Richard Marsh

“ Madge's impulse was to dash forward, put her arms about the unfortunate creature's wrist and, if she needs must go forward, bear her bodily to the top of the stairs. But although, at the pitiful sight which the woman presented, her fingers tingled and her pulses throbbed, she was stayed from advancing to proffer her the assistance which she longed to render by the consciousness, against which she strove in vain, that between the woman and herself there was a something which not only did she dare not pass, but which she dare not even closely approach. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII MADGE APPLIES MORE STRENGTH
Was it imagination? Or was it fact? Did some one or something really pass from the room, causing in going a little current of air? With startled faces each put to the other an unspoken query.
Which none answered.
The woman lay there, motionless, her exceeding stillness seeming accentuated by the sudden silence which filled the room. Bruce Graham, moving forward, took her up in his arms, as if she were but a feather's weight. His knife fell from her nerveless fingers, tumbling to the floor with startling clatter. Madge picked it up. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Madge was at a loss what to make of him.
"I'm feeling a little faint."
The words were stammered out, as if with a view of explaining the singularity of his bearing--yet he did not appear to be the kind of individual who might be expected to feel "a little faint," unless nature belied her own handwriting. The strength and constitution of a Samson was written large all over him. It seemed to strike him that his explanation--such as it was--was a little lame, so he stammered something else.
"You give music lessons?"
"Yes, we do give music lessons--at least, I do." ”

“ Thousands of more eccentric documents have been held to be good in law. I have little doubt--if the testator's signature can be proved--that the will is as sound as if it had been drawn up by a bench of judges."
Madge drew a long breath. Jack was jocular, or meant to be. "Think of that, now!"
"But I don't see," said Ella, "that we're any forwarder now, or that we're any nearer to Madge's mysterious hoard. The will--if it is a will--says that the fortune is hidden in the house, but it doesn't give the faintest notion where. We might pull the whole place to pieces and then not find it." ”

“ At last torn by conflicting doubts, driven more than half insane--as he himself admitted--by the feeling that his life was haunted, he did as his mysterious visitor desired--he went to Clover Cottage. He hung about the house for an hour. At last, persuaded that it was empty, he gained admission through the kitchen window. No sooner was he in than a constable who, unconsciously to himself, had been observing his movements with suspicious eyes, came and found him on the premises. ”

“ Or is a man who thinks he sees a ghost, who knows he sees a ghost, who knows that a ghost is a continual attendant of his waking and of his sleeping hours alike--must such a man be in labour with some horrible delusion of his senses? Is his brain of necessity unhinged? Must he of a certainty be mad?"
Not only was such an interrogation in itself remarkable, but more especially was it so as coming from such a figure as Ballingall presented. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It seems as if we couldn't have found a more undesirable habitation, if we had tried Petticoat Lane. Not the first burglar that's been in the place! And the house well known to the police--not to speak of a sinister reputation in all the country side! Charming! Clover Cottage seems to be an ideal place of residence for two lone, lorn young women. The abode of mystery, and, so far as I can make out, a sink of crime, one wonders if it still waits to become the scene of some ghastly murder to give to the situation its crowning touches. ”

“ Again she gave one of those bursts of laughter which so jarred on Madge's nerves. "When I'm drunk I can't see ghosts--it's only when I'm sober. I've had nothing to eat since I don't know when, let alone to drink. I'm starving, starving! That's the time when I see ghosts. They point at me with their fingers and say, 'Look at us and look at you--this is what it's come to!' They make me see what might have been. He made me come to-day; I didn't want to, but he made me. And now he's in all the house.--Listen! He's getting out of bed in the room upstairs--that's his bedroom. ”

“ Ella regarded her curiously.
"What's the matter with you, Madge? What's happened?"
"It's nothing--only that horrible woman has upset me."
"Who is she? and what's she been doing? and what's she want?"
"I don't know who she is, or what she wants, or anything at all about her. I only know that she's prevented me getting anything for your tea."
"That's all right--we've got something, haven't we, Jack?" Jack waved a parcel. "But whatever did you let such an extraordinary-looking creature into the house for? and whatever did she mean by screaming out that she's a ghost's wife? Is she very mad?" ”

“ One thing's certain, the room is honeycombed with possible hiding-places. There are hollows behind the wainscot, the walls themselves sound hollow. That unhappy man can hardly have found a part of the house better adapted to his purpose."
"See there--what's that?" Ella was pointing to a kind of plaster cornice which ran round the room. "What are those things which are cut or moulded on that strip of beading, if it is beading, under the ceiling?"
"They look to me like some sort of ornamental bosses," said Graham.
"They certainly are neither cats or dogs," decided Madge. ”

