The Inn at the Red Oak

by Latta Griswold

As soon as Dan had gone Tom blew out his light and slipped into the hallway.

This portion of the Inn was simple in design. A long corridor ran through the middle of the house to meet a similar passage at the southern end extending at right angles to the main hall. The South Chamber, occupied by the Marquis de Boisdhyver, opened into the southwest passage, but the door was well beyond the juncture of the two corridors. It was Pembroke's intention to conceal himself in the bedroom next the Marquis's chamber, from the door of which he could look down the entire length of the main hall, and by stepping outside get a view of the branch hallway into which the door of this room and that of the Marquis actually opened. A further advantage was that the windows of this room, like those of the South Chamber, looked out upon the Dunes and the Cove.

As Tom stepped from his chamber, the house seemed utterly deserted; save for the roaring of the wind without and an occasional creak or crack in the time-worn boards, there were no sounds.

The night was not a dark one, although the wind was rising and rain was threatening; for a full moon lurked behind the thick veil of cloud and something of its weird weak light relieved the darkness even of the great corridor of the Inn.

Tom stole softly down the hallway and gained the room next the Marquis's. He took his position in a great chair, which he drew near the open door, and laid his gun on the floor near at hand. No one could enter the hall without his seeing him. Every few moments he would tiptoe to the doorway, thrust his head into the corridor, and listen intently for any sound in the South Chamber.

It was a lonely and unpleasant vigil. The night was wild, the storm was rising, the old Inn was moaning as though in distress; and, despite his natural courage, fantastic terrors and dangers thrust themselves upon his excited imagination. He would much have preferred, he felt, to be out in the open as Dan was, even facing real dangers and greater difficulties. Deeper than by these imaginary fears of the night, he was racked with anxiety to know what had become of the girl he loved. Had she been decoyed away by the evil genius of the place; was she in danger? Had she disappeared of her own free will; and didn't she really love him?

He was not in the least sleepy; but after a while the vigil began to tell upon his nerves. He found it almost impossible to sit still and wait, perhaps in vain. He made innumerable trips across the room to the windows to look out into the bleak night. The landscape was blotted out. Not a light showed from the House on the Dunes; only the two lamps on the schooner at anchor in the Cove gleamed across the night. Eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock struck solemnly from the old clock on the stairs.

Once as he was looking out of the window, it seemed to him that the green light on the Southern Cross was moving. But it was impossible that she should weigh anchor in the teeth of the rising storm. He was mistaken. Nay, he was sure. But it was rising, slowly, steadily, as though drawn by an invisible hand, to about the height of the masthead. There at last it stopped, and swung to the wind, to and fro, to and fro; high above its red companion, high above the deck.

And then, suddenly, as if to answer this mysterious manoeuvre, the green light, that earlier in the evening had glowed from a north window of the House on the Dunes, now flashed from an east window of the old farmhouse; flashed, then gleamed steadily. The light on the Southern Cross was lowered slowly, then raised again. The light in the House on the Dunes vanished; soon flashed again and then vanished once more. Slowly the light in the schooner descended to its normal position. A moment later the green light appeared on the north side of the House on the Dunes, where it had been earlier, and shone there steadily.

Was it a signal to the Marquis de Boisdhyver? Tom tiptoed to the partition between his room and the South Chamber, and put his ear to the wall to listen. Not a sound reached him. He turned to the door to go into the corridor, and stood suddenly motionless. For there, advancing ever so cautiously down the hall, carrying a lighted candle in his hand, was the old Marquis. He was clad in night dress and cap, with a gayly-coloured dressing-gown worn over the white shirt. Slowly, silently, pausing every instant to listen; he stole on, gun in hand, and Tom followed him as cautiously and as quietly. Instead of turning to the right at the partition that divides the north and south wings of the Inn and going down stairs, the Marquis turned to the left, into the short hall that led directly to the great chamber occupied by Tom and Dan.