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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Lesley heard shouts and the sound of a stuggle. Her eyes were
fixed on the door. She knew it would open. A man in uniform entered.
"THERE'S a Black Man in our cellar," declared Baby Lamb—her big blue eyes round as moons. The new nursery-governess, Lesley Bishop, understood her fear, for as a child, she, too, had been terrorised by the threat or the terrible occupant of the cellar, who—according to her nursemaid, would come up to her, if she cried.
"Don't believe it, darling," she said to Baby. "There's nothing in the cellar but coals. Who told you such a wicked lie?"
"Max."
Lesley was not surprised, for her second charge, Max, was a Boy Scout who never failed to do his evil deed per day. He was a pale, skinny little shrimp, with the large eyes of a stranded angel, and a contrast to the stout prosperous-looking Baby.
"'Tisn't lie," he persisted. "I've seen him. He's all black, and he's got no face, like the Invisible Man—"
"Who took you to see the 'Invisible Man'?" broke in Lesley.
"Rosa," broke in Baby.
Rosa was the children's late nurse and Max had been devoted to her. Lesley guessed that he resented her as a usurper and tormented her out of revenge. During that afternoon's walk he had been in the championship class of young demons. She had grown so breathless while chasing him away from doorsteps—to prevent him from giving runaway knocks—that, presently, she weakly accepted his conditional surrender.
"I'll stop now, if you'll let me ring at the empty house."
As she nodded consent, she looked the most frightened child of the three. This was her first engagement and she was still in her teens. It was the darkest time of the year when the old town was shrouded by the mist from the river, which flowed through it.
And under the fog and the shadows, like the quivering outline of a shark in deep water, lurked the threat of a murder.
A series of crimes, believed to be the work of a homicidal maniac, had recently shocked the population. Although the tragedies were confined to the poorer parts of the town, Lesley went through the ill-paved historic streets with her heart fluttering at every footstep behind her.
It was dark when they reached the sweep of the Crescent, where Capt. Lamb, who was a widower, lived with his sister as temporary housekeeper. The houses were imposing stucco erections of Regency period. The Lambs lived in the middle, next door to No. 11—the empty house.
Amid the lighted semi-circle, it stood out as a wedge of darkness. Inside was absolute blackness. For a life-time, it had been unilluminated even by the flicker of a match or a thread of moonshine.
Max had not forgotten his bargain, and he rushed up the steps, followed by Lesley, who feared further rebellion. When he tugged at the old-fashioned chain there was a discordant jangle, and a series of faint tinkles. The bell seemed to go on ringing further and further into the dark distances of the house, awakening the echoes. On and on—deeper and deeper. The sounds filled Lesley with the sense of having precipitated some calamity, and she tried to tug Max away from the door.
"No," he shouted, clinging to the railings. "Somebody's coming to answer the door. Listen."
"It's the Black Man from the cellar," whimpered Baby.
As Lesley struggled with Max, she thought that she too could actually hear padded footsteps, slithering over layers of dust. They seemed to be drawing nearer to the door. In another second, they would reach it....
Smitten by sudden panic, she leaped the flight of steps in one bound, dragging the children with her, and hammered furiously for admission to their own house.
LESLEY was dismayed when Captain Lamb himself opened the door.
Although she liked him, she was in awe of him, as her
employer.
"Just in time for tea," he said genially, herding the nursery-party into the drawing-room.
Miss Lamb, who wore trousers, merely grinned at the intrusion. She was a typical John Bull, with a jolly red face and a crop of copper curls. The big room, modernized with metal furniture, was so light and cheerful, that Lesley forgot the creepy darkness outside. When she was fortified by tea and muffins, she began to apologize.
"I'm sorry I made that awful din. But we thought we heard someone in the empty house."
"Rats," explained the Captain. "No one could get inside that house, or out of it again."
"Not even through the roof? Or down the chimneys?"
"Certainly not. After the last murder, the police examined the premises thoroughly. You see, there was dust on the poor creature's clothing, which made them wonder whether the crime was committed in an empty house. But every lock and bolt on No. 11 was intact."
