The solitary house

Chapter I

It made a pretty picture, as he, limping down the long road, came upon it suddenly at a turn in the path he was following; and since even a tramp may admire a view if he will, just as a cat may look at a king, Keith Norton paused for a moment to look and to admire.

He was tired, too, and glad to rest for a moment, for he had walked five-and-twenty miles that day, and the ache in his weary limbs reminded him of the times when he had believed every tramp to be a lazy vagabond anxious only to escape work.

The house that made the centre of the landscape he had paused to admire was not a large one, but it was picturesquely situated on the slope of the hill against the large dark masses of surrounding woods that were now in the full glory of their summer foliage. Above it was the crest of the hill, and at a little distance a small stream ran for a space from the spring in the open where it rose to

Jose itself in the recesses of the wood as though 9 suddenly afraid and seeking shelter there. The house faced due west, so that, as now the day was drawing to its close, the full rays of the declining sun shone upon it, showing every detail clearly and making its windows shine as though they were of molten gold.

Perhaps to some degree the appeal that it made to the solitary watcher by the wayside lay in the fact that it was the first sign of human habitation he had seen for some hours, and after the bareness of the close-cropped inhospitable downs, barren and void of all save an occasional flock of sheep, this little house nestling in the trees on the green hill-side had for him a very attractive air.

“Pretty little place,” he said presently and moved on, for it was late and he was seeking shelter, and he noticed that he had not gone many yards when the cottage on the hill-side vanished entirely from his sight.

The effect was a little startling. One moment it was there in full view, the next it had vanished as though, like the little brook, it had fled into the woods for shelter. Though Keith was in no mood to interest himself in trifles, or to take an unnecessary step out of his way, he turned back to see how it was this happened, and was aware indeed of an odd feeling of doubt and hesitation that made him anxious to assure himself the house was really there and actually existent. For when one has had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours and not much for two or three days previously, one’s eyes and brain are apt to play queer tricks.

But the house was still there, plain and solid on the hill-side, and the effect of sudden disappearance was caused merely by a bend in the road that chanced to correspond with a sweep forward of the line of trees upon the hill. But now his attention was drawn to it Keith noticed that much the same thing occurred as one came down the road the other way, which was why the house had the effect of appearing with such dramatic suddenness. In fact, it was visible only at one point upon the road, and now as Keith watched the pretty little house solitary upon the hill-side it seemed to him to take on an aspect secret and aloof, as though it had deliberately chosen that site in order to be well hidden from prying eyes.

“Bit odd,” Keith thought to himself and resumed his tramp’s steady, slouching pace that he knew must bear him a good many miles farther before there would be much chance of getting food or shelter.

It has to be confessed that it was entirely his own fault that Keith Norton, at the age of three-andtwenty, good looking, with bright brown eyes and brown hair with a curl to it many a girl might have envied, gifted with good health, first-class muscles, and a brain of fully average quality, was at this moment a ragged tramp, hungry and homeless. The death of his father without means had closed the University to him in his second year, so that he had to leave without taking his degree, and friends had obtained for him quite a good position in a well-known, highly respected, and old-established house of business where he had only to be punctual in attendance, cultivate a neat handwriting, and make no mistakes in adding up, to be sure of a fair salary all his life, and with even before him the prospect of rising in due course of seniority to be head of his room and sit apart in a glass-enclosed compartment, a little like a fat goldfish in an aquarium.

But unfortunately Keith Norton was not so punctual as he should have been, his handwriting was deplorable — he had learnt both it and his spelling at one of our historic public schools, so no more need be said on that score — and to add up figures correctly bored him to distraction. The end came when one fine spring morning he went for a walk in the country, totally forgetting that such places as dingy old offices in the city even existed. Naturally his connection with one dingy old office ceased abruptly, and after a somewhat solemn week-end spent in considering the position,

Keith decided he would go to one of the colonies, working his way as a sailor since he had no money to pay his fare.

