The Empty House

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information and to find out
how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
and recorded by William Coon July two thousand and six.

(00:24):
The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood. Certain houses, like certain persons,
manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil.
In the case of the latter, no particular feature need
betray them. They may boast an open countenance and an

(00:46):
ingenuous smile, and yet a little of their company leaves
the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with
their being, that they are evil. Willy nilly. They seem
to commune kate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts,
which makes those in their immediate neighborhood shrink from them

(01:06):
as from a thing diseased. And perhaps with houses, the
same principle is operative, and it is the aroma of
evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the
actual doers have passed away, that makes the goose flesh
come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion
of the evil doer and of the horror felt by

(01:28):
his victim enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and
he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and
a chilling of the blood. He is terror stricken without
apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance
of this particular house to bear out the tales of

(01:49):
the horror that was said to reign within. It was
neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood crowded into a corner
of the square and looked exactly like the other houses
on either side of it. It had the same number
of windows as its neighbors, the same balcony overlooking the gardens,
the same white steps leading up to the heavy black

(02:09):
front door, and in the rear there was the same
narrow strip of green with neat box borders running up
to the wall that divided it from the backs of
the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number of chimney pots
on the roof was the same, the breadth and angle
of the eaves, and even the height of the dirty
area railings. And yet this house in the square that

(02:33):
seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors, was, as
a matter of fact, entirely different, horribly different. Wherein lay
this marked, invisible difference is impossible to say it cannot
be ascribed wholly to the imagination, because persons who had
spent some time in the house, knowing nothing of the facts,

(02:55):
had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable that
they would rather die than enter them again, and that
the atmosphere of the whole house produced in them symptoms
of a genuine terror, while the series of innocent tenants
who had tried to live in it and been forced
to DeCamp at the shortest possible notice, was indeed little

(03:16):
less than a scandal in the town. When Shorthouse arrived
to pay a week end visit to his aunt Julia
in her little house on the sea front at the
other end of the town, he found her charged to
the brim with mystery and excitement. He had only received
her telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating boredom.
But the moment he touched her hand and kissed her

(03:38):
apple skin wrinkled cheek, he caught the first wave of
her electric condition. The impression deepened when he learned that
there were to be no other visitors, and that he
had been telegraphed for with a very special object. Something
was in the wind, and a something Wouldauntless bear fruit
for this elderly spins her aunt with a mania for

(04:01):
psychical research, had brains as well as willpower, and by
hooker by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends.
The revelation was made soon after tea, when she sidled
close up to him as they paced slowly along the
sea front in the dusk. I've got the keys, she announced,
then a delighted yet half awesome voice, got them till Monday,

(04:27):
the keys of the bathing machine, or he asked, innocently,
looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her
so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity nither she whispered,
I've got the keys of the haunted house in the square,
and I'm going there to night. Shorthouse was conscious of
the slightest possible tremor down his back. He dropped his

(04:49):
teasing tone. Something in her voice and manner thrilled him.
She was in earnest. But you can't go alone, he began.
That's why I wired for you, she said, with decision.
He turned to look at her. The ugly lined enigmatical
face was alive with excitement. There was the glow of

(05:11):
genuine enthusiasm round it like a halo. The eyes shone.
He caught another wave of her excitement, and a second tremor,
more marked than the first, accompanied it. Thanks Aunt, Julia,
he said, politely. Thanks awfully, I should not dare to
go quite alone, she went on, raising her voice. But

(05:32):
with you, I should enjoy it immensely. You're afraid of nothing,
I know. Thanks so much, he began again. Uh is
anything likely to happen? A great deal has happened, she whispered,
though it's been most cleverly hushed up. Three tenants have
come and gone in the last few months, and the

(05:53):
house is said to be empty for good now. In
spite of himself, Shorthouse became interested. His aunt was so
very much in earnest. The house is very old, indeed,
she went on. And the story, an unpleasant one, dates
a long way back. It has to do with a
murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair

(06:16):
with a servant in the house. One night, he managed
to secrete himself in the cellar, and when every one
was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants quarters, chased
the girl down to the next landing, and before any
one could come to the rescue, threw her bodily over
the banisters into the hall below, and the stableman was caught,

(06:36):
I believe, and hanged for murder. But it all happened
a century ago, and I have not been able to
get more details of the story. Shorthouse now felt his
interest thoroughly aroused, but though he was not particularly nervous
for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's account.
On one condition, he said, at length, nothing will prevent

(06:59):
my going. She said firmly, But I may as well
hear your condition that you guarantee your power of self
control if anything really horrible happens. I mean that you
are sure you won't get too frightened. Jem, she said scornfully.
I am not young, I know, nor are my nerves.

