I was instantly seized by the throat

 

The Finger on the Blind.

By Headon Hill. (1857-1927)

ILLUSTRATED BY MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN

The celebrated house agent was all smiles and affability. "If you will allow one of my young men to step round with you to Carlton Street we shall be able to show you the very thing, Mr. Conway. Nicely furnished and just your rent. Here, Mr. Johnson, take this lady and gentleman to 68, Carlton, and don't forget to point out the Grecian dado in the drawing-room."

       The address mentioned was in one of the quiet streets in Mayfair, not a stone's throw from the agent's offices in Piccadilly. Five minutes later Laura and I were exploring the advantages of No. 68 under the escort of a glib clerk.

       It was a corner house, inasmuch as it stood at the point where Carlton Street was intersected by that equally select thoroughfare, Wimborne Street. And yet it was not actually at the corner, because the side of 24, Wimborne Street, which fronted on its own street, lay between.

       "How long has it been untenanted?" I inquired when we had gone the round of the premises and found everything satisfactory.

       The clerk replied that it had been unoccupied for over a year, though it had only been placed in their hands to let within the last few days. The explanation was that the owner had intended to spend the season in it himself, but had to go abroad for his health.

       "And the neighbours — are they quiet and respectable?"

       "Yes, indeed, sir," the young man replied. "I can't speak for the people at 67 personally, but the tenant is a Colonel Gosford, so he ought to be all right. On the other side — in the house that fronts to Wimborne Street — a widow lady resides with her daughter. Charming people. I had the pleasure of letting Mrs. Toynbee the house myself, sir, about ten months ago."

       "Well, you can have the pleasure of letting me this one," I said after a moment's consultation with my wife. We will go back with you to the office and conclude the arrangement."

       "We were standing in the drawing-room, where we had duly admired the Grecian dado, and with businesslike alacrity the clerk prepared to accompany us by drawing down the blinds which he had raised for the purpose of our inspection. This he had done in all the rooms as we left them in order to keep the sun from fading the expensive carpets.

       So we quitted the house and crossed to the opposite side of the street, where, on reaching the kerb, Laura turned round, with a woman's interest in her future abode, to throw a parting glance at the house. As she did so, an exclamation escaped her.

       "See, oh see!" she cried. "Ah, he's gone, but I saw his finger on the blind. He had just drawn it aside to peep at us."

       I turned to the agent's clerk, who was trying to conceal an amused smile. We had been into every room in the house from cellar to attics, and there had been no traces of occupation, but I put the question, "There is a caretaker there, I suppose?"

       "Oh dear no, sir," the young man replied. "I am positive that there is no one in the house. The lady was probably deceived by the shadow of that lamp post falling on the blind."

       "That must have been it," I assented, for I had looked up quickly and had seen nothing.

       "Come, dear, let us go and finish the business and get back to lunch."

       With one final scrutiny of the veiled window Laura turned away, but before we reached the agent's office she contrived to whisper so that our guide should not hear, "I am certain that I was not mistaken. Do let us consider a little longer before deciding."

       We had been married six months and I had never known her to be nervous before, but this flying in the face of a proved fact could be accounted for in no other way. I laughed at her, and passed it off by remarking that if there was a man in the house now he had better clear out before we moved in.

       A week after this we took possession, and I was charmed with the privacy of our new residence after the discomforts of the flat which we had occupied since our marriage. I found it so much pleasanter to have a house all to oneself, and to feel that within the four walls of our abode no one had the right of entry but ourselves. On the other hand I was somewhat annoyed by Laura's frequent references to the finger on the blind and by her continued nervousness. She was bound to admit that there were no traces of a mysterious occupant now, but she persisted that she could not possibly have been mistaken in what she had seen.

       As usual in a London street, we had no communications with the neighbours on either side of us, but they certainly lived up to the character given them by the house agent's clerk, being quiet, and therefore presumably respectable. It was not till we had been in residence two months that they both came under our notice — strangely enough on the same day. I am a barrister by profession, and was away during working hours. On the day in question on reaching home I found Laura in the hall evidently waiting for me in a great state of agitation. "Come into the drawing-room, Reggie," she faltered, "I've had such a fright."

       "The mysterious manipulator of window blinds?" I suggested, unable to resist a sly hit at her pet bogey.

       But when I had followed her into the room and saw how woebegone she looked I repented at once. Whether from genuine cause or not she had clearly received a shock, and I apologised for my levity.

       "It happened about half-an-hour ago," she began, in answer to my question. "I had been out paying calls, and on my return, the door being on latch, I let myself in without ringing. I had put my umbrella in the stand and was turning to go upstairs to take off my things when I saw a strange man on the first landing. When he saw me he appeared to hesitate as though about to draw back, but eventually he descended the stairs and begged me not to be alarmed. He said that he was Colonel Gosford, who lives next door at No. 67, and that he had entered the house by mistake for his own and had not discovered his error till he got upstairs."