But there seemed no unduly keen competition for his services at the docks when he went to visit them; though at last one skipper, who was in a hurry and could not afford to be particular, shipped him as a deck hand. Keith, on the strength of a little yachting he had done, had considered himself something of a sailor man, but his experiences on this voyage entirely cured him of his illusions on the point; and as, moreover, the ship was only a tramp steamer making a coasting trip, his desire to reach the colonies was not much facilitated. A breakdown, total and complete, of the boat’s engines, brought the trip to a summary end in a small west-country port, and Keith found himself discharged with twelve and sixpence as pay for about six weeks as hard work as man could wish for. To his somewhat vehement protests the skipper replied by explaining in hurt tones that the cap, woollen scarf, and one or two other small articles he had been supplied with had absorbed the rest of his earnings, and did he expect his outfit for nothing?

Keith did not consider the explanation satisfactory, or a cap and woollen scarf properly described as an outfit, and the argument that ensued developed into a fistic encounter that the skipper, getting the worst of it, ended by an appeal to the police. Naturally the constable he summoned, being a true servant of the law, took the side of the better dressed man, and Keith, foolishly surprised by this — for he was young and lacked experience — showed his resentment in a manner which fully justified the constable in attempting to remove him to the police station. Keith thereupon knocked the officer down, and having thus placed himself thoroughly in the wrong and realizing that a month’s hard labour inexorably awaits all those who assault the police in the execution of their duty, he returned from the scene of his exploits with some precipitation, not staying even to collect the twelve and six admittedly due to him.

He dared not therefore stay in the town to seek work, and he made up his mind to tramp back to London. Today was the fourth day of his journey, and unwashen, half starved and in rags, he looked as desperate a character as any peaceable and quiet citizen might be reluctant to meet on a lonely road.

He walked on now, tired and footsore, for about a quarter of a mile till he came to where a path led from the road he was following into the wood by the wayside.

The darkness was increasing rapidly, and the idea came to him that perhaps he had better decide to stay for the night in the shelter of these trees rather than go farther and perhaps have to sleep out in the open, with the risk of being pounced on by some vigilant police officer. For during these last few days he had discovered that to sleep out in the open by reason of being unable to pay for a bed is an offence against the majesty of the law of England. This discovery and the fact that he supposed a warrant was out for his arrest on a charge of assault — though in point of fact his policeman was a decent soul, bore no malice, and had never said anything about their little adventure— together tended to make him feel a good deal of an outlaw and somewhat hostile towards all settled authority. The law, he thought, was made by comfortable people in order that they might remain comfortable, and he being not comfortable — indeed quite otherwise — was in no mood to pay it more attention than needs must.

During these four days of tramping his temper had grown a little strained, desperate indeed and even reckless, and it remained so as he stumbled now easily through the wood, seeking a snug place where to lie down and sleep, and even dreaming that somewhere he might find some berries ripe enough to eat and stem the hunger gnawing at him.

It was a foolish hope, but it lured him on, and as he went he was aware of a curious impression as though there was some creature that followed close by and watched him through the trees. The impression was so strong he called out once, but got no answer, and when he paused to listen he could hear nothing. The heavy silence underneath the trees was unbroken by the faintest sound, and yet still that impression remained of there being some living thing near by, following and watching. When presently he came to an open glade and had crossed it he paused suddenly and crouched down in thick bracken to watch and wait. But he saw nothing, and after a time resumed his way, only to be almost immediately again aware of the same sensation of being followed and watched, so that the thought came to him that these woods were less lonely than they seemed, and he was aware of a certain terror and vague alarm growing slowly in his mind.

However, the impression was only faint, and he tried to put it out of his mind, for it and his sensation of alarm seemed to him absurd, so that when he came to the end of the path and found to his surprise that it had led him to the pretty little house on the hill-side he had admired from the road below, he forgot his fears entirely in his surprise.

He stopped, expecting to be greeted by the loud barking of hostile dogs. But there was no sound at all, and again it came to him that about this place there was something aloof and secret. He hesitated for a moment, and he felt his heart beat a little quicker than usual. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he stepped from the shelter of the trees and walked across the open grassy space that lay between him and the house.

“I’ll beg for food,” he said to himself bitterly; “why should I starve?”

The silence remained unbroken, all was still and quiet, nothing stirred, nor was there any sign of life apparent as he drew near the house.

