Chapter III

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter three of Sinister House by LelandHall. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Chapter three. As I have told
you, our house has every modernconvenience. We have electric door bells at
every door. But whoever gave thoseresounding thwacks the seamed resounding, I assure

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you, at that weird hour ofthe night and in that storm, was
probably unable in the dark to findthe button. So my mind reasoned in
a second or two. You know, pounding on a door is a very
threatening noise, and I confess Iwas startled. Annette was really alarmed.
For a long while. She wouldnot loose my hand, but kept dragging
at me, and I was veryawkward trying to find the button of the

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lamp to my left. Once alittle light in the room, however,
she became cautious and alert. Shewould not let me leave my bed.
Both of us sat up and verystrained. We listened for the blows to
come again. It seemed a longtime that we waited. It was probably
not more than a couple of minutes. At any rate. No sound but
the roaring of the wind, thedriving of the rain, and the flapping

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of the curtain by the open windowassailed our ears. Suddenly, I jumped
out of bed and determined to findwho had roused us, so made my
way without slippers or gown into thenortheast room, from the window of which
I could lean out and spy.I didn't switch on any light, because,
as Annette said, that would havemade me too good a target for
any one below. As I stumbledalong, I heard my little sun begin

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to cry, an unusual sound inour house and disconcerting at that hour.
From the north window, I couldsee nothing in the blackness of the night.
I opened it cautiously, without makinga sound, and leaned out.
The very wall of the house beneathme was invisible. I might have been
leaning over an unfathomable abyss, butthrough the noise of rain and wind,

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my ear caught the sound of footsteps, heavy and slow on the granolithic walk.
Who's there, I challenged loudly,to my utter amazement. The voice
which answered me hushed, but autumnfrom out of the storm was familiar.
Ah, Pierre, I got youup. I'm sorry. I watched your
light from half a mile down theroad, hoping it would not go out.

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I was just going on for thelove of heaven, eric I shouted
back, I'll be down in twoshakes of a lamb's tail, darting back
to my room for my slippers.I switched on the living room lights from
upstairs, and then I rushed downto let him in. He stepped over
the threshold, dripping wet. Isaw in a glance that his clothes were
soaked through they hung down heavily fromhis shoulders. I caught a glimpse,

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too, of a heavy dress suitcase he left outside on the porch.
What's the matter, eric I askedhim, more than ever, surprised to
see standing before me a man Ithought was a thousand miles away. Nothing's
the matter, he replied in hismelodious and somewhat sad voice. He took
off his hat with an apologetic,sidelong smile. The rain ran in streams

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from it. I didn't mean torout you out, but somehow it's such
a devilish knight, and I wantedto get home quickly. There's nothing the
matter with Julia, is there,I asked, suddenly, and without thinking,
with Julia, he cried, hislook transfixing me, and his deep

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set brown eyes terribly anxious and searching. I am an idiot, of course,
not we left her not two hoursago, never saw her looking so
well, never saw her livelier.That relieved him. He undid a button
or two of his coat. Ialways noticed how lean and sensitive his hands
were, and reached in for ahandkerchief to mop his face. What an

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expressive wet face it was. Hecleared his throat, putting his fingers to
his mouth as he did so,in a gesture characteristically apologetic. He was
a tall, wiry, gaunt fellowwhose face fairly burned with eagerness at times.
Though he was a man of fewwords, rather mute, I suppose
he was self effacing and extremely considerateof others, rather than apologetic. Certainly,

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there was no suggestion of weakness abouthim. He wasn't assertive or aggressive,
but he had unusual power of endurance, both physical and I found out
later mental weeks afterwards, Giles saidof him that he was tempered in a
white hot resentment. But Giles wasan incorrigible phrase maker. Eric seemed to
me just an attractive, magnetic,dark eyed fellow, taller and thinner than

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the average, and a good dealmore What the women call sympathetic resentment was
the last thing in the world Ishould have associated with Eric Greer. Ah,
Well, I am rambling. Erichad never before been in our house
without his wife, and I've feltas if he were lonesome all the time.
My son upstairs kept yelling as ifhe were scared out of his life.

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It was like Eric to take uponhimself the blame of this, but
I deprecated his apologies. One wasalways doing that with Eric. He told
me then that he had found himselfin Buffalo with three days on his hands,
and had determined to take a flyingtrip to his home and his wife.
I can't bear being away from her, he added, but with no
trace of apology. There He burnedwhen he spoke of his wife. And

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it's such a rotten night. Ijust got into Foresby from New York.
There was no cab at the station, and I started to walk it.
When I saw the light in yourwindow. I hoped i'd get to your
house before you had gone to bed, and that well, I have only
thirty six hours to spend with Juliaat the best, and I thought you'd
perhaps run me over in your car. He would have driven himself over,

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But I knew he couldn't manage aford very well, and besides, I
was glad to do him a favor, so I rushed upstairs to dress.
There was something abroad in the nightthat took away all thought of sleep.
Even Bobby kept up his whimpering,which was very unlike him. I stopped
in his room a second to tellAnnette, who was watching with him,
that it was Eric who had rousedus, and that I was going to
run him over in the ford.She had already assured herself of the nature

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of our midnight visitor. She thoughtI was a fool to drive him over
in such a storm, that itwould be much more sensible to keep him
with us overnight. As a matterof fact, she didn't want to be
left alone in the house. Bobbyhad had terrible nightmares. She couldn't wake
him up. She thought he hada fever. You know how women are,
even the best of them, likemy wife, Just the same.

