The Silent House Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  SHADOWS ON THE BLIND

  The landlady of Denzil was a rather uncommon specimen of the class. Sheinclined to plumpness, was lively in the extreme, wore very fashionablegarments of the brightest colours, and--although somewhat elderly--stillcherished a hope that some young man would elevate her to the rank of amatron.

  At present, Miss Julia Greeb was an unwedded damsel of forty summers,who, with the aid of art, was making desperate but ineffectual effortsto detain the youth which was slipping from her. She pinched her waist,dyed her hair, powdered her face, and affected juvenile dress of thewhite frock and blue sash kind. In the distance she looked a girlishtwenty; close at hand various artifices aided her to pass for thirty;and it was only in the solitude of her own room that her real age wasapparent. Never did woman wage a more resolute fight with Time than didMiss Greeb.

  But this was the worst and most frivolous side of her character, for shewas really a good-hearted, cheery little woman, with a brisk manner, anda flow of talk unequalled in Geneva Square. She had been born in thehouse she occupied, after the death of her father, and had grown up toassist her mother in ministering to the exactions of a continuousprocession of lodgers. These came and went, married and died; but notone of the desirable young men had borne Miss Greeb to the altar, sothat when her mother died the fair Julia almost despaired of attainingto the dignity of wifehood. Nevertheless, she continued to keepboarders, and to make attempts to captivate the hearts of such bachelorsas she judged weak in character.

  Hitherto all her efforts had been more or less of a mercantilecharacter, with an eye to money; but when Lucian Denzil appeared on thescene, the poor little woman really fell in love with his handsome face.But, in strange contrast to her other efforts, Miss Greeb never for amoment deemed that Lucian would marry her. He was her god, her ideal ofmanhood, and to him she offered worship, and burnt incense after themanner of her kind.

  Denzil occupied a bedroom and sitting-room, both pleasant, airyapartments, looking out on to the square. Miss Greeb attended to hisneeds herself, and brought up his breakfast with her own fair hands,happy for the day if her admired lodger conversed with her for a fewmoments before reading the morning paper. Then Miss Greeb would retireto her own sitting-room and indulge in day dreams which she well knewwould never be realised. The romances she wove herself were even moremarvellous than those she read in her favourite penny novelettes; but,unlike the printed tales, her romance never culminated in marriage. Poorbrainless, silly, pitiful Miss Greeb; she would have made a good wifeand a fond mother, but by some irony of fate she was destined to beneither; and the comedy of her husband-hunting youth was now changinginto the lonely tragedy of disappointed spinsterhood. She was one of theworld's unknown martyrs, and her fate merits tears rather than laughter.

  On the morning after his meeting with Berwin, the young barrister sat atbreakfast, with Miss Greeb in anxious attendance. Having poured out histea, and handed him his paper, and ascertained that his breakfast was tohis liking, Miss Greeb lingered about the room, putting this straightand that crooked, in the hope that Lucian would converse with her. Inthis she was gratified, as Denzil wished to learn details about thestrange man he had assisted on the previous night, and he knew that noone could afford him more precise information than his brisk landlady,to whom was known all the gossip of the neighbourhood. His first wordmade Miss Greeb flutter back to the table like a dove to its nest.

  "Do you know anything about No. 13?" asked Lucian, stirring his tea.

  "Do I know anything about No. 13?" repeated Miss Greeb in shrillamazement. "Of course I do, Mr. Denzil. There ain't a thing I don'tknow about that house. Ghosts and vampires and crawling spectres live init--that they do."

  "Do you call Mr. Berwin a ghost?"

  "No; nor nothing half so respectable. He is a mystery, sir, that's whatMr. Berwin is, and I don't care if he hears me commit myself so far."

  "In what way is he a mystery?" demanded Denzil, approaching the matterwith more particularity.

  "Why," said Miss Greeb, evidently puzzled how to answer this leadingquestion, "no one can find out anything about him. He's full of secretsand underhand goings on. It ain't respectable not to be fair and aboveboard--that it ain't."

  "I see no reason why a quiet-living old gentleman should tell hisprivate affairs to the whole square," remarked Lucian drily.

  "Those who have nothing bad to conceal needn't be afraid of speakingout," retorted Miss Greeb tartly. "And the way in which Mr. Berwin livesis enough to make one think him a coiner, or a thief, or even amurderer--that it is!"

  "But what grounds have you to believe him any one of the three?"

  This question also puzzled the landlady, as she had no reasonablegrounds for her wild statements. Nevertheless, she made a determinedattempt to substantiate them by hearsay evidence. "Mr. Berwin," said shein significant tones, "lives all alone in that haunted house."

  "Why not? Every man has the right to be a misanthrope if he chooses."

  "He has no right to behave so, in a respectable square," replied MissGreeb, shaking her head. "There's only two rooms of that large housefurnished, and all the rest is given up to dust and ghosts. Mr. Berwinwon't have a servant to live under his roof, and Mrs. Kebby, who doeshis charing, says he drinks awful. Then he has his meals sent in fromthe Nelson Hotel round the corner, and eats them all alone. He don'treceive no letters, he don't read no newspapers, and stays in all day,only coming out at night, like an owl. If he ain't a criminal, Mr.Denzil, why does he carry on so?"

  "He may dislike his fellow-men, and desire to live a secluded life."

  Miss Greeb still shook her head. "He may dislike his fellow-men," shesaid with emphasis, "but that don't keep him from seeing them--ah! thatit don't."

  "Is there anything wrong in that?" said Lucian, contemptuous of thesecobweb objections.

  "Perhaps not, Mr. Denzil; but where do those he sees come from?"

