FullReads

The threshold of an adventure, I reflected as I waited for the first words, is always the most thrilling moment–until the climax comes.

But Colonel Wragge hesitated–mentally–a long time before he began. He talked briefly of our journey, the weather, the country, and other comparatively trivial topics, while he sought about in his mind for an appropriate entry into the subject that was uppermost in the thoughts of all of us. The fact was he found it a difficult matter to speak of at all, and it was Dr. Silence who finally showed him the way over the hedge.

“Mr. Hubbard will take a few notes when you are ready–you won’t object,” he suggested; “I can give my undivided attention in this way.”

“By all means,” turning to reach some of the loose sheets on the writing table, and glancing at me. He still hesitated a little, I thought. “The fact is,” he said apologetically, “I wondered if it was quite fair to trouble you so soon. The daylight might suit you better to hear what I have to tell. Your sleep, I mean, might be less disturbed, perhaps.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” John Silence replied with his gentle smile, taking command as it were from that moment, “but really we are both quite immune. There is nothing, I think, that could prevent either of us sleeping, except–an outbreak of fire, or some such very physical disturbance.”

Colonel Wragge raised his eyes and looked fixedly at him. This reference to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host’s manner the last signs of hesitancy.

“Forgive me,” he said. “Of course, I know nothing of your methods in matters of this kind–so, perhaps, you would like me to begin at once and give you an outline of the situation?”

Dr. Silence bowed his agreement. “I can then take my precautions accordingly,” he added calmly.

The soldier looked up for a moment as though he did not quite gather the meaning of these words; but he made no further comment and turned at once to tackle a subject on which he evidently talked with diffidence and unwillingness.

“It’s all so utterly out of my line of things,” he began, puffing out clouds of cigar smoke between his words, “and there’s so little to tell with any real evidence behind it, that it’s almost impossible to make a consecutive story for you. It’s the total cumulative effect that is so–so disquieting.” He chose his words with care, as though determined not to travel one hair’s breadth beyond the truth.

“I came into this place twenty years ago when my elder brother died,” he continued, “but could not afford to live here then. My sister, whom you met at dinner, kept house for him till the end, and during all these years, while I was seeing service abroad, she had an eye to the place–for we never got a satisfactory tenant–and saw that it was not allowed to go to ruin. I myself took possession, however, only a year ago.

“My brother,” he went on, after a perceptible pause, “spent much of his time away, too. He was a great traveller, and filled the house with stuff he brought home from all over the world. The laundry–a small detached building beyond the servants’ quarters–he turned into a regular little museum. The curios and things I have cleared away–they collected dust and were always getting broken–but the laundry-house you shall see tomorrow.”

Colonel Wragge spoke with such deliberation and with so many pauses that this beginning took him a long time. But at this point he came to a full stop altogether. Evidently there was something he wished to say that cost him considerable effort. At length he looked up steadily into my companion’s face.

“May I ask you–that is, if you won’t think it strange,” he said, and a sort of hush came over his voice and manner, “whether you have noticed anything at all unusual–anything queer, since you came into the house?”