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I got dressed, forced a drycoat on, Eric cranked up the ford
and started out in the storm.Eric paid no attention to the roughness of
the way, while my mind waswholly intent upon steering the light car through
the heavy mud and keeping her outof ruts. He asked me anxious questions
about the condition of his wife nowand then when we came to a smooth
stretch, I would say, youknow how, with my mind only half

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in it, she's as bright asa cricket. She's improved wonderfully, or
as a joke, she seems tothrive on your absence. Eric. I
wonder if that pleased him. Perhapshe didn't hear anything I said. With
the wind roaring about us. Atany rate, he couldn't get enough out
of me. He even asked meif she was sleeping better. What a

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question from one husband to another,I answered, like a top. I
never knew she had slept in anyother way. All the way, the
rain was bouncing and running all overthe windshield and steaming on the engine hood.
The wind was trying to tear thetop off the car, and the
whole shebang was rocking and pitching alongthe road like a bump the bumps at
Coney Island. Even the lights gotto playing tricks. From time to time,

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the rain or something reflected them ina queer way, so that it
seemed to me as if a ballof light or a sort of thick string
of it were flying along just aheadof us, now just over the engine,
now right on the edge of thewindshield. It was so queer that
it made me jumpy and nervous.I found the next morning that the reflector

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in the right lamp was broken.That accounted for it, simply enough.
But I remember how I jumped whenwe turned down into Eric's driveway in that
uncanny light. It was like aneel, then darted ahead of us and
round the corner as if it werealive. At Eric's request, I stopped
the car under the hemlocks some littleway from the house, and as luck

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would have it, I stalled theengine. Doing so. That left us
in absolute darkness, and it feltand sounded as if the wind and rain
doubled their fury. What a friendto man is light. I don't know
why I insisted on stumbling along withEric towards where we knew the house must
be if the storm hadn't blown itfrom the edge of the cliff into the
river. We didn't know where toput our feet, and in the darkness,

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the wind sounded like all sorts ofunearthly things. Once it was so
like an anguished human cry that weboth stopped trembling. I'm not sure now
that it wasn't. We kept ongoing, trying to feel the edge of
the driveway with our feet. Ofcourse, we couldn't see a sign of
the house. Finally I said toEric, this is absurd. I'll go

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back and start the engine. Thatwill give us some light. And you've
got to wake Julia anyhow, Thoughhe remonstrated, I had already turned when
I heard the noise of bolts shotback with a loud click. We were
much nearer the house than we knew. The front door was suddenly thrown up
open, and I saw Julia standingin the doorway. She wore a long
white nightgown, and she carried inher hand a lighted candle. She was

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the only visible thing in the nightsave right before me the clear cut but
lightless edge of Eric's face. Behindher, there was a sort of rosy
glow. She must have lighted alamp back in the narrow hallway, one
wall of which I remembered was hungwith a damask of deep rose color.
She cried out, who's there,And though she was not more than ten
feet from us, I could hardlyhear her voice over the noise of the

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storm. Eric answered her almost witha sob, and sprang towards her,
across the lawn and up the steps. He had her caught up in his
arms in a second, and shelet the candle fall. In an instant.
The night was black again, savefor that rosy glow, against which
I saw their two figures almost asone, shapeless yet strangely heroic, like

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two wanderers, standing embraced on theedge of a cliff, far above the
fires of earth, slipping and almostfalling in the mud. I ran back
to my ford. I bumped goodand hard into a tree trunk before I
got there, but I had hercranked and backing before they could have thought
of me. And I doubt ifeven the glare of my lights over their
lawn, or the roar of theengine in reverse, recalled to their minds

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that there was such a man asPierre Smith living in the world. The
house was still as death when Igot back, and I tried to sneak
into bed without a sound, Butthe wife of my bosom was on a
still watch, and in the darkshe tried to pump me for all she
could get, and that being littlefor her pains, She felt to thinking
that Eric and Julia were both crazynuts. Not an elegant phrase, but

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expressive. It was after two beforeI fell asleep. Just drowsing away,
I remembered to ask Annette how Bobbywas. He had had terrible nightmares,
but had dropped off to sleep againas soon as Eric and I had left
the house. He had no fever. End of chapter three,