Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread as of some one following me,—not on the great staircase, nor in any place I could identify,—yet unmistakably on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the ghost-like tread in the hall angered me—Morgan, or his ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates’ room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand that boded no good to me.
It was now past two o’clock and he should have been asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma, Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at a table, the light of several candles falling on a book over which he was bent with that maddening gravity he had never yet in my presence thrown off.
He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head slightly.
“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”
“Yes, the devil!” I roared at him, astonished at finding him,—sorry, I must say, that he was there. The stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered for words to explain myself.
“I thought I heard some one in the house. I don’t want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?”
“Certainly not, sir,” he replied in a grieved tone.
I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a volume of Shakespeare’s comedies, open at the first scene of the last act of The Winter’s Tale.
“Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say,” he remarked. “It was one of my late master’s favorites.”
“Go to the devil!” I bawled at him, and went down to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.