Dead Man's Love

by Tom Gallon

The house was a very large one. We traversed a number of corridors before coming to a room which seemed to be half-study and half-surgery. I should not have known as to the latter half of it, but for the fact that the doctor, who did not seem to care to summon any servants there may have been, left me there while he went in search of food. I peeped behind a screen at one end of the room, and saw an array of bottles, and test tubes in stands, and other paraphernalia. At the further end of the room were great book cases reaching to the ceiling, and a big desk with a reading-lamp upon it. But even here, though the furniture was handsome, the room had a neglected appearance, as, indeed, I afterwards found every room in that house had.

Bardolph Just came back in a little while, carrying food and a decanter. After he had set the food out on a table, and I had fallen to with a relish, he laughed softly, and said that, after all, he had forgotten to bring me a glass. He declared, however, that that was a matter soon remedied, and he went behind the screen, and came out with a tall measuring-glass in his hand. It seemed an uncanny thing to drink wine out of; but I had no choice.

He presently pulled open a drawer in the desk, and took out a cigar, and lighted it; as I had finished my meal, he tossed one to me, and I gratefully began to smoke. The man was evidently still turning over some matter in his mind, for he said nothing while he sat twisting the cigar round between his lips and looking at me. His back was turned towards the door of the room, and presently in that house of horror I saw the door begin slowly to open.

I suppose I ought to have cried out, but once again I was fascinated by what might happen at any moment, and perhaps in sheer wonder as to what was coming in. It was nothing worse, as it turned out, than the little, old grey-haired man I had seen in the further room, and who had evidently followed us. He crept in now, step by step, with that curious smile upon his face, and when he was fairly in the room closed the door—I noticed that it closed with a sharp little click, as though it had a spring lock.

Dr. Bardolph Just did a curious thing. As the lock clicked he suddenly sat rigid, gripping the arms of his chair, and staring at me as though from my face he would learn what was behind him. Seeing, I suppose, nothing in my expression to guide him, he suddenly swung sharply round and faced the little old man; and I thought at that moment that a quick sigh broke from him, as of relief. I wondered what he had expected to see.

"What the devil do you want?" he demanded, in a voice raised but little above a whisper. "Why do you follow me about?"

The old man spread out his hands in a deprecating fashion, and shook his head. "Nothing, sir," he said, "nothing at all. But he won't speak to me—and he has never been like that before. I don't understand it. I knelt beside him just now, and his dress was different—and—and—" I saw his hands go up to his lips, and pluck at them in that strange fashion—"and he won't speak to me."

The doctor turned from him to me, and shrugged his shoulders. "This is a nice apparition to be following a man about," he said petulantly. "I can't make him out at all."

"Who is he?" I ventured to ask in a whisper.

"The servant of the dead man—one of those faithful old fools that attach themselves to you, and won't be shaken off, I suppose. He came here to-night, following his unfortunate master. What the deuce am I to do with him?"