Tom Ossington's Ghost

"It does, by George! Graham," cried Jack, "I always did know you had a knack of clarifying muddles. Your mental processes are as effective, in their way, as a handful of isinglass dropped into a cask of muddy beer. Ladies, I give you my word they are."

Martyn was ignored.

"If, therefore, part of the paper is capable of explanation of such a striking kind, does it not seem probable that the rest of it also has a meaning-a meaning which does not partake of the nature of a practical joke?"

"The idea," declared Madge, "of a practical joke is utter nonsense. As you say, everything points the other way. It is as clear as anything can be that, while one part of the paper is a key to the hiding-place of the will, the other is the key to the hiding-place of the fortune."

"Very well," said Jack. "Let's grant it. I stand snubbed. But perhaps you'll tell us what is the key to the key?"

"That's another question."

"Very much another question."

"But it needn't be an insoluble one, if we use our wits. The house isn't a large one; it isn't as though it contained a hundred rooms."

Mr. Graham had been studying the scrap of paper.

"This allusion to cats and dogs seems a striking one. I notice that each word is repeated five times. Is there anything about the house which gives you a hint as to the meaning?"

Madge replied to the question with another.

"Is there anything in this room which gives you a hint? Look around and see."

"I have been looking round, and I confess there isn't. Nor do I think it likely that the fortune would be hidden in the same room which contained the will."

"Very well; then we'll all of us go over the house together, and we'll all of us look out for hints."

Madge led the way, and they went over the house.

It was a tiny one. Behind the solitary sitting-room was the kitchen. The kitchen was an old-fashioned one, with brick floor, and bare brick walls coloured white. In one corner a door led into the pantry; in another was a door into the scullery; there was nothing remarkable about either of these. Under the staircase was a roomy cupboard. They examined it with some thoroughness, by the aid of a lamp, without discovering anything out of the way. On the floor above were the bedrooms used by Ella and Madge, and a smaller room in which they stored their lumber. The walls of these were papered from floor to ceiling, and in none of them did there seem to be anything calculated to convey a hint as to the meaning of the cabalistic allusion.

"It seems to me," observed Jack, when the work of exploration was completed, "that there's nothing about these premises breathing of either dogs or cats."

"It is just possible," said Graham, "that they may be in the grounds. For instance, several of them may be buried there, and the reference may be to one of their graves."

"Then do you propose to dig up the whole of the back garden till you light upon their hallowed bones?"

Graham smiled.

"I propose to do nothing."

Madge struck in.

"But I do; I mean to do a great deal. I'm going to strip all the wainscot off the sitting-room wall, and all the flooring up as well. And I'm going to continue that process till we reach the roof. I'm absolutely certain-absolutely certain, mind you! – that that unhappy man's hoard is somewhere within the four walls of this house, and I give you my word that I mean to find it."

"How about the landlord?" asked Graham. "What about his feelings? By the way, who is the landlord?"

"We're the landlord, Ella and I-or, at any rate, we very soon shall be."

"But in the meantime?"

"I don't know anything about a landlord. We took the house from Parker and Beading, the house agents over by the station."

"They would probably be acting for some principal. Did they not tell you his name?"

"They told us nothing. We took the house from them, and the supposition is that we're to pay the rent to them."

"If you will allow me, I'll take the will away with me-if you will trust me with it-and obtain expert opinion as to its validity. I will also call on Messrs. Parker and Beading, and ascertain, if possible, on whose authority they are acting."

"When will you do this?"

"The agents I will call upon to-morrow, and will acquaint you, by letter, with the result."

"You will do nothing of the kind-or, rather, I would prefer that you did not. Both Ella and I would prefer that you should come and tell us the result in person-that is if you can spare the time."

Mr. Graham bowed, expressing acquiescence in the lady's wishes. And on that understanding the matter was left.

When the two men had gone, Ella faced Madge with sparkling eyes.

"Suppose, Madge, there should be a fortune hidden somewhere in the house?"

Madge was scornful.

"Suppose! – there's no supposition about it. It's a certainty, I know there is."