(07:21):
But with you I should be afraid of nothing in
the world. This, of course settled it, for Shorthouse had
no pretensions to being other than a very ordinary young man,
and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He agreed
to go instinctively, by a sort of subconscious preparation. He

(07:42):
kept himself and his forces well in hand the whole evening,
compelling an accumulative reserve of control by that nameless inward
process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning
the key upon them, a process difficult to describe, but
wonderfully affect, as all men who have lived through severe

(08:02):
trials of the inner man well understand. Later it stood
him in good stead. But it was not until half
past ten, when they stood in the hall well, in
the glare of friendly lamps, and still surrounded by comforting
human influences, that he had to make the first call
upon this store of collected strength. Four. Once the door

(08:24):
was closed and he saw the deserted, silent street stretching
away white in the moonlight before them, it came to
him clearly that the real test that night would be
in dealing with two fears instead of one. He would
have to carry his aunt's fear as well as his own,
And as he glanced down at her sphinxlike countenance and

(08:45):
realized that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a
rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one
thing in the whole adventure. That he had confidence in
his own will and power to stand against any shock
that it might come. Slowly, they walked along the empty
streets of the town. A bright autumn moon silvered the roofs,

(09:07):
casting deep shadows. There was no breath of wind, and
the trees in the formal gardens by the sea front
watched them silently as they passed along. To his aunt's
occasional remarks, Shorthouse made no reply, realizing that she was
simply surrounding herself with mental buffers, saying ordinary things to
prevent herself thinking of extraordinary things. Few windows showed lights,

(09:32):
and from scarcely a single chimney came smoke or sparks.
Shorthouse had already begun to notice everything, even the smallest details. Presently,
they stopped at the street corner and looked up at
the name on the side of the house full in
the moonlight, and with one accord, but without remark, turned
into the square and crossed over to the side of

(09:52):
it that lay in shadow. The number of the house
is thirteen, whispered a voice atid his side, and neither
of them made the obvious reference, but passed across the
broad sheet of moonlight and began to march up the
pavement in silence. It was about half way up the
square that Shorthouse felt an arm slipped quietly but significantly

(10:14):
into his own, and knew that their adventure had begun
in earnest, and that his companion was already yielding imperceptibly
to the influences against them. She needed support. A few
minutes later they stopped before a tall, narrow house that
rose before them into the night, ugly in shape and

(10:35):
painted a dingy white. Shutterless windows without blinds stared down
upon them, shining here and there in the moonlight. There
were weather streaks in the wall and cracks in the paint,
and the balcony bulged out from the first floor a
little unnaturally. But beyond this generally forlorn appearance of an
unoccupied house, there was nothing at first sight to single

(10:57):
out this particular mansion for the evil character it had
most certainly acquired. Taking a look over their shoulders to
make sure they had not been followed, they went boldly
up the steps and stood against the huge black door
that fronted them forbiddingly. But the first wave of nervousness
was now upon them, and Shorthouse fumbled a long time

(11:17):
with the key before he could fit it into the
lock at all. For a moment, if truth were told,
they both hoped it would not open, for they were
a prey to various unpleasant emotions. As they stood there
on the threshold of their ghostly adventure, Shorthouse shuffling with
the key and hampered by the steady weight on his arm,
certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as

(11:40):
if the whole world, for all experience, seemed that that instant,
concentrated in his own consciousness, were listening to the grating
noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering
down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the
trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key
was the only sound auto And at last it turned

(12:02):
in the lock, and the heavy door swung open and
revealed a yawning gulf of darkness beyond. With a last
glance at the moonlit square, they passed quickly in, and
the door slammed behind them with a roar that echoed
prodigiously through empty halls and passages. But instantly with the echoes,
another sound made itself heard, and aunt Julia leaned suddenly,

