I rose quietly, and listened. Richard Manx was speaking of a sound in the empty house next door, No. 119. He had heard it twice—a week ago, and again on this night. He said that he was in the habit of smoking in bed, and asked if Mrs. Preedy was insured. He was interrupted by the breaking of a storm, which appeared to frighten them both very much. I will not attempt to repeat, word for word, all that passed between them. Its substance is now what I am going to relate.
Eight nights ago, Richard Manx, sitting in his attic, was startled (so he says) by the sound of a tapping or scratching in the house next door, in which the murder was committed. Being, according to his own declaration, of a nervous nature, he left his attic, and crept downstairs. In the passage below he met Mrs. Preedy, and related to her what he had heard. She endeavoured to persuade him that his fancy had been playing him tricks.
“How is it possible,” she asked him, “that you could have heard any sound in the next house when there’s nobody there?”
A convincing question, my dear, which carries its own convincing answer.
Richard Manx wavers, and promises her not to speak to the neighbours of his distressing impression. He says he will wait “till it comes again.” It comes again on this night the events of which I am describing, and in great fear (which may or may not be real) he creeps downstairs to Mrs. Preedy to inform her of it. He says the noise may not be made by a mortal; it may be made by a spirit. So much the worse. A man or a woman one can meet and hold, and ask questions of, but a spirit!——the very idea is enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
It did not make my hair stand on end, nor did Richard Manx’s suggestion frighten me in the least. It excited me almost to fever heat, but there was no fear in my excitement. Expectation, hope, painful curiosity—these were the feelings which animated me.
What if Richard Manx were, for some reason of his own, inventing this story of strange noises in an empty house, the boards of which are stained with the blood of a murdered man? The idea did not dawn upon me; it flashed upon me in a certain expression which dwelt upon Richard Manx’s face while Mrs. Preedy’s back, for a moment, was turned to him.
When they were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, the man was timid, confiding, humble; but when Mrs. Preedy turned towards the dresser for the sugar basin, there stole into his face the expression I have referred to. What did it denote? Cunning, ferocity, triumph, duplicity. It was but for a moment; upon Mrs. Preedy confronting him again, he relapsed into humbleness and timidity.
What was the meaning of this sudden change? That the man was playing a part? Clearly. Then behind his systematic acting was hidden a motive. What motive?