Round it was a garden fenced in by a low hedge one passed through by means of a wooden gate. He pushed this open and entered, letting it close behind him with a bang and expecting that the noise would cause some one to appear. But no one came ; no more silent and still lay the wood he had just come through than did this solitary and quiet house upon the hill-side.

Chapter II

He walked slowly round to the back door, and as he did so noticed that most of the windows were open, so that presumably the occupants of the house could not be very far away. He knocked, but no answer came, and when he knocked a second time, more loudly, there was still no answer.

In the west the setting sun had reached the horizon and the hush of the coming night lay upon all the land. Everything was very quiet and still, and the only sound that broke the utter silence all around was the echo of his own loud knocking when a third time he hammered with his closed fist on the door.

“They can’t be far off,” he said to himself, staring thoughtfully at the open window, and then he noticed that on the handle and latch of the kitchen door a spider had spun its web.

It seemed to him that this was strange, and he went round to the front and knocked still more loudly at the door there.

But no one answered or heeded his summons, and 18 the quietude of the place began to take to him a new significance, so that he remembered again that queer and daunting impression he had had while passing through the wood of an unseen presence, following and watching.

For a last time he knocked, and when he had waited a little and there was no answer, he went again to the back door where the spider had spun its web, and tried the latch. It lifted at once and the door swung open. For a moment he hesitated on the threshold, and standing there he shouted loudly:

“Is any one at home?”

Again there was no reply, but happening to look round he caught sight of something — what he could not see; it might have been a crouching man or a dog or even merely a cat prowling by — that moved quickly on the fringe of the trees and then vanished and showed suddenly and indistinctly for a moment again and once more was gone from sight.

The idea came to Keith that there was some creature in the wood, the same that had followed and watched him during his progress through it, and that this creature was greatly excited and agitated by his movements and his apparent intention to enter the house. Yet why this should be so and why this creature, whatever it might be.

did not come forward and forbid him or make some resistance or objection to his entry, he could not imagine. Puzzled and wary, with a feeling that all this was very strange and even a little sinister, Keith pushed the back door farther open and entered through it to the kitchen on which it opened. Very quickly he crossed at once to the window and looked out, expecting that his action would cause whatever was hiding in the wood to emerge.

But the wood lay quiet and solitary in the declining light of the dying day, perfectly still, utterly peaceful, the undisturbed shadows heavy beneath the untroubled trees. After he had watched for some minutes and seen nothing, he began to think it was all his own nervous imagination that had deceived him and that there was nothing there.

Turning from the window he glanced round. The kitchen was a bright airy room, with a table scrubbed to a shining cleanness in the middle of the floor and a large dresser well supplied with crockery opposite the window. There was a large open fireplace that did not seem to have been used of late, and he noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece had run down, and that here and there was a light covering of dust as though it were some time since the room had been occupied. He noticed, too, that there was some soot lying in various places, and at first he could not make out what had caused this. But when he went into the scullery adjoining he discovered that the soot came from there, from a big oil stove that seemed to have been smoking badly and that had covered everything near it with soot of which some had floated into the kitchen.

On the stove was a saucepan containing eggs but no water, and next to it was a frying-pan with some very badly burnt bacon half smothered in soot. Keith looked at the saucepan containing the eggs and saw that it had boiled dry, and that a hole had been burnt in its bottom. He tried one of the eggs and found it was quite hard, and when he examined the lamps found them empty and the wicks much charred, so that apparently they had been allowed to bum themselves out. Obviously this accounted for the soot that was about, as the lamps would smoke badly before becoming finally extinguished. v

“Whoever was frying the bacon and cooking the eggs must have been called away suddenly,” Keith said, half aloud, “and never come back. Funny!”

Puzzled and thoughtful he went back into the kitchen and through the half-open door that led from it to the rest of the house.

“Any one here?” he shouted, and his voice came back to him hollowly and there was no other reply.