(12:26):
so heavily upon him that he had to take a
step backwards to save himself from falling. A man had
coughed close beside them, so close that it seemed they
must have been actually by his side. In the darkness.
With the possibility of practical jokes in mind, Shorthouse at
once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound,

(12:47):
but it meant nothing more solid than air. He heard
his aunt give a little gasp beside him. There's some
one here, she whispered. I heard him be quiet, he
said sternly. It was nothing but the noise of the
front door. Oh get a light quick, she added, as

(13:08):
her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it
upside down and let them all fall with a rattle,
on to the stone floor. The sound, however, was not repeated,
and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps. In another minute,
they had a candle burning, using an empty end of
a cigar case as a holder, and when the first
flare had died down, he held the impromptu lamp aloft

(13:29):
and surveyed the scene. And it was dreary enough in
all conscience, for there is nothing more desolate in all
the abodes of men than an unfurnished house, dimly lit,
silent and forsaken, and yet tenanted by a rumor with
the memories of evil and violent histories. They were standing

(13:51):
in a wide hallway. On their left was the open
door of a spacious dining room, and in front the
hall ran ever narrowing into a long, dark passage that
led apparently to the top of the kitchen stairs. The
broad and carpeted staircase rose in a sweep before them,
everywhere draped in shadows, except for a single spot about
half way up, where the moonlight came in through the

(14:13):
window and fell on a bright patch on the boards.
This shaft of light shed a faint radiance above and
below it, lending to the objects within its reach a
misty outline that was infinitely more suggestive and ghostly than
complete darkness. Filtered moonlight always seems to paint faces on
the surrounding gloom. And a short house peered up into

(14:34):
the well of darkness and thought of the countless empty
rooms and passages in the upper part of the old house.
He caught himself longing again for the safety of the
moonlit square or the cozy, bright drawing room they had
left an hour before. Then, realizing that these thoughts were dangerous,
he thrust them away again and summoned all his energy

(14:54):
for concentration on the present aunt, Julia. He said aloud, severely.
We must now go through the house from top to
bottom and make a thorough search. The echoes of his
voice died away slowly all over the building, and in
the intense silence that followed, he turned to look at
her in the candlelight. He saw that her face was

(15:17):
already ghastly pale. But she dropped his arm for a
moment and said in a whisper, stepping close in front
of him, I agree. We must be sure there's no
one hiding. That's the first thing. She spoke with evident effort,
and he looked at her with admiration. You feel quite
sure of yourself. It's not too late, I think, so,

(15:42):
she whispered, her eyes shifting nervously toward the shadows behind.
Quite sure. Only one thing, What's that? You must never
leave me alone for an instant, as long as you
understand that any sound or appearance must be investigated at once,
For to hesitate means to admit fear that is fatal. Agreed,

(16:05):
she said, a little shakily, after a moment's hesitation. I'll
try arm in arm short house, holding the dripping candle
and the stick, while his aunt carried the cloak over
her shoulders. Figures of utter comedy to all but themselves.
They began a systematic search, stealthily, walking on tiptoe and

(16:26):
shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through
the shutterless windows. They went first into the big dining room.
There was not a stick of furniture to be seen.
Bare walls, ugly mantlepieces, and empty grates stared at them.
Everything they felt resented their intrusion, watching them as it were,
with veiled eyes. Whispers followed them, Shadows flitted noiselessly to

(16:51):
right and left. Something seemed ever at their back, watching,
waiting an opportunity to do them injury. There was the
inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room
was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well
out of the way again. The whole dark interior of
the old building seemed to become a malignant presence that

(17:13):
rose up, warning them to desist and mind their own business.
Every moment the strain on the nerves increased. Out of
the gloomy dining room, they passed through large folding doors
into a sort of library or smoking room, wrapped equally
in silence, darkness, and dust. And from this they regained

(17:34):
the hall near the top of the back stairs. Here
a pitch black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions,
And it must be confessed. They hesitated, but only for
a minute. With the worst of the night still to come,
it was essential to turn from nothing. Aunt Julius stumbled