"And suppose you should find it-it would be yours. What would you do with it?"

"What a question! We shall find it all four of us together. It will be share and share alike."

"What-Mr. Graham too?"

Possibly the question was put maliciously. It provoked Miss Brodie to wrath.

"Mr. Graham too? Ella, what can you mean? If it hadn't been for Mr. Graham we should have known nothing whatever about it. I suppose that, in strict equity, the whole of it would be his. Whatever can you mean by saying 'Mr. Graham too?' in such a tone as that!"

"My dear, I meant no harm. Really you're a trifle warm-don't you think you are?"

"Warm! It's enough to make any one a trifle warm to hear you talk like that."

Ella made a little face behind Miss Brodie's back.

"Well, fortune or no fortune, I do hope that no more burglars will come and look for it again to-night."

"If they do," declared Madge, with a viciousness which presaged violence, "they'll not find us unprepared. I shall sleep with Jack's revolver at my bedside, and if you like you can have half my bed again."

Ella's manner was much more mild.

"Thank you, my dear; since you're so good-I think I will."

CHAPTER X

MADGE FINDS HERSELF IN AN AWKWARD SITUATION

'There was no burglar. The night was undisturbed; and the next day was, for both, a busy one.

The morning post brought Madge an intimation from a publisher to whom she had submitted one of her MSS., that he would be obliged if, when she was in town, she would call on him, so that she might discuss with him terms for its publication. That business-like memorandum made her heart beat faster; sent the blood coursing quickly through her veins; added a sparkle to her eyes. This, after all, was the sort of fortune she preferred-one for which she had striven with her own brains and hands-better than hidden hoards! The simple breakfast became an Elysian feast.

Ella was almost as jubilant as she herself was.

"Northcote & Co? That's a good house, isn't it?"

"Rather. They published-" Madge reeled off the names of two or three pronounced fictional successes.

"How much do you think they'll give you for it?"

"In cash? – not much; don't you think I shall bring home the Bank of England. So long as they give me a fair share of anything it may ultimately bring, I'll be content. But it isn't that; it's getting the first footing on the ladder-that's the thing."

"Of course it is. How splendid! And I'll tell you what; you shall dedicate it to me, and then if it sells by the hundred thousand, I shall have a bit of your fame."

"Done! – and your name upon the flyleaf ought to help to sell the book: it's as well known as mine is, anyhow. The author's spoken-you shall be the dedicatee?"

They went up to town together. Ella had to be at her office at half-past nine, and it is true that that seemed a trifle early to make a call upon a publisher. But, as Ella correctly observed, "You can look at the shops until it is time."

Which is precisely what Madge did do.

And it is remarkable how many things she saw in the shop windows which she mentally resolved to purchase if the book succeeded. Such an unusual number of useful things seemed to be displayed. And it certainly is odd what a quantity of them were just the articles which Ella and she particularly required.

Her interview with the publisher was a delightful one. She agreed to everything he proposed. His propositions were not quite on the scale of magnificence which she had conceived as being within the range of possibility. But still, they were near enough to be satisfactory. She was to have a sum of money paid her on the publication of the book-not a large sum, but still something. And there was to be royalty besides. When she hinted, almost as if she had been hinting at something of which she ought to be ashamed, that if part of the money were paid before publication it would be esteemed a favour, that publisher went so far as to draw a check for half the amount, and to hand it to her then and there. It is a fact that Madge Brodie was an uncommonly pretty girl-but such an accident was not likely to make any impression on the commercial instincts of a creature who battens upon authors.

She went straight off and cashed that cheque. When she had the coin in her pocket-actually in her pocket-she felt the financial equal of a Rothschild. She lunched all by herself at a restaurant in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross-and a nice little lunch she had; made some purchases, with one eye on Ella and another on herself; and then she went and gave a music lesson to Miss Clara Parkins, whose father is the proprietor of the Belvedere Tavern-that well-known hostelry, within a hundred miles of Wandsworth Common.