"What a relief. I hate to think of that blackness, only the other side of my bedroom wall, when I'm listening for Miss Lamb to come home."
When Miss Lamb looked at her In surprise, she flushed.
"It's a stupid habit I got when I was a child." she said. "My nurse left me alone In the house, and I was so frightened I couldn't sleep until I heard her come back."
"Well, you won't have to worry tomorrow," Miss Lamb told her. "I shall be away for the Golf Tournament. Miss Nightingale—who used to live here—is coming Instead, and she asked to sleep in her old room. Sentiment, you know."
The Captain who had been watching Lesley's face closely, made a lightning decision.
"I'm going to sleep there, while my sister is away," he announced "And directly I'm back from the club, I'll give three knocks on the wall, so you wont have to strain your ears."
"Oh, thank you," murmured Lesley "Where has Max gone?" she added, to change the subject, as the boy stole out of the room.
Baby who was a natural news collector, began to broadcast.
"I spect he's ringing up Rosa on the basement phone. He is always calling her. He wants to frighten Miss Bishop away and get nasty Rosa back. I'll go and stop him."
After she had marched out, like a young policewoman, Miss Lamb began to gossip.
"You know, Miss Bishop, the police believe these crimes are the work of a local criminal lunatic. He strangled a woman, but they said he'd a missing gland, or something, so he was imprisoned for life. Then he escaped and the murders broke out again. They can't find him, and they think some woman is hiding him, so they came here after Rosa. The horrible creature was attractive to women, and she was supposed to be a sweetheart."
"Did you know?" gasped Lesley.
"No, her testimonials were forged and I never took them up. Dashed lass. We discovered afterwards that she did an unclothed act in some low hall, and never had been in service."
"It was rum," broke In the captain. "She couldn't hope to hide the man here, in a house full of people. Yet she must have had some object in coming—especially as she wanted to get back again, after we racked her. She was a flashy creature, but she petted Max, who fell for her."
Reminded of her charges, Lesley walked to the door, where she turned to speak to Captain Lamb.
"It shows Max wants love. He's missing his mother."
"That girl's got a nice nature," remarked the captain to his sister, when Lesley had gone. "Pretty, too."
Miss Lamb lit a cigarette thoughtfully, for she wanted to return to her own flat, and it struck her that Lesley might be a solution of her own problem.
Lesley, too, felt happier as she walked up the fine staircase. Since the gossip over drawing-room tea, she seemed less of a stranger. She was also pleasantly conscious of the captain's dawning interest.
Suddenly she was startled by piercing screams from above, as Baby, shrieking like a steam engine, dashed down the nursery stairs and hurled herself into Lesley's arms.
"The Black Man's in our nursery!" she wailed. "He's gone and left his awful hand behind him!"
"Nonsense!" said Lesley sharply. "Come back at once!"
Dragging the protesting child after her, she reached the landing, where Max, who was also screaming, pointed to the door.
Standing out with sinister distinctness on the cream-painted panels was the black print of an open hand.
Lesley was so startled by the unexpected sight that she almost yielded to panic. She felt a sudden weakness at her knees, and was about to grab the children and run, when, luckily, her prestige was saved. Just in time she surprised a glint in Max's eyes.
Pouncing on him, before he could guess her purpose, she forced open one of his hands and revealed his palm which glistened with black lead.
"Silly," she said lightly. "You're too big to play with coals, like crawling babies."
He writhed under her ridicule, especially as Baby joined in the joke. Lesley had not only the satisfaction of putting two young angels to bed, but received a valuable lesson in morale.
The incident had taught her the folly of fear since the Black Man in the cellar was nothing but smudges of lead.
THAT night, she awoke from a sound sleep to find that she was
ravenously hungry. As she tossed and turned, she kept thinking of
a cold chicken which had left the nursery supper-table, almost
intact. Presently she decided that she was really entitled to it,
so she determined to raid the larder.
There was a touch of stolen apples about the adventure which thrilled her as she stole out into the broad landing and crept down the stairs. Crossing the hall, she opened the small baize-covered door which led down to the kitchen regions. She switched on the lights as she went, so that there were no dark corners to avoid, or shadows riding the walls.
