Chapter XXXII: The Poltergeist’s Last Visit

I went to bed early, as we all did. That was a very tired household. Somers disappeared directly after supper, and Aunt Mary followed half an hour later.

Dorothy and Anne Christie, after the old lady had been safely tucked in, returned to the living room and sat with Peter and me for a while, trying dismally to make talk. But, after two disturbed nights, they were both dead for sleep. Dorothy nodded over her embroidery, and Miss Christie wore again that expression of bovine somnolence, which Somers’ medicine, or the events of this last month, had driven away. And Peter and I were little better.

At last Miss Christie rose. “It’s no use,” she declared. “I’m going to bed. I--I feel as sleepy and as stupid as I ever did before I began taking Doctor Somers’ tablets. If the Poltergeist should come back to-night, I’d never know it--not unless he dragged me out of bed. And then I’d just curl up on the floor, I think. I’m so sleepy!”

It was not later than nine o’clock, but we were all exhausted, and we all went to bed. I abandoned my half-formed design of sitting up to watch for the Poltergeist. Let him come! I was too tired to care.

Peter, yawning up the stairs beside me, expressed the same idea. “I thought I’d sit up,” he said, “and watch for that darn ghost, just to prove Somers was wrong, but I’m too sleepy.”

Somers’ door was closed, and no sound came from behind it. Evidently he, too, had succumbed to the need of rest.

I bade Dorothy and Peter a sleepy good night, and in five minutes I was undressed and in bed, fathoms deep in dreamless slumber.

A sudden wild shriek awakened me, such a scream as would drag the soundest sleeper from his bed and bring the cold sweat out upon his forehead, a scream of mortal fear. It was Dorothy’s voice!

Despite my rheumatism, I was out of bed and at her door in two leaps. My heart was in my throat.

“Dorothy!” I said. “Dorothy! What is it, child?”

She clutched me, trembling. “Oh,” she said, shaking pitifully. “Oh, dear! I--I can’t----”

“What is it?” Peter was beside me, shaking his sister’s arm. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”

“I--there’s a s-snake in my bed!”

Came a soft pad of unshod feet, the swish of loose garments, and Somers was beside us. Even in my excitement I noticed and wondered at it--that he came, not from his own room, but up the stairs.

“What?” he asked, with one flashing look at us. “Unk, Pete”--he clutched our shoulders cruelly--“tell me, is there a back stairway to this joint?”

We nodded dumbly, amazed at his query.

“Oh, scissors!” He wheeled and disappeared as abruptly as he had come. I heard his bare feet pounding down the stairs.

Peter switched on the lights, and all three of us started back, laughing confusedly.

“Oh, dear me!” said Dorothy, drawing her bathrobe about her.

Peter looked at my pajamas and laughed consumedly. “Those wide red stripes are frightfully becoming, unk!”

I snorted. They were good linen pajamas, and I had bought them very cheap because of those very stripes. I am past the days of personal vanity.

“You’re no beauty yourself in those purple things,” I replied resentfully.

Then we separated, but returned presently, wrapped in dressing gowns, to investigate Dorothy’s bed.

Somers came back up the stairs. He, too, was in a bathrobe and slippers, and he held one hand tightly shut.

“Missed it,” he said. “I didn’t know about those back stairs. What happened here?”

“A s-snake in my bed!” said the girl, shivering.

“Humph!” He threw back its covers. “Snake? Ha! No wonder.”

He clutched at the sheet. It was damp, and in its center, right where poor Dorothy’s back must have been, was a long sliver of ice.

“Here’s your snake,” Somers declared.

“I don’t care!” replied Dorothy. “It was just like a snake, long and cold and clammy. Br-r-r!”

He picked up the piece of ice and carried it to the bathroom. “Well, your snake’s gone. Miss anything from the room?”

“Nun-no,” she repeated wonderingly. Then she went to the dresser and looked about a moment. “I do, too! My wedding ring and my diamond! Oh, dear, my rings are gone!”