Miss Parkins was within a year or two of her own age, an uncommonly shrewd young woman, and a pleasant one to boot. The lesson had not been proceeding two minutes before she perceived that something was disturbing the ordinarily tranquil currents of her teacher's mind. When the lesson was finished, she made a valiant effort to find out what that something was.

She looked down, and she picked at the nap of her frock, and she asked, a tone or two under her usual key:

"What is it? I wish you'd tell me."

Madge stared; nothing which had gone before had led to such a question.

"What is what?"

"What is it which makes you-all brimming over?"

Madge went red. She was an arrant little snob, and by no means proud of giving music lessons to a publican's daughter-although that publican's daughter was the best paying pupil she had, and not the least agreeable. She was on her stilts in a moment.

"I don't understand you."

"That's a story. Of course it's no business of mine. But you do seem so happy, and I think that sharing other people's happiness is almost as good as being happy yourself-don't you? But I'm awfully sorry I asked."

Miss Parkins' air of contrition melted Madge's mood. As she adjusted her veil, she condescended to explain.

"I have had rather a stroke of luck."

"I'm awfully glad to hear it. Of course I know you think nothing of me; but I think no end of you. I do hope that some one has left you a fortune."

"I like it as well as if some one had, though I daresay you'll think it's nothing. I've sold a book."

"A book? Oh! – one of your own writing? I knew you were clever. When is it coming out?"

"We've hardly got so far as dates."

"When it does come, I'll buy a dozen and pay for them, if you'll give me one with your name inside."

"I'll give you the one without there being the necessity for your buying the dozen."

"I knew you'd say that. I know you don't think I'm good enough to buy your book. But I don't mind. I hope it will be a success."

"That's very kind of you."

"And it will be, I'm sure of it. You're the sort that does succeed."

"How do you make that out?"

"I don't know exactly-but you are. You've got the air of success about you. I noticed it when first I spoke to you. And when people have got the air of success, you'll generally find that they get the thing itself."

"You student of the world!"

She stooped and kissed the girl. It was the first familiarity they had exchanged. Miss Parkins put her arms about her neck and kissed her in return-a half quizzical something in her eyes.

"You mark my word-you're the sort that does succeed!"

Madge walked home with an added feeling of elation. She laughed at the girl's pretension to what almost amounted to prophetic insight-yet wondered if there might not be something in what she said. At any rate it was nice to be believed in, even by Miss Parkins. She felt that she had done the young woman an injustice. A publican's daughter, after all, is flesh and blood. If the book succeeded, should opportunity offer, she would place it upon public record that Clara Parkins had foretold its success-which would be fame for Clara. She smiled at her own conceit. The possibility that she might one day become an important person only loomed on the horizon since the advent of that note in the morning.

Immersed in such thoughts, almost unwittingly she arrived at Clover Cottage. Inserting her latchkey in the keyhole, she turned and opened the door. Almost as soon as she did so, it was thrust violently back on her, and banged in her face. She was so startled that, for a second or two, she stared at the closed door as if in doubt as to what had really happened. She had been, in imagination, so far away that it required positive effort on her part to bring herself back to earth.

"Well," she muttered, below her breath, "that's cool. I wonder who did that. Perhaps it was the wind."

She did not stay to consider how the wind could have behaved in such an eccentric manner. She gave her key another twist, and the door a push. But the key refused to act, or to move, in the direction required, and the door stood still. This, under the circumstances, singular behaviour of the key and the door, seemed to rouse her to a clearer perception of the situation. She gave the key a further twist, exerting all her strength.

"What is the matter? It turned easily enough just now."

It would not turn then, try how she might, and the door would not budge.

"Can the catch have fallen? I don't see how; it has never done anything of the kind before. I wonder if some one's having a joke with me; perhaps Ella has returned."

Acting on the supposition, though it was two hours in advance of the time at which Miss Duncan might be generally expected, she knocked at the door. None answered. She knocked again-louder. If Ella was having a jest at her expense it was hardly to be expected that she would put an end to the joke by answering her first summons. She knocked again and again-without result.

"This is charming-to be locked out of my own house is not what I expected."