The basement had been modernized as far as possible with gleaming white enamel and electric labor-saving contrivances. Gleeful at the prospect of her feast. Lesley was crossing to the refrigerator when she was startled by a low rumbling sound, directly underneath her feet.
Some one was in the cellar.
Her heart began to race as she listened. She heard movements like those which had terrified her when she waited outside the empty house. There was a drag of slow footsteps, while heavy objects seemed to be rolled about. Then a door was shut with a dull thud.
As she stared with wide frightened eyes, she remembered the captain's explanation that the noises were due to rats. Besides, no intruder could get inside their safe burglar-proof house. She knew, too, that the slightest sounds were magnified at night.
"I'm worse than Baby," she thought. "I must conquer my miserable nerves or I'm not fit to look after children.... I'll prove to myself there's no one in the cellar."
It took all her courage to open the small door in the passage. She remembered the black gaping hole in her grandmother's old house and the smell of cold, stale air rising from the vaults. But, to her relief, her groping fingers found an unexpected switch and she snapped on the electric light to reveal a narrow staircase and yellow washed walls.
She stopped to listen, but was reassured by the silence. Apparently her approach had scared the rats back to their holes. Growing more confident, she descended as far as the halfway turn, from whence she could see a section of the cellar.
Suddenly, a dark flicker—swift as the passage of a bat's wing—shot over the butter-hued plaster.
Lesley realized it, rather than saw It, as—shying like a racehorse at a flash of lightning—she bolted back up the stairs.
When she was in the kitchen again, the leisurely ticking of the grandfather's clock made her feel ashamed of herself. As her heart ceased to flutter, her reason assured her that the shadow might have been cast by herself, unless it was merely a trick of Imagination.
"Back you go, you little fool," she said to herself.
When she had forced herself to venture down the stairs a step at a time, with a pause to listen, she was rewarded for her boldness by a prosaic explanation of the rumbling noise. She discovered that the cellar had been converted into a furnace-room, with a central furnace and bags of anthracite stacked around the walls. One of these had overbalanced, and now lay on the floor, the coals spilling from its mouth.
She guessed that she had been startled by its fall; and she laughed at her own cowardice as she scampered back to the kitchen—snatched some cheese and crackers—and finished her adventure with a schoolgirl feast in bed.
AS usual, next morning, she was first of the household to get
up, for there was no regular domestic staff, at present. After
the police exposure of Rosa, Miss Lamb had dismissed the other
servants, for fear of collusion. It was Lesley's duty, therefore
to open the door to the temporary staff.
Tins morning, everyone, including the man Who stoked the furnace, was so late that she thought she had better see if the stove were in danger of going out. Full of morning confidence, she ran down the cellar steps—to stand, at the entrance, frozen with bewilderment.
The sack—which she had left lying on the floor—had been restored to its original position, and all the coals were removed from the flags.
As she stared, a disturbing thought struggled through the ferment of her mind.
"Things don't move of themselves. Someone—"
She turned and fled. Unlocking the back door to the servants who were knocking for admission—she rushed upstairs to the nursery, to find fresh trouble awaiting her. The little angels of the previous night had reverted to type, and Baby was howling.
"Max is frightening me," she wailed. "He says he's been inside the empty house, and it's full of lions and tigers and bears. And there's a gate big tree growing up inside. And he says the Black Man lives there—"
Lesley had to go through the tiresome business of soothing Baby and scolding Max all over again. It was a relief to be called down to the morning-room, where Miss Lamb was reading the paper while she breakfasted.
"Another murder," she shouted. "Some wretched girl found strangled, early this morning, outside some low pub. But you won't feel nervous with Miss Nightingale. She's a bit of a dud, so just keep a tab on the servants. I've proved that food is being taken out of the house."
LESLEY felt rather depressed after Miss Lamb's car had
disappeared into the gloom. It was the darkest morning of the
year, and the street-lamps were still alight in the Crescent,
which was shrouded in fog. Miss Nightingale, too, proved a bad
exchange for the jovial sportswoman. She was elderly and faded,
while her voice was ultra-refined. As she looked around the hall,
she drooped like a weeping-willow.
