THE ROOM AT THE BACK.
[A story of the supernatural, which should not be read late at night by persons of weak nerves.]
Outwardly, "Chatholme" was as all the other villas in Dunmoral Avenue, which were just detached enough to allow the butcher's boy to squeeze himself and his basket—and perhaps the cook—between any two of them, and differed from each other in nothing but names, numbers and window-curtains.
And the interior of the house, when the Pottigrews took possession of it, seemed equally commonplace. There is no need to show you all over it, but if you intend to peruse this narrative, in spite of the warning above, it is desirable that you should at least inspect the ground-floor.
On one side of the hall, which was faintly illumined in the daytime by a fanlight, was the drawing-room; on the other side was the dining-room, and behind the dining-room was a smaller room with a French-window looking on to the back-garden, which probably was described by the house-agents as the "morning-room," but was by Mr. Pottigrew designated his "study."
Prosaic enough, you will say. And yet there was that about the ground-floor of "Chatholme" which was anything but matter-of-fact, as the Pottigrews began to discover before they had been in residence many days.
Mrs. Pottigrew was the first to "sense" something out of the ordinary. She was of Manx origin, and therefore peculiarly sensitive to "influences;" one of those uncomfortable people who cannot visit such places as Hampton Court or the Tower without vibrating like harp-strings.
Mr. Pottigrew, however, was of the duller fibre of which cyclists rather than psychists are made; and when, on his return from the City one afternoon, his wife tried to get him to appreciate a certain eeriness in the atmosphere of the new home, he sniffed it dutifully, and declared that he could detect nothing but a confounded smell of onions.
"That's because they won't remember to shut the kitchen door," Mrs. Pottigrew explained. "But—"
"Well, it can't be the drains, because they've just been tested," said Mr. Pottigrew impatiently. And, like a stout materialist, he muttered, "Imagination!" as he strolled away to the sanctuary of his study, little guessing how his own imagination was about to be stimulated.
(Look here—this is where the creepy business begins. If, on consideration, you feel you'd rather read about cricket or politics or something, I'll excuse you.)
A little later, as Mrs. Pottigrew was crossing the hall, she was stopped short by a strange, gasping choky sound which came from the study. There followed the crash of a chair being overturned; the door opened and her husband staggered out with scared eyes in a face as white as marble, and beads of sweat on his brow.
When a stiff brandy had restored the power of speech to Mr. Pottigrew, he described the remarkable and alarming seizure he had just experienced.
He had turned his arm-chair to the French-window, he said, with the intention of enjoying a quiet smoke, and no sooner had he seated himself and leaned back than an indescribable feeling of suffocation had crept upon him, and at the same time he had been aware of a curious loss of control over his jaws, so that he had been unable to prevent his mouth opening to its widest extent. When he had tried to rise to his feet an invisible force had seemed to be holding him down, and it was only by a tremendous effort of will that he had managed to keep his senses and struggle to the door.
He resolutely refused to see a doctor, but, deciding that the attack was a warning that he had been overdoing it, he retired forthwith to bed. By the morning he felt so well that he prescribed for himself a few quiet days by the sea. And so he packed his bag and took himself off by an early train to Brighton.
That afternoon was marked by another disagreeable occurrence. After the way of her kind, Mrs. Pottigrew's Aunt Charlotte was attracted by the idea of using a room from which normally the female members of the household were excluded. So she took her needlework into the study and prepared to spend a quiet hour or so in the armchair facing the French-window.
Hardly had she settled down when she too experienced the same feeling of suffocation and the same involuntary opening of the jaws which Mr. Pottigrew had described. She struggled against it, but, lacking the will-power of her robust nephew-by-marriage, she was overcome by unconsciousness. When she came to, a little dazed and faint, a few moments later, she was dismayed to discover that her expensive dental-plate—a full set—was lying on the floor, shattered beyond repair.
Not being a person of vivid imagination, she attributed her transient illness to intense sympathy with Mr. Pottigrew, and resigned herself to a diet of slops until she could be furnished with new means of mastication.
Next day, a Saturday, came the climax. Early in the evening an urgent telegram summoned Mr. Pottigrew back from Brighton. Hastening home, he was received by a wife distraught.
"What did I tell you?" she wailed. "Send for Sir Conan Doyle. Poor dear Aubrey! The doctor is upstairs with him."
Mr. Pottigrew hurriedly ascended to the bedroom of his son and heir, a fine healthy youth, just of an age to appreciate his father's cigars. (This, of course, is a pre-Budget story.)
The young fellow lying upon the bed smiled bravely as his father entered, but Mr. Pottigrew was shocked to see that he smiled with toothless gums. A grave professional-looking man rose from the bedside and beckoned Mr. Pottigrew out of the room.
"This extraordinary case, Sir," said the doctor as he closed the door behind him, "is the outcome of causes quite beyond the present scope of the medical profession. The sound, strong, firm teeth—a splendid set—of a healthy young man do not jump out of his head of their own accord, every one of them, for any natural reason."
He paused and lowered his voice as he continued: "I am afraid, Mr. Pottigrew, however reluctant we may be to admit the possibility, that there is no doubt that you have taken a haunted house. The previous tenant was a dentist—poor Mr. Acres. The room which is your study was his operating room. He died in that room while administering gas to himself preparatory to extracting his own teeth."
North-Country Farmer (to Profiteer fishing the Fell becks). "Caught owt?"
Profiteer. "I've not actually landed any, but think I had a rise—unless it was the splash from my minnow."