(17:54):
at the top step of the dark descent, ill lit
by the flickering candle, and even short House felt at
least half the decision. Go out of his legs. Come on,
he said, peremptorily, and his voice ran on and lost
itself in the dark empty spaces below. I'm coming, she faltered,
catching his arm with unnecessary violence. They went a little

(18:18):
unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air, meeting
them in the face, close and malodorous. The kitchen into
which the stairs led along a narrow passage, was large,
with a lofty ceiling. Several doors opened out of it,
some into cupboards with empty jars, still standing on the shelves,
and others into horrible, little, ghostly back offices, each colder

(18:42):
and less inviting than the last. Black beetles scurried over
the floor, and once, when they knocked against the deal
table standing in a corner, something about the size of
a cat jumped down with a rush and fled, scampering
across the stone floor into the darkness. Everywhere there was
a sense of recent occupation, an impression of sadness and gloom.

(19:04):
Leaving the main kitchen, they next went toward the scullery.
The door was standing ajar, and as they pushed it
open to its full extent, Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream,
which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand
over her mouth. For a second. Shorthouse stood stock still,
catching his breath. He felt as if his spine had

(19:26):
suddenly become hollow and someone had filled it with particles
of ice. Facing them directly in their way, between the
door posts stood the figure of a woman. She had
disheveled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was
terrified and white as death. She stood there motionless for

(19:49):
the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered,
and she was gone, gone utterly, and the door framed
nothing but empty darkness, only the beastly jumping candlelight. He
said quickly, in a voice that sounded like some one
else's and was only half under control. Come on, aunt,

(20:11):
there's nothing there. He dragged her forward, with a clattering
of feet and a great appearance of boldness. They went on,
but over his body the skin moved as if crawling
ants covered it, and he knew by the weight on
his arm that he was supplying the force of locomotion.
For two. The scullery was cold, bare and empty, more

(20:32):
like a large prison cell than anything else. They went
round it, tried the door into the yard and the windows,
but found them all fastened securely. His aunt moved beside
him like a person in a dream. Her eyes were
tightly shut, and she seemed merely to follow the pressure
of his arm. Her courage filled him with amazement. At
the same time he noticed that a certain odd change

(20:55):
had come over her face, a change which somehow evaded
his power of an out. There's nothing here, Auntie, he
replied aloud, quickly, Let's go upstairs and see the rest
of the house. Then we'll choose a room to wade
up in. She followed him obediently, keeping close to his side,
and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was

(21:16):
a relief to get up again. In the hall, there
was more light than before, for the moon had traveled
a little further down the stairs. Cautiously they began to
go up into the dark vault of the upper house,
the boards creaking under their weight. On the first floor
they found the large double drawing rooms, a search of
which revealed nothing. Here also was no sign of furniture

(21:38):
or recent occupancy, nothing but dust and neglect and shadows.
They opened the big folding doors between front and back
drawing rooms, and then came out again to the landing
and went on upstairs. They had not gone up more
than a dozen steps when they both simultaneously stopped to listen,
looking into each other's eyes with a new apprehension. Across

(21:59):
the flickering camp flame from the room they had left.
Hardly ten seconds before, came the sound of doors quietly closing.
It was beyond all question. They heard the booming noise
that accompanies the shutting of heavy doors, followed by the
sharp catching of the latch. We must go back and see,

(22:19):
said Shorthouse briefly, in a low tone, and turning to
go downstairs again. Somehow she managed to drag after him,
her feet catching in her dress, her face livid. When
they entered the front drawing room, it was plain that
the folding doors had been closed half a minute before.
Without hesitation, Shorthouse opened them. He almost expected to see

(22:41):
some one facing him in the back room, but only
darkness and cold air met him. They went through both rooms,
finding nothing unusual. They tried in every way to make
the doors close of themselves, but there was not wind
enough even to set the candle flame flickering. The doors
would not move without strong pressure. All was silent as

(23:01):
the grave. Undeniably, the rooms were utterly empty, and the
house utterly still. Its beginning, whispered a voice at his elbow,
which he hardly recognized as his aunt's. He nodded acquiescence,
taking out his watch to note the time. It was

(23:22):
fifteen minutes before midnight. He made the entry of exactly
what had occurred in his note book, setting the candle
in its case upon the floor. In order to do so,
it took a moment or two to balance it safely
against the wall. Aunt Julia always declared that at this
moment she was not actually watching him, but had turned
her head towards the inner room, where she fancied she

(23:43):
heard something moving. But at any rate, both positively agreed
that there came a sound of rushing feet, heavy and
very swift, and the next instant the candle was out.
But the short House himself had come more than this,
and he has always thanked his fortunate stars that it
came to him alone, and not to his aunt too.