       "Well, little woman, this sounds more amusing than terrible," I rejoined. "He behaved like a gentleman, I suppose, and departed without a raid on the plate chest?"

       "Yes," she replied doubtingly, "he did all that. But, Reggie, when he came downstairs he took off his hat — a tall silk hat. I am sure there is something wrong about him."

       I burst out laughing at that. "Could he have done less?" I exclaimed. "You are never going to attribute dangerous designs to a man because he removes his hat in the presence of a lady into whose house he has unwittingly intruded."

       My wife looked at me with a world of reproach in the wide blue eyes that are dearer to me than anything. "I am glad you've got a private fortune, Reggie," she said slowly, "for if that's the sort of barrister you are I don't expect you'll get many briefs. Don't you see, dear, that if the man really mistook the house he would have taken off his hat in the hall and hung it up. He wouldn't have gone upstairs with it on."

       The argument did not appeal to me in the least, and the slur on my professional acumen galled me more than anything she had said during our brief wedded life. I pointed out with dignity that I had not overlooked the fact of Colonel Gosford having his hat on, but that it was perfectly explicable by his being an absent-minded man. That that was his character was clearly shown by his mistaking the house.

       Nothing that I could say, however, would shake her conviction that the intruder had entered the house with some sinister motive, and she wanted me at once to write a note to the colonel demanding an explanation. As he had already apologised to her I flatly refused to do it, and pointedly changed the subject.

       Half-an-hour later we were seated at dinner talking about trifles with the strained eagerness natural to a young couple after their first tiff when the front door bell suddenly rang. The peal came as a welcome relief to me, and I think to Laura also.

       "Who can it be at this time of day?" she exclaimed. "You haven't invited anyone and forgotten all about it I hope?"

       Disclaiming any such lapse I bade the maid who was waiting on us answer the door. She came back directly and said that a young lady was in the hall and would be greatly obliged if she could speak to the master of the house. I went out at once — to find a very pretty lady-like girl in a neat tailor-made costume and a stylish hat standing under the hat rack. On my appearing she broke into a flood of apologies for disturbing me, blended with an incoherent explanation.

       When at last I managed to understand her it seemed that her dog had been seen to run down our area steps and through the kitchen door. Would I be so kind as to make inquiries of the servants. It was about half an-hour ago.

       "Has anything been seen of the dog?" I said to the parlourmaid who was hovering near.

       "Not that I know of, sir, but I will ask cook," was the reply.

       "Were you walking past the house when you lost him? " I inquired, the maid having descended to the lower regions.

       "Oh no; a boy saw him and told us," my visitor replied. "He must have wandered away from our house. We live just round the corner in Wimborne Street. Our house backs on to the side of yours, I think. I am Miss Toynbee," she added with a naive smile.

       At this point the maid reappeared with the announcement that no dog had run into the house, for the simple reason that the area door had not been opened since the fishmonger came at five o'clock.

       "Oh, but I am sure Bogey must be here," cried Miss Toynbee clasping her hands appealingly. "The boy came on purpose to tell us. Would you mind my calling him? Servants are so careless sometimes," she added confidentially.

       Of course I gave the required permission, and the house echoed with silvery cries of "Bogey; where are you, Bogey, dear?"

       There was no need for a repetition of the cry. From upstairs there sounded the joyous bark of a dog, and Miss Toynbee smiled in triumph. Running up to the first floor I was guided by the sounds to the closed door of a spare bedroom, and flinging it open I released a black toy-terrier, which scuttled between my legs and scampered with hysterical shrieks down to its mistress. Fondling the recaptured pet she thanked me prettily and took her departure.

       Laura had overheard the conversation through the open dining-room door, and it was only necessary to tell her where the dog had been found.

       "That's funny," she said, "the door of the blue spare room has been shut all day, has it not, Parker?"

       "Yes 'm; he must have got in the same way as he did through the area door, both being shut," the parlourmaid sniffed.

       Laura did not pursue the subject then, but as soon as we were alone she suggested that we should both go up and inspect the blue room. Her explanation of the mystery was that it was due to Colonel Gosford's intrusion — that he must have been in that room for some purpose, and that the dog, being already loose in the house, had taken the opportunity to slip in.

       Without going to the length of agreeing with her I saw no harm in inspecting the room, which, being unused, I had scarcely entered since our occupation of the house. We went up together, switched on the electric light, and took a thorough look round.

