The Siege of the Seven Suitors

by Meredith Nicholson

XIII

I DISCOVER TWO GHOSTS

As I crossed the second-floor hall, I passed the Swedish maid, walking toward Miss Octavia's room. I was somewhat annoyed to find, on looking over my shoulder to make sure of her destination, that she, too, had paused, her hand on Miss Octavia's door, and was watching me with interest. She vanished immediately; but to throw her off the track I went to my own room, closed the door noisily, and then came out quickly and ran up to the third floor.

Bassford Hollister's mysterious exit had lingered in my mind as the most curious incident of the eventful Friday night. Having been baffled in my effort to get hold of the architect's plans, my thought now was to await in the upper part of the house a repetition of the various phenomena that had so puzzled me. By the process of exclusion I had eliminated nearly every plausible theory, but if the ghost manifested himself with any sort of periodicity (and the hour of the chimney's queer behavior had been nine) I was now prepared to meet him in the regions he had chosen for his exploits. When it is remembered that I had always been most timorous, not at all anxious to shine in any heroic performances, it will be understood that the atmosphere of Hopefield Manor was exerting a stimulating effect upon my courage. Or, more likely, my inherent cowardice had been brought into subjection by my curiosity.

I had a pretty accurate knowledge by this time of the position and function of all the electric switches between the lower hall and the fourth floor, but I tested them as I ascended, glancing down now and then to make sure I was not observed. From the sound of voices in the library I judged that most of Cecilia's suitors must now have arrived, and so much the better, I argued; for with Miss Octavia and her niece fully occupied, I could the better carry on my ghost-hunt above stairs.

At a quarter before nine I switched off the lights on the third and fourth floors, and established myself at the head of the stairway, and quite near the trunk-room door. This door I had opened, as I fancied that if Bassford Hollister were at the bottom of the business, he would probably wish to find his way to the roof again. So far as I was able to manage it, the stage was in readiness for the entrance of the goblin. And I may record my impression, that as we wait for a visitation of this sort, it is with a degree of credence in things supernatural, to which we would not ordinarily confess. In spite of ourselves we expect something to appear, something unearthly, impalpable, and unresponsive to those tests we apply to the known and understood.

The clock below struck nine upon these meditations, and almost upon the last stroke I heard a sound that set my nerves tingling. I crouched in the dark waiting. Some one was coming toward me, but from where? The bottom of a well at midnight was not blacker than the fourth floor, but the switch lay ready to my hand, and my pockets were stuffed with matches of the sort that light anywhere. The stairways were all carpeted, as I have said, and yet some one was ascending bare treads, lightly, and with delays that suggested a furtive purpose. Meanwhile, as a background for this unreality, murmurs of talk and occasional laughter rose from the library.

This concealed stairway, wherever it was, could not be of interminable length, and I had counted, I think, fifteen steps of that strange ascent when it ceased. I heard a fumbling as of some one seeking a latch, and suddenly a light current of air swept by me, but its clean fresh quality was not in itself disturbing. I stooped and struck a match smartly on the carpet and at the same time clicked the switch. I should say that not more than ten seconds passed from the moment the soft rush of air had first advertised the opening of a passage near me until the hall was flooded with the glow of the electric lamps overhead. My match had also performed its office, but finding the electric current behaving itself normally, I blew it out. What I saw now interested me immensely.

In the solid wall, near the stair, and almost directly opposite the trunk-room, a narrow door had swung outward,—a neat contrivance, so light in its construction that it still swayed on its concealed hinges from the touch of the hand that had released it. How it had opened or what had become of the prowler who had unlatched it remained to be discovered. It seemed impossible that whoever or whatever had climbed the hidden stairway had descended, nor had I been conscious of a ghostly passing as on the previous night. I had only my senses to apply to this problem, and their efficiency was minimized for a moment by fear.