He went cautiously into the hall and the other rooms on the ground floor. One was the drawing-room, a pretty, dainty, little apartment with art paper on the walls and many knick-knacks, some of which seemed of value. Keith noticed an engraving on the wall that looked to him very like a Meryon, though he was not sure. On a small table stood a Japanese vase, in it flowers that were dead from lack of water. Music was open on the piano; books and current magazines lay about, one face downwards on a chair as though some one reading it had put it down for a moment meaning to pick it up again at once. On one chair was an illustrated paper; on another some fancy work, the needle, threaded with yellow silk, still sticking in it as though it, too, had only been laid aside momentarily. Across the small hall was the dining-room where the table was spread for a meal, breakfast apparently, since there was toast and marmalade, cold ham, and an open box of sardines, and under a cosy a silver coffee pot of which the contents had long been cold. Places were laid for two people, but the meal, though ready, had not been begun, for the plates and cups were all quite clean.

More and more puzzled Keith went back into the hall and shouted up the stairs:

‘‘Is there any one there?”

No answer came, and after a moment’s hesitation he went back into the dining-room. The bread on the table was stale but quite eatable. There was butter, too, and the cold ham, though dry on the outside, had an appetizing appearance. Keith’s hunger had seemed to slacken as he made these investigations, but now it returned with pangs keener even than before. Indeed he was nearly starving, for he had eaten nothing at all for twenty-four hours, and for the three days previously hardly as much as would have made him one good meal in former days. He broke off a piece of bread and put it in his mouth, and a bit of ham followed; before he was well aware what he was doing he was sitting at the table making a hearty meal.

He ate quickly, fiercely, almost recklessly, and when the thought came to him that perhaps the occupants of the house would return and find him busy with their food, sitting a,t their table, he told himself he did not care; all that mattered was his hunger and the chance that had come to satisfy it.

When at last he had had enough he got up and went back into the hall. He felt physically a great deal better and stronger for his meal, but his mood was reckless and angry, for he supposed that now he would be considered guilty of both housebreaking and theft, and was liable to heavy punishment— penal servitude, perhaps, for all he knew. And it seemed to him unjust that only thus had he been able to still the hunger that had tormented him.

“I suppose I had better see what’s in the rest of the place,” he said to himself, and went upstairs.

It was nearly dark now, and heavy shadows lay in all the comers and on the landing at the head of the stairs. Opposite to him were two doors. He opened one and found himself in a bedroom that by the evidence of the articles on the toilet table and of some clothing lying about had been occupied by a woman. The bed was not made, and evidently the room had not been tidied since it was last used. Opening the other door he went into the next room. This was quite tidy and had obviously not been used for some time; presumably it was the spare room. There were two other rooms at the back: one used as a box-room, for it had no furniture and contained a good deal of miscellaneous lumber, and the other apparently intended for the use of a servant. Here also the bed was unmade, and various objects were littered about as though left by some one who had every intention of returning very shortly. There was also a bath-room, and here Keith noticed a shaving brush and soap and a silver shaving mirror, so that evidently there had been a man about.

He went back into the bedroom and looked in the wardrobe and in the drawers and found there was plenty of men’s clothing including boots and slippers at the bottom of a cupboard. Presumably, therefore, the lady had been married, and this was the room shared by her and her husband, but as all the masculine clothing was somewhat carefully put away and none lying about, he had probably not been staying in the house just recently. Keith also found a case of razors in one of the drawers, and it was this that first put it into his head to reflect that he was very dirty and had not had a bath or a shave for a long time.

He began to rummage about and had soon collected a complete outfit of underclothing as well as a light tweed suit that seemed to fit him very well.

“May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” he said to himself recklessly, and he went down to the scullery and filled the lamps of the oil stove from a gallon tin of oil that was standing near. He trimmed the wicks and soon had the stove going and some water on to heat. As soon as it boiled he took a jugful up to the bath-room and treated himself to the luxury of a shave, and afterwards he heated more water and had a bath and changed his own filthy rags for the clothing he had got ready.

Bathed, shaved, respectably dressed, he was changed as if by magical transformation from the desperate looking ruffian of an hour or two earlier into as goodly a youth as any one could wish to see, and he needed but one thing to make his content complete. A short search in the dining-room provided it, for in the sideboard was a box of cigars, and he helped himself to one and lighted it and began to smoke.

“I suppose I am a burglar,” he thought, “but anyhow this is a jolly sight better than dossing out under the trees, wet through with dew and twisted up with hunger. Who cares?”