       The apartment was a well-furnished bed-chamber, second only in importance to the one we slept in ourselves. There was a handsome brass bedstead, under which Laura peered with fearful anticipation, and a massive wardrobe to which I devoted my attention — with similar results. There was nothing under the bed, and the wardrobe was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. We opened all the drawers in the chest, but all were empty, nor in any part of the room was there the slightest trace of anyone but "Bogey," who had shamefully scratched the paint on the door in his efforts to reach his mistress.

       "Nothing wrong here, dear, is there?" remarked when our search was complete.

       "No—o, and yet, I don't know why, but am frightened," was my wife's answer as she glanced round the void of the unoccupied room.

       "The finger on the blind again?" I hinted ironically.

       In the absence of any reply I switched off the electric light with, I fear, a show of impatience, and determined to take Laura to Brighton on the morrow for a fortnight's change. That she needed a bracing nerve-tonic I had not the slightest doubt.

       My plan worked an instant miracle. My wife became herself again after the first tramp on the pier, just a happy girl sparkling with fun, and we enjoyed the trip as a second honeymoon.

       But on the very day of our return to Carlton Street I was distressed to find the symptoms reappear more acutely than ever. They had only been abated by the absence of the disturbing cause and were no nearer being cured than before. She started at the slightest sound, turned pale at the sudden entrance of a servant, and lay awake and restless far into the night. The next morning at breakfast I suggested that she should have medical advice, but she flatly refused.

       "There is nothing the matter with me, only a sense of impending danger," she smiled wearily as I kissed her good-bye before starting for my chambers in the Temple.

       To be angry with her was impossible, and the matter was becoming too serious for jest, so I left her without replying. But on my way eastwards I turned into Savile Street, where my old schoolfellow, Norman Blaikie, has a consulting practice, and was fortunate enough to catch him before the arrival of patients. I minutely described to him Laura's condition and the horror with which the house seemed to inspire her owing to the finger she fancied she had seen.

       "But was it fancy? " asked Blaikie thoughtfully. "From what I have seen of Mrs. Conway I should say she was too level-headed to make such an assertion unless she was sure of it."

       "My dear fellow, don't I tell you that we had just been over the house from cellar to attics and that it was perfectly empty," I replied. "The house-agent's clerk unlocked it when we went in and locked it up when we came away. It had been unoccupied for months."

       "Well, fancy or no fancy, it's a pretty creepy thing to see what your wife thought she saw under such circumstances," Blaikie said. "And she has had a fright since living in the house, I understand?"

       "Yes, but it was all a piece of folly. She met the man who lives next door — Colonel Gosford — coming downstairs. He had mistaken the house and apologised in the most gentlemanly manner; yet Laura could not have been more upset if he had abused her."

       My friend shot a curious glance at me. "What you tell me makes it easy to prescribe," he said gravely. "If I were in your place I should leave that house without a moment's unnecessary delay. Colonel Gosford of 67, Carlton Street, happens to be a patient of mine. He had both his legs amputated in the last Afghan War and hasn't been outside his own house for years."

       "Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "then the man on the stairs was an impostor, and in that instance at least Laura's instinct was right. I shall take your tip, Blaikie, and clear out as soon as I can find another crib."

       "I think you will be wise — if only for the sake of Mrs. Conway's health," was the reply as I rose to take my leave. "Another such uncanny experience might seriously unhinge her."

       I had very little to do at my chambers, and all that day I tried to account for the two occurrences that had so unnerved my wife. Taking them separately it was easy to arrive at the conclusion that Laura had been mistaken about the finger on the blind, though right in attributing an evil design to the person on the stairs who had given a false name. But considering the two incidents as connected by some hidden link they became utterly inexplicable, since that line of reasoning pointed to the correctness of Laura's statement about the presence of someone in the house when it was proved to be unoccupied.

       I was glad when it was time to go home, for now that I knew that a genuine mystery existed I was as eager to have done with it as Laura herself, and I was anxious to relieve her with the news of my decision to leave the house. I was well repaid for it the moment I told her. She cheered up immediately and was so gay and happy all the evening that I arranged to go house-hunting with her on the morrow.

       Even a household contretemps which at any other time would have worried her failed to damp her spirits. At ten o'clock a servant came to announce that the night being chilly she had lit a fire in our bedroom, but that the chimney had misbehaved and that the room was full of smoke. It would not be fit to sleep in for hours.

       "Well, there are worse misfortunes at sea," Laura laughed. "Move the bedding into the blue spare room, we will use that to-night."

       At half-past ten she retired, but having some letters to write it was close on twelve when I went up to my dressing-room. It adjoined the room we usually used, so that I could not as was my custom ascertain on entering if my wife was still awake, and if so converse with her while undressing. But on going over to the spare room a little later — it was the room where the dog had been found — I saw that she was not only wide awake but sitting up in bed.

