Chapter 26. In Gross Darkness

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. IN GROSS DARKNESS

The staircase was very gloomy and quiet as Guest ascended, and he paused on the landing on finding Stratton's outer door shut, and after a few moments' hesitation, turned off to the left, meaning to have a few words with Brettison about their friend's state.

This door was also shut and he turned back, but feeling that, perhaps, after all, Brettison might be in, he knocked; waited; knocked again, and stood listening.

"Off somewhere again picking flowers," muttered Guest. "Men begin by picking them as children, and some end their lives gathering the sweet, innocent looking things."

He, however, gave one more double knock before turning away and going back to Stratton's door.

Here he knocked gently, but there was no reply. He knocked again, feeling a sensation of nervousness come over him as he thought of the words of the porter's wife; and, as there was no reply, he could not help a little self-congratulation at there being no admission.

But he frowned at his weakness directly.

"Absurd! Cowardice!" he muttered. "This is nothing like acting the friend."

He knocked again, and, as there was still silence, he lifted the cover of the letter slit and placed his lips to the place.

"Here, Malcolm, old fellow, open this door," he cried. "I'm sure you are there."

A faint rustling sound within told him he was right, and directly after the door was opened.

"You, Percy!" said the hollow-faced, haggard man, staring at him, and giving way unwillingly as, forcing himself to act, Guest stepped forward and entered the room.

He repented the moment he was inside, for the room looked strange and gloomy through the window blind being drawn down, and there was a singularly wild, strained look in Stratton's eyes, which never left him for a moment, suggestive of the truth of Mrs Brade's words.

Stratton had hurriedly closed the outer door upon his friend's entrance, but he had left the inner undone; and now stood holding it open as if for his visitor to go.

Guest felt ready to obey, but he again mastered his weakness and took a chair, knowing that if he was to perform a manly act and save his friend, he must be calm and firm. But in spite of himself, as he took his seat he gave a hasty glance round the room, thinking of its loneliness, and the extreme improbability of anyone hearing a cry for help.

"Why have you come back so soon?" said Stratton at last.

"The old reason. Sort of stupid, spaniel-like feeling for the man who kicks me."

Stratton made a hasty gesture.

"Didn't like to stop away long after your being so upset last night."

Stratton shuddered, and his friend watched him curiously again.

"I'm much better now."

"Glad of it, but your nerves are terribly unstrung; or you wouldn't be ready to jump out of your skin at the sound of a rat."

Stratton shuddered.

"I know you couldn't help it."

"No, but it's going off now fast, and if I could be alone I should soon be right."

"Doubt it. No good; you must put up with me for a bit."

He tried to look laughingly in his companion's eyes, but there was a strong feeling of dread at his heart as he felt that wild thoughts evidently existed in his friend's brain, and that there was some terrible mischief hatching there.

"Look here, Mal," he said, mastering his own shrinking by remembrance of how the strong-witted man could often master the brain unhinged; "my impression is that you want change. Suppose you and I take a run. What do you say to Switzerland, and start to-day?"

Stratton shuddered, and a curious, sneering smile dawned on his face.

"Why don't you ask me to explain my conduct again?" he said fiercely.

"Because I have no right to. You are your own master, and are answerable to yourself."

"I'll tell you," continued Stratton, without heeding his visitor's words, "it is because you think I am mad."

"Do I? Absurd!"

"Yes. That is why you are here."

"I am not going to contradict you; but I will tell you why I am here. My old friend and companion suddenly turned queer, attacked with some illness, and I said to myself, 'If I were to be bad like that I hope poor old Mal would come to me as I'm going to him.'"

A hoarse sound, like a suppressed sob, escaped from Stratton's lips, and, by a rapid movement, he caught and wrung Guest's hand. But the wild look never left his eyes, and at the end of a few seconds he cast the hand away.

"Oh, it's true enough, old lad," said Guest, smiling. "You know it, too. I want to do it for everybody's sake."

Stratton made a peculiar movement in the air with his extended hands.

"Come, come, don't take it that way, old fellow," cried Guest. "Sit down."

Stratton hesitated, and seemed to be trying to resist, but his friend's calm firm way mastered him.

"That's better; now, then, let's look matters plainly in the face, as doctor and patient if you like. You're off the line, Mal. There's no denying it. Overstrain. Well, it's bad. Painful for you and everybody."

A low moan escaped from Stratton.

"Bah! don't groan over it, man. The human mind is a wonderful bit of machinery, and it gets out of order if you don't take care. You haven't taken enough care, and have broken down. Bad; but we've got to mend you and make you stronger than ever."

