gloves; but--it was an old pair, and the ends of some of the fingers were in holes. He looked at them dubiously.

There was a great deal underlying the fact of those gloves being in holes, it seemed. Then he put them on.

He listened again--intently. Still no sound on the dead, soundless night. He fancied he could hear the girl's soft, regular breathing, in tranquil slumber, through the part.i.tion. That was just what he wanted.

He had told her he would be there, if she had occasion to call him; but now, what he wanted to effect would take some time, nearly half an hour perhaps. What if she were to awake suddenly, in an agony of fear, and to call for him, and he were away in the dark woodland path up towards the pond head! Well, there were chances in everything.

He listened again--then opened the door silently, and went down the stairs, keeping to the end of each step to minimise the chances of it creaking. As noiselessly as possible he opened the hall door, then listened again.

All was still. He could hear the ticking of the clock in the living-room, and to him it sounded loud. But for the rest nothing was audible. He went out, and the faint puff of the night air wafted round his face. All was still. Not even the ululating voice of an owl, in or over the dark woods, floated out to break it. Mervyn realised that his nerves were somewhat athrill as he placed his first step on the path stairway. And yet--and yet--at his age, and with his experience, why should they be? It was ridiculous.

There was the stone. One wrench, and what he wanted would be in his hand. He looked around, not quickly nor directly, but in a casual manner; taking fully a minute over the process. But as he turned to the stone again a kind of influence seemed to spring from it, almost a.s.suming the tones of a voice. "You cannot. You dare not," it seemed to say. Then came reaction.

"Oh, can't I? Daren't I?" he repeated scornfully to himself. "We'll see."

He bent over the stone now, at the same time drawing the finger ends of his holed gloves as far forward as possible, as though to cover as far as might be, the defects of those same holes. Then he stood upright again, and continued his stroll up towards the sluice. For ever so faint a sound had caught his ear.

"Good evenin' Mr Mervyn, good evenin' sur. Fine evenin' to get the air, sure-ly."

"Ah, good-evening, Pierce. Yes. A breath of air makes you sleep better in this February weather, eh?"

Sir John Tullibard's head keeper had been looking up the pond. Now he turned, the glow of the bowl of his short clay pipe showing dull red in the gloom.

"That it do, sur. But I could sleep middlin' without that," answered the man, with a grin.

"I'd say something about a pint of ale, Pierce," went on Mervyn, "but I don't want to risk disturbing Miss Seward. She sleeps light, and--well, do you know, I'm afraid she's getting a bit of a scare on about the old place. I only hope no one has been chattering over all the old silly yarns about it to her, eh?"