"It's heartbreaking to come back to my old home as a stranger," she confided to Lesley. "It doesn't look the same place. It's so bare without any draperies. And all the rooms are changed. We had a beautiful double drawing-room on the first floor."
"I'm afraid it's been turned into two bedrooms," confessed Lesley. "I sleep in one, with the children, and the captain is sleeping in the other, just for the present."
"But there's a connecting door," cried Miss Nightingale in a horrified voice. "Of course, you keep it locked...."
"It probably is."
"How peculiar.... Is there a key to my bedroom door?"
"I don't know, but we'll see."
When they reached the second floor, the key to Miss Nightingale's old room was missing. The fact distressed the lady so much that Lesley went in search of it. To her annoyance, she discovered that there had been a wholesale removal of keys—not only from the doors of the rooms, but from bureaus and drawers.
She guessed the culprit and pounced down on him.
"Max, where are those keys?" she demanded.
Instead of protesting his innocence, the boy proposed a bargain.
"If I tell you, will you go away, and let Rosa come back?"
"Certainly not."
"Then I won't tell you—never."
"Oh. Max," cried Lesley in distraction, "you're enough to make me cry."
To her surprise, he was genuinely startled and distressed.
"Not cry?" he asked. "But—you're big.... See here. I'll put them all back again. But you're not to look where I go."
"Mind you fit them in properly." Lesley warned him, as he stole away to his secret hoard.
As Miss Lamb had prophesied. Miss Nightingale proved only a figure-head, so Lesley had to grapple with housekeeping responsibilities, without any aid. It had one good result—she was too busy to worry over the incident of the sack, until she believed she had the clue to the mystery. While she was tidying the children's wardrobe, she discovered that one of Max's Jersey suits was covered with dust and cobwebs.
"That boy's been up to some monkey-trick in the cellar," she concluded.
AS the morning wore on, the fog thickened, until the lights
had to be kept burning permanently. Outside the windows was an
opaque world of chaos and shadows. It was impossible to take the
children out, so Max was left to his evil deeds while Baby
entertained Miss Nightingale in the drawing room.
In the afternoon, the captain—who had basely lunched at his club to avoid Miss Nightingale—returned.
"Not frightened?" he asked Lesley. "Don't get steamed up about anything—and let things rip. I'm sorry, but I've got to go to a reunion dinner at Burney, tonight. I'll leave early, but don't lie awake to listen for me. I'll give those three knocks."
His voice was unconcerned, but his eyes held such personal interest that he might have been making an assignation. Lesley felt so lonely after he had driven off through the fog that she went round the house, in order to see whether Max had restored the keys to their rightful places.
When she reached the captain's room, she had rather a disagreeable shock. As she crossed to the connecting door, she noticed a speck of oil on the key.
Miss Nightingale's insinuation and the captain's ardent gaze combined to give rise to an ugly suspicion.
"So that's the idea," she thought angrily. "Don't flatter yourself, my gentleman. This key's coming in my side of the door."
But before she could remove It, she repented.
"It's an Insult to think that about him," the decided. "If he notices the key to gone, hell think me a nasty-minded little prig. Probably Max has been up to one of his little jobs."
WHEN she went to the drawing-room for afternoon-tea she found
that Baby had managed, as usual, to collect news.
"Miss Nightingale was a beautiful girl," she said, "and she had a beautiful young man. She's got their pictures. Show them to Miss Bishop, please, darling."
The term of endearment showed that Baby was enslaved by Miss Nightingale's past attraction. Lesley was not surprised at the fact when she saw the old faded photographs inside a limp leather case. One depicted a young girl of rare beauty, while the other showed a handsome youth with a delicate face.
Miss Nightingale explained them with an apologetic cough.
"Me at eighteen. It missed my coloring, which people used to praise. I was very fair, with golden hair."
"It's enchanting." cried Lesley. Then she glanced at the other photograph and added, "I expect you had a wonderful time when you lived here?"
"You would consider it dull," replied Miss Nightingale primly. "I never went out alone. Ladies were ladies then."
Somehow Lesley received the impression that, many years ago, the house had held a prisoner.