(24:06):
For as he rose from the stooping position of balancing
the candle, and before it was actually extinguished, a face
thrust itself forward, so close to his own that he
could almost have touched it with his lips. It was
a face working with passion, a man's face, dark with
thick features and angry, savage eyes. It belonged to a

(24:28):
common man, and it was evil in its ordinary normal expression,
no doubt. But as he saw it alive with intense,
aggressive emotion, it was a malignant and terrible human countenance.
There was no movement of the air, nothing but the
sound of rushing feet, stockinged or muffled feet. The apparition

(24:49):
of the face and the almost simultaneous extinguishing of the candle.
In spite of himself, Shorthouse uttered a little cry, nearly
losing his balance as his head aunt clung to him
with her whole weight. In one moment of real, uncontrollable terror.
She made no sound but simply seized him bodily. Fortunately, however,

(25:11):
she had seen nothing but had only heard the rushing feet.
For her control returned almost at once, and he was
able to disentangle himself and strike a match. The shadows
ran away on all sides before the glare, and his
aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar case with
the precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had
not been blown out at all. It had been crushed out.

(25:36):
The wick was pressed down into the wax, which was flattened,
as if by some smooth, heavy instrument. How his companion
so quickly overcame her terror, Shorthouse never properly understood, but
his admiration for her self control increased tenfold, and at
the same time served to feed his own dying flame,

(25:59):
for which he was deniably grateful. Equally inexplicable to him
was the evidence of physical force They had just witnessed.
He at once suppressed the memory of stories he had
heard of physical mediums and their dangerous phenomena. For if
these were true, and either his aunt or himself was
unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were simply

(26:19):
aiding to focus the forces of a haunted house already
charged to the brim. It was like walking with unprotected
lamps among uncovered stores of gunpowder. So with as little
reflection as possible, he simply re lit the candle and
went up to the next floor. The arm in his trembled,
it is true, and his own tread was often uncertain.

(26:43):
But they went on with thoroughness, and after a search
revealing nothing, they climbed the last flight of stairs to
the top floor. Of all. Here they found a perfect
nest of small servants rooms with broken pieces of furniture,
dirty cane bottom chairs, chests of drawers, cracked mirrors, and
decrepit bedsteads. The rooms had low sloping ceilings already hung

(27:07):
here and there with cobwebs, small windows, and badly plastered walls,
a depressing and dismal region which they were glad to
leave behind. It was on the stroke of midnight, when
they entered a small room on the third floor, close
to the top of the stairs, and arranged to make
themselves comfortable for the remainder of their adventure. It was

(27:28):
absolutely bare, and was said to be the room then
used as a clothes closet into which the infuriated groom
had chased his victim and finally caught her outside. Across
the narrow landing began the stairs leading up to the
floor above and the servants quarters where they had just
searched in spite of the chilliness of the night. There

(27:48):
was something in the air of this room that cried
for an open window. But there was more than this.
Shorthouse could only describe it by saying that he felt
less master of himself here than in any other part
of the house. There was something that acted directly on
the nerves, tiring the resolution and feebling the will. He

(28:09):
was conscious of this result before he had been in
the room five minutes, and it was in the short
time they stayed there that he suffered the whole sail
depletion of his vital forces, which was for himself the
chief horror of the whole experience. They put the candle
on the floor of the cupboard, leaving the door a
few inches ajar, so that there was no glare to

(28:31):
confuse the eyes and no shadow to shift about on
walls and ceiling. Then they spread the cloak in the
floor and sat down to wait, with their backs against
the wall. Short house was within two feet of the
door on to the landing. His position commanded a good
view of the main staircase leading down into the darkness,
and also of the beginning in the servants stairs going
to the floor above. The heavy stick lay beside him

