The Perfume of Egypt by C. W. Leadbeater (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📕

to what I am going to say. I told you that I was interested in old furniture, and I was willing to give you a napoleon to let me see what you had in the chateau. But I am a hundred times more interested in haunted houses, and after what you have told me I positively must and will spend a night in this one, and I will give you a hundred francs if you will let me do so.”

“Indeed, sir,” replied the old man, “I do assure you that it is quite impossible; you would die without doubt, and I should be your murderer. Indeed, I wish I could, but it is useless to ask me.”

But all this protestation only made Henri more determined, and he steadily increased his offer, assuring the old man that whatever might happen he should be held entirely guiltless, and that if he preferred it, he might shut himself up in his own cottage and have no part whatever in the affair beyond leaving open the door. The caretaker was in an agony of indecision. The heavy bribe offered was unquestionably a great consideration to him, and still more his kindly French courtesy could not bear to disappoint the persuasive stranger, who had so evidently set his heart upon trying this experiment. Yet his superstitious fear was stronger than his greed, and it took the best part of an hour’s talk to win from him a reluctant and tearful consent.

He agreed to take them over the house now in the daylight, and to point out to them the haunted room of Monsieur le Baron; and when they came again in the darkness of night, since come they must, (and he wrung his hands in despair) he would give them the key, yes, if they would call for it at his little gate-house, but on no account must they expect him then to come outside his own door, or go any nearer to the haunted building. And even so, over and over again, he asserted that he washed his hands of all responsibility, that their doom was certain, and he could but commend their souls to God.

They spoke heartily to him, they clapped him on the shoulder, they assured him that tomorrow morning he should drink a bottle of wine with them, and laugh over all his presentiments; but nothing that they could say moved him in the least from his melancholy certainty of their immediate destruction. He showed them over the house, in which Henri went into raptures over splendid specimens of wonderful old furniture; be directed their attention to the Baron’s portrait in the drawing room; he pointed out to them the long room on the ground floor which had been the Baron’s special study, and indicated to them the identical arm-chair in which he had committed suicide.

Before they left they pressed upon him the money which they had promised him; yet, badly as he obviously needed it, he took it with manifest reluctance, saying:

“Messieurs, this is a fortune for me, and yet I feel as though I could not take it, for I believe that it is the price of your lives; and who knows but that it may be the price of your immortal souls as well? Monsieur the Baron was an evil man, and who knows what happens to his victims?”

So they left him, impressed in spite of themselves by his invincible gloom and his despairful attitude, even though they smiled to themselves at it while they talked over the adventure that lay before them. So they went their way into the charming little town and sat themselves down to such refreshment as the bright little inn could give them. They had covenanted to be back at the haunted house at half-past ten, and now it was hardly six.

Charles, as we have said, had some friends in the neighbourhood whom he wished to visit; he had pointed out their house to Henri as they descended the hill into the town. These friends were unknown to Henri, and as he had some urgent letters to write he excused himself from accompanying Charles in his visit. Presently the latter reappeared, bearing a most cordial invitation to dinner from his friends for both the tourists; but Henri had not finished his letters, so he begged Charles to go alone and to make his excuses, but promised to call for him at his friend’s house at half-past ten, since that house lay in the general direction of the haunted chateau and would be but little out of his way as he walked there from the hotel. This understood, Charles started off once more to his friend’s, while Henri ordered for himself a little dinner at the hotel, and sat down again to his writing.

In due course of time he had his dinner and finished his letters. Having posted them, he started a few minutes before half-past ten for the house which Charles had pointed out to him. While he had been writing his thoughts were fully occupied with his work, but now that he was free from that, the adventure upon which he was about to embark loomed large on his horizon, and he could not but admit to himself that on the whole it looked distinctly less pleasant and heroic, now that night had fallen, than it had done in the warm glow of the summer afternoon.

He was even conscious of a half-formed desire to escape from it all and go snugly to bed in that clean little hotel; but he put away these craven thoughts from him, asking himself how he could miss so splendid an opportunity, and still more how he could be so selfish as to think of disappointing Charles, who in his quieter way was just as eager for the adventure as he had previously been himself. He owned to himself quite cynically that he felt distinctly nervous, and that if he were there alone, be should instantly abandon the undertaking, but he thought that with the encouragement and support of his more phlegmatic friend’s presence, he might contrive to get through the affair creditably. But his thoughts would return uncomfortably to the grim fate of those four predecessors, and he wondered whether any of them had felt as nervous as he did.

