“Still, it seems clear to me that she saw something. I never witnessed a more genuine case of fright. But of course the question is what that something was.”
“Had there been a moon, I should have said that what frightened her was nothing more substantial than her own shadow. In all likelihood it was a poacher, or a tramp, or some other vagabond who was prowling about where he had no business to be. And that reminds me of something.”
He rose and rang the bell, and then to Trant, who responded to the summons, he said: “Send for Bostock, and bid him and his man keep a sharp lookout to-night. I have reason to suppose that there are one or more bad characters lurking about the grounds.”
Bostock was the keeper who, some years before, had succeeded Martin Rigg, the latter having been permanently disabled in a poaching affray. Martin Rigg, it may be remembered, was the last to bid God-speed to Alec Clare on that night when Sir Gilbert pronounced sentence of banishment on his eldest son.
“I presume from what you said just now,” remarked Lady Pell when Trant had come and gone, “that of late years you have not been troubled by any of these visitations, or appearances, or whatever is the proper term for them?”
“Not for twenty years, or more, so that I felt myself justified in hoping that the Grey Brother had died a natural death and been buried out of sight for ever. Now I come to think, it was a little while before Alec left home—um—um—for the last time that we were bothered and annoyed with quite a series of appearances, or what were said to be such.”
“Ah, poor Alec—poor boy—what a fate was his!” exclaimed her ladyship with a sigh. “The apparition has never manifested itself to you, Cousin Gilbert?”
“Certainly not,” replied Sir Gilbert with emphasis. “Nor to my father before me. My mother fancied that she caught a glimpse of the figure on several occasions, not outside the house where it is generally said to be seen, but indoors, in the picture-gallery, or on the stairs, or elsewhere; but she was an excitable woman—excitable in more ways than one—and my father always pooh-poohed her statements of what she professed to have seen as so many hallucinations, although, as a matter of course, he wholly failed in converting her to his own point of view.”
Next morning, on coming down to breakfast, Lady Pell found by her plate a black-bordered letter bearing a French postmark. At sight of it she exclaimed: “Then the poor child is dead! What a pity! And he was the only grandson.”
Sir Gilbert, who was already seated at table, glanced inquiringly at her.