Read Ebook: The House 'Round the Corner by Tracy Louis

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Ebook has 1494 lines and 65226 words, and 30 pages

"Oh, mother!" said the girl, in awe-stricken accents, "why didn't you hide 'em?"

"How was I to hide 'em? I was knocked all of a heap. Who'd have thought of anyone coming here to-day, of all days in the year?"

"Who's that with him?" Betty almost sobbed.

"The man who's going over the house, of course."

"Oh, dear! If only I'd known! I'd have taken the keys and gone with them."

"What good would that have done?"

"I might have humbugged them into waiting a minute or two. I'd have thought of some excuse. But don't worry too much, mother. Maybe they'll give the least little look round, and come away again."

"And maybe they won't," cried Mrs. Jackson angrily, for she was recovering from her fright, and her daughter's implied reproach was irritating. "I did my best, and it can't be helped now, no matter what happens. Run after them, Betty, and offer to help. You may manage something, even now."

The girl needed no second bidding. She was through the cottage and out in the road in a jiffy. But she had lost a minute or more already, and the sturdy galloway was climbing a steep hill quickly. When she reached a garden gate to which the reins were tied, the front door of the Grange stood open, and the visitors were inside.

"Oh, dear!" she breathed, in a heart-broken way. "Oh, dear! If only mother had called me sooner! Now, it's too late! And I promised that no one should know. Well, I must do my best. Just a bit of luck, and I may pull things straight yet!"

SHOWING HOW EVEN A HOUSE MAY HAVE A WAY OF ITS OWN

While Walker was fiddling with the lock, not being quite sure as to the right key, Armathwaite had eyed the southern landscape. Elmdale was six hundred feet above sea level, and the Grange stood fully a hundred feet higher than the village, so a far-flung panorama of tillage, pasture, and woodland provided a delightful picture on that glorious June day. To the north, he knew, stretched miles of wild moor, and the heather began where the spacious garden ended. A glance at the map in the Walkers' office had shown that this bleak waste was crossed by mere tracks, marked in the dotted lines which motorists abhor. Indeed, the very road leading to the house was not macadamized beyond the gate; two years of disuse had converted even the stone-covered portion into a sort of meadow, because grass, the sulkiest of vegetables in a well-tended lawn, will grow luxuriantly on a granite wall if left alone.

Truly, Elmdale seemed to be at the end of the world--the world of Yorkshire, at any rate--and Robert Armathwaite found its aspect pleasing. A lock clicked; he turned, and entered a domain he was now fully resolved to make his own.

"Well, I'm blest!" said Walker, speaking in a surprised way; "anyone 'ud think the place hadn't been empty an hour, let alone two years, not countin' Mrs. Wilkins's couple of nights. I wonder who left these clothes, and hats, and things!"

He had good reason for a certain stare of bewilderment.

The door, which was stoutly built, with a pane of sheet glass in the upper half, opened straight into a spacious, oak-paneled hall. Left and right were a dining-room and a drawing-room, each containing two windows. Behind the dining-room a wide staircase gave access to the upper floors, and a flood of rich and variously-tinted light from a long arched window glowed on the dark panels below, and glistened on the polished mahogany case of a grandfather's clock which faced the foot of the stairs. The wall opposite the entrance was pierced by a half-open door, through which could be seen laden bookshelves reaching up eight feet or more. Another door, beyond the stairway, showed the only possible means of approach to the kitchen and domestic offices.

There were no pictures in the hall, but some antique plates and dishes of blue china were ranged on a shelf above the wainscot, and a narrow table and four straight-backed chairs, all of oak, were in tasteful keeping with the surroundings. On each side of the dining-room door were double rows of hooks, and on these hung the garments which had caught the agent's eye.

A bowler hat, a frayed panama, a cap, a couple of overcoats, even a lady's hat and mackintosh, lent an air of occupancy to the house, which was not diminished by the presence of several sticks and umbrellas in a couple of Chinese porcelain stands. Walker took down the panama. It was dust-laden, and the inner band of leather had a clammy feeling. He replaced it hastily.