"What would you like for supper?" she asked, to banish the beautiful ghost of Miss Nightingale's lost youth.
"A dry biscuit, please." Miss Nightingale's voice almost died from refinement. "And some very weak whisky-and-water."
When Lesley reached the basement, she found that the servants had left. It was Max who informed her of the fact.
"Daddy will be mad," he said gleefully. "He ordered them to sleep in, tonight, so you wouldn't be frightened. Because of the murder, you know."
"Run upstairs and turn on the bath," Lesley ordered.
She shot the bolt of the backdoor, since the key proved unexpectedly stiff from damp, and put up the chain, for extra safety. But she felt so bored and lonely that she spun out the children's bath, for the sake of their company. When, at last, she had dumped them in their beds, she lingered over her own supper, until her conscience reproached her with neglect of Nightingale.
She found her sitting over her bedroom fire, while she smoked a cigarette with a guilty air. Her curlers were covered with a pale-blue boudoir cap and she wore an attractive dressing gown.
"Come in and talk," she invited gaily. It was obvious that she was unaccustomed to spirits, for it took so little to flush her cheek and untie her tongue. After preliminary confidences about her health and toilet, she broke into the romantic tragedy of her youth.
"You saw Eric's photograph, this afternoon. He was the only son of General Hurley and they lived in the house that's empty now. We fell in love—but there were terrible scenes The General thought we were mud because we had been in trade, and Pa's pride was mortified, so they kept me a prisoner, to keep me from meeting Eric. Then the General took Eric, who was delicate, to the Riviera, and he died there, of a broken heart. The General never came back and the house has been empty to this day."
"Have you ever been inside?" asked Lesley.
"I was once in the hall. It was crowded with stuffed animals which the General had shot—lions, tigers and bears —and there was an enormous family tree painted on one wall.... Oh, those terrible children are screaming again."
"Lions, tigers, bears. An enormous tree." The words swam in Lesley's head as she dashed down the stairs to her bedroom. The children were clinging together in very well-acted terror, as they screamed, "The Black Man's been here."
But they did not find their slave in her usual pliant mood. She hurried them back to bed and refused to glance at the smudged fingerprints on the connecting door.
"'Tisnt me," wailed Max. "Look at my clean hands."
"Yes, you remembered to wash them, this time," snapped Lesley.
She scolded them partly because she was distracted with a sudden memory. Max had given an accurate description of the hall of the empty house, when he frightened Baby, that morning.
"He couldn't have known," she assured herself. "No one knows, except Miss Nightingale. Unless he's got inside."
The idea was so horrible that she was driven upstairs to ask the prim spinster an incredible question.
"Is there a secret way leading from this house to the empty one?"
To her dismay. Miss Nightingale smiled triumphantly.
"Yes," As declared, "there is... we cheated them... he used to come to me secretly by night."
"How?" whispered Lesley.
"He was studying to be a mining engineer, and he made a hole between the two cellars. It led through to the back of the boot cupboard in our cellar."
"Does anyone else know of this way?" she asked fearfully.
"No one but our housemaid, who was our go-between with notes, and she's been dead for years. I had to pay her hush-money. Not long ago, her daughter, Rosa, tried to blackmail me, but I was too wise. I told her no one would believe such a fantastic old tale, and I dared her to tell it. She never did, of course."
As Lesley listened, her heart seemed to turn over. She had believed so confidently in their burglar-proof security, while all the time they had been linked directly with the dreaded empty house any horror that might lurk within. The cellar was their danger-spot.
"Good-night." she said. "Do you lock your door at night?"
"Always, with a gentleman in the house," was the prim reply.
IT was a tonic reminder that the Captain would be home soon,
which substantiated Lesley as she rushed down to the basement, as
though pursued by fiends. When she had turned the key of the
cellar door, she felt safe again. But although she walked quietly
upstairs, she was careful to smash up the sequence of her
thoughts.
While she was responsible for the children's safety, it was criminal to indulge in neurotic speculation. Following Miss Nightingale's example, she locked her own door and undressed quickly, keeping her mind on safe subjects. As she lay in bed, listening for the Captain's step in the passage in the corridor, she told herself that her only worry now was the Captain's meals, and she would soon discover his tastes. That was how people fell in love—living in the same house.