Stratton shook his head, and his pallor was so ghastly, as he now sank back in his chair and closed his eyes, that Guest was startled, and sprang up and made for the closet where he knew from of old that the spirit-stand was kept.

But at the first movement in that direction Stratton leaped to his feet and intercepted him.

"Stop!" he cried. "I am not ill. Let me be, Guest. You can do me no good."

"How do you know? I say I can," cried the young man sharply, "and what's more, I will. Now, come, lad, be reasonable. You're out of gear, and you're going to submit to me."

"I am my own master, as you said, and I will not be spied over or interfered with."

"Spied over" sounded bad--not like the words of a sane man.

"Bah! Who wants to spy over you?"

"Interfered with, then. Now go and leave me to myself."

"I shall not," said Guest doggedly.

"You will, sir. These are my rooms; your visit is ill timed; please to go, and wait till I ask you to visit me again."

"Hah, that settles it, if there were any doubt before. That's not my old schoolfellow talking. You are ill--mentally ill, lad--so give in."

"Leave my rooms, sir!"

"If I do, it will be to bring others back with me who will insist upon your yielding to proper treatment."

"Hah, you confess then? You think me mad."

"I did not say mad; I told you what I know now to be a fact. Will you give in and let me treat you on sound, common-sense principles, or drive me away to come back with others?"

"You would not dare," said Stratton, in a low, fierce whisper.

"But I do dare anything for your sake--there, I'll speak out!--for Myra's."

A spasm convulsed Stratton's face, and he ground his teeth as if in agony.

"I can't help it, lad; I'm being cruel to be kind. Now, then, do you persist in sending me away!"

Stratton looked round in a furtive, frightened way, shuddered, and was silent.

"Then I am to go and send others who will treat you. I must tell you the truth, lad; they may insist upon your leaving here and taking up your abode somewhere in the country."

Stratton started.

"No, no; not at a madhouse. You are not mad. Only suffering from a nervous fit. It would be to stay for a time at some doctor's, and I think it would be the best thing. It would get you away from the dull, gloomy chambers, where you hardly ever see the sun. They are bad enough to upset anyone. Once more, which is it to be?"

Guest had been startled enough before by his friend's acts and ways; his conduct now indorsed all prior thoughts of his state. For, as he rose and moved toward the door as if to go, Stratton sprang to him and caught his arm.

"I give in," he said huskily. "You are right. A little out of order. Nerves, I suppose. But no doctor. There is no need. I'll--I'll do everything you wish."

"Then you'll come abroad with me?"

"No. No, I cannot. I will not."

"Very well, then, I'm not going to see you grow worse before my eyes. I shall do as I said."

"No, no, for Heaven's sake, don't be so mad as to do that. Look here, Guest. I am ill, and weak, and low. I confess it, but I shall be better here. It is as you say, overstrain. If you force me to go somewhere else, I shall be ten times worse. I'll do anything you advise, yield to you in every way, but I must stay here. The institution, you know."

"Leave of absence for a sick man."

"I could not ask for it. Besides, my work will do me good. I should mope and be miserable away."

"Not on the Swiss Alps."

"I tell you I will not go," said Stratton fiercely.

"Very well, I'll be satisfied with what you have promised. So just draw up that blind and open the window wide."

Stratton hesitated.

"At once, man. Your promise. The air of Benchers' Inn is not particularly good; but it's better than this mephitic odour of stuffiness and gas. Why, Mal, old lad, I can smell the methylated spirits in which you preserve your specimens quite plainly."

A faint ring of white showed round Stratton's eyes; but Guest did not notice it, for his back was turned as he made for the window and let in the light and air.

"That's better. Now go to your bedroom, and make yourself look more like the Malcolm Stratton I know. I'll be off now. I shall be back at a quarter to seven, and then we'll go out and have a bit of dinner together."

"No, no; I could not go."

"What! I'm coming, I say, at a quarter to seven, and then we're going out to dine."

"Very well," said Stratton meekly, and his friend left the chambers.

"Only touched a little," said Guest, as he went across the inn, put his head in at the lodge, and nodded pleasantly to Mrs Brade, for she was engaged with someone else.

"Better, Mrs Brade--nothing to mind. He'll soon be all right," he continued to himself. "Poor old chap. Only wants a strong will over him. Wish mine were stronger, and I had a little more manly pluck; but he did not see how nervous I was; and, take it altogether, I did not do so badly."

What time Stratton was pacing his room and talking hurriedly to himself.

"It is horrible," he muttered; "too much for a man to bear. Do I look so wild?"