       I was about to excuse myself for being so late, but the words died on my lips at sight of Laura's face. She held up her hand for silence, and then I perceived that she was staring with a gaze of fixed terror at the closed door of the huge wardrobe. The poor girl's eyes were literally starting from her head as though she were fascinated by some gruesome creature of the night that was to me invisible.

       "What is it?" I whispered, creeping close to the bed.

       "The wardrobe door!" she replied in a hardly audible tone and without relaxing her gaze. "It began to open ten minutes ago; then it slowly shut again."

       Ever since my visit to Blaikie in the morning the house had been getting on my nerves, but the prospect of "joining issue," as we lawyers say, with the mystery came as a bracing tonic. If Laura was wrong about the wardrobe the chances were that she had been wrong about the finger on the blind. In which case the sham Colonel Gosford was probably an ordinary sneak-thief, and the mental aspersions which I had begun to cast upon our abode were groundless. Treading bravely I walked to the wardrobe, flung open the door, and was instantly seized by the throat.

       Thus holding me at arm's length in a grasp of iron a man stepped down from the wardrobe and looked me in the eyes. He was a tall fellow, not ill-looking, and wore a light overcoat over evening dress. On his head was an opera hat.

       "It is Colonel Gosford," whimpered Laura. I had not confided to her my interview with Blaikie.

       "Remain where you are, madam, and if you value this gentleman's life do not call out," the man said sternly, for she had begun to scramble out of bed. "Now, sir, you are the tenant of this house, I presume?"

       So far as the pressure on my windpipe would permit I signified consent. My assailant had drawn a revolver, proving T hat resistance was useless.

       He remained silent for a few minutes, thinking deeply. "You have put me to a good deal of inconvenience by taking this house, still more by unexpectedly occupying this room to-night," he said at length. "For these reasons I cannot see that I owe you any consideration. But there is the lady to be thought of, and for her sake I should wish to be gallant enough to let you down easy. Can you suggest a way out of the difficulty yourself, always remembering that any attempt at raising an alarm will mean your instant death?"

       He loosed his hold of me, but kept his pistol handy. "Do anything he asks, Reggie," Laura wailed. "Here, let him take this," and she began to fumble under her pillow, finally producing her watch.

       The stranger smiled frostily. "Pray do not hint at such a thing, madam," he said, "I am in a much larger way of business than watches. I entered this house as a fugitive, not in the practice of my profession."

       "How can I suggest a way out of the difficulty when I don't know what it is?" I asked sullenly.

       "My dear sir, of course not," the intruder replied soothingly. " I will put the problem before you as briefly as possible. I am, perhaps. the most extensive producer of spurious bank paper in Europe. I am badly wanted by the police, who are at this moment searching 24, Wimborne Street for me, on the other side of the wall against which stands that most convenient wardrobe. My object is to escape them just as yours must be to escape this pistol, which I shall assuredly use upon you if you try to stop me. If you see it in the right light our interests are really identical."

       In spite of the danger curiosity prevailed. "But how did you get into my house?" I stammered.

       "Come now, that question augurs well for a mutual agreement," the man smiled, "I got in, Mr. Conway, through the hinged back of the wardrobe, and through a false section of the party wall behind it — both of which were contrived for the purpose of affording me a bolt-bole when my mother and my wife took 24, Wimborne Street. I do not work there, and to-night's adventure has rendered the arrangement useless for the future, so I do not mind telling you. I have only once before had to use it since you have been to residence — on the day when Mrs. Conway surprised me coming downstairs and I gave the name of your neighbour on the other side."

       "And a dog followed you through and got shut in this room?"

       "Exactly, and my wife came round and hoaxed you that it had run in through your area door," the stranger said, grinning. "Now, my dear Mr. Conway, you will, I am sure, allow me to follow my usual line of retreat — down your stairs and out of your front door. Our paths are not likely to cross again as my people will have to move after this, and I shouldn't be surprised to hear that you had taken a dislike to this house."

       There was a touch of irony in the request, seeing that his finger toyed with the trigger of the revolver, and that underneath his smooth politeness lay the resolution of a deadly purpose. Barefooted, clad only in pyjamas, and unarmed — what could I do? I pointed to the door of the room.

*       *       *       *      *

       Laura had fainted, but a week later, in the calm security of one of the few detached houses left in Kensington, she was carolling, blithe as a song-bird, to the tune of "I knew I was right." And I — well, I had learned my lesson not to be too sceptical about seeming impossibilities.

Copyrighted in the U.S.A. by Tillotson.

(THE END)