  "How do you mean, Miss Greeb?"

  "They don't go in by the front door, that's certain," continued thelittle woman darkly. "There's only one entrance to this square, sir,and Blinders, the policeman, is frequently on duty there. Two or threenights he's met Mr. Berwin coming in after dark and exchanged friendlygreetings with him, and each time Mr. Berwin has been alone!"

  "Well! well! What of that?" said Denzil impatiently.

  "This much, Mr. Denzil, that Blinders has gone round the square, afterseeing Mr. Berwin, and has seen shadows--two or three of them--on thesitting-room blind. Now, sir," cried Miss Greeb, clinching her argument,"if Mr. Berwin came into the square alone, how did his visitors get in?"

  "Perhaps by the back," conjectured Lucian.

  Again Miss Greeb shook her head. "I know the back of No. 13 as well as Iknow my own face," she declared. "There's a yard and a fence, but noentrance. To get in there you have to go in by the front door or downthe aiery steps; and you can't do neither without coming past Blindersat the square's entrance, and that," finished Miss Greeb triumphantly,"these visitors don't do."

  "They may have come into the square during the day, when Blinders wasnot on duty."

  "No, sir," said Miss Greeb, ready for this objection. "I thought of thatmyself, and as my duty to the square I have inquired--that I have. Ontwo occasions I've asked the day policeman, and he says no one passed."

  "Then," said Lucian, rather puzzled, "Mr. Berwin cannot live alone inthe house."

  "Begging your pardon, I'm sure," cried the pertinacious woman, "but hedoes. Mrs. Kebby has been all over the house, and there isn't anothersoul in it. No, Mr. Denzil, take it what way you will, there'ssomething that ain't right about Mr. Berwin--if that's his real name,which I don't believe it is."

  "Why, Miss Greeb?"

  "Just because I don't," replied the landlady, with feminine logic. "Andif you think of having anything to do with this mystery, Mr. Denzil, Ibeg of you not to, else you may come to something as is too terrible toconsider--that you may."

  "Such as--"

&
nbsp; "Oh, I don't know," cried Miss Greeb, tossing her head and glidingtowards the door. "It ain't for me to say what I think. I am the lastperson in the world to meddle with what don't concern me--that I am."And thus ending the conversation, Miss Greeb vanished, with significantlook and pursed-up lips.

  The reason of this last speech and rapid retreat lay in the fact thatMiss Greeb could bring no tangible charge against her oppositeneighbour; and therefore hinted at his complicity in all kinds ofhorrors, which she was quite unable to define save in terms more or lessvague.

  Lucian dismissed such hints of criminality from his mind as the outcomeof Miss Greeb's very lively imagination; yet, even though he reduced hercommunications to bare facts, he could not but acknowledge that therewas something queer about Mr. Berwin and his mode of life. The man'sself-pity and self-condemnation; his hints that certain people wishedto do him harm; the curious episode of the shadows on the blind--thesethings engaged the curiosity of Denzil in no ordinary degree; and hecould not but admit to himself that it would greatly ease his mind toarrive at some reasonable explanation of Berwin's eccentricities.

  Nevertheless, he held that he had no right to pry into the secrets ofthe stranger, and honourably strove to dismiss the tenant of No. 13 andhis tantalising environments from his mind. But such dismissal ofunworthy curiosity was more difficult to effect than he expected.

  For the next week Lucian resolutely banished the subject from histhoughts, and declined to discuss the matter further with Miss Greeb.That little woman, all on fire with curiosity, made various inquiries ofher gossips regarding the doings of Mr. Berwin, and in default ofreporting the same to her lodger, occupied herself in discussing themwith her neighbours. The consequence of this incessant gossip was thatthe eyes of the whole square fixed themselves on No. 13 in expectationof some catastrophe, although no one knew exactly what was going tohappen.

  This undefinable feeling of impending disaster communicating itself toLucian, stimulated his curiosity to such a pitch that, with some feelingof shame for his weakness, he walked round the square on two severalevenings in the hope of meeting Berwin. But on both occasions he wasunsuccessful.

  On the third evening he was more fortunate, for having worked at hislaw books until late at night, he went out for a brisk walk beforeretiring to rest. The night was cold, and there had been a slight fallof snow, so Lucian wrapped himself up well, lighted his pipe, andproceeded to take the air by tramping twice or thrice round the square.Overhead the sky was clear and frosty, with chill glittering stars and awintry moon. A thin covering of snow lay on the pavement, and there wasa white rime on the bare branches of the central trees.

  On coming to the house of Berwin, the barrister saw that thesitting-room was lighted up and the curtains undrawn, so that the windowpresented a square of illuminated blind. Even as he looked, two shadowsdarkened the white surface--the shadows of a man and a woman. Evidentlythey had come between the lamp and the window, and so, quiteunknowingly, revealed their actions to the watcher. Curious to see theend of this shadow pantomime, Lucian stood still and looked intently atthe window.

  The two figures seemed to be arguing, for their heads nodded violentlyand their arms waved constantly. They retreated out of the sphere oflight, and again came into it, still continuing their furious gestures.Unexpectedly the male shadow seized the female by the throat and swungher like a feather to and fro. The struggling figures reeled out of theradiance and Lucian heard a faint cry.

  Thinking that something was wrong, he rushed up the steps and rang thebell violently. Almost before the sound died away the light in the roomwas extinguished, and he could see nothing more. Again and again herang, but without attracting attention; so Lucian finally left the houseand went in search of Blinders, the policeman, to narrate hisexperience. At the entrance of Geneva Square he ran against a man whomhe recognised in the clear moonlight.

  To his surprise he beheld Mark Berwin.