The moment I entered the house I became the victim of an anomalous species of fear. I saw nothing, but I instinctively knew that strange, indefinable presences were there, watching us with sphinx-like faces. I felt them, standing in the doorways, lurking in the angles of the hall and landings, and peering down at us from over the balustrades. I felt that they were merely critical at present, merely deliberating what attitude they should adopt towards us; and I felt that the whole atmosphere of the house was impregnated with a sense of the utmost mystery—a mystery soluble only to those belonging, in the truest sense, to the spirit world—Neutrarians—spirit entities generated solely from spirit essence and never incarcerated in any material body—spirits initiated into one and all of the idiosyncrasies of spirit land. The man John gave no outward signs of being in any way affected by these presences; but it was otherwise with Wilfred. The silence and darkness of the house unmistakably disturbed him, and as he panted up the staircase, following his long and lean host with none too steady a step, he cast continual looks of apprehension about him. First, I saw him peer over his shoulders, down the stairs behind him, as if he fancied something, to which he could apply no name, might be treading softly at his heels; then I watched his eyes wander nervously to the gloomy space overhead; and then, as if drawn by some extremely unwelcome magnet, to the great, white, sinewy hands of John. Arriving on the second floor, they crossed a broad landing and entered a spacious room, which was fitfully illuminated by a few dying embers in a large open grate. John produced a tinder box, lighted a trio of tall wax candles, and resuscitated the fire. He then left the room, reappearing in a few minutes with an armload of bottles.
“Make yourself comfortable, Wilfred,” he said. “Take that easy chair and pull it up in front of the fire. Rum or brandy?”
Wilfred, whose eyes glittered at the sight of the spirits, chose rum. “I’ll have a little brandy afterwards,” he said, “just to wash down the rum. Moderation is my password, John, everything in moderation,” and, helping himself to the rum, he laughed. John sat opposite him, and I noticed, not without some emotion, that the chair he took was the exact counterpart of the one in which I had left my material ego.
“John,” Wilfred exclaimed after a while, “this house is most extraordinarily still. I—I don’t like such stillness——” He was more than half drunk. “Why do you live alone? Damned silly habit to live alone in a house like this.” Then he swallowed a big gulp of rum and leered.
“All habits are silly,” John replied. “All life is silly. Death alone is sensible. Death’s a fine thing.”
Then there was a pause; and a gust of wind, blowing up the staircase, set the door jarring and made the windows rattle.
“I don’t like that remark of yours, John,” Wilfred suddenly stuttered. “Death’s a fine thing?—Death’s the work of the devil. It’s the only thing I fear. And the—the wind. What’s that?”
From the hall below there came a gentle slam, the soft closing of a door.
John shrugged his shoulders and stirred the logs until they gave out a big blaze.