The Master Detective Part 11

"There was no direct manifestation--at least I saw nothing, and I do not think I heard anything, but I am sure that I felt something. It was very vague. You know it is my theory," Randall went on, addressing me, "that different individuals are sensitive to different influences. For example, let us suppose a certain spot is haunted, a spot where something particularly desperate has taken place in the past. Now I believe that A, B, and C, all sensitive to supernatural influences, may watch there and seeing nothing, but that D, being sensitive to that particular influence, or moving on that particular plane, may be successful. In another case, where D fails, A, B, or C may be successful. I think it is this fact which accounts for the comparatively small number of experiences which we are able to authenticate. It was an article of the professor's, setting forth similar views, which made me anxious to make his acquaintance."

"Are you suggesting that he should spend a night in this house?" I asked.

"I do not think I suggested such a thing," said Randall with a smile, "but I believe that is the professor's intention."

"It is," said Quarles.

"When?" I asked.

"On Friday night."

"Greaves died on a Friday night," said Randall. "It is a small point, perhaps, but, like myself, the professor believes in small details."

"I suppose the agent will let me have the key," said Quarles.

"I do not know the agent. I got the key through Dr. Bates, and I can give you a card of introduction to him."

"It will be a very interesting experiment," I said, looking as learned as I could. I thought I had kept my end up very well, and far from having to pretend to be interested, as Quarles had suggested, I was profoundly interested, not in the psychological discussion, but in the Bayswater mystery. I had heard of it before, and remembered that Martin, one of the oldest members of the force, had said that it was no more a case of suicide than he was a raw recruit. I am far from saying that no mystery is to be accounted for by the supernatural, but I always want to test it in every other way first.

Quarles was pleased to jeer at me for a skeptic as we drove back to Chelsea. He did not consider me altogether a fool as a detective, but he had no use for me as a psychological student.

"Anyway, it is a pity you are undertaking this business in your present nervous state," I said. "At least let me be with you on Friday night."

"Nonsense, that would make the experiment useless. You clear up the mystery of this subtle scoundrel who has tried to get me shot and my nervous state will soon disappear."

As a matter of fact, I couldn't settle to a careful study of my recent cases, as the professor had suggested. I tried and failed. I could not forget the experiment which was to be made on Friday night, and on Wednesday morning I took action. First of all, I arranged that a special constable should be on duty in Manleigh Road, and from his appearance no one would have supposed that anything in the way of a genius had been introduced into the neighborhood. He looked a fool; he was one of the smartest men I knew. Strangely enough, on the Thursday night No. 7 was burgled quite early in the evening as soon as it was dusk. Two men got in at a bas.e.m.e.nt window, and the constable was quite close at the time. He had instructions, in fact, to give warning to the burglars if there was any danger of their being seen.

I had not burgled the house alone; I had taken a young detective named Burroughs with me. Of course, I might say it was because I wanted to give him a chance, or because I thought we might encounter desperate characters in the house; but as a fact, it was the supernatural element which decided me. I do not like the idea of the supernatural; my nerves, excellent in their way and in their own sphere, are inclined to get jumpy under certain conditions.

We went up from the bas.e.m.e.nt cautiously, and it would have needed keen ears to have heard our movements.

Without showing a light, we went into every room in the house. Those in front had some light in them from a street lamp outside, but those at the back were dark, although, after a while, we got accustomed to the dark, and could see to some extent. None of the blinds was drawn, and although there was no moon, it was a clear, starlit night.

Our special attention was devoted to the room where Greaves had been found dead. It was substantially furnished, mid-Victorian in character.

The lock on the door, which had been broken open, had been mended, and the window was fastened. Systematically we examined every article of furniture and the innocent-looking cupboard. The walls were substantial, but we did not subject them to tapping. I did not want to arouse the neighbors to the fact that No. 7 was not empty to-night.

"We have a long vigil before us, Burroughs," I said.

"What do you expect to discover, sir?"

"I don't know, nothing most likely; but if anything does happen it is going to happen in this room. I am going to take up my position in this chair by the bed, and I want you to keep watch on the landing. If you hear any one about the house come in to me at once, but if you only hear me move don't come in unless I call. I shall not fasten the door, but I shall put it to. If in some way it is possible to find out that this room is occupied, I want to appear as if I were quite alone. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

I saw Burroughs settled in a chair on the landing; then I entered the room and closed the door without latching it, and there was a certain feeling down my spine, in spite of the knowledge that I had a comrade near at hand.