His mood was indeed perfectly reckless. Life he considered, not perhaps with so complete a justification as he assumed, had treated him harshly and unfairly, and he told himself he had a right to take the good that came his way.

“A jolly fool I should have been,” he thought, “to clear off and sleep out under a tree when there was food and shelter and clothing lying wasting here with no one to use them.”

He enjoyed that cigar as only one who has been long deprived of tobacco can enjoy a good smoke, and he had finished it and was wondering whether to help himself to another when quite suddenly there came a knocking at the front door, a sharp, quick, hurried knock that went echoing and sounding through the whole house.

CHAPTER III A Visitor

He laid down the cigar box he had been fingering doubtfully, and he listened quietly and without moving. The knock was repeated, quick and imperative, and Keith rose slowly to his feet.

“Now to face the music,” he said to himself, and he went quickly out of the room and across the hall to the front door and opened it.

On the threshold was standing a tall, slim girl with dark eyes and a grave and pale face. Her features were thin and not very regular, the nose being a little too prominent, the mouth a little too large. The cheek bones were a little high, too, and indeed she might have been called plain but for the fineness of the clear, smooth skin, the depth and beauty of the dark eyes and the perfection of the broad, serene forehead from which the hair was brushed back tightly beneath a small closely-fitting felt hat. She held herself very upright, with a certain suggestion of pliant vigour, and Keith noticed 27 that her limbs were long and her hands and feet by no means specially small. She had ridden up on a bicycle, for she had her hand on one she had just placed to lean against the side of the house, and though she looked very intently and searchingly at Keith she did not speak.

He did not speak, either, but stood quietly, waiting for her to begin, and the pause allowed him to notice every detail of her appearance. He felt, too, that she on her part was watching him closely from those great dark eyes, and that this intent gaze of hers was hostile and even contemptuous. He wondered if she knew who he was and how he had come there, and he felt his temper beginning to rise under the slow scorn of her watchful gaze.

There was, however, in this enmity her manner seemed to show, no suggestion of fear or doubt or suspicion; it was rather as though he were some one whom she knew well and utterly despised. But then it seemed quite impossible that she should really know him, and it occurred to him at once that most likely she was taking him for some one else, presumably the rightful tenant of the house whose food he had eaten and whose clothes he was wearing. But then if the girl were really under such an impression it followed that she could never have seen this unknown tenant, and why, therefore, should she appear so hostile towards him? Keith, through whose mind all these considerations flashed like lightning, determined to be careful and cautious in what he said, and to endeavour, if possible, to find out what the girl knew or believed about him without in any way betraying himself.

“I have come to see my sister,” she said suddenly and abruptly, her voice quiet and low and yet singularly clear.

“Yes,” he answered hesitatingly. “Yes. She lives here?”

For some reason his words seemed to fan to sudden flame the smouldering fires of her wrath.

“How dare you?” she cried, and she lifted her hands so that for the moment he believed she was about to strike him. But the gesture was only one of passionate indignation, and she said again: “How dare you? oh, how dare you?”

“But I assure you,” he began and paused and felt himself flush red, so fierce and scorching was the indignation in her angry eyes.

“Do you suppose,” she said bitterly, “that whatever you assure me, I should ever believe one word you say?”

“Well, if you don’t,” he remarked, “it doesn’t seem much use my saying anything, does it?”

“Do you think you have any reason to expect me to believe you?” she demanded.

He hesitated, reflecting that after all, since the very clothes on his back were not his own, he had perhaps no right to reply in the affirmative.

“I insist on seeing my sister,” she said, and swept past him with a movement into the hall.

He drew back with a slight bow, and she went into the drawing-room of which the door he had left open was on her right. She gave a glance round to assure herself no one was there, and then came out and went into the dining-room. He followed her, and she, after one quick look round, went out again without noticing him, while he busied himself lighting the tall brass lamp that stood in one comer of the room. He drew the curtains, too, and while he did so heard her light firm footsteps overhead as she went swiftly into one room after another. When he had drawn the blinds he sat down in the comfortable arm-chair he had been occupying, when her knock disturbed him, and soon he heard her coming downstairs again. She came to the door of the room and stood there in the flooding lamplight, and her face was more pale, her eyes more large and bright, even than before.