Adventure Tales 6. H. Bedford-Jones

      I

      Mr. Oakley Ashenhurst removed his pipe from his mouth with his left hand, and with a lift of his chin blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling of his study. His right hand held open the volume he had been reading spread out upon the table; in the circle of bright light dropped upon the pages by the young man’s student lamp the black print seemed doubly black. Ashenhurst yawned luxuriously and lay back in his chair. The corners of his study, which was also his bedroom, sitting-room, library, and, on furtive occasions, his dining-room, were deeply dark with a darkness that lightened by degrees as it approached the spot occupied by the reading table and the funnel of intense light from the lamp. Upon a low mantel ticked a nickel-plated clock, and by a swift movement of the ingenious lamp the student ascertained that it was exactly midnight. At this instant, while he was registering satisfaction and relief, in the street beyond his window Oakley Ashenhurst heard the sound of running feet.

      They were steady footsteps, light but sharp, and they slapped the pavement with a staccato quality that was impressive in the silence. They approached, crescendoed before the house, and diminuendoed in the distance, as drumsticks simulate hoofbeats in the theatre. Reclined in his chair, young Ashenhurst heard them come and heard them go, with idle curiosity. Hazy speculations floated through his mind for a few moments; then with an effort he pulled himself together, marked his place in the volume, snapped off the light, and slipped out of his bathrobe and into his bed. In the morning, he thought nothing about the footsteps at all; he had forgotten them.

      But the next night, after a harrowing session at the evening medical class in which he was completing his education, as he toiled again over his Anatomy in the darkened room, the young man’s memory was jogged; he was reminded by the footsteps themselves. As before, they approached with soft distinctness, pattered sharply past the dark dwelling, and melted away in the silence.

      Ashenhurst’s mind stirred sleepily. Last night—midnight—very curious! He turned the light funnel on the little clock and registered mild surprise. Again it was midnight! An odd coincidence, thought Ashenhurst as he climbed into bed. Somebody in training for a race? The nights were getting cool for track suits, he chuckled. And anyway, why this short, deserted thoroughfare with its straggle of sickly street lamps and its old-fashioned, sober dwellings? Why not the fine stretches of the neighboring boulevard? Or, for that matter, the little park at the corner, with its cinder paths seemingly designed for such an enterprise? He was still speculating when he fell asleep.

      As he crossed the park, next morning, on his way to the office, young Mr. Ashenhurst thought again of the footsteps. Decidedly these cinder paths were the proper lanes for training. As a young man on the very brink of becoming a physician, Ashenhurst approved the activities of the midnight sprinter, but as a methodical young man he believed that a sense of fitness should direct the activity; and decidedly these cinder paths were preferable to hard asphalt. He paused for a moment beside the central fountain to admire the graceful figure of the faun from whose upturned pipes, the water burst like iridescent flute notes; he dabbled his fingers in the pool, and tossed crumbs to the stately couple—Mr. and Mrs. Swan he always called them—that sailed its bosom. Then, cheerily whistling, he continued on his way.

      “Really,” murmured Oakley Ashenhurst, just before he dismissed the matter from his mind, “I must have a look at this midnight runner, if he continues to frequent my block.”

      So that when, that midnight, again he heard the pattering footsteps in the street, young Mr. Ashenhurst was ready. Assuming that the athlete would operate upon a schedule, and that that schedule would take him past the house at midnight, the prospective Dr. Ashenhurst closed his volume of Anatomy at 11:55, snapped out his light, parted his window curtains, raised his window a trifle higher, and seated himself at the aperture. In the darkness, the small nickel-plated clock ticked on toward midnight. A mild breeze blew in from the street and gently stirred the curtains. Immediately opposite the house, on the other side of the street, a street light gleamed through dirty glass; there was no other for some distance, and the surrounding windows were as black as that of Oakley Ashenhurst, whose pipe bubbled contentedly in the darkness.

      At the first rumor of the steps, he sat forward and directed his gaze outward and downward. He turned his eyes up the street toward the little park which, however, was invisible. The middle of the street was bare, but something white was coming down the sidewalk on the near side. The slapping footsteps sounded clearly now. Lightly, evenly, with long, running strides, bounding as gracefully as an animal, the racing figure advanced out of semi-darkness into semi-light. Out of semi-light it moved into the rays of the dingy lamp. Then a cry that was a strangled scream burst from the lips of Oakley Ashenhurst, and, rising upright he seized the curtain beside him with such haste and vigor that it tore in his grasp.

      His eyes wide with horror, he saw the white figure pass below his window and enter the semi-light beyond. Inexpressibly shocked; he saw it merge from semi-light to semi-darkness, and vanish into darkness. Its pattering footsteps seemed to beat against his stunned and startled brain.

      It was the nude stone statue from the fountain in the corner park.

      II