It was quite beyond me how Quarles could undertake to stay there all alone. I could have done it had I been convinced that danger could only come from a material foe; it was the idea of the supernatural which beat me. I was not skeptic enough to be unmoved.

I had determined to sit beside the bed; but remembering that Greaves had been found on the bed I first of all lay down for a minute or two. The bed was not made up, but the mattresses were there with blankets over them, and the hangings were in place. The key to the mystery might lie in some hidden mechanism in the bed. Then I settled myself in the chair beside the bed, my hand in my pocket on my revolver.

This kind of waiting is always a trial. The silence, the bodily inactivity while the mind is strained to be keenly alert, have a sort of hypnotic influence. An untrained man will certainly fancy he hears and sees things, and even a trained man has to light hard against the desire to sleep. There comes a longing for something, anything, to happen. I think I got into a condition at last in which I should have welcomed a ghost. There was no church clock near to break the monotony with its striking; time seemed non-existent.

Once I thought I heard Burroughs s.h.i.+ft his position on the landing outside, and there presently came to me an uncontrollable desire to move.

I stood up. Just to walk to the window and back would make all the difference.

My journey across the room was noiseless, and, coming back, I stopped suddenly.

To my left there was movement, movement without sound. In an instant my revolver was ready, and then I felt a fool. In a recess there was a gla.s.s fixed to the wall, we had noticed it when we examined the room, and I had caught the dim reflection of my head and shoulders in it. The gla.s.s was just at that height from the floor.

I went to it and called myself a fool to my reflection. I could only see myself very dimly, so I cannot say whether the incident had driven any color from my face.

It had the effect of quieting my restlessness, at any rate. I returned to my chair refreshed, feeling capable of keeping a vigil, however long it might last.

Almost unconsciously I began to consider how many deceptions looking-gla.s.ses were responsible for, and remembered some of the illusions I had seen at the Egyptian Hall. No doubt looking-gla.s.ses had played a large part in some of them.

And then I began to wonder why the mattresses had been left upon the bed.

Was the agent expecting to let the house again at once, or had they been put there for Quarles's convenience to-morrow night?

How long my mind slid from one thing to another I cannot say; but gradually my ideas seemed to dwindle away into nothingness, and it is easy to imagine that I slept. I do not think I did, however.

Although my mind was a blank for a time, I am convinced I never lost consciousness of that room or of the business I had in hand. There was absolutely no sensation of waking, only another sudden desire to move.

Again I walked to the window, and as I came back I glanced in the direction of the gla.s.s. This time my own reflection did not startle me; not because I was ready for it, but because I did not see it.

I must have crossed the room at a different angle, or my eyes--

I went to the gla.s.s, and then I started. There was no reflection. I was not in the gla.s.s.

In a moment the knowledge that this room was haunted came to me in full force. There was the gla.s.s, plainer than I had seen it before, my eyes were not at fault. Indeed, as I stared into it, there was a dim outline of images in the gla.s.s, the furniture of the room, but of me no reflection at all. Was I bewitched? Surely I must be in my chair, sleeping, dreaming, for suddenly in the gla.s.s, moving as in a mist, there were shadows--a bed and a man lying on it, and bending over him was another man whose hands were twisting about his companion.

I tried to call out to stop him, then I drew back, and the next moment I was at the door, speaking to Burroughs in a whisper.

"What is it?" he asked, coming swiftly into the room.

"Look!" and I seized him by the arm and drew him to the looking-gla.s.s.

"Well, what is it?" he asked again.

His reflection and mine were looking out at us, one scared face, mine; one full of questioning, his.

I told him what I had seen.

"You dropped off to sleep, Mr. Wigan, that's what it was."

Had I? It couldn't have been a dream, and yet faith in myself was shaken.

It was possible I had only walked across the room a second time in my dreams. One thing is certain, I did not fall asleep again that night.

I had arranged with the constable in Manleigh Road that he should keep a careful watch at dawn. We should leave then by the same way as we had entered, and he was to signal to us if the coast was clear.