(28:54):
with an easy reach. The moon was now high above
the house. Through the open window, they could see the
comforting stars, like friendly eyes watching in the sky. One
by one, the clocks of the town struck midnight, and
when the sounds died away, the deep silence of a
windless night fell again over everything. Only the boom of

(29:15):
the sea, far away and lugubrious, filled the air with
hollow murmurs. Inside the house, the silence became awful, awful,
he thought, because any minute now it might be broken
by sounds pretending terror. The strain of waiting told more
and more severely on the nerves. They talked in whispers
when they talked at all, For their voices aloud sounded

(29:37):
queer and unnatural. A chilliness, not altogether due to the
night air, invaded the room and made them cold. The
influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing
them of self confidence and the power of decisive action.
Their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of
real fear took on a new and terrible meaning. He

(29:59):
began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side,
whose pluck could hardly save her. Beyond a certain extent,
he heard the blood singing in his veins. It sometimes
seemed so loud that he fancied it prevented his hearing
properly certain other sounds that were beginning very faintly to
make themselves audible in the depths of the house. Every

(30:20):
time he fastened his attention on these sounds, they instantly ceased.
They certainly came no nearer. Yet he could not rid
himself of the idea that movement was going on somewhere
in the lower regions of the house. The drawing room floor,
where the Doris had been so strangely closed, seemed too near.
The sounds were further off than that, he thought of

(30:42):
the great kitchen with the scurrying black beetles, and of
the dismal little scullery. But somehow or other, they did
not seem to come from there either. Surely they were
not outside the house. Then suddenly the truth flashed into
his mind, and for the space of a minute he
felt as if his blood had stopped flowing and turned

(31:04):
to ice. The sounds were not downstairs at all. They
were upstairs, upstairs, somewhere among those horrid, gloomy little servants
rooms with their bits of broken furniture, low ceilings and
cramped windows, upstairs where the victim had first been disturbed
and stalked to her death. In the moment he discovered

(31:29):
where the sounds were, he began to hear them more clearly.
It was the sound of feet moving stealthily along the
passage overhead, in and out among the rooms and past
the furniture. He turned quickly to steal a glance at
the motionless figure seated beside him, to note whether she
had shared his discovery. The faint candlelight coming through the

(31:50):
crack and the covered door threw her strongly marked face
into vivid relief against the white of the wall. But
it was something else that made him catch his breath
and stain again. An extraordinary something had come into her
face and seemed to spread over her features like a mask.
It smoothed out the deep lines and drew the skin

(32:12):
everywhere a little tighter, so that the wrinkles disappeared. It
brought into the face, with the sole exception of the
old eyes, an appearance of youth and almost of childhood.
He stared in speechless amazement, amazement that was dangerously near
to horror. It was his aunt's face, indeed, but it

(32:35):
was her face of forty years ago, the vacant, innocent
face of a girl. He had heard stories of that
strange effect of terror, which could wipe a human countenance
clean of other emotions, obliterating all previous expressions, but he
had never realized that it could be literally true, or
could mean anything so simply horrible as what he now saw.

(32:59):
For the dreadful signature of overmastering fear was written plainly
in that utter vacancy of the girlish face behind him.
And when feeling his intense gaze, she turned to look
at him, he instinctively closed his eyes tightly to shut
out the sight. Yet when he turned a minute later,
his feelings well in hand, he saw, to his intense

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relief another expression. His aunt was smiling, and though the
face was deathly white, the awful veil had lifted and
the normal look was returning. Anything wrong was all he
could think of to say at the moment, and the
answer was eloquent, coming from such a woman. I felt

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cold and a little frightened, she whispered. He offered to
close the window, but she seized hold of him and
begged him not to leave her side, even for an instant.
It's upstairs, I know, she whispered, with an eye laugh.
But I can't possibly go up. But Shorthouse thought otherwise,

(34:06):
Knowing that in action lay their best hope of self control,
he took the brandy flask and poured out a glass
of neat spirit, stiff enough to help anybody over anything.
She swallowed it with a little shiver. His only idea
now was to get out of the house before her
collapse became inevitable, but this could not safely be done
by turning tail and running from the enemy. Inaction was

