The evening was a little chilly, and a fire of logs had been
lighted in the study where we were, and the remittent flame and the glow
on the walls reminded me of the old days. I was sitting silent in an
armchair by the fire, wondering over all I had heard, and still vainly
speculating as to the secret springs concealed from me under all the
phantasmagoria I had witnessed, when I became suddenly aware of a
sensation that change of some sort had been at work in the room, and
that there was something unfamiliar in its aspect. For some time I
looked about me, trying in vain to localize the alteration that I knew
had been made; the table by the window, the chairs, the faded settee
were all as I had known them. Suddenly, as a sought-for recollection
flashes into the mind, I knew what was amiss. I was facing the
professor's desk, which stood on the other side of the fire, and above
the desk was a grimy looking bust of Pitt, that I had never seen there
before. And then I remembered the true position of this work of art; in
the furthest corner by the door was an old cupboard, projecting into the
room, and on the top of the cupboard, fifteen feet from the floor, the
bust had been, and there no doubt it had delayed, accumulating dirt
since the early years of the century. I was utterly amazed, and sat silent still, in a confusion of thought. There was, so far as I knew, no such thing as a step-ladder in the
house, for I had asked for one to make some alterations in the curtains
of my room; and a tall man standing on a chair would have found it
impossible to take down the bust. It had been placed not on the edge of
the cupboard, but far back against the wall; and Professor Gregg was, if
anything, under the average height. "How on earth did you manage to get down Pitt?" I said at last. The professor looked curiously at me, and seemed to hesitate a little. "They must have found you a step-ladder, or perhaps the gardener brought
in a short ladder from outside." "No, I have had no ladder of any kind. Now, Miss Lally," he went on with
an awkward simulation of jest, "there is a little puzzle for you; a
problem in the manner of the inimitable Holmes; there are the facts,
plain and patent; summon your acuteness to the solution of the puzzle. For Heaven's sake," he cried with a breaking voice, "say no more about
it. I tell you, I never touched the thing," and he went out of the room
with horror manifest on his face, and his hand shook and jarred the door
behind him. I looked round the room in vague surprise, not at all realizing what had
happened, making vain and idle surmises by way of explanation, and
wondering at the stirring of black waters by an idle word, and the
trivial change of an ornament. "This is some petty business, some whim
on which I have jarred," I reflected; "the professor is perhaps
scrupulous and superstitious over trifles, and my question may have
outraged unacknowledged fears, as though one killed a spider or spilled
the salt before the very eyes of a practical Scotchwoman." I was
immersed in these fond suspicions, and began to plume myself a little on
my immunity from such empty fears, when the truth fell heavily as lead
upon my heart, and I recognized with cold terror that some awful
influence had been at work. The bust was simply inaccessible; without a
ladder no one could have touched it. I went out to the kitchen and spoke as quietly as I could to the
housemaid. "Who moved that bust from the top of the cupboard, Anne?" I said to her. "Professor Gregg says he has not touched it. Did you find an old
step-ladder in one of the outhouses?" The girl looked at me blankly. "I never touched it," she said. "I found it where it is now the other
morning when I dusted the room. I remember now, it, was Wednesday
morning, because it was the morning after Cradock was taken bad in the
night. My room is next to his, you know, miss," the girl went on
piteously; "and it was awful to hear how he cried and called out names
that I couldn't understand. It made me feel all afraid, and then master
came, and I heard him speak, and he took down Cradock to the study and
gave him something." "And you found that bust moved the next morning?" "Yes, miss, there was a queer sort of a smell in the study when I came
down and opened the windows; a bad smell it was, and I wondered what it
could be. Do you know, miss, I went a long time ago to the Zoo in London
with my cousin Thomas Barker, one afternoon that I had off, when I was
at Mrs. Prince's in Stanhope Gate, and we went into the snake-house to
see the snakes, and it was just the same sort of a smell, very sick it
made me feel, I remember, and I got Barker to take me out. And it was
just the same kind of a smell in the study, as I was saying, and I was
wondering what it could be from, when I see that bust with Pitt cut in
it standing on the master's desk, and I thought to myself, now who has
done that, and how have they done it? And when I came to dust the
things, I looked at the bust, and I saw a great mark on it where the
dust was gone, for I don't think it can have been touched with a duster
for years and years, and it wasn't like finger-marks, but a large patch
like, broad and spread out. So I passed my hand over it, without
thinking what I was doing, and where that patch was it was all sticky
and slimy, as if a snail had crawled over it. Very strange, isn't it,
miss? and I wonder who can have done it, and how that mess was made." The well-meant gabble of the servant touched me to the quick. I lay down
upon my bed, and bit my lip that I should not cry out loud in the sharp
anguish of my terror and bewilderment. Indeed, I was almost mad with
dread; I believe that if it had been daylight I should have fled hot
foot, forgetting all courage and all the debt of gratitude that was due
to Professor Gregg, not caring whether my fate were that I must starve
slowly so long as I might escape from the net of blind and panic fear
that every day seemed to draw a little closer round me. If I knew, I
thought, if I knew what there were to dread, I could guard against it;
but here, in this lonely house, shut in on all sides by the olden woods
and the vaulted hills, terror seems to spring inconsequent from every
covert, and the flesh is aghast at the half-heard murmurs of horrible
things. All in vain I strove to summon scepticism to my aid, and
endeavored by cool common-sense to buttress my belief in a world of
natural order, for the air that blew in at the open window was a mystic
breath, and in the darkness I felt the silence go heavy and sorrowful
as a mass of requiem, and I conjured images of strange shapes gathering
fast amidst the reeds, beside the wash of the river. In the morning, from the moment that I set foot in the breakfast-room I
felt that the unknown plot was drawing to a crisis; the professor's face
was firm and set, and he seemed hardly to hear our voices when we spoke. "I am going out for rather a long walk," he said, when the meal was
over.