In the grip of terror, p.21
In The Grip of Terror, page 21
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an entresol, and poked into the back street. I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hair’s breadth, my chance of safety—for they keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of the frame cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupied me at least five minutes, reckoning by time—five hours, reckoning by suspense—to open that window. I succeeded in doing it silently—in doing it with the dexterity of a housebreaker—and then looked down into the street. To leap the distance beneath me would be almost certain destruction. Next, I looked at the sides of the house. Down the left ran a thick water-pipe—it passed close to the outer edge of the window.
To some the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemed difficult—to me the prospect of slipping down the pipe into the street did not suggest even a thought of peril.
I had already got one leg over the sill, when I remembered the handkerchief, filled with money, under my pillow. I could well have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was determined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss their plunder as well as their victim. I went back, to the bed therefore and tied the heavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat.
Just as I had made it tight and fixed in a comfortable place, I thought I heard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feeling of horror ran through me again as I listened. No! Dead silence still in the passage—I had only heard the night air blowing softly into the room. The next moment I was on the windowsill—and the next I had a firm grip on the water-pipe.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, and immediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch Prefecture of Police, which I knew was in the immediate neighbourhood. A Sub-prefect and several of his subordinates were up. But, when I began my story, in a breathless hurry and very bad French, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunken Englishman who had been robbed. He soon altered his opinion, and before I had concluded, he shoved the papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me with another (for I was bareheaded) and ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert followers to get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doors and ripping up brick flooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, to lead me with him out of the house.
Sentinels were placed at the back and front of the house the moment we got to it; a tremendous battery of knocks was directed against the door; a light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself behind the police—then came more knocks, and a cry of “Open in the name of the law!” At that terrible summons bolts and locks gave way before an invisible hand, and the moment after, the Subprefect was in the passage, confronting a waiter half-dressed and ghastly pale.
“We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house.”
“He went away hours ago”
“He did no such thing. His friend went away; he remained. Show us to his bedroom.”
“I swear to you, Monsieur Le Sous-préfet, he is not here! He—”
“I swear to you, Monsier le Garçon, he is. He slept here—he didn’t find your bed comfortable—he came to us to complain of it—he is here among my men—and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin,” calling to one of his subordinates, and pointing to the waiter— “collar that man, and tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!” Every man and woman in the house was secured—the “Old Soldier” first. I identified the bed in which I had slept and we then went on to the room above.
No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. The Sub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody be silent, stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively at the spot he had stamped on, and ordered the flooring there to be carefully taken up. This was done in no time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity between the floor of this room and the ceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavity there ran perpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside the case appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extra lengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; the complete upper works of a heavy press—constructed with infernal ingenuity to join the fixtures below, and when taken to pieces again to go into the smallest possible compass— were next discovered and pulled out. on the floor. After some little difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together, and leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, was significant. “My men,” said he, “are working down the bed-top for the first time—the men whose money you won were in better practice.”
We left the house in the possession of two police agents—the inmates having been removed to prison. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my procès-verbal in his office, returned with me to my hotel to get my passport. “Do you think,” I asked, as I gave it to him, “that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother me?”
“I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue,” answered the Sub-prefect, “in whose pocket-books were found letters, stating that they had committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything at the gaming-table. Do I know how many of those men entered the same gaming-house that you entered? won as you won? took that bed as you took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were thrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocketbooks? No man can say how many or how few have escaped the fate from which you have escaped.”
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined; the gambling-house was searched from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of the gambling-house; justice discovered that he had been drummed out of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property,’ which the owner identified; and that he, the croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my coffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared to be some doubt as to whether the servants attached to the house knew anything of the suffocating machinery; and they received* the benefit of that doubt, by being treated simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee was imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular visitors to the gambling-house were considered “suspicious,” and placed under “surveillance”; and I became for a week the “lion” of Parisian society.
My adventure cured me of ever again trying Rouge et Noir as an amusement. The sight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps of money on it, will henceforth be forever associated in ‘my mind with the sight of a bed-canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the night.
THE WELL
by W. W. Jacobs
Two men stood in the billiard-room of an old country house, talking. Play, which had been of a half-hearted nature, was over, and they sat at the open window, looking out over the park stretching away beneath them, conversing idly.