She drew back, in order to survey the premises. Nothing was to be seen.

"Perhaps I'd better try the back door. Since the front seems hermetically closed, the back may be open for a change."

But it was not. She rattled at the handle; shook the door; rapped at the panels with her knuckles. No one heeded her. She returned to the front-with a curious feeling of discomfiture.

"What can have happened? It's very odd. The door opened easily enough at first-it felt as if some one had pulled it from within. I wonder-Hullo! that's the time of day is it? I saw that curtain move. I fancy now, Miss Ella Duncan, that I've caught you-you are amusing yourself inside. I'll give that knocker a hammering which I'll engage to say you shall hear."

She was as good as her word-so far as the hammering was concerned. She kept up a hideous tattoo for some three or four minutes without cessation. But though it is not impossible that the din was audible on the other side of the Common, within none heeded. She was becoming annoyed. Going to the sitting-room window, she tapped sharply at the frame.

"Ella, I saw you! Don't be so silly! Open the door! You'll have all the neighbourhood about the place. It's too bad of you to keep me outside like this."

It might be too bad; but the offender showed no sign of relenting. Madge struck her knuckles against the pane with force enough to break the glass.

"Ella!"

Still silence.

"How can you be so stupid-and unkind! Ella, open the door! Or is it you, Jack? Don't think I didn't see you, because I did-I saw you move the curtain."

She might have done, but the curtain was motionless enough now. Madge was losing her temper fast. In her estimation, to be kept out of the house like this was carrying a sufficiently bad joke a good deal too far.

"If you don't open the door at once, I shall break the glass and let myself in that way!"

She assailed the window-pane with a degree of violence which suggested that she meant what she said; then flattened her nose against it in an endeavour to discover who might be within. While she peered, the door was opened, and some one did come in. She started back.

"Who on earth-"

She was going to say. "Who on earth is that?" But when she got so far, she stopped-because she knew. At least in part.

First through the door there came a woman. And, although she could scarcely credit the evidence of her own eyesight, in her she recognised the visitor of the day but one before-the creature who had persisted in calling herself "the ghost's wife." At her heels there was a man, a perfect stranger to Madge. Having recognised the woman, she looked to see in her companion the loafer of the previous afternoon-but this certainly was not he. This was a miserable, insignificant-looking fellow, very much down at heel-and apparently very much down at everything else. The woman, with impudent assurance, came striding straight to the window. The man hung back, exhibiting in his bearing every symptom of marked discomfort.

The female, as brazen-faced as if she was on the right side of the window, stared at Madge. And Madge stared at her-amazed.

So amazed, indeed, that for a moment or two she was at a loss for words. When they came at last, they came in the form of an inquiry.

"What," she asked, "are you doing there?"

The woman waved her hand-in fact, she waved both her hands-as if repelling some noxious insect.

"Go away!" she cried; "go away! This house is mine-mine!"

Madge gasped. That the creature was mad, at the best, she made no doubt. But that conviction, in the present situation, was of small assistance. What was she to do?

As she asked herself this question, with no slight sense of helplessness, the gate clicked behind her. Some one entered the garden.

It was Bruce Graham.

CHAPTER XI

UNDER THE SPELL

"Mr. Graham!" she exclaimed. "Really, I do believe that if I had been asked what thing I most desired at this particular moment, I should have answered-you!"

Graham's sombre features were chastened by a smile.

"That's very good of you."

"Look here!" Laying one hand against his arm, with the other she pointed at the sitting-room window. His glance followed her finger-tips.

"Who's that?"

"That's what I should very much like to ascertain."

"I don't quite follow you. Do you mean that you don't know who she is?"

"I only know that I've been away all day, and that on my return I find her there. How she got there I can't say-but she seems determined to keep me out."

"You don't mean that! And have you no notion who the woman is? She looks half mad."

"I should think she must be quite mad. It's the woman who forced herself into the house the day before yesterday after you had gone-that's all I know of her. This time she is not alone; she has a man in there with her."

"A man! Not-Ballingall?"

