Valentine Williams - Dead Man Manor

In the pale rays of the solitary bulb the lawyer’s face was convulsed with anger. But on Mr. Treadgold’s shout he desisted and, with a contemptuous snort, flung his captive from him. The victim lurched sprawling against the tree, but with considerable agility regained his feet and stood there with head lowered, like an animal at bay. To his amazement Mr. Treadgold recognized the face that had peered out at him in the Manor grounds.

Le Borgne was a wild-looking apparition. He was burnt almost black by exposure to sun and wind, with a tangle of coarse, dark hair standing out round his head and an empty socket where his right eye should have been, explaining his nickname. He wore a tattered cardigan buttoned across his grimy, naked chest and patched corduroy trousers reaching only to the ankle to display sockless feet thrust into hide shoes. His remaining eye had a fitful, unstable gleam, and forehead and chin, sloping sharply back, set the whole face at a curiously vulpine angle. He paused but an instant, pawing clumsily at his head and glaring defiance about him, then, whipping round, shambled swiftly off into the darkness.

Adams did not attempt to follow. He gave Mr. Treadgold a penitent look.

‘Sorry! I’m afraid I lost my temper. I caught him in my cabin—he tried to hide in the bathroom when he heard me coming!’

‘Did he take anything?’

Reassuringly the lawyer shook his head.

‘We’d better notify the gardien, hadn’t we? He may have robbed other camps!’

Adams laughed. ‘Not he. I know what he wanted.’ He laughed again. ‘Never mind, I’ve given that gentleman something to remember me by. He won’t come snooping round after me again, I guess! And now,’ he added composedly, ‘I think I’ll turn in!’ He nodded to the other and re-entered his hut.

Adams had not seen fit to mention just what it was One-Eye was after, the Englishman mentally noted. He remembered the lawyer’s scathing condemnation of the man as a drunkard and a wastrel at dinner—One-Eye’s surreptitious visit to Adams’s hut, he conjectured, had probably to do with some old friction dating back to the attorney’s former visits to the Manor. It was none of his affair, anyway, Mr. Treadgold reflected. After convincing himself by a rapid survey that his camp had not been visited, he switched off the light and, climbing into bed, promptly dropped off to sleep.

He was roused by the turning up of the light. He opened sleepy eyes to find Wood standing by the table.

‘Whatever time is it?’ Mr. Treadgold demanded.

‘Close on midnight. May one take a drink?’

‘Help yourself!’ The other smothered a yawn. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

The doctor did not answer—with a happy, musing air he was slowly splashing whisky into a tumbler. He tossed off three fingers neat, set down the glass, rumpled his obstreperous hair and laughed aloud.

‘What’s the joke?’ his roommate demanded drowsily.

The young man started from a reverie. ‘Nothing!’ He began to peel off his clothes. ‘Treadgold, old man,’ he asked suddenly, pausing with one leg out of his trousers, ‘what colour would you say eyes were that are gray one minute and blue the next?’

Mr. Treadgold yawned again. ‘Oh, dear! I don’t know! Plaid, I should think!’ With a vast heave, he turned his face to the wall. The doctor cast him a pitying look and, perceiving that his companion was already asleep again, went on with his undressing.

It was young Rees, really, who first gave Wood his great idea. He happened to glance at the lad while Mr. Treadgold was telling his story at dinner. The look of gloating awe on the youngster’s face, the ecstatic thrill in his voice as he echoed ‘Haunted?’ after Mr. Treadgold, brought back to Wood’s mind vivid memories of his own youth—of a certain dime novel, dog’s-eared with much clandestine thumbing, entitled The Phantom of the Moated Grange, of nocturnal excursions in Greenwich Village, where his childhood was spent, to a deserted stable, reputedly stalked by a spectre with clanking chain.

A haunted house! He’d have to see that! Boy, was this the real stuff? To Mr. Treadgold’s tale of the face in the leaves he paid scant heed—why spoil a perfectly good ghost story by dragging in a one-eyed poacher? His roommate having plainly indicated his disapproval, the doctor said no more about his plan. But no sooner had his companion turned away to speak to the curé’s housekeeper than Wood slipped round the corner of the square and made off down the village street. He had extracted from the other a clear description of the location of the Manor, and, leaving the main road through the village where it swung off to follow the river to the camp, he was soon mounting the stony slope which Mr. Treadgold had descended that afternoon.

It was dusk and already the bats were skimming between the trees. Away from the evening coolness of the camp, the air was balmy and sweet with the scent of the dog roses. It was early yet for seeing ghosts, the young man reflected as he strode along. But the light was fading fast; and he could wait.

There it was, the high saddle of a roof, clear-cut and black against the faint shell-pink of the sky! He was conscious of a tingle of excitement. There was the crossroads which, Mr. Treadgold had told him, had given the Manor its name; there the rusty gate Mr. Treadgold had climbed; beyond it the walnut avenue, and at the end, the long, white shape of a house. He vaulted the gate and plunged into the obscurity of the drive, his feet in their rubber-soled deck shoes noiseless on the mossy roadway. A moment later, his heart beating rather fast, he stood before the Manor.

He wasted no time in admiration of its architecture, but, mounting upon the platform that ran before it, attempted to peer through a shutter. But the slats were set at a downward angle and he could see nothing: moreover, every shutter—and he tried them all—was firmly fastened on the inside.

He descended from the platform and at hazard went round the side of the house, following a path that seemed to lead to the rear of the premises. It brought him to a back porch with a few steps mounting up and a door. No light was visible anywhere. He softly tried the door. It opened to a turn of the handle.

At that moment he heard a light step behind him.

He was horribly scared. He whirled about, letting the screen door clatter to behind him. A girl, young and slim and dressed in black without a hat, stood at the foot of the steps, staring up at him. His gaze was held by her eyes. They were dilated with fear, wide open and glassy, so that her face in the dusk was like the mask of Tragedy.

He had no hat to doff, but he smiled encouragingly and said in his airy way: ‘Don’t be scared. I was only having a look round. I’d no idea that anybody was living here!’

She vouchsafed no answer, but, darting past him, plucked open the two doors and called in a low, agonized voice into the darkened room beyond, ‘Jacques! Jacques!’ When all remained silent within, she called again, raising her voice cautiously as though fearful of being overheard, ‘Jacques, où êtes-vous?’ Still there was no reply, and now, veering about, she said to Wood, who was silently observing her, ‘Someone is ill down there’—she pointed away from the house. ‘He must be brought in and I can’t carry him alone. Will you help me?’ She spoke, without any accent, in English.

‘Of course,’ the young man answered promptly, and added, ‘By the way, I’m a doctor!’

She gasped. ‘A doctor? Come quickly!’ Without waiting to see if he followed, she sped swift-footed by the way he had come, back to the front of the house and thence down a path which wound its way along the brink of the stream. So fast did she run that, in the gathering darkness, Wood had difficulty in keeping up with her. He liked the delicate grace with which she moved.