"That's the Professor's," he said, trying to speak unconcernedly. "I remember seeing him in it, many a time."

"Now, suppose we lay that ghost, and have done with it," he said quietly. "Where did my worthy and retrospective landlord hang himself?"

"There," said Walker, indicating a solitary hook screwed through the china shelf near the clock. "That bronze thing," pointing to a Burmese gong lying on the floor, "used to hang there. He took it down, tied the rope to the hook, and kicked a chair away.... If you come here," and he advanced a few paces, "you'll see why a ghost appears."

"Mr. Walker," bleated someone timidly.

Mr. Walker unquestionably jumped, and quite as unquestionably swore, even when he recognized Betty Jackson, standing in the porch.

"Well, what is it?" he cried gruffly, hoping his companion has missed that display of nerves.

"Please, sir, mother thought--" began the girl; but the startled "nut" was annoyed, and showed it.

"I don't care what your mother thinks," he shouted. "Refusing me the keys, indeed! What next? I've a good mind to report her to Messrs. Holloway & Dobb."

"But, sir, she only wanted to make the house a bit more tidy. It's dusty and stuffy. If you gentlemen would be kind enough to wait in the garden five minutes, I'd open up the rooms, and raise a window here and there."

Betty, tearful and repentant, had entered the hall in her eagerness to serve. Walker weakened; he had a soft spot in his heart for girls.

"No matter now," he said. "We shan't be here long. This gentleman is just going to look round and see if the place suits him."

"Oh!" screamed the girl. "Why talk of such horrid things? There's no ghost!"

Her cry was so unexpectedly shrill that Walker yielded to an anger almost as loud-voiced.

"Confound you!" he stormed at her; "take yourself off! One more word from you, and your mother loses her job."

Armathwaite looked into the girl's troubled face and saw there a fear, a foreboding, which were very real, if not to be accounted for readily.

"Kindly leave us," he said. "If I want Mrs. Jackson, or you, I'll call at the cottage."

There was an air of authority about Mr. Armathwaite that disconcerted Betty more than Walker's bluster. She went out and closed the front door. The agent ran and opened it again. The girl was standing on the path, clear of the porch, and gazing wistfully at the house.

"Will you mind your own business?" he grumbled. "The deuce take it, what's come to you to-day? You and your mother seem half crazy."

"We don't like folk to see the place at its worst," she said, rather defiantly.

Betty flushed. She was distressed, but dales' blood boils quickly when subjected to the fire of contumely.

"I haven't asked such a favor," she said. "And you might keep a civil tongue in your head."

Walker sniffed his annoyance. But why bandy words with this aggressive young woman? He swung on his heel.

"Never mind Mrs. Jackson or her daughter," said Armathwaite placidly. "I'll soon settle matters with them. Now, you have an inventory, I believe? Suppose we start here."

"Then you've decided to take the house, sir?"

"Yes, two hours ago, in Nuttonby."

"I wish all our clients were like you," laughed Walker. "You know what you want and see that you get it.... Well, sir, as it happens, the inventory begins with the hall. I'll read, and you might note the items, stopping me if there's any doubt."

The agent rattled through his task, but was pulled up several times in dining-room and drawing-room, when a picture or two, some Sheffield plate, and various bits of china were missing. Black doubt seized the sharp Walker when this had happened for the fourth time. In all, there were seven disappearances, and, in each instance, the article was old and fairly valuable. Country villages, he reflected, were ransacked nowadays by collectors of curios. When opportunity served, he and Mrs. Jackson would have some earnest words.

But surprise and relief came in the discovery of the seven; they were piled, with a number of books, on a table in the library.

"I suppose some kind of spring cleaning is going on," he said sheepishly. "Now the cat is out of the bag. Why the deuce didn't Betty say so, and have done with it!"

"I imagine she was trying to tell us something of the sort," smiled the other unconcernedly. "Surely we have not got to check the titles of all these books?"

"No, sir. They're lumped together--about eight hundred volumes."

Armathwaite surveyed the shelves with the eye of a reader.

"That must be nearly right," he said, after a little pause. "I must not get mine mixed with my predecessor's. I've brought nearly two hundred myself."

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