“Here,” said Somers, opening his hand. His strange eyes danced brightly. Triumph showed in every line of his face. In his palm lay both rings.

“Oh, you dear man! Where were they? And now you believe in the Poltergeist, don’t you?”

“I found them in--in the hall. And as for the ghost--why, we will get Aunt Mary to explain that later. Can you go back to sleep now?”

The girl nodded doubtfully. “I--I think so, if all of you will leave your doors wide open?”

“I’m going to sit up,” said Somers, and Dorothy, somewhat reassured, turned to her bed as we went out.

The physician entered his own room. We heard him whistle shrilly. “Come here, you chaps!” he called softly.

Peter and I went in. And there, driven deep through coverlet and sheets, right into the mattress, was a carving knife!

“Humph!” said Somers. “Looks like the Poltergeist wasn’t entirely harmless, don’t it? In the dark he must have thought I was in bed.”

Not without difficulty he pulled out the seven-inch blade. It would have pierced his body, had he been sleeping there!

“Where were you?” I whispered.

“Me? On the stairs, watching for the Poltergeist. Those back stairs fooled me.” And he would say no more, except, “I found those rings just outside Aunt Mary’s door.”

“Maybe the ghost visited her, too!” I cried, alarmed. “Run down and see, Peter. We forgot the poor old lady.”

“Humph!” said Somers. “She’s good friends with the ghost, but go anyhow, Peter.”

Peter went. “Sound asleep, she says,” he reported. “Didn’t hear anything. I went right in; Miss Christie was dead to the world; didn’t hear me knock.”

“Go to bed,” directed Somers. “No, nothing more to-night. Things are going very nicely. In the morning this ought to be cleared up.”

So we went back to bed, despairing of further information, but I could not sleep.

I lay there wide-eyed through the long, black hours, wondering--wondering. Who--what was this specter, this Poltergeist? If Somers had been in his bed to-night, it would have killed him; had it killed Gaskell, also? And what did Aunt Mary know of the grisly thing? Aunt Mary would explain, Somers had said.

The old lady’s bed faced the window, I remembered, and that window looked out upon the tangle of scrub oaks, where Gaskell had met his death. It must have been light, even at four o’clock. Had Aunt Mary been awake that morning? And if so, what had she seen? And why had she kept it secret? There were huge cellars under the old house, I knew, cellars long unexplored.

Had Gaskell’s murderer come to the window? What whispered colloquy had been held, there in the gray dawn, between the paralytic and this stranger, this grisly ghost of the murderous hands? Had the old lady recognized him, shielded him, told him where to hide, perhaps, in those long closed cellars, where she might have played as a child? Fort House was an old home of the McGregors; in the days of Dorothy’s grandfather, Aunt Mary might well have visited it, explored its vast underground caverns, where wines had once been stored.

And what--who--was this murderer, then, whom she had shielded, who had wandered about Fort House of nights, screaming horridly, eating from the pantry, breaking dishes, playing ghostly tricks, stabbing, as he had meant to, an innocent guest? I went cold at the picture in my imagination. Some lunatic, some secret, stealthy madman, who might yet slaughter us all!

I sat up in bed, straining my ears, glad of the pistol I had rummaged out at home, and which still lay in my bag. I got it out, resolved to keep vigil. If this Poltergeist, this madman, came back, I would protect Dorothy at least. And in the morning we would hunt, not harmless quail in the back yard, but a wanton murderer through the cellars.

The hours wore on, and dawn came slowly. As the east turned gray, the quail piped up their matutinal song.

“Bob_white_! Bob_white_!” they whistled; louder, closer, than ever before.

So shrill was their continual outcry, and so close beneath me, that at last I tiptoed to the window. Perhaps I might see them, locate their nests, against our later hunting. I swung back the screen and put out my head, peering almost straight down.

