Tom Ossington's Ghost

"Not at all; but even a policeman of that type would hardly have jumped out of his skin with fright at the sight of that horrible woman. He knew her, and she knew him. There's a mystery somewhere."

"How nice!"

"Nice? You think so? I wish you had interviewed her instead of me. My dear Ella, she-she was-beyond expression."

Ella came and seated herself on a stool at Madge's feet. Leaning her arms on her knees she looked up at her face.

"Poor old chap! It wasn't an agreeable experience."

Madge's answer was as significant as it was curt.

"It wasn't."

She gave further details of what the woman had said and done, and of how she had said and done it-details which she had omitted, for reasons of her own, in Mr. Martyn's presence. By the time she had finished the listener was as serious as the narrator.

"It makes me feel creepy to hear you."

"It would have made you creepy to have heard her. I felt as if the house was peopled with ghosts."

"Madge, don't! You'll make me want to sleep with you if you go on like that. Poor old chap! I'm sorry if I seemed to chaff you." She reflected before she spoke again. "I can see that it can't be nice for you to be alone in the house while I'm away in town all day, earning my daily bread-especially now that the days are drawing in. If you like, we'll clear out of this, this week-we could do it at a pinch- and we'll return to the seething masses."

Madge reflected, in her turn, before she answered.

"Nothing of the sort has happened before, and nothing may happen again. But I tell you frankly, that, if my experiences of to-day do recur, it won't take much to persuade me that I have an inclination towards the society of my fellows, and that I prefer even the crushes of Petticoat Lane to the solitudes of Wandsworth Common."

"Well, in that case, it shall be Petticoat Lane."

There was silence. Presently Madge stretched herself-and yawned.

"In the meantime," suggested Ella, putting her hand up to her own lips, "what do you say to bed?" And it was bed. "Would you like me to sleep with you," inquired Ella as they went upstairs; "because if you would like me to very much, I would."

"No," said Madge, "I wouldn't. I never did like to share my bed with any one, and I never shall. I like to kick about, and I like to have plenty of room to do it in."

"Very good-have plenty of room to do it in. Ungrateful creature! If you're haunted, don't call to me for aid."

As it happened, Madge did call to her for aid, after a fashion; though it was not exactly because she was haunted.

CHAPTER IV

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

Madge was asleep almost as soon as she was between the sheets, and it seemed to her that as soon as she was asleep she was awake again-waking with that sudden shock of consciousness which is not the most agreeable way of being roused from slumber, since it causes us to realise too acutely the fact that we have been sleeping. Something had woke her; what, she could not tell. She lay motionless, listening with that peculiar intensity with which one is apt to listen when woke suddenly in the middle of the night. The room was dark. There was the sound of distant rumbling: they were at work upon the line, where they would sometimes continue shunting from dusk to dawn. She could hear, faintly, the crashing of trucks as they collided the one with the other. A breeze was murmuring across the common. It came from Clapham Junction way-which was how she came to hear the noise of the shunting. All else was still. She must have been mistaken. Nothing had roused her. She must have woke of her own accord.

Stay! – what was that? Her keen set ears caught some scarcely uttered sound. Was it the creaking of a board? Well, boards will creak at night, when they have a trick of being as audible as if they were exploding guns. It came again-and again. It was unmistakably a board that creaked-downstairs. Why should a board creak like that downstairs, unless-it was being stepped upon? As Madge strained her hearing, she became convinced that there were footsteps down below-stealthy, muffled footsteps, which would have been inaudible had it not been for the tell-tale boards. Some one was creeping along the passage. Suddenly there was a noise as if a coin, or a key, or some small object, had fallen to the floor. Possibly it was something of the kind which had roused her. It was followed by silence-as if the person who had caused the noise was waiting to learn if it had been overheard. Then once more the footsteps-she heard the door of the sitting-room beneath her open, and shut, and knew that some one had entered the room.

In an instant she was out of bed. She hurried on a pair of bedroom slippers which she kept beside her on the floor, and an old dressing-gown which was handy on a chair, moving as quickly and as noiselessly as the darkness would permit. Snatching up her candlestick, with its box of matches, she passed, without a moment's hesitation, as noiselessly as possible from the room. On the landing without she stood, for a second or two, listening. There could be no doubt about it-some one was in the sitting-room. Someone who wished to make himself or herself as little conspicuous as possible; but whose presence was still sufficiently obvious to the keen-eared auditor.

Madge went to Ella's room, and, turning the handle, entered. As she did so, she could hear Ella start up in bed.

"Who's there?" she cried.

"Hush! It's I. There's some one in the sitting-room."

Lighting a match, Madge applied it to the candle. Ella was sitting up in bed, staring at her, with tumbled hair and sleepy eyes, apparently only half awake.

"Madge! – what do you mean?"

"What I say. We're about to experience another of the drawbacks of rural residence. There's some one in the sitting-room-another uninvited guest."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite. If you care to go downstairs and look, you'll be sure."

"Whatever shall we do?"

"Do! – I'll show you what we'll do. Where's that revolver of Jack Martyn's, which he lent you?"

"It's in my handkerchief drawer-but it's loaded."

"All the better. I've fired off a revolver before to-day, and I am quite willing, at a pinch, to fire off another one to-night. I'll show you what we'll do." While she spoke, Madge had been searching the drawer in question. Now she stood with the weapon in her hand. "Perhaps you'll be so good as to get out of bed, and put something on, unless you prefer to go downstairs as the Woman in White. I suppose you're not afraid?"

Ella had got so far out of bed as to sit on the side, with her feet dangling over the edge.

"Well-I don't know that I am exactly afraid, but if you ask me if being woke in the middle of the night, to be told there's burglars in the house, is the kind of thing I'm fond of, I'll admit it isn't."

Madge laughed. Ella's tone, and air of exceeding ruefulness, apparently struck her as comical.

"It occurs to me, Miss Duncan, that it won't be long before Mr. Martyn makes a convert of you. As for me, now my blood's getting up-and it is getting up-I am beginning to think that it is rather fun."

"Are you? Then I'm afraid your sense of humour must be keener than mine." She followed Madge's example-putting on a pair of slippers and a dressing-gown. "Now, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going down to ask our guest to show me his card of invitation."

"Madge! Hadn't we better open the window and scream? Or you might fire into the air-if you're sure you do know how to fire a revolver."

"I'll soon show you if I know-and I'll show our visitor too. And I don't think we'd better open the window and scream. Are you coming?"

Madge moved out of the room, Ella going after her with a rush.

"Madge! – don't leave me!"

The two girls stood listening at the top of the stairs-Madge with the candlestick in one hand, and the revolver in the other.

"It strikes me that we sha'n't be able to inquire for that card of invitation, because he doesn't mean to stay for us to ask him. His intention is not to stand upon the order of his going, but to go at once."

Apparently the proceedings in Ella's bedroom had been audible below. Evidently the person in the sitting-room had become startled. There was a stampede of heavy feet across the floor; the noise of furniture being hastily pushed aside; then they could hear the sound of the window being unlatched, and opened. It was plain that the intruder, whoever it was, was bent on showing a clean pair of heels.

It seemed as if the certitude of this fact had inspired Ella with sudden courage. Anyhow, she there and then shouted, with the full force of her lungs, as if she all at once had found her voice.