“Your time’s nearly up, Jem,” said one at length, “this time six weeks you’ll be yawning out the honeymoon and cursing the man—woman I mean—who invented them.” Jem Benson stretched his long limbs in the chair and grunted in dissent.
“I’ve never understood it,” continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. “It’s not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus I might regard it differently.”
There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the window and to smoke slowly.
“Not being as rich as Croesus—or you,” resumed Carr, regarding him from beneath lowered lids, “I paddle my own canoe down the stream of Time, and, tying it to my friends’ door-posts, go in to eat their dinners.”
“Quite Venetian,” said Jem Benson, still looking out of the window. “It’s not a bad thing for you, Wilfred, that you have the door-posts and dinners—and friends”
Carr grunted in his turn. “Seriously though, Jem,” he said, slowly, “you’re a lucky fellow, a very lucky fellow. If there is a better girl above ground than Olive, I should like to see her.”
“Yes,” said the other, quietly.
“She’s such an exceptional girl,” continued Carr, staring out of the window. “She’s so good and gentle. She thinks you are a bundle of all the virtues.”
He laughed frankly and joyously, but the other man did not join him.
“Strong sense of right and wrong, though,” continued Carr, musingly. “Do you know, I believe that if she found out that you were not—”
“Not what?” demanded Benson, turning upon him fiercely, “Not what?”
“Everything that you are,” returned his cousin, with a grin that belied his words, “I believe she’d drop you.”
“Talk about something else,” said Benson, slowly; “your pleasantries are not always in the best taste.”
Wilfred Carr rose and taking a cue from the rack, bent over the board and practiced one or two favourite shots. “The only other subject I can talk about just at present is my own financial affairs,” he said slowly, as he walked round the table.
“Talk about something else,” said Benson again, bluntly.
“And the two things are connected,” said Carr, and dropping his cue he half sat on the table and eyed his cousin.
There was a long silence. Benson pitched the end of his cigar out of the window, and leaning back closed his eyes.
“Do you follow me?” inquired Carr at length.
Benson opened his eyes and nodded at the window.
“Do you want to follow my cigar?” he demanded.
“I should prefer to depart by the usual way for your sake,” returned the other, unabashed. “If I left by the win- dow all sorts of questions would be asked, and you know what a talkative chap I am.”
“So long as you don’t talk about my affairs,” returned the other, restraining himself by an obvious effort, “you can talk yourself hoarse.”
“I’m in a mess,” said Carr, slowly, “a devil of a mess. If I don’t raise fifteen hundred by this day fortnight, I may be getting my board and lodging free.”
“Would that be any change?” questioned Benson.
“The quality would,” retorted the other. “The address also would not be good. Seriously, Jem, will you let me have the fifteen hundred?”
“No,” said the other, simply.
Carr went white. “It’s to save me from ruin,” he said, thickly.
“I’ve helped you till I’m tired,” said Benson, turning and regarding him, “and it is all to no good. If you’ve got into a mess, get out of it. You should not be so fond of giving autographs away.”
“It’s foolish, I admit,” said Carr, deliberately. “I won’t do so any more. By the way, I’ve got some to sell. You needn’t sneer. They’re not my own.”
“Whose are they?” inquired the other.
“Yours.”
Benson got up from his chair and crossed over to him. “What is this?” he asked, quietly. “Blackmail?”
“Call it what you like,” said Carr. “I’ve got some letters for sale, price fifteen hundred. And I know a man who would buy them at that price for the mere chance of getting Olive from you. I’ll give you first offer.”
“If you have got any letters bearing my signature, you will be good enough to give them to me,” said Benson, very slowly.
“They’re mine,” said Carr, lightly; “given to me by the lady you wrote them to. I must say that they are not all in the best possible taste.”
His cousin reached forward suddenly, and catching him by the collar of his coat pinned him down on the table.
“Give me those letters,” he breathed, sticking his face close to Carr’s.
“They’re not here,” said Carr, struggling. “I’m not a fool. Let me go, or I’ll raise the price.”
The other man raised him from the table in his powerful hands, apparently with the intention of dashing his head against it. Then suddenly his hold relaxed as an astonished-looking maidservant entered the room with letters. Carr sat up hastily.
“That’s how it was done,” said Benson, for the girl’s benefit as he took the letters.
“I don’t wonder at the other man making him pay for it, then,” said Carr, blandly.