Relaxed in delicious warmth, she must have dosed, for she was startled awake by three welcome knocks on the other side of the bedroom wall.
The Captain had not forgotten the signal. She smiled into the darkness at this proof that he had been thinking of her.
She was just dropping off to sleep when she heard the faint ringing of the telephone in the library below. She unlocked her door noiselessly and stole down to the library. Expecting a wrong number, the shock was greater when she heard the Captain's voice.
"That you. Miss Bishop? I'm hung up with the car, but I'll soon be back?"
He was in a hurry, for he rang off before she could grasp the fact that although he was speaking to her, he was actually miles away....
Her first thought was for the children. She must return to them immediately. Almost incoherent with terror, she rang up the exchange and gasped into the receiver:
"Police! Police! Send them here. We're in terrible danger! Murder!"
Her hands shook so violently that she could scarcely unlatch the front door, in readiness for the police.
She only knew that, since the maniac was in the adjoining room to hers, she must fetch the children and seek sanctuary with Miss Nightingale.
But, even on her flight back, that wild hope died. She realised that the maniac would be listening for movements, and that, in order to escape, they must be swift and silent as shadows. While she might depend on Max, Baby was too heavy to be carried, while she would wreck everything by screaming, if she were aroused from sleep.
There was nothing to be done but wait and pray for the police to come. Almost dead to sensation, she stood in the middle of her room, while her eyes darted alternately from door to door. And then, for the first time, she noticed the smudged hand on the panels of the communicating door.
No child had left that mark.
Baby was snoring like a little porpoise, so she covered her with a light shawl, in a vain effort to hide her. Max slept in a little cubby-hole, adjoining her room, so he was safer from attack. But even while she stooped over the bed, she thought she heard a board creak behind her, and she swung round, expecting to see a crouching black form, with no face.
Presently the strain of trying to keep both doors under observation at once proved intolerable. She had the feeling that if she took her eyes away from one door, he would steal her, unawares, and she cracked under her ghastly expectation of that sudden bound.
"I must see him," she thought, as she tip-toed to the door which led into the corridor and locked it silently.
The minutes crawled away as she faced the connecting door. It was added agony to remember that she had been given her chance to remove the key to her side of the door. She had thrown her safety away, merely to make a futile gesture.
She knew he must come that way, because of the oiled key. Silence had always been his safeguard, for none of his victims had screamed. The fact that he had fooled her with the captain's signal proved that he had listened-in.
"He thinks the Captain is away for the night," thought Lesley with sudden clarity of mind. "But he thinks the servants are sleeping here. He is waiting for everyone to be asleep, before he creeps in to me."
Then her strained oars seemed to catch the faintest sound from below. She did not know whether she imagined them, or if a car had actually stopped in the road, and the front door creaked open.
In the same minute, she heard another sound—the turning of a key in the lock of the connecting door.
She knew then that the police might capture their man, but they would be too late to prevent another crime. In her terror, she had forgotten to tell them where to find her. While they were cautiously exploring the ground floor, her neck would be broken in that gorilla-grip. She had read that the victims had died almost instantaneously. Even if they located her screams before she was silenced, they would not come until life was extinct.
She was past all help. At the knowledge, her brain jammed, and she stood and stared at the door. There was the sound of a click—and then another—as though the key were turning round and round in the lock. But she knew that he would come, and she remained with her eyes fixed on the door—waiting. A long time passed, while she heard shouts on the other side of the wall, and the sounds of a struggle. Yet she did not move.
She knew the door would open, and eventually it did—but it was a man in uniform who entered.
"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.
To her surprise, she realized that she was still alive.
"Yes," she muttered.
He saw that she was still dazed, and he patted her arm.
"We've got him," he said. "Nothing to be frightened of now."
As she listened, her jammed brain began to work again, so that she realized the source of the miracle. It was Max, who had mistaken two nearly identical keys. The maniac had oiled the key of the back-door—for silent excursions—and the boy had fitted it into the lock of the connecting door.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.