I was so thoroughly angry with myself that after idling along the shores for an hour I lost my way in the dark wood when I landed and brought up at the rear door used by Bates for communication with the villagers who supplied us with provender. I readily found my way to the kitchen and to a flight of stairs beyond, which connected the first and second floors. The house was dark, and my good spirits were not increased as I stumbled up the unfamiliar way in the dark, with, I fear, a malediction upon my grandfather, who had built and left incomplete a house so utterly preposterous. My unpardonable fling at the girl still rankled; and I was cold from the quick descent of the night chill on the water and anxious to get into more comfortable clothes. Once on the second floor I felt that I knew the way to my room, and I was feeling my way toward it over the rough floor when I heard low voices rising apparently from my sitting-room.
It was pitch dark in the hall. I stopped short and listened. The door of my room was open and a faint light flashed once into the hall and disappeared. I heard now a sound as of a hammer tapping upon wood-work.
Then it ceased, and a voice whispered:
“He’ll kill me if he finds me here. I’ll try again to-morrow. I swear to God I’ll help you, but no more now—”
Then the sound of a scuffle and again the tapping of the hammer. After several minutes more of this there was a whispered dialogue which I could not hear.
Whatever was occurring, two or three points struck me on the instant. One of the conspirators was an unwilling party to an act as yet unknown; second, they had been unsuccessful and must wait for another opportunity; and third, the business, whatever it was, was clearly of some importance to myself, as my own apartments in my grandfather’s strange house had been chosen for the investigation.
Clearly, I was not prepared to close the incident, but the idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my sense of humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightly down, found the front door, and, from the inside, opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurried scamper above, and the heavy fall of one who had stumbled in the dark. I grinned with real pleasure at the sound of this mishap, hurried into the great library, which was as dark as a well, and, opening one of the long windows, stepped out on the balcony. At once from the rear of the house came the sound of a stealthy step, which increased to a run at the ravine bridge. I listened to the flight of the fugitive through the wood until the sounds died away toward the lake.
Then, turning to the library windows, I saw Bates, with a candle held above his head, peering about.
“Hello, Bates,” I called cheerfully. “I just got home and stepped out to see if the moon had risen. I don’t believe I know where to look for it in this country.”
He began lighting the tapers with his usual deliberation.
“It’s a trifle early, I think, sir. About seven o’clock, I should say, was the hour, Mr. Glenarm.”
There was, of course, no doubt whatever that Bates had been one of the men I heard in my room. It was wholly possible that he had been compelled to assist in some lawless act against his will; but why, if he had been forced into aiding a criminal, should he not invoke my own aid to protect himself? I kicked the logs in the fireplace impatiently in my uncertainty. The man slowly lighted the many candles in the great apartment. He was certainly a deep one, and his case grew more puzzling as I studied it in relation to the rifle-shot of the night before, his collision with Morgan in the wood, which I had witnessed; and now the house itself had been invaded by some one with his connivance. The shot through the refectory window might have been innocent enough; but these other matters in connection with it could hardly be brushed aside.
Bates lighted me to the stairway, and said as I passed him:
“There’s a baked ham for dinner. I should call it extra delicate, Mr. Glenarm. I suppose there’s no change in the dinner hour, sir?”
“Certainly not,” I said with asperity; for I am not a person to inaugurate a dinner hour one day and change it the next. Bates wished to make conversation,—the sure sign of a guilty conscience in a servant,—and I was not disposed to encourage him.