Presently he arrived at the appointed house, and there, in the shadow of a little porch at the top of the steps which led up to the front door, he saw Charles already expecting him — evidently punctual to the minute and eager to waste no time, since instead of waiting to be called for, he had already finished his leave-taking and shut the door behind him. Henri called out a hearty word of greeting to him, but it seemed to him that Charles scarcely answered him, as he descended the steps. The night was not a very dark one, but still he could not see his friend’s face at all clearly when he tried to peer into it. Though he could see so little, it seemed to him that Charles was hardly himself; he appeared to be distrait, preoccupied, almost sullen in the short answers which he gave to his friend’s questions.

After a few unavailing attempts to draw him into cheery conversation, Henri tactfully let him alone, making only now and then some casual remark on indifferent subjects, which did not call for reply. He thought that perhaps some unfortunate contretemps at his friend’s house had annoyed Charles, or perhaps that he had heard some bad news. But he did not ask further what was the matter, feeling sure that his friend would confide in him in his own good time. His own sensations, meantime, were far from pleasant. His nervousness seemed to be increasing, and he felt as though something was steadily, slowly but relentlessly sucking away his strength, his courage, his very life. Never had he been so strangely, so uncomfortably affected before.

Thus their walk to the haunted house was a somewhat silent one. When they knocked at the door of the old caretaker’s cottage, he met them with fresh outbursts of protestations and lamentations, telling them that the more he thought over this project of theirs the more he felt that he could not possibly be a party to it. He even went the length of offering to return their money to them, declaring that he could not reconcile it to his conscience to accept it. Henri, however pressed it upon him with kindly and cheering words, averring that all would be well, and that when they met safe and sound in the morning, he would even add a trifle extra to the very handsome present that he had already made.

The old caretaker made a dignified protest against this, assuring them that he was already much overpaid, and that if indeed they were so fortunate as to escape with their lives and their reason, it would be sufficient joy to him to see them safe and in good health when the morning dawned. Henri was really moved at the old man’s solicitude, and pressed his hand heartily in bidding him good-night. Charles had all this time remained in the background saying practically nothing — nothing at any rate that was not absolutely necessary. Evidently his dark humour had not yet been completely shaken off, and Henri wondered much what could be the cause which in those few short hours had so entirely changed the mood of his friend.

They unlocked the door, they entered the great forsaken house, and, having provided themselves with a dark lantern, they made their way without difficulty to the study of the late Baron. A curious room it was, built out into the garden at one side of the house, as a billiard room sometimes is, suggesting that it had been added at some later period and was no part of the original design. It was a long and narrow room, with many French windows opening down to the floor at each side along its length; but each end of the room was almost entirely occupied by a huge pier-glass. This produced a remarkable effect, for as one looked along the room, it gave the illusion of extending to infinity in both directions, everything in it being repeated again and again in a seemingly endless vista. There was a good deal of furniture of one sort and another, and in each of the four corners a suit of armour was arranged precisely as though there was a figure inside it. In the centre of the room was a large and well-appointed writing-table, in front of which stood the Baron’s chair — the chair in which he had committed suicide.

Our friends had bargained that the old man should leave a lamp ready trimmed for them, and they soon had it alight. So large a room, however, would have needed twenty lamps to make it really cheerful, and the faraway corners were still suggestively gloomy. A curious and eerie effect was produced by the indefinite reproduction of the light in the great mirrors at each end of the room. The place had the close musty smell which always haunts a room that has long been closed; and altogether Henri was acutely conscious of a sense of discomfort and of a yearning for the comfortable, prosaic, nineteenth-century bedroom at the hotel.

Besides, he was growing weaker and weaker; he felt exactly as a living fly might feel when a spider was slowly sucking away his life-blood, and leaving him a mere empty shell. Clearly it would never do to admit this, so he tried to conceal his qualms by light and easy conversation, and attempted to rally Charles upon his taciturnity and apparent lowness of spirits. He received only the briefest of replies, and it was evident that Charles was still in