"No, not Ballingall. At least, I only caught a glimpse of him-but it's not the man who was watching you. From her behaviour the woman must be perfectly insane."

"We'll soon make an end of her, insane or not."

Graham went to the window. The woman, completely unabashed, had remained right in front of it, an observant spectator of their proceedings. He spoke to her.

"Open the door at once!"

She repeated the gesture she had used to Madge-raising her voice, at the same time, to a shrill scream.

"Go away! go away! This house is mine-mine! I don't want any trespassers here."

Graham turned to Madge.

"Do you authorise me to gain an entry?"

"Certainly. I don't want to spend the night out here."

Permission was no sooner given than the thing was done. Grasping the upper sash of the window with both his hands, Graham brought it down with a run, tearing away the hasp from its fastening as if it had been so much thread. It was a capital object-lesson of the utility of such a safeguard against the wiles of a muscular burglar. The upper sash being lowered, in another moment the lower one was raised. Mr. Graham was in the room. The woman was possibly too astonished by the unceremonious nature of his proceedings to attempt any resistance, even had she felt disposed.

Graham addressed Miss Brodie through the window.

"Will you come this way? or shall I open the door?"

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd rather you opened the door."

He opened the door. Presently they were in the sitting-room, face to face with the intruders. Graham took them to task-the woman evincing no sign of discomposure.

"Who are you, and what is the meaning of your presence on these premises?"

"This house is mine-mine! It's all of it mine! And who are you, that you ask such a question-of a lady?"

She crossed her hands on her breast with an assumption of dignity which, in a woman of her figure and scarecrow-like appearance, was sufficiently ludicrous. Graham eyed her as if subjecting her to a mental appraisement. Then he turned to the man.

"And pray, sir, what explanation have you to offer of the felony you are committing?"

This man was a little, undergrown fellow, with sharp hatchet-shaped features, and bent and shrunken figure. He had on an old grey suit of clothes, which was three or four sizes too large for him, the trousers being turned up in a thick roll over the top of an oft-patched pair of side-spring boots. There was about him none of the assurance which marked the woman-the air of bravado which he attempted to wear fitted him as ill as his garments.

"I ain't committed no felony, not likely. She asked me to come to her house-so I come. She says to me, 'You come along o' me to my house, and I'll give you a bit of something to eat.' Now didn't you?"

"Certainly. I suppose a gentleman is allowed to visit a lady if she asks him."

The dreadful-looking woman, as she stood with her head thrown back, and her nose in the air, presented a picture of something which was meant for condescension, which was not without its pathos.

"Of course! – ain't that what I'm saying? She come here, and she took a key out of her pocket, and she put it in the keyhole, and she opened the door, all quite regular, and she says, 'This here's my house,' and she asked me to come in, so of course I come in."

"Do you mean to say that she gained entrance to this house by means of a key which she took from her pocket?"

"Course! How do you suppose we came in? – through the window? Not hardly, that's not my line, and so I tell you."

Graham returned to the woman.

"Be so good as to give me the key with which you obtained admission to these premises."

The woman put her hand up to her neck, for the first time showing signs of discomposure.

"The key?"

Starting back, she looked about her wildly, and broke into a series of shrill exclamations.

"The key! – my key! – no! – no! – no! – It is all I have left-the only thing I've got. I've kept it through everything-I've never parted from it once. I won't give it you-no!"

She came closer to him; glaring at him with terrible eyes.

"It's my key-mine! I took it with me when I went that night. He was sitting in here, and I came downstairs with the key in my pocket, and I went-and he never knew. And I've kept it ever since, because I've always said that one day when I went back I should want my key to let me in: I hate to have to stand on the step while they are letting me in."

Mr. Graham was regarding her intently, as if he was endeavouring to read what stood with her in the place of a soul.

"Is your name Ossington?"

"Ossington? Ossington?" She touched the sides of her forehead with the tips of her fingers, glancing about her affrightedly, as if making an effort to recall her surroundings. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Who said Ossington? Who said it? Who asked if my name was-Ossington?"