He stopped in front of an old Venetian mirror, and scanned his haggard countenance for a few moments before turning away with a shudder, to resume his walk up and down the room.

"They could do it," he said fiercely. "I could not help myself. My conduct would be sufficient plea. A visit from a couple of doctors, and no matter what I said, I might be taken away. Medical supervision," he said, with a bitter laugh; "imprisonment till such time as they chose to set me free. Well, it would be pleasant to be able to throw all responsibilities upon someone else if one could only cease to think. But that would be too terrible. I must give up everything and trust to Guest."

He looked sharply round the room again, and stood listening, for he fancied that he heard a sound, and, stepping softly to the panel door on the right of the fireplace, he placed his ear to the woodwork, and stood listening for some moments.

But he was evidently dissatisfied. He seemed to be trying to make out whether anyone was in Brettison's room but he was listening at the end of a passage turned into a closet like his own, and he knew that if the door at the other end were closed it was in vain.

He came away at last with a quick gesture indicating his discontent, and stood hesitating for a few minutes, when he again started and looked wildly toward the fireplace, for he was convinced that he heard sounds in the next chambers.

They ceased, though, directly, and might have come from above; but he once more went back to the panel on the right, listened, and came away dissatisfied still.

"I must know," he said with a heavy sigh; and, taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he stood selecting one which looked black and rusty, a good-sized key, from among those which had been worn smooth and remained bright.

This done, he stood hesitating; and, looking straight before him, he shrank slowly backward till checked by a bookcase standing against the wall, when with an angry gesture that he should have been startled by the sight of his own ghastly face in the old mirror, he walked straight to the door on the left of the fireplace. Again he paused for a few moments, and then, with the sweat standing in great beads upon his brow, and the hair at his temples wet and clinging, he slowly, and without a sound, inserted the key, turned it in the well oiled lock, and drew open the door, which came toward him with a faint creak.

He stood there peering into the darkness of the narrow, passage-like place, listening, and then came away to the other side of the room, thrust off his boots, and went to the window, which he closed again, and drew down the blind before going back to the door--entering, and walking to the end, to stand listening at the panel in the darkness for some minutes before he came out again, acting now with decision, as he went to the door of exit from the room, and slipped the bolt.

Drawing a deep breath, he now hurried across to a little cabinet, from which he drew a bright steel implement, and then, with his brow rugged and his face looking old and worn, he was hurrying across back to the door of the open closet, when he caught his unshod foot in a thick Eastern rug, stumbled forward, and only saved himself from a heavy fall by throwing himself into an easy-chair.

He rose, holding his left wrist as if it were sprained, and then stooped to pick up the steel implement he had dropped on the carpet.

The change which came over the man was terrible as he stopped there, fixed of eye, fascinated as it were, and unable to move, glaring at a place on the carpet laid bare by the rug being kicked over. And a minute must have elapsed before he could tear himself away and draw himself up to hold the back of his hand across his eyes, as if to shut out some horrible vision.

The sigh he heaved was hoarse and strange as he dropped his hand again, and hurriedly drew the rug back into its former position.

That done, his mental strength seemed to return, and seizing the steel tool, he listened for a moment, and then hurried into the dark, passage-like closet.

At that moment there was a sharp double knock at the outer door, and, active now as a cat, Stratton sprang into the room, listening to faintly heard, descending steps.

Then, opening the inner door, he saw that there was a letter in the box, and satisfied of the cause of the interruption, he closed and bolted the inner door again, and once more crossed to the closet and entered.

Then, from out of the darkness, came sound after sound as if someone was busy at work. Now it was the creaking of a hinge; then a faint rap, as of a lid escaping too soon from a person's hand, and after that, for quite an hour, the rasping and cracking of wood, till Stratton came out bathed with perspiration, and looking more ghastly than ever.

This time he stood wiping the great drops from his dripping brow before taking a flask from a shelf, unscrewing the top, and drinking deeply.

He listened again, and once more drawing a deep breath he hurried back into the darkness of the closet, where the creaking noise was repeated, and followed twice by a deep, booming sound, after which there was a long-continued muffled gurgling, as of water flowing, and a peculiar odour filled the room.

This was repeated; and at last Stratton reeled out of the place panting, staggered to the window, which he opened a little way by passing his hands under the blind, and held his face there to breathe the fresh air before hurrying-back to his writing table. Here he struck a match, lit a taper, and, taking it up, moved toward the closet door like one in a dream, but stopped short, blew out the light, and plunged into the darkness once again. _

Read next: Chapter 27. Guest Speaks Out

Read previous: Chapter 25. Mrs Brade Has Ideas

Table of content of Witness to the Deed


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book