“That’s my business,” Pelamon replied haughtily; and then, not wishing to offend her, he added: “I heard the place was to be let, and as I want a house in this particular locality, I thought I would call and look at it, that’s all! I am not a burglar!”
The girl giggled. “A burglar!” she said. “Oh no, you’re not sharp enough for that. Besides, the house is empty.”
“What!” Pelamon exclaimed. “Has all the furniture been taken away?”
“All but the blinds,” the girl nodded. “There was a sale here the day after Mrs. Nimkin was buried, and at it crowds of people; some of the furniture fetched an enormous price. I did hear that the house was sold too, but I’ll ask the missus to make sure.”
She ran upstairs, and returned in a few minutes.
“Yes,” she said, “the house is sold, and the new people are coming in soon.”
“Then that settles the matter,” Pelamon said, and, thanking her in his usual terse and precise way, he withdrew.
He took a brief turn on the sea front, thinking all the time of Regency Square and the mysterious individual who had interviewed Mrs. Hunt, and who must be, he thought, related to the Nimkin who had been buried that afternoon. At nine o’clock he was once again in the square. Entering the garden of No. —, he crept round to the back of the house and, finding the catch of one of the windows undone, he raised the sash and climbed in.
He had an electric torch with him, and consequently he was able to find his way about. Pelamon is very susceptible to the influence of the superphysical, and is probably far more of a psychic than the majority of those who earn their living as professional mediums. He told me afterwards that he knew No. — was haunted the moment he set his foot inside it. He could detect the presence of the superphysical both in the atmosphere and also in the shadows. Frequently in the death chambers which he had attended he had seen a certain type of shadow on the floor by the bed; and it was this same queer kind of shadow, he said, that now crept out from the wall to meet him. But it was not the only phenomenon. From just where the shadow lay, there came a cough, a nervous, worrying cough, a regular hack, hack, hack, and when Pelamon moved, the cough and the shadow moved too. He went all over the house, into every room; and the cough and the shadow followed him. Hack, hack, hack, he could not get rid of it. At first it merely irritated him; but after a while he grew angry, infuriated, maddened.
“Damn you!” he yelled. “Stop it! Stop that vile, infernal hacking. Damn you! Curse you! Stop it!”