“Ah, one of you has been playing a trick on me!”

We assured her that this was not so, and she read what she had written. “Gardener, gardener,” it ran. “I am the gardener. I want to come in. I
can’t find her here.”

“O Lord, that gardener again!” said Hugh. Looking up from the paper, I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed on mine, and
even before she spoke I knew what her thought was. “Did you come home by the empty cottage?” she asked. “Yes: why?”

“Still empty?” she said in a low voice. “Or--or anything else?”

I did not want to tell her just what I had seen--or what, at any rate,
I thought I had seen. If there was going to be anything odd, anything
worth observation, it was far better that our respective impressions
should not fortify each other. “I tapped again, and there was no answer,” I said. Presently there was a move to bed: Margaret initiated it, and after she
had gone upstairs Hugh and I went to the front door to interrogate the
weather. Once more the moon shone in a clear sky, and we strolled out
along the flagged path that fronted the house. Suddenly Hugh turned
quickly and pointed to the angle of the house. “Who on earth is that?” he said. “Look! There! He has gone round the
corner.”

I had but the glimpse of a tallish man of heavy build. “Didn’t you see him?” asked Hugh. “I’ll just go round the house, and
find him; I don’t want anyone prowling round us at night. Wait here,
will you, and if he comes round the other corner ask him what his
business is.”

Hugh had left me, in our stroll, close by the front door which was
open, and there I waited until he should have made his circuit. He had
hardly disappeared when I heard, quite distinctly, a rather quick but
heavy footfall coming along the paved walk towards me from the opposite
direction. But there was absolutely no one to be seen who made this
sound of rapid walking. Closer and closer to me came the steps of the
invisible one, and then with a shudder of horror I felt somebody unseen
push by me as I stood on the threshold. That shudder was not merely of
the spirit, for the touch of him was that of ice on my hand. I tried to
seize this impalpable intruder, but he slipped from me, and next moment
I heard his steps on the parquet of the floor inside. Some door within
opened and shut, and I heard no more of him. Next moment Hugh came
running round the corner of the house from which the sound of steps had
approached. “But where is he?” he asked. “He was not twenty yards in front of me--a
big, tall fellow.”

“I saw nobody,” I said. “I heard his step along the walk, but there was
nothing to be seen.”

“And then?” asked Hugh. “Whatever it was seemed to brush by me, and go into the house,” said I. There had certainly been no sound of steps on the bare oak stairs, and
we searched room after room through the ground floor of the house. The
dining-room door and that of the smoking-room were locked, that into
the drawing-room was open, and the only other door which could have
furnished the impression of an opening and a shutting was that into the
kitchen and servants’ quarters. Here again our quest was fruitless;
through pantry and scullery and boot-room and servants’ hall we
searched, but all was empty and quiet. Finally we came to the kitchen,
which too was empty. But by the fire there was set a rocking-chair, and
this was oscillating to and fro as if someone, lately sitting there,
had just quitted it. There it stood gently rocking, and this seemed to
convey the sense of a presence, invisible now, more than even the sight
of him who surely had been sitting there could have done. I remember
wanting to steady it and stop it, and yet my hand refused to go forth
to it. What we had seen, and in especial what we had not seen, would have been
sufficient to furnish most people with a broken night, and assuredly I
was not among the strong-minded exceptions. Long I lay wide-eyed and
open-eared, and when at last I dozed I was plucked from the borderland
of sleep by the sound, muffled but unmistakable, of someone moving
about the house. It occurred to me that the steps might be those of
Hugh conducting a lonely exploration, but even while I wondered a tap
came at the door of communication between our rooms, and, in answer to
my response, it appeared that he had come to see whether it was I thus
uneasily wandering. Even as we spoke the step passed my door, and the
stairs leading to the floor above creaked to its ascent. Next moment
it sounded directly above our heads in some attics in the roof. “Those are not the servants’ bedrooms,” said Hugh. “No one sleeps
there. Let us look once more: it must be somebody.”

With lit candles we made our stealthy way upstairs, and just when we
were at the top of the flight, Hugh, a step ahead of me, uttered a
sharp exclamation. “But something is passing by me!” he said, and he clutched at the empty
air. Even as he spoke, I experienced the same sensation, and the moment
afterwards the stairs below us creaked again, as the unseen passed down. All night long that sound of steps moved about the passages, as if
someone was searching the house, and as I lay and listened that message
which had come through the pencil of the planchette to Margaret’s
fingers occurred to me. “I want to come in. I cannot find her here.”... Indeed someone had come in, and was sedulous in his search. He was the
gardener, it would seem. But what gardener was this invisible seeker,
and for whom did he seek? Even as when some bodily pain ceases it is difficult to recall with
any vividness what the pain was like, so next morning, as I dressed, I
found myself vainly trying to recapture the horror of the spirit which
had accompanied these nocturnal adventures. I remembered that something
within me had sickened as I watched the movements of the rocking-chair
the night before and as I heard the steps along the paved way outside,
and by that invisible pressure against me knew that someone had entered
the house. But now in the sane and tranquil morning, and all day
under the serene winter sun, I could not realise what it had been. The
presence, like the bodily pain, had to be there for the realisation of
it, and all day it was absent. Hugh felt the same; he was even disposed
to be humorous on the subject. “Well, he’s had a good look,” he said, “whoever he is, and whomever
he was looking for. By the way, not a word to Margaret, please. She
heard nothing of these perambulations, nor of the entry of--of whatever
it was. Not gardener, anyhow: who ever heard of a gardener spending
his time walking about the house? If there were steps all over the
potato-patch, I might have been with you.”

Margaret had arranged to drive over to have tea with some friends of
hers that afternoon, and in consequence Hugh and I refreshed ourselves
at the club-house after our game, and it was already dusk when for the
third day in succession I passed homewards by the whitewashed cottage.