E. Phillips Oppenheim - 21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

“I cannot sleep,” she said softly. “Do you mind my coming for a few minutes?”

“Of course not,” he answered. “Come and sit down.”

She curled up in his easy-chair.

“Just for a moment,” she murmured contentedly. “Give me your hands, dear. But how cold! You must come nearer to the fire yourself.”

He sat on the arm of her chair, and she stroked his head with her hands.

“You were not afraid, then?” she asked, “when you saw me come through the panel?”

“I should never be afraid of any harm that you might bring me, dear,” he assured her.

“Because all that foolishness is really gone,” she continued eagerly. “I know that whatever happened to poor Roger, it was not you who killed him. Even if I heard his ghost calling again to-night, I should have no fear. I can’t think why I ever wanted to hurt you, Everard. I am sure that I always loved you.”

His arm went very softly around her. She responded to his embrace without hesitation. Her cheek rested upon his shoulder, he felt the warmth of her arm through her white, fur-lined dressing-gown.

“Why do you doubt any longer then,” he asked hoarsely, “that I am your husband?”

She sighed.

“Ah, but I know you are not,” she answered. “Is it wrong of me to feel what I do for you, I wonder? You are so like yet so unlike him. He is dead. He died in Africa. Isn’t it strange that I should know it? But I do!”

“But who am I then?” he whispered.

She looked at him pitifully.

“I do not know,” she confessed, “but you are kind to me, and when I feel you are near I am happy. It is because I wanted to see you that I would not stay any longer at the nursing home. That must mean that I am very fond of you.”

“You are not afraid,” he asked, “to be here alone with me?”

She put her other arm around his neck and drew his face down.

“I am not afraid,” she assured him. “I am happy. But, dear, what is the matter? A moment ago you were cold. Now your head is wet, your hands are burning. Are you not happy because I am here?”

Her lips were seeking his. His own touched them for a moment. Then he kissed her on both cheeks. She made a little grimace.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that you are not really fond of me.”

“Can’t you believe,” he asked hoarsely, “that I am really Everard—your husband? Look at me. Can’t you feel that you have loved me before?”

She shook her head a little sadly.

“No, you are not Everard,” she sighed; “but,” she added, her eyes lighting up, “you bring me love and happiness and life, and—”

A few seconds before, Dominey felt from his soul that he would have welcomed an earthquake, a thunderbolt, the crumbling of the floor beneath his feet to have been spared the torture of her sweet importunities. Yet nothing so horrible as this interruption which really came could ever have presented itself before his mind. Half in his arms, with her head thrown back, listening—he, too, horrified, convulsed for a moment even with real physical fear—they heard the silence of the night broken by that one awful cry, the cry of a man’s soul in torment, imprisoned in the jaws of a beast. They listened to it together until its echoes died away. Then what was, perhaps, the most astonishing thing of all, she nodded her head slowly, unperturbed, unterrified.

“You see,” she said, “I must go back. He will not let me stay here. He must think that you are Everard. It is only I who know that you are not.”

She slipped from the chair, kissed him, and, walking quite firmly across the floor, touched the spring and passed through the panel. Even then she turned around and waved a little good-bye to him. There was no sign of fear in her face; only a little dumb disappointment. The panel glided to and shut out the vision of her. Dominey held his head like a man who fears madness.

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Dawn the next morning was heralded by only a thin line of red parting the masses of black-grey snow clouds which still hung low down in the east. The wind had dropped, and there was something ghostly about the still twilight as Dominey issued from the back regions and made his way through the untrodden snow round to the side of the house underneath Rosamund’s window. A little exclamation broke from his lips as he stood there. From the terraced walks, down the steps, and straight across the park to the corner of the Black Wood, were fresh tracks. The cry had been no fantasy. Somebody or something had passed from the Black Wood and back again to this spot in the night.

Dominey, curiously excited by his discovery, examined the footmarks eagerly, then followed them to the corner of the wood. Here and there they puzzled him. They were neither like human footsteps nor the track of any known animal. At the edge of the wood they seemed to vanish into the heart of a great mass of brambles, from which here and there the snow had been shaken off. There was no sign of any pathway; if ever there had been one, the neglect of years had obliterated it. Bracken, brambles, shrubs and bushes had grown up and degenerated, only to be succeeded by a ranker and more dense form of undergrowth. Many of the trees, although they were still plentiful, had been blown down and left to rot on the ground. The place was silent except for the slow drip of falling snow from the drooping leaves. He took one more cautious step forward and found himself slowly sinking. Black mud was oozing up through the snow where he had set his feet. He was just able to scramble back. Picking his way with great caution, he commenced a leisurely perambulation of the whole of the outside of the wood.

Heggs, the junior keeper, an hour or so later, went over the gun rack once more, tapped the empty cases, and turned towards Middleton, who was sitting in a chair before the fire, smoking his pipe.

“I can’t find master’s number two gun, Mr. Middleton,” he announced. “That’s missing.”

“Look again, lad,” the old keeper directed, removing the pipe from his mouth. “The master was shooting with it yesterday. Look amongst those loose ‘uns at the far end of the rack. It must be somewhere there.”

“Well, that isn’t,” the young man replied obstinately.

The door of the room was suddenly opened, and Dominey entered with the missing gun under his arm. Middleton rose to his feet at once and laid down his pipe. Surprise kept him temporarily silent.

“I want you to come this way with me for a moment,” his master ordered.

The keeper took up his hat and stick and followed. Dominey led him to where the tracks had halted on the gravel outside Rosamund’s window and pointed across to the Black Wood.

“What do you make of those?” he enquired.

Middleton did not hesitate. He shook his head gravely.

“Was anything heard last night, sir?”

“There was an infernal yell underneath this window.”

“That was the spirit of Roger Unthank, for sure,” Middleton pronounced, with a little shudder. “When he do come out of that wood, he do call.”

“Spirits,” his master pointed out, “do not leave tracks like that behind.”

Middleton considered the matter.

“They do say hereabout,” he confided, “that the spirit of Roger Unthank have been taken possession of by some sort of great animal, and that it do come here now and then to be fed.”

“By whom?” Dominey enquired patiently.

“Why, by Mrs. Unthank.”

“Mrs. Unthank has not been in this house for many months. From the day she left until last night, so far as I can gather, nothing has been heard of this ghost, or beast, or whatever it is.”

“That do seem queer, surely,” Middleton admitted.

Dominey followed the tracks with his eyes to the wood and back again.