“You will give me those letters?” said Benson, suggestively, as the girl left the room.
“At the price I mentioned, yes,” said Carr; “but so sure as I am a living man, if you lay your clumsy hands on me again, I’ll double it. Now, I’ll leave you for a time while you think, it over.”
He took a cigar from the box and lighting it carefully quitted the room. His cousin waited until the door had closed behind him, and then turning to the window sat there in a fit of fury as silent as it was terrible.
The air was fresh and sweet from the park, heavy with the scent of new-mown grass. The fragrance of a cigar was now added to it, and glancing out he saw his cousin pacing slowly by. He rose and went to the door, and then, apparently altering his mind, he returned to the window and watched the figure of his cousin as it moved slowly away into the moonlight. Then he rose again, and, for a long time, the room was empty.
It was empty when Mrs. Benson came in some time later to say goodnight to her son on her way to bed. She walked slowly round the table, and pausing at the window gazed from it in idle thought, until she saw the figure of her son advancing with rapid strides toward the house. He looked up at the window.
“Goodnight,” said she.
“Goodnight,” said Benson, in a deep voice.
“Where is Wilfred?”
“Oh, he has gone,” said Benson.
“Gone?”
“We had a few words; he was wanting money again, and I gave him a piece of my mind. I don’t think we shall see him again.”
“Poor Wilfred!” sighed Mrs. Benson, “He is always in trouble of some sort. I hope that you were not too hard upon him.”
“No more than he deserved,” said her son, sternly. “Good night.”
II.
The well, which had long ago fallen into disuse, was almost hidden by the thick tangle of undergrowth which ran riot at that corner of the old park. It was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines when the wind blew strongly. The full light of the sun never reached it, and the ground surrounding it was moist and green when other parts of the park were gaping with the heat.
Two people walking slowly round the park in the fragrant stillness of a summer evening strayed in the direction of the well.
“No use going through this wilderness, Olive,” said Benson, pausing on the outskirts of the pines and eyeing with some disfavour the gloom beyond.
“Best part of the park,” said the girl briskly; “you know it’s my favourite spot.”
“I know you’re very fond of sitting on the coping,” said the man slowly, “and I wish you wouldn’t. One day you will lean back too far and fall in.”
“And make the acquaintance of Truth,” said Olive lightly. “Come along.”
She ran from him and was lost in the shadow of the pines, the bracken crackling beneath her feet as she ran. Her companion followed slowly, and emerging from the gloom saw her poised daintily on the edge of the well with her feet hidden in the rank grass and nettles which surrounded it. She motioned her companion to take a seat by her side, and smiled softly as she felt a strong arm passed about her waist.
“I like this place,” said she, breaking a long silence, “it is so dismal—so uncanny. Do you know I wouldn’t dare to sit here alone, Jem. I should imagine that all sorts of dreadful things were hidden behind the bushes and trees, waiting to spring out on me. Ugh!”
“You’d better let me take you in,” said her companion tenderly; “the well isn’t always wholesome, especially in the hot weather. Let’s make a move.”
The girl gave an obstinate little shake, and settled herself more securely on her seat.
“Smoke your cigar in peace,” she said quietly. “I am settled here for a quiet talk. Has anything been heard of Wilfred yet?”
“Nothing.”
“Quite a dramatic disappearance, isn’t it?” she continued. “Another scrape, I suppose, and another letter for you in the same old strain; ‘Dear Jem, help me out.’”
Jem Benson blew a cloud of fragrant smoke into the air* and holding his cigar between his teeth brushed away the ash from his coat sleeves.
“I wonder what he would have done without you,” said the girl, pressing his arm affectionately. “Gone under long ago, I suppose. When we are married, Jem, I shall presume upon the relationship to lecture him. He is very wild, but he has his good points, poor fellow.”
“I never saw them,” said Benson, with startling bitterness. “God knows I never saw them.”
“He is nobody’s enemy but his own,” said the girl, startled by this outburst.
“You don’t know much about him,” said the other, sharply. “He was not above blackmail; not above ruining the life of a friend to do himself a benefit. A loafer, a cur, and a liar!”
The girl looked up at him soberly but timidly and took his arm without a word, and they both sat silent while evening deepened into night and the beams of the moon, filtering through the branches, surrounded them with a silver network. Her head sank upon his shoulder, till suddenly with a sharp cry she sprang to her feet.