“ Madge went to the window. The man in the road was lounging lazily along with an air of indifference which was almost too marked to be real. He gave a backward glance as he went. At sight of Madge he quickened his pace.
"Is that the man who is watching you?"
"Yes, I--I fancy it is."
"You fancy? Don't you know?"
"It is the man."
"He is shorter than you--smaller altogether. Compared to you he is a dwarf. Why are you afraid of him?"
Either the question itself, or the tone in which it was asked, brought the blood back into his cheeks. ”

“ Then I flew into a rage; my temper has been the curse of my whole life. I caught up a decanter of whisky which was on the table, and struck him with it on the head. The bottle broke, the whisky went all over him--how it smelt! Can't you smell it?--and he went tumbling down, down, on to the floor. He's lying there now--can't you see him lying there?" She turned to Madge with a gesture which seemed to make the girl's blood run colder. "Can't you see the ghost?" ”

“ Do you think I'm going to be played the fool with because I'm only a woman! I'll soon prove to you I'm not--that is, if it is to be proved by a little revolver practice."
Madge spoke at the top of her voice, her words seeming to ring through the house with singular clearness. But whether this was done for the sake of encouraging herself and Ella, or with the view of frightening a possible foe, was an open question. She strode out of the room with an air of surprising resolution. Ella clinging to her skirts and following her, simply because she dare not be left behind. ”

“ Graham surveyed the work of devastation.
"I will finish this side, and then I think, Miss Brodie, we might leave the rest to another time--till to-morrow, say."
"I really don't see what's the use of doing it at all," said Ella. "I don't believe there's anything hidden in this room; and look at the mess, it will take hours to clear it up. And who wants to live in a place with bare brick walls? It gives me the horrors to look at them."
Madge looked at her, more in sorrow than in anger. ”

“ Not a large fortune, as fortunes go, but still a comfortable capital to be the possessor of. If fate only had been kind to him, and the men and women who formed his world of finer texture, Tom Ossington might have been as happy as the days were long. ”

“ Ella, my dearest Ella, I do assure you, by the token of those peerless charms----"
"Jack, don't be silly."
"I think," insinuated Madge, "that you and I, Mr. Graham, had better go and fetch a chisel and a hammer."
They went. When they returned, bearing those useful implements, however the discussion might have gone, Mr. Martyn showed no signs of being crushed.
"Give me that chisel," he exclaimed. "You never saw a man handle a tool like me--and to the last day of your life you'll never see another. I'm capable of committing suicide while hammering in a tack." ”

“ We've been sinking lower and lower and lower, through every form of degradation, privation, misery, until at last we're in the ditch--amidst the slime of the outer ditch. We've lost all that there is worth having, so far as life's concerned, for ever. The only hope that is left us is the hour in which it is appointed that we shall die. For my part, my hope is that for me that hour is not far off. And, as I'm a living man, I believe that for her it has already come; that the scythe is raised to reap; that she's dying where she stands. Have you no bowels of compassion, Tom--none? ”

“ This was Graham.
"Did you? Let me tell you, sir, that as far as you were concerned, I had long since passed the stage of wonder, and had reached the haven of assurance. 'Are you aware?' I cried, 'that Clover Cottage, Wandsworth Common, is the residence of the lady whom I hope to make my wife?' 'Good Lord!' he said. 'No,' I screamed, 'good lady!' I fancy the waiter, from his demeanour, was under the impression that I was about to fight; in which case I should have proved myself mad, because, as you perceive for yourselves, the man's a monster. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Madge's tone was dry. Ella put her hand up to her ears.
"Jack!--don't talk like that; I've been shivering ever since. You can't think what a day I've had in town, thinking of Madge in the house all alone."
"My dear girl." He put his arm about her waist, to comfort her. "And you think that it was--Graham's friend."
"It was Charles Ballingall."
This was Madge; Ella was less positive.
"My dear, how can you be so certain? You only caught a glimpse of the man's back in the darkness." ”

“ Madge, you must have second sight."
"That scrap of paper contains, as Mr. Graham puts it, the key of the riddle. It's a minute description of the precise whereabouts of the dead man's hiding place. All we have to do is to find out what it means, and if we are not all idiots, that shouldn't be hard. Why, you've only got to see the house; you've only to look about you, and use your eyes, to at once perceive that it's honeycombed with possible hiding places--just the sort of crevices and crannies which would commend themselves to such a man as this Tom Ossington. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There could be no doubt about it--some one was in the sitting-room. Someone who wished to make himself or herself as little conspicuous as possible; but whose presence was still sufficiently obvious to the keen-eared auditor.
Madge went to Ella's room, and, turning the handle, entered. As she did so, she could hear Ella start up in bed.
"Who's there?" she cried.
"Hush! It's I. There's some one in the sitting-room."
Lighting a match, Madge applied it to the candle. Ella was sitting up in bed, staring at her, with tumbled hair and sleepy eyes, apparently only half awake. ”