The House of Whispers

"I've heard that Lady Heyburn is a very pretty woman," remarked the other, glancing at his friend with a peculiar look.

"Some declare her to be beautiful; but to myself, I confess, she's not very attractive."

"There are stories about her, eh?" Hamilton said.

"As there are about every good-looking woman. Beauty cannot escape unjust criticism or the scars of lying tongues."

"People pity Sir Henry, I've heard."

"They, of course, sympathise with him, poor old gentleman, because he's blind. His is, indeed, a terrible affliction. Only fancy the change from a brilliant Parliamentary career to idleness, darkness, and knitting."

"I suppose he's very wealthy?"

"He must be. The price he paid for Glencardine was a very heavy one; and, besides that, he has two other places, as well as a house in Park Street and a villa at San Remo."

"Cotton, or steel, or soap, or some other domestic necessity, I suppose?"

Murie shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody knows," he answered. "The source of Sir Henry's vast wealth is a profound mystery."

His friend smiled, but said nothing. Walter Murie had risen to obtain matches, therefore he did not notice the curious expression upon his friend's face, a look which betrayed that he knew more than he intended to tell.

"Those noises heard in the castle puzzle me," he remarked after a few moments.

"At Glencardine they are known as the Whispers," Murie remarked.

"By Jove! I'd like to hear them."

"I don't think there'd be much chance of that, old chap," laughed the other. "They're only heard by those doomed to an early death."

"I may be. Who knows?" he asked gloomily.

"Well, if I were you I wouldn't anticipate catastrophe."

"No," said his friend in a more serious tone, "I've already heard those at Hetzendorf, and—well, I confess they've aroused in my mind some very uncanny apprehensions."

"But did you really hear them? Are you sure they were not imagination?

In the night sounds always become both magnified and distorted."

"Yes, I'm certain of what I heard. I was careful to convince myself that it was not imagination, but actual reality."

Walter Murie smiled dubiously. "Sir Henry scouts the idea of the Whispers being heard at Glencardine," he said.

"And, strangely enough, so does the Baron. He's a most matter-of-fact man."

"How curious that the cases are almost parallel, and yet so far apart!

The Baron has a daughter, and so has Sir Henry."

"Gabrielle is at Glencardine, I suppose?" asked Hamilton.

"No, she's living with a maiden aunt at an out-of-the-world village in Northamptonshire called Woodnewton."

"Oh, I thought she always lived at Glencardine, and acted as her father's right hand."

"She did until a few months ago, when–" and he paused. "Well," he went on, "I don't know exactly what occurred, except that she left suddenly, and has not since returned."

"Her mother, perhaps. No girl of spirit gets on well with her stepmother."

"Possibly that," Walter said. He knew the truth, but had no desire to tell even his old friend of the allegation against the girl whom he loved.

Hamilton noted the name of the village, and sat wondering at what the young barrister had just told him. It had aroused suspicions within him—strange suspicions.

They sat together for another half-hour, and before they parted arranged to lunch together at the Savoy in two days' time.

Turning out of the Temple, Edgar Hamilton walked along the Strand to the Metropole, in Northumberland Avenue, where he was staying. His mind was full of what his friend had said—full of that curious legend of Glencardine which coincided so strangely with that of far-off Hetzendorf. The jostling crowd in the busy London thoroughfare he did not see. He was away again on the hill outside the old-fashioned Hungarian town, with the broad Danube shining in the white moonbeams. He saw the grim walls that had for centuries withstood the brunt of battle with the Turks, and from them came the whispering voice—the voice said to be that of the Evil One. The Tziganes—that brown-faced race of gipsy wanderers, the women with their bright-coloured skirts and head-dresses, and the men with the wonderful old silver filigree buttons upon their coats–had related to him many weird stories regarding Hetzendorf and the meaning of those whispers. Yet none of their stories was so curious as that which Murie had just told him. Similar sounds were actually heard in the old castle up in the Highlands! His thoughts were wholly absorbed in that one extraordinary fact.

He went to the smoking-room of the hotel, and, obtaining a railway-guide, searched it in vain. Then, ordering from a waiter a map of England, he eagerly searched Northamptonshire and discovered the whereabouts of Woodnewton. Therefore, that night he left London for Oundle, and put up at the old-fashioned "Talbot."

At ten o'clock on the following morning, after making a detour, he alighted from a dogcart before the little inn called the Westmorland Arms at Apethorpe, just outside the lodge-gates of Apethorpe Hall, and making excuse to the groom that he was going for a walk, he set off at a brisk pace over the little bridge and up the hill to Woodnewton.

The morning was dark and gloomy, with threatening rain, and the distance was somewhat greater than he had calculated from the map. At last, however, he came to the entrance to the long village street, with its church and its rows of low thatched cottages.

A tiny inn, called the "White Lion," stood before him, therefore he entered, and calling for some ale, commenced to chat with the old lady who kept the place.

After the usual conventionalities about the weather, he said, "I suppose you don't have very many strangers in Woodnewton, eh?"

"Not many, sir," was her reply. "We see a few people from Oundle and Northampton in the summer—holiday folk. But that's all."

Then, by dint of skilful questioning, he elucidated the fact that old Miss Heyburn lived in the tiled house further up the village, and that her niece, who lived with her, had passed along with her dog about a quarter of an hour before, and taken the footpath towards Southwick.

Ascertaining this, he was all anxiety to follow her; but, knowing how sharp are village eyes upon a stranger, he was compelled to conceal his eagerness, light another cigarette, and continue his chat.

At last, however, he wished the woman good-day, and, strolling half-way up the village, turned into a narrow lane which led across a farmyard to a footpath which ran across the fields, following a brook. Eager to overtake the girl, he sped along as quickly as possible.

"Gabrielle Heyburn!" he ejaculated, speaking to himself. Her name was all that escaped his lips. A dozen times that morning he had repeated it, uttering it in a tone almost of wonder—almost of awe.

Across several ploughed fields he went, leaving the brook, and, skirting a high hedge to the side of a small wood, he followed the well-trodden path for nearly half-an-hour, when, of a sudden, he emerged from a narrow lane between two hedgerows into a large pasture.

Before him, he saw standing together, on the brink of the river Nene, two figures—a man and a woman.

The girl was dressed in blue serge, and wore a white woollen tam-o'-shanter, while the man had on a dark grey overcoat with a brown felt hat, and nearby, with his eye upon some sheep grazing some distance away, stood a big collie.

Hamilton started, and drew back.

The pair were standing together in earnest conversation, the man facing him, the girl with her back turned.

"What does this mean?" gasped Hamilton aloud. "What can this secret meeting mean? Why—yes, I'm certainly not mistaken—it's Krail—Felix Krail, by all that's amazing!"