The Tall House Mystery. Dorothy Fielding

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of feeling as though Winnie were a lovely flower to be shielded from rough winds, something fragile that no tempest should touch. This much was gained by Alfreda's presence, that Miss Pratt spoke very little to Gilmour. She really retired into something resembling polite sulks, talking to Ingram, but hardly deigning to see Haliburton, and spending most of her time at other houses. As for Miss Longstaff, Moy thought her in her own way as aloof as Tark, but with something watchful added. She would fix that odd unreadable stare of hers now on one, now on another of the house party as though trying to understand something which puzzled her.

      Frederick Ingram came more frequently to the house now. He avoided Gilmour as much as possible, but when the two met they seemed to be able to meet on a footing of indifferent civility. Miss Longstaff appeared rather to like Frederick, and as that young man was fond of an audience, he would often be found by her side if Miss Pratt were out of reach. He did not stay at The Tall House, but came and went, taking and bringing papers to his half-brother.

      It was just a little over a week after Alfreda's arrival when all happened to be in the lounge around six. The cocktails had been handed about, and the talk turned on ghosts. No one afterwards seemed able to remember exactly how it started. Someone—Moy said he thought it was Tark, Tark said it was Haliburton, Haliburton maintained that it was Frederick, Frederick insisted that it was Gilmour, and Gilmour said that he felt sure it was Ingram—mentioned that a man whom he had met lately had spoken to him of what a splendid display Appleton used to give as a ghost in a Grand Guignol play. But all agreed that it was Frederick who said that The Tall House had a ghost, that one of its former owners had been found hanged. It was suspected though never proved that his valet did the hanging. The old man's ghost was said to walk.

      Ingram said that a ghost was always part of the furniture of an old house, and asked Moy whether on the expiration of a tenancy it had to be handed back in the same condition as when taken over.

      "Fair wear and tear excepted," Moy said at once, amid laughter.

      "A safe provision," Haliburton pointed out, "as nothing could damage ghostly bones or clothes, not even bullets."

      "The ghost had better not bank on that," Gilmour said with a most unaccustomed edge to his voice. "Personally, if I meet one, I shall fire at sight."

      Something in his tone made the group fall silent.

      "How will you let the ghost know of its danger beforehand?" Winnie asked with one of her tinkling laughs. "By a notice to the Psychical Society?"

      "I think I have given notice by what I am saying." Gilmour's tone was still hard. "There aren't such things as real ghosts, there are only practical jokers. And, as I say, I warn any joker here that that particular piece of foolishness isn't a safe one to play on me."

      "You seem rather warm about it," Ingram said dryly.

      "Sorry!" Gilmour's tanned face looked apologetic. "I'm afraid I did rather get on my hind legs, but I was badly frightened by a so-called ghost as a kid, and the mere mention of them makes me see red ever since."

      He looked round for Miss Longstaff. But that young lady had moved behind him to an open window. She was standing very rigid, her head and chin stuck out at an angle that was not at all pretty, but which suggested breathless excitement. One hand was fingering a string of beads she wore; it had an effect of being pressed against her heart. Moy remembered afterwards that not till the talk changed did she relax that absorbed pose of hers. Gilmour, still without seeing her, rose and left the lounge. Frederick Ingram followed him for a moment.

      "He means it right enough," he said, coming back. "He's got it into his head that one of us is going to play that same prank on him again, and he wants everyone to know that he really intends 'to shoot at sight. I think he suspects me."

      "Is he a good shot?" Tark asked in his creaky, expressionless voice. Everyone laughed.

      "Very," Ingram spoke up now. "Very," he repeated, looking sharply at his brother. "But I don't think I'm giving anyone much of a surprise when I add that his revolver is loaded with blank."

      "Blank or loaded, I have no intention of amusing Gilmour," Frederick said promptly. "But it's as well for the rest of you to know that you needn't drop on the floor when you hear a bang."

      Ingram turned away and picked up a book near him. When he was not writing he was sure to be reading, Winnie had once told him. She crossed to his side now. "I can't imagine you without books." She smiled at him one of her softest, most radiant smiles.

      "Let's take a turn in the fresh air," he said under his breath. "Somehow the air in here's a bit hot...electric...but as to being without books, there are other things I couldn't live without. When this month is up, Winnie"—he had never called her by her first name before—"how are you going to choose?"

      "My mother wants me to marry Basil Haliburton," she said evasively.

      "Are you going to?" he asked, standing still and taking hold of a spray of Bokhara vine.

      "You've spoiled matters," she said with one of her most flirtatious upward glances. "But for you, I shouldn't have hesitated. Until you came, I felt so sure I cared for him."

      "What about Lawrence Gilmour?" The question came before he could check it. She cocked a supercilious chin at him.

      "Lawrence Gilmour? Why, he's engaged. It isn't because of Mr. Gilmour that I'm not sure what I shall say to Basil Haliburton."

      Even the adoring Ingram looked a bit doubtful, and the chin swept up still more.

      "You alone complicate matters," she said softly and yet rather wearily. As she spoke they turned a corner and almost stepped on Haliburton himself. It was an awkward meeting. Even Winnie was nonplussed for a second, then she made some remark about the flowers, and the evening light, and the young man took it up pleasantly, but he avoided looking, or speaking, directly to Ingram.

      CHAPTER 5

       Table of Contents

      THAT night Moy was awakened by the last sound that the young solicitor ever expected to hear in a house—the sound of a shot. With it came a loud cry and then a thud.

      Still rigid with bewilderment, he heard a sort of sobbing falsetto:

      "Where's the light? God, where's the switch?" The voice seemed that of a stranger and yet there was something about it which reminded him of Gilmour.

      Moy came to life and sprang out of bed. He rushed into the passage. Bright moonlight flooded it. Just in front of him was the big main passage leading down to Gilmour's room, the door of which faced him across the landing at the farther end. Halfway down the passage was Ingram's room and it was in front of that room that something bulky and white was lying.

      Coming towards Moy and towards the heap on the ground, staggering as though he were drunk, and clawing at the wall with his left hand, was a man in pajamas. The right hand was outstretched and held something small that glittered in the cold, white light; glittered all the more because it wavered and swung to and fro, as though the arm were a broken signpost in a gale of wind. In the moonlight the man's face showed so blanched, so distorted with its protruding eyeballs and open mouth that Moy thought it was a stranger's for a moment. Then he saw it was Gilmour. Just by the white heap on the floor both almost collided with each other. Their hands met and closed on a switch. At the same instant other voices, men's СКАЧАТЬ