(34:29):
no longer possible. Every minute he was growing less master
of himself, and desperate. Aggressive measures were imperative without further delay. Moreover,
the action must be taken towards the enemy, not away
from it. The climax, if necessary and unavoidable, would have
to be faced boldly. He could do it now, but

(34:51):
in ten minutes he might not have the force left
to act for himself, much less for both. Upstairs, the
sounds were meanwhile becoming louder and and closer, accompanied by
occasional creaking of the boards. Someone was moving stealthily about,
stumbling now and then awkwardly against the furniture, waiting a
few moments to allow the tremendous dose of spirits to

(35:12):
produce its effect, and knowing this would last but a
short time under the circumstances, Shorthouse then quietly got on
his feet, saying, in a determined voice, Now, Aunt Julia,
we'll go upstairs and find out what all this noise
is about. You must come too, It's what we agreed.

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He picked up his stick and went to the cupboard
for the candle. A limp form rose shakily beside him,
breathing hard, and he heard a voice say, very faintly
something about being ready to come. The woman's courage amazed him.
It was so much greater than his own. And as
they advanced, holding aloft the dripping candle, some subtle force

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exhaled from this trembling, white faced old woman at his side.
That was the true source of his inspiration. It held
something really great that shamed him and gave him the
support without which he would have proved far less. Equal
to the occasion, they crossed the dark landing, avoiding with
their eyes the deep black space over the banisters. Then

(36:18):
they began to mount the narrow staircase to meet the sounds,
which minute by minute grew louder and nearer. About halfway
up the stairs, Aunt Julius stumbled, and Shorthouse turned to
catch her by the arm, And just at that moment
there came a terrific crash in the servants corridor overhead.
It was immediately followed by a shrill, agonized scream. There

(36:39):
was a cry of terror and a cry for help
melted into one. Before they could move aside or go
down a single step, someone came rushing along the passage overhead,
blundering horribly, racing madly at full speed, three steps at
a time down the very staircase where they stood. The
steps were light and uncertain, but close behind them sounded

(37:02):
the heavier tread of another person, and the staircase seemed
to shake. Shorthouse and his companion had just time to
flatten themselves against the wall when the jumble of flying
steps was upon them, and two persons with the slightest
possible interval between them, dashed past at full speed. It
was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon the

(37:24):
midnight silence of the empty building. The two runners, pursuer
and pursued, had passed clean through them where they stood,
and already with a thud of the boards below, had
received first one then the other. Yet they had seen
absolutely nothing, not a hand or arm, or face, or
even a shred of flying clothing. There came a second's pause,

(37:48):
Then the first one, the lighter of the two, obviously
the pursued one, ran with uncertain footsteps into the little
room which Shorthouse and his aunt had just left. The
heavier one followed. There was a sound of scuffling, gasping
and smothered screaming, and then out on to the landing
came the step of a single person treading weightily, a

(38:12):
dead silence followed for the space of half a minute,
and then was heard a rushing sound through the air.
It was followed by a dull, crashing thud in the
depths of the house below. On the stone floor of
the hall, utter silence reigned after nothing moved. The flame

(38:37):
of the candle was steady, it had been steady the
whole time, and the air had been undisturbed by any
movement whatsoever. Palsied with terror, Aunt Julia, without waiting for
her companion, began fumbling her way downstairs. She was crying
gently to herself, and when Shorthouse put his arm around

(38:58):
her and half carried her, he felt that she was
trembling like a leaf. He went into the little room
and picked up the cloak from the floor, and arm
in arm. Walking very slowly, without speaking a word or
looking once behind them, they marched down the three flights
into the hall. In the hall they saw nothing but

(39:20):
the whole way down the stairs, they were conscious that
some one was following them step by step. When they
went faster, it was left behind, and when they went
more slowly it caught them up. But never once did
they look behind to see, And at each turning of
the staircase. They lowered their eyes for fear of the
following horror they might see upon the stairs above. With

(39:46):
trembling hands, short House opened the front door, and they
walked out into the moonlight, and drew a deep breath
of the cool night air blowing in from the sea,
and of the empty house. By Algernon Blackwood