“Bob_white_! Bob_white_! Bob_white_!” they piped at three-second intervals, regular as a clock and surprisingly loud and close.

And then I gasped and almost fell out of the window. These were no birds! The cry of quail was counterfeited so exactly that I could scarcely believe my eyes; instead of a little brown bird, Floyd Somers crouched beneath Aunt Mary’s window, diagonally below my own, his long, lean legs grotesquely folded under him, his thin lips pursed. From his lips, at regular, three-second intervals, came the shrill cry of the bobwhite quail, exactly imitated!

This childish buffoonery angered me sorely. What ailed the man? Had he no appreciation of what hung over us? In the midst of the dark shadow which covered Fort House, before the very eyes, perhaps, of a lurking, murderous madman, he could find nothing better to do than play this puerile practical joke upon a helpless old woman.

“What are you doing, man? Stop it!” I shouted wrathfully.

He looked up, in no way abashed, and gestured vigorously for silence. Despite my rage, his desperate earnestness, his frantic signs for secrecy, closed my lips. Wondering mightily, I huddled into a few things and hurried downstairs and around the house.

Somers still crouched beneath the east window, whistling with all his might: “Bob_white_! Bob_white_!” I blundered through the honeysuckle vines toward him.

“Shut up, man!” he said to me and clutched my shoulder to draw me down beside him. “Want to spoil everything?” he demanded, his lips close to my ear. “She’ll hear you. Shut up, I say, and watch!”

I subsided, born down, if not convinced, by his angry sincerity. Whatever his purpose, this was no silly joke; I could see that much. There was some deep-laid, important plan beneath this foolery.

“Bob_white_!” he whistled. “Bob_white_!”

A faint movement came from within the open window, and a weak, querulously patient voice said: “Miss Christie! Nurse!”

Somers held his breath; then, remembering, whistled the quail’s call louder than before. “If she’ll only stay asleep, or pretend to be asleep, as I told her!” he exclaimed. “Bob_white_!”

Asleep or not, the nurse made no answer. Aunt Mary called again tentatively, then querulously. Still the nurse made no reply.

“Ah-h!” sighed Somers. Gripping my arm fiercely, he whistled louder yet: “Bob_white_! Bob_white_!”

I could not believe my ears. Within, the nurse’s quiet breathing ran on unchanged, almost a snore. Surely she was asleep! Yet I heard footsteps, the unmistakable padding of bare feet across the floor! What--who--could it be? The murderer?

“I’ll kill those miserable birds _myself_!”

That was Mary McGregor’s voice! And she seemed to be alone. What could she be doing? The patter of bare feet, scarcely audible, faded away. I heard a door open and close stealthily.

Somers erected himself, his long legs straightening telescopically. He peered in the window. “Look!” he exclaimed.

On my very tiptoes, straining higher, craning my neck, I looked. Aunt Mary’s bed was empty! She was nowhere in sight! And I saw the edge of Anne Christie’s bed in the inner room, and a long braid of blond hair hung over it toward the floor.

“Down!” ordered Somers. “Quick!”

He dragged me back just in time. I caught one furtive glimpse of Mary McGregor, indubitably erect, walking, upon her two paralyzed legs, like any other person. And her face, not sweet or patient now, was distorted with maniacal rage. She carried a shotgun!

I ducked below the window ledge, stunned with amazement. Right over my head I heard the grating of a gun barrel against the window screen, a muttered exclamation, the tremendous _wham_ of black powder! A burning gun wad scorched my hand; bird shot pattered in the leaves behind us; Somers dragged me away.

“Quick!” he said. “You saw, you heard? Run, before she has time to hide it!”

I raced round the house beside him. “What--what does it mean?” I asked. “Why, she’s paralyzed! Is she crazy, or am I?”

“Mean? It means that the Poltergeist has made its last appearance,” answered Somers. “Now!”

We were in the house, through the long, crooked hall, at Aunt Mary’s closed door. Without waiting to knock, he burst in.